Today’s briefing:
— What El Niño means for you
— 60 new species found in…
— New pollster just dropped
Sponsored by:
Your Insider’s briefing:
— What El Niño means for you
— 60 new species found in…
— New pollster just dropped
Good morning {{first_name | Intriguer}}. Before we get to today’s fascinating briefing on how an impending El Niño might reshape our volatile world, you need to know about the absolute circus behind yesterday’s UN Security Council election in New York.
The juicy stuff rarely makes the headlines, but just to paint you a picture, here’s a quick snapshot of my own favourite old anecdotes from the inside, like…
Seasoned ambassadors breaching every security protocol by roaming NYC’s streets with a dog-eared, top-secret crib sheet of every country’s voting intentions in their breast pocket, in case of a chance encounter with a swing state
Diplomats paying mobsters for burner phones to evade signals intelligence
Rival nations hitting one another with mysterious tech gremlins on voting day, and
My fave: a triumphant minister leading the most raucous election-night conga line you’ve ever seen, right through an ambassador’s downtown penthouse.
Anyway, congrats to the five successful delegations (see below), but let’s talk El Niño.
 | Managing Editor Jeremy Dicker |
💼 Your premium Insiders subscription is probably expensible! Find out how.
Name of the day
Alexander Browder
That’s the British schoolboy who just became the youngest-ever target of Putin’s sanctions, for exposing how Moscow used a ruble-pegged stablecoin to process $93B in illicit cross-border payments! He’s the son of Bill Browder, the financier who’s spent 15+ years driving Magnitsky human rights sanctions to hold Putin accountable.
Weather it.
We humans have named storms for centuries, absolutely ninja-starring random labels at them like ‘Beryl’ (more a polite British aunt), ‘Koinu’ (puppy in Japanese) and ‘Hildebrand’ (one of many Aussie politicians disliked by an early local meteorologist — legend).
The idea is to simplify and streamline public comms, and give any impending disaster a certain sense of gravitas that’s lacking from, say, ‘Hurricane R236-JPEG-final’.
So if you think about it, it makes perfect sense we’d dub one of the most dangerous yet naturally occurring weather patterns ‘the child’ (just ask any parent).
And now, after weeks of foreboding data (including via our May 21st briefing), the UN’s World Meteorological Organization just sounded the alarm over the next El Niño.
By way of quick recap, El Niño rolls around once every two to seven years, when west-blowing trade winds weaken, allowing warm water to shift eastward across the Pacific.
As routine as this might sound, it can mean more floods and landslides along the Pacific side of the Americas, plus droughts and wildfires across Asia and Oceania.
So with the WMO warning there’s an 80% chance of an El Niño by August, we’re now tracking…
Agriculture
El Niño seems to magically appear at the worst times — the last one (2023-24) hit right as markets were eating wheat and fertiliser shortages from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
It feels similar today: the Hormuz squeeze is already spiking prices for natural gas and downstream products like fertiliser, projected to average 30% higher this year than last. And recall half the world relies on these kinds of synthetic fertilisers for their food supply.
But then throw in a drought in Asia, and we could see 10-20% drops in yield for palm oil, rice, sugar, cocoa, and wheat, driving higher food and vegetable oil prices.
Over on the other side of the Pacific, say a prayer for the world’s largest single-species fishery, providing ~25% of the world’s fishmeal: the Peruvian Anchovy. El Niño can cause coastal stocks to collapse, with downstream hits to buyers like farmed seafood.
And yet notwithstanding these costs, there are also some winners, with Argentine, Brazilian, and US soy and maize farmers sometimes enjoying wetter conditions that drive bumper harvests (a possible counterweight to the upward price pressures above).
Energy
This is a double-whammy: heatwaves tend to drive more A/C power consumption, and yet droughts can hit hydro-power supplies in places like India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. But the net oil price signals can be mixed, depending on whether slower Asian growth outweighs any parallel pivots from hydro to hydrocarbons.
Shipping
Panama is already dusting off its El Niño plans, which it only just shelved from the last El Niño! Recall its eponymous Canal uses freshwater to literally lift and lower ships between the Atlantic and Pacific, so when the rain stops, Canal traffic slows, disrupting 5% of global maritime trade and ~40% of US container traffic. Not now, Niño.
Emerging markets
A big one to finish: if El Niño delivers a lighter monsoon season to Asia, that can mean weaker harvests, higher food prices, and fresh pressure on India’s rupee, Indonesia’s rupiah, and other Asian currencies already getting stretched by energy prices.
And all just when you thought 2026 couldn’t get any spicier.
Intrigue’s Take
This stuff is always uncertain, but we’d like to thank El Niño for arriving at the exact moment our world already looks like a giant Jenga tower with half its blocks missing.…
To get full access to our experienced, unfiltered takes on what the news really means and what's coming next, become an Intrigue Insider!
| Start Free Trial → | $79/yr · 7 days free |
Intrigue’s Take
This stuff is always uncertain, but we’d like to thank El Niño for arriving at the exact moment our world already looks like a giant Jenga tower with half its blocks missing.
We’ve already spent the last year watching energy prices yo-yo, fertiliser markets seize up, and emerging market currencies wobble, only for Mother Nature to maybe flip the table.
But perhaps that’s the big takeaway here: there’ll always be curve-balls, but our baseline is new: a planet already ~1.5°C hotter, a world already retreating into paranoia, and economies already stilting along like some Imperial Walker on high debt and low reserves.
So maybe this is ultimately a story about resilience and adaptation: not our beloved Hollywood kind where two rivals nod in silent solidarity across a crowded haberdashery and agree to pull together for the final act. But the messier, more intriguing kind in which markets learn to reprice risk, governments polish their contingency plans, and these WMO warnings inspire more action than debate.
Sound even smarter:
The WMO says any El Niño would last until at least November, with most models forecasting a moderate or strong year, hence the unofficial ‘super El Niño’ talk.
The El Niño (de Navidad) moniker comes from fishermen who noticed unusually warm currents off the coast of Peru around Christmas time.
For Atlantic and Eastern Pacific hurricanes, the WMO has six lists of storm names rotating annually, and alternating between male and female for each storm. For typhoons, countries in the Western Pacific submit the storm names.
🎧 Prefer this briefing as a podcast? Become an Intrigue Insider today!
Today’s briefing is sponsored by hear.com
The AI in Your Ear That Most People Haven't Heard Of
Most hearing technology spent decades doing one thing: making everything louder. Then MultiBeam AI changed the category.
Horizon IX by hear.com runs 10,000 environmental scans per second — identifying individual speakers, tracking their movement, shifting microphone focus automatically. No manual tuning. No lag. No choosing between hearing the room and hearing the conversation. If you follow what's happening in AI, this is what it sounds like when the hardware finally catches up. 670K+ people are already putting it to the test.
Start your 45-day trial today and see why audiologists are calling it the biggest leap in hearing technology in decades.
Meanwhile, elsewhere…
🇳🇿 NEW ZEALAND — China ban.
China has imposed a year-long visit ban on four Kiwi lawmakers, citing their recent trip to Taiwan. (ABC)
Comment: It’s a first for New Zealand (whose MPs have previously visited Taiwan), but also a prime example of ham-fisted diplomacy: suddenly dunk on a small and recently-sympathetic power over an unofficial sleight nobody even noticed, thereby triggering the thought that maybe any lingering sympathy is misplaced?
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES — War powers.
After three failed attempts, the House has now passed a resolution to curb President Trump’s war powers against Iran. Meanwhile, Israel and Lebanon have announced a ceasefire, contingent on Hezbollah ceasing its attacks on Israeli forces. (NYT $)
Comment: That House measure now faces probable demise in the Senate, though four defections from the president’s own party hint at growing pre-midterms unease. Meanwhile, that Israel-Lebanon news probably aims to strengthen Trump’s hand in Tehran talks.
🇦🇷 ARGENTINA — Milei goes Pacific.
Argentina has formally submitted an application to join the landmark CPTPP trade pact, delivering the paperwork to New Zealand’s trade minister in Paris. (TotalNews)
Comment: That NZ angle is because the Kiwis act as the treaty’s official depositary on behalf of the 11 other members, now including Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, the UK, and Vietnam. It’s another sign Milei wants to break out of Mercosur’s protectionist straightjacket and link up with Asia’s dynamic markets. But accession won’t be quick or automatic — he needs full consensus from the pact’s current members, who’ll withhold until Milei can push the kinds of IP, SOE, and labour reforms needed to meet CPTPP’s standards.
🇮🇳 INDIA — Modi opens the bond gates.
Modi’s cabinet is set to approve major tax cuts for foreign investors in India’s government bonds, potentially slashing the current withholding tax from ~20% to as low as 5% while removing caps on certain long-dated bonds. (TOI)
Comment: After months of watching foreign money flee Indian equities (a mix of the oil shock, capital rotation into AI, and higher US Treasury yields), Modi is now hoping to stabilise the rupee without burning more forex — the RBI’s reserves have been trending down as it sells dollars to support the rupee, but still sit at a healthy $680B (10-11 months of imports).
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES — Trump’s AI pivot.
President Trump’s new AI executive order has finally dropped, asking top AI firms to voluntarily give DC 30 days to review frontier models for cybersecurity risks before public release. (The Hill)
Comment: We say ‘finally’ because this EO was due last month, but got pulled after Silicon Valley figure + ex-Trump advisor David Sacks called the president directly. The final version reflects the Valley’s preferences for a lighter regulatory touch, including by cutting DC’s review window from 90 days down to 30. But edits notwithstanding, this EO is still the clearest sign yet that even this “innovation first, regulation later” White House is getting edgy about the risks around frontier AI.
🇪🇬 EGYPT — Got anyone else?
Egypt has rejected Syria’s nominee for ambassador to Cairo, citing concerns over his Islamist background. He was agriculture minister in the earlier rebel-held turf administration led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the ex-Al Qaeda affiliate who ended up toppling the Assad regime to now run Syria. (Syrian Observer)
Comment: Agrément (accepting a foreign ambassador) is usually a formality, so withholding it sends a pretty clear signal: Cairo is willing to normalise ties with Syria, but given Egypt’s own deep paranoia around political Islam, it’ll still draw a hard line against former jihadis taking up diplomatic posts.
🇰🇬 KYRGYZSTAN — We have a winner!
The world elected five new members to a two-year term on the UN’s powerful Security Council yesterday, including Austria, Kyrgyzstan, Portugal, Trinidad & Tobago, and Zimbabwe. Notable upsets included China/Russia-backed Kyrgyzstan scoring its first-ever win (over the West-backed Philippines), and European powerhouse Germany losing to the Austrians and Portuguese above. (UN News)
Comment: That Kyrgyz result is not just a win for Central Asia generally, but also China specifically — it now avoids Manila raising Beijing’s unlawful South China Sea claims on the Council. Germany also campaigned hard, so its loss is being read by some as Global South pushback over its staunch support for Israel, while Berlin itself has also blamed Russian counter-campaigning over Germany’s Ukraine support.
Extra Intrigue
In other worlds…
Business: Amazon just overtook Walmart to claim the top spot on the Fortune 500 for the first time in 13 years, reflecting its e-commerce and cloud dominance.
War: Ukraine just marked the opening of Putin’s Davos-clone summit in St Petersburg by hitting oil terminals right there in Russia’s second-largest city.
Wilderness: An expedition to Angola’s remote Lisima plateau has discovered dozens of new species, including a fluorescent blue spider (nope).
Eulogy: Sir Alex Younger, the long-serving MI6 chief, has passed away aged 62 after being diagnosed with cancer last year.
From our sponsors
Last week one brand shipped 30+ landing pages through Viktor, the AI employee for marketing teams. Slack and Microsoft Teams. 3,000+ integrations including every platform you run. Get Started for Free
🏝️ Prefer ad-free reading? Become an Insider today!
Pollster of the day
That’s leftist presidential candidate Roberto Sánchez there on the poster. Snap courtesy of EFE.
Given pollster track records, it’s no surprise folks are turning to alternative glimpses over the horizon. There was Germany’s Paul the Octopus who nailed 12 out of 14 World Cup matches. Plus Singapore’s Mani the Parakeet, who called all four FIFA quarter finals.
But we’d like to present another option out of Peru: the country’s famous curandero shamans periodically gather on Lima’s clifftops to partake in a bit of ayahuasca and San Pedro hallucinogenic brew, then interpret resulting visions for glimpses into the future.
Their record? Mixed.
Yes, they correctly called the 2024 death of Peru’s polarising ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori (who was 86, had cancer, and had spent years in prison). But no, they were wrong when they saw a 2025 nuclear war between Israel and Gaza. But yes, they were right when they predicted the ousting of Venezuela’s Maduro, just five days before the US nabbed him!
So… what are these curanderos foreseeing in Peru’s high-stakes election this Sunday?
It turns out the spirits remain as divided as Peru! Some are saying the populist-right’s Keiko Fujimori (Alberto’s daughter) will finally win, while others are calling it for the populist-left’s Roberto Sánchez. Most are leaning more towards Sánchez, though they’re warning of unrest if it’s Fujimori. So… are we about to see another contested result?
Today’s poll
Which El Niño effect rattles you the most?
Yesterday’s poll: Which tech giant do you think has the brightest future?
🚀 SpaceX (29%)
👨💻 Anthropic (37%)
🤖 OpenAI (10%)
🔎 Google (21%)
✍️ Other (write in!) (2%)
Your two cents:
👨💻 M.R: “Anthropic have positioned themselves not only as the technological leader with strong enterprise business, but one with strong moral and privacy positions. The key will be maintaining the lead with best performing models.”
🔎 D.D: “Google has the history, the market, the tech, existing complementary businesses, AND wins if Anthropic grows (both as owner and supplier).”
🚀 J: “SpaceX covers so many bases, AI, rockets, the Moon, Mars, data centers, tele-communications. Impressive.”
😎 We’d love you to join our group-chat — become an Insider today!