The Economist

Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist.

I'm your host, Rosie Bloor.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

This year, wildfires have raged in South Korea and Japan, larger than either country had

seen for decades.

Our correspondent discuss how these relate to climate change and where else we might expect to see the planet's

ferocity. And unless you've been living on Mars, you'll have heard at least some of the views

coming out of Donald Trump's White House. We look at opinion polling to see how the shift in tone

at the top is changing how ordinary Americans see their friends and foes.

But first...

Last year, more than 36,000 people journeyed across the English Channel to enter Britain illegally.

Travelling in small overloaded boats can be a deadly activity.

The criminals who ferry these migrants have attracted odium and many names.

Chief among them, gangs.

For too long, smuggling gangs have been undermining our border security.

Now, the reason that criminal gangs continue to bring small boats... There is a serious issue in people smuggling, and the only way to deal with.

It is to take down the gangs, the groups that are running this file.

And though politicians have good reason to speak ill of the smugglers,

it could be that branding them gangs obscures the issue at hand and howls tackle it.

Politicians and other journalists and charities and think tanks talk a lot about the small boats issue, and they tend to analyze

it in policy terms or even in moral terms. So they emphasise the fact that many people die

...