Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

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

Two crashes of Boeing's 737 MAX planes cost hundreds of lives. The costs to Boeing to the

airlines that depend on its planes and to the suppliers that depend on its orders are

still being calculated. Right now it's about four billion dollars a quarter.

Of course some travelers opt not to fly at all. Today the teenage climate activist Greta

Tunberg arrives in New York after crossing the Atlantic by sailboat. She wanted to highlight

flying's environmental effects but she's not the only one. In her native Sweden there's even a

word for flight shame. First up though. In the waters between South Korea and Japan lies a cluster

of tiny islands scattered like sharp pebbles flung into the water. Almost no one lives there.

Even birds and trees barely cling to life. But this week the islands have been at the center of a

fight between the countries. One that's escalated into a row involving trade and national security.

So these islands are called Doctor by South Korea and Takishima by Japan and they're disputed

territory in the sea between the two countries. They've been disputed since the end of the Second

World War when the Japanese Empire was being carved up and South Korea became an independent country.

Laneshipper is our sole bureau chief. The South Korean military has been conducting

and big naval exercises around these islands. On Sunday and Monday this week they've been flying

helicopters around, sailing warships around them and this has been the latest salvo in an escalating

spat between Japan and South Korea. What do you mean by that? What's the nature of the spat?

So it comes after several extremely-waring developments. A few days before they started,

those exercises, South Korea decided not to renew an intelligence-sharing deal with Japan,

which has been in place since 2016 was broken by the United States at the time.

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