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. South Korea keeps calling,

but no one's picking up the phone.

This week, North Korea isolated itself further by closing off communication with its neighbor.

It's probably a diplomatic distraction from big problems brewing in the north.

And there's a lot of pent-up demand for flat-pack furniture and possibly meatballs.

Customers are flocking back to IKEA.

Past downturns have tended to be good for the Swedish firm in the long run,

this time looks to be no different.

First up, though,

The battle to control the fractured country of Libya seems to have reached a turning point.

It's been riven by factional fighting and jihadist groups since an uprising with Western support toppled and killed the autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 during the Arab Spring.

For more than a year now, the warlord Khalifa Haftar has waged a battle to take the capital Tripoli

from a fragile government that's backed by the UN.

Though the fighting has destroyed parts of the city, neither side had the upper hand for long.

But now Mr. Haftar and his allies are on the run.

Khalifa Haftar has really been one of the few constants of Libyan politics for the last 50 years.

Nicholas Pelham is the economist's Middle East correspondent.

He was there with Colonel Gaddafi when the Libyan Revolution under Gaddafi was first

launched in 1969. He split from Gaddafi in the mid-1980s and defected after a defeat in Chad to the United States where he worked

closely with the CIA and then in 2011 after Colonel Gaddafi was overthrown he returned to

the fray and there was a vacuum in that aftermath and he has tried to fill that vacuum he does this

...