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.

European Union countries love to poke fun at their neighbors, relying on national stereotypes.

But our correspondent was surprised to find how commonly that typecasting happens in Brussels, the Union's administrative heart.

And you might think that all sand is the same, and that it's easily available all over the world.

You'd be wrong.

Smugglers are making a fortune mining the most useful stuff,

but this gritty trade has serious environmental costs.

First up, though.

Yesterday's State of the Union speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin started with some unsurprising bread-and-butter chat about the country's declining population and its social safety net. But then, he dropped a bombshell.

Mr. Putin proposed sweeping constitutional changes that could extend his time in power.

Hours later, on state television, Prime Minister

Dmitri Medvedev said that he and the entirety of the cabinet were resigning, to give Mr.

Putin the opportunity to make all the necessary decisions to push those constitutional changes

through. As it stands, Mr. Putin is due to step down in 2024 when his second consecutive term ends.

But he's engineered ways to stay in power for 20 years already, and it seems that now he's found another.

Vladimir Putin has stunned everybody by announcing, firstly, a complete revision of the Russian Constitution,

quite what the details of that are going to be, a completely obscure, and secondly, firing

the government in effect.

Christopher Lockwood is our Europe editor.

The main reason why this is likely to have happened has to do with Vladimir Putin's

own future.

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