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.

As women flooded into the formal labor market in the mid-20th century, working part-time was a desirable middle ground.

But pick apart the data and it's clear that part-time work comes at a cost not only to women's pay, but also to their career progression.

And as smartphones and mobile money have spread across Africa, so has sports gambling.

For a long time, Ethiopia lagged behind the trend.

But the gambling market is liberalizing there, and Ethiopians are piling into the betting line.

First up, though. 70 years ago, of Soviet citizens proudly sang this song to celebrate the foundation of the People's Republic of China.

It goes, Moscow, Beijing, people go forward for the bright path, for the lasting peace under the banner of freedom.

It specifically praises the closeness of the relationship between the two communist leaders,

Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. It's clear too about which nation is the more powerful.

The lyrics here are, this is the mighty Soviet Union, alongside the new China striving.

Since that song was written, much has changed.

The relationship between China and what's now Russia has had its ups and downs.

These days, it's close again.

This week, Chinese Premier Li Kuchang is in Moscow for trade talks,

and Chinese forces, alongside those of other Asian countries, are conducting military exercises in Russia. China has stepped in after the Western sanctions on Russia because

of what it was doing in Ukraine. Angela Stent is a professor at Georgetown University. She

recently wrote a book called Putin's World, Russia Against the West and with the rest.

And it's enabled Russia to avoid the isolation that the West wanted to impose on it.

It signed a $400 billion gas deal with Russia on terms that the Russians wouldn't have signed on a couple of years before, but they didn't really have any choice.

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