World

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Trump’s mugshot released following Georgia arrest

The moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived: Donald Trump’s mugshot has been released to the world. With a furrowed brow and scowl, the former President posed for his mugshot at Fulton county sheriff’s office in Georgia in his trademark navy suit and red tie yesterday. Trump was booked by the sheriff’s office in Georgia after announcing his intention to surrender, following his indictment for allegedly attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. At the jail, Trump was formally arrested and will have had to have his fingerprints taken and his height and weight measured. He was released ahead of the trial in October after

Thursday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

How Russia’s media reacted to the Prigozhin plane crash

After Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted march on Moscow at the end of June, the Wagner Group leader became a divisive figure in Russia. He was not quite a pariah – on account of his mercenary group’s huge contribution to the war in Ukraine and Putin’s seemingly weak decision to condemn him to barely enforced exile in Belarus – but definitely not a hero either. Therefore it comes as no surprise that, following his sudden demise in a plane crash en route to St Petersburg yesterday, the Russian press has struggled with how to cover the news. Notably, despite Prigozhin’s status for nearly a year as an invaluable contributor to the ‘special military

Paul Wood

Prigozhin sent ‘to hell’, but who gave the order?

As the first reports came in that Yevgeny Prigozhin had been killed, I spoke to Marat Gabidullin, who was a senior commander in Prigozhin’s mercenary army and for a time his personal assistant for military affairs. Gabidiullin is living in exile in France and well known as a bitter critic of Prigozhin – he was forced to change addresses regularly, worried that Prigozhin would send someone to kill him. In the past, he described his old boss as brutal, greedy, smart, dangerous, and willing to sacrifice his men by the thousand for profit and power. But now he’s almost wistful at the thought of Prigozhin’s passing. He told me that

Roger Kimball

Trump’s interview blows the Republican debate away

One of the reasons that Donald Trump is so despised by the beautiful people of America – the people that the New York Times columnist David Brooks memorably evoked when he began a tweet ‘We in the educated class…’ – is that he consorts with so many unbeautiful people: not just working stiffs but B-list entertainers, Nascar enthusiasts and prize fighters.   It is from the world of the last-named agonistic endeavor that I learned a word that perfectly describes last night’s festivities. The word is ‘undercard’. It means that list of ‘minor or supporting contests printed on the same bill as the main event (primarily fighting or racing).’ Fox News, together with

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Prigozhin’s death has exposed Putin’s weakness

So much is still unclear about the fate of Wagner group head Yevgeny Prigozhin, from whether he really did die in the private jet that plummeted to the ground in Russia’s Tver region to what caused the crash. In today’s Russia, after all, ‘mechanical problems’ could be anything from maintenance issues to the difficulty in flying when a bomb has blown a hole in your fuselage. The odds are, though, that he is indeed dead. Putin himself offered lukewarm praise to the ‘talented businessman’ who nonetheless ‘made serious mistakes in his life’ (one of which may have been reassuring Putin’s guarantees). Three things would follow from this. First of all, that

Amber Athey

The winners and losers of the first Republican primary debate

The first Republican primary debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin wrapped in the early hours of this morning. Here is the definitive list of the evening’s winners and losers. Winners Vivek Ramaswamy Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is the only candidate on the stage who spoke to an issue larger than partisan politics: a lack of American identity and purpose. He accurately pinpointed the undercurrent of malaise in the country. Ramaswamy also was the first to raise his hand unapologetically when asked if he would stop sending money to Ukraine and if he would support former president Donald Trump as the nominee even if he were convicted in one of his pending legal cases.

Mark Millar

How to shock a Satanist

I wish I could be like actors and pretend to be bored by press junkets, but the truth is I love the attention. My job as a Hollywood writer and producer mainly involves sitting in front of a computer and shouting at my kids, so free drinks, launch parties and people telling you how great you are is the perfect antidote to a room filled with empty Monster Munch packets and that urine sample you were meant to hand in to the doctor. Writers are such terrible narcissists. We not only expect complete strangers to be fascinated by our every thought; we want them to pay for the privilege. You

Wednesday

Owen Matthews

Yevgeny Prigozhin was a dead man walking

Yevgeny Prigozhin died, as Macbeth almost said, as one that had been studied in his death. In the last three minutes of its existence, Prigozhin’s private Embraer Legacy jet climbed fast towards the sun, reaching the giddying height of 8,800 meters before parabolically returning to earth, spinning slowly in flames before hitting the ground at a speed of 768 feet per second. In what must be the least surprising story of the year, Prigozhin’s rise from violent criminal to billionaire caterer to mercenary leader to mutineer who dared mount an armed challenge to Vladimir Putin ended in a fatal, flaming fall.  Both Russian state media and the Wagner Group’s Telegram

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Yevgeny Prigozhin reported dead in plane crash

From the moment Yevgeny Prigozhin aborted his march on Moscow it was a question of when and how – not whether – he would end up dead. Yesterday we saw a video of him for the first time talking about Wagner promoting Russia’s interests in Africa. Now, two months to the day after that coup was launched, we hear that his plane has crashed in Russia – apparently shot down.  The Russian press is saying that Prigozhin was one of ten passengers listed on a small jet that crashed in the Tver region to the north east of Moscow earlier today. Footage has emerged on social media showing what looks

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Scottish drug deaths, more strikes and the Lucy Letby verdict

Home The number of drug deaths in Scotland fell to 1,051 in 2022, the lowest since 2017, but still the worst record per head in Europe. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, who in March had pledged ‘to stop the boats once and for all’, said that ‘there is not one simple solution and it can’t be solved overnight’. On a sunny Monday, 661 migrants landed in Britain in 16 small boats; one man, on making landfall, made the Albanian eagle gesture popular among football supporters. England was defeated 1-0 by Spain in the final of the women’s football World Cup; the Spanish Prime Minister said that Spanish FA president Luis

Nicholas Farrell

Italy is under attack from a killer crab

Italy is under maritime siege by a foreign invader known as the granchio blu (blue crab). Like some terrifying alien that lies undetected for decades in a hideous secret lair, untold millions of the crustaceans (whose shells can grow up to nine inches wide) have suddenly emerged and are causing havoc in the country’s delicately balanced marine environment.  The blue crab arrived in Italy from America in the late 1940s in the -ballast tanks of merchant ships, but no one talked about it much until the past couple of years, during which its numbers have exploded. Some blame global warming, but the blue crab is not especially bothered by water

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Trumpvision: He’s making America watch again

It was hardly a surprise when Donald Trump said last weekend that he would not be participating in the televised Republican candidate debates. ‘New CBS POLL, just out, has me leading the field by “legendary” numbers,’ he declared on his very own Truth Social platform. ‘The public knows who I am & what a successful presidency I had… I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES.’ In other words, I am winning so I do what I want. Trump’s arrogance puts many people off. It’s also compelling because he has a point. On the right of American politics – and, to a large extent, on the left and centre too

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Putin tries to turn Africa against the West

After Vladimir Putin’s speech at the Brics global summit in South Africa, there can be no doubt that the Russian president has set his sights set on wooing the nations of Africa. In an effort to present Russia as a cooperative ally to, and leader of, the Brics bloc (currently made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, but with 40 more aspiring members) Vladimir Putin pinned the blame on the West’s ‘illegal sanctions regime’ for the global food supply problems experienced by many countries in the wake of his invasion of Ukraine. The Russian president acknowledged the grain issue was ‘hurting the most vulnerable poor countries first’,

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Ukraine’s real killing fields: An investigation into the war’s first aid crisis

Donetsk It’s past midnight and I am standing in silence with the crew of a military ambulance on the edge of the Donetsk region. The village is dark to avoid attracting the attention of Russian drones. The paramedics move with quiet determination, lifting blood-soaked stretchers and ferrying moaning, injured soldiers from one vehicle to the next. I see a wounded man with bandages where his legs used to be. His severed limb sits next to him in a bag. There are no figures for how many Ukrainians have been maimed in this war. Nor are there proper figures for the dead. Kyiv doesn’t give body counts, saying only that Ukrainian

Douglas Murray

Why everyone thinks they could be President

Who is Perry Johnson? It is a question not many American voters can answer. He has a grand total of 16,000 followers on Twitter and recently pulled in precisely zero votes in a poll in Des Moines, Iowa. He describes himself as a ‘self-made businessman, problem-solver and quality expert from Michigan’. Nevertheless, this slightly cadaverous-looking businessman has joined the running to be the Republican party’s candidate for president. There have been so many upsets in American politics of late that almost everybody thinks they have a chance Does he stand a chance? Nope. The main way through he has found so far is by buying up advertisements on the right-wing

Andrew Tettenborn

The EU is heading for a bruising showdown with eastern Europe

Eurocrats don’t naturally do compromise, but Brussels may have to learn to compromise quite fast if it is to have any hope of avoiding a bruising showdown with eastern Europe. As often happens the backdrop is formed by events in Poland, where the ruling PiS party under Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki faces a crucial election in October. Apart from a rather esoteric ongoing argument about the rule of law which it is fair to say even most Europe-watchers don’t understand, Warsaw currently has two big gripes against the central EU bodies. One is their increasing insistence on centralising immigration control, and in particular the relocation of irregular arrivals; the other,

Jawad Iqbal

Why India wants to conquer the moon

India – or, to be more precise, its leader Narendra Modi – wants to conquer space. That is why the success of the country’s latest moon mission matters so much. Only three countries – the United States, the former Soviet Union and China – have completed a successful landing on the lunar surface. No country has ever managed a landing near the moon’s south pole – a treacherous and freezing landscape, covered in darkness. India has long harboured the dream of being the first nation to do so, demolishing once and for all hurtful aspersions that it is a minnow in the space race. There is big money to be

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The developing world has grown tired of Britain’s hypocrisy

The timing could not have been worse for Rishi Sunak. Just days after it was confirmed by Downing Street that the Prime Minister would host Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in the autumn, a human rights organisation published an extensive report accusing Saudi Arabia of the ‘mass killing’ of migrants at its border with Yemen.  The 73-page report was released by Human Rights Watch (HRW), and its contents have been relayed by several media outlets, including the BBC and the Guardian. It is a harrowing read.   Brics countries are no longer prepared to tolerate the hypocrisy of Washington, London and Paris HRW allege that Saudi border guards killed ‘hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The rise of America’s anti-corporate populists

They are the Odd Couple of the United States Senate. She is a progressive Democrat and senior senator from true-blue Massachusetts, he a nationalist Republican and junior senator from ever-reddening Ohio. She has a 100 per cent rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League; he is ‘100 per cent pro-life’. She wants a path to citizenship for undocumented aliens; he wants a wall and to double the border patrol. She backs a federal assault weapons ban; his hero is his grandmother, who owned 19 handguns.  Although hailing from different sides of the culture wars, each is articulating material concerns that matter much more to the lives of Americans than whether Bud Light is woke No, Elizabeth Warren and JD Vance

Ben Domenech

2024 is America’s ‘lock him up’ election

It’s time to acknowledge the obvious truth about 2024: it’s going to be an election about who Americans want to go to the White House – and who they want to go straight to jail. There are, of course, all the normal caveats about unexpected crises, and typical issues like the economy, Ukraine, abortion, China and the border must be acknowledged. The uniquely aged nature of the likely nominees themselves also increases the possibility of a health event between now and November 2024. But in a race between Hunter Biden’s dad and any Republican, but particularly Donald Trump, the orange jumpsuit looms over all. Trump’s status as a figure of chaos