World

Wednesday

Emily Rhodes

The tyranny of World Book Day

‘Dear parents, a reminder that we are dressing up for World Book Day! Don’t forget your child should come to school in costume as their favourite character tomorrow…’ It’s the email every parent dreads receiving. (Or one of them, anyway.) It tends to be opened at eight o’clock the evening before World Book Day, to be met with feelings of exasperation, desperation and guilt. Dressing up is, in fact, the antithesis to reading for pleasure How is it that the charity World Book Day, founded by Unesco in 1995 with the laudable mission ‘to promote reading for pleasure’, has morphed into yet another occasion for parents to buy stuff? An

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Elly Schlein shouldn’t be a problem for Georgia Meloni

There is much excitement among western Europe’s chattering classes after Elly Schlein was elected the new leader of Italy’s left-wing Democratic party. It is the first time that a woman has led the Italian left. The Guardian quoted the 37-year-old as saying her party will now be ‘a problem’ for Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s conservative PM.  On the contrary. Schlein’s elevation to party leader is an electoral gift for Meloni, whose sex is the only thing she has in common with her new foe. Schlein has not drawn any lessons from the collapse of the French Socialists Meloni was raised by a single mum in a working-class district of Rome and

Nicholas Farrell

How Giorgia Meloni is remaking Europe

Ravenna, Italy Italy’s first female Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, is steadily becoming the most important political leader in Europe. Some are even saying that it is her destiny to be the next Angela Merkel. If so, that would mean a dramatic change in direction for the European Union towards what she calls a confederal, instead of a federal, Europe – a Europe of sovereign nations rather than a superstate which, she told Italy’s most famous talkshow host Bruno Vespa, would ‘do less, do better’. ‘Brussels should not do what Rome can do better’ Meloni, 46, heads a right-wing coalition – comprising her Brothers of Italy party plus two junior partners,

Ben Farmer

South Africa’s energy crisis is becoming a political one

Cape Town South Africa is falling apart. Blackouts of up to ten hours a day are bringing businesses to a halt, making teaching harder and turning traffic lights dark. Food is rotting in warm fridges. There were more than 200 blackouts last year and they have continued every day so far in 2023. ANC strategists question whether any party can survive the public anger over the mismanagement of the grid A country that once saw itself as Africa’s industrial powerhouse is now regularly without power. The cause is a debt-ridden and run-down fleet of power stations, which have been starved of repairs and regularly break down. Electricity supplies have to be

Douglas Murray

Thomas Jefferson and the death of wisdom

In recent weeks I have been trying out a mental exercise. Perhaps you might join me? Cast your mind back to 1999. We were standing on the dawn of a new millennium. True, there was a strange fear that all the computers might crash because of a bug called Y2K. But aside from that there seemed to be a tremendous optimism. One of the biggest causes for this was the nature of information technology: specifically, the internet. Imagine if someone had said to you then: ‘We are heading into a world where almost anything can be read at the click of a mouse. Almost all the great books will be

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Ukraine’s drone war on Russia could backfire

Vladimir Putin has sold his Ukrainian war to the Russian people by trying to find the sweet spot between existential threat and reassuring distance: the Russian president portrays the conflict as a struggle to preserve the nation from a hostile West and its Ukrainian proxy, but one fought safely outside its borders. Increasingly, Kyiv seems to want to bring the war to Russia, though, in a gamble which could go either way. A drone identified as a Ukrainian-made Ukrjet UJ-22 Airborne, capable of carrying up to 20kg of explosives, crashed close to a gas distribution station 60 miles southeast of Moscow yesterday. This is more than 300 miles from the

Tuesday

Colin Freeman

Inside the court of King Zelensky

The first hint that my audience with Volodymyr Zelensky might not be what I’d hoped for came with the emailed invite. A few days before I’d been told I’d made the shortlist for a select presidential news conference marking the anniversary of the war. Not quite an exclusive interview, granted, but given current Zelenskymania, a decent second best. Images of a cosy roundtable in the secret presidential bunker beckoned. Alas, when the email from his office finally arrived, it was notably bereft of the cloak and dagger one might expect. No orders to leave my phone at home. No secret rendezvous with a blacked-out van. Just an order to report at

Monday

Roderick Crawford

How Rishi Sunak succeeded on Brexit where Theresa May failed

Rishi Sunak’s government has succeeded in renegotiating the Protocol, despite EU insistence that this could not and would not be done. That there is a Windsor Framework is proof of that. A new geopolitical reality in Europe required Western unity, it is true, but there was more than that.   The UK found a way to persuade the EU of the moral, political and legal case for a renegotiation — overturning the significant moral, political and legal impediments that held the EU back from any ‘renegotiation’.  This was due to an intellectual transformation of the understanding of the relationship of the Good Friday Agreement and the Protocol — one promoted by the

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Netanyahu is stoking a fire

Huwara is a Palestinian town in the heart of the Shomron, the mountainous northern portion of the territory Israel refers to as Judea and Samaria and the world knows as the West Bank. Huwara is smouldering today after a night of rioting and fire-setting by Israeli residents. On Sunday, two Israelis, brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, 21 and 19 years old, from the nearby Israeli settlement of Har Bracha, were murdered by a Palestinian gunman. They were travelling through Huwara when they were gunned down at point-blank range while sitting in traffic. Their mother Esti said: ‘We have a huge hole in our hearts. Nothing will close that hole, not

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why is Zelensky playing deadly mind games with Putin?

Many have weighed in on how Vladimir Putin’s reign will end. Now it is the turn of Volodymyr Zelensky, asserting that he will be killed by his own. But is this wishful thinking, prediction or trolling? The Ukrainian president was speaking in a documentary, when he said that There will definitely be a moment when the fragility of Putin’s regime will be felt inside the state and then the predators will devour a predator. It is very important, and they will need a reason to justify this. They will remember. They will find a reason to kill the killer. Will it work? Yes. When? I don’t know. There is often

Sunday

Andriy Zagorodnyuk and Sergey Radchenko

‘For Ukrainians, this is a matter of survival’

Andriy Zagorodnyuk was Ukraine’s minister of defence from 2019 to 2020. He is Chairman of the Centre for Defence Strategies and is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. To mark the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, he spoke with Russian Cold War historian Sergey Radchenko. The pair disagreed on Russia’s objectives, the possibility of a negotiated outcome, what a Ukrainian victory might look like, and the fate of Crimea. Sergey Radchenko: Thank you for joining me today, Andriy. I’d like to start by asking: where are we in this war a year on? Andriy Zagorodnyuk: Russia is still attempting to pursue its original goal of

Nicholas Sheppard

Jacinda Ardern’s resignation has saved New Zealand’s Labour party

Many expected the abrupt resignation of Jacinda Ardern to fatefully deprive New Zealand’s government of its best asset. However, the moderate pragmatism of her successor, Chris Hipkins, may in fact have allowed many Kiwis to give themselves permission to return to Labour. Within a fortnight of taking over, Hipkins has been confronted with a quick succession of civil defence emergencies, with the second, Cyclone Gabrielle, being the most significant weather event in New Zealand so far this century. At least 10,500 people have been displaced by Gabrielle so far, according to officials. The new Prime Minister has none of his predecessor’s star power, although he is widely seen as competent and

Maya Foa

Newcastle United’s success comes at a heavy price

Newcastle United play their first cup final for over 20 years this afternoon. Facing Manchester United in the Carabao Cup is a big moment for the club and the city and is a mark of Newcastle’s recent success. But these achievements are tainted because it is built with money from a bloodthirsty Saudi Arabian regime, which has executed over 1,000 people in the last eight years. Since Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund bought Newcastle United in October 2021, 157 people, including some children, have been put to death. These executions are overseen by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who is also the Chair of the PIF. Dozens more have been arbitrarily arrested

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Why China is courting Hollywood again

Until a few years ago, Hollywood dominated Chinese cinemas. In the People’s Republic, Marvel’s superhero romps were the people’s favourite. In 2019, Avengers: Endgame took more than 4 billion RMB (£510 million) at Chinese box offices. That success might partly explain why the Chinese Communist party went on to effectively ban Marvel films for the next three years. Real heroes should be Chinese.  Other Hollywood smash-hits such as Top Gun: Maverick and Spider-Man: No Way Home have also beendenied entry into the Chinese market. A new Film Administration Bureau, created in 2018 and headed by a Xi loyalist, brought film distribution closer to the party line. Last year, only 29 American-made films were released in China; compared to 73 in 2018. One estimate put the China-shaped gap for Hollywood at $2 billion. American filmmakers were about to lose hope. But that’s all

Saturday

Robin Ashenden

What happened to the Russia I loved?

For three and a half years, between Autumn 2018 and 2022, the most thrilling words I could say to anyone – especially myself – were ‘I live in Russia.’ I had read about the country since I was a child – obsessively from my mid-twenties onwards – and it was Holy Land for me. Other people I knew had flirted with the place on study-courses, temporary work-placements or backpacking, yet always with an end in sight. But I had a child growing up in Rostov, in southern Russia, had put down roots, integrated into its society and planned to grow old there. For the rest of my life, I thought,

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Has Prigozhin pushed his luck too far with Putin?

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the businessman behind Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries, is hardly a man to keep a low profile. He is at his loudest and most vitriolic, though, either when he feels he has the upper hand over his (many) enemies or when he is on the ropes. He’s pretty outspoken these days, and no one thinks it’s because he’s winning. For months, many of the small gains made by the Russians had been thanks to Wagner and its use of expendable soldiers recruited from the prison system. This had given Prigozhin a degree of latitude and license and, true to form, he had used that to prosecute his personal vendettas,

Friday

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Why Ukrainians won’t settle for a ceasefire

Growing up as a Ukrainian means being acquainted with death when you are too young to know much about life. When I was a teenager, I saw dozens of coffins being brought to my hometown from Vladimir Putin’s war in the Donbas. Now, I am seeing my friends go to war – and, like so many thousands of Ukrainians, die. One was buried last month: Maksym Burda, a 25-year-old wedding photographer. Another friend went to war this week. This friend, an artist, had just five weeks of accelerated training: now he’s an infantry soldier in one of the hottest spots on the Dobas front. He has been provided with a

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How Putin is fomenting Europe’s migrant crisis

‘Watch the Sahel,’ warned Tony Blair in an article marking the first year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Because of Russian influence, the region ‘will be the source of the next wave of extremism and migration to Europe,’ the former PM forecast in the Daily Telegraph.  As the increased numbers crossing the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe in 2022 demonstrated, the next wave of migration has started. Frontex, the EU’s border agency, reported recently that last year migration across the Central Mediterranean ‘rose by more than half to well over 100 000 detections’.  This mass movement of people is creating tension, not only in Europe. Earlier this week, the president of

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Why is Russia ignoring the anniversary of the Ukraine war?

If you read the Russian newspapers this morning, you would be forgiven for thinking today was a day like any other. You would have almost no clue that 24 February marks the one year anniversary of Putin’s bloody, stalling invasion of Ukraine, in which nearly 200,000 of the country’s men have so far been killed or injured. Not a single Russian newspaper carried any articles commemorating the anniversary this morning. The closest they got to directly acknowledging it was to report the news that Putin wouldn’t be giving a speech today to mark the occasion.  While surprising, Putin’s decision not to commemorate the start of his invasion is, admittedly, not totally unexpected. The war is not going

Nigel Jones

Justin Welby is wrong: Russia should be punished for its war in Ukraine

As the world marks the grim first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin should give thanks that there appears to be at least one of what Lenin called ‘useful idiots’ left in the West. Step forward – after removing your foot from its usual place in your mouth – the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most Reverend Justin Welby. Fresh from presiding over a schism in the worldwide Anglican Communion over gay marriage, the Archbishop is now favouring us with his deeply misguided views on Putin’s aggression and its possible consequences. It may not sit well with Welby’s milk and water theology Welby has said that ‘when the time comes’