World

Wednesday

Douglas Murray

French racism is not the problem

Last week we learned that a woman in a park in Skegness was dragged into the bushes and raped by a 33-year-old male. The man had arrived in the UK illegally on a small boat just 40 days earlier. If you have open borders and no checks on who is arriving, an uptick in crime will inevitably occur Strangely, I can find little anger about this. The story was reported in a couple of papers but there were no fulminating editorials or emergency questions in the House. Jess Phillips hasn’t found room to grandstand about it. Nor have Yvette Cooper, Stella Creasy or any of those other Labour MPs who

Con Coughlin

Why Putin still needs Wagner

It will be a matter of deep regret for Vladimir Putin that, in the wake of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ill-fated attempt to overthrow Russia’s military establishment, he has finally been forced to come clean about the Kremlin’s association with the Wagner Group. Deniability is a vital facet for a veteran spook like Putin. Even when Wagner’s band of mercenary cut-throats were spearheading the assault on the east Ukrainian city of Bakhmut earlier this year, the Russian leader rebutted claims of Prigozhin’s involvement. ‘He runs a restaurant business, it is his job – he is a restaurant keeper in St Petersburg,’ Putin told Austrian television. Putin’s challenge is to maintain Wagner’s global operations

Ian Williams Ian Williams

The secret life of China’s Banksy

The crypt of St John’s Waterloo feels serene and secure, a world away from the bustling city above. ‘I will spend the day here, because I feel safe here,’ Badiucao tells me. The dissident political cartoonist, who has been called ‘China’s Banksy’, is preparing to display his work on the crypt’s newly restored brick walls as part of an exhibition by exiled artists. ‘I don’t walk alone in any city. I don’t feel safe,’ he says. I meet him soon after he flies in from Warsaw, where the Chinese government tried to close down his solo show, ‘Tell China’s Story Well’. Chinese diplomats pressured the Polish government and the Ujazdowski

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s riots have left the country more divided than ever

There is a myth of France, specifically of its banlieues, that has been frequently repeated in recent days. Descriptions of ‘marginalised suburbs’, ‘ghetto-like suburban estates’ and of ethnic minorities ‘shunted away into suburban housing projects…out of sight and out of mind’ have emerged in the international media. It’s even been suggested in one British publication that rising food prices were to blame for the riots.  Nanterre, where 17-year-old Nahel was shot dead by a policeman eight days ago, has some tough estates but it not a ghetto abandoned by the French state. The housing estate where Nahel lived was built in the late 1970s and at the time was considered ‘an emblematic project

Tuesday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Drone strikes Russian military base near Moscow

Just as Moscow was beginning to recover from the shock of Evgeniy Prigozhin’s march on the capital, the city has, once again, been targeted by drones.  In the early hours of this morning, according to the Russian ministry of defence, five drones were intercepted before they reached the capital. Eyewitnesses reported seeing two of the drones flying in the direction of Moscow at a low altitude of approximately 200 metres. They came within touching distance of the city, getting as far as the New Moscow suburb to the south west. According to Russia, four of the drones were shot down. Footage circulating on Russian social media allegedly filmed at the time the

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Don’t condemn Israel for defending itself

Car-rammings, shootings, stabbings and bombings targeting innocent men, women and children are a constant fear for Israelis. This morning, seven people were wounded in a ramming attack in Tel Aviv. Only a fortnight ago, four Israelis were gunned down by Hamas murderers. Last year, there were 5,000 such attacks. In 2023, more than 28 Israelis have so far been killed. How would we in Britain react to such events? The IRA years show all too clearly that, in the wake of a terror threat, the security forces fight back. Israel is adopting a similar approach – but is being roundly, and unfairly, condemned for doing so. On Monday night, Israeli

Robert Lyman

No soldier should have been above the law in Afghanistan 

The public inquiry into alleged SAS war crimes in Afghanistan hears fresh evidence this week. Lawyers representing Afghan families argue that up to 80 civilians may have been victims of ‘summary killings’ by UK special forces between 2010 and 2013 in night raids in search of Taliban fighters.  The inquiry has led to some debate about how possible it is to uphold the rules of war in a messy, overseas conflict. These quandaries are nothing new. When Lance Corporal George MacDonald Fraser’s Border Regiment were fighting through central Burma in April 1945, Fraser admitted that when they got into the swing of fighting, killing the Japanese was fun. ‘It was

Hardeep Singh

When will the world wake up to the persecution of Nigerian Christians?

More Christians are killed in Nigeria for their faith than anywhere else in the world. Of the 5,621 people murdered worldwide in 2022 for their belief in Christ, almost nine in ten died in Nigeria, according to the charity Open Doors. On average, this equates to 14 Christians killed every single day last year in Nigeria. Many more Christians are being kidnapped, and there is little sign of this terrible violence ending any time soon. Such horrifying figures are hard for us in the West to comprehend; we take freedom of religion – a protected right enshrined in law – for granted. But despite the unending and seemingly escalating cycle

Monday

David Loyn David Loyn

Biden can’t ignore the Taliban’s terrorist links for ever

President Joe Biden is either not being briefed on what is going on in Afghanistan, or more likely choosing not to believe what he is being told. In an unscripted aside at the end of a press conference on Friday he said, ‘Remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said al-Qaeda would not be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban. What’s happening now? What’s going on? Read your press. I was right.’ The president was not right. In fact, he was wrong. What he was referring to was a commitment by the Taliban to support operations against international terrorists operating in Afghanistan. Not only has that commitment

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s riots are fuelling division over Europe’s migrant crisis

The riots that have ravaged France in recent days have given Eric Zemmour a second wind. The leader of the right wing Reconquest party has been on the airwaves and in the newspapers, saying, with a touch of schadenfreude, ‘I told you so’.  In a television interview on Saturday evening, Zemmour explained that the reason he entered politics in late 2021 was because of what he described as the Republic’s twenty-year policy of ‘crazy mass immigration’. It was the issue on which he campaigned during last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections. Unlike Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party, Zemmour barely mentioned the cost of living crisis; immigration and Islam were

Sunday

John Keiger John Keiger

The French riots threaten the state’s very existence

How dangerous are riots to the very existence of the French state? Most commentators avoid the question and concentrate on causes. The more whimsical attribute cause to that clichéd French historical reflex of insurrection; the sociologists to poverty and discrimination in the banlieues (suburbs); the far-left to French institutional racism and right-wing policies; conservative politicians to excess immigration, the ghettoization of France and the state’s retreat from enforcing law and order. But a growing chorus now evokes an unmentionable potential consequence: civil war. Of most concern is that those voices include groups with first-hand knowledge of the state of the country: the police, the army, domestic intelligence. On Friday, following three days

Jawad Iqbal

Prepare for the Saudi tennis takeover

The self-serving ethical blind spots of some of those in charge of running international sport never ceases to amaze. Step forward Andrea Gaudenzi, a former top 20 singles player who now leads the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the global governing body of the men’s circuit. Gaudenzi recently revealed that tennis officials have been in discussions with Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund on projects including events, infrastructure and technology investment. He described the talks  as ‘positive’, before adding predictable reassurances that any investors had to respect the history of the sport. Is there a sport left that stands for anything more than just succumbing to Saudi Arabia’s latest big money

Saturday

Patrick J. Deneen

Why America needs regime change

No sensible reader of the news could look at America and think it is flourishing. Massive economic inequality and the breakdown of family formation have eroded the very foundations of society.  Once-beautiful cities and towns around the nation have succumbed to an ugly blight. Cratering rates of childbirth, rising numbers of ‘deaths of despair,’ widespread addictions to pharmaceuticals and electronic distractions testify to the prevalence of a dull ennui and psychic despair. The older generation has betrayed the younger by saddling it with unconscionable levels of debt. Warnings about both oligarchy and mob rule appear daily on the front pages of newspapers throughout country, as well as throughout the West. A growing chorus of voices reflects on the likelihood

Anna Arutunyan

Putin’s secret weapon is fragility

As the dust settles on Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny that wasn’t, the consensus is clear: Vladimir Putin has been left weakened and vulnerable. Rebellions like this historically spell the beginning of the end of Russian authoritarian regimes, and observers are watching excitedly for signs of more vultures circling the Kremlin. But Putin’s weakness might, conversely, be the reason he clings on to power – at least for now. That Putin was damaged by the events of last weekend seems obvious: a private businessman with an army of just 10,000 men crosses your border, calls you a liar, takes one of your military bases in Rostov, marches on Moscow and shoots down

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is it safe for France to host the Rugby World Cup?

The Rugby World Cup kicks off in just under ten weeks with hosts France playing New Zealand in the Stade de France. The national stadium sits squarely in Seine-Saint-Denis, a district which yesterday was smouldering after a night of anarchy. Shops were looted, cars torched and a bus station destroyed in an orgy of violence that was replicated across the republic.   President Macron cut short a trip to Brussels for a crisis meeting with ministers and security chiefs in Paris on Friday morning, and he reportedly said there will be ‘no taboos’ in doing what is necessary to restore law and order. Further details will be forthcoming but there

Friday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Beijing and Prigozhin: what does China think of the Wagner uprising?

36 min listen

It’s now a week since the Wagner Group revolted against the Kremlin. Though the dramatic uprising was quelled within 24 hours and the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is now exiled to Belarus, the episode will have lasting impact on President Putin’s authority. Among those closely watching the events unfold would have been the Chinese leadership, who sent out a statement of support for Putin, but only after it was clear that the revolt had been put down. What will those in Zhongnanhai make of the Prigozhin uprising? And could something similar happen in China? On the episode, I’m joined by James Palmer, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy and long

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

The truth about ‘affirmative action’

I’ve never cared for the expression ‘affirmative action’, which puts a positive spin on a negative practice: naked, institutionalised racial discrimination – that is, real ‘systemic racism’, which was initiated in the United States long before the expression came into fashion. After all, following the Civil War, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution were expressly added to establish equality under to law for Americans of all races, and a raft of Congressional civil rights legislation has since reinforced this colour-blind principle. Perhaps I risk sounding ungrateful. Still, now the Supreme Court has finally ruled that universities in the US are forbidden from admitting students on the basis of race, my

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France is in danger of descending into anarchy

France endured its worst night of rioting yet on Thursday as violence continued across the country. For the third consecutive evening, youths went on the rampage in most major cities, despite the presence of 40,000 police. Shops were looted, town halls attacked, police stations firebombed and vehicles were hijacked in extraordinary scenes of urban warfare. The police fought running battles with mobs and made 421 arrests, over half of which were in the capital. The epicentre of the anarchy was in Nanterre, in the west of the city, where on Tuesday morning 17-year-old Nahel was shot dead by police as he sped away from a traffic stop.  The officer who

Steerpike Steerpike

Macron hobnobs with Elton John as France burns

France is in chaos after another night of violence sparked by the shooting of a teenager by a Paris policeman. Cars have been torched, roads barricaded and hundreds of people arrested. But while the country’s security forces have been struggling to keep order, France’s president Emmanuel Macron has been keeping himself busy: attending an Elton John concert and posing for backstage pictures with the star and his husband, David Furnish. ‘While France was on fire, Macron was not at the side of his minister of the interior or the police but he preferred to applaud Elton John,’ Thierry Mariani, an MEP for National Rally, said. The picture – of Macron and

Thursday

Andrew Tettenborn

The Rwanda ruling is nothing to cheer about

The government’s loss in its Rwanda appeal spells trouble for Rishi Sunak. But liberals are delighted: ‘Massive result,’ said the barrister Adam Wagner after the Court of Appeal ruled that would-be asylum seekers cannot be sent to the African country while their claims are processed. Sunak plans to seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court – but his pledge to ‘stop the boats’ looks to be in trouble. Or is it? There is more to today’s decision than meets the eye. The victory hardly resounding. Of the five grounds of appeal, ranging from super-technical ones like retained EU law and data protection issues to more general issues of conditions in Rwanda,