World

Tuesday

Jimmy Nicholls

Childfree zealots are anti-humanity

Few things in life are more French than a dispute animée about holidays. While the Spanish enjoy an easy relationship with mañana and the Italians savour il dolce far niente (sweet idleness), the French will incite a riot over any threat to their leisure time faster than you can say faire une pause. It’s therefore little surprise to witness the ardourof government officials in condemning childfree resorts, a rare but growing feature of French holidaymaking. Saint-Delis in Normandy is but one hotel offering an ‘ever more exclusive and peaceful experience’ with ‘absolute relaxation’ for only €334 a night. Much of this comes downstream of intellectual attempts to paint child-rearing as a

Owen Matthews

The Ukraine summit ignored the difficult questions

What a lovely meeting Volodymyr Zelensky and his European allies had with Donald Trump. The US President complimented Zelensky on his outfit, German Chancellor Merz on his ‘great tan’, and said that Finnish President Alexander Stubb was ‘looking better than I’ve ever seen you look!’ Everyone – especially Zelensky – laughed uproariously at all Trump’s jokes. And all eight leaders present were at great pains to pretend that they were on the same page when it came to achieving peace in Ukraine.  But there was one small thing missing from this White House festival of bonhomie and mutual flattery, and that was a substantive discussion of the actual nuts and

Monday

Madeline Grant

Trump-Zelensky II went off without a hitch

Not since Barack Obama held a press conference dressed as the Man from Del Monte has a suit played such a critical role in US politics. But there it was, after the spring press conference incident, President Zelensky arrived in Washington DC wearing a suit. The YMCA-loving Trump administration is hardly batting off the accusations of campery given its fixation with menswear. Still, Zelensky came, as did all of Europe.  All the handshakes went off without a hitch, although the size difference meant that the visuals were slightly more redolent of panto than high diplomatic drama. Zelensky handed a letter from his wife to the First Lady, thanking her for

Nicholas Farrell

Is Italy really doing better than Britain?

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna News that Italians now enjoy a higher standard of living than the British made me think: my God, life must be truly awful in Britain. Yes, the Italians do have much to feel good about in terms of the quality of their lives thanks to the beauty of their country, the splendour of their history, culture and cuisine, and their impressive defence of the traditional family and way of life from the threats to them of the modern world. When I’m drinking, I buy a superb local Sangiovese for €2.60 a litre dispensed into plastic mineral water bottles from a huge cask in a wine shop in

Tatyana Kekic

Serbia is descending into violence

Belgrade There are two kinds of Balkan crises: the ones that actually happen, and the ones that feel inevitable until they fizzle out. Serbia’s current descent into street violence and political dysfunction is somewhere in between. Whether it ends in fresh elections, implosion, or continued chaos depends on one man. Sit-ins and marches have given way to nightly clashes between anti-government protesters on one side and pro-regime thugs and riot police on the other. In the past week, long-running student protests against the government of President Aleksandar Vucic have turned into something far less orderly. Sit-ins and marches have given way to nightly clashes between anti-government protesters on one side

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why Putin wants Donetsk

Will Ukraine’s fate depend on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka? These may not be household names, but they are the four key ‘fortress cities’ in the remaining portions of Donetsk region that Vladimir Putin is reportedly demanding as the price for peace. Although the details are still unclear, it seems that the framework for a peace deal agreed in outline between Putin and Trump would see the Russians agreeing to freeze the current front line. They could maybe even hand back some small sections of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions they have conquered in return for Kyiv surrendering the much larger portion of Donetsk region it still holds. Territorial

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Has France got what it takes to stand up to the Islamists?

In the early 1990s, an underground organisation was launched called the Barbie Liberation Movement (BLM). Its mission statement was a ‘commitment to challenging malign systems’, by which it meant the patriarchy. The BLM was inspired by a talking Barbie doll, launched in 1992, who had 270 platitudes, one of which was ‘math class is tough’. Outraged feminist groups forced Mattel Inc, the makers of Barbie, to remove what they described as a sexist slur. Now, though, may be the hour for the Barbie Liberation Movement to reform and once more fight the patriarchy. This time, however, the patriarchy is different. It no longer consists of ageing white men with their

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Hamas is using Israel’s protests as a weapon of war

Israel is caught in a tragic paradox: the finest qualities that define its national character – its compassion, solidarity, and moral responsibility – are exploited by adversaries who recognise in these virtues not strength, but vulnerability. As over half a million Israelis joined a nationwide strike yesterday, demanding a ceasefire and the return of hostages from Gaza, it was impossible not to be moved by the depth of feeling, the urgency of the appeals, and the sheer moral weight of the demand. Yet what moves one side to tears hardens the heart of the other, moving them to ruthless calculation. The protests are genuine, justified, and born of unbearable grief, but

Eliot Wilson

Starmer’s coalition of the willing has been saved from itself

It is commonplace to accuse politicians of being out of touch. There is often some truth in the charge, and our elected representatives take it on the chin. One of the least likely politicians to face this charge has always been John Healey: the defence secretary has been one of the most sensible and pragmatic ministers in Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet – not a high bar, admittedly. And yet there are signs that he has succumbed to the Ministry of Defence’s corrosive habit of dealing with the world as it wants it to be, not as it is. Our armed forces are in no position to deploy significant numbers of

Sunday

Patrick Gibbons

The uncomfortable history of Narva

The Alaska talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin might have happened on American territory, but the symbolism of their location is a win for the Russian President. Alaska is considerably closer to Russia than it is to the rest of mainland America, and it was once a Russian territory. Putin was returning to a land previously conquered by his people. On Russia’s opposite border, to the west, it is Russia’s imperial past, and Putin’s twisted view of shared history, that worries Europeans. Narva, Estonia’s third largest city, is a strange place, and seems even stranger since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Narva river – from which the city

Liz Walsh

How Ireland became a haven for Hezbollah’s cocaine

In the end, it was a combination of the Irish weather, European maritime intelligence and engine trouble that scuppered a massive Hezbollah-cartel drugs shipment. The Irish government’s failure to patrol the coastline has made Ireland a safe harbour for the fast-evolving drug trafficking network merging terror and narco finance. It is a safe bet that this was not the first or the last shipment to use Ireland as a gateway to the lucrative European market Hezbollah’s involvement in the transnational drugs trade to fund its war against Israel is well documented, with the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam its main conduit into Europe. But evidence from an Irish court last month

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Xi’s purge is expanding

Of all those who have been purged by President Xi Jinping, disappearing into the communist party’s vast network of black jails, Liu Jianchao is one of the most intriguing. He has held a number of top roles in the party apparatus – including in overseas influence operations and in running a shadowy department that sought to track down overseas exiles and ‘persuade’ them to return home, using methods that ranged from intimidation and even abduction to threatening family members still in China. He was also tipped to be the next foreign minister. Liu will also know that corruption crackdowns are rarely solely about corruption, but a smokescreen for all manner

John Foreman

Mounting Russian deaths will not deter Putin

In June, a grim milestone passed. The Ministry of Defence said that one million Russians had been killed or wounded in Ukraine. The Guardian reported that fatalities alone are ‘five times higher than the combined death toll from all Soviet and Russian wars’ after 1945. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, stated that Russia had already lost ‘100,000 soldiers – dead – not injured’ this year. Yet the unmentionable odour of death offends the Russian night. In Moscow, the milestone passed without official remark. The soaring butcher’s bill has not, as some naively still hope, been matched by large-scale public unrest. Although, like the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Putin’s war in Ukraine

Saturday

Owen Matthews

The 12 minutes of the Trump-Putin summit that shook the world

The Trump-Putin press conference in Anchorage was 12 minutes that shook the world. Putin got precisely what he wanted, which was full personal rehabilitation as a respectable world leader. Donald Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin and at the presser said that he had ‘always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir.’ And though no deal was done over Ukraine, what Putin achieved was something far more valuable – a re-set of relations between Russia and the US. Putin admitted that bilateral ties had fallen to the ‘lowest point since the Cold War’ but called for both sides to move on. ‘Not far from here

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Did Putin get the upper hand in Alaska?

Donald Trump hasn’t left his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska with a deal to end the war in Ukraine. He told reporters that ‘great progress’ was made but ‘we didn’t get there’. To discuss who really got the upper hand, Freddy Gray is joined by Spectator associate editor and Russia correspondent Owen Matthews.

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

The Alaska summit doesn’t look good for Ukraine

And just like that, the highly-anticipated summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska has been and gone, seemingly without very much at all to show for it. The two presidents met in Anchorage yesterday for what Trump had touted as a ‘feel-out’ meeting to lay the groundwork for negotiations to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine. But despite Trump rating the tête-à-tête a ten out of ten – ‘in the sense that we got along great’ – on substance, the American president has come away with little to prove that Putin is any closer to stopping his invasion. The signs for Ukraine don’t look promising. Trump has

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Putin was the real winner of the Alaska summit

Vladimir Putin couldn’t stop smiling at the spectacle awaiting him in Anchorage yesterday, as American soldiers knelt to adjust a red carpet rolled out from his presidential plane. Donald Trump applauded as the Russian President walked towards him under the roar of fighter jets and stepped onto American soil for the first time in a decade. The pair shook hands for the cameras, ignoring a journalist who shouted, ‘Mr Putin, will you stop killing civilians?’ before riding off together in the presidential limo to the summit site. A royal reception, not a ceasefire, was what the international pariah had come out of his bunker for. Putin emerged from international isolation

Dalibor Rohac

The good, the bad and the ugly of the Trump-Putin summit

The three-hour Friday summit in Alaska between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin ended as well as it conceivably could have ended: as a big nothingburger. But that does not mean that Ukraine and its supporters can breathe a sigh of relief. Trump may be unhappy that the prospect of his Nobel Peace Prize remains elusive as Putin has not agreed to an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. But it is far from clear that he will end up directing his anger against Russia. The US president neither understands nor cares about understanding Putin’s motives and the threat he poses to the world To be sure, it is a good thing that

James Tidmarsh

The sad decline of the French village fête

France’s village fêtes are disappearing. A survey by the association Les Plus Belles Fêtes de France found that in just four years, nearly a third are no longer held. Once the highlight of rural life, they’re now falling victim to shrinking municipal budgets, falling household income, a chronic shortage of volunteers, endless administrative obstacles and rising security fears. In some places, tension between communities has turned violent. Only two summers ago, a teenager was murdered when a group of young men arrived to disrupt a fête. Elsewhere, fights break out so regularly that prefects now warn mayors to be ‘particularly vigilant’ during celebrations. For centuries, the fête was a rare

Antony Beevor

Is the world safer than in 1945?

11 min listen

80 years ago this week Japan surrendered to the allies, ushering in the end of the Second World War. To mark the anniversary of VJ day, historians Sir Antony Beevor and Peter Frankopan join James Heale to discuss its significance. As collective memory of the war fades, are we in danger of forgetting its lessons? And, with rising state-on-state violence and geopolitical flashpoints, is the world really safer today than in 1945? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.