World

Tuesday

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Putin’s real threat comes from Russia’s ‘turbo-patriots’

Does Vladimir Putin face a challenge, not from cuddly, West-looking liberals, but from even sharper-toothed nationalists? Certainly this is suddenly the message coming from loyalists. Oleg Matveychev, a parliamentarian and spin doctor, who also has a widely-read blog, has made waves by claiming in an online video that ‘2023 will be very dangerous,’ because of the threat of so-called ‘turbo-patriots.’ Discounting the liberals (who ‘have all run away’), he warned that the turbo-patriots had become ‘the only danger to our state.’ A kleptocratic elite is seeing Putin as bad for business His scenario was that after some new reversals in the war, a combination of disgruntled nationalism, anger at corruption

Daniel Thorpe

Where are the rescuers? Turkey’s earthquake death toll rises above 4,000

Turkey is reeling after a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 2,900 people and left hundreds more injured. More than 1,400 people in northern Syria are also believed to have been killed. The quake, which struck near the city of Gaziantep in southeast Turkey in the early hours of Monday morning, was felt as far away as Lebanon and Jordan, on the far side of the Mediterranean. Another quake of 7.6 magnitude struck the nearby Kahramanmaraş region a few hours later at 13.27 local time (10.27 GMT), according to the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD). The images and video emerging from Turkey, showing flattened buildings and piles

Monday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Have Xinjiang’s camps been closed?

42 min listen

A few months ago, an intriguing article in the Washington Post shed light on the latest situation Xinjiang, the western region of China where the Uighur minority live. The two journalists, Eva Dou and Cate Cadell, saw on their travels around the region last summer that many of the infamous re-education camps had been shut down, or turned into quarantine centres. A new phase of Beijing’s campaign in Xinjiang seems to have started. So what’s really going on there now, and what does this mean for the lives of the Uyghur people? I’m joined by Professor James Millward from Georgetown University, author of Eurasian crossroads: a history of Xinjiang, to find out. Jim had

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Rishi Sunak’s ‘second Brexit’ could save the Tories

There have been two major reactions to reports that Rishi Sunak is ready to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights if that’s what it takes to solve the small boats issue in the Channel. The first, common among denizens of the Westminster village, is surprise that an outwardly conventional product of the system would even contemplate such a radical move. The second, prevalent among disenchanted former Tory voters on social media, is a diamond-hard cynicism that tells them they are being conned again and he will never do it. After 13 consecutive years of Conservative failure to get on top of immigration – either legal or

Sunday

Nicholas Farrell

Giorgia Meloni’s first 100 days have proved her critics wrong

Macho Italy’s first woman prime minister Giorgia Meloni has now governed for 100 days and I cannot help but notice the enormous elephant in the room: the failure of the global media even to acknowledge, let alone apologise for, how wrong they were to warn the world that Italy was on the verge of a far-right, ergo fascist, take-over.   During the election campaign and immediate aftermath the crème de la crème of the world’s media were chock-a-block with warnings that Meloni and her party – Brothers of Italy – were the equivalent of a Biblical plague of locusts in jackboots about to engulf Italy and from there Europe.   These awful people were the heirs to the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, we

Friday

Francis Pike

China and the strange history of balloon warfare

China’s ‘spy’ balloon, (or is it an errant weather balloon?), is currently being tracked across America. Picked up above the Aleutian Islands, it was buzzed by US planes above Montana and is now headed eastwards as it is pushed by the prevailing Jet Stream. The Pentagon has decided not to shoot it down; it does not want debris landing on middle America. China insists the balloon is used for meteorological research and strayed because of bad weather. But the incident has prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone his trip to China that was scheduled for next week. Was the balloon inspired by Japan’s Emperor Hirohito? Starting in

Stephen L. Miller

What is the point of another Trump presidential campaign?

It was always assumed that the moment Donald Trump walked out of the White House on the morning of Joe Biden’s inauguration, he would begin angling for a second non-consecutive term in 2024. A year ago, he launched his own Twitter imitation platform, Truth Social, and then in November he officially launched his presidential campaign. His speech was met with tepid enthusiasm, even by some of his most ardent supporters. The only apparent reason for another Trump candidacy is because he wants to avenge his 2020 loss like a boxer In the weeks since, Trump has spent his time on Truth Social attacking Republicans and prospective rival candidates and once

David Marcus

Gender self-ID and the challenge for America’s children

America’s Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wisely advised this week that thirteen years of age is too young for kids to be on social media. Hear, hear. But we must ask: if thirteen is not old enough for Twitter or Facebook, how is it, according to the Biden administration, totally old enough to opt for life-changing hormone blockers if a child just knows deep down they are a different gender? According to Murthy, thirteen-year-olds are still ‘developing their identity’. Therefore, he rightly reasons, the experience of social media with all of its mean-spiritedness and self-aggrandisement may harm a child who stares too long into its distorted funhouse mirror. But if a thirteen-year-old is

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Europe has lost control of the migrant crisis

Piers Morgan brought out the bulldog in Rishi Sunak during their interview on Thursday evening. ‘If you come here illegally – if you’re an illegal migrant here – then you will not be able to stay here,’ thundered the Prime Minister, in as much as he ever can thunder.  People who arrive in Britain illegally, like the 46,000 who made the journey across the Channel last year, will be deported if they are judged to be ineligible for asylum. Sunak also promised that claims will be heard ‘in a matter of days or weeks, not months or years’. Failed applicants ‘will be sent to an alternative safe country, be that

Nigel Jones

Why Putin is channelling his inner Stalin

Vladimir Putin has journeyed to the southern city of Volgograd – better known by its former name of Stalingrad – to take part in the 80th anniversary celebrations of the great Soviet victory in the city this weekend. The battle was the turning point of the second world war. While there, the Russian president specifically linked his invasion of Ukraine with the Nazi attack on Russia – turning history inside out as he did so. ‘It’s unbelievable but true,’ Putin said. ‘We are again being threatened by German tanks. Again and again we are forced to repel the collective aggression of the West.’ Putin is intentionally preparing the Russian people

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Why won’t the Palestinian ambassador condemn the Jerusalem massacre?

Husam Zomlot is head of the Palestinian mission to London and an adviser to the country’s president Mahmoud Abbas, currently in the 18th year of his four-year term. Zomlot was interviewed by Sky News’s Kay Burley this week in response to Burley’s interview with Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to Britain. Both interviewees were asked about the synagogue murders in Jerusalem last Friday, in which seven Israelis were killed. They were also asked about a prior Israeli raid on an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell in Jenin, which killed ten Palestinians, including a civilian woman. At the outset of the interview, Zomlot complained about Hotovely’s characterisation of the synagogue murders. He accused his counterpart

Thursday

Terry Barnes

Why is Australia’s bank snubbing King Charles?

Traditionally, the reigning monarch has appeared on the lowest denomination of Australia’s banknotes. It is a practice that harks back to the pound notes of pre-decimal days. It was even maintained by the Reserve Bank when the one-dollar note was replaced by a gold coin in the 1980s, and the Queen took the colonial philanthropist Caroline Chisholm’s place on the $5 note. This was controversial at the time, but only briefly. Before long, the Queen’s place on the $5 note was fully accepted. This remained so until her death in September. Today, however, our central bank showed its tin political ear with its announcement that the image of the late

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Shame on the Cardinal Pell funeral protesters

In Sydney today, the LGBT movement had its Westboro Baptist Church moment. It protested at someone’s funeral. Like that cranky religious sect in the US that noisily demonstrates at the funerals of soldiers, LGBT activists waved placards calling the deceased a ‘monster’ and ‘scum’. They chanted for him to ‘go to hell’. ‘Burn in hell’, said one banner. ‘Nonce’, said another. It was a truly disturbing spectacle. A new low in identity politics. It was Cardinal Pell’s funeral. Pell was Australia’s most important Catholic leader. He served as Archbishop of Melbourne and later as Archbishop of Sydney. He then went to Rome where he was Secretariat for the Economy in

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Workers striking, economy shrinking and Tesco buys Paperchase

Home Teachers went on strike. Train drivers and railway workers went on strike for two days, with a day’s rest in between. Civil servants belonging to the Public and Commercial Services Union went on strike, including some who work for Border Force. Firemen voted to go on strike. Nurses and ambulance staff decided to go on strike next week. During a visit to Darlington, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, told an audience of health workers: ‘I would love, nothing would give me more pleasure, than to wave a magic wand and have everyone, all of you, paid lots more.’ The Commons voted for a bill to impose minimum service levels

Owen Matthews

One year on: how will the Ukraine war end?

In early October 2021 President Joe Biden, the CIA director William Burns and other top members of the US’s national security team gathered in the Oval Office to hear a disturbing briefing from US military chief General Mark Milley. ‘Extraordinary detailed’ intelligence gathered by western spy agencies suggested that Vladimir Putin might be planning to invade Ukraine. According to briefing notes that Milley shared with the Washington Post, the first and most fundamental problem facing Biden was how to ‘underwrite and enforce the rules-based international order’ against a country with extraordinary nuclear capability ‘without going to World War 3’. Milley offered four possible answers: ‘No. 1: Don’t have a kinetic

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Joe Biden puts America First on electric vehicles

A trade war is brewing between the United States and its closest allies. When Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal markets commissioner, pulled out of a summit with US officials just before Christmas, he complained that the agenda ‘no longer gives sufficient space to issues of concern to many European industry ministers and businesses’. A few days before, Emmanuel Macron cornered senator Joe Manchin in Washington DC. ‘You’re hurting my country’, the French president told Manchin. The senator was given a similarly frosty reception at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Germany’s Olaf Scholz and Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel accosted him caustically. The Europeans are upset about Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Ukraine will not compromise

Among Ukrainians, there is little debate about how the war will end. The overwhelming consensus is that it cannot conclude until Russia has been fully repelled, and Ukraine’s borders are returned to the 1991 frontier when independence was declared after the Soviet Union collapsed. This means removing Russian troops from Crimea and the self-proclaimed republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region. Of course this is not an easy mission. But for Ukrainians, the alternative is unthinkable. The mass graves uncovered in Bucha have shown us what Russian occupation means. We have also seen, in the broken promises of the Minsk agreements, what any truce with Vladimir Putin is

The Spectator

What’s moved the Doomsday Clock the most?

The final countdown The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved its ‘Doomsday Clock’ from 100 seconds to midnight to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it has ever been to our apparent annihilation. How close was it during other periods of history? Cuban missile crisis, 1962 The standoff between the US and the Soviet Union brought the world to the brink, yet it was apparently a time of optimism compared with today – a few months later the clock was moved back from 7 to 12 minutes. Chernobyl, 1986 The world’s worst nuclear accident didn’t register on the clock: the hands were not moved for two more years, and then

Douglas Murray

America’s colour blindness

How many black cops does it take to commit a racist hate crime? The latest correct answer is ‘five’. That’s the number of policemen in Memphis who have been fired and charged with second-degree murder for the killing of Tyre Nichols. Last month Nichols, who was himself black, was pulled over by the officers. They proceeded to kick him, pepper-spray him, hit him and repeatedly baton him. He died in hospital three days later. Of course, if the Memphis officers had been white, American cities would be being burned and smashed to the ground again, as they were three years ago after the death of George Floyd. On that occasion

Rana Mitter

Japan’s plans for an anti-China alliance

As the world’s attention focused last month on whether to send tanks to Ukraine, Japan’s Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, was on a whistle-stop tour of the West. He held various meetings with G7 leaders, including Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden. His objective was clear: to create a new alliance that can counter China. Japan has been forming a ‘Quad’ with Australia, India and the US on naval manoeuvres  Japan adopted a ‘peace constitution’ in 1947 when it was occupied by the US, pledging that the country would never again wage war. For the past half a century, the military budget was capped at 1 per cent of GDP, and Japan