World

Wednesday

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Are we kidding ourselves over Ukraine?

Optimism can be surprisingly hilarious. In my last novel, two spouses agree to quit the planet once they’ve both turned 80, and the book explores a dozen possible outcomes of their pact. No chapter made me chuckle at the keyboard more than ‘Once Upon a Time in Lambeth’ – in which the couple don’t kill themselves but live to 110 in perfect health because they eat their vegetables. Young people flock to their table for advice, as my protagonists grow only wiser and more physically riveting in old age. Meanwhile, modern monetary theory makes everything free. Limitless energy is derived from carbon dioxide. A new portmanteau religion, ‘Jeslam’, eliminates Islamist

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

The truth about Martin Luther King

Why does the United States seem to be falling apart? The ideal that used to bring Americans together seems to have failed in some way. ‘Liberty and justice for all’ is the best summary. Sure, it was always a frail creed, and interpretations of it differed, but still. It semi-worked. The creed failed in a very paradoxical way. It was voiced too well, too purely. Its greatest articulator was Dr Martin Luther King, who is commemorated with a US national holiday celebrated on Monday. (Ronald Reagan signed Martin Luther King Day into law in 1983, in less sectarian times.) The problem, of course, was that Dr King was black. Half

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Has China admitted failure for zero Covid?

Why did China end its zero Covid policy so abruptly? This question has confounded China-watchers and even the Chinese people over the last month. For the last three years, the Chinese government dictated its people’s lives to an extent unseen since the Cultural Revolution. Zero Covid had become part of Xi Jinping’s political legacy. It was touted as proof of socialism’s concern for human life, compared to capitalist indifference. And yet, almost inexplicably, zero Covid ended pretty much overnight at the beginning of December. For the first time ever, the Chinese government appears to have admitted the real reason – zero Covid was failing to control the Omicron variant. In

Andrew Tettenborn

Ron DeSantis is the Republican party’s best hope

Florida governor Ron DeSantis is shaping up as the GOP’s best hope for next year’s US presidential election. Large parts of his popular appeal are his open attack on (now fairly well-established) left-wing infiltration in education and to some extent in commerce, and his expressed intention to make Florida the state ‘where woke goes to die’. Hitherto his success has been limited. But recently there have been signs that he may be learning from his mistakes. His troubles started with a failure to grasp that a direct legal attack on left-wing influence, however electorally popular, was likely to be doomed. However fed up Floridians might be with the spoutings of left-wing professors

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Will Mexico help Biden stop illegal immigration?

27 min listen

President Biden is visiting Mexico this week to meet with President Obrador, and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada. Biden is expected to bring up illegal immigration with Obrador, and hopes that he can offer him some way out of what is becoming a spiralling crisis. But is any help coming? Freddy Gray speaks to Todd Bensman, author of the upcoming book Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Biggest Border Crisis in US History.

James Snell

Is this the real reason Russia is trying to seize Bakhmut from Ukraine?

Bakhmut is not of immense strategic importance. It’s a backwater, empty of almost all civilian life, and largely in ruins. But the city is where Ukraine’s war of self-defence has been at its most intense for months.  The defenders are suffering, under a hail of artillery fire and under constant threat of attack. But the Russians are losing more. Almost daily, it seems, Putin’s forces advance without cover across a moonscape torn with shell-holes. They are cut down in their tens every time. The front line has barely moved in weeks. Russian bodies, uncollected in the cold, litter the surrounding fields.   To Ukrainians and their allies, these suicidal attacks are no longer simply foolish. They

Limor Simhony Philpott

Why does Israel want to patch things up with Russia?

Is Israel cosying up to Russia? When Eli Cohen, Israel’s foreign minister, spoke to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov last week, it was the first such call between the countries’ foreign ministers since the start of the war in Ukraine. Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs, Cohen said, was planning to establish a new ‘responsible’ policy with regard to the country and ‘talk less’ about the war in public. The announcement of the call caused a frenzy, with speculation that Israel wants to adopt a pro-Russia policy. It prompted a public admonition from senior Republican senator, and ally of Israel’s newly reinaugurated prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Lindsey Graham. Graham tweeted ‘The idea that Israel should speak less about Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine is a bit unnerving.’ He continued, calling Lavrov ‘a

Monday

Andrew Downie

Can Lula use the pro-Bolsonaro riots to unite Brazil?

A week is a long time in politics. Just ask Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.  On 1 January this year he was greeted by adoring crowds at Brasilia’s presidential palace after being sworn in for a four-year term. Seven days later that same building had been overrun by far-right insurrectionists intent on overthrowing him. The incredible scenes in Brasilia were almost a carbon copy of the Trump insurrection of 6 January 2021, bar a few key details.  First, the North America mob wanted to prevent Joe Biden taking power. In Brazil, Lula was already in office, having replaced Jair Bolsonaro after winning a narrow election victory in October. Second,

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Should Confucius Institutes be shut down?

30 min listen

Should Confucius Institutes be shut down? There are hundreds of these centres across six continents, funded by the Ministry of Education, with the stated goal of public education on and cultural promotion of China. They offer classes on language, history and culture of China, and some would say they help to plug a crucial shortage of Chinese language skills in host countries, especially across the West.  And yet, these have become deeply controversial. Criticism of the institutes range from their CCP-sanctioned curriculum which do not include sensitive topics, to allegations of espionage and erosion of academic independence with Confucius Institutes as the core. Sweden closed all of its CIs two

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France is losing patience with Macron

When the Sunday newspaper, Le Journal Du Dimanche, recently published its annual list of France’s fifty most popular personalities, politicians barely got a look in. Only two made the cut: Emmanuel Macron, at number 35, and Marine Le Pen, at 48. When the list was first published in 1988 the president of France was François Mitterrand, ranked third, one of fifteen political figures that year.  Frédéric Dabi, the head of IFOP, the polling company responsible for the annual list, explained that its changing composition was telling. ‘It is a reflection of the society’s mistrust towards its politicians,’ he said, noting that conversely admiration for scientists, sports stars and comedians had

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

In pictures: Bolsonaro supporters storm Brazil’s presidential palace

A few days after the anniversary of the 6 January events in Washington DC, thousands of Jair Bolsonaro supporters stormed Brazil’s congress, its presidential palace and supreme court to protest against the inauguration of Lula da Silva. They were evicted within hours, but that they got so far – in the face of a heavy military police presence – made worldwide news. Here are pictures of events as they unfolded: 3:30 p.m. local time: Protesters dressed in Brazil’s national green and yellow colours are repelled with tear gas outside Planalto Palace, official residence of the Brazilian president. Da Silva, 77, himself was not in the city yesterday, visiting flood victims

Saturday

Gabriel Gavin Gabriel Gavin

Russia’s military disaster could lead to famine in the Caucasus

Two years ago, 13-year-old singer Maléna was rehearsing for Eurovision Junior when war broke out. While her rivals battled in Warsaw on stage, she stayed home in Armenia. Young men picked up AK-47s to fight against their Azerbaijani neighbours in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. More than 4,000 never returned. A year later, Maléna re-entered Eurovision Junior and won, giving her country the right to host Eurovision Junior in December 2022. Armenian authorities staged celebrations in the capital, Yerevan. Crowds huddled around outdoor televisions in the central square to watch the show. A group of young musicians from Nagorno-Karabakh joined the party in Yerevan, coming into the capital on the

Friday

Robin Ashenden

The Russian conscription adverts that show Putin is losing the plot

‘War is the realm of uncertainty’, said the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz, and this would seem to apply very well to affairs in Russia at the moment. Following September’s shock ‘partial mobilisation’, rumours have swirled around since of another mass-mobilisation due imminently. Having got Russian New Year (the country’s main December celebration) out of the way, there were fears that Putin might announce the conscription of several hundred thousand more men.  This assumption was based on several factors, not least Putin’s original refusal to limit the mobilisation and the predictions of Ukrainian intelligence – who said 5 January was earmarked for a second wave. A public demand, recently

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Putin violates his own Christmas ceasefire in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s 36 hour ceasefire in Ukraine, which came into effect at noon today, didn’t last long: less than two hours in, the Russian army broke it. The temporary truce had been announced yesterday by the Russian president to allow soldiers and civilians to celebrate Orthodox Christmas and attend church.  But shortly before 2pm local time, air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine, including in the capital Kyiv. Artillery fire and shelling were reported in the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, later confirmed by the Ukrainian presidential administration. One unverified video quickly surfaced, showing two Ukrainian soldiers who claimed to be recording the sound of shelling

Charles Lister

Isis and the ticking time bomb facing the West

You thought Isis was old news. The world celebrated its territorial defeat nearly four years ago. The group that once controlled an area the size of the UK had been battered by more than 30,000 airstrikes, and tens of thousands of its militants had been killed. It was over. Really, though, the war against Isis never stopped. The US military has just announced that last year some 700 Isis militants were killed and 400 captured in operations in Iraq and Syria. The group was responsible for more than 500 attacks on Iraqi and Syrian soil. Isis is not going away. When Isis was ‘defeated’ at Baghouz in eastern Syria in March

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Rishi Sunak will fail his migrant mission – but it’s not his fault

Suella Braverman sparked a backlash last November when she described the number of small boats crossing the Channel as an ‘invasion’. The chattering classes objected to the ‘inflammatory language’ of the Home Secretary rather than the fact that 45,756 people entered Britain illegally in 2022.  The provocative word this month is ‘infinite’, used by a government source in admitting that even if Britain did stem the flow of Albanians crossing the Channel there are many thousands more migrants desperate to make it to Britain. ‘Their places on the boats would be filled by Somalis, Eritreans or Afghans who can’t afford to pay as much as the Albanians,’ they explained. The

Thursday

Winston Marshall

Does Jordan Peterson need to be re-educated?

Dr Jordan Peterson, the renowned clinical psychologist, is being ordered off to re-education camp. The regulatory board in his Canadian home province – the College of Psychologists of Ontario – has demanded Peterson undertake a social media ‘coaching program’. All for the very 21st century crime of tweeting the wrong opinions. What exactly were the tweets? Peterson, a professor turned multi-million copy best-selling author, has amassed an unprecedented following in the history of psychology. He hosts one of the world’s leading podcasts, has sold millions of tickets to live talks and has over 15 million followers across social media. With an unerring personal commitment to speak his mind on cultural

Alexander Larman

The war between the Windsors hits a new low

It was inevitable, with a book as highly anticipated as Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, that there would be a leak of its contents ahead of its release next week. Given the Duke of Sussex’s antipathy towards his family, it is fitting that the newspaper that landed this exclusive is the republican-leaning Guardian. Nonetheless, it is something of a marmalade-dropper to see the headline ‘Prince Harry details physical attack by brother William in new book.’ We might have thought we have heard all the details of the acrimonious relationship between the two royal siblings before: clearly, there is still more to come. The accusation is an unedifying one. Harry describes how,

Wednesday

Damian Reilly Damian Reilly

UFC boss Dana White can’t survive his wife-slapping scandal

Mike Tyson is said once to have claimed the best punch he’d ever thrown was one he landed on actress and model Robin Givens, when she was his wife. ‘Man, I’ll never forget that punch’, his biographer quoted him as saying in 1988. ‘She really offended me and I went bam, and she flew backward, hitting every wall in the apartment.’ The late eighties were different to the times we currently inhabit, but it’s worth noting that, when it was published, the biography didn’t seem to do Tyson’s career a great deal of harm. Before retiring in 2005, in fact, and notwithstanding a three-year stretch in prison for rape, Tyson

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Moscow is playing a risky blame game in Makiivka

At one minute past midnight on 1 January, as Putin uttered the last words of his new year’s address, Ukraine sent six Himars rockets into the Russian-occupied territory of Donetsk. Four landed on a vocational school in the town of Makiivka, which had been acting as a temporary Russian military base, reducing its buildings to rubble. The domestic fallout for Russia is proving messy. From the moment they announced news of the strike, the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has made considerable efforts to downplay the death toll and pin the blame for the incident on the dead Russian soldiers themselves. They, the MoD says, are the reason Ukraine knew where to find them. On 2 January,