World

Tuesday

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Watch: Trump hints at comeback after FBI raid

Love him or loathe him, Donald Trump is a brilliant political opportunist. And the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate last night may have handed the former president a significant boost in any future run for the White House. Speculation is rife that The Donald will have another shot at the presidency – and the dramatic events of the last 24 hours have catapulted Trump back into the headlines.  To no one’s surprise, Trump is making the most of being back in the limelight, releasing an apocalyptic campaign video this morning in which he paints a picture of an America in decline.  Trump’s message of doom and gloom depicts the United States as a ‘failing nation’, forced

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Belarus’s opposition leader on her plan to take down Lukashenko

On this day in 2020, Belarus held presidential elections. Standing against the dictatorial incumbent of 26 years Alexandr Lukashenko was Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. An unlikely candidate, English teacher Tsikhanouskaya decided to stand for election in place of her vlogger husband Siarhei, who was arrested and subsequently jailed for 18 years after the authorities refused to register his own candidacy for the contest. Dismissed as a threat by Lukashenka on account of being a ‘housewife’, Tsikhanouskaya was permitted to run. Hugely underestimated, her rallies attracted tens of thousands of supporters, making them the largest in Belarus’s post-Soviet history. Despite unofficial polling indicating Tsikhanouskaya had won with as much as 60 per cent

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Rationing and blackouts are a possibility this winter

The debate about energy in the UK has largely concentrated on just how high prices will go. This is understandable given how seismic the October and January increases in the energy price cap are likely to be. But today’s announcement from Norway that it will prioritise refilling domestic reservoirs over exporting hydropower to countries like the UK is a reminder that supply may soon become an issue too. In a crisis, borders reassert themselves as Covid showed. What happened with PPE and medical supplies during the pandemic may well happen with energy this winter. This is a concern for the UK given that it imports large quantities of energy during the

Mateusz Morawiecki

War in Ukraine has exposed the truth about Europe

The war in Ukraine has exposed the truth about Russia. Many refused to see that Vladimir Putin’s state still has imperialist tendencies. Now they have to face the fact that, in Russia, the demons of the 19th and 20th centuries have been revived: nationalism, colonialism, and totalitarianism. But the war in Ukraine has also exposed the truth about Europe. European leaders allowed themselves to be lured by Vladimir Putin. In the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine, they are in shock. Yet the return of Russian imperialism should come as no surprise. Russia had been rebuilding its position slowly for almost two decades, right under the nose of the West. Instead of maintaining

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Ukrainians aren’t surprised by Amnesty’s victim-blaming

Is Amnesty International victim-blaming? The Ukrainian military has been endangering civilians, it said, by establishing military bases and putting weapons systems in residential areas. Agnès Callamard, the organisation’s secretary-general, remarked that ‘being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law’. It was a bizarre statement. Russian forces are attacking villages and large cities with dense populations. The Ukrainian armed forces can’t sit in a field, or put their weapons on a boat and sail away from coastal cities. As well as the morality of shifting the blame on to the aggressor, Amnesty’s statement doesn’t recognise the realities of the war situation. It is

Ross Clark Ross Clark

How did climate doomsters get the Great Barrier Reef so wrong?

We are, of course, in the midst of a ‘climate emergency’ and the ‘sixth mass extinction’ of life on Earth. It is just that one of the iconic victims doesn’t seem to be playing ball just at the moment. As recently as May, environmentalists were warning that the Great Barrier Reef, the 1,500-mile coral structure off the coast of Queensland, was being doomed by warming seas. It was reported to be suffering a ‘mass bleaching’ – where the plants which live on the reef and provide food for it die off. The blame was put on warmer seas. Worse, this was the first mass bleaching event to occur in a

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Taiwan tells China: we’re not scared

China has launched a new round of military drills near Taiwan, having previously announced they were ending on Sunday. The People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command said it was ‘continuing joint training under real war conditions, focused on organising joint anti-submarine warfare and naval strikes’. A social media account of the nationalist tabloid Global Times said exercises around Taiwan might continue, since the summer is a popular drill season for the PLA. Taiwan said it was closely monitoring the exercises, but that so far Monday no Chinese ships or aircraft had entered its territorial waters. Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, said in an interview with the American broadcaster CNN that

Ross Clark Ross Clark

How vulnerable are Ukraine’s nuclear power stations to attack?

For years, security services have worried about terrorists unleashing a ‘dirty bomb’ – where a conventional explosive is used to spread radioactive material over a large area. Russian forces now stand accused of threatening a similar form of warfare in Ukraine: attacking a nuclear power station with conventional weapons. Shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station on the Dneiper River in the south of the country over the weekend is not believed to have released any radiation, although it did damage some equipment and one worker has been reported injured. However, the possibilities for causing havoc by attacking nuclear stations is very clear. As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned

Christopher Booth

Do ‘ordinary Russians’ support the war?

There was a whiteboard in the BBC Baghdad bureau for noting down phrases we hoped to ban from the airwaves. It had nothing to do with political correctness or self-censorship. This was all about self-improvement. The list of words was titled ‘Not Martha Gellhorn’, in honour of the veteran war reporter who wrote so well – especially when compared with us. We were perfectly aware of our shortcomings, though, and strove to do better, with the whiteboard serving as an aide memoire. It helped keep the prose fresh when deadlines were hectic, and when the temptation was to reach for the cliché closest to hand. We were keen not to put

Saturday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Britain should follow Trump’s lead over Jerusalem

Liz Truss has signalled a historic shift in British foreign policy by saying she would review the location of the UK’s embassy in Israel in order to strengthen ties with the Jewish state. The announcement came in a letter sent by the Tory leadership candidate to Conservative Friends of Israel. The Foreign Secretary writes: ‘I understand the importance and sensitivity of the location of the British Embassy in Israel. I’ve had many conversations with my good friend Prime Minister Lapid on this topic. Acknowledging that, I will review a move to ensure we are operating on the strongest footing within Israel.’ The British Embassy is currently situated in Tel Aviv,

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Ukraine’s fate may rest on a mild winter

Russia is once again relying on ‘General Winter’. Instead of freezing German advances on Moscow, the plan today is to freeze German pensioners in Berlin. Western sanctions are crippling the Russian economy, driving up inflation and unemployment. In turn, Russian restrictions on gas are driving energy prices in Europe through the roof. Putin’s gamble is that Russia’s willingness to bear economic hardship is higher than the West’s. By winter, Europe could find itself in a literal cold war. Russia is currently throttling gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which is operating at just 20 per cent capacity. Restricted supply is driving energy prices up across Europe, while the threat

Friday

Thomas Lorman

Viktor Orbán’s Texas rodeo

Say what you want about Viktor Orbán, but he gives a good speech. His address on Thursday in Dallas on the opening day of CPAC, the annual jamboree of the American right wing, was wide-ranging, hard-hitting and quite funny. One of his best jokes – paraphrasing Pope Francis – was ‘that Hungary was the official language of heaven because it takes an eternity to learn’. It also happens to be nonsense. Hungarian is recognised as considerably easier to learn than Arabic or Mandarin, but Orbán doesn’t do nuance. In fact, the entirety of his speech was about drawing an unbridgeable distinction between the ‘Judeao-Christian’ values of himself and his audience on one

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Pelosi’s swansong: the Taiwanese view on her fleeting visit

25 min listen

Nancy Pelosi’s controversial trip to Taiwan made headlines across the world this week, after President Xi’s warnings to the US ‘not to play with fire’. Furious, Beijing has responded with economic sanctions and a flurry of missiles over and around the island, as well as sanctioning Pelosi and her family. But as the West frets about possible escalation, often lacking from the discussion is what Taiwanese people actually think. In fact, as Taipei-based journalist Brian Hioe explains to Cindy Yu in this episode, most people there were less worried about the visit than you might expect. ‘There’s been so much in terms of Chinese military drilling or activity directed at

Nigel Jones

Is Putin using a body double?

Ever since his invasion of Ukraine in February, the world’s media has been awash with rumours that Vladimir Putin is seriously – perhaps terminally – ill. There has been constant speculation that the Russian President has cancer, or Parkinson’s Disease, or both. Now Ukraine’s Head of Military Intelligence, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, has thrown another rumour into the swirling mix – claiming on TV that Putin regularly uses one or more body doubles, and may even have been impersonated by one of them at his recent summit meeting in Tehran with Turkey’s President Erdogan. As proof of his theory, Budanov cited the shape of Putin’s ears which he claimed has

Dalibor Rohac

Orbán is doubling down on Russian energy

Viktor Orbán’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, delivered everything the audience could have asked for. From an emphasis on ‘winning’, through an equivalence between the modern-day left and Cold War communism, to extolling the virtues of Hungary’s border ‘wall’, he covered it all. Its concluding segment, dedicated to Russia’s war against Ukraine, however, was significant by what it conveniently omitted: Hungary’s deepening energy dependence on Russia. Of course, nobody at CPAC was going to give Orbán a hard time over the fact that, his expression of solidarity with Ukraine notwithstanding, Hungary continues to import 65 percent of its oil and 85 percent of its

Thursday

Sean Thomas

Why is The New York Times so obsessed with loathing Britain?

They’ve done it again in the grey building on 826 Eighth Avenue, New York City, NY, USA. They – the editors of the New York Times – have launched a tumultuous broadside against the most degraded, pathetic, hopeless, rancid, ugly, stupid, ridiculous, doomed and offensively anti-democratic country in the entire world. That is to say, the United Kingdom. This particular fusillade is quite something. Under the shouting headline The Fantasy of Brexit Britain Is Over, the author – Richard Seymour (and we shall come back to him) – serves up a grand, all-you-can-eat buffet of UK hatred. Britain, according to Mr Seymour, is ‘economically stagnant, socially fragmented, politically adrift’. The

Rana Mitter

Baby bust: China’s looming demographic disaster

This week, the world is gripped by the risk of conflict between the US and China. The People’s Liberation Army has fired live missiles into the Taiwan Strait in retaliation for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei and those who fear that China vs America is the next world war see Taiwan as a flashpoint. Some analysts imagine a repeat of the Cold War: two countries, two rival political systems, vying for world economic supremacy. China’s dominance is inexorably linked to the size of its population. It has long been the world’s most populous country. A technologically advanced society, with a great army of young workers and soldiers,

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What foreign policy would look like under a PM Truss

When Tom Tugendhat announced he was backing Liz Truss for prime minister, his former supporters were dismayed. He was the candidate for the ‘One Nation’ caucus of moderate MPs, who defined themselves against the Tory right. ‘Anyone but Truss’ was their mantra – and they lined up behind Rishi Sunak. Yet here was their former poster boy supporting their nemesis. What could Truss and Tugendhat possibly have in common? The answer can be summed up in a word: China. For better or worse, Truss is an instinctive politician. On foreign affairs, she was held back by Boris Johnson, who was more cautious on China. If she becomes prime minister, which

Owen Matthews

Sanctions are working – whatever Putin says

Don’t believe Vladimir Putin’s hype. The Russian economy is not OK. With western sanctions jeopardising up to 40 per cent of the country’s GDP, Putin’s assurances of an economic pivot to the East are a sham. And his weaponising of gas supplies to Europe is the financial equivalent of strapping on a suicide vest. That, roughly, is the message of a major new study published last week by the Yale School of Management about the impact of sanctions on Russia. Yale, working with a team of international economists, has looked past a wall of Russian obfuscation and used real-world data from retailers, energy traders and investors to reveal a picture

Douglas Murray

Biden’s victories look a lot like defeats

Joe Biden’s week did not get off to a good start. When running for office in 2020 he repeatedly boasted that he was going to ‘shut down the virus’, not the country. And then in the space of a few days last week it looked as if he had managed to achieve his promise, just the opposite way around. The President appears to have shut down the economy while suffering from the virus. Despite being endlessly vaccinated, the President recently tested positive for Covid. And then last week he tested positive again. So he had a double dose. At the same time America had a double dose of something else: