World

Tuesday

William Nattrass William Nattrass

Is war brewing between Serbia and Kosovo?

Serbia and Kosovo are close to conflict. Of all things, a dispute over car number plates is threatening the fragile peace won 23 years ago, after a Nato bombing campaign against then-Yugoslavia. For that, Serbs have never truly forgiven the West. On Sunday night, roads were blockaded by Serbs in northern Kosovo. Their anger was directed at an edict from the Kosovan government requiring Serbs to re-register their cars with Kosovar number plates. Serbs currently use number plates with acronyms of Kosovar cities, just one example of Serbia’s ongoing refusal to accept Kosovan independence. New documentation requirements were also to be imposed on Serbs entering and leaving Kosovo. Some have

John Jenkins

Ayman al-Zawahiri got the death he deserved

At times like this, it’s tempting to channel Bette Davis: only speak good of the dead. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s dead. Good. But perhaps the moment deserves some more considered reflection. There’s striking footage (see below) of al-Zawahiri in the defendants’ cage during the 1982 trial of Islamic Jihad members implicated in the assassination of Anwar al-Sadat. Al-Zawahiri alone speaks in English for the cameras. He is uncompromising and belligerent. But his command of the language of international communication reveals his background: educated and middle class. That made him different to most of his fellow accused. He had been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood since adolescence. The Brotherhood contained other middle-class intellectuals.

Nicholas Sheppard

New Zealand’s bailout blunder is Jacinda Ardern’s latest error

This week more than two million New Zealanders are expected to receive roughly $116 (£60) in their bank accounts as the government paid out the first instalment of its cost-of-living payment. A further two instalments over the next two months have been promised to those earning below $70,000 (£36,000). These payments are part of a plan by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to address the soaring everyday costs Kiwis are facing. Speaking yesterday, she declared that the grant would help New Zealanders through the ‘peak of the global inflation storm’. But, it seems that something of a blunder has occurred. Speaking ahead of the funds being paid out, Revenue Minister David

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nancy Pelosi knows how much Taiwan matters

In the coming hours, Nancy Pelosi is expected to arrive in Taiwan. The plane that is thought to be carrying her is approaching the island from the east to avoid the Taiwan Strait and any attempt by the Chinese to fly close to her. As Speaker of the House of Representatives, she will be the most senior US figure to visit Taipei this century. The economic effects of a Taiwan invasion would dwarf those of the Russian invasion of Ukraine Beijing is furious about Pelosi’s decision to go. It has warned that its military ‘won’t sit idly by’ if she does touch down and is planning various displays of military

David Loyn David Loyn

Al-Zawahiri’s killing exposes the US’s shame in Afghanistan

Sherpur District, to the north of central Kabul, where al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed, lies at the western end of a huge former military base where British forces were besieged in the winter of 1879, during the second Anglo-Afghan war. The parade ground, still a wide open area until 2001, was quickly built over by warlords allied to the U.S. when the Taliban were pushed out of power after the attacks of 9/11. I went there with a military commander who was transformed overnight into a building contractor as the plots were parcelled out and garish concrete villas rose out of the dust. Built by one set of warlords after

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What will China do if Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent sanctions, are roiling European energy markets and threatening a continent-wide recession. But we live in an age of multiple crises, and tensions over Taiwan are bound to flare in the coming days. There are reports that Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, will visit tomorrow. She would be the most senior US figure to visit this century. The Chinese have said that their military ‘won’t sit idly by’ if she does go there. Now to be clear, this almost certainly means military exercises rather than anything else. But it is worth noting that Joe Biden has said the US military

Robin Ashenden

How Russia’s war in Ukraine has changed Estonia’s outlook

Estonia Independence Day – celebrating the country’s 1918 emancipation from the Russian empire – takes place on 24 February each year. This year, Independence Day for the Estonians was horribly ironic. ‘Instead of opening the news in the morning and seeing the expected ‘Happy Independence Day Everyone!’’ Lidia, a language-specialist, told me, ‘the headline was ‘Russia has invaded Ukraine’.’ How do you celebrate independence from Russia while reading about the Russian invasion of an independent near-neighbour?’ One result of this, Lidia said, was a ‘deep connection to Ukraine (developing) overnight, something that couldn’t have existed before’. This seems to be true at all levels. Unlike in many other post-Soviet countries – Georgia,

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The historian who inspires Liz Truss

Admirers of one of America’s great modern historians sat up and paid attention when Liz Truss told the Times in December that she read ‘anything’ by Rick Perlstein. In May, we nodded along with the interviewer from the Atlantic magazine who ‘saw a copy of Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge on her shelf and thought it was ‘exactly the sort of book I would have expected her to read’. For those who have never encountered his work, The Invisible Bridge is one part of Perlstein’s four-volume history of the United States from 1960 until 1980. The series covers the sixties’ cultural revolution, the race riots, police violence, America’s pointless and brutal

Sunday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Russia’s RuTube is no match for YouTube

As Russia has stepped up its military campaign in Ukraine, the crackdown at home has intensified. The Kremlin has suppressed news sources that didn’t align with its world view, squashing the country’s last remaining independent media. But even Vladimir Putin couldn’t quite plug all the gaps as the truth about the reality of his deadly campaign continued to trickle back to Russians at home. Frequently this was happening via social media. At the time of the invasion, an increasing number of Russians, nearly 40 per cent, according to the independent Russian polling organisation Levada Center, most often got their news this way. With reliable mainstream sources of information on the

John Keiger John Keiger

The French buy-out that explains Macron’s strategy

It’s a platitude that France and Britain are rivals and have been for centuries. But, since the 1904 Entente Cordiale, the rivalry is more a question of competition than conflict. Always, in the darkest hour, each sided with the other, even if post-war they didn’t fully recognise the other’s contribution. Britain congratulated itself over the Dunkirk evacuation when in truth without French troops holding off the Germans, the ‘plucky’ armada would never have completed its mission; to this day the French believe that American troops were more numerous than British in the Normandy landings.  With the passing of the French war-time generation the postwar moral debt to Britain and residual goodwill

Sam Olsen

Will China blockade Taiwan?

Xi Jinping has made it very clear over the years that he is determined for China to reunite with Taiwan. He has staked his legacy and his legitimacy on it. The problem for Beijing is that the polls in Taiwan continually show that only one per cent of the population is in favour of reunification now. If Xi wants Taiwan then he will almost certainly have to take it by force. Although some western commentators argue that Russia’s travails in Ukraine have made an invasion less likely, there is no evidence to support a change in policy in Beijing. Even though Taiwan’s military is undertrained and equipped with tanks and

Saturday

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Sunak and Truss have no answer to the big problem facing the West

You will never measure the depth of our troubles if you listen to the contenders for the Tory leadership. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss talk as if the 21st century never happened. They cannot see how the world has changed. Like the devotees of an ancient cult, they imagine that it is possible for a prime minister in the 2020s to follow the programme of Margaret Thatcher from 40-years ago. Their lines sound so antiquated because they have no plausible vision for creating a modern, united country. Then, who does? Rather than watch the contest, I have been reading the best modern historians as they struggle to find order amid

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is France capable of hosting the 2024 Olympics?

Five years ago, Paris was named the host city for the 2024 Olympics. How the country celebrated. No one more than its fresh-faced president Emmanuel Macron. ‘I salute this success and the tremendous opportunity that the Games represent to assist in the transformation of our country,’ he declared. Macron was speaking in a wider context, too. The Olympics was one strand of what he envisioned as a whole-scale transformation of the republic into a start-up nation, a modern, harmonious and prosperous country. How has that worked out, Monsieur Le President? France has never been so divided. The raucous National Assembly – where the left and the right holler and jeer at

Nigel Jones

Is the death penalty making a comeback?

It’s been a busy week for hangmen. In Japan, Tomohiro Kato, a 39-year-old man, was hanged at a Tokyo prison for killing seven people and injuring ten others in a 2008 murderous rampage in which he drove a truck into a crowd before stabbing several other random victims. Kato admitted his guilt and blamed his crime on his alienation from society and insults he had received on social media. It was the second execution in Japan ordered by the government of prime minister Fumio Kishida, who took office in 2021, after the death penalty had been held in abeyance for several years. However, it’s unlikely to be the last. Tetsuya

Friday

Jack Smith

Giorgia Meloni has beaten Silvio Berlusconi at his own game

Now it’s official: if the right-wing coalition wins Italy’s election, Giorgia Meloni will almost definitely be prime minister. Earlier this week, the three leaders of the coalition, herself, Matteo Salvini, and Silvio Berlusconi, agreed to formalise the principle that whoever’s party won the most votes would get to choose who ascends to the premiership. Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (Fdl) has a significant lead over any other right-wing party in the polls, and has done so for the entirety of this year. This kind of commitment will be very difficult for Salvini and Berlusconi to back out of, even if they wanted to. The only alternative they have at their disposal

Tony Blair

Christopher Meyer, a tribute

Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to Washington, has died at the age of 78. Here Tony Blair pays tribute to him: Sir Christopher Meyer was a distinguished diplomat who played an essential role building relationships for the new Labour government, first in Germany and then later with the USA. This became particularly important following the attacks on America on 9/11 when thousands of Americans lost their lives to terrorism. He was crucial during this time in keeping strong bonds between the UK and the USA. My deep condolences and sympathy to Catherine and his family.

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How dare Macron lecture African leaders about ‘hypocrisy’

What must Africans think when they observe the shameless hypocrisy of Western leaders? In Cameroon this morning incredulity must be the prevailing emotion. Three days ago, dignitaries there were subjected to one of Emmanuel Macron’s insufferable bouts of moralising. Do not do business with Vladimir Putin, warned the French president, speaking shortly after Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov had visited various African countries, some of which are heavily dependent on Russian grain and energy. He alluded to Russia as an ‘authoritarian regime’ and praised Europe for its response to the war in Ukraine. Unfortunately on the African continent, continued Macron: ‘I too often see hypocrisy…in not knowing how to qualify a

Thursday

The Spectator

Germany’s energy crisis is a warning to Britain

During the eurozone crisis, southern European states had to go cap in hand to Germany to stave off national bankruptcy. A decade on and it is Berlin doing the begging. Europe has reluctantly agreed a 15 per cent cut in gas use this winter in the hope that German factories can stay open and German citizens can keep from freezing. Meanwhile, Russia’s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom threatened to reduce the gas flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline yet again so that Germany would receive only a fifth of the amount it did before the Ukrainian invasion. While Berlin has said it plans to wean itself off Russian gas over

Charles Parton

The China threat our politicians don’t seem to have noticed

The Chinese Communist party can congratulate itself on another sign of its rise: for the first time it has become a factor in deciding the fate of British politics. During Monday’s televised leadership debates, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak tried to appeal to Tory members by outdoing each other on their commitment to protect our national security, economic prosperity, data privacy and values from the CCP. They both referred to Chinese theft of our science and technology, but the problem is much, much wider than that. What is more serious is our blithe willingness to import Chinese control into the most sensitive areas of our economy and society. Neither aspiring

Aidan Hartley

There are almost no animals left – but we’ve been here before

Laikipia You know things are bad when the zebras are thin. Even during most droughts, zebras are like matrons at the gym in stripey spandex stretched around plump buttocks. Pastures vanished long ago and our plains resemble Sudan’s Batn-el-Hajar – the Belly of Stones desert – so that I cannot even recall what they were like when they were last thick with green grass. The zebra foals are dying, the elephants are thin, while the buffalo disappeared a while back. The dry has killed quite mature trees which now shudder with the sound of termites and crash to the ground. To the north of us, horned skulls and dried carcasses