World

Soon after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February a rash of stories appeared in the western media speculating that the Russian president was dying, or at least very seriously ill. The evidence offered was circumstantial but superficially compelling. This ranged from the absurdly long tables the dictator uses to keep his distance from his aides, to analysis of such symptoms as his awkwardly shaking limbs and puffy face. There were also reports that Putin keeps a top cancer specialist in his entourage at all times. Now, no less an authority than the boss of the CIA, William Burns, has poured a douche of cold water on such

Washington, DC Prince Harry is once again mouthing off about American politics despite a rudimentary understanding – at best – of our founding principles. The pampered Brit delivered a speech at the United Nations on Monday insisting that we are witnessing a ‘rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States’. Prince Harry, who only lives here because his wife dreams of doing animated voiceovers for Netflix, routinely opines on our constitution with all of the British pomposity that led to the Revolutionary War. Newsflash: Americans do not like it when foreigners tell us what to do or how we should feel, and yet Prince Harry (do I even have to

‘Every human life has many aspects,’ said the novelist Milan Kundera. ‘The past of each can just as easily arranged into the biography of a beloved statesman as into that of a criminal.’ Of no one has this been truer in recent days than our departing Prime Minister Boris Johnson. To read some of the political obituaries of him – Andrew Rawnsley’s in the Observer was typical (‘disgraced the office… wild mayhem… pathologically brazen… serial debaucheries… lord of misrule’) or the round-up of panellists’ views in the Guardian (‘The stain of Johnsonism will remain for decades’) – you might think the country had until last week been governed by the

Is it all over for Mario Draghi’s recovery government? His attempted resignation yesterday – which was rejected by President Sergio Mattarella – opens up a highly uncertain chapter in the most serious crisis the Italian Prime Minister has faced. There’s little desire from anyone to see Draghi leave and usher in new elections, at least at this stage. But there is a high risk of miscalculation, thanks to the overlapping red lines the protagonists in this drama have set themselves. Giuseppe Conte’s Five Star Movement yesterday decided not to support the government on a cost-of-living bill vote in the Senate – by not turning up. That meant that the measure

‘You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing,’ said Winston Churchill, ‘after they have tried everything else.’ After much American talk of a ‘pivot to Asia’ and hence ‘withdrawal from the Middle East’, president Biden and his top team are visiting Israel today. From there, they will head to the heart of the Arab and Muslim worlds: Saudi Arabia. Biden is coming from a White House full of young political staffers, most of whom have little respect for age and wisdom. In the Middle East, as with most Muslim-majority nations, a culture of veneration for the elderly still holds. Leaders, families, tribes, faiths, traditions and, with it,