World

Thursday

Michael Nazir-Ali

Can the India-Pakistan ceasefire hold?

The cold-blooded killing of unarmed tourists by terrorists in Indian administered Kashmir has horrified not only Indians but people all over the world. The conviction in India that Pakistan was somehow or the other behind this attack, led it to strike at nine sites in Pakistan which it regarded as ‘terrorist camps’. Pakistan, in turn, attacked the military bases from where it believed the attacks on its territory had come and, given that these are two nuclear powers, the whole situation seemed to be escalating alarmingly. Pakistan will have to take some responsibility for dismantling Islamist extremist organisations The ceasefire, therefore, that both the USA and Pakistan agree was brokered

Paul Wood

The Kurds have finally given in to Erdogan

All wars end, one way or another. One of the longest wars in the Middle East, between Turkey and Kurdish separatists, may finally be over. After 40 years of bitter struggle, the Kurdistan Workers’ party, the PKK, has declared that it will disarm and disband. It’s an achievement, of a sort, for the PKK’s imprisoned founder, Abdullah Ocalan: he might become a free man. It’s a triumph for Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan: he might become President for life. The Kurds have adjusted to a new reality in the region. From Ankara to Riyadh, the chess pieces are shifting and the board might end up looking very different. This might

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Immigration pledges, trade agreements and a new pope

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said, ‘We risk becoming an island of strangers’ as the government published a white paper, Restoring Control Over the Immigration System. He stood by his words but ‘completely rejected’ suggestions that they echoed Enoch Powell’s phrase ‘strangers in their own country’ from his 1968 speech. The white paper said care workers would no longer be recruited from overseas. Migrants would have to wait ten years to apply to settle in Britain, instead of qualifying after five. Adult dependents would have to show basic English language skills. A tax on universities’ income from foreign students could also be introduced. A migrant died in a

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Leo XIV’s papacy is off to a surprisingly promising start

Rome In the days before the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, traditionalist Catholics were so worried about interference from evil spirits that, according to reliable sources, they arranged for a priest to conduct what’s known as a ‘minor exorcism’ outside the walls of the Vatican. Such ceremonies, which typically involve the sprinkling of holy water mixed with blessed salt, aren’t such a big deal as the major exorcisms of a demon from a person; they are blessings intended to remove Satan’s influence from places where it may occur. But the fact that some clergy in Rome thought the Sistine Chapel might be one of those places reveals the depth

Wednesday

James Snell

Donald Trump has given Syria hope

It’s an image that would have been shocking, even a few months ago: US president Donald Trump shaking hands with Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, a fighter for al-Qaeda in Iraq, imprisoned by the Americans, now interim president of Syria. Getting sanctions lifted is the greatest achievement of al-Sharaa’s presidency so far The pair met in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, alongside their respective foreign minsters, for 33 minutes, the Syrian presidency said. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was there too; Turkey’s president Erdogan joined them on the phone. Before their meeting, Trump announced in a speech yesterday that he would remove all economic sanctions on Syria

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What is Trump doing in the Middle East?

29 min listen

President Trump is an America Firster, but he has an undeniable affinity for the Arab world. He would have made a good sheik: he doesn’t drink, he loves developing flashy properties to show off his power and wealth, and he’s brutally realistic about the role of oil (and other commodities) in world politics. On his tour of the Middle East, he signed an enormous arms deal with Saudi Arabia and announced all US sanctions on Syria would be lifted. Historian and former diplomat Charlie Gammell joins Freddy Gray to discuss what Trump really wants in the Middle East. 

Daniel McCarthy

Donald Trump would have made a great sheik

President Trump is an America Firster, but he has an undeniable affinity for the Arab world. He would have made a good sheik: he doesn’t drink, he loves developing flashy properties to show off his power and wealth, and he’s brutally realistic about the role of oil (and other commodities) in world politics. In his first run for president eight years ago, Trump not only surprised the Republican establishment by criticising the Iraq War, he surprised the war’s critics by saying that if America was going to invade, we should at least have seized the oilfields. Trump would rather do business than wage war with Tehran The Abraham Accords were

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Britain is heading the way of France

The backlash against Keir Starmer has begun. Some senior figures within the Labour party have criticised the Prime Minister’s warning on Monday that Britain is in danger of becoming an ‘island of strangers’. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, and Eluned Morgan, the first minister of Wales, are among those who believe the PM is being alarmist.  Morgan said one should not use ‘divisive language when it comes to immigration.’ She added that reducing immigration, in the manner Starmer outlined on Monday, would damage Wales’s care sector. And also presumably the country’s hairdressing industry. Yesterday it was reported that the town of Porth in south Wales (population 5,970) will soon

Michael Evans

Trump has given Syria’s new leader the ultimate gift

President Donald Trump was in a generous mood on the first day of his Middle East tour, announcing the lifting of sanctions against Syria and offering a similar gesture to Iran, though with strict conditions. The decision to end sanctions on Syria came as a surprise and was greeted with applause by his audience in Riyadh. Trump said he had been asked by the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Turkey to consider lifting sanctions to help the new government in Damascus which took over after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad on 8 December last year.  To underline the changed strategy by the Trump administration, the US president will meet

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Palestine and the truth about the Nakba

The Nakba – Arabic for ‘the catastrophe’ and commemorated today – marks a profound moment of trauma in the Palestinian Arab consciousness. In 1948, following the Arab world’s rejection of the United Nations’ partition plan and their subsequent military assault on the fledgling State of Israel, around 700,000 Palestinians were displaced. While Israel accepted the partition and declared independence, the Arab states and local militias initiated a war they would lose. Yet the memory of the Nakba, though born from an aggressive campaign that ended in defeat, has been carefully curated into a narrative of pure victimhood, a perennial wound severed from the choices and actions that preceded it. This

Tuesday

Limor Simhony Philpott

Trump and Netanyahu go their separate ways

The release of Edan Alexander, the last living American-Israeli hostage held by Hamas, was a moment of profound relief for his family and a rare flicker of hope for war-fatigued Israelis. The 21-year-old soldier, kidnapped on 7 October 2023, walked free on 12 May 2025 after 584 days in hell.  The jubilation was quickly muddied by political spin. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ever the opportunist, claimed the release stemmed from Israel’s relentless military pressure. The truth, however, lies elsewhere: American backchannels, led by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, secured Alexander’s freedom through quiet diplomacy in Qatar, not IDF bombs in Gaza. Netanyahu’s attempt to claim credit reveals a deeper rift: President Trump harbours little trust in Bibi.

Charlie Gammell

What can we really expect from the US-Iran talks?

This weekend in Muscat, US and Iranian diplomats held a fourth round of talks, continuing their efforts to find a way through an impasse that has bedevilled US-Iran relations since 1979. By all accounts, the negotiations so far have been a mixed bag. The overall picture remains slightly confused, particularly around the issue of uranium enrichment. Some hardliners in Tehran are getting cold feet, and old entrenched narratives on both sides of the divide are beginning to resurface as the going gets tough. Sources close to the talks have indicated that the US might agree to Iranian domestic uranium enrichment – either frozen state or limited – while, in return, Iran

James Tidmarsh

Can France dismantle the NGO-migrant complex?

France’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, and his party Les Républicains (LR) are moving to end the decades-long monopoly on providing legal advice held by left-leaning NGOs inside migrant detention centres. A new Senate bill seeks to strip NGOs such as Cimade and France terre d’asile of their exclusive role providing legal assistance to undocumented migrants awaiting expulsion. In their place, the government wants a more neutral, accountable system without publicly funded activists obstructing its deportation policy. Critics argue that activist lawyers file migrant appeals in large volumes, often with little legal merit. These automatic suspensions delay deportations The bill, tabled by Les Républicains, is part of a broader crackdown. It proposes to end

Alexander Kolyandr

Trump’s trade war is driving Russia further into China’s arms

Trade between Russia and China is no longer booming as it was immediately after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago. In 2024, annual trade between the two was up 1.9 per cent from the previous year to $240 billion (£182 billion). But in the first four months of 2025, it fell 7.5 per cent from the past year to just $71.1 billion (£54 billion), according to Chinese customs data. Chinese exports to Russia are down 5.3 per cent ($30.8 billion or £23 billion), while Russian deliveries to China are down 9.1 per cent ($40.3 billion or £30.5 billion) between January and April.  The drop in Russian exports can

Matthew Lynn

When will the EU do a deal with Trump?

China has wrapped up a pretty good trade deal. The UK has managed to agree to lift some of the US tariffs. With President Trump touring the Gulf states this week, they may soon have an arrangement in place, especially as Qatar took the precaution of gifting the president a new 747. Japan may well have something signed over the next few weeks. There is just one exception. Where is the EU’s deal? President Trump has described the EU as ‘nastier than China’ Despite the panic last month, it looks like the global trading system will soon be back to relative normal. The US and China, the two largest economies

Daryna Bondarenko

Ukrainians are giving up hope

I am a 37-year-old Ukrainian woman, and have recently returned from Odesa, where I was born and grew up, and to which I’ve just had my ninth visit since the war began. I generally go back for two or three weeks each time, to see my parents who still live there. On these trips back home, I try to support my family, to do some nice things with them like going out to a restaurant or cafe, and to bring them, perhaps, a little joy. Joy is something it’s getting harder and harder in Ukraine to feel But joy is something it’s getting harder and harder in Ukraine to feel.

Monday

Michael Evans

Hamas is using Edan Alexander to win favour with Trump

The last surviving American hostage held by Hamas in Gaza is set to be released as early as today, coinciding with the arrival tomorrow of President Trump in the Middle East. The timing could not be more significant. Previous attempts to negotiate the release of Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old Israeli-American soldier from an elite army unit, failed despite high-level talks in Qatar. However, Hamas – not a terror organisation known for its nuanced approach to diplomacy – clearly realised that with Trump in the region, their ‘gesture of good will’ might pay additional dividends. Alexander was serving on the border with Gaza on 7 October 2023 when Hamas gunmen arrived

Sean Boyne

My encounter with the PKK’s Abdullah Ocalan

The Kurdish militia group, the PKK, had decided to disband and lay down its arms, after decades of launching attacks against Turkey and bombing civilian areas. The move came after the PKK’s ageing jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called in February for the group to end its campaign. From his prison cell, Ocalan sent a message to his followers: ‘I am making a call for the laying down of arms… The PKK must dissolve itself.’ Ocalan wondered if Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams might be able to help? ‘I know he is a friend of ours,’ he said. The Marxist-inspired PKK, which has long been branded a terrorist organisation by Turkey

Hamish McRae

Donald Trump can be sensible

We’ve learnt three things about the future of world trade from the temporary reprieve over tariffs that the US has given China – and China’s response to it.  One is the markets are now confident that both countries will be sensible. The massively negative reaction they gave to ‘liberation day’ on 2 April signalled their hatred of uncertainty but also of stupidity. Before Donald Trump’s arbitrary jacking up of tariffs to what were really absurd levels, they had assumed that he would ensure that there would be reasonable continuity of world trade. His plans, and China’s robust reaction, led to nagging doubts that their assumption might be wrong, there really