World

Julian Assange and the deep flaw in our extradition laws

You could almost hear the rejoicing in Whitehall on Friday morning when the High Court cleared the way for Julian Assange to be extradited to the US, rejecting a plea that he was too mentally frail. The man has, after all, been a thorn in the administration’s side for 11 years: 18 months contesting his rendition to Sweden, followed by seven embarrassing years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy, and then two-and-a-half years in Belmarsh fighting extradition to the US on espionage charges. But there is one disquieting feature. The offences he is charged with in the US are not ordinary charges of criminality, like the accusations he faced in

Mark Galeotti

Is Vladimir Putin really willing to invade Ukraine?

Is Putin preparing to invade Ukraine? It certainly looks that way, with western intelligence agencies estimating this week that around 100,000 troops are now massing at the country’s eastern border. To some, this build-up is proof enough that the Kremlin plans to invade. This week the US president Joe Biden even made significant diplomatic concessions to Moscow to prevent a looming conflict. But the US president should keep in mind that capability does not prove intent: and Putin may well decide that the cost of invasion is too hard to justify. His recent Ukrainian mobilisation could still be a piece of ‘heavy-metal diplomacy’ – a show of force intended to

The world is finally standing up for Aung San Suu Kyi

It may be an impossible task to restore Aung San Suu Kyi’s reputation, but Burma’s generals have made a sterling effort this week, after they sentenced her to at least two years in jail. This time last year Suu Kyi, a former Nobel peace prize winner, was a fallen icon. Her lack of sympathy and concern for the plight of Rohingyas in her country and, worse, her defence of the army’s brutal repression and massacres of them (she even appeared on the army’s behalf at the International Court of Justice in the Hague) had disillusioned her admirers. Many of the peace awards she received were revoked, including the European Parliament’s

Why Britain should not extradite Julian Assange

Julian Assange is facing extradition after the high court ruled there is no legal impediment to him facing espionage charges in the United States. The decision would seem to justify the fears that the WikiLeaks founder and his supporters have long harboured: that the UK has essentially served as a holding pen until such time as a legal mechanism could be found to enable his dispatch to the US.  Assange has always believed that the US would not stop until it had exacted retribution. His former lawyer and now fiancee, Stella Morris, said after the latest ruling that they would appeal, if possible, to the UK Supreme Court. The extradition case now

Freddy Gray

Jussie Smollett and the rise of American hate hoaxing

The actor Jussie Smollett has been jailed for 150 days after staging a hate crime against himself. Freddy Gray wrote about the rise of hate hoaxing in December… So Jussie Smollett, the world’s most notorious hate hoaxer, has at last been found guilty of lying to the police.  Smollett, you may remember, was the actor who wanted to get even more famous so badly that he hired two brothers to put on ski masks and pretend to be Trump-supporting racists who spotted him in public. They then fake attacked him with bleach and a noose that they just happened to be carrying around, as racists do. The US vice president and

Stephen Daisley

China is right to laugh at the west

Signs of the enervating weakness of the west’s governing elites aren’t that hard to find but the case of the Winter Olympics may be the most demeaning. The UK and Canada have followed the US and Australia in announcing a diplomatic boycott of February’s games in Beijing over China’s human rights record. It’s a crushing blow to the communist dictatorship: Xi Jinping has been unable to sleep or dress himself since learning that the deputy head of the British mission will be skipping the mixed doubles luge final. The UK’s boycott may not even be a boycott, with Boris Johnson saying ‘we do not support sporting boycotts but there are certainly

Putin is more rational than Nato realises

Over the last nine weeks Vladimir Putin has moved more than 90,000 troops to the borders of Ukraine and, according to US intelligence, ordered his military planners to draw up detailed blueprints for a full-scale invasion. Putin insists the build-up is defensive. Russia is acting only in response to a ‘growing threat on our western border’, he told an audience of newly accredited diplomats in the Kremlin earlier this month, and to accuse Moscow of escalating tensions would be ‘laying the blame at the wrong door’. Call it the Kennedy defence. In September 1962 US intelligence uncovered secret Soviet plans to station short- and intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba. President

Does Kamala Harris deserve to be vice president?

Is it rude to refer to the Vice President of the USA as the world’s most famous diversity hire? Possibly. But it is the same with so many things that are true. You needn’t take my word for it. Joe Biden made his selection priorities clear when he was confirmed as his party’s nominee last year. He immediately declared that his search for a running mate was going to focus on non-white women. And in some ways it was a savvy move. Like John McCain in 2008, he knew that the US media might not thrill to a ticket made up of a couple of white, male soon-to-be octogenarians. Yet

Ian Williams

Why is China turning its back on the world?

China reacted to the news of the US government’s diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics with predictable fury — a foreign ministry spokesman described it as a ‘naked political provocation’. He then added that US officials had jumped the gun because they had not even been invited. That seemed like a bit of added petulance, but it is entirely in keeping with China’s growing mood of self-isolation — a mood that is beginning to have some bizarre and dangerous consequences. The Chinese Communist party has always been a paranoid organisation, with a deep suspicion towards the outside world, but President Xi Jinping has taken this to new heights. Western

America is a nation divided

New York Imagine a European country today in which a newspaper in its most populous city launches a mendacious project reinterpreting its past. The practice was perfected under the old communist system that ruled Romania, Hungary, Poland and the rest of the Soviet satellites. But it is no longer possible in that part of the world now that the old continent has rediscovered freedom. It is taking place elsewhere, though, right here in New York, marinated by the Bagel Times which has invented a nation predicated on racism and enforced racial inequality. The 1619 Project is based on delusion and is a sweeping assault on the American way of life

Islamonomics: how Erdogan crashed the Turkish economy

The Turkish lira sank to an all-time low against the dollar last week. The lira shed 30 per cent of its value in November alone, having lost nearly half its value since the start of the year. Inflation in the country is out of control — reaching over 21 per cent last month. Traditional economics tells you to raise interest rates to counter inflation. Higher rates make borrowing more expensive and saving more attractive — in theory reducing the amount of spending on goods and services. Indeed the Bank of England, facing inflation at just over 4 per cent, is hinting that it will raise them in the new year.

The decay at the heart of the civil service

That Britain no longer has the capability to maintain peace in Afghanistan other than as an appendage of the United States has been clear for decades. When President Biden made his decision to hurriedly withdraw from the country, then, Britain never had an option to do anything other than to join a messy evacuation. But at the very least we owed it to those Afghans who helped us during two decades of occupation to save as many as we could from the murderous clutches of the advancing Taliban. The testimony of a 25-year-old former junior officer in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) shows just how far short we

Has Christine Lagarde just let slip the truth about the euro?

Ursula von der Leyen dispensing vaccines, with a halo over her head perhaps? Emmanuel Macron riding a tank to symbolise the continent’s strategic autonomy? Or various commissioners whose names no one can quite remember setting carbon targets, fining Google and Apple, and dishing out grants for roads, bridges and tunnels?  It remains to be seen just what the European Central Bank comes up with for its planned re-design of the euro banknotes. One point is perfectly clear, however: the makeover will reveal the currency’s true colours as a vehicle for European integration rather than an effective instrument of economic policy. In fact, if the ECB really wanted to redesign the

Katy Balls

Afghanistan: five shocking claims made by the Foreign Office whistleblower

Dominic Raab faced the media round from hell this morning. The former Foreign Secretary faced a series of questions about evidence published by a former Foreign Office official over the government’s handling of the Afghanistan crisis. Raphael Marshall – an Oxford graduate with three years in the diplomatic service – worked in the department’s special cases team during the evacuation efforts. In testimony given to the foreign affairs select committee published on Tuesday, Marshall has given an account of the dysfunction and chaos he says dominated the government response. Among the most eye-catching claims: 1. Animals were prioritised over humans During the evacuation, there was a very public row over

Omicron: cause for hope?

It will be weeks before we know just how worried we should be about Omicron — but the first indications seem hopeful. The epicentre of the first recorded outbreak has been the subject of a study that suggests that it may be milder than Delta. Early data from 166 patients in the Tshwane district comes with the usual caveats, especially that very little Omicron has been found among South African over-65s. But the study nonetheless has two weeks of hospitalised Omicron patients to analyse — more than any other country. Here are the main indications so far:  Fewer people hospitalised with Omicron have ended up in intensive care: 8 per cent, compared to 25 per

Ross Clark

What’s the point of vaccine passports?

What is the purpose of vaccine passports: to keep down infection or to try to persuade more people to get vaccinated by making life for the unvaccinated inconvenient and restricted? Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen wasn’t trying to conceal her intentions when she announced in a press conference on 8 November that vaccine passports would be reintroduced. ‘For all of you who are not vaccinated, it of course becomes more burdensome and that is also how I think it should be,’ she said. ‘In my eyes, there are no excuses to not go out and get vaccinated.’ ‘In my eyes, there are no excuses to not go out and get

Gavin Mortimer

Meet the Brexit-hating Macron clone who could be the next French president

The best way to describe Valérie Pécresse is Emmanuel Macron in a blouse. The newly-elected candidate for Les Republicans (LR) swears she is the French president’s polar opposite, but ideologically there is little to separate the pair. The 54-year-old Pécresse, who will now stand against Macron in next year’s presidential election, has been on the political scene for three decades. She is currently the president of the Paris region, and is not only stinking rich, but a centrist, a globalist and a committed Europhile. Pécresse was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the poshest part of Paris, into an upper middle class family. She shares an Alma mater with Macron, École Nationale d’Administration,

Jake Wallis Simons

Mossad is preparing to strike at the heart of Iran’s nuclear programme

Iran is about to be hit by a fresh wave of Mossad operations, sources in Jerusalem have told me. This is the result of a change in Israeli policy: from now on, when Tehran’s proxy militias make trouble in the region, the Jewish state will retaliate on Iranian soil. ‘No more attacking the tentacles of the octopus,’ one source said. ‘Now we will go for the head.’ For the foreseeable future, I can confirm, this will not take the form of air raids, missile strikes or drone attacks. Instead, Israel’s feared secret service has been told to carry out pinpoint operations inside the Islamic Republic, inflicting surgical but devastating punishment.

Abortion rights: the cracks are showing in Roe v. Wade

Crowds gathered outside of the Supreme Court this week as the Court prepared to hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the most consequential abortion case in a generation, which will decide if a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks is constitutional. Pro-life groups rallied outside the Court, holding signs to ‘love them both’ while chanting ‘we are the pro-life generation and we will abolish abortion.’ The pro-abortion group Shout Your Abortion stood opposite them, allegedly swallowing abortion pills while chanting ‘abortion pills forever.’ Inside the court, the atmosphere was more serene. Stepping forward to open the arguments, Mississippi solicitor general Scott Stewart framed his