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

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,

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

Covid was probably the last thing on Angela Merkel’s mind as she listened to the East German pop tunes of her youth played by the Bundeswehr’s military band for her retirement ceremony last night. But a few hours earlier, the outgoing German chancellor had one last entry to make on her political will. No longer a member of parliament herself, she urged those who are to vote for mandatory vaccination against Covid as an ‘act of national solidarity’. The German states had pulled forward a Covid conference planned for 9 December in light of high case numbers and localised pressure on hospitals and ICUs. They decided on a de-facto lockdown

Farewell then @jack. Jack Dorsey’s departure from Twitter on Monday came as no surprise given that the firm Elliott Management, one of Twitter’s activist investors, almost ousted him last year. Only the coronavirus may have prolonged the inevitable. Twitter’s stock keeps dropping. It may not reach the revenue and daily user projections for 2023 that it set last February. It also has the smallest ‘Big Tech’ user base, behind Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. The prevailing theory is that Dorsey’s departure involves Elliott Management, which controls two board seats and over $1 billion in stock shares, and which flexed enough muscle to boot Dorsey out. Elliott executives seemed dubious of Dorsey’s