World

Monday

William Nattrass William Nattrass

Why Poland’s EU climbdown may help Law and Justice

Dare Poland stand up to the EU? The leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced on Saturday that the country’s controversial disciplinary chamber for judges, the subject of a long-running dispute with the bloc over the ‘rule of law’, will be disbanded. The climbdown seems at first glance to be a humiliating defeat for the Polish government in the face of pressure from Brussels. The European Court of Justice gave Poland until 16 August to disband the disciplinary chamber. Politicians in Warsaw say the chamber is a means to root out corruption but the ECJ believes it undermines the independence of the Polish judiciary. With

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s Covid passports are causing intergenerational warfare

The protest movement against Emmanuel Macron’s Covid passport, which comes into full effect today, continues to grow in France. On Saturday over 200,000 men, women and children took to the streets, more than twice the number that demonstrated when the protests began on July 17. As a veteran of the Paris protests, I’ve found one of the most interesting aspects to be the reactions of passers-by as the cortège files through the streets of the capital. Some clap, some look on in contempt, others shout words of encouragement and a few hurl terms of abuse. There’s no doubt the Covid passport has divided the people, and while the protest movement

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why Russia’s Olympic punishment backfired

The Tokyo Olympics are over and fifth place in the medals table went to the ‘ROC’, the Russian Olympic Committee. Rather than being punished for its state-run doping programme, Russia has turned it into a perverse triumph, illustrating the weakness of sanctions as a way of trying to shape international behaviour. Of course, Moscow denied systematic cheating, but after the World Anti-Doping agency imposed a four-year ban in 2019, reduced to two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2020, they were forced to accept that if Russian athletes were going to compete, they could not do so under their own flag. They hardly went deep undercover, though.

Sunday

Charles Parton

Cult of Mao: Will the Olympics punish China?

As one of the embassy drivers I met in Beijing saw it, ferrying diplomats to meetings was secondary to his responsibility of lecturing us on China’s true place in the world. A conversational bully, to Mr Wang listening was a sign of weakness. Crossing Tiananmen with its vast picture of Chairman Mao, I interrupted his flow to ask his opinion of the Great Helmsman. ‘Great man. He made China great.’ ‘But,’ I asked, ‘what about the fact that he caused the avoidable deaths of a minimum of 36 million Chinese, the figure reached by a Chinese Communist party (CCP) member and official news agency journalist after years of research?’ ‘No, it

William Nattrass William Nattrass

Belarusians in exile aren’t safe from the iron grip of Lukashenko

This week has laid bare the terrifying situation faced by Belarusians in their home country and abroad. From Tokyo’s Olympic village to the streets of Kiev and the courts of Minsk, the iron grip of president Alexander Lukashenko only seems to be tightening. With athletes joining political opponents and exiled activists in being targeted by the regime, many are now asking the question: where can Belarusians be safe? Certainly not at home. On Wednesday, a behind-closed-doors trial began in Minsk for two opposition figures involved in organising the huge protests which swept Belarus last year following elections widely held to have been fraudulent. Maria Kolesnikova and Maxim Znak have been charged

Saturday

Andy Owen

Andy Owen, Mary Wakefield and Toby Young

20 min listen

On this week’s episode, former intelligence officer Andy Owen gives his reflections on where we went wrong in Afghanistan – based on what he saw on the ground; Spectator columnist Mary Wakefield talks about the rise in neighbourhood crime; and Toby Young asks – why have my suits shrunk in lockdown?

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

In defence of Olympic football

Spain takes on Brazil today in the final of the men’s Olympic football tournament. Not interested? Well, if so, you’re probably not alone — Olympic football has a popularity problem. For decades it has suffered from unfavourable comparisons with the big Fifa and Uefa behemoths to the extent that many see the whole thing as a bit of a waste of time. I disagree, and I will be tuning in. For one thing, to dismiss the tournament as an irrelevance is historically ignorant. Olympic football (and excuse my appalling sexism but I’m confining myself to the men’s game here) predates the World Cup by 30 years and for a couple

Marcus Rutherford

Should Henry Morton Stanley’s statue be pulled down?

Should Stanley fall? Debate is raging over whether a statue of the Victorian explorer Henry Morton Stanley, which was erected in his home town of Denbigh in Wales a few years ago, should be pulled down because of his racist views. Stanley is, of course, best known for the four words he uttered when he found Dr Livingstone destitute in the middle of Africa. But his lesser-known activities during his travels have now led to a public consultation being set up in the wake of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. That consultation is tasked with deciding the fate of his statue. So should the monument follow the lead of Edward

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The China challenge has no precedent

The US has never been more worried by the rise of China than it is today. In my Times column today, I mention a new book by Joe Biden’s China director on the National Security Council which sets out why ‘China now poses a challenge unlike any the US has ever faced’. Rush Doshi notes that American hegemony has been based, in considerable part, on its economic might. In the second world war, Germany and Japan combined did not reach 60 per cent of US GDP. Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union failed to hit this mark. Yet, China passed it seven years ago. The book sets out how China is attempting

Jade McGlynn

How Britain can really help Belarus’s embattled opposition

Belarus’s opposition movement is gathering momentum. This week – just days after meeting president Biden – the country’s opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was in London to visit Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab. But what does this mean for ordinary Belarusians living under the rule of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the brutal dictator still in charge of the country? Do they finally have cause to be optimistic about the future? As recently as April, Belarus’ democratic movement appeared to be running out of funding and impetus, with no clear strategy for ousting Lukashenka. Bolstered by a fearsome state security apparatus and Russian support, Lukashenka has unleashed a brutal crackdown on anyone who dares to

Daniel DePetris

Can Iran’s ‘butcher’ president make peace with the Saudis?

It’s official: after eight years of a relatively pragmatic administration, Iran is now under new management. Ebrahim Raisi, a disciple of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the former judiciary chief, was inaugurated this week as Iran’s next president. Clad in a white shirt, black robe and thin-framed glasses, Raisi accepted a task that will likely prove to be his toughest assignment in a decades-long career serving the Islamic Republic system.  Protests over poor public services, like water shortages, are becoming more frequent. While the International Monetary Fund projects Iran’s economy to grow at 2.5 per cent this year, the country is in the midst of a highly fractious period. With

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Guy Verhofstadt claims Olympic gold for the EU

Who is on top of the gold medal table at the Tokyo Olympics? China? The United States?  According to former European parliament Brexit chief Guy Verhofstadt, it is, in fact, the European Union that is triumphing at the games. While you have to go down to seventh place in the Olympics leader board to find an EU country (Germany), Verhofstadt appears to have his own scoreboard:  ‘Fun fact,’ he wrote on Twitter: ‘EU combined has more gold medals than US or China’. Verhofstadt went on to say that he would ‘love to see the EU flag next to the national on athletes’ clothes’.  Mr S wonders whether this is all just a ploy to ensure that Verhofstadt’s Belgium

Manfred Manera

Italians are seeing red over the Covid ‘Green Pass’

Rome Following Emmanuel Macron’s example, the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, has announced the introduction of a ‘Green Pass’. Draghi’s initiative, which was announced at a press conference on 24 July and comes into effect on 6 August, has sparked protests all over Italy The Green Pass will discriminate between Italians who are vaccinated and those who are not. Anyone who has not received their jabs, or cannot show a recent negative test or that they have recovered from Covid in the past six months, will be denied access to indoor restaurants, museums, cinemas and exhibitions. Further restrictions under discussion would prevent them from access to trains and ferries. There

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

A word of warning for Brits flocking to France

So as of Sunday Britons will flock to France in their ‘tens of thousands’. That is what is being reported this morning after the government’s announcement that double-jabbed tourists returning from France will no longer have to quarantine. The Daily Mail, playing the party pooper, tempered the good news with a warning that Brits may have trouble finding accommodation with ‘a particular shortage of gîtes and hotel rooms in the south of the country’. Having visited the Pyrenees and Lake Annecy in recent weeks I can confirm that the popular destinations are chock-a-block with French, Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians and Belgians. Imagine how I felt, watching the final of the European Championships,

Andy Owen

What we can learn from our mistakes in Afghanistan

After two tours of Iraq as a soldier, I spent six months in Afghanistan in 2007 as part of Operation Herrick VI. My deployment came a year after the then Defence Secretary, John Reid, said we would be ‘perfectly happy to leave the country in three years’ time without firing one shot’. However, the very first night I arrived in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, troops were battling the Taleban across the province, with thousands of shots fired every day. Plans were being made about how we would evacuate our camp if it was overrun. Today, 14 years on, as the final US troops depart, left behind are more

Wednesday

Limor Simhony Philpott

Why Iran is stepping up its maritime piracy

On Tuesday there was an attempted hijacking of a tanker in the Gulf of Oman. According to the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), nine armed men boarded a Panama-flagged tanker before leaving several hours later – reportedly after the ship’s crew sabotaged the vessel’s engines. The UK believes this attempted hijacking was the latest in a string of maritime attacks perpetrated by Iran or one of the several militant groups it backs in the Middle East. The failed hijacking follows a drone attack last week on the tanker Mercer Street in the Arabian sea, which is owned in part by the Israeli shipping magnate Eyal Ofer. This attack claimed the lives

Steerpike Steerpike

Why is the EU attending the butcher of Tehran’s inauguration?

At the beginning of the year Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was forced to hastily cancel a diplomatic trip to Europe, reportedly after top EU officials refused to meet with him following the storming of the US Capitol building. In the aftermath of the event, Luxembourg’s foreign minister suggested that Trump was a ‘political pyromaniac’ and Pompeo soon found that the United States was no longer a welcome presence in the hallowed halls of Brussels. If that was how the European Union admonished America – arguably the most important democracy in the world – one can only imagine the treatment it planned to dole out to the world’s

Francis Pike

What kind of empire is China building?

As Britain’s small fleet, headed by HMS Queen Elizabeth, cruises towards the South China Sea, there remains a question over the nature of China’s geopolitical ambitions. When Xi Jinping came to power in 2013 it was assumed that China would follow the relatively unthreatening path begun by Deng Xiaoping. But Xi was intent on following a different agenda. Xi’s brutal clampdown on corruption showed that there was a new sheriff in town. High profile politburo members were imprisoned. Such was the scale that Qincheng Prison began to run out of cells. Expensive wristwatches suddenly disappeared from the arms of modestly paid bureaucrats. The West applauded. Xi’s reform of China’s state

John Fund

New York’s vaccine passport scheme could have a nasty side effect

The latest French export to the United States is a requirement that people show proof of vaccination to visit indoor bars, concert venues, restaurants and gyms. But will it work? On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City will be the first American metropolis to import the French health pass. Marketed like an upscale perk, the ‘Key to NYC Pass’ program will begin on 16 August and become mandatory on 13 September. De Blasio is doing his best to sell the pass as a carrot, rather than the stick it really is. But his rhetoric is still ominous. He said: ‘It is so important to make clear that

Charlie Peters

Britain isn’t ready for the next wave of returning jihadis

Ever since British jihadists flocked to join Isis in Iraq and Syria, the government has attempted to keep the terrorists away by killing them on the battlefield and stripping the survivors of their citizenship. Those who have slipped through the net and made it back home have faced mandatory deradicalisation programs, or – in the most extreme cases – constant surveillance. But this costly, ineffective strategy has prioritised the rights and freedoms of returning jihadists over the safety of innocent people. And the approach is now likely to face another test, as the 425 or so Isis fighters and spouses who have returned are expected to be joined by their former twisted