World

Thursday

Aidan Hartley

Did I catch Covid from a naked-rumped tomb bat?

Laikipia Until I promised to slaughter a fat-tailed sheep with a goat thrown in for a feast, the farm cowhands looked doubtful about going for their vaccinations. ‘Come on, it won’t hurt you,’ I cajoled. A panther-like man I’ve seen pursuing bandits with a rifle and reckless courage announced that he was frightened. The others nodded and rubbed their left arms. But at the offer of meat and sizzling fat over an open fire, everybody cheered up. Time was running short. A village clinic two hours away in Maasai country had phoned to say its supply of doses was sitting there unused and would I urgently muster some people? Vaccine

Taki

The school that made an American century

New York With the Karamazovian hangover now only a weekly occurrence, the healthy life rules supreme. Well, most of the time. Up early, I go for a brisk 30-minute walk, then it’s breakfast in the park that stretches out two blocks away. I finish off with two sets of 20 push-ups on a park bench, a few kicks and punches using leaves as targets, then cross Fifth Avenue going east. (Karate is now a three-night-a-week activity, and I’ve given up Judo as it takes up too much time and needs too many partners.) I then buy the papers from a friendly Indian, get my first coffee of the day from

Wednesday

Jim Lawley

Is this a new dawn for the Spanish right?

In Tuesday’s regional elections in Madrid, the right-wing Partido Popular emerged as by far the most successful party, more than doubling its representation to win 65 of the 136 seats in the assembly. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the 42-year-old local Partido Popular leader who was seeking re-election, won more seats than the three left-wing parties combined. Vox (13 seats), the most right-wing party on the Spanish political spectrum, has already promised Ayuso the support she needs in order to govern. Despite not quite delivering an outright majority, Ayuso’s bold decision to call the snap election has clearly paid off. Her slogan of ‘Libertad’ (Liberty), her attacks on the way Spain’s socialist

Matthew Lynn

Michel Barnier’s Brexit diary shows he needs a lesson in diplomacy

David Davis was ‘truculent’. Dominic Raab was ‘almost messianic’. Theresa May was ‘rigid. While Boris Johnson kept asking to borrow a tenner and whether it would be okay if Carrie joined the meeting.  Okay, I made that last one up, but the rest are among the startling revelations contained in Michel Barnier’s Brexit diary, published in France this week, and due to come out in the UK in the autumn.  Why is Barnier publishing a diary at all? After all, shouldn’t the negotiations have remained confidential? From the extracts so far, ‘The Great Illusion’, to give it is full-title, seems to be fairly standard Europhile stuff. Indeed, if you are

Ashis Ray

The emptiness of the UK-India trade deal

Britain and India have been trading for over 400 years. For 190 of those, between 1757 and 1947, the subcontinent was close to being a captive market of the United Kingdom. Today commercial turnover between the two nations is a mere £23 billion — a tenth of the goods and services traffic between Britain and the European Union. For many Leave voters, Boris Johnson included, expanding trade ties beyond the EU’s borders was a major motivation for Brexit. India was seen as both an exciting emerging market but also a nation that is culturally entwined with this one. However, five years after Britain voted to depart the lucrative single market,

Luke Daly-Groves

How Napoleon changed the world

Two hundred years ago today, Napoleon Bonaparte closed his eyes for the final time. A man born to relative obscurity in Corsica, he was lifted by merit to become Emperor of the French and conqueror of Europe. But the fault of his ambition and the might of his enemies ultimately led to his defeat at Waterloo. Napoleon died in British captivity on St Helena. Even in death, though, it is hard to doubt that Napoleon not only shaped the modern world, but still influences it today. France’s current president Emmanuel Macron is often compared to Napoleon. As John Keiger has pointed out on Coffee House, Macron appears to share Napoleon’s

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Hillary Clinton blames the Russians for Brexit

Ever since the Brexit vote in 2016, there has been a committed group of activists and politicians convinced that only Russian meddling could possibly explain why the British people decided they wanted to leave the EU. The political equivalents of Hiroo Onoda – the Japanese soldier who refused to accept the second world war was over – they have continued to press the case that Vladimir Putin used nefarious means to trick the electorate into casting their ballots for Brexit, even as the evidence (and polling) has continued to show that Brits are still happy with their decision to leave. Now though it appears this political group has found an

Andy Owen

Prisoners dilemma: should we pay kidnappers?

British-Mexican national Claudia Uruchurtu Cruz disappeared on the night of Friday 26 March in the town of Nochixtlan, Oaxaca State, Mexico. Claudia had been seen attending a rally protesting the beating of a local labourer, allegedly by security elements linked to the local municipal president. Unconfirmed witness statements claim she was grabbed and pushed into a red car. Claudia never arrived home and her family and friends have not heard from her since.  What is the right response for the British government? The most debated issue is whether to pay ransoms. Some governments refuse, others pay, or at least turn a blind eye to families that do. In Mali, where

Mary Dejevsky

The rise of the female ambassador

It is, of course, an excellent thing and a mark of social progress when an institutional bastion falls to woman-power. If the days are gone when the upper echelons of UK diplomacy were closed to women then so much the better, when a woman who married had to leave the service, and when female diplomats — with the honourable exception of Pauline (now Baroness) Neville-Jones, who resigned after being passed over for Paris — knew better than to hope for the top postings. The 21st century requires no less: entry on equal terms to the men, progression on equal terms to the men, and access to the most senior jobs

Monday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Respect your elders: how the Chinese see family life

30 min listen

The archaic-sounding notion of ‘filial piety’ has little direct translation into English, but is a deep-rooted part of Chinese culture and ethics. On this episode, I find out about what motivates the subscription to such an unequal view of family life; how modernity changes expectations (and in particular, the impact of the one child policy); and what happens to those deemed by society to be disrespectful of their parents. With Professor Charlotte Ikels, an anthropologist at Case Western Reserve University.

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Israel is not to blame for shelved Palestinian elections

Last week, the irony that stalks the Middle East found a new expression: while Israel has been playing out an almost comical surfeit of democracy, staging four elections in two years, the Palestinian Authority, which has refused to give voters a say since 2006, has shelved another election. Mahmoud Abbas, 85, is currently enjoying the 16th year of his supposedly four-year term as Palestinian president. (Would it be too cheap a shot to wonder how the world would react if Netanyahu behaved like that?) When he announced that a poll would finally be held this month, seasoned observers laid bets that it would never happen. After all, having been trounced

Paul Wood

Migrant smuggling is one of Lebanon’s last businesses

Ibrahim Lachine sold his mother’s furniture to pay for a place on a smuggler’s boat from Lebanon to Cyprus and left without saying goodbye. Stealing was, he admits, a bad thing to do, but the boat mafia wanted $700 (£500) and he couldn’t see any other way to get the money. He was 22 and hadn’t worked for three years. Food came from charities. Rent hadn’t been paid in months. Ibrahim leans back on a plastic chair, tall and angular in a black tracksuit and black running shoes. ‘We were very sad and very poor.’ Then he grins, a little embarrassed but mostly pleased with himself. He says he waited

Sunday

Ian Williams Ian Williams

How China is stoking racial tensions in the West

Footage of a brutal late March attack on a 65-year-old Asian American woman in Manhattan drew widespread outrage on social media. It also made for a productive afternoon for Zhao Lijian. From his Beijing office, the Chinese government spokesman retweeted 20 posts and shared the video 12 times on his official Twitter account. ‘We can’t help but wonder, who will be the next victim? When will it all end?’ he asked his almost 900,000 followers. Zhao isn’t the only one who’s been busy. In the wake of the Atlanta spa shootings on March 16, Chinese state media used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to stoke a narrative of American racism and

Dalibor Rohac

Europe should be wary of Biden’s cuddly capitalism

Judging by the European press’ reaction to his address to Congress this week, US president Joe Biden’s domestic agenda is popular outside of the United States as well.  ‘In the choice between going big and going bipartisan, big is winning, remaking America with government at the centre,’ the Guardian writes approvingly. Biden embarks on ‘a historic battle against inequality,’ a Le Monde headline announces. ‘America’s democracy can no longer endure the growing gap in income and education, so Biden has to fight for the middle,’ the Süddeutsche Zeitung piles on. Notwithstanding the president’s unassuming demeanour, there can be no question about the his ambitions. After the sizeable Covid-19 relief package, worth

Owen Matthews

Putin and Biden need one another

Does Joe Biden think that Putin is a killer? asked ABC host George Stephanopoulos. ‘Mmm-hmm, I do,’ answered the President. Once, that would have been fighting talk. Today? Biden can insult Putin with impunity because he believes that Russia is, quite simply, no longer important or dangerous. Once a deadly serious enemy whose rivalry threatened to destroy life on the planet, Russia’s diminished status means that, these days, there’s little left to the grand old conflict except mere mudslinging. ‘We no longer think in Cold War terms, for several reasons. One, no one is our equal. No one is close,’ Biden told Ukrainian lawmakers in Kiev in 2014. ‘Other than

Saturday

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

The strange truth about Japan’s climate change target

Japan has just raised its target for reducing carbon emissions from 26 per cent to 46 per cent (by 2030 from 2013 levels). But how was this figure arrived at, environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi was asked? Through a careful analysis of the threat and a realistic assessment of what could be achieved, taking all relevant factors into consideration? Well, er no, according to Koizumi, the number 46 just appeared to him in ‘silhouette’ in a sort of vision. Shinjiro Koizumi, son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, made the comments in an interview with the TV station TBS last weekend. The interviewer, despite her face mask, was clearly stunned by

Friday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

One hundred days in, is Biden getting a vaccine boost?

Boris Johnson is set for a vaccine boost next week when local election results start rolling in. As James Forsyth explains in this week’s magazine, the vaccine rollout is forefront in voters’ minds, with seven out of ten now inoculated or even fully jabbed up. For all the chaos raging around Johnson, with accusations from his former allies and long-term opponents coming in thick and fast, the PM looks set to retain his support where it matters: at the polling station.  Can the same be said for Joe Biden? Across the pond, America is experiencing an equally successful vaccine rollout, as both the US and the UK hover around the top

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Alexei Navalny’s big gamble

Alexei Navalny seems to undergoing a metamorphosis. Yesterday, we saw him attending another trial by video, looking gaunt after 24 days of hunger strike. But if anything, the more attenuated his frame, the more his moral certainty shone through it. An appeals hearing for a separate charge of insulting a Second World War veteran gave him a rare opportunity to speak to the outside world. Characteristically, he made a joke of his condition to his wife, Yulia, saying he now looked like ‘a creepy skeleton.’ However, this was a moment’s light-hearted intimacy in a bravura performance primarily directed towards both the Kremlin and the wider Russian population. Just as Vladimir

Thursday

Yiannis Baboulias

Erdogan’s Covid crisis

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that the country will be heading into its first full lockdown. An early success story, this time last year Turkey was being hailed as a model for its swift actions that ensured the country saw a relatively small death-toll, relative to its size (39,000 people in Turkey have died so far in the course of the pandemic). Now infections are surging: Turkey recorded a total of 61,028 daily cases of Covid-19 and 346 deaths last Tuesday, the highest since the pandemic began. And Erdogan is panicking. There was some hubris in Erdogan’s early declarations of victory against the virus last year. The ‘common view both domestically

Akash Goel

In India, the Covid crisis has left us helpless and broken

New Delhi Crematoriums are burning so many pyres that they have run out of space and wood to keep up with demand. Vehicles filled with bodies queue outside the funeral homes for hours. People are dying in the streets, some laid out on stretchers, while ambulances wait in vain outside every hospital in the city. This is what a collapsed healthcare system looks like. There are 4,700 Covid intensive care beds for Delhi’s population of 19 million. There are 20,750 non-ICU Covid hospital beds, but most are without any oxygen support and have strict admission criteria. To find a bed, the families of Covid sufferers are forced to call hundreds