World

Thursday

Douglas Murray

The Foreign Office has lost the plot in the Middle East

Last Friday the UN Security Council rejected any extension of the arms embargo on Iran. That embargo — imposed in 2007 — began to get phased out after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. But a ‘snapback’ provision was put in place intended to allow the return of all such sanctions should Iran violate the terms of the deal. Iran has been violating those terms for some time, but on Friday, when the United States hoped that its allies would join it in deploring this fact, only the Dominican Republic voted with it. The UK, like France and Germany, chose to abstain. On the question of whether Russia and China should

The Spectator

The Democrats’ complacency is Trump’s greatest weapon

There is a great mystery lying behind the 2020 US presidential election: how come a country of 350 million, which leads the world in academia, science and more, is unable to find two more inspiring candidates than Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Where is the voice of hope, or even just a reassuring voice of calmness and competence? Instead, come November, citizens of the most powerful nation on earth will be forced to choose between a narcissist and a man whose claim to his party’s candidature appears to be based on the principle of Buggins’ turn. Biden’s longevity is impressive — and we would never dismiss a candidate simply on

Francis Pike

Hirohito, the war criminal who got away

This month the global media marked the 75th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The cities’ destructions were momentous indeed, but the coverage has squeezed out other memories of the Pacific War. Who remembers Japan’s genocidal campaign in China that killed more than 20 million people — thousands of them by poison gas and canisters containing plague and typhus? Or the murder of 35 per cent of the 200,000 soldiers and civilians held in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps that meted out unspeakable cruelties? Certainly not the BBC, which failed to put Hiroshima and Nagasaki into any kind of historic context. For example, a BBC article on

Ed Husain

A new world is taking shape and Britain is nowhere to be seen

Britain cannot afford for its place in the world to be limited by those stuck in the thinking and guilt of the last century. Beyond Covid-19 and Brexit, a new world is taking shape. Three of our closest allies – the United States of America, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates – negotiated a brave and historic peace accord and we were nowhere to be seen, heard or even thought about. Why?  The Middle East is on the cusp of more peace accords – triggered by the vision of the Emirates and Israelis – with trade deals and security alliances to follow. Understandably, Boris Johnson has been busy dealing with Covid and

Wednesday

Matt McDonald

Who is the virtual DNC for?

21 min listen

The virtual Democratic National Convention kicked off this week with an agenda packed full of the party’s most well-known and experienced figures. But with a controversial appearance from Bill Clinton and a barnstorming speech from Michelle Obama, who is the convention really for? Matt McDonald, managing editor of the Spectator USA, speaks to Emily Larsen, political reporter at the Washington Examiner.

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Why Trump won’t stop at Huawei

Cash is no longer king in China. Much like Sweden, the country’s young and old opt for digital payments, made possible by an app called ‘WeChat’. While sometimes compared to WhatsApp or Facebook, WeChat is much more. On the latest episode of Chinese Whispers, my fortnightly podcast, China tech expert Duncan Clark describes how it’s designed to be ‘a digital Swiss army knife’. As well as payments for everything from rent to groceries, the app’s ubiquity means that the Chinese now ask for each other’s ‘WeChat IDs’ instead of phone numbers. It’s designed for technophobes with functions like voice messages – as Duncan points out, this is particularly helpful for less educated Chinese:

Constantin Eckner

How Germany avoided an exams crisis

The timing for Germany’s school-leaving exams couldn’t have been worse this year. Typically, the exams including the Abitur – equivalent of A-levels – take place between March and June to give school leavers enough time to apply for apprenticeships or a place at university as the winter term starts in October. This year, however, the outbreak of the corona pandemic caused schools across Germany to close, casting doubt on whether final exams could take place. In Germany, the 16 federal states are in charge of education policy which usually creates a mosaic of regulations, exceptions and exam schedules. In March, the state of Hesse, home to the financial metropolis Frankfurt, had already

David Patrikarakos David Patrikarakos

An assassination verdict divides Lebanon

Almost a decade ago, I went to Lebanon to investigate who had killed its Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. It was a momentous event in the Middle East, and it changed this tiny, beautiful state forever. Hariri was killed on Valentine’s Day 2005 alongside 21 others after a bomb exploded as his motorcade drove through central Beirut. Today, 15 years later, the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), set up in the wake of his death to bring those responsible for it to justice, finally returned its verdict. Salim Ayyash, Hussein Hassan Oneissi, Assad Hassan Sabra and Hassan Habib Merhi, all accused of being members of the terror group Hezbollah, have

Tuesday

Jim Lawley

Spain’s summer is well and truly cancelled

In villages and cities throughout Spain, the annual Fiesta of The Assumption is celebrated in great style on 15 August. But not this year. This year in most places the processions through the streets, the communal meals, the street theatre, the romerías (excursions to the local shrine), the craft fairs, the bell-ringing, the open-air dances, the annual football match against the neighbouring village, the clay pigeon shooting, the bull-running, the bullfights, the open-air chess tournament, the card game championships, the children’s drawing competition, the fairs, the firecrackers, the fireworks, and the all-night carousing are all cancelled. ‘This is like the seven plagues of Egypt,’ muttered one disgusted restaurant owner ‘After

Monday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Trump’s Great Firewall

29 min listen

Cash is no longer king in China. Much like Sweden, the country’s young and old opt for digital payments, made possible by an app called ‘WeChat’. While sometimes compared to WhatsApp or Facebook, WeChat is much more. On the latest episode of Chinese Whispers, my fortnightly podcast, China tech expert Duncan Clark describes how it’s designed to be ‘a digital Swiss army knife’. As well as payments for everything from rent to groceries, the app’s ubiquity means that the Chinese now ask for each other’s ‘WeChat IDs’ instead of phone numbers. It’s designed for technophobes with functions like voice messages – as Duncan points out, this is particularly helpful for

Saturday

William Cook

The battle over a German town’s black patron saint

At first glance, the pretty German town of Coburg seems an unlikely arena for the latest skirmish in the culture wars. The birthplace of Prince Albert (and one of Queen Victoria’s favourite holiday spots), it’s a quaint and tranquil place which miraculously came through the last century virtually unscathed. Yet now this historic backwater finds itself at the centre of controversy, on account of its patron saint, St Maurice, aka the Coburg Moor. St Maurice is a ubiquitous presence in Coburg. His profile adorns the town’s coat of arms, and numerous public buildings. It’s even on the manhole covers. Now Alisha Archie and Juliane Reuther (who live in Berlin but

John Keiger John Keiger

France is furious at Boris’s quarantine decision

The French gently mocked the pop-singer Petula Clarke on French media in the 1970s for her contortions about her heart being English but her soul French, or was it the reverse? But however much the British metropolitan classes may cloy to France as a mythical ‘world they have lost’, the French perceive the Franco-British relationship very differently. Competition is the watchword. And it is sharp. General de Gaulle the most acute of politicians and contriving of historians remarked, when French policy in the 1960s called for Britain to be rejected from the Common Market: ‘Our hereditary enemy, it was not Germany, but England.’ Leaving aside the centuries old clichéd rivalry

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

What lies behind the Japanese obsession with face masks?

If there is one country where the wearing of face masks in response to the coronavirus outbreak has caused no controversy whatsoever, it is Japan. There is no debate about face masks here, and it often seems as if many Japanese would be happy to don the flimsy cloth coverings all year round, regardless of risk. To understand why, it is necessary to consider the history and the culture rather more than the science.  The Japanese have been wearing masks of one sort or another for many centuries. The origin may have been the covering of the mouth with leaves to prevent unclean breath soiling holy artefacts in Buddhist temples

Friday

Ashis Ray

India-Pakistan relations have reached rock bottom

Seventy-three years ago on 15 August, the nation of India awoke, in the immortal words of its first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘to life and freedom’ after 190 years of British rule. It was a truncated triumph. Before its departure from the subcontinent, Britain conceded to demands for a separate homeland for Muslims and carved out significant swathes of India into Pakistan. Vocal and influential land-owning Muslim elites were convinced they would be unbearably subjugated in an independent India where Hindus were hegemonic. If the partition of India was intended to usher in reconciliation, this is yet to materialise. The two South Asian neighbours have since bloodily engaged in three

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Was Sweden’s refusal to lockdown a gruesome mistake?

Was there ever a jury destined to spend so long over its deliberations as the one considering whether Sweden made a terrible error over its refusal to go into lockdown? Just when you think the data points in one direction, another piece of data nods in the other. The case against Sweden rests largely on its death toll being significantly higher than that of its Nordic neighbours: 572 per million compared with 107 for Denmark, 60 for Finland and 48 for Norway. But then it also happens to be lower than several countries which had especially severe lockdowns, such as Spain (612), Britain (609) and Italy (583). But what of

Mariya Asipenka

Europe’s shameful silence on Belarus

I last saw Minsk, my home town, in June 2019. There was no hint of what was to come: Belarussians old and young have become used to dictatorship, and elections have long been treated with a weary cynicism. This time, suddenly and joyously, it is different. What is happening on the streets of towns and cities across my country is not an organised uprising; opposition politicians have been jailed and independent media squashed for decades, so that would be impossible. What the world is witnessing is a spontaneous urge for freedom from ordinary people: my fellow citizens. These are not activists; they are nurses and businesspeople, housewives and lawyers. I

Andrew Foxall

Putin’s ‘Black PR’ has arrived in Britain

Christopher Steele, the author of the (in)famous Trump dossier, is right to say Britain has been ‘behind the curve’ when it comes to combating the threat posed by Russia. The UK’s political parties are being targeted by the Kremlin, he told Tory MP Damian Collins on his ‘Infotagion’ podcast, in a bid ‘to create great polarity, great partisanship, and divisions within political life’. But while dodgy donations and cyber-hacking of our parties has been well covered, Steele also touched on a lesser-know but equally malign influence Russia is playing in Britain. ‘Black PR,’ he said, has ‘grown and spread like a contagion’ from Russia ‘out into Western Europe, and into the Western

Matt Drake

A divided nation: the true cost of New Zealand’s lockdown

Jacinda Ardern did a ‘little dance’ and thanked her ‘team of five million’ when she was told coronavirus had been eliminated from New Zealand. But her celebration now appears somewhat premature. A sudden spike in cases has forced Auckland back into lockdown and revealed the flaw in the country’s strategy for tackling the virus.  In its effort to make New Zealand covid-free, Adern’s government has taken drastic measures. The country’s borders have been almost entirely locked down and the few visitors and expats who do arrive are forced to stump up for their time in quarantine. But even these policies – as the cluster of cases to emerge in Auckland shows – are not enough to completely defeat the virus.

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The joyous Israel-UAE peace deal

There is a time for war and a time for peace, Ecclesiastes tells us. Joyously, in the middle of a joyless year, a time for peace is upon us. For only the third occasion since 1948, Israel has secured a deal for peace with an Arab state. The United Arab Emirates will put an ambassador in Israel and accept one in Abu Dhabi. Relations will reportedly go beyond formalities and include economic and scientific cooperation, in particular on developing a vaccine for Covid-19. The normalisation of relations with the UAE follows a courtship at first clandestine but in recent years open and candid. Israel and the Gulf states share a

Thursday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Here’s Nicola: can Boris Johnson stop Scottish independence?

36 min listen

Poll after poll is showing the surge in support for Scottish independence – so what can Boris Johnson do about it? (00:35) Plus, how many more pandemics does nature have in store for us? (13:20) And finally, is it time to bring back the British holiday camp? (28:00). With our Scotland Editor Alex Massie; commentator Angela Haggerty; author of The Pandemic Century Mark Honigsbaum; ecologist Peter Daszak; Reverend Steve Morris; and historian Kathryn Ferry. Presented by Cindy Yu. Produced by Cindy Yu and Sam Russell.