World

Saturday

Daniel DePetris

It’s time for Obama’s revenge on Trump

With Joe Biden now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, there is one president Americans will be seeing a lot more of in the months ahead—and his name is not Donald Trump. In the three years since he vacated the White House, Barack Obama has largely kept to himself. The former commander in chief is following the golden-rule of his own predecessor, George W. Bush: let your successor govern the way he or she wants to govern, and don’t constantly criticise those decisions or be a nuisance from the sidelines. Obama is keeping to that script, with some notable exceptions—his defence of the Affordable Care Act, his signature domestic legislative achievement,

Constantin Eckner

Does Germany need China more than Europe?

‘Desperate times call for desperate measures’ is the expression of the moment when it comes to summing up how countries are addressing the coronavirus crunch. Germany is no exception. Even before the pandemic, the country’s economy was heading towards a mild recession, according to plenty of projections. But once the virus spread across the Hubei province, Germany’s manufacturers started to get hit in a painful spot: their supply chains. The early supply shock stemming from reduced production capacity in China again exposed Germany’s dependency on its trade relations with the economic giant in the east. For years now, Germany has been leaning on China for cheap supply and as a market for its

David Patrikarakos David Patrikarakos

A simple way for Keir Starmer to help Labour reject Corbynism

It’s over then. After almost five years, Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader has come to a close. Corbyn ended as he led: with the petulance and ill grace that has characterised his political career. As Corbyn slopes to the backbenches to resume a life of fruitless campaigning, Keir Starmer steps up to replace him. He faces a mammoth task: rebuilding Labour as a credible electoral force. This is necessary for both party and country. All of us, wherever we stand on the political spectrum, need a functioning opposition. But make no mistake: if Starmer is to make Labour palatable once more, both politically and indeed morally, he will need

Friday

Alessandra Bocchi

Italy’s family unity could be its biggest weakness against coronavirus

Italy still currently has the highest reported fatality rate in the world, at 12.7 per cent. And that death toll is widely thought to be even higher than officially reported. In comparison, Germany has a recorded fatality rate of two per cent. Yet both countries have similar levels of infection rates. Italy has 143,626 confirmed coronavirus cases; Germany has 114,257. Italy’s disproportionately higher death toll with similar infection and testing rates compared to a country like Germany raises crucial questions on how and why Covid-19 affects some countries more than others. In Italy’s case, the answer may well be that the country’s greatest strength, united families, are now its biggest

John Keiger John Keiger

A hard Frexit needn’t be a disaster for France

With European solidarity impaled on the coronavirus epidemic, talk of Frexit is surfacing again. But how could Frexit be organised? Like Britain, France would activate Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin the process of leaving the European Union. But how does one leave the single currency? Brussels, which existentially regulates for everything, does not say and the 3000 page Lisbon Treaty is silent on the subject. So how could France move to ‘eurexit’ and what would be the financial consequences? A starting point could involve reverse engineering the Lisbon Treaty’s monetary articles to begin negotiations with Brussels on exiting the euro. While the 144-article long Title VIII of

Thursday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Could coronavirus hasten the demise of religion?

38 min listen

This is an Easter like no other – so what happens to Christianity when Christians can’t go to church (1:00)? We also hear reports from the New York frontline (12:20), and discuss just why humour is so important in dark times (19:40).

Taki

The way Greece has conducted itself in this pandemic is an example to us all

Aristophanes was a comic genius long before the Marx Brothers, but he also gave good advice to the Athenians: stop the war! In his play Lysistrata he had the women going on strike — no more nookie — until the men stopped fighting. During the plague that killed the greatest Athenian of them all, Pericles, Aristophanes advised the young to isolate, meditate and masturbate, advice still valid to this day. Greece, with roughly the same population as Switzerland and faced with a surge of migrants turned loose by the dreaded Turks, has handled the crisis well. The American media is using the virus crisis in order to attack Trump, but

Qanta Ahmed Qanta Ahmed

In New York’s hospitals, we need all the help we can get

New York I hear it said now and again that Covid-19 is just a nasty winter bug, nothing more than a new form of flu. From what I’ve seen in New York’s intensive care units in the past few days, I can assure you this is not true. Last month I was still doing my usual job, treating patients with sleep disorders. But my training — and for many years my work — was in critical care medicine. As the coronavirus crisis developed, it was clear to me that I was needed back in the hospital, so I volunteered before the call came. Soon I was making decisions about keeping

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Dominic Raab is the constitutional choice, but a complicated one

We have never had a moment like this before in our history: a time when the Prime Minister is, in the most personal way possible, fighting the very problem his government is trying to tackle. After Boris Johnson tested positive for coronavirus, he insisted that he would keep leading the government from self-isolation in Downing Street. His determination was influenced by the fact that No. 10 believed that parts of government needed pushing to make sure they delivered; there is frustration in Downing Street about the speed of progress in testing, for instance. But those in virtual meetings with him did worry that he was often coughing, and his performance

Wednesday

Daniel DePetris

The three reasons Bernie Sanders couldn’t beat Joe Biden

He took nearly a month to assess the state of his campaign after a whopping 15-point defeat in the crucial battleground state of Michigan. But after private deliberations with his wife, Jane, and some lobbying from his senior political advisers, Bernie Sanders came to the conclusion that continuing his presidential campaign would likely do more harm than good. On Wednesday he decided to call it quits, telling his supporters that there was ‘no alternative’. Mathematically, he was right. Sanders was trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by over 300 delegates in the primaries and would have needed to win over 60 per cent of the remaining delegates to capture the Democratic

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Pompeo: China must be more transparent

While coronavirus ravages the world, a political battle is also being waged with China resisting suggestions that it’s to blame. I have just spoken about this with Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, in a conference call with journalists from eight other European countries. I tried to gauge the mood in the White House towards China. Donald Trump has referred to the virus as the ‘China Virus’, a label vigorously resisted by Beijing. Some Chinese officials had even suggested that it might have American origins. Things seemed to have cooled after Trump’s recent call with Xi, but I asked Pompeo how worried he is about disinformation coming from China.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Coronavirus is straining an already fractured EU

When EU finance ministers ended their crisis meeting this morning, they had spent 16 hours trying to establish what collective help, if any, they wish to offer to the countries most affected by the epidemic: Spain and Italy. They agreed on not a thing. Instead, the meeting broke up acrimoniously with Italy, Spain and France demanding that the European Central Bank issue ‘coronabonds’ to help finance economic recovery – while Germany, the Netherlands and others resisted. So we see the EU split along the same lines as did the 2008/09 crisis, and indeed along the same fault lines that have been growing ever wider over the past three decades. The

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is Germany treating its coronavirus patients differently?

Asked at Tuesday’s evening briefing why Germany appears to have a lower coronavirus death rate than Britain, the Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty said: ‘We all know that Germany got ahead in terms of its ability to do testing for the virus, and there’s a lot to learn from that.’ Germany has the capacity for 500,000 tests a day, while our own government is promising only 100,000 tests a day by the end of April. As has been explained here and elsewhere many times before, the more people you test, the lower your infection mortality rate will be – for the simple reason that you will be dividing your deaths

Andrew Foxall

Don’t be fooled by China’s coronavirus propaganda

As the world wages war on coronavirus, China is in full propaganda mode. Its foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian has claimed the US military might have brought Covid-19 to Wuhan, a lie parroted by several embassy Twitter accounts. It has also sent doctors and medical supplies to Europe and to the United States. Never one to let a good crisis go to waste, China’s leader Xi Jinping has reportedly suggested that the aid Beijing has provided could form the basis of a ‘health silk road’ connecting Europe to China. But make no mistake: China’s activities are designed to distract from its own culpability. Through its actions and its words, Beijing is seeking to convince

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Cardinal Pell’s acquittal shames Australia’s police

The acquittal of Cardinal Pell by the Australian High Court on all the charges against him was remarkable in all sorts of ways: all seven judges agreed in near record time to the joint judgment throwing out the five charges against him and they did it after digging right into the evidence. They simply annulled the earlier verdicts by a jury and Victoria’s appellate court – though their findings resoundingly vindicate the detailed, 204-page dissident judgment by one of the three judges, Mark Weinberg, Australia’s most experienced criminal appeal court judge. The Cardinal says the verdict shouldn’t be an occasion for more bitterness; but it should be the occasion for a

Tuesday

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Japan’s ‘state of emergency’ is anything but dramatic

The Japanese government has announced a state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures in response to escalating numbers of coronavirus cases. It comes after prolonged pressure was exerted by politicians, health care professionals and outspoken governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike. The measures are intended to last a month and come with a £44bn (6 trillion yen) compensation package to help affected businesses. This was the first such announcement in the history of Japan. A ‘State of Emergency’ sounds dramatic, but it actually has few practical implications for citizens. Local officials will be empowered to ‘request’ (interpreted as implying a very strong obligation) people to stay indoors as

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Cardinal George Pell is the victim of a shameful miscarriage of justice

The High Court of Australia has unanimously overturned the conviction of Cardinal George Pell for alleged acts of child sex abuse that could not possibly have taken place. He has been acquitted and the prosecution cannot appeal. The 78-year-old cardinal, formerly head of the Vatican’s finances, now emerges in his true colours: as a Christian of heroic fortitude who was the victim of one of the most despicable miscarriages of justice in the history of Australia. For the past five years, Catholics and countless impartial observers all over the world have watched in horror as Pell was accused by the State of Victoria and then convicted on the basis of evidence