World

Elizabeth Warren’s rollercoaster presidential bid comes to an end

It was a long and winding rollercoaster ride for Elizabeth Warren on the presidential campaign trail. And when that ride ended, everybody who planted their feet back on earth was a little nauseous. Warren, the two-term senator from Massachusetts and anti-bank regulator with a work ethic and professor’s aura, reassessed the state of her campaign today and determined that it was time to get out of the race with dignity. Warren’s team expected to finish in second place in a number of states on ‘Super Tuesday’, which would have given her an excuse to stay in the race ­– as she increased her delegate count. Instead, she ended up in

Cindy Yu

Planet Corona: is this the tipping point for globalisation?

38 min listen

As the coronavirus sweeps across the globe, it’s causing businesses, consumers, and governments to rethink their globalised lives. Is this a tipping point for hyper-globalisation (1:00)? Plus, is the government slimming down its Budget plans (13:40)? And last, is it harder to be eco-friendly if you are a woman (26:35)?

Sam Leith

Christina Lamb: how rape is used as a weapon of war

38 min listen

In this week’s Book Club podcast, my guest is the veteran foreign correspondent Christina Lamb. Christina’s new book, Our Bodies Their Battlefield: What War Does To Women is a deeply reported survey of rape as a weapon of war, described in our pages by Antony Beevor as the most powerful and disturbing book he has ever read. From the fates of Yazidi and Rohingya woman at the hands of IS and the Burmese military, to the German victims of the Red Army and the Disappeared of the Argentinian Junta, Christina looks at the past and present of this phenomenon and talks to me about why it’s so little reported or

Philip Patrick

Will Japan ban its ‘offensive’ Rising Sun flag at the Tokyo Olympics?

Ant and Dec have done most things in their long careers in light entertainment. But the versatile duo broke new ground last week when they infringed on international diplomacy by wearing Japanese Rising Sun flags on their headbands in a skit with singer Anne-Marie. The use of allegedly offensive WW2 era imagery forced programme makers to edit the sequence for future broadcast. ITV and Anne-Marie were obliged to make hasty apologies. But is the Rising Sun really offensive? And is anyone really offended? The flag is of ancient origin, but it has been associated with the Japanese military since 1870, it is still the emblem of the Self Defense Force

Biden surges on Super Tuesday

The luck of the Irish was finally with Joseph Biden. Dismissed as a loser by much of the US political class, Biden had never won a primary until South Carolina. Next he had a super-duper day on Super Tuesday, clobbering Bernie Sanders in state after state. Sanders may take Texas and California, but Bernie is essentially a burnt out case. It is more clear than ever that his candidacy would spell doom for the Democrats this autumn. He was unable to bring in many new young voters and his appeal to African American voters, the base of the Democratic party, is virtually nil. Exit polls showed that moderate and conservative

Stephen Daisley

Israeli voters have reasserted an iron law of politics – Bibi always wins

‘Bibi Melech Yisrael’ they chanted at the Likud victory rally. ‘Bibi, king of Israel’. The Israeli media, the organised left and the international community have been reacquainted with the lesson they keep forgetting: never write off Benjamin Netanyahu. With counting so far putting Likud on 36 seats, he has achieved his best ever result as leader and the party’s best performance since Ariel Sharon’s stonking 2003 victory. He is still two seats short of an overall majority but his people are already working to tempt a number of opposition MPs over to his side. Israel’s third election in a year has seemingly ended a political stalemate in which neither Netanyahu

John Keiger

Macron lacks Boris’s Napoleonic flair

‘I’d rather have lucky generals than good ones’, Napoleon – or Eisenhower – was supposed to have said, ‘they win battles’. Emmanuel Macron is a good general, but not a lucky one. Since he stood for the presidential election in May 2017, he has demonstrated strategic ability in identifying the reforms France needs to modernise its economy. He has conducted those reforms with considerable courage in the face of strong opposition overhauling outdated labour laws, unemployment benefits, restrictive practices in the national railway system and now he is tackling the over-generous pension system. And his strategy is beginning to show positive results for the French economy. 2019’s GDP at 1.2 per

Gavin Mortimer

Paris is increasingly lawless – but the middle-classes don’t seem to care

Ah, Paris, the city of love, the city of light, the city of larceny. Theft, burglary, pickpocketing, assault and homophobic acts are on the up, and even the city’s Procureur, the public prosecutor Rémy Heitz, has admitted the stats ‘aren’t good’. No, they’re not. Theft, for example, increased by 15 per cent in 2019, up from 124,875 recorded incidents to 144,552. Pickpockets are also enjoying a boom period with an increase of 35 per cent in 12 months, and there were 7 per cent more burglaries last year than in 2018. True, car theft and gun crime have dropped but physical assaults have risen by 13 per cent, sexual harassment on the

Cindy Yu

Beware the super-spreaders of coronavirus conspiracy theories

When a new virus is discovered, conspiracy theories often spread faster than the disease. I’ve been following the debate in China and the latest theory doing the rounds on social media is: what if the coronavirus didn’t come from China, but originated in the US instead? It would be classic CIA, wouldn’t it? The outbreak of this particular rumour can be traced to a medical pundit on Taiwanese TV two days ago. He referenced an academic paper which shows five different ‘families’ of coronavirus: A to E. But all 80,000 Chinese coronavirus cases belonged to one group: C. In the US, there are only 70 cases but a far greater

In Congo, the Church is doing the government’s business

Once I am sure there’s nothing going on I step inside letting the door thud shut The opening lines of Philp Larkin’s ‘Church Going’ sum up a common interaction with churches for most British people. We like them better when they’re empty; at least then we can imagine what we’d like to be happening inside. Most of us now see churches, church-going and general matters of faith as a fringe concern. If the Church does take centre-stage, it’s usually because they are on the wrong side of the current social argument. Take the example of the Roman Catholic Church in the West of Scotland, where one priest told me that

Joe Biden had to win in South Carolina

Joe Biden desperately needed a win in South Carolina. His poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, and sub-par showing in Nevada, meant that nothing short of a blowout win in the Palmetto State would suffice for the former vice president. He poured his heart and soul into the state, pulling off the ol’ Joe routine to a tee. It worked better than Biden himself could have imagined. Before a single ballot was counted, the networks called South Carolina for Biden. You may wonder why the election analysts were so confident? Two words: exit polls. Biden dominated with every grouping with the exception of voters under the age of 30

How Sinn Fein got away with murder

The online world should be credited when it gets something right. And on Twitter an account titled ‘On This Day the IRA’ gets something very right. Granted, it’s not your usual internet fare. It includes no videos of cute animals sneezing. It is simply an archive-rich account which records what the IRA did on that day in history. Naturally, each day brings more than one thing to commemorate. On the day I’m writing, the account records James Keenan and Martin McGuigan, two Catholic 16-year-olds blown up by the IRA in 1979 while they were on their way to a Saturday night dance. There are also anniversaries from 1977 and 1988,

Where did it all go wrong for Tony Blair’s protege in Guinea?

When Alpha Condé ‘Le Professeur’ became president of Guinea in 2010, he was hailed by Tony Blair as an ideal leader — the very model of what an African premier should be. Unlike previous rulers, Condé didn’t shoot his way to the top, but arrived armed with a law degree from the Sorbonne and Guinea’s first ever democratic mandate. Blair chose Le Professeur as a client for his Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), set up to nurture a new generation of ‘good guy’ African leaders, and Condé was introduced to a network of experts — not woolly DfID types, but sharp tacks with Downing Street experience. The idea was to replicate

Cindy Yu

The Edition: can the UK and EU bridge their Brexit gap?

41 min listen

Next week, the trade negotiations between the EU and the UK begin in earnest. But in the days ahead, the positions set out by both sides are so far apart that the negotiations can only be heading towards an almighty row. James Forsyth writes in this week’s issue that it’s better if they get this over with quickly, in order to move on to the compromise ‘landing zone’ that is a deal by the end of the year. On the podcast, I speak to him and Peter Foster, Europe editor of the Telegraph. It gets a little fiery as Peter challenges James on exactly why Britain would want to diverge,

Every Democrat lost in last night’s South Carolina debate

Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg said at least one accurate thing in South Carolina on Tuesday night: ‘Russia doesn’t have a political party… they want chaos’. But Mayor Pete was dead wrong when he said the chaos would come from a presidential race between Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump. The chaos was right there on stage. The candidates went south in more than one way tonight. CBS’s attempt at moderating the latest Democratic debate was a disastrous hellstorm of candidates yelling over one another, sharing bad jokes, lobbing tired and petty attacks, and, worst of all, trying to show some semblance of self-awareness with the final

How coronavirus can save Hong Kong

The coronavirus has enforced a hiatus in Hong Kong’s widespread political unrest with worries about transmission stalling protests. Dissatisfaction with the government still festers, fuelled by the mishandling of the health crisis – all the ingredients are there for protests to reignite. But the lull in the unrest gives the Hong Kong government and their counterparts in Beijing a window of opportunity. It is imperative that the British government encourages all sides to grasp the next few months as a moment for reconciliation. President Xi Jinping has been busy using this space to reshuffle the officials overseeing Hong Kong from Beijing’s side by appointing loyalists Xia Baolong and Luo Huining.