The Bondi Beach shooting was a pogrom
The unhinged hatred for the world’s only Jewish state has reanimated a medieval-like loathing for the Jewish people
World
Monday
Chile turns rightward
The victory of Jose Antonio Kast confirms Latin America’s shift to the right
Saturday
Putin moves troops into Trump’s backyard
Putin has expressed ‘solidarity with the Venezuelan people’
Friday
Will US businesses profit from a return to the Russian market?
Rome Will peace in Ukraine also prove to be a great deal for US business? Vladimir Putin would certainly like Donald Trump to think so. Within days of Trump’s election victory last November, the Kremlin ordered major Russian corporations to prepare detailed proposals for economic cooperation with Washington. Coordinating these efforts were Maxim Oreshkin, deputy head of Putin’s presidential administration, and Kirill Dmitriev, the US-educated Harvard, Stanford and Goldman Sachs alumnus who heads Russia’s sovereign investment fund. According to a major US investor in Russia who eyes a postwar return to the market, among the major Russian corporations setting out potential deals for US companies were Russia’s atomic energy agency
Thursday
Myanmar’s junta is lashing out
Losing its ability to win on the ground, the regime is now resorting to unconventional aerial attacks on civilians
The scientific case for the existence of intelligent alien life
The foundation of science is based on the humility to learn, not the arrogance of expertise. When comet experts argued that the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS must be a familiar water-rich comet as soon as it was discovered in July, they behaved like artificial intelligence systems: only able to reflect the data sets they were trained on. For decades, the data set that established comet expertise largely comprised icy rocks in the solar system. My counterpoint is simple: humanity launched technological objects into space, so we must conclude that alien life forms could do the same. This possibility must be added to the training data set of comet experts when studying
Peter Thiel predicts the future
Peter Thiel has been described variously as “America’s leading public intellectual,” the “architect of Silicon Valley’s contemporary ethos” or as an “incoherent and alarmingly super-nationalistic” malevolent force. The PayPal and Palantir founder, a prominent early supporter of Donald Trump, is one of the world’s richest and most influential men. Throughout his career, his principal concern has always been the future, so when The Spectator asked to interview him, he wanted to talk to young people. To that effect, three young members of the editorial team were sent to Los Angeles to meet him. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation. WILLIAM ATKINSON: Following Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New
Tuesday
What Ukraine really needs from Europe
Bear hugs and kind words are not enough
Thursday
Trump’s peace process pageantry
He oversaw the celebration of an accord between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the newly rebranded ‘Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace’
Tuesday
Why are we so obsessed with Hitler’s penis?
There is a ‘small penis’ theory of history
Monday
Trump was right to snub Johannesburg’s G20 summit
South Africa’s corruption and human rights abuses are deplorable
Sunday
Inside the mind of Putin’s real hatchet man
As Moscow and Washington prepare for talks on the latest version of Donald Trump’s peace plan, leaked recordings of a conversation with US envoy Steve Witkoff have thrown a spotlight on to senior diplomat Yuri Ushakov. It seems he, not Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, is the prime mover behind Russia’s negotiating position. The stature of Lavrov, once a legend in the diplomatic community, has steadily diminished since 2014, when he wasn’t even consulted before Vladimir Putin decided to annex Crimea. Every year since then, the now-75-year-old minister has petitioned Putin to be allowed to retire; every year this is denied. Instead, Lavrov remains confined to a role of repeating threadbare talking points
Saturday
The downfall of Thomas King, Canada’s most influential ‘indigenous’ man
It’s an awkward time in the upper echelons of the Canadian cultural establishment. It’s come to light that influential indigenous author and former broadcaster Thomas King, isn’t actually indigenous at all. It matters, because King has spent much of his 82 years claiming to speak on behalf of the indigenous peoples of North America, and his role in shaping Canadian perception of their First Nations has been enormous. His books have served as standard texts in Canadian schools and universities for over 20 years. Born in the US, King came to Canada in 1980 to teach native studies at the University of Lethbridge. His claim to be indigenous was made
Friday
How damaging could the Ukraine corruption scandal be for Zelensky?
The President’s top aide resigned after mounting pressure at home and abroad
Wednesday
Fact-checking the Venezuela war hawks
Proponents of regime change are throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks
Tuesday
Will Israel bring back the death penalty for terrorists?
For years, there was a broad consensus in Israel that there was no benefit to reintroducing the death penalty. But now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is reportedly considering supporting a bill which would bring back capital punishment for convicted terrorists. The bill, which has passed its first reading in the Knesset, would introduce the death penalty for those who murder Jews – specifically, Palestinian terrorists. It would not apply to Jews who commit acts of terrorism and murder Palestinians. And it would not apply if Israeli Arabs, who are full citizens, are murdered. The bill is being promoted by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security, who in 2007 was
Monday
DoGE has had its day
DoGE has been DoGE’d. The once fearsome government efficiency office has been shut down eight months before its contract officially ends in July 2026. What was supposed to be an organization that exploded traditional ways of running the federal government has turned into a damp squib. It was established by President Trump on the first day of his second term in office. Headed by Tesla chief Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (who resigned early on to run for Ohio governor), it struck the kind of fear into government bureaucrats that a visit from the Red Guards might instill during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Musk’s minions rampaged through government offices, whether it was the US Institute of Peace or the Wilson Center. The idea was that the bastions
Russia is willing to keep on fighting in Ukraine
At a time when western commentators are tying themselves in knots trying to parse the ongoing Ukraine peace discussions, the Russian media is suddenly strikingly united in its coverage. There is a common misperception that, like their Soviet forebears, the Russian press simply reproduces some standard party line, day in, day out. In fact, there is often surprising pluralism, with different newspapers having their own interests and angles. However, the Kremlin does impose its will when it comes to especially important or sensitive matters, with editors receiving tyomniki, informal but authoritative guidance from the presidential administration on lines to take and topics to avoid. When the press is speaking in one
Sunday
ISIS is stirring once more
Indications that the Islamic State (ISIS) has begun to employ artificial intelligence in its efforts to recruit new fighters should come as no surprise. At the height of its power a decade ago, Isis was characterized by its combination of having mastered the latest methods of communication with an ideology and praxis that seemed to have emerged wholesale from the deserts of 7th century Arabia. In 2014 and 2015, ISIS recruitment took place on Twitter and Facebook. YouTube was the favored platform for the dissemination of propaganda. The group’s videoclips of its barbaric prisoner executions, including the beheadings of a series of western journalists and aid workers and the immolation
Why Iran needs the Maduro regime
The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and three warships have been sent to the Caribbean, where they are joining a dozen Navy warships already off the coast of Venezuela, in an unprecedented show of military force. President Trump and his administration are taking aim at the administration of Nicolas Maduro, over his alleged role in the drug trade which presents a national security threat to the United States. It’s clear that if the US succeeds in destabilizing and displacing President Maduro’s regime, it would be a blow to the region’s drug traffickers. What is less known is that it would also hit Iran. Venezuela has long served as a launchpad for Iranian