World

Wednesday

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Michel Barnier’s government in name only

A trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.  Of course, France now owes even more than that. To be precise, a colossal €3,228,000,000,000. Up by one trillion euros since the election in 2017 of President Emmanuel Macron, the ‘Mozart of finance’. A ‘sword of Damocles’, admitted the new French prime minister Michel Barnier on Tuesday in his speech to the National Assembly setting out the programme of his minority government. A government in name only, it can be said, since it depends on its survival on the consent of Marine Le Pen.   As the left opposition hissed and Le Pen beamed like

Tuesday

Limor Simhony Philpott

Will Israel fire back on Iran?

Israel has come under widespread missile attack from Iran. Some 200 ground-to-ground missiles were launched from Iran, according to Israeli media. Israelis have been ordered to stay in bomb shelters while the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intercept missiles overhead. The sound of interceptions over Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city, are constant and deafening. So far, there don’t appear to be any casualties or direct hits. Among Iran’s targets were military bases, including airforce and intelligence facilities. It’s not known whether the attack has now finished, or if another wave of missiles is making its way to Israel. Elsewhere, a terror attack this evening in Jaffa has resulted in the death

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Iran launches a missile attack on Israel

Iranian missiles are slicing through the evening sky over Tel Aviv as Tehran responds to the killing of Hezbollah leader and terrorist mastermind Hassan Nasrallah. Some reports on Israeli television put the number of missiles at 100, while the head of emergency medical organisation Magen David Adom has told Channel 12 that the number is in the hundreds. Videos uploaded to social media show some ballistics being intercepted. The attack has coincided with a shooting incident in nearby Jaffa, where two terrorists are reported to have murdered eight and injured a further seven. It is not clear whether the two incidents are linked. Iran will want to avoid a hot

Jonathan Spyer

Why Hezbollah miscalculated – and Israel attacked

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the IDF spokesman’s office issued a laconic statement, according to which Israeli forces have commenced ‘raids… based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon. These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.’ With this terse announcement, Israel signalled that its 18-year policy of restraint and reaction on its northern border was definitively over, and that the door has been opened to something new.  Hezbollah takes a particular pride in its claimed deep knowledge of and understanding of Israeli society How did we reach this point?

Sean Rayment

The danger of a ground campaign against Hezbollah

There has never been a better time in recent years for Israel to launch a cross-border ground attack against Hezbollah. The Iran-backed terrorist group’s senior leadership, both political and military, has almost been wiped out – with up to 19 senior officials, including its political leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in recent weeks. After almost a year of bitter fighting in Gaza, much of Israel’s reservist-based army is said to be exhausted Morale amongst Hezbollah fighters must be desperately low after the group’s command and control network – the ability to coordinate its fighters dotted along the border with Israel – was severely undermined by the astonishing Mossad-led pager and walkie-talkie

Terry Barnes

A Tasmanian court has widened Australia’s gender divide

It’s hard to make head or tail of where Australia stands on the gender debate that has divided the West. The issue boils down to a simple question: should men be allowed in women’s spaces? But the answer is far from simple. And a court ruling by a Tasmanian court ruling may have just added to the confusion. Tasmania’s avant garde Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) is not everyone’s cup of artistic tea. Its curator, American-born artist and wife of Mona’s very wealthy founder, David Walsh, Kirsha Kaechele, is certainly no stranger to controversy. ‘The men are a little hysterical, I’m a bit concerned’, Kaechele said In July,

Arieh Kovler

Can Israel ‘win’ its war against Hezbollah?

Israelis awoke today to the unsurprising news that the IDF had crossed the border into Lebanon. The incursions, which had been expected for days and heavily briefed as imminent yesterday, are supposedly ‘limited’ and ‘targeted’ – aiming to destroy fortified Hezbollah positions overlooking the Galilee and prevent the terror group from using short-range weapons like RPGs against Israeli towns.  The IDF has learnt its lessons from the shame and failure of the 2006 war, while Hezbollah was overconfident after its successes The invasion came after two weeks of astonishing successes in the war against Hezbollah. First, the detonations of thousands of supposedly secure pagers worn by Hezbollah commandos, secretly laced with

Limor Simhony Philpott

What Israel hopes to achieve with its Lebanon operation

As troops from the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) 98th airborne division enter into Lebanon, they know that fighting Hezbollah will prove dangerous and difficult. Although Hezbollah has deteriorated after Israel’s recent attacks, its terrorists still have significant fighting capabilities. The elite IDF troops are backed by the Israeli airforce and artillery. It’s been nearly 12 months since Hezbollah started firing missiles at Israel, forcing more than 60,000 civilians to evacuate their homes. These 12 long months of relentless bombing have destroyed buildings, caused widespread fires and killed and injured Israelis, including children. Now Israel wants to bring this to an end. Its ground manoeuvre will continue what the Israeli air

Jim Lawley

Mexico wants Spain to apologise for conquering the Aztecs

When Claudia Sheinbaum becomes Mexico’s first female president later today, Felipe VI, the King of Spain, will not be present. He has, very pointedly, not been invited to the swearing-in ceremony because he hasn’t apologised for Spain’s invasion and conquest of the Aztec empire 500 years ago.  Spaniards are alert to the ‘emotional fraudulence’ of professing guilt for something that happened 20 generations ago This diplomatic stand-off began in 2019 when Andrés Manuel López Obrador, then president of Mexico, wrote to King Felipe inviting him to express his regret. Having described the conquest as ‘tremendously violent, painful and unjustifiable’, López Obrador said, ‘Mexico would like the Spanish state to recognise its historical

Monday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Will AI be the next arms race?

48 min listen

The release of ChatGPT in late 2022 brought home the sheer potential of artificial intelligence and the speed with which developments are being made. It made AI the hot topic from business to politics and, yes, journalism.  This was true in China too, despite the fact that ChatGPT has never been allowed to be used within Chinese borders. Instead, China has a rich landscape of homegrown AI products, where progress is being led by tech giants like search engine Baidu and TikTok’s owner, ByteDance. So already we are seeing a bifurcation in the AI worlds of China and the West – just like with social media and e-commerce. This episode

Limor Simhony Philpott

Israel must press home its advantage against Hezbollah and invade Lebanon

Israel has started to prepare for a ground invasion of Lebanon amid international calls for ceasefire. This is the next stage of Israel’s operation against Hezbollah – which began with exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, and continued with the killing of Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as nearly all of the terror organisation’s top commanders. The Israeli air force continues to bomb Hezbollah’s infrastructure and is preparing the ground for troops to enter southern Lebanon, which might happen later this week. Special units from the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have already carried out limited operations across the border, in order to gather vital information that will aid forces during a ground

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

What will happen to Europe if it can’t control the migrant crisis?

The victory of the Freedom party in Austria’s general election came as Israel intensified its air strikes across Lebanon. Lebanon’s Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, says that more than one million people have been displaced from their homes as a consequence of the military strikes. The ramifications of the turmoil in the Middle East will terrify Europe Included in that figure are a substantial number of the estimated two million Syrian refugees who fled to Lebanon a decade ago to escape the war in their own country. Many have faced discrimination in Lebanon and it has been reported that during the Israeli air strikes Syrians have been refused entry into the country’s air

Nigel Jones

Why the hard-right triumphed in Austria

The general elections in Austria have delivered a sensational result, with the hard right, pro-Putin Freedom party (FPO) coming out on top for the first time in the Alpine republic’s post-second world war history. Projections after Sunday’s poll give the FPO 29 per cent – a three point lead over their nearest rivals, the conservative People’s party (OVP) under Chancellor Karl Nehammer on 26 per cent. The result does not necessarily mean that the FPO will form the new government, as it lacks an absolute majority, and all the other parties have vowed not to form a coalition with the FPO’s victorious controversial leader, Herbert Kickl, a 55-year-old hardline former interior minister

Sunday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What happens if the American election is a tie?

32 min listen

America has a peculiar way of deciding national elections. Instead of a cumulative national vote, the president and vice president are determined by fifty separate state elections. The top ticket in each state (except Nebraska and Maine) receives all that state’s electoral votes, no matter how slim the margin of victory. Each state’s electoral votes are equal to its number of House members plus its senators. The winner needs 270 electoral votes.  What if, in this razor-thin election, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris fall one vote short? Freddy Gray is joined by Charles Lipson, contributor to The Spectator and political scientist,  to answer that question. You can read the rest of his

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Banning Germany’s AfD won’t make it disappear

The opening of a regional parliament doesn’t usually make for edge-of-the-seat politics. But in the German state of Thuringia, the first session of newly elected MPs descended into such unsavoury chaos that some commentators now fear for German democracy itself. A few weeks ago, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won the Thuringian parliamentary election, making it the first significant far-right victory in Germany since the Nazis. All other political parties agreed to uphold their cordon sanitaire around the AfD, but the first parliamentary session on Thursday showed that the democratic system isn’t designed to isolate the election winner. Picture Corbyn and Braverman drafting a history curriculum together for an idea of

Alexander Kolyandr

The secret behind Putin’s booming war economy

Russia’s spending on its war in Ukraine continues to grow. Somehow, despite tightening sanctions and increased global isolation, two-and-a-half-years in to the conflict, it appears Moscow can continue to splash the cash on its army – for now. Spending on president Vladimir Putin’s military is set to increase by more than a quarter to 13.3 trillion roubles (£107 billion) next year, according to a draft of the Russian state budget for 2025 revealed this week. This colossal sum – which is nearly double the 6.4 trillion roubles (£52 billion) spent last year – is roughly twice the size of the amount spent by Britain on its own defence. Russia’s government

Saturday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

This is Israel’s greatest victory since the Six-Day War

There is a satirical Israeli song from the Second Lebanon War, ‘Yalla Ya Nasrallah’, with the chorus: ‘Come on, oh Nasrallah/We will screw you, inshallah/we’ll send you back to Allah/with the rest of Hezbollah’. The lyrics are doggerel, but I mention it for two reasons. One, it’s an absolute banger of a tune and, two, all that it threatened has now been carried out. Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah for 32 years, was killed last night in an IDF strike on the Islamist terror group’s underground command centre beneath a Beirut suburb. My city my people 😂🇮🇱 Tel Aviv “Yalla ya Nasrallah, We will f*ck you Inshallah, We will return

Jonathan Spyer

How will Iran respond to Nasrallah’s assassination?

The assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah transcends the immediate confrontation between Israel and its Islamist enemies. Nasrallah was both a leader and a symbol of Iran’s bid for hegemony in the Arab world. His fighters advanced Iran’s cause in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond the region – into Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Israeli pundits discussed last night the possibility of deterioration into all-out war As is known but rarely stated by western diplomats and officials, Nasrallah was the most powerful man in Lebanon and its de facto ruler. He led a military force and a political structure that dwarfed the ailing official state and managed a successful insurgency

Ali Kefford

Is a Russian threat floating off the English coast?

It is a little unsettling that the merchant ship MV Ruby is anchored off Margate, carrying 20,000 tonnes of Russian ammonium nitrate. This is seven times the amount of ammonium nitrate that caused the Beirut explosion in 2020, which killed 218 people and injured 6,000. While ammonium nitrate is usually sold as plant fertiliser, it can also be used in explosives. Some worry that there is a bomb a third of the size of the one detonated over Hiroshima within striking distance of London. Since leaving the White Sea port of Kandalaksha in July, the 23,760-tonne MV Ruby has exhibited unusual behaviour. Sailing under a Maltese flag, she was grounded during a storm, damaging

Limor Simhony Philpott

Nasrallah is dead and Hezbollah is broken

Israel has said that it killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut yesterday. Information that Nasrallah was at Hezbollah’s main headquarters in Beirut arrived while Israel’s Prime Minister was addressing the UN in New York, and a decision was made to target the man who has been terrorising Israelis for more than three decades. He was a gifted politician and leader, under whose leadership Hezbollah turned from a minor terrorist group into a large, heavily armed powerhouse Nasrallah, 64, was born in a village in southern Lebanon and was a deeply devout Shiite Muslim. He was one of the founders of Hezbollah and became leader of the terror organisation when