World

Sunday

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Can Russia really ban smoking?

The UK isn’t the only place which has been toying with the idea of introducing a ‘generational’ tobacco ban. Rishi Sunak’s bill that would ban sales to anyone born after 1 January 2009 was taken over by Labour following the election, but now it is Russia that is debating a similar measure. The Ministry of Health is reportedly close to proposing a ban on the sale of tobacco and other nicotine-containing products to everyone born after 31 December 2009. A draft bill has already been circulated and has been adopted by the New People party, one of the government’s tame pseudo-opposition factions, although it has not yet been reviewed by

Caleb Quinley

Is this the end for the Philippines’ Duterte family?

For the last decade, the Duterte family has been known throughout the Philippines as almost untouchable – respected, feared, and seen by many as above the law. Take Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs when he was president of the Philippines. Despite a bloody crackdown, Duterte remained largely unchallenged both domestically and internationally during his presidency. His son, Paolo, has enjoyed similar immunity: several years ago, he was implicated in a multi-billion peso drug-smuggling operation, but got off easy – with rumours that the judicial system was rigged to protect the family. The Duterte family has remained a powerful political dynasty in the Philippines, even after President Rodrigo Duterte left

Sam Meadows

Uruguay’s elections have become overshadowed by a referendum

Uruguayans have long been able to look across the Rio Plata to their larger and louder neighbours in Argentina and roll their eyes at the endless economic crises and political chaos. Not for much longer, perhaps. Uruguay heads to the polls today to elect its next president, but election fever has been roundly overshadowed by (if economists are to be believed) referendum also taking place today. Analysts have described it as a possible ‘Brexit moment’ The national plebiscite has been proposed by trade unions and would radically overhaul the country’s entire pension system. The retirement age would fall by five years to 60, pension payouts would be pegged to the minimum wage,

Saturday

Fabian Hoffmann

The strike on Iran marks a dramatic change in Israel’s tactics

On the night of 26 October, Israel conducted an aerial strike on Iran, marking the latest move in the ongoing tit-for-tat conflict between the two countries. The attack, which had been anticipated and was announced by the Israeli government, was in response to an earlier Iranian missile strike on Israel at the beginning of October, named Operation True Promise 2. The Iranian attack was itself a retaliation for Israel’s assassination of senior leaders within Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard over the preceding months. Details of last night’s airstrike remain unclear, but reports suggest that Israel targeted approximately 20 Iranian military sites. Prior to it, there was speculation that Israel might

Vazha Tavberidze

The man behind Georgia’s pro-Putin turn

‘He wasn’t my first billionaire, so I kind of knew my way around him’, a senior US diplomat who plied his trade in Georgia told me at the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. ‘And the weirdest thing? He was starry-eyed about Nato and the West in the beginning. I remember at one meeting with a US delegation, he outright asked, “So what I” – notice the I, not we – “what I gotta do to get into Nato by 2016?” We all looked at each other, then gave him the usual line about democratic reforms and so on. He listened for a while, then interrupted, “But what do I really

Limor Simhony Philpott

Israel does not want full-scale war with Iran

Just over three weeks after Iran attacked Israel with 200 ballistic missiles, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) finally launched a retaliatory airstrike on Iranian military facilities last night. The IAF strike reportedly lasted three hours, and was carried out in three waves. It was based on impressively precise intelligence and targeted the missile manufacturing facilities where the ballistic missiles used in Iran’s attack earlier this month were made. The IAF also struck surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missile arrays. As soon as reports of the attack emerged, the Iranian disinformation machine whirred into action. Through official channels as well as online influencers and bots, Iran denied that its facilities were successfully bombed

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Will Israel strike Iran again?

Israel’s major airstrike operation deep within Iranian territory last night was unprecedented, reportedly targeting over 20 military sites in a coordinated, multi-wave attack. For the first time, Israel not only conducted such a large-scale operation but also openly acknowledged it as it unfolded. According to Israeli sources, the operation achieved its objectives, dealing a decisive blow to the Iranian regime’s military infrastructure.  The entire mission returned safely to Israel, sending a clear message of the Jewish state’s total aerial superiority over Iranian defences, all while presumably avoiding or minimising civilian casualties. Yet despite these early indications of success, the full scale of the damage remains unconfirmed, and Iran’s attempts to

Philip Womack

Philip Womack, Ian Thomson, Silkie Carlo, Francis Young and Rory Sutherland

28 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Philip Womack wonders why students can’t tackle university reading lists (1:12); Ian Thomson contemplates how much Albania has changed since Enver Hoxta’s dictatorship (6:12); Silkie Carlo reveals the worrying rise of supermarket surveillance (13:33); Francis Young provides his notes on Hallowe’en fairies (20:21); and Rory Sutherland worries that Britain may soon face a different type of migrant crisis (24:08).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How the French left is fuelling the small boats crisis

Three more migrants drowned off the French coast this week when their overcrowded and flimsy boat sank. In response to this latest tragedy, a French refugee organisation Utopia 56 posted a message on social media stating that ‘since July, there have been fatal incidents almost every week, causing at least 39 victims. It’s the result of the repressive policies chosen by our governments’. Utopia 56 is one of France’s best known humanitarian organisations. My local newspaper in Burgundy recently worked with them in producing a report headlined ‘The migrants ready to die to reach England’. The introductory sentence described desperate migrants ‘fleeing bombs, repression and famine’. They came from Afghanistan, Libya,

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Why are Germans happy to continue paying a dog tax?

Local authorities in Germany are making more money than ever from dogs – or their owners to be precise. The very idea of charging dog owners an annual tax for keeping their pets may sound archaic to British ears but it carries on fairly unchallenged in Germany. In 2023, Germany’s municipal authorities received a total of €421 million (£351 million) in tax from the country’s dog owners. The figure has risen by 41 per cent over the last decade. Each municipal authority sets its own fees. Having a dog in Berlin will set you back €120 (£100) a year with every additional dog costing €180 (£150). Stuttgart charges extra for

Ian Williams Ian Williams

How cozy is Tim Walz with China?

The term ‘old friend of the Chinese people’ has a sentimental, almost innocent ring, but the Chinese Communist party (CCP) regards it as a job description. It is a label used to describe foreigners looked on favourably by the CCP, but it also carries obligations. ‘Old friends’ are expected to be sympathetic and further the interests of the party. ‘China will never forget their old friends,’ said President Xi Jinping when he met Henry Kissinger, the most famous holder of that title for his supposed pragmatism toward Beijing, last year. Perhaps the most notorious ‘old friend’ was Edgar Snow, the American journalist, who was given privileged access to Mao Zedong

James Tidmarsh

The West’s green agenda is abandoning Africa to China

In the remote Ludewa district of southern Tanzania, villagers scratch out a meagre living in harsh conditions. The roads are barely passable, clean water is hard to come by, and families live in rudimentary homes made from mud bricks. Preventable diseases like malaria, cholera, and dysentery plague the region, and health infrastructure is almost non-existent. Electricity, for most of Ludewa’s residents, is a distant dream. Yet beneath this harsh land lies enough coal to power all of Tanzania for over a century and to lift it out of poverty altogether. While China is ready to develop Mchuchuma, the West has left the field, wary of the environmental fallout The region’s

Friday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The EU knows all about destabilising democracy

Moldovans have voted ‘yes’ by a wafer-thin majority to joining the European Union in a referendum that was held amid ‘unprecedented interference’ by foreign powers. That is the view of the EU, whose spokesman, Peter Stano, accused Russia and its proxies of ‘aiming to destabilise the democratic processes in the Republic of Moldova’. The EU and its proxies know a thing or two about destabilising the democratic processes. Back in 2008, when the Guardian was a broad-minded newspaper which welcomed a diversity of views, Brendan O’Neill wrote a column entitled ‘What part of Ireland’s “no” does the EU not understand?’ The days when the EU could scold countries for destabilising democracy are long gone O’Neill was responding to

Thursday

David Cohen

Why is this New Zealand airport clamping down on hugs?

‘Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world,’ Hugh Grant famously offered in the heartwarming opening scene of Love, Actually, ‘I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport.’ It’s just as well he doesn’t think about Dunedin airport in New Zealand. The airport’s chief executive, Daniel De Bono, seems not to be a fan of lingering emotion-packed arrivals and departures taking place at his modest transport hub.  While other airport chiefs look for new ways to limit their terminals’ designated smoking areas or swoop on blameless travellers with too many toiletries, De Bono is cracking down on lingering hugs at his terminal here in New Zealand.   Announcing his airport’s

Nigel Jones

Austria’s far right is shut out of power, again

Austria’s mainstream politicians are combining to ensure that the winners of last month’s general elections, the far right Freedom party (FPO) are kept firmly out of power. The Alpine republic’s president, Alexander Van Den Bellen – aligned with the Green party – has invited the current chancellor, Karl Nehammer, whose centre right People’s party (OVP) came second in the elections, to form a coalition explicitly excluding the FPO, which topped the polls with 29 per cent, running on an anti-immigration, pro-Putin platform. Nehammer is now likely to form a ‘grand coalition’ Austria is the latest European ‘domino’ to propel a populist radical right party to the forefront of politics after the

Nicholas Farrell

Giorgia Meloni is going to war with Italy’s judges

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has declared war on Italy’s judges who are trying to kybosh at birth her much vaunted scheme to offshore illegal migrants to Albania.  Last Friday, a court in Rome dealt Meloni’s Albania scheme a potentially fatal blow by ruling that the first migrants sent to Albania cannot be detained and must be freed because their countries of origin – Bangladesh and Egypt – are unsafe.  The Toghe Rosse have Meloni in their sights She has now issued an emergency decree to change the law and her ministers are confident that it will stop the judges making similar rulings in the future. Meloni’s Albania scheme launched last week and is seen across Europe as

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

America’s last undecided voter

This is the last column I’ll file before the American presidential election, and I’ve dreaded writing it for months. (The next one, filed on election day itself, may prove impossible. Perhaps that’s when I’ll choose to share my recipe for parsley as a side vegetable.) Meanwhile, I’ve watched fellow ‘double haters’ squirm in print. There are two models for wrestling with this dilemma, one exemplified by Andrew Sullivan. The conservative commentator ‘came out’ in a September Substack newsletter – no, not in that dated sense: everyone knows he’s gay – in support of Kamala Harris, only to lavish the overwhelming majority of that column on what a ghastly candidate she

Ian Thomson

Albania has long lived in Italy’s shadow

Albanians are descended from the most ancient of European peoples, the Illyrians. The country came into existence only after 1912 with the demise of Ottoman power in Europe. Its first ruler, the glorified Muslim chieftain King Zog, was hounded out by Mussolini when fascist Italy invaded in 1939. (Zog was put up in London for a while at the Ritz.) Five years later the Nazi Germans were expelled by the Albanian resistance fighter Enver Hoxha. Outwardly a Stalinist, the artful Hoxha was a Muslim-born Ottoman dandy figure who terrorised his Balkan fiefdom through retaliatory murders, purges and the trap-door disappearance of class enemies. Albania has long lived in Italy’s shadow.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Trump makes America laugh again

‘Tradition holds that I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening,’ said Donald Trump in his speech at the Al Smith Dinner in New York on Friday night. ‘So here it goes.’ He paused. ‘Nope. I’ve got nothing… There’s nothing to say. I guess I just don’t see the point at taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me.’ The crowd roared. Many of the jokes were close to the bone: ‘We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child. It’s a person that has nothing going,

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Budget leaks, prisoners released and Israel kills Hamas leader

Home Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was expected to freeze tax thresholds in the Budget on 30 October, to swell government income as more working people were brought into higher tax bands. Before Labour formed a government, she had said that the Conservatives, by freezing tax thresholds, were ‘picking the pockets of working people’. Weeks of speculation on the Budget were encouraged by leaks and by constant questioning of ministers about how Labour would keep to its manifesto undertaking not to raise taxes on ‘working people’ by increasing income tax, national insurance or VAT. The International Monetary Fund raised its growth forecast for the United Kingdom to 1.1