World

Thursday

Lynne O’Donnell

Will Trump finally stop America funding the Taliban?

For more than three years, democratic governments have been trying to pretend that Afghanistan does not exist. The embarrassed silence has given the Taliban drugs and terror cartel a free hand to transform Afghanistan into the world centre of jihad, while locking up women, and robbing western taxpayers of billions of dollars in aid and cash. After President Joe Biden’s disastrous 2021 withdrawal, following President Donald Trump’s 2020 surrender deal with the Taliban, Afghanistan became the country no one wanted to talk about. Rather than coming up with a policy for dealing with Afghanistan, the Biden administration has thrown money at it Rather than coming up with a policy for

Owen Matthews

The deepening unpopularity of Zelensky

Perhaps all political careers must end, inevitably, in failure. But few politicians have had careers as meteoric, as surprising, as consequential or as heroic as that of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. In just five years he has gone from TV comedian to victor of the biggest presidential landslide in his country’s history to inspiring wartime leader who impressed the world with his resolve and personal bravery. But now with the war entering its third (and probably last) winter, Zelensky’s extraordinary story as Ukraine’s leader has reached its final chapter. Voters blame Zelensky for the war’s failures – and do not wish him to play any part in their country’s future

Sean Thomas

Is Ukraine heading towards a Korean-style demilitarised zone?

It is the strangest place, the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that separates South Korea from North Korea. It is simultaneously a historic battlefield, a sombre graveyard, a tourist honeypot full of coach parties from Seoul, and a Cold War frontier, hotly defended on either side. One minute you are looking at a kiddies’ funfair, or a shop that sells ‘souvenir North Korean money’, the next you are staring at endless barbed wire and monuments to failed North Korean defectors, shot dead as they attempted to cross the two-and-a-half-mile strip of landmines. Which itself has turned into an Edenic eco-haven, full of deer and eagles, as the humans have vanished. In the

Toby Young Toby Young

Why Elon Musk shouldn’t be kicked out of the Royal Society

Bishop did not wish to be associated with ‘someone who appears to be modelling himself on a Bond villain’ In a notorious interview in the Sunday Times in 2007, the Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson said, among other things, that aborting babies with gay genes was ‘common sense’ and that ‘all our social policies are based on the fact that their [blacks] intelligence is the same as ours [whites] – whereas all the testing says not really’. He also defended the explanation offered by Larry Summers of why there are fewer female professors in Stem subjects than male – there are more men at the right-hand tail of the IQ

Matt Ridley

Wuhan wager: the $400 ‘bio bet’ that predicted the pandemic

At the end of this month, one of the world’s most renowned scientists will send $400 to a charity to settle a wager with another of the world’s most renowned scientists. We don’t yet know who will win, but it is likely to be the wrong person, in my view. The money will probably come from Cambridge, England, not Cambridge, Massachusetts. Rees thinks if the tragedy of Covid has an identified ‘villain’ it would aggravate tense US-China relations The two scientists involved are Lord (Martin) Rees, the Astronomer Royal and former president of the Royal Society, of Cambridge University, and Steven Pinker, the Harvard linguist, neuroscientist and author of many

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Labour’s ‘plan for change’, falling productivity and 20,000 wolves in the EU

Home The Labour government announced a ‘Plan for Change’ that it refused to call a reset. Sir Chris Wormald was named Cabinet Secretary. In his Guildhall speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said that ‘the idea that we must choose between our allies, that somehow we’re with either America or Europe, is plain wrong’. He said ‘we must continue to back Ukraine’ against Vladimir Putin as something ‘deeply in our self-interest’. With the arrival of another 122 people on 1 December, more than 20,000 had crossed the Channel in small boats since Labour entered office. A group of about 60 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum-seekers

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Macron is the author of his own despair

‘Notre-Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so,’ said the President-elect Donald J. Trump this week, as he confirmed that he would be honouring Emmanuel Macron with his presence for the big reopening of France’s most famous cathedral on Saturday. ‘It will be a very special day for all!’ Just like Trump, Macron relishes such stately occasions, and it would be churlish to deny him credit for Notre-Dame’s impressive reconstruction following the devastating fire that shocked the world in 2019. Paul McCartney has reportedly been given an ‘exceptional authorisation’ to sing ‘Imagine’ within the sacred walls, while the rapper Pharrell Williams will perform outside. Victor

Wednesday

Edward Howell

South Korea’s political chaos is far from over

Had you have taken a direct flight from London to Seoul yesterday afternoon, by the time you would have landed you might have been none the wiser that anything had happened at all. At near midnight South Korean time, President Yoon Suk Yeol imposed martial law across the so-called ‘land of the morning calm’. Only six hours later it was subsequently, and pointedly, revoked. As South Korean citizens continue with their daily lives, the political establishment has once again entered a period of precarity. Yoon has scored a significant own goal; its implications do not end there. It is no understatement to say that the decision by President Yoon to impose

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

South Korea’s President Yoon will be lucky to escape jail

Six hours. That was the duration of the profoundly disturbing and simultaneously farcical version of martial law invoked by South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday night – the country’s first experience of military rule for 40 years. It was so brief in duration that if you weren’t plugged in to social media or watching TV you may not have been aware it had even occurred. What this brief but extraordinary episode amounted to was a deployment of troops to the parliament building to bar the entrance of lawmakers. That operation failed utterly, as protesters were quickly on the scene to take on the military, in some cases with fire

Tuesday

Eliot Wilson

Starmer will struggle to keep both the EU and US happy

We do not have to make a choice between our alliance with the United States and closer relations with the European Union: that was the message of the Prime Minister’s traditional annual speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall. Sir Keir Starmer called the supposed binary ‘plain wrong’, and prayed in aid some of his most illustrious predecessors. I reject it utterly. Attlee did not choose between allies. Churchill did not choose. The national interest demands that we work with both. He described the ‘special relationship’ with the United States in profound terms, written ‘in the ink of shared sacrifice… in Normandy, Flanders and around the world’, and

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is this the end for Barnier – and Macron?

Emmanuel Macron arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday for trade talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Having signed a strategic partnership deal in Riyadh, the pair pledged to work for peace in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon. An Élysée spokesman said Macron wants ‘presidential elections to be held in Lebanon, with the aim of bringing the Lebanese together and carrying out the reforms necessary for the country’s stability and security.’ No one wants to be seen trying to save Emmanuel Macron The irony won’t have been lost on the French. A recent poll revealed that nearly two-thirds of the country think their president should resign in the event that

Matthew Lynn

Marine Le Pen’s reckless game with the French economy

The power probably feels good. And it may help her win the presidency eventually. Even so, there is a catch to Marine Le Pen’s decision to bring down Michel Barnier’s government in France, potentially as soon as tomorrow afternoon. If the government goes, the eurozone ay well go down with it. The financial plans of Le Pen’s National Rally’s (NR) party are completely reckless. And even if the chaos that will follow the vote does help win the Élysée Palace for Le Pen, she will inherit a ruined economy – for which she will only have herself to blame.  The NR’s only answer to excessive spending is to spend even

Damien Phillips

Why Britain is rolling out the red carpet for Qatar

This week’s state visit by the Emir of Qatar is the first of any Arab leader since King Charles ascended the throne. This is no coincidence: while its role is often misunderstood, Qatar has skilfully positioned itself as one of the West’s most important allies in the Middle East. Doha’s role as the world’s mediator-in-chief is only going to become more important With the current conflict in the Levant showing no signs of slowing, the Russo-Ukrainian War entering a critical phase, and events in Syria and Yemen increasing the risk of a wider conflict, Doha’s role as the world’s mediator-in-chief is only going to become more important. Yet the polarisation

Christian Wolmar

The Japanese are in for a big TfL culture shock

Tokyo Nothing can prepare the good people from Tokyo Metro – who are coming to London to run the Elizabeth Line – from the culture shock they will undoubtedly suffer here. Japan, as we all know, is a very different place and the way they operate their transport system is very different to how business is conducted here. To make it even harder for those plucky Japanese managers to adapt, the key difference is one that can only be felt rather than seen – the utter divergence in the business ethos of the two nations. Nowhere is that better expressed than in their respective railway networks. For a start, Tokyo

Patrick Gibbons

Ireland’s centre has held

Two years ago, I secured an apartment in Dublin through a gay dating app. I was desperate and there was a housing shortage in Ireland so I was prepared to ignore safety concerns to get a roof over my head. ‘You must be used to this in London’, Irish friends would say to me. But I was not. In London if you’re happy to compromise on cost or location, there are plenty of rooms available. In Dublin you can double or triple your budget or look further afield and still not find a place. There are some very high-spec, new-build apartments in the city’s docklands (its ‘tech hub’), which can cost around

Monday

Jonathan Spyer

Success for Syria’s rebels is far from guaranteed

Syrian Sunni Islamist fighters are continuing to consolidate their gains in Syria’s Aleppo province. Almost the entirety of Aleppo city, sometimes called the capital of Syria’s north, is now in the hands of the Turkey-backed fighters. Russian and Assad regime airstrikes have begun in earnest on opposition-held parts of the country’s north west. The lightning advance of the insurgents has now slowed down. Fresh from their triumph in Aleppo, the Sunni fighters sought to push into Hama province further south. Elements of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS – or the ‘Organization for the liberation of Syria/the Levant’), which is spearheading the push south, entered the suburbs of the city but were

David Christopher Kaufman

Why Joe Biden was right to pardon Hunter

President Joe Biden’s unexpected pardon of his son, Hunter, on federal gun charges may appear as the ultimate example of lawfare hypocrisy, but it’s really the best outcome for everyone – including Donald Trump. Despite indications that such a pardon was unlikely, Biden – who infamously declared on X in May that “no one is above the law” – now believes that Hunter was “unfairly prosecuted.” Jail time would have kept the Biden family in the spotlight long past their expiration date “I believe in the justice system,” Biden said on Sunday while announcing an end to his son’s legal drama, “but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this

Francis Pike

Why the West must back Syria’s Bashar al-Assad

I had a nasty shock when I switched on my TV on Sunday. It was clearly a propaganda film with hijabed women standing amidst the rubble of their former homes extolling Hezbollah’s victory over the invading forces of Israel. Except it wasn’t a propaganda film; it was a BBC news report from Lebanon highlighting the plight of the de-housed Hezbollah-supporting Lebanese.  Of course, there was no report on the 60,000 Israelis who are still too frightened to return to their homes in northern Israel. They have good reason. Over the weekend, Hezbollah troops broke the ceasefire agreement and fired rockets into northern Israel. However, the anti-Israel bias of the BBC

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The Oxford Union has disgraced itself

The chamber of the Oxford Union, that once-proud institution, has been breached by the forces of bigotry, hatred, and mob rule. Invited to speak against an anti-Israel motion, I attended with three colleagues, each bringing unique expertise and experience to the room. But what unfolded on Thursday night was not a debate at all. It was an assault on the very principles the Union once claimed to uphold, presided over by organisers who behaved more like a mafia than custodians of an august society dedicated to free speech. This was an extremist mob dressed up like a wolf in black tie The motion for debate was itself a grotesque provocation: “This

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Joe Biden was always going to pardon Hunter

Joe Biden’s whole presidency has been built on untruths. We were led to believe, for instance, that since 2021 the Commander-in-Chief has been fit and well enough to serve, when everybody could see that he was not.  So the latest proof-of-dishonesty over the pardoning of Hunter Biden comes as no great surprise. Of course, Joe was going to grant clemency to his errant and only living son. He just pretended he wouldn’t all year for electoral reasons. The maudlin love of the father used to dress up the presidential deceit ‘I believe in the justice system,’ said the president in a statement. ‘But as I have wrestled with this, I also believe