World

Thursday

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why the plot to kill Putin would be a mistake

Is the assassination of Vladimir Putin the answer to ending the war in Ukraine? A collection of émigré Russians who have declared themselves the ‘Congress of People’s Deputies’ and a Russian parliament in opposition have called for the West not only to support them in a campaign to overthrow Vladimir Putin, but actively to play a role. This would be a serious mistake. At a recent gathering in Warsaw, these émigrés, all of whom at some point or another had previously been elected as parliamentarians in Russia, agreed their ‘victory plan,’ a seven-point programme, due to be presented during Nato’s forthcoming Washington summit. Their fundamental view is that the war

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The shooting of Nahel Merzouk still haunts France

One year ago today, a 17-year-old called Nahel Merzouk was fatally shot by a policeman as he sped away from a vehicle checkpoint in western Paris. What followed shocked France. Days of rioting, looting and burning across the country. Not just in the inner cities but in provincial towns such as Montargis in central France, where a mob vandalised the town hall and pillaged scores of shops. ‘I still have people who almost a year later don’t want to come back to the centre because of the riots,’ said one shopkeeper this week. ‘They’ve been apprehensive ever since, traumatised, even though we’re a fairly quiet town.’ For millions of French

Arieh Kovler

Why Israel’s ultra-Orthodox don’t want to serve

In the middle of a war, Israel’s government is wobbling. Not because of the policy failures that led to the country’s worst disaster ever when Hamas invaded on October 7, 2023; not because of the slow progress of the war, its high human cost or its failure to recover the hostages; not even because of the looming threat of a major escalation in northern Israel and Lebanon. No, the threat to the stability of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition comes from within, after the Supreme Court ruled that the government must start drafting Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) men into the Israel Defence Forces. In 1948, as the newly-formed State of Israel fought for

Daniel Rey

Biden’s health is a worry for Republicans and Democrats in tonight’s debate

Tonight, Donald Trump and Joe Biden face each other in the first of two presidential debates. With about ten per cent of the electorate undecided, the debate – the first between a current and a former president – could change the momentum of the race. Both candidates want to debate. Trump thinks he can trounce the rival he has often dubbed ‘Sleepy Joe’. Biden, a doddery octogenarian, urgently needs to persuade voters he is not too frail for office.   Tonight’s debate helps cement the choice as Biden or Trump Debating against a much more dynamic candidate might seem like a risk for Biden. But in fact, it’s a good

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Will the French Blob thwart Marine Le Pen?

The National Rally presented its manifesto to the French people on Monday ahead of Sunday’s first round of voting in the parliamentary election. ‘I have made my priorities very clear: purchasing power, restoring security and controlling immigration,’ was how the party’s president, Jordan Bardella, summarised the manifesto. ‘I want to embody unity, to bring people together, and I aspire to be the Prime Minister of the French who did not vote for the National Rally.’ The manifesto has been eviscerated by Bardella’s political and media opponents. ‘An economic shipwreck’, was the headline in the left-wing Liberation. Underneath was a tribune signed by ‘The Appalled Economists’, a collective of French thinkers and

Sean Thomas

The day I met a sun priest

Palomino, Colombia I’m in a truly wonderful place: the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It’s got more bird species than most of Europe, exquisite cotton-top tamarin monkeys that hop through jungles, and one of the world’s highest coastal mountain ranges. There are empty beaches, shimmering lakes, colonial townscapes and a recent folk memory of terrible gangsters. Some male babies are largely kept in caves from birth, in the darkness, until they are nine  It also boasts several indigenous tribes, one of which – the Kogi – I had never heard of until I got here. But the more I read about them from my hammock on the beach, the more I

Ivan Krastev

Putin is trying to annexe people, not just land

On 1 September 2021, six months before his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was speaking at the All-Russian Children’s Centre, known as ‘Ocean’, near the harbour city of Vladivostok. He turned to a topic that obviously haunted him during his long Covid-19 isolation. He told his audience of children that Russia’s population could have been about half a billion today, rather than the current 146 million, if it hadn’t been for the shocks of the past century: two world wars, the Bolshevik Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Having a smaller population can make a country richer, but never more powerful A country’s population, Putin said, is

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

My return to Ukraine

I arrive at Lviv station just before 9 a.m. As the clock strikes, the conductor announces a minute’s silence: a daily commemoration for those who have fallen in the war. But it’s observed only by the railway staff, who stand up to bow their heads. The passengers just carry on. After all, isn’t part of the resistance to carry on life as normal, despite the war? This was the idea at first, but soldiers at the front line have come to resent the chasm between those who are fighting and those who don’t want to have any part in the war. It’s just one of many ways in which, returning to

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s ‘Somewheres’ want revenge

The builder who has been working on my house in Burgundy will be voting for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally on Sunday in the first round of the French parliamentary election. So will the electrician. I haven’t asked the plumber, but I suspect I know where his vote will go, given that his assistant is voting for Le Pen. My neighbour, a farmer, is voting Le Pen, as is a teacher acquaintance. The local policeman is also voting Le Pen. ‘What do I think of Macron?’ retorted the electrician. ‘Put it this way, he’s not my friend’ It’s not that surprising in this neck of the woods. The National Rally

Wednesday

John Keiger John Keiger

Macron’s ‘civil war’ warning might be closer to reality than he realises

Of the 20 or so opinion polls since France’s president Emmanuel Macron announced a snap election this month, the vast majority put Marine Le Pen’s right-wing party ahead. The Rassemblement National and its allies are predicted to get around 35 per cent of the vote, with the left-wing coalition Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) on 29 per cent and Macron’s centrist coalition Ensemble pour la République trailing on 20 per cent. Barring a black swan moment, Jordan Bardella’s RN will win the most seats in the chamber. But no one party is likely to have an absolute majority. Bardella announced on 18 June that, without a working majority, he will turn down the premiership, which he has

Terry Barnes

Many Australians are revolted by Julian Assange’s return

Convicted spy Julian Assange has come home to Australia. Assange’s chartered private jet touched down in Australia’s capital, Canberra, early in the evening local time to a hero’s reception. That the plea-bargaining deal ensuring his freedom was executed in a remote courthouse on the American territorial island of Saipan, in the isolated western Pacific but satisfying American demand that Assange be convicted on American territory, added a bizarre touch of the exotic to the whole tawdry business. It was a rubber stamp stopover en route from London to Canberra. Assange is a figure of whom we are ashamed to call our own It’s appropriate the deed was done on Saipan.

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

French football is suffering from election fever

If England’s excuse for their inept performances is Gareth Southgate, what explains France’s failure to come to life at this month’s European Championships? World Cup winners in 2018 and runners-up in 2022, the French were one of the pre-match favourites going into the tournament. They’ve been even worse than England, finishing second in group D having won once and drawn twice against mediocre opposition. They’ve scored just two goals, and one of them was an own goal from an Austrian. Something is clearly not functioning within the French team Yet this is a settled squad under the same coach, Didier Deschamps, who led them to World Cup glory six years

Zoe Strimpel

Europe’s war on tourists is no laughing matter

‘Enough! Let’s put a stop to tourism!’ So goes the slogan to be bellowed at a planned protest on 6 July in Barcelona. The city’s mayor has pledged to drive Airbnb out of the city within five years by revoking more than 10,000 licenses for short-term tourist rentals. The announcement follows anti-tourist protests in Mallorca, and the Canary Islands which, like France’s indiscriminately angry gilets-jaunes, has begun with a specific beef that will likely become raggedy and riot-prone as times goes by. This year also saw the introduction of a tourist tax in Venice (reports suggest it’s completely unenforced), and clampdowns in Amsterdam, including a reported ban on the building of

Tuesday

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Joe Biden has failed Israel

Another week, another confirmation that when it comes to jihadism, the Biden administration’s foreign policy occupies the nexus between incompetence and moral vacancy. We’ve observed the President’s strategic genius when it comes to the Taliban (withdraw), Iran’s nuclear ambitions (appease) and Hamas (thus far but no further). Now we are seeing it when it comes to Hezbollah. With the conflict in Gaza winding down, Israel is being forced to turn its mind to its restive northern border. Over the last eight months, with the eyes of the world fixed firmly on Palestine, the parallel war – for that is what it has been – with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah has

Gray Sergeant

How Edinburgh kowtowed to Beijing

Zhang Biao, Beijing’s man in Scotland, warned earlier this month that a proposed friendship agreement between Edinburgh City Council and Taiwan’s southern city of Kaohsiung would ‘hurt the feeling[s] of the Chinese people’. The people of China, from Shenzhen to Harbin – all 1.4 billion of them – can sleep easy tonight: the proposal has been pulled from the council’s agenda. Whether it will reappear is unclear. The city’s leader, Cammy Day, has announced that ‘more discussion is required before taking this agreement forward’. Discussions which could presumably, if necessary, go on indefinitely.  Edinburgh Airport feared the agreement could harm work to increase the number of direct flights to China Anyone with

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Why do some anti-fascists have a problem with Jews?

Is it still okay to ‘Punch a Nazi’? I’m asking for a friend. In fact, I’m asking for many friends who watched those violent protests outside a synagogue in Los Angeles over the weekend and wondered to themselves if that old left-wing slogan about walloping bigots still holds. If it was acceptable to punch alt-right Jew-haters back in the 2010s, then why not the keffiyeh-wearing variety of today who taunt Jews at their very place of worship? What a thin excuse for mobbing a synagogue ‘Punch a Nazi’ was the cry of every self-styled anti-fascist a few years ago. It was mostly bluster – none of these coddled, vegan kids

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

King Charles has much in common with Japan’s Anglophile Emperor

The Japanese Emperor is in London today for a state visit, the first by the occupant of the chrysanthemum throne to the UK for 26 years. Along with a trip to Buckingham Palace, Emperor Naruhito, accompanied by his wife Empress Masako, will inspect the Thames barrier, which the Emperor studied as a student. He’ll then proceed to Oxford where he spent happy years as an undergraduate. The Emperor will also pay a private visit to St. George’s chapel and lay a wreath at the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II. Naruhito is a genuine Anglophile. You may not hear too much about this visit, due to other salient events obviously (there

Sergey Radchenko

What Nigel Farage gets wrong about the Ukraine war

‘We [the West] provoked this war [in Ukraine],’ Nigel Farage recently declared on BBC Panorama, blaming Putin’s invasion of the neighboring country on the ‘ever eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union’. He later doubled down on his claims, arguing that Putin’s behavior in Ukraine was ‘reprehensible, but…’ Farage of course is not alone in explaining Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by blaming Nato and the EU. For a start, Putin himself has done so repeatedly. Putin and Farage clearly see eye-to-eye on this point. But Farage’s views are also aligned closely with those of several academics, best represented by John Mearsheimer whose famous article – ‘Why the Ukraine Crisis Is

Dalibor Rohac

Will Jordan Bardella’s support for Ukraine last?

Has France’s far right just made a 180-degree turn on Ukraine? The leader of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, expressed his support for sending ‘ammunition and equipment [Ukraine] needs to hold the front’ at a recent arms fair. Last year, Bardella stated ‘the war would not end without a withdrawal of Russian troops and a return of complete and full sovereignty of Ukraine on the territories that are currently occupied by Russia’. Bardella, just like other figures on France’s nationalist right is hedging his bets. He is, for example, against sending ‘equipment that could have consequences of escalation in Eastern Europe’. Likewise, Marion Maréchal, the niece of Marine Le Pen, wishes for Ukraine’s victory but

Eliot Wilson

Mark Rutte can’t rescue Nato

No-one really thought that Klaus Iohannis, Romania’s president since 2014, was going to be the next secretary general of Nato. Iohannis put himself forward in March as a candidate who would bring a new perspective to the leadership of the alliance, but it was never a plausible bid. When Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defence announced last week that Iohannis was withdrawing his name, it removed the last obstacle for Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, to be anointed. Rutte is the ultimate technocrat. Pending formal confirmation, Rutte will take office as 14th secretary general of Nato on 1 October 2024, succeeding Jens Stoltenberg of Norway who has served for