World

Thursday

Maria Avdeeva

In Kharkiv, culture is a form of defence

Kharkiv It was a strange feeling to walk alone through eerie corridors in the basement of the Kharkiv Opera Theatre and suddenly hear a burst of music and applause. As Kharkiv faced the Russian advance, a Kyiv-based drama group had come to the city to hold an Art Fortress concert to raise the spirits of local residents. For the audience, mainly middle-aged women, this underground event was a welcome distraction from the encroaching reality. Many waved in time to the music, delighted by the performance, and chanted ‘Slava Ukraini’ as the closing remarks were made. As another missile is heard, first responders in helmets and body armour rush down to

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: Infected blood apologies, falling inflation and XL bully attacks 

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said: ‘I want to make a wholehearted and unequivocal apology’ for a ‘decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life’, as described in the report by Sir Brian Langstaff from the Infected Blood Inquiry, which found that successive governments and the NHS had let patients catch HIV and hepatitis. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, apologised too. So far more than 3,000 have died, of the 30,000 infected with HIV or hepatitis C from blood products or transfusions between 1970 and the early 1990s. Interim compensation of £210,000 will be paid to some within 90 days. BT postponed until January 2027 a

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

How to quit like the Japanese

Tokyo For many, the idea of quitting a job they hate, of walking into their boss’s office and telling him or her in no uncertain terms what they think of it (and them perhaps), and then striding out without a backward glance, is a delicious one, a pleasant daydream to be enjoyed on the dreary daily commute. But for the Japanese, the idea of resigning from your company is positively traumatic, so much so that the latest boom industry here is agencies who will take care of the whole messy business for you. For the Japanese, the idea of resigning from your company is positively traumatic There are now dozens

Geoff Hill

South Africa’s migrant crisis

Johannesburg It’s called the ‘Reverse Jive’, retracing your steps to where your journey began, and you’ll hear it talked about all over Johannesburg, especially now, with an election next Wednesday and immigration such a hot-button issue. South Africa has a huge informal sector where the poor can at least scratch a living In Pretoria, the government estimates there are more than three million Zimbabweans, or ‘Zimbos’, living in South Africa. Decades of oppression and mismanagement at home have collapsed the economy and Zimbos form a visible presence in Jo’burg, Durban and Cape Town. And thousands of them have done the Reverse Jive. Enelise comes from Bulawayo and works the till

Wednesday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

China will struggle to resist Biden’s trade war

Attending a business summit in Shanghai earlier this year, I was struck by how downbeat the mood was. China’s stagnant economy, in particular the slow-motion meltdown of the property market, had clipped investor confidence across a number of industries. One Italian businessman told me the event had many fewer international attendees than previous years. But the apprehensive mood was cut through by the bolshiness of one senior executive from a leading Chinese electric car company: ‘America, Europe, Japan and South Korea are our high-potential markets’, the exec beamed as he set out a plan for what seemed like world domination. His optimism was not misplaced. In post-pandemic China, electric cars

Eliot Wilson

Zelensky’s time as president is up, but he’s right to stay put

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky’s five-year term is up, but he’s staying put. Unsurprisingly, some of Zelensky’s critics – and the Kremlin – have questioned his legitimacy. But Zelensky, who marked five years in office on 20 May, is right not to step down. The idea that, as a result, there has been some unprecedented outrage against democracy simply doesn’t stand up. It is impossible to conduct a free, fair and representative presidential election The practical problem in holding an election is obvious. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its occupation of parts of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014 gave it control of 16,000 square miles of Ukrainian territory. The full-scale military

Tuesday

Qanta Ahmed Qanta Ahmed

What will Iran – and the United States – do next?

From time to time, even the most belligerent warmongers get taken down: whether it’s bad weather, or other unseen forces, there are always bigger powers at work. For now, the helicopter accident that claimed the life of Iran’s president appears to have been an act of nature, the will of God, as we like to remind ourselves in Islam. Sometimes good things do happen in bad helicopters. In the days before his death, Ebrahim Raisi was busy. Right before he left Azerbaijan for Iran, Raisi met with the country’s president at a ceremony to open a dam. Days earlier in Tehran, Raisi saw the president of the Kurdish regional government. Their talks, initiated by

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The far right isn’t the only threat ahead of the European elections

In France, Holland, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Hungary and Austria parties described by their foes as ‘far-right’ are on course for significant gains at next month’s European elections. To the chagrin of progressive politicians, Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders are popular with many voters. But centrist groups in the European Parliament are determined to do everything to stop them. Europe does indeed feel like it might be returning to ‘the darkest pages of our history’ ‘We are facing a crucial moment in the history of our European project, where once more the far right is attempting to bring back the darkest pages of our history,’ said a communique

Connor Allen

How did the EU get Raisi’s death so wrong?

Most of the world will not mourn the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash near Varzaqan in Iran, this week. Dubbed the ‘Butcher of Tehran’, Raisi was responsible for the deaths of thousands in a purge of political dissent in the 1980s. Since becoming president he has overseen the brutal crackdown on Iranians protesting against the regime’s punitive morality police. And he has led a country which is a key supplier of drones and weapons to Vladimir Putin, causing countless civilian deaths. Why was it obvious to democratic countries that commemorating Raisi would be morally contemptuous, but not to the bureaucrats in Brussels? Accordingly, most

Jay Mens

Ebrahim Raisi’s death won’t change the course of history

The Middle East never fails to surprise. Sunday was no exception. Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and several other senior Iranian politicians were killed in a helicopter crash in East Azerbaijan. One cannot help but wonder at the extraordinary misfortune not only of crashing, but of doing so in a foggy, rainy, muddy area that took rescue workers 15 hours to reach. Despite the profile of the accident’s victims, however, this is probably not an accident that changes the course of history. The Iranian presidency has become increasingly irrelevant in an increasingly-Soviet system. That trend is set to continue.  The president is something of an afterthought To

Monday

Jim Lawley

Javier Milei won’t stop insulting Pedro Sanchez’s wife

The Spanish ambassador in Buenos Aires was recalled to Madrid yesterday after Argentina’s president Javier Milei described the wife of Spain’s prime minister as ‘corrupt’. Today Spain’s foreign ministry summoned Argentina’s ambassador in Madrid to demand an apology.  Albares declared that unless Milei apologised, Spain’s government would ‘take any measures deemed necessary to defend our sovereignty’  Milei, who was speaking at a rally in Madrid, also mocked Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez for taking a five-day break last month in order to decide if he wanted to continue as prime minister. Even so, it seems something of an exaggeration for Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, to describe Milei’s words

Limor Simhony Philpott

The ICC’s desire to arrest Netanyahu is far from impartial

In a dramatic announcement, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, declared today that he has applied for arrest warrants to be issued for Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. He has applied for three more for the Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniya. On Hamas, Khan emphasised crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, taking hostages, rape and other sexual violence committed as part of a ‘widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Israel by Hamas and other armed groups’ as reasons for issuing the warrants. The chief prosecutor didn’t include alleged crimes perpetrated by Hamas again

Sean Rayment

Raisi’s successor is unlikely to end Iran’s western shadow war

Even before Tehran had formally announced the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, conspiracy theories as to whether foul play was to blame began coming in rapidly. Was Israel’s Mossad, the go-to organisation Iran likes to blame for almost any catastrophe that befalls the Islamic Republic, behind the helicopter crash? Was it the CIA, the same organisation which swept the Shah to power in a coup d’état in 1953? Or was it one of many internal enemies Raisi had managed to accumulate after his years in power? Raisi, after all, had no shortage of enemies both within and outside the regime. He was responsible for the mass executions of  an estimated

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Salman Rushdie has exposed the great lie of a ‘Free Palestine’

This is what people must mean by the phrase ‘adults in the room’. After seven months of left-wing hotheads damning Israel as the source of every ill in the Middle East – if not the world – finally we have a cool, still voice venturing an alternative take. Perhaps, the voice says, Hamas is the problem. And perhaps those who call themselves progressive should think twice before making excuses for such a ‘fascist’ movement that would have them up against a wall quicker than you could say ‘Free Palestine’. Finally, wisdom cuts through the noise. When it comes to radical Islam, this man knows whereof he speaks It’s Salman Rushdie.

Jason M. Brodsky

Raisi’s death has ruined the Ayatollah’s succession plans

The helicopter crash that killed Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi and foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian will not fundamentally change the Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 85-year-old supreme leader, remains the constitutional commander-in-chief and is still in charge of strategic decision-making in the country. But Raisi being removed from the scene has the potential to scramble the politics of succession in Iran. This is not the first time an Iranian president has died while in office. On August 30, 1981, president Mohammad Ali Rajai was killed alongside prime minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar and other government officials in a bombing. The current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei succeeded Rajai as president. Attention will

Charlie Gammell

Why the death of Ebrahim Raisi both matters, and doesn’t

Not only does the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter crash in the fog and mountains in northern Iran, necessitate an election within 50 days, it has also removed the likely front-runner to replace Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.  Anyone hoping for a revolution will probably be disappointed Raisi was an attractive candidate because, as much as Khamenei himself was thrust into the role in 1989 due to his supposed weakness, a lack of a power base and a generally malleable profile, Raisi presented similarly: a loyal yes man unlikely to rock the boat and inclined to do as told. In a power transition from Khamenei to post-Khamenei, watched

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Ebrahim Raisi’s successor could be worse

It is doubtful that Ebrahim Raisi, the ‘butcher of Tehran’, would have experienced a moral epiphany had he been shown in life the reaction that his demise would evoke from his own people. So it goes with fanatics, especially one who presided over the murder of thousands of political opponents by bundling them into forklift trucks and hanging them from cranes. Nevertheless, the jubilation affirms – as if it was needed – that the Iranian people have no truck with the Iranian regime. His death leaves an opening in the competition for power Let’s set aside the fact that the EU responded to the crash by offering its Copernicus rapid

Jawad Iqbal

Iran’s president and foreign minister killed in helicopter crash

Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi and the country’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian have been killed in a helicopter crash in north-western Iran, according to the country’s state media. The news that Raisi – second only to the country’s supreme leader in the power structure – and Amir-Abdollahian – a critical and influential figure in the ruling circle – have died could not have come at a trickier and potentially more dangerous time. Iran is already facing huge challenges politically and economically, and the supreme leader, the font of all power and authority, is in poor health. It can ill afford to lose its president and foreign minister. This is a moment

Sunday

Limor Simhony Philpott

Benny Gantz’s resignation threat has Netanyahu in a bind

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet is at risk of falling apart as the country’s defence establishment turns on him. Last night, Benny Gantz, leader of the National Unity party and a member of Netanyahu’s coalition, issued the Prime Minister with an ultimatum. In an extremely critical speech, Gantz blamed Netanyahu for letting personal interests interfere with decisions of national security and allowing a group of extremists to take the helm. Gantz’s ultimatum includes six demands: the return of the hostages held by Hamas; the destruction of Hamas and the demilitarisation of Gaza; replacing Hamas’s rule with an alternative government; allowing civilians from Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, who

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

How anti-Semitism breeds on university campuses

It’s often said that anti-Semitism is a shape-shifter, seen best in the way that the right-wing have painted the Jews as rootless revolutionaries and the left-wing have portrayed them as rapacious capitalists. It’s also grimly notable that – unlike prejudice against many other ethnic groups – it’s been equally appealing to the young and the old, the over-privileged and the under-privileged, the educated and the uneducated. But we’re now at the weird point where the young, over-privileged, educated are the drivers of anti-Semitism on the campuses of this country. Jew hatred in academia is nothing new Jew hatred in academia is nothing new. The first book burnings in Nazi Germany