World

Thursday

Ian Williams Ian Williams

The cracks are appearing in Putin’s relationship with China

Relations between China and Russia are going from strength to strength – or so they say. In reality, the strain is beginning to show. ‘Against the backdrop of accelerating changes unseen in a century, China is willing to further strengthen multilateral coordination with Russia,’ said Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency after a meeting on Wednesday in Moscow between premier Li Qiang and Vladimir Putin. Far more intriguing, though, was what wasn’t said, and which suggests a growing tensions in their ‘no limits’ partnership. First there were the cyber spies. A few days before Li arrived in Russia, Kaspersky, a Moscow-based cyber security company, suggested that Chinese state-linked hackers had

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What’s happened to RFK Jr?

Third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr is widely expected to drop out of the US presidential race soon, and possibly endorse Donald Trump. Live from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Freddy Gray speaks to Ben Domenech, the Editor at Large of The Spectator World, about how this could affect the election.  As the DNC approaches its climax, following speeches by the Obamas and vice presidential hopeful Tim Walz, Freddy and Ben also talk internal Democratic politics: who stands to benefit if Kamala wins – or loses – in November? Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons.

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

French politics has become an absurdist farce

It’s the rentrée politique this week in France, the start of the political year, a bit earlier than normal. It promises to be a macedoine of absurdist farce and media frenzy. On Friday President Emmanuel Macron, the principal personality in this drama, will begin to see the leaders of some (but not all) of the 14 or 15 political factions that form the dysfunctional National Assembly. A negligent wager with no upside and unlimited downside – and this from the so-called Mozart of finance His mission is to appoint a prime minister who can cobble together some semblance of a credible, durable government in the EU’s second-largest economy. An economy that already does

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Moscow is blaming Britain for the Kursk attack

Is the sinking of the super-yacht Bayesian and likely death of Mike Lynch a bigger story than Ukraine’s Kursk incursion? The Russian mid-market tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets certainly thinks so, reflecting a clear unwillingness on the part of the Kremlin and the state-controlled or state-dominated media to get to grips with the current crisis in Kursk. Likewise, the stodgy government newspaper of record, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, recently stuck with a piece about plucky locals ready for whatever happens, under the headline, ‘A city with a special history and a spirit that cannot be broken. How Kursk lives today.’ Meanwhile, the stridently pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda ran the latest outburst from former president turned maximalist troll Dmitry Medvedev warning that ‘there

William Cash

The dark truth about Hollywood assistants

Anew stop has been added to the map of Movie Star Homes and Crime Scenes, on sale at LAX airport: 18038 Blue Sail Drive, Pacific Palisades, the sleek single-storey $6 million ocean-view house where the Friends actor Matthew Perry was found floating in his hot tub last October. His death has revealed something of the dark world of LA’s celebrity staff. Perry’s assistant, two doctors and LA’s ‘Ketamine Queen’ have been charged with supplying the drugs Last week it was reported that Perry’s live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa injected his boss with ketamine before his death. While watching a movie around noon, the actor asked Iwamasa – part-butler, part-nurse and head

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Can Kamala Harris bluff her way to the White House?

Chicago ‘There are no disasters,’ said Boris Johnson, who was born in America. ‘Only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.’ That quote speaks nicely to the story of the Democratic party’s 2024 election campaign. The first televised presidential debate, in Atlanta, Georgia on 27 June, seemed to have been an absolute disaster. President Joe Biden’s clear and present feebleness had been exposed for all the world to see. His opponent, Donald Trump, became the favourite to win back the White House – then, 16 days later, Trump survived an assassination attempt, and his stock rose even higher. Harris is a pop-up nominee in an age of diminished attention spans,

Wednesday

Julius Strauss

Putin is biding his time to seek revenge for Kursk

Vladimir Putin, it seems, is procrastinating. Just when the war in Ukraine was going his way and the Russian army doing what it does best – pummelling its way forward like a leaden-footed but seemingly unstoppable heavyweight boxer – Kyiv has sneaked in a powerful side punch. By launching an incursion into the Kursk region, Ukraine has not only breached the borders of Mother Russia – the inner sanctum of what is still a regional empire of control and influence – but also opened a second front. For days Ukrainians braced for a spiteful rejoinder. Perhaps Putin would lash out with withering rocket attacks, a devastating bombing raid against a

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Ukraine’s drone attack on Moscow piles the pressure on Putin

In the early hours of this morning, Ukraine hit Moscow with ‘one of the largest’ drone attacks against the Russian capital since the war began two and a half years ago. According to Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin, air defence forces shot down a number of drones – later confirmed to be 11 – between 3 a.m. and 4:45 a.m. ‘This is one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow with drones in all time,’ Sobyanin claimed. There have been no confirmed casualties or damage yet. Still, Kyiv’s attack managed to cause far-reaching chaos across Moscow, with three of the capital’s airports, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky, forced to temporarily restrict flights

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Has Germany run out of money to give to Ukraine?

Germany is Ukraine’s biggest military donor in Europe. On paper, it appears determined to ensure that Vladimir Putin’s act of aggression does not pay off. But now a German newspaper has seen documents suggesting Berlin wants to halt new support for Kyiv.  According to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Finance Minister Christian Lindner sent a letter to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius to inform them that ‘new measures’ in aid of Ukraine’s struggle to survive may only be approved if ‘funding is secured’. Lindner urged both his colleagues to ‘ensure that the set upper limits are adhered to.’  The opposition has accused Scholz of playing party-political games

John Keiger John Keiger

Does France need a government?

France has been without an official government for seven weeks, the longest in the history of the Fifth Republic. A caretaker prime minister and government have been running the country for what President Macron declared the ‘Olympic truce’. That truce is now over, yet the President is in no hurry to appoint a new prime minister. One can understand why. A clear majority of French voted for alternatives to Macronist policies in the European and legislative elections, something the President refuses to accept. Whichever government is eventually appointed will unpick much of the President’s policies over the last seven years. And given that the locus of power will shift from

Lee Cohen

Kamala Harris would be bad news for Britain

With the Democratic National Convention taking place this week, it’s crucial to consider the potential consequences for Britain and global stability if Kamala Harris emerges victorious in the presidential election in November. The past four years have not been kind to the special relationship. After Donald Trump’s warmth towards Britain, Joe Biden’s tenure called into question the commitment Democrats have to America’s alliance with the UK.  Often seen as one of the most anti-British presidents, Biden’s approach to Brexit, the Good Friday Agreement, and his handling of Afghanistan all suggested that he felt some hostility towards the UK and cast doubt on his dedication to the special relationship. His reluctance

Edward Howell

Kim Jong Un will take no blame for North Korea’s floods

The sight of a grimacing Kim Jong Un on board an inflatable rubber dinghy is not what one would expect from the leader of a country which has repeatedly threatened to ‘annihilate’ the United States. As floods ravage across provinces along North Korea’s border with China, the North Korean leader has leapt upon the occasion to berate his officials for mismanagement, reinforce state ideology, and emphasise that under the protection of the Supreme Leader, all will – eventually – be well.  While the devastating flash floods of July and early August primarily affected areas in the northern part of the country, the consequences have been felt across the hermit kingdom.

Tuesday

Terry Barnes

The selfishness of defecting to another country

Elite sport is a selfish business. It’s all about achieving success for yourself. However much others have contributed to your success – your teammates, your coaches, your sports administrators, and the taxpayers and sponsors who pour money into you and your sport – they merely share your reflected glory. Even nationality itself is negotiable: if you can achieve your personal ambitions under a different flag, so be it. In the end, it’s all about you. Richardson’s choice highlights how little nationality seems to matter these days for elite and professional sports people Given that ‘me first’ mentality of elite sportsmen and women, it’s no surprise that cyclist sprinter Matthew Richardson, fresh

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

This is only the start of the small boats crisis

Illegal immigrants continue to flow into England across the calm waters of the Channel. The latest data from the Home Office states that nearly 1,500 people have arrived in the last week. Weekends are proving particularly popular: 703 migrants came ashore on Sunday August 11 and 492 made landfall last Saturday. So much for Keir Starmer’s pre-election pledge to be tough on small boats and tough on the causes of small boats. Labour’s apparent indifference to mass uncontrolled immigration is no doubt a significant factor in the recent poll that revealed more than half of Britons believe the government ‘is heading in the wrong direction’. A majority of Britons would say the same thing of

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Japan just can’t find the staff

‘Kanko kankai’ (tourism pollution) is the latest buzz phrase here in Japan as the double-edged samurai sword of the visitor boom continues to cause profit but also pain. The latest problem, along with the overcrowding, poor behaviour, and squeezed out locals, is a shortage of staff at the main attractions and the hotels and restaurants that surround them. Which, given the importance of quality service in Japanese culture, is a veritable crisis. Healthcare, distribution and agriculture are all facing, to varying degrees, serious issues due to a lack of manpower There is nothing especially new in this. Labour shortages have long been a problem as the society ages, the fertility

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Joe Biden’s underwhelming convention farewell speech

Chicago Joe Biden has given a speech at every single Democratic National Convention since 1976. Tonight was his last and he didn’t start speaking until 10.28 p.m., local time. Far past his bed time.  Why so late? Poor planning? Or a cynical attempt to push the President’s appearance past ‘prime time’ – in case he had another major meltdown?  Convention officials were quick to say that Biden’s big finale had been delayed by the ‘raucous applause’ and ‘electric atmosphere’ in the convention centre, which had interrupted speakers in the build-up. Hmmm. Perhaps we’ll never know. Whatever the case, it seemed to add insult to injury for a Commander-in-Chief who, as

Julius Strauss

Putin takes revenge for the Kursk attack with glide bombs

In the sprawling and unlovely village of Billopilya, only five miles from Ukraine’s border with Russia, when death comes, it comes from the skies. Moscow had been targeting the hardscrabble settlement with glide bombs – known here as KABs – ever since Ukrainian troops smashed their way into the Kursk region on 6 August. Vladimir Putin’s troops may be struggling to contain the estimated 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers now in Russia proper. Kyiv’s forces have seized a salient of land that encompasses more than 1,000 square kilometres. But even as Moscow slowly musters the forces to fight back against the incursion, it has ratcheted up attacks on Ukrainian civilians in apparent

Andrew Fox

How Israel is clearing Hamas out of Rafah

Rafah, Gaza The heat, the sand, the soldiers. I’m in Rafah, a war zone unlike any other. As a former soldier, it’s an unsettling experience. Every time we get out of a vehicle, I reach for a weapon I do not have. Instead of my army fatigues, I’m wearing lightweight trousers, a polo shirt and a blue helmet signifying I’m a civilian guest of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). There’s one thing that hits me more than anything else while I’m here: the damage to Gaza. It is appalling. Almost every building is damaged, and many are destroyed outright. After 7 October, Hamas had to be removed from Gaza. But they

Monday

Owen Matthews

Why is Lukashenko pushing for an end to the Ukraine war?

Could Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko be the key to ending the Ukraine conflict? In a surprising intervention over the weekend, the long-time dictator and close Putin ally said in an interview on Russian state TV that ‘Nazis don’t exist on the territory of Ukraine’ – a key part of Putin’s stated war aims. He also called for negotiations to begin in order to end the conflict. Lukashenko claimed that ‘neither the Ukrainian people, nor the Russians, nor the Belarusians need [this conflict]’, adding that only the West wanted this war to continue. His shift to a strong pro-peace line goes strongly against the current Kremlin signalling Lukashenka has hitherto been a

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

What would a second Trump presidency bring for China?

30 min listen

Trump is tough on China, but what really motivates his hawkishness? Does he care at all about China’s human rights abuses? Or is he fundamentally a foreign policy disentangler, hoping to rein back America’s overseas commitments? How much does the China policy of a second Trump presidency depend on which advisors the president surrounds himself with? On this episode of Chinese Whispers, The Spectator’s China podcast, assistant editor Cindy Yu talks to deputy editor Freddy Gray and Jordan McGillis, economics editor at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. Produced by Cindy Yu and Patrick Gibbons.