World

Wednesday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Can conscription save Germany’s armed forces?

Could compulsory military service soon be reintroduced in Germany? Since becoming defence minister at the beginning of last year, Boris Pistorius has grappled with the challenge of how to rejuvenate Germany’s dwindling armed forces. He increasingly appears convinced that conscription is the answer to his problems. Last week, Pistorius dropped the latest hint that a plan for the reintroduction of conscription was around the corner. Compulsory military service ‘of some kind’ was currently being ‘considered’ by the ministry of defence, he said. While Pistorius stressed a decision would not be taken immediately, and would require the support of parliament, reports suggest he has given the ministry until the end of

Tuesday

Sean Rayment

Will Netanyahu still attack Rafah?

The decision by Israel to withdraw its forces from the devastated city of Khan Younis could portend a battle for the control of Gaza. For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Defence Forces, the prize in the war against Hamas is the capture of the southern city of Rafah, a sprawling, tented enclave bulging with up to 1.4 million displaced and desperate Palestinians. Given that much of Gaza is now in ruins, there is almost nowhere left for the Palestinians trapped inside the city to flee. It is almost universally accepted that any assault would end in a bloodbath.  It’s for this reason that Washington has repeatedly warned Israel

Jonathan Spyer

Iran’s four options for revenge against Israel

I recently returned from a trip to the south east Syrian province of Deir al Zur, where I witnessed Kurdish and American soldiers in a tense face-off against Iranian and proxy forces along the Euphrates River line. After making my way home to Jerusalem via Iraq, Jordan and northern Israel, I had hoped for a couple of days respite from the Middle East and its attentions. No such luck. A terse message arrived in my community WhatsApp group: ‘The Home Front Command has this evening updated the list of required items, in an article at its national emergency portal. In contrast to the previous list, the current list includes food

Anna Richards

Poland’s MBA scandal has exposed our credentialling culture

In February 2024, Poland’s Anti-Corruption Bureau opened an investigation into the ‘Collegium Humanum Warsaw Management University’, a ‘Private Management School’ opened in 2018 by a man now (for legal reasons) referred to only as Paweł C. That same month, Paweł C was detained by the Public Prosecutor’s Office on suspicion of issuing diplomas in exchange for personal financial gain. Today, the desire for the appearance of wisdom is often greater than the desire for wisdom itself. Poland has an interesting relationship with academic credentials. The Collegium Humanum website boasts of offering ‘prestigious degrees’, including cut-price three-month MBA programmes marketing themselves with the words ‘save 6,200 zlotys and almost a year of studies’. A

Andrew Tettenborn

Is climate change really a human rights matter?

The media and the middle class may love net zero. Unfortunately, it is increasingly clear that voters are less keen. Predictably then, activists have been trying to take as much power as possible away from elected representatives, transferring it instead to international courts and judges. This morning, this programme of lawfare scored a major success in the European Court of Human Rights. Every yard gained by a well-meaning extension of the ECHR is a yard lost to the democratic process Some months ago, three high-profile cases reached the Court where the claimants suggested that climate change was a European human rights matter. A concerned Frenchman, a number of Swiss activists and an

Steerpike Steerpike

Amnesty laments death of Palestinian torture group leader

One might expect a global human rights organisation to wholeheartedly condemn a man involved in the brutal torture of a teenage soldier. Not the Amnesty International of 2024, it seems. On Monday night, the charity instead lamented the death of Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqa, tweeting: The death in custody of Walid Daqqa, a 62-year-old Palestinian writer who was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails after 38 years of imprisonment, is a cruel reminder of Israel’s disregard for Palestinians’ right to life. Sorry? Amnesty International couldn’t possibly be talking about the same Walid Daqqa who, in 1984, led a group that abducted, tortured, castrated and mutilated Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam

Julie Bindel

Does Australia know what a woman is?

When Australian businesswoman Sall Grover set up Giggle – an app exclusively for women – in 2020, it never occurred to her that men identifying as ‘transwomen’ would demand the right to use it. Today, a landmark case will hit the Federal Court in Sydney, brought by a transwoman called Roxanne Tickle. It will either confirm or challenge the Australian government’s ongoing attempt to banish woman, female, and girl as sex-based categories. In ‘Tickle vs Giggle’, what is at stake is whether individuals should be allowed to self-define as whatever ‘gender identity’ they choose, and whether that identity then trumps biological sex. On Giggle, women can find a flatmate, or organise

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Will the Seine be safe for the summer Olympics?

Emmanuel Macron’s promise to strip off to his Speedos and swim in the Seine to prove it is safe for athletes has yet to be delivered. The Olympic Games commence in July and the river remains essentially a sewer. Although the water quality is supposedly getting better as the rains are relenting, Macron is wise not to hurry. Diarrhoea in the Olympic Village may be the least of the problems, even if the athletes complain In addition to fears that the Paris games will attract terrorist attacks, there is the now the unpleasant prospect of athletes being infected with norovirus and other unfortunate ailments of the intestinal tract. Not that

Steerpike Steerpike

David Cameron meets Trump at Mar-a-Lago

David Cameron is overseas on a foreign office trip to the US, but it transpired yesterday evening that Washington DC wasn’t to be his only destination. Last night, the Foreign Secretary made a quick pit stop at Mar-a-Lago to speak to former president Donald Trump. Lord Cameron is making the case for continued support for Ukraine – and wants to ensure the US will, if Trump becomes President, continue to provide aid to the country. Republicans have spent months trying to block a proposed $60 billion military aid payment to Ukraine, and Trump has been pretty clear in previous statements that he opposes the support package. Not only that, the Washington

Monday

Michael Taube

Why Justin Trudeau is turning against immigration

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in a state of desperation. His minority Liberal government has been polling behind Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives for the better part of two years. They’re down in most opinion polls by 15 to 18 points, and only have the support of 23 to 26 per cent of the Canadian electorate. His left-leaning policies have turned off many Canadians, including fellow Liberals. His standing in the international community barely has a pulse. His personal popularity numbers continue to plummet. How is Trudeau still in power? Because he signed a three-year work-and-supply agreement with Jagmeet Singh’s New Democrats – who are also struggling mightily in the polls – that doesn’t expire

Sunday

Michela Wrong

The truth about the Rwandan genocide

Today a solemn ceremony takes place in Rwanda’s capital. President Paul Kagame, flanked by international dignitaries – including our own development secretary Andrew Mitchell – will light a flame of remembrance at Kigali’s genocide memorial, where the bones of more than 250,000 people are interred. ‘Kwibuka’ (‘Remember’ in Kinyarwanda) – this act of commemoration – happens every April. But this time it’s special. It has now been 30 years since the genocide, and is thus an opportunity to assess the tenure of one of Africa’s most controversial leaders. Cue a flood of pre-prepared broadcasts, articles and declarations from journalists, politicians and institutions. The problem is not what the memorial shows,

Carson Becker

Bulgarian Tsar: the West is not in decline

Bulgaria has rarely been the master of its own fate. Throughout history, neighbouring powers have often succeeded in imposing their will upon it. Nevertheless, Bulgaria has endured. There are few who can attest this with greater authority than Simeon II, who reigned as Bulgaria’s last Tsar from 1943 to 1946 and returned, after five decades of communist-imposed exile, to be elected Prime Minister between 2001 and 2005. In a meeting at Vrana Palace in Sofia, the 86-year-old former monarch told me that Bulgaria has missed a chance to mediate between the West and Russia.  Simeon inherited the throne from his father, the modest, self-effacing Tsar Boris III, who died under

Saturday

Arash Azizi

Will Iran attack Israel?

The Middle East is bracing for an attack whose exact source, targets, method, timing and scope are unknown. On Monday, a suspected Israeli air strike targeted a group of Iranian officials in Damascus, Syria, and citizens of the region are now waiting to see how Iran’s regime will respond. Israel has scrambled GPS signals across the Middle East to confuse Iranian weapons – people living in places as far away from Israel as southeastern Turkey couldn’t use Google Maps on their phones this week. The GPS placed everybody in Beirut. Monday’s attacks hit the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital. Israel has staged dozens of attacks on Iranian targets in

Julius Strauss

Despite Russia’s intensifying attacks, Kharkiv carries on

Irina Kotenko, 53, was already awake when a Russian drone crashed into the roof of her three-story building at 1 a.m. last Thursday. She had heard another strike nearby and was wondering where it might have hit. The explosion blew out the windows of her home. Somehow Irina, her husband, Vitaly, 48, and her daughter Aleksandra, 21, survived unscathed. Aleksandra began to shout: ‘Mum, are you alive?’ In the next-door flat a neighbour, an older man who lived alone, was buried in rubble. Soon emergency workers arrived. Outside firemen poured water on to the roof of the building to put out a fire that had broken out. These days little

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

How likely is Putin to target the Paris Olympics?

One thing the French seem to be learning (or, given their history, re-learning) is that the Russians are always up for a scrap. A ministerial phone call between the two countries has led to a diplomatic spat such that a stung Emmanuel Macron is now claiming that Moscow plans to target this summer’s Paris Olympics – and he’s probably right. On Wednesday, French defence minister Sébastien Lecornu had a rare phone conversation – the first since 2022 – with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. Paris claims that, following the Crocus City terrorist attack in Moscow last month, the call was wholly about the scope for anti-terrorist cooperation, and their willingness

John McHugo

How Syria collapsed

In April 2018 I was taken on a coach through miles of war-wasted urban landscape in the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Homs. They looked much like the photos of Gaza today, except the shattered streets were always empty and sometimes there were longhand Arabic signs chalked crudely on broken concrete slabs: ‘for sale’, or ‘water disconnected’. The people had fled the crude barrel bombs. Where had they gone? The war had ended in these cities over a year before, which was why we were allowed to visit. Deaths in Gaza are counted – in Syria they were not. We only have estimates. Somewhere between 25,000-30,000 civilians and 10,000-15,000 combatants died

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

The curiously quiet reaction to Oppenheimer in Japan

Finally, eight months after its US premiere and a month after it triumphed at the Oscars, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has opened here in Japan. The film had been mysteriously delayed and there were rumours it would never be screened in the only country to suffer the consequences of a nuclear bomb. No definitive explanation was ever given for the lengthy hold up, but it was almost certainly due to concerns about the subject matter, especially since Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is a native of Hiroshima and lost relatives in the blast. Timing may also have been a factor, as the buildup to the worldwide release coincided with Kishida’s hosting of

Friday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Why is Putin still blaming Ukraine for the Moscow terror attack?

In the fortnight since four Isis gunmen stormed Crocus City Hall in the Moscow suburbs, Vladimir Putin has done his best to dodge as much of the blame as possible. Speaking at a trade convention in Moscow on Thursday, Russia’s president once again reiterated the implication that Ukraine, and not the Islamist terror group, was responsible for the atrocity. But there are growing questions not only about what Putin knew in advance of the attack, but also the Russian president’s willingness to face up to who was responsible. ‘We have every reason to believe that the main goal of those who ordered the bloody terrorist attack in Moscow was to

John Keiger John Keiger

The plot to stop Marine Le Pen could backfire badly

At first, French elites haughtily dismissed the Rassemblement National (RN) and its voters. Then they were in denial about its rise. Now they are scrambling to block its path to victory in 2027 by all manner of subterfuge. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the RN and front-runner in the 2027 presidential election, will go on trial this October, with other RN party members, for the misuse of European parliamentary funds. Whereas members of Macron’s coalition were recently found guilty of similar misdemeanours, in the case of Le Pen the stakes are particularly high: a likely guilty verdict will see her declared ineligible for political office and thus eliminated from

Andrew Tettenborn

Civil servants can’t down tools if they don’t like Israel

Britain in the nineteenth century pioneered the idea of the professional, impartial civil service independent of politics. In the twenty-first, that same civil service is unfortunately pioneering the notion of a body increasingly independent of the state that employs it, and apt at times to follow its own remarkably political agenda without much control from anyone. Following your conscience is a good deal less impressive when you are doing it on someone else’s dime British companies export a good deal of military equipment to Israel. To do so, they require export licences from the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). Yesterday, it emerged that a group of civil servants in