World

Thursday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The West must stop playing Mr Nice Guy

Iwas intrigued to learn from our Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, that we are now in a ‘pre-war’ phase and that there is an almost inevitability of eventual conflict with one or two of the world’s superpowers. I read his comments on the same day that the German newspaper Das Bild reported that Russia was planning to invade western Europe within 18 months. This is all very worrying, not least because Grant Shapps is our Defence Secretary. I don’t think I’d trust Grant to provide military back-up for a whelk stall, but then I suspect that his likely successor, John Healey, will be no more effective. The problem both men have

Wednesday

Jawad Iqbal

Iran’s attack on Pakistan shows how close the Middle East is to war

Iranian airstrikes on ‘militant bases’ in neighbouring Pakistan signal a dangerous and worrying escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. Details of what unfolded remain sketchy, but Iranian media reported that the strikes were aimed at the bases of a Sunni militant group, Jaish al-Adl. The missiles and drones landed in the Balochistan province, which lies along the 600-mile border between the two countries. Both countries have long bickered over the activities of Baloch separatists and other militant groups in the border region. All it would take is one misunderstanding or false move to spark all-out war Pakistan’s foreign ministry said two children were killed and three others were injured. The Pakistani

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

The endless narcissism of Emmanuel Macron

I watched Emmanuel Macron’s prime time press conference last night but I wish I hadn’t. It was meant to be Macron’s relaunch of his presidency after a tough period of soaring prices, international and civil disorder, Europe in turmoil and awful polls. I should have known better than to stay up past my usual bedtime. Mr Macron is a president who delights in his own words yet is entirely unaware of his soporific effect on others. These were two and a half hours of my life I will never recover.  This wasn’t really a press conference. It was theatre. A one-man show where there was no director to tell the

Terry Barnes

Why is Australia burying helicopters that Ukraine wants?

What do you do if you have dozens of combat helicopters you don’t want? If you’re the Australian government, you dismantle them and turn them into landfill. That’s the imminent fate of 45 Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy MRH-90 Taipan helicopters, grounded since a crash in Queensland last summer and withdrawn from service. Australia has had something of a troubled history with its European-UK designed MEH-90s, the Taipan being an adaptation of the NH-90 type currently in service with a number of Nato countries. Severe procurement and operating cost blowouts, mechanical failures, high maintenance costs, difficulty in obtaining spare parts, and several whole-fleet groundings have plagued the aircraft. Australian

Geoff Hill

Why Rwanda isn’t safe for migrants

Kigali is, for now, one of Africa’s safest cities. Walk down a street in the Rwandan capital after dark and there are lights everywhere, police are on the beat and tourists and locals are strolling back to their lodgings or dining al-fresco. There are no potholes where you might twist your ankle and the city feels, and works, like a European capital, without the pickpockets. The power of the state here is absolute; few dare to test it. Many travellers come to Rwanda to see mountain gorillas. As with Kigali, Rwanda’s national parks are safe and poachers risk being shot if they cross the fence. After decades in decline, gorilla

Tuesday

Sam Goodman

What would Trump’s return mean for relations with China?

Over the past few days it has become clear that Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency has gone from being an outlier to an increasing likelihood. His landslide in the Iowa caucus yesterday only confirms this further. As the first term of Joe Biden’s presidency comes to a close, one of his achievements is no doubt the increased coordination amongst leading democracies when it comes to dealing with the challenge that China presents. Under Biden’s tenure the G7 has agreed to collectively fund an alternative to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and work on de-risking their supply chains away from the country. Meanwhile, in the past year, the US and

David Cohen

The shoplifting scandal engulfing New Zealand’s Green MP

New Zealand has just lost one of its most stylish politicians after shoplifting allegations were made against her by two of the country’s high-end fashion stores. The Iranian-born Golriz Ghahraman, who had just begun her third term as a high-profile Green party MP, today announced she will be standing down from parliament with immediate effect. In her resignation statement, Ghahraman said her mental health has been ‘badly affected by the stresses relating to my work’, leading her to ‘act in ways that are completely out of character’. Although she did not address the allegations in any detail, she said she took ‘full responsibility for my actions which I deeply regret’.

Jawad Iqbal

Jose Mourinho is no longer the ‘Special One’

Jose Mourinho, who has just been sacked by the Italian club AS Roma, is a once great manager on his last legs. The football his teams play is terrible, the results so-so, and his increasingly erratic behaviour on the touchline altogether disgraceful.  Mourinho has gone from fighting for league titles and Champions Leagues to waging war on officials and opposing teams. His sacking had an air of inevitability. Roma’s American owners, the Friedkin Group, thanked Mourinho ‘for his passion and efforts’. Tellingly though, the owners stated that they felt ‘an immediate change’ was ‘in the best interests of the club’. Good riddance, in other words. It is sad to witness Mourinho’s

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Trump’s hold on Republican voters is as strong as ever

The Iowa contest tends not to select the Republican nominee. In 2016 Texas Senator Ted Cruz denied Donald Trump his first win by taking home the caucus prize with 28 per cent of the vote. In 2012, Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum just edged out eventual nominee Mitt Romney. In 2008, presidential nominee John McCain didn’t even place in the top three, only securing 13 per cent of the vote compared to Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s 34 per cent. Iowans have just delivered Trump the biggest caucus win in history In recent years, the caucus has been a better gauge for what the grassroots of the party want to see in

Sam Olsen

The devastating cost of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan

The next twelve months will be dominated by elections, with polls expected in at least 64 countries. Of these, there are only a few that really matter in geopolitical terms. The US elections of course, especially if won by an isolationist Donald Trump (assuming he is allowed to run). India’s parliamentary elections in April will help steer the course of a superpower for the future. And in Europe, the rise of populist parties may well change the direction of the EU in the years to come. But perhaps the most consequential one has just happened this weekend, in Taiwan, where William Lai has just been elected president. There is significant

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Everything is falling into place for Donald Trump

Vivek Ramaswamy, the impressive podcast guest who has spent the last few months pretending to be a serious Republican presidential candidate, has just suspended his campaign after winning eight per cent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses. ‘This entire campaign is about speaking the TRUTH,’ he said. ‘We did not achieve our goal tonight.’ He endorsed Donald Trump even though on Saturday Trump called him ‘sly’ and ‘deceitful’. No matter: it’s not as if any Ramaswamy supporters will be queuing up to vote for Nikki Haley any time soon. DeSantis and Haley have proved that you can spend an awful lot of money failing to beat Donald Trump The

Roger Kimball

Trump’s big Iowa win spells the end for Ron DeSantis

Until now, the person who won the Iowa caucus by the largest margin was Bob Dole back in 1988 – by 12 points. A ray of hope that the Nikki Haley contingent and the Ron DeSantis faction harboured was that even though Trump was likely to win, perhaps he wouldn’t win convincingly. An achievement they understood — history and Bob Dole be damned — to be 50 per cent of the vote. If he won less than that — by 40 per cent, say — they could claim that he won by a ‘disappointing’ result.  A writer for Vox, for example, wrote this: ‘If Trump underperforms polls — getting around 40 percent or lower, or having

Niko Vorobyov

How Ecuador became a narco state

Ecuador was once spared the worst of the narco-warfare and insurgencies that have plagued Latin America. No longer. The storming last week of a TV station in Guayaquil by gun-brandishing thugs showed how no one, and nowhere, is safe from the narco gangs who rule the streets. The latest chaos was unleashed after a major crime lord escaped from prison. José Adolfo ‘Fito’ Macías Villamar had been taunting authorities for months, even starring in a music video while ostensibly confined under heavy security. Now, he is on the loose.  In recent years, the murder rate has risen by 500 per cent as the once mostly-peaceful land has become a battleground for warring drug

Monday

Patrick West

Why do the French struggle to speak English?

Why are the French so bad at learning foreign languages? Yes, you read that right. This isn’t a lament as to how the British are so terrible at learning foreign languages, a theme so beloved by stand-up comedians, who insinuate that it reflects our outdated superiority complex and ingrained xenophobia. I meant the French. For they, too, are terrible at learning foreign languages. Many people in France don’t even know how to say the most basic greeting in English, according to a report in the Times. In a study published by Preply, a language teaching platform, there are 14,800 searches on Google Translate every month for ‘bonjour’ in English, with a

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Are Germans turning against the AfD?

After months of steadily climbing in the polls, could this be the moment the bubble bursts for the right-wing party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)? Over the weekend, tens of thousands of people gathered in cities across the country to protest against the party and its ideology.  Over 25,000 people congregated by the Brandenburg gate in Berlin on Sunday, holding placards with slogans such as ‘AfD is not the alternative’ and ‘Defend Democracy’. At least 7,000 turned out in the northern port city of Kiel, a further 5,000 protested in the south-western city of Saarbrücken, and in the city of Dresden just under 1,000 came out to protest. On Friday, 2,000

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Trump looks unstoppable in Iowa

The bitterly cold conditions in Iowa today have at least given journalists something to talk about. There’s a distinct lack of political drama, given everyone expects today’s Republican caucuses to be a blowout win for Donald Trump. The main questions of interest are: will Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis finish second? And will Trump break Republican records and win more than 50 per cent of the vote? Given that polls suggest Trump voters are far more enthusiastic than the supporters of his rivals, the arctic temperatures may only give him a further advantage. The weather is also a handy metaphor for the frozen state of Republican politics: Haley and DeSantis’s

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Why the West should target Iran as well as the Houthis

Peace cannot always be won by peaceful means. This is a truth that is as tragic as it is perennial. When history forges an enemy that cannot be placated, the blind pursuit of ‘peace in our time’ only shores up an even more devastating conflict in the future. This lesson, learned so painfully by previous generations, has faded in the somnambulant years of postwar Britain. It is one that we are starting to remember. Today, the defence secretary Grant Shapps pledges 20,000 British personnel to take part in a major Nato exercise to prepare for a potential Russian invasion of Europe. His words are unvarnished. ‘We are in a new

Hardeep Singh

Why China benefits from the Maldives’ spat with India

Think of the Maldives and you’re likely to conjure up images of expensive honeymoons and golden beaches, but the archipelago is also the focus of an extraordinary spat with India. The Maldives’ high commissioner was summoned by the Indian government last week after three Maldivian deputy ministers published derogatory posts on X/ Twitter, labelling Indian prime minister Narendra Modi a ‘terrorist’, ‘clown’ and ‘puppet of Israel’. One message even compared India to cow dung. The fallout from this imbroglio has been swift. The trio were suspended and the posts have now been deleted. But India is furious: the hashtags #BoycottMaldives and #ExploreIndianIslands have been trending and there have been reports

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron governs Paris but Le Pen rules France

There has never been a more Parisian government than the one selected by Emmanuel Macron last week. Ten of its 15 ministers come from the capital, despite the fact that the Greater Paris region represents 18 per cent of the population.  New prime minister, Gabriel Attal, is a Parisian, the MP for a district in the south of the city. I was one of his constituents for a number of years; he did a decent job and, during political campaigning, I sometimes took a leaflet from one of his minions. They were all very much like Attal: same age, same breeding, same self-assurance.   I’m no longer a Parisian. Last

Ian Williams Ian Williams

China calls the shots in its alliance with Russia

There has been a strange atmosphere at recent top level meetings between ‘best friends’ China and Russia. It is not so much the elephant in the room as the pipeline running through it, with Moscow almost over-eager to talk about what has been billed as one of their most important joint economic projects, while Beijing has been doing its best to change the subject. That project is the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, which is supposed to carry 50 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas a year from the Yamal region in northern Russia to China, by way of Mongolia. It was conceived more than a decade ago