World

Sunday

Sam Olsen

Will China blockade Taiwan?

Xi Jinping has made it very clear over the years that he is determined for China to reunite with Taiwan. He has staked his legacy and his legitimacy on it. The problem for Beijing is that the polls in Taiwan continually show that only one per cent of the population is in favour of reunification now. If Xi wants Taiwan then he will almost certainly have to take it by force. Although some western commentators argue that Russia’s travails in Ukraine have made an invasion less likely, there is no evidence to support a change in policy in Beijing. Even though Taiwan’s military is undertrained and equipped with tanks and

Friday

William Moore

Easter traditions from around the world

You know where you are with Christmas. Trees, carols, nativity plays, holly and ivy, presents, mince pies, crackers, Dickens, It’s a Wonderful Life. Easter is the more important festival in religious terms, but it can’t compete with Christmas for sheer cultural and commercial dominance. In contrast to jolly Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny is aloof and, frankly, a bit weird. His (her?) origins are elusive. German Lutherans are probably to blame for the Easter Bunny, as for so much else. The concept of mythical ‘Easter hares’ laying eggs for children was first mentioned in 1682 by Georg Franck von Franckenau, a physician and botanist, but he gives no hint as

Saturday

Justin Bronk

Why Russian tactics won’t win the war

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its second month, the war has settled into a largely attritional struggle – and the picture is very different across the various fronts. Russian forces have been forced on to the defensive in many areas. The Russian ministry of defence has announced that the ‘first phase’ of the invasion is over, to be replaced with a more limited focus on Donbas in the east of Ukraine. The reason for this is simple: Ukrainian forces have not only stopped the Russian advances around Kyiv in the north and Mykolaiv in the south-west but have begun to regain towns and cut key Russian supply routes. In the

Friday

Olivia Grant

John Paul Getty: a life of miserliness, mistresses and hotel hopping

I grew up watching re-runs of ‘Thelma and Louise’ on VHS and mouthing Geena Davis’s line, ‘I don’t remember ever feeling this awake’, in the bathroom mirror, so when my agent rang to tell me that Ridley Scott had ‘responded’ to my audition tape I was a little excited. The audition in question was for the part of John Paul Getty’s mistress in Ridley’s new biopic, All the Money in the World, about the aforementioned oil billionaire who was initially played by the substantially younger Kevin Spacey in full prosthetics. Just a few months later there I was in full 70s costume shooting in Hatfield House, blissfully unaware that the