World

Edward Howell

Kim Jong-un has everything to gain from a meeting with Trump

Will Trump and Kim Jong-un meet again? This is the million-dollar question after President Trump lauded his “very good relationship” with Kim and ordered a scaling back of US-South Korean military exercises earlier this week. Hours later, Trump elusively mentioned that the North Korean despot had responded “positively” to his overtures. Another rendezvous between the two leaders cannot be dismissed, especially with Kim Jong-un in a stronger position now than during the first Trump administration. But unlike during the Trump 1.0 years, which saw three meetings between Kim and the President, things are different now. Back then, neither leader had met the other before; kindling a bromance was a novelty. Now, however, it will be a case of déjà vu.

Lisa Haseldine

Firing a senior banker won’t save Putin’s faltering war economy

In a sign of the unease about Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war in Ukraine that exists behind closed doors in Moscow, one of Russia’s most senior bankers was fired yesterday after a series of critical comments he made earlier in the year about the fragility of Russia’s economy. Warning that Russia was “falling behind” globally both technologically and economically, Andrey Klepach stated the country would fail to win the economic “war of attrition” against Ukraine. “The Ukrainian economy, despite everything, is surviving,” he said. Klepach, chief economist at Russia’s second-largest, state-owned bank VEB, gave a speech in May, during which he linked the pressure on the country’s economy with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Alexander Munguía

Does Brazil want another Bolsonaro?

Last month, two State Department officials were set to make what they called a routine visit to Brazil, ahead of October’s presidential election. Their stated objective was an assessment of election integrity, religious freedom and freedom of expression in Latin America’s largest democracy. Brazil was not convinced. It slammed the door in their faces and denied their visas.  Washington insists its diplomats were simply sent to ask questions. Brasília cries foreign interference from a nation that has a history of meddling in Latin American politics. Tensions between the two largest democracies in the Americas have not run this high in decades.

Eliot Wilson

Why is Trump unhappy about military drills with South Korea?

Donald Trump has instructed his Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to “substantially reduce” joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea. The two countries have had a bilateral defense agreement since 1953, and it was in defense of the government in Seoul that 36,500 American service personnel gave their lives during the Korean War. (It is worth noting that, despite the signing of an armistice at Panmunjom in July 1953, the conflict is technically ongoing.) Trump’s hazardous decision to downgrade military cooperation with and support for South Korea has come as a surprise.

south korea

Ukraine

Owen Matthews

A grim turning point has been reached in Russia’s war on Ukraine

An important turning point has been reached in Russia’s war on Ukraine. But unfortunately for Kyiv, it’s not the “tide is turning” in Ukraine’s favor narrative that Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing ever since his long-range drone attacks began smashing oil refineries and logistics warehouses deep inside Russia and sinking dozens of ships in the Sea of Azov. Rather, last night not one of the 27 ballistic missiles fired by Russia at and around Kyiv was shot down. At least 17 people were killed and a series of huge warehouses and major Ukrainian retail outlets were devastated. No grain vessels have docked for almost two weeks as Ukraine's summer harvest season enters full swing By the terrible arithmetic of war, the casualty numbers were not in themselves game-changing.

ukraine
Owen Matthews

Two wars are becoming one

Alarmed western observers are warning that the wars in Ukraine and Iran could merge into a single region-wide conflict. Ukrainian drones struck an Iranian oil platform, a Russian missile boat, and sanctioned cargo ships in the Caspian Sea late last month. But in truth, Kyiv has regarded Iran as a combatant in the Ukraine war since the summer of 2022, when the first Shahed drones arrived in Russian-occupied Crimea and Kherson. These drones were accompanied by instructors from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who trained Russian operators in their use. Moreover, this was not even Ukraine’s first strike on an Iranian target in the Caspian.

Charles Lipson

Will the wars in Ukraine and Iran merge?

This is a fraught moment, perhaps the most dangerous since the end of the Cold War. Two major wars are being fought, one threatening European security, the other the world’s energy supply. In East Asia, China continues to threaten Taiwan, and North Korea is reportedly upgrading its military technology with Russian help. Put simply, the bad guys are on the march, fighting for their regimes’ survival, their malign domestic projects, and as much regional domination as they can achieve. Although the wars in Ukraine and Iran have remained largely separate, there have been several intersections recently and a gnawing fear they could merge into a global conflict. That grim possibility is still a longshot, but there is real danger because the coalitions fighting the two wars overlap.

DC

Israel

Arieh Kovler

The man who could topple Benjamin Netanyahu

The year is 2019 and, after almost a full term in office, Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government of right-wing and religious parties heads to a general election. Opposing him is a former IDF chief of staff heading a new centrist party which quickly soars in the polls, making him the main challenger for prime minister. That challenger was Benny Gantz. Gantz formed alliances, fought elections and got caught up in the paralysis of Israel’s 2019-20 governing crisis in which nobody was able to form a coalition. Facing the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gantz agreed to a deal with Netanyahu where they’d take turns at being prime minister – with Netanyahu going first, of course. Nobody except Gantz believed his turn would come.

Jonathan Spyer

Can Israel fend off Hezbollah without alienating America?

As the 60-day period of negotiations stipulated by the Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the US gets under way, the issue of Lebanon is fast emerging as a central bone of contention. It is also revealing significant differences in the stances of America and Israel.   Israel has sought throughout to detach its battle with the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah in Lebanon from the negotiations – and from the larger effort to settle the conflict between the US and Iran. The logic is as follows: Hezbollah intends to continue its war against Israel.

israel lebanon
Ben Clerkin

Israel is the new Ukraine

J.D. Vance didn't call Benjamin Netanyahu out by name, but in sternly reprimanding the "Cabinet of the Israeli government" from the White House podium on Thursday, he sent Israel and its Prime Minister a clear message. In demanding more respect, raising the threat of severe consequences and ordering the country to get in line, the Vice President echoed the public fight he picked with another world leader and US ally: Volodymyr Zelensky. It wasn't quite as spectacular as the now infamous Oval Office blow up in February last year between Trump, Vance and the Ukrainian president. But Vance went further in his criticism of Israel than any other US President or Vice President in recent memory.

Vance

America

Europe

Gavin Mortimer

Emmanuel Macron is an embarrassment to France

France’s under-15s can carry on using social media after a parliamentary ban was struck down by the Republic’s constitutional council on Friday. The ruling is a humiliating blow for Emmanuel Macron, who had championed the legislation from the beginning. It had won the backing of both parliament and the Senate last month but the Council had other ideas. In rejecting the Bill, France’s highest constitutional authority judged that it “places a disproportionate restriction on freedom of expression and communication.” Macron heard the news as he enjoyed the surf at his seaside retreat on the Riveria, a break that has already provoked the ire of many. Should the President be gallivanting on a jet-ski when so much of the country is ravaged by destructive wildfires?

macron
Jim Lawley

The Ceuta crisis isn’t over

On July 30 and 31 around 80,000 migrants entered Ceuta from Morocco, according to the Spanish government’s latest estimate. Roughly 90 percent have since gone back. But, according to the government’s estimate, somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 remain in the Spanish city whose normal population is 83,000. Ceuta’s authorities believe the figure may be as high as 11,000. At least 83 bodies connected with the crossing have been recovered on the Spanish side of the border. Morocco officially acknowledges another 14 deaths but humanitarian organizations have estimated that in total more than 140 people have died since the border was breached.

ceuta
Andrew Gilligan

Meet Farah Ahmed, Jason Arday’s colleague

After the Jason Arday disaster, here is new evidence that things have gone deeply wrong at Cambridge University. We can reveal that a former supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, now banned as a terror group, has been appointed assistant research professor of education at Cambridge, in the same faculty as Arday. Farah Ahmed has explicitly attacked “western education” as a “threat” to Muslims, condemned democracy and integration, and criticized British schools for teaching pupils that child marriage is wrong. During her time at Cambridge, she has written that the Islamic concept of education is sharply opposed to “gaining literacy and numeracy and other disciplinary skills demonstrated through qualifications.

farah ahmed

Monday

Patrick West

Jason Arday wasn’t the victim of a ‘racist witch hunt’

For decades, voices on the liberal and progressive left have invariably rolled out the terror-inducing accusation of “racism” in order to get their way and silence opponents. It’s thus unsurprising to see, in the wake of British academic Jason Arday’s death, that they're still resorting to this cynical tactic, and in this case, to absolve themselves of responsibility for having exploited this vulnerable man in the first place. To call it a ‘witch hunt’ is predictable and unfounded hyperbole In response to Arday’s death, Jo Grady, general secretary of Britain’s University and College Union, said the “level of harassment he suffered and the racism he was subjected to has been sickening.

Edward Howell

How Russia and China are helping North Korea dodge sanctions

If you were Kim Jong-un, you’d be pretty happy right now. North Korea’s third supreme leader is not only the hermit kingdom’s most successful leader – he is also the richest. With the sanctions-stricken country having amassed over $20 billion in foreign currency earnings as of last year, Kim is at his most emboldened since he took power in December 2011. As more North Korean artillery, missiles, and manpower head in Moscow’s direction to aid its war against Ukraine, Kim knows that for now, North Korea can count on its Cold War patrons of Russia and China for brotherly support. Pyongyang’s neighbors offer a crucial helpline in circumventing international sanctions and ensuring the Kim regime continues to reap rewards. North Korea is no stranger to evading sanctions.

Tuesday

Ryan Modarres

Is Iran softening on the veil?

The Islamic Republic of Iran has made many concessions in its long decline. Until now, it stood firm on one rule: women must remain covered. The veil, it has insisted since the 1979 Revolution, was a divine instruction. But apparently divine instructions can lapse. This summer, a young woman appeared at a pro-government rally in a pink top and acid-washed jeans, her hair loose on her shoulders. She addressed the camera while standing among a crowd of women veiled from head to toe. Rather remarkably, the footage went on state television. Five years ago, that footage would have been evidence for a prosecution. Now, it is propaganda. The veil used to divide the pious from the impious.

iran veil
muslim nato
Simon Diggins

What is the point of the new ‘Muslim NATO?’

Pakistan’s defense minister, Khawaja Asif, rather excitedly proclaimed a new defense agreement – the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement – between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey as the beginnings of a “Muslim NATO” last week. He proceeded to call on Muslim countries to set aside their differences and join them. The key clause – that an attack on any one of the three countries would be considered an attack on them all – is virtually the same as NATO’s much-vaunted Article 5, widely regarded as the underpinning of that alliance.

Catherine Ellis

The Colombia earthquake is a major test for its new president

When Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in as Colombia’s president on August 7, he had a long list of problems he wanted to tackle. An earthquake was not one of them. Yet just three days after his inauguration in Cali, the country was hit by a magnitude 7.4 quake. Videos of the devastation show some buildings in Cali damaged or completely collapsed, residents trapped under broken concrete and tangled metal and locals and rescue teams scrambling to find survivors. Across parts of Colombia, the picture was similar. The earthquake struck near San José del Palmar, in Chocó, one of Colombia’s poorest and most remote departments. Damage was also reported in and around the coffee-growing region, including cities such as Pereira and Manizales.

Monday

Melanie McDonagh

Has the hounding of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor gone too far?

God, the avenging Furies had nothing on the Jeffrey Epstein industry when it comes to the pursuit of its quarry. The latest installment in the ongoing excoriation of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is the revelation in the Mail on Sunday that the former Prince may, when he dies, receive a royal funeral. That is to say, it has learned that the King’s brother “remains on a secret government list of royals who will receive high-profile funerals, even though he became a private citizen following revelations of his friendship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.” Alas, there are no further details. The paper however surmises that it may involve a funeral service at St. George’s chapel, Windsor, and burial at Frogmore cemetery along with other members of his family. What do we actually want?

andrew mountbatten-windsor

Friday

Philip Patrick

Gun massacres are becoming all too regular in Thailand

At least seven people have been killed in a mass shooting at a school in Nonthaburi, north of Bangkok. Details are still coming through, and conflicting numbers have been released, but so far it appears that five teachers are among the dead. The suspected gunman, a 14-year-old student, seemingly shot himself in the head. More than 30 people are reported injured, with at least nine in a critical condition. The shooter’s grandparents were also found dead at their home, where the suspect is believed to have resided. The firearm, a handgun, apparently belonged to the grandfather. Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has already promised a new firearm control law in the wake of the tragedy.

thailand
world war three
Tom Switzer

Are we on the brink of World War Three?

Last month, an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea was struck by a Ukrainian drone. Kyiv claimed the vessel was carrying military equipment heading toward Russia. “The regime in Tehran is a direct accomplice to Russian aggression against Ukraine, fueling Moscow’s criminal war with weapons,” Kyiv’s foreign minister said. Tehran reportedly contemplated a counterstrike on one of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, then thought better of it. But the threat of a conflagration is higher now than at any point since the end of the Cold War. Conflicts that are currently contained risk spilling out and engulfing whole regions, perhaps the world. If the Iran and Ukraine conflicts were to merge, we’d see a war that runs from Poland to the edges of India.

Thursday

Alex Alfirraz Scheers

How nukes made the world safer

Three hours after daybreak, a blinding flash ripped through the morning sky. August 6, 1945, began as a tranquil and clear day in Hiroshima. By 8:15, the Enola Gay, an American B-29 bomber, reduced Japan’s seventh-largest city to cinders. Three days later, on August 9, Nagasaki would suffer the same fate. For the first and only time in human history, atomic bombs were used in anger. Eighty-one years on from the atomic bombings of Japan, the uncomfortable truth is that nuclear weapons are the reason that World War Three has been avoided. Because nuclear weapons were part of the equation, those crises eventually de-escalated Yet according to the latest survey on nuclear weapons by the Pew Research Center, 69 percent of the American public thinks that they make the world less safe.

nigel farage
James Heale

‘He’s either the Messiah – or the Antichrist’: on the campaign trail with Nigel Farage

“We love you, Nigel!” In Clacton-on-Sea, there is little sign that the Reform leader’s star has waned. Campaigning with Nigel Farage here is a burst of cackles, quips, nicotine and selfies: a march through sun-kissed streets with a cast of canvassers, aides and minders. A child clasping a teddy bear dances around, a Reform rosette pinned to her top; a groaning assistant clutches two dozen poster boards. On the doors in Seawick there is near-universal support, with variations on the theme which Farage has made his campaign slogan: “I’m with Nigel.” In the middle of silly season, Clacton is hosting one of Britain’s most bizarre by-elections.

Wednesday

Jim Lawley

Pedro Sánchez is stubbornly clinging on to power

With Spain still reeling from the extraordinary scenes in Ceuta, the country's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has decamped to La Mareta, the government’s palatial retreat on Lanzarote. Before beginning his holiday, he made a brief visit to the exclave, where, according to Madrid, some 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco and the local authorities say 88 bodies were recovered. Nearly a week later, Ceuta’s government says 3,000 to 5,000 migrants remain; Madrid puts the figure at 2,500. Around 400 are still living on El Trampolín beach, sheltering under blankets and makeshift structures. Food and water are now being distributed, but provision has been patchy: some say they went up to five days without food. Sanitation remains rudimentary.

pedro sánchez

Monday

Philip Patrick

America can’t let the Japanese yen fail

In an extremely rare bilateral move, the US and Japan have intervened to shore up the Japanese yen, which has been steadily losing value and sliding towards a 40-year low. The news was confirmed by the Japanese Finance Ministry this morning. President Trump preceded the announcement by explaining that the US was “always there to help Japan.” In truth, there wouldn’t have been much point in denying it – a Reuters photo showed a memo on US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Beasant's desk with the simple instruction “To Do – Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) 5-10 billion.” The dollar fell to 157 yen after the announcement, well down from the 164 (considered by Morgan Stanley the highest tolerable point for the Japanese government) of the previous week.  This is an extraordinary move.

Gavin Mortimer

The Ceuta chaos could make Marine Le Pen president

European Union interior ministers will hold an emergency video conference on Tuesday to discuss last week’s events in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta. More than 60,000 Moroccans surged across the border, and although the majority have returned the invasion has traumatized many member states. Italy and Denmark initiated the meeting and soon had the support of twenty other EU countries. In a letter to the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the 22 leaders declared: “We have a duty to effectively deter and relentlessly combat illegal migration, by coordinating our action, strengthening our external borders and addressing all policies that can serve as pull factors.

Saturday

David Goodhart

Ceuta should be a wake-up call for Europe

The scenes at Ceuta are eerily reminiscent of aspects of the infamous anti-immigration French novel, The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail – in which Western countries are overrun by mass immigration from India.  They also illustrate Europe’s recent asylum crisis in a nutshell. A “luxury belief” ruling by liberal Spanish judges making it harder to deport people, a surge of people from a poor or middle-income country that the authorities in the receiving country are unwilling to resist with force, while the authorities in the sending country are either indifferent or happy to cause their neighbor political discomfort. It has echoes of the Syrian surge in 2015 and the explosion of small boat Channel crossings after 2018.

ceuta migration

Friday

Brendan O’Neill

We should call the Ceuta border breach an invasion

Spain was invaded yesterday. There is no other way to put it. Close to 50,000 foreigners, mostly men, swarmed into Spanish territory and laughed and jeered as they went. Every generation before ours would have called that an invasion, and we should too. The era of euphemism is over. The left’s house of lies has fallen. We can all now see with our own eyes that our nations are being overwhelmed by cocky, often hostile men from afar. It isn’t only Spain’s sovereign integrity that lies in tatters following the storming of Ceuta – so does the tyranny of euphemism we’ve all been forced to labor under these past few years The footage from Ceuta is extraordinary – throngs of foreigners, mostly men from Morocco, gatecrashed an enclave of the Spanish kingdom.

ceuta
hamas
Michael Evans

Will Hamas really disarm?

No one imagined that Hamas would voluntarily hand over its weapons and turn to politics and peace in the Gaza Strip. Even when President Trump announced his Board of Peace and 20-point plan toward a settlement to end the war with Israel, the sticking point, every analyst insisted, would be the disarmament of an organization designated a terrorist group by the United States, Britain, the European Union, Australia and many other nations. It’s unlikely that Hamas will cooperate unless Israeli troops withdraw as per the agreement Now, after months of negotiations – involving Trump’s two Middle East envoys, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey – and without any fanfare, the seemingly impossible has been achieved.

Jacob Heilbrunn

Trump is a study of indecision on Iran

The US Senate narrowly defeated a measure yesterday intended to crimp, if not terminate, President Trump’s ability to conduct hostilities against Iran. The 50-49 vote on a war powers resolution testified to the mounting hostility toward the military campaign among American voters, two-thirds of whom regard the conflict as a futile endeavor. The result is that Trump’s own popularity rating has plummeted to 32 percent, edging out Joe Biden’s 33 percent shortly before he declared that he was exiting the presidential race in July 2024. Presumably, this is one personal record that Trump will not be inclined to tout at his MAGA rallies. What is to be done? Two diametrically opposed camps have emerged on the right to advise Trump on Iran.

Thursday

Jane Stannus

Legal organ harvesting is just a PR campaign away

Summertime, and the living isn’t as easy as it used to be. The dying, though, is getting easier, especially if you’re in France, Canada or New York. New York’s MAID law will come into effect August 5: supposedly only for those whose deaths are expected within six months, supposedly through self-administered doses only. But the details don't matter. The important part is this: in New York, the state can now authorize the taking of innocent human life. In early July, the French Senate rejected euthanasia for the fourth time in a row. But the government invoked Article 45 of the French constitution and forced the legislation through, "creating a right" to assisted suicide (as if the state were the divine origin of rights, and could create them at the snap of a finger).

Euthanasia

Wednesday

Ivor Ichikowitz

Why young Africans like Trump

Washington keeps asking why it is losing Africa to China. I commissioned a survey of nearly 5,000 young Africans to find out what they don’t like about America, and the answer is uncomfortable. America has not been losing because young Africans prefer Beijing. It is losing because previously it would not stop lecturing a continent that has outgrown the lesson. Last week the Pew Research Center reported that, for the first time, China is viewed more favorably than America across much of the world. Our numbers say the same about Africa. But they also say something Pew did not capture: the race is far from over – and President Trump, of all people, is the reason why they could still win it. Young Africans want to deal with Trump for the same reason they will deal with Xi.

Tuesday

Jim Lawley

Spain’s response to wildfires has been infuriating

From my home in Ávila I usually have a splendid view of the ancient town’s medieval walls. But yesterday morning the wind changed direction and they were largely obscured by a pall of wildfire smoke. The town hall issued health advice and recommended closing windows. But I’m among the fortunate. Everyone in Burgohondo, 25 miles south of Ávila, has been evacuated. It is the village my wife’s family comes from, and where the fire started. Across the region, tens of thousands have already been forced to leave their homes. And the forecast is ominous. Last year I suggested that Spain’s summer fires are made so frequent and destructive by long, hot, dry summers and by rural depopulation, with the resulting abandonment of farming and grazing.

spain wildfires