World

Tuesday

Margaret Mitchell

Was Dick Cheney a hero or a villain?

Former US vice president Dick Cheney died last night aged 84. He arrived in Washington as a congressman for Wyoming, then became secretary for defence under George H.W. Bush and served for eight years as George W. Bush’s vice president. He was considered by many to have pulled the strings behind the Bush administration. Throughout his life, Cheney held that what he had done was necessary What is perhaps his most lasting legacy is the ‘Cheney Doctrine,’ which influenced America’s decision to engage in wars in the Middle East. He campaigned for a military response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which drove his conviction that any country, organisation or individual

Andrew Tettenborn

The rise of anti-democratic human rights

Seventy-five years ago today the European Convention on Human Rights was signed in Rome by the 12 states, including Britain, that then formed the Council of Europe. There will be official celebrations: in Strasbourg tonight, a solemn ceremony of speeches and a gala classical concert at the Opéra national du Rhin, and in London next month a formal lecture by our recently-retired man in Strasbourg followed by a Foreign Office reception. But one thing is very noticeable: beyond the great, the good and the earnest (such as the human rights bar and organisations like Amnesty and Liberty), few care. Most of the public, and for that matter most of our

Nigel Jones

Do black lives still matter?

It was an ethnic massacre so bad that it could be seen from space. Satellites picked up bloodied patches of soil in North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher, after Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) swept into the besieged city. Pools of blood and piles of bodies were identified. Thousands of people are feared to have died in the appalling violence. Many thousands more have fled for their lives. Others remain trapped in the city. Satellites picked up bloodied patches of soil in North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher The scenes of slaughter were so blatant that it should have brought marchers out on to the streets of London in passionate protest. But there

Monday

Eliot Wilson

Don’t take away Andrew’s Falklands medal

When the King ‘initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew’ last week – reducing his brother to plain Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – the Royal family might have hoped that it would draw an end to the scandal. But public opinion has scented blood, and righteous outrage is building. Andrew’s brave service in the South Atlantic is a matter of record, for which he earned his South Atlantic Medal. It does not make him a good person, nor give him immunity for any later conduct Defence Secretary, John Healey, has revealed that the process of removing Andrew’s last remaining military distinction, his rank as Vice-Admiral,

Sunday

James Tidmarsh

Britain’s trains are dangerously exposed

Europe has seen this nightmare before. On 21 August 2015, a gunman armed with an AK-47-style assault rifle, a pistol and a knife opened fire on a Thalys train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris, wounding three passengers before being overpowered near Arras. The attacker, Ayoub El Khazzani, a 25-year-old Moroccan who had trained with Islamist militants in Syria, boarded the train intending to commit a massacre in the name of jihad. He was stopped only because three off-duty American servicemen happened to be on board and tackled him as he tried to reload. Without them, the carriage would have become a slaughterhouse. El Khazzani was sentenced to life by a

James Tidmarsh

Macron has declared war on free speech

Emmanuel Macron says Europeans should stop relying on social media for their news and turn back to traditional public media. Speaking in Paris on Wednesday, he said people were ‘completely wrong’ to use social networks for information and should instead depend on journalists and established outlets. Social platforms, he argued, are driven by a ‘process of maximum excitement’ designed to ‘maximise advertising revenue’, a system he said is ‘destroying the foundations of democratic debate’. His vision is of a Europe where free speech is tolerated only when it is traceable, and where platforms pre-emptively silence anything that might draw a regulator’s glare He accused X of being ‘dominated by far-right

Yossi Melman

The assassination that changed Israel forever

Few political assassinations of a political leader have fundamentally and dramatically altered the course of a nation. American democracy, for instance, endured the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, and black Americans continued to enjoy their hard-won freedom. About a century later, the murder of President John F. Kennedy did not halt the legislative process that secured civil rights for African Americans. The most consequential political assassination in modern history was that of the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo in June 1914. His death at the hands of Serbian nationalist revolutionaries served as the spark that ignited the first world war. There is little doubt

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Is the British Council worth saving?

The British Council, the cultural arm of the UK government, is in deep trouble. The 91-year-old organisation is struggling to repay a £200 million-pound loan from the Covid era and there is anxious talk of up to 40 centre closures and a possible 2,000 job losses. Assets are being sold off to try and keep the show on the road. There is a problem that the Council does not really know what it is for – or perhaps it knows, but does not relish, its mission ‘We really need help on that loan,’ says Scott Macdonald, the Council’s beleaguered chief executive. ‘The government has got to turn it into something

Saturday

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

The trouble with Louis Theroux

We’re woefully resigned to the strange situation whereby if an alien landed, they’d believe that being famous was hereditary, like being royal. But when I looked at the Wikipedia page of Louis Theroux, I almost fell out of my wheelchair chuckling. Not only is he the son of the ‘noted travel writer and novelist’ Paul Theroux, ‘he is the nephew of novelist Alexander Theroux and writer Peter Theroux. His older brother, Marcel, is a writer and television presenter. His cousin, Justin, is an actor and screenwriter.’ Theroux – educated at Westminster and Magdalen College, Oxford, naturally – is said to be a ‘massive hip hop head’ Kind of like the Beckhams without the beauty;

Michael Day

Venezuela isn’t to blame for America’s drug problem

There are plenty of accusations you could level at Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, the ex-union leader and bus driver, whose corruption and incompetence is steering the economy of his oil-rich Latin American nation off a cliff. But responsibility for America’s lethal drug habit is not one of them. That hasn’t stopped Donald Trump trying, however. ‘We smoked a drug boat, and there’s 11 narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean,’ Hegseth bragged Thus, we’ve seen Trump’s doltish ‘Secretary of War’ Pete Hegseth gleefully bombing small Venezuelan boats that he claims were carrying drug smugglers. ‘We smoked a drug boat, and there’s 11 narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean,’ Hegseth bragged

Friday

Lynne O’Donnell

Pakistan has lost control of the Taliban monster

The futile peace talks taking place between Pakistan and the Taliban over cross-border terrorist attacks have produced at least one revelation: Islamabad has become the Dr Frankenstein of the region. For decades, Pakistan’s generals believed they could manipulate Islamist militants and use them as instruments of their foreign policy. They thought it would be simple to create pliant proxies for ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan and leverage against India. Now the Taliban – battle-hardened, emboldened by victory and appeased by super powers – appear to be dictating the terms. The monster has turned on its master. Islamabad, long the sponsor and protector of the Taliban, now finds itself negotiating from a

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Who will save Ukrainian troops in Pokrovsk?

What matters more – land or the lives of soldiers? For each side fighting in Ukraine, the answer is different. For Vladimir Putin, every metre of captured Ukrainian soil is worth the lives of tens of thousands of Russians. For Kyiv, the priority is to stop the invaders while keeping casualties to a minimum. Ukraine’s military command has not always managed to hold that balance, at times allowing its troops to be encircled and slaughtered rather than ordering a timely retreat. Today, that same choice between territories and lives is being made in Pokrovsk. The battle for this fortress city in the Donetsk region has raged for nearly two years,

Harry Halem

The luck of the Irish is finally running out

For the past twenty years, Ireland has been Europe’s improbable overachiever. A small island nation on the fringe of Europe managed to turn EU membership, American corporate investment and allegedly shrewd strategic diplomacy into an economic success story. While the Celtic Tiger whimpered following the 2008 crash, it leapt back into action with remarkable agility, creating a low-tax, free-market economy. Dublin became the unlikely bridge for American tech and pharmaceutical giants to meet the European market, a centre of financial services and an agile diplomatic operator. As the US counts costs, not cousins, Ireland’s mix of moral posturing and strategic freeloading will wear ever thinner Throughout the Biden years, Ireland

Thursday

Arnout Nuijt

The Dutch elections are still a victory for the right

Early coverage of the Dutch elections has inevitably focused on Geert Wilders – still the bogeyman of the country’s political establishment. Wilders lost seats and saw some of his support drift towards other parties on the right and to the liberal centre of Democrats 66 (D66). His Freedom party and D66 are leading in the polls, with both set to take 26 seats. Yet the real story lies elsewhere: in the spectacular downfall of former EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans, whose brief and ill-fated return to Dutch politics as leader of the Labour party has ended in a shattering defeat. Timmermans was as divisive a figure to the Dutch right as Wilders is

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Trump and Xi’s South Korean meeting changed little

Donald Trump says his meeting with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea today was ‘amazing’ and that, on a scale of one to 10, it merited a 12. Which means that on a scale for scepticism, it probably deserves a 13. Its biggest achievement appears to have been to at least put the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies on hold, though stock markets, excitable all week as the summit approached, opened flat this morning. Fundamental issues remain unchanged, the momentum towards economic separation will continue, possibly accelerating during the breathing space provided by an extended truce that is unlikely to last.

Senay Boztas

Have the Netherlands rejected Geert Wilders?

With the most dramatic result in the history of Dutch elections, the liberal democratic D66 appears to have inched ahead of populist Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom, winning an election for the first time. On Thursday morning, both parties were projected at 26 seats out of the 150-seat chamber, neck-and-neck but with a 2,000-vote lead for D66. Under its dynamic 38-year-old leader – and former junior athlete – Rob Jetten, the progressive party made a last-minute sprint in the final week of the campaign, when a third of Dutch voters make up their minds. It has almost tripled its current nine seats and scored the best result in

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why is Putin obsessed with nuclear ‘wonder weapons’?

I don’t think it’s accurate or helpful to think of Vladimir Putin as some Bond villain figure – but he certainly does make it harder to hold this line sometimes. In particular, his enthusiasm for ‘wonder weapons’ – often of questionable strategic value – does suggest a certain grandiose vanity. Some have genuine military utility, but others seem more useful in psychological than actual warfare. Last week, the Russians announced a successful test of the 9M730 Burevestnik (‘Storm Petrel’), a nuclear-armed and -powered cruise missile. Its reactor allows it to travel further than any regular cruise missile, manoeuvring at altitudes as low as 50 metres. This would mean that it

The Spectator

Mystic Milei proves ‘austerity’ needn’t be a dirty word

Javier Milei’s election in 2023 was a repudiation of decades of Peronist turmoil, corruption and inflation. Milei offered shock therapy, delivered with an Austin Powers haircut and chainsaws. This is a man who had worked as a tantric sex coach and claims to speak not just with animals but also with God himself. Eyebrows were raised. Could such a strange man, one who seems to embrace the new occultism outlined in our cover piece, deliver his promised reconstruction of Argentina? Or would voters soon grow tired of the state-slashing mystic? Yet this former frontman of a Rolling Stones tribute band has proved his sceptics wrong. He took office with inflation

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

How the occult captured the modern mind

The British science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, proposed a ‘law of science’ in 1968: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Clarke’s proposition had a quality of rightness, of stating the obvious with sparkling clarity, that propelled it into dictionaries of quotations. The timing was perfect: Concorde would soon be flying over rock festivals packed with hippies obsessed with ‘magick’. Naturally Clarke’s readers understood the difference between aerodynamics and sky gods. But African tribesmen gawping at an early aeroplane, or Pacific Islanders watching an atomic explosion, could only conclude that they were witnessing a supernatural event: for them, a scientific explanation was literally

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Hurricane hits Jamaica, Plaid reigns in Caerphilly and sex offender gets £500 to leave Britain

Home An Iranian man who arrived on a small boat and was deported to France on 19 September under the one in, one out scheme returned to England on another small boat. Hadush Kebatu, the migrant whose arrest for sexual assault sparked weeks of protests outside the Bell hotel in Epping where he was living, was freed by mistake from Chelmsford prison; he was arrested two days later and given £500 to be deported to Ethiopia. The Home Office ‘squandered’ billions on a ‘failed, chaotic and expensive’ system of asylum accommodation, a Commons home affairs committee report found. Some 900 of the 32,000 asylum-seekers in hotels might be rehoused in