World

Tuesday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Israel has ‘opened the gates of hell’ in Gaza

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Israel launched a surprise wave of strikes across the Gaza Strip, targeting key Hamas infrastructure and leadership. This escalation comes after Hamas repeatedly refused to release Israeli hostages under conditions proposed by Israel and backed by US mediators. Despite extensive negotiations, including direct involvement from Washington, Hamas chose to reject every proposal put forward, prompting Israel to resume military operations aimed at further weakening the terror group’s capabilities. Among those killed in last night’s Israeli airstrikes on Gaza were senior Hamas official Issam al-Da’alis, depicted as the king of spades in the playing card collection of Hamas’ leadership targets, Major General Mahmoud Abu

Jonathan Sacerdoti

There is no more hiding from the chilling truth of 7 October

The 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report, chaired by Lord Andrew Roberts, has now been published. It provides a meticulously researched, forensic account of the atrocities committed against Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Compiled by the UK-Israel All Party Parliamentary Group, this report is an essential document, recording in stark detail the murder, torture, and sexual violence inflicted upon innocent civilians. It ensures that this horror is preserved in the historical record, beyond the reach of those who would seek to distort or deny it. That such a report is necessary at all speaks to the disturbing times we live in. The idea that a massacre of nearly 1,200

Monday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Emmanuel Macron has Trump déjà vu

Emmanuel Macron hosted Mark Carney at the Elysee on Monday as both France and Canada work out how best to deal with Donald Trump. Carney, who replaced Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister last week, is in Europe to garner support for Canada amid growing tensions with the USA. In a joint press conference, Carney spoke of Canada’s desire to ‘reinforce its ties with reliable allies like France’. He added that it was necessary to ensure that ‘France and the whole of Europe works enthusiastically with Canada, the most European of non-European countries, determined like you to maintain the most positive possible relations with the United States.’ Since he returned to

Dalibor Rohac

Why the EU must save Radio Free Europe

To the distress of many, Donald Trump’s senior advisor Kari Lake announced the discontinuation of federal funding for several iconic news outlets administered by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), including Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFE-RL) and Voice of America.  These multi-language broadcasters are not simply remnants of the Cold War, nor are they ‘a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer’, as Lake’s disgraceful announcement puts it. The US-funded news outlets that are being effectively closed down have been key to America’s soft power in the world, especially in unfree countries.  Wait several months and RFE-RL will be effectively dead The Czech foreign minister, Jan Lipavský, whose

James Snell

Why US airstrikes on the Houthis will fail

The United States has started what might well prove to be a long – and probably doomed – campaign of air strikes against Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, in Yemen. Since October 2023, the Houthis have been very successfully disrupting shipping in the Red Sea, firing missiles and launching drones at cargo ships, oil tankers, passenger vessels: hitting a few, sinking fewer, and inconveniencing millions. While few ships have been hit, fewer sunk, and even fewer people killed by this campaign, the numbers speak for themselves. Fewer and fewer ships are transiting the region, including using the Suez Canal to cut journey times between Asia and Europe. World

Eliot Wilson

The problem with Starmer’s peacekeeping plan for Ukraine

Sir Keir Starmer has been tireless in his diplomatic efforts to construct a ‘coalition of the willing’ and send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine. At the weekend, he hosted a conference call with 29 other world leaders, and on Thursday the defence secretary, John Healey, will convene a meeting of military chiefs at the MoD’s Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood ‘to put strong and robust plans in place to swing in behind a peace deal and guarantee Ukraine’s future security’. The Prime Minister’s commitment is firm and public. Along with likely partners France, Turkey, Canada and Australia, the United Kingdom is ready to contribute to a military force of up

Henry Donovan

How Friedrich Merz betrayed his voters

German politics has delivered yet another masterclass in how to betray your voters while maintaining a straight face. This time it is Friedrich Merz, the supposedly steel-spined conservative who spent years critiquing Angela Merkel’s drift leftward, who has now managed to outdo even his predecessor’s talent for abandonment of what he promised. Merz’s capitulation on Germany’s constitutional debt brake – a cornerstone of his campaign – took precisely fourteen days. Not even Britain’s most notorious policy flip-floppers could match such efficiency. The CDU leader who thundered about fiscal discipline on the campaign trail has now, with indecent haste, embraced the Social Democrats’ spend-now-worry-later philosophy, leaving Germany’s vaunted Swabian housewife –

Saturday

Khadija Khan

Ramadan can be a time of suffering for those who dare break the rules

Ramadan, which this year runs until the end of March, is viewed by Muslims as a time of compassion and generosity. But for others – especially those who flout fasting rules in Muslim-majority countries – it can be a period of suffering and persecution. Liberal Muslims and those from religious minorities can be punished severely for stepping out of line during the ‘holy month’. They face harsh punishments, exclusion, and seclusion for offending religious sensibilities. Liberal Muslims can be punished severely for stepping out of line during the ”holy month’ Several young men were arrested in Kano, northern Nigeria, earlier this month for failing to observe the Ramadan fast. Those selling

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

‘Trump’s America has made a suicidal choice’: An interview with Bernard-Henri Lévy

Bernard-Henri Lévy is running on fumes. Plus ça change. “I slept as always last night, a few hours, with chemistry compelling me to sleep,” the Parisian public intellectual tells me when we speak on the phone. “I miss the process of sleep, the process of getting awake, all parts of the ceremony I miss. But insomnia has given me more than it has taken. More time, certainly more work, more vigilance; I’m awake.” “Maybe I would sleep better if I was British,” Lévy says His latest book, Nuit Blanche, which has yet to be translated into English, is a runaway bestseller in France, where it was released in January. It

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Is Friedrich Merz floundering already?

Friedrich Merz promised to do things differently. Ahead of the country’s federal election last month, the likely next chancellor of Germany said he had a ‘clear plan for Germany’s economic future’. From day one in office, he wanted to be seen to enact the change so many Germans had voted for. But, held to ransom by the election’s losers, his centre-right Union is already being forced into so many compromises that Merz may turn out to be just as ineffective and unpopular as his predecessor, Olaf Scholz. Merz wasn’t off to a bad start. Okay, most Germans tell pollsters that they are sceptical that he’ll be a good chancellor, but

Friday

Jim Lawley

How Spain is trying to dodge spending more on defence

Spain’s defence spending, at a mere 1.28 per cent of its GDP, lags behind all other Nato members. While most European Union countries have already reached the target of 2 per cent that was agreed back in 2014, at the present rate of progress Spain won’t get there until 2029. Such a leisurely approach is no longer tenable. President Trump has proposed 5 per cent as the appropriate benchmark for defence expenditure, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, is demanding urgent rearmament in Europe and Nato is expected to raise the target to well above 3 per cent at its summit in June. Suddenly it looks as

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Putin has set a trap for the Ukraine ceasefire plan

Vladimir Putin has set his conditions for Donald Trump’s ‘unconditional’ ceasefire: Kyiv must not mobilise or train troops, nor receive military aid, then Ukraine must ultimately accept a final peace deal that eliminates the ‘root causes’ of the conflict – i.e., which erases Ukraine’s sovereignty. The Kremlin’s terms remain the same as they were three years ago: Ukrainians must cede four partially occupied regions to Russia. He also wants Kyiv to dismantle its independent government and surrender the right to choose its alliances. Surprisingly for Ukraine, Trump decided to get harsher on Russia too Putin has no reason to end the bloodshed until his imperialistic terms are met. His troops

Elisabeth Dampier

Germany is heading towards an immigration catastrophe

The German Social Democratic party (SPD) has published its working paper on immigration. It calls for half a million more migrants every year, no deportation of illegal immigrants unless they are extremely violent, voting rights for foreigners, automatic citizenship after 25 years, and a new ministry for immigration and integration. You would think the left-wing party was in no position to make demands. After all, the SPD led the coalition government which lost the last election, when it failed to be one of the top two parties for the first time since the 19th century. But the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, which won the most votes in the election, has

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Why the Jaffar Express was hijacked in Pakistan

The Jaffar Express, a train with over 400 people on board, was hijacked in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on Tuesday, leaving at least 21 passengers and 33 attackers dead. The separatist militia, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility. BLA militants bombed the railway track and then hurled rockets and opened gunfire on the train before getting on board and holding the passengers hostage at a remote and isolated junction. The group’s immediate demand was for its members to be released from prison, but Pakistan’s security forces launched an operation early on Wednesday, and ended the hijacking by the end of the day. The military claims all of the civilian casualties took

Terry Barnes

Is a criminal gang orchestrating anti-Semitism in Australia?

In late January, Australians were convulsed out of their summer holiday torpor by what appeared to be an elaborate anti-Semitic terror plot. Following a series of vandalism and firebomb attacks on synagogues, and cars and private property in suburbs with significant Jewish populations, details of the New South Wales police’s discovery of a caravan laden with plastic explosive were leaked to the media. This caravan was found parked in a street on Sydney’s rural fringe. The explosive had no detonators, but reportedly was accompanied by plans of Sydney’s Great Synagogue, which is located in a busy and narrow city centre street that would have magnified greatly the destruction and casualties

Michael Evans

The problem with putting US nukes in Poland

Nukes are becoming a big issue for Poland. One way or another, both the Polish president and prime minister want their country to host tactical nuclear weapons as a deterrent against President Putin’s Russia. In the latest, but by no means the first, statement on this question, President Andrzej Duda has revealed he recently discussed locating American tactical nukes in Poland with Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine. In an interview with the Financial Times, Duda said: ‘I think it’s not only that the time has come but that it would be safer if those weapons were already here.’ At the same time, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister and

Robin Ashenden

Trump’s war on Europe should not surprise anyone

Has there been a more cataclysmic year than 2025 for US-Europe relations? It started with US Vice President J.D. Vance’s ‘sermon’ to EU leaders at the Munich security conference last month – in which he berated Western Europe for its policies on immigration and free speech. The year so far has also taken in the danger of the Nato alliance falling apart after 76 years of peace in Western Europe, with the White House apparently tilting towards Russia and Trump demanding that members of the alliance such as Germany, France and the UK massively up their defence spending. This week, as the Trump regime imposes tariffs on Europe and Europe

Thursday

Paul Wood

Massacre of the innocents, saving endangered languages & Gen Z’s ‘Boom Boom’ aesthetic

37 min listen

This week: sectarian persecution returns Paul Wood, Colin Freeman and Father Benedict Kiely write in the magazine this week about the religious persecution that minorities are facing across the world from Syria to the Congo. In Syria, there have been reports of massacres with hundreds of civilians from the Alawite Muslim minority targeted, in part because of their association with the fallen Assad regime. Reports suggest that the groups responsible are linked to the new Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani). For some, the true face of the country’s new masters has been revealed. Whether the guilty men are punished will tell us what kind of

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Is Putin really open to a ceasefire with Ukraine?

Vladimir Putin is apparently open to a ceasefire in the war against Ukraine. But is he really? Just like that, the response that America, Ukraine and its Western allies had been waiting for has arrived. Speaking this afternoon in a joint press conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the Russian President commented for the first time on America’s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in the conflict. ‘We agree with the proposal to stop military actions,’ he said. The truce, he said, should lead to ‘long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of the crisis’.  As with many statements which turn out to be too good to be true, the Russian

Owen Matthews

What Vladimir Putin really wants from Ukraine

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have very different negotiating styles. Trump lines up his offer in advance, browbeating all the parties on his own side into compliance before slapping his bottom line on the table. Putin, by contrast, is a haggler. He loads his proposals with superstructure intended to be jettisoned in the course of getting to yes. Or to put it another way, what Putin says he wants and what he realistically expects to get are two different things. On the face of it, Russia’s first response to US proposals for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine contain several major deal-breakers that the Ukrainians could never swallow. First and foremost,