World

Sam Leith

What binds the celebrities featured in the Epstein files

The new naughty list just dropped, as the kids say these days. The pre-Christmas release of the Epstein files, or at least some of them – elves heavily redacted – has brought much-needed good cheer to all of us. Not every red face on Christmas afternoon will be down to port and brandy this year. And the cast of characters – Mick Jagger, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, Richard Branson and all the rest – sounds like the guest list for the worst Graham Norton Christmas Special ever. The release of the files as they stand, though, seems to me to add fuel to all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Terry Barnes

Is Australia finally taking anti-Semitism seriously?

After four days of looking like a rabbit in the headlights, embattled Australian prime minister, Labor’s Anthony Albanese, finally started to act like a national leader willing to do what’s right. Yesterday, Albanese announced his government’s response to a plan to combat anti-Semitism proposed by his hand-picked special envoy on anti-Semitism, Jewish community leader Jillian Segal. Albanese has had Segal’s report since July. His response yesterday, which effectively accepted the envoy’s 13 recommendations, was tardy but substantial. Most importantly, the Australian government accepted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism – a definition that boils down simply to hatred towards Jews, without qualification – as the basis of

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Owen Matthews

Europe has left Ukraine living on borrowed time

Russia started the war on Ukraine, so Russia should pay for the damage it has wrought. Such was Volodymyr Zelensky’s forceful message to European leaders last night as he pleaded for a ‘reparations loan’ backed by the €190 billion (£167 billion) of Russian Central Bank capital frozen in a Belgian clearing bank since Putin’s full-scale invasion. ‘Just as authorities confiscate money from drug traffickers and seize weapons from terrorists, Russian assets must be used to defend against Russian aggression and rebuild what was destroyed by Russian attacks,’ Zelensky told his European allies. ‘It’s moral. It’s fair. It’s legal.’ But after negotiations that went late into the night, Europe ultimately shied

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Alan Dershowitz

How Donald Trump could serve a third term

The 22nd Amendment leaves open several possible ways a two-term president could serve all or part of a third term without being elected. The text of that amendment, as ratified, prohibits a two-term president from “being elected” to a third term, but it doesn’t prohibit him from “serving,” “acting” or “holding” that office. Indeed, the framers explicitly rejected broader exclusionary language that would have made it constitutionally impossible for a two-term president to get anywhere near the Oval Office. Instead they accepted a compromise that created a loophole bigger than the new ballroom in the East Wing of the White House. This doesn’t mean that President Trump will actually run

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Ukraine

Ani Chkhikvadze

Boris Johnson: will cowardly Europe betray Ukraine again?

Boris Johnson has urged European leaders to hand $247 billion of frozen Russian central bank assets to Ukraine – but says he fears they “lack the courage” to do so, in an interview with The Spectator. The former British prime minister also warned that Trump is at risk of “morally polluting” himself if he caves to Putin’s demands in peace negotiations and encouraged his negotiating team to stop the “nauseating deals” they are discussing about joint business ventures. “I think Europe is at a very difficult point because Europe has got to do the reparations alone,” Johnson said. “And I’m worried that they lack the courage. They must do it.

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Christopher Caldwell

European leaders have changed their tune on war

Ten days after Thanksgiving, news watchers were exposed to one of the more culturally incongruous images in recent history: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron beaming in front of the British Prime Minister’s house at 10 Downing Street, giving each other the locked-thumbs handshake familiar to African-American jazz musicians and professional athletes of the 1970s. Right on, brother! At that moment, according to Ukrainian media, thousands of Zelensky’s soldiers had been encircled by Russian troops near the city of Pokrovsk (or Krasnoarmiisk, as it may well soon be renamed). Large gaps were appearing in the Ukrainian front, desertions were rising and Russians appeared to be opening a

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Israel

Jonathan Spyer

Israel is turning the screws on Hezbollah

The killing of Lebanese Hezbollah military chief Haytham Ali Tababtabai by Israel this week reflects how much the balance of power between Jerusalem and the Iran-backed Shia Islamist group has shifted since the year-long war between the two in 2023 and 2024. Yet, paradoxically, Tabatabai’s killing also shows that nothing has been finally settled between the two enemies. While Hezbollah has now been shown to be much weaker than Israel, it nevertheless remains stronger than any internal faction in Lebanon, including the official Lebanese government. The practical consequence of this is escalation: Hezbollah is seeking to repair and rebuild its capacities, no force in Lebanon is willing or able to stop

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Jonathan Spyer

Why Trump and Israel differ on Turkey’s involvement in Gaza

As the Gaza ceasefire struggles into its second month, a significant difference between the position of Israel and that of its chief ally, the United States, on the way forward is emerging. This difference reflects broader gaps in perception in Jerusalem and Washington regarding the nature and motivations of the current forces engaged in the Middle East. The subject of that difference is Turkey.   The Turks have expressed a desire to play a role in the ‘international stabilisation force’ (ISF), which, according to President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, is supposed to take over ground security control of Gaza from the IDF (and Hamas) in the framework of the plan’s implementation.

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Daniel DePetris

The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire is in danger of shattering

It’s been almost a year since Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that arguably held more power in Lebanon than the government itself, signed a ceasefire to end a ferocious two-month long war. The deal couldn’t have come at a better time; thousands of Israeli air and artillery strikes had pulverised southern Lebanon, Hezbollah’s traditional base of operations, leading to a displacement crisis and killing close to 4,000 Lebanese. Whole swaths of northern Israel had been vacated due to Hezbollah missile attacks, forcing the Israeli government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to spend money on tens of thousands of civilians bunking in hotel rooms. But the agreement is wearing thin. The

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America

Europe

Roger Kimball

America’s free-speech war on the EU

If I were a bookie, I would be making odds now about when the European Union will finally unravel and die. Unless there is an imminent and drastic course correction, the blessed event cannot be far off.  I might need a Doomsday Clock akin to the one publicized by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Their clock hovers near midnight, which signifies nuclear Armageddon, the minute hand pushed closer or farther away from the blast depending on minatory world events. My clock would measure the EU’s proximity to implosion. Its recent decision to fine Elon Musk and his company X €120 million for “non-compliance with transparency obligations” has me nudging

Bonnie Blue

Bonnie Blue: I stand with Nigel Farage

I have sweet memories of Christmas. My dad is proper old-school and would set up the video recorder. I don’t think we’ve ever watched the footage; I don’t know if he was even filming. But we couldn’t do anything until it was filmed. We never had loads of money, but Mum always went above and beyond. There was gold wrapping paper for presents from Santa. My family say I’m impossible to buy for now I’m better off. This year, I’ve asked for Disney princess pajamas. Christmas is a time for me to give back. Last Christmas was a bit of a shock. I was due to be in Australia but

Wednesday

Terry Barnes

Anthony Albanese has failed to step up after the Bondi beach attack

It’s been three days since the jihad against innocent Jews at Sydney’s Bondi beach. A nation’s grief is swiftly turning to anger and Australia’s prime minister is floundering. As more is learned about the father-and-son killers who took 15 lives and wounded many more, questions are piling up. How did the father enter the country? How did security agencies lose track of the son, who not only imbibed his father’s Jew hate, but may have been further radicalized by reportedly studying with one of Sydney’s most notorious Islamist hate preachers? How did they manage to go to a militant area of the Philippines as recently as a month ago? How

Rod Liddle

The West has become ungovernable

My favorite opinion poll of recent times was the one which showed that Donald Trump is disliked by more than 90 percent of Danes. This is a glorious achievement and one of which the President should be proud, and perhaps boast about from time to time – averse though he may be to boasting, of course. This was the lowest favorability rating for Trump anywhere in Yerp and I suppose is partly occasioned by his determination to pry Greenland from the grasp of these ineffably smug Scandis because they have no idea what to do with it and have mismanaged its meager affairs for decades. A personal admission: I cannot

Michela Wrong

A late Congolese ruler with a new following

At the exit of the National Museum in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is a whiteboard for visitors to leave their comments. On that whiteboard, full of underlinings and exclamation marks, are messages like this: “Thank you for your life.” “Thank you for our national unity.” “You left behind a glorious historical legacy. We plan to follow in your footsteps.” A giant photograph of the man the messages refer to hangs in the museum’s main hall as part of its new exhibition, a man in dark glasses and leopard-skin toque, smiling down at his people. More than 28 years after fleeing into exile, Mobutu Sese Seko,

The Spectator

Portrait of the year

January For three weeks wildfires raged around Los Angeles. Perhaps 30 people were killed but 200,000 were evacuated, 18,000 homes and structures destroyed and 57,529 acres burnt. Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President. On his first day he issued about 1,500 pardons for people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol in 2021; he created the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), led by Elon Musk; he signed executive orders on gender and immigration and withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization. The state funeral of Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, was held in Washington, DC. Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and the

Owen Matthews

Only the US is taking peace seriously in Ukraine

What exactly is the “platinum security guarantee” that Donald Trump is pushing Volodymyr Zelensky to accept? While the full details remain confidential, the deal is described as an “Article 5 style” guarantee after the clause in NATO’s charter that states that “an armed attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against all members” and triggers “an obligation for each member to come to its assistance.” Sounds reassuring. Except that little weasel word “style” covers an abyss of real-world back-pedaling and caveats. For a start, NATO’s charter does not oblige members to actually take military action if one is attacked but instead leaves that decision to individual states.

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Owen Matthews

Will US businesses profit from a return to the Russian market?

Rome Will peace in Ukraine also prove to be a great deal for US business? Vladimir Putin would certainly like Donald Trump to think so. Within days of Trump’s election victory last November, the Kremlin ordered major Russian corporations to prepare detailed proposals for economic cooperation with Washington. Coordinating these efforts were Maxim Oreshkin, deputy head of Putin’s presidential administration, and Kirill Dmitriev, the US-educated Harvard, Stanford and Goldman Sachs alumnus who heads Russia’s sovereign investment fund. According to a major US investor in Russia who eyes a postwar return to the market, among the major Russian corporations setting out potential deals for US companies were Russia’s atomic energy agency

Thursday

Avi Loeb

The scientific case for the existence of intelligent alien life

The foundation of science is based on the humility to learn, not the arrogance of expertise. When comet experts argued that the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS must be a familiar water-rich comet as soon as it was discovered in July, they behaved like artificial intelligence systems: only able to reflect the data sets they were trained on. For decades, the data set that established comet expertise largely comprised icy rocks in the solar system. My counterpoint is simple: humanity launched technological objects into space, so we must conclude that alien life forms could do the same. This possibility must be added to the training data set of comet experts when studying

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Mark Galeotti

Inside the mind of Putin’s real hatchet man

As Moscow and Washington prepare for talks on the latest version of Donald Trump’s peace plan, leaked recordings of a conversation with US envoy Steve Witkoff have thrown a spotlight on to senior diplomat Yuri Ushakov. It seems he, not Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, is the prime mover behind Russia’s negotiating position. The stature of Lavrov, once a legend in the diplomatic community, has steadily diminished since 2014, when he wasn’t even consulted before Vladimir Putin decided to annex Crimea. Every year since then, the now-75-year-old minister has petitioned Putin to be allowed to retire; every year this is denied. Instead, Lavrov remains confined to a role of repeating threadbare talking points

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Saturday

Jane Stannus

The downfall of Thomas King, Canada’s most influential ‘indigenous’ man

It’s an awkward time in the upper echelons of the Canadian cultural establishment. It’s come to light that influential indigenous author and former broadcaster Thomas King, isn’t actually indigenous at all. It matters, because King has spent much of his 82 years claiming to speak on behalf of the indigenous peoples of North America, and his role in shaping Canadian perception of their First Nations has been enormous. His books have served as standard texts in Canadian schools and universities for over 20 years. Born in the US, King came to Canada in 1980 to teach native studies at the University of Lethbridge. His claim to be indigenous was made

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