World

A year ago Donald J Trump was still roundly disliked by the French commentariat. Even the conservative Le Figaro newspaper held its Gallic nose in disdain, running a haughty article headlined "Trump, vulgarity runs rampant." The left still loathe the president of the United States but for the right in France he has become a role model. The same Le Figaro now writes approvingly of Trump and admits it got him wrong. "We expected an isolationist Trump, focused solely on American interests," it declared on Friday. "But in nine months, the president has established himself as a peacemaker in multiple international crises." The French perhaps more than any European nation have never got The Donald.

In between votes to legitimize the world’s worst regimes and condemn the world’s only Jewish state, the United Nations has found the time to introduce itself as a global governmental structure with the power to levy taxes on every inhabitant of Earth.   No, really.  The UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) is of the opinion that it can impose duties on the carbon emissions of ships to the tune of between $100 and $380 per metric ton. All of the revenue generated would be paid out to the UN’s “Net Zero Fund,” which would be used to “reward low-emission ships,” or pick winners and losers.

Justin Trudeau has finally found something he can’t bankrupt – a washed-up pop star. The former prime minister, now liberated from the burden of office, was recently spotted aboard Katy Perry’s yacht in California, sharing a kiss so theatrical it would have been cut by a good director.   But Trudeau was always drawn to drama. The kind with lighting, makeup and someone else footing the bill. His life has become a soap opera, though not the kind with decent writing or respectable ratings. There was the recurring racist phase, the peace-and-love phase, the power-and-profit phase and now the Malibu make-out phase. Once hailed as the fresh-faced heir to liberal idealism, Trudeau swiftly dissolved into a puddle of melodrama and moisturizer.

Japan is still in many ways a traditionalist – not to say a sexist – society. But the times they are a changing, and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have just chosen Sanae Takaichi as its leader, which means that she will become the country’s first ever female Prime Minister, and it’s most stridently right-wing one. Takaichi, 64, revels in the nickname the "Iron Lady" and is a hardline patriotic right-winger who is an avowed admirer of the original Iron Lady - Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who Takaichi has cited as her role model.

President Trump has once again played the global foreign-policy commentariat for fools. They have taken a startling statement from Trump’s Truth social-media account on Tuesday as a sign of a new policy – or at least a new attitude – toward the Russia-Ukraine war. Yet what Trump actually wrote says nothing of the sort.  If Trump really were newly committing himself to Ukraine, why would say, as he’s so often said before, “I wish both countries well”? One country has invaded the other; wishing one of them well means wishing defeat on the other. Wishing them both well indicates indifference.

Was there a plot against President Trump at the United Nations? Upon his arrival, the escalator apparently stopped working. Next his teleprompter failed. Small wonder that Trump was in less than a concessive mood as he delivered his speech denouncing the UN itself as a colossal failure. The result was the kind of talk he would give to a political rally – except it was to an unreceptive, if not hostile, audience. Throughout, Trump made it clear that his estimation of his abilities is very different from his view of the UN. “I’m really good at this stuff,” he declared. “I’ve been right about everything.” As for everyone else: “Your countries are going to hell.

Brazil’s former right-wing president Jair Bolsanaro has been sentenced to 27 years in jail after being found guilty by the Supreme Court in Brasilia of plotting a coup and attempting the assassination of his leftist successor, the current President Luiz "Lula" da Silva. The five-person court panel trying the case delivered a verdict, with four judges voting guilty and one voting to acquit. The casting guilty vote was returned by a female judge, Carmen Lucia. Donald Trump, who regards Bolsanaro as a personal friend as well as an ideological ally, has described the trial as a "witch hunt" and a "political assassination." He has imposed 50 percent tariff charges on Brazil in response, and has threatened to increase the sanctions if Bolsanaro goes to jail.

Will Saudi Arabia ever be held to account for the 9/11 terror attacks? For decades, the Kingdom has successfully parried lawsuits in the United States accusing it of providing logistical and financial support to a network of Islamic extremists who launched a global terror campaign, culminating in the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Those attacks occurred 24 years ago and since then survivors and victims of the 9/11 hijackings have had to counter not only vigorous Saudi denials mounted by their well-funded American legal team but also repeated attempts by the US government to thwart the lawsuits. But there are signs the pendulum has begun to swing the other way. On August 28, US District Judge George B.