World

This is Putin’s time. Next week, the Fifa World Cup kicks off in Moscow, and the Kremlin has spared no expense to showcase Vladimir Putin’s new Russia as a vibrant, safe and strong nation. Half a million visitors will be welcomed — with the Russian press reporting that the notorious ‘Ultra’ hooligans have been officially warned to behave themselves or face the full wrath of the state. Despite four years of rock-bottom oil prices, Putin has nonetheless found the cash to build or refurbish a dozen new stadiums. Moscow has undergone a two-year city-wide facelift that has left it looking cleaner, fresher and more prosperous than any European capital I

Yevgeny Prigozhin has been charged by Robert Mueller for interfering in the 2016 election.

Donald Trump is following through on his threat—or promise, as his voters see it—to impose steep tariffs on foreign goods in the name of supporting American industry, starting with levies of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium imports. Allies and neighbors that had been granted temporary exemptions are now set to feel the brunt of the tariffs: Canada is America’s leading source of foreign steel, and Mexico and the European Union will also feel the pain. They’re all threatening to retaliate, and the press is calling this a trade war. If this is a war, it’s one the United States will win. The thing to

Kim Yong-chol is believed to have ordered the sinking of a South Korean ship, killing 46.

How highly placed members of one administration mobilised the intelligence services to undermine their successors.

So much for the Nobel Peace Prize that Donald Trump said “everyone thinks” he should receive. The New York Times reports that Trump is starting to get second thoughts about visiting Singapore on June 12 to hold a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Trump boasted earlier that if they cut a deal, Kim would … Read more

My, my, my. North Korea is in a snit over National Security Adviser John Bolton who urged it to follow the Libya model of total denuclearization. Everyone knows how that ended. The North declared yesterday that it finds Bolton “repugnant,” a sentiment that is actually widely shared around the world, and that it wants an … Read more

The new secretary of state has already blundered during his short tenure.

We need only look to London for lessons in how oligarchs apply pressure.