World

Monday

Mark Galeotti

Why Russia used poison to kill Navalny

When leading Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny died two years ago, the only real question was not whodunnit, but howdunnit?  His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, quickly blamed poison and said that his partisans had taken tissue samples from his corpse for examination. Yesterday, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands announced that a combined intelligence operation had demonstrated that he was killed with epibatidine, a nerve toxin only found on the skin of Ecuadorian dart frogs. The announcement was followed by the inevitable stream of (not always unjustified) skepticism, trollish derision, and official denial. To be sure, making the announcement at the Munich Security Conference does highlight the degree to which this was being done as a political gesture, an attempt to

Friday

Gearóid Ó Riain

Is this Irish man really an ICE victim?

Over the past few days there has been a flurry of stories and official statements about Irish national Seamus Culleton, now detained by ICE for overstaying a visa for almost 20 years while on the run from multiple drugs warrants in Ireland. The clip of him saying his holding area is a “concentration camp” has been heard by millions, and liberals on both sides of the Atlantic have tried to turn him into a poster-boy white martyr of ICE. This is a “Look, it can even happen to white Irish” cautionary tale about the authoritarian terrors of America.  But once you actually strip out the rhetoric, the story looks rather different. It

Fleur Elizabeth Meston

Will Canada soon be euthanizing babies?

Donald Trump may or may not bomb Iran in the next few days. His cheerleaders will cite the Tehran regime’s brutal executions of Iranian protesters as justification. But if the President is in the mood for humanitarian interventions and stopping barbarism, he might also want to make good on his pledge to annex Canada. Once praised as a paragon of decency and civility, Canada is now turning into a dystopian society in which so-called “healthcare” professionals wield increasingly terrifying power of life and death. When a government grants permission to end a life, where does it stop? Canadian doctors are considering euthanizing newborns under certain circumstances as a form of

Freddy Gray

The power of cryptid belief

23 min listen

Freddy speaks to Spectator writer Katherine Dee about the online obsession with cryptids and what it reveals about the modern internet. They discuss how folklore-style storytelling is thriving on platforms like TikTok, why conspiracy culture now resembles collaborative “alternate reality games” and how AI-generated images are blurring the line between what is real, fake and plausible.

Mark Galeotti

Is Putin paving the way for a crackdown?

It may sound like a rather arcane development, but a change in the command structure of the Rosgvardiya, Russia’s National Guard, offers some clues about both the state of the country and the Ukraine war – and the Kremlin’s fears for the future. Zolotov has been lobbying for some time for the Rosgvardiya to have its own General Staff. This week, he got it The Rosgvardiya is an internal security force of some 180,000 personnel, ranging from the blue-camouflaged OMON riot police who patrol the streets alongside the regular police, through to the Interior Troops, a virtual parallel army with its own tanks and artillery. (There are also at least

Ross Clark

Trump is right about greenhouse gases

Irresponsible Trump, responsible China: that is the message the BBC’s climate editor seemed to be sending us by juxtaposing the news that the President had repealed Barack Obama’s “endangerment finding” and that China’s carbon emissions fell slightly last year. Trump’s critics like to portray him as a rogue figure in a world which is otherwise committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. But is there any truth in that? The endangerment finding does not appear to have had any obvious impact on US emissions The endangerment finding was a piece of legalese issued in a 2009 ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It stated that six greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide,

Syria
Daniel DePetris

US troops finally leave Syria

In December 2018, to the shock of pretty much everybody in the US national security establishment at the time, President Donald Trump publicly ordered the withdrawal of all US troops from Syria. The announcement caused a panic within the Defense Department, State Department and National Security Council, whose officials teamed up to dissuade Trump from going through with it. A similar story unfolded ten months later, in October 2019. Again, the bureaucracy pushed back; in October 2019, the House went so far as to pass a resolution opposing a US withdrawal, with senior Republican lawmakers signing onto the measure. Fast-forward more than six years later, and the US troop withdrawal

Thursday

Joshua Treviño

Cartel drones vs Texas lasers

Yesterday, El Paso, Texas, was placed under severe restrictions from the Federal Aviation Administration. For unspecified reasons of national security, no aircraft would be allowed in or out for ten days. Washington sources soon confirmed what many suspected: the cause was hostile drone activity from Mexico. Then there was an about turn. Within a few hours, the flight ban was lifted. What actually happened? We know that the Department of War has been working on an anti-drone system for some time, using lasers to shoot down craft. One of these laser systems was actually deployed near El Paso and officials claim a drone was indeed shot down. The FAA, concerned

Freddy Gray

Will Trump ‘totally obliterate’ Iran’s nuclear program – again?

Donald Trump spent much of the second half of last year boasting about the total and utter success of his military strikes on Iran. “As you know,” he said in August, “we took out the nuclear capability of Iran, and to use the term that people try to dispute without any knowledge, it was obliterated.” Iran’s nuclear program, he assured the world, had been set back by “decades.” Yet yesterday, just six months on, there he was again – meeting Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu once more to discuss the urgent need to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. In the wake of Operation Midnight Hammer – that quick and spectacular bombing mission

Jane Stannus

Why was Canada so afraid of misgendering a trans shooter?

A horrible and incredibly sad tragedy unfolded on February 10 in the small town of Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia, Canada. An 18-year-old, Jesse Van Rootselaar, also known as Jesse Strang, turned a gun first on his mother and stepbrother, then on young students and a teacher at his former high school, and finally on himself – with nine reported dead, including the shooter, and at least 25 injured. Waves of shock, grief and horror have rippled across the nation. This was one of Canada’s worst school shootings, the deadliest in 37 years. It seemed especially cruel because Tumbler Ridge is such a tightly knit community, with only about 2,400 inhabitants. Public outrage began

Wednesday

Colin Freeman

Ukraine has entered the gray zone

Kharkiv, Ukraine In a bunker on the outskirts of Kharkiv, a group of rookie Ukrainian soldiers are learning the basics of combat medicine.  The temperature outside is -4°F, and clouds of breath hang in the air – as does the gravity of what they are letting themselves in for. The dummies used for training have fake bullet holes and missing limbs, and during a quiz at the end of the lesson, gruesome scenarios are playing out. “If you tie a tourniquet, but there’s still bleeding, what do you do?” “What is the significance of cerebral fluid in the mouth or ears?” Most of these medics will not even be right

gray zone

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

What lies behind the royal redactions?

Nothing has been as damaging for the British royal family as the unfortunate meeting of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Jeffrey Epstein. Republican Thomas Massie and the Democrat Ro Khanna know this. In a press conference yesterday, they said they had been shown documents that have been otherwise redacted and withheld from the Epstein files. These documents included mention of girls as young as 9 years old. Massie and Khanna are responsible for the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act. They have said that the levels of redaction and secrecy are unacceptable, and that they will continue to challenge the Justice Department’s approach to the documents. And this, according to Khanna, is extremely

Ross Clark

Don’t bother visiting Rome

As a general rule, once a city erects turnstiles to tourist attractions which were once free to visit, it is time to go elsewhere. Never more so than in the case of Rome. Last week the Italian capital introduced a €2 charge to visit the Trevi Fountain. Tight-fisted tourists like me will still be able to see the Trevi from a distance – it happens to stand in a public street. The charge will be only for sad Instagrammers who want to get close enough to chuck their coins in the water. The city’s tourism department has suggested the fee is needed to manage the throngs of holidaygoers. Even then, God

Monday

Benedict Rogers

Jimmy Lai cannot be left to die in jail

The decision to sentence Jimmy Lai to 20 years in jail in Hong Kong is no surprise, but it is no less shocking or heartbreaking. For his family, especially his courageous wife Teresa, son Sebastien and daughter Claire, who have advocated so tirelessly for their father over the past five years, one can only imagine the pain and grief they feel. Sebastien and Claire have walked the corridors of power in Washington, DC, London, Ottawa, Brussels, Paris and beyond, and sat in television studios for hour after hour, seemingly to no avail. For Hong Kong, this is yet another dark day, yet another nail in the coffin of the city’s

lai

Saturday

Andrew Collingwood

Was the raid on Venezuela real?

From the very start, there was something weird about Operation Absolute Resolve. The official story went something like this: after a whirlwind air attack, which included the use of suicide drones for the first time, special operators from the US Army’s renowned but shadowy SFOD-D unit (“Delta Force”) were helicoptered into the Fuerte Tiuna military complex in the south of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. They defeated the local garrison, used “massive blowtorches” to breach heavy metal doors in a fortress-like residential site within the base, captured the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, then spirited them back to the helicopters and flew them out to face charges

venezuela

Friday

Mark Nayler

What Spain’s social media ban gets wrong

Spain’s Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez is proposing a ban on under-16s using social media, following the example set by Australia last year. Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai earlier this week, Sánchez said: “Today our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone… We will protect [them] from the digital Wild West.” The Spanish premier’s announcement comes at a time when several other European nations are also attempting to combat the harmful effects of social media on children. France’s ban on under-15s using social media is expected to become law later this year, while Greece, Portugal and Denmark have signaled their intention

Freddy Gray

How deep does Epstein’s network go?

23 min listen

Freddy is joined by historian Andrew Lownie, to react to the latest release of Epstein emails – and how they are bringing down a global network of elites. They discuss whether Epstein was a Soviet spy, the renewed pressure on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and if politicians will hide behind “national security” to prevent the release of more files.

Rachel Rizzo

What’s ruining skiing in Utah?

On New Year’s Day, I was awake at 5 a.m. – but not for the reasons you might think. I hadn’t been out all night celebrating with friends. I was awake early because it was a powder day in Utah, the type of day skiers and snowboarders dream of. I had to be at my friend’s house by 6 a.m. so we could be on the road 15 minutes later, beat the traffic and drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon to be at Solitude Mountain Resort by 7 a.m., then tailgate for two hours in the snow waiting for the lifts to open. While parts of this routine are fun, none

Owen Matthews

Why is America determined to pick a fight with Poland?

Until very recently it was hard to find more stalwart allies of America in Europe than the Poles. Poland was an early supporter of Washington’s policy to expand Nato and actively pushed for a stronger US role in central and eastern Europe. The Poles also stood up as an enthusiastic member of every US-led military coalition, taking leading roles in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was to Warsaw that US President Joe Biden traveled – twice – in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to give barnstorming speeches affirming that America would stand by Kyiv.  All the more surprising, then, that the recently-appointed US ambassador to Warsaw chose to pick

Brendan O’Neill

The Epstein scandal has morphed into a moral panic

That’s it, I’m out. I’m finished with the Epstein scandal. This morning I read about a man who is on the cusp of cancellation because he once sent a flirtatious email to Ghislaine Maxwell, years before her crimes were known about. This is getting ridiculous. It feels like MeToo on steroids. There’s a medieval vibe of finger-pointing and rumor-mongering The man is Casey Wasserman. He’s chair of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. And there are hollers for him to stand down. All because he once got digitally horny with Ms Maxwell. “I think of you all the time,” he wrote in one email. “What do I have to do to