World Archives

Monday

January 26, 2026

Has Xi Jinping fought off another coup?

According to unconfirmed reports, General Zhang Youxia, China’s vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), sent a company of troops (over a hundred or more) to the government’s Yingxi Hotel in western Beijing on January 18. Their mission was to arrest Xi Jinping. A few hours before, the Chinese president – alerted by an informant – set in motion countermeasures. Troops under the command of Cao Qi, head of Xi’s Central Guards Bureau, ambushed Zhang’s soldiers. In the ensuing gunfight at Yangxi Hotel, nine guards were reportedly killed along with dozens of Zhang Youxia’s soldiers. Throughout China, military movements have been banned and troops and officers have been confined to

Nigel Biggar

David Abulafia was a rare, truth-seeking historian

Death arrives on a day just like any other, often rudely unheralded. We all know that, but it never ceases to shock. So it was with news that David Abulafia had died on Saturday night. Notwithstanding his lifelong fascination with the Mediterranean, David was a Brexiteer in 2016 Readers of The Spectator will know him as one of the shockingly small number of professional historians who care enough about the historical truth – and the public’s perception of it – to risk woke ire in exposing ideologically fabricated history for the corrupting trash it is. So, last June here he was, in these pages, debunking yet another attempt to make

Ben Clerkin

Facts, unlike opinions, are hard to come by in Minneapolis

Did a Border Patrol officer kill Alex Pretti in self-defense after being alerted that he was carrying a gun in a chaotic scramble to arrest him? Or did he execute the anti-ICE protester in cold blood after he was disarmed? The truth is that it is difficult to know. Facts, unlike opinions, are hard to come by in Minnesota. Endless replays, as in the case of Renee Good who was shot dead in the city by an ICE officer she drove towards, aren’t helping to draw a consensus Endless replays, as in the case of Renee Good who was shot dead in the city by an ICE officer she drove

Sunday

January 25, 2026

James Heale

The fight over the future of the Chagos Islands

Westminster, London Donald Trump might be determined to acquire more US land – here in Britain, however, our leaders are determined to give it away. A deal to hand over control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is in the final stages of parliamentary approval. Trump initially backed the deal, yet U-turned after his Greenland overtures were spurned. “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY,” he declared online. “NO REASON WHATSOEVER.” Bemused, he later asked a British reporter in the Oval Office: “I don’t know why they’re doing it. Do they need money?” Keir Starmer chose to make the fate of the islands a

Michael Evans

Can Steve Witkoff persuade Putin to give up the Donbas?

Last week was one of realpolitik, Trump-style. Greenland was sorted, the “New Gaza” unveiled, and all that was left was Ukraine and Russia. Donald Trump went from Davos back to the US but ordered his special envoys to Abu Dhabi, armed with the president’s formula for ending the war in Europe, to get a deal to stop the killing and destruction. As the envoys from the US, Russia and Ukraine opened the talks on Friday in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, none of the pre-signaling indicated that a breakthrough was in the offing. Two days were allotted for the meetings, in the expectation that it wouldn’t just be

Friday

January 23, 2026

Orson Fry

In pictures: The Spectator's book party with Nicolas Niarchos

Braving biting January winds, 120 New Yorkers attended the much-anticipated launch of Nicolas Niarchos’s The Elements of Power: A Story of War, Technology, and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth, at The Spectator’s (still) unfinished, unfurnished penthouse digs. Niarchos is a journalist whose reporting has appeared in the New Yorker, the Nation and the New York Times. He has testified on the effects of Congolese battery metal mining on Capitol Hill and his investigations into mining in Indonesia were shortlisted for a 2024 Livingston Award. The Elements of Power, his first book, tells the story of the war for the global supply of rare earth minerals used in batteries and semiconductors and the terrible, bloody human cost of this badly misunderstood industry.

Richard Ekins

How Trump could block the Chagos deal

Can Donald Trump veto the UK’s cession of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius? And if he can, does he want to? On Tuesday, he termed it an act of “great stupidity,” which certainly seems to imply opposition. Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, followed up to say that the UK was “letting down” the US by handing over the Islands to Mauritius. But Sir Keir Starmer was unmoved during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, claiming that in denouncing the Chagos deal Trump was simply trying to put pressure on the UK to abandon Denmark and Greenland, which Starmer of course rightly refused to do. The implication, which may be correct, is that Trump does not really oppose

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The US plan for Gaza is absurd

Donald Trump’s strangely artificial Board of Peace event in Davos on Thursday looked like a Hollywood rendering of an international summit. Everything was too slick, faintly uncanny. Like an AI-generated image, it was photo-real yet failed the most basic human glance test. Too perfect. No wabi-sabi. The first tell was visual: the set, complete with a crisp new institutional logo: a globe on a shield, flanked by olive branches. It carried the unmistakable whiff of Grok or ChatGPT, but the strangeness went deeper than design. The speeches themselves were weirdly messianic and utopian. The most peculiar part was the show-within-a-show: a piece of political meta-theater featuring Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff,

Ed West

A short history of the New York Times being wrong about everything

The “nothing ever happens” people seem to be, sadly, correct about Iran thus far, although one hopes that the brutal Islamic Republic might still be overthrown. It’s hard to know what to think, and at times like this we all turn to the experts to give their analysis of what might happen and what might follow. Foreign policy expertise is hard work, because it requires both a specific knowledge of the national culture and the relative strength of personalities. Because there are so many factors involved, analysts frequently get things completely wrong, the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles being the notorious examples. The art of “superforecasting” came about because US foreign policy experts

Thursday

January 22, 2026

Sean Thomas

Why I can’t resist a red-light district

I am writing this on the 17th floor of the Novotel Sukhumvit, on Soi 4, aka “Soi Nana,” in Khlong Toei, Bangkok. For anyone that knows the Big Mango, they’ve already guessed where I am, psychogeographically: from that tell-tale word “Nana.” For those still in the dark, I am on the rude, ribald, rambunctious street that is Soi 4, which is full of tattoo parlors, 7-Elevens, dried-squid-sellers, fake Italian winebars, blaring “British” pubs, slightly dodgy pharmacists, hair salons that do laundry as well – it culminates in Nana Plaza, a multitiered al fresco mall of gaudy and noisy go-go bars that probably constitutes the single largest collection of sex workers

Ian Williams

Inside the Cambodian cybercrime compounds run by Chinese gangs

The scrappy Cambodian border town of Poipet, long associated with vice and criminality, was shaken shortly before Christmas by the sound of F-16 fighter jets screaming overhead. The Thai Royal Air Force was, astonishingly, bombing a series of casinos. At least five fortified compounds were damaged, which were part of a vast industry that has conned millions of people across the world out of billions of dollars. This was “a war against the scam army,” Thailand’s army said. Scamming is a mainstay of Cambodia’s economy. The country earns an estimated $12 billion annually from online scamming alone, around half the value of its formal economy. Poipet is just one small

Travis Aaroe

Davos and the showy ruthlessness of the new ‘far center’

There has always been a section of the establishment which thinks that the solution to populism lies in a great straightening-out of the populace. Populism is happening because people are bored, they say, so conscript them, get them off their phones, give them things to do – especially the young. It is only through collective struggle and sacrifice, it’s thought, that liberal democracy may find coherence and purpose again after 30 years of supposed ennui. This part of the liberal center is happy enough to wave the flag. Indeed its main tactic is to accuse its opponents of national treason. It affects to agree with the populists that a new

Wednesday

January 21, 2026

Freddy Gray

What’s the matter with Minnesota?

22 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to investigative journalist and policy fellow at American Experiment Bill Glahn about the situation in Minneapolis. They discuss how Minnesota – a state once occupied by Scandinavian peace loving people – became the heart of political eruptions; the multibillion dollar fraud of state social benefits which led to the immigration crackdown and the effect of the cripplingly cold weather in calming the chaos.

Tuesday

January 20, 2026

Matthew Lynn

Elon Musk would be a great new owner for Ryanair

A Tesla would whisk you to the airport. The planes would be self-flying. And robots would serve the over-priced sandwiches, while, inevitably, every seat is hooked up to a live X feed. A full-scale takeover of Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, by Elon Musk may still be some way off, but with the billionaire polling his followers on X on whether he should make a bid for the budget airline, it is no longer impossible. Ryanair’s long-suffering passengers should welcome the prospect of a Musk takeover – because, while the airline revolutionized low-cost travel, Ryanair is stuck in a rut. The spat between Elon Musk, and Ryanair’s pugnacious CEO Michael O’Leary

Tom Switzer

NATO’s Suez moment

In 1969, Charles de Gaulle told his friend André Malraux that America’s “desire – and one day it will satisfy it – is to desert Europe. You will see.” It has taken nearly six decades, but de Gaulle’s prophecy now looks uncomfortably close to fulfillment. After years of diplomatic effort to manage, placate and charm successive American presidents – and Donald Trump in particular – European leaders are coming to a grim realization: the United States is, at best, indifferent to their interests and sensibilities and, at worst, openly hostile to them. Some, such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, still believe Trump can be cajoled, that the transatlantic relationship can somehow

Catherine Ellis

Venezuela’s chavista elite is clinging on – but only just

Hugo Chávez’s eyes are everywhere across parts of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. In stark black and white, his gaze is stamped onto government buildings, public housing blocks and murals. But if the late socialist president could truly see what has become of the movement he founded, he would likely be dismayed. Most Venezuelans have abandoned chavismo. His protégé Nicolás Maduro – who had led the government since 2013 – has been captured by the US, while many Venezuelans cheered his exit. What remains is a thin but loyal chavista base – and a leadership operating firmly in survival mode. Trump needs some continuity within the chavista elite to avoid a chaotic

Monday

January 19, 2026

Freddy Gray

Is Greenland a new Suez crisis?

37 min listen

Freddy is joined by Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of the National Interest, and David Whitehouse, science journalist and former BBC science editor, to discuss Donald Trump’s threat to annex Greenland and the potential rupture in transatlantic relations. They also discuss Greenland’s strategic importance for missile defense, the “Golden Dome,” Arctic shipping routes and space-based surveillance; and how Russia and China’s expanding presence in the Arctic, in space and in critical minerals is reshaping global security.

Lisa Haseldine

Is the western alliance dead?

European politicians had little rest this weekend after Donald Trump’s announcement on Saturday that he would be imposing punitive tariffs on the eight countries that had sent troops to Greenland last week. From February 1, 10 percent tariffs will be slapped on goods entering the United States from Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland. They had, Trump said, “journeyed to Greenland for purposes unknown” and he accused them of playing a “very dangerous game.” Denmark has stated that Greenland is not for sale; Trump is unlikely to back down By sending troops to Greenland on Thursday, those eight countries had only done what Trump implied he

Thursday

January 15, 2026

Cockburn

Kyrsten Sinema was too fun for Congress

More like Kyrsten Sinner? In September, a North Carolina woman, Heather Ammel, filed a suit in county court alleging that former Arizona senator and current crypto lobbyist Kyrsten Sinema had an affair with her husband Matthew while he served on her Senate security detail. That suit has since moved to federal court, so now the whole world knows what Cockburn had long suspected: Kyrsten Sinema was too fun for Congress. For years, Cockburn heard rumors that Sinema dallied about with her security detail during the end of her Senate term. But the Ammel lawsuit codifies it. “She had concerns [Sinema] was having sexual relations with other security members,” the complaint says. But that’s not the half of it. Sinema and Matthew

Lisa Haseldine

Can Europe persuade Trump not to grab Greenland?

When Donald Trump sets his sights on something, it’s hard to prevent him getting what he wants. That hasn’t, however, stopped Greenland and Denmark from trying. The Danish army has announced that, from today, it is boosting its presence on Greenland. It will be backed up by a cohort of European troops, arriving over the coming days as part of an effort to prove to the US that Copenhagen can secure the island’s defenses. Earlier today, France confirmed that 15 troops had arrived on the island. In the coming hours they will be joined by 13 soldiers from Germany, two from Norway, one from Britain, one from the Netherlands and an undisclosed