Section: New Statesman (The United Kingdom)
Between toughness and talking: 75 years since Yalta
At the Yalta Conference 75 years ago, as the Red Army was taking control of eastern Europe, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met to plan the peace. What did the “Big Three” want? And what did they get? Seventy-five years on from the summit of 1945, “Yalta” remains a dirty word. Not as tainted as Munich”, now lodged in the English language as a...
Trump’s impeachment so far: the Democrats are well prepared and realistic, but have little time
Despite the Republican majority in the Senate, the Democrats appear organised to make the most of this opportunity. In the final scene of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, the protagonist is strapped to a chair with his eyes held open, unable to avoid the horrifying images that his torturers show him in order to reprogram his brain....
Canada’s quest for justice over the Iran air crash is a geopolitical mire
The large Canadian-Iranian community is determined that an investigation and apology is only the first step. News that 176 airline passengers – 138 of whom were bound for Canada – lost their lives after an Iranian missile hit Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 continues to dominate newspaper front pages and lead broadcasts across Canada....
Ten crucial questions on the world in 2020
The fundamentals that will decide global affairs in the year ahead. What will the upcoming year bring in world affairs? A presidential election looms in America; the wave of leaderless protests from Chile to Lebanon is rolling on; China’s rising belligerence is being felt on the streets of Hong Kong and in the expanses of cyberspace;...
Why Nato is still essential for peace
Europe still lacks a serious substitute for the collective might of the Western alliance. There is nothing like the threat of nuclear Armageddon for focusing minds. That, at least, was true for Nato over the decades from its foundation in 1949. During the Cold War the alliance had a common purpose (collective defence), a common space (the North...
The paper with the whole world in its hands
For nearly two centuries the Economist has shaped the liberal mind. But its days of playing God may be over. Reflecting on almost 50 years as an editor at the Economist, Barbara Smith, in a valedictory column of 2003, offered a revealing anecdote. “How do you write like the Economist?”, a new recruit asked a senior editor when composing their...
The magazine with the whole world in its hands
For nearly two centuries the Economist has shaped the liberal mind. But its days of playing God may be over. Reflecting on almost 50 years as an editor at the Economist, Barbara Smith, in a valedictory column of 2003, offered a revealing anecdote. “How do you write like the Economist?”, a new recruit asked a senior editor when composing their...
In testimony, EU ambassador Gordon Sondland demolishes Trump’s “no quid pro quo” claim
Sondland, a key figure in the Ukraine scandal, confirmed that both a White House meeting and military aid were explicitly used as leverage. In testimony that devastates the presidential line of denial, EU ambassador Gordon Sondland – a former Trump donor at the centre of the Ukraine scandal the Democrats are investigating in their impeachment...
In the age of Trump and Putin, Xi and Macron, spheres of influence are making a comeback
It was Vladimir Putin who launched the fightback against post-Cold War liberal democracy. What do the humanitarian crisis in Syria, the attempt to impeach Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron’s proclamations on Europe and the protests in Hong Kong all have in common? They seem disparate. But all illustrate the resurgence of an idea: spheres of...
Impeachment hearings begin with a bombshell
Trump is right to be rattled – the first day of public impeachment hearings into the Ukraine scandal very much didn’t go his way. Compared to other recent US congressional hearings, Wednesday’s opening day of the formal public impeachment inquiry into president Donald Trump was a focused affair. A lot of that was because, for the...
