As Facebook turns 20, politics is out; impersonal video feeds are in
Britain’s armed forces are stretched perilously thin
What four more years of Joe Biden would mean for America’s economy
The feud between Ukraine’s president and army chief boils over
The Guardian Weekly (February 1, 2024) – The new issue features ‘Party Crasher’ – Is Trump more vulnerable than he seems?; Israel, the ICJ ruling and The West; Europe’s Big Bad Wolves and more….
It had all seemed like business as usual for Donald Trump in the aftermath of last week’s New Hampshire Republican primaries, where he scored a comfortable victory over his only remaining challenger, Nikki Haley. And yet … was there something in his subsequent outburst towards Haley that suggested all was not well in Trumpworld?
Barring the mother of all reversals, Trump will soon be confirmed as the Republican presidential nominee. But, as David Smith and Jonathan Freedland outline in this week’s big story, Trump remains a deeply polarising figure in American politics, not least within his own party.
And his petulant irritation at Haley over her refusal to concede the race was a visible reminder to American floating voters of the unhinged personality that lurks beneath the orange veneer, something his campaign team will be desperate to avoid more of.
“The shadow of Trump is long, and his return seems closer than ever,” explains illustrator Alberto Miranda on his cover art for this week’s Guardian Weekly. “He is a controversial figure with a dangerous side and, at the same time, has an utterly comical aspect. That’s why we wanted to portray his influence in the Republican party in an almost grotesque manner.”
The Globalist Podcast (February 1, 2024) – We ask Ukrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk about the fate of the country’s armed-forces commander, General Valery Zaluzhny.
Also in the programme: we assess the situation in Myanmar as the junta-imposed state of emergency comes to an end and we find out why the Catalan amnesty bill has failed to pass in the Spanish congress. Plus: we speak to Eszter Áron, creative director of Aeron, at Copenhagen International Fashion Fair.
The Globalist Podcast (January 31, 2024) – We bring the latest on the Israel-Hamas hostage talks as Qatar’s prime minister meets US officials in Washington.
Plus: Javier Milei’s economic bill is debated in Argentina’s parliament, a round-up of art news, and is the future of the department store in danger?
The Globalist Podcast (January 30, 2024) – We discuss how Israel’s war in Gaza is increasing tensions between Iran and Pakistan.
Plus: the annual Corruption Perceptions Index, why three coup-hit nations have left the Economic Community of West African States and why Boeing is losing market share to Airbus. We also meet Jeffrey Wright, star of the Oscar-nominated ‘American Fiction’.
A federal program promised to bring foreign investment to remote parts of the country. It soon became rife with fraud.
As the general manager of the Jay Peak ski resort, Bill Stenger rose most days around 6 a.m. and arrived at the slopes before seven. He’d check in with his head snowmaker and the ski-patrol staff, visit the two hotels on the property, and chat with the maintenance workers, the lift operators, the food-and-beverage manager, and the ski-school instructors—a kind of management through constant motion. Stenger is seventy-five, with white hair, wire-rimmed reading glasses, and a sturdy physique that makes him look built for fuzzy sweaters.
We thought we could master nature, but we were playing with fire.
With elections postponed and no end to the war with Russia in sight, Volodymyr Zelensky and his political allies are becoming like the officials they once promised to root out: entrenched.
By Masha Gessen
The Globalist Podcast (January 29, 2024) – Will the director of the CIA, William Burns, be able to negotiate a truce and hostage deal when he meets his Egyptian and Israeli counterparts, as well as Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani?
Following Finland’s presidential election on Sunday, we look at the future of the country. And with layoffs and strikes across the country, we examine what’s happening in the US media. Plus: why Guggenheim Bilbao is halting its expansion into a Basque nature reserve.
Monocle on Sunday, January 28, 2024 – Florian Egli and Marcus Schögel join Monocle’s editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, to discuss the weekend’s hottest topics.
We also speak to Monocle’s Helsinki correspondent, Petri Burtsoff, about Finland’s presidential election and Guy De Launey gives us the latest news from the Balkans. Plus: we’re joined by our senior news editor in London, Chris Cermak, and Isabella Smith, owner and founder of Books and Company.
Artificial intelligence (ai) is one of them. Several books will look at how it might reshape the world: “ai Needs You”, a “humanist manifesto for the age of ai” by Verity Harding, formerly of Google DeepMind; “The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots” by Daniela Rus, director of the ai laboratory at mit; and “Literary Theory for Robots”, an examination of how machine intelligence will influence the way we read, write and think, by Dennis Yi Tenen, a professor of English at Columbia University.
Geopolitics will also dominate publishers’ frontlists. Dale Copeland, a professor of international relations, will chronicle how commerce has shaped America’s foreign policy; Jim Sciutto of cnn will explore “The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China and the Next World War”. Several authors will focus on the war in Europe. Eugene Finkel, who was born in Ukraine, will offer a “deeper history of Russian violence against civilians” in the country; in “Putin and the Return of History” Martin Sixsmith will look back over a thousand years to put the Russian president’s aggression in context. Peter Pomerantsev’s “How to Win an Information War” will apply the perspective of a propagandist during the second world war to the conflict.
For those hoping for a few hours of diversion, there will be plenty of novels to look forward to. Bestselling authors including Percival Everett, Yann Martel, David Nicholls, Kiley Reid, Colm Toibin and Amor Towles will return with new stories in 2024. James Patterson will be completing an unfinished manuscript left behind by Michael Crichton, the author of “Jurassic Park”.
An unseen work by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who died in 2014, will also be released. In “En Agosto Nos Vemos” (“Until August”), a novella of fewer than 150 pages, the late Nobel laureate told the tale of a middle-aged woman’s affair. His children opposed its publication but now say it has the author’s trademark “capacity for invention, his poetic language [and] his captivating storytelling”. True or not, García Marquez will probably enjoy a resurgence, as an adaptation of his most celebrated work, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, is also in production at Netflix. If you want a fantastical tale, who better to turn to than the Colombian master of magical realism?
Monocle on Saturday, January 27, 2024: Emma Nelson and political journalist Terry Stiastny look back at the week’s news and culture.
Plus: Issabella Orlando joins the panel for a round-up of her favourite stories this month.
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