The Globalist Podcast (September 8, 2023) – As G20 agrees to grant membership to the African Union, what else is on the agenda at the summit in India?
Plus: China drafts ‘national spirit’ law to ban harmful clothing, the US Department of Defense will cut support for Hollywood directors whose films are censored by China and the return of a Paris-Berlin train service.
The weapons, banned by most countries over human rights concerns, are “not a magic wand,” but some Ukrainian troops say they are making a difference in fighting Russian forces.
Blatant political gerrymandering occurs in cities across the country, many of them run by Democrats. In Los Angeles, a scandal over a racist recording was only the tip of the iceberg.
Hundreds of thousands fled a grisly civil conflict years ago to settle in Sudan, to the north. With war now raging there, they are streaming home to a country ill-prepared to take them back.
Lawsuits, protests and fierce disputes over who controls water in the parched American West have held up a crucial pipeline.
Economies are booming and wars are fading. But climate change is looming
If you thought the Middle East was stagnant, think again. The Gulf economies are among the richest and most vibrant on the planet, helped by a Brent crude oil price that rose back to over $90 per barrel this week. A $3.5trn fossil-fuel bonanza is being spent on everything from home-grown artificial intelligence models and shiny new cities in the desert, to filling the coffers of giant sovereign-wealth funds that roam the world’s capital markets looking for deals.
Lifetime tenure can easily slip into entitlement
Next term will be agonising for the Supreme Court. Some combination of voters and courts will determine whether Donald Trump becomes president again and whether he goes to prison. President Joe Biden’s son has a case before the courts. Dozens of states have changed their voting laws since 2020 and the nine justices on the Supreme Court may be asked to look at them. If the presidential election in 2024 is close, the court may have to step in and adjudicate. With so much at stake, America needs a Supreme Court that is broadly seen as legitimate and, ideally, impartial. Regrettably, trust in the court is at its lowest point since pollsters began asking about it.
The administration will cancel oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and set aside more than half of the National Petroleum Reserve.
The 10-week trial, set to begin Tuesday, amps up efforts to rein in Big Tech by targeting the core search business that turned Google into a $1.7 trillion behemoth.
More than a dozen women described sexism ranging from paternalism to verbal abuse. “What you really need is a good man,” a former national captain said players were told.
Some doctors who handle high-risk pregnancies are fleeing restrictive abortion laws. Idaho has been particularly hard hit.
Times Literary Supplement (September 8, 2023): The new issue features Modern conspiracy theories, China’s Platonic republic, Jonathan Raban’s last days, Sebastian Faulks’s Neanderthal, the English country house, and more….
Kim Jong-un is likely to seek missile and warhead technology in an expected visit to Russia, and he is already getting a public embrace he has long sought.
The prison term for Enrique Tarrio was the most severe penalty handed down so far to any of the more than 1,100 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack.
For decades, the university required students seeking medical leaves to withdraw and reapply. A campus suicide set off a cascade of revisions.
The African country has volunteered to send forces to Haiti as its security crisis spirals out of control. But the plan is facing pushback.
The Globalist Podcast (September 5, 2023) – Who is Ukraine’s new defence minister, Rustem Umerov? Monocle’s Kyiv correspondent, Olga Tokariuk, profiles the Crimean Tatar with experience in Russian negotiations.
Plus: US officials visit Saudi Arabia to discuss Palestine, Olaf Scholz’s government slumps in the polls and we review the latest Indian newspapers.
Russia seeks more weaponry for its war in Ukraine, and a North Korean delegation recently traveled to Russia by train to plan for Mr. Kim’s visit this month, officials say.
The case of Johan Floderus, kept under wraps for more than a year, has become part of Iran’s “hostage diplomacy” as Tehran seeks concessions from the West.
The effort to help the Texas attorney general, whose impeachment trial starts Tuesday, is part of an ongoing struggle over the Republican Party’s future.
A new generation of cheaper and more flexible vessels could be vital in any conflict with China, but the Navy remains lashed to big shipbuilding programs driven by tradition, political influence and jobs.
The Globalist Podcast (September 4, 2023) – Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meets with Vladimir Putin in Sochi to discuss grain deals, we get the lowdown on the Chinese economy with Patricia Thornton and Mexico’s opposition selects a female candidate with Indigenous roots to run for office.
Plus: France debates the height of ceilings, we get a roundup of news from the Nordics with Helsinki correspondent Petri Burtsoff and we check in with Seattle’s Bumbershoot festival.
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