The Globalist Podcast (January 16, 2024) – The latest on the Iowa caucuses, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s tour of Africa and the international reaction to another Houthi missile attack.
Plus: the Iceland volcano eruption’s effect on infrastructure and a look through the morning’s papers.
The New Yorker – January 22, 2024 issue: The new issue‘s cover featuresPascal Campion’s “Winter Sun” – The artist depicts the beams of sunlight that flicker during the coldest months of the year.
Amid war with Hamas, a hostage crisis, the devastation of Gaza, and Israel’s splintering identity, the Prime Minister seems unable to distinguish between his own interests and his country’s.
To be vigilant—to live without illusions about the ever-present threat of annihilation—was a primary value at No. 4 Haportzim Street, once the Jerusalem address of the Netanyahu family. This wariness had ancient roots. In the Passover Haggadah, the passage beginning “Vehi Sheamda” reminds everyone at the Seder table that in each generation an enemy “rises up to destroy” the Jewish people. “But the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands,” the Haggadah continues. Benzion Netanyahu, the family patriarch and a historian of the Spanish Inquisition, was a secular man. For deliverance, he looked not to faith but to the renunciation of naïveté and the strength of arms. This creed became his middle son’s inheritance, the core of his self-conception as the uniquely unillusioned defender of the State of Israel.
In the early months of the pandemic, joggers on the Bear Creek Greenway, in southern Oregon, began to notice tents cropping up by the path. The Greenway, which connects towns and parks along a tributary of the Rogue River, was beloved for its wetlands and for stands of oaks that attracted migrating birds. Now, as jobs disappeared and services for the poor shut down, it was increasingly a last-ditch place to live. Tents accumulated in messy clusters, where people sometimes smoked fentanyl, and “the Greenway” became a byword for homelessness and drug use. On a popular local Facebook page, one typical comment read, “Though I feel sorry for some of the people in that situation, most of them are just pigs.” In Medford, the largest city along the trail, police demolished encampments and ticketed people for sleeping rough.
The Globalist Podcast (January 15, 2024) – We assess what’s next for Taiwan following elections on the island and China’s reaction to the results.
Plus: Middle East specialist Sanam Vakil discusses the fallout following strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, the latest on aid to Ukraine, Denmark’s new monarch and highlights from the Emmy Awards.
The Economist Magazine (January 12, 2024): The latest issue features ‘China’s EV Onslaught’ – An influx of Chinese cars is terrifying the West; Europe’s Silicon Valley; ‘America Fights Back’ – The new contest for sea power; Why Olaf Scholz is no Angela Merkel – Germany is unable and unwilling to lead Europe; What science says about old leaders…
The Globalist Podcast (January 12, 2024) –US and UK forces have carried out air strikes against the Houthis in Yemen with mission support from the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and Bahrain.
Targets reportedly include sites in the capital city, Sana’a, the Red Sea port of Al-Hudaydah, Dhamar and the northwestern Houthi stronghold of Sa’ada. We discuss the political consequences of South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Also, an eventful week in US politics ahead of this year’s presidential election, Greece plans an initial public offering of Athens International Airport and the latest theatre news.
The Globalist Podcast (January 11, 2024) –Assessing the possibility of the International Court of Justice ordering Israel to halt its campaign in Gaza.
Plus: Taiwan’s all-important election this weekend, Poland’s political meltdown and the latest business news.
The New Yorker – January 15, 2024 issue: The new issue‘s cover featuresBarry Blitt’s “Back to the Future” – The artist depicts a goose-stepping Donald Trump, determined to march back into political relevance.
Absenteeism underlies much of what has beset young people, including falling school achievement, deteriorating mental health, and elevated youth violence.
What Frantz Fanon and Ian Fleming Agreed On
From opposite directions, the revolutionary intellectual and the creator of James Bond saw violence as essential—psychologically and strategically—to solving the crisis of colonialism.
More than fifty years later, Zohra Drif could still picture the Milk Bar in Algiers on September 30, 1956. It was white and shining, she recalled, awash in laughter, young voices, “summer colors, the smell of pastries, and even the distant twittering of birds.” Drif, a well-coiffed law student in a stylish lavender dress, ordered a peach-Melba ice cream and wedged her beach bag against the counter. She paid, tipped, and left without her bag. The bomb inside it exploded soon afterward.
The Economist Magazine (January 4, 2024): The latest issue features‘The man supposed to stop Donald Trump is an unpopular 81-year-old; Israel-Hizbullah – Can war be avoided?; The stakes in Taiwan’s election; An interview with Volodymyr Zelensky; The surge in AI nationalism…