Monocle on Saturday, January 13, 2024: A discussion of the the Israel-Hamas conflict and the Iowa caucuses. And why are people upset at artificial intelligence finishing Keith Haring’s ‘Unfinished Painting’?
Join Georgina Godwin and communications consultant Simon Brooke for this and more from the week’s news and culture.
The military fired at a target in response to rising attacks on Red Sea shipping, which the Houthis linked to the war between Israel and Hamas.
In newly disclosed documents, federal researchers find that cannabis may have medical uses and is less likely to cause harm than drugs like heroin.
Ron DeSantis has made lots of changes to try to revamp his struggling campaign. But he rarely tries talking about himself.
But it should keep its markets open to cheap, clean vehicles
The war against the Houthis is part of an escalating struggle for the seas
Germany is unable and unwilling to lead Europe
The American-led strikes came in response to more than two dozen Houthi drone and missile attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Colleges have fled standardized tests, on the theory that they hurt diversity. That’s not what the research shows.
At the island’s election rallies, warming up the crowd for candidates is crucial. “You have to light a fire in their hearts,” one host says.
A U.N.-affiliated panel said the territory could tip into famine very soon. International laws to protect people from human-made famines offer little help.
The Guardian Weekly (January 10, 2024) – The new issue features ‘Middle East on the brink’ – The threat of a regional war. Also, Inside the Post Office Horizon IT scandal…
The assassination of a Hamas chief in Lebanon. A terror attack on mourners of an Iranian former general. Commercial shipping in the Red Sea targeted by Yemeni rebels, and a US airstrike in Iraq. All were separate events in the Middle East last week but all were linked, in one way or another, to the presence of autonomous but Iranian-backed militia forces in the region.
When asked to visualise the threat of war engulfing the Middle East, for this week’s cover, illustrator Carl Godfrey took a literal approach. “I wanted to convey the tense and unpredictable situation,” says Carl, “and there’s nothing more tense than looking down the barrel of a gun. Especially when those barrels are pointing in all directions, and the risk of war is expanding in all directions.”
Israel has categorically rejected the allegations being brought this week in the International Court of Justice by South Africa.
No Israeli town suffered more bloodshed than Be’eri in the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7.
They are not just the churchgoing, conservative activists who once dominated the G.O.P.
During his second impeachment trial, the former president argued that criminal prosecution was a more appropriate way to seek accountability since he had left office.
A three-judge panel appeared unlikely to grant the former president’s request that it throw out federal criminal charges that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election.
In meetings with Israeli leaders, the U.S. secretary of state held out the prospect of Saudi recognition to prod Israel to curb combat operations in Gaza and accept a path to Palestinian statehood.
With the former president busy defending himself in court from 91 felony charges, his campaign has deployed high-profile conservatives to help fill the gaps in Iowa.
In the ruins of two Gazan towns, New York Times journalists witnessed the sheer destruction that Israel’s war has wrought and the devastation of Hamas’s operations.
Israeli officials privately say that they hope to complete the transition by the end of January, but that the timeline could change.
Over the past 15 years, the Upper Midwest has seen a remarkable state-by-state sorting of voters along partisan lines.
The latest strikes across Israel’s northern border came as the U.S. secretary of state made another trip to the Middle East in efforts to prevent a wider war.
The country’s forces along a broad stretch of the front say that, with Russia pushing forward, the war has never been so dangerous.
With its proxies attacking from many vantage points and its nuclear program suddenly revived, Iran is posing a new challenge to the West — this time with Russia and China on its side.
“The lucky are those who have someone to bury them when they die,” Dr. Mohammad Abu Moussa, a radiologist at one Gaza hospital, said of those killed by Israeli airstrikes.
Despite the deal, time is short to assemble and pass legislation putting the agreement in force before a Jan. 19 deadline.
Sunland Park, along the Rio Grande, has joined the ranks of U.S. cities transformed by state cannabis laws. But the good times may not last forever.
Monocle on Sunday, January 7, 2024 – Monocle’s editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, is joined by Juliet Linley and Chandra Kurt to discuss the weekend’s hottest topics.
We also speak to our editor in chief, Andrew Tuck, our deputy head of radio, Tom Webb, and Monocle’s Istanbul correspondent Hannah Lucinda Smith.
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