25 March 2021 In the early decades of the Cold War, this was the season when NATO defence chiefs would announce their spending plans for the next year, and they would almost always ‘discover’ some new threat from the Soviet Union to justify the money. In the United States, for example, the intelligence services traditionally …
22 February 2021 Texas puts out more carbon dioxide than any other US state, so there was some innocent amusement to be had from the indignation of Texans unable to boil their drinking water during the Big Freeze because the power was still out. Things like that are not supposed to happen in a modern, …
15 February 2021 The self-esteem of two-year-olds and nation-states is too fragile for them to admit they were wrong, which makes it hard for them to move on from blunders. That’s why the toys don’t get picked up and the broken treaties don’t get fixed, and why there may be a tantrum (in the case …
10 February 2021 It seemed innocent enough at the start: just a surge in the number of boys coming to school with notes from doctors saying they were excused from playing contact sports. But pretty soon high schools all over China were having trouble finding enough willing young men to make up a football team. …
The Proposal to Prevent the Feminisation of Male Adolescents Read More »
3 February 2021 China’s Xinhua news agency tactfully described the Burmese army’s seizure of power on Monday as a ‘cabinet reshuffle’. This suggests a possible new approach for Donald Trump’s legal team as he faces a second impeachment trial, but it won’t work, for two reasons. One, Trump’s coup attempt failed. Two, people got killed. …
13 January 2021 When defeated armies are retreating, they always lay mines behind them if they have time. The mines slow pursuit, they may inflict casualties on the victors, and they give the losers something purposeful to do amidst panic and despair. That’s what Mike Pompeo has been doing just before time is called on …
23 September 2020 China took a major stride forward on climate on Tuesday. President Xi Jinping, addressing the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, for the first time committed China to a hard target for future greenhouse gas emissions. By 2060, he promised, his country will be carbon neutral (‘net-zero’). After that, China …
22 July 2020 Is there going to be a new Cold War with China? Probably not. Consider the case of Huawei. Mike Pompeo swept into London on Tuesday like an overweight Darth Vader, while his local satrap, Boris Johnson, waited nervously in Downing Street for judgement. People swore they could hear Pompeo’s cloak swish as …
“We will grant BNOs five years’ limited leave to remain (in the United Kingdom), with the right to work or study,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the UK parliament on July 1. “After five years, they will be able to apply for settled status. After a further twelve month with settled status, they will …
Never bring a knife to a gunfight, the saying goes, but China does it differently. It brings clubs. Last Monday, China and India had the nastiest frontier incident since their border war of 1962. In the Galwan Valley of the Aksai Chin, a disputed region the size of Switzerland in the western Himalayas, Chinese and …