World Archives

Tuesday

January 20, 2026

Elon Musk would be a great new owner for Ryanair

A Tesla would whisk you to the airport. The planes would be self-flying. And robots would serve the over-priced sandwiches, while, inevitably, every seat is hooked up to a live X feed. A full-scale takeover of Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, by Elon Musk may still be some way off, but with the billionaire polling his followers on X on whether he should make a bid for the budget airline, it is no longer impossible. Ryanair’s long-suffering passengers should welcome the prospect of a Musk takeover – because, while the airline revolutionized low-cost travel, Ryanair is stuck in a rut. The spat between Elon Musk, and Ryanair’s pugnacious CEO Michael O’Leary

Tom Switzer

NATO’s Suez moment

In 1969, Charles de Gaulle told his friend André Malraux that America’s “desire – and one day it will satisfy it – is to desert Europe. You will see.” It has taken nearly six decades, but de Gaulle’s prophecy now looks uncomfortably close to fulfillment. After years of diplomatic effort to manage, placate and charm successive American presidents – and Donald Trump in particular – European leaders are coming to a grim realization: the United States is, at best, indifferent to their interests and sensibilities and, at worst, openly hostile to them. Some, such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, still believe Trump can be cajoled, that the transatlantic relationship can somehow

Catherine Ellis

Venezuela’s chavista elite is clinging on – but only just

Hugo Chávez’s eyes are everywhere across parts of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. In stark black and white, his gaze is stamped onto government buildings, public housing blocks and murals. But if the late socialist president could truly see what has become of the movement he founded, he would likely be dismayed. Most Venezuelans have abandoned chavismo. His protégé Nicolás Maduro – who had led the government since 2013 – has been captured by the US, while many Venezuelans cheered his exit. What remains is a thin but loyal chavista base – and a leadership operating firmly in survival mode. Trump needs some continuity within the chavista elite to avoid a chaotic

Monday

January 19, 2026

Freddy Gray

Is Greenland a new Suez crisis?

37 min listen

Freddy is joined by Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of the National Interest, and David Whitehouse, science journalist and former BBC science editor, to discuss Donald Trump’s threat to annex Greenland and the potential rupture in transatlantic relations. They also discuss Greenland’s strategic importance for missile defense, the “Golden Dome,” Arctic shipping routes and space-based surveillance; and how Russia and China’s expanding presence in the Arctic, in space and in critical minerals is reshaping global security.

Lisa Haseldine

Is the western alliance dead?

European politicians had little rest this weekend after Donald Trump’s announcement on Saturday that he would be imposing punitive tariffs on the eight countries that had sent troops to Greenland last week. From February 1, 10 percent tariffs will be slapped on goods entering the United States from Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland. They had, Trump said, “journeyed to Greenland for purposes unknown” and he accused them of playing a “very dangerous game.” Denmark has stated that Greenland is not for sale; Trump is unlikely to back down By sending troops to Greenland on Thursday, those eight countries had only done what Trump implied he

Thursday

January 15, 2026

Cockburn

Kyrsten Sinema was too fun for Congress

More like Kyrsten Sinner? In September, a North Carolina woman, Heather Ammel, filed a suit in county court alleging that former Arizona senator and current crypto lobbyist Kyrsten Sinema had an affair with her husband Matthew while he served on her Senate security detail. That suit has since moved to federal court, so now the whole world knows what Cockburn had long suspected: Kyrsten Sinema was too fun for Congress. For years, Cockburn heard rumors that Sinema dallied about with her security detail during the end of her Senate term. But the Ammel lawsuit codifies it. “She had concerns [Sinema] was having sexual relations with other security members,” the complaint says. But that’s not the half of it. Sinema and Matthew

Lisa Haseldine

Can Europe persuade Trump not to grab Greenland?

When Donald Trump sets his sights on something, it’s hard to prevent him getting what he wants. That hasn’t, however, stopped Greenland and Denmark from trying. The Danish army has announced that, from today, it is boosting its presence on Greenland. It will be backed up by a cohort of European troops, arriving over the coming days as part of an effort to prove to the US that Copenhagen can secure the island’s defenses. Earlier today, France confirmed that 15 troops had arrived on the island. In the coming hours they will be joined by 13 soldiers from Germany, two from Norway, one from Britain, one from the Netherlands and an undisclosed

Roger Kimball

Why can’t Democrats speak frankly about Iran?

The manicured grounds of Harvard University are tranquil. Ditto the expensive quads of Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Stanford. All across the fruited plain, the self-denominated paragons of virtue who just yesterday sported “Free Palestine” buttons and joined in “No Kings” rallies are greeting today’s greatest enormity – the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens by their insane Islamicist government – with the repetition of that hit by Simon and Garfunkel: “The Sounds of Silence.” Or, as the headline of a story in National Review put it: “Iranian Civilians Are Being Massacred to the Sound of Progressive Silence.” Accurate numbers are hard to come by since the murderous Islamic regime in Iran has shut down

Wednesday

January 14, 2026

Philip Patrick

Sanae Takaichi is making a huge election gamble

Japan will go to the polls in February for a general election after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called a snap poll today. Takaichi is looking to make the most of her extraordinarily high approval ratings – in what has proved quite a lengthy honeymoon period – to secure a more comfortable mandate for her ambitious policy platform. It is a bold move by Japan’s first female prime minister and not without risk. Her Liberal Democratic party (LDP), the closest thing Japan has to the UK Conservatives and long seen as the natural party of government, has a slim majority in the lower house thanks to the support of three independent lawmakers

Charlie Gammell

The rule of the Ayatollahs is broken. What happens now?

“Help is on the way,” promised Donald Trump to the people of Iran defying the Islamic Republic. In the same social media post, the President, characteristically light on detail, also urged Iranian protesters to take over the institutions of the Islamic Republic (presumably by force) and to keep a note of the names and numbers of their oppressors for retribution’s sake. Whatever these words presage – be it air strikes on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basij facilities, or cyberattacks on Iran’s intelligence agencies, to blind the regime as the regime has blinded protesters by shutting down the internet – it remains to be seen if such an intervention

Freddy Gray

What’s really going on in Iran?

24 min listen

Spectator contributor and author Charlie Gammell and Freddy discuss what is really happening as protests play out on the streets of Iran. They discuss imams turning on the Shah, whether Trump could actually be seeking talks rather than war, what the Middle East wants from a fractured Iran, and what issues could arise from replacing the regime with Reza Pahlavi.

Lionel Shriver

There should be no ‘sanctuary’ from ICE

After three hours of parsing American case law, for once I share Donald Trump’s exasperation. See, many a naif, including yours truly three hours ago, would have thought the Democrats’ “sanctuary cities” unconstitutional. A sanctuary city instructs its local police force to cease all co-operation with federal immigration agents. The constitution’s supremacy clause dictates that federal law overrules local law, just as rock crushes scissors in the hand game. For subjurisdictions to offer refuge from big meanie federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the aptly cold-hearted sounding ICE) should not, legally, be possible. It’s possible. The work-around is the 10th Amendment’s “anti-commandeering doctrine,” which prevents the feds from directly telling local

Jason M. Brodsky

How Trump can squeeze the Iranian regime

The Iranian people have shown true courage as they protest against the Islamic Republic. As the pressure mounts, some elements of Iran’s regime have been pushing to negotiate with the Trump administration – trying to create the impression they are ready to drink from the “poisoned chalice” as the Islamic Revolution’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini did to end the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. Saeed Laylaz, a reformist economist, told Euro News last week that, “I have information that Iranian political officials are ready for dialog with the other side.” More pragmatic figures within the Islamic Republic – namely Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani, President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi

Tuesday

January 13, 2026

Clarissa Hard

Western feminists should be standing up for Iran’s women

As Iranians revolt against the brutal Islamic theocracy that has throttled their civilization since 1979, striking images of young Persian women have been circulating online. They are lighting cigarettes by burning photographs of Ayatollah Khamenei. With their insouciant attitude, tumbles of curls, kohl-lined eyes and lolling fags, they could be on the cover of an Arcade Fire album. These women have reignited the same spirit that sparked widespread protests across the country in September 2022, when Mahsa Amini died in custody following her arrest for disobeying the country’s modesty laws. In the aftermath of this, female protesters burned their veils, cut their hair in public and chanted “Women, Life, Freedom.”

Monday

January 12, 2026

Philip Patrick

Why has Hollywood got so little to say about Iran?

It was the Golden Globes last night in Tinseltown and as per usual Hollywood’s finest strutted and peacocked on the red carpet to the click and flash of the massed paparazzi cameras. Images of their 1,000-watt smiles and 10,000-dollar couture outfits were beamed around the world to a million Instagram and X feeds. And yet, something was missing. These days a celebrity glamfest is not complete without a healthy dose of woke posturing on the issue du jour, whether it be underrepresentation of black people (“#OscarsSoWhite” or Black Lives Matter), women’s empowerment, climate change, or most recently of course, the plight of the Palestinians. This time, not so much. As

Spectator Editorial

How far can bravado take the US?

Operation Absolute Resolve, Donald Trump’s rendition of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, was a brilliantly executed coup. The audacious raid did not undermine international law, as many European and Democratic politicians have said. But it did expose the weakness and pomposity of the world’s multilateral bodies. Maduro traded oil for loans with China while helping Moscow avoid sanctions. He permitted the terrorist group Hezbollah and Iran to operate and build drones within his jurisdiction. He rigged elections and had opposition activists shot in the street. He allowed and enabled weapons, fentanyl and illegal migrants to flood towards America’s southern border. Yet it wasn’t the International Criminal Court that arrested Maduro to

Sunday

January 11, 2026

Klaus Dodds

Trump is playing geopolitical Monopoly with Greenland

Donald Trump is playing hemispheric monopoly. Depending on what day of the week it is, the President’s focus alternates between Venezuela, Canada, the Panama canal – and for the last twelve months or so, Greenland. Given what Trump and his team have said over the past week, their acquisition plans for the island are well advanced. But why exactly does he want Greenland? The world’s largest island is an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark and is about three times larger than Texas. While the term du jour is geopolitics, perhaps the most plausible reason for why Trump is gunning for Greenland is ego-politics. We have a president eager

Roger Kimball

America’s Somalis and the ‘learing’ explosion

I suspect that Somalis around the country – especially, but not exclusively, in Minneapolis – wish about now that they had spent more time studying the wit and wisdom of Gertrude Stein. Stein, had she lived in our own day, might well have become commissioner of New York City’s Fire Department. She had the one qualification that Zohran Mamdani seems to deem essential to the post. A modicum of fraud among friends often gets a pass. Overdo it, however, and the authorities get waspish Sadly, that was not to be. But there is no denying that, on certain matters, Stein was a font of practical wisdom that remains as pertinent

Saturday

January 10, 2026

Alissa Pavia

Will the Iranian regime finally collapse?

These are tense hours for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and head of state. Thousands of protesters are flocking to the streets to protest the economy. Iran has not seen a wave of unrest like this since the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, after Amini was killed for allegedly not wearing her veil properly. During a televised speech in Tehran Friday, Khamenei showed little restraint, vowing he “would not back down” in the face of what he described as “saboteurs.” The protests began in Tehran in late December and quickly spread across the country. They have since turned bloody, with Amnesty International reporting at least 28 people killed. “We have seen these protests before,” said Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at Eurasia Group. “In 2009, there was the

Michael P. Gibson

Billionaires or bust: the world needs the super-rich more than ever

The socialist left was on parade in the final innings of 2025. The long cold shadow cast by “The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act,” a ballot initiative in California to be voted on in November, has led tech billionaires to take flight out of the state and land in the zero-income-tax paradises of Texas and Florida. The initiative seeks a one-time 5 percent tax on the worldwide net worth of anyone stupid enough to be a Californian with assets worth more than $1 billion as of January 1, 2026. That meant anyone in the three comma club had to hightail it out before Governor Gavin Newsom could bellow “Happy New Year.”