Javier Milei, Argentina’s self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president, enjoys an almost Christ-like status among heterodox conservatives and MAGA-style Right-wingers, almost on a par with Trump himself. Like lovestruck teenagers, a certain type of conservative drools over Milei’s over-the-top mannerisms and “based” speeches …
The true purpose of Russia’s fake election
There is a brutal irony to the fact that the Russian word for “elections” — vybory — literally translates as “choices”. In reality, this weekend’s “election” is, by democratic standards, no such thing. Russians will have no choice but to …
The false prophets who doomed Nigeria
Five years ago, economists prophesied a prosperous future for Nigeria, and the rest of the continent. Yet today, the country is facing what one leading Nigerian academic recently told me is its “biggest crisis since independence”. The devaluation of the …
The false prophets who doomed Nigeria
Five years ago, economists prophesied a prosperous future for Nigeria, and the rest of the continent. Yet today, the country is facing what one leading Nigerian academic recently told me is its “biggest crisis since independence”. The devaluation of the …
The children killed by fentanyl
“I never thought this would happen to Reese, but you have to get it through to people that it can happen to anyone.” Grief and sadness envelops Wendy Chisholm as we talk in her snow-dusted suburban house in the hills …
War didn’t destroy Russian football – Russia did
After Zenit St Petersburg won the Uefa Cup in 2008, beating Rangers in Manchester, the team’s coach Dick Advocaat strode proudly into the press-conference room, only for his phone to start ringing. He looked at the screen, seemingly about to …
The most important immigration story of all
“Barbarians at the gates.” That is the phrase has become inextricably associated with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, a description and an explanation. It conjures up an image something like Thomas Cole’s “Destruction” painting from his Course of …
Roberto Unger: Brazil’s philosopher king
In the depths of the Sixties, Charles de Gaulle, perhaps apocryphally, was quoted as stating that “Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be”. This backhanded compliment from the then French president was supposed to illustrate the …
Is Nato heading for nuclear war?
On Monday, Europe crossed yet another red line in its ever-escalating, no-longer-so-proxy war against Russia. In a hastily arranged meeting of European leaders in Paris — a response to significant Russian breakthroughs on the Ukrainian frontline over the past few …
The realist case for Israel
Navigating the wars in Ukraine and Gaza has brought the political theory of realism to the fore, becoming a sudden mainstay of popular and journalistic analysis. More than anyone, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer, the doyen of American realism, …
South Africa’s stagnant election
Shortly before Britain’s skelm (furtive) and short-lived annexation of the Transvaal Boer republic, the Victorian travel writer Anthony Trollope said this of the unfortunate country:
“These people in the Transvaal would not pay a stiver of tax, there was in …
The repression of Soviet Ukraine
“Whichever way this war ends,” thought Volodymyr Ishchenko on 24 February 2022, “I will no longer have a homeland.” In the preface to his new book, Towards The Abyss, the iconoclastic sociologist outlines his Soviet-Ukrainian identity as distinct from Ukraine’s …
Alexei Navalny has no heir
When Alexei Navalny chose to board a flight to Moscow in January 2021, the opposition leader must have known his death was all but inevitable. After surviving one assassination attempt, and staring down the barrel of a long jail sentence …
Ukraine’s new cure for the horrors of war: Ketamine and MDMA
Can ketamine and MDMA help Ukrainian soldiers cope with the horrors of war? Given the urgent nationwide mental-health crisis, the Ukrainian government is warming to the radical idea. And some army units are already experimenting. The nation could soon find …
Egypt is Gaza’s most fickle friend
A few years ago, while reporting in Gaza, I paid a visit to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Mohammed, my fixer, wasn’t keen. The guards there, he explained, were unfriendly. Sometimes they’d fire in the air if people approached; …