The Globalist Podcast (December 1, 2023) – After three people were shot by Hamas in Jerusalem, we discuss the latest from the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Middle East. Bloomberg’s Akshat Rathi examines how an agreement on a key climate deal was reached on the first day of Cop 28.
Plus: The EU announces new Slapp protections, the latest film news and a look at who topped ArtReview’s Power 100 list.
Around the rich world, wage gaps are shrinking
Few ideas are more unshakable than the notion that the rich keep getting richer while ordinary folks fall ever further behind. The belief that capitalism is rigged to benefit the wealthy and punish the workers has shaped how millions view the world, whom they vote for and whom they shake their fists at. It has been a spur to political projects on both left and right, from the interventionism of Joe Biden to the populism of Donald Trump. But is it true?
Can it survive the Gaza war?
Old stereotypes are haunting the Middle East once more. The biggest butchery of Israeli civilians since the state’s creation, carried out on October 7th, has been followed by a slaughter of Palestinian civilians. America, which has funded, armed and defended Israel is again an object of ire. So are its Western allies. Together they are blamed for facilitating Gaza’s pummelling and the displacement of its people. A truce which began on November 24th, and which was set to expire as The Economist went to press, had led to the release of 81 hostages and 180 Palestinian detainees as of November 28th.
The Globalist Podcast (November 30, 2023) – As Cop 28 begins in Dubai, Politico’s Suzanne Lynch discusses the controversy over the UAE’s motives for hosting the summit and what is expected to come out of it.
Also, William Yang on Taiwan’s economic ties with India, a Saudi Arabian investment fund’s purchase of a stake in Heathrow, Interpol’s centenary and why France tops our Soft Power Survey.
The Guardian Weekly (November 29, 2023) – The new issue features the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas may have been weeks in the making – as detailed this week by Julian Borger and Ruth Michaelson – and led to the release of dozens of hostages on either side, but behind the scenes there was little expectation that it would lead to a longer-term pause in hostilities.
In a special report, almost two months after the deadliest attack on Israel in its 75-year history and as the world focuses on its retaliatory bombardment of Gaza that has seen around 14,000 people killed, Jonathan Freedland finds a country still convulsed with rage and sorrow, unable to see the pain of its Palestinian neighbours as it faces an uncertain future. As one senior Israeli military figure remarked: “It’s not yet post-traumatic stress disorder. We’re still in it.”
The far-right politician Geert Wilders stunned onlookers by finishing well ahead of the field in the Dutch election last week. But race riots in Ireland, a country previously thought immune to such extremism, were equally shocking. Rory Carroll, Lisa O’Carroll and Jon Henley report on contrasting manifestations of the rise of the far right across Europe.
The Globalist Podcast (November 29, 2023) – As US secretary of state Antony Blinken returns to Israel later this week, Gregg Carlstrom breaks down what he might be hoping to achieve.
Plus: why Ukraine is top of the agenda at the meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Finland temporary closure of its border with Russia, the latest business news and a trip to the World Architecture Festival in Singapore.
An underground nuclear arsenal in Israel dwarfs the tunnels alleged at a Gaza hospital.
It’s one thing to burrow beneath the ground, digging to construct a tunnel for refuge, a passage of goods, or to store weapons during a time of war. It’s quite another for a small child to use one hand to dig their way out of the rubble that has collapsed on them.
Words from populist author, public speaker, and radio commentator Jim Hightower.
Editor’s Note for the October/November 2023 issue.
A variety of young candidates are signing up to run for elected office at local, state, and national levels.
Monocle on Sunday, November 26, 2023 – Emma Nelson, Latika Bourke and Tina Fordham on the weekend’s biggest talking points. We also speak to ‘Konfekt’ editor Sophie Grove and get the latest from our editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, in Tokyo.
And the world needs to learn from it
The agreement at the conference of the parties (cop) to the un Framework Convention on Climate Change, which took place in Paris in 2015, was somewhat impotent. As many pointed out at the time, it could not tell countries what to do; it could not end the fossil-fuel age by fiat; it could not draw back the seas, placate the winds or dim the noonday sun. But it could at least lay down the law for subsequent cops, decreeing that this year’s should see the first “global stocktake” of what had and had not been done to bring the agreement’s overarching goals closer.
How to thrive in a fractured world
The radical libertarian is taking over a country on the brink
