On the first day of his second term as US president, Donald Trump described Gaza as a ‘phenomenal location on the sea’. Living in a tent close to the beach in southern Gaza, my friend Marwa has had her request for permission to travel to the north, to visit her elderly mother, denied three times for ‘security’ reasons. There has been no news of her cousin, who used to look after her mother, since he was taken by the Israeli army over a month ago.
On Monday, 2 December 2024, London’s Central YMCA – the world’s first – posted an ‘Important Update’ on Instagram. ‘After nearly fifty years,’ it said, ‘we have today announced the sale and pending closure of our 112 Great Russell Street site.’ The club would cease trading on 7 February 2025. More than once in the days that followed, I heard someone observe that the club is ‘a lifeline for some people’, before rephrasing: ‘It’s been a lifeline for me.’ One man said to his friend: ‘It’s the only thing keeping us alive.’
In response to attacks by warring guerrilla factions that have killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands in north-east Colombia, President Gustavo Petro has declared an ‘estado de conmoción interior’ for the country, as well as an ‘emergencia económica’ in the Caribbean department of the Guajira. (The last Colombian president to have declared a ‘state of internal commotion’ was Petro’s nemesis, Álvaro Uribe, leader from 2002 to 2010 and now facing trial on charges of bribery and witness tampering.) Petro will call on the armed forces to resolve the conflict by force rather than negotiation.
For reasons that have little if anything to do with US national security or foreign policy, Donald Trump has made clear he does not want to be diverted by a foreign crisis as he re-enters the White House. Given that several Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip hold dual US citizenship, Trump will not countenance presiding over a hostage crisis like the late Jimmy Carter, but insists on a resolution that has echoes of Ronald Reagan’s assumption of office in 1981.
The speed with which former opponents of Trump are adapting to his re-election and displaying anticipatory obedience has been greater than anyone could have, well, anticipated. Prominent examples include Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and congressional Democrats who seem to think that performing bipartisanship by loudly declaring their willingness to work with Trump might somehow be rewarded.
‘I always like to say that Iranian cinema emerges out of a thousand years of poetry, and Canadian cinema emerges out of fifty years of discount furniture commercials,’ Matthew Rankin said at a recent screening of his movie Universal Language. I come from both countries, but it’s the furniture gag that struck home.
Romania is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the EU. One-third of the population either live in poverty or are at risk of poverty, particularly in rural areas. The average pension is around £360 a month. The gap in living standards and educational attainment between the urban middle class and the poor means they effectively live in separate worlds. The political class is widely despised by most sections of Romanian society. Established politicians, almost without exception, are seen as self-serving and corrupt, addicted to nepotism and theft, using the mechanisms of institutional patronage to maintain their grip on power.