January 2025

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.

When diva worship turns an artist into an icon, everyone loses.

In last November’s election, a majority of California voters declined to outlaw forced labour among incarcerated people, who make up around 30 per cent of California’s firefighters and are paid between $5.80 and $10.24 per day. At least eight hundred of them are now up against LA’s infernos. What the state will not pay to provide it will extract through coercion.

At first glance, the row of booths could be mistaken for a chorus line dressing room. There are eight in all; each with its own strip-lighting, giant mirror and packet of wipes. But the yellow bins betray the true purpose. They are there for the disposal of used syringes at the UK’s first sanctioned safer drugs consumption facility.

Daniela Z wanted to be a doctor like her father. He died in 2023, soon after her brother and mother, as a consequence of his efforts to protect one of his patients, Víctor Peña, a persecuted Indigenous Zenú leader. Orphaned, with only Víctor to look after her – she didn’t trust government institutions – Dani planned to attend the University of Antioquia, in northwest Colombia, after finishing high school. Instead, she died with ovarian cancer and a lung infection on 22 December, before she turned eighteen.

At the Pepper Parlor restaurant in central Tokyo, each table had a short robot called Pepper with articulated plastic limbs like a Transformer and a large wobbling head like a cartoon baby’s. Conversation was powered by OpenAI. Its responses were passable until you asked it about itself.

Starmer’s strategy of modest progress and alliance-building could be scuppered by the fiscal hawks in his government. Since 2008, British workers have suffered the worst wage deflation in modern history. Without significant progress on pay, even trade union leaders inclined to support Starmer will find it difficult to avoid industrial action. As Callaghan learned to his cost in the period that culminated in the Winter of Discontent, a model of negotiated industrial peace only works if government policy keeps pace with working-class demands.