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Jan 19, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Michael Evans |Cindy Yu |Sam McPhail |Katy Balls
They do say you shouldn’t take anything for granted and it seems Peter Mandelson is beginning to realize that too. He may have thought that his new appointment as UK ambassador to the US was set in stone — but it has emerged that the president-elect is considering, um, rejecting Sir Keir Starmer’s nominee. Ouch. As first reported by the Independent, it transpires that the Trump team says it isn’t certain that Mandelson will be accepted by the Republican leader after he becomes president.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Cindy Yu |Jonathan Sacerdoti |Kate Andrews |Justin Brierley
I turned to Xiaohongshu during the pandemic. At a time when I couldn’t visit China, the Chinese social media app (also known as “RedNote”) was a little slice of the motherland when I was bored with Instagram or Twitter. I was hooked immediately: like Instagram, the app is good for beautiful pictures and well-produced reels. It also has cute animals and an excellent sample of the dry wit of Chinese millennials.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Cindy Yu |Jonathan Sacerdoti |Kate Andrews |Justin Brierley
I turned to Xiaohongshu during the pandemic. At a time when I couldn’t visit China, the Chinese social media app (also known as “RedNote”) was a little slice of the motherland when I was bored with Instagram or Twitter. I was hooked immediately: like Instagram, the app is good for beautiful pictures and well-produced reels. It also has cute animals and an excellent sample of the dry wit of Chinese millennials.
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Dec 3, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Philip Patrick |Maggie Fergusson |Alexander Larman |Cindy Yu
In a dramatic and unannounced move, South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law on Tuesday in a live broadcast on YTN television.
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Dec 2, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Ian Williams |Julie Burchill |Matthew Lynn |Cindy Yu
In an effort to create a cutting edge force, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has spent billions of dollars expanding and modernizing its armed forces at a pace rarely seen in peace time. But on the evidence of the last few days, the most cutting edge features of its top ranks remain corruption and political intrigue.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Cindy Yu |Helen Barrett |Gavin Mortimer |Freddy Gray
Jose Ibarra, the “sick, twisted and evil coward” who was accused of murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, was convicted on all counts and sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole, with an additional twenty-seven years tacked on. “She fought for her life in dignity, and to save herself from being brutally raped,” Riley’s mother said. Ibarra, who is reported to be a member of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, “showed no regard for Laken and human life.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Cindy Yu |Helen Barrett |Sean Rayment |Ian Williams
Overnight, dozens of influential figures in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement were sentenced to lengthy terms under the fiercest application of the city’s national security law so far.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Leon Mangasarian |Cindy Yu |Roger Kimball |Riva-Melissa Tez
Welcome, DC Diary readers, to the last edition of this newsletter before Tuesday night’s election. Most polls still have the presidential race at a dead heat between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump. Pennsylvania remains the lynchpin, as the paths for the respective candidates appears to be the Rust Belt and Pennsylvania for Harris, and the Sun Belt and Pennsylvania for Trump. Each campaign is pointing to data that they think gives them an advantage tomorrow.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Leon Mangasarian |Cindy Yu |Alexander Larman |Nicholas Farrell
Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser — trust is good, control is better — is a popular German saying. It’s also the state’s motto for overseeing Europe’s biggest economy, which is now being run into the ground. Germany’s economy is officially expected to shrink in 2024 for the second year in a row. Berlin’s Social Democratic chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Greens vice-chancellor Robert Habeck, who are fighting for their political lives as their coalition crumbles around them, are to blame.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Alexander Larman |Byron’s Women |Leon Mangasarian |Cindy Yu
Since King Charles became monarch in September 2022, after the death of Elizabeth II, he has received reasonably warm treatment from the press. It is easy to forget that, for much of the 1990s and 2000s, he was seen as an unpopular figure, lambasted by the Diana-supporting tabloids for being an adulterer (never mind his former wife’s behavior; he, apparently should have known better) and criticized in the broadsheets for excessive intervention in the work of the government.
