Top World News

Oct 18, 2026 - World

Magazine group points to restructuring bill but says it ‘remains profitable in the UK for another year’Profits at Condé Nast’s UK arm slumped by more than a third last year, according to figures published shortly after the billionaire family that owns the luxury magazine group and titles from Vogue to GQ ruled out a sale.The publisher, which enjoyed a bumper 2024 after booking £64m in proceeds from the sale of its UK headquarters Vogue House in London, saw pre-tax profits excluding exceptional items tumble 36% from £28m that year to nearly £18m last year. Continue reading...

Oct 18, 2026 - World

A girl called Àìná was captured by an African king and later taken to England to become Sarah Forbes Bonetta, protege of the imperial monarch When she was seven years old, Bayo Randle’s great-great-grandmother Sarah Forbes Bonetta was presented to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle as a “diplomatic gift” from an African king.Victoria would go on to pay for Bonetta’s education, approve her marriage to one of west Africa’s wealthiest men, and become godmother to her eldest daughter. Continue reading...

Oct 18, 2026 - World

For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and the Spectator’s position on IslamWatch the full episode with Michael Gove here. Aditya’s suggested reading:To read the fruits of Michael Gove’s dalliance with the Marxism Today gang, look up his essay in a 1998 collection called The Moderniser’s Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of BlairFor a slalom ride through Michael Gove’s years in power, read The Demented Dalek by the historian Richard J Evans in the London Review of BooksTo learn more on what’s become of the British right, there’s a Guardian column by Aditya Phil Burton-Cartledge analyses in depth why the most successful political party is now failing in his book The Party’s Over: The Rise and Fall of the Conservatives from Thatcher to SunakPhil also writes a very good blog on British politics, which keeps a close eye on how each party is trying to marshall a coalition of voters. Here he is on Kemi BadenochGeoffrey Wheatcroft does an entertaining short narrative in Bloody Panico!:or, Whatever Happened to The Tory PartyFor more on the economics of the Cameron years, this paper is acute on how the Tories failed to move the UK away from being a country of renters towards a country of makers. Two of its authors will join us for a podcast later in the series.And if you want to read how Brexit may have cost the UK 8% of GDP, there’s this paper based on data from the Bank of EnglandFinally, on the Spectator, read Nesrine Malik’s recent Guardian columnWhy has Britain’s oldest political magazine become such a rabid cheerleader for Islamophobia? Continue reading...

Oct 18, 2026 - World

Lena Schilling of Austrian Greens says images are ‘digital violence against women’ and a threat to democracyAn Austrian MEP has spoken out about her experience of being “stripped naked” online without her consent and has urged the EU to take action, as a report found that one in six female MEPs had been targeted by sexualised AI-generated content.Lena Schilling of the Green party said she had learned last month about nude deepfakes of herself circulating online. When she opened the links, she found herself staring at images from one of her first ever press conferences – but the images had been digitally altered to remove her clothing. Continue reading...

Oct 18, 2026 - World

Facing a slump in the polls, Argentina’s president is making economic attacks on the islands’ oil industry, and suggesting its key fisheries industry could be next A dozen local people and a uniformed military police officer (“Do you mind if I sit in?”) took their seats at the back of the handsome wood-panelled courtroom that doubles as the Falkland Islands’ legislative assembly. Outside, it was a typically blowy early evening. It may nominally be spring in the south Atlantic, but Stanley harbour, with its dark grey water speckled with historical shipwrecks, was a cauldron of swells and churn.Six of the assembly’s eight members – five men, one woman – waited patiently at a row of desks and microphones. The heating had been turned up to just short of uncomfortable. Behind them, a portrait of King Charles. From the other walls, dusty photographs of governors, of varying popularity, gazed disinterestedly at the scene. Continue reading...