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The Globalist
As the Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpasses 65,000, the IDF’s attacks continue.
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- [00:04]
Rashmi Narayan
We're proud to support the craft of journalism. UBS brings you the latest news from around the world with the Globalist on Monocle Radio. Be part of an international network that brings together leading insights, research and technology across 24 time zones and 12 key financial hubs. With you at the centre of it all, UBS advice is our craft.
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Emma Nelson
You're listening to the Globalist, first broadcast on 18th September 2025 on Monocle Radio. The Globalist in association with U. Live from London, this is the Globalist with me, Emma Nelson. A very warm welcome to today's program. Coming up.
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Charles Hecker
We will operate in Gaza.
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Ash Bhardwaj
Until the war goals are achieved.
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Charles Hecker
We are not limited by time. We estimate it will take several months.
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Emma Nelson
A 48 hour long escape route opens. Israel offers Gazans an exit out of the city as its ground offensive continues. But where will these people go? Also ahead in the next 60 minutes, the US withdraws from an alliance to protect the west from misinformation and Internet hate campaigns. We'll examine how exposed this leaves the online world.
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Anne Neuberger
Plus, what shifted in the last few years was Chinese pre placement of malware in key parts of infrastructure for potential future disruptions.
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Emma Nelson
We talk about online wars as opposed to real war. And we look at the day's papers, hear the latest culture news from Japan. And from camper vans to candy floss and mixtapes, we explore the rise of nostalgia tourism. That's all coming up on the Globalist live from London. First, a quick look at what else is happening in today's news. Britain's King Charles has urged President Trump to go further when building on the trade agreement between the U.K. and the U.S. venezuela says its it has begun three days of military exercises in the Caribbean as tensions continue to rise over the US Activity in the region. And Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have announced a defense pact under which any aggression against either country will be seen as active aggression against both. Stay tuned to Monocle Radio throughout the day for more on these stories. But first, for 48 hours only a route has been opened up for the residents of Gaza City to flee. Israeli forces have announced the opening of the so called temporary transportation as it unleashed its ground offense offensive in Gaza City. Well, I'm joined now by Leila Malana Allan, who's Monocle's Middle east correspondent. Good morning, Leila.
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Leila Malana Allan
Morning.
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Emma Nelson
Let's just bring ourselves up to date with with what's happened in the last couple of days. There have been two days of an offensive carried out by the IDF and the reports are that dozens of people have Died.
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Leila Malana Allan
There are. So of course this, this offense against Gaza City has been sort of flagged for the last few weeks and they have been moving closer and closer into the surrounding areas of the city. But it happened on Tuesday that the act full ground offensive was launched. There were huge airstrikes overnight. And then essentially two army divisions have started moving closer and closer towards the center of the city. A third is set to join them. They have been bringing down through airstrikes major high rises in the center of the city. Now bear in mind of course, that there are tents everywhere across Gaza City. There are about a million people living in and around Gaza City. So they've been bringing down major high rises, putting all those people at huge risk. They also struck L. Rantisi Children's Hospital and about, of the about 80 patients in there, Gaza's Health Ministry says that only about 40 were able to get out. We've seen 12 people killed by airstrikes overnight, dozens killed since the beginning of the offensive, as you say. And now the death toll has gone over that 65,000 figure of Gazans killed since the beginning of this war. Of course, many people are convinced it's many, many more than that because there could be thousands of people under the rub across the Strip. 90% of housing units in Gaza have now been damaged or completely destroyed at this stage.
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Emma Nelson
Now this 48 hour route outwards. Can you tell us any more about this? Yes.
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Leila Malana Allan
So what has been happening for the last few weeks is that the IDF has been urging Palestinians to leave Gaza. As I say, about a million people living in and around the ruins of Gaza City. That's about half the population of Gaza. Many people simply saying, we can't, we are too exhausted from starvation to once again be displaced for perhaps the 12th time in this war. People don't have cars, they don't have petrol, so they don't have a way to move. They had been encouraged to go down the only open route, which was the seaside road. Many people felt that was very dangerous in itself. And now just for 48 hours, they've opened one of the other possible routes, which is the central road down the middle of the Gaza Strip. Now, in terms of it being a called transportation, they're not providing transportation, they're simply urging people to flee that way. The Israeli military figures are that about 350,000 people have left Gaza City over the last few weeks. The UN reckons it's closer to about 230,000. So only about a quarter of the people there. And one of the other reasons that people are saying that they won't go. Is that the area they're being encouraged to go to, Al Mawasi, this humanitarian area, what Israel calls a humanitarian area that's been established along the sea in the south, really has very little in the way of infrastructure. They are deeply exposed to heat. It's about 35 degrees at the moment in Gaza. They're not allowed to go into the sea or they'll be shot out, so they can't seek the relief of water there. And there's really no clean water available in Gaza at all. Very little in the way of food as well as that. That area of El Mawasi that's supposed to be humanitarian area, is regularly hit by airstrikes by the Israeli military. Last night, a tent there was hit, killing parents and two children. So people feel that it's no safer than staying in the north. But conditions in the north, if it's possible to say, are getting worse, are getting even worse because last Israel closed the only border crossing that was open in the north, which where a small amount of aid was getting through, and there's now absolutely no aid getting into northern Gaza. So people are essentially deciding sort of whether to take the risk of both of taking that road and facing potential bombing, potential shooting, potential shelling in the open, or staying put where they are in Gaza City.
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Emma Nelson
So where is there for people to go?
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Leila Malana Allan
They are being encouraged, as I say, just to go to this area, Al Mawasi, on the sea, which, apart from anything else, apart from the fact they're really, really isn't much infrastructure there or anything in the way of resources. There's also no space. There are people who have actually, in the last few days, taken that road south and ended up coming back north because there was nowhere for them to pitch a tent, if they could even afford the cost of a tarpaulin to pitch a tent. There was one family that was saying just being able to get on a truck that was moving south so they didn't have to walk the entire journey, cost them about £800 for the family. Now, bear in mind that people in Gaza haven't been working for two years. They have very little in the way of money, as well as very little in the way of food or medicine or fuel. So the prospect of once again being displaced to this very overcrowded, very exposed area is a huge risk for people. The other option they have is to go to one of the cities in the south. They could, of course, go to Khan Younis, which is near where this Area is but Derballa in the center, Khan Younis in the south. They are being hit by airstrikes as well. There really isn't an area that's safe and rougher. In the far south, of course, which was originally the place that they were urged to go at the beginning of the war, is now completely devastated, completely flattened. There's very little that people can seek there in terms of aid or a safe place to pitch a tent.
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Emma Nelson
And it is two days now since the UN issued a report presenting evidence showing that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Israel is denying all these allegations, but what has been the next step by the international community following this very clear line that was crossed by the United Nations?
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Leila Malana Allan
So this was a UN Commission of inquiry. It's a very serious step by the un. They don't actually sort of control what the UN says, but they do report to the UN and these findings have been accepted by the un. They found that four of the five conditions for defining this as a genocide had been fulfilled. Those were killing members of a group. They were causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of that group. Very importantly, deliberately inflicting conditions which are calculated to bring around, to bring about the destruction of that group, which of course, many people feel that the conditions that have been created in Gaza are intended to destroy this group, Palestinians, and also imposing measures that are intended to prevent future births within this group. All four of those conditions were found to have been fulfilled during this conflict. And thus far we have seen other major groups in major international institutions find that Israel's committing genocide, but that's been largely ignored or brushed over by Western powers. So it's partly that this is such a serious finding from the UN Commission of Inquiry, but it's also that it's come about in a period during which already many Western leaders, many allied leaders to Israel, had decided that they were no longer willing to support what's happening in Gaza. That, of course, came about really after March, when Israel stopped allowing any form of UN sponsored aid to get into the Strip. We saw severe starvation. Israel continue to deny that. Israel's denied this report too. They call it distorted and false. But we're already. We've seen such a change in the last few weeks in the attitude towards what Israel is doing in Gaza. One of the reasons for that as well is this, is this offensive in Gaza City itself, which Western leaders have absolutely condemned. Of course, for months, Israel's been saying the reason there is no ceasefire deal is because Hamas won't accept it. Several weeks ago, Hamas came to the table and said, yes, we'll accept it. Yes, we'll accept the new, new US Deal. No response from Israeli leadership. They decided they were going to go ahead with the Gaza City offensive as well. Instead of signing that deal, they were to go ahead with the offensive anyway. And just to be clear, there are actually people within the Israeli military itself, including General Zamir, the head of the forces, who are saying that this offensive is a terrible idea, that it's going to have a massive loss of life, and that it's very unlikely to eliminate Hamas because we know that many Hamas fighters are managing to escape south. Again, there's been reactions from many Western leaders. The UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, called the offensive utterly reckless and appalling, said it would only bring around more bloodshed and endanger both civilians and the remaining hostages. So really, the only Western power that's sort of still backing Israel to the hilt is the US we saw, of course, Secretary of State Marco Rubio visiting Tel Aviv on Sunday before he then went to try and speak to Middle east and lead us to calm anger after the Israeli strike in Qatar. And after that, Benjamin Netanyahu did say, you know, the US Relationship with Israel is stronger than ever, but behind closed doors, even the Americans are really starting to say this has to to wind down now. You know, there's really nothing to be gained from continuing this war. And in this position where of course, next week we're going to see at the un, at this UN conference, it's likely that the UK is going to recognize a Palestinian state, that France is going to do so, that Canada is going to do so. They join many other leaders that already have done so. And they had said that if Israel was willing to improve conditions in Gaza, they might consider not doing that. Given this offensive, it seems deeply unlikely that will happen.
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Emma Nelson
Leila Malala Allen, Monocle's Middle east correspondent, thank you so much for joining us on the Globalist. Now, when many of us think of war, we do tend to think of tanks, planes, ships and troops. Large aspects of war, however, are now much less visible. And this is a realm of cyber operations in which it looks increasingly as if countries less beholding to notions, to the ideas of freedom, privacy, transparency and the rule of law may indeed have a competitive advantage. Well, in a piece in the new issue of Foreign Affairs, Anne Neuberger, who's a former U.S. deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology under President Joe Biden, argues that China has benefited from getting a head start, and the U.S. needs to get serious about catching up. A Monocle's Andrew Muller heard from Anne Neuberger earlier and he began by asking her what kind of cyber threats from China she saw while serving under President Biden.
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Anne Neuberger
So what we were most closely tracking were two types of threats. One, espionage threats akin to the broad scale Chinese compromise of US and I may add global telecoms as well as pre positioning in key parts of our critical infrastructure, water pipelines, ports, which there was a very unclear espionage value, but we were concerned could be done to disrupt or disable those systems during a period of potential crisis or conflict with China. So those were the two kinds of Chinese cyber threats we were mostly tracking.
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Charles Hecker
But in recent years in particular, how much of it goes beyond mere surveillance and into the realm of what I guess we might think of as malware stuff that could be activated to actually disable or disrupt various infrastructure.
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Anne Neuberger
Andrew, that's exactly. That's indeed the development that most rose to our attention in the last few years because China's had a broad scale espionage campaign for a long time. It was often targeted on corporate intellectual property as part of advancing China's own technology base as well as government secrets. But what shifted in the last few years was Chinese pre placement of malware. As you noted in key parts of infrastructure we believe not for intelligence value but for potential future disruptions.
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Charles Hecker
It is the contention of your article that China has rather stolen a march on the United States. In this response are you able to assess the scale of the advantage that China already has?
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Anne Neuberger
The key difference between China and the US and for that matter the UK and the broader west is China's an authoritarian country and as such the Chinese government monitors Chinese communications and Chinese networks, first of course for domestic surveillance, but second it enables them to find, as you said, detect and likely block many attacks. The United States and Western countries, largely governments are prescribed for monitoring private sector communications or networks and as such there is a mismatch. In addition, in China much of critical infrastructure is owned by the state or state owned enterprises. In the west, much of our energy grid, our pipelines are privately owned. And that further introduces a break that has to be overcome in order to enable national cyber defense. So there's a difference in the models. And while we're proudly democratic countries and we're very proud of the fact that government doesn't monitor communications, it requires extra deep partnerships and new approaches to ensure that Americans Brits can feel confident that their water systems, their power, their pipelines won't be disrupted during a period of crisis or conflict.
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Charles Hecker
Are you concerned though? And this is a. It's a theme that has recurred in conversations I've had about cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, with other people in fields where this is becoming an issue, that countries which are at least theoretically behold beholden to such concepts as liberty, transparency, rule of law, et cetera, are always going to be at an disadvantage where compared to those countries like China which care less about this kind of stuff. Are you concerned that a point will come at which democratic nations will have to make a fairly fundamental choice due.
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Anne Neuberger
To the separation between government and private sector and the fact that cyberspace really links everything there isn't, as we've had in a traditional kinetic way, battleground and home lounge. Right. You know, there instead is one cyberspace and our military, our intelligence community, our critical infrastructure and your. My communications all ride on those same networks. And as a result, the traditional laws and policies and the way we operate that really look at an approach that's very much grounded in traditional geographic borders does need to be updated, does need to be carefully looked at to say, as we're looking at one hand at national security, national cyber defense, the confidence citizens deserve that the systems their lives ride on can be resilient and reliable, and on the other hand, the important freedoms and protections that we look at that and say, and I truly believe we can achieve both, the model will be different. We can do so first, because we must. Second, because it's possible. And I actually in the article proposed some ideas to consider that I believe can bridge those two considerations.
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Charles Hecker
So what would be a good first step, do you think?
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Anne Neuberger
So the core goal we have as countries is that when a president or prime minister asks, you know, we're in a period of crisis, can we be confident that a capable adversary with a capable cyber warfare program cannot disrupt our most critical systems, we need to be able to confidently say yes. And the path to do that, I believe, starts with first, having minimum cybersecurity requirements for that critical infrastructure, and second, you know, using AI to not only potentially find and fix vulnerabilities, but using AI to create virtual replic of our most critical systems, to test what our intelligence community knows about adversary offensive capabilities and to test different attack techniques to ensure those systems are resilient and if they're not, to fix the issues because there isn't unlimited funds to be spent on national cybersecurity. And this could help ensure that, firstly, we're using our intelligence to help make our systems more resilient directly. And second, that we're spending our limited resources on the most impactful vulnerabilities that need to be fixed.
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Emma Nelson
That was Anne Neuberger, former U.S. deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology under President Biden. You're listening to the Globalist. Still to come on today's program.
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Leila Malana Allan
Why.
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Emma Nelson
A trip to see you acknowledge this isn't just going to see a gig. It's now called Nostalgia Tourism. Stay tuned.
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Rashmi Narayan
Craft is a matter of perspective, a unique outlook, an obsessive attention to detail. With UBS Houseview, you get the big picture in bite sized articles delivered daily and curated by over 200 globally connected, locally active analysts, all focused on identifying the latest investment opportunities and market risks to help you achieve your financial goals. UBS Banking is our craft.
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Emma Nelson
Let's continue now with today's newspapers. Charles Hecker, author and Russia analyst, joins me in the studio. Good morning, Charles.
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Charles Hecker
Charles Good morning, Emma.
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Emma Nelson
I never know whether to call you Chuck or not. I won't. I'll step up today and do. Charles, quick question. Nostalgia tourism, you just, we're just, we're going to be looking ahead to that a little bit in the programme later, I played a bit of Oasis. How fun. Nostalgia tourism. You just went, no, I don't do nostalgia.
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Charles Hecker
Nostalgia is a little bit of a false friend. I think it sort of distorts the past and is never as good as it was.
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Emma Nelson
I shall ask that of our guest later.
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William Yang
Thank you.
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Emma Nelson
You give me a question, right, what's in the page newspapers?
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Charles Hecker
Well, from the have youe Been Living Under a Rock department. Really? In bold headlines, using an awful lot of ink. Across the front pages of just about every newspaper you can imagine is the fact that the wannabe king and the real king had dinner in Windsor Castle last night. We are referring here to the state visit of President Donald Trump of the United States welcomed to Windsor Castle by King Charles iii. This is the second state dinner that the US President has been welcomed to and that in is some sort of a British record in terms of entertaining. You know, this is a big dinner. It was a very big dinner, Emma. And can I just say two things right off the start. The grand banquet table in the hall of Windsor Castle is 155ft long and had luminaries such as the King and the Queen, of course, the President and the first lady, and then people from business, arts, culture, society and government. But because it is one long table, you're only sitting next to two people all night long. That's 50 meters and you can't cross, you can't talk to anybody. Sitting across from you, because there is an absolute forest of flowers between you. And also the table is too wide, really, to have your voice reach across the table. And so even if you're sitting next to someone as eminent as the Princess of Wales, for example, she's the only person that you get to talk to all night long. And I find that quite challenging because.
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Emma Nelson
You have to make the decision early, don't you? Because you either choose left or right.
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Charles Hecker
Well, that's right. And perhaps you go back and forth a little bit, sort of like watching Wimbledon. That's hard, but that's tough. And, you know, I kind of prefer the circular wedding tables where you can at least draw other people into the conversation as the evening progresses.
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Emma Nelson
I think they might have to redesign the big room at Windsor Castle if we're going to get round tables in. What I can't get over is the superlatives, the fact that editors are having to think as hard as they can about how big, sumptuous, massive. See, I'm having a go. The superlatives that are being searched for by editors to describe what happened yesterday. I mean, it was. I think I heard one reporter saying, this is more. This is. This red carpet is redder than a red. Than a red carpet ever could be. And I'm enjoying the Financial Times headline, actually. It's saying, Donald Trump soaks up the glory of his second UK state visit. There's an idea that. That I find really a very good way of describing the fact that he just sat there and let everything play out in front of him and soaked it up like it was a delicious gravy from the chicken bone.
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Charles Hecker
Well, you know, in fact, even President Trump ran out of superlatives because he called the King special, he called the Queen special, he called the special relationship between the US and the UK special. And in this sort of evening, as you rightly point out, in this evening of superlatives, an individual whose vocabulary dwells almost exclusively in superlatives himself sort of ran his tank empty just for the sake of a little bit of factual reporting here. In addition to all of the pomp and circumstance, £150 billion worth of US investment was pledged into the United Kingdom, a lot of it in the fields of artificial intelligence, and it. A lot of it proposed by a single US private equity group. And quite a bit of it very, very long term. I mean, I think somebody will have to sort of run the accounts on all of this to see if all 150 billion pounds of this gets invested. But one of the Things that you announce at a state dinner like this are these long term investment projects. It remains to be seen if they all materialize.
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Emma Nelson
Okay. The Times reports an awful lot on that one today. Let's move on to what's happening elsewhere, because obviously here in the United Kingdom, all eyes were on what was happening in Windsor yesterday, not least if you lived in London. It was really annoying because Donald Trump's helicopter was. And his many helicopters were basically keeping everyone up all night. So there's is this parallel thing that's going on at the moment that India. I think we have to cast our minds back a couple of weeks when India and Russia and China stood together on a platform and committed the fact that sort of in a visual display of partnership. What now appears to have happened is that India's involvement in military exercises and the military deployment by Russia has now stepped up. This is a big change, isn't it?
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Charles Hecker
That's right. So Russia and Belarus are engaged in their periodic war gaming in Belarus. And this is the Zapid 2025 military drills. This is a show of force designed to impress and scare and terrify the West. It features actually this year in this war gaming, the rehearsed launch of Russian tactical nuclear weapons. So it really is quite a lot of chest thumping. What is interesting this year is that India is participating. It has happened in the past, and India's participation this year is small, but it is enormously symbolic. As you point out, Emma, there is a bit of a pivot going on. We'll see how long it lasts. But there's a bit of a pivot going on in Delhi, away from Washington and towards Moscow and towards China. And this is because, among other things, President Trump has doubled, doubled the amount of tariffs that it places on Indian exports to punish India for buying Russian oil. And so India has said, well, that's fine, we have other friends that we can play with. And one of the friends that it's playing with now is Russia in these military exercises.
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Emma Nelson
And just in terms of context, the Indian Minister of defense has said that 65 armed forces personnel have been sent. So it is not a great number, but it is symbolically very important.
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Charles Hecker
That's right. This is a direct, direct gesture to Washington and a reminder actually of India's crucial role as sort of a pivot player in Asia. You know, India is the world's largest democracy. You might anticipate that it is naturally allied to other democracies in the world. This isn't necessarily a correct assumption to make. And should India and China grow closer, which is not a given, you know, understanding the amount of outstanding issues between those two countries. But if the United States loses India's leverage against China in Asia, that's a very big geopolitical shift.
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Emma Nelson
Finally, we have but a scant minute or two to talk about a rather lighter article in the Times. Hedonists know everyone's a health clubber. Now, the nightclub Tramp described deliciously good writing today in the papers, deliciously by the Times as the toffs nightclub. It's opening a wellness center which is not what it's normally famous for. And it's that sign that, that no one's having fun anymore.
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Charles Hecker
So, Emma, when I was looking at the story, I was reminded of a scene from Forgive me for this, but a scene from Sex and the City of many, many, many years ago where there was a character who attempted to light up a cigarette while at a dinner party in a private apartment. And she's standing next to an open window in a high rise New York apartment and declaims nobody's having fun anymore and then trips on her high heels and falls out the window to her death. So really, it is sort of the end of fun. And that is if you can't go clubbing anymore and wake up the next morning with a thumping headache. Are we all meant to be having sort of celery juice now when we go out on Saturday nights?
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Emma Nelson
Yes. And this is what Tramp is doing. I mean, because Trump was famous in the 80s and actually 90s and it was huge for just the trash, the trashy upper set would find themselves in a right mess on the dance floor. And now they just want to give us celery juice and kefir.
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Charles Hecker
Oh, celery juice is really, really boring. I mean, I suppose that, you know, for many of us, our clubbing days are behind us and perhaps that's not.
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Emma Nelson
Because there's nowhere for us to go.
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Charles Hecker
Anym, I'm feeling nostalgic about my clubbing days. You might want to say I will be.
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Emma Nelson
Were you a clubber?
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Charles Hecker
I'll be. I had a moment or two.
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Emma Nelson
Good.
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Charles Hecker
But those days are, well, in the past.
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Emma Nelson
Charles Hecker, thank you so much. Very glad you're still here to talk about your hedonistic days as once or twice going to a club. The time here in London is 7:28. You're listening to the Globalist. Now a quick look at some of the other stories we're keeping an eye on today. Britain's King Charles has urged President Trump to go further when building on the trade agreement between the UK and the US he was speaking at a banquet served at Windsor Castle as part of a state visit by Donald Trump. The king also stressed the importance of the two countries standing together to support Ukraine against tyranny. Venezuela says it's begun three days of military exercises in the Caribbean. Tensions continue to rise over the US Activity in the region. American warships conducted deadly strikes on at least two Venezuelan boats. And Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have announced a defense pact under which any aggression against either country will be seen as an active aggression against both. The strategic mutual Defense agreement was signed during a visit to Riyadh by the Pakistani prime minister. This is THE globalist. Stay tuned. Now a look at one of the stories we're following here behind the headlines. Here's Monocle's Gulf correspondent Enzamam Rashid on the new trend taking over Dubai's hospitality scene.
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Charles Hecker
Dubai's dining scene has always thrived on reinvention. Japanese food was once an import here. Then it morphed into California rolls for Gulf palates. Lebanese restaurants adapted their mezze to Emirati tastes, and now a new cuisine is pushing into the mainstream. Russian A few years ago, Russian restaurants were curiosities. Today they're multiplying at Gulf food. This year, nearly 100 Russian food companies filled a sprawling pavilion, and chefs say Dubai is the easiest city in the world to source produce. Alexander Sienaev is a restaurant consultant who brought Babushka and Novikov to the city.
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Emma Nelson
So chefs are coming and surprisingly, some.
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William Yang
Of the products are cheaper here than.
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Emma Nelson
In Moscow, because in Moscow you have.
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William Yang
A lot of now sanctions and, you know, a lot of stuff which they.
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Emma Nelson
Are bringing from abroad are very expensive.
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William Yang
Here you can find anything.
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Charles Hecker
But the rise of Russian dining here isn't just about logistics, politics. It's about the UAE's unusual logic. People are welcomed on the strength of their bank balance, their investment, their ability to buy property or open a business. Politics is almost irrelevant, replaced with transaction. That's why in a Russian restaurant in Dubai, you might find Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians eating side by side. Elsewhere, war divides. Here, those opinions are parked at the door. Business and hospitality come first, of course. The market is unforgiving. Half of all new concepts fail. But those who adapt, who tweak menus, appeal to Dubai's multicultural clientele and meet its exacting standards, stand a chance of success. And that's why Russian cuisine matters here. It's part of nostalgia, part soft power and part hard business. In Dubai, those ingredients are proving hard to receive exist.
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Emma Nelson
That was Monocle's Inzamum Rashid there. For more you can sign up to our daily newsletter, the Monocle Minute. Head to our website monocle.com minute 7:32 here in London. 8:32 if you're listening in Paris now, the Trump administration has told its European counterparts that it will no longer participate in efforts to stop disinformation from the likes of Russia, China and Iran. An alliance had been formed under the Biden administration to prevent and to expand expose malicious material being sent by state actors wishing to do harm. Well, to explain now what this means for the online world, I'm joined now by Ash Bardwaj who's writer and broadcaster who specialises in defence security and travel. Welcome back, Ash.
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Ash Bhardwaj
Morning everyone.
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Emma Nelson
Good to have you with us. Why have they decided to stop this now?
- [33:35]
Ash Bhardwaj
The main reason has been a statement from Rubio who said that the American people don't need an obscure agency to protect them from lies. They but the organization that has been shut down was most recently known as the Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Center. Catchy name, fimi, but before that it was known as the Global Engagement center, the gec. Now the origins of this will give you an idea of what it does. So it came out of the center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications all the way back in 2011. So the goal back then was to counter after messaging propaganda and information operations by groups like Al Qaeda and isis and ISIS after Al Qaeda. What it later became around 2016 was more focused on the efforts by foreign adversaries, foreign states trying to influence the United States. So this was subversive activities. You didn't know they were happening. They were coercive. They were trying to manipulate people into supporting Russian or China activities or narratives. And that was when it started to move into countering things like the way Russia was talking about what was going on in the United States. So the objectives were not just to get people to support Russian narratives, but to create dissenting conflict within the United States. The one you probably, you may well have heard of occurring is that you would have these Russian backed groups that were supporting both pro gun narratives and gun control narratives. And it wasn't because they wanted to see more gun rights or less gun rights. They just wanted people to argue.
- [35:11]
Emma Nelson
So it sounds like a perfectly good thing to do. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that state actors, malicious state actors now don't just cede dissent and try to stir up trouble, but they actually have genuine influence on voting, the process of democracy and what have you. I mean there was a concerted effort last year by the United States to ensure that the presidential election wasn't interfered with by international actors. So there is clearly something that needs to be done here. Why is it, therefore, that the United States has decided that it doesn't want to be part of it no longer wants this, with this complicated agency that you described?
- [35:54]
Ash Bhardwaj
So I think you could look at three reasons. Number one, was it really effective? Were the people in charge of it actually being decent arbiters of the truth? Number two was maybe there is another agency that we don't even know the name of or don't even know exists that is still doing this kind of hope.
- [36:10]
Kim Khan
There is.
- [36:12]
Ash Bhardwaj
But the third one is, is that the target for much of the identification by this agency of groups in the United States and across Europe that were spreading foreign influence, particularly Russian, but also Chinese and some Iranian influence, were often conservative news websites, because the narratives that were being enforced were picked up by groups like Revolver. There was a guy called Doug Beatty who's behind the recent efforts to shut this down, and he runs a website called Revolver. There was a magazine called the Federalist and others which had basically picked up Russian talking points. But the current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has used some of these talking points herself. And one of the reasons is because it was spreading these sorts of narratives that created more dissent in the United States.
- [37:03]
Emma Nelson
The interesting point of this is, is that the. The means by which a lot of dissent is. Is perpetrated or indeed, you know, disseminated, is often very innocent online platforms, apart from, let's say, TikTok, which is still Chinese the last time I checked. And the fact remains is that while the government may decide to stop its protection of its citizens from undue influence, does the burden now fall on the private sector to ensure that it protects its platforms from malicious words and influence?
- [37:41]
Ash Bhardwaj
I don't know who this lies with anymore. I mean, in the United Kingdom, there's been efforts to bring in legislation that will put more onus on the private sector, on the owners of the platforms to reduce harmful content. But disinformation doesn't really fall into that necessarily. How do you know if it's harmful? Rubio BT the members of the administration in America have been saying it's up to the American people to decide what's true or false, whether it is malign or not, not some obscure agency. And perhaps there's an element of truth to that that leads to the question, what is freedom of speech? We've heard from the administration in the United states in recent days that they want to shut down certain news outlets or certain civil society groups because there is a limit in their mind to some free speech. And what about misinformation and disinformation and malinformation? Who is the person that decides that is right or wrong? We can see that the private sector hasn't been able to stop harmful content, abusive content, criminal content ending up on their platforms. The chance of them doing the same against dis miss and mal information is pretty low, particularly if there's no push from the government to stop them doing that.
- [38:49]
Emma Nelson
Ash Bhardwaj, thank you so much for joining me in the studio. You're listening to Monocle Radio 938 in Athens. Now China has banned the use of products made by the AI giant Nvidia in an effort to force local manufacturing to step up and to be more self reliant. Beijing now claims that the products made by the Chinese are on par with those made by foreign companies. Well, to tell us more, I'm joined now by William Yang, senior Northeast Asia analyst for the International Crisis. Very good afternoon to you, William.
- [39:37]
William Yang
Thank you for having me again.
- [39:38]
Emma Nelson
So just explain to us what, just just tell us, talk us through this ban.
- [39:45]
William Yang
So this ban basically comes amid the series of attempts by Nvidia to try to secure the permission from the US Government to sell a several specific types of AI chips that are tailored for the Chinese market. And the reason, you know, before they started the courting the Trump administration for the permission, the Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang actually already made a trip to Beijing because he still views the Chinese market as a very important sector for the company's revenue and also to maintain the company's overall competitiveness in the global air race. And, and so, you know, he has been working behind the scenes in recent months to try to achieve that. But we have seen now that the Chinese government is clearly not really appreciating this or I think on the other hand believing in the Chinese local domestic industry's ability to actually already match the AI chips, the Nvidia is willing to sell them. And so they are now now deciding to issue an overall ban for all the companies that have long relied on the Nvidia chips to, you know, no longer be able to buy these chips. And then I think this is opening up the sector to help to grow China's domestic AI industry overall.
- [41:11]
Emma Nelson
Tell us more about the domestic AI industry. The fact is that Nvidia, a US Company, is enough of a threat or is, or rather it is part of a Continuing story where the Chinese are extremely good at adopting methods, processes and indeed copying good ideas from elsewhere and making them not just their own, but making them better than anyone else's.
- [41:35]
William Yang
Right? Exactly. I think the reasoning behind the Chinese decision I think has a lot to do with the fact that China now is really prioritizing reducing reliance on external products for key industries, especially in sectors like AI where the global competition is really fierce. And they, I think Chinese President Xi Jinping sees the danger of relying too much on the chips coming from primarily US giants like Nvidia. And because in recent years, recent administrations in the US have all used export control as a way to try to hurt, hurt China's ability to make progress in these key sectors. And so for the Chinese government, they believe that rather than relying on these, you know, tailored made chips that already are, you know, reduced capacity or capability compared to the original chips that are sold elsewhere in the world, they trust the fact that China's domestic industry is over already mature enough to be able to quickly close the gap and at the same time multiply and you know, really, I think quantify the most cutting edge capabilities that all these American companies are able to make. And so they believe that in a few years focusing on cultivating the domestic capabilities, then China can really surpass the US to become the global leading AI giant.
- [43:09]
Emma Nelson
And indeed, I mean obviously Nvidia Video have said that this is a disappointment and that this is, you know, a very successful company being effectively caught in a geopolitical problem. What happens now? I mean, where does, how quickly can China make its transition away from its reliance on Nvidia chips? And you've mentioned obviously that the Chinese are proud enough to say that this is actually a good moment for them. But there will be a bump, won't they, where that change takes place.
- [43:41]
William Yang
Right. So I think based on most recent media reportings coming from China related media outlets, it seems like Chinese tech giant Huawei is already able to manufacture AI chips that are on par with the H20 types of advanced chips that Nvidia, you know, manufacture tailored for the Chinese market. I think that's one of the most important factor for the Chinese government to decide. This is the moment for China to issue an overall ban over Nvidia's advanced chips into the Chinese market. And I think going forward we will have to actually see how, you know, how these Chinese tech giants chips are actually able to help grow the Chinese AI market further. Because I think as of now, some of the leading AI software companies in China, including Deep Seek, still primarily rely on training the chips that they acquire from Nvidia to get a head start with the development on the software side. So you know, with the Chinese market there's always a lot of opaqueness with regard to the actual progress and the actual actual capabilities of some of the most secretive or the most crucial sensitive sectors for the Chinese market. So unless we start seeing really the competition or comparison between American AI software companies and the Chinese software companies progress in the next few years, we won't be able to really see where the gap is or whether the gap is still significant enough to undermine the Chinese AI companies ability to make the breakthrough.
- [45:25]
Emma Nelson
William Yang on the line from Taipei. Thank you so much for joining us. On Monocle Radio, you're listening to the Globalist.
- [45:35]
Rashmi Narayan
There's a craft to every question, which is why at UBS we query every aspect of the market, working with specialized experts and award winning research teams covering over 35 stocks in 50 countries, all delivered in a comprehensive library, answering what you want with what you need. UBS banking is our craft.
- [46:12]
Emma Nelson
The time in Tokyo is 1540:45pm Kim Khan is a Japan is a Japan based translator and writer for publications including Nikkei and the National Geographic. She joins me from our studio in Tokyo to bring us a cultural news from where she is. A very good afternoon to you Kim.
- [46:29]
Kim Khan
Hello Emma. Thanks for having me.
- [46:30]
Emma Nelson
Right, so where would we like to begin? What's happening where you are culturally, please?
- [46:35]
Kim Khan
Well, culturally, well, I guess a big story this week is the aitranol which I went to this weekend on its opening weekend. So at the opening ceremony which was attended by lots and lots of artists and obviously train ailey people, there was a big protest that happened to a few protesters came into the ceremony and filled a big banner saying Smash the match. And this was met with cheers from the artists and a lot of people that were at the opening ceremony.
- [47:06]
Emma Nelson
So explain a little bit. Just let's rewind a tiny bit. The Aichi Triangle is in Nagoya, isn't it? And explain the purpose of it, what it does.
- [47:14]
Kim Khan
So yeah, the Triennale has been happening since 2010 and it's one of the biggest art festivals in Asia. They normally actually have a Japanese person who directs the festival every year and this year was significant in that they actually invited an outside, an outsider director, actually Hur Al Qasami who comes from Sharjah and is known for doing the Sharjah being outlet.
- [47:41]
Emma Nelson
So tell us a little bit more therefore about this. You then explained that artists have come together and are protesting what are they angry about and what do they need to see changed?
- [47:54]
Kim Khan
Well, so actually the protests are started by some grassroots local campaigners. So the Angel Aichi Israel Matching program starting in 2022, and it pairs three of the biggest tech companies in Aichi with startups in Israel to work together and collaborate. And this seems almost at odds with the festival. So Al Qasami, who's the first director that they appointed in 2023, she's known for her really pro Palestine, super political statements. And the actual program this year contains, I think, at least five Palestinian artists performing live and exhibiting. So I feel like this is obviously a cause close to their hearts. So the main protests are actually coming from local campaigners and then some of the artists. I think it's quite reasonable to assume that they weren't aware of this Aichi Israel Matching program and the local protests against it before they joined Aichi Trinale. The following day after the protests in the opening ceremony, a letter was released signed by several of the artists that are participating, including Michael Rockavitz. Some of the biggest artists that participated in the program against it. So, yeah, it seems like quite a big, big deal, especially for Japan.
- [49:10]
Emma Nelson
Let's move to a lovely story in the Japan Times about UNESCO and the way that it awards the most beautiful places on earth. It has recently ranked. Well, it's a World Heritage site and it's a village which is breathtakingly beautiful.
- [49:28]
Kim Khan
It is indeed. Yes. So actually the Japan Times has reported on a Forbes list that came out this week which ranked Shinakawa Go as the most beautiful village in the whole of Asia, which is obviously a really big news. And it's the 9th, I think it was the 9th most beautiful village in the whole world according to Forbes.
- [49:48]
Emma Nelson
And tell us why it's so beautiful.
- [49:51]
Kim Khan
Well, it's very beautiful indeed, Emma, especially during winter, wintertime. It's known for its gassho, which are thatched houses, and they're very, very rare. I think it's Shirakawago and I think the other one is called Hirokawago. The only villages in the whole of Japan that do exhibit this architecture. Really distinctive, like triangular roofs. Roofs, yeah. Yeah. It's incredibly so, especially in winter when, as I said, when it's covered in snow and it looks like a sort of Santa's Grotto sort of vibe.
- [50:22]
Emma Nelson
How much is this are now going to be. You know, Japan is busy when it comes to tourists at the moment, and every time a place is. Is marked out across the world as being particularly wonderful to visit There is always at risk that the number of tourists walking around it might not. Well, might, might make it lose its charm a little. How much is that a risk?
- [50:41]
Kim Khan
The village of 1, 600 people has seen over 2 million tourists each year since post Covid and also in 2020. So yeah, it's a really question because it is a real issue for them to the extent that in March this year they released a guidebook in English aimed at tourists. It's 34 pages and I think the majority of those pages were talking about etiquette and what not to do and what to do when you're a tourist visiting a small village.
- [51:09]
Emma Nelson
So yeah, I think, yeah, we'd all better behave ourselves. Speaking of behaving yourselves, you've written an article for National Geographic about how Japanese wine is a marvelous thing. Talk us through that fantastic thing.
- [51:22]
Kim Khan
I do say so myself. Well, actually the statistics, it's been great growing and growing in popularity for the past 10 years at least. In 2024, the wine market actually hit 30.2 billion. And within 10 years it's forecast to reach. I'm terrible at maths, but I think that's 50%. It's a nearly 44.8 billion. Yes. The number of wineries themselves has also nearly doubled in the past 10 years. There's now over 500 or almost 500 across the whole of Japan. Yeah.
- [51:55]
Emma Nelson
And explain to us, I mean, Japanese wine is not necessarily globally known the presence that it occupies in the rest of the world. Is it, you know, how rare is this thing and actually how, and how good is it? Is it delicious?
- [52:11]
Kim Khan
Well, I think it's. Personally, I think it's delicious. I think it depends on your taste. But now Japan has spent over 20, 30 years refining it's homegrown wines. I know it's probably not the first place you pick or the first place you think of when you think about wine, but really recently people have really started to go mad for these Japanese wines, especially those coming from producing Hokkaido, for example, who've been seen on restaurant lists from, for example, Noma. And I spoke to, I think Grace Logan from she's in Sommelier Noble Rot in London, who just says it's one of the best, best types of wine she's ever tasted. This is written regards to the Pinot Noir, but there's so many other types of wine that are being lauded across, across the wine industry.
- [52:57]
Emma Nelson
I'd say very briefly, Kim, what does it take?
- [52:59]
Kim Khan
Taste like I would say the Pinot Noir, it's kind of, it's Quite berry. It depends on. I think Japan has recently started to. I'm going to make this very short. I'm going to say there's umami in it and it goes well with washoku, which is a Japanese meal. There's a beautiful place in Tokyo that does soba noodles and Japanese wine. So, yeah, it goes really, really well with food, actually, I'd say.
- [53:20]
Emma Nelson
Kim Khan, thank you so much for joining us on the line from Tokyo. You're listening to the Globalist on Monocle Radio.
- [53:50]
Charles Hecker
Foreign.
- [53:57]
Emma Nelson
In a world of almost endless choice when it comes to travel, one trend is being identified and that of nostalgia trips. From a package to see Oasis or the return to a simple beach holiday taken in childhood, it seems we're wanting something a bit more comforting and loving rather than the wild or adventurous. I'm joined for more by the travel writer Rashmi Narayan. Very good morning to you, Rashmi. Thank you for joining in the studio.
- [54:18]
Anne Neuberger
Morning.
- [54:19]
Rashmi Narayan
Thank you so much for having me.
- [54:20]
Emma Nelson
What's a nostalgia trip, then?
- [54:22]
Rashmi Narayan
Well, it's pretty much exactly how you summarized it. It's going back to places that hold sentimental value. And I know you think, okay, doesn't. Don't every family? Everybody does this quite often. But I think now it's become more trendy because we've got so much technology, so much on our fingertips. So it's more of switching off as well and going back to familiar places and not just. And reliving that, really.
- [54:47]
Emma Nelson
So give me an example of a nostalgia tr. You've mentioned going to an Oasis gig. It's an interesting concept because obviously that is a trip and that is just, to all intents and purposes, nostalgia tourism if you're going to a different place. But does that definitely hark into the category of looking for a bygone era? Or could you elaborate a little bit more about what a nostalgia trip really is?
- [55:09]
Rashmi Narayan
Oh, that's actually a really good point. Oasis was definitely a great example of nostalgia tourism, where I think people want to go back and feel the way they used to when they were younger and when they, you know, how songs or certain music and certain food can evoke certain senses. And nostalgia tourism, I think, is in a world that probably feels very chaotic. You open your Instagram, you open your news, and it all just seems like what's happening. You go back to a place of comfort. And I think a gig like Oasis just reminds you of who you used to be. Carefree, a time where you didn't really care about what was coming up on your smartphone, whether you had to answer a certain email. And it just takes people back to that innocent time, even if it's briefly for an evening.
- [55:51]
Emma Nelson
So is this a generational thing? Because, I mean, we had Charles Hecker in the. In the studio a little while ago talking about how he sees nostalgia. He's up. He was our paper reviewer, by the way. He says that nostalgia is a fake friend which never actually lives up to the expectations.
- [56:08]
Kim Khan
Ooh.
- [56:09]
Emma Nelson
Oh, wow.
- [56:10]
Rashmi Narayan
I actually disagree because I went on one recently and I went to Goa and that's where I first learned to fly a kite with my dad. And he passed away a few years ago, but I took my other half there and take him back to look. Honestly, some were even worse than I imagined and remembered. Some were actually even better. So it was really interesting on. You go back to a place where you become that child again, but you also go to places where you're like, oh, God, I really used to be here. Really, dad used to take us here.
- [56:40]
Emma Nelson
But.
- [56:40]
Rashmi Narayan
So it brings a sense of reality, but also takes you away from the troubles of your day to day life. So it's very much a real thing. It just depends on where you go and how you do it.
- [56:50]
Emma Nelson
What made you decide to do that? Because there was obviously a very. That element of nostalgia is a very, very personal.
- [56:57]
Rashmi Narayan
Yeah, I think it was. I did want to go back to simpler times where I realized I was on my smartphone all the time and I just wanted to be by a beach and not take photos and actually, you know, have that whole sensory experience of listen to the waves, just be what I used to be as a child. I did try to fly a kite. Failed spectacularly.
- [57:15]
Emma Nelson
So what difference did it make to you then? That for many people would just be going back to do something lovely that they did as a child, but the fact that it's now been formalized, did it actually have a sort of a longer effect and make you change the way that you're going to be going on holiday or how we should change the way we approach our holidays.
- [57:32]
Rashmi Narayan
I think especially families. Yeah, they should wear, you know, a family playlist, for example, instead of going on Spotify. I think if you can go back and seek your mixtapes and everything and travel as a family, try and hire a camper van. It might actually change the way you travel as a family without that sort of technology. Maybe even go back to old school.
- [57:48]
Emma Nelson
Maps and very quickly that. What do you mean, go back to old school maps and very, very quickly. I mean, how much is the tourism industry actually capitalizing on this.
- [57:58]
Rashmi Narayan
I think they are a fair bit because a lot of CA campervans, a lot of companies, road surfer, for example, they're all saying, you know, they're cashing in on nostalgia tourism because they know it hits a chord with people. So they're definitely hitting the mark.
- [58:10]
Emma Nelson
Rashmi Narayan, thank you so much for joining me in the studio. And that's all the time we have for today's program. The warmest of thanks to all my guests and to the producers, Laura Kramer, Hassan Anderson and Anita Riota. Our researcher was Daniela Brauer Smith and our studio manager was Elliot Greenfield. After the headlines. More music on the way. The briefing is live at midday here in London. The Globalist is back at the same time tomorrow. Hope you can join me for that if you can. But for now, from me, Emma Nelson, goodbye. Thank you very much for listening. Sam.