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Emma Nelson
You're listening to the Globalist, first broadcast on 9th October 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, Israel and Hamas reach an agreement on the first phase of Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza. We'll have the latest. Also ahead in the next 60 minutes.
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Chris Smith
Donald Trump declared war on Chicago.
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Tom Rivers
What the Trump administration is doing is intentionally fomenting chaos.
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Emma Nelson
National Guard troops from Texas arrive in Chicago to support President Trump's immigration crackdown. The local authorities do all they can to stop them. And we'll hear more about Monocle's residence in Hong Kong.
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Tom Rivers
Plus the 2025 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine jointly to Mary Branko, Fred.
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James Chambers
Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi.
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Emma Nelson
With one of the winners up a mountain with their phone switched off. We'll enjoy some belated celebrations for this year's Nobel Laureates for medicine and for chemistry too. Plus the latest theatre news. That's all coming up on the Globalist live from London. So let's begin straight away with the news that Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement to implement the first phase of President Trump's peace plan for Gaza. It includes release of the remaining 20 living hostages and also those who have died in Exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinians who are being held in Israeli jails. Well, to bring us up to date with a very fast moving story, I'm joined now from Istanbul by Ruth Michelson, journalist, Middle east correspondent, regular voice here on Monacle Radio. Good morning to you, Ruth.
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Ruth Michelson
Good morning, Emma.
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Emma Nelson
So what do what details do we have so far? We have the, the idea that there will be the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the pullback of Israeli troops and the release of Israeli hostages.
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Ruth Michelson
That's right. So we have some sense of a timeline a little bit loose like everything in this plan. So that will begin with the Israeli cabinet voting on this deal this evening. And once they have approved this deal, that starts the clock for 72 hours for Hamas and other Palestinian factions to release the remaining hostages. So as you Say that's expected to be 20 living hostages and the bodies of some 28 more. That's expected to take place over the weekend. And at the same time we are expected to see, or we are expecting to see the release of around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Some reporting in Haaretz this morning mentioning that the lists of names of Palestinian prisoners have not been approved by the Israeli side, which would appear to be something of a hamper on that specific part of the deal being enacted.
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Emma Nelson
Indeed. So let's just talk about how this got here because the week began with talks, indirect talks between Hamas and Israel. And these talks have remained indirect, haven't they, even to the point where when this deal has been agreed, they have not actually done face to face negotiation. But world leaders were convening on the meetings to effectively put pressure on both sides and that included Turkish envoys and indeed Qatari senior figures as well. There was a concerted effort by the whole region, wasn't there?
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Ruth Michelson
Absolutely. I mean, we saw this effort by the Egyptian mediators, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar, that's one person who has been pivotal to these negotiations since the 7th of October, 2023 attacks. He flew over there and there were also Turkish mediators there. And our understanding from what seems to have unfolded this week is that this pressure from these mediating part was instrumental on putting pressure on Hamas to agree to the deal or at least to agree to the parts of the deal that we've seen so far. There are major questions about some of the stickier points in this deal, particularly what Gaza will look like in a post war scenario. And I think there was some expectation that the presence of, of these mediators like Qatar, like Egypt and like Turkey, they were there to try and press Hamas on some of these stickier points and also the order in which things have been agreed, how they are discussed and in order to provide a good outcome. And so I think that there is some sense here that, you know, we're hearing that this is the first phase of a plan. I think there are big questions about what comes next. Do we see further negotiations on these stickier issues or do the Israelis and the Americans treat this as the deal being complete and that there's no need for further negotiations and so some major questions going forward into today.
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Emma Nelson
So we have the pressure, as you mentioned there being exerted by Middle Eastern figures to persuade Hamas to agree from the Israeli side that pressure came from Donald Trump, didn't it, a little while ago, just before the announcement was made as the deal was edging closer, Donald Trump gave this reaction to what was happening. Yeah, I was just given a note.
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Tom Rivers
By the Secretary of State saying that.
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Emma Nelson
We'Re very close to a deal in.
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Tom Rivers
The Middle east and they're going to.
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Emma Nelson
Need me pretty quickly. They're talking about this as being the Donald Trump deal that, you know, the 20 point plan it did seem, or how does it seem, or how close an involvement has Donald Trump had in personally pressurizing the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to his side of the deal?
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Ruth Michelson
I think when we're thinking about this, we need to think about what's changed or what hasn't changed under Donald Trump.
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Guarana Gurgic
Right.
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Ruth Michelson
Because when Joe Biden was in the White House, we would hear these, you know, every month or two, there was another story about how the President was very angry with Netanyahu and ultimately Netanyahu would ignore that anger and carry on doing what he wanted to do. There was a sense after the Israeli strikes on Doha just about a month ago that that was a red line for Donald Trump and that he therefore forced these negotiations and has pressured Netanyahu into signing this deal. But I think also when we're thinking about Donald Trump's hallmarks on this, I think the major hallmark is in how he has rolled out information about this deal. So you played that clip about Marco Rubio handing him a note, which then he immediately reads out to a room, I believe, full of right wing influences and live on camera. And the note, when people have been able to see the contents of it, is about Donald Trump writing a social media post. And a lot of the information that we're getting about what's been agreed or also what hasn't been agreed. Right. Or how vague some elements of this agreement are. For example, Trump mentioning that also there will be the dead bodies of fallen Israeli soldiers released as part over the weekend. Right. Key details like this are normally worked out for days in a meeting room. He is announcing off the cuff into the mic as they're happening or as they're close to being discussed. And in so doing, he has in some ways managed to amp up the pressure on Netanyahu, maybe in a way that Biden couldn't do, which was that one, he got the Israelis around the table at a time when Netanyahu made clear that that's not what he wanted to do. And by announcing every element of this deal as a kind of fait accompli, even when they were close to it or, you know, as things got close but hadn't quite been achieved, perhaps in the way that, you know, others might not accept. Donald Trump just came right out and said, no, no, this is done, this is happening, and I did it. And so that tactic has allowed, well, it's pressured Benjamin Netanyahu to agree. And it's also also given him a little bit of space in his statement on this to essentially brand it also as his victory to thank Trump and say, thank you so much for negotiating this and for this pressure, but also to say that this is a victory for him, too.
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Emma Nelson
Things are happening quite quickly, Ruth. We've already had Haaretz this morning in the last 10 minutes, has said that the Israeli army is beginning operational preparations for the first phase of the Gaza agreement, including withdrawal to adjusted deployment lines soon. They're deployed in the areas, as I said, but they are ready to start to withdraw. And we understand that the first wave of humanitarian relief trucks has entered Gaza from Egypt. There is a sense that once this starts, this is going to move very, very quickly.
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Ruth Michelson
That's true. I mean, I think that's also because people are exhausted and they are desperate. And I think that, you know, we're talking about Israel's longest war and also that there are, you know, this is a war that the level of suffering that has happened inside Gaza as a result of the Israeli assault is, I think, often beyond comprehension. And there is, you know, I think the UN and other parties want to try and get in there as well as soon as possible just to try and feed people and to try and, you know, to try and make things move, because we've seen in the past, even in the ceasefire earlier this year, that there was after, you know, that that ultimately collapsed and that resulted in massive restrictions on the ability of aid to get in, a blockade, full blockade imposed by the Israeli side. And so I think on the part of the UN where they've said they have something like 6,000 trucks that have been waiting for weeks, if not months to go, you know, to get into Gaza at the first opportunity. They want to use this, these first moments, every opportunity they possibly can. Even if there are still reports of airstrikes, that there's still, you know, major Israeli troop presence in Gaza City, they want to try and get this aid in there. There's a vital aid in there as soon as possible.
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Emma Nelson
Finally, briefly, we know that this is the first phase. Do we know what the second phase might look like?
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Ruth Michelson
Well, I mean, we know what was on the table for discussion as part of this, the 20 point plan that Donald Trump released And so we know that there is supposed to be discussion about who will govern Gaza in future, a transitional authority and about reconstruction. So we have a sense of what should be discussed. The question is whether due to, you know, what's happened here, whether there will be the same kind of pressure brought to bear on both sides to come up with concrete agreements that can be enacted on those ultimately much more difficult points moving, moving forward.
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Emma Nelson
Ruth Michelson in Istanbul, journalist and Middle east correspondent for us. Thank you so much for joining us. On Monocle Radio, this is the Globalist. The time is what, 7:12 here in London. It's 1:12am in Chicago. And Donald Trump has called for the mayor of Chicago to be arrested and has deployed the National Guard to support the president's immigration plan there. The arrival of the National Guard has been condemned by the Illinois state governor as unconstitutional and an invasion. Well, to tell us more, I'm joined by Tom Rivers, who's a former ABC Radio London correspondent. Good morning to you, Tom.
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Tom Rivers
Good day.
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Emma Nelson
So just explain to us how we got here.
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Tom Rivers
Well, again, in essence, it's, it's a classic example in America of federal power versus, if you will, devolve power through states or in the case of Illinois, the city of Chicago has been played out in, in other cities as well. And kind of, to boil it down, the deputy FBI director Dan Bongino said basically the administration is trying to, in essence, take back the streets city by city. We've seen this template played out in D.C. in Memphis. It has been starting in Portland. We've seen it played out in L. A. And the big crunch point right now is in Chicago. You mentioned there are some national guard troops about 50 miles to the southwest of Chicago as we speak From Texas, and 200 of them, they were en route. So a judge says, okay, we're trying to put up an injunction in, but because they are en route, they can go to the base. We will be solving this through other processes in the court in the coming days, but that's where we are. Classic case. Again, as I say, federal versus state. Who's going to win? We'll have to wait and see.
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Emma Nelson
Well, do we know what the National Guard are actually being told to do?
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Tom Rivers
Protect federal premises and personnel? You've probably seen the scenes in Portland where you have some protesters, you know, face to face, nose to nose with border ICE personnel spitting in their faces. And, you know, it's like putting a red flag to a bull. You mess with the bull, you get the horns. You don't do that. You do that you pay the consequences.
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Emma Nelson
And the pushback from the local authorities there has been very strong because Donald Trump has been talking about the trying to arrest or ordering the arrest or calling for the mayor of Chicago to be arrested. But they, neither the Chicago mayor nor indeed the governor of Illinois have been accused of criminal wrongdoing. This is simply that idea that you mentioned of Donald Trump harnessing the power of federal government to go after his political rivals.
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Tom Rivers
Well, that is the accusation. But if you look at the central core of many US Major urban areas, often with a Democratic governor in that state or a Democratic mayor, the central core of Chicago is, is rotting away. A business is, is floating away, they're running away. Crime is, is, is going off the scale. I can, you know, I retired last year from abc, but I'm on every Monday morning doing the newscast. Invariably, one of the stories would be, and in Chicago over the weekend, fill in the blank. Eight people were killed in gun violence, two dozen people wounded in the hospital. This has been going on for a long, long period of time.
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Emma Nelson
So this is something actually that, and we're given that social and economic problem that you just described there in Chicago, what does the presence of the National Guard and the involvement of Donald Trump at a national level to try to fix these problems?
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Tom Rivers
Well, again, he's, he's, he's trying to potentially could invoke the Insurrection act of 1807. What does that mean? It means National Guard, federal troops in, in US Cities. People are saying, man, we haven't heard this for a long period of time. 1992, last time it was invoked by H.W. bush, the, the riots in LA. So something that is not often seen in America. And you need a long, long memory to go back to 57. Ike did the same thing in trying to enforce desegregation in the US So certainly it is around. It is a card that is very, very seldom played. But again, the problem of crime in US Is something that has been growing like a cancer and has been relayed by the President. He says at least 21 million illegals have entered the country in the four years during the Biden administration. That figure is really not disputed. And the question is, what do you do about it while you kick the can down the road? If you are a mayor of Chicago, you actually try to confront the problem. If you are the president, how will.
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Emma Nelson
Sending the National Guard actually help this?
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Tom Rivers
It will protect ICE officials. We heard the calls, what, about a week ago, weekend ago, where ICE officials were under pressure, let's put it that way. And the the local police were called in and they were told to stand down, do not help your federal fellow fellow employees. So yes, it is, it is in stark black and white contrast what will happen there, as we've seen in the past with immigration battles going back for the past few months, they get hung up in court. Democratically appointed judges will put the brakes on some of the, if you will, ideas that are being put forward by the Trump administration. They get bounced up to a higher court, sometimes to the Supreme Court and then, you know, the Supreme Court will side with, with the Trump administration. So we'll see what shakes out. This has got a few more days to go. Will the troops go into Chicago, yes or no? We might have to revisit this maybe next week.
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Emma Nelson
Tom Rivers, former ABC Radio London correspondent, thank you so much for joining me on the line. Still to come on today's program, do.
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Tom Rivers
You hear the people sing, sing the.
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James Chambers
Song of angry men.
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Chris Smith
It is a music that is Les.
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Emma Nelson
Mis and it's 40 years old. We'll hear all about the celebrations for that and other headlines in the world of theatre a little bit later on. The globalist.
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Emma Nelson
8:20Am In Zurich, which is where we head now for today's newspaper review. And joining me from the Swiss city is Garana Gadget, who's Monocle security correspondent. Good morning, Guarana. How's Zurich looking today?
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Guarana Gurgic
Morning, Emma. Well, it's positively foggy and sort of gray, whitish, which is sort of what we've been experiencing more most of these early autumn days. So looking forward to maybe seeing some bluer skies later in the day apparently.
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Emma Nelson
We shall look forward to that. Thank you so much for that, Karana. Let's see how the papers are reacting to the breaking news overnight that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of the 20 point plan of Donald Trump to bring about peace in Gaza. As Monocle's security correspondent, do we know how the rest of the world is reacting to this in terms of the wider implications for global security?
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Guarana Gurgic
Yeah. Well, in the quick poll of the rest of the world, as the story keeps on developing, what I can say is that most of the coverage Internationally emphasizes uncertainty. So Hamas confirmed the deal publicly but is awaiting the final prisoner list. Of course, the implementation hinges also on Israeli cabinet sign off, which should be rather symbolic, but still, you know, it has to happen. And of course some of the statements by Prime Minister Netanyahu were also, you know, interpreted in different ways in terms of, you know, this thing being, being actually implemented. God willing, something along those lines. I think what we are all focusing at the moment is this first phase. But of course we have two phases that the kind of projected agreement should have. And then of course, even if all of these things are implemented, what will be the sort of appetite from the international community to see it through, to provide some of the necessary guarantees for both sides and how this thing will develop? I mean, it's very early days, so I think that we can't over emphasize and underscore how much of uncertainty there is. But of course these are encouraging steps and there is a lot of, at least at the moment, kind of confidence signaling from the fact that there will be this exchange of hostages and Palestinian detainees and temporary pullback of Israeli forces within Gaza.
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Emma Nelson
Goran, thank you very much indeed for that. Let's move on to a story in the Wall Street Journal that you wanted to draw our attention to about the exp of rare earth minerals.
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Guarana Gurgic
Absolutely. So this is a big story. I mean it's in, in this sort of basket of strategic competition that we are following us China, but in general sort of the great power rivalry which is the dominant paradigm of international security in the world that we live in. So it's a story out of Wall Street Journal, but FD has also reported on it and various other out outlets. It just came several hours ago. Basically we can call it sort of strategic supply chain diplomacy. I would say that this is just what Beijing is doing because it has those levers and that is basically to now requiring licenses not just for raw rare earths, but also for technologies that process them, from smelting methods to magnet production and for even foreign firms that use Chinese processing know how. So it's a sort of step up in what China has already been doing, given that it is basically a monopoly comes to the supply chain of rare earths. And these are needed from everything from consumer electronics to advanced munitions. So it is again kind of tightening its grip there. And what's really interesting is the timing because Presidents Trump and Xi are supposed to meet later this month on the sort of sidelines of the APAC meeting. So again, using trade as a leverage ahead of high level talks. Nothing new but again, the travel of the kind of direction of travel in this case is one that suggests even more sort of competition.
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Emma Nelson
What I found interesting in this Wall Street Journal article is, and you mentioned it briefly, was the dominance that China enjoys over exporting of rare earth minerals. I think this article says that 90% of rare earth minerals are produced in China. And this leverage that it has means that it can control an enormous amount of what happens in the rest of the world. In what you were talking about there, the production of everything from mobile phones to heavy munitions.
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Guarana Gurgic
That's absolutely right. And this is something that we have heard already described as the third China shock, right? If the first one was China being the kind of workshop of the world and sort of being able to produce at much lower cost and it's scale that the rest of the world couldn't. And the second one being this issue of overcapacity, the third China shock is one where China actually is able to control the supply of rare earths, not just because it has those things that it can dig out of its own, because it basically controls the processing. And this is something that only in recent years we've seen. We've seen, if you want to say, the kind of global west try to coalesce around and try to somehow offset China's control, but through various minerals partnerships and sort of looking at countries like Australia for instance, which also has a lot of these things underground. But China basically has for all this time been virtually very skillful actually to produce and to innovate in technologies that are used to deal with rare earths.
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Emma Nelson
Gurana, let's move on to a big couple of articles in the Financial Times talking about Davos. Now. For a very long time now, the World Economic Forum has been considered to be the hottest ticket in the world to try to get to Davos. At the beginning of each year they take, they go up the mountain, everybody is knee deep in snow and the networking capabilities of this event is phenomenal. Its star is falling. Is that correct?
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Guarana Gurgic
Well, if you were to read the FT Big read for this morning and also some of the newsletters that are coming out, basically there is this sort of sense that at least in this view, Davos days are numbered. You're right to say it's always been this sort of marketplace for influence, a place where people would go to broker deals, to shape agendas, to convene world's leaders. And now the kind of lens through which these stories are presented have to do with both internal and external pressures that the World Economic Forum is is facing. So internally there have been of course, the kind of organizational changes with the stepping down of Klaus Schwab, but also with some of the sort of stories and allegations over the various misconducts within the organization. And then of course we can't help but notice that there are various other forums whose star has been rising and that are basically now serving as these elite networking opportunities. Some are very close to where Davos is on the map. And I would point to Munich security conferences as one of those. But also the fact that you now have increasingly people going to, for instance, Riyadh, where World Economic Forum has this sort of spinoff session and various other places around Asia which are now sort of following this sort of idea that the world's geopolitical center is moving further to the east and that maybe this is where future sort of Davos are going to take place.
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Emma Nelson
Briefly, Grana, what does this do for Brand Switzerland?
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Guarana Gurgic
Well, that's the one question that actually even for the past kind of iteration, when we've heard that Klaus Schwab would be stepping down and that again some of these stories about minor and major scandals were breaking out, those were the ones that were really followed within the kind of corners of I would say both Bern and Zurich. What this all might mean for how Switzerland, Switzerland is able to set agenda and kind of present itself on the global stage. I would say it's not looking great if you consider the fact that this is also happening at a time when we are seeing a lot of questions around the future of global Geneva as well. So having that convening power is something that is increasingly hard when you have so many other centers around the world that are also vying to be that spot.
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Emma Nelson
Guarana Gurgic, thank you so much for joining us on the line from Zurich. That was Monocle Security correspondent there with the pay per view. You're with the Globalist. And a quick look now at some of the other stories we're following today. Taiwan has warned that China is increasing its military activities near to the island and also increased its hybrid online warfare tactics. The Taiwanese Defense Ministry released its biannual report on China's activity describing efforts by Beijing to put pressure on Taiwan, including non combat operations such as coast guard patrols, damage to undersea cables and flying balloons. France is expected to have a new prime minister by the end of the week. That's according to the outgoing premier, Sebastien Lecournu. In a televised address to the nation, Monsieur Lecournu put forward a possible way out of the political crisis gripping France by saying that conditions to form a new government were being put in place. And Dolly Parton has released a social media video addressing speculation about her health after she cancelled a number of shows. In the video, the country music star acknowledged she'd had some problems but insisted she wasn't ready to die yet. This is the Globalist. Stay tuned. No, it's what, 7:31 here in London. That means it's 8:31 if you're listening in Stockholm. And it was only when the wife of Fred Ramsdell switched on her phone and discovered a deluge of congratulatory messages that she realized that her scientist husband had won the Nobel Prize for medicine. It was her subsequent screams which caught Mr. Ramsdell's attention, and he rushed to her calls thinking she was being eaten by a bear. Well, that was because they were on a hiking holiday. He had switched his phone off, and her reaction to his victory was the only way that he'd found out that he'd won the Nobel Prize for medicine. Well, let's find out a little bit more about the award for medicine and also about chemistry, too. Dr. Chris Smith is host of the Naked Scientist podcast and a virologist at Cambridge University. Here not just to talk about Fred Ramsdell's digital detox, but also why he won. Good morning, Chris.
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Chris Smith
Good morning.
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Emma Nelson
We do have to touch on this because it is actually has almost. Well, indeed it has overtaken the story about the success story of the medical aspect of all this.
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Chris Smith
Well, another Nobel Prize winner, who's actually a friend of mine, Barry Marshall, who lives in Western Australia, said he and Rob Warren, who he won with for medicine a number of years ago now, they got the Nobel Prize for discovering the bacterium Helicobacter pylori that causes stomach cancer and stomach ulcers and duodenal ulcers. They used to meet, he says, annually and have dinner celebrating their discovery, but speculating, well, will we ever get this recognized? And eventually they did. And he still got the letter. The conference where he sent the discovery of Helicobacter pylori that rejected giving him a talk, still got that framed on his desk. So Nobel Prize winners inevitably have some very interesting things up their sleeves to share with the world.
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Emma Nelson
There's always a lovely humility to all of it as well. We're talking an awful lot about Donald Trump wanting the Nobel Prize. And with this, this, this deal happening in, in, in Egypt, about Israel, Gaza, you see the, you know, the, the, the Argentinian president Xavier Milei saying Donald Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize for straight away and all this kind of stuff. And yet the people who really do the heavy lifting in this, in, in the sort of like behind the scenes are very, very normal but brilliant people.
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Chris Smith
Yeah, well, a friend of mine who got the obe, I mean it's not.
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Emma Nelson
You've got some great friends, Chris.
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Chris Smith
Well, you've got to mix with the right people. But he sent everyone a thank you card to the lab where he spent his career working and said OBE stands for other buggers effort. And it's all about, as you say, the people behind the scenes doing the heavy lifting. But it's teamwork and science is all about teamwork. And very much everyone I ever talk to who wins these sorts of awards and these recognitions is always very, very keen to point out that they represent a big team and it's a collective effort. We don't do science as individuals anymore. We've gone beyond the days of Isaac Newton, sitting there thinking deep thoughts and coming up with universe breaking theories. We're into an era of science now where you need massive budgets, massive machines and massive brains in order to make the next leap. And that's what these guys have done. The medicine prize went for discovering an element of the immune system which, well, if you think about the immune system's probably the biological equivalent of nuclear arms. I mean, it's so devastating, so destructive in the wrong hands that as it were, you need regulators. Just like the nuclear industry needs regulators. The immune system has regulators. And the prize for that went to this, this triumvirate who worked out how T regulatory cells work and how the immune system keeps itself in check. So you have this devastating weapon, but you don't turn it on yourself. And when it does turn on itself, you see the consequences, they're all too obvious.
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Emma Nelson
What do T cells do and what happens when they go wrong?
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Chris Smith
Well, the T cells are one of the populations of white blood cells in the body. And they help to boost the immune response and recognize things that the immune system needs to go after. But what the winners of the Nobel Prize realized is that you also have populations of T cells that waggle a finger and say, no, don't do that. They're called regulatory T cells. They are educated about what is friend, not foe. And they then prowl around the body, helping to dial down the immune response where it would be inappropriate. And a really good example of this is if you take a woman who's pregnant, that woman has a baby growing inside her in direct contact with her bloodstream, and all the elements of her immune system, but which is 50% genetically incompatible with her, because half that baby's DNA is her husband. Well, if you just took a kidney or any other thing from somebody who's 50%, not you, and put it into you, your immune system would have something to say about it within seconds. It would just devastate it. It would be destroyed. Regulatory T cells which migrate to the placenta and control how the immune system relates to and reacts and responds to that baby, play a crucial role in making sure that that pregnancy progresses to term healthily. And when they go wrong, you end up with conditions like potentially preeclampsia, where there is a loss of control and a loss of regulation. So they're very, very important in that. And that's just one example of what these cells do.
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Emma Nelson
Let's talk about the Nobel prize winners for chemistry as well. Just explain a little bit more about that. It was awarded to, again, a team on their work on metal organic frameworks. Chris, could you go into explanation mode again for us, please?
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Chris Smith
Well, it helps to think about this because what we're talking about are clusters of atoms. So it helps to sort of picture what these would look like. If you imagine some atoms, little footballs, and they're joined together with rods, one football to the next one to the next one, and you assemble them a bit like a toy that a child would assemble to make a molecular cage. This is what metal organic frameworks look like. There are lots of those cages strung together side by side by side. So they form a sort of matrix of little cages. What can you do with cages like that? Well, depending upon what metals you put into these cages in the walls of the cages, you can functionalize them. So you can make those structures have chemical behaviors. For instance, because they're very open, you can have a gas flowing through there, and the gas will interact with the walls of the organic framework, the metal organic framework. And it can either be modified because chemical reactions can happen on the walls, or it can stick on. And so by using these sorts of things, you can get, for instance, hydrogen atoms and hydrogen molecules to go into these molecular and then stick onto the wall, bringing the pressure right down. So you could use this as a way to store large amounts of hydrogen at low pressure more safely. You could flow through a waste stream of carbon dioxide, for example, from a power plant or the exhaust pipe of a car, potentially in the future. And the carbon dioxide will interact with the right combinations of atoms which are in these frameworks, and be chemically modified, perhaps turning it into something that isn't a gas that can escape into the atmosphere and cause global warming. Instead, into a safe chemical formic acid or urea or something like that. You can do various other chemistries and then you've got a feedstock that you could use for other chemical reactions, using some of the waste heat from the exhaust, for example. So this is why this is judged to be an important breakthrough, because it unlocks a lot of exciting chemistry and a lot of solutions to current problems.
- [39:16]
Emma Nelson
Chris, finally, you mentioned a little bit earlier about the sort of the general atmosphere or the way that science is moving at the moment. We have a very tricky political climate in the United States for scientific research. We have Nobel Prize winners in both the chemistry and the medical sections being from the United States. What are the fears within the scientific community about what the political climate is doing to people's ability to research and the future?
- [39:45]
Chris Smith
Well, Americans are very heavily represented in Nobel Prizes because America spends big on everything, but especially on science. And it has the world's foremost scientific institutions because they've been hitherto extremely well funded. Anything which jeopardizes funding dreams has a long legacy because it takes time to build those teams we were talking about. It takes time to build the momentum and the discoveries because when you discover something, inevitably you're already thinking about what you're going to do next and what doors that will open. And when you're already in a position to capitalize on those insights and discoveries, you can move at speed. Anything that curtails that will hold up the field for a really long time. And we saw this historically when, when the George Bush administration came in, they put a moratorium on a lot of what could be done in America with stem cells. What happened? Well, it held back the stem cell biology field in America for a very long time. But other countries were the beneficiary of some of those big brains from America who came to countries like the UK where we didn't have those sorts of impediments and they published the work here. So we were the beneficiary. So there was a delay. It held people up, it held America up. But ultimately the field still moved forward and luckily things regrouped and we regained momentum. But it does cost time, inevitably, and that can cost lives in some respects.
- [41:06]
Emma Nelson
Dr. Chris Smith, host of the Naked Scientist podcast and virologist at Cambridge University and regular voice here on Monocle. Thank you so much for joining us on the Globalist. Now, just how much can and should Taiwan spend on defence? The US has called for up to 10% of GDP being dedicated to defense. Yet Taiwan and Taipei say they simply don't have the money for us. Well, let's hear now from Brian Heo, who's a founding editor of New Bloom magazine. Good morning, Brian.
- [41:38]
Brian Heo
Thank you for having me.
- [41:39]
Emma Nelson
So this, this is a current debate over, over Taiwanese defense spending. Just lay out, lay out the situation, would you, please?
- [41:46]
Brian Heo
Yeah, absolutely. So the Trump administration is trying to pressure Taiwan to spend more on defense, saying that, well, the US should not get involved in defending Taiwan if Taiwan does not spend enough on its own defense. But the number keeps changing. Sometimes it's 5% at once. Now it is increased to 10% at 2.5% of the GDP, this is already one third of government spending and so increasing to 10%. Where is the money going to come from? That's a big question.
- [42:12]
Emma Nelson
And just explain to us what realistically the Taiwanese budget is at the moment. I mean, you mentioned there the fact that President Lai is, what, setting a goal of 5%. It's quite difficult to talk about the percentage points quite simply. But at the moment, is that a realistic goal?
- [42:30]
Brian Heo
It isn't. But interestingly enough, I think the Lai administration is trying to find some wiggle room, for example, saying you'll do that, you'll increase the defense budget. Will you actually do that? It's a very different matter saying you'll accomplish this increase by 2030. That's the Trump administration may not be in office. This also takes place in the context of unprecedented cuts to Taiwan's budget that was pushed for by the opposition kmt. And so there's less money to go around, especially on defense.
- [42:55]
Emma Nelson
And indeed, does Taiwan, or how much pressure does Taiwan feel when it hears calls from Washington to up its defense spending to 10% of GDP? Because, as you've just mentioned, it is, is it is not necess. It's not a realistic prospect for Taipei at least. But the fact remains that there is always that worry that if it does not jump to Washington's requests, that the support may be withdrawn.
- [43:21]
Brian Heo
Absolutely. And so that is very much a concern under the Trump administration, which has at times lashed out against Taiwan, claiming that Taiwan stole the US Semiconductor industry and otherwise have this animus towards Taiwan at times. And so key officials such as Elbridge Colby, for example, may be looking for pretext, in fact, to dial back support of Taiwan by setting these impossible goals. And so I think there is concern in Taiwan because of this.
- [43:44]
Emma Nelson
Meanwhile, there's been some news breaking in the last few hours that Taiwan has issued what These, these biannual reports about what the Chinese military is doing at the moment. And it said that China, Beijing is increasing its military activities near to its island. It's increasing hybrid online warfare tactics. It's non combat operations such as coast guard patrols, damage to undersea cables, flying balloons as well. I mean, does it feel as if the pressure is being ramped up and that China's trying to tighten its grip around the island?
- [44:18]
Brian Heo
Yeah, it definitely is the case that China is escalating military activity. And so military activity that once took place every once in a while is now much more regularized. And we see gray zone tactics blurring the line between for example, civilian maritime activity and military maritime activity. And so that's concerning for Taiwan. We're talking more about scenarios like a blockade, for example, rather than an all out invasion. A blockade that would maybe not destroy infrastructure and not lead to as much loss of life on both sides, but then could perhaps push Taiwan to surrender. And so Taiwan is also seeking to upgrade capacities such as an asymmetric warfare to deal with a much larger allocation adversary with much less material and manpower.
- [44:58]
Emma Nelson
What if the United States does turn away from Taiwan?
- [45:03]
Brian Heo
It's a very big question because I think there is increasing talk of self reliance, particularly as Trump in his first and second terms has been so reliable. But Taiwan could not fend off China indefinitely. The idea would be to hold out long enough for another power to intervene. And so I think this will affect the region, region writ large. Taiwan may be pushed closer, for example to Japan. The Philippines would also be looking at this with some anxiousness. At the same time, there's concern that such powers in the region could perhaps turn towards China if they also feel that the US is turning the screws on them, which also is occurring.
- [45:36]
Emma Nelson
Brian here, the founding editor of New Bloom magazine. Thank you so much for joining us on the line. You're with the globalist on Monocle Radio.
- [45:46]
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- [46:24]
Emma Nelson
Time now to talk about all things stage and theatre. Now I'm joined in the studio by Matt Wolfe, theatre critic at the International New York Times. Matt is usually a kind of sort of sober headed man. When he walks in, he's determined, he knows what he's doing. He has just rushed in, showed me his wristband for the Les Mis party, and then went, I didn't get home till three. Well done, Matt Wolfe.
- [46:45]
Matt Wolfe
I know. And here I am four and a half hours later. How did I manage that?
- [46:48]
Emma Nelson
You're a major dirty, Emma. You're a major dirty sop out. And we don't approve. It sounds amazing fun. 40 years old.
- [46:54]
Matt Wolfe
You know, what's interesting is back in the day, it was incredible if a show ran two years. And now we think, oh, 40 years, that's the norm. Les Mis this year, Phantom next year. But it isn't. It's just so unusual. And I think Cameron McIntosh, the producer, is not far off 80, is thinking, what happens when this show outlives me? Of course, that's what I feel about most things now, too.
- [47:14]
Emma Nelson
No, this man pulls an Alma Nighter, then comes into. Comes into monocle. Congratulations. Youthful. All right, so what is it about Les Mis which has let it sort of hit its middle age?
- [47:26]
Matt Wolfe
Well, the thing about it is it's so kind of anthemic, and it just appeals to crusades and revolutionaries of all stripes. And I think really, you can adopt its kind of fervor and zeal to almost whatever. And God knows there are enough causes.
- [47:41]
Emma Nelson
Now and you'll have seen it more than once. How many times do you think you've seen it?
- [47:44]
Matt Wolfe
I think I've probably seen it three or four times over the years, but this is the first time I'd seen the new production of it. The original Trevor Nunn, John Kerr production was amended about a quarter century or so ago. And this production is really remarkable for its lighting by Polly Constable, which is just the most beautifully sculptural thing on the Sondheim Theatre stage. Go to Les Mis for the lighting.
- [48:03]
Emma Nelson
Okay, we shall do the. Interesting is, do you see different things in it each time you. Each time you.
- [48:08]
Matt Wolfe
I think so. And also the performers, it's interesting. They rise up through the ranks. So Cillian Donnelly, who's now playing Jean Valjean, the principal role, has been three or four other parts in it over the years. So you feel as if you're watching people grow up through the musical as you yourself are growing up watching it.
- [48:22]
Emma Nelson
Okay, and here's to another 40 years. And here's to another more 2am party. Well done, Matt Wolf. Thank you very much. Let's talk about new shows which are probably hoping angling for that kind of longevity. Where do you want to begin?
- [48:38]
Matt Wolfe
Well, there are a couple of new shows at the National Theatre where, I mean, you Know, it's more like 40 performances, or maybe 50 or 60, but certainly not 40 years. Interestingly, two new plays, one, a familiar title, Bacchae, based on the Euripides Greek classic. And the other, Land of the Living. Land of the Living. Let me say something about that because it's a particularly meaty, robust play about a scheme during the Second World War whereby largely Slavic children were displaced back to Germany to be coerced, co opted into Nazi families and raised as a pure Aryan breed. And this is a shameful and forgotten part of history, brought to light by the playwright David Lan, and brilliantly served by the director Stephen Daldry and his star, Juliet Stevenson. If somebody thinks that British theatre isn't ambitious enough, they should certainly see this play. I suppose my quibble with it is that it sometimes feels like a Netflix film squeezed on stage, but it certainly has something to say and the cast delivers it amazingly. There's also an incredible performance by young boy called Artie Wilkinson Hunt, who plays the anguished young kid who has been displaced. And boy, is he somebody to watch.
- [49:48]
Emma Nelson
And explain that Netflix squeezed onto a stage thing?
- [49:52]
Matt Wolfe
Well, because there's. It's one of these where it's a memory play. So you see the young boy as an adult looking back on this shameful event from his past. And Juliet Stevenson plays a UN relief worker who's sort of keen on restitution to making, to kind of the shameful history that this boy has undergone and that he now has taken with him into adulthood. And there is so much kind of stuff to deal with. There's a lot of narrative, the story is very knotty, very complicated, and the play tells it well enough, but I thought as a screen event it could kind of unfold and breathe more easily. But it's certainly worth seeing in this iteration.
- [50:30]
Emma Nelson
Tell me a little bit more about where the National Scene Theatre sits globally in terms of the theatre that it offers. It is often the location one gets the impression for meaty, difficult plays, but that require quite a big scale and dare I say, requires money and a big cast. But when it comes to the role that it plays globally, where is it standing?
- [50:53]
Matt Wolfe
Well, there is no doubt, especially with difficulties going on with the Broadway theater, which have been much chronicled, and other issues in America, that the national is more important than ever. And of course, it's had a regime change. I this play is a byproduct of the Rufus Norris regime that has now finished and he programmed this. And he has another play that he programmed coming up called End by David Eldridge. And meanwhile, Indirupasingham, who's taken over the first woman artist director, the national first artist director, also of color, has launched her own regime with Bacchae, which is the other new play there now, which is Euripides, filtered through a very scatological, free for all lens, which is meant to be inclusive, very hip, very lively. I suspect that if you're a purist, you, you will absolutely loathe it. And if you go thinking, well, let's just see what energy these classic texts have, you'll have a good time. But leave your scruples at the door. For purity.
- [51:45]
Emma Nelson
I shall leave my scruples at the door. You were desperate, are desperate to talk to us about a revival of an Irish play, the Weir.
- [51:53]
Matt Wolfe
Yeah. This is a play I remember very fondly from the late 90s. It was done originally at the Royal Court. It's by Conor McPherson. It's called the Weir. And it's one of these plays where seemingly nothing happens and in fact everything happens. It's set in a rural Irish pub on a very windy day where a bunch of lads come together to trade stories and, you know, the crack the chat. And into their midst comes a young woman called Valerie from Dublin who's recently moved to the community. And all these blokes set about to try to impress her with very spooky stories. And then she one ups them because she has a spooky story of her own. And the difference is that hers is based on in truth. And when they hear her story, it completely changes the landscape. The calling card of this production is that Connor McPherson, the playwright, has himself directed it with incredible kind of beauty and empathy. And it also marks a rare stage appearance by the wonderful Irish actor Brendan Gleeson, who we know from films like the Banshees of Inisherin. And he is in absolutely superlative form in the play. And he gets the most devastating final monologue, which is really an appeal for empathy and compassion. And if that doesn't resonate now, I don't know what does.
- [53:02]
Emma Nelson
Where does it sit in your review of the year so far? Cause we're in October now, so you'll have seen the best part of what's on offer.
- [53:09]
Matt Wolfe
I would say I've seen some great musicals or plays driven by music this year, but this is certainly the best non musical event I've seen this year. I went to the Saturday matinee last week and the minute it was over I wanted to go right back in and see it again.
- [53:24]
Emma Nelson
Thank you so much for joining Us in the studio, Matt Wolfe still holding his, still with his wristband on. He's waving it. Everybody from the International New York Times. I suspect it's bedtime for you.
- [53:35]
Matt Wolfe
Yes. Off to get some sleep.
- [53:37]
Emma Nelson
Thank you very much indeed for joining me on the Globalist 7:53 here in London, 14:53 in Hong Kong, which is where we head to next. Our Asia editor James Chambers is holding the fort at Monocle's pop up at the Upper House. Good afternoon James.
- [54:22]
James Chambers
I must confess I'm not quite holding the Fortidac Cafe. That was our, that was my plan but unfortunately it's a bit too successful and there are families having, still having a late lunch there. So I've moved upstairs and commandeered a kind of a private kitchen looking out over Victoria Harbor. So it's very nice outside, it's very sunny and you know, Hong Kong is kind of basking in this golden week glow because it's the Mid Autumn festival here. It's been National Day so there's a lot of Chinese tourists in town and it seems to be getting back on its feet. There's a lot of events happening. Like last night was the world's 50 bars and we've got our own event tonight. We're having a kind of a cocktail hosted by our founder Tyler. He's in town and it's to celebrate this, this pop up cafe and shop that we have at the Upper House which is one of the the best kind of hotels in, in Hong Kong if not Asia. And we're going to be in popping up there for, until November. So we're having a little bit celebration tonight to mark that occasion.
- [55:24]
Emma Nelson
Tell us about why the Upper House has been, has been chosen as the location for a Monocle pop up.
- [55:33]
James Chambers
Well, people who know you know Monocle and know Monocle in Hong Kong will have been to our, our shop and our office in, in Wan Chai and the, the Upper High House is, is close by. It's owned by Swire Hotels. I mean they do some really amazing hotels around Asia and we've had a kind of a, a close relationship with them over the years and we've, it's something we've talked about for a long time. I mean I, I lived in Hong Kong. I worked you know, full Monocle out of our bureau here for, for almost a decade and it was something that was always being discussed. So it's amazing to see that it's finally happening. I flew in last night from Bangkok so it's the first time I saw the Cafe and the shop here, and it looks great. It's getting some great feedback. And so, yeah, it's gone down very well.
- [56:26]
Emma Nelson
And so well, excuse me, that you've actually been evicted from your own cafe because it's too busy. Right, let's talk about this amount of business growth or where Hong Kong hospitality lies more generally at the moment. We often look at Hong Kong as a place where it is stuck as a victim of political problems. Yet business and retail and investment and hospitality are still absolutely sort of thriving and pushing hard, aren't they?
- [56:55]
James Chambers
Well, there's always a bit of a lag, I think, between some of the headlines and actually the reality on the ground. So, I mean, I've been coming back. I come back perhaps every quarter and you kind of see it gradually getting back to the old Hong Kong. So I can imagine that the headlines will soon catch up and we'll see more and more stories about how business is coming back, people are coming back. And just looking at the F and B scene, which is very important here. I mean, they've had a great golden week. They've seen takings up 20%. So it seems like the important market from China, it is back. I was talking to someone from one of the big FNB groups here called Black Sheep, and they were saying that their summer they've just had is the biggest and best in their history. So that's a huge thing. And they've opened a ton of restaurants and I, I ate one of them last night called Salon de Refuge. And if, if anyone has, anyone knows Hong Kong and knows Bridges street, you know, that used to be the happening place and it went through a bit of a downturn during COVID Very sad, a lot of places closed. But now, you know, it's really popping again. It's got a ton of great restaurants and including the best bar in the world now. Bar Leone.
- [58:19]
Emma Nelson
James, we'll have to leave it there, but we look forward if you are in Hong Kong, cocktails at the Upper House a little bit later on from what, 6:30pm, I am told.
- [58:28]
James Chambers
That's right.
- [58:29]
Emma Nelson
Great.
- [58:29]
James Chambers
Forward to seeing everyone.
- [58:30]
Emma Nelson
Thank you very much indeed for that, James. And we do wish you all the best at the Upper House. That's all the time we have for today's program. However, the warmest of thanks to all my guests and thanks too to our producers, Monica Lillis, Carlotta Rubello and Ryuma Takahashi. In Tokyo, our researcher was Joanna Moza and our studio manager was Elliot Greenfield. After the headlines, there's more music on the way. The briefings like at midday here in London. The Globalist is back at the same time tomorrow and I hope you can join me for that if you can. But for now, from me, Emma Nelson, goodbye. Thank you very much for listening.
- [59:17]
Chris Smith
Foreign.
- [59:22]
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- [59:43]
Emma Nelson
Better.
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