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Craft matters in small ways like how a coffee is brewed, and in not so small ways like how your money is cared for. Which is why for 160 years, UBS has elevated banking to a craft, tailoring unique strategies that combine human expertise with the latest technologies, all happening across 24 time zones and 12 key financial hubs. With you at the heart of it all, UBS advice is our craft.
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You're listening to the Globalist, first broadcast on the 6th of March, 2026 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. In Lebanon, thousands of people flee Beirut as Israel steps up its campaign against Hezbollah. We'll examine how the war in Iran has reopened fronts across the region. Also ahead in the next 60 minutes, Colombia goes to the polls in an election expected to expose a splintered political map. Plus, the papers, what we learned.
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And whenever anybody gets hold of things, they feel that they have to have a slogan almost. And the people I work with kept saying it was a reawakening.
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We celebrate the reopening of Simpsons, one of London's landmark restaurants. That's all coming up on THE Globalist. Live from London. First, a quick look at what else is happening in today's news. The US Defence Department has designated the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic as a supply chain risk for refusing to allow its technology to be used in mass domestic surveillance. A lawyer representing the Hong Kong pro Democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai has said he will not appeal against his conviction, which saw him sentenced to 20 years in jail. And President Trump has sacked his Homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, one of the most high profile cabinet members. Stay tuned to Monocle Radio throughout the day for more on these stories. But first, the US And Israel say they're intensifying their attacks on Iran. The US Defense secretary said that firepower over Iran was about to expand dramatically. Israel said it targeted regime infrastructure in Tehran overnight. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, the Israeli military says it's begun striking Hezbollah infrastructures in Beirut's Arabia Saudi southern suburbs after ordering hundreds of thousands of people to leave. Hezbollah has responded by warning Israelis living within 5km of the Lebanese border to leave their homes. Well, I'm joined now from Lebanon by the journalist Kim Katas, who's a contributor to the Atlantic and contributing editor to the Financial Times. Kim, you were in Beirut until yesterday, but have now joined the hundreds of thousands who have gone. A very good morning to you.
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D
Good morning From Lebanon, Indeed.
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B
I was going to say, I mean, how good a morning can it be when we have this launch of strikes that's begun by the Israelis Hezbollah in Beirut.
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D
So these strikes have been ongoing since Sunday, and it's important for your listeners to know that Israeli strikes against Lebanon have been ongoing for over a year, even after the ceasefire that was put in place in November 2024. These strikes don't make headlines, but they are a daily occurrence. And since Sunday, those strikes have now intensified and are targeting also the southern suburbs of Beirut, including also eastern suburbs of Beirut in Christian areas. It's important to understand that southern suburbs sounds like a distant area away from the city, but this is very densely populated area. It's not like we imagine suburbs in London or in US Towns. These are very densely populated areas that are very immediately adjacent to the actual city. I live not in the southern suburbs, but two blocks away from the southern suburbs and with other people in the neighborhood. Yesterday, even though our area was not on the map of evacuation requested or demanded by the Israelis, we chose to leave because we were not quite sure the extent to which Israel would bomb these areas. And so the noise, the pollution, the fear, we decided to leave for northern Lebanon. Hundreds of people had to flee their homes, pack up their bags, and move north or east into the country. And that puts a lot of pressure on Lebanon's general population as well.
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B
Indeed. I mean, where people can flee to is that there are only limited spaces. But you mentioned that there have been strikes on Lebanon on Beirut since 2024. But this, since Saturday, is the reopening, isn't it, of a conflict that has been going on for some time?
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D
Yes, it is an intensification of the conflict. And it feels to me as though the Israelis are moving according to a plan, the contours of which are still undefined. But they probably feel that they had unfinished business when the ceasefire came into effect in November of 2024. How exactly they want to proceed now is still unclear. They've made threats about turning the southern suburbs of Beirut into the equivalent of Khan Younis, an area of Gaza that was flattened. They probably want to find a way to potentially control the Lebanon airport, which is also adjacent to the southern suburbs. And there have always been concerns in Israel, justified or not, that the airport is used by Hezbollah and Iran to ferry people in and out, or cash and so on. The Lebanese government has given assurances that they are very much in control of the airport's security, of everything that comes in and out of there. But somehow it feels to me as though the Israelis are moving according to a plan that also includes potentially moving further ground troops into southern Lebanon.
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B
Now explain to us a little bit more about where we stand with ground troops, because we've had yesterday the French President, Emmanuel Macron, talking to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and asking him to refrain from a ground offensive in Lebanon. That suggests that something is very likely.
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D
Yes. I don't think Netanyahu is listening to President Macron. If they've decided they need a ground offensive to take a few kilometers of southern Lebanon to use as their buffer zone, they will go ahead. They never fully withdrew from Lebanon after the ceasefire of 2024. They kept five points within their control inside Lebanon that are on a higher point and overlook southern Lebanon. And I suspect that they will try to take over a long buffer zone along the border between Israel and Lebanon to maintain control and maintain their ability to keep people, keep the Lebanese away from the border, out of their villages, and create a de facto depopulated zone along the border.
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B
Kim, let's move on to the more wide story of the Israeli US Operations in Iran. The US Say that they're intensifying their attacks on Iran. The defense Secretary said that firepower is about to expand dramatically. Do we have a sense of what this might look like and indeed what the effect may be? Because there are pictures coming out of Iran already which suggest that the bombing has had an extremely profound effect on certain parts of the country.
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D
Yes. I'm not quite sure what the military strategy is there. I think initially the Israelis and Americans were hoping that the bombing campaign would either create defections within the regime and or push people into the streets to overthrow their government. But you have to remember that under the threat of bombings and the fear of death from the sky, it's very hard for people to take to the streets and overthrow their government. A, because they're too afraid and they're busy finding safety, and B, because there is always a sense of, if not rallying around the flag, which has been taken over by the Islamic Republic, then at least rallying around the nation in the face of an external enemy. Even though people celebrated the killing of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, they're now realizing that America and Israel don't really have a plan that involves bringing a better future for Iran when it comes to the regime. They've been preparing for this for a long time. This is a fight to the death for them. At the moment, we don't see any signs yet of defections, of splits at the top. Quite the contrary. It could suddenly unravel. But right now we don't see any signs of defections. And they seem to be preparing for a long fight because they know that they have the Islamic Republic. The Iranian regime has more capacity to endure and take losses than Israel and the United States usually do. And they're also keeping an eye on Gulf countries that are already talking about the economic pressure that this is putting on their countries and having to revisit their investments in the US to preserve their resources for what is a very damaging war.
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B
Finally, let's talk a little bit about President Trump's decision or announcement that's all over the papers that he says he needs to be personally involved in selecting Iran's next leader. He believes that the next leader will be the son of the assassinated supreme leader he died at the weekend. Trump has said this is unacceptable. Having covered the U.S. state Department for the best part of what, six, seven years, what do you make of these announcements?
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D
I don't think President Trump is going to be invited to the assembly of Experts that is going to choose the next supreme leader. So President Trump can say that he needs to be involved. That's what he thinks. But the only way that this would happen is because every time the Iranians might choose somebody, they'll have a target on their back and they will likely keep targeting them. So that's how the US And Israel could eliminate choices they don't like. But some of what President Trump is saying is, of course, nonsensical. He's now saying also that the Iranian regime has been decimated for a ten year period. Well, last year he said that the Iranian nuclear program had been obliterated. Now he's saying that they were close to having the bomb and there was an imminent threat. Then we find out that actually the imminent threat was the fact that Israel was going to go ahead with a strike and therefore Iran was going to retaliate and America was going to become a target. So America had to strike first. There is seemingly no American plan for how this war needs to unfold. There is a president who feels that this all looks beautiful and spectacular. But the people who do have a plan, it seems to me, are the Israelis. And from listening to Israeli experts, former intelligence officials who are being very vocal and very clear and very analytical, they're saying that the plan is disarray inside Iran, which to me sounds like they're willing to continue striking Iran at will for a very long time. We may be looking at a scenario like Iraq under Saddam hussein during the 1990s, which will be a kind of containment under embargo, which is not definitely not what the Iranian people were hoping for. And it's worth emphasizing again that there is no legitimacy to this war, not UN Resolution, not Congress approval, not an international coalition. And two things can be true at the same time, that this regime was an awful regime that has oppressed its people for four decades and made life miserable for millions around the region with its policy of supporting proxy militias. But equally, this is not the way to conduct a war.
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Kim Katas on the line from northern Lebanon. Thank you so much for joining me on the Globalist. You're listening to Monocle Radio. Now, the United States House of Representatives has rejected a resolution to halt Donald Trump's military actions against Iran. It's the latest test of the US President's decision to go to war against Iran, a move which, which is seen by Democrats as an overreaching of the Paris president's executive powers. J. Mai is a reporter based in Washington, D.C. h.J. Welcome back to Monocle Radio.
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E
Glad to be back.
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B
Now, just explain to us why this resolution failed.
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E
Well, it failed because, you know, the parties voted along party lines. And I think, as you mentioned, you know, that nobody at the moment has an appetite to really rein in the president. You know, with Republicans being in charge of the House of Representatives, you know, have the majority there. There's just among Republicans, no appetite at the moment. You know, what is it now, the day seventh after the strikes, to reign in his power and to, you know, take back constitutional powers that Congress actually has. And that's why the vote failed.
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B
And the reason that the Democrats brought this in the first place was because they firmly believe that you cannot launch a military strike if you are America without congressional approval.
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E
That is accurate. Unfortunately, you know, Congress hasn't declared war. Unfortunately is probably a wrong word. But, you know, it's just Congress hasn't declared war on anybody since World War II. So, you know, whether they were Republicans or Democratic presidents in the past who have all violated that, that rule, as you mentioned. And so, yes, but Democrats are strongly opposed against this war, opposed against any military action without first congressional approval.
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B
And this is something that is a much wider question, isn't it? Because we've seen the US Launch strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities last year. We saw the seizing of Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro in January. And these were all military operations which were ordered without congressional approval. So what does this say about the way that things are playing out within Washington?
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E
Well, I think it just, you know, shows how much power at the moment in the. Is in the executive branch and especially, you know, with this president. I think it was clear when, when he was reelected, you know, everybody was talking about Project 2025. And part of that project, part of that goal that that was laid out by some Republican, you know, thinkers here in D.C. was to increase the power of the presidency even more. And I think that was. Has played out during the first year of his second term. You know, Trump has really amassed more power and as you mentioned, especially when it comes to military action. You know, he has just, you know, used, you know, other, you know, methods and other, you know, reasons to launch those strikes without first going to Congress, without first, you know, explaining himself, which is the big difference that some people have pointed out to, you know, when we talk about the Iraq war, for example, you know, where the administration at least tried to make a case for the war, even though we now hindsight 20 20, we know that that case obviously was based on lies.
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B
And indeed, just explain to us what the more general reaction in the United States is to this pursuing of a path without congressional approval, which Donald Trump now seems very comfortable with.
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E
I think from a political perspective here in D.C. it's obviously this question about a power struggle. But from the general public perspective, there's just absolutely no appetite here, you know, to get once again into a war, especially in the Middle east, there's a fear of this becoming another endless war that the US Is engaged in. Polls before the strikes were launched last Saturday have shown that, you know, the majority of Americans are against any military intervention. And so the general public is really not in favor of this. You know, now that it has begun, the hope is obviously that this will become somewhat of a fast victory for the U.S. but, you know, Donald Trump, you know, Pete Hexeth, the defense minister, you know, they, they have not really laid out any specific timeline. I think the latest we've heard is like, well, four weeks. It could be six weeks, could be eight weeks. But, but in general, there's no appetite. And I think we should also mention that within the Republican Party, there's this. There's this split among Republicans, you know, how they feel about this war. There's the, the really Trump's base, who's actually very opposed against any, you know, war, against any interference. You know, I think even Trump, during his campaign in 2024, promised not to get into the. Get America back into any foolish wars. And now here we are again. And then the, the hawkish, you know, people within the Republican Party, somebody like a Senator Lindsey Graham, I think, who's at the moment really in the forefront of this, you know, who call for regime change, who, you know, called for intervention in Iran, who called for the intervention in Venezuela, and they also actually want to see intervention when it comes to Cuba.
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B
Finally, let's touch briefly on the departure of the Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem. She was one of Trump's most high profile cabinet members. She was an absolute lover of photo opportunities and she is arguably the first big high profile scalp that Trump has got rid of in the first year of his tenure.
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E
Yeah, that's accurate. I think, you know, it came somewhat surprising yesterday when Trump posted it on his social media account that he was going to replace her with a Republican senator, Mr. Mullen from Oklahoma. And yeah, you're right, it's the first real shakeup, which is a complete departure from the first administration where it seemed like Trump was firing his, his cabinet members, you know, almost on, on a weekly basis. But, but this one, you know, it was a long time coming. At the end, you mentioned, you know, she was somebody who loved to be, you know, in the spotlight. And obviously after the tragedies that happened in Minneapolis earlier this year were, you know, immigration enforcement officials shot and killed two American citizens and where there were some miscommunication about how to present what transpired in Minneapolis to the American public. And then just earlier this week, Noem had two congressional hearings with the House and the Senate and she was grilled by actually Democrats and Republicans. And one of the situations that came to the forefront was a commercial campaign that cost more than $200 million, where she basically, if you turn on US TV, if you go on YouTube, you see Christine Noam talking about, in this case, specifically to illegal immigrants and basically telling them, get out of the country. Otherwise we come after you. And in this congressional hearing, especially in the Senate hearing, she said that Donald Trump basically approved that commercial campaign. And then as we saw yesterday in an interview with Reuters, Trump denied that. And I think that was really the last straw and that's why we see this replacement now happening. Apparently, she's taking now a position as some special envoy to the Shield of the Americas, which is a new initiative that will be launched this weekend in Florida that focuses on the Western Hemisphere and the fight against drug cartels.
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H.J. mai in Washington, D.C. thank you so much for joining us on Monocle Radio. Still to come on today's programme, we
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learned that aside from the small matter of losing $300 million worth of air combat capability to one overly excitable Kuwaiti pilot. Everything was going brilliantly.
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Andrew Muller brings us the view of the past week in what we learned. Stay tuned to the globalist
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Craft is a matter of perspective, a unique outlook, an obsessive attention to detail. With UBS's Chief Investment Office Houseview, we're focused on identifying the latest investment opportunities and market risks to help you achieve your financial goals. So you get the big picture broken down into thought provoking insights delivered daily and curated by over 200 globally connected, locally active analysts. UBS banking is our craft.
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07:22 Here in London. Let's have a look at today's newspapers. Joining me in the studio is Julia Jenn Monocles, research and writer. Good morning.
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G
Good morning.
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B
Researching and writing as you came into the studio.
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G
Absolutely.
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B
So the pay per view today, ladies and gentlemen, is very updated, Very updated. How are you? All well with you?
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G
Yes, very good.
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B
How many editions of Monocle magazine are you now churning out?
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G
Oh my gosh. Well, we're just finishing the April issue, then we're in production week for that. And then very quickly May goes to press as well because we're getting ready for Milan Design week and that's going to be our design special. So lots of work to do there.
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B
Thank you for sparing the time to read the papers for us. You wanted to begin with an article in the Financial Times about the reworking of the traffic in the skies, given the fact that as we saw from Saturday, Sunday time, the airspace over huge parts of the Gulf closed and mostly huge, huge airports, incredibly important airports such as Dubai and Doha found themselves closed.
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G
Yeah, I think we all know stories of people who were kind of traveling between Europe and Asia and who suddenly got stuck somewhere they were not meant to be, missing incredibly important meetings or kind of family reunions or anything like that. So I think we've seen the kind of disruption in Europe to Asia travel really over the last few years. I mean, it sort of started with, you know, closing of, for example, ukrainian airspace from 2016 onwards and then we had the Russian airspace close from 2222 onwards. And that's obviously a huge loss for that sort of route. And now we're really seeing air travel compressed between, you know, the Gulf states and Russia and a very, very small air corridor. It's just 50 miles across in the article by the Financial Times. That sort of 50 miles across, if we can imagine all those sort of planes traveling there, is quite amazing. Azerbaijani southern airspace closed because of A drone attack yesterday. And industry experts are sort of warning that if northern Azerbaijani airspace closes as well, lots of journeys will have to be rerouted around the southern tip of the Gulf. And that might even mean passengers being turned away. And I think we can see these dramatic scenes I mentioned to you before I came in about this, another article on the Guardian, and this is about Flight Radar 24. And that's really where you can see these changes happening. Sort of vast spaces, vast expanses of the globe, just basically inaccessible. Now, of course, we still have Chinese airlines flying across Russian airspace and that is what allows them to keep their fare so low in comparison to, you know, European and other airlines. But we really do see these bunching up of planes in particular little air corridors. And I think someone was talking about on the weekend about Georgian airspace controllers, how much work air traffic controllers, sorry, how much work they have cut out for them. You know, if you know any Georgian air traffic controllers, buy them a bottle of wine, they're doing a very good
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B
job, maybe after their shift. This article in both the Financial Times and the other one in the Guardian also highlight the fact that this isn't just this part of the world which is closed over. We have to recognize, I have to remember that Russian airspace is close to so many aircraft. I think China still flies over Russia. But the fact remains is that when you have these enormous parts of the world which are often used by airlines as just that sort of the quickest point from A to B, the impact on a sort of squeezing people into tiny Georgian corridors is one thing. But secondly, the cost to the airline and subsequently to the passenger is going to be significantly raised because detours are expensive.
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G
Yeah, absolutely. And I wonder if we're going to start seeing, you know, if this really continues to affect air travel. I wonder if we're going to start seeing more layovers, sort of the more old fashioned way of traveling. And I wonder if we'll see more people sort of staying for one day or two days somewhere, you know, like Istanbul, for example, before they continue on their journey. And I think airlines are also really struggling with the idea of how do they carry the expected number of passengers that they have booked onto their flight or that they expect to have booked onto their flight and makes financial sense to have there, but also the amount of fuel. So particular routes that are in trouble, potentially in trouble are London to Sydney or Perth, which, you know, people in this office need and use often. So, yeah, I think we're going to see an impact on business and the way business is done perhaps in the next few months.
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B
Okay, thanks for that. Let's have a look. And I do recommend everyone goes and reads the article about how FlightTracker became FlightTracker. Let's move on to another article that you wanted to draw our attention to in the New York Times. This is a, this is not necessarily a breaking news story, but it's happened in the last few hours. The US State Department has said there's the re establishment of diplomatic and consular relations with Venezuela. Yes.
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G
So we're potentially going to be seeing a huge turn in policy. So the article mentions, you know, that it was in 2019 that Maduro first severed ties with the US and now we're potentially seeing the reopening of embassies in both countries. And I think this is a really interesting story in terms of how the US Is potentially going to be pursuing policy where we can see it sort of targeting next. So Iran and we've seen Trump talking about wanting to be involved in picking the leadership of Iran next. So if we tie that in with what's going on in Venezuela, we've seen people that were previously shy, stunned and actively sort of, you know, hunted by this Trump administration. They're sort of being welcomed into the hold, into the fold. Sorry. And so if we see here we had, you know, on Thursday, yesterday when this sort of happened, we had a high ranking official visiting. We had Doug Burgum, the Interior Department secretary, he was visiting Venezuela with this, you know, whole delegation. And we had Trump tweeting sort of during live during this visit about his sort of warm words for the newfor Maduro's successor, Dulce Rodriguez, someone he previously was quite actively critical of. And you know, the article states, and I guess some people may be cynical and wondering whether this is where really US Interests lie, but the United States now essentially dictates whom Venezuela's national oil company sells to. That's a very piquant sort of sentence from this article and potentially pointing towards their motives.
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B
Let's move to the resurgence of the luxury art market in London. There was an incredible sale at Sotheby's a couple of nights ago when everybody. It was one of those returns to a sort of a bumper period when arts that had been estimated at £800,000, about a million euros, went for four or five times that amount.
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G
Yes.
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Why is that happening?
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G
Yes. So this is. So if we look at some of the artworks that sold, for example, there was a Francis Bacon self portrait and that went for 13.5 million or 16 million with fees and that's a very famous self portrait that he made after a sort of drunken brawl. And he made it for his doctor after he sort of fixed up his face post brawl. So very sort of, yeah, strong piece. And then there was a particular star of the show was Leon Kossoff's children's Swimming pool Autumn Afternoon. And that was sort of valued at around 600,000 to 800,000. And we saw that going for 4.5 million, which is quite a big jump and very, a very good sign for the art market in London. But it was there's an interesting quote in that article which is about, you know, are people just used to instability now? So we've seen quite a big drop in the last few years sort of in the London art market. We've seen that from Brexit, but also from Giovanni, political sort of instability. People not sure where to put their money, not sure whether this is the right sort of place to invest in. But yesterday was this very good sign and I guess it's a good sign setting us up for the rest of the spring season in the art market.
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B
Finally, we have 30 seconds to talk about moon Hummus. What's moon hummus and why are we going to have it for lunch?
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G
Well, so the answer, this is from the Times, and the headline really suggests that chickpeas were really, you know, grown on the moon. Now, if you read it carefully and if you really get into the intricacies of the scientific sort of details here, it's actually a lunar sort of simulate soil. So it's not quite on the moon yet. And so chickpeas were grown successfully in simulated lunar soil, but we're not sure if we can eat them yet. We're not sure if there's too much aluminium.
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B
That's a shame. I was looking forward to it. Julia Jen Monocles, researcher and writer, thank you so much for joining me in the studio. Now here's a look at some of the other stories we're keeping an eye on today. The United States has temporarily eased its embargo on Russian oil after prices rose because of the war. The Treasury Secretary said this was to allow oil to continue flowing into the global market. The US Defense Department has designated the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic as a supply chain risk for refusing to allow its technology to be used in mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic says it'll challenge the decision in court. A lawyer representing the Hong Kong pro democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai has said he won't appeal against the conviction that saw him sentenced to 20 years in jail last month. He was one of the most outspoken critics of China's ruling Communist Party. And President Trump has sacked his homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem. She was one of the most high profile cabinet members with hard rhetoric on immigrants and a love of photo opportunities. This is the globalist. Stay tuned. It's what, 7:33 here in London. That's 2:33am if you are listening in Bogota, good morning. Elections are being held in Colombia this weekend with the prediction that this could lead to the creation of one of the most fragmented parliaments that the country has ever seen. To walk us through it, Oscar Guardiola Rivera, professor in international law, international affairs at Birkbeck College and an expert on Columbia because indeed you are Colombian. Welcome back to this, Oscar. Good to see you.
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H
Always such a pleasure being here.
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B
Right. So run us through the lie of the land for this election because it seems that so many things are at play with so many candidates of so many party sizes that it's very, very hard to try and make sense of this.
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H
Well, the easiest way to understand this is there are two kinds of elections happening this Saturday. On the one hand, congressional elections. So this is the Senate and the lower chamber. Very important, of course, lawmaking, law production and so on and so forth. Whomever wins or gains control of the majority of the Senate and the lower house will be able to, you know, pull through their political program. On the other side, we have the so called consultation. These are the parties that are trying to gain a foothold in the coming presidential election because the problem with this consultation is that the three favorites for the, for the presidential election are not taking pot. So there is a bit of apathy when it comes to this one. However, why they're not taking some traction? Well, they are not taking part for various reasons. The candidate from the left who is the favorite so far in all the polls to win the presidential election is not taking part because of a questionable legal decision that barred him from entering the big consultation of the left. Really questionable. Loads of problems there. It has been widely interpreted in Colombia as right wing judges trying to, you know, put a spanner in the works of the left presidential campaign.
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B
So what is likely to happen this weekend?
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H
Well, what is likely to happen is, well, some 20 to 22 million people can vote in these ones. That is important. The favorites in the congressional elections are still the left and that means they could get some 6 million votes very, very good if they do. And that would put them ahead in the Senate but they're closely followed by a sector of the right wing. The former president, Alvaro Riva Velez, is still a popular figure in Colombia, and the contest is between the two of them. But watch out for the consultation, because whomever wins might gain enough traction to compete against the bigger presidential candidates.
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B
Just out loud, to us, the main issues that Colombian voters face, what concerns them as they go into the ballot
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H
box, the biggest concerns are bread and butter concerns. Most of the people are really concerned with cost of life, with, you know, health, education. Most of these things are, you know, to a great extent, privatized. You remember that Latin America was ground zero for what is now known as neoliberalism. So those things do worry people the most. There is also certain concern about security, although the country's is much more secure than it used to be some 10 or 20 years ago. But those two issues are competing. And of course, well, the vicinity having Mr. Donald J. Trump occupying the Caribbean Sea once more and having threatened Colombia with invasion, the President of Colombia seems to have dealt very well with that is a big concern.
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B
Is there. I mean, how much is there a sense that the United States presence with the neighbors is something that actually could influence the outcome of any elections here?
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H
Oh, it's always a very important issue. Absolutely. In fact, the right wing made the mistake of counting on Donald Trump's direction of travel across the Western Hemisphere to do the work for them. But, see, it always happens with Trump. You never know where he's going to go. And in this case, apparently President Petro and him are now good pals and things are sort of looking good in Venezuela, at least for him. Or if you compare them with, you know, the mess that is happening everywhere else.
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B
Yeah, see, I mean, we've just spoken to Julia Jenner about the re establishment of diplomatic ties with Venezuela. Finally, while I've got you, there's a story that's happened in the last 12 hours about the Ecuadorian military saying it seized a narcotic submarine hidden in a nature reserve near the country's border with Colombia. I've sprung this on you, so you're not expected to know too much about it, but what does that say about just the way that drugs are operated and are trafficked at the moment?
- [39:08]
H
The drug business is a global business, is as rich, some people might say richer than the oil business. And it has evolved. I mean, we all watch narcos, but that was the 1980s. Nowadays, as president Petro explained to Trump, most of the big kingpins are not even in Colombia. They may be in Madrid, in Dubai. They are super rich. They no longer hide their money in offshore venues, but it's part of the main financial system. And of course, that also means that technologically the business advances. But this is not new. I mean, I remember some, probably 15 years ago, a submarine was discovered in the Amazon river, fiberglass submarine, and the navigational system was a hacked GPS from a phone. So. And that's the way, you know, drugs are taken to Europe and to West Africa and so on, which is why all this business of bombing small speedboats, that's just, it's just a fantasy. That doesn't cut it.
- [40:21]
B
Oscar Guardiola Rivera, professor in International Law and International affairs at Birkbeck College here in London. Thank you so much for joining me in the studio. You're listening to Monacle Radio. It's Friday, which means it's time for what we learned. Here's Andrew Muller.
- [40:45]
F
We learned this week that a year and a bit or so is a long time in politics.
- [40:51]
I
I will tell you, you're not going to have a war with me and you're not going to have a third world war with me. That I can tell you.
- [40:57]
E
Our interest, I think very much is in not going to war with Iran.
- [41:01]
J
The foolishness with which we ricocheted around
- [41:06]
A
the world intervening think it was in
- [41:08]
B
our best interest when really we just
- [41:09]
E
overturned the table and created some.
- [41:10]
A
Something worse.
- [41:11]
F
In almost every single scenario, we learned the same people who had quite recently assured anyone who asked that there was no even faintly imaginable way the United States would ever go to war with Iran specifically or embark on campaigns of regime change generally, as this was something only a total idiot would even suggest, had instead decided on mature reflection that actually it was an absolute, absolutely dandy idea. How hard can it be? What could possibly go wrong?
- [41:41]
I
I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person.
- [41:47]
D
Right?
- [41:47]
I
That could happen.
- [41:48]
F
And we learned that whatever it took, operations would enjoy the complete and unwavering attention of the commander in chief.
- [41:56]
I
Somebody said today, they said, oh, well, the president wants to do it really quickly. After that, he'll get bored.
- [42:01]
F
I don't.
- [42:02]
I
I don't get bored.
- [42:03]
F
Until. And we counted literally 66 seconds later,
- [42:07]
I
we're adding onto the building a little bit. We're improving the building. See that? Nice drape. I picked those drapes in my first term. I always like gold, but I think we can save a lot of money. I just saved. I just saved curtains.
- [42:22]
F
Operation rolling blinds is that anything come on. Like Operation Rolling Thunder. It's an extremely deft and learned allusion to the Vietnam War and a previous American air campaign which had effects other than those anticipated by its planners. Wasted on you people. Honestly. Let us now have for the first time in the history of this the weekly what we learned monologue on Monaco radio, at least so far as we can recall, an authentic Kuwaiti military march. Actually, not bad. Got a bit of a swing to it. 4. We learned that at least one Kuwait Air Force F A18 pilot was furiously riffling through the rules, attending the designation of the title of fighter ace. That is, can you count three towards your requisite five aerial kills if the aircraft you shot down were nominally on your side?
- [43:24]
D
Now, the new video appears to show one of the three American fighter jets going down over Kuwait in what the
- [43:30]
B
US military now calls a friendly fire incident during an Iranian attack.
- [43:35]
F
Would be a bold move in these circumstances to paint the silhouettes on your nose cone. What say you, General? Muttered agreement. Crew. But. We learned that aside from the small matter of losing $300 million worth of air combat capability to one overly excitable Kuwaiti pilot, everything was going brilliantly.
- [44:02]
I
This is very important and we're doing very well on. On the war front, to put it mildly. I would say. Somebody said on a scale of 10, where would you rate it? I said about a 15.
- [44:13]
F
And we learned something of the imperatives underpinning the American action in Iran as we learned that the president's favorite timescale.
- [44:21]
I
So we're building a lot of wall. We're building new sections starting in about two weeks. We're building some brand new sections, large sections. When am I going to put the extra $325 billion worth of tariffs? I will make that decision. I would say over the next two weeks. Whether it's next week or two weeks or three weeks doesn't make any difference. Whether it's now or in three weeks doesn't make any difference. We're very advanced in testing. Other countries are calling us to find out what are we doing. And by the way, within two weeks you'll see numbers and you'll see different forms of testing. You didn't have our military equipment. This war would have been over in
- [44:55]
F
two weeks had very much been a factor.
- [44:58]
I
If we didn't hit within two weeks, they would have had a nuclear weapon. If we didn't do the B2 attack,
- [45:03]
F
though, we, for one humorous news monologue, could absolutely have sworn that circa last
- [45:08]
I
June, Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
- [45:14]
F
So we learned that Iran had gone from complete and total obliteration to two weeks from launch in just nine months. Which is actually not unimpressive. Unless of course, and remote, though we can surely all agree this prospect is Donald Trump of all people has simply no idea what he is doing or saying. For we learned, or at least were reminded of the existential seriousness of the threat.
- [45:41]
I
When crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen.
- [45:45]
F
We'll be needing another bang on the awkward coughing and chairs scraping clip. But. We learned that even in the United States hour of desperate need, it had been unable to count on the assistance of its most trusted ally, the United Kingdom, due to it being overrun with windmills.
- [46:10]
I
They got windmills all over the place that are ruining the country, ruining the
- [46:14]
F
landscapes, ruining the beautiful fields and Sharia courts in the uk.
- [46:19]
I
You have a terrible mayor of London. Terrible. He's an incompetent guy. But you have Sharia courts adjudicating law.
- [46:27]
F
We did obviously seek a ruling on whether we were even allowed broadcast this observation from the local mufti, but it turned out out he was busy installing windmills for Monocle Radio. I'm Andrew Muller.
- [46:46]
B
Thank you, Andrew. You're listening to the Globalist
- [46:52]
A
iq, EQ and AI. Three components key to the craft of innovation at ubs. Because to stay ahead and in a rapidly evolving age, you need a partner with decades of experience, endless passion for the work and a finger on the pulse of leading technologies. Bridging human expertise with artificial intelligence, all to elevate you. Ubs. Banking is our craft.
- [47:26]
B
Now, Finland says it plans to lift its long standing ban on having nuclear weapons on its territory. The government says it'll allow one of NATO's newest members to be fully protected in all situations. To bring us up to date with that and other stories from the Nordic region, Patry Birdsov is our Helsinki correspondent. Good morning, Petri. How's Helsinki looking?
- [47:45]
J
Good morning, Emma. Helsinki is very sunny and it's always lovely to start the day by talking about nuclear war.
- [47:51]
B
Yes, absolutely. Or rather deterrence. So let's try. Should we maybe, perhaps. Okay, let's go for full war. Why has Finland decided to make this decision?
- [48:01]
J
Yes, so the backdrop to this is that Finnish law currently prohibits nuclear explosives in all forms. You know, importing, manufacturing, possessing, even obviously detonating, but even transiting them via the country, they're all explicitly banned. And of course, now Finland being a nimble NATO member, for NATO's nuclear umbrella to really be credible as a deterrent as you say, all the NATO members really need to allow also the transit of nuclear weapons. So this is sort of the backdrop to why Finland is now planning to change the law. Mind you, Finland would still not allow nuclear weapons to be sort of placed permanently on its territory, but this would only apply to transiting them. And of course, you know, this comes at a time when yesterday we heard the French President, Emmanuel Macron, saying that, you know, he wants to extend France's nuclear deterrent to cover also other parts of Europe.
- [49:03]
B
The interesting thing is it marks another step, doesn't it, in a real transformation of the way that Finland approaches defence in the last three to four years?
- [49:13]
F
Absolutely.
- [49:13]
J
This is massive. I mean, for a good part of more than a century, Finland sort of built itself as a neutral country, not part of any military alliance, obviously not part of any nuclear umbrella, not that of the Soviet Union, but not that of NATO either. And now going all in NATO membership and also allowing nuclear weapons on its territory, at least in transit. So that marks a significant shift.
- [49:39]
B
You say, let's move to Sweden, where again, on a bit of a war footing, Sweden has told its citizens to hold cash in case of a war or crisis. This is. The Swedes are very good at this kind of stuff about sort of emergency preparedness.
- [49:52]
J
Yes, they are. But Emma, we have to bear in mind that unlike you and I, Emma, whose wallets are bulging with cash, Swedes actually are mostly just using their cards. You know, it's almost a cashless society. There's a lot of shops that don't even accept cash anymore. And it's one the of. Of the, I would say other countries that I've been to, sort of the most digital that I've ever seen. But now it's backtracking on this when with the Swedish Central bank, the Riksbank, advising all households to keep about 1,000 Swedish kroner, that's about a little bit less than €100 in cash per adult at home. And this is of course, to sort of prepare for a potential scenario in which digital transfers and banking and you sort of have to go back to cash economy, which, based on my experience, most of at least southern Europe still functions. And I remember when I was living in Rome, you just sort of pay with cash almost everywhere.
- [50:51]
B
And the Swedish bank, as you mentioned, the Riksbank, has said that actually it's the importance of the general public in terms of their role in total defence and national preparedness.
- [51:03]
J
Exactly. It's part of this bigger plan that Sweden is now really pushing for this they call it the total defense, meaning that it's not only weapons and the army that defends Sweden, but also that, you know, the nation as a whole is prepared, sort of a preparation if you, if you will just keeping sort of keeping cash at home and keeping, keeping stockpiles of food at home as well in case you, you know, just all kinds of essentials really at home, medicine included in case there is are either cyber disruptions or then you know, full out war.
- [51:32]
B
And very briefly, we've got just a matter of, of seconds to talk about the fact that the Rex banks actually called for a law to protect cash.
- [51:40]
J
Yes, yes, exactly. That law needs to still pass by the parliament. So it hasn't been ratified yet but exactly. They would actually codify this into law. So this is more than a recommendation. They actually that's how serious they are. But let's see how the Swiss can they count the money again. They're so used to just paying with their phones and their cards.
- [51:59]
B
Petru but off Monocle's Helsinki correspondent with a wallet full of cash. Thank you so much for joining us on the line. You're listening to the Globalist. We return to the British capital now because Simpsons in the Strand is one of London's most historic restaurants. It was founded in 1828, welcoming a long list of guests over the years, from Charles Dickens to Winston Churchill and Audrey Hepburn or more recent subsequently, Simpson's reputation faded and the restaurant closed its doors in 2020. Now the celebrated restaurateur Jeremy King has brought it back to life. After trying to get the site for more than two decades, he finally secured a deal and with his longtime design partner Shane Brady began restoring the venue's five rooms. On Monocle's Hassan Anderson caught up with Jeremy King to find out how the revival came together. And he began by asking him how you go about refreshing a restaurant with so much history behind it.
- [53:00]
C
It's actually the notion of fresh and new has been troubling us because I for many years was averse to publicity and social media or pre social media. And whenever anybody gets hold of things, they feel like a new restaurant. They feel that they have to have a slogan or almost. And the people I work with kept saying it was a reawakening, maybe rediscovering is better. And because this site has been very much close to my heart for over 25 years. And when we first looked at acquiring it and come 2000 we were trying to buy it. 2000, 2008, 2015. Finally in 2022 and there's a hint in the 2022 date is that here we are nearly four years later so the beauty of it is that Shane and I have had almost too much time to think about it but the delay mars was punitive financially and irritating and so on and I've had senior members of staff on board for 18 months I think we've created a better restaurant for it. Returning to your question a really important moment for me was about 18 months ago and going through it and I took a friend who's a hotelier and with restaurants and so on he said I'd love to have a look so we toured and he was quite quiet and I was thinking oh he doesn't like it and we got to the end I thought oh he's going to tell me I'm mad because a lot of people had said both to Shane and I what are you going to do with it? How are you going to fill these rooms? What's going to work? And he looked around and I'm quoting, I never swear myself but to my surprise he said Jeremy this is fucking fantastic. There is nothing like this, there never will be. This is amazing. And I thought thank you. Yes it's reminded me and I think Shane and I both had to remind ourselves that it is, if you excuse me saying again, fucking fantastic.
- [55:27]
J
Well Shane, let's ask about your position
- [55:30]
F
on this all architects work within constraints but tell us what went through your
- [55:34]
J
head when you first saw the restaurant?
- [55:36]
F
What state was it in?
- [55:38]
J
I mean it was quite stripped clean when we first went for our first walk there was still some nice antiques of chandeliers, wall lights, fire grates around the place with tags because of the auction and actually on Jeremy and I's first walk we were quite excited for hopefully being able to retain those elements because I think that with everything we do with Jeremy it's always about looking at the legacy of the building and then working off that legacy because I'd actually only been to Simpson's ground floor previously when it was opened so I actually didn't realize what a TARDIS it was in terms of the two well the three venues upstairs and then the bar in the lower ground floor so for me doing the first walk with Jeremy my eyes were opened over how actually expansive the space was But I think Jeremy said a point that really struck me when we walked site which was this should feel like it has been loved by every owner that's had it over the course of the past 120 odd years. The building was built in 1904. And I thought that's actually the nugget of how we approach this design, because, of course, we're not ripping it out. We're not creating something modern and new within the building, nor should we, because I think it's such, to Jeremy's phrase, the grand dame of restaurants in the city. Just for a slightly personal question now
- [56:58]
F
for both of you, what are you each like to work with?
- [57:03]
C
I like to think we're good, as I always felt. I Learned probably about 35 years ago that I used to think that I could never be seen to be making a mistake because that would weaken my authority, whatever. And I think Shane and I are both people who readily admit their mistakes now and read and happy to admit they're wrong, but at the same time argue it. You see, I'd hate it if Shane just was obsequious in any way towards me.
- [57:43]
J
I always remember the first day I met Jeremy. I'm not sure he'll remember this. It was in a presentation at David Collins for the Delaunay and it was the first time I was in a meeting with you. And when we were leaving or you were leaving, we said, goodbye, gentleman. Jeremy shook my hand and said, not verbatim, but something along the lines of we'll be talking a lot or we'll spend a lot of time together. And I didn't realize then that that meant 15 years. I thought that meant nine months to get the Delaunay open. I think that Jeremy and I, at this point, I feel, have a second half understanding. I think that what I enjoy about Jeremy is he will sit and ponder something in terms of when it's being built. He'll look at something, he'll have his reservations, but it's not a complete no, get it out. But I think what's great is I can speak my mind and Jeremy can speak his mind. It's an open forum.
- [58:35]
B
The marvelous pairing of the interior designer Shane Brady and restaurateur Jeremy King in conversation with Monocle's Hassan Anderson and Simpsons in the Strand is taking book from the 30th of March, everybody. Well, that's all the time we have for today's programme. The warmest of thanks to all my guests and to the producers Angelica Jopson, Anita Riota and Hassan Anderson. Our researcher was Anneliese Maynard and our studio manager is Steph Jungu, with editing assistance by Mariella Bevan. After the headlines. There's more music on the way. The briefing's live at midday here in London and the globalist is back at the same time on Monday. But for now, from me, Emma Nelson, Goodbye. Thank you very much for listening.
- [59:32]
A
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