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A
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 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 3rd of November, 2025 on Monocle Radio. The Globalist in association with U. Live from London, this is THE Globalist. A very warm welcome to today's program. I'm Emma Nelson. And coming up, the railway station is a public place and any of us could have been there under that canopy. A year after a canopy collapsed outside a Serbian train station, killing 16 people, we examine how the disaster at Novi gave a voice to a major protest movement. Also ahead in the next 60 minutes, it's being called the greatest humanitarian crisis on the planet right now. But what can be done about the continued deadly violence in Sudan? We'll look at the future of nuclear testing after Donald Trump announces confusing plans for the US to resume research.
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And the pleasure of Dorothak was that you would never know what you might find. It was like going into Aladdin's cave.
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B
We head to Dar Al Taqwa, London's oldest Islamic bookshop. Plus the papers and the latest news from Theatreland too. That's all coming up on the Globalist live from London. First, a quick look at what else we're following in today's news. Flight delays are affecting airports across the United States as air traffic controllers go unpaid during the government shutdown, now in its fifth week. Prosecutors in France say that last month's robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris was the work of petty criminals and not of an organized syndicate. And a woman in Mississippi has shot a lab monkey that escaped from an overturned truck. She said she killed the animal outside her home to protect her children. Stay tuned to Monocle Radio throughout the day for more on these stories. But first, that is the sound of locals in Novi Sad welcoming people from around the country ahead of commemorations marking the anniversary of last year's disaster at the railway station in Serbia's second city, a concrete canopy at the recently renovated facility collapsed, killing 16 people and sparking an ongoing student led protest movement. While on Saturday, tens of thousands of people of all ages took to Novi Sad's streets because the tragedy has for many Serbians become a symbol of what they believe to be a culture of cronyism and corruption at the heart of the country's government. Well, I'm joined now from Belgrade by Monocle's Balkans correspondent, Guy Delaunay. Good morning, Guy.
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D
Welcome back.
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E
Good morning, Emma. And good morning, everyone.
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B
Now, you've been in Novi Sad over the weekend. People from all walks of life turned up to this protest.
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E
Indeed they did. It was quite striking. We're hearing that sound from Friday evening, because as we'll go into, there was a distinct sort of event of two halves, really, going on over the weekend, the commemoration itself on Saturday. But on Friday, it was extremely raucous on the streets of Novi Sad. Enormous crowds. I can't give you an absolute number, but there was a road junction there where people were arriving by bicycle and on foot from all sorts of different points across Serbia, coming in by their thousands and being greeted, as you could hear with great joy, by the crowds in Novi Sad. And the crowds were just enormous there, and it was very difficult to move through them at points. And there were families there, people with small children, lifting them up onto shoulders. The students, stewards who were keeping the event safe, they were letting the children through to the front of the crowd. And you had people right through to. Obviously, grandmas and granddads were there as well. It was as if it was a big Friday night out for the people of Novi Sad. And then on Saturday at the commemoration, you saw people laying flowers in front of the railway station from all sorts of different professions going up by group. So you had everyone from medics to sports teams as well, of course, as the families of the 16 victims of the railway station disaster.
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B
And the emphasis is what you have just said. This was very deliberately intended to be a commemoration, not a protest.
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E
That's right. And that was at the insistence of the students who've been leading these protests across Serbia for the past year. So, first of all, they wanted to show respect to the dead. That was the most important thing that they wanted to do. And the families were very much front and center in these commemorations. And the respect was shown through 16 minutes of silence, one for each of the victims. And they did that once in the morning at 11:52, which was the time of the disaster on the 1st of November last year. And they also had another 16 minutes of silence in the evening as they released 16 lanterns onto the River Danube. And there's another reason, of course, why they made these commemorations very solemn, was they didn't want to give the authorities an excuse to paint them as insensitive. Violent or otherwise badly behaved now. Nonetheless, one of the Ovizad students who's involved in the organization, Alexandra, who doesn't want to give her last name for, I think, fairly obvious reasons, she told me that even a mostly quiet gathering can boost the momentum of the protest movement.
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B
What I expect from this commemoration gathering is for even more people to wake up, even more people to realize that we cannot keep living in a system.
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D
That is corrupt this much.
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B
Something needs to change and that every single person has to do something to try to change these things. Because if we just keep ignoring problems.
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D
The problems will not disappear.
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B
The interesting thing that was Alexandra, who's a student who's at the protest, the interesting that she says there is that everybody, every single person has a role to play in this protest movement. And that was very visible at the commemoration at the weekend, wasn't it Guy? Because we've talked about having everybody from students to grannies and grandpas, but actually former members of the military are now speaking up as well.
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E
They've been acting as if you like, security for the students. I've seen this at the demonstration that they had in Belgrade in March, which was absolutely enormous. More than 300,000 people, according to an independent estimate, and that was at least 325,000 people. They couldn't camp beyond that. And you see these war veterans in their red berets and with various different types of insignia on them. Could be T shirts saying which veterans group they're a member of. Could be a little bit of former armour uniform, but they're making themselves a very visible presence in order to say to the authorities, we're with these people and if you mess with them, you mess with us. And this is one of the curious factors about the protest movement, is that it's not as if it's party political, if you like. The students have deliberately kept the political parties away from things and they've been trying to reach out to members of different generations, members, people from across the political spectrum as well. And an opposition MP who was there told me that students can cut through the generations in their own families, which is very important, and get their message across. Meanwhile, the political scientist Serjan Svi told me that his profession may have grossly underestimated the political engagement of Generation Zone.
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The young people see these ruling classes as obstacles to their future and well being.
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B
So this entire youth was described in.
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E
The polls as apolitical, apathetic and all.
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B
Sorts of things that really, I think sociologists should be asking and pollsters themselves. The question, what did they get wrong in all of this? Because it's not possible that people just woke up one day in Morocco, Madagascar, Serbia, Nepal, and stood up against these corrupt elites. Let's talk a little bit more about the protest movement itself, Guy. The fact remains is that the Novi Sad disaster is a year old. But protesters in Serbia have been taking to the streets for the best part of 13 years, haven't they?
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E
They have. And I've seen these protest movements come and go. And one of the things I kept asking people over the weekend is why the student led movement has sustained where the other protest movements have fizzled out. And the answers I was getting was firstly, that they have been able to cut across the generations political spectrum and secondly, they've kept the opposition political parties away from it. Because there is in Serbia a distrust of politicians in general. It's not confined to the governing Progressive Party of President Alexander Vucic. The opposition parties also don't have a fabulous image in Serbia. And people would rather engage with people who are not visibly from any particular political party. And it is remarkable that it's sustained for a whole year. The question is how you go forward from here, because there's a couple of factors. Firstly, that Mr. Vucic and his Progressive Party remain extremely popular with large sections of the country who view Mr. Vucic as a strong leader. They look at the economic progress that has been made while he and his party have been in power over the past 13 years. And they look at the fact that they're well organized. In contrast, the opposition who are atomized and don't present a compelling proposition. So then the other question is, can the students possibly come up with this compelling proposition? They're proposing a list of experts that could stand in an election and form a technocratic government that would, as they see it, rid the institutions of Serbia of the cronyism and corruption which they say currently exists.
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B
Because as it stands, there has been very, very scant signs of concessions from President Vucic, given what you have just said there. He seems in a position which is unchallenged.
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E
I mean, I think Mr. Vucic in many respects is in a strong position because there is no coherent, at the moment, no coherent opposition proposition that could unseat him and his party at the ballot box. And people like to paint out critics of Mr. Vucic, like to paint him out both within and outside Serbia as an autocrat. But I read a phrase in the Financial Times which I think sums up his approach very well, which is that it's a managed democracy. We do have elections here, they have some issues with them, some irregularities which are reported by organizations like the osce, the monitors from the European Union and the European Parliament, for example. But those elections do go ahead. They are regular. There is a lack of political repression here in the same way that you see in certain other countries. So he is still in a pretty strong position in many respects. He did, however, issue an apology on Friday, said that his rhetoric over the past year had been incorrect, that he'd made mistakes and he wanted now to get around the table with the protesters and have negotiations with them. But of course he knows the knock in to do that. So I suppose it's very easy for him to say that.
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B
Guy Delaunay, as ever in Belgrade, thank you so much for joining us. On Monocle Radio, you're listening to the globalist just nudging. 9:12am in Khartoum, 7:12am here in London. Our growing number of global leaders is calling for a new international drive to end a civil war in Sudan. More than 60,000 people have fled the city of Al Fasha in the Darfur region after it was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or rsf. There are reports of mass executions and crimes against humanity committed by the RSF which took the city after an 18 month siege. I'm joined now by Tara O', Connor, managing director of Africa Risk Consulting, a Pan African risk management firm. Good morning to you, Tara.
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D
Good morning.
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B
So just let's, let's establish where we are at the moment. The city of Al Fasha is in the hands of RSF rebels and as a result, more than what, 60,000 people by estimates have now fled.
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D
Yes. So basically the 60,000 are those that have actually been counted into, into regional camps by aid organizations operating in the area. But that leaves Al Fashir, a town of, that's about some 200 odd thousand people that are still under siege and under control of the, of the rsf.
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B
And as a result, just, just, if you could just recount the atrocities that seem to be being committed is, are being recounted by, they're being recounted online. They're being recount. There's not much access to seeing what's going on, but there is a sense that there is just a sort of a spate of utter brutality going on there.
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D
Absolutely. I mean, what is confirmed and what has been confirmed by Reuters, by Medecin Sans Frontiere and by the, by the UN is that there is widespread, there's widespread humanitarian, you know, widespread violence, brutality against both soldiers, unarmed soldiers that are trying to leave and civilians that have been captured. The RSF have actually been filming themselves committing these atrocities, executing people. They are also doing what they have done in the past. It's worth remembering that the RSF is born out of a former militia group that was called the Janjaweed that was responsible for the, the genocide in Darfur. So separating out non, not just youth of potential fighting age, but also discriminating against non Arab speaking groups and you know, and apparently shouting very sort of racist, racist and discriminatory insults before killing people.
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B
It is only down arguably to the fact that the RSF has filmed its own, the commission of its own atrocities that arguably people are waking up to what is happening. I mean, there is a wider question here of the international failure to pay attention to what has been going on and indeed a failure to convene is what some critics are saying.
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D
Yes, I mean this is the hidden and forgotten war that has been ignored by the international community for a very long time now. And yes, there have been, you know, the UN has been on the ground, Medecin Sans Frontiere has been reporting, Med Sans Frontiere is reporting a group of sort of 500 civilians and soldiers that have been killed as they tried to flee. So it is, it has been forgotten and it is, it's, it's shameful in a way that it takes the murder of civilians who have been under siege in Al Fashir for over 18 months with the RSF blockading and refusing food, not allowing food to get into the, into the city and using drones that, to attack civilians within the city. So, you know, it takes, sadly, it takes the massacre online, posted online of civilians for the international community to actually notice what's going on.
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B
So we now have the next steps being discussed. The United Kingdom pledged, what, £5 million last week to help with the efforts. But when you hear the UK Foreign Secretary calling on the world to exert the same energy on ending the conflict in Sudan as has been exerted on the likes of Gaza in the last couple of years, what is the honest likelihood of this happening? And indeed, who would be the trusted people who would actually be allowed and be able to go in and try and sort this mess out?
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D
Well, I think it's very difficult to see. And the world attention is distracted by three major conflicts, Sudan, obviously, Ukraine and Gaza. So I'm not holding my breath, but it at least is a start. It's a start. We have got a new leader in the African Union, new leadership. I think there has been a united condemnation of the rsf. I think a lot of People have, are now recognizing and also recognizing the role of the UAE in actually supporting the rsf. And the RSF now actually controls the whole western part of the country. So unfortunately it's got itself into a position where it has to be negotiated with. And I believe that the international community needs to draw in this, draw in the UAE and put pressure on the UAE to prevent, to stop supplying weapons and material support to the RSF and begin a process of isolating the RSF to try and get them to the negotiating table. The ruling party, the traditional, you know, the official ruling party under General Bohan are actually supported by Egypt, Turkey, Russia and Iran. And so I, you know, I think it's really beholden on, on everybody, including the UN to get both sides talking and not to leave out of any negotiations the critical third party that are the pro, pro democracy activists that are currently led by Abdallah Hamdok, the former transitional prime Minister, into talks as well at the moment. So far all talks have actually failed to get the three key parties around the table. And I think that's probably the direction that the international pressure ought to be bringing to bear.
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Tara o', Connor, managing director of Africa Risk Consulting, a Pan African risk management firm. Thank you so much for joining us on the line.
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D
Still to come, we don't do testing.
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We've halted it many years ago.
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But with others doing testing, I think it's appropriate that we do.
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Also we'll find out why Donald Trump is choosing to break with possibly the most dangerous tradition of all, the resumption of testing on nuclear weapons. We'll find out what he meant a little later on. Today's globalist.
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Craft is a matter of perspective, a unique outlook and 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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7:20 here in London. Let's have a look at today's newspapers to do that for us. Latika Burke, writer at large for the Australian news publication the Nightly Good morning, Latika.
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A
Good morning.
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B
How are we doing? What's on the cards for this week?
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A big week actually. Very busy. Heading to Oxford tonight.
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Excellent.
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D
Of all places.
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Haven't been to Oxford for some time. Normally when I go there it's to shop. So tonight I'll be giving a talk on national Security. That would be fun.
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B
Brilliant. Okay, well we, we wish we could come, but instead, while we've got you, we'll have the papers, please.
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A
We'll have a look at the papers.
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B
Let's have a look at the UK story. But it's one of those moments when any country looks in and sees a disaster, a moment of violence and actually sort of. There was a huge attack on a train, wasn't there, on Saturday night in New York.
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A
Yes. This is across every single paper. You can't miss it. And it's being picked up and discuss in a lot of the international press, particularly in America. And this morning we don't have too much new news, but what we do have are some fairly inspiring hero stories coming out of what happened on Saturday night when a 32 year old man from Peterborough is alleged to have run through this train carriage and stabbed multiple people. The worst of the victims is an lens lner staff member who actually took it upon themselves to try and stop this attacker barehanded, maybe with a like bottles of drink and stuff, throwing it at the attacker to try and dissuade him from attacking more people. He or she was stabbed eight times and is in hospital in a life threatening condition. Everyone else who was stabbed has been subsequently released from hospital. There are no deaths. But of course this is such a shocking, shocking attack. And while we have these incredible stories of bravery, including the train driver who has been revealed to be an Iraq War veteran, who very, very swiftly pulled this fast train into a slow train platform at Huntington, thereby enabling people to get off the train. Why that's important and why that's being told is important this morning is that if he had stopped in the middle of a track, people could not have escaped and that attack actually would have had much more of a free rein over the victims. There'll be a statement in the House of Commons by the Home Secretary today. I think it's been quite surprising how little response we've had from the government in the uk. And naturally, of course, this will, I think turn into a wider conversation about integration issues, immigration. Even though this person who is the alleged attacker is British born, it hasn't stopped the political argument taking place.
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B
And this is, is the problem, isn't it? Because the moment that you start to identify the, the background of the person who is in custody, then suddenly comments start to happen. And we've seen in the United Kingdom when we've had, we've had riots in the United Kingdom when people have mistakenly identified exactly who have been involved in crime and so it is an absolutely delicate path that must be trodden here. It is.
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A
And it also comes at a time, and I've written this in my own paper overnight, of a sense of decline in Britain, a sense that crime, petty crime, not violent crime necessarily is out of control. And there is a growing lawlessness in particularly London. And so politicians have to understand and accept that. But at the same time, there is certainly the case that, that those who thought or feared this was terrorism initially would have been assuming this might fit into a wider argument sections of the right are making about the need to curb immigration and go even further and start talking about integration. So citizens who are here, but maybe second or third generation, that's a conversation that I think a lot of people are trying to break open. And you're right, it is a completely delicate path to tread. I actually thought Kemi Badenok, the Conservative leader, probably got it best. She said yesterday, we need to wait for the facts, but people will be asking why, when we spend so much on mental health, things like this keep going so radically wrong. And I thought that was probably the best answer in terms of acknowledging the fears and the situation, the backdrop against which this attack occurs in the uk, whilst at the same time not going so far as to say this is clearly an immigration or integration issue.
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B
Let's move on to a story in the Financial Times, which is another European nation, EU nation, is being pulled to the right.
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A
Yeah. So we finally have what looks like the dust settling in Czechia or the Czech Republic. And Andrei Babic is about to become the Prime Minister again. Now he's doing so. He won the elections, but not with a majority to form government himself. So he is forming government with two small far right parties, putting potentially the country's stance on Ukraine at jeopardy. And why this is important is because Czechia's actually been. It's a very small country, but it's been quite mighty in terms of leading this part of Europe's support for Ukraine, including funding a huge artillery program where they've been able to deliver shells. They've literally gone out to market and gathered the shells that are needed for Kyiv and paid for them and given them to Ukraine. And the Czech Republic has been probably one of Central Europe's biggest supporters of Ukraine. That could end also up for debate, could be like we've seen in other populist leaning countries such as Hungary and Slovakia, whether Czechia starts talking now about how much it wants to stay in the EU or NATO. Now in the FT today, the story is actually A bit more positive than what some might think sounds like a doomsday scenario. They say that Babic is actually some of his positions and is privately saying to Petro Pavel, who's the president, who has a lot of power in Czech system, that he won't tamper with some of these key policies on defence and national security. We will see at the end of the day, you draw a line under this. And what does it mean? It does mean we have another country falling to the populist ranks and Ukraine could be paying the price for that.
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And this is also being borne out and the FT is very clear in sort of geographically calling it the Eurosceptic eastern flank, that you have Victor Orban in Hungary, you have Robert Fitzo in Slovakia and you also have this, this coming together, this creation of the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament last year, which was Babish with Viktor Orban together and they've brought in the French race emblem on National Austria's Freedom Party. So you have, you, you have a sort of consolidation of populism here.
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A
Yeah, I think populism is the big threat to Europe and it's certainly a big threat to Ukraine. And of course, we can't be naive. Russia has actively fueled and through the use of social media and things like this, the rise of populism. But there are also very legitimate reasons why populism is on the rise that is not necessarily Russian fueled. In fact, I was talking to somebody in the European Commission who felt strongly actually that a lot of the concessions given to Ukrainian farmers at the start of the war has driven a lot of this popular sentiment in Poland particularly, which at the start of the war was a huge supporter for Ukraine. But of course the Ukrainians and the Poles have a very complicated history, personally. But now you see this in Poland, there's a lot of anti Ukraine propaganda and of course President There is talking about that himself too. So this is a hugely worrying trend for Ukraine. Ukraine. And it does feel like the longer that the war goes on, the more it's just going to keep nibbling away at the edges of European support.
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B
Finally, a victory for the headline writers versus the subs. In the Times, there's a piece about a problem with climate change. With the waters around the United Kingdom getting warmer, the headline has decided to go for the fact that it's a giant frilly mouthed jellyfish which is surging around the British coastline. Now, who doesn't feel slightly charmed by a giant frilly mouth?
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A
I think being called frilly mouthed is quite the compliment.
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B
I'm up for that.
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A
Yes.
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I'll take that today.
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A
It sounds quite pretty.
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B
Yes, it does sound very pretty. And it's blue.
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A
Yes.
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And. And it's got a. And it's quite. And it's very frilly.
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A
And it weighs around 35kg. Can you believe that?
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B
That's a big frilly mouth.
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A
It's a really big sort of jellyfish. I love jellyfish when I scuba dive. They're one of my favorite, favorite things to see. They're quite rare to see, but they're very, very beautiful to see underwater. And they are now being sighted with increasing regularity around the British seaside coast. In fact, from Cornwall to the Hebrides, they have been seeing. Now, I can't. I'm going to try this. Rhizostoma pulmo is, Is the type.
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B
I'm not going. I'm not going to dispute that.
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A
I will. I will stick with frilly mouth because I think that's just so, so much lovelier. Quite poetic. And they, they then describe it, though, as resembling a ghostly translucent toadstool, which is not quite as pretty as frilly mouth. Emma. But they have seen reports of 230% increase of these jellyfish sightings around the coast of the uk and that is because, of course, of warmer temperatures. And this, really, I chose this story for you because, look, England's actually one of the countries. I think if there is severe, lasting climate change, few warmer summers at moderate, moderate summers compared to the rest of the world might be quite nice in England. But there are parts of Australia where you cannot swim in the ocean because of deadly jellyfish. I would very much hope for the sake of the English people who might want to enjoy that slightly warmer summer that you don't bring upon you a plague of deadly jellyfish like the Australians have to cope with.
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B
Thank you so much for joining us in the studio. Enjoy the rest of your week. You're listening to the Globalist on Monocle Radio. Now a quick look at what else we're keeping an eye on today. Flight delays are affecting airports across the United States as air traffic controllers go unpaid during the government shutdown, now in its fifth week. New York, Texas and Chicago are being particularly badly hit. The Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, said he'd cancel flights before compromising on safety. An advisor to Nigeria's president says any US Cooperation in fighting Islamist extremists would be welcome. It follows threats by President Trump to take military action to protect Nigerian Christians. Communities in Jamaica devastated by Hurricane Melissa. Claim that five days on Help is yet to arrive, roads are blocked, people have no food or PARIS it is being claimed at least 28 people are now known to have died because of the hurricane. Prosecutors in France say last month's robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris was the work of petty criminals and not of an organized syndicate. Jewels worth more than 100 million euros were taken in a heist lasting just seven minutes. Authorities say three of the four suspected thieves under arrest come from a low income neighborhood in Paris. The jewels are still missing and a woman in Mississippi has shot dead a lab monkey that escaped from an overturned truck. She said she killed the animal outside her home to protect her children. This is THE globalist. Stay tuned. Now let's take a look at some of the other stories we're following today here at Midori House. Here's Monocle's Ed Stocker with a little story about a little known manufacturer of interiors for luxury cars.
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E
Halfway down Italy's Adriatic flank, inside a bustling factory in the municipality of Monte Granado, car parts are zipping off the production line. This plant was founded four years ago and might seem like a car manufacturer's home base, but it actually belongs to Petrona Frau, a storied design brand that dates back to 1912 and is better known for furnishing living rooms than the inside of sports cars. Senior designer Luca Bermari says the company has been transformed in recent years as he takes us on a tour of the buildings. Bellomarie is talking about Petrona Frau's In Motion business, which provides pristine leather wrapped products including seat covers for high end vehicles. While Petrona Frao is a household name as a maker of sofas and armchairs, collaborating with such design luminaries as Joe Ponti and Pierluigi Cherry Inmotion has been quietly and rather successfully working away from the limelight. Glance inside the leather interior of a Ferrari and you won't see a Pultrono Froud logo anywhere, even though it has decked out all of its vehicles since 1998. Giovanni Maiolo, the general manager of Portrona Frau in Motion, hopes the company's work will soon be recognized, just like a Bose stereo or Brembo braking system as a luxury car standard.
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B
And that was Monocle's Ed Stocker. Monocle's November magazine, in which Poltrono Frau is featured among many other stories, is out on newsstands now. This is the globalist. 8:34am in Prague, 7:34am here in London. Now what exactly did Donald Trump mean when he posted on Truth Social that he'd ordered the Pentagon to start testing nuclear weapons immediately. It's been more than three decades since a warhead was detonated underground in Nevada. But Mr. Trump's comments come at a time when the safety rails around nuclear weapons are slipping away. And who knows what the US President may decide to do from one day to the next. Well, Thomas Nudge is a senior research fellow for nuclear, space and Missile Defence at the Future of Security Programme at globsec. I'm delighted to say. He joins us from Prague. Good morning, Thomas.
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G
Very good morning to you and to your listeners. Thank you very much for having me.
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B
So I think the big question here is what exactly did Donald Trump mean? Because his words were so obscure that they were confusing enough for the US Energy Secretary yesterday to issue a clarification.
- [35:55]
G
Very much so. So usually when you have public statements being written, that's a good thing because it usually brings greater clarity. But not this time. So what? You know, President Trump has said that the US needs to be on pair with the first and foremost, China and Russia, and testing nuclear weapons. So conceptually, nuclear weapons is a nuclear warhead and a nuclear delivery system. You need to have both to have a functioning weapon. And the US have actually tested both warheads and delivery vehicles continuously. But warheads not in a sense that you would have an actual detonation coming with the chain reaction. We had computer modeling, simulation, big data management. The conventional aspects of warheads had been continually tested. So the US is actually doing this to ensure the viability of its nuclear program. And of course, the delivery systems are being tested continuously. Continuously as well. What would be a new thing if this is really the case, which I completely subscribe to your notion. It's not entirely clear what President Trump has actually meant and how his words were created, but this is actually indication of the policy shift. Shift, or that was just simply a public communication piece designed to kind of steer the public opinion. Before the meeting with the Chinese president, was it a reaction to what Russia did? Russia actually last month tested two nuclear capable nuclear powered delivery systems. So we haven't had a nuclear test as such. But. But delivery systems where that are using nuclear technology were tested, which is pretty unusual. I mean, Russia has a number of programs of nuclear weapons programs that it's continuously developing. But to have two major tests in such a short span of time is unusual. It might be just the case that the US President had been reacting. So there's no way how we can tell with certainty because of the nature of communication of President Trump, the only way is to continuously monitor his communication and also what the administration is doing. There are so far, no indications and senior officials have been actually clarifying and in a sense playing down some of the kind of interpretations that are kind of more serious and severe.
- [38:15]
B
Thomas Nagy, thank you so much for joining us on the line from Prague. You're listening to Monocle Radio.
- [38:25]
E
Foreign.
- [38:32]
B
State of Victoria has passed its first formal treaty with indigenous traditional owners. Its purpose is to improve the amount of say that first nations people have in shaping their communities. Well, to tell us more, I'm joined now by Paul Osborne, reporter based in Melbourne and former man behind the microphone here at Midori House. Good afternoon, Paul.
- [38:52]
C
Hello.
- [38:53]
B
This was a long journey, wasn't it? It took the best part of four decades.
- [38:58]
C
I mean, a very, very long journey. The scenes in the Victorian State Parliament when this was actually voted through were incredibly emotional. Lots of people crying, talking about how long it had taken to get here. And remember that Australia is the only major Commonwealth country that does not have a formal treaty with its indigenous peoples. By contrast, say, with New Zealand or Canada, the British colonisation of Australia was justified under this faintly ludicrous legal principle of terra nullius, which means that they just said that nobody owned the land and therefore they did not need to reach any kind of agreement with the people who were already here. Now, the first call for a treaty goes all the way back to the late 1980s, to the Baranga Statement of 1988, which was presented to Bob Hawke, who was then the Australian Prime Minister. It didn't get anywhere and it carried on. These campaigns carried on, on, culminating in the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart, which called for three things, voice, treaty and truth. Now, that statement formed the basis of the proposal for a nationwide federal level Indigenous voice to Parliament, and that was rejected in a referendum two years ago. That really has finished off efforts towards treaties in many individual states in Australia, but Victoria continued to work on its own treaty. The formal process of negotiating that treaty took a year, but the process dates back all the way to 2016. So that vote last week was the culmination of pretty much a decade of solid work to agree the text of that treaty and what it would then mean.
- [40:36]
B
What is exactly in.
- [40:39]
C
Sets up a few different things. It sets up an overarching body to represent the interests of first peoples in the state of Victoria. It also sets the up, up a democratically elected First People's Assembly. Its job would be to advise the Victorian State government and also to be consulted on laws or policies that would directly affect indigenous populations in the state. What it won't have is a power of veto over the Victorian Parliament. If the Parliament suggests legislation and the first People's assembly is against it, in the end, the Victorian Parliament could push it through. That's similar to that nationwide voice proposal from two years ago. But as was said at the time in the debate leading up to that referendum, it would be a brave politician who was being strongly advised by a body representing indigenous people that the policy they were proposing was harmful to them that then went ahead with it. In addition, there'll be a truth telling commission. This is a big part of the whole treaty campaign is this idea that Australia needs to confront the truth about the way indigenous populations were treated through the country's history. Remember, you know, indigenous people weren't even counted in the census for Australian population measurement until the 1960s. Australia pursued a white only immigration policy into the 1970s. So there is a real desire to confront all of that, to bring it out into the open. A similar sort of process to the one we saw in South Africa after the end of apartheid. And the other body will be there to concentrate on what they call closing the gap Gap measures. There is a clear and very obvious gap in outcomes across a range of issues. Education, health, jobs, income for people, between indigenous and non indigenous peoples. Governments have been promising to close that gap for decades without ever really achieving very much. And there will be another body as part of this treaty to really sort of put a bit more pressure on the government to make more progress there.
- [42:39]
B
So after this story of things not happening, calls being made, things not achieving very much, is there a sense that this treaty actually could change life in Victoria and improve life for first peoples?
- [42:53]
C
Well, the test obviously will be a few years down the line as to whether it has made measurable change and improvements in the lives of indigenous peoples in Victoria. The first concrete thing we will see is in a few weeks time when there'll be a formal apology in the state parliament for the wrongs that have been done to the indigenous population over history. The school curriculum will be changed too to incorporate some of that truth telling elements. You will see traditional place names start to be used for things like waterways and national parks more across the state. But there is still a political argument on the horizon. This treaty process had been bipartisan, but after that nationwide referendum two years ago, the opposition Liberal National Coalition in Victoria came out against a statewide treaty and is now saying that if it were to win election, it would repeal this legislation. The treaty will be repealed within 100 days of it taking office. Now, that state election is due in 12 months time and effectively this sets up the 2026 state election in Victoria as another referendum, this time specifically on the Victorian treaty and whether it should go ahead. The criticisms are both in terms of the creation of a new tier of government, claims that it will divide rather than unite people, claims that it will create a two tiered system. We've seen newspaper reports in the last few days claiming that if you turn up at an emergency unit at a public hospital in Victoria, you will now jump the queue. If you are from an indigenous background, though officials have said that that is absolutely not the case. But that is a similar kind of argument and a similar level of debate that we saw across the whole of Australia in the run up to that referendum two years ago. And that again is one of the objections of many people who oppose this treaty, who have said that the country voted comprehensively against the setting up of a nationwide indigenous voice to Parliament of changing the constitution and accused the Victorian government of carrying on in defiance, as it were, of the wishes of the people as expressed in that referendum.
- [45:04]
B
Paul Osborne in Melbourne, thank you as ever for joining us on Monocle Radio. You're listening to the globalist.
- [45:13]
A
Iq, EQ and AI. Three components key to the craft of innovation at ubs. Because to stay ahead 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.
- [45:48]
B
Now around the neighbourhood, around Monocle's London headquarters at Midori House, what have you. The pleasures of working around here is that there are absolutely dozens of tiny independent gems of shops. Now, one of those is London's oldest Islamic bookshop. It's called Dar Al Taqwa and it's facing the risk of closure. So Monocle's Hassan Anderson took a stroll over there to find out more.
- [46:12]
A
Well, this is our history section.
- [46:15]
D
We have everything from the start of.
- [46:17]
A
Islam through the history of Al Tbari.
- [46:20]
D
Which was a classical, very early Islamic scholar.
- [46:25]
F
I'm being treated to a whirlwind tour of London's oldest independent Islamic bookshop, Dar Al Taqwa, whose name means house of piety in Arabic. Founded in 1985 by Egyptian publisher Samir Al Attar, the small store has earned global renown in the Muslim world as a treasure trove of out of print titles, hidden literary gems and rare translations.
- [46:47]
D
We have scholars coming from all over the world. I mean, we have Shekhamsa Yousef from America, we have Prince Ghazi from Jordan and we have scholars from the Gulf. We don't follow any particular school, but we accept all the schools of Islamic thought, you know, as long as they're mainstream.
- [47:08]
F
My guide today is Noora El Attend, Sameer's widow, who pledged to keep the shop going after his passing in 2022. She is a warm but no nonsense host with an encyclopedic knowledge of the thousands of volumes stacked high on the shop's narrow shelves, some of which are published by Dar Al Taqwa itself.
- [47:26]
D
We translate books from Arabic into English. We use very well known academic scholars like Aisha Beuley, Mohammed Issawale, who are both converts to Islam and we actually print the books in Turkey.
- [47:42]
F
Originally from Yorkshire and a convert to Islam in her adult life, Noora is as much a part of the shop's charm as its interior, which feels almost untouched since the 1980s.
- [47:54]
D
Hello, Assalamualaikum.
- [47:56]
F
All of the people that walk through the door while I'm there are treated like familiar family friends By Nora I soon start to join in the cheerful exchange of Salaam Alaikum and Walekum Salaam as faces familiar and new to Noora drift in and out of the shop. Yet despite Dal Al Taqwa's cherished atmosphere, the shop is now facing the risk of closure within less than a year.
- [48:17]
D
People are not buying as many books.
- [48:19]
A
As they used to be.
- [48:20]
D
People don't read as much as what they used to do. People go online a lot, which isn't always good.
- [48:26]
F
It's a trend mainly mirrored across Britain's high streets. The country lost around 37 shops a day in 2024, according to the center for Retail Research, while the number of independent bookshops has fallen by about a third since the mid-1990s. The Booksellers association says the move to online retail risks more than empty storefronts, though it erodes the sense of community that wants to find local shopping. It's something Dar Al Taqwa's most loyal.
- [48:54]
A
Customers feel deeply I'm Madiha, I'm 28 and I've been coming here since I.
- [48:58]
B
Was about eight years old. It has such an old school, cosy feel to it and I like that.
- [49:04]
A
They haven't renovated it over the years. It feels very familiar to when I was visiting it as a child.
- [49:08]
F
What are your feelings on the idea that Dar Al Taqwa is facing the risk of closure now.
- [49:13]
B
I think it's really sad.
- [49:14]
A
That's actually what's I think I'm guilty as well of not having come down and frequently since you can get things online now.
- [49:21]
B
But it is really sad because as.
- [49:24]
A
Much as you do have accessibility online.
- [49:27]
B
The the good thing about this bookstore is they have so many niche authors.
- [49:31]
A
And niche collections that you wouldn't really.
- [49:33]
B
Stumble across unless you were really well read or you knew what you were looking for. And I've discovered so many authors through.
- [49:39]
A
This store whose work I continue to read today.
- [49:41]
B
It's really sad if, if they closed down, I'd be devastated.
- [49:45]
F
This loss of community will be felt by publishers as well as booksellers and buyers too. Back at Monocle Studios at Midori House, I speak with Yahya Bert, a researcher and former bookseller whose titles lie in Dao Al Taqwa's shelves today.
- [49:59]
C
The pleasure of Dorotaqwa is that you would never know what you might find. So Samir Al Alatar, the founder who's now passed away, you know, he kept.
- [50:09]
E
The a lot of rare and out of stock books.
- [50:12]
C
If the book shop and be run in a kind of very rufously commercial.
- [50:16]
E
Way, you know, they would have cleared out old stock. But Samir was a strong believer in.
- [50:22]
C
Having at least one copy of everything, if you see what I mean. So it was like going into a.
- [50:27]
E
Aladdin's cave full of treasures and you.
- [50:30]
C
Always hope to find the unexpected unexpected and the delightful. And I, I know I keep talking about them in the past tense, but Dara Tucker was the last man standing really.
- [50:40]
E
If it closes, it will be a great loss.
- [50:43]
F
While online shopping may have hastened the decline of the high street, social media could yet play a part in its revival. Recent Instagram and TikTok clips celebrating the shop's unique atmosphere have gone viral, drawing a younger audience eager to seek out hidden gems in person. As normal Nora explains. Back at Dahl Takwa, a lot of.
- [51:03]
D
Young people, you know, students and younger people, sometimes they've seen us on Tick.
- [51:08]
A
Tock or on our Instagram page and.
- [51:11]
D
They decide to come in and investigate.
- [51:13]
F
Nora hopes to harness that energy through book clubs and in store readings to continue helping it with sales and its fundraising campaign. Although she won't be doing any tick tocking herself anytime soon, not these days.
- [51:25]
D
I have been on a bit far and I found it was a waste of time. You spend too much time scrolling.
- [51:32]
F
So whether you're a Muslim Islam curious or simply a bibliophile with a love for well curated independent bookshops. Dar Al Taqwa deserves a spot on your list the next time you're in the neighborhood. Not least because you'll get to hang out with Nora, one of London's most adorable booksellers.
- [51:48]
D
Before I was a Muslim, I was always looking for the truth and I. I didn't know what I was looking for.
- [51:53]
A
I was a bit of a hippie.
- [51:54]
D
I liked the music I didn't like, you know, and other things.
- [51:57]
F
For Monocle Radio, I'm Hassan Anderson.
- [52:03]
B
And my thanks to Hassan for that report on London's oldest Islamic bookshop. You're listening to the Globalist on Monocle Radio Theatre news. Now I'm joined by Matt Wolf, theatre critic at the International New York Times. Comes in armed, ladies and gentlemen, with bits of paper clippings. Clippings. He does clip, which is so.
- [52:27]
H
So my fingers are like scissors.
- [52:29]
B
It's his. Wonderful. And kept in boxes under the bed. It's all wonderful.
- [52:32]
H
That's very true.
- [52:33]
B
And we have programmes and everything. He's brought the kitten caboodle for International Theatreland. Welcome, Matt. How are you doing?
- [52:40]
H
I'm very well, thank you.
- [52:41]
G
How are you?
- [52:42]
B
Very well. Very excited to find out the big reveal of Paddington. So they've tried to put Paddington on the stage.
- [52:48]
H
Yes. Now what's interesting about this is that the show has just. And big musicals preview for a long time. This is previewing for about a month. It opens on November 30th and the press are coming the 28th and 29th. But the preview started on Saturday 1st November. And you can't keep anything a secret anymore in the world of social media. So the big question surrounding this show was how would Paddington the Bear from Peru be configured on stage? Would it be cgi, projection, whatever? And. And of course, as soon as the show started, audiences saw the answer. So on Sunday morning I woke up to a fusillade of press releases and information and photos of how Paddington is being revealed in the show. Shall I tell the listener?
- [53:31]
B
Well, it is the next question that's coming, Matt.
- [53:35]
H
I mean, I don't know, they might want to cover their ears, but apparently, and I have not seen the show and won't for a couple of weeks yet. Paddington is a dual configuration of a diminutive performer and somebody controlling the expressions and so on of said performer in the furry suit.
- [53:55]
B
And you'll let us know whether it works or not?
- [53:57]
H
I'll let you know. I have to say that's been a.
- [53:59]
B
Headache that's needed solving, hasn't it?
- [54:01]
H
Well, interesting. The show has been five or six years in the making, and obviously, as with the play War Horse some years ago, where they'd figure out how to do the horses with this, they thought, there is no musical if they can't do the bear. So now that they have the bear, let the show begin.
- [54:14]
B
Let's talk about what. Where this. If the bear. If the bear works, if it. If it goes well, plays don't tour. But when you have a major musical like this, would we. Are we sort of seeing a test run in London, which is where it obviously has to begin, Given. Given the fact that it's Paddington, but do we see Paddington popping up in New York, et cetera, in the next few years?
- [54:33]
H
Well, the thing about musicals, unlike plays, is that musicals exist to go global. I mean, if you've got something like Mamma Mia, it, it is cloned around the world. Everybody knows abba. The one and only time I've ever been to China, I set foot out of the airport in Beijing. And what was the first thing I saw? An advert for the Lion King and Paddington, although it seems a deeply English kind of set of books by Michael Bond. And then the three films obviously has an international perch. And so I would think the Savoy Theater here is just the first venue of many to come.
- [55:06]
B
He will be packing his suitcase. Right, next, Marmalade.
- [55:09]
H
The Marmalade show.
- [55:10]
B
Absolutely. Now, next play that you want to.
- [55:13]
A
Draw our attention to, the line of.
- [55:15]
H
Beauty, which is coming from a very different place. This is the Almeida Theatre in Islington. Small theatre, seats about 320 or so. Very bespoke, very buzzy. And as soon as it was announced that they were adapting Sir Alan Hollinghurst's seminal novel from 2004, tickets went like hotcakes. And the question was, you know, they don't have any tickets really left to sell, so, you know, do the reviews matter? Well, of course they matter. And the fact of the matter is that the play is extremely good. It's a play that was seen already on the BBC in a miniseries, and it's about the sexual and social coming of age of a young Oxford graduate called Nick Guest, who is very much a guest in the world of British high society during the Thatcherite 80s. So it's satiric on the one hand, but it's also very elegiac, as the play goes on, but because, of course, he's a young gay man who is confronting dead on the specter of HIV AIDS at a time when that was very much a Death sentence. So it's kind of fringed by mortality. The production is beautifully directed. A real return to form by Michael Grandage working at the Alameda for the first time in over a quarter century. He last worked there doing the Jew of Malta many, many years ago. And it's got a blue chip cast. I mean, when you've got somebody like the wonderful Charles Edwards playing a Tory mp, very kind of belligerently outspoken Tori MP who turns out to be rather not nearly as nice as he seems after the interval. And Leo Souter from the television series Vikings. Claudia Harrison, Francesca Amouda Rivers, who is Juliet opposite Tom Holland's Romeo. And wonderfully, Jasper Talbot, who plays Nick Guest. It's a hard part because he's essentially reactive. Everyone is kind of glomming onto him and he has to hold his center. But he does so beautifully. And I think a West End transformed will arise and I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up on Broadway.
- [57:07]
B
Okay, right. Thank you very much indeed for that. Let's have a bit of opera.
- [57:11]
H
Opera. Dead Man Walking. This is, of course, a story many people will know from the film for which Susan Sarandon won an Oscar about 30 years ago. It's based on a true story about a terrible murder that took place in Louisiana in 1977. And the murderer was confined to death row. And Sister Helene Prejean was the nun was who. Who comes into this murderer's orbit. It's very much about a long, slow walk to the gallows to the death chamber for the murderer. And you might think that's rather unusual material for the opera. But what Jake Heggie, the composer, has done is find something that incorporates bits of Gershwin and Benjamin Britten and yet is its own musical sort of tornado about grief, restitution, how you find salvation. Can you find salvation? And it's beautifully performed at the inno at a time when that particular opera company really needs a hit. The thing about Dead Man Walking is it's the most successful contemporary opera of the 21st century. It was premiered in San Francisco in 2000. Since then it's traveled very widely, but until now it's not really been seen in a full proper production in London. And Elise Miss Skimming has given it an absolutely top class perch. Alex Eales has designed it beautifully. So you go from jail cell to kind of convent and everywhere in between. But it's really rigorous, austere, it doesn't hold back. And of course, the issues that it's dealing with are as pertinent now more than ever where people are calling for the restitution of the death penalty. You know, people are very, very adamant about this issue. And this puts the issue center stage.
- [58:55]
B
We'll have to leave it there. Matt Wolf, thank you so much, much for joining us in the studio. And that's all the time we have for today's program. The warmest of thanks to all my guests and to the producers, Vincent McEvin, Chris Chermack and Hassan Anderson. Our researcher was Joanna Moser and our studio manager was Mariella Bevan. After the headlines. More music on the way. The briefing is live at midday here in London. The globalist is back at the same time tomorrow. But for now, from me, Emma Nelson, goodbye. Thank you very much for listening.
- [59:38]
A
With ubs, you have a truly global partner incorporating new technologies, innovative approaches and unexpected opportunities leading you to insights that help answer the question that matter delivered with passion, care and unmatched expertise. Because it's about rising with the dawn each day, knowing that we can do even better. That's what banking is to us, not just work, but a craft. UBS advice is our craft.