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- [00:04]
UBS Narrator
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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Emma Nelson
You're listening to the Globalist, first broadcast on 20 February 2026 on Monocor 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.
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Matt Wolfe
Coming up, what we're doing is very simple. Peace. It's called the Board of Peace and it's all about an easy word to say, but a hard word to produce.
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Andrew Muller
Peace.
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Emma Nelson
Donald Trump's Board of Peace convenes what's been agreed. Also ahead in the next 60 minutes, the former Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Sudan joins us to examine how to end the war. There. We'll hear the latest news from the theatre, go through the papers and hear the urbanism headlines and who else to get them from the Monocle Radio's executive producer, Carlotta Rebello. Good morning, Carlotta. What have you found?
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Carlotta Rebello
Good morning, Em. It's a bit of a transport special. We have high speed rail, we have pedicabs and even traffic lights.
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Emma Nelson
Who doesn't love a transport special? That's all coming up on the Globalist live from London. First, a quick look at what else is happening in today's news. Venezuela's acting president Dulcio Rodriguez has signed an amnesty law which human rights organizations warn will not help hundreds of political prisoners. The lower house of Argentina's parliament has passed controversial labor reforms proposed by the president Xavier Milei. And the communist leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un has opened his his party's congress, telling delegates he's optimistic about the future. Stay tuned to Monocle Radio throughout the day for more on these stories. But first, the Board of Peace is up and running. Meeting in Washington yesterday, Donald Trump's answer to the United nations was bursting with pledges and promises. The US will commit $10 billion. The board itself, according to the US president, will also strengthen up the United nations by looking over the United nations the and making sure it runs properly. All to tell us more. I'm joined now by Zizet Dakazali, who's Chatham House's associate fellow and former UN Advisor. Good morning, Zizet. Good to have you in the studio.
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Zizet Dakazali
Thank you, Emma. Good morning.
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Emma Nelson
So let's begin with what actually purpose the Board of Peace serves. We've talked about its origins as the board that will help with the reconstruction of Gaza. Yesterday it became predominantly, one might argue, a platform for Donald Trump to tell us about what he's managed to do.
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Zizet Dakazali
Yes. So if we take a step back and recall when the border peace came about, it was end of September when he launched, when President Trump launched his 20 points plan, it was I think point number four, where the border peace at the time had a different purpose. It was supposed to be a transitional entity. It was to also only focus on Gaza. But what was announced in Davos in January about the border peace was a much bigger entity that goes beyond Gaza. Mr. Trump hoped that it will also address other conflicts. Now, yesterday was an inaugural meeting. It was more of a ceremonial meeting. It was a platform for President Trump to talk about his achievements, what he thinks, how he sees peace and what he achieved. There were pledges, as you said, the US pledged $10 billion. There were also pledges $7 billion by other. There were pledges for personnel for the International Stabilization Force and training of Palestinian troops. But look, all that big vision, good talk, great soundbites aside, the reality paints a much more different picture.
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Emma Nelson
And what is that?
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Zizet Dakazali
So since the so called ceasefire was announced in October in Gaza, the fire has not been seized in Gaza. The more than 600 people have been killed since. Since then there are still very scarce, very limited humanitarian aid entering Gaza. People are still displaced. Israel still hasn't withdrawn. I mean, Israel controls more than 53% of the Gaza Strip. More land, less people. Rafah. I was here in your studios three weeks ago to talk about the opening of Rafah and everybody was excited that Rafah might open and give some relief and respite to people in Gaza because it's the only lifeline out of Gaza. But unfortunately it's very limited. Limited in terms of opening. Only 50 people each day when it opens are allowed in and out. So it's very limited achievement on the ground. It's a bit, the big talk that we saw yesterday is a bit detached from the realities. And this is not even, we didn't even talk about the west bank and what's happening there.
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Emma Nelson
Those who were there and those who weren't there. We have a list of countries which were excluded from the Board of Peace. So what does that say about the makeup of the Board of Peace? And indeed, does it actually matter who's on the board? As long as peace is achieved in some form, because, dare we say it, the argument that is being pushed by the likes of Donald Trump and his allies is that the system has not worked until now.
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Zizet Dakazali
Let's unpack your question. So who was there? Who wasn't there? So there were there countries who are members of the border peace, but also there were observers as well. And that's also important. Countries who are members, countries who joined. There are countries who are ideologically close to President Trump's ideas, like, for example, like Argentina. There are also countries that joined because they do not want to undermine the bilateral relationship with President Trump. Others joined to have a seat at the table when it comes to Gaza, like the Arab countries that when they joined, they actually in their statement made it clear that they're joining only to talk about Gaza and to address what's happening in Gaza. Now, countries who didn't joindid not join for different reasons. France, for example, did not join, saying that the Board of Peace is going beyond Gaza. It's not focused on Gaza as the UN resolution, Security Council resolution 2803 that was issued in support of Mr. Trump's plan, President Trump's plan that was focused on Gaza, France said it's notthere are countries that are also saying that it's undermining the authority of the un, the multilateral. But these entities that are are serving peace in the world. Others didn't join because Russia was invited to the port of peace and they saw that as a threat to what peace means as well. And they were uncomfortable to be on the same panel as Russia. Although, mind you, Russia hasn't said officially that it is joining. But nevertheless, that was a concern. Now, whether and some countries, like the EU, for example, sent an observer. I think Italy as well sent an observer, if not mistaken, although it did not join the Board of Peace. So there are different reasons why it joined, what it didn't join, but whether it can be a subsidy for the UN I think it's a bit premature. The UN works on different areas as well. Not only it is also on humanitarian developmental area. We're not sure whether the Board of Peace is going to be doing that as well. And the Board of Peace has limited membership, unlike the UN that is much more global.
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Emma Nelson
And indeed, what we're hearing, though, is when we heard, as I mentioned at the beginning of this interview, that Donald Trump mentioned that the Board of Peace would strengthen up the United nations by looking it over and making sure it runs properly. Now, the last time anyone checked, there was no scope in the existence of the United nations to include a sort of a surveillance body. But does it actually, does this Board of Peace, for better, for worse, focus on the UN and will something be done or will anything happen as a result which will perhaps make the UN more effective or indeed, you know, now that we have two, dare we take competing organizations? What will happen? Will any good come of this?
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Zizet Dakazali
Look, there were mixed messages when it comes to the UN by President Trump. Their messages that it's dysfunctional, it doesn't work. That's why we're launching a different entity to do what the UN failed. And then at one point he said, but we are going to be working with the United nations organizations, but the UN will have to also work with us in a certain way. So it's unclear how the work with the UN is going to happen, whether again whether it would replace the un, whether it will achieve peace. Look, the Board of Peace still hasn't, yesterday was inaugural meeting is, still hasn't really functioned on the ground. No one knows what it's capable of doing. But I doubt that it will replace the United Nations. And one very last point. Look, even within the UN we've got lots of resolutions, UN Security Council, General assembly resolutions that are like gathering dust on the shelves of the U.N. what matters isn't. What matter is what the countries themselves decide to do, how they decide to enforce these decisions, what they decide to kind of enforce peace, and what their vision of peace is more than the UN The UN needs reforms and the UN says that it needs reforms as well. But reforming the UN isn't replacing it with a different entity.
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Emma Nelson
How long do we think the Board of Peace will last?
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Zizet Dakazali
Ah, that's a million dollar question. Let's see if, I mean if you look at the charter of the Board of Peace, it's gonna last for a very long time. There is an unlimited. President Trump is chairman for life and there isn't a limited time for it. But let's see how it, how it works. If it's going to the American administration, if it lasts as much as far as the American administration does, if it goes beyond it, the attention, spam, the focus and how it survives, we'll just have to wait and see.
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Emma Nelson
Finally, as I said, I mean from having been a UN adviser, what are your thoughts on. I think there's an article in the New York Times a couple of days ago that talked about a new era of diplomat free diplomacy. How is the world going to make sense of all this in let's say, 10, 20, years time.
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Zizet Dakazali
I'm going to quote Carney, the Canadian on this one, that there is a rupture at the moment and we'll see how thingswe'll see how things go. It's not a transition, it's rupture. Look, there is a new reality that we're all dealing with at the moment, all countries are dealing with at the moment. And there is a United States president who is unpredictable as well. Things can go anywhere, anytime. Time we'll just kind of have to watch and see. Diplomacy has not dead yet. I think we all agree to that. It is. How it's implemented remains a question giving the transactional approach that is emerging now
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Emma Nelson
from the US Ali Chatham House Associate fellow and former UN Advisor thank you so much for joining me in the studio. You're listening to the Globalist.
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Zizet Dakazali
Now.
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Emma Nelson
The ongoing civil war in Sudan has resulted in what some human rights groups have called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The death toll is estimated to be above 150,000. More than 12 million people have been displaced. Volka Pertez is the former special representative of the UN Secretary General for Sudan and he believes a solution to the war may finally be in view. He spoke to Monocle's Hassan and began by asking if the UN Mission in Sudan anticipated the devastating civil war before it broke out in April 2023.
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Volka Pertez
Well, look, the UN mission in Sudan, Unitums, as it was called, the United Nation Integrated Transition Assistance Mission, came to that country in 2020 in order to support the transition from dictatorship to civilian led democratic government. Now that transition was aborted by a military coup in 2021 and that coup was led by the two leaders who later went into a civil war against each other. General Burhan from the Sudanese Armed Forces, the army, that is, and Mr. Hemetti, as he is called, Hamdan Daglo, the leader of the so called Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary part of the security establishment. So there wasn't much of a transition to assist after that coup. And the UN engaged in de escalation in trying to get the military, both militaries as it were, to talk to the civilians. And then we supported a discussion process, a negotiation process between the military and the civilians. Did we see the war coming? Well, we did see rising tensions in between the army and the rsf. And until the day before the violence started or the shooting started, we were talking to both sides and trying to work on them and tell them that they better don't do stupid things, they should refrain from using violence. They should try to find A negotiated solution with the help of us and others. Others meaning other diplomats in the country, but also Sudanese civil society. And both sides actually promised us that they will not take military action. And then we woke up the next morning and the shooting had started.
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Andrew Muller
And nearly three years later, that shooting still rages on, with the civilian death toll continuing to rise. Given your background and your experience on the ground in Sudan, what now has given you hope that there could be a possible end in sight to this very constant and brutal civil war?
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Volka Pertez
Well, I would be cautious with the word hope, but of course, we know that all wars end at some point. What we have seen over the past weeks is a, that both warring parties have consolidated control over the territory. They are most interested in where they have their main constituencies, and that is Central Sudan and the Nile Valley and the east for the army and its government. And that is Darfur for the rsf, for most parts of the largest part of Darfur. And we do have a slightly, I'm cautious here, more active international diplomacy led by the United States. President Trump wants to have some successes in peacemaking. He has a. An advisor for African and Arab affairs who is trying to stitch together, as it were, consent between the Americans and three regional Arab parties who are heavily involved in that war, in order to get at least to a humanitarian ceasefire. So for the SAF and for the rsf, it is important not to get on the bad side of the Americans, the Egyptians, the Saudis and the Emiratis. So if these four parties have a common approach to the war in Sudan, I think they could take influence, they could increase their leverage over the fighting parties, use the instruments they have, which is basically weapon supplies for the Arab neighbors and sanctions, that is negative incentives from the US to make the parties agree at least on a humanitarian ceasefire.
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Andrew Muller
Do you think that agreement will come as a one state solution, or is it more likely we'll get a kind of partition, a de facto partition between the territories of the two warring sides, the SAF and the rsf.
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Volka Pertez
I fear at this moment that we will have to live with a de facto partition of territorial control for some time to come. But let me also say that no one is prepared to recognize a Darfur rump state under the leadership of the rsf. They aren't popular in the areas where they have control. So if there was a de facto partition that lasts for a while without any fighting between the two sides, I am pretty sure that there will be fragmentation in both camps, particularly on the side of the territory which is now held by the rsf. So I don't think that a two state outcome would be stable and would materialize for Sudan.
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Andrew Muller
Well, just finally then, Volker, if a ceasefire is achieved, what do you think would be the biggest obstacle to turning it into something long lasting and civilian led rather than a frozen or a fractured conflict like you've just mentioned?
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Volka Pertez
It's a good question. Of course the main obstacle is that you have the military forces and those who are interested in continuing the war and making more territorial gains, that they are still there. And it is important therefore to reduce the flow of resources and that means arms and weapons and fuel to the fighting forces to keep pressure on them or to start putting pressure on them. So if there is a ceasefire and has to start with a ceasefire, out of this ceasefire, there would be more political space for civilian actors. These civilian actors need international and regional support then in order to find an agreement on a minimum agreement on moving forward in a political process.
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Emma Nelson
And that was Folke Pertez, the former special representative of the UN Secretary General for Sudan, talking to Monocle's Hassan Anderson.
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Andrew Muller
Still to come, we learned therefrom that people really do have an extremely limited understanding of how cold and altitude can affect, affect human speech.
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Emma Nelson
That's Andrew Muller telling us what we learned this week. Stay with us. On the globalist.
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UBS Narrator
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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Emma Nelson
Off we go to Zurich now to have a look at today's newspapers. Joining us from our headquarters in Zurich in Studio 4 is Monocle Security correspondent Garana Gurgi. How are you Garana? How's Zurich looking this morning? Good morning.
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Garana Gurgi
I am very good, but the weather is not that great. So drizzly, semi foggy grey, you know, February, the usual.
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Emma Nelson
No, the ush. Excellent. I'm going to adopt that for the rest of the day. The ush, Brilliant. Thank you for that. Tell us what you found in the papers.
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Garana Gurgi
Well, there's quite a few things that are happening around the world of at least my sort of international security, geopolitics and then maybe some fun stuff. I'd like us maybe to start with what's seemingly, you know, an ongoing story with the Trump administration and that's the decline of multilateralism that we see in two stories, one that was brought to us by Financial Times, where the International Energy Agency now for the first time really couldn't come up with a joint position following just a basic meeting over what are the ambitions in general globally to reach net zero. So unlike in recent years, ministers that were meeting in Paris over the past two days didn't agree on a joint position because the U.S. was obstructing any kind of consensus. And the U.K. france and Spain were among countries that were maintaining the importance of renewable sources. So I could say same old, same old. And then the other story that's again in this sort of tune of declining multilateralism, international cooperation within intergovernmental organizations is brought to us by Washington Post that has an exclusive that after leaving the World Health Organization, Trump officials are proposing now to replace it with something that's way more expensive and that would be basically built on, on a series of bilateral agreements that the US has with around 60 countries already.
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Emma Nelson
So we have this coverage of the way that things are fracturing. We had Zizet Darcuzeli earlier on talking about how everything goes back to what Marcani says about the fact that we don't have divisions, we have a genuine rupture. But from the position of a security correspondent, are we looking at an era now of what you hear described as functional cooperation? We don't have multilateralism, but alliances are formed over certain subjects. And we can see this happening, happening with climate change, and indeed, we may well see this happening with health.
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Garana Gurgi
I would say that you're exactly on the money there, that what we are seeing these days is a lot more of these coalitions of the willing of more flexible arrangements of groups of countries cooperating on issues on really kind of case by case basis, rather than forming these mega organizations that were trying to be more universally and they were trying to bring as many people under the tent. I mean, we saw it just yesterday with President Trump's Board of peace launch in D.C. which is trying to basically act as some sort of substitute for what UN Would do in a lot of these kind of post conflict kind of nation building, state building, capacity building operations would do. And this is something that we might see a lot more moving forward to sort of negotiating pluralism. Because I don't think that states will cease to recognize that there is benefit in international cooperation. It's just going to be based on what sort of terms and who those sort of motors or locomotives of that cooperation will be. And this will be dictated largely by these power Considerations, as we see in the case of the United States, how
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Emma Nelson
much will this also be determined by the role of the private sector? Because I know that one of the stories that you want to draw our attention to is one of the Wall Street Journal about the fact that Tata OpenAI getting together in India to form an enormous AI data center system and it works out where the balance of it asks now where the balance of power now lies.
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Garana Gurgi
That's exactly right. And this is the Geopol meets sort of geo Econ or you know, basically the. The kind of story that we see around speculations over how much we wish see the decoupling in the tech. And I think that this particular story that you're alluding to. So Wall Street Journal is reporting now out of a lot of things that are coming actually from India over the past couple of days and have to do with AI, which is that India Starter Group and OpenAI are teaming up to offer these AI services, which is coming just after the news of Infosys partnering with Anthropic, which has also been in the news as of to do pretty much the same. And what this tells me through the prism of at least, you know, kind of, again, geopolitics, geo economics, is that India, at least when it comes to selection of these platforms, is moving more towards the United States rather than, for instance, choosing some of the competitors that might come from China, for instance, Deep Sea core similar.
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Emma Nelson
Let's move to a really delightful story that you've drawn our attention to in the Sydney Morning Herald. Starting off by saying if you have good stamina and get your kit off very quickly, you might have what it takes to become an Olympian. This is not what that suggests, is it? This is about the absolutely bananas sport of ski mountaineering. When you run up a mountain and then change your kit and ski down again, and it looks almost as if you're doing everything that you shouldn't do in an Olympic game.
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Garana Gurgi
That's true. And we have to start off by saying that yesterday Skimo made its debut as the latest sport to join Winter Olympics. And there is a Swiss connection. Actually, that's coming up twice in this story, which is that yesterday Marianne Fatton from Switzerland became the first woman to step on the podium to get her gold medal as a Schemo champion, along with Spanish schema athlete Oriole Cardona Cole, who did the same in the men's team. But yeah, you described it right. Skimo's history could be traced back to thousands of years, because back before we had Gondolas and ski lifts. People had to somehow get on top of the mountain. And if they wanted to ski, they had to obviously then somehow come down. And there is apparently a lot of evidence of ancient alpine travelers that stuck animal skins to the bottom of their wooden skis to climb mountains. And then they did what they needed to do up in the mountains, hunting, military patrols, exploration, and then glided back down to civilization on those same skins.
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Emma Nelson
So did you watch it yesterday, Grana? Because I was absolutely transfixed. It was like watching people realizing that they'd left their keys at the top of the mountain.
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Garana Gurgi
Yes, it does look a little bit hectic and it's certainly not something that one would do again in the era of like gondolas and lifts. But I can see sort of the appeal and it's like the latest thing and I think what the story from Sydney Morning Herald points to is that this really exploded during COVID when ski resorts were closed. And then people who are really into skiing were forced to find another way to access mountains. So Italy is one of ski most spiritual homes, if you wish. And there is an Australian who was responsible to bring it to the Olympics stage, someone who was before a mogul skier, Ramon Cooper from Australia who moved to Switzerland and now he heads the body, the kind of key body for schema under the IOC Gurana.
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Emma Nelson
We are going to have to leave it there because I think you've competed and lost against the Bin Lorry. It proves that we are live in Zurich. Is it still there? Oh no, it's still going.
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Garana Gurgi
It's still going. I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon. It's Friday. I think there's a lot that people have accumulated over the week here.
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Emma Nelson
Friday is Bin day in Seinfeld.
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Garana Gurgi
So you're gonna miss, yeah, the robot story. The robot dog that made certain Indian professor and her students get booted off.
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Emma Nelson
Oh, go on then, give us a robot dog.
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Garana Gurgi
Well, I had to do this one because of course there is a pun as well and I'm like a dad telling a joke. But at the AI Impact summit in New Delhi, a professor tried to pass off a robot dog as her university's own creation, but it came back to bite her. Why? Well, the artificial canine was revealed to be already commercially available in China. And so the school from Uttar Pradesh was ejected from the event. There's a whole hoopla over it because now there is the sort of he said, she said that apparently they weren't presenting it as their own. But any. So this is more of the kind of story in terms of tech decoupling. Chinese, if you haven't seen, are very good at producing everything that looked like humanoid robots to these canine robots that get people out of AI competitions.
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Emma Nelson
Karana Gurdy, the Bin Laurie and the Robot Dog. Thank you so much for joining us. From Studio 4 in Zurich. You're listening to THE Globalist. Now a look at some of the other stories we're keeping an eye on today. Venezuela's acting president Delsey Rodriguez has signed an amnesty law which human rights organizations warn won't help hundreds of political prisoners. The bill provides amnesty for those involved in political protest, but it's thought that those found guilty of corruption or promoting rebellion are excluded. The arrest of the former Prince Andrew by British police has increased calls in the United States for officials there to take action against those linked to Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's detention on suspicion of sharing confidential documents with a late sex offender stems from the US Government's release of its Epstein files. He's previously denied all wrongdoing. The lower house of Argentina's parliament has passed controversial labor reforms proposed by the president, Xavier Milei. The proposals now go to the Senate and they permit 12 hour working days and make it easier to hire and fire staff. And the communist leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un has opened his party's congress, telling delegates he's optimistic about the future. Observers are watching to see if Kim's teenage daughter and possible heir Kim Joo Ae makes an appearance. This is THE globalist. Stay tuned. Now for an alternative look at the last seven days. Here's what we learned with Andrew.
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Andrew Muller
We learned this week more of the measure of the man upon whom the citizens of the most advanced civilization ever gathered beneath one flag is relying for guidance about how best to maintain their physical and mental equilibrium.
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Matt Wolfe
And I said I'm not scared of a germ. You know I used to snort cocaine off a toilet seats.
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Andrew Muller
We learned, yes, that US Secretary of health and celebrity whale beheading bear corpse dumper Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Had given further thought as to how his fellow Americans might aspire to be as fit, strong, sane and above all normal as Kennedy himself very obviously is. We learned this from a video of himself that RFK2 released in the company of his fellow paragon of corporeal and indeed moral fortitude, the unenjoyable singer Kid Rock. That is the audio, specifically One of Kid Rock's dreary thrashers, much beloved of 45 year old men in three quarter length shorts. The video we would earnestly counsel against looking up or indeed imagining in any great detail, consisting as it does of Messrs. Kennedy and Rock working sweatily out together before taking a sauna and a swim. Hey, we're not judging. And concluding with an entreaty to drink raw milk, which we learned is a key plank of Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again campaign, which we learned is going just tremendously well, even you might say legend darily.
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Emma Nelson
Health officials in New Mexico are warning
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Zizet Dakazali
the public against consuming raw milk after a newborn died from a listeria infection earlier this month.
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Andrew Muller
Raw milk that was sold from a
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Matt Wolfe
farm in central Florida has made 21 people sick.
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Emma Nelson
And the Florida Department of Health says six of those people who were sick were children.
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Andrew Muller
Hamilton County Health Department warning about illnesses related to consumption of raw milk. They say that several children are currently in the hospital in Hamilton county due to E. Coli in that milk, an udder disgrace, etc. Is that anything
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Zizet Dakazali
but tears on my pillow?
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Andrew Muller
Sticking with the subject of advocates of alternative views on health who are themselves inadvertent warnings against believing a single word they say about anything, we learned that we had not, despite our ardent wishes, heard the last of this guy. No, they're not lumpy pillows. That's not what they call on, okay, that. When you say lumpy pillows now, you're. You're an a hole. You got that? You're an a hole. That guy being Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, anti vax conspiracy weirdo and all round thundering dingbat who is seeking the Republican nomination to become the next governor of Minnesota. An obviously absurd notion, as the very thought of the stolid rock ribbed citizens of the North Star State deciding to install all in the governor's residence in St. Paul some hopelessly unqualified bloviating yahoo they've seen on television is obviously preposterous. This time, Jesse the Body Ventura's fight was not fixed from the beginning. No script and he still won. Shock the world. The former professional wrestler, master of a pseudo sport he describes as ballet with violence, is now the governor Elect of Minnesota. Ah, well, let us nevertheless have the state song of Minnesota, which both enjoins fealty to Minnesota and describes its weather for like nine months out of every 12. Hail Minnesota. You see what we did there? We learned, yes, that this particular windmill tilt was the latest expression on the wearisome fact that being CEO of a moderately successful bedding company is not sufficient for Mike Lindell. And we learned that even if this endeavour doesn't make Lindell governor, it may make him a successful or at least less unsuccessful author. We learned that since Lindell launched his campaign that copies of his 2019 memoir, what Are the Odds from Crack Addict to CEO, that is the actual title, have been veritably flying off the shelves. We learned however that they were being purchased in the main largely by Mike Lindell.
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Garana Gurgi
Your campaign took in more than $350,000 in contributions in just under a month. But filings show your campaign spent more than half of that money on your own self published memoir.
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Emma Nelson
Explain to people why. Why buy all those books?
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Garana Gurgi
Is that a wise use of campaign speakers spending?
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Andrew Muller
Yeah, yeah, we got them for a very good price for my pillow. Employee owned company. That's not my benefit. That's not them. And what. What it is and what you can do. Instead of paying money for flyers and stuff, we had to go around and do debates for two months. About a month and a half, these debates and we gave out the books. He may actually still be going. Haven't looked in for a few days. But we learned closer to where this week's monologue was composed and recorded. Let's have some silly Italian music.
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Volka Pertez
Music.
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Andrew Muller
That location being the Winter Olympic city of Milan. That a terrible blow had been struck against a dismal stain smeared upon the reputations of the international press pack covering events, especially the Australian reporters. We learned this from conclusions widely and unfairly drawn from this outside broadcast to the effect fact that the hack in question may have been enjoying the offerings in the hospitality suite.
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Emma Nelson
Literally the like.
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Garana Gurgi
The price of coffee over here is actually fine.
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Emma Nelson
It's more the price of coffee in
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Garana Gurgi
the US that we are going to
- [38:07]
Emma Nelson
have to get used to.
- [38:08]
Garana Gurgi
I'm not sure about the iguanas we
- [38:11]
Andrew Muller
learned there from that people really do have an extremely limited understanding of how cold and altitude can affect affect human speech. And still less appreciation of the rigorous regime of abstemiousness that all broadcast journalists and especially the Australian reporters commit to when representing their employers abroad. For Ronickle Radio, I'm Mandrew Uller.
- [38:37]
Emma Nelson
Thank you, Mandrew. You're listening to Monocle Radio. 07:38 Here in London. Let's have a roundup of the world of urbanism now. Carlotta Rebello is Monocle Radio's executive producer. Good morning Carlotta. How are you?
- [38:54]
Carlotta Rebello
Good morning, Emma. I'm good. How are you?
- [38:56]
Emma Nelson
Full of energy. I know the bin Lorry has sort of got our juices going right. Okay, tell us about what's happening in our cities.
- [39:03]
Carlotta Rebello
Well, speaking of bin, Laurie, let's stay with A bit of transportation in our city, shall we? Because maybe it can be equated as a means of transport, which is the much hated pedicab here in London, or tuk tuks as they're often called. Now these are like these pedal, push, I guess, bikes that can fit up to three people and you might think, oh, that's a. Sounds like a nice efficient way to get around the city. No, because they often have a panoply of like, of light neon lights just around them and a lot of artificial fur and blasting. So such loud music. Now on its own, okay, maybe a bit annoying, but you can get past it. Imagine like hundreds of them, each competing with each other. And finally, after a lot of complaints from the public and from residents in London, Transport for London has announced new rules that mean that for the first time, these riders will be required to pay for a license and meet certain requirements and also have to be regulated in terms of the noise that they emit.
- [40:10]
Emma Nelson
There's also a money thing, because what you do is you see people looking slightly nervous, but doing that thing where you're pretending that you're enjoying yourself in public and everyone's looking at you. And then when you get off, off the pedicab, I suddenly realized I've been on one. It's just come back to me. I've had a flashback. I did it in Nice. It was nice. They then charge you all your money.
- [40:33]
Carlotta Rebello
Absolutely. And that's one of the biggest issues beyond the pollution, the visual and noise pollution, is the fact that the fees have always been described as a bit of a ripoff. You know, there's been more than enough reports about seven minute journeys costing around £450. And because these are not discussed up front then it causes a bit of content. Now, under the TFL proposal, passengers will be charged a maximum base fare of £5 and then £1 per minute for the first passenger, rising to £3 per minute for every additional passenger. It also means that drivers will need to meet language requirements, English language requirements, passed a safety test and hold at least a driving theory certificate. So because if you think about it, if you are a cyclist, you don't need to have any sort of driving theory certificate. But I guess in this case you are providing a service, so it does make sense that you know at least how you know the rules of driving on the streets.
- [41:29]
Emma Nelson
Thank you for that. Let's go to a slightly more sophisticated transport story. High speed rail links between Porto and Lisbon in Portugal.
- [41:37]
Carlotta Rebello
Yes. So this is a tale as old as time. It's been going on forever, the project to finally deliver high speed rail. But this is the closest time that I can remember of us nearly getting there. And now it's been announced a new 2.4 billion investment for this project. It is being done in three phases. So this is the latest phase that has been announced. And you know, the services are planned to start construction in this year and then next year. And the work also on the Lisbon Madrid corridor is happening separately. So this is really an investment that can change the way people move not only within Portugal, but also within the Iberian Peninsula.
- [42:19]
Emma Nelson
Indeed. How much is the absence of a high speed rail link between Porto and Lisbon? How much is that holding the country back?
- [42:25]
Carlotta Rebello
Well, at the moment, between Porto and Lisbon, the fastest train takes about three hours and a bit and it's only marginally faster than driving. And for a country of that size, it really does hold people back because we do have transport links by plane. And when you're faced with that difference in how long it takes, you know, between a 30 minute flight or three and a half hour transportation, you will go for the flight. If you do have to have a meeting in Porto and be back in Lisbon on the same day.
- [42:56]
Emma Nelson
Okay, let's talk about traffic lights. I have never had to ask this question, possibly because I've not felt the need to, but here it comes. How much does it cost to maintain a set of traffic lights?
- [43:08]
Carlotta Rebello
Well, Emma, wouldn't you like to know? So I can tell you that in the city of Barcelona, and this was very intriguing for me because just like you, I've never asked or inquired how much this would cost. But to maintain and repair the nearly 40,000 traffic lights and other traffic regulation systems in the city of Barcelona, it's a budget of 34 million euros. Isn't that just staggering? Did you know that's how much traffic lights cost, considering there are already most of them with LED lights. LED lights, so they're more efficient.
- [43:40]
Emma Nelson
So what are they spending all the money on? Do we know why it costs 34 million euros?
- [43:44]
Carlotta Rebello
Well, apparently that is how much it costs to run them permanently and to maintain them. And to make sure that, you know, we need to remember here, we're talking about 39,772 traffic lights that obviously are a crucial element for road safety. And this money includes the maintenance that usually is carried during daylight hours so that it doesn't affect the systems as much. And this is a budget for a two year program. And a lot of it is also retrofitting some of these lights. So that it can bring energy savings, they hope, of nearly 85% and they say drop a drop of 1.5 tons of CO2, which is quite a significant change.
- [44:28]
Emma Nelson
Carlotta Rubello, Monaco radio's executive producer and urbanism expert, thank you so much for joining me in the studio. You're listening to the Globalist
- [44:40]
UBS Narrator
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.
- [45:18]
Emma Nelson
Time now to find out what's happening in the world of theatre. Matt Wolfe is the theatre critic at the International New York Times. Come in with a very good woolly scarf and some really good notes. Good morning, Matt. How are you?
- [45:29]
Matt Wolfe
I'm very well.
- [45:29]
Volka Pertez
How are you?
- [45:30]
Emma Nelson
Very well, thank you. Actually, I want to ask you a question because I have sat next to reviewers in the last few months for whatever reason, and you're all really, really good at taking notes in the dark. How do you do it?
- [45:40]
Matt Wolfe
It cuts to practice. When you start, you find that you have lots and lots of notes on the same line and you look, you have no idea what you've written. So what you learn to do as time goes by is to allow lots of space on the page and bring lots of pages in order to do that.
- [45:54]
Emma Nelson
And how do you turn the pages without making everybody angry?
- [45:57]
Matt Wolfe
If it's a musical, it's great. You wait for the applause at the end of a number. If it's a Chekhov play, you're stuffed.
- [46:04]
Emma Nelson
Thank you for that. Right, you have just come in saying that you're giving a five star review and you have done for what you described as your favorite contemporary play.
- [46:12]
Matt Wolfe
Yes. I mean, this is Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, which opened at the national in 1993. And I was reviewing for Variety then and I just remember leaving the Littleton Auditorium just on a high. And anyone who thinks that it's more fun to write a pen than a rave, I have to tell you, it's completely, they're completely wrong. Because writing a rave for this review was just such a thrill. And since then, I've seen the play done many times, often, you know, quite well. But I thought I would never see a production to rival the original. Well, ta da, because that's a title we'll get to later in the show. Cary Cracknell, the director, has Done a production at the through March 21st that does in some ways rival and even surpass the original in its clarity, in its passion, and in its appeal to the heart. And that's what's really important about this play. Everyone goes on and on about how heady Stoppard is, and, you know, he's such a wordsmith. And Fermat's Last Theorem and quantum mechanics and classical versus Romantic theories of landscape gardening, and all of those are in the play. But at the end of the day, it's a play about passion and the heart.
- [47:11]
Emma Nelson
And it is one of those plays that many people find off putting as a result, because of the fact that it has a very erudite bent to it.
- [47:19]
Matt Wolfe
I think people are scared of it in advance because they read all these primers that you have to know the following 12 things before you go. And even in the program, there are four pages given over to the various theories espoused in the play, largely by the brilliant Thomas Cena, who is the young teenager in the show, extraordinarily well played by Isis Hainsworth, whose story really is at the wounding heart of the piece. But you shouldn't be afraid of it. Just surrender to it.
- [47:44]
Emma Nelson
Now, this play is being performed in the round. Yeah.
- [47:47]
Matt Wolfe
And actually, I think that helps it. Stoppard famously said he liked his plays to be done in a prossart, you know, where you're at a distance from the theater life, from the stage, like most shows are. Like Dracula, which we'll talk about certainly is. But in this case, having it in the round, where the action kind of bleeds into the audience and, you know, characters are able to overlap and it's very intimate. It really helps the play, and I think it helps elucidate it as well. Alex Eales design is very. But very beautiful, and I don't want to give it away, but it ties into the themes of the show.
- [48:17]
Emma Nelson
Okay. Thank you very much indeed for that. And Arcadia and all of Tom Stoppard's other plays will probably be being revived all over the world soon enough following his recent death. Right. Dracula has. It's a very unusual staging of the Bram Stoker story, which we all know, and we've all seen various iterations, and some of us have read it and some of us haven't, but there's a brand new attempt at sort of tackling it and bringing it up to date.
- [48:43]
Matt Wolfe
Yeah. This is Cynthia Eriva, fresh from, of course, the two Wicked movies. Obviously, she's a remarkable British performer who began in the Musical theater in London and then on Broadway. And now she's gone back to her stage roots. She plays 23 characters in this adaptation by the Australian writer director Kip Williams. And the talking point of this has been the technology. Kip Williams loves tech, high tech. Craig Wilkinson deserves a shout out as the video designer. He's in some ways the unspoken star of the show. But the weird thing about it is so much of it is on screen. When you see Cynthia Erivo live as she actually is, she's talking to one or another iteration of herself. One of the different characters, Van Helsing or Dracula himself, or Mina or Jonathan Harker, the solicitor. But sometimes you can't find her. You can't find the actual Cynthia Erivo because there's so much flim flam going on around her. And after a while you begin to wonder what the point of all this is. Is it just a stunt designed to win awards? What is it actually saying about Bram Stoker's novella?
- [49:41]
Emma Nelson
I don't quite get when someone tackles a big work in a kind of like a one person sortie, why do people do it?
- [49:51]
Matt Wolfe
I think there's. I think the novelty of this is. Well, first of all, it's no longer novel. It's beginning to wear thin. We had Andrew Scott doing all of Uncle Vanya and that was exciting to see. We had Sarah Snook with Kip Williams at the helm doing Dorian Gray. She wanted Tony and Olivier for that. I think there is something about the artists testing the limits of their own craft, but it's beginning to seem slightly self defeating. And actually with this Dracula, I wanted less of the kind of showmanship of look what wizardry we can bring to the story and just tell us the story, bring some other actors on, let Cynthia Rivo do her thing and just give it to us straight.
- [50:28]
Emma Nelson
If it's a one actor show, you've been warned. Matt's coming with a sharpened pencil. Finally, we head to the bowels of Soho.
- [50:35]
Matt Wolfe
Yes, this is the Soho Theater, which is a wonderful venue in the heart of Soho, 21 Dean street and they have two shows on through March 7th in the same auditorium. One early evening, one late evening. The early evening one is called the Virgins by a writer for succession and Harry Potter, Mariam Batty. And it's about three 16 year old girls determined to lose their virginity while two boys sit and watch video games in the room next door. If you thought, Emma, that sex amongst teenagers was all about joyful flirtation, you would be wrong. This is really quite A sad, baleful look at young people out of their death. They don't really know how to connect. And when the sex in this show does arrive, it's very often solitary and painful until the very end, which is something that I can't describe on radio.
- [51:25]
Emma Nelson
It's a question that begs asking, why would anyone want to pay money to see that?
- [51:29]
Matt Wolfe
Well, I think a lot of people feel that kind of the coming of age of themselves or of people in general or maybe of their children or grandchildren is an eternally pertinent story. I, I don't know that it's been quite so woundingly described as it is in this play, which really makes you hanker for the good old days where people just had fun.
- [51:49]
Emma Nelson
Excellent.
- [51:50]
Matt Wolfe
But I have to give a shout out to Josh Sharp. Tada. Do I have time for that?
- [51:53]
Emma Nelson
Yes, you do.
- [51:53]
Carlotta Rebello
Go ahead.
- [51:54]
Matt Wolfe
And this has been one of the real treats of the year. Josh Sharp is an American comedian in his 30s from North Carolina. And this is a solo show seen in New York now at the soho Theater late night. And it is absolutely lovely. Weirdly, it's on the same theme as Arcadia, which is about taking advantage of life while you can seize the and just go for it. But in any other way it's completely different from Arcadia and it's really worth seeing. He has PowerPoint's Galore Slides 2000. It's a coming out story. It's a requiem for his late mom and it's absolutely delightful indeed.
- [52:26]
Emma Nelson
What's sort of like the main driver behind it? What's the story?
- [52:29]
Matt Wolfe
The main drive is how will he get through the 2000 slides? And he kind of shows us as he's doing it and then he continually wrong foots you because at the beginning he says, well, I was a magician. He, he shows you a little photo of himself as a kid as a sweet faced young magic aficionado. Then we hear his coming out story. Then we hear about his mother's death from ovarian cancer. Then we hear about his near death in Puerto Valeta, Mexico, where he was saved by a Canadian nurse. And he manages to kind of tie it all together and end it with a really neat magic trick. And I still don't know how he did it. That is magic.
- [53:04]
Emma Nelson
Matt Wolfe bringing us his own kind of magic. Theatre critic at the International New York Times. Thank you for bringing us the Theatre Theatre news. You're listening to the Globalist.
- [53:35]
Matt Wolfe
Foreign.
- [53:43]
Emma Nelson
53 in Milan, which is where we head next for a moment of joy tinged with a touch of sadness. Because it's the last globalist check in. Ahead of our final episode of Monocle in Milan, on the 47th floor of Allianz Tower, we have our contributing editor, Andrew Muller, hopefully sober, and our deputy head of radio, Tom Webb. Good morning, gentlemen.
- [54:03]
Zizet Dakazali
Hello.
- [54:03]
Volka Pertez
Good morning.
- [54:04]
Andrew Muller
Good morning, Emma. And sober as a judge. Thank you for that insinuation because.
- [54:08]
Emma Nelson
Well, not the insinuation, but simply. We heard what we learned a little bit earlier on and there is a spotlight being shone on the sobriety of Australian broadcasters. As a representative of Australia and a broadcaster, could you defend your entire nation and the profession, please?
- [54:25]
Andrew Muller
Of course I could. Both journalists and Australians, as all our listeners understand, are bodies of people renowned for their sobriety and composure, especially when abroad at sporting events.
- [54:38]
Emma Nelson
Tom Webb, would you concur with this statement?
- [54:41]
Tom Webb
Absolutely. I would say Milan is the. The business hub of the Olympics. Everyone is very well behaved down here. Up in the mountains, hell is breaking loose. That's where all the skiers and snowboarders are, isn't it? And Dutch House, the big public party house, as we've been hearing from Noel.
- [54:56]
Emma Nelson
Tell us a little bit more about what we've been hearing.
- [54:59]
Tom Webb
Oh, Dutch House. Each country has their own little chalet, of course, and those from the Netherlands are renowned for a bit of a party. And every country is piling into Dutch House. At the end of the day, you've got Canada, the United States, because they are putting on their famous shows. And once skiers have done their competition, I mean, the Olympians, they're slowly starting to let their hair down as the competition ends.
- [55:24]
Emma Nelson
Okay, how are you? What have you been up to? I'm assuming you have not been to Dutch House but have kept yourselves at the business end.
- [55:31]
Andrew Muller
We have kept ourselves at the business end. We have been here at our IRI, 47 floors above Milan, as you said. We have. We are an hour away from the fifth and final show of this week, the tenth and final show of the stint as a whole. And we have been speaking to the people, people who make that aspect of Milan, the business end of it that Tom was talking about, go round, because this city is obviously a huge hub for architecture, for industrial design, for fashion, for all the kinds of stuff that Italy makes so well. And we have had many of the people who make that stuff coming up to join us. We have also been speaking to people from Milan's culinary sector. We dined at the right restaurant of one of our guests last night, which was, unsurprisingly, excellent. So I hope we have given, I think, A broader picture of this city beyond the Olympics. And I hope we have warmed it up nicely for our team, who will be descending for Design Week in a couple of months.
- [56:33]
Emma Nelson
Personal highlights for you, Tom.
- [56:36]
Tom Webb
We're surrounded by the Olympic torches here. Allianz have a mutual museum, all of, all of them on days gone by. And we had Edward Barber, who very, very famous designer who did the London 2012 torch, and he took me around each one of them and gave me his view. Now, it was off the record. I wish I could tell you what he said, particularly about the Beijing torch, but he was, he was a real delight to have here.
- [57:04]
Emma Nelson
And what about you, Andrea? I mean, you had a week, you did Monocle in Paris when, when we had the Summer Olympics last time. And, and the, the brilliance of all the guests that were just coming through the revolving doors onto the, in front of the microphones was always breathtaking. But when you're on the plane back home tonight, tomorrow night, whenever you just tell us what, what that one memorable interview will have been.
- [57:27]
Andrew Muller
The memorable interview. I, I, I mean, I, that there have been so many this week. I, I would actually go again, sticking with the theme of Olympic torches, we spoke to the designer of this year's Olympic torch. I got to hold the Olympic torch while I was asking him how it all worked. And it was a reminder, I think, that these things that you just take for granted don't just appear out of thin air. They're not natural phenomena. Somebody somewhere had to sit down with, probably in this day and age, not a literal blank piece of paper and a pencil, but it had to start somewhere. And getting to talk through the process, process of how that actually happens was really interesting.
- [58:08]
Emma Nelson
We have 30 seconds in which you can tell us what's coming up from 10am in Milan. Who wants to go first?
- [58:14]
Andrew Muller
Tom does.
- [58:15]
Tom Webb
I'm very, very excited because we have the woman who is behind the entire branding for the entire Olympics. That's every single event, every drawing, every picture, every sign. She is coming in to explain how it all came together. And I'm a huge fan of her work.
- [58:30]
Andrew Muller
And, and I am looking forward, obviously, to talking to a fashion editor, because if there is one thing, Emma, that you know, that I know, it is fashion.
- [58:38]
Emma Nelson
Oh, my goodness, yes. Actually, final question I have to ask you. What's the sexiest sport in the Winter Olympics?
- [58:45]
Andrew Muller
Oh, yeah. The answer to that's just always going to be the snowboard cross, the snowboard racing, because those people are just completely insane. It's fantastic.
- [58:52]
Emma Nelson
Tommy, you're a snowboarder, aren't you?
- [58:54]
Tom Webb
I love a snowboarder. Always have, always will.
- [58:57]
Emma Nelson
Wonderful. We'll have to leave it there. From the Allianz Winter Sky Lounge, Andrew Muller and Tom Webb. Their final episode of Monocle in Milan airs in about an hour from now at 9am London time. 10am if you are listening in Italy. But that's all the time we have for today's programme. The warmest of thanks to all my guests and to the producers Carlotta Rebelo, Hassan Anderson and Anita Riotta. Our researcher was Anneliese Maynard and our studio manager was Elliot Greenfield, with editing assistance from Matt Mariella Bevan. After the headlines. More music on the way. And then we get Monocle in Milan. But for now, from me, Emma Nelson, goodbye. Thank you very much for listening and have a great weekend.
- [59:39]
UBS Narrator
With ubs, you have a truly global partner incorporating new technologies, innovative approaches and unexpected opportunities, leading you to insights that help answer the questions 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.