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UBS Narrator
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Georgina Godwin
You're listening to the Globalist, first broadcast on 30 December 2025 on Monocle Radio. The Globalist in association with U. Hello, this is the Globalist broadcasting to you live from Midori House in London. I'm Georgina Godwin. Over the next 30 minutes on the show ahead, we talked about Hamas and we talked about disarmament and they're going to be given a very short period.
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Petri Birtsoff
Of time to disarm.
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Ryuma Takahashi
If they don't, they'll be held to pay for them.
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Georgina Godwin
Donald Trump on his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu. We'll get the details then.
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Ryuma Takahashi
How do you balance this with China? Because Japan has a strong trade relationship with China, it can't really afford to cut its size with Beijing.
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Georgina Godwin
We'll have a view of the security situation in Asia for 2026, a rustle through the front pages and a roundup of news from the Nordic region. All that right here on the Globalist. With me, Georgina Godwin. Israel's prime minister met the US President Donald Trump at his Mar a Lago estate in Florida yesterday. It's Bibi's sixth visit to the US this year and it comes at a time when the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire has stalled and amid concerns that Israel could expand the war either with Lebanon or through confrontation with Iran. It's also a tricky time domestically for both leaders. Well, Ruth Michelson, the Observers Middle east correspondent who's based in Istanbul, is here to give us a readout. Ruth, many thanks for joining us. A really interesting couple of days happening in Florida. Did Trump and Netanyahu agree on any concrete steps to move into the second phase of the ceasefire? What's the readout?
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Ruth Michelson
Well, I mean, in a word, no, nothing concretely came out of this. And despite, despite the whole purpose of this meeting was that Netanyahu was supposed to go all the way over there to Florida. I feel like also we don't talk enough about the fact that all of this foreign policy is happening at Mar a Lago down in Florida, Trump's private residence. And Netanyahu was supposed to go over there and essentially be disciplined by Trump or at least put under pressure to show concrete steps that there was going to be progress towards the, the second phase of truce deal. And we've certainly seen in recent weeks that US officials have had meetings about, for example, the international stabilization Force that's meant to oversee Gaza. They had a meeting with over a dozen countries in Qatar. In Doha, there were also meetings between Qatari and Turkish officials and Steve Witkoff also in Florida. So there's a lot of preparation on the US's side. And this was all meant to lead up to the idea that Netanyahu would go over there and there would be some push to, you know, to have these tangible outcomes. And instead, what seems to have happened is that he goes over there, figures out exactly how to flatter Donald Trump in the way that Trump wants to hear, gives him this, the Israeli Peace prize. And Trump comes out of the meeting and essentially says, well, you know, there's nothing substantive has been agreed here. But then echoes a number of points, including about potential attacks on Iran, talking about instead the need for Hamas to disarm, rather than talking about how to move forward as part of this second phase and saying essentially about Israel, well, we don't agree 100%, but look how great friends we are. And so essentially what's come out of this is that Benjamin Netanyahu has gotten absolutely everything that he could possibly want from this meeting. And I guess in Trump's view, he himself lives to fight another day.
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Georgina Godwin
I mean, he was quite. Trump was quite strong on Hamas, though. What exactly did he say?
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Ruth Michelson
Well, Trump essentially, when talking about Hamas, said that there would be huge pressure on Hamas to disarm, and then seemed to imply that there would be other countries in the region that would put Hamas to disarm, which there seemed to be some confusion over the nature of the international stabilization force. So Trump classically fuzzy on the details there, but in the end, you know, this pressure on the idea, Trump sort of drawing focus on the idea that it's Hamas that needs to disarm, not Israel, that needs to make progress or concessions, is exactly the kind of framing on the second stage of the deal that greatly benefits Benjamin Netanyahu, and it benefits what he's done so far, which is essentially to stall and to buy time, and that there hasn't been progress on the deal that Donald Trump has called peace in the Middle East. And despite the fact that, you know, this whole meeting was supposed to be about pressure on Netanyahu, we just didn't see any of that. In effect, it was only pressure on Israel's enemies. In Netanyahu's vision of things, it's pressure on Hamas to disarm, which Hamas have said and so said again yesterday that they're not necessarily willing to do. And then Trump also started talking about the potential for another attack on Iran and then also started talking about Iranian ballistic missiles, which again, classically fuzzy on the details there.
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Georgina Godwin
And what about Lebanon, is that an issue?
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Ruth Michelson
Well, I mean, it's certainly an issue for the people of Lebanon where, you know, Trump has, we haven't seen a lot of pressure from the White House for Israel to stop the regular attacks and bombings on southern Lebanon. And instead there's been a lot of talk about Hezbollah's disarmament and what needs to be happening in terms of pressure from the government in Beirut. Trump again, in terms of talking to Netanyahu yesterday, didn't exactly say that Israel needs to curb regional ambitions in Lebanon, Lebanon in Syria or anything like this. He focused very much on Israel's perceived enemies. And so again, this is a framing of the entire region that is immensely beneficial to Benjamin Netanyahu and also Benjamin Netanyahu's expected re election campaign, which is about to happen in 2026.
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Georgina Godwin
I mean, because obviously it's not in his political interest really for the war to end with that election coming up and his corruption trial, his falling poll numbers and so on. You, you mentioned Syria and I'd just like to look at that and Turkey because both came up for discussion. Is there any realistic path to Turkish involvement in Gaza's security given, as we know, that Israel opposes that?
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Ruth Michelson
Well, we've seen in recent weeks there have been growing reports that the Israelis might be willing to shift on this issue. Or at least there has been some discussion that because of Turkey's willingness to be part of the international stabilization force, that other countries might try and pressure Israel into accepting this more broadly. I mean, I think that at the moment the details of the ISF remain so unclear that this is really seen as something for much later down the line. Because when there have been meetings with Turkish and Qatari officials and the US earlier in December, the pressure or the only tangible outcome was talking about the so called Board of Peace that's meant to rule over Gaza, where Trump himself is supposed to be the head of it. And so that has been one somewhat tangible outcome that's come out of these discussions when Israeli officials aren't necessarily in the room. But when it comes to the actual composition, the deployment, the actions of this international stabilization force, it's been part of this huge amount of detail that has essentially just been left for later on because the whole thing has been slow walked.
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Georgina Godwin
Yeah. Were there any security guarantees from the US.
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Ruth Michelson
In terms of the security guarantees for the international stabilization force? Again, yes. I mean, again, this is the kind of detail that certainly didn't come up in public after the discussion between Netanyahu and Trump yesterday because there was much promised and then very little tangible outcome after the meeting. Even though Trump said that they discussed many of the major points within the first five minutes despite having an hour long discussion. The points when they actually emerge were much more Trump's fire and BRIMSTONE Towards Iran, for example, admitting that they don't agree 100% on the west bank, which is certainly the first time that the west bank has been involved in these discussions. There's been a lot of criticism that the peace plan, so called peace plan for Gaza, does not involve the west bank but limited ideas of, of tangible outcomes about how any of these things might be implemented. Other than Trump conceding that maybe they don't see eye to eye, but it doesn't matter because Netanyahu gave him a prize.
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Georgina Godwin
Ruth, thank you very much indeed. That's Ruth Michelson there talking to us from Istanbul.
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UBS Narrator
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Georgina Godwin
Now here's what else we're keeping an eye on today. Ukraine has denied Russian claims that it launched a drone attack on one of President Vladimir Putin's residences, calling the accusation a fabrication designed to sabotage peace talks. President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of using the claim as a pretext to harden its negotiating system stance as both sides continue U S brokered discussions on ending the war. Brazil's jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro has undergone a second medical procedure in three days to treat chronic hiccups. Doctors say his condition is stable as the far right leader continues serving a 27 year sentence for plotting to overturn the 2022 election. And chart topping K pop group Newjeans has lost one of its members after its record label terminated Danielle Marsh's contract. The move follows a bitter legal dispute between the band and its agency, leaving fans furious and casting doubt over the group's Future as a five member act. This is the globalist. Stay tuned. 2025 has been a turbulent year for security in Asia. From the shifting dynamics among Taiwan, China and Japan to the clashes along the Thailand, Cambodia border. Dragonfly Intelligence, a global geopolitical and security advisory service, has just released its Strategic Outlook 2026, a report assessing security and geopolitical risks for the year ahead. Monocle's Ryuma Takahashi spoke with Barbara Kellerman, who's Dragonfly's head of Asia, about the report's key findings.
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Ryuma Takahashi
We identified as the five major trends that bring these for themselves. I think the first one really it' issue that we're seeing globally is this erosion of restraint and the rise of hard power. In fact, all this is because military coercion is displacing multilateral diplomacy globally as a, as a form of statecraft. And I would point to maybe the conflict of between Cambodia and Thailand as a, as a good example of this. It's not something that happened for the first time, but it kind of just indicates this world where, you know, countries use hard power as opposed to, as opposed to diplomacy. In Asia we do have these flashpoints that we're monitoring, such as South China Sea, Taiwan Strait for any type of potential disruption. So this is something very high on the list. Another trend that we also elaborate on is this geo economic weaponization and supply chain fracturing. And Asia will be particularly exposed to this due to its, you know, exposure to supply chains both when it comes to the US but also China. So it's kind of caught between a rug and a hard place. One last thing I would mention here is we do see these deals being closed with the us, South Korea, Japan. So there is a strong alliance building on that front. But at the same time, all these countries have a very important relationship with China. And I think this is something that will come under a scrutiny and much more under pressure in 2026 and beyond because naturally there's going to be a form of balancing which I think it will be very delicate act and difficult to pursue.
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Barbara Kellerman
Thank you very much. So when we talk about the trends you mentioned and the security risks in Asia, the first thing that comes to mind for many of us is the relationship between Taiwan and China. So how do you see the geopolitical outlook for this area going forward?
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Ryuma Takahashi
I think what is the major risk right now is just this international attention and countries taking steps that have a potential to push China to more assertive response. And I think that's to extend what we are seeing in the region happening Another issue I think is also the, the authorities in Taiwan. So Taipei has taken a lot of steps over the past year that has led to a strong response by Beijing. And I think that this is raising likelihood of some type of crisis akin to that that we saw during an Nancy Pelosi's visit to, to Taiwan. You know, you imagine like large military exercises that are a huge concern for businesses because even though they do not result in a military conflict, they do disrupt shipping and operations. And Taiwan street being one of the vital shipping lines globally, it does cause a lot of concern. And firms and businesses naturally deploy a lot of resources when it comes to planning.
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Barbara Kellerman
So do you think there is a real possibility that Beijing could attack or take military action against Taiwan or carry out some form of invasion in 2026?
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Ryuma Takahashi
I think probably the most difficult issue is one thing is trying to guess the timeline. The other issue is also what are we talking about when we're talking about attacking? China has made it clear that I don't think that the military solution is their preferred way of bringing Taiwan under control. So the way we approach things is kind of like you're looking for indicators that something like this might occur. I think like right now, the capability for China to mount a major complex operation is increasingly there. So from that perspective, that risk has definitely risen. But I think that there would have to be a very pressing reason. Why would Beijing want to do something like that? I don't see that reason right there currently. As such, I think that that scenario is still quite unlikely.
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Barbara Kellerman
Thank you. Yes. So I think Japan's play an important role in balance between China and Taiwan. So as we look ahead to 2026, how do you see the tension between Japan and China developing? And do you think there is any real risk to Japan's own territory, including Okinawa and southern islands?
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Ryuma Takahashi
I guess in a way it is. What we're seeing right now is a good example when it comes to the current spat with China. And I think that the issue is that Japan is trying to pursue a more active foreign policy, that there has been a significant shift that I would say started with the Abe administration already. And Japan is becoming more mature when it comes to this proactive approach and, and strategy in Asia. And it does have to do so to take care of its own interest. And now the main question is how do you balance this with, with China? Because Japan has a strong trade relationship with China, it can't really afford to cut its size with Beijing. But there also seems to be a degree of unwillingness on, on Beijing side to, to recognize this and they want to have this managed on their own terms. Also, you mentioned the, the Japan has islands in close proximity to Taiwan. I, I suppose that's something that China perceives very strongly because it doesn't want to feel that it's being surrounded and pushed by surrounding countries. The question is how much can can China really change that and do with that? I think that there probably were some hopes about, you know, Trump administration bringing down numbers of forces, stations in Asia Pacific. That hasn't really materialized. So now will China wait and maybe see that with the next administration things will change? Because otherwise I find it very difficult to, you know, try to estimate how else steps that they can actually take. Negotiated agreement with Trump administration, which obviously it's something that we can't really see. I think that it's definitely high on Beijing's agenda, but I think there is a limited steps that they can actually take.
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Barbara Kellerman
For Monocle in Tokyo, I'm Ryuma Takahashi.
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Georgina Godwin
Many thanks, Ryuma, who was in conversation with Dragonfly's head of Asia, Barbara Kellerman. You're listening to the Globalist on Monaco Radio. Well, it's time now for us to have a look through the newspapers. And joining me to do so is Zoe Grunewald, who is the Westminster editor at the lead. Good morning to you, Zoe.
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Zoe Grunewald
Good morning.
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Georgina Godwin
We're going to start off with this story about Allah Abdel El Fattah. Now, he is the British Egyptian who was jailed by the Egyptian government. He's been returned to Britain, but some historic tweets have come out which have been very upsetting. Tell us more.
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Zoe Grunewald
Yes, that's correct. So abdelfattah, as we know, was released from prison in Egypt. He spent most of the last decades behind bars for political activism and being repeatedly detained. He was freed earlier this year, and last week he flew black back to Britain after his travel ban was lifted and reunited with his family. But since his return, historic social media posts he done have emerged from about 2010 in which he appeared to endorse violence and make offensive remarks about groups including Zionists, police and white people. He has since issued a public apology. But politicians here in the UK from the Conservatives and reform are calling for his citizenship to be revoked or for him to be deported. And now the government has come and said there is no legal grounds for doing so. They cannot strip a citizenship unless it was obtained by fraud or the individual in danger is a dangerous criminal or terrorist. I think what's important about this is how politically charged citizenship has become as an issue here. It used to be something that was reserved for an extraordinary power. You know, if you were, if you were charged on terrorism or serious national security, a threat, not for offensive or extreme views. But the conservatives are arguing that Abdelfata should, should. Though he should not have been imprisoned, he should now have a citizenship revoked and reform, interestingly, which is the kind of radical right party here in the uk. They have argued passionately for people's right to speak freely. But now they're calling for these extreme sanctions on Abdelf on comments made many years ago. So it's very interesting how they. This has become a very politically charged weaponized issue.
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Georgina Godwin
Absolutely. I want to move to Germany now and talk about the munich Security Conference 2026. Now at the last conference, JD Vance was there and he launched a blistering attack questioning why the AfD, the far right party, was not represented at the conference. So they've now reversed that.
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Zoe Grunewald
Yeah, that's absolutely right. So the FD has now been invited to attend the 2026 Munich Security Conference. As you. As you pointed out, they had been exc. For. For a number of years. Organizers have defended this, a private event. They are inviting mps from all parties represented in the German Parliament. We know that AFD members sit on various committees in the German parliament. But this is, this is a big moment. J.D. vance was very critical of the organization last year. He did this big speech. He was critical of. Of Europe and, and how it was defending itself. Of course, the Munich Security Conference is one of the world's most important defense and foreign policy policy forums. And until now excluding the AFD was a way of signaling the far right politics sat outside this democratic security consensus. There are politicians have been concerned about the AfD's link to Russia, its position on NATO and of course the. The organization has been monitored by Germany's intelligence services for quite a while. But there are also people who argue that actually engaging with the FD is far better than isolation. Although opponents will say this is exactly how these extreme ideas get slowly legitimized. But either way, what we are seeing is Europe increasingly being torn in two. By defending democracy, trying to draw red lines, or by letting everyone inside and just hoping that exposing them will do. Will do the job.
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Georgina Godwin
And kowtowing to the U.S. of course. And this seems that this is what the UN is doing as well, because the US has pledged $2 billion for humanitarian aid, but it is insisting on some conditions.
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Zoe Grunewald
That's right. So of course this, this sounds like a fairly large amount of money. Two billion pounds in humanitarian aid to the U.N. but it's just a fraction of what the U.S. has traditionally spent. So in 2022, the U.S. gave the U.N. about $17 billion. So a significantly larger amount than pledged this time. And I think what, what this really does is mark a shift away from the US giving humanitarian aid as a moral commitment and more treating it as a kind of performance contract. It's saying you have to reform or you lose support. And this is the same language that We've heard the U.S. give to the EU, give to NATO. It reflects domestic political pressure in the U.S. donor fatigue and frustration with the U.S. always having to kind of feeling that it always has to go in and, and deal with things itself when other countries may not be giving their share. But of course, it also comes at a time where global humanitarian need is at record levels. If you just look at the crises in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, and the US retreating from its obligations here is of great concern to international organizations who have really relied on the US not only to give money, but to also be the example to other countries about international obligation.
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Georgina Godwin
And I mean, some of the areas that they're now refusing to fund, such as climate change, which they say is not a life or death issue.
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Zoe Grunewald
Absolutely. There are some ideological things in here as well. You know, whether it be particular kind of clinics in Afghanistan or whether it be, as you say, climate aid. It definitely does have elements of the kind of Trumpian MAGA ideology in there that might see some projects that previously had international consensus as no longer being worthy of funding.
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Georgina Godwin
So somebody who is going to get a huge amount of funding if they can come up with the job, is somebody who yet to be identified. It's a new job, $55,000 salary to, to take up the, probably the most daunting role in AI.
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Zoe Grunewald
Yeah, yeah. What would you do for $555,000? Would you become Sam Altman, who is the head of OpenAI? Would you become his new head of preparedness? This is a role that he has created what seems to be the understatement of the year. He's warned it would be a highly stressful job. It's looking at how to prevent harms from advanced AI. So things like cyber threats, threats to the societal and psychological risks. And that's obviously something we're talking about increasingly. I think we've spoken about it a few times on this program, how AI actually seems to be messing with with people's mental health, how it seems to be changing the way humans interact with technology. But Also those larger risks about what happens when, when AI potentially could become out of control. I think the job advert is, it's striking because it's, it's kind of reassuring, but it's also unsettling. You know, it's reassuring because clearly AI companies are finally taking these risks seriously. They want to pay top dollar to someone who will think about worst case scenarios. But also it's a signal of how real those risks have become. Companies don't create these roles with these huge salaries unless they believe serious harm is plausible and potentially even imminent. So I think this is the moment where AI stops being a future worry and starts becoming a kind of present day threat that needs that full time management and investment.
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Georgina Godwin
Absolutely. And actually reading the full article in the Guardian, it is terrifying talking about how AI has its ability to hack and all the rest of it, just extraordinary. Zoe, thank you very much indeed. That's Zoe Grunwald, who's Westminster editor at the lead, and this is the Globalist on Monocle Radio. Now we are going to get a roundup of news from the Nordic region and Petri Birtsoff is Monica's Helsinki correspondent. Petri, I understand we're quite lucky to have you on the line at all because there have been huge storms in Finland. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without electricity.
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Petri Birtsoff
Good morning, Georgina. Indeed. It's luckily looking out the window today. Beautiful snowy winter's day. But yesterday and a couple of days before that, a massive winter storm in Finland called Hannes. In Sweden they called us of course, because it hit the whole Nordic region, they call it Johannes and basically just land that caused power outages in finland. It was 180,000 homes without electricity. And I believe still yesterday there were tens of thousands of customers still without power in Finland. It also caused transport disruption, especially in this is the boom season now, holiday season for Lapland. So we've saw at airports in cities like Rovaniemi, Kittela, Ivalo, flights canceled, people having to sleep at the airport, airports even queuing outside for hours in very cold temperatures. And there was this quite frightening videos actually of planes, the bravest pilots actually landing the planes. But then it was so windy that they were just basically brushed off the Runway into the forest and yeah, lots of falling trees and sort of people across the Nordics checking their neighbors at their summer homes that, you know, is the house still there or, you know, has it flown away? But massive storms, we're not used to this hurricane force winds in this far up north.
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Georgina Godwin
Let's turn to Denmark. Because they're going to stop letter delivery and get rid of mailboxes.
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Petri Birtsoff
Yes, Georgina, Today is the day the final letter will be delivered, at least by the state owned postal operator using traditional postal boxes. We heard about this decision a couple of months ago, but today is really the final day and sort of marks the end of over four centuries of traditional letter mail in Denmark. And this obviously follows. I mean, not everybody likes the decision. A lot of people like sending Christmas cards and things like that, but there's been a massive sort of downward trend in demand. So I believe it's know letters, letter volumes are down by more than 90% since 2000 and people have just moved to digital communication. But you know, good news is people will in Denmark, Danes will still be able to send letters using alternative private carriers, but just not the state postal service anymore. And the iconic red boxes will be removed from the streets.
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Georgina Godwin
Oh, that's really quite sad, isn't it?
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Petri Birtsoff
Yeah, I think it's super, super, super sad. I mean it's again as I said, you know, four centuries of traditional mail, of course the world changes and you go digital but you know, there is still demand. People still, I know in Denmark, in Sweden, in Norway, in Finland, people do send mail, mail as well. It's not completely dead and especially Christmas time. You know, Finns send hundreds of thousands of Christmas cards by traditional mail and I just cannot believe that this would be a massive cost. But again, you know, it's easy, easy for me to say, but yeah, this makes me sad.
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Georgina Godwin
Finally, let's have a look at why Sweden wants travelers to embrace boredom. What's this all about?
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Petri Birtsoff
Yeah, this is. Sweden is really taking on a novel approach to winter tourism marketing, let's put it that way. They have this campaign, they invite visitors to visit Swedish, the Swedish Lapland and they just tell the visitors that to slow down and embrace boredom. That's what it says here. So basically they, you know, instead of having this packed itineraries of husky safaris and where you can, you know, downhill skiing and all of that, they just say come to Sweden, enjoy a long walk in the nature, do some stargazing and don't do anything at all. That's, that's what a good holiday is about according to Visit Sweden.
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Georgina Godwin
Well, sounds like utter bliss to me, I must say.
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Petri Birtsoff
Exactly, exactly. But quite clever marketing actually because that's also how you stand, stand out. Because you know, Finnish Lapland is completely different. You know, you know, have millions of people traveling, traveling there and it's, it's really booming and then, you know, if somebody, somebody wants to avoid sort of all the, all the crowds and go to Sweden and take it easy and just sort of read and take long walks, I, I like the sound of that.
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Georgina Godwin
Petri. Have a happy, happy New Year. Whatever you're doing, whether it's action packed or you are just taking it easy, thank you very much indeed. And that's all for this edition of the Globalist. Thanks to all our producers, Anita Riota and Monica Lillis. Our studio manager was Elliot Greenfield. And after the headlines, there's more music on the way. And the Globalist will return at the same time tomorrow. I'm Georgina Godwin. Goodbye and thanks for listening.
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UBS Narrator
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