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- [00:04]
UBS Announcer
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- [00:38]
Vincent McEvin
You're listening to the Globalist, first broadcast on the 5th of November, 2025 on Monocle Radio. The Globalist in association with U. Live from London, this is THE Globalist. I'm Vincent McEvin. Coming up, we'll get the latest on potential Russian gains in Ukraine.
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Harris Whitbeck
Then what a night for the Democratic.
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Vincent McEvin
Party, a party that is in its ascendancy, a party that's on its toes.
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Chris Chermack
No longer on its heels.
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Vincent McEvin
A year on from Kamala Harris defeat with a string of election victories on Tuesday, have Democrats finally turned a page? And are they reading voters right? The London travel market gets underway. We check in with one Central American destination.
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Harris Whitbeck
Not much is known about Guatemala outside of the country. So we felt like we had this blank canvas that we could really use to put together the picture of Guatemala. The story that we want to tell.
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Vincent McEvin
Plus a leaf through the day's papers. And wherever you're listening this morning, we promise you your coffee won't be as expensive as the one we're going to discuss. That's all ahead on the Globalist. Live from London. First, a look at what else is happening in the news. At least seven people have been killed in Kentucky after a UPS cargo plane crashed while taking off from Louisville airport. At least 66 people have been killed in the Philippines as Typhoon Kalmaigi rips across the country. And Chinese founded retail giant Shein has pulled all sex dolls from its site after a French consumer watchdog found childlike products online. Stay tuned to Monocle Radio throughout the day for more on those stories. But first, Russia claims its forces have advanced in Pokhrovsk, a city in eastern Ukraine that they've been trying to capture for over a year. An estimated 100,000 Russian troops were encircling the area, with Ukraine's top military commander saying his forces had pushed hard to dislodge them. To discuss this, we're joined now by Jenny Mathers, senior lecturer in international politics at Aberystwyth University. Jenny, thank you for speaking to us. Firstly, if it's true, how significant is this for Russia?
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Jenny Mathers
Well, Pokrovsk is an important target for several reasons. I Think firstly, of course, the symbolism of taking a Ukrainian city. Most of the gains that Russia has made over the past year or so have been very incremental in small villages. But secondly, and more importantly, Pokrovsk is an important logistics hub for Ukraine. It's also an important sort of staging post on the way to other Ukrainian cities, so called fortress cities, which Ukraine has fortified and has built up as defensive sort of bastions. And these would be very valuable for Russia to take to launch a sort of a further assault into Ukraine. They would be important sort of bridgeheads. So I think there's both symbolic and also important logistical reasons why Pokrovsk is a key target for Russia.
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Vincent McEvin
And are there any indications about whether or not Russia's claim is valid?
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Jenny Mathers
Well, it's clear that Russia has been successful in inserting groups and increasingly larger groups of soldiers into Prokrovsk over the past few months. And they've done this in such a way that makes it harder and harder for the Ukrainians to dislodge them. There are certainly signs that there is an encircling effort happening at the same time as the insertion of troops into the city. What's not clear is quite how successful this has been and whether the Ukrainians have a reasonable chance of actually defending the city or whether they're going to have to withdraw sooner or later.
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Vincent McEvin
And the city itself had largely been evacuated, but it had a pre war population of about 60,000 people. Do we know if many of them were left behind or was it sort of completely emptied now?
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Jenny Mathers
As far as we know, it's pretty close to being empty of civilians. I think it's typical really of the way that Russia has operated that when it does make gains in Ukraine, it tends to be towns and cities and communities that have been largely depopulated and destroyed. So it's not taking over terribly valuable assets, but things that have already been really pummeled into rubble almost by Russians, constant attacks.
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Vincent McEvin
And entering the fourth winter of this conflict, there are reports that Russia is still losing tens of thousands of troops as the year goes on. What's the state of their ranks and where are they drawing from now?
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Jenny Mathers
So Russia has been able to recruit enough soldiers to cover its losses, and this is the basis on which it seems to be operating at the moment. But of course, Putin has recently signed into law a new way of recruiting conscripts. So year long conscription efforts, rather than simply twice a year calling up young people or young men rather. And this is important not because the conscripts are sent to fight in Ukraine, but because once they're in the system, it's easy to encourage or force them to sign contracts and become volunteers. But also, once they've done their 12 months compulsory service, they become part of the reserves and therefore they're vulnerable to being mobilized and sent out. So this is a way of ensuring that there is a continual source of new recruits coming into the armed forces.
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Vincent McEvin
And those new recruits might be heading next to Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. How important would it be for Ukraine to keep those cities?
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Jenny Mathers
Well, it's terribly important, I think, because Ukraine obviously needs to hold on to as much territory as it can, but also because those two cities, both fortress cities, would make it much easier for Russia to push the Ukrainian forces completely out of Donetsk region, which is one of Putin's key targets in the short term for this conflict.
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Vincent McEvin
And in terms of the talks, there doesn't seem to be any progress since Trump pulled the plug on the ones that were proposed in Hungary. Are there any signs that there might be a sort of new drive to get those back off the ground?
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Jenny Mathers
Not really at the moment. Things have gone very quiet on that front. Trump has been focusing on the situation in Gaza, but also, of course, on elections at home. And so he's taken his eye off the ball of Russia to a large extent, but he also doesn't show signs of wanting to put a lot of effort into supporting Ukraine. So he's sort of on again off again with this idea of supplying more Tomahawk missiles and so on. So it's very much on the back burner as far as the US Administration is concerned. And I think that's quite fine for Moscow, because Moscow is happy to continue to sacrifice troops to continue to make this incremental progress in the hopes that they will eventually push through the Ukrainian defenses and be able to take all of Donetsky region.
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Vincent McEvin
And in terms of the Tomahawk missiles, I mean, if Trump, and we know he can be volatile, he can flip on a dime if he did decide because he's exasperated with Putin to provide those to Ukraine. I mean, what would the sort of timeline be for them getting them? And how much of a game changer would it be?
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Jenny Mathers
Well, I don't think in this war there is a single weapon system or a single moment which is going to be a game changer. This is a long war, as we've seen, and it's going to be decided by a multitude of factors. However, Tomahawk missiles would allow Ukrainians to strike deep into Russian territory It would be a symbolic sign that the US Is more supporting of Ukraine, as well as giving them practical means to do more damage to the capabilities that allow Russia to continue to wage the war. So it would be important from that point of view, in terms of timelines, very much depends on political will, frankly. The US can move very quickly when it wants to. It can drag its feet when it wants to. I think the big question is, will, will Trump be ready to take an action which will potentially cause a lot of damage to Russia and could really wreck his reputation and wreck his relationship with Putin? That is something that we haven't seen him do yet. He hasn't burnt his bridges with Putin yet, and he may never do so. So keeping an eye on what's happening with the Tomahawk missile decision, that's an important indicator of where Trump is in terms of sitting on the fence or coming down heavily on one side or the other.
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Vincent McEvin
And finally, we know that Zelenskyy was in Europe over the past month. He went to Brussels to talk with EU leaders. He was in Sweden, where he purchased new fighter jets that can sort of take off on civilian roadways. So they're much more adaptable. Is he still getting sort of lockstep, full support from European allies?
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Jenny Mathers
For the most part, yes. I mean, there are some obvious outliers, like Hungary, for example, which is absolutely not going to take up arms symbolically or literally in favor of Ukraine. But for the most part, there is a very strong consensus within the EU and including Britain that supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do. And they're looking for more and more ways to do that. More agreements, more weapons, more financial support, but also seeking ways to gain from Ukraine's experience. So Ukraine is now offering to share its technology on drones, for example, with European supporters. So I think there's definitely a strengthening of the relationship between Ukraine and its European supporters.
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Vincent McEvin
Jenny Mathes, senior lecturer in international politics at Aberyst University. Thank you very much. This is the globalist. It is 7:10 here in London at 2:10 in the morning in New York, where voters have elected 34 Democratic state assembly member Zoran Mandani to be the city's new mayor. And there's been positive signs for Democrats in the Virginia and New Jersey governorial races. And out in the West, Californians voted in favor of redrawing their state's congressional district maps. Donald Trump will likely not be waking up in the White House very happy this morning. To unpick all this, we're joined by Chris Chermak. Monocle's senior news editor, Chris, let's start in New York. Mamdani has defeated the the establishment and disgraced candidate from the Democrats, Andrew Cuomo. What does this mean for the city and the party?
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Chris Chermack
You know, this is obviously the most interesting of the races, Vinnie, for so many different reasons. Zoran Mamdani was expected to win, given the fact that New York is quite a liberal city. It was only around 8 points, so it wasn't such a huge margin against somebody with all the baggage that Andrew Cuomo has, as you were mentioning there. But what's really going to be interesting, of course, what this means going forward in terms of who Mamdani is and how he is going to stand up to Donald Trump. His speech over, over the last few hours really kind of laid into that rhetoric saying, you know, his big quote was, turn the volume up. That was his message to Donald Trump and to Democrats. He talked about immigration, of course, the fact that he is the first Muslim mayor to be elected, an immigrant himself. And also there sort of gave a signal to Donald Trump saying, to get to any of us, you will have to go through all of us. So he is somebody who is leaning into this fight with Donald Trump. And of course, he is a Democratic socialist. That is rare for somebody who is so openly a Democratic socialist to do well in the United States. What I found interesting, just to give you a couple of exit poll things that were interesting about this, was that even In New York, 69% of those who went to the polls said they were not Democratic socialists. Nonetheless, they voted for Mamdani. And it shows kind of that his rhetoric, his style was something that Democrats were looking for. They were looking for a foil against Donald Trump. He also focused, of course, on cost of living, affordability. This was the key topic for so many. 52% of New Yorkers said that was their top topic and they favored Mamdani by 66 to 29%.
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Vincent McEvin
Well, let's focus in on that because, yes, whilst he's got rhetoric with Trump, he's gonna have to prove himself in one of America's most, I think it's fair to say, critical cities. New Yorkers don't have much patience at the best of time. He's got pretty populous plans. Can he deliver what he's doing and will the kind of things he's talking about, probably pretty normal in European cities, but quite sort of out there for American ones.
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Chris Chermack
Absolutely. And just to give you one more polling thing that I found fascinating on that, even in New York of voters 50% compared to 44% said that his policies are not realistic, which I just found an amazing stat. You vote for the guy, but you do recognize that his policies are not realistic. You're going for the rhetoric on the policies. Yes, he is left wing. He's called for universal childcare, free buses, rent controls, government subsidized supermarkets. The key thing that is going to matter here and is also going to show where the Democratic Party stands is he wants to raise taxes on Those earning over 1 million, raise corporate taxes in order to pay for this. The New York governor, Kathy Hochul has said she does not support that. She disagrees. So when you talk about whether you can implement these things or not, it's not only a question of whether it's realistic. It's also you're going to see two versions of the Democratic Party playing out within the state of New York to see whether Mamdani or Kathy Hochul gets the upper hand in whether he can actually implement what he wants to implement.
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Vincent McEvin
And these gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, can you tell us what's happened there?
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Paul Walde
Yeah.
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Chris Chermack
So these races are also interesting and they're interesting because you're talking about states that had moved more towards Donald Trump. So Mamdani, New York, less of a surprise, a liberal city. The other states, New Jersey, Virginia, there was some worry after the 2024 elections that they were moving towards conservatives. So in that sense, these two races are also very positive signs for Democrats. Not only that they held onto the governorship in these two states, but that they overperformed and quite dramatically so. In New Jersey there was, the result was, you know, both, both had more than double digit victories, up to 15 point percentage points. And also it's important to say both of these, by contrast to Mamdani, were centrist candidates. You have Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. She's going to be the first female governor of Virginia. She is quite a centrist. And also Mikey Sherrill out of New J, her big line, if you will, in contrast to Mamdani, was kind of leaning into that Obama style rhetoric we used to have saying she is somebody who is going to represent everyone in her state and go back to that idea that everyone in New Jersey should be represented. So it's interesting to see how that battle of messaging is going to play out as Democrats now look forward to next year. What is the kind of message they want to show in 2026 with the midterms? That's going to be interesting as well.
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Vincent McEvin
Well, this is confusing, isn't it? For the DNC in Washington, because they're going to look at these and they're going to see the sort of traditional pull in the party between the establishment and those that kind of want to be more progressive. They've had a long autopsy on Kamala Harris. They've got a year to go until the midterms. Now, what does this say about what they should be doing with the party being more bold and radical or sticking to the center?
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Chris Chermack
I think the jury is out on that. Right. Because of the difference in the results that you've had here. So on the one hand, you can look at this positively and say that Democrats compared to Republicans are more flexible. Right. They can tailor their message to where they are running. And that's kind of what you saw. Virginia, New Jersey, more centrists appealing also to Republicans because that's what they needed to do to win. Mamdani didn't need to do that. He's in New York, so he went for the stronger rhetoric. So on the one hand, you can say they have flexibility. There's still that big tent party compared to Republicans. On the other hand, the key question, when you look at someone like Donald Trump, whatever else you want to say about him, he is passionate, he is decisive, he says what he wants to do. And that's a question for Democrats as well. Do they want somebody like that to lead them? Do they need someone like Mamdani with the fiery rhetoric to really fire up the party going into 2026? Is that something they will be looking for? Even if the message and the policies are further to the left than Democrats might be comfortable with? That's going to fascinating to watch. You know, just anecdotally to point out on that. I Remember back in 2016, there were plenty of voters, even ones I spoke to, even within my own family, that might have been willing to vote for Bernie Sanders over Donald Trump, but not Hillary Clinton? So that gives you an example of how the passion sometimes, even if it's two extremes, can actually lead to more voters. So it'd be fascinating to watch how that plays out heading into 2026 and.
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Vincent McEvin
Just finally the madness of the American system where the the voting districts are decided by basically sort of politicians. This vote that took place in California is really significant, isn't it? Because it was sort of a warning shot to the rest of the country in a way, wasn't it?
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Chris Chermack
It is, and it's a long one to explain, so I'll do it just briefly for now. But yes, at the moment, what you have in the states is various states, whether they are Republican or Democrat, trying to change the rules of the game. This started with Republicans. Normally it's done in a census every 10 years. Donald Trump laid down the rules this time said he wanted Republican states to do it ahead of 2026. Basically, it's called gerrymandering. You rig the districts within a state in order to favor your own party. Texas has done this. Other Republican states want to do this. And this was now the Democratic answer to say we are going to do this as well, to redraw the map in our state to favor Democrats. This is anti Democratic, frankly. But it's a case of, well, if the other side is doing it, we have to do it as well. Now the call will be to other states, Democratic, Virginia, Maryland and so forth, whether they will follow California's lead. If nobody does, Republicans are going to win the midterms, frankly, in 2026. If the Democratic states follow, it gets closer again.
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Vincent McEvin
Chris Chermack, Monocle Senior News Editor. Thank you. Still to come on the program, we look to the State of Asia conference taking place this week in Zurich. This is the globalist.
- [20:16]
UBS Announcer
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Vincent McEvin
Well, let's continue now with today's newspapers. Joining me is Paul Walde, European correspondent at the Globe and Mail. Paul, good to have you back. First of all, your story, Mark Carney's first budget.
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Paul Walde
Yeah, I mean, this of course has been a long awaited budget by the still relatively new prime minister. He's been under an awful lot of pressure to deal with Donald Trump's tariffs, which of course have probably hit Canada harder than any other country and really no sign of relief. If anything, Trump is talking even tougher about Canada and even raising some of the tariffs. So there's been a lot of pressure for Carney to reach a deal, but his focus has been on trying to strengthen, change the Canadian economy to diversify it away from the U.S. so this budget, all eyes are on it to see what he would do on that front. What he's doing is committing about $140 billion over the next five years for infrastructure projects, to build ports, to build railways, to encourage businesses to invest more. He's going to really boost defense spending. He's going to cut back on the public service, cut back on immigration, cut back on foreign aid. So it's kind of a shift towards strengthening the Canadian business sector. Whether that happens or not, people will, you know, remains to be seen. But he's certainly sending a signal out there that he wants Canada to kind of take care of itself and find new markets and move away from the US as much as possible.
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Vincent McEvin
I was speaking to a friend in Toronto yesterday who was talking about just how expensive groceries values have got in Canada. But there is a feeling of unity that has been sort of brought about by Trump's actions on Canada. But I mean, for Carney, the bar is high, isn't it? Because he's a former bank of England governor, people think that he would come in with this big economic plan. How important is it for him to sort of sell this to the Canadian people? Because they're quite down on defence spending. They're not at the NATO 2%. They've got to now exceed that basically to be in line with the rest of NATO. Is this a real generational budget that he's putting down?
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Paul Walde
Well, he was talking big about that. And of course, you're right. I mean, he has been in office now for quite a few months, but coming up to a year, given that he took the leadership, won the leadership contest and became prime minister automatically and then won the election, he talked a big game about this budget. He said it was going to be generational, transformational. The jury's out on that. A lot of the commentators I've seen so far today are sort of saying, well, not really. I mean, a lot of this was already pre announced. A lot of this depends on what the business sector does. There was no grand sort of plan here. So I think people are still giving him the benefit of the doubt. But that could run pretty thin pretty soon if he doesn't strike a deal with Donald Trump and if this budget.
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Vincent McEvin
Doesn'T deliver and if he doesn't get a deal with Trump and he's trying to get into new markets, I mean, is Europe the main contender or is it a sort of more Asia pivot?
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Paul Walde
Europe has been a big contender. I think that speaks to the fact that Canada and Europe have a free trade agreement and have had it for quite a few years now. However, Carney has been making some trips to Asia, made a lot of overtures during the APEC summit and the Asia Asian meetings a couple of weeks ago. So I think he's looking at both sides Probably. Also, he's trying to reopen negotiations with China and India, two countries that have not been. Had cool relationships with Canada for the past few years. So I think, you know, he's trying, but still, it all depends on the results.
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Vincent McEvin
But one international relationship he's keen to engage with is the Eurovision Song Contest. What is this about?
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Paul Walde
This is odd. This came up in the budget yesterday as a tiny little item that he's going to give $150 million to the CBC, the national broadcaster, for a whole bunch of things, but one of them is going to be to pursue Canada's entry in Eurovision. There's no real explanation to why they want to do this. Maybe this is part of the Eurovision.
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Vincent McEvin
Too long in Europe.
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Paul Walde
Maybe he did. I don't know if he's a Eurovision fan, but it is an interesting kind of thing. Maybe it speaks to the whole effort to try and diversify our way from the US and make Canada more European, I don't know. But it struck a lot of people as kind of a funny entry into the budget.
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Vincent McEvin
I mean, Canada has produced some great artists over the years. You're thinking about, you know, Shania Twain and Lawrence. Lots of great people you could send. I mean, do Canadians know what Eurovision is? Do they know that you kind of have to send a bit of a novelty?
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Paul Walde
Well, it's interesting, too, is, of course, Celine Dion, of course, Eurovision back in 1988, representing Switzerland for Switzerland. So I think Canadians are becoming more aware of it, just because Eurovision. Eurovision is becoming much more international. It is strange that Australia is part of it, Israel's part of it, when, you know, where does the euro come into it with that? CBC has been an associate member of the European Broadcast Union, and you're supposed to be a member of that and contribute to that financially to join Eurovision. So they have a way in that way, because CBC wouldn't be coming at this cold. But I don't know what the viewership numbers are in Canada, but I do think it has. It certainly has a niche following, there's no doubt about that.
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Vincent McEvin
Yeah, yeah. And fun fact, even the Vatican can send a contender if they want.
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Paul Walde
There you go there in the ebu.
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Vincent McEvin
Well, pivoting to this side of the Atlantic, about this time yesterday morning, Rachel Reeves broke into morning broadcasts with, as we said, quite a long and somewhat rambling speech about her budget, in which she could talk about the budget, but not what's in the budget because of budget rules. What did you make of this?
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Paul Walde
Well, I mean, there's still a lot of Follow up from that. I'm surprised. It's still dominating a lot of the media coverage here today. And I think that's because people are looking at, you know, are they going to bring break the commitment they made during the campaign? It looks almost certain they will to raise income taxes. And that would be the first time since 1975 that Britain has seen a raise in income taxes. Other taxes, of course, have gone up, but not income taxes. So if she does that, she was even asked last night if she would resign because they'd be breaking a fundamental position in their campaign. And she said no, of course she won't. She's not admitting they're going to raise income taxes, but everything is pointing towards that. I mean, she's obviously in a huge bind. There's something like a 30, 40 billion pound shortfall given her fiscal rules, given all the commitments they made and kind of the reversals they've made in some policy announcements. So she's in a bind. The economy's not going to deliver it for her. So there's a lot of questions about how she's going to do that. Spending cuts maybe, but they're unpopular. But income taxes are going to be tough, a tough sell because this was.
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Vincent McEvin
The criticism in last year's election was that she was basing all her plans on sort of going for growth. But it seemed an omission yesterday that there are factors out of her control at the moment around the world still. War in Ukraine, rumbling on AI and what that's done to markets and the volatility generally. I mean, we're trying to, it seems in the UK have sort of Scandinavian level of public services, but without the taxes. As something of an outsider, I know you've been here for a long time, what do you think about the sort of tax balance in the uk because there are calls that the wealthiest should be picking up more of the burden. And as ever, they say, oh well, we'll leave. I mean, do you think that that's really valid, that sort of callback?
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Paul Walde
I mean, it's tricky, right? I think Britain has been described as one of the most unequal countries in Europe in terms of income disparity. I think looking at it from the outside, it's kind of in a similar position as Canada. They do have a fiscal pressures. They do have real issues in terms of how they're gonna fund everything. I think Brexit has weighed a lot on the economy here, more so than I think people wanna realize. Covid kind of came in the midst of that. So it's masked that a little bit, but I think there's no doubt that Brexit's had an impact. She mentioned that y. She cast a lot of blame yesterday, which I think is getting tiring as well. I think at some point you have to take responsibility for the way things are now. But tax levels in this country. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to try and have a really expensive social network, you're going to have to pay for it. And I think maybe that's what Britain is facing right now.
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Vincent McEvin
Turning now more generally to the market, Wall street, and there's been a bitcoin plunge over AI bubble fears. I mean, what is this? We're hearing a lot about potential bubble, equating it to dot com in the early 2000s. Is this getting serious?
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Paul Walde
Well, it is. I mean, yesterday, of course, the Nasdaq was down a couple of percent. The broader S and P index was down. This morning, Asian markets are down and futures are pointing to the European markets falling again as well. There is real concern. The US Market is incredibly concentrated. You think about the US Economy as being gigantic and the US Stock market as being gigantic, but it's really eight tech companies pretty much that determine the market. The concentration is that high. You've got inflation, Nvidia, worth $5 trillion. And I think yesterday you started to see some people getting a bit nervous about the valuations, about how expensive some of these stocks have gotten. Palantir fell 9% when the sort of famous guy from the big short film buried started shorting some of their shares. It was announced that he's put a $1 billion bet against Palantir and Nvidia, and I think that's rattled a few investors. But there has been a general concern that, that the NASDAQ is something like 30 times future earnings when it should be about 25 times. So there's a real worry there that there's some kind of correction coming. Some people are talking maybe 10, 20% for these tech stocks, but that's going to bring down the whole market. So, yeah, you got to wonder if the AI thing just got a little bit too far ahead of itself.
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Vincent McEvin
But I think the counterargument would be, unlike maybe the Internet, is that this has the real potential to just revolutionize society and work in a way that we have never really seen before. And coupled with robotics, it could kind of change everything. And that can create, obviously, more problems and unrest in things that we're only just fathoming. But do you think it's right to be sort of comparing constantly to sort of.com is what seems to be happening.
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Paul Walde
I think that the valuations have gotten really, really high and they're probably going to have to come down to some kind of more normal level. But you're right. I mean, Palantir produced some decent numbers and decent financial results. However, their share price is incredibly high and some of these share prices have gone up 40, 50% in the last year. Is that sustainable? Is that reflective really of what the companies are worth? And I think that's what a lot of investors are now working through.
- [30:37]
Vincent McEvin
Paul Walde, Europe correspondent at the Globe and Mail, thank you very much. You're listening to the Globalist on Monocle Radio. Now here's what else we're keeping an eye on today. Zoran Mamdani is the new mayor of New York city city. The 34 year old is the youngest mayor since 1892 and also the first Muslim to hold the position and the first African born in a big night for the Democrats. Their candidates also won gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Meanwhile, staying In America, a UPS cargo plane carrying 38,000 gallons of fuel has crashed near Louisville International Airport. A large fire is still burning around the record wreckage and seven people are confirmed dead so far with others missing. At least 66 people have been killed in the Philippines as Typhoon Kalmaigi rips across the country. The storm flooded entire towns on the island of Cebu where most of the casualties occurred. Six of the dead were military crew of a helicopter that crashed on Mindanyo island and Chinese founded retail giant Shein has pulled all sex dolls from its site after a French consumer watchdog found childlike products online. Shein says the products were offered through third party sellers and it has temporarily banned the sale of all adult products on its platform. The French watchdog also found sex dolls resembling children on Aliexpress, Temu and Wish. This is the Globalist. Stay tuned. It's 14:31 in Jakarta and 8:31 in Zurich. Tomorrow the Asia Society Switzerland is hosting its annual flagship conference. This year's title is the State of Asia 2025. The event brings together experts from Asia, Europe and the US to offer strategic intelligence for business leaders, government officials and academics. Well, from our Zurich studio, I'm pleased to say we're joined now by Remco Tanis, Asia Society Switzerland Managing ed, organizer and panelist at the conference and Suhasini Haida, diplomatic editor of the Hindu and panelist at the conference as well. Thank you both for speaking to us. Remco, if I can start with you. What can attendees expect from this year's event?
- [33:06]
Remco Tanis
You can expect. Good morning. A huge range of top level first hand experts who we bring over from Asia, from the US from elsewhere in Europe, people who are really knowledgeable of what's going on in the major areas of development in Asia, whether it's economic, geopolitical, AI, culture, energy, transition. And we bring all of them together for one day here in Zurich to really engage with our audience and bring our audience up to speed on these major developments in a very effective and in high paced manner.
- [33:41]
Vincent McEvin
And who are some of the key speakers and what are you most excited for them to discuss?
- [33:46]
Remco Tanis
Well, one of them is of course, standing next to me here in Zurich, Johan Haydar, one of India's top foreign journalists, diplomatic journalists, editors. We have Peter Limjarunrad, who won the elections in Thailand in 2023 and will deliver tonight's State of Asia address as well on big themes, how he sees the future of specifically democracy in Asia and the rest of the the world. We have Desmond Shum, who was a high level entrepreneur in China until he had to leave. Cheng Hao, son of Tsinghua University in Beijing, who's an expert on U.S. china, Europe relations. And also people like Henrietta Levin, who used to be in the White House under the first Trump administration and on the Biden. And of course someone like Abigail Vasilh who is with Europe European Union External Action Service and she'll bring in the European perspective on developments in Asia.
- [34:47]
Vincent McEvin
Well, Sue Hossini, you're one of the panelists as mentioned. What's your discussion going to be about?
- [34:54]
Suhasini Haida
Well, I'm on a few panels. One of the discussions is of course, India itself. You know, this idea of how India is seen still as a balanced balancing power in the world and what is the potential? For decades, I think international observers have seen India as the big rising power that has to reach its potential. But there are always questions about whether India does actually have the economic might that many hope it does or that the market of consumers is as big as people hope it would be. And finally, some of the questions really about democracy in India. So we're going to have a little bit of series of conversations on that.
- [35:42]
Vincent McEvin
And in terms of global power, we've had Trump in the region last week, Korea and Japan both trying to bolster relations, Trump trying to thaw them with China. What do you think we can expect in terms of power in the region in the next 12 months?
- [36:01]
Suhasini Haida
Well, I certainly think if 2024 was the year of elections internationally, but particularly in as 2025 has been the year of Trump shock. And I think the impacts of what Mr. Trump's new policies are doing, not just on trade and tariffs, which have already seen a massive impact in India, just in the two months since we've had those 50% tariffs put on India, 25% of those over Russian imports of Russian oil, but also in terms of tariff, the US's soft power in terms of plurilaterals in the neighborhood. So if you know India was seen as an important member of the quad of the US's Indo Pacific policy, where does that go now? Particularly after Mr. Trump's conference with a summit with Xi Jinping, which he referred to himself as G2. If it's going to be about the US and China getting together and discussing world issues and, and sorting out problems between them and what does that mean for the free and open Indo Pacific policy? Are we just going to see spheres of influence being broken out? And I think the third question is really going to be not just in the world, but also in Asia, looking at multilateral rules based order, is that just going away? 2026 is of course the year of the UN Secretary General Election, which will be watched very closely. The US already going out there and saying it should be an open election, not a regional basis based one expected to be someone from South America, possibly a woman. And where that world order is going to go because Mr. Trump's policies have hit aid, climate change aid. The anti immigration sentiment, which I should say is now worldwide, is leading to new trends in migration, much more about mobility, about going abroad for immigrants to get jobs, but then returning back, much like where we in Switzerland are have already put into place. And then finally the questions about, you know, where does democracy go? If 2024 was the year of elections, then by 2026 electorates who did take part in those elections are looking for results. I think some of it you're already seeing, you know, the impatience of the electorate is showing in places like, like the US already, but I think those are going to be big questions.
- [38:27]
Vincent McEvin
And finally, Remco, what do you hope as speakers and attendees will come away from the event thinking and feeling?
- [38:35]
Remco Tanis
I think, I mean, what's been happening or what's being decided in places like Delhi, Beijing, other Asian capitals really impacts us here in Europe in a very direct way, much more so than ever before. And I think you just heard Soassani. I think that's a prime example of the kind of speaker we want to involve with our State of Asia conference. Just being able to really put things into context, whether it's democracy or economics or geopolitics or security, and really give our audience a high paced, very effective feeling of when they come away from that. I've really seen what's going on and what people from the region think is important and what we should pay attention to here, Europe. And if that's the takeaway, the feeling people leave with, then we at least have for this year, our mission accomplished.
- [39:28]
Vincent McEvin
Well, from our Zurich studio, Remco Tanis, Asia Society Switzerland, managing editor, organizer and panelist at the conference, and Suhasini Haida, diplomatic editor of the Hindu, and panelists at the conference as well. Thank you both very much. You're listening to Monocle Radio. The world travel market has begun in London. The three day event is expected to draw over 46,000 participants and 4,000 exhibitors from 180 countries. One exhibitor is Harris Whitbeck, Tourism Minister of Guatemala and Director General of the Guatemala Tourism Institute. His country has seen one of the fastest rises in tourism this year, up by 8% already with 1.6 million visitors in the first half of 2025. He joined Monocle's Tom Webb in Midori House, ahead of the market, to share the secrets of his success.
- [40:33]
Harris Whitbeck
Since this administration took over handling tourism in Guatemala, the growth has been sustained. From the first year, it was over 13%, then so far this year, 8%. And we attribute that to making a lot of noise. I'm a former journalist, so I'm all about making noise and reacting to noise. And we approached this as we saw a great opportunity because not much is known about Guatemala outside of the country. So we felt like we had this blank canvas that we could really use to put together the picture of Guatemala. The story that we want to tell, which is all fact based, of course. So we started out by making a lot of noise, participating, participating in major trade events, fairs, a lot of out of house activities. We're on billboards, on buses, on taxis. And that has really started to pay off. What we're working on now is implementing a much more focused strategy. Now that the noise has been made, we need to actually deliver the goods. So we're doing that by working with two main axes of communication. One is guidance, gastronomy. We're talking about Guatemala's food scene, which is growing and very exciting right now. We're hosting the Latin America's 50 Best awards in Guatemala next month. And there are three restaurants from Guatemala that are on that list now. So there's a lot that we can talk about there. And then the other thing that distinguishes Guatemala as a destination from others in the region is the fact that we have 3,000 years of culture and history to look back to the Mayan empire and a very, very vibrant textile and design scene that also goes back thousands of years. So we've. And just a parenthesis. I'm very, very careful about cultural appropriation and about not taking advantage of indigenous cultures to sell the country. So we're working very closely with the national movement of weavers. Thousands of women from all over the country who, who have a voice, have a place at our table and where they tell us how they want to be represented. And we've started taking them to different design festivals around the world to talk about Guatemala from the design level. So what we want to do is attract visitors to Guatemala who will come there interested in learning about our food, our culture, our art, our textiles. Because that type of visitor will connect more with who we are, will hopefully want to spend more time in the country, spend more money, therefore have a better, more impact on the economy.
- [42:59]
Vincent McEvin
So would you say that these influx of new tourists are coming to you for these cultural experiences, for the food? Are they looking to go off the beaten track, impress people on their Instagram? Why are they coming?
- [43:12]
Harris Whitbeck
They're coming for that reason. Obviously there's a lot that Guatemala offers in terms of a destination in Central America. We have more than 30 volcanoes that you can climb, jungle mountain trekking as well. So there's that. But again, what differentiates us from the others is that we have this cultural dimension and people really connect with it. Guatemala is a very, very welcoming society. So people love to tell visitors about their story, about their communities and people connect to that.
- [43:40]
Vincent McEvin
So yeah, and talking about nature and we're also talking about the rise of tourism, which comes with sustainability, managing that demand. You have a new joint agreement with Mexico and Belize, but to create the biocultural corridor of the great Mayan forest. Why are you doing that and why now?
- [43:58]
Harris Whitbeck
Well, it's crucially important. It should have been done decades ago. About 20% of Guatemala is part of this Mayan biosphere on the Guatemalan side. And it is. Once this is created, and I mean all the papers have been signed now, now it has to actually be implemented. But it'll become the second largest tropical rainforest in the world after the Amazon. So it is crucial that it be protected. And we believe that sustainable tourism, particularly community led tourism, is one of the keys to ensuring the sustainability of the forest. It's a win win situation. The forest provides many tools to create products that attract visitors. And the right kind of visitors can visit without having a major impact. So it's really a win win.
- [44:46]
Vincent McEvin
And talking about the impact of the new visitors, we mentioned the rise of numbers. More stats for you because the World Tourism Trade Council have forecasted an even larger increase, a 72% rise in international visitor spending in the region in the next 10 years. That's going to grow from $1.5 billion to $2.6 billion. You mentioned the indigenous communities. How do you expect or plan for that money to trickle down to the right?
- [45:14]
Harris Whitbeck
Well, we need to continue doing what we've been doing is talking to the communities. And one of the first things we did when we took office was to embark on a series of listening tours throughout the country where we would go into communities large and small and have a listening session and have them tell us how they wanted to be perceived, what products they felt they had and how they felt the government should help them achieve that. So that has been key and that has led to the creation of very authentic tourism products which again attract the kind of friendly, sustainable tourism that we're looking for. The figures that you just mentioned are exciting. Yes, they're impressive. Yes. But we have to be very conscious of the fact that we have a great opportunity right now. Because since we're really starting to develop Guatemala as a tourism destination, we have the chance to do it right. We don't want to become what other destinations in the region have become, which is just a series of, you know, huge all inclusive resorts all along a beach somewhere. We don't feel that that's the model for us. Again, given what we can offer and given the fact that we're starting fresh, we can do it right from the beginning.
- [46:20]
Vincent McEvin
And you're being very careful with the expansion. You're doing the right things. You're opening new air routes. You're being very selective. Try and explain some of these new entry points into Guatemala.
- [46:33]
Harris Whitbeck
Well, one of the most exciting fighting and most recent is Air Canada. They started a three times a week flight, direct flight from Montreal to Guatemala City. They're flying an A330, a widebody. They're doing it not only because of the strong passenger capacity, but cargo opportunities as well. We think that, that it's very important because it's attracting a lot of Canadians who no longer want to go to the United States necessarily. So this is a new market for us and Guatemala is a new destination for them. And also the The Air Canada route allows for a lot easier transfer points between Europe and Guatemala. You can fly from London to Montreal, have very easy connection to Guatemala City, and again, you can avoid going through the US which to many has become a bit more complicated. So we're very excited about the Air Canada route. We're obviously talking to other American carriers and hoping to get more European carriers to fly directly.
- [47:22]
Vincent McEvin
That was Harris Whitbeck, Tourism Minister of Guatemala and Director General of the Guatemala Tourism Institute Institute with Monocle's Tom Webb. For our coverage of the world travel market, stay tuned across Monocle Radio. You're listening to the globalist.
- [47:41]
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- [48:20]
Vincent McEvin
While the third 38th Tokyo International Film Festival is coming to a close, and to discuss this, I'm joined by Matt Schley, a Tokyo based reporter and critic for publications including the Japan Times and Screen International. Matt, good to speak with you. Firstly, can you tell us a bit about the festival and what its significance, its influence is like?
- [48:46]
Chris Chermack
Sure.
- [48:46]
Matt Schley
Thanks for having me. Tokyo has been around for almost 40 years now. That makes it one of the older festivals in Asia. Still young compared to stuff over in Europe like Cannes or Venice. But it's kind of been taken over in terms of prestige by younger festivals. Busan, for example, is now considered kind of the most prestigious festival in Asia. So Tokyo has, over the past, I would say six or so years, years, tried to kind of regain some of that prestige by kind of retooling itself in some interesting ways.
- [49:26]
Vincent McEvin
How's it tried to do that?
- [49:28]
Matt Schley
Well, they've brought in a new chairman. His name is Hiroyasu Ando. He has been a longtime diplomat in his previous career and he's done some things. He brought in a new programming director and a guy came called Shouzou Ichiyama, who is himself a film producer. So he. He's kind of breathed some new life into the festival. He's taken attack more toward Asian films as opposed to films from the West. They've kind of stopped trying to emulate again places like Cannes and Venice. And they've kind of pivoted toward Asia. They've also moved the site of the festival, it used to be in a neighborhood called Roppongi. It's now In Ginza, which is a kind of a more town with a bit more vibrancy, bit more stuff to do. So I've been attending this festival for a good decade and I think the last few years since Ando has taken charge and especially post Covid, have been a little bit more vibrant.
- [50:31]
Vincent McEvin
And what were the trends that you observed this year and the standout films and performances?
- [50:38]
Matt Schley
Sure, if you speak to the program director, which I have, he'll tell you, hey, we don't really pick films on trends. We pick films because they're good or not. That said, there were for example, in the. In the competition section, which is the main section of 15 films, four films with mother in their title. So filmmakers seem to. To be interested in the topic of motherhood recently. There are also a bunch of films in competition and other sections where it's kind of hard to pin down down where the film is from. You know, you used to say this is a Turkish film or a Chinese film. And these days you have films with directors from here, but producers from there shot in different places around the world. So I feel like it really is kind of a more international environment.
- [51:34]
Vincent McEvin
And I understand that you are in Taipei for the Taiwan crowd. Creative content fest. What exactly is that?
- [51:42]
Matt Schley
I am the. The festivals never end. This is more of a industry specific festival. So it's not so much about showing films to the general public like Tokyo is. This is more filmmakers pitching their new projects to potential buyers or trying to get funding. So this is kind of where the. The initial steps of something that might eventually show at a festival like Tokyo.
- [52:10]
Vincent McEvin
And what are you particularly paying attention to at this festival? I mean, is the kind of ambition to get projects onto streaming services now? Because you've seen sort of the success of for instance, so many sort of Korean productions thinking of Squid Game or sort of, you know, K Pop Demon Hunters, which is a bit of a fusion. Is it trying to get these movies out to a global audience that, that way it is.
- [52:33]
Matt Schley
You know, there are filmmakers who still want to see their, their films done on the big screen. And we've seen a lot of going back to Tokyo. We've seen some very successful Japanese films this year, whether it be Demon Slayer, which is popular, you know, not only in Japan, but worldwide. Chainsaw man is another example of that. Coco is a Japanese film that's done very well. But yeah, there are of course people who are interested in being on streaming platforms. There was an announcement yesterday of a new kind of Taiwan fund that's they're teaming up with Korea to try to get some of that Korean K pop juice that Taiwan hasn't had so far. So, yeah, they're all playing the content and IP game.
- [53:19]
Vincent McEvin
Mats Schley, thank you. You're listening to the Globalist on Monocle Radio. And finally, no matter where you're listening around the world, you'll have probably noticed that prices of your morning cup of joe have climbed significantly over the past few years. But in a cafe in Dubai is still selling a single cup for nearly US$1,000 dollars a cup. That's because it's brewed from rare Nido 7 geisha beans grown on the slopes of Panama's Baru volcano. Well, to discuss this, we're joined from Dubai by Insamin Rashid, Monocle's golf correspondent. Insy, have you had a cup yet? What's it like?
- [54:16]
Insamin Rashid
Oh, no, I haven't had a cup whatsoever. That's probably because I've got more sense than money and, and that's probably because I don't have much money and so most definitely haven't had a cup. But what I have been told by the, the coffee brewer at Julith Coffee House in Alcuz, which is a bit of a kind of an industrial turning hipster area, that this cup of coffee is floral and it's got fruity flavors with a bit of jasmine and a hint of citrus as well, apricot peach. And the founder of it says that it's a bit like honey, delicate and sweet and it's actually a bit more like a tea, which I kind of feel like if you're going to pay up to a thousand dollars for a coffee and in turn you get a tea is a bit of a disappointment.
- [55:06]
Vincent McEvin
And these beans, you can get them at auction, it's about sort of US$600,000 for 20kg only. I mean, what's so special about them? Is it just this region that they're from?
- [55:19]
Insamin Rashid
Yes. So this is what happened. These beans in particular were purchased at an auction, as you mentioned, 20kg, around Dh2.2 million, which is around Dh600,000 and they are from Panama's Baru volcano region and it's claimed to be the highest graded coffee of all time. The beans are ultra premium, called the 907 geisha beans. And basically, basically what this coffee house in Dubai is doing, they're going to serve around 400 cups of this special brew. They've reserved some particularly for the royal family out here who will no doubt get a few cups out of their reserved beans. But it Seems to be quite popular. There's a lot of people turning up. The demand is very real. A lot of Emiratis wanting a cup of this. I mean look, it probably is a bit of a publicity stunt and here we are talking about it on the radio, but actually, you know, it is causing a bit of attention, particularly in this region. And you know, Dubai, it's a classic Dubai story, Vincent, where you know, Dubai is known for the tallest buildings, it's known for the popular grandeur, zip lines. Yeah. And then why not have the most expensive cup of coffee as well.
- [56:42]
Vincent McEvin
And have you seen anyone sort of drinking this coffee yet? Any sort of reactions? I'm guessing that they're trying to pull in, you know, social media influences to film some content. Have we seen anything of that yet?
- [56:56]
Insamin Rashid
It's all, it's literally all that kind of stuff. But actually what the, what the, the founder of the coffee house said is that he genuinely wants people to turn up and actually pay for it. You know, they're not going to be giving away any free samples other than what they're giving to the royal family. When I did go down to the coffee house, I mean there was a Tesla Cybertruck parked outside with the advertisement of the coffee house on it and pretty much tells you everything you need to know. But it is a beautiful kind of old industrial building which has been converted into this very kind of minimalist coffee house. And they've got this special brewing machine for these geisha beans there where they're going to be creating these 400 cups. But a lot of locals, a lot of Emiratis going in and out, taking photos as well. There was one chap who had ordered one of the 400 cups and he seemed like he was enjoying it. But at the end of the day it is just a cup of coffee.
- [57:51]
Vincent McEvin
Coffee.
- [57:51]
Insamin Rashid
And it will set you back almost $1,000 which yeah, a bit much for me.
- [57:57]
Vincent McEvin
Yeah, me too. That's not one that would get through journalists expenses. Well, thank you very much for that. Check in Inzerman Rashid, Monocle's golf correspondent there. I am going to finish the show now and then go straight to the Monocle Cafe here on Chiltern street where you can get a pretty nice cup of coffee for only a few pounds. There are other Monocle cafes around the world as well. If you check our in Zurich and Paris. The website has all the address details. I'd highly recommend the cardamom buns too to go with that. Well, that is all for today's program, thanks to our producers Carlos Rebelo, Tom Webb and Chris Chermack our researcher, Joanna Moser and our studio manager, Christy o', Grady, with editing assistance by Steph Chungoo. After the headlines. There's more music on the way. The briefing is live at midday, London time. The Global returns at the same time tomorrow. I'm Vincent McEvinney. Thank you for listening.
- [59:38]
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