International News Stories

The US series of The Masked Singer 'threw up' (chosen words) Rudy Giuliani as the suprise contestant who's infamous as the former mayor of New York and Trumpist lawyer. He was the bright spark who arranged a news conference at The Four Season's Hotel, only to find out that the Four Season's concerned was a garden centre.

Once his mask was removed two of the judges walked off in protest.

No-one has mentioned what his costume was.... I have an idea.

Nazanin and another British national Anousheh Ashouri are on the way to the airport before they fly out of Iran.

There's a tsunami warning after an earthquake with a 7.3 magnitude.
Waves up to a metre in height expected to hit Eastern Japan

How much of an inpact could it have further afield?

Good news about Nazaneen and the other person being freed but you cant help but feel the timing is a bit sus getting the feeling they will be trying to get iran back into the nuclear deal with the bribe of producing Oil and Gas for sale to europe

It is absolutely fantastic that Nazanin & Anoosheh Ashoori have been released and are returning to their families, their arrest and detention was a sham & a miscarriage of justice. It's also true that they were released because we paid a ransom to a fascist authoritarian regime that funds terrorist organisations & devastating proxy wars resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands & the displacement of millions across The Middle East.

The money is of course money that we owed them it and it helps grease the wheels in negotiations over the JCPOA & maybe even getting more oil on the market. £400m is nothing to the Iranians and even less to the UK its more the principal of handing money over to the regime. Of course the JCPOA is more than just oil interests, if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons it would no doubt spark a nuclear arms race in the region that could be catastrophic, as hard as it is to imagine that it could be more so for The Middle East.

So do you mark this down as a dark day where a liberal democracy, home to the mother of parliaments, that declared war on Nazi Germany pays a ransom to a repressive, authoritarian regime or do you chalk it up to a case of hold your nose Realpolitik ?

^ Rumoured that she will be dropped off in Calais & told to go to Paris to get her passport validated

Take aways from the first round of the French election:

Continuing very much in the same vein as the last election the public are opting for either new or "extreme" parties. The two traditional parties that have dominated French politics since the formation of the Fifth Republic got less than 7% combined. All 3 of the new main parties increased their vote share, with far left candidate Jean Luc Melenchon's LFI falling short of the second round by less than 2 %

Projections expect Macron to be the first President to win a second term in since Chirac did 20 yrs ago, however Le Pen is polling much stronger than she did 5 yrs ago. She has gone to great efforts ro detoxify her brand, renaming her party and focusing more on the cost of living than immigration & cultural nationalism. These efforts have been aided by the rise of Eric Zemmour whose extreme far right views such as every muslim child is a potential terrorist have made Len Pen look moderate

Macron's term in office has been turbulent to say the least, dominated by one major crisis after another from Gilet Jaune & pension protests, a global pandemic and war in Ukraine The President's admin has struggled to set any kind of rhythm/cohessive narrative. There is a large sense that the French people are fed up & their national psyche means that they take their grievences out on whoever is in The Elysse Palace whether it is their fault or not.

This feeling of being fed up is despite the fact that under Macron the French economy has become more business friendly, his government's covid stimulus package delivered the strongest growth since the 60s, employment is down, wages are up, the country has seen lower levels of inflation than European counterparts & due to France's energy sector being heavily nationalised, market prices have been capted at a 4% increase

Macron's biggest challenge to victory will be convincing Melenchon voters to back him in the second round. During his results speech Melenchon made it clear "Not one vote for Marine Le Pen" but stopped short of endorsing Macron, there is a sense then that many of his voters will abstain.

Le Pen's challenges are that an Ipsos Mori poll found that 50% of the French voters said they would never vote for her, making a majority very difficult, last election she polled at 40% in the second round but achieved 33%. Zemmour's endorsement of Le Pen will allow Macron to paint her as the same old Le Pen that her moderation is an act, her performance in the head to head debate last time was dismal, has she improved enough to get the better of her more media polished opponent ? Macron will also look to dine out on her close links to Putin, other than idealogical simmilarities and numerous meetings her party has received significant funding from Russian donors including a bank linked to the Kremlin

However it goes, it looks like it's gonna be tight