What just happened
- The Afghan army urged residents of Lashkar Gah to flee their homes before a planned attack to dislodge the Taliban.
- Joe Biden called on Andrew Cuomo to resign as New York’s state governor after an inquiry found he sexually harassed 11 women.
- The Belarusian sprinter Krystina Tsimanouskaya flew from Tokyo to Vienna after a last-minute change of plans for security reasons, having obtained a visa for Poland.
For a long time the Strait of Hormuz was thriller-writers’ favourite place to start the Third World War. Then the Taiwan Strait started getting all the attention. Maybe Hormuz is back.
The latest. Two tankers have been attacked in or near the strait in six days and four more were briefly yesterday said to be “not under command”, meaning they’d lost power and were unable to steer. The first attack was by explosive drones on the Israeli-managed Mercer Street last Thursday; it killed two crew members – one Romanian, one British. The second was yesterday’s hijacking of the Panama-registered Asphalt Princess. The hijackers reportedly left the Asphalt Princess early this morning.
Who dunnit? Both attacks have been blamed by the US, the UK and Israel on Iran. Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, said he had conclusive proof Iran was behind the Mercer Street attack although Iran denies responsibility. Its foreign ministry said yesterday’s reports of multiple ships losing power in the strait were “suspicious” and designed to “create a false atmosphere” against Iran.
Marine traffic websites showed an Iranian vessel classified as an amphibious landing craft cross the strait east of its narrowest point shortly before the hijacking yesterday morning.
Why now? Unclear, but the ultraconservative judge Ebrahim Raisi took office yesterday as Iran’s president, replacing the relatively moderate (and Glasgow-educated) Hassan Rouhani.
To know about Raisi:
- He owes his position to the equally hardline supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who rigged June’s presidential election in his favour and whom he’s tipped to succeed.
- He’s promised to improve Iranians’ living conditions, for which he needs to get sanctions lifted, for which he needs a revived nuclear deal with the P5+1 (the UN Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany).
- He may soon acquire full pariah status thanks to a Swedish war crimes trial that starts next week. An Iranian official is accused of taking part in the mass execution of political prisoners 33 years ago ordered by, among others…Raisi
To remember about Iran. It’s split. Enthusiasm for a revived nuclear deal varies widely between political factions, business cliques and the Revolutionary Guards. Ditto enthusiasm for self-sufficiency versus foreign investment. Raisi needs the deal and favours self-sufficiency. He has to position himself now (internationally) as open to negotiation and (domestically) as the toughest negotiator in the room.
What’s next? P5+1 talks have been on hold since the election but are expected to restart later this month, “and then we will see which kind of negotiating positions they come with,” a German official tells CNBC.
No surprises if one offer from the Iranian side is to restore calm to the Strait of Hormuz.
Russia vs LGBT+
A same-sex family has fled Russia for their own security after being featured in ads for a supermarket chain and then targeted by a homophobic nationalists. “We’re safe, we’re resting. We don’t have to hide our happiness to be a family,” one member of the family wrote on Instagram, apparently from Barcelona. Identified in the ad only by their first names (Yuma, Zhenya and daughters Mila and Alina), the family were featured as regular (vegan) customers of the VkusVill chain. The ad was tagged 18+ to comply with Russia’s 2013 law against “gay propaganda towards minors”, but still attracted a storm of online criticism, prompting an abject apology from the chain’s founder and senior management. They blamed it on “individual employees’ unprofessionalism” and took it down. The Moscow Times’ coverage of this story is free and well worth clicking through.
Ultra lazy
Getir says it’ll deliver your groceries in about ten minutes. Gorillas will do the same in Berlin and Copenhagen; Gopuff in much of the US. You can look at this as perfect for the ultra-busy, or the ultra-lazy. The alliterative start-ups don’t care. They’re raising shedloads from investors and acquiring prodigious valuations because of what looks like a bullet-proof business model: their mini-warehouses avoid high street rents and retail wage bills, and serve wider catchment areas than convenience stores, yielding much higher margins. Bloomberg quotes one analyst who forecasts margins of 5 to 10 per cent compared with 2 to 4 for corner shops, and reckons each Getir London location could turn over up to $6 million a year. Getir, founded in Turkey in 2015, has been valued at $7.6 billion. At least someone’s getting rich from the rest of us not getting off the sofa.
Shots for 16 year-olds
The UK may be about to join other rich countries in offering Covid vaccines to children. Ministers in England and Scotland expect the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to amend its guidance and allow vaccination of children as young as 12, although in England at least the plan is to start by offering jabs to 16 and 17 year-olds. UK Covid infection rates are highest among 13 to 24 year-olds and need to be brought down before schools go back. Ireland, France, Germany and the US are among the countries already vaccinating children as young as 12 – all with mRNA vaccines such as those from Pfizer and Moderna rather than viral vector vaccines such as AstraZeneca’s. Times Radio got the scoop from universities minister Michelle Donelan.
COP goals
To be considered a success the COP26 conference needs to extract firm plans from the world’s 20 biggest economies to get to net zero by 2050, and to confirm $100 billion in funding for a Green Climate Fund to pay for “a just transition for people in parts of the world where they’re taking the brunt of what is happening because of the developed world”. So says John Kerry, US climate envoy, in conversation with the New Yorker’s David Remnick. Kerry has been winding up activists by putting an optimistic amount of faith in technologies not yet invented. As for his focus on targets, they’re only targets. But the $100 billion number has the great merit of being a number, and of being aimed at the central challenge of the climate crisis: to persuade poorer countries that rich ones that industrialised with coal and oil aren’t being monumentally hypocritical. $100 billion, by the way, will be a downpayment at best.
Tencent and the kids
Here comes the Chinese state as the video game nanny parents all over the world want, or at least need. And here come the financial repercussions. Chinese regulators have ordered Tencent to cut the time minors can spend playing Honor of Kings to one hour a day and two at weekends. Under 12s are also to be banned from spending money in-game. Besides offering massively popular games of its own, Tencent owns big stakes in Epic Games (Fortnite), Supercell (Clash of Clans) and Activision Blizzard (World of Warcraft, Call of Duty). Its market valuation has fallen from nearly $1 trillion at the start of the year to $550 billion now as investors worry about Xi Jinping’s broad assault on Chinese tech’s freedom to make money and influence the way people live. For its own part Tencent has been trying to stay ahead of the regulators, proposing a complete ban on gaming for the under 12s. Seriously, what’s not to like?
The heptathlon kicks off today at the athletics stadium, where Nafissatou Thiam is defending her title. The “Hep” was introduced in 1984. It added the javelin and 800m to the pentathlon (a track and field event distinct from the modern pentathlon) which had been going since the 1964 Games, when it was won by Irina Press. The 800m is the last event, and the athletes traditionally complete a joint lap of honour after it.
Thanks for reading, and please share this around.
Giles Whittell
@GWhittell
Photographs by Getty Images, Instagram, US Navy
