What I'm Reading
What I'm Reading
September 27: Five reads that piqued my interest this week
Israel kills Hezbollah chief
On Friday Israel struck targets in Beirut aimed at Hassan Nasrallah — the leader of the Iranian-backed political and militant group Hezbollah — that the US, UK and Australia have deemed a terrorist organisation.
On Saturday morning the Israeli Defence Force said it had indeed succeeded in killing Nasrallah.
Critically, Israel did not tell its ally the United States about its planned strike until moments before it was carried out.
‘I can tell you the United States had no knowledge of or participation in the IDF action,’ US President Joe Biden said shortly after the strikes.
‘We’re gathering more information.’
The US has been calling for a 21-day truce between Israel and Lebanon, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defied and opted for escalation instead.
After the infiltration of Hezbollah’s communications system and now the decapitation of its leader, the question is what will Hezbollah do now, and what are its capabilities to hit back and if this will lead to a wider regional war.
Netanyahu and his military chiefs have taken an enormous gamble, not simply regarding the situation in Israel’s north, where tens of thousands have been displaced by the fighting, but with the wider region and with the country’s relationships with its international partners.
Coming in the midst of US- and French-led international efforts to broker a three-week ceasefire with Hezbollah, the move marks an emphatic slap in the face for the Biden administration, which believed it had an assurance from Netanyahu that he backed the temporary truce.
Instead, it appears that Netanyahu and his military leadership were all the time secretly laying the ground for an attack timed to violently underline the rhetorical flourishes of the Israeli prime minister’s warnings to Hezbollah and Iran during his thinly attended speech on Friday at the UN.
Most significantly, the strikes represent a direct challenge to Tehran, for whom Nasrallah represents its most important strategic regional ally, whose tens of thousands of Iranian-supplied missiles aimed at Israel have long been seen as a key strategic foil preventing an Israeli attack on Iran itself.
Now all bets are off. Despite anonymous Israeli claims – later disavowed by the IDF – that it had destroyed up to 50% of Hezbollah’s missile arsenal of well over 100,000, that remains highly unlikely. And while Hezbollah’s command and control has been severely damaged, it is probable that it retains a significant capacity.
Delicate diplomacy as Zelensky meets Trump
Volodymr Zelensky was just one of many leaders calling on Donald Trump in New York this week where many world leaders gathered for the UN General Assembly.
Zelensky presented his victory plan to Trump, having shown it to US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris earlier in the week.
Trump and Zelensky conducted a joint interview on Fox News after their meeting. Trump reiterated that he wanted the war to stop but gave no details about how he’d end it, but significantly did repeatedly say the way the war ended must be ‘fair.’
The fact that Zelensky and Trump even met is significant in itself. Trump has often made more comments more favourable to Vladimir Putin than Ukraine and in recent rallies has targetted Zelensky personally.
Many Republicans also want to stop funding Ukraine’s war effort and earlier this year held up crucial funds in the House.
This dynamic was made worse this week when Zelensky visited an arms factory in Biden’s hometown Scranton, in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania this week with top Democrats, angering Republicans.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson said the visit so close to the US Presidential constituted election interference and demanded the Ukrainian Ambassador in the US be fired.
Their teams had discussed the idea of a meeting at Trump's estate in Mar-a-Lago, according to two officials close to Zelensky. But the Ukrainians set that possibility aside, as it could be seen as an endorsement of Trump’s campaign.
Instead, the Ukrainians asked to meet Trump on more neutral ground, for example, on the set of a US television network for a joint interview. This option was still under discussion when Zelensky landed in the US, according to one of the Ukrainian officials.
But the first public event of the trip appeared to change the tone of these discussions. On Sunday, Zelensky visited an arms factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the city where President Biden was born and grew up.
Touring the facility alongside the state's Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, Zelensky expressed gratitude to all American workers who are helping produce weapons for Ukraine. But the optics of the visit upset Trump and his allies, and their talks about a possible meeting with Zelensky broke down.
‘It seems he took offence,’ one of the Ukrainian officials says of Trump. The problem, he added, seems to have been the choice of venue: the hometown of the incumbent US President in a hotly contested battleground state.
On Monday, the day after Zelensky's trip to Scranton, Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania, where he unveiled a new attack line against the Ukrainian leader, referring to him as the world's ‘greatest salesman’ for managing to convince the U.S. to send aid to Ukraine.
Trump also told the crowd in Pennsylvania that Zelensky wants the Democrats to win in November: ‘He wants them to win this election so badly.’
Japan’s new PM wants an Asian Nato
I mean that’s never going to happen and has already been swiftly repudiated by the United States but it betrays a daring quality of the former Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba now elevated to the leadership of Japan’s ruling party the Liberal Democratic Party and Japan’s newest Prime Minister.
The political veteran beat eight competitors in what was his fifth run for the leadership.
In a political culture that prizes conformity, Ishiba has long been something of an outlier, willing to criticize and go against his own party. That willingness to speak out made him powerful enemies within the LDP but endeared him to more grassroots members and the public.
He sits on the more progressive wing of the conservative party. His political acumen and experience in domestic and foreign policy likely led to him securing the top job.
Following the vote, Ishiba said the LDP could now be ‘reborn and regain the trust of the people.’
‘I will believe in the people, speak the truth with courage and sincerity, and I will do my utmost to make this country a safe and secure place where everyone can live with a smile on their faces once again.’
Earth to obtain a second moon
This is cool. We’re about to, briefly, get a second moon via a tiny asteroid that will be trapped in Earth’s gravitational orbit.
Sadly, it won’t be visible unless you have a telescope.
Starting this weekend, this small asteroid will spend about two months orbiting Earth.
Dr Jennifer Millard, astronomer and host of the Awesome Astronomy podcast, told the BBC's Today programme that the asteroid would enter orbit on the 29th of September and then was predicted to leave on 25 November.
‘It's not going to complete a full revolution of our planet, it's just going to kind of have its orbit altered, just twisted slightly by our own planet and then it'll continue on its merry way,’ she said.
Luxury hotel products are often watered down
I love that scene from Friends where Ross takes as much as he can from the hotel room, including the lamp lightbulb and remote control batteries.
I must admit, the first time I ever stayed at the Langham during the 2010 Australian election campaign I took every pink and floral object that could be reasonably taken. I’m pretty sure I still have a notepad somewhere.
But the novelty of collecting hotel amenities wore off very quickly the more I travelled.
For a good decade now, I’ve challenged myself to use as few products in the hotel room as possible to reduce my plastic and waste consumption.
I’ll only use the hotel products if they’re a super-luxey. But it turns out not all is what it seems when it comes to uber-high-end hotel products you find in your bathroom compared to what you get in-store.
I was fascinated by this article, which explains that most branded minis supplied by some of the most expensive hotel chains are watered-down versions of the lotions and potions that you pay a small fortune for in the shops.
It was probably naive of me, however, to think that such products are exact replicas of what you can find in stores. In practice, hotels typically work with these brands to create custom formulations that reasonably approximate their product at scale. These samples are designed to be as close to the real deal as possible, and in a perfect world, guests wouldn’t be able to sniff out the substitute.
I most certainly did, though. And so have many of my fellow skincare aficionados. But even though it can feel like a bait-and-switch, it’s hard to say that we’ve been blatantly duped when hotels insinuate they’re not the same thing.
‘Some hotel toiletries may look like retail name-brand products, but they’re often formulated and sourced differently to meet hospitality industry needs,’ explains Anna Abelson, adjunct instructor at NYU School of Professional Studies’s Tisch Institute of Hospitality.
‘This can cause variations in quality and composition compared to store-bought versions.
Some hotel toiletries may look like retail name-brand products, but they’re often formulated and sourced differently to meet hospitality industry needs.’
Abelson noticed the differences herself when she used to stay at Sofitel properties, which at one point boasted toiletries made in collaboration with Hermes, a product line she used regularly. She suspected that there was something different about the hotel version, but it wasn’t until she attended conferences hosted by the International Luxury Hotel Association that she became privy to conversations about altered formulations. Cost and shelf-life, Abelson says, are some of the factors that get considered when developing these collaborations.
And that’s my list for this week.
On Sunday I joined Times Radio to discuss the week that was in British politics and downloaded the day’s news on The Monocle Daily on Wednesday.
Please do send me anything that’s caught your eye, I enjoy knowing what you’ve been reading.
Some of you have started to offer me copies of your books etc. Please email me at latika@latikambourke.com for a forwarding address for hard copies.