The Globalist

Germany and France want to collaborate on a new European fighter jet but can they do it without the help of the UK? Plus: Brexit’s impact on Northern Ireland, the nostalgic appeal of postcards and Finland’s penchant for esoteric sports.

How Donald Trump’s visit to Paris will shape the US-French relations, a font type that may have exposed corruption in Pakistan and an interview with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

We discuss the legal woes of the Trump administration, the stability of EU-Ukraine relations and business stories from Scandinavia. Plus: the future of the Indian space programme.

Donald Trump Jr releases compromising emails as more details emerge of his meeting with a Russian lawyer. Will this be too much even for the GOP? Plus: the US and Qatar sign an agreement to fight terrorism and we examine plans for a joint EU-Japan mission to Mercury.

A look at the new round of peace talks on Syria and what life will be like for Mosul after Isis. Plus: the logistics of space tourism and the diplomacy of getting world leaders’ names right.

We dissect the US president’s performance at the G20. We’re also in Cyprus, where talks to reunite the divided island have collapsed, and we hear about the near month-long demonstration criticising the Turkish government’s crackdown following last year’s coup.

All this week our Globalist series has been looking at coalitions. And there’s one region that is packed full of them: the Western Balkans. Every independent country that emerged from the former Yugoslavia has a multi-party government of one sort or another. But, of course, some of them work better than others. Monocle’s Balkans correspondent, Guy De Launey, gives us the low-down.

We look ahead to a G20 summit that will include a hotly anticipated handshake between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. We also ask if Cyril Ramaphosa will be the new leader of South Africa’s ANC and look at how much proof a historian needs.

The pursuit of one-man rule by Turkey’s president is in stark contrast to the country’s long history of power-sharing. Indeed, although Recep Tayyip Erdogan has attempted to dismantle opposition and silence his critics, Turkey’s politics hasn’t always been this way. Monocle’s features editor Christopher Lord tells Rhys James about the country’s experience of coalitions.

We ask why Donald Trump chose to kick off his trip to Europe in Poland. Plus: tension as Austria’s defence minister calls for more security on the Brenner Pass border with Italy and Volvo moves to phase out combustion engines.

In Germany, it isn’t uncommon for the two main parties to form a political pact. It’s called a grand coalition. Kristina Spohr, an associate professor of international history at the London School of Economics, has been telling Monocle’s Rhys James how it works.

As the deadline for Qatar to comply with the list of demands from its neighbours expires, we ask what happens next in the Gulf. Plus: we continue our series on coalitions by looking at Germany, examine the rhetoric of Emmanuel Macron and go up, up and away with the founder of the European Balloon festival.

This week, The Globalist is looking at political coalitions. During Brazil’s decades-long dictatorship, there were only two political parties. Now, there are more than 30. Monocle’s correspondent in Brazil, Sheena Rossiter, explains how that inevitably leads to political horse-trading.

The Indian prime minister pays an historic first visit to Israel and there’s trouble in Tokyo as the city voters deliver a blow to Shinzo Abe’s party. Plus: we continue with our series on the politics of coalition governments, look to the Volkswagen emissions scandal and examine ‘The Wall Street Journal’ as it closes its Europe edition.

All this week, The Globalist is looking at political coalitions. Sean Kemp, who was head of media for the Liberal Democrats in the UK’s coalition government, tells Monocle contributor Tadhg Enright what it’s like to be part of one.