TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s first official visit to Washington this week was supposed to be a triumphant celebration of the friendship, with a gift of 250 Japanese cherry trees to mark America’s big birthday. Instead, she will be greeted by a wartime president who’s looking for a different kind of gift from her country: military assistance in the Middle East. Source link
US-brokered Ukraine and Russia negotiations in the United Arab Emirates – specifically Abu Dhabi – have already borne some fruit as the warring sides Thursday reached an agreement to exchange 314 prisoners of war. US special envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed the prisoner deal in a post on X, explaining that while “significant work remains, steps like this demonstrate that sustained diplomatic engagement is delivering tangible results and advancing efforts to end the war in Ukraine.” Illustrative prior prisoner swap. There have been several throughout the 4-year long war. Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev told state media that “things are moving forward in a good, positive direction.” But he at the same time blasted European nations for seeking to “disrupt the progress” and “meddle” in the process. Despite the positive and tangible development of a large prisoner exchange, there’s no apparent progress on the big issues and questions which might actually end the war – namely territory. Moscow is still demanding that Ukraine cede portions of the Donbass region that Ukrainian forces still control, but Zelensky’s refusal means …
Never knowingly unknowing, Ali Smith pre-empts the most likely criticism of her latest novel, Glyph, when a character says: “I’m just not sure that books that are novels and fiction and so on should be so close to real life … or so politically blatant.” Glyph, which follows sisters Petra and Patch as they reflect on childhood attempts to grapple with the finality of death following the loss of their mother, goes further than any of Smith’s recent work in robustly answering this charge. While the Seasonal Quartet playfully anatomised the social fracture of post-Brexit Britain, and immediate predecessor Gliff dealt with the violence of the securitised state, Glyph, in its explicit engagement with the Israeli government’s apartheid and genocide in Palestine, raises the ethical stakes decisively. To engage in a Smithian pun – this is Art in the Age of Mechanical Mass Destruction. As with most Ali Smith novels, Glyph’s primary power comes from its commitment to excavating the sediments of language; its etymological resonance and inference. For example, the primary relationship of Petra and …
