Hamas are looking comfortably in charge of their half of Gaza

Gaza is currently split into two near-equal halves, with the south controlled and occupied by Israeli troops and the rest, about 48 per cent, looking every day like a state run by Hamas gunmen. They are everywhere in the streets, ruthlessly enforcing their brand of security and clearly happy to wave their guns at the locals to keep them under their control. Or, to put it anpother way, to keep them in constant fear. Gaza is a grim place and will remain so for years. King Abdullah of Jordan has told the BBC that there will be no international peacekeeping force willing to deploy to Gaza until there is a proper peace, or at least no violence. Judging by the frequent breaches of the ceasefire, this is going to take a long time. But the truth is, until an international largely Muslim force arrives in the territory, the threat of new outbreaks of violence is not going to go away. Without Hamas in control in central and northern parts of Gaza there would be anarchy, but with Hamas in charge it shows that the threat this terror organisation poses is still very real. They have weapons to attack the Israelis, and hundreds of new recruits released from Israeli jails in exchange for dead Israeli hostages. So, despite King Abdullah's doubts, Hamas's presence in Gaza should be replaced by an international force as soon as possible, and the thousands of Hamas fighters milling around on the streets need to be disarmed and sent into exile.

Trump wants to revive nuclear tests

President Trump has ordered the Pentagon (Department of War) to restart nuclear testing, reviving a Cold War military programme which was suspended soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, what did the president have in mind when he made his announcement in a Truth Social posting? He implied that rival nuclear powers were carrying out tests and that it was crucial for the US to start “testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis”. What does this mean? Neither Russia nor China, America’s “big power rivals”, have been engaged in nuclear testing since a moratorium was agreed. The last US test was in 1992, Russia stopped testing in 1990 and China in 1996, the same year the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed. The only countries which have carried out nuclear tests since then have been North Korea- the last one was in 2017 - as well as India and Pakistan, both of whom completed underground testing in May 1998. Britain’s last test, codenamed Operation Bristol, was in November, 1991, and France has not carried out a nuclear test since January, 1996. The only other nuclear power, Israel, has never acknowledged it has such weapons and the only indication of a suspected nuclear test was in 1979. Trump specifically mentioned that Russia had just tested a nuclear torpedo codenamed Poseidon. Was it this which persuaded him to make his order to the Pentagon? He also said that “with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also”. Russia did carry out a recent test but the torpedo was the first of its kind to be powered by a miniature nuclear reactor to give it unlimited range under the ocean. The Poseidon is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, but the test did not involve any type of detonation. The US has never given up testing its own nuclear missile forces, silo-based, submarine-launched and air-launched. But each test has always been fitted with dummy warheads. The only nuclear testing has been based on laboratory calculations. It’s imperative to ensure the safety of these weapons, in particular the plutonium fuel used as the fissile material. So the US relies on supercomputers to conduct digital simulations of a nuclear explosion. The laboratory tests are carried out by the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration, not by the Pentagon. The other nuclear weapons countries carry out similar laboratory testing. The US originally carried out nuclear tests in the atmosphere, mostly on remote atolls in the Pacific Marshall Islands but also in Nevada, about 65 miles north of Las Vegas. The last such test was in 1962 after which the U.S switched to underground testing. With the build-up of nuclear weapons, particularly by China and North Korea, Trump appears to believe that the moratorium on testing can no longer be justified. He said the US had more nuclear weapons than any other power, but China would catch up in five years. The reality is that Russia is believed to have the most nuclear warheads, about 5,580, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, of which an estimated 1,718 are operationally deployed. The US has 5,225, with about 1,770 deployed. The remainder are held in storage. China will not be anywhere near the total US and Russian stockpiles within the next five years. But, according to Pentagon estimates, China has doubled its warhead inventory from 300 in 2020 to 600 today and will have more than 1,000 by 2030, all of which will be operational. What impact would a resumption of US testing have on the rest of the world’s nuclear club? Inevitably, the risk is that Russia and China would follow suit, undermining any hopes of a future strategic arms reduction treaty, involving both Moscow and Beijing. North Korea might also be tempted to carry out an atmospheric test which it threatened to do over the Pacific in 2017. BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, SEQUEL TO SHADOW LIVES, AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON, WATERSTSONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS AND OTHER DECENT BOOKSHOPS.

The Gaza ceasefire is being violently broken by both sides

The Donald Trump ceasefire in Gaza has been running for three weeks but there has been little peace for the Palestinian people. Take yesterday for example. According to Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Hamas attacked Israeli troops around Rafah in the south and killed one soldier. In retaliation, Israel launched sustained airstrikes and killed 100 people, the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza claimed. The health ministry never distinguishes between combatants and innocent civilians, so we don't know for sure how many of the dead in Gaza from the airstrikes were Hamas gunmen, but Israel claims to have killed "dozens" of them. The one thing that appears to be certain is that when Hamas launches an attack and kills an Israeli soldier, the response from Tel Aviv is always overwhelming. If 100 Palestinians (Hamas and others) were killed, as claimed, that means the death of one Israeli soldier has led to the deaths of one hundred more people in Gaza. In war, there is this notion, well you could call it code, that retaliatory strikes should somehow be proportionate. An eye for an eye, if you like. And also, of course, that civilians should never be deliberately targeted. Is the death of 100 people in retaliation for the killing of one Israeli soldier proportionate? On the face of it, it is wildly disproportionate, made considerably worse by the fact that it is claimed some of those killed in the latest breach in the ceasefire were children. Israel has always stated that it has never targeted civilians in Gaza but the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a veteran soldier himself, knows that airstrikes can never be "clean". Many Hamas gunmen may have been killed but the collateral damage (civilian deaths) cannot be avoided. When there is supposed to be a ceasefire in Gaza, even if Hamas violated it first, is it justified for Israel to launch airstrikes in retaliation? Judging by the claimed death toll from the strikes, I would say it is highly questionable. BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, STARRING SUPER SPY REBECCA STRONG, AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS AND ALL GOOD BOOKSHOPS

Is Trump plotting to meet Kim Jong-un?

He's in the reguon, so why not fix a meeting with Kim Jong-un? It just could happen, Donald Trump with his old sparring partner, Kim Jong-un. All the focus is supposed to be on Trump meeting up with Xi Zinping, and that will definitely go ahead. But the whispers are that Trump is reaching out to the North Korean leader to try and resuscitate a relationship that went pretty sour the last time they met up, in Hanoi during Trump's first term in office. Nothing much came of it and the "friendship" went down hill after that. Now, Trump beieves it's time to revive it. It will certainly make big headlines which Trump loves. I suspect Kim Jong-un who does very litle these days except build more and more nuclear weapons would probably enjoy a bit of worldwide publicity. He'll be guaranteed that if he shakes Trump's hand. But Trump has to be careful not to downplay his planned meeting with Xi Zinping. The Chinese president-for-life won't take kindly to being outshone by That Man in Pyongyang. But the temptation for Trump is too great and I'm sure Marco Rubio, his ever-present secretary of state and national security adviser, is even now on the phone to Kim or his senior acolytes to fix it all up.

China and the US heading for trade breakthrough

Just when it looked like an all-out trade war between China and the US, it seems the two sides have had constructive discussions for a deal which means when Donald Trump and Xi Zinping meet this coming week, it should be all smiles and bear hugs. This is the way Trump does business, and the Chinese leader has been copying him. So, initially it was all tariff war, tarrif war and then out of the blue, Washington and Beijing step back and a deal is done. I don't know whether this is the best way of doing business but it seems to work in Trump's case. It was Beijing that dealt the biggest blow when China announced new restrictions on the export of its vast supply of processed rare earth metals which would have had a major negative impact on the production of a huge range of goods, such as mobile phones, electric cars and solar panels. Trump was so angry he started talking about imposing enormous tariffs on China. However, the brinkmanship game has come to an end, and Trump and Xi Zinping will be back to being friends. The poor stock market doesn't know where to look. It's up one moment and then plunging down the next. But the Trump/Xi session during the US president's Asia tour should settle the waters and bring a bit of calm back to the world economy.

The world's biggest carrier goes to the Caribbean

Naval action in the Caribbean, with American or British, warship, has for years been associated with counter-drugs operations. The Royal Navy has often found itself grabbing several tons of cocaine from dodgy boats criss-crossing the seas in the region. But what the US Navy is currently up to in the Caribbean is on a totally different scale. In the latest development, the Pentagon has sent the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, to the Caribbean, off the shores of Venezeula. This move has very little to do with firing at speed boats piled with bags of cocaine. You hardly need a 100,000-tonne carrier with up 90 aircraft of different sorts on board to attack drugs-carrying boats, or in one case, innocent Colombian fishermen, or so it's claimed in Bogota. The carrier is the mightiest symbol of American military power. So, its presence off Venezuela has a very different purpose. It's all about putting unbearable pressure on Nicolas Maduro, the ghastly dictator of Venezuela and friend of Vladimir Putin, to voluntarily go into exile. He's an accused drugs baron - accused by Washington - and the arrival of the carrier is intended to show him that his days are numbered. But will Trump use the fighter aircraft on board to bomb Maduros's palace in Caracas to provide extra incentive for him to leave the country? He just might, even though he claims not to want US forces to get involved in any wars ever again. Now, with the bust-up between Trump and Putin, I suspect the US president will be even more tempted to do some bombing in Caracas because he knows it will seriously upset the Kremlin boss. It's all politics, with a bit of drug-traffic-bashing on the side.

Putin has seriously misjudged Trump

Vladimir Putin thought he could play Trump along and get the US president to force Ukraine to give him everything he wanted. He thought Trump was his friend, that he would understand why he wanted to destroy Ukraine. He gambled that Trump represented his best chance of defeating Ukraine. But he got that wrong. He miscalculated. He went too far. Worst of all (for him) he has thoroughly annoyed Trump and made him look weak. Now that gamble, has failed. Trump, persuaded by a number of people, especially Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of Nato, has realised that being tough with Putin is the only way forward. He had been reluctant to use the oil sanctions stick although it has been on the table for months. But that phone call between Rubio and Lavrov was the final straw. He knew from that moment that Putin wasn't interested in peace and was just playing him along. Trump must have been very angry. So much for the special relationship he was supposed to have with Vladimir, as he likes to call him. Now the two are at loggerheads and that's bad news for Putin but it's also of course bad bews for Zelensky who will have to prepare his country and his people for another winter of bombings, death and destruction.