His royal minus: Prince Andrew

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. With two coups in the past two years, Mali is no stranger to upheaval. But sanctions imposed by a regional bloc intended to restore democratic orders look likely to make a messy security situation messier and to entrench Russian influence in Mali. And nature might be beautiful, but in the hands of filmmakers, it easily becomes forbidding and dangerous. We examine a well trodden genre with a newish name, eco horror, whose message is evolving alongside the rise in environmental fe. First up, though, Britain's Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, has in effect been excommunicated from the royal family. The queen's second son is being stripped of all military titles and royal charity roles.

A royal source says he will also lose the use of his title, His.

Royal Highness, after years denying the accusations of abuse against him. Today, any prospect of a return to public life for the Duke of York is over.

The drastic demotion comes just 24 hours after a US court ruled his sex assault trial will go ahead.

A civil case brought in America against the prince by Virginia Giuffre claims that he raped her as a teenager, knowing she was being trafficked by the disgraced and now deceased financier, Jeffrey Epstein. The prince has always strenuously denied the charges, but the pressure on him has intensified since a frankly uncomfortable BBC interview in 2019.

You were staying at the house of a convicted sex offender.

It was a convenient place to stay.

Andrew has admitted to being close to Epstein's confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted last month of sex trafficking of minors. All this comes at a tricky time for the monarchy. This summer, the queen and the nation will be celebrating her Platinum Jubilee, 70 years on the throne. The palace's decisive action in cutting off the prince reveals just how important it is for the family to protect their reputation and. And the legacy of the Crown.

So yesterday, Buckingham palace confirmed that Prince Andrew, who is widely believed to be the Queen's favorite son, has been stripped of his last remaining official ties with royal life.

Catherine Nixie is a Britain correspondent for the Economist.

So in their brisk statement, they said that with the Queen's approval, the Duke's military affiliations and his royal patronages have been returned to the Queen. So he's now going to be defending this case as a private citizen. Most importantly of all, perhaps he is no longer, to use style himself, HRH His Royal Highness in any official capacity. So that is pretty much the end of Prince Andrew's time as an official royal Prince.

And so why did Buckingham palace take this drastic step?

So, Virginia Giuffre has brought a case saying that she was sexually trafficked by the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein as a teenager and that she was made to have sex with Prince Andrew. Now, there is a photograph that appears to show Prince Andrew with his arm around Virginia Giuffre. At this time, Prince Andrew says that he doesn't even remember meeting her, and he doesn't remember that photo being taken. And he denies all charges. And in a BBC interview, a famous BBC interview in 2019, he said Ms. Giuffre's memory that she danced with the sweating prince in a nightclub couldn't be true because of a condition that means he didn't sweat at the time, because.

I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at. And I simply. It was almost impossible for me to sweat.

And the palace have done this now because Giuffre is bringing a case against Andrew in the US courts. It's a civil case, not a criminal case. And Andrew's lawyers had hoped to say that a prior settlement Ms. Giuffre had made with Mr. Epstein meant she wasn't able to bring the suit against him. But this week, a judge has ruled that the case against Andrew can still proceed, and it's expected to take place towards the end of the year. And it seems that this has prompted the Royal family to say enough is enough, and cut ties with Andrew.

And so about that trial, how will that play out? What's next?

I mean, nobody knows what's going to happen, as in any trial. But the prince strongly denies the charges. However, legal experts I have spoken to say there is basically no positive outcome for Andrew, whatever happens. So I spoke to a lawyer called Stephen Logel, who's an expert in cross border litigation, and he was pessimistic at how this is going to play out for Andrew, whatever happens.

But his options now are to fight the case or to settle it or to go to trial. I'm not sure that going to trial is a good option because even if he won, there's obviously a chance that things would come out.

Whatever happens in the case, it's going to be bad. He can't be extradited to for the case because it's a civil case. And even if he's found guilty, probably what he will get is a fine. But it is going to be bad for the Royal Family, whatever happens. Andrew is going to be interviewed on camera about extremely personal matters. And as everyone knows who saw the BBC interview, he doesn't do well under cross examination. Probably his best option at this point is to try and settle out of court and that is going to be hugely expensive. Figures of $5 million have been bandied around and that seems eas. But it's very possible that Ms. Giuffre just wants to see him in court so that even offering a settlement, which in itself will look bad, may not make this go away for him.

And what about the effects, the reflection this is on the Royal Family itself?

The British Royal Family has centuries of dissolute princes behind it. Prince Andrew's ancestor Edward VII was so badly behaved as a prince that he was known as Dirty Bertie and Edward the Caresser. And at his coronation, he had a pew reserved for his mistresses, among them Winston Churchill's mother. So that Prince's misbehavior is not news to the Royal Family. What has changed is that they are now a media monarchy. So the focus is very, very intense. People can see photographs of the people involved and they know every damning detail. And it's also at a crucial time for the Royal family because the Queen is celebrating her Jubilee. It's 70 years since her accession. It may be the last final spectacle of her reign. And everyone's worried about the coronation of King Charles because it's going to be a nervous moment for the Royal Family. The Queen was so popular, her reign was so stable, the last thing the Royal Family needs at a moment of instability is yet more instability coming from the ninth in line to the throne.

And as you say, the Royal Family is sort of evolving itself to a media family. And this is a media mess.

This is an absolute media mess for the media monarchy. This is a disaster. It used to be that the Britons believed that the monarchy was put there by God. It's said that a few years after her coronation, a third believed the Queen had been chosen by God. I mean, you would struggle to find people who would say that today. Now they rule by the tacit consent of the British people. And they're a utilitarian monarchy. They are there because people think they do more good than harm. A case like this starts to tilt the balance in the other way, and the royals now have to be seen as hard working, do gooding and meritocratic people. And Andrew is seriously damaging their reputation.

And so, given all of that, where do you think this leaves the monarchy? At a tricky time with another Jubilee coming?

Well, by taking this action against the Son, who's widely believed to be her favorite, the Queen has shown that the security of the Crown trumps flesh and blood. In a sense, she could have gone further. She could have removed Andrew from the line of succession. But then once you start tinkering with hereditary order, the whole house of cards falls apart. It's either there and unchangeable or it's nothing. So the monarchy can't be seen to embrace Prince Andrew. They can't get rid of Prince Andrew. The only thing they can do is what they have done. And now they just have to sit and wait.

Thanks very much for joining us, Catherine.

Thank you for having me.

In August of 2020, Colonel Assemi Goita overthrew the democratically elected government of Mali, ousting President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Colonel Goita installed an interim government and promised fresh elections by February 2022. But then, in the middle of last year, he overthrew the very government he'd put in place. A coup within a coup, as French President Emmanuel Macron put it. Now, the military regime says those elections it promised for next month should be delayed for five years. And that has prompted tough new sanctions from the Economic Community of West African States, or ecowas. Colonel Goita was defiant, calling on the Malian people to unite against ecowas. Coups are, unfortunately, an increasingly familiar concern among the 15 countries that make up ECOWAS. And the situation in Mali is particularly thorny. It's the site of waves of jihadism. It's played host to thousands of international peacekeeping troops. And as things have got messier, Russia has reportedly been taking on a larger and larger role in security. But the sanctions imposed by ECOWAS to bring more stability might do just the opposite.

Well, they really are quite tough. ECOWAS had imposed some sanctions earlier, and the latter ones were quite specific on members of the coup leadership, if you like, and some of their family members. But now they've gone much further.

Kinley Salmon is our Africa correspondent.

ECOWAS member states are closing their land and air borders with Mali. And that's a pretty big problem given Mali is a landlocked country that depends on ports in Senegal and the Ivory coast in particular for its trade. The regional bloc has also stopped non essential financial transactions and suspended Malian state assets in banks in the member states. Mali also shares a currency with much of ecowas. And the regional central bank has now also frozen Mali out of those financial markets. And this could have pretty significant effects. Mali's been planning to raise funds through a debt sale and that's already seemingly been cancelled. Over time, this could in fact see the government struggle to pay salaries and things like that.

And what's been the response in Mali to these sanctions?

So Colonel Goiter has reacted pretty angrily, denouncing the sanctions. He's called for demonstrations in the street against them. But he's also indicated that the door might be ajar for further negotiation with ecowas. He said, you know, even if we regret the illegitimate, illegal and inhumane nature of some of these sanctions, he says the Mali remains open to dialogue with the regional bloc. But he's also closed borders on the Malian side in something of a fit of peak, given they'd already closed it on their side. And the regimes of course, recalled their ambassadors from all ECOWAS states. So it's certainly very tense people in the street. There has been some sense of panic about access to supplies to money and things like that. But of course there's also been some support for the government for this transitional regime against ecowas. So it's a mixed picture, I think, on the ground.

And what about more widely, what's the wider international community's response to all this?

Well, France, which was the colonial power in Mali and has significant number of its soldiers there fighting jihadists, has strongly backed the ECOWAS measures. America and Britain too seem to have fallen behind. And the broader reaction in Africa has also, for the most part, supported ECOWAS tough measures. Even Algeria to the north, has suggested that the military regime in Mali should negotiate with Ecowas. The Kenyan representative at the United nations backed the sanctions. There is one exception. The Guinean authorities, which also shares a border with Mali where there was a coup just last year, unsurprisingly suggested that ECOWAS was being unfair and announced they would keep their borders open, which importantly gives Mali access to a seaport. But perhaps the most striking reaction has come from China and in particular Russia, who blocked the UN Security Council from supporting the ECOWAS sanctions.

And why Russia in particular.

So since the coup in August 2020, and particularly more recently, the Malian authorities and Russia have rather been cozying up together. Russia has long historical ties with Mali, and a number of the members of this junta, if you like, were trained in Russia. Russia recently delivered helicopters to the country to help in their fight against jihadists. And now it would appear that hundreds of Russian mercenaries from Wagner Group are in Mali. At least that's what's being reported, though the Malian authorities still deny this. And so there's a clear sense of Russia perhaps moving in and trying to expand its influence in Mali, really at the expense of France and other Western partners.

So this ties into the security situation we've talked about many times in Mali and then the Sahel more widely, that all of this upends the security balance in the country.

I mean, yes, it does have a big impact, although, of course, there really wasn't much balance in recent years to begin with. Jihadists linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State threatened swathes of Mali as well as Burkina Faso and Niger. France has had about 5,100 troops in the region, although it recently has been executing on plans to draw down perhaps as much as half of those. There's also 13,000 peacekeepers from the UN in Mali on a large EU training mission. But the big question away for all of that that comes from these sanctions and the arrival perhaps of these Russian mercenaries is whether there'll be some change in the commitment from Western countries to trying to maintain security in Mali. The seeming deployment of Russian mercenaries at the request of the traditional government has certainly angered some of those Western partners. And there's certainly discussions going on in Paris and other European capitals about how to react. And I think it's fair to say that pulling some further troops out remains on the table as a possibility. There's a lot still to play out.

But that security situation is not limited to Mali, as you say. How much are the events happening in Mali now affecting other countries in the region?

Well, the security trouble in Mali is certainly spilling over into its neighbors. Niger and Burkina Faso are in pretty deep trouble from really the same jihadist insurgency, and that is also destabilizing governments in the region. In Burkina Faso, just on January 11, the government said it had foiled a coup plot from disgruntled soldiers, quite possibly themselves angered at the significant losses that the military has been taking in fighting jihadists. So really, this jihadist problem can quickly turn into a problem of government stability and even of coups. And that's really what we've seen in Mali and what it looks like we might be at risk of seeing again soon in Burkina Faso.

And as for these sanctions and the changing security situation certainly within Mali, I mean, how do you see this playing out? It's an unstable place made seemingly much more unstable.

Well, for now. I mean, these tough sanctions from ecowas seem to be holding. That group is, if you like, showing a united front. But these are really very tough sanctions. And it seems quite possible that the Malian authorities will go back to ecoas and propose some kind of a compromise to try to get some of these sanctions at least lifted a little bit. They might, for example, propose elections rather than five years from now, perhaps two years from now. And at that point, splits in this coalition that's backing the sanctions could easily emerge. There are some members of ecowas, such as Senegal, which are really heavily affected by the border closures, and they're likely to push for some relief pretty quickly if they can. So I think there's a long way still to go to see how all this plays out.

Kinley, thanks very much for joining us.

Thank you.

Storytellers have long looked to the natural world to, well, to freak out fiction fans. From the mass bird attacks in Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 thriller The Bird. That's the damnest thing I ever saw. And I know it seemed to swoop down at you deliberately to the not so terrifying vegetarian goblins of troll 2.

They're eating her.

And then they're going to eat me.

Oh, my God.

The environment is a rich seam for thrills of all sorts, especially when things go wrong. And as humanity's relationship with and understanding of the environment have evolved, so have the storylines.

Eco horror is a genre of fiction which focuses on ecological fears, particularly the fear that nature is hostile towards humans.

Miriam Balinescu writes about culture for the Economist.

It draws on concerns over the damage humans inflict on nature, including pollution, draining resources and global warming.

So what is it that separates what's called eco horror from horror more generally? What makes it ecological?

An eco horror, it's nature itself, or a part of nature, that is enacting the horror. So normally, in response to some kind of harm that humans have inflicted on the environment. It's a relatively new term which became more frequently used around the late 2000s, and it's described as an eruption in the natural world in response to human mistreatment by the critics. Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann. Its first major wave was in the 60s and 70s and included the animal attack films such as the Birds.

They bring beauty into the world. It is mankind, rather, who insists upon making it difficult for life to exist upon this planet.

Frogs.

Suppose nature gave a war and everybody came squirm.

And many more. The second wave included eco dystopians such as the Day After Tomorrow.

You recall what you said about how polar melting might disrupt the North Atlantic Current? Yes. Well, I Think It's Happening.

Which was adapted from Artfeld's and Whitley Strieber's thesis of 1999 called the Coming Global Superstorm, which envisioned what might happen following global warming. Interestingly, eco dystopians were accused of finding the prospect of a dystopian future exciting and also accused of normalizing ecological disaster rather than trying to encourage viewers to tackle the climate crisis.

And anytime we hear the prefix eco, we do think about the climate change movement and concerns that are relatively young, I suppose, compared to 1960s films about birds.

Yeah. Although global warming was a term first used in 1975, and an awareness of eco horror as a genre is still relatively new, eco horror in literature stretches back all the way to the old English epic poem Beowulf, where creatures would emerge from marshes to feast on human flesh. You also elements of eco horror in medieval romance poems, for example, Gawain and the Green Knight, which was recently adapted into a film starring Dev Patel.

That is why a knight does what he does.

There's also an element of eco horror in gothic novels such as Wuthering Heights or Dracula. And there's even a whole academic field of study on the eco gothic.

So what about more recently? Are there new eco horror films pushing the genre ahead?

Lam is the latest film to be included in the eco horror genre, which was selected for best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards. And according to its director and co writer, Valdemar Johansson, it's about the kind of powerlessness of humanity in the face of nature. So it follows a farming couple who have recently lost a child, and at the beginning of the film, they're mourning for their loss when they then kind of miraculously discover a half human, half lamb changeling in their sheep coats. Like a lot of new eco horrors, this film moves at a much slower, meditative pace and also reflects a new international interest in the genre.

And on that notion of evolution and the climate activism, I suppose that has come with all of this awareness has a real political tinge to it. Have these films, has this genre come the same way, with a sort of political edge.

Yeah, definitely. Eco horror is fundamentally about reminding humanity of its place. So the Anthropocene, which basically means that we're placing humans at the center of our worldview. That's something that's being called into question. However, I do think with increased emphasis on the blurred boundaries between nature and humanity, especially with infections, or for example, half animal, half human hybrids and lamb, that line between humanity and nature is kind of being muddied and ultimately showing that the boundary between nature and humanity isn't so clear cut. Then the conclusion to be drawn from that is that we're not only destroying nature, but we are destroying ourselves as well.

Miriam, thank you very much for joining us.

Thanks very much for having me.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. The show's editors are Marguerite Howell, Chris Impey and Kim Gittleson. Our sound engineer is Will Rowe with help this week from Soul Rivers. Our senior producers are Stevie Hertz, Sam Colbert, Sam Westren and Jack Gill. Our producers are William Warren, Rory Galloway and Alize Jean Baptiste. And assistant producer of Asoye Ocean Dairo. We'll all see you back here on Monday.