Imagine cleaning out your basement, finding what appears to be a charming but unremarkable painting, then scratching its surface to discover a Frida Kahlo self-portrait beneath. In 2012, Taylor Swift was a prominent country music artist with crossover appeal, but not a major force in entertainment. Then came the Red album and the genius began to appear. Comparisons with Mozart are now more commonplace and understood, and universities teach courses on her. She occupies the same kind of status as Madonna and Michael Jackson in the 1980s and 1990s and, earlier, Elvis Presley and the Beatles. The Kahlo is now visible. Is there yet another layer?

Swift’s recent endorsement of United States presidential candidate Kamala Harris may conceal more than it reveals. After all, everyone knew her political allegiances lay with Democrats; none of her 284 million Instagram followers or anyone else would have been surprised that she wants Harris to win the forthcoming election. Maybe the endorsement is something more: advance notice that Swift intends to become a political presence in the future. If so, she could run for president in 2028. By then, she’ll be 39 years old. John F. Kennedy was 43 when he was elected in 1960, making him the youngest elected president in US history.

A new day?

Preposterous as it sounds, remember: In May 2015, Donald Trump was known principally for the NBC television show, The Apprentice, which he had fronted since 2004. He’d made his political views well-known, taking out full page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post criticizing US foreign policy in 1987. In 1999, Trump briefly explored running for the Reform Party’s nomination for president in the 2000 election, though he withdrew.

So when Trump announced his candidacy as a Republican in June 2015, it came as an outrageous surprise. He’d never held political office of any kind. Only one other president had been elected without political experience: Dwight Eisenhower’s background as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War II provided him skills that translated well to the presidency. He served two terms as president, from 1953 to 1961.

Eisenhower was a product of a different age in US politics. Trump is very much part of an age when the US struggles with a political bipolarity: Policy vs passion, logic vs emotion, wisdom vs relatability. Politicians are elected as much for celebrity appeal as leadership capability. Voters seem ready to believe they are much the same thing. How otherwise can we explain Trump’s success in 2016?

Two years after Trump’s election, Oprah Winfrey seemed poised to turn the 2020 election into a showbusiness extravaganza when she said she was “actively thinking” about running for president. At least, that was the inference from her speech at the Golden Globes. “A new day is on the horizon,” she prophesied. In 2018, Oprah was at her persuasive peak. She was arguably the single most influential person in the world and would have made a formidable contender, despite her political inexperience. Oprah was a rare celebrity, praised for her moral authority, venerated for her inspiration and respected for her support to countless women. She seemed kissed with purpose — her destiny was surely the White House.

Trump actually named Oprah as a possible running mate when he was considering putting himself forward with the Reform Party in 1999; it’s doubtful she would have been interested.  She settled into a kind of trusted advisor role, dispensing wisdom and assistance without showing any ambition for power. Today, Oprah has lost her momentum, though her coruscating endorsement of Harris was a reminder of her presence. She remains an interested party.

Celebrity times and celebrity politicians

Traditional politicians like senators and governors have, in recent years, lost immediacy. They project personae and exude authority in a carefully stylized and practiced manner, using the media in almost the same way Bill Clinton (president 1993–2001) or George W. Bush (president 2001–2009) did. By contrast, figures from entertainment know how to make themselves believable. They engage audiences by sharing ostensibly private insights and exchange the experiences that shape or scar them.

Swift, like other celebs, makes no attempt to separate her public face from her private life. She surpasses arguably every artist in history in her ability to share personal experiences through her music. Her fans wax about how her music speaks to them personally with insight and vision. Many of her fans are too young to vote now, but not in four years.

Some readers will think I’ve stumbled Lewis Carrol-like down a rabbit hole leading to a land of magic and strange logic. I remind them that in 2016, Trump secured 304 electoral votes compared to opponent Hillary Clinton’s 227, winning the presidency. He may yet be re-elected. Swift will not feel intimidated by her lack of political worldliness, sophistication or practical knowledge. After all, Trump had none of these benefits.

In 2018, Swift publicly supported Democrats in her home state of Tennessee, causing a surge in voting registrations, especially from young people. It was the first sign of political engagement among her fans. The following year, she spoke out in favor of the Equality Act. In her 2019 music video for “You Need to Calm Down,” she promoted the petition for the act. She was an active supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement as well.

So perhaps it makes sense for her to maintain her positions on the sidelines and encourage advocates, but without risking what could be a damaging misstep. A-listers like Barbra Streisand and George Clooney have stayed in their own dominion while earnestly making their political preferences heard. This would be Swift’s safest choice. After all, you can have too much of a good thing and no one in history has ever been as ubiquitous, audibly as well as visibly. Could audiences just get sick of her?

One of the verities of celebrity culture is that it values change, freshness and novelty. Swift has been on top longer than most. Maybe she recognizes this herself and is already plotting a segue into politics. A more logical move, however, would be to take action. Not that this is without perils: Madonna crashed as spectacularly as she succeeded in cinema. Celebrity times demand celebrity politicians — or politicians who are prepared to greet Oprah’s “new day” and entertain as much as govern.

The sanest thing to happen to the US

In showbusiness, Swift has reached Parnassian heights: astral record sales, unsurpassable box office and unbelievable social media followings. Artistically and commercially, she is at her zenith, cleverly integrating critiques of patriarchy into her songs when she conveys how even unmistakably successful women are still liable to run into misogyny.

But is it all just too trivial? The state of the world is grim and nothing Swift does will change that  right now. But the winds are blowing in her direction: The post-Harvey Weinstein tremors have destabilized patriarchy and the #MeTo movement remains a force. Would Sean Combs have met with instant condemnation and been reassigned as persona non grata were his transgressions known ten years ago? Censured, castigated, deplored, perhaps; but probably not canceled, as he surely will be. The historical privileges of manhood are disappearing.

Will Swift feel like culture-hopping from music to politics? It may be a leap too far, but no one can ignore her unstoppable influence. Much, I believe, depends on the outcome of the November election. If Harris wins, Swift will devote more time to championing her, perhaps closing the distance between herself and the Democrats, but not maneuvering into the political mainstream. If Trump wins instead, Swift may take the leap of faith and embrace the impossible, as giddily disturbing as this sounds today. Given modern America’s history, Swift’s leap could be the sanest thing to happen to the US.

[Ellis Cashmore is the author of The Destruction and Creation of Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Celebrity Culture.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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An innovative new funding mechanism championed by former UK prime minister Gordon Brown is to provide $1.5bn in low-cost loans to improve education in poorer countries around the world.

The International Finance Facility for Education (Iffed) is set to launch what it described as the largest one-off investment in decades to improve inadequate schooling in response to global education budget cuts.

The initial $1.5bn has been raised through support from governments including the UK, Sweden and Canada, and from philanthropic and corporate backers, who will offer guarantees to underwrite a programme to disburse new loans and grants through leading multilateral financial institutions.

Iffed has signed a first agreement with the Asian Development Bank, and is set to authorise an initial disbursement in 2024 of over $100mn. It has approved 10 Asian countries as being eligible for financing, including Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

Discussions are advancing with other backers and intermediaries including the African Development Bank and the World Bank.

Many lower- and middle-income countries have cut their education budgets in recent years, and the World Bank has warned of low levels of basic numeracy and literacy — notably in Africa — compounded by further “learning loss” driven by pandemic-era school closures.

An estimated 250mn school-age children are currently not in class, with 800mn of the world’s 2bn children set to leave education without any secondary qualifications. 

International aid is dominated by health projects, while education represents just a small fraction and countries often struggle to demonstrate short-term returns to donors.

Brown, the UN’s global education envoy, told the Financial Times that the “groundbreaking innovation” in international development finance had been years in the making. He spoke after Iffed received an AAA rating from credit agency Moody’s and was graded AA+ by S&P.

Under the programme, multilateral banks lend money to governments of lower- and middle-income countries at a very low interest rate. This is in exchange for commitments to invest the money alongside existing domestic spending on credible national education programmes. 

“People traditionally think of international development in terms of grants or loans,” Brown said. “I think the transformative innovation here is to think not just of guarantees, but how you can leverage guarantees to create the kinds of resources that will never be created in the near future through loans and grants alone.”

He added: “It is shocking that nearly half of all the children on our planet still have no formal schooling. But that can begin to be consigned to history.”

Brown said the model had the capacity to become the “third arm for the development agenda” and was a “vehicle that should be more widely used” across other areas of public policy, such as health.

Donor backing will help to ensure that the new bonds issued by the multilaterals have a high credit rating. So far Canada, Sweden and the UK have committed $342mn in guarantees and paid-in capital and $100mn in grants.

Kamala Harris still has time to change direction on U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a way that could secure her the presidency, reduce further damage to Washington’s standing internationally, stop what many—including many Jews, Israelis, and Holocaust scholars—have called a genocide in Gaza, and prevent a regional war. At the risk of oversimplification, all she has to do is apply U.S. law, something very on-brand for a former prosecutor.

Eleven months of financial, political, and military support for Israel’s war on Gaza and the West Bank, triggered by the killing on Oct. 7, 2023 by Hamas of around 1,200 people, has dug a deep policy and credibility hole for the U.S. Washington has given Israel more than $14 billion in military aid since then, including 10,000 catastrophic 2,000-pound bombs, and thousands of Hellfire missiles. On Aug. 20, the Biden Administration added another $20 billion for Israel, including 50 F-15 fighter jets, and much more.

So far, Israel has used U.S. intelligence and weapons to free some of the 117 hostages. It has also killed over 40,000 Gazans, a majority of whom were women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, figures the U.S. and U.N. deem credible. Schools, hospitals, aid convoys, foreign aid workers, and journalists have been targeted. And recent Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank have expanded the destruction there. Israel has also launched airstrikes against Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, and Syria, increasing the risk of regional war. Just this week, in a move many see as evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants all-out war, Israel targeted Lebanon in shocking beeper and walkie talkie attacks. All of this has forced otherwise amenable Middle Eastern governments, such as Saudi Arabia, to step back from normalization talks for fear of their own popular uprisings.

Regardless of one’s opinion on Israeli actions and U.S. support for the country, it has come with major consequences. Domestically, a growing number of U.S. officials have resigned in protest, including the State Department official responsible for supervising arms sales to Israel. Hundreds more have protested. Nationwide campus demonstrations have, at very least, manifested a deep rift within the Democratic Party. President Joe Biden has been branded “Genocide Joe” and the backlash against his avowed Zionism contributed to his inability to contest the presidential election because states with large Arab and Muslim populations, like Michigan, were potentially out of reach. Both Biden personally and the U.S. are facing lawsuits for genocide. Terrorism concerns have also spiked, according to the U.S. intelligence community. And, predictably, hate crimes have also spiked against Muslims, Arabs, and Jews. The fatal stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy near Chicago by his family’s landlord was one of the most horrific examples.

Meanwhile, the U.S.’ feeble efforts to keep Netanyahu in check and negotiate a ceasefire has left it looking weak and clueless, and, to much of the world, on the wrong side of history. This plays out most visibly in international fora. At the April 18, 2024 U.N. Security Council vote to recognize the State of Palestine, the U.S. alone voted no, with the justification that it “believes in the two-state solution.” The vast majority of U.N. member states have recognized Palestine.

Read More: The West Is Losing the Global South Over Gaza

The U.S.’ blind support of Israel is also damaging other priorities. For example, refusing to hold Israel to international norms is making it harder to leverage those same norms against Russia. U.S. support for the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) indictments of Russian leadership for atrocities in Ukraine is utterly inconsistent with its refusal to acknowledge the Court’s jurisdiction when it comes to possible arrest warrants of Israeli leaders over atrocities in Gaza. This has drawn accusations of hypocrisy and emboldens countries the U.S. is at odds with, such as Russia and China. China, for one, has in recent years become involved in Middle East peace initiatives, which some analysts see as evidence of eroding U.S. dominance in the region.

Into this tragic mess walks Kamala Harris. But there is still time for her to forge a better path, atop the cresting wave of Democratic enthusiasm for her candidacy. And she can do this without picking a side, without either abandoning Israel or supporting its conduct in Gaza. The solution is simple: All candidate Harris or a future President Harris has to do is apply existing U.S. laws and policies to Israel instead of continuing to carve out exceptions.

Without speculating on her social justice views or personal convictions as a multi-racial American woman married to a Jewish American lawyer, it is clear that Harris is campaigning on her record as a prosecutor and lawmaker. She has consistently presented herself and her values as both humane and pro law-and-order. She is also explicit that she wants to be positive about the future and unshackled by the past, including, presumably, Biden’s record on various issues. Taking a more balanced approach to Israel only requires adhering to these same goals and principles.

There has been extensive analysis of the many ways the U.S. bypasses its own laws on Israel. All Harris needs do is stop this. For example, the Leahy Law, named after former Senator Patrick Leahy, prohibits the State and Defense departments from funding or training foreign military units or individuals if there is credible information (not proof) that they have committed gross human rights violations. There is abundant evidence of Israeli military violations. The Biden Administration has even acknowledged that Israel likely used U.S.-supplied weapons to violate international law. This has given rise to a sense of “impunity” in Tel Aviv, according to former U.S. officials. Senator Leahy himself has decried the problem: “The law has not been applied consistently, and what we have seen in the West Bank and Gaza is a stark example of that.”

Similarly, various U.S. laws prohibit the sale and transfer of some weapons to foreign governments for various national security and human rights reasons. The Arms Export Control Act requires that countries getting U.S. military aid use it only for legitimate self-defense and internal security. The Foreign Assistance Act prohibits aid to any government that “engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” The Genocide Convention Implementation Act codifies U.S. criminal sanctions for anyone who commits or incites genocide as defined by the international Genocide Convention, which the U.S. is a party to and which formed the basis of the ICJ’s interim judgment that the claim that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza was “plausible.” And the U.S. War Crimes Act prohibits serious human rights and international law violations. Inspectors General at the Pentagon and the State Department are investigating whether the White House’s weapons transfers to Israel violated these and other laws.

Yet the U.S. continues to expedite weapons transfers to Israel, violating its own waiting periods, review requirements, and notification procedures in addition to its absolute legal prohibitions. This is the legal justification behind the increasing number of legal challenges to the U.S. for backing Israel. The U.S. should apply these laws just as it does for other countries. By comparison, on Sept. 2, the U.K. suspended some weapons transfers to Israel because of gross human rights abuses. Germany has also stopped approving arms exports to Israel. A future President Harris could also do this while still helping Israel maintain its “qualitative military edge,” as required under U.S. law since 2008. Upholding U.S. law doesn’t mean abandoning Israel.

International law provides another low-hanging opportunity for Harris. The number and breadth of Israeli violations in Gaza and the West Bank are too numerous to list, though the ICJ tried in its July Advisory Opinion. Many U.S. lawyers have analyzed these, as have Israeli experts. A President Harris would have a number of options to bring the U.S.’s Israel policy in line with international law without much, if any, policy downside. For example, if the U.S. is committed to a two-state solution, and simply acknowledging the boundaries as determined by international legal decisions and U.N. Security Council resolutions is an easy start.

President Harris could do any of this without picking a side. But as the fallout from her campaign’s decision to block a Palestinian American from speaking at the Democratic National Convention last month shows, she is still vulnerable to losing key states in which Muslims and Arabs are angry and organized. Harris would be in a stronger electoral position if she made her willingness to apply U.S. and international law when it comes to Israel clear.

Politics aside, the U.S. has made a strategic misstep on its strong support for Israel, and the effectiveness of a future Harris Administration on the world stage may well depend on rebuilding U.S. credibility. And both policy and politics aside, stopping the killing could define her legacy. It is simply the right thing to do.

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The price of fuel for nuclear reactors has surged much faster than that of raw uranium since the start of 2022, in a sign of the bottlenecks that have built up in the west following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Enriched uranium has more than tripled in price to $176 per separative work unit — the standard measure of the effort required to separate isotopes of uranium — since the start of 2022, according to UxC, a data provider.

Demand for uranium has been driven by a revival in atomic power. However, Russia plays a significant role in the multi-stage process of turning mined uranium into the fuel for a nuclear reactor. This includes converting yellowcake — uranium concentrate — into uranium hexafluoride gas, enriching it to increase the concentration of the type of uranium used for fission, and then turning the enriched uranium into pellets that go into reactors.

Uranium hexafluoride has jumped fourfold in price to $68 per kg in the same period, indicating that conversion is the biggest bottleneck in the nuclear fuel supply chain, analysts said. In contrast, uranium ore has only doubled in price.

“The conversion and enrichment prices are reflecting a much bigger supply squeeze due to the Russia-Ukraine war and other factors,” said Jonathan Hinze, chief executive of UxC.

“Uranium alone does not tell the whole story when it comes to price impacts in the nuclear fuel supply chain.”

Russia controls 22 per cent of global uranium conversion capacity and 44 per cent of enrichment capacity. Those services are out of bounds for some western utilities following a US ban on Russian uranium, although waivers are allowed until the end of 2027.

France, US, Canada and China are the other countries besides Russia that are home to large-scale conversion sites.

The US government said this week that it is closely tracking whether imports of uranium from China are providing a back door for Russian material, after bumper exports in May when the ban was introduced.

The UK used to contribute to global conversion capacity via the Springfields site but conversion services halted in 2014, while France’s plant has faced delays in getting to full capacity.

“The conversion market is very, very tight for the simple reason that existing facilities are in care and maintenance,” said Grant Isaac, chief financial officer at Cameco, the world’s second-largest uranium producer, on an earnings call.

“Because of the delays in getting all of the conversion-producing centres up to full production in the western world . . . conversion has a very good tail of strength for the next little while.”

While higher nuclear fuel prices are likely to hit the profitability of power companies, the bigger issue is making sure there is enough investment in mines, conversion and enrichment to meet demand from extensions to existing reactors’ lifetime and new ones.

Nuclear fuel companies such as France’s Orano and British-Dutch-German owned Urenco have committed to boosting enrichment capacity, but so far no one has committed to building new conversion capacity in the west.

Nicolas Maes, chief executive of Orano, said at an industry conference this month that investments needed in conversion and enrichment were “massive” compared with the size of the relevant companies.

He compared Orano’s annual revenues of almost €5bn to the €1.7bn needed to expand its enrichment capacity in southern France by more than 30 per cent.

Johnathan Chavers, director of nuclear fuel and analysis at Southern Nuclear, which operates eight nuclear plants in the US, said at the same conference that utilities and the nuclear fuel suppliers were unwilling to make “big bets” due to a “chicken and egg problem”.

Power plant operators are reluctant to sign long-term supply agreements unless the facilities are being built, giving certainty over expected delivery times for nuclear fuel, yet suppliers balk at making big investments without such deals to underwrite them, he said.

An Israeli air strike on a school in Gaza City has killed at least 22 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it targeted a Hamas command centre at the al-Falah school, which Israel said the militant group was using to “plan and carry out terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel”.

The school, closed during the war, was housing displaced people, the health ministry said.

The IDF said it took steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including using precise munitions and aerial surveillance, and accused Hamas of exploiting civilian infrastructure.

Hamas “systematically violates international law by operating from inside civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and exploiting the Gazan civilian population for its terrorist activities”, the IDF said.

Hamas has denied using schools and other civilian sites for military purposes.

The Hamas-run government media office said the people killed in Saturday’s strike in the al-Zaytoun area included 13 children – one a three-month-old baby – and six women.

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported the same death toll and added that one of the women was pregnant.

Also on Saturday, the health ministry said that four of its workers were killed and six injured in an Israeli “targeting” of a health ministry warehouse in the Musabah area of southern Gaza. The ministry did not specify whether the incident was an air strike.

The BBC has approached the IDF for comment on the report of health workers killed.

Other schools have been hit, some several times, by Israeli air strikes since the latest conflict with Hamas began on 7 October.

Earlier this month, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said six of its employees were killed in an Israeli air strike on al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat refugee camp, which is being used as a shelter by thousands of displaced Palestinians.

Unrwa said it was the fifth time the school had been hit since 7 October.

Israel’s military said it carried out a “precise strike on terrorists” planning attacks from the school. The military alleged that nine of those killed were members of Hamas’ armed wing and that three of them were Unrwa staff.

Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October last year, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others as hostages.

Israel responded with a military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 41,000 people, according to the health ministry.

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