For five decades, Syrians were reminded of their despotic rulers every time they reached into their wallets. The faces of Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, adorned banknotes, which, since the currency crashed under sanctions, Syrians have been forced to carry around in huge stacks. Now, however, they are getting a fresh start, with new notes that have had two zeros removed from their nominal value: each new Syrian pound is worth a hundred old ones. The central bank began issuing the redesigned notes on 4 January, the first working day of 2026. The move is a promising sign for the long-suffering country.
  
The change of currency will bring psychological relief to Syrians. The Assads were omnipresent through the pictures of them that were hung on public buildings and stared down from behind every shop counter. Those images were removed and defaced after Bashar al-Assad fled the country for Moscow in December 2024, bringing his family’s 54-year dictatorship to an end. The new notes will remove a lingering reminder of the old regime – and turn the old notes into collectors’ items.

Crucially, the move is an important step in stabilising the economy. The almost 14-year civil war plunged most Syrians below the poverty line and wrecked what was once a middle-income economy (the World Bank reclassified the country as low-income in 2018). Profiteers with regime connections sucked much of the wealth from Syria throughout the war and billions in assets were spirited out of the country by Assad before he fled. Thankfully, the new rulers managed to protect the Central Bank’s vaults from looters during the chaotic transfer of power.  
  
Embargoes that were aimed at punishing the regime inflicted extra pain on the population, particularly after 2019, when the US imposed measures in response to evidence of the industrial torture and murder taking place in Assad’s prisons. The lifting of international sanctions has brought foreign investment back into the country and the promise of US, Turkish and Gulf backing has boosted confidence. In June the government hiked public service salaries by 200 per cent, though the price of bread and fuel has also increased significantly. With much of the nation’s housing stock destroyed, rents in the capital remain sky high.  
  
Obstacles are to be expected but the signs for Syria are positive. On Tuesday, Israel and Syria agreed to set up a joint mechanism for de-escalation and intelligence-sharing during US-mediated talks. It was an extraordinary step towards normalising relations. If the talks continue, Syria will be one of the few states in the Arab Middle East to maintain relations with Israel.  

Entrepreneurs and businesses might soon be able to move beyond cash too, as the EU and US sanctions that severed the nation from international payment systems were lifted last month. Facilitating electronic transfers will be key to allowing businesses to begin operating fully again in 2026, particularly for those traders who brought Syrian products to much of the Middle East before 2011.
  
It’s quite the turnaround. Until Assad’s fall, Syria was firmly part of the Russia-China-Iran power bloc that Donald Trump now appears to have in his sights. Venezuela, like Assad’s Syria, fell within that sphere of influence until US special forces moved into Caracas on 3 January. Syrians watching events in Latin America and the ongoing protests in Iran will be relieved that their country has moved firmly into Washington’s sphere – and looking forward to the year ahead with a rare sense of optimism and opportunity.
  
Hannah Lucinda Smith is Monocle’s Istanbul correspondent.  She joined a flight from Istanbul packed with returnees and Turkish investors just after the fall of Bashar al-Assad to discover how the nation’s future is shaping up. You can watch the film  here.

Read next: The effort to rebuild Syria: Life after the fall of the Assad regime

Every September the Westfalenhallen conference venue – known for darts tournaments and dog shows – is transformed into Intertabac, the world’s largest tobacco fair. It is billed as a “global meeting place of the industry” – a space to clear the air over how the market worth more than €1trn annually is plotted, priced and branded for acceptability over the year ahead.

The crowd is a curious mix: cigar purists in linen jackets, vape bros in streetwear and a small army of tight-lipped lobbyists huddled in side rooms over Powerpoint decks on FDA rulings and EU directives, muttering about the possibility of a UN plastics treaty.

It’s a strange and sometimes unsettling scene when you consider the proven ill effects of much of what is sold here (and the questions around what is yet to be proven). Cohiba cigars from Cuba are displayed as if they are objets d’art, start-ups peddle candy-flavoured vape juice from neon booths (Grandma’s Apple Pie, anyone?) and nicotine pouches are branded like wellness products. But something is strangely absent: the condemned ancestor to the smoking industry – cigarettes. 

The nicotine market is undergoing its biggest rethink in decades. At British American Tobacco, the manufacturer of Pall Mall and Lucky Strike, an aspirational banner unironically declares “Building a smokeless world”. The company unveils an e-cigarette with an app that tracks every puff and allows users to fine-tune their vapour clouds with a feature cheerfully called Cloudcontrol. “You can even set a limit for when it stops,” says representative Joshua Bakker, pitching self-quantifying nicotine intake with the breeziness of a clued-up personal trainer.

Next door, Philip Morris International (PMI) is showing off the newest iteration of its Iqos device – the name being an abbreviation for “I quit ordinary smoking” – now with a touchscreen and a pause mode that is “perfect for when the pizza guy arrives,” says spokeswoman Beate Kunz. The company has poured some $14bn (€11.96bn) into the device’s development over the past two decades and its research effort is still largely bankrolled by Marlboro sales. Iqos, Kunz says, is designed to be about 95 per cent less harmful than traditional cigarettes because it heats tobacco rather than burning it. PMI, however, has no plans to end the sale of cigarettes. “Pulling the plug overnight would just tank our business while competitors keep selling – we wouldn’t have ‘saved’ a single smoker,” she adds.

A smoke-free future is marketed as a moral project but it’s also a business plan. The gadgets on display at the fair are proof of strategy. With cigarette sales shrinking across major markets due to higher taxes and growing stigma, Big Tobacco has found in vapes and heated-tobacco devices not only fresh profits but a new narrative to cast itself as part of the solution rather than the problem. Its fiercest rival isn’t other tobacco brands but Elfbar, the Chinese vaping powerhouse. Its candy-coloured, highlighter-like devices are banned in its home market but in Europe, the company is doubling down with even more flavour blends planned for next year, its distributor tells Monocle.

Some countries, including the Netherlands, have already banned flavoured liquids – a move that Philip Drögemüller, head of the German lobbying group Alliance for Tobacco-Free Enjoyment, calls a serious mistake. “Flavours are what get adult smokers to switch in the first place and banning them just fuels the illegal market,” he says. It’s a persuasive point, though one that conveniently ignores the reality that the same fruit and candy flavours are what make vaping so appealing to teenagers. Drögemüller cites his own success story. “I quit smoking after 20 years because of vaping. Fruit liquids made me lose the craving for tobacco completely. There really is no good political reason not to support it.”

Behind the glossy booths, side rooms hum with strategy sessions where lobbyists and executives plot their next moves. Panels with titles such as “Switching evidence on trial” and “Navigating the EU tobacco product directive” parse rulings, court cases and the next rounds regulation. There is talk of whether filters could be banned entirely under new environmental rules, what the UN plastics treaty might mean for cigarette butts and how to keep flavoured products in circulation despite looming restrictions. It feels a bit like a crisis summit where the industry quietly co-ordinates its survival strategy, trying to stay one step ahead of regulators.

The fight is no longer just about profits but about legitimacy and the industry’s right to remain a serious voice in policy debates even as its core product faces mounting political and social pressure. At the fair’s opening press conference, associations struck a combative tone, warning that planned tax hikes would push smokers to the black market, drain state coffers and wipe out mid-sized manufacturers. Germany, for example, is preparing to align with new EU rules by raising its comparatively low cigar tax by as much as 1,000 per cent. “That is nothing short of a war of annihilation by the EU Commission against our industry,” says Bodo Mehrlein of the German Cigar Manufacturers Association.

The shift is rippling through the entire smoking ecosystem. Zippo, the lighter brand that kept generations of GIs and rockabilly kids flicking, now offers a vape insert that slips neatly into any classic case. OCB, best known for its rolling papers, is reorienting toward cannabis smokers, partly because roll-your-own tobacco faces a steep tax hike. Even Nuremberg-based heritage pipe maker Vauen reports that its Lord of the Rings-style churchwardens (the very kind used in the films) are now its most popular line, beloved by cannabis smokers for the same reason hobbits prized them: you can sit back and puff in peace.

There are hi-tech twists on old rituals too. Air, calling itself the “global leader in social inhalation”, presents a coal-free shisha device: Nespresso-style capsules slot in and an NFC chip adjusts the heat profile to the chosen flavour for a perfectly calibrated draw. Nearby, Dr Karsten Behlke unveils what he calls the first true pocket-sized shisha. “Our development actually comes from medicine,” says the lawyer-turned-entrepreneur. “It’s a genuine shisha that uses real tobacco – no vape liquid like the fake ones.” Rather than burning the tobacco, the device heats an air stream, cutting out many of the harmful by-products still present in vapes and water pipes. “But the main selling point is really the size. Most shisha smokers aren’t exactly worried about their health,” says Behlke.

The newest star of the so-called “reduced-risk” market is the nicotine pouch – banned in some countries, barely regulated in others and a clear darling of this year’s fair. “The market is exploding,” says a Chinese manufacturer of pouch-making machines. “In Europe, you currently have to wait a year for a new machine. We can deliver it in two months.” Exhibitors tout faster nicotine hits with lower doses that “bring flavours to life and improve mouthfeel” while others present “pouches designed with your mouth in mind”. Panels promise insights into “smooth, satisfying nicotine delivery over 45 minutes” and strategies for “where the oral nicotine market is headed – and how to stay ahead of the curve”.

With cigarettes barely visible on the show floor, you might think the coffin lid has been nailed shut – but not quite. Esse, a super-slim cigarette brand from South Korea that has sold nearly a trillion sticks since its 1996 debut, has just expanded to Germany. “Demand is on the rise,” says Christopher Lim of Korean tobacco giant KT&G Corporation, the label’s producer. At the fair’s own Intertabac Stars award show, it was crowned cigarette of the year. “Cigarettes still command a considerable market share, especially outside Europe,” says Atanas Doychinov of KT International, the Bulgarian outfit born from the state tobacco monopoly. Akin to other manufacturers who will only say so off-record, KT International is looking toward rapidly growing markets in Africa and Asia-Pacific. “We’ll see a big increase in these developing markets throughout the next few years,” adds Doychinov. Why no vapes? “For us, as an independent company, it’s too risky to put large investments in a market that is still fairly unregulated,” he says. “We‘ll wait until things are sorted out.” The “smoke-free future”, it turns out, might still be a long way off.

After US forces captured Nicolás Maduro, members of the Venezuelan diaspora in Brazil gathered in central São Paulo to celebrate the downfall of a man widely seen as corrupt, brutal and dictatorial. The occasion was joined by many Brazilians, particularly those from the right, who have long lamented the degradation of once-wealthy Venezuela under Maduro and his socialist predecessor, Hugo Chávez.

The impromptu celebrations, however, were at odds with the prevailing political climate across much of Latin America, where leaders expressed shock over the White House’s casual readiness to intervene in the region. Not only was the operation against Maduro an affront to national sovereignty but it raised the spectre of military conflict in a region that – despite its many other problems – has for decades been peaceful at the nation-state level.

In Brazil, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned the intervention as crossing an “unacceptable line” and the “first step toward a world of violence, chaos and instability.” But it was Gabriel Boric, the outgoing leader in Chile, who addressed the elephant in the room: “Today, it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow, it could be anyone.” He pointed out that the US’s blatant coveting of strategic resources is hardly confined to Venezuela. In this case, it is oil. But in Chile, it might be copper, which is essential for AI infrastructure. In Brazil, it could be rare earths, critical for next-generation military technologies. In Paraguay, it might be access to bountiful hydroelectric power for data centres and other digital infrastructure. The list goes on.

The US has a long history of interference in Latin American politics, including the support of brutal Cold War-era military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Brazil and elsewhere. The return of gunboat diplomacy and military adventurism in Venezuela is, for many Latin American leaders, a return toward a dark past. And US officials have done little to assuage anyone in the region of such concerns. A day after the Venezuela strikes, Trump told reporters that he liked the idea of a military operation against Colombia, calling left-wing president Gustavo Petro a “sick man”. The US has also openly threatened Cuba and made veiled threats against Mexico. And if the intention of the White House was not clear enough, a cartoon image posted to an X account linked to the US president showed Trump as a colossus standing astride North and South America, brandishing a large baton.

While the prospect of fresh military strikes might currently preoccupy Latin American leaders, another potential avenue for US adventurism in the hemisphere is upcoming elections. This year, Brazil, Peru and Colombia will head to the polls and leaders there will need to be on guard for signs of electoral interference. Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay, as well as the incoming administration in Chile, are already sympathetic to the Trump White House. If Brazil, Peru and Colombia swing in that direction this year – either with or without interference – Washington will be one step closer to its dreams of overt US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.

Bryan Harris is a journalist based in São Paulo. You can read more of his pieces here. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

South American literature is enjoying some well-earned attention right now. Die My Love, a film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson that graced cinema screens at the end of last year, is based on the 2012 novel ​​Matate, amor by Argentine author Ariana Harwicz. But before a translated version of the book was published in 2017 (and then picked up by the Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay), the story was inaccessible to the English-speaking world. 

There are several publishers bringing contemporary South American literature to fresh audiences – Fitzcarraldo Editions and New Directions among them – but perhaps the most stylish is Charco Press. The tight-knit publishing house, comprising just five people, is a global affair: founders Carolina Orloff and her husband, Sam McDowell, hail from Argentina and New Zealand respectively, though they currently live and work in Edinburgh. They have made room for themselves in the competitive publishing arena by identifying which untranslated works will do well in front of new audiences – a mission that began back in 2016. “Our first catalogue consisted of only five titles, all from Argentina,” Orloff tells Monocle. “We wanted to make an immediate impact and show just how many styles, aesthetics and tones could be offered from the contemporary literature of a single country in the region.”

Now, Charco has a growing roster of nearly 50 writers from across the continent and an output of eight to 12 books a year. Their determination is finding success. Within the first two years of starting the press, Charco was longlisted for the International Booker Prize – one of the leading awards for global works in translation – with Die, My Love. It was then shortlisted in 2022 with Claudia Piñero’s Elena Knows and once more in 2024, for Not a River by Selva Almada.

That year was something of a watershed for literature from the region; in total, four South American titles featured on the International Booker longlist. But bringing the right titles to English-speaking audiences at the right time is no easy task. Orloff and McDowell’s respective disciplines help them to identify gaps in the market, blending taste with the mechanics of the industry. “I’m more obsessed with the academic side of things,” says Orloff. “The translation, the literature, the words. Sam comes from a different background. He’s concerned with marketing and getting projects off the ground, bringing them to life. It’s a good combination.”

In publishing, books are – for better or worse – judged by their covers. The striking, figurative façades of Charco Press novels are also South American exports. Pablo Font, Charco’s in-house artist and designer, works remotely from Argentina – and the connection with Orloff’s homeland isn’t taken for granted. “I don’t know how other designers are but I work closely with him and he gets very involved,” she says. “We have long discussions about the themes and what we want to evoke at first glance.”

With a growing presence of the region’s writing in English-language markets, it’s becoming easier to identify burgeoning trends. In South America, there is a wealth of Narco-literature: books devoted to (and perhaps romanticising) its problems with crime. While these dark novels are often written by men, there are plenty penned by women. The key difference is that the latter rarely garner the same attention nationally. 

Both of Charco’s works that graced the Booker’s shortlist are written by women. As these violent and often abrasive novels journey up into North America or hop over the Atlantic Ocean, they begin to tell a slightly different story. In translation, there seems to be more scope for work by female writers to be lauded than in South America. 

The differences are language and labelling. As the novels cross the pond, they also move across genres, becoming “translated fiction”. Perhaps this primes readers for a different experience, imbuing the titles with an exotic allure and reeling in audiences who might not have gravitated towards the original genre. But this, Orloff thinks, fails to properly credit the standalone merits of the text. “Those books weren’t chosen because we thought that they were doing something niche and unseen. We choose books that we think are brilliant – and that need to exist in English,” she says. “As an editor, there’s a feeling that almost transcends commerciality. I feel as though we have an ethical responsibility to get these books read.”

Read next: Five thought-provoking books that will challenge the way you think

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have presented themselves as the twin pillars of Gulf power for much of the past decade. Aligned on security, broadly synchronised on diplomacy and increasingly influential beyond the region, they have mediated conflicts, bankrolled fragile states and styled themselves as pragmatic problem-solvers in a volatile world. This is why the latest tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi over Yemen feel both striking and consequential.

On the surface, the dispute looks procedural: flights suspended at Aden airport, diplomatic delegations prevented from landing and disagreements over inspections, airspace and who ultimately exercises authority on the ground. But there is a strategic divergence between the two allies, whose visions for Yemen – and, by extension, regional order – no longer align as neatly as they once did.

Yemen has long been fragmented. After more than a decade of war, the country remains divided between the Iran-aligned Houthis in the north and a loose constellation of forces in the south, backed by different external actors and driven by competing agendas. Saudi Arabia entered the conflict in 2015 with a clear set of priorities, including border security, the rollback of Houthi influence and the restoration of Yemen’s internationally recognised government. The UAE joined the fight with similar ideas but gradually pursued a different logic – cultivating local power brokers, securing ports and coastlines, and backing the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a separatist movement seeking autonomy, if not outright independence, for the south.

These differences were managed for many years. Co-ordination continued, disagreements were contained and the shared imperative of countering the Houthis provided enough common ground to keep the partnership intact. What has changed recently is not the existence of divergence but its visibility and stakes. The STC’s expanding territorial reach across southern Yemen, particularly in areas close to the Saudi border and key infrastructure, has sharpened Riyadh’s concerns. 

The UAE, meanwhile, has further reduced its overt military footprint but retained significant political leverage through local allies. This recalibration has left space for those allies to act more assertively, testing not just Yemen’s fragile arrangements but also Saudi Arabia’s tolerance for a southern power structure that it does not fully control.

What makes the current moment unusual is how public the friction has become. Airports closed, delegations turned away and accusations exchanged in plain sight – these might not equal a partnership in collapse but they are not the signs of seamless strategic alignment. Rather, they point to a relationship under strain; one struggling to reconcile competing priorities at a time when both capitals are keen to project stability and diplomatic maturity.

The irony is that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have spent recent years positioning themselves as brokers of de-escalation: in Sudan, across the Horn of Africa and even on more internationally visible stages (Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine). Yet in Yemen, they appear unable to mediate between their own interests. Two states that increasingly speak the language of restraint abroad now find themselves locked in a contest at home, conducted through proxies, pressure points and procedural disputes rather than direct confrontation.

Will this lead to an open rupture between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi? That remains unlikely. The economic, political and security costs would be enormous and both capitals are acutely aware of the value of their partnership. This is not a march towards conflict. It is, however, a reminder that Gulf alliances are fundamentally transactional. Shared history does not guarantee shared futures. For the wider Gulf, the lesson is sobering. Unity cannot be assumed, even among the closest of partners.

While regional powers recalibrate and jostle for influence, ordinary Yemenis bear the consequences, trapped between rival agendas that they have little ability to shape. Each diplomatic standoff entrenches that fragmentation further; each unresolved power struggle pushes a political settlement a little more out of reach.
 
Inzamam Rashid is Monocle’s Gulf correspondent, based in Dubai. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Gunboat diplomacy is nothing new. Armadas have been dispatched to loom menacingly off the coast of one’s adversaries at least since the Athenian empire sent triremes to put the squeeze on the Delian League. Gunboat diplomacy isn’t even new to Venezuela. It was on the receiving end of a naval blockade by Italy, Germany and the UK in 1902 and 1903, and the Netherlands imposed something similar in 1908.

When the US Navy began building up its presence in the Caribbean in the second half of 2025, it looked like an endeavour of this sort. If it wasn’t evident why the US suddenly felt it necessary to pressurise the ghastly regime of Venezuela’s then-president, Nicolás Maduro, it was clear that it was committed to the bit, even sending the aircraft-carrier strike group attached to the USS Gerald R Ford, a warship that by itself fields a larger contingent of dedicated combat aircraft than Venezuela.

In the event, the payoff was more akin to the US invasion of Panama in 1989. That was undertaken to capture the country’s then-dictator, Manuel Noriega, a former CIA asset turned pestilential liability. As US paratroopers descended, Noriega holed up in Panama City’s Vatican embassy, where he was berated into surrender by chuckling American soldiers playing heavy metal tunes at deafening volumes.

The Venezuela operation appears to have gone more smoothly than that – indeed, it seems to have gone so precisely to plan that Maduro must be harbouring suspicions about his former colleagues. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were swiftly seized and exfiltrated, and he could now be tried on the charges on which he was indicted in the Southern District of New York in 2020 – or on new charges also naming his wife and son, among others. Noriega is again the obvious precedent: he ended up serving time in the US, France and Panama.

Noriega could also prove a useful marker when it comes to assessing what this will all mean more broadly – which might be not much. Then, as now, the finger-steepling foreign-policy cohort went into hyperdrive about shifting spheres of influence, a revival of the Monroe Doctrine, a new world order and so on, but all that actually happened was that the US installed as president Guillermo Endara, who had won the 1989 election that Noriega ignored, the world continued turning and, though Endara was far from perfect, he was a vast improvement.

The analogy holds up pretty well here. Maduro is, as Noriega was, an inveterate election rigger. Under Joe Biden, the US was among the countries that not only refused to recognise Maduro’s “victory” in Venezuela’s presidential election of 2024 but also acknowledged his opponent, former diplomat Edmundo González, as the rightful president-elect. González is presumably still available; ditto opposition figurehead María Corina Machado, whose politics are not a million miles from those of Trump, and who (and this cannot be altogether discounted as an animating factor of the weekend’s events) dedicated the Nobel Peace Prize that she won last year to the US president.

As of this writing, Trump seems keener on a less disruptive transition, suggesting his willingness to work with Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, so long as she does what she’s told (she has issued pro forma statements of defiance but the offer of power is often persuasive). But Trump has his self-glorifying triumph, his television spectacle, and we have a lifetime’s evidence that this is all that he ever wants until he wants the next one. Readers are invited to recall that it’s less than a fortnight since he decided to bomb Nigeria.

Andrew Mueller is the host of ‘The Foreign Desk’ on Monocle Radio and a regular Monocle contributor. For the latest news and developments in Venezuela, tune in to Monocle Radio.

Further reading? Monocle’s writer in Venezuela reported on the raid here. And after a successful operation in Caracas this weekend, is Marco Rubio hoping to be on the ticket for 2028?

Welcome to 5 January, folks. In ecclesiastical terms, today is Twelfth Night, which means that tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany when the wise men felt the power of the Holy Spirit from the infant Jesus in the manger. Back then, and after such long camel rides, Christmas seemed like it knew how to kick back and chill – at this point in the greatest story ever told, surely there were still all sorts of glad tidings to be announced and blessings bestowed. But now? Well, your decorations are down, you’ve just logged into your email and in three hours’ time you’ll be wondering whether you should feel guilty for thinking about what sort of wine is the perfect partner to a sandwich from Pret. You’re back, then, at work. Do you need a drink yet?

It could depend on when you went off on holiday. If you’re the sort of person who toasted the New Year with a couple of glasses of Krug, lots of hugs from friends and some well-timed wishes whispered in the ear of your significant other before turning in at about half past two, then good for you. The eight hours’ shut-eyed restoration that followed your classy party will have blissfully dispelled any wish to darken the doors of the cocktail cabinet any time since. And isn’t it your business partner’s birthday at the end of the month? A perfect time to pop a cork. Well, congrats.

Or maybe you saw in the New Year by hiring a little house on a remote coast somewhere in Sumatra (or maybe Shetland), the tide and flow of which seemed to baptise you anew in a heightened sense of grounding you in the here, the now. You didn’t need a drink then and you won’t need a drink any old time because you’re the you in your youniverse. Well, please sod off and only come back when you need a sand-dry martini.

No? OK. Or maybe you went for it a bit because it was a really fun (and sociable!) party season in the run-up. Then at Christmas proper it was your turn to “do the drinks” and you didn’t want to be shown up but you also didn’t want everyone else to drink all that nice Château d’Yquem – or the chambertin or the sauternes. And then people kept turning up with bottles so it wasn’t your fault, right? Am I gabbling? I’m probably fine! And then, and then, um, and then…last night. Well, there were some bits to finish and the cheese was wasted without something decent to go with it and the cognac had hardly even been started and anyway. And isn’t micro-dosing good for you? So imagine macro-dosing. You do the math! Well, in a way, congratulations because your boss has probably already told you that you’re now starting tomorrow at the earliest. But also working on Saturday. Oops.

So: yes, you do need a drink. I’d recommend a riesling kabinett from the women-run vineyard of Dr H Thanisch in the Mosel Valley, produced – as if by today’s fickle finger of fate – from the vineyard known as the Berncasteler Doctor. And the doctor always knows best. Delicious with that crayfish and rocket from Pret. Then? Maybe give it a wee rest for a couple of weeks. Happy New Year, friends! 

Robert Bound is a contributing editor at Monocle. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

An actor and an entrepreneur walk into a room. At first glance, they have little in common but today they have gathered at the National Theatre in London with the same goal: to influence people and build rapport. Together with theatre director Corinne Micallef, actor Sarah Thom is leading a workshop that will shake up its participants’ beliefs about themselves and their abilities. 

Running since 1997, these courses at the National Theatre have channelled the art of stagecraft to help everyone – from apprentices to top-level executives – to feel more confident and persuasive in their line of work.

But what can a seasoned leader with years of experience and successful businesses under their belt learn from this kind of seminar? “We’re surprised by how often people at really senior levels seek out this kind of training because no one gives them feedback anymore,” says Micallef. “During these courses, we shine a light on things that they weren’t aware they knew, which they can now use consciously.”

The cosy, wood-panelled Duffield Studio, with views over the River Thames, is a safe space to try and fail without judgement. “It’s quite a leveller in some ways,” says Micallef, as she and Thom take Monocle through rounds of exercises that involve warming up our face and body. We also visualised a place where we’ve been happiest – an exercise that can help to stay present and grounded during moments of uncertainty or high pressure. Some pertinent questions reveal participants’ management style, which can be an eye-opener for those who believed that they were good communicators or negotiators but find that the opposite might be the case. 

A key takeaway from the workshop is for participants to understand how others might perceive them (some discover that they come across as tense or unfocused, while others pick up on their particular speech quirks for the first time) and how a slight adjustment in manners of sitting or speaking can change an atmosphere entirely. 

The day concludes with participants role-playing various scenarios that they find troublesome, with Thom, Micallef and the others giving notes – much like during a theatrical rehearsal. “As a director, it’s about being able to see where people need to go or where they could go,” says Micallef. “The goal of the participants is that they learn how to be confident, charismatic and genuine communicators.” 

The outcome, says the theatre director, can be a more astute understanding of how to nurture partnerships, become better collaborators and, most importantly, build trust. “Ultimately, people want to do business with people that they believe and trust,” she says. 

In today’s world, where so much of our business is carried out online, building trust and cementing relationships is more challenging than ever. And even when we’re finally in the room with the people we’d like to win over, so much rests on not just what we say but how we say it. A well-honed message delivered with chutzpah and conviction – or even just with a straight posture and good eye contact – can help steer the conversation to a desirable outcome. “I love it when I can translate stage skills to everyday life,” says Thom as we pile out of the studio. “There are moments of theatre throughout the day for everybody.”

For a discussion of the production design behind the National Theatre’s ‘Inter Alia’, tune in to ‘Monocle on Design’.

Happy New Year, dear reader. Is your tail bushy? Are your favourite new garments from Santa laid out for work tomorrow? Are you prepped and ready to roll? All set to lead from the front? If you’re in Europe, I do hope that this is the case as large swathes of the continent need to get back to work in a most serious, fully energised manner. At a time when Europe needs to rearm itself, factories struggling to turn out more than two fighter planes a month inspire little in the way of hope – let alone a sense of security. 

What happened to the industrial base of the 1940s that could churn out a Lancaster bomber each day without breaking a sweat? For sure these aircraft weren’t as sophisticated as a Gripen or Rafale but nor did factories of this period have much in the way of automation. If we’re serious about big infrastructure or continuing to be the world’s holiday playground, then railway repairs cannot be conducted on a single daytime shift, Monday to Friday. Likewise, new runways cannot take a decade to plan and pave and terminal extensions must not take eight years to complete. 

We’ve found ourselves in a place where working overnight or at weekends on building sites (offices included) is considered inhumane even though many other corners of the economy work round-the-clock, seven days a week. Western Europe built up the world’s most luxurious and heartily exploited social safety net but the wheels are juddering and falling off my dear Monocle subscriber, and yet millions are coddled because they’re overwhelmed, have a tummy ache or a runny nose. What happened to sucking it up, popping a Motilium and buying some tissues? 

Today, in most European countries, the employer is too often in the wrong while the employee is increasingly guaranteed a job for life or a fat payout for not being particularly talented. Why on earth would you want to raise money or invest your own funds in a dazzling new venture when governments – local, federal and in between – treat business owners with contempt and have zero concept of what it means to take a risk or set out your own stall? Meanwhile, it’s the hotel, restaurant, bar and shop owners who keep Europe all buff and sparkly for Americans, Thais, Indians and Mexicans to pile in and spend hundreds of millions of euros as the entrepreneur struggles under stifling labour laws and planning regulations. 

By now, you will have detected that I spent a lot of time these weeks walking around an icy lake thinking about Europe’s future and what it means to run a family-owned media enterprise. Is Europe still the best place for such a venture? Will policymakers wake up and encourage growth and fresh thinking? Or are there sunnier – even funnier – places to run a media operation these days? All thoughts welcome at tb@monocle.com and all the best for 2026.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns. 

As unlikely as it sounds, Japan is the world’s snowiest country. Of the global cities with more than a million residents, Sapporo, in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, has the second-highest annual snowfall in the world. On average, almost five metres of snow falls every year compared with a mere two metres in Toronto, for example. It makes sense, then, that Japan would produce its own snowploughs.

That said, there are only three manufacturers left in the country. They are survivors of new emissions regulations that budged several competitors out of the market – and Sapporo-based Nichijo controls 62 per cent of the domestic market. The company makes yellow or orange rotary ploughs with red blades at the front to tear through the thickest blankets of snowfall. Tetsuya Nakamura, from Nichijo’s planning division, says that the company’s strength lies in its control of everything from design to sale. “Most of our staff have an engineering background so we can tailor our snowploughs to the specific needs of each customer,” he adds. Such is the cost of a custom-order snowplough that the buyers tend to be municipal governments and airports

“Each country has its own particular needs when it comes to snowploughs,” says Nakamura. In Japan that means operating on narrow city roads, turning with ease and, crucially, blowing snow out of the way – the citizens of Japan’s cities like their snow to be piled up in an acceptably aesthetic way. “In other countries, it’s enough to push the snow to the edge of the road,” he adds. “Here, people want to be able to direct the snow with precision.”

Those requirements have kept non-Japanese rivals such as ABBI Schmidt and Oshkosh out of the market and nudged Nichijo to develop an inventory that runs from super compact machines to those large enough to clear an airport runway. The company has had plenty of time to perfect its machines. It produced Japan’s first rotary snow plough locomotive in 1958 and was then asked by the government to make a vehicular version the Hydraulic Torque Converter Rotary, or HTR. At the bigger end of the HTR range is a nine-metre bruiser that can clear an expressway of 4,200 tonnes of snow per hour, blowing it through a chute at a designated distance up to 45 metres away.

Nichijo has come a long way from its roots. Its ploughs now have touchscreen monitors, a single joystick instead of multiple levers, and an automated system that adjusts speed according to the depth of the snow the plough must drive through. The company’s latest development is an eco-friendly plug-in hybrid machine.

So, is a business based on snow really a good bet in our warming world? “It’s not so much that we’re seeing less snow now,” says Nakamura. “Instead, we’re seeing more ‘guerrilla snow’ or days when snow is dumped unexpectedly.” The company is hedging its bets, though. It also manufactures heavy goods carriers for factories. “We can adapt,” he says. “Our role is to keep the roads safe with products that meet the needs of the day.”
nichijo.co.jp

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