The Monocle Minute

It is unclear at the time of writing whether the railway sabotage across France on the day of the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony was Russia’s way of getting involved in the event. Russia and Belarus were disinvited from these Games because of the invasion of Ukraine; a smattering of competitors from each country will take part but as independents, forbidden from displaying national flags or symbols. This follows Russia’s semi-ban from the 2020 Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), held in Tokyo in 2021, at which it was obliged to enter as “the Russian Olympic Committee” as a result of its industrialised doping of athletes.

It is difficult not to sympathise with the decision to exclude Russia and Belarus. Both countries are party to a monstrous crime and, as such, richly deserve the opprobrium of the community of nations. The difficulty, as has been widely and indignantly noted, is that this standard is being applied somewhat selectively. Most obviously this time, there have been calls for Israel to be bounced over its actions in Gaza. But at pretty much any Games, if you refused entry to every country that had recently behaved suboptimally, you would end up with a lot of contests involving only Luxembourg, Costa Rica and the Marshall Islands. And you would probably find reasons to get upset with them too, if you looked hard enough.

The way forward might be for the Games to operate both outside and inside moral considerations. Which is to say: entry should be open to any nation, however appalling its regime or conduct, but audiences should be invited – indeed, encouraged – to make their feelings plain. A mere exclusion from the Games is relatively easy to style out but a hearty chorus of booing drowning out your national anthem less so.

Andrew Mueller is a contributing editor at Monocle and presenter of ‘The Foreign Desk’ on Monocle Radio. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Athens has approved the purchase of 20 US Lockheed Martin F-35 jets. The $3.5bn (€3.2bn) deal will make Greece the 19th member of the F-35 Lightning II Global Alliance, which includes Nato allies such as the UK, Italy, Israel and Japan, and give it the ability to operate from 32 bases worldwide.

It will be a significant boost to the country’s military defences against neighbouring Turkey, which was dropped from the F-35 programme in 2019 after buying S-400 surface-to-air missile systems from Russia. Greece’s powerful air deterrent has been secured at a time of rising tensions in the Aegean as a result of territorial disputes. The delivery of the jets is expected to take place in 2028.

The Swiss Federal Supreme Court has backed a proposal to ban billboards in Vernier, a municipality in the canton of Geneva – which is bad news for advertisers in Bern. It follows similar moves across the country, including a motion to prohibit sexist advertising in Vaud and Basel-Stadt, and the proscription of digital billboards in Zürich.

Three quarters of Vernier’s 172 billboards have been removed in a bid to reduce the town’s visual pollution, though the ban only targets commercial ads visible from public spaces. Cultural and sports advertising will be permitted, so you can still expect to see a poorly designed Eurovision poster here or an off-piste skiing billboard there. While garish screens at bus stops peddling fast food or tacky ads for cheap lawyers are certainly eyesores, isn’t there space for something witty?

Just 40 metres off the east coast of Sicily, the island of Ortigia is beloved by residents and visitors alike for its winding alleyways, honey-hued sandstone buildings, sparkling sea and sunny disposition. Monocle discovers how its petite size offers lessons on how to build a neat community.

To read the article, pick up a copy of the‘Monocle Mediterraneo’ newspaper, which is available now.

We celebrate French magazines – just in time for the Paris Olympics. And we speak with the editors of two new magazines based in Amsterdam, Fanfaretti and No One.