9/1 to 9/7, 2025

Welcome back to This Week, Basically. I’m Robyn Davies. This week we’re tracing fault lines — from London’s streets to North Korea’s shores, from federal crackdowns in U.S. cities to ancient theater on a Japanese island. Politics, war, culture, and even ghosts on stage. Let’s dive in.

We’ll begin in Britain, where free speech and counterterrorism have collided in a way that has set off alarms. More than 800 people were arrested in London after protesting the government’s decision to label the activist group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization . This is the first time Britain has banned a group not for violence against people, but for serious property damage — in this case, damaging military planes to protest Britain’s ties to Israel. That’s put the group on the same legal footing as Al Qaeda. Saturday’s protest saw demonstrators quietly sitting with handwritten signs saying, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Police went one by one, arresting people under the Terrorism Act for displaying support of a banned group. Among them, a 69-year-old teacher who said she was “happy to be arrested” because otherwise, justice wasn’t working. Supporters shouted “shame on you” as officers carried protesters away. The British government insists the ban is justified; human rights groups call it an assault on expression. The clash shows how Britain’s definition of terrorism has shifted and how quickly protest can turn into a crime.

Now back to the United States, where immigration enforcement has escalated once again. ICE has launched “Operation Patriot 2.0” in Massachusetts . The Department of Homeland Security described the mission in stark terms: “If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return.” It’s a blunt statement of intent. The operation targets immigrants released from local custody despite ICE detainers, and it comes just as the Justice Department sues Boston for its sanctuary city policy. Boston’s mayor, Michelle Wu, has been outspoken against the crackdown, earning sharp rebukes from Trump officials. Agents are not just in Boston; the net extends across surrounding towns where released detainees live. The operation is expected to last weeks and may foreshadow similar surges in other cities like Chicago. Officials call it necessary for public safety. Critics see it as intimidation, designed to punish sanctuary cities and their leaders.

From Boston, we head to a much darker secret — one buried for years. Newly revealed reporting shows that in 2019, a team from SEAL Team 6 was sent into North Korea on a mission so secretive that Congress wasn’t told . The plan was to plant a device that could intercept Kim Jong-un’s communications during nuclear talks with President Trump. But when the SEALs reached shore, they encountered a North Korean boat. Fearing discovery, they opened fire. Within seconds, everyone on the boat was dead. The team slipped back into the sea without completing the mission. The operation has never been acknowledged publicly until now, and many officials worry it exemplifies a pattern: high-risk special ops failures hidden from oversight. The mission risked spiraling into a broader war with a nuclear-armed adversary. Instead, it ended quietly, buried by secrecy. And North Korea’s nuclear program? Still expanding, with more warheads than ever.

Closer to home, Trump’s second term has again raised the question of how far federal policing should go. Cities across America are weighing federal aid against fears of “occupation” . Mayors and police chiefs told The New York Times they would welcome more FBI agents to help trace guns, track fugitives, and dismantle trafficking networks. But many balk at National Guard troops patrolling their streets. In Albuquerque, the Guard has been used in a limited, carefully managed role — running drones, watching cameras, freeing up police officers. That’s been called a success. But memories are fresh of unmarked federal vans sweeping protesters off Portland’s streets in 2020. The lesson seems to be: federal help is fine, but only if it’s tightly scoped and locally directed. The line between cooperation and occupation is thin, and cities are insisting on keeping that line visible.

Now to Iran, where the dust of war hasn’t settled — and fear lingers in the air. Just months ago, missiles rained on Tehran for the first time in decades . A 12-day conflict with Israel killed more than a thousand Iranians, most of them civilians. American bombers struck nuclear sites, Israeli jets hit command centers, and entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble. Among the victims was 14-year-old Amirali Khorami, killed when a bomb aimed at his neighbor, a nuclear scientist, ripped through his bedroom. More than 700 civilians died, along with hundreds of military and nuclear personnel. Iran struck back with missiles of its own, killing 31 in Israel. A cease-fire was signed, but few in Tehran believe it will last. The fear is not just of another war, but of a new kind of war: one where civilians are not collateral damage, but deliberate targets meant to destabilize. For ordinary Iranians, life now means scanning the skies, bracing for what feels inevitable.

Let’s turn from Tehran to Tokyo’s waters — or rather, to Sado Island in the Sea of Japan. Here, a ghostly art form thrives . Noh theater, once the entertainment of medieval warriors, is still performed by islanders who are fishermen, farmers, and caregivers by day, and masked actors by night. On a summer evening, Shinobu Kamiyama, a local caregiver and mother of two, donned a kimono and mask to play a spirit haunted by beauty. Accompanied by chanting choruses and flutes, her voice rose in a low drone that seemed to come from another world. On Sado, Noh is not a museum piece. It’s a living ritual, performed at Shinto shrines under torchlight. The island has 34 Noh stages, a third of all in Japan, and the plays are woven into festivals, school lessons, and community life. As one elder put it: “Noh is still a living culture here. But this is the last place.” In a world where tradition often fades, Sado Island is keeping its ghosts alive.

And that’s the week — from Britain’s arrests to America’s raids, from secret wars in North Korea to ancient stages in Japan. Power, protest, secrecy, survival, and the stubborn endurance of culture.

That’s all for now. This has been This Week, Basically, hosted by Robyn Davies. Thanks for listening, and I’ll catch you next time.