When the West ventures east, it ventures east with all the preconceptions borne of hundreds of years of its own development pathway. It meets, on arrival in the hot and dusty airports of Dubai, of Baghdad, Amman or Beirut, a …

At 6 foot 6 inches tall Seyyid Musa al Sadr is a striking figure. The black turban he wears is adjusted at a jaunty angle, tipped back on his head, a fringe of dark hair curling from its edge. His …

Everyone’s arguing about Palestine. Reality: the UK government just criminalised protest, got slapped down by the High Court, and showed us exactly how freedom dies. Pay attention.” In the aftermath of 911, the Bush administration ordered the FBI to hand …

Alex Pretti was on the ground, disarmed, pepper-sprayed, restrained by multiple ICE agents. Then he was shot dead. One question changes everything: why? Those who regard the death – now formally declared a homicide – of Alex Pretti on a …

Gordon Brown says we need better systems to clean up politics. One question: Why did you give Mandelson a peerage after he’d already resigned twice? Systems don’t fix dishonour. Values do. Gordon Brown has for long functioned as a sort …

The Washington Post’s motto: ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’ Then Jeff Bezos took $50 billion in government contracts, kissed Trump’s ring, and proved democracy dies in broad daylight too. The Washington Post, winner of multiple Pullitzer prizes and famed for exposing …

While everyone debates Labour’s policies, Anas Sarwar just committed political suicide. He demanded Starmer resign. In Britain, disloyalty is unforgivable. Ask Heseltine. Ask Gove. From the late sixteenth to the mid twentieth century a tiny island nation in the middle …

Everyone’s debating the Mandelson scandal. Reality: Starmer is Britain’s first PM in years with actual integrity. Lose him now over a distraction, lose the country’s best shot at fixing politics. Sir Keir Starmer arrived in Downing Street in July 2024 …

In June 2014, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, leader of the world’s 200 million Shi’a Muslims, stares gloomily at the success of the lightning-fast advance of Daesh1 through Northern Iraq. The fighters of the group known as the Islamic State in the Levant have conquered most of Northern …

When US secretary for defence Pete Hegseth briefed the Pentagon’s case for the US’ current attacks against Iran he was clear. The US action, he said, had been unencumbered by the usual. There had been, he said: “No stupid rules …