World
A childhood in old Kabul
They say the city you most fondly remember is the one you grew up in. In my case that’s Kabul.…
Panjshir valley and the last resistance to the Taliban
The Panjshir valley, about three hours’ drive north of Kabul, has a mythical hold on the Afghan imagination. It is…
New Zealand’s zero Covid strategy is becoming unsustainable
New Zealand has done remarkably well over the past 18 months at protecting its citizens from the worst of the…
How the gender debate is dividing Germany
Pronoun politics can be something of a minefield. But if you think the gender debate is confusing, spare a thought…
Prince Harry’s eco-warrior credentials take another hit
Life seems to be going well for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex after they officially split from the royal…
China’s zero Covid strategy is being undermined by mahjong
Mao Zedong once said that the game of mahjong should not be underestimated, because: ‘If you know how to play…
Defence contractors were the real winners in Afghanistan
The fall of Kabul, like the fall of Saigon, will be taught in classrooms for decades to come. But the…
Greta Thunberg is right
I am not usually on the same page as Greta Thunberg but she is absolutely right when she accuses the…
Why is anyone still defending OnlyFans?
Starting in October, OnlyFans, which has 130 million users, two million contributors and billions in revenue will ban its creators…
China's state broadcaster returns to British airwaves
It’s a hard tasking trying to sell China these days. What with the crackdown on Hong Kong, the subjugation of…
Afghanistan and the end of the American hegemony
We used to sneer at the way the Russians were chased out of Afghanistan by a ragtag of mujaheddin armed…
Is Theresa May in any position to criticise Boris?
When Theresa May told a joke at her own expense at a reception of Tory MPs held to celebrate Boris…
The last war for democracy
Twenty years after 9/11, the War on Terror has come full circle. Everyone expected the Taliban to surge back to…
Is Joe Biden OK?
Just before the Christmas holiday in 2018, then-President Donald Trump canceled his planned vacation to his Mar-a-Lago resort, citing the…
What exactly was the plan in Afghanistan?
The collapse of the Afghan army and state was so rapid and so total that, mercifully, talking heads have already…
Biden’s press conference was a feast of disinformation
Joe Biden emerged from his cave, saw his shadow, and told us there will be three more years of winter.…
Did ‘gender studies’ lose Afghanistan?
Twenty years of war in Afghanistan are over. What comes next is 20 years, or even more, of recriminations and…
Which lobbyists run MPs' interest groups?
David Cameron’s links to Greensill have brought the issue of lobbying back into the spotlight. Next month the Committee on…
France is nervous about welcoming a wave of Afghan refugees
Emmanuel Macron has once more infuriated many in France, but this time it has nothing to do with Covid passports…
How are the vaccines affected by the Delta variant?
Has the emergence of the Delta, or Indian, variant reduced the effectiveness of Covid vaccines and if so by how…
Even the Taliban are in shock: my week on the Kabul front line
I’ve been to the front line in Iraq, Syria and Libya and witnessed all kinds of crazy, unlikely events. But…
Afghanistan will once again become a breeding ground for terror
‘Bin Laden is dead and al Qaeda is degraded in Afghanistan and it’s time to end the forever war’. So…
The truth about Biden’s booster shots
Don’t let this relatively Fauci-free week fool you. The Biden administration is still laser-focused on the coronavirus. In fact, as…
The Afghan state was dying before the Taliban took over
To understand how Afghanistan is going to change in the future, you have to first understand what the ‘Islamic Republic’…
The Taliban’s lightning victory was no surprise
As the debacle in Kabul unfolds, in Washington and London the mud slinging about who is to blame is beginning.…
