Syria

Ivory plaque of a lioness mauling a man, ivory, gold, cornelian, lapis lazuli, Nimrud, 900 BC–700 BC. [© The Trustees of the British Museum]

The Assyrians of Ashurbanipal’s time were just as into pillage and destruction as Isis

1 December 2018 9:00 am

The Assyrians placed sculptures of winged human-headed bulls (lamassus) at the entrances to their capital at Nineveh, in modern Mosul,…

Former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and his wife Anisa with his children (l-r) Maher, Bashar, Bassel, Majd and Bushra. Photo: Louai Beshara/ AFP/ Getty Images

How did mild-mannered eye doctor Bashar al-Assad end up a mass murderer?

27 October 2018 9:00 am

‘How did this mild-mannered eye doctor end up killing hundreds of thousands of people?’ someone wondered about Bashar al-Assad in…

As Assad recovers, Syria is returning to stability

13 October 2018 9:00 am

In order to avoid the Labour conference and yet more predictable media attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, I escaped late last…

In Idlib, the final chapter in Syria’s civil war has begun

15 September 2018 9:00 am

 Beirut The customs man wore a white linen suit. He had a large moustache. His ample belly touched the edge…

Assad is back for good in Syria – and with Trump’s blessing

21 July 2018 9:00 am

Amid the confusion and the almost deafening cries of treachery and collusion over Donald Trump’s relations with Russia, few noticed…

Putin says he’s making Russia great again. In reality, it’s crumbling

9 June 2018 9:00 am

This is Putin’s time. Next week, the Fifa World Cup kicks off in Moscow, and the Kremlin has spared no…

Joanna Lumley plays Mrs God in BBC Radio 4's new play Michael Frayn's Pocket Playhouse (Credit: ITV/ Rex/ Shutterstock)

Only Radio 4 would allow Ian McKellan and Joanna Lumley to play Mr and Mrs God

2 June 2018 9:00 am

One sphere that podcasts have so far not much penetrated is drama. Audible.co.uk is itching to develop its own brand…

Portrait of the Week: Allied air strikes on Syria and the Windrush scandal

21 April 2018 9:00 am

Home Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, apologised in Parliament for the treatment of immigrants from the Commonwealth from before 1971,…

Bombs away: Trump and Macron’s bromance is getting serious

14 April 2018 9:00 am

Remember the never-ending handshake? It was 14 July 2017, Bastille Day, and Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump opened their formal…

From a Low and Quiet Sea: making art from a perilous journey

24 March 2018 9:00 am

Donal Ryan is one of the most notable Irish writers to emerge this decade. So far he has produced five…

A day of reckoning is coming for America’s muddled Middle East policies

27 January 2018 9:00 am

 Beirut ‘If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense,’ said Alice. ‘Nothing would be what it…

How can any intelligent person have faith?

16 December 2017 9:00 am

Ten years ago, I had a strange debate about faith with a famous Jesuit and an agnostic psychoanalyst in a…

Britain and its allies are opening the way for yet another Iraq war

18 November 2017 9:00 am

After the most intensive street-by-street combat since 1945, Isis’s so-called caliphate is no more. Last weekend, the Iraqi government won…

Putin the peacemaker

7 October 2017 9:00 am

When Russia entered the Syrian civil war in September 2015 the then US secretary of defense, Ash Carter, predicted catastrophe…

Seeing the light

23 September 2017 9:00 am

‘You can’t lie… on radio,’ says Liza Tarbuck. The Radio 2 DJ was being interviewed for the network’s birthday portrait,…

Beyond belief: Sam Otto as Jalal in Peter Kosminsky’s The State

Straight to hell

2 September 2017 9:00 am

No, The State (Channel 4) wasn’t a recruiting manual for the Islamic State, though I did feel uneasy about it…

The many sides of satire

19 August 2017 9:00 am

Brexit the Musical is a peppy satire written by Chris Bryant (not the MP, he’s a lawyer). Musically the show…

Dark night of the soul

8 July 2017 9:00 am

As bombs fall everywhere in Syria and IS fighters destroy Palmyra, a musicologist in Vienna lies awake all night thinking…

How Recep Erdogan became the most powerful man in Europe

7 May 2016 9:00 am

President Erdogan has the EU’s leaders exactly where he wants them

Further dispatches from Syria’s maelstrom

16 April 2016 9:00 am

The mechanic, blinded in one eye by shrapnel, spent three days searching for his family in the destroyed buildings and…

Could radio save Syria?

2 April 2016 9:00 am

Could radio, and in particular a weekly soap, have a role to play in the Syrian crisis? You might think,…

Marshal Ney

Putin has shown the West up as a paper tiger

26 March 2016 9:00 am

On 17 November 1813, Marshal Ney, the bravest of the brave, had been the last to march out of Smolensk…

Supporting Assad against the ‘invaders’

19 March 2016 9:00 am

Four programmes, four very different kinds of radio, from a classically made drama to weird sonic ramblings, via the best…

The EU's deal with Turkey exposes the moral vacuum at its heart

12 March 2016 9:00 am

Looked at from the narrow perspective of how to deal with the lethal business of human trafficking across the Aegean,…

Portrait of the week

12 March 2016 9:00 am

Home The Bank of England arranged for banks to be able to borrow as much money as they needed around…