CATEGORIES

‘We will fight' Actors and lawyers get ready to take up arms

The mood last week in Ukraine was eerily calm, despite talk of war.

Rock bottom Villagers fear losing land to Chinese mine owners

A convoy of trucks laden with huge black granite rocks trundles along the dusty pathway as a group of villagers look on grimly.

NOWHERE TO HIDE

How insects are losing the race against climate change

No go, Joe? A year on, Biden's big promises hit reality

Enemies within, a radicalised opposition and messaging failure have hamstrung the president’s first 12 months

Is this the end?

Boris Johnson’s lame ‘partygate’ excuses have been mocked by quiz show hosts and sports pundits. But while the UK prime minister is accustomed to ridicule , the deep anger of families who suff ered in the pandemic while obeying the rules will not go away. It’s now just a question of how long he survives …

In the Djokovic circus, it was the players who hit all the winners

Stefanos Tsitsipas learned to listen to Covid science the hard way. Not the really hard way, of course.

I remember 20 May 2020. It was the day I buried my sister

I remember well what I was doing on the evening of 20 May 2020, when more than 100 people were invited to a BYOB party in the prime minister’s garden, “to make the most of the lovely weather”.

Fallen idol? Speculation over silence of the nation's founding father

The question was being asked with increasing urgency last week: where is Nursultan Nazarbayev ?

Ukraine talks Can history help find a path to rapprochement with Putin?

So high have the stakes been set by Russia over the future security architecture of Europe, so imminent is the threat of war in Ukraine, that the three meetings due between Russia and the west this week have drawn comparison with great west-Russia exchanges of the past : Yalta in 1945, Paris in 1960 – over Berlin – and Reykjavík in 1986.

The Trump menace is darker than ever – and snapping at Biden's heels

The problem with coverage of this month’s anniversary of the events of 6 January 2021 is that too much of it was written in the past tense. True, the attempted insurrection when a violent mob stormed Capitol Hill to try to overturn a democratic election was a year ago, but the danger it poses is clear and present – and looms over the future. For the grim truth is that, while Donald Trump is the last US president, he may also be the next. What’s more, the menace of Trumpism is darker than ever.

‘An affront to justice ' The festering legacy of Guantánamo Bay

‘A huge political albatross’ About 30% of former Guantánamo detainees who were resettled in third countries have not been granted legal status . Of the hundreds released , about 150 were sent to third countries in bilateral agreements brokered by the US, because their home countries were considered dangerous to return to. Many remain in legal limbo and analysis indicates that about 45 men have not been given residency documents upon resettlement. Noa Yachot

The mystery of Austria's silence over dual citizens held in Iran

Six years ago on New Year’s Day, an Iranian-Austrian IT businessman said goodbye to his wife and three children and boarded a flight from Vienna to Tehran via Istanbul. Kamran Ghaderi had been due to return five or six days later, but he was arrested and has spent six years in Evin prison in Tehran.

Macron – and the west – are now prey to France's toxic populism

France is both beautiful and brutally bleak. It is a country studded with towns and rural vistas that take your breath away, but pockmarked with districts of soulless, desolate concrete, especially in the suburbs of its cities, the banlieues. It’s as though French planners and architects, in their embrace of modernity, lost touch with what it means to be human. It has been an important trigger for a toxic brew of Islamophobia and wider cultural despair.

Living with Covid: Planning beyond virus does not mean dropping all precaution

Reports in the UK last Sunday that free lateral flow tests could be axed within weeks under a strategy of living with Covid were met with a swift backlash. The British government promptly denied the suggestion that people would soon have to pay for the tests.

Inequality is driving protests against an authoritarian system

Almaty, the commercial capital of Kazakhstan , is the kind of mirage that oil-rich nations so often produce. It has all the trappings of comfort and consumer excess: swanky shopping malls, luxury car dealerships, high-end hotels. This is the image of prosperity that the country’s rulers enjoy projecting. For decades, Kazakhs have been encouraged to take out expensive loans to buy flats, cars and even holidays they can barely afford.

Djokovic furore hides trail of unanswered questions

The tennis star was released from detention, having gained a new fanbase of anti-vaxxers and far-right figures

America divided: BEHIND THE LINES

With the perception of reality between Democrats and Republicans so distorted, could civil war really happen? Some experts doubt an armed conflict could arise – but others foresee a Northern Ireland-style insurgency …

A natural film star who quietly pioneered a revolution Sidney Poitier

For postwar America, Sidney Poitier became something like the Black Cary Grant: a strikingly handsome and well-spoken Bahamian-American actor. He was a natural film star who projected passion, yet tempered by a kind of refinement and restraint that white moviegoers found reassuring.

UK and the EU likely to remain best of enemies

When Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, gave her lengthy “state of the union” speech in September, there were mentions aplenty of the EU’s vital relationships with Turkey, the western Balkans and Africa.

A rise in political pressures over the protocol

Brexit has forced Northern Irish businesses to deal with new barriers, while the delicate political balances have been strained.

The moon is once again within touching distance

Elon Musk claims his Starship rocket will carry passengers to Mars within five years

Omicron and decline in trade threaten growth

Britain’s economy heads into the new year weighed down by a decline in trade and falling business and consumer confidence.

A post-Covid New Deal could bring much-needed hope to the world

Christmas 1941 was grim.

‘He's clueless' In a Tory stronghold, PM's stock plummets

After a torrid week, doubts about Johnson’s abilities were heard even in the Brexit-supporting heartlands of Kent

Will the son of a Nazi drag us back to the dark days of Pinochet?

For more than 70 years, 10 December has been celebrated around the world as Human Rights Day, a way of commemorating the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed in 1948 by the UN. In Chile, my country, the date took on a special meaning after the 1973 coup by General Augusto Pinochet that overthrew the democratically elected government of socialist president Salvador Allende. During the 17 years of dictatorship that followed, it was an occasion to publicly rally for those rights that were being egregiously violated, as the regime arrested, tortured, executed or exiled opponents, and abrogated free speech and the right to assemble peacefully.

Trump still looms large over Pence's White House ambitions

‘Hang Mike Pence!” was the chilling chant of the mob at the US Capitol on 6 January. Can the same constituency be persuaded to vote for Mike Pence on 5 November 2024? He, for one, appears to think so.

Will Putin strike?

A game of nerves on Ukraine’s frontline

On the brink

He was the Tory saviour of Brexit – but sleaze, ‘partygate’ and Omicron have beset Britain’s PM. Now, many of his own MPs want him gone

Omicron could be fatal for us – or fatal for our faith in authorities

The emergence and rapid spread of the Omicron variant feels like a flashback to last year’s grim festive season when much of the world went into lockdown to avert the worst of the Alpha variant wave. But though the sense of eerie, impending doom feels familiar, the epidemiological and political situations are different from one year ago.

How vaccine makers are adapting to mutations

A focus on the exciting potential of T-cell immunity is spurring the sector on to create a new generation of jabs