Afghanistan
The woman who wrote Afghanistan’s electoral laws lives on a houseboat in Bristol
By the age of eight Vaira Vike-Freiberga had learnt that life was both ‘very strange and very unfair’. Her baby…
An important story but not for the faint-hearted: Deadliest Day podcast reviewed
One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given…
Female contestants in Afghanistan’s X Factor are dicing with death
The cheering fans, the dramatic Hollywood-style drum rolls, the excitable host all sound just like The X Factor or The…
The Lion of the Punjab: the short, brutish career of John Nicholson
‘I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion’, said Winston Churchill as prime minister in 1942,…
Why women are still fuming over my Desert Island slips
It never occurred to me, when I was interviewed for Desert Island Discs back in November, that I’d actually be…
Is forgetting a modern disease?
If you were to ask me by the end of the week what I had written about in this column…
It’s hard to preserve the primacy of head over heart while watching this doc about refugees
Anybody who wants to maintain a strong and untroubled stance against mass migration to Europe should probably avoid BBC2’s Exodus:…
Serial returns with a story of loyalty, resilience and punishment
The new season of the Serial podcast (produced by the same team who make This American Life) was launched last…
While we weren't looking, the Taleban surged back in Afghanistan
Amid all the chaos in the Middle East, the breakdown of borders and states, a new threat is fast emerging.…
Islamic State is making its threats a reality
When the creation of a new caliphate was announced last year, who but the small band of his followers took…
Iran’s hidden war with the West – and what we can do to fight back
When British troops were on patrol in Iraq and Afghanistan, we faced many enemies, from jihadis to press-ganged civilians. But…
Why the Middle East needs more kings
Watch the videos of 1950s Iraq on YouTube and you glimpse something close to an idyll. It’s true that Pathé…
Niall Ferguson's biography of Henry Kissinger is a masterpiece
I have met Dr Kissinger, properly, only three times. First, in Cairo, in 1980, when, as a junior diplomat escorting…
The way we treat our heroes is a disgrace
Matthew Green, former Financial Times and Reuters correspondent, remains unimpressed by officialdom’s response to casualties who aren’t actually bleeding: Ever…
As the Hindenburg burned, you could hear radio news being born
It’s really hard to imagine now a world before 24-hour news, continually and constantly accessible in a never-ending stream of…
Portrait of the week
Home Tom Hayes, aged 35, a former City trader who rigged the Libor rates daily for nearly four years while…
Ali Baba and the 300 hostages: the kidnappers who prey on desperate migrants in Europe’s border badlands
In the heat of the midday sun, the fields and woodlands between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia look idyllic:…
My dirty secret: I don’t care either way about state surveillance
The Snoopers’ Charter. I ought to care about this. I’m a sort of libertarian. I believe in personal freedom. I’m…
Was Genghis Khan the cruellest man who ever lived?
From the unpromising and desperately unforgiving background that forged his iron will and boundless ambition, Temujin (as Genghis Khan was…
The dark side of Delhi
When Sara discovers that her husband died in India, rather than being killed in Afghanistan as she was told, she…
Mercenaries could transform the fight against Isis – if we let them
Last Sunday Isis raised their black flag over Palmyra. Below the flag, in the days that followed, the usual carnage…
Lesley Blanch: a true original on the wilder shores of exoticism
Lesley Blanch (1904–2007) will be remembered chiefly for her gloriously extravagant The Wilder Shores of Love, the story of four…
The Cricket World Cup needs minnows
Graeme Swann arrived late for the last cricket World Cup. His wife had given birth before the tournament and he…
A major-general names the guilty men
The author of this primer to the long-overdue Chilcot report, a retired sapper (Royal Engineers) major-general, nails his colours to…
I guarded Rudolf Hess
I had the misfortune to meet Lord Richards on probably the darkest day of his 42 years in the military.…
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