Middle East
It’s all kicking off again in the Islamic world
They have been burning churches and murdering Christians again in Niger. You’d think that they’d have more immediately pressing concerns…
Anatomy of a failure
Whatever happened to Barack Obama?
The ransom business
Islamic State commanders know exactly how to extract the greatest possible profit from their hostages. Some care about little else
The White Widow myth
Samantha Lewthwaite almost certainly isn’t as monstrous as the papers say. And she definitely isn’t as important
Hannibal vs the Islamic State
Whatever the Islamic State hopes ultimately to achieve by its current onslaught on all and sundry in the Middle East,…
The seeds of Wisdom
The Lawrence books are piling up, aren’t they? I don’t mean the author of The Rainbow, though as I write…
Whose side are they on?
Qatari money has flooded into London – but also into much less savoury places
More war for oil
You can’t understand any of the world’s crises without understanding petropolitics
Give them shelter
The tale is now familiar: shouts are heard from inside a freight container and police are called. A cargo of…
Diary
Wellington, Ontario A British visitor to this village might be disoriented by the flags. They look almost exactly like the…
Letters
Poor treatment Sir: Jane Kelly’s article (‘No tea or sympathy’, 2 August) on the lack of empathy and emotional support…
When did Israel start to seem so bafflingly foreign?
Glaring, the ennui over Israel. The way we drag our eyes to the page, and sigh, and want to read…
Mr al-Baghdadi’s inspirational vision for Europe
There is something attractive about almost the whole of southern Europe being part of an immense and somewhat rigorous caliphate,…
High life
When I hear the words Sykes-Picot I more often than not feel like punching an Englishman or a Frog —…
Letter from Tel Aviv
‘There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor/ I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm/…
General paralysis
America has let Egypt’s old military oligarchs take hold again. Must it carry on paying for them, too?
Love and betrayal
The title of Charles Cumming’s seventh novel is both a nod to the comfortable polarities of Cold War and also…
Kidnaps and killings in Cameron’s happy place
A few days ago I went to a talk about Syria; one of those events for the concerned layman, in…
Absent friends
Israelis’ theories on why it’s fashionable for the West to despise them
Armageddon awaits
Sunni vs Shia, Saudi Arabia vs Iran. A new great war has begun
Father Paolo’s personal peace process
As Syria’s second peace conference looms, and we prepare ourselves for a lot of hot air drifting over from Geneva,…
Protect the Christians
The Middle East’s most persecuted people need our support
Wrong track
So many of the world’s troubles, even today, can be traced back to the empire-builders of 1914 – and the peace-makers of 1919
High Life
This Christmas our thoughts need to be with our fellow Christians who are being threatened in the Bible lands. No…
Why don’t any of my friends own holiday homes?
Hugo Rifkind 9 August 2014 9:00 am
This is to be one of those columns that makes the writer faintly wish there wasn’t an internet. It would…