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Ian BirrellIndependent |
Jason Pulman was the oldest of five children, a talented artist who ‘‘loved all the silliness in the world and using it to make all those around...
Six years ago, while on a reporting trip to Gaza, I met a 26-year-old man called Mohammed al-Taluli who had dared to challenge Hamas by organising...
During my journalistic career I have spoken to traumatised people around the world suffering terrible consequences of war, earthquakes and torture....
The Tories are panicking again as they look at the polls, contemplate their looming electoral wipeout after another disastrous week at Westminster and...
Theresa May has announced she is leaving the political stage at the next election while polls indicate that the party she headed for three years faces...
Last week Emmanuel Macron, the French President, engaged in sabre-rattling that set nerves jangling from Moscow to Washington. Speaking at a press...
Adam Kinzinger used to be a mainstream Republican. He is an evangelical Christian and former US Air Force colonel who served as a pilot in conflict...
Volodymyr Zelensky is a bold, competitive and determined man, driven by an astonishing sense of self-belief. These personal traits took him from his...
The scenery of lush tropical rainforest was stunning but the stories of atrocities were disturbing. One mother told me of being raped beside the road...
Dominic Cummings is far from the ideal person to deliver warnings about dangers of misinformation, given his track record. Yet last week he wrote...
Amid so much grim global news, something to celebrate. For the biggest election year in human history, which will see more than half the planet’s...
In May 2020, as the planet grappled with the pandemic, China’s state media declared that there were ‘obvious deficiencies’ in Hong Kong law...
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has made a busy start to 2024 with a general election looming. First came a new year message to voters, insisting...
Two days after Christmas, the South Korean actor Lee Sun-kyun, best known for playing a wealthy patriarch in the Oscar-winning film Parasite, was...
The artists, booksellers, musicians and writers all knew each other well, so greeted each other warmly in the restaurant, cracking jokes as...
The chilly winds of appeasement blow through the West as Ukrainians shed blood in their epochal battle between democracy and dictatorship. Last week,...
Rishi Sunak was right about one thing when he won the top job little more than a year ago. Declaring that his “utmost priority” was to unite a...
Two days after arriving back in Kyiv, I woke to familiar sounds of war as Ukraine’s capital suffered its heaviest drone attack since the start of...
From the moment Hamas terrorists went on their murderous rampage in Israel, Joe Biden sought to tie together two seismic conflicts that erupted during...
David Cameron is back in frontline politics. These are words I never expected to write. His return as Foreign Secretary shocked everyone, a rare event...
In a Westminster world stuffed with ambitious party hacks and entitled creeps who see compassion as a dirty word, the arrival of Paulette Hamilton in...
The Covid inquiry last week performed an invaluable service. It seemed as if we were watching a savage new political satire amid all the posturing and...
Two years after becoming prime minister, Margaret Thatcher gave an interview to The Jewish Chronicle about her forceful condemnation of an Israeli...
Five years ago in Gaza, I watched the theatre of tragedy play out before my eyes. I had gone to report on the eruption of protests against a border...
The Government is tying itself in knots to show firm support for Israel after terrorist atrocities while avoiding condemnation of possible breaches of...
When I wrote on Sunday as horrifying details of Hamas atrocities started emerging, my column here was starkly headlined “This is Israel’s 9/11”...
The symbolism could not be starker: young people at a rave for peace in the desert, their happiness and spirit of unity shattered by the rumble of...
Is it any wonder political satire struggles so badly these days when the leader of a party in power for 13 years presents himself as the candidate of...
It is the details, as always, that are so disturbing. The violence of the alleged rape, his victim pushed up against a wall. The taxi sent to collect...
Daniel Khalife is back behind bars after police pulled the 21-year-old former soldier from a bicycle as he pedalled along a canal towpath. Ministers...