Writing
'I have a big job to do for my people'
Airlifted out of Kabul in 2021, Zahra Joya has been running a news agency in exile, managing a team of undercover journalists in Afghanistan. Her work has won her a number of awards, but has also created new dangers for the family she left behind.
France: Police killing weighs in the banlieues before run-off vote
Chagos: Islanders caught in game of political football
The Chagos islanders have waged a decades-long battle with the UK to return to their homeland, which was wrangled from Mauritius in a cut-price independence deal in the 60s and leased to the US as a military base. Now, following a ruling by the UN maritime court last year, Mauritius has planted its flag on the territory.
Yazidi women and girls still enslaved
Lahur Talabani was the south London boy who brought the fight to Islamic State in his native Kurdistan, playing a leading role in intelligence and counterterrorism. Now his Surrey-raised cousin wants to boot him out the country.
Internecine feud in Kurdish ruling clan
Lahur Talabani was the south London boy who brought the fight to Islamic State in his native Kurdistan, playing a leading role in intelligence and counterterrorism. Now his Surrey-raised cousin wants to boot him out the country.
Relatives of family killed in M6 crash thank Irish people
The story of Karzan Sabah Ahmed and Shahen Qasm, who died with their baby in a crash in Galway. People from across Ireland raised funds to send them home to their family in Erbil.
Kurdistan: a shot at statehood
Foreign aid and oil money have been key to the survival of Kurdistan’s two mafia-like ruling clans, the Barzanis and the Talabanis. And poverty, lots of it. For their success depends on them being the ones with all the cash to splash.
Covid-19 and an IS comeback
Could it happen again? In Mosul, locals still feel the presence of Islamic State, hidden in the cracks and seams of city life.
Mosul’s new masters
After Isis, came the mafia. In Mosul, a jumbled assortment of Iran-backed militias, known collectively as the Hashd al-Shaabi, compete for their share of the spoils of war.

The vapers of Mosul
BBC Radio 4 (03/20) @11.14mins
Out on the hustle with three buccaneering entrepreneurs, selling vapes in war-torn Mosul. Moslawis are born entrepreneurs. Given half the chance, they can make their city great again.

Syrian Kurds face bleakest winter
Syrian Kurds, who fled Turkish bombing last year, adjust to life in an Iraqi camp. Mercenaries have looted, burned and confiscated properties back home. They know they’re never going back.

‘We are only 1,000, but we fight like 10,000.’
In the hills of northern Iraq, I meet showman general Hussein Yazdanpanah, whose Iranian Kurdish fighters are fighting against a resurgent Islamic State and the Tehran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militias.

The best weapon against war in Iraq is a waistcoat
For the dapper young men at Mr Erbil, style is survival. In their emporium of hip, espressos are sipped and style flaunted as chaos and menace swirl outside. No talk of religion or politics permitted.

‘You live with these men as a slave. It’s free for them to do anything’
Naveen Rasho endured five years of hell at the hands of Islamic State. She survived the fall of the caliphate in Baghuz, only to face the fresh horror of detention at Al Hawl camp in Syria with her captor’s three brides.

Cherry: A life stranger than fiction
Nico Walker served as an army medic in Iraq’s ‘Triangle of Death’. Returning home with severe PTSD, he turned to heroin and bank robberies. Now in prison, he has reinvented himself as a bestselling novelist.

Lives shattered, Syria’s Kurds flee to Iraq
Dependent on what she describes as a “spider’s web” of drivers and smugglers, Gulistan and her family pushed blindly through the confusion of an eight-year civil war that had recently taken yet another deadly turn.

Global Ear: Dé:Nash
Hungarian rapper Dé:Nash mines his country’s collective consciousness, satirising the Fidesz regime’s use of ancient legend, historical grievances and conspiracy theories to craft a new national narrative.











































































UK

XR – A wake-up call for the world

Was ist Britisch?

The DUP’s Belfast heartland

Where is Britain heading?


Britain’s Trump?

Brexit blog

Island mentality

Scotland post-ref

Scots referendum blog

L’Écosse à la veille du référendum

The morning after …

Orange parade in Edinburgh

Scotland’s youth vote

Scottish artists project new confidence

Interview with Alex Salmond (in French)

Patriotes, mais pas indépendantistes

Faire revivre l’art écossais
Culture
The Great stink of London
Travel feature taking us right back to London in 1858, just as the city's inhabitants are 'isolating' indoors from a hot fog of pestilence rising from the sewage-filled Thames . Highlight is a visit to The Rookery, aka Little Ireland, where residents are dying en masse from cholera.
Interview with William Sitwell
Interview with William Sitwell, restaurant critic for The Telegraph, whose book on eating out was published just as every restaurant in the world had closed.
London's top 40
North, south, east and west - tips for glorious views and open spaces, exciting markets and museums, unusual places to eat and places to think – and much more.

TV dinners
They never taste quite like they look on the box. But there’s still something irresistibly novel about bung-it-in-the-micro TV dinners. Binge-watching telly during successive lockdowns, teas on knees have made a comeback.

Critics’ choice
What to read and watch in summer 2020. Tips from two women in the know: Lucy Scholes, who writes about books for The Telegraph and the FT, and Clarisse Loughrey, chief film critic at The Independent. TWO-PAGE SAMPLE.

Crafted in Edinburgh
A tour of the Edinburgh crafts scene. We launch in the Grassmarket, home to the highest concentration of pubs in the city. Encounters with a post-punk milliner, a teenage bagpipe maker and a canine couturier. ONE-PAGE SAMPLE.

Laughter is the best medicine
Interview with Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt, on the gruelling realities of working as a doctor in Britain’s National Health Service, and the likely impact of Covid-19 on the system. ONE-PAGE SAMPLE.

The pursuit of happiness
Feature on happiness in the era of the ubiquitous smiley. It’s boom time for sales of self-help books, now the fastest-growing genre in the publishing world. ONE-PAGE SAMPLE.

Books beyond borders
Interview with Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher detective series, ahead of a “friendship” tour of Europe with fellow rock-star authors Ken Follett, Kate Mosse and Jojo Moyes. ONE-PAGE SAMPLE.

South London walking tour
From low life to the high life. A few hundred years ago, the smelly “sarf” was known as a lawless land of loose morals, home to gambling dens, brothels and – shock horror! – theatres. SAMPLE PAGES

Bloomsbury/Holborn/Soho walking tour

My home is my castle

Big little screens

London walks: 5 classic sights

Elvis – still calling the tune

Travel reviews

Ancestral tongues

What does it mean to be Canadian?

Fur flies over Canada’s identity

Remembering Square Deal

Meet the Beatlemaniac

Pige: objectif monde!

They’re speaking our languages

Surreal sounds of the city
Offbeat

The Banjul Brits

Hunger games

Bucharest’s dictator tours

Trouble in paradise

In search of Philip Marlowe

‘Illegal’ midwives on call

Trekkies descend on Vulcan

Ghost towns of Alberta

Deadly Secret

Spirits of a community

War and peace

Holiday in Asbestos

Don’t hold your breath for Asbestos to catch on

Holy rivalry over Kateri
Business

A land of rising opportunity

Mauritius: China and India invest in island

Bored of Bonds? Try Madonna’s famous bustier

Social network economy leaving business behind

Law firms slash perks

Aboriginal law a vibrant field

No more Mr. Nice Guy

How far will parents go to keep kids in private school?

To the haggler goes the spoils

A bailout under every tree

Mad about saffron

Common attacks on common enemies

Microsoft’s judgement day

Google takes a hit over data privacy

Memory-lapsed chip battles
People

Pakistan’s A-list hairdresser

Liberia – Her mother’s passion

Good works in Gambia

Out of Dublin and into Monrovia

Scotland – He has the key

Scotland – The ideas man

Full marks to Foley as GAA goes to Scotland

Norway – Carving out a niche means having the best of both worlds

Oslo move a career booster

Canada – Zig-zag trajectory led to online teaching

Island life – Touria Prayag, editor of Mauritian newspaper Express Weekly

Toronto’s Irish pantry

Canada – Student rebel with a cause

Belfast boy becomes Montreal local legend

Canada – Irish publican drinks to his success
