World

Andrés Sepúlveda sleeps behind bombproof doors in a maximum-security prison in central Bogota, Colombia. When travelling to judicial hearings or to meet prosecutors, he is accompanied by a caravan of armed guards with serious firepower. As they move at high speed through the capital, the motorcade uses sophisticated equipment to jam mobile phones to lower the risk of a coordinated assassination attempt. Sepúlveda is one of the world’s most notorious election-rigging specialists. Now that he has been caught and put in jail, he is helping atone for his crimes by explaining how he fixed elections — and the people he used to work with want him dead. But Sepúlveda isn’t

If there is a place in Turkey where Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the swaggering six-foot president, looks small it is at the tomb of the nation’s founder. Anitkabir, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s mausoleum, spreads over 185 acres in the heart of the capital Ankara. It is a monument to nationalism, towering modernism and the man who dismantled the Ottoman Empire and then rebuilt it as a nation state. Erdogan has made little secret of his distaste for elements of Ataturk’s project – particularly its staunch secularism – since he first rose to political prominence as mayor of Istanbul in the mid-1990s. Yet since 2003, as prime minister and then president, he has been

It seems like only yesterday Donald Trump was buttering up Vladimir Putin. His congratulations on Putin’s victory and failure to mention the nerve agent attack in Salisbury sent the foreign policy establishment in Washington into high dudgeon. Now the administration has expelled 60 Russian diplomats and shuttered the Russian consulate in Seattle. This is only, top administration officials say, ‘the first step.’ The government could also go on to release nasty details about the financial holding that Putin has squirrelled away abroad, a move, incidentally, that could provoke retaliation against Trump by the Kremlin. What gives?  No matter what Trump may tell Putin, and no matter what Trump may aspire to

Poor old Martin Selmayr. He had thought that, once he seized power as Secretary-General of the European Commission, he’d be indestructible – after all no one can fire him, not even the President. But his power grab, exposed by Jean Quatremer, has led to outcry all over Europe. Emmanuel Macron has said the coup needs to be looked at and now even Wikipedia is turning against him. As Mr S noted last week, Selmayr appeared to have edited his own entry. Changes made to Selmayr’s page stressed that he has ‘consistently denied’ leaking details about the Brexit negotiations… … credited Selmayr with working closely with Michel Barnier towards the ‘sufficient progress’ agreement on Brexit…

John Bolton – owner of the finest moustache in American politics since Teddy Roosevelt – has been appointed Donald Trump’s new national security adviser. He replaces the outgoing HR McMaster, a veritable survivor who managed to last 395 days at the White House. That’s two terms plus a recess appointment in MAGA years.  Hysteria is now the default mode of American politics so it was inevitable that Bolton’s appointment would be reported like a newly discovered post-script to the Book of Revelation. Even so, we should try to gain some perspective on the man who will be guiding President Trump’s national security policy (to the extent Trump has a national

In this week’s Books Podcast, I’m joined by the Telegraph’s former parliamentary sketch writer Andrew Gimson, and the Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson, to discuss their latest superhero-style team-up: Gimson’s Prime Ministers. The book is a complete set of brief lives of every occupant of Number Ten from Walpole to May — illustrated by Martin’s distinctive caricatures. What makes a good PM? Why will the UK never get a Trump? Why did one of them not even merit a biography? And which one predeceased a parrot? Learn all this and more… And if you enjoyed that, do subscribe on iTunes.

From the outside it all looked haphazard and frenzied. A campaign that was -skidding from scandal to crisis on its way to total defeat. That’s not how it felt inside the ‘Project Alamo’ offices in San Antonio, Texas where Trump’s digital division — led by Brad Parscale, who’d worked previously with Trump’s estate division setting up websites — was running one of the most sophisticated data-led election campaigns ever. Once Trump’s nomination was secured, the Republican Party heavyweights moved in, and so did seconded staff from Facebook and Google, there to help their well-paying clients best use their platforms to reach voters. Joining them were 13 employees from the UK-based

Nicolas Sarkozy was put in custody this morning as part of a police investigation into allegations that he received millions of euros in illegal financing during his 2007 presidential campaign from the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. According to Le Monde, Sarkozy – who has denied wrongdoing since the investigation was launched in 2013 – is being held at the Nanterre police station, west of Paris. He could be detained for up to 48 hours as he answers questions about the funding for his 2007 presidential campaign, in which he defeated the Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal. The alleged payments would contravene the maximum funding limit of 21m euros and also breach

Vladimir Putin’s re-election was never in doubt. And following last night’s result in which the Russian president won 76 per cent of the vote, Russia is now facing the prospect of six more years of Putin in charge – making Putin the longest serving Russian leader since Stalin. The Russian president’s ‘gangster state is an affront to democracy’, says the Sun, which urges Theresa May to continue her ‘hardline stance’ against the country. The PM’s reaction to the Salisbury poisoning has been ‘spot on’ so far, says the paper, which says it is high time that we ‘take the threat’ of Putin’s regime ‘very seriously’. So what should the government

Vladimir Chizhov – Porton Down was a possible origin of the Salisbury attack Once again, the shocking attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal is dominating the political landscape. In a statement on Wednesday, the Prime Minister declared in the House of Commons that there was ‘no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter’, and announced that 23 Russian diplomats were to be expelled from the United Kingdom. She also identified the nerve agent used in the attack as a ‘Novichok’. The Russian Ambassador to the EU joined Andrew Marr this morning to put forward his country’s

As I say in The Sun this morning, one of the things about the Salisbury attack that has disconcerted the UK government is how–relatively obvious–the Russians have made it, that it was them. They clearly wanted to send a message. In Whitehall, the thinking is that there were three things that Moscow was trying to achieve with the poisoning of Sergei Skripal. First, to show Russia’s enemies that they are never safe. If they can hit a former spy for Britain who was keeping a low profile in a small English City then they can get to anyone. Second, they think that the Russians were trying to test Britain. This