World

In the White House on Tuesday, with the world just where he wanted it — eyes on the TV, transfixed by his boldness — President Trump uprooted the Iran nuclear deal. Under this agreement, which was signed in July 2015 by Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany, the Iranians mothballed significant parts of their rapidly advancing nuclear industry in return for sanctions relief. The country is now considerably further away from a bomb than it was before, and its nuclear facilities are subject to inspections of unusual intrusiveness. In March Gadi Eisenkot, Israel’s chief of the general staff, affirmed that the agreement ‘is

For the past year or so, in speaking to groups, I’ve ventured to suggest that Donald Trump will ultimately rank among the least consequential presidents in U.S. history. I did not intend that to be a laugh line. Trump, I argued, was likely to end up being to the 21st century what James Buchanan was to the 19th and Warren G. Harding to the 20th – someone who, after occupying the White House for a time, departed and left nary a trace. In the end, Trump’s defining traits — vulgarity, meanness, self-absorption, and apparently compulsive dishonesty — would count for little in the scales of history. So I believed. Let

Did anybody really think President Donald J Trump wasn’t going to pull out of the Iran deal? He’s said all along he would and this Commander-in-Chief’s number one public image rule is that, unlike most politicians, he honours his word. Trump’s other big rule is that anything Obama has done he’ll undo. And Obama’s biggest achievement, according to his admirers and former staffers, was the Iran deal, which – in theory anyway — stopped Tehran from acquiring nukes while strengthening democratic forces within the troubled Muslim state. The pride with which Team Obama held up the deal was precisely why Team Trump wanted to destroy. And with his new hawkish cabinet — a

From 2009 to 2010 Sven Hughes worked for SCL group, the parent company of the controversial — now deceased —  Cambridge Analytica. SCL/Cambridge Analytica and its CEO Alexander Nix have been in the news a lot lately, chiefly because of their role in the Trump campaign. The fall of Cambridge Analytica was prompted by a Channel 4 documentary in which Nix boasted about running ‘counter ops’ — sting operations and so on — against political opponents. The firm shut down on Wednesday. In this podcast, Sven, now the CEO of a company called Verbalisation, talks to me about his part in those ‘counter ops’ in elections in the Caribbean; about

Imagine if the 1,200 hoodlums who rampaged through Paris on May Day had been members of a far-right organisation. Imagine the reaction in the media, the endless cliched references to the 1930s and dire warnings of the rise of a new generation of fascism in Europe. The fascists are here, all right, and on Tuesday they firebombed a McDonald’s (the footage below is frightening), torched a car showroom and damaged or destroyed thirty other business premises. But because they vandalised in the name of the far-left, reaction has been muted across Europe. In a few reports, one can even detect a grudging admiration for the perpetrators of the violence. 🔴Le McDonald’s

A decision on one of the more controversial of U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies was yesterday postponed as the U.S. extended the exemption from tariffs on steel and aluminium imports for a handful of allies including the European Union. The news comes in the wake of talks with Europe’s ‘big hitters’, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who left Washington with seemingly little to show for their efforts. But this reprieve might quietly be considered a victory–so long as the Europeans can figure out a way to make it permanent. As tensions with China escalate, the bloc will hope that Trump is realising he needs the economic

Just getting to meet the two British jihadists accused of being part of the so-called “Beatles” cell of Islamic State terrorists is an arduous task. Crossing the Tigris in a battered river barge is the only route available from Iraq into Rojava, the Kurdish controlled part of northern Syria where the two men – Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh – are being held along with hundreds, possibly thousands, of Isis foreign fighters. The Kurdish YPG militia oversee all movement in Rojava and its intelligence wing controls access to their detainees a seven hour drive away in the town of Kobane; a journey that takes visitors through dozens of towns battle

Amina Ahmed counts herself as one of the lucky ones, or just about. When Boko Haram staged a mass kidnapping in her home town of Gwoza, northern Nigeria, three years ago, she and other female captives were sorted into two different categories of chattel. The less favoured ones were conscripted as cannon fodder against the Nigerian army, with suicide bombs strapped to their waists. The others became ‘servants to the Emir’s soldiers’ – which, Amina discovered, was Islamist-speak for sex slave. During her two years in captivity, she was forced to sleep with at least 10 different men. She’d shudder whenever she heard their motorbikes roaring into camp. Eight months

For France and Germany, the contrast could scarcely be starker. For three days Emmanuel Macron was wooed and fêted by Donald Trump, treated to marching bands and banquets. Today, Angela Merkel made a brief two-and-a-half hour stop-off at the White House, then flew away again. So does this mean President Macron is Trump’s New Best Friend and Chancellor Merkel is just his sideman (or should that be sidewoman?)? As always, in international diplomacy, this is a question to which the answer is: well, yes and no. Sure, the dramatic difference between these tête-à-têtes was no coincidence. Yes, Macron’s was a full state visit, Merkel’s was merely a working meeting, but

Diane Abbott is calling for Amber Rudd’s head over the Windrush scandal – but Mr Steerpike was somewhat taken aback by her line of attack against the Home Secretary. On BBC News, Abbott asked: ‘Who can have confidence in Amber Rudd to make far-reaching changes in the Home Office, if she doesn’t seem able to get basic facts right?’ But is she forgetting her own history of blunders? Take the time in the run-up to last year’s snap election when Abbott told LBC’s Nick Ferrari it would cost £300,000 to recruit ten thousand police officers: Or when she recounted listening to Enoch Powell’s speech in primary school; a speech given