World

In the week when the Iranian regime forced Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to goulishly re-enact the murder of her husband on TV, it is worth reading Newsweek’s interview with Mohammad Javad Larijani, a regime insider. His answers call to mind Comical Ali, whose delusional denials of the US advance in Iraq made everyone realise how detached from reality Saddam Hussein’s regime really was. First on the matter of torture, routinely said by the UN, former prisoners and defectors to be used by Iranian officials: “Torture is forbidden by the Constitution. Any law officer who tortures civilians will meet a very harsh punishment.” Of course, he admits, the Iranian system could “need

No, not Paris, but the University of Essex – where, in early to mid-1968, students rallied angrily against Vietnam and all that. The situation was aggravated when three students – including David Triesman, later Lord Triesman – were summarily suspended from their studies, and The Spectator duly dispatched a correspondent to investigate. The resultant article came in the issue dated 24 May 1968; a few pages on from an editorial headlined “How to deal with the student problem”, and alongside coverage of events in France. Here it is: The truth about Essex, Ian MacGregor, The Spectator, 24 May 1968 The first thing that strikes you about Essex university is the

China is doing what it can do to scupper the forthcoming Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. Their Foreign Ministry has now said that countries who decided to attend event would be showing disrespect to China: “We hope those countries that have received the invitation can tell right from wrong,” the ministry’s spokeswoman told journalists. Many of the world’s human-rights abusers have been only too happy to oblige, including Pakistan, Iran and so on. They want to keep friendly with China and share Beijing’s anti-democratic agenda. But, oddly enough, Serbia, a would-be EU member, is said to have chosen to boycott the Norwegian event. Keen to get Chinese financial assistance

We are at war online – and we are losing Almost exactly two years ago, an American army officer found a memory stick in a car park in the Middle East and, out of curiosity, inserted it into his military laptop. It seemed to be empty, but there are a million ways of disguising a Trojan computer virus. Instantly, a malicious software code uploaded onto the US Central Command military computer network and embedded itself in the system. And there it lay undetected for weeks, able to send back all manner of classified information. In the words of the deputy US defence secretary, William J. Lynn III, it was ‘poised

The leak that keeps on leaking has one or two embarrassing titbits about our domestic policymakers this morning. Yet far more noteworthy are the documents on Pakistan. While they don’t tell us too much that is surprising – being mostly about the duplicitous game that country is playing with the West – they do highlight some potentially worrying trends. Chief among them is the growing influence of General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, the head of Pakistan’s army. His name is littered generously throughout the US briefings, and it is often connected with dangerous conspiracy and double-dealing. One document, for instance, suggests that Kiyani was prepared to overthrow the Pakistani President, Asif

A mother jailed for retracting allegations of rape by her husband, (allegations she now says were truthful) has been freed. A few days ago, appeal judges overturned the eight-month sentence of which she had served seventeen days, ordering her immediate release.  A triumph for common sense and compassion, but why was she jailed in the first place? Yes, the CPS thought she’d lied under oath and invented a rape claim – and that’s serious – but, as it turns out, her husband intimidated her into retracting the claim. In any event, an eight-month sentence is excessive. It is precisely the sort of sentence that the government should be reviewing in