Syria

Christians in Mosul have been offered three choices by ISIS: 1. Convert to Islam. 2. Pay the ‘jizya’ tax that renders them dhimmis – i.e., second-class citizens granted limited protection if they hand over half an ounce of pure gold. 3. Death by the sword. They had until noon today to make up their minds. Bit of a no-brainer, really. Mosul’s Christians – Catholics and Orthodox who until this month had celebrated Mass in the city every Sunday for 1,600 years – are fleeing for safety. Perhaps, by the time you read this, Barack Obama – a weekly worshipper at a crazy rabble-rousing church while he was running for office in

You have to laugh. Two men who’ve admitted to trying to go abroad to fight jihad had to buy copies of Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies before their glorious mission. Shouldn’t the publishers cash in by publishing a Jihad for Dummies? It would sell like hotcakes. The young chaps, Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed, are off to jail for a while, but to paraphrase Bill Hicks, I don’t think we’ve lost any cancer curers here. But they are far from being Britain’s stupidest jihadis. This country, which is at the cutting edge of social trends in pioneering the Reverse Flynn Effect, seems to produce an enormous number

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, rang Jean-Claude Juncker to congratulate him on being nominated by EU heads of government as president of the European Commission. Mr Cameron had insisted the question should go to a vote at an EU summit, where 26 voted for Mr Juncker and two against: he and Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary. Mr Cameron announced a review into why, in the face of resistance to antibiotics, few anti-microbial drugs have been introduced in recent years. Sir Elton John came out in favour of gay marriage for clergy: ‘If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he

I have a nominee for idiot of the week. I had never heard of him until yesterday, but he is one ‘Andreas Krieg’ who the Daily Mail has referred to as ‘a Middle East security analyst at King’s College London in Qatar.’ Mr Krieg was quoted in a story on the violence in Iraq, Syria, Kenya, Nigeria and elsewhere. This included stories so bloodthirsty that it is hard to look at some of the pictures which accompany the text. It should also be remembered that most of the victims of this violence are Muslim. And so are all of the perpetrators. So how, on being asked for a reaction to

Theresa May has suggested she may reignite plans for a ‘snoopers’ charter’, in order to provide intelligence services with greater surveillance powers.  She has called for new powers in order to respond to the terror threat from British jihadists returning from the Middle East.  In September 2012, Nick Cohen explained in The Spectator why a communications data bill would be a dangerous thing: Ever since the millennium, I have wondered how long the utopian faith in the emancipatory potential of the web will last. Of course, we know the new technologies give the citizen new powers to communicate and connect. We hear this praised so loudly and so often, how could

Yesterday evening, I returned home, made a cup of tea and slumped down to catch up on the day’s news. A piece on Twitter caught my eye. Posted by Channel 4, it was titled ‘#Jihad: how ISIS is using social media to win support’. Click. Soon I was learning about how ISIS was calling for global support via a sophisticated social media campaign, branded the ‘one billion campaign’. Click, click. Onto YouTube, where I found graphic videos recorded and uploaded by ISIS members. Click, click, click. Ten minutes later, and I was on Twitter, being recruited by jihadis to come join them. Clearly, I am not about to head to

The social media exchanges of British jihadis in Syria and Iraq, as just revealed, are perfectly riveting, don’t you think? Fancy worrying about things like where to leave your luggage and internet connections when you’re a jihadi. There’s scope here for TripAdviser. But when it comes to jihadists from Britain, I’d rather like a bit more pertinent information about them than their currency exchange problems. I rather get the impression it’s BBC policy to describe the Brits fighting for ISIS and similar just as British citizens, or Britons, presumably on the basis that to describe them as being something like ‘of Pakistani/Nigerian/Syrian origin’ would invidiously distinguish between one citizen and

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said on television that he was ‘bullish’ about negotiating change for Britain in the European Union, but that there would be a referendum on membership by the end of 2017 ‘whether or not I have successfully negotiated’. In a telephone poll by Lord Ashcroft the Conservatives were found to be ahead for the first time since 2012, on 34 per cent, with Labour at 32, Ukip 15 and the Liberal Democrats 9. An ICM poll said much the same. In the first quarter since visa restrictions were lifted, 140,000 Romanians and Bulgarians were employed in Britain, not counting dependants. Unemployment fell by 133,000 to

As rebels, terrorists, fascists, foreign forces, activists, separatists, militants, militias, nationalist groups, Neo-Nazis, Right Sector forces — take your pick — spread civil war across the increasingly lawless cities of eastern Ukraine, a pro-Russian commander helpfully commented ,‘We have God in our hearts, and they have cockroaches in their brains’. In 431 bc the so-called ‘Peloponnesian war’ broke out between Athens and Sparta. In 427 bc, pro-Spartan oligarchs attempted to drive pro-Athenian democrats out of Corcyra (Corfu), as a result of which civil war spread rapidly from city to city. It was described with horror by the contemporary historian Thucydides, who imagined war as ‘a schoolmaster in brutality’, with both sides taking lessons

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, appeared in public with George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer — the first time they had been photographed as a couple for four years — to draw attention to infrastructure projects. Mr Cameron mentioned in an article for the Church Times that Britain is a Christian country, which made 55 celebrity atheists write to the Daily Telegraph to deny it. A new Family Court came into being, committed to resolving within 26 weeks cases about the care of children, rather than the average of 56 weeks recorded in 2011. Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat pensions minister, said that the government could help people

 Gaza City Tattered green Hamas flags still flap above the streets in central Gaza and posters of its martyrs hang in public spaces. But these are tough times for the Hamas government, and not just due to the recent flare-up in tensions with Israel. In December last year, they cancelled rallies planned for the 26th anniversary of their founding, an occasion celebrated ever since they seized power here in 2007, and though usually secretive about their financial affairs, they revealed a 2014 budget of $589 million, with a gigantic 75 per cent deficit. So, what’s gone wrong for Hamas? Just a year ago, it seemed to be enjoying a honeymoon