As sanctions on Russia were started in 2014 and have been gradually escalating some of the Russian oligarchs embraced re-profiling their companies to the Western ones. It seemed a good way to go for those of businessmen who are heavy reliant on export volumes and US and European investments. Such is metal production [...]

Fanatical. Deluded. Emotive nonsense. These are unusually strong terms for a judge to use, particularly in a case as intensely sad and bitterly contested as that of the terminally ill child Alfie Evans. Yet Mr Justice Hayden, referring to some of the campaigners now surrounding Alfie’s parents, did not mince his [...]

Can a 40-year-old French president, who gives sweeping speeches about Europe, singlehandedly save the global liberal order – and western democracy with it – by whispering into a the ear of a 71-year-old US president who has only contempt for the European project and the values it is meant to uphold? To ask the [...]

West Midlands police has been censured by the region’s police and crime commissioner, David Jamieson, and told to remove “insensitive” posters. These come with the message “Your kindness could kill” and depict a crime scene body outline, full of coins: giving money to rough sleepers could help them buy drugs [...]

At about 5pm on 22 April 1915, French and Algerian troops on the Ypres front in Belgium noticed a lull in the German artillery fire that had been targeting their lines. Bracing themselves for an expected infantry advance, they were puzzled instead to observe a greenish-yellow cloud drifting towards them, then lapping [...]

These are serious times. Following the missile attacks on Syria, now is the moment for a powerful push for peace. Boris Johnson’s blithe acceptance on Sunday that the conflict will now continue on its current course and that peace negotiations would be an “extra” is an unconscionable abdication of responsibility [...]

I trust the prime minister. Theresa May’s caution is admirable compared with Vladimir Putin’s macho conduct or the infantile tweeting of Donald Trump. I also understand that our alliances dictate that she now has to support the US and France – in some way – if action is taken against Bashar al-Assad’s [...]

A dark cloud hangs over China and the United States. America has announced successive protectionist tariffs pursuant to its domestic laws, forcing China to take counter-measures. The so-called “investigations” under legislation, such as section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974, risk igniting a trade war between the [...]

Conscience has become the mayfly of our era: here today, gone tomorrow. For the moment, the world is transfixed by the horrific images from Douma, near the Syrian capital, Damascus. Dozens have died, and hundreds lie injured after what was quite clearly a chemical weapon [...]

A couple of years before I retired as an officer, the Metropolitan police carried out a survey on knife crime across the capital’s schools. One point came through loud and clear: that many young people carried knives out of fear for their own safety. This echoed the anecdotal evidenced I observed during my 17 [...]