Peril upon the Sea

David Grann is one of a very select club of writers: those whose books of history are so diverting that they almost seem implausible. Their narrative constructions are so effective, the dialogue so apposite, that jaded readers might think everything has been made up or twisted to give the books life, in novelistic fashion. 

William Gerhardie’s Russian Problem

William Gerhardie was born in St Petersburg in 1895, and largely grew up there. He served in the British missions to Petersburg and Vladivostok after the beginning of the Bolshevik rise to power, soon after which his first novel, Futility, was praised hysterically for its adherence to what the subtitle called ‘Russian Themes’. Gerhardie’s book on Anton Chekhov was the first study of the writer published outside Russia in any language. And yet he spent much of his life denying any suggestion that he was a Russian. 

The Purchase of Politics with Money

The trading of influence for money is everywhere — and Britain is not immune. 

Or so the anti-Brexit campaigning group Led by Donkeys found. They set up a fake Korean company, threw together a website and went on a fishing expedition. In so doing, the activists managed to snare some British politicians touting for extracurricular work. 

Sudan’s Dreams of Democracy Seem to Be Over

Fighting is raging once again in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, where a power struggle between rival factions has claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Around 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 injured in the wake of an attempted coup. 

Don’t Ignore the Brutal Civil War in Burma

It is a bad cliché, of several decades’ vintage, to say that a given civil war is ‘complex’. Normally, this is a dodge on the foreign correspondent’s part. He either wishes to hide his lack of knowledge from you, or to pretend that without him holding the reader’s hand, they could never hope to understand the story.   

Israel Falls into Chaos

Chaos reigns in Israel, a country in the throes of an ad hoc general strike called by trade unions, university students, numerous industries across the country, and many military and civil defence reservists. Demonstrators are storming buildings and fighting the police. Some council leaders say they are beginning a hunger strike. If you wanted to fly into Ben Gurion airport today, as tens of thousands of people usually do of a weekday, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. It’s closed.  

Israel’s Constitutional Standoff

Israeli politics is rarely quiet, but recent events have taken the drama and volubility to another level. The country has faced 11 weeks of protests against the make-up of Israel’s governing coalition and reforms to the country’s judicial system. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets. Roads have been blocked. The Knesset and politicians’ homes in Jerusalem have been targeted. Israeli police have used mounted officers, stun grenades and water cannon to disperse demonstrators. 

Tunisia’s New Dictatorship

Tunisia has become a police state. This has not happened overnight. But it is still a shocking reversal in democratic development.  

This is the country whose former dictator was overthrown in a few days in 2011. His was the first scalp claimed by the Arab revolutions of that year. But where the tyrant Zine El Abidine Ben Ali once went (apart from running away in disgrace), his latest successor, Kais Saied, longs to follow.  

Appeasing Assad at Munich

The Arab nations are making certain not to let a good crisis go to waste. This month’s earthquake in Turkey and Syria has revealed that the region’s tyrannies have given up on confronting Syria. As their leaders have long hinted, they they want to court Bashar al-Assad again.

Prime Ministers Getting Paid

Shock and awe in Britain as it is announced that Boris Johnson’s extra-curricular earnings, since he left office in September, are approaching £5m.