Lebanon
The Syrians who can’t go home
In a waiting room in Beirut’s Adlieh district, with harsh fluorescent lighting glaring down on us, the handcuffed prisoners, we took turns to rotate…
A pause between wars
‘What is to stop it happening again?’ was the pertinent question put to me by a Lebanese friend this week…
There may soon be peace in Lebanon
If the leaks and briefings are to be believed, Israel is getting ready to end its war in Lebanon. With…
How to evacuate a country
As fighting continues between Israel and Hezbollah, planning for a potential evacuation of British nationals from Lebanon has seen troops,…
Israel’s strikes on Lebanon bring Jerusalem one step closer to regional dominance
As the dust literally settles across southern Lebanon in the aftermath of the Israeli airstrikes, we are starting to see…
Can anything stop a full-scale conflict in the Middle East?
The fact that the Middle East stands on the brink of a catastrophic war can be explained by a scene…
Israel says it’s ready for another war
According to my phone, I’m in Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport. Except I’m not. The Israel Defence Forces have scrambled the…
The Lebanese always return home
Beirut You might have thought that the threat of the Gaza war spiralling into an all-out regional conflagration, along with…
A war reporter bravely faces death – but not from sniper fire
As a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, Rod Nordland learned to expect many dangers, but a brain tumour wasn’t one of them
The Middle East maelstrom
For 25 years, Abed Takkoush assisted foreign reporters like Jeremy Bowen when they arrived to cover the chaos and conflicts…
The end of the affair
The story of the Cambridge spies has been served up so often that it has become stale — too detailed,…
Of vice and men
In the Levant, the grape has been cultivated for millennia, some of it used for wine. The hills of Lebanon…
Fuelling the fire
Lebanon is trapped in a nightmare of its own making
A disaster waiting to happen
Mountains are humanity’s most comforting topographical feature. Wherever you find them you will also find those who have flocked to…
Migrant smuggling is one of Lebanon’s last businesses
Ibrahim Lachine sold his mother’s furniture to pay for a place on a smuggler’s boat from Lebanon to Cyprus and…
A toast to Lebanon
I was thinking about tragedy. Could one use the term ‘chronically tragic’? My first instinct is against. Tragedy is the…
Pompeo is right on Iran sanctions
The halls of the UN are a habitual stage for empty gestures and vaporous rhetoric, but last Friday’s Security Council…
Portrait of the week
Home In fine weather with calm seas, 565 migrants in four days crossed the Channel in small craft. French officials…
Shock waves
The mood in Lebanon is for revolution
Lebanon’s existential crisis
It had to happen. On Monday evening, just under a week after 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in a…
Portrait of the week
Home Some 2.7 million people in Greater Manchester and parts of Lancashire and West Yorkshire, where many Muslims live, were…
Goodbye, Lebanon
The country is collapsing
Lebanon: the world’s best failed state
Look down from the mountains outside Beirut and, on most days, you’ll see a grey blanket of smog choking the…
Boys’ Own adventures in the war-torn Middle East
Ask most people whether they fancy a four-month, 5,000-mile trek across the Middle East and they might conclude you need…
Turkey can’t cope. Can we?
There has been an influx of 2.5 million Syrian refugees, and almost as many again are expected. At this rate, Turkey’s migrant problem is set to become Europe’s
