Paul Wood was a BBC foreign correspondent for 25 years, in Belgrade, Athens, Cairo, Jerusalem, Kabul and Washington DC. He has won numerous awards, including two US Emmys for his coverage of the Syrian civil war
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When Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel, ‘[t]he President slumped back in his chair and said, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.”’ This is just one of the beautifully telling vignettes from the Mueller report, published today. Another is Donald Trump saying to his lawyer, Michael
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President Trump seems to be enjoying his presidency, for a change. His Twitter feed betrays none of the nervousness of the tense weekend when Mueller submitted his findings to the attorney general, William Barr. Then, for an extraordinary and probably unprecedented 24 hours, Trump’s Twitter fell almost silent. Now he writes, joyously: ‘No Collusion –
The Trump administration’s counter-attack might be bad news for Christopher Steele
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Washington REVERSE FERRET! When he edited the Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie used to throw open his office door and bellow this at the newsroom when the paper had got a story wrong. It came from the northern endurance sport of ferret-legging: a pair of razor-toothed ferrets are put down your trousers — no underwear allowed. The
From our UK edition
REVERSE FERRET! When he edited the Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie used to throw open his office door and bellow this at the newsroom when the paper had got a story wrong. It came from the northern endurance sport of ferret-legging: a pair of razor-toothed ferrets are put down your trousers — no underwear allowed. The Sun
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Beirut As I write, Isis is still holding out on a few hundred square yards of dirt in the village of Baghouz in Syria. This is all that remains of a ‘caliphate’ that was once almost half of Syria and a third of Iraq. The fighting has now gone on twice as long as the
The lawyers disagree
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We’re closing 2018 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 6: Paul Wood on the UK’s Donald Trump connection: Washington, DC When the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu visited London in 1978, the British government did some serious sucking up. Ceausescu was an egomaniac and possibly crazy. When he went hunting outside
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At an election-night party hosted by a leading light in the Clinton White House, the hostess wore blue, anticipating the ‘blue wave’ that Democrats hope is about to sweep away the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. As I write, the Democrats are up 14 seats. They need to gain 23 to win the
The Democrats are now in the majority on committees with subpoena power
Pop Stars, Pageants & Presidents: How An Email Trumped My Life – Rob Goldstone
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Beirut ‘The planes have already hit the hospitals’, said an aid worker. ‘They always do that first’ The customs man wore a white linen suit. He had a large moustache. His ample belly touched the edge of his desk. The scent of cardamom wafted over as a tiny cup of coffee was placed in front
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Donald Trump’s Twitter feed was oddly silent as the news came that his former campaign manager and his former lawyer were going to jail. Perhaps his staff have finally seized control of his phone. Perhaps his lawyers have convinced him that every time he tweets on anything relating to the Russia investigation, he is dancing
Donald Trump’s Twitter feed was oddly silent on Tuesday as the news came that his former campaign manager and his former lawyer were going to jail. Perhaps his staff have finally seized control of his Android phone. Perhaps his lawyers have convinced him that every time he reaches for it to tweet on anything relating
House of Trump, House of Putin by Craig Unger reviewed.
A new book argues that Trump could destroy the Republican Party.
When the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu visited London in 1978, the British government did some serious sucking up. Ceausescu was an egomaniac and possibly crazy. When he went hunting outside Bucharest, his body-guards shot game with machine guns so he could be photographed at the end of the day with a shoulder-high pile of dead
From our UK edition
The Syrian president, Bashar al Assad, strolls nonchalantly across the marble floor of his palace in Damascus, gently swinging his briefcase: just another day at the office. This short video – titled ‘Morning of Steadfastness’ – was posted on the Syrian presidency’s Twitter feed hours after the US, Britain and France bombed what they said were ‘chemical
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Beirut ‘Gas!’ Bodies piled up grotesquely in a stairwell. No sign of injuries. A father cradles two small children. Still, pale as ghosts. A doctor says the victims died suffocating, foaming at the mouth. One man declares: ‘I could feel my lungs shutting down.’ Babies getting hosed with water in a makeshift hospital. These words
