Opinion
A few days ago in London, former UK prime minister Boris Johnson was up dark and early before the crack of dawn. No, it’s not some new fit bit or keep fit regimen. It was simply an exercise in trying to save his skin from even more very public embarrassment.Boris, you see, was scheduled to beg...
Lame duck. A doom loop. Take your pick—all phrases convey the fate facing UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative party.After 13 years in power, the Conservatives are in their death throes as a government. The end is in sight. The die has been cast.And last Thursday three by-electio...
Frongner Park is close to the centre of downtown Oslo and, for many residents of the capital, is a perfect place to stroll and admire the many sculptures that adorn its tree-lined pathways and wide rose gardens.On a recent early Sunday, this correspondent strolled and admired the park, its incredibl...
Happy second anniversary. And how is Brexit working for you so far?Yes, it was two years ago on New Year’s Day that the United Kingdom formally ended its 46 years of membership of the European Union and divorced itself from all things European. Except their footballers who can make it to the E...
On Monday in the House of Commons in London, the British government’s Bill to override the Brexit agreement it made with the European Union less than three years ago, passed its second reading.If the government has its way, the Bill will enshrine in British law the principle that international...
How good is your word? I remember, about 15 years ago now, when I flew out to Dubai for a job interview at Gulf News, the Editor in Chief looked at my curriculum vitae, was suitably impressed but asked: “If I hire you, how long you stay?”I answered straight away: “Three years.&rdqu...
It’s two years now since the pandemic struck and lockdowns were enforced by many nations, changing forever the way we lived and worked. But in Europe now, as restrictions end and governments try to restore normality with a sentiment that the coronavirus will be a fact of life and we need to le...
In the normal course of politics, spending almost 600 days behind bars in a corruption scandal would seem like more than enough to end the career of any politician. Not in Brazil. And not when you’re Lula.The left-wing demagogue and former President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is ahe...
If you were to take the headlines on most British and French news broadcasts or in the popular press, you could be forgiven for thinking that the UK and France were on the verge of trading cannon fire across the English Channel.For the past two weeks, the two have been trading barbs across the world...
In a little over a week’s time, world leaders, governmental officials and environmental experts from every corner of this planet will gather in Glasgow, Scotland for COP26 — likely the last best chance to reverse climate change.It is a summit of extreme importance given that the planet i...
The last week in September is a time in the United Kingdom where the political parties at Westminster depart the palace complex for seaside resorts up and down Britain or head up north to Manchester or Birmingham for their annual party conferences.It is time to mix and mingle with the party rank and...
If you sit in any courtroom pretty much anywhere around the world where minor offenders are held to account for their misdemeanours, pretty quickly you will inevitably hear the defence offered that the perp “didn’t know what they were doing”.Any magistrate worth his salt and who ha...
What’s that expression — having enough money to burn? How apt now, given that three of this planet’s self-made billionaires are seemingly intent on spending vast sums of their personal wealth on leaving Earth — even just temporarily.Earlier this month, Virgin founder Richard ...
Monday was Freedom Day in England. It was a day when all of the pandemic measures were finally lifted, a time for rejoicing and a day to acknowledge that things are getting back to “normal”. As if.Sure, there were the young and hip who had been pent up for so long, they couldn’t wa...
Ever since the notion of Brexit was conjured up by English nationalists intent on cutting the United Kingdom’s ties with the third largest trading bloc in the world, part of the reasoning offered up would be that Britain could once more find its own place on the world stage. Life after the Eur...
For the first time on a couple of years, the leaders of the Group of Seven economics will meet in person — at least at a social distance — in Cornwall in the south of England for a two-day conference. That they will approve a deal on corporate tax reached last weekend by their respective...
My father liked to tell a story that when, during the last days of the Second World War, he was travelling though England and working then for the Ministry of Supplies, making sure that agricultural products — mostly food for wartime rationing — reached where it should. And that meant tr...
If you’ve never flown with Ryanair, you’ll never know what you’ve missed. The airline, the largest in Europe, has made billions – at least before the pandemic mostly put a stop to air travel – and has perfected the art of squeezing every possible revenue stream from eve...
Mick O’ReillyIt is a little more than three weeks since we last saw images of Prince Philip, sitting in the rear seat of a large SUV as he left a private hospital in London. My initial thought then, as us Irish would say, was that he had not long left for this world. He hadn’t. He died o...
Colin the Barber’s phone automatically clicks over to voicemail with a brief if not curt invitation to leave a message but if you want to book an appointment for a haircut, he’s not taking bookings and only regular customers will be accommodated until the end of April.I took the guard of...
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