Opinion

After five long months, my friend, fellow broadcaster and activist, Hisham Al-Omeisy was finally released by his Houthi captors on Sunday 14 January 2018. Nothing can explain the emotion this image of Hisham, now a free man, with his sons evokes in those of us who have campaigned for his freedom every day since his kidnap (or as the Yemeni authorities would say  ‘detainment’) on 14 August 2017. I had discovered Hisham whilst co-hosting a news and current affairs show on...

By Robert Seiler Influential Bulgarian businessman Petar Hristov, who had assisted with the dismantling of a kidnapping ring and who was closely tied to senior members of Bulgaria’s ruling GERB party, was shot in broad daylight on the 8th of January in an upmarket area of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. This fatal shooting, coming six days after Bulgarian President Rumen Radev vetoed anti-graft legislation and seven days after Bulgaria assumed the rotating EU presidency, puts the spotlight back on Bulgaria’s unresolved problems with corruption and a difficult investment...

Jeremy Corbyn this weekend appeared to question the historic bond between Britain and the United States, refusing to call it the UK's most important relationship in an interview aired on Peston On Sunday. The Labour leader was critical of Donald Trump and his "endless offensive" comments which appear to have distanced the US from the rest of the world. Corbyn said the UK had many important relationships around the world, with nations such as China and India, and distanced himself from...

I doubt I'm the only one in Britain currently feeling uneasy: the world seems to have gone a little bit topsy-turvy, hasn't it? For months and months, even the vaguest suggestion of a second referendum, or a 'final say' on the terms of Britain's exit from the European Union, well... it was likely to be shouted down by an army of angry Brexiters decrying it an 'affront to democracy'. It was a definitive, cardinal rule. The lemmings would not have...

You would have thought a lesson would have been learned by now. A year in to his presidency and Donald Trump has transferred the principles he acquired on television in to the White House, a mantra that usually goes: Give the audience what it wants, not what it needs. Yesterday came the announcement that the Trump administration will end protections for certain nationals of El Salvador, a move that could leave more than 200,000 immigrants who have lived in the US...

A scene from Channel 4’s 'SAS Who Dares Wins', which aired last night, showed us exactly how not to react when someone is having a panic attack. SAS Who Dares Wins, for anyone unfamiliar, is a reality show that sees normal men from across the UK take on SAS-style training led by former SAS servicemen. Recruits endure physical and mental challenges that push them to their limits. The scene that troubled me, followed a task where recruits had clambered across...

Theresa May has today backed down on election pledges to hold a vote on the fox-hunting ban in this parliament. The news will be welcomed by the majority of the population. Recent polling had suggested opposition to hunting in the UK was at an all-time high of 85 per cent, and with such a slender majority in parliament this was clearly deemed as an issue not worthy of upsetting that. Even though the Prime Minister remains strongly pro-hunting, even she knows...

By Professor Ann Fitz-Gerald, Cranfield University  While politics in the western world have stood relatively dormant over the Christmas and New Year period, unprecedented events have emerged in Ethiopia’s political scene. Significant decisions have been taken.  There are grounds for hope and optimism, but only if views on anticipated change do not become as polarised as the positions of different political parties to date. The principal questions concern Ethiopia’s ability to sustain its remarkable economic growth record amidst the discontent...

Amidst the furore of the tragic Colman's closure in Norwich there's a white elephant in the room that has yet to surface; Brexit. Despite some of the production moving to Burton some of the production will be shifted by Unilever to Germany in a move that is likely to become commonplace for such companies who rely on the single market. The factory that has been the home of Colman’s Mustard for 160 years is to close, with Clive Lewis, Labour MP...