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The Guardian |
At the stroke of midnight on Saturday night, the shutters came down. Anyone who didn’t claim pension credit by then will have lost their winter...
On Saturday afternoon in Magdeburg a man stood outside Johanniskirche (St John’s church), contemplating a lake of candles, flowers and soft toys....
The fall of Bashar al-Assad after the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) takeover in Syria is bad news for the country’s Kurds. It is worth charting how...
Chances are you’re flocking to the sand this summer. Perhaps you prefer to perch under a tree near the riverbank or roll out your towel on the...
A consensus is building. On 5 December, Amnesty International concluded after an investigation that “Israel has committed and is continuing to...
We live, at first blush, under the absolute dominion of celebrity. The former and future president of the United States spent more than a decade as...
My childhood home was in South Africa. My parents adored each other and life for my two brothers and me was loving and carefree. Mum was a...
“Will Santa find me?” a subject line in my inbox asked last week. I wondered briefly if my niece had moved to email with her questions about...
One in four flights in Australia are delayed. At least one in 50 are cancelled. Australian governments have never legislated consumer protections...
When Notre Dame burned, something in the flames seemed to speak to the combustibility of our age. Nothing is for ever, the fire said, even those...
Christmas is all about traditions: repeating the same thing over and over, however silly it might be, because that’s just what you do at...
A clown walks into a bar. Seriously. Bear with me a minute here. The clown sees a Santa Claus impersonator propped up on a stool with a beer. The...
There’s a new photo of Nigel Farage and the Reform treasurer, Nick Candy, who partied through the pandemic at Lord Shaun “Bum and Boobs” Bailey...
Choices, choices. In life, there’s always a choice, or so that complacent saying goes. It didn’t really hold true for the people of Syria, bound...
From Prince of Darkness to deputy prime minister to Your Excellency. It is fair to say that the latest incarnation of the politician with nine...
Santa has a great reputation. Generous, jolly, snazzily dressed. But he’s obviously a terrible employer. The elves are entirely unpaid for their...
The most revelatory experience I had this year happened at Glastonbury, on the festival’s Saturday night. I was at the Left Field, the...
As Bashar al-Assad fell, Russian nationalist military bloggers turned on the Kremlin. “Ten years of our presence,” fumed the “Two Majors”...
This Christmas, find some pity for Lynda Snell MBE. Fans of the BBC radio soap The Archers know Lynda as the stalwart organiser of every Christmas...
Every Christmas, domestic abuse rates soar as women find themselves on the receiving end of batterings, abuse and controlling behaviour from a...
At its current rate, the Church of England can probably fit in another pre-Christmas safeguarding catastrophe, and embark on the familiar ritual....
After a while, you want to live alone. And then it happens and you discover everything that’s difficult about it. You realise that you didn’t...
I don’t believe ageing is linear: I reckon we have long plateaux, then everything falls apart all at once. I realised this at the close of my...
The liberation of Syria was long hoped for, but unexpected. Over the past weeks, Syrians have experienced the full range of human emotions, with...
For many, Christmas is a time of celebration, joy and tradition. But for others it brings up past traumas, challenging family dynamics or a sense...
Imagine you were designing a democracy from scratch. How would you ensure people had enough access to accurate, independent information? My guess...
You decided to do it differently this year. You usually buy online, with high-minded principle, from a company owned by the least-loathsome...
Does winning the lottery wreck your life? When it was revealed earlier this week that an anonymous Briton had won £177m in the November...
As a lifelong enthusiast of the “so-bad-it’s-good” sub-strand of cinema, I approach every Christmas with a mix of excitement and trepidation. If...
Life can be mentally demanding: your job, paying bills, caring for family, financial or housing difficulties, relationship problems or physical...
The US supreme court has been hijacked by the extreme right and corrupted to its core. American oligarchs bestow millions in gifts and largesse on...
The other night I broke a long-cherished habit. At home in time for the BBC News at 10, I could only manage a couple of headlines before I turned...
There are human activities in which both sides can win. War is not one of them. Either Ukraine wins this war or Russia does. Ukraine’s former...
The first time it happened I wrote it off as inexperience. By “it” I mean lying on a concrete floor covered in cow shit and wondering how many...
As Donald Trump prepares for his inauguration, many have begun to debate how best to build a committed political opposition. Instead of reviving...
It’s a season brimming with tradition and, as longtime readers may know, my own custom has been to try, in the last column before Christmas, to find...
Elon Musk is, more or less, a rogue state. His intentions are self-serving and nefarious, and his nation-state level resources allow him to flout...
It’s the last fortnight of December, time to reappraise the traditions of shared holiday rituals. Will Australians once more create kitchen-bound...
The winter night I moved to New York, I sat in the back of a cab, two bulging suitcases stuffed into the boot by the driver who rolled his eyes at...
As with many a lame-duck president in the past, it feels as if Joe Biden has already left the national stage even though he has a month left in his...
The UN agency entrusted with the protection and welfare of Palestine refugees for three-quarters of a century, Unrwa, which I lead, was always...
Elon Musk holds no public office. He has never stood for election, passed scrutiny for appointment to public office, nor commanded a political...
The US supreme court surprisingly decided, this week, to hear TikTok’s emergency appeal to its imminent ban in the United States. It may be the...
Lisa Kudrow says being and staying friends with her Friends co-stars was tough at times. “That six-way relationship took some work – and we did...
In her closing statement to the Post Office inquiry this week, Paula Vennells once again added the brutal murder of irony to her list of failings....
There is no need to overcomplicate things: a rise in global temperatures of 3.1C is not compatible with human survival. That is where we are...
Wars are remembered by their iconic images, and finding a triumphal photograph has been a key goal for belligerents striving to leave their mark on...
Keir Starmer’s team can smell the presence of the political grim reaper. Every Friday, the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, runs...