John Simpson
@JohnSimpsonNews
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Broadcaster & author, trying to make sense of a mad world. Presenter of ‘Unspun World’ on @BBCTwo , BBC World etc. Instagram @johnsimpsonnews .
Live in UK, travel anywhere
Joined February 2016
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George Orwell, 1984: ‘The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.’
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Putin puts his nuclear deterrent forces on high alert. This is the kind of moment we’ve feared almost my entire life. And why is he doing it? Because his wholly unnecessary invasion of Ukraine doesn’t seem to be going to plan.
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Relatively little attention has been given to the extraordinary threats against Sweden and Finland by the Russian foreign ministry, warning of the consequences if they decide to join NATO. And we thought that kind of thing was over & done with in Europe.
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On the anniversary of Tiananmen there are always people who tweet that reports of a massacre are the invention of the Western media. I was there, I saw it happen & I counted 40 people killed in front of my eyes. And my team filmed it all.
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Just a quick constitutional reminder for the BBC’s 100th anniversary: it belongs to the people of the UK. It doesn’t belong to the government. And, contrary to what the current Culture Secretary seems to think, it isn’t state-funded.
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Vladimir Putin says it’s necessary to invade Ukraine to ‘deNazify’ it. Ukraine’s President Zelensky is Jewish, and members of his family died in the Holocaust.
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In case you didn’t see it, the Washington Post’s Trump fact-checkers say that in his 4 years as President, Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims. That’s roughly 20 every single day.
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I’ve just watched
@realDonaldTrump
’s latest TV interview in full. As someone who has interviewed world leaders from Gorbachev to Putin, Thatcher to al-Assad, Ayatollah Khomeini to Mandela, I can honestly say he seems worse informed & less impressive than any of them.
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Four Oxford schoolgirls have started a petition to make lessons on climate change compulsory in schools, & nearly 40,000 people have so far signed it. Since this the most important problem our planet faces, shouldn’t our children be taught about it?
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We need an end to blatant lying in politics.
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I’m sitting in crowded A&E with my kid, who seems to have appendicitis, marvelling at how patient & kind the staff are in spite of the heavy pressures on them. True, it’s best not to get ill at weekends, but thank God for the NHS - creaking, bureaucratic but excellent.
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Disagree with me by all means — everyone has a right to their opinion. But do it courteously. If you insult me or threaten me or swear at me, I’ll block you. I get nutters, obsessives and extremists raving at me all the time, and each one goes straight down the toilet.
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This morning, 31 years ago, my cameraman & I filmed the man with the shopping bags as he stood in front of the tanks close to Tiananmen, blocking them. Finally he jumped up onto the lead tank & yelled angrily at the crew. Then he vanished into the crowd. He was never caught.
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I think this pub should be rebuilt brick for brick, exactly as it was.
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Our problem with Brexit isn’t that a group of sullen Remainers are blocking the will of the people; it’s that we are divided almost exactly 50-50 over it. Organisations tend to require a 2/3rds majority to change their rules. Surely our nation should have done the same?
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Things are so bad, so worrying, so filled with hate & anger that we must take a stand for who we are as a nation. We must support the rule of law, & demand decency & respect from our politicians. We must moderate the language of debate. And we must condemn anyone who doesn’t.
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An Irish friend says that when the news of the Queen’s death came through, ‘I was drinking in an Irish Republican Socialist pub here in Dublin… To a man & a woman everyone raised a glass to a woman who loved Ireland & did so much to bring about peace on our islands.’
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Waiting for takeoff with a screaming baby, mortified parents & loads of disapproving passengers. They should lighten up: we’ve all been there. My baby daughters yelled on takeoff & landing, my son once projectile-vomited on a man across the aisle. Awkward - but it’s called life.
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Boris Johnson skips a press conference because of a demo. I once watched Margaret Thatcher land in Zambia, charge down the aircraft steps in the dark into the middle of a hostile crowd & give an impromptu presser even though she'd been told people might throw acid at her.
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Some people have problems understanding why NATO refuses to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine. If NATO shoots down a Russian plane, that’s an act of war which could lead to an all-out nuclear exchange and mutually assured destruction.
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Remembering today not just the family members who fought and died in two world wars, but also my handsome, charming great-uncle Harold whose life was ruined by his injuries in WW1 and who died, homeless and alone, on a bench at Waterloo station in 1960; not a lifestyle choice.
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I feel so sorry for everyone involved in this: for the Edwards family, for the complainants, and for Huw himself. No criminal offences were committed, so it’s a purely personal tragedy for everyone involved. Let’s hope the press leave them all alone now.
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Amazing anyone at all buys Russia’s line that the Bucha killings were faked by Ukraine. I’ve seen various massacres — in the Rhodesian war, at Sabra & Chatila, Halabjeh, Tiananmen Sq, Sarajevo, in Iraq etc — & believe me you can’t fake the after-effects that kind of thing.
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Roman Abramovich’s daughter has come out against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Abramovich himself has always said it’s unfair to call him a crony of Putin’s. Now would be a good moment for him to make his position clear.
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Three former UK foreign secretaries — Malcolm Rifkind, Jack Straw & Jeremy Hunt — have now said Britain can & should repay its £400m debt to Iran, thus freeing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who is being held hostage for the money.
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On this day in 1989 I grabbed the video cassette containing all the famous pictures of the Tiananmen massacre inc the tank man & walked down to the Beijing Hotel lobby. A cop came over to arrest me but a burst of fire outside distracted him & I slipped past. We got the pictures…
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Just to remind you: Lee Anderson, the deputy chairman of the party governing this country, has accused the BBC of being ‘a safe haven for perverts.’ Has the level of public discourse ever dropped as low as this in the last century?
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MP wants details of anti-Brexit univ teachers. Decent folk deported on technicalities. Daily hate in press. Doesn't feel like my country now
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Britain is entering the most important and possibly dangerous period in its national life since 1940. Our constitution, our economic well-being, the entire future of our children, are all at stake. Our politicians need to think very carefully what they do & say.
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Annoyingly, I’ve tested positive for Covid. Tested negative when I left Kabul with my colleagues, but sat next to someone on the plane to Dubai who coughed all over me. When I got home I was positive. Plan to read a lot, watch a lot of tv, eat a lot and do a lot of complaining.
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Anne Frank and her family were betrayed by a neighbour 79 years ago. In 1987 I covered the trial of the Butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie. Hearing that a man he’d arrested still lived near Lyon, I went to interview him. ‘How did Barbie know about you?’ I asked. ‘My neighbour…
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Over the years I’ve lost two friends, one Palestinian and one Lebanese, and nearly lost a third, a French cameraman, to the willingness of IDF soldiers to open fire even though they knew perfectly well who they were. But they felt sure their superiors would protect them.
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I’ve had a long love affair with Iran, dating back to 1978. It’s not mutual - they haven’t let me back since 2009. Elements of the regime are nasty, rebarbative & vindictive. But the thought that US missiles might hit Isfahan, Persepolis, Mashhad or Tehran turns my stomach.
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When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 I filmed at a Russian nuclear weapons site. The missile launchers were too rusted to move. ‘We haven’t been able to fire our missiles at you or America for several years now,’ said the C.O. Never underestimate Russia’s lethargy & chaos.
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We honour the 2341 British pilots who won the Battle of Britain, but let's not forget there were also 145 Poles, 127 NZers, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 32 Aussies, 28 Belgians, 25 SAfricans,13 French,10 Irish, 9 US, 3 Rhodesians, & 1 each from Jamaica, Barbados & N'foundland
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Priti Patel’s Home Office wants to make it a crime for journalists to embarrass the govt by publishing leaked official documents. The maximum penalty would be 14 years in prison. This would put British journalists on a par with foreign spies.
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When I was the BBC political editor, in the early 1980s, I was shocked by the ignorance of most MPs about the way the outside world worked. Judging from today's proceedings in Parliament, things don't seem to have changed much.
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Donald Trump says the NHS is broken, & thousands march about it in the streets. But they were marching because they want to keep it as it is. Fake news. Sad.
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Once met a British oil exec in Lagos. The day before, he’d been to a disastrous party at a top minister’s house. The invitation said ‘Fancy dress compulsory’. He had no fancy dress, but was an enthusiastic scuba diver and by chance had his gear with him. He dressed up, took a…
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BBC’s Mark Easton: 286 Ukrainians hoping to come to UK have been turned away at Calais, according to local officials. They’ve been told to go to Paris or Brussels to apply. There’s no Home Office team in Calais (though the HO said there was).
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Three years ago, thanks to a rogue combo (a dodgy kedgeree, a hot day’s cricket & some pills I was taking), I came within a whisker of dying. An NHS GP & some brilliant specialists & nurses saved my life. That means I’ve got a duty to help it continue to save others.
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Russia stands accused of using BM-21 Grad cluster-bombs against civilians in Kharkiv. If so, this is a war crime. I saw cluster-bombs used by Israel in Lebanon in 1982, and the injuries they caused were obscene.
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My erudite classicist daughter tells me that the Arctic is so called because there are bears there; ‘Arktos’ being the Greek for bear. ‘Antarctic’ means ‘no bears’, she says.
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To those British politicians who want to cut the BBC and question its future: new figures show the audience for the BBC’s Russian language news website more than tripled its year-to-date weekly average, with a record reach of 10.7m people in the last week (compared to 3.1m).
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‘Getting out of the EU can be quick & easy. The UK holds most of the cards’ - John Redwood. ‘There will be no downside to Brexit’ - David Davis. ‘The Free Trade Agreement that we will do with the EU should be one of the easiest in human history’ - Liam Fox.
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The art of the political interview, Piers, is to push your interviewee hard - not let them spout self-evident tosh. That's just showbiz.
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Boris Johnson on Today,
@BBCr4today
: 'People around the world are going 'wow - they've made this incredible decision to go global''. This is certainly not my experience. From US to China to India to SAfrica, people I'm hearing from think we're opting for imperial nostalgia.
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I hope all those people who supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq are watching the devastating BBC2 documentary series Once Upon A Time in Iraq. I reported on the entire course of the dreadful, shaming Iraq war from 2003 to 2016, & can't forgive it or forget it.
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It's a year since Jo Cox was murdered: the worst year for Britain in my lifetime. We badly need a return to Jo's concept of moderation now.
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Brilliant photo — thank you! In 1966 I rang my dad from the box on the left to tell him how my BBC job interview had gone. ‘I think I might have got it,’ I told him. 56 years later I always remember that call as I go to work at the BBC right opposite.
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What have we become? Between 2013 & 2017, at least 230 homeless people died on Britain's streets. From 2017 to 2018, 440 homeless people have died - almost twice as many, in a quarter of the time. Deeply shameful.
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The Home Office has refused to allow two Zimbabwean women rangers permission to come to Britain to receive an award recognising their courageous work protecting wild life in the Lower Zambezi Valley. In whose name are these decisions taken? Not in mine.
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In other news... While the huge fuss about Megan & Harry plays out, John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, has been in London warning about the cataclysm facing every single one of us in the near future. He’s scarcely had a look-in.
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I feel uneasy when I see all these TV adverts for happy, jolly people being made happier & jollier by gambling. In fact 500 people killed themselves in the UK last year because of gambling, & 400,000+ are addicts, damaging their families. ‘Bet responsibly’ - yeah.
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When I became the BBC’s political editor in 1980 the disgraceful old lobby system where ‘Downing St sources’ were quoted for everything was rampant. Thatcher, Major & Blair did away with it. Now it’s back. I think journalists should identify their sources.
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British politicians know perfectly well why the BBC avoids the word ‘terrorist’, and over the years plenty of them have privately agreed with it. Calling someone a terrorist means you’re taking sides and ceasing to treat the situation with due impartiality. The BBC’s job is to…
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Supporters of ‘Tommy Robinson’ attack a BBC crew chanting ‘We want our country back’. I think a lot of us want our country back from all the varied extremists who seem to be taking control of it at present.
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The BBC’s job isn’t to tell people what to think about the complex political issues of the day. It’s to lay the arguments in front of them honestly & let them make up their own minds. This isn’t timidity,
@maitlis
— it’s the essence of public service broadcasting.
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This evil, unnecessary war will finally end with some kind of grudging agreement which—we pray—will confirm Ukraine’s continued independence. Ukraine will resume its rightful place in the civilised world. But there can never be normality with Russia while Putin remains in power.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury had a word for the autocrats & dictators in Westminster Abbey: ‘People of loving service are rare… Leaders of loving service are still rarer…Those who serve will be loved & remembered when those who cling to power & privileges are long forgotten.’
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One of the worst incidents which followed the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the slaughter of 14 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square in 2007 by 4 private US contractors. I saw the aftermath: it was appalling & unforgivable, & the 4 were gaoled. Now Donald Trump has pardoned them.
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No wonder
@realDonaldTrump
is reluctant to go. The NYTimes says he faces at least 12 federal & state investigations, & has to repay loans of $300m in the next few years. He owes another $100m as well. Meanwhile his questionable tax affairs are being investigated.
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Depressing to hear
@andrealeadsom
echoing the Soviet view of broadcasting - that its duty is to be 'patriotic' - i.e. to back views of govt.
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I’ve warned for some years now that the concerted attacks on the BBC would end in its destruction. Only a determined few want this to happen. The rest are unthinkingly caught up in the mud-slinging, or feel powerless. If you want the BBC to survive, now’s the time to speak up.
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Sadly, out of the 200 or so world leaders I’ve met & interviewed over 50 years, I’ve only really liked and admired three for their human qualities, even though many of the others have been admirable as politicians: Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.…
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Just in case it’s slipped your memory, the fact-checkers of The Washington Post worked out that during his four years in office Donald Trump made over 30,000 false or misleading claims. That’s an average of 21 a day.
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33 years ago tonight, the Chinese army attacked the entirely peaceful students who had been demonstrating in Tiananmen Sq for nearly a month. Hundreds of people died. I was there & saw it happen. Now in Hong Kong it’s forbidden to commemorate the massacre.
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I knew Margaret Thatcher well. Her judgement of people was usually good, but she took an unaccountable liking to Jimmy Savile & invited him to stay at Chequers several years running. Would the vice-chair of the Conservative Party accuse her of providing a safe haven for perverts?
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Apparently people are staying away from Chinatown in London because they think they’ll catch the corona virus. What idiots! I’m looking forward to an excellent meal there tonight at my usual place.
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Not from the Guardian but the Telegraph: 'The collapse of trust can be traced to the fatal flaws in Boris Johnson’s personality. The latest crisis in No 10 is no fleeting embarrassment; but a game-changer that has stripped the PM of any remaining credibility.'
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80 years ago a third of a million British & allied soldiers were taken off the beach at Dunkirk. Among the tens of thousands of acts of individual courage, let's not forget the suicidal last stand on the edge of Dunkirk by French soldiers who kept the advancing Germans at bay.
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Heading off to Iraq for a couple of weeks’ reporting. I’ll get away from political extremism, threats against decent moderate politicians, anxieties that the govt will break the law, & a sense of despair about the direction the country is heading in. Yes, Iraq will be a doddle.
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So it's official: Mohamed bin Salman has got away with it. A Saudi team can stage the gruesome murder of a journalist, allegedly with MbS's foreknowledge, and the world's leading countries will still choose him as their next host.
Mohamed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia will host the next G20 summit, in November 2020.
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And the BBC needs to be tougher & more confident in its own defence. Downing St once rang Today to heap threats & obscenities on a presenter, who eventually said ‘Can I just make one point?’ Downing St man, surprised: ‘Yes?’ Presenter: ‘Fuck off.’ And he put the phone down.
This week’s story will keep happening unless the BBC is truly independent of the government of the day. Appointments to its Board, and of its Director General, and determination of its funding, need to be visibly separate from Downing St. Or the public will lose trust in the BBC.
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21% of the UK’s gambling outlets are in the poorest parts of the country, says a new study, compared with 2% in wealthy areas. The betting industry is accused of targetting the most vulnerable. Does anyone else find it disturbing to watch wealthy celebs fronting ads for gambling?
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Devastating piece in Sunday Times: ‘Failings in February may have cost thousands of lives.’ It quotes an ex-Downing St adviser: ‘There’s no way you’re at war if your PM isn’t there... he didn’t chair any meetings. He didn’t work weekends... he didn’t do urgent crisis planning.’
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Just come across Joe Biden’s promise to Afghanistan last April: ‘We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. We’ll do it responsibly, deliberately & safely. And we will do it in full co-ordination with our allies & partners.’
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A Russian tycoon, Patel Antov, has died in a fall from an Indian hotel window. Last Friday another member of his group died at the hotel, apparently of a heart attack. Recently Mr Antov criticised Putin’s war in Ukraine. The Indian police say there are no suspicious circumstances
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When the Corona crisis is over, we’ll remember there’s something infinitely worse & more destructive hanging over us: the threat to our planet. If we can lock down for a disease, can we not work together to do what’s necessary to save ourselves from the coming disaster?
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Horrified at the death of the best hope for a peaceful political future in Russia. Whether or not he was physically murdered, Navalny would still be alive if he hadn’t been in the brutal grip of Putin’s state. Ultimately, Putin bears responsibility for what happened to Navalny.
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In Prince Harry’s High Court victory against the Mirror, the judge found there was no doubt that Piers Morgan, as editor, knew Harry’s phone was tapped. (Piers, of course, says he didn’t.) Mr Justice Fancourt also says two ex-Mirror execs, Richard Wallace, now head of TV at…
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I’ve loved the US ever since my first visit, in 1963. After watching last night’s truly awful ‘presidential’ debate, I’ve never felt more sorry for it - or more worried about its future.
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I suspect we've seen the end of the tabloids as arbiters of UK politics. Sun, Mail & Express threw all they had into backing May, & failed.
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Just home after filming for Panorama in Afghanistan. Dreadful to see the destruction of a country. 97% now below the poverty line. Watching hungry people receiving food aid in a sandstorm outside Herat was one of the most shocking experiences of my life. It'll go out on 31 Jan.
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Patron, the Ukrainian Emergency Service’s Jack Russell terrier who sniffs out mines left by departing Russian troops, was introduced to the world’s press at a news conference. Only it was so boring, Patron went to sleep.
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I keep rubbing my eyes with amazement at this. It’s hard to think that the elected head of the most powerful democracy would write such stuff for public consumption. I’m sure most sensible Americans feel the same.
The wacky Ambassador that the U.K. foisted upon the United States is not someone we are thrilled with, a very stupid guy. He should speak to his country, and Prime Minister May, about their failed Brexit negotiation, and not be upset with my criticism of how badly it was...
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Of the 30 hottest days ever recorded, no fewer than 21 have occurred THIS MONTH. Temperatures in July 2023 could well be the highest for 120,000 years. This story is the lead on the BBC website, 7th on The Times, 69th on The Daily Mail, & hasn’t yet been mentioned by The Sun.
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I’m in Afghanistan, a country where millions of people could be saved from the savage threat of starvation by a single Western billionaire. And then I see this. As David Beasley of the World Food Programme says: ‘Shame on us.’
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80 years ago today my dear friend Clare Hollingsworth, on her first real story for the Daily Telegraph, sat in her hotel room & watched the German tanks crossing into Poland — & neither her boss, nor her foreign desk, nor the British (or any other) embassy would believe her.
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Killing
#Soleimani
isn’t like killing bin Laden, who had masterminded the worst terrorist attack against America. Soleimani was a competitor, who was highly effective in fighting ISIS as well as American interests. Assassinating him seems like a step back to a more savage past.
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Why does the govt actively seek to damage the BBC, one of the few things the world admires about the UK at present, with this pointlessness?
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Deeply, deeply sorry to hear about dear George Alagiah. A gentler, kinder, more insightful and braver friend and colleague it would be hard to find. I loved having his company in the BBC World Affairs Unit, and his progress after that was a pleasure to watch.
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I’ve been going through my notebooks for the referendum campaign, looking for any warnings that we might just crash out of the EU with no deal of any kind. Haven’t found a single hint of it. Just lots & lots of assurances that it would be dead easy to negotiate our departure.
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The Chinese Communist Party thinks that by removing the Tiananmen memorial from Hong Kong University it can wipe out the memory of the massacre. It can’t. Thousands of us were there, and we saw it happen.
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Journalists in Britain and elsewhere will be very worried by the decision to extradite Julian Assange to the US — both for his own well-being & for the precedent it creates for journalism worldwide.
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Amazon is one of the world's richest corporations. It paid very little in tax last year. Now it's offering unpaid time off for workers who are sick and only two weeks' paid leave for workers who test positive for the Corona virus.
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8 out of 10 UK people over 16 use BBC News services each week. 78% of UK adults say the BBC is effective at its job of informing, educating & entertaining people. I look forward to reading these figures in the Mail or The Sun.
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I've reported on incidents like this in Russia, China, Burma, and dozens of other countries where governments always seem to deem them appropriate. But Britain?
'Deemed Appropriate'
"The matter has been referred to the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Professional Standards Department, and CCTV footage of the incident reviewed. The officer’s actions were deemed appropriate in the circumstances."
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Congratulations to
@Channel4News
for your excellent investigation,
#CambridgeAnalyticaUncovered
. It's a game-changer. There'll be important repercussions in countries around the world where CA has operated -- not least the US.
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