America

Jason Solomons finds actor Viggo Mortensen in characteristically ebullient mood in their over-running Zoom catch-up. Although still best-known to audiences as heroic Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings films, actor Viggo Mortensen has a reputation in the business as cinema’s Renaissance Man. He acts, writes poetry, composes music, sings, paints, runs a publishing imprint, […]

BONNIE GREER on the breath of fresh air that Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of state represents. President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, speaks French. This is not unusual for many who join the foreign service of the United States. Former senator and presidential candidate, John Kerry – Barack Obama’s foreign secretary – […]

Joe Biden will be an infinitely tougher prospect for Vladimir Putin than Donald Trump. Yet the Russian president still has time on his side, says JOHN KAMPFNER. George W Bush, not a man commonly thought of as soft, said this of Vladimir Putin at their first meeting in 2001: “I looked the man in the […]

The European Union is proposing a new transatlantic alliance with Joe Biden’s America to repair their strained relationship caused by Donald Trump’s presidency. A draft report sights China’s “growing international assertiveness” as a challenge that needs both the EU and US to work together, even if they “do not always agree” on how to address it. […]

BONNIE GREER on America’s problem with socialism – and the challenges facing The Democratic Party. When I am asked whether the US has ever been more divided than it is now, I used to reply that the republic, after all, had a Civil War. But now, even that catastrophe may stand alongside what may be called […]

Joe Biden is renowned for his experience in foreign policy – yet he has a far from unblemished record. BONNIE GREER reports on what the world can expect Anne Hidalgo, the first woman elected mayor of Paris always manages to catch the moment.  She came to London to congratulate Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim elected mayor […]

Amid the investigations into the Trump administration PAUL CONNEW wonders if the President’s longest-serving aide could be the one to bring him down. In the wake of high-profile sackings that have dogged US President Donald Trump’s administration, the White House Communications Director Hope Hicks (2L) remains in the president’s inner circle. Photo: PA Images – […]

Pulitzer Prize winner ALBERT SCARDINO assesses the mental health of Donald Trump, and the chances of an intervention An increasing number of people believe Donald Trump’s mind has gone missing. According to a new book by journalist Michael Wolff, this includes most of those who work most closely in the White House with him and […]

The war on drugs is no longer just going after the usual suspects. ANDREW PURCELL reports on the opioid crisis gripping the States and the role played by the pharmaceutical industry. The ‘War On Drugs’ has been a cornerstone of US criminal justice since Richard Nixon coined the phrase in 1969, and every president since […]

PAUL CONNEW on the ongoing investigations into the Trump administration’s Kremlin links Donald Trump flew home from his controversial, colourful 12-day, five-nation Asian ego trip straight into the darkening shadow of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian Connection criminal probe. The latest twists of that inquiry are heading, predict well-placed sources, towards the possible arrest of […]

For a true idea of the untold tragedy of gun crime in the US, look beyond the mass shootings to the ‘mundane’ murders. ANDREW PURCELL reports In the early hours of last Sunday, a gunman approached a group of teenagers on a street in Philadelphia and fired eight shots, killing 16-year-old Marquez Houston. A little […]

Is the House of cards about to fall? PAUL CONNEW examines a blockbuster week in the White House as the Russian Connection begins to really bite What did the president know and when did he know it? It was the question that dominated the Watergate scandal until the final curtain of disgrace came down on […]

PAUL CONNEW on the US president’s latest imbroglio It was an under siege US president who presided over the scandal which gave the world the over-used suffix, ‘gate’. Now, another under siege one is responsible for its latest, and perhaps most inelegant to date, application… ‘condolencegate’. And Donald Trump’s latest imbroglio might well prove the […]

The comedian, musician and writer on how American Halloween supplanted the ‘British’ Halloween of old Just one of the many exciting side-benefits of my rapidly advancing years, along with the receding hairline and similarly receding eyesight, is a marked acceleration in just how rapidly the aforementioned years appear to be advancing. I don’t know about […]

Neither carries a blackjack or a Tommy gun. But Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein are modern-day thugs, says Pulitzer Prize-winning writer ALBERT SCARDINO Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein were cut from the same roll of toilet paper. Both are pigs, both are thugs, both are American men of a certain age, a certain position of […]

US editor PAUL CONNEW on what the Weinstein revelations could mean for Donald Trump’s beleaguered administration One voice has been deafeningly silent in the global war of words surrounding disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Step forward, Donald Trump. It’s a topic on which the normally hyper-active presidential Twitter fingers have been curiously paralysed. The legitimate […]

As with other such tragedies, the Las Vegas massacre quickly brought out the worst of the internet, says JONATHON READ. As many tried to make sense of what had happened, in those first few hours after the Las Vegas shooting, social media went into overdrive. Caught up in the vortex of information, emotion and reaction […]

Mass Distraction. Mass Diversion. Mass Dissembling. Weapons regularly deployed from Donald Trump’s armoury long before he entered the White House, the launch-timing usually followed an easily-tracked pattern. Whenever The Donald felt the heat as a businessman, he rolled out the return fire using those familiar tactics. And this week, they have been dramatically, dangerously displayed […]

Between them, Juan Carlos Copes and María Nieves rescued a South American art form from an ignominious death – dancing first with love, then with hate – says CHRIS SULLIVAN. A new documentary tells the tortured story of the dance’s greatest-ever partnership In the early years of the last century, tango – without doubt, the […]

PAUL CONNEW on the US president The word out of the White House is that Donald Trump considers Boris Johnson has ‘something of the clown’ about him. A viewpoint that their fairly brief encounter at the UN in New York this week did little to dispel apparently. The temptation is to dismiss one flaxen-haired egomaniac […]

Paul Connew on Donald Trump’s re-election masterplan. Irma and Harvey aren’t the only hurricanes to have traumatised America lately. There’s Hurricane Donald, too. A different kind of hurricane that only devastates the minds of Capitol Hill politicians and leaves bemused citizens with a wary eye on the democratic climate and posing the same question as […]