Articles from the author

Saddam Hussain is back in business. Al Quds, the respected London-based Arabic newspaper, has received a handwritten message from him, urging relentless war against the coalition forces until they leave Iraq.

The rimless glasses glinted, the harsh voice talked of threats and the sheltering of America's enemies and hinted at regime change. U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, the man who saved Saddam Hussain's bacon back in the 1980s by recommending that the United States rescue him from certain defeat in the Iran-Iraq war, had found another sabre to rattle: Iran must change its ways in order to avert American wrath.

Quietly, a secret alliance is coming together in Turkey to combat the activities of Islamic extremists.

Events of 1920 offer a lesson for America

Coming back here after five months is like re-starting a paused video. When I was in April last, during the war, Kurdistan was silent, nervous and waiting.

The moment for Israel to send in its specially trained commando unit, capture Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat, and put him on a military helicopter to North Africa has probably passed. But only just for now.

Last week, the magnificent and still largely unexcavated ruins at Nimrud, near the Iraqi city of Mosul, were declared a world heritage site.

When President Khatami of Iran announced last week that his country was producing nuclear fuel from its own uranium deposits and planned to widen its nuclear programme, it looked like a serious own-goal.

Last Wednesday there was a memorial service for the 20 journalists who died in the war to overthrow Saddam Hussain.

Whatever is the point nowadays of the Commonwealth?" asks a very old, very brown cutting from a British newspaper that I dug out recently among some papers while moving house.

It is more than 21 years ago now, yet it is something I promised myself never to forget, and never - if I could - to allow others to forget.

The streets in Karbala, Iraq, are full of noisy banter, the shouts of street sellers, the music-free distortion of a dozen loudspeaker systems.