David Blair's Blog, page 29

Greece heads for a Euro collision

A radical Left-wing leader who has promised to end "fiscal waterboarding" is poised to win a snap election - and square up to EU moneylenders

Barack Obama urges Congress to 'hold fire' on imposing more sanctions on Iran

Republicans in control of both Houses of Congress, Mr Obama faces a bipartisan effort to pass a law that would automatically tighten sanctions on Iran

How do you spend £3.7bn in just 8 weeks?

Answer: ask the Department for International Development (Dfid), which has turned sensible spending plans on their head, says David Blair

Boko Haram raze Nigerian towns in 'most destructive' attack yet, says Amnesty

Satellite images show how Doron Baga was nearly "wiped from the map" in "catastrophic" assault

Charlie Hebdo: 'France will send aircraft carrier to Middle East'

Charlie Hebdo: 'Blessed battle of Paris' was our work, says al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen

Beware the rise of Africa’s own al-Qaeda state

You might not have noticed, but the world has acquired a new country. With its own capital, army and self-styled “emir”, this domain possesses some of the features of statehood. But don’t expect an application to join the United Nations: the consuming ambition of this realm is to reverse just...

Nigeria's Boko Haram isn't just kidnapping girls: it's enslaving them

It's time for the world to face up to a painful truth: the slave trade has re-emerged across a swathe of Africa. David Blair reports

Boko Haram is now a mini-Islamic State, with its own territory

Boko Haram controls about 20,000 square miles of territory and is fast becoming a terrorist state razing villages and killing innocent victims, writes David Blair

Charlie Hebdo attack: Anwar al-Awlaki - the al-Qaeda ideologue who may have inspired the massacre

After inciting a long list of terrorist attacks and calling for cartoonists who 'insult' the Prophet to be killed, Anwar al-Awlaki may still be encouraging bloodshed from beyond the grave