On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush gave a major speech to Congress and the country in which he outlined the coming U.S. response to al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. He said, “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” Thus began what would soon be known as the “Global War on Terror,” or GWOT, in its unlovely acronym
It’s a confusing time to be a man. For decades, the cultural left has insisted that “toxic masculinity” is roaming the land, threatening women’s safety and rights.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment of loyalists to top jobs suggests he is prepared to keep the country on a war footing and to quash domestic dissent.
President Trump said a cease-fire agreed to in June would lead to limits on Iran’s nuclear program and finish the conflict, but the countries appear far apart.
President Trump wants to curtail military exercises with South Korea, saying they were hostile to North Korea. But under Mr. Kim, the North has become increasingly belligerent toward the South.
A U.S. attorney subpoenaed a firm that had been co-owned by the daughter of the judge who conducted the trial that led to President Trump’s felony conviction.
In Moldova, Moscow paid Orthodox priests, conducted a vote-buying scheme and set up training camps on election interference — all in an effort to derail the Western-leaning government.
When a crisis brought on by a rash idea that results in the most prominent part of an organisation saying it will boycott the business’s showcase event doesn’t die down after a couple of weeks, observers might expect the boss to be considering his future. Not when it’s Fifa and not when it’s Gianni Infantino, the president of football’s world governing body and the subject of this week’s big story.
Jonathan Wilson’s witty account of how Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors led to the current standoff between Infantino and Fifa’s regional associations is riveting even if you are not a football fan. Jonathan explains how money, egos and some murky politicking collided to elect Infantino on the promise of reform. It’s a tale that has little to do with the sport and its ardent fans, and has far more in common with Shakespeare or a political drama. With a neat circularity, it traces how “Fifa’s attempt to move on from the crisis caused by the executive who rented an apartment for his cats in Trump Tower has wound up back in Trump Tower, with a president who rents an office there”.
Spotlight | ‘I’ll cut your throat’ Five years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, women are being killed with impunity. A reporting team from Zan Times collects shocking evidence of femicide
Environment | Smoke alarm As wildfires grow in frequency and spread, environment correspondent Ajit Niranjan reports of the race to untangle the links between exposure to fine particulates in smoke and increased mortality
Feature | War and language learning Soon after her first reporting trip to Ukraine, our chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins began to learn Ukrainian. She explains how the process taught her more about herself than she had expected
Opinion | Rule breakers need regulation The revelation that AI went rogue in test conditions should be a call for a wise US leader to back the introduction of an international rule-based order, says Rafael Behr
Culture | What’s eating Dominic Sessa? Being cast as the lead in Tony, the biopic of bad-boy chef and Kitchen Confidential author Anthony Bourdain let Sessa immerse himself in the 1970s where, he tells Ryan Gilbey, he wouldn’t mind staying
Tributes recalled Zhu Rongji’s spirited style and his efforts to integrate China into global commerce, in contrast with the rigidity of the Xi Jinping era.
The agency used a no-bid contract to buy 10 used jets, saying they were urgently needed for deportation flights. But the fleet has largely sat idle for months.
In response to a threat against the jet, President Trump was clandestinely removed in a catering container. But the plane was sent into the skies anyway.
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