Stuck in the Suez Canal

2020 ended with some relief that we now have vaccines for Covid-19. But the pandemic is not over yet and new strains of coronavirus have spread. Now we have to work out how to distribute the vaccines ...

7 Jan 202120min

As we look back on the year 2020 it is undeniable that there is one story that has defined the year. But beyond the coronavirus, what have been the defining stories from The National’s newsroom?  Ir...

25 Dec 202024min

On December 10, Azerbaijan held a triumphant military parade in its capital, Baku. Two-and-a-half months after the start of a conflict over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region in the west of the cou...

18 Dec 202014min

It is three years since then Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi declared the gruelling battle against the most feared terror group in history was over. ISIS had been defeated. The conflict itself ...

10 Dec 202028min

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit - global trade ground to a halt. Around the world people were scrambling to buy essentials as supermarket shelves emptied. But the UAE, a country that relies on imports ...

1 Dec 202013min

On August 7, Habib Daoud, a Lebanese professor of history in Iran, was gunned down on a street in northern Tehran. Killed alongside him was his 27-year-old daughter Maryam. The assassin was riding a m...

26 Nov 202023min

In 2019, Abiy Ahmed was riding high. For a year he had been Ethiopia’s prime minister, having emerged from byzantine internal jockeying at a time of deep unease and anger. He had ushered in a series o...

19 Nov 202024min

For nearly four years, US President Donald Trump has torn up America’s foreign policy handbook. The implications, both at home and abroad, have been significant. Most recently, Trump’s administration ...

12 Nov 202023min