Michael Baker

If you're familiar with the Anne Frank story, you may recall that on July 6, 1942 she and her family went into hiding for the first time in the secret annexe that her father Otto had prepared at his business premises in Amsterdam. What triggered this dramatic move was Anne's older sister Margot receiving a summons the previous day from the German occupying authorities to report for deportation to a labour camp in Germany. At the time such deportations of Jews were becoming systematic in the...

Stalemate in Ukraine In three weeks' time, the war in Ukraine will have lasted as long as the First World War. The two conflicts have often been compared. As on the Western front from the end of 1914 onwards, in Ukraine too the war has settled into a trench-bound stalemate of attritional ferocity in which, on both sides, advances are minimal and casualties heavy. At least, that was true until more recently when Ukraine's adroit use of innovative drone technology began to tip the balance,...

Despite all the rhetoric, much of it contradictory on the American side, surrounding the causes and goals of the present war in Iran, it's clear that Teheran's ambitions to have their own nuclear programme has long been the critical issue that divides the combatants. The Iranians insist this programme is for pacific civilian use, the West broadly (led aggressively at the present time by Israel and the US) believes they want to make their own atomic bombs and should be stopped from doing so....