4 d. ago Facing War review – cool customer of a Nato secretary general marshals world on the brink

Gripping documentary follows Jens Stoltenberg through his final year as Nato chief – balancing diplomacy, egos and all-out war with unnerving calmJens Stoltenberg is the Norwegian politician and international diplomat whose destiny it was to be secretary general of Nato in the second most fraught period of its postwar history (if we accept that the Cuban missile crisis is in pole position). He was in charge from 2014 to 2024 and this documentary, with remarkable access, shows us his final 12 months – day-by-day, moment-by-moment – after Joe Biden had persuaded him in 2023, when his tenure was technically at an end, to stay on for another year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Perhaps, until that moment, Stoltenberg had been happy to assume that for all the meetings and stress, the secretary-generalship was an agreeable prestigious technocratic position without any real danger. But now he was faced with the possibility of executing Nato’s raison d’être. Ukraine can’t be admitted to ...

Economics

1 week ago Universities warn Starmer: Evacuate Gaza scholarship students now or they will lose their place

Exclusive: Senior leaders at several top UK universities have written to the PM to warn that a failure to evacuate students by Sunday will see them miss out

Events

1 week ago Starting HRT years before menopause could cut health risks for women – study

Researchers said further studies were needed but they hoped the findings can ‘start a larger conversation about prevention in women’s health’.

Events

2 w. ago MPs highlight plight of Gaza students unable to come to UK with children

Politicians write to ministers about Palestinians who cannot take up scholarships because they are barred from bringing familiesA cross-party group of more than 100 MPs has written to the government, highlighting the plight of Palestinian students unable to take up scholarships at UK universities because they have been barred from bringing their children.The British government has now evacuated from Gaza almost 60 scholars with fully funded university places and more are expected soon, but others have been forced to abandon their plans in order to remain with their families. Continue reading...

Society

3 w. ago No family, no stability, no social fabric: the anguish of Gaza’s wounded orphans

As the number of WCNSFs – ‘wounded child, no surviving family’ – grows, charities struggle to find adults to look after themWithin a few months, the war in Gaza had already made its own addition to the vocabulary of emergency medical assistance with the world’s most heartbreaking acronym: WCNSF, “wounded child, no surviving family”.Over two years of bombardment and famine the problem has worsened, even though in the constant chaos created by Israeli bombing and evacuation orders, which fragment communities and scatter them around the Gaza Strip, it is hard to keep track of children separated from their families. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Happy, stressed, overwhelmed: Palestinians evacuated from Gaza start their studies in UK

Abdallah, 27, and Soha, 31, describe adjusting to their new lives after leaving their war-torn homeThe young man emerging from a backstreet accommodation block in a bustling corner of east London looks much like any other student, getting to grips with his studies at the start of a new term. But 27-year-old Abdallah carries more of a burden than most. A qualified doctor, he has recently been evacuated from Gaza to begin his studies at Queen Mary University of London on a fully funded, government-backed Chevening scholarship.As well as his work in hospitals, he has been striving for months on behalf of the dozens of Palestinian scholars like himself who have been stranded in war-torn Gaza awaiting evacuation by the British government to take up places in UK universities. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago ‘A certain bite’: how Martha Graham pushed dance in dazzling new directions

As her company prepares to celebrate its centenary, the legendary choreographer’s groundbreaking work is finally getting the respect it deserves in the UK. What took so long?A century ago, the dancer Martha Graham began teaching at a small studio above Carnegie Hall in Manhattan. It was the start of a dance revolution. Graham wasn’t the first dancer to cast off ballet’s shackles and look for new ways of moving as the world shifted in the early 20th century: free-spirited Isadora Duncan had wafted her way through European salons; Loie Fuller experimented with costume and light effects; Ruth St Denis and Ted Shawn, with whom Graham trained, explored dance aping the styles of India, Egypt and Japan. But it’s Graham who became the true godmother of modern dance, developing a technique that would become the foundation of many dancers’ training around the world, and starkly modernist choreography that would point dance in a new direction.Where ballet leapt to the sky, Graham was rooted to...

Politics