Anthony Holden is a writer, broadcaster and critic, and was the US Editor for the Observer and Assistant Editor for The TImes. He's written many biographies including one on Tchaikovsky, and watched the Sochi 2014 opening ceremony to...

China Human Rights Briefing January 31-February 6, 2014 Contents Enforced Disappearance Guizhou Activist, Wife F orcibly Disappeared Since September, Whereabouts Unknown Arbitrary Detention Police Seek Indictment of Journalist Who...

Standing on the shore at Newcastle during the recent tidal surges, I watched wave after wave crashing over the harbour wall. The wall, otherwise imposing on a clear day, seemed a puny human artifice as it was battered by the tide and...

Letters to the editor The Times letters@thetimes.co.uk Tuesday 4 February 2014 Sir, Growing numbers of reports of the use of “barrel bombs” by Syrian government forces in attacks on Aleppo and elsewhere are absolutely reprehensible and...

Owing to a political dispute, on 15 December 2013 violence between rival army factions erupted in South Sudan. As a result thousands of people have been killed, many of them children, with 860,000 displaced. A serious humanitarian...