WORLD - The African Mirror

Feb

13

2026

US-Iran talks are not a countdown to conflict

WORLD

WHEN Iranian and US officials met for talks in the Omani capital of Muscat on February 6, many journalists and analysts were speculating as to whether diplomacy would fail and whether war would inevitably follow. But that framing misses the deeper reality of this moment. The more important question is why both sides have returned to the negotiating table at all, despite years of hostility, sanctions, proxy conflict and open threats. The anxiety that has surrounded the talks is understandable. Washington warned its citizens to leave Iran hours before the talks took place, fuelling speculation about military strikes. US officials…

Feb

12

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

When safety shatters: The Tumbler Ridge school shooting and Canada’s reckoning

WORLD

THE mathematics of the catastrophe in Tumbler Ridge are devastating in their precision: seven dead at the school, two more at a nearby home, a female shooter who took her own life. Ten lives extinguished in a community of 2,700 souls. More than 25 were injured. Two were airlifted with life-threatening wounds. In a town where the mayor knows every victim by name, where a pastor taught many of the dead, where students walked out with hands raised into a scene that belonged to American news footage, not Canadian reality. This is Canada's worst mass shooting since 2020, and its…

Feb

12

2026

By ROBERT DOVER

A whiff of espionage around the Epstein files points to how intelligence and influence interact

WORLD

FOR obvious reasons, the secretive world of intelligence agencies and the people who revolve in its orbit remains opaque. So much so that some of those people may not even be aware of any involvement in the secret world. The Epstein papers have thrown up speculation about whether the late financier and sex offender might have performed services for one or another of the big intelligence agencies. And in the wake of that speculation, it has been noted that the father of Epstein’s one-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was the late Robert Maxwell, well-known as a larger-than-life publisher and newspaper proprietor…

Feb

12

2026

By RIN USHIYAMA

Japan’s ruling party secures historic election victory – but challenges lie ahead

WORLD

PRIME Minister Sanae Takaichi’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has secured the biggest election victory seen in Japan since the end of the Second World War. In elections on February 8, it won 316 seats out of a total of 465 in the lower house of Japan’s parliament. The Japan Innovation Party, its junior coalition partner, secured a further 36 seats. Many had predicted an LDP win. Takaichi called the snap election in January to capitalise on her high approval ratings since becoming Japan’s first female prime minister months earlier. But few had anticipated the strength of her support, with…

Feb

11

2026

By MARTIN FARR

How much longer can Keir Starmer survive?

WORLD

WHEN they disintegrate, governments often do so slowly, then quickly. Despite dragooned public statements of support from the cabinet, the government of Keir Starmer gives every appearance of entering that second phase. In the wake of the scandal surrounding former Washington ambassador Peter Mandelson and his ties to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Starmer lost his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who had championed Mandelson for the role. Then the PM lost his press secretary, Tim Allan. Then, in a live press conference, he lost the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Anas Sarwar. Eighteen months ago, Starmer could not…

Feb

11

2026

By NOUR ELASSY

In Gaza, my homeland is being transformed into an engineering project

WORLD

FOR two years, Gaza has been a place of mass death, starvation, disappearances, attempted erasure, genocide. Now, almost without warning, it is being transformed, rhetorically, into a management problem. Plans have appeared. Phase one has transitioned into phase two. Committees have been established. A future is being presented, fully formed and designed, while the core questions of rights and accountability are swept under the rug as inconvenient complications. I’m writing this from Europe while my family is still in Gaza. From here, I watch the West switch registers, from horror to “stabilisation”, from mourning to “governance”, from humanitarian catastrophe to…

Feb

11

2026

By STEFAN WOLFF

Farcical peace talks in Abu Dhabi resolve nothing as Ukraine shivers under Russia’s winter onslaught

WORLD

RUSSIA, Ukraine and the US met for a second time this week for trilateral talks to discuss a possible cessation of hostilities. Once again, little was resolved apart from a prisoner swap, something that has happened several times over the four years of the full-scale conflict between the two countries. The lack of any substantive breakthrough was fairly predictable, given the circumstances. This week’s meeting got off to the same depressing start as the first one had the week before. On February 3, the night before the three sides gathered in Abu Dhabi, a massive barrage of 521 drones and…

Feb

10

2026

By The African Mirror

Israeli settlement expansion threatens Palestinian statehood, UN warns

WORLD

A sweeping Israeli military campaign and settlement drive across the occupied West Bank is imperilling any prospect of Palestinian statehood, the United Nations human rights office warned this week, as operations that displaced scores of families and demolished dozens of structures raise alarm over potential war crimes. The aggressive expansion comes despite multiple rulings by the International Court of Justice demanding Israel halt settlement activities, evacuate existing settlements, and end its occupation of Palestinian territories—orders that have gone unheeded as settlement growth accelerates at what UN officials describe as an "unprecedented pace." Mass Demolitions, Evictions Signal Intensified Campaign Israeli security…

Feb

10

2026

By JEREMY HORDER

What exactly is misconduct in public office and could Peter Mandelson be convicted?

WORLD

PETER Mandelson, former UK ambassador to the United States, is currently under investigation by the Metropolitan Police concerning an allegation of criminal misconduct in public office. The allegation centres on evidence that Mandelson passed sensitive, confidential information – received in his capacity as a minister – to Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. If that is true, then it is, of course, not the first time that ministerial confidences have been breached. However, what makes this case potentially serious is the possibility that the information passed to Epstein was known to be likely to assist Epstein financially and that this favour…

Feb

10

2026

By SARAH TROTT

Melania: how the role of US first lady has changed over the years

WORLD

THE first lady of the US, a title typically held by the wife of the president, has never been a fixed cultural figure. Instead, she has functioned as a screen onto which the nation projects its ideals, anxieties and evolving ideas about womanhood and power. With the release of Amazon’s new Melania documentary, which details Melania Trump in the 20 days before her husband’s second presidential inauguration in January 2025, that long tradition of reinterpretation is once again visible. It reminds us that the first lady is as much a cultural symbol as a political presence. The earliest first ladies…