Gareth Browne

Thursday

Gareth Browne

Hurricane Irma was an important test for the UK military

From our UK edition

Hurricane Irma rampaged through the Caribbean at the end of last week. With some 500,000 British nationals and several British dependencies sat in the hurricane’s path, Britain was always going to be deeply involved in the fall out. In true British fashion, criticism of the response was quick to mount. Jeremy Corbyn claimed the UK 'should have acted much faster'. Others, including senior MP’s from both parties, went as far as labelling the response 'appalling' and suggested the UK had been 'caught out'. But is such criticism valid? Brigadier John Ridge, Commander of the Joint Task Force – and the man in charge of Operation Ruman, the UK’s response to Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean – thinks not and he has hit back.

Thursday

Gareth Browne

The Yazidis’ desperate struggle is far from over

From our UK edition

Three years ago, international attention was drawn to the desperate plight of Iraq's Yazidis, a largely unheard of ethnic and religious minority. As Isis rampaged across their homeland of Sinjar in Northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, thousands of Yazidi women were kidnapped and taken hostage to serve as prized sex slaves by Isis members. Many of them still remain in Isis-held territory across the border in Syria. Children were brainwashed and recruited to fight for the jihadists, while adults were massacred and left in the mass graves which now litter the mountainous northern districts of Iraq.

Tuesday

Gareth Browne

The victory over Isis has left Mosul at risk of more brutality

From our UK edition

A grainy video posted to Twitter shows a bearded man, his hands raised, on his knees, pleading for his life. A few seconds later, a soldier in desert fatigues, and allegedly from the Iraqi Army's 16th Division, enters the frame and pushes the petrified man over the edge of a cliff on to the banks of a river down below. The man appears alive, just, but as he attempts to slither to cover, the soldier unleashes a volley of a dozen or so rounds, leaving his bloodied body lifeless. His crime is unclear, though without jury nor trial his tormentors have accused him of being a member of Isis. It is barely two weeks since Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi declared Mosul officially liberated from Isis.