Magnus Wolfe Murray on Cox’s Bazar
First published as a Letter from Scotland on Substack, March 18, 2025 The US has made a huge cut in its Overseas Aid budget and the UK has followed suit….
First published as a Letter from Scotland on Substack, March 18, 2025 The US has made a huge cut in its Overseas Aid budget and the UK has followed suit….
First published Feb 26, 2025 I got the chance to visit Cape Town last week, where I met up with an old friend from Scotland. Sonwabo Masepe taught me African…
First published March 21, 2024, updated March 19, 2025 At an Edinburgh freelance branch NUJ meeting this week, Howard Amos discussed his book Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the…
Energy poverty is when you can’t afford to heat your home or cook your food. Almost a third – 31% – of Scots are in this category, That is more…
Letter from Scotland, published Dec 9, 2024 Paris welcomed world leaders this weekend to celebrate the magnificent rebuild of Notre Dame, completed on a time scale many thought impossible….
Edinburgh for the last couple of days has been at the epicentre of the royal passing – a carefully-planned and tactfully-arranged ceremony. I don’t think I have seen a single…
25 years ago, on September 11, 1997, Scotland voted overwhelmingly for a Scottish Parliament, in a referendum Less than a fortnight before the poll, Princess Diana died in a crash…
ON the western edge of the Sleat peninsula, sometimes called the Isle of Sleat, is Tarskavaig, a scattering of whitewashed cottages looking out across the open sea towards Rum and…
Director-general of the EU translation service. Born: June 11 1937 in Glasgow. Died: April 2 2022 in Bordeaux, aged 84 Brian McCluskey achieved the highest rank of any Scot ever…
Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof is at the heart of Europe’s sleek 21st-century rail network. Trains slide through on several levels, connected by long elevators and glassy lifts. It is a monument to…
Thousands of refugees from Ukraine have been arriving in Berlin – 6,000 estimated today. At the city’s vast central station, the Hauptbahnhof, volunteers awaited the new arrivals, carrying cardboard signs…
There was just one other couple in the cinema at Eden Court in Inverness on a wintry evening in to see Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers”. A spell-binding story, it touches…
To the Highland Press Ball in Inverness this weekend – celebrating local journalism with people from as far afield as Lewrick, as the UK Government likes to call the Shetland…
We are taking advantage of our status as digital nomads to base ourselves in Gran Canaria for most of January. I started off by correcting people who said ‘enjoy your…
On the first of January, 2021, the transition period ended and Britain effectively left the EU – closing a long period where the media was full of discussions about what…
Glasgow’s Barras celebrated its centenary on Saturday. A combination of rain and Covid warnings meant the place was quiet despite the anniversary. Christmas lights were refracted in the puddles outside…
The Labour Party has become increasingly defined by opposition to a second referendum and to the SNP generally – but it doesn’t seem to be bearing fruit electorally. There was…
It is the end of the season in the north-west Highlands. Shops are on reduced hours, many restaurants, hotels and cafes are closing up. Journey times are shorter because the…
We hosted Mathias Lyamunda, the chief executive of an NGO in Tanzania, as part of the HomeStay network for COP26. This gave us a glimpse of an African perspective on…
Food production will have to change to deliver the methane emissions reductions agreed at COP26. How will this work? Last week, I interviewed a “regenerative farmer” in Fife who may…