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After two weeks of WikiLeaking, many Americans want to see Julian Assange locked up. Instead, they should give the man a medal. Of course, it is embarrassing and awkward to [...]

Watching the Chinese government's reaction to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, I can only conclude that it needs to hire a new PR agency, writes [...]

This is the time of year when Europeans dream about escaping to somewhere sunnier. London last week offered an unattractive combination of freezing temperatures, Tube strikes and airport closures. To [...]

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States was left as the world's only superpower. But the 'unipolar moment' did not last long. By the time [...]

The news earlier this month that three bottles of Chateau Lafite, from the 1869 vintage, had sold at auction in Hong Kong for [pounds sterling]437,900 gives a new meaning to [...]

Gideon Rachman: The 'revelations' in the latest download from WikiLeaks strike me as surprisingly dull. You would have thought that, in 250,000 pages of diplomatic cables, there would be insights [...]

'Tell me how this ends,' was the question posed by General David Petraeus about the Iraq war. European leaders are asking the same question as they contemplate the crisis in [...]

From Mr Arthur Lander. Sir, With reference to Gideon Rachman's article 'Inside the Gates Foundation' (Life & Arts, November 13-14): $484m spent by the foundation on building, land and improvements [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: The whirlwind that is hitting Ireland may feel like the kind of crisis that nobody could have anticipated. In fact, in the years that I lived in [...]

If Burma followed Hollywood rules then the rest of the Aung San Suu Kyi story would now follow a predictable and uplifting narrative. After her release from imprisonment, the beautiful [...]

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the richest private foundation in the world. It has ambitions to save millions of lives, to eradicate killer diseases and to wage war [...]

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the richest private foundation in the world. It has ambitions to save millions of lives, to eradicate killer diseases and to wage war [...]

Beijing visit David Cameron now realises that securing big export deals from China is a slow process, writes Chris Giles David Cameron came to China at the helm of a [...]

As the leaders of the world's biggest powers gather for a Group of 20 summit , their South Korean hosts talk hopefully of the organisation as a 'steering committee of [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: The visit of Barack Obama to India is interesting partly for what is not being said. The relaxation of America's export controls regime is significant because both [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: For all the excited headlines about the midterm elections in the US, it seems the results are pretty much as expected. Republicans win the House of Representatives; [...]

'How's that hopey-changey thing working out for you?' jeered Sarah Palin earlier this year - in a dig at the soaring rhetoric that helped Barack Obama win the presidency in [...]

Iam sitting on a bar stool. On the other side of a round metal table, the world's second richest man is sipping a Diet Coke, eating french fries with his [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: After last week's visit to the Shanghai Expo, I have been exchanging notes with fellow visitors. This has yielded three further insights: (1) I had been struck [...]

Anybody who talks regularly to Chinese officials will be familiar with the mantra that 'China is a developing country'. But Shanghai, which I visited last week, mocks this modest description. [...]

Most of my career has been spent reporting on a world where things were steadily improving. I started work in London during the Thatcher boom of the mid-1980s. At the [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: America has its midterm elections, France has its strikes and Britain has its austerity drive. But here in China (I'm in Shanghai), there is also very big [...]

If there was an informal European Union championship for street protest then Greece and France would be the two most regular winners. Greek and French workers have traditionally staged strikes [...]

The Tea Party movement that is stirring up US politics means different things to different people. The intended reference is to the Boston Tea Party, the anti-tax, anti-colonial rebellion that [...]

Gideon Rachman's Blog: I've heard of a witch-hunt, but this is ridiculous. Christine O'Donnell, the Republican candidate for the Senate in Delaware, has just produced a television advertisement, whose opening [...]

In recent months, senior western officials have become discernibly more relaxed about the Iranian nuclear programme. It is not that they suddenly welcome the prospect of an Iranian bomb. It [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organisation, is fond of saying that the predicted surge of protectionism in the wake of the Great Recession never [...]

Next week sees the retirement of the man described by Barack Obama as 'the most popular politician on earth'. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, known simply as [...]

Brazil Dilma Rousseff, the president's chosen successor, is seen as lacking her patron's leadership skill, says Jonathan Wheatley In the crush of people pushing their way to join the 35,000 [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: I find it hard to believe that, at this late stage, the organisers of the Commonwealth Games really will pull the plug on the plan to hold [...]

The European Union has plenty to worry about: soaring debts, wobbling banks, declining influence, a war in Afghanistan. But at their most recent summit, EU leaders took a break from [...]

Gideon Rachman's Blog: It's strange to recall that, a decade ago, the World Trade Organisation was a deeply controversial organisation. It was the WTO that was fingered by the anti-globalisation [...]

America commemorates two grim anniversaries this month: 9/11 and 9/15. Almost a decade has passed since hijacked aircraft flew into the twin towers, killing nearly 3,000 people and transforming America's [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog (Richard McGregor): Why should China's communist rulers care about a modest book written in a language that most of their people cannot read that is not even [...]

When Paul Krugman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, clashed with Niall Ferguson, a famous historian (and FT contributing editor), over how best to respond to the economic crisis, Prof Ferguson's response [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: The British press are currently feasting on two scandals. The first involves the foreign secretary, William Hague; the second involves Andy Coulson, the prime minister's press secretary. [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog (Daniel Dombey): If you want to see what the US's 'responsible drawdown' in Iraq looks like, come to al-Asad Air Base. Here, in a desert of white [...]

Gideon Rachman: The South African strikes are getting nasty. Just weeks after the end of the World Cup, the country seems to be nearing paralysis, with the miners now threatening [...]

High-profile book launches are meant to be a bit of a circus. But it is hard to find a parallel for the mixture of hype and hatred that will attend [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: The Tea Party rally over the weekend attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the mall in Washington - and doubtless caused its fair share of shudders [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: Are the women of Wales Britain's secret weapon in the battle for global influence? Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister - currently struggling to put together a [...]

You can gauge the importance of Turkey to the western world by the fact that both Barack Obama and David Cameron gave speeches to the Turkish parliament in Ankara within [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: One in four Americans think Barack Obama is a Muslim, according to a new poll for Time magazine. (Read into the story, they've buried the most interesting [...]

Accusations that Pakistan backed militants in Afghanistan while accepting US aid provoked fresh controversy in Washington yesterday over President Barack Obama's strategy for rescuing the nine-year Afghan war. Classified US [...]

Whenever western leaders ask themselves the question, why are we in Afghanistan, they come up with essentially the same reply - 'To prevent Afghanistan becoming a failed state and a [...]

Specialists in nuclear deterrence occupy a world that requires the coldly rational contemplation of completely insane courses of action. Under normal circumstances, this is a world that non-specialists can ignore. [...]

Gideon Rachman's blog: As we have all just seen at the World Cup, staging a major international sporting event can be a great way of advertising a country. But it [...]

It is a sunny summer afternoon in London, and the courtyard of St John restaurant is bright and airy. Inside the dining room, however, things are much darker. There is [...]

Multinational companies still have a vaguely villainous image for much of the left. But they are one of the most powerful forces in the world pushing for peace, prosperity and [...]

There are still five days to go before the last ball is kicked at the World Cup, but the sense of relief in South Africa is already palpable. Over the [...]