Mark Seddon
Mark Seddon is the former United Nations Correspondent and New York Bureau Chief for Al-Jazeera English TV. He reported from eighteen countries during that time, including North Korea, China, Haiti, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has interviewed, amongst others, Ban Ki-Moon, Lech Walesa, Tony Blair, Hans Blix, Michael Foot, Mia Farrow, and George Clooney. In a journalistic career spanning over twenty years, he has been Editor of Tribune and an elected member of the UK Labour Party's National Executive Committee. He has written for most British newspapers and many magazines, including The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Times, The Spectator, New Statesman, Private Eye, British Journalism Review and Country Life Magazine. For a number of years he was a Diarist at the London Evening Standard, and has also reported for, amongst others, the BBC and Sky TV. He lives in Buckingham, England.
As paralysis continues to grip the corridors of power in Brussels and Berlin, even the dark humour for which central Europeans are noted is in short supply. But at least, […]
However hard most political leaders try, almost whatever they do in an attempt to look fashionable and plugged into the real lives of voters, it never seems to quite work. […]
A quiet suburban street set in the leafy suburbs of Cheadle, Manchester, Northern England on Monday, witnessed a coming together of a former Leader of Manchester City Council, Labour MP Graham Stringer […]
As his ear continues to be bent by assorted British Government officials, spooks and former Ministers determined that he introduce further restrictions over disclosure of information in ‘sensitive’ court cases […]
I hope that the US authorities are keeping a close eye on proceedings in little old London town involving Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and that of one of his former […]
In Britain, the main Opposition Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband was pleased at his party’s strong progress in the mid term council elections in England – and especially Wales. Gaining well […]
United Nations Secretary General, Ban ki moon, was this week in Myanmar, or Burma as Western and some domestic opponents continue to call the country. It is not the first […]
Iceland, a small, rocky outpost in the North Atlantic and home to just over 318,000 people is not a country that easily makes international headlines. But back in the 1970s, […]
Eighteen months ago, I interviewed President Mohamed Nasheed, the Maldives first ever democratically elected leader, for al Jazeera TV in the capital, Male. Then, as now, this small Indian Ocean […]
Bernard Savage, Head of the EU Delegation to Sri Lanka and the Maldives said: “At this stage, given our information, we would not say that there has been any legal […]
In all of the hyperbole surrounding Newt Gingrich’s storming victory over Mitt Romney in South Carolina, little or no attention has so far been given to the slippery amphibian that […]
The dramatic decision by the Maldives Government to close down tourist hotel health spas – following recent noisy protests that claimed they were ‘un Islamic’ – provoked fairly predictable headlines […]
It was an innocuous enough statement. The fact that it referred to an event that had occurred while much of the World – and particularly the Western media – was […]
News of the demise of Kim Jong Il, leader of the ‘hermit kingdom’, or the World’s last Stalinist State, North Korea, shouldn’t have come as a surprise; after all, he […]
A former British Prime Minister, James Callaghan, once warned that sudden squalls could blow into major storms and often from unexpected places. Not very long afterwards, the Argentinians began to […]
Much of the traditional British media seems to be wilfully missing the political story that lies behind the attempts to save the Eurozone from itself. The Right wing media is […]
Occupy St Paul’s! This isn’t the slogan of those who have followed in the wake of the Wall Street protestors, but London’s eponymous cathedral is now surrounded by a tent […]
Before history is quickly re-written and the essentials forgotten, the vote that took on Monday night in the House of Commons on whether British voters should be allowed a referendum […]
More form Mark Seddon’s new book; ‘Standing for Something – Life in the Awkward Squad’, published this week, is available by buying the book http://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/Standing%20for%20Something/ March 2011: Perched in the offices of […]
A former British Prime Minister, James Callaghan will forever be remembered for the words ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ eventhough he never actually said them. Callaghan had the misfortune of having his […]
Sir Brian Urquhart, one of the oldest surviving senior UN staff members, reminded us recently in an article in the New York Times that a former Secretary General of the […]
[This article appeared in the Daily Mail] The British people understand what politicians and diplomats euphemistically refer to as ‘realpolitik’. They accept that sometimes their leaders have to sit down […]
EVEN President George Bush played lip service to the idea of a ‘two State’ solution for Israel/Palestine. That, after all, is the default position of the international community. It is […]
It simply beggars belief that there are some in the British media who still take the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, even vaguely seriously. On Friday, we were treated […]
New York, or rather Manhattan, has been part and parcel of my life for over a decade. It is stimulating, sophisticated, and a city where truly anything is possible. But […]
Former Prime Minister, Tony Blair and former UK Foreign Secretaries Jack Straw and David Miliband, now face some extremely tough questions as to how much they knew about the extraordinary […]
As soon as commentators began to refer to the popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East as the ‘Arab Spring’, I began to worry that the near universal […]
The economic crisis is proving useful for those who want to see the European Union make the final and logical leap to becoming a unitary state, with a single currency […]
We live in the age of instant punditry, and I am as guilty of it as anyone else. On the basis of having reported from inside Libya three or four […]
When President Bashar al Assad was elected (unopposed) in 2000, many in the West heralded this as progress. Assad’s father in law, Fahwaz – who I came to know – […]