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.
Yesterday the City of London moved against the fish porters of Billingsgate Market in London, revoking their licences in a move that would be more familiar to mediaeval Knights than […]
Ask a student, any student, what ‘R2P’ means, and you can be forgiven for the blank stare you are likely to receive. Flesh it out into ‘Responsibility to Protect’, and you are still likely to get […]
One of the many advantages of You Tube and the social networking sites, is that it is possible to get a real measure of the de-regulated, ‘opinion led’ television the […]
Amidst the failed state Somalia, the northern part of of the country, encompassing the colonial boundaries of the former British Somaliland is a functioning, free and fair democracy. Bizarrely, it remains unrecognised by any other country.
Perhaps it was unintended, but two or three weeks ago, at the height of the protests that was gripping the great cities of Egypt, the Director General of the BBC, […]
Here in New York it is possible to take a slightly more dispassionate view of some of the Western, particularly British media, reaction to the events in Libya. The most […]
I have a photograph back home in England taken in 1978. It is of a demonstration organised by local trade unions in the small town of Trowbridge in Wiltshire, South […]
Mark Malloch Brown, a former Assistant UN Secretary General and former UK Foreign Office Minister has today claimed in The Independent newspaper in London that the the ‘great diplomatic triumph’ […]
The most sensible outcome, and one avoiding the Libyan leader being killed by American and European led forces, would be to somehow organise his arrest by forces loyal to the Arab League.
THERE are already some on the Left who are arguing against military intervention – in the form of a no fly zone – over Libya. The argument has merit on […]
With thanks to Alex Weprin who on March 17, 2011 filed a fascinating report based on a study which has been posted in the journal Arab Media & Society. The […]
I am old enough – just – to remember Britain’s one and only referendum on whether we should remain a member of what was then called the Common Market, back […]
It says something about the rather dismal condition of both British politics and journalism, that this week there was an amount of liberal fluttering over a speech at the London […]
Regular readers will know that I take a jaundiced view of former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Of course he left office some time ago, and in normal circumstances this […]
When I first met Tony Blair in 1993 at his house in Islington in North London, I was struck by two things. First, the man who had just recently become […]
When the Chief Executive of Barclays Bank, Bob Diamond made his appearance in front of a House of Commons Select Committee recently, he said that “the time for remorse was […]
By all accounts, Nick Clegg is not a happy man. This week his candidate trailed into a truly humiliating sixth place in the Barnsley Central by-election, losing his deposit and […]
The other evening I was asked onto a radio programme in order to criticise the international community for being slow, or downright useless, in responding to the Libyan uprising. What […]
When it comes to the Libyan revolution and the peculiar madness of Colonel Gadaffi, what is the right move?
AS the United Nations Security Council meets in New York, Secretary General Ban ki moon is calling for “decisive” action to be taken against the Libyan regime. The UN Secretary […]
Heavy gun fire has been heard raking the streets of Tripoli, as Libyan dictator Colonel Gadaffi makes a defiant stand. There can be no doubt now that he will stop at absolutely nothing to hang on to power. What, if anything, should the international community be doing to help?
As Libyan dictator, Colonel Gadaffi, defiantly declared that he would not quit, and clashes continued between the security forces and unarmed civilians, the plight of foreign nationals stuck in Libya […]
What did countries such as Britain and Italy think they were doing when they began to cultivate their relationships with Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gadaffi a few years back?
The situation in Bahrain is approaching a fever pitch, and the neighboring Saudis are expected to intervene to rescue the ruling Bahraini family and shore up the regime.
THIS week a powerful section of Britain’s political class demonstrated beyond any remaining doubt that they now inhabit a parallel universe to the rest of us. For most people out […]
Regular readers may recall some of my despatches from the Maldives in the Indian Ocean last year. I had been asked to go there in order to meet with President […]
The end of the Mubarak regime in Egypt is likely to have a much larger impact on the region than the end of the regime in Tunisia, according to MEC […]
And so to another inconvenient truth that should trouble anyone interested in the clash of ideas, real passion in journalism, polemic and a radicalism worthy of its name. Iconic, radical […]
So what do you do? Do you respond to their bizarre, inane and frequently offensive attention seeking bombast, or do you deny them the oxygen of publicity? In Britain last […]
It will not take much to fuel the ire of the Arab Street, as people begin to look beyond regime change in their own countries, and toward what their old regimes did or didn’t do when it came to Israel.