Letter: Sandy Gall obituary
As Sandy stepped off the plane, he realised that he was in the middle of a full-scale revolution. When he met up with Ryan, he said: 'It's ridiculous, you reporting this all on your own.'
'Actually, I wasn't,' said Ryan. 'There was this other chap but when he sat down at his typewriter a couple of days ago, he froze with his hands above the keys. Nervous breakdown. Had to be carried off to hospital, but now you're here.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
'It is truly monstrous': Inside the besieged Sudanese city where families are forced to eat animal feed to live
Al Fashir is being suffocated to death. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has held the capital of North Darfur hostage in a 14-month siege - blocking food or fuel from entering the locality and forcing starvation on its 900,000 inhabitants. The entire city is currently a militarised zone as Sudan 's army and the Darfur Joint Protection Force fend off the RSF from capturing the last state capital in the Darfur region not currently under their control. Rare footage sent to Sky News from inside al Fashir town shows streets emptied of cars and people. The city's remaining residents are hiding from daytime shelling inside their homes, and volunteers move through town on donkey carts distributing the little food they can find. 'It is truly monstrous' Journalist Muammer Ibrahim sent Sky News voice notes from there. "The situation is monstrous," he says. "It is truly monstrous. "The markets are emptied of food and partially destroyed by shelling. Civilians were killed at the market, just a day ago. People have fled market areas but there is also shelling in residential areas. Every day, you hear of 10 or 12 civilians killed in attacks." His voice sounds shallow, weakened by the dire conditions, and gunshots can be heard in the background. "The intense fighting has meant that people cannot safely search for anything to eat, but there is also nothing for their money to buy. The markets are depleted. Hundreds of thousands here are threatened by a full-blown famine," he says. "There has been a full blockade of any nutritional supplies arriving in al Fashir since the collapse of Zamzam camp. It closed any routes for produce or supplies to enter." The RSF ransacked the famine-ridden Zamzam displacement camp 7.5 miles (12km) south of al Fashir town in April, after the military reclaimed Sudan's capital Khartoum. The United Nations believes that at least 100 people were killed in the attacks, including children and aid workers. The majority of Zamzam's half a million residents fled to other areas for safety. Hundreds of thousands of them are now squeezed into tents on the edges of al Fashir, completely cut off from humanitarian assistance. The capture of the camp allowed the RSF to tighten their siege and block off the last remaining supply route. Aid convoys attempting to enter al Fashir have come under fire by the RSF since last year. "Already, between June and October 2024, we had several trucks stuck and prevented by the Rapid Support Forces from going to their destination which was al Fashir and Zamzam," says Mathilde Simon, project coordinator at Medicins Sans Frontieres. "They were prevented from doing so because they were taking food to those destinations." "There was another UN convoy that tried to reach al Fashir in the beginning of June. It could not, and five aid workers were killed. "Since then, no convoy has been able to reach al Fashir. There have been ongoing negotiations to bring in food but they have not been successful until now." Families are resorting to eating animal feed to survive. Videos sent to Sky News by volunteers show extreme suffering and deprivation, with sickly children sitting on thin straw mats on the hard ground. Community kitchens are their only source of survival, only able to offer small meals of sorghum porridge to hundreds of thousands of elderly men, women and children facing starvation. The question now is whether famine has fully taken root in al Fashir after the collapse of Zamzam camp and intensified RSF siege. 'Malnutrition rates are catastrophic' "The lack of access has prevented us from carrying out further assessment that can help us have a better understanding of the situation, but already in December 2024 famine was confirmed by the IPC Famine Review Committee in five areas," says Mathilde. "It was already confirmed in August 2024 in Zamzam but had spread to other displacement camps including Abu Shouk and it was already projected in al Fashir. "This was more than eight months ago and we know the situation has completely worsened and malnutrition rates are absolutely catastrophic." Treasurer of al Fashir's Emergency Response Rooms, Mohamed al Doma, believes all signs point to a famine. He had to walk for four hours to escape the city with his wife and two young children after living through a full year of the siege and offering support to residents as supplies and funding dwindled. "There is a famine of the first degree in al Fashir. All the basic necessities for life are not available," he says. "There is a lack of sustenance, a lack of nutrition and a lack of shelter. The fundamental conditions for human living are not living. There is nothing available in the markets - no food or work. There is no farming for subsistence. There is no aid entering al Fashir."
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- The Guardian
Dining across the divide: ‘Wait a minute, you vote Reform and you read the Guardian?'
Occupation Engineering manager Voting record Generally a small-c conservative, has voted Tory in every election but 2024, when he voted Reform as a protest against the Conservative government. Doesn't see himself voting Reform in 2029 Amuse bouche Buys individual pieces of Lego to make his own creations. For his 30th birthday, his fiancee bought him the makings of a 3ft wingspan Tiger Moth biplane Occupation Retired maths teacher Voting record Labour or Lib Dem – whoever is most likely to beat the Tories Amuse bouche Spent seven years teaching in Africa, first in Kenya, then in Malawi Bernard He was very young, very smartly dressed. I wasn't scruffy, but I didn't have his polish. A nice guy; a bit diffident to start with, but we both were, really. It's a strange situation. Once we got talking, we got on fine. Michael He seemed welcoming, more than warm. Bernard I had buffalo chicken wings, followed by haddock, followed by a fantastic sticky toffee pudding. Perhaps I overdid it a bit. Michael I had pork belly to start, and then a Portuguese beef stew. Bernard We both agreed that we had to get away from fossil fuels, but his solution is nuclear. If there is an accident, they tend to be disastrous accidents – he had all kinds of arguments for why Chornobyl couldn't happen here, but even Sellafield in the early years, leaking radioactive water into the Irish Sea, was awful. Michael We should be pushing hard for nuclear, whereas Bernard leaned heavily into renewables. My reasons are the reliability of nuclear, the compactness. It's unfair to judge nuclear on Chornobyl. The causes of that disaster were largely unqualified people and political interference, rather than science. It was the politicians running it, not the engineers. Bernard The cost of Hinkley Point is immense. The French are building it, aren't they? He thinks the reason why that's happening is because the red tape in this country is so terrible. And what do you do with the waste? You bury it. But you've haven't got rid of it, you've just left it for future generations. Michael My response to the half-life issue, which he raised, is that we take very diffuse radioactive material and concentrate it – so it's not like we're creating this deadly thing; it's a natural element, or minerals rather, that's been concentrated. So it's a long problem but it's not a big problem. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Bernard I think Brexit is a done deal and I'm pretty sure that it won't be reversed any time soon. Although I was furious about it, I do tend to think: what can we do? It's like being really cross there was an earthquake. Michael We voted opposite ways but agreed that it was time to move on. It wouldn't have happened this way were I dictator and in charge of everything, and I'm not particularly happy with the results, but we live in a democracy and you've got to accept compromise. Bernard We both felt there should be more consensus in politics. PMQs is a bit of a joke: it doesn't mean anything – it's like a tennis match. If you can make a select committee work, where people from all political parties manage to meet and agree on things, why can't you make law like that? Michael Towards the end of the evening, he mentioned Wes Streeting's new plan for the NHS. It's nice that it's a 10-year plan and is supported by the shadow health secretary. So that's almost a glimmer of hope against the normal discourse of A says this and B says, 'That's bad because A said it.' If both sides say it's a good thing, then it's probably a good thing. Bernard I certainly had an enjoyable evening. I don't think I made a friend, in so far as he's half my age. I said to him, 'Wait a minute, you vote Reform, and you read the Guardian?' It turned out his fiancee is a teacher and she encouraged him to do it. Michael We walked out of the restaurant together, chatted as we walked down the street. We didn't exchange numbers; I'll never see him again, but I very much enjoyed talking to somebody I'd never normally have crossed paths with. I almost felt guilty about how much I enjoyed it. Additional reporting: Kitty Drake Bernard and Michael ate at The Chapter House in Salisbury. Want to meet someone from across the divide? Find out how to take part
BBC News
14 hours ago
- BBC News
Gareth Jones: The Welsh journalist who exposed Stalin and met Hitler
He only lived to 30, but Gareth Jones witnessed many of the 20th Century's most momentous occasions - including flying with Adolf Hitler on his private plane, and helping to expose man-made starvation in Joseph Stalin's Soviet is now 90 years since his death in 1935, but campaigners want him to be remembered by the naming of a waterfront square in his honour in his hometown of Barry, Vale of as one of Wales' greatest journalists, Jones travelled the world looking for scoops and died in mysterious circumstances reporting on the Japanese occupation of great-nephew Philip Colley believes much of what is remembered is wrapped in myth, and is working on a biography telling his story. It is Jones' time reporting in modern day Ukraine which is perhaps best known, with his accounts of the Holodomor - a man-made starvation which killed millions - at the time rubbished by many western newspapers.A film on the life of the former Western Mail journalist depicts him trying to convince others of the truth of what was Colley believes Jones' work continues to be misrepresented, which he said helped to give current Russian leader Vladimir Putin justification for his war in Ukraine."In 1933, after Gareth reported on Stalin's famine across the Soviet Union, his reputation was attacked by some western media, foremostly the New York Times, suggesting that he'd sensationalised the depth of the crisis there," he said. "Gareth responded by accusing his critics of being 'masters of euphemism and understatement'... according to them, people weren't starving, they were dying of 'illnesses brought about by malnutrition'."Mr Colley added: "In recent times, some historians and politicians have refashioned Gareth's legacy, to fit a modern political narrative. "They suggest that Gareth was a Ukrainian hero exposing a deliberate genocide. "Neither story is quite true, as he was actually pointing to a wider global economic disaster." Mr Colley said that while many historians suggested Jones purely focused on the starvation of Ukrainian "Holodomor peasants", in fact he was equally concerned with the effects of Stalin's policies throughout the Soviet Union, which the journalist considered were created by misguided communist dogma rather than a deliberate attempt to kill a single ethnic group."Gareth travelled widely across southern Russia, as well as Ukraine, and saw little difference in the condition of peasant farmers," he said. "People were dying because of the policies of forced collectivisation of small privately owned farms into government-controlled ones, the loss of farming expertise caused by the expulsion of the Kulaks, and the taking of grain from the mouths of peasants so it could be exported to earn foreign currency." Jones' story began long before his time in the Soviet four first-class honours degrees in languages from Aberystwyth and Cambridge universities, at 24 he was was appointed foreign affairs adviser to former Prime Minister and fellow Welshman David Lloyd a year of graduating from Cambridge Jones was walking the corridors of Whitehall, as well as interviewing the likes of Lenin's widow Krupskaya, American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, US President Herbert Hoover, and Irish Taoiseach Eamon de to Mr Colley, he wasn't in the least bit intimidated."You could say, in the nicest possible way, there was a streak of narcissism to Gareth," he said. "Not superiority, more that he believed that his charm, academic brilliance and travel experience gave him the confidence to debate on an equal footing with the likes of Churchill and Lloyd George."What's more, they took him very seriously too." In 1932 Jones was sent to monitor Hitler's rise to German chancellor, though not even Lloyd George could have anticipated the unprecedented access he would gain to the Nazi hierarchy. He was at his swearing-in ceremony in Leipzig, flew on Hitler's private plane, and appeared on stage with him at an election rally in Mr Colley believes none of this should be interpreted as Nazi sympathy."It's true that Gareth reported positively on some of Hitler's early economic achievements and rise in workers' standards - especially compared with the mess of the Soviet Union, Britain and America during the Great Depression - but so did most of the British press, including the Daily Mail and Daily Express."On the other hand, he was the first to call out the antisemitism at the heart of the Nazis, seeing it as their core belief and not just a fringe thug element within the party." After Jones' fall from grace following his famine pieces, in 1935 he turned his attention to Japanese expansionism into the Chinese territories of Manchuria and Inner was turned away by the Japanese and subsequently captured by Chinese bandits, and after two weeks in captivity shot dead in mysterious Colley said: "It is my belief the bandits had simply grown tired of holding on to him while they were constantly pursued by the Chinese police."Others like to think that his killing was ordered by the Soviet secret service. The Foreign Office at the time suspected that the Japanese had a hand in it." In late 1935, Mr Colley's mother - Jones' niece - Dr Margaret Siriol Colley, travelled from Paddington to Cardiff with his ashes on her Colley said it was a harrowing journey, but one which inspired her to write her own book More Than a Grain of Truth."My mother was determined to give her uncle his rightful place in history after Gareth's sister Gwyneth died, and she found their home virtually untouched since the '30s, with all his original diaries, posters and photographs," he said. "Now more information has become available, I just want to be able to set the record straight, building upon the work my mother had already achieved."
