Category: Eyewitness

It’s thirty years since, on the White House lawn, the historic American-brokered Palestinian-Israeli deal called the Oslo Accords was signed (September 13 1993. It came into force one month later.) We recall the angry, insightful last interview given by the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as the deal was collapsing.

6 September 2023 By Paul Martin

RAMALLAH, West Bank — When Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat gave his final interview to a Western newspaper, the first question — sent over in advance — was supposed to be: “Mr. Arafat, where were you born and where did you grow up?” “No,” an aide told two reporters me and a fellow-reporter, “not allowed.” Even […]

UN nuclear chief, visiting Kyiv, says the Russian-controlled Ukrainian atomic power plant is facing a ‘dangerous situation’ following the smashing of the Kakhova Dam wall.

13 June 2023 By Paul Martin

The largest nuclear power plant in Europe faces a “dangerous situation”, and suggested that the Russians were balking so far at a Ukrainian warning that the final reactor should be completely shut down. “It’s a very dangerous situation and the IAEA is here to prevent something very bad,” the director-general said. “He also announced he […]

The photographer and the Prince. A special photo-fit friendship that’s lasted through the decades.

3 May 2023 By Paul Martin

Exclusive: By Paul Martin. Holding a cup of tea, or raising a glass of wine, Carole Cutner is ready for the Coronation. From her living-room, she will say ‘Three Cheers!” and swear allegiance to the man she helped catapult to international stardom. Carole was a photographer who in the mid-1970s got Charles onto the cover of […]

A paramedic’s close brush with death. He was struck by shrapnel from a Russian rocket in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine’s most viciously contested town. And survived.

18 April 2023 By Paul Martin

Exclusive.   A woman was lying bleeding heavily on the road at a bus station in Bakhmut, the centre of an epic ongoing battle for control of an already largely-devastated town in eastern Ukraine. She had been hit by artillery an hour earlier.    Maksym Vainer, a 29-year-old paramedic, was scanning the skies for any incoming artillery or […]

Why convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius cannot admit he deliberately killed his girlfriend — even if that’s the truth. That admission would stop him being awarded parole and a limited form of freedom, says his parole lawyer.

30 March 2023 By Paul Martin

June Steenkamp, mother of the murdered Reeva, is demanding an admission by Oscar Pistorius that he knew his target was Reeva, not an intruder. But Pistorius cannot accept June Steenkamp’s ‘s demand that he admit he killed her daughter in a rage, according to Pistorius’s parole lawyer.    She is to confront him for the first time […]

Going fast in the bazaars of post-invasion Iraq: rocket grenade launchers that can bring down a helicopter.

29 March 2023 By Paul Martin

The war in Iraq got rid of Saddam Hussein’s regime — but soon insurgents were able to cause instability and chaos. Our correspondent Paul Martin was shocked to discover he could buy rocket launchers and other weaponry at bazaars in Baghdad… and how easy it was to smuggle the weapons past checkpoints. Here is his […]

Fired by NBC, hired by The Mirror. As Baghdad was falling 20 years ago, the legendary Peter Arnett thanks Correspondent.World’s editor Paul Martin and the ex-Mirror editor Piers Morgan.

21 March 2023 By Paul Martin

By Peter Arnett Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in the Vietnam War, legendary journalist Peter Arnett recalls witnessing theinvasion of Iraq from inside Baghdad, reveals the inside story of how he was fired then hired, and describes some of the US blunders, including the killing of three journalists. Article and Photos Copyright Peter Arnett / Paul […]

Mistake after mistake — by our Foreign Office.

20 March 2023 By Paul Martin

British documentary film-maker and journalist Paul Martin, detained in Gaza in 2010, says the Foreign Office keeps making the same mistakes when dealing with academics or reporters locked up by tinpot dictatorships. He says the FCO’s incompetence or lack of care puts prisoners in danger. The wife of Matthew Hedges says the Foreign Office endangered the […]

Pelé, dead at 82, was the world’s greatest footballing hero — ever. But the great Brazilian, known to many as ‘The King’, was not free from political controversy.

30 December 2022 By Paul Martin

Pele was fascinated when I asked for an interview.  He must have given thousands before mine, but this was different.  “You mean we’ll be talking directly on the Internet?” he gasped.  In 1997 that was not just a novelty, it was historic.   It was the first time any event had been internetted live.

Meeting Ayman Zawahiri’s family in Egypt, I gained some special insights into the now-assassinated Al Qaeda leader.

2 August 2022 By Paul Martin

Ayman Zawahiri,  successor to the slain Osama Bin Laden, warned the world in an Internet message soon after he became leader, that Al Qaeda would remain a ‘source of horror and a nightmare chasing America, Israel and their allies’.  That, of course, included Britain.  It was a message that intelligence communities took very seriously.  The evidence from his own life story […]