Steve Bloomfield

5 days ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

By spurning African leaders, Trump risks ceding ground in trade and security to US rivals At around the same time last month as South African president Cyril Ramaphosa was arriving at the White House ahead of his Oval Office ambush, a Gulfstream V was on its way to South Sudan. On board were eight migrants to the United States who were all being deported, but at least five of them had never set foot in Africa, let alone in South Sudan.

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

The story of the war in Sudan has mostly been told from elsewhere – from the desperate, dusty refugee camps in neighbouring Chad or the formal, stilted diplomatic meetings in New York or London. Access has been all but impossible, be it for journalists, diplomats, aid groups or the UN.

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

Despite higher levels of immigration than Britain, voters weren’t that concerned about the issue – and that’s the point When Canada went to the polls last month, the centre-left government felt immigration had grown at a “rapid and unsustainable pace, with our housing and social infrastructure failing to absorb all the people arriving”. Numbers would come down, Mark Carney promised. But there was no talk of “incalculable damage” or fears that the country would become an “island of strangers”.

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

As Harvard professor Joseph Nye put it: 'Seduction is always more effective than coercion' Once upon a time in Lapland I gave Santa Claus a lift. As he squeezed himself into the passenger seat of my rented Kia, I tried and failed to resist the urge to make a comment comparing this with his normal ride. Santa is a pro, he wants you to feel welcome, so he managed a small chuckle, but it wasn’t the full ho ho ho.

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Steve Bloomfield

Xi Jinping of China listens to an interpreter translate Vladimir Putin’s commentary as they take in the spectacle. Sergei Bobylev/AP Last year’s Victory Day parade was an embarrassing affair for Vladimir Putin. Just nine other heads of state turned up and the only one who wasn’t a) leader of a former Soviet republic or b) a communist, was the president of Guinea-Bissau (pop 2.1 million). This year’s event, which took place on Friday, was very different.