Campaigner recently released from prison makes statement after PM’s support is questioned by Tory MPs

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian human rights campaigner, has apologised unreservedly for what he accepted were shocking and hurtful tweets that he wrote more than 10 years ago in what he described as heated online battles.

He said he was shaken by the criticism that has rained down on him since the tweets were highlighted by shadow ministers challenging Keir Starmer’s support for him since he was released by the Egyptian government to travel to the UK after his release from more than 10 years in prison.

Family say campaigner, who has a son in Brighton, will be able to travel freely between UK and Cairo months after his release from Egyptian jail

The British-Egyptian dissident Alaa Abd el-Fattah has arrived in London after the Egyptian government lifted a travel ban that it had imposed on him despite releasing him from jail in September.

Abd el-Fattah had been held in jail nearly continuously for 10 years, mainly due to expressing his opposition to the treatment of dissidents by the Egyptian government. He had been detained in jail two years beyond his five-year sentence as the Cairo authorities refused to recognise the period he held in pre-trial detention as part of his time served.

Alleged strikes close to UAE-backed forces follow Riyadh’s call for STC to withdraw from newly seized provinces

A separatist group in southern Yemen that this month seized two oil-rich provinces has claimed that Saudi Arabia has fired warning airstrikes directed at its forces.

Videos issued on Friday by media linked to the United Arab Emirates-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) showed airstrikes that it said were close to its positions in Wadi Nahab, Hadramaut province.

The rules-based global order, its institutions and value system face a crisis of legitimacy and credibility as the US turns away

‘The old world is dying,” Antonio Gramsci once wrote. “And the new world struggles to be born.” In such interregnums, the Italian Marxist philosopher suggested, “every act, even the smallest, may acquire decisive weight”.

In 2025, western leaders appeared convinced they – and we – were living through one such transitional period, as the world of international relations established after the second world war crashed to a halt.