Ian Birrell

Ian Birrell is an award-winning foreign reporter and columnist. He is also the founder, with Damon Albarn, of Africa Express.

@ianbirrell

Ian Birrell is an award-winning foreign reporter and columnist. He is also the founder, with Damon Albarn, of Africa Express.

The children killed by fentanyl

Ian Birrell

13 Mar 2024

How Edinburgh University stifled my investigation

Ian Birrell

19 Jan 2024

The African village mining Bitcoin

Ian Birrell

05 Jan 2024

How to escape North Korea

Ian Birrell

21 Nov 2023

Will Russia win Slovakia’s election?

Ian Birrell

28 Sep 2023

My night out with the Proud Boys

Ian Birrell

19 Sep 2023

What prisons teach us about democracy

Ian Birrell

04 Sep 2023

The secret messages behind the lab-leak cover-up

Ian Birrell

28 Jul 2023

South Africa isn’t neutral on Ukraine

Ian Birrell

07 Jun 2023

Why did Peter Daszak change his mind?

Ian Birrell

12 Apr 2023

The real Covid conspiracy

Ian Birrell

11 Mar 2023

How the UK sacrificed its car industry

Ian Birrell

15 Feb 2023

Why would anyone envy the NHS?

Ian Birrell

18 Jan 2023

Sam Bankman-Fried’s elitist altruism

Ian Birrell

23 Nov 2022

Inside Britain’s psychiatric nightmare

Ian Birrell

02 Aug 2022

Even McDonald’s couldn’t save Russia

Ian Birrell

17 May 2022

Putin’s grand plan is failing

Ian Birrell

04 Feb 2022

How China made Covid worse

Ian Birrell

09 Dec 2021

Andrew Mitchell’s friends in Rwanda

Ian Birrell

02 Dec 2021

The corruption of Britain

Ian Birrell

05 Oct 2021

Is this proof of lab leak lies?

Ian Birrell

10 Sep 2021

Science journals have been corrupted by China

Ian Birrell

13 Aug 2021

Britain’s criminal approach to drugs

Ian Birrell

30 Jul 2021

Did scientists stifle the lab-leak theory?

Ian Birrell

22 Jul 2021

What’s killing New Orleans?

Ian Birrell

05 Jul 2021

Beijing’s useful idiots

Ian Birrell

08 Jun 2021

What a Wuhan lab leak would really mean

Ian Birrell

26 May 2021

Is Labour dead?

Ian Birrell

07 May 2021

The Covid dissidents taking on China

Ian Birrell

13 Apr 2021

The dangerous naivety of Green anti-vaxxers

Ian Birrell

15 Mar 2021

The dictator who fooled us

Ian Birrell

23 Feb 2021

President Xi will never accept defeat

Ian Birrell

16 Feb 2021

The WHO’s Covid shame

Ian Birrell

10 Feb 2021

Bobi Wine and the battle for Uganda

Ian Birrell

14 Jan 2021

How Finland became a Covid success

Ian Birrell

07 Dec 2020

The toxic British worship of the NHS

Ian Birrell

02 Dec 2020

Has America changed its mind about drugs?

Ian Birrell

12 Nov 2020

The casual corrosion of democracy

Ian Birrell

05 Nov 2020

What’s the mood in Trumpland?

Ian Birrell

03 Nov 2020

The death of the music industry

Ian Birrell

12 Oct 2020

The BBC needs to sack the suits

Ian Birrell

18 Sep 2020

Africa’s catastrophic Covid response

Ian Birrell

11 Sep 2020

The older workers condemned by Covid

Ian Birrell

21 Aug 2020

How Covid exposed the world’s lack of care

Ian Birrell

14 Aug 2020

Where have all the good politicians gone?

Ian Birrell

01 Jul 2020

The defector taking on Kim Jong-un

Ian Birrell

19 Jun 2020

So where did Covid come from?

Ian Birrell

12 Jun 2020

The Republican Party’s descent into darkness

Ian Birrell

04 Jun 2020

Boris Johnson and the ravages of office

Ian Birrell

13 May 2020

How China is exploiting pandemic panic

Ian Birrell

30 Apr 2020

Britain doesn’t care about social care

Ian Birrell

22 Apr 2020

Covid-19 will expose Africa’s tyrants

Ian Birrell

09 Apr 2020

The WHO has failed us again

Ian Birrell

01 Apr 2020

China is not the hero in this darkest hour

Ian Birrell

23 Mar 2020

Mexico’s bloody drugs struggle

Ian Birrell

16 Mar 2020

Where the American Dream goes to die

Ian Birrell

02 Mar 2020

Boris must be bold: it could save lives

Ian Birrell

21 Jan 2020

Why are we locking up patients for profit?

Ian Birrell

15 Jan 2020

How would you respond to the rise of Nazism?

Ian Birrell

03 Jan 2020

How my daughter disrupted my politics

Ian Birrell

31 Dec 2019

2017: when the US woke up to its drugs shame

Ian Birrell

26 Dec 2019

Can Dominic Raab cling on to Esher?

Ian Birrell

09 Dec 2019

Our prisons are a national disgrace

Ian Birrell

02 Dec 2019

Spain’s election pain: six reasons to care

Ian Birrell

12 Nov 2019

How my daughter disrupted my politics

Ian Birrell

15 Oct 2019

How desperate is Doncaster for Brexit?

Ian Birrell

27 Sep 2019

Have we forgotten Syria?

Ian Birrell

20 Sep 2019

Capitalism needs more heroes

Ian Birrell

23 Aug 2019

How our first Asian MP shaped the Brexit debate

Ian Birrell

25 Jul 2019

Our scandalous disregard for disability

Ian Birrell

18 Jun 2019

How football raised its game

Ian Birrell

10 May 2019

Why the Iron Lady is an icon for our times

Ian Birrell

03 May 2019

The Arab Spring is still unfurling

Ian Birrell

11 Apr 2019

La OMS nos ha fallado nuevamente

Ian Birrell

01 Apr 2019

Can we be trusted with euthanasia?

Ian Birrell

01 Feb 2019

The invisibility of disability on screen

Ian Birrell

10 Jan 2019

How charities are corrupted by Whitehall

Ian Birrell

30 Nov 2018

Can Zuckerberg control his monster?

Ian Birrell

19 Nov 2018

The charity guru who duped the world

Ian Birrell

24 Oct 2018

Analogue dictators are no match for digital detectives

Ian Birrell

28 Sep 2018

Adventures in Trumpland

Ian Birrell

14 Sep 2018

The far right’s plans to capture Europe

Ian Birrell

06 Aug 2018

The dark genius behind the destructive creed of Putinism

Ian Birrell

26 Jul 2018

Why a historic African peace deal is good news for Europe

Ian Birrell

13 Jul 2018

In defence of the Fourth Estate

Ian Birrell

29 Jun 2018

A new party could save politics from the extremes

Ian Birrell

06 Jun 2018

How digital dissidents are defying the despots

Ian Birrell

25 May 2018

When will politicians quit the war on drugs?

Ian Birrell

16 May 2018

Slaying dragons: the stifling British green belt

Ian Birrell

24 Apr 2018

All hail the capitalism revolution on the streets of Paris

Ian Birrell

12 Apr 2018

Why you can’t rely on the news media to understand… Europe

Ian Birrell

16 Mar 2018

Free Minds: Michael Clemens, a global thinker in a world filled with narrow-minded nationalism

Ian Birrell

23 Feb 2018

Oxfam’s attack on fat cats might be more persuasive if its own bosses weren’t fat cats

Ian Birrell

22 Jan 2018

CEOs are getting 120 times as much income as workers

Ian Birrell

05 Jan 2018

Western aid undermines African democracy

Ian Birrell

07 Dec 2017

It’s slow, overdue but it’s well underway. We’re on the path to the decriminalisation of drugs.

Ian Birrell

23 Nov 2017