Jonathan Rugman , Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Russia has been banned from competing at next year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea. But its athletes who can prove they are clean will be allowed to take part in the Games as neutrals. The International Olympic Committee decision, made in the last hour, followed claims that Russian officials ran a covert doping operation for…

He ruled Yemen for more than three decades and played a pivotal role in the country’s ongoing civil war. Today the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh lies dead, killed in an ambush by his former allies, the Houthi rebels. Just days before, Saleh had offered to negotiate peace with Saudi Arabia in a deal that…

Now stop me if this sounds familiar: a rich, reality television star is running for president – underestimated by the powers that be. This, though, is the celebrity journalist and socialite Ksenia Sobchak – who’s running for the Russian presidency against Vladimir Putin. The 36 year old hails from a well known political dynasty –…

When it comes to Syria, Russia has been doing a great deal of diplomatic leg work in recent days, meeting with Iran and Turkey to broker a post-conflict settlement. Today, a top Russian general said Russia was likely to reduce troop numbers in Syria. But the Russians and the Syrian regime also seem in a…

Robert Mugabe’s letter of resignation brings to an end his 37-year-old leadership in Zimbabwe.

Fifty thousand children expected to die by the end of this year from starvation and disease, seven million people on the brink of famine, the world’s worst cholera epidemic ever. The state of Yemen today. All of it made even worse by Saudi Arabia’s blockade, which is stopping aid agencies from getting vital relief supplies…

More than 400 people have been killed and thousands more injured after the deadliest earthquake this year struck on the border of Iran and Iraq. Rescue workers have been frantically trying to find hundreds of people still thought to be trapped under the rubble.

The UN’s humanitarian advisor on Syria has warned of a “complete catastrophe”  and a return to “the bleakest days of this conflict”,  as the regime refuses to let hundreds of injured women and children leave an area it is bombing. The UN advisor, Jan Egeland, said around 400 people needed urgent medical evacuation from Eastern…

Well with their leader out of the country, has Catalan independence turned into a cause without a rebel?  Spain’s high court has just demanded that Carles Puigdemont returns from Brussels to appear in court on Thursday.  

The sacked Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, and five other senior colleagues, have driven undetected across the French border and caught a flight to Brussels. The EU may not have recognised their independent state but a Flemish minister in the Belgian government has offered the ousted leadership political asylum. While they were on the run Spain’s chief prosecutor today…

Real Madrid played Girona today, amid the political tensions in Catalonia. Jonathan Rugman was at the match.

The Catalan separatist leader, Carles Puigdemont, has called for “democratic opposition” after Madrid imposed direct rule on the region. Mr Puigdemont – who’s been sacked along with the rest of his cabinet by the Spanish government – gave a televised address from an undisclosed location.  

The Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has been giving his government’s response to the Catalan declaration.

Alfred Bosch, a member of Barcelona City Council, talks about what he believes will happen after the independence declaration.

Huge crowds have been celebrating on the streets of Barcelona, as the Catalan parliament voted to establish an “independent and sovereign state” – a declaration met with an immediate response from Spain: direct rule. And as for Europe, a big no too,as the head of the EU parliament declared no-one in the bloc would recognise Catalan independence.