France’s struggle with ISIS
We are in a state of shock over the beheading of a French tourist in Algeria on Wednesday. There is no doubt about it: ISIS has brought terror directly into the hearts and minds of the French people. Hervé Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountaineering guide from Nice, was kidnapped on Sunday by Jund al-Khilafah, a jihadist group with links to Islamic State militants (ISIS). He’d just arrived for a long-awaited hiking trip in Algeria’s northern mountains. He didn’t get to climb any mo


The problem with nudity, is that there is no problem
(Published by The Malay Mail on 12 September – censorship rules ironically prevented the photos from inclusion in the original article!) At least not in Europe. I was telling my Malaysian friend who was visiting us in Paris recently how we ended up camping next to a nudist beach in Corsica this summer. Imagine my surprise when she trumped my story with talk of nudists in Malaysia. “And it wasn’t just nude sunbathing” she continued, revelling in the effect this sensational new


What will a marginal NO vote mean for the short and long-term future?
(Published by The Malay Mail on 18 September — n.b. Graham Paling currently lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and as such was unable to vote in today’s Scottish referendum) Is Scotland heading for a painful divorce from Britain? As Scottish voters head to the polls today to decide whether to remain in the United Kingdom, I want to share my interview with Graham Paling, Group CEO of Mongoose Publishing (Kuala Lumpur, New York, Singapore and Mumbai). He was born, brought up and e