David Pratt

Foreign Affairs Editor

David Pratt is a journalist, photographer and broadcaster with four decades experience of covering foreign affairs. Specialist areas include Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab and Islamic world, conflict, security and humanitarian issues. He is currently Contributing Foreign Editor with The Herald on Sunday and Sunday National. Among many awards he has twice been named Reporter and Feature Writer of the Year in the Scottish Press Awards and also been named Journalist of the Year.

David Pratt is a journalist, photographer and broadcaster with four decades experience of covering foreign affairs. Specialist areas include Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab and Islamic world, conflict, security and humanitarian issues. He is currently Contributing Foreign Editor with The Herald on Sunday and Sunday National. Among many awards he has twice been named Reporter and Feature Writer of the Year in the Scottish Press Awards and also been named Journalist of the Year.

Latest articles from David Pratt

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)

comment David Pratt: Is the game finally up for Benjamin Netanyahu?

LONG before Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 last year, Benjamin Netanyahu had a lot on his plate. Politically his back was to the wall, with Israel riven by mass protests sparked by his far-right coalition’s attempt to push through judicial reforms that many Israelis believed would undermine the country’s democracy.

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Children look on from behind the a gate of an enclosed area, painted in the colours of the Palestinian flag, in Rafah

COMMENT West must wake up to Global South’s criticisms of double standards on Gaza

IT’S a term that’s used ever more readily, even if some of us remain unsure as to its real meaning. I’m talking about the Global South.

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A truck is carrying the coffins of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force members and commanders during a funeral in Tehran, Iran, on April 5, 2024.

SPECIAL REPORT David Pratt: The dangerous ‘shadow war’ between Israel and Iran comes into the open

IN an already highly charged Middle East, things are getting edgier by the day. This weekend both Israel and the US are on high alert after Iran vowed to strike back in retaliation after a suspected Israeli air strike in Damascus last week killed senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders and stirred fears of a widening war across the region.

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Protesters in Tehran burn American and Israeli flags

COMMENT David Pratt: The ‘other’ crucial factors that will continue to shape war in Gaza

IT’S been another devastating week in Gaza. The death of seven aid workers in an air strike has only served to bring further criticism of Israel from

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Crowd of starving Palestinians, including children, wait to receive food distributed by charity organizations amid Israel's blockade

comment David Pratt: Joe Biden is sending bombs amid a famine in Gaza

HIS name was Abu Salah Shikir. It was back in August 2005 when I first met the former geography teacher at his home in the city of Khan Yunis in Gaza.

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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pictured with US president Joe Biden

COMMENT David Pratt: Don't be fooled, Israel and the US will kiss and make up as Gazans die

PALESTINIANS have long been suspicious of US-Israeli complicity and have every reason for being so.

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A law enforcement officer patrols the scene of the gun attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow

EXCLUSIVE REPORT David Pratt: ISIS remains a threat even if Russia won’t admit it

IT could well be an ominous harbinger of things to come, say some security experts. As Russia reels from the largest loss of life in a terrorist attack in the country in at least 10 years, it brought back memories of those Islamist insurgencies that marked the first decade of President Vladimir Putin’s rule.

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Protest for Gaza outside Glasgow City Chambers

comment David Pratt: Palestinians must be front and centre when we campaign in their name

I’M long enough in the tooth to have been involved in a few political campaigns on issues of international concern. Looking back on the now distant days of my youth through to the present, they’re almost too numerous to mention.

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Gang Leader Jimmy 'Barbecue' Cherizier with G-9 federation gang members in the Delmas 3 area on February 22, 2024 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

SPECIAL REPORT Haiti is without a government and trapped in a ‘living nightmare’

BACK in 2004, Haiti was suddenly making global headlines. As a reporter I found myself caught up in the coup d’état gripping the country’s capital,

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A demonstrator holds up an Haitian flag during protests demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, March 1, 2024

COMMENT David Pratt: This hell on earth is being ignored by international community
THERE’S perhaps no country in the world that I’ve been to quite like Haiti. I can honestly say that in four decades of covering the world’s conflicts, perhaps no other place has frightened me more. One visit in particular stands out back in 2004 during the coup that overthrew then Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.