My previous piece about Poland and its new Law and Justice (PiS) government’s manoeuvres has attracted a lot of attention in Poland – see the vivid stream of comments from all sides of the arguments and more. This morning it has been announced that the European Commission has decided to […]
Here is another Guardian piece on the moves by the new Polish government led by Law and Justice to heave out key people from the state broadcaster and bring in new people they appoint: Under the new law, senior figures in public radio and television will be appointed – and […]
Around the planet the world’s networked seismographs will have revealed in seconds all sorts of things about North Korea’s latest big bomb test, hydrogen or otherwise. Notably that it was indeed a bomb (and not an earthquake) and where exactly the test took place. Other instruments will be tracing the […]
“I glance over your web-site every now and again, and usually find something to enjoy and even by which to be impressed.” So writes a long-lost pal from college, taking grammar to its limits to avoid finishing a sentence with a preposition. Not that there’s been much to see here […]
Madam Crawf and I have been back to South Africa (where I was posted in the final years of apartheid). This time we spent ten days in and around the Kruger Park. The first and most striking thing we found was that things are startlingly cheap. Back in the late […]
Here’s my latest piece for DIPLOMAT. On the always fascinating subject of diplomatic entertaining: It’s easy to be a diplomatic guest. Just be polite. Show up when you’ve undertaken to do so, dressed appropriately. Then do not get drunk or behave disgracefully. If the event is something special (i.e. not […]
My latest piece for the Telegraph on the shooting down by Turkey of a Russian bomber. A belligerent set of comments, mostly feuding with each other to no helpful purpose and having nothing to do with my piece if anyone actually read it. Russia ‘of course’ will respond. But it’s […]
Hurrah. Jay Pollard has been released on parole on strict conditions after a full 30 years in a US prison. In 1986 he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the USA for spying for Israel. He has served his full term, despite the generally close US/Israel relationship and numerous public and […]
Separately on Twitter I have been sparring with Phillip Blond of ResPublica on an interesting issue or two: is ISIS effectively a state for international law purposes, and if so does that make it easier for France to mobilise effective military action under NATO’s famous Article Five? You’ll have to […]
My latest DIPLOMAT article on migration and refugees had this dismally prescient passage (emphasis added here): According to the Office of The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in 2014 on average some 40,000 people a day were driven from their homes by conflict or persecution and compelled to find […]
