Here is a good interview with ex-Python and maestro traveller Michael Palin: "These days John Cleese seems increasingly unnerving, at least when viewed from a distance. Was he always like that?" "Something about John was always very unsettled, I felt. There was always something else he wanted to do. He […]
I stir well clear of this one as I don’t know anything significant about it from first-hand experience. Here is a well-turned piece by Tom Phillips, my old colleague from the FCO and its handling of Balkan problems in 1999-2001 and then UK Ambassador to both Israel and Saudi Arabia. […]
Jasmin Mujanovic, a self-styled ‘proud Wobby’ young left-anarchist based in Canada but with Bosniak roots, has written at some length on the problems of the Dayton Peace Accords. He offers his suggestions for making progress, seemingly a BH-wide series of open meetings at which Bosnians define for themselves new constitutional principles. […]
Here is my latest piece at Telegraph Blogs: Our Ambassador to the United Nations Sir Mark Lyall-Grant has come out strongly against this further Russia/Chinese veto: “Russia and China are failing in their responsibilities as permanent members, they are failing the people of Syria … The effect of their actions […]
Part of the general problem we face these days is knowing what anything is. As we get better at looking at things on quite different scales, down to sub-atomic tininess, different patterns emerge. What looks like a solid, recognisable, definable thing turns out to be system of systems of systems. A lot […]
Here is an unusually astute piece by Aaron David Miller at Foreign Policy looking at key negotiation mistakes made at the 2000 Camp David Peace Talks which he followed at first hand. You’ll need to read the whole thing to get the breadth of his argument. What is good is […]
DIPLOMAT magazine has had a snazzy website upgrade. One result appears to be that for the time being you can’t find work by contributor (eg me) now. You have to scroll through each issue to see what has been posted on the site. Action is in hand to change that, I […]
Here’s a story I haven’t told before. Back in the Moscow Embassy in 1994 or thereabouts a bizarre telegram arrived from London. The EU had to negotiate aluminium trade quotas with the new Russia and the EU team was coming to Moscow to do so. But, unusually, the EU aluminium boffins […]
I have not been writing much here or anywhere else. Too busy trying to survive and attending the latest Oxford Programme on Negotiation event. Last night BBC reporter and troubleshooter Lyse Doucet gave a spirited talk to the Programme about international mediation. I of course disagreed with quite a lot […]
As the Arab Spring slumps into the Arab Mess in most areas, we ignorant onlookers find ourselves wondering about the real range of political options and opinions in that region. What spectrum of options do most Arabs accept as legitimate and realistic when they sit at home moaning about their […]
