Former President of Republika Srpska Biljana Plavsic has left her prison cell in Sweden to return to Belgrade: a land where war criminals are heroes, according to Nenad Pejic: Serbia has been — and continues to be — in a state of denial about the 1990s wars for more than […]
Remember this move by the so-called UN Human Rights Council to get global action against ‘negative stereotyping of religions’? The only question is, what does it mean in practice? As far as I know, a Resolution by the Human Rights Council means nothing at all in itself in formal legal […]
My various blog posts on the Kaminski story have caught a wider audience. So I have decided today to come out. Back in May this year I, like everyone else, was revolted by the goings-on in Parliament and Government over expenses and other abuses. What especially annoyed me was the […]
Update: Welcome co-conspirators. Guido is on the case. * * * * * The Labour Party are now officially making a total fool of themselves over Michal Kaminski. Young British diplomats are taught that it is poor technique (and, worse, stupid) to quote someone’s words from a magazine without checking that that […]
An eruption of peace, or something, in Honduras. The issue will be how far ‘President’ Zelaya, if he is briefly restored to office, can manage to manoeuvre anything other than a polite handover to his successor after the forthcoming elections. If these elections do pass off peacefully, Mr Micheletti can be […]
The BBC is putting out a deft series of short radio programmes about FCO Valedictory Despatches: Parting Shots. Here is Part Two. Featuring various former Excellencies. Myself included, recalling on radio my magnificent suppression of Freedom of the Press.
Welcome Iain Dale readers. * * * * * One of the points made by Labour against Kaminski is that he was in effect playing an anti-semitic card by arguing against the apology by then President Kwasniewski for the Jedwabne massacre. It’s obvious! Any Pole arguing against the form or […]
Update: since I pointed out the egregious mistake on the FCO website as below, the error has been corrected. Glad to see that someone is reading this blog with an eagle eye. But I’ve left the original blunder quote up for the sake of accuracy. * * * * * The FCO […]
A busy day researching for an article in DIPLOMAT the manifold examples of people entering Embassies to seek refuge. The article is prompted by the tragi-comic opera scenes of former President Zelaya as impertinently parked in the Embassy of Brazil in Honduras. As one unimpressed Brazilian diplomat has put it to me, […]
The looming entry into force (or not) of the Lisbon Treaty will bring to the fore all the fascinating questions of how and where the EU exercises its new ‘foreign policy’ capability. First things first. Who gets which jobs? And even above that: who decides? Genuinely tricky and interesting from […]
