More on that self-proclaimed independent EU-sponsored Report on the 2008 Georgia conflict. Points of interest from it, as they come: The Mission had no access to intelligence reports: a serious setback, I’d say. Not least since the whole business was launched because of what Georgia + Washington ‘really’ thought Moscow […]
I have been mulling over the EU-sponsored Report on the Georgia/Russia conflict which, being a very European document, spreads blame around with great punctilitude. An interesting yarn. This remarkable passage caught my eye: … international law does not recognise a right to unilaterally create a new state based on the […]
Neil Craig at A Place to Stand goes for it: MILOSEVIC’S CRIME WAS TO BE INNOCENT & NAIVE SAYS BRITAIN’S AMBASSADOR This is a long and not altogether coherent assessment of various replies I have posted on his site arising from his bold claim that the LibDems are complicit in […]
A new legal move in the Czech Republic to ask the Czech Constitutional Court to opine on the Lisbon Treaty is pretty damn big news. The effect of this could be to delay final entry into force of the Treaty until after a UK general election, when a newly elected Conservative […]
An elegant analysis from Scott at Blue Contrarian here on the problems we get by draining out from foreign policy analysis any idea of ‘the national interest’, with special reference to Afghanistan and the argument that by intervening there we primarily are advancing the cause of women’s rights. Are we replacing the […]
I wrote about the British Embassy in Warsaw’s encounters (and not) with Roman Polanski last year: It turned out that Polanski has been invited ‘privately’ to lunch at HM Ambassador’s Residence in Warsaw under a previous management. So UK taxpayer’s money had gone to feed and water this fellow in some […]
Craig Murray boldly affirms that the FCO and MI6 knew that al-Megrahi was not the Lockerbie bomber. I have posted this typo-strewn question on his site: On what basis do you ‘affirm’ (presuably (sic) on the basis of your former professional FCO experience) that "the FCO and MI6 knew that al-Megrahi […]
An exhausting week of historic top-level Summiting in the USA. We had President Obama’s historic speech to the UN General Assembly, followed by assorted other speeches of varying distinction. We had an historic UN Security Council vote on nuclear weapons: . Then a probably historic G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, complete with […]
Wrinkled Weasel asks: My line of late has tended towards the very position you are critical of – the concerns of Russians about "encirclement" Can you explain to me why the USA, which has far more form when it comes to "encirclement" than Russia has had in the last 50 […]
A reader writes: I have been hoping for your comment on the recent move by EULEX concerning the border between Kosovo and Serbia which seems to have equally upset both sides. I think he means this: The EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo and Serbia have signed the policing protocol, despite strong opposition from […]
