The Advisory Opinion hearings at the International Court of Justice on the Serbia/Kosovo question have started. The curious thing about this one is the actual question which the ICJ is tasked by the UN General Assembly to address: Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government […]
The Times leader on President Sarkozy’s insistence that the ‘European’ economic model must now prevail over the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model: This is economically illiterate populism. No policymaker in the English-speaking economies believes in totally unconstrained and unregulated capitalism. You need to go to some fairly obscure corners to find anyone at […]
Via Samizdata this link to a magnificent address by C S Lewis back in 1944, The Inner Ring (scroll down towards the bottom to find it). This masterpiece is all about the idea that whever you are – school, work, art, politics – there is always an ‘inner ring’ of people […]
Physics-free David Miliband: The idea that the UK can maintain its influence in Beijing or Washington or Delhi or Moscow if we marginalise ourselves in Europe is frankly fanciful. In fact I would say the opposite; through leadership in Europe we augment our bilateral ties with other countries. Alone, we […]
A Saddam Hussein TV channel has been launched. The BBC gets reactions: An Iraqi member of parliament, Jaber Habib Jaber, condemned what he called the channel’s "glorification of a tyrant". So far so good. One Baghdad resident told the BBC that the channel has become his favourite even though watching […]
Let’s start at the top, with Climategate. A great mass of original material is hacked or leaked from a key UK Climate Research Unit. Those who want urgent action of different sorts on climate change are exhibiting unease, insisting that it is all a fuss about next to nothing […]
And now, a new UK enquiry into the history of the Iraq intervention. Craig Murray is rude about the Chilcot enquiry team, including my former boss Rod Lyne. I myself find it hard to understand why an official who had a senior job in selling UK policy during this period has […]
Look at it like this. In a city there’s a nice large green public park, where families and individuals stroll around happily. One day a group of leather-jacketed aggressive foul-mouthed types and some snarly dogs turn up and postion themselves prominently in one corner. This happens day after day. Gradually […]
When it comes down to it, what is a Blog? Not much more than personal musings, often with links to other websites which in one way or the other serve to reinforce the point one is trying to make. Some sites aim higher – to become places where intelligent people […]
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 […]
