Election Day across the UK looms. The Labour Party are set to lose power. Hurrah. But will they lose badly enough to be obliterated? Or somehow only enough to stay in business and start scheming anew after some ritual blood-letting? Here’s my own New Labour Story. I joined the FCO […]
Has the vast blob of financial support now made available to Greece saved the Eurozone? Or merely bought time? Baseline Scenario drills down into what it says is the core question (my emphasis): If Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn were honest, they would admit to Ms. Merkel “we messed up […]
I have written extensively on this site about what the Katyn Massaces represents for Poland, for Russia, for Europe – and for civilisation. Type Katyn into the site’s Search function and get the links. See for example this extract from my final FCO telegram, sent to London from Warsaw as […]
UPDATE Welcome Guido readers. This (below) was written before the Smolensk disaster. My considered thoughts on Lech Kaczynski and what his death means for Poland will follow. * * * * * Always a pleasure to penetrate deep into Guardian territory and plant a different flag. As here today, where […]
The murder of Eugene Terreblanche has forced into prominence a number of difficult issues for South Africa. Namely the startling murder rate for ‘white’ farmers. And the fact that for all the impressive political reconciliation achieved (or not) in South Africa since apartheid ended, the ANC still enjoys celebrating its […]
The adoption late yesterday by the Serbia National Assembly (Narodna Skupstina) of a Declaration on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in eastern Bosnia has been hitting the headlines. See eg the BBC. And RFE/RL. The EU has welcomed the move. Others in the region including various Serb liberals have strongly criticised it for not […]
Leader of the Bosniac SDA party in Sarajevo Sulejman Tihic has made a very measured response to the Serbia Assembly Resolution on Srebrenica, calling for a similar resolution in the BH Assembly apologising for crimes against Serbs and Croats. He also expressed the hope that the Declaration in Belgrade would […]
My latest piece in DIPLOMAT magazine looks at different territories round the world which do not fit into neat and tidy state categories. Or do not want to do so. Turns out there are quite a few of them. Nice drawing!
My posting on the film Storm and its setting – the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) – quoted two lines from the movie: Two powerful lines from the film stand out: "What are these trials for?" "This (ie ICTY) is not therapy…" Some thoughts. What is ICTY’s mandate and jurisdiction? […]
I think I have solved the problem of how best to elect a BH Presidency in a fair non-ethnic way. Walking the dawg through the mud of Oxfordshire has its uses. Two Options (Note – based on what might be acceptable to the main parties). Option One: Ethnicity Lite The […]
