As you try to grasp what is happening in Ukraine, you may well be asking yourself: what does Ukraine mean anyway? And, needless to say, views differ. There is a root word kraj in Slav languages which has all sorts of nuanced meanings in different Slavonic languages, linked to the […]
The decay of the Climate Change movement has reached the point where those of us politely pointing to some of its deep contradictions are no longer the ‘denialists’. Rather the denialists are those who insist that the wheezing pantechnicon must roll onwards even as its wheels start to fall off. It all got […]
Ralph Peters praises the ruthlessness of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner who has authorised the expansion of ‘drone’ attacks on key terrorist suspects overseas: The Pakistani Taliban is losing CEOs faster than Detroit … This is another Amazon Space issue. The best (if not only) way to deal with individual […]
Here at The Monkey Cage is an interesting post on why so many countries which sign the Convention against Torture are themselves high on the list of practising torture. Could they be … hypocrites? Is it because they want to ingratiate themselves with the West? Or is it rather to […]
As regular readers will recall, I have written at some length about the bewildering complexity – and stunning simplicity – of the EU Budget process. When all the feuding and whining subsides, it comes down to the banal fact that a few countries Give, and most countries Get. Those who Get […]
We’ve created a world in which a 37-year-old Italian male can stroll into a singles bar, tell the chicks he lives at his mum and dad’s place in the same bedroom he’s slept in since he was in grade school—and he can still walk out with a hot-looking babe. This […]
Anguished as he is by his belated discovery that FCO Legal Adviser Michael Wood had not ‘stabbed him in the back’ as per the foolish description in his book, Craig Murray slumps back into despair: I felt that Michael had stabbed me in the back by refusing to back me […]
A friendly reader asks: Thank you for producing such a thought-provoking and readable blog. I thought you may be interested in this link to a press release from the Swedish MFA. They plan to close 6 Posts and open 10. https://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/12653/a/138250 Several of these post closures are in the EU. […]
One of the pleasures of writing this website is that new e-friends appear, usually people who know all sorts of things I don’t know. Thus I am pleased to share with you this interesting contribution about Google/China and US/Switzerland as sent to me from a reader who closely follows IT security questions and […]
Adam Jasser (Polish, Reuters journalist-turned-pundit, good egg) argues that the grim problems besetting Greece and its public finances could lead to the Eurozone getting even stronger: The argument goes that a default would require Greece to leave the euro zone and increase pressure on other peripherals such as Spain or Portugal. […]
