I liked Clare Short when I first met her in Bosnia a couple of years later. Her febrile anti-Americanism aside, she was tough-minded, down-to-earth and perspicacious on Bosnian issues. Why did someone as smart as Clare Short get that letter to the Zimbabwe government so wrong? Let’s look at the context. […]
In Zimbabwe the Africanist tendency led by Robert Mugabe is making one last heave to destroy ‘white farmers’. The so-called power-sharing deal which is meant to start to pull Zimbabwe out of its crisis leaves the Agriculture Ministry in Mugabe’s hands. So, out they go: At the meeting in Chegutu, […]
Warming to my theme on how the West probably has made the Zimbabwe problem worse, I think that Clare Short letter in 1997 to Minister Kumbirai Kangai MP deserves a close look from the point of view of professional civil service technique. So, here goes. George Foulkes has reported to […]
Spiegel Online International carries all sorts of excellent pieces, beautifully written in or translated into English for a wider audience. This one about Islamic extremists in Sarajevo is thought-provoking. And not all the thoughts are positive: The obliteration of Israel is heralded in a torrent of words. "Zionist terrorists," the […]
Close your eyes and try to imagine what Germany, Japan and China will look like 30 years from now, that is, when a newly-issued long-term bond will mature… … Imagination fails in the case of Europe and Japan. One out of every four Germans today is older than 60, and […]
Here is Archbishop Desmond Tutu boldly advising President Obama in an article written for the BBC: In the first days after 9/11, the United States had the world’s sympathy, an unprecedented wave of it. President Bush squandered it. Obama too could easily squander the goodwill that his election generated if […]
Why does the EU work as it does? One Massive Point about the EU which tends to get lost is that it is all about the biggest member states giving exaggerated and unceasing reassurance to the smaller ones. This explains why the voting weights as per the current Nice Treaty […]
Iain Dale carries a well-turned interview with David Cameron. Both interviewer and subject emerge well from a civilised and intelligent exchange. This caught my eye: How will you defend the right to offend?This goes back to the ‘do you listen’ question, because on the one hand you don’t want someone […]
The Guardian website headline screams, as if in pain: Whitehall devised torture policy for terror detainees MI5 interrogations in Pakistan agreed by lawyers and government The ensuing text reveals … what? That there was an ‘official interrogation policy’. Directed at a high level in Whitehall. And agreed by lawyers and […]
The dreary saga of General Mladic rambles on. Successive Serbian governments have pressed the civilised world that it is not fair to hold Serbia’s European prospects hostage for one crazy war criminal. Some in the civilised world agree. Yet that argument goes the other way too. Why is one crazy man […]
