Welcome Instapundit readers. While we Crawfs have been travelling the Georgia story has moved on, to the point where French President Sarkozy has been helping broker some sort of truce and possible peace plan. No end of commentaries too, of course, many dwelling on what this episode tells us […]
President Medvedev said Russia’s military aim was to force the Georgians to stop fighting: "Our peacekeepers and the units attached to them are currently carrying out an operation to force the Georgian side to [agree to] peace".
More on the feisty Report by the HoC Public Affairs Select Committee report which came down heavily on FCO rules purporting to limit what diplomats might say after they leave the Service. Craig Murray calls these regulations ‘near-fascistic’: The idea, of course, is that only the ministers’ version of truth will […]
… just when Barack wants to make America cool again, people are being really mean to him. How cowardly is that?! Via American Digest.
A noteworthy sub-plot in the Kosovo situation is a plan by Serbia to ask the UN General Assembly to refer the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an Advisory Opinion. Serbia looks to be getting some handy noises of support for this manoeuvre from eg Russia and India. […]
These celebrity revivals are sooooo exhausting. First we have the long-awaited return to the stage of Joker Karadzic, although without his funny costume and disguise he was really not that scary. And with him returns Batman Holbrooke, the distinguished former American diplomat whose considerable ego and ruthlessness helped bring peace to the […]
A bit more on Karadzic, alas. Dick Holbrooke says that there was No Deal struck by him with Karadzic under which if Karadzic left political life he would not be sent to the Hague Tribunal. Karadzic in his first appearance at ICTY tried to get this claim established, but failed. […]
Pressing on through Craig Murray’s Murder in Samarkand, we reach Chapter 4 – Diplomacy. Craig has to present his credentials to President Karimov to assume the full rights and responsibilities of HM Ambassador. These credentials traditionally are formal letters in flamboyantly old-fashioned courteous language language from HM The Queen to […]
The words "modern management techniques" and "whelk stall" come to mind: Labour was plunged into open warfare as Gordon Brown’s allies launched a series of highly personal attacks on leadership rival David Miliband. Did ‘sources at Number 10’ and ‘Brown’s allies’ and ‘an MP close to Brown’ really say stuff […]
John Redwood aims to correct in brisk fashion some ‘Continental Misunderstandings’ about a future Conservative Government’s policy on further EU integration (and indeed the EU integration we already have). Eg on the Lisbon Treaty: “We assume the Conservatives will go along with the European project and with the Lisbon settlement […]
