Man on Crawford Extortion Charge Not me. Phew. It reminds me of an interview I gave to a Bosnian news magazine. The final question was, "Are you related to Cindy Crawford?" To which I wittily replied: We have nothing in common except our name and our beauty.
Via Drudge: Swine flu causes surge of garlic sales in Serbia As indeed it does.
The ever-busy International Crisis Group have written quite a good paper about the current Bosnia and Herzegovina interlocking impasses (so to speak). Here it is. One point of interest. Back at Harvard in 1998 I wrote a long paper about the Dayton Peace Process which posed a challenging question: is […]
A businesslike piece by Ilya Somin about the scale of Communist crimes – and why we must not forget them. It’s the sheer scale of the cruelty which we normally fail to grasp. Cuba? Great health care! Unless you’re murdered by the state: Since coming to power in 1959, Castro’s […]
Back from training EU officials in Mediation techniques, with an eye on the role of mediation at the international level. One of our role-play examples featured an attempt by an imaginary Head of Mission in an imaginary country trying to mediate between his Deputy and a younger Political Officer over […]
Here is a must-read analysis by William Voegeli on the long-term results of tax competition between Texas and California. Many tough passages: It’s not surprising, then, that an intense debate rages over which model is more satisfactory and sustainable. What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit, low-tax […]
A reader points me to this purposeful article on the philosophical limits on Power by a former Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald: The difference is that when you find yourself possessed of power, accountability quite suddenly broadens in the most alarming ways. This is very disturbing. Opinions are easy […]
Former President of Republika Srpska Biljana Plavsic has left her prison cell in Sweden to return to Belgrade: a land where war criminals are heroes, according to Nenad Pejic: Serbia has been — and continues to be — in a state of denial about the 1990s wars for more than […]
An eruption of peace, or something, in Honduras. The issue will be how far ‘President’ Zelaya, if he is briefly restored to office, can manage to manoeuvre anything other than a polite handover to his successor after the forthcoming elections. If these elections do pass off peacefully, Mr Micheletti can be […]
Update: since I pointed out the egregious mistake on the FCO website as below, the error has been corrected. Glad to see that someone is reading this blog with an eagle eye. But I’ve left the original blunder quote up for the sake of accuracy. * * * * * The FCO […]
