This from the BBC is just too much. John Simpson – who should know better – gushes on about Mugabe’s ‘extraordinary turnaround’ under a heading about ‘Mugabe’s remarkable comeback’. A ‘sweeping victory for a man who only three months ago seemed on the ropes.’ What makes a seemingly intelligent journalist […]
Should one support one’s own country at international sporting fixtures? If so, why? Take the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Bosnian Muslims (Bosniacs) and Bosnian Croats have been busy rioting again following the defeat of Croatia by Turkey in the Euro 2008 football match. The Bosniacs supported Turkey, the […]
The problem with making speeches is that quite a lot of things have been said before. So do you strive to say something new? Or do you ‘borrow’ ideas from others..?
This FT article is scary reading: European chief executives believe the Irish No vote in a referendum on the Lisbon treaty is bad for business as it weakens the European Union on the global stage against the Middle East, Russia and Asian countries. But we can relax. When one reads […]
Were/are all the horrors across former Yugoslavia driven by ‘age-old ethnic hatreds’? Or was/is it all more about gangs of criminals wanting to steal TV sets? Misha Glenny, brilliant Balkan analyst, has the answer. Buy the analysis here.
The communist parts of the world recycled all sorts of jokes. See a few here, as nicely reviewed here. Some of them maybe emerged elsewhere back in the mists of time and were rebooted for new purposes. Thus: "A Russian proverb: If you see a Bulgarian in the street, beat […]
France’s President Sarkozy warns that without the Lisbon Treaty there can be no more EU enlargement. A magnificent example of the mysterious mirror-world of EU negotiating. France of course does not want any more EU enlargement, especially if it includes Turkey. See eg lots of Parliamentary haggling in France over […]
Imagine. You fairly win an auction to buy a house. But having attempted to rig the auction the previous owner will not move out, and starts to attack you viciously when you come to claim the property. Most of the others living on the street and further afield are dismayed, […]
If you have been beaten up by someone for nearly fifty years, does that ‘cloud your judgment’ about the beater? But however clear-eyed Lithuania’s decison-makers claim to be about today’s Russia, many seem myopic about their own country’s past. Anger over 48 years of Soviet occupation clouds their judgment about […]
Should the EU’s atom-sized sanctions on Cuba be lifted? Why not? They do not matter, as they are a Silly Noise unattached to a policy. The debate of course is not about whether these sanctions make a difference, symbolic or otherwise. It rather is about whether the EU should have […]
