Jonathan Power

There was a time, not that long ago, when African leaders insisted that it was politically incorrect to discuss tribalism. Tribalism was the face of old Africa that the modernisers, inheriting their domains from the departing colonialists, refused to accept. Today’s African leaders have learned to be not so glib. Southern Sudan is the latest […]

We have a lot to be thankful for in 2013. Look at the protests now going on in Bangkok. After some initial clashes at the beginning, both sides have become non-violent. One can praise the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra for this. She ordered the gates and doors of the ministry of the interior, […]

In the days when Mikhail Gorbachev was president of the Soviet Union, engaged in his policy of glasnost and disarmament, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize, he used to have a feisty press secretary who, when asked about the deteriorating economic situation, replied that his boss did not win the Nobel for economics. […]

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic miracle, said the intractable problems of which country owns what in the East and South China Seas should be left to the next generation. He was right. China should keep kicking that can of worms down the road. The recent surprise declaration that a huge swathe […]

The agreement just signed by Iran, the US, EU and Russia is more than a milestone — it changes the world. Perhaps. It is bitterly opposed by Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems determined to be the spoiler. Apparently, Israel’s threat to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities remains a serious option, even though such an attack […]

This year, the UN Security Council (UNSC) authorised the deployment of troops to the eastern Congo, armed with tanks and helicopter gunships, to defeat the one remaining dissident militia in the Congo. Two weeks ago, UN officials declared that the war in the Congo, which on and off has consumed the nation for over 50 […]

The negotiations between Iran and the west have not yet produced a deal. At the same time, the BBC’s Mark Urban, a defence correspondent, has unearthed a worrying connection between Iran moving towards the nuclear bomb threshold and a Saudi Arabian decision to produce a nuclear bomb with Pakistani help. “Saudi Arabia has invested in […]

It is not so long ago that Susan Rice, now the US’s Ambassador to the United Nations, was talking about the Congo as the site of “Africa’s First World War”. Has the UN at long last really pacified this country, the largest in black Africa, which has been continuously in a state of unrest since […]

Europeans really should not be worrying about the number of refugees trying to gatecrash Europe by travelling in rickety boats across the Mediterranean. The recent tragedies have the effect of inflating in our minds the numbers. In truth the numbers are not overwhelming. The present almighty flap was triggered when on October 3, 360 refugees […]

Diplomats at the UN were amazed last week when Saudi Arabia did the unthinkable and turned down the seat it had just won on the Security Council. The 10 rotating seats — which join those of the Permanent Five (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) — are regarded as the most prestigious spots in […]