From third world to first world: Brazil’s elections on October 14, 2014Brazil has long lived out its personal fantasy as the archetypal relaxed, tolerant and gregarious country with the Copacabana beach, the samba, the carnival and a great deal of sexual freedom. It is now living out in real time its almost forgotten societal dream: an economic-cum-social revolution. The retired president, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, […]
Controlling ISIS without bombing on September 30, 2014A western viewpoint (courtesy of Aubrey Bailey): “Some of our friends support our enemies, and some of our enemies are our friends, and some of our enemies are fighting against our other enemies whom we want to lose, but we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win. If the people we […]
The breaking up of international law on September 23, 2014There is little doubt that Russia broke international law with its takeover of Crimea and the rushed referendum that did not give citizens time to have a deep think on its implications (as they did in Scotland). It is not only observers in the west who say this but a good number of Russians. I […]
Hot Russian-US discussion in Moscow on September 16, 2014A couple of days ago I was on the Moscow metro. At the interchange I asked two 20-something young women for directions. Then they asked me if I liked Russia. I asked them the same question and they said “no”. They did not like the way President Vladimir Putin was restricting freedom. Then I asked […]
A hard fist inside a velvet glove on September 9, 2014Despite Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and Southern Sudan, the world is a lot more peaceful than it was at the end of the Cold War and shows no sign of returning to the bad old days when there were some 25 wars going on every year. Now it is down to about a […]
The big crises: NATO and demonstrators both fail on September 1, 2014Violence should have had its day. Look at its non-achievements: the US/UK/French invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the upheavals of the Arab Spring and now Ukraine. Will we ever learn its limitations? In Iraq, outsiders’ violence overthrew the dictator Saddam Hussein who, for all his faults, provided stability, safety on the streets, food, a […]
Make Russia a friend again on August 26, 2014In his magisterial book, Europe, Norman Davies writes, “Europe is a relatively modern idea. It gradually replaced the earlier concept of ‘Christendom’ in a complex intellectual process lasting from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries.” Jean Monnet, the founder of the European Union, said, “Europe has never existed. One has to genuinely create Europe.” “For […]
Easing up on drugs, toughening up on alcohol on August 19, 2014Not that long ago in the UK, the great detective Sherlock Holmes could quite legally sit by the fire with his pipe and sniff cocaine. If friends wanted to join him, without fear of a police raid, they could smoke marijuana. Opium was used for those in unbearable pain. Alas, most people in poorer countries […]
At last the sword of justice has fallen in Cambodia on August 12, 2014Finally, the over-long, seven-year trial of the leaders of the murderous Khmer Rouge leadership of Cambodia is over. The two defendants, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were each given a life sentence. Of the other three that were tried, one, the ex-foreign minister, Ieng Sary died in 2013, one, Ieng Thirith, the wife of Ieng […]
The west is threatening Russia on August 5, 2014What would the conservative president, Ronald Reagan, have done if the Ukraine debacle had happened on his watch? I suspect he would have made sure it did not devalue relations between the US and Russia. It was not him nor his vice-president, George W H Bush, who inflamed relations with a post-Cold War Russia, it […]