Though it took painfully long for the international community to mount its 11th hour intervention into what looked like a looming massacre in the Libya, it’s clear Thursday’s vote by the UN Security Council approving military action to halt fighting and protect civilians won’t signal the beginning to a swift end of the conflict …
E.U.
Will Japan’s Nuclear Emergency Really Sour Europe To the Energy Source?
Given the enormity of human suffering and risk of an atomic catastrophe in Japan, it seems almost indecent to be offering up commentary out of safe, comfy Europe. But despite the understandably shocked and fearful reaction to a possible reactor melt down at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power station, it’s probably worth questioning even …
A Marriage of Interests: Why Bahrain’s King Should Give Britain’s Royal Wedding a Miss
Westminster Abbey is a “Royal Peculiar.” The term applies to churches that fall under the direct jurisdiction of the British monarch rather than a bishop, but seemed especially apt during a Commonwealth Day celebration held there on March 15. The service blended the pomp and tradition associated with Britain’s state occasions with vivid …
Uprisings in the Middle East Could Be Bad News for Al-Qaeda: Cautious Optimism in Britain
Muammar Gaddafi blamed a coalition of drugs, alcohol and Osama bin Laden for inciting Libyan youth to reject his dictatorial rule. Somewhat more credible commentators, including my colleague Bobby Ghosh, warn that the collapse of the Yemeni regime could boost the AQ affiliate Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, yet such concerns have done …
EU Summit On Libya Produces Tough Talk, But No Walk Against Gaddafi
Reminiscent of Thursday’s meeting of NATO defense ministers, today’s summit of European Union leaders produced a largely symbolic collective statement demanding Muammar Gaddafi give up power and end the violence raging in Libya—but refrained from proposing anything to back that urging up with. But given the important advances of …
Marine Le Pen And Sarah Palin: Who Is More Extreme?
As her popularity and credibility as a presidential candidate has grown among a rising number of French voters, National Front (FN) party honcho Marine Le Pen has seen detractors draw negative comparisons between her and extreme-right figures elsewhere in Europe—a notorious crowd including Dutch politician Geert Wilders, British …
Counterpoint: France’s Libya Move is Premature
I’m going to have to humbly disagree with my good friend Bruce Crumley who hails France’s recognition of the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council as the legitimate government of all of Libya. Recognizing the legitimacy of the rebellion does not require recognizing a hastily cobbled together leadership structure, the extent of …
France Recognizes Libyan Opposition Government
Props to French President Nicolas Sarkozy for becoming the first international leader to recognize the opposition battling Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi as the rightful representatives of their country. But should it have taken this long for someone to make such a no-brainer decision? And what’s taking Sarkozy’s peers so long in …
Saif House? Not Any More as Gaddafi’s London Pad Is Overrun by Squatters
“I remember once seeing a photo of Muammar Gaddafi’s master bedroom,” wrote the Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland in the foreword to Dictators’ Homes, a book by cultural commentator Peter York that conclusively demonstrated the link between megalomania and a penchant for leopard skin and other big cat motifs. “It was in TIME or …
Harvard-Educated Facebook Activist Detained in Azerbaijan
The ripples of the Arab revolutions have reached the Caspian Sea. Inspired by youth-led uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, activists in the oil-rich, former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan used Facebook to announce Azerbaijan’s own “day of rage” on March 11. It’s unclear how many people will heed the call, but, as in other authoritarian …
International Women’s Day: A View From A Broad in London
U.S. TV producer Caryn Mandabach first got the idea for the TV series Nurse Jackie when she visited her goddaughter, who was working as a nurse in hospital in a tough New York neighborhood. On the subway, Mandabach found herself riding next to a woman balancing a basket on her head. The basket began to shudder and a serpent appeared at …
Libya’s Collateral Damage: Red-Faced Royalty, Shamed Soldiers
“There is no such thing as bad publicity—except your own obituary,” joked the Irish writer Brendan Behan. Since I blogged on Friday about the controversy surrounding Prince Andrew aka the Duke of York and his role as trade envoy for Britain, initially sparked by his contacts with Saif Gaddafi but quickly shifting to his private …
Global Briefing, Mar. 7, 2011: War Crimes, People Power and Governments Behaving Badly
Forgotten Genocide: In the New York Times, New Delhi correspondent Lydia Polgreen reports from Bangladesh about the country’s belated efforts to investigate the massacres that led up to its independence in 1971, when over a million people (up to three million, by some estimates) may have been killed by the Pakistani army and its Bengali …