There seems to be a dangerous crisis in progress between Russia and Georgia. During the past week, the Georgians have surrounded the headquarters of the Russian forces in Georgia with policemen and arrested four officers of the GRU (Russian military intelligence) for allegedly spying and conspiring with opponents of the government, in order (so they [...]

France is, finally, honouring its North-African war heroes in the wake of the release of the film Indigènes. The film is by French director Rachid Bouchareb and its main cast of five were collectively awarded the Best Actor prize at the film festival of Cannes. The title of the film means “natives” but the official [...]

With the arrival of Romania and Buglaria as full members of the EU the issue of migration is once more attracting a lot of attention. Stefan Wagstyl recently had an FT piece which gave a fair overview of the kind of debate which is presently going on in the UK, where the substantial (and largely [...]

Maybe Commission President Barroso did not specifically say the Union needed a constitution, despite setbacks in France and the Netherlands. He said that the Union had to address its institutional issues before proceeding with any additional enlargement after Bulgaria and Romani join at the beginning of next year. But the only way to re-jigger the [...]

Wish an 876-page biography could be longer? Not often, but definitely with this one. I don’t know the literature well enough to say for sure, but it sure feels like a definitive take on an important figure of 20th century history.

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I hadn’t read Ringworld in at least a decade, and probably closer to two, when I picked it up again a couple of weeks back.

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Originally published in 1970, [...]

Nowadays, people’s lives often take them far from the land of their birth, right? And the internet is supposed to be able to help diminish the problems arising from distance, yes? We will see if Apple and iTunes are up to the challenge.
Dear Sir or Madam,

My sister, who lives in the United States, sent me [...]

With the ECB adamant that it will continue to raise rates this would seem to be the most untimely of questions, but there are now signs that this may well be the case.
Firstly this in Bloomberg today:
Federal Reserve to Cut Rates in 2007, Corporate Bond Sales Show
Thinking about refinancing your mortgage in [...]

Just a small reminder (emphasis mine):
Last week, 17 British soldiers, 10 Estonian infantrymen, 100 Afghan army and 100 Afghan police took part in a joint Nato operation to retake the dusty desert town of Garmser in southern Helmand. The town, which sits on the Helmand river, has fallen to the Taliban twice since July and [...]

It was only just over two weeks ago (two weeks, which following the logic of a historical time which seems far from uniform, now seem like half a lifetime) that guest poster P. O’Neill, said this:
For understandable reasons — the addition of 10, and soon to be 12, new member countries, and the constitutional crisis, [...]