SueAndNotU, a Washington DC blogger who’s been in Georgia for the last year, has more on possible escalations in and around Abkhazia.

A fascinating spectacle is unfolding in the wild, uncontrollable west of the country where parliamentarians and well-coiffed ministers are squaring off with warriors and wise men from another time. It’s as perfect an illustration as you could ask for of the whole untamed spirit of this place in the modern world; at times wearing modernity like an ill-fitting suit.

More here.

The Daily Star - Politics - Ankara picks hard-line general to replace armed forces’ outgoing chief of staff

Turkey on Monday appointed a general who is expected to adopt a tougher line toward EU negotiations to replace the head the country’s powerful military, who was widely considered a moderate. The change in leadership, which was widely anticipated, comes as Turkey is insisting that Washington do more to crack down on Turkish Kurdish rebels operating out of bases in northern Iraq…

Buyukanit raised eyebrows this year by praising a soldier subsequently jailed for a bombing believed to be aimed at stirring up unrest in the mainly Kurdish southeast. The bombing triggered riots in the region and a parliamentary inquiry.

Analysts say Buyukanit’s no-nonsense views have been shaped by the time he spent in the southeast during the 1990s, heyday of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which is now seen as weakened but far from defeated.

“Buyukanit is more pro-American, more security-minded than Ozkok. He is not against the Europeanization of Turkey but he is more influenced by nationalist tendencies,” said Hussein Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

“He will be much tougher in the fight against the PKK.”

The Head Heeb: Don’t look now…

Italy’s Watergate By Patrick Radden Keefe

Comment is free: Africa does not need more expensive food

Daniel Davies says the CAP is mostly good for Africans.

The Dutch government has handed in its resignation after coalition partner D66 withdrew its support. Lousewies van der Laan, chairwoman of D66, had asked for the resignation of VVD minister Rita Verdonk because of her handling of the Hirsi Ali naturalisation case. The initial vote of censure* by Femke Halsema (GroenLinks-GreenLeft) that inspired Van der Laan’s resignation plea received no majority in the Dutch Lower Chamber and Rita Verdonk refused to quit on her own. D66 cabinet members Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, Alexander Pechtold and Medy van der Laan consequently resigned and, by doing so, pulled the plug on the whole cabinet.

Guilty verdict.

Denmark - Jyllands-Posten

Honour killing trial in Denmark

The newspaper comments on the sentence passed by a court in Denmark in the trial of a so-called “honour killing”. This is the first time in the history of northern Europe that an entire family has been found guilty. The jury considered it proven that the father had ordered the murder of his 18-year-old daughter after she married the man of her own choosing, and that subsequently all nine defendants had together planned and committed the murder. “In this way, the family will be seen not as a family of honour, but as a group of cowards who talk about honour and shame while trying to deny any involvement in the deed that was supposed to save the family’s honour. The sentence is a clear message that we won’t accept parallel societies with their own rules… The case also serves as a warning to a society that ignores people in need because of a misguided political correctness and the fear of dealing with the crazy rules of foreign societies regarding honour and shame.”

From the estimable folks at Eurotopics.

Observed, with thoughts on imams’ roles in European societies, at The Reality-Based Community.

The view is to die for: over the valley to the Alhambra with the Sierra Nevada behind. The idea of the mosque, more a spiritual caravanserai and place for refreshment than an arena for strenuous communal effort like a synagogue or a church, is one of Islam’s better inventions.

Interesting. Original, in Estonian.

For months now, a dispute about the demolition of a bronze statue from the Soviet era has been raging in Tallinn. Krista Kodres takes up the cudgel for the communist regime’s cultural legacy. “Just imagine if people had pulled down the palaces of the hated Bourbons after the French Revolution, or if the Winter Palace and the Kremlin had been destroyed in the Russian Revolution. Or what if Estonia had destroyed its huge estates, the symbol of 700 years of slavery… The Soviet Union had its own culture too. Naturally, it wasn’t always free of ideological influence, but writers wrote, artists painted, composers composed and architects built. True, not all of it can be called high culture, but everything that was created can still be categorised as culture.”

From the estimable folks at Eurotopics.

normblog: The normblog profile 142: Geoffrey Chaucer

What would you do with the UN? > Ich wolde heale the grete schisme bitwene Rome and Avignon.