Osama bin Laden’s new taped message has been getting a lot of airplay. I can’t quite see why. The only thing I find interesting about it is that he sent it to Al-Arabiya as well as Al-Jazeera, suggesting that he’s broadening his media channel. The idea that he had any intent or [...]

I don’t know about you, but this sort of thing worries me:
The framework that has buttressed peace in the Taiwan Strait for decades is disintegrating. Changes in Taiwan, as well as some of Beijing’s counterproductive behavior, are undermining its foundations. Unless an improved framework is adopted soon, war across the strait will become increasingly probable [...]

So far, no one has convinced me that the “outsourcing” discussion that has suddenly gained steam on both sides of the Atlantinc is not mainly a consequence of two agenda-dominating events: The looming EU enlargement over here, and the Presidential elections over there.
In my experience, this discussion is largely a cyclical phenomenon much less determined [...]

German President Johannes Rau cancelled the last leg of his nine-day trip to Africa because of credible indications that he would be attacked by terrorists. Given that he was scheduled to stop in Djibouti, where German soldiers are serving in multinational efforts to help maintain order in and around the Horn of Africa, it’s a [...]

In the Herald Tribune:
March 11 forced Europeans to confront a tragic reality, which many of them had refused to see for too long: They too are at war, without any exceptions - both “new Europe” and “old Europe.” Islamic fundamentalism is at war against democracies, irrespective of their stand toward Washington. It is liberal democracy [...]

Spiegel Online claims to be in possession of a 42-page arabic language document that, according to the magazine’s author, Yassin Musharbash, suggests not only that Al Quaida had strategically targeted Madrid just before the elections, but, moreover, that the organisation’s intellectual and thus strategic capacities seem to have risen significantly. According to Musharbash’s article (in [...]

AP is running a report that Poland’s president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, will withdraw Polish troops from Iraq.
President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a key Washington ally, said Thursday he may withdraw troops early from Iraq and that Poland was “misled” about the threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
His remarks to a small group of European reporters were [...]

I haven’t much to say about this that I haven’t already said, but the idea of Spain forming part of a NATO contingent which is under a UN mandate would seem to me to represent real progress.
“Yes there is some doubt about the Spanish contingent but otherwise the Iraq force is there,” said one. “It [...]

Trying to get away from the emotionally traumatising, this article caught my eye. Clearly it relates to my earlier post, and does have a Spanish connection, if only a rather tangential one.
I thoroughly endorse what the Financial Times has to say. We need multilateralism now more than ever. We should not simply think ‘Europe First’, [...]

from Fareed Zakaria:
“Some in Spain have argued that if an Islamic group proves to be the culprit, Spaniards will blame Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. It was his support for America and the war in Iraq that invited the wrath of the fundamentalists. But other recent targets of Islamic militants have been Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, [...]