January 28, 2007

Energy

Glowing Georgians and Radioactive Russians

by Alex Harrowell

No, this is not a Litvinenko post…or at least not primarily. Recently, the Georgian ex-KGB said it had caught a Russian smuggling highly-enriched uranium into Georgia, who was nailed in a sting operation where Georgian agents posed as representatives of an Islamist terrorist group that wanted to buy fissile material. He handed over a sample, [...]

January 21, 2007

Culture

Thomas Barnett joins Shrillaholics Anonymous

by Alex Harrowell

Thomas P.M. Barnett, Pentagon thinker and tech entrepreneur, stands up in the centre of the circle and says…I am Thomas Barnett….and I…am shrill! You’ll feel better now you’ve said it, Tom. See his latest column, here, in which he says that:
That’s how we’ll master this allegedly chaotic world: recalling that we’re history’s first and [...]

January 19, 2007

Economics and demography

Sometimes the stereotypes are right

by Alex Harrowell

It’s usually a charmingly naive belief that wars are the fault of leaders, and if the Ordinary People could choose we’d all live in peace. It doesn’t take long, considering some parts of the blogosphere, your local bar, the historical record and such, to realise this is absurdly simplistic. For one thing, there are always [...]

January 14, 2007

Europe and the world

An alternative exit strategy for Jacques Chirac

by Alex Harrowell

Who knew Chirac was so personally popular in the Lebanon? More popular than he is in France?
Marc Lynch carries the results of a poll of Lebanese public opinion with some fascinating results. Apparently, a majority of Lebanese admire El Presidente, although not a majority of Shia. They rather like Hugo Chavez! In fact, they admire [...]

Culture

One goes up, one goes down

by Alex Harrowell

An unacknowledged fact of world economics is the role of command or planning mechanisms in what is held to be a global market economy. J.K. Galbraith raised the point that large companies are in a sense planned economies within their walls, with technical and commercial decisions made by management, wage and pricing structures determined either [...]

Europe and the world

Sarko’s In, But Where are the Votes?

by Alex Harrowell

Nicolas Sarkozy has been “elected” as the UMP’s presidential candidate. Why the scarequotes? Well, “elected” usually implies a contest between more than one candidate. And Sarkozy was faced with only one contestant-the Apathy ticket.
Over Christmas, he successfully neutralised most of the possible internecine threats, bringing essentially all the serious rightwing politicians on board. The key [...]

December 12, 2006

Europe and the world

German-American Relations

by Doug Merrill

Given our slightly jaundiced piece on things Anglo-German, it may be just as well that work and other nuisances kept us from joining in, but the good folks at Atlantic Review held a “blog carnival” yesterday on German-American relations.
The introduction in English is here (just ignore the juxtaposition of a tagline featuring the words “truth, [...]

December 9, 2006

Culture

North Sea neuroses

by Alex Harrowell

Matthias Matussek, once London correspondent of Der Spiegel and now its culture editor, not to mention brother of top diplomat Thomas Matussek, has a book out. Wir Deutschen: warum die anderen uns gern haben können is meant to be a call for a renewed German patriotism and pride in culture. This would usually suggest a [...]

December 6, 2006

Europe and the world

Who Lost Turkey?

by Doug Merrill

That’s the question on the cover of this week’s European edition of Newsweek, and it’s a good one.
The rift isn’t formal yet, as the EU will likely opt for only a face-saving partial suspension of negotiations after a deadlock on Cyprus failed to be resolved last week. But it takes no special reading between the [...]

December 5, 2006

Europe and the world

‘Dutch philosophy’ at work in Uruzgan

by Guy La Roche

The Canadian Globe and Mail has an article about the Dutch troops in Uruzgan (hat tip Sargasso) that really made my day. One quote, emphasis mine:
The Dutch went into Uruzgan expecting the same kind of bloody welcome that Canadians have found in Kandahar. (…) But the bloodbath never happened. This past week, the first four-month [...]

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