World

The situation in Syria seems to be on a knife’s edge. Perhaps 80 protesters were killed by security forces during massive demonstrations yesterday. Checkpoints have gone up around all major cities, including Aleppo, Homs and Hama and of course Damascus. A friend who has been visiting the country this week says the situation is “pretty tense with police all around and no one, I mean almost no one on the streets. Taxis are not operating and there are no buses between cities.” The road south from Damascus to Deraa is heavily guarded to prevent the protesters moving from one city to the next. The key problem for Bashri al-Assad’s regime

Normally, the results of the Finnish elections don’t merit much discussion. But the success of the True Finns, the only party to put on seats in the elections there last week, could have a major impact on this country.   The True Finns ran almost as a single issue party during the final week of the campaign. Their message: we’ll say no to bailing out other Eurozone countries. Seeing as they are almost certainly going to be part of the next Finnish government, this rather throws a spanner in the works of Brussels’ plan to bail out Portugal.   Now, as Dan Hannan notes, if the Finns were to veto

William Hague let the cat out of the bag on Sky News earlier, arguing that military advisors sent to aid the rebels in Libya did not constitute ‘British boots on the ground’. He said: “This is an expansion of the diplomatic presence we have in Benghazi…It’s not boots on the ground. I stress it’s not training fighting forces…it is to help them organise themselves to protect civilian life.” The reaction is fevered, with the sagacious Sir Menzies Campbell helpfully reminding everyone that Vietnam began when a President sent military advisors. But, one braided colonel does not an invasion make. This move was to be expected: at the weekend, Cameron implied

Last week, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found former Croatian General Ante Gotovina and a fellow officer, Mladen Markac, guilty of war crimes during the Yugoslav Wars. The news has been greeted with dismay in Croatia. Tens of thousands of war veterans and citizens rallied under the slogan “For the Country” in Zagreb’s main square, Trg Bana Jelacica, over the weekend to express their outrage against the verdicts. The Croatian government has followed suit, calling the verdict “unacceptable” and vowing to “do everything in our power to change it.” The verdicts are understandably difficult for some Croats to bear. Their struggle for independence against Serbia has,

Eric Pickles has been fighting councils who publish newspapers to celebrate their exploits. The government has used a combination of political pressure and legislation to curtail these ‘Pravdas’. Most offending councils have maintained their resistance, but Lambeth has relented. Its freesheet, Lambeth Life, cost £500,000 to produce last year. The Spectator submitted freedom of information requests to examine the paper’s accounts and a list of staff. Lambeth’s FoI officers replied: ‘4 people used to work on the Lambeth Life newspaper, an editor, journalist, sales manager and a designer. Although due to changes in the publicity code for local Government, the paper is ceased to print in March.’ It’s a small

Iain Martin has a great story in his column today about how the coalition is so frustrated with the civil service that it is considering sacking a bunch of permanent secretaries and replacing them with outsiders. This move would take the coalition’s battles with the civil service onto a whole new plane. Talking to ministers both in this government and the last one and many civil servants, there’s no doubt that large chunks of the civil service are no longer fit for purpose.  But I’d be surprised, and impressed, if the coalition did follow through with this plan. Open warfare with the people who know where all the secrets are

It is 13 years to the day since Pol Pot died in mysterious circumstances while in exile on Cambodia’s remote western border with Thailand. Where did Pot and his maniacal fellow travellers acquire their politics. There are a number of candidates from the megalomania of the 20th Century, but Michael Sheridan, the Sunday Times’ former Asia Editor, notes that France, or more exactly aspects of French culture at the end of the colonial era, played its part. He explained why to the Spectator. Pol Pot and Chardonnay, Michael Sheridan, 21 September 1996 Not long ago, the Americans found in their archives in Washington a long-forgotten film about Cambodia, made by

There’s truth in the cliché that actions speak louder than words. Benjamin Barber, once a board member of the Saif Gaddafi Foundation, has defended his former patron in today’s Guardian. He declares: ‘I still believe that among the conflicting voices that vie for Saif’s tortured soul there is the voice of a genuine democrat and a Libyan patriot.’        Barber condemns Saif’s ‘abominable actions in the current crisis’, but remains convinced that his dalliance with democracy was genuine. Oblivious of the attendant irony, Barber cites Saif’s book, Manifesto, where the man who would later vow to fight to the death through rivers of Libyan blood wrote: ‘I believe it is

The conflict in the Ivory Coast looks as though it is now coming to and end. Former president Laurent Gbagbo was arrested yesterday by French officials supporting President Alassane Ouattara, after weeks of violent fighting. Gbagbo lost re-election last November to Ouattara but refused to give up power. Gbagbo, who was in office for more than a decade, will now be investigated for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is a momentous event. The continent’s post-independence “big men” had, over decades, become accustomed to permanent power. If they lost an election, they simply threatened (or encouraged) violence until a power-sharing deal was cobbled together which allowed them to