World

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Going to the Ball Does Not Guarantee A Right to Dance

So Washington will just have to make do with government-as-normal after all. Oh well. The White House appears to have decided that the best way to respond to defeat is to just call it victory and hope no-one notices. Hence President Obama’s speech this evening in which he will take credit for a budget deal he resisted. That’s fine. That’s politics. The numbers, of course, are trivial. A $38bn cut in federal outlays is a fraction of a tiny fraction of the matter. Nevertheless, it’s a political victory for the GOP, not least since spending-restraint is not something this President is interested in. Nor, of course, was his predecessor but

Kate Maltby Kate Maltby

A Russian Revelation

Rarely has a production of The Tempest been as bleak, powerful and urgent as this. The drama is often billed as Shakespeare’s last play, a retiree’s lyrical contemplation of the need for redemption and reconciliation in the later ages of man. The more we learn about Shakespeare’s later career as a collaborator with John Fletcher, the less this artful chronology stands up to scrutiny. But even though productions of The Tempest have become successively dark, in line with wider theatrical trends in the past 60 years, few so completely destroyed any hopeful vision of a better world to come as Cheek by Jowl’s brilliant Russian language production, playing at the

Daniel Korski

Can Nato cope in Libya?

Just because Nicolas Sarkozy believes something does not make it untrue. The French president was adamant that Nato shouldn’t take over the Libya campaign. He preferred to run an ad hoc coalition of the willing. Britain, however, was keen for the alliance to take control of a mission that seemed too loosely-organised. Once the United States decided to fade into the background of the military operation, the impetus for a switch to Nato grew. A few weeks into the transfer, people are beginning to wonder whether President Sarkozy was right in the first place. According to yesterday’s Sunday Times, Nato is doing what it did in Bosnia: blocking the rebels

Saturday

Daniel Korski

Unite chief blames MI5 for protest violence

Sometimes, just when you think that the craziest left-wing ideologues have gone off to tend to their gardens, up one pops. Meet Len McCluskey, the head of Unite, who tells The Times’s Rachel Sylvester (£) that Fidel Castro has been a “heroic” leader of his people. That would be the same Cuban dictator who jails journalists and trade unionists. Odd choice of hero. But it gets better. McCluskey seems to think that MI5 encouraged violence at the last anti-cuts protest. I kid you not: “Mr McCluskey believes that the secret services, in particular MI5, may have been working under cover to encourage the violence as part of a conspiracy to

Friday

Daniel Korski

Libya: winning the stalemate

Author Alison Pargeter picks up the debate about Libya and al Qaeda in this morning’s Times (£), dismissing the idea that a new “jihadist hotspot” is being created. As I wrote some time ago, it is difficult even for people who have travelled in eastern Libya to know anything for sure. I hear from sources in Benghazi that the Islamists number among some of the better troops – having had training and experience in fighting. They offer what one person called “small unit cohesion”, in contrast to poorly-organised rebel force. But they do not seem to run or even hold sway over the movement. The bigger question in Libya right

David Blackburn

Dylan urged to stop blowing with the wind

As one famous artist vanished in Beijing, another appeared. Bob Dylan has begun a tour of China in the same week as Ai Weiwei became the most prominent victim of Beijing’s current repression drive. Ai has been unlawfully incarcerated for what the authorities describe as ‘economic crimes’, and the cry has gone out for his release. Except that the cry has been more of a whimper. Western governments have largely ignored Beijing’s clampdown, which began in February as democratic activism spread from Cairo to Chinese websites. No trade sanctions or UN Resolutions are being issued here, just stern communiqués. Some human rights activists have called on Bob Dylan’s celebrity to

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Gaddafi’s refugee army

There is one particular question swirling around when it comes to Libya: how brittle is the regime and its military arm? An answer is now slowly emerging, and one that looks like good news for the rebels – if also yet more proof of Gaddafi’s depravity. Reuters is running a story about refugees inside Libya, predominantly from sub-Sahara, being detained, beaten and robbed of their identity papers by Libyan soldiers only to be offered money to take up arms against the rebels. Fergo Fevomoye, a 23-year-old refugee who crossed the Libyan-Tunisian border, told Reuters: “They will give you a gun and train you like a soldier. Then you fight the

Monday

Daniel Korski

Is al Qaeda in Libya?

This is one of the key questions about the Libya intervention. The Libyan Fighting Islamic Group was once one of the largest jihadist groups in the world and many Libyans fought in Iraq. So the fear of al Qaeda’s presence in Libya is well-founded. The terrorist network certainly appears to be trying to associate itself with the rebellion, much as the Muslim Brotherhood tried to exploit events at Tahrir Square. But there is very little evidence to fuel concern about Al Qaeda, except for a quote from Admiral James Stavridis, who said that there had been “flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda” and “Hizbollah” involvement. Notice the word

Sunday

David Blackburn

A month to go and still none the wiser

It’s supposed to be the day of rest, but there’s no rest for the wicked. The two sides of the alternative vote referendum have been exchanging blows all day. It seems the pro-AV camp have purged black poet Benjamin Zephaniah from some of their leaflets. Apparently, Zephaniah is all present and correct on leaflets sent to London addresses; but he has been apparently replaced by Tony Robinson in those sent to Sussex and Cornwall. The No campaign has described its opponents as “ashamed” of Mr Zephaniah’s colour, and the Yes campaign said the allegation was a “new low”. It’s six of one and half of dozen of the other, and

Clarissa Tan

The cost to a nation

When the West looks at Japan, it’s strange that so much attention falls on the Japanese nuclear plants when the tsunami – water, mud and debris – was by far the greater killer. The picture of the tsunami damage is becoming clearer all the time. Here, from my vantage point of Singapore, is the latest summary: Deaths: 11,938 people are dead. More than 7,000 of them died in Miyagi prefecture, over 3,000 in Iwate and 1,000 in Fukushima. 15,478 people are missing. The death toll rises daily. Searches are on for orphans. Displacement: 164,200 people have been evacuated due to the tsunami and live in makeshift shelters. Only one-third of

Saturday

Martyn Frampton

Desperate rearguard

The murder of a police officer in Northern Ireland once again proves that the threat from dissident republican terrorism remains only too real. This latest attack comes against a background of various attempted bombings and hoax alerts that have disrupted life in the province. Back in January, a sophisticated “double-tap” bomb attack on a police patrol in north Belfast was only narrowly averted. Since then a series of incidents have occurred in Derry, Belfast and Fermanagh. Going back further, the last two years (since the triple murder of March 2009) have seen the bombing of banks, courthouses, police stations and even MI5’s regional headquarters in Northern Ireland. Just over fourteen

David Blackburn

Death on the road to Brega

NATO has accidently bombed a rebel convoy on the road to Brega. Casualties are understood to have been heavy and, judging by footage, the rebels at the scene are pretty exercised: lots of angry tears, outraged rhetoric and shooting in the air.  An emotional  response is understandable in the aftermath of tragedy, especially in the fraternal fever of rebellion. However, the response does reveal something about the rebels’ military sense and capability: firing guns in the air without thought to what may be above is symptomatic of the martial indiscipline hampering their efforts. NATO is conducting an inquiry into this affair, but it seems that the flight turned on the

David Blackburn

BREAKING: Car bomb explodes in Omagh, County Tyrone

Not clear as yet if there have been any casaulties. More to follow. Reports are sketchy, but it seems that the blast took place in a residential road, away from the crowded central shopping areas that were the scene of the bloody atrocity committed 13 years ago.  The bomb was planted underneath the car of a local Catholic PSNI officer .The officer is critically wounded.  This act is very likely to have been perpetrated by extreme Republican dissidents; and it follows a trend of Republican/gang violence against police in the province, a battle for which London and Stormont allocated more than £240 million last month. UPDATE: DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson reports that the

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Death of Process

From the beginning the Obama campaign and administration has made a point, even a fetish, of process. Judgement matters and good process is considered vital to increasing the chances that good judgements will be made. Hillary Clinton’s 3am alarm call advert during the primary was deemed silly because, actually, it’s pretty unusual for a President to have to make an instant, sleepy-headed and blurry-eyed call of the kind imagined by the advert. And of course Obama’s supporters in that primary tended to think his judgement – cooler, more measured, less flighty – better than Hillary’s. Iraq was not the only data point, either. So let’s see what David Brooks has

David Blackburn

From the archives – a notable desertion

An obvious comparison can be drawn between Moussa Koussa and Rudolf Hess. It is intriguing but easily overextended. While Koussa’s sense of self-preservation is palpable, Hess’s flight at the high tide of Nazism remains unfathomable. Back in May 1941, a onetime prominent Nazi and man of letters called Dr Hermann Rauschning, a controversial oddity in his own right, analysed the Hess mystery for the Spectator. (Incidentally, the British secret service file on Hess will be released in 2016.) The Rudolf Hess Mystery, 16 May 1941 The flight of Rudolf Hess to enemy country in the middle of the war is more than a lost battle for Hitler. It must be

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Genius of Myles na Gopaleen

 As Frank McNally says, the sovereignty of Myles na Gopaleen should not be subjugated by the imperialism of Mr Flann O’Brien. The latter fellow had his moments but the first mentioned was really the man of rare genius. There he is on the left there, in the Palace Bar, some time during the Emergency. Those were cold times, as you may discern, for Ireland. As they are again. For more than a quarter of a century he produced a daily column for the Irish Times. In many of those years his column was the only entertaining thing found in that self-consciously noble blatt. By turns satirical, whimsical, loopy, angry, absurd,

Thursday

David Blackburn

The first rat abandons ship?

Moussa Koussa, one of Gaddafi’s closest henchmen, has given himself up in Britain. He left Tripoli supposedly on a diplomatic mission, but arrived in Britain declaring that he “no longer wanted to serve the regime”. This development suggests that the regime is crumbling and pundits opine that the balance has now tipped against Colonel Gaddafi. It has also emerged that President Obama has authorised covert support to be given to the hotch-potch rebellion, which may yet prove decisive. Gaddafi will now have to make do without Koussa’s skill and clout, which may pose the Colonel a problem if he needs diplomacy to save his neck. However, Gaddafi’s blitzkrieg is still

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Audacity of Hypocrisy: Obama’s Lovely Little Libyan Adventure

Hypocrisy is a necessary condition of leadership in a large, modern democracy. Not just there either, now that I think of it. That’s often obviously the case in foreign affairs and clearly so in our present Libyan adventure. It is quite a remarkable undertaking, based on the most remarkable set of circumstances and thanks to a quite remarkable coalition that has given the mission its tepid blessing. Consider… Earlier this week President Obama said he “refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” Consider that for a moment. It’s an interesting choice of words making it clear that this is an Al-Jazeera War. No

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Rebel setbacks create an almighty headache for NATO

The Auk and the Desert Fox ride again. As in 1941-2, the military position along on Libya’s northern coastal road is extremely fluid. After the celebrated rebel gains over the weekend, Gaddafi has counter-attacked without remorse. Skirmishes escalated yesterday and now the rebels are in full retreat (£) from the strategically vital oil town of Ras Lanuf, running from Gaddafi’s superior onslaught. It’s apparent that the rebels need heavy arms to secure their gains, let alone beat Gaddafi. As Pete noted yesterday, the west is (rightly) wary of such a move and there’s nothing to suggest that Arab states are any less reluctant. Besides, it is unclear if the UN

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Another Libyan question

Far from quiet on Libya’s shifting battlefront. The latest reports are that the rebel advance has stalled, and is now moving backwards in the face of Gaddafi’s overwhelming firepower. Yet as disheartening as this development may be, it is hardly unexpected: America’s General Ham all but described it as an inevitability only a couple of days ago. And so the rebels’ representatives have now made an equally inevitable demand of the politicians congregating in London: arm us, and we can make progress once again. In which case, there’s another question for the pile: to arm, or not to arm? And it is not clear-cut, either way. While the West appears