As I write this, the battle for Sirte, Colonel Gaddafi’s birthplace, seems to be entering the final phase. As many as 10,000 people have fled the city, NATO airstrikes continue and reports of major casualties and an acute shortage of medical supplies reinforce the hope that the fighting will cease soon. Then only Bani Walid will remain among Libya’s major cities in the hands of Gaddafi loyalists.
Last week in Tripoli the sense of triumphalism was palpable. [Read more…]
Each generation assumes it lives through tumultuous times. But as we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we can surely claim that the last ten years will be remembered as a decade of extraordinary volatility and insecurity. We now assume – as if it is a basic law of the universe – that 9/11 not just changed the world but set in train a sequence of events that has pitched the world on a roller coaster ride of seismic geo-political activity.
[AnnaPurna Consulting is currently away; Research Director, Steve Thomsan, is the author of this blog]
I have recently finished reading Baader-Meinhof, Stefan Aust’s fascinating account of the lives, ideas and violence of the Red Army Faction (RAF). For younger readers, the RAF was a West German terrorist group responsible for a spate of murders, kidnappings and plane hijackings in the 1970s and 80s, espousing a nihilistic ideological cocktail of Marxism, libertarianism and fanatical adherence to the Palestinian cause. [Read more…]
Whatever happened to Tunisia? The most unlikely starting point of the political turmoil that has swept the Arab world has dropped out of the headlines. While Tunisia wrestles with the realisation that toppling a flaky leader is, in this case, a lot easier than root and branch regime change, the news crews and international affairs pundits have moved on. [Read more…]
It is hard to imagine who would want to be a politician at the moment. But the job still lures ambitious people like almost no other. Yet in most cases the job seems either hopeless or thankless. And often both.
Sitting in the White House, President Obama must be scratching his head wondering how to inject some health into the economy. Prime Minister Papandreou of Greece must feel in an even tighter corner as his government wrestles with the dire consequences of years of economic misrule. And it is not just the Greek people who are watching what he does next. The rest of Europe and all the world’s major economies have a stake in what happens in Athens and are eager for their opinion to be heard. [Read more…]