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…]
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…]
My colleagues are departing for North Africa. And I am sitting here left behind in central London wishing I was going with them. History is being made and I want to see it up close.
But what kind of history? Commentators vie with each other for the most appropriate comparison.
– “Is it like 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall?”
– “No, this is the new 1968 and The Prague Spring?”
– “No it isn’t, this is just like 1848 and the spate of European revolutions that swept the continent.” [Read more…]
Do you think former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is embarrassed at the news footage now being regularly replayed on television around the world of him embracing Colonel Gaddafi during his visit to Tripoli in 2004?
Fleetingly, I think is the answer. [Read more…]
If I was Aung San Suu Kyi, I would be extremely ticked off.
I would be sitting there in Burma watching events unfold in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and I would be thinking:
“Hey. What about me?” [Read more…]