Were it not for the death of a demonstrator and injuries to police and public, it would be possible to treat the whole G-20 summit with the humour that its theatricality demands. For putting events on the streets of London to one side, this is indeed an occasion for powerful actors to strut their stuff. Continue reading
international politics
Obama in power (4): challenges, doubts and the G-20
Barack Obama comes to London this week – the heads of 20 other governments do too because G-20 has suddenly grown into G-22 but of course it’s Obama who sets the pulse racing. Everybody knows his host, Gordon Brown, needs the G-20 to be an all-out success; anything less – mere solid achievement, for example – will be spun as failure by the UK government’s army of critics. But is Obama in a similar situation?
G-20 summit: Brown revives Blair’s old Euro-Atlantic dream
So Gordon Brown went to Strasbourg and told the European Parliament that the EU is uniquely placed to provide world leadership in the economic crisis. Is this the Gordon Brown who deliberately avoided EU ministerial meetings and designed impassable tests the UK economy had to pass if he was to let it join the Euro? Why the change? Continue reading
Four issues at (or not at) the G-20 London summit
It looks like there will be some serious demonstrations to welcome the G-20 summiteers to London on 2 April. Protests will reflect anger at the human costs of the recession and a conviction (or hope) that the system has not only failed many ordinary people but is failing full stop. And there will be a lot of sympathy for the protests because it is hard to see the G-20 straightforwardly addressing the big problems. There are four in particular that could do with high-level attention. Continue reading
Rubik’s crisis
As the economic crunch continues to unfold, commentators, politicians and thoughtful citizens alike are trying to get a grip on its multiple dimensions. Pity the policy-makers and political leaders who are trying to find the way to solve a six-sided boxful of dilemmas because this is a real Rubik’s Cube of a crisis. Continue reading
The economic crisis and world power
Moments in history when the world power balance has shifted decisively – or when the result of a slowly accumulating shift has been revealed to general view – have usually been related to war, economic crisis, or both in tandem. Is today’s combination of economic crunch and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan such a moment for the US? And if so, who gains – China? Continue reading
Poverty, power, development and aid under discussion
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) is preparing a White Paper. It will be its fourth one since the department was founded in 1997 in the early days of New Labour government. On Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th it held a conference in London as part of the work on the White Paper.
Obama in power (3): Iraq – not as clear as it first seems
Speaking last Friday at the US Marine Corps Camp Lejeune base in North Carolina President Obama announced a big reduction in US troop numbers in Iraq from 142,000 down to 50,000 by August next year, with all US forces out by the end of 2011. So he has made his intentions clear. Or has he?
Overstretch in UN peace operations
“In 2008 global peacekeeping was pushed to the brink,” says a new briefing paper from the Center on International Cooperation in New York announcing the Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2009. The authors chart out the basic peacekeeping figures – who contributes what peacekeeping forces where – but their main focus is on the serious degree of overstretch and the risk of operations breaking down. Continue reading
The special significance of the Israel-Palestine conflict
Why is it that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians generates such intense feelings among so many people? It goes deeper and spreads more widely than virtually any other current political issue. People who have no personal stake – no relatives in any part of Israel and Palestine, for example – express themselves on this conflict with genuine feelings of grief and anger, where other conflicts provoke only a more general humanitarian response or concern for the unjustly treated. What’s special about Israel-Palestine? Continue reading
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