The other evening, a friend and colleague announced, with the certainty of a man whose mind was made up, that "There is nothing worth reading on the internet". Were he a man given over to football, or another trivial pursuit, I might have shrugged and let him be. But this was a journalist of distinction, a man who had seen the world, who had covered important stories and who knew a thing or two about politics, revolutions and the broad sweep of human affairs. His books are well researched and...

more »

Argentina's president, Nèstor Kirchner, likes to refer to himself as a penguin: both because of his prominent nose as because of his roots in the penguin-rich Patagonian province of Santa Cruz. Yet there are further features that make the comparison apposite: the male king Penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) incubates the egg while the female goes to the open sea to seek food; they do not build nests, and the chick is cared for by both parents. President Kirchner has been saying for a long time...

more »

At his press conference on 12 July 2007, President George W Bush gave no indication that he is willing to change his Iraq policy. Indeed, his stolid determination prompted many observers to characterise Bush as "out of touch" or "in denial". Yet, those who've studied this presidency understand that Bush's insistence that progress is being made in Iraq is part and parcel of his endgame strategy: the war won't be lost on his watch.

While it's often noted that Bush is not a student of history,...

more »

Canada's military death-toll in Afghanistan increased to sixty-six with the killing of six soldiers by a huge roadside bomb in Panjwali district, southwest of Kandahar, on 4 July 2007. In the forty-five months from 17 April 2002 to 31 December 2005, eight Canadians were killed - four of them by friendly-fire. But in the eighteen months of 2006 and 2007 alone, fifty-eight have given their life.

A British soldier killed in the upper Geresk valley of Helmand province on 12 July brought the...

more »

The obituaries of former first lady Lady Bird Johnson extol her beautification projects, graciousness and steady handling of the outsize personality of her husband. But she was also an unwavering supporter of civil rights and through the decades kept close ties to key people in the movement. Her achievements are inseparable from her marriage. Lady Bird managed Lyndon's turbulence, quietly offered her counsel, ignored his wandering eye, and calmed those he might upset. Nothing of that...

more »

The killing of seven Spanish tourists in the Arabian state of Yemen on 2 July 2007 is a terrible and tragic event, for the victims and their families, for the people of Yemen whose suffering and isolation it will only increase, and for all those who aspire to travel and explore beyond the confines of the enclosed hotels and beaches of the travel industry.

Yemen, with a population of 22 million, occupies the fertile southwest corner of the Arabian peninsula. It was known to the Romans as...

more »

"There is no solution to the crisis in Lebanon without a solution to the Palestinian state question, period! Those who are still living in the Palestinian refugees camps, you can't keep them there forever after two or three generations, fed like animals by the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA). As for the Lebanese themselves, they have to see themselves as Lebanese first and members of their religious community second. The problem is that the Lebanese have let themselves being...

more »