It is difficult, even for those of us with limited attention spans, to bring ourselves apart from the developments in Egypt and the region at large. Nearly all of us are impressed with a great and palpable sense that history is moving in seismic shifts even as we watch.… Read full post »

South Park recently aired two episodes in which the prophet Mohammed is depicted—or, perhaps more accurately, not-depicted. The conceit is that the litigious celebrities who have been the butt of the comedy series' jokes want access to Mohammed so that they can take his “goo&rd… Read full post »

“People, it’s time to tell the truth! This is a great crime! A conspiracy of Tusk, Obama and Putin!” Thus shouted one man through a loudspeaker in Warsaw when the coffin of Maria Kaczynska, the Polish president’s wife, was being carried through the streets. In itsel… Read full post »

After the furore over Nick Griffin’s Question Time appearance has died down somewhat, perhaps we might be able to see more clearly its potential consequences for the British political landscape. Dianne Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, argues in The Independent that it wa/… Read full post »

The tide seems to have turned on Afghanistan recently. We were all so sure it was the just war, and we were all so sure of our intentions in going there. Iraq did nothing to us, and it turned out it wasn’t a threat after all, but Afghanistan’s rugged mountains sheltered… Read full post »

Nicolas Sarkozy is facing a considerable dilemma on the issue of the burqa. Should France, one of the models for the modern secular state, ban the burqa and keep religion out of the public sphere, or keep it, thereby granting a greater freedom of religious expression?

Perhaps when phrased like… Read full post »

Past midnight last Wednesday, the prime minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, receives a phone call. It is President Obama. Tusk’s wife tells him to leave it and call him back tomorrow. “I can’t,” he says. “It’s America.” He duly picks up the phone. Obama tell… Read full post »