World

The striking thing about last night’s Republican Party debate was just how bad the leading GOP candidates are. Rick Perry, the new favourite, isn’t terribly bright. (“Perry is like Will Ferrell doing Bush, but on half-speed,” is how David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, put it.) Mitt Romney is an oily cheese merchant who keeps contradicting himself. And Bachmann is bonkers. With the USA in such a poor state, you might think President Obama would be in danger of losing the White House. But the Republican party is incapable of offering a coherent and sensible alternative. The most interesting candidates are Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul, but they don’t seem

Tonight, the Republican primary race gets serious with a debate at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in California. This is the first debate that Rick Perry, the governor of Texas and the current frontrunner, has taken part in. The Republican nomination is now a far more attractive prize than many expected it to be. 53 percent of voters now disapprove of the job Obama is doing suggesting that he is beatable. At the moment, the Republican nomination appears to be Perry’s to lose. He is benefitting from both the troubles of the Tea Party favourite Michele Bachmann, her campaign manager has just stepped down, and Republican establishment unease with the

With Colonel Gaddafi’s compound lying in ruins and every self-respecting reporter combing through the wreckage, it was only a matter of time before documents of a dictatorship became public. Most explosively, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen has found letters to and from the Secret Intelligence Service which suggest complicity in extraordinary rendition and, as was suggested on the Today Programme yesterday, an unseemly chuminess with Libya’s spies. If any part of the British state took part in illegal acts – which extraordinary rendition is – then this is a very serious matter. But it should be said no evidence has hitherto been found of this by any number of inquiries. The

Tripoli Someone somewhere must have decided it was worth keeping. Like many parents around the world, Colonel and Mrs Gaddafi were probably terribly proud of their child’s progress at school. But you can’t take everything with you when the mob is storming the barricades. So there it was strewn on a patch of sun-parched lawn, next to a bizarre take on a Swiss chalet. For your average Tripoline indulging in some light pilfering of the abandoned Bab al-Aziziya compound, it wouldn’t have been worth a second look. For anyone hunting down incriminating intelligence files linking the UK to torture in Libya, it wouldn’t have been up to much, either. But

Tripoli What to do on a weekend in revolutionary Tripoli? There’s no doubt about the city’s most popular family day out. Hundreds of cars and thousands of Tripolines drive into Bab al-Aziziya, the Gaddafi family fortress. A vast compound strictly off limits for ordinary Libyans until only a few days ago is now the scene of the unlikeliest traffic jams. Threading their way through shot-up, burnt-out armoured BMWs, drivers wind down their windows, honk their horns and shout out anything that comes to mind, “Free Libya!”, “Fuck off Gaddafi!”, “The rat is finished!” Gaddafi’s house resounds to cries of “Allahu akbar! God is great!” Crowds mill through with mobile phone

This summer I had the pleasure of listening to the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra performing in the once-ravaged Croatian coastal town of Dubrovnik. The concert, conducted by the Indian maestro Zubin Mehta, was beautiful and moving. A particularly memorable moment came when a Croatian tenor sang a duet with a Serbian soprano. Under the Dalmatian sky, music served as a vehicle for human understanding and reconciliation. How different the audience – and Zubin Mehta – must have felt when the performance of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall was disrupted by pro-Palestinian hoodlums, who brought the Promenade Concerts to a halt for the first time since 1895. Dissatisfied

The EU has banned imports of crude oil from Syria. This is being touted as a major success for the EU, displaying the ability of governments to act collectively. Oil sanctions on Syria should, theoretically, impede President Assad: 95 per cent of Syria’s oil is exported to Europe, worth roughly £3bn a year. Germany and Italy are the premier destinations. This is a welcome move against a brutal tyranny, but the embargo is not the total success that it might have been. Italy was stalling earlier in the week, trying to defer the deal’s implementation until 30th November 2011, when existing contracts expired. Other European countries were pushing for a more

Most of Europe takes all of August off for summer. Paris is empty, Brussels eerie and nobody works in Madrid. But as politicians and officials come back from their holidays, they are finding that the problems of the euro have not gone away. Quite the contrary. No less a supporter than former EU Commission president Jacques Delors believes that the European currency is still “on the edge of the precipice”. It is easy to see why the European grandee feels as he does. The euro eased against the dollar today, taking a cue from lower stocks; the euro was down 0.6 per cent. The losses came on top of data

As August draws to a close, Europe is bracing itself for a series of September sovereign debt crises. Events in Germany at the moment have the potential to make these crises into events that could break the back of the Eurozone. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports, Chancellor Merkel might not have the votes to push the European Financial Stability Facility through the German parliament. Merkel is currently under attack from all angles in Germany. Helmut Kohl has criticised her foreign policy, while the German president has implied that she should not have let the European Central Bank buy up so many poor quality bonds. It is now possible to see her coalition

There’s no respite in Libya, where there have been significant developments this weekend. There have been reports (and harrowing images) of mass graves being uncovered in Tripoli, the latest suggestion that pro-Gaddafi forces have committed appalling atrocities in what is now a purely callous struggle. The National Transitional Council says it has evidence of further crimes. On the other hand, Channel 4 has found a handful of Nigerians (presumably mercenaries) in captivity, who are terrified that they will be shot by their rebel captors. Meanwhile, rebel forces have taken control of most of Tripoli and are now setting up a civil administration there. Already, the NTC has pledged to strive to

His presidential campaign is just a fortnight old, and already Rick Perry is soaring in the polls. The three major national surveys conducted since his announcement all give Perry double-digit leads over previous frontrunner Mitt Romney. He has also, importantly, taken the lead in Iowa and is now odds on to win both there and in South Carolina come February. This is certainly an encouraging position for a new candidate, but history suggests that Perry supporters should temper their optimism with a heavy dose of caution. Until the autumn of 2007, Rudy Giuliani led the Republican field by a similar margin to the one Perry has now. And Hillary Clinton’s

The Libyan National Transitional Council has obtained official recognition from numerous countries this week, but the African Union has refused to acknowledge it. Speaking earlier this afternoon, South African President Jacob Zuma said that ongoing fighting has created a “fluid” situation. The union also said that it wants “an all-inclusive transitional government” incorporating members of Colonel Gaddafi’s administration, which is a bizarre requirement given that so many of the NTC are former Gaddafi stooges: Chairman Jalil, for instance, was Libya’s Justice Minister between 2007 and 2011. There is some concern around Westminster that this doesn’t bode well for the ability of the African Union to play a serious part in the stabilisation of

The sight of rebel troops kicking a statue of Gaddafi round the colonel’s compound is another sign that the rebels are taking control of the capital. But the whereabouts of Gaddafi remain unknown. I understand that the British government is doing what it can to help the rebels locate him. But, until Gaddafi and his sons are detained there’ll be uncertainty about the situation. There’ll be much discussion of where Gaddafi should be tried if he is captured. Personally, I think it is entirely understandable if the Libyans want to try their old oppressor themselves. But the crucial thing is that the Transitional National Council prevents a wave of revenge