World

It now seems almost certain that Colonel Gaddafi will now not only survive in Libya but reassert control over the whole country. With the fall of Ajdabiya, there is no break between Gaddafi’s forces and the rebel capital of Benghazi. The window for international action is shutting rapidly, even if it has not yet closed. But, as so often, there seems to be no multilateral desire for action. Gaddafi’s triumph is a disaster for the Libyan people but also one of the biggest strategic set-backs the West has suffered in the post 9/11 world. Every dictator will now know that they can suppress a revolt with violence without fear of

I hope the Japanese authorities are telling the truth about the nuclear reactor building which exploded as a consequence of the earthquake. We are told that while the outer shell at the Fukushima plant did indeed explode (as seen on YouTube), the inner core, within its steel cradle, remained apparently unimpaired. In which case, why exactly did the outer shell explode? What caused it to do so? I ask not rhetorically, but out of interest. And also suspicion. They have been as secretive, the Japs, as were the Soviets when Chernobyl blew up and the first we knew of it was from a Norwegian meteorological team. Incidentally, I’m in favour

The multiple crises in North Africa, from the revolution in Tunisia, through the protests in Egypt and to the conflict in Libya, has reinvigorated British foreign policy. In the last couple of years classic international issues have been pushed to the side by a need to focus on economic statecraft. Foreign ministers became less important as finance ministers gained prominence. This will now change, as leaders shift their focus onto the Libya crisis. The UN is again in focus, not the G20. The second change may be on East/West dynamics. Before the crisis, the air was thick with talk of a multipolar world and how power was flowing roughly from

Tonight’s Six o’clock news had a long package on Prince Andrew that ended with Laura Kuenssberg reporting from Downing Street on the government’s attitude to the prince. The fact that the government is now so much part of this story is due to an unforced error on its part.   It was the briefing yesterday about how if more came out then Andrew would have to resign as trade envoy that pushed the government right into the middle of this sorry story. This set journalistic hares running and had everyone demanding to know what the government’s position was. The government, which had got involved in this story more through cock-up

There are two important political interviews in today’s papers, Alan Duncan in The Times and Mervyn King in the Telegraph. Duncan, the international development minister, echoes Chris Huhne’s warning of ever higher oil prices. He also makes a rather glib remark about how “I don’t think we want to take military action so women can drive in Saudi Arabia.” King’s interview with Charles Moore is fascinating reading. The governor fears  that there could be another banking crisis. He warns, ‘The problem is still there’. But what struck me most were his comments about the Vickers’ review of banking: ‘The key question, in his view, is not why an individual bank