World

So, it seems that Lauren Booth, sister-in-law to Tony Blair, isn’t so much a slightly tiresome attention seeker as bang on trend. By converting to Islam, as she very publicly did last year, she’s put a face to the growing numbers of white Britons who have become Muslims, a group that last week was estimated at 100,000. Her scapegrace father, Tony Booth, unhelpfully suggested that because her mother was Jewish, the conversion didn’t really count, but it would be hard to make that argument stick. Actually, when I say 100,000, that’s just the figure that an organisation, Faith Matters, put on the trend last week. It follows a separate report

Today, voters in the southern part of Sudan head to the polls in a referendum which will determine whether they should form their own state or remain part of Sudan, Africa’s largest country. Secession – the most likely outcome of the referendum, and called for in the 2005 peace agreement that ended 21 years of civil war between the country’s north and south – would mean that the government in Khartoum could lose not only territory, but also over 80 percent of the revenues it receives from oil exportation, as most of the oil is located in the would-be state of South Sudan. As a result, many fear that bloodshed

As if to illustrate Pete’s post about the rise of China and India, Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang has just finished a visit to Spain during which agreements worth 5.7 billion euros were signed. The Chinese delegation is said to have committed itself to buying six billion euros of Spanish debt, which helped calm markets and provided some relief for Spain’s recession-hit economy. Around the time that the Soviet Union collapsed, the Chinese used to say only they could save communism. Twenty years on, it seems only they can save capitalism. The Spanish are certainly in no doubt about the importance of their newfound Chinese friends. The left-leaning Spanish newspaper

Sarah Ellison has profiled Julian Assange and his relationship with the Guardian for Vanity Fair. Read the whole piece for each petulant tantrum, sordid disclosure and twist of hypocrisy, but here are the opening paragraphs to get you started. ‘On the afternoon of November 1, 2010, Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks.org, marched with his lawyer into the London office of Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian. Assange was pallid and sweaty, his thin frame racked by a cough that had been plaguing him for weeks. He was also angry, and his message was simple: he would sue the newspaper if it went ahead and published stories based

Those choppy waters that I mentioned earlier? They’ve just become perilous for Vince Cable. The BBC’s Robert Peston has an extract from the Telegraph tapes that was omitted from the paper’s coverage – and it is revelatory stuff. In it, the Business Secretary discusses Rupert Murdoch’s bid to take majority control of BSkyB, and he drops this particular line: “And I don’t know if you have been following what has been happening with the Murdoch press, where I have declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we are going to win.” Declaring war on Rupert Murdoch – and declaring that you’re declaring war – may be inadvisable for most

An elderly and very left wing friend told me a couple of years ago that he was delighted to be visiting Cuba for the first time. “Be careful,” I said, “remember this is a country without political or economic freedom, where the desperate population tries everything from drug selling to prostitution to stay alive. Don’t talk to anyone about politics. They might think you’re a police stooge.” “Really Nick,” my friend replied, “you are getting so right wing. Cuba has universal literacy and the best health service in Latin America.” I remember thinking at the time that literacy was no use to Cubans when the state told them what they

Yesterday, Liam Fox vowed to install a tougher procurement system in the Ministry of Defence and appointed the bureaucracy-busting Bernard Grey as Chief of Defence Materiel. The Defence Secretary said that it is important to start from first principles if reform is to take place. The ministry, he said, “exists to provide the Armed Forces with what they need”. But is that right? The MoD exists, first, to maintain civilian and democratic control of the armed forces; and, second, to support effective operations. Supporting the military is a corollary of the second task, but not the same thing. In desiring to reform the MoD and cut costs, there is a

Whatever the British government wants, moves are now afoot on the Continent to address some of the structural problem with the Euro. They may in the end lead to some form of fiscal federalism. So far they are not supported by Angela Merkel, the key decision-maker, who worries constantly about the court in Karlsruhe, which has set clear limits on further European integration. But they are said to be supported, at least in part, by Finance Minister Wolfgang Shauble. Writing in the Financial Times, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Peer Steinbrück argue that the EU needs “a more radical, targeted effort to end the current uncertainty, and provide stronger support for the

I’m visiting a stylish but tense Rome today, just as the Italian legislature has voted down a non-confidence vote in Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s mogul-cum-leader. “Rome is at war” my taxi driver told me and numerous demonstrations are going on. Ill Cavaliere, as Berlusconi is sometimes known, put in a strong defence of his record in the Senate and managed to coax, cajole and, some claim, bribe enough parliamentarians in the Chamber of Deputies to secure a small victory. He pulled not a Full Monty but a “Full Andreotti”, using every trick and tactic in the book (and some scribbled in the margin too). For now, Berlusconi survives and can resume

Shane Warne’s statement on his separation from his wife, which makes no mention of his alleged affair with Liz Hurley, is a classic example of how difficult it is for celebrities—or politicians—to both engage online and control a message. The first comment from a Greg Quinn says, ‘thanks shane for sticking it up the poms’. One imagines this was not the tone that Warne was planning to strike. The second is from someone calling himself Denis Angeleri and is a full-on assault on Warne’s character which includes the allegation that Warne pursued this man’s wife. Angeleri writes, ‘It is sad that all the comments are a bi product of people