World

I have no doubt that history will vindicate Gita Sahgal in her decision to challenge Amnesty International over its relationship with former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg and his organisation Cage Prisoners.  She has now left her job, as The Times reports today. This will be a great loss to Amnesty, which has lost a deeply respected figure in international human rights, especially in the field of women’s rights and the threat of authoritarian Islam.  I can’t really better Oliver Kamm’s analysis of how damaging this is for Amnesty: “Its critics charge that it has diluted its defence of universal human rights by allying with a group that rejects that principle.

Little blogging here for the next couple of days as I flee this soggy island for an even soggier one. Am weekending in Dublin and Sligo commencing with this evening’s Heineken Cup quarter-final between Leinster and Clermont Auvergne which could be a mighty tear-up, not least since, in my view, they’re the two best teams in europe. Poor Ireland; the years of fat were accompanied by no end of vulgarity but they were better than these lean and bleak times. The problem with a populist uprising in Hibernia, this time, is this: how do you muster populism when the party that needs to be pitchforked – Fianna Fail – is

Everyone agrees that public spending is going to be squeezed and journalists want to hear the pols say what items they would cut. Politicians, understandably, are reluctant to give clear answers to these questions. Hence our poor old friend Mr Efficiency Saving is wheeled into service once more and Mr Government Waste gets it in the neck but that’s about it (though there’s the occasional nod to big ticket items such as replacing Trident. But since £25bn for Trident can be spread over 30 years it’s not obvious that this sort of “saving” makes a big difference either.) All this irritates people. The public professes to love plain-speaking and straight-talking

Well, as Pete says there were few fireworks during the finance debate. Then again, why would one expect there to be? By and large the three gentlemen agree with one another more than they disagree. When that’s the case you probably shouldn’t expect a proper tear-up. Their arguments were, by and large, about the route not the destination. Sure, there’s the occasional difference of emphasis and sometimes of timing too but let’s not pretend that there isn’t quite some degree of consensus. I suppose you could consider the creation of that consensus a Labour achievement but it’s not one the party can really boast about. Curiously, however, it is almost

Granted there was something about George W Bush that sent plenty of otherwise reasonably normal people a little nuts too and perhaps the nature of politics and technology today is such that this kind of crazy is inevitable regardless of who wins elections. But what, in the name of god, has Obama done to merit this kind of stuff from Glenn Reynolds? Possibly Obama just hates Israel and hates Jews. That’s plausible — certainly nothing in his actions suggests otherwise, really. OK! I guess that White House seder is proof of how deep the conspiracy runs? Evidently the administration is protesting too much. Only a White House riddled with anti-semites

At first he was coy. ‘Yes my brother,’ Salim the dealer smirked. ‘How many kilos you want?’ It had taken us only a day to find a man in Tanzania who would sell us ivory tusks from poached elephants. We met Salim in a Dar es Salaam hamburger joint and the whole exchange was ridiculously easy. I asked him: ‘How many kilos have you got?’ ‘I have 50, 100, 200 kilo. How much you want?’ ‘How about 200 kilos?’ I challenged. Salim licked his lips. At Tanzanian prices, this was worth $24,000. On the international black market, it could fetch $200,000. That meant dozens of dead elephants. This week CITES

Here’s Tony Blair, speaking at AIPAC yesterday: We should be clear also. 
Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons capability.
 They must know that we will do whatever it takes to stop them getting it.  The danger is if they suspect for a moment we might allow such a thing. Emphasis added. This doesn’t really differ from long-established US policy except that the Americans tend to be a little less vocal when it comes to pledging military action. Then again, they’d be the ones having to take the decision to attack and they, not Blair, would be the ones who’d have to deal with the consequences. Doubtless Blair