World

An update on this morning’s post on the Drug War. From the Wall Street Journal’s story on the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy’s report calling for a fresh approach: The report comes as drug violence is engulfing Mexico, which has become the key transit point for cocaine traffic to the U.S. Decapitation of rival drug traffickers has become common as cartels try to intimidate one another… U.S. law-enforcement officials — as well as some of their counterparts in Mexico — say the explosion in violence indicates progress in the war on drugs as organizations under pressure are clashing. “If the drug effort were failing there would be no

Photo: Keystone/Getty Images Once upon a time Citroen produced the DS – driven here by Lord Hailsham –  as revolutionary and beautiful a car as anyone has produced in the last 50 years. More importantly, it was cool. So, what better way for the marque to make a statement than by reviving the old DS brand? After all, the success of the new retro-styled Mini Cooper and Fiat’s Cinquecento have shown that there’s a demand for cars that look fun and pay homage to the best of their makers’ histories. So how has Citroen fared? Answer: about as badly as could be imagined. I mean, look at this monstrosity, this

On the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Shah of Iran, Con Coughlin says that Iran’s rulers today are devoted to the same militant objectives that drove Ayatollah Khomeini The heirs to Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution have much to celebrate as they prepare to mark next week’s 30th anniversary of the fall of the Shah of Iran’s detested regime. The last nails were hammered into the Pahlavi dynasty’s coffin on the morning of 11 February 1979 when the makeshift government that the Shah had set up under his reluctant prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, finally collapsed. The Shah, who was already stricken with the cancer that would eventually claim his

Could there be anything more juvenile than Fleet Street’s unanimous view that Gordon Brown has been embarrassed by Tony Blair “beating” him to an audience with Barack Obama? Sure, it’s always entertaining to dip back into the Blair-Brown psychodrama and everyone likes the idea of the PM watching Tone preach the word at the White House and throwing the TV remote against the wall in a fit of Presbyterian – “Bloody Tony uses the Good News Bible. He would, wouldn’t he? Good News! I ask you, what’s that? Not even a proper Christian. Cherie believes in crystals – fury… But I digress. the point is that the view that it

From Tony Blair’s speech to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington this morning: I believe restoring religious faith to its rightful place, as the guide to our world and its future, is itself of the essence. The 21st Century will be poorer in spirit, meaner in ambition, less disciplined in conscience, if it is not under the guardianship of faith in God. I do not mean by this to blur the correct distinction between the realms of religious and political authority. In Britain we are especially mindful of this. I recall giving an address to the country at a time of crisis. I wanted to end my words with “God

The stimulus bill working its way through the Congressional sausage-grinder contains “Buy American” provisions that are, unsurprisingly, resisted by American companies that like selling things overseas. Not unreasonably they fear this sort of (questionably legal?) manoevre may lead to other countries retaliating in kind. So, this is going to be a wee test for the new President and his advisors who, as Megan McArdle reminds us, spent the campaign winking and suggesting that, come on guys, you know this rhetoric is just for the campaign, right? Mind you, Megan also puts the rumpus into some perspective: By the standards of Smoot-Hawley, this is paltry stuff.  And by the standards of

Tough news for neoconservatism. From today there’ll be no more Bill Kristol columns in the New York Times. One could react to this news in a number of ways. Here, for instance, is Peter Wehner’s view, courtesy of the good folk at National Review Online: Kristol agreed to a one year commitment at the Times, and while there he offered views and facts to its readers that they otherwise didn’t get—and repeatedly made arguments that must have made Pinch Sulzberger’s skin crawl. That is a tribute to both the rightness of Kristol’s views and his unwillingness to temper them for the sake of the Times…Bill Kristol will survive and prosper.

Living in a monarchy, one naturally compares the inauguration of a US President to our Coronation. It compares unfavourably. It lacks beauty, mystery, good order, and, although it is full of history, it lacks the fascinating complications and accretions of a country like ours, which has no theory, only its history. I could not help being disappointed by the way the speakers were announced on the Capitol on Tuesday as if they were performing in some awards ceremony, or by the incompetence and lack of ceremony with which the Chief Justice administered the oath to Barack Obama. Even the music was pretty useless, because it had to embody current compromises