I recommend you take five minutes to see and hear extracts from Barack Obama’s budget speech on Wednesday to the US Congress.   While recognising that the new President’s success will be judged by the effectiveness of his actions and not his words, nevertheless the confidence he gives to the people is an essential part [...]

China’s role in resolving the current financial and economic crisis is vital, and so therefore is the EU-China relationship.  The European Parliament has a history of highly critical resolutions on China, usually focusing on Tibet and human rights and Taiwan.  It rarely debates the broader aspects of the relationship.  However, Parliament is an important player, [...]

Felipe Gonzales, chairman of the group of wise men on the future of the European Union, is reported as recently stating that countries which are not prepared to be involved in stronger European integration “can leave the EU”. I believe in deeper integration and indeed the Community Jean Monnet had in mind, but do not [...]

Below is the text of a paper I delivered to the ‘Europa Forum’ of the Chinese Mission to the European Union on 20 February.  Readers will be surprised to read the title, ‘Is Today’s European Union a Monnet-type Community?’   Introduction   I will attempt to answer the question posed.  To do so one needs [...]

The Financial Times rightly opined, in a leader today, that the West needs achievable goals in Afghanistan and has to stop scoring own goals.  Simply increasing the number of troops is not enough: a new strategy is needed.  The trust of the Afghans has to be won, and this is impossible so long as western [...]

The recent collision of the British and French nuclear submarines in the Atlantic Ocean has been widely reported and there has been considerable astonishment that it could happen.  The fact that both boats were operating without their sonar systems was obviously a contributing factor.  And it is understandable that the sonar systems cannot be used [...]

I have been disinclined to blog again on the Israel-Palestine quarrel, seeing no hope of progress towards peace, and indeed believing that the two-state solution could be dead.  However, Simone Susskind’s article of 19 January, “Israel and Gaza: We’re waiting, Mr Obama”, persuaded me otherwise.    She neither attempted to review history nor to apportion [...]

Who would have thought in 1979 or 1989 that in 2009 Russian officials would be warning that US and NATO-led forces are exactly repeating the same mistakes made by the Soviet Union when it invaded Afghanistan in 1979?      The post of 28 January asked: How long will it take Obama before he plans [...]

The Irish Cabinet discussed this week whether to bring forward the date of the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty to 5 June – the same day as the local and European elections. Taoiseach Brian Cowen has previously indicated that the referendum will be held in October.   There are pros and cons of advancing [...]

The Pope is going again to Israel where he hopes to repair Catholic-Jewish relations which have soured over the Pope’s decision last month to lift the ex-communication of Bishop Williamson.   Pope Benedict XVI told American Jewish leaders today in relation to the Holocaust that “any denial or minimisation of this terrible crime [was] intolerable“, [...]