by Charlie Edwards | Apr 4, 2008 | Off topic
British readers of Global Dashboard may think the headline is a description of Britain’s relationship with the US. But you would be wrong. Kevin Rudd, the new Australian Prime Minister has apparently brought shame to the billabongs and indignity to the ‘bush capital’ with his mock salute to the US President. This may be the greatest storm-in-a-tea-cup moment since John Lewis (a department store in the UK) stopped selling their own brand starch but to an Australian electorate that was promised they would no longer be subservient to the world’s only remaining supower it is a slap in the face or as the aussies like to say a snag short of a barbie…
by Alex Evans | Apr 4, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global system
As David mentioned yesterday, Downing Street’s asked us to prepare a paper on reform of international institutions and present it to various heads of state and international agencies at tomorrow’s Progressive Governance Summit outside London.
Our central argument is that the international system’s core challenge is to get better at managing global risks like climate change, financial instability or food insecurity – and at building resilience to their impacts. To achieve that, a new approach to multilateral reform is needed: one that focuses a lot more on the function of international cooperation – the outcomes we want it to deliver – and less on its form (organisations, structures and institutional paraphernalia).
Download the full paper here.
We’ll be presenting to heads of state tomorrow morning and will report back here…
by Richard Gowan | Apr 3, 2008 | North America, Off topic
Last month, Sixpoint Craft Ales – with which I share a Brooklyn zip code – launched “Hop Obama”, an electoral ale. It’ll be around until the Pennsylvania primaries and sounds nice:
In keeping with the Illinois senator’s unifying theme, the “Hop Obama” is an indefinable ale that doesn’t adhere to traditional style guidelines. The 5.2% ABV creation contains five different kinds of European crystal malt and three different kinds of Pacific Northwest Hops. Combined with a Scottish yeast strain for fermentation, the result is a highly drinkable beer with a big malt background and an “Obama” of hops that imparts floral and citrus notes with just a hint of spiciness.
“The Hop Obama is our unique Sixpoint creation brewed in honor of the inspirational surgency (sic) of Senator Barack Obama,” said Sixpoint brewmaster Shane Welch. “Although we do not intend this beer to be a direct Sixpoint endorsement of Obama, we believe the delicious and refreshing quality it represents reminds us of the Senator’s successful grassroots campaign that positively blossoms each and every day.”
All mildly amusing, although the funniest part may be the earnest Real Ale enthusiasts’ reviews of the beer (including that quoted in my title) all of which resolutely refuse to get the joke and go on and on and on about malt… And yet not one of them has the gumption to refer to the “Audacity of Hops”, a sad oversight.
Unlike the ubiquitous candidate, the ale is rather hard to spot, but as a service to New Yorkers, I am pleased to note that it will be available at The Gate in Park Slope on the evening of Wednesday 9 April. Indeed, one can imagine no better evening in NYC than attending a thoughtful public lecture by Hans Blix hosted by the Center on International Cooperation, before heading off for a political pint.
(Okay, maybe you can think of a better evening in NYC, but that is why we leave comments firmly off on this blog – we don’t need you to tell us we’re wonks).
by Richard Gowan | Apr 3, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia
Just when things had gone quiet in Kosovo, the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague has found a way to spice matters up. It has acquitted former Kosovo Albanian premier Ramush Haradinaj of war crimes, which puts him back in the political game down in Pristina. Not that he ever really left that game after his 2005 indictment: popular with the UN and Western governments, he is suspected of making a lot of essential decisions behind the scenes over the last few years. The West liked him because he was a powerful freedom-fighter who wasn’t Hashim Thaci, the distinctly difficult former political boss of the Kosovo Liberation Army…
But late last year Mr. Thaci achieved his long-held, and oft-thwarted, dream of being elected prime minister (in polls many internationals would have liked to avoid) and he’s now the international face of the sort-of-independent state. If Ramush returns to public politics, there won’t be fireworks straight away – the Kosovo Albanians are doing a good job of presenting a united front for now. But now there are two Big Men in town, will they really be able to avoid factionalism?
I think we can look forward to some good old-fashioned political in-fighting down in Pristina before too long.
by Richard Gowan | Apr 3, 2008 | Africa, Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia
While the EU is still recovering from its series of set-backs in Chad over the last two months, it’s been hit by bad news from an earlier mission. In 2003, the French led the EU’s first African venture, Operation Artemis, into the DR Congo to bail out beleaguered UN troops. This has usually been hailed as a great success – I’ve argued that the mission has actually received too much attention. And now this…
French and Swedish military officials said they were investigating allegations made in a Swedish television report that French soldiers participating in a European Union peacekeeping operation in Congo in 2003 tortured a civilian who was being held prisoner. Uppdrag Granskning, a Swedish television news magazine, broadcast a report based on interviews with Swedish soldiers who said they witnessed the torture, which was said to include mock drowning. French officials are investigating the episode. Swedish officials are looking into whether Swedish troops broke international law by failing to intervene.
