by Richard Gowan | May 15, 2010 | Cooperation and coherence, Europe and Central Asia, Global system, Influence and networks, North America, UK
Yesterday’s meeting between Hillary Clinton and William Hague seems to have gone well. The Washington Post reports that there was a “simpatico vibe” in the room. Washington seems comfortable with Britain’s new politics – Mr Hague even noted that “Vice President Biden has had an excellent chat on the telephone with our new Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg”. (I don’t know if Al Gore gave John Prescott a similar ring back in 1997, but if he did, I’d kill for a copy of the phone transcript).
The generally pro-EU Obama team are probably quite relieved that the Lib Dems will act as brake on the Tories’ Eurosceptic tendencies. Still, Secretary Clinton used her joint press conference with Hague to underline their shared interest in “restoring confidence in the financial sector in Europe and in the Eurozone as well as the global economy.” Given the kerfuffles over the last week over the UK’s refusal to get dragged into the fight to save the Eurozone, that was an interesting choice of words.
Mr. Hague, not a natural friend of the EU, responded thus:
I reiterated my determination that the European Union should be a strong partner with the United States in meeting our shared challenges and the determination of the new British Government to play a highly active and activist role in the European Union from the very beginning.
He went on to talk rather more fulsomely about how US-UK ties are “extraordinary”, and neither “backward-looking” nor “nostalgic”. But if you want to boil all this down to essentials, I’d suggest the following: (i) Mrs Clinton effectively said, “you’d better show discipline when it comes to the EU”; and (ii) Mr Hague basically said “OK”.
by Richard Gowan | May 15, 2010 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, East Asia and Pacific
The Thai military have now declared parts of Bangkok a “live firing zone” as their struggle with the Red Shirt protestors intensifies. One of the most striking things about this horrible crisis is how little leverage outsiders have over the course of events. If Thailand was in Africa rather than Asia, it would be on the receiving end of a constant flow of envoys from the UN, AU, EU and so on ad nauseam. But the multilateral architecture for crisis management in Asia is weak – and nobody wants to get entangled in a crisis on China’s periphery without being sure of the consequences.
For a very thorough overview of the difficulties of conflict management in Asia and the Pacific, check out my colleague Elsina Wainwright’s new paper on the topic from CIC.
Her conclusion (very broadly) is that no one organization has the potential to take a consistent lead on prevention across the region – the UN is marginal to most Asian conflicts, and ASEAN is super-cautious. The U.S., Australia and Japan have an interest in a stronger conflict management system in Asia, in part to reduce the chances of friction with China – but the challenge is to construct this without it looking like an initiative to box Beijing in. So, says Wainwright, the real challenge is to work on creating, ad hoc case-specific coalitions of states and institutions to handle conflicts as they arise. Let’s hope that the Thai case sparks new thinking on just that.
by Alex Evans | May 14, 2010 | Conflict and security, UK
We’re not exactly fans of SOCA – the Serious Organised Crime Agency – around here. But our generally downbeat opinion of them has hit a new low now that we’ve seen the results of their new branding exercise:
Okaaaay. Clearly SOCA’s comms team have been watching way more episodes of 24 than is generally considered wise or healthy. And still getting it wrong – Jack Bauer would never be associated with a logo this naff. This is more like something off a straight to DVD movie that you find yourself watching at 2am on Bravo.
And it gets worse. As if the font in the logo weren’t bad enough, they’ve gone and put it on their uniforms.
God help us all. The man looks like an extra from Stargate SG-1. One wonders: is his face is blurred out because he’s a highly trained ex-special forces marksman? Or is it because his kids couldn’t hack the teasing st school any more?
And there’s another issue here. That jaguar logo is just a little bit familiar, isn’t it?
Look, lads – intellectual property infringement is a crime. And doing it on the internet is banned under the Digital Economy Act.
We can only hope that the man with the blurry face and the naff hat will be helping himself with inquiries in the near future. Meantime – someone needs to take their ISP to the cleaners.
by David Steven | May 14, 2010 | UK
So it takes 46 hours to go from this on Global Dashboard…
My prediction is that this will prove the most controversial part of the [LibCon] pact… “This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour”.
…to the lead story on the BBC website:
Much of the reporting on the subject has been pretty abysmal (see GD’s original post for more), but the new government has been well behind the curve on this issue.
I wonder what will happen if the government is forced to drop the proposal – it seems to me fairly integral to the logic that allowed the coalition to come together.
by David Steven | May 14, 2010 | Europe and Central Asia
Seems Nicolas Sarkozy, Global Dashboard’s favourite European leader, was in typically understated form during the recent Eurozone crisis summit:
Sarkozy demanded “a compromise from everyone to support Greece … or France would reconsider its position in the euro,” according to one source cited by El País.
“Sarkozy went as far as banging his fist on the table and threatening to leave the euro,” said one unnamed Socialist leader who was at the meeting with Zapatero. “That obliged Angela Merkel to bend and reach an agreement.”
