A mixed feeling, something in between physical fear and aristocratic despice is inevitable, when one lives in fragile Venice and a menacing brutal monster enters the Canal Grande, offering the narrow strees and the delicate mosaics that pave its churches and palaces to the newly enriched masses of global tourism.
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Scotland: An Independent Country Again?
A Referendum will be held in 2014, ...
…but the independence debate will be a source of serious contention that in some cases cannot be confined to the UK, such as NATO, the presence of atomic submarines, and EU membership. The politics of European separatism could also cast a large shadow over the issue, as Catalonia and Flanders loom in the background. The […]
The unknown explodes
in the “moral superpower”
The image of Norway blown apart
21 years in prison, which can be indefinitely extended by 5 year stretches is – as all of Europe knows – what Norvegian judges thought Anders Breivik deserved for the crimes committed on Friday 22 July 2011. He is indeed the 32 year old white middle class male Norwegian who, having until then lived an apparently blameless […]
Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee: Permanence in Changing Times
Weathering the end of century storms.
EVERY TRIBE, every coherent community that has endured has put together its own historical narrative, a collective story that tells of the exploits that bound it together and offers people at every level a mirror into which they can peer and see some acceptable version of what they believe they are or aspire to be. […]
Shale Gas: not a revolution
In Gazprom’s view: just an additional possibility
A revolution in the gas sector? Once again, this much abused word – “revolution” – has recently been heard in the community of oilmen, and some of the many commentators who write about energy in the media, have spoken of “market disrupion” . And from several sides it has been pointed out – as a […]
Did the US really occupy Iraq ?
The West never got the numbers
EJ – Looking at the international scene from both an American and a European viewpoint, the main reason of unease is clearly Iraq, and the main cause of preoccupation is obviously Iran. Today, the dissent of Europe on the first of these two crises is no longer stressed, and barely mentioned in diplomatic circles, but […]
Justice, the English way
The August riots in the Courts
The Law of England provides a precise definition of the criminal offence know as “rioting”: i.e. taking part in a riot. But for the non-legal observer a useful working definition of ‘riot’ might be ‘an out of control mob intent on violence against persons or property’. Some observers have referred to a ‘feral mob’ and […]
The legacy of William the Bastard
Little seems to have changed since his time. Some two thirds of the British landmass remains in the hands of around 0.3% of the population that includes the Crown, various aristocrats and the Church of England. The social hierarchy is alive and well. And the psyche of the British masses remains deeply marinated in class consciousness, social distinctions and instinctive deference.
As a spectacle of pomp and circumstance the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton must surely have fulfilled every TV mogul’s wildest dreams. Hollywood could never compete. The setting was Westminster Abbey, founded by King Edward the Confessor in 1045 and the traditional place of coronation and burial for royalty down the ages. […]
La storia e il presente
A sessant'anni dal maggio 1952
Per aver ricordato l’europeismo di De Gasperi in contrapposizione agli entusiasmi mediterranei di Fanfani sono stato accusato, in un recente ed importante incontro italo-russo, di conoscere troppo a fondo la storia del mio paese. E anche se non mi pare un’accusa veramente infamante, ho dovuto ammettere che – di fronte all’ignoranza beota in cui la […]
We Are All in this Together or Are We?
The new transatlantic row over the rendition of terrorist suspects offers profound cause for public reflection even if, as appears, some European governments would prefer to gloss 2006 over its greyer areas. Immediately before the departure of Condoleeza Rice on her European visit in December the US administration declared the US line would be “we […]
The fire next time
Is war respectable again?
A legendary film, without any exaggeration. Winning 2 Oscars and proving that Francis Ford Coppola was the biggest director of the last 40 years. During the on-going Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade Green Beret who has set himself up as a God among a […]