Wednesday, 19 November 2008




Let Obama be Obama , Godfrey Hodgson

"Let Reagan be Reagan!"  That was the slogan of Ronald Reagan's conservative followers. They were afraid that their leader's sharp ideological thrust was being blunted by timidity and moderation. The shrewder among them were also aware that, while a president of the United States is very powerful, he is not omnipotent.Godfrey Hodgson was director of the Reuters' Foundation Programme at Oxford University, and before that the Observer's correspondent in the United... more »



Since August 2008 the situation in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has grown progressively worse in ways that seem hard to understand. An overview of the events and processes that led to the resurgence of conflict, however, can explain what is happening and what kind of intervention can contribute to resolving it.

Gérard Prunier is research professor at the University of Paris. He is the author of The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (C Hurst, 1998), Darfur:... more »


South Ossetia: fear and loathing in the buffer zone,

Over a month has gone by since the withdrawal of Russian troops from the so-called ‘buffer zone' - a strip several dozen kilometers wide which separates the territory of South Ossetia from the rest of Georgia.

There is probably no one who can mark the precise border of this zone - not in Georgia, Ossetia or in Russia. But you can tell where it is because of the burnt houses, the ruins, and shell holes. And also the silence that is unusual for villages. There are no cows or chickens,... more »