To the National Theatre for David Hare’s one-man show on Berlin. I wasn’t at all sure what to expect, but I didn’t expect this. Quite simply, it was embarrassingly, exasperatingly awful. Hare, in person, is a fan of the southern English amateur/eccentric shtick. He makes much play ...

Dick Cheney in Azerbaijan 3 months ago – And we support the people of Azerbaijan in their efforts, often in the face of great challenges, to strengthen democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, and to build a prosperous, modern, independent country that can serve as a pillar of...

As some parts of Europe prepare for Jean-Claude Juncker’s “Club of the Few� while others fall by the wayside, it’s time to look back at how we got here. Nothing unites Europeans like football, and this year’s Euro 2008 tournament is turning out to be one of the best in a long time, maybe e...

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband provided indication today of the emerging EU strategy for dealing with the Irish No to Lisbon: it’s being left up to the Irish government to sort it out, but with a reminder of the high stakes should they choose to accept the referendum result.  Or, as Mili...

Here’s an interesting if rambling article from Wednesday’s New York Times about the apparent rise of anti-Semitism in Hungary.  You can tell it’s written by an arts writer and not a reporter because it lacks any simple punchline.   To the extent that there is a thesis, it comes ...

So, the Albanosphere: about 7 million Albanians in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece and Montenegro, plus another million or so recent emigrants and gastarbeitern scattered across Europe and the US. I’m going to leave the diaspora mostly out of the picture. They’re very important, but I...

At the risk of too much Bush-blogging, one has to wonder about the irritation level in Athens as George Bush continues to make the case for Macedonia’s admission to NATO, even against the backdrop described by Doug Muir over the last week. Here he is in St Mark’s Square in Zagreb –...

Via the invaluable B92 website comes a nasty little story from Albania. In her book, “The Hunt�, to be published in Italy on April 3, the former Hague Tribunal Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte states that, during investigations into war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, agains...

It looks like Nicolas Sarkozy’s pet foreign-policy idea has been sporked, good and proper; his idea of a “Mediterranean Union” is now officially an ex-parrot, after it failed to get German support. As we’ve been saying right back to 2005, the key fact of European politics at ...

Via Unzipped – who is rapidly emerging as the go-to blog for stuff about the current situation here in Armenia — I see that four opposition Members of Parliament are being stripped of their immunity so that they can be prosecuted. For, you know, supporting that coup attempt. You know. Th...