October 6th, 2009
“I’m here because I have a vote and, basically, I’ve been told what to do with it,” one Irishman told a London reporter. “Thank God they will all shut up now,” a Dublin pensioner told a German newspaper. Read on »
September 29th, 2009
It’s an odd thing, but sometimes I could swear that there are two Irans. Read on »
September 22nd, 2009
Let’s be brutally frank: The 60th anniversary of the NATO alliance, celebrated in April, was a bore. Read on »
September 15th, 2009
Item One: When it comes out in print soon, look carefully through Yale University Press’s book “The Cartoons That Shook the World.” Read on »
September 8th, 2009
Perhaps this summer’s record bloodshed did it, or perhaps it was the disappointment of the election, with its low turnout, accompanying violence and allegations of fraud. Whatever the reason, the Afghan war is suddenly at the center of political debate in several Western countries. Read on »
August 30th, 2009
Seventy years ago next week — at 4:45 a.m. Sept. 1, 1939, to be precise — the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein began to shell the Polish military base near Gdansk. For Germans, for Poles, and for the British and French, who immediately declared war on Germany, that was the beginning of World War II. Read on »
August 19th, 2009
It minced no words, the Taliban, in the leaflets that it scattered across southern Afghanistan last weekend. In one of the missives, the Taliban threatened to cut off the noses and ears of anyone who dared to vote in Thursday’s presidential election. Read on »
August 11th, 2009
It’s a fact: Nothing happens in August. A curtain of heat descends across the Northern Hemisphere. Shops close. Congress goes home. Read on »
August 4th, 2009
Two years ago, someone called up Arthur Bloom with an unusual request: A badly wounded soldier, a former drummer, wanted to start playing music again. Trouble was, he’d lost a leg in Iraq and couldn’t use his old drum kit. Did Bloom have any ideas? Read on »
July 27th, 2009
“It’s time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa.” It’s a line that brilliantly managed to belittle our female secretary of state under the guise of supporting her, to offend her and “defend” her at the same time: No wonder the insult that Tina Brown lobbed at the White House two weeks ago continues to echo around Washington. Read on »