Love-ins with Bush are over : Mail & Guardian Online: "He should go to Washington more often. Gordon Brown may have been dreading his encounter with George W Bush, knowing that every appearance Tony Blair made alongside the American president cost him votes by the crateload, but the recent joint press conference at Camp David actually did Brown a favour. There was Bush, alternating between two of his least appealing personas: either frat-boy, mocking Nick Robinson’s baldness, or cowboy, vowing his determination to track down the “cold-blooded killers” who do “evil”. By turns he was condescending, telling Brown he had “proved his worthiness as a leader” during June’s thwarted terror attacks, and rambling, eventually admitting that he was going on “too long”. Next to Bush, Brown had only to read his script to look like a master communicator"
Broken Spring? : Information Clearing House This is a sequel to my June 2011 article, ‘After the spring’, on the upheavals in the Arab world. It is an article that has been painful to write, because it brings bad tidings and offers a pessimistic analysis of the upheavals, at least in the short term, in a number of Arab countries. The outcomes and potential outcomes of these uprisings have also acquired new, very significant dimensions. These include a complex entanglement with the accelerated preparations for a possible attack on Iran, and a poisonous, sectarian aspect that could have the consequence of ripping Syria and the Middle East apart.
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