I've been considering the Swiss situation a useful barometer on "foreign sentiment" in Europe. Now we get this. Could be worse.
A narrow majority of voters in Switzerland approved proposals on Sunday that would reintroduce restrictions on the number of foreigners who are allowed to live and work in the country...
I'm laughing on the outside, but I'm crying on the inside...
... For the purposes of comparison, Norway’s ambassador to the Washington is a 31-year Foreign Ministry veteran. Hungary’s ambassador is an economist who worked at the International Monetary Fund for 27 years.
The resumé imbalance, of course, owes to a simple fact: The United States is the only industrialized country to award diplomatic posts as political spoils, often to wealthy campaign contributors in an outmoded system that rivals the patronage practices of banana republics, dictatorships and two-bit monarchies...
No easy outs. Not that there ever are.
Most of the press and punditry comment on the protests that have erupted in Kyiv since President Yanukovych refused to sign the EU association agreement in Vilnius have pictured the struggle as one that will determine the future of Ukraine. If Ukraine begins to meet the EU terms it will become a prosperous, democratic “Western” country. If, on the other hand, it accepts a loan and cheap gas from Russia, it will be a Russian vassal with no real independence. All sides to this turmoil seem to assume that this is the choice being made. I think they are all wrong.
Fascinating look at the political situation in Turkey, covering a bit of recent history.
Over the last decade, Erdogan has made himself the most powerful prime minister in Turkey’s history, the most successful elected leader in the Middle East and the West’s great hope for the Muslim world. In the last year, however, a thoroughly different Erdogan has emerged: a symbol of authoritarianism, corruption and police brutality whose once-populist rhetoric has turned into thundering rage. The Gezi Park protests last spring challenged the enduring dysfunctions of the Turkish state — mainly disregard for the rule of law — as well as the dubious economic policies of Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P. What followed was worse for Erdogan. In December, extensive accusations of corruption were leveled at him by followers of an Islamic movement that propelled him and the A.K.P. to power. The threat to Erdogan posed by the Gezi Park protests has been largely photogenic, but the challenge raised by the corruption charges is existential.
The conference was a big part of a deal brokered by the UN and the gulf cooperation council that ushered in a transitional period after Saleh give up power to his then unknown deputy, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who later was voted in as interim president, being the sole candidate in the election.
Under the terms of the transition, ministerial posts were apportioned between the opposition and ruling party, and the army, which, dominated by Saleh's relatives, was given a facelift with a purge of some commanders.
Chaperoned by the UN envoy Jamal Benomar, the national dialogue conference was supposed to address all the problems of Yemen and prepare for a new constitution and free elections.
But instead the dialogue, dominated from the start by the old traditional powers, finally concluded four months late on Saturday, its final act the publication of a report with about 1,400 recommendations which have extended the transitional period and allowed an extra year to draft a charter and vote on it.
Current trends. Projections still show big gains by mid-century, and large demographic shifts.
After years of deadlock, Nepal’s Parliament on Monday elected Sushil Koirala, a longtime democracy activist who was involved in a famous 1973 Nepali plane hijacking, as the country’s new prime minister.
Mr. Koirala, 75, is the president of the party Nepali Congress, which emerged from elections in November with the most seats in the country’s Constituent Assembly. Mr. Koirala won more than two-thirds of the legislators’ votes, with 405 voting for him and 148 opposed.
An American member of al-Qaeda has been identified and located in a hostile nation, and according to a new report by the Associated Press, the Obama administration is struggling with the legal implications of killing him.