martedì 7 settembre 2010

A few thoughts on the special relationship

You can now find in the "my writings" section of my website the translation of the final chapter of my dissertation:

A few thoughts on the special relationship

It tries to answer these questions: Can we really qualify the relationship between the US and Britain in the 1980s as “special”? What differentiates it from the relations that the US and the UK have with other countries?

lunedì 6 settembre 2010

Stoning in Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may end up as Genghis Khan with a nuclear bomb

I wonder if what Alasdair Palmer says in this article on the Telegraph is true:

a large portion of Iran's leadership, and of its population, is not ashamed or embarrassed: they think stoning is entirely right and proper

You don't usually get to read this kind of things, and I appreciate the departure from political correctness:

This is the reality of multiculturalism: human rights are not universally recognised or accepted. Barbaric practices can be deeply embedded in the convictions of thousands, even millions, of people.

However, I'm not sure this can be applied to Iran. Do you think the people that took part in the mass demonstrations against Iran's president a few months ago have a "deeply embedded" convinction that stoning is a just punishment?

domenica 5 settembre 2010

India

A summary of the situation in India by the Economist. Too high expectations after Mr Singh's party won the elections in May with a good margin, allowing him to be rid of the Communist party, which was in the coalition government before the elections. The incompetence is most clearly shown in the handling of the worsening problems in the Kashmir and with the Maoist rebels, but it encompasses many fields of (in)action. The economic reforms that had been promised have not been realized yet.

http://www.economist.com/node/16953189