The UK, the US and scoundrel leaders
In democracies people get the leaders they deserve
Standards in public life have reached rock bottom in the US and UK. A convicted felon is poised to win the US ...
Articles
Guterres working hard to unravel tangled Cyprob knot
Antonio Guterres is probably the best UN secretary-general since Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden who was killed in an air crash trying to bring peace to the Congo. Guterres’ attendance ...
A German as England manager is a choice loaded with hubris
Last week the English Football Association (FA) threw caution to the wind and appointed a German to manage the English national team. He is Thomas Tuchel, a professional football manager ...
Selling ‘golden passports’ should remain unlawful
Recent legal opinion on citizenship at EU court should be ignored
It seems selling ‘golden passports’ was lawful after all. On October 4, 2024 Anthony Collins, an Advocate General in the EU, ...
UK’s deal on Chagos Islands a satisfactory compromise
Britain will hand over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius while retaining delegated sovereignty over Diego Garcia, a joint British American military base Britain withheld ...
UK ‘glasses for passes’ affair makes for bad optics
There is a scandal in the making in UK in the ‘glasses for passes’ affair now in its second week which does not look as though it will go away ...
Was disrespect of AG overzealousness or hubris?
In a unanimous and trenchant judgment, the Supreme Constitutional Court of Cyprus sitting as a discrete Council in an application to dismiss the auditor-general for misconduct decided on Wednesday that ...
The role of Ukraine in US presidential debate
Before saying anything about the Great Debate in the US last week between the best-looking old man Donald Trump and the best-looking fifty-something woman, a few words about the way ...
Grenfell Tower: greed, dishonesty and incompetence at every level
But families still waiting for justice seven years later
Judge-led inquiries that investigate events that cause serious loss of life are part of the procedural aspect of the right to ...
Anything can happen at sea
Like the Titanic the super yacht Bayesian that sank off the coast of Sicily in a freak weather event on August 19 was virtually unsinkable. But it sank and seven passengers ...
History bodes well for US vice presidents as president
Vice President Kamala Harris is now the Democratic Party’s official candidate for president. In her acceptance speech, she introduced herself as if she were a complete unknown even though ...
It used to be the economy, stupid
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the American historian Francis Fukuyama called it the end of history. Liberal democracy had triumphed as the ideal system of government having seen off ...
Elon Musk’s ‘two-tier Keir’ jibe against British PM wrong
It is summer riot season in England and Northern Ireland and if you believe what Elon Musk posts on X, the UK is in civil war mode. Just because there ...
Modern Turkey’s place in the Middle East
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not often go along with the geopolitical concerns of the US and Europe. He belongs to the generation of Turkish politicians whose outlook is ...
US love of Israel trumps ICJ condemnation
The standing ovation Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received from a joint session of the US Congress last week was in stark contrast to the unqualified condemnation of Israel by ...
American women can defeat Trump
President Biden should resign in favour of women candidates
Where were you when an all American boy from Pennsylvania attempted to assassinate former US president and candidate for president Donald ...
Holguin’s mission impossible proved just that
Reading between the lines of UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin’s appeal to Cypriots to get involvedover the heads of their leaders, was an admission that common ground eluded her ...
The twists and turns of leaving the top job
Politics is a rough old trade and never rougher than when the electorate evicts the British prime minister from his official residence at 10 Downing Street. The moment the leader of ...
Britain is a nation of gamblers
Napoleon Bonaparte famously called Britain a nation of shopkeepers. Britain seemed more like a nation of gamblers after the betting scandal last week.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gambled on ...
Democracy and observing human rights are not always compatible
The Refugee Convention was intended as a temporary expedient and not as a vehicle for permanent settlement elsewhere
Like it or not the tilt to the extreme right in elections ...
Attorney-general the watchman of the public interest
The problems the auditor-general is facing reminded me of a conversation I had a few years ago with the late Rustem Tatar Cyprus’ first auditor-general 1960-63, and father of the ...
A myth that freedom and democracy are under threat in 2024
President Joe Biden was in Normandy in France this week for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings on June 6 in which he gave a speech that drew a parallel ...
Could a convicted felon become US president?
Why did Trump not take the stand and be cross-examined in front of the jury?
The paradox about Donald Trump’s conviction on Thursday for falsifying business records is not ...
UK ELECTIONS
Both Labour and Tories lack ‘the vision thing’
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak walked a few steps to a lectern outside his official residence at 10 Downing Street in London last Wednesday to announce that he was calling an ...