Posts Tagged ‘United Kingdom’
Bad News Folks.
The bloody conflict in Libya is in a sand trap.
A peace initiative peace failed this week when rebel forces refused cease fire terms. Qaddafi wanted to stay, the rebels said NO WAY.
France and the United Kingdom are blaming a lackluster effort by NATO (the official organization running the no fly zone) as partly at fault.
NATO disagrees and has provided evidence of its success, such as the video above. Danger Room’s Spencer Ackerman notes thought that PR stunts like this can backfire as
NATO wants a propaganda win to show that it’s going to take the fight to the dictator. But every day Qaddafi hangs on makes the bombardment of an idling tank look impotent.
But there is something else to consider…
Unlike Egypt’s Mubarak, who was part of the governmental machine, Qaddafi IS the government of Libya. Robert Kaplan, at Foreign Policy, wonders if Qaddafi
is not fighting about any particular issues, per se, but about a vision of honor that strikes us as primitive, connected as it is to region, tribe, and territory.
So… should the West be doing more? Andrew Sullivan doesn’t think so because President Obama is fighting a “half-war” which
inherently requires time to work – like the incremental but relentless isolation of Iran. And since the alternative is either to abort the mission or escalate it into a second Iraq, Obama’s patient minimalism is the best option we now have.
Do you, our readers, agree that patience is the best option?
Or should NATO do more? Will we ever see peace in the Middle East?
We have no idea so we’re looking to you.
Thanks to Wikicommons.
Grey skies are going to clear up? Unemployment expected to stay high for years.
Tragedy underground. No survivors in New Zealand mine accident after second explosion.
Still angry about tuition. UK student protests continue against increased University costs.
What do you do when college tuition goes up? American students have an answer: take out another student loan.
British students have found a different solution: riot.
Yesterday a peaceful protest by college students in the UK turned violent. The unruly rabble-rousers ransacked the headquarters of Britain’s ruling Conservative party (see the video above).
Why all the angry students?
Parliament, controlled by a Conservative and Liberal Democrats coalition, is planning to cut public universities funding and allow schools
to charge between £6,000 ($9,600) and £9,000 ($14,400) in tuition a year, up from the current cap of £3,290($5,264).
The cuts are due to fears that Britain’s debt is becoming unsustainable. Currently national debt is 68% of the UK’s GDP (compare this to America’s paltry 52%).
To get their spending under control the ruling government is making cuts all across the board.
Spending cuts are shaking up other parts of England as well. The Royal Navy, whose shining moment was the defeat of the French forces at the Battle of Trafalgar, will now be sharing their ships with the French.
These painful cuts may be a looking glass into America’s future. Yesterday, a bipartisan commission on the reducing the US deficit released a plan to cut America’s debt. The report provides steps to
reduce the deficit to 2.2% of gross domestic product by 2015, and achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction by 2020.
With British students standing up for their wallets we’d be interested to here what folks on our side of the pond think about tuition spikes and other government spending cuts. After all we can’t let the British out crazy us Yanks.
Thanks to the Guardian, we see some Silvio Berlusconi statuettes with some blood for flare in light of recent events...
This is one of a series of dispatches from our Foreign correspondent currently based in Scotland:
Ahhh… December 17. Almost time for me to resign my post as USDemocrazy Foreign Correspondent in Scotland and return to the ol’ homestead.
Can’t wait to get back to the place I know well, complete with crazy politics, late nights, and unique smells. And that’s just in the USDemocrazy headquarters.
But before coming home, I decided to pop over to Italy to check on things there.
(Editor’s note: The timing with the Recent attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (Ouch)is purely coincidental)
What was the biggest culture shock going from the UK to Italy? The politics? The people? The food? The language?
Nope — the traffic. …read more.
The modern and controversial building that houses the Scottish parliament, referred to as "Holyrood."
This week marks the first of our dispatches from our foreign correspondant on assignment in Europe.
Yes…that’s right…we have a foreign correspondent….well, okay… she is a college student on an exchange semester in Scotland.
But she is overseas.
