Monthly Archives: April 2014
Contest of ideas
Written on April 2, 2014 at 12:05 am, by Ian Holliday
US President Barack Obama has taken a lot of flak for his response to Russia’s swift, and illegal, annexation of Crimea. Among much criticism, his big “contest of ideas” speech, delivered in Brussels last Wednesday, was dismissed as “anemic” by New York Times columnist Roger Cohen and panned by many others. I don’t accept that…
Accounting for war crimes
Written on April 1, 2014 at 12:05 am, by Ian Holliday
Last Thursday, the UN Human Rights Council took up the issue of the savage ending to Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009. By a vote of 23 for and 12 against, with 12 abstentions, it endorsed a motion calling on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to conduct a comprehensive investigation into…