The Obama administration have all but admitted that their attempts to re-start the Middle East peace process have failed.

The State department are now advocating a new tactic – where both sides take “baby steps” toward lower level talks because they know there is no chance of getting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to sit down with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu for meaningful discussions anytime soon.

There has been a bit of fuss about whether Hillary Clinton made an error at the weekend when she described an Israeli offer to partially freeze settlement building as “unprecedented” even though it was far short of what the US had originally demanded – a total freeze.

But that wasn’t the real mistake. read more

Permalink||(0) Comments

Yesterday the sudden shocking deaths of five British troops in Helmand got everyone thinking whether the strategy to train Afghan forces to eventually take over would work. If Afghan police can shoot their mentors dead, how can they trust each other to work together?

And today there’s another large question mark over this eight year occupation. The United Nations have said quite openly they are pulling out all but their 400 essential staff. read more

Permalink||(6) Comments

We are told that President Obama didn’t watch election night coverage last night of the bad results from Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere.

Instead he was apparently tuned to a two hour long HBO documentary about how he stormed to electoral triumph this time last year.

I was watching it too – so was everyone else in the C4 Washington bureau.

We were all enjoying reminiscing about the campaign and our small part in it. Even if we didn’t learn much that we didn’t know at the time. There were very few revealing moments.

We never saw the Obama facade crack.

Either this was the most disciplined, best run and resolutely self confident political campaign in history or this was the best controlled behind the scenes access in history.

But there was one glimmer of revelation – right at the end.

Soon after Obama was declared the winner but before he’d made his acceptance speech in Grant Park in Chicago a junior aide took a call on his cell phone.

We heard him brushing off the caller saying “The President Elect is keen to talk to the Prime Minister too – but he’s a bit busy right now”.

We can only assume it was Gordon Brown on the phone. Getting his first taste of how UK – Obama relations were to proceed.

Permalink||(3) Comments

As protestors fill the streets of Tehran again, my favourite slogan so far is: “Freedom of thought won’t happen with hairy beards”! Apparently, it rhymes in Persian. read more

Permalink||(3) Comments

Apparently President Obama did not watch the “off year” election results come in last night.

He already knew it was going to be bad news. So today, on the anniversary of his own historic victory a year ago the Democrats are left wondering where all their voters went.

The key results that really matter are the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey. Both had been held by democrats – both are now having Republicans move into the governor’s mansion.

read more

Permalink||(1) Comment

Five dead is the biggest single loss of British life in one incident in Afghanistan since 2006 when 14 died in the Nimrod aircraft crash. And it comes at a time when British public opinion is increasingly sceptical of the war.

But the way in which it happened is even more damaging. The five British men and three Afghans were shot dead by an Afghan policeman. The Afghan National Police (ANP), together with the Afghan National Army (ANA), are the exit strategy. The way out. The people NATO hand security over to. read more

Permalink||(9) Comments

This time last year there were queues around the block outside polling stations all over America as people scrambled get into early voting to cast their votes for Obama.

Tomorrow, November 4th, marks the first anniversary of his election. And today Americans are at the polls again. So it’s perhaps inevitable that some people are saying today’s vote is referendum on Obama’s first year in office.

Those people are mostly Republicans who think they are about to have a good day and will be able to claim it shows that the president is failing. Not surprisingly the White House, who don’t expect they will have much to celebrate tonight, are saying that these elections have nothing to do with Obama at all – even though he has been pretty visible in helping to campaign for some of the Democratic candidates

The real mid terms happen next year when all of the House of Representatives and one third of the Senate will be up for re-election, along with dozens of governors and mayors This year – an “off year” in the jargon – sees just a few key ballots but they will be watched very carefully anyway.

There are three races its worth checking the results of when you wake up tomorrow:

New Jersey
If Governor John Corzine wins re-election in New Jersey the Democrats will be very relieved.

He’s been struggling against a heavyweight Republican opponent who had a double digit lead in the polls until Corzine started spending large amounts money on TV ads making fun of his opponent’s rather large waistline with lines like “Christopher Christie. He’s been throwing his weight around”.

Corzine has spent over $100m of his own money on this campaign so losing would really hurt – but his wealth just reminds voters that he got rich as a former Chief Exec of Goldman Sachs and no one likes Wall Street these days.

Virginia
Virginia is the most likely to deliver bad news for Obama. It was big news a year ago when he became the first Democratic nominee to win that state in a Presidential election since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But it doesn’t look like the Dems will be able to win the governorship this year.

All those new voters in Virginia’s Northern suburbs who registered to vote for Obama last year simply aren’t motivated to come out and vote for the Democratic candidate Creigh Deeds. He hasn’t run a very good campaign and the advance spin from Democrats in DC seems to be that if he’d listened more to White House advice he might be in better shape. That’s one way to explain why they couldn’t hold onto Virginia for even a year.

New York 23rd District
But however bad the news is from Virginia Democrat are already sniggering about what’s happening in the race for a House of Representatives seat in upstate New York.

The Republicans had chosen a very moderate candidate to run in the 23rd District. Dede Scozzafava was exactly the kind of pro-abortion, pro-gay rights reformer that Republican party bosses think is required to win back all those swing voters who swung to Obama last year.

But she was called a RINO (Republican In Name Only) by so many in her district that a Conservative Independent candidate, supported by Sarah Palin, was polling better than her.

At the weekend Scozzafava not only suddenly dropped out, she even endorsed her democratic opponent.

The far-right are delighted. They say it proves there is no point in compromising their ideals to accommodate moderate candidates.

While the Democrats are convinced that if only the Republican party do cede control to the Sarah Palin/ Glenn Beck/ Rush Limbaugh wing of the party then a second term in the White House for Obama is all but guaranteed

Permalink||(2) Comments

On the day Simon Mann was sent down for 34 years, a sentence that would have left him to die in a solitary cell in Black Beach prison, all the diplomatic chatter was of a possible pardon.

He’d cooperated with President Obiang’s investigators. He’d pointed the finger at those he claimed were behind the coup plot and the countries he claimed had backed their plan.

The attorney general had said in court that their star prisoner should be commended for his openness. And why wouldn’t he? Mann knew the only chance he had now was a “get out of jail free” card.

I got into Black Beach the day after the verdict to talk to Mann. It was one of my most bizarre days as a reporter. Myself and my cameraman Soren Munk were driven past the dust courtyard full of bedraggled inmates looking bored and very skinny, and into a pristine, purpose-built courtroom.

It had been built for the trial but deemed not secure enough should someone decide to silence Mann before he confessed. The security minister had escorted us to meet Mann. He wanted to show us how well the westerner was being treated. We were told he had a step machine in his cell for exercise, and books were provided for entertainment.

But the real killer was the buffet lunch the minister had laid on for us. In prison. Not just any prison. This was one of Africa’s most notorious jails. Stories of torture and death in custody were common here. And there we were, being offered croquettes and a glass of Merlot in close proximity to the torture cells.

Mann shuffled in, his ankles shackled, his hernia still distressing him. He wouldn’t be drawn on the chances of a pardon. If he’d been promised early release, he wasn’t saying.

He was still angry. Years in incarceration in Harare and months of interrogation in Malabo hadn’t dimmed his fury that his co-conspirators had left him to take the heat for all of them. If he ever got out he was going to go after them, make no mistake.

He was far from a broken man. Maybe his hefty sentence hadn’t quite sunk in, maybe his SAS training was still ingrained, or maybe he believed the Equatorial Guineans would stay true to their word and reward him for spilling the beans.

The rumour mill out of EG has been rife for over a month that President Obiang was about to release his most famous prisoner on compassionate grounds. Mann has had two hernia operations since his trial. His health is said to be good, but the last thing the president wants is for his condition to deteriorate whilst in prison.

Just before his trial the president had assured us that Equatorial Guinea had turned a corner. He was no longer the tyrannical leader who pocketed vast personal wealth for him and his family from the country’s huge oil reserves whilst his people lived without electricity and running water. He boasted how Mann’s trial was to be witnessed by a free press and claimed that human rights had improved.

A pardon is the president’s last roll of the dice concerning this coup plotter. He wants to show how he’s a benevolent leader who feels compassion for this 57-year-old former soldier who has repented.

After sentencing him to 34 years the chief judge had told Mann he was also forbidden from returning to Equatorial Guinea.

Permalink||(1) Comment

The West first bends President Karzai’s arm to concede to a second round of voting. Few people see how the fraud or insurgent-led violence of the first round won’t worsen this time.

Then the challenger drops out. Why would he stay in? He won’t win, and prefers a principled withdrawal to an unruly defeat.

So now the West tries to bend Karzai’s arm into cancelling the election… read more

Permalink||(8) Comments