December 2, 2004

The Guardian’s separatist insurgency gathers pace towards all-out civil war. After the now-notorious articles on the Ukraine by Jonathan Steele and John Laughland, it was the paper’s liberal-hawk tendency’s turn to hit back. On Tuesday, columnist David Aaronovitch delivered this rant about Mr. Laughland, who returned fire in the letters page the next day. Bizarrely,…

The French socialist party’s membership has voted yes to the European Constitution in an internal referendum. This probably kiboshes the former prime minister Laurent Fabius’s attempt to rebuild his career after his disgrace in the contaminated blood scandal. I’m not sorry, especially given some of the No camp’s arguments – Fabius argued that the constitution…

AP reports on the collapse of security on the roads of Iraq, including the route to Baghdad airport. Although the military now call it RPG Alley and the British Embassy has banned its staff from using it, the alternatives are even worse. After all, the route to the western border passes through Ramadi and Fallujah.…

The Kyiv Post reports on the frantic events yesterday in Ukraine (separatist referendum called off due to insufficient supply of separatists, vote of no confidence in the prime minister, prime minister says he will ignore it, talks break down, talks back on, agreement reached – maybe..). Broadly, the government side agreed to the principle of…