Prague Post - 20/08 - There is a reluctance to speak about it, but even the expansion of NATO, just like the expansion of the EU, must end one day. Although both bodies are chiefly based on respect for certain values, they both have their geographical dimension and physical frontiers. These need to be defined as soon and as specifically as possible - Prague Post - 20/08
Telegraph - 23/08 - China’s central bank has acquired a secret stake in Prudential, Britain’s second-largest insurer, as part of Beijing’s increasingly active plans to deploy its vast pool of foreign currency reserves in overseas markets, The Sunday Telegraph has learned. - Telegraph - 23/08
NM - 22/08 - C’est une nouvelle forme de conquête, avec le déploiement de leurs batteries de radars et de missiles intercepteurs les États-Unis viennent conquérir (violer?) un peu d’espace au sol et beaucoup d’espace aérien au dessus de l’Europe et cela sans que nos responsables politiques n’élèvent la moindre contestation. … NM - 22/08
Yahoo News - 23/08 - Viré pour mal-pensance, Richard Labévière contre-attaque. Rédacteur en chef à Radio France Internationale (RFI), grand reporter et écrivain spécialiste du Proche et du Moyen Orient, Richard Labévière vient d’être licencié, au motif qu’il n’aurait pas demandé la permission de sa direction pour faire une interview de Bachar el-Assad le 8 juillet dernier, juste avant l’arrivée du président syrien en France en visite officielle (l’interview incriminée est en ligne sur le site de TV5 Monde). - Yahoo News - 23/08
Les Echos - 22/08 - Sur le plan sportif, les JO de Pékin auront été parmi les plus exaltants. Le mérite en revient d’abord à deux athlètes d’exception, le nageur américain Michael Phelps et le sprinter jamaïquain Usain Bolt. - Les Echos - 22/08
The Independent - 23/08 - Eating a hamburger every day for two weeks produces strange effects. I don’t mean the physical deterioration graphically recorded in Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me about the effects of consuming Big Macs and fries for 30 days on the trot (he put on 11.1 kilos). It is possible to be spared such ballooning by downsizing the portions, though you are never actually going to lose weight by eating burgers. - The Independent - 23/08
Reuters - 20/08 - Afghans believe the United States knows about al Qaeda bases in Pakistan, but does not hit them because it wants an unstable Afghanistan to justify its presence for wider regional goals, a state newspaper said on Wednesday. - Reuters - 20/08
Reuters - 20/08 - In a sharp turnaround, Republican John McCain has opened a 5-point lead on Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race and is seen as a stronger manager of the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday. - Reuters - 20/08
Herald Tribune - 17/08 - After eight years, the president’s gut remains gullible. He’ll go out as he came in - ignoring reality; failing to foresee, prevent or even prepare for disasters; misinterpreting intelligence reports; misreading people; and handling crises in ways that makes them exponentially worse - Herald Tribune - 17/08
NM 15/08 - La crise ouverte la semaine dernière par le président géorgien, Saakachvili, et son déroulement qui voit Moscou marquer ses premiers points territoriaux depuis la chute du Mur de Berlin, constitue un tournant. Elle est.le premier signe visible de l’effondrement du « Mur Dollar », celui derrière lequel a été protégée la puissance des Etats-Unis depuis 1945; un Mur dont le périmètre s’était considérablement élargi depuis la chute du « Mur de Berlin » (celui qui protégeait l’ex-URSS). - NM 15/08 -
THE INDEPENDENT - 17/08 -The six-day war between Russia and Georgia may have seemed a scruffy, bloody, almost 19th-century nationalist conflict, but it saw the deployment of what will be a major weapon in the wars of the future: the internet. South Ossetia was, say experts in both technology and military studies, the world’s first cyberwar. - THE INDEPENDENT - 17/08 -
FT - 17/08 -So far, reaction in the US to Russia’s invasion of Georgia has been all Vladimir Putin could have wished. Exhausted in every way by its experience in Iraq (a failure not much mitigated by recent progress there), its authority and sense of purpose quite depleted, the US looked slower and less decisive than Europe in its initial response, and that is saying something. FT - 17/08 -
