Global Issues: ‘Arab Spring’ - Time for Obama to take Sides

Today’s Financial Times carries an article The Middle East awaits Obama’s move by Lord Mark Malloch Brown, former Deputy UN Director General and Minister of State in FCO, in which he writes: “This really is an Arab spring. But, at best, it is only the beginning of a liberation of minds and people. In Tunisia and Egypt, decades of suppressed workers’ rights and societal inequalities are bursting to the surface.” He goes on to argue that the risk is new and weak regimes, unable to drive through the economic reforms needed.

It is the most instructive comment I’ve read and its analysis stretches over the entire region and recommend it highly.

Heads up too on Lord Malloch Brown’s new book which is just out The Unfinished Global Revolution - in which he explores the political history of governments that have failed to match the demands placed on them by those they govern, and to lay out a much-needed agenda for the management of globalization, calling for stronger international institutions that revive rather than replace national government, an enhanced role for new actors - non-governmental organizations and business - and above all, global rather than national policies on core issues such as the environment, poverty, migration and security.

Here is an interview with Lord Malloch Brown by the Huffingdon Post: Click here.

Alluseful for extension discussions on the Global Issues front.