Only Mugabe and his friends benefit from Zimbabwe’s diamond wealth.

Wednesday and Thursday mark Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential elections. Sadly, what should be a purple-fingered moment brings some hope and much disappointment. Don’t get me wrong – Mubarak was a loathsome stooge, a petty and incompetent rentier tyrant who deserved what he got and more.

The elites' excusing of tyranny has real-world consequences, as it leads to appeasement and weakness. The intellectual class that had come to regard Qaddafi as a more or less normal ruler with potentially reasonable or liberal inclinations has no such excuse, and their self-deception has had the consequence of enabling the policy incoherence of our political leaders.

A recentvote putting Zimbabwe in charge of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development does not make it any easier to take the body seriously.

And this time, I don’t think Putin is going anywhere. As they say, history doesn’t repeat, but sometimes it rhymes.

For East Asian politicos, there’s not that much to grab headline attention in the world’s most economically dynamic region. Or maybe there is.

America's complete withdrawal of its troops from Iraq is a tragic mistake. It jeopardises the gains made by President Bush's (and Tony Blair's) eminently correct 2003 decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and risks the broader Middle East falling into chaos.

Obama has a long-standing habit of seeing failure to support his agenda as a failure of character. Meanwhile, it’s Obama and his allies in Congress who’ve been at the forefront of the effort to make America less competitive.