The August 12th, 2008 blog entry, Everything takes more time..., observed how long it was taking for Lebanon to put together a cabinet, and that in general political things take much longer there given the need to build coalitions, etc. Fast forward to July 2009... Lebanon is waiting while a cabinet is put together! Is That a Silver Bullet In Your Pocket… ("We’ve entered the third week of deliberations over Lebanon’s next cabinet lineup, and there is no end in sight. Hariri has paid more house calls than a 19th century doctor in typhoid season, and yet for all we know, there isn’t even agreement on the most basic issues, like the number of ministers accorded to each side." ) considers the reasons for the difficulties and delays...
The July 15th blog entry, La nounvelle "union", wished the new UPM (Union Pour la Mediterranée, or Mediterranean Union) well, but was skeptical re if the initiative would really prove successful. Fast forward to July 2009.... It is one year later, the initiative has achieved no breakthroughs, and is not living up to its potential...Europe: A Year On, Sarkozy's Euromed Struggles
The January 9th, 2008 blog entry on Benazir Bhutto noted that her family had called for a U.N. inquiry, similar to the Hariri inquiry (!), and wondered if they really understood the pig-in-a-poke that they might be getting if their wish was to be fulfilled. An August 10th, 2008 update entry noted that (see c) the U.N. had agreed to conduct such an inquiry. Fast forward to July 2009... a three-member commission has been tasked with the inquiry, the members being Heraldo Munoz (Chilean Ambassador to the UN), Marzuki Darusman (a former attorney general in Indonesia), and Peter Fitzgerald (a veteran of the Irish National Police). The commission only has a six-month mandate, and it is to be hoped that this period will suffice (as opposed to the apparently interminable Hariri investigation).
3-Person Commission Of Inquiry Into Assassination Of Former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto To Begin 6-Month Mandate 1st July 2009
UN probe team calls on Zardari
