Let's thank the French Government for knowing its limits and bowing to public opinion recently. By scrapping the anti-youth (some suggest, anti-immigrant) labour law, which makes it easier for employers to hire and fire new employees, the authorities have finally shown that they know the meaning of "people power". Rightly so.

Regrettably, the doomed legislative intervention was not without some contextual merit - not least its goal of opening up the labour market, unshackling employers of labour and making France more competitive - but its core conflict was in the right of the electorate to choose. Lack of prior and adequate consultation, and the poor handling of the immigrants' riots some weeks earlier, killed the intervention and smeared its proponents. Chief losers? The president and his prime minister/heir apparent! The next elections will be a decisive one for Paris. Chances are that the staus quo will be dismantled....swept away. Alignments and realignments be afoot. Was this fiasco avoidable? Wasn't there another way?

Hey, politicians, there are a million ways to kill a pest!

Let someone tell the Nepalese authorities that peace is the way to go, not violence. It will be hard for the King to sustain the Monarchy without the people's wish or against their will. The way the current impasse is coursing, the end might be the King's end - in an "End Royale". Someone needs a retrace of steps, as a "Reteat Royale". It makes early sense rather than waging a multi-faceted war against virtually every segment of the country - politicians, students, women, lawyers, media, etc. If the regional powers don't intervene now, they should be prepared to offer long-term/permanent homes to the King and his followers (as refugees!) in a very short while from now. Nepal will save itself, sooner than later. And those police goons... I shudder. When it be over, let them know that there are reels of media rushes/tv footage as well as reams of newspapers/magazines for human/civil rights crusaders! All dictators better remember this reality. Fixed.

Can EU leaders please tell the Italians to put their house in order!? Why is the Prime Minister yet to end the stalemate by conceding defeat? What is wrong in working for the best image possible for Italy? How can the new government unite the country if this acrimony doesn't give way to "national interest"? Italy must show the way to third world politicians, not act like them! Remember the heroic acts by Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004? They protected US Democracy by not "fighting-to-finish". That was politics at its beauty. By the way, I wonder if they didn't fortuitously hand the Republicans a "poisoned chalice"! Key is they valued America and its image more than their own post and power. Patriots.

Knight Berlusconi is hurting us all. The side-show stopped them from joining the world and the Vatican in celebrating a momentous Easter: One year after the beloved Pope John Paul II, the first anniversary of the distinguished Pope Benedict XVI, and his own 79th birthday. What a way! Power shames much.

Let Italy rise, and arise. Now.