What news from foreign countries will we be talking about in two months? To keep readers abreast of the latest developments abroad, Brian Stewart will provide semi-regular commentary for the blog, highlighting global alerts that merit attention.
A refreshing story in the Telegraph shows that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon denounced his Persian hosts at the Non-Aligned Movement summit for their grossly anti-Semitic ideology and eliminationist rhetoric toward Israel. If Iran's leadership is ever to conclude that diplomatic isolation is its fate, then this public repudiation by the UN chief is surely progress of a kind.
Mr Ban denounced Iran for its "outrageous" comments denying the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist.
"I strongly reject any threat by any [UN] member state to destroy another, or outrageous comments to deny historical facts such as the Holocaust," he said.
