A wanted man on campus
Laila El-Haddad
May 19, 2007 10:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/laila_elhaddad/2007/05/a_wanted_man_on_=
campus.html
To say that Dan Halutz's recent tenure as head of the Israeli military
was rife with controversy would be a grand understatement.
After resigning his post in January, he took some time off to better
himself and Halutz has been attending an elite two-month advanced
management programme at the Harvard Business School (HBS) in the
United States. Ironic though it may be, his training has been
sponsored by the Israeli army, according to a press statement issued
by HBS.
If Gaza survives, Europe must act
Daniel Levy
May 18, 2007 10:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daniel_levy/2007/05/if_gaza_survives_eu=
rope_must_a_1.html
Gaza is on the precipice.
This has implications not only for the security of Palestinians and
Israelis but also for further radicalizing the region beyond. As
Mogadishu enters its second decade of chaos and ungovernability there
is a cautionary tale for neighbours seeking to fuel civil wars.
With Gaza collapsing, the key culprits are considered to be the
Palestinians, Israel, the United States, and even the Arab states. The
Palestinians have been unable to hold together a functioning unity
government and have too easily resorted to violence in addressing
their internal and external problems.
Tourism or cocaine?
Ian Williams
May 18, 2007 9:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/05/the_modern_economy=
_jumbo_passe.html
Lots of people think that it is humiliating for a country to be
dependent on tourism. Things could be worse: about the only country in
the Caribbean that doesn't rely on visitors dropping in is Haiti,
which is hardly a model of sturdy self-reliance to emulate. Even Cuba
has escaped from Marxist orthodoxy enough to accept that its economy
depends on planeloads of palefaces landing to be become lobster-red
before their return.
Some of the Caribbean islands are dependent on tourism for 80% of
their GDP and, if anything, the trend is upwards as World Trade
Organisation decisions force them out of sugar and bananas and leave
them with a choice between building a tourist industry or being relay
stations for cocaine shipments between Columbia, the US and Europe.
A step too far?
John Hooper
May 18, 2007 9:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_hooper/2007/05/a_step_too_far.html
Should Holocaust deniers be prevented from airing their views? And, if
so, how far is it right to go in stopping them? The questions arise
because of what happened over here on Thursday night in the central
Italian university city of Teramo.
Robert Faurisson, a retired academic who has been convicted five times
in his native France for denying crimes against humanity, had been
invited by a member of the staff to give a lecture. His host is one
Claudio Moffa, a professor who run the university's master's programme
in Middle Eastern studies.
The art of departing
Andrew Brown
May 18, 2007 8:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/andrew_brown/2007/05/the_art_of_departi=
ng.html
When Senator John Kerry first broke into national politics in the US,
it was with a question that was, in the context of Vietnam,
unanswerable: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a
mistake?" Although the catastrophe in Iraq suggests that the Americans
have learnt nothing from Vietnam, a careful study of the map shows
they have come up with an answer to Kerry's question: the last man to
die for their mistake in Iraq will almost certainly by British.
The British army knows this, which is one reason why it is keen to
redeploy to Afghanistan. But in Iraq, it is the British who hold the
region around Basra which was the first to be invaded in the war of
2003. Just as it was the route in for the "coalition" army, it will
have to be their route out, when they retreat. But the "coalition"
will be down to two armies by then, and the one doing most of the
retreating first will be American.
Argue or obey?
Anna Masera
May 18, 2007 8:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anna_masera/2007/05/argue_or_obey.html
Family Day, Lay Courage, Gay Pride: Italians in 2007 are faced with
church intervention in Italian politics and society as a whole, and
it's one demonstration after the other, for or against the Vatican and
its political supporters in parliament. Does the Vatican - which is
housed in the centre of Rome and thus has some special relationship
with Italy as a whole - have the right to influence Italian politics,
or should religion stay out of civil causes?
Italian Catholics provocatively chose May 12, the anniversary of the
radical party referendum which passed the divorce law in Italy in 1974
in spite of the Vatican's opposition, to hold the huge Family Day
demonstration. One million people gathered in Piazza San Giovanni,
Rome. On the same day laymen and laywomen held Lay Courage, a much
smaller counter-demonstration in Piazza Navona in favour of
recognising "de-facto" unions (heterosexual unmarried couples) and gay
couples' rights (so-called "Dico"). But the big appointment for gay
rights will be the upcoming Gay Pride demonstration, due to take place
on May 27, which will be joined also by all sorts of lay heterosexuals
who criticise the church.
Rising in the east
Ian Traynor
May 18, 2007 7:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_traynor/2007/05/rising_in_the_east.=
html
The reunification of Europe three years ago was a splendid, if
overdue, achievement. But when the likes of the Poles, Slovaks, and
Latvians took their seats at the top tables in Brussels alongside the
usual grandees from Paris, Rome, and Berlin, it was not clear what
difference the newcomers would make to European policy-making.
For the western worthies, nothing much would change, it was assumed.
The professionals at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Quai
d'Orsay in Paris or the Auswaertiges Amt in Berlin would, along with
the commissars in Brussels, continue to run their world in the manner
to which they were accustomed.
Report from planet Republican
Eric Alterman
May 18, 2007 7:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/eric_alterman/2007/05/report_from_plane=
t_republican.html
Whenever I watch a group of Republicans do almost anything, I find
myself imagining someone from a sensible planet, or even a sensible
country, watching and wondering what in heck they would make of it.
This is particularly true of debates, and during this week's
Republican mash-up in South Carolina, there were so many mouth-open/
what the heck moments upon which to ruminate, it's hard to pick the
most bizarre.
Recall that this debate follows the one where all the candidates vied
with one another to claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan, a politician so
simultaneously clueless and ideological that, to this day, nobody
knows where his faculties ended and his Alzheimer's began - whether
before or after he left the presidency.
Wolfowitz: the quiet American?
Mark Tran
May 18, 2007 5:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mark_tran/2007/05/wolfowitz_the_quiet_a=
merican.html
Paul Wolfowitz walked into the World Bank as he walked into Iraq -
with the best of intentions. In that sense there is a whiff of Graham
Greene's Quiet American about the deposed president of the World Bank.
Like Alden Pyle, Wolfowitz started with laudatory goals yet ended up
in an awful mess.
Wolfowitz is usually portrayed as part of a neo-con cabal along with
the likes of the vice-president ***** Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. But
as George Packer noted in his book on Iraq, The Assassins' Gate, he
was the closest thing to a liberal in the group.
Sarkozy: so far, so good
Colin Randall
May 18, 2007 5:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/colin_randall/2007/05/sarkozy_so_far_so=
_good.html
Down here in the Var, C=E9cilia Sarkozy and I have one thing in common,
a relatively rare thing for these parts. Neither of us, assuming the
French press got it right about her, voted for her old man.
We had our different reasons, naturally. In my case, not being French
denied me the chance of mitigating the three-to-one pro-Sarko vote in
the town where I live.
Time to save ourselves
Fouad Abu Hamed
May 18, 2007 4:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/fouad_abu_hamed/2007/05/time_to_save_ou=
rselves.html
Jerusalem has changed hands many times over the last 100 years. My
grandfather lived under the Turkish, Jordanian and Israeli occupation.
Under the Israeli occupation, the economic conditions are better than
the hundred years preceding it.
In terms of the economic situation, the Israeli occupation has not
been a bad thing for Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. It has
allowed us to work and improve our family's quality of life. Since the
security fence was built, many of the jobs that used to be filled by
Palestinians living in the West Bank are available to Arabs living in
Jerusalem.
The terror excuse
Arthur Neslen
May 18, 2007 4:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/arthur_neslen/2007/05/the_terror_excuse=
..html
It's terror time again. Last week, German police arrested 18 people in
raids on two social centres that were to have been used as convergence
spaces for protesters against the G8 summit in Heiligendamm next
month. The so36.net alternative internet server which contains the
websites, mailing lists and mail addresses of various anti-G8 groups
and individuals was also raided, as were more than 40 other premises
suspected of involvement in a terror plot.
The newspaper reports were credulous but the only information they
provided about the dastardly plan was that it involved a new "terror
organisation" called Militant Group which had hitherto been known by
activists as the Black Block.
Is the Bible indecent?
Theo Hobson
May 18, 2007 3:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/theo_hobson/2007/05/is_the_bible_indece=
nt.html
Let me tell you about my three-year-old son's bookshelf. It contains
the sort of titles you'd expect, on the whole. There are many tales of
talking animals. There are many counting books and ABCs. There are
many stories in which children have little adventures before enjoying
a tea-party or getting tucked up in bed. It's all pretty safe, tame,
appropriate.
Some stories, to be sure, are full of violent possibility - for
example, the one that he demands to hear two or three times per
evening, We're Going on a Bear Hunt. But the author of this adventure
story refrains from allowing a single member of the family to be
mauled to death. Likewise the eponymous monster of The Gruffalo turns
out to be a harmless buffoon. There is one book that relates the
deaths of various children, but this is softened by the poetry of
Belloc and the art of Quentin Blake.
The ethical clouds gather
Richard Adams
May 18, 2007 3:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_adams/2007/05/the_ethical_cloud=
s_gather.html
Paul Wolfowitz maintained that he would not leave the World Bank under
an ethical cloud. Based on the resignation announcement by the bank's
board, he got his wish - but only on paper. The reality is closer to
Emerson's quip: "The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we
counted our spoons."
The truth is that Wolfowitz caused his own downfall. He deliberately
engineered and then sought to conceal a series of pay rises and
promotions for his girlfriend - as detailed by a report that followed
a detailed internal investigation - that will taint his brief period
as the bank's president.
The logic of censorship
Conor Clarke
May 18, 2007 2:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_clarke/2007/05/the_logic_of_censo=
rship.html
One of the fun things about American liberalism is that so many of its
principles can conflict. There is a longstanding love of free speech.
It's right there in the first amendment. And there is a deep-rooted
commitment to tolerance and mutual respect. (It's kind of right there
in the fourteenth.) But what happens when the two collide - when
intolerant speech finds its way into the public sphere?
The standard route out of this maze is a good old-fashioned balancing
test. We collectively agree to tolerate offensive speech up to a
point, and then we stop. Fraudulent speech won't fly, and there are
complicated legal doctrines that govern words that incite violence or
are motivated by racial hatred. It's a decent solution, but it leads
to all sorts of compromises in which the answer is never quite
satisfying. Do we want to let the American Nazi party hold a march
through the town of Skokie, Illinois, which contains an extremely high
proportion of Jews and Holocaust survivors? The town says no. The ACLU
says yes. The supreme court says sort of. Liberalism marches on.
The run for the ... black-eye susans?
Eric Banks
May 18, 2007 1:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/eric_banks/2007/05/the_run_for_theblack=
eye_susans.html
It's the sad fate of the Preakness Stakes, which runs this Saturday at
Pimlico race track in Maryland, to be the Big Race After the Derby.
Just compare them: where the Kentucky Derby has "My Old Kentucky
Home," the Preakness has the bizarre "Maryland, My Maryland" (what
does "thou wilt not cower in the dust, Maryland" mean?). Instead of
bourbon, it's got crab cakes and beer.
If at one time America's best three-year-olds happily decamped from
Louisville to Baltimore to try and capture the mile-and-three-
sixteenths contest, most trainers now call it a day once the Derby's
been run. Odd events have plagued Pimlico on race day over recent
years as well, from the ridiculous (think of Cavonnier, the 1996 Derby
runner-up, dodging a beach ball tossed onto the track by some drunk)
to the deranged (as in 1999, when another drunk climbed across the
verge and tried to slug an oncoming horse).
Breaking down barriers
Inayat Bunglawala
May 18, 2007 12:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/inayat_bunglawala/2007/05/breaking_down=
_barriers.html
The Emirate of Qatar, which has a population of around only 800,000
people, less than a third of whom are actual Qatari nationals, has in
recent years achieved a world profile that belies its tiny size.
The al-Jazeera broadcasting network, which is based in the Qatari
capital, Doha, and is funded by the al-Thani ruling family, has since
its launch in 1996 sought to smash the mould of Arab news channels
which have been largely noted for their timidity with their endless
clips of various kings and autocrats smiling benevolently.
Aid for Aids
Deborah Jack
May 18, 2007 12:01 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/deborah_jack/2007/05/aid_for_aids.html
Ten years ago today, Bill Clinton delivered a historic speech calling
for new worldwide commitments to develop a HIV vaccine, saying: "Only
a truly effective, preventative HIV vaccine can limit and eventually
eliminate the threat of Aids." He challenged the world to develop a
vaccine within a decade. Yet now, in 2007, despite much progress in
prevention programmes and treatment, the numbers of new infections
continues to rise. HIV continues to outpace the global response, and a
vaccine is still not available.
HIV and Aids has now touched virtually every country in the world,
continuing to destroy health, lives, families and societies.
Approximately 40 million people, including nearly 70 000 in the UK,
are living with HIV. In 2006 alone, HIV caused the deaths of nearly 3
million people worldwide, and despite global prevention efforts, a
further 4.5 million additional people became infected with HIV.
Lessons in disingenuousness
Philippe Sands
May 18, 2007 11:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/philippe_sands/2007/05/lessons_in_disin=
genuousness.html
Whatever anyone may think about the gravity of the conflict issue that
made the headlines, the real cause of Paul Wolfowitz's downfall seems
to have been his approach to governance.
The World Bank's executive directors created an ad hoc group, assigned
to "acquire information" on possible violations of staff rules in
favour of a staff member associated with the president. Last Monday
the ad hoc group published its second report.
When the issue comes out
Mark Simpson
May 18, 2007 11:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mark_simpson/2007/05/when_the_issue_com=
es_out.html
Isn't it about time Men's Health, the world's biggest-selling "men's
lifestyle" magazine, came out to itself?
I couldn't get to sleep the other night and so resorted to flicking
through a recent UK issue: I find the pictures of semi-naked men's
perfect, sweating muscles and the droning narcissistic hypochondria of
the copy in this notorious metromag strangely soothing.
What is a website?
Open Thread
May 18, 2007 10:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2007/05/what_is_a_website.h=
tml
Judges, by tradition, are famously out of touch with the modern world.
In the 1960s, one is said to have enquired in court: "Who are the
Beatles?"
That story may be apochryphal, but now Mr Justice Peter Openshaw, has
given it a new and updated twist by confessing during a trial at
Woolwich Crown Court: "I don't really understand what a website is."
Knowledge is power
Ian Brinkley
May 18, 2007 10:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_brinkley_/2007/05/knowledge_is_powe=
r=2Ehtml
When I and economists like me use the phrase "knowledge economy", what
we mean is the evolution of economic activity away from the
exploitation of natural resources and low-skilled labour towards a
model where jobs, exports, investment and innovation are driven by the
interaction of well-trained minds and powerful computers. When others
use it (for example Jon Cruddas earlier this week), they seem to mean
a smug managerial conspiracy that attempts to mask the crisis of
manufacturing, the relevance of class to life in Britain, and just how
low-quality many jobs really are.
The time has come for those of us who believe the knowledge economy is
the best description we have of Britain's economic destiny - and
indeed that of all other developed nations - to set out the stall a
little more clearly.
Be Gordon, not Hillary
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2083287,00.html
Forget US-style spin. The next prime minister needs to be himself to
win back angry voters
Frank Luntz
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Gordon Brown has got it all wrong. First, he delivered his years-in-
the-making speech from autocues rather than his head and heart. Then
he declared that he will "listen and learn" about people's concerns
from a nation that wants him to "lead and do". And now a spot-check of
the party website finds the disappearance of the word "new" from New
Labour. He has apparently forgotten the first rule of politics: you
are what you are.
The power of zombie films
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2083284,00.html
'What if?' stories are a way of exorcising our fears - and the
suspicion that everything bad is our fault
Bidisha
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Sometimes even monsters deserve our sympathy. Can a lumbering red-eyed
zombie really be expected to carry the weight of the zeitgeist on its
latex shoulders? It would seem so, if the new film 28 Weeks Later is
anything to go by. The sequel to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, this
social angst allegory portrays a Britain devastated by the highly
contagious "rage" virus, which turns sufferers into rabid human flesh-
eaters.
The arrival of another post-apocalyptic epic points to the continued
popularity of dystopian dramas. The British have always produced urban
nightmare narratives with grim competence - think of those 70s TV
classics Doomwatch and Survivors. America, meanwhile, tends to opt for
a metallic black future of trashed cityscapes and cowering, subjugated
humans, as in Bladerunner, or the Robocop and Terminator franchises.
Just for once I'd like to see Armageddon depicted in a pleasant rural
village with abundant natural produce and a low crime rate: people
wake up, the world's ended, nobody notices until that month's Saga
magazine fails to arrive. Mild consternation ensues.
Face to faith
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2083302,00.html
Day-Lewis knew churchy agnosticism's appeal was seductive but
essentially empty, says Peter Stanford
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
If all goes to plan, we will soon have a "son of the manse" as our
prime minister. Gordon Brown's father, John, was a Church of Scotland
minister. It is the type of upbringing which can cause a
predisposition towards public service. Just as often it can lead to
rebellion against God.
The poet laureate C Day-Lewis is a case in point. His father, Frank,
was rector to the mining town of Edwinstowe in Nottinghamshire.
Growing up cheek by jowl with the rituals of Christianity made Cecil
anxious to escape its clutches. But that early exposure meant that
formal rejection as a teenager still left a hole.
'Welcome to Tehran' - how Iran took control of Basra
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2083387,00.html
Britain has failed to stop southern Iraq falling into grip of
militias
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Basra
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
On a recent overcast afternoon in Basra, two new police SUVs drove
onto a dusty, rubbish-strewn football pitch where a group of children
were playing. The game stopped and the kids looked on.
Three men in white dishdashas got out of one of the cars. One, holding
a Kalashnikov, stood guard as the other two removed some metal tubes
and cables from the back of a vehicle. As the two men fiddled with the
wires, the man with the gun waved it at a teenager who wanted to film
with his mobile phone.
Putin riles west by barring opposition protesters
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2083413,00.html
=B7 Kasparov and journalists made to miss flight
=B7 Merkel says authorities restricting free speech
Luke Harding in Samara
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Russia sent a signal of open defiance to the west yesterday by
arresting several leading opposition figures and detaining western
journalists as they attempted to fly to a critical EU-Russia summit.
Police detained Garry Kasparov - the former world chess champion and a
vocal critic of Vladimir Putin - as he tried to board a flight from
Moscow to the southern city of Samara.
Mr Kasparov was due to lead a demonstration by a coalition of anti-
Kremlin groups, The Other Russia. They were protesting on the margins
of yesterday's summit, hosted by Mr Putin, and attended by Angela
Merkel and other EU leaders.
'Don't try to divide us,' EU warns Russia as summit ends in disarray
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2083410,00.html
Luke Harding
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
The summit between the European Union and Russia ended in acrimonious
disaster yesterday with no new deals signed and a stark warning to
Russia that it should not try to divide the EU bloc.
The European commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, told the
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that any action against an
individual EU state would be considered action against the entire EU.
His unambiguous comments came amid a bitter dispute between Russia and
Estonia - and claims Russia had waged an unprecedented cyber-attack on
its small Baltic neighbour. "We had occasion to say to our Russian
partners that a difficulty for a member state is a difficulty for the
whole European Union," Mr Barroso said. "It is very important if you
want to have close cooperation to understand that the EU is based on
principles of solidarity."
US government trying to seize new Michael Moore film, says producer
http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2007/story/0,,2083430,00.html
Harvey Weinstein fires latest shot in battle over healthcare
documentary
Charlotte Higgins in Cannes
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Cannes is smacking its lips in anticipation of filmmaker and
provocateur Michael Moore's latest jeremiad against the US
administration, which receives its premiere at the film festival
today. Sicko, a documentary tackling the state of American healthcare,
focuses on the pharmaceutical giants, and particularly on health
insurers.
The film has already caused Moore - who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes
in 2004 with Fahrenheit 911 - to clash with the American authorities.
Now, according to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein
Company is behind the film, the US government is attempting to impound
the negative.
Not on our watch - how Hollywood made America care abour Darfur
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,,2083438,00.html
Cannes premiere is latest event to be used to draw attention to
African crisis
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
The scene will be familiar at Tuesday's Cannes film festival party for
Ocean's 13. There will be a red carpet; there will be crowds of fans
behind metal barriers; there will be a line of limousines and burly
security guards. And there will be photographers shouting out the
familiar names of the cosseted and famous: George! Brad! Matt! Don!
Don? The Don in question is not quite a star of the magnitude of a
George Clooney or a Matt Damon, but he has managed to put his moderate
fame to a use that many of his peers will envy.
Leftwing human rights champion joins Sarkozy's cabinet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,2083394,00.html
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Bernard Kouchner, the leftwing humanitarian crusader, was appointed
France's foreign minister yesterday as Nicolas Sarkozy prepared a more
pro-US and pro-Israeli approach to diplomacy.
For the first time France has a gender-balanced team of eight men to
seven women. The justice minister, Rachida Dati, a loyal Sarkozy
adviser and former magistrate, is also the first politician of north
African descent to hold a top government post. Christine Lagarde, a
corporate lawyer and former synchronised swimming champion, once
listed as one of the world's most powerful women by Forbes magazine,
becomes the first female agriculture minister.
China bars activist from UK visit in pre-Olympic crackdown
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2082996,00.html
Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Friday May 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
One of China's most prominent human rights activists has been blocked
from travelling to the UK, just a day after the foreign secretary
Margaret Beckett called on Beijing to allow more freedom of expression
during her visit to the country.
Police detained Hu Jia, a pro-democracy campaigner and HIV-Aids
activist, as he prepared to catch a flight to Europe via Hong Kong.
Organisations in several European countries had invited him to speak
about human rights violations in China.
White House promises to replace Wolfowitz quickly
http://www.guardian.co.uk/imf/story/0,,2083372,00.html
=B7 Blair championed as new World Bank president
=B7 Anger over exoneration of leader forced to resign
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
The White House said yesterday that it would work quickly to name a
replacement for Paul Wolfowitz, who stepped down as president of the
World Bank after a bitter and protracted dispute dividing European
governments and America.
Mr Wolfowitz agreed to resign on Thursday night after an official
investigation found that he had broken bank rules in his engineering
of a generous pay rise for his partner, Shaha Riza, a communications
officer at the bank. He is to step down on June 30.
Beckett to focus on climate change on Japan visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,2082948,00.html
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Friday May 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, is expected to call on Japan
to sign up to more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets as part
of the international fight against climate change , when she arrives
in Tokyo next week.
Climate change is expected to be a major theme of Ms Beckett's three-
day trip, which comes ahead of next month's G8 summit in Germany. She
will meet the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, before holding
talks with her counterpart, Taro Aso.
Colombian warlord says US firms paid death squads for bananas
http://www.guardian.co.uk/colombia/story/0,,2083365,00.html
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
A jailed warlord has accused the US multinationals Del Monte, Dole and
Chiquita of funding rightwing death squads while sourcing bananas from
war-torn regions of Colombia.
Salvatore Mancuso, a leader of illegal paramilitary groups, which
massacred thousands of people, said each company paid his men one US
cent for each box of bananas they exported. Mancuso did not explain
why the payments were made but it was common practice for Colombian
businesses to pay the paramilitaries a so-called "war tax" - a form of
extortion as well as protection against attacks.
Musharraf rejects power-sharing deal by banning return of Bhutto
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2083408,00.html
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Pakistan's political crisis deepened yesterday when President Pervez
Musharraf and his main rival, Benazir Bhutto, dismissed the
possibility of a power-sharing deal.
General Musharraf said on television last night that he would not
allow Ms Bhutto or his other rival, Nawaz Sharif, to return from exile
before parliamentary polls later this year. "No, they will not be
returning before elections," he said.
The end of innocence
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2082858,00.html
After September 11 2001, wrote Martin Amis, 'all the writers on earth
were reluctantly considering a change of occupation'. In fact, many
leading American and British novelists felt compelled to confront the
implications of that day. Have they succeeded in capturing the new
world order, asks Pankaj Mishra
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Reflecting on the attacks on the twin towers in 2001, Don DeLillo
seemed to speak for many Americans when he admitted that "We like to
think that America invented the future. We are comfortable with the
future, intimate with it. But there are disturbances now, in large and
small ways, a chain of reconsiderations." On September 11, terrorists
from the Middle East who destroyed American immunity to large-scale
violence and chaos also forced many American and British novelists to
reconsider the value of their work and its relation to the history of
the present. "Most novelists I know," Jay McInerney wrote in these
pages, "went through a period of intense self-examination and self-
loathing after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center." Ian
McEwan claimed in a later interview to have found it "wearisome to
confront invented characters". "I wanted to be told about the world. I
wanted to be informed. I felt that we had gone through great changes
and now was the time to just go back to school, as it were, and start
to learn." "The so-called work in progress," Martin Amis confessed,
"had been reduced, overnight, to a blue streak of pitiable babble. But
then, too, a feeling of gangrenous futility had infected the whole
corpus."
The writing cure
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2082887,00.html
Living in a war zone, Israeli writer David Grossman turned away from
recording the conflict in his work. But after his son was killed in
the army, he found it was the only way to come to terms with his
grief
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
As the trap closes in on him, and the cat looms behind, the mouse in
Kafka's short story "A Little Fable" says: "Alas ... the world is
growing narrower every day."
After many years of living in the violent reality of a political,
military and religious conflict, I can report, sadly, that Kafka's
mouse was right: the world is, indeed, growing increasingly narrow,
increasingly diminished, with each passing day. An empty space is
growing, ever so slowly, between each individual and the violent,
chaotic situation in which he lives. The situation that dictates his
life to him.
Before the terror
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2082888,00.html
As a precocious teenager, Stalin had a surprising talent for romantic
poetry, a passion that endured throughout his life. Simon Sebag
Montefiore asks how the youthful scribbler became a ruthless tyrant
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Before he was a revolutionary, Stalin was known as a poet. In 1895,
aged 17 and studying for the priesthood in Georgia, a province of the
tsarist empire, he took a selection of his poems to show to the
country's most famous editor and national hero, Prince Ilya
Chavchavadze. The prince was deeply impressed with both the poems and
the poet, whom he called that "young man with the burning eyes". After
looking through the verses, he chose five to publish in Iveria (an
archaic name for Georgia), Russia's most fashionable and prestigious
literary journal. It took someone of the young Stalin's ambition and
colossal self-confidence to walk into the prince's office and offer
his poems for publication.
The way we live now
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2082861,00.html
Andrew Marr's A History of Modern Britain reveals how a thin,
religious, homogenous nation become fat, sceptical and diverse, says
David Hare
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
A History of Modern Britain
by Andrew Marr
630pp, Macmillan, =A325
On a recent insomniac edition of Newsnight, sandwiched between the
terrifying Alastair Campbell and the altogether easier Alan Milburn, I
was asked what I thought Tony Blair's principal contribution to
British political history had been. I replied that he was surely the
first post-war prime minister to give the impression of being glad to
be living in the present day. Unlike his predecessors, he didn't seem
beset with nostalgia for an imaginary all-white Britain, usually now
located by its admirers in the 1950s. At this observation, the one-
time leader of the opposition, Michael Howard, sprang indignantly to
life, asking whether I was accusing previous Conservative leaders of
having been racists. Luckily, I was given no chance to answer.
Growing up gratefully
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2082868,00.html
Melissa Benn enjoys Lynne Segal's lesson on the women's liberation
movement, Making Trouble
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Making Trouble: Life and Politics
by Lynne Segal
256pp, Serpent's Tail, =A310.99
"I feel like a survivor of a lost world, a pre-Jurassic relic," writes
the poet and feminist Denise Riley, one of several women quoted at
length by Lynne Segal in this lively but occasionally frustrating
melange of personal reflection and political commentary. Riley is not
alone in her discomfiture. For those who have thrown themselves heart
and soul into political movements and moments, it can be bewildering
to watch a once vivid, deeply felt present hardening into the sediment
of modern history or, worse, caricature.
'Our democracy has gone awry'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=3D/arts/2007/05/12/booba12.x=
ml
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 12/05/2007
Nicholas Shakespeare reviews The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on
Reclaiming the American Dream
When Joseph Brodsky learned in a restaurant in London that he had won
the 1987 Nobel prize for literature, he gave a bear hug to his dinner
companion (who told me this story) and said: "Now I can be flippant."
The Audacity of Hope
http://www.newstatesman.com/200705140043
Barack Obama Canongate, 384pp, =A314.99
ISBN 1847670350
You'd be hard pressed to find a leading Democrat who hasn't written a
book in recent years (or paid someone else to do so). Hillary Clinton,
Al Gore, John Kerry and John Edwards have all put their names to
tomes, and the lesser-known nomination hopefuls Joe Biden and Chris
Dodd are rushing out offerings later this year.
The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama's second book, its title a
soundbite first used in his rousing address to the Democratic National
Convention in 2004. The speech was a bright moment in John Kerry's
otherwise lacklustre presidential campaign, and propelled Obama, a
young mixed-race senator from Illinois, into the national limelight.
Land of the Giants
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR200705150=
1731_pf.html
In the race for president, do the little people still matter?
By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 20, 2007; W18
McCain: Dover, N.H., March 18
JOHN MCCAIN IS AT A THING CALLED A "HOUSE PARTY" making his stump
speech. The stump is the central stairwell of the house, which is, to
be precise, a mansion, a heroic place with exposed beams, a fireplace
the size of your kitchen, and chairs so huge and heavy that if you sat
in one you might get lost for a week. The walls of the central room
are painted in a continuous equestrian mural. Through the Palladian
windows, you can see an icy river surging toward the sea. It's all
very dramatic. Life has been good to these particular Republicans.
"Thank you for welcoming all of us into this middle-income tract
home," McCain begins. He gets the laugh.
No, Blair! America's parting gift to Britain's PM
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2559994.ece
NO to CO2 emissions targets. NO to a successor to Kyoto. NO to a
carbon trading market. As Blair leaves Washington, US hardens stance
on climate change
By Daniel Howden
Published: 19 May 2007
As Tony Blair left Washington yesterday for his last visit as Prime
Minister, the Bush administration was acting to scupper international
efforts to combat climate change.
Less than 24 hours earlier, Mr Blair had basked in the apparent
support of President George Bush for his stated aim of avoiding
catastrophic global warming. But it seems his appeals have fallen on
deaf ears. While Mr Bush was eulogising his friend in the White House
rose garden, the President's delegation at a United Nations meeting in
Bonn was working to stop any progress on setting up a carbon trading
scheme and emissions caps.
Abominable. Blind. Subservient. Ex-President Carter lambasts Blair for
support
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2560259.ece
By James Tapsfield, PA Political Correspondent
Published: 19 May 2007
The former US President Jimmy Carter lambasted Tony Blair for his
"blind " support of the Iraq war today, saying it had been a "major
tragedy for the world".
The outgoing Prime Minister's relationship with President George Bush
appeared to have been "subservient" and "abominable", according to Mr
Carter.
After Wolfowitz: battle begins for control of World Bank
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2559984.ece
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 19 May 2007
The search has begun in earnest for a successor to Paul Wolfowitz as
head of the World Bank. But every sign is that despite widespread
demands for change, the global lending institution's new president
will once again be an American.
As the Bank's board met here to set in motion the nominating process,
the European Commission in Brussels urged a quick appointment,
stressing that the organisation needed "stable and strong political
leadership". The White House announced that President Bush would soon
name a candidate, to ensure "an orderly transition" that would allow
the Bank to refocus on its mission of fighting poverty and promoting
development.
The truth about PM's 'special relationship' with Bush
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2560254.ece
Published: 19 May 2007
Iraq
Britain disagreed with the US over two key decisions in May 2003, two
months after the invasion - to disband Iraq's army and "de-Ba'athify"
its civil service. Geoff Hoon, on 2 May 2007, said: "Sometimes ...
Tony (Blair) had made his point with the President, I'd made my point
with Don [Rumsfeld] and Jack [Straw] had made his point with Colin
[Powell] and the decision actually came out of a completely different
place. And you think: what did we miss? I think we missed (Vice-
President *****) Cheney."
Iran
Britain's Foreign Secretary at the time, Jack Straw - now Gordon
Brown's campaign manager - led calls for Iran to be drawn into talks.
The White House rejected the calls, even when they were backed up by
the President's Iraq Study Group. The US this week opened talks with
Iran.
Senators call for Gonzales to resign
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2560021.ece
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 19 May 2007
The position of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales looks
increasingly in doubt as growing numbers of Senators from both parties
voice demands for his resignation over his role in the firing of
Democratic prosecutors.
Democrats have said they will next week table a non-binding vote of no
confidence, saying that Mr Gonzales is too weak to effectively run the
US Justice Department. Meanwhile, more senior Republicans are speaking
out and echoing the view that Mr Gonzales =D0 a long-time close ally of
President George Bush =D0 should step down. On Thursday Senator Norm
Coleman became the fifth Republican senator to demand that Mr Gonzales
leave.
Israel attacks Hamas targets as Gaza fighting escalates continues in
Gaza
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2559982.ece
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 19 May 2007
At least four Palestinians were killed when Israel launched more air
strikes at Hamas in Gaza yesterday as fighting continued between Hamas
factions and armed groups from the rival Fatah organisation.
Three people were killed and 12 injured when a minivan being driven by
a Hamas activist was incinerated in Gaza City by the Israeli air force
as part of its operations against Qassam rocket launches. The Israeli
military said it had hit a vehicle carrying Hamas activists and
weapons.
Robert Fisk: Blair's lies and linguistic manipulations
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2559969.ece
My Dad used to call people like Blair a 'twerp'. But I fear he is a
vicious little man
Published: 19 May 2007
By great good fortune, I studied linguistics at Lancaster University.
Indeed, I read the books of Noam Chomsky, many years before he became
a good friend of mine; to be honest, when I read his work, I thought
Chomsky was dead. What a pleasure, therefore, to discover that he
shared my world - and my views on Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara.
But I have to admit a moment of regret this weekend. Lord Blair is
going from us. His self-serving memoirs will, of course, remind us of
his God-like view of himself (and, heaven spare me, we share the same
publishers) but I doubt if Chomsky's "foregrounded elements" will save
him. A "foregrounded element" was something unusual, a phrase placed
in such a way that it warned us of a lie to come.
Ministers urge Brown to launch Iraq inquiry
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2559996.ece
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 19 May 2007
Gordon Brown is under growing pressure to order a top-level inquiry
into the Iraq war.
Tory leaders joined Labour deputy leadership candidates and military
families against the war in stepping up calls for an inquiry to be
announced by Mr Brown soon after he succeeds Tony Blair on 27 June.
Those lobbying for an investigation claim it would restore trust in
government in the post-Blair era.
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