| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
09 Mar 2007 08:03:50 AM |
| Object: |
OT: A whiff of scandale |
A whiff of scandale
Colin Randall
March 9, 2007 12:35 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/colin_randall/2007/03/a_whiff_of_scanda=
le.html
The melodramatic build-up to Jacques Chirac's retirement announcement
has given the French another reason not to waste too much time
thinking about the financial affairs of S=E9gol=E8ne Royal and Nicolas
Sarkozy.
While it would be wrong to suggest that no attention at all has been
paid to Le Canard Enchain=E9's mischief-making about the two main
presidential candidates, it would be absurd to pretend that people are
talking of little else.
Ranks injustice
Sunny Hundal
March 9, 2007 11:03 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sunny_hundal/2007/03/black_and_in_the_a=
rmy.html
My brother was an officer in the British army until recently. He once
told me the trick when marching, doing exercises or simply following
orders was to be "the grey man" - that is, blending into the
background in the hope no one noticed your mistakes.
The problem was that if you were brown or black you stood out like a
sore thumb and every mistake was remembered the next time. My brother
also has a full beard and turban, so blending in wasn't so easy.
Complete poppycock
Robert Fox
March 9, 2007 10:32 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_fox/2007/03/opium.html
Tony Blair is to urge his Nato allies "to take the lead in fighting
the growth of opium production," so I read in my Guardian yesterday.
When it comes to opium and heroin, he adopts the approach of that
great philosopher and strategic thinker, the late Tommy Cooper. His
approach to all his failed tricks and twists of prestidigination, you
may remember, was that it all could be put right "just like that".
Tony Blair committed Britain to lead the international effort to
remove Afghanistan's dependence on the narcotics trade at the Bonn
conference in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Taliban and
expulsion of al-Qaida in late 2001.
Child's play
Seth Freedman
March 9, 2007 9:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seth_freedman/2007/03/apartheid_shh_hut=
_yuh_muh.html
As I stumbled out of my block at some ungodly hour this morning, I
nearly fell over two early-rising dogs checking one another out after
a chance meeting in the garden. They approached tentatively at first,
before circling each other, and getting a feel for who they were up
against. By the time I'd made it past them and onto the street, they
were getting on famously - a portent of the day that lay ahead.
I was off to Bet Hanina, on the other side of the Green Line, as a
guest of the Centre for Creativity in Education and Cultural Heritage
(CCECH). Since 1991, the centre has been working with Israeli and
Palestinian children in their schools, using folklore as a way of
fostering contact and communication between the two groups. The fifth
grade children visit their counterparts at their schools for organised
activities, which include visiting each other's places of worship and
learning the culture and traditions of their contemporaries.
A high price
Chris Albin-Lackey and Ben Rawlence
March 9, 2007 8:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/chris_albinlackey_and_ben_rawlence/2007=
/03/chris_albinlackey_is_nigeria_r.html
The gap between British policy in Africa and the continent's harsh
realities was once again on display recently when the British high
commissioner to Nigeria said in Abuja, "so far I think the progress we
are making towards the elections in April is pretty good." Nothing
could be further from the truth. According to the local press more
than 50 people have already reportedly lost their lives in pre-
election violence in the run up to April polls, and hundreds have been
injured. If this level of violence continues over the next two months,
the price of a "pretty good" election if measured in lives, will turn
out to be very high indeed.
On April 14 and 21, Nigerians will choose a new president, new
governors of Nigeria's 36 states and new members of their state and
national assemblies. Current president, Olusegun Obasanjo is stepping
down after serving two terms since the end of military rule in 1999.
Voices from Australia
Antony Loewenstein
March 9, 2007 7:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/antony_loewenstein/2007/03/the_recent_l=
aunch_of_independe.html
The recent launch of Independent Jewish Voices - a British group
dedicated to alternative Jewish perspectives on the Israel/Palestine
conflict - caused robust debate around the world.
Prominent public figures such as Nobel prize winner Harold Pinter,
comedian Stephen Fry, filmmaker Mike Leigh and historian Eric
Hobsbawm, along with hundreds of others, rightly argued that
uncritical support for the Jewish state and its brutal occupation
policies was endangering the country's future. They hoped "that
individuals and groups within all communities should feel free to
express their views on any issue of public concern without incurring
accusations of disloyalty".
The most dangerous man in the Senate
Beth Gardiner
March 8, 2007 10:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/beth_gardiner/2007/03/the_most_dangerou=
s_man_in_the.html
Six years ago, Joe Lieberman was one of his party's proud national
standard-bearers. Now he's the object of wary glances from fellow
Democrats who see him as a potential turncoat with the power to snatch
the Senate from their control.
Lieberman's been flirting with the Republicans since he won re-
election as an independent in November, bitter over the decision of
many in his party to campaign against him after he lost Connecticut's
Democratic primary to anti-war businessman Ned Lamont.
The billion dollar question
Ben Whitford
March 8, 2007 8:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ben_whitford/2007/03/the_billion_dollar=
_question.html
So, it seems we may have to wait a little longer for the first billion
dollar election. Barack Obama has thrown a lifeline to the Federal
Election Commission, which oversees America's troubled public election-
financing system, persuading them to let him collect private donations
for his election campaign - but then to return the money and take
public funding if the Republican nominee agrees to do the same. On
cue, GOP frontrunner and longtime campaign finance reform advocate
John McCain last week pledged to use public funding once nominated, if
his Democratic opponent did likewise. Other candidates are under
increasing pressure to follow suit; for once, the campaign finance
reformists have something to smile about.
It's a personal vindication for Obama, who first entered the Senate
thanks, in large part, to McCain-Feingold regulations that helped
blunt the financial advantage of his deep-pocketed rivals in the
Democratic primary. It's also a smart piece of political positioning:
the Illinois senator has endeared himself to reformists in his own
party; wrong-footed his Democratic rivals, particularly Hillary
Clinton, the first candidate to announce she would opt out of the
public funding system; and left John McCain in the awkward position of
having to follow the lead of a liberal Democrat at a time when he was
seeking to shore up his own conservative credentials.
A lesson in her-story
Natalie Bennett
March 8, 2007 6:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/natalie_bennett/2007/03/some_women_to_c=
elebrate.html
International Women's Day: as Zoe Williams wrote on these pages
yesterday there have been many curious methods chosen to celebrate
this day. This is my personal celebration (and it involves neither
fashion nor yoga), but it is a promotion of the stories of the lives
of a few of my favourite Englishwomen.
They will surely be new to most readers - much women's history has yet
to break out of academia into the popular imagination - but they made
real contributions to the life of the nation and are a reminder that
women have always broken out from restraints society has tried to
place upon them.
A predator becomes more dangerous when wounded
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2029918,00.html
Washington's escalation of threats against Iran is driven by a
determination to secure control of the region's energy resources
Noam Chomsky
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to
subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria.
Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important. As was
the norm during the cold war, resort to violence is regularly
justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the main enemy,
often on the flimsiest of pretexts. Unsurprisingly, as Bush sends more
troops to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal
affairs of Iraq - a country otherwise free from any foreign
interference - on the tacit assumption that Washington rules the
world.
Never mind the cleavage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2029919,00.html
Jane Austen is about money being tight, not trousers and gowns - a
truth TV and film ignore
Kathryn Hughes
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
The way that this spring's slew of Jane Austen adaptations are being
marketed, you'd be forgiven for thinking that all Austen ever wrote
about was Love, and How to Find It. The poster for the film Becoming
Jane, based on an early romance in Austen's own life, shows a spoony-
looking James McAvoy nuzzling up to a doe-eyed Anne Hathaway. In ITV's
forthcoming Northanger Abbey, meanwhile, girls with an indecent amount
of heaving cleavage (well, it is scripted by Andrew Davies) find boys
round every corner. The network's Persuasion, meanwhile, ends with a
snog in the street between Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth that
doesn't reference Austen's text (how many kissing scenes do you recall
in her novels?) so much as the final clinch in the film of Bridget
Jones's Diary.
My chat with the colonel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2029917,00.html
If Gadafy is sincere about reform, as I think he is, Libya could end
up as the Norway of North Africa
Anthony Giddens
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
Along with Fidel Castro, Muammar Gadafy is the last of the
revolutionaries. Most of those who, 30 or 40 years ago, believed that
capitalism could be overthrown, and a different world ushered in, have
long since disappeared. The radical left now defines itself only by
what it is against: America is the enemy, and anyone who stands up
against the west must be a force for the good, no matter how corrupt
or illiberal they might be.
Bush heads for his back yard
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2029723,00.html
Leader
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
George Bush flew to Brazil yesterday on the first leg of a tour of
Latin America with a simple message: the US cares. The week-long tour
has been constructed to counter the sense that Washington has
neglected its back yard since September 11 2001, although many may
have been grateful for a long spell of neglect. In the meantime, the
balance of forces in the region has shifted. Hugo Ch=E1vez's brand of
socialism, populism, oil hand-outs and stream of anti-Bush invective
has a strong and understandable appeal beyond Venezuela's borders.
There were electoral near-misses in Nicaragua and Ecuador, but Mr
Ch=E1vez can today count on the unwavering support of Bolivia's Evo
Morales, the comradeship of Argentina's N=E9stor Kirchner and the
sympathy of Nicaragua. If there is an agenda to Mr Bush's visit, it is
to contain Mr Ch=E1vez.
Last night's TV: The Great Global Warming Swindle
Zoe Williams
March 9, 2007 09:48 AM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2007/03/last_nights_tv_the_great_globa.html
"We're heretics! I'm a heretic. The makers of this programme are
heretics." Nigel Calder is explaining how the world sees scientists
who deny global warming. Channel 4's The Great Global Warming Swindle
made one interesting point - that scientists are not unanimous in
their assessment of the connection between global warming and CO2.
Most say the second causes the first; a few say the first causes the
second. Interesting, huh? Academics in not-all-thinking-exactly-the-
same-thing shock. The amazing thing about global warming is not that
someone from Winnipeg University disagrees (if you've ever been to
Winnipeg, you will know what it means to be forced by your academic
qualifications to live there); it's how many people don't disagree.
Sorry, I am just rolling over and handing the refuseniks a piece of
their most powerful weaponry - when everyone agrees, why, that's like
when we thought the world was flat! Only a few brave voices stood up,
and they were ridiculed! I actually had this argument on the Daily
Politics with Peter Hitchens. "You can't seriously be contending,"
said I, "that just because all scientists say you're talking rubbish,
that de facto turns you into the brave, lone voice of truth?" (I am
buffing my prose a bit, I admit.) "That's the trouble with you
Guardian journalists! You only talk to each other!" he retorted.
Israel accused of using Palestinian children as human shields
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2030222,00.html
Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv
Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The Israeli army is investigating whether its troops used two
Palestinian children as human shields during a house search operation
in the West Bank following claims by the Israeli human rights
organisation B'Tselem.
The use of human shields to deter gunmen from opening fire on soldiers
was banned by Israel's supreme court and forbidden by the army.
However the practice, in which soldiers force Palestinians to
approach, enter and search buildings where they believe gunmen may be
hiding, remains common.
Israel planned for Lebanon war months in advance, PM says
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2029731,00.html
=B7 Olmert's leaked testimony contradicts earlier remarks
=B7 Criticism from inquiry may force resignation
Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
Preparations for Israel's war in Lebanon last summer were drawn up at
least four months before two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by
Hizbullah in July, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, has admitted.
His submission to a commission of inquiry, leaked yesterday,
contradicted the impression at the time that Israel was provoked into
a battle for which it was ill-prepared. Mr Olmert told the Winograd
commission, a panel of judges charged with investigating Israel's
perceived defeat in the 34-day war, that he first discussed the
possibility of war in January and asked to see military plans in
March.
Bush faces protests and tight security
http://www.guardian.co.uk/brazil/story/0,,2029999,00.html
=B7 President seeks to counter leftwing administrations
=B7 US accused of not paying attention to neighbours
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
President George Bush last night started a five-nation tour of Latin
America in an effort to salvage Washington's reputation in the region
and counter the influence of Venezuela's president, Hugo Ch=E1vez.
Violent clashes were taking place between police and masked protesters
in the financial centre of Sao Paulo, the president's first stop.
Rioters threw rocks at police who answered with rubber bullets and
tear gas bombs. Bystanders fled the smoke-filled streets outside the
art museum as running battles erupted. Several loud explosions shook
the area.
Brazil's ethanol slaves: 200,000 migrant sugar cutters who prop up
renewable energy boom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/brazil/story/0,,2029962,00.html
Tom Phillips in Palmares Paulista
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
Behind rusty gates, the heart of Brazil's energy revolution can be
found in the stale air of a squalid red-brick tenement building.
Inside, dozens of road-weary migrant workers are crammed into
minuscule cubicles, filled with rickety bunk-beds and unpacked bags,
preparing for their first day at work in the sugar plantations of Sao
Paulo.
This is Palmares Paulista, a rural town 230 miles from Sao Paulo and
the centre of a South American renewable energy boom that is
transforming Brazil into a global reference point on how to cut carbon
emissions and oil imports at the same time.
Kidnapped Britons reported safe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2030214,00.html
Staff and agencies
Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
A group of British nationals kidnapped in a remote part of northern
Ethiopia more than a week ago are "safe and secure", Ethiopia's
foreign minister said today.
"Last evening, I heard that they are safe and secure. They are in good
condition," Seyoum Mesfin told reporters in Ethiopia's Afar region,
near where the group was abducted. He added: "We don't even know yet
who the kidnappers are."
The minister ruled out any rescue attempt, saying: "Their security
could be compromised if military options were to be utilised."
Film savaged by Hindu zealots opens in India
http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,2030265,00.html
Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi
Friday March 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
A controversial Oscar-nominated Indian picture has finally been
released in the country in which the script is set - seven years after
a horde of Hindu fundamentalists forced the director to shoot the film
in Sri Lanka.
Deepa Mehta's Water is set in the ferment of pre-independence India
and examines the social exclusion of Hindu widows, who are shunned by
society after the loss of their husbands.
Hindu fundamentalists in 2000 decided that the movie's plot and its
depiction of the appalling conditions experienced by a child-widow on
the burning ghats (pyres) of the river Ganges were an insult to the
country's dominant religion.
Democrats demand troops out of Iraq by 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2029997,00.html
=B7 Bold new strategy would veto war funding
=B7 Bush faces dilemma over withdrawal timetable
Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
George Bush faces the prospect of losing control over the conduct of
the Iraq war, after Democrats yesterday threatened to cut off billions
of dollars for troops unless he set a timetable for withdrawal.
In what was being seen in Washington as a bold new political strategy,
Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are preparing to
push through legislation that would demand all US combat troops leave
Iraq by August 2008. To meet that deadline, the US, which has 140,000
troops there, with a further 21,500 being deployed, would have to
begin withdrawal by next March. The only troops left after August
would be to train the Iraqi army.
Japanese prime minister fuels tensions over wartime sex slaves
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,2029775,00.html
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
Japan's row with its neighbours over its wartime use of sex slaves
deepened yesterday when the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, announced a
new investigation into the contentious issue.
Mr Abe said the government would cooperate with a study by a group of
Liberal Democrat MPs who are sceptical of claims that thousands of
Asian women were forced to work in Japanese military brothels before
and during the second world war.
Historians believe up to 200,000 women, mainly from China and South
Korea, were forced to work in about 2,000 "comfort stations" - a
euphemism for brothels - until Japan's defeat in 1945.
Geological knowledge to go online
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2029934,00.html
James Randerson , science correspondent
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
British scientists are leading an international effort to bring
together all the known geological information about every country in
the world. By making the data freely available and allowing
researchers to track geological features across national boundaries,
the project will make it easier to plan international projects,
predict earthquakes and locate natural resources such as oil and gas.
Bush and Chavez on rival tours in bid to win Latin American hearts and
minds
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2341359.ece
By Jude Webber in Buenos Aires and Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 09 March 2007
As George Bush arrives in Uruguay tonight as part of a five-nation
Latin America tour, his verbal sparring partner, Hugo Chavez, is
scheduled to hold a rally 30 miles away across the River Plate in
Argentina. The George and Hugo show is poised to start again.
It is unlikely that either will have anything particularly pleasant to
say about the other. Despite their symbiotic relationship based on
fossil fuel - Venezuela is the fourth largest supplier of oil to the
US - Mr Bush and Mr Chavez are engaged in a battle for influence in
Latin America. For once it is the US that is running second, with a
predominance of countries in the region headed by left-wing leaders.
New commander says there is no military solution in Iraq
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2341357.ece
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 09 March 2007
The US military commander in Iraq is looking for further
reinforcements while admitting that the war cannot be won without
reconciliation with militants.
The US administration announced in January that it was going to send
an extra 21,500 troops to Baghdad and Anbar province west of the
capital. Since then, the Pentagon has said that it will send a further
7,000 support troops of whom 2,200 will be military police, to handle
an increased number of Iraqi detainees.
Salamander robot's walk holds key to spinal study
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2341372.ece
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 09 March 2007
Scientists have built an amphibious robot to simulate the movements of
the first four-legged creature that emerged from the sea to walk on
land some 400 million years ago.
The robot walks and swims like a salamander, the living amphibian that
is thought to most closely resemble the first fish-like amphibians to
walk on land.
China proposes landmark law stating private property is not theft
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2341350.ece
By Clifford Coonan in Beijing
Published: 09 March 2007
It's not what the red flags, the hammers and sickles and the Marxist-
Leninist rhetoric would have you expect, but China's Communist leaders
have drafted a proposal to safeguard private property, saying rising
personal wealth needs better legal protection.
The proposed property law being debated by China's annual parliament,
the National People's Congress, is the first to cover an individual's
right to own assets in China - and it is proving political dynamite.
Leading British institutions gripped by racism rows
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2341371.ece
Three British institutions are engulfed by race rows - but the
protagonists all deny any charges of bigotry
By Robert Verkaik
Published: 09 March 2007
Britain's institutions stand accused of fostering a climate of casual
racism after a series of race rows yesterday provoked clashes between
MPs, academics and leaders of the black and Asian communities.
In the most high-profile case, David Cameron, the Tory party leader,
was forced to sack his frontbench spokesman on homeland security,
Patrick Mercer, because he suggested that being called a "black
*****" was part and parcel of life in the Army for ethnic minority
soldiers.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Where is the shame over this tide of filth?
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/yasmin_alibhai_brown/articl=
e2341324.ece
Published: 09 March 2007
I am utterly depressed. For the past couple of years, racism has been
rehabilitated and all that national soul searching brought in by New
Labour with the (Stephen) Lawrence report in 1999 has been washed
away. The shame and people really understanding how racism carries on
has been washed away.
That report held institutions and gatekeepers to account. It wasn't
saying you could ever get rid of people's feelings about one another,
but institutions in progressive democracies don't live by that rule
and shouldn't. I thought we had learnt that. I thought that key
institutions had ingested what needed to be done about racism and why
it is an evil.
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