Another world is possible
Sasha Simic
January 22, 2007 09:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sasha_simic/2007/01/post_962.html
It seems rude to call anyone a "slum-dweller" but that's what the
people of Kibera are.
As seen in The Constant Gardner, a million people live there under
rusty tin roofs which disappear over the horizon, with limited access
to water, sanitation or power. On Saturday the people of Kibera marched
from their deprived suburb to the opening ceremony of the World Social
Forum in Central Niarobi's Uhuru Park under the slogan "Another world
is possible ... even for slum-dwellers".
I arrived with some friends and the banner of the Stop the War
coalition from the UK a few hours before the march and was astonished
by the energy and good-humour of the people of Kibera. Tiny children in
worn football shirts seemed to be everywhere and wanted to know if you
supported Chelsea or Manchester United - an obsession which every
Kenyan seems to share.
Running scared
Richard Adams
January 22, 2007 01:05 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_adams/2007/01/post_963.html
Why did Hillary Clinton announce the start of her presidential campaign
without fanfare or build-up? Why did she make the announcement on a
Saturday morning, the least news-worthy time of the week? Why did she
do it at such short notice that she would not appear on the Sunday
morning politics chatshows such as Meet The Press that abound on US
television? And why would she do it three days before the president's
annual State of the Union address, which will inevitably hog the news
pages and bulletins between now and the middle of next week?
The most obvious answer is: panic. Since Barack Obama made his
announcement last week, the Clinton camp must have felt a slippage in
support, in terms of money and talent, that led it to announce the
formation of her exploratory committee so abruptly. The Washington
Post's front page article put a positive gloss on the timing by saying:
"Her announcement was deliberately timed to come shortly before
President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday night, campaign
advisers said, so she can draw a contrast with the administration's
record and help focus attention on the office of the presidency."
Our leader, right or wrong
Faisal al Yafai
January 21, 2007 10:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/faisal_al_yafai/2007/01/our_leader_righ=
t_or_wrong.html
The one element missing from Alistair Beaton's fictional imagining of
Tony Blair standing trial for war crimes was the reaction of the
British public. To be sure, there are many who wish to see Blair behind
bars, and, as the bodies mount in Iraq, their number will increase. But
if it ever came to pass that a former prime minister stood trial like a
common criminal, you can be certain that large chunks of the British
public (not least the right-wing media) would be screaming about how
unfair it all is, how politicised, how degrading, how wrong that a
British PM should face an international court. Slights of honour are
rarely handled rationally.
Skip back to the present, then, and you've gone some way towards
explaining Iraqi reaction to the way Saddam Hussein was treated - not
just on his capture three years ago, but during his trial and
execution. Some of the reaction seemed bewildering. How could people
who recognised the brutality of Saddam's rule also seek to deny legal
process against him?
The world turned upside down
Nick Cohen
January 20, 2007 10:02 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nick_cohen/2007/01/the_world_turned_ups=
ide_down.html
The extract in today's Observer marks the launch of What's Left? How
Liberals Lost Their Way. The book is a history of a phenomenon that is
so commonplace now hardly anyone notices it: the willingness of people
on the liberal-left to support or, more often, excuse or explain away
totalitarian movements of the ultra right. The reverse side of this
debased coin is if anything an even more depressing story. Solidarity -
the noblest virtue of the old left - vanishes as people who call
themselves feminists, socialists and liberals in the rich world refuse
to support the victims of fascistic religious and secular movements,
even when those victims share their values. As long as the persecutors
are anti-American, their slaughters cannot be condemned unequivocally.
If you doubt that we are living in a bizarre time when righteous people
are off on an ultra-rightist binge, let me set you a test. Suppose I
were to show you an article that didn't quite support radical Islam,
but hid behind a wall of excuses for a movement that wants to subjugate
women, kill the homosexuals, kill the Christians, kill the Jews,
abolish democracy and establish a global totalitarian empire, and ask
you to guess the writer's politics? My bet is that you would reply
automatically that he or she was from the left - and that 99 times out
100 you would be right.
The west persists in using race to decide who can cross its borders
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1995727,00.html
What may look like a gatekeeper's hunch is the accumulated weight of
prejudice, entrenched by global economics
Gary Younge
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
One morning several years ago, an MP's secretary agreed to meet me off
a train in rural Wales and take me to her boss for an interview. The
train arrived on time and about 15 people got off, leaving just me
standing there. A middle-aged woman remained looking straight through
me for what seemed like an age before it occurred to her that the black
man with whom she was sharing the platform might just be the Guardian
journalist she was supposed to be meeting. She said she was expecting
someone taller.
He believed his love for his country would save him
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1995731,00.html
Murdered editor Hrant Dink did more than most dared hope to bring
Turkey - and his two peoples - towards peace
Fiachra Gibbons
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
The last time I met Hrant Dink he joked that he was "not dead yet". The
next time I saw him was on television last Friday, murdered outside the
newspaper he founded in Istanbul. Even with all the death threats, he
believed his clear love of his country would save him. "They don't
shoot pigeons here." Dink was an orphan. He was given up by his parents
when he was still a small boy. To be an orphan in Turkey, a country
where family is all, is a heavy burden. To be an Armenian orphan in
Turkey is to simultaneously carry the genocide and the troubled
consciences of all you walk among.
American exceptions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1995730,00.html
Two old men who died this winter personify the enduring wisdom of
another United States
Peter Preston
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
A gnarled, croaking country singer has dropped dead in his dressing
room, and the cast who loved him weep openly. There's no big deal here,
says the calmest and wisest eventually. "It's not a tragedy when an old
man dies." True enough: but it is a moment for reflection - especially
when two of the old men who've gone this winter were exceptional
people, making an exceptional point.
After the storm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1995741,00.html
Leader
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
Gallons of ink were spilt over the future of Jade Goody at the weekend.
This week attention is turning to the future of Channel 4 itself. For
an organisation run by a marketing man, the station has done a
spectacularly bad job of handling the fallout from Big Brother. The
tongue-tied radio performance of Luke Johnson, the chairman, was an
embarrassment. The belated television interviews by Andy Duncan, chief
executive, were not much better. And - when even Ms Goody herself now
concedes that her tirade of on-screen bullying was indeed racist - it
defies belief that the channel should at first have attempted to deny
it, or to have sought comfort in debating what constitutes racism.
BBC in talks on Google link-up
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1995910,00.html
Mark Sweney and Jemima Kiss
Monday January 22, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk
The BBC is in advanced negotiations with Google to make programming
available via a branded channel on the search giant's video-sharing
site, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.
It is understood that BBC executives are keen that the deal, which
involves BBC Worldwide and the BBC, is eventually expanded to include
putting content on Google-owned YouTube.
BBC Worldwide is understood to be looking at commercial options for the
agreement, such as a share on contextual advertising that will run
alongside BBC content.
One was the director of the movie in question - A Prairie Home
Companion, playing at a cinema somewhere near you. Goodbye to Robert
Altman, 81. Over four decades - from Mash to Nashville to Short Cuts -
you were the most remarkable of American film directors because you
were prolific, distinctive and constantly innovative. You had a wry,
sometimes acid wit. You were a master of orchestration, of creating a
myriad screen stage where lives intersected, inter-reacted and then
passed on. You were always supremely relaxed; your great gift was to
make the infernally difficult seem easy.
Hillary and the Democrats choose web as the new deal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1995821,00.html
Party hopefuls signal their White House intentions with videos on
internet
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
Democratic presidential hopefuls showed over the weekend the increasing
dominance of the web as a political tool. Hillary Clinton and the
lesser-known Bill Richardson both opted against the traditional launch
- a televised speech in a hall or other public arena, surrounded by
family, flags and a few dozen supporters - and announced their
intentions on the internet.
Mrs Clinton, the frontrunner, made her case for the Democratic
nomination on Saturday on her website (www.hillaryclinton.com), the
centrepiece of which was a well-rehearsed video in which she said: "I'm
in and I am in to win." She promised to hold web chats today, tomorrow
and Wednesday: "Let's talk. Let's chat," she said.
Stars become a diamond's best friend in row over warzone film
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1995775,00.html
=B7 Celebrities sponsored to lead industry fightback
=B7 Gem sales increasing despite negative publicity
Jeevan Vasagar, Terry Macalister and Marianne Barriaux
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
At first glance it is standard Hollywood red carpet fare: A-list
celebrities such as Beyonc=E9 Knowles and Jennifer Lopez brandishing
their diamond jewellery for the cameras. But there is much more to
these photocalls than mere fashion statement.
The stars are part of a multimillion-dollar campaign by the industry to
head off a potential public relations disaster in the form of a new
Hollywood film that portrays the gemstones as a warlord's best friend.
Blood Diamond, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and is set during Sierra
Leone's diamond-fuelled civil war, has its British premiere tomorrow
night.
Senator warns against arms race
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1995755,00.html
Desmond Butler in Washington
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
Jospeh Biden, the chairman of the Senate's foreign relations committee,
warned against fostering an arms race in space yesterday after China
was reported to have conducted an anti-satellite weapons test earlier
this month.
Mr Biden, a Democrat, called the test provocative, but said the US had
ways of combatting the threat posed by the Chinese test. "I don't think
we should be overly worried about this at this point," he told Fox
News."We have ways to deal with that ability. "The US said China
conducted the test earlier this month in which an old Chinese weather
satellite was destroyed by a missile.
Nationalists triumph in Serbian elections
http://www.guardian.co.uk/serbia/article/0,,1995652,00.html
=B7 Voters spurn western pleas to shun extremists
=B7 Winning party unlikely to be able to form coalition
Ian Traynor, Europe editor
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
Extreme nationalists led by a former warlord on trial for crimes
against humanity romped to a comfortable victory yesterday in Serbia's
most critical general election in years. But the Serbian Radical
party's election triumph, six points ahead of their liberal
pro-European rivals, left the extremists probably unable to cobble
together a coalition government.
According to early projections last night by independent poll monitors
and partial results from the state election watchdog, the Radicals took
around 29% of the vote, a point up on the last election in 2003 despite
a campaign by western leaders to persuade Serbs to reject the
nationalists.
Iran president defiant in face of critical MPs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1995749,00.html
Robert Tait in Tehran
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, defied his domestic critics
yesterday by vowing not to retreat from his nuclear and economic
policies despite growing pressure.
Addressing MPs, he dismissed last month's UN security council
resolution imposing sanctions for Iran's refusal to suspend uranium
enrichment, and said further embargoes would not halt the country's
nuclear programme. He also claims to have tamed inflation amid an
outcry over rising prices.
"The UN resolution was born dead and even if they issue 10 more of such
resolutions it will not affect Iran's economy and policies," Mr
Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech to parliament introducing next
year's budget. "We have become a nuclear country today without
promising anything to the major powers and this is a great victory that
belongs to the people and the parliament."
Carter denies his book is anti-semitic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1995642,00.html
Charles Odum in Athens, Georgia
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
President Jimmy Carter has defended his book Palestine: Peace not
Apartheid after a barrage of criticism that it was unfair on Israel,
saying it has not weakened his resolve for fair treatment of Israelis
and Palestinians.
"I have been called a liar," Mr Carter said at a town hall meeting on
Saturday, the second day of a three-day symposium on his presidency at
Georgia university. "I have been called an anti-semite, I have been
called a bigot. I have been called a plagiarist. I have been called a
coward. Those kind of accusations, they concern me, but they don't
detract from the fact the book is accurate and is needed."
Charity is uppermost in the brain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1995644,00.html
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Monday January 22, 2007
The Guardian
Neuroscientists have found the brain's charity spot: a region that
determines whether we put others before ourselves.
A team led by Scott Huettel and Dharol Tankersley of Duke University
Medical Centre in North Carolina found that an area at the top and back
of the brain is busier in more altruistic people.
Israelis prepare public for conflict with 'genocidal' Iranian regime
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2175028.ece
By Anne Penketh in Herzliya, Israel
Published: 22 January 2007
Senior Israeli politicians and analysts appear to be preparing the
public for military conflict with Iran as the Iranian President again
refused to bow to international demands to curb its nuclear ambitions,
and Tehran announced fresh military manoeuvres.
Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu told a security forum in
Herzliya yesterday that individual states and companies should go
beyond the UN economic sanctions. He argued that the first step should
be to invoke financial sanctions to "divest genocide" and "delegitimise
the regime of Iran through economic and political pressure".
Aid groups pull out of Darfur refugee camp after rape
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2174975.ece
By Alex Duval Smith in Paris and Jonathan Erasmus in Nyala, South
Darfur
Published: 22 January 2007
Aid groups have suspended operations in Darfur and may pull out of the
Sudanese province after a French relief worker was raped, another
sexually assaulted and an Oxfam employee was severely beaten at the
world's largest refugee camp.
Details of the attack, which took place on 18 December at Gereida
refugee camp, South Darfur, are only beginning to emerge. It marks the
first time a Western aid worker has been the target of rape - a weapon
of war in Darfur, where 3.5 million people depend on aid.
US troops surge into Iraq as death toll mounts
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2175027.ece
By Daniel Howden
Published: 22 January 2007
The first troops in President George Bush's "surge" arrived in Baghdad
yesterday to the news that America had suffered its deadliest day in
Iraq for nearly two years.
As 3,000 of the expected 20,000-plus new troops deployed in Baghdad,
the Pentagon announced that four soldiers and a marine had been killed
on Saturday in Anbar province raising that day's toll among American
forces to at least 24.
Pressure mounts on C4 over race row
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2175025.ece
By Terri Judd
Published: 22 January 2007
Channel 4 is coming under increasing fire from all sides as its board
prepares to meet today to discuss the furore generated by the Big
Brother race row.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human
Rights, has called on the television channel to publicly admit
mishandling the situation and for its chairman, Luke Johnson, to be
censured. The shadow Culture Secretary Hugo Swire accused Channel 4 of
"chasing ratings at the expense of good taste".
Stephen King: Chinese and Indians have the strength to withstand shocks
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/comment/article2175077.ece
Developed world inflation has risen but the emerging markets shrug
their shoulders
Published: 22 January 2007
I'm writing this piece sitting on a plane on the way back from
Singapore, following a trip that also took in Beijing, Shanghai and
Hong Kong. I've just been reading Jeremy Warner's comments in last
Thursday's Independent concerning both the Big Brother household and
the strengths and weaknesses of emerging markets. In his view "the
excitement that currently surrounds the emerging markets of China and
India, though fully justified in some respects, is in danger of
becoming overblown". He suggests that the "probable impact of a global
slowdown in the developing world [would be] a great deal worse than it
will be for us".
I know exactly what he means. Time and again, when the developed world
has a bit of an economic hiccup, the developing (or emerging) world
goes into freefall. At the end of 1994, after a series of interest rate
increases from the Federal Reserve, Mexico found itself unable to
attract the hot money inflows which had kept it going through the low
interest rate era of the early 1990s. The peso collapsed, interest
rates soared, and the economy headed straight into recession. In 1997,
after Alan Greenspan had warned of irrational exuberance and the
Federal Reserve, once again, had started to raise interest rates, the
Thai baht tumbled, triggering a wave of emerging market failures which
spread from Asia through to Russia, Brazil and Argentina.
Johann Hari: Jaded contempt for the working class
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2175017.=
ece
By any tangible measure, the white working class is the least racist
part of British society
Published: 22 January 2007
With the silent, echoing eviction of Jade Goody from the Celebrity Big
Brother asylum, the British people have shown that we know how to deal
with racism - and that we have no idea how to deal with a parallel
bigotry: our deep, and deepening, snobbery.
The headline in one right-wing newspaper summarises how the row between
Jade and Shilpa Shetty in the Big Brother asylum has been debated:
"Class vs Trash". Jade has been held up as the archetype of the white
working class, a symbol of all that is wrong with her kind.
Bruce Anderson: China now talks hard and carries a big stick
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/bruce_anderson/article21749=
79.ece
The downing of a satellite may have been a shock. It should not have
been a surprise
Published: 22 January 2007
Everyone is upset. In a feeble attempt to conceal the fact that no one
knows what to do, a lot of nonsense has been talked. Yet there is one
obvious point to make about China shooting down a satellite. It might
have been a shock. It should not have been a surprise.
A few weeks ago, the US and India signed a deal on nuclear technology.
Commentators interpreted this as American acknowledgement that China
was not the only regional superpower in East Asia. A weapons test of
this nature will have been planned long in advance. To put it mildly,
however, the India-US agreement would not have encouraged the Chinese
to hesitate for fear of upsetting their neighbours. They were happy to
remind the world who they were.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: The view from India: horror at these barbarians
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/yasmin_alibhai_brown/articl=
e2174976.ece
Everyone I met wanted to know what had happened to the once impeccable
Imperial nation
Published: 22 January 2007
I was in India this past fortnight, invited over by the Indian Council
for Cultural Relations ( ICCR), to perform my one-woman show, a homage
to Shakespeare.
The show was staged in three major cities where I was also scheduled to
lecture to various audiences on life as a brown immigrant in Britain.
My talk was titled: "The Worst of Lands; the Best of Lands".
One form of prejudice reveals another
Brendan O'Neill
January 22, 2007 12:04 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brendan_oneill/2007/01/the_most_poisono=
us_prejudice.html
There have been some disgusting expressions of prejudice in British
public life over the past few days. Foul-mouthed insults have been
hurled at a defenceless woman just because of where she comes from, how
she speaks and what she supposedly represents. Worse, an entire
community has been branded as vile, amoral and corrupt on the basis of
this individual woman's flaws and faults. Yes, liberal commentators'
assaults on Jade Goody over the past week have been obscene.
The great irony of the "Jade v Shilpa" debacle is that in the same
breath that commentators denounce Jade and her sidekicks Jo O'Meara and
Danielle Lloyd for being prejudiced and ignorant, they express their
own ignorant prejudices about entire swathes of people. Jade's idiotic
utterance of the phrase "Shilpa Poppadom" has, unbelievably, been held
up as an indictment of the entire white working class, who have been
described as fat, thick, ugly and vile. You almost get the impression
that some people were waiting with bated breath for a moment like this
to arrive, such was the speed with which they unleashed their torrents
of abuse against the "underclass". At last, they seemed to think to
themselves, we can attack those ignoramuses while posing as tolerant
opponents of prejudice.
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