Beating about the Bush
Open Thread
December 7, 2006 02:40 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2006/12/beating_about_the_b=
ush.html
Today's leader suggests that George Bush could go down as the worst
president in the history of the United States. His foreign policy is
under fire, especially after the publication of Iraq Study Group
report, which found that "stability in Iraq remains elusive and the
situation is deteriorating." From Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, the
strategies of his administration have divided opinion. Things are not
looking good on the home front either; the Republicans' poor showing in
the midterm elections, losing both Houses in the Capitol, was seen by
most commentators as a judgment on the Bush White House.
Opportunities lost
David Corn
December 7, 2006 03:38 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_corn/2006/12/post_759.html
Yesterday morning, as I drove through Washington traffic toward Capitol
Hill, I composed a list of questions to pose to former secretary of
state James Baker at the press conference at which he and other members
of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group would be releasing their
much-anticipated report.
* After reviewing the Iraq war for nine months, Mr Secretary can you
state that President Bush - the man you helped reach the White House -
has prosecuted this war wisely and competently as commander-in-chief?
Go with the flow
Tim Radford
December 7, 2006 04:13 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_radford/2006/12/water_torture_marti=
an_fashion.html
Mars has been teasing Earthlings for more than a century. Victorian
astronomers thought they could see canals - to be fair, water channels
rather than engineered canals - on the fourth rock from the sun. One of
them even thought he could see seasonal changes in the colour of the
Red Planet, in response to a spring greening. HG Wells peopled the
planet with technologically superior predators and Edgar Rice Burroughs
began his literary career (he chose the pseudonym Normal Bean but the
printers changed it to Norman) with a story called Under the Moons of
Mars. Telescopes got better, and doubts grew, but, right up till 1976,
when the Viking mission touched down, planetary scientists were
prepared to imagine life on Mars.
Life of course, required water. Viking found vestiges of neither, and
Mars freaks went underground (they actually became known, in Nasa, as
the Mars Undergound). Then, in 1996, the whole life and water on Mars
thing started all over again when a Nasa scientist claimed to have seen
fossil bacteria evidence in a meteorite known to come from Mars. Where
there are microbes, there is life, and where there is life there must
be water. So Europe and the US began planning to blitz Mars with
missions every two years or so for the next decade or more. In the past
40 years, the Russians and the Americans met a lot of bad luck in their
attempts to get to Mars but they went on trying. There must, everybody
reasoned, have once been water there. You could look at photographs and
see dried up lakebeds, flash flood patterns, fossil river deltas and
even raised beaches. There must once have been seas, and if there had
once been seas, there must have been a dense atmosphere to keep them
liquid.
When fighting talk misfires
Malcolm Rifkind
December 7, 2006 04:44 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/malcolm_rifkind/2006/12/fighting_talk.h=
tml
Retired generals can often be "weapons of significant destruction", and
General Sir Mike Jackson is the latest to fulfil that description. He
has criticised the way that the Ministry of Defence runs the armed
forces and has stated that the needs of soldiers and their families are
being neglected in favour of "affordability".
Some have criticised him for speaking out, but as a private citizen and
not a serving officer as was the case with General Sir Richard Dannatt,
he is perfectly entitled to make public the concerns that he had
previously made in private to the government.
Planet Blitcon? It doesn't exist
Robert McCrum
December 7, 2006 06:16 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_mccrum/2006/12/post_764.html
I've just read a ludicrous piece in the New Statesman by Ziauddin
Sardar, the thesis of which is to suggest that Martin Amis, Salman
Rushdie and Ian McEwan are "in the vanguard of British literary
neoconservatives, or if you like, the 'Blitcons'."
Never mind Planet Blitcon (the sort of ludicrous acronym a
self-important international bureacrat might dream up), Planet Sardar
is barely on any intellectual radar I'd care to consult. The suggestion
that these three novelists, who would (I think) be surprised to hear
that they "dominate" the English literary landscape, have a "clear
global political agenda" is as bizarre as it is misconceived. Further,
to describe their shared opinions as "the Blitcon project" is simply
nuts.
Selling Iraq
Julian Borger
December 7, 2006 06:39 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/julian_borger/2006/12/julian_borger_on_=
isg.html
Commissions of enquiry have been part of the American political scene
long enough to have accrued their own rituals, from the selection of
well-connected pensioners, to the quickening drumbeat of leaks, to the
orchestrated climax of publication day, when the grand conclusion is
transformed into a product - and the ad-men move in.
In the case of the Iraq Study Group, the product is a road-map claiming
to show the way out of Iraq, sold under the sort of slogan normally
chosen by stockbroker firms trying to make themselves seem less fusty
than they are. "The Way Forward - A New Approach" conveys the same mix
of reassuring familiarity and calculating boldness.
Simple, chilling lessons
Daniel Davies
December 7, 2006 07:03 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daniel_davies/2006/12/the_decent_interv=
al_has_begun.html
I am glad that the period has ended during which it was considered
unserious or politically naive to draw comparisons between Iraq and
Vietnam. With the publication of the Baker report and the
recommendation to begin withdrawing combat troops while leaving
military advisers in place, the US government is quite transparently
moving toward a policy exactly like "Vietnamisation".
The lessons of Vietnam are simple and chilling, and spelt out in Frank
Snepp's excellent book Decent Interval. The withdrawal has begun, and
all that is left is a face-saving period during which it can be made to
appear that the US has "not won but not lost". But that does not mean
that the disaster is over.
Does race still matter?
Rob Capriccioso
December 7, 2006 07:35 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rob_capriccioso/2006/12/rob_c_on_scotus=
..html
Yes, folks, middle and high income people in the U.S. are getting super
excited - for the next season of American Idol, that is. They'll have
to wait, though, because, before Simon Cowell even begins his annual
fest of eye-rolling, many will be forced to open presents wrapped gaily
under bright Christmas trees. And some will even have to attend special
holiday parties with families, friends and colleagues, many of them
decked out in the best attire they can afford.
At the same time, a bunch of rich old people - we call them the Supreme
Court - will be prepping themselves to decide whether the institutional
promotion of racial diversity is needed in public schools anymore. As
the Associated Press reports, cases from Seattle and Louisville, Ky.,
have brought the issue before the Supremes for the first time since
2003, when a 5-4 ruling involving University of Michigan college
admissions practices upheld the limited consideration of race in
college admissions to attain a diverse student body.
A dose of pessimism
Joshua Foa Dienstag
December 7, 2006 08:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/joshua_foa_dienstag/2006/12/dienstag.ht=
ml
The confirmation of Robert Gates as defence secretary and the release
of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group represent a clear
turning point in US military policy. Whether they represent anything
other than that depends on something more abstract than troop levels
and regional conferences: it depends on whether the Bush administration
is willing to give up the unbridled historical optimism which has
guided its foreign policy to such disastrous results.
"History has a visible direction," President Bush proclaimed at his
second inaugural, "set by liberty and the author of liberty." Grand
rhetoric of this sort has largely evaporated from White House
pronouncements, but it is a real question whether such faith in our
inevitable destiny has been replaced with anything other than ad hoc
maneuvering. Both Gates and James Baker, the co-chair of the Iraq Study
Group, are known for their bureaucratic skills, not their political
vision. There is, however, a real alternative available, though it has
never had a good reputation in American political culture: its name is
pessimism.
The neocons have finished what the Vietcong started
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1967420,00.html
Vietnam traumatised the US but left its power intact; Iraq, however,
will be far more serious for the superpower
Martin Jacques
Friday December 8, 2006
The Guardian
Just a month after the American electorate delivered a resounding
rebuff to the Bush Iraq policy, the great and the good - in the guise
of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) - have subjected that policy to a
withering critique. The administration has had the political equivalent
of a car crash. George Bush is being routinely condemned as one of the
worst presidents ever, and his Iraq policy no longer enjoys the support
of a large swath of the American establishment. The neoconservatives
suddenly find themselves isolated and embattled: Rumsfeld has been
sacked, Cheney has gone quiet, the likes of Richard Perle are confined
to the sidelines. The president is on his own and it is difficult to
see how Bush can avoid moving towards the ISG position. The political
map is being redrawn with extraordinary alacrity.
Don't expect peace soon
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1967421,00.html
Hostile forces have to be defeated before any meaningful Middle East
talks can take place
Jonathan Spyer
Friday December 8, 2006
The Guardian
Internal politics and wider regional strategy largely explain the
sudden re-emergence of talk about conflict resolution between Israelis
and Palestinians. The leading party in Israel's government has been
drifting, rudderless, since the conclusion of this summer's war with
Hizbullah. The big idea of prime minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party
was unilateral disengagement, which was implemented in Gaza in 2005.
But the results have included: the transformation of Gaza into an armed
camp as the result of massive smuggling of weapons; the victory of
Hamas in Palestinian Authority elections in January, at least partially
as a result of disengagement being depicted as an Israeli flight in the
face of Palestinian military action; and the failure of Israel to
achieve deterrence vis-=E0-vis Hamas-led Gaza, with the resulting
launches of Qassam rockets.
Caste prejudice has nothing to do with the Hindu scriptures
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1967431,00.html
Abuse of the caste system is a problem, but India's constitution
enshrines equality, says Nitin Mehta
Friday December 8, 2006
The Guardian
David Haslam went for the jugular in his criticism of Hinduism and its
caste system (Face to faith, November 18). He needs to be reminded that
Hindus have never carried out crusades against other religions and have
sheltered Jews, Parsees and Bahais. It is also a fact that even after
converting to Christianity, the caste system persists among the newly
baptised. Buddhists and Sikhs too have castes.
Rev Haslam laments the fact that six Indian states have passed
anti-conversion bills despite India's constitution guaranteeing
religious freedom. Christians practise their faith without any fear or
persecution in India, but there is a problem of missionaries targeting
the poor and vulnerable - Haslam alludes to this by saying 500 Dalits
were baptised with "Lord's Prayers".
Bush-Blair split over report's key proposals
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1967286,00.html
President rejects talks with Iran and Syria
Julian Borger in Washington
Friday December 8, 2006
The Guardian
George Bush yesterday rejected key recommendations made by the Iraq
Study Group, revealing important differences with Tony Blair, who
embraced the proposals put forward by the US bipartisan commission.
Those differences became clear after the two leaders met at the White
House.
President Bush flatly contradicted the ISG's proposal that Iran and
Syria be included in regional talks aimed at ending Iraq's worsening
civil war. He restated the White House position that talks with Tehran
were conditional on the Iranians stopping uranium enrichment, while
contacts with Damascus would depend on an end to Syrian destabilisation
of Lebanon and a cessation of arms and money flows over the border to
Iraqi insurgents.
Somalis threaten to fight 'invasion' of UN peacekeepers
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2055589.ece
By Steve Bloomfield, Africa Correspondent
Published: 08 December 2006
Somalia's Islamic Courts have vowed to fight African peacekeepers
deployed in the country after the UN Security Council voted to send
8,000 troops to the war-torn state in the Horn of Africa.
The Courts, which control vast swaths of southern Somalia, claimed the
resolution would "add fuel to the fire", likening the move to a
"foreign invasion". The country's fragile transitional government,
which controls one small town, Baidoa, and little else, welcomed the
move.
Rise of far right leads to fear and mistrust for Japan's neighbours
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2055584.ece
By Evan Williams in Tokyo
Published: 08 December 2006
On the tenth floor of a typical Tokyo office block, ranks of uniformed
men with Japanese flags and militaristic insignia are holding a
meeting. Reciting a 19th-century Imperial Japanese creed, they call on
citizens to courageously sacrifice themselves for the nation and to
guard the honour of the Imperial Throne.
They are members of Taiko-Sha, one of Japan's growing number of shadowy
right-wing groups. And it is groups like these who are at the forefront
of a concerted push to get Japan to move away from its post-war
pacifism.
Exhibition praises Genghis, creator of the 'Pax Mongolica'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2055580.ece
By Louise Jury in Istanbul
Published: 08 December 2006
In the year 1206, a central Asian nomad called Temujin used his
political savvy and charm to unite previously feuding tribes and found
the largest empire that has ever existed.
He was proclaimed universal leader and his exploits as the
all-conquering warrior of the great Mongol empire - which at its height
in the 13th and 14th centuries stretched from the Pacific Ocean to
Europe - have resonated through the centuries. His name, of course, was
Genghis Khan.
Independent Appeal: Crushed: the dreams of a good life
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2055568.ece
Attempts to regenerate Gaza's agricultural economy and provide
much-needed jobs have been welcomed by Palestinians - but blighted by
obstructive border controls. By Donald Macintyre
Published: 08 December 2006
Perhaps nothing better illustrates the soaring hopes and crashing
disappointments of Gaza in the last 15 months than the experience of
the Al Boh brothers.
Barakat Ramadan Al Boh, 53, sat and chatted this week outside his home
in Beit Hanoun, which still bears the scars of bulldozer damage done by
Israeli units which laid waste to the houses opposite during their
lethal six-day incursion into the town.
Joan Bakewell: The Christian lobby is flexing its muscles
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/joan_bakewell/article205553=
2=2Eece
Don't be taken in by resentment and crocodile tears in defence of
Christmas
Published: 08 December 2006
All those who hate political correctness have been enjoying a lively
sideshow this Christmas, with columns of newsprint telling with glee of
how 70 per cent of bosses in a recent survey said they would not allow
Christmas trees or decorations to be displayed for fear of offending
other faiths. Another survey proclaimed that three out of four managers
live in fear of being taken to law over improper incidents at office
parties.
Setting aside the absence of any connection between the Christmas tree
and the birth of Christ, we are seeing the annual crescendo of concern
that the Christian content of Christmas is losing ground. What with
Nativity plays in retreat and rumours of dotty councils seeking to
rename the whole thing Winterval, there's fuel aplenty to stoke the
fires of rage and resentment that seem to blaze forth at this season of
goodwill.
Dominic Lawson: So many people seeking to be the new messiahs - but
what's the point of it all?
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/dominic_lawson/article20555=
40.ece
This country's religious leaders have published a joint letter
declaring their green conversion
Published: 08 December 2006
We have a new beatitude. Blessed is the tax raiser, for he shall save
the earth. I am not just referring to Gordon Brown's pre-Budget report.
On the same day that the Chancellor sought our salvation through such
alleged good works as a doubling of air passenger duty and ending the
three-year freeze in fuel duty, various of this country's religious
leaders published a joint letter declaring their own green conversion.
Dr Rowan Williams, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, and Dr Jonathan
Sacks, together with the heads of Britain's Sikhs and Hindus declared
that "Research has shown that the future of our planet is at risk from
environmental destruction. We are consuming today our children's
tomorrow. There is no greater challenge for the present generation than
securing the future of the planet ... While there are no easy answers,
the religious voice provides a moral framework to address the issues of
environmental destruction and sustainability."
Patrick Cockburn: Cautious words conceal the true savagery of life in
Iraq
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2054593.ece
Published: 07 December 2006
The cautious words of the Baker-Hamilton report stand in sharp contrast
to the savagery and terror that dominate everyday life in Baghdad. Many
of the terrible disasters it fears may occur in future are in fact
already happening. It states that there is a risk of "a slide towards
chaos", but with almost 4,000 Iraqis being killed every month, the
chaos is already here.
"Ethnic cleansing could escalate," the report warns but, in reality, it
does not have to for Iraq to fragment into three hostile homelands for
Sunni, Shia and Kurds. Baghdad and central Iraq has already broken up
into heavily armed and hostile Sunni and Shia townships.
Argentum argumentum
http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/techview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=
=3D8369911
Dec 1st 2006
From Economist.com
The dulling of nanotech's silver lining
BEFORE there were antibiotics, doctors used silver in various forms to
kill germs. Newborn babies had drops of silver nitrate popped in their
eyes to prevent bacterial infections from turning them blind. Soldiers
injured in battle had their wounds dressed with silver foil. People put
silver coins in milk to prolong its freshness. Thanks to antibiotics,
antiseptics and greater awareness, we don't do anything quite so
silly these days. Or, rather, mostly we don't.
While silver in ionic form or as a compound with certain salts has some
antimicrobial properties, doctors used it in the past only because they
had nothing better. Sure, it turned the patient's skin a cadaverous
grey or blue-a permanent affliction known as argyria. But they
dismissed that as merely a cosmetic problem. Only later did they learn
that silver accumulates in organs of the body just like mercury, lead,
arsenic or any other toxic heavy metal. And while silver may not be
quite as toxic as arsenic, many silver compounds are extremely
poisonous. Quite a few are also carcinogens.
After Bush, the deluge
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8382091
Dec 7th 2006
From The Economist print edition
The field of presidential candidates grows by the day
THE first primaries are still 13 months away, but it's already raining
candidates. In just the past fortnight three people have more or less
announced that they are running for the presidency-Sam Brownback, a
Republican senator from Kansas, Evan Bayh, a Democratic senator from
Indiana, and Tom Vilsack, the outgoing Democratic governor from Iowa,
who declared his candidacy in no fewer than four states.
Hillary Clinton has held secret pow-wows with prominent New York
politicians. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have dropped loud hints that
they are running. And John McCain-who is not and never has been a
governor-turned up to a meeting of the Republican Governors
Association and hosted a rival shrimp dinner. The candidates and
soon-to-be candidates are busy signing up advisers and operatives.
Hotels in Iowa and New Hampshire are already doing brisk business as
people spy out the land.
Getting away with murder
http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/asiaview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=
=3D8377487
Dec 6th 2006
From Economist.com
How Myanmar and North Korea do it
IF THERE were a club for pariah regimes, those of North Korea and
Myanmar would be founder members. As it is, it is tempting to ask if
they have some secret channel for exchanging notes on how dirt-poor,
vicious, dangerous dictatorships can fend off external pressure. In
practice, in the self-reliant spirit venerated in North Korea as juche,
each has mastered the art by working it out for itself.
In Hanoi last month Condoleezza Rice, America's secretary of state,
linked the two, advising them both to follow Vietnam's example and
join in "the prosperity of the region". Diplomats and statesmen
have to devote an extraordinary amount of time to dealing with them,
among the world's nastiest regimes: a dynastic communist kingdom, and
a kleptocratic, superstitious junta.
Another election mess in Florida
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8382578
Dec 7th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
Big doubts about a narrow victory
SINCE it is a place where alligator wrestling is a recognised pastime
and tourists wear hats with Mickey Mouse ears, you might think that
Florida would be immune to embarrassment. But after its punch-card
ballots threw the 2000 presidential election into chaos, the state made
a decisive move. It outlawed punch-cards and spent millions of dollars
on touch-screen voting machines instead.
The perils of technology"There'll never be a hanging, dangling, or
pregnant chad again," vowed Katherine Harris who was Florida's
secretary of state at the time of the election. In 2002, Ms Harris was
elected to the national House of Representatives.
Out of Africa
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8381911
Dec 7th 2006 | NAIROBI AND LONDON
From The Economist print edition
A new kind of telecoms operator is evolving in Africa and the Middle
East
THAT mobile phones are transforming economic and social life in Africa
is now widely understood. Less well known are the companies that are
leading the charge. Following a flurry of deals over the past 18
months, five African and Middle Eastern operators are now vying for
supremacy. These regional powerhouses have worked out how to earn
princely sums in the world's poorest places. So far they have mostly
been too busy signing up new subscribers to compete vigorously with
each other. But that is now starting to change, and the industry is
preparing for a round of consolidation as the operators start to attack
each other's markets.
The five big operators are MTN of South Africa, MTC of Kuwait, Egypt's
Orascom, Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Vodacom, an
Anglo-South African firm. John Tiefel, a partner at McKinsey, predicts
that consolidation will result in three or four large operators
spanning Africa and the Middle East, with a sprinkling of national
firms. "All the operators have a very similar vision: to become
meaningful players in all these markets," says Phuthuma Nhleko, the
boss of MTN Group in South Africa, which has operations in 21 countries
across the region.
The ever lengthening road
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8381644
Dec 7th 2006 | ISTANBUL
From The Economist print edition
The obstacles in the way of Turkey's membership of the European Union
get ever more daunting
"FIRST they tied our arms, now they are going to tie our legs." The
words of a top Turkish official sum up the gloom in Ankara as European
Union leaders prepare for next week's summit in Brussels, where they
will once again argue over Turkey. Whatever the outcome, Turkey's
prospects of being the EU's first mainly Muslim member have never
seemed so bleak.
Turkey's long-delayed membership talks opened almost 15 months ago amid
much fanfare. "Hello Europe" read one newspaper headline. But the
talks soon ran into trouble over Turkey's rejection of the EU's demand
that it fulfil its legal obligation to open its ports and airports to
traffic from Cyprus (ie, the internationally recognised Greek-Cypriot
republic). The Turks rebuffed a deadline of December 6th, insisting
that they will not give way until the Europeans fulfil their own
promise to end the trade embargo on Turkish northern Cyprus.
The democracy dividend
http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8381789
Dec 7th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Latin Americans are less dissatisfied, but building effective
democracies in the region remains a long haul
THEY are a bit keener on democracy, more optimistic about the economy
and Latin Americans dislike George Bush and Hugo Ch=E1vez in equal
measure. Those are some of the conclusions suggested by the latest
Latinobar=F3metro poll taken in 18 countries across the region and
published exclusively by The Economist. Because the poll has been taken
regularly since 1995, it tracks changes in public attitudes in the
region. The picture that emerges from this year's survey is one that is
modestly encouraging for democrats.
Three years of economic growth averaging around 4.5% and a plethora of
elections in the region over the past 13 months have provided a
democracy dividend. Overall, 58% of respondents this year agreed that
democracy was the best system of government, up by five percentage
points from last year. That is still five points down on the peak in
1997, but it follows three years in which the headline figure remained
static.
Glittering towers in a war zone
http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8380843
Dec 7th 2006 | EL-FASHER, JUBA AND KHARTOUM
From The Economist print edition
Oil could break or make Africa's largest country. But at the moment
there is more breaking than making
AT THE confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile in Khartoum lies
Africa's largest commercial construction site. Across 1,500 acres, at a
place called Alsunut, Sudanese and Chinese workmen are working in
shifts around the clock to build a new Dubai: a vast complex of
gleaming offices, duplexes and golf courses that will turn Khartoum, it
is hoped, into the commercial and financial hub of Islamist east
Africa.
The first tower of this $4 billion development, due to be finished by
next October, will be the headquarters of the Greater Nile Petroleum
Operating Company. Close behind, in a building shaped like a sail, will
rise the headquarters of Petrodar. Both these companies-Chinese,
Malaysian, Indian and Sudanese joint ventures-are pumping out Sudan's
oil, most of which is being bought by China.
Finally clearing the air
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D83=
81900
Dec 7th 2006 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition
An American-led drive against one of the world's most dreadful diseases
could learn from past mistakes
"THE BELIEF is growing on me that the disease is communicated by the
bite of the mosquito." That insight won Ronald Ross, a British doctor
working in India, a Nobel prize. Defying age-old notions that malaria
was caused, as its name suggests, by foul air, he showed how it really
spread.
Given that more than a century has passed since that discovery, and
huge expertise on how to fight malaria has been accumulated, it seems a
disgrace that in one area of the world, sub-Saharan Africa, the
incidence of the disease has in recent years been rising; and that it
claims over 1m victims a year, mostly children.
The fog of the "new cold war"
http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/europeview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=
=3D8380552
Dec 7th 2006
From Economist.com
And guess who's winning, so far
LIKE analogies involving the second world war, the "new cold war"
is not a phrase to use lightly.
Or maybe at all. Russia is not now seeking military domination of
Europe. It is not a one-party state. Nor does it claim to be the
embodiment of an ideological success story. The once-towering edifice
of Marxist-Leninist ideology is as ruined as social credit or
syndicalism. An exposition of "sovereign democracy", as the Kremlin
now grandly calls its scheme of things, would barely fill a postcard,
let alone a textbook.
Down among the sinners
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8348610
Nov 30th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Dante's voice, after 700 years, still speaks to us directly
TWO literary colossi, one English, the other Italian, bestride the map
of Europe: William Shakespeare and Dante Alighieri. Chronologically,
Dante is the more remote; he died of malaria in 1321 almost 250 years
before Shakespeare was born. Yet Dante's greatest work, a long poem in
three parts called "Commedia" or "The Divine Comedy", lives on
as if written the other day, translations into English appearing with
clockwork regularity.
This year's version by Sean O'Brien, a poet who grew up in the north of
England, is a verse translation of "Inferno", the first of the
three segments into which the epic is divided (the other two are
"Purgatory" and "Paradise"). In 2002 Ciaran Carson, a poet born
in Belfast, produced a translation of the same segment suffused with
the violence of his city's political and religious conflict. In the
1990s, Robert Pinsky, an American poet laureate, wrote a racier and
suppler version. And, in the early 19th century, John Keats, an English
poet, was absorbed by a Dante that had been translated into English
blank verse by the Reverend Henry Francis Cary, an exercise that made
Dante sound a bit like a playwright in Shakespeare's time.
Banishing the dark
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8348675
Nov 30th 2006
From The Economist print edition
THE Enlightenment needs rescuing, or so thinks Jonathan Israel, the
pre-eminent historian of 17th-century Holland. In 2001 he published
"Radical Enlightenment". He now offers a second volume with a third
to come. This trio will be the first comprehensive history of the
Enlightenment for decades-and Mr Israel's groundbreaking
interpretation looks set to establish itself as the one to beat.
The period was once thought of as a glorious chapter in the history of
mankind, a time when the forces of light (science, progress and
tolerance) triumphed over the forces of darkness (superstition and
prejudice). Today, the Enlightenment tends to be dismissed.
Post-modernists attack it for being biased, self-deluded and ultimately
responsible for the worst in Western civilisation. Post-colonialists
accuse it of being Eurocentric, an apology for imperialism. Nationalist
historians reject the idea of a coherent universal movement, preferring
to talk about the English, French, even Icelandic Enlightenments.
Bad, but was it wicked too?
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8348684
Nov 30th 2006
From The Economist print edition
BOMBING German cities into a wasteland was terrible: anyone reading
J=F6rg Friedrich's book, now published for the first time in English,
will be in no doubt of the cultural destruction and human suffering
that it caused. For many Germans, the experience of reading the
unvarnished awfulness of their own, their parents' or grandparents'
wartime experiences was cathartic. The translation will fill a gap in
contemporary understanding in the English-speaking world of what
happened in the air in the second world war. Mr Friedrich deserves
credit for both his diligence and his descriptive powers.
For all that, the book is flawed. Many bad things happen in wartime and
countries that start wars often experience the worst of them. Its
implicit thesis is that the allied bombing campaign was a vindictive
and unprovoked attack on a country that itself adhered scrupulously to
the rules of war. That is not something a reputable historian would
argue. The author's outrage, and the sarcastic and melodramatic prose
that this fuels, dims any understanding of the context in which Winston
Churchill and his air chiefs decided that the air onslaught on German
cities was the best (or least bad) course of action, and stuck to this
even when the cost, to both bombers and bombed, became increasingly
awful.
Islam and the princes
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8348710
Nov 30th 2006
From The Economist print edition
WHEN King Fahd of Saudi Arabia invited an American army to defend his
country in 1990, after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, some said the kingdom
had a new national anthem: "Onward, Christian Soldiers". Saudi
Islamists were not amused. Fahd's fateful decision unleashed a stream
of Islamist dissent which has flowed to this day.
The nature of that dissent is explored in rich detail by Madawi
Al-Rasheed, a Saudi professor at London University. She sets out to
demolish the clich=E9 that Saudi Arabia is a religious state. On the
contrary, she argues, an essentially secular polity has co-opted a
religious elite which gives it a spurious Islamic legitimacy. In the
alliance of umara and ulama (princes and scholars), the princes have
the upper hand while the subservient scholars are left to police social
morality.
Let them come to Bombay
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8348718
Nov 30th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Indian film-makers don't need to be patronised by Hollywood
"CROWDED houses nightly", crows an old advertisement for
"Pundalik", the first result of an Indian's use of film to tell a
story. "Almost half the Bombay Hindu population saw it last week and
we want the other half to do so before a change of programme takes
place!" Alas, in 1912 so little of the Bombay population saw
"Pundalik" that the producers lost their shirts and quit the
business. The ad survives, but not a frame of the celluloid.
Mihir Bose, a London-based journalist with a childhood lived in Bombay
(now Mumbai) and an enormous love and knowledge of the city's cinematic
output, has put together a narrative history of India's century-long
affair with the movies which in many ways resembles the subject itself:
breathless, improbable, bigger-than-big and unafraid to dream. But the
term "Bollywood", a portmanteau joining of Bombay and Hollywood
that grew popular in the West during the 1990s, has never been of much
use to the men and women who churn out the product.
By the right, quick schinf!
Audrey Gillan
December 8, 2006 08:45 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/audrey_gillan/2006/12/post_768.html
They were sewing holes in their trousers when I arrived in Kuwait in
March 2003, before the invasion of Iraq. The British army was so short
of desert camouflage that many of the uniforms were threadbare, having
seen quite a bit of action with a previous owner - probably in the
first Gulf war and the first Afghan conflict. Some unlucky, sweaty
troops were forced to wear khaki kit and heavy black leather boots.
A few weeks ago, a soldier, who had recently returned from Afghanistan,
told me there was still a problem with trousers - at least in certain
sizes. And that was just the least of it.
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