Farewell Ohio
Martin Kettle
October 18, 2006 06:25 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_kettle/2006/10/post_514.html
As the redoubtable American political analyst Charlie Cook has been
putting it recently, let's get the disclaimer out of the way at the
start. There are still nearly three weeks to go before the November 7
US midterm elections and things could change, making what follows not
merely obsolete but the ammunition for two years of told-you-so mockery
from victorious Republicans.
That said, the Republicans are staring at defeat in these midterms.
Cook himself says their prospects are the worst since the Watergate
year of 1974. How can anyone be so sure? The answer lies in one word:
Ohio.
Food for non-violent thoughts
Felicity Lawrence
October 18, 2006 05:53 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/felicity_lawrence/2006/10/omega3_junk_f=
ood_and_violence.html
The idea that modern diets might affect our brains and thus our
behaviour is at once shocking and, as Bernard Gesch, a senior research
fellow at Oxford University says, "bleeding obvious".
Gesch points out that the brain is a "metabolic powerhouse, which
despite being only 2% of our body mass consumes about 20% of available
energy" and 12% of the heart's output to supply it with nutrients.
These nutrients are classed as essential for the normal functioning of
the brain; in other words there are likely to be consequences if we
don't get them in our diet.
Death in Darfur
Eric Reeves
October 18, 2006 05:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/eric_reeves/2006/10/reeves.html
Although there are perverse pockets of skepticism about whether
atrocities in Darfur amount to genocide, the evidence provided by human
rights organisations and UN assessments over the past three and a half
years incinerates all but the most obdurate or politically motivated
doubt. The narrative of ethnically-targeted human destruction has
become numbingly, terrifyingly familiar.
As part of a ghastly counter-insurgency war, the National Islamic
Front/National Congress Party in Khartoum, which dominates a merely
notional "Government of National Unity," has systematically attacked
non-Arab or African villages throughout Darfur, engaging in the
deliberately comprehensive destruction of livelihoods of those
assaulted. Food- and seed-stocks have been burned; agricultural
implements and water vessels destroyed; water wells poisoned with human
and animal corpses; mature fruit trees cut down; all buildings burned.
Midterms: Pessimism, paranoia and froth
Ben Whitford
October 18, 2006 04:37 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ben_whitford/2006/10/midterms.html
With less than three weeks until the elections, it's looking bleak for
the Republicans. But stories yesterday and today in the Washington Post
left both sides wondering whether the GOP's cash advantage will let the
party bludgeon its way back into the running. "It's probably worth at
least couple points in those polls, and therefore maybe a few seats
when the dust has settled," says Michael Crowley in the Plank.
At the very least, Dems are worried that financial constraints will
stop them taking full advantage of their position; TPM's Election
Central reckons the GOP has the upper edge in two-thirds of the top
House seats. That's enough for TPMster-in-chief Josh Marshall to call
for the Democratic presidential contenders to throw open their 2008 war
chests for the greater good. "Political money is not a zero-sum game,"
he writes. "But in the very short term that's a lot of money that could
be injected into these races right now."
The spirit of the Armada
Robert McCrum
October 18, 2006 04:25 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_mccrum/2006/10/velazquez.html
Stirred into action by headlines announcing "the exhibition of all
time/decade/my life" etc etc, I accepted an invitation to enjoy a sneak
preview of the Velazquez show at the National Gallery this morning.
The bonhomous figure of the director, Charles Saumarez Smith was
standing in the portico welcoming his guests, and soon after we were
all experiencing the special frisson that comes from roaming a major
national collection out of hours.
Power and impunity
Claudia Webbe
October 18, 2006 04:02 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/claudia_webbe/2006/10/claudia_webb_on_d=
eaths_in_cust.html
On Saturday 28 October, a remembrance rally will take place in
Trafalgar Square with a silent vigil along Whitehall to Downing Street
for those who have died in custody. Organised by the United Families
and Friends campaign, the event provides an annual reminder of those
who have died in custody of the police, prison and psychiatric care
institutions.
Serious questions remain about the disproportionate number of black men
who die in police custody following the use of force and the resultant
police impunity. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is
currently investigating the case of the businessman Frank Ogboru who
was in the UK on holiday from Lagos, Nigeria when he died in police
custody a month ago. Several reports indicate that he died while police
officers in London sought to restrain him during the process of arrest.
In August 2006, officers present during the death of Mikey Powell in
2003 escaped prosecution and paradoxically, during the same month, a
new practitioner's forum on deaths in custody was launched chaired by
John Wadham, the Independent Police Complaints Authority deputy chair.
This new group has already been widely criticised for its lack of
involvement and engagement with grass roots campaigning organisations.
Talking to the enemy
Dilip Hiro
October 18, 2006 03:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2006/10/post_513.html
The premature and copious leaking of the upcoming report by the Iraq
Study Group (ISG), appointed by the United States Congress in March,
raises issues that go beyond the political motive of improving the
Republican Party's chances at the 7 November Congressional poll.
It is not accidental that though the ISG is chaired jointly by James
Baker and Lee Hamilton, a former senior Democrat Congressman, it is
Baker who has been spilling the beans. A Texan lawyer, the 76 year old
Baker - who served as Secretary of State under the first President Bush
- is a loyal Republican and a long standing friend of the Bush clan.
Though not holding any official position in the administration of
current President Bush, he meets the White House incumbent frequently
to discuss "policy and personnel".
Lending hope to end poverty
Cameron Duodu
October 18, 2006 02:50 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/cameron_duodu/2006/10/the_man_who_wants=
_to_put_pover.html
The surprise winner of the 2006 Nobel peace prize, Muhammad Yunus, and
Grameen Bank, which he founded, is of significance to the whole
developing world and not only to Bangladesh, where he first implemented
the idea of microcredit.
This was recognised by the Norwegian Nobel committee when it said that
Dr Yunus and Grameen Bank had made microcredit a practical solution
with which to combat rural poverty in Bangladesh, while at the same
time inspiring "similar schemes across the developing world".
Skin-deep liberalism
Soumaya Ghannoushi
October 19, 2006 08:27 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/soumaya_ghannoushi_/2006/10/skindeep_li=
beralism.html
We often boast of the uniqueness of our system. We are not a
totalitarian society that crushes the individual out of existence and
tramples over his/her rights and freedoms. Ours is not a traditional
society that suffocates its members with the authority of the tribe,
its dated norms, rigid customs and smug chieftains. Nor are we
comparable with the communist system and its rationalised instruments
of surveillance, force and coercion. No, ours is a liberal, free and
open society.
But there are questions we need to ask ourselves. For, is the distance
that separates us from these systems we deplore really as great as we
have grown to believe? Can we take the gap that divides "us" from
"them" for granted? Are liberal societies completely immune to
totalitarianism and despotism? Could the boundaries between these
systems not be blurred? Could the liberal system itself not slide into
tyranny, whilst still preserving its veneer of freedom, tolerance and
pluralism?
Not on the nine o'clock news
Rory O'Connor
October 18, 2006 01:29 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rory_oconnor/2006/10/not_in_our_media.h=
tml
Do you ever wonder why our media devote so much time and energy to
covering those who produce hate crimes - and so little to covering
those who reduce them? Consider the latest case in point: a recent
gathering of more than 100 people from all over America - including the
head of the National League of Cities, a number of mayors and other
elected officials, police chiefs and law enforcement personnel, but
mostly "just ordinary citizens" - who are working together against
racism and intolerance in their local communities and standing up with
a message for the haters: "Not in our town!"
The Not in Our Town movement originated a decade ago in both community
and media action - but only the community aspect seems to have
flourished. It all began in Billings, Montana, when local citizens were
faced with a series of horrific hate crimes aimed at ethnic and
religious minorities there. KKK fliers were distributed, the home of a
Native American family was painted with swastikas, the Jewish cemetery
was desecrated, and finally a brick was thrown through the window of a
six-year old boy who had displayed a menorah for Hanukah.
A failure to act
Rebecca Corn
October 18, 2006 12:42 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rebecca_corn/2006/10/rebecca_corn.html
As part of the crisis response team for Amnesty International UK, I am
alarmed at the disparity between humanitarian rhetoric and lack of
action. For example, I have witnessed lip service being played to the
evolving concept of the "responsibility to protect" by members of the
UN security council (I have met with the US, Argentina, Egypt and
others) but an absence of any real change in support to those
experiencing horrific crisis. I want to ask whether, when you look
behind the rhetoric, anything has really changed since Rwanda.
A decade on from a genocide that challenged the global conscience and
prompted the assertion "never again", we have allowed rapes, killings
and indiscriminate attacks to continue for three years without decisive
challenge. Twelve years after the debacle in Rwanda, as a horrific
crisis unfolds in the Sudan, the word "genocide" has been stripped of
its power; dominant states no longer have cause to avoid its use and
can again hide behind the mechanics of realpolitik, failing to act.
This is the moment for Europe to dismantle taboos, not erect them
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1925401,00.html
Far from criminalising denial of the Armenian genocide, we should
decriminalise denial of the Holocaust
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
What a magnificent blow for truth, justice and humanity the French
national assembly has struck. Last week it voted for a bill that would
make it a crime to deny that the Turks committed genocide against the
Armenians during the first world war. Bravo! Chapeau bas! Vive la
France! But let this be only a beginning in a brave new chapter of
European history. Let the British parliament now make it a crime to
deny that it was Russians who murdered Polish officers at Katyn in
1940. Let the Turkish parliament make it a crime to deny that France
used torture against insurgents in Algeria.
This veil fixation is doing Muslim women no favours
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1925517,00.html
We need an honest debate about women and Islam. But the current
politically driven campaign is making that more difficult
Maleiha Malik
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
Muslim women welcome a debate about the status of women in Islam.
Intelligent, honest critique is an invaluable source of ideas for
Muslims as we begin the process of reclaiming our religious and
intellectual tradition. Muslim women also welcome feminist alliances
with other women in the task of challenging the misuse of power by
Muslim men - just as we can offer our own perspective on both women's
advances and setbacks in the west.
Clearly the lessons of Suez were lost on the Americans
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1925521,00.html
The events of 50 years ago marked the end of the British Middle East.
For the US, there are uncomfortable parallels
Martin Woollacott
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
Fifty years ago this month the Mediterranean was crowded with British
and French warships moving into position for an attack on Egypt. The
last serious negotiations on the status of the Suez Canal were
faltering at the United Nations, while the plot that would allow London
and Paris to justify invasion as a police action to separate contending
Israelis and Egyptians was being hatched. War was only weeks away - a
war that ended in political triumph for Nasser, military victory for
Israel, and utter disaster for Britain. But what would have happened if
the deception had worked, the canal had been seized in its entirety,
and Nasser had fallen? Would Britain's position in the Middle East,
which so concerned the Eden government, have been preserved?
The magic ingredient
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1925516,00.html
Charisma is a quality to be treated with a proper degree of scepticism,
rather than bathed in
David McKie, Elsewhere
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
These people had, or have got it, according to this newspaper over the
past few days: the head of a primary school in Birmingham who has won a
Guardian award; an ecologist, dead from a brain tumour at 46; the rap
artist Lupe, as demonstrated by his "vulnerability, wry humour and
rapid, twisting rhyming"; and the late unlamented Idi Amin, whose
portrayal in The Last King of Scotland revealed, Peter Bradshaw wrote
yesterday, "a mercurial panto-villain charisma".
End of the culture war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1925518,00.html
Now the religious right has turned against the Republican Congress, the
great revolution is over
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
The spectacle of hypocrisy, impunity and corruption engulfing the
Republican Congress has its origins in its rise in 1994, extolled as
the party's "revolution". First came the Republican Lenin - the
speaker, Newt Gingrich - determined to annihilate his enemies and
extirpate the "counter-culture". But after twice causing parts of the
federal government to shut down and being cited for ethics violations,
Gingrich was forced to resign, on the eve of Clinton's impeachment
trial, by fellow Republicans. (They had private knowledge: Gingrich
promptly abandoned his second wife for the mistress he had maintained
on the House payroll for years).
Free access to justice is not under threat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1925408,00.html
It's the status quo, and not reform, that threatens our legal aid
system, says Patrick Carter
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
Jonathan Freedland is absolutely right to say that legal aid has always
been a vital part of Britain's welfare state, and that free access to
justice is "no less a fundamental right than education or healthcare"
(It is worth fighting to save the least loved branch of the welfare
state, October 11). Yet it is not reform that is the greatest threat to
legal aid's survival, as he claims, but the status quo.
No magic bullets for Iraq, Bush strategist warns
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1925568,00.html
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
James Baker, the Bush family confidant charged by Congress with
devising a new strategy for the war on Iraq, has warned there are no
quick fixes to the rapidly deteriorating situation.
On one of the deadliest days for US forces in Iraq since the beginning
of the war, the White House yesterday came under renewed pressure from
Republicans for a change of strategy in Iraq.
But Mr Baker, the co-chair of a study group on Iraq, warned it was
unrealistic to expect an immediate solution to the problems. "There is
no magic bullet for the situation in Iraq. It is very, very difficult,"
he said in a speech to the World Affairs Council, in Houston, on
Tuesday. "Anybody who thinks that somehow we're going to come up with
something that is going to totally solve the problem is engaging in
wishful thinking."
Tigers raise stakes in tourist belt bombing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1925431,00.html
=B7 Rebels attack naval base in southern Sri Lanka
=B7 Curfew imposed as mobs target Tamil-owned shops
Randeep Ramesh, south asia correspondent
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
The Tamil Tigers opened a new front against the Sri Lankan government
yesterday when rebels posing as fishermen blew up their boats in an
ambush on a naval base in the southern tourist belt.
At least one sailor was killed, two are missing and a dozen were
injured in the attack in Galle harbour. Fourteen civilians were also
wounded. A pro-rebel website said 15 rebels had been on the boats and
all are believed to have died in the attack.
Political turmoil and street protests: rebellion's bitter legacy lives
on
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1925428,00.html
In the first of a three-part series to mark the uprising in Budapest
that shook the world half a century ago, the Guardian looks at how the
past still divides people
Ian Traynor in Budapest
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
Imre Mecs will don his habitual bow tie on Sunday evening and make his
way to the opera house in Budapest, one of the finest buildings in the
Hungarian capital, to recall the event that marked him for life and
shook the world 50 years ago - the Hungarian revolution.
Mr Mecs sat on death row in a dungeon in Budapest for six years as a
result of his revolutionary youth. He fully expected to be strung up on
wooden gallows by communist henchmen. For a long time, Mr Mecs, now a
73-year-old liberal MP, could not imagine winning free elections in a
democracy or attending solemn ceremonies at the opera.
Britain now No 1 al-Qaida target - anti-terror chiefs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1925698,00.html
Officials say group sees July 7 attacks as 'just the beginning' of UK
campaign
Rosie Cowan and Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
Britain has become the main target for a resurgent al-Qaida, which has
successfully regrouped and now presents a greater threat than ever
before, according to counter-terrorist officials. They have revised
their views about the strength of the network abroad, and the methods
terrorists are able to use in the UK.
Intelligence chiefs with access to the most comprehensive and up to
date information have told the Guardian that al-Qaida has substantially
recovered its organisation in Pakistan, despite a four-year military
campaign to seek out and kill its leaders. In that time, the
organisation has become much more coherent, with a strong core and a
regular supply of volunteers.
Darwin's entire works go online
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1925715,00.html
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday October 19, 2006
The Guardian
A missing notebook clutched by a Shropshire lad who circumnavigated the
globe, returned to Britain, and demolished the Victorian hubris that
humans stood alone as the pinnacle of creation is published for the
first time today.
The original notebook, which documents Charles Darwin's observations
throughout his five-year voyage to the Amazon, Patagonia and the
Pacific aboard HMS Beagle, is presumed stolen, but using a microfilm
copy, Cambridge University scientists today make it available free
online, along with the entire works of the scientist credited with the
most important advance in science of the past 300 years.
Space: America's new war zone
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1902195.ece
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 19 October 2006
The Bush administration has staked an aggressive new claim to dominate
space - rejecting any new treaties that seek to limit the United
States' extraterrestrial activities and warning that it will oppose any
nations that try to get in its way.
A new policy recently signed by President George Bush, asserts that his
country has the right to conduct whatever research, development and
"other activities" in space that it deems necessary for its own
national interests.
Tamil Tigers open new front with resort attack
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1902196.ece
By Justin Huggler, Asia Correspondent
Published: 19 October 2006
Sri Lanka's civil war came to the tourist coast in dramatic fashion as
Tamil Tiger rebels staged a sea-borne raid on one of the island's top
holiday destinations, the port town of Galle.
Disguised as fishermen, the Tigers reached the town's naval base in
five small vessels that had been travelling with fishing boats. Three
of the Tigers' boats exploded at sea, damaging Sri Lankan naval
vessels. Two made it to the shore, where the rebels attacked the base
on land, leading to an hour-long gun battle.
'Stolen Generation' of Aborigines wins apology and payout in Tasmania
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article1902189.ece
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 19 October 2006
Eddie Thomas was just a few months old when the white people came and
took him away. They took his brother and sister, too. The children's
grandmother had been looking after them, following the death of their
mother after Eddie's birth.
The three young Aborigines were taken from Cape Barren Island, off the
north-east coast of Tasmania, and placed in state care in Launceston,
on the Tasmanian mainland. Mr Thomas, now 70, was separated from his
siblings and brought up in foster families, where he was beaten and
"treated like a slave", he said yesterday.
Britain 'is blocking' cluster bomb ban
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1902167.ece
By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent
Published: 19 October 2006
Campaigners will launch a campaign today to persuade the British
Government to back a global ban on cluster bombs. The move coincides
with the release of research suggesting that up to one million
potentially lethal unexploded bomblets remain in Lebanon in the
aftermath of the Israeli attacks on Hizbollah.
Activists accused Britain of blocking negotiations aimed at securing an
international ban on cluster munitions when the international weapons'
convention meets in Geneva next month.
Veil row forces Muslims to defend faith, warns Johnson
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1902197.ece
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 19 October 2006
Alan Johnson warned Cabinet colleagues last night that their attacks on
Muslim women for wearing the veil may backfire and drive them to defend
their faith.
The Education Secretary used a speech in Brighton to caution Jack
Straw, the Leader of the Commons, and Harriet Harman, the Solicitor
General, who have been in the forefront of the calls for Muslim women
to avoid barriers that stop them integrating into British society
The limits of liberty: We're all suspects now
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1902830.ece
Identity cards. Number-plate surveillance. CCTV. Control orders. The
list of ways in which the Government has sought to manipulate and
define the limits of our liberty grows ever longer. Ten years ago, the
novelist and polemicist Henry Porter would have felt silly speaking out
about human rights in Britain. But that was before the most fundamental
assault on personal freedom ever undertaken. Now, he argues, it's time
we woke up to reality
Published: 19 October 2006
On new year's day 1990, three days after becoming president of
Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel looked his people in the eye and spoke to
them as no one had done before. It is difficult to read his words
without feeling the vibration of history of both the liberation and the
horrors of the regime that had just expired, leaving the Czech people
blinking in the cold sunlight of that extraordinary winter.
This is what he said. "The previous regime, armed with its arrogance
and intolerant ideology, reduced man to a force of production. It
reduced gifted and autonomous people to nuts and bolts of some
monstrously huge, noisy, stinking machine whose real meaning was not
clear to anyone. It could do no more but slowly and inexorably wear
itself out, and all the nuts and bolts too."
EU prepares for showdown with Putin after civil liberties restricted
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article1902180.ece
By Stephen Castle in Brussels
Published: 19 October 2006
Europe is seeking to bury its divisions ahead of a tense meeting with
the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who yesterday raised the
temperature on civil liberties by forcing dozens of NGOs to suspend
operations in Russia.
New Russian legislation, which requires any foreign NGO in the country
to submit paperwork to a federal agency, has heightened concerns over
basic freedoms in the wake of the murder of the campaigning journalist,
Anna Politkovskaya.
Sulking in the corner of Europe
Francis Sedgemore
October 19, 2006 09:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/francis_sedgemore/2006/10/sulking_in_th=
e_corner_of_europ.html
During a speech on Monday of this week, European Commission President
Jos=E9 Manuel Barroso effectively challenged the two likely contenders
for the UK premiership at the next general election to choose whether
Britain is to play a leading role in Europe, or continue sulking in the
corner.
Just ignore for one moment the pointless regulations, farce over the
proposed constitution, and trade battles with the US. The EU has many
faults, but Jos=E9 Manuel Barroso made some very good points in his
Chatham House address. I would go further and say that the UK's
semi-detached stance vis-=E0-vis the union of which it has been a member
for over 30 years is destructive for both the UK and Europe as a whole.
.
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