I kid you not
Corinne Maier
August 22, 2007 12:45 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/corinne_maier_/2007/08/i_kid_you_not.ht=
ml
"Rien n'est plus beau qu'un sourire d'enfant," as the French are
accustomed to saying. Baby-mania is all the rage in the country where
fertility rates are the highest in Europe. But it isn't just France;
throughout Europe, children are in fashion: they're a must-have. And
if you haven't got children? You're taken for an anarchist, a failure,
or even seen as selfish. The accusation of selfishness seems
particularly ridiculous to me: don't we decide to have children for
selfish reasons? Isn't it because we are afraid of death and
loneliness that we reproduce - above all, that is, for ourselves?
Selfish or not, the "child-free" are not well regarded. Yet having a
child presents many an inconvenience. It costs a fortune, hinders
lasting relationships (many cases of parental divorce and separation
take place during a child's early years), and parents begin to drift
away from their friends (they are so busy at home that they no longer
want to go out).
May the force be with you
Gus John
August 22, 2007 12:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gus_john/2007/08/may_the_force_be_with_=
you.html
Trevor Phillips, former chair of the Commission for Racial Equality
and head of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, is behind
a scheme to get black military officers and police working with young
black men to tackle the problem of guns and gangs in our communities.
This news comes in the wake of the Reach report, which recommends that
the government roll out a structured national role model programme for
black boys and young men, supposedly to wean them away from 50 Cent
and gangster rap. That report also calls upon the government to
appoint a "minister for race" to oversee the implementation of the
Reach recommendations, although the focus of the whole Reach report is
on black males.
The report says nothing about white working-class boys and young men,
whom the schooling system has systematically failed in huge numbers
for over 100 years. Nor does it recommend mentoring and positive role
models for those white youths who use knives to kill in much larger
numbers than black males, or for the lager louts of middle England who
terrorise their sleepy neighbourhoods. Instead, the Reach committee
calls for the British equivalent of a Minister for the Bantustans of
south and north London, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol.
Examining your conscience
Claire Armitstead
August 22, 2007 11:15 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/claire_armitstead/2007/08/examining_you=
r_conscience.html
Tomorrow, along with thousands of other parents, I will push my
firstborn out of the door and doubtless pace the house, in the sort of
anxiety that used to be the preserve of expectant fathers, waiting for
the phone to ring. If it's good news, I will feel a bit smug; if it's
bad news, I don't know what I will feel, because I've never been here
before. For Thursday is GCSE day, the first big public reckoning with
a decision we made when our son was four: to send him to the nearest
state school.
I can honestly say that we have never wavered from this course, even
when yet another friend admits to having pulled Precious out of the
state system because it's not meeting her exceptional needs.
The tabloids' princess
Helen Carter
August 22, 2007 10:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/helen_carter/2007/08/the_tabloids_princ=
ess.html
I was working as a feature writer at the News of the World in August
1997 when Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Al Fayed died in a car
crash. On the eve of her funeral, I was dispatched outside Kensington
Palace Gardens with the hordes of mourners to capture the mood. I
spent the night and early hours of the morning talking to those people
huddled around tealights and makeshift shrines. It was a strange and
slightly surreal evening and as the night wore on, the people seemed
to become more hostile towards journalists. I was berated several
times, which I thought was fairly inevitable.
The public mood was turning - first it was the Queen and senior
members of the royal family who were not quick enough in responding to
Diana's death, and then it was the media who were held to blame for
what happened.
Enjoyable nonsense?
Michael White
August 22, 2007 10:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_white/2007/08/enjoyable_nonsens=
e=2Ehtml
One of our regular holiday rituals is the cross-Channel ferry which we
prefer to the Tunnel even on wet and miserable days like the one which
took us from Dover to Calais in late July. That wasn't the only
problem this year.
Coming back the weather was (briefly) perfect, so that one could see
the white cliffs quite clearly from the French coast. Magic. The first
time my wife saw them, at the end of a two-year odyssey all the way
from New Zealand, she wept. Home!
Long live cultural snobbery
Edward Pearce
August 22, 2007 9:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/edward_pearce/2007/08/long_live_cultura=
l_snobbery.html
What is to be done about Radio 3? The Rajar audience figures are down
between April and June of this year by 119,000 and, on the year, have
fallen by 51,000. So spokesmen are making spokesman-like noises and,
in particular, defending the latest "spring clean" by the controller,
Roger Wright, as something which "needs to bed down".
My first reaction to the opening question is: nothing at all. An
audience of 1.78 million for a programme of classical music, long in
earnest talk and flecked with avant garderie, is nothing to apologise
for. This is a deeply philistine country made more so by a popular
press resolutely half-witted. The comparisons made in the media with
the figures attracted by foul-mouthed disc jockeys are instructive
only about the nature of Great Britain.
Stand back!
Catherine Bennett
August 22, 2007 9:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/catherine_bennett/2007/08/what_is_the_r=
ight_thing.html
What is the right thing to do in the face of anti-social behaviour? To
sit back, as Jeremy Vine confesses he did recently, while a fellow
member of society is abused and picked on by a thug? Or to intervene -
always with the risk that the thug, or thugs, will just turn their
aggression on you? If a reformed Jeremy has now decided that the next
person to be offensive in his tube carriage will be at the receiving
end of his Oscar Wilde biography, perhaps law-abiding loiterers on
Comment is free should also intervene when a harmless fellow citizen -
let's called him Andrew Anthony - is set upon by a mob who describe
him, among other things, as a shallow, intellectually bankrupt,
paranoid, predictable, angry, simplistic - yet fashionable - war
propagandist, middle-ground ***** and colonial whose book
("anecodotal rubbish"), is evidence of the writer's "middle-aged self
interest setting in", at the same time that it belongs to "a muscular
liberal project of reviving Empire in the guise of liberalism".
Anthony's offence, so far as one can make sense of the abuse (what
remains, that is, after moderators' numerous deletions), is simply to
have become, far from uniquely, rather disenchanted with certain parts
of the left, a process he describes in The Fall-out, an engaging,
thoughtful memoir about his political development, from his early
espousal of anti-Americanism, and of behavior he liked to think of as
anti-establishment, to his current incarnation as a democratic,
freedom-loving liberal with a horror of reflexive, and fundamentalist
thinking.
Road safety
Seth Freedman
August 22, 2007 8:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seth_freedman/2007/08/road_safety.html
The Israeli transport ministry announced plans last week to scrap the
teams of security guards patrolling the public transport networks - a
decision met with derision by many commentators and politicians. The
talkback section of the Jerusalem Post also highlighted the level of
opposition from members of the public both in Israel and the diaspora,
many of whom sneered at the so-called "backwardness" of those
officials pushing for the cull.
Thanks to the series of murderous bombings perpetrated on local buses
during the last intifada, thousands of Israelis were deterred from
taking public transport, and only the beefed-up security presence on
the city streets encouraged them to brave the bus routes once again.
To many, the sight of the beige-coat-sporting, metal-detector-
clutching men and women of the private security detail reassured them
as they made their way to and from work each day, providing some small
comfort in the face of the continued threats of attack emanating from
the Palestinian terror groups.
The world is the wrong size
Andrew Brown
August 21, 2007 8:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/andrew_brown/2007/08/the_world_is_the_w=
rong_size.html
Unlike any other decent progressive Guardian type, I regretted the
resignation of Karl Rove. I would much rather that he had been taken
from the White House to be tried at Nuremburg and later hanged. It's a
silly fantasy, but an instructive one, for I am a child of the decades
when we expected that the whole world would eventually be run by some
benevolent authority that could, in the last resort, ensure justice
was done.
That idea, which now seems dead as the Holy Roman Empire, gave within
living memory a nimbus of hope and justice to all sorts of unlikely
institutions and political arrangements: the United Nations, the free
world, even world opinion. But now we are back in a world that
Metternich or Talleyrand would have understood, where power is its own
legitimacy, but it is too widely divided for any single country or
even alliance to appear to everyone to have the Mandate of Heaven, as
the United States did until 2003.
Slipping through the cracks
Victoria Brittain
August 21, 2007 7:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/victoria_brittain/2007/08/_late_last_we=
ek_in.html
Late last week, in a landmark case in the US, Jose Padilla was found
guilty of conspiracy to support Islamic terrorism overseas, and will
be sentenced in December, probably to life. The original charges of
him as at the centre of a dirty bomb plot in the US had disappeared
over the years since his arrest in a flurry of publicity in 2002. Last
week little media focus was on the fact that after 43 months in
solitary confinement in a military brig, including two year when he
never saw his lawyers, Mr Padilla had lost his mind. Dr Angela
Hegarty, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Colombia,
interviewed him for 22 hours, with great difficulty, as he resisted
her just as he had resisted his lawyers' attempts to represent him.
Her report of what had happened to his mind during this period, when
even his name was taken from him and he was called John Doe, is
chilling.
Dr Hegarty is the very person needed just now by a Jordanian refugee
in Belmarsh prison known as Mr OO.
Innocence lost
Conor Foley
August 21, 2007 7:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2007/08/innocence_lost.html
The extracts from Andrew Anthony's latest book The Fallout: How a
Guilty Liberal Lost His Innocence and the subsequent discussion on
Comment is free prompted two initial thoughts in response.
The first concerns his description of a column written by Seumas
Milne, just after September 11 2001 which, Andrew Anthony claims was
representative of a broader strand of ambivalence about the attacks
among liberal-left opinion. The second is his critique of "knee-jerk
anti-Americanism", which he says has become a shibboleth among this
same group.
A media mea culpa
Deborah Hargreaves
August 21, 2007 6:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/deborah_hargreaves/2007/08/open_letter_=
to_clara_furse.html
Dear Clara, how we all misjudged you.
We carped and moaned about your inability to fend off foreign raiders
who dared to have a tilt at a national institution like the London
Stock Exchange. Why didn't you come out fighting? we said.
Second chances?
Angela Phillips
August 21, 2007 6:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/angela_phillips/2007/08/second_chances.=
html
The reaction to the news that killer Learco Chindamo may not be
deported after his release from prison has been predictable. Jack
Straw, according to the Today programme, is angry, the Home Office is
"disappointed", the Daily Mail is insulted, and Frances Lawrence, the
widow of Chindamo's victim Philip Lawrence, is apparently
"devastated", though listening to her on the radio this morning she
sounded mainly confused and unhappy. Meanwhile, others are trying to
figure out who's to blame: the Human Rights Act, or a justice system
that ignores the victims of crime.
What Chindamo did was without any doubt terrible. A man died and his
wife, twelve years on, has still not recovered from the loss. But he
was hardly more than a child at the time. His father was an Italian
thug whose mother came to the UK to escape him. According to the Daily
Mail he was known at school as a "cry baby". How does a boy with a
reputation for being a cry baby manage to survive in a tough inner
city school? He learns to be tough. In 1950, Eric Erikson observed:
Campbell's coup
Hannah Pool
August 21, 2007 5:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/hannah_pool/2007/08/campbells_coup.html
"Black models are being sidelined by major modelling agencies. It's a
pity that people don't appreciate black beauty," said Naomi Campell to
Kenyan local press earlier this week, while on holiday in the resort
of Malindi. "Even myself, I get a raw deal from my own country in
England. For example, I hardly come on the front pages of the London
Vogue magazine. Only white models, some of whom are not as prominent
as I am, are put on splash pages. I don't want to quit modelling until
I find that black models get equal prominence and recognition by the
world media," she went on. Campbell, who first graced the covers of
British Vogue in 1987, went on to say that she is thinking of opening
her own modelling agency in Kenya, in an attempt to redress the
balance.
Campbell is, of course, not saying anything new - "Racism in fashion
industry" is about as surprising a headline as "Pete Doherty
arrested". But, while she certainly hasn't done herself any favours on
the likeability front, if there is one thing Campbell is to be
congratulated for, it is the fact that throughout her career she has
never shied away from talking about racism within the fashion
industry.
Vote for holidays!
Brendan Barber
August 21, 2007 4:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brendan_barber/2007/08/vote_for_holiday=
s=2Ehtml
Leaks suggest that John Gummer's Policy Review Group is to recommend
that we should all get three extra bank holidays a year.
This would bring us up to the EU average and would undoubtedly be a
popular move with voters. At present we have a miserly eight public
holidays (ten in Northern Ireland). The most recent gain was the May
Day bank holiday, won as a result of TUC campaigning in the 1970s.
Valuing women's lives
Cath Elliot
August 21, 2007 4:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/cath_elliot/2007/08/valuing_womens_live=
s=2Ehtml
After over two years of discussion and debate, Amnesty International
finally announced last week that it will be campaigning for women to
have access to abortion in cases of rape, incest or violence, or where
the pregnancy jeopardises a mother's life or health. This is a huge
step forward for women's rights worldwide, especially in areas of
conflict where rape is employed as a weapon of war or as a tool for
ethnic cleansing.
Unsurprisingly, this decision has led to an outpouring of condemnation
from religious bodies, most notably from the Roman Catholic church.
Only yesterday, the Right Rev Michael Evans, the Catholic Bishop of
East Anglia, said:
"The Catholic church shares Amnesty's strong commitment to oppose
violence against women (for example, rape, sexual assault and incest),
but such appalling violence must not be answered by violence against
the most vulnerable and defenceless form of human life in a woman's
womb."
Selective standards
Sunny Hundal
August 21, 2007 3:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sunny_hundal/2007/08/selective_standard=
s=2Ehtml
It has been mildly amusing to read some of the vitriol that has been
hurled at those at the Camp for Climate Action. Mahatma Gandhi was
attributed with a famous quote: "First they ignore you, then they
laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." And so it will be in
the case of modern pro-environmental movements.
All the talk this week in the press has been about how these "hippies"
were so smug and preachy, and probably flew to Heathrow to attend the
camp. Are environmentalists full of contradictions? Do they not
practice what they preach?
Waste not, want not
John Sauven
August 21, 2007 3:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_sauven/2007/08/waste_not_want_not.=
html
The principle that the nuclear industry should pay the full costs of
nuclear power generation is rarely disputed. In fact the current
ministerial push for nukes has been accompanied by the constant
refrain that taxpayers won't be paying for it. Energy minister Malcolm
Wicks reiterated in an interview recently that the nuclear industry
must foot the entire bill. As always, this promise should not be taken
at face value.
The costs of nuclear waste disposal and the decommissioning of nuclear
power stations are likely to be huge and occur after operating
companies have made their money and even vacated the industry.
Certainly it's the case that governments have taken liabilities off
the nuclear private sector before - and the Energy Act 2004 contains
powers which allow the secretary of state to direct the Nuclear
Decommissioning Agency to take over financing of nuclear waste
liabilities for private nuclear companies in the future should they be
unable to meet their obligations. In other words, if companies manage
to direct profits to shareholders, or simply don't make much money,
the taxpayer can be made to pick up the bill at the stroke of a
Whitehall pen. Those who think this couldn't happen should remember
that it already has - British Energy passed on its liabilities bill,
now estimated at =A35.3bn (yes, billion) - to the taxpayer to get them
back on their feet.
Beware the killer robots
Ian Williams
August 21, 2007 2:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/08/beware_the_killer_=
robots.html
The headlines said that the US was moving towards building robot
soldiers. My first thought was this was not such a bad idea. Robots
could be programmed to refuse to obey illegal orders, ranging from
illegal invasions of other countries to violations of the Geneva
Conventions.
They would carry out their duties without prejudice and would not get
stressed out at being under attack and unleash a torrent of fire
against any passing civilians. They could not really take much
pleasure in humiliating the "enemy," and so would avoid having them
posing for sexually humiliating photographs.
As a reformed addict, I can now see the full menace of a BlackBerry
habit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2153446,00.html
They might make us feel indispensable, but mobile email gadgets are
bad for relationships, bad for work and bad for the soul
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
I ought to warn you. If you send an email to the address at the bottom
of this column, I won't reply. At least not till September, which will
be the first time I see it. That's because, as you read these words, I
shall be on holiday, as far away from my inbox as it's possible to be.
I shall be bucking a growing trend and travelling without a portable
email device. The only blackberries I hope to see on my holiday are
the kind you eat.
This human rights hysteria threatens every one of us
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2153447,00.html
The furore over the decision not to deport Philip Lawrence's murderer
obscures our everyday protections
Katie Ghose
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Once again we are in the grip of human rights hysteria. Variously
blamed for allowing prisoners access to porn and preventing police
forces from publishing photographs of suspects, the latest attack on
the Human Rights Act relates to the decision not to deport Learco
Chindamo, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of head-
teacher Philip Lawrence in 1995.
Human rights have never been a passport to porn - nor were they an
obstacle to the conviction or sentence of Chindamo, who is serving a
minimum of 12 years for his brutal attack. But the truth takes a back
seat when there are juicy headlines to be made out of human rights
"lunacy".
A decade of injustice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2153448,00.html
Roisin McAliskey is facing a renewed extradition threat, but Stormont
remains silent
Jeremy Hardy
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
In May 1997 R=F3is=EDn McAliskey was released from Holloway prison just in
time to give birth to her daughter. A few days after the birth, still
on bail, she was confined to a psychiatric hospital. Some readers
might remember that a German prosecutor was seeking her extradition in
connection with a failed mortar attack on the British army barracks at
Osnabruck, and that a large number of people, me included, were
adamant that the then home secretary, Jack Straw, should refuse the
application. After many months, he did. Now, when we seem to be
commemorating the anniversaries of all years that end in seven, it
seems unbelievable that McAliskey is back in court today, facing the
same threat she was facing 10 years ago.
The state has only aided our seasonal spates of thuggery
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2153466,00.html
The August news vacuum amplifies violent Britain. But politicians
can't shirk the blame: they have torn apart local leadership
Simon Jenkins
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Why do Britons keep stabbing each other in August? Why do seaside
hotels burn down in August? Why do children disappear in August,
examinations get easier and Heathrow become the world's worst airport?
The answer lies not in reality but in appearance. News editors abhor a
vacuum. Half an hour of airtime and 10 pages of news must be filled
each day, whatever the weather. If a story normally confined to the
local press is given national prominence, so be it.
At stake in Sudan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2153449,00.html
This trace of hope offers a rare chance for Darfur. The global
consequences could hardly be greater
V=E1clav Havel
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
The critical conditions that prevail in Darfur are causing immense
suffering. Both sides of the conflict - the government of Sudan and
its allied forces, as well as all the opposition groups in Darfur -
must understand that civilians should no longer fall victim to their
political disputes.
The Sudanese government's consent to the deployment of the UN/African
Union mission, which aims to keep peace in the region, is a welcome
development. But the mandate of this mission must be strong enough to
allow for full protection of civilians. Moreover, the force must have
sufficient manpower and funding to put this vital objective into
practice. The countries and institutions that have committed
additional funds in order to help secure the success of this mission -
notably France, Spain, and the European commission - should all be
applauded.
Stop this idiocy now
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2153464,00.html
Humanity has nothing to gain from research into whether females prefer
the colour pink
Zoe Williams
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
I like to think I've been pretty quiet about it, but all things being
equal, I shall soon be in possession of a baby, whose gender I yet
know not. "Why didn't you find out?" people ask, and then, "But what
colour are you going to paint your nursery?"
Ah, the pink/blue conundrum. Over my dead body would a daughter of
mine be put in a pink nursery; unless, of course, she looks like a
boy, and I need to distinguish her in some way, otherwise she'll pick
up pre-linguistically on how discomfited I am by the boy-girl issue
and her gender-confidence will be negatively affected in later life.
If that's the case, she will be dressed in wall-to-wall pink until
such time as she is old enough to assert her femininity herself, in
some new, 21st-century way. Social conditioning is tenacious because
it is so convenient. Like air travel, it is much easier to rail
against than to eschew.
Quilt-making is as much of an art form as painting
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2153441,00.html
The power of a work is about how long it lasts in the mind as much as
in the physical world, writes Effie Galletly
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Germaine Greer is right about one thing: "It is really very difficult
to make pictures out of scraps of printed cloth" (Making pictures from
strips of cloth isn't art at all - but it mocks art's pretensions to
the core, G2, August 13). I spend rather a lot of time doing it, with
serious intent, my intellect fully engaged for most of the time - and
when it is not so I have the total ability to take in anything Radio 3
or 4 can throw at me. I have been called a landscape artist.
What is a zebu?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2153535,00.html
Justine Hankins
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Unless you are a champion Scrabble player, you have probably never
heard of a zebu - yet you might be better acquainted with this species
of cattle than you realise. There could even be zebu meat lining your
stomach.
According to ITV1's Undercover Mum, bits of these humped beasts of
burden are turning up in British pub food.
Police-officer-turned-TV-investigator Nina Hobson ordered beef dishes
in 15 randomly selected pubs belonging to two pub groups: JD
Wetherspoons and Greene King's Hungry Horse chain. DNA tests allegedly
revealed that some of this beef was less Belted Galloway or Welsh
Black and more Indo-Brazilian or Phillippine Native (two of the 75
zebu breeds, since you ask).
Iraq helicopter crash kills 14 US troops
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2153819,00.html
Fred Attewill and agencies
Wednesday August 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The US army in Iraq today suffered its most deadly helicopter crash in
more than two years when 14 soldiers were killed in an accident blamed
on mechanical failure.
The blow came as the US president, George Bush, and the American
ambassador to Iraq both stepped up the criticism of the country's
prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, for failing to clamp down on sectarian
violence.
Russia steps up military expansion
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2153669,00.html
Luke Harding in Moscow
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Vladimir Putin announced ambitious plans to revive Russia's military
power and restore its role as the world's leading producer of military
aircraft yesterday.
Speaking at the opening of the largest airshow in Russia's post-Soviet
history, the president said he was determined to make aircraft
manufacture a national priority after decades of lagging behind the
west.
The remarks follow his decision last week to resume long-range
missions by strategic bomber aircraft capable of hitting the US with
nuclear weapons. Patrols over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic began
last week for the first time since 1992.
Pro-democracy activists arrested in Burmese protests
http://www.guardian.co.uk/burma/story/0,,2153828,00.html
Staff and agencies
Wednesday August 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hundreds of pro-democracy supporters in Burma marched today to protest
at the doubling of fuel prices by the country's military government.
About 300 protesters walked from the outskirts of the capital,
Rangoon, encouraging onlookers to join the rare display of public
opposition as plainclothes police officers watched from a distance,
witnesses said.
The protesters scattered as junta supporters took away at least six
people in cars, onlookers added. It was unclear where the six were
taken.
Voters choose presidential system in Maldives referendum
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2153918,00.html
Stephen Abbott and agencies
Wednesday August 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Asia's longest serving leader, President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the
Maldives, has won an overwhelming victory for his party in a historic
referendum to decide the country's political future.
But the result is controversial, with allegations of vote-rigging,
intimidation, violence and bribery flying between the country's two
main political parties.
Gadafy's son calls for free media and judiciary
http://www.guardian.co.uk/libya/story/0,,2153654,00.html
Ian Black, Middle East editor
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Muammar Gadafy's son and likely heir has called for a new constitution
or "social contract" that would establish an independent judiciary,
central bank and free media while also ensuring his father stays in
power and that Islam remains the source of Libya's laws.
In a speech broadcast live on state-run TV and widely reported across
the Arab world yesterday, Seif al-Islam al-Gadafy told a crowd of
40,000 in Benghazi on Monday night: "The important thing is to have a
contract that will organise the lives of Libyans."
CIA blew chances to spot 9/11 threat, says report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,,2153780,00.html
=B7 Information on hijackers kept from key personnel
=B7 Former director George Tenet criticised for failings
Ed Pilkington in New York
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
As many as 60 people within the CIA read a cable referring to two of
the 19 hijackers involved in the attacks on America on September 11
2001 before the event, yet the information was not shared with the
parts of the organisation able to do anything about it, according to
the agency's own internal investigation.
The revelation is one of several damning findings from the CIA's own
watchdog, the inspector general, drawn up in June 2005. He accuses the
CIA's top officials in the run-up to 9/11, including the then
director, George Tenet, of failure to devise a strategic plan to
counter Osama bin Laden in advance of the attacks.
Iran frees US 'spy' on bail after three months
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2153632,00.html
=B7 Academic accused of fomenting 'soft revolution'
=B7 67-year-old interrogated and held in solitary cell
Robert Tait in Tehran
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
An American-Iranian academic detained for the past three months on
charges of "espionage" and plotting to topple Iran's Islamic regime
was released yesterday after her family paid =A3160,000 bail.
Haleh Esfandiari, Middle East director of the Washington-based Woodrow
Wilson Centre, was freed after an ordeal that included intensive
interrogations, solitary confinement and a televised "confession" of
involvement in an alleged US-backed conspiracy to incite a "soft
revolution".
Judiciary officials confirmed that she had been allowed to leave
Tehran's Evin prison after her 93-year-old mother had used the deeds
of her flat to post bail.
Lula unveils plan to battle urban crimewave
http://www.guardian.co.uk/brazil/story/0,,2153525,00.html
=B7 Brazilian president pegs nation's future on project
=B7 Five-year plan for 11 worst cities includes new jails
Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has unveiled a $3.3bn
national security plan designed to help slash the crime and murder
rates that have turned many urban areas into conflict zones.
Introducing the scheme, President Lula described the fight against
urban violence as "possibly the most serious dispute of our
generation", saying the unity of the country depended on its success.
'Chemical Ali' on trial for brutal crushing of Shia uprising
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2153527,00.html
=B7 Estimated 100,000 dead in rebellion after 1991 war
=B7 Saddam's cousin already under death sentence
Ian Black, Middle East editor
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Ali Hassan al-Majid, the notorious "Chemical Ali", faced charges of
crimes against humanity yesterday at the start of his trial for
crushing the Iraqi Shia rebellion at the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
Majid, a first cousin of Saddam Hussein, was the most prominent of 15
of the executed dictator's closest aides and henchmen in the dock in
Baghdad. He and three of the other defendants have already been
sentenced to death in another case.
Primary season gets shorter and sharper as states vie for influence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/story/0,,2153672,00.html
Earlier polls lead candidates to drop garden party chats for concert
hall razzmatazz
Gary Younge in Keene
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
At the Keene country club in New Hampshire, Republican presidential
hopeful John McCain stands in the middle of a room full of prospective
voters like a boxer taking on all-comers. The questions keep coming
from every direction and on almost any subject: education, stem cell
research, the war, small farms, milk prices, Chinese imports, moral
standards, fuel efficiency and the weak dollar. The room is not much
bigger than a church hall, crammed with a couple of hundred people.
It's about as up-close and personal as politics gets.
Fed chairman signals US interest rate cut
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2153517,00.html
=B7 'I will use all available tools' to calm markets
=B7 UK institutions forced to borrow at punishing cost
Larry Elliott , Andrew Clark in New York
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Speculation grew on Wall Street last night that the Federal Reserve is
bracing itself for a possible cut in interest rates after the central
bank's chairman made it clear he was willing to use "all available
tools" to calm markets.
With investors still piling their money into the safe haven of bonds,
Ben Bernanke used a meeting with US treasury secretary Hank Paulson
and Senate banking committee chairman Christopher Dodd to give fresh
reassurance to jittery markets.
Blackout over for Gaza as EU agrees to resume oil shipments
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,2153532,00.html
Conal Urquhart in Gaza City
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
The European commission said it would allow the resumption of oil
shipments to Gaza today after a move that left large parts of the area
in darkness for four days.
The electricity supply from Gaza's only generator began to falter on
Friday and was cut on Sunday. Fuel deliveries to the power plant were
suspended after the EU began to suspect the Hamas rulers were levying
a tax on the power.
Research boom in Arctic village as oil reserves draw big powers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/aug/22/energy.oilandpetrol
Countries battle for control of ocean tracts thought to be replete
with fossil fuels
David Adam in Ny-Alesund
The Guardian Wednesday August 22 2007
Lying barely 650 miles from the North Pole and shrouded in freezing
darkness for several months of the year, the Norwegian islands of
Svalbard make an unlikely property hotspot. Yet at Ny-Alesund, a tiny
former coal-mining settlement on the west side, an international boom
is under way.
The Chinese have moved in, bringing with them two marble lions that
stand guard outside their Arctic Yellow River research station, and so
too have Japan and South Korea. Scientists from India's first
expedition to the Arctic are poised to join them. In June, a visiting
delegation from Washington talked of beefing up US interests at Ny-
Alesund, while the Russians are in negotiations.
While the west takes a battering, China weathers the global storm
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2153444,00.html
Stampede to Shanghai shows strength of far east market but analysts
wonder how long it will last
Terry Macalister and Katie Allen
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
It was a potent symbol of a new world order yesterday when China
raised interest rates for the fourth time this year in a desperate
attempt to cool an overheated local economy. The move comes at a time
when central bankers in the west are wondering whether they should be
cutting the cost of borrowing to stave off a potential economic
downturn caused by the current credit crisis.
The People's Bank of China increased the lending rate by 18 basis
points (1.8 percentage points) to 7.2% arguing there was a need to
"reasonably control credit growth and to stabilise inflationary
expectations" but the move was also clearly designed to stall the
continuing stampede into the red-hot Shanghai stock market.
Venezuela disowns 'provocative' earthquake aid
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2153685,00.html
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Peru's earthquake relief effort was shaken by a political row
yesterday over food aid with labels bearing an image of Venezuela's
President Hugo Ch=E1vez and criticism of Peru's government.
The cans of tuna, with labels lauding Mr Ch=E1vez and condemning
Peruvian authorities as "slow, inefficient and heartless", were
distributed to survivors of a quake which destroyed several towns and
killed more than 500 people last week.
Peru's president, Alan Garc=EDa, expressed dismay. "One has to ask who
is behind this. This is not the moment to take advantage of the
circumstances to make electoral propaganda." Mr Garc=EDa, who has been
under fire for delays in getting food, blankets and other aid to
stricken areas, has a tetchy relationship with the Venezuelan leader.
Berlusconi keen to found party with ex-beauty queen, says media
http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,2153666,00.html
John Hooper in Rome
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Silvio Berlusconi is reportedly planning to found a new political
movement with which to wrest back power in Italy. And speculation
about his strategy has focused attention on the opposition leader's
increasingly close political links with a successful businesswoman and
former Miss Italy contestant, tipped to be the new party's general
secretary.
Michela Brambilla, known as La Rossa because of her red hair, has
built up a network of some 15,000 grassroots political clubs known as
the Freedom Circles.
Scientists reveal the moving secret of Tyrannosaurus rex on computer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/22/dinosaurs
=B7 Ferocious dinosaur could travel at nearly 18mph
=B7 Meat-eater would have outrun most humans
Ian Sample, science correspondent
The Guardian Wednesday August 22 2007
The most formidable dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex, could have chased
down all but the fastest humans if they roamed the world today,
British scientists claim.
The beast was capable of nearly 18mph, putting it fractionally quicker
than a professional football player, but still lagging behind today's
record-holding 100m sprinters who can exceed 20mph.
Lawyers accuse MoD of retaining evidence on abused Iraqi detainees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,2153606,00.html
=B7 Legal team wants data on death of Baha Mousa
=B7 High court urged to force army to reveal documents
Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Lawyers representing the families of Iraqis detained by British
soldiers yesterday accused the Ministry of Defence of suppressing
crucial information about the circumstances surrounding their
mistreatment, including advice given to senior army officers.
They have asked the high court to issue a new order requiring the MoD
to disclose all relevant documents about the death of Baha Mousa, a
Basra hotel receptionist who suffered 93 injuries and died while in
British custody in 2003, and the abuse of 10 other Iraqi civilians.
Cancer drug hope for Huntington's sufferers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,2153652,00.html
Polly Curtis, health correspondent
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
Scientists today raise the first hope of a cure for Huntington's
disease after unlocking the secrets of what goes wrong in the brains
of sufferers. The scientists suggest that a drug being developed for
use to treat breast cancer in America could be adapted for use in
Huntington's patients to slow or even halt the progressive
deterioration in their brains and the devastating emotional and
physical consequences.
Patient groups cautiously welcomed what they called "early findings"
and said it was particularly exciting as the drug is already being
trialled for use
Egyptians' ancient tax burden revealed
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2153479,00.html
Steven Morris
Wednesday August 22, 2007
The Guardian
A dusty crate of broken bits of pottery discovered at a stately home
in Dorset has given a fresh insight into the life of the ancient
Egyptians - and it turns out that concerns over mortgages, taxes and
simply making ends meet were as important then as they are now.
More than 200 "ostraka" - potsherds inscribed with notes - were found
in the cellar of the National Trust property Kingston Lacy, near
Wimborne Minster.
Democrats in $7bn plan to turn US green
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2883854.ece
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 22 August 2007
America's politicians are waking up to the moneymaking and job
creation possibilities of combating global warming and challenging the
Bush administration to invest in a new generation of "green-collar"
jobs.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives wants to spend almost
$7bn (=A33.5bn) in the coming year to reduce the nation's enormous
carbon footprint. This has put it on a collision course with the White
House, which remains in denial about the dangers of global warming.
Bush distances himself from the 'non-functional' Iraqi government
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2883850.ece
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 22 August 2007
President George Bush referred publicly to the growing US frustration
with Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, yesterday, but said the
Iraqi people would have to decide whether to continue supporting him.
His remarks fell short of the glowing endorsement Mr Maliki is
accustomed to receiving from the US President and followed demands by
the powerful Democratic Senator Carl Levin for the Iraqi Assembly to
throw out Mr Maliki.
Former CIA chief criticised over 9/11
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2883948.ece
AP
Published: 22 August 2007
CIA chiefs failed to use their available powers, never developed a
comprehensive plan to stop al-Qa'ida and missed crucial opportunities
to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to September 11, the agency's
own watchdog said in a scathing report.
Completed in June 2005 and classified until last night, the 19-page
executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA
leaders and others beneath them.
Plight of the refugees locked out of the 'promised land'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2883860.ece
By Donald Macintyre in Khetziot Prison, Negev Desert
Published: 22 August 2007
When Joseph, a Christian member of the Dinka tribe was 12, he saw his
mother killed and his sister raped and shot dead in front of him by
pro-Sudanese government militia, who attacked his village in southern
Sudan. He himself, he says, was abducted and sold to a businessman in
western Sudan - as part of a policy of slavery encouraged by Khartoum
as a means of curbing the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement. He
says he was underfed, regularly beaten, addressed only as "slave" and
that his owner tried forcibly to convert him to Islam. After an anti-
slavery organisation bought his freedom after two years and took him
to Khartoum, he came under the security services' scrutiny for helping
forced converts to revert to Christianity. Having fled to Cairo but
then arrested and imprisoned twice for SPLM activity he says, in
September 2005, he had a fingernail removed and his arms and back
burned - and his life threatened - by Egyptian interrogators acting
under Sudanese security service supervision.
Floating casinos threaten Goa's hippie paradise
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2883856.ece
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
Published: 22 August 2007
The palm-fringed beaches of Goa attract millions of tourists lured by
the white sands, dreamy blue water and trance parties held alongside
the pounding surf.
But the idyllic coastline of Goa is poised to get a controversial new
addition, a flotilla of casinos that will operate offshore to get
around federal laws restricting such enterprises on land. Reports
suggest that up to 11 ships could be operating along the coast by the
end of the year.
US-Iranian academic freed after making TV 'confession'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2883846.ece
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 22 August 2007
An American-Iranian academic, whose imprisonment in Tehran's notorious
Evin jail along with a colleague raised tensions with the Bush
administration, has been abruptly freed.
Haleh Esfandiari, from the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson centre, was
released yesterday after payment of 3bn rials in bail. She and Kian
Tajbakhsh, a consultant for George Soros's Open Society Institute,
were arrested in May on spying charges. They went on television last
month to "confess" they were plotting a velvet revolution to topple
Iran's clerical regime.
Leading article: The blame game goes on
http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2883829.ece
Published: 22 August 2007
How many scapegoats will the US administration run through before it
finally takes responsibility for the catastrophe that is Iraq? Sundry
low-level Pentagon officials of the neo-conservative tendency were
replaced at the start of President Bush's second term. Donald Rumsfeld
fell on his sword, not altogether graciously, after the deb=E2cle of
last year's mid-term congressional elections. Karl Rove, Mr Bush's
"brain", announced his departure rather stealthily in the middle of
this year's summer break.
Mark Steel: Oi! Referee! That footballer's Palestinian!
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/mark_steel/article2883835.e=
ce
What are we doing banning a touring team from Gaza because it is 'too
poor'?
Published: 22 August 2007
We're used to stories about footballers' excessive wages, in which a
star insists he won't sign a new contract unless he's given a planet.
And then when the club backs down, he complains he's only been given
Venus, which isn't fair as Didier Drogba got the much bigger Saturn.
But this week the trend reached a new depth. Because the Palestinian
youth team, mostly from Gaza, was due to begin a three-week tour,
playing against teams such as Blackburn Rovers, Tranmere and Chester.
But on the day they were due to arrive, the British Foreign Office
announced none of them would be granted a visa, the reason given that
they were "too poor".
Sheehan calls for UK coalition with Iraqis
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2883875.ece
By Josie Clarke
Published: 22 August 2007
The American anti-war campaigner Cindy Sheehan, who set up a peace
camp outside George Bush's ranch after her son was killed in Iraq, has
called on the UK to join an international solidarity coalition with
Iraqis.
The "Peace Mom", whose son Casey was killed just five days after
arriving in Iraq in 2004, was returning to the US from Jordan where
she has been meeting Iraqis dealing with the refugee crisis there
Putin critic tells of her mental hospital ordeal
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2883868.ece
By Alastair Gee in Moscow
Published: 22 August 2007
Larisa Arap has just emerged from a 46-day imprisonment in two Russian
psychiatric hospitals. Pills were forced down her throat and she
received injection after injection. She doesn't know what medications
they were, or whether they will cause permanent damage.
"I don't feel very well, but I have a fighting spirit," Mrs Arap said
yesterday, adding that sometimes she was so drugged she could barely
walk or speak
Russia flexes its muscle as Cold War missions resume
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2883910.ece
By James Macintyre
Published: 22 August 2007
President Vladimir Putin once again sought to flex his military
muscles yesterday, with the most ambitious display of Russian air
power since the end of the Cold War.
Speaking at the opening of the six-day International Aviation and
Space Show at a formerly secretive military airfield outside Moscow,
Mr Putin declared: "The task stands before us of maintaining our
leadership in the production of military aviation technology."
Crackdown on NGOs pushes 600 charities out of Russia
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2883872.ece
By Alastair Gee
Published: 22 August 2007
At least 600 Russian NGOs, defending everything from consumers' to
Communists' rights, have been deregistered for failing to comply with
cumbersome new rules, a Russian media monitoring group said.
The NGOs are, in effect, crippled, unable to open bank accounts or new
offices. The Voronezh-based Interregional Group of Human Rights
Defenders added that in some cases, the deregistering appeared to be
politically motivated.
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