Magav meets Monet
Seth Freedman
May 17, 2007 8:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seth_freedman/2007/05/magav_meets_monet=
..html
Trudging along Highway One in East Jerusalem on Sunday morning, I
barely batted an eyelid at the 50 border policemen massed on the side
of the road. This was their manor, after all, and their dark grey
uniforms and short-barrelled M16s are as much a part of the scenery
round here as the tumbledown buildings and parched palm trees.
I was on my way to the Museum on the Seam with Erika, to meet the
curator and discuss the upcoming exhibition there. As I tried to
circumvent the squad of policemen, I overheard their commander barking
out instructions for the day's mission.
Why bombs trump growth
David Morton
May 17, 2007 12:14 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_morton/2007/05/two_explosions.html
It was 4pm on a workday in Maputo, Mozambique, and the ammo dump by
the airport was exploding again.
Downtown, more than six miles away, people watched the distant
mushroom clouds from their balconies until their doors ripped open and
windows shattered and the blasts didn't seem so distant anymore. Over
the course of six hours during the afternoon and evening of March 22,
more than 4,000 pieces of ordnance - most of them aging Soviet-made
rockets - rained on 14 densely populated neighbourhoods of
Mozambique's otherwise tranquil capital city.
Fashion - after a fashion
Patrick Yoest
May 16, 2007 10:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/patrick_yoest/2007/05/fashion_after_a_f=
ashion.html
Stella McCartney and Karl Lagerfeld were nowhere to be seen, and it's
not likely to be covered in the next issue of Vogue. Maybe that has
something to do with the gas masks.
Washington can be a strange place, but it's rarely been stranger than
it was on May 10, at a homeland security trade show dubbed the GovSec
Conference, where private-sector manufacturers take their best shot at
persuading government officials to buy their products in order to keep
the homeland safe. Homeland security is big business for these folks -
the Homeland Security Research Corporation consulting firm estimates
that the combined public- and private-sector market for such products
will grow from $23.8bn in 2006 to $34.8bn in 2011.
Sister Dorothy can rest in peace
Conor Foley
May 16, 2007 9:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2007/05/sister_dorothy_can_=
rest_in_peace.html
The conviction of a Brazilian rancher for ordering the killing of
American nun and rainforest defender Dorothy Stang, yesterday was
hailed by Brazilian human rights and environmental activists.
Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura was convicted of masterminding the killing
of 73-year-old Dorothy Stang and was sentenced to 30 years in prison,
the maximum sentence possible. The gunman, his accomplice and an
intermediary have been convicted in Stang's death, but Moura is the
first alleged mastermind to stand trial for the murder.
Law and order
Tariq Ali
May 16, 2007 8:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tariq_ali/2007/05/law_and_order.html
Sixty years old this August, Pakistan has been under de facto military
rule for exactly half of its life. Military leaders have usually been
limited to a 10-year cycle: Ayub Khan (1958-69), Zia-ul-Haq
(1977-89).
The first was removed by a nationwide insurrection lasting three
months. The second was assassinated. According to this political
calendar, Pervez Musharraf still has another year and a half to go,
but events happen.
The cult of cash
Ian Williams
May 16, 2007 8:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/05/scientology_the_im=
perfect_stor.html
The so-called "Church of Scientology" has been flaming BBC journalist
John Sweeney all over the Internet for shouting at them during an
interview. I don't see the problem: it seems clear that he was doing
Sergeant Major imitations in an attempt to get his questions across.
But, either way, he was wasting his time. If there is a point to
Scientology training and exercises with the e-meter, it's to disguise
any displays of emotion, so everyone has the same simpering smirk that
is, for example, church stalwart John Travolta's inevitable on-screen
persona.
Celebrity warfare
Robert Fox
May 16, 2007 7:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_fox/2007/05/the_decision_not_to_=
send.html
The decision not to send Prince Harry to Iraq was taken after
commanders on the ground had warned their superiors in London of the
changing security threats on the ground in Basra - and that the prince
was likely to be targeted as a propaganda coup by splinter groups
backed directly by Iran.
"This is a form of celebrity warfare," a senior commander in Basra
told me at the weekend. He and his colleagues sent their assessments
back to the ministry of defence. Following flying visits by General
Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the Army, last week and the Chief of the
defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup to Basra at the
weekend, it was decided that Harry's presence in Iraq would be more
risk than help to the British Forces.
History man
Iain Macwhirter
May 16, 2007 7:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/iain_macwhirter/2007/05/the_snp_leader_=
alex_salmond.html
The SNP leader, Alex Salmond, was elected as first minister of
Scotland today and promised to introduce a "more reflective model of
democracy". In a witty, elegant and even profound speech, Salmond
promised to proceed by consensus in a "parliament of minorities" and
said that his government "will rely on the strength of argument in
parliament, and not the argument of parliamentary strength".
Salmond's many critics in and out of Holyrood were pinching themselves
at this break with the adversarialism of Salmond past. But the new FM
managed to sound utterly sincere, and rather moved by the challenge he
has undertaken. Salmond has made a virtue of necessity in saying that
he will "appeal for support policy by policy across the chamber". His
coalition with the Scottish Greens has only 49 MPs out of 129. This
government faces instant extinction the moment Salmond steps out of
the bubble of consensus and tries to impose partisan policies or
indulges in nationalist rhetoric.
Please stiffen those upper lips!
Michael White
May 16, 2007 6:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_white/2007/05/peering_over_the_=
press_gallery.html
Peering over the press gallery at prime minister's question time today
I thought that some worthy medical cause, testicular cancer perhaps,
had finally got a campaign up and running. MPs were festooned with
yellow ribbons.
But no, a kind colleague explained that they were ribbons of support
for Madeleine McCann and her family. On closer inspection, most
parties were represented in what I saw as a sentimental display with
little point to it.
Class and the classroom
Simon Jenkins
May 16, 2007 6:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_jenkins/2007/05/class_and_the_cla=
ssroom.html
The Tories have cracked it. David Cameron and his education spokesman,
David Willetts, have exorcised the ghost, slaughtered the hobgoblin,
answered the Schleswig-Holstein question. There never was a way of
equating selective education with parental choice. They are opposites.
There was no way of having grammar schools "within" a comprehensive
system. It is a contradiction in terms. You could not have selection
without the dreaded 11-plus.
Margaret Thatcher knew all this when she became education secretary in
1970. As she wrote in her memoirs, state selection by ability was
"more consonant with socialism and collectivism ... than with
liberalism and conservatism." She continued to allow Britain's
secondary schools to be reorganised on comprehensive lines. She knew
that parents did not choose schools but were chosen by them, and only
working-class children of exceptional ability could gain admittance,
though she allowed such "aspirational" children to become the lodestar
of the Tories' ambivalent schools policy ever since.
Why I won't back Harriet Harman
Fiona Millar
May 16, 2007 5:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/fiona_millar/2007/05/why_i_wont_back_ha=
rriet_harman.html
In more than 20 years of friendship I can't think of a single issue on
which I have disagreed with Glenys Kinnock.
I still admire the guts with which, as a Labour leader's wife, she
confronted the visceral loathing of the Tory press and the passion and
commitment she has since brought to development issues.
The cure isn't pill-shaped
Sarah Boseley
May 16, 2007 4:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sarah_boseley/2007/05/the_cure_isnt_pil=
l_shaped.html
Ask anybody what a cure for cancer will look like, when we one day
find it, and I bet you any money they say it's pill-shaped. How many
headlines have we seen announcing the advent of a new wonder drug -
usually for cancer? Would the uproar over Herceptin have caught the
public imagination in quite the same way if the novel invention that
hospital trusts were slow to fund had been a new type of radiotherapy
machine?
The clamour around cancer drugs is so loud it drowns out reason.
That's partly because of the nature of the disease, which frightens
most of us, partly a result of the modern myth that all ills can be
cured with a tablet or two, and partly because there are commercial
interests at stake: pharmaceutical drugs are very big business indeed.
Progressives take heart
Ed Miliband
May 16, 2007 4:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ed_miliband/2007/05/progressives_take_h=
eart.html
By its nature, the progressive disposition tends to dissatisfaction.
We have dreams for a better world, we are angry at injustice, we have
a significant belief in the power of government to change things, and
we have an optimistic view of human nature. So should we be satisfied
or dissatisfied with the last decade, and how should we renew the
progressive agenda?
Progressive politics has shown a capacity for economic stewardship in
a way it never has before in this country. Public investment has
helped to regenerate our public services and create new institutions
of the public realm, like Sure Start. Working people have seen gains
in income and rights, from tax credits to paid holidays. The ethos of
the country has shifted to the Left on gay rights, the environment,
development, and even taxation and spending.
Womb for improvement
Michael White
May 16, 2007 3:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_white/2007/05/womb_for_improvem=
ent.html
Radio 4's Dead Ringers team currently has Tony Blair in his coffin,
being buried, though they can hear him tapping on the inside of the
box asking to be let out. He's going to be a hard man to shake off,
this Blair.
No surprise then, that the Guardian today reports that he wants to
target unborn babies deemed to be most at risk of social exclusion and
criminality, and their troubled families.
Hips and happenings
Patrick Collinson
May 16, 2007 3:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/patrick_collinson/2007/05/hips_and_happ=
enings.html
In 1988, the then-chancellor Nigel Lawson provoked a final frenzy of
home-buying when he gave first-time buyers a deadline to jump on the
ladder and still enjoy tax relief. Sadly those who hastily jumped in
repented in leisure; interest rates shot up and little more than a
year later the market fell off a cliff. Many of those buyers were
still in negative equity years later.
Fast forward two decades and the property market is in frenzy again;
prices have taken another lurch upwards, contrary to all the
predictions from doom-mongers. And interest rates are on the rise. Yet
the government has chosen now to make a controversial intervention in
the market, with home information packs (Hips), coming in on June 1.
Iran is safe ... for now
Simon Tisdall
May 16, 2007 2:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2007/05/iran_is_safe_for_=
now.html
Shadow-boxing over Iran, pitting hard-right American neo-cons against
European liberal progressives, is obscuring a reality neither camp
cares to acknowledge: the threat of a US or Israeli military attack on
Iran this year has receded to the point of invisibility.
Those in Europe who believe otherwise fail to understand the extent of
the political paralysis now gripping the Bush administration in
Washington. This is mostly but not entirely a consequence of the Iraq
quagmire. Although technically George Bush still gives the orders,
nobody - especially in Baghdad - is really listening any more.
For Chrysler's sake
Jeffrey Faux
May 16, 2007 2:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jeffrey_faux/2007/05/what_the_chrysler_=
sale_means.html
Daimler-Chrysler's announced sale of Chrysler Motors to something
called the Cerberus Capital Management is but the latest chapter in
the grim tale of the American elites' abandonment of the country's
industrial future. The German company that had gamely tried to rescue
Chrysler nine years ago paid the aptly named Cerberus to cart the
carcass away to "turnaround" hell. Experience tells us that workers
will be laid off, benefits slashed and the pieces sold off to boutique
entrepreneurs.
To some extent, Chrysler, like General Motors and Ford, the other two
stumbling members of the Big Three of American-owned auto industry,
had it coming. For years Detroit ignored the development of smaller,
more efficient cars that any 12-year-old could have told them was in
their future. It was easier to make gas guzzlers and sell them to what
was assumed to be a secure customer base of loyal Americans in the
heartland.
Ways to stop the sky falling in
Bibi van der Zee
May 16, 2007 1:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/bibi_van_der_zee/2007/05/ecotherapy.html
Wonderful news this week from Mind: apparently depression can be cured
with a simple walk around the park. If only King Lear had known! (Or
does a blasted heath not work?) The suggestion has led to some
reproaches about how little we understand depression, what a complex
and subtle disease it is etc etc. Some seem indignant about the
suggestion that anything less than medication can scare away the black
dog.
But the term depression covers a lot of states of mind. And the idea
that the natural world can be good for you has been around for years,
in poetry (think of Keats giving a nightingale's song credit for
preventing him from suicide), and art, and more recently in scientific
studies which show all sorts of things about the healing rate of
patients who look out over trees, as opposed to over concrete; the way
in which walking and exercise prompt the arrival of happy hormones;
the idea that looking out at a distant view is more genuinely relaxing
for the eyes and facial muscles than looking at a TV ... We humans
need greenness about us, and that's a simple fact: we need to look at
shifting clouds and the wind in grass, and if we don't we start to
shrivel up inside. And that may not be full-blown clinical depression,
but it's certainly a shade closer in the oblique prism of the human
mind.
Fanning the flames in Gaza
Laila El-Haddad
May 16, 2007 12:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/laila_elhaddad/2007/05/fanning_the_flam=
es_in_gaza.html
No ever seems quite sure how or why the spates of violence begin in
Gaza, but a few days on, it becomes irrelevant anyway.
Firefights including heavy arms and mortors continue to rage all
around Gaza city, all while Israeli gunships pounded east and north of
the city, which has been transformed to a ghost town. Even the most
foolhardy opted to stay indoors, and all but a lone convenience store
closed. Masked Fatah and Hamas gunmen patrolled every street corner,
and took positions on every major high-rise tower, keeping residents,
schoolchildren, and university students penned indoors as battles
swirled around them.
The Constitution in intensive care
Marcy Wheeler
May 16, 2007 11:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/marcy_wheeler/2007/05/the_constitution_=
in_intensive.html
By bringing in former Deputy Attorney General James Comey for a little-
publicised appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, the
Democrats have dramatically changed the tenor of the department of
justice (DOJ) scandal. No longer is it a debate whether nine US
attorneys were fired for proper or improper reasons. Now, it's a
question of the lengths to which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
will go to serve the interests of the administration.
The bulk of Comey's testimony recounted a story that will, one day,
make great material for Hollywood. In early March 2004, an arm of the
justice department known as the office of legal counsel reviewed the
national security agency's domestic wiretapping program and determined
that the department could not certify its legality. Just hours after
Comey and then-attorney general John Ashcroft met and agreed they
could not recertify the program, Ashcroft was hospitalized with
pancreatitis. So when it came time, on March 10, to inform the White
House that Justice would not recertify the program, Comey was the
acting attorney general.
Farewell Falwell
Tim Footman
May 16, 2007 10:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_footman/2007/05/farewell_falwell.ht=
ml
"Just because someone is dead," said Bette Davis, when chided over her
lack of respect for a recently deceased acquaintance, "doesn't mean
they've changed." And of course, the nasty old cow was right. Although
approaching death sometimes encourages sinners to mend their ways, bad
people tend to stay bad. As a rule, you can't mend an arsehole.
The cultural imperative not to speak ill of the dead now only lasts a
few weeks. Once the funeral is over, there's an uneasy truce, as
enemies wonder exactly when might be the appropriate time to tell a
few home truths. The first person to strike a posthumous blow always
runs a risk - to be lauded as a puncturer of cant and humbug, or
damned for being callous. Call it the Albert Goldman factor, after the
man who drew death threats from fans of Elvis Presley and John Lennon
with his iconoclastic biographies. On the other hand, the Private Eye
cover issued after Princess Diana's death now looks like a quiet voice
of sanity in the midst of necrophiliac hysteria.
'Da boy is class'
Cameron Duodu
May 16, 2007 10:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/cameron_duodu/2007/05/da_boy_is_class_1=
..html
It is difficult, as a black person, not to acquire a certain amount of
interest in Lewis Hamilton. After all, if one has been a motor racing
aficionado for any length of time, like I have, the sight of a black
face in a cockpit - not to say a cockpit in the lead - is so rare that
it would be unnatural for it not to have a special significance.
I must say that in my opinion, the Hamilton phenomenon is one that
could only have happened in Britain. The interest in motor racing in
this country has been unrelenting, ever since I can remember. Because
of that, I have been able to pass my own personal interest in the
sport seamlessly to my kids.
Tigers at the door
Farah Mihlar
May 16, 2007 9:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/farah_mihlar/2007/05/belated_perhaps_bu=
t_with_new.html
Belated perhaps, but with new impetus, Britain is finally responding
to a severe escalation of fighting in Sri Lanka that has resulted in
more than 3,000 deaths in the past year. The horrific violence
following the breakdown of a ceasefire signed in 2002 forms the latest
chapter in a two-decade war between the Tamil Tiger militants and Sri
Lankan government forces.
The Tigers want a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils, accusing
the majority Sinhala Buddhist state of continuous discrimination. The
latest British response to the Sri Lankan conflict came a fortnight
ago, almost simultaneously, in the form of a parliamentary debate, the
creation of an all-party Tamil group and finally a partial freezing of
aid to the country. Some of these initiatives will certainly be
helpful to the country but hints of partiality and incoherency in the
overall response threatens to negate the positive effort.
Leaders who follow ordinary people's courage earn respect
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2081174,00.html
The political class and media have failed to hold the prime minister
to account and made the intolerable seem invisible
Karma Nabulsi
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
How could a prime minister destroy a country, in full view of his
people and the media, and not be called to account? In 1965 a
professor at Brandeis University, in the US, wrote an essay dedicated
to his students. At the height of the violent civil rights struggle in
the southern US and the country's brutal immersion in Vietnam, Herbert
Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance described a system where democratic
institutions had begun to fail in their role of protecting and
developing the essential qualities of their progressive nature.
Instead of a political culture devoted to civic participation and a
dynamic and democratic public space, he illustrated the precise means
by which it had become a mechanism to exclude truth and knowledge, to
repress the weak and vulnerable, and to strengthen those in power in
increasingly unaccountable ways.
We're not a creature of the motor industry. We just want to save lives
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2081146,00.html
The reduction of road traffic deaths should be an international
priority, says George Robertson
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
George Monbiot is a rare breed, one of the very few commentators to
raise the urgent issue of global road traffic deaths (A million road
deaths every year? It's just the price of doing business, May 15).
What a shame then that, having decided to address this utterly
neglected issue, he instead attacks the very people who are doing most
to put it on the international agenda.
Monbiot argues that our campaign to put road safety on the G8 and UN
agendas is somehow a creature of the motor industry, trying to impose
industry-friendly solutions on developing countries on behalf of big
business. This is nothing but a conspiracy theory.
Remembering Jerry Falwell
Ben Marshall
May 16, 2007 3:34 PM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2007/05/remembering_jerry_falwell.html
The Reverend Jerry Falwell died yesterday, shortly after being found
unconscious in his offices at Liberty University. His name means
little in this country, but to the American demagogues of the
conservative religious right he was nothing short of a prophet. He
will primarily be remembered as the founder of the Moral Majority, a
hysterical but highly effective pressure group that politicized
America's vast evangelical movement and thus helped put Ronald Reagan
in the White House.
Often praised as a man who loved the planet Falwell spent much of his
last few months as a mortal denying the scientific evidence for global
warming. He was also an enthusiastic proponent of the Rapture, a
medievalist belief in the literal truth of the Book of Revelation -
hence his enthusiasm for violence in the Middle East which he
sincerely believed would lead to a the apocalypse. Falwell not only
wanted to ban the teaching of evolution in schools but take the
responsibility of schooling out of the hands of the state and placed
under the control of millenarian Christians.
Send in the clown
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2081231,00.html
Jo Wilding's unembedded reports from Fallujah brought home the horror
of the American assault on the city. But when she wasn't blogging, she
was wearing stilts and trying to cheer up Iraq's traumatised children.
She tells Emine Saner why she risked her life for total strangers
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
It is hard to imagine how Jo Wilding's kidnappers reacted when she
told them what she was doing in Iraq. They were in Fallujah, a city
under siege in 2003 - and this British woman was claiming to be a
clown, in a circus she had brought to a country in the middle of a
war. "We could have been anyone," she recalls, "there to spy or
assassinate someone. The only foreigners there were Americans - and
they were there to kill them."
Can Murdoch save the planet?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2081242,00.html
Rupert Murdoch has promised to make his media empire carbon-neutral by
2010. He's not the first tycoon to boast about his green plans - but
will it actually make any difference? Mark Lynas investigates
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
There can have been few stranger sights in recent weeks than Rupert
Murdoch's sudden apparent conversion from hard-nosed media tycoon to
climate-change activist. At a news conference last week, as Murdoch
pledged that his media empire, News Corporation, would be entirely
"carbon neutral" by 2010, he waxed evangelical on the subject, asking
his audience to "imagine if we succeed in inspiring our audiences to
reduce their own impacts on climate change by just 1%. That would be
like turning the state of California off for almost two months."
Russia accused of unleashing cyberwar to disable Estonia
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2081438,00.html
=B7 Parliament, ministries, banks, media targeted
=B7 Nato experts sent in to strengthen defences
Ian Traynor in Brussels
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
A three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country
of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state,
is causing alarm across the western alliance, with Nato urgently
examining the offensive and its implications.
While Russia and Estonia are embroiled in their worst dispute since
the collapse of the Soviet Union, a row that erupted at the end of
last month over the Estonians' removal of the Bronze Soldier Soviet
war memorial in central Tallinn, the country has been subjected to a
barrage of cyber warfare, disabling the websites of government
ministries, political parties, newspapers, banks, and companies.
Russia to build atomic plant for Burmese junta
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2081436,00.html
=B7 Deal is likely to worsen US ties with Moscow
=B7 UN inspection agency says it has not been informed
Luke Harding in Moscow
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Russia has agreed to supply Burma with its first nuclear reactor, in a
move that is likely to dismay the United States and raise fresh fears
about the spread of nuclear technology around the world.
Russia's atomic energy agency said it had reached a deal with Burma's
military junta to build a nuclear research centre. The plant will have
a light water reactor with a capacity of 10MW. It will use 20%
enriched nuclear fuel, the agency said.
Divided nation prepares for first cross-border train since 1950
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,,2081422,00.html
=B7 Celebrities and politicians to take 15-mile journey
=B7 Service seen as first step towards lasting peace
Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Two trains were due to cross the demilitarised zone between the two
Koreas for the first time since 1950 today in a major breakthrough for
peace on the divided peninsula.
The test run by two trains - one from each side of the border - is
seen as a step towards closer economic ties between rich, open South
Korea and the poor, isolated North.
Despite huge disparities in the quality of the tracks and rolling
stock, it is hoped that the lines will eventually link to the Trans-
Siberian railway and allow connections spanning more than 5,000 miles
from London to Seoul.
Sarkozy takes office, =E0 la JFK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,2081380,00.html
=B7 Energy and informality as French president sworn in
=B7 Rightwing reformist pledges break with past
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Standing in an open-topped car and waving to crowds more vigorously
than any previous French president, Nicolas Sarkozy was transported
victorious up the Champs Elys=E9e after his inauguration yesterday,
beaming at spectators and breaking convention with a couple of casual
thumbs up.
The energetic rightwing reformer, elected with a huge mandate for
change, is a fan of America and there was a hint of John F Kennedy as
he and his military escort slowly drove past crowds on his way to
rekindle the flame at the tomb of the unknown soldier beneath the Arc
de Triomphe.
Gaza crisis worsens as 16 killed in gun battles
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2081430,00.html
=B7 Homes of senior Fatah members set on fire
=B7 Hamas calls third ceasefire of week as death toll grows
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Gaza slid deeper into a factional war yesterday as another 16 people
died in gun battles between rival armed groups.
Palestinians held rallies in Ramallah, in the West Bank, and in Gaza
City protesting against the violence and calling for a halt to a wave
of killing that has claimed 41 lives in the past four days. But in
Gaza at least eight people in the demonstration were wounded when
shooting broke out around them, scattering the crowd.
Russian questioned and computers seized in Madeleine hunt
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2081475,00.html
Giles Tremlett in Praia da Luz
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Portuguese police yesterday searched an apartment in the holiday
resort where four-year-old Madeleine McCann was abducted two weeks ago
and were last night questioning its Russian owner at the police
headquarters in nearby Portimao.
Officers removed two computers from the second-floor apartment in
Praia da Luz that lies a few hundred yards away from the holiday
complex where Madeleine was abducted and where her family is still
staying as they held on to hopes that she would be found soon.
Bono takes on G8 - and smoky neighbours
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2081404,00.html
Campaigning rock star in spat over open fires in New York apartment
block
Ed Pilkington in New York
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
On the world stage, the U2 frontman Bono is known as a tireless
advocate for increasing aid to Africa. On the smaller stage of 145-6
Central Park West he has gained a different reputation: the man whose
intervention has put a stop to open fires.
For a celebrity accustomed to publicity surrounding his campaign to
get the G8 engaged in development, the details that emerged yesterday
of a domestic squabble with neighbours in his apartment block on the
upper west side in New York had a petty ring to them. He wanted to
stop smoke from open fires in nearby apartments floating into his
multi-million-pound penthouse; his neighbours countered that he was
disrupting their enjoyment of log fires.
Madrid bombing suspects go on hunger strike in trial protest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,,2081433,00.html
Dale Fuchs in Madrid
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Thirteen prime suspects on trial for the Madrid rail bombings that
killed 191 people in 2004 have gone on hunger strike in protest at
what they consider to be unfounded accusations against them.
Javier G=F3mez Berm=FAdez, the presiding justice, warned the men that if
they continued the strike they could be expelled from court
proceedings and force-fed or hydrated if necessary. "The trial will
continue in their absence," he said.
Four of the men have refused food and liquids since Thursday. Nine
others joined the strike yesterday morning, according to prison
officials. Defence lawyers were trying to convince the men to give up
the idea. The 13 hunger strikers are among 19 suspects, most of them
Moroccan, who remain in police custody for the March 11 2004 attacks.
US moves to reassure Lebanon over Syria
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,2081377,00.html
Ian Black, Middle East editor
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
The US reassured Lebanon's pro-western government yesterday that any
rapprochement with Syria would not be at its expense, as Washington
finalised diplomatic moves to create a UN tribunal to try suspects in
the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
David Welch, an assistant US secretary of state, said after talks with
the current prime minister, Fouad Siniora: "The future of Lebanon is
not something that is negotiable against other interests the US may
have in the area." The Bush administration has made clear that it
wants the tribunal set up, even though it is now also trying to mend
fences with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
Cluster bombs cause decades of harm, says study
http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,,2081423,00.html
Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Millions of people will be endangered by up to 132m cluster bomblets
that have not yet exploded, causing lasting economic and social harm
to communities in more than 20 countries for decades to come, a
leading charity warned yesterday.
Handicap International studied data from nine countries most heavily
affected by the weapon and found that about 440m cluster bomblets had
been dropped there since 1965. Based on failure rates of 5-30%, the
group estimated that 22m-132m of the devices remain unexploded.
Chlorine bomb blamed for up to 45 deaths in Iraqi Shia town
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2081413,00.html
Ian Black, Middle East editor
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Iraq's latest horror weapon - the chlorine bomb - killed up to 45
people and wounded 60 others in a Shia town, police said yesterday, as
a hail of mortar bombs hit the heavily guarded, US-controlled, "green
zone" in the heart of Baghdad for the second consecutive day.
The chlorine gas, in canisters loaded in a small van, hit a market in
Abu Sayda in Diyala province on Tuesday, in a tactic pioneered by
Sunni insurgents in Ramadi last month. Diyala has seen a spike in
violence since the US-Iraqi "surge" in the capital.
Vegetable stars in Disney's first Chinese film
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2081371,00.html
Min Lee in Hong Kong
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Disney's latest China strategy doesn't involve Mickey, Minnie or
Goofy. It's all about an enchanted vegetable.
The studio announced yesterday that it would release a Chinese-
language movie, The Magic Gourd, this summer - its first co-production
with the state-run China Film Group. The movie, based on a novel
written by the late Chinese writer Zhang Tianyi, is about a boy who
discovers a gourd - a squash-like vegetable often used in Asian dishes
- that grants him wishes. The story has already been adapted into a
cartoon by state-run CCTV.
Spain sends out jellyfish patrols
http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,,2081379,00.html
Dale Fuchs in Madrid
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
The Spanish environmental ministry is braced for a summer season
plagued by jellyfish and plans patrols to scour the seas and remove
the offending creatures before they reach the shores.
Josep Mar=EDa Gili, a professor at the Spanish High Council for
Scientific Research, told La Vanguardia newspaper that the council
planned a survey of the jellyfish population - and its growth
potential - from the Costa Brava to C=E1diz.
"From an environmental point of view, leaving them in the water isn't
a bad solution, because they would be food for other animals, but for
the population in general, and bathers in particular, they pose a
health problem," Mr Gili said. He advised sifting for toxic tentacles
in the sand.
EU crackdown to target employers of illegal migrants
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,2081431,00.html
=B7 Spot checks to quadruple under Europe-wide law
=B7 Nannies and gardeners included in legislation
Ian Traynor in Brussels
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Hundreds of thousands of middle-class people across Europe could be
fined for using nannies, gardeners or plumbers if they have not asked
for proof that the workers are in the country legally.
Under a crackdown on the exploitation of illegal immigrants, companies
and individuals taking advantage of black-market labour would be
criminalised.
Police spot-checks on company workforces would be at least quadrupled
and illegal migrants would be encouraged to lodge complaints about
unscrupulous employers.
Classic London gangland movie to get Miami remake
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2081392,00.html
Film writers and historians aghast at new US setting for The Long Good
Friday
Duncan Campbell
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
The classic British gangland film The Long Good Friday, which made a
star of Bob Hoskins, is to be remade as an American thriller set in
present-day Miami. The news was greeted with dismay yesterday by film
writers and historians and comes amid a growing trend to remake
British classics in modern US settings.
The Long Good Friday, originally made by John Mackenzie in 1980, was
set in London's gangland, with a cast including Helen Mirren and
Pierce Brosnan. The new version will be directed by Paul WS Anderson
and shot in Miami next year, Handmade Films and Impact Pictures
announced yesterday. Anderson, who made Alien v Predator, Resident
Evil and Event Horizon, is currently making Death Race, itself a
remake of a Roger Corman movie. Casting has not yet started.
Letters reveal Darwin's caring, comic side - in between agonising
about his theory
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2081397,00.html
Correspondence database includes Beagle messages and notes to
colleagues
James Randerson, science correspondent
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
In his own word, it was a "presumptuous" idea which - more than any
other - opened up a long-standing rift between the sciences and
religion. Now a database of Charles Darwin's correspondence with
colleagues, family and friends has made it possible to follow the
evolutionist's thinking as his ideas took shape, and he agonised about
the consequences of them. At the same time, the letters, which are
going online, give a rich and moving portrait of Darwin as a
compassionate and caring family man.
The database, which contains the full text of 5,000 letters sent to or
from Darwin up to 1865, includes correspondence home from the five-
year expedition round the world on HMS Beagle, as well as tentative
notes to colleagues in which he floated his scientific bombshell. In
one famous letter in 1844 to his close friend, the botanist Joseph
Hooker, he described coming out with the theory of evolution as "like
confessing to a murder".
Gene therapy holds out hope for baldness cure
http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,,2081527,00.html
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Skin cells have been primed to regrow hair follicles for the first
time, leading scientists to claim a breakthrough in the quest for a
cure for baldness.
Researchers hope that a treatment for hair loss may be within sight
after healthy hair-producing follicles were regenerated in adult skin
in mice.
The team made the breakthrough by awakening a sequence of dormant
genes, which triggered a flood of stem cells into patches of hairless
skin. To the researchers' surprise, the stem cells were able to form
hair follicles.
Deep Antarctic waters reveal hundreds of new species
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2081454,00.html
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian
Researchers have found more than 700 previously unknown creatures
including carnivorous sponges, free-swimming worms, crustaceans and
molluscs in the cold, dark water around Antarctica.
The Weddell Sea has long been thought of as a featureless abyss,
devoid of life. But Angelika Brandt, of the zoological institute at
the University of Hamburg, who led the expedition aboard the research
vessel Polarstern, said the area could potentially be "the cradle of
life of the global marine species". She said: "Our research results
challenge suggestions that the deep sea diversity in the Southern
Ocean is poor. We now have a better understanding in the evolution of
the marine species and how they can adapt to changes in climate and
environments."
Preacher power: America's God squad
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2553945.ece
The death of Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, has rocked
America's evangelical movement. Andrew Gumbel examines the saints and
sinners of the religious right
Published: 17 May 2007
Paul Crouch
Who is he?
Crouch and his wife, Janice, founded the California-based Trinity
Broadcasting Network, which started small in 1973 and is now the
world's largest televangelist outlet.
What's his style?
Forgotten women turn Kabul into widows' capital
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2553923.ece
By Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy in Kabul
Published: 17 May 2007
Glass lifts carry people up to the second floor of the shopping mall
where gold jewellery and Levi's jeans are being sold in bright new
stores. A large poster of a woman in a miniskirt hugging a man is
plastered outside a shoe store while music blares from the mall's
speakers. But outside, just around the corner, women are begging on
the streets. They are the hidden face of modern Kabul.
Walking the streets of Kabul under a full burqa, the traditional
garment that the Taliban insisted that women wear and which many still
do, it is possible to gain access to Afghanistan's forgotten women.
The secret world of code-breaking
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2553932.ece
In the age of instant global communication, the ability to encode -
and decipher - secret messages has never been more valuable. Andy
McSmith explains why code-breaking is flavour of the month
Published: 17 May 2007
Codes are as old as language. Language allows you to communicate with
anybody; a secure code lets you pick and choose the cipient of the
information you want to impart. From the beginnings of recorded
history we find examples of people communicating in code, that amuse
or appal us. And codes have lost none of their importance in the 21st
century.
Tomorrow will see the release of a film based on a real-life example
of a code being used to torment and manipulate. Zodiac is a
fictionalised version of the story of a serial killer who taunted the
California police with coded messages which, he claimed, would reveal
his identity. Those sections of the messages that were decoded
revealed a sick mind, but not the killer's identity. Perhaps they were
never meant to.
President pulls out all the stops for his faithful servant
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2553946.ece
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 17 May 2007
The first was the "Colgate" summit at Camp David in February 2001, a
bare month after George Bush was inaugurated. The last began yesterday
at the White House - a final get-together in office of the rough-edged
conservative Texan and the once-glossy New Labour apostle of the
"Third Way".
What, a reporter asked back in that innocent world before 9/11, did
this unlikely couple have in common? The answer, Mr Bush replied, was
a certain brand of toothpaste - a reasonable enough joke since it is
distributed to every guest cabin of the presidential retreat in
Maryland.
Estonia opens synagogue for first time since Nazi era
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2553936.ece
By Kate Thomas in Tallinn
Published: 17 May 2007
Estonia's last synagogue was wiped out in 1944, amid fierce gunfire
and overhead air raids, as Nazi troops fled the Red Army's advance.
But yesterday, after a six-decade wait, the country's 3,000-strong
Jewish population finally donned prayer shawls and clutched siddurs,
as the first synagogue since the Holocaust opened in Tallinn.
Construction of the $2m (=A31m) ultra-modern design began in 2005.
Jewish rules on synagogue construction, including rigid building
requirements, made the project demanding. Then came the agonising task
of tracking down a practising rabbi. Estonia's last one was killed
during the Holocaust. "For a long time it was not possible to practise
Jewish life in Estonia... there was no rabbi, no kosher food, no
possibility to learn about Judaism," the synagogue's Chief Rabbi
Shmuel Kot said.
Adrian Hamilton: The ties that bind this new generation of leaders
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/adrian_hamilton/article2553=
893.ece
Sarkozy, Brown and Pope Benedict have spent their life working with a
single aim in mind
Published: 17 May 2007
Those who grasp their way to the top of the greasy pole can usually be
divided into two sorts. There are those who have hungered, worked and
plotted for the job and once there relax into the role, acting the
part and playing it as it comes. And there are those who have spent
their life preparing for power, endlessly planning what they will do
once they get there.
Just at the moment the world has a new generation of leaders of both
sorts. Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown and, for that matter, Pope
Benedict XVI and Hillary Clinton (if she should ever get to the White
House) are all leaders who have spent most of their life, if not all,
working with a single aim in mind, to become leader of their country
or church.
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