Making waves
Daniel Brett
March 30, 2007 10:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daniel_brett/2007/03/troubled_waters.ht=
ml
Iran's capture of 15 British navy personnel at gunpoint on the Shatt
al-Arab, purportedly in Iraqi waters, is inextricably linked to the
regime's long-term ambition to impose its territorial control over the
strategic waterway and hold Baghdad hostage to its interests.
The left bank of the Shatt al-Arab is witnessing a large-scale
militarisation programme which is being conducted under the auspices
of the Arvand Free Zone Organisation (AFZO), a state-run group that
aims to extend the regime's economic, political and military influence
over the Shatt al-Arab and ultimately Iraq. The AFZO's plans for the
military-industrial zone were outlined in a letter issued to
indigenous Ahwazi Arab residents living within the zone instructing
them that their land would be confiscated. The confiscation programme
is nothing short of ethnic cleansing for the sake of Iran's neo-
imperialism.
Danger at every turn
Peter Tatchell
March 30, 2007 9:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/03/iraqs_homophobic=
_terror.html
Hasan Sabeh was a happy, talented 34-year-old transgender fashion
designer, affectionately known as Tamara. He lived in the al-Mansor
district of Baghdad. Two months ago, he was tending his fashion
accessories stall in a street market. Out of the blue, an Islamist
death squad, wearing Iraqi police uniforms, seized Tamara. They
stripped off his clothes in the street and, discovering that he was a
man dressed as a woman, shot him dead. Tamara's brother-in-law was
nearby and rushed to cradle his body. He, too, was shot dead at point
blank range. The killers then took Tamara's body, and hanged and
mutilated it, as a warning to other gay and transgender Iraqis.
Gay people like Tamara are now being systematically targeted for
execution by Shia death squads. The killers are hell-bent on turning
the country into a fundamentalist Islamic state, cleansed of all
"impure, unIslamic elements." Some operate within the police and
others independently. All owe their allegiance to firebrand, militant
clerics.
Fits and starts
Alexander Goldberg
March 30, 2007 7:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/alexander_goldberg/2007/03/there_is_a_n=
ew_fountain.html
There is a new fountain in Place des Nations outside the United
Nations in Geneva with "dancing" water that spurts out in fits and
starts. Inside the UN the nascent Human Rights Council tries to
establish itself in much the same way as it comes to the end of its
fourth session of the year and finds itself still creating its modus
operandi.
The council has much potential but right at its birth it faces an
enormous challenge in dealing with Darfur.
When psychedelia went supernova
Tom Robinson
March 30, 2007 7:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tom_robinson/2007/03/if_the_past_is_ano=
ther.html
If the past is another country, the cultural landscape of 1967 is
almost another planet. Rationing and national service were a fading
folk memory and the upsurge of youth music over the previous four
years that had given us Mod, Merseybeat, Motown (and much else
besides) was about explode into a big bang from which the pieces are
still flying outwards 40 years later.
In London, growing numbers of young people were becoming gripped by a
conviction that love, truth and beauty had the power - with a little
help from their chemical friends - to change an imperfect world.
International Times was their bible, Haight Ashbury their inspiration
and UFO club their destination of choice. The toast of London's club
circuit were Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and The Move - all astonishing
performers and attuned to the new movement in their various ways.
Rebuilding bridges
Faisal al Yafai
March 30, 2007 6:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/faisal_al_yafai/2007/03/back_in_the_fol=
d_2.html
The outcome of the Arab League's annual summit - which ended last
night - is being billed as an attempt to revive a five year old Saudi
peace plan to normalise relations between Israel and the Arab nations.
On the sidelines, though, the other major issues of the region were
also discussed: Iraq, the rise of Iran, and Lebanon.
Lebanese politics are still going through a convulsive time. In
November, the country's worst political crisis since the civil war
struck when six cabinet members resigned, leaving the government of
Fuad Siniora paralysed. For the last four months, anti-government
protests have been held in the capital Beirut.
What were we fighting for?
David Leigh
March 30, 2007 6:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_leigh/2007/03/las_maleditas_malvi=
nas.html
The prime minister may have hoped some of Mrs Thatcher's militaristic
prowess would rub off on to him with this week's Falklands war
anniversary. But his true posture turns out to be an abject one. So
terrified are members of the Blair government of Argentine displeasure
at the celebrations, that they have just insisted on censoring from
researchers scores of ancient Falklands files in the National Archives
dating as far back as 1927.
They maintain even such historical material might "inflame the
situation" and "would further harm the relationship between the two
nations". The Foreign Office bleats: "Recent months have seen a
deterioration in the UK's already delicate relations with Argentina.
The UK's claims to the Falklands are still very much disputed."
The great game in the Gulf
Simon Tisdall
March 30, 2007 5:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2007/03/the_great_game_in=
_the.html
As Iran sees it, provocative British trespassing in the Shatt al-Arab
waterway is merely one element in an American-driven policy of
destabilisation that includes systematic infringements of the
country's territorial, economic and political sovereignty.
As the US and Israel see it, Iran's unjustified actions are almost
welcome "I told you so" proof that the Tehran regime is dangerous
beyond reason, showing that all western and "moderate" Arab countries
must join in battering it into submission.
Ill-advised comments
Rajnaara Akhtar
March 30, 2007 4:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rajnaara_akhtar/2007/03/targetting_musl=
im_gps.html
Patricia Hewitt's comments about Muslim GPs breaching confidentiality
are to be condemned.
While the Department of Health is busily covering Ms Hewitt's back by
clarifying the exact nature of her comments, namely that she did not
actually say that some Muslim GPs were breaching patient
confidentiality but rather simply implied it by stating that some
Muslim women fear their Muslim GP will disclose information, the end
result is still the same. In her decision to separate out Muslim GPs
as a special case in a problem that is actually prevalent across the
board where GPs are concerned, she has pointed the finger of suspicion
at all Muslim male GPs thus undermining their credibility.
A controlling interest
David Faulkner
March 30, 2007 3:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_faulkner/2007/03/a_controlling_in=
terest.html
The important argument for a Ministry of Justice, separate from the
Home Office, is that in today's circumstances justice and respect for
the rule of law need to have their own institutional focus in
government, with a minister who is able to argue for them across the
government as a whole and if necessary against other ministers. The
government's argument for splitting the Home Office is rather
different - it is that it will enable the home secretary to give his
undivided attention to national security, to the "war" on terrorism
and organised crime, and to controlling immigration.
Tension between justice for individuals and security for the
population as a whole is a fact of life. Managing that tension has
been at the heart of Home Office business for 200 years. The
optimistic view is that two departments will manage the tension more
openly and honestly, and with more accountability, than was the
situation when it had to be resolved by a single secretary of state
within a single department.
Saudi satisfaction
Ian Black
March 30, 2007 3:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_black/2007/03/saudi_satisfaction.ht=
ml
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has every reason to be satisfied with
the outcome of the Arab summit he convened in a glittering royal
setting in Riyadh this week. Headlines across the world now confirm
that Arab governments from Iraq to Morocco are united on how to make
peace with Israel.
Nearly 59 years after Israel's war of independence and the Palestinian
"nakba" (disaster) of 1948, and 40 after the 1967 war, the solution is
crystal clear: Israel withdraws from the West Bank, East Jerusalem,
the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights and in return will enjoy normal
relations with all its neighbours, including an independent
Palestinian state. The world's most intractable conflict is thus
resolved at a stroke.
The money shot
Richard Adams
March 30, 2007 2:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_adams/2007/03/the_money_shot.ht=
ml
Those who believe American politics is distorted by money have had
their worst fears confirmed in the last few weeks. Democratic and
Republican party presidential contenders have been fundraising at a
frantic pace, desperate to get as much cash as possible into their
accounts before the first financial deadline that matters: the "money
primary".
Tomorrow, March 31, is the deadline for reporting funds raised in the
first three months of the year to the Federal Elections Commission -
with the totals announced on April 15. As the first means of judging
public support for the candidates, the April 15 result will get huge
coverage - and set the scene for the breathless "who's up, who's down"
reporting that is a staple of US political journalism.
Bearing fruit
Peter Melchett
March 30, 2007 2:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_melchett/2007/03/is_organic_food_=
really_healthi.html
The newspaper headline this week that stated "Proof at last that
organic apples can be better for you" was perhaps slightly more
tentative ("can be" not "are") than first appeared. Several scientific
studies published in the last few days have indeed confirmed earlier
research findings that organic milk, meat, fruit and vegetables
generally have more beneficial nutrients, and less harmful or
potentially harmful substances, than non-organic. Will this be enough
to convince die-hard opponents of organic food and farming that it
really is better for you? No it won't - those who have a fanatical
belief in pesticides and GM crops will go on opposing organic with an
unnatural fervour whatever the facts. At least they will until the oil
and natural gas runs out - and with it the feedstocks for the
pesticides and artificial fertilisers that intensive and GM farming
relies on. Before that happens, will this new research change David
Miliband's opinion, expressed earlier this year, that there is no
proof of health benefits from eating organic?
Losing our marbles
Open Thread
March 30, 2007 1:29 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2007/03/losing_our_marbles_=
1=2Ehtml
According to Costas Karamanlis, the prime minister of Greece, Britain
has run out of "feeble excuses" to retain marbles, which were taken
from the Parthenon by the seventh Earl of Elgin in 1801, and which
have been on display at the British Museum since a parliamentary vote
in 1816 acquired them for the nation.
Corporate abuse
John Hilary
March 30, 2007 12:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_hilary/2007/03/power_without_respo=
nsibilities.html
Do multinational corporations have human rights responsibilities? To
most us this seems like a no-brainer. Many of these companies are now
more powerful than sovereign governments, and there is a growing body
of evidence cataloguing corporate abuses in all corners of the world.
Surely we are justified in expecting companies to have their own human
rights obligations towards those who come within their spheres of
activity and influence?
Not so fast. After two years of labouring over the issue, the UN
secretary-general's special representative has just presented his long-
awaited report to the UN's human rights council in Geneva. Professor
John Ruggie has been exploring whether business can be said to have
human rights obligations in strict legal terms, and has drawn up a
survey of current laws, standards and guidelines to identify best
practice for the future.
Down but not out
Adam Roberts
March 30, 2007 12:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/adam_roberts/2007/03/down_but_not_out.h=
tml
Zimbabwe's embattled and ageing president, Robert Mugabe, rushed off
this week to a meeting of southern African leaders to discuss the
dreadful condition of his country. After ordering his police to beat
up the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, earlier this month,
he has been cracking down with energy befitting a younger man on
anyone who dares speak out against repression.
Mr Mugabe's message to the rest of the region is that the violence in
Zimbabwe is all the fault of the opposition. Some fellow presidents,
perhaps, may now grumble that Mr Mugabe's misrule is giving the
southern bit of Africa (which is otherwise rather peaceful and
prosperous at the moment) a bad name. But, as we note in the Economist
this week, don't expect much public criticism of the elder statesman -
Mr Mugabe is 83 - however often his opponents have their skulls
cracked.
Signs of progress
Brian Whitaker
March 30, 2007 11:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2007/03/signs_of_progres=
s=2Ehtml
In a blog yesterday for Comment is Free, I mentioned a seminar I had
given at the University of East London on the subject of "Islam, human
rights and gay rights".
I also mentioned that according to one of the teachers a number of
Muslim students had absented themselves from the class. The seminar
had been advertised around the campus and the teacher's opinion was
that they stayed away to avoid embarrassment if friends found out they
had taken part.
The burden of youth
Seth Freedman
March 30, 2007 10:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seth_freedman/2007/03/basket_kids.html
If you go down to the souk today, you're in for a big surprise -
especially if you thought the concept of slave labour to be nothing
more than a shameful, distant memory. Because, in and amongst the
colourful stalls selling everything from in-season sabra fruits to
knocked-off electrical goods, a silent army of pre-pubescent ghosts
hover, earning a pittance by hauling customer's purchases to their
cars for up to 15 hours a day.
The law of the land
Conor Foley
March 30, 2007 9:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2007/03/angolan_land_rights=
..html
"Who owns the land in Angola?" asked the trainer and waited for
responses. "God does," said one woman at the back of the room. "We
do," said someone else. "The person who works on it," said a third
person. "It belongs to our ancestors," came another response.
To describe Matome, the village in which we were, as being remote, is
like calling Slough boring. It consists of about 80 mud and straw huts
with no running water, electricity, sanitation system or any amenities
that I could see. To reach it, I flew down from Luanda to Lubango, in
Huila province, on Monday morning and was told that we then had a nine-
hour drive still ahead. We brought water, tents and mattresses with
us. Knowing that local food and pit latrines can be a challenging
combination, I swallowed a couple of Imodium - the drug of choice of
international aid workers - before we left.
Logging off
Robert Worcester
March 30, 2007 8:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_worcester/2007/03/_four_in_ten_a=
dults.html
Four in 10 adults in this country do not have access to the internet.
And the proportion that does is hardly growing. During the past two
years, there has only been a two percentage point increase in those
with access, from 60% to 62%, according quarterly aggregate findings
of the Ipsos MORI Technology Tracker.
The story of empire is not one of unalloyed shame
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2046969,00.html
Despite the horrors of slavery, the building of the United States
remains the greatest achievement of the past four centuries
Martin Kettle
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
At the start of the British Museum's new exhibition about the earliest
British voyages to America there is an astonishing map. It is a very
large map of the whole world, brightly coloured and richly decorated.
It has been drawn so that it can be examined flat on a table, not hung
on a wall, because the writing on it can be read from top and bottom.
It is a map for use and action. It comes originally from France and
was made by Pierre Desceliers in 1550.
Call that humiliation?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2046991,00.html
No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are
a very uncivilised bunch
Terry Jones
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment
of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their
waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives
like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even
though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling
poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then
allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians
no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with
putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we
capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then
it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate
them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and
humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.
Face to faith
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2047188,00.html
On Good Friday we ought to confront our capacity to inflict suffering
for our beliefs, says Judith Maltby
Canon Dr Judith Maltby
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, the most solemn
eight days in the Christian year. It is a week to re-encounter the
sheer narrative force of Jesus's passion, cross and resurrection.
Christians do this together in a series of special services over the
week which act out the passion story in liturgy. We do this because
the profound wisdom so often obscured by the church itself is that
identification with the story of Jesus's passion is not some
interiorised, individualised, consciousness-raising session, a "me and
God" bonding moment. To see the cross only in terms of personal
salvation is, in the words of one Good Friday sermon I heard many
years ago, like using a great library to look up a phone number: you
can do it but somehow you have missed the point. To enter liturgically
into Christ's passion is to locate not only yourself there but to
locate your neighbour there too. On Good Friday in particular, through
the power of retelling and rehearing the passion story, worshippers
will confront and engage once again with the sheer depth of our
capacity for violence and the greater depth of God's love in the face
of that violence.
Europe threatens action as Iran airs new 'confession'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2047044,00.html
EU foreign ministers support British position and warn of 'appropriate
measures' if 15 sailors and marines not released
Julian Borger, Tania Branigan and Simon Tisdall
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
The EU threatened to act against Iran last night if it did not
immediately and unconditionally release the 15 British sailors and
marines it has been holding for more than a week.
EU foreign ministers meeting in Bremen, Germany, threatened
"appropriate measures" if Tehran did not let the group go, supporting
Britain's position that the crew had been in Iraqi waters when they
were seized eight days ago. The ministers did not spell out what
measures would be taken, but British diplomats hoped they would
involve an escalating array of punitive steps.
Waste land
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2045358,00.html
China makes most of our plastic carriers - it also recycles them when
we toss them away. Crazy? It's become a fashionable thing to worry
about - and there's a new It bag to prove it. Jonathan Watts in Mai
and Jess Cartner-Morley in London report
Jonathan Watts and Jess Cartner-Morley
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
Five thousand miles from the nearest UK high street, a blue and white
Tesco carrier bag flutters like a flag in the breeze. It is snagged on
a twig above a Chinese stream that's choked with rubbish from around
the world. Argos and Wal-Mart logos are visible in the fetid water and
along banks that are strewn with plastic bags. There is even a green
and white Help The Aged carrier with a UK website address on it.
Olmert says peace deal possible within five years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2047059,00.html
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, yesterday cautiously welcomed
the renewed Arab peace initiative and said it would be possible to
reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians within five years.
But in a series of interviews published yesterday in the Israeli press
Mr Olmert also said there would be no negotiation over the question of
refugees and that, for now, he would not discuss the key issues of a
future agreement in his talks with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud
Abbas.
Seven year sentence likely to mean Hicks can go home
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2047047,00.html
=C2=B7 Australian detained at Guant=C3=A1namo for five years
=C2=B7 Critics say plea-bargain deal lets US off the hook
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
David Hicks moved closer to returning to his native Australia
yesterday after five years as a prisoner at Guant=C3=A1namo by agreeing to
serve a seven-year term for providing material support to al-Qaida.
The plea-bargain deal for Hicks marks the first resolution of a case
brought before the Bush administration's widely condemned system of
military tribunals.
Appearing before the military judge with his hair newly shorn and in a
grey suit instead of his prison uniform, Hicks admitted to travelling
to Afghanistan before the September 2001 terror attacks to receive
military training, and to trying to join the fight against US forces
during the war.
Russia's scientists shun Putin's embrace
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2047185,00.html
=C2=B7 Prestigious academy defies Kremlin takeover
=C2=B7 Thousands vote against rule by bureaucrats
Luke Harding in Moscow
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
Russia's most prestigious academic body - the Academy of Sciences -
has delivered a rare rebuff to Vladimir Putin by rejecting Kremlin
plans for it to give up its independence.
The academy - which was founded by Peter the Great in 1724 - defiantly
voted against a proposal that would have seen it governed by a
supervisory council. The council, made up largely of people without
scientific backgrounds, would have decided the priorities of Russian
science.
The invader's gift: how occupation by Argentina created a little
Britain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/falklands/story/0,,2047141,00.html
A robust economy is drawing people in to a once decaying outpost
Rory Carroll in Port Stanley
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
In Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World the authorities punish a
character with exile to a collection of windswept rocks in the south
Atlantic which they consider one of the bleakest destinations on
Earth. To be on the Falkland Islands, in other words, was to be
condemned.
The islands were so dreary that even after Europeans discovered them
in the 16th century neither the English, French nor Spanish rushed to
occupy them. A handful of settlers came and went but mainly the
archipelago was a stop-off for ships. When the Royal Navy claimed the
Falklands for Britain in 1833 the move angered Argentina but was
otherwise a footnote of empire. Scottish sheep farmers were imported
and eked out a lonely existence for more than a century ignored by the
UK 8,000 miles away. The dwindling population limped into the 1970s
lacking television, roads, air links or decent telephones. The Foreign
Office, fed up with what it viewed as a strategically useless
anachronism, wanted to trade sovereignty for better relations with
South America.
Bolivians join migrant rush - on cruise liner
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2046933,00.html
Dale Fuchs in Madrid
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian
Airline tickets to Spain were sold out for weeks, and the Atlantic
Ocean was clearly too vast to cross in a fishing boat. So a group of
82 Bolivians tried a novel way to migrate to Europe: they took a
luxury cruise.
Paying up to =E2=82=AC2,400 (=C2=A31,630) each for a berth on an ocean line=
r, the
Bolivian group embarked in Brazil alongside well-heeled Argentine and
Dutch passengers. But when the vessel reached its European stopovers
of Tenerife, C=C3=A1diz and Valencia this week, police officers refused to
let them on to Spanish soil. A spokesman for the Spanish interior
ministry said immigration officials suspected they had come to reunite
with family and find jobs.
Between troops and Tigers: refugees caught in Sri Lanka's bloody
crossfire
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2046084,00.html
As battle intensifies once more, 150,000 are forced to live in
ramshackle camps
Gallery: Sri Lanka's civil war
Audio: Randeep Ramesh reports from Sri Lanka
Randeep Ramesh in Batticaloa
Friday March 30, 2007
The Guardian
Sitting beneath a palm tree, Loganathan points to his new "house": a
brown tent with blankets for a floor just outside Batticaloa, a town
on Sri Lanka's east coast straddling a blue lagoon. The 34-year-old
Tamil labourer says his family have been sheltering under the
tarpaulin since November when a mortar shell landed in his garden,
which was about 62 miles away from the refugee camp he now calls home.
His nine-year-old daughter lost her arm in the blast and his five-year-
old son's back was scarred by the shrapnel.
Death chants in Tehran voice resentment of 'the little Satan'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2408011.ece
By Angus McDowall in Tehran
Published: 31 March 2007
Ahmad Khatami, Tehran's thickset leader of Friday prayers,
gesticulated in the air as he rebuked Britain. The thousands of people
sitting before him are regime loyalists, representing the fifth of
Iranians who always vote conservative.
A thundering salavat, an invocation of God, his prophet and the imams,
greeted Mr Khatami's more robust statements, followed by chants of
"Death to America! Death to England!" As the crowd poured out, the
worshippers expressed their defiance and anger at America's smaller
ally, nicknamed "the little Satan".
Red Cross: fighting in Somalia's capital is the worst in more than 15
years
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2408097.ece
By Mohamed Olad Hassan, Associated Press Writer
Published: 31 March 2007
Insurgents shot a helicopter gunship out of the sky yesterday and
mortar shells slammed into a hospital during the worst fighting in
this beleaguered capital in more than 15 years, leaving corpses piled
in the streets and sending hundreds of bloodied civilians streaming
into hospitals.
At least 30 people, and likely many more, have been killed and
hundreds wounded since Thursday.
A Chinese man's home is his castle: kung fu master keeps bailiffs at
bay in the siege of Chongqing
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2407977.ece
By Clifford Coonan in Beijing
Published: 31 March 2007
A property dispute in Chongqing in south-western China has created a
pair of folk heroes - a flamboyant restaurateur Wu Ping and her
husband Yang Wu, a kung-fu teacher - a couple who for three years have
resisted the bulldozers trying to drive them out of their house to
make way for a shopping mall.
The developers have dug around the two-storey brick house, leaving it
perched precariously on a small island of land in the middle of a 10-
metre-deep pit. Reminiscent of a medieval castle surrounded by a moat,
their house has come to symbolise individual efforts to fight the
wrecking ball that accompanies development in all the major cities in
China.
Communist Party people: The secret history of Red America
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2407974.ece
The US spent much of the 20th century in fear of communism. Now a
newly unearthed archive is shedding unexpected light on the early
heroes of the American left. David Usborne reports
Published: 31 March 2007
The Red Scare on Washington Square began a week ago. News broke that
New York University's Tamiment Library was giving sanctuary to the
archives of the Communist Party of the USA - Lenin buttons and all -
and that speakers at a planned seminar would include its current
leaders.
The headline writers of Rupert Murdoch's local paper, the New York
Post, predictably fulminated with headlines warning of a "Red 'Love-
in" on campus. For some, it seems, the McCarthy mindset has still not
lifted. Sound the alarm, there are commie subversives in our midst;
the nation is in peril.
African leaders 'have failed the people of Zimbabwe'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2407971.ece
By Basildon Peta in Dar es Salaam
Published: 31 March 2007
African leaders meeting in Tanzania have once again failed the people
of Zimbabwe by sticking to their futile policy of criticising
President Robert Mugabe in private while pampering him in public.
The director of the Human Rights Centre in Dar es Salaam, Helen Tijo
Disimba, said no amount of wise counsel in private would help in
changing Mr Mugabe's style of governance unless it was accompanied by
vigorous public criticism. African leaders, she added, should have
finally realised by now that after successive failures in their policy
of quiet diplomacy they would have to change tack and condemn Mr
Mugabe publicly.
Leading article: Time for a new approach in an effort to end this
stand-off with Iran
http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2407970.ece
The EU still has leverage and diplomatic links with Iran. Brussels is
more respected in Tehran than Britain or the UN
Published: 31 March 2007
It is now more than a week since Iran captured 15 British service
personnel in the Persian Gulf. All the claims and counter-claims from
British and Iranian military spokesmen this week over whether this
incident took place in Iraqi or Iranian territorial waters are
something of an irrelevance. There is never likely to be conclusive
proof, accepted by both sides, of who was really trespassing. The most
important question is how the situation can be defused and the return
of the captured personnel secured.
Rupert Cornwell: A tale of two presidents and their wars
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2407980.ece
George Bush clings to the hope that he, like Truman, will be hailed as
a saviour
Published: 31 March 2007
Oh for the lost art of short biographies! The thought struck me the
other day as I was re-reading Roy Jenkins' lapidary life of President
Harry Truman, founder of the Pax Americana that George Bush seems well
on the way to destroying. Including references and index, it came to
just 232 pages. For figures infinitely less consequential than Truman
you're lucky these days not to have to wade through three times as
much - and, given the qualities of Jenkins as both writer and
historian, for a quarter the reward.
But, you may ask, why Truman? Simply because he is the historical
figure Bush most looks to for solace in this dismal final chapter of
his own presidency. And certain similarities are undeniable. For both,
a foreign war - Korea in the case of Truman, Iraq for Bush - was the
dominant issue in their last two years in the White House. Both became
intensely unpopular. If you think Bush's present approval rating of
around 30 per cent is bad, what about Truman who left office with one
of 23 per cent?
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