Marooned on an island of misinformation
Stephen O'Shea
September 26, 2006 12:40 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_oshea/2006/09/back_in_the_ussa.html
So, according to news reports Tariq Ramadan has once again been denied
a visa to enter the USA. I met Tariq last June in a BBC studio in
London where we debated whether Islam should be reformed. But if
anything needs reforming in a hurry, it is public discourse in the
United States.
Presumably, the sages at the department of homeland security do not
read Comment is free, where, only last week, Tariq posted a typically
stimulating analysis, this time of the pope's notorious speech, an
analysis that ended with a call for reasoned debate. Actually, someone
in Washington is doubtless paid to read Comment is free - hi there! -
but Tariq's message about dialogue was so profoundly antipathetic to
current political wisdom in the United States that it could well have
been a further prod to deny him entry.
Taking the initiative
Jeremy Leggett
September 26, 2006 04:08 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jeremy_leggett/2006/09/hope_lives_and_bill_clinton_ha.html
I went to the Clinton Global Initiative in New York last week a little
dubious about the whole idea. However, a personal invite had appeared
from the main man back in July, and I figured I could usefully schmooze
with the second biggest annual assembly of CEOs behind the Davos World
Economic Forum meeting with at least some chance of selling someone a
solar panel or two.
As it turned out, I was being too cynical. I actually came back in
danger of being inspired.
A new lease of life
David Boaz
September 26, 2006 03:35 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_boaz/2006/09/lifesaving_think_tanks.html
Cory Maye is a black Mississippi man sentenced to death in 2004 for
shooting a white police officer in a botched, forced-entry drug raid on
his apartment. As my colleague Gene Healy writes: "the circumstances
look very much like self-defence: a man asleep in his home with his
18-month-old daughter reached for a gun when someone kicked down his
door late at night." Unfortunately, the intruders were police officers,
and Maye shot and killed the police chief's son. Maye had no criminal
record, and the police found no evidence of drug dealing, though they
did find the remnants of one marijuana cigarette.
Maye was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. But last Thursday
a judge threw out the death sentence and ordered a new sentencing
hearing. The judge did not dismiss Maye's murder conviction, and a new
hearing could still result in a death sentence. But at least for now,
he's off death row.
Forbidding ways
Brian Whitaker
September 26, 2006 02:40 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2006/09/a_bizarre_ban.html
The Egyptian government's enthusiasm for suppressing free speech
(examples here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here) has now
extended to a ban on the latest edition of the Guardian Weekly.
According to the official Egyptian news agency, MENA, information
minister Anas El-Feki has issued a decree banning the Guardian Weekly
along with the French paper Le Figaro and the German Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung. "The minister of information said that he would not
allow any publication that insults the Islamic religion or calls for
hatred or contempt of any religion to be distributed inside Egypt,"
MENA reports.
From Brown to green
Larry Elliott
September 26, 2006 12:29 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/larry_elliott/2006/09/post_430.html
Climate change is the political flavour of the month in Britain. The
Tories have cycling Dave, the Liberal Democrats have their plans for
green taxes. Now, Gordon Brown - up until now the motorists' friend -
is getting in on the act. Governments across the world, the chancellor
says, have been too slow to recognise the threat of climate change. No
kidding.
So, that's the good news. What's less encouraging is that the
environment tends to be a fair weather political issue, something that
comes to the fore when the economy is strong and is pushed onto the
back burner when the economy is weak. Every surge in the green movement
over the past 40 years - the early 1970s, the late 1980s and now - has
accompanied a period of strong economic growth and low unemployment.
The message seems to be that voters start to fret about the environment
when they are not fretting about how to pay the mortgage or meet the
payments on their credit cards.
Where's the despair?
Agam Tapaktuan
September 26, 2006 11:45 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/agam_tapaktuan/2006/09/thai_coup.html
When news of the military coup came over the television last Tuesday
night, my surprise at the developing events was matched by my surprise
at my own feelings. I felt apprehension - how would events proceed
overnight, as troops moved into Bangkok from their upcountry bases? -
but the outrage I would have expected was strangely absent. Despair for
Thai democracy? No. Anger at the generals for ousting civilian
government? Just not there.
Instead, it was as though a long-unused emergency exit had suddenly
opened, allowing the possibility of egress from a baffling maze. I felt
relief, optimism, and some inevitable excitement at witnessing another
crucial moment in Thai history - tempered with concern, of course, for
how the immediate period of risk would play out. It was obviously a
setback for Thai democracy, and no one who loves democracy could fully
condone such actions. But nobody I've talked to in the days since the
coup seems particularly disappointed, except in regard to international
perception that Thailand has taken a giant step back to the bad old
days.
Like Musharraf, the Thai general just can't let go
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldbriefing/story/0,,1881792,00.html
Simon Tisdall
Wednesday September 27, 2006
The Guardian
Army commanders who seize political power by force often have the best
intentions. But once installed they find it hard to let go. General
Pervez Musharraf, who overthrew Pakistan's elected prime minister in
1999, subsequently appointed himself president while remaining army
chief. Seven years later, and now peddling a book lauding his
achievements, he seems determined to carry on indefinitely.
Thailand's coup leader, General Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, also cast
himself as a national saviour when he bundled the prime minister,
Thaksin Shinawatra, out of office last week. Many Thais and some
foreign commentators welcomed the intervention, deeming it a "necessary
evil". But Gen Sondhi, too, is showing signs of succumbing to
"putsch-itis", a condition afflicting military men with ideas above
their station. As in the Philippines and Burma, democracy in Thailand
is in danger of being musharrafed.
We are not climate-change deniers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1881604,00.html
ExxonMobil knows the dangers of carbon emissions and is committed to
cutting them, says Nick Thomas
Wednesday September 27, 2006
The Guardian
Regrettably George Monbiot seems unable to accept that ExxonMobil takes
the issue of climate change seriously. Over the past two weeks he has
inferred that we believe that "man-made global warming is either a myth
or not worth tackling" (The denial industry, September 19; Pundits who
contest climate change should tell us who is paying them, September 26)
On the contrary, we know that carbon emissions is one of the factors
that contribute to climate change - we don't debate or dispute this. We
agree with scientific assessments which conclude that climate change
poses risks that may prove to be significant for society and
ecosystems. Consequently, we are taking steps to reduce and minimise
carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions from our own operations. In
addition we support approaches to reduce emissions more broadly in ways
that are cost effective for society and that consider the uncertainties
that remain. Does this sound like a company in denial? We think not.
Cape fear
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1881834,00.html
It started off as a cautionary tale about a little girl and a wolf -
and grew into something bigger and darker. Mark Lawson on the many
incarnations of Little Red Riding Hood
Wednesday September 27, 2006
The Guardian
'You probably think you know the story," says the sardonic voiceover at
the start of Hoodwinked, as we see a leather-bound volume of classic
fairy tales lying open at the legend of Little Red Riding Hood. The
movie then dresses up this old granny of a fable in the vulpine comedy
of post-Shrek, multilayered family entertainment, tailored to an
audience fully aware that the word "hood" denotes not only a type of
head-covering but also urban territory disputed by gangs.
In this animated retelling, released on Friday, young Red turns out to
be a tough, sussed type whose first words to the wolf are: "You again?
What do I have to do? Get a restraining order?" The film's poster
pastiches The Usual Suspects, and this hints at a narrative in which
visual and verbal clues consistently mislead. None of the central
characters - Red, Granny, the Wolf, the Woodsman - fulfils the same
purpose as in the traditional nursery version, and the narrative
variously sends up the James Bond and Mission: Impossible franchises,
the TV series CSI, and even the genre of computer-generated kidult
movies itself. After a reversal, the heroine mooches around while a
Randy Newman-ish ballad called Red Is Blue oozes on the soundtrack
Intelligence report blow to Bush's war on terror
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1881772,00.html
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Wednesday September 27, 2006
The Guardian
George Bush yesterday suffered a blow to his argument that the removal
of Saddam Hussein had made Americans safer after he ordered the release
of an intelligence report warning the war in Iraq had become a "cause
celebre for jihadists".
Mr Bush's decision to declassify a small portion of a leaked National
Intelligence Estimate, six weeks before the midterm elections, was seen
as an attempt to get in front of Democratic critics, led by Bill
Clinton, who accuse the administration of not doing enough to catch
Osama bin Laden.
A rabble-rouser for peace
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1881195,00.html
If Desmond Tutu is guilty of craving fame, he has made good use of it,
writes David Beresford
Tuesday September 26, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
About 10 years ago, when the truth commission and the activities of
South African death squads were still fresh in people's minds, a basket
of fruit was delivered to my door. A card said it had come from
Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I shouted at my family to take cover.
After a few prods with a broomstick persuaded me that it was not a
bomb, and I had calmed down, I remembered that I had asked the
archbishop to launch a book I had written. He had been unable to do so
because of pressure of work. The fruit basket was by way of apology.
So I was prepared, when I took delivery last week of a parcel
containing the archbishop's biography, Rabble-Rouser for Peace, and did
not have recourse to a broomstick. In fact I was reluctant to open it
at all, so gorgeous was the wrapping: shocking pink paper tied with
gold
ribbon in the shape of a cross, with an ornamental crucifix and a
parchment dove of peace.
Despotic? Maybe. Dictator? No
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1881400,00.html
Was Thaksin's toppling justified? It depends who you ask, reports John
Aglionby
Tuesday September 26, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
The United Nations high commissioner for human rights yesterday jumped
on the bandwagon of international condemnation of the Thai generals who
launched a coup against the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.
Louise Arbour said last week's putsch "raised serious human rights
concerns".
"The various decrees issued by the Council for Democratic Reform under
Constitutional Monarchy restrict a number of basic human rights, such
as the right to freedom of assembly, the right to freedom of opinion
and expression, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention," she
said in a statement.
To be fair to Ms Arbour, the office of the UNCHR has been one of the
few international organisations or governments which cannot be accused
of inconsistency.
Throughout Mr Thaksin's five years in power it criticized him for
various alleged abuses, including the murders of some 2,200 people in
the government's 2002-3 war on drugs and the deaths in October 2004 of
scores of people in army trucks following a demonstration at Tak Bai in
the insurgency-ravaged south.
.
|
