Money for nothing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2014280,00.html
Leader
Friday February 16, 2007
The Guardian
The internet is supposed to be entering a golden age of creativity,
with unprecedented opportunities for users to generate their own
content. So far, however, they are getting little reward for their
efforts. Now some of the bigger ones are getting restless. This week
Google lost the latest round of its dispute with Belgian newspapers
over the right to link to news stories without paying, but the much
wider argument about who should pay for content generated by users on
the web is only just starting.
No need of Persuasion
John Sutherland
February 16, 2007 09:09 AM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/02/no_need_of_persuasion.html
It's hard not to see a certain connection between George Bush's
Baghdad surge and ITV's upcoming barrage of Austen. He's losing the
war, they're losing viewers. Advance! To hell with the costs.
The massed ranks of Janeites, the classic reprint publishers and those
specialist suppliers of horse-drawn carriages can all rejoice. ITV is
taking four of the big six, and has abducted Andrew Davies from the
BBC to do Northanger Abbey. The Beeb is hitting back with their own
Sense and Sensibility, which makes near enough a full house.
Has university really changed?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2014581,00.html
York, 1972-75
Linda Grant
Friday February 16, 2007
The Guardian
In June 1975 I sat my last finals exam and, without waiting for any
graduation ceremony, set off to hitchhike across America. It was the
period after Watergate, the last American troops had scrambled aboard
helicopters out of Saigon, and the small concrete campus on the
outskirts of York seemed only a holding pattern for the future. I
never returned until a blustery winter's day, 31 years later.
What did I remember? Small pools of memory had collected in my mind
and never dispersed: of the area in my college with the primary-
coloured foam chairs like perfectly smooth Lego, where we lounged and
smoked and frittered away our lives in nonsense conversations; of
Gumbo, the late-night wholefood cafe where we ate brown-rice messes
with veggies and danced queasily to the Doors' Light My Fire; of
returning to the unheated two-up, two-down terraced house that I
shared with three other girls - so bitterly cold and damp during the
miners' strike that it was prudent to take someone, anyone, home to
have sex with, to keep your toes from dropping off with frostbite in
the night.
Britain backs revolutionary aid experiment
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/development/story/0,,2014436,00.html
=B7 Cash from mobile 'banks' replaces food parcels
=B7 Scheme highlights divide on how to tackle poverty
Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent
Friday February 16, 2007
The Guardian
Britain is backing an experiment to change the way aid is delivered in
parts of Africa that highlights a growing divide over how western
nations spend hundreds of millions of dollars pledged to the
continent.
The Department for International Development (Dfid) is providing
=A3750,000 to fund a scheme to provide cash payments instead of food to
tens of thousands of hungry people in northern Malawi via a
sophisticated system of bank cards and electronic identification.
How six-mile trek for grain became a stroll to the cashpoint
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/development/story/0,,2014351,00.html
Chris McGreal in Dowa
Friday February 16, 2007
The Guardian
Each month for more than a year Nasita Jaziel trudged six miles
through the Malawi bush to collect two 20kg sacks of free maize which
she carried home, balanced on her head, to feed her children.
Sometimes the food was late - some of it came all the way from
America, after all - and so she would do the whole journey again the
next day.
This month Mrs Jaziel walked little more than a mile from her home in
Dowa clutching a piece of plastic with a microchip much like any
cashpoint card and presented herself at a mobile ATM and bank under
the shade of a tree.
Palestinian ministers face blanket US ban
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2014380,00.html
=B7 Blow to unity cabinet in run up to three-way talks
=B7 Fatah and independents to be treated 'same as Hamas'
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Friday February 16, 2007
The Guardian
American officials have told the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas,
that they will boycott all ministers in a new coalition cabinet unless
the government meets international conditions, including recognition
of Israel, Palestinian officials said yesterday.
The warning indicates the extent of Washington's unease at the
agreement reached in Mecca last week between the rival Palestinian
groups, Hamas and Fatah. It comes just before a meeting in Jerusalem
on Monday between the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, the
Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and Mr Abbas.
The boycott means that any Fatah leaders who join the new government
will be shunned by US officials, and suggests that Monday's meeting is
unlikely to produce a breakthrough.
Fox launches rightwing satire show
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2014734,00.html
Dan Glaister, Los Angeles
Friday February 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
For some, it is a sign that the conservatives are preparing to move
into opposition; for others, it represents the right's attempt to
reclaim satire from the cosy clasp of the liberal elite. This weekend,
Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel, home of all that is "fair and
balanced", launches the Half Hour News Hour.
As the title suggests, the programme is not entirely serious. Nor is
it entirely fair and balanced. Indeed, it is intended to wrench the
iron fist of satire away from the liberals on Jon Stewart's The Daily
Show and give the right all the best lines.
EU braces itself for influx of Iraqi refugees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,2014467,00.html
=B7 Tens of thousands could flee in coming weeks
=B7 UN asks for countries to share burden on Sweden
David Gow in Brussels
Friday February 16, 2007
The Guardian
The European Union is considering emergency measures to cope with an
expected influx of tens of thousands of refugees seeking to escape the
escalating sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, it emerged yesterday.
Franco Frattini, the EU justice and home affairs commissioner, told
interior ministers in Brussels he would present precise proposals for
the 27 countries to deal with a surge in claims for asylum from Iraqis
within the next few weeks.
His move coincided with an appeal to the EU from the UN high
commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) in Brussels for more action to
protect Iraqi refugees - and for more burden sharing for Sweden, which
has taken in around half of current Iraqi asylum-seekers.
Iran versus the West: the view from the Tehran bazaar
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2274482.ece
The Iranian capital's vast market is the centre of the nation's
economy. But President Ahmadinejad's foreign policy, and the sanctions
it has provoked, are proving bad for business. By Angus McDowall
Published: 16 February 2007
Bright shafts of daylight breach the corrugated roof above Tehran's
grand bazaar and illuminate a scene of near total mayhem. Wholesalers
haggle and gossip under woollen astrakhan caps, a boy scampers between
the legs of shoppers, a tray of steaming teacups held aloft on one
hand, a cleric strides through the throng, his mobile phone pressed
beneath the crisp white turban, while porters manoeuvre huge barrows
through tight alleyways. The din of trade, money and power echoes to
the steel rafters.
The bazaar, a city within a city sprawling across central Tehran, has
been at the heart of the Islamic republic since it rose from the ashes
of the Shah's monarchy in 1979. In so secretive a world, it is
impossible to know the extent of the bazaar's control, but estimates
range up to a third of the country's retail market. With its high
political connections and long economic reach, some Iranians see the
bazaar as the centre of a mafia that permeates the entire state.
Proof that chillies were used in recipes 6,000 years ago
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2274474.ece
By Steve Connor
Published: 16 February 2007
Chilli peppers have been deemed the oldest-known kitchen condiment
after scientists found evidence that people were cooking with them
more than 6,000 years ago.
An archaeological study has found that hot chillis were being added to
bland food long before the pyramids were built.
When you're in a hole ...
Ismail Patel
February 16, 2007 12:17 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ismail_patel/2007/02/stop_digging.html
Since Israel began its work outside the Moroccan Gate of the al-Aqsa
compound nearly two weeks ago, there have been widely diverging
accounts about the nature and aim of the Israeli construction work.
Initially it was reported Israeli authorities were carrying out repair
works to the walkway leading to the Moroccan Gate of the al-Aqsa
sanctuary. However, it soon transpired they were also carrying out
excavation work beneath the walkway.
Racing hearts and racist minds
Riazat Butt
February 16, 2007 10:42 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/riazat_butt/2007/02/if_youre_having_pro=
blems_findi.html
"If you're having problems finding a Muslim partner, it's due to
racism and close-minded parents."
So read a comment posted on this week's Islamophonic, which looked at
how to meet your Muslim match.
Time to trade tactics for strategy
Ilana Bet-El
February 16, 2007 9:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ilana_betel/2007/02/a_desperate_cry_for=
_assistance.html
It is a sad fact that the EU has no strategic vision in foreign
affairs. This is partly due to structural problems, and partly due to
personality problems. Either way however, both contribute to the
strategic impasse - and it is becoming increasingly intolerable as
time goes by: Kosovo is rumbling away in the heart of Europe, seeking
independence from Serbia, and threatening to revert to violence; the
near Middle East - Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, on the edge of
Europe - is a closed simmering pot, about to explode at any second;
whilst Iraq has already gone beyond explosion, with Iran and its
nuclear potentials waiting on the sidelines: and Afghanistan devolving
back into tribal chaos courtesy of the Taliban and Nato.
To all these imminent and threatening problems the EU has no adequate
answers other than large cheques and empty statements - nor, on the
whole, do its member states. Worse still, no one seems to care: member
states are becoming increasingly introspective, each caught up in its
own cycle of scandals, elections and increasingly obscure reality TV
shows. And Brussels is, as ever, entirely concerned with Brussels and
its squabbles, paying attention to the Common Foreign and Security
Policy (CFSP) and European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) only
inasmuch as it reflects on a question everyone is now asking: when
will Javier Solana go?
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