Palaces and prisons
Brian Whitaker
October 3, 2006 05:15 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2006/10/condi_in_wonderl=
and.html
From the Revised Washington Dictionary of Modern English:
Moderate (adjective): conservative, authoritarian, undemocratic but
unlikely to make trouble for the US or Israel.
"We are on our way back to the Middle East," Condoleezza Rice announced
to journalists aboard the plane as they crossed they Atlantic. "We're
going to start in Saudi Arabia and meet with King Abdullah and then go
on to Cairo ...
The European farewell tour
David Mathieson
October 4, 2006 09:05 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_mathieson/2006/10/post_470.html
On the first leg of what will be his European farewell tour, Tony Blair
arrived in Madrid yesterday for discussions with the Spanish prime
minister Jos=E9 Luis Rodr=EDguez Zapatero. It is an appropriate place to
start because as Blair makes his unwilling exit he will be meeting one
of the young left leaders emerging most forcefully onto the European
stage.
The root cause of Blair's departure from government is the same as the
one that brought Zapatero into power: Iraq. That alone was enough to
get the relationship between the two leaders off to a rocky start but
it has improved since on a range of issues. Scarcely noticed in
Britain, Zapatero publicly singled out Blair for thanks with his
assistance on the evolving Basque peace process. In Europe, ministers
from Britain and Spain have generally shared a common vision on issues
from promoting competitiveness to reshaping the EU so that it can
include countries like Turkey. And between them Blair and Zapatero seem
finally to have cracked the utterly absurd (and costly) dispute over
Gibraltar that has fouled up British-Hispanic relations for as long as
any diplomat can remember.
Tick-box teaching
Anastasia de Waal
October 3, 2006 03:39 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anastasia_de_waal/2006/10/convenient_tr=
uths.html
Particularly pertinent in light of the new anti-ageism legislation was
the TES' front-page headline last week: "New staff teach best: research
explodes accepted myth of experience as young teachers outperform their
colleagues".
But behind the Institute of Education (IoE) and Nottingham University's
findings lies a rather different story.
What might instead be deduced from this research is not that entrant
teachers' dynamism makes for better teaching but that the just-trained
teacher knows no better or worse than New Labour's prescriptive
methodologies. As a result, they are both more compliant with
government tick-box diktat and less jaded by the straitjacketing.
(Research carried out by Ofsted arguably substantiates this idea with
recently trained teachers scoring twice as well in inspection as their
older counterparts trained under a different system - Ofsted's quality
criteria heavily determined by government policy). The basis of good
teaching in the IoE and Nottingham's research is test scores -
including the very same sats results which have been so widely
discredited. No wonder then, that new teachers are "better". Driven by
the government's fixation with hitting targets, one thing today's
teacher training certainly seems to instil are the benefits (in target
terms) of teaching-to-the-test.
Facing up to Guant=E1namo
Victoria Brittain
October 3, 2006 03:15 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/victoria_brittain/2006/10/facing_up_to_=
guantnamo.html
The hypocrisy and incompetence of the Foreign Office and Home Office in
the cases of the eight UK residents held in Guant=E1namo have reached
extraordinary new depths in the recent refusal to accept the Americans'
offer to send them back to Britain, as revealed in today's Guardian.
The Americans want all these men to be sent home, then they want them
kept under 24-hour surveillance, and they want them to be prevented
from travelling. The British officials say the men "do not pose enough
of a threat" to use up anti-terrorism resources to monitor them in this
way. Of course they don't pose a threat, as the government has known
from the start of their four-year ordeal, and as interrogators at
Guant=E1namo have even told some of them.
A queen-sized sensation
Agnes Poirier
October 3, 2006 02:25 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/agnes_poirier/2006/10/marieantoinette_c=
omes_back.html
Oh no, not her. Not Marie Antoinette again. For those of you who
suffered the Marie Antoinette counter-revolution revival syndrome in
France last spring, brace yourself for another reactionary onslaught as
Sofia Coppola's film is about to be released in the UK and soon the
rest of the world. The UK release on October 20 will undoubtedly leave
Britain's shores awash with "new" discoveries about her life, her
(frustrated) sexuality, her (boring) habits, her (decadent) tastes, her
(lack of) convictions, her (powdered) hair, anything real or fictitious
as long as it pulls people into the cinema, or sells books, dolls,
macaroons, etc.
Imagine what it is going to be like in three weeks' time: every women's
magazine will feel obliged to state that ancien r=E9gime fashion is
back; la Beckham will show off her new powdered hairstyle; and Ms
Coppola, after giving birth to her (half-French) baby, may well
announce to the world that it is a Marie Antoinette (or a Louis). We
suggest Maximilien.
A world of protection
Stephen Bates
October 3, 2006 01:40 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_bates/2006/10/to_shoot_a_prime_=
minister.html
The release of a 97-year-old National Archive memorandum about an
alleged plot by suffragettes to assassinate the Edwardian prime
minister Herbert Asquith raises interesting questions, more about the
police of the time than the militant wing of the women's movement.
The document, written in the Home Office in 1909 (the year after
Asquith became prime minister and a couple of years before some of the
suffragettes launched a heavy campaign of civic violence) concerned a
report that two women had been seen practising with a Browning revolver
at a shooting range in Tottenham Court Road. One of them was apparently
"a little woman wearing a tam-o'shanter" and they had been reported by
a woman named Mrs Moore who, while sympathetic to the cause of women's
suffrage, was also a friend of the prime minister's sister-in-law. She
believed that at least five women had "given expression of their
intentions to commit acts of violence", though out of solidarity she
declined to name them because it would have been a breach of faith.
Picking winners
Dilip Hiro
October 3, 2006 12:29 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2006/10/post_464.html
In his just-released book State of Denial, Bob Woodward refers to the
role United States President George W Bush wished to play in the
elections for the Iraqi National Assembly under the newly adopted
constitution in January 2005. He wanted the US embassy in Baghdad or
the Central Intelligence Agency to "pick winners".
That meant ensuring that the faction led by the interim Prime Minister
Iyad Allawi - appointed to the post seven months earlier by Paul
Bremer, the US viceroy in Iraq - emerged as the largest group in the
National Assembly.
Culture, not politics, is now the heart of our public realm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1886128,00.html
The cynics who ridiculed Margate's Exodus Day miss the point: art has
broken its elitist leash to inspire collective purpose
Madeleine Bunting
Tuesday October 3, 2006
The Guardian
On Saturday evening at 7pm, an Antony Gormley sculpture was burned on a
derelict fairground site in Margate. A form of antisocial behaviour,
you might think; but in fact this was social behaviour writ large. A
procession made their way to Gormley's 25m-high Waste Man to mark the
culmination of a huge arts project that had involved hundreds of
Margate residents in the making of a film and the performing of songs
specially written for the day-long event by the likes of Brian Eno.
Margate might well be waking up from its biggest hangover ever, still a
tad bewildered as to what exactly its weekend fling was all about. What
happens when big, ambitious names in art, music, theatre and film
descend on a shabby seaside town and shake it by the scruff of its
neck? Is this some sort of makeover show on a town-wide scale with a
bit of the Pop Idol format mixed in: a combination of a town in quest
of a Trinny transformation and its residents hungry for their five
minutes of fame?
The Tory resurgence is a glorious opportunity - for Gordon Brown
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1886869,00.html
The party's new line on foreign policy, especially as it concerns the
US, could free Labour's next leader to move leftward
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
Could David Cameron be not only a threat to Labour - but also an
opportunity? It's a near-heretical thought, now that the conventional
wisdom has anointed him as the most effective Tory leader since
Margaret Thatcher. Even his critics admit that Cameron addresses his
party today having put barely a foot wrong since he took over almost a
year ago.
For the best part of a decade, Blair shook his head in disbelief that
the Tories had slouched off to the unelectable right rather than
fighting him for the centre ground. Cameron has heeded that lesson and
several more from Blair's Bumper Book of Electoral Strategy. He's
illustrated his return to the middle ground by hugging centrist "brand
signifiers", in the language actually used by Tory operatives: think
Nelson Mandela, Bob Geldof or, a tad more humbly, Will Hutton and
George Monbiot, both of whom have headed to Bournemouth as guest
speakers. He's aped Blair by picking a fight with traditionalists from
his own side; loyally, Norman Tebbit and Edward Leigh have played the
roles allocated to Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn in New Labour's version
of the drama, making their leader look moderate by denouncing him as an
apostate from the old religion. When Cameron and his fellow modernisers
insist they won't back down - as George Osborne did again yesterday on
the refusal to promise tax cuts - it's intended as a Blair-like display
of "toughness" and "leadership", qualities cherished by the focus
groups.
Offensive and unfair, Borat's antics leave a nasty aftertaste
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1886796,00.html
Sacha Baron Cohen exploits the west's ignorance of Kazakhstan to the
full, but his jokes are racist and slanderous
Erlan Idrissov
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
Humour can be used to defuse tensions and heal divisions - as Tony
Blair demonstrated to brilliant effect at the Labour party conference.
But if it exploits ignorance and prejudice it can have quite the
reverse effect.
I fear that the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of
Borat Sagdiyev, whose new movie opens here next month, does not
understand this. Baron Cohen possesses a great comic talent and
remarkable inventive powers. So inventive, in fact, that in creating
Borat he has also created an imaginary country - a violent, primitive
and oppressive place which he calls "Kazakhstan", but which bears no
resemblance to the real Kazakhstan.
The deck is stacked
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1886794,00.html
The US crackdown on online gaming is not motivated by morality, but
protectionism
Nils Pratley
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
First, a confession. I have been aiding and abetting these dastardly
online gambling companies in their mission to corrupt American society.
I have played poker online. It started innocently, a chance and
revelatory encounter with a late-night TV poker programme. Poker wasn't
a game of chance or luck. It was about respecting odds, making bluffs,
and taking calculated risks. There were parallels with bridge, even
chess, but with the possibility of profit. It was the Cadillac of card
games, as Doyle Brunson, one of the poker greats, called it.
Atheists, stop grovelling
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1886798,00.html
If non-believers set up schools of their own, they'd soon knock faith
primaries off their perch
Zoe Williams
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
The Church of England has announced that at least a quarter of places
in any new Anglican school will be offered to non-Christian families.
This is a "proportion" rather than a "quota", which means "we'll still
do, basically, what we like". The church stresses that other faiths
shouldn't feel obliged to do the same, since their very existence is a
"sign of inclusion and ... promotes community cohesion" - which is
absolute tripe, but let's leave that for another day.
Web of hate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1886857,00.html
On the rightwing website Redwatch, hundreds of photographs of anti-war
and anti-fascist activists are posted - with the message that they will
'pay for their crimes'. And now a number of those people have been
attacked. So why hasn't the site been closed down? Matthew Taylor
investigates
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
Alec McFadden was dozing in his armchair when a loud bang on his front
door brought him to his senses with a jolt. Looking out of the window
of his Wallasey home, he saw a young man half slumped in the driveway.
"I couldn't see his face but he looked like he was in some sort of
trouble, like he needed help," says McFadden. "I opened the door just a
bit to ask if he was OK and he threw himself at me and started hitting
me around the head."
North Korea raises stakes with threat to carry out nuclear weapons test
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,,1886831,00.html
=B7 Move aimed at stalling financial sanctions
=B7 US and Japan lead protest against 'reckless action'
Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
North Korea yesterday announced plans to test a nuclear weapon in a
move aimed at ratcheting up tension in east Asia and forcing the US to
halt financial sanctions.
The declaration - which comes less than three months after Pyongyang
test-fired an intercontinental missile that would put Alaska and Hawaii
within range of its warheads - was immediately condemned by the US,
Japan and Britain.
"The US extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure
compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for
bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a self-defence measure in response,"
said a statement in English carried by the North's official Korean
Central News Agency.
$20bn and 10 years to build - a giant rival for Panama canal
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,,1886888,00.html
=B7 Nicaragua plans vast channel for largest ships
=B7 Opponents cite green issues and lack of demand
John Vidal, environment editor
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, plans to
construct a $20bn rival to the Panama canal to enable the largest
tankers and container ships in the world to pass between the Pacific
and Atlantic oceans.
The mega-engineering project is expected to take more than 10 years to
build but could redraw the map of world trade by opening the east coast
of North America, Europe and Brazil to large-scale sea traffic from
burgeoning Pacific rim countries including China and South Korea.
French philosophy teacher in hiding after attack on Islam
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1886813,00.html
=B7 Writer calls Muhammad 'mass-murderer of Jews'
=B7 Death threats provoke freedom of speech debate
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
A French philosophy teacher yesterday entered his third week in hiding
after writing a newspaper comment piece calling the prophet Muhammad a
merciless warlord and mass-murderer.
Robert Redeker, 52, who teaches at a suburban Toulouse high school,
this week won the support of famous French intellectuals including the
philosopher Bernard-Henri L=E9vy, who warned that death threats against
him were an attack on freedom of speech akin to the persecution of
Salman Rushdie.
Blair meets Turkish PM to save accession bid
http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/story/0,,1887113,00.html
Ewen MacAskill and David Gow in Brussels
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
Tony Blair and the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
yesterday discussed a compromise to stop Turkey's bid to join the EU
from crashing next month.
Ollie Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner, yesterday gave Turkey a
month to usher in far-reaching human rights reforms and open ports and
airports to Greek Cypriot ships and planes or see entry talks fail.
Speaking in Ankara, Mr Rehn said there was still time to stop a "train
crash" in the accession talks, but it was crucial that "new initiatives
are taken and tangible progress is still achieved" before the
commission presents its report on November 8. Since accession talks
began, Austria, Germany and France have become increasingly
disenchanted at the prospect of Turkey joining the EU. Mr Blair has
emerged as Turkey's leading champion in Europe, partly because he is
keen to have a Muslim country inside the EU to counter criticism that
it is a Christian club.
Kremlin attack dog vows to take on Shell in the battle of Sakhalin
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1886783,00.html
The struggle to wrest control of resources from western companies is
the backdrop to tension in Russia and Africa
Tom Parfitt in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
It was a face-off that seemed to encapsulate the growing conflict
between a bullish Kremlin and the foreign oil companies working in
Russia. On one side was Oleg Mitvol, 6ft 2in and dressed in a black
coat, the Kremlin's attack dog leading the charge against the vast
Sakhalin-2 oil and gas development off Russia's far east coast. Mr
Mitvol has vowed to do "everything in his power" to stop the project
and force an environmental clean-up. Against him: Mike D'Ardenne, 200lb
bearded Australian oilman in a hard hat, representing the foreign
consortium led by Shell which is running the $20bn (=A311bn) project.
Lebanese call on government to quit over war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1886818,00.html
Clancy Chassay in Beirut
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
The Lebanese government is facing pressure to resign over its handling
of the war with Israel and the ensuing reconstruction effort, with
almost seven out of 10 voters calling for early elections, according to
a poll published yesterday.
The results come just over a week after the Hizbullah leader, Hassan
Nasrallah, called for the dissolution of the government and the
formation of a national unity regime, to the cheers of hundreds of
thousands of Lebanese at a rally in Beirut's southern suburbs.
Rice off to Middle East - with no new ideas
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1886953,00.html
Simon Tisdall
Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian
Condoleezza Rice is portraying her Middle East tour this week as an
opportunity to "rally moderate forces and moderate voices" following
Israel's summer war on Lebanon and ahead of looming confrontation with
Iran. But she has a lot of ground to make up and little in the way of
help. For many Arabs, the US secretary of state is returning to the
scene of a crime.
The Bush administration's refusal to back an immediate ceasefire in
Israel's conflict with Hizbullah, which ultimately lasted 34 days and
inflicted enormous damage on Lebanon, has further reduced its leverage
on key issues. A low point came when Fuad Sinoria, Lebanon's
pro-western prime minister and the sort of "moderate" the US wants to
engage, said Ms Rice was not welcome in Beirut.
Coming out in Arabic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1885792,00.html
Brian Whitaker reports on a lesbian group's struggle for acceptance in
the Middle East
Monday October 2, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
When Rauda Morcos heard there was an emailing list for lesbian
Palestinians, she couldn't believe it at first.
"I thought it was a joke," she said. "Until then, I thought I was the
only lesbian who speaks Arabic."
The list was certainly not a joke but, in a society where same-sex
relations are still taboo, its members guarded their privacy. The only
way a newcomer could join was by personal recommendation.
"Eventually I got in," Ms Morcos recalled, "and I found a lot of other
[lesbian] women who couldn't be out."
After corresponding by email for a few months, she thought it would be
good to talk with some of the invisible women face to face, so, in
January 2003, Ms Morcos and her flatmate called a meeting.
"We had no expectations," she said, "but eight women turned up. The
meeting lasted eight hours and I don't think anybody wanted to go
home."
Tortured Canadian wins battle for truth
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1885684,00.htmlhttp=
://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1885684,00.htmlhttp://w=
ww.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1885684,00.html
Four years after he was detained as a suspected terrorist, Maher Arar's
name has finally been cleared, writes Anne McIlroy
Monday October 2, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Four years ago, Canadian Maher Arar was detained on a routine airport
stopover in the United States. He ended up Syria, where he was
imprisoned and tortured for 10 months.
When he was released by the Syrians and returned to Canada, he started
asking how he had been targeted as an Islamist terrorist. His search
for answers has made him into a national celebrity, and is likely to
end with an apology from the prime minister himself.
Late last month, a public inquiry cleared him of any connection to
terrorism and criticised the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for
feeding American officials misleading information about him.
Last week, RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli finally offered Mr
Arar a full apology: "I wish to take this opportunity to express
publicly to you and to your wife and to your children how truly sorry I
am for whatever part the actions of the RCMP may have contributed to
the terrible injustices that you experienced and the pain that you and
your family endured."
Iran and North Korea defy nuclear warnings
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1786834.ece
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 04 October 2006
The West's dispute with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear
capability has taken a dangerous turn following the failure of talks on
the Iranian programme and Pyongyang's pledge to conduct its first
nuclear test.
The reclusive Communist state drew a strong response from the US, Japan
and Europe yesterday when it issued a statement announcing that because
of the American "threat of nuclear war and sanctions" it would carry
out a nuclear test.
Has the West been silenced by Islam?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1786836.ece
In an age scarred by flashpoints between cultures and religions, it is
easy to make accusations of prejudice or bigotry. But, argues Paul
Vallely, we have all got something to gain from developing new
sensitivities
Published: 04 October 2006
A cartoon in Private Eye neatly summarised one side of the argument.
First Muslim: "The Pope says Islam is a violent religion."Second
Muslim: "Let's kill him then."
Cartoons, as we have come to learn, can be dodgy guides through the
minefield in which European and Islamic cultures meet. But there are
fears of a clash of civilisations in which Europe's enlightenment
values are under attack from religious obscurantism. Cherished
traditions, such as freedom of speech, the alarmists complain, are
being surrendered out of political correctness and appeasement.
Cold cases 'could be solved' with new DNA testing
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article1787207.ece
PA
Published: 04 October 2006
Tens of thousands of unsolved crimes could be cracked with a new
forensic technique, it was claimed today.
The Forensic Science Service (FSS) is piloting a computer-based
analysis system which can interpret previously unintelligible DNA
samples.
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