Patching things up with the neighbours
Rime Allaf
November 16, 2006 09:15 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rime_allaf/2006/11/blairs_bizarre_overt=
ure.html
Tony Blair would have us believe he can solve the Iraq fiasco, the
Arab-Israeli conflict and the entire Middle East problem (all of which
Britain so negligently helped create) by first "convincing" the US to
speak with Syria and Iran. He also claims to have come up with a
brilliant Middle East strategy, whereby solving the Palestinian
question would - surprise, surprise - make Muslims hate the west less
and cooperate with it more. Given Blair's repeated false promises on
the subject, one shouldn't expect Palestinians to be ecstatic by this
sudden revelation for a lame duck prime minister with Clintonian
aspirations. As for Syria and Iran, they should beware desperate men
bearing no gifts, and - even worse - liberally making accusations.
Indeed, while Blair pretends that his persuasive efforts will soften
the White House, he is clearly not concerned with "convincing" Syria
and Iran to accept the same proposal, as if the latter should be
grateful for the mere Anglo-American recognition of their importance in
the region. Blair, as usual, is being badly advised and should have
been more tactful in his approach, as it's not good manners to speak of
reconciliation while dubbing the projected helpers an "arc of
extremism" (the speech writers must be running out of metaphors). Nor
is it sensible to speak threateningly and condescendingly to countries
whose support Iraq's occupiers urgently need. Having endured years of
insults and accusations, Syria and Iran probably imagined a more civil
and less aggressive approach; Blair, however, was patronising, reciting
that they must help the Middle East peace process rather than hinder
it, stop supporting terrorism in Lebanon and Iraq, and, most ironic of
all, abide by and not flout their international obligations ... or
else.
All right now?
Quin Hillyer
November 15, 2006 10:14 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/quin_hillyer/2006/11/all_right_now.html
Republicans in the United States are licking their wounds after last
week's election disaster - and conservatives are throwing more salt in
those same wounds. Salt, of course, makes wounds more painful ... but
it also helps the wounds heal.
Before we continue this analysis, note the distinction in the first
paragraph between "Republicans" and "conservatives". The subsets
overlap, but in truth they are two entirely distinct species. Despite
what the rest of the globe might think, tens of millions of
conservatives in the United States will say that the problem with
President George Bush and the congressional Republicans was not that
they were too uncompromisingly conservative, but that they were not
conservative enough.
The party's over
David Corn
November 15, 2006 09:45 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_corn/2006/11/party_times_over.html
Celebrating is easy. Legislating is tough. Actually, legislating is not
as tough as leading politicians. That may be what House Speaker-to-be
Nancy Pelosi is discovering days after guiding congressional Democrats
to an electoral triumph that won her party control of the House and the
Senate.
Basking in victory, she vowed to enact in the first 100 hours of her
speakership - which begins in early January - a variety of initiatives:
raising the minimum wage; lowering interests rates for college loans;
boosting funding for homeland security; permitting the federal
government to negotiate with large pharmaceutical companies to lower
drug prices for the elderly; and strengthening rules governing
lobbying.
Sticks and stones...
Calvin Tucker
November 15, 2006 08:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/calvin_tucker/2006/11/venezuela.html
As Venezuela approaches its presidential elections on December 3, the
predictable attacks on Hugo Ch=E1vez - that he is a dictator in the
making, a ballot rigger, a populist buffoon - are becoming increasingly
difficult to sustain. For sure, the eight years since Ch=E1vez was first
elected president have not been short of drama. Against the odds, he
managed to defeat a US backed coup in 2002 and an oil executives'
strike which brought the economy to its knees, and went on to win,
fairly, a recall referendum that threatened to cut short his term in
office.
Many rulers (Bush and Blair spring to mind) might have responded by
suspending civil freedoms and elections. Yet instead, Ch=E1vez risked
invoking the wrath of his own supporters by sticking resolutely to the
constitution and the rule of law. No opposition newspapers or TV
stations were closed down, opposition political parties remained free
to organise and most extraordinarily of all, almost all of the
participants in the coup escaped prosecution. One of those who signed
the decree that abolished the National Assembly and democratic
institutions was a little known state governor from Zulia called Manuel
Rosales. He is now the opposition's presidential candidate.
Queen's speech: mind the gap
John McDonnell
November 15, 2006 07:27 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_mcdonnell/2006/11/post_643.html
The whole point about the new politics I am trying to engender in my
campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party is to encourage
politicians to be straight about their aims and political judgements.
This is not the same as political balance or objectivity. I have a
political philosophy by which I judge political events. It's called
socialism, which at its core is about achieving equality, justice and
peace through democracy.
How do the proposals in the Government's Queen's speech stack up
against these criteria?
A man's touch
Dave Hill
November 15, 2006 05:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dave_hill/2006/11/post_640.html
The more I learn about my eight year-old son's teacher, the more I am
impressed. My boy says he likes him because he's funny and he's kind
and has taught the class to play this bonkers game called Crab
Football, which makes them laugh like drains. I like him too and for
all the same reasons but also because he expects good work and
behaviour from his class. And at parents' evening last week, which I
was unable to attend, my wife Sheila learned something more.
The teacher praised our son, especially for his maths at which he
excels (no thanks, I should acknowledge, to his dad). One thing,
though, wasn't quite right. The teacher had noticed a reticent streak
in the child, one that tends to surface when he's asked to provide
something more than a factual answer to a question, when something more
verbal, more personal is required. This shrinking from the spotlight
isn't difficult to spot but what pleased Sheila was that the teacher
took it so seriously. Soon, he explained, some special drama classes
would be offered to children who were interested. These were excellent
for building confidence and communication skills. He is determined that
our son shall go.
Global warming is a fact
David Adam
November 15, 2006 06:47 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_adam/2006/11/global_warming_is_a_=
fact.html
The sceptics are right, there is no scientific consensus on climate
change. There are disagreements and disputes, arguments and denials,
squabbles and name-calling even. There is also, as George Bush is keen
to point out, uncertainty. Bags of it. (Note to the denial lobby and
loopy bloggers - end your digital cutting and pasting at this point).
Now here's the punchline: the lack of scientific agreement is over
whether the effects of climate change will be very bad or just plain
bad. As Christopher Monckton writes, there are indeed questions about
climate change which need answers. Just not the questions he is
determined to ask.
No change there then
Elliot Morley
November 15, 2006 04:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/elliot_morley/2006/11/sleep_walking_to_=
oblivion.html
The United Nations Forum on Climate Change holds its high-level segment
in Nairobi this week. I fear it will be the usual depressing occasion,
with the usual wrangling and obstruction from the usual suspects. It
may address some of the technical aspects of the Kyoto Protocol; it may
produce a statement with some worthy words that mean nothing. It will
then disperse and the world will continue its long sleepwalk into
oblivion.
The Montreal meeting last year ended in jubilation, but that was
because agreement on a serious process of talking about the next phase
of the protocol when the current phase ends, looked so difficult and
distant, and it was a superhuman effort to get the parties to agree.
The UK played a vital role in this as the president of the EU and the
Canadian chairmanship.
So much for the New Rome
Anthony Giddens
November 15, 2006 03:45 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anthony_giddens/2006/11/post_635.html
Those of you who wanted to see America's power in the world diminish -
well, you've got your wish. How quickly things can change. It's only a
few years ago that all the talk was of a new American empire. Some
quite seriously referred to the US as the New Rome - a system of
influence stretching across the world, with no rivals in sight. Those
worried about the scope of American dominance in the post cold war
period spent their time figuring out how we could create a more
multi-polar world.
The idea of the New Rome was always an exaggeration. But the influence
of the US has also been undermined by the policies of a regime that
believed that America could and should pursue its interests more or
less independently of the rest of the world. The Republican debacle in
the Congressional elections marks the final demise of this idea.
It was all fine and Dandy ...
Tim Footman
November 15, 2006 12:15 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_footman/2006/11/rewriting_desperate=
_dan.html
In a move that seems calculated to play into the hands of those who
never tire of announcing that political correctness has gone mad, a Mr
Winston Walker of Dundee has condemned a copy of the Dandy annual for
including a racist epithet.
I've no doubt that Mr Walker was genuinely offended by the word,
although the response of the Glasgow Anti-Racist Alliance (GARA), that
"This kind of thing cannot be permitted with ease at this point in our
development as a society," raises rather more questions that it
answers. What kind of thing? Who gives permission? Is it OK if it
happens without "ease"? What point are we at in our development as a
society? It's a whole semester of philosophy tutorials in one sentence.
Wishful thinking
Dilip Hiro
November 15, 2006 11:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2006/11/post_637.html
In his speech on November 13 devoted mainly to the Middle East, British
prime minister Tony Blair said that Syria did not have the same
interests as Iran, thereby implying that it could be prised away from
Tehran.
This idea is not new. During the recent war between Israel and
Hizbollah, several commentators in the American press dwelt on the
subject, pointing out, inter alia, that Germany had made overtures to
the Syrian government with the intention of weaning it away from Iran.
To back their argument, they observed that Syria was ruled by the
Ba'ath socialist party, which is wedded to Arab nationalism and
secularism - putting it at variance with the theocratic system in the
Persian-majority Iran. Historically, they added, there has been an
animus between Persians and Arabs.
Here are two signs of hope for the world's secret superpower
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1948662,00.html
This new global weapon of the media is a double-edged sword. Can Oxford
and al-Jazeera help swing it in the right direction?
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday November 16, 2006
The Guardian
You may not realise it, but you are at this moment looking at a weapon
more powerful than most in the possession of the US army. A cluster
bomb can kill or maim thousands of people but this weapon can bring
millions to allow their rulers to start new wars. This weapon is called
a newspaper. These days, though, much of its impact comes from its
dissemination through electronic screens. Beside it in the new arsenal
are radio, television, blogs, webcasts and text messages.
The neocons' last stand
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1948667,00.html
They scurried off Bush's sinking ship, but are still trying to stop a
reversal of his Middle East policy
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday November 16, 2006
The Guardian
Even before the electoral repudiation of President Bush, the guardians
of the Bush family trust surfaced as the presumptive executive
committee of the executive branch. For years, George Bush Sr and his
former national-security team have tried to rescue the president from
himself - and from the clutches of ***** Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and
their neoconservative centurions. Earlier this year Bush Sr quietly
approached a retired four-star general to inquire if he would be
willing to replace Rumsfeld, but that premature coup came to naught.
Several of the father's associates personally warned Bush Jr before the
Iraq war that it would lead to sectarian civil war, only to be
dismissed with disdain.
A lapse of humanity
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1948663,00.html
Child asylum seekers are cast as liars or economic migrants in a leaked
government document
Melanie McFadyean
Thursday November 16, 2006
The Guardian
Nobody is more vulnerable than a child arriving alone as an asylum
seeker. There are 5,200 in British social services care, but the
systems for looking after them are seriously in need of review. A
leaked government draft consultation paper acknowledges this, but the
policy makers responsible for it are motivated less by humane concern
than by providing taxpayers with value for money.
To make this lapse of humanity stick, they say these children are here
"to take advantage of the benefits of migration to a richer country and
owe nothing to the more common reasons why other children become the
responsibility of local authorities". In other words, they are
"economic migrants" - the bogus, the unpeople of popular mythology.
Some 95% don't get asylum, and this figure is used as the basis for
proof that these children don't need the protection young British
citizens in care are entitled to.
This Big Brotherly love is totally misplaced
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1948808,00.html
Mass surveillance of our citizens will victimise the vulnerable without
solving crime, says Simon Davies
Thursday November 16, 2006
The Guardian
Polly Toynbee has launched a magnificent but spectacularly dangerous
argument for mass surveillance across Britain (CCTV conspiracy mania is
a very middle-class disorder, November 7). With sweeping brush-strokes
she trashes concern over CCTV, DNA databases and identity cards as a
middle class "righteous indignation" underpinned by a sinister and
self-absorbed "moral blindness". For Ms Toynbee, the battle against
"gross inequality" is the only game in town, and we middle-class
conspiracy nuts are getting in the way of solving that problem.
Fulfilment of Middle-Eastern promise
John Harris
November 15, 2006 04:30 PM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2006/11/al_jazeera.html
It began with a rapid-fire montage of a world apparently gone mad: the
decade since Al Jazeera's foundation in 1996 represented by explosions,
blood-splattered survivors, the American planes and buildings that
barely need mentioning, a couple of evacuated tube stations, the
funeral cortege of Princess Diana, and some more explosions to finish.
Thou shalt not take the mickey out of the Pope
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1948817,00.html
John Hooper
Thursday November 16, 2006
The Guardian
Italians have always poked fun at popes. But now that Joseph Ratzinger
is Benedict XVI, it has to stop. That was the message this week from
his private secretary, Georg Genswein. On Tuesday, he was rung by a
reporter from the Italian news agency, Adnkronos. She was after comment
on a dispute that blew up when the daily newspaper of the Italian Roman
Catholic church criticised a string of recent satirical acts taking, so
to speak, the P out of the pope.
US plans last big push in Iraq
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1948713,00.html
Strategy document calls for extra 20,000 troops, aid for Iraqi army and
regional summit
Simon Tisdall
Thursday November 16, 2006
The Guardian
President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its
allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that
instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US
forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the
administration's internal deliberations.
Mr Bush's refusal to give ground, coming in the teeth of growing calls
in the US and Britain for a radical rethink or a swift exit, is having
a decisive impact on the policy review being conducted by the Iraq
Study Group chaired by Bush family loyalist James Baker, the sources
said.
Weather in Arabia, crisis in Gaza, and no sign of Sir David's Through
the Cavehole
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1948811,00.html
Mark Lawson
Thursday November 16, 2006
The Guardian
It's the weather that hits you first. The blonde meteorologist is a
fairly standard post-Ulrika Jonsson model, but her survey begins with
"cloud in the Arabian peninsula" and then works through Asia and Europe
before a quick pay-off mentioning "a lot of rain in America".
This approach was, however, emblematic of al-Jazeera English's general
attempt to change the climate of television journalism.
The emphasis is quite deliberate: to show American and European viewers
how it has felt to be an Arab or Asian viewer of the BBC or CNN in
recent decades. And so the London viewer tuning in to the sports news
heard not about Marcus Trescothick's depression or Steve McLaren's
temper but, first up: "The Iraq football team's search for somewhere to
play."
Life in 2056: longer, healthier - and not alone
http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,1948900,00.html
=B7 Scientists predict bonding with aliens and animals
=B7 Advances in physics could finally explain big bang
James Randerson and Ian Sample
Thursday November 16, 2006
The Guardian
A limitless supply of spare organs, hard evidence for aliens and a
machine that puts you in the mind of an animal. These are some of the
predictions about the world of 2056 by a batch of the planet's most
prominent scientists, including the psychologist Steven Pinker, the
philosopher Dan Dennett, the astronomer royal, Sir Martin Rees, and the
architect of the Beagle 2 Mars mission, Colin Pillinger.
New Scientist magazine has assembled their thoughts to mark its 50th
anniversary, and high on the list was proof that we are not alone.
http://www.newscientist.com/home.ns
Scientists unravel DNA of 38,000-year-old Neanderthal
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article1987622.ece
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 16 November 2006
Scientists have obtained the most extensive DNA profile of Neanderthal
man from a fragment of bone of an individual who died 38,000 years ago
- a few thousand years before the entire species became extinct.
An analysis of the genetic material confirms that the Neanderthal in
question was male and his species probably did not interbreed with
anatomically modern humans - Homo sapiens.
How migrants have spiced up the great British dinner
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1987621.ece
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Published: 16 November 2006
Since the discovery of tea, potatoes and chocolate, foods from foreign
countries have made a significant contribution to the diet of Britons.
And during the past few decades, the variety and popularity of formerly
exotic cuisines has increased to such an extent that the late Robin
Cook declared the new national dish to be chicken tikka masala.
Yesterday, the Commission for Racial Equality and chefs paid tribute to
the enrichment of the country's food by the waves of immigration in the
years since the anti-racism organisation was founded in 1976.
A union of hypocrisy
Ilana Bet-El
November 16, 2006 10:35 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ilana_betel/2006/11/post_638.html
Europeans, or at least those citizens of states that are members of the
EU, are spoilt. They may be the most spoilt people in the world, or
maybe just runners up - possibly to the Japanese or the Americans - but
either way, they are spoilt rotten. And like many such, they have now
become petulant and are on the way to becoming mean. It is an ugly
sight, being brought to the fore by a flawed, and potentially tragic,
mishandling of Turkey in its bid to win EU membership.
Europeans enjoy excellent health and education systems, which at the
very least offer insurance that every person has access to both. Across
the continent and in the UK there is magnificent infrastructure and
more or less sufficient housing of an adequate nature. There are many
jobs, and in addition vast social security schemes for the unemployed;
and then there are extremely generous paid weeks of vacation. All of
these are provisions by governments, which are then augmented in many
places by those of private enterprise.
Hizbullah's push for power
Jonathan Spyer
November 16, 2006 10:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_spyer/2006/11/hizballahs_push_=
for_power.html
Earlier this month, Hizbullah general-secretary Hassan Nasrallah issued
an ultimatum to the Lebanese government of Fuad Siniora. Either,
Nasrallah declared, his movement and its allies are granted a one-third
blocking veto in the Lebanese Cabinet, or Hizbullah supporters will be
sent onto the streets to begin a campaign of public pressure. The
Lebanese government understood the Hizbullah threat as an attempt to
prevent government approval of a proposal for an international tribunal
to try those suspected of responsibility in the murder of former
Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
The expiry date for the ultimatum has now passed. And five Shia
ministers have resigned from the cabinet (along with one Christian
associate of pro-Syrian President Emil Lahoud.)
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