Remember reconstruction?
Margaret Jay
May 23, 2007 9:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/margaret_jay/2007/05/margaret_jay_for_w=
ednesday.html
We are all aware of the security problems that plague the areas of
Iraq in which British forces are deployed - roadside bombs and
sectarian killings have become a disturbingly regular occurrence.
Resignation to the facts on the ground in Iraq is not enough, however,
so where do we go from here?
The Foreign Policy Centre, working in partnership with Channel 4, is
today announcing an independent, cross-party commission tasked with
producing a blueprint for Britain's future commitment to Iraq. The
commission will be open to examining all possible options for
Britain's future role in Iraq and will consider evidence from a wide
range of viewpoints. Similar in ambition to the Iraq Study Group in
the United States, it will hold hearings and take evidence from
humanitarian aid groups, diplomats, UK community leaders, military
personnel and others.
Nuclear policy? No thanks
John Sauven
May 23, 2007 8:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_sauven/2007/05/nuclear_policy_no_t=
hanks.html
"It would have been foolish to announce ... that we would embark on a
new generation of nuclear power stations because that would have
guaranteed that we would not make the necessary investment and effort
in both energy efficiency and in renewables. That is why we are not
going to build a new generation of nuclear power stations now."
Not my words, or those of a hair-shirted hippy howling at the blades
of a wind turbine, but the analysis of then-DTI chief Patricia Hewitt
in a Commons debate on the 2003 Energy White Paper.
An unsuitable job for a woman
Helen Carter
May 23, 2007 8:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/helen_carter/2007/05/an_unsuitable_job_=
for_a_woman.html
As all new mothers are told, breast is best. The health benefits, to
both mother and baby, are well-documented and for the first six months
of their lives, babies should be fed exclusively on breastmilk,
according to the health professionals. It is not for everyone, and
women shouldn't be made to feel inadequate if they are not able to (or
feel squeamish) about feeding their baby in this way.
But the former mayor of Trafford council, Dr Pauleen Lane, allegedly
encountered a rather archaic response as she attempted to combine her
new roles as mother and mayor. She is claiming sex discrimination, as
she was prohibited from travelling in the civic black Volvo with her
son as the mayoral attendants apparently disapproved of her
breastfeeding her baby. Instead, she was forced to follow the mayoral
car in her modest Daihatsu, while her chains of office went ahead in
the official car transported by two attendants.
Cave-in, or smart politics?
Michael Tomasky
May 22, 2007 9:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_tomasky/2007/05/cave_in_or_smar=
t_politics.html
There will naturally be disappointment and anger among liberals
because Democrats in congress have broken from their vow (lesson 4,863
on the value of vows in politics) never to agree to an Iraq funding
that doesn't include timelines for troop withdrawal.
They agreed to such a bill earlier today, giving President Bush what
he wanted - a bill that keeps funding for the war going at full levels
through September 30 and includes no talk of withdrawal. Tomorrow's
papers will all characterize this as a major Bush victory and, in the
short term, it is.
The lark v the butterfly
Paul Evans
May 22, 2007 8:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/paul_evans/2007/05/the_lark_versus_the_=
butterfly.html
Another bell that can't be un-rung. The Monarch report, which
highlights the challenges faced by Britain's plants and animals under
different projected levels of greenhouse gas emissions, is another
ominous warning amongst a plethora issuing from recent reports on
climate change.
Phrases like, "by 2080, more than half the country will have a climate
unsuitable for the song thrush" should not trip off the tongue but
stick in the throat. For each of these ecological effects, there's a
profound cultural consequence. The enchantment with the nonhuman world
is being usurped by anxieties about climate change.
Enlightened discussion
Brian Brivati
May 22, 2007 8:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_brivati/2007/05/enlightened_discu=
ssion.html
The Euston Manifesto group recently organised a discussion on the
future of humanitarian intervention, which is now posted at YouTube.
The second such event took place yesterday, on the theme of liberalism
and terrorism. It will go up on YouTube by the end of the week. It was
a fascinating discussion, which produced a set of conclusions through
a civilised debate centred on light rather than heat. While we did not
all agree on everything by any means, we ended the discussion with
these interconnected points:
1=2E The government should not give any form of platform to any
individuals or organisations who support or condone the actions of
extremists.
2=2E The extremists needs to be understood as a social movement and a
political movement and responded to as such.
3=2E The social movement needs to be engaged with at every level through
education, propaganda and influence. The heart of this message should
be that democracy and British values of tolerance are entirely
compatible with Islam and extremism is entirely opposed to that
teaching.
4=2E The moderate Muslim groups that have developed since 7/7 need full
and generous support from the government and society generally.
5=2E There needs to be a much better communication from the government
about the Iraq war and the motivations for our involvement in middle
eastern politics to counter to prevailing view that is a war on Islam.
6=2E There needs to be more stringent policing powers in certain key
areas.
Briefing encounter
Dilip Hiro
May 22, 2007 7:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2007/05/briefing_encounter.h=
tml
The content and timing of the briefing given by "a senior US official"
in Baghdad to the Guardian's Simon Tisdall, regarding Iran's secret
plans to force American troops out of Iraq by August, are driven by a
political agenda.
Significantly, the briefing has occurred a week before Ryan Crocker,
the US ambassador in Iraq, meets Iran's envoy Hassan Kazemi Qomi in
Baghdad to discuss Iraqi security.
Bad faith at the justice department
Marcy Wheeler
May 22, 2007 7:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/marcy_wheeler/2007/05/bad_faith_at_the_=
justice_depar.html
Last December, former department of justice (DOJ) official Kyle
Sampson discussed appointing Tim Griffin, a Karl Rove protege, to a US
attorney post in Arkansas using the secret provision of the Patriot
act that allowed the Bush administration to make its controversial
appointments in the first place. Sampson suggested that DOJ could keep
Griffin in place without Senate approval by "gumming the process to
death" - stalling so long on any replacement that Griffin would
effectively serve permanently.
"If they ultimately say 'no, never' ...then we can tell them we'll
look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the
recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the
clock," Sampson said. "All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of
course."
No call for it
Matt Seaton
May 22, 2007 6:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/matt_seaton/2007/05/no_call_for_it.html
Watching Doctor Who with my daughter last weekend, I was struck by the
faint implausibility of Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) calling her
mother for a poignant farewell as her spacepod plunged towards the
roiling furnace of the sun. You mean, mobile phones work in space?
And I thought space was a place no one could hear you scream, let
alone have a chat with your mum.
A shot in the dark
Gary Younge
May 22, 2007 5:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gary_younge/2007/05/a_shot_in_the_dark.=
html
Back in 1995, after Jennifer Gratz received a rejection from Ann Arbor
University she asked her dad if she could sue. The university used a
points system when selecting applicants, and those from under-
represented minorities automatically received extra points. Gratz, a
working-class girl from a Detroit suburb, assumed a black person got
her place.
She later applied to Notre Dame, in Indiana. Notre Dame gives
preference to children of alumni, with legacies making up between 21%
and 24% of the freshmen class, or around twice the number of African
Americans and Hispanics combined. Ms Gratz was also rejected from
Notre Dame. She saw no reason to sue.
Servitude for guest workers
Greg Anrig
May 22, 2007 5:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/greg_anrig/2007/05/servitude_for_guest_=
workers.html
The proposed guest-worker program in the Senate immigration bill is
about as attentive to history, as moral, and as likely to work as the
Bush administration's ill-fated decision to sidestep the Geneva
Conventions. The United States and many European countries have been
there, done that and deeply regretted it for years to follow.
Yet here we go again, neglecting all of that experience, with a plan
to allow 400,000 temporary workers a year to toil for a designated
employer for a specified period before returning home without any hope
of ever gaining the status of permanent legal resident in the United
States.
The value of trash TV
Brian Whitaker
May 22, 2007 4:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2007/05/the_value_of_tra=
sh_tv.html
If asked to make a list of the most politically significant TV
programmes over the last few years, most people would probably not
include Star Academy among them.
But perhaps that depends on where you watch it. While many of us think
of reality TV as trashy but occasionally compulsive entertainment, in
some parts of the world its effects can be subversive - perhaps even
revolutionary.
Dealing with the dragon
Jonathan Fenby
May 22, 2007 4:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_fenby/2007/05/dealing_with_the=
_dragon.html
Can the rest of the world deal with China? Deal both in the sense of
inter-relate, and deal in the sense of cope. On both counts, the
answer seems to be negative. That is dangerous.
In the United States and Europe, China is approached through western
eyes. In the US, domestic politics loom. As a Chinese commentator
wrote this week, the main antagonist faced by both protagonists in the
current Sino-US economic talks in Washington, Wu Yi and Henry Paulson,
is not the other side across the table but Congress. Beijing's
attempts to sugar the trade pill by widening the yuan fluctuation band
on Friday is not going to do any good given how far it falls short of
what Democrats in Congress want.
Slipping into chaos
Ramsay Short
May 22, 2007 3:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ramsay_short/2007/05/slipping_into_chao=
s=2Ehtml
The tragic events of the last few days in Lebanon mark the continued
disintegration of the slowly prospering nation that has flourished
since 2000 and began to fall apart in February 2005 when former prime
minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated.
From last summer's concerted Israeli war on the Lebanese nation, to
the continuing bomb attacks on political leaders and civilians that
have occurred in the country up to now, it feels to people here as if
the situation is spiralling out of control.
Outing the titans
D J Taylor
May 22, 2007 2:33 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/d_j_taylor/2007/05/outing_the_titans.ht=
ml
The posthumously "outed" literary titan, whom investigation shows to
have had a sexual or political orientation markedly different from the
one touted in public, is one of the most regular sights of modern
artistic life. Consequently the allegations in the current edition of
Newsweek that the celebrated Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski was
a communist who throughout the 1960s and 1970s worked as a government
spy in return for trips abroad, will surprise no one who takes in an
interest in the vexed question of the writer's relationship with the
state.
The immediate point to make about the east European literary
environment of the 1960s, in which the flimsiest evidence of "dissent"
could destroy a writer's career, is that it is rather a surprise that
more journalists didn't take the government's zloty. Literary self-
preservation takes many forms, and Newsweek has acknowledged that,
although he collaborated with the authorities for five years,
Kapuscinski is not supposed to have supplied any particularly
significant information. The wider point, on the other hand, concerns
the moral environment in which artists do their work, the expectations
of them nurtured by their admirers and the pedestals on which a public
need for moral certainty demands that they should repose.
The big chill
Richard Norton-Taylor
May 22, 2007 1:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_nortontaylor/2007/05/the_big_ch=
ill.html
It could not have been a more straightforward statement. The Crown
Prosecution Service, Lord Goldsmith said, had decided to prosecute "Mr
Andrei Konstantinovich Lugovoi, a Russian citizen, for the murder of
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko". Lugovoi, a lowly ex-KGB officer,
the attorney continued, is alleged to have poisoned Litvinenko by
administering a lethal dose of Polonium 210, a radioactive material on
or about November 1 in London. Sir Ken Macdonald, the director of
public prosecutions, described the murder as an "extraordinarily grave
crime".
Straightforward the statement may have been. It seems clear that the
prosecution is confident about the evidence the police has gathered
over the past seven months. But it marks the start of what is likely
to be a long, tortuous, probably ugly, and ultimately hopeless,
attempt to get Lugovoi into a British court to stand trial.
Don't get fooled again
DD Guttenplan
May 22, 2007 1:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dd_guttenplan/2007/05/dont_get_fooled_a=
gain.html
History really does repeat itself. Either that or the Bush
administration has decided to show its commitment to the environment
by recycling lies. Those are the only firm conclusions to be drawn
from the Guardian's front page story this morning.
Iran, we are told, has a secret plan to force the US and Britain to
withdraw from Iraq. Not only that, but "Iran has reversed its previous
policy in Afghanistan" and is now supporting the Taliban. So when
George Bush's famous "surge" - a desperate gambit to prop up a
bankrupt policy - fails to usher in the cooperative commonwealth in
Iraq, we Guardian readers will know it's really all Tehran's fault.
Hero or villain?
Open Thread
May 22, 2007 12:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2007/05/hero_or_villain.html
According to Australian headlines, the notorious bushranger, Ned
Kelly, is on the run again 120 years after his death. Melbourne
authorities announced yesterday that Kelly's remains, thought to be in
a mass grave in Pentridge prison, are missing. Heritage Victoria
believes that the remains were discarded 50 years ago during drainage
works at the prison.
Ned Kelly, the inspiration for many films, songs and books, is still a
controversial figure in Australia. Some see him as a merciless killer,
while others regard him as a national hero. The outlaw himself claimed
that his crimes, including bank raids and shootouts with police, were
desperate acts to which he was driven by police brutality and
corruption and the persecution of his Irish Catholic family.
New liberalism, new populism
Jakob Illeborg
May 22, 2007 12:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jakob_illeborg/2007/05/in_the_cause_of_=
just.html
In the space of just two weeks a brand new party, the Ny Alliance (The
New Alliance), has become the focus of Danish political life and looks
set to play a determining role in parliament. Taxation,
internationalism and the Muslimveil, as ever, are the defining issues
in the Danish debate and these will be important points on the agenda
of this new political party.
While on a trip to the US, the Danish Social Liberal politician, Naser
Khader, watched fellow party member and former minister of culture Ms
Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen on television donning a Muslim veil, to
sympathise with the devout Muslim left-winger, Ms Asmaa Abdol-Hamid,
who insists she will continue to wear her veil even if elected to
parliament. Mr Khader, himself a Danish national, but born in Syria,
is a popular Danish politician, who has argued fiercely against Muslim
extremism and what he sees as preferential treatment for devout
Muslims in western society, an attitude that he feels sits uneasily
with our democratic values. For him, the headscarf is a symbol of
oppression and the religious fundamentalism that he so deplores.
Giving multiculturalism the boot
Lynsey Hanley
May 22, 2007 11:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/lynsey_hanley/2007/05/giving_multicultu=
ralism_the_boot.html
Michael Collins suggested on Comment is free yesterday that the
relative underachievement of working-class white boys in the education
system comes down to multiculturalism. Let's give that word a big kick
again, shall we? Multiculturalism - boof! That feels better. The
sooner we excise it from the lexicon, he suggests, the sooner white
boys in urban and impoverished areas will knuckle down to work and
catch up with their peers.
Collins has form in this area. His "biography of the white working
class", The Likes of Us, was based on the erroneous idea that life for
the industrial proletariat was one of peace and centuries-long
settlement until the ruling elite decided to send them away from the
slums so that cities could largely be given over to immigrants.
Who was the best prime minister?
Martin Kettle
May 22, 2007 11:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_kettle/2007/05/who_was_the_best_=
prime_ministe.html
What makes a good prime minister? The BBC is making a large television
documentary on this topical subject for airing when Gordon Brown takes
over. A different commentator will make the case for each of the 20
PMs of the 20th century - and Andrew Marr and a team of experts will
give the final verdict.
I will appear on the programme myself, making the case for one of the
20, though I'm not going to say who. But it has got me thinking about
such exercises and whether one can come up with anything like an
objective ranking of premiers.
A war on error
Khaled Diab
May 22, 2007 10:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/khaled_diab/2007/05/a_war_on_error.html
With George Bush and Osama bin Laden, those two prodigal sons of oil
dynasties, locked in an ideological battle of global proportions, folk
like us who stand in the middle and believe in multiculturalism, can
feel under fire. But in the name of tolerance, we must fight back to
reclaim our common ground. It is time to declare a "war on error".
For those not in the know, an Arab Muslim man currently ranks slightly
higher than pond life. As someone who fits into that ethnic category,
I find the unflattering assumptions hard to swallow. Similarly, as a
European Arab, I find stereotypes about the west that circulate in
conservative Muslim circles equally bewildering.
The six-day war is not over. Today, it brings the spectre of al-Qaida
in Gaza
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2085819,00.html
Victory in 1967 was as much curse as blessing. It paved the way for 40
years of mortal, political and moral disaster
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
I am as old as this war. Officially the war of 1967, the year of my
birth, lasted for six days. In reality, it's still going on: it is the
14,600-day war. Witness the violence in Gaza, one chunk of the
territory which the young state of Israel - then just 19 years old -
conquered in that extraordinary, whirlwind victory. In Gaza, there is
fighting among the Palestinians - a barely repressed civil war between
the old Fatah movement of Yasser Arafat and the Islamists of Hamas -
but also between them and the Israelis. Hamas has resumed firing
Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel, a break in their ceasefire. On
Monday, one rocket succeeded in killing a civilian, a woman in the
southern Israeli town of Sderot. And Israel has resumed its targeted
assassinations, including one attack on the home of a Hamas member of
parliament, killing eight people. The war which marks its 40th
anniversary in a fortnight may have brought Israel a breathtaking
victory - but it has brought no peace.
Multiculturalism and nation building go hand in hand
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2085740,00.html
British identity should never be reduced to a list. A prescribed set
of values is not in the spirit of an open, plural citizenship
Tariq Modood
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
With Gordon Brown preparing to take over as prime minister, we can
expect to hear a lot more about Britishness and integration. Could his
premiership even signal the death knell for multiculturalism in our
public life? For some time Brown, and recently his campaign manager,
Jack Straw, have argued for the need to revive and revalue British
national identity. They seek to derive a set of core values (liberty,
fairness, enterprise and so on) from a historical narrative.
Keep talking, Shawn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2085738,00.html
Canadian authorities are trying to silence voices for native land
rights. We must all refuse to shut up
Naomi Klein
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
After a group of Mohawks from the Tyendinaga reserve blockaded the
railway between Kingston and Toronto two weeks ago, a near unanimous
cry rose up from the editorial pages of Ontario newspapers and talk
radio: Get Shawn Brant. Earlier this month Brant, a beanpole of a man,
walked into a packed courtroom with his wrists and ankles shackled
after handing himself over to the Ontario provincial police.
According to court testimony, the arrest warrant - on charges of
mischief, disobeying a court order, and breach of recognisance -
violated an agreement between police and demonstrators, who were given
immunity when they peacefully ended the blockade. But Brant worried
that the warrant for him would be used as a pretext for raiding a
gravel quarry that he and several other community members from
Tyendinaga had been occupying for six weeks. "We don't want to bring
that into the camp," he told me.
Last night's TV: Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain
Sam Wollaston
May 23, 2007 8:43 AM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2007/05/last_nights_tv_andrew_marrs_hi.html
Have you been accross the wobbly bridge recently? I know it doesn't
wobble any more, but it's still the best name for it - you know, the
one with the Tate Modern at one end and St. Paul's Cathedral at the
other. Anyway, it's almost impossible to get across these days,
because of the bloddy film crews blocking it up. You can see the
thinking: we need a location that says not just Britain, but modern,
metropolitan Britain ... got it, the wobbly bridge! Yeah, but everyone
else has had the same idea. And every time you turn on the telly -
yes, every time - there's someone standing there shouting in a stream
of bobbing heads.
I suppose it must be amusing for the tug drivers, pulling the barges
up the river below. Who's that up there today, Colin, is that art
critic fellow from five? No, Rodney, look at the ears on it, it's Marr
isn't it? Go on, let's give him a blast on the horn. Parp. Retake! He
he he ...
Diplomacy has no place in this monstrous bunker
Martin Kemp
May 23, 2007 8:30 AM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2007/05/diplomacy_has_no_place_in_this.html
The new American Embassy in Baghdad scowls at the world with a neo-
Stalinist frown. It occupies some 104 acres next to the Tigris,
assigned to the USA by the nominal Iraqi government in 2004. A hideous
modernist bunker, devoid even of the residual classical motifs
favoured for totalitarian architecture, it speaks bleakly of the USA's
position in the world.
An embassy, a unique patch of sovereign territory allocated to the
overseas country, has traditionally been a site for diplomacy; a
doorway to a foreign state. The architecture of newly-constructed
embassies has of course always involved rhetoric, ranging from
neoclassical bombast to studied good manners.
Japanese war movies aim to rewrite history
Shane Danielsen
May 23, 2007 7:17 AM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/05/span_classfloatrightbrsmallaeg.html
Late last week saw the release of For Those We Love, a new =A51.8
billion (=A37.5m) Japanese war movie. A kamikaze film originally titled
I Go to Die for You, it celebrates the bravery of the second world war
suicide bomber pilots - and happens to be written and executive-
produced by Shintaro Ishihara, Tokyo's extremely nationalist
governor.
Ishihara, you may recall, came to international attention with his
bill introducing compulsory singing of the national anthem in Japanese
schools - and also for his charming belief, expressed in an interview
with Shukan Josei, a national women's magazine, that "women who live
after they have lost their reproductive function are useless".
First taste of Nick Broomfield's new film about Iraq
Ben Marshall
May 22, 2007 3:01 PM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/05/first_taste_of_broomfields_bat.html
Nick Bloomfield, previously known for documentaries that expose as
much about the film-maker as they do about his subjects, will next
release his second feature film, Battle For Haditha, an account of the
massacre in that town (the background to which you can read about
here). The film promises, given the confused and ever-bleeding
international context of the Iraq war, to be even more inflammatory
and divisive that his first feature film, Ghosts, which dramatised the
lives and deaths of 23 Chinese cockle-pickers who drowned, quite
unnecessarily, in Morecambe Bay in 2004.
A step-by-step guide to Cuba
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2085818,00.html
Havana's hottest dance show goes from mambo to salsa to machete-
spinning - in just a few seconds. Laura Barnett meets the company
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
In a velvet-plush theatre in a once-affluent district of Havana, four
half-naked men are wielding machetes. To the sound of pounding drum-
beats, they drop their knives and shimmy into a thigh-shaking burst of
movement. A cheer goes up from the stalls.
This is the dress rehearsal for Havana Rakatan, the latest production
from Cuban choreographer Nilda Guerra and her Havana-based dance
company, Ballet Rakatan. The faded, art deco Teatro Mella is a long
way from London's Peacock Theatre, where the company is about to
transfer for a month-long run, accompanied by live music from eight-
piece Cuban band Turquino. If any of the whooping Havana audience are
surprised as the dancers lay down their machetes and segue into the
loose-limbed, quickfire steps of the mambo and the cha cha cha, they
certainly don't show it. But the huge range of rhythms and styles that
make up this dauntlessly energetic potted history of Cuban dance could
ambush a British audience.
Bush may turn to UN in search for Iraq solution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2085981,00.html
If troop surge fails, strategy is to involve other nations under UN
umbrella
Simon Tisdall
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
The Bush administration is developing plans to "internationalise" the
Iraq crisis, including an expanded role for the United Nations, as a
way of reducing overall US responsibility for Iraq's future and
limiting domestic political fallout from the war as the 2008 election
season approaches.
The move comes amid rising concern in Washington that President George
Bush's controversial Baghdad security surge, led by the US commander,
General David Petraeus, is not working and that Iran is winning the
clandestine battle for control of Iraq.
Refugees plead to be saved as Lebanese troops besiege camp
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,2085968,00.html
=B7 Thousands try to escape waving white flags
=B7 Whole areas destroyed by shells and militant fire
Clancy Chassay in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
In the middle of the road into the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee
camp in northern Lebanon, scene of fierce fighting for the past three
days, a woman lay shot, her body convulsing, unreachable by the army
and Red Cross as snipers continued to fire over her.
Inside the devastated camp, residents waited without water or
electricity for a ceasefire to come into effect. Coming under sniper
fire from two positions, a woman clutching her child screamed, "Take
us out of here, please take us out of here, they are going to kill
us."
US warning to Syria as Beirut asks for more arms
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,2085969,00.html
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
The Bush administration issued its most pointed warning yet to Syria
yesterday as another truce broke down and fighting was renewed at the
Palestinian Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
For a third successive day, Lebanese government troops, who have the
backing of the US, attacked the camp, where Fatah al-Islam, a
Palestinian group sympathetic to al-Qaida, is holed up.
With 40,000 Palestinian refugees caught in the crossfire, UN workers
warned that the death toll could be high and reported having seen many
demolished buildings, with people still caught inside. Confirmed
deaths so far are 22 militants, 32 soldiers and 27 civilians.
Israel threatens Hamas as Sderot mourns
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2085946,00.html
=B7 Not even political leaders immune, warns minister
=B7 Israeli town empties after Gaza rocket kills woman
Conal Urquhart in Sderot
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
The Israeli government yesterday said it would consider assassinating
the Palestinian prime minister as the town of Sderot emptied following
the first death from a Qassam rocket in six months.
Ephraim Sneh, the deputy defence minister, said Ismail Haniyeh, the
Palestinian prime minister, was not immune from Israeli reprisals for
the rocket fire which has forced thousands of Israeli residents close
to the Gaza border to flee.
Democrats dilute anti-Iraq rhetoric
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2086051,00.html
Ed Pilkington in New York
Tuesday May 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was tonight expected to present to
her party's rank and file a compromise package for the funding of the
Iraq war that would see the Democrats back down from their key demand
that a timetable should be set for a US troop withdrawal.
In the face of president Bush's unmoving threat to veto any bill that
contained a timetable, the Democratic leadership looked certain last
night to drop one of the central pledges that they had made in last
November's midterm elections.
Accused of murder, safe in Russia: Putin refuses to extradite suspect
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2085774,00.html
Diplomatic standoff after Crown Prosecution Service decides that
Moscow businessman should face charges
Ian Cobain, Luke Harding in Moscow and Will Woodward
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
Relations between London and Moscow fell to their lowest level in
almost 20 years yesterday after Russia refused to hand over a
businessman accused of poisoning the former KGB officer Alexander
Litvinenko.
The Crown Prosecution Service said police had gathered sufficient
evidence to justify charging Andrei Lugovoi with murder and demanded
that he be extradited to stand trial for an "extraordinarily grave"
crime. A spokesman for Tony Blair said: "Murder is murder: this is a
very serious case."
Adopt your own Italian vineyard - and claim a year's supply
http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,2085964,00.html
=B7 Made-to-measure wine offered by scheme
=B7 Buyers to have input in grape growing and labels
John Hooper in Rome
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
If celebrities like Sting and G=E9rard Depardieu can do it, so can you.
Italy's smallholders' organisation, known as Coldiretti, said
yesterday that an experimental scheme offering "made-to-measure" wine
from the area south of Rome had found its first customers. Sting owns
300 hectares of vines near Florence. France's gourmet actor produces
sweet Zibibbo on the Italian island of Pantelleria, off Sicily.
The new scheme is more modest. Wine-lovers are being offered the
chance to buy a year's output from 120-square-metre patches in
vineyards around the capital where the wines are usually no more than
"impertinent in their presumption".
Infighting dogs Tarantino's latest release
http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2007/story/0,,2085893,00.html
=B7 Producer defiant over Grindhouse 'sacrilege'
=B7 Outburst at film festival after Kurt Russell remarks
Xan Brooks in Cannes
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof - a contender for the Palme d'Or at
this year's film festival - plays out in a blaze of car wrecks,
vengeance slayings and expletive-fuelled stand-offs. For a moment it
appeared as though yesterday's press conference might follow suit as
the iconoclastic producer Harvey Weinstein stormed on stage to defend
the film against its critics.
Death Proof originally formed one half of the Grindhouse double bill
that Tarantino conceived alongside fellow director and trash culture
devotee Robert Rodriguez.
US Muslims more assimilated than British
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2085998,00.html
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
Muslims in the United States are much more assimilated into society
than Muslims in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, according to a poll
published yesterday.
The detailed survey, conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research
Centre, found that American Muslims tended to have a better standard
of living than their counterparts in Europe and were more comfortable
with a society in which a majority believed in God compared with
secular Europe.
Farid Senzai, an adviser on the survey and director of research at the
Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, said: "The news overall
is overwhelmingly positive. The Muslim community here is less
ghettoised than in Europe."
DNA test meets match in twins' paternity case
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2085974,00.html
Ed Pilkington in New York
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
For once, the ability of DNA testing to act as the great mediator
between warring human factions has proved inadequate to the task. This
one even has the scientists baffled.
When one of a pair of identical twin brothers was identified by a
mother as her baby's natural father, and local authorities stepped in
to demand child support from him, he denied it and refused to pay any
money.
German police use Stasi scent profiling on G8 protesters
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,2085933,00.html
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
Stasi scent-tracking methods are being used to keep a check on
selected protesters planning to demonstrate at next month's G8 summit.
Scent traces collected directly from everything from people's palm
sweat to their vests and cigarette lighters have been made available
to investigators so that sniffer dogs can detect potentially violent
protesters, federal prosecutors confirmed yesterday following reports
in the German media.
"This has happened to several suspects," said Andreas Christeleit, a
spokesman for the prosecutors. It is believed that most samples were
collected during recent early-morning raids across Germany.
The revelations have immediately led to comparisons with the methods
of the former East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, who habitually
collected the scents of dissidents to identify suspects at a later
date. It was thought that such chilling espionage techniques had been
consigned to history.
Ch=E1vez silences critical TV station - and robs the people of their
soaps
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2085952,00.html
Protests as private network loses licence to broadcast after 53 years
on air
Rory Carroll in Caracas
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
Drums roll, the music swells, and the camera zooms in on a man seated
behind a desk. His face is sombre for there are grim tidings to
report.
Venezuela is in crisis. Inflation is soaring. There are acute
shortages of milk, eggs and meat. Violent crime is taking more than
100 lives every week. The government is in chaos. Corruption is
draining the country's oil wealth.
These are the bulletins of Radio Caracas Television, the country's
most influential private network. The theme is consistent: President
Hugo Ch=E1vez is leading the country to ruin and if he is not stopped
Venezuela will become a Cuba-style dictatorship.
Glaxo targets US minorities with launch of weight-loss drug in
supersized market
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2085853,00.html
=B7 Pill aimed at grabbing slice of =A3500m spent every year
=B7 Concerns over messy and dangerous side-effects
Andrew Clark in New York
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
A new over-the-counter diet pill from Britain's biggest drugs company,
GlaxoSmithKline, is to be specifically targeted at the high proportion
of overweight people in the US's black and Hispanic communities.
At a ceremony in New York yesterday, Glaxo launched Alli - the only
weight-loss treatment to be approved by the US food and drug
administration for use without a prescription.
The company is hoping to secure some of the $1bn (=A3500m) spent
annually by Americans on "quack" tablets, herbal potions and unproven
laxatives in efforts to lose weight.
Iran accuses US academic of instigating 'soft revolution'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2085865,00.html
Robert Tait in Tehran
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
A US academic arrested during a family visit to Iran has been accused
of trying to overthrow the country's Islamic system amid growing fears
of a general crackdown against intellectuals with western ties.
Haleh Esfandiari, Middle East director at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, a
Washington-based thinktank, has been accused of fomenting a "soft
revolution" by forming a network "against the sovereignty of the
country".
The allegations, in an official statement issued to state news
outlets, after Ms Esfandiari, 67 - who has dual US and Iranian
nationality but has lived in America since 1980 - was arrested and
detained in Tehran's notorious Evin prison this month following
several months under virtual house arrest. Her arrest on May 8
prompted a call by the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, for
her release.
Female Afghan and Pakistani politicians forced from office
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2085869,00.html
=B7 Outspoken women MPs incur conservative wrath
=B7 Tourism minister branded 'obscene' for pictured hug
Declan Walsh in Karachi
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
Pakistan's and Afghanistan's leading female politicians have been
pushed from office by conservative men accusing them of indecency and
being too outspoken.
Pakistan's minister of tourism, Nilofar Bakhtiar, has been forced to
resign after hardline Islamist clerics branded her "obscene" for
hugging a man after a charity parachute jump.
UN troops in Congo 'traded gold and arms'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/congo/story/0,,2085978,00.html
Xan Rice, east Africa correspondent
Wednesday May 23, 2007
The Guardian
UN peacekeepers patrolling eastern Congo allegedly traded gold and
weapons with the militias they were supposed to help disarm, according
to leaked UN reports.
An investigation by the BBC World Service, to be broadcast today,
alleges that Pakistani peacekeepers based in the mineral-rich area of
Mongbwalu bought gold from two rebel commanders nicknamed Dragon and
Kung Fu, and later from the national army. The UN launched an inquiry
into the allegations more than 18 months ago, but it has never been
made public.
Opium: Iraq's deadly new export
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2573299.ece
Amid the anarchy, farmers begin to grow opium poppies, raising fears
that the country could become a major heroin supplier
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 23 May 2007
Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their
fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a
serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan.
Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya,
south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is
famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with
the area have told The Independent.
Abbas fights to restore ceasefire as airstrikes pound northern Gaza
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2573301.ece
By Donald Macintyre in Sderot, Israel
Published: 23 May 2007
The Israel Air Force launched a fresh round of air strikes on militant
targets in Gaza yesterday as the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas,
struggled to raise dwindling hopes of restoring the shattered
ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
Israeli aircraft launched two attacks in northern Gaza and two in
central Gaza the day after Shirel Friedman, a woman in the border town
of Sderot, became the ninth Israeli to be killed in a Qassam rocket
attack since 2000. The Army said early today it had launched two fresh
attacks in northern and southern Gaza.
Robert Fisk: The road to Jerusalem (via Lebanon)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2573297.ece
Inspired by al-Qa'ida, a hitherto little-known militant group is
behind the outbreak of bloody violence which has left scores dead
Published: 23 May 2007
They came into Lebanon last summer when the world was watching Israel
smash this small nation in a vain attempt to destroy the Hizbollah.
But the men who set up their grubby little office in the Nahr el-Bared
refugee camp, some of them fighters from the Iraq war, others from
Yemen, Syria or Lebanon itself, were far more dangerous than America
and Israel believed the Hizbollah to be. They had come, they told the
few journalists who bothered to seek them out "to liberate" Jerusalem
because "to free our territory is a sacred duty inscribed in the
Koran".
That the men of Fatah al-Islam should believe that the road to
Jerusalem lay through the Lebanese city of Tripoli and might be gained
by killing almost 30 Lebanese soldiers - many of them Sunni Muslims
like themselves, four of whom it now emerges had their heads cut off -
was one of the weirder manifestations of an organisation which, while
it denies being part of al-Qa'ida, is clearly sympathetic to the
"brothers" who serve the ideas of Osama bin Laden.
After 65 years, submarine gives up its macabre secret
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article2573306.ece
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 23 May 2007
Sixty-five years after it vanished, a Japanese midget submarine that
sank an Australian warship in Sydney harbour during the Second World
War has yielded up its secrets.
The two-man submarine was one of three midgets that sneaked into the
harbour in May 1942 to attack the American battle cruiser USS Chicago.
Two were damaged and scuttled by their occupants, who shot themselves.
The third fired a torpedo that missed the Chicago but blew up a
converted ferry, HMAS Kuttabul, killing 19 Australian and two British
ratings.
Timeless exposure: 100-year-old colour photos discovered in attic
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2573293.ece
By David Usborne in New York
Published: 23 May 2007
Just how much cash they might have raised no one can say, but for
students of photography the three glass-plate images that Charlotte
Albright found in her attic in Buffalo, New York state, last summer
are little short of priceless. Happily, the pictures are not bound for
an auction house but rather the venerable George Eastman House museum
in Rochester, which will display them this autumn. They are remarkable
in many ways, not least because they are by Edward Steichen and -
though a century old - are in colour.
As is often the case with such discoveries, Ms Albright, a 96-year-old
artist, did not realise what she had fallen upon when she found the
three plates in storage in her home. She knew they came from her
mother, Charlotte Spaulding, a photographer herself, and assumed she
had taken them.
Commission seeks way out of Iraq for Brown
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2573300.ece
By Colin Brown
Published: 23 May 2007
A cross-party commission has been set up in the UK to give Gordon
Brown a route map out of the morass in Iraq after the departure of
Tony Blair as Prime Minister at the end of next month.
The Iraq Commission will report back in July and is expected to carry
out the same role in the United Kingdom as the Iraq Study Group did in
Washington by laying the ground for more talks with Iraq's neighbours,
including Syria and Iran.
Kurds implicated in Ankara bomb attack
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2573341.ece
By Thair Shaikh
Published: 23 May 2007
At least six people were killed and more than 80 injured when a bomb
exploded close to the entrance of a shopping mall in the Turkish
capital, Ankara.
The rush-hour attack, one of the worst in the city for a decade and
blamed by security sources on Kurdish separatists, killed five Turks
and a Pakistani national, according to officials.
Peace talks on the brink of trade war
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/article2573312=
..ece
While America and China make noises about strengthening trade links,
mutual suspicions refuse to go away. By Stephen Foley
Published: 23 May 2007
The drums are being beaten more insistently, the ominous sound of a
march towards a trade war. As Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary,
stood with Wu Yi, the Vice-Premier of China, on a Washington stage
draped in the flags of their countries, he warned that this historic
economic summit would have to be more than a talking shop, if it is to
lessen the protectionist pressures building in Congress.
"There is growing scepticism in each country about the others'
intentions," Mr Paulson said. "Unfortunately, in America this is
manifesting itself as anti-China sentiment as China becomes a symbol
of the real and imagined downside of global competition. It is up to
us, over these two days and the work that follows, to show that words
are precursors to action."
Leading article: The search for scapegoats
http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2573274.ece
Published: 23 May 2007
There is something terribly suspicious about Margaret Hodge's foolish
call for British families to be given housing priority over
immigrants. She has edged the idea about with weasel words and caveats
which imply that the prejudices of many white working-class voters are
legitimate and simultaneously insist that the Government must offer
strong leadership to spell out the benefits to British society that
migration brings. But there is a lie at the heart of her argument.
Deborah Orr: A simple-minded politician, asylum-seekers and the
complex realities of global politics
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/deborah_orr/article2573279.=
ece
Critics of Margaret Hodge have failed to understand that 'need' is not
an easy equation
Published: 23 May 2007
Refugees don't come to Britain any more, do they? We get asylum-
seekers now instead. Refugees? Well we still see them, in camps, on
television, driven from their homes by war, famine, pestilence or the
other one, and they really do have nothing. Asylum-seekers have
something though, don't they? They have an agenda, and a list of
rights.
They want something, and they want it from us. Not all of them,
although much rhetoric implies that this is the case. The US committee
for refugees and immigrants estimates that the current total of
displaced persons is more than 34 million, a third of them seeking
asylum outside their own borders. The latest figures, from 2005,
confirm that we granted asylum to a not overwhelming 11,000 of those
refugees.
David Howarth: These nonsensical arguments for nuclear power
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2573270.ece
The Government has been rushed into a bad decision by a clever public
relations campaign
Published: 23 May 2007
Although today's White Paper on energy is accompanied by a
"consultation" about nuclear power, pronouncements from both of
Britain's prime ministers leave little room for doubt that the British
Government believes that the country's energy problems cannot be
solved without recourse to a new generation of nuclear power.
Ministers insist that although nuclear power is not a silver bullet,
it has to be part of the picture - that without it we can neither
reach our goals of reducing carbon emissions nor avoid placing
ourselves in the hands of Mr Putin and his successors in title to
Russia's vast reserves of gas. I believe that the Government is
profoundly wrong about nuclear power and has allowed itself to be
rushed into a bad decision by a clever but deceptive public relations
campaign by the nuclear industry.
.
|
