Smoke in our eyes
George Monbiot
September 27, 2006 11:55 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/george_monbiot/2006/09/post_437.html
As usual, I spoke too soon. In my column yesterday, I claimed that "the
BBC now seems to have woken up to the problem" of covert corporate
lobbyists.
In the past, it has often asked people to speak about contentious
issues who - unknown to the BBC - had an undeclared financial interest.
These are people working for "thinktanks" that take money from
corporations, and advance arguments in the media that are in tune with
theirs. This would be acceptable if either they or the BBC told us that
they have a financial relationship with the industry in question.
A stable and orderly transition
Ciaran Jenkins
September 27, 2006 12:10 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ciaran_jenkins/2006/09/post_438.html
The prime minister resigned yesterday and left office with dignity and
a bouquet of red roses. Shortly afterwards, the man long touted as his
successor assumed the leadership as expected and a new political era
was underway.
Nobody had anything to say about a smooth and orderly transition. The
departing prime minister's wife unsensationally did not accuse the
incoming leader of being a "liar." And the new prime minister
unemphatically did not deny not telling his predecessor that "there is
nothing that you could say to me now that I could ever believe."
Poverty and ambition
Adrian Lovett
September 27, 2006 12:51 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/adrian_lovett/2006/09/post_442.html
Global poverty is not top of the agenda at Labour conference this year,
but it's as hot a button issue for the party faithful as it has ever
been. "Every day", Tony Blair told delegates yesterday, "children in
Africa have lived who otherwise would have died because this country
led the way in ..." I didn't hear the end of the sentence because the
applause rose and swelled as the audience picked up where he was
heading and got there first. They were right to feel proud. Britain and
this prime minister and chancellor have taken a lead and lives have
been saved as a result. But I feel uneasy knowing just how much more
Britain and other rich countries still have to do before they really
start to make poverty history. Will these activists keep up the
pressure on world leaders - including their own - to deliver their
promises to the poorest?
Just before Blair's speech I spoke at a fringe meeting on climate
change. Two weeks ago I was in remote floodlands in Bangladesh, and the
memory of a land that is visibly collapsing around the feet of some of
the most vulnerable people on the planet remains fresh in my mind.
Unfortunately the queues to hear the prime minister were already
forming and with six different speakers on the platform, our meeting
ran the risk of failing the old theatre test (that the show must go on
- unless there are more people on stage than in the audience). Worse, I
was speaking last. Worse still, for many of those watching, I was
obscured by a sage-like plant on the speakers' table. Bobbing my head
above the fauna like some David Bellamy, I told my story of Bangladesh
and floods and vulnerable people and the plans for the big Stop Climate
Chaos rally on November 4.
Democracy isn't our default setting
Tim Footman
September 27, 2006 02:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_footman/2006/09/post_441.html
In a recent episode of the BBC spy drama Spooks, a member of the cabal
plotting an authoritarian coup describes democracy as "a blink in the
eye of history".
Presumably it's meant to be an indication of the character's utter
vileness; he was, after all, indirectly responsible for the death of
loveable MI5 geek Colin. But, at the same time, of course, he's right.
For most of human history, people have lived under systems that were
not democracies. The Greeks gave us the word, but only a minority of
them enjoyed its benefits. The ideals of the French and American
revolutions, and the British Reform Act of 1832, still left voting and
political decision-making as minority pursuits.
Detached from reality
Dilip Hiro
September 27, 2006 04:06 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2006/09/post_444.html
At a press conference yesterday, the US president, George Bush,
deplored the partial leaking of a classified National Intelligence
Estimate on terrorism by the US National Intelligence Council on
Sunday. He ordered declassification of the key elements of the document
so that "everybody can draw their own conclusions".
The opening section of the NIE, bearing the title Trends in Global
Terrorism: Implications for the United States, cites the Iraq war as a
reason for the spread of the jihadist ideology, which has worsened the
global terrorism problem. It adds that the ongoing Iraq conflict has
emerged as a focal point for anti-Americanism.
Mozart is not Islam's enemy
Martin Kettle
September 27, 2006 04:26 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_kettle/2006/09/mozart_is_not_muh=
ammade_enemy.html
Hard on the heels of the row over the Pope's comments about Islam, a
Berlin opera house has triggered another debate about where the
boundaries between free speech and multi-cultural sensitivities should
lie. I'm always dubious about absolutist answers to these questions,
from whatever side they come, which is why the Deutsche Oper's decision
to cancel its production of Mozart's Idomeneo for fear of causing
offence to Muslims seems to me simultaneously understandable and
reprehensible.
The immediate issue, the brandishing of the severed head of Muhammad in
the opera's final scene, is obviously a provocative act - as indeed are
the simultaneous brandishings of the heads of Jesus, Buddha and
Poseidon. But the cancellation is equally a dangerous act of
self-censorship at odds with the principles of liberal democracy and
artistic expression, as Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday. It's
hard to know which is worse - the angry intolerance of the religious
fanatic or the pre-emptive cringe of the bureaucrat. But I'd take a lot
of convincing that the cancellation is really justified.
Putting life on hold
Faisal al Yafai
September 27, 2006 06:15 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/faisal_al_yafai/2006/09/rumours_of_war.=
html
Rumours spread fast among the desperate. For the past three days, the
Spanish embassy in Damascus has seen a deluge of Iraqi refugees,
handing over sheaves of paper in a vague hope they will be offered
help. A rumour spread through the community - thought to number upwards
of 500,000 in Syria - that the Spanish embassy was offering asylum. On
Sunday morning, more than 3,000 men and women had turned up, queuing
from 5am.
It takes some context to understand what that means, how desperate
these displaced people must be for them to latch on to the rumour. They
had heard, also, that they needed paperwork, but there were no official
forms. Instead, the Iraqis wrote out their experiences on paper, had
them translated into English, and prepared formal letters with
photocopies of their passports.
There's no place like home
Jack Shenker
September 27, 2006 06:40 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jack_shenker/2006/09/return_of_the_supe=
rdome.html
The eyes of the world flickered briefly back to New Orleans last night
as the Superdome, national shorthand for death, squalor and the
failings of a federal government when its citizens needed it most,
reopened for the new American Football season. The homecoming of the
New Orleans Saints - who last year played their home games at locations
scattered, like their fanbase, across the state and the country - has
been heavily trailed for weeks on local television, with adverts
showing a group of burly players clashing their helmets together in the
changing rooms and repeatedly chanting "There's no place like home!".
The return of football to the Superdome falls neatly into the narrative
of recovery promoted by the city's Mayor, Ray Nagin. Since the
anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, his staff have been spinning overtime
to get across the message that New Orleans is back in business and open
to the world, and the symbolism of the refurbished Superdome, the scene
of so much misery last August, is a powerful tool in their hands. But
for many residents, any talk of homecoming is deeply divisive.
Let's bolster this subterranean shift in US foreign policy while we can
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1882396,00.html
Even in the Pentagon, there are hints of a move away from over-reliance
on the military. But Iran will be the test
Timothy Garton Ash in Washington
Thursday September 28, 2006
The Guardian
Here in Washington, five years after George Bush launched his "global
war on terror" in response to the 9/11 attacks, I sense one of those
subtle subterranean movements that may presage a significant shift in
American foreign policy. You detect such a movement in private
conversations with senior officials, in hints and half-finished
sentences; in what they don't say as much as what they do, or what they
don't object to when you say it; in body language and facial
expressions - in all those registers of communication that you do not
get through the internet, television or mobile phone, in fact through
anything except the irreplaceable experience of two humans talking face
to face. And because it's so subtle and subterranean, barely
acknowledged in public speeches, let alone in acts of public policy,
you also know it may never happen. Something comes up, a key argument
in the Oval Office swings the other way, and this is the shift that
never was.
A rare sight: a party leader's penitent change of course
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1882364,00.html
The neocon barrage that followed Cameron's recent speech on foreign
policy only confirmed its significance
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Thursday September 28, 2006
The Guardian
For the first time in more than a decade a Tory leader goes to his
party conference with a smile on his lips and a spring in his step.
Under David Cameron the Tories look electable once again, establishing
an opinion-poll lead not seen since the ERM debacle of September 1992.
Although Gordon Brown may claim that he can't wait to face Cameron, the
chancellor's optimism is not shared by many of his colleagues. They
might have been prepared for polls in which twice as many voters think
Brown is arrogant, or "more likely to stab a colleague in the back",
than the Tory leader, but to learn that Cameron is seen as a far more
honest man is a sad reflection on that upbringing in the manse about
which Brown spoke so affectingly on Monday.
The real story of filaments
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1882360,00.html
The part played by African people in the creation of the modern world
is still being ignored
Felicity Heywood
Thursday September 28, 2006
The Guardian
Did you know that, 25,000 years ago, Africans in Congo, pioneered basic
arithmetic? Or that it was men of African descent who invented the
carbon filament lightbulb, the traffic light, and the gas mask? No?
That's hardly surprising.
British people know little about African history because it's not in
the school books and remains ignored by many of our esteemed
institutions. Black History Month (BHM), launched 20 years ago, aimed
to put this right and has become an established date in the cultural
calendar - marked by lectures, educational projects and festivals up
and down the country. Despite being seen by some as incomplete and
tokenistic, it has attempted to provide an annual space where the
contribution of African and Caribbean people to world development can
be publicised.
The death of freedom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1882363,00.html
Lib=E9ration's fate reflects that of the French left - both failed to
understand a growing rift in society
Agn=E8s Poirier
Thursday September 28, 2006
The Guardian
Today you bought the Guardian - or perhaps you are reading it online.
Once it may have been the Independent. It is probable that on Sundays,
sifting through the mountains of papers at your newsagent's, you often
reach for the Observer. Imagine that very soon - in less than a year,
say - you won't be able to buy any of these newspapers. Imagine a
Britain where readers such as you have to choose between the Times or
the Daily Telegraph.
Iraq war was terrorism 'recruiting sergeant'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1882713,00.html
=B7 Study for MoD criticises Afghanistan involvement
=B7 Pakistan army said to be indirectly aiding Taliban
Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday September 28, 2006
The Guardian
The Iraq war has acted as a "recruiting sergeant" for extremists in the
Muslim world, according to a paper prepared for a Ministry of Defence
thinktank, which also said the British government sent troops into
Afghanistan "with its eyes closed".
The paper, which describes the west as being "in a fix" and includes a
savage attack on Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, was written
by an officer attached to the Defence Academy, according to BBC2's
Newsnight programme. Its release provoked a furious response from the
Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, who has been touring the US.
Kazakhstan fights back ahead of Borat film release
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Thursday September 28, 2006
The Guardian
Kazakhstan: land of superstition, religious intolerance, political
suppression and goats. Wrong. Kazakhstan is actually a country of
metals and machinery, an outward-looking, modern nation with a stable
economy that attracts foreign investors to its cosmopolitan capital.
The Kazakh government took the unusual step yesterday of publishing a
four-page colour supplement in the New York Times in what appeared to
be in part an attempt to head off the fallout from a satirical film due
out in November. Borat: Cultural Leanings of America for Make Benefit
Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is the latest work from Ali G creator
Sacha Baron Cohen. The film lampoons the central Asian nation through
Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh journalist who travels to the US to report on
local customs.
Pardoned 'Tokyo Rose' dies, aged 90
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1882591,00.html
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Thursday September 28, 2006
The Guardian
Iva Toguri D'Aquino, the American woman popularly known as Tokyo Rose
who was convicted and later cleared of making propaganda radio
broadcasts for the Japanese during the second world war, has died aged
90.
Although several US citizens were suspected of aiding the Japanese war
effort by appearing in broadcasts intended to demoralise US troops,
only Ms D'Aquino was convicted. In 1949 she became the seventh US
citizen to be convicted of treason by an American jury.
Israeli group calls power plant attack a 'war crime'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1768838.ece
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 28 September 2006
The air strike on Gaza's only power station that has left most
residents with half their normal electricity supply three months later
was a war crime, according to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem.
A 34-page report says the cuts in power are: harming health care;
drastically limiting water supplies to three hours a day; plunging
sew-age treatment to near crisis levels; limiting the mobility of
high-rise dwellers by halting lifts; and threatening residents with
food poisoning because of interruptions to refrigeration.
New Hope for Democrats in Bid for Senate
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/us/politics/28senate.html?ref=3Dus
By ROBIN TONER
The Democrats suddenly face a map with unexpected opportunities in
their battle for control of the Senate.
Dispute on Intelligence Report Disrupts Republicans' Game Plan
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/us/politics/28capital.html?ref=3Dus
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Democrats seized on the newly disclosed National Intelligence Estimate
as confirmation of their case that the Iraq war has compounded the
global terrorism threat.
Scientists Form Group to Support Science-Friendly Candidates
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/us/politics/28science.html?ref=3Dpolitics
By CORNELIA DEAN
Organizers of the group, Scientists and Engineers for America, said it
would be nonpartisan, but in interviews several said Bush
administration science policies had led them to act.
The Ascent of Wind Power
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/business/worldbusiness/28wind.html?ref=3D=
science&pagewanted=3Dall
By KEITH BRADSHER
Wind power is emerging as an alternative in fast-growing countries like
India and China that are avidly seeking new energy sources.
At German Conference on Muslim Relations, One Vote Is Unanimous: Mozart
Must Go On
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/world/europe/28germany.html?ref=3Darts
By MARK LANDLER
A gathering of German government and Muslim leaders would like to see
reinstated a production of an opera that was canceled for fear of
offending Muslims.
We are all indigenous
Agnes Poirier
September 28, 2006 10:43 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/agnes_poirier/2006/09/post_448.html
The film had long been in the making. The director, Rachid Bouchareb,
fought hard to get it financed and eventually raised the budget thanks
to the generosity of many, including: French television, the French
system of funding for the arts and the King of Morocco. He cast a
wonderful palette of actors - Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem, Samy Naceri
and Bernard Blancan - who were jointly awarded the prestigious prize
for best actor in Cannes.
The film, Indig=E8nes (Indigenous), has just come out in France. It
tells the story of four young men from North Africa who fought to
liberate France from the Nazi tyranny in 1945 but were forgotten by the
fatherland and, in their old age, received but a fraction of the
pension given to soldiers born in France. These men were four among
100,000 African soldiers from French colonies who landed on the beaches
of Provence and battled their way north to Alsace. They were the unsung
heroes of the republic.
There may be trouble ahead
Alan Travis
September 28, 2006 09:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/alan_travis/2006/09/there_may_be_troubl=
e_ahead.html
Tony Blair promised this week that John Reid's law and order and
immigration reforms would be the centrepiece of the legislative
programme that will make up his last Queen's speech as prime minister.
But what will this legacy look like for a prime minister who became
leader of the Labour party having tried to convince his party that
"crime is a socialist issue"?
It is a tradition, more often honoured in the breach these days, that
ministers do not talk about what is in the Queen's speech before Her
Majesty gets up to deliver the script written for her by No 10. But
Whitehall sources, shall we say, have already given a clear indication
of what the likely contents of these flagship bills are going to
contain. Many of the proposals were contained in the three "action
plans" that Dr Reid published as part of his 100-day drive to make the
Home Office "fit for purpose" in the wake of Charles Clarke's departure
over the foreign prisoners scandal.
Arnold's Turnaround
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR200609270=
1758.html
A GOP Governor Finds the Key: Independence
By David S. Broder
Thursday, September 28, 2006; Page A23
SACRAMENTO -- The Terminator has rescued himself from political ruin by
reinventing his approach to government, thus demonstrating in the most
dramatic way possible the value of political independence.
Just 10 months after California voters rejected all four of the ballot
initiatives he put before them and sent his personal approval ratings
crashing to dangerous depths, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is
riding high, poised to win a full term come November.
Danforth Warns of Christian Right but Says Tide Will Turn
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR200609270=
1708.html
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006; Page A04
CHICAGO. Sept. 27 -- The potency of the Christian right in the
Republican Party is limited, former senator John C. Danforth of
Missouri is telling audiences this month. A lifelong Republican
moderate disturbed by his party's direction, he contends that the
political center has a future.
Describing himself as a "a Republican for the old reasons," Danforth,
70, is promoting a new book that describes religion as a divisive force
in the United States today and accuses the religious right and its
political supporters of creating a sectarian party.
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