OT: Making sense of the senseless
maff
Oliver James
April 19, 2007 8:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/oliver_james/2007/04/mad_or_bad.html
The commonest reaction to the news that South Korean Cho Seung-hui has
gunned down over 30 people, including fellow students, at Blacksburg's
Virginia Tech is: "why on earth would someone do something like
that?"
But, having interviewed over 150 convicted violent men and women, my
only surprise is that, given the ready availability of guns, these
killings do not happen more frequently in America. In the vast
majority of cases, they end with the death of the killer because
suicide is, in fact, their key goal - rather than give themselves up,
they either wait to be picked off by a sniper or make a suicidal
charge.
Blood and tears
Roddy Morrison
April 19, 2007 7:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/roddy_morrison/2007/04/blood_and_tears.html
The launch of the independent public inquiry into contaminated blood
and blood product use in the NHS is a significant milestone for the
haemophilia community. We have been campaigning for 19 years for a
public inquiry and now it seems we finally have made a breakthrough.
However, while we are delighted that the inquiry has been established
- mainly due to the tireless work of Lord Morris of Manchester - this
is only the first step in finally establishing how and why so many
were affected by contaminated blood and blood products.
Human cargo
Philippe Legrain
April 19, 2007 7:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/philippe_legrain/2007/04/human_cargo.html
Australia's treatment of asylum seekers has long been shockingly
inhumane. But Prime Minister John Howard's latest policy twist is
truly despicable: he plans to "swap" would-be refugees held in the
country's illegal offshore detention centres, with Cuban and Haitian
detainees the US is holding in Guantánamo Bay. People are to be
treated as chattel, shipped halfway across the world at the whim of a
desperately unpopular politician who will seemingly go to any lengths
to bolster his chances of re-election later this year. The first
asylum-seekers to be exchanged are likely to be the 83 Sri Lankans and
eight Burmese held on the Pacific island of Nauru, according to the
BBC.
Howard's rationale is simple: treat 'em mean and hope they'll be less
keen to try to come to Australia in the first place. No matter that
people fleeing persecution have already suffered enough in their home
country; no matter that the UN's Refugee Convention, which the
Australian government has signed up to, legally commits Australia (and
other signatories) to give refuge to those fearing for their lives at
home. It seems that deterring people who dare - how presumptuous of
them! - to cross the world in search of a better life in Australia is
everything.
Clear intentions
Peter Melchett
April 19, 2007 6:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_melchett/2007/04/farming_for_the_future.html
Professor Bill McKelvey, the director of the Scottish Agricultural
College, has disclosed new scientific findings which show that Britain
must further intensify farming practices in order to feed the UK
population. The professor has discovered that food prices will soar in
the future, GM crops are going to be required to provide enough food,
industrial turkey farming, as practised by Bernard Matthews, has been
criticised unfairly, and that food shortages are possible in the UK in
the next 25-50 years. Europe will have to use GM crops.
These would all be fascinating and, to some of us, surprising new
scientific findings but this isn't science. This is actually guess
work and personal prejudice being pushed by a pro-GM campaign group,
the Science Media Centre. I have absolutely no objection to people
campaigning for GM crops, just as I campaign against them. What is
both dishonest and dishonourable is scientists and journalists who
pretend to be presenting scientific findings when they are simply
pushing personal opinions, or worse, opinions shaped by financial and
institutional interests which they do not disclose.
Splitting the difference
Quin Hillyer
April 18, 2007 10:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/quin_hillyer/2007/04/abortion_decision.html
It would be easy to over-hype and misinterpret Wednesday's US Supreme
Court ruling that Congress did not violate the Constitution when it
passed a law banning the procedure commonly known as "partial birth
abortion". But the fact is that the decision was narrowly written, and
the original law was itself constructed in a carefully circumscribed
way, concerning an abortion procedure that is rarely used.
While the dissenting opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is
full of overwrought language, the majority opinion written by Justice
Anthony Kennedy makes clear that the court's decision should not be
interpreted as a sweeping change to the existing, abortion-almost-
entirely-on-demand regime in American law.
Sympathy is not enough
Simon Tisdall
April 18, 2007 8:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2007/04/sympathy_is_not_enough.html
Gordon Brown's strong condemnation of repression in Burma has raised
hopes that Britain will take a tougher stance towards the country's
military junta if and when he becomes prime minister. New initiatives
are certainly needed. After a UN security council resolution demanding
a restoration of democracy was vetoed by China and Russia in January,
the generals are growing more confident - and aggressive.
In his new book, Courage: Eight Portraits, Mr Brown lauds the detained
National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition leader, Aung San Suu
Kyi, as a fearless prisoner of conscience battling a state "with one
of the worst human rights records in the world, with 1,000 political
prisoners and 500,000 political refugees" where "children as young as
four are in prison" and "poets and journalists tortured just for
speaking out".
Guns and roses
Michael Tomasky
April 18, 2007 7:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_tomasky/2007/04/guns_and_butter.html
I know what you've been thinking. You crazy Americans with your guns.
Why can't you people join the civilized world and ban guns and be done
with it?
Well, we can't. And what's more: for political reasons if nothing
else, we shouldn't.
A progressive perspective
Peter Tatchell
April 18, 2007 7:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/04/muslim_cleric_urges_secularism.html
Throughout much of the world, Shia Islam is synonymous with the
terrorist violence of the Badr and Sadr death squads in Iraq, and with
the murderous tyranny of the Iranian ayatollahs.
Since 1979, tens of thousands of Sunni Muslims, journalists, women,
students, gay people, leftwingers, trade unionists and ethnic
minorities have been murdered in the name of Shia Islam by the despots
in Tehran.
Food for thought
Bill McKelvey
April 18, 2007 6:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/bill_mckelvey/2007/04/food_for_thought.html
World population growth is soaring. Today, it stands at 6.3 billion.
By 2025, it is forecast to be 8 billion, and by 2050, 9.8 billion. It
is estimated that there will be a doubling in demand for food as a
result of increased population and increased affluence in developing
countries. Chinese meat consumption, for example, has doubled in last
10 years.
The logic of this situation is that there are only two ways to meet
future demand for food: first, convert more land from its natural
state to a productive state. And second, further intensify production
on existing land. However, agricultural land is a limited resource:
estimates indicate that we can only increase the global productive
land mass by 10%. And that is before we take into account climate
change, falling water tables and using our crop resources to produce
energy (ie, as biofuels).
Collective complicity
Sharif Nashashibi
April 18, 2007 6:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sharif_nashashibi/2007/04/sharif_nashashibi.html
Palestinians have reacted with revulsion and shock at the prolonged
kidnapping and unconfirmed killing of BBC Gaza correspondent Alan
Johnston. Such an act has, until now, been unheard of in Palestine.
Furthermore, to target the only foreign journalist based in Gaza, one
who bravely and objectively reported an increasingly tragic story that
desperately needs to be told, is totally counter-productive to
Palestinian interests.
The shame game
Ryan Park
April 18, 2007 5:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ryan_park/2007/04/reaction_in_korea.html
Walking into my office in Gwangju, South Korea this morning, the word
"soochi" repeatedly buzzed above a flutter of unusually harsh and
excited conversation: shame.
Unfounded rumors intended to mitigate this sense of shame - that the
Virginia Tech killer is actually Chinese, that his first victim was
his girlfriend (thus making it a crime of passion), and most
disturbingly, that his parents had committed suicide upon hearing
about the events - have spread, with the full support of the major
news media, throughout the country. That one of our own could commit
such a horrific crime is, to many Koreans, a tragedy in and of itself.
A poll apart
Inayat Bunglawala
April 18, 2007 4:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/inayat_bunglawala/2007/04/a_poll_apart.html
Over the years I have learned to become a bit wary of polls about
attitudes among British Muslims carried out by private institutions,
and especially of the way the results are reported in much of our
press.
It seems there is quite a bit of room for mischief making with poll
questions often ambiguously phrased.
A family affair
Kristin Goss
April 18, 2007 4:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/kristin_goss/2007/04/guns_and_roses.html
America is a reluctant state, making laws when events force us to.
Will the Virginia Tech massacre be the event that delivers real gun
control? Don't bet on it - but don't rule it out.
There are two reasons to doubt that this week's shooting, the worst in
American history, will catalyze stricter gun laws. The first is that
political debates over gun policy tend to be framed by the
particularities of the individual case. If the Virginia Tech shooter
had exploited an obvious loophole in state or federal gun laws,
political pressure to tighten the regulations might be predicted to
build.
Netting a bargain
Bobbie Johnson
April 18, 2007 3:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/bobbie_johnson/2007/04/wifi_hacking.html
The news of Britain's first cautions for basic Wi-Fi hacking - using
somebody else's wireless internet connection without their permission
- potentially makes criminals of thousands of us.
Police in Worcestershire cautioned a man who was seen using somebody's
unsecured wireless internet from his car, while a woman had earlier
been given a reprimand for the same offence. I'll admit to having done
the same thing many, many times over the years - not least when I
moved home and BT decided to wait two months before installing a phone
line to my house. So are those of us who hop on board from time to
time committing a criminal act?
All talk, no action
Conor Clarke
April 18, 2007 3:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_clarke/2007/04/guns_and_the_v_tech_shooting.html
While driving from Washington, DC to Virginia yesterday - to the house
of Cho Seung-hui, the Virginia Tech shooter - there was an unexpected
and striking site to behold: The blue-glass headquarters of the
National Rifle Association, looming over Route 66, with its flag at
half-mast.
It was a site to behold because, over the next few weeks, Americans
are going to be hearing a lot about guns and gun control. It's a
ritual that seems to follow every horrific trial-by-gunfire moment in
American public life. When a gunman tried to take Ronald Reagan's life
in 1981 and instead permanently disabled Press Secretary James Brady,
Brady went on to become the leading gun-control advocate in the
county. In 1996, Carolyn McCarthy was inspired to run for Congress on
a platform weapons reform after the brutal death of her husband. And
when two students stormed Columbine High School in 1999 and took the
lives of 12 peers, it set off the most recent meditation on gun
violence and American culture.
A bad nuclear reaction
John Harris
April 18, 2007 2:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_harris/2007/04/the_nuclear_reaction_1.html
Another year, another Sellafield story. Through 2005 and 2006,
Britain's sole nuclear reprocessing plant periodically crash-landed in
the headlines thanks to a ruptured pipe, the spilling of plutonium and
uranium dissolved in nitric acid, and the closure of its Thorp
(Thermal Oxide reprocessing) plant, widely reported as a "leak",
though everything was actually safely contained. Now, just in time for
the 50th anniversary of the legendary accident of 1957 - when the
plant was at the centre of the UK's nuclear weapons programme, and
known as Windscale - the Times has broken a story that crystallises
some of the nuclear industry's most malign stereotypes - chiefly, its
old fondness for secrecy.
Just to recap, then. For around 30 years, it is alleged, staff at
Sellafield stored and tested the organs of some of the plant's former
workers. According to the management, they did so with the authority
of a coroner, though not - so the Times claims - with the say-so of
their families. According to the report, "the scandal will hit
families hardest in the close-knit community of Whitehaven, where most
workers have traditionally lived since the plant became a big employer
in the 1960s" - which is true, though Whitehaven is a dyed-in-the-wool
company town, where the kind of nuclear jitters that periodically grip
the national media are usually greeted with indifferent shrugs. No
matter, though: the reports also contain predictably negative quotes
from the local(ish) pressure group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive
Environment, as well as - seemingly by way of filling space - the
potted story of the 1957 fire.
Eating on the run
Jay Rayner
April 18, 2007 1:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jay_rayner/2007/04/eating_on_the_run.html
Bad news for gastroenterologists everywhere: the petty bureaucrats of
Delhi have proposed that, to modernise the city ahead of the
Commonwealth Games in 2010, the city's 300,000 street food hawkers
must go, in case they happen to poison any passing tourists. All this
proves is that the city's politicians are nowhere near greedy enough.
Street food connoisseurs know that eating from open air counters -
satay in Malaysia's Kajang district, say, or steaming bowls of pho on
the curb sides in Saigon, or nutty crunchy heaps of chaat in Delhi -
is a battle between appetite and common sense.
Yes, of course there is a risk that you might acquire just the
slightest touch of rampant food poisoning from buying something
prepared with ingredients that have been sweating under a broiling
sun, a stranger to both refrigeration and clean hands since sunrise.
Only the most ludicrously bullish of traveller would claim otherwise.
But that is offset by two factors.
The indecisive moment
Jonathan Fenby
April 18, 2007 12:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_fenby/2007/04/dirst_round_realities.html
The first round of French presidential elections is the occasion when
the country produces a snapshot of itself. The truly converted on the
right and left vote for the main party standard-bearers. Others are
free to have a flutter, responding to their hearts and their guts
rather their heads, as a Trotskyite candidate put it at a rally this
week.
Outside the faithful on the extreme, such votes are painless. You know
that Jean-Marie Le Pen or the perennial far-left runner Arlette
Laguiller is not going to enter the Elysee Palace. Voting doesn't
always have to be an exercise in civic responsibility, does it? Have
some fun. Come the second round, you have to make a hard choice -
which may well induce a taste for abstention.
Honesty is the worst policy
Andrew Brown
April 18, 2007 11:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/andrew_brown/2007/04/in_praise_of_neoconning.html
As the public life of Paul Wolfowitz draws peacefully towards its
close, it is time to point out that the neocons got one important
thing right, whatever their other sins; and that the one thing they
got absolutely right is also the one point on which they are attacked
by absolutely everyone. They saw - and, worse, they said - that it was
impossible to tell the truth to the general public about anything that
really matters.
I've spent about 20 years now trying to tell the truth to readers
about important stories, and it's obvious to me that Wolfowitz and his
mentor Leo Strauss were right. It is just about impossible to have
grown-up conversations in public. The public is, on the whole, too
stupid, and too prejudiced, and too ignorant to care. This isn't
blameworthy: they are human beings like me; and I know I am stupid,
prejudiced and ignorant outside my areas of specialisation; in fact
it's a condition of modern life that there are innumerable important
subjects that we can't understand, and where we rely on the expertise
of others.
Hail the deserter-in-chief
Ian Williams
April 18, 2007 11:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/04/hail_the_deserter_inchief.html
A working definition of chutzpah: a Bush administration prosecuting
deserters.
Bill Clinton spent two terms of his presidency on the defensive
because he had, in typical Clintonian fashion, prevaricated between
his ethics and his political future on whether or not to register for
the draft during Vietnam. In the end, he registered but was not called
up.
We've been here before
Josh Freedman Berthoud
April 18, 2007 10:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/josh_freedman_berthoud/2007/04/weve_been_here_before_2.html
I was at a party recently, when an Asian guy asked if I was English.
"Yes," I replied. "English English?" he persisted. "Yes, well, I'm an
English Jew, but ... " His response was one to which I have become
accustomed, having grown up in Britain: "What's Jewish got to do with
it?" he railed. "That's not your nationality, that's your religion.
Why is everyone in England so desperate to mark themselves out as
different?"
I could see his point. In modern, multicultural Britain, it can seem
dull to be plain old English English. Perhaps to this Asian man, who
unavoidably wears his identity on his face, the idea that someone can
choose to wear his identity on his sleeve could be irritating. Perhaps
the fact that I don't look particularly Jewish and I blend in easily
with other white Britons makes this Asian man feel as though I am just
trying to be different, without having to suffer any of the
discrimination that accompanies difference, whenever I choose not to
assert it.
Mr Brightside
Sue Blackmore
April 18, 2007 10:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sue_blackmore/2007/04/sachs_pathetic_solution.html
In his first Reith lecture, Jeffrey Sachs painted a realistic and
gloomy picture of the state of our overcrowded planet and then
concluded with a hopelessly optimistic and unrealistic solution.
He argued that the fundamental problem underlying poverty, inequality,
environmental degradation and climate change is overpopulation. If
there were not so many of us, there would be plenty to go round. But
with 6 billion people there is no way that one single planet earth can
provide adequate lives for us all - let alone lives with fridges,
showers, cars, cheap flights and fast food. I agree.
Sexism and the City
Deborah Hargreaves
April 18, 2007 9:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/deborah_hargreaves/2007/04/barely_a_week_goes_by.html
Barely a week goes by without a new claim of sexism in the City. This
week bank traders are cast as taking bets on how long a young woman
would last in her job at BNP Paribas after having a baby. Katharina
Tofeji told an employment tribunal she was forced out of her job after
asking for a four-day week. She joins a line of high-profile women
complaining about the sexist nature of the City's high-octane trading
floors.
Some of these women's claims are hair-raising and anathema to us
armchair liberals. There is talk of entertaining clients at lap
dancing clubs, being asked to do the washing up and serve drinks. But
the City retains a macho culture where women are in the minority, as
are gay people and ethnic minorities. It is an aggressive dog-eat-dog
mentality that dominates the City trading floors. Traders will make
use of any difference or perceived weakness in their rivals to elbow
them out of the way in the intense competition for a bigger bonus and
a leg-up the greasy pole (career rather than lapdancer's).
Laying down the law
Rosa Davis
April 18, 2007 9:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rosa_davis/2007/04/cruel_but_not_unusual.html
The Observer recently published an article highlighting the plight of
Neil Revill, an Englishman accused of double murder in LA and
potentially facing the death penalty. The case against him appears
fairly weak - there were no eyewitnesses, no confession and no murder
weapon was found. He has no previous convictions, and one of the
murder victims has been shown to be a police informant responsible for
the arrest of mafia figures in LA. Yet despite all this, Revill faces
the likelihood of conviction and the death penalty.
The manner in which the death penalty is carried out in America has
changed over the years with more "humane" methods available for taking
human life. There has been much debate as to whether the American
constitution allows for such punishment to be given in the first
place. The eighth amendment sets out that "cruel and unusual
punishment" may not be inflicted. This has been held to protect people
from removal of limbs and beatings with chains, amongst other things.
These forms of punishment, though horrific in the eyes of modern
western culture, do not deprive a person of his life. Regardless of
how cruel they may be, a person will survive such treatment and be
able to continue to live.
Homegrown criticism
Anna Masera
April 18, 2007 7:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anna_masera/2007/04/its_irritating_for_italians_to.html
It's irritating for Italians to read sarcastic comments on Italian
affairs in the foreign press - even when the "affair" is about the
incumbent Telecom, which nobody loves: especially since its prices are
still perceived as too high and the quality of its services too low.
There is also widespread disdain for the immunity of its protected and
lobbyist system and the level of corruption it contains, exposed after
the interceptions scandal erupted out of control and the share price
crumbled.
None the less, defensive nationalistic feelings arise when comment
pieces regarding the battle of foreign telecoms firms for a stake in
Telecom Italia - make fun of Italy's ways. For example, an editorial
in the April 4 edition of the Economist begins: "In opera, business
and politics, Italy's fondness for melodrama is well known," before
going on to describe Italy's politicians as "wailing about
capitulation to foreign invaders".
A sick France means a sick Europe - and that must be bad for Britain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2060336,00.html
Just as Blair is leaving the stage, a kind of Blairism could prevail
across the channel. Under another name, of course
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
What an irony. Just as Blair leaves the stage in Britain, Blairism
arrives in France. Le Blair est parti, vive le blairisme! Not
explicitly, of course, and not as a particular set of post-
Thatcherite, neoliberal economic policies, habitually denounced in
Paris as "Anglo-Saxon". I mean Blairism as a post-ideological,
pragmatic way of doing politics which borrows eclectically from left
and right, and worries about results rather than ideological
consistency. Responding to the challenge of globalisation, it aims to
combine entrepreneurial economic dynamism with high employment and
social justice, mediated by a redistributive welfare state. Its true
motto is "whatever works".
A decade of Blair has left the Labour party on its knees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2060360,00.html
Servility to the market has alienated voters and eroded the
traditional base. The last thing we need is more of the same
Neal Lawson
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Tony Blair is about to walk into the long shadows of politics. He
leaves a party at its lowest standing in the polls since 1983,
admitting at last that he's become a liability. To ensure that what
comes next is not just progressive but popular, understanding the
political failure of Blairism is crucial.
But first a confession. I was a Blairite. Back in 1994, I believed he
was serious about new politics, communities and Europe. More fool me.
My first doubts crept in as early as election day in May 1997. I was
crunching up long gravel drives in Enfield Southgate, where rumours
abounded that no-hoper Stephen Twigg might oust Michael Portillo.
After passing BMWs and Mercs I was met by enthusiastic upper-middle-
class families who were "all for Tony Blair here". We were going to
win, but what did we have to sacrifice to have these people in our
tent?
Britain is at the centre of a conversation with the world
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2060332,00.html
The British Museum is still the repository of its founders' ideals of
global community, rather than querulous nationhood
Neil MacGregor
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
It is a standing source of astonishment and amusement to visitors that
the British Museum has so few British things in it, that it is a
museum about the world as seen from Britain rather than a history
focused on these islands. There is, though, one part of the collection
that is both very rich and very British indeed - the 18th-century
caricatures. Ephemeral, brilliant and cruel, they sum us up as we saw
ourselves at the very moment the museum was founded: the pushy and
sententious Scots; the high-minded, garrulous and quarrelsome Welsh;
the Irish feckless, but so charming they carry all before them; the
English grumbling, perversely content in their gin-sodden xenophobia.
And all of them mixed up together, somehow rubbing along, with the
grudging affection that only long familiar irritation can generate.
Memo to mendacity
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2060333,00.html
The evidence could not be clearer that the prime minster subverted the
truth to take us to war
Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
The full extent of Tony Blair's mendacity over the invasion of Iraq
has been emphatically revealed in classified Downing Street documents
leaked since the invasion. They make up a devastating indictment of
the way we were led into an adventure with the US whose bloody
consequences show no sign of relenting.
One of the crucial documents is known as the Downing Street Memo. It
consists of the minutes of a meeting chaired by Blair on July 23 2002,
when ministers were being warned by their officials and the attorney
general, Lord Goldsmith, that an invasion to topple Saddam would be
unlawful. The minutes reveal that Sir Richard Dearlove, then head of
MI6, reporting on his talks in Washington, warned that "the
intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy". In a
phrase with added resonance in the light of yesterday's bloodshed in
Baghdad, he said: "There was little discussion in Washington of the
aftermath after military action." The minutes also reveal that Jack
Straw, then foreign secretary, warned that the case for military
action against Iraq was "thin".
There's no reason to doubt this Jane Austen portrait
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2060362,00.html
Questions over the painting are easily explained. Her close family
knew it was genuine, says Angus Stewart
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
"Could it be, as its supporters claim, a portrait of the young Jane
Austen?" Claire Harman asks of the so-called Rice Portrait, which will
be auctioned at Christie's in New York today (Who's that girl?,
Review, April 14).
We would all benefit if we knew how this great writer looked. We want
to know her appearance - our curiosity is keen and unsatisfied. So
what do we think of the evidence on offer here?
Left, right or straight on?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2060353,00.html
Leader
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
If one scene encapsulates the tensions ahead of the first round of the
French presidential elections on Sunday, then it is one that is acted
out every day in a backstreet in Paris where Nicolas Sarkozy has his
campaign headquarters. It is in an area of Turkish immigrants and
bourgeois bohemians - not groups known for their love of Mr Sarkozy
and his pledge to introduce "selective immigration". The street is too
narrow for the convoys of cars generated by his campaign, and
residents are subject to frequent identity checks from riot police at
both ends. Every time they look up, Mr Sarkozy's reluctant neighbours
glance in bewilderment at his slogan: "Together, everything is
possible."
In praise of... street food
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2060352,00.html
Leader
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Indians love their food, and they often seem to want every visitor to
try a bit - from relatives who pinch children's cheeks and vow to
fatten them up (however unnecessary that may be) to the vendors whose
cries of "chai" are heard on trains day and (interminable) night, and
of course the roadside stalls that offer a seemingly endless supply of
hot snacks. Sometimes it all seems too much. It certainly sticks in
the craw of the Delhi authorities, who are trying to get the kitchens
off their streets. Food stalls clutter up the roads, it is said, and
they are unhygienic. No one could ever describe the main roads of
India's capital as undercrowded, but if London's parks are its lungs
then Delhi's food "hawkers" (the term may be archaic in Britain yet it
lives on in this former colony) are its kitchens - sometimes literally
so, for those without cooking space at home. Besides, Delhi belly can
hardly be blamed solely on these providers of freshly cooked
sustenance. There is also a delicious democracy in having a source of
cheap food that serves barristers and bus conductors within the same
lunch hour. India's army of workers marches on its stomach and the
chai-wallahs, who work till late into the night, are helping to fuel
the subcontinent's economic revival. But as India gets richer it also
wants to smarten up its act. And so the roadside cooks are being moved
into food courts. Perhaps they should move to Britain, which is
rediscovering street food, even if it is in the form of an overpriced
bowl of chorizo and chickpeas.
Why Nazi aesthetics are a dangerous minefield
Jonathan Glancey
April 18, 2007 1:35 PM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2007/04/why_nazi_art_is_a_dangerous.html
"Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass
parades and flags - just amazing. Really beautiful". This is what
Bryan Ferry, the crooner and Marks & Spencer model told the German
newspaper Welt am Sonntag at the beginning of the week. He also
admitted that he called his London studio the "fuhrerbunker". His
immediate apology has been accepted by, among other concerned parties,
the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Getting the wrong end of Vonnegut's schtick
Maxim Jakubowski
April 18, 2007 1:00 PM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/04/a_titanic_mistake.html
The news last week of the death of Kurt Vonnegut reminded me of one of
the more embarrassing moments of my writing and reviewing career. If
Vonnegut has perchance passed on safely to the heavens of
Tralfamadore, I'm sure he would appreciate the irony.
It was 1960, and I was a tyro teenage reviewer for a small French
science fiction magazine called SATELLITE (now long defunct). Being an
English schoolkid in Paris with literary aspirations, I was lucky
enough that on regular mid-term holidays back in London I would
invariably pick up, mostly at a dusty secondhand book-and-magazine
emporium in Walthamstow, hordes of US and British genre magazines and
fairly new paperbacks by authors who had not yet come to the attention
of French publishers. And I'd managed to convince the SATELLITE guys
to give me an irregular column in which I could preview the new
science fiction talent emerging in English.
Theatre wants your vote
Michael Billington
April 18, 2007 12:59 PM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2007/04/theatre_wants_your_vote.html
Theatre audiences already vote with their wallets and their feet, but
is there a case for giving them a more participatory role? What
prompts the question is the arrival at North London's Tricycle of
Richard Norton-Taylor's Called to Account - a piece of verbatim
theatre which puts the case for and against the prosecution of Tony
Blair over the invasion of Iraq, and which gives the audience on the
night the final vote.
Strangely enough, western drama starts with an act of democracy - even
if it is executed by the performers rather than the audience. In the
final play of Aeschylus's Oresteia, the character of Orestes is
indicted for matricide. A jury of Athenian citizens hears the
arguments and then casts its vote. These days, the tendency is to play
this ironically since, after a split vote, Orestes is acquitted by
Athena who divinely presides over the court. For some, this is the
first example of the rigged vote. Personally, I am always moved by the
sight of the citizens casting their pebbles into the appropriate urns:
this is where the Athenian Areopagus, and the democratic principle,
actually starts.
Is David Tennant the best Doctor Who?
Stuart O'Connor
April 18, 2007 12:45 PM
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2007/04/is_david_tennant_the_best_doct.html
Three episodes in, and this new season of Doctor Who is shaping up as
one of the best ever (last Saturday's outing to New New York was a
corker). But nevermind how the Doctor's new assistant is shaping up
compared with her predecessors. I want to know: is David Tennant the
best Doctor ever? It all depends on how you define "best". The
question pops up because a poll of its readers by Doctor Who Magazine
last December led to Tennant being dubbed best Doctor ever, knocking
Tom Baker from the top of the list for the first time since 1990 (when
Sylvester McCoy won) and only the second time ever. And a recent Radio
Times poll named Tennant's Doctor as the coolest person on TV (ahead
of 24's Jack Bauer, the Fonz from Happy Days, Colin Firth's Mr Darcy
and the Cat from Red Dwarf). If this keeps up, pretty soon Tennant's
head won't fit through the door of the Tardis.
Among the women I know who watch the show, Tennant is considered the
best-looking actor to ever grace the part. And I know for certain that
his immediate predecessor, Christopher Eccleston, is the best actor to
ever enter Tardis. That was probably the biggest problem with
Eccleston's season - he's such a fine, intense actor he often
overpowered those around him. It's just as well for all concerned that
he plays an invisible man on Heroes.
Seeds of discontent
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2060418,00.html
Britain is losing its green fields, as the grass that once fattened
cattle is replaced by oilseed rape. The bright yellow tide has upset
lovers of traditional country views. But what about the effects we
can't see? What is this chemical-hungry crop doing to the environment
- and our health? Joanna Blythman investigates
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
A few days ago I travelled by train from Tours, in the Loire valley of
central France, to London. I had imagined that this would be an
interesting journey, if not spectacularly scenic, since this landscape
is infamously flat. But I still wasn't prepared for the overbearing
presence of oilseed rape. Church steeples, villages, parishes, whole
départements flashed by, all peeping out from a vibrant golden-yellow
blur of oilseed rape prairies.
What is a molly?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2060417,00.html
Ben Marshall
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Jordan, she of the comedy breasts and even more more humorous husband,
has attacked Liz Hurley for dressing her son like "a molly". She went
on to promise that she would not molly-fy (so to speak) her own son.
"I like to keep him trendy - I don't want him to be a molly. I think
that must be a Brighton term," she announced to Heat magazine, with a
mixture of pride and indignation.
Gordon Brown's new book teaches us, if nothing else, that we are to
have another pious Christian for PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2060420,00.html
Catherine Bennett
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Whoever wrote Courage by Gordon Brown, he, she or they are to be
congratulated. I have not read anything so thoroughly improving since
the Reverend Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies, in which the reader
must endure the protracted, watery afflictions of young Tom, ploughing
on, right to the last pages, before the author finally asks, "And now,
my dear little man, what should we learn from this parable?"
In his eight portraits of "men and women of courage", on the other
hand, the Reverend Brown's moral purpose confronts us from the first:
"Their stories live on and inspire us," he begins his chapters on
Edith Cavell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Raoul Wallenberg, Martin Luther
King, Robert Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Cicely Saunders and Aung San Suu
Kyi. "They were prepared to endure great sacrifices and persist, some
of them for many years, against the odds and in the face of the
greatest adversity."
Blast from the past
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2060440,00.html
White, middle-class audiences have lapped up playwright Roy Williams'
dissections of multiracial London. But his new adaptation of 50s teen
drama Absolute Beginners turns the spotlight on the liberals. By Maddy
Costa
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Long before he thought he could be a playwright, back when theatre to
him meant panto and boring productions of Shakespeare, Roy Williams
was already limbering up for his future career. "When I was 12 or 13,"
he says, "I kept a diary - but I was a character in it, not me. And if
I watched a TV programme, I would always rewrite it. My favourite
programme was The Professionals, but I'd watch it and think: 'Bodie
wouldn't say that. If I were writing it, I'd have Bodie do this and
Doyle do that.' So I'd write my own episodes of The Professionals. I'd
rewrite Grange Hill, too. Even then, I had my writer's hat on."
Diplomatic rift as Russia says: give us Berezovsky
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2060610,00.html
Fresh warrant issued and new inquiry into remarks about overthrow of
Putin
Terry Macalister, Ian Cobain and Simon Tisdall
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Relations between London and Moscow threatened to plummet to a post-
cold war low yesterday amid renewed Russian demands for action against
Boris Berezovsky over the tycoon's claim that he is plotting to
overthrow Vladimir Putin.
The Russian ambassador to the UK warned that bilateral relations would
inevitably suffer if prompt action was not taken against the Britain-
based multi-millionaire, who told the Guardian that he was fomenting a
revolution to topple Mr Putin by force.
Wolfowitz's World Bank deputy tells him to quit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/imf/story/0,,2060755,00.html
Richard Adams in Washington
Thursday April 19, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Paul Wolfowitz's tenure as president of the World Bank may be decided
today by the bank's governing board, after he was abandoned by the
Bush administration and faced a revolt led by his own deputy.
When Mr Wolfowitz asked a meeting of senior staff yesterday what he
could do to repair faith in his leadership, he was told bluntly to
resign by Graeme Wheeler, a managing director of the bank and one of
two deputies to the president.
US accuses Iran of supplying arms to Taliban insurgents
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2060612,00.html
· Allegations aired publicly by officials for first time
· Charges coincide with speculation over air strikes
Declan Walsh in Kabul
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
The war of words between the US and Iran has spilled into Afghanistan
after US allegations that Iran is secretly supporting the Taliban
insurgency.
The charges, expressed in carefully calibrated language, represent the
first time senior US officials have publicly aired rumours that have
circulated privately in Afghanistan since last year. Iran denied the
charges, and sceptical western officials noted they coincided with
mounting speculation about possible US air strikes against Iranian
nuclear facilities.
China claims to have created first artificial snowfall
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2060560,00.html
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Chinese weather experts claim to have triggered the first artificial
snow showers by releasing tiny particles into clouds over the Tibetan
plateau.
The experiment was hailed as a success for the drought-stricken
region, where freshwater lakes are drying up as warmer temperatures
force thousands of glaciers into rapid retreat.
A spokesman for the Tibet meteorological office said artificial
snowfall was created by seeding the clouds with particles of silver
iodide. The fine particles encourage the formation of ice crystals in
the clouds, which grow until they fall as snowflakes.
Supreme court signals anti-abortion shift
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2060725,00.html
· Ban on 'partial birth' procedure upheld
· First intervention over termination methods
Ed Pilkington in New York
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
The US supreme court signalled a shift towards a more conservative
approach to abortion yesterday as it upheld a nationwide ban on a
procedure that pro-life activists regard as infanticide.
The court ruled by five votes to four to allow to stand a law passed
by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2003 which bans the type of
termination of pregnancy which is known by anti-abortionists as
"partial-birth abortion".
It is the first time the court has intervened in the way abortions are
carried out, as opposed to just over abortion itself.
Soldiers jump bail in Chechen massacre case
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2060572,00.html
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Three special forces servicemen who were being prosecuted for
massacring a group of Chechen civilians in one of Russia's highest
profile criminal trials have gone on the run days before proceedings
were expected to draw to a close.
The three men in the Ulman case - named after the officer who
controlled the GRU (chief military intelligence directorate) unit -
had been granted bail despite protests from the victims' families.
Captain Eduard Ulman, Alexander Kalagansky and Vladimir Voyevodin
previously admitted shooting six Chechens, including a pregnant woman,
on a mountain road in southern Chechnya in January 2002, but claimed
they were innocent because they were following orders.
Three murdered at Turkish bible publishing house
http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/story/0,,2060579,00.html
Nick Birch in Istanbul
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Two Turkish Christian converts and a German man were killed yesterday
in a publishing house that prints bibles, in the latest attack on
religious minorities living in Turkey.
Security officials found the men with their hands and feet tied to
chairs and their throats cut in the office of Zirve Publishing, in the
south-eastern city of Malatya.
A fourth man was being treated for severe head injuries after he
jumped from a third-floor balcony to escape, while another sustained
stab wounds.
Australia and US to swap refugees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2060551,00.html
· Nauru boat people switch for Guantánamo detainees
· Asylum seeker groups condemn plan as cruel
Barbara McMahon in Sydney
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Asylum seekers intercepted at sea while trying to reach Australia are
to be sent to the US in a controversial refugee-swapping scheme agreed
by the two countries.
Under the plan announced in Canberra by Kevin Andrews, the immigration
minister, some of the boat people picked up in international waters
off the coast of Australia would be re-settled halfway around the
world.
In exchange, Australia will accept asylum seekers now being held in
detention at the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay; these are mostly
Cubans and Haitians who have also been intercepted at sea. The
agreement between the two countries, ratified in Washington last week,
will involve each country processing about 200 refugees a year.
BBC tests demand for universal access to archives
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2060512,00.html
Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Monty Python's Flying Circus will return to the skies, Morecambe will
be reunited with Wise, and Reginald Perrin rise again after the BBC
yesterday moved a step closer to giving viewers access to every
programme it has ever made.
The corporation will next month launch a public trial of its ambitious
BBC Archive project, offering 20,000 people the opportunity to access
1,000 hours of content drawn from a variety of genres. A more limited
50-hour library of programmes will also be available to internet
users.
Tougher prison sentences 'have little impact on flow of drugs'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,,2060556,00.html
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
The courts are handing out three times as much prison time for drug
offences as a decade ago but such "get tough" sentencing has done
little to stem the flow of drugs on to the streets, where prices
continue to fall, according to a study.
The research, commissioned by the UK Drug Policy Commission for its
launch yesterday, also shows that Britain has the second-highest rate
of drug-related deaths in Europe and questions the effectiveness of
official drug education and prevention programmes.
Two accused of leaking secret memo on Bush-Blair Iraq talks
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,2060559,00.html
· Contents could have put troops at risk, court told
· Note detailed strategic discussions, says QC
Karen McVeigh
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Two men accused of leaking a secret memo detailing sensitive talks
between Tony Blair and President George Bush during the Iraq war could
have put the lives of British troops in danger, the Old Bailey heard
yesterday.
David Keogh, 50, a Cabinet Office civil servant, is said to have
passed the memo to his friend Leo O'Connor, 44, a political
researcher, in the hope it would find its way into the public domain.
Mr O'Connor then passed it to his boss, Anthony Clarke, Labour MP for
Northampton South, knowing he had voted against the Iraq war, with a
similar motivation, the court heard.
Fantasy into reality: this tiny robot may transform heart operations
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2060540,00.html
· Crawling device evokes 60s movie memories
· Prototype tested on pig but years of work needed
James Randerson, science correspondent
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
At two centimetres long and moving like a caterpillar, it is seen as a
miniature robot surgeon, capable of entering a patient's chest to
perform precision heart operations without invasive surgery.
Scientists working on the prototype hope it could one day help doctors
to repair damaged hearts under local anaesthetic without needing to
open up a patient's chest cavity. The device, called HeartLander, is
designed to attach to the surface of the heart and to move around to
positions where treatment is needed.
Official indecision holding up potentially life-saving stem cell
research, scientists say
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2060524,00.html
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Pioneering British work on stem cells which could lead to life-saving
medical therapies is being held up because government officials cannot
agree on how to approve the cells for human use, scientists warned
yesterday.
Leading researchers expressed their dismay at the situation, claiming
that the government inaction has stifled the development of
treatments, and jeopardises Britain's position at the vanguard of the
field.
Net firms 'could do more' to fight viruses
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2060511,00.html
Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian
Internet providers could be held responsible for the spread of viruses
on private computers, one of Britain's leading experts has claimed.
Giving evidence to the House of Lords science and technology
committee, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of internet governance and
regulation at Oxford, said that holding broadband companies
accountable for dangerous online traffic could help solve some
security problems.
"When a computer is spewing out viruses, ISPs do not generally block
them," Professor Zittrain said. "It's very difficult for users to say
that something is wrong ... [but] it's not as if we would be asking
ISPs to be significantly more intrusive than they are currently."
UN agency confirms Iran is producing nuclear fuel
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2461494.ece
By Stephen Castle and Anne Penketh
Published: 19 April 2007
Tension over Iran's nuclear programme heightened last night after the
United Nations nuclear agency confirmed that Tehran has crossed a new
threshold by producing fuel in its underground uranium enrichment
plant.
The confirmation, contained in a letter signed by Olli Heinonen, the
International Atomic Energy Agency's deputy director general, follows
a visit to the Natanz enrichment plant in Iran by nuclear inspectors.
But the country is still believed to be a year or so away from the
point of no return, which Israel regards as a red line in the Iranian
quest for a nuclear capability.
Mugabe stacks odds in his favour with plan for 'rigged' election
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2461394.ece
By Basildon Peta in Johannesburg
Published: 19 April 2007
Robert Mugabe has unveiled his blueprint for a fixed election, in
clear defiance of international calls for a free and fair vote in
Zimbabwe.
Among measures approved at a cabinet meeting yesterday was an
expansion of parliament from 150 MPs to 210 in a blatant
gerrymandering coup. The new MPs' districts will be set up in rural
areas where the ruling party exercises near total control of the vote,
according to sources inside the country.
Fast trains enter service in China as demand soars
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2461401.ece
By Christopher Bodeen
Published: 19 April 2007
A fleet of 125mph trains entered service in China yesterday as part of
an effort to keep up with the soaring demand for transport.
The first of scores of high-speed trains left Shanghai at 5.38am for
Suzhou, 53 miles away, covering the distance in 39 minutes. "It felt
like we were travelling on an airplane," said Chen Lijuan, 78, who
lives in Shanghai. "In the past it took more than an hour to get
here."
Bush and Blair threaten new sanctions over Darfur crisis
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2461393.ece
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 19 April 2007
Britain and the US have threatened the Sudanese government with tough
new sanctions over continuing human rights abuse and breaches of
United Nations arms embargoes in Darfur.
The proposed measures include the imposition of the "no fly" zones,
targeted action against the country's leadership and the extension of
a weapons ban throughout Sudan.
Leading article: Progressive, or pandering to popular prejudice?
http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2461391.ece
Published: 19 April 2007
Now that the Home Office minister, Liam Byrne, has announced when the
new points-based system for immigrants will come into effect, it is
worth setting out again why this scheme is a thoroughly bad idea -
just as it was when the idea was first proposed by the Conservatives
under Michael Howard. Under the existing arrangements, foreign workers
or employers apply for a work permit directly from Whitehall. But,
from next year, prospective immigrants are to be awarded a points
score depending on their skills, the sector in which they are applying
to work and other factors including their age. To be successful they
will have to acquire a high enough score.