OT: War stories my father told made me a proud European
maff
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2042205,00.html
Born out of the carnage of the Second World War, the 50-year-old Union
has been an unrivalled vehicle for peace and prosperity
Will Hutton
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
My father was at the battle of Caen. He was a captain in the Royal
Artillery. He loved to show me his battle maps with the still-clear,
neat pencil marks identifying his gun positions. It was great stuff
for a young boy, lying on the living room carpet poring over charts of
the woods and fields through which my father had fought. Hearing his
stories of columns of men crying as they went into battle, convinced
they would be killed. Of his admiration for the American 101st
Airborne Division which he fought alongside. Of his batman jumping in
one foxhole and him in another - and the batman being killed by a
German shell.
Democracy needs its Judases to thrive
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2042201,00.html
Misplaced loyalty can be dangerous for society when it turns
politicians into nodding dogs who don't speak out when they should
Mary Riddell
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Poor Judas. The great betrayer has himself been traduced by that
latecomer to sacred scripture, Jeffrey Archer. The one-time Prisoner
FF 8282 and a Catholic priest have co-authored a fictional addition to
the New Testament, in which the rogue apostle is reinvented as a good
guy who thought he was saving Jesus's life.
The Gospel According to Judas has attracted two main criticisms. While
it is true that Archer's liturgical style is less congruous than, say,
a Beastie Boys version of 'Stabat Mater', the second complaint is more
damning. A convicted perjurer may not be the most apt revisionist of
holy writ.
Stop prettying up these great women
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2042263,00.html
Jane Austen and Beatrix Potter have been airbrushed and softened. Why
are we doing this?
Barbara Ellen
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
A photograph appeared recently in a new book, Beatrix Potter: A Life
in Nature, one of the few that still survive. It's just a simple
portrait of the writer sitting down holding her pet mouse Xarifa on
her palm. However, Potter looks fascinating - her face expressive,
haunting, wilful. She exudes the air of the born refusenik. Then it
struck one that the last time the world saw 'Potter' was in the movie
of her life starring Renee Zellweger. However, in that, 'Beatrix', as
played by Renee, was all twee glances and bunny pouts. Bridget Jones
in a bustle. Nothing like the woman in the photograph at all.
Iraq: disorder amid the ruins
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2041928,00.html
How can it be that, four years on, multibillion-dollar reconstruction
contracts have failed to improve the country's infrastructure, asks
Oliver Morgan
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Even John Bolton, the neocon's neocon and former American ambassador
to the UN, now admits it. Mistakes were made in the aftermath of the
invasion of Iraq. Not regime change - he is unrepentant about that -
but what happened next.
Indeed, four years after the invasion, some $21bn (£10.7bn) in US
reconstruction funds later, and despite President Bush's promises that
the US would leave Iraq with a better infrastructure, the country now
produces less electricity and oil than it did before the missiles
started hitting Baghdad, according to the US special inspector-general
for Iraq reconstruction (Sigir).
Mainstreaming of the mavericks
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2041924,00.html
The social entrepreneurship movement has come of age, writes Charles
Leadbeater. What now?
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
They were a ragtag group of misfits and mavericks, heroic figures,
seemingly single-handedly bringing jobs, healthcare and education to
deprived communities. They were visionary and relentlessly optimistic,
but practical and pragmatic. They self-consciously applied business
methods to social problems, but weren't motivated by profit. This
iconoclastic, inspirational, sometimes frustrating and often self-
promoting group did not even have a name for themselves.
That was 10 years ago. Today we would recognise this breed as social
entrepreneurs: people who mobilise often neglected and undervalued
resources - youngster written off by the education system, buildings
left derelict - to address significant social needs.
YouTube: the hustings of the 21st century?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2041933,00.html
A 'viral' video satirising Hillary Clinton points to the future of
campaigning, writes Edward Helmore
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Last week, US political attention abruptly shifted to a 74-second
video of political satire posted on YouTube. Anonymously posted,
expertly crafted, of questionable copyright (called 'Hillary 1984' and
referring to an advertisement for Apple Computer directed by Ridley
Scott), it has raised questions about the power of the internet in the
political process - and the opportunities for subterfuge this
presents.
Hillary Clinton had special reason to be displeased. The video
characterised the candidate for the Democratic nomination for US
president as a politically correct, totalitarian Big Sister, and her
supporters as compliant automatons. But political analysts say the
importance of 'Hillary 1984' lies in ease of attack in the computer
age. And this episode has also highlighted how the author of a viral
political video can damage his unwitting sponsor, in this case fellow
candidate Barack Obama.
Why Gordon's 'greater choice' is a MAD idea
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2041931,00.html
Simon Caulkin, management editor
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
If I suggested that there was a link between, on the one hand, Gordon
Brown's commitment last week to 'greater choice, greater competition,
greater contestability and greater accountability' in public services,
and on the other MAD, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction
that underpinned nuclear strategy during the Cold War, you might
conclude that the strain of writing about management for a living had
finally taken its toll.
But in that case, you haven't been watching The Trap, Adam Curtis's
BBC2 three-parter on the genesis of our current ideas about freedom.
If you had, you would know that the connection is the Nash Equilibrium
- the creation of the eponymous mathematical genius John Nash,
portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind
The very model of a modern creative society? I don't think so
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2041938,00.html
John Naughton
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
One of my favourite comedians is Tom Lehrer, the Harvard mathematician
who found that he was better at musical comedy than at maths. He had
an unusual career. He signed up to do a PhD at Harvard, but dropped
out and went into the entertainment business. Finding that he got
bored singing the same songs night after night, he went to work at the
Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab, after which he joined the US army.
Then he did a stint at the National Security Agency, before returning
to academia on the staff of the University of California at Santa
Cruz, where he taught an introductory course entitled 'The Nature of
Mathematics' to liberal-arts majors. He called it 'Math for Tenors'.
Seized Britons face prosecution after Tehran claims 'confession'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2042289,00.html
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Iran defiantly rebuffed international demands yesterday for the
release of 15 seized British naval personnel, claiming that the
sailors and Royal Marines had confessed to entering its waters in an
illegal act of aggression, and were now to be prosecuted in the
Iranian capital.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, claimed in a
statement that the Britons were engaged 'in illegal and suspicious'
activities, suggesting that Iran might claim they were spying.
Mugabe under pressure over elections
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2042260,00.html
Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, may scrap his plans to delay
next year's presidential elections, his mouthpiece newspaper reported
yesterday, and has partially lifted a ban on political protests in
Harare's volatile townships.
But a rally planned for today by opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangrai in the capital's Mbare township
remained prohibited, making fresh clashes between police and activists
possible, while doctors across the country were reporting the numbers
of victims of state violence were still rising. At least 200 people
were treated at hospital in Harare in the past week.
Five years to save the orang utan
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2042243,00.html
A shocking UN report details how the booming palm oil industry is
wiping out one of man's closest relatives as its forest habitat
disappears. David Smith asks if it's too late to save them
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
The Orang Utan, one of man's closest and most enigmatic cousins, could
be virtually extinct within five years after it was discovered that
the animal's rainforest habitat is being destroyed even more rapidly
than had been predicted.
A United Nations report has found that illegal logging and fires have
been overtaken as the primary cause of deforestation by a huge
expansion of oil palm plantations, which are racing to meet soaring
demand from Western food manufacturers and the European Union's zeal
for biofuels.
Shackles, torture, executions: inside Burma's jungle gulags
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2042200,00.html
Grim labour camps are propping up the regime. Dan McDougall braved the
junta's sadistic police to hear the testimony of those who broke free
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Splashing holy water over commuters, the Buddhist monks clutch their
saffron robes around their knees and squeeze on to the crowded decks
of ferries lined up in the transluscent dusk on the Hlaing river.
Above the estuary, the glow from thousands of imported Chinese candles
fills the windows of the old quarters of Rangoon. In the private back
room of a smoky riverside tea house, dock workers gloomily slurp flat
grey noodles from porcelain bowls and curse the power cuts that have
left Burma's capital a virtual ghost town after dark.
Brave old world - how the elderly are seizing America
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2042197,00.html
The United States is changing as it caters for the postwar generation
which prefers rock'n'roll to a rocking chair, reports Paul Harris in
New York
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Next week Warren Beatty will turn 70. It is an age when traditionally
life should be relaxing, reflective and calm. But it is not panning
out that way. Like millions of other elderly Americans, Beatty is not
going gentle into that good night. In fact he was recently snapped
leaving Los Angeles' notorious nightclub Hyde, a hot spot usually
frequented by such youthful tearaways as Lindsay Lohan and Paris
Hilton.
Beatty is the famous face of a social phenomenon sweeping America as
its population becomes more and more dominated by the elderly. A quiet
retirement is not for them. Internet dating website Match.com says its
most lucrative demographic is the over-50s. It is clearly no longer
about a home in Florida, pottering around the garden and a pension
plan. It is now a story of new jobs, increased political power and a
devil-may-care attitude to living life however one sees fit. They are
redefining what it means to grow old in America.
How Geldof urged writers to go to war over Darfur
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2042211,00.html
Mary Riddell reveals how the singer pushed for a united cultural front
to help end the massacres
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
As Berlin celebrates the European Union's 50th birthday, there is a
ghost at the festivities. Darfur was never meant to be centre stage or
even to have a minor role. But Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor,
will today discuss over a private lunch with other leaders what Europe
must do to help end the massacres that have claimed 200,000 lives.
Much of the impetus for action comes from two letters. One is a plea
by Tony Blair to fellow leaders to back United Nations sanctions
against the Sudanese government - a call that was immediately
condemned by the regime in Khartoum, and the second, more notable
letter was published yesterday in newspapers in all 27 member states.
The signatories to this demand for EU action are the leading cultural
figures of Europe. Umberto Eco, Dario Fo, Gunter Grass, Jurgen
Habermas, Vaclav Havel, Seamus Heaney, Bernard Henri-Levy, Harold
Pinter, Franca Rame and Tom Stoppard have united to list the sanctions
that, in their view, Europe must impose forthwith.
Swiss accuse German 'job thieves'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2042194,00.html
A huge rise in the number of guest workers and wealthy tax exiles has
led to a furious backlash
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
The Swiss flag flaps in the breeze, the national anthem floats
soothingly in the background. Suddenly the peaceful image is drowned
by an oompah band, and the white cross on red is subsumed into the
red, black and gold of the German flag. A sexy female voice asks: 'How
many Germans can Switzerland take?'
This is not a comedy sketch, rather an advertising campaign by the
Swiss tabloid Blick which is asking readers if they have had enough of
'cheap workers, arrogant expressions and objectionable self-
confidence'. It has launched a new anti-German age.
We failed, says pro-war Iraqi
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2042195,00.html
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi exile under Saddam and a key intellectual
inspiration for the US policy of 'regime change' in Iraq, has admitted
he failed to foresee the consequences for his country of the invasion
four years ago.
In an interview in yesterday's New York Times, Makiya, author of
Republic of Fear, the book that brought the brutality of Saddam
Hussein's regime to international attention, concedes he allowed his
own 'activism' to sway his judgment and launched a scathing
denunciation of US policy after the fall of Baghdad, and of Iraq's new
leadership. In the week of the invasion's fourth anniversary, the
voice that cried loudest for the toppling of Saddam described the day
of Saddam's execution 'as one of the worst' of his life.
MPs condemn rise in bullying of minorities
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2042238,00.html
Ned Temko
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
MPs will this week urge the government to tackle a rise in the
bullying of homosexuals, racial and ethnic minorities and special
needs pupils.
The Commons education committee will reveal in a report that, although
schools have a legal duty to report racially motivated bullying, some
heads are reluctant to do so for fear of harming their schools'
reputations.
The committee is expected to argue that it is essential to ensure
children feel safe from victimisation based on their sexual
orientation, race or disability. During hearings this year, the MPs
were told of widespread bullying suffered by children with autism and
Asperger's syndrome. The MPs want the issue of bullying to be included
in initial teacher training.
Wiki wars
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2042231,00.html
One of the internet's greatest success stories is under constant
attack from cyber vandals. Now Wikipedia is fighting the information
saboteurs - but can it stem the damage?
Jenny Kleeman
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
If you looked up stingrays on Wikipedia last week, you would have
learnt that, as well as living in tropical coastal waters and
reproducing in litters of five to 10 offspring, the cartilaginous
marine fish also 'hate Australian people'.
It wouldn't take long to realise that the last bit isn't true, or
certainly that no one asked stingrays whether it was.
In fact it was a piece of 'internet vandalism' by a growing band of
cyberspace guerrillas that is targeting sites such as Wikipedia. Since
the death of Steve Irwin - the Australian television naturalist who
was struck in the chest by a stingray's barb last year - the entry has
become one of the online encyclopaedia's most regularly vandalised
articles.
The long and the short of it
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2042066,00.html
With cosmetic surgery, we can change almost any aspect of our
appearance - except our height. But with new research claiming tall
people are wealthier, happier, even, some say, more intelligent,
Americans are already demanding growth hormone injections for their
children. But does size really matter? Simon Garfield on the culture
and science of height - and how it affects our lives
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
In the dim and trivial past, when some of us on this fragile planet
still gave a moment's thought to the marriage of Tom Cruise and Katie
Holmes, the big issue was not the prenup, the dress or the party
guests, but elevation. In his real life and his film life, Cruise had
always appeared inches shorter than his new partner, but in the
official wedding photos, there was a remarkable transformation: they
were suddenly of equal height. Those who believed in fairy tales were
inclined to put this down to the magic of Hollywood. The rest of us
would have to contend with the medical miracle of a very late midlife
growth spurt, or the humiliating spectacle of a hunching and barefoot
bride, or the continued transformative possibilities of stacked heels.
The world has moved on in so many ways since then, but few mysteries
have proved so intractable.
The conscience of Putin's Russia
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2042011,00.html
The diary of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya ensures that the
questing, questioning voice of A Russian Diary cannot be silenced
Viv Groskop
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
A Russian Diary
by Anna Politkovskaya
Harvill Secker £17.99, pp272
Next month will mark the six-month anniversary of the murder of
campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya. This book is the diary she
was preparing for publication shortly before her death. It covers
Russia's presidential elections of 2004 and the aftermath of Putin's
re-election - a 'great political depression', as Politkovskaya
describes it - culminating in the Beslan tragedy in September 2004.
The last section of the book follows the Yukos affair (which resulted
in the jailing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia),
the political fallout from Beslan and hundreds of forgotten show
trials, disappearances and violent events all over Russia.
A human face of terrorism
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2042158,00.html
Catch a Fire (101 mins, 12A)
Directed by Phillip Noyce; starring Tim Robbins, Derek Luke, Bonnie
Henna
Philip French
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Twenty years ago, movies attacking apartheid had to be made in Malawi.
Nowadays, a movie about the catastrophe that is Malawi would have to
be made in South Africa. Perhaps the best of those pictures shot in
Malawi is Chris Menges's A World Apart, an autobiographical picture
scripted by Shawn Slovo, whose parents were white, middle-class
leading lights of the African National Congress. Her father Joe, a
dedicated communist, died in 1995 while a member of Nelson Mandela's
government. Her mother, the brilliant intellectual Ruth First, was
murdered in 1982 by a letter bomb sent by the South African Bureau of
State Security (Boss) while she was in exile in Mozambique.
Happy talk
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2040045,00.html
While experts may have cracked what it is that makes us miserable,
psychologists, politicians and scientists are now very much in pursuit
of happiness. Phil Hogan tries to look on the bright side and
investigates whether wellbeing can be taught
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Has happiness ever been so deeply troubling? Barely a week goes by
without some poll telling us how miserable our children are (Unicef),
or how Britain has been ranked 41st on the world map of life
satisfaction (University of Leicester). Why can't we be like the sunny
people of Denmark (No1) - or even Bahrain, straight in at number 33
with its fancy oil refinery and votes for women? What's our problem?
Look at us - we're prosperous, handsome and fit, with a TV in every
bedroom and a chicken in every fridge. And yet a survey carried out
for the BBC last year found that only 36 per cent of us would describe
ourselves as 'very happy', compared to 52 per cent in 1957 - yes,
those well-loved, carefree days of bread and dripping, toothache and
Arthur Askey.
The dark heart of the new South Africa
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2040044,00.html
For years, Rian Malan has unflinchingly dared to say the unsayable
about his native country, believing murder, corruption and disharmony
will tear the rainbow nation into its separate colours. It's a
conviction that has cost him his marriage and almost his sanity. Tim
Adams travels to Johannesburg to meet the controversial writer
Sunday March 25, 2007
The Observer
Foreigners think we're nuts coming back to a doomed city on a damned
continent,' Rian Malan once wrote about Johannesburg, 'but there is
something you don't understand: it's boring where you are.' When I go
to meet Malan, South Africa's most controversial and charismatic
writer, in his home city, I see the force of both halves of that
statement.
Three stories are dominating the Jo'burg headlines. The first is the
brutal murder of the 'white Zulu' David Rattray, friend of Prince
Charles, who told the story of Rorke's Drift from the African
perspective. Rattray was shot in his bedroom by a local Zulu, a man he
knew, in a botched robbery. The second story exercising the phone-in
shows concerns an attempt by the First National Bank to draw attention
to violent crime - murders are running at 50 per day - in an advert
which talked of 'mobilising the population'. The ANC government, jumpy
about such language, had pressured the bank to withdraw the campaign.
And the third story was about the extraordinary popularity of an
Afrikaans song, 'De la Rey', a homage to a general who had fought the
British with the Transvaal Bittereinders and helped forge the
Afrikaans nation. The song called for the return of General De la Rey
- 'We are ready' - and suggested that the Boer 'nation will rise up
again'.
And they call it peace: Inside Iraq, four years on
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2390873.ece
In a personal diary to mark the fourth anniversary of the war, our
award-winning correspondent Patrick Cockburn journeys through a
country riven with violence and chaos
Published: 25 March 2007
Sunday 18 March. Khanaqin
The difficulty of reporting Iraq is that it is impossibly dangerous to
know what is happening in most of the country outside central Baghdad.
Bush and Blair hint that large parts of Iraq are at peace; untrue, but
difficult to disprove without getting killed in the attempt. My best
bet was to go to Sulaymaniyah, an attractive city ringed by snow-
covered mountains in eastern Kurdistan. I would then drive south,
sticking to a road running through Kurdish towns and villages to
Khanaqin, a relatively safe Kurdish enclave in north-east Diyala
province, one of the more violent places in Iraq.
We start for the south through heavy rain, and turn sharp east at
Kalar, a grubby Kurdish town, to Jalawlah, a mixed Kurdish and Arab
town where there has been fighting. Ominously, there are few trucks
coming towards us. I was on this road last year and it was crowded
with them.
GM crops cause 'breakdown' in Indian farming systems
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2390920.ece
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 25 March 2007
Genetically modified crops have helped cause a "complete breakdown" in
farming systems in India, an authoritative new study suggests.
The study threatens to deal a fatal blow to probably the most powerful
argument left in the biotech industry's armoury, that it can help to
bring prosperity to the Third World.
Out of America: Got to be thin if you want to get in
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2390828.ece
Hefty US voters expect their politicians to be slim if they're running
for the White House
By Rupert Cornwell
Published: 25 March 2007
'Let me have men about me that are fat; ... Yon Cassius has a lean and
hungry look." Shakespeare's Julius Caesar would feel distinctly uneasy
were he to survey the current US presidential field - and not just the
preternaturally svelte Barack Obama. Overweight America may continue
to wolf down junk food with a gusto matched only by the desperation
with which it searches for magical weight-loss formulas. But in
politics, slimness is busting out all over.
Take Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is making a long-
shot bid for the Republican nomination. Mr Huckabee describes himself
as a recovering foodaholic, who once tipped the scales at 300lb and
ate so much he became diabetic. Over the past couple of years, he has
lost 120lb. Not surprisingly, health care and fitness are centre-
pieces of his campaign.
What the devil? The Pampers case gave him a bad name. But he's back
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2390827.ece
Whether he exists or not, Satan is very much with us - and the fight
against him can turn people into the most evil monsters
By Cole Morton
Published: 25 March 2007
The Devil gave the apple to Eve and offered Jesus the world. He's
Lucifer or Satan - or Shaitan to Muslims, created out of smokeless
fire. He made a pact with Faust, struck a heroic pose in Paradise Lost
and went down to the crossroads to give Robert Johnson the blues. He
rode a tank and held a general's rank while the Blitzkrieg raged and
the bodies stank, if you believe the Rolling Stones. But what he
absolutely does not do is make money from Pampers.
That is official now, after a court in America ordered four men to pay
£10m in damages for spreading the notion that Procter & Gamble - which
makes the nappies, among many other household products - gave its
profits to Satan. The ruling was made in Salt Lake City last week
after a 12-year legal battle that saw the company trying to save its
reputation in the face of mass boycotts by Christians.
Mandela boycotts Bristol's slavery commemoration
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2390916.ece
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 25 March 2007
Nelson Mandela has boycotted plans to commemorate the bicentennial of
the Act abolishing the slave trade in Bristol after hearing of bitter
divisions within the community and accusations of racism and
intolerance.
Mr Mandela had been invited to Bristol, once one of the busiest slave
ports in Britain, by the Lord Mayor, councillor Peter Abraham, for a
service of remembrance due to take place today.
The black faces that adorn the canvas of history
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2390917.ece
By John Rentoul
Published: 25 March 2007
What did Black Britain look like in the 1800s? There were perhaps
20,000 black people in Britain at the time of abolition in 1807. None
were slaves. Slavery in the home country of the Empire had been
gradually proscribed after the Mansfield judgment of 1772; because, as
every pedant now knows, what was abolished 200 years ago was the
British slave trade.
So black Britons were free men - they were overwhelmingly male - but
their status was ambiguous. Most conspicuously, they served as valued
members of the armed forces. The vast canvas of The Death of Nelson,
by Daniel Maclise, casts a black seaman in a central role, pointing
towards the sniper whose bullet had brought down the admiral.
Joan Smith: Sorry, God. You're not on the guest list
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/joan_smith/article2390890.ece
This is the high point of a fantastic week for secularism
Published: 25 March 2007
When the leaders of 27 countries meet in Berlin today to celebrate the
50th anniversary of the EU, there will be one significant absence. To
the annoyance of many Poles, who have what is arguably the most
crackpot right-wing government in Europe, God has not been invited to
the party. Neither Christianity nor the deity feature in the
declaration which Europe's leaders will sign to mark the occasion,
signalling the high point of what has been a fantastic week for
secularism.
I would think that, you might say, given that one of the jobs I most
fancy is poster-girl for a strictly rational approach to human
affairs. But recent events show that it isn't just sceptics who are
worried by the inroads which other people's imaginary friends have
been making in secular states. The politician behind the decision to
exclude any reference to religion from the Berlin declaration is the
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a pastor's daughter, who recognises
the crucial importance for most modern societies of a separation
between church and state - and of not providing ammunition to critics
who accuse the EU of being a Christian club.
Stand up for your rights
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8888856
Mar 22nd 2007
>From The Economist print edition
The old stuffy ones, that is: newer ones are distractions
THE past few years have been busy ones for human-rights organisations.
In prosecuting the so-called war on terror, many governments in
Western countries where freedoms seemed secure have been tempted to
nibble away at them. Just as well, you might suppose, that doughty
campaigners such as Amnesty International exist to leap to the
defence. Yet Amnesty no longer makes the splash it used to in the rich
world (see article). This is not for want of speaking out. The
organisation is as vocal as it ever was. But some years ago it decided
to follow intellectual fashion and dilute a traditional focus on
political rights by mixing in a new category of what people now call
social and economic rights.
Cracks in the façade
http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8885853
Mar 22nd 2007 | NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON. DC
>From The Economist print edition
America's riskiest mortgages are crumbling. How far will the damage
spread?
CASEY SERIN knows all about the excesses of America's housing bubble.
In 2006 the 24-year old web designer from Sacramento bought seven
houses in five months. He lied about his income on "no document" loans
and was not asked for anything so old-fashioned as a deposit. Today Mr
Serin has debts of $2.2m. Three of his houses have been repossessed;
others could share that fate. His website, Iamfacingforeclosure.com,
has become a magnet for those whose mortgages are in trouble.
Mr Serin and people like him are Wall Street's biggest uncertainty
just now. How many Americans are saddled with mortgages they cannot
afford on houses that are losing value? The answer matters to anyone
who bought high-yielding mortgage-backed securities when a booming
property market made mortgages look safe. It also matters to
investment banks, which packaged the securities and often own
subsidiaries that originate mortgages. It may determine whether
America's economy falls into recession. It could even affect the
outcome of next year's elections.
Mugged by reality
http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8881663
Mar 22nd 2007
>From The Economist print edition
How it all went wrong in Iraq
"NEMESIS" was the word The Economist printed on its front cover four
years ago, when jubilant Iraqis, aided by American soldiers, hauled
down the big statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad's Firdos Square. For
a moment it looked as though all the fears that had accompanied the
build-up to the American-led invasion had been groundless. The defeat
of Iraq's army in three weeks turned out to be exactly the "cakewalk"
that some of the war's boosters predicted. And in many places Iraqis
did indeed greet the American soldiers as liberators, just as Ahmed
Chalabi, Iraq's best-known politician-in-exile, had promised they
would.
How different it looks four years on. The invasion has been George
Bush's nemesis as well as Saddam's. The lightning conquest was
followed by a guerrilla and then a civil war. Talk of victory has
given way to talk about how to limit a disaster. The debacle has cut
short the careers of Donald Rumsfeld and Tony Blair, poisoned the Bush
presidency and greatly damaged the Republican Party (see article).
More important, it has inflicted fear, misery and death on its
intended beneficiaries. "It is hard to imagine any post-war
dispensation that could leave Iraqis less free or more miserable than
they were under Mr Hussein," we said four years ago. Our imagination
failed. One of the men who took a hammer to Saddam's statue told the
world's media this week that although Saddam was like Stalin, the
occupation is worse.
The perils of "parapolitics"
http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8892695
Mar 22nd 2007 | BOGOTÁ AND MARÍA LA BAJA
>From The Economist print edition
After four years in which he transformed his country, Álvaro Uribe is
running into problems. Some of them are symptoms of success
ON THE outskirts of María la Baja, a nondescript town on Colombia's
swelteringly hot Caribbean coast, the road is lined with palm-thatched
mud huts. They are the new homes of some 7,000 people displaced by
violence from their small farms in the nearby hills. They say that
their problems began when the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) appeared in the hills in 2000, stealing
their cattle. Matters deteriorated further when right-wing
paramilitaries began to kill people whom they thought were guerrillas
and forced others to sell or yield their land at gunpoint.
But in the past couple of years "things have improved a lot," says
Carlos Ortiz, one of their leaders. The reason: on July 14th 2005, the
local paramilitary group handed over its weapons and disbanded under a
peace agreement with the government of President Álvaro Uribe in which
some 30,000 of the militiamen have demobilised across the country. As
part of Mr Uribe's security build-up, marines have set up a base on
the edge of the town, while police patrol the main road north to the
port of Cartagena.
Speechless in Bali
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8903360
Mar 22nd 2007
>From The Economist print edition
An ancient tradition resists the modern world
THE bustling beaches and noisy nightlife of the Indonesian island of
Bali fell silent on March 19th. The streets were deserted and
businesses-even the smallest beachside stalls-were closed. Almost
everyone kept indoors and lights stayed switched off all evening. It
was not another bomb scare. It was Nyepi, the day of silence, rest and
reflection that Bali's majority Hindu population observes to mark the
new year.
Hinduism arrived on Bali perhaps 2,000 years ago. Its traditions there
differ from those in its homeland, India, where the spring is marked
with the colourful and raucous festival of Holi. Bali's day of silence
is preceded by an evening of extreme noise, as home-made bamboo
cannons are fired to scare evil spirits away from the island. Giant
papier-mâché effigies called ogoh-ogoh, representing these demons, are
paraded through the streets before being burned.
Not bound by anything
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8881446
Mar 22nd 2007 | MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA
>From The Economist print edition
Now that books are being digitised, how will people read?
IN SECRET locations and using secret methods, human beings are
scanning lots and lots of books for Google, the world's largest web-
search company. That humans are involved is beyond doubt (fingers are
visible in the corners of many pages on books.google.com) although
this is uncharacteristic of Google, which has a fetish for purist
technology.
Google will not divulge exact numbers, but Daniel Clancy, the
project's lead engineer, gives enough guidance for an educated guess:
Google's contract with one university library, Berkeley's, stipulates
that it must digitise 3,000 books a day. The minimum for the other 12
universities involved may be lower, but the rate for participating
publishers is higher. So a conservative estimate has Google digitising
at least 10m books a year. The total number of titles in existence is
estimated to be about 65m.
Dream and reality
http://www.economist.com/diversions/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8877718
Mar 22nd 2007
>From Economist.com
Listed below are some of the many articles on the European Union
published in The Economist over the past 50 years. They cover its
beginnings as well as important events and anniversaries. Our
collections of articles on the European Union, EU enlargement, the EU
constitution and the euro provide coverage in depth of key topics
A wrong turn in Tokyo
http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/asiaview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8878167
Mar 21st 2007
>From Economist.com
Military brothels tarnish Japanese diplomacy
A MERE six months into his term as Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe
has shredded his international reputation by charging into a thicket
of wartime history. The trouble began when Mr Abe was asked to respond
to the views of a group of revisionist members of his ruling Liberal
Democratic Party, and agreed with them in asserting there was no
evidence that the Imperial Japanese Army had abducted up to 200,000
women (mainly Korean and Chinese, but also Taiwanese, Burmese and
Dutch) and forced them to work in a system of military brothels that
operated during the second world war.
An interconnected world
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8846591
Mar 15th 2007
>From The Economist print edition
THE leading nations of NATO are at odds, be it over Iraq or the future
role of the alliance. Russia accuses America of misusing NATO
territory to advance its own missile defence. And the world's leading
industrialised states struggle to set up international bodies that
will regulate everything from internet protocols to the genetic
manipulation of food. The experts fighting in the trenches over such
issues must sometimes ask themselves: Why bother? Why create the fig
leaves of international accords and institutions when, in reality, a
few powerful states call the shots?
Two right-of-centre analyses address these questions in very different
ways. In "The End of Alliances", Rajan Menon, a professor of
international relations at Lehigh University, does so with a bullhorn.
In Rumsfeldian language, Mr Menon argues that permanent security
institutions are obsolete and the United States should pick up its
military toys and go home. "I believe that our alliances in Europe and
Asia are dispensable." Even worse, "they have become impediments that
inhibit creative strategic thinking at home, while infantilising our
partners who live under the American shadow." What, he asks, "is the
logic for deploying troops and retaining a network of bases in
countries that are now wealthy enough to protect themselves...?"
Concluding that there is none, he calls for the end of America's
military alliances with Europe, Japan and South Korea.
On the Firing Line
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17654774/site/newsweek/
A new NEWSWEEK Poll shows only weak support for Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales.
Web Exclusive
By Richard Wolffe
Newsweek
Updated: 1:05 p.m. ET March 17, 2007
March 17, 2007 - A clear majority of the public believes the Bush
administration's firing of eight U.S. attorneys was politically
motivated, according to a new NEWSWEEK Poll. And the survey showed
only weak support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Destination Earth
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17770850/site/newsweek/
Newsweek
April 2, 2007 issue - Could any TV program sound more boring than an
11-hour nature documentary? Lions. Tigers. Bears. Oh my. But "Planet
Earth," the Discovery Channel's breathtaking new wildlife series that
globe-trots from caves to jungles to deserts to polar ice caps, never
feels like homework. It feels more like an action movie that just
happens to be on TV, and just happens to feature snow leopards instead
of superheroes. Filmed over five years with high-definition cameras,
"Planet Earth," which begins airing on March 25, is a reverse trompe
l'oeil. It looks so crisp and real that you can't believe it's not
fake.
Jim Webb on the Warpath
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17759654/site/newsweek/
The newly elected Democrat is trying to find a middle ground on the war
-incorporating some elements of the House-passed bill without tying
the military's hands.
Web-exclusive commentary
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 4:06 p.m. ET March 23, 2007
March 23, 2007 - Democrats on Capitol Hill hang on his every word, and
Jim Webb doesn't disappoint. His son was extended in Iraq for the
surge, and his resolve to end a war that he opposed from the start is
undisputed. He came from 33 points behind to win election in Virginia
and tip control of the Senate to the Democrats-largely on the strength
of his antiwar, tough-guy military credentials. Democrats owe him, and
they trust him to help them find an honorable path out of Iraq.
'This Isn't Right'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17693308/site/newsweek/
Tina Richards came to Congress seeking to save her son, a Marine
corporal, from redeployment to Iraq. A chance encounter with Rep.
David Obey that was caught on film became an overnight YouTube
sensation. Richards speaks out-on her son's health, the politics of
war and what it's like to be thrust into the limelight.
Web Exclusive
By Eve Conant
Newsweek
Updated: 6:24 p.m. ET March 19, 2007
March 19, 2007 - You might not know her name, but she's fast become a
fresh face of the antiwar left. Missouri mom Tina Richards became an
overnight YouTube sensation last week, when an encounter she had with
Rep. David Obey in a Capitol Hill corridor went viral-just as Congress
was debating a bid to rein in spending for President Bush's surge in
Iraq. During the encounter, Richards approaches Obey, chairman of the
House Appropriations Committee, to discuss her son, Marine Cpl. Cloy
Richards-who suffers from undiagnosed traumatic brain injuries
following two tours of duty in Iraq and a failure by the military
health-care system to provide adequate treatment, his mother says.
Obey responds patiently, at first, but the congressman grows agitated
as the conversation continues, and he tells Richards that "liberal
idiots" were pushing Congress to defund the war-which, Obey argues,
would further hurt the cause of veterans whose health-care needs are
already being shortchanged.
Jimmy Carter's Bible Class
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17723147/site/newsweek/
As a new collection of his Bible-study teachings hits the market, the
39th president speaks out-on his vision of God, the might of the
religious right and the fallout from his controversial book about
Palestine.
Web exclusive
By Lisa Miller
Newsweek
Updated: 2:05 p.m. ET March 21, 2007
March 21, 2007 - Jimmy Carter has been a Sunday-school teacher his
entire life, and this week, Simon & Schuster releases "Sunday Mornings
in Plains," audio recordings of the President's Bible-study classes at
his church, Maranatha Baptist Church, in Plains, Ga. The recordings
were made almost a decade ago, and they have a quaint, homespun
quality. It is a jolt to realize how much our world, and our
conversations about religion, have changed since then. When the 39th
president talks about global religious conflicts, he uses Ireland, the
Middle East and Bosnia as examples-nothing, in other words, that comes
close to the soul-wrenching conflagration in Iraq. It is also a jolt,
for those of us who remember hearing his voice in our homes three
decades ago, to hear it again, both folksy and a little bit prissy,
full of humor and some sanctimony. Carter knows his Bible; during each
lesson he endeavors to connect its teachings to world events.
NEWSWEEK's Lisa Miller spoke with Carter about his vision of God, the
power of the religious right, and what he's learned from the
controversy over his recent book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."
Excerpts:
What the Warriors Cannot Do
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17778186/site/newsweek/
It's Time To Call Iraq's Leaders To Account
By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
April 2, 2007 issue - In the last weeks, the violence in Baghdad has
moved from ghastly to merely grim, and we are told that the tide has
turned. President Bush says the surge of U.S. troops is producing
"encouraging signs." Many of his neoconservative supporters have been
less circumspect. "It may well be that General [David] Petraeus is
going to lead us to victory in Iraq," declared William Kristol last
week. The obstacle now is apparently not in Iraq but in Washington,
where Congress has been making efforts to bring American combat forces
home. The president's spokesman Tony Snow describes these as recipes
for "failure, not victory."
World View: Hideaki Kase
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17770834/site/newsweek/
By Hideaki Kase
Newsweek International
History is a hot topic in Japan these days, with the country's wartime
behavior returning to haunt its citizens. Many Japanese are dismayed
by the possibility that the U.S. House of Representatives will soon
demand a formal apology from Tokyo for the imperial military's alleged
use of "comfort women," or sex slaves, during World War II. This talk
has taken the Japanese government by surprise, especially given its
unprecedented support for Washington in Iraq and the war onterrorism.
A Boom in The Desert
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17770836/site/newsweek/
By Ruchir Sharma
Newsweek International
April 2, 2007 issue - Global financial markets from Mexico to Malaysia
have magically followed the same rhythms this decade, their fortunes
ebbing and flowing in tandem almost on a daily basis. And then there's
the Middle East-a world unto itself, largely untouched by global
impulses. Equity markets there went through their own boom-bust cycle
over the past couple of years, even as stocks elsewhere kept scaling
new heights. Now, as equity volatility increases in much of the world,
and investors are frantically searching for assets that don't zig and
zag with major markets, these bombed-out Middle East markets suddenly
seem appealing.
It's the fourth anniversary of the Iraq War. Looking at Iraq and your
own region, why do ethnic and religious groups fight each other? And
what is the solution?
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/
Do you believe the world will come to an end? If so, where, when and
what will it look like?
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/
Beijing's New Deal
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17659939/site/newsweek/
Alarmed by China's growing income gap, Hu Jintao has introduced
massive new programs to aid the rural poor.
By Melinda Liu
Newsweek International
March 26, 2007 issue - What a difference a mere $1.41 can make. To
most residents of affluent countries, the figure is minuscule, small
change. The same goes for most middle-class residents of China's
booming cities. But for rural Chinese farmers, whose $460 average
income is less than a third what China's city dwellers earn, it's a
very different story. One dollar and forty-one cents drove 20,000
residents of Zhushan Village in Hunan province into the streets last
Monday, to violently protest a rise of that amount in bus fares; $1.41
meant life or death to one student, who was reportedly killed in the
clash with 1,500 baton-wielding police. Several dozen more protesters
were injured. As600 cops continued to patrol Zhushan last Wednesday, a
farmer named Sun, who requested anonymity to avoid trouble with
authorities, explained why she and others had risked their lives over
so small a sum. Their village is remote and desperately poor, she
said. "Some men go and work in construction in town, earning just $64
a month for a few months a year," she said. "But my family has no
income to speak of. We raise just enough crops to feed ourselves,
that's all."