OT: A blogger behind bars
maff
Jeff Jarvis
August 2, 2006 06:37 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jeff_jarvis/2006/08/a_blogger_behind_bars.html
The New York Times reports today what may be the first case of a
blogger jailed by a US federal court for not handing over sources or
source materials for a story - a case that will raise no end of
questions about the rights, responsibilities, and protections of
citizens acting as journalists.
Josh Wolf, a 24-year-old blogger and freelancer, had shot video of a
San Francisco protest over the 2005 meeting of the G8 in Scotland.
Violence ensued, a police officer's skull was fractured, and
authorities say a smoke bomb or firework was put under a police car.
Wolf sold some of his video to local TV stations and put more up on his
blog. Prosecutors demanded that Wolf testify before a grand jury and
hand over everything he shot. Wolf refused and, yesterday, a federal
judge found him in contempt and sent him to prison, where he could stay
until the grand jury's term expires next summer. Soon after, a post
appeared on his blog asking for donations, thoughts, and prayers under
the headline, "Josh is in jail and this is his mom".
Carbon-fuelled confidence
Dilip Hiro
August 2, 2006 04:40 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2006/08/post_281.html
On Monday, by casting the only negative vote on a United Nations
security council resolution imposing a deadline of August 31 on Iran to
cease its uranium enrichment activities, Qatar underlined its
independence and showed that it dared to defy the United States. This
was a sharp contrast from the craven manner in which most Arab
governments have reacted to the continued ferocious Israeli onslaught
on Lebanon: by keeping quiet.
In a sense, Qatar got even with Washington for the latter's blocking
move at the security council. On July 13, Qatar's resolution,
condemning the Israeli military assaults on Gaza and the Palestinian
groups' firing of rockets at Israel and abduction of its soldiers,
secured 10 votes with four abstentions. The United States vetoed it.
At last they want out
Gary Younge
August 2, 2006 03:56 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gary_younge/2006/08/post_280.html
It's little and it's late but I guess it's a start: a call by leading
Democrats to pull out US troops from Iraq by the end of the year. The
letter that has been signed by both Harry Reid, the Senate leader, and
Nancy Pelosi, leader of the House of Representatives, and 10 others
attempts to cement a consensus within the party on the war issue.
Hillary Clinton is a notable absence.
Her reluctance may be wise. For such a big issue the letter is weaker
on crucial details. Backing a "phased redeployment" of troops, it
suggests beginning a withdrawal by the end of the year but gives no
indication of when that pull-out might end.
My hygiene hell
Graham Holliday
August 2, 2006 03:16 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/graham_holliday/2006/08/hygiene_hell.html
In early July Vietnam's Ministry of Health reported the results of its
Month for food quality, hygiene and safety 2006. There were 22
large-scale cases of food poisoning, 534 victims and 14 people died.
Not the best of news, but for a cramped nation of 84 million people, a
large majority of whom eat at street stalls on a daily basis, that's
not total crap either.
Vietnam, like other Asian nations before it, has a desire to clean the
streets of street food. It wants to appear "developed". It plans to
designate small areas of the city as street food zones. Some street
sellers already don plastic gloves. Scrubbing the streets of scoff is
one way of attacking the hygiene problem, but you only have to look
west to see the dull results of the food hygiene obsession.
Demand an end to the bloodshed
Andrew Murray
August 2, 2006 03:10 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/andrew_murray/2006/08/demonstrate_on_saturday.html
A tidal wave of anger is rolling across British politics in the wake of
the continuing Israeli aggression against Lebanon and the Blair
government's evident complicity in the assault.
This anger - reflected in a surge of support for the anti-war movement
not seen since the dramatic days of 2003 - is built around three
elements:
An unholy alliance
Salma Yaqoob
August 2, 2006 02:21 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/salma_yaqoob/2006/08/not_so_bright_martin.html
Martin Bright says he feels "rather awkward" about his newfound
friends. So he should: anybody who claims to be on the left and finds
their arguments being championed by a bunch of warmongering neocons
should pause and reflect how they got themselves in that position.
In Bright's case, the answer is simple. The ideological cover for the
violent remapping of the Middle East and new imperial conquest is the
language of the "war on terror" and tackling the evil of "radical
Islam". All expressions of Muslim radicalism are presented as paving
the way to "fascism" and terrorism. And as in the old cold war, the
same scattergun, McCarthyite propaganda is applied. If Conservative and
neocon commentators are feting Martin Bright, it is only because he is
repeating their mantra.
Does the terror alert system achieve anything?
Open Thread
August 2, 2006 01:43 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2006/08/does_the_terror_alert_system_a.html
The government has launched a public terror alert system - similar to
the American colour-coded risk assessment - on several official
websites.
It's like watching two different wars
Julian Borger
August 2, 2006 01:18 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/julian_borger/2006/08/post_279.html
The US and European media have always covered the Middle East from
different perspectives, but flying back to Washington from a stay in
London at the height of the Lebanese conflict made it clear to me how
wide the gulf has become. Britons and Americans are watching two
different wars.
The overwhelming emphasis of television and press coverage in the UK
was the civilian casualties in Lebanon. Day after day, those were the
"splash" stories. The smaller number of civilian casualties from
Hizbullah rockets in northern Israel was also covered but rarely made
the top headlines or front pages.
A little democracy is a dangerous thing - so let's have more of it
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1835808,00.html
The next US president may give up on Middle East democratisation, but
we shouldn't. It's still our best hope
Timothy Garton Ash in Stanford
Thursday August 3, 2006
The Guardian
A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the
spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism. So
what do you do when you get a democratically elected terrorist
organisation? Ignore the contradiction. Pretend it doesn't exist.
In the past few weeks there has been something utterly surreal about
the US continuing to allow the Israeli military to pummel Hizbullah,
and kill women and children along the way, while insisting that
Washington's purpose is to strengthen the legitimate, democratic
government of Lebanon. Meanwhile, the Lebanese prime minister, Fouad
Siniora, has been calling desperately for the one thing that the US and
Israel have refused: an immediate ceasefire. And Hizbullah, which the
US and Britain characterise as a terrorist organisation, is itself an
important part of that democratically elected government.
How Israel's gung-ho leaders turned victory into calamity
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1835778,00.html
Our government, in its desperation to outgun its predecessor, spurned a
glorious chance to come out of this with honour
Nehemia Shtrasler
Thursday August 3, 2006
The Guardian
There was one moment during the war when we had the upper hand. It was
the moment when Israel had succeeded in striking Hizbullah with strong
and surprising force, Haifa was peaceful and the number of casualties
was small. That was the right moment to stop the war, declare victory
and move on to the diplomatic track.
This opportunity came when the G8 convened in St Petersburg on July 14,
two days after the fighting broke out. The G8 formulated a four-point
plan, and nothing could have been better for Israel. According to that
plan, the three Israeli soldiers abducted to Gaza and Lebanon would be
returned unharmed, the Katyusha rocket fire against Israel would stop,
Israel would halt its military operations and pull back its forces, and
it would also release the Hamas ministers and MPs.
Bring back the acid rain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1835776,00.html
A scientist who worked out the ozone problem says pollution could save
us from global warming
Tim Radford
Thursday August 3, 2006
The Guardian
The atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen would like to save the world and
darken your day. He proposes in this month's issue of the journal
Climatic Change that to screen themselves from runaway global warming,
humans could use heavy artillery to lob huge explosive shells laden
with sulphate particles high into the stratosphere.
A potent mix of pollutants would scatter the incoming sunlight and
bounce more sunbeams back into space. Bingo, you'd lower the rate of
global warming, make the planet's current tenants a little bit more
secure and give the fossil-fuel industries more reason to push
hydrocarbons and fill up the corporate coffers. Then they'd make a
second killing marketing fossil fuels' unwelcome byproducts, all to
cancel the extra global warming they might have caused. Stuff that goes
into the stratosphere tends to stay there for a year or two, which is
why planetary temperatures tend to drop a little after a really big
volcanic eruption.
638 ways to kill Castro
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1835851,00.html
The CIA's outlandish plots to bump off the Cuban dictator would put 007
to shame ... poison pills, toxic cigars and exploding molluscs. Once he
even offered to shoot himself, reports Duncan Campbell
Thursday August 3, 2006
The Guardian
For nearly half a century, the CIA and Cuban exiles have been trying to
devise ways to assassinate Fidel Castro, who is currently laid low in
Cuba following an operation for intestinal bleeding. None of the plots,
of course, succeeded, but, then, many of them would probably be
rejected as too fanciful for a James Bond novel.
Fabian Escalante, who, for a time, had the job of keeping El
Commandante alive, has calculated that there have been a total of 638
attempts on Castro's life. That may sound like a staggeringly high
figure, but then the CIA were pretty keen on killing him. As Wayne
Smith, former head of the US interests section in Havana, pointed out
recently, Cuba had the effect on the US that a full moon has on a
werewolf. It seems highly likely that if the CIA had had access to a
werewolf, it would have tried smuggling it into the Sierra Maestra at
some point over the past 40-odd years.
Hizbollah responds to Israeli raid with barrage of rockets
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1211298.ece
By Donald Macintyre in northern Israel
Published: 03 August 2006
Hizbollah fired more rockets yesterday than at any time in the 22-day
war as Israel claimed its raid on an empty Baalbek hospital believed to
hold Hizbollah fighters had demonstrated its ground forces could
"operate in all parts of Lebanon if needed".
The Israel Defence Forces said its deepest raid into Lebanon in this
conflict was by a commando unit, landed overnight by helicopters. Air
strikes in the area of the city during the raid were said by Lebanese
officials to have left 19 dead, including four children.
Tactics of insurgency
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1836057,00.html
Amyas Godfrey
Thursday August 3, 2006
The Guardian
By expanding ground operations into southern Lebanon the Israeli
military is taking on a challenge which has troubled armies for
generations: how to successfully wage war against an insurgent enemy.
The difficulty inherent with asymmetric warfare - the military term for
fighting irregular forces with conventional forces - is that your enemy
is able to "move among the people like a fish in water". This
description of the nature of revolutionary war by Mao Zedong in the
1920s does well to define the aim of counter-insurgency as the need to
"separate the fish from the water" or the insurgent from the people.
Israel is now facing this problem in southern Lebanon.
Blair: firm of convictions, short of friends
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1835838,00.html
The PM's approach to the crisis has proved highly divisive. Guardian
writers report on the fall-out
Thursday August 3, 2006
The Guardian
The Foreign Office
Tony Blair is ignoring the advice on the Lebanon war from not only the
Foreign Office but from foreign affairs specialists within Downing
Street, according to Whitehall officials.
One said the government's policy of resisting calls for an immediate
ceasefire had been "driven by the prime minister alone". He said it was
false to portray the tension as between the Foreign Office and Downing
Street. Foreign affairs specialists in both offices involved in the
Lebanon issue basically share the view that the Israeli offensive is
counter-productive and further alienates the Arab world.
The great man's answer to the question of human survival: Er, I don't
know
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1836051,00.html
· Hawking's conundrum draws 25,000 responses
· Best bet, he says, may be to go into outer space
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday August 3, 2006
The Guardian
It was an unusual move for one of the world's most eminent scientists.
Having built a career shedding light on the darkest secrets of the
universe, from the essence of space-time to the complexity of black
holes, Professor Stephen Hawking turned to the internet for answers to
the latest conundrum occupying his planet-sized brain.
Introducing himself to the online community as a theoretical physicist
and Lucasian professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge,
the 64-year-old scientist posed an open question: "In a world that is
in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human
race sustain another 100 years?"
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