OT: Two wrongs don't make a right
maff
Kenneth Rogoff
July 3, 2007 8:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/kenneth_rogoff/2007/07/two_wrongs_dont_make_a_right.html
One has go back to the "Year of Three Popes" (1978) to find a
succession drama as strange as what has been happening at the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the two pillars of the
global financial system. Two months ago, Bank President Paul Wolfowitz
resigned amidst an extraordinary staff mutiny and governance debacle.
Now, his counterpart at the International Monetary Fund, the former
Spanish finance minister Rodrigo Rato, has shocked major stakeholders
by announcing that he, too, will leave in October.
To lose one international lending institution head is misfortune, to
lose two looks like carelessness (my apologies to Oscar Wilde). Coming
on the 10th year anniversary of the Asian financial crisis, the
cauldron in which today's ultra-liquid capital markets were forged,
conspiracy theories abound.
Commuting his destiny
Conor Clarke
July 3, 2007 12:45 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_clarke/2007/07/libby_commuted.html
At least you can say, after the many stumblings of the Bush
administration, that it was unexpected. On Monday evening President
Bush commuted the sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former Dick
Cheney senior aide who had been found guilty of obstructing justice
and perjury during the investigation into the leak of CIA agent
Valerie Plame's covert status.
Earlier on Monday a US appeals court had rejected Libby's request to
remain free on bail while he appealed his convictions. So Bush - who
had said a few weeks ago that he would not intervene until Libby's
appeals have been exhausted (and they haven't been) - stepped in.
Libby will not be required to serve the 30 months in prison to which
he had been sentenced.
Barack Obama's amazing haul
Michael Tomasky
July 2, 2007 10:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_tomasky/2007/07/obamas_amazing_haul.html
Political insiders in America are virtually unanimous: Barack Obama
came out of the starting gate like gangbusters but ever since has been
a disappointment, performing listlessly in debates and losing (some)
ground to Hillary Clinton in poll after poll.
So what's the matter with these 250,000 people who keep giving his
campaign money, to the point that he out-raised Clinton (in usable
dollars) for the second straight reporting period? Do these people
have no respect for the experts?
More robbers, fewer cops
Sasha Abramsky
July 2, 2007 9:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sasha_abramsky/2007/07/runaway_prisons.html
Last week, a Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report came out
detailing how, in the year ending June 30, 2006, the number of
incarcerated Americans rose by more than 62,000. It marked the 35th
straight year in which America's prison and jail population has risen
- and it marked the single biggest annual increase since the year
2000.
Amazingly, most of the media gave the story virtually no space. CNN
ran it as a ticker-tape news item at the bottom of the screen. Most
newspapers gave it minor coverage at best.
Oiling the wheels
Tony Juniper
July 2, 2007 9:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tony_juniper/2007/07/oiling_the_wheels.html
The fast-food chain McDonalds says today that it will convert its 155
vehicles to run on vegetable oil, including the waste oil generated
from its restaurants. Seems like a good idea - or is it?
Well, apart from anything else, it is a sign of the times. The ever
more crowded bandwagon of going low carbon has a variety of players on
board, some serious and making real efforts, others looking for easy
PR to help prop up brands that are vulnerable to public condemnation
because of their impact on the planet. So what does this all mean from
McDonalds?
Two steps backward
Greg Anrig
July 2, 2007 8:29 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/greg_anrig/2007/07/two_steps_backward.html
Last Thursday, the senate killed immigration reform and the supreme
court all but buried its landmark Brown versus Board of Education
decision of 1954, which ordered the desegregation of American schools.
The two decisions underscore what has become increasingly evident in
recent years: the right is winning its long-standing battle against
the inclusion of racial minorities in mainstream American society.
The conservative movement in the US evolved from a visceral hostility
toward both communism and the civil rights movement, in roughly equal
parts. Today's most admired icons of the right - including Ronald
Reagan, Barry Goldwater and William F Buckley - all strongly opposed
the dismantling of Jim Crow in the South and laws intended to stop
pervasive racial discrimination while guaranteeing voting rights to
blacks.
Shuffling around Iraq
Tom Clark
July 2, 2007 8:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tom_clark/2007/07/shuffling_around_iraq.html
Gordon Brown's first shuffle of the ministerial pack had to do many
things. As well as putting the ablest men and women available into
sensitive jobs, he had to refresh the administration by bringing on
young talent and offer enough olive branches to erstwhile enemies to
build party unity. But for many disillusioned Labour people - inside
parliament and beyond - the question that mattered was how far the new
prime minister would use the opportunity to heal wounds on Iraq.
The reshuffle took place at the end of last week, only days after the
deputy leadership election had confirmed how large Iraq continues to
loom inside Labour. John Cruddas, who said he saw it as a catastrophic
error, topped the poll in the first round. And Harriet Harman's
surprise eventual win occurred only because she picked up his second-
preference votes after making anti-war comments, albeit ones that she
now seems to be stepping back from.
The well-tempered premier
Shami Chakrabarti
July 2, 2007 7:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/shami_chakrabarti/2007/07/the_welltempered_premier.html
By most accounts, the new prime minister got off to a flying start
last week. The "government of all the talents" and formal end of "sofa
government" were derided as carefully planned spin by opponents but
nonetheless sent signals that a more constitutional approach to our
democracy might follow. However, we all knew that these plans had been
long in the laying. As in Kipling's If, Mr Brown had waited and for at
least part of his purgatory, "not been tired by waiting."
Yet we also knew that the real test would come not with the execution
of best laid plans but in the new government's response to external
events and especially to terrorism. The terrorists also knew. My
insight is so easy with hindsight. Mr Blair met with the "triumph" of
his Olympic bid just hours before the "disaster" of the July 7 2005.
The terror cell clearly had similar plans for Mr Brown's accession to
Number 10. These would-be murderers must have been as disappointed by
the prime minister's rather humble entry to the highest office in the
land as by the way their intentions have been foiled by the calm
courage of emergency services and ordinary citizens in recent days.
Don't embrace Mugabe, arrest him
Peter Tatchell
July 2, 2007 7:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/07/dont_embrace_mugabe_arrest_him.html
One of the first acts of the new Portuguese presidency of the EU is
announce plans to roll out the red carpet for the Zimbabwean dictator,
President Robert Mugabe. It is planning to invite him to December's
European Union-African Union summit in Lisbon, despite a prohibition
on the blood-stained tyrant entering the EU.
While Zimbabwe burns and millions starve, Mugabe will be wined and
dined by the Portuguese president, Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, and
received by other African and European heads of state.
The new fundamentalism
Anas Altikriti
July 2, 2007 6:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anas_altikriti/2007/07/the_new_fundamentalism.html
Reading Hassan Butt's piece in the Observer, "My plea to fellow
Muslims: you must renounce terror", I couldn't help but think of how
much his likes have to do with the dire security conditions we all
face today. Despite his claim to have repented, I would ask to be
forgiven for being less than sympathetic and congratulatory in my
tone, as it was probably he and his comrades who stood outside
mosques, community centres and lecture halls, heckling and, at times,
physically attacking me and my colleagues for talking about the need
for dialogue, for reaching out to all human beings and about promoting
universal human rights that include all people, regardless of faith,
race or colour.
One ugly incident in particular stands out in the memory, when, in
Birmingham's Small Heath district on a cold night in 1998, I was
jostled and then repeatedly punched by a group of extremists with the
sort of affiliations Hassan Butt used to have. As they did so, they
hurled abuse of a disgusting nature, accusing me of being an apostate,
a "kafir-in-disguise", a sell-out and agent of the British government.
Trying to look dignified, composed and happy coming back to my wife
and new-born baby was among the hardest feats I had ever attempted in
my life.
Growth is not enough
Colin Bradford
July 2, 2007 6:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/colin_bradford/2007/07/the_wolfowitz_crisis_at_the.html
The Wolfowitz crisis at the World Bank and now the resignation of
Rodrigo de Rato from the IMF have stirred larger debates in Washington
on broader issues. Washington Post columnist George Will was drawn
into the debate regarding the World Bank presidency of Paul Wolfowitz,
seeing the real crisis to be the World Bank itself rather than the
former president. "The Real World Bank Problem" is thought to be that
"the bank is losing its battle to retain whatever relevance it once
had" due to the fact that capital markets are now willing to lend
private funds to emerging market economies whereas the purpose,
according to George Will, is to lend to countries unable to attract
private capital.
If this need is evaporating, then the Bank should evaporate with it,
according to Will. For, after all, "the great prerequisite for curing
poverty is, however economic growth, and the world has learned, during
a 63-year retreat from statism, that the prerequisite for growth is
free markets allocating private capital to efficient uses." If markets
can work, why have institutions? is the argument. If governments are
persuaded to withhold funds from the bank because a lack of confidence
in its leadership, so much the better, even if it is for the wrong
reason, since the bank itself is irrelevant, so his argument goes.
Responding to change
Michael Meacher
July 2, 2007 5:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_meacher/2007/07/responding_to_change.html
It's excellent news that Gordon Brown has so quickly put up-front his
proposed constitutional reforms to end the antiquated and anti-
democratic so-called royal prerogative powers, though we do need to
look at the small print of exactly what is the detail of the changes
to be made.
Having US Congressional-style confirmation hearings by appropriate
select committees for key public positions is something I have long
advocated. It should apply to cabinet ministers as well as key
appointments outside parliament. It should also include the power of
recall by parliament where appropriate for a further hearing where
events justify it.
Right vision, wrong strategy
Calestous Juma
July 2, 2007 5:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/calestous_juma/2007/07/right_vision_wrong_strategy.html
African presidents are meeting in Accra, Ghana to discuss the future
of continent. By urging the creation of a United States of Africa,
Libya's Muammar Gadafy is pursuing a worthy dream. But his strategy is
faulty. He is confusing desirability with feasibility.
Africa will not be united through political fiat. It will grow like a
forest starting with a mosaic of economic activity whose protection
will eventually require political canopies over them. Africa's cities,
farmlands and other centres of economic activities are the thickets
from which prosperity will spread and they need to be nurtured.
Undue process
Stephen Humphreys
July 2, 2007 4:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_humphreys/2007/07/undue_process.html
In the aftermath of its surge rightward last week, the US supreme
court surprised everyone on Friday by voting to hear a couple more
Guantánamo cases. The court had already turned down these two cases in
April. It last reversed itself like this in 1947. Hence lots of
excitement.
Except perhaps for those of us who tuned out of this soap opera years
ago. Doesn't the court rule on this annually? Hasn't it consistently
found against the Bush administration? And has that made a jot of
difference to date for the 375 still detained without trial in Cuba?
Conflated ideas
Seth Freedman
July 2, 2007 3:15 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/seth_freedman/2007/07/conflated_ideas.html
Last week, in my piece Circling the wagons, I wrote that "for my part,
I don't think that anti-Israeli sentiment necessarily equates to anti-
Semitism". I take that view because I am generally convinced that
criticism of Israel is as valid as, say, criticism of Indonesia or
Italy, and not born out of some kind of inherent dislike of Jews on
the part of the person delivering the reproach.
However, that is not to say that there are not certain times when
there is a clear link between anti-Israel rhetoric and a far more
sinister, embedded form of antipathy towards the Jewish people. An
example of this was, in my eyes, provided in the form of Ed Husain's
article With God on their side, in which he sought to equate the
ideologies of Zionism and Islamism.
Too clever by half
Tim Footman
July 2, 2007 2:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_footman/2007/07/too_clever_by_half.html
It used to be said that only spies know the second verse of the
national anthem. At least Canadians can sleep easier in their beds, as
fewer than half of those questioned in a recent poll could recall even
the first two lines of their own patriotic ditty.
This has significance beyond the borders of the country I always like
to think of as West Belgium. The questions asked were similar to those
posed to immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship, and 60% of
native-born respondents failed to make the grade. In other words, most
Canadians know less than the minimum required to qualify for a maple
leaf on one's backpack. This, of course, has always been a key
argument against the equivalent tests in the UK and elsewhere: if
these tests measure an otherwise intangible "Britishness" (or
Canadianness or whatever) that cannot be identified in the natives,
does this mean that successful incomers are somehow more British than
the rest of us?
War and Enlightenment
Dan Hind
July 2, 2007 2:02 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dan_hind/2007/07/war_and_enlightenment.html
What does the campaign to bring Enlightenment values to the Middle
East have in common with calls to launch a crusade against the anti-
Christ in Babylon? The answer is that both projects helped to
reconcile the public to the invasion of Iraq.
While rightwing Republicans intoxicated themselves with hints of Iraqi
involvement in 9/11 and overheated rhetoric about the war against the
beast, liberals took comfort in the notion that the White House was at
last taking seriously the need to confront religious tyranny. One
prominent liberal supporter of the war allowed himself to be convinced
that a "slum clearance" of "the region's rotten nexus of client
states" was "beginning to form in the political mind". Yes, in March
2003 the talk was all of weapons of mass destruction and UN
resolutions, but if you listened carefully enough you could pick up
hints that the US administration "could be made to care as much about
democracy and emancipation". The planners in the Pentagon became,
through the alchemy of their admirers' prose, the spiritual heirs of
Voltaire and Paine.
Watch and learn
Open Thread
July 2, 2007 1:33 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2007/07/watch_and_learn.html
Management courses can be a drag. Surely bombarding management with
buzz words and forcing them to perform demeaning "bonding" rituals
with colleagues can't be the best way to get the most out of them in
the boardroom?
The spread of terror
Inayat Bunglawala
July 2, 2007 1:05 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/inayat_bunglawala/2007/07/the_spread_of_terror.html
If you have not visited the Observer's home page this week, it is
worth doing so. The following headlines stood out for me:
Highest alert as Glasgow attacked
Blair attacks false grievance
'80 civilians dead' in Afghanistan
Alien qualities
Alex Stein
July 2, 2007 11:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/alex_stein/2007/07/alien_qualities.html
I have a longstanding argument with a friend. He argues that the
reason science fiction isn't taken seriously is because it's
unnecessary. Real human life has more than enough intricacy to be
getting on with. So he'd rather be sat in front of some new French
slow-burner about adultery than the new Transformers movie. Too often,
he says, science fiction reduces the human condition into a simple,
sentimental matter of good and evil, rather than depicting it with the
complexity it deserves.
In many respects he's right. Much of what passes for contemporary
science fiction and fantasy is tripe. But there's a danger of throwing
out the baby with the bath water. As much as one doesn't need to enter
the realm of the extra-terrestrial in order to provide artistic
insight, it doesn't mean it is forbidden. If someone feels the best
way they can deliver their ideas is through the medium of an alien or
a ghost, so be it.
Al-Qaida's tangled web
Jason Burke
July 2, 2007 10:32 AM
It takes, on average, three or four months before the real details of
a terrorist plot become known. In the Middle East, south-west Asia or
Africa this is because of the length of time an investigation takes.
In some instances, such as the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998
it has taken years before the public really learned who had destroyed
the American embassies in each nation, how and, to an extent, why. The
latter question is often the hardest to answer.
In the UK, investigations can move very rapidly, particularly when the
police actually hold suspected bombers caught, more or less, in the
act. In the UK, because of strict sub judice laws, the whole story
behind a given attack often takes a long time to filter out.
Leave Europe to the politicians
John Crace
July 2, 2007 10:00 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_crace/2007/07/leave_europe_to_the_politicians.html
You never forget a hospital pass. Two years ago at the Hay Festival I
was given about eight hours to read the 700-page draft European
Constitution and write a digested read of it for the following day's
G2.
Somehow, the constitution got read and the digested read got some
laughs. But I doubt if anyone was much the wiser. Least of all me.
Because it was written in a language that was completely
incomprehensible to everyone apart from a handful of top lawyers
earning top Euro from a Brussels slush fund.
Stop doing the CBI's bidding, and we could be fossil fuel free in 20
years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2116989,00.html
Prospects for renewable power are promising. But it means nothing if
the public interest is drowned by corporate power
George Monbiot
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
Reading a scientific paper on the train this weekend, I found, to my
amazement, that my hands were shaking. This has never happened to me
before, but nor have I ever read anything like it. Published by a team
led by James Hansen at Nasa, it suggests that the grim reports issued
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could be absurdly
optimistic.
The IPCC predicts that sea levels could rise by as much as 59cm this
century. Hansen's paper argues that the slow melting of ice sheets the
panel expects doesn't fit the data. The geological record suggests
that ice at the poles does not melt in a gradual and linear fashion,
but flips suddenly from one state to another. When temperatures
increased to between two and three degrees above today's level 3.5
million years ago, sea levels rose not by 59cm but by 25 metres. The
ice responded immediately to changes in temperature.
The amateurishness of the attacks is scant consolation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2116986,00.html
Al-Qaida has lost many of its most senior militants, but in their
place a new wave of radicalised young men has arrived
Jason Burke
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
The problem for anyone investigating al-Qaida, whether journalist,
intelligence agent, police officer or policymaker, is that most of the
time, there is so very little to go on. There is "chatter", there are
reported threats, there are videos released, there are small groups of
young men who meet to talk and pray, even to imagine aloud terrorist
attacks. The threat remains potential or, given the role the internet
now plays in interaction between militants, virtual.
More honest than the facts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2116987,00.html
Growing up under a censoring dictatorship taught me how fiction can be
a place of truth
Kamila Shamsie
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
Growing up in Pakistan, in the benighted days of Zia ul-Haq's
dictatorship, I knew there was always some sense of consistency to be
drawn from the evening news, which year after year assured viewers
that every day only three items of note occurred in the world:
president inaugurates something; someone of significance lauds
president; X number of Kashmiris killed (later changed to "martyred")
by Indian army. The print media was rather more courageous in what it
was willing to publish, but even so, in those times of censorship and
state control the news told you very little about the truth of the
country in which you were living.
It's not about misogyny
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2116985,00.html
Rightwing pundits aren't against powerful women, but we dislike their
deluded self-importance
Sarah Sands
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
The leftwing press has come to the rescue of Harriet Harman, who has
been grievously insulted by thugs and their molls in the rightwing
papers. Polly Toynbee declares that rightwing male commentators simply
hate leftwing middle-class women. Peter Wilby is also shocked by the
cruel, misogynist abuse of Harman. He deplores the sexist language
used, while a few paragraphs later he talks of Mary Ann Sieghart
"fluttering her columnar eyelashes at David Miliband". Gordon Brown
may protest that politics these days is a subtle, cross-party affair,
but the visceral response to Harriet Harman - for or against - shows
that it is not. Feminism is political tribalism.
Worlds apart
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2117011,00.html
Australia's prime minister is sending in the army to tackle child
abuse and alcoholism in the Aboriginal homelands. But his aggressive
campaign will only make the situation worse, says Germaine Greer
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
Ever since white men set foot in Australia more than 200 years ago,
they have persecuted, harassed, tormented and tyrannised the people
they found there. The more cold-blooded decided that the most humane
way of dealing with a galaxy of peoples who would never be able to
adapt to the "whitefella" regime was to eliminate them as quickly as
possible, so they shot and poisoned them. Others believed that they
owed it to their God to rescue the benighted savage, strip him of his
pagan culture, clothe his nakedness, and teach him the value of work.
Leaving the original inhabitants alone was never an option; learning
from them was beyond any notion of what was right and proper. As far
as the pink people were concerned, black Australians were primitive
peoples, survivors from the stone age in a land that time forgot.
Saved from prison by Bush's favour: the White House aide who lied to a
grand jury
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2117298,00.html
· Rightwing pressure wins commutation for Scooter
· Democrats say president has trampled on the law
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
George Bush created a political storm yesterday by intervening to stop
the disgraced White House aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, from going to
jail. The president, in a statement, said the prison sentence imposed
on Mr Libby, who was found guilty of perjury in a complex spy case
linked to the Iraq war, was too harsh.
Mr Bush, who made the statement after leaving a summit with the
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, at Kennebunkport, Maine, said: "I
respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison
sentence is excessive."
Friendly words but no deal by Bush and Putin
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2117114,00.html
· First foreign leader to stay at family retreat in Maine
· Discussions on Iran and new US missile system
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
The New England summit between presidents George Bush and Vladimir
Putin ended yesterday without a significant breakthrough on the
divisive issues that have brought relations between the two to the
lowest point since the cold war.
The relaxed setting at the Bush family seaside retreat at
Kennebunkport, Maine, failed to produce agreement on the proposed US
missile system in eastern Europe.
Against the backdrop of the jagged Atlantic coastline, the two men
claimed that the meeting, dubbed the Lobster summit by the US media,
had helped improve their personal relationship.
Last of the Sumo - Japanese youth turn their backs on gruelling sport
of emperors
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,2117153,00.html
· Tests cancelled after no new recruits come forward
· Abuse claims following death of teenage wrestler
· In pictures: the history of sumo wrestling
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
It is a sport with a history stretching back more than two millennia;
its most ardent fans have included emperors and feudal lords; and to
be cradled in the arms of one of its practitioners as a child
supposedly guarantees a life of robust health.
Yet just as the 700 members of Japan's sumo fraternity prepare for 15
days of bouts this Sunday in Nagoya, Japan's national sport is fearing
for its future after if failed to attract a single new recruit for the
first time in its history. The Japan Sumo Association was forced to
cancel the recruitment tests planned for yesterday.
Japanese minister resigns over atomic bomb remarks
http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,2117336,00.html
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Tuesday July 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Japan's defence minister resigned today after suggesting that the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inevitable, dealing a
fresh blow to the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, less than a month before
parliamentary elections.
Fumio Kyuma will be replaced by Yuriko Koike, a fellow rightwinger who
serves as national security adviser, local media said.
In a speech on Saturday, Mr Kyuma said, "I understand that the
bombings ended the war, and I think that it couldn't be helped". His
remarks drew an angry response from survivors in both cities.
Argentina's president to step aside - for wife
http://www.guardian.co.uk/argentina/story/0,,2117115,00.html
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina will not seek a second
consecutive term in office in order to let his wife, Cristina, run as
the ruling party's candidate in an election later this year, it was
announced yesterday. Mrs Kirchner, 54, a senator and veteran
politician, is favoured to win the October poll and become one of the
most powerful women in Latin America.
The arrangement, all the more unusual because Mr Kirchner, 57, is
popular and would probably win again if he ran himself, had been
trailed for months to test public reaction.
US turns up heat on Iran by publicly accusing it of involvement in
Iraq
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2117121,00.html
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
The US yesterday publicly accused Iran of intervening in the Iraq
conflict, claiming that its Revolutionary Guard played a role in an
attack that killed five Americans and was using Lebanese militants to
train Iraqi insurgents.
The allegations marked a significant escalation as previous similar
claims have been made mostly off the record. Brigadier General Kevin
Bergner, an army spokesman, said an Iranian covert unit called the
Quds force had helped orchestrate an assault in Kerbala in January, in
which the attackers, disguised as US soldiers, tricked their way into
a government compound, killing one American on the spot, and abducting
four others whom they killed later. "The Quds force had developed
detailed information regarding our soldiers' activities, shift changes
and defences, and this information was shared with the attackers," Gen
Bergner said.
'An antidote to Fox': Iran launches English TV channel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2117128,00.html
Report of Glasgow attack says event staged by Britain to discredit
Muslims
Oliver Burkeman, Helen Pidd and Robert Tait in Tehran
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
It was intended to be a radical departure in global news coverage, and
few could argue that in this, at least, it succeeded. Iran's new state-
run English-language 24-hour news channel, which launched yesterday,
was aimed at viewers in the US and Europe, its director said. But
despite the clipped English tones of its anchorman, Henry Morton -
"Salaam, and welcome" - the channel, called Press TV, still needed to
learn a thing or two about western attention spans.
How the Nazis took flight from Valkyries and Rhinemaidens
http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,,2117058,00.html
· Bizet and Puccini more popular than Wagner
· Bored party faithful were dragged to Master's works
Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
According to popular mythology, night after night during the Nazi era
Germans flooded into opera houses to watch enthralled as Rhinemaidens
and Valkyries dominated the stage.
But Wagner, far from being the Third Reich's "house composer",
actually became much less popular during Hitler's rule, according to
new research.
The Germans were much more keen on Carmen, Bizet's tale of a soldier's
scandalous obsession with a Gypsy; and on Madama Butterfly, Puccini's
opera about an officer's doomed liaison with a Japanese courtesan -
neither particularly appropriate tales by the standards of Nazi
ideology.
Last of his kind - but George can't rise to occasion
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,2117192,00.html
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
Lonesome George, the last known survivor of a species of Galapagos
tortoise and one of the world's most famous bachelors, may receive a
new, unkinder nickname: Hopeless George.
Scientists who have studied him say he appears to be impotent, or at
least to have no interest in sex, so that even if a mate was found, he
probably would not rise to the occasion.
"George may be physiologically incapable of reproducing," Linda Cayot,
a science adviser for the Galapagos Conservancy and former keeper of
George, told Reuters.
Vanunu jailed again after talks with foreigners
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2117087,00.html
Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem and Duncan Campbell
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
Mordechai Vanunu, the man who revealed Israel's nuclear secrets to the
world, was yesterday jailed again by a Jerusalem court for talking to
foreigners in breach of his parole conditions.
The sentence follows a conviction in April for breaching his
conditions 14 times by making contact with foreigners and travelling
to Bethlehem at Christmas.
Kylie lands Doctor Who role
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2117159,00.html
Press Association
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
Kylie Minogue will join Doctor Who in the programme's Christmas
special, it was announced today.
The 39-year-old actor and singer will have a "major lead role" in the
hour-long special. The episode, Voyage of the Damned, starts filming
with David Tennant as the Time Lord in Cardiff later this month.
Paul Sniderman: Identity crisis
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2116572,00.html
Multiculturalism may seem a liberal policy, but it reinforces
prejudices, a visiting expert tells John Crace
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
The best ideas often have the most unpromising beginnings. Towards the
tail end of the 1990s, Paul Sniderman had just finished presenting his
findings on immigrant minorities from eastern Europe and Africa to a
conference in Italy, when a delegate stood up to ask him a question.
"He was only about four sentences in, when I realised there was a huge
gap in my research and that I didn't have a clue what the answer was,"
he says.
The question that left him speechless was this: if, as Sniderman
claimed, people didn't distinguish between minorities in their
prejudices - those that were systematically hostile to one were likely
to be systematically hostile to another - how did he reconcile this
with the fact that there were clearly hierarchies of minorities?
Would like to meet
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2116570,00.html
A popular new site could see scientists exchanging ideas, posting
data ... and even finding love online. Jessica Shepherd reports
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
"Shall we have a meet-up in Halifax? Discuss blogging, science etc?"
types Jason.
"I'd like to find an easy method to study the interaction of a known
peptide with other unknown peptides," taps Carol.
The ethics of journalism don't work for science
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2116571,00.html
The media and science often clash over published research, says
Jonathan Wolff
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
At a certain point at every dinner party these days, someone - usually
male, usually emptying his wine glass a bit faster than everyone else
- starts to spout on about global warming. Of course, he'll say, the
planet is warming up, but that's what it does, except when it's
cooling down, which it also does. I know this person well: it used to
be me. I would spice up my compelling analysis with memories of
reading reviews of Fred Hoyle's 1981 book How the Next Ice Age Will
Come and How We Can Prevent It. Hoyle thought that the world was on
the verge of a tipping point into rapid cooling. He proposed a
strategy of warming up the oceans by pumping cold water from the
depths to the surface.
I learned to shut my mouth on the topic after hearing a lecture from a
San Diego philosopher of science, Naomi Oreskes, who reported the
results of a review of the scientific literature on global warming.
Not one peer-reviewed scientific article, of the hundreds she
surveyed, denied that the earth was warming or that human action was
at least partially responsible. The sceptics, she argued, were largely
members of independent thinktanks, often sponsored by companies with
vested interests, publishing their own reports without external
review.
The climate change factor
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2116564,00.html
As adults are spurred to take an interest in science, learning
providers try to develop courses to match. Martin Whittaker reports
Tuesday July 3, 2007
The Guardian
The debate simmers on about how to lure reluctant pupils into the labs
to stem a national shortage of scientists. But how do you make science
sexy for adult learners?
A new partnership between the National Institute of Adult Continuing
Education (Niace) and the National Science Learning Centre is
examining how to promote and develop science courses for adults,
particularly those who have had least access to the subjects or were
put off them at school.
Despair for Hindu pilgrims as ice stalagmite melts early
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2730419.ece
By Andrew Buncombe
Published: 03 July 2007
Up to 400,000 Hindu pilgrims in northern India are facing
disappointment after it was revealed that a naturally formed ice
stalagmite - worshipped as an incarnation of Lord Shiva - has melted.
Those making the 10-mile trek will at best be confronted by a puddle.
"Yes, there will be some disappointment for the pilgrims as the main
[stalagmite] has completely melted," said Arun Kumar, a senior
official with the organisation that oversees the annual pilgrimage.
Prominent Myanmar Aids activist freed from detention
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2730418.ece
Published: 03 July 2007
Phyu Phyu Thin, a prominent Aids activist and opposition party member
in Myanmar who was taken into custody by police more than a month ago,
has been freed from detention, she said yesterday.
Phyu Phyu Thin, 36, is a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League
for Democracy, the country's main opposition party, which faces
constant harassment from the military government.
Ten killed in suicide bombing outside temple in Yemen
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2730445.ece
By Ahmed Al-Hajj, Associated Press Writer
Published: 03 July 2007
A suspected al-Qa'ida suicide bomber killed 10 people including
himself yesterday when he plowed his car into a group of Spanish
tourists outside a temple linked to the ancient Queen of Sheba in a
part of central Yemen known for its lawlessness, officials said.
The suicide car bomb came less than two weeks after the US Embassy in
Yemen issued a warning to Americans to avoid the area, which until
recent years was rarely visited by tourists because of frequent
kidnappings of foreigners.
The $50 Trick (or how Divine Brown turned an encounter with Hugh Grant
into her fortune)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2730414.ece
By Emily Dugan
Published: 03 July 2007
It was early evening on 27 June 1995. Dusk was falling over Los
Angeles, obscuring the seamier aspects of Sunset Boulevard and
cloaking its nocturnal visitors in darkness. Standing in the shadows,
prostitutes stood waiting for a flash of headlights or the winding
down of a window; cars made their way slowly down the strip, scouring
the sidewalk for a reason to stop.
For Divine Brown, strutting in a pair of brand new scarlet stilettos,
it was just another evening. The then 23-year-old had flown in
specially that night in the hope of making the £1,000 she badly needed
and which, on a Friday night like this one, was a reasonable
expectation. She had left her two young girls with a babysitter in
Oakland, California, and got on a plane to LA following an argument
with her "manager" and former lover Gangster Brown. Ignoring advice to
use her hotel room, she had gone straight to work with a friend and
was hoping that, at last, she would strike it lucky.
Iraq invasion strengthened the militants
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2730424.ece
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 03 July 2007
Car bombs have almost as long a history as the car. What has changed
since the invasion of Iraq is that bombers targeting civilian targets
in the West now have a popular base and access to expertise in the
Sunni community of Iraq.
The invasion was seen as an attack on Muslims as a whole by at least
some Muslims in every country, who are willing and able to construct
and deliver bombs. From the moment foreign armies were ordered into
Iraq, al-Qa'ida was bound to be the winner.
Thomas Sutcliffe: When is a bishop like a suicide bomber?
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/thomas_sutcliffe/article2730465.ece
Published: 03 July 2007
On the face of it, the Bishop of Carlisle and the young man who
staggered blazing from that Jeep at Glasgow Airport on Saturday
afternoon don't have a lot in common. The Right Reverend Graham Dow is
a grey-haired man with a twinkling smile, rarely armed with anything
more lethal than a crozier.
That wannabe martyr - his 72 expectant virgins currently tapping their
fingers impatiently in Paradise - had a head wreathed in fire and a
Molotov cocktail in his hand. The Bishop of Carlisle is a diocesan
bishop in the Church of England, not a sect commonly associated with
acts of terror, while the as-yet-unnamed jihadi is, one guesses, an
adherent of Wahabi Islam, a sect which very much is. And yet, on a
spiritual level, it seems that they do share one thing. They both
believe in a vindictive God.