Una lección sobre el liderazgo
Por Eduardo Zaplana, delegado de Teléfonica para Europa y ex portavoz del Grupo Popular en el Congreso (29/07/08):
Ayer se cumplieron 28 años de la muerte de uno de los grandes políticos de nuestra reciente democracia: Joaquín Garrigues Walker. El fue una de las personalidades que nos dejaron huella a quienes tuvimos la oportunidad de conocerle y, sin duda, el líder que más influyó a una generación de jóvenes liberales cuando las libertades en España eran todavía una quimera.
Nos influyó por su capacidad política, pero también por su ejemplo de compromiso cívico y democrático. En un país en el que se…
Y lo que se enseña también
Por Manuel Ramírez, catedrático de Derecho Político (ABC, 29/07/08):
HE procurado ir leyendo con detalle la muy amplia serie de opiniones que este periódico ha publicado conteniendo adhesiones al famoso y acertado Manifiesto a favor del castellano. Se han desmenuzado los casos y razones que motivan esta defensa, aclarando que no se pretende la minusvaloración de otras lenguas vigentes en la variedad cultural de nuestro país que los poderes públicos vienen constitucionalmente obligados a respetar y proteger. En este sentido, ABC puede, con toda legitimidad, anotarse el éxito de la gran acogida que el menester necesita. Aunque la historia pase pronto,…
Ética para la crisis (I)
Por Demetrio Loperena Rota, catedrático de Derecho Administrativo (EL CORREO DIGITAL, 29/07/08):
Creo que puede confirmarse que la mano invisible, si alguna vez existió, se ha convertido en una zarpa del diablo. Esa zarpa hace que nuestra solidaridad emocional o instintiva sea neutralizada por una inteligencia inmoral que orienta nuestras capacidades hacia una egolatría suicida para una especie como la nuestra que sólo es capaz de vivir en sociedad. Efectivamente estamos en crisis, especialmente de acuerdo con su etimología griega, estamos en período de estudio y decisión. Una crisis como la que afrontamos se mide por guarismos econométricos y ellos representan…
Emergencia ¿en Italia o en África?
Por Jesús López-Medel, abogado del Estado. Expresidente de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos, Democracia y Ayuda Humanitaria de la Asamblea de la OSCE (EL PERIÓDICO, 29/07/08):
Es muy expresivo que el Gobierno italiano haya declarado la situación de emergencia en el país como consecuencia de la persistencia de la llegada de inmigrantes procedentes de África. Aseguro, querido lector, que he tenido que leer dos veces el titular de la noticia para saber si la declaración de emergencia es para proteger a los italianos o acaso se refiere a quienes viven en condiciones tales de opulencia y lujo en el continente negro…
Formas del capitalismo madrileño
Por Francesc Sanuy, abogado (EL PERIÓDICO, 29/07/08):
Es curioso constatar que, en Madrid, cuando ocurre algo muy gordo en el mundo de los negocios, todo los medios de comunicación hablan de ello e incluso los políticos dan su parecer. Sin embargo, en Catalunya, en circunstancias equivalentes, en general se mantiene un silencio sepulcral, casi de omertá siciliana, y prevalece el estanque dorado de aguas calmas y tranquilas a menudo fétidas. Lo comprobamos a mediados de julio pasado con la espectacular suspensión de pagos de Martinsa-Fadesa, primera inmobiliaria del país y, por volumen, el mayor desastre empresarial de la historia de España,…
The Balkan evasion
By Peter Preston (THE GUARDIAN, 28/07/08):
Boris Tadic is a handsome, charismatic and rather courageous politician. If he belonged to the Labour party, cabinet “loyalists” would be queueing at his door, asking him to knife Mr B in the back. But Tadic already has a job. He is president of Serbia. It is he, and his young, reforming appointees, who tracked down Radovan Karadzic. It is he - the hymn from London, Paris, Berlin, Washington et al last week - who “chose Europe” (not a nationalistic, neo-fascist, sub-communist swamp, with only Moscow for a chum). Which is great: except, will Europe choose…
China’s new nationalism may require careful negotiation
By Simon Tisdall (THE GUARDIAN, 28/07/08):
In official-speak, it’s about “one world, one dream”. But as the waves of patriotic pride build, next month’s Beijing Olympics are beginning to look like a globally televised, heavily choreographed celebration of advancing, muscular Chinese nationhood. One country, one team.
Using the event to showcase China’s emergence as a potentially dominant world power was always part of the Communist party’s game plan. In this sense, the medals table, which China expects to dominate, is a metaphor for broader international competition for resources and influence.
After centuries of humiliations at western hands, few could fairly deny China a self-glorifying…
Obama’s trip has dealt him new cards to play at home
By Michael Tomasky, the editor of Guardian America (THE GUARDIAN, 28/07/08):
Will I upset you if I offer the observation that, to us in America, the British leg of Barack Obama’s tour came across as a bit of an afterthought? A Shakespearean coda, after the bodies have fallen and the swords have been re-sheathed and one of the side characters (Gordon Brown seems increasingly that, alas) steps forward to offer a little homiletic summation. Even Obama admirers such as myself were starting to suffer phenomenon fatigue and to think: “Enough already, dude. Come home and campaign.”
But stop me - I don’t want…
A History For Iraqis To Write
By David Ignatius (THE WASHINGTON POST, 27/07/08):
With characteristic self-absorption, Americans are looking at Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s recent statements about a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops in terms of our 2008 presidential election. We should see this issue instead in terms of Iraqi history.
Modern Iraq was founded on an abhorrence of foreign military occupation. The national self-image is of resistance to British colonialism. That’s why Maliki and most other Iraqi politicians have balked at signing the status-of-forces agreement sought by the Bush administration and why the Iraqi prime minister is enthusiastic about a timetable for the departure of most U.S.…
Why They’re Human Rights
By Russell Paul La Valle, a freelance writer in New Paltz, N.Y. (THE WASHINGTON POST, 27/07/08):
In Spain, a funny thing is happening on the way to the circus — all of the monkeys are disappearing.
At least, that is what a group of legislators on an environmental committee is hoping will happen, now that parliament is considering a resolution to grant certain human rights to “our nonhuman brothers” — great apes, gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans. The measure has broad support and, barring the unexpected, is likely to become law within a year. After enactment, harmful experimentation on apes, as well…
The Pope vs. the Pill
By John L. Allen Jr., the senior correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter and the author of The Rise of Benedict XVI (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 27/07/08):
Forty years ago last week, Pope Paul VI provoked the greatest uproar against a papal edict in the long history of the Roman Catholic Church when he reiterated the church’s ban on artificial birth control by issuing the encyclical “Humanae Vitae.” At the time, commentators predicted that not only would the teaching collapse under its own weight, but it might well bring the “monarchical papacy” down with it.
Those forecasts badly underestimated the capacity of the…
The Right Place to Try Terrorism Cases
By John C. Coughenour, a federal judge in the Western District of Washington (THE WASHINGTON POST, 27/07/08):
I have spent 27 years on the federal bench. In particular, my experience with the trial of Ahmed Ressam, the “millennium bomber,” leads me to worry about Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s comments last week, urging Congress to pass legislation outlining judicial procedures for reviewing Guantanamo detainees’ habeas petitions. As constituted, U.S. courts are not only an adequate venue for trying terrorism suspects but are also a tremendous asset in combating terrorism. Congress risks a grave error in creating a parallel system of terrorism courts unmoored…
Genocide’s Epic Hero
By Aleksandar Hemon, the author, most recently, of The Lazarus Project, a novel (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 27/07/08):
On Oct. 14, 1991, Radovan Karadzic spoke at a session of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Parliament, which had been debating a referendum on independence from the rump Yugoslavia. Mr. Karadzic was there to warn the Parliament members against following the Slovenes and Croats, who had broken away earlier that year, down “the highway of hell and suffering.”
He thundered, “Do not think you will not lead Bosnia and Herzegovina into hell and the Muslim people into possible annihilation, as the Muslim people cannot defend themselves in…
Too Big to Fail, or to Survive
By William Poole, a fellow at the Cato Institute and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 1998 to 2008 (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 27/07/08):
Critics of the Congressional housing package complain that we are now committing taxpayers to huge new outlays to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That view is wrong: Congressional inaction over the past 15 years had already committed taxpayers to the bailout.
Congress could and should have required Fannie and Freddie — which enjoy a peculiar and highly advantageous status as quasi-public agencies and quasi-private companies — to maintain more capital, but didn’t.…
Let the Oil Deals Flow
By Raad Alkadiri, a senior director at PFC Energy in Washington, where he heads the Iraqi Advisory Service, which advises oil and gas companies — including some of the nine mentioned in this column — on investment risk in Iraq. PFC Energy does not have a direct commercial stake in the Iraqi market (THE WASHINGTON POST, 26/07/08):
Reports that a number of international oil companies are on the brink of signing contracts with Iraq have prompted a furious reaction in certain parts of the media and on Capitol Hill. The deals have been widely characterized as no-bid contracts, implying that Big…
Pakistan’s Window of Opportunity
By Rick Barton and Karin von Hippel From the Center for Strategic and International Studies. They are co-directors of the PCR Project at CSIS (THE WASHINGTON POST, 26/07/08):
After eight years of military rule, Pakistanis desperately want their newly elected civilian government to fulfill their country’s promise. Public support will inevitably ebb and flow because of the sudden shift to democratic governance, but the underlying dynamic is positive. The United States should fully encourage the democratic opening during this critical period.
On a recent visit to Pakistan, we discussed these changes with more than 200 political party leaders, police chiefs, judges, clerics, journalists and…
Change Germans Can’t Believe In
By Susan Neiman, the director of the Einstein Forum and the author of Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 26/07/08):
With gestures that ranged from a wink to a sneer, most anyone you met here this week volunteered the view that Barack Obama’s visit to Europe caused unprecedented frenzy. But it’s been hard for me to find a European, aside from two Harvard-educated friends in Paris, who confessed to excitement — not just about the visit, but the prospect of an Obama presidency.
It is true that Der Spiegel, the German newsweekly, featured Mr. Obama on its cover,…
Mugabe’s power ploy
By Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society. His book: Africa Altered States, Ordinary Miracles is published in September (THE GUARDIAN, 26/07/08):
It is clear what Robert Mugabe wants to see from the talks with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that began in South Africa on Thursday. On December 27 1987 he sat down with Joshua Nkomo, the leader of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) and signed a unity accord. It followed seven years of sustained violence against Nkomo’s party in which some 18,000 people died. The creation of a government of national unity made Nkomo vice-president. Three Zapu…
A rap on the knuckles
By Janine Gibson (THE GUARDIAN, 25/07/08):
Privacy is the new libel. Not that new: this has been going on for almost a decade now. Suing for defamation under the libel laws is dreadfully passé: libel is a lottery, it’s fantastically time-consuming and expensive, and there’s that annoying burden-of-truth issue. These days, if you live the kind of life that requires global coverage and said coverage displeases you, the twin tracks of injunction and suing for invasion of privacy are the only kinds of action to pursue.
The early adopters here were Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who ran a campaign more masochistic than…
Europe’s Obama cheers ring hollow in the Middle East
By Jonathan Steele (THE GUARDIAN, 25/07/08):
What a contrast. In western Europe Obama-mania is in full flood, epitomised by raving crowds in Berlin last night as well as the polls which show the Democratic candidate to be far more popular than John McCain in almost every country. In Israel he is met with apprehension, and in the Palestinian territories there is only the faintest hope that the deadlocked conflict will ever end.
The difference is that Europeans know the American president holds the keys to war or peace. He has enormous influence in dragging European governments after him, as the disastrous Iraq adventure…
