Lunes, 20 de agosto de 2007

EuropaUnión EuropeaEconomía,

Sigo diariamente los medios de comunicación audiovisuales internacionales, especialmente la CNN y la BBC. Uno de los temas estrella de las últimas semanas en la sacrosanta y pretendidamente «neutral» televisión pública británica, ha sido el asunto BAA, la principal empresa británica de gestión aeroportuaria, que tiene entre otros el aeropuerto de Heathrow, el de mayor tráfico en Europa. Las noticias estaban siempre cargadas de opinión negativa hacia Ferrovial la empresa española propietaria de BAA, y de sus máximos ejecutivos. Los comentarios en los diferentes medios de comunicación británicos oscilaban entre la frivolidad y la superficialidad o la mala fe ácida e injustamente crítica.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

La democracia no tiene rival en el terreno de la legitimidad, pero necesita ajustar algunas cuentas consigo misma. Cada cual enfoca el asunto a su manera. La izquierda diseña teorías abstractas en busca de una democracia poco liberal y algo menos capitalista. La llaman «participativa», «deliberativa», ahora «inclusiva», y refuerzan su prestigio a través de la tradición republicana, tal vez idealizada. Me refiero, claro, a Grecia y Roma, las ciudades de la Italia renacentista y la hermosa utopía de Kant.

Curiosa paradoja: en el caso español, apelar a la república significa todo lo contrario. Una vez más, la derecha esta incómoda en la batalla de las ideas.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

If the Middle East peace conference proposed by President Bush succeeds, it will be hailed as a milestone. If it fails, it will bring about increased despair and cynicism and mark the gravestone of peace efforts. The key lies in preparation. For this conference to become a steppingstone for real progress, participants must come with well-defined ideas and clear objectives and leave with a genuine plan of action in which all players know the roles they have committed to. Good speeches are not enough.

The most critical parties, the Israelis and the Palestinians, should come ready with an agreed-upon list of permanent-status principles that will outline the contours of an agreement.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Benazir Bhutto arrived in New York three weeks ago, shortly after meeting secretly in Abu Dhabi with Gen. Pervez Musharraf. She leaves this week without having heard again from Pakistan's military ruler. More than merely deciding who rules Pakistan, global conflict against radical Islam may be at risk.

The Bush administration is the silent matchmaker for an unlikely political marriage of bitter opponents: Pakistan's president, Musharraf, and former prime minister Bhutto. The unstated U.S. goal is a democratic Pakistan, with the unpopular Musharraf retaining his presidency and the popular Bhutto returned to the prime minister's office, from which she was twice ousted by the military.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

DDT, the miracle insecticide turned environmental bogeyman, is once again playing an important role in public health. In the malaria-plagued regions of Africa, where mosquitoes are becoming resistant to other chemicals, DDT is now being used as an indoor repellent. Research that I and my colleagues recently conducted shows that DDT is the most effective pesticide for spraying on walls, because it can keep mosquitoes from even entering the room.

The news may seem surprising, as some mosquitoes worldwide are already resistant to DDT. But we’ve learned that even mosquitoes that have developed an immunity to being directly poisoned by DDT are still repelled by it.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONUMundoOriente Próximo

That August day four years ago in Baghdad, I was standing in the rubble of Canal Hotel, the UN headquarters that had been devastated by a huge terrorist bomb. In a break from my non-stop media briefings - I was spokesman for the UN's Baghdad mission - I was talking to Ronnie Stokes, a senior American colleague. Then, abruptly, I turned around. In front of me lay 12 neatly-draped white sheets. I found myself becoming breathless, and in the panic did not know what to feel, think or say. I saw the tips of a pair of feet sticking out from under a sheet.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial

I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum intending to write a piece comparing the three films and the books by Robert Ludlum that inspired them. Ludlum's Bourne is a Vietnam veteran whose adversarial relationship with government turns into an ultimately idealised collaboration with a CIA manned by upright true-blue Americans. The films, by contrast, register a profound suspicion of government - in this latest instalment, the CIA is the only enemy - that seems to be about America's doubts regarding Iraq.

I haven't changed my mind, but the film left me with a far more pressing question: why can't women in action movies ever do anything useful?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

I first met Benazir Bhutto when she was in her last year at Oxford. Wearing a tweed suit and silk headscarf, she looked the perfect Sloane Ranger. When I last saw her she was the prime minister in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. She still wore a headscarf, but the suit had been replaced by a shalwar kameez.The change of style seemed symbolic. Between our first and last meeting, I came to the firm conclusion that - whatever the truth of the allegations that her enemies have made against her - she represents Pakistan's best hope of taking its place among the democratic nations of the free world.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

When the weather forecasters make their predictions, why don’t they also predict river water levels? This summer, for example, when they forecast rain, why couldn’t they also tell the people of Tewkesbury what the River Avon was going to do?

There is a science of river water prediction – hydrology – but unfortunately it has not improved at the same rate as weather forecasting. In a paper published in the May issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Edwin Welles, of the US Weather Service, has shown that river forecasting hasn’t got any better for 20 years.

Two decades ago river forecasters could make reasonably accurate predictions of water flows for up to two or three days ahead, but for no more; today they can still make reasonably accurate predictions for two or three days ahead, but for no more.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

"La izquierda debe ser ante todo anticapitalista", dice Rossana Rossanda en unas declaraciones posteriores a la espectacular aparición en el escenario político de Italia del Partido Democrático y de su líder Veltroni. Rossanda, una de las grandes damas y musas de la izquierda intelectual europea, autora de un reciente libro de memorias, premio Strega y del cual se han hecho ya 39 ediciones, no se digna ni criticar al PD ni a Veltroni, los despide con un "no me interesan... son un nacional populismo postberlusconiano". Destacamos esta rotunda descalificación para indicar el abismo que parece separar las dos izquierdas, tanto en Italia como en otros países europeos.…  Seguir leyendo »