Articles in English

MundoOriente Próximo,

The initiation of Avigdor Lieberman - widely regarded as an outright racist - into Ehud Olmert's Israeli government seems to have already brought a taste of things to come. For the past week, the Gaza Strip city of Beit Hanoun has been made a ground zero by the Israeli army. By yesterday, more than 260 Palestinians lay dead and injured, with 53 fatalities - women, children and ambulance drivers among them.

The Israeli army had vowed to end the firing of home-made rockets towards southern Israel. Many Palestinians disagree with the use of these makeshift rockets, but regard Israeli offensives as flagrantly disproportionate.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

I'm a Muslim Kazakh woman who arrived in the United States two months ago to work on my master's in public administration. Almost every time I meet people and tell them where I come from, they ask me about the "Kazakh journalist" Borat, "the sixth most famous man" in Kazakhstan. I answer that Borat is a satirical fictional character who has nothing in common with Kazakhstan or its people.

Many of my new American friends find Borat's adventures in "US and A" hilarious and his remarks about my country amusing. Unsurprisingly, not many of the people of Kazakhstan are equally amused.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

When Gen. Michael Hayden became CIA director six months ago, his mission was to calm a troubled agency, get it out of the headlines and restore its professionalism. "Back to work, back to basics," is how he sums up his initial goal.

Hayden is now firmly ensconced at the CIA, and he's putting a military man's imprint on the place. He still wears his blue Air Force uniform to work. Behind his desk is a painting of a combat plane, flanked by a poster of his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers and the famous photograph of President Franklin Roosevelt meeting with Saudi King Abdul Aziz to plan joint strategy for the Middle East.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

If there were any remaining doubt about the urgent need to combat climate change, two reports issued last week should make the world sit up and take notice. First, according to the latest data submitted to the United Nations, the greenhouse gas emissions of the major industrialized countries continue to increase. Second, a study by a former chief economist of the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Stern of Britain, called climate change "the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen," with the potential to shrink the global economy by 20 percent and to cause economic and social disruption on par with the two world wars and the Great Depression.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

In recent days, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has made public his disagreement with the dictates and tactics of the United States, including its proposed benchmarks for progress and the presence of military checkpoints around Sadr City.

American authorities view Mr. Maliki’s resistance as worrisome. But it’s just the opposite: his independence is our last best chance for a sustainable Iraq.

For the first time, a real politician appears to be fighting for his life. Whatever Mr. Maliki’s limitations, we may be seeing the emergence of a leader who puts Iraqi concerns above America’s blessing.

The table is now set for the prime minister to demand the phased withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea, ,

I think I must have a chip missing. An operational fault makes me quite oblivious to the dangers of government agencies (excepting the NHS) abusing my personal information to trap me or tax me or otherwise attack my basic liberties. Just as I blithely assume that no one at London Transport is remotely interested in the details of every Tube journey registered on my Oyster card, so I fail to see that the Home Secretary, no matter how nasty I might be about him, will want to access my entry on the national register and write horrid things in it.

I just don’t think I’m that important.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesIslam y Mundo Árabe

Why is the Muslim sense of victimhood so inflated, given that many Muslim societies won’t put their own houses in order? And why is this double standard downplayed so much in Britain?

Mohammad Siddique Khan, ringleader of the July 7 bombers, justified his action as revenge for the killing of Muslims by Western forces in the Middle East. Dhiren Barot, sentenced yesterday for plotting to kill thousands of civilians, gave a similar rationale for his crimes. Much has been said about the moral squalor of these comments, but far less about their sheer incoherence.

Let us grant that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, and overlook the inconvenient fact that most Muslim deaths there are now the fault of other Muslims.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Over the coming days and weeks -- throughout the appeals process, up to and including the day of the execution itself -- you are going to hear a lot about what went wrong with the trial of Saddam Hussein. You will be told, as an Amnesty International director put it , that the trial "has been a shabby affair, marred by serious flaws. . . . Every accused has a right to a fair trial, whatever the magnitude of the charge against him."

You will hear many denunciations of the verdict itself: The British Guardian newspaper called on Iraq to maintain a "principled opposition to the death penalty, to which there can be no exceptions.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

The demand by American activists for U.S.-led military intervention to halt genocide in Darfur by the Sudan government and its militia proxies is a utopian diversion that has led nowhere. Their verbal attacks on Khartoum and calls on China and Russia to stop blocking possible UN coercive action may express their frustration but do not make good foreign policy. The Bush administration needs to concentrate on the real choices for exercising U.S. influence and make the achievement of a verifiable negotiated settlement to end Darfur's carnage its top priority. To get there, it will need sustained high-level U.S. engagement using the full weight of America's diplomatic resources, including a serious and creative test of Chinese intentions, during and after the November 3-5 China-Africa summit.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

What will a Democratic House of Representatives be like? The Republicans have been painting a portrait of Democrats roasting children on a spit in the Capitol Rotunda. Hoping for a more encouraging view, I picked up A New Direction for America - a 31-page manifesto released by House Democrats in June. All I can say is, thank goodness I voted beforehand.The Democrats promise "security, prosperity and opportunity" in "diverse, safe and vibrant communities". They will "protect Americans, secure our borders, and restore our position of international leadership" through "homeland, energy, and diplomatic strategies". And we're only up to page three.

The Democrats' two favourite words seem to be "tax credit".…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea, ,

The world is a dangerous place. A heating globe threatens drought, war and mass migration. Terrorists may blow up proliferating nuclear power stations. Ministers are preparing for a 1918-style flu pandemic.So on a scale of threats to Our Way of Life, where would you place CCTV and speed cameras, electronic health records, DNA storage or ID cards that carry the same information as passports? Most people are not in a delirium of alarm about the Big Brother potential of any of these. Mori finds that about 80% of people support the idea of ID cards (though only 39% think the government will introduce them smoothly, which is another matter).…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

A country torn by a low-intensity cultural civil war has seen at least 25 people die in this conflict in the last 10 days; its capital city is strewn with overturned cycle rickshaws, rocks and broken glass. A tense and watchful calm has since returned to Dhaka, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, although sporadic violence continues in some outlying districts.This is Bangladesh, the country of origin of about 300,000 British people, with the fourth-largest Muslim population in the world. The disturbances at the end of October followed the end of the five-year mandate of the Bangladesh National party and its religious-party allies, Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikya Jote.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

The central mystery of the modern state is this. The necessary resources, both economic and political, will always be found for the purpose of terminating life. The project of preserving it will always struggle. When did you last see a soldier shaking a tin for a new rifle, or a sponsored marathon raising money for nuclear weapons? But we must beg and cajole each other for funds whenever a hospital wants a new dialysis machine. If the money and determination expended on waging war with Iraq had been used to tackle climate change, our carbon emissions would already be in free fall.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalEconomía,

I seemed to have heard Jeremy Rifkin's advocacy of marker assisted selection (MAS) plant breeding - "new", "cutting edge" - somewhere before (This crop revolution may succeed where GM failed, October 26). I had. In 2001, Rifkin extolled MAS in the New York Times: "I think that's where the future is," he said.In order to ensure future agricultural sustainability, plant breeders and scientists need access to a toolbox of technologies. Traditional breeding by cross-pollination, MAS and GM technology are like having three grades of toolbox. The first is tried and trusted, but the tools are limited and precision is difficult. MAS allows one to do a bit more, focusing better on some more specific objectives.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

Another national election season has come to an end — the sorriest, sleaziest, most disheartening and embarrassing in memory. The best one can hope for is a candidate who is a complete cipher. How has American electoral politics come to this?

I think we can gain insight from a study published by the psychologist Eldar Shafir 13 years ago. Suppose you are confronted with the following problem:

You’re serving as a juror in a custody case in which each parent is demanding sole custody of an only child. The facts of the case are complicated by ambiguous economic, social and emotional considerations, and you decide to base your decision entirely on the following few observations:

Parent A

• average income

• reasonable rapport with child

• relatively stable social life

• average working hours

• average health

Parent B

• above-average income

• close relationship with child

• extremely active social life

• lots of work-related travel

• minor health problems

To which parent would you award sole custody of the child?…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalEconomía

Gordon Brown favoured us with his thoughts on trade policy in these pages, which is of course very nice of him. But why the Chancellor of the Exchequer should concern himself with such matters is somewhat odd. Trade policy is an exclusive competence of the EU, so our elected politicians can do nothing more than act as cheerleaders for the views they put forward.

What is worse is that while his article contained all the right buzzwords — globalisation, no to protectionism, lower agricultural subsidies and so on — the core of the argument appeared to be missing. Which is that negotiations about trade are in themselves an absurdity.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

The paradox of American democracy and especially of these midterm elections: both are local, even provincial. They rest on the homosexual escapades of Congressman Mark Foley of Florida; on Virginia Senator George Allen’s use of “macaca”, an obscure racial epithet, to refer to a volunteer working for his opponent; on the question of gay marriage in South Dakota, South Carolina and Wisconsin. The Republican majority in the Senate will be lost or maintained according, in part, to how credible the Bush Administration’s promises seem in New Jersey, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia.

In short, everything will be decided according to local squabbles.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

On March 10, 1988, or so his diary recalls, Woodrow Wyatt, confidant of Margaret Thatcher, dined with the Iraqi ambassador. Dr Mohamed Sadiq al-Mashat was described by Wyatt as being “very dapper in a beautifully cut suit and blue handkerchief in his breast pocket”, and as speaking in an intense manner on the subject of his country’s never-ending conflict with Iran, which it had invaded a few years earlier. Lord Wyatt was unwilling to arrange a meeting between the ambassador and “Madame”, but “I said I would write an article in The Times, when I could find a convenient moment, about the Iran-Iraq war and probably say that I wanted Iraq to win.”…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial, , , ,

Gavin Hall, a responsible health professional of 33, is starting a life sentence after killing his three-year-old daughter, texting his unfaithful wife about it and trying to kill himself. Mohammed Riaz died last week in a fire that he appears to have started in his own home, killing his wife and four children; apparently he thought she was leaving. Last month a former soldier stabbed his baby son and himself to death after his separated wife crossed him. Three years ago another separated man gassed himself and his four sons, cruelly phoning their mother during their last conscious minutes.

Right now John Hogan awaits trial in Greece for jumping off a hotel balcony with his two children, one of whom died.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica, ,

The upcoming Hollywood feature movie "Blood Diamond," starring Leonardo DiCaprio, promises to cast a spotlight on the role of so-called conflict diamonds in fueling brutal warfare in parts of Africa. In my own country, Angola, funds obtained through the trade in such diamonds helped finance a 27-year civil war, which ended four years ago. And even though Angola's mining areas are technically at peace, diamonds are once again the force behind a different kind of violence that is no less sinister.

This time private security companies, acting on behalf of large diamond corporations, are brutalizing local populations in the name of fighting illegal artisanal diamond mining, known as garimpo .…  Seguir leyendo »