Commentators
Denis MacShane: Europe: the issue that dare not speak its name
Published: 26 September 2006
Leonard Doyle: 'The small advances women have made are now being wiped out'
Published: 26 September 2006
Late last year the pupils of a rural Afghan girls school made a horrying discovery. The Taliban had hidden a landmine under a bag in their classroom. Their teacher was not completely surprised since a few weeks earlier the Taliban had left a threatening note in the village mosque ordering all girls schools to close.
Dylan Jones: Thoughts on fashionable Puglia
Published: 26 September 2006
Every now and then, almost as if by some swirling grand design, some particular part of the world is blessed by a creeping fashionability. Take Italy: once it was the Amalfi Coast, then Tuscany, then Umbria, swiftly followed by Sardinia, and now - the news delivered to your home like an estate agent's Exocet direct mail shot - it's Puglia. Or, more correctly, Puglia!
The Third Leader: Critical bashing
Published: 26 September 2006
Who would be a critic? Victims of a heartwarming concern for one's fellows and a sense of the aesthetic that impose an inescapable obligation to warn and advise, their reward seems to be either tedium or obloquy. And now some of them have been beaten up in a boxing ring in Vancouver by an angry film director. Really. Still unmoved? I should add that all four were volunteers, and that their opponent was Dr Uwe Boll, regarded (and with some justice, I might add, if it were not for my cowardice issues) as the worst film director in the world.
Our Man in New York: Invasion of the pink bunnies is making me see red
Published: 25 September 2006
A plague of pink rabbits has invaded Manhattan. I first noticed them daubed on pavements a couple of weeks ago. Then, while exploring lower Broadway, I spotted an abandoned shop-front wrapped in pink banners and slogans - surely the bunnies' hutch.
Charles Nevin: Age doesn't weary, so don't condemn
Published: 25 September 2006
Observations on Sir Ming Campbell's spell in Brighton, although mixed in its success, have agreed on one point: the age thing is a problem. I'm not so sure. Those of us who have been around for a bit are detecting a significant, if careful, swing, a definite, if deliberate, movement from salads to desserts, particularly in the last few days.
Rebecca Tyrrel: Days Like Those
Published: 25 September 2006
Ron Manager: Is that a bung in your pocket or just a lazy lob?
Published: 24 September 2006
Darfur: Let's hit these corrupt generals where it hurts
Published: 24 September 2006
Imagine that you are a citizen of an African country who keeps up with world events by listening to the radio. Two years ago, on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, you heard the international community vow it would never again stand by as defenceless civilians were slaughtered. Yet, at the same time, genocide was unfolding in a remote and arid corner of western Sudan called Darfur. A year later, you heard about the United Nations' "Responsibility to Protect" policy, committing the same countries to intervene to protect civilians if they were being ethnically cleansed and murdered by their governments. While you listened to leaders congratulating themselves, African villages in Darfur were being destroyed, people killed and women raped on a vast, systematic scale. You knew the perpetrators of these racist crimes were being paid for and supplied by the government of Sudan. Then you found out that although the UN voted to impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for Darfur, only one retired general has been sanctioned. And although the UN voted for a no-fly zone, it was never enforced. Like many Africans, you are in despair about the 400,000 dead in Darfur, and concerned about the three million people in refugee camps. Their suffering has continued for three years, but when you switch on your radio you learn that UN peacekeepers had been despatched to Lebanon within 30 days of the start of bloodshed. You will not be surprised that the Chinese put their oil interests in Sudan before human rights. You understand the Russians value their arms sales to Khartoum and want to avoid setting precedents for international intervention because of Chechnya. But although the British and Americans say they care about Africa and human rights and democratic values and send generous food aid, they have held back on exerting sustained and serious pressure on the Khartoum junta.
Rebecca Tyrrel: Save the planet, or go to Harvey Nicks?
Published: 24 September 2006
Richard Mabey: It begins with the bee orchid down our lane
Published: 24 September 2006
James Cameron: The green revolution has started
Published: 24 September 2006
Christopher Silvester: The diary
Published: 24 September 2006
Disgraced Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten emerges as a Charles Kennedy loyalist In Greg Hurst's biography of the former leader. This was not only through his helping to conceal Kennedy's alcoholism but extended to an important role at Prime Minister's Question Time. Kennedy's performances were hesitant, but his team "became aware that the somnolent posture of Edward Heath beside him made the visual impression still worse. Each week thereafter Mark Oaten made a point of squeezing on to the bench next to Edward Heath and giving the former Prime Minister a vigorous nudge just before Kennedy rose to speak".
Jemima Lewis: Journalism is crass, especially for women
Published: 23 September 2006
Rupert Cornwell: My fantasy head of the United Nations
Published: 23 September 2006
Rupert Cornwell: Nothing the Americans do stops the slide into despair
Published: 22 September 2006
They have organised elections, and pushed through a new democratically-ratified constitution that has given birth to a national government with a true mandate. They have sent more of their own troops, and trained the locals. They have sacrificed some 2,700 of their servicemen and over $300bn (£1.6bn) of their taxpayers' money. But nothing the Americans can do has stopped post-Saddam Iraq's long slide into chaos and despair.
Alexei Sayle: The World According To Me
Published: 22 September 2006
The Third Leader: A king's breakfast
Published: 22 September 2006
It is breakfast, the air is filled with the aroma of Arabica, the loudest sound is that of the pages of this newspaper turning and you are about to achieve that most tasteful of trinities, toast (not too crunchy, obviously), butter, and marmalade. What could be better?
Bill Gates: Helping to treat Aids is not enough, we must urgently find ways of preventing it
Published: 21 September 2006
Giorgio Armani: I fear for a world where the innocence of childhood is eroded by war and poverty
Published: 21 September 2006
My friend Martin Scorsese once made a film of Edith Wharton's great novel The Age of Innocence. As I sit here writing this letter, it is that phrase which keeps coming back to me, like an echo.
Cooper Brown: He's out there
Published: 21 September 2006
Julia Stephenson: The Green Goddess
Published: 21 September 2006
I'm just back from Islington, north London, where a community exhibition was being staged on the Green. Bypassing the organic chutney stalls and eco-chuggers keen to raise my awareness (after seeing the excellent Al Gore film, if my awareness is raised any more I'll implode), I headed straight for an environmental exhibition put on my members of my local Buddhist group.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Look to California, not the US, on global warming
Published: 21 September 2006
The Third Leader: Not too thin...
Published: 21 September 2006
Ever since I started out as a fashion designer, I chose to use models who were on the slender side. This was because the clothes I design and the sort of fabrics I use need to hang correctly on the body. I want the dresses to seem to float and flow with the body.
Michael Brown: The Lib Dems have thrown down the gauntlet
Published: 20 September 2006
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