Letters: Air strikes in Somalia

Published: 11 January 2007

US air strikes in Somalia will only encourage terrorism

Sir: With the shadow of Black Hawk Down yet to fade, America has fashioned another spectre in Somalia which will come back to haunt it in years to come. This week's bombing will not only fail to eradicate the al-Qa'ida suspects but will further jeopardise the international community's reputation in the Horn of Africa in the long run.

Granted, there is a terrorist threat in Somalia. And America also has selfish interests in increasing its influence in this newly oil-rich area. But far more concerning than the terrorist threat, or the inevitable absence of purely altruistic humanitarian sentiment, is the international community's conceptual failure to view Somalia other than through the lens of the "war on terror". Somalia has its own troubled history of colonial occupation, Cold War interference, regional instability, clan-based conflict and failed statehood- and a present in which these fuse uniquely.

To ignore the complexities of Somali identity, and to fail to address the situation on its own terms, will encourage exactly the angry, destructive terrorism that we allegedly desire to erase. Rather than conduct counter-productive bombing campaigns, we must focus our efforts on bringing all parties to the negotiating table. We must actively strive for stability and security - for that of Somalia and the international community is interconnected like never before.

LAURA KYRKE-SMITH

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Nation is ready for action on climate

Sir: Over recent months discussion in the media about climate change has expanded exponentially and, wherever I go, it is the topic of conversation. The nation is ready for serious action. The Government has the opportunity to unite this country and provide an example to the rest of the world in solving the most important issue of the 21st century.

This is the moment to challenge every man and woman to take every possible step to reduce their carbon footprint. It is the moment for the Government to stop widening motorways and to invest instead in a fast rail infrastructure so that no one even wants to take internal flights. It is the moment to invest in research into green technologies and to insist that every new build has solar panels, bringing down the cost of solar heating. It is the moment to ask that all lights in empty rooms be turned off so we no longer have office blocks floodlighting large cities at night. It is the moment for Government itself to reduce its carbon footprint now, not in 2015.

What is the Prime Minister's response? "I won't give up my three long-haul holidays a year but I'll buy a carbon offset." Instead of reacting like a spoilt child, Mr Blair should be setting an example to the rest of us and should stop conning himself into believing we can do what we like as long as we buy a few low energy bulbs for the third world. How pathetic that must look to the Bangladeshis who have just had to be relocated because of sea level rise.

RUTH FUNNELL

WELCOMBE, DEVON

Sir: Clearly the Prime Minister does not yet consider climate change to be a serious enough problem to "declare war" on it. Wartime measures are needed.

Let's start with rationing of carbon use: a scheme whereby, irrespective of wealth, we all have an equal ration to be spent as we wish - perhaps on a holiday flight to Miami, or maybe instead the ownership of a powerful car; others may be prepared to forgo both and trade their allowances. We cannot hope to influence other nations until we have put our own house in order.

GILES du BOULAY

AYLESBURY, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Sir: I'm thankful to Thomas Michaels (letter, 8 January) and other recent correspondents for highlighting that flights cause a mere 1.6 per cent of global CO2 emissions. I'd been wondering how we should actually start reducing UK emissions. How to knock off that first 1 or 2 per cent?

Given the largest part of the population fly rarely or never, I now clearly see that the place to start is actually by turning down pensioners' heating and forcing the hoi polloi to walk to work, keeping those smoky buses and cars garaged. To challenge the right of the UK's 15 per cent of well-heeled aviophiles to their hard-earned bimonthy breaks in Budapest and parties in Perugia while the great unwashed are still largely warm and mobile is clearly political correctness gone mad.

DENIS MURPHY

BIRMINGHAM

Sir: Blair says no politician would ban cheap flights. No politicians would, but a statesman might.

GEORGE HUXLEY

CHURCH ENSTONE, OXFORDSHIRE

Sir: Could it be that the reason we are unable to detect evidence of life forms (if there are any) on other planets is that the dominant species always destroys its habitat - and therefore itself - before it acquires the technical ability to broadcast its presence? Planet Earth seems to be heading for this fate.

JULIEN EVANS

CHESHAM, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Why GPs are working all hours

Sir: Mary Dejevsky (Opinion, 5 January) complains that the Government allowed GPs to "work civil-service hours", and bemoans the "patchy to non-existent" out-of-hours service that is provided.

My basic hours as a full-time GP are 50 a week, and in addition I work for the local out-of-hours centre. In December, in reply to the calls for assistance, I volunteered for an average of 10 hours a week of extra shifts. At least where I live, the bulk of the doctors working out of hours are practicing UK GPs, delivering consistently high quality medicine under often trying circumstances.

The out-of-hours service that they work for is not run by them - the services is run by the local NHS trust. If Ms Dejevsky has a problem with her local out-of-hours organisation, she should perhaps address the organ grinder rather than the poor bloody monkeys.

In several areas of the UK, GPs attempted to carry on with the "old style" GP-run co-operatives that existed prior to the new GP contract. Unfortunately, local primary care organisations decided that either they or private industry could do a better job, with dismal results.

Unlike Ms Dejevsky, I can certainly see why there might be a GP shortage in 2011. There have been cuts in GP training, a freeze on income, and an attack on the value of GP pensions. A cohort of GPs put off retirement, hoping that the new contract would yield them better conditions - they are now due to leave the service.

DR DAVID SHAW

DUNDEE

Fish still on the menu in Spain

Sir: Your article on 14 December reported that fresh fish will be taken off the menus of all restaurants in Spain. This is not the case.

The decree introduced by the Spanish government on 1 December addresses the serving of raw and seared fish alone, where the anisakis parasite is often found. For these dishes only will fish now have to have been frozen (to below -20C) for 24 hours before serving - an effective method of killing the parasite.

We believe that the Spanish government's decree will not in fact reduce diners' enjoyment of fresh fish in our country. Rather it will provide them with the knowledge and comfort that we are taking a pro-active approach, ensuring that rigorous standards are maintained and met in all food outlets across Spain.

Fresh fish remains a much-loved part of the Spanish diet and one that will remain on the menu.

IGNACIO VASALLO

DIRECTOR, SPANISH TOURIST OFFICE, UK & IRELAND, LONDON W1

Iran, the source of stability and peace

Sir: In your leading article "Israel should give diplomacy more time to work" (8 January), you refer to a crucial point - that Iran is "another country", not comparable to either Iraq or the sheikhdoms in its neighbourhood. History shows that Persian civilisation has been the source of stability and peace in this region. Any miscalculation or turning a blind eye to this historic fact by resorting to adventurism in the Persian Gulf would be costly for the aggressor.

Iran has never attacked or threatened to use force against any member of the United Nations. It has abided by its commitments, based on NPT membership, for peaceful nuclear activities. Iran has consistently called for time-bound and unconditional negotiations to find a mutually acceptable solution, a call that has been neglected by adventurers.

HAMID BABAEI

FIRST SECRETARY, EMBASSY OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN LONDON SW7

Baffling prices for inconvenient trains

Sir: Our rail-transport system is expensive, erratic and too complicated in its pricing system to understand (report, 3 January). Why should I have to think months in advance about what rail journeys I might want to take so that I might buy one of those elusive cut-price tickets? Why should I pay the same for my return journey from Liverpool to London at a weekend, which takes five hours and wends its way via Manchester, as I pay for an off-peak journey mid-week which takes just under three hours?

Why should my daughter pay £80 for a return ticket from London to Manchester, to be taken via Derby and York, with changes of train, when at other times she can go direct, for less. Shouldn't the rail service be reducing the cost of its tickets for those journeys where we are subjected to added inconvenience?

HELEN MARKS

LIVERPOOL

Kelly's flight from her failed policies

Sir: Former Education Secretary Ruth Kelly has sought to conceal the hypocrisy of removing her special needs child from a state school behind a wall of sentiment. And doubtless, any "bricks" - such as the letter contributed by "Name and Address Supplied" (9 January) - will be gratefully received.

"Perhaps Ms Kelly decided that people were more important than principles," suggests your correspondent. Not quite: what Ms Kelly has decided is that her own child is more important than principles: meanwhile, the children of other people are expected to continue as before.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government gives unquestioning support to an administration that has destroyed provision for special educational needs and replaced it with a disastrous policy of inclusion. Unexpectedly faced with the consequences, Ms Kelly has used her privileged position to escape from them.

No matter how high the wall, the hypocrisy remains behind it.

ROBERT BOTTAMLEY

HEDON, EAST YORKSHIRE

Sir: Are private school pupils with special educational needs taught by teacher assistants, as they are in the state sector? Ruth Kelly played a significant role in getting rid of trained SEN teachers, replacing them with teacher assistants. This isn't good enough for her child. It isn't good enough for all children with SENs.

SHIRLEY FRANKLIN

ASSOCIATE TUTOR INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

We do remember Saddam's crimes

Sir: Tony Blair finally condemns the manner of Saddam's execution but asserts that it should not "blind us to the crimes he committed against his own people".

This is typical of Blair's Manichaean thinking, rendering complex moral and legal problems into simplistic opposites. He automatically seems to assume that those people who were appalled by the ghastly event had somehow been rendered amnesiac by it.

We are perfectly aware of Saddam's past barbarities. The whole point of opposition to the death penalty is that it is not affected by the nature of the crimes committed by the guilty party. Opposition is not predicated on a desire to ignore or forget the nature of the original offence but on a principled belief that it undermines the moral authority of the state.

Blair's caveats are intellectually dishonest and wilfully and self-servingly distort the issue in question.

RICHARD WOODWARD

LONG EATON, DERBYSHIRE

Lord Blair

Sir: Professor McCulloch (letter, 10 January) asks which party Tony Blair would sit with were he to be elevated to the House of Lords. Is there any reason to think that should he manage to tear himself away from the US lecture circuit, he will not continue to represent the Republican Party?

NIGEL WARDLE

STAPLETON, LEICESTERSHIRE

Before the 'but'

Sir: David Medd has a good point in reminding us that "everything before the 'but' is bullshit' (Letters, 9 January) but he has overlooked a serious problem. Politicians now rarely use "but"; they say instead, "Having said that ... " It is an interesting question whether they do this to avoid the accusation that they are speaking bullshit, or whether they are merely pursuing the less subtle tactic of using three words instead of one.

PROFESSOR P S ATIYAH

HAYLING ISLAND, HAMPSHIRE

Prawns' rights

Sir: Sarah Godley (5 January) makes assumptions. How does she know that Edward Pearce thinks it's all right to boil prawns alive? As an animal rights campaigner, I can tell her categorically that the vast majority of those who care about the fate of animals, are both opposed to fox hunting and to the boiling alive of any living creature; in fact, probably 99.9 per cent of such people are vegetarian and would retch at the idea of a dead body ending up in their mouths.

NAOMI ELIAS

CHESHAM, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Boulevards of Paris

Sir: Your headline "Battle for the Boulevard" (4 January) provides an alliterative but not strictly speaking accurate title. A boulevard was originally a promenade on a demolished fortification (the French term shares the same etymology as our "bulwark"), and in Paris is used notably of the "grands boulevards" built on the old ramparts of Charles V demolished under Louis XIV, and of the outer ring of boulevards which follows the older customs wall that ringed Paris until 1860. The Champs-Elysées is, as John Lichfield's informative article says, an avenue.

PETER COGMAN

SOUTHAMPTON

Star signs

Sir: On your front page of 8 January, you report that astronomers "had achieved the apparently impossible task of creating a picture of something that has defied every attempt to detect it". Given the failure of our forces to locate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction after nearly four years, is it not now time to send the astronomers in?

J SAMUEL

CAVERSHAM, READING