A few links about nothing in particular

Sorry about the lack of blog posts of late, but isn’t Alienated Left coming along?  Go have a good look around.  I hope to be back blogging soon.  In the meantime, I have a a few links that I'd like to share.

The Billion-Pound-O-Gram helps but billion pound figures into perspective.

Northern Heckler takes the Conservative's inheritance tax policy and a misleading article to task. The Mirror also had an interesting angle on inheritance tax (it might not be the best writing, but the point is valid). Via Phil BC via northbriton45.

Tabloid Watch notes what that few have reported.

How Belle de Jour's secret ally Googlewhacked the press Via bloggerheads via McGuireDavid

Michael Moore had this to say about healthcare reform (I might blog on this in the future, he's quite right in my opinion).

Bensix looks at The Government’s Uneasy Relationship With Evidence

A look at Italian Law.

I'm linking to several Angry Mob pages for no other reason than search engine optimisation. Angry Mob is on the first page of google for various searches, and this is my contribution to keeping the site where it belongs:
Amanda Platell: Racist and Clueless, James Slack: Please Kill Yourself, Liz Jones is Considerably Richer than You, Daily Mail and Rape, Jan Moir: I'm thinking she's a piece of shit, and, Paul Dacre Must Die.

Via Jamie Sport - "There's literally no way our awesome cross-platform twitter news ad campaign will go wrong. Yeah!"

And that's about it link-wise for now (well, I wouldn't want you getting link-fatigue).

Obama & Waxman-Markey - Corrupted By Corporate Interests

Over in the U.S. Paul Krugman is trying hard to sell the “fairly strong cap-and-trade climate bill," the Waxman-Markey bill (otherwise known as ‘American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009’). The bill has already passed the House and is due for floor action in the Senate where it will face renewed opposition.

Krugman asserts that, due to denial of climate change failing to gain sufficient purchase to block the bill, its main opposition will be based on the bill’s potential cost. In response to this, Krugman argues that whilst saving the planet will not come free - it will not cost all that much either. He quite rightly argues that the early stages of conservation to a lower carbon economy will not be particularly demanding.

First, the evidence suggests that we’re wasting a lot of energy right now. That is, we’re burning large amounts of coal, oil and gas in ways that don’t actually enhance our standard of living — a phenomenon known in the research literature as the “energy-efficiency gap.” The existence of this gap suggests that policies promoting energy conservation could, up to a point, actually make consumers richer.

Krugman then puts the longer-term costs in perspective.

[I]n 2020 the bill would cost the average family only $160 a year, or 0.2 percent of income. That’s roughly the cost of a postage stamp a day. [...] By 2050, when the emissions limit would be much tighter, the burden would rise to 1.2 percent of income. But the budget office also predicts that real G.D.P. will be about two-and-a-half times larger in 2050 than it is today, so that G.D.P. per person will rise by about 80 percent. The cost of climate protection would barely make a dent in that growth. And all of this, of course, ignores the benefits of limiting global warming.

Although Krugman successfully defends the bill from arguments based on expense, he misses a far more important point. Whilst Obama has edged away from his predecessor’s ‘head in the sand’ approach to climate change, the Waxman-Markey bill is a considerable distance from the ideal. There are too many loopholes and too many concessions. Obama's talk of taking a "bold and necessary step" to "confront America's energy challenge and reclaim America's future" is hollow.

In terms of the bill’s substance, George Monbiot notes that:

The cut proposed by 2020 is just 17%, which means that most of the reduction will take place towards the end of the period. What this means is much greater cumulative emissions, which is the only measure that counts. Worse still, it is riddled with so many loopholes and concessions that the bill's measures might not offset the emissions from the paper it's printed on. You can judge the effectiveness of a US bill by its length: the shorter it is, the more potent it will be. This one is some 1,200 pages long, which is what happens when lobbyists have been at work.

The bill also ignores the greenhouse impact of biofuels, thereby encouraging its usage.

In almost all cases, biofuels made from grain or oil crops create more greenhouse emissions than petroleum. This is partly because they lead to an expansion in total crop production, which means that forests must be cut down, unploughed pastures must be tilled and wetlands must be drained to accommodate it. The carbon stored in both the vegetation and the soil is released and oxidised.

The impact of biofuels has been devastating on the worlds poor.

In 2008, the expansion of biofuel production was directly responsible for the decline in global food stocks, which caused grain prices to rise, catalysing famines in many parts of the world. Cereal stockpiles declined by 53m tonnes; the production of biofuels, mostly by the US, consumed almost 100m tonnes, according to a piece in the Economist on 6th December 2007. As the UN's special rapporteur, Jean Ziegler says, turning food for people into food for cars is, "a crime against humanity".

What about the costs involved, has Obama been as clear and coherent as Krugman? No.

Instead of straight talk, however, Mr Obama has mostly been offering happy talk.

When the House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate-change bill on June 26th, he rejoiced that it would create millions of new green jobs and reduce America’s “dangerous dependence on foreign oil”. Almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that it might do something for the planet. As usual, he gave the impression that planet-cooling will require no sacrifice from voters.

This is drivel. The shift to a lower-carbon economy will destroy jobs as well as create them, and hit growth. Greens wish Mr Obama would use his immense popularity and rhetorical skills to persuade Americans that such costs are outweighed by the benefits of helping to avert planetary catastrophe. But rather than shaping public opinion, he is running scared of it. And so, even more, is Congress.

All too often, commentators are eager to lionise Obama for simply being better than Bush. (In fairness to Krugman, perhaps he is suppressing whatever discontent he may feel towards the bill for the misguided view that it is for the greater good). The Waxman-Markey bill is highly flawed. Those with a genuine concern for the environment and the world’s poor ought to be suspicious of this highly compromised bill, which has been corrupted by corporate interests.

Luiz Felipe Scolari moves to Bunyodkor

Sport might not be a topic too often blogged about on this blog, but this is different. For the uninitiated, Luiz Felipe Scolari has been a very successful manager. FC Bunyodkor is a Uzbek football club. The Uzbekistan league is a low profile league. So, is this is a case of a 'big' manager going to a small club? Yes, but there is more to the story than that.

The club itself is very new;

Four years ago Bunyodkor did not exist. They won promotion from the amateur second division at the first attempt, finished runners-up in cup and league next time out, and in their third season won the double, with a run to the semi-finals of the Asian Champions League to boot. They have a former World Cup winner in the team, alongside the Asian footballer of the year. Now they are getting serious.

The success of the team is straightforward, it is due to its ownership. Gulnara Karimova controls the club. She is the daughter of Islam Karimov, the brutal dictator of Uzbekistan, and is thought to be his likely successor. The purpose of the club is to perform as a PR vehicle for the Karimov regime. The Karimov regime, which Britain supports, is brutal and repressive.

There are over 6,000 political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan. Every year, some of them are tortured to death. Sometimes the policemen or intelligence agents simply break their fingers, their ribs and then their skulls with hammers, or stab them with screwdrivers, or rip off bits of skin and flesh with pliers, or drive needles under their fingernails, or leave them standing for a fortnight, up to their knees in freezing water. Sometimes they are a little more inventive. The body of one prisoner was delivered to his relatives last year, with a curious red tidemark around the middle of his torso. He had been boiled to death. His crime, like that of many of the country's prisoners, was practising his religion. [...]

An Islamist terrorist network has been operating there, but Karimov makes no distinction between peaceful Muslims and terrorists: anyone who worships privately, who does not praise the president during his prayers or who joins an organisation which has not been approved by the state can be imprisoned. Political dissidents, human rights activists and homosexuals receive the same treatment. [...]

Uzbekistan is seen by the US government as a key western asset, as Saddam Hussein's Iraq once was. Since 1999, US special forces have been training Karimov's soldiers. In October 2001, he gave the United States permission to use Uzbekistan as an airbase for its war against the Taliban. [...]

[F]ar from seeking to isolate his regime, the US government has tripled its aid to Karimov. Last year [2002], he received $500m (£300m), of which $79m went to the police and intelligence services, who are responsible for most of the torture. While the US claims that its engagement with Karimov will encourage him to respect human rights, like Saddam Hussein he recognises that the protection of the world's most powerful government permits him to do whatever he wants. Indeed, the US state department now plays a major role in excusing his crimes.

Due to the club's wealth, people and organisations have been clambering to be involved with F.C. Bunyodkor. Luiz Felipe Scolari's association with the club looks as though it is just the latest landmark in a continuing trend of FC Bunyodkor's progress. Meanwhile, due to its geographical proximity to key natural resources, it looks as though Britain and the U.S. will continue to support Karimov's regime.

80% Carbon cut - a landmark pledge?

The Independent leads on "US agrees landmark pledge to slash emissions" today, is this as inspiring as it appears?

Looking at the US climate-change bill, George Monbiot thinks not.

The cut proposed by [2050 is 80%, yet by] 2020 is just 17%, which means that most of the reduction will take place towards the end of the period. What this means is much greater cumulative emissions, which is the only measure that counts. Worse still, it is riddled with so many loopholes and concessions that the bill's measures might not offset the emissions from the paper it's printed on. You can judge the effectiveness of a US bill by its length: the shorter it is, the more potent it will be. This one is some 1,200 pages long, which is what happens when lobbyists have been at work.

The Economist describe the US climate change bill as 'A squeaker, with more to come'.

Instead of straight talk, however, Mr Obama has mostly been offering happy talk. When the House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate-change bill on June 26th, he rejoiced that it would create millions of new green jobs and reduce America’s “dangerous dependence on foreign oil”. Almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that it might do something for the planet. As usual, he gave the impression that planet-cooling will require no sacrifice from voters.

This is drivel. The shift to a lower-carbon economy will destroy jobs as well as create them, and hit growth. Greens wish Mr Obama would use his immense popularity and rhetorical skills to persuade Americans that such costs are outweighed by the benefits of helping to avert planetary catastrophe. But rather than shaping public opinion, he is running scared of it. And so, even more, is Congress.

So, the bill is a fudge, and the pledge (if it is even upheld) will be too. Sadly, as Monbiot points out, "This bill is the best we're going to get for now because the corruption of public life in the United States has not been addressed."

David Mitchell responds to the Daily Mail’s ‘Not in my front yard’ anti-wheelie bin campaign

David Mitchell responds to the Daily Mail’s ‘Not in my front yard’ anti-wheelie bin campaign

Councils issue wheelie bins to make collection and recycling more efficient and effective. They're better than normal bins - they've got wheels and can be emptied mechanically. Because they're bigger, they can be collected fortnightly. Because collections can be fortnightly, recycling collections can be slotted in without doubling the refuse budget. I'm sure the NIMFYs would hate me for saying this, which is why I'm doing it, but it's good, simple, common sense. The bins might not look lovely, but there are more important considerations in play here. […]

Explaining why mid-terrace residents had no option but to keep the unsightly wheelie bins in front of their houses, a Chester resident said: "Otherwise they would have to walk three bins all the way down the street, round the corner and into the backyard. Imagine doing that with three bins? It's just crazy."

I can almost hear the Oxfam advert: "This is Andrea. Every week, she has to walk three bins all the way down the street, round the corner and into the backyard. It's either that or people will see her bins. It's crazy, but you can help."

(Accidental) Honesty vs. Less bad economic management

Conservative Health spokesperson, Andrew Lansley, let slip that the Conservatives plan to ring-fence health and aid spending at the expense of a 10% cut for other departments. Labour jumped at the opportunity to cast the Conservatives as spending cutters.

Brown accused the Conservatives of being out of line with received opinion, “The only party that's proposing a cut in public spending is the Conservative party” said Gordon Brown at PMQs. What’s more, Labour proposed increased spending. (In itself, referring to public spending rather than investment is peculiar for frontbenchers.)

As it turns out Gordon Brown was being very misleading, you might even say that he was lying.

Due to the constraints placed on the treasury by the financial crisis, whoever is in government will have little choice about what to do. Both the Conservatives and Labour will do the same thing - protect healthcare expenditure and cut other departments more or less to the same amount, 10%.

The truth has come out and Brown has egg on his face. Cue George Osborne for a dose of piousness,

“The real dividing line is not ‘cut versus investment’, but honesty versus dishonest […] We should have the confidence to tell the public the truth that Britain faces a debt crisis; that real spending will have to be cut, whoever is elected; and that the bills of rising unemployment and the huge interest costs of a soaring national debt means that many government departments will face cuts in their budgets. These are statements of fact and to deny them invites ridicule.”

To the Times’ credit, they acknowledge, albeit fleetingly, that Osborne “gives no specific Conservative spending plans”.

So, is it a case of honest vs. dishonest?

Firstly, ‘honest’ should be prefixed by accidentally, reluctantly or surreptitiously, depending on which is actually the case. I would opt for accidentally given the way in which the Conservatives initially handled Lansley’s admission.

Secondly, there is more to Labour than dishonesty. As bad as Labour have been on the economy, the Conservative would have been far worse. When Brown acted swiftly to support banking when it was most needed Cameron, Osborne and Co. had little response.

Labour’s press management is appalling. Rather than the media focusing on the bold decisions made by Brown in contrast to the Conservatives' reluctance to do anything, the media are focusing on Brown’s petty lies. Labour have themselves to blame.

UPDATE

The day after this post was published Polly Toynbee offered the following advice to Labour:

Talk about the national debt honestly and turn it against the Tories. If Britain really is coming out of recession, keep telling voters the truth: virtually every penny of debt comes from rescuing the country from depression and the knock-on effect of recession. Saving banks that were hours from shutting ATMs and starving the population, then flooding the economy with money to stop a depression, was action strongly supported by the Financial Times and the Economist. The Tories – alone – opposed it and would have plunged us back to the 1930s. Most of the debt is due to recession – when tax revenues dry up and unemployment costs soar. These costs would be phenomenally higher in a long Tory-induced depression. […]

Voters know the Tories will cut with relish anything they dare, but David Cameron will win on competence if he is the only one who seems to face up to the debt. Labour has the best record on the recession and the best record on public services – but no chance if no one believes a word it says.

Dr George Tiller shot dead at church

Feministe

“He put the health of women above his own life. And now he is dead.”

Al Jazeera

George Tiller, 67, long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, was killed while serving as an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita.

Tiller had been attacked several times in the past, and protests had been held outside his Wichita clinic.

In 1985, his practice was bombed, and in 1993 he was shot in the arms.

The Guardian

A man, identified after his arrest as Scott Roeder, 51, allegedly walked up to Tiller as he stood alongside three or four others and aimed a gun at his head. He shot once.

Jill Filipovic - The Guardian

[Tiller] was also a major lightening-rod in the abortion wars. Anti-choicers harassed his patients, day in and day out. They bombed his clinic. They shot him once before. They filed lawsuit after lawsuit and even convinced local prosecutors to launch criminal investigations and trials (none were successful). They published his home address and the full names of his family members on their websites. They posted information about anyone who did business with him, from where he got his coffee to where he did his dry cleaning.

They had him and his staff wearing bullet-proof vests to work every day. Tiller drove an armoured car and protected his home with a state-of-the-art security system. And, to better enable stalking and harassment, they posted his daily comings and goings – including the fact that he attended services every Sunday at Reformation Lutheran Church, the place where he was ultimately shot and killed.

All because he was a licensed physician who performed legal medical procedures.

In life, Dr. Tiller was one of three doctors in the US who, under certain circumstances, provided abortions to women after 20 weeks of pregnancy. His death means that women have fewer options in such cases – if any at all. This will most greatly affect those in the central United States, particularly the poor.

It would be easier to insult anti-choice/pro-lifers by calling them ‘backwards’ and ‘stupid’, which many will, rather than to face the real culprits. Bigotry is often born of ignorance and misinformation. The spread of bigotry through misinformation lies at the feet of those in power, the media, politicians, religious leaders, & the masses. We each played a role in what lead to Dr Tiller, a brave and admirable man committed to women in need, being shot at his church in front of his family and friends.

The media spread misinformation. Bill O'Reilly might well be a ‘straw-man’ but he is popular with great influence, his making Tiller a cause célèbre and the crass deceitful manner in which he did so means that Bill O'Reilly has Dr. George Tiller's blood on his well-stained hands. Fox news is a dangerous propaganda tool for far-right authoritarian extremists.

Politicians that use carefully selected expressions help little. Abortion is all too often described as a 'difficult' issue when in many cases it is not. Incest provides an example that few can argue against. Situations in which the life and health of the mother or potential child are at severe risk provides another. Yet there are many who see no merit in abortion in even these circumstances.

Lest we forget that the 'South Dakota Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Act (HB 1215)' was signed into Law by South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds on March 6, 2006. Although it did not manage to come into effect, it sought to establish that "life begins at the time of conception" and to ban all abortions with the only exemption being physicians who perform the procedure when "designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother". Doctors who performed abortions on the basis of rape, incest, ill-health (but not likely death), terrible birth defects or a woman's right to chose, would be liable for murder charges.

Below is just one example of Bill O’Rielly’s criticism of Dr George Tiller.

He conflates aborting foetuses with killing babies, and he accuses Tiller of, ‘killing babies’ ‘for just about any reason’, performing ‘thousands of late term abortions’, of being ‘a doctor who will terminate a pregnancy at anytime’.

He accuses abortion clinics of protecting child rapists. He asks his interviewee whether she is ‘okay with rapists walking around the street?’ He accuses her of tacitly supporting ‘babies to be killed and rapists of 10 year olds to get away with it’.

The media’s misinformation, misrepresentation and emotive rhetoric fuels anti-choice/pro-life pressure groups. As Jill Filipovic wrote in The Guardian:

[I]f you yell "Murderer!" "Baby-Killer!" and "Holocaust!" long enough, it's reasonably foreseeable that someone will take it upon themselves to make sure that vigilante justice is done (especially if you provide the name and address of the person who you claim is committing "genocide").

United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza

* If you were directed to this post by CNN, please read 'CNN & United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza'.

A UN investigation, which looked only at deaths, injuries and damage at UN sites in Gaza during the three-week conflict, found that Israel was responsible for at least seven attacks on UN operations. The UN report comes in the wake of an Israeli internal investigation that concluded that the during the Gaza offensive the army ‘maintained a high professional and moral level’.The full 184-page investigation report by the UN board of inquiry has not been made public, press reports are based on a 23-page summary. 

Al Jazeera - 'UN blames Israel for Gaza attacks'

The UN report, commissioned by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, said the Israeli military intentionally fired at UN facilities and civilians hiding in them during the war and used disproportionate force. […]

A total of 53 installations used by the United Nations Relief and Works agency (UNRWA) were damaged or destroyed during Israel's Gaza campaign, including 37 schools - six of which were being used as emergency shelters - six health centres, and two warehouses, the UN agency said. […]

Israel's 22-day war on Gaza left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including around 400 children, Gaza health officials said, along with 13 Israelis. […]

It also said one of the incidents, when a World Food Programme warehouse in the Karni industrial zone in Gaza was damaged, was largely caused by a rocket "most likely" fired by Hamas or another Palestinian faction and condemned those responsible for using such "indiscriminate weapons" to cause deaths and injuries.

The Guardian - 'UN report accuses Israeli military of negligence in Gaza war'

[The report summary] said: "The board concluded that IDF [Israeli Defence Force] actions involved varying degrees of negligence or recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and to the safety of United Nations staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths, injuries, and extensive physical damage and loss of property." […]

Israel's foreign ministry attempted to pre-empt the report today, saying the Israeli military had already investigated its own conduct during the war and "proved beyond doubt" that it did not fire intentionally at UN buildings. It dismissed the UN inquiry.

"The state of Israel rejects the criticism in the committee's summary report, and determines that in both spirit and language the report is tendentious, patently biased, and ignores the facts presented to the committee," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It said the inquiry had "preferred the claims of Hamas, a murderous terror organisation, and by doing so has misled the world".

Unfortunately, secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, refuses to act on the 11th recommendation of the report, which calls for an “impartial inquiry mandated, and adequately resourced, to investigate allegations of violations of international humanitarian law". This would require Israeli cooperation and would be harder for Israel to dismiss. However, such an enquiry into human rights abuses is seemingly deemed impolitic by Ban Ki-moon.

The UN inquiry into the Israeli war in Gaza comes in the wake of another recent UN report that is critical of Israel’s actions in Palestine; it calls for Israel to “end Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem”. UN Radio – ‘End Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem, UN tells Israel’

Of the 70 square kilometers of east Jerusalem and the West Bank annexed by Israel, the report says, only 13 per cent is zoned for Palestinian construction and this was mostly already built up. […]

The UN said it was particularly concerned about areas facing mass demolition, including an area south of the old city, where the threatened destruction of 90 houses would lead to the displacement of a thousand Palestinians.

More posts relating to the United Nations and Israel from The Polemical Report.

"The politically correct society is the civilised society"

In an interesting article about the new equality bill – ‘This bold equality push is just what we needed. In 1997’ - Toynbee briefly discusses political correctness.  

The phrase "political correctness" was born as a coded cover for all who still want to say Paki, spastic or queer, all those who still want to pick on anyone not like them, playground bullies who never grew up. The politically correct society is the civilised society, however much some may squirm at the more inelegant official circumlocutions designed to avoid offence. Inelegance is better than bile.

For more from the Polemical Report on political correctness see:

“That is why it is not on the jam jars – because we have moved on.”

Toynbee at her most divisive on the financial crisis

Polly Toynbee writes what I had been waiting for someone to write. Toynbee re-contextualises the financial crisis – she does a great job or a terrible one (if you read some of the comments). Read the whole piece and make up your own mind - ‘After the lie of the free lunch comes a real political choice’.

Guardian editorial on the financial crisis & cuts in spending

Guardian editorial on the financial crisis and the likely cuts in spending - 'Public services: The rise and fall of the state.'

"Some have argued that we should cut public services," Alistair Darling said on Wednesday, before adding "immediately". That one word add-on to Labour's standard attack on the Tories was perhaps the most telling moment in his whole budget speech, an implicit concession that the two frontbenches are now agreed that there will be big cuts to services. The dispute between the parties is no longer if but merely when the axe will fall. [...]

The single biggest slug of public money goes on paying the public wage bill, and nurses and teachers will soon feel discouraged if their salaries fail to keep pace with the general standard of living. Indeed some will vote with their feet, at which point pupils and patients will feel the effect. The second great tranche of the cash goes on state benefits, easily the most expensive of which is the retirement pension. This will only add to the pressure since - starting next year - the ageing of society will pick up pace, as the baby boomers start to reach pensionable age. And all the while, new cancer drugs and other technologies will be adding to the pressure on services. [...]

True, there are some things, notably Trident and ID cards, which this newspaper would be keen to see scrapped. But although each of these misguided projects has a total price tag in the low tens of billions, the year-on-year costs consume a minuscule share of the state's overall budget.[...]

Many secondary fields of state spending, such as housing, have already been cut to the bone. Other cuts around the edges - imposing museum charges or privatising the BBC, for example - might soon be on the agenda, but would impoverish public life without fully fixing the public finances.

In large part, at least, the savings are likely to come from those items of spending whose relative importance has grown non-stop since the second world war - health, education and social security.

The Guardian columnists' view of the budget.

The Guardian columnists' view of the budget.

Jonathan Freedland’s offered an assessment that was no doubt similar to much of the Left's.

To see Alistair Darling deliver his budget was like watching a man pushed from a skyscraper window, falling calmly, even gracefully, as he somehow managed to remove his jacket, raise it above his head and tie it into a makeshift parachute.  You couldn't help but admire his ingenuity and optimism - but you still felt sure it was bound to end in a sticky mess.

Polly Toynebee’s Labour-friendly, if no more optimistic, viewpoint - 'Polly Toynbee: At last, a budget where the super-rich's bluff is called. Shame it's all too late'

When the new 50% rate kicks in next April, this last social democratic flag may be drowning, not waving

Is this a people's budget? It did soak the rich - just listen to their indignation. The 1.5% who earn over £100,000 will yet again claim an assault on "middle England". They will protest that productivity, growth, aspiration and the very future of the nation will be imperilled by skimming just a little cream off top earners. […]

Taxation is the only easy way to restore a very small measure of sanity to the unjust rewards of the rich. […]

Wealth has lost touch with reality: however often the rich are reminded that 98.5% of people don't earn £100,000 and only 10% earn over £40,000, they insist they are only "ordinary" and "middling". How cleverly the newsrooms of the right, led by extravagant earners, have diverted popular wrath on to the handful of public servants who earn more than the prime minister - without adding that this is an inevitable, if reprehensible, leakage from private-sector greed. […]

On the cuts

It hardly bears thinking about what these numbers will do to the old and disabled, children in care, children's centres or prisons. Councils will be left with shrivelled budgets to meet soaring demands from more old people and more deprived children. After the years of plenty, public servants have no experience in how to manage the coming famine. George Osborne's promise to cut now and even deeper suggests he too has no understanding of the misery this means.

For more on the 2009 budget see

• 'Andrew Neil on the 50% income tax rate for higher earners'
  
• 'Labour & press relations'
• 'Budget talk and press management'

If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments were part of a ‘vitriolic’ ‘rambling polemic’, are the words of Israel's deputy PM better?

If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments made during his speech were part of a ‘vitriolic’ ‘rambling polemic’, are the words of Silvan Shalom, Israel's deputy prime minister, any more conducive to building an international consensus on racism?

"What Iran is trying to do right now is not far away at all from what Hitler did to the Jewish people just 65 years ago," Shalom said at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp, hours before a Holocaust memorial ceremony.

Iran "is trying to do everything they can in order to wipe Israel off the map and at the same time to undermine the moderate Arab Muslim regimes in the Middle East." [...]

Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said that Barack Obama, the US president, was strongly opposed to Ahmadinejad's comments.

"This is hateful rhetoric. It is, I think, one of the reasons why you saw the administration and the president determined that its participation in this conference was not a wise thing to do."

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, condemned Ahmadinejad's "speech of hate" and called for a "firm and united" reaction from the European Union.

A view on the walkout.

Antony Lerman - ‘Ahmadinejad, Durban and another fine mess’

Iran's president may have derailed the UN meeting. But rather than walk out, delegates should have stayed to argue their case […]

[The meeting] appears to have been completely derailed by a publicity-seeking, not especially powerful politician, desperately campaigning for re-election as president. And meanwhile, the millions whose lives are utterly blighted by racial discrimination, violence and hatred are relegated to a footnote. Part farce, part tragedy? Seeking refuge in humour doesn't seem an entirely inappropriate way of responding when none of it seems to make any sense.

Some who stayed in their seats clapped and cheered. In whose interests? Did the anti-Israel rhetoric at the 2001 Durban anti-racism conference help alleviate the plight of the Palestinians one iota? No. The last eight years have seen a gross deterioration in their position. Did the attempt to brand Zionism a form of racism help bring closer an end to the aggressive settlement policy on the West Bank? No. It continued apace. And with the new rightwing dominated government now in power in Israel, that policy looks likely to intensify. The Palestinians, who deserve no less than a complete and immediate end to occupation and all the repressive policies and human rights abuses that go with it, lost out then and will lose out again. […]

[T]he boycotts by the US, Canada, Israel, Italy and others only hand a kind of victory on a plate to those who want to hijack the conference for their own, narrow political purposes. Since when has the UN been a children's tea party? It can't help for powerful countries to give the impression that they cannot make the arguments that need to be made against Ahmadinejad and his ilk. And these arguments need to be addressed to a wider world audience. And in whose interests is it for Israel to be playing the victim? Israel too is perfectly capable of making its arguments. What on earth will withdrawing its ambassador from Switzerland achieve? When the dust settles, it will be easy for other states to ask: "Why should we entertain the likes of a far right racist like your foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman?"

Crass journalism muddles already murky understanding.

UPDATE

The Guardian article I criticise now appears on the Guardian website in an edited form having recognised its inaccuracies and been corrected.  It now contains the following clarification:

This clarification was published on Tuesday 21 April 2009.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, deviated from his prepared speech to the UN racism conference, omitting the phrase "the ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust". The original text was given to journalists by the Iranian mission to the UN, and was included in the report below in good faith.

The post quotes parts of the Guardian article that have subsequently been corrected.

My original post read as follows

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a contentious figure. Contemptible statements have been attributed to him – and contested. In short, many view him as an anti-Semite. This claim emerges primarily from his pronouncements on the Holocaust and Israel. He allegedly denies the Holocaust and argues that Israel should be ‘wiped of the map’. The claims made in his defence are that his words were poorly translated, taken out of context, exaggerated and manipulated. This is certainly true, to some extent.

It is interesting to note that even the Guardian, arguably the most left leaning British broadsheet, opted not to report the apparent applause for parts of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech to the United Nations. They preferred to focus on the less appealing aspects of his speech.

When he did speak, he was even more vitriolic than they had feared. In a rambling polemic, Ahmadinejad questioned the reality of the Holocaust, accused Israel of genocide and spoke of a wide-ranging Zionist conspiracy, triggering pandemonium and a coordinated walkout by Britain and other EU states.

This is not true. Ahmadinejad had not ‘questioned the reality of the Holocaust’ ‘triggering pandemonium and a coordinated walkout by Britain and other EU states’. If he did question the reality of the Holocaust in this speech, it was after the walkout. If he did question the reality of the Holocaust in this speech, I am yet to find evidence as an entire transcript is not yet available*. The BBC news ‘In quotes: Ahmadinejad speech’ provides no evidence of Holocaust denial in this speech. It is worth reiterating, if he did question the reality of the Holocaust in this speech, it was after the walkout.

It is true that Ahmadinejad accused Israel of genocide and spoke of a wide-ranging Zionist conspiracy. Talk of genocide of Palestinians came after the walkout had begun.

I am not arguing about the contents of Ahmadinejad’s speech, its merits or its demerits (although I may do at a later date). Nor am I arguing in defence of him or his regime – just type ‘Iran’ into Human Rights Watch to see Iran’s hall of shame. I would welcome greater exposure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s deplorable actions. It is the opportunism and needless exaggeration that I deplore. Crass journalism muddles our already murky understanding. The report should be balanced rather than put through a filter that makes the story less edifying.

For supporting evidence follow the links in - 'Walkout at Iran leader's criticism of Israel'

* See UPDATE below

For more on this story see

• 'The not always reliable Russia Today offers a slightly different account of the reaction to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Durban speech on racism'.

• 'If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments were part of a ‘vitriolic’ ‘rambling polemic’, are the words of Israel's deputy PM better?'

• 'A view on the walkout'

UPDATE

The complete speech is now available on youtube

Walkout at Iran leader's criticism of Israel

See footage of the walkout at Iran leader's speech on racism at UN conference - BBC news - 'Walkout at Iran leader's speech'.

Mr Ahmadinejad, the only major leader to attend the conference, said Jewish migrants from Europe and the United States had been sent to the Middle East after World War II "in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine".

He continued, through an interpreter: "And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine." […]

Two protesters, wearing coloured wigs, disrupted the start of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech - followed by a mass walkout of Western delegates.

Al Jazeera - 'Israel criticism sparks UN walkout'

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continued,] "The UN security council has stabilised this occupation regime and supported it in the last 60 years giving them a free hand to continue their crimes," he told delegates at the Durban Review Conference hall in Geneva. [...]

"The Iraqi people have suffered enormous losses ... wasn't the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists ... in the US administration, in complicity with the arms manufacturing companies?". Many delegates who remained in the hall applauded Ahmadinejad's comments. […]

Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera's correspondent at the conference, said Ahmadinejad had reiterated his views on Israel, especially over its 22-day war on Gaza. He said: "At the time [of the offensive] he said what was going on in Gaza was a genocide ... this was an opportunity for him to say that at a world forum. "There are people in the hall who believe that what Ahmadinejad was saying is correct - that is why there is such a split here." […]

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, condemned Ahmadinejad's "speech of hate" and called for a "firm and united" reaction from the European Union. Jonas Gahr Store, Norway's foreign minister, said the Iranian leader's comments had "run counter to the very spirit of dignity of the conference ... he made Iran the odd man out".

The speech by Ahmadinejad, who is a frequent critic of Israel and has cast doubt on the extent of the killing of Jews during the Second World War, coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, which begins at sundown on Monday.

The United States, Canada, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, had earlier said they would not attend the conference amid fears Ahmadinejad would use the summit to propagate anti-Semitic views. […]

The UN organised the summit to help heal the wounds left by its last racism conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, when the US and Israel walked out after Arab states sought to define Zionism as being racist.

The Guardian - 'Britain walks out of conference as Ahmadinejad calls Israel 'racist''.

France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, speaking before Ahmadinejad's speech, said "we will not tolerate any blunder or provocation" from Ahmadinejad, who has referred to the Holocaust as a myth and called for Israel to be "wiped off the pages of history". […]

The Foreign Office said in a statement, also released before the speech: "The United Kingdom has argued strongly for the concluding document to contain adequate language on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism. We will find unacceptable any attempt to use the Durban process to trivialise or deny the Holocaust, or to renegotiate agreements on the fight against antisemitism." […]

Ahmadinejad's speech and press conference will be carefully scrutinised for his tone towards the US after Barack Obama's recent overtures to Tehran. The Iranian president has ruled out compromise on Iran's nuclear programme, but has occasionally raised hopes of a thaw in US-Iranian relations, as he did yesterday when he insisted that an Iranian-American journalist, sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison on espionage charges, should be guaranteed the full right to defend herself in her appeal. The Iranian government today urged Obama not to comment on the case.

Loan recipients risk a Friedmanite tourniquet, cutting off their economic lifeblood

Polly Toynbee on the IMF and developing nations – ‘Wall Street wounded Ghana.  IMF tonic could hurt it more’ 

Small but steady growth has been undermined by a banking crisis far away.  Now is a test of whether G20 aid will really help [...]

This is a good place to survey what Wall Street and the City did to the world.  Ghana, which has met its millennium goals on children in primary education and cutting poverty, has been an economic and political success story, with high growth.  A centre-left government has just taken over after hard-fought but peaceful elections.  It is better protected than some, the prices of its gold and cocoa holding up in the recession.  Offshore oil will flow in a few years.

But last year world food and oil prices soared.  […]  Oxfam economists point out that this was not caused by profligacy, but by external events last year.  A further source of bitterness: if rich countries had kept their 2005 Gleneagles promises, as Britain did, Ghana would have received $1bn, with no need to borrow at all.

Where should Ghana turn?  To the IMF, of course, now the G20 has swelled its treasury.  But there is deep political and public resistance after previous bad experience.  Remember how humiliated Britain felt going cap in hand to the fund in 1976.  Ghanaians know how World Bank and IMF largesse came with neoliberal quack remedies.

Cutting public services, making the poor poorer, putting cash crops and trade before welfare was the old IMF way.  It was the IMF that insisted on meters for Ghana's water supply, demanding full cash recovery for the service, steeply raising costs for the poorest.  The World Bank insisted on a private insurance model for Ghana's health service that has been administratively expensive and wasteful.  The new government rejects it, promising free healthcare for children.  The IMF wants subsidies for electricity removed, again hitting the poorest hardest.  A market policy of making individuals pay full cost for vital services instead of general taxation has made the IMF hated; Ghana has now voted for more social democratic solutions.  Freedom from the IMF feels like a second freedom from colonialism to many countries.  […]

Arnold Mcintyre, the IMF's representative in Ghana, insists that it would be entirely up to the government to propose its own measures.  This is, to put it politely, disingenuous.

Perspecives of the changing relationship of the U.S. and Cuba

The Guardian Editorial focuses on the U.S politics. US-Cuba: a little less lonely

The United States boycott of Cuba is so out of step with the attitude of the rest of the world that it sometimes seems as though it is Washington - not Havana - that has been isolated by the policy. When the United Nations general assembly debated the long-standing US embargo last year, the disjunction between the US and the rest over Cuba was almost total: fully 185 countries voted against the US policy, while just three - the US, Israel and the Pacific island of Palau - voted in favour. As a definition of a policy failure, this takes some beating.

President Barack Obama's decision to relax the sanctions that prevent the 1.6 million Cuban-Americans from visiting the island when they wish and from sending as much money to relatives as they choose therefore marks a significant shift in approach. Do not, though, exaggerate it. The new policy is not a complete volte-face. As Fidel Castro himself said in a statement on Monday, the trade embargo, the most significant of all the US measures, remains in place. Americans of non-Cuban descent are still barred from visiting. Further normalisation leading to diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba is still some way off. Mr Obama might have more trouble than it is worth persuading Congress to lift some of these restrictions.

Writer and historian Richard Gott offers a celebratory account. A triumph of common sense over ancient prejudice

The poetry of revolution has been exchanged for the prosaic reality of everyday life in an isolated and beleaguered island. Yet now at last there is a fresh chance that this magical society, whose revolutionary­ process aroused so much hope and excitement­ half a century ago, can pursue the unique, independent role it once created for itself, without brutal pressures from outside. [...] For the Americans, this is a triumph of common sense over ancient prejudice. It is clearly designed to pave the way to a rapprochement that will lead eventually to a complete normalisation of relations – a decision that will ease the path of the Obama administration towards a new ­friendship with the left-inclined countries of Latin America who have long since made their peace with Cuba.

Rory Carroll offers a less romanticised assessment. Open for business.

No one starves, but for most Cubans life is a daily grind. Absurdly low monthly wages of $22 have spawned a nation of hustlers and micro-capitalists. Many have a sideline, a scam, to make ends meet. This thin strip in the Caribbean is not quite the "museum of socialism" that some depict. But there is no doubting it is Fidel's living, breathing creation. It is unique. A tropical communist state carved by one's man vision, charisma and ruthlessness. Now Cubans hope an apertura will blow some ­ vitality into its moribund economy.

The Havana beloved by European and ­Canadian tourists is a time-warp stereotype: colonial-era architecture, 1950s Chevys and Buicks cruising the streets, not a Starbucks in sight, and a population ready to fiesta at the mention of rum. Crime is near nonexistent, the health service and education system are fantastic, and salsa rules the night.[...]

Much of that image is romanticised. Up close, the handsome buildings stink from bad plumbing. Chinese buses and Skodas are replacing the tail-fins. A diet of starch and grease has widened waistlines and roughened skin. Pregnant women and infants receive stellar medical care but many hospitals and schools are foul, victims of degradation since the economic crisis in the 90s. [...]

More tourist dollars would narrow a massive trade deficit and bring desperately needed ­foreign currency, which is why the government is building and extending resorts and marinas. The boom would also aggravate ­inequalities: white, better-educated Cubans in ­cities and the west of the island would benefit more than darker-skinned compatriots in slums and villages.

Cuba seems already poised for change. Free elections, consumer culture, internet cafes, porn­ography, well-stocked supermarkets, obesity: it may come in a rush, or bit by bit, but transformation will come. The result will be an island that looks more like everywhere else. For some outsiders that may be cause for regret. So be it. Cuba is not their island and they do not live there. If Cubans want to be more like the rest of the world, warts and all, who has the right to stop them?

Aljazeera report on Castro’s response to the measures, which he describes as "positive although minimal" - Castro welcomes US Cuba moves.

Castro, 82, also criticised the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, for leaving the 47-year US trade embargo against Cuba in place. [...] "The measure of easing the restrictions on trips is positive although minimal. Many others are needed," Castro had written in the first of two online columns that the US had announced the repeal of "several hateful restrictions," but had stopped short of real change. "Of the blockade, which is the cruellest of measures, not a word was uttered," the former president wrote. "In effect, it's a form of genocide. Harm cannot only be measured by its economic effects. It has a constant cost in human lives and it causes our citizens painful suffering," Castro said.

The Telegraph's Alex Spillius argues Change is slow in Cuba – and that suits just about everyone.

A good rule of thumb in predicting Barack Obama's foreign policy in a given area has been to reverse the course taken by George W Bush. This week has seen a sterling example, in the shape of relations with Cuba. [...]But, tellingly, the President did not present these changes himself. That was left to his press secretary Robert Gibbs, who made the announcement on the afternoon of Easter Monday, a piece of stagecraft designed to bury the news as far down the evening bulletins as possible.

For all his pretensions to be a herald of change, Mr Obama can still see the risks in sticking his neck out on Cuba. Already concerned about reaching out too far to countries that really matter, such as Iran and Russia, the White House is satisfied with slow progress in dealing with a strategically extraneous – and electorally sensitive – island of 11 million people. [...]

If the Castros lost the embargo, an estimated 500,000 extra Americans would make the short flight south in just the first year, generating approximately $1.5 billion worth of business. But would Cuba suddenly become a thriving tourist paradise?

Even travel agents gagging to fill charter flights from New York wonder if a country where foreigners have long complained about bad food, sluggish service and iffy infrastructure is ready for an onslaught of Americans unseen since the days of Al Capone and his cronies. Cuba has a limited number of hotel rooms and most are already full of Canadians and Europeans. Droves of Americans could be more than Cuba can handle. [...] In other words, everyone says they want change in Cuba, but no one is confident about how it will turn out – hence why the slow approach seems to suit everyone just fine.