Author: Mick Hartley

Another triumph for European diplomacy:

There is one thing that seems to unite all parties in Bosnia eleven years after the war: extreme dislike of the country’s international overseer, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, a German diplomat .

The 76-year-old regularly falls asleep in important meetings, fails to control hardline local politicians and has let international policy drift, according to officials and a report released today.

“International policy in Bosnia is in disarray, and a new engagement strategy is required,” said the International Crisis Group (ICG), a respected Brussels-based think-tank….

The report highlighted some of the shortcomings of Mr Schwarz-Schilling, who since January 2006 has held the position of High Representative, the country’s de facto international overseer.

Mr Schwarz-Schilling has been criticised by international and Bosnian diplomats and local officials.

Officials working for the Office of the High Representative OHR and other organisations have described how the unpopular German diplomat, who earns in excess of 200,000 per year, has dozed off in crucial meetings. One of the worst incidents was when Mr Schwarz-Schilling went to meet the Mothers of Srebrenica, the organisation representing the relatives of those 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men massacred in July 1995.

Despite efforts made by the mothers to keep him awake as he met them, including clapping, the diplomat fell asleep.

Reading about the “post-war humour of the English elite”, as collected by Countess Mountbatten – she asked those in her circle to contribute amusing anecdotes for a book to be auctioned for charity – makes me glad I was born too late (and too poorly connected) to attend those glittering dinner parties.

There you all are, seated round the table. The soup course is being served. One of the guests, A.A.Milne, breaks the silence. “Heard this little story the other day…..”:

The Young Priest was nervous, for this was the first day on which he had officiated. As the woman came into the confessional, he tried to remember all the instruction he had received from the Old Priest, and to forget that the latter was listening in to them, noting for correction or approval his conduct of the occasion.

“You did very well, my son,” said the Old Priest, “very well indeed.” The Young Priest flushed with pride, and stammered out his thanks. “Indeed, yes, excellently well.” The Old Priest turned away as if to leave and then turned back.

“Just one small suggestion, perhaps.” He paused for a moment, fingering his chin. “Generally speaking,” he went on, choosing his words carefully, “when the more exotic passages of a confession seem to call for some interjectory comment, one finds that an occasional tut-tut-tut of shocked admonition is more helpful than a prolonged whistle of fascinated incredulity.”

Polite laughter round the table. “That’s awfully good, A.A – isn’t it Millicent dear? Must remember that one.” “Yes, awfully good.” “Prolonged whistle! Wonderful!” Silence returns, broken only by the clink of spoon on china. Heads bend forward to inbibe the Cream of Mushroom soup; eyes stare desperately at the wall over the heads of the diners opposite. Not to fear, though…Cecil Beaton’s here. Good old Cecil! Such a wit! He sets aside his spoon, and leans back…

A few anecdotes stick in my mind as being amusing. Many of them centre around that great personality the Late Lady Oxford — Margot was extremely kind but extremely frank. Once at a wedding reception she waylaid the guests in the hall as they were about to greet the newly-weds and warned them in a stage whisper: “Don’t go upstairs, the bride is hideous!”

Does the laughter seem perhaps a little more forced this time? What’s that strange sound? – and is it really your mouth it’s coming from?

Silence descends again. You’ve finished the soup. Perhaps if you mop around the bowl with a piece of bread…but can one do that sort of thing in this distinguished company?

Now Dame Agatha Christie breaks the silence and clears her throat. “Do you know..” she starts, and gives a little laugh…

“I once gave one of my books to the very charming girl who did my hair. My next visit was six months later and as she started the shampoo, she said, ‘It was so kind of you to give me one of your books and I’m getting on with it splendidly! I’ve got to the third chapter already’.”

“Ha Ha! Most amusing, Dame Agatha!”

The soup course is barely finished. There’s the entree to come; the main course; dessert. Hours more of this. Should you feign some kind of fit? Slump forward in your chair…..or perhaps slide gracefully sideways onto the floor?

Oh no!….Douglas Fairbanks Jr is leaning forward with a smile. He has an amusing little anecdote to tell….

e been advising various elements of new Labour on how to improve the care of small children.

Mind you, as this Times editorial points out, it’s all nonsense:

Children’s charities, which are becoming dangerously political, have seized on these conclusions as evidence of a long-hidden crisis. The truth is that from its key premises to its sources and methodology this report is flawed, biased and a blatant abuse of the trust that many readers misguidedly place in documents published under the Unicef banner.

There is no new research in the report. Much of its data is drawn from a seven-year-old survey by the OECD programme for international student assessment and a six-year-old World Health Organisation study of “health behaviour in school-age children”. None of it relates to pre-school-age children. And it places heavy emphasis on relative as opposed to absolute child poverty on the ground that “the cutting edge of poverty is the contrast . . . between the lives of the poor and the lives of those around them”.

What unalloyed, ideological nonsense. Let’s punish rich and successful countries whose working classes, by global standards, are unimaginably wealthy. “Not having the right trainers”, as one of the report’s researchers put it yesterday, is apparently worse for a child’s wellbeing than having none at all. The report acknowledges that “relative poverty” means an average family income of $24,000 or less in the US (21st out of 21 in this ranking) but just $7,000 or less in Hungary (13th). Yet it takes scant account of this in its conclusions. It also ignores data showing a 50 per cent cut in the number of British children in absolute poverty since 1998, all lifted out of misery, ultimately, by the market economy that charities’ staff rely on for generosity but abhor as a matter of self-serving personal principle. […]

Peter Adamson, the writer of this report, co-founded the staunchly left-wing New Internationalist in the 1970s. He has now invited ridicule by caricaturing the world’s most dynamic economies as Dickensian child-abusers. This report hides the truth about children’s wellbeing behind an outdated ideology that has condemned hundreds of millions of children to cruel poverty.

From a BBC report, about Mugabe not being invited to the latest Franco-African summit:

In recent years, the country has been crippled by an economic crisis.

Critics blame President Mugabe’s policies, including the seizure of land from white commercial farmers.

But Mr Mugabe says Western countries have sabotaged the economy to punish his government for the land seizures.

From an earlier report, on inflation approaching 1600%:

Critics blame President Robert Mugabe’s politically-driven policies including the seizure of land from white commercial farmers.

But President Mugabe says Western countries have sabotaged the economy to punish his government for the land seizures.

On plans for Mugabe’s birthday:

Mr Mugabe blames foreign governments and his opponents for the crisis, but his critics say the problems started when he launched a controversial program to take back land from white farmers.

Inflation again:

Many experts blame the government’s mismanagement of the economy for the problems, but President Robert Mugabe says they are a result of domestic and foreign enemies.

And again:

President Robert Mugabe denies claims that government policies, including land reforms, have contributed to these problems.

Mr Mugabe instead blames domestic and foreign enemies for the country’s difficulties.

The impartiality of the BBC is indeed a wonderful thing.

I realise this is just another example of academics trying to generate a few headlines for their beleaguered discipline, but really, what a load of bull:

Antony and Cleopatra, one of history’s most romantic couples, were not the great beauties that Hollywood would have us believe, academics have said.

A study of a 2,000-year-old silver coin found the Egyptian queen, famously portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor, had a pointed chin, thin lips and sharp nose.

Her Roman lover, played by Richard Burton, had bulging eyes, thick neck and a hook nose.

The tiny coin was studied by experts at Newcastle University.

The size of a modern 5p piece, the artefact from 32BC was in a collection belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, which is being researched in preparation for the opening of a new Great North Museum.

All that from a couple of tiny coins.

Some suggestions:

Perhaps the coin-makers weren’t particularly bothered about getting an accurate image. Very likely they’d never even seen Antony or Cleopatra anyway, what with TV being a few years off and all. And maybe they weren’t very good at doing profiles on tiny bits of metal.

After the murder of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Turkish nationalists are stepping up the pressure on critical voices like Orhan Pamuk (via b&w):

“Tell Orhan Pamuk to wise up!” one of the principal suspects in the Dink murder, right-wing extremist Yasin Hayal, a man with a criminal record, said publicly. The threat must have made a strong impression on the author.

Last week the self-proclaimed “Turkish Revenge Brigade” (TIT) posted a video on YouTube depicting Dink’s corpse next to photos of Pamuk. The lyrics of a song that accompanied the images read: “We cannot be friends with them.” The video ended with a shot of a Turkish flag and the head of a wolf — the symbol of Turkish ultra-nationalists, and the threat: “More will die.”

Pamuk, Turkey’s most famous writer and a man who ought to be the pride of this country as it seeks European Union membership, has been pursued by hate-mongering nationalists for some time, and he is not the only one. About a dozen Turkish writers, journalists and academics are currently the targets of hate-spewing, fanatical right-wing extremists.

Pamuk’s hasty departure shines a spotlight on the clash of cultures and the climate of agitation, intimidation and fear dissidents in Turkey currently face, especially those who dare to tackle national taboos — of which there are many, including the 1915 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which the Turkish government continues to dispute, Christian minorities, the Kurds and the PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) and, of course, Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish state.

According to statistics compiled by the Turkish Human Rights Foundation, close to 100 intellectuals have already been hauled before courts for voicing their critical opinions. Most have been charged with the crime of “insulting Turkishness,” or disparaging national institutions. Reactionary prosecutors use a notorious Turkish law known as Article 301 to persecute critical thinkers. […]

The roots of the problem are deeply embedded in a highly traditional, conservative society, large segments of which have suddenly chosen to obstruct the country’s efforts to become integrated into the West. “The Turkey of today harbors a smaller modern society and a vast pre-modern society that live side by side, but not in the same era,” says sociologist Dogu Ergil.

Nationalists who prefer to drive their country into isolation rather than deliver it to “imperialistic enemies” in the West currently dominate the pre-modern segment of Turkish society.

Things aren’t getting any better in Zimbabwe:

Inflation in Zimbabwe has reached such proportions that it destroyed the value of a new national currency before a single one of its banknotes had been spent.

The world’s highest inflation rate, which rose to a record 1,594 per cent yesterday, rendered the new money worthless before it could be distributed. Mounds of banknotes — all paid for in scarce hard currency — are lying unused in warehouses. […]

Rather than release a currency whose largest banknote [Z$1000] is roughly the value of one tomato, the Reserve Bank in the capital, Harare, simply stockpiled the useless money.

At present, prices in Zimbabwe are doubling roughly every 30 days. By next month, the new currency’s largest banknote will be worth about half a tomato. […]

Inflation began accelerating after Mr Mugabe’s regime crippled commercial agriculture — Zimbabwe’s biggest export earner — by seizing white-owned farms. Having disabled the engine of the economy and destroyed its tax base, the government resorted to printing money to pay its own bills.

This boosted inflation and drove down the value of the currency. Prices soared in 2005 when Mr Mugabe repaid Zimbabwe’s debts to the International Monetary Fund. The Reserve Bank accomplished this feat by the simple expedient of printing about Z$21 trillion.

Last week 180,000 civil servants, who had their salaries trebled in January, demanded another increase of 400 per cent. This would keep their earnings slightly above one US dollar (52 pence) per day — the internationally accepted measure of absolute poverty. But the value of a 400 per cent pay rise will be wiped out within four months.

Meanwhile, the regime has announced that it will spend £600,000 on national celebrations of Mr Mugabe’s 83rd birthday on Feb 21. Zimbabwe’s general public are being asked to make donations.

So all is sweetness and light:

North Korea has agreed to take the first steps towards nuclear disarmament in return for fuel aid.

Chinese envoy Wu Dawei said an important consensus had been reached at the end of six-party talks in Beijing.

He said Pyongyang had agreed to close its Yongbyon reactor in return for 50,000 metric tons of fuel aid.

Under the deal, North Korea will eventually receive another one million tonnes of fuel oil when it permanently disables its nuclear operations.

50,000 metric tons of fuel aid for just saying they’ll close their reactor? Not bad. This nuclear blackmail business really works. But given Kim Jong-Il’s record with agreements, this really means just about nothing.

Thank God for the National Secular Society (via):

Reacting to news that a student who published a satirical issue of the student magazine that poked fun at religion is to be disciplined, Terry Sanderson, President of the NSS said: “We are shocked that the staff and even the students union at this supposedly liberal college have joined the attack on this student because he had the temerity to poke fun at religion. Free expression is such a precious commodity and is under such ferocious attack at present from religious interests that it is disgraceful that no-one is standing up for this young man’s right to be rude about religion – even about Islam.”

Mr Sanderson has written to the master of Clare College, Professor Tony Bader and to the Senior Tutor, Patricia Fara as well as the president of the Students Union, Calum Davey, as follows:

“We write after seeing reports in the local Cambridge press [link added – MH] indicating that a contributor to your student magazine Clareification faces disciplinary action for having printed items that some people thought were “offensive” or “inflammatory”.

“If these reports are true, we wish to register our profound disquiet that a supposedly liberal college has reacted in this way. The reaction risks undermining one of the most precious and important rights that we have in this country: freedom of expression.

“Satire aimed at religion is no different to satire aimed at any other ideas and should not be punished or restrained. The freedom to poke fun at those who take themselves too seriously is a time-honoured tradition in this country. Regrettably, it is rapidly being eroded by cases like this. We urge you to think again and stand four-square behind the satirists, instead of disciplining them.

oy everything,” whereas the damage to the Islamic world of a potential retaliatory nuclear attack could be limited: “It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.” While the Islamic world could sacrifice hundreds of thousands of “martyrs” in an Israeli retaliatory strike without disappearing–so goes Rafsanjani’s argument–Israel would be history after the first bomb.

It is precisely this suicidal outlook that distinguishes the Iranian nuclear weapons program from those of all other countries and makes it uniquely dangerous. As long ago as 1980, Khomeini put it this way: “We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.”

Anyone inclined to dismiss the significance of such statements might want to consider the proclamation made by Mohammad Hassan Rahimian, representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who stands even higher in the Iranian hierarchy than Ahmadinejad. A few months ago, on November 16, 2006, Rahimian explained: “The Jew”– not the Zionist, note, but the Jew –“is the most obstinate enemy of the devout. And the main war will determine the destiny of mankind. . . . The reappearance of the Twelfth Imam will lead to a war between Israel and the Shia.” The country that has been the first to make Holocaust denial a principle of its foreign policy is likewise the first openly to threaten another U.N. member state with, not invasion or annexation, but annihilation.