Daily News.

UK protesters released in Beijing

Two Britons arrested in China for unveiling pro-Tibet banners as the Olympic torch made its final journey across the city have been released and are awaiting deportation. Iain Thom, 24 from Edinburgh and Lucy Fairbrother, 23, from London climbed lampposts to demonstrate against China's presence in Tibet. Now... [continued]
Beijing 2008: speedy analysis, strong comment, enduring photographs

Madeleine ‘was stolen to order’ by paedophiles
British police received a tip-off that Madeleine McCann had been stolen to order by a group who took her photo in Praia da Luz three days before she vanished. An email sent by a Met officer in the UK said the tip-off was that paedophiles in Belgium placed an order... [continued]
October 2007: was Portuguese policeman incompetent?


Mugabe and Tsvangirai meet
Robert Mugabe is to meet Morgan Tsvangirai today for direct talks on a power-sharing deal brokered by South Africa's Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki suggested that Mugabe stay on as titular president of Zimbabwe with immunity from prosecution, while Tsvangirai, who won the country's last credible election in March at the head... [continued]
Zimbabwe Today: exclusive reports from Mugabe's Zimbabwe

Defra: expect 4C global warming
Defra's chief scientist says the country should prepare for a 4C rise in average global temperatures, despite an EU committment to ensure climate change causes no more than a 2C rise. Speaking about the EU policy, Professor Bob Watson said: "Given this is an ambitious target, and we don't know... [continued]
Two years to climate change meltdown
Time to declare a war on climate change

Archbishop backs gay partnerships
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has said in a leaked private letter that gay relationships are "comparable to marriage" in the eyes of God. In the letter, written shortly before he became archbishop, Dr Williams says: "An active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might... [continued]
The Catholic church and gay clergy

Gardener finds £1,000 of truffles
A gardener has unearthed 10 truffles, thought to be worth £1,000, in a garden in Plymouth. Forty-seven-year-old tree surgeon and gardener Chris Hunt dug up the truffles in Elaine Keith-Hill's garden when he cleared undergrowth around her several 150-year-old oak and beech trees. He said he knew immediately what they... [continued]


Bank expected to hold rate steady
Economists expect the Bank of England to hold interest rates at five per cent today, despite widespread fears that the UK economy is going into recession. The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee will announce its decision at noon, the latest round of its battle to balance the threats of accelerating inflation... [continued]
America and Europe will rise from the financial ashes

Angry brides march on HSBC
A bevy of brides and grooms, some wearing their wedding outfits, has marched on the headquarters of HSBC to protest the collapse of Wrapit, the wedding gift company. Wrapit, which went into administration on Monday, blames HSBC for not providing adequate support. About 60,000 gifts ordered on the site... [continued]

China...
China, for most of the past 2,000 years, has been a major world power, says Malcolm Rifkind. Indeed, for most of that time France, Britain or even Rome can be seen as modest empires in comparison. We often forget that, because the past 150 years of China's history were the exception, with internal collapse, political impotence and international humiliation. That is now in the past and, whatever the problems, it is healthy that China is now taking its rightful place. The stakes are high, but the Chinese are cautious and thoughtful people. Americans, and the rest of us, can remain watchful but relaxed, even as the dragon awakes. Malcolm Rifkind Daily Telegraph
Full article: China is a power to be watched, but not feared
Recession could kickstart the old powers and stifle the emerging ones
Europe and US must unite or be history's losers

Filed under: China
We aid and abet the Chinese dictatorship every day, warns Johann Hari. Communist suppression of workers’ rights knocks pounds off your weekly shopping bill. But there is another price tag. All over the world, wages are artificially depressed because you are competing with a workforce that is prevented by a police state from asking for more. Do you want all that power in the hands of a sober government that is becoming steadily more accountable to its people – or a dictatorship that will look hungrily for foreign enemies to distract its people? Johann Hari The Independent
Full article: Don't let the Games blind us to the plight of China's workers

Filed under: China, Johann Hari

...and the games
I just can't get interested in these Olympics, admits Matthew Parris. Nor am I hearing others talking much about them. There's plenty in the media, of course, particularly about the politics, China, human rights, drug tests, smog, etc; but about the games themselves, the contestants, the big contests - very little in the street, pub or bus. I sense a withdrawing tide of public interest in the whole institution, and in the events as events. The Olympics are choking themselves: choking themselves with puffed-upness and officialdom; choking themselves with money, with ceremony and committee, and with grandstanding and the trappings of state. Choking themselves with pride. Matthew Parris The Times
Full article: Beijing: G8 with Lycra
Olympics in pictures
Olympics: latest news

Filed under: Matthew Parris, Olympics
Greens doing their best
Julie Burchill has accused us greens of being posh hypocrites, says George Monbiot. In fact, environmentalism is the most politically diverse movement in history. I remember sitting in a campaign meeting during the Newbury bypass protests and marvelling at the weirdness of our coalition. In the front row sat the local squirearchy: brigadiers in tweeds and enormous moustaches, titled women in twin sets and headscarves. At the back sat the scuzziest collection of grunge-skunks I have ever laid eyes on. Sure, we are hypocrites. Every one of us, almost by definition. Hypocrisy is the gap between your aspirations and your actions. Greens have high aspirations – they want to live more ethically – and they will always fall short. But the alternative to hypocrisy isn't moral purity (no one manages that), but cynicism. Give me hypocrisy any day. George Monbiot The Guardian
Full article: I'd rather be a hypocrite than a cynic like Julie Burchill
Are we lying about our concern for the environment?

Filed under: George Monbiot, Environment
Crunch question
The credit crunch is the latest in a long line of financial bubbles and bursts that have marked, and marred, the industry ever since speculators went mad in the craze for tulips in the early 18th century, says Adrian Hamilton. But what makes this crisis different from those bubbles and banking crises we have had in the past is that this has been a crisis in the capital markets themselves and the confidence in the instruments traded in them. With the advantage of hindsight, there will be a great host of new regulations introduced nationally and internationally to improve oversight of the banks. The deeper question remains: does this financial tempest herald an end to a whole system of finance or merely its correction? Adrian Hamilton The Independent
Full article: It's not all the fault of the banks
Edward Luttwak: America and Europe can rise from the ashes

Filed under: Credit crunch, Adrian Hamilton



Nutty professor
Talking to a group of youngsters on his TV programme, writes Libby Purves, Dawkins offered them a choice as stark as any bonkers tin-hut preacher from the Quivering Brethren shouting: “Repent or burn!” If you offer a choice between science on one hand and faith and tradition on the other, too many people will reject science. A subtle and well-evolved species like us can accept both ammonites and Alleluias. Live with it, Prof. Libby Purves The Times
Full article: Richard Dawkins, the naive professor
The horror of a New Atheist world

Filed under: Libby Purves, Religion, Science

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In Brief
An empty idea
Libertarian paternalism, or nudging, is a half-baked political creed pinched by Cameron from the self-help bookshelf. Even so, he has staked out a limbo between the Left's command-and-control instinct and the Right's wish to expunge the state from family life. Mary Riddell Daily Telegraph
Full article: David Cameron's Tories nudge aside Labour's macho world
Briefing: 'Nudge' approach to policy explained

Filed under: Conservative Party, Mary Riddell



Green by necessity
The economic downturn has eclipsed environmentalism – but has actually made people greener. They buy less impulsively and think more carefully before their weekly shop. Children are wearing hand-me-down uniforms rather than new ones made in sweatshops. Alice Thompson The Times
Full article: Suddenly being green is not cool any more

Filed under: Alice Thompson, Environment
Men needed
Getting more male teachers into junior schools should be a priority, for the social and academic costs are too high to ignore. Perceived, as it is, as a job for women, it will take time to reverse this trend, so the Government must get started, and promote the idea of primary teaching as an acceptable and, indeed, desirable career path for men.


Leader Daily Telegraph
Full article: Please, sir: we need more male teachers

Filed under: Education
The importance of being Hamlet
The summit of any young (and not so young) actor's dramatic ambitions, Hamlet is the one role that nobody dares turn down in case he misses his chance. As Orson Welles said: "If that means playing it on a trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it." Michael Simkins Daily Telegraph
Full article: Hamlets come not single spies, but in battalions

Smell my truffle
The truffle is an acquired taste. It's intensely earthy, as if it had brought up the earth it was buried in, and something much more unnerving; a powerful illusion of a bodily odour. Some people have thought it had the distinct smell of unwashed genitals; I think it can strike one as more armpit-like, and certainly very masculine in tendency. Am I persuading anyone of its merits yet? Philip Hensher The Independent
Full article: Why Britain's foodies are digging truffles

Filed under: Philip Hensher
Road sense
London's roads, it emerged yesterday, are just as snarled up as they were before the congestion charge was introduced five years ago. So was it a costly mistake? Quite the opposite. The charge netted £137m last year and has cut the number of cars entering the central zone each day by 70,000. Without it, the capital's traffic problems would now be a great deal worse.
Leader The Guardian
Full article: In praise of... London's congestion charge

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