Russia tightens grip on Georgia
Russia closed in on the Caucasus yesterday as an all-out war against Georgia looked ever more imminent. Kremlin troops had seized control of strategic towns near the capital Tbilisi, forcing a hugely outnumbered Georgian army to pull back its troops to defend the city. In one nearby town, Gori, Georgian... [continued]
Russia knew the West wouldn't dare step in 
Spectre of war threatens Putin's Olympics
Couple ‘may have known killers’
Two Newcastle University graduates who were brutally murdered in their flat may have known their killers, and let them into their flat, police said yesterday. The bodies of Xi Zhou and her boyfriend, Zhen Xing Yang, both aged 25, were found on beds in separate rooms in their flat near... [continued]
Zimbabwe talks end in deadlock
Talks between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai faltered yesterday over the Zimbabwe president's proposal that a coalition cabinet report to him. Tsvangirai has demanded that political power be shifted to him as the executive prime minister of a coalition government. The second round of gruelling talks, a 14-hour... [continued]
Zimbabwe Today: exclusive reports from Moses Moyo in Harare
Alcohol use may cut rape payouts
Rape victims have been told their compensation may be cut if they had been drinking alcohol prior to their attack. In the past year at least 14 victims seeking compensation were told they would get less money because of alchol, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) has confirmed. One woman,... [continued]
LAPD: ‘Rockefeller’ may be suspect
Clark Rockefeller, the man accused of abducting his seven-year-old daughter Reigh Storrow Boss in Boston last month, has been revealed as a German national who is wanted for questioning over the disappearance of a California couple 23 years ago. Los Angeles detectives said they had "positively identified" the man who... [continued]
Kidnapper not one of us, say Rockefellers
Inflation hits 11-year high
Inflation hit a record high of 4.4 per cent in July, more than double the Bank of England's two per cent target and the highest level since 1997. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped from a previous high of 3.8 per cent in June. The surge, which was in line... [continued]
Zara closes in on Gap
The Spanish fashion chain Zara has overtaken the American clothes retailer Gap as the world's largest retailer. A nine per cent increase in sales in the first quarter of the financial year, to €2.218bn (£1.7bn) saw Zara's parent company Inditex nudge past the US chain, which saw its revenues fall... [continued]
As Russian troops approach Tbilisi
The troubles in Georgia are not the equivalent of an assassinated archduke in Sarajevo, writes Simon Sebag Montefiore. But historians may well point to this little war, beside the spectacular Olympic launch of resurgent China, as the start of the twilight of America's sole world hegemony. If the new Great Game is for the oil of the Caucasus and Central Asia, the West may be in the process of losing it. The retaking of Ossetia is a minor part of the Russian campaign. More significant is the attack on Georgia proper, which reasserts Russia's hegemony over the Caucasus, assuages the humiliations of the past 20 years, subverts Georgian democracy - and defies and defangs American superpowerdom. The swaggering arrival of Vladimir Putin, now the Prime Minister, across the border, macho in his tight jeans and white leather jacket, shows he, not President Medvedev, remains Russia's paramount leader. Simon Sebag Montefiore The Times
Full article: Another battle in the 1,000-year Russia-Georgia grudge match
News in Pictures: War in the Caucasus
Despite moans of wishful outrage to the contrary, the small, democratic ally is not a Weberian ideal type or a Platonic form, says James Poulos. Mikheil Saakashvili is a deeply imperfect leader, prone to beating his domestic opposition in the streets, and the Georgia he leads is a country that has been fragmented from birth. The anti-Russian reaction obscures the basic particularity of the Georgian situation, and all the history that informs it. Treating the Georgia we see on the map as if it were as sovereign and whole as the state of Israel, or Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, sets us down a path of danger and confusion. The fact of the matter is that the territorial integrity of Georgia has been continuously undermined from within since the Abkhazians and South Ossetians first rebelled in the early 1990s.
James Poulos The Guardian
Full article: The real wake-up call of South Ossetia
Russia knew the West wouldn't dare step in
Invertebrate liberals
The US publishers Random House pulled The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones, due out today, on the ground that it "might be offensive to some in the Muslim community". Recently, writes Mick Hume, the BBC hospital soap Casualty changed Muslim terrorists into animal rights activists. The threat to freedom here does not come from a few Islamic radicals, but from the invertebrate liberals of the cultural establishment who have so lost faith in themselves that they will surrender their freedoms before anybody starts a fight. The mere suggestion of causing offence to some mob of imagined stereotypes is enough to have them scurrying for a bomb shelter, their creative imaginations blowing up small protests into the threat of a big culture war. Of course, such pre-emptive grovelling only encourages any zealot with a blog to demand even more censorship. Mick Hume The Times
Full article: A festival of grovelling to terrorists
Nightmare in Gatwick
In the baggage reclaim area at Gatwick, I knew we stood in hell, says Boris Johnson. Across the vast neon-lit Hades were knots and clumps of dejected humanity. Some sat and stared at the barren carousels; some tried to cheer themselves up by pretending to be their own missing luggage. Every so often a Pyongyang-style announcement would come over the loudspeaker, proclaiming that the baggage of this or that flight would be making an appearance "shortly". "Huh," said a woman who had arrived on a flight from Las Palmas. "That's what they said two-and-a-half hours ago." To call this service 'Third World' is an insult to the many gleaming and efficient airports of developing nations. In their contemptuous indifference to the customer, the airport authorities remind me of the 1970s, and the trades unions of my childhood. Boris Johnson Daily Telegraph
Full article: Fly into Gatwick and see why London needs another airport
London's budget Olympics
London 2012 - the great moment for which Britain will have been waiting for more than 60 years will convey this bold message to every nation on earth: well, it may not be great but at least it is on budget. If that, says Terence Blacker, is the image which Tessa Jowell, Boris Johnson and Sebastian Coe have in mind for Britain, then we are in for an embarrassing four years, culminating in a summer of low-grade humiliation. Setting poorer nations an example of how to mount the greatest sporting event in the world on a budget – in other words, downgrading a great life-affirming extravaganza into a worthy demonstration of fiscal responsibility – 2012 will be a demoralising confirmation of the old cliché about our being a nation of shopkeepers.
In Brief
Green is now posh
In these straitened times, green is now linked with posh. Only people educated at Eton shop at farmers' markets, we are now told. Real people are grappling with more immediate concerns. The Tories' green commitment is in danger of being reduced to "it would be nice if you would dispose of your litter".
John Kampfner The Guardian
Full article: Why Huggy Cameron has performed a vanishing act
Democracy needs policing
The West needs to change its terms of engagement with Africa to go beyond applying pressure for transparency on the eve of elections. All the evidence from countries that have overcome corruption and incompetence in their police force indicates that improvements in areas such as better housing, insurance and health care are likely to yield far better results than increasing pay.
Murithi Mutiga The Independent
Full article: End the sham of African democracy
Biodiversity in Beijing
Olympic athletes can run fast, swim fast, fly through the air, hurl unlikely bits of stuff unimaginable distances, twist and tumble, strike balls with hands and feet and sticks, ride horses, sail boats, shoot guns, propel arrows, wield swords, lift up chunks of iron, thump each other, chuck each other about, kick each other in the crotch, jump over things, skip about with ribbons, stick their heads in the water and wave their legs in the air, ride bikes.
Simon Barnes The Times
Full article: Olympic Games: now that's what I call real biodiversity
Your unpaid labour
The best estimate of the time that a household spends on sorting items for recycling - not only run-of-the-mill household rubbish but food and garden waste too - is 45 minutes each week. There are 24 million households, so that adds up to 900 million hours of unpaid labour every year.
Tim Worstall The Times
Full article: The hidden cost of recycling
French ideas
Privately, the French must be laughing their heads off. In the 1970s, at the time of the first oil shock, they were irked that Britain could fall back on North Sea reserves. They decided to interpret this imbalance as a sign of French superiority. A government slogan quickly caught on: "En France, on n'a pas de pétrole, mais on a des idées." (In France, we don't have any oil, but we do have ideas).
Tracy Corrigan Daily Telegraph
Full article: We must entrust France with our nuclear energy
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