Brown unveils stamp duty ‘holiday’
Stamp duty will be axed for a year on properties costing less than £175,000, as part of a raft of measures unveiled by the Government that aims to loosen up the battered housing market. The move, which takes effect from tomorrow, raises the threshold on which one per cent stamp...
Evacuees began to return to their homes in and around New Orleans after Hurricane Gustav passed over the state of Louisiana as just a Category 1 storm, down from the feared Category 4 that had been predicted at one point last week. The hurricane itself passed to the west... [continued]
In pictures: Hurricane Gustav 
Thai state of emergency imposed
The Thai capital of Bangkok is under a state of emergency this morning after it was convulsed during a night of violence. One man was shot dead and many injured during pitched street battles between supporters and opponents of Samak Sundaravej's underfire government, Under the terms of the emergency... [continued]
People: Thaksin uses players as political pawns
EU presents united front to Russia
A summit meeting of the 27 European Union (EU) leaders in Brussels yesterday sent a strong message of support to the beleaguered Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili by demanding that Russia observe the terms of the ceasefire it agreed three weeks ago. The EU leaders also observed that relations between... [continued]
Miliband ratchets up the rhetoric against Russia
Palin vetting procedure questioned
As details emerged yesterday that her unmarried teenage daughter Bristol was five months pregnant, that her husband Todd had been arrested for alleged drink driving 20 years ago, and that Palin herself was under investigation of abusing her power as governor of Alaska, the McCain team was forced to defend... [continued]
Noble postures about racism
Racism, academic George Steiner said, is inherent in everyone. Racial tolerance is only skin-deep. 'It is very easy to sit here in this room and say racism is horrible,' he told his interviewer. 'But ask me the same thing if a Jamaican family moved next door with six children and they play reggae and rock music all day. He was making the point, says Max Hastings, that it is very easy for us middle-class types, living in our cosy social enclaves with not a black or brown face in sight, to strike noble postures about race and immigration. Too glibly, we demand from others a tolerance which costs us nothing. Max Hastings Daily Mail
George Steiner walks into race row
Full article: I'm not proud of it but human nature DOES sometimes make us all racist
Gordon Brown's victim mentality
Gordon Brown has always had something of a victim mentality, writes Rachel Sylvester. Even now, he (or his people) occasionally lapses into this way of thinking - he is the class warrior, oppressed by the wealthy Old Etonian David Cameron, or the brave captain, struggling to hold a course against global economic forces that are beyond his control - and now (how ironic this is) the long-suffering Prime Minister enduring a troublesome Chancellor. Some think it stems from a lengthy period pinned to a hospital bed and brooding after a rugby accident that left him with only one eye. The Big Clunking Fist is more aware of the punches raining down on him than of those he lands on others. Rachel Sylvester The Times
Full article: Gordon Brown now has nowhere to hide
Indians drown, West not interested
Two lethal forces of nature have cut a swath across two different regions of the globe in the past week, notes an Independent leader. Yet while the impact of Hurricane Gustav on the southern states of America has grabbed the world's attention, the [more] catastrophic floods in the Indian state of Bihar have barely registered on the international radar. It would be dishonest to ignore some of the darker reasons for the discrepancy in the media coverage of these two disasters. One is a failure of empathy in the West. People can envisage themselves stranded in New Orleans, but not a village in Bihar. And then there is the sad reality that, even in our globalised age, lives lost in the developing world are regarded as less newsworthy than lives lost in the rich world. Leader The Independent
In pictures: Hurricane Gustav causes chaos
Full article: A flood of sympathy, sometimes
Too many bigoted faith schools
Look no further than evidence from Northern Ireland to see how much worse divisions grow when 95 per cent of children meet no one from outside their sectarian schools, says Polly Toynbee. In Britain, more religious schools open this week, more still next year, all covertly. Consider too the craziness of creationism now taught in many more schools than before. Homophobic bullying is worse in faith schools - hardly surprising since most sects preach that gay sex is sin, in Islam one punishable by death. All religions were founded on women's inferiority. The state can't protect children from pernicious views and doctrines at home - but it has a duty to protect them in state schools. Polly Toynbee The Guardian
Full article: Faith schools may be Blair's most damaging legacy
Polly Toynbee, the great comic figure of the age
Spheres of influence return
Money, people, culture, business and electronic information cross porous frontiers in ever-increasing volume, writes Christopher Meyer. But as national boundaries dissolve in cyberspace, so everywhere the sense of nationhood and national interest strengthens. Five minutes in Beijing, Washington, Tehran or Moscow will tell you that. Now, Russia and the West need to draw up rules of the road for the 21st century. Mr Miliband and others have condemned the notion of returning to the geopolitics of the Congress of Vienna which, in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars, divided Europe into spheres of influence between empires and nations. They perhaps forget that what was agreed at Vienna held at bay for almost a century a general European war. Something similar is needed today, based again on spheres of influence. Christopher Meyer The Times
Peregrine Worsthorne: Georgia marks a return to superpower misbehaviour
In Brief
John Nance Garner IV
The first American Vice President, John Adams, described the post as "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived". The man who was Vice President of the United States from 1933 to 1941, summed up the job as "not worth a pitcher of warm piss". His name was John Nance Garner IV, a fact of which you will almost certainly need to be reminded – thus making his point. Dominic Lawson The Independent
Full article: Why Palin is a natural born winner
Palin: good news for the McCain coffers but the gossip just won't stop
Helping with inquiries
My mother, an American, was always amused, after coming to live in Britain, by the euphemism of "helping police with inquiries" for those who had just been arrested. "What helpful suggestions could you make?" she would say. "Have you thought of looking in the river?" Bronwen Maddox The Times
Full article: Why America needs a post-Bush makeover
Why Georgians love Stalin
At the time of my visits, Stalin, a Georgian by birth, was still officially a non-person, airbrushed by his successors from the annals of Soviet history. But in defiance of Moscow his portraits could still be seen in Georgian state farms and government offices. I asked a Georgian official why this was so. "Because he killed so many Russians," came the sardonic reply.
Christopher Meyer The Times
Full article: A return to 1815 is the way forward for Europe
Sheltered from the storms
Like most ministers, Alistair Darling and David Miliband were sheltered from big political storms by the Blair/Brown duopoly. For more than a decade, the whirling dramas were dealt with exclusively by a Prime Minister, a Chancellor and their most senior confidants. The stifling dominance meant few others had the chance to cut their teeth as they rose up the ministerial hierarchy. Steve Richards The Independent
Full article: Inexperience, not treachery, drives Brown's ministers
Cocaine in Labradors
As many as half the foreign females in our prisons today are drugs mules. Aware that customs officers have become more adept at identifying these mules, the drugs barons have resorted to even more extreme measures. Over in Amsterdam recently, there were the two Labradors found at Schiphol airport on a flight from Colombia with cocaine stitched into their stomachs. Christopher Hart Daily Mail
Full article: Queen of hypocrisy: Helen Mirren is a brilliant talent but her views on cocaine are daft, naive and dangerous
Britain's international standing at its lowest since Suez
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