‘Recession’ hits Labour fightback
Alistair Darling's surprise announcement to introduce a stamp duty holiday for half of all house buyers was overshadowed yesterday by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development's latest forecast that Britain will be the only G7 nation to fall into recession this year. The OECD said the UK economy will... [continued]
The Mole: Labour's 'reverse Midas touch' exposed by grim OECD forecast 
Lieberman and Bush back McCain
US presidential candidate John McCain has received strong backing from President Bush and Senator Joe Lieberman at the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. In the night's keynote speech, Lieberman, a former Democrat and Al Gore's running mate in 2000, said, "Only one leader has shown the courage and the... [continued]
Bush and Lieberman promote McCain, 'a great American'
In pictures: the Republican convention
In pictures: Sarah Palin's life
Bristol Palin's 'redneck' boyfriend
Nato in huge turbine operation
More than 4,000 Nato and Afghan soldiers and special forces have completed one of the biggest operations of the war against the Taliban. The team, which included 2,000 British troops, escorted lorries carrying pieces of a hydroelectric turbine up the Helmand Valley to a dam on the Kajaki reservoir, clearing... [continued]
IRA status report due
Northern Ireland's Independent Monitoring Commission will release a report later today on the current state of the IRA. Unionists say that no further progress is possible in the process of devolution until the IRA is disbanded, but the report is expected to say that the IRA's ruling Army Council has... [continued]
Extremist Republicans are still trying to derail the NI peace process
Tycoon ‘shot family before fire’
Failed tycoon Christopher Foster shot his wife and daughter before setting fire to his £1.2m mansion and taking his own life, police said yesterday. CCTV footage apparently shows a man armed with a rifle walking between outbuildings shortly before they caught fire. The man, believed to be Foster, is also... [continued]
Six dead in US gun rampage
Six people, including a deputy sheriff, have been killed by a gunman in Washington state. The suspect, known to authorities as "someone with a mental illness", turned himself in at a sheriff’s office in Mount Vernon following a motorway chase in which a motorist was shot dead. Five other dead... [continued]
Sarah Palin slays polar bears
So sick are we in Britain, writes Alice Miles, with our centre left-centre right politicians of the centre, not one daring to have a view out of line with the very thin consensus that passes for acceptable opinion here, that we stand stunned by a woman who opposes abortion and shoots moose; who believes in creationism and drilling for oil in the Arctic wildlife refuge; who supports the aerial shooting of wolves and opposes same-sex marriage; who says to hell with the kids and just get back to work; who even campaigned against saving polar bears! Could you be less politically correct than suing the Federal Government to prevent it making polar bears an endangered species because the move would restrict oil drilling? Nothing like Mrs Palin has, or could ever, be seen in the British political system. Alice Miles The Times
In pictures: Sarah Palin's life
Bush and Lieberman promote McCain, 'a great American'
Full article: Sarah Palin: a loveable woman, but an appalling candidate
It's not just about "Jesus babies and guns," as Rush Limbaugh pithily put it. Palin also wants "intelligent design" - creationism - taught in school, notes Jonathan Freedland. When she was mayor of the small town of Wasilla, "she asked the library how she could go about banning books," according to a local official quoted by Time. Palin was worried about "inappropriate" language. "The librarian was aghast" - and was later threatened with the sack. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
Full article: Who knows if Palin will bring victory or defeat? But the culture wars are back
McCain laughed during Katrina
The start of the Republican National Convention has been displaced by a 150mph live-action replay of the early stages of the party's foulest domestic failure: the needless drowning of 1,836 of the poorest, blackest Americans while the President strummed his guitar on stage. While McCain claims he was "immediately" appalled by Bush's response, at the time he was literally chuckling with Bush. We have it on camera. Bush touched down in Phoenix as Katrina struck to present McCain with a giant cake to celebrate the Senator's 69th birthday. McCain hugged him and they told lots of gags. The cake was left on the airstrip to melt in the rain. McCain voted repeatedly against a Senate investigation into what went wrong during Katrina. Johann Hari The Independent
Full article: The storm clouds that hang over John McCain
In pictures: Hurricane Gustav
Why the Sheikhs bought Man City
The Abu Dhabi rulers, aware that even the amount of oil they sit upon will one day run out, have been looking to diversify their assets, writes Jim White. English football will provide a platform to make their homeland known around the world as a property and holiday destination, a place to match Dubai. They are not buying Manchester City to make money from it - which is just as well. They are buying it as a giant calling card, a globally recognised hoarding on which to project commercials. In a sense it was ever thus in football. When the butcher Bob Lord took control of Burnley FC in the early 1960s he did so not to make money, but to give himself some clout in town. Being chairman opened doors at the Rotary Club. Jim White Daily Telegraph
Full article: We're just spectators in a global soap opera
Is Man City's Robinho damaged goods?
Has the Fake Sheikh become a busted flush?
The City still supports fascist Russia
Russia is an oil-fuelled fascist kleptocracy ruled by secret police goons and their cronies, says Edward Lucas. It is authoritarian: critics risk forcible incarceration in psychiatric hospitals, or are simply murdered. But still it has support. In odd alliance with the anti-globalists who simply champion America's enemies are the champions of international business: those who do well out of selling goods and services to Russia. In the City, investment banks, law firms, accountants and consultants have enjoyed a bonanza thanks to their Russian clients. Auditors such as PricewaterhouseCoopers have not flinched at doing the Kremlin's dirty work - for example in withdrawing their audit of Yukos, once Russia's biggest oil company, which conveniently coincided with Kremlin allegations of fraud. For this pinstriped fifth column, business is business, and worries about human rights or the rule of law are tiresome distractions. Edward Lucas Daily Telegraph
Full article: To Russia, with love
Alexander Cockburn: Russia bids to break Bank of New York
The Business Pages: The biggest stories from the world of finance
In Brief
Don’t meddle with houses
Housing policy is like law and order. It brings out the idiot in politicians - and journalists. Of all the markets in which ministers might be tempted to meddle at the onset of recession, the last should be that for houses. And if houses it is, they should not waste public money to make them cheaper when prices are already falling. At least the proposals announced by the prime minister yesterday were paltry: they should do little damage and perhaps even a tiny bit of good. Simon Jenkins The Guardian
Full article: No need to panic. Falling house prices are good news
A petty, needless crime
Newspapers have scented the family killing in Shropshire with an Egyptian grandeur, as Christopher Foster interred himself, pharaoh-like, with all his "belongings", his wife and pets and offspring, in the rustic tomb that was so soon to be repossessed. When a teenage thug knifes a grandmother for a wallet full of buttons and coppers, we all agree what a poisonous creature he is. And yet, when a businessman chokes out his entire family just to avoid the bailiffs, surely that's worse? Zoe Williams The Guardian
Full article: Pity the family, the horses if we must. But not the killer
The Democrats’ recent racism
Sheriff L.O. Davis promptly won an overwhelming 70 per cent of the vote and, emboldened, proceeded to appoint the local Ku Klux Klan as his deputies. The leader of Davis's gang was a convicted felon named "Hoss", who told the press that his business was "raisin' pigs and shootin' niggers". The year was 1964 and the election that Davis won was a Democratic primary. Daniel Finkelstein The Times
Full article: The mass chattering class changing America
Abu Qatada, still in Britain
Abu Qatada arrived here in 1993 on a forged passport. In 2000, Jordan sentenced him in his absence to life imprisonment for his part in a plot to murder tourists. They demanded his extradition but it was not until February 2001 that the anti-terrorist branch even got round to raiding his house. They found £170,000 in various currencies including £805 in an envelope labelled for 'the Mujahedin in Chechnya'. Ruth Dudley Edwards Daily Mail
Full article: Are we mad? Every organ of the state now seems intent on protecting those who would destroy us
Military deception
No weapon is more effective in war than the lie. The most remarkable wartime conjuror was, in fact, a conjuror, Jasper Maskelyne. His gang built fake submarines, trucks and planes, concealed part of the Suez Canal from the air with giant mirrors and, most famously, deployed 2,000 dummy tanks in the North African desert before the Battle of El Alamein. Ben Macintyre The Times
Full article: The British are the masters of deceit
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