NewsTrust - All Rated Stories

The three fallacies that have driven the war in Afghanistan

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Oct. 21 (Opinion) - A bloody escalation in the war is more likely to fuel jihadism than thwart it. If Obama is serious about undermining this vile fanatical movement, it would be much wiser to take the hundreds of billions he is currently squandering on chasing after a hundred fighters in the Afghan mountains and redeploy it. Spend it instead on beefing up policing and intelligence, and on building a network of schools across Pakistan and other flash-points in the Muslim world, so parents there have an alternative to the fanatical madrassahs that churn out bin Laden-fodder. The American people will be far safer if the world sees them building schools for Muslim kids instead of dropping bombs on them.

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Pressure piles on Karzai as Afghan waiting game drags on

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Julius Cavendish - Oct. 19 (News Report) - Yet even hardened cynics say they have been surprised by the level of electoral fraud. Angry and disenchanted, they say a result – any result – would at least let people know what is happening and enable them to get on with their lives. A report by Oxfam said that corruption and incompetence at all levels of government have "fuelled frustrations and undermined the legitimacy of the government in the eyes of many Afghans". Under Mr Karzai, security has worsened, opium production has boomed and initial progress on women's rights has been largely eroded.

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Republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Aug. 19 (Opinion) - This tendency to simply deny inconvenient facts and invent a fantasy world isn't new; it's only becoming more heightened. It ran through the Bush years like a dash of bourbon in water. When it became clear that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, the US right simply claimed they had been shipped to Syria. When the scientific evidence for man-made global warming became unanswerable, they claimed – as one Republican congressman put it – that it was "the greatest hoax in human history", and that all the world's climatologists were "liars". The American media then presents itself as an umpire between "the rival sides", as if they both had evidence behind them.

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The brutal truth about America’s healthcare

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - Aug. 15 (Special Report) - They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury. Some of these Americans had walked

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Lying about Iraq made me quit, press officer claims

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Kim Sengupta - Aug. 06 (News) - Having to peddle "government lies" about the safety of soldiers in Iraq led to a Ministry of Defence press officer suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, an employment tribunal will hear.

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The insanity and enduring racism of the American right

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Matthew Norman - Jul. 30 (Opinion) - As we gloomily maintain the deathbed vigil for a Government whose end cannot come soon enough, it is the opposite end of the life-cycle that fixates US politics. Fittingly enough, on the eve of the nine-month anniversary of Barack Obama's election,

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Taliban running school for suicide bombers

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Omar Waraich - Jul. 29 (News Report) - Pakistan said yesterday it had rescued 20 young boys who were among hundreds recruited by the Taliban and brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers at a secret indoctrination camp.

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Is the party over for the Republicans?

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Rupert Cornwell - Jul. 26 (News Analysis) - The White House is lost, scandal is rife and a certain lady in Alaska has resigned her governorship. The Republican Party is, by any measure, a mess. Can it bounce back? Only if it radically alters its political leanings.

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Democracy hangs by a thread in Honduras

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Hugh O'Shaughnessy - Jul. 19 (News Report) - The international group of right-wingers who staged the coup d'état against the democratic government of Honduras on 28 June are watching their plot fast unravel. There is stiffening international opposition to their protégé, Roberto Micheletti, who, in his capacity as President of Congress, ordered President Manuel Zelaya to be expelled from the country by plane in his pyjamas.

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Realism makes a welcome return to US foreign policy

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - Jun. 25 (Editorial) - The real surprise is that it has taken so long. After five months, President Barack Obama's foreign policy is now under assault, from both left and right. For some liberals, he is little more than Bush-lite. US troops are still in Iraq, they complain, and even more of them are being despatched to fight America's other war in Afghanistan. Guantanamo Bay is still open, complete with revamped military tribunals.

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As Iraq runs dry, a plague of snakes is unleashed

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - Jun. 21 (News Report) - Swarms of snakes are attacking people and cattle in southern Iraq as the Euphrates and Tigris rivers dry up and the reptiles lose their natural habitat among the reed beds.

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Revealed: the bid to corner world's bluefin tuna market

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Martin Hickman - Jun. 03 (Special Report) - A corporation within the £170bn Mitsubishi empire is importing thousands of tonnes of the fish from Europe into Tokyo's premium fish markets, despite stocks plummeting towards extinction in the Mediterranean. Bluefin tuna frozen at -60C now could be sold in several years' time for astronomical sums if Atlantic bluefin becomes commercially extinct as forecast, a result of the near free-for-all enjoyed by the tuna fleet.

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Land grab: The race for the world's farmland

Sun, 03 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Margareta Pagano - May. 03 (News Report) - In Africa they are calling it the land grab, or the new colonialism. Countries hungry to secure their food supplies – including Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, South Korea (the world's third biggest importer of corn) China, India, Libya and Egypt – are at the forefront of a frantic rush to gobble up farmland all around the world, but mainly cash-starved Africa. Over the past few months, Saudi Arabian investors have paid $100m for an Ethiopian farm where they hope to grow wheat and barley, adding to the millions of acres they already own in the war-ravaged country, as well as in neighbouring Sudan. The Saudis also have land in Indonesia and Thailand for growing rice. China owns vast tracts of overseas land, mainly in Algeria and Zimbabwe, and one estimate suggests that more than a million ethnic Chinese farm workers will be living on the continent this year. Kenya and Tanzania have leased land while the Ugandans have been big sellers, allocating two million acres of land to Egypt for wheat and corn.

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Obama: 100 days, 100 ways

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By David Usborne - Apr. 26 (Opinion) - 1 When presidents get invited to the annual Gridiron Dinner for a night of political skits among the Washington press corps, they always go. Not this one, who became the first sitting President politely to decline. 2 We have had lots of canine companions on the rugs of the Oval Office, but Obama's is the first first whose name, Bo, is also his master's initials. Better still, Portuguese water dogs come with fine Democrat credentials – Senator Ted Kennedy has litters of them

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Obama a hit as Americas Summit drawing to close

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - Apr. 19 (News Report) - Latin American leaders are hailing as a success an Americas summit closing on Sunday that consecrated President Barack Obama as a positive partner in the hemisphere who won over even die-hard anti-US critics. A formal closing ceremony on Sunday was due to set the seal on the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago that served to introduce Obama to a region where America-bashing has long been accepted as a nationalist reflex. In contrast to the previous 2005 summit in Argentina that ended in discord, the Port of Spain meeting was humming with good feelings projected by the young new US president, who promised a cooperative partnership of equals with his peers.

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You are being lied to about pirates

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari: - Apr. 14 (Opinion) - Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" – from 1650 to 1730 – the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda heave.

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The dark side of Dubai

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Apr. 08 (Special Report) - There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here. They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang – but you are trained not to look. It is like a mantra: the Sheikh built the city. The Sheikh built the city. Workers? What workers?

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Aid comes at a price for 'AfPak' leaders

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Andrew Buncombe, Omar Waraich - Mar. 29 (News Report) - The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan (now yoked together in Washington as AfPak) publicly welcomed the Obama administration's new policy for the region yesterday, but experts warned that the US and its allies faced huge challenges in achieving their aim of neutralising militancy in South Asia. The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, said he supported the proposal for increased civil and military aid and highlighted a plan for reaching agreements with "moderate" elements of the Taliban. The policy was "better than we were expecting," said Mr Karzai. Pakistan's leader, Asif Ali Zardari, also backed the new strategy, which will see his country receive up to $7.5bn (£5.2bn) in non-military aid, and vowed it would not be a haven for terrorists.

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Religulous: Borat-style satire on faith causes outrage

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Andrew Johnson, Emily Dugan - Mar. 22 (News Report) - A Borat-style documentary lampooning the world's religions through interviews with their leaders is to open in Britain next week – and, if the US experience is anything to go, it is certain to spark controversy. Religulous – the title is a provocative combination of "religion" and "ridiculous" – caused outrage across the Atlantic, with Catholics complaining they were the main target of the film, directed by Larry Charles. He also directed Borat, the satire on US mores starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the Kazakhstan reporter. The American comedian and satirist Bill Maher takes the Cohen role.

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How we can save newspapers

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Mar. 20 (Opinion) - A recent study in The Journal of Law, Economics and Organisation found that one of the biggest single factors in reducing corruption in a country is "the free circulation of daily newspapers per person." Go to any country, and you'll find that the lower the newspaper circulation, the higher the corruption. If nobody's watching, anything goes.

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Ten ways to save the world

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Geoffrey Lean - Mar. 15 (News Analysis) - It has been a really bad week for the climate. Each day brought depressing news as scientists meeting in Copenhagen told us global warming is taking place more rapidly than expected. The seas are rising faster than predicted; the polar ice caps are melting more quickly; and the Amazon rainforest is doomed unless urgent action is taken. The main solutions are widely agreed. The world needs to forge a much tougher treaty this year to replace the failed Kyoto Protocol. Global emissions of carbon dioxide must be cut by at least half by the middle of the century, much more in industrialised countries. Using energy more efficiently is essential, as is rapidly increasing it from renewable sources. Nuclear power and biofuels are much more controversial, but are likely to be used to some extent. But new, much less familiar solutions are also emerging.

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Stop the press! The future of US journalism

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Stephen Foley - Mar. 11 (Special Report) - It is 4 July 2009, Independence Day in the US, and there are fireworks online. A nation of internet users log on, click for their favourite newspaper sites to catch up on the weekend news, only to be stopped in their tracks. On website after website, the following message: "Dear reader. In order to save the newspaper industry and promote quality journalism, it has become necessary to begin charging a subscription for online access. Click here to enter your credit card details." Will it happen? Surely not in such a dramatic fashion, but the issue of charging for online content is suddenly at the top of the industry's agenda, a decade after newspapers began building websites that allowed their readers to look at the day's news for free without buying the paper. The Independence Day "big bang" is a tongue-in-cheek suggestion from John Morton, whose Morton Research Inc in Maryland has analysed the newspaper industry for decades. "I think it would be a fitting day in a nation founded on the principle that a free press is essential to the functioning of government," he said.

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Israel's death squads: A soldiers story

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Donald Macintyre - Mar. 01 (Special Report) - The Israeli military's policy of targeted killings has been described from the inside for the first time. In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, and in his testimony to an ex-soldiers' organisation, Breaking the Silence, a former member of an assassination squad has told of his role in a botched ambush that killed two Palestinian bystanders, as well as the two militants targeted. The operation, which took place a little over eight years ago, at the start of the present intifada, or uprising, left the former sharpshooter with psychological scars. To this day he has not told his parents of his participation in what he called "the first face-to-face assassination of the intifada".

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Obama denies terror suspects right to trial

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Stephen Foley - Feb. 22 (News Report) - Less than a month after signing an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, President Barack Obama has quietly agreed to keep denying the right to trial to hundreds more terror suspects held at a makeshift camp in Afghanistan that human rights lawyers have dubbed “Obama’s Guantanamo”. In a single-sentence answer filed with a Washington court, the administration dashed hopes that it would immediately rip up Bush-era policies that have kept more than 600 prisoners in legal limbo and in rudimentary conditions at the Bagram air base, north of Kabul.

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A 'fraud' bigger than Madoff

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Patrick Cockburn - Feb. 16 (News Report) - In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme.

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