TIJUANA, Mexico — What do Tijuana, Baghdad and Jerusalem have in common? They all have walls that divide neighbors, cause controversy and form part of an array of physical barriers around the world that dwarf the late, unlamented Iron Curtain. There are walls, fences, trenches and berms. Some are reinforced by motion detectors, heat-sensing cameras, X-ray systems, night-vision equipment, helicopters, drones and blimps. Some are still under construction, some in the planning stage. When completed, the barriers will run thousands of miles, in places as far apart as Mexico and India, Afghanistan and Spain, Morocco and Thailand, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. They are meant to keep job-hungry immigrants, terrorists and smugglers out, thwart invaders, and keep antagonists apart. Their proponents cite the proverb ‘Good fences make good neighbors’ but critics say they are a paradoxical result of globalization in so far as goods and capital can move freely but migrants cannot. By an irony of history, the United States — the country that hastened the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 — has emerged as a champion wall builder. The latest wall to divide city neighborhoods went up in Baghdad in […]
Tony Blair has indicated that Gordon Brown is likely to replace him as Prime Minister within a matter of weeks. Tony Blair addresses Labour Party workers at their headquarters in London Tony Blair marked his 10th anniversary in office by promising to reveal his resignation plans next week ‘Within the next few weeks I won’t be Prime Minister of this country. In all probability, a Scot will become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,’ Mr Blair told party supporters at a Labour rally in Edinburgh. His comments come on the day Mr Blair celebrates his 10th anniversary in office. Earlier, Mr Blair marked the occasion by promising a ‘definitive’ statement to the British people next week on when he plans to leave Number 10. With the party braced for a disastrous night at the polls on Thursday, Mr Blair is seeking to prevent disillusionment over his own premiership from overshadowing the arrival of his successor. There has been growing speculation Mr Blair will announce his resignation next week and then stand down towards the end of next month, with June 30 emerging as the favourite date. Speaking on GMTV this morning, Mr […]
BANGALORE — Is water the next oil? Motives behind the question vary, depending on who asks the question. Those who see water as a future core commodity – therefore as profitable a prospect as oil – pose the question to create the right market conditions for water trade. Those who see the potential for conflict arising from scarcity compare diminishing freshwater to oil’s depleting reserves. Those who see an environmental threat from mismanagement of water see parallels with the abuse and waste of oil. So there are lessons to be learned from how we have managed oil on this planet over the past century and more. The oil crisis confronting the world today is much like the looming crisis in water, with depleting supplies, unequal distribution and access, and the inevitable specter of rising costs and increasing conflict around the sharing of this vital natural resource. As with oil, water exploitation raises an inter-generational debt that will be hard to repay. The uncontrolled and rapacious exploitation of oil has led to unintended consequences, and if we continue on a similar trajectory with water, the oil crisis will seem like the trailer of some horrible disaster movie. […]
SEATTLE — Charges against a man accused of being one of the Internet’s most notorious spammers could spell relief from millions of unwanted message clogging e-mail in-boxes, computer security officials said on Thursday. ‘This is a great day for the Internet,’ said Patrick Peterson, vice president of technology for IronPort Systems, which provides e-mail and Web security products. ‘Everyone involved in clapping those handcuffs on (him) are heroes.’ Robert Alan Soloway, 27, is currently being held without bail after his initial appearance in U.S. District Court here on Wednesday. Soloway was indicted by a federal grand jury on 35 counts that include mail fraud, wire fraud, fraud in connection with electronic mail, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Consumers may not immediately notice much change in the amount of e-mail-borne spam, because there are other, even bigger spammers out there, Peterson said. But the long-term effect from Soloway’s arrest could be great, he said. ‘The message it sends is going to have a much bigger impact than what we see in our in-boxes, which is undetectable,’ Peterson said, adding that he have recently seen more aggressive efforts by federal authorities to combat the scourge. […]
WASHINGTON and LONDON — George W. Bush on Thursday unveiled a striking about-face on global warming, calling on the world’s leading economies to join the US in agreeing a global target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions before the end of his term in office. The US president was speaking just ahead of a G8 summit at which climate change was expected to be high on the agenda of European governments. He explained that his apparent conversion – which follows almost seven years of having rejected precisely the road he outlined – was prompted by new scientific findings. But Mr Bush made no pledge on the size of emissions cuts that the US would be prepared to sign up to and gave no indication of a timeframe. The White House also ruled out carbon trading as the way to cutting emissions. Environmental campaigners accused the president of cynically seeking to circumvent the Kyoto process, which the United Nations is seeking to renew at talks in December. Others accused him of a ploy to derail tougher European proposals. Mr Bush said: ‘Science has deepened our understanding of climate change and opened new possibilities for confronting it. ‘By […]