World

George Monbiot isn’t everyone’s cup of char, not least in these parts. I don’t write much about climate change because the subject* bores me and so I’m happy for Monbiot to promise that the end of the world is just around the corner and I don’t spend too much time worrying about it. I suspect, for what little it’s worth, that he’s an anti-Cassandra: wrong but believed. Anyway, I do write about American politics so I feel confident in saying that Monbiot doesn’t appear to know anything about the realities of life in Washington. In his Guardian column this week he complains that Copenhagen was a dud and that: The

CHESTER, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 03: A soldier of 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh waits for a Chinook to land during an exercise before deployment to Afghanistan. Members of 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, who are based in Chester, are to be deployed following Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s announcement on Monday of an extra 500 troops for Afghanistan. Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images. The omnishambles at the Ministry of Defence is such that, astonishingly, it may have supplanted the Home Office as the government department least fit-for-purpose. This is no small achievement and, one suspects, owes little to any improvement on the Home front. It’s been apparent for some time that defence

The great mining predators are on the prowl again, says Judi Bevan. The Chinese are on a spending spree in Africa. And there’s plenty of room for canny investors to make money by following the deals closely For those worried they have missed the move in mining shares – the FT mining index has nearly doubled since the market hit bottom in March – consider this. As of late November, the index was still around 40 per cent down from its peak in June 2008 and a renewed outbreak of bid speculation – along with Xstrata’s so far unsuccessful approach to Anglo American – indicates that those who are actually

Not content with one hazardous business enterprise right now, apparently Rolling Stone is going into the restaurant business. God knows why. Anyway, this allows Slate to imagine what might happen if other magazines decided to open their own restaurant. Thus… New Yorker Cafe: Although this beloved eatery professes familiarity with international cuisine, it’s best to stick with the dry, witty takes on American classics, which tend to provoke thin smiles of recognition, if rarely outright delight. If they’re out of the Anthony Lane crab cakes, the David Denbyburger is an adequate second choice—while bland, it is easily enlivened with artisanal ketchup. After the meal, patrons may join Adam Gopnik for

I’ve remarked before that Barack Obama is, in many ways, American liberalism’s long-delayed response to Ronald Reagan. This chart, found via Andrew Sullivan, comparing their Gallup approval ratings, is uncanny: Clearly, none of this is predictive, far-less guaranteeing that Obama will recover and romp to a second term as Reagan did. But what it does do is permit one to imagine both the upper and lower set of expectations one may reaonably hold for the rest of Obama’s Presidency. (This has nothing to do with the wisdom of Obama’s policies or one’s approval of them). It’s also a reminder to pundits everywhere that Presidents’ ability to “make the political weather”

Sky News invited me around for what I expected would be a civil debate on climate change at 2:30pm today – but for people like Bob Ward, there’s no such thing. He is policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the LSE. The debate proceeded along the bizarre path that these types so frequently tread. I was asked about what the climategate emails mean: I said it shows people putting spin first and science second. And raised the prospect of data manipulation. Hope replied by saying, “it’s remarkable about how the so-called sceptics have been using this as a propaganda tool to promote political end… People

It was great to see the cover story in Progress about this country’s pernicious libel laws. The magazine did well to commission Jonathan Heawood, the rather brilliant director of English PEN, who really knows the subject. Central to his argument is the point that the government risks being outflanked by the Tories on this issue:  The Conservatives could well come down behind the reforms that were outlined recently in the Sunday Times, based on the recommendations published by Index on Censorship and English PEN in our report, Free Speech is Not for Sale (see www.libelreform.org). Unless Labour catches up with this growing momentum for reform, it risks finding itself on

Capitalism is not in crisis everywhere. Somali pirates have launched their own stock exchange: One wealthy former pirate named Mohammed took Reuters around the small facility and said it had proved to be an important way for the pirates to win support from the local community for their operations, despite the dangers involved. “Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 ‘maritime companies’ and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,” Mohammed said. “The shares are open to all and everybody can take part, whether personally at sea or on land