World

The desert breeding ground of India’s billionaires

‘This is backwoods, really backwoods,’ says Aditya, as the rackety, jam-packed bus pulls into Rajgarh, a small town in the north-west of Rajasthan, India’s desert state. ‘This is backwoods, really backwoods,’ says Aditya, as the rackety, jam-packed bus pulls into Rajgarh, a small town in the north-west of Rajasthan, India’s desert state. Aditya is the only person on the bus who speaks any English, and the goggle-eyed stares and toothless grins of many of his fellow passengers bear him out. They are clearly wondering what on earth a foreigner is doing in their out-of-the-way part of India and it’s only when I mention the name of Lakshmi Mittal that it

Hugo Rifkind

Our present fear of Chinese products masks our real fear of China — a swelling Other

How on earth did they get them through customs? ‘Oi! You there! Chinese-looking fellow! What we got here, then? Ah. Toy soldiers, is it? Chewable? No? Oh dear. How on earth did they get them through customs? ‘Oi! You there! Chinese-looking fellow! What we got here, then? Ah. Toy soldiers, is it? Chewable? No? Oh dear. Any lead paint? What’s that? Not any more? Just naked terracotta? Dearie dearie me. But presumably they do sport a CE Certificate of Europe mark, in compliance with SI/204 The Toys (Safety) Regulations 1995? You what? Older than that? Created by the Emperor Qin Shihuangdi 200 years before Christ? Never heard of him. Not

James Forsyth

If Bush doesn’t force Iran to back down, then his successors will

To many, 20 January 2009, George W. Bush’s last day in office, can’t come soon enough. The President’s pugnacious speech to the American Legion summed up why: not content with vigorously defending two wars, he seemed to start banging the drum for another with his statement that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons threatened to put the Middle East ‘under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust’ and pledge that America ‘will confront this danger before it is too late’. It is tempting to dismiss Bush’s remarks as mere sabre-rattling from an increasingly irrelevant and isolated President. After all, Bush has his hands full persuading Congress to continue funding the Iraq war;

Alex Massie

Fredless in New Hampshire

There was plenty to enjoy at last night’s GOP debate in New Hampshire. From Rudy Giuliani’s incessant and somewhat vulgar determination to relate any question on any subject to his time running New York City to John McCain’s mild recovery (though he should be worried that other candidates were being nice to him; clearly they consider him irrelevant) and the excellent spat on Iraq between Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee which will, I suspect, benefit both candidates. The second best moment of the debate, however, was when Fox’s Chris Wallace accused Ron Paul of “taking marching orders from al-Qaeda” only for Paul to slap him down with a “NO! I’m

Alex Massie

Objective Burma

Laura Bush on Burma: The Burmese I’ve met, they want our affection. As Kerry Howley, an old Burma hand herself, rightly asks, “Are they puppies?”. She explains how the US has, alas, become useful for the Burmese junta and how all Mrs Bush’s concern won’t/can’t change that.

Alex Massie

Ask not what you owe your passenger but what the city owes you…

TAPPED’s Dana Goldstein blogs about today’s striking New York cabbies. They’re not happy that they’re being required to purchase “Passenger Information Monitors” – ie maps and GPS devices – that will make it more difficult for them to rip-off passengers. Goldstein thinks this a good idea but, standing shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed working class, then argues that the cabbies have a point after all: “…it should be the city’s responsibility to provide the needed infrastructure.” Does this mean Ms Goldstein thinks the city – ie, the taxpayer – should also purchase new cabs for drivers as and when their old ones fail their road test? Presumably so.

Alex Massie

The Seriousness of “The Decider”

No need for comment, is there? Mr. Bush has often said that will be for historians decide, but he said during his sessions with Mr. Draper that they would have to consult administration documents to get to the bottom of some important questions. Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.” But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush

Bush’s shoulder to cry on

There is a must-read account of George W. Bush’s private mood in the New York Times this morning. Robert Draper, who has interviewed the president for a new book coming out next week, reveals that Bush is more introspective than he appears in public.  Bush tells Draper, “I’ve got God’s shoulder to cry on, and I cry a lot”. Emphasising the point, he says “I’ll bet I’ve shed more tears than you can count as president.” The final purpose of the Bush presidency is, Bush claims, “To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence [in Iraq]”. Bush is optimistic that by late

Alex Massie

Heads I win, tails you lose

Karl Rove is a remarkable man. On his last day in the White House, National Review Online publishes a piece in which Rove claims that history will judge Bush favourably if Iraq proves a success: History’s concern is with final outcomes, not the missteps or advances of the moment. History will render a favorable verdict if the outcome in the Middle East is similar to what America saw after World War II. OK. You’d expect that. It must, then, be Rove’s brilliance that allows him to perceive that Bush will also be vindicated even if history judges the Iraq War to have been a disaster with appropriately disastrous consequences: If

Alex Massie

An Edinburgh August

Iain McWhirter at The Guardian reminds one why Edinburgh is perhaps the world’s best city every August: Now, here’s a cultural success story of truly epic proportions. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe alone has sold 1.7m tickets this year – that’s more than twice the number sold by the Manchester Commonwealth Games. It does this every year. And the official Edinburgh International Festival hasn’t even finished yet, so its figures are still to come. The Edinburgh Book Festival has attracted 200,000 to its Charlotte Square tent city, which means that the Edinburgh culture-fest’s final score will be well over 2 million… This is an astonishing achievement and gives the lie to

Alex Massie

MLS, Beckham and David Blaine…

Martin Samuel is in good form today. He doesn’t much like MLS and, really, it’s not difficult to agree with him. The LA Galaxy’s recent 5-4 defeat at the New York Red Bulls was entertaining in the way that games featuring large quantities of comedy defending often are, but was notable not so much for the goals scored as for the real intensity and pace at which the game was played. Those vital qualities are normally lacking in MLS, giving most games (or at least those I’ve been to in DC) all the excitement of a pre-season training session. Anyway, though perhaps a little vainglorious, I did like this part

A consequence of withdrawal

Newsweek’s investigation into the hunt for bin Laden makes for excellent reading. It gives you a real sense of the trade-offs involving in trying to capture him while not losing large numbers of US troops or destabilising Pakistan. It is a surprise to find Don Rumsfeld who was so gung-ho in his Iraq war planning, acting as the voice of caution here. One detail in the piece should guide us in the Iraq debate. Newsweek reports that: “President Musharraf was wary of his American allies in the War on Terror. In 2002, he told a high-ranking British official: “My great concern is that one day the United States is going

Alex Massie

How Sarko seduced France

I’m rather looking forward to reading Yasmina Reza’s account of her year on the campaign trail with Nicolas Sarkozy, Dawn, Evening or Night. It looks as though it could be the political book of the year. If Elaine Sciolino’s article is at all accurate, Sarko comes across as a man who, above all, is alive (a welcome change after the stagnant corruption of the Chirac years. There’s wit too: Even before his victory, Sarkozy is drunk with bravado. Emerging from lunch in London with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, Sarkozy announces to his aides: “Tony and I have just made a decision. We’re going to conquer Europe.” In a

Bush’s literary gamble

Further to James’s post, Bush’s invocation of The Quiet American in his speech was either compellingly smart or astonishingly foolhardy: The argument that America’s presence in Indochina was dangerous had a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called, “The Quiet American.” It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism — and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.” Now, the President’s point is that,

Alex Massie

The Atlantic blogosphere expands

Y’all read her anyway (you do, don’t you?), but just in case you’re still searching for her here you could perhaps use a gentle reminder that the wondrous Megan McArdle is the latest member of The Atlantic’s all-star blogging line-up and her new blog is up and running today. Shorter Megan: things not so great in the financial world, but not as bad as the Yankees’ pitching. Longer Megan: worth your reading in its entireity. So go read!

Alex Massie

Dept of What a Country!

Via Tyler Cowen, your fun fact for the day: Where do most tigers live? In the United States it turns out.  There are 4,000 tigers residing in captivity in Texas alone, where private ownership of tigers is legal.  The number of tigers left in the wild is perhaps no more than 5,100-7,500. [Emphasis added]

The last dotcom entrepreneur

Chilling echoes of the 2001 dotcom crash attended the flotation of the internet price comparison business Moneysupermarket.com at the end of last month. Simon Nixon — not the financial journalist of that name but the company’s founder — was jetting around America and Europe on his roadshow as the market started to wobble, spooked by the American sub-prime lending crisis and the global credit crunch. On the day of the float, 26 July, the market fell nearly 200 points, its largest one-day fall of the year until then. ‘I thought we might have to pull it,’ says Nixon, a man who cherishes being in control. ‘But in the end the