Society

Any relationship, ‘special’ or otherwise, depends upon clarity, fairness and reciprocity. The US–UK extradition treaty signed in March 2003, ratified in this country the following year, boasts none of those features. As a consequence, three British businessmen — David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew, and Giles Darby — face imminent extradition from this country to Texas over allegations that they committed a crime in Britain, while operating in Britain with a British employer. The ‘NatWest Three’ are accused by US investigators of swindling the bank out of £4.5 million via some devious trading of its stake in an Enron subsidiary — allegations they deny. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has decided not

Australian TV wants to make a documentary about me. Why would a black guy from inner-city Birmingham want to buy a farm in the West Country? The usual stuff follows — long interview, shots of me with my lovely Ruby Red cattle and shots with Chris, my farm manager. Then a hike north to where it all started — Small Heath, Birmingham. I hadn’t been back for 30 years and had never wanted to go. The poverty and misery of it left a scar on my soul, which meant I had avoided rekindling memories of it. But the producer is adamant: I have to visit the street where I grew

By allowing Russia to stage the summit we have accepted her as one of us,  says Anne Applebaum. This G8 will give its tacit approval to the theft of private  assets, the destruction of the rule of law and the violation of human rights For sale, the advertisement might read: One very large Russian energy company. Estimated assets, including oil wells, reserves, refineries: $60 billion. Possible liabilities: four major international lawsuits, a part-time CEO who works full-time as President Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff, and a certain — shall we say — lack of clarity about whether the company legally acquired most of those assets at all. I am

Q. Parents of one of our son’s best friends at school are famous for their tightness. The father makes ‘funny money’ in the City, but they often invite people to their house in Devon, then suggest the guests take them out to restaurants as the mother ‘can’t face’ cooking. They are people my wife and I do not usually see outside of school functions but they recently prevailed upon us to put them up for membership of a certain exclusive club. Because of our sons’ friendship we did so. The desired result having been achieved, the couple rang to thank us and say, ‘We must take you out to dinner.’

I arrive in Las Vegas bleary-eyed and irritable, having been awake nearly 24 hours. I’m greeted by the familiar airport slot machines and garish show posters, but something is different. Then I realise it’s the slot machines: they’re functioning but they aren’t making any noise — no electronic jingles, no tinny fanfares. Is it possible they ‘mute’ the machines at night? A rare example of restraint in the 24/7 city. On the escalator a college-aged kid in front of me spies an advertisement for Celine Dion’s ‘A New Day’. ‘Oh God, that makes me want to go to Caesars so bad,’ he says. ‘I don’t like her that much,’ his

Philip Bobbitt, the acclaimed author of ‘The Shield of Achilles’, says that the attacks were the work of an ultra-modern movement — closer to Mastercard than the IRA in structure. The worst is not inevitable: but it is distinctly possible With terror, the murderous act itself is always nihilistic; it is the reaction that gives the atrocity political meaning. The meaning of the London transport bombings is that a society accustomed to the predations of the IRA and, within living memory, the terror bombing of the second world war will not be easily shaken. This stoic reaction masks, however, several troubling, less reassuring reactions here in London and in the