I'm going to be speaking in a debate on Friday to mark World Press Freedom Day. The motion is: "that new media is killing journalism". I say it isn't (obviously!), but what do you say? Let's harness the full resources of the blogosphere -- so let me have your thoughts, by Thursday night please.
If you're not quite sure what's going on in Georgia -- former Soviet republic, now wants to join NATO, accuses Moscow of backing separatists in Abhkazia and South Ossetia -- you could do a lot worse than read this fascinating piece by the FT's about the country's charismatic pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
It's always a good rule of thumb in the Middle East to assume that nothing is quite what it seems. And I definitely think the rule applies now, after the US reports of an apparent Syrian attempt to build a nuclear reactor.
If you want to take it all at face value, it's simple enough: The North Koreans were helping Syria build it; the Israelis bombed it; the US has revealed it. The White House says that the reactor was ''a dangerous and potentially destabilizing development for the world.''
But of course it's not simple at all. First, who says it was a nuclear reactor? Well, the anonymous officials who've been briefing reporters in Washington say the intelligence people have "high confidence" that it was. But they have only "medium confidence" that the North Koreans were involved in building it, and "low confidence" that any plutonium that might one day have been produced was meant for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
Second, why is all this coming out now? At the time of the Israeli bombing (sorry, that should be "alleged Israeli bombing", since Israel categorically refuses to acknowledge that it had anything to do with whatever it was that happened), the US didn't want to say much at all. The bombing itself didn't make many headlines at the time: in this country it came at the height of the "Did the McCanns murder their daughter?" hysteria, as I pointed out in my newsletter on 14 September.
There are plenty of explanations, or, if you prefer, conspiracy theories. One, that the US is focusing on the North Korea connection because it wants to put pressure on the North Koreans to deliver on their de-nuclearisation commitments. Two, that the US wants to slow down any progress towards a Syria-Israel deal, because it still regards Syria as a dangerously destablising influence in the region. (It backs Hamas in Gaza and Hizbollah in Lebanon, neither of which the US approves of.)
But never forget that Israel and Syria, despite all the rhetoric, have a grudging respect for each other. There are constant behind-the-scenes talks going on at various levels, and one day, when each of them judges that it's in their interests to do a deal, they'll do one. For now, the problem seems to be that the Israelis want the talks process to stay secret, but the Syrians want it out in the open with the Americans included.
Oh, and on the subject of aerial photographs of military installations in the middle of the desert. We have been here before, haven't we? We saw the pictures, we even heard the intercepted phone conversations, when then secretary of state Colin Powell addressed the UN Security Council before the invasion of Iraq. They weren't quite what they seemed then - but of course being wrong once doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong a second time.
It just means that we have to be cautious. Remember the rule of thumb.
Politics really is a strange old business sometimes, isn't it? I mean, it's more than a year since the then Chancellor Gordon Brown announced the abolition of the 10p income tax band - so why did it take his dozy backbenchers so long to wake up?
True, a handful of people did see what was coming, but no one took much notice. Ming Campbell (remember him? Used to be leader of the Lib Dems) tried to draw attention to it; so did Frank Field; and so did the Institute for Fiscal Studies. A fat lot of good it did them.
And then suddenly, whoosh ... the balloon goes up. The genius magician chancellor, who had his backbenchers whooping in delight when he reduced the basic rate of income tax from 22p to 20p, is now the ham-fisted, accident-prone Prime Minister who can't seem to get anything right any more.
So I turned to two Labour MPs for elucidation. (They may not actually exist, these MPs, but if they did, I fancy they'd tell me something like this.)
First Labour MP: "Look, it's pretty simple, really ... I never understood a word of Gordon's budgets, and I don't know anyone who did, but cutting income tax by 2p sounded pretty good, even to me, and remember, this was when we were all just counting the days till we could get Tony out of Number 10 and turn over a new leaf. So I really didn't bother too much with all the small print. But y'know, suddenly over the past month or so, I've been getting all these constituents writing to me and turning up at my surgery on Saturday mornings, and boy, were they angry. 'What's the point of a Labour government,' they yelled, 'if all it does is clobber the poor? There's plenty of dosh for the dodgy banks, isn't there, but none for us.' Tricky, that, because I didn't have an answer. And with local elections next week, well, we had to do something, didn't we?"
Second Labour MP: "What did you expect, for God's sake? I always knew Gordon would make a lousy PM ... can't see the wood for the trees, and much too fond of all those incomprehensible tax and credit schemes he keeps inventing. So incomprehensible that even he doesn't understand them any more. Come on, we all know we're going to lose the next election, so let's get it over with. We've had a damn good innings, but Tony blew it in Iraq, and now it's time for the other lot to have a go. And you've got to admit, it's quite fun to see that big clunking fist get clunked itself for a change. The wretched man never took any notice of us when he was chancellor, but now he's a PM in trouble, he'll have to. If you think this week was messy, just wait. We've drawn blood, forced him to back down, and believe me, it feels pretty good."
This is the third time in recent months that Mr Brown has had to undo part of a Budget. He unscrambled Alistair Darling's capital gains tax reforms, which went down badly with the business world; he "clarified" his plans for taxing the non-doms (foreign nationals living in the UK but who are treated for tax purposes as if they aren't here at all); and now he's going to "compensate" young low paid workers and pensioners under 65 in ways which remain to be spelt out, so that they're not out of pocket as a result of his decision to abolish the 10p tax band (which, incidentally, he himself had introduced, with much fanfare, in 1999).
As for the local elections next week, they won't make happy reading for Labour, I suspect, although local election results rarely provide a clear picture. (Nor do snapshot opinion polls, necessarily, although today's YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph, showing the Tories with an 18 per cent lead, isn't exactly a pretty picture for Labour.) If Boris Johnson wins the London mayoral election, it'll be bad for Labour but a mixed blessing for the Tories (just watch the forced smile on David Cameron's face as he congratulates the unpredictable Mr Johnson). And if Ken Livingstone does manage to hang on, Mr Brown will have to pretend to be delighted by the victory of one of the men he most hates in the Labour party (just ahead, probably, of Frank Field).
If I were Mr Brown, I might just be wondering if I should have called that general election last autumn after all. As I said, politics really is a strange old business.
According to the , 77 tons of Chinese arms and ammunition may be about to head back to China after protests in South Africa over its intended destination, Zimbabwe.
The Zambian president, Levy Mwanawasa, who is the current head of the Southern African regional grouping SADC, has called on other countries in the region not to let the ship dock in their ports.
This could all be highly significant, because until now Zimbabwe's regional neighbours have been deeply reluctant to appear critical of President Robert Mugabe and the continuing non-publication of the presidential election results, more than three weeks after the polls. And China probably has no great appetite for yet more international criticism as the Olympic torch continues to run the gamut of pro-Tibet protests as it progresses across the globe.
Mr Mugabe is fast running out of friends. To his south, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is being openly criticised from within his own party, including by the party leader Jacob Zuma, for not being tougher on his Zimbabwean counterpart. It was action by South African dock workers which prevented the arms shipment being unloaded last week; and then the South African high court ruled that the cargo could not legally be taken from the port of Durban to the Zimbabwean border.
Whether any of this will affect developments inside Zimbabwe remains to be seen. All the signs are that the ruling ZANU-PF party is still deeply split over how to handle the crisis that followed last month's elections. When I spoke a few days ago to the deputy information minister, Bright Matonga, he confirmed that he had been among those who met opposition MDC emissaries after the election. He says it was at their request, something the MDC denies - but the very fact that these contacts are now being openly acknowledged is itself significant.
What does seem clear is that the resolution to this crisis, the most serious Mr Mugabe has faced in his 28 years in power, will come from inside Zimbabwe itself. At least some of his neighbours are now openly saying they've had enough, and the former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has added his voice to those calling for the election results to be published without further delay. That will add strength to the opposition - but the future lies in their hands.
Their hope is that with the help of disaffected ZANU-PF people, and some of the senior echelons in the army and police, they can somehow effect a transition to a post-Mugabe future without violence. The rest of the world watches, and waits.
There's nothing funny about the global food crisis: rocketing prices of such staples as rice and wheat have already caused serious unrest in several countries, and the UN is warning of millions of people facing the risk of severe malnutrition or worse.
Indeed, we devoted a whole programme to the issue last December, well before most people had woken up to the threat (You can listen to it again here). But now, on an admittedly much less serious note, comes news that will affect thousands of fig-roll lovers around the UK and elsewhere; there's a global fig shortage. No figs, no fig-rolls. You can read the whole sad story as reported in The Guardian .
Maybe now you'll take it seriously?
Let's try a little riddle: if GB loved TB, and TB loved GB back, where did that leave GB and GB?
I'll give you a moment to think about it. Got it? Yes, GB is George Bush - oh, and Gordon Brown - and TB is Tony Blair. So we knew that Mr Bush and Mr Blair got on well together - stood "shoulder to shoulder" in fact - but as of last night we now know that Mr Bush also gets on well with Mr Brown.
This is more surprising than you might imagine. Last year when Mr Brown went to Washington, he seemed to go out of his way to keep his distance from President Bush. There was an unmistakeable chill in the air, and by all accounts the White House wasn't amused.
Now, out there in the White House Rose Garden, it's all lovey-dovey again. Mr Brown says Mr Bush is a "great leader", that the world owes him a "great debt". Mr Bush says much the same about Mr Brown - and refers in glowing terms to the "special relationship" between the US and the UK, which always brings the Foreign Office out in goose bumps. So I'm asking myself why all the cootchy-coo.
After all, Mr Bush will be gone in eight months. Why bother cozying up to a lame duck, particularly when you know the lads back home won't like it a bit? No Labour leader gets bonus points these days for being nice to George W Bush, as Mr Blair knows only too well, and as Mr Brown surely knows too. As for Mr Bush, he doesn't need to be nice to the new PM on the block, but maybe he thinks that nice warm words from the White House will generate equally nice warm words from Downing Street.
The answer, I think, is that Mr Brown, like Mr Blair, is convinced that a close UK/US relationship is essential if Britain is to be heard in the modern world. On things like climate change and global poverty, nothing much can be done without a green light from Washington. So whoever is in the White House, or in Downing Street, there'll be cooing.
Mind you, Mr Brown didn't see only the President-on-his-way-out. He also saw all three of the potential Presidents-on-their-way-in. As Mr Bush sagely remarked; "One of them is definitely going to win." So it was 50 minutes each with Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain - and a steely determination not to betray any preference. (Here's a little secret: I'm pretty sure that Gordon's hoping Mrs Clinton wins, because he's known and been close to a lot of the people in Team Clinton for years.)
It's no small achievement, by the way, for the visiting leader of a mid-ranking European power to see the President and all three potential Presidents on the same day. The British embassy in Washington must have been doing some serious schmoozing ...
And while we're on the subject of Presidents, it's the Pennsylvania primary next week, so maybe I should just point out a couple of things.
One, even if Mrs Clinton wins, which she probably will, Mr Obama will still be well ahead overall, and likely to remain there.
Two, because Mr Obama is now universally acknowledged to be the front-runner, he's coming under much more pressure from the media. The Obama-Clinton TV debate this week was a bruising business for him, and he didn't emerge in great shape. The "liberal elitist" label which both Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain are trying to stick on him could damage him.
And yet ... if you look at the latest opinion polls, he still has a clear lead over Hillary Clinton among Democrats and Democrat sympathisers nationally - and he's still neck and neck in the polls against John McCain.
Oh, and if you think US voters must be sick and tired of all this by now, you're wrong. This week's Clinton-Obama TV debate (it was their 21st so far this year) was watched by more people than either "Deal or No Deal" or "Big Brother" which were on at the same time.
Believe it or not, the new 麻豆社 blog software is up and running (well, up and walking perhaps ...). They say it'll work better, which would be most welcome. But it does mean that from now on, you'll have to register before you can comment. A bit of a bore, I know, but it's once only, and once you've registered, you'll be able to comment on any 麻豆社 blog.
Try it below this, and let's see how it works. Unfortunately, you can't now add any comments to any of the blog entries below -- which is a shame because the Berlusconi discussion was going so well.
The 麻豆社 blog-masters want you to know that as from 1800 this evening (UK time), they'll be doing some essential maintenance to all 麻豆社's blogs. As a result of this, you won't be able to leave any comments on any blogs, including this one, until early Thursday morning. When they've done what they need to do, everything will be better (they say).
Thanks for bearing with us -- and thanks to the dozens of people who replied to my Berlusconi post.
ROME -- So the people of Italy have called back Il Cavaliere, their knight in shining armour, to rescue them in their hour of need.
Silvio Berlusconi perhaps makes an unlikely knight 鈥 but he earned his nickname many years ago, and it stuck. Now, he鈥檚 won his third election victory in 14 years, and he has a comfortable parliamentary majority to help him drag Italy out of the economic morass into which it has been slipping.
But isn鈥檛 he a corrupt buffoon, you may ask. Corrupt? Well, he鈥檚 faced plenty of allegations 鈥 and criminal investigations 鈥 but he鈥檚 never been convicted. As for a buffoon, well, maybe, but there鈥檚 no harm, he seems to think, in making people laugh.
Don鈥檛 forget, Berlusconi is a self-made billionaire, and buffoons don鈥檛 often make that kind of money. The secret of his political success has been to persuade enough Italian voters that he can be as successful in making their country rich again as he has been in business. The last time he was in office, between 2001 and 2006, he became Italy鈥檚 longest-serving prime minister since World War II. So if he is a clown, there may be method in his apparent madness.
He鈥檚 now 71, and when I watched him on his last pre-election TV appearance, I thought he looked tired and surprisingly lacking in enthusiasm at the prospect of the task ahead that victory would bring. But he enjoys success, and he enjoys popularity 鈥 as the scale of his election victory became clear, he thanked Italian voters for the faith they鈥檇 shown in him, and signed off with a kiss for them all.
One word of warning: he is not a huge fan of the European Commission in Brussels. They have a habit of asking questions about possible conflicts of interest between his vast business empire and his political day-job. Is it right for a prime minister to own three commercial television channels and a major national newspaper? Does it matter that as prime minister he also has indirect control over the country鈥檚 state-owned TV network? Brussels thinks it does matter, and has said so. Berlusconi doesn鈥檛 see the problem.
Last time round, his closest allies on the international stage were Tony Blair and George Bush. One has already gone; the other will be gone in less than a year. He shares with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, a love of the flamboyant and impatience with the traditional way of doing things. They also share an undisguised weakness for the company of beautiful women. So I rather suspect he鈥檒l get on a lot better with M Sarkozy than he will with Gordon Brown or Angela Merkel.
MILAN: The former 鈥 and perhaps future 鈥 Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is known to voters here as Il Cavaliere. It means The Knight, and the image it conjures up is of a knight on a white charger racing to rescue a damsel in distress.
That damsel is Italy, which is in dire economic straits and once again looking for a saviour able to work miracles. Is Silvio Berlusconi that man? In the elections on Sunday and Monday, Italian voters will have a chance to decide. And I鈥檓 here to try to find out what it is about a man who is often described overseas (and not only overseas) in terms that portray him as little more than a corrupt buffoon that attracts substantial numbers of Italian voters.
Milan, where I鈥檝e been for the past of couple of days, is the Berlusconi homeland. This is where he鈥檚 from, and this is where his support is strongest. 鈥淗e鈥檚 one of us,鈥 people here have been telling me. Yes, he鈥檚 had a hair transplant; yes, he鈥檚 had cosmetic surgery; and yes, at the age of 71 he still has an eye for pretty girls which has landed him in trouble with his wife. But 鈥 and this is much more important than any of the above 鈥 he is mega-rich, and he sells himself as the walking embodiment of the Italian dream. I can have the yachts, and the girls, and the glamour, he says 鈥 and so can you.
Silvio Berlusconi is the richest man in Italy, and according to Forbes magazine, the 51st richest man in the world. He made his billions in property, the media, advertising, and insurance. He also owns one of Europe鈥檚 top football clubs, AC Milan. If a multi-billionaire can have the common touch, that man is Berlusconi.
I was here in Italy when he was first elected 14 years ago. Then, he was a fresh face in politics, offering a new start after an entire political class had been wiped out in a slew of corruption scandals. But Mr Berlusconi himself has gone on trial on at least six occasions accused of embezzlement, tax fraud, false accounting and attempting to bribe a judge. He has always denied any wrongdoing and has never been convicted.
Italian politics make Byzantium look like a children鈥檚 game. There are 177 parties registered to stand in the elections 鈥 no fewer than 10 were in the rickety left-of-centre coalition government headed by Romano Prodi which collapsed after less than two years in office. Mr Berlusconi鈥檚 party which used to be Forza Italia is now the People of Freedom. The left-of-centre party headed by the former mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni is called the Democratic Party. It has also been known as the Party of the Left, the Democratic Left, the Oak Tree and the Union. But I sense that you鈥檙e losing the will to live, so I鈥檒l stop.
When I lived here back in the 1970s, the average length of a government鈥檚 life was eight months. Silvio Berlusconi lasted five years before narrowly losing in 2006. That alone makes him something special. But so too does his straight-forward way with voters: when a young woman asked him how he would suggest she could get on in life, he replied to the effect that she should find herself a rich husband 鈥 someone like his son, perhaps.
The opinion polls have been suggesting that Berlusconi will emerge the winner on Monday. But if it鈥檚 by only a narrow margin, he may be forced to go into a 鈥済rand coalition鈥 with at least some of the parties of the centre-left. The trouble is that Italy needs radical reforms in both industrial and welfare policy 鈥 it is already becoming known as the 鈥渟ick man鈥 of Europe, and in economic terms has now fallen behind Spain, something that deeply offends Italian national pride.
The country that brought you some of Europe鈥檚 giants of the arts -- Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Verdi, Puccini, Dante and many, many more 鈥 is now losing its way and unsure of where it should be heading. This weekend, Italian voters have a chance to point the way forward. I鈥檒l be on air tonight, Friday, and again on Monday, when I鈥檒l be in Rome as the first results come in. I hope you鈥檒l be able to join me.
The aim of this blog is to try to make sense of the world. And I take the view that you鈥檙e unlikely to be able to make sense of anything unless ideas are clearly expressed. And for that, you need 鈥 at least when the ideas are expressed in writing 鈥 punctuation.
Me? I need . They give me time to think; they give you, as reader, time to catch your breath. I returned from Bucharest to discover a piece in all about the semicolon: there is, apparently, a growing fear that it is on its way to oblivion. (Note, by the way, that I used a full colon in the preceding sentence: that鈥檚 because, as here, the clause after it amplifies and builds upon what went before.)
A colleague once told me that I was the only broadcaster she鈥檇 ever met who put semicolons into radio scripts. I suppose the sad fact is that I鈥檓 a little bit in love with them: I like their half-smile and gentle manner; I feel sorry for them as the world scurries past, too preoccupied to notice what useful creatures they are.
I know it is possible to write sensibly without them 鈥 you can use dots 鈥 or dashes -- to separate complex thoughts. But when I edit someone else鈥檚 work, I always try, when they鈥檙e not looking, to insert a few semicolons. It does wonders for the style and comprehensibility of their prose, and it adds elegance to their writing.
George Bernard Shaw apparently once told T.E. Lawrence that not using semicolons was 鈥渁 symptom of mental defectiveness鈥. I don鈥檛 go that far, but nor do I subscribe to the Kurt Vonnegut view that 鈥渢hey are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you鈥檝e been to college.鈥
So help me out here ... promise to use at least one semicolon a day. They must not be allowed to die.
I can鈥檛 help feeling that if Romania鈥檚 unlamented Communist president Nicolae Ceausescu were alive today, he鈥檇 be spinning in his grave. Something like that, anyway.
His vast, hideous monstrosity, the House of the People (now less grandiloquently named the Parliament Palace), is draped in NATO banners. Yes, NATO, in Bucharest, a city that less than 20 years ago epitomised all that was rotten behind the Iron Curtain.
The building is reputed to the second biggest in the world, after the Pentagon in Washington. (People who know more about big buildings than I do say it isn鈥檛 鈥 all I can tell you for sure is that it is definitely big.) And it鈥檚 where this week鈥檚 NATO summit is being held, which means that someone, somewhere has a finely developed sense of irony. Three thousand delegates, the same number of journalists 鈥 and still the place seems half empty.
As for NATO, well, it鈥檚 big, and getting bigger. It has 26 members now, including 10 which less than 20 years ago were in the Soviet bloc 鈥 and two more, Albania and Croatia, now accepted for future membership. Albania? I know, it鈥檚 hard to keep up sometimes.
The whole point about NATO, of course, is that it was founded as 鈥 and still is 鈥 a defence organisation. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which happens to have been signed exactly 59 years ago today, says: 鈥淎n armed attack against one or more [members] shall be considered an attack against them all 鈥︹ which is comforting if you鈥檙e a small, vulnerable nation with a large and powerful neighbour.
And on the subject of large and powerful neighbours, President Putin is here today (I鈥檓 writing this before we know what he intends to say) 鈥 the word is that he intends to be in a mood more mellow than melodramatic. Next month, he鈥檒l become Prime Minister Putin, so he may also be in semi-valedictory mood.
NATO鈥檚 great achievement over the past 59 years has been to convince the US that its own security depends at least in part on Europe鈥檚 security. President Bush is keen to entice more and more former Soviet bloc nations into the NATO tent; but some of his European allies aren鈥檛 so sure that tweaking Moscow鈥檚 nose is such a great idea. But Mr Bush won鈥檛 be coming to any more NATO summits, so the feeling here is 鈥淟et鈥檚 wait to see who鈥檚 in the White House this time next year.鈥
First in Kosovo, and now in Afghanistan, NATO troops have gone into action 鈥渙ut of theatre鈥, which is soldier-speak for countries that aren鈥檛 NATO members. The thinking is that if NATO members鈥 security is threatened, either by the Taliban harbouring al-Qaeda, or by ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, NATO has the right to intervene. But Kosovo is still a big headache, and Afghanistan an even bigger one. Which means this is a pretty sombre summit.
And if you鈥檙e wondering why I haven鈥檛 said anything about Zimbabwe this week, it鈥檚 because the situation is still too volatile and confused to make any sense of. As soon as I think I can discern a likely outcome, you鈥檒l be the first to know.
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