December 2005

“WE DO not torture,” said President George Bush, speaking in Panama on 7 November at the end of a five-day tour of Latin America, a region that has suffered under a series of Washington-backed dictatorships guilty of torture and the “disappearance” of suspects on a massive scale. The United States president was replying to an article in the Washington Post (1) accusing the US intelligence services of the “extraordinary rendition” and torture of prisoners in secret detention centres, or “black (...)

All eyes are on Syria as it stands accused of being behind the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Even before the UN commission of inquiry was completed, the US was planning - with France - a concerted offensive against the Syrian regime. But destabilising President Bashar al-Assad could lead to regional chaos, given the fragility of Lebanon and near civil war in Iraq.

The French government has used the recent unrest as an excuse to tighten up on law and order. It has handed down prison sentences to hundreds of youngsters, announced the deportation of several foreign nationals and pushed a three-month extension of the state of emergency through parliament. The interior minister now advocates other controls. But civic order cannot be achieved in the midst of social disorder.

The de facto segregation prevalent in parts of the education system has contributed to the explosive situation in France. A new approach is needed to endow all pupils with the shared culture and the educational level they need to achieve economic and social integration.

France’s out-of-town estates have a troubled history. But never before have they witnessed such violent and widespread clashes. The reason lies in the rapid deterioration of conditions on poor estates and the increasingly militaristic methods used by the police.

George Bush spoke out about democracy in China and Burma during his Asian tour in November. Not without reason, even if his sermons rang a little hollow after the recent torture revelations against the United States. Washington’s real concern, of course, is not to get sidelined by China’s regional ambitions. But this month sees the first East Asia summit - and the US has not been not invited.

In November the UN Security Council adopted sanctions, which include freezing assets and travel restrictions, against anyone breaking the arms embargo on the Democratic Republic of Congo. The east of the country is rife with smuggling, especially in gold. Regional conflict that left 3 million dead between 1998 and 2003 has exhausted the country, and general elections that were due this year have been pushed back to June 2006.

Hong Kong is the latest WTO free-for-all where powerful nations aim to increase their wealth, regardless of the consequences. The poorest just aim to survive. Doubts are now being raised about the virtues of ‘free trade’.

The World Trade Organisation should be setting firm rules in agriculture - which is more important to poor countries than to rich ones - to ensure a sustainable future. But the developed nations want ‘access to markets’ and are using reform of their farm subsidies as a bargaining chip to increase their exports of services and industrial goods

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first publication of Don Quixote. Looking back at Cervantes’s major work allows us to explore the universal reach of great world literature.

Israel’s third-largest city held its 21st international film festival in October. In 1994 the theme of the festival became ‘neighbours’, and its declared goal ‘peace, tolerance and coexistence in an oasis of tranquillity’. There was an effort to bring Arab films to the festival; the main fruit has been Palestinian films, many of them Israeli co‑productions. This year’s festival included a day of Palestinian cinema.

On 21 December 1925 Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre hosted the premiere of Battleship Potemkin, the second feature film from Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein. It was a state-commissioned film, intended to commemorate the 1905 uprising, precursor to the 1917 revolution. The film revolutionised the aesthetics of cinema.

As the execution of Stanley ’Tookie’ Williams on 13 December in California captured the world’s attention, another Williams, who narrowly escaped his fate, has written of life on death row.