Epic drought in Australia

(Source: Independent) Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation. The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies. Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record, the victim of changing weather patterns attributed to global warming and a government that is only just starting to wake up to the severity of the position.

Robert Fisk: Who's running Lebanon?

(Source: The Independent) Devastated by Israel's bombs, threatened by the looming might of Iran and Syria, and divided from within by its own ethnic bloodletting - Lebanon is an unfolding tragedy with little hope of salvation. As the nation rushes headlong towards civil war, Robert Fisk, who has lived in Beirut for 30 years, picks through the city's wreckage to identify the agitators, military leaders and politicians who now wield the real power.

Pub Talk

(Source: The Independent) - make sure you read all the way to the end... :)

"Miles Kington: Slavery, the Ashes and other sorry international affairs...
'Wasn't moving convicts to Australia a kind of slavery? I wish they'd kept Shane Warne's ancestors back here in Britain...'"

Dawkins takes fight against religion into the classroom

(Source: The Independent) Richard Dawkins, the Oxford geneticist, best-selling author and campaigning atheist, is to take his battle against God into Britain's schools after setting up a foundation to counter the religious indoctrination of young people.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason will subsidise books, pamphlets and DVDs for teachers to fight the "educational scandal" that has seen the growth in popularity of "pseudo science" and "irrational" ideas.

The foundation will also conduct research into what makes some people more susceptible to religious ideas than others and whether young people are particularly vulnerable. And it will aim to "raise public consciousness" to make it unacceptable to refer to a "Catholic child" or a "Muslim child"; Professor Dawkins believes that "it is immoral to brand young children with the religion of their parents".

Churchill 'borrowed' famous lines from books by HG Wells

(Source: The Independent) Winston Churchill was a closet science fiction fan who borrowed the lines for one of his most famous speeches from HG Wells, says new research.

Robert Fisk: Dragons of Lebanon's past emerge for Gemayel funeral

(Source: The Independent) Robert Fisk comments on the implications of yet another political assassination in Lebanon.

Zulu king who crushed British Army honoured with historic blue plaque

(Source: The Independent) King Cetshwayo's struggle with the British, at the head of an army equipped only with shields and spears, seems to make him an unlikely recipient of an English Heritage blue plaque - the commemorative marker affixed to buildings linked to great figures of the past.

Read more by clicking on the title link above.

Robert Fisk on Lebanon

For those interested in Middle Eastern geo-politics....

(Source: Independent) Extract:
"In the Sunni Lebanese cities to the north - in Sidon and in Tripoli - there are families who have sent their sons and cousins to Iraq to fight the Americans. They have videotapes of these young men as they set off to car-bomb - to suicide-bomb - the US occupation forces in Iraq. They have shown these videos to me. They, too, see the "new" Unifil as a Nato force. In the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, for example, there is now a rumour. That "if you can drive well, you are at the top of the list". In other words, if you can drive well, you are the next in the list for suicide bombing."

The world city: one in three Londoners was born overseas

(Source: Independent) A third of Londoners were not born in Britain, according to research which throws fresh light on the capital's status as a multi-cultural magnet. The capital now has its highest proportion of residents who started life overseas, with the foreign-born population standing at more than 2.2 million.

Robert Fisk: This was a guilty verdict on America as well

(Source: The Independent) I recently read/ waded my way through a lengthy book by Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation - rather a long historical narrative about the situation in the Middle East.

I discovered a writer who was compelling in his description of the (in)humanity of war, and someone who made sense of the sometimes bleak events of the Middle East. He publishes from time to time in the Independent. If only history was taught in this compelling manner, when I was at school.

I encourage you to have a read. I am confident your views of the Middle East and US foreign policy will never be the same again.

Quality commentary on world affairs

I have found the articles on world affairs published by the Independent (UK) newspaper to be especially insightful and thought-provoking. Click on the title link above.