The Independent

Book Review of A Tolerable Anarchy: Rebels, Reactionaries, and the Making of American Freedom by Jedediah Purdy. Thank God for Bernie Madoff. Without him, who would be the face of the Great Collapse of 2008? Before "the Ponz" pled guilty to running what is surely the biggest investor scam in American history, wrote Chadwick Matlin last week in a ...

...  Daniel Levy, former adviser in the office of Israeli in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, shows clearly where the wrong choices were made: withdrawing from Gaza without co-ordinating the "what next" with the Palestinians; hermetically sealing off Hamas and besieging Gaza after the 2006 elections instead of testing Hamas's capacity to govern responsibly; instead of building on the ceasefire, Israel was the first to break it on 4 November. In short, there were other alternatives....

Latin Americans are hoping for more carrot and less stick from President Obama than under his predecessor, President Bush. Immigration will be top of the agenda for most governments. Legalising the estimated 15 million illegal workers in the US and introducing a temporary worker programme, as well as secure borders are a priority for all Latin American nations, according to former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda. LINK

A survey carried out last May for the New America Foundation revealed that 28 per cent of Pakistanis favour a military role in politic, as compared to 45 per cent in August 2007; that 52 per cent regard the US as responsible for the violence in Pakistan; that 74 per cent oppose the "war against terror" in Afghanistan. LINK

London - Waging an uphill struggle for Muslim hearts and minds, some in the West are wondering if the time has come to dust off their Cold War textbooks in search of tips for winning the war on terrorism...In Washington, President George Bush has compared the war on terrorism with the struggles against Nazi Germany and Soviet communism, and said in January's State of the Union address that Shi'a and Sunni extremists posed a "totalitarian threat".Frequent… more

From north to south, from east to west, violence and insecurity have gripped the entirety of Iraq. In January alone, at least 2,000 civilians, Iraqi security forces and US and British troops were killed in violence across the nation. As President George Bush dispatches an additional 21,500 combat troops ­ and at least as many again in a supporting role ­ to try to bring calm to Baghdad, new figures suggest that violent death is becoming an everyday… more