BBC: Wyred for balance

Remember Wyre Davies and his matter-of-fact reporting of the ethnic cleansing of 100,000 Tunisian Jews? Here's another little gem from him.

What does it take to get recognised as a terrorist organisation? Planting a bomb on a tourist bus might seem to place the matter beyond reasonable doubt, but our Wyre has reservations. His analysis in full:-

Long before this official report was released by the Bulgarian authorities, Israel had accused Hezbollah (and its principal sponsor, Iran) of being behind the Burgas attack.

Since the July 2012 bombing, Israel and the US have pressed European Union states to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation (denying it access to funding and other financial assets in Europe).

While some, including Britain and the Netherlands, might support such a move, other countries, such as France, oppose it. France counters that Hezbollah is a political and social as well as a militant organisation.

The French argue that proscribing it as an illegal terrorist organisation could destabilise Lebanon and its current coalition government, of which Hezbollah is part.

Just notice how the spineless British and Dutch do as they're told by America and Israel, whilst the bravely independent French have arguments for their position.

Extreme varieties of nothinginparticularism

Edwin Greenwood notes that, whilst British media types have complied meekly with Indian officialdom's belated two-fingered gesture towards the Raj of turning Bombay into Mumbai, the locals are less enthusiastic.

I feel sure that they are also less reticent than the BBC about naming the cause which has claimed a further 18 lives in the city. I was originally going to link the previous sentence to this item. But now, on reading the Beeb's account of the latest Bombay bloodbath, I find that it makes my point just as well. Just as the estimable young Jordanian is tackling "extremism" with his computer games, so we have speculation as to whether the blasts were the work of "home-grown militant outfits like the Indian Mujahideen (IM)", or, as in 2008, of "Pakistani-based militants".

Extremism has to be an extreme form of something. You can't be a militant without something to be militant about. Pardon me for repeating myself, but it's one thing (and bad enough) for government to adopt this mealy-mouthedness as a matter of policy; for the organization we pay willy-nilly to bring us the news to follow suit is unconscionable.

Raising awareness of the stakeholders in the room

John Rentoul reaches out to us to share his concerns and issues around clichés. What's not to like? Though I do hope I won't be named and shamed. And I fear Mr Rentoul himself may be teetering on the edge with his opening "I have an article". Pots, kettles.

I must admit I haven't yet come across "toilet" as a verb. Is it transitive or intransitive?

(Hat tip - is that on the list, or already old hat? - to Fr Tim)

Schadenfreuderealpolitikbeansproutthing

Warning: this post contains tasteless schadenfreude*.

OK, I know the new E. coli outbreak is no laughing matter. But you would need a heart of stone not to crease up at the news that, after initially fingering organic cucumbers, the German authorities are now closing in on an organic bean sprout farm. Yes, this is an epidemic tailor made for culling health food junkies. I mean, what normal human being, on being told that their next meal is going to be their last one, would order bean sprouts?

And, as one who has himself patronised German health food shops in his time (Frau G made me do it), I strongly suspect, despite the Beeb's reservations, that we already have the solution to the mystery of the sexist bug.

The German government should urgently consider launching a health campaign aimed at middle-class women in their thirties, to encourage them to switch to healthier options such as beer and sausages.

*Foootnote: since like so many bloggers I dream of breaking into the big time in the manner of Oliver Kamm, I follow the rules of the hack's profession and take care to use this word, or its synonym realpolitik, when writing anything about Germany. For the benefit of those who didn't get an edukayshun, it means "I am cultured and cosmopolitan, a veritable Renaissance man". On the other hand, I am emphatically not going to mention the Nazis. Oh, bother, I just did.

In which Mr Grumpy blows his chances of canonisation

Light posting of late, so how about a sideswipe at a really easy target to get back into the swing of it? Oh, look, Cristina Odone's at it again. Today's pearl of wisdom:-

'I’m afraid Cardinal Newman was just too bitchy to be made a saint.

'The Catholic Church’s great intellectual convert was a magnificent writer, a bold thinker, a rigorous Church historian. But his Apologia Pro Vita Sua leaves no doubt that he was also supremely catty and precious, guilty of the self-absorption of a latter-day celeb.'

So no hint of bitchiness there, then. Pretty much a case of "takes one to know one", might one say (miaow)?

I've read the Apologia twice and it changed my life. Self-absorbed? Well, he was after all defending himself against a savage assault on his integrity. What he was he supposed to write about if not himself? If you really don't like the autobiographical slant, there is an abundance of other works to choose from. No doubt Cristina will be giving us her reactions to the Grammar of Assent in due course (miaow no. 2).

And what makes the Apologia unexpectedly unputdownable is, quite simply, the fact that Newman had a mind worth being absorbed in. Unlike some people (miaow no. 3).

Oh, and one other thing. Few Victorian English gentlemen would have doubted that the Italians were dirtier and more superstitious than the English. Certainly not Charles Kingsley. Might this view not, at the time, have contained a grain of truth? I'm not aware, though, that Newman ventured any predictions about comparative hygiene standards in the early 21st century - as Cristina's aggrieved present tense implies. Oh well, I suppose 1 September still counts as the silly season (miaow no. 4).

Who says there are no good guys in the Middle East?

Certainly not the BBC. Here's their woman in Damascus feeling the pain of Iraqi Baathists exiled in Syria.

'"There are hundreds of thousands of supporters of the former regime among these refugees. What should we do... jail them all?" asks Samir al-Taqi, an analyst with a pro-government Syrian think tank.'

Pity all the anti-government think tanks were unavailable for comment.

'Mr Taqi argues that what is radicalising many Baathists further is the failure of the Iraqi government to involve them in the political process.'

Yes indeed, whereas the willingness to reach out to its opponents is the secret of Baathism's enduring popular appeal. Look at the al-Assad dynasty - they haven't lost an election in 47 years.

It's funny, I thought the progressive complaint was always that the post-war denazification of Germany was much too lax. By this reasoning it shouldn't have been attempted at all.

Seriously, though. I'm not saying that it was very clever to make an enemy out of every ordinary Joe who joined Saddam's party to get a job. But compare and contrast the understanding and sympathy we are being prompted to show towards these ordinary Joes with the apoplectic reactions to those other ordinary Joes, not so far away, who want homes even if they're built on land which, in the eyes of the rest of the world, doesn't belong to their country.

Why does Hamas get such a good press while Israel gets such a bad press?

It's as simple as this. Gaza welcomes indignation tourists and useful idiots. But not investigative journalists.

Nothing new about the technique, of course - it worked a treat for Stalin.

And note how the Beeb lends a helping hand with a headline assuring us that the glass is half full - 'Hamas releases', not 'Hamas deports and bans'. The bit where the Hamas accusations against Paul Martin are attributed to Associated Press can probably be put down to sloppy sub-editing. Probably.

Esther Rantzen and the Elders

The Telegraph had an article last week by Esther Rantzen on the harrowing case of Baby Peter. No comment on the article itself other than to say that a strong stomach is required.

Ms Rantzen is one of those people you either love or hate. The latter is perhaps an understandable reaction to memories of 'That's Life'. Less understandable is the view that her work with vulnerable children is informed by the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. But for some people the name alone tells a story...

'I would argue that Esther does not give a rats noddy about endangered children, as she works for the tribe that blatantly commits the most heinous crimes on the planet'

So wrote a commenter signing himself 'Noble Lord' at 11:24 AM on Wednesday. And more in the same vein. Just over an hour later I reported the comment to the Telegraph, pointing out that it was anti-Semitic and asking that it be removed.

Result as of today's date: zilch.

Now I would hazard a guess that Noble Lord is on terms of some familiarity with his local mental health services. I wonder which noble lord he supposes himself to be. The Duke of Edinburgh, perhaps? The Marquis of Bath? Lord Lawson of Blaby?

Nevertheless, those of us who have studied history know that sometimes the lunatics can take over the asylum. So it behoves a reputable newspaper not to make things easier for them. The Telegraph wouldn't dream of commissioning an article propounding these views, so why does it tolerate them in a comment - for which it is in principle just as responsible as for the output of its star columnists?

Counterstatistics

The average Brit gets caught on CCTV 300 times a day. If you haven't read it in the Daily Mail, you've read it in the New Statesman. So it must be true, then.

Or not. David Aaronovitch gives us the secret biography of a junk statistic, and it's a real eye-opener.

Over the weekend I nicked my brother-in-law's copy of Damian Thompson's Counterknowledge for long enough to skim-read it. What the book reveals is scary enough, but I think I find Aaro's piece even more worrying. In my rationalist wisdom I can look down from a great height on those poor souls duped by the claims of reflexologists, creationists and 9/11 truthers, but how do I innoculate myself against the kind of disinformation exemplified by that '300 times a day' stat? It's like a virus spreading through the mainstream media, accepted and passed on uncritically because it supports a mainstream political agenda - one which I at least partially subscribe to, so my guard is down too.

Thomson exposes the scandal of universities offering degrees in homoeopathy, but at least we can easily divine that they're not worth the paper they're printed on. Sociology, on the other hand, is a real academic discipline dealing, potentially at least, with real and important knowledge. When a social scientist who works at a reputable university, and is entrusted by something ironically called the Office of the Information Commissioner with the writing of a an official report, announces that it is 'politically autistic' to expect an attention-grabbing statistic to have an empirical basis, how and where are we to draw the line between counterknowledge and the real thing?

The commentariat speaks

...with a little help from Peter Briffa. Priceless (hat tip: Stephen Pollard).

Six dead, liberal love affair with Hamas unharmed

Deadly clash at Arafat Gaza rally

Six dead after shootout at Arafat rally

Five killed during Arafat rally

Security forces open fire on stone-throwing Palestinian protesters, six killed. Stand by for global outcry over disproportionate use of force by Israel.

Or, as it happens, not. Even if you didn't already know, there'd be a whopping great clue in the coyness of the headlines above about who was doing the shooting. Can you guess which major British media outlets they come from? (Compare and contrast with this and this)

One of the three economy-with-the-truthers redeems itself somewhat by carrying another piece of news from Gaza which is fairly difficult to blame on the Israelis. Not a dicky bird from the the other two, however.

Is it any wonder that well-meaning liberal Christians are prejudiced against Israel?

Seeing and believing: an icon for the scapegoaters

Coming to the second Melanie Phillips post, scapegoating needs its icons as well as its legends. A boy dies in his father's arms, deliberately shot by a callous Israeli soldier. Or did he? If TV station France 2 can be compelled to release the footage it has refused to make public, we may be able to pass a definitive judgment on claim that the whole thing was a fake - a latter-day Blood Libel. The story is still live, Melanie has posted again on it and will doubtless continue to do so.

But how much difference will it make if the claims are proven? Millions - perhaps billions - have seen and believed. Neo-Nazis, Muslims and nice, liberal, Guardian-reading Anglicans united in their indignation. And the last, having seen and believed, became that much more of a receptive audience for Mearsheimer and Walt.

It's part of the price Israel pays for being a democracy. Regimes which take the shooting-innocent-civilians thing seriously take care to shoot a foreign photographer or two before unplugging their country from the Internet.

The People's Inspiration

A couple of posts from Mick Hartley, keeping us up to date with areas of the world which are not faced with a boycott by the National Union of Journalists. First, the state of press freedom (lack of) in Russia. And then... well, see for yourselves.

NUJ fightback

I'm not managing a lot of posting just lately, but I certainly can't ignore the wonderfully heartening fightback by National Union of Journalists members against the motion to boycott Israeli goods which was narrowly carried by their national conference. ITN, the Observer and a big chunk of the BBC have all come out against. Say what you like about the British media (and, yes, I quite often do like) there plainly still is such a thing as professionalism at its upper levels, and professional journalists understand that their job is to report the news that then enables the rest of us to make decisions about who, if anyone, we want to boycott.

As for singling Israel out for a boycott - a country that's open and democratic enough for this kind of thing to happen - here's a fascinating insight into the kind of company which the kind of people to whom this makes sense (specifically, the by now grossly misnamed Socialist Workers Party) are happy to keep. Based on my past experience of Trot politics I should have known better than to imagine that, just because a handful of these creeps can swing a conference vote, they are remotely representative of the membership.

Talking of Trots, I see that a fulsome endorsement from the Gorgeous One was not sufficient to save Tommy Sheridan's seat in the Scottish Parliament. Never mind, now he'll be able to spend more time with his Scrabble set.

Returning to serious politics, all the links come directly or indirectly from Engage, who are clearly doing sterling work in the fight against the boycott. Much more power to their elbows.

Alan Johnston: a tragedy and its misuse

UPDATE: this report suggests I have been overly pessimistic - let's hope so.

Alan Johnston, the BBC's man in Gaza, is almost certainly dead. It's not the worst crime committed in the Middle East this week, but it's bad enough.

The news that somebody has accused the Israelis of being behind the kidnapping and killing would not in itself be worth passing on. Let's face it, they're to blame for everything else, and it's not at all the kind of behaviour you'd expect from a bona fide group of militant Islamists. What makes the accusation slightly more remarkable is the fact that it comes from a retired colleague of Johnston's.

I can only suggest that Alan Hart spends a little more time studying his former employers' output. He would then be aware that Johnston's Gaza posting was due to end last month (see the final sentence here). Like all conspiracy theorists Hart needs nothing more than a good cui bono argument to set him off - but he doesn't even have that.

Jon feels the Beeb's recruitment of loonies should at least be a little more balanced. Well, Jon, I fear that's a battle you'll have to fight without any help from the National Union of Journalists. Following a conference vote for a boycott of Israel, General Secretary Jeremy Dear argues that the Palestinian journalists' union has earnt this gesture by supporting the campaign for Johnston's release. A fascinating concept: journalists needing to be rewarded for being opposed to the kidnapping and killing of journalists.

And whilst Mr Dear insists that 'The boycott call has nothing to do with reporting. The NUJ is not telling members how to report Israel', he also seems to suggest that Johnston in his turn earned Palestinian support by being 'so keen to help [the Palestinian people] through his reporting'. So how vocal would the Palestinian journalists' union have been on his behalf if his reporting had been a little less helpful towards the Palestinians and more obliging towards the Israelis?

But has Mr Dear pondered where he stands if Alan Hart is right and Johnston's killers were Israeli? If the Israeli journalists' union condemns the crime, the NUJ will want to reward them by rescinding the boycott, yes? No? Only an idea.

Leaving the asylum for a breath of fresh air, I note that Donald Macintyre of the Indie and Alan Rusbridger of the Grauniad have come out against the boycott - a stance which will certainly get a mixed reception from readers of their papers. So respect to both, and also to Tory MP and Times man Michael Gove, though he will presumably face less flak for his decision to resign from the NUJ. Let him have the last word:-

'This boycott is not of a repressive state that outlaws free expression (of which, sadly, there are still too many) but of one of the few states in the Middle East with a proper free press: Israel.

'The NUJ exists to defend, among other virtues, freedom of speech. That virtue is better defended in Israel than in any other nation of the Middle East and it comes under assault daily from forces driven by fanaticism.'

LibMSMWatch: wrong kind of child killers

Four children among the 17 dead as Gaza fire fights rage

- headline in the Indie. Nothing quite as judgmental as 'Palestinian gunmen kill four children' - after all, they obviously didn't mean to kill children, it's just one of those things that can happen when you have a fire fight.

But at least the children are mentioned, which is more than can be said of the Grauniad's version, headed 'US bid to revive peace process falters on Gaza streets' (those Americans, can't do a darn thing right, can they?). Or of the Beeb's.

On past occasions the killing of even one Palestinian child has been a very emotive topic indeed. Today four are dead and they barely rate a mention. I wonder why.

George and the dragophobes

'If St George was a Liberal, he'd have teamed up with the dragon then insisted we celebrate his bravery in taking on a dangerous maiden.'

'I wish I'd said that!'

'You will, Grumpy, you will...'

Not that I've given up on liberalism - the real thing - yet. But Dumb Jon once again has your average self-styled lib bang to rights.

Muslims in 'Pope is a Catholic' storm

Well, I'd been planning to link to the Pope's Regensburg lecture since I saw him delivering it live on TV. In my humble opinion it's a fine piece of theological reasoning. I was also impressed by the sermon he preached earlier the same day.

And, yes, I did have a feeling there was going to be trouble. Funny, isn't it, that although the lecture contains a lot more criticism of western secularism than of Islam, it somehow never occurred to me that the trouble might come in the form of enraged atheists firebombing churches? Or that Catholics would interpret the lecture as giving them the green light to shoot an imam or two?

It's one of those occasions when I look to the bloggers to preserve my sanity.

At Harry's Place Brownie simply puts the 'offending' quote in context and asks 'So...what exactly is the problem?'

Shuggy is spot on:-

'At the close of his speech he said:

'"It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university."

'It wouldn't be this task of the university - to join the general conversation of mankind - that the Islamists are afraid of, would it?

'No doubt the usual 'liberals' will, in that special pained sort of way they have, 'regret' the insensitivity of the Pope's remarks. In anticipation of this I can only insist on the following. We are not talking about a few infantile cartoons being published in a provincial European newspaper now, this shifts it to fundamentals: you either believe in free speech or you do not; you either believe in academic and intellectual freedom or you do not; and you either believe in the freedom of religion or you do not. And if you chose the censorious path, let's hear a respectable intellectual argument that does not rest solely on accusations of racism. Oh, and don't call yourself a liberal - don't you dare.'

As is Laban Tall:-

'Because this isn't about peaceful co-existence. This is about imposing one's will on the spiritual enemy. In fact, the greater the apology, the less likely it is to be accepted - because it's taken as a sign of weakness, to be exploited further.

'No religion has been mocked and vilified more in the last 40 years than Christianity. And it continues - because the consequences don't involve bodies with knives pinning notes to their chests, decapitation, explosions, burning buildings or trains.

'Faced with such things, Western society retreats, draws back, self-censors - engendering a sense among the bad hats (and among those who share the aim even while having reservations about the method) that there is no limit to the retreat - no ground on which the enemy will turn, stand and fight.'

In a situation where the Pope is simultaneously being compared with Hitler and accused of Zionism, satire is pretty much superfluous here, but Simply Jews are not to be deterred.

Thank heaven for the blogs, because without them we'd be left at the mercy of the msm.

Take, for instance, today's al-Grauniad. Not only do we have Karen Armstrong grinding out her one tune (Islam is peaceful, and if it's not it's our fault) but John Hooper is encouraging the Jews to show a bit of solidarity with the Muslims. Because now the Pope's been quoting the rabidly anti-Semitic St Paul. This must take the biscuit for cynical opportunism even by al-G standards. Mr Hooper prefers not to spoil his point by mentioning that Paul was, like Jesus, his disciples and all the authors of the New Testament, Jewish.

Ruth Gledhill in the Times claims that the Pope's Quranic scholarship is suspect. Well, that's fair enough, and he's positively inviting dialogue with Muslim scholars on that level. But let's spell out once again the precondition for that kind of conversation: all sides are free to speak their mind without facing the threat of violence. In Ms Gledhill's piece that takes a back seat to Pope-bashing.

In the real world outside the blogosphere, is there anybody manning the barricades for freedom?

Not the trendy Christian liberals who've seized the opportunity to stick the boot into Ratzi -dishonourable mentions for Giles Fraser, chaplain to al-Grauniad, and the Pope's old antagonist Hans Küng (see the Ruth Gledhill piece). Here's a vintage Fraserism:

'For in claiming that Islam may be beyond reason, and then to claim that to act without reason is to act contrary to the will of God, is pretty close to the assertion that this religion is godless. And that's not how different faiths ought to speak to each other - especially when we all have each other's blood on our hands.'

So, Dr Fraser, scourge of the conservative evangelicals: when Iranian zealots string up gay teenagers, do they serve the living God or an idol of their own imagining? Tricky one, huh? Remember: engage brain before opening mouth.

Who's manning the barricades? In German politics, not Renate Künast, leader of the Greens in the Bundestag, who called for an apology, and thinks that the Pope has not only the Crusades but the Irish civil war (sic) and the invasion of Iraq on his conscience (German source here). Bad news for Germans who want to save the planet without surrendering their democratic rights.

You'd expect the Christian Democrats to do better and they do. Chancellor Angela Merkel has stood up for the Pope, whilst the party's General Secretary, Ronald Pofalla, says: 'All those who are now attacking him don't want dialogue, but an intimidated and silenced West'. (German source here)

Credit is due too, perhaps less predictably, to Lale Akgün, Muslim Affairs spokesman for the Social Democrats:

'Look, there are three and a half million Muslims living in Germany, over 20 million in Europe. These are not small numbers. That means we have no alternative to convincing the majority of comparatively apathetic Muslims of the need to accept and show the peaceful face of Islam. [...] We must simply ensure that those who are rather indifferent to religion, who tend to fight shy of religion, take an active stand, that we persuade them to join with us in developing an Islam in Europe which is compatible with democracy, with human rights, with women's rights. And which is also prepared to submit itself to discussion, prepared to accept other opinions or at least agree to disagree.'

(my translation, original here)

OK, it's not a great advertisement for a belief system if you have to look to the apathetic to salvage some basic decency. Never mind, he's on the right side.

Returning to the UK papers, the Observer's Will Hutton gives us a mixed bag. He's been reading a book by a progressive Muslim, and he desperately wants to believe its message:-

'Nor is Islam less able [than Christianity or Judaism] to accommodate reason or Enlightenment values.'

Well, I'd very much like to believe it too. Mr Hutton should carry on reading, and if he will add the New Testament and the Quran to his reading list he can, I hope, correct his impression that they are both equally guilty of glorifying violence (see below).

Still, he does get it to this extent...

'Aslan is persuasive, but the reaction of some Islamic leaders to the Pope's incitement belies his optimism. They can choose to ignore the pontiff, challenge him or demonstrate through reference to Islam's own teachings that he is wrong. Instead, they stress the enormous offence that has been given. There is no sense here of a commitment to pluralism or mutual tolerance.

[...]

'The principle of tolerance is one on which the West can never compromise. The Pope was right on one thing, though; the West, its religions included, accepts the grandeur of reason. So, ultimately, must Islam.'

And there's William Rees-Mogg in today's Times. 10 out of 10. I fear he may be a little long in the tooth to be manning the barricades, but then so is the Holy Father, and with so many 'liberals' deserting the cause of liberty we need everyone we can get...

'The Pope’s actual quotation is not just a medieval point of view. It is a common modern view; even if it seldom reaches print; it can certainly be found on the internet. “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and then you shall find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

'Is it true that the Koran contains such a command, and has it influenced modern terrorists? The answers, unfortunately, are “yes” and “yes”.

'The so-called Sword Verse from Chapter 9 must have been in the emperor’s mind: “So when the sacred months have passed away, Then slay the idolaters wherever you find them.

'“And take them captive and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every ambush.”

'This does shock many Muslims: extremists are angered by the implied criticism of those who quote it, while moderates who cannot disavow the terms of the Koran prefer more evasive interpretations. The shock it creates shows the importance of the doctrine.'

Lest the barricades stuff comes across as a mite hysterical, let a correspondent to the same paper have the final word:-

'Sir, The Pope did not give offence (reports, Comment and leading article, Sept 16): his enemies took it.

'Taking offence is a blackmail strategy and any excuse, real or imagined, will do: it is seen in the belligerent drunk, growling “What are you lookin’ at?” or the gang member who draws a knife because he has been “dissed”. It works because polite, educated respondents try to treat this as a real question, to apologise and negotiate.

'You cannot negotiate with a drunk or a knife, and you cannot negotiate with those who manufacture offence as a weapon.'

School's out, there's a war on

'Education in Southern Sudan is almost non-existent,
due to over two decades of war. More than 1.5 million
people have been killed and about four million forced
to flee to the north or to other countries. Many of
them have still not been able to return.The education
system and infrastructure have been totally destroyed.

'Over the last ten years, ad hoc education programmes
have been set up by local communities, NGOs and
faith-based organisations, but the Ministry of Education
is run by volunteers and teachers are untrained, unpaid
and often have had very little schooling themselves.
Going to school, for those children who do, means
sitting under a tree or in a grass hut, with no water
or toilets, without even the most basic teaching and
learning materials.

'The children of Southern Sudan have the least access
to primary education in the world. Around 20 per cent
of children enrol in school, with only 2 per cent
completing primary education.The situation is even
worse for girls. In a population of between six and
seven million, 500 girls finish primary school each year.

'Now that a separate government has been set up
and a fragile peace negotiated, people are beginning
to return to the south, placing an even greater strain
on a non-functioning education system.'

- from Save the Children's report 'Rewrite the Future: Education for children in conflict-affected countries' (pdf via StC and the BBC)

My gloss on this, which StC might or might not agree with, concerns the mainstream-media-eye view of the world. These are forgotten victims of a forgotten conflict - except that 'forgotten' is the wrong word since it was almost totally ignored by the media while it was raging.

Probably most of what I know about Darfur comes from the blogs I read regularly (honourable mention to Mick Hartley), but over the last few months the msm have finally started to wake up. The BBC website is reasonably good (I suspect the Nine O'Clock News is a different story, though) and the Telegraph's David Blair is outstanding (I never thought I'd live to see the day when I put 'Telegraph' and 'outstanding' into the same sentence).

That awakening never happened in twenty years of carnage in the South.

Darfur is Muslim on Muslim. The South was Muslim on non-Muslim. 1.5 million dead (some say 2 million) are quite a lot of exceptions to fit into the theory that the West is engaged in an anti-Muslim crusade. But you couldn't know that if you never read about them or saw them on TV.

The StC report mentions Palestine once for the sake of form - well, you have to keep the lefties happy. Of course the education problem exists there, but since it isn't isn't quantified you can be sure that it pales into insignificance in comparison with vast swathes of Africa. Vast, reporter-free swathes of Africa.

Brief Lives

'In the early years of the war she joined the National Socialist Party, according to Alan Jefferson’s punctilious but at times contentious biography of her. It caused a considerable stir when it was published in 1996 and certainly did not please its subject. Schwarzkopf appeared in a handful of propaganda films under Goebbels’ banner and sang too in a single performance of Die Fledermaus in Paris in 1941 put on for the benefit of the German occupying forces.

'These moves were purely pragmatic. Schwarzkopf was determined to get to the top and was not inclined to go looking for obstacles.

[...]

'During 1946 Schwarzkopf, in common with other prominent musicians including Furtwängler and Karajan, came under the scrutiny of the Allied Denazification Bureau.'

- from the Times' obituary of Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Not exactly a flattering picture. But what does the Grauniad say?

'At this time [1942], the singer reportedly had connections with the Nazis, revealed in a controversial biography that appeared in 1996. The revelations, denied by her, caused a considerable stir. The truth is that as an attractive and impressionable young singer, she inevitably sought favour with the powers that be. The political affiliation probably went no further than that. At war's end she was active in Vienna, apparently with no stain on her character.'

So that's all right, then. It was inevitable. What else was an impressionable 26-year-old girl to do?

And the battling Independent, ever the scourge of oppression and hypocrisy?

'She made her début in 1938 at the Berlin Städtische Oper as a Flower Maiden in Parsifal and then sang coloratura roles such as Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, Adele in Die Fledermaus, Musetta in La Bohème and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos. When she moved to the Vienna State Opera in 1942, it was as Zerbinetta that she made her Viennese début.

'For a while she continued in the coloratura repertory, with Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviolia and Constanze in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail among her most successful parts; by 1947, when she first appeared at the Salzburg Festival, as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, she had become a lyric soprano.'

On the other hand, here's the Telegraph making the Thunderer look timid:-

'After the war she made her Covent Garden debut as Donna Elvira in 1947. She was lucky to be allowed to perform in Britain at all, for her involvement with the Nazi party had been at least as intimate as those of Karajan and Furtwängler. Its full extent was revealed in Jefferson's controversial 1996 biography, which made extensive use of the 200-page file on Schwarzkopf kept by the Nazis. From this it appears that she applied to join the party in 1938 and quickly attracted the attention of Goebbels; she also acted, sang and played the piano in propaganda films. When she was questioned by Allied authorities in Austria about her party membership, she produced a succession of lies and half-truths. These were swiftly uncovered, and Jefferson finds it strange that someone as intelligent as Schwarzkopf should have resorted to such "clumsy methods of fudging her past". He speculates that she was attempting to hide more than NSDAP membership: there were rumours that she was the lover of a senior Nazi.'

So there you have it. If you want a paper that calls a Nazi a Nazi and doesn't make excuses for her, the order of preference is not quite what you might have expected. But perhaps it shouldn't be altogether surprising that the papers which do best are those least likely to be found making excuses for Ahmadinejad the Holocaust-denier and his sidekicks.