Ever-maverick Mike Moore [he of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 fame] has in an item on his web site, with no small dose of cynicism, sarcasm and bite [some would say misplaced venom] had a go at Pres. George Bush [or, as I noted in a posting the other, Pres. George Shrub as Phillip Adams calls him] in relation to his handling of Hurricane Katrina. Pity that we in Australia do not have either a press or the Mike Moores of this world [Mike Carlton who writes for the SMH gets close in some respects] who are gad-flys and prepared to challenge and probe what our political "leaders" do - or, more often than not, don't do!
There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t
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