U.S. nuclear weapons in Britain - out with a whimper, not with a bang?

It was once one of the most contentious issues in Europe, inspiring mass demonstrations, “peace camps” and a movement that shaped the politics of a generation. After more than half a century, there are no more U.S. nukes in Britain.

On Thursday, the Federation of American Scientists, a group set up by former Manhattan Project scientists alarmed by the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, reported that the United States had removed the last of its nuclear bombs from the Royal Air Force base at Lakenheath in eastern England.

The move had more to do with changing U.S. strategic imperatives and military technology than with a sudden outbreak of global harmony. Dropping nuclear bombs out of airplanes is an old-fashioned way to deliver them in an era of accurate ballistic missiles. Washington now considers its main threat to come from the area south of the former Soviet Union, and is still keeping nuclear bombs in bases in Italy and Turkey and other parts of Europe. Britain has its own nuclear weapons and has decided to replace the submarines that carry them with a more modern fleet.

If the removal of American nukes from Britain really happened, it happened on the sly. A spokewoman for the U.S. forces in Lakenheath said Washington never talks about the
location of its nuclear bombs. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s spokesman had not read reports on the subject and had nothing to say about it, and the Ministry of Defence had no comment.

But the event, if confirmed, marks the end of an era for thousands of British protesters who defined themselves by their opposition to U.S. nukes, camping outside bases like Lakenheath throughout the 1980s.

The head of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the biggest single-issue campaign group in Europe, welcomed the news that the bombs were gone and said it would be good if the government would announce it publicly. She also said the fight would continue against U.S. plans to set up an anti-missile defence, perhaps with base stations at the same location in Lakenheath.

Those who pine for the days of “peace camps” may still get their chance to break out their muddy tents.

Have your say. Twenty years after the Cold War, should the United States still have nuclear weapons in Europe?

What’s with farming these days? The humble, even if slightly romantic vocation, is attracting a new breed of participants as investing in farmland and agriculture becomes the latest fad in the world of investments.
 
With financial markets in tumoil and commodity prices at record highs, traditional financial players such as investment banks and hedge funds, and even sovereign wealth funds of cash-rich emerging economies are increasingly looking at farm land as the next major investment avenue.

The motivations are varied — from pure financial punting to concerns about food security. Underlying all this is the belief that the rapid economic expansion of China and India could add more than a billion people between them to the ranks of consumers of meat and wheat-based products. And then there is the growing demand for land to grow crops for biofuels.

Morgan Stanley has bought some 40,000 hectares of land in Ukraine , while the New York Times reported this month that Calyx Agro, a division of the giant Louis Dreyfus Commodities, is buying tens of thousands of acres of cropland in Brazil.

Chinese firms are said to be locking up farmland and mineral reserves in Africa, while Saudi Arabia and Bahrain plan to grow strategic grains abroad to protect their countries from crises in world food supply.

According to Asia Times, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Gillani during a visit to Saudi Arabia in early June sought $6 billion in financial and oil aid in return for hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land, which could be tilled by the Saudis.
 
All this could present some poor countries with both opportunities and threats. With oil prices at near record highs, they could trade their energy security with the food security needs of their investors and bring millions of acres of non-arable land into use. But contract farming could just as easily boomerang if high prices and domestic food shortages create a backlash against such barter deals.

 What makes Russian President Dmitry Medvedev tick? How independent is he of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin?
Medvedev gave Reuters a chance to find out more about his plans, and get some clues about the questions being asked by Russia watchers, analysts and diplomats, by granting us an interview in the Kremlin.
During a 90-minute question-and-answer session he played down differences with Putin, his long-time ally who is now prime minister, and portrayed himself as a continuity figure but the contrast in style and tone between the two men was striking.
Medvedev made none of the harsh attacks on the West that became Putin’s trademark and used considered, lawyerly phrases that sounded quite unlike Putin’s more direct and earthy language.
Medvedev said Russia’s foreign policy would not be swayed by criticism from abroad, but added that complaints about its policy were normal. He avoided echoing Putin by making charges of Western hypocrisy and double standards.
But he did sound more like Putin when discussing Russia’s media, saying television channels, newspapers and websites were “absolutely free” and dismissing any possibility of special controls on the media in Russia.
Some analysts think Medvedev is a deliberately more liberal choice than Putin who can usher in an era of greater freedom, private property and foreign investment. Others view him with suspicion as little more than a Putin puppet.

 What do you think?

It’s decision time again for Morgan Tsvangirai. 

With violence spreading and African countries joining the ranks of those who say Zimbabwe’s election run-off cannot be fair, the opposition leader is considering whether to withdraw – which would leave President Robert Mugabe to continue his 28 year rule unchallenged.

Talk is still doing the rounds that South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki has been trying to get the sides to call off the election and form a national unity government, but progress seems limited at best. South Africa’s Star newspaper said Mugabe rejected the proposal.

“It would be very difficult because neither side would want to be the junior partner,” commented Knox Chitiyo, head of the Africa programme at the Royal United Services Institute in London, to Reuters.

So what would Tsvangirai gain if he pulled out of the election? His Movement for Democratic Change has been claiming moral victories for years, but Mugabe is still firmly in State House. If Tsvangirai withdrew now, would it encourage the region and the world to take stronger action? Could they do anything anyway? If he took part and lost would that make his position even worse?

What do you think?

China’s surprise decision late on Thursday to slash subsidies on fuel prices has been welcomed as a sign that Beijing is intent on reducing the pace of oil demand growth in the world’s second biggest energy consumer.

That, in theory, should help contain the upward spiral in world oil prices that took crude to a high of nearly $140 a barrel last week. Nine out of 10 analysts polled by Reuters immediately after the news took that line. But there is a contrarian view.

Previously unprofitable refining companies, obliged to sell at prices set by the state, will now be turning enough profit to fully meet transport fuel demand for the first time in weeks. Rationing and queues will be alleviated. Chinese refiners would then need to buy more crude, not less, from world crude markets.

The timing of the decision was a surprise. While other Asian countries had been easing subsidies, Beijing wasn’t expected to move until after the Olympics was safely out of the way, for fear higher prices might cause unrest.

The early decision may demonstrate Beijing’s confidence that it has social cohesion under control — a result of the positive reaction across the country to the government’s handling of the Sichuan earthquake and the Chinese perception of bias in Western media coverage of unrest in Tibet and the run-up to the Olympics.

The timing of the price increase also shows that Beijing is prepared to engage with other world powers on the global inflationary pressures that are threatening to slow Chinese economic growth.

Major oil producing and consuming countries are meeting in Saudi Arabia this weekend to discuss ways to reverse the rise of crude prices — China’s action on fuel prices ahead of the meeting permits Beijing to claim a leadership role in helping control oil prices.

The Gaza Strip and the Israeli towns and farms surrounding the Palestinian enclave spent a quiet morning on Thursday after a ceasefire deal came into force after dawn between the Jewish state and the  Hamas Islamists who rule Gaza’s 1.5 million people. The absence of mortars and improvised rockets falling on the Israeli side of the border and of Israeli air strikes and ground incursions on the other were welcomed by ordinary people. For Palestinians in Gaza, the biggest hope is an increase in supplies which Israel has kept under tight blockade since Hamas seized control a year ago.
Both sides, as well as Egypt which mediated the deal over several months and the international powers, have plenty of reasons to see the truce work . The UN even told Reuters it could help pave the way for UN peacekeepers in Gaza.  But equally there are plenty on all sides who are already saying it is as doomed as previous “calms” between Israel and Hamas, which has been shunned by Western powers for its refusal to give up violent tactics such as suicide bombings and Gaza rocket salvos. Not least among the apparent pessimists has been Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has warned the peace may be short-lived. Olmert has plenty of critics who would happily use that adjective of his own career - the prime minister has promised to resign if he is indicted in a corruption investigation that has already seen an American businessman testify to handing Olmert large sums of cash stuffed in envelopes. The premier has survived a series of such scandals in his two and a half years in power and he again denies all wrongdoing. However, his enemies, including within his own coalition government, are circling and could vote next week to dissolve parliament and start the process of triggering an early election .

So how is Olmert fighting back? By making himself seem indispensable to Israelis as a peacemaker on all fronts, some say. As well as U.S.-sponsored talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, begun last November,  he has lately revealed Turkish-mediated talks with Syria, a desire to open negotiations with Lebanon and progress in talks with Hezbollah on exchanging prisoners. Not to mention today’s truce with Hamas. So can Olmert stave off the public prosecutor and keep the peace?

When Kenya played Zimbabwe in last Saturday’s World Cup qualifying game, the chant of “Mugabe must go” echoed around the stadium from some 36,000 Kenyan fans as Zimbabwe’s football team came onto the pitch.

Africa’s leaders have tended to take a much less vocal approach to Zimbabwe’s crisis.

Some are certainly starting to use tougher language - South African ANC leader Jacob Zuma told Reuters he did not expect a fair election on June 27, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote in the Financial Times that Zimbabwe was “tarnishing the reputation of Africa as a whole” and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has also spoken out.

Serving heads of state, South African President Thabo Mbeki among them, generally take a more cautious approach. Some say nothing at all.

Taking a tougher line on Zimbabwe has traditionally been difficult for countries in a region where President Robert Mugabe was widely seen as a hero of the struggle for independence.

But beyond the words - or lack of them — what should Africa do about Zimbabwe? Nobody really expects African states to use force and any sanctions could end up making the plight of Zimbabweans worse? Kofi Annan says it is time to get Zimbabwe’s leaders to talk to each other on resolving the crisis?

What do you think?

It should all be music to the ears of top military brass in Brussels, Washington and at the United Nations, who have long been struggling to fill gaps in under-resourced peacekeeping missions from Africa to Afghanistan.

Although the total number of mission-fit French forces will fall to 30,000 from 50,000 under the plans, the idea is that they will be better equipped, more mobile and better able to respond to everything from terrorism to cyber-attacks.

That is what defence wonks mean when they talk about “transformation” of the world’s large but mostly lumbering standing armies built up during the Cold War.

Paris promises a win-win deal for NATO and the EU. Not only will it play a bigger role in the transatlantic alliance whose military structures it quit four decades ago, but it also sees scope for more pooling of Europe’s scarce defence resources.

Too good to be true? Perhaps.

Who gets priority if both NATO and the EU come knocking on France’s door for soldiers? Will the British agree to a French call for the EU to have its own military planning cell?

It is all very well for Sarkozy to revive an nine-year-old dream of the EU to have a 60,000-strong reaction force on call for crises around the world. But that came to nought the first time because nations didn’t cough up the troops — who is to say they will be any keener to do so this time around. Britain’s The Times newspaper has its doubts.

Have your say.

It hasn’t garnered as much attention or generated quite the same excitement as the nomination battle between U.S. Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did, but Germany’s Social Democrats are tying themselves in equally torturous knots over who will lead their party into the next election.

Like their U.S. counterparts, the centre-left SPD has two main candidates vying for the right to challenge for the country’s top job. But the similarities between the American and German contests end there.

While Obama and Clinton wore their political ambitions on their respective sleaves, the SPD contenders — party chairman Kurt Beck and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier – are doing their best to play down their desire to go up against popular conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2009.
 Ask either one of them if they want to take on the popular “Angie” and they invariably dodge the question — not exactly the burning sense of purpose that we saw in Barack and Hillary.

Their hesitancy and the party’s reluctance to commit to a candidate before the end of this year has opened the door to almost daily speculation in the German media about which of the two will step up.

That uncertainty has prompted just about every politician in the SPD to voice his or her own opinion on the matter, pulling those aforementioned knots even tighter.

Andrea Nahles, a leading SPD leftist, said this weekend that Beck’s her man. Other deputies in parliament are pushing for Steinmeier, concerned about their own fates if the unpopular Beck leads the party into the election battle.

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is reportedly pressing behind the scenes to get his protege, Steinmeier, chosen in the hopes of avenging his agonisingly narrow 2005 loss to Merkel.

Sigmar Gabriel, the environment minister, warned in Berlin daily Tagesspiegel on Monday that any SPD candidate would be doomed unless the party sorts out its own messy policy divisions first.

If some German media are to be believed, the “Kanzlerkandidat” decision was sealed back in late April when Beck and Steinmeier held a “clandestine” meeting in the back garden of a coffee shop in west Berlin.

A photographer, who just happened to be present, caught the two looking cheerful and united – far more cheerful and united in fact than Obama and Clinton ever looked.

The sole picture of the meeting (Steinmeier has a cafe latte and pack of Marlboro reds in front of him and Beck an espresso and important-looking red dossier) has been analysed closely for clues about which way the decision could go.

Right now, Steinmeier is the odds-on favourite. He is more popular with voters than Beck and has done a competent job as Germany’s top diplomat. But the bespectacled, white-haired foreign minister is more technocrat than politician. He’s never won an election at any level and it’s rather hard to imagine him stirring up the party faithful at campaign rallies like his mentor Schroeder could.

Beck, by contrast, is a political veteran with a common touch who has scored a series of impressive victories over the years in his rural home state of Rhineland-Palatinate. If only his credibility both inside and outside the party weren’t crumbling because of his spotty leadership and flip-flops on cooperation with a new far-left party.

Ultimately, while the U.S. Democrats were spoiled for choice when deciding who to send up against Republican John McCain, the SPD looks paralysed by the fear that neither of its candidates can lead the party to victory against Merkel’s conservatives.

Perhaps one way to solve that would be for the SPD to inject a little more American-style  competitive fire into the race and rely a little less on traditional German-style consensus.

Soaring energy and food prices are the top concern at the Group of Eight finance ministers meeting in Japan this weekend, while central banks are keeping their fingers crossed that they can find a solution without killing off shaky economic growth.

U.S. consumers’ mood plunged to a 28-year low in June as soaring inflation pinched at their purse strings.

High petrol prices pushed U.S. inflation up to a six-month high of 4.2 percent in May, a trend seen even more starkly across the Atlantic, where inflation is at a record high of 3.6 percent in the euro zone and a near six-year high of 3 percent in the UK.

But some economists warn that blanket media coverage is only making the matter worse and feeding a vicious circle.

Every news story makes shoppers and investors feel more pessimistic about their loss of spending power, pushing up inflation expectations and ultimately maybe making central banks more likely to take action by raising interest rates. 

“It’s not exactly chicken and egg but you can’t help feeling it creates a kind of hype, and people often believe the hype,” Dresdner Kleinwort analyst Rainer Guntermann said.