Anticonstitutionnellement, meaning anti-constitutionally, is the longest word in the French dictionary. The referendum campaign on the European Union (EU) constitution promises to be very long indeed for the French president, Jacques Chirac, and the Socialist Party leader, François Hollande.
The Nazi British National Party (BNP) has announced that it intends to stand more than 100 candidates in the forthcoming election. It is clearly hoping to capitalise on its 2004 Euro election vote, where it received more than 800,000 votes — the highest vote ever for a Nazi party in British history.
IT IS obviously a huge relief to be free, even if there is still a long way to go before I can be secure. It has been a terrifying few weeks. On 14 January I went to the home office reporting centre in Manchester. I was required to go there regularly because my application for asylum had been refused.
The World Social Forum (WSF) is growing. That was clear from its meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, last month.
Last week saw yet more hysteria whipped up by the government against youth crime. The Daily Mirror and the Sun joined the furore with front pages against “Yob UKâ€. The new hysteria is based on the results of the home office�s Crime and Justice Survey, which declared that a quarter of 14 to 17 year old males are “serious†or “prolific†offenders. The home secretary, Charles Clarke, said it was an “appalling†statistic and that “we have to address thisâ€.
Many commentators hoped that the effects of the tsunami would bring peace to Sri Lanka. At the end of 2004 it seemed that the fragile peace that had ended the 20 years civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), known as the Tamil Tigers, was collapsing. For a moment after the disaster it seemed that everyone would work together to rebuild the country. Now these hopes seem to be crumbling.
IN HIS classic book Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx, Sidney Hook discusses the role of accident in history: "A chance event in history is one which although it has historical consequences has no historical causes.
THE BBC traditionally fills the time between Christmas and the new year with programmes reviewing the state of world politics. There was one on Radio Four on New Year’s Day by leading BBC journalists.
WHAT WITH the bloody chaos being wreaked in Iraq by a re-elected Bush administration, the global scene is already pretty grim. But it could get a lot worse if the dollar crisis predicted by many commentators really gets going.
"BLISS IT was in that dawn to be alive." The crisis in Ukraine allowed the Guardian’s quasi-Thatcherite columnist Tim Garton Ash to rediscover his youth in the 1980s.
TORY LEADER Michael Howard was made to look a fool recently after sacking Boris Johnson for having an affair.
FALLUJAH FINALLY fell to US Marines last week. Few can have doubted that, with its overwhelming firepower and highly trained and mobile troops, the Pentagon would be able to capture the city if it so chose.
