New Chemical History

World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

Mexico's drug war: the new killing fields

author: Rory Carroll-{ts '2010-09-03 14:54:28'}

Earthquake strikes New Zealand's South Island

author: Jo Adetunji-{ts '2010-09-03 20:15:30'}

Afghan officials resist clean-up of Kabul Bank as scandal engulfs elite

author: Jon Boone-{ts '2010-09-03 19:22:41'}

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to be lashed over newspaper photograph

author: Peter Beaumont, Saeed Kamali Dehghan-{ts '2010-09-04 17:11:59'}

What are Chinese troops doing in Kashmir? | Randeep Ramesh

author: Randeep Ramesh-{ts '2010-09-04 16:05:53'}

Delhi wants China to keep out of Kashmiri affairs, but it should focus on a deal that sees troops all on sides withdrawing

The claim that more than 7,000 Chinese troops have been handed "de facto control" of Gilgit-Baltistan, a northern part of Kashmir, by Islamabad, has set alarm bells ringing in Delhi. India – which, like its nuclear-armed rival Pakistan, claims the entire state – has long been worried that the People's Liberation Army was working on roads and railway projects in the Karakoram mountains.

What is true is that China plans a massive highway linking western China to the port it is building at Gwadar, Pakistan, on the shore of the Arabian Sea. The benefits are obvious: the journey time from factory gate in, say, China's wild west, to container ships bound for the Gulf will be cut from weeks to a few days. Eventually it may even become a key energy supply route.

All of this troubles Delhi, which has long asked for China to keep its nose out of Kashmiri affairs. However, the rise of the Middle Kingdom and its need to secure passage through its own troublesome provinces of Xinjiang and Tibet through to Pakistan make this unlikely. But India suspects, too, that China is intent on becoming the hegemon of much of the eastern hemisphere – able to dictate to smaller powers the rules of the game.

In Kashmir this had led to a round of tit-for-tat diplomatic incidents. So when India refuses to allow a Chinese diplomat to visit its troubled north-eastern state of Manipur for a talk, China responds by blocking the visa of a top Indian general because it appears his command includes Kashmir.

The Himalayan state is a piece of real estate whose sovereignty has long been contested. With its demography as varied as its topography, its various peoples have long been imbued with a stubborn streak of independence.

So it may be unsurprising that when heavy rains washed away villages in the Pakistan's "Northern Areas" and Islamabad's response was to sit on its hands, the simmering revolt against Pakistani rule flared again. In response Pakistan, so the claim goes, turned to its all-weather friend China, which was more than happy to send boots flying.

All this is dismissed in Beijing but only after referring to Gilgit as a "northern part of Pakistan", which simply angered Delhi further. While Pakistan's problem in its part of Kashmir has been of too little government action, India's rule in its portion of the state has been heavy-handed and self-defeating.

Faced with a largely nonviolent revolt which began in 2008, the Indian authorities have provoked a much larger crisis with a regime of curfews and the killings of teenagers shot dead with nothing but slogans in their mouths and rocks in their hands. It is time for India to admit that its political and military strategy has failed to stabilise Kashmir.

The actions of both Pakistan and India vitiate claims that somehow either could keep the entire state happy. China has little sympathy with separatist claims – and holds sway over large chunks of the former Kashmiri kingdom.

The only way out of this mess is for Islamabad and Delhi to start rebuilding a peace process that will eventually lead to self-governance on both sides of the de facto border and a withdrawal of substantial numbers of Indian, Pakistani and, yes, even Chinese troops from Kashmir.

Tony Blair pelted with eggs and shoes at book signing

author: Henry McDonald-{ts '2010-09-04 16:04:00'}

Eyewitness: The Surface of Mars

author: -{ts '2010-09-04 15:57:17'}

New Zealand earthquake: Curfew imposed by Christchurch police

author: David Batty-{ts '2010-09-04 15:19:16'}

Ben Bernanke's monetary policy poverty | Chris Payne

author: Chris Payne-{ts '2010-09-04 15:00:53'}

24 Hours In Pictures

author: -{ts '2010-09-04 14:39:07'}

Pakistan betting claims: ICC right to suspend players, says Imran Khan

author: -{ts '2010-09-04 14:02:55'}

A conversation with Stephen Hawking, aged five years old | Mark Vernon

author: Mark Vernon-{ts '2010-09-04 14:00:52'}

If Stephen Hawking was a boy again, what questions would he ask, and what would be the answer?

Imagine Stephen Hawking is reincarnated, and this time round his father is a philosopher. One day, when little Stephen is about five years old, they're sitting in the summer house with Fido, their pet dog. And Stephen asks one of those questions children love to repeat.

Daddy. Yes Stephen? Why is Fido? Well, Stephen, Fido had a mummy and daddy like you.

Yeah but, why is Fido? Err, you mean why is he a dog? That's because his parents were dogs, and his parent's parents were dogs too. They belong to what we call the same species. (Stephen is precocious in this life too.)

But why is Fido? Well, we know that Fido's parent's parent's parent's parents – a long way back – were not dogs, but were wolves. That was before human beings made them pets.

Oh. Why is Fido? Before there were wolves there was another species out of which wolves grow. We call it evolution, Stephen, and it's a very important process in the natural world.

Ev-o-lu-tion. (Stephen likes the feel of that word.) But why is Fido? Before that species, there was another, and another, and another, all the way back to tiny animals we call cells.

Why IS Fido? You're asking about biochemistry now. Err, roughly you can say that when the stuff of which everything is made is put together in a very complicated way – like a fantastic lego puzzle – then it takes on this very special property we call life.

WHY IS FIDO? Before life, there was just stuff – matter. It hung around for many billions of years on planet earth.

But why is FIDO? Before the earth, there were stars, and galaxies, subatomic particles and strange things like black holes. (Stephen has the very strange feeling that he knows all about black holes, even though he's only five.)

Yeah but, why is Fido? Scientists think it all started with a big bang, Stephen, a kind of spontaneous eruption out of which everything came.

Wow! Why is Fido? The big bang must have happened because of the laws of physics.

BUT WHY IS FIDO?

(At this point Stephen's father pauses. Being a philosopher, he realises that Stephen is now asking a very different question to all the ones he's asked before. You see, before, his questions could be answered with reference to some preceding state of affairs, out of which Fido can be said to have come. Now, though, he is asking about where everything came from, and being everything, there is no antecedent reality to refer to. To start to talk of nothing, not even abstract laws of nature, let alone wildly compressed energy, is to try to put everything in the context of nothing. But nothing is precisely that: not a quantum field fluctuating in the vacuum, not one universe springing out of a multiverse. Nothing is more radical than that. It is nothing. It's impossible to conceive of, in fact. It's no wonder Stephen's father pauses.)

I'm not sure we can ask that question, Stephen. It makes no sense.

But I want to know: why is Fido?

Well, some say the universe just is. There's a famous philosopher from about 100 years ago, Bertrand Russell, and he thought that.

(Stephen harrumphs.) But why is Fido?

There is another answer.

Yes? (Stephen sits up.)

Well, it's not exactly an answer.

Oh?

More like a mystery.

I like mysteries.

But I'm not sure you're going to like this one.

Tell me!

Well, there was another philosopher who was a friend of Bertrand Russell, in fact. He was called Ludwig Wittgenstein, and he said, "Not how the world is, but that it is, is the mystery."

Wow!

And the mystery is sometimes given a name.

What's the name?

It's called God.

(With thanks to Herbert McCabe)

Doctors call for David Kelly inquest

author: David Batty-{ts '2010-09-04 12:22:32'}

The battle for Turkey's constitution | Haldun Gülalp

author: -{ts '2010-09-04 11:00:52'}

New Zealand plane crash kills nine

author: David Batty-{ts '2010-09-04 09:30:26'}

Women in Afghanistan need our support | Barbara Stocking

author: Barbara Stocking-{ts '2010-09-04 09:05:52'}

The lot of Afghan women has improved since 2001, but they still struggle to be heard

For women in Afghanistan, some things have changed since 2001. Many more girls are in school, though attacks on schools are at an all-time high. Maternal mortality has decreased in some areas, though still one woman dies in childbirth every 30 minutes. Women do have a number of seats in parliament, even more than in many western countries for example, though they will tell you how difficult it is for them to get their voice heard. Many Afghan women and men are now truly afraid of what might happen in the future.

It is not just the Taliban who have sought to limit freedoms in Afghanistan; certainly many of the more extremist elements in the government have done so as well. With elections coming up later this month, it will be critical to ensure that women still play an active and equal part in government.

Some people try to reassure me that accepting the fundamentals of the constitution, which mandates equal rights for women, will be a prerequisite to peace negotiations. But the constitution is no guarantee. It would take just another grand council or Loya Jirga to revise it.

The question is what safeguards for women's, and other basic human rights, could be built into the negotiations. It is hard to see what these could be but there is much leverage through aid money, through support to Afghan women or by pressure on any new government in the international arena.

The best defence is the development of Afghanistan itself. Afghanistan's future must be driven by the desires and aspirations of the Afghan people, and greater efforts must be made to build Afghan institutions over the long term. But for development to be effective, there must be much more transparency and accountability – by the government as well as donors and by Afghan civil society groups. It will also require a surge of efforts at the local level, to ensure that Afghans get the services they need and strong partnership with non-governmental organisations who, at the moment are the only ones capable of delivering at scale at local level.

The key to alleviating poverty and improving life for both Afghan men and women is community development. What has worked best so far in Afghanistan is efforts, such as the National Solidarity Programme, that focus on the grassroots level and empower communities to decide their own priorities, whether that's a well, a road or women's literacy schemes. As one of the poorest countries in the world, Afghanistan is only really going to develop if it starts in communities and if its economic development focuses strongly, though not exclusively, on agriculture.

But what is really critical is that Afghans are at the heart of these efforts – both women and men. Without their involvement and buy-in, development projects are unlikely to have lasting impact and any process to establish peace is likely to be superficial and unsustainable.

Building in women's rights must also begin in communities and focus on women's priorities, whether that involves literacy courses, legal support or income generation projects. It's not easy and it is not a quick process In Oxfam's work with communities it has taken time to persuade men that literacy for women is a positive development for their families, it has taken time to persuade women why it is of value to them – for example, for understanding information for their children's health.

There are dilemmas too about singling out individual women or women's groups. To do so runs the risk that they will be directly targeted now or in the future. The answer is not to give up but to talk and work with these women to see how we can support them with as little risk as possible.

Meanwhile, we have to put pressure on our own governments, particularly the UK and US, to stand firm in discussions with the Afghanistan government, and exert all the pressure they can to uphold women's rights in the peace negotiations. What we do to try to safeguard women's rights has to be done alongside Afghan women and men, and with great care. But a bland statement that Afghans should decide this themselves just isn't good enough. Women in Afghanistan simply do not as things stand have a voice to be able to defend their rights. We need to support them in having that voice, but they need our voice too.

We cannot afford to shun Pakistan | Michael Nazir-Ali

author: Michael Nazir-Ali-{ts '2010-09-04 08:00:52'}

The world must not abandon Pakistan to the religious extremists

On a recent Pakistan International Airlines flight from Karachi to Lahore, a local – and somewhat revealing – fashion show played out on the TV screens. Among those having to watch were a large number of people returning from the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. This scene is but a microcosm of contemporary Pakistan. On the one hand, there are signs everywhere not just of personal piety but of a narrow and intolerant ideology based on religion, and, on the other, of people, especially the young, straining to break through the barriers of convention. The clash is evident everywhere, with the same newspapers, magazines and television channels carrying Islamic revivalist messages and permissive films. How this clash is resolved will be a clue to the destiny of the country.

This destiny is one that, in the medium term, is fraught with difficulty. The noted journalist Ahmad Rashid has said that Pakistan is going through political, economic and terrorist crises simultaneously. It is impossible in these circumstances to be ambitious, for example, about infrastructure and the urgent energy needs of the country. The confidence of international financial institutions is being bought by the strict and immediate implementation of harsh IMF policies, especially the removal of subsidies on domestic gas and electricity consumption. Needless to say, this has huge political implications in terms of public unrest.

The political situation remains very fragile, with the parties, the judiciary and, of course, the military all, publicly or privately, jockeying for power. Although there are encouraging signs, levels of violence remain obstinately high. There are daily reports of suicide bombings, political assassinations and kidnappings. There is evidence that attacks on minorities, such as Christians, Shia Muslims and the Ahmadiyya are a deliberate attempt by the Pakistani Taliban and their related "lashkars" – tribal militias – to widen the conflict in the area.

Independent surveys show that over 90% of Pakistanis believe that religious extremism is the greatest single threat to the country. As someone said to me recently: "It seems that an extremist 3% are holding the other 97% to ransom." A close encounter with extremism and terrorism has made even previously sympathetic Pakistanis realise the mortal danger they are in. This must be taken into account when assessing the effects of the "war on terror" on Pakistani public opinion. It may not be as uniformly hostile to combating terrorism as is sometimes made out by the press. The means used and the time taken, as well as civilian casualties, are crucial in determining the direction in which public opinion will go.

For these reasons Pakistan should not be isolated from the mainstream of the international community. It is important also to make sure that ordinary Pakistanis remain in contact with the outside world. The response by the international community to the earthquake in Kashmir in 2005 was hugely appreciated by ordinary people in Pakistan. A generous and timely response to the recent floods is yet another sign that the world has not abandoned Pakistan, whether to natural disaster or to extremists.

Pakistan will be a litmus test as to whether the international community and the Muslim world can halt the advance of extremist ideologies based on religion. It is vital for us to co-operate with those in Pakistan and elsewhere who have similar aims. These may be NGOs, universities, the media, women's and minority groups and, indeed, progressive elements in government. The world needs a stable, strong and moderate Pakistan, and so do its own citizens.

Malaria drugs - a dose of reality

author: Sarah Boseley-{ts '2010-09-04 06:31:18'}

Tony Blair gives live TV interview in Ireland

author: Lisa O'Carroll-{ts '2010-09-04 00:33:10'}

Portuguese TV presenter found guilty of being in paedophile ring

author: Giles Tremlett-{ts '2010-09-04 00:31:00'}

Earthquake strikes Christchurch in New Zealand

author: Jo Adetunji-{ts '2010-09-03 23:21:22'}

US economy: The recovery that wasn't | Editorial

author: -{ts '2010-09-03 23:06:37'}

We have an anaemic recovery at best. And the housing market, where this crisis began, remains in terrible shape

Back in January, US vice-president Joe Biden offered up a huge hostage to fortune. Talking to fellow Democrats about the Obama plan for the economy, he promised: "You're going to see, come the spring, net increase in jobs every month." Yesterday figures showed that a net total of 54,000 workers lost their jobs in August, taking the official unemployment rate to 9.6%. A big dollop of gloomy news just in time for Labour Day weekend.

Not that you would have taken it as bad news, going by the immediate reaction. The Dow enjoyed a modest bounce, while Mr Obama described the non-farm payrolls report as "positive news". Which is true, if what you really mean by positive is "not as awful as it might have been". Oh sure, optimists can point out that the job losses were below analysts' estimates. And they can also take heart from the report's scaling down of job losses over June and July – so that a net total of 229,000 posts were lost, rather than the 352,000 previously reported. But consider this: over two and a half years after America's recession officially began in December 2007 (according to the National Bureau of Economic Research), the economy is still only limping along. By this stage, one would normally expect the US to be surging ahead, with companies producing much more, bosses taking on droves of recruits and even the housing market picking up. Instead, we have an anaemic recovery at best. And the housing market, where this crisis began, remains in terrible shape. Sales of new and existing homes are cratering, and the numbers of foreclosures and borrowers falling way behind on their repayments are as bad as they were last summer.

Some economists, such as Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, pointed out years ago that this downturn was always going to be worse than a normal recession, simply because banking crises are more crippling and have worse aftermaths. But the White House underestimated the scale of this crash – which is why Christina Romer, the outgoing chair of Mr Obama's council of economic advisers, admitted this week that she and her colleagues "failed to anticipate just how violent the recession would be".

Mr Obama promised yesterday that he would unveil "a broader package of ideas" next week. Let us hope they are more action than ideas. Before November's midterms, the president must bring in big measures to encourage job creation and stop the freefall in the housing market. That makes political as well as economic sense. Politicians tend not to win elections by pointing out that things are not as terrible as they might have been. If Mr Obama wants proof of that, he should ask Gordon Brown.

Letters: Friends for free on the buses

author: -{ts '2010-09-03 23:06:33'}

The free travel pass is a great boon to many older people, but serious questions have to be raised as to whether it should be a universal benefit at 60. We are now in an era of huge cuts in public funding and there are more urgent social care needs among the poorest and most vulnerable older people than a free pass which can and is used by people who are still at work, such as Keith Ludeman, chief executive of Go-Ahead (Let pensioners pay one-off fee for bus pass, says Go-Ahead, 3 September). There are serious questions as to whether it is the poorest older people who benefit most from the universal free pass, or whether, as in so many other cases, it is of more value to the wealthier people. Rather than go down a means-testing route, though, one answer may be to raise the age of eligibility for a pass.

Leon Kreitzman

Chair, Age Concern Lewisham & Southwark, London

• A one-off payment for bus passes would, indeed, cut the £1bn annual cost, but it would seriously affect the poorest pensioners. A better solution would be to make all benefits received by pensioners (bus passes, winter fuel allowances, free TV licences and NHS prescriptions) taxable so better-off pensioners contributed according to their means.

John Howes

London

• The greatest benefit of the bus pass is that pensioners who have lost their cars through ageing and ill health can still get about without worrying about the cost. They meet neighbours on board who become friends that help each other when needed, and save the social services far more money than the obnoxious Ludeman complains about.

Brian Robinson

Brentwood, Essex

• Transport for All's attack on London Underground's staffing proposals (Letters, 30 August) is based on a misunderstanding. Our proposals have come about because ticket sales at stations have dropped significantly since the introduction of Oyster, so that now only one in 20 journeys starts with a visit to a ticket office, and some stations sell fewer than 10 tickets each hour. Under our plans, every station that has a ticket office now will continue to have one, and staff will remain in every station in exactly those areas that Transport for All want them to be: in ticket halls and on platforms where they can help customers, not hidden away behind under-used ticket office windows. Staff will still help with any problems and provide a reassuring presence across the network – including for older and disabled Londoners, many of whom receive a Freedom Pass which requires no interaction with either ticket offices or machines.

Mike Brown

Managing director, London Underground

Phil Disley on the Middle East peace talks

author: -{ts '2010-09-03 23:05:00'}

Letters: A mystery wrapped in an enigma

author: -{ts '2010-09-03 23:04:52'}

Stephen Hawking assumes that the big bang started from "nothing" (Universe not created by God, says Hawking, 2 September). I would like to know what his definition of "nothing" is. It is no answer to point to the emergence of positron-electron pairs that appear from "nothing" as each of these have energy and this energy must have existed beforehand. It is difficult to think of a universe in which there is "nothing" because nothing means just that, no mass, no energy and therefore no means of making anything in this or any other related universe. This is the crucial phrase: how can anything be born of absolutely nothing? If we accept this definition then the universe has existed for ever – and will continue for ever. If anyone wishes to call this infinitely long existence "god", then fine, but it doesn't solve anything, it still leaves all the questions of existence that all organised religions fail to explain. Such as: if the gods created the big bang then what were they doing before then? And since it is impossible to make absolutely nothing from something, what will they do after Armageddon – start all over again?

Professor AB Turner

University of Sussex

• Spontaneous creation, "something from nothing", is puzzling coming from a physicist. No-thing means no physical reality, but all reality is logically the realisation of possibility; ergo possibility is meta ta physica: beyond the physical.If one considers nature as two interdependent domains: the universe of physical reality, and the metaphysical realm of logical possibility, then some-thing does indeed arise from no-thing. Physical nature arising from metaphysical nature makes a supernatural explanation for reality entirely unnecessary. That doesn't disprove the god hypothesis, of course, but it does offer arguably a more probable explanation for our existence. Mathematics is a form of logic by which possibility is reduced by a process of entertained argument to a hypothetical conclusion, which while logically consistent is not necessarily true. So M theory, by which the metaphysics of logical possibility is used to argue an explanation for physical reality, without the mind of god, is only one of many possibilities. The only truly definitive conclusion arises when there is only one possibility left, the end of the current universe and a new "big bang" nature of possibility and reality.

John Stone

Thames Ditton, Surrey

• The capacity for self-delusion of the enormously gifted and intelligent seems to be as limitless as that of the rest of us.

If Stephen Hawking thinks that everything will be explained by the laws of gravity and physics, well, what explains the existence of the laws by which everything is explained? Why and how should there be any laws of gravity? How did they happen to exist even before matter came into being?

His theory just leaves yet another question begging. Even if we did come from nothing, where did the nothing come from? The existence of nothing is surely just as mysterious and inexplicable as the existence of anything.

Hawking's theory is not a satisfactory answer even for an atheist like myself. There probably never will be a full explanation for our existence. To explain A in terms of B simply leaves B to then be explained, and so on down an infinite alphabet.

Alex Shearer

Backwell, Somerset

• God, gods, whomever, may well have become tired of the arguments about his/her/their existence (In praise of… God, 3 September). Two thousand years ago, the Epicureans maintained that, while the gods certainly existed (well, obviously), the Immortal Ones had no interest whatsoever in mankind; much, I suppose, as interstellar travellers feel about defective species generally.

Tom Drane

Mitcham, Surrey

• Professor Hawking's new book is called The Grand Design. Doesn't a design require a designer? Without one, it is "A Grand Accident". It's curious how atheists cannot help resorting to religious language.

Rev Richard Haggis

Oxford

Walking in Palestine

author: Kevin Rushby-{ts '2010-09-03 23:04:00'}

Experience: I tracked down a man who killed 14,000 people | khmer rouge

author: -{ts '2010-09-03 23:02:51'}

Archbishop of York condemns UK opt-out from EU directive on sex trafficking

author: Martin Wainwright-{ts '2010-09-03 23:02:00'}

The only ones: Escaping near death | sole survivors

author: Charlotte Northedge-{ts '2010-09-03 23:02:00'}

Archie Panjabi: 'I love roles that transform me'

author: Amy Raphael-{ts '2010-09-03 23:01:59'}