"A Nation in Mourning" reads The Australian headline.
It saddens me to see the bush fires in Australia. When I was there, it occurred rather frequently although it wasn't this bad. More than a hundred have perished, and the final tally is yet to be confirmed as 31 fires are still ravaging the outback. The loss of lives not forgotten, seeing the beautiful bush reduced to ashes is devastating. I pray that this ends soon.
Item 1: "Jimmy Carter on the Middle East" by Storer H. Rowley
Wisdom:
- I was also hoping, without much expectation, that we would have a Mideast envoy this time that would look at both sides of the issue, and not just represent the Israeli side, and we have that in George Mitchell
- I've also gotten to know for the first time the top leaders in Hamas, both those who are in the politburo, those are the ultimate leaders, and also those who govern the Gaza area
- (Hamas) would accept any agreement that's negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians if it's submitted to a referendum in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinians approve it - they would accept Israel's right to exist if that's in the agreement and so forth
- There's no way in the world that you can ever have peace in the Middle East without Hamas being deeply involved
Item 2: "Keynes Can't Help Us Now" by Niall Ferguson
Wisdom:
- Keynesian "multiplier effect" -- which holds that a dollar spent by the government begets more than a dollar's worth of additional economic output
- Western world is suffering a crisis of excessive indebtedness - household debt has reached 141% of disposable income in the United States and 177% in Britain - best-known names in American and European finance have liabilities 40, 60 or even 100 times the amount of their capital
- It will not be so easy for us to inflate away our debts - deflationary pressures unleashed by the financial crisis are too strong - consumer prices in the U.S. have been falling for three consecutive months
- What can be done:
i. Banks that are de facto insolvent need to be restructured, not nationalized
ii. Generalized conversion of American mortgages to lower interest rates and longer maturities
Item 3: "Shifting Horizons" by Gideon Rachman
Wisdom:
- Six themes emerge from writings of those who will shape foreign policy:
i. The war on terror needs to be reconsidered.
ii. The US must rethink its ideas both about power and about threats.
iii. America should intervene to prevent humanitarian disasters.
iv. Belief in the UN is firm.
v. Diplomacy is back in fashion.
vi. Old Europe is back too.
Item 4: "More than Aid Money, Africa Needs Enterprise" by Jakaya Kikwete and Anders Fogh Rasmussen
Wisdom:
- Africa starting points for development:
i. small- and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs) offer the best opportunities for growth and employment - provide investment loans
ii. scale up market-based clean energy production in Africa - access to finance as well as advisory services, skills training, and support a good regulatory environment for small-scale energy production
iii. youth and employment - provide a new and innovative environment for young entrepreneurs, targeted risk capital, skills training, and advisory services
Item 5: "The Iranian Revolution was the Ultimate Passion Play" by Karen Armstrong
Wisdom:
- Shiaism is based on a passionate yearning for a divinely decreed justice that is never fully realised but remains a transcendent imperative
- Khomeini - Standing in his pulpit, with the Koran in one hand and the 1906 Constitution in the other, he repeatedly declared that the Shah had violated both by his dismissal of parliament, his wicked suppression of all opposition, his illegal use of torture, his callous neglect of the poor, and his craven subservience to the United States
Item 6: "Iran: A Nation Still Haunted by its Bloody past" by Robert Fisk
Wisdom:
- I padded round (the Shah of Iran's) libraries; leather-bound volumes of Voltaire, Verlaine, Flaubert, Plutarch, Goebbels, Shakespeare, Charles de Gaulle, Churchill and Coleridge. Abba Eban's My People was dedicated by the author to "His Imperial Majesty, the Shah of Shahs"
- Iran had become a necrocracy
- They had not forgotten how the CIA and MI6 destroyed Mohammed Mossadeq's democratically elected government in a coup in 1953 - Operation Ajax, the Americans called it (the British chose the more prosaic Operation Boot)
- Abolhassan Bani-Sadr became Iran's first elected president in 1979, but failed to maintain his authority against Ayatollah Khomeini. After 17 months he was impeached and fled to France where he still lives
