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/ 5 November 2002
The aide is beginning to sweat. Bulging file in hand, he is pacing relentlessly, surveying the group that has assembled before breakfast on a fine, crisp Pennsylvania morning. They have been shepherded on to a makeshift platform: the human backdrop behind today’s guest of honour.
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/ 1 November 2002
After losing three previous Brazilian presidential elections, Luiz Inacio ”Lula” da Silva, the working-class former trade union leader, has won this time as ”Lula Lite”. He has modified his policies, his clothes and his image. He chose a rich businessman as his running mate.
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/ 30 October 2002
Like most countries, America’s collective attention span only really allows for one big story at a time. Until last week the consuming obsession was the hunt for the Washington sniper. Then it was the climax of baseball’s ”world series” (actually a contest between two teams from California).
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/ 10 September 2002
Even the approach of the anniversary inspires dread. On Wall Street this week both the markets and the dollar fell: jittery traders apparently fear that the arrival of September 11 2002 will be marked by a repeat performance of September 11 2001. That’s understandable.
Sometimes an apology is easier to give than to receive. We all know it from our own lives. The one who says sorry can sit back, happy that the moral high ground is theirs, that they have done their bit. But the person who has been handed the apology, what can they do?
It was a fantastic speech. Quite literally, fantastic. US President George W Bush’s address on the Middle East on Monday consisted, from beginning to end, of fantasy. It bore so little relation to reality that diplomats around the world spent Tuesday shaking their heads in disbelief.
Americans are at last asking whether their government did enough to protect them on September 11. Normal service has resumed. Republicans are once more hurling abuse at Democrats, Democrats are slamming Republicans.
FALLOUT from Pim Fortuyn’s assassination will be felt not just in Holland but across the world. Where there was harmony, now there is discord. Where there was faith, now there is doubt. In Holland, that byword for flat, tedious stability, politics has grown hot and turbulent.
Julian DrewAthletics This week the track and field season stepped up a gear with the arrival of the Engen Grand Prix Series on the local calendar and with it a sudden influx of international talent. After last weekend and what was the best South African championships in recent memory many of our stars are in […]