We have long ago lost our moral compass, so how can we lecture the Islamic world?
Years of Western interference in the Middle East has left the region heavy with injustices
ROBERT FISK:

In an age when Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara can identify “evil ideologies” and al-Qa’ida can call the suicide bombing of 156 Iraqi Shias “good news” for the “nation of Islam”, thank heaven for our readers, in particular John Shepherd, principal lecturer in religious studies at St Martin’s College, Lancaster. Responding to a comment of mine – to the effect that “deep down” we do, however wrongly, suspect that religion has something to do with the London bombings – Mr Shepherd gently admonishes me. “I wonder if there may be more to it than that,” he remarks. And I fear he is right and I am wrong. His arguments are contained in a brilliantly conceived article on the roots of violence and extremism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam – and the urgent need to render all religions safe for “human consumption”.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10321.htm

Hitchens vs Galloway: The big debate Christopher Hitchens, vocal supporter of the Iraq war, against George Galloway, indefatigable enemy of the war
DAVID USBORNE, in New York

The George Galloway Tour had arrived in town and things were running a little late. The queue to get into the 1,000-seat auditorium at Baruch College near Gramercy Park had stretched more than two blocks and it was taking time to get everyone in. Apparently not fully apprised of what she was in for, an American woman turns around to a British reporter sitting one row behind and innocently
inquires: “Is this personal?” The Respect party MP for Bethnal Green and Bow is on a swing through the US to promote his new book, Mr Galloway Goes to Washington, about his blistering appearance at a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill this spring investigating scams and scandals in Iraq’s oil-for-food programme. But the New York stop always promised to be more entertaining than any other. He would have company on stage.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article312968.ece

Sex, maths and a spinning machine: the 12 British books that changed the world
It is not army generals nor scientists nor inventors that direct the course of human history, but the books they write, Melvyn Bragg claimed yesterday.
IAN BURRELL:

It is not army generals nor scientists nor inventors that direct the course of human history, but the books they write, Melvyn Bragg claimed yesterday. Launching the new season of ITV’s The South Bank Show, Lord Bragg announced a list of the Twelve Books That Changed the World, a four-part special that will be screened next April. The books span 700 years and cover subjects from religion to football, but all the authors are British. He said: : “When people think of things that change the world, they tend to think of extraordinary events: the assassination of leaders; the invasion of countries; the havoc wreaked by natural disasters. All extremely dramatic, but there is something less attention-grabbing but just as powerful: books.”

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http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/news/article311043.ece

Sorry Mr President, Katrina is not 9/11
America this weekend marked the fourth anniversary of 9/11 as anger over the hurricane continued to mount. The two disasters, says Simon Schama, revealed very different faces of the same country
SIMON SCHAMA:

Slipstreaming behind the annual rituals of sorrow and reverence for 9/11, George W Bush has decreed that, five days later, on the 16th, there is to be a further day of solemnities on which the nation will pray for the unnumbered victims of Hurricane Katrina. Prayers (like vacations) are the default mode for this president who knows how to chuckle and bow the head in the midst of disaster but not, when it counts, how to govern or to command. If you feel the prickly heat of politics, summon a hymn to make it go away; make accountability seem a blasphemy.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1567841,00.html#article_continue