Obama the Imperialist
THE TELEGRAPH: Several thousand right-wing Israelis have massed in central Jerusalem to denounce a Jewish construction freeze in the West Bank and brand Barack Obama an imperialist.

In their biggest show of force since a moratorium on new residential building was announced late last month, some 3,000 settlers and their sympathizers gathered outside the residence of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.

But it was the American president Barack Obama, seen by many settlers as ultimately responsible for the 10-month construction slowdown, who was as much in the sights of the demonstrators.

In scenes reminiscent of protests in the Arab world during the administration of George W Bush, they castigated Mr Obama as an imperialist from the same mould as his predecessor.

"Obama is continuing Middle East Imperialism," read one banner, "Was hoping for change - Got the same old imperialist," another.

Despite falling domestic approval ratings, Mr Obama remains the subject of much adulation abroad. But there is little evidence of such sentiment in Israel, where less than 10 per cent of the population claims to trust him, according to opinion polls.

The American president has become the focus of right-wing revulsion in Israel ever since he called for a freeze to Jewish settler construction earlier this year, even though he has since appeared to soften his stance.

The demonstrators at the rally had no doubt that Mr Obama was the real cause of the settlers' woes. Right-wing Israelis protest against West Bank settlement freeze >>> Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem | Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Sordid Reality Behind Dubai's Gilded Facade
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Construction halted, westerners jailed for adultery - but prostitutes do well

Andrew Blair says he will pick me up from outside my sleaze-bucket of a hotel, give it 20 minutes or so, got some work to finish off. He has a job again, contracts apparently “coming out of his ears”, which is good, because until recently he had earned a certain notoriety for not having a job and, more to the point, for the manner in which he went about finding a new one. He drove around Dubai, back in January this year, from the plug-ugly creek to the plug-ugly marina, in his white Porsche, with a sign in the back window saying he wanted a job; vroom vroom he went, gizza job. Scratch scratch scratch went the keys and coins along the side of his car whenever it was parked up.

Such conspicuous flaunting of vulgar affluence seems to me entirely appropriate for this foul city — especially when combined with an admission of desperation and hopelessness, that scrawled sign and telephone number in his rear window. Fur coat and no knickers, etc. But, unaccountably, the local expats found it all a little contemptible and the journalists — none of whom possessed Ferraris — sniggered long and loud in print, out of exquisite Schadenfreude. Just look at this idiot on his uppers, was the subtext. But the ploy worked, and Andrew is once again in gainful employment as a construction project manager, and therefore can remain in this country where they deport you if you’re skint, so who’s laughing now? Not Andrew, as it happens. The whole episode, he says, made him think, made him change his ways. Those first two years out here in this dusty and scorched semi-reclaimed desert were enormous fun: huge tax-free income, palatial apartment — “the crème de la crème” — silent or monosyllabic servants, all that sex (a city containing 8,000 air hostesses can’t be bad), the fast cars, the alcohol.

But he’s a changed man, he says; that epic, shallow, soul-destroying materialism and vulgarity now leave him cold. Being out of work for a while left him a little bruised but a better person, understanding that money and consumer durables are not everything. A changed man. Although not that changed, I notice, as the white Porsche pulls up.

“Why did you leave Britain?” I ask him, slung well below sea level in the bucket seat as we cruise the baked streets past the filthy, crumbling apartment blocks where the Bangladeshi slave labourers live or die, 10 or 12 to a room, and then into the hideous bling of downtown Dubai, a vast architectural experiment conducted by, seemingly, Albert Speer and Victoria Beckham. One skyscraper appears to be gilded in gold leaf, another looks like the birthday cake of a spoilt five-year-old brat — and all of them trying desperately to be taller, flashier, more grotesque than the one next door.

“Well, you know,” he says, in a soft Scottish burr, “I think it was the immigration more than anything else.”
“But Andrew, you’re an immigrant now…” >>> Rod Liddle | Sunday, July 12, 2009