4 Feb 2006

04 February 2006

In this issue

Featured articles

Sir Richard Sykes of Imperial College tells Martin Vander Weyer that Britain’s world-class scientists hold the key to future economic successApproaching Imperial College through the long tunnel from South Kensington station, I recalled that the last time I met the College’s rector, Sir Richard Sykes, he was chief executive of Glaxo, the drugs group, and we were lunch guests of the industrialist Lord Hanson. Our fellow guest (forgive the name-dropping) was the broadcaster Selina Scott, and it would be fair to say that glamorous Selina was served a rather larger portion of Hanson’s charm and attention than Sir Richard or me.

Waiting for the British

Lashkar Gar, Afghanistan In a dusty clearing on the outskirts of Helmand’s capital, the US army’s Provincial Reconstruction Team had set up a mobile aid station. As we approached, a Humvee gunner swung his machine-gun towards us and shouted angrily, ‘Get back, get back!’ We were clad in shalwar-kameez and sporting scrubby beards. We may not have fooled many locals but to the American soldier, viewing the world through his wraparound sunglasses, we looked like Afghans.

Bush: Palestinians good, but not great

Washington In the 48 hours before George W. Bush took the podium to deliver his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday, the presenter for ABC news was blown up in his flatbed truck by a roadside device near Baghdad, Martin Luther King Jr’s widow died, former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay went on trial for accounting chicanery allegedly committed by his company back when it was President Bush’s largest single campaign contributor, Alan Greenspan spent his last day at the Fed, Judge Samuel Alito spent his first day on the Supreme Court and the radical Islamists of Hamas started their first week as the democratically elected rulers of Palestine.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of terrorism

Julian Manyon on why the Palestinians voted for Hamas — and why the terrorists will not be transformed into politicians by the realities of powerJerusalem Fundamentalists of any stripe are not to my taste but the leading ideologues of Hamas have a grisly fascination. Mild-mannered, often well-educated, including doctors and scientists in their ranks, they are nonetheless subscribers to a Covenant in which ‘the Day of Judgment will not come about until.

Next up: Columnists