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I imagine you remember BSE and mad cow disease. Weren't we told that anyone who had ever eaten beef was supposedly at risk of life-threatening brain damage? And you probably remember the bird flu scare. Maybe you even remember necrotising fasciitis, the "flesh-eating bug", which had us all terrified a few years back.

Why are we so prone to health hysteria? And why do we apparently find it so difficult to tell the difference between a scare story and a genuine health emergency?

I have some theories. First, we live in a complex, confusing, technologically-challenging world. We are never quite sure how fresh is the food that we eat or how pure is the air that we breathe. We lie awake at night and worry: do I know enough, understand enough, to make the right decisions for myself and my family?

We scour the newspapers and sit glued in front of the TV or radio, hoping to learn something that will help us understand. Should I be eating more eggs, or fewer? Should my children drink more fruit juice, or less?

But the answers are usually as confused as the questions. We no longer automatically believe what we're told, anyway - so even if a Government minister, or a doctor, tells us "This is how it is", we are sceptical, or dismissive.

Which brings us, as you knew it would, to swine flu. Or flu, as I prefer to call it. I imagine that, like most people, you've had flu at some point in the past, and survived. (No jokes, please, about men who get flu: everyone knows that men suffer much more when they're ill than women do ... it's just the way we're made.)

Swine flu is this year's flu. The only difference, so far as I can make out, is that the virus is slightly different from the ordinary, common-or-garden, seasonal flu, which means that the vaccine which is usually given to vulnerable people isn't effective. This new flu may be a bit more likely to spread, but it seems to be no more serious as an illness (if anything, it might be a bit less serious - at least, for most people).

All right, so why all the fuss? Here's my theory. First, officials never want to be accused of being unprepared, or of having failed to warn the public of a genuine danger. So they are naturally tempted to err on the side of pessimism.

Second, it is part of their job to prepare for the worst. They have spent ages drawing up detailed contingency plans. So when we reporters ask them: "What's the worst case scenario?", they have a nice, scary answer ready and waiting.

And why do we reporters always seem to look for the worst case scenario? Well, imagine tonight's programme. I read the top headline: "There seems to be a new flu virus, but no one seems too worried." Alternatively, I read: "There seems to be a new flu virus. Government scientists say up to a million people could be affected." Which one would keep you listening? (Honest answers only, please.)

We don't do hysteria on The World Tonight. We try to separate fact from speculation, and we try to examine, dispassionately, what officials are saying and how the experts react. As for me, I travel to work every day by Tube, and as I hang on to the rail, I remind myself that thousands more hands have been there before mine. Some of them, doubtlessly, have been coughed or sneezed on. So I wash my hands as soon as I get to the office.

If you want more information or guidance, the website is up and running, or you can try phoning 0800 1 513 513.

I'm taking a break for the next couple of weeks, and will try very hard not to think about swine, or flu.

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Alistair Burnett writes:

The World Tonight's Paul Moss has been in the Balkans in the past few weeks to assess the challenge facing the European Union's attempts at nation-building in Bosnia and the disputed territory of Kosovo.

In Kosovo, the EU's most ambitious mission yet - known as EULEX - is attempting to build up the rule of law in a region where there is little tradition of respect for a European-style legal system as opposed to brute force, and where organised crime and corruption are recognised to be endemic. The EU is also attempting to do this in a situation where the international legitimacy of the state they are working in is disputed. (Paul's article about this is .)

Eighteen months ago, Kosovo, backed by the US, Britain and some others, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, but this was opposed by Belgrade, with support from Russia and some EU members, led by Spain. This means the law and justice mission the EU has set itself - which is already pretty ambitous - is efffectively helping build the institutions of an independent Kosovo, which not all members of the EU have recognised.

In Bosnia, the EU has a High Representative - nicknamed by some 'the Viceroy' - who is charged with overseeing the implementation of the Dayton peace agreement that brought an end to the war in 1990s which killed around 100,000 people, and with trying to bring the formerly warring parties - the Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, closer together. Since 1995, the country has been made up of two disparate parts, the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Serb Republic. But the EU's efforts have run into difficulties because political leaders in both parts of the country are challenging the authority of the EU and playing the nationalist card, and there are doubts as to whether the EU has the commitment to do more than try to manage the status quo.

But many observers believe something will have to give. Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo all want to join the EU, and officially the EU says it wants them to join at the same time -though quite when is not clear. But unless the two parts of Bosnia agree to integrate more closely and unless Serbia and the Albanian majority in Kosovo can come to terms on the future of the territory, which doesn't look likely at the moment, that objective looks difficult to achieve.

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I have written before (here and here) about Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, aka The Shark, former president of Iran and now one of the country's most influential and enigmatic clerics.

He was, behind the scenes, an important backer of the Mir Hossain Mousavi, the reformist candidate in last month's presidential elections. But since the disputed result of those elections, and the serious unrest that followed, he has lain low.

Now, with an extraordinary sermon at Friday prayers at Tehran university, he has reappeared in public and, in effect, thrown down the gauntlet to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As always when Iranian clerics speak, he spoke elliptically. But here, with thanks to Juan Cole at , is a flavour of what he said about the period immediately following the elections:

Doubt came down on our nation like the plague ... Why did it happen? We need unity today, more than ever ...What should we do? I have a few suggestions. Of course, I have discussed these suggestions with a few jurists and members of the Expediency Council, with whom I can intellectually connect ... Our important issue is that the trust that brought so many people to the polls, and is now harmed, will be restored. This should be our holy objective, that this trust is returned.

There was more:

We have to create an atmosphere that all sides can come and express their views. And all sides must act rationally and without quarrel ... Eventually the people will find out the truth and we can ask the people too. We have to provide the ground to return this trust to the people ... Under current circumstances, there is no need for us to have people in prisons. Allow them to return to their families.

In other words: free opposition protesters from prison. Stop censoring the media. Find some way to meet the complaints from the opposition that they were robbed of a victory that should have been theirs.

And all this weeks after the Supreme Leader had declared the election controversy over and warned people not to carry on with their protests. No wonder the reaction from pro-government clerics against Rafsanjani has been swift.

According to the : "Hard-liners like Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi struck back at Rafsanjani on Saturday, saying his speech would endanger the country by inciting supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to take to the streets ... 'The leader (Khamenei) removed the threat of riots, but Mr. Rafsanjani is again seeking to provoke the danger," Yazdi was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars news agency.

Interestingly, though, the official Iranian website reports today that Rafsanjani is now visiting the holy city of Mashhad to confer with other senior Iranian clerics to "discuss the latest political ferment in the country."

What it all boils down to, I think, is that the crisis that erupted after the elections is far from over. And that what happens when the country's senior clerics meet behind closed doors is every bit as important as what happens out on the streets.

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Remember Burma? Remember those protests nearly two years ago by thousands of saffron-robed Buddhst monks, protesting against a dictatorial military government?

Let me jog your memory, because I think Burma may soon be back in the news again, and I'd hate to think you weren't ready for it. (As you may recall, I see it as part of my task in these notes to act as a sort of early warning system. Consider this your Burmese early warning.)

First, within the next few weeks, the opposition leader and Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi will learn whether her lengthy period of detention is to be extended yet again. (She has already spent 14 of the past 20 years either under house arrest or in prison, since before her party, the National League for Democracy, won an overwhelming victory in the country's last elections in 1990.)

The latest charge against her is that last May she broke the rules of her current detention order by allowing into her house an uninvited American guest, who had taken it upon himself to swim across a lake to her home.

The expectation is that she will be found guilty as charged (the judicial process is not exactly as independent as might be thought desirable). And if she is convicted, there is a chance of more street protests, because the woman referred to by the Burmese simply as "the Lady" remains a potent political force.

More importantly, if she is sent to prison, she will be unable by law to play any part in the elections scheduled for early next year, the first national elections since the ones her party won back in 1990. (Her supporters think this is the real reason she has been put on trial.)

But why should you care about Burma? Well, my answer is the same as it always is in these circumstances: look at a map. On one side China; on the other India. The world's two most rapidly growing economies, two regional super-powers. They care what happens in Burma, and so should we.

China's leaders are particularly concerned. What matters above all to them is stability at home and stability on their borders. They don't want any sudden upheavals in Burma, any more than they do in North Korea. That's why I shall be watching carefully to see what Beijing says and does in the run-up to the Burmese elections next year.

Not, of course, that the elections will be anything like free or fair. But if you heard the programme last night, you'll have heard the former United Nations humanitarian affairs official Richard Horsey, who spent five years in Burma, suggest that the new generation of political leaders who are expected to emerge after the elections may be just a little bit more open to dialogue with the outside world than the current bunch of geriatric generals.

In an article in the current edition of , published by the foreign policy think tank Chatham House, he wrote that the West "must position itself now to seize the opportunities next year may bring to push the country in the more positive direction we all want to see."

Click below to hear him discuss Aung San Suu Kyi's continuing political relevance.




It could be that nothing will change after the elections. But it could also be that with a US president who believes in engaging even with rogue regimes, there will be a genuine opportunity for a new approach. And despite the undoubted bravery of those Buddhist monks, who risked being shot by the security forces, it could be that some subtle signals now from the outside world will stand more of a chance of effecting a shift in Burma itself.

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Words and pictures from Mexico --

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Take a look at this: it's a blog written by Alistair Burnett, editor of The World Tonight, exactly three years ago.

I wonder if we'll be asking the same questions three years from now.

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Here's a question for you: why, exactly, are British forces fighting - and dying - in Afghanistan?

No army likes to go into battle without knowing why - and the government seems to be having some difficulty in coming up with an answer that works.

This was Harriet Harman, standing in for Gordon Brown at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday: "It is important to make sure in the mountainous regions surrounding Afghanistan and Pakistan (that) we do not have a crucible for the development of terrorism that threatens not only the people in that country but the region and indeed the whole world."

Sub-text: remember 9/11?

The new defence secretary, , said pretty much the same thing in more detail the same day. The priorities are, he said, (i) "to prevent a return to Taliban control that allowed terrorists to flourish and threaten our national security; (ii) to prepare the way for elections ... by confronting the insurgents, denying them the freedom to operate, isolating them, and degrading their capability; and (iii) to provide the time and space for the Afghan forces to take responsibility for the security of their people, and for the Afghan Government to build their civil society."

The key message from the government, then, is simply this: if you want a secure Britain, you have to help create a secure Afghanistan. In the words of Bob Ainsworth: "Our troops are in Afghanistan to keep our country safe from the threat of terrorism."

Simple. Except, of course, it isn't.

Critics like , writing in The Guardian, say our military involvement in Afghanistan is unhappily reminiscent of how the US became embroiled in Vietnam. "Vietnam began with Kennedy's noble 1963 intervention, to keep the Communist menace at bay and thus make the world safe for democracy. That is what George Bush and Tony Blair said of terrorism and Afghanistan."

No one is arguing that military force alone will create a safe and stable Afghanistan. (After all, the British army tried and failed more than once in the 19th century - and the Soviet army failed just as dismally in the 1980s.) The argument is whether the political progress that needs to be made can be achieved only with military assistance, or rather whether it will come, if at all, only when the foreign forces have departed.

As for the "winning hearts and minds" argument (yes, it was heard in Vietnam too), Jenkins is scathing: "The strategy of 'hearts and minds plus' cannot be realistic, turning Afghanistan into a vast and indefinite barracks with hundreds of thousands of Western soldiers sitting atop a colonial Babel of administrators and professionals. It will never be secure. It offers Afghanistan a promise only of relentless war, one that Afghans outside Kabul know that warlords, drug cartels and Taliban sympathisers are winning."

But might Iraq be a useful example? Most commentators seem doubtful. For one thing, Iraq and Afghanistan are very different places, topographically, ethnically, culturally and historically. Yet critics say that much of the military thinking in Afghanistan does seem to be based on what has already been tried in Iraq. (Not really surprising; after all, the US General David Petraeus is the strategic mastermind in both countries.)

Those who doubt the wisdom of British military involvement in Afghanistan say the government is sending our soldiers to fight a war they cannot win.

Those who support the current strategy say that to pull out now would hand the country back to the Taliban - which most Afghans don't want, and which would put the UK at risk of terrorist attack - and send a dangerous message of weakness to any other potential insurgent groups who may be tempted to follow the Taliban example.

What do you think?

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Alistair Burnett, editor of The World Tonight, writes:

We know more than 150 people have been killed in violence in the regional capital Urumqi and we know there have been demonstrations by Uighurs - the ethnic Turkic Muslims who live in that part of China - and counter demonstrations by local Hans - the majority ethnic group in China. We also know the government have flooded the city with security forces to prevent further violence. But crucially we don't know exactly how it started and what happened when most of the deaths happened last Sunday.

The Chinese authorities say Uighur exile groups and radical islamists have been stirring up separatist violence. The Uighur exiles say Chinese security forces killed peaceful demonstrators protesting at the receent deaths of Uighurs in a brawl at a factory in southern China.

This is the worst case of unrest in China - certainly in terms of loss of life - since the suppression of the Tiananmen protests 20 years ago, so this week The World Tonight has given it a lot of coverage.

But it has been difficult to establish exactly what happened before the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Beijing Correspondent, , got to Urumqi on Monday.

We have spoken to the Uighur exile group the , who accused the Chinese security forces of killing hundreds of Uighurs. We have spoken to the Chinese Embassy in London, who accused extremist groups abroad of being behind the violence.

By Wednesday, we wanted to know how credible the accounts of the two sides are so we spoke to of Georgetown University, an expert on Xinjiang, who said they are both guilty of spinning - it's worth a listen.




(Broadcast on The World Tonight, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4, 8 July 2009)

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I have posted some photos from my Mexico trip on The World Tonight
Flickr site. Click to see them.

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Ritula Shah writes:

A man in a bowler hat is an unusual sight these days but Tendai Biti isn't worried about fitting in - he has a very strong personal sense of what he sees as being right and wrong. A leading figure in Zimbabwe's MDC, in the past he has been arrested and assaulted for his opposition to Robert Mugabe.

Today Tendai Biti is Finance minister in Zimbabwe's power sharing government. It's an administration that has President Mugabe at its helm, while Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC, is its Prime Minister. When I spoke to Tendai Biti for The World Tonight, he made no secret of the fact that this isn't always the most comfortable arrangement, but he argued that it's far better than the alternative - which he says is guns and violence.

As Finance Minister, Tendai Biti has a tough job on his hands. On the positive side, Zimbabwe's sky high inflation has plunged, and is hovering at or below zero, following the decision to discard the country's worthless currency. But rebuilding the shattered economy, creating jobs and investment will take time. Mr Tsvangirai has just completed an international tour which was aimed at persuading Western donor nations to start re-investing in Zimbabwe.

But though he personally was given a warm reception in Europe and the US, there was a certain wariness about dealing with the country while Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF retain a grip on the levers of power. Instead of the billion or so dollars he hoped to raise in funding, the actual total was nearer $200m. Tendai Biti is unfazed by this - he argues that everything will take time but he believes the new Zimbabwe he envisions, will eventually rejoin the ranks of Africa's success stories.

Click below to hear the interview.




(broadcast on The World Tonight, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4, 7 July 2009)

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Several of you have said that since this blog was redesigned, you miss being able to see who has commented on what.

If you click where it says "jump to more content from this blog" (just below the picture at the top), you will see a column called "Topical posts on this blog" with the number of comments in brackets. The most recent are at the top.

I know it's not quite the same, but I'm afraid it's the best I can do ...

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OK, I admit it, I wasn't too surprised to find -- in a country battling against powerful and violent drugs cartels -- that there was tight security around the headquarters of the government public prosecutor's office.

You know the sort of thing: crash barriers to stop car bombs; armed guards in flak jackets to stop armed attackers; airport-style metal detectors and X-ray machines as soon as you get inside the door.

I didn't even raise an eye-brow when they took my photo, my electronic finger-print and a specimen signature on a digital pad.

But what did stop me in my tracks was when a stern woman in surgical gown and face-mask insisted on spraying my hands with some anti-swine flu stuff before I was allowed any further. Organised crime gangs are bad enough -- but drugs syndicates and swine flu ... that's a lot for any government to handle.

When I finally made it to the office of Adrián Franco, of the Attorney-General's Office, I found a dapper, quiet-spoken man in pink shirt and pale blue bow tie. He rebutted any suggestion that Mexico might be losing its war against the drugs cartels.

Quite the contrary, in fact. The violence is increasing, he said, precisely because the government strategy is working. (Last month there were 769 murders in Mexico, a record number.)

Look at the figures: in the 30 months since President Felipe Calderón took office, 44,300 weapons seized; 5.2 million rounds of ammunition; and 80.6 tons of cocaine, which is equivalent to more than 244 million hits. The cartels are under pressure, says Mr Franco - that's why the violence is increasing.

As for using the army in the fight against the narcos, which is controversial but popular here, there's no alternative, he says. The police just don't have the fire power, and too many of them are corrupt.

You can hear our interview, and a live discussion of the issues raised, in tonight's edition of The World Tonight.

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MEXICO CITY -- I get to meet some pretty impressive people in my line of work. (I also get to meet some unimpressive ones, but we'll leave that for another day.)

Today, I met three of Mexico's thousands of kidnap victims (Officially, there were a thousand kidnaps here last year, but everyone suspects the true figure is much higher). One of them was held captive for three weeks while her family desperately tried to get a ransom together; another was seized for a mere 20 minutes when her taxi-driver's two accomplices leapt into the taxi she was travelling in and stripped her of all her valuables.

Neither comes from a wealthy background, and as you'd expect, they were both deeply traumatised by their experience. Yet they could talk calmly about what happened, in large part, they say, because of the post-trauma counselling they received from Lorena Chavez Martinez of (Mexico United), which offers help to crime victims.

I also met Claudia Wallace. Her 35-year-old brother Hugo was kidnapped four years ago and beaten to death. Since then she and her mother have waged a relentless high-profile campaign against the kidnap gangs. They have been threatened and shot at, and now Claudia lives in her fortress-like home with round-the-clock guards out front and a battery of closed circuit cameras and alarm systems.

My last interview today was with , a Colombian businessman who has discovered that in violent times, there's money to be made in designing and selling bullet-proof fashion clothing. I tried on a rather nice black leather jacket, which he promised would totally protect me against being shot even at close range.

I thought I looked quite good in it, but the price tag was close to $5,000, so I decided to leave it.

On Friday's programme, I'll be exploring why Mexico has become one of the most violent countries in the world, and what success, if any, the government is having in combating the crime gangs.

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As I hope you'll have noticed, this blog now has a new look, which means it more closely resembles the rest of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ blogosphere.

Links from the text seem to be invisible at the moment, but we're working on it, and I'm told you shouldn't find any other problems -- if you do, let me know.

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I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I was waiting for the powerful former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani to make his move, following the disputed elections.

Well, it seems he has now decided to back President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over the man he had previously been supporting, Mir Hussein Mousavi.

According to the respected Michigan-based Middle East analyst Professor : "Rafsanjani has clearly decided to defer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on handling the outcome of the elections, and has come out as critical of the crowd politics and occasional turbulence they produced. As a multi-billionaire and man of the establishment, he may well have been frightened that the massive street rallies for Mousavi a week ago signalled a danger to the status quo, which he is attempting to preserve."

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