Who knows?

The news in the UK is obviously still dominated by the London bombings. In the US the appointment of a new judge to the Supreme Court is grabbing the headlines, and yesterday Chief Justice Rehnquist was admitted to hospital. He is suffering from cancer and his condition is clearly deteriorating, meaning that Bush is likely to be able to fill at least two spots with his own judges. Whether or not this leads the Court to take a lurch to the right is not clear. Rehnquist is a very conservative judge, so his replacement would not affect the balance of the court. The confirmed retirement of Judge O'Connor could potentially lead to a move to the right, but she has been moderately conservative in most cases anyway.

Millions of dollars are going to be spent on the "campaign" with each side attacking the suggestions of the other. Ultimately it will make no difference. Bush will decide, and with Republicans dominating both Houses, he will most likely get his way. His right-wing religious backers will demand ultra conservative appointments, however Bush will be aware that to do that would threaten the "broad coalition" of voters that the Republicans have managed to build since his first election. Moderates may well be put off by such nominations and the Republicans current position of dominance in American politics could be threatened. Because of that, it is likely that Bush would go for a more moderate judge. Then again, he may not care and simply wish to shape the Supreme Court in line with his views. We shall have to wait and see.

The weather outside is once again scorching and what am I doing? Packing and sweating buckets. It's amazing how much crap you can accumulate in a year. I'm lacking the will to sort through at the moment so it's just being chucked in a box to be dealt with at a later date.... presumably when I unpack.

It's been a lovely sunny day in Oxford today and I've tried to make the most of it. Visited the Ashmolean Museum for the first time - only took me four years to get round to that. There's a lot to see in there: definately a place you could visit many times. Spent a good few hours lying in the sun in the Uni's Botanical Gardens, covered in sun cream and vaguely reading the paper. Then I moved to a pub in Summertown just reading and watching the cricket (England annihilated by the Aussies). All very relaxing as you can see. Exam stress seems like a world away now. No doubt there'll be more of the same tomorrow as I've got little else to do until heading home on Thurs.

Shame :-)

Bargain of the day were the £3.99 sunglasses I picked up at Next. Let's hope the weather holds so that I get good use out of them.

A few weeks ago I wrote this:

The unfairness of the Common Agricultural Policy is well demonstrated by this article on the plight of African farmers. It amazes me that while at the G8 summit there will be discussions about how best to give aid to Africa, one of the best ways to help the continent, eradicating farm subsidies in both the US and the EU, is not on the agenda.

It seems I was wrong and that farm subsidies were in fact discussed at the G8 summit. What was agreed, or more precisely what was set out in the accords that resulted from the G8, was a commitment to the removal of farm subsidies. This applies equally to the EU Common Agricultural Policy and to US farm subsidies. The actual details will be hammered out as part of the general World Trade Organisation negotiations taking place later this year in Hong Kong.

I've never been entirely clear how farm subsidies fit into the WTO structure, and I am none the wiser having studied the WTO for my masters course (although, to be fair the course could be described as a general introduction to the WTO, focusing as it did on the key economic/political aims of the WTO/GATT, central case-law on the main clauses of the GATT and the other main WTO multilateral agreements). They are clearly an anomaly that don't fit with the core (economic) aim of the WTO which is to reduce trade barriers and to promote the operation of comparative advantage. Free trade, it is said, will improve the general economic welfare of the planet (while not dealing with the distribution of that welfare - hence the controversy that surrounds it and the felt need to not just promote "free trade" but "fair trade").

In the face of a general reduction in trade barriers and tariff levels that has occurred since the GATT was signed in 1947, the farm subsidies of the EU and US become increasingly unjustifiable, even without considering their impact on African farmers. This means that the agreement reached at the G8 should be welcomed. It should be noted that to even get the G8 to agree to the general aim of the removal of all farm subsidies is quite remarkable considering Chirac has been such a staunch defender of the CAP in the recent EU "Rebate Wars". (See also here.) However, the agreement is nothing but a statement of intent and sets out no deadline for the abolition of subsidies. As I said, this will be left to the trade talks later this year, which raises the specter of developing countries having to give something in return. That is, after all, how "negotiations" tend to work.

Given the lack of a deadline and criticism that Tony Blair has faced in the EU in recent weeks for daring to suggest that the CAP is a bad idea, it is doubtful that any significant shift in EU policy has been brought any closer by the G8 accords. What the G8 has recognised, it would seem, is that simply giving more and more aid to Africa is not the way to solve the continent's troubles. What is needed is structural change in the world markets - the removal of distortions that unfairly prejudice developing countries. It is arguable that the acceptance of this that is implicit in the G8's "statement of intent" in relation to farm subsidies is of more fundamental importance than the $50bn that the leaders agreed to give to Africa before 2010.

I had thought that I would not talk about Thursday's attack on London as I have nothing to add to the many things written elsewhere but I feel the need to comment in light of the following from an article in the New York Times:

"The terrorists have come home," said a senior intelligence official based in Europe, who works often with British officials. "It is payback time for a policy that was, in my opinion, an irresponsible policy of the British government to allow these networks to flourish inside Britain."

This is nothing short of "I told you so" and is disgraceful. Our intelligence services have stopped a number of attacks. The simple truth that everyone must grasp is that there is nothing that we can do to prevent all terrorism that would allow us to maintain our current way of life. It is a risk that we must live with, and have lived with for many years. This is not the time to point the finger of blame, despite George Galloway's triumphalism in Parliament. These terrorists despise our way of life and we should not try to justify their murdering of innocent people.

Fox News, the wonderful American news channel, has been at it again. I know the British television media is far from perfect, but I do find it deeply disturbing that so many millions of Americans watch that channel: Fox News slammed over 'callous' line