How diplomatically put
"Moscow and Washington failed to overcome their differences over Iran's nuclear programme yesterday, with a meeting of top diplomats in London breaking up without agreement on a common stance on the dispute... The US State Department later said 'great progress' had been made at the meeting." — London Financial Times, May 25.
'Poverty busters' ignored
"It is a characteristically Anglican mixture of breast-beating, self-congratulation, waffle and wishful thinking. But in the 100-odd pages of Faithful Cities, the Church of England's new report on urban poverty, there is one glaring absence. The real poverty-busters — the people who create wealth and jobs — feature nowhere at all. Business appears only as a greedy and unwelcome backdrop." — London Times, May 25.
The business backdrop
"For Britain's super-rich, things have never been so good. Booming stock markets, escalating property prices, a takeover mania, the sudden growth of hedge funds in London, investment bankers dripping with City bonuses... they have all contributed to this explosion of wealth. The combined assets of the top 1000 listed in the Sunday Times Rich List has climbed by more than 21% in a single year to £301bn. Indeed, this figure has trebled since Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997." — London Daily Reckoning, May 25.
From Green Left Weekly, May 31, 2006.
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