Thursday, July 03, 2003

Venice Biennale: Too Much That Was Good on Paper, Was Bad in Practice by Louisa Buck 04 Jul 03 VENICE. It may have been subtitled 'The dictatorship of the viewer', but the sprawling behemoth that is now the Venice Biennale meant it was usually more the viewer who felt dictated-to by its vast excesses. Curator Francesco Bonami wanted his 'archipelago' of guest-curated shows (sporting such excruciating titles as 'The Structure of Survival'; 'Zones of Emergency' or 'Utopia Station') to communicate the fragmentedly multiple and contradictory nature of today's art, and the world it inhabits, but surely any contemporary art show worth its square meterage should do this anyway? Therefore what was supposed to signal democracy, open-endedness and all-inclusiveness appeared more like an event headed by a curator reluctant to shoulder such a herculean task on his own. [The Art Newspaper] 11:55:51 PM  Google It!

French Court Frees Iranian Group Leader by Pierre-Antoine Souchard 03 Jul 03 PARIS. A French court on Wednesday ordered the release of nine people arrested during a recent broad anti-terrorism sweep, including the leader of an exile group seeking to topple Iran's ultra-religious government, judicial officials said. But the Paris appeals court said Maryam Rajavi, a leader of the group Mujahedeen Khalq, and one other defendant must first pay bail. Rajavi was ordered to pay about $93,000 and likely will not be released before Thursday, the officials said... France's counterintelligence agency, the DST, claims the Mujahedeen was planning attacks on Iranian diplomatic missions in Europe and assassinations of Iranian secret agents in Europe. It also claims the group was planning to make its headquarters a nerve center for terrorism after losing its firepower in Iraq, where it mounted attacks on neighboring Iran. [Associated Press] 1:50:39 AM  Google It!

Britain: Parliamentary Probe Exposes Lies on Iraqi Weapons Part 1: Clair Short, Robin Cook and Andrew Gilligan by Richard Tyler 03 Jul 03 The following is the first in a series of articles. The Foreign Affairs Select Committee investigation into whether Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour government distorted intelligence material to justify its planned war against Iraq is to publish its verdict on July 8. There is every reason to suppose that the Labour-dominated committee in Parliament will make criticisms of the government that stop short of accusing it of lying—a classic fudge. But some of the testimony given to the inquiry makes this difficult. It stands as a damning indictment of the way the government set out to sell a previously determined decision to go to war by claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. In order that this information does not remain buried amidst thousands of pages of undigested transcripts, the World Socialist Web Site is publishing a précis of the most important testimony given. [World Socialist Web Site] 12:20:14 AM  Google It!