The latest list of the world’s top universities has been released, as compiled by Times Higher Education/QS. Whilst the UK and the US retain their monopoly of the top ten spots, the results suggest that the dominance of traditionally elite universities is being challenged. Harvard is still first and Cambridge moves up to second, ahead of Yale. In a shift that will upset the dons who reside beneath dreaming spires, University College London has risen to fourth, ahead of Oxford, who are now tied for fifth with Imperial College London.

But university rankings often stimulate controversy, and this is no exception — not least for the fact that its explicit intention is to produce a holistic ranking, as opposed to more easily measurable and comparable performance indicators, such as the number of alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, or the number of articles published in prestigious scientific journals. The methodology has several components: 40% of the score for each university is based on peer review, where academics are asked their opinion on each institution’s reputation. Another 10% is based on what employers think, whilst the student-to-faculty ratio and number of citations against the size of the research body are each allotted 20% respectively. The result is rounded off by assessing the number of international students and faculty. There are several problems with this methodology — one point to consider is that universities in non-English speaking countries are at a distinct disadvantage, because English is the language of research, and also because Americans tend to cite Americans. Simon Marginson, writing for The Australian, also pointed out that it depends on who fills out the reputational survey and how each survey return is weighted.

The results over the five years that this list has been compiled have been highly volatile, particularly in the lower half of the table. For example, UCL has apparently risen from 34th in the world to 4th over that time period, which is no mean feat. Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics at University of Warwick points out this list incorrectly reassures the UK government that our universities are international powerhouses: “Let us use reliable data to try to discern the truth. In the last 20 years, Oxford has won no Nobel Prizes. (Nor has Warwick.) Cambridge has done only slightly better. Stanford University in the United States, purportedly number 19 in the world, garnered three times as many Nobel Prizes over the past two decades as the universities of Oxford and Cambridge did combined.”

But also long as you take these results with an extremely large pinch of salt, the overall trends make for interesting reading. China and Korea are in the ascendant, and continue to invest heavily in their higher education systems. Wendy Piatt, director-general of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities in the UK, described the two countries as “snapping at our heels”. The overall dominance of the United States in world higher education appears to be slipping, given it has 32 universities in the top 100 this year, down from 37 last year. The best-placed institutions of France and Germany, who one might have expected to fare better, are the Ecole Normale Superiéure at 28th, and the Technical University of Munich, coming in at number 55. Excluding the UK, Europe has 21 institutions in the top 100, up from 19 in 2008. ETH Zurich is the highest-placed institution, being joint 20th.

President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, after having been in office for just nine months — a testament to the rapidly increasing pace of modern life. The Norwegian Nobel Committee hailed Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” It’s traditional not to notify the winner beforehand, so The White House was informed at the same time as everyone else. Press secretary Robert Gibbs heard the news from reporters, and telephoned the White House early on Friday morning to pass along the news to his boss. He’ll receive a gold medal, a diploma and a cheque worth 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.42m, or €980,000) at a ceremony in Oslo City Hall on December 10, the date on which Alfred Nobel died.

Though he has done many admirable things, including trying to move the Middle East peace process forward; working to curtail the proliferation of nuclear weapons and so forth, it is arguably more than a tad premature to give him such a prestigious accolade. It’s also interesting to note that the nomination period ended eleven days into his presidency. In their defence, Thorbjørn Jagland, chair of the Committee, noted in a press conference that Willy Brandt, the Chancellor of West Germany also received the award whilst in office. He pursued the important policy of Ostpolitik, aimed at improving relations with the communist bloc countries. Yet he had been in power for two years before being awarded the prize.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai had been among the favorites to win this year, from a record field of 205 candidates, including a Chinese dissident and an Afghan human rights activist. He has endured a great deal during his ten-year tenure as leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, including a ferocious police attack on the basis that he had been taking part in an “illegal” prayer meeting. That he managed to create a functioning coalition government with Zanu-PF in the first place is an achievement in itself — the first step in getting the country back on its feet after a total economic collapse. Some commentators have also suggested that if Tsvangirai had won the prize it could have helped strengthen his hand in dealing with President Robert Mugabe.

But this is not to downplay or disparage President Obama’s achievements, who was “humbled to be selected by the committee”. As the Associated Press points out, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments, not solely after they have proven successful — a sentiment which Mr Jagland echoed in the press conference. Certainly, the shift of world opinion towards the US during his time in office has been immense, and this has been down to the work of his administration and the policies which he has set in motion. Fully engaging with international institutions is a distinct shift away from the Presidency of George W Bush, who had other ideas about how best to deal with other countries.

But although his desire may be present to tackle issues such as climate change, his ability to tackle them is dependent on getting the support of Congress, who will draft and pass the legislation. In the case of Iran, negotiations have at least started, but given that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still at the helm despite the popular uprising earlier in the year, there is no way of telling how successful these will be. Similarly a question mark also hangs over the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, given that hardline Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is in charge.

Hopefully in the years to come, history will confirm that President Obama was a great statesman. One who successfully pursued policies to bring about a more peaceful world, complete with stronger international institutions. But for the time being, he sits uneasily in a pantheon of past Nobel laureates that include the likes of Mother Teresa and Desmond Tutu.

On September 17, the United States announced that it was abandoning its plans for anti-missile installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. These were to be used as a defence against long-range Iranian missiles, which the country is currently testing.  However, the review President Obama ordered into the missile defence programme yielded updated intelligence and suggests that Iran is progressing more slowly than previously thought. The most likely scenario is that it won’t be able to reliably manufacture them for at least a decade. Consequently the US will focus on the threat posed by Iran’s short-range missiles, and counteract this with suitably equipped US Navy vessels, based in the North Sea and the Mediterranean. This comprehensive break with Bush-era foreign policy has been introduced for a variety of reasons, and will have a great many repercussions for America’s friends and foes alike. As might be expected, given that they were to be on the front line of these defences, the effects will be most keenly felt in Central Europe, and the resulting change in relations with both the European Union and Russia could be profound.

Spheres of influence

It was Russia who most bitterly opposed the scheme, arguing that it targeted its nuclear arsenal, rather than a potential ballistic missile attack from Iran. Hours after the conclusion of the US election last year that saw Obama elected, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that he would deploy short-range missiles near Poland capable of striking NATO countries. In addition, there was a threat to deploy short-range nuclear weapons in the exclave of Kaliningrad, which sits inside the European Union. This sabre-rattling was intended to focus the newly elected American president’s mind, and was in stark contrast to the otherwise very positive global reaction to his election. Yet during the election campaign Obama had been lukewarm about the missile shield, and certainly less ideological in his approach to Russia than his rival, the Republican Senator John McCain. These public threats by the Kremlin could have made it more difficult for him to abandon the project, particularly in the context of heightened East-West tensions resulting from the war in Georgia, which had started just a few weeks before.

This didn’t come to pass, not least for pragmatic economic reasons — the programme would have cost $4 billion a year (£2.8 billion). The principal reason however was to “reset or reboot” America’s relationship with Russia, which Obama has talked about several times. This can only have helped, though both Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin continued to say not to expect any direct concessions in response. Relations are undeniably improving, as can be seen from the recent Security Council summit at the UN, chaired by Obama and attended by leaders of nuclear powers including Russia, China, France and the UK. A resolution was unanimously adopted that focuses on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. An announcement was also made that the US and Russia were working on reducing their stockpiles in advance of a global nuclear summit scheduled for next year. These acts can be seen as part of President Obama’s commitment to re-engagement with the world and with the international institutions and treaties that bind it together. In August, the US stated its aim to ratify the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by next spring, having been originally signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1999 but rejected by the Senate.

Obama was hoping that Russia might shift its position with regards to Iran, and indeed after the Security Council meeting Medvedev signaled that Russia could support sanctions, after having previously opposed such an action. But this realpolitik has had a chilling effect on relations with Poland and the Czech Republic, where the anti-missile defences were to be sited. The leaders of these two nations committed significant political capital agreeing to this in the first place, during six years of negotiations with Bush administration officials. This is despite significant opposition to the plans by the populations of both countries, as well as the hostile and aggressive stance of Russia. The plans would have involved placing ten silos with interceptor rockets in northern Poland and building a large radar station south of Prague. But the Russian government feels that this region is still firmly within their sphere of influence despite now being largely part of the European Union and NATO. Indeed, Georgia was at one point a prospective candidate to join the defence alliance, which would have meant that during its war with Russia last year, NATO would have invoked its collective defence article for only the second time since September 11. The consequences of which can only be imagined.

Shifting alliances

As a result of America having abandoned the missile shield, one consequence may well be to bring Poland and the Czech Republic closer into the European Union, with a view to achieving a common EU position towards Russia. This would be in contrast to their approach to date which has been distinctly Atlanticist, in a similar vein to the UK. This can be seen at the moment with the Lisbon Treaty, which reforms many EU practices; opens the door to an elected president and foreign representative, and gives it a distinct legal personality for the first time. The Czech president, Vaclav Klaus is notoriously Eurosceptic, and goes so far as to compare the EU with the Soviet Union. He’s currently refusing to sign it, despite the Czech parliament having already passed it. Poland was in a similar position, but is now expected to complete ratification in a few days’ time. Whilst Obama’s approach to extending an open hand to countries formerly branded as being part of the “Axis of Evil” may bear fruit in due course, at the moment all it seems to be doing is souring relations with allies and yielding limited results from other nations.

The challenges facing humanity were recently discussed in a slightly dilapidated building overlooking the East River in New York. The new session of the UN General Assembly — the organisation’s main forum for debate — kicked off with its usual array of eccentric speakers, charming traditions and rampant politicking. The main topics for debate during its sixty-fourth session included climate change; non-proliferation and disarmament, and the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development. Heads of state flock here, to the premier forum for international diplomacy. There’s no other event that offers the same opportunity to participate in face-to-face discussion with the high-level actors of the world stage.

The UN itself is undergoing major changes, not least the currently under way $1.9 billion renovation of its headquarters on Manhattan. This will restore and update the 1950s buildings, built in an internationalist style, and greatly reduce their energy consumption. The Capital Master Plan, as it is known, is due to be completed by 2013, and involves all workers temporarily leaving the 39-story Secretariat tower. This is not before time, as the building systems have been running approximately 30 years longer than their expected lifecycle. Many of the parts and pieces for the mechanical and electrical systems cannot be bought anymore, so much like NASA, who has to source parts for the Space Shuttle from eBay, craftsmen in the basement shops of the UN have to adapt parts in order to keep the systems running.

Two leaders

However, the main General Assembly chamber is still currently open for business, and over the course of the week no less than 118 heads of state and government spoke from the podium, along with dozens of ministers. At the very first session held in 1947, Oswaldo Aranha, then head of the Brazilian delegation to the UN, began a tradition that has remained to this day, whereby the first speaker is always a Brazilian. But it was the two speeches that followed which received by far the most coverage, each for rather different reasons. The individuals in question were President Barack Obama and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who were both giving their first addresses, after having been in power for forty weeks and forty years respectively. Things didn’t go quite according to plan when the latter spoke, when he proceeded to give a rambling speech that stretched for six times longer than his allotted time slot. As the New York Times noted: although a red warning light illuminates after the 15-minute time limit, United Nations officials said they could not remember anyone interrupting a head of state to explain that the allotted time had expired.

Gaddafi’s speech was impressive in the sheer variety of subjects covered, including questioning the assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and pondering whether swine flu had been created in a government laboratory. He also denounced the Security Council — the UN’s most powerful body — describing it as the “terror council”, and demanded compensation for Africa to the tune of $77.7 trillion, for the resources and wealth that had been stolen in the past through colonialism. He was following in the fine tradition of theatrics in General Assembly speeches, encompassed by the likes of the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, who in 2006 memorably compared President George W Bush to Satan: “The devil came here yesterday, and it smells of sulphur still.”

But to return to the present: President Obama’s speech also overran, and clocked in at 38 minutes. However, this was not nearly as contentious, due to him passionately asserting his country’s commitment to the UN. He went on to say that “we have paid our bills”, joined the Human Rights Council and fully embraced the Millennium Development Goals – an incredible shift from the outright hostility of the previous administration, whose stance was typified by the appointment of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations. This is the individual who once said, “If the UN Secretariat building in New York lost ten storeys, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

On the critical issue of climate change, Obama also distinguished himself from his predecessor, in stating that the danger posed by it could not be denied and nations’ responsibility to meet the challenge could not be deferred. Along with heads of state from over 100 countries, he attended the Secretary General’s “high level meeting” on the subject, with the intention of building momentum ahead of the World Summit on Climate Change that will take place in Copenhagen in December. Leaders of several small island nations warned that their ecosystems are already threatened by climate change effects, including rising sea levels and disappearing marine life.

The common good

The importance of the UN as a place where leaders and their representatives can gather in one spot, exchange views and negotiate cannot be understated. In recent years its reputation has been rather battered, with the alleged fraud in the oil-for-food programme in Iraq — in which some of the UN’s top officials were implicated, as well as the son of then-Secretary General Kofi Annan. But many of the problems nations are faced with today, including the global financial crisis, climate change, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, can only be tackled through intense international co-operation. If anything, the powers of the UN need to be bolstered, and it certainly needs to be better funded, if it is to fulfil the lofty goals laid out in its Charter. The reforms that General Assembly president Ali Treki is pushing for, including bringing the Security Council into the 21st century, from middle of the 20th, where it currently stands, are to be welcomed. But the organisation’s fate rests with its 192 member nations, and the extent to which they are prepared to work together for the common good of mankind.

The Great Gatsby is a much-lauded book, and for good reason. It deals with a darker side of the American Dream, and charts the life of the eponymous Jay Gatsby — a mysterious, wealthy individual who is forever throwing extravagant parties for the great and the good at his beachfront mansion. He seems to have it all, yet is the subject of much hushed speculation by his guests. It’s through the narrator Nick Carraway that we are able to slowly piece things together, as he ends up moving next door, and eventually becomes entangled in Gatsby’s life.

The novel is set in the early 1920s, with Prohibition in full swing, and repercussions from the First World War still being keenly felt. Before he left to serve in the Army in Europe, Gatsby had fallen madly in love with Daisy, a girl from a wealthy Southern family. The aftermath of this time spent away, when he eventually gets back to the US, is what produces the tension and drives the plotline.

When he wrote this in 1924, Fitzgerald was 28 and already had two commercial and critically successful novels under his belt, and was approaching the height of his fame. Elements of the story are taken from his own life, including grand parties he hosted in Long Island that were driven by alcohol. A year of such largesse  led to him being deeply in debt, to the tune of $5,000. But he hunkered down and wrote stories to pay this off, and with the leftover proceeds eventually moved to the French Riviera to focus all of his creative energy on this work. It certainly paid off.

At one point there are some interesting (and possibly autobiographical) reflections on approaching thirty. Carraway puts it in this amusingly bleak way: “Thirty — the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair.” The style of writing throughout is wonderful, with many such delightful turns of phrase and reflections on humanity, often with a bracing dash of cynicism, for good measure.

During the course of its pages, we discover more about Gatsby’s extraordinary leap from rags to riches, his pursuit of a single dream, and ultimately its unravelling. It deals in a very poignant way with the longing for something that is just beyond reach, and serves as a fascinating critique on American ambition. When it was first published, it received mixed reviews and relatively poor sales. In 1939 it had even gone out of print! This unfortunately resulted to Fitzgerald’s confidence beginning to flag, and was an element in his long decline. Thankfully, the novel is now rightly considered a classic, and has often been referred to as a “Great American Novel”, which caught the spirit of life in the United States during the jazz age. It’s well worth a read, old sport.

Alan Morton-Smith
Mindreign.com
25/09/2009

At 9:09:09 PM on September 9, 2009 Dubai achieved an impressive feat of engineering, by launching the world’s longest automated driverless rail system. Built in just four years by a Japanese consortium, the Red line is 52km long (comparable in length to the Northern line on the London Underground), and possesses the world’s biggest underground metro station. Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) expects 318km of metro lines to be in operation by 2020, which is just shy of the entire length of the New York City Subway.

However, all is not well in the state, which is one of the seven members of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It has been hit by one of the steepest fall in property prices worldwide — a 47% decline in a year, according to Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index — as well as having been battered by the global financial crisis. As a result, its economic boom came to an abrupt end in 2008 after several years of windfall oil revenue. According to figures released by Fitch Ratings on September 24, the Dubai Government’s debt will have tripled from last year, to reach $30 billion by the end of 2009. This is nearly 40% of GDP, and has resulted in firm downgrading the ratings of seven banks, including the country’s largest lender by assets, and the largest bank by market value. Although it is the stated intention of the federal UAE government to support financial institutions, the ratings agency said that their ability to do so has deteriorated. In addition, Fitch has placed the country’s largest telecoms firm Etisalat on watch, with a view to potentially downgrading it as well.

Prestige projects

However, these short-term financial difficulties aren’t putting the brakes on the numerous prestige projects which have been announced in the UAE in recent years. Take Al Maktoum International Airport, for example, which is currently under construction. With no less than six parallel runways, a cargo capacity treble that of Memphis International Airport (today’s largest cargo hub) and 100,000 parking spaces, it’s a project on a staggering scale. This in turn is merely a constituent part of a complex which will eventually cover an area of twice that of Hong Kong Island, and will be home to 750,000 people. It’s all part of the emirate’s strategy to diversify its economy and wean itself off the oil and gas sector, which provides around a third of the UAE’s Gross National Product. The aim is to transform itself into a regional headquarters for banking, technology, media, shipping and aviation. Not that they need to hurry — the UAE has proven oil reserves which, at the current rate of extraction (2.5 million barrels a day) will last for at least another 150 years.

Dubai in particular has been building on past successful ventures, including the Jebel Ali Port, built in 1979 and the biggest such facility in the Middle East. The country is now the third most important re-export centre in the world, behind Hong Kong and Singapore. There was a significant amount of controversy in 2006 when the owner of Jebel Ali Port, Dubai Ports World, purchased the British firm P&O — who at the time were the fourth largest ports operator in the world. This opposition arose because P&O had port management businesses in six major US seaports, and various American political figures argued that the takeover would compromise US port security. But given that the UAE is a long-standing ally of the United States, this seems very unlikely indeed. However, Dubai Ports World eventually sold P&O’s American operations to American International Group’s asset management division for an undisclosed sum. AIG was subsequently one of the major financial institutions which had to be bailed out by the US federal government.

It can certainly be argued against the above xenophobic sentiment that the UAE is one of the most liberal countries in the Gulf. But this is still far removed from Western norms — for example, there are regulations banning things such as kissing in public and wearing skirts above the knee. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the constitution of the UAE provides for freedom of speech and of the press, but in practice, the government uses its judicial and executive powers to restrict those rights. Journalists regularly suffer from several forms of intimidation and harassment. Given the high-profile attempts to lure international media outlets to Dubai, as well as the focus on promoting itself as a tourism hub, clashes between traditional sensibilities and a modern outlook can only increase.

Post credit-crunch

Realistically, Dubai really has nothing to worry about, despite what a credit rating agency may say. The federal United Arab Emirates government is buying Dubai’s bonds and is still aiming for a nationwide growth rate of 3% for 2009. Once the credit crunch fully subsides and the global economy emerges from recession, it will most likely be a case of ‘business as usual’. Some of the more interesting developments will come from how the country squares its stated desire to become a major trade and tourism destination with the conservative values it espouses. The native population is already hugely outnumbered by foreign workers, with only 15-20% of residents being UAE citizens. According to a projection by Dr Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, Professor of Political Science at the Emirates University, this percentage will reach 10% by 2015, and 0% by 2025, which would be unprecedented. What would happen in a country with such a demographic make-up? As long as it’s good for business, the country’s rulers are unlikely to object.

This year’s Emmy Awards were held in Los Angeles on September 20, in recognition of excellence in prime-time television. Started in 1949 to honour shows made locally in the LA area, it has subsequently expanded into a national event, and is considered to be the television equivalent of the Oscars. Many news outlets commented on the fact that the event was light on surprises. The awards for best drama series, best comedy series, best lead actor in a drama, best lead actress in a drama and best lead actor in a comedy all went to the same winners as last year. This, it might be argued, is indicative of the rather conservative approach of the academy members who actually decide the winners. The best example of this might be the satirical “fake news” programme The Daily Show, fronted by Jon Stewart. A very worthy winner, but also the recipient of the award for best variety, music or comedy series for the seventh year in a row. As the Guardian put it, “it takes them a very long time to notice shows, which makes it hard for anything new or less hyped to break through”.

The power of the web

In the context of a significant proportion of the population with broadband across Europe and North America — ranging from 85% in the Netherlands to 60% in the USA — this approach might need to be radically rethought. People are accessing more TV content online than ever before, through sites such the BBC’s hugely successful iPlayer; Hulu.com, backed by News Corp, NBC Universal and Disney, and also via less legal means, such as The Pirate Bay. The ability to access content on demand, not bound by any TV channel schedules, is an idea which has been much-lauded for many years but is only now being fully realised. Combined with the ability to share clips and links in a very short timeframe, individuals and shows can rocket from obscurity to global recognition at dazzling speeds. Susan Boyle is the most impressive example of this, with videos of her — from her appearance on Britain’s Got Talent,  various interviews, and her 1999 rendition of Cry Me a River — having been watched online over 100 million times since April, when she first arrived on television.

Indeed, the power of emerging media was recognised at the Emmys, with Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a musical short film produced exclusively for internet distribution, winning an award. It consists of three acts of approximately 14 minutes each. They were first released online as individual episodes, with two-day intervals between each one being made available. Directed and financed by Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it cost just over $200,000 to make, which he had recouped by November of last year through sales on DVD and via the iTunes store. In a blog post, Whedon stated that, “We’ve been able to pay our crew and all our bills”.

Another interesting aspect of how power is shifting online is that, according to Bloomberg, television programmes such as The Simpsons and CSI are for the first time commanding higher advertising rates at web sites including Hulu.com and TV.com than on prime-time TV. Marketers are willing to pay more because these sites provide committed viewers who actively seek out shows. There are fewer adverts, and consumers are twice as likely to recall web ads, according to David Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS. That said, whilst web viewing and online advertising sales are increasing, they are still too small to replace traditional revenue sources.

Transition

Although the internet is undoubtedly becoming a considerable force in the television industry, we are still in a transitional phase, and a great deal of work lies ahead in establishing new, profitable ways of doing business online. The problem of how to do deal with illegal filesharing, for so long a problem for the music industry, is now becoming more critical for the TV networks as well. One key problem is the considerable time-lag between when series are broadcast in different countries, which often leads to fans, impatient to see the latest developments, taking things into their own hands. This could potentially lead to a similar approach taken by the film industry, where movies are increasingly given a single worldwide release date, in a bid to combat piracy.

Despite the success of Joss Whedon’s short film, with its low budget (by television standards) there will arguably always be a market for high quality, lavish productions by the likes of HBO, responsible for such series as The Sopranos and Band of Brothers. It will also be intriguing to see how public sector broadcasters, such as the BBC, recast themselves in this rapidly shifting environment. One thing is for sure, though: the great and the good who cast their votes for Emmy awards in years to come will have a far greater array of programmes to choose from than ever before. Here’s hoping they can keep up.

Google Books is an ambitious project, for which the ultimate goal is create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalogue of all books in all languages. To that end, they have already digitised about ten million books and made them discoverable online. It’s a key plank in the company’s strategy to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, as their mission statement has it. Launched towards the end of 2004 in partnership with several high-profile university and public libraries, it now also incorporates the in-copyright books of thousands of publishers as well.

This process has not been without controversy, and there have been a multitude of allegations, lawsuits and protests about the company’s actions since its inception. One of the main points of contention are so-called “orphan” books — that is, books still protected under copyright, but which belong people who cannot be traced. A group of authors and publishers in America sued in 2005, citing “massive copyright infringement”. In October 2008 a settlement was reached, in which Google set aside $125 million to resolve outstanding copyright claims, and said it would share any future proceeds. It would also provide the means for copyright owners of out-of-print books to submit claims to Google, and lead to the establishment an independent Books Rights Registry. Both parties are currently seeking judicial approval for this deal.

Several rivals, including Microsoft and Yahoo!, Google’s major competitors in a number of fields, are vehemently opposed to the settlement. Indeed, Microsoft has gone so far as to say that it is “an unprecedented misuse of the judicial system”. They started their own book digitisation programme in 2005, but wound it down less than three years later. Amazon, the principal retailer of books online, is similarly against the agreement, labelling it “dangerous”, and noting that it could give rise to a “cartel structure that leaves the public susceptible to abuses”. All of these firms, in conjunction with such organisations as the British Library, are members of the Open Content Alliance. This group is pushing for Congress to intervene, as they feel that this would lead to a more equitable solution than the settlement.

Across the other side of the Atlantic, the European Union is in the process of reviewing copyright law, to establish whether it is still fit for purpose in the digital age. The picture in Europe is much more complicated than in the US, with each of the 27 member states having their own varying rules. Earlier this month, the EU started a round of hearings on the Google project, which is interesting in the context of already having their own publicly-funded digitisation project, in the guise of Europeana. There is a fear that should the agreement between Google and the authors and publishers be given the go-ahead, it could put European education and research institutions at a significant disadvantage to their American counterparts.

For Google’s part, they argue that the nature of a class-action suit means that it is impossible to open up the deal to other parties. They also note that the project actually increases competition in the market for digital books, and significantly expands online access to works, with its initiative offering a counterpoint to such services as Amazon’s Kindle, which is currently the dominant player. There’s also a significant gain to be made in resolving the status of books whose owners are proving difficult to trace, as well as the issue of excessively long copyright periods. Millions of in-copyright works, including hard-to-find out-of-print books would be made available, providing them with greater exposure, and potentially generating new revenue.

Google would also offer very extensive access to its digitised library, including being able to view free, full-text online editions at American public libraries. This would be at no charge to the library or the reader. In addition, universities and other organisations would be able to obtain institutional subscriptions to collections from some of the world’s most renowned libraries, including Harvard and Oxford. The firm is also making conciliatory gestures, such as the recent hint that they would let other internet companies sell digital copies of their out-of-print books. The previously mentioned Book Rights Registry, which was created with an initial $34 million from the firm, is an independent, not-for-profit organisation which would seek out copyright holders, maintain accurate contact information for them, and provide a way to opt in or out of Google Books.

Whilst this is clearly a deeply contentious issue, and Google’s creed of “don’t be evil” has not always been upheld (in their censoring of search results at the behest of the Chinese government, for example) the greatly increased access this project offers to researchers across the globe is a boon for human knowledge, and benefits us all. On a slightly more prosaic note, the potential for the firm emerging with an unfairly dominant position in the book business can also be said of Amazon at the moment. The establishment of a major alternative would be most welcome. Sony, for example, is in favour, and has said that it would have “numerous and significant pro-competitive effects”. On the issue of finance, Google will be paying 63 percent of royalties generated to the copyright owners, in addition to the initial financial settlement. There is also the potential for added revenues for these owners via library access, in the form of per-page printing fees. The firm’s approach has drawn the ire of many, but the end result will be free access to great collections of the written word.

With general elections due imminently in Germany and within nine months in the UK, politicians in both countries are in the process of setting out their policies, and trying to distinguish themselves from the opposition. This is proving to be relatively difficult in Germany, where an uneasy “grand coalition” between the two major parties — and the resultant joint responsibility for the last four years — have restricted their ability to criticise each other. Early surveys of those who watched last night’s TV debate suggest that the challenger, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, had swayed more people than Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). That said, 48% considered it to be a draw.

In Britain, Lord Mandelson, the Secretary of State for Business and one of the most powerful members of Gordon Brown’s Cabinet, has been setting out the Labour Party’s economic strategy. In a speech today, he defined Labour as being “wise spenders, not big spenders”, with a view to bringing the party into line with public opinion, which polls reveal as being more in favour of the opposition Conservative Party, and their more strident approach to cutting public spending.

Prospects

Continuing a trend seen across Europe in the recent European Parliament election, polls in both countries suggest that the centre-right parties hold double-digit leads over their social democratic rivals. But voters in Germany and the UK could arguably have trouble distinguishing between the policies of the two main parties. The most potent reason for this is as a result of being constrained by large budget deficits, with existing stimulus packages and bank bailouts having already added a considerable strain to government finances. In Britain, the Conservatives have attempted to shed their image of being the “nasty party” — a phrase coined by former party chairman Theresa May — by pledging increased spending on health and international development, with a view to wooing more liberal voters. As a result of this, and other initiatives by party leader David Cameron to “decontaminate” the Conservative party brand, he has brought his party’s policies more closely into line with the incumbent Labour party. In a way this mirrors Labour’s strategy before winning the general election in 1997: in trying to assuage fears of financial mismanagement which they had been associated with in the past, they promised to keep to Conservative spending plans for their first two years in government.

One consequence of there being little substantive policy differences between both major parties is that the political debate tends to centre around who would be better stewards of the economy. Mr Steinmeier, who leads the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) argues that the CDU would pursue the kind of market liberalism that created the current financial situation, and furthermore that “the thinking that got us into this crisis can’t get us out of it”. Ms Merkel however, argues that her coalition would lead Germany to faster economic growth and lower unemployment. The only major foreign policy difference to emerge in the TV debate related to Afghanistan, with Mr Steinmeier making a stark departure from previous remarks, where he insisted that Berlin should not set a date for departure of troops from the country. Instead, he called for the withdrawal of the roughly 4,200 German troops deployed in Afghanistan by 2013. This policy has the potential to resonate with the public, after a controversial German-ordered air strike last week (which is still being investigated by NATO) resulted in dozens of casualties, many of whom may have been civilian.

Polling day

The prospects of the Labour party at the next general election are poor. They will have been in power for thirteen years by June next year, and have been racked by in-fighting and plots to replace Gordon Brown as party leader. In the vein of President Obama’s campaign, David Cameron is pressing the issue of “change” rather strongly, and the recent by-election win in Norwich North might suggest that the changes he has made to party policy are bearing fruit. That said, a struggling government can turn things around and achieve a surprise victory. A recent precedent in British politics can be found in John Major, who managed to steer the Conservative party to victory in 1992, despite numerous polls suggesting that they would lose. Similarly, Gerhard Schröder managed to turn what looked like a likely defeat for the SPD into a victory in the German election of 2002. This year’s federal election, however, could prove to be unpredictable. Both the CDU and the SPD fared badly in recent state elections, and if similar results were to be seen at a federal level, this could result in another “grand coalition”. However, the most likely result remains a victory for Ms Merkel.