Nuggets

▐ As the credit paralysis stretches through its fifth month, a chorus of economists has begun to warn that the world's central banks are fighting the wrong war, and perhaps risk a policy error of epochal proportions ... York professor Peter Spencer, chief economist for the ITEM Club, says the global authorities have just weeks to get this right, or trigger disaster ... In Europe, the ECB has its own distinct headache. Inflation is 3.1 per cent, the highest since monetary union. This is already enough to set off a political storm in Germany. A Dresdner poll found that 71 per cent of German women want the Deutschmark restored. -- The Telegraph Britain

▐ As everyone can see, the National Intelligence Estimate that stated Iran has no nuclear-weapons program and hasn't had one for the past four years has not affected George W. Bush. He still wants to present Iran as a dangerous country and to cripple the country with sanctions. What this tells you is that facts and truth have no relevance at all to Bush. That makes him a truly dangerous president. He and Dick Cheney really should be impeached, although that will not happen because Congress is full of cowards. The American people have a right to expect a fact-based foreign policy. -- Charley Reese

▐ ... We have yet to hear one word of regret or remorse from any of the main architects - Blair, Brown, Straw, Hoon, Campbell and their principal advisers - of Britain's participation in the supreme international crime. The press and parliament appear to have heeded Blair's plea that we all "move on" from Iraq. The British establishment has a unique capacity to move on, and then to repeat its mistakes. What other former empire knows so little of its own atrocities? -- The Guardian

▐ Fresh from the controversy over shifting positions on the Armenia genocide, the Jews could be caught up in another controversy over genocide recognition. This time the subject is the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, called Holodomor, which Ukrainian President Victor Yuschenko wants Israel to recognize as genocide, orchestrated by Josef Stalin against the Ukrainian people. --JTA

▐ If the last days of 2007 are any indication, U.S. President George W. Bush's last year in office is shaping up as grim and lonely. Grim, because Bush's signature "war on terror" is nowhere near the kind of "victory" on which he had placed so much hope. Hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury have been spent, but the democratic transformation of the Middle East and the wider Islamic world has not materialized ... Grim, because the economic news - which has generally remained upbeat over Bush's tenure - has turned decidedly negative in recent months. -- Inter Press Service

▐ Holocaust denial increased around the world during 2007, following a temporary lull last year, a report released found. The annual report, "Holocaust Denial: A Global Survey - 2007," published by the Washington- based David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, found that Holocaust-denial activity was up worldwide, following a drop in 2006 due to the imprisonment in Austria of leading denier David Irving. Irving returned to the lecture circuit this year after his release, and other Holocaust deniers continued their activities in various countries, including holding a conference in Italy to defend Holocaust-denial, the report said. -- Jerusalem Post

▐ Whatever you think about the second world war is wrong, and this book [Europe at War: 1939-1945: No Simple Victory] will prove it. That, at least, is the contention of Norman Davies, a trenchant British-born historian whose scope, ambition and knowledge about Europe are unmatched. His aim in this new history of the war is to puncture the comfortable myths created by the combination of popular culture (especially in films) plus the self-centred history taught in schools ... British and American readers may be surprised to learn (though they shouldn't be) that their countries' role in land warfare was so feeble ... Stalin's death camps killed more people than Hitler's. -- The Economist (Britain)

▐ Israeli military prosecutors have decided not to take any legal action over Israel's use of cluster bombs during last year's war in Lebanon, the army said Monday, closing an investigation into a practice that has drawn heavy criticism from the UN and international human rights groups. The investigation determined that Israel's use of the weapons, which open in flight and scatter dozens of bomblets, was a "concrete military necessity'' and did not violate international humanitarian law. The United Nations and human rights groups have accused Israel of dropping about 4 million cluster bomblets during its 34-day war against the Hezbollah guerrilla group.-- The Washington Post