Beacons of truth
Arising from the dross and trivia of the national newspapers today are some beacons of truth.
Julian Glover in the Guardian says the unsayable. "Afghanistan is already yesterday's war, though it is still to be tomorrow's defeat".
The Independent escapes from the current events of the day, to remind us of a predictable and predicted national spending calamity.
One month after the Japanese tsunami, the world's biggest reserve of plutonium waste is reaching crisis point. It was meant to be reprocessed and sold – but now no nation will take it. So where is this vast stockpile? Not Fukushima, but Sellafield, Cumbria.
Helen Caldicott in The Guardian provides a valuable expert antidote to George Monbiot's superficial claims..
That billions of its dollars are at stake if the Fukushima event causes the "nuclear renaissance" to slow down appears to be evident from the industry's attacks on its critics, even in the face of an unresolved and escalating disaster at the reactor complex at Fukushima.
The review of the film Armadillo in The Telegraph makes chilling reading.
The soldiers found themselves caught in a firefight with the Taliban, and killed some of them, who were lying in a ditch. What exactly happened is never made clear, but the film suggests that some of the dead Taliban may have been trying to surrender or were already wounded – which would mean the Danes broke the rules of engagement.The presumed brutality of the soldiers shocked the Danish people, many of whom felt their role in Afghanistan was essentially peacekeeping.
A subject I have raised frequently in the Commons to illustrate the misplaced optimism of Ministers is the failure of the Kabul Bank. It's been systematically robbed by the Afghan elite proving that corruption is endemic and permanent.
President Hamid Karzai says. "Action will be taken against those responsible for the troubles at Kabul Bank, which caused a financial crisis in Afghanistan last year, Shareholders who fail to repay loans and bank managers responsible for negligence will be prosecuted, he said.
Fraud, bad loans and mismanagement brought the bank close to collapse as The Kabul bank has almost $1bn (£600m) in outstanding loans. The BBC's Quentin Somerville in Kabul says that the bank lent freely and wildly to leading figures in Afghanistan - including the relatives of the president and a vice-president.
Among three senior Kabul bank executives and shareholders under investigation is the brother of Afghanistan's First Vice-President, Mohammad Qasim Fahim. Another major shareholder is Mahmoud Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, but Mahmoud Karzai is not being investigated.