Saudi Arabia Is A Puritanical State That

The Rise To Prominence Of The Saudi Novel In Arabic Is The Great Man-bites-dog Of Recent World Literature. Saudi Arabia Is A Country Without A Free Press, Where European Styles And Forms Are Distrusted And Where The Female Half Of The Population Became Literate Only In This Generation.

For 50 Years, Nuclear Power Stations Have Produced Three Products Which Only A Lunatic Could Want: Bomb-explosive Plutonium, Lethal Radioactive Waste And Electricity So Dear It Has To Be Heavily Subsidised. They Leave To Future Generations The Task, And Most Of The Cost, Of Making Safe Sites That Have Been Polluted Half-way To Eternity.

Governments Of Rich Countries Spend Some $6bn Of Tax Money A Year On Disaster Relief And Development Aid Overseas, While Each New Earthquake, Famine Or Tidal Wave Can Attract 1,000 Aid Organisations, From The United Nations Children's Fund And Oxfam To The 'jesus Brigades' Of The American South And Other Charitable Adventurers.

Even Before He Came To Power In 1997, Gordon Brown Promised To Change The Accounts To Parliament From Simple Litanies Of Cash In And Cash Out, To A More Commercial System That Took Notice Of The Public Property The Departments Were Using. This System Is Known As Resource Accounting.

Life Without Oil, In Fact, Would Be So Different That It Is Frightening To Contemplate. We Are Addicted, And It Is No Comfortable Addiction.