Daily Archives: March 7, 2011

Gideon Rachman Islamists, the IRA and the hypocrisy of Peter King

March 7, 2011 7:02 pm by Gideon Rachman

On Thursday, the House of Representatives is going to hold hearings on the extent of Muslim radicalisation within the United States. The hearings are controversial because some see them as stigmatising an entire community. Comparisons with McCarthyism and the persecution of Japanese-Americans during the second world war are flying around. Read more

Posted in Foreign affairs |

Gideon Rachman So farewell then, Barbie

March 7, 2011 6:25 pm by Gideon Rachman

I don’t often get the impression that I am hallucinating. But I do distinctly remember wondering whether my eyes were playing tricks on me, when I went for a late night stroll in Shanghai, eighteen months ago, and came across the Barbie store.

There was so much to take in. It was five-stories high. It was decked out in Barbie’s trademark garish pink. And it was open – at 11pm at night.  I read in today’s FT that the flagship Barbie store in Shanghai is now closing. I wasn’t the victim of some mind-altering drug, after all – but I can’t vouch for the person who thought of opening the store in the first place. Read more

Posted in China |