The Guantanamo Problem

Article I just wrote for those lovely people at Media Week Middle East

http://content.yudu.com/Library/A14ooq/MediaWeekMiddleEast1/resources/10.htm

In case things dont work out for Obama

Just a thought I wanted to get in before anyone else does. I think Obama will probably take out the election, unless the republicans have another voting machine trick up their sleeves.
BUT. If Obama misses out then the papers will need a headline to go with the day after the election. OR weeks after if it turns into a protracted legal battle.
I was thinking about this because I’m in London at the moment, home of the world’s best newspaper headlines. I’m talking magic like "Bananas in Pyjamas," that ran during the Michael Jackson trial.
Don’t know if there is any money in headline ideas for newspaper headlines but I humbly submit this little pearler.
O BUMMER 08

Burning Obama

In certain parts of the world they love burning effigies. India is one place in particular and Pakistan. When you consider those countries mutual love of cricket and effigy burning, you wonder why they don’t get on better.
As Obama looms as a likely contender for the next president, I wonder if the professional effigy burners have started practicing creating his likeness. A little too early you think? Well no. Effigy burners take their craft very seriously. They are probably working on a John Mc Cain and an Obama. Different coloured paper of course and McCain’s chubby cheeks mean they will use a bit more on his head, but these are the things that serious effigy builders have to think about.
There must have been a sigh of relief when Hillary dropped out of the race. The suits that they put on the Obama or McCain effigies will be the left over George W ones, but if Hillary had taken over as boss of the world super power, then the poor old effigy designers would have had to go out and invest in a whole lot of ladies suit pants. And that would have been costly.
Speaking of Pakistan, I see the lawyers have been protesting again.
Think about street protests. You are normally lookin at hundreds of feral hippie types with long hair, Mohawks and pierced noses. The two oddest street protests I’ve ever seen are the suited up lawyers in Pakistan and the Buddhist monks in Myanmar. Rioting monks? It just doesn’t make sense, but at least those robes would allow you to throw your rocks and shake your fists. I don’t know if a suit is the right thing to wear to a protest, but I’ll tell you who’s cleaning up, literally. Pakistani dry cleaners. Because no lawyer, even a protesting Pakistani one, is going to turn up to court in a smelly suit.