A notice in the Times…by-lined Associated Press…reports President Uribe’s re-election in the most peaceful election in Colombia for more than a decade. He is the first incumbent to be returned to office in more than a century so he must be doing something right. He won an impressive 62% of the vote and his re-election seems to buck the trend of left-wing leaders taking office in Latin America. Perhaps we are witnessing a shift in the zeitgeist with London’s Victoria & Albert Museum even opening a Ché Guevara Exhibition next week…although to the wry amusement of Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein and a friend of the exhibition’s curator, his name has been removed from the guest list causing him to wonder whether Guevara himself would have been barred.

However of somewhat greater interest to the male half of Colombia is the Football World Cup starting next week. On this side of the pond the Great Unwashed are decking each other and the halls and bonnets of their homes with the flag of St George. But spare a thought for the dark underbelly of these global spectaculars. Pakistan produces 85% of the world’s soccer balls…and it’s done like this…one stitch at a time…like here in the City of Sialkot.

Noam Chomsky has been pointing out that the United States of America meets all the criteria for a Failed State. Here are Noamsky’s seven solutions: ‘Accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the World Court; sign and carry forward the Kyoto Protocol; let the UN take the lead in international crises; rely on diplomatic and economic measures rather than military ones in confronting terror; keep to the traditional interpretation of the UN Charter; give up the Security Council veto and have ‘a decent respect for the opinion of mankind’ as the Declaration of Independence advises, even if power centres disagree; cut back sharply on military spending and sharply increase social spending’. How about generous helpings of motherhood and apple pie for Cloud Cuckoo Landas well?

One of Washington’s little private jokes is the biblical verse etched into the wall of the main lobby of the Original CIA Building. It is from the Gospel according to Saint John…Chapter 8 verse 32…and reads: ‘And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’ Omitted is the proviso: ‘but keep it to yourself and on no account tell the people. To do so constitutes a federal felony punishable by lethal injection’.