Exhaustive & Immaculate News: 2010-11-28

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Israel ponders US incentive offer on settlement freeze

New housing units in the West Bank Israeli settlement of Har Gilo. Photo: November 2010

Israel's 10-month construction freeze in the West Bank expired on 26 September

Israel and the Palestinians

Israel's prime minister has briefed his cabinet on a package of incentives the US has proposed if it renews a partial freeze on settlement construction.

Washington has reportedly said it will strengthen its commitment to oppose UN resolutions critical of Israel, and offer defence and security guarantees.

In return, Israel would stop building for 90 days in the occupied West Bank.

US President Barack Obama said that Israel's review of the proposal was a "promising" sign.

However, the Palestinian Authority reacted negatively to the proposal because the halt would not include East Jerusalem.

The settlement row has derailed US-brokered direct peace talks, which resumed in September after almost 20 months and broke down only weeks later, when the previous construction freeze expired.

Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

There are about 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.

'Not final'

Israel's government was split over whether to accept the new US offer when it was presented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, according to reports in the Israeli media.

“Start Quote

[It] will lead us down a slippery slope and into another crisis with the American administration after three months, or perhaps even sooner”

End Quote Moshe Yaalon Israeli Vice Premier

Some ministers are said to have requested further reassurances from Washington, while Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon called it a "honey trap".

"[It] will lead us down a slippery slope and into another crisis with the American administration after three months, or perhaps even sooner," he was quoted as saying by the Haaretz newspaper.

Mr Yaalon was reportedly one of four members of Mr Netanyahu's Likud party who opposed the deal, which would see Israel halt all new projects started since 26 September, when the previous freeze ended.

But the prime minister said the proposal was "not yet final".

"It is still in process of formulation by our and US teams. If and when the formulation is completed, I will bring it up in the appropriate government forum," he explained.

"In any event, I insist that any proposal provides an answer to the State of Israel's security needs both in the immediate range and against threats Israel will face in the coming decade."

Israeli settlements on occupied land

More than 430,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, alongside 2.5 million Palestinians
20,000 settlers live in the Golan Heights
Settlements and the area they take up cover 40% of the West Bank
There are about 100 settlements not authorised by the Israeli government in the West Bank

According to diplomats, the US has said it will not ask Israel to extend the new freeze when it expires, provide 20 F-35 fighter jets worth $3bn, veto or oppose any initiatives at the UN Security Council critical of Israel, and sign a comprehensive security agreement with Israel at the same time as any peace deal is finalised.

Mr Obama welcomed Israel's approach to the proposal.

"I commend Prime Minister Netanyahu for taking, I think, a very constructive step," he said.

The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Washington says the deal was discussed when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Mr Netanyahu on Thursday.

The Palestinian Authority - backed by the Arab League - has pledged not to return to the talks without a full settlement construction freeze, but have given US negotiators until early November to try to break the impasse.

Washington has been trying desperately for two months to revive deadlocked peace talks, and a 90-day freeze may be enough to get the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, our correspondent says.

Within those three months officials hope to get serious discussions under way about the borders of a future Palestinian state, she adds.

Last month, Mr Netanyahu offered to renew the freeze if the Palestinian Authority recognised Israel as a Jewish state, but it dismissed the idea.

Palestinian officials have argued in the past that recognising Israel as a Jewish state would compromise the rights of 20% of the Israeli population that is not Jewish, and cancel the right of Palestinian refugees to return.

Map: West Bank showing settlements and restricted areas

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The business of innovation: Steven Johnson

By Fiona Graham Technology of business reporter, BBC News

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Steven Johnson: "The lone genius is the exception rather than the rule."

Standing on the station platform, waiting for the Philadelphia train one night in the summer of 1902, Willis Carrier was about to have his 'eureka moment'.

As the fog rolled in across the track, he suddenly realised how he could fix the nascent air-cooling system he'd been working on, using water as a condensing surface.

This sudden moment of inspiration led to the invention of modern air-conditioning, a fortune for its inventor, and the foundation of a multi-billion dollar company.

The lone genius, beavering away in the seclusion of his lab is how most of us imagine the great moments of innovation have come into being. But is this really the whole story?

Not entirely, according to author Steven Johnson. He believes Willis Carrier is very much the exception rather than the rule.

"It's not that the individuals disappear in this, it's just that they need to be part of something larger than themselves to be able to do the work that they do."

This is not completely new ground for Mr Johnson. He has written seven books on how science, technology and human experience interact, including the best-selling Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter.

He is the co-founder of three websites - the now defunct Feed magazine, Plastic.com and his current project: hyperlocal aggregator outside.in. He also has nearly 1.5m followers on social media site Twitter.

Isolation v collaboration

His latest book, Where good ideas come from: The natural history of innovation, is his attempt to explain the phenomenon of inspiration.

"[Good ideas] come from crowds, they come from networks. You know we have this clichéd idea of the lone genius having the eureka moment.

Slow hunch: John Snow, who discovered how cholera was spread, had no 'Eureka' moment

"But in fact when you go back and you look at the history of innovation it turns out that so often there is this quiet collaborative process that goes on, either in people building on other peoples' ideas, but also in borrowing ideas, or tools or approaches to problems.

"The ultimate idea comes from this remixing of various different components. There still are smart people and there still are people that have moments where they see the world differently in a flash.

"But for the most part it's a slower and more networked process than we give them credit for."

The book spans a huge period in history, ranging from the invention of double entry accounting, and Gutenberg's printing press in the 15th century, through to Tim Berners Lee and the world wide web, and ultimately YouTube.com.

He had the idea for the book while writing The Ghost Map, about the cholera epidemic of 1854 in London, and the subsequent discovery of the origins of the disease. The story goes that a man named John Snow had had the idea to map cases of the disease, and using that map pinpointed the source of the outbreak - a water pump.

As he researched the story he realised that it simply wasn't true - that Snow had had the idea for some time before this and that he also had had a collaborator, a vicar named Henry Whitehead who was central to the investigation. This is what Mr Johnson calls the 'slow hunch'.

"I realised there was this theory about innovation, and the spaces that made innovation possible, that was lurking in the background of that story"

Innovation space

“Start Quote

You can't invent a microwave oven in 1650, it's just beyond the bounds of possibility. ”

End Quote Steven Johnson Author

The book starts with a young Charles Darwin on a sun-drenched tropical beach in the Keeling Islands, as he formulates his theory on the creation of these coral islands - not simply pushed up by volcanic forces, but the result of the work of millions and millions of tiny organisms - the coral itself.

He is at the beginning of the 'slow hunch' that would result decades later in his theory of evolution. The coral reef also provides Mr Johnson with his analogy for the perfect innovation environment - a hugely diverse eco-system where despite the constant competition for resources, existence is dependent on collaboration.

This could be a city, a coffeehouse, an environment where ideas come into contact with each other - as Mr Johnson puts it, a liquid network.

"You know I think that there are two [perfect reefs] that really stand out. Clearly the web itself has been an amazing reef. Just the speed with which it's transformed itself over the last 15 years is just amazing.

"And so much of that is because it's wonderfully set up for other people to build on top of other people's ideas. In many cases without asking for permission.

"But I think that the other thing I want the book to be a reminder of is how much important innovation both in the commercial space and the private space comes out of the university system.

Charles Darwin, like most great thinkers, had a lot of hobbies

Universities, Mr Johnson argues, have in many ways exceeded the market in terms of the pace with which they generate ideas - despite the lack of the 'direct reward' found in the commercial arena.

"I think there's this abiding belief that markets drive innovation, corporations drive innovation, entrepreneurs driven by financial reward drive innovation, and while that's certainly true in many cases there's also this very rich long history of important world-changing ideas coming out of the more or less intellectual commons of the universities.

"The internet was not commercially useful to most ordinary consumers for 30 years really. It was in a sense a 30-year-hunch. It was providing other services in that time but in terms of the ordinary consumer and the payoff for investment it took a long time.

One of the other great preoccupations of the book is the concept of the 'adjacent possible', a phrase coined by the scientist Stuart Kaufman. In essence it means that invention is dependent on the right circumstances - as in a chess game, where there are a finite set of moves available at any given time.

"You can't invent a microwave oven in 1650, it's just beyond the bounds of possibility. There are too many intermediate steps on the way to something that complex.

"So the trick is to find the points of possibility in your own particular place and own particular space. And not jump too far ahead. It's kind of an argument for small modular steps using the ingredients available to you and not trying to reinvent everything.

Building your reef

Jack Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit

Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit, but built on the ideas of others

So what should companies be doing to foster innovation in their workforces? Mr Johnson argues that creativity is a continuous process.

"Part of the problem is that one day a year they have a corporate retreat and they all go into the country, and they do brainstorming sessions and trustfalls and then they go back to work.

"But equally you don't want to have a non-stop creative process where nothing gets done.

"Corporations have an opportunity to cultivate hunches and hobbies and the sideprojects of their employees because those are such great generators of ideas."

Google is one company that has famously capitalised on giving space for workers to innovate, with its 20% time system. Employees are required to spend 20% of their time working on their own pet projects.

According to the company, about 50% of new features and products have resulted from it, including Adsense, Google suggest and social network Orkut.

"One of the lessons I've learned is that so many of these great innovators, Darwin is a great example of this, one shared characteristic they all seem to have is a lot of hobbies."

"I mean the web was a hobby for Tim Berners Lee, that's one of the wonderful things about it, it was a side project at his job at Cern."

Still from promotional YouTube clip mapping the ideas in the book

Mr Johnson's open, collaborative environment is the antithesis of the closed rooms of corporate Research & Development and the increasingly litigious world of the intellectual property lawyer. For some companies betting on the slow hunch that may pay off in 30 years may seem a risk too far.

But for those who yearn to find the spark within ourselves, Mr Johnson rounds off the book with this advice:

"Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down; but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies, frequent coffee houses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle, reinvent."

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Location, location and how the West was won

By Ian Morris Professor, Stanford University

In today's Magazine

On his current visit to Beijing, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said China will soon reclaim its position as the world's biggest economy - a role it has held for 18 of the past 20 centuries. But how did the US, Britain and the rest of Europe interrupt this reign of supremacy? It comes down to location.

Why does the West dominate the world?

Europeans have been asking this question since the 18th Century, and Africans and Asians since the 19th. But there is still not much agreement on the answers.

People once claimed Westerners were simply biologically superior. Others have argued Western religion, culture, ethics, or institutions are uniquely excellent, or that the West has had better leaders. Others still reject all these ideas, insisting that Western domination is just an accident.

But in the last few years, a new kind of theory has gained ground.

What is the West?

Ian Morris Professor, Stanford University

Distinctive ways of life began emerging in different parts of the world 11,000 years ago, when the first farmers created more complex societies. Great civilizations grew out of the original agricultural cores (in what we now call southwest Asia, China, Pakistan, Mexico, and Peru), all of which steadily expanded as population grew.

The westernmost of the Old World's agricultural cores, in southwest Asia, was the foundation of what we now call Western Civilization. By 500 BC, the Western core had expanded across Europe, its centre of gravity shifting to the Mediterranean cultures of Greece and Rome. By 1500 AD it had expanded still further, and its centre was shifting into Western Europe. By 1900 AD it had expanded across the oceans, and its centre was shifting to North America.

People, it suggests, are much the same all over the world. The reason why some groups stuck with hunting and gathering while others built empires and had industrial revolutions has nothing to do with genetics, beliefs, attitudes, or great men: it was simply a matter of geography.

China and India are, of course poised to pick up the baton of global superpowers, but to explain why the West rules, we have to plunge back 15,000 years to the point when the world warmed up at the end of the last ice age.

Geography then dictated that there were only a few regions on the planet where farming was possible, because only they had the kinds of climate and landscape which allowed the evolution of wild plants and animals that could potentially be domesticated.

The densest concentrations of these plants and animals lay towards the western end of Eurasia, around the headwaters of the Euphrates, Tigris, and Jordan Rivers in what we now call south-west Asia. It was therefore here, around 9000 BC, that farming began, spreading outwards across Europe.

Farming also started independently in other areas, from China to Mexico; but because plants and animals that could be domesticated were somewhat less common in these zones than in the West, the process took thousands of years longer to get going. These other zones of complex agricultural societies also expanded, but the West long retained its early lead, producing the world's first cities, states, and empires.

But if this were all that there was to the story - that the West got an early lead and held onto it - there would be no controversy over why the West rules. In reality, when we look back across history, we see that things were more complicated. Geography determined how societies developed; but how societies developed simultaneously determined what geography meant.

The first city - 6,000 years ago in Iraq

Richard Miles Archaeologist and historian

The ancient Greeks called it Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers - Tigris and Euphrates. But it is also the land between two seas - the Mediterranean Sea and Persia Gulf. It is also the land between mountain and desert, lagoon and salt marsh. All these geographical features have to be borne in mind when considering the birthplace of the first civilisations.

Geography v history - it's impossible to know which takes precedence. There's no getting away from the brutal facts of nature - rivers that flood will dry up, rainfall that's intermittent, mountains that are impassable, deserts that are hostile.

Applying this kind of analysis to Mesopotamia, where summers are hot, winters are cold and rainfall is low, I'd sum it up like this: difficult but not impossible. No garden of Eden, but no howling wilderness either.

In the earliest days of agriculture, having the right temperatures, rainfall, and topography was all-important. But as villages grew into cities, these geographical facts became less important than living on a great river like the Nile, which made irrigation possible.

As states turned into empires, being on a river began mattering less than access to a navigable sea like the Mediterranean, which was what allowed Rome to move its food, armies, and taxes around.

As the ancient world's empires expanded further, though, they changed the meanings of geography again. The long bands of steppes from Mongolia to Hungary turned into a kind of highway along which nomads moved at will, undermining the empires themselves.

In the first five centuries AD, the Old World's great empires - from Rome in the West to Han China in the East - all came apart; but the political changes transformed geography once again. China recreated a unified empire in the 6th Century AD, while the West never did so.

For more than a millennium, until at least 1700, China was the richest, strongest, and most inventive place on earth, and the East pulled ahead of the West.

East Asian inventors came up with one breakthrough after another. By 1300 their ships could cross the oceans and their crude guns could shoot the people on the other side. But then, in the kind of paradox that fills human history, the East's breakthroughs changed the meaning of geography once again.

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Richard Miles at Tell Brak - a city first excavated by Agatha Christie's husband Max Mallowan

Western Europe - sticking out into the cold North Atlantic, far from the centres of action - had always been a backwater. But when Europeans learned of the East's ocean-going ships and guns, their location on the Atlantic abruptly became a huge geographical plus.

Before people could cross the oceans, it had not mattered that Europe was twice as close as China to the vast, rich lands of the Americas. But now that people could cross the oceans, this became the most important geographical fact in the world.

The Atlantic, 3,000 miles across, became a kind of Goldilocks Ocean, neither too big nor too small. It was just big enough that very different kinds of goods were produced around its shores in Europe, Africa, and America; and just small enough that the ships of Shakespeare's age could cross it quite easily.

The Pacific, by contrast, was much too big. Following the prevailing tides and winds, it was an 8,000-mile trip from China to California - just about possible 500 years ago, but too far to make trade profitable.

Geography determined that it was western Europeans, rather than the 15th Century's finest sailors - the Chinese - who discovered, plundered, and colonised the Americas. Chinese sailors were just as daring as Spaniards; Chinese settlers just as intrepid as Britons; but Europeans, not Chinese, seized the Americas because Europeans only had to go half as far.

Europeans went on in the 17th Century to create a new market economy around the shores of the Atlantic, exploiting comparative advantages between continents. This forced European thinkers to confront new questions about how the winds and tides worked. They learned to measure and count in better ways, and cracked the codes of physics, chemistry, and biology.

As a result, Europe, not China, had a scientific revolution. Europeans, not Chinese, turned science's insights onto society itself in the 18th Century in what we now call the Enlightenment.

Will China soon rival the US?

Many observers think so, but not George W Bush. In an interview with the Times this week, he said that "internal problems" meant it was unlikely to rival the US any time soon. "Do I think America will remain sole superpower? I do."

The Times [subscription required]

By 1800, science and the Atlantic market economy pushed western Europeans into mechanising production and tapping the power of fossil fuels. Britain had the world's first industrial revolution, and by 1850 bestrode the world like a colossus.

But the transforming power of geography did not stop there. By 1900 the British-dominated global economy had drawn in the resources of North America, changing the meaning of geography once again. The US, until recently a rather backward periphery, became the new global core.

And still the process did not stop. In the 20th Century, the American-dominated global economy in turn drew in the resources of Asia. As container ships and jet airliners turned even the vast Pacific Ocean into a puddle, the apparently backward peripheries of Japan, then the "Asian Tigers", and eventually China and India turned into even newer global cores.

The "rise of the East", so shocking to so many Westerners, was entirely predictable to those who understood that geography determines how societies develop, and that how societies develop simultaneously determines what geography means.

When power and wealth shifted across the Atlantic from Europe to America in the mid-20th Century, the process was horrifyingly violent. As we move into the mid-21st century, power and wealth will shift across the Pacific from America to China.

The great challenge for the next generation is not how to stop geography from working; it is how to manage its effects without a Third World War.

Why the West Rules - For Now: The Patterns of History, and What they Reveal About the Future is published by Profile.

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Capitalism's tough reality for many Russians

By Rupert Wingfield Hayes
BBC News, Moscow

When the Soviet Union collapsed nearly 20 years ago, Russia emerged as an independent country that embraced capitalism but what has this meant for its citizens?

Boris Yeltsin reads out a statement during 1991 coup

Boris Yeltsin led resistance to the 1991 coup by Communist hardliners

More than half a century ago Winston Churchill famously described Russia as a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

It is an old cliche but not without truth. To this day, outsiders still find Russia very confusing.

I remember the day the Soviet Union began to fall apart.

By a strange twist of fate, I was sitting in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport waiting for a flight to London.

The terminal at Sheremetyevo said a lot about Russia then. It had been built for the 1980 Olympics but it was one of the most uninviting places I had ever been.

It was dark brown and smelled of industrial detergent. The officials wore granite expressions and ridiculous, oversized hats.

Of course I had no idea there had been a coup. It was a secret. Only when we touched down in London did I find out what was happening.

'Forbidding'

It would be another 15 years before I would return to Moscow.

On a cold and wet November day, my wife and I drove through the streets of what was about to become our new home.

Moscow shoppers can now shop in Western-style malls

In those 15 years, Russia had changed enormously.

Ladas had been replaced by Range Rovers and Mercedes jostling for space on the now gridlocked inner ring-road.

Huge advertising hoardings shrouded the old Stalin-era apartment buildings along Tverskaya Ulitsa (Street).

The outskirts of Moscow had sprouted enormous American-style shopping malls and - sprawling out into the farm fields beyond - a chaotic jumble of dachas, some the size of minor stately homes.

But Moscow was still a baffling and forbidding place.

A leaden sky covered the city like a low-slung ceiling. People still did not smile easily or, rather, at all.

On that first day, I remember my wife looking at me and asking plaintively: "Are we really going to live here for the next three years?"

We did, and we survived.

We made friends and even came to enjoy the fearsome Russian winters.

I learned to drive on ice and to accurately gauge the temperature by how quickly my nose-hair froze when I walked out of the house.

Unbridled capitalism

And at work I tried to solve the Russian riddle.

Homeless people eat handout meal in Moscow

The fall of communism left many people in poverty

The day, 15 years earlier, when I sat in the airport unaware that the Soviet empire was crumbling, had unleashed a wave of euphoria in the West.

Our leaders told us the world had changed and that Russia would too.

It would embrace democracy and join Europe.

Well they were wrong.

Instead Russia has remained sullen and hostile, and re-embraced autocratic leadership in the shape of Vladimir Putin - and we wonder why.

What you realise, when you live in Russia, is that so many of our assumptions are wrong.

While we were celebrating Russia's release from Bolshevik tyranny, most Russians were being plunged into poverty, unemployment and misery, as unbridled capitalism was let loose upon an unprepared populace.

The trauma of the 1990s is deeply felt.

Tragedy

Just before leaving Moscow this autumn, I went on a road trip.

The weather was magnificent. As I drove through little towns and villages along the Volga valley, I began to feel a deep sadness that I was leaving this beautiful, maddening country.

But then at end of a dirt-track four hours north of Moscow, I arrived in Budushchee.

Fifty people live in the village now and, at two o'clock in the afternoon, most of them were drunk.

The fields lay uncultivated. Many of the wooden houses were falling down. The tragedy of Budushchee is that it is not special - it is typical.

Since the collapse of communism, the Russian countryside has fallen apart.

Those who have not fled are slowly drinking themselves to death. It is one reason why the average life expectancy for Russian men is just 60 years.

The next day in Moscow, I had an even starker reminder of how different Russia still is.

In a darkened room, a group of young women in very short skirts were being taught how to pole-dance and improve their sex techniques.

This was not a class for aspiring lap-dancers. The young women were learning how to catch a rich husband.

When I asked them why they needed such a class, I was given a coldly practical answer.

There are very few rich men in Russia, they said, and the competition is intense.

So young Russian women are equipping themselves with a range of techniques to gain a competitive advantage in the mating game.

There are many things both wonderful and terrifying about Russia but, for millions of Russians, communism has not yet been replaced by something better.

Instead they struggle to survive in a thuggish, lawless society, where a few have a lot and where most have very little.

Given that, it is not surprising that some choose oblivion at the bottom of a vodka bottle and others trade their beauty for the chance of financial security.

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Viewpoint: How urban-rural divide sways US politics

Jonathan Raban says the political split in the US is the result of a divide between rural and urban areas

US Elections 2010

British author Jonathan Raban has a theory about the lines which divide America - a theory he says the recent mid-term elections bore out once again.

He says it is becoming increasingly clear the US is not a patchwork of "red" and "blue" states - but rather a country composed of cities, which tend to vote Democrat, and their rural hinterlands, which lean Republican.

Seattle, where Raban has lived for some 20 years, is no exception.

It's sometimes hard to remember that Seattle began life as a logging town.

When the first white settlers arrived in 1851, they found a safe harbour in the sheltered waters of Puget Sound - a long, deep fjord that leads, by way of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the Pacific Ocean and transoceanic trade with Asia.

Within months of the settlers' arrival, Seattle's first industrial enterprise was Henry Yesler's steam sawmill, which opened for business on the waterfront in 1852, at the foot of a densely forested hill that rapidly turned into a field of raw stumps as it lost its massive, ancient Douglas firs to the settlers' axes.

The tree trunks were hauled down to the mill on a muddy trail called Skid Road, which became lined with honky-tonks and whorehouses, where the loggers spent the wages of their dangerous craft.

There may have been other skid roads elsewhere, but Seattle likes to claim that "Skid Row" is its own contribution to the American language.

Seattle has deep roots in the logging industry but has developed into a tech-heavy city in recent times

The seemingly inexhaustible supply of timber led Seattle into the boat- and ship-building business.

And when, in 1916, William Boeing, a 35-year-old timber millionaire, got the urge to branch out into aeroplanes, he bought up a bankrupt yacht building yard and hired its skilled carpenters to construct his lightweight boats with wings.

In Boeing's Museum of Flight in Seattle, one can see how these graceful early planes naturally evolved from the sleek sailing yachts that raced, and still race, on Puget Sound.

Llogical progression

So, too, the increasingly high-tech digital technology that was going into aircraft by the 1970s made a good fit with Microsoft's move here, from New Mexico, in 1979.

Timber to boats, boats to planes, planes to software, has been a logical progression for Seattle.

About Seattle

3.5m residents in the wider metropolitan area
About 250,000 households within the city limits
53% of adults have a college degree
Located 100 miles (160km) south of the Canadian border
Economic and cultural centre of Washington state
Port of Seattle offers a gateway to Asia

Before Microsoft and the information technology businesses (like Amazon, RealNetworks, and a host of others) that bob along in Microsoft's wake, Seattle was a regional city, closely integrated with its rural hinterland.

Since then, something close to a divorce has happened as the interests of the city and the countryside have diverged, and the acrimony and hard feelings that go with so many domestic splits have infected the politics of Washington state.

The "metropolitan area", centred on Seattle and spread around the edges of Puget Sound, has more than 3.5m people living in it, and so can narrowly outvote the other 3m people in the state.

The metropolitans tend to be Democrats (our "leftie" Seattle congressman, Jim McDermott, was re-elected on 2 November with an 83% share of the vote), while most of the farmers, ranchers, loggers, miners, rural developers and contractors are staunch Republicans.

Country versus city

At issue is the fundamental question of mankind's relationship with nature.

To many country dwellers, the mountains, plains, forests, and rivers of the state are a limitless resource of arable and grazing land, precious metals, timber and hydroelectricity - and some of the pious among them like to quote the Book of Genesis, in which God is said to give man "dominion" over "all the earth".

Environmental activists are often dubbed "Seattle liberals" by ruralists

To environmental activists (usually described by the ruralists as "Seattle liberals"), the magnificent geography of Washington state is a sacred space, a wilderness to be lovingly preserved and restored, as closely as possible, to its original "pristine" state.

And Seattleites have been inclined to treat the rest of their state as a giant park, a recreational facility for hikers, fly-fishermen, climbers, mountain-bikers, birders, and the like, for whom the traditional occupations of the countryside appear simply as rude blots on the landscape.

Pitched battles have been fought between the city and the countryside over such bones of contention as the habitat of the spotted owl (that battle resulted in the end of logging on National Forest land), gold mines, cattle grazing, dams on rivers (which block the passage of the declining runs of Pacific salmon to their spawning grounds), brush-cutting and wetlands setbacks.

In the course of this long and continuing conflict about land-use, rich, liberal, green, high-tech Seattle, with its high proportion of college graduates, has emerged as a post-regional city, deeply resented for its political power by people who live beyond the metro area, who once thought of Seattle as their own.

Profound division

So the rancorous, yelling, give-no-quarter style of recent American politics plays out here in the top left-hand corner of the US.

It's worth remembering that in the presidential election of 2004, every city in the nation with a population of more than 500,000 voted for the Democrats and John Kerry. George W Bush won re-election in the outer suburbs, the smaller towns, and the countryside.

The talk about "red states" versus "blue states" boils down to the fact that, as a general rule, states whose cities can out-vote their hinterlands are blue, and those whose hinterlands can out-vote their biggest cities are red.

Metropolitan Seattle, ultramarine in its political colour, dominates by sheer force of numbers the rest of Washington state, most of which is painted a bright scarlet.

In races for the US Senate, the state governorship and the presidency, Democrats here have (often very narrowly indeed) prevailed over Republicans in victories that have only exacerbated the tensions between the city and the country, and it's depressingly hard to see how this profound division might be healed, either here in Washington or in the nation at large.

You can hear more from Jonathan Raban on the forthcoming edition of BBC Radio 4's Americana programme, at 1915 GMT on Sunday.

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President John F Kennedy and the art of dirty politics

By Andrew Marr BBC News

The Kennedys pose for a campaign photo at their home on Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Fifty years since he was elected US president, there is still an aura around John F Kennedy's White House, yet arguably the dirtier side of modern politics has its roots in his rise to power.

Get the picture right, and your history will take care of itself. Jack Kennedy always got the picture right. Even now, it is hardly possible to glimpse the gleaming white smile, the sunlit hair and the perfect First Family without a lump in the throat.

JFK became the icon of democratic optimism, the man who inspired half the world. Cut down in his prime, he never grew old enough to betray, disillusion or bore his legion of admirers.

Who is President Josiah Bartlett of The West Wing but the liberal fantasy of a mature Kennedy - pin-sharp, hard as nails and bright with idealism?

So it comes as a shock to properly study Kennedy the campaigner. The story of how a rich, preppy party boy from Massachusetts managed to raise a roar for underdog America loud enough to carry him to the White House is gripping. But uplifting it certainly isn't.

Yes, it's a tale of soaring and risk-taking rhetoric, partly fashioned by the late lamented Ted Sorensen, and of a candidate with remarkable energy.

It is also, however, a tale of big money, smears, bribes, wire-pulling and bottomless cynicism. If you are asking what has gone so wrong with modern politics, Kennedy's 1960 election campaign is a good place to start.

And in that campaign, West Virginia, the impoverished and sidelined state where Kennedy polished off his main Democratic rival Hubert Humphrey, is better still.

Joe and Rose Kennedy visit their son John and Jacky at the White House

John F Kennedy's parents, Joe and Rose visit the First Couple at the White House

West Virginia is still the wooded, hilly, coal-mining-ravaged place of small towns, military volunteers and neighbourliness it was when the rivals clashed there.

On the one side came Kennedy with his private plane, a present from Daddy, and huge amounts of money for campaign commercials.

He came with promises about more money for the state but above all he was selling an image - the naval war hero, the glamorous wife, the kids, the homespun family with their little sailing boats.

Earlier politicians have had a "back-story" - log-cabins, Welsh cottages, you name it - but Kennedy was the first to sell his lifestyle.

Kennedy's father Joe, the former (and unfriendly) ambassador to Britain, had made his fortune in steel, movies, whisky, stocks and property.

With an obsession about building his family into a great political dynasty, he had squared many of the key newspaper owners for his son, who in turn was a master at flattering their reporters.

The Kennedy Clan

Joseph and Rose Kennedy had nine children including four sons
Joe, a WWII bomber pilot, killed in action, 1944
John, elected president 1960, assassinated 22 Nov 1963
Bobby, assassinated while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, 6 June 1968
Ted, veteran US senator, elected in 1962 and serving till his death in 2009

He was ruthless and properly understood the rising power of the advertising companies - the world of Mad Men taking shape at the time.

As JFK later said, his father wanted to know the size of the eventual majority because "there was no way he was paying for a landslide".

Smear campaign

The Kennedy machine, an awesomely well organised instrument, had some obvious problems. Joe Kennedy was rumoured to have been a bootlegger, had been brought back to the US in 1940 having announced that "in Britain, democracy is finished", and was a close ally of Senator Joe McCarthy.

Above all, he was a Roman Catholic at a time of fierce anti-Catholic prejudice, including in the overwhelmingly Protestant West Virginia. Yet the Kennedys knew that if they could beat Humphrey and win there, they could win anywhere.

Hubert Humphrey

loses the 1960 Democratic nomination to JFK
serves as vice-president under Lyndon Johnson, (1965-69)
wins Democratic nomination in 1968 but loses election to Republican Richard Nixon

Against them, Hubert Humphrey had a classic old-fashioned campaign. He had been too ill to fight in the war. His finances were meagre.

His wife was homely and old-fashioned. He had no private plane, but a bus - with a broken heater - instead.

He was one of the most intelligent, compassionate and literate politicians in modern American history, who had taken on Communists, organised crime and racialism when these were very dangerous fights to pick, and who understood middle America far better than Kennedy. But he was about to be crushed.

The Kennedy team dealt with their Catholic problem above all by smearing Humphrey as a draft-dodger. They saturated the state with advertising, money and helpers.

By the end, a stunned Humphrey, who had compared his fight to that of a corner store against a supermarket chain, was reduced to using the few hundred dollars he and his wife had saved for their daughter's education to pay for a final campaign ad.

The 1960 US Democratic Convention selects John F Kennedy as its presidential candidate

Having smeared Humphrey and trashed his reputation, the Kennedys washed their hands and denied it all.

Well, you may say, that's politics. Kennedy went on, after all, to see off the grandees of the Democratic Party - Adlai Stevenson and the rising Texan, Lyndon Baines Johnson (who became his running mate) at the Democratic convention in LA.

Then he narrowly beat Richard Nixon after those famous televised debates when Nixon's heavier growth of beard, badly chosen suit and tendency to sweat persuaded viewers Kennedy was the better man.

When I met some of those involved, including Kennedy's TV adviser in 1960, I came away freshly awestruck by his presentational audacity.

For instance, in that first debate, Kennedy politely excused himself for a "comfort break" a minute before the two men were live on air. He did not come back.

As the studio manager was counting down the final seconds to going live, everyone - Nixon included - was aghast. Just as the count ended, there was Kennedy, smiling at the podium. "Psyching" an opponent doesn't get smarter than that.

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The TV debates showed Kennedy calm and composed

And yet… Kennedy beat Nixon not simply with his ads, his sound bites, his jingles, the carefully posed photographs and the downright lies he told about his health. He beat Nixon by not standing for anything beyond rousing banalities.

On the "missile gap" with the Russians, Kennedy knowingly hyped the danger. Nixon, as vice-president, knew the real facts but also for reasons of national security, could not reveal them. (And Kennedy probably knew that, too.)

On the other great issue - civil rights - the Kennedy team sent one message to black audiences and another to middle America.

“Start Quote

Ask not what your country can do for you...”

End Quote President John F Kennedy Inauguration speech, 20 Jan 1961

LISTEN: Selected extracts of JFK speeches

Did it matter? I came away thinking the mix of big money, smearing, a feel-good blur where policy should have been, and the selling of the candidate like soap flakes, added up to a fairly shameful record.

Even then, he barely won. The younger Nixon, who was liberal on race and more economically mainstream than he became, could well have made a good earlier president.

In office Kennedy made some terrible overseas blunders (though kept his nerve over the Cuban missile crisis) and was slow on domestic policy, particularly civil rights. Had he lived longer, I think he would have had a lower presidential reputation.

The 1960 campaign is not the story I had expected. It's a far more interesting one. It has been obliterated by those images of the handsome young father and husband, then the young king cut down in his prime.

But today we live in a world that has become profoundly cynical about politics. I think we owe it to ourselves to look past those images and ask: aren't there better ways of doing democracy than Kennedy's?

Andrew Marr's JFK: The Making of Modern Politics is on BBC Two at 9pm on Sunday 21 November and then online via BBC iPlayer (UK only).

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Israel passes bill on withdrawal from land

Israeli activist backs Palestinians against Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem (file image)

Talks with Palestinians have broken down over the issue of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem

Israel and the Palestinians

Israel's parliament has passed a bill setting stringent new conditions before any withdrawal from the Golan Heights or East Jerusalem.

The bill requires a two-thirds majority in the Knesset before any withdrawal could be approved.

Failing that, the proposal would be subject to a national referendum.

Analysts say the move could complicate peace efforts by making it more difficult for any Israeli government to make territorial withdrawals.

The bill - passed by a 65-33 majority - was backed of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said it would prevent "irresponsible agreements".

Likud Party MP Yariv Levin, who proposed the bill, said it was of "the utmost national importance for retaining the unity of the people".

Unlike the occupied West Bank, which Israel has never formally annexed, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem are considered by the Israeli government to be under its sovereignty.

The international community considers both the Golan and East Jerusalem to be occupied territory.

Syria requires the return of all of the Golan Heights as the primary condition for a peace treaty with Israel.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

'A mockery'

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank condemned the move.

"With the passage of this bill, the Israeli leadership, yet again, is making a mockery of international law," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

"Ending the occupation of our land is not and cannot be dependent on any sort of referendum."

There was no immediate comment from Syria, which lost the Golan Heights to Israel in the 1967 war.

Damascus wants the land back in return for peace but many Israelis regard the heights - which overlook northern Israel - as a strategic asset.

Israel has occupied the West Bank - including East Jerusalem - since 1967, settling nearly 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Source

Bottled water has become liquid gold

By Hamo Forsyth The Money Programme

Bottled water has become a profitable product that is sold across the world

In the last 40 years the bottled water industry has gone from a business prospect that few took seriously, to a global industry worth billions of pounds.

The commodity itself remains simple. The way we think about it has changed fundamentally.

Water is natural, pure and sourced at minimal cost. Its real value lies in its marketing and branding.

"I think bottled water is the most revealing substance for showing us how the global capitalist market works today," says Richard Wilk, professor of anthropology at Indiana University.

"In a sense we're buying choice, we're buying freedom.

"That's the only thing that can explain why you would pay money for a bottle of something that you can otherwise get for free."

Enormous markets

Glass being filled with water from the tap

Consumers used to prefer free tap water to expensive bottled water

Through a confection of advertising and marketing, bottled water has become one of the biggest success stories in the modern food and beverage industry.

"The demand for bottle water has grown exponentially in the last few decades," says Dr Peter Gleick, author of Bottled and Sold.

"It's doubled, it's doubled again and it's doubled again.

"And the bottle water companies see enormous markets not just in the rich countries but also in the poorer countries."

'No actual variety'

Given that water is such a fundamental resource and a matter of life and death, and given that it is such an abundant commodity to many and so scarce to others, it has become emblematic of capitalism and trade in a way that other parts of the food and beverage industry have not.

"Some people think that bottled water is the high point of global capitalism, particularly the people in the bottled water business," says Charles Fishman, author of The Big Thirst.

"I think bottled water actually represents a kind of caricature of… the global economy.

"It provides people in the developed world with 20 or 30 varieties of something for which there is no actual variety."

Sceptical customers

Perrier used slick advertising to make bottled water fashionable

At the beginning there really was no variety and the bottled water phenomenon began with one brand.

Perrier was a triumph of advertising, creating a brand that was to define a generation.

At the heart of the campaign to make the brand popular was Richard Wheatley, of the Leo Burnett advertising agency between 1979 and 1994.

"Perrier popularised bottled water," he says. "It made it acceptable, more than acceptable, it made it… desirable."

But it was not an instant success.

When Perrier UK was looking to increase its sales in the early 1970's, it faced a sceptical public.

“Start Quote

Is it immoral to build mega brands of bottled water while parts of the world are dying of thirst? ”

End Quote Fiona Ellis-Chadwick Senior lecturer, Open University

Is water different to any other commodity?

Many questioned why anyone would buy water when you could get it free from the tap.

Faced with such obstacles, Perrier turned to advertising with a campaign that was to change our consumer landscape for ever.

"The water comes from France, of course, but the English and the French aren't that good friends," recalls Wenche Marshall Foster, former chief executive of Perrier UK.

"So we thought rather than saying this is from France we sold this much more vague feeling of oh it's French, Frenchness, Frenchness is good, it's chic, it's everything that we English maybe would like to be."

Trendy drink

The Eau campaign was a marketing coup and sales went through the roof from 12 million bottles in 1980 to 152 million by the end of the decade.

A little girl drinks water from a tap at a refugee camp 20 kilometres south of the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq

Getting enough water is a struggle for more than a billion people in the world

Perrier was no longer just a bottle of water. The marketing and advertising teams had established a crucial emotional link between the product and the consumers.

"Perrier became a badge," says Michael Bellas, chairman of the Beverage Marketing Corporation

"When you held a Perrier bottle up, it said something about yourself, it said you were sophisticated, you… understood what was happening in the world.

"It was a perfect beverage for the young up and coming business executives, the trend-setters."

Convenient packaging

Where Perrier went the rest of the industry jumped in and product ranges and brand proliferation followed.

Before long, the market in still water became extremely important.

In an age of instant gratification, still water in portable bottles provided what people needed, exactly when they needed it.

"People in general are more and more time pressed," says Mr Fishman.

"We don't cook our own meals any more, we eat prepared foods of all kinds.

"And there's nothing more appealing than a bottle of cold water at a moment when you're really thirsty.

"But I think bottled water is one of those products that on many occasions when people buy it, what they're buying isn't the water so much as the bottle. That is the package and the convenience at that moment."

Soaring sales

Consumers buy convenience rather than just water

When people bought this convenience, what they were really buying was Polyethylene Terephthalate, or PET, the single most important innovation in the industry's history.

Strong, shatterproof and a highly valued form of polyester, PET is a by-product of the oil industry.

It is now utilised in the packaging of everything from pharmaceuticals and soap, to ready meals.

In years to come, the environmental impact of PET would haunt the industry and raise questions about its very survival, but in the 1990s this was a revolution.

According to Mr Bellas it was behind the subsequent incredible growth of the industry.

"Starting with the introduction of the small premium PET waters, the category started to explode," says Mr Bellas.

"The bottled water industry before PET on the list of all beverage categories was number seven. With the advent of PET, water jumped… to the number two spot… behind carbonated soft drinks.

Health and wellness

In the late 1980s, the French brand Evian recognised the growing, wider health and fitness trend and exploited it to the full by marketing their bottled water the ultimate health and wellness product.

"Evian was sold as a beautiful person's drink," says Mr Fishman.

"The early Evian ads featured absolutely gorgeous people working out or just after working out in their sweaty and skin tight clothes.

"It was a way of saying if you want to be fit, if you want to be healthy, if you want to be attractive, drink Evian - and by drinking Evian you will be those things."

The link between bottled water and the health and wellness movement was a recipe for success.

Between 1990 and the turn of the century, global sales of Evian doubled from 50 billion to more than 100 billion litres a year.

For some, the choice and freedom is worth the price asked. For others, it represents the excess and inequality of the modern world; a world where nearly a billion people have no access to clean water at all.

"We cannot lose sight of the ultimate absurdity of the bottle water industry," says Mr Wilk.

"Here we have a world where people are dying of thirst, where people lack… the clean water to feed their children and we're spending billions of dollars and huge amounts of energy moving water from… people who already have it to other people who already have it."

As our consumer attitudes have changed, criticism of the industry has only intensified.

At the heart of the matter is what bottled water is actually made of, oil and water; the world's two most precious resources, in one neat package.

"The industry really wants to address these environmental concerns head on and it is doing everything it can to help resolve them," says analyst Richard Hall from Zenith International.

"It can only play a part in the wider picture, but it's certainly doing a lot to help deal with the problem. The environment matters to this industry because it's their future."

Consumers choose

By branding and marketing water, it has been transformed from something that many of us took for granted into a product that now makes billions for global multinational companies.

But like all products, its success is driven by consumer demand.

"Some people… want to consider the bottled water industry as a marketing trick foisted upon consumers," says Kim Jeffery, chief executive of Nestle Waters in North America.

"I wish I was that good or had that much money.

"That is not a marketing feed, that's consumers voting with their purchases and their pocket books. Consumers make that decision that day."

The Foods That Make Billions. Liquid Gold, BBC2 at 2100 on 23 November 2010.

Source

Girl, 15, arrested over 'Facebook Koran burning video'

Muslims revere the Koran as the word of God

A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred after allegedly burning an English language version of the Koran.

The 15-year-old, who lives in the West Midlands, allegedly posted the video, filmed two weeks ago on her school premises, on Facebook.

The video was reported to the school and subsequently removed, police said.

A 14-year-old boy was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of making threats. Both have been released on police bail.

It is thought the girl, who lives in the Sandwell Council area, was allegedly filmed setting the booklet alight while other pupils watched.

Two Facebook profiles have also been removed from the site, police added.

It is understood that the group who published that version of the Koran have since been to the school to talk to pupils.

'Sacred thing'

Catherine Heseltine, chief executive officer of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, said burning the Koran was one of the most offensive acts to Muslims that she could imagine.

She said: "The Koran is the most sacred thing to over a billion Muslims worldwide."

"You can see that in the way Muslims treat the Koran, washing before touching it and in many Muslim homes you will find it on the top shelf above all other books and we will never destroy the Koranic texts."

"We believe it is the word of God. God's guidance for us in this life," she added.

Bob Badham, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council cabinet member for education, said he had visited the school and believed the atmosphere was generally good among pupils.

He added that he did not believe there was a "deeper problem" in the area.

Source

Wikileaks release of embassy cables reveals US concerns

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Hillary Clinton: 'It is an attack on the international community'

Wikileaks Revelations

Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks has begun releasing extracts from secret cables sent by US embassies, giving an insight into current global concerns.

They include reports of some Arab leaders - including Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah - urging the US to attack Iran and end its nuclear weapons programme.

Other concerns include the security of Pakistani nuclear material that could be used to make an atomic weapon.

The widespread use of computer hacking by China's government is also reported.

The US government condemned the release of the documents, which number in the hundreds of thousands, saying they put the lives of diplomats and others at risk.

The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, countered by saying the US authorities were afraid of being held to account.

So far, Wikileaks has only posted some 200 of the 251,287 messages it says it has obtained. However, the entire bundle of cables has been made available to five publications, including the New York Times and the UK's Guardian newspaper.

The leaked US embassy cables also reportedly include accounts of:

Analysis

Jeremy Bowen BBC Middle East editor

The fact that the Saudis, Jordanians and others are deeply suspicious about Iran's intentions is well known. What has not been known until now is how strongly they have been pressing for American military action.

The leaks do not tell the Iranians anything they did not suspect, or perhaps have already picked up themselves.

But they will sharpen the debate over Iran's nuclear plans, and about the chances of military action by the Americans - or the Israelis.

The leaks are deeply embarrassing for the Americans, and will infuriate Arab leaders whose remarks have been quoted.

Commentators: Diplomatic disaster or just embarrassing?

Iran attempting to adapt North Korean rockets for use as long-range missiles
Corruption within the Afghan government, with concerns heightened when a senior official was found to be carrying more than $50m in cash on a foreign trip
Bargaining to empty the Guantanamo Bay prison camp - including Slovenian diplomats being told to take in a freed prisoner if they wanted to secure a meeting with President Barack Obama
Germany being warned in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for US Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in an operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was abducted and held in Afghanistan
US officials being instructed to spy on the UN's leadership by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
The very close relationship between Russian PM Vladimir Putin and his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi
Alleged links between the Russian government and organised crime
Yemen's president talking to then US Mid-East commander General David Petraeus about attacks on Yemeni al-Qaeda bases and saying: "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours"
Faltering US attempts to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon

The leaked embassy cables are both contemporary and historical, and include a 1989 note from a US diplomat in Panama City musing about the options open to Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega and referring to him as "a master of survival" - the author apparently had no idea that US forces would invade a week later and arrest Noriega.

Wikileaks

Whistle-blowing website with a reputation for publishing sensitive material
Run by Julian Assange, a secretive Australian with a background in computer network hacking
Released 90,000 secret US records of US military incidents about the war in Afghanistan and 400,000 similar documents on Iraq
Also posted video showing US helicopter killing 12 people - including two journalists - in Baghdad in 2007
Other controversial postings include screenshots of the e-mail inbox and address book of US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin

In a statement, the White House said: "Such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government.

"President Obama supports responsible, accountable, and open government at home and around the world, but this reckless and dangerous action runs counter to that goal."

Earlier, Wikileaks said it had come under attack from a computer-hacking operation.

"We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack," it reported on its Twitter feed.

No-one has been charged with passing the diplomatic files to the website but suspicion has fallen on US Army private Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier leak of classified US documents to Mr Assange's organisation.

Wikileaks argues that the site's previous releases shed light on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Source

Location is everything: Tech hubs thrive in a supposedly virtual world

By Kabir Chibber Technology of business reporter, BBC News

Joichi Ito and Elizabeth Varley talk to the BBC's Rory Cellan Jones

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The BBC's Rory Cellan Jones talks to entrepreneur and investor Joichi Ito, and Elizabeth Varely, founder of TechHub.

Wasn't the traditional office workplace supposed to be dead by now?

It is de rigeur for anyone starting a business today to use keywords like 'virtualisation' and scoff at the thought of paying for real estate and overheads.

With laptops, tablets, smartphones and teleconferencing, staff can work for their multi-national from practically any location. And cloud computing - storing information on remote servers rather on local PCs - means that projects can be synced effortlessly, no matter where you are.

But even in the early adopting world of tech, place still seems to play an important role. In New York, there is now talk of a 'Silicon Alley' because of all the start-ups. England has its own mini-hub around Cambridge. Germany has Munich.

And Silicon Valley is still going strong and producing corporate behemoths.

One tiny building in Palo Alto, 165 University Avenue, has produced Google, internet payments company Paypal and the mobile phones developer Danger.

And keyboard and webcam specialists Logitech, who moved into the building from Switzerland. One of the firm's founders said: "I don't think we could have done this staying in Europe at the time."

So why does location still matter?

'Like-minded people'

Silicon Valley made a pilgrimage to a picturesque English university town earlier this month.

The University of Oxford's Said Business School hosted its annual meet-up of US and British entrepreneurs. So why didn't they just all stay where they are and gather on Skype?

Kulveer Taggar, visiting Silicon Valley here in 2005, went on to found his own start-up in England

"We're seeing that a lot of people involved in technology did start in their bedroom and when they really want to take things forward, they seek out like-minded people," says attendee Elizabeth Varley of London-based TechHub, which helps start-ups in the capital by providing desk space and meeting rooms.

Still, Ms Varley insists that innovation can happen anywhere and that is where her company comes in.

"What Silicon Valley has done very successfully is creating a hub where everything is brought together," she says.

Alastair Mitchell did begin his London start-up, Huddle, with three friends in a bedroom four years ago.

The company, which allows companies to collaborate online no matter where they are, now has 65 employees and is used by corporations like Panasonic, charities and the UK government.

They should be proof that it is possible to start a business anywhere. But Huddle has also recently opened an office in San Francisco.

Mr Mitchell says it is important to distinguish between offices and communities.

People can work more easily together, in the same way it is easier to keep in touch with family and friends because of Facebook, he says.

Huddle's software allows people to work together on any device no matter where they are

But the connections that come from being in an area where people are thinking along the same lines are important for businesses.

"The concept of the office will always exist," he says. "People are sociable animals. But being around like-minded people is huge.

"Take Silicon Valley. Whenever you go into a bar or a cafe, you hear people talking about tech."

Huddle have started a drinks night in London to try and bring the same level of confluence between venture capitalists, coders, ideas people and so on.

And Mr Mitchell insists that the office was opened because 50% of its customers are in the US and they needed support in their own timezone.

Easier abroad

Outsourcing used to be big companies transferring work to much cheaper offshore specialists across the world.

Start-ups today can build global organisations from day one. Kulveer Taggar graduated from Oxford and worked as an investment banker in London before moving to Silicon Valley.

His start-up, auctomatic.com, was sold to Live Current Media and he worked on a fantasy cricket game that was at one point making $30,000 a month.

Chance meetings with Facebook executives are why he came to California in 2007.

"It's true you can start your business anywhere but when you really want to grow it, the Valley is a great place to be," the 27-year-old says.

"It's the density of talent there, both in terms of investors, advisors, employees and even acquirers."

"I ran my start-up in England for about two years before moving to the Valley, and it really was a struggle," he adds.

Elizabeth Varley of London-based TechHub

TechHub's Elizabeth Varley is trying to create Silicon Valley in the British capital

Another attendee at the conference in Oxford, Joichi Ito of Asian start-up incubator Neoteny Labs, talks about the importance of an "ecosystem" where all the ingredients to make a company work are there already.

"There's huge serendipity in the physical world," he says.

Perhaps location matters, just not as much as it used to. And that may be the limits of the technology of business.

"It's definitely easier to stay connected to people," Mr Taggar says. "However, it can't fully replace the chance meetings that happen. You always want to meet potential employees, investors, and business partners in person."

That said, Mr Taggar has moved from Silicon Valley to Vancouver.

Like many entrepreneurs, a while after his company was acquired, he left his lucrative job at Live Current. Now he travels, dabbles in sketch comedy and has become an angel investor in three companies.

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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Israel ponders US incentive offer on settlement freeze

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Israeli settlements on occupied land

The business of innovation: Steven Johnson

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Location, location and how the West was won

What is the West?

The first city - 6,000 years ago in Iraq

Will China soon rival the US?

Capitalism's tough reality for many Russians

Viewpoint: How urban-rural divide sways US politics

About Seattle

President John F Kennedy and the art of dirty politics

The Kennedy Clan

Hubert Humphrey

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Israel passes bill on withdrawal from land

Bottled water has become liquid gold

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Girl, 15, arrested over 'Facebook Koran burning video'

Wikileaks release of embassy cables reveals US concerns

Analysis

Wikileaks

Location is everything: Tech hubs thrive in a supposedly virtual world