G20 communiqué steers clear of protectionism

By Guy Dinmore and Marco Pasqua in Rome

Published on FT: March 29 2009

Leaders of the world’s 20 leading and emerging economies meeting in London this week are set to reiterate a pledge to avoid protectionism and complete stalled global trade talks but offer little to those calling for more economic stimulus.

A 24-point draft of the G20 meeting’s final communiqué, obtained by the Financial Times, does not contain specific plans for a fiscal stimulus package, which had been resisted by European countries. It claims that the fiscal expansion already in process will increase global output by more than 2 percentage points and create more than 20m jobs.

Farewell Tom, a nice guy on the front line

We salute Tom Walker, the Sunday Times foreign correspondent who died from cancer last week aged 44

Published on the Sunday Times on July 15 2007

In all that was the madness of the Balkans in the mid to late 1990s, there was no better companion to help steer you through the demented chaos than Tom Walker. As we covered the final death throes of Yugoslavia and the anarchy that gripped Albania, Tom’s calm and sunny disposition smoothed our way through checkpoints at gunpoint, torched villages and ethnic cleansing.

War correspondents always have different ways of dealing with stress – not unlike movie stars and top athletes, I suppose – but with Tom as your soul mate, sanity and survival were assured by his laughter and unfailing good humour.

Distrust and deception in the war zone

By Guy Dinmore

Published: September 14 2004

Nearly 50 years after William Howard Russell made his name in the Crimea, Winston Churchill, writing for various newspapers from Afghanistan, observed that war reporting was a kind of “game” that proffered “prizes, honour, advancement or experience”, writes Guy Dinmore.

Churchill wrote that the war correspondent “may remark occasions of devotion and self-sacrifice, of cool cynicism and stern resolve: he may participate in moments of wild enthusiasms, or of savage anger and dismay –the skill of the general, the quality of the troops, the eternal principles of the art of war”.