The annual Prospect think tank of the year awards were given a facelift this year, including a new judging panel, chaired by the Guardian's David Walker and Tory MP Michael Gove, and a prizegiving in central London in September, addressed by schools minister Andrew Adonis. The judges' net was cast wider than usual to include independent research institutes. The thorn in Gordon Brown's side, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, won the main prize (runner-up: Civitas). Publication of the year was won by Policy Exchange's "Unaffordable Housing" (runner-up: IPPR's "Black and White"). In this Africa year, "one to watch" went to the Overseas Dev-elopment Institute (runner-up: Young Foundation).
The geopolitics of cyberspace
The internet may be used globally, but few realise that America oversees its technical operations. China, Iran, Syria and even Zimbabwe have long griped about this. But this autumn the EU took the startling step of turning its nose up at America's stewardship and calling for control to be made intergovernmental. The position was pushed by a small handful of countries (mainly France). Yet no sooner had the policy been announced than the back-pedalling started. EU delegates privately confided that they disagreed with the stance, and European incumbent telecoms operators, who know something about the effects of regulation on technology, squealed with outrage. Even committed internationalists like Carl Bildt slammed the EU plan on the pages of the International Herald Tribune.
However, all the grandstanding obscures a fundamental point: there is nothing anyone can do about US control. No UN declaration or multilateral consensus can wrest away the internet's underlying technology. This is because the control is not symbolic but very real. US government contractors manage the computers that make the internet's naming and addressing system work. Unless Chinese gunboats sail to Marina del Rey, California, where the techies who manage the system are based, America's power will continue until the country voluntarily gives it up.
The Iraqi coup that never was
By the time you read this, Iraq's new constitution should be endorsed by the voters (or not). But it nearly never saw the light of day at all. Here's the scene on 14th August. The draft constitution is due tomorrow, but the delegates are still a long way off agreement. Thirty hours before the midnight deadline, Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president, and Ahmad Chalabi, deputy prime minister, discuss extending the deadline, as permitted by the interim constitution. In the morning, they advise MPs to prepare for a late night. Meanwhile, former prime minister Ayad Allawi and his supporters on the drafting committee start to object to the extension. Why? Because failure to meet the deadline will trigger a dissolution of parliament and the choice of a new PM by the presidency council. Allawi, close to Talabani's two rivals on the council, is favourite for the job—which would allow him to derail the constitutional process and rule indefinitely. Allawi's men on the committee filibuster. It is 10.45pm. With support from US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the committee decides to ask parliament to extend the deadline a week. Chalabi runs to the assembly building, where a quorum is still waiting. At 11.30 they ratify the extension. A week later, a constitution emerges.
Bury Mao
It's not a great time for the embalmed bodies of communist dictators. As the debate over whether to bury Lenin's body hots up in Russia, the Chinese are starting to wonder if Mao's corpse, on display in quasi-imperial splendour in a Tiananmen Square mausoleum, might not be better off six feet under. The Beijing Olympics in 2008 will put China in the inter-national spotlight, and the country may not want to remind its foreign visitors of its blood-soaked past.
Artists' relics
Just a year after the 100th anniversary of his birth, Graham Greene is making the news again. A signed photograph of the author, taken by the portraitist Yousuf Karsh in 1964, was sold at auction for £20,400, a world record and ten times the pre-auction estimate. The market for artists' relics is big and growing, but the biggest prize remains Frida Kahlo's wardrobe, stuffed full of dresses and jewellery, and discovered in her old house in Mexico City earlier this year. It's not for sale—yet.
A new queen of publishing
Buying Granta (magazine and publisher) for £3m suddenly makes the Swedish philanthropist Sigrid Rausing a big figure on the upmarket publishing scene. Granta slots in with Portobello Books—which Rausing started earlier this year with Philip Gwyn Jones—as well as Atlantic Books, where Rausing has a stake. It probably makes sense to merge Granta and Portobello, and Granta's name will surely prevail.
