Davos Newbies

New York Times: Africa is the world’s fastest-growing cellphone market.

Tim Garton Ash: “Iraq is America’s Boer war.”

Today’s lead story in the US edition of the Financial Times is US army looks to leave Iraq. A sensational scoop, if there were any particular basis to the story.

It’s based on comments from Major General Douglas Lute, director of operations at US Central Command. When you actually read what he says, it is hedged in a bunch of ways: it depends on improvements in Iraqi forces, on the Sunnis being engaged in the political process, on successful elections. In other words, it’s contingent on just about everything going right in a place where just about everything is going wrong.

Lute concludes: “I will tell you this, as the operations officer of Centcom, if a year from now I’ve got to call on all those army troops that Gen Schoomaker is prepared to provide [Schoomaker, army chief of staff, said last week that troop levels could be maintained until 2009], I won’t feel real good about myself.” Of course it’s a God-given right for Americans to feel good about themselves. But Lute could well be disappointed in 12 months.

It would be wrong to think there’s no one home at the FT during the August holidays. Their US lead story is completely buried on the FT.com website. I’ll guess an editor with brains saw that it was part of the usual back and forth jabber of various different senior officers in a difficult, changeable war. There are more and more days, however, where I wonder about the news judgment at the FT. At the same time, there is no better source for global economic and financial news. I suspect they are desperate to have a front page that distinguishes itself from the Wall Street Journal in the US market. They should be careful of trying too hard.

The Daily Grist on the new SUV fuel standards:

Yesterday, the administration proposed a new set of auto fuel-economy rules. Tightening the standard for passenger cars? Uh, no, that would stay at an average of 27.5 miles per gallon. Finally imposing some requirements on mega-SUVs like the Hummer H2? Wrong again. Instead, most SUVs, pickups, and minivans would be divided into six categories based on size, each with its own fuel-economy requirements. The administration says the plan would increase the average mileage of these vehicles a whopping 2.8 mpg by 2011, to 24 mpg. Amazing but true! Despite the obvious logic of the plan, it has critics, some of whom point out that it would actually provide an incentive for auto manufacturers to make their light trucks larger, so they’d be bumped into categories with lower mileage standards. “The proposal is almost embarrassing in terms of its effect on fuel consumption,” said Eric Haxthausen of Environmental Defense.