Global community must act
Julian Borger’s piece (Europe’s leaders bypass Trump to salvage Iran deal, 13 October) was insightful. I hope there will be more such independent action by European countries and others. Donald Trump may well be only playing tough brinkmanship in order to contain North Korea and Iran, but his dangerous words and actions risk going over the edge. I have no sympathy for the brutal regimes in North Korea, Iran and Syria; people suffering under the rule of such repressive governments should be given our utmost support.
But the problems posed by North Korea aren’t going to be solved by Trump’s crude methods. In fact, Trump’s appalling activities could easily result in some minor incident setting off a major conflict.
As the world situation has become very precarious, it is now vital that the international community get involved. We are in urgent need of saner and wiser leadership. It’s time for everyone to do something to avert a dreadful catastrophe.
Steven Katsineris
Hurstbridge, Victoria, Australia
No safety in nuclear weapons
John Mullan notes that Kazuo Ishiguro is the rightful winner of the Nobel prize in literature (13 October). The same can be said of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) winning the Nobel peace prize.
Ican originated in Melbourne, Australia, in 2007 as an initiative of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW). It is the first Nobel peace prize to have its roots in Australia, as noted by Ican’s national vice-president, Dr Sue Wareham, who was motivated to join MAPW two decades ago because of her “horror at the destructive capacity of a single nuclear weapon”.
It beggars belief that the Australian government fails to grasp the essential truth that motivated Wareham: that a single nuclear weapon has enormous destructive capacity. Nuclear weapons worsen national security, not enhance it.
Jenny Goldie
Michelago, Australia
Livestock farming has a role
Caution is required when advocating the demise of livestock farming (George Monbiot, 13 October) because many of the planet’s dryland inhabitants derive their living from grazing. Nomadic pastoralists are dependent on animal husbandry not just for sustenance but as part of their culture. Harvesting animals that harvest native vegetation is a sustainable method of acquiring protein from areas of low productivity, when it is carefully managed. Switching to crops is fraught with difficulties, including unpredictable rainfall, soil erosion, the high costs of irrigation and other hazards experienced by farmers anywhere.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment tells us that 41% of Earth’s land surface is dryland and that 2 billion people live there. That is a lot of people and land to write off.
Andrew Beattie
Westleigh, NSW, Australia
Nationalism is a menace
As a Spaniard and non-nationalist Basque, I appreciated your sensitive take on the Catalan problem but was dismayed by Neal Ascherson’s column (Catalans are riding the independence wave, 29 September). He fails to distinguish between the sense of social belonging and nationalism: that ugly sentiment with roots in our tribal past, which makes us feel different from our neighbours, usually superior and insensitive to their predicament. For Ascherson, nationalism breaks even in its vices and virtues, as he apparently forgets the thousands of European deaths it has caused. He suggests that Catalonia felt Madrid was treating it as a colony: in fact it has a high level of autonomy that has been used to fuel unrest with its control of education and media, as shown by the rapid increase of aggrieved Catalan feelings.
Even so, recent opinion polls fell short of a majority for independence. The EU has said that the Catalan independence movement runs counter to the European project, but Ascherson thinks “the global tide is with them”. Maybe it was illusory to think Europe was getting over its tribal past.
Anton Digon
Vitoria, Spain
Briefly
• It was distressing to read (Japan forced to face brutal work culture, 13 October) that in its first white paper the Japanese government said that 20% of employees were at risk of death from overwork, more than 2,000 from suicide due to stress and many more from illness brought on by spending too much time at work. This government paper goes on to state that more than 80 hours of overtime per month starts to pose a serious risk to health and life.
It was damnably shocking to read that prime minister Shinzo Abe’s government proposes to cap monthly overtime at 100 hours, ie 20 hours more than the serious risk.
Axel Brock-Miller
Langford, British Columbia, Canada
• The time is right for the UK to opt out of the European community (20 October). So what next? In this time of complex relationships, it might not be best for the UK to go it alone. The way forward might well be a closer relationship with Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. There is much that holds these four nations together, and much they could share with the UK.
To give one example: the benefit of maritime trade via the Baltic, North and Norwegian seas. The UK’s close transatlantic link with the United States could also benefit the Scandinavian nations.
John Johansen-Berg
Oxford, UK
• Email letters for publication to weekly.letters@theguardian.com
