Last week in New York, the Council on Foreign Relations screened a new British film that uses documentary techniques to depict a fictional terrorist attack on London. The purpose of the gathering: to spark debate on preparations for such a scenario. In Washington, La Maison Francaise, a cultural arm of the French Embassy, was set to hold its own screening of the 90-minute film, "Dirty War," last night.
Director Daniel Percival wrote the drama with playwright Lizzie Mickery following extensive research into preparations by governments and emergency services for such an event.
The film aired in Britain in September. Percival, visiting Washington for the screening, said in an interview Monday that Britain's security officials took some of its conclusions into account in planning.
Presented in association with the BBC, the film is to debut on HBO on Monday. Percival said that PBS will also show the film later, on grounds that airing it would be a public service.
The film depicts the detonation of a "dirty bomb" -- conventional explosives that spread radioactive contaminants -- during morning rush hour in London. Commuters die, and a radioactive cloud rises over the city. But "the focus of the film is the reaction to it -- particularly by the emergency and government agencies -- and the characters caught up in the unfolding drama," Percival said. "It goes to the heart of the threat posed by the war on terror."
The issues of drills, emergency planning and official competence are all real, he said.
Percival and Mickery visited Washington late last year while researching and writing a series for the BBC about the role of the British Embassy here. Fashioned along the lines of the U.S.-produced television program "The West Wing," the series probes the special British-American relationship within the context of official Washington.
Who Runs the World?
The hunt is still on for a replacement for World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, who informed his board Jan. 3 that he would not seek another term when his expires May 31.
Wolfensohn had lunch at the bank yesterday with Treasury Secretary John W. Snow to continue discussions on who would be the best choice.
Now that contenders such as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick and Christine Todd Whitman, former director of the Environmental Protection Agency, have fallen by the wayside, the only major remaining candidate, according to World Bank insiders, is Randall L. Tobias, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator, a position created by President Bush.
If you want to keep track of the rumored candidates, power plays and buzz on the contest for the World Bank's top job, have a look at a new Web site established by "veteran World Bank watchers," some of them anonymous, some of them not. It's at www.worldbankpresident.org. It speculates and offers commentary on who will be next and what the winner will do, and provides tips for success.
According to a Jan. 10 posting, the "love-in" between former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton over tsunami relief indicates that rumors that Clinton might run the bank "are not quite as far-fetched as they seem."
A Model for E.U.
Some European countries want to take a leaf from America's book. Speaking from personal experience in Greece and the United States, Greek legislator Eleftheria Bernidaki-Aldous said during a visit to Washington that American law on the treatment of the disabled should be a model for legislation in the European Union and Greece.
She praised the regulations introduced under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which outlaw discrimination and offer opportunities in the public and private sectors for the personal and professional advancement of people with disabilities.
Bernidaki-Aldous, who was elected to Parliament last March, was in town last week to give two lectures. Last Tuesday she spoke at American University's Washington College of Law on "Attitudes Toward the Handicapped from Ancient Greece to Modern USA: Problems and Solutions."
Visually impaired since the age of 3 as a result of an accident, Bernidaki-Aldous holds a doctorate in classics from Johns Hopkins University and has taught in colleges in the United States and Greece. Last Thursday she addressed an audience at the American Hellenic Institute with a talk entitled "Exchange of Values and Ideas between Greece and the United States."
