Nobel laureate tests the limits of her freedom on first political trip into countryside since release from house arrest Thousands of well-wishers lined roadsides in Burma to welcome the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as she tested the limits of her freedom on Sunday by taking her first political trip into the countryside since being released from house arrest. The military-dominated government had warned that her journey could trigger riots, but it took place peacefully in two towns north of Rangoon. The last time she travelled out of the city to meet supporters, assailants ambushed her entourage. She escaped harm but was detained and placed under house arrest for seven years, from which she was released last November. On Sunday, Aung San Suu Kyi opened public libraries in Bago, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Rangoon, and in the nearby town of Thanatpin, where she gave a 10-minute speech calling for unity and asking people to continue to support her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). She urged the crowd of hundreds to persevere despite economic hardships that have forced many to seek jobs abroad. She made a similar speech in Bago, implying that true democratic change would take time. “I know what the people want and I am trying my best to fulfil the wishes of the people,” she said. “However, I don’t want to give false hope.” In Bago, during a visit to a pagoda, crowds shouted: “Long live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi!” Ma Thuza, a 35-year-old woman watching the scene, said: “I can die happily now that I’ve seen her.” Aung San Suu Kyi travelled in a three-car convoy followed by about 27 more vehicles – filled mostly with journalists and supporters. Security agents, with wireless microphones protruding from their civilian clothes, monitored each stop she made. Thousands of people lined the roadsides to catch a glimpse of her convoy as it passed by, some cheering and waving. The Nobel laureate stopped several times, and well-wishers handed her red roses and jasmine flowers. Win Htein, an NLD leader, said the trip was crucial because it “will test the reaction of the authorities and will test the response of the people”. “This trip will be a test for everything,” Htein said. An NLD spokesman, Nyan Win, said more trips would follow, but neither the dates nor the destinations had been decided. After half a century of army rule, Burma organised elections late last year and officially handed power to a civilian administration in March. But critics say the new government, led by retired military figures, is a proxy for continued military rule and that little has changed. Some 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars, more than 100,000 refugees live in neighbouring countries and sporadic clashes have erupted in the north-east between government troops and ethnic militias who have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades. On Friday, Aung San Suu Kyi held her second meeting with the minister for labour and social welfare, Aung Kyi, opening a rare channel of dialogue between the two sides. The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported on Saturday that the two sides agreed to co-operate on national stability and development. Also on Friday, the information minister, Kyaw Hsan, urged Aung San Suu Kyi to officially register the NLD as a party, a step that would imply its acceptance of the government’s legitimacy and also allow it to legally take part in politics. If her group reaches an accommodation with the government, it could serve as a reason for western nations to lift political and economic embargoes on the country that have hindered development and pushed it into dependence on neighbouring China. The previous military government ordered the party’s dissolution after it refused to register for last November’s general election, which the NLD called unfair and undemocratic. Aung San Suu Kyi has travelled outside Rangoon since her release from house arrest. Last month, she journeyed to the ancient city of Bagan with her son on a private pilgrimage that nevertheless drew large crowds of supporters and scores of undercover police and intelligence agents. She made no speeches, and the trip ended without incident. In June, the government said it would not stop her from travelling upcountry to meet supporters, but warned that the visits could trigger riots. Aung San Suu Kyi Burma guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Chris Matthews Needs to Take a Look in the Mirror if He Wants to Know Why We’re Not Seeing Union Protests on TV
August 13, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Chris Matthews has been on somewhat of a roll over the last week or so, asking why the labor unions in the United States aren’t taking a page from these astroturf tea partiers and showing up in Washington D.C. to protest on the weekends and send President Obama a message that they’re concerned about jobs and getting our economy back on the right track. On this Thursday’s edition of Hardball , The Nation ‘s John Nichols pushed back at Matthews assertion that there aren’t union members out there hitting the streets and protesting and talked about what’s been going on in Wisconsin for months on end now. What he did not really respond to is why we’re not seeing massive numbers of protesters in our nation’s Capitol. Nor did he ask Chris Matthews why our national media has largely been ignoring the protests that have been going on in Wisconsin and across the country and in our Capitol for weeks and months on end now. I wish Nichols had asked Chris Matthews why, when unions and other liberal groups have held rallies in D.C., they’ve been either largely or completely ignored by our national media. The AFL-CIO just held a rally to protest Wal-Mart last week in D.C. in conjunction with some other groups. Did we hear any of these pundits on cable television talking about it? Of course not. But if twenty of these astroturf “tea party” members show up somewhere, we’ve got at times more from the media showing up to cover the events than we’ve got protesters. I think Chris Matthews needs to look himself in the mirror if he doesn’t understand why it appears to most people who watch cable television and apparently to himself that there aren’t large numbers of working people and union members taking to the streets and holding rallies and why it’s completely dishonest and disingenuous to compare real grass roots and union protests who don’t have any big money behind them to the astroturf events they love to hype so much. There are large numbers of protests going on around the country, but the vast amount of them are local and not national and our national media ignores them. When liberal groups do sponsor events in D.C., no one in the national media is hyping them, much less covering them as we’ve seen from them with their breathless coverage of these astroturf “tea party” rallies. If Chris Matthews thinks unions members should be showing up in our nation’s Capitol week after week, who does he think is going to pay to bring them there? Unions, unlike these astroturf “tea party” groups do not have big corporate money paying for buses to haul people across the country to show up at these rallies. And to that point, a good deal of these people that are showing up at the “tea party” events are retirees. How many union members does Chris Matthews think can afford to just drop everything and trek on up to D.C. week after week to attend a protest? And how many of them are working weekends in the first place? Just because you’re a member of a union, that doesn’t mean you have your weekends off, or that you or your union has enough spare cash laying around to pay for anyone to be attending rallies far from their homes. I know of exactly one nationally syndicated show that does an adequate job of giving media coverage to protests by working people whether it be here in the United States or across the world, and that’s Democracy Now. If Chris Matthews and the rest of our corporate media gave one tenth of the type of coverage she does week after week, day after day to the groups that are out there protesting, one, maybe more people would show up at them because they’d know about them in the first place. And two, maybe our politicians would pay a little more attention because sadly our politicians do seem to pay a lot more attention to our Villagers in the corporate media than they do to the working class that has been out there and voicing their grievances in public. And that’s not the fault of the dwindling number of unions we have left in the United States that Matthews apparently wants to blame here for not doing more so that our politicians quit ignoring their frustrations with the race to the bottom we’ve seen with their policies that are destroying what’s left of the middle class in America. Unions are doing what they can. But they’re surely not getting any help from Matthews and his ilk, which just makes it even more of an uphill battle. And segments like this one are harmful to that cause and not helpful with assigning blame where it doesn’t belong. Transcript below the fold. MATTHEWS: Well, let me go back to John and then back to you, Josh. I raised this issue about labor. And I`m labor. I like labor. And I think generally they`re a fabulous force for American life in the last 100 years. And if we didn`t have them, I don`t where we would be. We wouldn`t be anywhere good. And my question is, why don`t they take up some of this animus, some of this excitement that the Tea Party has? Why aren`t they holding big demonstrations for jobs? It`s such a winner. You come to Washington with people in T-shirts in hot weather and they come in and they demonstrate, they speak, they get together, they have a tremendous sense of community and excitement. And then the president gets the message and he can react to that. It gives him a foundation, you know, to bounce off and say, look, the people want jobs, I`m giving them jobs. I`m risking it, even if Republicans — why don`t they do that, John? Why don`t they come out in the streets? NICHOLS: Look, Chris, they did come out in the streets in Wisconsin in February and March. And it`s exactly what you described. MATTHEWS: Yes. NICHOLS: There are people whose lives were changed by joining those mass demonstrations. MATTHEWS: OK. Good. NICHOLS: And the big frustration I have isn`t the Washington demonstration. It`s the fact that during these recall races, the Democrats, the Democratic strategists said, oh, don`t talk so much about labor rights. Soften the message. Dumb it down. MATTHEWS: Oh, really. NICHOLS: I think there`s a problem not only with labor, but with the Democratic Party not wanting to defend working people and labor issues. MATTHEWS: Even unemployment? NICHOLS: Even — they`re lousy on it. This president — you were just talking in that last segment, this president can`t get excited about unemployment. He couldn`t get energized and angry. MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you. Well, that`s a damning statement. Sir, that`s a tough, damning statement. We`re going to listen to that woman for a while. Let that reverberate right now.
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Click here to view this media Even though Sarah Palin still hasn’t declared that she’s going to enter the 2012 GOP primary race, that didn’t stop Sean Hannity from giving her the opportunity to throw a few flames at President Obama when she showed up at the Iowa State Fair this weekend. Apparently Palin is terribly upset with the level of government spending and our debt like the rest of them in her party and rather than assign blame where it belongs, which is with those Bush tax cuts, Republicans signing off on the Medicare Part D prescription drug giveaway that wasn’t paid for, our illegal invasions of a couple of countries that were never a threat to us, and just the horrible state of our economy that is a result of conservative policies over the last thirty or forty years, who did Palin blame for our problems? You guessed it. Liberals. I hate to break it to you Sarah, but “socialism” and wanting to take care of the least among us is not the problem with what’s wrong with our society. A race to the bottom on wages, not doing anything about our horrid trade laws, corporate welfare, and allowing these too big to fail institutions on Wall Street and our banking system to continue without being broken up and regulated properly are our problems. Just calling government spending and borrowing a problem without looking at just what areas in specific are making things for Americans worse and not better is just repeating nonsensical talking points and something Palin and her ilk are very good at. I hope things are finally getting to a point where there are a good deal of Americans are just tuning this nonsense out if they are even watching this propaganda on Fox to begin with. I’ll just say in my own personal experience and conversations with co-workers on how things are going right now and with what needs to change, no one I’ve spoken to cares about our debt. What they do care about are fair wages, our trade laws, getting Americans back to work, their kids finding a job, retaining our social safety nets, and the huge inequity between those at the top and those on the lower rung of our economy right now and how you raise those wages. We may not be able to do much about the Fox-bots who watch this stuff and take it seriously, but I think there is a great deal all of us can do with just talking to our neighbors and our friends and our families with calling these lies out and with having genuine conversations about what is needed to fix our ailing economy. I wouldn’t doubt if it Palin is trying to set herself up as Rick Perry’s running mate if he gets the nomination. I think she’s too lazy to actually do the hard work it takes to become the nominee herself. God help all of us if that ticket would actually win. It would be George W. Bush on steroids and then we would actually be having a real conversation about the demise of America. That is if our Republican House of Representatives and their allies, the Republican governors across the country don’t beat them to it first with destroying what’s left of our economy.
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People with symmetrical faces are more self-sufficient and less likely to co-operate, new research suggests Kate Moss, George Clooney, Natalie Portman or Cristiano Ronaldo may be many people’s ideas of dream dates, but pioneering research that combines economics with biology suggests they may not be perfect life partners. According to a study to be discussed this month at a gathering of Nobel prizewinners, people blessed with more symmetrical facial features, which are considered more attractive, are less likely to co-operate and more likely to selfishly focus on their own interests. Santiago Sanchez-Pages, who works at the universities of Barcelona and Edinburgh, and Enrique Turiegano, of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, base their claims on the “prisoner’s dilemma” model of behaviour, played out under laboratory conditions. Two players were each given the option of being a “dove” and co-operating for the greater good; or a “hawk”, taking the selfish option, with a chance of gaining more if the other player chose “dove” and co-operated. The subjects’ faces were then analysed. The study found that people with more symmetrical faces were less likely to co-operate and less likely to expect others to co-operate. The findings will be presented at the annual Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau, Germany, from 23 to 27 August. The explanation may be found in evolution. The two academics speculate that, on a subconscious level, people tend to view symmetrical physical attributes as a sign of good health and find people with them more attractive as a result. Earlier studies have suggested that individuals with symmetrical faces tend to suffer fewer congenital diseases and therefore make better potential mating partners. As a result, the studies suggest, they are more self-sufficient and have less need for seeking the help of others. The pair write: “As people with symmetrical faces tend to be healthier and more attractive, they are also more self-sufficient and have less of an incentive to co-operate and seek help from others. Through natural selection over thousands of years, these characteristics continue to the present day.” The authors also examine the relationship between co-operation levels and exposure to testosterone during development. Testosterone is usually associated with aggressive behaviour, suggesting “alpha males” do not make great team players. But the authors suggest this is only a partial truth and that testosterone can promote co-operative behaviour. They write: “Subjects exposed to higher levels of testosterone during foetal development did not co-operate less than the rest and even co-operated more than subjects with average levels. It seems that leading co-operation and not necessarily obtaining a higher individual profit are seen by some as a source of status.” The pair warn against jumping to the “simplistic conclusion” that facial asymmetry or testosterone can be used to predict a person’s behaviour, but they suggest their research could help to design public policies and act as a corrective to purely economic-based decision making. They note: “If certain behaviours such as smoking, drinking or high-speed driving are perceived by those who engage in them as part of their quest for status, it is very unlikely that providing economic disincentives like higher taxes, prices or fines will have a strong deterrent effect.” Evolution Beauty Biology Jamie Doward guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Calls for a referendum on EU membership after David Cameron’s U-turn on tax
August 13, 2011 No CommentThe prime minister is under cross-party pressure to allow a vote on membership as a decision to back fiscal integration threatens to ‘fundamentally change’ Britain’s relationship with Europe David Cameron is under mounting pressure to pledge a referendum on UK membership of the EU after overturning decades of British foreign policy by backing full fiscal union for the 17-nation eurozone. Tory and Labour MPs believe that if the eurozone moves towards a single tax system – as chancellor George Osborne advocated again – then the EU will become a fundamentally different organisation to the one the UK joined in 1973. Many also fear that Britain will come under intense pressure to adapt its tax and regulatory policies to conform more closely with the eurozone once fiscal union is under way, even if the UK remains out of the single currency. Steve Baker, the Tory MP for Wycombe and a member of the fiercely eurosceptic 2010 Conservative intake, said: “It is very clear that the EU is heading at full speed towards being one country. As that is the case there is absolutely no doubt that the British people should be offered a vote on whether to be a part of that.” Like other Tory and Labour MPs, Baker has signed up to an In/Out referendum being championed by fellow Conservative Zac Goldsmith, the MP for Richmond Park & North Kingston. The campaign will redouble its efforts during the party conference season. The Observer has also learned that the European scrutiny committee, a select committee of the House of Commons, is to conduct its own inquiries into the effect that fiscal union for the eurozone would have on the UK’s economic independence. Its chairman, the veteran Tory MP Bill Cash, said: “Allowing the other member states to go ahead towards fiscal union is a disaster. We must have a referendum in the light of such a profound change in our political relationship with Europe.” For decades the Foreign Office and Treasury have resisted –and said the UK would veto – any moves towards a “two-speed” or “multi-speed” Europe, believing it would lead to pressure on those outside the central core to cede more sovereignty over time. But with the eurozone in crisis, Osborne and Cameron have abandoned that resistance and now believe the euro’s only hope of survival is if the EU backs more co-ordination of tax and spending policies. Osborne told Radio 4′s Today show: “I think we have to accept that is going to happen. It is in our interest that it happens because an unstable euro is very bad news for us.” The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will meet in Paris on Tuesday to discuss how to beef up “economic governance” across the 17-member single currency zone, amid rising fears about the euro’s future. Jean-Claude Trichet, the outgoing boss of the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank, has called for a euro-wide finance ministry as the only way to prevent a recurrence of the debt crisis which has seen Greece, Portugal and Ireland receive emergency aid. The ECB was forced to rescue Italy and Spain last week by buying up their bonds, after interest rates for the two countries hit record highs. But it has demanded radical economic reforms and a fresh wave of austerity measures in return. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi announced a controversial package of tax rises and spending cuts. As the crisis deepened, Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King made clear at his quarterly inflation report last Wednesday that events in the eurozone posed the greatest threat to Britain’s economy, and called for Europe’s politicians to get a grip on the situation. “The ECB has gone to the outer limit of what a central bank can do,” King said. “Any further action has to be carried out by governments themselves.” One radical solution – backed by Osborne – is to issue “eurobonds”, with all 17 countries sharing the responsibility for paying them back. This idea is highly controversial in Germany, where voters fear they would be left paying the bill. Merkel would be likely to demand tight control over the tax and spending policies of weaker members as a quid pro quo, and France has long favoured more economic co-ordination, but analysts say this “fiscal integration” would fundamentally change the nature of the EU. That could make it harder for Britain to sit outside the eurozone but continue to drive European policy in other areas. “George Osborne and David Cameron are taking another political gamble, as they did with the cuts,” said Olaf Cramme, of the Policy Network thinktank. He believes further fiscal integration among euro members could alter decision-making across the whole EU. “The big difference now is that the euro has become the overriding interest – everything else will be subject to the euro.” Issuing eurobonds could also require a change in the EU’s founding treaty, which would have to be approved by all members, including the UK. Many Tory backbenchers hope that would provide an opportunity for renegotiating our relationship with Brussels. European Union Euro European Central Bank Economics Europe Toby Helm Heather Stewart guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Michele Bachmann won the Ames, Iowa straw poll with 4,823 votes out of more than 16,000 cast. Ron Paul finished 192 votes behind her, with a very large gap between 2nd and 3rd place. Here is the full list: Michele Bachmann: 4,823 Ron Paul: 4,671 Tim Pawlenty: 2,293 Rick Santorum: 1,657 Herman Cain: 1,456 Rick Perry: 718 Mitt Romney: 567 Newt Gingrich: 385 Jon Huntsman: 69 Thad McCotter: 35 Rick Perry’s 5th place showing came from write-in votes. He was not an official candidate. Bachmentum! Or Mich-mentum! Or something.
Continue reading …Rep. Michele Bachmann has won the first official electoral contest of the 2012 presidential campaign: Michele Bachmann narrowly won the Iowa straw poll of Republicans on Saturday in the first big test of the 2012 presidential campaign, as Texas Governor Rick Perry formally launched a White House bid that could reshape the race. Bachmann, a representative from Minnesota, edged out Ron Paul, another representative, and rolled over the rest of the Republican field to capture the nonbinding Iowa mock election, a traditional early gauge of organizational strength in the state that holds the first 2012 nominating contest. Bachmann won 4,823 votes to Paul's 4,671. Tim Pawlenty, who had focused on a strong showing in the straw poll to rescue his struggling campaign, finished a distant third with 2,293 votes in a bruising setback. What will it mean for her chances now? And how much will the media step up their attacks on her?
Continue reading …Mitt Romney Touts Privatizing Unemployment Benefits Along With Reduction in Spending on Anti-Poverty Programs
August 13, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Mitt Romney stood up for those poor downtrodden corporate “people” that those evil liberals who crashed his event in Iowa this Thursday were asking to have their taxes raised on, but if you’re one of the long-term unemployed, well, it appears you’re on your own. During the Republican debate in Iowa, when asked if he would extend unemployment benefits for those who are about to lose their benefits in a few months, not only did Romney say that he would not extend them, but he also touted the idea of privatizing unemployment benefits and changing our current system to one offering unemployment insurance savings accounts. What could possibly go wrong? I haven’t read much on this, so I’m no expert and it would be nice to hear more from anyone who is in the comments section, but this just looks to this layman as another way to draw money out of another one of our social safety nets in the name of “personal responsibility.” Romney said this would “make the system work better by giving people responsibility for their own employment opportunities.” That’s rich since they don’t have much control over those “opportunities” if there are no jobs to be found in the first place. Not everyone’s got a rich family and the “opportunity” to become some multimillionaire vulture capitalist like our buddy Mittens here did. Some of us have to make money the old fashioned way, like actually working for it. And god knows with some of the greatest income disparity since the Gilded Age, we can’t have our priorities be spending more money on anti-poverty programs, now can we? No, better to be reducing those taxes and burdensome regulations on those “job creators” because the have-mores are just struggling so badly right now in Mitt Romney and the GOP’s fantasy-land. Heaven forbid we do anything to hurt their feelings or they might go Galt on us and leave the country and take their jobs with them. Oh wait, that ship has sailed already, hasn’t it? When I hear one of these birds start talking about fixing our trade imbalances and tying these tax cuts they love so much to job creation in the United States , I’ll believe that they actually care one iota about doing anything productive to fix our unemployment problems in America. Sadly, we’re not hearing that from any of them other than members of the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives right now. Karoli adds: Romney’s tossed-off remark here about changing the nature of UI is a proposal that we don’t hear a lot about, but which is a fondly-held right wing dream. Kochtopus Member Mercatus Center jumped on the bandwagon in early 2010 with this policy paper , right in the middle of a debate over extending UI for a few extra paltry weeks. Here’s the gist of their “recommendation”: Unemployment insurance is meant to support workers who lose their jobs during downturns. However, public unemployment insurance produces unintended consequences,leading to lower prosperity. A more effective approach to providing support for workers is to establish Unemployment Insurance Savings Accounts (UISA).13 These individual savings accounts are funded by a percentage of wages contributed by the employee and employer in lieu of the compulsory contributions currently made by employers to public trust funds. When an individual becomes unemployed, she may access the account. If the individual is never unemployed, she can roll those savings into a retirement account. UISA eliminates the perverse incentives of publicly provided benefits. Workers must finance their own unemployment, providing an incentive to avoid job loss and increase the job search effort during unemployment. Reducing the payroll tax on employers would increase wages, leading to higher contributions to UISA accounts. While the current program is a tax on all of the employed (some of whom will never use the benefit), a UISA belongs to an individual worker. Essentially, UISA is a form of forced savings: A worker’s contribution to the unemployment account is paid directly back to her.14 Chile adopted this approach in 2003, and empirical data suggests that most Chilean workers are better off as a result. 15 Employees contribute 0.6 percent of monthly earnings, and employers contribute a further 2.4 percent to an individual savings account. An unemployed worker may draw between 30 to 50 percent of the previous wage for up to five months.16 Upon retirement, unused unemployment savings roll into the worker’s personal savings account.17 A couple of quick thoughts on this. First, the whole thing is yet another way to wrest workers’ safety nets away and hand them to Wall Street. Can you imagine being a worker with money in these accounts and having it subject to the whims of these markets? Please. And second, the Chilean model purports to get those “deadbeats” back to work , but there is absolutely no evidence it decreases the unemployment rate or protects workers. None. All it does is create a situation where a worker will do whatever they can with no job security or benefits simply to make ends get closer to each other even if they don’t actually meet. It was started in 2002. In 2009, Chile’s poverty rate rose for the very first time in 23 years. And guess what? It was attributable to joblessness and the global economic crisis . Oh, and here’s some more detail on Chile and the student protests over student debt, access to education, and income disparity from yesterday. Ah, yes, the Great Conservative Experiment. Guess that didn’t work out so well for them. Transcript below the fold. FERRECHIO: Gov. Romney, you suggested replacing government jobless benefits with individual employment savings accounts. Jobless benefits for millions of Americans are about to expire in just a few months. If you were president right now, would you extend them? ROMNEY: We’ve got a lot of people out of work. We’ve got a president that has a entirely failed economic policy and frankly doesn’t know what to do to get this economy going again. Surely we’re going to help those people who can’t find other ways to care for themselves. But the most important thing we’re talking about tonight is making sure that President Obama is replaced by someone who knows how to get this economy going again. That’s what this debate is really about. And that’s what the American people want to understand. Unemployment benefits – I think they’ve gone on a long, long time. We have to find ways to reduce our spending on a lot of the anti-poverty programs and unemployment programs, but I would far rather see a reform of our unemployment system to allow people to have a personal account, which they’re able to draw from, as opposed to having endless unemployment benefits. So again, let’s reform the system – make the system work better by giving people responsibility for their own employment opportunities and having that account, rather than doling out year after year, more money from an unemployment system. FERRECHIO: A real quick follow up. Would you sign a bill to extend unemployment insurance if you were president right now? ROMNEY: If I were president right now, I would go to Congress with a new system for unemployment which would have specific accounts which people could withdraw their own funds and I would not put in place a continuation of the current plan.
Continue reading …Assad orders tanks into rebel towns as Syria’s brutal crackdown intensifies
August 13, 2011 No Comment
Syrian president steps up campaign of repression against pro-democracy protesters, with raids in Latakia and Qusair Syrian tanks and gunmen have swept through two towns to root out anti-government protesters amid heavy firing that has sent many fleeing to safer areas. Three people were reported to have died in the violence, the latest in an escalating campaign of repression by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime against an uprising that erupted in mid-March. The heaviest assault was reported in the coastal city of Latakia, where a day earlier thousands turned out to demand the president’s removal. At least 20 tanks and armoured personnel fanned out into the city’s el-Ramel district as intense gunfire rang out, according to Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Shooting and explosions were also heard in the town’s Slaibeh neighbourhood, according to the Observatory and the Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria, an activist group that documents protests. Two people were killed in the shooting, they said. Scores of security agents and pro-government gunmen, known as Shabiha, entered the town of Qusair, near the border with Lebanon, and several nearby villages, arresting scores of residents, Abdul-Rahman said. LCC Syria said that one person was killed in the shooting. It was not possible to verify the reports. The army also conducted an operation in the nearby towns of Hawla and Taldaw, in the central Homs province, and deployed tanks in the area, activists said. They reported that 10 people were wounded by gunfire during sweeps in the north-western town of Sarmin. Both the al-Ramel section of Latakia and Qusair have seen large protests since the demonstrations began in March. Government efforts to quash the protests have intensified in recent weeks, with troops storming several towns and cities. Abdul-Rahman said that many residents, mostly women and children, were fleeing to safer areas. In protests around the country on Friday, tens of thousands called for Assad’s death, in a dramatic escalation of anger. Crowds took to the streets after Friday prayers, defying bullets and rooftop snipers following more than a week of intensified military assaults on rebel cities. The chants calling for Assad’s death are seen as a sign of how much the protest movement has changed since its initial demands for minor reform, but not for regime
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The story behind the making of the film and the religious storm it caused are the subject of Holy Flying Circus As Brian Cohen, the hapless hero of Monty Python’s Life of Brian , finds out, it can be tricky stepping into the shoes of someone worshipped by all. And the fear of not passing muster is on the minds of all six actors cast as Pythons for a BBC comedy drama about the release of the film in 1979. Holy Flying Circus will tell the story of the making of Life of Brian and the righteous fury that surrounded the release of its satirical take on the gospels. It is the first attempt to dramatise the activities of the sextet who transformed the nature of comedy in this country and produced a British film now critically regarded as one of the very best. Coming together this summer to play Michael Palin, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and the late Graham Chapman, the performers have admitted to feeling odd about playing men who have the status, if not of modern-day messiahs, then at least of comedy gods for their fans around the world. During the filming of BBC4′s Holy Flying Circus , which is written by Tony Roche, co-writer of In the Loop and The Thick of It , its stars were initially wary of impersonating such famous comics. “We wanted to be affectionate about the Pythons and we all had a sense they were our comedy heroes,” said director Owen Harris. “You could feel the anxiety in the room when the actors got together in character for the first time. We had a room full of Pythons.” Harris, who has previously directed the hit series Misfits , encouraged the actors not to worry too much about portraying their characters authentically. “We didn’t want impersonators, although in the end we have got an amazing set of Pythons. I don’t know what the originals will think. They will all be seeing it for the first time when it goes out next month,” he said. Comedian and writer Steve Punt, who plays Idle, found the humour of Roche’s screenplay guided the performances. “When you are playing someone who is not only an icon of comedy, but who is still alive, it does feel pretty strange. But the secret is the script. It is funny and not at all a forensic depiction of the people. It captures the spirit of the Pythons.” Darren Boyd, star of Case Sensitive , plays Cleese and has tweeted about how odd it felt to stand in a street “doing the silly walk” or thrashing things with a stick “a la Fawlty Towers “. But happily for Boyd, encouragement came down from on high. Stephen Fry, who makes a cameo appearance as God in the film, offered support on set. “God just gave me his blessing regarding my Cleese ‘look’. He was most enthusiastic. My life is complete,” tweeted Boyd. Next, one of the original Pythons, Terry Jones, gave the actor who plays him a remote blessing via Twitter. When Rufus Jones messaged him to say he was playing him in a BBC4 drama, the Python replied that his efforts were “all in a good cause”. This weekend the 69-year-old, who directed Life of Brian , told the Observer he “loved the script” of the new production. “It is a wild flight of fancy and I am keeping my fingers crossed about how I am played,” Jones said. Canadian comic Phil Nichol plays Gilliam, while Charles Edwards plays Michael Palin and Tom Fisher plays Graham Chapman, the most laconic Python, who died of cancer in 1989 aged 48. Unlike other recent BBC4 docu-dramas about comedians, such as Tony Hancock and Hattie Jacques, Holy Flying Circus aims to be a comedy in its own right. “It has a very different tone from other films in that strand,” said Harris. “We are calling it a fantastical reimagining.” Inspired by Python, the director said the film tells its story in an unorthodox way. “It is non-linear for a start, and has animation in it, like Terry Gilliam’s work. We took his drawings as a starting point and then applied our own craft. In the end some of the sequences are rather like the American cartoon Family Guy , although not visually.” The new drama centres on a notorious television confrontation that took place on 9 November 1979 between two of the Pythons, Cleese and Palin, and the Roman Catholic writer and broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge, who believed that Life of Brian was a weak and scurrilous attack on Christianity. At Muggeridge’s side for the debate on the BBC2 show Friday Night, Saturday Morning was the Bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood. “You might say Holy Flying Circus is a comedy equivalent of the film Frost/Nixon , marking a historic TV moment, but that was much more factual and we are playful, although the debate itself is verbatim,” explained Harris. “I do wonder whether viewers will realise that, because some of it is quite extraordinary.” Although Life of Brian was a box-office success, it was met with a volley of international protest from religious groups. Thirty-nine British local authorities imposed some sort of ban. The plot centres on the unfortunate chain of events that follow the mistaken identification of a young Judean man as a new religious leader. Reluctant to the last, Cohen, played by Chapman, is tragically unable to clarify the misunderstanding. During the TV debate, chaired by the lyricist Tim Rice, Muggeridge called the film “squalid” and “tenth rate”. The bishop levelled some low blows too, accusing the film of being “fourth form revue” standard and implying the Pythons were “mentally deficient”. “It was a clash of cultures. Palin became quite frustrated, but both he and Cleese remained respectful. But the respect wasn’t returned,” said Harris. Terry Jones too, remains annoyed by Muggeridge. “It was quite a cheek because he had missed the opening of the film,” he said. “They had a good lunch and then arrived late at the viewing theatre that day.” Comedy BBC4 BBC Television industry Religion Comedy Vanessa Thorpe guardian.co.uk
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