Click here to view this media While I do not agree with all of the points Fareed Zakaria made during this segment, like comparing protecting our social safety nets to the Republicans rigidity on tax increases and painting those as being somehow equivalent; especially if you’re talking about raising the retirement age on Social Security instead of raising the income cap to keep it solvent for the long term. That said, I was glad to see someone point out just how destructive the Republicans use of the filibuster has been as he did here. And I agree with his points on the need to do more spending on education and infrastructure to get our economy growing again. Transcript via CNN : ZAKARIA: We’ve downgraded ourselves. We’ve demonstrated to ourselves, the world, to global markets that our political system is broken and that we are incapable of implementing sensible public policy. The actual cut to the 2012 budget, which is the only budget over which this Congress has any control, is $21 billion out of a total of $3 trillion in expenditures. Everything else can and will be changed by future Congresses. What the deal does is once again kick tough choices down the road, this time to a Congressional supercommission that will have to come up with a larger plan to reduce our debt. And it does nothing to spur growth, and, without growth, the debt and the deficit will expand well above current projections. The manner in which the deal was produced has added poison to an already toxic atmosphere in Washington, making compromise even more difficult. Democrats now feel they need to mirror the Tea Party’s tactics because they worked and they are becoming unyielding on any cuts to entitlement programs like Medicare. Republicans, emboldened by the success of their bullying, have closed ranks more solidly around a no-tax agenda, which is great, but the only solution to America’s debt dilemma needs to involve both cuts to entitlement programs and higher tax revenues. Congress is more polarized than ever before, and that polarization has resulted in paralysis. More than two years into the Obama administration, hundreds of key positions in government remain vacant for lack of Senate confirmation. The Treasury Department, for example, had to handle the global financial crisis, recession, bank stress tests, the automaker bailouts, as well as its usual duties with about a dozen of its senior positions, almost its entire top management, vacant, nobody in there. Senate rules have been used, abused and twisted to allow constant delay and blockage. The filibuster, which was historically employed about once a decade, is now a routine procedure that allows the minority to thwart the will of the majority. In 2009, Senate Republicans filibustered a stunning 80 percent of major legislation. Given how the chamber is composed, two senators per state no matter how thinly populated those states, people representing just 10 percent of the country can block all legislation. Is that how a democracy should function? These dysfunctions come at a bad time. The United States faces intense pressures from an aging population, technological change, globalization, new competitors. We need smart policies in every field. We need to pare back spending in areas like health care and pensions, but we need to expand it in others like research and development, infrastructure and education in order to boost economic growth. In an age of budgetary limits, the money needs to be spent wisely and only on programs that are effective. But, in area after area – energy, immigration, infrastructure – government policy is suboptimal, a sad mixture of political payoffs, corruption and ideological positioning. Countries from Canada to Australia to Singapore are implementing smart policies, copying best practices from around the world. We bicker and remain paralyzed. If, as a result of these Congressional antics, interest rates on America’s debt rise by one percent – in other words, if the world asks for just a little bit more interest in order to lend us money – the budget deficit will rise by $1.3 trillion over 10 years. That would more than wipe out the entire 10 years of cuts proposed in the debt deal. That’s the system at work these days. For more on this, you can read my cover story in this week’s “Time” magazine or Time.com.
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Police look into security arrangements of Arctic expedition after teenager is mauled to death by wild animal Police are investigating the security arrangements of the Arctic expedition in which an English schoolboy was mauled to death by a polar bear. Horatio Chapple, 17, died after the animal attacked a camp on Spitsbergen island in the Svalbard archipelago, in the Arctic circle. Accounts suggest a warning tripwire system, used to set off flares that might have scared the animal away, failed to go off. Police are checking a rifle that apparently failed to fire four times before it was successfully used to kill the bear. Liv Asta Ooedegaard, a spokeswoman for the governor of Svalbard, said the rifle had been sent for forensic examination. “We are trying to get the whole picture. That is what we are working on now.” The British Schools Exploring Society (BSES), which ran the trip, may also face a UK investigation after a spokeswoman for Wiltshire police said Chapple’s death had been reported to their child protection team. Circumstances surrounding the death will come under further scrutiny at a forthcoming inquest in Salisbury. The head of security at the University of Svalbard, John Ingen Karlsen, told the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten that although the expedition team had correctly pitched their tents on a hill and away from the water’s edge, they had made two errors. They should have had team members on continuous watch for bears, and their tripwire system may not have been set up properly. Michael Reid, 29, the expedition leader who shot the animal in the head during the attack on Friday, and fellow leader Andy Ruck, 27, returned to the UK after being discharged from hospital on Monday. Patrick Flinders, 16, and Scott Bennell-Smith, 17, who were sharing a tent with Horatio Chapple, returned to the UK on Sunday. Flinders underwent an operation in Norway to remove parts of the bear’s teeth from his scalp, while Bennell-Smith suffered a broken jaw and smashed teeth. The eight uninjured members of the group were expected to return to the UK on Monday. Chapple’s parents, David and Olivia, and his grandfather, Sir John Chapple, former head of the army, paid tribute to him at the weekend. They described the teenager as a “generous, kind and fearless” young man. “He had many friends who admired his enthusiasm for life, his love of challenge and his innate courtesy and wish to help others,” they said. “Horatio was a fine role model for his two younger brothers, Titus, 15, and Magnus, 13.” They added that Horatio planned to read medicine and was keen to find a cure for type one diabetes, which his youngest brother has. On Saturday, BSES announced it had ended the £3,000-per-head expedition on the advice of the Svalbard authorities and in accordance with the wishes of the group leaders. The group was founded in 1932 by a member of Captain Scott’s final Antarctic expedition. It is based at the Royal Geographical Society in London and organises exploratory trips for young people that involve scientific research in wilderness areas. Participants are expected to raise money to cover the costs of the trip. Norway Animals Arctic Europe Polar regions Jeevan Vasagar guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Court of Protection case to be reported in real time after landmark legal ruling
August 8, 2011 No Comment
Judge rules son’s battle with local authority to care for his elderly father is of ‘specific public interest’ A son’s battle to care for his elderly father made legal history on Monday when a judge ruled that his case against the local authority could be reported in “real time”. At the centre of the case is a 92-year-old widower who, his adult son claims, is being forced against his wishes to live in a care home where he is being unlawfully denied contact with his son. The case is being heard in the court of protection , which deals with vulnerable people who are assessed as not being able to make decisions about their own lives. These courts rarely allow their proceedings to be reported, even when a person’s freedom is at stake or, in medical cases involving the removal of life-support machines, their lives. When publicity is granted by the judge, reporting is strictly limited to a few key facts that can only be published after the final judgment has been made. Initials, as in the current case, are used to anonymise the individuals and institutions involved. Monday’s breakthrough happened after the judge, Mr Justice Ryder, ruled that the case is “a paradigm case in an area which happens to be at the forefront of public awareness, [and is] therefore not just of general public interest but of specific public interest”. It is thought to be the first time that detailed reporting has been permitted while a court of protection case is in progress. The judge also broke with protocol by ordering “fairly generous access to material” produced by all the parties in evidence. The ruling means that, for the first time, the public will both be able to follow the step-by-step decision-making process of the court, set up in 2007. They will also, for the first time, be able to examine the arguments over whether and when the controversial Deprivation of Liberty Orders, which came into force in April 2009, should be applied to hospital patients and residents of care homes. The court case was triggered by accusations by SJ’s adult son, DJ, that his recently widowed father had been unlawfully deprived of his liberty since 22 February 2011, when he was forced to stay in the care home at which he had been receiving respite care instead of being allowed to return home. DJ also claims that both the care home and the local authority have unlawfully refused to allow unsupervised contact between the two men. The local authority contests DJ’s claims. It maintains there are “straightforward health and welfare matters” and “safeguarding issues” behind the decision. It said that bruising discovered on SJ’s body when he was first admitted to the residential home in December suggested he had been abused by his son: suspicions, it said, that were strengthened by the father’s own claims that his son had hurt him. These allegations are “vigorously denied” by DJ, who claims the bruising was the result of trying to control his father when he became agitated. DJ also argues that his father’s Alzheimer’s disease leads to him making accusations against others. The local authority concedes that the accusations of abuse are not supported by police. In court on Monday, it also failed to present any medical evidence supporting its allegations. Crucially, DJ contests the local authority’s claim that his father lacks the mental capacity to decide where he lives; a claim backed by an independent consultant psychiatrist. DJ also maintains that his father wants to come home. The local authority disagrees. It says SJ is content to remain in the care home and that any claims he makes to the contrary are the result of manipulation by his son. The local authority is seeking an order to keep SJ at the care home, and return him to it if he leaves or is removed “with the use of reasonable and proportionate physical contact if necessary”. Ulele Burnham, representing the official solicitor – a public official who acts as the “friend” of people involved in court cases who are not competent to make decisions for themselves – agreed that, at least temporarily, SJ does indeed lack capacity and should remain at the care home until more assessments have been made. In her submission, Burnham said that “even leaving aside momentarily the issue of whether DJ’s contact with SJ has been improperly restricted, SJ has not lived at home for some eight months and has not seen DJ for some three months. “It is clear from the evidence that the official solicitor has so far seen, that even if the concerns about alleged abuse by DJ were misconstructions or were false, it is clear, sadly, that DJ was struggling to care for SJ both before and after his mother’s death.” Allegations by DJ that his father has been mistreated in the case home are, added Burnham, “not sustainable”. DJ, however, is adamant that his father is being illegally deprived of his liberty. “I would like my father to come home as that is his wish. My father is miserable in the care home and asks of his own volition to be taken home whenever we speak. I am certain that it is in his best interests to come home.” “I deny abusing my father and my position is that he falls over and then makes allegations. He has continued to fall and make allegations against others while in the care home. It is common for people with Alzheimer’s to make inaccurate allegations and in this case, the council only started to take them seriously when we fell out,” he added. “Under questioning, my father is very vulnerable to suggestion. The council prejudged the investigation into the matter.” The case continues. Older people Social care Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk
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• Disturbances ongoing in Hackney, east London • Looting had spread to Enfield, Brixton and Walthamstow • Home secretary criticises “sheer criminality” • Blackberry messenger used to co-ordinate trouble • Acting Met chief promises ‘robust’ response 6.51pm: The news channels are showing pictures of fires having broken out in Lewisham. It appears a car and a row of bins, all along the same street, have been set ablaze. The footage shows police officers dragging large wheely bins which are not on fire away from the others, as officers with shields and Nato helmets form a line behind them. From the helicopter footage there is no sign of any people in the immediate area. 6.45pm: Dave Hill, the Guardian’s London blogger, is in Hackney, east London, where skirmishes have been occurring this afternoon. A local police officer said shops in Hackney began closing their shutters after hearing “rumours” of trouble initially emanating from BlackBerry Messenger exchanges. Most had locked up by early afternoon as support officers began arriving in increasing numbers in the vicinity of Hackney Central railway station and three masked youths riding bicycles appeared on the main shopping thoroughfare of Mare Street. A series of stand-offs with members of the public began shortly after a large group of police detained two men against the wall of Hackney’s Old Town Hall building, now a betting shop, and a crowd gathered to watch, many of them photographing the events. After some brief skirmishes and an angry verbal tirade against a police cluster by a young woman in the graveyard to the rear of the betting shop, an officer shouted to a colleague to “get the Natos,” a reference to riot helmets. Police vehicles and officers in helmets holding riot shields eventually blocked off access to Mare Street south of its pedestrianized Narrow Way section and the railway bridge, as buses backed up along adjoining Amhurst Road and a helicopter buzzed overhead. Reactions of onlookers varied from a man telling an officer moving a youth on to “get your hands off him, pig,” to an afterschool club worker declaring to police that “these kids shouldn’t be out here, they should be back in their yard,” and saying that if she was in charge of dealing with rioters she’d “tear gas their asses”. 6.41pm: PenGuy has used Blottr to post photos from Lewisham . The images show groups of youths, and police, on the streets. In one a chair appears to have been thrown across the road. On Twitter @gillianhawke has posted an image from Lewisham showing a police line blocking a road. The line appears to be preventing a bus from passing. Officers are not wearing riot gear, suggesting the disturbances may be low level at the moment. 6.36pm: Matt Wells writes that there are developments in a number of areas around London at the moment. Two Guardian reporters have been in touch with news of a large disturbance in Peckham, south-east London. Police are blocking the main street in the area. Adam Vaughan says there are about 50 young men, some in ski masks and balaclavas on Rye Lane. James Walsh is hearing reports of shops shutting down across the city, including those around the Angel, Islington, in north London as well as Stoke Newington, to the north-east, Wood Green – scene of looting on Sunday morning– and Lewisham, in the south-east of the city. In Islington, branches of Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and the Co-operative have all closed their doors. On Stoke Newington High Street, the Sainsbury’s store has pulled its shutters down, as have some of the smaller shops and corner shops. “There’s a really odd, gloomy feeling – everyone is just standing around talking about when it will kick off here”, James says. The Victoria line has been suspended between Stockwell and Brixton “due to civil unrest”, according to this picture. 6.30pm: Good evening. After two nights of violence and looting following protests at the death of Mark Duggan on Saturday, police and residents are again bracing themselves for disruption. • There have been skirmishes in Hackney, east London this afternoon, with police in riot gear confronting groups of youths. There have been skirmishes on Mare Street, with television pictures of youths using sticks to try and break windows of buses and shops. Our reporter Mark Brown says the disturbances had begun to fizzle out at around 6pm, although there remain sporadic outbreaks of stone-throwing. • Trouble spread to many parts of London last night as disturbances continued across the capital. There was violence in Enfield, Walthamstow and Brixton, with instances of looting and vandalism. The acting Metropolitan police commissioner Tim Godwin pledged a robust response to what he described as “pure criminality” seen in recent days. The Met said Twitter users could face arrest for inciting violence. • The home secretary, Theresa May, has condemned the “sheer criminality” of the riots. She said at least 215 people have been arrested, with 27 people charged. May, who returned from holiday today, praised the bravery of the police, saying: “The violence we’ve seen, the looting we’ve seen, the thuggery we’ve seen – this is sheer criminality, and let’s make no bones about it.” • In Tottenham, scene of the violent clashes and blazes on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, a vigil is taking place tonight in honour of Mark Duggan. The 29-year-old father of four was shot dead by police on Thursday. Doubts have since emerged over whether Duggan was killed in an exchange of fire. • The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, has rejected claims that the government has failed to provide leadership . Many senior ministers were away from London as the rioting began. David Cameron remains on holiday in Italy. “I reject completely this notion that somehow this Government hasn’t been functioning very effectively,” said Clegg. He added that he had spoken to Cameron by phone this morning. • The Independent Police Complaints Commission issued a statement which appeared to criticise the Metropolitan police. The IPCC is carrying out the investigation into the death of Mark Duggan. Rachel Cerfontyne, the commissioner overseeing the investigation, said the Duggan family’s concerns were about “lack of contact from the police in delivering news of his death to Mark’s parents”. We’ll have the latest news from our reporters around the capital throughout the evening. London riots London Mark Duggan Protest Adam Gabbatt guardian.co.uk
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Months after its brief exposure to the Arab spring, Bahrain’s cat-and-mouse routine of protest and repression continues • Bahrain’s prospects for democracy look bleak Hassan Ali Salman is a stocky, fit-looking young man. But he flailed in vain as the police officers grabbed him, one forcing his T-shirt up over his head as three or four others laid in with their batons, dragging and pushing him to a line of waiting Land Cruisers and more helmeted cops. Behind him, on a breezeblock wall, crudely drawn nooses encircle the names Hamad and Khalifa – the king of Bahrain and his uncle the prime minister – alongside graffiti demanding their execution and the overthrow of the regime. The recent scene in Sitra, a short drive from central Manama, the capital, provided an ugly glimpse into the cat-and-mouse routine of protests and repression in this Gulf island state. Filmed secretly, posted on YouTube and distributed on Twitter, it exposes what Bahrain’s western-backed government prefers foreigners not to see. In the nearby cemetery lies the grave of Zainab al-Juma, a disabled woman who died in July after inhaling tear gas from a police grenade. The black flag that marks her “martyrdom” hangs limp in the hot, still air. Another local victim was Ahmed Farhan, shot in March, his brains spilling out of his shattered head live on camera as horrified screams sounded all around. Bahrain is far quieter now than during its brief exposure to the winds of the Arab spring in February and March, but unrest continues. Every night cries of “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) echo through the villages of a Shia underclass that has chafed under the Sunni Al Khalifa dynasty since independence from Britain in 1971. “We go up on to the roofs and shout and then try to march to the entrance of our village,” said Abu Ali, a thirtysomething accountant and former prisoner from Karzakan who supports al-Wifaq, the Islamist movement demanding democracy and equal rights for all. “The repression is getting worse.” Haydar, from nearby Diraz, described a savage beating, curses and threats of rape as he was forced to kiss the boots of the police officers who tormented him on 26 June. “They pulled my shirt over my head and every hundred metres they hit me in the face and kicked me,” he said. Captain Ahmed of Manama’s police special forces unit insists his job is simply to “protect citizens” and that he and his men are reluctant to make arrests or use force. “If we catch someone they are in trouble,” he said. “They can lose their job or be thrown out of their studies and that will be on their files for good. Of course we take action if they try to harm us.” The night the Guardian joined his four-vehicle patrol the radio network reported small crowds gathering but there were no beatings or shootings. Young men waiting in the shadows in Sanabis, part of a Shia “triangle of steadfastness”, ran off when the Land Cruisers roared up, blue lights flashing as the police officers scrambled out, helmet visors down, to demolish the makeshift roadblocks, their gas grenade launchers at the ready. “It’s not just kids,” a police lieutenant said. “They are organised quite professionally with co-ordinated actions in different places at the same time.” Still, this is basically a public order problem, not a war or – despite the brave rhetoric – a Palestinian-style intifada. Ahmed hopes Bahraini municipalities will respond to police requests to remove the wheels from rubbish bins to stop them being used to barricade roads. Central Manama is calm. Pearl Roundabout in the commercial heart of the city has been wiped off the map , its famous statue has been destroyed and the only clue to its status as Manama’s “Tahrir Square” are two or three armoured cars and a refuse cart emblazoned with the name of a radical Shia leader, Hassan Mushayma, a bogeyman for the regime and for Sunnis. Yet the underlying tensions remain. Pearl has been renamed Farouq junction, an epithet attached to the seventh-century Sunni Caliph Omar and bitter rival of Ali, the founder of Shia Islam. It’s one of the signifiers of dominance and prejudice that are part of the sectarian fabric of Bahraini life. Another is that state TV broadcasts only the Sunni call to prayer. Sheikh Ali Salman, al-Wifaq’s leader, prefers to talk of universal rights. “What Bahrainis want is the same as people elsewhere in the Arab world,” he said. “The government succeeded to some extent in portraying what happened here as a Shia-Sunni clash, though it was less successful in convincing anyone that there was Iranian involvement. It also tried to show that the opposition were terrorists. But there is one basic conflict – between those who support democracy and those who want to maintain the current dictatorship.” Al-Wifaq withdrew its 18 members from the 40-seat parliament in protest at the first killings of demonstrators in February, but remains committed to peaceful change. Enemies dismiss its moderate image and claim it is no different from Shia hardliners such as Mushayma, who called for a republic to replace the Al Khalifa dynasty, launched a campaign of civil disobedience and destroyed a dialogue between the opposition and the reformist Crown Prince Salman that might – just – have defused the crisis. The crackdown began in earnest on 15 March when most foreign journalists had been thrown out or diverted to Libya. “It was an anti-Shia pogrom,” said Hala, an activist who helped plan the Pearl Roundabout protests. “Arrests began at two or three in the morning. People were dragged out of bed by armed men in ski masks and their houses smashed up. The Mukhabarat [secret police] set up a Twitter account and named people as traitors so that when they tried to leave the country they were picked up.” Hundreds remain in prison. Dismissals of some 2,000 people who stayed away from work during the unrest began at the same time. The destruction of around 30 Shia mosques has sharpened the sense of sectarian polarisation. Under pressure from the US, trials have been moved from military to civilian courts and two al-Wifaq MPs and a lawyer were freed at the weekend amid signs that more detainees would be released. But doctors and nurses from the Salmaniya hospital still face charges of occupying the building, hiding weapons, refusing to treat Sunni patients and inciting protests. Sunnis talk of boycotting Shia shops and Shia night workers complain of being stopped by police on their way home. “Even among lawyers there are tensions,” said a Sunni who defends Shia clients. “I am very pessimistic,” sighed Jassim, a Shia taxi driver whose startling cockney accent is a souvenir of years of work at the RAF base on Muharraq. “Things are much worse then before.” Shia journalists are smeared as traitors and fear harassment or worse if they cover Sunni events. “It’s been a big setback for all of us in Bahrain,” concluded Munira Fakhro, a Sunni member of the secular opposition Wa’ad party, whose leader Ibrahim Sharif is also behind bars. “We will either come out safe despite our wounds or the situation will deteriorate further.” Another middle-class professional woman reflected gloomily: “We sank very low. If we go any further people will start to leave. We were tearing ourselves apart.” Two things seem certain: repression without reform will not solve Bahrain’s problems and its citizen journalists will keep the story alive. “They are doing our job for us,” said a local photographer who works for international news agencies. “They set up webcams in the villages where there are clashes. It’s hard to get in and if you do you risk being arrested or hit by a tear gas grenade or worse. If the police catch you they make you erase your pictures. It happened to me once. After all, they are the ones with the guns.” Some names in this report have been changed Bahrain Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Ian Black guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Months after its brief exposure to the Arab spring, Bahrain’s cat-and-mouse routine of protest and repression continues • Bahrain’s prospects for democracy look bleak Hassan Ali Salman is a stocky, fit-looking young man. But he flailed in vain as the police officers grabbed him, one forcing his T-shirt up over his head as three or four others laid in with their batons, dragging and pushing him to a line of waiting Land Cruisers and more helmeted cops. Behind him, on a breezeblock wall, crudely drawn nooses encircle the names Hamad and Khalifa – the king of Bahrain and his uncle the prime minister – alongside graffiti demanding their execution and the overthrow of the regime. The recent scene in Sitra, a short drive from central Manama, the capital, provided an ugly glimpse into the cat-and-mouse routine of protests and repression in this Gulf island state. Filmed secretly, posted on YouTube and distributed on Twitter, it exposes what Bahrain’s western-backed government prefers foreigners not to see. In the nearby cemetery lies the grave of Zainab al-Juma, a disabled woman who died in July after inhaling tear gas from a police grenade. The black flag that marks her “martyrdom” hangs limp in the hot, still air. Another local victim was Ahmed Farhan, shot in March, his brains spilling out of his shattered head live on camera as horrified screams sounded all around. Bahrain is far quieter now than during its brief exposure to the winds of the Arab spring in February and March, but unrest continues. Every night cries of “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) echo through the villages of a Shia underclass that has chafed under the Sunni Al Khalifa dynasty since independence from Britain in 1971. “We go up on to the roofs and shout and then try to march to the entrance of our village,” said Abu Ali, a thirtysomething accountant and former prisoner from Karzakan who supports al-Wifaq, the Islamist movement demanding democracy and equal rights for all. “The repression is getting worse.” Haydar, from nearby Diraz, described a savage beating, curses and threats of rape as he was forced to kiss the boots of the police officers who tormented him on 26 June. “They pulled my shirt over my head and every hundred metres they hit me in the face and kicked me,” he said. Captain Ahmed of Manama’s police special forces unit insists his job is simply to “protect citizens” and that he and his men are reluctant to make arrests or use force. “If we catch someone they are in trouble,” he said. “They can lose their job or be thrown out of their studies and that will be on their files for good. Of course we take action if they try to harm us.” The night the Guardian joined his four-vehicle patrol the radio network reported small crowds gathering but there were no beatings or shootings. Young men waiting in the shadows in Sanabis, part of a Shia “triangle of steadfastness”, ran off when the Land Cruisers roared up, blue lights flashing as the police officers scrambled out, helmet visors down, to demolish the makeshift roadblocks, their gas grenade launchers at the ready. “It’s not just kids,” a police lieutenant said. “They are organised quite professionally with co-ordinated actions in different places at the same time.” Still, this is basically a public order problem, not a war or – despite the brave rhetoric – a Palestinian-style intifada. Ahmed hopes Bahraini municipalities will respond to police requests to remove the wheels from rubbish bins to stop them being used to barricade roads. Central Manama is calm. Pearl Roundabout in the commercial heart of the city has been wiped off the map , its famous statue has been destroyed and the only clue to its status as Manama’s “Tahrir Square” are two or three armoured cars and a refuse cart emblazoned with the name of a radical Shia leader, Hassan Mushayma, a bogeyman for the regime and for Sunnis. Yet the underlying tensions remain. Pearl has been renamed Farouq junction, an epithet attached to the seventh-century Sunni Caliph Omar and bitter rival of Ali, the founder of Shia Islam. It’s one of the signifiers of dominance and prejudice that are part of the sectarian fabric of Bahraini life. Another is that state TV broadcasts only the Sunni call to prayer. Sheikh Ali Salman, al-Wifaq’s leader, prefers to talk of universal rights. “What Bahrainis want is the same as people elsewhere in the Arab world,” he said. “The government succeeded to some extent in portraying what happened here as a Shia-Sunni clash, though it was less successful in convincing anyone that there was Iranian involvement. It also tried to show that the opposition were terrorists. But there is one basic conflict – between those who support democracy and those who want to maintain the current dictatorship.” Al-Wifaq withdrew its 18 members from the 40-seat parliament in protest at the first killings of demonstrators in February, but remains committed to peaceful change. Enemies dismiss its moderate image and claim it is no different from Shia hardliners such as Mushayma, who called for a republic to replace the Al Khalifa dynasty, launched a campaign of civil disobedience and destroyed a dialogue between the opposition and the reformist Crown Prince Salman that might – just – have defused the crisis. The crackdown began in earnest on 15 March when most foreign journalists had been thrown out or diverted to Libya. “It was an anti-Shia pogrom,” said Hala, an activist who helped plan the Pearl Roundabout protests. “Arrests began at two or three in the morning. People were dragged out of bed by armed men in ski masks and their houses smashed up. The Mukhabarat [secret police] set up a Twitter account and named people as traitors so that when they tried to leave the country they were picked up.” Hundreds remain in prison. Dismissals of some 2,000 people who stayed away from work during the unrest began at the same time. The destruction of around 30 Shia mosques has sharpened the sense of sectarian polarisation. Under pressure from the US, trials have been moved from military to civilian courts and two al-Wifaq MPs and a lawyer were freed at the weekend amid signs that more detainees would be released. But doctors and nurses from the Salmaniya hospital still face charges of occupying the building, hiding weapons, refusing to treat Sunni patients and inciting protests. Sunnis talk of boycotting Shia shops and Shia night workers complain of being stopped by police on their way home. “Even among lawyers there are tensions,” said a Sunni who defends Shia clients. “I am very pessimistic,” sighed Jassim, a Shia taxi driver whose startling cockney accent is a souvenir of years of work at the RAF base on Muharraq. “Things are much worse then before.” Shia journalists are smeared as traitors and fear harassment or worse if they cover Sunni events. “It’s been a big setback for all of us in Bahrain,” concluded Munira Fakhro, a Sunni member of the secular opposition Wa’ad party, whose leader Ibrahim Sharif is also behind bars. “We will either come out safe despite our wounds or the situation will deteriorate further.” Another middle-class professional woman reflected gloomily: “We sank very low. If we go any further people will start to leave. We were tearing ourselves apart.” Two things seem certain: repression without reform will not solve Bahrain’s problems and its citizen journalists will keep the story alive. “They are doing our job for us,” said a local photographer who works for international news agencies. “They set up webcams in the villages where there are clashes. It’s hard to get in and if you do you risk being arrested or hit by a tear gas grenade or worse. If the police catch you they make you erase your pictures. It happened to me once. After all, they are the ones with the guns.” Some names in this report have been changed Bahrain Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Ian Black guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …WaPo Promotes Idea That Murdoch Endangered His Media Empire by Favoring One Party Too Much
August 8, 2011 No Comment
On the front page of its Style section, Monday's Washington Post highlighted PR combat between two right-leaning media tycoons — Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Both are mired in scandal, which might explain the Post's inside headline: “How do you say 'schadenfraude' in Italian?” They might be speaking for Berlusconi enjoying Murdoch's troubles, but it better explains the liberal media's loathing for both figures. Reporter Jason Horowitz trotted out the usual expert on the duo, Italian professor Fabrizio Perretti, a former fellow at Harvard, who proclaimed the amazingly silly media line that Murdoch has endangered his own business empire by favoring one party too closely — as if the Washington Post has never done anything of the sort with the Democrats: “As a media tycoon, you have to be involved in politics,” said Fabrizio Perretti, a professor at Bocconi University in Milan who studies the Italian media industry. “But when you are too close and favor one party, as Murdoch has done, or enter politics yourself, as Berlusconi has, at that point you risk losing all the things you had before.” The Horowitz piece was headlined “Clash of the media tycoons,” and the reporter highlighted how Berlusconi enjoyed painting Murdoch as too elderly and infirm to manage the family business as the Parliament hearing with the Murdochs unfolded: “He was touched,” said Fedele Confalonieri, Mediaset’s president, who is Berlusconi’s oldest friend. He and Berlusconi talked about how Murdoch “was changed. He looked older, less hair, and also he had some difficulties in hearing.” During an interview in the 19th-century corporate headquarters of Berlusconi’s media empire here, Confalonieri likened Murdoch to King Lear, then waxed philosophical, saying, “The humiliation of a mighty person is always something that touches you.” Confalonieri asserts that Murdoch and Berlusconi are “good fellows,” but there may be other motives for the Italians’ expressions of compassion. Berlusconi and his generals have a vested interest in depicting Murdoch as a has-been who, as Confalonieri put it, has been “weakened from the point of view of morality” by a scandal that has revealed his “true nature” as “aggressive,” “not honest” and, if the accusations against his company are true, “shameful.” Don't think the Washington Post minded promoting this spin.
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Lobsang Sangay, a Harvard-trained scholar who has never visited Tibet, takes the oath of office in Dharmsala, India A Harvard-trained legal scholar has been sworn in as the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, replacing the Dalai Lama as leader of his people’s fight for freedom. The Dalai Lama, 76, announced in March he would be giving up his political role as leader of the Tibetan exile movement , although he would remain the spiritual leader for Tibetan Buddhists. Lobsang Sangay, who was elected in April, was surrounded by hundreds of Buddhist monks and nuns, as well as the Dalai Lama, as he took the oath of office in Dharmsala, India, where the exile administration is based. Sangay has said he will follow the Dalai Lama’s approach of seeking increased autonomy for Tibet within China. However, China refuses to recognise Sangay’s authority. “We will continue the Middle Way policy. We are also willing to negotiate with the Chinese government any time, anywhere,” Sangay told crowds during the ceremony at the Tsuglagkhang temple. Sangay said he would work to fulfil the Dalai Lama’s vision of a truly secular democratic society. “Tibetan leadership is far from fizzling out … We are here to stay,” he added. Tibetans played traditional musical instruments and cheered as the Dalai Lama accompanied the leader to the temple for the brief ceremony. Later, the crowds applauded as the Dalai Lama hugged and blessed Sangay after the ceremony. Sangay’s election as the Kalon Tripa (prime minister) marks many firsts. He was born in the eastern Indian town of Darjeeling and has never visited Tibet. He is also the first secular leader to take over the political leadership of the Tibetan community. The Dalai Lama said he needed to resign as political leader because he feared chaos would erupt after his death, when the Chinese government and Buddhist monks are certain to argue over the identity of his successor. “Now, that danger is no longer there,” he told the Associated Press. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in northern India in 1959. The Indian government allowed him to establish the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharmsala, setting up schools, hospitals and housing for the hundreds of thousands of Tibetans who fled China over the past five decades. The Dalai Lama, who is worshipped as a near-deity by most Tibetans, said he would continue to advocate for the Tibetan people. He also promised to allow the exile government’s envoys to act in his name. China, which has vilified him as a separatist troublemaker but dislikes the exile government even more, is forcing him to remain involved. Chinese leaders have said they will only hold negotiations with his representatives. Dalai Lama Tibet India China guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …‘Incredibly exciting’ find implicates defect in RAD51D gene as hugely increasing the chances of developing ovarian cancer Scientists have pinpointed a rare gene variant that increases a woman’s risk of developing ovarian cancer six-fold. The discovery will lead to new diagnostic tests to identify the cancer earlier and provides better information to help doctors choose targeted anti-cancer drugs. Ovarian cancer can develop without many clear symptoms and is the fifth most common cancer in women. In the UK, 6,500 cases are diagnosed every year and, of those, almost 4,000 end in death. In the latest study, scientists found that, in around 60 cases of ovarian cancer every year in the UK, the women had faults in a gene called RAD51D. Anyone who inherits a faulty version of this gene, they calculated, therefore had a one in 11 chance of developing ovarian cancer, compared with one in 70 for the general population. “At this level of risk, women may wish to consider having their ovaries removed after having children, to prevent ovarian cancer occurring,” said Professor Nazneen Rahman, head of the division of genetics and epidemiology at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden hospital, who led the research. “There is also real hope on the horizon that drugs specifically targeted to the gene will be available.” Rahman’s colleagues have also showed that a new class of anti-cancer drugs going through clinical trials, called PARP inhibitors, are effective in killing ovarian cancer cells with RAD51D faults. In laboratory tests, the drugs killed 90% of cells that did not have a functioning RAD51D gene, compared with just 10% of cells where the gene was working properly. A decade ago, scientists found that the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes accounted for around 10-15% of ovarian cancers and there have been several findings since that show very small further contributions to the risk of developing the disease. In that context, Cancer Research UK described the discovery of RAD51D variants as a “landmark”. Rahman’s team looked at DNA from women in 911 families with breast and ovarian cancer, and compared it to the DNA from a control group of 1,060 people in the general population. The researchers found a series of eight faults in a gene called RAD51D in the women with ovarian cancer, compared with just one fault in the control group. Their work is published on Sunday in Nature Genetics . RAD51D seems to be important in the repair of damaged DNA so if it does not function properly, faults can build up in cells as they grow and divide. More faults means more opportunities for the cell to become cancerous. Professor Nic Jones, chief scientist at Cancer Research UK, said it was “incredibly exciting” to discover this high-risk gene for ovarian cancer. “It’s further evidence that a range of different high-risk genes are causing the development of breast and ovarian cancer and we hope there are more waiting to be discovered in different cancers.” He added that the results would also help inform personalised treatment for ovarian cancer and “give doctors better information about risks of cancer to tell patients”. Cancer Medical research Genetics Biology Cancer Health Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
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Officials say there were no casualties in incident involving Chinook, which Taliban claims to have shot down A Nato helicopter has made a “hard landing” in east Afghanistan on Monday but there were no apparent casualties, officials said. The incident occurred in the volatile Paktia province, and comes days after a Chinook helicopter crashed on Friday killed 38 troops – the largest single loss for foreign forces in 10 years. International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Lieutenant Colonel David Doherty confirmed there were no casualties in Monday’s incident. An investigation was under way but it appeared there was no enemy activity in the area at the time. However, a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed in a text message to Reuters that the group had shot down the helicopter, also a Chinook, in the Zurmat district of Paktia, and that 33 American soldiers had died. The Taliban often exaggerates, although it correctly identified the number killed in Friday’s Chinook crash in Wardak. The surge of military deaths is being matched by record casualties among civilians, who continue to bear the brunt of a war that started almost 10 years ago. On Monday, 300 Afghans took to the streets in Ghazni province carrying the bodies of two people they claimed had been killed during a raid by ISAF troops. The provincial deputy police chief, Mohammad Hussain, said the bodies have not yet been identified. Civilian deaths caused by fighting between foreign troops and insurgents have been a major source of friction between the government in Kabul and its western backers for some time. UN figures show those casualties hit record levels in the first six months of 2011, although it blamed 80% of them on insurgents. Another ISAF spokesman, Captain Pietro D’Angelo, said two insurgents had been killed after a patrol came under attack. “There are no reports of civilians harmed during this operation,” he added. Nato officials are still investigating the cause of a helicopter crash on Friday that killed 38 people , including 30 US soldiers, seven Afghans and an interpreter. The majority of those killed were from Navy Seal Team 6, the unit that killed Osama bin Laden, but are not the same personnel. The Taliban claim to have shot down that troop-carrying CH-47 Chinook in Maidan, Wardak province, and a US official in Washington, who asked not to be identified, also said the helicopter was believed to have been shot down. “We’re still not aware of the cause of the incident, this is a very vital part of the investigation,” Brigadier General Carsten Jacobsen, senior spokesman of the Nato-led ISAF, told a news conference. “The area in which the helicopter was operating was known to be not free of insurgents.” Meanwhile, at least another seven ISAF troops were killed over the weekend, four of whom in two separate attacks on Sunday, including two French legionnaires. The spike in casualties – at least 383 foreign troops have been killed so far this year, almost 50 of them in the first week of August – comes at a time of growing unease about the increasingly unpopular and costly war. US and Nato officials issued statements vowing to “stay the course” in Afghanistan after Friday’s Chinook, but the recent death toll will raise questions about how much longer foreign troops should stay in Afghanistan. The deaths came barely two weeks after foreign troops began the first phase of a gradual process to hand security responsibility over to Afghan soldiers and police. That process is due to end with the last foreign combat troops leaving at the end of 2014, but some US lawmakers are already questioning whether that timetable is fast enough. Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, issued a statement on Sunday saying that enemies of Afghanistan, such as the Taliban and other insurgents, wanted to disrupt the transition process. UN figures show that 1,462 Afghan civilians were killed in conflict-related incidents during the first six months of 2011, the deadliest period for civilians since the Taliban were toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. Foreign military deaths also hit record levels in 2010 with 711 killed. Afghanistan Taliban Nato Hamid Karzai United States guardian.co.uk
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