Openly-gay CNN anchor Don Lemon dug back to a May 16 interview with liberal Joy Behar to smear GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum just before Monday night's Republican primary debate. Behar then said of the socially-conservative Santorum that he “seems like a big homophobe,” and Lemon made sure Friday to reference that smear and put Santorum on the defensive. As NewsBusters reported Friday, Lemon badgered Santorum in an airport over his positions on gay marriage. The CNN segment featured an abbreviated portion of the interview, and Lemon aired the extended version Sunday evening on the 7 p.m. EDT hour of Newsroom. [Video below the break.] Lemon labeled Santorum as “very decisive and very divisive on social issues” to introduce the interview. Then he tried to frame Santorum's support for amending the Constitution to protect traditional marriage as contradictory to his small-government conservatism. After that he brought out the smear. “I was recently on Joy Behar and she said that, she called you I think it was – I'm paraphrasing – bigoted or homophobic or what have you,” Lemon said to Santorum. Apparently, what Joy Behar says represents the highest in opinion journalism. In the May 16 interview with Behar, Lemon claimed he could still be objective in covering the gay rights debate. “I don't think just because I'm gay that it makes, it takes my brain away…or it makes me not be objective,” he told Behar. However, Lemon has a history of pro-gay bias, as NewsBusters has documented . After the Santorum interview, when Lemon was hosting a Sunday panel to discuss the interview, he hit Santorum from another angle. He declared that “many people find” that Santorum “has said some pretty disturbing things about gay people” and has “ostracized them and moved them into a corner.” A transcript of the segment, which aired on June 12 at 7:24 p.m. EDT, is as follows: DON LEMON: And we are back. Coming to you live from New Hampshire on the campus of St. Anselm College where CNN is getting ready for tomorrow night's GOP presidential debate. Hold on. All right. That's better. CNN released a fascinating poll ahead of the debate. We asked whether the government should be promoting traditional values. Now here's the response: 46 percent said yes but 50 percent said no. Why is that important? Because it's the first time the percentage in the “yes” column has fallen below 50 percent since CNN first started asking the question in 1993. That number should be very interesting to candidates like Rick Santorum, someone who is very decisive and very divisive on social issues. Here is what he had to say when I caught up with them. I want you to take a listen. (Video Clip) RICK SANTORUM, GOP presidential candidate: You know go to my announcement speech, I didn't talk about social issues. I talked about the impact of Obama care on jobs and the economy. I talked about the huge debt that we have and the obligation it deal with that. I talked about entitlement reform. I talked about the Ryan plan. You know, in all due respect, I think the media is fixated on trying to – this is how the media works, they try to pigeon-hole candidates. They're this kind of here – they fit this niche. They fit that niche. Well the interesting thing I think in my candidacy is that I fit all of the niches. I am someone who's strong on social issues but I'm strong on national security issues. There's nobody who has the experience or the levels of accomplishment that I have on national security; no one has – and
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Click here to view this media Actually, it’s conservatives who ought to be afraid of Sarah Palin. Were she to win the Republican nomination, she would probably end the Republican party as a force in American politics for decades. But Hannity is undeterred. He is convinced in this segment where he laughs at liberal efforts 24,000 Palin emails that such a thing would a) never happen if the tables were turned; and b) is happening because liberals are just simply terrified of Sarah Palin. I spent some time reading through the emails this weekend. I focused on key points: the last 4 months where she was nominated as McCain’s running-mate, April 2007 when Trig was born, and the early days of her administration. Other than the one email with the Koch mentions, they paint a picture of someone who is fairly disengaged in the day-to-day need-to-know information, focuses on signature accomplishments but leaves their implementation and analysis to others, and who loves her Blackberry. She can spell fairly well, is best when she’s unhappy with someone in her administration or the press, and fights for socialist ideas like distributing royalties back to Alaskans from drilling in the state. If one thing surprised me, it was how moderate she was in certain respects. She didn’t deny climate change, fought hard so Alaskans would receive the maximum royalty dividend possible as early as possible, and especially fought for a gas pipeline through Alaska into Canada to boost revenues and business interests. Besides the gasline, she was passionate about a parental notification bill which failed in the state senate. Alternative energy was a big part of her agenda, too, at least to the extent that she paid lipservice to it. Equally obvious was how disconnected she was from the operations of the government she governed. Here’s a notable example . On June 30, 2008, Leo Von Scheben from the Alaska Department of Transportation wrote to Palin for approval of a transaction with a deadline of July 3rd. Her response? “Why must this be done in the next day or two?” To which he replied as patiently as anyone could that the deadline was um, July 3rd. That style is characteristic. In the nightmare where she is elected President, I can imagine her texting and tweeting everyone in the White House with “where are we on this or that” over and over but having no clue what they’re actually doing, because that’s how she ran Alaska. It’s one thing to manage things and another to hire staff, sit back and hound them via Blackberry followups about where they are on things. The other picture the emails paint is one where she’s pretty obsessed with her public image. She stomps her feet at mean bloggers and reporters, while playing up the PR wherever possible for the friendly ones. The term that came to mind for me was “spokesmodel”. It’s what she did best — the public events and the bells and whistles, but I don’t really see where she ever climbed down in the weeds far enough to actually know what it was she was cheering for half the time. Oh, and she just loves Sean Hannity to death. Nothing but good things, so there’s that. But Hannity is completely off base when he says liberals are afraid of Palin. It isn’t liberals. It’s the true conservatives who actually understand policy that should be afraid of what she can do, given enough populist momentum.
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Experts divided on whether ‘deeply complex’ procedure, previously only carried out on animals, is safe for humans A woman in Nottingham has agreed to donate her womb to her infertile daughter if doctors gain permission to attempt the groundbreaking transplant operation. Eva Ottosson, 56, the director of a lighting company, said she would offer her uterus to her 25-year-old daughter, Sara, who cannot have children because of a serious birth defect that left her without a womb. If the operation goes ahead – at a hospital in Sweden – Sara could conceive and carry a child in the same womb she herself was born from, but serious technical hurdles must be cleared if the procedure is to succeed.The operation is experimental and still at a premature stage in animal studies. Only a handful of mice have been born from transplanted wombs and little work has been done in larger animals, such as pigs, rabbits and monkeys. The deeply complex nature of the operation carries serious risks for the donor and recipient, leading some doctors to claim the procedure is not ready to be performed in humans. “As a mother you have all these questions: have you thought it through; do you know what you are doing; how do you feel about having the same womb that you have been developed in yourself,” Eva Ottosson told the BBC. “Of course it’s major surgery and has its risks, but I trust them, I know they know what they’re doing. I’m more concerned about my daughter and what the impact will be for her,” she added. Sara Ottosson, a biology teacher who lives and works in Stockholm, has a rare condition called Mayer Rokitansky Küster Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, also known as Müllerian agenesis , in which the reproductive system begins to grow but never fully develops. Women with the disorder are typically born without a womb and fallopian tubes, and have vaginal malformations. Little is known about the cause of the condition, but like many of the one in 5,000 people born with the disorder, Sara only became aware of the problem when she failed to begin menstruating as a teenager. While a small number of womb transplants have led to healthy births in experiments with mice, the procedure is almost completely untested in humans. In 2000, doctors in Saudi Arabia transferred a womb from a dead donor into a 26-year-old woman, but had to remove the organ three months later when it developed a blood clot and began to die. Sara Ottosson is one of seven patients who have undergone tests to assess their suitability for the operation under a programme run by Mats Brännström, a leader in the field of experimental womb transplants at Gothenburg University in Sweden. The operation could go ahead next year. If the operation is approved, Sara would have surgery to transplant her mother’s uterus before an IVF embryo created from her eggs and her partner’s sperm was transferred. A successful transplant would be temporary, with the uterus being removed two to three years later to avoid medical complications. Any birth would be via caesarean section.The operation is technically more demanding than a heart, kidney or liver transplant. Among the greatest risks are life-threatening haemorrhage and an insufficient blood supply to the womb. Sara has said she will consider adoption if the transplant operation does not go ahead or fails to result in a baby. Some 15,000 women of childbearing age in Britain were born without a uterus or had the organ damaged or removed by illness, such as cancer. In 2009, a team of surgeons and vets led by Richard Smith at Hammersmith Hospital in London reported several womb transplant operations in rabbits, though none of the animals became pregnant and carried young. The research has stalled in Britain through a lack of funding and scepticism from some in the medical community. The work is due to resume this year with support from an independent charity, Uterine Transplant UK. Medical research Health Health & wellbeing Ian Sample guardian.co.uk
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Experts divided on whether ‘deeply complex’ procedure, previously only carried out on animals, is safe for humans A woman in Nottingham has agreed to donate her womb to her infertile daughter if doctors gain permission to attempt the groundbreaking transplant operation. Eva Ottosson, 56, the director of a lighting company, said she would offer her uterus to her 25-year-old daughter, Sara, who cannot have children because of a serious birth defect that left her without a womb. If the operation goes ahead – at a hospital in Sweden – Sara could conceive and carry a child in the same womb she herself was born from, but serious technical hurdles must be cleared if the procedure is to succeed.The operation is experimental and still at a premature stage in animal studies. Only a handful of mice have been born from transplanted wombs and little work has been done in larger animals, such as pigs, rabbits and monkeys. The deeply complex nature of the operation carries serious risks for the donor and recipient, leading some doctors to claim the procedure is not ready to be performed in humans. “As a mother you have all these questions: have you thought it through; do you know what you are doing; how do you feel about having the same womb that you have been developed in yourself,” Eva Ottosson told the BBC. “Of course it’s major surgery and has its risks, but I trust them, I know they know what they’re doing. I’m more concerned about my daughter and what the impact will be for her,” she added. Sara Ottosson, a biology teacher who lives and works in Stockholm, has a rare condition called Mayer Rokitansky Küster Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, also known as Müllerian agenesis , in which the reproductive system begins to grow but never fully develops. Women with the disorder are typically born without a womb and fallopian tubes, and have vaginal malformations. Little is known about the cause of the condition, but like many of the one in 5,000 people born with the disorder, Sara only became aware of the problem when she failed to begin menstruating as a teenager. While a small number of womb transplants have led to healthy births in experiments with mice, the procedure is almost completely untested in humans. In 2000, doctors in Saudi Arabia transferred a womb from a dead donor into a 26-year-old woman, but had to remove the organ three months later when it developed a blood clot and began to die. Sara Ottosson is one of seven patients who have undergone tests to assess their suitability for the operation under a programme run by Mats Brännström, a leader in the field of experimental womb transplants at Gothenburg University in Sweden. The operation could go ahead next year. If the operation is approved, Sara would have surgery to transplant her mother’s uterus before an IVF embryo created from her eggs and her partner’s sperm was transferred. A successful transplant would be temporary, with the uterus being removed two to three years later to avoid medical complications. Any birth would be via caesarean section.The operation is technically more demanding than a heart, kidney or liver transplant. Among the greatest risks are life-threatening haemorrhage and an insufficient blood supply to the womb. Sara has said she will consider adoption if the transplant operation does not go ahead or fails to result in a baby. Some 15,000 women of childbearing age in Britain were born without a uterus or had the organ damaged or removed by illness, such as cancer. In 2009, a team of surgeons and vets led by Richard Smith at Hammersmith Hospital in London reported several womb transplant operations in rabbits, though none of the animals became pregnant and carried young. The research has stalled in Britain through a lack of funding and scepticism from some in the medical community. The work is due to resume this year with support from an independent charity, Uterine Transplant UK. Medical research Health Health & wellbeing Ian Sample guardian.co.uk
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Russia, China and India concerned about ‘strategic partnership’ in which Americans would remain after 2014 American and Afghan officials are locked in increasingly acrimonious secret talks about a long-term security agreement which is likely to see US troops, spies and air power based in the troubled country for decades. Though not publicised, negotiations have been under way for more than a month to secure a strategic partnership agreement which would include an American presence beyond the end of 2014 – the agreed date for all 130,000 combat troops to leave — despite continuing public debate in Washington and among other members of the 49-nation coalition fighting in Afghanistan about the speed of the withdrawal. American officials admit that although Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, recently said Washington did not want any “permanent” bases in Afghanistan, her phrasing allows a variety of possible arrangements. “There are US troops in various countries for some considerable lengths of time which are not there permanently,” a US official told the Guardian. British troops, Nato officials say, will also remain in Afghanistan long past the end of 2014, largely in training or mentoring roles. Although they will not be “combat troops” that does not mean they will not take part in combat. Mentors could regularly fight alongside Afghan troops, for example. Senior Nato officials also predict that the insurgency in Afghanistan will continue after 2014. There are at least five bases in Afghanistan which are likely candidates to house large contingents of American special forces, intelligence operatives, surveillance equipment and military hardware post-2014. In the heart of one of the most unstable regions in the world and close to the borders of Pakistan, Iran and China, as well as to central Asia and the Persian Gulf, the bases would be rare strategic assets. News of the US-Afghan talks has sparked deep concern among powers in the region and beyond. Russia and India are understood to have made their concerns about a long-term US presence known to both Washington and Kabul. China, which has pursued a policy of strict non-intervention beyond economic affairs in Afghanistan, has also made its disquiet clear. During a recent visit, senior Pakistani officials were reported to have tried to convince their Afghan counterparts to look to China as a strategic partner, not the US. American negotiators will arrive later this month in Kabul for a new round of talks. The Afghans rejected the Americans’ first draft of a strategic partnership agreement in its entirety, preferring to draft their own proposal. This was submitted to Washington two weeks ago. The US draft was “vaguely formulated”, one Afghan official told the Guardian. Afghan negotiators are now preparing detailed annexes to their own proposal which lists specific demands. The Afghans are playing a delicate game, however. President Hamid Karzai and senior officials see an enduring American presence and broader strategic relationship as essential, in part to protect Afghanistan from its neighbours. “We are facing a common threat in international terrorist networks. They are not only a threat to Afghanistan but to the west. We want a partnership that brings regional countries together, not divides them,” said Rangin Spanta, the Afghan national security adviser and the lead Afghan negotiator on the partnership. Dr Ashraf Ghani, a former presidential candidate and one of the negotiators, said that, although Nato and the US consider a stable Afghanistan to be essential to their main strategic aim of disrupting and defeating al-Qaida, a “prosperous Afghanistan” was a lesser priority. “It is our goal, not necessarily theirs,” he said. Though Ghani stressed “consensus on core issues”, big disagreements remain. One is whether the Americans will equip an Afghan air force. Karzai is understood to have asked for fully capable modern combat jet aircraft. This has been ruled out by the Americans on grounds of cost and fear of destabilising the region. Another is the question of US troops launching operations outside Afghanistan from bases in the country. From Afghanistan, American military power could easily be deployed into Iran or Pakistan post-2014. Helicopters took off from Afghanistan for the recent raid which killed Osama bin Laden. “We will never allow Afghan soil to be used [for operations] against a third party,” said Spanta, Afghanistan’s national security adviser. A third contentious issue is the legal basis on which troops might remain. Afghan officials are keen that any foreign forces in their country are subject to their laws. The Afghans also want to have ultimate authority over foreign troops’ use and deployment. “There should be no parallel decision-making structures … All has to be in accordance with our sovereignty and constitution,” Spanta said. Nor do the two sides agree over the pace of negotiations. The US want to have agreement by early summer, before President Barack Obama’s expected announcement on troop withdrawals. This is “simply not possible,” the Afghan official said. There are concerns too that concluding a strategic partnership agreement could also clash with efforts to find an inclusive political settlement to end the conflict with the Taliban. A “series of conversations” with senior insurgent figures are under way, one Afghan minister has told the Guardian. A European diplomat in Kabul said: “It is difficult to imagine the Taliban being happy with US bases [in Afghanistan] for the foreseeable future.” Senior Nato officials argue that a permanent international military presence will demonstrate to insurgents that the west is not going to abandon Afghanistan and encourage them to talk rather than fight. The Afghan-American negotiations come amid a scramble among regional powers to be positioned for what senior US officers are now describing as the “out years”. Mark Sedwill, the Nato senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, recently spoke of the threat of a “Great Game 3.0″ in the region, referring to the bloody and destabilising conflict between Russia, Britain and others in south west Asia in the 19th century. Afghanistan has a history of being exploited by — or playing off — major powers. This, Dr Ghani insisted, was not “a vision for the 21st century”. Instead, he said, Afghanistan could become the “economic roundabout” of Asia. Afghanistan US foreign policy Hamid Karzai Taliban al-Qaida Foreign policy Nato US military United States Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Russia, China and India concerned about ‘strategic partnership’ in which Americans would remain after 2014 American and Afghan officials are locked in increasingly acrimonious secret talks about a long-term security agreement which is likely to see US troops, spies and air power based in the troubled country for decades. Though not publicised, negotiations have been under way for more than a month to secure a strategic partnership agreement which would include an American presence beyond the end of 2014 – the agreed date for all 130,000 combat troops to leave — despite continuing public debate in Washington and among other members of the 49-nation coalition fighting in Afghanistan about the speed of the withdrawal. American officials admit that although Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, recently said Washington did not want any “permanent” bases in Afghanistan, her phrasing allows a variety of possible arrangements. “There are US troops in various countries for some considerable lengths of time which are not there permanently,” a US official told the Guardian. British troops, Nato officials say, will also remain in Afghanistan long past the end of 2014, largely in training or mentoring roles. Although they will not be “combat troops” that does not mean they will not take part in combat. Mentors could regularly fight alongside Afghan troops, for example. Senior Nato officials also predict that the insurgency in Afghanistan will continue after 2014. There are at least five bases in Afghanistan which are likely candidates to house large contingents of American special forces, intelligence operatives, surveillance equipment and military hardware post-2014. In the heart of one of the most unstable regions in the world and close to the borders of Pakistan, Iran and China, as well as to central Asia and the Persian Gulf, the bases would be rare strategic assets. News of the US-Afghan talks has sparked deep concern among powers in the region and beyond. Russia and India are understood to have made their concerns about a long-term US presence known to both Washington and Kabul. China, which has pursued a policy of strict non-intervention beyond economic affairs in Afghanistan, has also made its disquiet clear. During a recent visit, senior Pakistani officials were reported to have tried to convince their Afghan counterparts to look to China as a strategic partner, not the US. American negotiators will arrive later this month in Kabul for a new round of talks. The Afghans rejected the Americans’ first draft of a strategic partnership agreement in its entirety, preferring to draft their own proposal. This was submitted to Washington two weeks ago. The US draft was “vaguely formulated”, one Afghan official told the Guardian. Afghan negotiators are now preparing detailed annexes to their own proposal which lists specific demands. The Afghans are playing a delicate game, however. President Hamid Karzai and senior officials see an enduring American presence and broader strategic relationship as essential, in part to protect Afghanistan from its neighbours. “We are facing a common threat in international terrorist networks. They are not only a threat to Afghanistan but to the west. We want a partnership that brings regional countries together, not divides them,” said Rangin Spanta, the Afghan national security adviser and the lead Afghan negotiator on the partnership. Dr Ashraf Ghani, a former presidential candidate and one of the negotiators, said that, although Nato and the US consider a stable Afghanistan to be essential to their main strategic aim of disrupting and defeating al-Qaida, a “prosperous Afghanistan” was a lesser priority. “It is our goal, not necessarily theirs,” he said. Though Ghani stressed “consensus on core issues”, big disagreements remain. One is whether the Americans will equip an Afghan air force. Karzai is understood to have asked for fully capable modern combat jet aircraft. This has been ruled out by the Americans on grounds of cost and fear of destabilising the region. Another is the question of US troops launching operations outside Afghanistan from bases in the country. From Afghanistan, American military power could easily be deployed into Iran or Pakistan post-2014. Helicopters took off from Afghanistan for the recent raid which killed Osama bin Laden. “We will never allow Afghan soil to be used [for operations] against a third party,” said Spanta, Afghanistan’s national security adviser. A third contentious issue is the legal basis on which troops might remain. Afghan officials are keen that any foreign forces in their country are subject to their laws. The Afghans also want to have ultimate authority over foreign troops’ use and deployment. “There should be no parallel decision-making structures … All has to be in accordance with our sovereignty and constitution,” Spanta said. Nor do the two sides agree over the pace of negotiations. The US want to have agreement by early summer, before President Barack Obama’s expected announcement on troop withdrawals. This is “simply not possible,” the Afghan official said. There are concerns too that concluding a strategic partnership agreement could also clash with efforts to find an inclusive political settlement to end the conflict with the Taliban. A “series of conversations” with senior insurgent figures are under way, one Afghan minister has told the Guardian. A European diplomat in Kabul said: “It is difficult to imagine the Taliban being happy with US bases [in Afghanistan] for the foreseeable future.” Senior Nato officials argue that a permanent international military presence will demonstrate to insurgents that the west is not going to abandon Afghanistan and encourage them to talk rather than fight. The Afghan-American negotiations come amid a scramble among regional powers to be positioned for what senior US officers are now describing as the “out years”. Mark Sedwill, the Nato senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, recently spoke of the threat of a “Great Game 3.0″ in the region, referring to the bloody and destabilising conflict between Russia, Britain and others in south west Asia in the 19th century. Afghanistan has a history of being exploited by — or playing off — major powers. This, Dr Ghani insisted, was not “a vision for the 21st century”. Instead, he said, Afghanistan could become the “economic roundabout” of Asia. Afghanistan US foreign policy Hamid Karzai Taliban al-Qaida Foreign policy Nato US military United States Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …This is the kind of productive program that gets axed once Democrats catch that Geithner/Republican spending-cut fever, and it’s just sickening. I don’t think anyone disagrees that more pediatric specialists are needed The Obama administration’s bid to slash funding for training pediatricians at children’s hospitals is provoking intense protests from medical educators and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Earlier this year, the administration, as part of its 2012 budget, proposed terminating a program that provides more than $300 million a year to the 56 free-standing children’s hospitals around the country, which train 40 percent of the nation’s pediatricians and 43 percent of pediatric sub-specialists. In addition, it cut $48 million from the program this month as part of the overall spending reductions for the current year that were in the budget agreement reached with Congress. But children’s hospitals officials say ending the 12-year program, called the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education payment program, or CHGME, could cause a raft of problems. “I can certainly envision a scenario where we just can’t train enough folks,” said Josh Greenberg, vice president for government relations for Children’s Hospital Boston. “I think there’s a real danger that a confluence of factors is going to make access to care for kids incredibly difficult.” The program was enacted in 1999 to provide children’s hospitals with funding for residencies and fellowships, the training that physicians get in a hospital once they leave medical school. Although Medicare and other federal programs also provide funding for residencies, the bulk of the money goes to hospitals generally serving adults. Since the program was put into place, the number of pediatric residents has increased 35 percent , said James Kaufman, vice president for public policy for the National Association of Children’s Hospitals. That was a reversal of the 13 percent decline in the 1990s. Much of the increase, he said, is attributable to a rise in the training of pediatric sub-specialists.
Continue reading …USA Today Religion Reporter Slams Baptist Preacher for Tweeting That Rep. Weiner Needs Jesus
June 13, 2011 No Comment
A Baptist preacher calling a sinner to repent and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation is hardly news. Except, perhaps, when it's done via Twitter. USA Today religion blogger Cathy Lynn Grossman yesterday took seminary president and Twitter user Albert Mohler to task for this tweet sent on Saturday:
Continue reading …Tom MacMaster, heterosexual American, contrite over fictional lesbian blogger ‘Amina Abdallah Aral al Omari’ The male American PhD student who confessed to being an internet hoaxer masquerading as a lesbian blogger in Damascus has spoken publicly about the reasons behind his deception, saying he was motivated, in part, by his own “vanity”. Gay activists in Syria and further afield have reacted furiously to the revelation that the blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus , was written not by a 35-year-old woman kidnapped by security forces last week, but by Tom MacMaster, a married, 40-year-old American studying at Edinburgh University. Speaking via Skype video to the Guardian, MacMaster, who is on holiday in Istanbul with his wife, expressed some contrition for the blog, which he began in February after constructing an elaborate web identity for Amina Abdallah Aral al Omari, a fictional lesbian Syrian, over more than four years. He said: “I regret that a lot of people feel that I led them on. I regret that … a number of people are seeing my hoax as distracting from real news, real stories about Syria and real concerns of real, actual, on-the-ground bloggers, where people will doubt their veracity.” Informed that Syria’s official news agency, Sana, has leapt on the controversy, claiming the fictional blog had perpetuated “continuous fabrications and lies against Syria in term of kidnapping bloggers and activists”, MacMaster said: “Yep. I regret that.” He had started the blog, he said, because he believed online posts about the Syrian and Israel-Palestinian situations would earn “some deference from obnoxious men” if written under an Arab woman’s name rather than under his own, where “someone would immediately ask: why do you hate America? why do you hate freedom? This sort of thing.” He had made her a lesbian, he said, in an attempt “to develop my writing conversation skills … It’s a challenge. I liked the challenge. “I also had the thing that I like to write, and my own vanity is … if you want to compliment me, tell you like my writing … That’s how to make me happy.” But why had he exchanged many hundreds of emails with a woman in Canada, Sandra Bagaria, who believed herself to be having a romantic relationship with the blogger? “I feel really guilty about that … I got caught up in the moment and it seemed … fun. And I feel a little like shit about that.” He denied having been sexually excited by the interaction: “I don’t want to go into that aspect particularly of it.” The student, who was later photographed by the Guardian at an address in Istanbul, confirming his location there, denied having ever met Jelena Lecic, a London woman whose photographs he appropriated from the internet and passed off as images of Amina. “I found her photo on Facebook a while back and … when I saw her photo, I was like, that is Amina … So I just nabbed her photos and was using her.” During the course of his deception MacMaster masqueraded as “Amina” in direct communication with a number of news organisations, including the Guardian, whose correspondent in Syria had taken detailed steps, at some risk to the journalist, to meet the blogger. MacMaster had emailed the correspondent with a photograph, purportedly of Amina, which was in fact of Lecic. Gay activists in Syria have reacted with fury to the revelation of the blogger’s true identity and to the suggestion that MacMaster had written it in an attempt to help their cause. “There are bloggers in Syria who are trying as hard as they can to report news and stories from the country,” wrote Sami Hamwi, a pseudonym for the Damascus editor of GayMiddleEast.com . “We have to deal with [more] difficulties than you can imagine. What you have done has harmed many, put us all in danger, and made us worry about our LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] activism. Add to that that it might have caused doubts about the authenticity of our blogs, stories, and us.” MacMaster told the Guardian: “I am not happy about that. And I understand their concern … I don’t want to put anybody at risk, or increased risk. And in actual fact, some of my self-justification was that in having a completely fictional character being bold and forward, then it makes it easier for real people. Which is probably just a self-justification, but it was something that crossed my mind.” His post last Monday, in which he posed as a cousin of the blogger claiming she had been kidnapped by Syrian security services, “was, stupidly, my sort of ‘away message’”, written as he and his wife left for a holiday in Istanbul, he said. MacMaster’s wife, Britta Froelicher, is studying at the University of St Andrews for a PhD in Syrian economic development. He said she had not participated in the fiction. “She is a student of that region – Syria, specifically. She is extremely knowledgeable and obviously a great consultant for such a project. But I am the sole author.” Why was the going-away message “stupid”? “I wanted to shut down the whole blog for a while, and I was thinking I would phase out the character, and having her abducted was not the way to do it.” He had intended, he said, to post in a few days that Amina “had been released, had left the country and was not going to blog any more”. As questions about the identity of the mysterious blogger became more acute in the days after her supposed abduction, a number of individuals and bloggers, among them journalists from the website Electronic Intifada (EI), traced internet leads that increasingly pointed to MacMaster. Confronted by EI and by the Washington Post, MacMaster originally denied involvement, before admitting the hoax in a confessional post on the blog on Sunday. In that post, MacMaster said his intention had been in part to expose “the often superficial coverage of the Middle East and the pervasiveness of new forms of liberal orientalism”. Wasn’t there a very bitter irony, the Guardian asked, that a supposedly young Arab lesbian woman had been exposed as being the fictional creation of a heterosexual American man, and lacking an authentic voice of her own? MacMaster replied: “I am very aware the irony is 20 layers thick.” Did he accept that it was difficult to criticise the media for their coverage of the Middle East when he had lied explicitly to several news organisations? “Yeah, absolutely … I don’t feel incredibly happy with myself, you know. I wish in retrospect I would have done things very, very differently.” Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Gay rights Middle East Scotland Canada United States Esther Addley guardian.co.uk
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Environmentalists say settlers working for traffickers aiming to launder money or build airstrips have burned down huge tracts Cocaine barons and farmers have been accused of cutting down swaths of Guatemala’s rainforest to carve out airstrips and to launder drug money, threatening biodiversity and ancient Maya ruins. More than a fifth of the 2.1m-hectare tropical forest – Latin America’s biggest after the Amazon – has been burned and cleared by settlers who are often working for drug traffickers, according to environmentalists and human rights groups. Official figures show the Maya biosphere reserve has lost 21% of its cover since being declared a protected zone in 1990, with impoverished peasants allegedly acting as an advance guard for wealthy drugs-linked farmers. Others put the number even higher. “The narcos use violence and poverty as tools to push into the reserve,” said Claudia Samayoa, director of Udefegua, a human rights advocacy group. “They cultivate land, put in some cattle, but often it’s just a front.” Poverty, malnutrition, unequal land distribution and the lack of state services gave many such communities little alternative, she said. A colour-coded map recently published by Guatemala’s National Council of Protected Areas (Conap) showed the western half of the reserve covered in orange and red blotches, representing areas burnt more than three times. Some 306,000 hectares were lost between 2001-06, it estimated. The incursions are threatening the habitats of hundreds of species of birds and mammals, including jaguars, pumas and tapirs, as well as 3,000 types of plants and Maya archaeological sites. “If left unattended, these threats could spread eastward, undermining the economic productivity of the reserve and deteriorating (its) crucial role as a biological corridor at the heart of the tri-national Maya forest of Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico,” said Roan Balas McNab, Guatamala programme director of the Wildlife Conservation Society. The reserve’s eastern half, comprising about 1m hectares and the main Maya ruins of Tikal and Mirador, has remained relatively unscathed thanks to greater protection. An earth-mound firebreak which divides the reserve has become a de facto “shield” which deters illegal interlopers entering the east. Nevertheless Jeff Morgan, executive director of the Global Heritage Foundation, said drug trafficking and cattle ranching could sabotage efforts to promote tourism and protect key archaeological sites. “Conservation of Mirador is critical for Guatemala and the world and provides the best alternative for legal jobs and income.” In the past three years Conap reclaimed 110,000 hectares on the eastern side from an alleged drug lord who “bought” the land from peasants who had been given a 25-year lease to cultivate crops in return for managing the forest. Incursions into the western side appear to be growing. Dozens, possibly hundreds of airstrips have been hewed from the jungle. Traffickers transfer cocaine from small planes to vehicles which cross into Mexico. Cattle ranches are the bigger threat. On the four-hour drive from Flores to El Naranjo there is no forest, only pasture and the occasional cow and horse. Two environmental groups, which declined to be identified for security reasons, said narcos use ranches to build roads and basic infrastructure and to launder money. Last month armed men massacred 27 labourers on a ranch because the owner, who was not there at the time, allegedly stole 2,000kg of cocaine from Mexico’s Zeta cartel. The state encouraged settlers to “tame” the forest in the 1960s before deciding it would be better to conserve it and promote tourism. A spokesman for Cofavic, a peasant rights advocacy group, said its members were being smeared to justify violent evictions. “They call us narco helpers but we are victims.” Guatemala Drugs trade Mexico Amazon rainforest Belize Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk
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