ABC's George Stephanopoulos went beyond challenging assumptions from Ann Coulter's newest book “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America” on Tuesday, as he repeatedly attempted to correct her on historical facts. The former Clinton advisor interrupted her multiple times on Tuesday's Good Morning America to make a point that she was either wrong or lying about history. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts, said the late Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Yet Stephanopoulos interrupted Coulter as she claimed that the Ku Klux Klan in the South was Democratic. “Started out Democratic, but turned very quickly,” Stephanopoulos asserted. [Click here for audio. Video below the break.] That depends on the meaning of “quick.” The Ku Klux Klan advocated anti-Republican violence in the post-Civil War years, and its resurgence in the early 20th century was due to Democrats; in fact, the Klan had quite a large voice at the 1924 Democratic National Convention. The Southern Klan had strong ties to the Democratic Party, and the South was heavily Democratic into the 1960s. Coulter replied that the Klan never turned Republican and Stephanopoulos abruptly changed the subject. He then hit Coulter for alleging that the Civil Rights movement was an unruly mob while defending violence for the pro-life cause. Coulter corrected him, saying that she was comparing the two groups and not defending violence. Coulter later profiled civil rights icons Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall as at odds over the methods they used to achieve civil rights for African-Americans. Marshall made legal arguments and won court cases while King led street protests. Stephanopoulos retorted the two figures “would see themselves as allies.” Coulter replied “They did not,” before backing up her claim by citing a letter where Marshall criticized King. A transcript of the segment, which aired on June 7 at 8:15 a.m. EDT, is as follows: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So much to talk about this morning with the always-provocative Ann Coulter. She's had seven best-sellers, never shies away from a hot debate. And you can tell from the title of her new book “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America” that she's ready for a few more debates. And Ann, welcome. I want to get to the book in just a second, but we've got to begin with Congressman Anthony Weiner. You almost predicted it last week. ANN COULTER: Yes I did. Thank you for noticing that. In fact, he used almost the same terms in his press conference yesterday as I did in my column. He Twittered this by mistake, he thought it was a private tweet, sent it to his whole list, panicked, and claimed he had been hacked. STEPHANOPOULOS: Now I think we might be able to agree on at least one thing, that sex scandals know no party. COULTER: (Laughing) No that's true, but I would say, consistent with the theme of my book “the liberals behave like a mob,” that conservatives respond to their sex scandals differently because we don't elevate our leaders. There isn't a sort of messiah worship, a mob characteristic. We're worried about being consistent. We aren't comfortable with contradictory thinking. The only Republican sex scandal where the Republican didn't resign or not run for re-election is Vitter down in Louisiana, and that was – STEPHANOPOULOS: After soliciting prostitutes – COULTER: – but that was seven years earlier. By the time it broke he had – he had apologized to his wife. It was over. It came out when the D.C. Madame releases her list. And by the way, everybody knew there were Democrats on that list. STEPHANOPOULOS: Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, held on as well for a long time. COULTER: Well a brief time, but the basic Republican response is not to attack the person who just releases information. And by the way, congratulations to ABC – you guys owned the Weiner story, you did all of the reporting. But the way – I mean, all the reporting on this last week was to attack Andrew Breitbart, attack some random hacker – I don't know who broke the Mark Foley story. I don't know who broke – STEPHANOPOULOS: Actually ABC was on top of that one as well. COULTER: And by the way, we were upset about that, because I believe you guys – that's the only one where I remember the source at all, and the claim was that ABC had it but they held it until the day after Foley couldn't be replaced. STEPHANOPOULOS: Oh, that's not true. Anyway, let's get to the book, “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.” You write, and this – I think this is a fair quote to pull from the book. You say basically “Republicans are the party of peaceful order; Democrats are the party of noisy, violent mobs.” And you say it's rooted in the Democrats following the French Revolution, Republicans following the American Revolution. Explain that. COULTER: Yes. Well, the first part is sort of a psychological profile of the Left. So even liberals who are wondering why they behave the way they behave might want to read it, because it explains it, and it's all mob psychology from this French psychologist – or social psychologist, Gustave Le Bon, who is the father of group-think, and Hitler and Mussolini studied him to learn how to incite mobs. And as I was reading a lot of books on mobs and group-think, I mean everything just describes the behavioral patterns of the Left. And then the middle section, I go through the American tradition, which is to write arguments like the Declaration of Independence – that's what we celebrate, what the do the French celebrate? Bastille Day, where a bunch of lunatics stormed an empty prison, because they thought it was unsightly and it was based on rumors. And if you look at the history of the Left in this country – including the Klan in the South, which was Democratic, contrary to revisionist history – STEPHANOPOULOS: Started out Democratic, but turned very quickly. COULTER: Not to Republican. It was never Republican. STEPHANOPOULOS: You take on the Civil Rights movement, and that's where it seems that you fall into some contradictions. You seem to suggest that that is part of the mob, yet this was a peaceful mob almost entirely, yet you seem to express some kind of understanding for anti-abortion protesters who use violence. COULTER: No, no, no, no, no, I'm comparing the two, actually. I think they're very similar. And the reason I raise the Civil Rights movement is that gave mobs a halo, because that was the first time mobs were being deployed – STEPHANOPOULOS: Because it was peaceful. It was civil disobedience. COULTER: No, it was – the cause behind it. Up until then, from the beginning of the Revolution to the Shay's Rebellion to the draft riots here in New York City by Democrats lynching blacks, it was always – the Left, it was Democrats, it was the SDS, the Weathermen, mobs have always been a bad thing. The Civil Rights movement was the first time in this country it started to give street protests – I mean not all street protests are going to be a mob, but my point on this – well, two different things. One is comparing Martin Luther King to Thurgood Marshall who, sort of surprising to me, became a hero of this book because when I was in law school he was just signing on to all of the opinions with Justice Brennan, I just thought of him as a liberal. But his history – I mean, it is the tradition of the American Revolution. He's making arguments, he's bringing court cases, he is winning them. In 1954 he won Brown v. Board of Education. If there had been Republican presidents for that eight years, nine years, from '60-'68, you never would have had the Civil Rights movement. STEPHANOPOULOS: I wish we had more time. I think Marshall and King would see themselves as allies – COULTER: They did not. I quote Thurgood Marshall criticizing Martin Luther King. STEPHANOPOULOS: Ann Coulter, thanks very much.
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US president in dead heat with rival as ABC-Washington Post poll shows public unhappiness with state of economy Barack Obama’s hopes of re-election to the White House next year took a knock on Tuesday with the publication of a poll showing him in a surprise dead heat with one of his Republican rivals, Mitt Romney. The bounce in the polls that Obama received after the death of Osama bin Laden in early May has disappeared. The new poll shows public unhappiness with the slow pace of recovery from recession. Romney’s jump to parity with the president is remarkable given that, until now, there has not been much enthusiasm even among Republicans for him. Only last Thursday did he formally declare that he will be seeking the party’s nomination to take on Obama. During a press conference at the White House with German chancellor Angela Merkel , Obama played down the prospect of a double-dip recession but acknowledged concern about unemployment and petrol prices. The latest unemployment figures show a jump to 9.1% and Obama said he did not know if this was a one-month aberration or reflected a long-term trend. “I’m not concerned about a double-dip recession,” he said. “I am concerned about the fact that the recovery we’re on is not producing jobs as quickly as I want it to happen.” He admitted the economy remained “skittish” and that “recovery was going to be uneven”. Although Obama remains favourite to secure re-election, he could struggle if he goes into next year’s election with unemployment still high. The ABC-Washington Post poll showed Obama and Romney on 47% each among all Americans surveyed, and Romney on 49% and Obama on 46% among registered party members, who are among those most likely to vote. Another poll published by Public Policy Polling shows Romney in the lead in the early key states of the Republican nomination battle. Romney was widely predicted to take New Hampshire and Nevada but struggle in social conservative Iowa and hardline rightwing South Carolina. But the PPP poll shows him on 27% in South Carolina against Sarah Palin’s 18%. Earlier PPP polls showed him with a 6% lead over rivals in Iowa, 15% in Nevada and 23% in New Hampshire. Obama has dropped a long way from the heady days after his 2009 inauguration, when he enjoyed poll approval ratings of 70% to 80%. Over the last year, he has been struggling to get above 50%. The death of Bin Laden gave him a modest bounce, to around 55%. He won in 2008 partly because of a backlash against George Bush and partly because of his rhetorical skills, backed by a strong campaign organisation and high levels of fund-raising. But some of the states he took last time were only by slim margins, and he could struggle to repeat victories in states in the west and midwest and in places such as Virginia. He is already building up his campaign team, setting up organisations in many more states than in 2008, and is hoping to double his campaign funding to a billion dollars. The ABC-Post poll suggests Romney has solidified his position as Republican frontrunner. When Obama was matched against other potential Republican rivals, the president enjoyed a lead. The president was six points ahead of Newt Gingrich among registered voters, nine points head of Tim Pawlenty, 10 points ahead of Jon Huntsman, 11 points ahead of Michelle Bachmann, and 15 points ahead of Palin. As well as unemployment and petrol prices, Americans are expressing concern about the size of the federal deficit, the size of the country’s debt held by China, and continued falling house prices. The poll showed six out of 10 of those surveyed saying they did not believe recovery had yet begun. Sixty-six per cent said they thought the country was going in the wrong direction economically. Barack Obama Mitt Romney US elections 2012 United States US politics US economy Republicans Economics Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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Rebel leaders in Misrata feel prepared for battle but say they have been told not to cross certain ‘red lines’ Tension between Libyan rebels and Nato commanders is growing over the military tactics being used to put pressure on Colonel Gaddafi’s forces. Rebel leaders in Misrata say they are being urged not to launch further pushes against regime troops to the east of the city, and claim they have been told not to cross certain “red lines”, even though they feel prepared for battle. The frustration on the ground has been heightened by their belief that Gaddafi’s troops are demoralised and depleted after nearly three months of conflict. While coalition officials insist they have not issued any direct orders not to attack, they concede they are worried about civilians being caught up in further chaotic fighting, and do not want rebel troops being accidentally hit in bombing raids by Nato warplanes. These continued on Monday, when Tripoli experienced what was perhaps the heaviest daylight bombardment by Nato since the airstrikes began in March. RAF Typhoon and Tornado jets dropped more than two dozen bombs, targeting the headquarters of the secret police in the heart of the city, and a major military base on its outskirts. The Guardian spoke to rebel commanders from the Black Brigade and the Swehdi Brigade in Misrata, who said they felt constrained from launching pre-emptive assaults. Khalid Alogab, a section commander in the Libyan rebel Black Brigade, said the western alliance had given rebel units firm instructions not to cross into certain areas. “The red line, we cannot cross,” he said. “If we get the order from Nato we can go. We can capture Tarhuga [a town to the east] in two hours.” Alogab said orders had come from Misrata command that the Black Brigade was to stay put, and that the alliance had designated the eastern front as a red line. Salem Shneshah, a Black Brigade medic, added: “We should move, we want to move. But Nato told us we must stay here.” On the far side of Misrata, members of the Swehdi brigade – named after the city’s most famous resistance hero from the last century, Ramadan Swehdi – told a similar story. “Nato say we must be behind the red lines,” said Feraz Swehli, one of Ramadan’s ancestors. Rebel army spokesman Commander Ibrahim Betalmal confirmed that Nato orders, rather than tactical considerations, were preventing his army from pushing forward. “We have been given instructions to stay on the border,” he said. He added: “No doubt Nato will help a great deal in clearing the way forward for us.” Nato says it has not issued formal red lines to the rebels, but acknowledges that there is real danger to their forces if they stray into zones that are being targeted by missile and bombing strikes. The coalition needs to know the areas that are safe to bomb and clear of civilians, said a source. “Nobody wants a return to the kind of confusion there was before. Nato has a very clear duty to ensure that civilians are not caught up in the fighting.” While coalition commanders have great respect for the courage of the rebels, they also fear they remain relatively disorganised. Describing the latest attacks by RAF aircraft in Tripoli, Major General Nick Pope said jets had used guided “paveway” bombs to target a police building from which Gaddafi “was engaged in the brutal repression of the civilian population”. Libya Nato Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
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When it came to covering Anthony Weiner’s recent scandal, Jon Stewart had quite a dilemma. Stewart has been friends with Weiner for decades, but couldn’t simply ignore the story on The Daily Show. So when it came down to it, Stewart said he learned a lesson covering the scandal. (LIST: Top 10 Awkward Press Conferences)
Continue reading …So Goolsbee will be gone soon . Is this a signal that the administration wants to take a new direction, or will they replace him with someone just like him, because to do otherwise is to admit they’re doing something wrong on the economy? WASHINGTON — The White House says Austan Goolsbee, a longtime adviser to President Barack Obama, will resign his post as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers this summer to return to teaching at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Goolsbee has been the face of the White House on economic news, and is a regular every first Friday of the month explaining the administration’s take on the latest jobless numbers. Goolsbee served on the three-member economic council since the start of the administration. He advised Obama during his 2004 Senate race and was senior economic policy adviser during the 2008 presidential campaign. Here’s Ezra Klein on the news: For two years now, economists on both sides of the political aisle have been begging Congress to cut the obvious deal: significant short-term stimulus paired with two or three or four times as much long-term deficit reduction. We’re nowhere near cutting that deal. About half of official Washington is now pretending that tax cuts have nothing to do with deficits and tax increases have no place in closing deficits, a position even conservative economists consider extreme. Is that why Austan Goolsbee is leaving? Perhaps not. The Chicago economist has been with Obama since the campaign (and in fact worked on his initial Senate campaign). That’s a long time to be in the political pressure cooker. It’s a long time to be away from your university, and to ask your family to accomodate a new city and new hours and new responsibility and new notoriety. But it can’t have helped. If Goolsbee was spending his days crafting major economic policy to help the country dig out of this hole rather than trying to wanly explain that a slow recovery is nevertheless a recovery, the job would’ve been rather harder to vacate. Which suggests that the real question isn’t who his replacement will be, but whether he or she will matter. The job of the CEA chair is to give the president good economic advice. That’s a very important job if the president can take your advice. It’s a very dispiriting job if he can’t .
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Admission by Theresa May comes during launch of revised Prevent strategy, which will target al-Qaida and its affiliates The home secretary, Theresa May, has conceded that money from the £63 million anti-radicalisation budget has been given to “the very extremist organisations that Prevent should have been confronting”. She said Prevent, originally launched in 2007 to counter the growth of home-grown terrorism, “failed to tackle the extremist ideology that not only undermines the cohesion of our society, but also inspires would be terrorists to seek to bring death and destruction to our towns and cities”. The revised strategy, launched on Tuesday, “must be targeted against those forms of terrorism which pose the greatest risk to our national security”, currently al-Qaida and those they inspire, she said. “In trying to reach out to those at risk of radicalisation, funding sometimes even reached the very extremist organisations that Prevent should have been confronting. “We will not make the same mistakes.” May also said the strategy should “recognise and tackle the insidious impact of non-violent extremism, which can create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and can popularise views which terrorists exploit”. The home secretary said funding would be removed from organisations that “do not support the values of democracy, human rights, equality before the law, participation in society”. “If they don’t accept these fundamental and universal values, then we will not work with them and we will not fund them,” she said. “Prevent has not been without controversy. In the past, it received allegations that it was a cover for spying. These allegations have been found to be false. But now we will make sure that this is seen and known to be the case. “Let me be clear – we will not fund or work with organisations that do not subscribe to the core values of our society. “Our new Prevent strategy will challenge the extremist ideology, it will help protect sectors and institutions from extremists, and it will stop the radicalisation of vulnerable people. Above all, it will tackle the threat from home-grown terrorism.” The review found 30% of people convicted for al–Qaida-associated terrorist offences in the UK between 1999 and 2009 were known to have attended university or a higher education institution. Another 15% studied or achieved a vocational or further education qualification and about 10% were students at the time when they were charged or the incident for which they were convicted took place, the review said. Terrorism policy UK security and terrorism al-Qaida Global terrorism guardian.co.uk
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Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari is the among the best known of many thousands of Syrians detained since mid-March “If we want to live in a free country,” Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari wrote on her blog on 27 April, “we must begin by living as though we are already in a free country.” And so the 35-year-old Syrian, an outspoken lesbian, feminist and anti-government protester, continued to post highly critical entries on the blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus, even as the security situation in her home country became ever more precarious, and her own position increasingly at risk. She was teargassed, arrested and detained with other protesters at demonstrations in March and April; at one rally she saw a young man shot dead in front of her. But “for those of us who have taken part in the protests,” she wrote, “there’s no going back. For decades, we were afraid; be too critical of the regime, be seen as stepping out of official views, and one might expect a visit from the security police or a trip to a jail. Be more vocal and publicly call for the overthrow of the government and be prepared for either exile or death. Those of us who criticised things were very careful with our words and the forums we raised criticisms in. Now, though, everything has changed; too many have crossed those lines for there to be a going back.” Late in April, two men from the Syrian security services came to her house late at night to arrest her; her father stood up to them and they left. A week later, however, both she and her father had been forced into separate safe houses, moving from house to house, meeting only in disguise. Her American mother (Araf holds dual citizenship) and other family members had fled to Beirut, but her father, from an old and respected family, was determined to stay in Damascus, and so Araf stayed too, continuing to blog: “Our revolution will win; we will have a free and democratic Syria soon. I know it in my bones.” On Monday evening, Araf was silenced, for now at least. En route to a rendezvous with co-ordinators of the protest movement, she was snatched from a Damascus street by three armed men and bundled into a vehicle. Despite the frantic efforts of her father and wider family, nothing has been heard from her since. Araf’s kidnap, by men her family believe are members of Syria’s security services, makes her one of the best known of many thousands who have been detained since protests bubbled up across the country in mid-March, swelling to become one of the bloodiest and most protracted of the Arab Spring’s popular uprisings. According to Amnesty International , at least 750 people have been killed by the security forces; as many as 10,000 have been picked up by one of the country’s diverse security service groups, many of them held incommunicado. At least 12 people have died in custody, and reports of torture are common. Though Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad , announced an amnesty last week for those detained before 31 May, Amnesty says the releases have been selective and ad hoc, and called for the immediate release of all detainees. Even before the latest unrest, bloggers and others challenging the government had been regularly locked up. Tal al-Mallouhi , a 20-year-old Palestinian-Syrian blogger from Homs, was sentenced to five years in jail in February, accused of spying for the US. Other bloggers and dissidents have faced similar fates. Though she had begun her blog in February principally as a defiant declaration of her sexuality and to explore lesbian and gender issues in Syria, Araf was rapidly swept up in the popular protests, and began writing impassioned, exhilarated, often very moving posts about her country and its longed-for future. “What a time to be in Syria! What a time to be an Arab! What a time to be alive!” she wrote on 24 March. A week later, expressing her dismay at Assad’s refusal to grant expected reforms, she wrote: “Come Friday, when Jumaa prayers are done, we will be out, in every city and every street, calling with one voice: “SOURIYA! AL HOURIYA!” FREEDOM!” The blog also contained extracts from an unpublished autobiography, detailing her teenage years in the US; she also wrote of her love of science fiction and Gil Scott Heron, and posted erotic lesbian poetry. At one point, her father laughingly reveals, she had been “on the list” forof those charged with finding a suitable wife for the man who is now Syria’s president, and who went on to marry a British-Syrian, Asma al Akhras . Why hadn’t he put her forward? “Do you think I hate you? I would not wish to be related to them.” But Araf was also clear about the risks she was running, writing chillingly about the regime’s use of torture in a post entitled “Why we fight” . Torture, she wrote, is “routine and normal”. “It is what all of us expect. It is why we keep our nails as short as possible so they can’t be pulled off. It is why we were slow to come out into the streets … It is why you don’t see so many women in the protests. What do you think happens to women who get picked up?” The following Araf had gained was evident when, within minutes of her disappearance being reported, campaigns were launched on Facebook and elsewhere to free her, with Syrian activists tweeting extracts from her blog. Some hours after reporting her disappearance, Araf’s cousin Rania Ismail, whom she had asked to post to her blog if anything happened to her, wrote a brief update . “I have been on the telephone with both her parents and all that we can say right now is that she is missing … We do not know who took her so we do not know who to ask to get her back. It is possible that they are forcibly deporting her. From other family members who have been imprisoned there, we believe that she is likely to be released fairly soon. If they wanted to kill her, they would have done so. That is what we are all praying for.” Nidaa Hassan is a pseudonym for a journalist in Damascus Syria Middle East Esther Addley Nidaa Hassan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …While everyone else has their head turned at the latest shiny thing, please note what is taking place with regard to the budget talks. The Hill: House Republicans on Friday introduced legislation that would allow workers to partially opt out of Social Security immediately, and fully opt out after 15 years. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, and several other Republicans introduced the Savings Account for Every American (SAFE) Act. Under the bill, workers would immediately have 6.2 percent of their wages sent to a “SAFE” account each year. That would take the place of the 6.2 percent the workers now contributed to Social Security. Another 6.2% is sent to Social Security by employers. Under the Sessions bill, employers would continue to make this matching contribution to Social Security, but after 15 years, employers could also send that amount to the employee’s SAFE account. Sessions said this transition to a private retirement savings option is needed because Social Security last year began paying out more money than it took in. Repeat after me: Republicans want to privatize everything, starting with Medicare and Social Security. This proposal is no different than what Bush proposed. Digby: Of course, what this would really do is remove money from the Social Security system right now, thus endangering the system for all older workers who will still be in the system 15 years from now. I’m beginning to wonder if my demographic group is going to be the guinea pig in a Soylent Green experiment. (Sure, they’ll eventually figure out that his whole thing is unworkable, but it will be too late for the last half of the baby boom.) Will someone please notify the Democratic messaging machine? Digby is exactly right: They want to strip Social Security of cash flow at the time where they need it the most. By the way, the Social Security trust fund has a surplus intended to deal with the expected actuarial projections of negative cash flow, so that’s just another bogus excuse for Republicans to further dismantle the social safety net.
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With its tablet-like controller, the Wii U is a seriously weird piece of kit. But, yet again, once you get your hands on it, a multitude of new gaming experiences tumble out of it. And the machine will have more hardcore appeal, too. When looking at the Nintendo Wii U, it’s important to remember that when the Wii launched in 2006, some people laughed at the console’s intention to “disrupt” gaming. It didn’t look like a disruptive piece of kit – but it was. The proof lies in the fact that Microsoft and Sony subsequently felt obliged to create the Kinect and Move, not to mention the entire generation of people it introduced to video games. But surely it couldn’t pull of the same trick again with Wii U? Oh yes it can. Although there was trepidation mixed in with the excitement when we pitched up at Nintendo’s still half-built booth at E3, on the day before the press conference at which it would launch Wii U, for an ultra-exclusive sneak preview of the new console. Which was conducted in a gloriously cloak-and-dagger manner – a wristband had to be obtained, security insisted we hide our press badge, we were given a lengthy list of questions we couldn’t ask, photography and audio-recording devices were strictly banned, and we had to wait outside a demo room sealed by a blast-door that would tax a professional safe cracker. Upon entering the inner sanctum, Wii U itself, although apparently hooked up to a big screen, initially remained concealed – indeed, the console remained a shadowy presence throughout, partly hidden in a cupboard. What we could see of it resembled a slightly more rounded Wii, but in truth, it looked like a prototype not yet given the benefit of an industrial designer. We were told that none of the games we would be playing were actual games, but rather tech-demos. And our first glimpse of anything running on the console was emphatically that: a lengthy fly-through in an immaculately constructed virtual Japanese garden, from the viewpoint of various birds, designed to show off Wii U’s graphics-processing power. Which was impressive if not jaw-dropping – on a par with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, running in full HD, with depth of focus and convincingly modelled water and weather effects. We had established that Wii U will be able to run the sort of third-party titles that currently only make it onto the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but before long, we began to yearn for some signs of Nintendo’s fabled disruptive gameplay. What the hell is that? They weren’t long in coming. With a theatrical flourish, the new controller was produced. On clapping eyes on it, our initial reaction ran thus. What? The hell? Is that? The controller is one of the strangest bits of kit you will ever see. It basically resembles an unholy mating of a tablet PC and a gamepad. It’s huge – you need both hands to grip it – and dominated by a massive, 6.2in touchscreen. It has two analogue sticks, all the buttons you would expect to find on a gamepad (including two triggers on the back plus two bumpers, which weren’t used during the demo), a camera pointing at you and a tiny speaker. It motion-senses like a Wiimote and has a gyro-sensor like the 3DS. The whole shebang basically has most of the elements found in the PlayStation Vita (bar the processor and graphics chips), and is much bigger than Sony’s new handheld. It’s clearly not something you can wave around with abandon like the Wiimote, so we initially found it more than a little confusing. Luckily, the chance to experience some proper gameplay was at hand, and the point of the new controller became clearer. Nintendo had been banging on about how that bizarre piece of design was all about providing new gameplay experiences, and from the off, there was no disputing that it delivers on that count. Mii Chase The first tech-demo we played – although it looked suspiciously like a mini-game that you might find in a Wii U version of Wii Play – was called Mii Chase. On entering the room, we had noticed a collection of Wimotes, which seemed odd, but Mii Chase rammed home the message that part of the point of the new controller is about interplay with the familiar remote control. Mii Chase was an ultra-simple game for up to five people. I would navigate Mario, using the new controller, around a maze-like circular level, while four people equipped with Wiimotes would, after I had been given a head-start, try to chase me down within a certain time. The twist was that they had to share a split-screen on the TV, whereas my screen on the new controller showed a third-person view of my character, plus a top-down map with the whereabouts of my pursuers. In gameplay terms, this was almost laughably simple, yet the whole experience felt fresh and innovative, as well as fun. The need for the pursuers to co-operate generated a raucous atmosphere, yet the private information communicated by the new controller’s screen meant I could stay one step ahead of them. If you think about it, there are an awful lot of Wiis out there, and if people are going to upgrade to Wii U, they’ll be thankful that those Wiimotes, at least, won’t become redundant. So to create gameplay from the interplay between the two types of controller could just be a stroke of genius. Battle Mii Next up was Battle Mii, in a similar vein to Mii Chase, but somewhat more sophisticated. Battle Mii is a first/third-person shooter, with two people (playing as their Miis) on the ground, armed with a gun and three lives each. The person with the new controller pilots a hover-ship (equipped with six lives), using the analogue sticks as if piloting a helicopter in a game, while shooting with one trigger and using the other to zoom. Tilting the controller changed your camera view, so you could use that to aim. Again, the dynamic was Wiimotes versus new controller. There was a Metroid theme to proceedings – the ground-based characters could roll into a ball like Samus – and health and armour power-ups. The gameplay experience was very different according to whether you were on the ground or in the air and, again, Battle Mii felt refreshingly unlike anything we had played before. Shield Pose Shield Pose showed that Wii U isn’t just about the tension between the new controller and Wiimote-wielding adversaries. It used the new controller on its own, and required no pressing of buttons whatsoever. The premise was endearingly madcap: a bunch of pirates on three ships – one central, one to the left and one to the right – plus the moon above were firing arrows at you, and you had to use the new controller as a shield. There was a rhythm element, too: you had to raise the new controller from the horizontal at just the right time (on a musical cue), then lower it, also with the rhythm, to shake the arrows off. The head pirate called which direction the arrows would come from, and after a while you would have to raise the new controller and point it in various directions before shaking off your arrows. Simple, again, but completely original – and there was an endearingly humorous element to the game. More tech-demos Our hands-on finished with two more tech-demos. The first, Panorama View, had nothing obvious to do with anything recognisable as a game, but was startling and impressive. It was simply video footage taken from a car driving down a Kyoto city street. Or rather, stitched-together video from several cameras, as you could use the new controller’s gyro-sensor to move your viewpoint around, as if you were actually in the moving car – looking up, down behind and around. The last demo was blandly entitled HD Experience, but it will excite Nintendo fanboys. It was essentially a cut-scene depicting what a Zelda game would look like on Wii U set in a huge, gothic interior, with Link taking on a giant spider-boss. Nintendo had mapped various functions onto the new controller’s touchscreen, such as toggling the lighting between day and night, and scrolling through different camera angles. There was also a map, and you could press a button to switch images between the new controller’s screen and the TV screen. It demonstrated that the new controller’s touch-screen can operate much like the touch-screen on a 3DS, letting you access inventory and so on. So will Wii U eclipse the Wii? Initial impressions would leave us answering that question with a resounding “Yes”. In typical Nintendo fashion, Wii U is one of those objects that you have to get your hands on before you get what it is trying to achieve. The new controller is such an odd, unlikely-looking thing that it will undoubtedly generate a wave of early cynicism. But the joyously unusual nature of the gameplay experiences that even a couple of hastily assembled tech-demos can engender bodes more than well. And its sensible amount of under-the-bonnet grunt (an area in which the underpowered Wii suffered from its inception) gives it much more hardcore appeal than its predecessor. After the demo was over Nintendo, bless it, treated us to a final element of cloak-and-daggerishness. We were told more facts about Wii U, which had to be read out and transcribed only onto paper. So here they are: the console itself will run in full HD, via HDMI, but the touchscreen isn’t HD. The console has internal Flash memory which can be augmented with “SD Card or USB solutions”. It will play optical disks and downloadable content, and will be backwards-compatible with Wii software. And it will launch some time between 1 April and 31 December 2012. It will be the oddest console ever, and possibly the best, too. Or it may turn out to be a complete cul-de-sac. But one thing is for sure: it won’t just be another generic games console. E3 2011 Games E3 Nintendo Wii PS3 Xbox Microsoft Steve Boxer guardian.co.uk
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Attempt to overhaul UN sanctions regime hangs on Russia, INdia and China dropping objections, says German diplomat An attempt by western powers to kickstart peace talks with the Taliban by overhauling the United Nations’ sanction regime against the hardline movement and its al-Qaida allies hangs on whether Russia, India and China can be persuaded to drop their objections, a senior diplomat said. Germany’s ambassador to the UN, Peter Wittig, said his country was engaged in “intensive negotiations” with foreign partners over a range of changes to the UN’s “1267 list”, a collection of 450 people deemed to be associated with the Taliban and al-Qaida. Under the proposed plans, two separate lists would be created, one for each militant organisation, giving the Afghan government much greater say over which Taliban would be on the new list, which – like the existing system – would make it hard for named individuals to travel internationally or to have a bank account. Wittig said the split would recognise the “different fields of action” between the two organisations, with the Taliban “restricted basically to Afghanistan” while al-Qaida operates globally. “Separating those two things highlights the significance of the political efforts that are ongoing in Afghanistan,” he said. Wittig said the Afghan government, which supports the changes, would be given greater control over a “more flexible” Taliban list. The negotiations about reform coincide with a request by the Afghan government to remove about 50 of the 138 names currently listed as Taliban. The proposed names are either no longer actively involved in the insurgency or are not regarded as posing a terrorist threat. Particularly significant are five individuals who are members of the High Peace Council, a body established by the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to lay the grounds for peace talks. Last week the Guardian reported that the UK and US were backing the changes in the hope they would encourage the Taliban to engage in peace talks with Karzai’s government. Wittig, who is also chairman of the UN’s al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions committee, said the proposals – which include “sunset clauses” to prevent individuals languishing on the sanction list indefinitely – remained controversial with some of the 15 members, and unanimous agreement would have to be achieved by 17 June. Russia, which suffered heavy losses during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, is seen as the main block to the proposals. Moscow fears that the Taliban continues to maintain important links with al-Qaida, and is sceptical that the Islamist movement can be incorporated into a political settlement in Afghanistan. Wittig said the Russians were still open to discussions and Afghan officials would be lobbying Moscow to back the changes. It is hoped that the other leading doubters, India and China, will follow Russia’s lead. It is unusual for the committee to consider delisting a large number of people with Taliban associations in one go. A decision on whether to remove them will be required by next Friday and Wittig predicted that it was very unlikely all of them would be struck off. Delisting has long been plagued with difficulties, including the problem of collecting accurate information on many individuals, some of whom are believed to have been dead for many years. “We have to manage expectations,” Wittig said. “Not all of that 50 will be delisted but if we can come up with a couple of names that would send a good signal, I think.” The sanctions, which were first imposed in 1999 when the Taliban was still in power, have long angered former high-ranking officials in the Taliban regime now living peacefully in Kabul. It is hoped that sanctions reform and the delisting will send a signal to insurgent leaders that the Afghan government is serious about allowing fighters to come out of hiding. It could also allow those with continued ties with the movement to travel to a proposed overseas Taliban “office” where it is hoped all sides of the conflict could hold discussions. Taliban Afghanistan Russia Germany United Nations China India Jon Boone guardian.co.uk
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