Greenpeace has set its sights on a new eco-villain: Barbie. The group says it has traced packaging used by Mattel and other toy companies to protected Indonesian rainforests, and they’re taking it out on Mattel’s perpetually well-accessorized doll, Reuters reports. Activists dressed like Ken descended on Mattel’s headquarters yesterday, unfurling…
Continue reading …Bonjour, American women. You have “traded places with France” when it comes to attitudes about the not-so-noble pursuits of men, writes Maureen Dowd in the New York Times . Consider that after the DSK scandal broke , “a spirited feminism” emerged in France, with women angrily demanding that the sexism there must…
Continue reading …It was inevitable: A purported photo of Anthony Weiner’s naughty bits (this time sans underwear) is now on the Internet, courtesy of radio hosts Opie and Anthony of Sirius, reports Mediaite . How it came to be: They had Andrew Breitbart on this morning, and he showed them the photo (yep,…
Continue reading …A Danish pharmaceutical company says it’s desperately seeking a way to stop US prisons from executing people with its epilepsy drug Nembutal. “We are horrified at this fact, and we are looking at ways to prevent prisons from getting this drug,” a spokesman for Lundbeck A/S said. “At first we…
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Major photography exhibition will mark Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Previously unseen pictures of a young and relaxed Princess Elizabeth by Cecil Beaton, one of the most celebrated of photographers, will join his formal portraits of the Queen at a major exhibition at the Victorian and Albert museum to mark the Diamond Jubilee, it was announced yesterday. The show at the V&A draws on more than 18,000 photographs, negatives and transparencies in the V&A’s collection of Beaton’s royal portraits. Alongside nearly 30 years of the Queen’s portraits, there will be excerpts from Beaton’s diaries and letters. Given the nature of Beaton’s commission, his work was up among the most widely viewed and published photographs of the 20th century, many of the portraits will be quite familiar. But the show’s curator, Susanna Brown, said there would be items not previously exhibited, including informal snapshots of the Queen preparing for her coronation day in 1953, and the golden coach returning to the palace afterward. There will also be unexhibited shots of the wartime bomb damage to Buckingham Palace during the blitz – it was hit nine times. Beaton prepared intensively and nervously for each sitting in an attempt to get the perfect portrait. “I think they got on very well,” said Brown. “I think she [the Queen] understood that he was a real asset to them: he could really help, in terms of their public profile, and his images were circulated so widely. We tend to forget that these images were made for PR purposes; they went all over the world.” Beaton took photographs of Elizabeth at various stages of her reign: as a 16-year-old on becoming colonel-in-chief of the Grenadier Guards, at her coronation, and after the birth of each of her four children. One unanswered question is why the final Beaton portrait of the Queen is a formal setting, in the palace’s Blue Drawing Room, from 1968: why none from the 1970s, when the photographer was very much continuing to work, up until his death, in 1980? A version of the V&A show will open at the McManus museum and gallery, in Dundee, before opening in London on 8 February; it will then tour Leeds, Norwich and Newcastle. Photography V&A Museums The Queen Monarchy Mark Brown guardian.co.uk
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Archbishop of Canterbury issues broadside against ‘radical policies’ and ‘big society’ project in New Statesman editorial Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, has issued a broadside against the coalition government, claiming it is forcing through “radical policies for which no one voted”. He also challenges the ‘big society’ project and criticises the government for continuing to blame the country’s difficulties entirely on the deficit it inherited from Labour. The comments come in an editorial he has written as guest editor of this week’s New Statesman magazine. Full extracts are not available , but Williams says the “anxiety and anger” felt by voters is a result of the coalition’s failure to expose its policies to “proper public argument”. He writes: “Government badly needs to hear just how much plain fear there is around such questions at present.” Williams accepts that the government’s big society agenda is not a “cynical walking-away from the problem”. But he warns there is confusion about how voluntary organisations will “pick up the responsibilities shed by government”, and says that the big society is seen with “widespread suspicion”. “The uncomfortable truth is that, while grass-roots initiatives and local mutualism are to be found flourishing in a great many places, they have been weakened by several decades of cultural fragmentation,” Williams writes. He also criticises the chancellor, George Osborne, saying: “It isn’t enough to respond with what sounds like a mixture of ‘This is the last government’s legacy,’ and ‘We’d like to do more, but just wait until the economy recovers a bit.’” The archbishop challenges the government’s approach to welfare reform, complaining of a “quiet resurgence of the seductive language of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor”. In comments directed at the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, Williams criticises “the steady pressure” to increase “punitive responses to alleged abuses of the system”. Westminster politics “feels pretty stuck” he warns, adding that his aim is to stimulate “a livelier debate” and to challenge the left to develop its own “big idea” as an alternative to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance. The coalition is facing “bafflement and indignation” over its plans to reform the health service and education, he writes. “With remarkable speed, we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted,” the archbishop says. “At the very least, there is an understandable anxiety about what democracy means in such a context.” He complains that the education secretary Michael Gove’s free-school reforms passed through Parliament last summer with little debate, using a timetable previously reserved for emergency anti-terrorism laws. Separate reforms to universities will see tuition fees treble and funding for humanities courses cut. Williams says education “might well be regarded as a proper matter for open probing”. But “the feeling that not enough has been exposed to proper public argument” has created “anxiety and anger” in the country. Britain needs a long-term education policy “that will deliver the critical tools for democratic involvement, not simply skills that serve the economy”, he says. In a separate guest column for the magazine, the chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, argues that religion already does the big society’s job – and does it better. Sacks writes: “A powerful store of social capital still exists. It is called religion: the churches, synagogues and other places of worship that still bring people together in shared belonging and mutual responsibility. The evidence shows that religious people – defined by regular attendance at a place of worship – actually do make better neighbours”. The reason for this is simple, Sacks argues: “Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good.” Rowan Williams Liberal-Conservative coalition Liberal Democrats Conservatives New Statesman Newspapers & magazines George Osborne Economic policy Education policy Religion Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Syrians are fleeing to Turkey as residents of Jisr al-Shughour brace for a military assault, with troops in tanks and armored vehicles approaching the now nearly empty town. Turkey promised to accept the refugees as its prime minister, who has had a good relationship with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, called…
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Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s finance minister blames bomb attack on his home on his Zanu-PF coalition partners A senior government minister in Zimbabwe has warned of “an atmosphere of poison” reminiscent of Rwanda on the eve of the genocide that left 800,000 people dead in the 1990s. Tendai Biti, finance minister in the fragile unity government, was reacting to a bomb attack on his home that he said could have killed his young children. Biti blamed the incident on the military, the Zanu-PF party and president Robert Mugabe. He said the power-sharing agreement between Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change , of which he is secretary-general, is now effectively dead. “My fear is that Zanu-PF will create an atmosphere of hate and an atmosphere of poison,” said Biti. “There are shades of Rwanda in January 1994. I just hope we avoid a Rwanda where the military is in control, law and order breaks down and there is total violence.” The petrol bomb exploded at Biti’s official residence in the capital, Harare, at around 1am on Monday, destroying part of a wall and frightening neighbours. The minister and his wife, Charity, and their children Zoe, 10, and five-year-old Thabo, were some 250km (155 miles) away at the time. “When I drove back and saw the damage, I realised someone could have been killed,” Biti said. “To the extent that I have children who run around the garden, I felt quite cross. I understand what they are trying to do; they are trying to intimidate me. It’s not Santa Claus any more.” He said the trail of suspicion ultimately led to Mugabe’s door. “My place is supposed to be guarded, but they have not been providing guards since March. They [the attackers] would have known there were not guards. “It was clearly someone with skill, clearly not an amateur. The only people with that skill in Zimbabwe is the military. They will have been acting on the instructions of Zanu-PF. The president is head of Zanu-PF.” In 2009 Biti, effectively Morgan Tsvangirai’s No 2 in the MDC, was sent a 9mm bullet and a death threat telling him to prepare his will. Last year he was nearly killed in a car crash. Yet he denied suggestions that the threat to his family might prompt him to walk away . “I’m not afraid of Zanu-PF and I’ll not be afraid of Zanu-PF. They will never intimidate me to resign. “But what I’m really worried about is where are we going as a country because of selfish leadership. There is a leadership vacuum. The reality is we are working with people who are incorrigible, who are living in another century, who are interested only in looting.” He gave one of his most pessimistic assessments yet of the coalition government, formed in February 2009 after a disputed election in which, the MDC says, 253 people were killed and thousands tortured. Mugabe has suggested fresh polls should be held next year , raising fears of another wave of violence. “Any member of the MDC would have to seriously consider whether this inclusive government is working,” said Biti . “To a large extent, it isn’t. To a large extent, it’s a waste of time. “Some of us who went into this government were against it, saying Zanu-PF is not ready for a genuine partnership. The events of the last few weeks show those who said this have been proved right. These people [Zanu-PF] are on a different planet.” On the other hand, he acknowledged, the government has provided some stability for millions of Zimbabweans, rescuing the economy from collapse and slowly rebuilding public services. But asked about the future of the power-sharing agreement, Biti said frankly: “I think this thing is really dead. It’s a shadow, a pretence of something that is dead. But my suspicion is it will linger on.” Zimbabwe Rwanda Robert Mugabe Morgan Tsvangirai Africa David Smith guardian.co.uk
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Dictators must ‘change or be changed’ says ex-PM as western leaders urged to prepare wider plan for Middle East Tony Blair warns the west today that it urgently needs a wider plan to respond to the Arab spring, including a warning to autocratic leaders across the Middle East “to change or be changed”. His call for a clearer strategic approach comes in a new foreword to the paperback edition of his bestselling autobiography, The Journey. The former prime minister also praises Europe, and by implication David Cameron, for showing leadership in Libya, saying it would have been inconceivable to leave Muammar Gaddafi in power. He said that if America and Europe had done nothing, “Gaddafi would have retaken the country and suppressed the revolt with extraordinary vehemence. Many would have died.” If he had been left in power while the west was willing to see President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt deposed, “the damage to the west’s reputation, credibility and stature would have been not just massive but potentially irreparable. That’s what I mean by saying inaction is also a decision.” Blair does not call for immediate military intervention across the region, saying instead that “where there is the possibility of evolutionary change, we should encourage and support it. This is the case in the Gulf states.” He hails the way in which “Europe and America came together over Libya and, though it is difficult and though the way things will turn out is uncertain, it showed leadership; and amongst the criticism, there was also – in the region – relief that leadership was shown”. While praising European and US efforts in Libya, Blair also calls for an elected European president who would have a mandate for far-reaching reforms including collaborating on taxes. In an interview in the Times he says such an office would give Europe “strong, collective leadership and direction”. But he accepts that the idea has “no chance of being accepted at the present time”. In his book, Blair acknowledges that the west cannot intervene across the Middle East and claims some leaders are “already embarking on a path of steady change. We should help them keep to it and support it. None of this means we do not criticise strongly the use of violence against unarmed civilians. Or that if that violence continues, we do not reserve the right then to move to outright opposition to the status quo, as has happened in Libya. But it is more sensible to do so in circumstances where the regime has excluded a path to evolutionary change. Then it is clear: the people have no choice. But if there is a process that can lead to change with stability, we should back that policy.” He adds: “My point is simple: we need to have an active policy, be players and not spectators sitting in the stands, applauding or condemning as we watch.” He says that the lesson for autocratic regimes the world over is to change – or be changed. Largely in line with the policy laid out at the G8 summit of most industrialised nations in Deauville last month, he says: “We should stand ready to help with aid, debt relief and the muscle of the international financial institutions, but we should also be quietly insistent that such help won’t succeed unless proper rules and order are put in place.” Blair, still the special envoy of the quartet in the Middle East, admits the Arab spring is going to make it harder to secure a Palestinian peace deal since Israel is less certain about the nature of the threat it faces. The stability and predictability of Israel’s neighbours, he says, has been replaced by instability and unpredictability. “For similar reasons, but with an opposite conclusion, the Palestinian leadership find it hard to go into negotiation with an Israeli partner they don’t trust, to make difficult compromises which will be tough to sell, in circumstances where they don’t know the regional context into which such compromises will be played.” Blair also warns more broadly that the world has not yet adjusted to the emergence of China as a global economic giant, saying “engagement with geopolitics of the 21st-century will be unlike anything the modern world has seen. Our children in the west will be a generation growing up in a situation where virtually every fixed point of reference that my and my parents’ generation knew has changed or is changing”. He claims energy security will become as serious an issue for the nation states as defence. Blair says: “Currently China consumes around 10% of worldwide demand for oil. If its GDP per head carries on rising – and follows the path of similar increases in living standards in South Korea and Taiwan, say – the world output will need to double, and China’s share of demand will rise from 10% to 50%.” He also questions the way in which the EU leaders have led the debate about its future, saying “there has been an obsession about institutional integration in itself rather than a debate about what we want to do as Europe, where the institutions should be at the service of the policy, rather than the policy at the service of institutions”. Arab and Middle East unrest Tony Blair Middle East Palestinian territories China Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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