Questions arise over identity of lesbian feminist blog’s author after apparent kidnapping by security forces US embassy officials in Syria are urgently seeking to establish further details about Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari – who according to a post on her blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus , was abducted by security forces on Monday evening – as questions emerged over the identity of the blogger. According to the blog, which has gained a growing following in Syria and further afield since popular protests against the government began in March, Araf was snatched by three armed men on a Damascus street and has not been heard from since. The update was signed by Rania O Ismail, who said she was Araf’s cousin. The blogger, who writes of her life as a lesbian feminist participating in the protests, has said that her mother is American and she is a joint US-Syrian citizen. Angela Williams from the US embassy in Damascus told the Guardian that US officials had not been able to confirm any of the details in the blog, and had no records of someone of that name living in Damascus. “We and our colleagues in Washington are continuing to attempt to ascertain more information about Ms Araf, including confirmation of her citizenship. We are unable to make a consular representation to the Syrian authorities on Ms Araf’s behalf without first determining that she is a US citizen.” Other questions have arisen over the identity of the blog’s author. A London woman, Jelena Lecic, issued a statement saying that photographs that had been published and widely circulated as being of Araf were in fact of her. The Guardian removed a picture after it received a complaint from Lecic, replacing it with another image supplied directly to the paper last month by the blog’s author. That picture has also been removed following a second complaint from Lecic, pending an investigation. Emails to an address supplied by Ismail have not met a response and the Guardian has been unable independently to verify Araf’s identity or that of her parents, in Syria or the US. No individual has been identified who can confirm they have met Araf or spoken to her by Skype or telephone. Activists in Syria frequently take elaborate steps to conceal their identities, often communicating by Skype or secure email rather than meeting face to face and using pseudonyms or multiple identities. At least 750 activists have been killed by security forces since the uprising began. 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. The Guardian last month published an interview with the blog’s author , conducted by a Damascus journalist who wrote under the pseudonym Katherine Marsh. Marsh was given an email for the blogger by a trusted Syrian contact, and suggested in extensive email correspondence that they meet in person or talk by Skype. The contact had never met Araf. Araf, who according to blogposts was living on the run, agreed to meet Marsh in person but did not turn up for the rendezvous. In later emails she said she had been followed, and so aborted the meeting. Araf told Marsh that Skype had been blocked, which was why she was unable to communicate by that means. The site is not blocked in Syria but was blocked from download, according to Marsh. On an earlier blog, dated December 2007, the author wrote she would post “samples of fiction and literature I am working on. This blog will have what may sometimes seem likely deeply personal accounts. And sometimes they will be. But there will also be fiction. And I will not tell you which is which.” Some experts on gay communities in the Middle East say that much on the blog feels authentic, but others have expressed unease about some of the details outlined in individual posts. Dan Littauer, executive editor of GayMiddleEast.com, told the Guardian his colleagues in Damascus were seeking to verify Araf’s identity, but were sceptical about the details of some incidents, including an account of security services turning up to arrest her but being sent away by her father. Sandra Bagaria, a Canadian who said she was an online friend of the blogger, told the New York Times that she had never met Araf or spoken to her on Skype, but said she had spoken to Ismail after Araf’s disappearance. Paula Brooks, the American executive editor of the blog Lezgetreal.com, which hosted several postings under Araf’s byline dating from before the uprising in Syria, said she too had corresponded only by email with the blogger. A search of the IP address on which Araf contacted Brooks can be traced to a server in Edinburgh, but the trail also leads to a number of untraceable servers. Activists keen to obscure their identities frequently use “proxy” servers to disguise the source of their postings. A number of internet sites appear to lend credence to the blogger’s story, but are extremely difficult to verify independently. Abandoned sites on Myspace and Linkedin appear to belong to the same person, as does a cached lesbian dating site page dated to 2007, in which “almondeyez” describes herself as “the coolest, sexiest half-Arab SF loving geek girl you’ll ever meet”. Many details on the sites are consistent with those outlined on the blog. A Facebook page apparently belonging to Ismail has also been identified. A post of erotic poetry, dating from 2007, is bylined Amanda L McClure, the “American” name which Araf says on her blog she could have taken (she identifies her mother as Caroline McClure Araf). It is not unusual for genuine bloggers writing under pseudonyms to face questions over the authenticity of their voice, including Salam Pax, the “Baghdad Blogger” who wrote a column for this newspaper and was a genuine Iraqi writer. A number of prominent blogs, including Plain Layne, supposedly the diary of a bisexual young woman, have been exposed as elaborate fictions, however. That blog was written by a man, Odin Soli, who now calls himself a writer of “online fiction”. The administrator of the Facebook page Free Amina Araf posted the following update: “At the time this site was created, there was no reason to doubt her authenticity of the story … We think it is possible that the writer of the blog is indeed in custody, in which case, it is important to continue to support her. Many people in Syria are forced to use alternative identities to protect themselves.” Syria Middle East Blogging Digital media Arab and Middle East unrest Newspapers & magazines Esther Addley Nidaa Hassan guardian.co.uk
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Institutions including Harvard and Vanderbilt reportedly use hedge funds to buy land in deals that may force farmers out Harvard and other major American universities are working through British hedge funds and European financial speculators to buy or lease vast areas of African farmland in deals, some of which may force many thousands of people off their land, according to a new study. Researchers say foreign investors are profiting from “land grabs” that often fail to deliver the promised benefits of jobs and economic development, and can lead to environmental and social problems in the poorest countries in the world. The new report on land acquisitions in seven African countries suggests that Harvard, Vanderbilt and many other US colleges with large endowment funds have invested heavily in African land in the past few years. Much of the money is said to be channelled through London-based Emergent asset management, which runs one of Africa’s largest land acquisition funds, run by former JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs currency dealers. Researchers at the California-based Oakland Institute think that Emergent’s clients in the US may have invested up to $500m in some of the most fertile land in the expectation of making 25% returns. Emergent said the deals were handled responsibly. “Yes, university endowment funds and pension funds are long-term investors,” a spokesman said. “We are investing in African agriculture and setting up businesses and employing people. We are doing it in a responsible way … The amounts are large. They can be hundreds of millions of dollars. This is not landgrabbing. We want to make the land more valuable. Being big makes an impact, economies of scale can be more productive.” Chinese and Middle Eastern firms have previously been identified as “grabbing” large tracts of land in developing countries to grow cheap food for home populations, but western funds are behind many of the biggest deals, says the Oakland institute, an advocacy research group. The company that manages Harvard’s investment funds declined to comment. “It is Harvard management company policy not to discuss investments or investment strategy and therefore I cannot confirm the report,” said a spokesman. Vanderbilt also declined to comment. Oakland said investors overstated the benefits of the deals for the communities involved. “Companies have been able to create complex layers of companies and subsidiaries to avert the gaze of weak regulatory authorities. Analysis of the contracts reveal that many of the deals will provide few jobs and will force many thousands of people off the land,” said Anuradha Mittal, Oakland’s director. In Tanzania, the memorandum of understanding between the local government and US-based farm development corporation AgriSol Energy, which is working with Iowa University, stipulates that the two main locations – Katumba and Mishamo – for their project are refugee settlements holding as many as 162,000 people that will have to be closed before the $700m project can start. The refugees have been farming this land for 40 years. In Ethiopia, a process of “villagisation” by the government is moving tens of thousands of people from traditional lands into new centres while big land deals are being struck with international companies. The largest land deal in South Sudan, where as much as 9% of the land is said by Norwegian analysts to have been bought in the last few years, was negotiated between a Texas-based firm, Nile Trading and Development and a local co-operative run by absent chiefs. The 49-year lease of 400,000 hectares of central Equatoria for around $25,000 (£15,000) allows the company to exploit all natural resources including oil and timber. The company, headed by former US Ambassador Howard Eugene Douglas, says it intends to apply for UN-backed carbon credits that could provide it with millions of pounds a year in revenues. In Mozambique, where up to 7m hectares of land is potentially available for investors, western hedge funds are said in the report to be working with South Africans businesses to buy vast tracts of forest and farmland for investors in Europe and the US. The contracts show the government will waive taxes for up to 25 years, but few jobs will be created. “No one should believe that these investors are there to feed starving Africans, create jobs or improve food security,” said Obang Metho of Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia. “These agreements – many of which could be in place for 99 years – do not mean progress for local people and will not lead to food in their stomachs. These deals lead only to dollars in the pockets of corrupt leaders and foreign investors.” “The scale of the land deals being struck is shocking”, said Mittal. “The conversion of African small farms and forests into a natural-asset-based, high-return investment strategy can drive up food prices and increase the risks of climate change. Research by the World Bank and others suggests that nearly 60m hectares – an area the size of France – has been bought or leased by foreign companies in Africa in the past three years. “Most of these deals are characterised by a lack of transparency, despite the profound implications posed by the consolidation of control over global food markets and agricultural resources by financial firms,” says the report. “We have seen cases of speculators taking over agricultural land while small farmers, viewed as squatters, are forcibly removed with no compensation,” said Frederic Mousseau, policy director at Oakland, said: “This is creating insecurity in the global food system that could be a much bigger threat to global security than terrorism. More than one billion people around the world are living with hunger. The majority of the world’s poor still depend on small farms for their livelihoods, and speculators are taking these away while promising progress that never happens.” United States Africa Hedge funds Investing Aid John Vidal Claire Provost guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …With yesterday’s report that Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s injuries are more serious than initially reported, a power transfer increasingly seems imminent. Saleh could be out of Yemen for months and could be forced to give up his rule, sources tell the Wall Street Journal , although government officials still insist…
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Under new laws being drawn up addicts would be forced into treatment or jailed, and dealers ‘treated like serial killers’ Drug dealers are to be “treated like serial killers” and could be sent to forced labour camps under harsh laws being drawn up by Russia’s Kremlin-controlled parliament. Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the state duma, the lower house, said a “total war on drugs” was needed to stem a soaring abuse rate driven by the flow of Afghan heroin through central Asia to Europe. Russia has as many as 6 million addicts (one in 25 people). Every year 100,000 people die from using drugs, Gryzlov said in a newspaper. The scale of the problem “threatens Russia’s gene pool”, he said. “We are standing on the edge of a precipice. Either we squash drug addiction or it will destroy us.” This year, President Dmitry Medvedev said drug abuse was cutting up to three percentage points off economic growth. Injecting drug use is also accelerating Russia’s Aids crisis because – unlike most other European countries – methadone treatment is banned and needle exchange programmes are scarce, meaning the virus spreads quickly from addict to addict via dirty syringes. An estimated one in 100 Russians are HIV positive. Under legislation promoted by the ruling United Russia party and now being reviewed in parliament, drug addicts will be forced into treatment or jailed, and dealers will be handed heftier custodial sentences. “The barons of narco-business must be put on a par with serial killers with the appropriate punishment in the form of a life sentence,” said Gryzlov, who is chairman of the party. Activists criticised the idea of putting addicts behind bars, pointing to a growing worldwide consensus that treating drug users as criminals has failed as a strategy. The Global Commission on Drugs Policy said in a report last week that there needed to be a shift away from criminalising drugs and incarcerating those who use them. Gryzlov, however, claimed that “criminal responsibility for the use of narcotics is a powerful preventative measure”. Special punishments should also be considered for dealers, he added: “Sending drug traders to a katorga [forced labour camp], for example. Felling timber, laying rails and constructing mines – that’s very different from sitting in a personal cell with a television and a fridge while you keep up your ‘business’ on the outside.” While it remains unclear how many of the measures will become law, other leading members of United Russia – which is headed by Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, and which dominates the duma – said they supported the initiative. The plans follow an admission by Medvedev in April that Russia’s fight against drug addiction had failed. He called for radical measures such as mandatory drug tests in schools. Possession of small quantities of psychotropic substances in Russia carries an administrative fine of up to 15,000 roubles (£330), but Gryzlov indicated it would now result in a jail term. The state should offer narkomany – addicts – a stark choice, he said: “Prison or forced treatment.” That could be a bleak prospect. Some of Russia’s detox clinics still use “coding”, a controversial therapy in which patients are scared into thinking terrible consequences (such as their testicles falling off) will result if they mix drugs with medicines which are actually placebos. Several activists condemned Gryzlov’s suggestion to “isolate” drug users from society. “Sending more people to prison will not reduce drug addiction or improve public health,” said Anya Sarang, president of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation, an advocacy group for people with HIV which works with injecting drug users (IDUs). “Russian prisons are terrible places full of HIV, tuberculosis and other diseases. Drugs are often even more accessible there than anywhere else.” She added: “What we need instead of this harsh drug control rhetoric is greater emphasis on rehabilitation, substitution treatment, case management for drug users and protection from HIV.” HIV prevalence among IDUs in western countries is 1 or 2%, but lack of outreach work and the absence of opiate substitution (methadone) and other “harm reduction” measures mean the figure is 16% in Russia – rising to 60% in hotspots such as St Petersburg. Denis Broun, the Moscow-based director of UNAIDS for Europe and central Asia, told the Guardian that Gryzlov’s proposals could make matters even worse. “It has been widely shown that criminalising people using drugs simply drives them underground and makes them much harder to reach with preventative measures,” he said. “This is not an effective strategy for fighting HIV. Purely repressive measures do not work.” Russia Drugs Aids and HIV Europe Health Tom Parfitt guardian.co.uk
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Development secretary faces down rightwing criticism of overseas aid, saying it is good value for money Andrew Mitchell, the development secretary, has faced down rightwing criticism of higher government spending on aid by defending British help for the world’s poor as morally right and in the national interest. Mitchell used a speech in London to mark his first year in office to say that the coalition’s development strategy provided good value for money, was targeted at countries in most need and was the best way to “protect UK security and prosperity”. In a direct riposte to those in the media and on the Tory right who have attacked the government’s decision to spare the aid budget from George Osborne’s austerity programme, Mitchell said: “It is a stain on all our consciences that a girl born in South Sudan today is more likely to die having a baby than to complete primary school. “When we know what life – and death – is like for over a billion people living on less than 80p a day, and we have the wherewithal to do something about it, then, yes, I do believe we have a moral imperative to do so.” Mitchell said that since becoming development secretary he had completed reviews of Britain’s aid spending to ensure that the extra money from British taxpayers was being well spent. “They [the reviews] have allowed ministers to take a strategic, informed view about where to focus our efforts in order to achieve the greatest impact. And to recognise the relative success of many countries that are coming out of poverty themselves. “So, over the next four years UK bilateral aid will be concentrated on 27 rather than 43 countries, among the poorest countries in the world, where the need is greatest. And whether we channel funds through multilateral agencies, or indeed through NGOs or others, we will expect the same rigour in results, transparency and value from them as we do from ourselves.” Mitchell rejected criticism that the government’s aid strategy increased dependency in poor countries and was often going to fast-growing emerging countries, such as India, which did not need it. “We are withdrawing aid from those countries that have succeeded in pulling themselves out of poverty. And we will continue to take this approach, celebrating when countries make the transition to self-sufficiency and supporting them through this process. Aid is a means to an end not an end in itself.” David Cameron stressed at last month’s G8 summit in Deauville that Britain would meet its pledge to increase aid spending to 0.7% of national output by 2013, but Mitchell said that the budget would be focused on “the poorest and the most vulnerable. On women and girls, including those who, because of the conflict in which they live, lose out twice over.” Mitchell said he wanted to “galvanise the entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector in the poorest countries and be open about what the government was doing. “We’ve made it easy for people to understand what we’re doing – publishing clear, simple data that’s easy to understand. Not only can the British taxpayer see what we are doing, but so too can the people our aid programmes are intended to help. Whether it’s a British person sitting in Manchester or a Kenyan sitting in Kisumu, any individual can hold us to account – and tell us if they think we’re getting it wrong.” Development Aid Global economy Conservatives David Cameron Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …One Canadian Catholic school went a step further than banning the word gay : It banned rainbows at a recent anti-homophobia event. “We brought signs and posters with rainbows, and we were told that we can’t put them up,” the founder of St. Joseph Catholic Secondary School’s unofficial gay-straight alliance tells…
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Compensation package finalised by European Commission will cost more than €200m in June The European commission has finalised a deal to help farmers hit by the E coli crisis that will cost the bloc more than €200m (£178m) in compensation payments to the end of this month alone. The package came as Germany, the centre of the outbreak of a new and virulent strain of the bacterium, said two more people had died, taking the toll to 26. But while there were also 300 more E coli cases reported, the German health minister said the situation was gradually improving. “I cannot yet give an all-clear, but after an analysis of the numbers there’s reason for hope,” Daniel Bahr told ARD TV. “The numbers are continuously falling – which none the less means that there can still be new cases and that one unfortunately has to expect new deaths too – but overall new infections are clearly going down.” Vegetable growers, particularly those farming salad crops, have been severely hit after German officials blamed first cucumbers from Spain and then bean sprouts farmed in northern Germany. Neither turned out to be the confirmed source and scientists now say it is possible this might never be identified. An initial compensation plan, announced on Tuesday by the EU’s agriculture commissioner, Dacian Ciolos , proposed giving farmers 30% of the market price of unsold crops, up to a total of €150m. This was immediately rejected as woefully insufficient by Spain, France and Italy. Ciolos unveiled a more generous scheme on Wednesday which would see all affected producers get 50% of market price, costing €210m until the end of June. In addition, the estimated one-third of farmers who are members of national producer organisations will get another 20%, funded 50/50 by the EU and the organisations. “We are doing as much as we can with the current financial means available,” Ciolos said, conceding that the total bill could rise further. “We don’t know how things are going to evolve. We cannot predict. At the end of June we will see where we stand.” The hope for the EU is that as the outbreak recedes, consumers – at least outside Germany – will resume their usual shopping habits. The plan is expected to be ratified at a meeting of officials next Tuesday, despite the likelihood that Spain and several other nations will vote against it. Germany’s national disease control centre, the Robert Koch Institute, has given a more mixed assessment of the outbreak, saying the declining trend could simply be because people were not eating the raw products spreading the bacterium. The number of reported cases in Germany had risen by more than 300 to 2,648, it said, with nearly 700 of those affected by a serious complication that can cause kidney failure. Germany faces criticism for its reaction to the outbreak, for a perceived delay in spotting the initial pattern of illness as well as twice public identifying the cause without proof. E coli Germany European commission Europe France Spain Italy Peter Walker guardian.co.uk
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