Sample question from a WikiLeaks job interview: “What would you do if you had to kill one man to save a hundred?” So Julian Assange asked Aled John, he writes in the Independent . John hesitated. “You’ve got two minutes to think about it before they all die,” Assange said. “This…
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Detained for over a month by Beijing police, fears are growing for the safety of the Chinese artist. As two exhibitions of his work open in the UK, Adrian Searle reports It is, as I write, 37 days since Ai Weiwei disappeared, arrested by the Chinese police on 3 April in Beijing as he was about to board a scheduled flight for Hong Kong. He has not been seen or heard from since. He has not had access to a lawyer (Ai’s own lawyer disappeared for five days following the artist’s arrest), and despite persistent enquiries his family do not know where he is. Another question. Who is Ai Weiwei? As well as an artist, Ai is an architect, designer, activist, iconoclast, blogger, sometime antiques dealer and expert blackjack player. If the Chinese authorities who have arrested him and engineered his disappearance are right, this creative, complicated man is also a bigamist, involved in tax fraud, the distribution of pornography, and – laughably – a plagiarist. There is no currently no news on Ai’s condition, only rumour, including an unconfirmed and appalling graphic report , by a disaffected Xinhua journalist writing under a pseudonym, that Ai has been tortured, and has begun to confess to his supposed crimes. Meanwhile, his art has been shipped abroad, to London and New York and Switzerland. Two exhibitions of his work open in London this week. Twelve zodiac animal heads will be unveiled in the Somerset House courtyard tomorrow; these are oversized bronze replicas of figures originally sculpted by the Italian Jesuit artist Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) as a water clock for the gardens of the Yuanmingyuan, Qing dynasty Emperor Qianlong’s summer retreat. In 1860, the palace was ransacked by French and British troops, and the heads were pillaged. Two ended up in the collection of Yves Saint Laurent; the current Chinese government has been trying to retrieve them. What goes around comes around. A second show of Ai’s sculptures and videos opens on Thursday at the Lisson
Continue reading …Detained for over a month by Beijing police, fears are growing for the safety of the Chinese artist. As two exhibitions of his work open in the UK, Adrian Searle reports It is, as I write, 37 days since Ai Weiwei disappeared, arrested by the Chinese police on 3 April in Beijing as he was about to board a scheduled flight for Hong Kong. He has not been seen or heard from since. He has not had access to a lawyer (Ai’s own lawyer disappeared for five days following the artist’s arrest), and despite persistent enquiries his family do not know where he is. Another question. Who is Ai Weiwei? As well as an artist, Ai is an architect, designer, activist, iconoclast, blogger, sometime antiques dealer and expert blackjack player. If the Chinese authorities who have arrested him and engineered his disappearance are right, this creative, complicated man is also a bigamist, involved in tax fraud, the distribution of pornography, and – laughably – a plagiarist. There is no currently no news on Ai’s condition, only rumour, including an unconfirmed and appalling graphic report , by a disaffected Xinhua journalist writing under a pseudonym, that Ai has been tortured, and has begun to confess to his supposed crimes. Meanwhile, his art has been shipped abroad, to London and New York and Switzerland. Two exhibitions of his work open in London this week. Twelve zodiac animal heads will be unveiled in the Somerset House courtyard tomorrow; these are oversized bronze replicas of figures originally sculpted by the Italian Jesuit artist Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) as a water clock for the gardens of the Yuanmingyuan, Qing dynasty Emperor Qianlong’s summer retreat. In 1860, the palace was ransacked by French and British troops, and the heads were pillaged. Two ended up in the collection of Yves Saint Laurent; the current Chinese government has been trying to retrieve them. What goes around comes around. A second show of Ai’s sculptures and videos opens on Thursday at the Lisson
Continue reading …In a new book, Kate McCann reveals that she felt suicidal after daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal four years ago. “I had an overwhelming urge to swim out across the ocean, as hard and as fast as I could; to swim and swim and swim until I was so…
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Dallas Wiens tells of joy at being able to taste lasagne after pioneering work by US surgeons A man who lost almost all his face when he touched an electric cable while painting a church three years ago showed off the results of America’s first full face transplant. Dallas Wiens, 25, speaking with difficulty at a press conference in Boston, said his daughter had told him he looked “handsome”. The work is not yet completed and there will be further surgery. He told reporters that one of his biggest impressions after having the transplant was being able to smell and taste lasagne prepared by the hospital. Wiens from Fort Worth, Texas, was blinded in the accident and the damage was too severe for doctors to restore his sight. He has been given a new nose, lips, nerves, skin and muscle. The press conference at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts was his first public appearance since the 15-hour operation was carried out in March. “It feels natural,” he said of his face. “It feels as if it has become my own.” Associated Press reported that the Pentagon had paid for the operation in the hope that the findings can help treat soldiers badly wounded in battle. The five transplants have cost a total of $3.4m (£2.1m). The world’s first full face transplant was carried out last year in Spain . United States Disability Health Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Dallas Wiens tells of joy at being able to taste lasagne after pioneering work by US surgeons A man who lost almost all his face when he touched an electric cable while painting a church three years ago showed off the results of America’s first full face transplant. Dallas Wiens, 25, speaking with difficulty at a press conference in Boston, said his daughter had told him he looked “handsome”. The work is not yet completed and there will be further surgery. He told reporters that one of his biggest impressions after having the transplant was being able to smell and taste lasagne prepared by the hospital. Wiens from Fort Worth, Texas, was blinded in the accident and the damage was too severe for doctors to restore his sight. He has been given a new nose, lips, nerves, skin and muscle. The press conference at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts was his first public appearance since the 15-hour operation was carried out in March. “It feels natural,” he said of his face. “It feels as if it has become my own.” Associated Press reported that the Pentagon had paid for the operation in the hope that the findings can help treat soldiers badly wounded in battle. The five transplants have cost a total of $3.4m (£2.1m). The world’s first full face transplant was carried out last year in Spain . United States Disability Health Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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Human rights body demands inquiry into failure of European military units to save 61 migrants on boat fleeing Libya Europe’s paramount human rights body, the Council of Europe, has called for an inquiry into the deaths of 61 migrants in the Mediterranean, claiming an apparent failure of military units to rescue them marked a “dark day” for the continent. Mevlüt Çavusoglu, president of the council’s parliamentary assembly, demanded an “immediate and comprehensive inquiry” into the fate of the migrants’ boat which ran into trouble in late March en route to the Italian island of Lampedusa. Yesterday, the Guardian reported that the boat encountered a number of European military units including a helicopter and an aircraft carrier after losing fuel and drifting, but no rescue attempt was made and most of the 72 people on board eventually died of thirst and hunger. “If this grave accusation is true – that, despite the alarm being raised, and despite the fact that this boat, fleeing Libya, had been located by armed forces operating in the Mediterranean, no attempt was made to rescue the 72 passengers aboard, then it is a dark day for Europe as a whole,” Çavusoglu declared. “I call for an immediate and comprehensive inquiry into the circumstances of the deaths of the 61 people who perished, including babies, children and women who – one by one – died of starvation and thirst while Europe looked on,” he added. Çavusoglu’s intervention came as news emerged of another migrant boat which sank last Friday, according to the UN’s refugee agency. Up to 600 were on board the overcrowded vessel as it fled the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Witnesses who left on another boat shortly afterwards reported seeing remnants of the ship and the bodies of passengers in the sea. The International Organisation for Migration, which has staff on Lampedusa, said it had spoken to a Somali woman who lost her four-month-old baby in the tragedy, and said that it was unclear how many passengers had managed to swim to safety. According to testimony collected by UNHCR workers in Lampedusa, migrants on the second boat setting sail from Tripoli attempted to disembark when they saw the first boat sink, but were prevented from doing so by armed men. The UNHCR has insisted that more communication is needed between coastguards, military and commercial ships to minimise migrant deaths at sea. “We need to take heed of a situation that is very much evolving. We have to cooperate much more closely,” said a spokesperson, Laura Boldrini, adding that ships should not wait for a problem to arise before attempting to help migrant boats. “Rescue should be automatic, without waiting for the boat to break apart or the engine to stop running,” she said. Following the Guardian report into the plight of the migrant boat left to drift in the Mediterranean after suffering mechanical problems, Nato rejected suggestions that any of its units were involved in apparently ignoring the vessel. Officials pointed out that the Charles De Gaulle, a French aircraft carrier identified as having possibly encountered the boat, was not under direct Nato command at the time – although it was involved in the Nato-led operations in Libya. “Nato vessels are fully aware of their responsibilities with regard to international maritime law regarding safety of life at sea,” said a spokesman. French defence officials denied that any of their ships were involved. “The [Charles De Gaulle] was never less than 200km (160 miles) from the Libyan coast,” read a statement. “It is therefore not possible that it could have crossed the path of this drifting vessel which came from the Misrata region. If this was the case, it would have obviously come to the rescue of these people, in some way or another.” In 2010, the statement added, French naval vessels intercepted around 40 refugee boats and came to the assistance of more than 800 people. Campaigners believe that calls for European ships to be more active in assisting migrants are now becoming more urgent. “All of these migrant boats are incredibly overcrowded and these are desperate people,” said Professor Niels Frenzen, a refugee law specialist at the University of Southern California. “Given the hundreds of deaths we know about – and many more we probably aren’t aware of – any migrant boat that’s being observed right now is by definition a vessel that is in distress, and one which needs rescue.” Frenzen added that with Nato, the EU border agency Frontex, national coastguards and other unilateral forces all operating simultaneously in the Mediterranean, there was an “incredible mess of overlapping missions and jurisdictional confusion over the boundaries of different search and rescue regions”. “We’ve got this incredible concentration of ships and aircraft in that sea, many of which are there under security council resolution 1973 [which authorises military operations in Libya], the primary purpose of which is to protect civilian life,” he said. The UN refugee agency issued a warning for all vessels to keep an eye out for unseaworthy migrant boats in the Mediterranean. Refugees Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Nato Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Human rights body demands inquiry into failure of European military units to save 61 migrants on boat fleeing Libya Europe’s paramount human rights body, the Council of Europe, has called for an inquiry into the deaths of 61 migrants in the Mediterranean, claiming an apparent failure of military units to rescue them marked a “dark day” for the continent. Mevlüt Çavusoglu, president of the council’s parliamentary assembly, demanded an “immediate and comprehensive inquiry” into the fate of the migrants’ boat which ran into trouble in late March en route to the Italian island of Lampedusa. Yesterday, the Guardian reported that the boat encountered a number of European military units including a helicopter and an aircraft carrier after losing fuel and drifting, but no rescue attempt was made and most of the 72 people on board eventually died of thirst and hunger. “If this grave accusation is true – that, despite the alarm being raised, and despite the fact that this boat, fleeing Libya, had been located by armed forces operating in the Mediterranean, no attempt was made to rescue the 72 passengers aboard, then it is a dark day for Europe as a whole,” Çavusoglu declared. “I call for an immediate and comprehensive inquiry into the circumstances of the deaths of the 61 people who perished, including babies, children and women who – one by one – died of starvation and thirst while Europe looked on,” he added. Çavusoglu’s intervention came as news emerged of another migrant boat which sank last Friday, according to the UN’s refugee agency. Up to 600 were on board the overcrowded vessel as it fled the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Witnesses who left on another boat shortly afterwards reported seeing remnants of the ship and the bodies of passengers in the sea. The International Organisation for Migration, which has staff on Lampedusa, said it had spoken to a Somali woman who lost her four-month-old baby in the tragedy, and said that it was unclear how many passengers had managed to swim to safety. According to testimony collected by UNHCR workers in Lampedusa, migrants on the second boat setting sail from Tripoli attempted to disembark when they saw the first boat sink, but were prevented from doing so by armed men. The UNHCR has insisted that more communication is needed between coastguards, military and commercial ships to minimise migrant deaths at sea. “We need to take heed of a situation that is very much evolving. We have to cooperate much more closely,” said a spokesperson, Laura Boldrini, adding that ships should not wait for a problem to arise before attempting to help migrant boats. “Rescue should be automatic, without waiting for the boat to break apart or the engine to stop running,” she said. Following the Guardian report into the plight of the migrant boat left to drift in the Mediterranean after suffering mechanical problems, Nato rejected suggestions that any of its units were involved in apparently ignoring the vessel. Officials pointed out that the Charles De Gaulle, a French aircraft carrier identified as having possibly encountered the boat, was not under direct Nato command at the time – although it was involved in the Nato-led operations in Libya. “Nato vessels are fully aware of their responsibilities with regard to international maritime law regarding safety of life at sea,” said a spokesman. French defence officials denied that any of their ships were involved. “The [Charles De Gaulle] was never less than 200km (160 miles) from the Libyan coast,” read a statement. “It is therefore not possible that it could have crossed the path of this drifting vessel which came from the Misrata region. If this was the case, it would have obviously come to the rescue of these people, in some way or another.” In 2010, the statement added, French naval vessels intercepted around 40 refugee boats and came to the assistance of more than 800 people. Campaigners believe that calls for European ships to be more active in assisting migrants are now becoming more urgent. “All of these migrant boats are incredibly overcrowded and these are desperate people,” said Professor Niels Frenzen, a refugee law specialist at the University of Southern California. “Given the hundreds of deaths we know about – and many more we probably aren’t aware of – any migrant boat that’s being observed right now is by definition a vessel that is in distress, and one which needs rescue.” Frenzen added that with Nato, the EU border agency Frontex, national coastguards and other unilateral forces all operating simultaneously in the Mediterranean, there was an “incredible mess of overlapping missions and jurisdictional confusion over the boundaries of different search and rescue regions”. “We’ve got this incredible concentration of ships and aircraft in that sea, many of which are there under security council resolution 1973 [which authorises military operations in Libya], the primary purpose of which is to protect civilian life,” he said. The UN refugee agency issued a warning for all vessels to keep an eye out for unseaworthy migrant boats in the Mediterranean. Refugees Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Nato Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A landslide in southern China trapped more than 20 workers in a makeshift dormitory at a quarry today, AP reports. Rescuers equipped with a pair of excavators are searching for survivors; no deaths or injuries were immediately reported by state media. Heavy rains hit the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region this…
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When Liverpool play like they did here on the banks of the Thames, the turmoil of the early season can resemble a trick of the mind. Was the club really languishing in 12th place in the Premier League when he took over in January? There are many differences between then and now, principally, in terms of confidence and a feel-good factor. But, maybe above all, there is Luis Suárez, the winter window capture from Ajax. It takes something to eclipse the achievement of a hat-trick from a team-mate and nothing ought to be taken away from Maxi Rodríguez, who was in ruthless mood and reached his personal landmark with a beauty from distance. But Suárez managed it. He was irrepressible, leading Fulham’s defence a merry dance and proving the architect behind this thumping victory, which fired the club’s hopes of finishing above Tottenham Hotspur, whom they entertain on Sunday, in the race for Europa League qualification. The transformation under Kenny Dalglish has been remarkable. He has now taken 33 points from a possible 48. Give the man a contract. But he is not the only Liverpool hero. This latest test of what Dalglish has called his “positive work in progress” seemed worthy of the billing. Fulham had turned Craven Cottage into something of a fortress and their defence, in particular, had been unyielding. It took Liverpool a little over a quarter of an hour to make a mockery of that statement. With three lightning strikes, they left Fulham dazed and confused. Mark Hughes, the manager, felt the stars encircle his head. Dalglish had started with Suárez as his lone front-man and although he did not score in the opening frenzy, he was central to much of what Liverpool did. With his slick touch and movement, not to mention his wonderful awareness, it was difficult to take your eyes off him. It was the Uruguayan who set up the first for Rodríguez, who is suddenly on a scoring streak to make Ian Rush proud. Played through by Lucas Leiva, Suárez raced away before cutting back a low cross, which squirted off Carlos Salcido and forced Mark Schwarzer into an improvised save with his feet. The ball reached only as far as Rodríguez, who dispatched it low into the far corner. Fulham chased shadows as Liverpool’s high-octane pressing game barely allowed them to draw breath. Suárez gave both Aaron Hughes and Brede Hangeland a torrid time, Lucas caught the eye with his incisive passing and Glen Johnson revelled in his attacking brief from right-back. Rodríguez scored his second of the night, and his sixth in three games, when Lucas’s ball over the top released Johnson, who was on-side dug out a fine cross to the far post where the Argentinian’s left-footed volley was true. Fulham’s misery was deepened on 16 minutes when Schwarzer, embarrassingly, allowed a tame shot from Dirk Kuyt to wriggle underneath him. Rodríguez has embraced the opportunity afforded to him by Andy Carroll’s injury – Carroll did not make the match-day squad here – while Kuyt is in the form of his life. Suárez and Rodríguez had further opportunities before Clint Dempsey connected sweetly with a volley for Fulham from Simon Davies’s corner. Johnson cleared it off the line. The home team had nothing but regrets at the interval. Fulham might have reasoned that they had nothing to lose in the second-half and Hughes went for the jugular in the attempt to restore pride, putting on Bobby Zamora up alongside Eidur Gudjohnsen and later Andy Johnson and asking Mousa Dembélé to maraud from the right. There was greater urgency about Fulham and with Liverpool, who lost Raul Meireles to hamstring trouble, content to protect what they had, Hughes’ team flickered. Dempsey whistled a drive just over the crossbar as Fulham pressed onto the front foot. Zamora made a real difference. A Fulham goal threatened to put a different complexion on what had previously been a mismatch and it arrived just before the hour. Martin Skrtel stood off Zamora and the striker’s lay-off invited Dembélé to curl low shot beyond Pepe Reina. The home crowd crackled to life and allowed themselves to dream outlandish dreams Craven Cottage rocked to a raucous beat but, with Fulham pressing for their second, Rodríguez deflated the mood with his hat-trick goal, a right-footed blast out of nothing, from 25 yards. Suárez got the goal that he deserved when he danced onto the substitute Jonjo Shelvey’s pass and around Schwarzer. Steve Sidwell’s rocket was the definition of consolation. Premier League Fulham Liverpool David Hytner guardian.co.uk
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