After four months of training with some of the greatest runners in the world, it was time for a half-marathon north of the border I’m running along by the shore of a wide, glistening lake. Up ahead, a herd of horses are hauling themselves out of the water and crossing the path. The runner in front of me manages to skirt around one side, making the horses skip back. I spot my chance and nip through the same gap. I’m running a half-marathon in Ethopia, the self-proclaimed “land of runners”. As I cross the finish line, the greatest distance-runner ever, Haile Gebrselassie . is standing there smiling, ready to shake my hand. Ethiopia is Kenya’s northern neighbour and fierce athletics rival. Although Kenyans win more races and have more top athletes than anywhere else in the world, their dominance in distance running is seriously dented by a small group of super-fast Ethiopians. While the nation doesn’t have the same quantity of athletes or cover the same range of events (Kenyans regularly win medals at 400m and 800m too), the list of Ethiopian world-record holders and Olympic champions is testament to its running prowess. Ethiopia has won the men’s 10,000m at the last four Olympics, and Ethiopian men currently hold the 5000m, 10,000m and marathon world records. Ethiopian women have also won four gold medals in the last three Olympics, compared to Kenya’s two. So I’ve come to Ethiopia to run, too. And my first port of call is the town of Hawassa where, on the shores of the lake, Gebrselassie has built himself a huge luxury hotel, the Haile Resort . And it’s here that I’m undergoing the first test of my Kenyan training. After four months of chasing my tail around the steep hills of Iten , gasping like a dying man as I try to keep up with the Kenyans, I’m running the Every One half-marathon . Sponsored by Save the Children , USAID and a host of other NGOs, this is a light-hearted charity race and there are lots of other non-Africans running. In fact, the pack seems to be made up mostly of aid workers, both Ethiopian and foreign, from Addis Ababa. The “elite” runners – 70 Ethiopians and one Kenyan – get to run their own race later, after our “mass race” is over. To avoid the worst of the day’s heat, which descends early here in Hawassa, the event starts at 6.30am. After all my early morning runs in Kenya, it seems quite natural to be up and running at this time, so I’m feeling fairly sprightly as I do some last-minute limbering up on the start line. And then with a blast of a hooter we’re off. Almost immediately I find myself running on my own, with a lead group of about six runners pulling ahead while everyone else seems to have drifted away behind me. The course winds along a dirt track by the lake and then up and through the town. Lots of local people are out to cheer us on, clapping and shouting “bravo” as we go by – a remnant of a brief Italian occupation in the 1930s. At one point the crowd gets very angry with an Ethiopian runner as I overtake him. I can hear them berating him behind me for a while but eventually, after I get far enough ahead, the general clapping and good-natured encouragement returns. Halfway round the second of three laps, I catch a glimpse of my shadow on the tarmac road. I actually look like an athlete, striding away strongly along the wide avenue. Twelve kilometres done and I’m cruising. By the time I pass the same point on the third lap, however, it’s not such a glorious sight. My stride length has shortened, my arms have stopped moving. I’m struggling with a stitch, which actually forces me to stop and do some stretching. It keeps coming and going. The slower I run, the better it is. Or is that just my mind playing tricks on me? I’m caught in a battle of wills between my desire to run as fast as I can, and my body’s desire to slow down. My body, though, has co-opted my mind to its cause, and the desire to run fast is being drowned out by the rationalising chatter that tells me it doesn’t really matter what time I run, or where I finish, that I should just enjoy the experience, jog home, that I’ve tried hard enough already. Despite being talked down like this from pushing on too hard, I manage to keep on and cross the line in 7th place, in a personal best time of 1 hour 26 minutes and 47 seconds. The seconds are important, because it’s a best time by just seven seconds. Gebrselassie greets me like a long-lost friend. I collect my medal and free T-shirt, and even get myself a quick massage, before heading off to find some breakfast. So, after four months of training with the greatest runners in the world, I’ve knocked seven seconds off my best half-marathon time. I was really hoping for a bigger improvement than that. But then again, the race was run at an altitude of 5,500ft. I got a bad stitch. And just two days before it I was ill, recovering in my hotel room in Addis Ababa and being forced to watch the royal wedding by my children. So maybe it wasn’t so bad. As for the elite race, it was won by Kimutai Kiplimo, the one Kenyan invited to the race as motivation for the Ethiopian runners to go faster. Another point to the Kenyans. They’re having a good year so far . Running Fitness Athletics Ethiopia Kenya Adharanand Finn guardian.co.uk
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Farmers angry as Mississippi allowed to drown 130,000 acres of rich farmland, while ailing Illinois town is spared Engineers have blown up a levee in the midwest, hoping to save a historic town from destruction by raging flood waters – but condemning 130,000 acres (53,300 hectares) of rich agricultural farmland. Late on Monday night, the US army corps of engineers began detonating charges embedded in the levee at Birds Point, Missouri, in order to create a 2,000-ft breach. The blasts were expected to lower the waters of the Mississippi by up to 7ft, thus sparing the city of Cairo, Illinois. But the breach in the levee was also expected to drown a vast expanse of rich farmland under water, sand and silt. Ninety homes were also at risk. The decision – which has been fiercely contested in the courts – set a fading town of 2,800 mainly African American residents against relatively well-off farmers. “Making this decision is not easy or hard,” major general Michael Walsh, commander of the army corps, told reporters. “It’s simply grave – because the decision leads to loss of property and livelihood, either in a floodway or in an area that was not designed to flood.” Cairo, which lies on the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, was an important steamboat port in the 1800s, and served for a few months as the headquarters for the union armies of Ulysses S Grant early in the civil war. But the town is long past its heyday, and the decision to save the town outraged Missouri farmers and state officials who had fought to block the demolition in court. Stephen Tilley, the speaker of the Missouri house, even went so far as to suggest that Cairo was so dilapidated as to be expendable. When asked by a reporter which he would rather see underwater, the town or farmland, Tilley replied emphatically : “Cairo. I’ve been there. Trust me, Cairo.” But the legal battle was exhausted on Sunday night when the US supreme court refused to hear an emergency appeal from Missouri’s attorney general. By Monday afternoon, with more rainfall straining the 64ft floodwall, the town was deserted. Almost all of the residents of Cairo had already been evacuated, and were waiting to see if the homes they had left behind would be saved or left for the flood waters. “It was equal to having been in Vietnam,” said Mattie Woods, 63, who was born and raised in the town. “We have had flooding before, but we have never really faced total disaster. This one was full devastation for all of us.” A number of people who tried to return for belongings earlier on Monday were ordered to go back. “They just weren’t letting anyone in,” said resident Eddie Smith. Mr Smith had left his home after spending several anxious days watching the water rise around the tyres of his car. By the time he left last Tuesday (a week ago), “the water was coming right up to the front step,” he said. “I’ve never seen the river do this before.” Members of the Illinois national guard were deployed filling sandbags, and packing explosives into pipes embedded in an area of the levee downriver from the town. The army corps of engineers was planning a second series of explosions on Tuesday to try to drain the water from the farmland that contain corn, wheat and soybean crops. Farming Flooding Water Missouri Illinois United States Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
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Prime minister denies it was inappropriate to dine with News Corp bosses while government was considering BSkyB deal The prime minister, David Cameron, has denied that it was inappropriate for him to have dinner at the home of senior News Corporation executive Rebekah Brooks while the government was considering the company’s takeover bid for BSkyB. Cameron said Brooks, the chief executive of News Corp’s UK newspaper publisher News International, was “married to a very old friend of mine” – a reference to her husband, Charlie Brooks, the racehorse trainer and writer. Both attended Eton. He added that party leaders and prime ministers “have lunches and dinners with editors, journalists and proprietors all of the time” and he did not think “there’s a problem at all” with him attending the dinner. Cameron was quizzed about the dinner at the Oxfordshire home of the Brooks over the Christmas period on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme on Tuesday by presenter John Humphrys . The dinner was also attended by James Murdoch, the News Corp chairman and chief executive for Europe and Asia, and took place while the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, was considering whether to refer the company’s bid to acquire the 61% of Sky it did not already own to the Competition Commission on public interest grounds. It took place a few days after Cameron had stripped the business secretary, Vince Cable, of responsibility for media takeovers and given the powers to Hunt. Cable had been secretly taped by Daily Telegraph journalists saying that he was “at war” with Rupert Murdoch, the News Corp chairman and chief executive. Humphrys said a lot of people thought attending the dinner was inappropriate and asked Cameron if he wished he had not done it. “No. I’ve had absolutely nothing to do with the merger proposals that were put forward,” Cameron replied. “I deliberately excluded myself from any part of that decision-making process. The first I knew of [Hunt's decision] was when the results were announced on the BBC. “Jeremy Hunt had a quasi-judicial role to carry out, which he carried out in my view entirely properly, and it’s quite right that he didn’t consult the prime minister over that. He looked at the evidence and he made the decision and so I don’t think there’s a problem at all. “Party leaders and prime ministers have lunches and dinners with editors, journalists proprietors all of the time.” Pressed further by Humphrys, he said: “The person in question is married to a very old friend of mine. I even occasionally meet people who work for the Guardian, or the Independent, or the BBC, or whatever.” Cameron was also asked about his comments last month that parliament and not the courts should decide where the right privacy begins , in response to the rash of celebrities taking out injunctions to prevent media coverage of their private lives. The prime minister said “we should have a discussion and a debate” about the issue, but shied away from backing a new privacy law, suggesting that more could be done through the newspaper industry’s self-regulatory body, the Press Complaints Commission. “I think we should discuss what is the right way forward. I sense that there’s still more to be done to recognise that actually the Press Complaints Commission has come on a lot in recent years and we should be working with that organisation to make sure that people get the sort of protection they need, while still having a free and vibrant press,” Cameron added. “We don’t want statutory regulation of the press. By all means let’s debate it,” he said. “But I think there’s still more to be done through the Press Complaints Commission.” •
Continue reading …Politicians are hiding their real values and intentions behind snide, loaded euphemisms While sitting at my desk performing my usual “back-office function” recently, I was struck by a story on the debate over cuts to police budgets and the likely impact on the “frontline”. Warwickshire police officers are being ordered off the beat into civilian roles as the force tries to manage its budget after the 20% cuts imposed by the coalition government. The Home Office response was familiarly blunt: forces should cut back on “bureaucracy” and “wasteful spending” while “increasing efficiency in the back office”. David Cameron weighed in the following day: there is no reason for frontline policing to be affected, he said. Sir Denis O’Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, hit back in a report stating how important “middle-office” and “back-office” roles were in supporting “frontline” officers. All in this together, if you like. Elsewhere in austerity Britain, Hull council was being lauded by a Times leader for making “substantial savings by rationalising back-office functions and reducing the number of buildings from which it delivers services”. Eulogies were reserved for other local authorities reacting to the big cut in central funding by launching “efficiency” drives. The BBC has been caught up in the fight between government and opposition to win a spin contest over the precise terms to use when covering stories about the cuts. Savings or cuts? Here at the Guardian, we normally use cuts. It’s shorter, to the point and is a shoo-in for headline writers. Oh, and Lord Littlejohn of Maildom rants about its use. For the record, he prefers to talk about “massive waste, non-jobs and vast salaries of senior council officers”. All around us these figurative euphemisms are being trotted out by ministers defending the burden placed on the NHS, local councils and the police to protect the all-important frontline services. Get rid of the back-office staff, the thinking goes. Not quite as “unproductive” as the “feckless workshy”, the unworthy and disposable state employee has the cheek to draw a salary – paid for by “you, the taxpayer” – while easing towards retirement and, yes, a “gold-plated” pension. These invidious phrases aimed at those with lower qualifications and on lower pay are not new. “Deregulation” of the job market and enhanced “labour mobility” have long been phrases associated with the school of economic thought that implies the market will naturally find full employment and equitable wage levels as long as it remains unfettered by state legislation and intervention. Unemployed people must get on their bikes and find work or stay on the dole through “lifestyle choice”. The phrases du jour are rooted in the economic doctrine of the neoclassical orthodoxy of the 1930s – the father of Thatcher’s 1980s monetarist mayhem and grandfather of Cameron and Osborne’s supply-side wild child currently ravaging the public sector and ushering in an era of militant privatisation. They are utterances born of the strict economic theory that sees employees purely as factors of production; not human beings with occasionally irrational urges, needy families, hefty mortgages, complex relationships, myriad emotional commitments and a need for belonging, a place in society, “big” or otherwise. The longest-serving Labour prime minister in history, Tony Blair, set the current trend for euphemistic political buzzwords while masking an ideological drift to the right. “Choice”, “hard-working families”, “fairness”, “prepare for change” and “rights and responsibilities” were all key elements of New Labour’s “reform” policy agenda in health and education. Such fuzzy language was noted by George Orwell in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language as increasingly used by politicians as a “defence of the indefensible”. For this reason, he went on: “Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” Back in coalition Britain 2011, the back-office function is a prime example of Orwell’s target. The implication is that those employed in these jobs are virtually useless and their loss would be no great shame for the organisation; the reality is that unemployment can turn a person’s life upside down. There are, however, members of an organisation who no doubt do meet the criteria of vulnerability and exposure to ruthless market forces. Take the coalition ministers spouting these snide, loaded, euphemistic circumlocutions. As Anne Robinson might ask: “Who’s ‘frontline’ and who’s ‘back-office’ in this government?” Clearly Cameron, Osborne, Hunt, Gove and Pickles are out there flying the flag for “reform” while fighting the big ideological battles. Frontline, maybe. But the three most prominent Lib Dems in the coalition – Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander and Vince Cable – should perhaps think twice before using such inhuman, pejorative and invidious language. Some observers might argue they’re no more than “human shields” for the Tory generals leading the fight. So with the knife-edge AV referendum and the potentially devastating local elections just days away, the Lib Dem high-ups and ward councillors alike may be about to feel like the most disposable of team members. As for the coalition – with its stark divisions on AV increasingly apparent – who knows how the result will play out for the losers facing their party faithful? Even from my “back-office” position, I can see that Thursday’s elections might just unleash the powerful yet precise force of the political “invisible hand” as voter “rationalisation” sweeps through polling stations all around the country. Language Jamie Fahey guardian.co.uk
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Manufacturers reported subdued consumer confidence and lower orders from the construction sector as well as high output prices UK manufacturing output fell to a seven-month low last month as a slowdown in new orders highlighted the fragile state of the economy. Manufacturing has been one of the brightest parts of the British economy in 2011, but data released on Tuesday morning suggested that it is now flagging as domestic customers cut their spending. Exports, though, remained healthier with orders rising during April. The monthly Markit/CIPS PMI index of the manufacturing sector fell to 54.6 points in April, the weakest reading since last September. March’s reading was also revised down, from 57.1 to 56.7 – still above the 50-point mark that separates expansion from contraction. The survey also showed that output prices remained near to March’s peak, suggesting that consumers will continue to face rising prices . Many companies reported delays in receiving parts from suppliers, following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March. Manufacturers also reported subdued consumer confidence and lower orders from the construction sector. David Noble, chief executive officer at CIPS, said the survey showed that the manufacturing industry faced a much bleaker outlook than just a few months ago, with companies experiencing “a tale of two markets”. “Export orders continue to grow at a very healthy rate but domestic demand is suffering as a result of falling consumer confidence and spending,” said Noble. Manufacturers had built up a healthy backlog of work earlier this year, as orders rebounded after the weather-related disruption last December. CIPS is concerned that many firms ate into their reserves of work during April. “Much of the output growth came from manufacturers clearing the backlog of existing orders which is the equivalent of a consumer dipping into their savings to maintain their existing spending levels,” said Noble. “The problem with this is that, just like savings, backlogs of orders will soon run out if they are not topped up.” Rob Dobson, senior economist at Markit, said that new orders growth had “collapsed from a booming pace”. The pound fell more than half a cent against the dollar, to around $1.649, after the PMI data was released as an early interest rate rise became even less likely. “The survey reinforces worries over the economy’s ability to withstand the fiscal tightening that increasingly kicked in from early April and reinforces belief that the Bank of England will keep interest rates unchanged at 0.50% on Thursday,” said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight. “Indeed, we believe it is looking ever more likely that the Bank of England will not raise interest rates before November.” Manufacturing sector Manufacturing data Economics Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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London men stopped by officers policing nuclear site in Cumbria Five men have been arrested under the Terrorism Act near the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, police said. The men were detained at 4.32pm on Monday after a vehicle was stopped and checked by officers from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, who police the facility in west Cumbria. The five, all in their 20s and from London, were arrested under section 41 of the act and held in police custody overnight in Carlisle before being taken to Manchester on Tuesday morning, a spokesman for Cumbria police said. An investigation is now under way by the north-west counterterrorism unit. Greater Manchester police said the investigation was in its early stages and there would be no further information released immediately. They were not aware of any connection to the death of Osama bin Laden in the US special forces operation in Pakistan. The police said a road closure affected the area for “a short period of time”. UK security and terrorism Nuclear power Crime Energy Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
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If you’re not in the trade, they can be confusing occasions. These are some useful pointers for novice buyers Just recently home after five days displaying our stock at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair , and I’m resting. You need to: it’s a peculiarly exhausting business, exacerbated by the fact that I had flown in from Sydney via London, and kept waking at 2am longing for bacon and eggs. For the first three mornings I eventually got up at 6am and went out to dinner. Worked for me. Great steaks in New York. We do three fairs a year – California, New York, and London – and none of them are much fun. In the olden days (I feel an old fart moment coming on) fairs had a real buzz about them. During set-up (when dealers unpack their trunks and shelve the books) other dealers would crowd round, checking out each book as it emerged, picking up the occasional bargain. Set-up was why you were there, to see if you could buy something before the public got a look-in, and sell enough in that hectic first few hours to cover your costs. No more. Things are tighter and tougher, we’ve seen each other’s books in catalogues and online, and there is no excitement during the two-day (too long!) set-up period. We sold one book for $5,000 (£3,000), which is better than five for $4,000, and pretty much in line with what I would have expected. The key to surviving a fair emotionally is to keep expectations realistic, which means low. I set our bottom line hope at sales of $40,000, though whether such a sum is profitable depends on what you have sold. Sometimes we have books on consignment at 20% to us, at others we may be selling something we own – better yet, have owned for ages – and get an entirely positive cashflow boost. I need one. I have, alas, taken my eye off the ball this last year, with reading for the Man Booker International prize , and the effect on the business has been predictable. Even my bank manager is starting to twitch an eyelid. So it was essential both to get some money in from New York, and to generate a project or two with clients or other dealers: find a collection to buy, an archive to sell, a line to pursue. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and it may be hard for you to envisage what I’m talking about. People in specialist trades often do this, and lose their audience in a welter of trade jargon and inappropriate assumption that one will be understood. So: What is an antiquarian book fair, anyway? It is an arena for members of the rare book trade publicly to offer their stock, and for collectors to peruse it. That sounds a little dull, doesn’t it? OK, then. Dealers sit in their little, lit booths, displaying their wares like girls in Amsterdam windows. A few potential customers drift by. Sometimes money is exchanged. Some pleasure is had. Usually nobody gets hurt, but many wives are not told of the transaction. Or husbands. What sort of things might one see at the fair? Enticing ones, naturally. Hand-coloured antique maps, letters by Freud or Dickens, leatherbound sets of Jane Austen, rare books on travel, nature or military history, books illustrated by Arthur Rackham or Beatrix Potter, first editions by most of the greatest writers. Why are first editions valuable? They’re not. Most first editions are worthless, because most books are first editions – that is, not worth reprinting. A tiny number of these first editions are desirable because they are by collected authors, and were printed in small numbers. How can you tell if a book is a first edition? Generally, it can be assumed unless there is any evidence to the contrary. Why are some authors collected? Most, because they deserve to be: John Milton, Jonathan Swift, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, James Joyce, Graham Greene. Some, because whatever their deserts, people love them: Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, JK Rowling. Does the condition of the book matter very much? Hugely, as with all collectibles. If a book looks fresh and near-as-damn-it new, it will fetch many times more than a tired and worn copy. With 20th-century books, the presence of the original dust wrapper is crucial. A first edition of Brighton Rock (1938) without the dust wrapper is worth, say, £2,000. With it? I just paid £80,000 for one, on behalf of a customer. Isn’t that silly? Very. But the argument is that a book without its dust wrapper is as incomplete as a Chippendale chair without its legs. Do you think that’s a fair argument? No. How does one know if the asking price is right? There is no “right” price for a rare book, though there are certainly wrong ones. If you buy from a reputable member of the trade, and you are happy with your purchase, then the price is probably right enough. But isn’t a book worth whatever it fetches? Certainly not. If I convince a muddle-headed plutocrat to pay me £1m for a common book, it doesn’t mean it is worth it. It means I am a crook, and he is an idiot. Books can be under- or over-priced. That’s part of the fun: trying to locate the former and avoid the latter. When I find what I want, should I ask for a discount? Yes. Will I get one? These days, for sure. What advice could you give to a new collector? Only buy what you like. Always buy the best copy you can afford. Buy fewer books, at a higher level. Buy from someone you have reason to trust. Spend 30% more than you can afford. What about buying and selling at auction? Auctioneers claim that (1) you get the best bargains if you buy at auction, and (2) you can get the best prices if you sell at auction. Both can’t be true, though it is amazing how many people believe it. But about 90% of the books at auction are sold to members of the book trade. It’s best to know what you are doing. Can’t you get a better deal on ebay, and cut out the middleman? Every now and again you might. You are more likely to end up roasted with an apple in your mouth. How do you explain the allure of rare books? You either feel it or you don’t. It’s a matter of taste, and inclination, and, like love, doesn’t need to be justified. I think holding a copy of the first edition of Ulysses, or Great Expectations, is thrilling, especially with a presentation inscription by the author. If you don’t feel similarly, you haven’t got the makings of a book collector. In fact, I don’t even think I would like you. Final note: we ended up with takings of $60,000, which was not bad, and buying three or four things at reasonable prices, that will make one or two of our collectors very happy. I am now eating breakfast in the morning, and dinner in the evening. Maybe I will sleep through the night one day soon. Booksellers Rick Gekoski guardian.co.uk
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Leo Hickman: Does living in an urban centre have a smaller environmental impact than living in a rural area? Having resided in both, I have often wondered whether living in a city has a smaller environmental impact than living in the countryside. I suspect it does, but it would be nice to have a definitive view, one way or the other. R Lassiter, by email At first glance, it would certainly seem logical that city-living is the greener option – if it is, indeed, an option. Surrounded by public transport, you don’t need to own a car. And by living in dense, compact housing, you should need less in the way of resources and energy. The economies of scale and superior efficiencies available in a city should, in theory, always trump those in a rural environment. There certainly seems to have been a slew of books and reports arguing much this point in recent years. I once interviewed the New Yorker’s David Owen about his book Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability and he made a very compelling case. But he also admitted – like myself – that he doesn’t now live in the Big Smoke, which suggests there is still some way to go to convince people to remain in these hubs of eco-efficiency once they have the opportunity to leave. I have also visited Donnachadh McCarthy ‘s home in south London which displays what can be achieved when you take urban eco-living to the absolute extreme. (In the context of a westernised lifestyle, of course.) It’s hard to imagine Donnachadh achieving quite the same results in a rural setting. But there must be some environmental positives to country-living, surely? You can grow your own food, should you desire. And better source renewable solid fuels, such as timber. But, as David Owen points out, if everyone moved from cities to the countryside, it would likely trigger an environmental crisis as there just wouldn’t be enough land to go round for everyone to live the “good life”. So this question must also raise wider issues of equity about the ownership and availability of land and other natural resources. So, as urban populations swell, as is the current global trend , what future role will the countryside hold? Will our green expanses beyond the ‘burbs exist solely to supply cities with food and energy? Perhaps, in a way, they already do? Or is this issue a little more complex and nuanced that we might otherwise imagine? This column is an experiment in crowd-sourcing a reader’s question, so please let us know your views and experiences below (as opposed to emailing them) and I will join in with some of my own thoughts and reactions as the debate progresses. I will also be inviting various interested parties to join the debate too. • Please send your own environment question to ask.leo.and.lucy@guardian.co.uk. Or, alternatively, message me on Twitter @LeoHickman Ethical and green living Carbon emissions Waste Travel and transport Leo Hickman guardian.co.uk
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Some leaders can become so demonised that it’s impossible to assess their achievements and failures in a balanced way It happened again in Madrid a few weeks ago. I was at a meeting of development officials and researchers and Venezuela came up in conversation. Cue mayhem. Is it possible to mention Hugo Chávez without becoming embroiled in name-calling, exaggerations and, not infrequently, brazen lies? While it is fairly normal that politics can become partisan very quickly (just look at the US at the moment), the point of being a development professional is meant to be that you step outside the partisan for a minute to examine, wait for it, the evidence. I don’t claim that this is easy, because evidence can be skewed by its provider (often, in international development, the government of the country in question). But that is the objective. So I am constantly surprised how many development professionals find it hard to do this when Venezuela gets mentioned, or Cuba, or Bolivia. It is as if evidence and balanced analysis are appropriate for some governments but not for others. If you say, “inequality appears to have gone down considerably in Venezuela”, you risk being accused of being a Chavista. But if you say, “inequality appears to have gone down in Ethiopia”, no one would start accusing you of being a zealous supporter of Meles Zenawi. The same problem exists on the other side too. When I was in Colombia, some in the human rights community were incapable of saying anything positive about the administration of President Alvaro Uribe , because they accused his government of making shady deals with paramilitaries. I would call this the “pitchfork effect” (technically known as the “e-halo effect”), whereby a leader can become so demonised in certain countries or populations that it is no longer possible to assess their achievements and failures in a balanced way. The more a leader is demonised, the more his or her supporters will exaggerate how wonderful they are. It is the converse of the more well-known “halo effect”, whose most famous beneficiary in recent times was Nelson Mandela, a politician to his fingertips, embroiled in many of the things politicians get embroiled in, and responsible for as many bad decisions as good ones on economic policy in South Africa. But criticise him and you are criticising the freedom that he personifies. It is a handy effect to have. There are some leaders who are so vile that applying a balanced assessment to them seems tasteless. The murderous juntas of Argentina and Chile in the 70s and 80s spring to mind. But even Augusto Pinochet, a man who oversaw barbaric murders and torture , appears to be granted by many a balanced assessment of the time he was in power. And that is probably right. It is not condoning his actions to assess how his period in power affected Chile’s economic conditions. So why not Chávez? One word often used to describe him is “dangerous”, and this may be the key to understanding the rage he engenders. It is hard to consider him a military threat, the odd phoney war with neighbouring Colombia notwithstanding. No, it is the danger he poses to normality that people who oppose his policies find so worrying. His rhetorical attack on modern capitalism is so strong, that were he to demonstrate any improvements in Venezuela with his rather vague “21st-century socialism”, the conventional wisdom favouring free markets and a limited state would be challenged. It is the same reason that the US is so obsessed with Cuba – the danger to capitalism is allowing another model to succeed. I am saying all this because the first step we need to take when analysing the achievements and failures of the new left in Latin America is to do our best to be balanced, taking the evidence as we find it, and trying to incorporate new evidence into our analysis, even if it does not fit our assumptions. Hugo Chávez Jonathan Glennie guardian.co.uk
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Police say fatal stabbing of four members of the same family at their Northampton home was ‘not random’ A missing hire car could provide the clue to solving the murder of a university lecturer, his wife and two daughters, who were found dead at their home in Northamptonshire. Police said they were urgently looking for a five-door silver Vauxhall Corsa with registration plate BG60 PMO, which is believed to have been at the family’s address on Friday 29 April. The bodies of Jifeng Deng, 46, and Helen Chui, 47, were discovered downstairs in their detached house in Simpson Manor, in Wootton, by police officers on Sunday evening. The bodies of Xing, 18, and Alice, 12, were discovered upstairs. The police said all four had multiple stab wounds and called the attack “not random”. “The car was hired to one of the deceased, but is not at the address and its whereabouts are currently unknown,” the police said, issuing a warning to members of the public not to approach the car or any driver. Northampton police said more than 30 detectives were working on the investigation. A spokesman said: “At this moment in time the motive behind the deaths does not appear to be due to burglary or robbery.” Neighbours became concerned after the family, who are believed to have lived at the house for five years, had not been seen for several days and the curtains were closed. On Monday police were conducting house-to-house inquiries and said they were “liaising with residents and local people to offer reassurance and advice over any safety concerns”. However, the senior investigating officer, Detective Superintendent Glyn Timmins, said in a press conference he did not believe there was a wider risk to the public. Ding, a senior lecturer in environmental science at Manchester Metropolitan University, was often away for work, while his two daughters attended local schools. One neighbour, Andrew Dixon, who knew the couple as Jeff and Helen, said: “This is suburbia, not the Bronx. You don’t expect to come home to your house one evening and see police swarming everywhere … Jeff was a lecturer at a university – he was quiet but a well-to-do man.” Family friends also paid tribute to the couple’s daughters, who were keen musicians: “They were both such bright girls. It’s very sad.” The police said they were also trying to trace a yellow Fiat 500 which was driven by Xing, also known as Nancy, and which is thought to have been sent for repair at an unknown garage. Knife crime Crime Jo Adetunji guardian.co.uk
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