The 12.5 miles surrounding the foundering Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant are now officially off limits, the Japanese government announced yesterday. Until now, the government had merely advised people that entering the evacuation zone was a bad idea, but many residents ignored that advice, venturing in to retrieve their possessions…
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Kuala Lumpur government announces new strategy to try and retain its brightest sons and daughters from emigrating Sheng Cai Lim is a skilled and experienced IT professional, an asset to a country that aspires to grow into a fully developed nation by the end of the decade. There’s only one problem. Lim, 29, isn’t sure he wants to stay in Malaysia. Lim says it’s 50/50 that he’ll leave. “I’ll likely go to Singapore for a few years, and then after that maybe Canada or New Zealand,” he said. He’s on a six-month sabbatical from work and recently registered with head hunters who place candidates abroad. “My friends overseas wonder why I’m still in Malaysia. They say there are better opportunities abroad,” he said. If Lim does make the move, he’ll join the 1.5m Malaysians, or 5.3% of the population, who live and work outside of the country, according to the World Bank. By moving to countries such as Singapore, Australia and the UK, these migrants are creating a considerable brain drain that threatens the country’s economic progress. “Brain drain is hurting the country’s drive to move up the value chain,” said Dr Ooi Kee Beng, senior fellow at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies in Singapore. “The fact that Malaysians fill many of the top and middle management posts in the region, from Shanghai to Singapore, tells us that the country is bleeding talent.” The problem has been getting worse in recent years. More than 300,000 Malaysians left the country between March 2008 and August 2009, compared to nearly 140,000 in 2007, the deputy foreign affairs minister, Tuan A Kohilan Pillay told parliament. Many work in key sectors such as finance, technology and engineering. Two factors are driving the exodus, said Tony Pua, MP and member of the opposition committee on the ministry of higher education. “First, there’s simple economics. You can make more money overseas,” he said. The other cause is the country’s race-based affirmative action policies, Pua said, which favour ethnic-majority bumiputra, or sons of the soil, over minority Chinese and Indians, who make up 24% and 7% of the population, respectively. “The two problems exacerbate each other. The economy has not been growing, and there’s an increasing demand for a bigger piece of the pie among bumiputra. As a result, the government is more prone to implement policies that favour them, and minorities feel excluded. It’s a vicious cycle,” Pua said. Malaysian law provides bumiputra benefits such as rebates on property prices, quotas for university enrolment and civil-service jobs, and preferential treatment for government contracts, among other advantages. The laws, which were enacted in 1971 in an attempt to redistribute wealth in the wake of race riots in 1969, distinguish Malaysia from other Asian countries with brain-drain problems, such as the Philippines. In interviews with Malaysians living in Kuala Lumpur and overseas, frustration with these laws and worries about rising racial tension and Islamic conservatism have led many to reconsider their futures in their country of birth. “Malaysia is a very controlled and fanatic country,” said Janath Anantha Vass, 29, an ethnic Indian accountant in Kuala Lumpur who plans to move to Australia. “Melbourne suits my lifestyle the best, and I feel that’s the place for me.” The Malaysian government is attempting to respond to the problem with an array of programmes, including 1Malaysia, a campaign designed to ease racial tensions. In January, Prime Minister Najib Razak launched the Talent Corporation, which seeks to lure back skilled Malaysians. But many are sceptical that these programmes will address the systemic problems driving brain drain. “I’m not sure how effective Talent Corporation will be. Past programmes like this have not worked, and I’m not sure how this one is different,” said Evelyn Wong, an ethnic Chinese economics student at Scripps College in California, who blogs about brain drain. But Dr Kim Leng Yeah, an economist at Ram Holdings in Kuala Lumpur, said Talent Corporation did at least demonstrate the government’s willingness to address the issue. “There has been a lot of public scepticism,” he said. “But it is a proactive move.” Representatives at Talent Corporation declined to comment. As Lim, who is ethnic Chinese, considers his future, he has spent time thinking about his place in multicultural Malaysia. “I do realise that I am a minority in this country,” he said. “My family is encouraging me to leave. They say, ‘Malaysia doesn’t want us anymore, so why stay?’” And while he hasn’t given up on eventually returning, he would have to see significant changes before doing so. “It doesn’t feel like the country is mature enough to tackle its problems right now. When we are ready to face our problems, I’ll be ready to come back,” he said. Malaysia Global economy guardian.co.uk
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Deputy prime minister launches his strongest attack yet on electoral system ‘that props up tired establishment politics’ Nick Clegg has denounced defenders of the first-past-the-post electoral system as dinosaurs who were propping up a tired system of establishment politics that had failed Britain. In his strongest attack yet in the referendum campaign, the deputy prime minister did not mention the Tories or David Cameron but said those defending the current voting system were desperate, thinking they might lose their grip on power – which they no longer deserved. He claimed critics of the yes campaign feared any change to pluralist politics, and he cited reports that they were openly praising their use of gutter politics. In a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), Clegg defended coalition politics, arguing that compromise did not equate to a broken promise. His allies have been angered at the way in which Cameron has allowed the Tory-funded no campaign to target him as a man who systematically breaks promises. Clegg said: “When the vested interests of the old, tired, establishment of politics and the media are so opposed to a reform – turning so personal about it – you know there is something worth fighting for. It is a desperate attempt to defend the indefensible – the old politics of tribalism backed by dinosaurs on all sides of the political spectrum. It is the attack on people working together for the national good that is so dismal.” He also defended himself from the charge of broken promises, saying compromise was inherent in coalition politics and in itself perfectly acceptable in politics as it was in everyday life. But some Labour supporters backing the alternative vote system accused Clegg of making a political error in attacking Labour, when the priority of the yes campaign, according to polling, was to galvanise wavering party support behind the yes campaign. One section of Clegg’s speech included a condemnation of Labour’s “refusal to deal with the deficit”. He said Labour was treating people like fools. Will Straw, an associate at the IPPR and pro-AV supporter, tweeted: “Spectacularly badly judged speech by Clegg. Since Labour voters are swing voters he would have done far better to reach out.” Other Liberal Democrats, including the party’s president, Tim Farron, want to make the yes campaign an open pitch to unite progressive forces on the left against conservatism. Clegg also said: “If we want a different kind of politics, one in which parties can work together in the national interest, we all have to grow up a bit. Compromise is not betrayal. I know it’s unfashionable for politicians to admit the limits of their electoral success, but the fact is the Liberal Democrats came third at the general election. “In the meantime, I will continue to make what are sometimes difficult compromises, but ones which are always shaped as best I can by the Liberal values I hold dear. “Coalition government is a new concept in modern Britain, but it works on the basis of very British values. It means discussion, debate, compromise and the search for common ground, regardless of your political starting point. it means putting aside dogma and tribalism and searching for a way forward that most people can accept. Who doesn’t, in their daily lives, find themselves working together with people they disagree with?” Alternative vote AV referendum Nick Clegg Electoral reform Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill yesterday restricting abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy because, the bill presumes, at that point a fetus can experience pain. The “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” makes performing such an abortion a felony, although exemptions are allowed when the mother is at risk….
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Warning follows ozone and pollution readings, while holidaymakers leave for cooler Europe during spring break The first shadow has been cast over the UK’s sunlit spring by a smog warning for central London. The government alert was triggered by monitors on the traffic-choked Marylebone Road, whose readings breached European limits on ozone and pollutant particles linked to respiratory and other health problems. The move came as the first of an estimated 2 million holidaymakers left the UK for supposed hotspots, many of which are currently cooler than southern England’s daily highs of 24C (71F). Pullovers were evident on flights to Barcelona and Corfu, where the temperature was 16C (61F) and 17C (63F), while relatives seeing travellers off were in T-shirts. Another 5 million people are expected to take breaks in the UK with at least one overnight stay during the bonus extended break offered by the succession of Easter, the royal wedding and May Day weekend. Roads and railways are already feeling the strain, despite reassuring bulletins from the Met Office that warm, dry and calm conditions will continue into next week, lending no urgency to getaway plans. Accidents and the jam of early starters caused major delays on the M25 near Dartford, the A1M in county Durham, the A38 near Derby and the A2 in Kent. The Highways Agency announced the suspension of roadworks at many major sites to help holiday traffic flow, although essential repairs will continue on parts of the M1 and M25. The fire-damaged stretch of the M1 between junctions one and four in London has fully reopened. Network Rail is optimistic about smoother journeys than last Easter, with less engineering work over the holiday and an estimated 18% more trains running. There will be disruption, however, on the West Coast line in north-west England, the Great Western line and at Liverpool Street station in London, where essential repairs and modernisation need the quieter holiday period to get work done. The closure of 1,100 miles of track at various stages during the break was criticised by Labour’s shadow transport secretary, Maria Eagle, who called for compensation discounts. She said: “Christmas was ruined for many families thanks to the government’s failure to cope with the winter weather. Now families face a real struggle to get together for Easter because so much of the rail network will be out of action.” Others on the move include bats, which have taken to using canals as a seasonal corridor in the warmth according to a report from British Waterways, and thousands of Browntail moth caterpillars, which have spun sticky canopies of cocoons on Canvey Island in Essex, to pupate earlier than usual. In London, the mayor, Boris Johnson, did his best to persuade capital-dwellers to stay put by opening a temporary ‘beach’ on the Thames south bank, near the London Eye. Funfairs, candy floss and 70 metres (230ft) of sand are on offer, polluted air or not, although paddling in the river is not part of the deal.There is expected to be a huge influx of overseas visitors in the run-up to the Royal wedding, with bookings 244% up on last year, compared with a 104% rise in travellers going overseas, thought to be swollen by “wedding refugees”. British Airways planes will ferry more than 250,000 visitors to the UK before the wedding, with the six busiest routes all from the United States. New York is the favourite long-haul destination for British holidaymakers, with Amsterdam, Dublin, Paris and Rome the top European destinations. National Express is predicting a triple bank holiday bonanza for its coaches, with services between London and 67 other centres laid on for the royal wedding. Anyone bored at the UK seaside, meanwhile, might like to help remedy statistics released by the Marine Conservation Society which show that litter on beaches increased by 3% last year. Weather Pollution London Martin Wainwright guardian.co.uk
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Just one man convicted of assault on Mukhtaran Mai, after her nine-year struggle for justice Human rights groups have expressed outrage after most of those accused of the gang rape of Mukhtaran Mai, who was assaulted on the orders of a village council, were freed by Pakistan’s supreme court. Nine years after the gang rape, Mai’s struggle for justice ended with the court ordering five of the six accused to be freed. A distraught Mai, who has won international acclaim for her bravery in a deeply chauvinistic society, said that the release of the men had put her life in danger. Originally 14 had been accused of taking part in the rape, which was ordered in 2002 by village elders sitting as a traditional tribal court after Mai’s brother was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a rival clan. The court judgment acknowledged that Mai had been raped, by upholding the sentence against one of the accused, Abdul Khaliq, but the outcome means that just one of the 14 men she believes were involved has been found guilty. Khaliq’s original death sentence had already been commuted to life in prison by a lower court. “I am scared these 13 people will come back to my village and harm me and my family,” Mai said, in her remote home in the south of Punjab province. “I have lost faith in the courts and now I am leaving my case to the court of God. I am sure God will punish those who molested me.” Mai has started a school for girls and a non-governmental organisation that promotes women’s education. She vowed that she would not flee her village, and would continue with her work. The supreme court was heavily criticised by human rights groups for the verdict, which they said put the safety of all Pakistani women at risk. Rape, “honour killings” and other crimes against women in Pakistan are routinely poorly investigated by police and go unpunished by the courts. “Mukhtaran Mai has had the courage to fight for so many years. This [verdict] shows that you can commit any crime, even in front of 100 people, and get away with it,” said Fouzia Saeed, a women’s rights activist, speaking outside the supreme court in Islamabad. “Every day something like this is happening in Pakistan. Jirgas [village courts] are still doing this. The jirgas will be encouraged by this verdict.” The court, under activist chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, has taken on authority relentlessly, ordering high officials to answer before it and the re-investigation of cases where the police and prosecution fail to present a competent case. But the court is accused of pandering to the country’s Islamist right wing, especially when it comes to cases involving women and religious minorities, and also of failing to convict virtually anyone of terrorist offences in recent years despite raging jihadist violence across the country. “The court is proactive when it appears to have a political axe to grind, where it is in direct confrontation with the government,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, a Pakistan-based senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But it appears that when there are vulnerable groups involved and questions of fundamental rights, the court is playing to the rightwing gallery.” Mai’s ordeal began after her 13-year-old brother was accused by a more powerful clan of having sex with one of their young women. He was then sodomised in a sugar cane field by the woman’s brother, Abdul Khaliq, and two other men. There appears to be no basis for the original accusation. A tribal council was assembled from Khaliq’s clan, which ordered that Mai be punished for her brother’s illicit sex by being raped, on the basis of eye-for-an-eye justice. Mai was forced at gunpoint by Khaliq into a stable, where he and other clan members raped her. She was then paraded naked around the village. Tradition dictated that Mai commit suicide, as the shame supposedly fell on her, but she decided to fight her tormentors. A district court in 2002 found six men guilty of rape and sentenced them to death but freed the other eight accused. Then in 2005, the Lahore high court, the top provincial court, ruled that there was insufficient evidence against five of the men. The case then went to the supreme court, which on Thursday upheld the 2005 judgment. The cruelty of Mai’s case is repeated in the treatment of women across the country, with tribal councils regularly ordering young girls to be handed over in compensation for crimes committed by other family members, and women to be killed for “honour”. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organisation, recorded 791 honour killings of women in 2010; at least 26 of the women were raped or gang raped before being killed. Rape is rarely reported but at least 2,903 women did come forward with rape complaints last year, according to the commission. Pakistan Rape Saeed Shah guardian.co.uk
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In countries where capital punishment has been banned the alternative can be inhumane life imprisonment without parole Amnesty International’s recently published death penalty statistics hailed a “decade of progress”. For opponents of capital punishment, this annual tradition of significant documented falls in executions is a victory – of sorts. As Amnesty reported, of the 67 countries that handed down death sentences in 2010, only 23 actually carried out executions. These statistics, however, do not tell us this: what happened to the prisoners who escaped state execution in the remaining 44? Very little attention is given to the sanctions that should replace capital punishment, or to what happens after it is abolished. Consider Uganda. A landmark legal challenge in 2009 abolished mandatory death sentences for certain crimes. But the Ugandan criminal justice system was unprepared for the change. Under pressure from politicians facing a backlash from a public highly supportive of capital punishment, and in the absence of any new sentencing guidelines, judges handed down draconian prison sentences instead – including life without parole, previously nonexistent in Uganda. The attraction of life without parole, now the commonest alternative to capital punishment, is understandable. It allows governments to claim they are protecting the public by permanently removing serious offenders from society. It appeases public outcry at the early release of dangerous convicts on parole. And it means abolitionists can show they are not soft on crime, while at the same time eliminating the danger of executing innocent people. But life without parole trades one severe punishment for another: execution is swapped for a protracted, hopeless death in unspeakable conditions. HIV rates in Ugandan prisons are more than double the rest of the population. In Malawi, where no one has been executed since 1992 , prisons are vastly overcrowded and rife with infectious disease; prisoners are denied contact with families, and sexual and psychological abuse by inmates and guards is routine . Across the world today, those lucky souls who escape death by hanging, beheading, electrocution, lethal injection, shooting or stoning live out their lives in conditions tantamount to a breach of international prohibitions of cruel and inhuman punishment, as an emerging jurisprudence recognises . Whole life imprisonment can also be a form of legal disappearance. In 2009, after Kenya’s last elections , some 4,000 prisoners had their sentences commuted to life to without parole by President Kibaki. Some of those prisoners – living in some of the world’s most crowded and worst funded prisons – have not been heard from since, by their lawyers or families. These are hardly arguments for retaining capital punishment. But if a sentence of 75 years, with hard labour and without review or hope of release – the current alternative in Trinidad and Tobago – is considered a “victory”, it is surely time to rethink our indices of success. Amnesty, for its part, does not propose any particular substitute, other than opposing alternatives that constitute degrading punishment. In Death Penalty: Questions and Answers , Amnesty rightly highlights the brutalising effect of state execution, the cost, the travesties of justice, its disproportionate use against poor and minority communities, its negative impact on victims’ families . But Amnesty fails to challenge itself with the most crucial questions of all: “What alternatives do you propose, and how can we convince governments to implement them?” On the one hand, Amnesty is right not to preach. Finding affordable and publicly acceptable alternatives in desperately underfunded prison systems is an enormous challenge. Overwhelming majorities – including in Britain – support capital punishment, often under the influence of misleading statistics on the deterrent effect of the death penalty and unproven links between serious crime and capital punishment. And in the absence of decent victim support services, it becomes convenient for supporters of capital punishment to exploit crime victims’ grief, arguing that they will settle for nothing less than ultimate retribution or alternatives that do not involve throwing away the key. Yet Amnesty’s neutrality among alternatives is symptomatic of a wider problem: who will tackle the way the criminal justice system operates in countries that retain the death penalty? Politicians are reluctant to expend scarce resources or political capital on properly rehabilitating unpopular and vilified groups of prisoners. A lawyer’s work, meanwhile, is done once their client’s death sentence is commuted. Few headlines focus on the aftermath, and few international advocates jet in to ensure that those released from death row are not tortured in prison, contract tuberculosis or HIV, lose contact with their families or die in appalling squalor. Indeed, litigation can often cause unintended harm. In the United States, as Peter Hodgkinson of the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies (one of few organisations raising this issue) has pointed out , a government backlash against death-penalty litigation has directly or indirectly led to an increase in the number of capital crimes, and to severe restrictions in the appeal process. Life without parole cannot be the alternative. Both the UN and Council of Europe guidelines on managing long-term prisoners recognise that very small numbers of convicted prisoners may have to stay in prison for their natural lives – but only with regular reviews of their risk of reoffending. Some states refuse to extradite suspected offenders to countries where they might face a whole-life tariff. And in Europe, as Edward Fitzgerald QC has noted , there is growing legal recognition of the capacity for redemption and rehabilitation – and that “any sentence that effectively closed the door for ever would be contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment”. Three British whole-life prisoners are currently challenging their sentence in the European Court of Human Rights on those grounds . The abolitionist campaign’s goal should be a humane, proportionate and human rights-compliant response to perpetrators and victims of serious crime. It might require global guidance to standardise the huge, and often grossly disproportionate range of sentencing decisions. It will certainly require building and sustaining capacity among lawyers to challenge human rights abuses in prison, and training police and prison staff to cope in effective and positive ways with serious offenders. It will also mean recognising that the high proportion of mentally ill prisoners on death row might be better dealt with in clinical rather than punitive settings. And as for the most serious crimes of all, those against humanity? Compare the approach of post-apartheid South Africa, where many offenders took part in the truth and reconciliation process rather than receiving punitive sentences, or the participation by perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide in community service and open dialogue with victims, to the grisly spectacle of Saddam Hussein’s execution. A falling execution rate is not the only measure of rising humanity. We cannot simply declare victory when capital punishment is removed from the statute book, or when fewer prisoners are executed. Moving to a humane penal response to serious crime, in societies in which the death penalty has flourished for centuries, cannot be done at a stroke. The entire abolitionist project is undermined if wholesale infrastructural change is not addressed. Too often, current alternatives to the death penalty raise the uncomfortable question: “what would you rather?” Those that do not are not easy – but silence does no justice to our cause. • This article was written with the assistance of Professor Peter Hodgkinson and Kerry Akers at the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies Capital punishment Prisons and probation Human rights Tom Stoate guardian.co.uk
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Jenin residents claim public opinion turned on director for performing plays that went against Islamic conservative values He wanted to create an “art revolution” to help liberate the Palestinian people, but he only managed to alienate those he most wanted to inspire. The murder earlier this month of Juliano Mer-Khamis was condemned all over the world but met with a grim silence by the residents of the Jenin refugee camp where he founded his Freedom Theatre. It has emerged that the residents of the camp had serious grievances against the actor-director that may have provided the excuses for an unknown gunman to kill him. The 52-year-old, born of a Jewish mother and Palestinian father, attracted funding from the UN, Sweden and the UK for his theatre school and productions but many camp residents found his activities offensive. His death and attitudes to the theatre highlight the conflict of interest between western donors, local elites and the populations they aim to aid; between liberal western values of freedom of expression and a more conservative, traditional world view. A fatwa-style leaflet circulated in Jenin this week and seen by the Guardian, lists criticisms of Mer-Khamis and suggests that the final impetus for the murder was his plan to stage a controversial German play that explores teenage sexuality. Mer-Khamis’s mother, Arna, started a drama workshop in Jenin to help children traumatised by the first intifada which began in 1987. In 2002, Mer-Khamis returned to Jenin after the Israeli army’s destruction of a large part of the refugee camp and the theatre his mother founded. He discovered that many of the children his mother had worked with had become gunmen and suicide bombers which he documented in his award-winning film, Arna’s Children. But he decided that he wanted to continue his mother’s work and create a platform for Palestinian youth to stand up to authority through creativity rather than violence. The Freedom Theatre taught theatre and acting to students, including former gunmen, and staged plays such as Animal Farm and Alice in Wonderland which satirised Palestinian and Israeli authorities. But while Mer-Khamis entertained thousands and inspired devotion among his disciples, his methods disturbed conservative groups in the refugee camp. The theatre was firebombed twice and Mer-Khamis often envisaged his death at the hands of “a crazy Palestinian gunman”. A community leader said that Mer-Khamis was respected in the camp for highlighting damage inflicted by the Israeli army but his creation of a politically and social liberal theatre was more controversial. Adnan al-Hindi, the chairman of the refugee camp’s “popular committee” said that Mer-Khamis had very different values and ideas from the residents, which caused disagreements. The nature of the disputes varied. Local leaders were offended when David Milliband, the British foreign secretary, visited the theatre in 2009 without co-ordination with Palestinian officials. They were also offended by groups of theatre visitors touring the camp and by comments made by Mer-Khamis in interviews. “He said that his message was to liberate citizens from the authority of their leaders and children from their parents. Then there was mixing of sexes and dancing. We tried to discuss it with him and persuade him that he was mistaken but to no avail. Public opinion turned against him,” said Hindi. Inside the camp, rebuilt since its partial destruction in 2002, people were reluctant to speak about Mer-Khamis. A group of elderly women sitting by the roadside, gave their opinion: “God only knows what happened but the theatre was a shameful place.” A butcher was more forthcoming. Standing in a small room with a portrait of Saddam Hussein and a sparsely stocked cold cabinet, he said he and others were offended by the theatre. “We are Muslims. We have traditions. We looked for our children and found them at the theatre dancing. If he came here to bring jobs that would be good but instead he comes here to corrupt our girls and make women of our boys,” he said. The leaflet justifying the killing of Mer-Khamis also demands the closure of the theatre and other western organisations, including the British Kenyon Institute, under threat of “jihadi action”. The leaflet attacks Mer-Khamis for his belief in co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians, “as if we could live with those who stole our land and killed our children”. It goes on to attack his plays: “What kind of resistance [to occupation] is the play Animal Farm, which made the young men of Palestine bark like dogs and lick the ground in shame and the young women wear the costumes of pigs and roll around the ground in degeneracy?” The leaflet describes Mer-Khamis as a Jew, a communist and an infidel. “He was not killed for a scene in a play. He was killed for the accumulation of his activities since he came here,” it says. Mer-Khamis’s most recent project, Spring Awakening, is singled out for particular criticism. The play by Frank Wedekind was banned in Germany in 1891 for its portrayal of teenage sexuality. In recent years a musical adaptation won awards in London and New York. The leaflet then refers to a telephone conversation between Mer-Khamis and the Arab-Israeli actor, Makram Khouri, in which Khouri advises his friend not to stage the play. According to theatre staff, very few people were aware of the conversation. The leaflet then praises the man from Jenin refugee camp who carried out the killing. “He did not do it with a silencer, or in the dark but in broad daylight, face to face, and he made sure not to harm the woman and child who were in the car at the time,” the leaflet says. Palestinian police say that their investigation into the murder continues. Meanwhile, at the theatre staff remain determined to continue the work of Mer-Khamis despite a sense of paranoia that the killer had a connection to the theatre. Rawand Arkavi, the theatre co-ordinator who is from Jenin, said: “We were cautious before but now we don’t care if they shoot all of us. We will keep the theatre going.” Palestinian territories Theatre Middle East Israel Conal Urquhart guardian.co.uk
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The absurd claim that Barack Obama was not born in the US shouldn’t get airtime – but rightwing cynics keep giving it new life America is a country facing serious problems. The crisis in Libya shows little signs of abating – even as US troops continue to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Across the Arab world, people’s revolutions dissolve old certainties about US policy. At home, the government faces $38bn of brutal austerity cuts, which would be bad enough except for the fact they make barely a dent in the country’s staggering $1.5tn deficit forecast for this year. With a presidential election looming next year, one would expect these troubling dilemmas – or other issues like high levels of joblessness, Wall Street reform, border security – to dominate debate. That should be the priority of Republicans and Democrats alike and, indeed, the media classes, too. But no. Instead, the current hot topic is one that is quite literally unreal: was Barack Obama actually born in America? Donald Trump has used this singular issue to catapult himself into the giddy heights of early polling for the Republican nomination. In an act of breathtaking cynicism, Trump has converted to “birtherism” in order to generate headlines for his own outlandish ego and his reality TV show. It has worked a treat. Trump has been interviewed on numerous TV shows and spouted birther nonsense as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Serious journalists engage with him and debate these issues. Fox lauds him, MSNBC slams him: both end up falsely validating him by trying to look at the (complete lack of) evidence. The birther “debate” should be reduced to this: it’s OK to mention birtherism, if one then immediately qualifies the mention with the rider that anyone who believes it is a moron or a cynic or both. And then one moves swiftly on. But now here comes a second massive wave of birther debate to torment us and flood the media space where more important things need to be discussed. Next month will see the publication of a birther book by Jerome Corsi , a rightwing activist who previously produced a bestseller that helped stoke the Swift Boat controversy that helped derail John Kerry in 2004. Corsi’s new tome is already sitting near the top of the bestseller lists on Amazon. By Thursday morning, it was ranked No 1, after the Drudge Report had heavily plugged it this week : an astonishing result for a book not yet released or even reviewed. Sadly, Corsi’s new birther book is likely to sell tens of thousands of copies when it slouches towards 17 May to be born. Matt Drudge will, no doubt, continue to give it a huge publicity push. Its title says it all: “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President.” It is being published by conservative publishers WND Books , a niche producer of rightwing conspiracy theories, religious books and “family values” tracts. A selection of titles from WND includes such fun-sounding tomes as “America’s War on Christianity”, “The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism” and “United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror”. It is tempting to laugh all this off as a joke: a jovial sideshow with no real importance. But it really is not funny. The birther conspiracy theory began life on the outer reaches of the 2008 campaign. It was a whispered rumour from the tin-foil hat brigade at the back of town hall meetings or by drunks at bars. Then it hit the blogosphere and, from there, the cable news shows. So it became a subject that newspapers could write about. Now, it is forming the basis for a possible bid for the White House and a book that is set to be a bestseller. That journey from extremism to the mainstream of an idea that is so palpably and stupidly misguided sets a dangerous precedent. Other similarly outlandish fantasies are already treading the same path: that Obama is a secret Muslim; that Obama is a secret communist; that Obama intends to scrap American democracy; that he will take away everyone’s guns. These are fringe ideas deserving of nothing but scorn. Instead, they too may soon top the bestseller lists and form real-life campaign slogans. If they do, every American will be the worse for it. Barack Obama US elections 2012 US politics Republicans Donald Trump United States Newspapers & magazines John Kerry Paul Harris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The absurd claim that Barack Obama was not born in the US shouldn’t get airtime – but rightwing cynics keep giving it new life America is a country facing serious problems. The crisis in Libya shows little signs of abating – even as US troops continue to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Across the Arab world, people’s revolutions dissolve old certainties about US policy. At home, the government faces $38bn of brutal austerity cuts, which would be bad enough except for the fact they make barely a dent in the country’s staggering $1.5tn deficit forecast for this year. With a presidential election looming next year, one would expect these troubling dilemmas – or other issues like high levels of joblessness, Wall Street reform, border security – to dominate debate. That should be the priority of Republicans and Democrats alike and, indeed, the media classes, too. But no. Instead, the current hot topic is one that is quite literally unreal: was Barack Obama actually born in America? Donald Trump has used this singular issue to catapult himself into the giddy heights of early polling for the Republican nomination. In an act of breathtaking cynicism, Trump has converted to “birtherism” in order to generate headlines for his own outlandish ego and his reality TV show. It has worked a treat. Trump has been interviewed on numerous TV shows and spouted birther nonsense as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Serious journalists engage with him and debate these issues. Fox lauds him, MSNBC slams him: both end up falsely validating him by trying to look at the (complete lack of) evidence. The birther “debate” should be reduced to this: it’s OK to mention birtherism, if one then immediately qualifies the mention with the rider that anyone who believes it is a moron or a cynic or both. And then one moves swiftly on. But now here comes a second massive wave of birther debate to torment us and flood the media space where more important things need to be discussed. Next month will see the publication of a birther book by Jerome Corsi , a rightwing activist who previously produced a bestseller that helped stoke the Swift Boat controversy that helped derail John Kerry in 2004. Corsi’s new tome is already sitting near the top of the bestseller lists on Amazon. By Thursday morning, it was ranked No 1, after the Drudge Report had heavily plugged it this week : an astonishing result for a book not yet released or even reviewed. Sadly, Corsi’s new birther book is likely to sell tens of thousands of copies when it slouches towards 17 May to be born. Matt Drudge will, no doubt, continue to give it a huge publicity push. Its title says it all: “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President.” It is being published by conservative publishers WND Books , a niche producer of rightwing conspiracy theories, religious books and “family values” tracts. A selection of titles from WND includes such fun-sounding tomes as “America’s War on Christianity”, “The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism” and “United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror”. It is tempting to laugh all this off as a joke: a jovial sideshow with no real importance. But it really is not funny. The birther conspiracy theory began life on the outer reaches of the 2008 campaign. It was a whispered rumour from the tin-foil hat brigade at the back of town hall meetings or by drunks at bars. Then it hit the blogosphere and, from there, the cable news shows. So it became a subject that newspapers could write about. Now, it is forming the basis for a possible bid for the White House and a book that is set to be a bestseller. That journey from extremism to the mainstream of an idea that is so palpably and stupidly misguided sets a dangerous precedent. Other similarly outlandish fantasies are already treading the same path: that Obama is a secret Muslim; that Obama is a secret communist; that Obama intends to scrap American democracy; that he will take away everyone’s guns. These are fringe ideas deserving of nothing but scorn. Instead, they too may soon top the bestseller lists and form real-life campaign slogans. If they do, every American will be the worse for it. Barack Obama US elections 2012 US politics Republicans Donald Trump United States Newspapers & magazines John Kerry Paul Harris guardian.co.uk
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