With today’s Republican Party being led around by Tea Party extremists, Thomas Friedman misses the adult supervision of George HW Bush, he writes in the New York Times . Calling him “one of our most underrated presidents,” Friedman contends that Bush p è re brought foreign policy “deftness” and, more importantly,…
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Renewed appeals for aid made as wet weather adds to misery of thousands camped around Mogadishu Tens of thousands of famine-stricken Somali refugees were left cold and drenched after torrential rains pounded their makeshift structures in the capital, Mogadishu, on Sunday, leading to renewed appeals for aid. Rain is needed to alleviate the drought but it wrecked many of the makeshift homes made of sticks and scraps of cloth. Suffering refugees said more aid was vital but agencies have limited reach in Somalia where Islamist militants, including the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, are waging an insurgency against the country’s weak UN-backed government. “We are living in plight, we left our homes, lost our animals and farms so we ask everyone to help us to survive,” Abdi Muse Abshir said. Lul Hussein, a mother of five, said her family had a sleepless night after their makeshift home crumbled. “We are starved and we don’t have enough help,” she said. “Who’s helping us? No one! So we are already between death and bad life.” Al-Shabab, the most dangerous group among the militants al-Shabab, has barred major relief organisations from operating in the territories it controls. The UN said tens of thousands of people have died in Somalia in areas held by the Islamist rebels because food aid could not reach them. The African Union peacekeeping force fears al-Shabab may try to attack the Mogadishu camps that house tens of thousands of famine refugees, disrupting even further the distribution of food aid. The AU force is attempting to push the militants’ front line away from the camps. The drought and the famine have affected more than 11.8 million people in the Horn of Africa and created a triangle of hunger where the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia meet. The World Food Programme says it cannot reach 2.2 million Somalis who live in territory controlled by al-Shabab in south-central Somalia. Somalia Famine Aid Natural disasters and extreme weather Africa guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Iranian woman blinded by acid attack pardons assailant as he faces same fate
July 31, 2011 No Comment
Ameneh Bahrami withdraws ‘eye for an eye’ retribution hours before surgeons prepared to blind him with acid A woman blinded with acid in Iran has pardoned her attacker, a man who was scheduled to lose his sight in an eye for an eye punishment on Sunday. Majid Movahedi, 30, had been taken to Tehran’s judiciary hospital to be blinded with acid after being rendered unconscious, but Ameneh Bahrami, his victim, spared him at the last minute, Iran’s semi-official Isna news agency reported. Iran’s judiciary had given the green light to the administration for the retributive punishment, which would have been the first blinding of a convict in the country, but human rights groups across the world called on Bahrami, who had asked for eye for an eye justice in the court, to pardon him. Bahrami, who had refused to marry Movahedi, was disfigured and blinded by him when he threw a jar of acid in her face while she was returning home from work in 2004. “I feel very good. I’m happy that I pardoned him,” Isna quoted her as saying. “For seven years I’ve been trying to pursue retribution and to prove that the punishment for an acid attack is retribution but today I decided to pardon him. This was my right but in future the next victim might not do the same.” On Sunday, Bahrami asked for financial compensation instead of blinding Movahedi, an option she had previously refused to consider. Speaking to Isna, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, prosecutor general of Tehran, confirmed that Bahrami had pardoned Movahedi and described her move as a “courageous act”. Islam’s Sharia law allows for qisas (retribution) but it also advises for clemency, especially before and during Ramadan, which starts on Monday in Iran. “Inflict the same life on him that he inflicted on me,” she had told the court. Bahrami said that international focus on the case was a factor she considered in pardoning Movahedi. “The second reason I decided to pardon him was because it seemed like the entire world was waiting to see what will happen,” she said. In a highly publicised dossier in November 2008, a criminal court in Tehran ordered retribution on Movahedi after he admitted throwing acid at Bahrami, and entitled her to blind him with acid. “He was holding a red container in his hand. He looked into my eyes for a second and threw the contents of the red container into my face,” she told the court in 2008. In reaction to the news, Amnesty International, which had urged Bahrami to pardon Movahedi, called on Iran to review its penal code. “Majid Movahedi committed a horrendous act which has ruined Ameneh Bahrami’s life, and the state has a responsibility to bring him to justice and to ensure that Ameneh Bahrami receives recompense for the damage done to her,” said Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui. “But deliberate blinding inflicted by a medical expert is a cruel punishment which amounts to torture, which is prohibited under international law. “The Iranian authorities should review the penal code as a matter of urgency to ensure those who cause intentional serious physical harm, like acid attacks, receive an appropriate punishment – but that must never be a penalty which in itself constitutes torture,” she added. Bahrami, who has an electronics degree and worked in a medical engineering company before the attack, moved to Spain with the help of the Iranian government where she has undergone a series of unsuccessful operations. She briefly recovered half the vision in her right eye in 2007 but an infection blinded her again. Bahrami has recently published a book in Germany, Eye for an Eye, based on her personal life and her suffering since she was blinded. Iran Amnesty International Human rights Middle East Torture Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …President Obama is tacking to the right, trying to shore up his appeal to independents in 2012, but in the process he risks badly damaging his liberal base and creating a rift with his own party, reports the New York Times . In debt ceiling negotiations, he proposed spending cuts to…
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Islamist terrorists also mentioned in briefing, as anarchists complain of being criminalised for their beliefs What should you do if you discover an anarchist living next door? Dust off your old Sex Pistols albums and hang out a black and red flag to make them feel at home? Invite them round to debate the merits of Peter Kropotkin’s anarchist communism versus the individualist anarchism of Emile Armand? No – the answer, according to an official counter-terrorism notice circulated in London last week, is that you must report them to police immediately. This was the surprising injunction from the Metropolitan Police issued to businesses and members of the public in Westminster last week. There was no warning about other political groups, but next to an image of the anarchist emblem, the City of Westminster police’s “counter terrorist focus desk” called for anti-anarchist whistleblowers stating: “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police.” The move angered some anarchists who complained that being an anarchist should not imply criminal behaviour. They said they feel unfairly criminalised for holding a set of political beliefs. The feeling of disproportion was compounded by the briefing note author making a similar request about Islamist terrorists a few lines further down. Under an image of flag with a gold dot beneath some Arabic script it added: “Often seen used by al-Qaida in Iraq. Any sightings of these images should be reported to your local police.” “It unfairly implies that anyone involved in anarchism should be known to the police and is involved in an dangerous activity,” said Jason Sands, an anarchist from South London. “There is nothing inherently criminal about political philosophy whatever it is. The police work under the convention on human rights which disallows discrimination against people because of their political beliefs and even the request for information would seem to be in breach of that. It also seems to be a bit useless as a way of gathering intelligence. It isn’t focused on anything specific and they are just asking for general information. Imagine calling up and saying ‘there’s an anarchist in my building. What should I do?’ It doesn’t make sense.” The note was issued from Belgravia Police Station as part of Project Griffin which aims to “advise and familiarise managers, security officers and employees of large public and private sector organisations across the capital on security, counter-terrorism and crime prevention issues”. Sean Smith, external relations officer for Solfed, the British section of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers’ Association, said of the call for whistleblowers: “It’s pretty absurd, but not surprising, when the state seeks to criminalise ideas it deems to be dangerous to its own survival”. “We are a revolutionary union initiative,” he explained. “Members of our organisation believe in bringing about radical social change through workplace and community organising, not acts of terrorism. We have made extensive information about our ideas and strategy freely available online.” Small groups of anarchists masked and dressed in black did cause some damage to shop windows in central London during anti-cuts demonstrations in the Spring, but there has been little activity of late. The next big anarchist event in London appears hardly likely to concern the police. It is a book fair in October with “all-day cabaret starring assorted ranters, poets, singers and comics; all-day film showings and two kids’ spaces”. Police London Protest Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
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Minister taunts Labour over election argument, claiming Conservatives’ efficiency target exceeded by £500m The government has achieved £3.75bn in savings over the 10 months from the election in May 2010 to this March, leading the cabinet office minister Francis Maude to muse on what his Labour predecessors, including Ed Miliband, “had been doing in this office before me”. The savings have been vetted by the National Audit Office, and are what Maude described as “the low hanging fruit” before further very significant savings were made in coming years.Maude said that the bulk of the cash had come from cutting waste, and not from cutting services. The Conservative claim that savings could finance cuts in national insurance was one of the chief battlegrounds of the last election. Maude said that his figures showed the Conservatives had been proved right. The Tories wrong-footed Labour in the campaign by gathering business support to endorse the efficiency savings and condemn Labour’s national insurance rise as a jobs tax. The Conservatives had promised to cut £3.2bn in wasteful spending as part of a wider package of £6.2bn overall cuts in 2010-11. The efficiency savings target had been exceeded by £500m, said Maude. He said the savings from central government departments were equivalent to the salaries of 200,000 junior nurses, or 150,000 secondary school teachers. “These savings prompt me to ask what on earth my predecessors in this office such as Ed Miliband were doing,” he said. In terms of government property sold, Maude said t was equivalent in area to 70 Wembley football pitches. He said “We have just got started on this. This is the low hanging fruit, but there is a lot more to come, especially in reducing fraud and error, increasing on line delivery of services, and open up public services to competition from mutual and private sector.” Savings made include £870m from cutting departmental spending on consulting, £500m by reducing spend on temporary staff, £800m from renegotiating deals with large government suppliers, £400m cut in government advertising and communications, £90m by better controls of property lease renewals, and a £300m cut in the civil service salaries bill through a reduction of staffing equivalent to 17,000 places. “It is about bearing down on things, as we did within days of coming into office, I just said that no new property lease, or lease renewal, could go ahead without it passing my desk first. “There was an attitude [under Labour] that, if the government wanted something done, they would set up an advertising campaign and a website. We have just cut that out.” He said he was not willing to put a number on how large the efficiencies might be in the future, partly since it would be harder to distinguish the savings made by a government department, as opposed to a centrally driven efficiiency programme. He added a target could also become the limit of what should be saved when he said the figure could be higher. Ian Watmore, chair of the cabinet office efficiency and reform group, last month told MPs on the public accounts committee that some of the savings had been driven by Maude personally, but said “the focus was moving away from a central push”. Ministers also want to see the driving down of costs, including renegotiations with suppliers to extend from Whitehall to other parts of the public sector such as the Metropolitan Police and the London Fire Brigade. Watmore has claimed nearly a quarter of the £81bn projected cut in government spending over four years can come from central government “applying real aggressive efficiencies to itself”. Critics have claimed that some savings are bogus, in that some renegotiated IT contracts led to the provision of a more limited service. Similarly, cuts in civil service numbers may lead to a cut in service standard rather than greater efficiency. The efficiency board chaired by the former BP chairman Lord Browne is also focusing on improving data quality so efficiency can be better measured between departments. Conservatives Francis Maude Labour Ed Miliband Liberal-Conservative coalition Economic policy Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A replica of the Wright brothers’ Model B 1910 plane crashed in Ohio yesterday, killing both of its pilots, reports CNN . The plane, which was first launched in June, was built with a modern engine, materials, and controls, and was modified to make it easier to transport, but resembled the…
Continue reading …After weeks of posturing and pleading, with threat of a default just days away, news of a possible debt ceiling deal is dribbling out of Washington, first reported by ABC ‘s Jonathan Karl. The deal would raise the ceiling by $2.4 trillion in two phases, enough to last into…
Continue reading …Bullfighting saved from the sword as Spain rules it is an artistic discipline
July 31, 2011 No Comment
Socialist government says ministry of culture will be responsible for development and protection of controversial sport The debate over bullfighting has been reignited in Spain after the government recognised the spectacle as “an artistic discipline and cultural product”, delighting enthusiasts but outraging animal rights campaigners. Prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s socialist government announced that the ministry of culture will from now on be responsible for the “development and protection” of bullfighting, which previously fell within the remit of the interior ministry. The move follows pressure from bullfighting organisations keen to protect their livelihood following a controversial vote to ban bullfighting in the Catalonia region last year. The ministry of culture said in a statement: “As it is understood that bullfighting is an artistic discipline and a cultural product, it was considered that the ministry of culture was the correct place for its development and protection.” Supporters, who see bullfighting as an integral part of Spain’s cultural identity, hope the announcement is a step towards protecting the tradition from further regional bans. Juan Diego, a matador speaking for the Bullfighters Union, welcomed the announcement as necessary “for the protection and guardianship of bullfighting”, describing the sport as “a symbol of Spanish cultural heritage that shapes the national identity”. The change was backed by the conservative Popular party (PP), in opposition but favourite to win power in the general election on 20 November. Miguel Cid Cebrián, chairman of the Parliamentary Bullfighting Association, said he hoped the PP would provide legal protection for bullfighting as a special “cultural interest” if it takes power, in order to stop other regions outlawing the tradition. Last year the regional government in Madrid announced it was awarding bullfighting legal protection locally, because of its cultural importance. Opponents, who describe the practice as a barbaric bloodsport, accused the government of abandoning a commitment to animal rights. Silvia Barquero, spokeswoman for Pacma, an anti-bullfighting political party, told newspaper Público the decision to switch responsibility for bullfighting to the ministry of culture was “complete nonsense … a measure which sends us back to the Middle Ages”. Animal rights campaigners say bullfighting only survives because it is subsidised by the Spanish taxpayer. Attendances are falling, its appeal has faded among younger Spaniards and the industry has been hit by the economic crisis. The number of bullfights taking place at local fiestas has diminished as spending cuts have been enforced. The Catalan regional government voted to ban bullfighting in the northeastern region last July, by 68 votes to 55, with nine abstentions, on the grounds it is cruel and outdated. The vote was held after campaign group Prou! (Enough! in Catalan) collected 180,000 signatures in favour of a ban. Anti-bullfighting organisations hope the Catalan example will be copied in some of Spain’s 16 other autonomous communities. Critics of the ban said it was motivated more by Catalan nationalism and a desire to assure political independence from Madrid than by a genuine desire to outlaw the tradition. The ban, which will come into effect next January and will not be affected by Friday’s decision, will be the first to be introduced in mainland Spain. The Canary Islands outlawed bullfighting in 1991. A poll last year for the newspaper El País found 60% of Spaniards did not enjoy bullfighting, but 57% disagreed with the ban in Catalonia. Bullfighting Spain José Luis Zapatero Europe guardian.co.uk
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Design Council chief celebrates Prince Charles’ lack of involvement as traditionalists complain about ‘overt prejudice’ A new skirmish in a long-running and often bitterly fought architectural “style war” between modernists and traditionalists has broken out over the stadiums and arenas of the London Olympics park. Prince Charles’s favourite architects have accused the head of England’s national architectural review body of “overt prejudice” after he made a barbed attack on the heir to the throne’s love of traditional buildings, and heaped praise on the resolutely modernist designs that will be beamed around the world as the backdrop to next summer’s games. Paul Finch, chairman of the Design Council Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the government-funded design watchdog that vets major planning applications with the help of government funding, applauded the selection of Zaha Hadid, the avant garde Iraqi-born architect who designed the sinuous aquatics centre, and Populous, the designer of the main 80,000-seat stadium. But, more provocatively, Finch celebrated the fact that the country’s leading traditional architects, who are favoured by the Prince of Wales, were not in any way involved. “One of the good things about the London 2012 Olympics is the realisation that we have a set of buildings produced not by Quinlan Terry, Robert Adam, John Simpson, but by Hopkins, Hadid, Populous, Make, Heneghan Peng et al,” he said. “None of it endorsed by the Prince of Wales, none of it to do with heritage.” The Traditional Architecture Group, whose members include Terry and Adam, both leading exponents of classical buildings inspired by architects from the past, including Sir Christopher Wren and Andrea Palladio, has complained to the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and communities secretary, Eric Pickles, that Finch’s remarks, made in the Architects’ Journal, displayed “significant prejudice against one style or architectural philosophy at the highest level”. The group said its members were “dismayed and alarmed”. “His is a fundamentally prejudicial point of view from someone in a senior position,” added Adam. “He shouldn’t be in the position he is in.” Prince Charles has previously enraged some British architects by speaking out against modernist designs. In 2009 Richard Rogers was dropped as the designer of a £3bn housing development at Chelsea Barracks after the Prince questioned his design in a private letter to the Qatari client. In 1984 he torpedoed a modernist extension to the National Gallery in London by complaining it was “like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”. Now the prince’s architectural allies feel they have found in Finch a lightning rod for their own simmering sense of injustice that a parallel “modernist establishment” is seeking to marginalise them with the result that some traditional architects believe commissions for Olympic projects were effectively closed to them. “It was considered a waste of time to go for the Olympic work,” said Adam, a classicist who has designed a new 4,000-home settlement in Wales with the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment. Lord Rogers chaired the selection panel for the aquatics centre and Ricky Burdett, professor of urbanism at the London School of Economics and a close ally of Rogers, was hired as chief design adviser to the Olympic Delivery Authority. Finch continues to chair the panel scrutinising designs for stadiums and arenas for the Olympics. The firm of Sir Michael Hopkins, who designed the Portcullis House MPs’ office, was responsible for the velodrome which is favourite to win this year’s Stirling prize for the best building designed or built in Britain. Make, a firm led by Ken Shuttleworth who was a lead designer on the gherkin tower in London, has designed the handball arena, while Heneghan Peng, a Dublin-based firm, has designed a sinuous complex of footbridges between the main stadium and the aquatics centre. In his remarks Finch singled out Terry, who provided architectural advice to Prince Charles in his successful attempt to block the modernist redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks, and John Simpson who was hired to carry out alterations to Kensington Palace. The Traditional Architecture Group has asked Pickles, whose department funds the Design Council Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, to instruct councils to ignore the watchdog’s views until Finch apologises and retracts his remarks. “It is the policy of this and recent governments to favour no architectural style in planning decisions,” wrote Alireza Sagharchi, the group’s chairman. “Yet by contrasting some better-known traditional architects with those working on the Olympics, Mr Finch has expressed his very clear bias against traditional architecture.” He asked for assurances that Finch’s views would “not be allowed to taint the planning system”, according to Building Design magazine. In response Finch said: “I will respond to them when they show me the courtesy of writing to me and I will be only too happy to point out the many apparent errors in what passes for their analysis.” A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: “These are opinions expressed in a magazine article, not official advice to central or local government. As such we have no comment to make.” Finch’s comments in favour of the modernist appearance of Olympic Park architecture appear to undermine the neutral stance he advocated last year when asked about a proposal by Prince Charles’s Foundation for the Built Environment to take on some of the design review role now undertaken by the Design Council. He said: “The public interest is better served by concentrating on the quality of a piece of architecture rather than style which can come down to superficial visual appearance. It comes down to whether their advice would be independent and disinterested and they obviously have a stylistic preference.” Charles’s tastes: rated and hated • Charles praised Dharavi, one of the largest slums in Mumbai, for its “underlying intuitive grammar of design”, saying it represented a better model for housing populations in the developing world than western architecture • He backed Quinlan Terry’s alternative designs for Chelsea Barracks which were inspired by the work of Sir Christopher Wren, the 17th century architect of St Paul’s cathedral • Poundbury in Dorset is the most complete version of Prince Charles’ architectural vision, including the fire station which has been described as “the Parthenon meets Brookside” • When talking to soldiers destined for service in Afghanistan in 2008 he said the Ivor Crewe building at Essex University “looks like a dustbin from the outside” • Earlier that year he warned a series of planned skyscrapers in London would be “not just one carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend, but a positive rash of them that will disfigure precious views and disinherit future generations of Londoners” • Charles said the brutalist concrete Birmingham Central Library, designed in 1974 by John Madin, looked like “a place where books are incinerated, not kept” Olympic Games 2012 Architecture Zaha Hadid Monarchy Prince Charles Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
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