Guard Week 2013 08 16

A week in the life of the world | 16-22 August 2013
Vol 189 No 10 2.20 4.20* Exclusions apply
Incorporating material from the Observer, Le Monde and the Washington Post
Kolkatas fading beauty The city falters as India booms
p Taking up the reins cas South Africa y star jockey
The light fantastic Super-lasers blaze a trail
Gay Russian teens live in fear

Young homosexuals facehate and rejection Closed internet forum used to seek support
Kevin OFlynn Moscow
Only one person knew that Svetlana was gay when she wrote to Deti-404, a Russian support group for lesbian teenagers. In her letter, the 16-yearold described a life of hiding her sexuality in a small town in central Russia where a man had been killed for being a homosexual. I am scared that they will nd out about me and lynch me. Sometimes I want to cry out: Accept me for who I am! Or at least be tolerant of me, she wrote. Deti-404, which takes its name from the error page that appears when a website does not exist, was set up by Lena Klimova, 25, after she wrote an article about the plight of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) teenagers. She had no plans to do anything further, but then she got a letter from Nadya, 15. Nadya was hounded at school, her mother didnt support her, said Klimova in an interview with the Observer. She decided to die, accidentally read my article and didnt do it. After Klimova had spoken to Nadya by telephone and understood the depths of her despair, she asked herself: Why does nobody ring alarm bells, not scream, not shout about it on every corner? She added: Many of them close in on themselves, they dont tell anyone. They are scared of parents and classmates. If they open up, parents sometimes beat them,
In the picture activists in London protest against Russias new anti-gay law Lefteris Pitarakis/AP insult them, throw them out, take away their phones, ban them from going on the internet and even lock them up in a psychiatric clinic. The small support group is one of the few for young gay people in Russia. It would also seem to be exactly the thing that the controversial anti-gay law passed by the Russian parliament wishes to crack down on. The law, similar to the section 28 law that was passed by Margaret Thatchers government in 1988, bans the dissemination of propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientation towards under-18s and imposes nes on anyone convicted. The legislation has caused an outcry in the west, leading the British broadcaster Stephen Fry to compared the situation of gays and lesbians in Russia to that of Jews in Nazi Germany. In an open letter to British prime minister David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee, Fry called for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi next year to be taken away from Russia. But Cameron, in a Twitter reply, said he thought prejudice was better challenged by attending the Games rather than boycotting them. Last week the IOC obtained assurances from the Kremlin that competing athletes would not be aected by the law. But for Russias LGBT community, the latest move has simply ratcheted up the pressure still further. When she set up the group, Klimova surveyed 115 LGBT teenagers across Russia, creating a closed forum for the teens to interact. Her survey showed that a number had thought of suicide. Fewer than half had come out to their parents. It is only on the internet that Continued on page 10
Abu Dhabi AED11 Bahrain BHD1.40 *Cyprus 2.30 Czech Rep CZK110 Denmark DKK29 Dubai AED11 Egypt EGP19 Hong Kong HKD39 Hungary HUF715 *Republic of Ireland 2.50 Japan JPY600 Jordan JOD2.20 Kenya KSH250 Kuwait KWD1.10 Latvia LVL3.70 Lebanon LBP4500 *Malta 1.95 Mauritius MR139 Morocco MAD27 Norway NOK39 Oman OMR1.25 Pakistan PKR200 Poland PLN10.50 Qatar QAR11 Romania RON33 Saudi Arabia SAR12 Singapore SGD6 Sweden SEK41 Switzerland CHF6.80 Turkey TRY6.60
2 The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13
World roundup
Venezuela opposition under attack
Venezuelan authorities ordered the arrest of an aide to opposition leader Henrique Capriles and military agents searched the mans apartment, the opposition said, calling it proof of a new wave of political repression. The highest court, meanwhile, rejected Capriless challenge to the results of the 14 April presidential election in which he narrowly lost to ruling party candidate Nicols Maduro. The court ned Capriles $1,700 for what
Obama urged to get tough with Putin

President Barack Obama faced calls last Sunday to pursue a more hawkish line on Russia, with an inuential Republican foreign policy voice suggesting the US leader lacked sucient insight over Vladimir Putins intentions. Arizona senator and former White House candidate John McCain suggested that comments made by Obama
Mali presidential candidate concedes

Soumala Ciss conceded defeat in Malis presidential election runo, congratulating his rival Ibrahim Boubacar Keta on winning a vote meant to draw a line under a year of turmoil. Cisss concession, hours after he
it called a disrespectful ling and told the attorney general that the opposition leader should be prosecuted. The 12-party MUD opposition coalition did not elaborate on the governments reason for issuing the arrest warrant for Oscar Lopez, the chief of sta to Capriles in the Miranda state governors oce. MUD called the arrest order part of a new attack against those who dont stop ghting for the restitution of legality, justice and rights.
following the cancellation of a meeting with the Russian president did not go far enough to address a series of grievances Washington has with Moscow, including the handling of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. More Russia news on page 10
complained the election had been marred by fraud, will deepen optimism for Malis recovery. Keta, a former prime minister, inherits a broken nation and must negotiate peace with northern rebels. Keta had been widely expected to win the runo vote.
Mexican drug lords release riles US
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The White House waded into a row over the release of a Mexican drug lord who was convicted of murdering a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent. The administration said it was deeply concerned over the case
of Rafael Caro Quintero (above), who walked out of a Mexican prison last Friday, after serving 28 years of a 40-year sentence. A Mexican court ordered his release, saying he had been improperly tried in a federal court for state crimes.
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Britain mulls legal action on Gibraltar
British prime minister David Cameron was considering options for unprecedented legal action against Spain over the imposition of politically motivated and disproportionate border checks with Gibraltar, Downing Street said. The move follows Madrids decision to increase controls at the Spanish border, which have led to delays of several hours for those travelling to and from the territory. Such a move would be seen as an escalation in the diplomatic tensions surrounding the British overseas territory. Downing Street is examining options through the European courts that will force the Spanish government to stop hindering the free movement of people across the border with
Two charged after cyberbullying death

Police in Canada charged two young men with distributing child pornography in the cyberbullying case of Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old who killed herself after a photo of her allegedly being raped was shared online. The death of Rehtaeh led to an outcry. Police initially concluded there were no grounds to charge anyone. Her mother said a boy took a photo of the alleged assault in 2011
and that her daughter was bullied for months. RCMP Chief Superintendent Roland Wells said one man, 18, had been charged with two counts of distributing child pornography and the second man, also 18, was charged with making child pornography and distributing it. Wells said the two were not being identied because they were minors when the alleged crimes occurred. More Americas news on pages 4-5
Gibraltar. The prime minister is disappointed by the failure of the Spanish to remove the additional border checks and we are now considering what legal action is open to us. This would be an unprecedented step and so we would want to [consider it] carefully before making the decision. Political tensions in the region ared after the British territory began work on a concrete reef in the Mediterranean, which Spain claims will destroy shing in the area. Royal Navy personnel set sail on Monday for a training deployment in the Mediterranean. The vessels are taking part in what defence ocials stressed was a longscheduled event. For more European news, see page 12
Israel and Palestinians to open talks

Formal peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians were scheduled to begin this week amid rising tensions over Israels continued settlement building and the European Unions tough stance on funding for Israeli institutions with links to occupied territory. The US state department announced that
the rst substantive talks for ve years were set to begin in West Jerusalem on Wednesday and then move to the Palestinian desert city of Jericho. The talks were to be preceded by Israels release of the rst batch of 104 long-term Palestinian prisoners. Borders, territory and settlements are the top priority for Palestinian negotiators.
The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13 3
Eyewitnessed The weeks events in pictures Centre pages 24-25
Baghdad car bombs raise Iraq tensions

A series of car bombs targeting cafes and markets in mainly Shia Muslim areas of Baghdad killed 69 people and wounded more than 170. The attacks took place during celebrations at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Violence in Iraq has been increasing since a deadly crackdown by government forces
Nairobi airport reopens after blaze
Six killed as Indonesian volcano erupts
on a Sunni protest camp in April. Attacks against civilians and security forces worsened markedly during Ramadan. The violence has led to fears of a return to the sectarian ghting that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war in 2006 and 2007. More Middle East news on page 13
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Kenya pledged to reopen its main airport to all international ights last week in a bid to reassure travellers that east Africas transport hub could recover quickly from a re at its arrivals terminal. Jomo Kenyatta International airport, sub-Saharan Africas fourth-busiest airport,
was forced to close after a re swept through the international arrivals building. Investigators said it was too early to ascertain the cause of the re, but ruled out terrorism. Ocials said they would build a makeshift international arrivals terminal within days. For more news from Africa, see pages 6 and 7
Indonesias National Disaster Mitigation Agency said a volcano that erupted in eastern Indonesia, killing six people, sent smoke and ash shooting up to 2km into the air. The agency said that Mount Rokatenda in East Nusa Tenggara province erupted early last Saturday morning and that
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the dead were killed by lava ow. Nearly 3,000 people were evacuated from the area on Palue island. Indonesia is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacic ring of re, a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines. More regional news on page 8
Chinese people smugglers arrested
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Research links Sars-like virus to camels

The Sars-like virus that has infected 94 people who have lived in or had links to the Middle East, and killed almost half of them, could have come from camels, research suggests. There have been few clues as to how people had come to be infected with the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronaV. virus, MERS-CoV etecNow scientic detecgesttive work is suggestsible ing a more plausible r. A animal reservoir. hers team of researchers
Joint raids in France and Spain have broken up a sophisticated people-smuggling network being operated throughout Europe that had been transporting Chinese illegal migrants mainly to the UK and US. The arrest of about 75 people, 51 of them in Spain, including two of the organisations masterminds, dismantled a network that was charging 40,000-50,000 ($53,000-$66,500) to transport immigrants from China and provide them with false papers.
Spanish police sources say the same network, which had been under investigation since 2011, was implicated in sex tracking. The gang allegedly used Barcelona as a stopping-o point for illegal migrants. In addition to the arrests, police said they had found dozens of fake passports, for countries including Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Singapore. Investigators depicted a complex network, consisting of independent cells, whose ultimate bosses were based in China.
led by Chantal Reusken, of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, tested blood samples from a range of animals. Tests on 50 retired racing camels in Oman proved 100% positive. Every camel had antibodies in its bl blood that sugge suggested it had s at some point b been in cont tact with MERS-CoV. For more science news, see page 34
Bangladesh holds human rights activist
China to trigger rain to ease drought
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Authorities in Bangladesh arrested a top human rights activist on charges of fabricating information about atrocities committed by state security forces. Police arrested Adilur Rahman Khan (above), of human rights organisation Odhikar. Khans organisation has been critical of human rights abuses allegedly committed by Bangladeshi security forces, including extrajudicial killings.
China will spend $30m to articially trigger rain, helping farmers whose crops are suering because of the scorching summer weather. The ministry of nance announced last Thursday that it had allocated funds to the drought-easing measures, which involve ring silver iodide or dry ice into clouds. The process is known as cloud seeding, and was used to increase the chance
of good weather for the 2008 Olympic Games. A heatwave across central and eastern China has led to drinking water shortages for almost 3 million people and hit crops. Shanghai had its hottest day since records began 140 years ago, with temperatures soaring to 40.8C, and authorities issued a fth red alert warning for further extreme heat. Local media published pictures of prawns and meat cooking in pans set on manhole covers.
International news US surveillance
Obama publishes legal background to snooping

White papers describe justication for bulk collection of phone data
Spencer Ackerman Washington
The Obama administration has provided its fullest description yet of why it believes it has the authority under the Patriot Act to collect in bulk the phone records of millions of Americans without suspicion of wrongdoing. Last Friday, as President Obama gave a press conference announcing his willingness to consider reforms to the National Security Agencys bulk-collection programmes, his administration released two unclassied white papers that he hailed as steps at transparency. One was a legal analysis of the bulk phone records programme; the other was a generic description of the NSAs foreigndirected surveillance activities. Neither document provided much in the way of new information for the programmes: a signicant amount of the legal analysis about the bulk phone records programme echoed congressional testimony by NSA and justice department ocials. Nor was either document a dispassionate recitation of facts: both presented the administrations case for why Americans should be comfortable as Obama put it with bulk collection of their data. Still, the documents shed light on controversial legal theories that are likely to be tested in court in the weeks and months ahead. The Obama administration justies the bulk phone records collection programme under section 215 of the Patriot Act, which authorises the government to acquire tangible things that are relevant to an investigation. Since the Guardian disclosed the existence of the bulk phone records programme, thanks to the ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, legal scholars have puzzled over how the phone numbers dialled, lengths of calls and times of calls of millions of Americans unsuspected of terrorism or espionage meet that standard. The administrations answer has several components. It argues in the white paper, relevance is a broad standard, which can include the reasonable grounds to believe that when all the data is collected, when queried and analysed consistent with the [surveillance] court-approved standards, will produce information pertinent to FBI investigations of international terrorism. To do this requires the collection and storage of a large volume of telephony metadata. That is information about your phone calls. It further argues that a tangible thing can include a phone number or the length of a phone call, and contends that the legislative history of the Patriot Act indicates that Congress always intended that to be the case, despite the incorporeality of phone data, particularly when compared to say, a medical record or a receipt. There is little question that in enacting section 215 in 2001 and then amending it in 2006, Congress understood that among the things that the FBI would need to acquire to conduct terrorism investigations were documents and records stored in electronic form, the administration writes. Finally comes a problem that was brought up by several members of the House judiciary committee during a raucous July hearing. The collection of the bulk phone data comes prior, logically, to any specic investigation. So how can the administration argue the bulk phone records collection is pertinent to any particular inquiry? Unlike ordinary criminal investigations, the administration replies, the sort of national security investigations with which section 215 is concerned often have a remarkable breadth spanning long periods of time, multiple geographic regions, and numerous individuals, whose identities are often unknown to the intelligence community at the outset The investigative tools needed to combat those threats must be deployed on a correspondingly broad scale. Put dierently: If youre looking for the needle in the haystack, you have to have the entire haystack to look through, as deputy attorney general James Cole testied in July. It is a legal theory that has attracted great opposition. Representative James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and primary Patriot Act author, told the Guardian last month that the administration was abusing a law that has itself attracted criticism for being overbroad. I would advise the president to reconsider his misinterpretation of section 215 and rein in abuse, he said. Sensenbrenner ultimately voted to end the bulk phone records programme during a dramatic House oor ght, in late July, that narrowly failed. Underlying the administrations arguments even deeper are two contentions that are likely to face challenges in federal court. First is a claim that metadata like phone records do not enjoy privacy protections under the fourth amendment to the US constitution, since they amount to data that customers wilfully provide to phone companies. There is much legal history support-
ing that contention for a single individuals phone records. There is far less legal history to support the idea that bulk phone collection on every American phone customer does not entail a privacy violation. Second is an idea that has drawn less attention but that administration ocials have brought up to Con-
Pledges and reassurances: a presidents progress

Adam Gabbatt New York
Barack Obama said last Friday his proposed National Security Agency reforms would have happened anyway and his views on surveillance programmes had not evolved. But since he rst reacted to Edward Snowdens revelations in June he has ruled out the idea of more safeguards. Friday 7 June In his rst remarks since the Guardian and Washington Posts revelations, Obama gave a frank rebuttal to privacy concerns. Nobody is listening to your telephone calls, the president said when asked about the NSA. He said surveillance programmes were fully overseen not just by Congress but by the Fisa court, specially put together to evaluate classied programmes to make sure that the executive branch, or government generally, is not abusing them. He said the NSA programmes made modest encroachments on privacy and were under very strict supervision by all three branches of government. Monday 17 June Obama defended the NSA programme in an interview Charlie Rose, insisting the NSA was transparent. What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a US person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails and have not, Obama said. Asked by Rose if the method of telephone and data collections should be transparent in some way, the president responded: It is transparent. Thats why we set up the Fisa court. The president said he had asked the intelligence community to see how much could be declassied. He also revealed that he had set up an oversight board to examine issues of privacy, compiled of independent citizens and including some erce civil libertarians.
Global mistrust US model of internet now in disrepute Comment, page 20
NSA review promised

Paul Lewis and Spencer Ackerman Washington
Barack Obama announced the first public review of US surveillance programmes since 9/11 last Friday, in what amounts to the presidents rst concession that the mounting public concern in response to disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden justies reform. After weeks in which Obama and senior intelligence ocials have insisted that the privacy of US citizens was suciently protected, the president announced a series of measures aimed at containing the controversy. At a White House press conference, Obama said that revelations about the National Security Agencys activities had led Americans to question their trust in government and damaged the countrys reputation abroad. But he made it clear that the programmes themselves would remain in place. Announcing that a panel of independent figures would review our entire intelligence and communications technologies, reporting before the end of the year, Obama said: We need new thinking for a new era. Obama began his press conference by announcing what he described as four specic steps designed to reassure the public and improve the USs reputation abroad. The proposals included a commitment to work with Congress to pursue appropriate reforms to section 215 of the Patriot Act, which has been used to authorise the bulk collection of millions of US phone records. He said he would work with legislators to revamp the secretive foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court, which grants the NSA legal authorisation for its mass collection, to make it more adversarial. Obama conceded the court worked on the basis of biased proceedings that only hear one side of the story and may tilt it too far in favour of security, may not pay enough attention to liberty. Obamas suggestion that privacy advocates would be introduced to some Fisa court proceedings was not unexpected. Three senators, Richard Blumenthal, Mark Udall and Ron Wyden, have introduced a bill to create such an advocate a proposal that appears to have wide support. Nothing Obama announced is likely to materially alter the NSAs mass collection of phone data and surveillance of internet communications in the short term. Neither did the president exhibit much appetite for signicantly altering the surveillance capabilities of the US intelligence community. But the announcement represents a signicant climbdown for the White House, which for two months has maintained that it has struck the right balance between privacy and security. Democratic senator Ron Wyden, a leading critic of the NSAs bulk surveillance powers, welcomed Obamas proposals, but called for greater detail. Notably absent from President Obamas speech was any mention of closing the backdoor searches loophole that potentially allows for the warrantless searches of Americans phone calls and emails, Wyden said. The senator was referring to a disclosure in the Guardian based on a top-secret document that indicates the NSA has a secret backdoor into its databases under a legal authority enabling it to search for US citizens email and phone calls without a warrant. The document, published last Friday three hours before Obamas announcement, contrasts with assurances that the president and senior intelligence ocials have previously given that the privacy of US citizens is protected from dragnet surveillance programmes targeted at foreigners. I believe that this provision requires signicant reforms as well and I will continue to ght to close that loophole, Wyden said. Obama acknowledged that Snowdens disclosures had triggered a public debate, but insisted the whistleblower was not a patriot and claimed that the reforms might have been implemented if the leaks had not happened. There is no doubt that Mr Snowdens leaks triggered a much more rapid and passionate response than would have been the case if I had simply appointed this review board, if I had sat down with Congress [and] worked this thing through, he said. Obama said there was no evidence that the intelligence agencies had abused their powers, insisting he was instead addressing a problem of public perceptions. If you are outside of the intelligence community, if you are the ordinary person, and you start to see a bunch of headlines saying US, Big Brother, looking down on you, collecting telephone records, etc, well, understandably people would be concerned, he said. I would be too, if I wasnt inside the government. Jameel Jaer, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, took issue with the presidents stance. The intelligence agencies say you cant point to instances of abused authority, he said. The fact that the government is collecting all this information is itself a form of abuse. But even if you take their narrow denition of abuse, we dont have the information to evaluate that. Its all secret.
Listening in is it OK under the Patriot Act? Fuse/Getty Images gress. The administration contends that the surveillance does not occur when NSA collects bulk data, but only when it sifts through it. That is why the administration spends great eort arguing that only trained expert analysts can study the data, that it can only access it when there is reasonable, articulable suspicion of a connection to a foreign terrorist organisation specied by the secret surveillance court, and that adequate internal safeguards are in place by the NSA.
Tuesday 6 August Obama accepted the NSA had raised a lot of questions for people in an interview on NBCs Tonight Show, but insisted surveillance programmes did not target US civilians. We dont have a domestic spying programme, he said. What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack That information is useful. It was a critical component to counter-terrorism. Friday 9 August Its not enough for me, as president, to have confidence in these
programmes. The American people need to have condence in them as well, Obama said in a speech at the White House, hours after the Guardian revealed that an NSA loophole did allow for warrantless searches of databases for US citizens emails and phone calls. The president said he had directed his national security team to be more transparent. Obama pledged to re-examine section 215 of the Patriot Act, potentially reining in bulk surveillance, and suggested appointing a privacy advocate to monitor the Fisa court. He also announced a new website to inform Americans about bulk surveillance.
International news
Its every jockeys dream

Winner of South Africas richest race on his way to being champion rider
David Smith Johannesburg
The rst time Smanga Khumalo encountered a horse, he was scared. I was really nervous, he recalled. At that time I was a small boy weighing about 30kg and heres this big animal, 500kg, next to me. It terried me a little bit but it grew in me and I ended up getting better at it. So much better that, 14 years later, Khumalo has made history by becoming the first black winner of Africas biggest horse race. With his crystal stud earrings, peroxide hair and horseshoe tattoo on his hand, the 28-year-old nicknamed Bling is the charismatic rising star of a sport long associated with South African white privilege. It all began when Khumalo, one of ve children of a domestic worker in KwaMashu township near Durban, was switching from school to school to escape the violence that scarred South Africa in the early 1990s. As the smallest boy in his class, he wasnt likely to win many ghts. It was a hard time, Khumalo said during a rare break at Turffontein racecourse in Johannesburg. Im lucky my mother and uncle moved me around all the time when people started ghting; they took me to a quiet place where I could carry on with my school. But small was beautiful in the eyes of a talent scout who came to black schools looking for potential jockeys and set Khumalos future o on an entirely dierent path. When the guy asked me if I was interested, I said yes. At that time I was 14 or 15 and didnt
Capital city of Africas millionaires

David Smith Johannesburg
Johannesburg, the commercial capital of South Africa, is home to far more dollar millionaires than any other city in Africa, research has found. The city of gold topped the continents rich list with 23,400 millionaires at the end of 2012, according to New World Wealth, a consultancy based in Oxford in the UK. It is followed by Cairo in Egypt with 12,300 and Lagos in Nigeria with 9,800. Despite one of the slowest economic growth rates in Africa, South Africa has four cities in the top 10 for dollar millionaires. Cape Town is in fourth place with 9,000, Durban is sixth with 2,700 and Pretoria eighth with 2,500. The highest-ranking city in east Africa is Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, in fth place with 5,000. Casablanca in Morocco is seventh with 2,700. Luanda, the capital of Angola, often said to be most expensive city in the world in which to live, is ninth with 2,400. The top 10 is completed by Algiers in Algeria with 2,300. In the top 10 country rankings, South Africa comes out on top with 48,800 millionaires, followed by Egypt with 23,000 and Nigeria with 15,900. New World Wealths report said Accra in Ghana was expected to be the fastest-growing major city for African millionaires, with the number rising from 800 in 2012 to 1,500 in 2020. Ethiopia and Ivory Coast are expected to be the fastest-growing African markets for millionaires, with growth of 7.4% a year to 2020. Zambia, Ghana and Angola are also expected to grow strongly.
Riding high Smanga Khumalo saw his chance Jordi Matas/Guardian have any plans but when this opportunity came I took it with both hands and I havent looked back since. I had all the features: the body build, the shoe size and the height. In 2000, Khumalo joined the Durban jockey academy, a tough ve-year apprenticeship of early starts, mucking out stables and cleaning horses after riding them. It included a spell in Zimbabwe, where he rode his rst winner. He was not alone in challenging the status quo. There were a couple of black guys that made it through and even now there are some good apprentices up and coming. Theyre black and doing well. We proved it and opened doors for all the other youngsters so trainers and all the other people are willing to use us. Its growing slowly but I think well get there. At the moment theres a lot of black youngsters having interest in the sport. He turned professional in 2006 and became a xture in the countrys top 20 jockeys, riding 80 to 90 horses a month, often seven days a week. The winning streak enabled him to buy a car, flat and house and move his mother out of the township into a more auent area. This month came his crowning glory, victory at the rst attempt in the Vodacom Durban July, South Africas richest race. It was a feeling that I will never trade for anything for as long as I live. Being my rst time in it, as I crossed the nish I had electricity and a crowd of 50,000 people screaming and shouting. I was electried. I promise you, if I had wings I would y. Its every jockeys dream and every jockeys goal to win that race. His ambition now is to become South Africas first black champion jockey, winning more races than anyone else in his own distinct style.
Julius Malema tactics likened to Hitler and Mussolini

David Smith
A leading anti-apartheid activist in South Africa has compared maverick politician Julius Malemas electoral campaign to that of Adolf Hitler in pre-war Germany. Mamphela Ramphele, a former Black Consciousness Movement leader who founded the Agang SA party earlier this year, will be battling Malemas even newer Economic Freedom Fighters for votes in the 2014 general election. A charismatic speech-maker who can sway a crowd, Malema has pledged to defeat the governing African National Congress (ANC) and expropriate land and nationalise mines without compensation. His dangerous promises to desperate people were reminiscent of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and Italian fascist Benito Mussolini ahead of the second world war, Ramphele told an audience of high school students in Polokwane, South Africa. You must not forget how Hitler and Mussolini emerged as leaders because desperate people were looking for an alternative, Ramphele was quoted as saying. Malema is no alternative. He is facing corruption charges and does not pay his taxes. Malema, former president of the ANCs youth wing until his expulsion, has been taken to court accused of making around $400,000 from corrupt activities. He is out on bail of $1,000 and faces charges of fraud, corruption, money-laundering and racketeering. He denies the charges and is awaiting a trial date. The South African Revenue Service claimed recently that Malema has admitted owing $1.6m in tax. One of his homes, a farm and some household goods were auctioned o this year to recoup the debt. Asked about Rampheles unattering comparison, Malema told Beeld newspaper he respected her as a mother and would not engage in name calling with her. I want to pass a message to her that, Ma Ramphele, I still love you and respect you very much.
International news
Reform and rebrand Guinea starts to target corruption Development, page 45
Namibia wipes colonial era o the map

Caprivi Strip is renamed to reclaim culture and history of tribal victims
David Smith
More than a century after his death, Count Leo von Caprivi, veteran of the Franco-German war and successor to Otto von Bismarck as imperial chancellor, has been wiped o the map of Africa. His name had lived on in Namibia, a former German colony, in the form of the Caprivi Strip, a 450km area known for its rivers and wildlife. But last week it disappeared for ever when the tourist spot was rechristened the Zambezi Region, after the river that forms the northern border with Angola. Namibian president Hifikepunye Pohamba also announced that Lderitz, a harbour town, would now be called !Nami=Ns, which means embrace in local Khoekhoegowab, a Khoisan language although some disgruntled local residents have launched a petition against the change, saying that they were not consulted. The village of Schuckmannsburg in the former Caprivi region has been changed back to its original name, Lohonono. The move highlights the imprint of colonial mapmakers all over Africa where the names of streets, cities and regions are reminders of a traumatic past. Changing them is a slow process resisted by some communities and seen as a low priority by others with urgent needs. Namibia was a German colony from 1884 to 1919, then administered by apartheid South Africa until farms. Glyn added: The Nama people I researched are still living in a ghetto. They put up a magnicent challenge to the Germans but they are landless. Changing a couple of names doesnt crack it. Its very little and very late. Similar controversies persist in Botswana and South Africa, where many streets continue to be renamed, but debate has raged for years over the administrative capital, Pretoria. South Africa has 11 official languages, but none is that of its original population. In his state of the nation address last year, South African president Jacob Zuma pledged that provisions would be made for the recognition of the Khoisan communities, their leadership and structures. Zenzile Khoisan, secretary of Khoisan First Nation Indigenous Status, an umbrella representative group, applauded Namibias move as a rst step, but complained that it is not a signatory to the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. The original names have to be restored, he said. They speak to a narrative that has been excised from much of the national narratives of many of the Sadc [southern African] countries. Restoring the names of the places means accepting that there was a history that needs to be restored, a brilliant history that precedes colonialism, and a people that suered intense dispossession and dislocation. The Namibian government did not respond to a request for comment, and the German ambassador in Windhoek declined to be interviewed.
More online: !Nami=Ns, not Lderitz Audio how to pronounce indigenous names bit.ly/namibianames
Change a village well in the Caprivi Strip, now Zambezi Region Alamy 1990. A small German population still lives in the country. In 2004 Germany apologised for the colonial-era genocide that killed 65,000 Herero people through starvation and slave labour in concentration camps. The Nama, a smaller ethnic group, lost half their population. In 2011 Germany sent back 20 of the Herero and Nama skulls that had been taken there for racial experiments. They were greeted at Namibias international airport by warriors on horseback who let out battle cries. Hundreds of the skulls remain in Germany, however. Some believe it remains a forgotten holocaust. Patricia Glyn, author of What Dawid Knew, based on her experiences with Khomani bushmen in the Kalahari, said: I dont think a couple of name changes goes far enough, bearing in mind not one of the German concentration camps has so much as a sign and you can still go out in a buggy and nd yourself driving over the bones of those who died. There is absolutely no evidence of what really happened there. I dont think the Namibian government is doing one-eighth of what it should to honour the dead. Today there is still anger among indigenous communities who live in poverty and demand reparations from Germany, their shantytown homes contrasting with vast German-owned
Losers challenge Mugabes election win in court

David Smith
Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabes political opponents went to court last Friday to challenge his victory in the recent elections and demand an immediate rerun. Lawyers for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) filed papers at the constitutional court alleging the polls were rigged in favour of 89-year-old Mugabes Zanu-PF party. Mugabe won with 61% of the presidential vote, trouncing MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai on 34%. Zanu-PF gained more than a two-thirds majority in parliament, with 160 seats compared with 49 for the MDC. The African Union and most southern African nations have generally been supportive of the vote, but sharp criticism has come from non-governmental groups and western governments, including Britain. Botswana has also called for an audit. Few analysts believe the MDC will make much headway in court, however, noting that judges are appointed by Mugabe and generally favour the ruling party. There have been no significant protests against the result as Mugabe retains an iron grip. Police trucks with water cannon watch over freedom square, the name given to an open eld in downtown Harare by MDC supporters who held what was described
Indigenous bourse planned

President Robert Mugabe intends to set up a second stock exchange for black-owned business as part of an economic empowerment drive in the wake of his sweeping election victory in Zimbabwe, according to media reports. The plan emerged as the main $5bn bourse saw shares fall following the disputed win for Mugabes Zanu-PF party. Zanu-PF has pledged to forge ahead with indigenisation policies that are aimed at foreign-owned companies, including banks and mines. DS
as the countrys biggest-ever election rally there. The MDC has also accused the police of a round-the-clock heavy deployment and surveillance by armed police at its Harvest House headquarters in Harare. Last Thursday, Zimbabwes state election commission admitted that nearly 305,000 people were turned away from voting and another 207,000 were assisted voters supposedly illiterate or inrm who needed help from polling ocials to cast ballots. But it insisted the mistakes were not enough to aect the outcome. However, the MDC says the gures were higher and proved intimidation by Zanu-PF and state ocials.
International news
Dams endanger ecology of Himalayas

China and India water grab could be a disaster for the mountain region
John Vidal KumKum Dasgupta Delhi
The future of the worlds most famous mountain range could be endangered by a vast dam-building project, as a risky regional race for water resources takes place in Asia. Academic research shows that India, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan are engaged in a huge water grab in the Himalayas, as they seek new sources of electricity to power their economies. Taken together, the countries have plans for more than 400 hydro dams which, if built, could provide more than 160,000MW of electricity three times more than the UK uses. In addition, China has plans for around 100 dams to generate a similar amount of power from major rivers rising in Tibet. A further 60 or more dams are being planned for the Mekong river, which also rises in Tibet and ows south through south-east Asia. Most of the Himalayan rivers have been relatively untouched by dams near their sources. Now the two great Asian powers, India and China, are rushing to harness them as they cut through some of the worlds deepest valleys. Many of the proposed dams would be among the tallest in the world, able to generate more than 4,000MW, as much as the Hoover dam on the Colorado river in the US. The result, over the next 20 years, could be that the Himalayas become the most dammed region in the world, said Ed Grumbine, visiting international scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Kunming. China, which is building multiple
In deep the Ranganadi hydroelectric project in Arunachal Pradesh, north-east India Alamy dams on all the major rivers running off the Tibetan plateau, is likely to emerge as the ultimate controller of water for nearly 40% of the worlds population. The plateau is the source of the single largest collection of international rivers in the world, including the Mekong, the Brahmaputra, the Yangtse and the Yellow rivers. It is the headwater of rivers on which nearly half the world depends. The net eect of the dam building could be disastrous. We just dont know the consequences, said Tashi Tsering, a water resource researcher at the University of British Columbia in Canada. China is engaged in the greatest water grab in history. Not only is it damming the rivers on the plateau, it is financing and building megadams in Pakistan, Laos, Burma and elsewhere and making agreements to take the power, said Indian geopolitical analyst Brahma Chellaney. China-India disputes have shifted from land to water. Water is the new divide and is going centre stage in politics. Only China has the capacity to build these mega-dams and the power to crush resistance. This is eectively war without a shot being red. According to Chellaney, India is in the weakest position because half its water comes directly from China; however, Bangladesh is fearful of Indias plans for water diversions and hydropower. Bangladeshi government scientists say that even a 10% reduction in the water ow by India could dry out great areas of farmland for much of the year. More than 80% of Bangladeshs 50 million small farmers depend on water that ows through India. Engineers and environmentalists say that little work has been done on the human or ecological impact of the dams, which they fear could increase floods and be vulnerable to earthquakes. We do not have credible environmental and social impact assessments, we have no environmental compliance system, no cumulative impact assessment and no carrying capacity studies , said Himanshu Thakkar, co-ordinator of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People. China and India have both displaced tens of millions of people with giant dams such as the Narmada and Three Gorges over the last 30 years, but governments have not published estimates of how many people would have to be relocated or how much land would be drowned by the new dams. Climate models suggest major rivers running o the Himalayas, after increasing ows as glaciers melt, could lose 10%-20% of their ow by 2050. This would not only reduce the rivers capacity to produce electricity, but would exacerbate regional political tensions. Observer
New leader Xi Jinping opens door to reform in China

Analysis John Simpson
Under the new leadership of President Xi Jinping, a quiet process of reform is under way in China. If successful, it will transform the countrys politics and the way it approaches the world. Every leadership in the past two decades has altered and developed Chinas direction. Over the past 10 years Hu Jintao, the outgoing president, introduced a sterner, more conservative tone. The changes that had been the work of the liberalminded Zhu Rongji, premier from 1998 to 2003, were set aside. Hu clamped down on criticism and alternative approaches to government. Now, Zhus ideas are back in fashion. The 2012 Beijing party conference that introduced the incoming leadership of Xi represented an important change of direction. Xi understands the pitfalls of reforming an oldfashioned autocracy: after the fall of Soviet communism, there were intensive ocial studies in China of what had gone wrong in Russia from 1989 to 1993 and how such mistakes could be avoided. And yet, as in the old Soviet Union, reform doesnt come exclusively from the massed ranks of the black-suited party delegates; it seeps into society through the tiny cracks that exist even in the strongest autocracy, and slowly begins to permeate society. In the Soviet bloc in 1988, most intellectuals felt divorced from the processes of formal Marxist-Leninist politics. And very soon the old system had cracked because of its utter lack of relevance to the lives of real people. Can Xi reform the system, without like Mikhail Gorbachev destroying it? He has advantages that Gorbachev lacked, so its not absolutely impossible. But I suspect things have gone too far for traditional Marxism-Leninism to survive. The dissidents who talk enthusiastically about wholesale change during Xis tenure may yet turn out to be right. Observer
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Stars and Kicker here sitars like this Then a short description here like this 100 years of Indian cinema Culture, Then Section page and 40 Page XX
An industrial giant of colonial times, Kolkata falters as rest of India booms

ays novelist Amit Chaudhuri: Hes not the rst to leave Kolkata, and he wont be the last. People have been leaving this city for more than 30 years. He pauses to reect on the sad decline of the City of Joy, the former Calcutta, the capital of India until 1911 and once the pride of the British empire. They began to leave at about the same time as industry began to leave, in the late 1960s, he says. Chaudhuri is talking about Badar Azim, the 25-year-old Buckingham Palace footman who drew global media attention when he helped to set out the ocial announcement of the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridges baby son last month. Shortly afterwards, Azim ew back into Kolkata after his visa ran out and his $23,000 annual salary proved insucient for him to secure a new one. But rather than expressing anger at his treatment, he surprised many by saying that he wanted to return to Britain. Azims family live high up in an apartment block reached along narrow lanes lined with tiny workshops in which young men some of them very young indeed work for long hours making leather goods, mainly shoes. It is a hard life. The oldest of three brothers his father is a welder earning around $50 a month; his mother describes herself as a housewife the young Badar shared a bed with his brothers in the familys single room in this building in a poor part of the city. Their parents slept on the oor. However, the couple knew the value of education. Badar studied for a degree in the UK before securing the Buckingham Palace job. It was an irresistible story. After Azims return to Kolkata, a media circus assembled in the street outside the family home. Neither the family nor their neighbours appreciated the attention, nor the focus on the way they live. In this city, Chaudhuri explains, less privileged people have more of a sense of their own dignity than one might expect. It may or may not be justied by their worldly possessions, income or education
India diary Gethin Chamberlain
Big informal work sector labourers sleep on handcarts in Kolkata Rupak De Chowdhuri but, at least on some level, working people did develop a more dignied sense of themselves during the time of the Left Front government. The communist-led coalition ruled West Bengal for 34 years until 2011. Its critics blame it for many of Kolkatas present woes. The city, built on the banks of the Hooghly river, remains the capital of West Bengal. It has a ne metro system, some lovely architecture and a rich cultural history. It is close to important markets such as those of China and southeast Asia in a state that is rich in minerals. It should be thriving, yet it has stagnated. The population stands at just over 5 million, barely 500,000 more than in 1950. The citys share of Indias industrial output had dropped from a quarter in 1950 to just 7% at the turn of this century. There was a time, during the 1960s, when Calcutta had it all, but because Bengalis by nature like to argue and to be activists, there was a lot of turmoil here and that has made it a very unfriendly place for corporates, says Nandan Bagchi, 60, a prominent gure in the citys cultural scene. Dipankar Dasgupta, professor of economics at the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, says that business leaders and investors found it dicult to survive under the communists. The city faces a paradox, he says. Land that could be used for factories is owned by thousands of small farmers, making it almost impossible to strike deals. But the government will not intervene because it needs rural votes. You have to keep the farmers happy to stay in power. To keep them happy you cannot interfere in land acquisition. You have to leave it to the markets, but it does not work. It all looks hunky dory, but who is going to come here? This is the question taxing the Trinamool Congress government, led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee. It was Banerjee who, while still in opposition, helped thwart plans by Tata to build a factory in the state to make its Nano car. The combative politician sided with the farmers, who were complaining that they would lose their land. Tata gave up and built the factory in Gujarat. Earlier this month, Banerjee was in Mumbai, attempting to persuade investors there to plough money into her own state. But a previous trip she made to Delhi in December fell at. Kolkata now faces the same challenges as other Indian cities, without many of their advantages. We have had growth in the past few years, but it has been accompanied by unbelievable income inequality, Dasgupta says. Come out on to the street and you have these little children following you begging for coins and working in the informal sector where there are absolutely no rules. These are the people who form the majority. People are interested in investing in the market serving the top 10%, but the rest are living in darkness. Observer
Close to important markets such as those of south-east Asia and China, Kolkata should be thriving
Comment&Debate International news
Firebrand bidding for Russias soul

Opposition blogger Alexei Navalny may not be all that he seems
Peter Beaumont Observer
Last week, Alexei Navalny, the recently convicted Russian opposition blogger, lawyer and candidate for the post of mayor of Moscow, posted a provocative item on his site. It was an open letter addressed to the present mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, accusing him of authorising the theft of pro-Navalny banners from the citys municipal high rises. Could you please answer my question? asked Navalny, 37, tartly. Why do you, along with your migrant workers for municipal utilities, steal our Navalny banners from the balconies of the residents who have installed them? It illuminated the confrontational style that has characterised Navalnys rapid rise as one of Russias most visible opponents of Vladimir Putin and his inner circle. But also, in the reference to migrants, it suggested why some harbour deep suspicions about Navalnys liberal credentials. Then theres the matter of Navalny, who was sentenced in July to ve years in jail on the trumped-up charge of stealing a forest in Kirov region, being free at all and able to run against Sobyanin. On that last point, theories abound, some conspiratorial and some grubbily pragmatic. The corruption sentence, against which Navalny is appealing, would ban him from holding public oce if upheld. His chances of
Speaking out Alexei Navalny addresses a crowd in Moscow Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters beating Sobyanin, in any case, look remote, according to opinion polls. Whatever the real reason, for now at least the charismatic lawyer, who has brought together skill with social media, personal flair and a sharply populist critique of Kremlin corruption, has had a prominent platform gifted to him by Putin and his allies. Navalnys most striking slogan charges Putins United Russia party with being the party of crooks and thieves. For his part, Putin has assiduously avoided referring to Navalny by name, suggesting that he is, perhaps, aware of the bloggers political potential. It is his sharp, sarcastic, mocking style that has enamoured Navalny to his many young supporters. While Russia is beneting from an oil and gas boom, runs his message, it is only a corrupt few who have been enriched by the new wealth. He has prosecuted his online campaigns with fearless vim and humour, insisting with sang-froid even as he listened to his sentencing that he was unafraid and laid-back about the consequences. Although he had been involved in political activism before, through the liberal Yabloko party, it was the launch in 2008 of Navalnys blog detailing corruption in state institutions that brought him to prominence. It also allowed him to launch the fund that has supported his efforts. Another novelty, in a country where recent polls suggest suspicion both of Putins ruling party and the opposition, is that Navalny is untainted by association with power in the 1990s. At the heart of his message is a call for free and fair elections, the notion that there is no unique Russian disposition that makes his country prone to corruption, political and nancial. It is a pitch as much against those who have chosen the easy route of apolitical neutrality as it is against Putins Kremlin machine.
Gay teens in Russia face hatred and rejection

Continued from page 1 they can nd somebody to speak to, she said. The feeling that most of these children feel is constant fear. Some of the teens letters are shown on the Deti-404 page, with pictures of the authors with their faces obscured so that no one can recognise them. When teenagers get in touch, if necessary Klimova helps them speak to a sensitive psychologist. I tell practically all of them that they are needed, unique and invaluable. I am not pretending. It is true, she said. Teenagers in smaller towns where there are few, if any, openly out people and no gay scene have it the hardest. Our school is considered progressive, but it is quite normal for teachers to say that homosexuals will burn in hell, wrote one 16-year-old from a small town which isnt even on the map. Svetlana was once having dinner and on one of the damn channels of this no less damnable country there was a show about LGBT. She remembers the scorn and contempt of her mother. She calls homosexuals and that means me too mutants. Her father said he was ready to go out with his gun and kill them, while her older sister said they should be treated in psychiatric hospitals. Homosexuality was only legalised in Russia in 1993. Now the new law is in danger of breaking the morale of some of those who see only a future of concealment. When they passed the law, all the teens I know were in despair. You know, in reality, the law is aimed at them, said Klimova. Vicious physical assaults have continued with depressing frequency. A man in Volgograd was murdered after revealing to friends that he was gay. A vigilante group lured young teens on social media by pretending to be older men looking for sex and then humiliated them on videos that they uploaded to the internet. LGBT are called paedophiles, carriers of HIV/Aids, whatever you want, but not normal people. Of course people feel that and of course there are more hate crimes, said Klimova. She is certain there will be no boycott of the Winter Olympics. But she does have one plea. Sportsmen can go to the opening ceremony with a rainbow flag in support of Russian LGBT. It would be very valuable, she said. Observer Some names have been changed
IOC reassured on Sochi Games

The International Olympic Committee has received assurances from the Russian government that the countrys new anti-gay law will not impact on the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. In Russia, it is illegal to give under-18s information about homosexuality following the passing of a new law in June. There have been calls to strip Sochi of the Games, which are scheduled to take place from 7-23 February next year, in reaction to the legislation. The IOC has received assurances from the highest level of government in Russia that the legislation will not aect those attending or taking part in the Games, an IOC statement read. Press Association
International news
Migrants die at Sicilian resort

Six drown swimming from boat carrying Egyptians and Syrians
Lizzy Davies Rome
Italy was shaken last weekend by the deaths of six young Egyptians who drowned while trying to swim 20 metres from a wooden shing boat to the shore, and whose bodies were laid out in bags beside sun umbrellas on a popular Sicilian beach. The prosecutor of Catania, Sicilys second city, opened an investigation after the boat, which had been carrying more than 100 migrants from Egypt and Syria, ran aground on a sandbar near the Lido Verde resort. Roberto DArrigo, a spokesman for the Catania coastguard, said that some of the passengers had jumped into the water to try to swim to safety, while others had remained on board. Among the 98 survivors were about 50 minors, many of them small children. It was suspected that the six men who died, who were identified as Egyptians aged between 17 and 27, may not have known how to swim. According to the UN, about 8,400 migrants and asylum seekers landed on the coasts of Italy and Malta during the rst six months of this year, many of them from Egypt, Syria and countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It is rare, however, for boats to approach populated shorelines near Italian cities, and investigators were reported as saying they thought the vessel may have taken a wrong turn. At about the same time as the migrants arrived, so did three large cruise ships carrying some 12,500 tourists keen to view Mount Etna from the port. Police have arrested two Egyptians, aged 16 and 17, on suspicion of
Italian laws tackle abuse of women

Lizzy Davies Rome
Italys prime minister has vowed to crack down on violence against women, as the government passed measures to tackle the problem. We believe that in our country there was a need to give a very strong sign not only a sign but a radical change on this issue, said Enrico Letta. The measures range from increased penalties for certain forms of domestic violence to the granting of permits to foreign victims on humanitarian grounds. Other reforms aim at making it easier for domestic violence to be reported and abusers to be removed from the home. Reports of domestic abuse can no longer be revoked by the complainant. The justice minister, Annamaria Cancellieri, said this was a particularly signicant element of the bill because in the past women often took back their denunciation in order to protect the children. The bill also targets online bullying. The speaker of the lower house of parliament, Laura Boldrini, highlighted the problem earlier this year when, weeks into the job, she read out some of the large volume of sexually threatening and misogynistic emails she had received. One of them read: You need to be lynched, bitch. This year parliament voted to ratify the Council of Europes convention on violence against women. Last year the UNs special rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, said after a visit to Italy there was an urgent need to tackle the problem. Most manifestations of violence are under-reported in the context of a family-oriented and patriarchal society, she said.
No miracle solutions police carry a body from Catania beach Reuters assisting illegal immigration, but are said to fear that the smugglers may have managed to ee from the boat. The Catania prosecutor, Giovanni Salvi, is looking into possible charges of multiple manslaughter in relation to the disaster. He told the Catholic newspaper LAvvenire that the shing boat may have been towed most of the way by a larger ship and said he suspected links to an organised network. Separate investigations had already indicated that local crime organisations were involved in the people-smuggling, he said. DArrigo said coastguards launched an emergency rescue attempt after receiving an alert via the police from the Lido Verdes owner, who had heard cries coming from the beach. Rescuers took those still on the boat back to land and pulled others from the water. The beach was closed after the deaths, and Catanias council called a day of mourning. Speaking on Italian radio on Sunday, Italys foreign minister, Emma Bonino, said there was no miracle solution to a phenomenon that often leads to fatalities o the coastline. At the end of last month, 31 people were feared to have died while trying to reach the island of Lampedusa, the destination for most migrants and asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East. Whether it be a dream or illusion, these people risk ending up in the hands of real merchants of illusions or death, said Bonino. But were talking about people who are eeing because of hunger or war or a mixture of the two, and therefore there is no miracle solution. One of the survivors at Catania said he had left Syria because he was unable to finish his exams. Yahia Khaddam, 19, told La Repubblica he had paid $1,500 for the journey. Either you ght or you ee, he said. I had to risk death in order to live. I accepted the risk. I paid, and Im alive.
Rail safety under review after Galicia crash, say bosses

Stephen Burgen Barcelona
The boss of Spains national train operator has told a parliamentary commission that the company has begun a review of safety in the wake of the railway crash in Galicia last month in which 79 people died. Julio Gmez Pomar, president of Renfe, was summoned to the commission along with Gonzalo Ferre, president of Adif, the company in charge of Spains rail infrastructure. Ferre told the inquiry that the stretch of track where the accident occurred had originally been planned as a high-speed line but was modied to conventional specications after the then minister of works, Jos Blanco, decided the high-speed line didnt oer any advantages. Ferre said a high-speed line would have been tted with the ERTMS system that would automatically apply the trains brakes if it was exceeding the speed limit. Instead, the track was tted with a system that stops the train only if it is travelling at more than 200km/h. Gmez-Pomar said that before the accident all the signals were green, indicating there was no obstruction on the line, and there had been no reports of mechanical problems on the train. Data retrieved from the black box showed that the train derailed at 179km/h on a section of track where the limit is 80km/h. We are committed to finding out what caused the accident and we will continue to improve the safety of the Spanish rail system, he said. Ferre told the commission: The Spanish rail system is considered one of the best in the world and its up to us to ensure that it continues to be. Safety is under constant review. Renfe has set aside 2.7m ($3.5m) in compensation for crash victims.
179
Speed in km/h at which the train was travelling when it derailed, on a section of track where the limit is 80km/h
International news
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Yemen drone strikes increase

US targets al-Qaida militants amid broaderterror fears
Adam Baron Sanaa
The US has stepped up its drone strikes on suspected al-Qaida targets in Yemen, carrying out eight strikes in two weeks in response to fears of a terror attack in the capital, Sanaa. Yemeni ocials said at least seven Saudi Arabian militants were among those killed in the three strikes last Thursday, as the country was celebrating Eid at the end of Ramadan. Since 27 July, drone attacks have killed 34 suspected militants, according to an Associated Press tally. Washington had closed several diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa in response to intercepted information, and the US and Britain also evacuated diplomatic sta from Sanaa. The rst on the latest wave of drone strikes occurred in the early hours of last Thursday in the Wadi Abeeda area of the central province of Marib. Six people, who locals said were al-Qaida militants, were killed. Wadi Abeeda, simmering with antigovernment sentiment and, despite its proximity to the provincial capital, largely bereft of any meaningful government presence, has long been used as a refuge by militants linked to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), according to tallies kept by the Washington-based thinktank New America foundation. The area, a smattering of oasis-fed farms surrounded by a harsh, desolate desert, has experienced four strikes this year. Were fed up, said Nasser Muhtam, the head of a Mareb-based NGO. Our houses are shaking and our children are scared during the
Most US embassies reopen in Middle East and Africa

Eighteen of the 19 US embassies and consulates that were closed in the Middle East and Africa over fears of attack reopened last Sunday, said the US state department. The embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, remained closed. The consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, which was closed last Thursday because of what ocials say was a separate credible threat, was not scheduled to reopen. A state department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, did not give a reason for the decision to reopen the 18 missions but cited ongoing concerns about a threat stream indicating the potential for terrorist attacks emanating from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, for keeping the embassy in Sanaa closed. We will continue to evaluate the threats to Sanaa and Lahore and make subsequent decisions about the reopening of those facilities, Psaki said. The missions were closed to the public after a message was intercepted about plans for a major terror attack. In Yemen, most US embassy employees were ordered to leave the country because of threats. The state department issued a travel warning last Thursday regarding Pakistan, saying the presence of several foreign and indigenous terrorist groups posed a potential danger to US citizens throughout the country. At the same time ocials ordered nonessential government personnel to leave the consulate in Lahore. In an appearance on NBCs The Tonight Show, the president, Barack Obama, said the terror threat was signicant enough that were taking every precaution. He added: Al-Qaida and other extremists have metastasised into regional groups that can pose signicant dangers. Sta and agencies
Damage done Yemenis gather at the site of a drone strike Reuters morning of Eid, when we should be celebrating. The second and third strikes occurred in the eastern province of Hadramawt. The strikes killed six people. Yemeni ocials said the dead were all al-Qaida-linked militants, but denitive identication was not forthcoming. In most strikes, the bodies of those killed are burned beyond recognition. Last Wednesday Yemeni authorities said they had foiled a plot by alQaida to seize Mukalla, a key port and the fifth-largest city, as well as two major oil and gas export terminals. The latest attacks come after the announcement of a raised terror alert level from Yemeni and US officials, tied to intercepted communications between the al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and AQAP head Nasir alWuhayshi. Fears of an al-Qaida attack shuttered western embassies in the Yemeni capital, prompting the US and UK to evacuate non-essential staff, while spurring Yemeni security forces to increase their presence in the capital. The reported terror threat coincided with the end of a state visit by the Yemeni president, Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, to the US, where he was received by President Barack Obama and public ly feted by top American ocials. But some in the Yemeni government have criticised the American response to the intelligence interceptions. Yemens foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, condemned the US and UKs decision to evacuate their sta, saying the move undermined the exceptional co-operation between Yemen and the international coalition against terrorism. For many Yemenis, however, its their own government that deserves criticism. Sanaa has long granted permission for the US to carry out drone strikes on its territory and Hadi has publicly acknowledged that fact, indicated his support for the strikes.
Leader comment, page 22
Irans political prisoners urge Obama to seek detente

Saeed Kamali Dehghan
More than 50 prominent political prisoners in Iran have written to President Obama, asking him to end crippling sanctions and seize the last chance for dialogue with Tehran. In a letter published by the Guardian, leading opposition gures who with only a few exceptions are currently behind bars in some of the Islamic republics most notorious prisons urged Obama to take the opportunity created by the election of Hassan Rouhani as Irans new and moderate president to seek detente between the two countries. The signatories were also critical of the US sanctions on Iran, which they said had had devastating eects on the lives of ordinary people. We believe the time has come for our two countries to turn a page and start a new era of mutual understanding, reads the letter, which is signed by 55 former ocials, activists, journalists and dissidents. Hopes of a rapprochement have increased in recent days as both countries sent positive signals after Rouhanis inauguration this month. The White House issued a statement that said Tehran would nd a willing partner in the United States should it choose to engage. Rouhani said in his rst press conference that his government would be open to direct talks with the US should Washington show goodwill and engage in practical steps. Rouhani said the contrast between the White House statement and the new sanctions bill passed by the House of Representatives showed inconsistency between US words and actions in its stance on Iran. Rouhani attacked the US sanctions, saying there were designed to pressure ordinary people. In their letter, the Iranian political prisoners made clear that they agreed with the new president on sanctions, even though they are in most cases serving lengthy prison terms for criticising the government that he represents.
Finance
Japans economy grew 2.6% last quarter, slower than expected, as companies wary about the prospects for a sustained recovery refrained from investment. The worlds thirdlargest economy grew 0.6% in April-June from the previous quarter, the Cabinet Oce said in a preliminary estimate. The weaker growth is likely to raise pressure on prime minister Shinzo Abe to push ahead with economic reforms. Greeces recession eased slightly in the second quarter of 2013 but not nearly enough to boost tax revenues to levels the government needs to meet its bailout targets, gures showed. The news followed a magazine report that Germanys central bank saw risks to the rescue package aimed at keeping Greece aoat and expected Athens to need more aid in 2014. India has turned to former IMF economist Raghuram Rajan to run its central bank as the government seeks to tackle its most serious economic problems in more than two decades. Rajan will take over at the Reserve Bank of India next month amid fears the much-debated phasing out of US stimulus will push up the value of the dollar and trigger a currency crisis in emerging markets. BlackBerry, once the global leader in smartphone technology, has put itself up for sale after years of falling sales and failed revamps. Once seen as so habit-forming users dubbed it the CrackBerry, BlackBerry has suered a decline as rivals revolutionised the business. On Monday the company said it had decided to explore strategic alternatives. Buyers are being sought, though the company could also go private.
A small loss and a huge gain ... Wi-Fi in the Beaubourg district of Paris Sipa Press/Rex Features
Sharing economy here to stay

The internet is building communities around underutilised assets
James Silver Observer
In 2006, serial entrepreneur and investor Martn Varsavsky inspired by a conviction that he could cloak the world in free Wi-Fi by encouraging people to share their home connections founded Fon in Madrid. The company is now the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, with almost 12m hot spots in more than 100 countries. My general thinking at the time was that we live in a world in which benefits are only accrued through economic growth and the endless consumption of resources, and that there have to be other ways that are of more benet to people, he says. Why should everyone have their own car when most of the time they are not using them? Think of a marina full of boats. How frequently do those boats go out? Today, it has been argued that the sharing economy which is perhaps best defined as a way of sweating underutilised assets, by building communities around them and turning consumers into providers has the potential to reboot businesses across most economic categories. Indeed, Forbes magazine recently estimated that total revenues for the sector could top $3.5bn this year, with growth exceeding 25%. However, when setting up Fon, Varsavsky became convinced that people needed a nudge or nancial incentive before they would happily share their assets. In the case of Wi-Fi, we came up with the concept that if you share a little Wi-Fi at home, you can roam the world for free, he says. Thats a small loss and a huge gain. And now [years later] we see that in all those situations where you have a small loss and a big gain, the sharing economy makes sense. Yet while it makes sense, at least intellectually, its when you start to examine the legalities around the ownership of assets that the sharing economy starts to run into trouble, argues the 53-year-old, who was born in Buenos Aires. It turns out ownership is not as clear-cut as many of us might expect. You think something is yours to share until somebody says, Hey! Its not really yours at all, says Varsavsky, citing the terms and conditions around owning Wi-Fi and the copyright of books and music as examples. The fast-growing peer-to-peer (P2P) holiday lodgings market is another case in point. There are claims that its success is gnawing away at the incumbent hotel sectors profit margins and even starting to have an impact on property prices. The hotel industry has begun to fight back, primarily, it seems, through behindthe-scenes lobbying of regulators and politicians. The sharing economy can create winners and losers, and property owners are winners and hotel owners are losers [in this case], says Varsavsky. Sometimes those who gain are atomised and gain little individually, while those who hurt, hurt a lot, and then organise very well. Those are the forces against sharing. The response of sharing economy companies encountering obstacles of this sort should be to rally the forces that stand to gain while making the case, wherever possible, that the forces of disruption can be good for traditional businesses too, he says. When asked where he thinks the sharing economy will go next, Varsavsky picks an unexpected area: fertility. For a long time fertility has been helped by people who have been sharing their sperm or eggs, in order to make reproduction possible for others. But its been done in a very restrictive way so far. I think, as the average age of people having children goes up, fertility is an area which will see a great deal of change, because of the ability to obtain embryos, eggs, sperm, surrogacy all of those are examples of people doing something for someone else. People dont think of fertility as part of the sharing economy, but I do. Life must come from life. Another area set to boom, he predicts, is the sharing of expensive equipment for gardening, DIY and even farming. These are all things that are bought, used extremely little and are likely to be shared. Social platforms will play a big role in this and open up all these categories, because people can just say, I need this and theres an instant audience. All these [sharing economy] sites have log-ins with Facebook, Twitter and Google+, which removes the friction, enabling us to make more rational use of our assets [like these]. Thats one of the reasons why the sharing economy is here to stay.
Finance in brief
Foreign exchanges
Sterling rates (at close) 9 Aug 1.69 1.60 8.68 1.18 12.04 149.47 1.93 9.07 1.95 10.08 1.43 1.55 2 Aug 1.71 1.58 8.57 1.16 11.85 150.84 1.95 9.07 1.94 10.08 1.42 1.53
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UK news
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An apple a day about a third of under-16s across the UK are either overweight or obese Murdo Macleod
Children shun vegetables and fruit for sweets and zzy drinks
Lifestyles pose risk of heart disease, says British Heart Foundation report
Sarah Boseley
Children are more likely to have a can of a sugary drink a day than eat ve portions of fruit and vegetables, and the vast majority have less than an hours exercise, according to a report. The British Heart Foundation is very concerned that the lifestyles of modern children are setting them up for serious health problems in later life. Large numbers are in danger of developing coronary heart disease as adults if they continue to skip meals and sport in favour of watching TV and drinking zzy drinks, it says. The data, published on Monday, suggests there has been little improvement in eating, drinking and exercise habits in spite of the concern about obesity and the launch of the governments child measurement programme, which warns parents if their children are overweight. About a third of under-16s across the UK are either overweight or obese. The report, produced in partnership with the BHF health promotion research group at Oxford University, shows that 80% of children in England are not eating the recommended ve portions of fruit and vegetables every day. Data from Scotland suggests they are more likely to eat crisps, biscuits or sweets once a day or more. Children also love their zzy drinks 39% of girls and 43% of boys get through a can a day. One can of cola contains up to nine teaspoonfuls of sugar, the BHF says. A lot of snacking goes on, but children are apt to skip the most important meal of the day breakfast says the report. Almost half (47%) of boys and over a third (36%) of girls aged 13 go without it. And the sedentary lifestyle has now taken over. At the age of 13, few are very active. Around 85% of girls and 73% of boys say they do not do even an hours physical activity a day, which is the recommended minimum. Nearly three-quarters of 13-year-olds say they watch at least two hours of TV on a weekday, leaving less time for sport and physical activity. Around a quarter of children spend at least six hours sitting down on Saturday and Sunday. These gures are a warning that many of our children are in grave danger of developing coronary heart disease in the future if they continue to live the same lifestyle. This is simply unacceptable, said Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the BHF. The BHF has invested 1.2m ($1.8m) in seven community projects in Liverpool, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and two in Glasgow to teach children and young people how to make the right food choices and help them get more active. But we cant act alone, said Gillespie. Local decision-makers need to identify the children and young people at greatest risk of poor health in their communities and take steps to help them improve their lifestyle. BHFs senior dietician, Victoria Taylor, said there was reason to be concerned. Even if [obesity] is levelling out, there is still a huge number of children who are obese or overweight who wouldnt have been so 30 years ago, she said. These children are likely to continue to be obese throughout their childhood and adulthood.
Nations exercise levels shockingly low

Almost one in 10 adults have notwalked continuously for ve minutes in the past four weeks, according to one of the most comprehensive studies conducted into physical tness levels in England. Research examining the lifestyles of a million adults, carried out by the Centre for Market and Public Organisation at Bristol University, paints an alarming picture of very high levels of physical inactivity. The studys authors argue that levels of physical activity are inuenced by socioeconomic factors. The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, used the governments annual Active People Surveys, dating back to 2006, to examine physical activity across Englands local authorities. It found that nearly 80% of the population fails to hit government targets performing moderate exercise for 30 minutes at least 12 times amonth. Jamie Doward Observer
UK news
Bank pledges to keep interest rates low

Central bank governor rules out rate rise until jobless gure falls to 7%
Larry Elliott and Phillip Inman
The new governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has signalled that Britains ultra-low interest rates would remain unchanged until well after the 2015 general election as he stressed that only a big fall in unemployment would bring an end to the cheap money of the past four years. In a move welcomed by chancellor George Osborne as likely to support the UKs recovery from its deepest recession in recent history, Carney said he would wait until the jobless rate fell to 7% before considering whether to push up the cost of borrowing. The governor said the bank would only think again about its pro-growth stance if there was a threat of higher ination or asset bubbles, but nancial experts said the chances of the governments election plans being disrupted by a tightening of monetary policy were remote. Carney said there was understandable relief that the economy had started to grow again and that the banks monetary policy committee wanted to reassure households and businesses that there would be no early increase in interest rates from their record low of 0.5%, or any unwinding of the 375bn ($580bn) stimulus provided by the quantitative easing programme. There are clear signs that economic activity has strengthened this year, Carney said. But there should be little satisfaction. Much is at stake as we seek to secure this recovery and return ination to target. The unemployment rate currently consistently said, George Osborne must nally act to support the economy and also help families feeling the squeeze. Carney insisted that the bank had not abandoned its commitment to low inflation and said there were circumstances in which it would rethink its pledge to keep policy loose. These were a forecast that the annual increase in the cost of living would be more than 2.5% 18-24 months in the future; signs that the public was beginning to take higher inflation for granted; and a risk of rapidly rising asset prices that could not be tackled other than by raising the cost of borrowing. Carney said that the banks guidance would cease to apply if any of these knockout clauses were triggered. Frances OGrady, general secretary of the TUC, said: Todays announcement shows that the bank understands a real recovery is something that benefits ordinary people, and not just an upward blip in economists outlooks. John Allan, national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, hailed a profound shift in monetary policy and added: We welcome this bold and imaginative thinking to secure the recovery. In the longer term, we hope it will give investors and rms looking to grow condence to bring forward work which will in turn help increase employment. Peter Spencer, economic adviser to the Ernst & Young ITEM club, said: The hype surrounding Mark Carney did not go in vain as he managed to deliver on high expectations of shaking up the UKs monetary policy approach. The economy is in recovery rather than remission and this guidance gives the bank the exibility to reduce the risk of relapse.
Editorial cartoon, page 21
Watchful the Bank of England wants to ensure the recovery Reuters 7.8% was the biggest sign that the UK still needs help, Carney said. Until the margin of slack within the economy has narrowed signicantly, it will be appropriate to maintain the current exceptionally stimulative stance of monetary policy. He added that to hit the 7% threshold for unemployment, the economy would need to create 750,000 new jobs. The bank thinks this is unlikely before 2016. Osborne is condent that the aggressive action by the bank will oset the impact of his austerity measures and ensure that the economy is growing steadily by the time of the election in the spring of 2015. Weak growth in wages and below-ination increases in benefits are seen as threats to consumer spending this year. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, welcomed the so-called forward guidance from the bank but said Osborne also needed to act to support the economy. By recognising the importance of policy action to support jobs and growth, at last we are seeing the governor show the leadership we have failed to see over the last three years and are still not seeing from the chancellor. Mark Carney is right to warn that the recovery is weak. It is the slowest on record and families are facing a growing cost of living crisis. But the new governor is not a miracle worker and monetary policy cannot do the job alone. As we and the International Monetary Fund have
Buy-to-let mortgages help fuel house price boom

Hilary Osborne
Britains buy-to-let mortgage market has surged to levels not seen since the 2008 nancial crash, prompting fears that a prolonged period of cheap money is setting o an unsustainable housing boom. Lending to landlords topped 5bn ($7.7bn) in the past three months, a period that preceded the Bank of Englands pledge last week to keep interest rates low for the next three years. More than one in 10 mortgages now go to a would-be landlord while rst-time buyers are still struggling to get on the housing ladder. About 40,000 buy-to-let mortgages were advanced in the three months to June, up from 33,000 in the rst quarter of the year, as landlords cashed in on cheap mortgage deals and investors sought higher returns than they could get from putting their cash in the bank. Housebuilders are also reporting a rush to take advantage of government mortgage subsidies for new homes and a top London estate agent said the value of prestige homes in the capital had risen by 18% adding 500,000 to the price of a central London home in the past year. Figures from the estate agency group LSL Property Services released last Friday show that house prices in England and Wales have reached their highest-ever level, hitting an average of 232,969. The gures, based on all property transactions reported to the Land Registry, show prices are now higher than their 2007 peak. They have increased by more than 500 a month over the past year. Savills, which sells prime London property and reported the 18% price rise, said the average price of its London stock had reached 3.2m.
10%
Percentage of all mortgages now being taken up by would-be landlords, who are cashing in on cheap deals
UK news
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The value of UK workers wages has suered one of the sharpest falls in the EU, House of Commons library gures show. The 5.5% reduction in average hourly wages since mid-2010 means British workers have felt the squeeze more than those hit by the eurozone crisis. Spanish workers wages dropped by 3.3% over the same period and in Cyprus salaries fell by 3% in real terms. Only Greek, Portuguese and Dutch wages suered a steeper decline. Health experts have appealed to parents to make sure teenagers are protected against measles, mumps and rubella with the MMR jab, as gures suggest well under a quarter of 10 to 16-year-olds are fully vaccinated. A campaign launched in England in April targeted the estimated 600,000 teenagers who were not fully inoculated when they were infants, but by the end of June only around 67,000 had the injections. One in ve children say they have been victims of cyberbullying on social media sites during the last year, as messages continue to be posted threatening fellow users with violence. Research by the NSPCC also found that 10% of 11- to 16-year-olds had been targeted daily by internet trolls. The charity called for a strategy to protect children from cyberbullying before it gets out of hand. Around 14 million people in London and the south face an extra 29 ($45) charge on their water bills to help pay for a super sewer. Thames Water wants to levy the charge on all its customers, citing the cost of buying land for the Thames Tideway Tunnel and a spike in unpaid bills. With Thames Water customers already facing a 1.4% price rise in 201415, the average annual bill is set to rise to almost 400. Amelia and Harry remained the top baby names across England and Wales in 2012 for the second year in a row. 7,168 children were named Harry in 2012, while there were 7,061 baby girls named Amelia, according to the Ofce for National Statistics. Oliver (6,669) and Olivia (4,585) remained the second most popular names.
Robert Booth
The British parliament is to investigate Prince Charless controversial role in helping to shape government legislation in a move likely to increase pressure on Whitehall to reduce the secrecy around alleged royal lobbying. Next month MPs will examine the heir to the thrones little-known royal veto over any new laws that aect his private interests. The move follows a Guardian investigation in 2011 into the secretive constitutional loophole that revealed how ministers have been forced to seek permission from the prince to pass at least a dozen government bills. The House of Commons political and constitutional reform committee, chaired by the Labour MP Graham Allen, will ask whether there is a risk that the requirement of royal consent, which is also granted by the Queen depending on the nature of the law being passed, could be seen as politicising the monarchy. It has emerged that Charles has held 36 meetings with ministers since the government took power in May 2010. He has met the prime minister, David Cameron, seven times, four dierent ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government and held six meetings with ministers in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which oversee areas in which the prince campaigns
Controversial Prince Charles met ministers 36 times Philip Carr/Corbis on planning and the environment, respectively. Neither Whitehall nor Clarence House will elaborate on what was discussed in the private meetings. The royal veto is seen by some constitutional experts as a red button that is unlikely to be pressed but that may focus ministers minds when Charles and other members of the royal family discuss policy matters with them. Later this year, the court of appeal will hear the latest stage of an eightyear battle by the Guardian to get the government to reveal a set of 27 letters written by the prince to ministers in seven departments over nine months. The questions being asked by the committee, whose members include the historian Tristram Hunt, include: Is there a continuing justication for the Queens or princes consent to be part of the legislative process? Both Clarence House and Buckingham Palace said the princes consent was a long-established convention. Anti-monarchy campaigners welcomed the MPs inquiry. If Charles believes he has a right to secretly lobby ministers and exercise a veto over new laws then he should be called to the Commons to give evidence himself, said Graham Smith, director of Republic, which campaigns for an end to the monarchy.
Poll: Tories lead Labour on economy

Rajeev Syal, Rowena Mason and Simon Neville
A growing proportion of the public believe David Cameron and George Osborne are more capable of managing the economy than their Labour rivals, according to the latest ICM poll for the Guardian. The proportion of people prepared to back the Tory team for economic competence has soared to 40% from 28% in June. The ndings will make grim reading for the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, who along with shadow chancellor Ed Balls has seen a much smaller rise in credibility, with 24% of the public preferring them compared with 19% two months ago. While the latest voting intentions have Labour ahead of the Tories by three points on 35%, the crucial economic competence gures will be a blow to Miliband, who has had a dicult summer following criticisms by backbenchers of the partys lack of direction and leadership. The strong increase in backing for Cameron and Osborne to handle the economy comes at a time of early signs of economic recovery in the last month, with growth of 0.6% in the second quarter of 2013. Labour has recently adapted its message to argue it is only the well o who have been beneting from increased growth, but the poll ndings on competence show the party still has much to do to convince voters it can x the countrys economic problems. Such high competence gures for the Tories were last seen in ICM polling in December 2012 when 35% preferred Cameron and Osborne and 24% preferred Miliband and Balls. On voting intentions, Labour are down one point from last month to 35% and the Tories down four points to 32%. This suggests a return to the balance of opinion observed for much of the last year, with Labour just ahead, following a dead heat between the two main parties in July when the Tories wiped out a seven-point Labour lead from the month before. Both parties have lost voting share in the last month (Conservatives down four points, Labour down one) with Ukip the main beneciary, increasing its share by three points, from 7% to 10%. The Liberal Democrats have increased their share by 1% to 14%. However, all of these shifts are relatively small, suggesting a certain level of stability in the UK political scene over the last month.
News in brief
Princes veto on laws to be examined by parliament
Comment&Debate
The biggest threat to US is its own military

Michael Cohen Comment is free
Dont be fooled by terror alerts and dire warnings: the world in general is asafer place than ever, and the US in particular
ear America: I know youve got a lot on your mind these days. Work is a drag; the kids are still on summer vacation; the car is making an awful racket; youve got to clean out the gutters; your anniversary is right around the corner and you cant think of a thing to buy; you really need to see the dentist. Its always something, right? Well, heres some good news: youre pretty safe. Sure, Obama had to cancel that summit with Putin, and al-Qaida might be plotting to attack an overseas embassy, and there is that guy down the block who is just a little too into guns, and, truth be told, you might want to hit the gym a bit more often (just sayin) but otherwise, youre pretty good. Dont believe me? Check out what Michael Morell, the No 2 man at the CIA, had to say about the threats facing America in his recent interview with the Wall Street Journal. If anyone knows about foreign threats, its gotta be this guy, right? What hes most worried about? Syria. Hasnt there been a civil war going on there for three years? Why is that a threat to the United States? Well, according to Morell, the risk is that the Syrian government, which possesses chemical and other advanced weapons, collapses and the country becomes al-Qaidas new haven, supplanting Pakistan. Putting aside that such a scenario is a slim possibility, even if it did happen, it wouldnt actually be a direct threat to the United States. Its not as if Syrian Islamist rebels are yelling Damascus today, Des Moines tomorrow. If everything falls apart, a few of those al-Qaida guys could take up residence, as they did in Pakistan, but then al-Qaida had a safe haven in Pakistan for years and there hasnt been a single major terrorist attack in the United States in the 12 years since 9/11. Of course, theres always the outside chance that the war in Syria will destabilise Iraq or Turkey or Jordan or Israel. That would be bad for US interests, but for individual Americans, less so. In other words, if Syria is the biggest threat to the United States, then Americans really dont have much to fear. So, whats next on Morrells list? Iran. The Iranians do seem kind of scary, what with all that Death to America chanting, and the Ayatollah was a bad dude. But the reality is that Iran is a bit of a paper tiger. It doesnt have an active nuclear weapons programme so says the US intelligence community.
And Iran is being strangled by international sanctions, it has a second-rate military, it is diplomatically isolated, and its people just elected a moderate presidential candidate. That doesnt sound so very scary. OK, whats next on Morells list of doom? The global al-Qaida threat. If its been 12 years since AQ pulled o a major terrorist attack, how big a threat can these guys be? They are getting pounded by drones in Pakistan and Yemen. Remember when Obama said he was going to start dialling them back? Hasnt happened. In fact, Morell even noted that the United States has signicantly degraded the groups capabilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Still, he warned that al-Qaida has had its own victory as well. The dispersal of al-Qaida is their victory. Huh? So when al-Qaida was dispersed from Afghanistan in 2001, was that a victory? How about when they were decimated in Pakistan and needed to set up shop in Yemen? Another glorious win? These guys cant have a terrorist conference call without the NSA listening in. Even when al-Qaida makes a vague threat against an overseas US target, the United States completely overreacts, closing its embassies in 19Arab and African countries. Third-biggest threat? Not so much. hen there has to be something on Morells list that can get Americans worried. North Korea? According to Morell, North Korea might one day develop a missile that could send a nuclear weapon to the United States. Sure, that could happen. But unless Pyongyangs strategic posture shifts from regime survival to national suicide, we should all be ne. The nal threat in Morells tale of global danger is the perennial fear of cyberwar, a threat more dened by hype than hysteria. The less said about it, the better. The fact is, none of what Morell describes as a threat actually is a signicant threat. And while national security elites from the secretary of defence to prominent thinktank denizens like to describe the world today as a dangerous place, it simply isnt true. There were six wars last year (just six!). This follows a consistent trend of declining violence that dates back decades. When wars do occur, they pretty much never occur between states. Since the Gulf war of 1991, territorial conquest has gone the way of the dodo. Indeed, when the US ghts a major war these days, it is generally because theyve started it with consistently disastrous results. Not that this stops those aforementioned thinktankers from warning that relatively trivial cuts to the size of the army and marine corps will leave the military weaker, or military leaders from suggesting, as they did earlier this year, that cuts to the Pentagons budget would devastate the military or imperil the continued prosperity and security interests of the United States. What is most striking about Morells warnings is, in fact, the stunning hollowness of the threats he describes. If Syria, North Korea and Iran are truly what threaten us, then truly we have little to fear from the world outside our borders. And its not as if the US is alone in dealing with these issues. On the Korean peninsula, South Korea has a formidable military; on Iran, sanctions against the regime are not unilateral but multilateral as in, United Nations-approved; and the enemies of al-Qaida comprise pretty much every country in the world. That this grab-bag of minor threats is used to justify a defence budget in the range of $600bn, an active and reserve force of 1 million troops and a far-ung empire of military bases and partners not to mention, a rather eective navy and air force, and thousands of nuclear weapons is astounding. If this is the best the CIA can do, it really needs to pick up its game.
Matt Kenyon
If its been 12 years since al_Qaida pulled o a major terrorist attack, then how big athreat can these guysbe?
Comment&Debate
No more grand historical narratives

Colm Tibn
implicity is a foreign country; they do things dierently there, as Mohammad Najibullah discovered in 1996 when the Taliban nally arrived in Kabul. Najibullah was president of Afghanistan between 1987 and 1992. There is a story that, while holed up in the UN compound in Kabul waiting for the Taliban to arrive, he busied himself translating into Pashto a book by Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, which deals with the history of the invasions of Afghanistan in the 19th century. As he worked, Najibullah realised that no one around him knew anything about Afghan history. It was a country sadly bereft of Eric Hobsbawms, Linda Colleys and Niall Fergusons, not to speak of Simon Schamas. Afghans keep making the same mistake, he is reported to have said. And also: Only if we understand history can we make steps to break the cycle. The Taliban had no interest in his book, however, when they took over; no one knows what happened to the manuscript. This current decade in Ireland is lled with signicant centenaries. From the signing of the Ulster covenant in 1912 to the ending of the civil war in 1923, there are many events to commemorate but, as is proper, some uncertainty about how this should be done. It seems natural, too, since the legacy of perverse decisions by politicians is long, that history, under the new plans for education in the Irish Republic, will no longer be compulsory in schools; thus it will be possible for Irish citizens of the future, like Afghans of the present, to have in their heads nothing other than some myths and prejudices about the past. In Britain there has been much debate about what version of the past should be oered to schoolchildren. Should it attempt a national story? Should it be decided by a politician? By a committee of historians? How global should it be? How local? What about Europe and ancient Rome? What about Scotland? What about the civil war? Should the word Glorious before Revolution be in inverted commas? Or was it indeed glorious? And then there is the small matter of the empire. Some of this debate has itself been a rich example of how the teaching of history itself might, or must, proceed. History is a way of interpreting, rather than, say, knowing the past. It is usually a set of disputes between those who have access to the same sources. It depends on ideology as much as voting in an election does. While historians may go on attempting grand narratives, they work in a time when readers know that another narrative always lies in wait, and that the more intelligent an historian is, the more tentative the tone. What is strange is how much has been achieved in Ireland courtesy of historians and history teachers. For 70 years the involvement of southern Ireland in the rst world war, for example, was a question left in the margins. Now it is as close to the centre as the 1916 rebellion. The entire narrative of Irish history has, indeed, become uncertain, open to question and debate. History teachers and their students, when they come to study the events of Easter 1916, will have no trouble placing
A single view of history has torn Ireland apart a history lled with myth and prejudice, rather than scrutinised with irony and intelligence
Andrzej Krauze
them beside the Battle of the Somme. Or viewing the threat of conscription in Ireland as a factor in the change of public opinion as much as the Easter rebellion. For students now, no grand narrative is needed; indeed, it seems to me, none will be tolerated or believed. There is too much conicting information available about everything. In the 1940s, anyone who took part in the struggle for Irish independence was asked to write down their account of what they did; 1,773 people wrote their version, with the promise that what they wrote would be kept under lock and key until they had all died. hey are all dead now, and their version of how a revolution happened is online, free and fully searchable. Since the 1911 census in Ireland is also online, free of change and fully searchable, this means that a student can check the social background of the writer how many rooms in their house, for example, or if they had servants and can also look at the same event from dierent points of view. Studying such documents, in all their conicting textures, is not merely a way for students to understand the past, but it is a way of creating a cast of mind and of thinking sceptically and creatively that might assist more with problem-solving, or indeed living, than algebra, say, or adding two and two. In the meantime, there will always be government ministers who think the case that every school student should study history has still not been proved. I just didnt expect this to happen in Ireland, which has torn itself apart in the name of a single view of history, a history lled with myth and prejudice, rather than scrutinised with irony and intelligence. The Taliban are always coming towards us in one guise or other. Najibullahs eort at translation, at spreading light and knowledge about his country work done in terrible circumstances as he waited for his doom is an inspiration to students and history teachers, as it is to citizens. It may be enough to study history in all its nuance and ambiguity for its own sake. But there is no country free of the need to nd new ways of reading the past as an inspiring way of thinking about everything else, including the present. Least of all, mine.
For students now, no grand narrative will betolerated; there is too much conicting information available about everything
Comment&Debate
So much for the US internet model

Eli Dourado Comment is free
After the NSA leaks, other countries are even less willing to listen toAmericas ideas onregulating the web
he National Security Agencys surveillance of innocent Americans without a warrant is illegal. But obscured by the debate over domestic spying is the fact that virtually no one in the US is questioning the NSAs total surveillance of the rest of the world. Foreign surveillance programmes, unlike domestic ones, are clearly legal, but that doesnt make them good policy. After all, most of the nearly 7 billion non-Americans in the world are just as innocent as most Americans. They resent US government surveillance as much as, or perhaps more than, Americans do. To see how foreign resentment over surveillance is hurting US interests, look at the international politics of internet governance. Unsavoury regimes have long sought a pre-eminent role for the UN on internet matters. This past December in Dubai, the US and many of its allies refused to sign a UN telecommunications treaty that would have involved the internet in part on the grounds that it would have harmed internet freedom. Led by Russia, some regimes want to split the internet into 193 separate states, managed by national governments, which interconnect according to the rules of a treaty. These countries want such arrangements because they want to more eectively surveil and censor their own citizens. The US state department always rightly opposed such activities, but now that leaked documents are revealing the NSAs domestic and global surveillance
Andrzej Krauze
programmes, the US looks hypocritical. The scandal is reinvigorating Russian proposals for the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency, to take over internet technical standards and management of the domain name system. Brazil insists that the role of governments and intergovernmental agencies in managing the internet be discussed at ITU meetings in November and March. These are not major policy changes, but they now nd a more sympathetic ear from the developing countries that make up the majority at the ITU. In truth, most developing countries dont care very much about the management of the internet per se. What they really want is more access to the internet more foreign investment and more aid to set up internet exchange points. In the past, the US always oered more development resources as a way to smooth over its hardline stance on preserving existing internet institutions. But now, developing countries dont want US assistance because they assume the equipment comes with a backdoor for the NSA. They are walking straight into the arms of Russia, China and the ITU, and when the time comes to decide how the internet should be managed, who do you think theyll side with? This is not to suggest that the US shut down all of its intelligence operations. After all, other countries spy, and spying is part of international politics. But the US is one of very few countries with the capability to monitor absolutely everything in the world. This means that the kind of indiscriminate, total surveillance that the US is presently engaged in is not strictly necessary, and unilateral disarmament is an option. No doubt the intelligence establishment will dismiss the suggestion out of hand. But by surveilling innocent foreigners alongside Americas enemies, the US is alienating the world and projecting an arrogant disregard for the perfectly ordinary aspirations of billions of people to maintain some semblance of privacy. Eventually, that alienation could destroy the free, global internet that we all love. Is it worth it? Eli Dourado is a former delegate to the UN International Telecommunications Union meetings More at theguardian.com/commentisfree
Comment is free In brief
Obesity crisis wont be solved by tspiration

First, a confession: as far as physical tness goes, my interest has at best been lacklustre. I was suspicious of the perceived sadistic intentions of PE teachers, and when, as a teenager, I accompanied my mum to a yoga class, I humiliated her by dissolving into tearful laughter during the chanting. So it is not for me to lecture you on your couch potatoness. But we are, nonetheless, in the grip of an obesity crisis. It is against this backdrop that a new trend has been germinating: that of tspiration, which operates under such mantras as strong is the new skinny and t not thin. Rather than focusing on thin women, its focus is on images of athletic women, which has led some to hail it as a positive step. And yet I question whether this is a good thing for women. The impetus to compare is natural for all of us, but it is also seen as particularly female we are encouraged to compete with one another. This is why I doubt that tspo will be the thing to solve this crisis. Looking at a beautiful, thin woman is unlikely to make most people feel better, because it encourages you to compare your hopeless self with her. It does not tackle what is so often the underlying cause of obesity unhappiness. That extra biscuit or four to make the day just that bit brighter. The inertia following the late-night binge. The cycle of guilt and chips and hopelessness and envy. The void that wants lling. Exercise can ll that void, for some. We know it boosts serotonin. But the act of looking and comparing doesnt. It feeds o it. Like thinspo, it comes from a dark place. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
This is the cutest article you will read all day

I cant have been the only person, last week, to feel a rush of nostalgia upon learning that Thames Water had removed a bus-sized, 15-tonne lump of food fat (mixed with wet wipes) from the London sewers. The fatberg was an August news story redolent of the old-fashioned silly season. But this distinct period of summer newslessness and journalistic goong-o is all but dead. No doubt this is because the silliness supply is now year-round. The web functions as a global machine for the locating and rebroadcasting of quirk, delivering a ceaseless stream of updates on adorable animals, idiotic criminals, obeat scientic discoveries, pranks, pratfalls, kids acting cute, and breathtaking photos of the natural world. The social web is a planet-wide daily chorus of people saying: Huh! In her recent book Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting, the academic Sianne Ngai dives deep into this modern ocean of Huh.Huge swaths of late capitalist culture, she argues, t into one of these three boxes. What denes the culture of cute, zany and interesting above all, Ngai shows, is emotional mildness and passivity: surely few cute-kitten videos, or eyebrow-raising science tidbits, have ever inspired anyone to anger, political action or into a creative frenzy. With year-round quirk, it almost always feels preferable to click on the cute or zany than to nd out the latest on Syria or zero-hours contracts. So please do now feel free to redress the balance by inspecting a collection of the funniest underwater seles or pictures of wildres. Oh, and if you read one thing today, make it oops, sorry. Too late. Oliver Burkeman
Comment&Debate
In praise of ... outsider art
It was a contradiction when Roger Cardinal rst used the expression outsider art in 1972. Art, by implication, requires an informed aesthetic understanding, yet outsider art is made by people who, through mental or physical isolation, live beyond the reach of cultural conditioning. Admiration dates back to the mid-19th century when psychiatrists became aware that some of their patients were producing paintings and drawings of powerful intensity. In turn, the works inuenced the avant garde of the early 20th century artists such as Paul Klee and Jean Dubuet who relished its uncooked nature, and started searching for it outside Europes asylums. It began to turn up across the world, outpourings of creativity and imagination, like Nek Chands sculpture garden in Chandighar, or whole buildings such as Ferdinand Chevals Palais Idal in France. Two exhibitions in London this summer suggest, in one way at least, its no longer outsider.
Britains booming birthrate

Polly Toynbee
A population increase isa great opportunity forthe economy and national wellbeing if we make good choices
eople are a good thing, the most precious resource in a rich economy, so the progressive-minded feel. Only misanthropists disagree, or the dottier Malthusians who send green-ink tweets deploring any state assistance for child-rearing. So last weeks population gures from the Oce for National Statistics are unalloyed good news, for young and old, for the economy and wellbeing. But only if we seize the opportunity to plan well. Last year the UK population grew by 0.7% to 63.7 million another 419,900 people alive and kicking. Thats the biggest population growth in the EU. Germanys numbers are falling fast, to their great consternation. Italy is emptying out. France does better with its strong pro-natalist tradition favouring familles nombreuses. The ONS is calling us a young country. Our birthrate is at its highest for 40 years. Thats mainly due to the bulge cycle, as my postwar generation who had our children in the 1970s and early 80s now sprout grandchildren. This is all good: new life, new workers, new consumers, defying the gloomier forecasts that the depleted ratio of workers to old folk would sink the young under the weight of pensions and caring duties. A quarter of last years babies have mothers who were born abroad, up 6% on a decade ago but, says the ONS, they are not the main reason for the increase in the birthrate. One reason for population growth is people living longer. The great change is in mens survival, with those over 75 up by 26% in 11 years, compared with 6% for women. This comes from less smoking and safer conditions at work, combined with the NHSs improvement in cancer, stroke and heart survival rates. More old men and fewer widows is good news, with only a small increase in the ratio of workers to retirees. Migration gures are what hit the headlines, causing the government most anxiety. With only two years left to meet David Camerons entirely irrational target to reduce net migration to tens of thousands, still 165,600 more arrived than departed last year. What can he do
encourage mass migration of Brits to Gibraltar or the Spanish costa del retirement? The idea that curbing immigration depends not only on numbers arriving but on the random numbers leaving makes this one of the governments more monumentally improbable policies. Of course borders must be strictly controlled, but it picks on the easiest group to bar foreign students. Ignoring pleas from all the universities, it continues to squeeze out this 8bn ($12bn) earner. Despite Camerons trade trip to India, 24% fewer Indian students and 28% fewer postgraduates came last year, rebued by the extreme barriers to visas compared with the US or Germany. Whether they stay or go after graduating, why wouldnt we welcome bright and wealthy foreign students here? Gavin Barwell, the brave Tory MP who co-founded Migration Matters to support productive immigration, says these valuable students are turned away by the tone of our migration debate: thats no surprise since at the click of a mouse they see their countries called bongo bongo land, with precious little welcome from any other political quarter. How much do we want to cut net migration anyway, when the Oce for Budget Responsibility warns that, if it were stopped, the UKs public-sector debt would rise from 74% of GDP today to 187% by the middle years of this century? But the value of migration depends on who benets. Too often it has been used to hold down wages and avoid skills training. All this looks almost unequivocally good news for the future. I can hear environmentalists cries of woe of course, more people means an urgent need to cut each persons carbon footprint. Indeed, all this is only good news if the country makes the right choices. Instead of shrinking the state, services the NHS, rail, universities, libraries, swimming pools and museums all need to expand to meet demand. These babies will bring more tax wealth, but let it not be greater private riches and public squalor. If their wealth is not to be better shared for the common good, then we shall lose the advantage they promise and a bigger population may feel more of a curse than a blessing.
theguardianweekly
Feeding the planet 16 August 1956
Challenge of the century

How to feed a population fast closing in on 10 billion? It is an issue that gets ever more serious. Consider: Britain, France and Germany produce 12% of the worlds wheat harvest, yet yields per hectare, which have almost trebled in one human lifetime, are no longer rising. These three countries are blessed with rich soil, good rainfall, long summer days, sophisticated agricultural science and all the fertiliser they need, so if yields are no longer increasing, then crops may be reaching their biological limit. Altogether, 18 countries may not have enough water to go on growing more and more grain: around 3.6 billion people live in these countries. That is about half the population of the planet. By 2050, the number of mouths to feed will have increased by 2 billion. As food supplies dwindle, and demand increases, food prices will rise. But 2 billion people already survive on an income of less than $2 a day: almost a billion people go to bed hungry each night right now; 2 billion are, according to UN calculations, in some way malnourished. As food prices rise, so will political discontent. The Arab spring began with unprecedented rises in food prices; riots followed in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Add to this several other ominous trends. One is climate change: analysts who looked at 21 studies of civil war, ethnic conict and street violence in modern societies found a consistent link with drought and high temperature in all 21 cases. Since many climate change projections forecast a 2C rise in average global temperatures some time near mid-century, and since crop yields tend to fall with extremes of temperature, this is not good news, for food security or for civilisation. There are other problems. One is waste. About 2m tons of food is lost every year: the crop never gets to the market in the poorest countries, or it is scraped o the plate and into the bins in the richest nations. Another is the switch from food crops to biofuel: in 2011 as gasoline prices rose, 127m tons a third of the US grain harvest was diverted to the production of ethanol. For the US farmers, it looked like a bargain: a $2 bushel of corn could be turned into 2.8 gallons of ethanol at $3 a gallon. But the grain to ll the tank of an American sports car just once would be enough to feed someone for a whole year: this is the market economy at its most grotesque. As incomes rise for the middle classes in the developing nations, so does global demand for meat and milk. There is a clear need for concerted political action at an international level: to change the direction of agriculture, produce more food more sustainably and distribute it more fairly. That way, everybody is better o. Governments know this, because they see food security as one of the grand challenges of the century. Yet what, actually, are they doing about it? Sadly, we already know the answer.
Got any cigarette cards, Mister?

Soon, it seems, the old cry may be heard again. Small boys will cluster around the tobacconists doors, as they have not done since 1939, and as a customer leaves the chant will go up, Any cigarette cards, Mister?. Restrictions forbidding the issue of cigarette cards come to an end next month and several manufacturers are said to be considering reintroducing the custom. The largest, Imperial Tobacco, has millions of cards already printed and ready to slip into cigarette packets if the smaller rms give the lead. Although they have since developed into treasured collectors items as well as childrens playthings, cigarette cards began as no more than stiening cards to protect cigarettes in transit. At rst the cards were plain, then they carried the trademark, and nally pictorial cards were introduced. The range of subjects which cigarette cards have covered in their half-century of history is encyclopaedic. Indeed the cards have served generations as poor mens encyclopaedias. Almost everyone over thirty years old has some nugget of knowledge which they would never have possessed but for reading the backs of cigarette cards. From the series on dogs one could learn the points to look for in a wellbred fox terrier, from Household Hints how to hammer in a tack without hammering the ngers. Several series on sports gave instruction on how to swim, play tennis or golf, and issues covered the theatre from Kean to Olivier and the screen from Pearl White to Marlene Dietrich. The list is almost endless. Freshwater sh, Scottish tartans, orders and decorations, cars, wonders of the world, regiments of the line, famous racehorses, famous battleships. About the time of the First World War one companys packets contained small squares of silk bearing the coloured ags of the nations. An American company, about the same time, issued miniature silk rugs with the avowed object of tempting women to smoke. The small boys who begged for cards were not only interested in getting Herbert Sutclie. Cigarette cards were the foundation of almost as many games as marbles. There used to be a regular season for playing with them as there was for hoops and hopscotch. Our Industrial Correspondent
Al-Qaida in Arabia
The recurring threat

Drone strikes, the alleged foiling of a mass alQaida attack on oil terminals and pipelines, the evacuation of embassies Yemen is being treated as the centre of regional insecurity, not as one of the poorest Arab countries with chronic water shortage, malnutrition and a stalled democratic uprising. Kept in check by a foreign-backed president with no real powerbase, it is a country with an aid crisis and an unresolved political one. But this Yemen, the one inhabited by real people, recedes into the background. It becomes nothing more complex than a backdrop for a Grand Theft Auto joust between drones and al-Qaida aliates. Killing the bad guys eradicates the threat. While there is military involvement, it is not clear what the US foreign policy is. There are at least three conicting strands. One is to treat Yemen as an extension of the tribal areas of Pakistan, in which the CIA and militants play hopscotch with each other around the world. The second is to do nothing in Saudi Arabias backyard that would upset the stability of the USs real military ally in Riyadh. The third is to give rhetorical support to the democratic transition. No prizes for guessing which one of these policies gets shunted into the sidings. The debate about whether or not al-Qaida is a spent force in Pakistan goes back and forth. Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaidas leader, and the core command around him, is reported to be weaker, until he is overheard giving instructions about a specic attack to Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of al-Qaidas aliate in the Arabian peninsula, and all bets are o. What should be of concern is the Teon durability of the brand. Eorts to decapitate the leadership of aliates are being countered by the birth of new ones. One enemy of this process is the emergence of political Islam as a force in Zawahiris country of origin, Egypt. Its message, that Islam should achieve its aims through the ballot box, is being tested to destruction by an army coup. If the Muslim Brothers lose this ght, liberals wont benet. The militants will.
Reply
Muslim is a generic term
It is essential for our understanding of all Middle Eastern conict that a clear distinction be made between the Sunni and the Shia, these quite dierent persuasions of the Muslim faith (A wall of diculties, 26 July). When you refer to rebels in Syria you should make clear that these are Sunni, supported by al-Qaida. Because of this, the various Shia tribes rally around President Bashar al-Assad, augmented by Hezbollah of Lebanon. The conict between Sunni and Shia is part of a 1,400-year conict. I am sure that your readers are aware of this but whenever Muslims are referred to in your pages, we would be interested to know which type of Muslim religion they support. For instance, I do not know which persuasion the Muslim Brotherhood support. I would be grateful if the Guardian could make this clear. Dennis R Poole Bath, UK
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Bell cartoon unfair to prince

What a happy coincidence to nd Christina Pattersons column Dorothy Parker will show you the way (2 August) just across the page from another of Steve Bells tasteless cartoons (now theres a pleonasm). As Patterson rightly observed: You can only be absolutely clear about whats good, and right if youre very stupid or very young. It may be that Bell suers from youthful exuberance but, if not, we might be inclined to accept the alternative suggestion. I am not especially attached to the monarchy (as bets an expat), but I nd it sad that Bell ascribes such arrogant imaginary gestures to a baby only a few days old. We may nd that the education and experience that this child receives will equip him better for his eventual role of head of state than that enjoyed by many of those who acquire that status by other means, judging by many of the examples that the world has to oer. I suggest that Bell might wait a few weeks, months or even years, before deciding that Prince George is a bad lot. David Stieber Coppet, Switzerland
authors: if Im unsure if its worth going beyond the rst chapter, I sneak a look at the ending. If that comes as a complete surprise, read on. Otherwise, put it away, or wait for the Readers Digest Kindle edition. Noel Bird Boreen Point, Queensland, Australia This obsession with completing a read must be an umbilical legacy of Puritan perfectionism. After all, this is what perfect meant in the 17th century: nished. Better yet than Ulysses, Peter Wild should have pictured Joyces Finnegans Wake, the ne plus ultra of writerly novels with its myriad allusions and matrices of multilingual puns. Its lethal; such inspissation certainly nished o Joyce himself through an enormous expense of spirit. R M Fransson Denver, Colorado, US
Something lost in translation

The overbearing power of the military in Egyptian politics is wellfounded and deplorable (Time to back down, 2 August). But your editorial exhibits indignation at the expense of deductive reason when it makes the argument that General Fattah al-Sisi telling President Morsi that his project was not working is the same thing as the soldier telling the president what to do. Leaving aside for a moment the possibility that the translation from Arabic to English may be a little more nuanced than the GW allows, in English telling someone that something is happening (giving information or oering an opinion) is quite dierent from telling someone what to do (giving an order). The editorial goes on to draw a distinction between tell, suggest and advise, oering that using either of the latter two words would have been less cheeky. But if we suppose that this conversation between the general and the president was conducted not in English but in Arabic, can we be sure that the GW has checked that the Arabic word used for tell in this particular case does not have a similarly nuanced dierence of meaning as our words advise or suggest? Whatever the linguistic case may be, the leader has used tremendous imagination in its allegations about the generals intention. Harry Audus Arana Hills, Queensland, Australia Letters for publication weekly.letters@theguardian.com Please include a full postal address and a reference to the article. We may edit letters. Editorial Editor: Abby Deveney Guardian Weekly Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, United Kingdom To contact the editor directly: weekly.feedback@theguardian.com
Gary Kempston
When is a cock not a cock?

In regard to your article about the newly erected blue cock in Trafalgar Square (2 August): I quite enjoyed the photo of the giant blue cock, especially the online version, which included Boris Johnson in the picture, which I admittedly reposted online including a rather uninspired spot-the-giant-cock headline. But I was very surprised to learn from the accompanying article that hahn, the name of the artwork and German for cock, would also carry a double meaning in German. As a native speaker, I am not aware of Germans using the word in any way that would come even close to the wonderful variety of ambiguities that cock carries in English. A hahn is essentially just a hahn, and thats about it. But I am certainly open to new linguistic input and will try to use hahn as an insult in future encounters with ignorant Germanfolk, which of course would have the added benet that the so-addressed wouldnt even realise that their honour had been questioned. Matthis Hille Stuttgart, Germany
Negotiations going nowhere

It seems the PalestinianIsraeli negotiations will be no more than pro-forma. They are more to full the need for every US secretary of state to have an initiative like this to his or her name. There is no intention to do anything constructive. To the contrary, the current situation suits the US and Israel only too well. They continue to promote a divide-and-rule Palestine policy. The fact that one year of negotiations has been planned for indicates a clear no-condence in the outcome. The 104 Palestinian prisoners being released is a cynical joke and used too often to have any serious meaning. With still well over 4,500 such prisoners in Israeli jails, Israel can continue releasing these prisoners at this number 45 more times. By that time all of the illegally occupied Palestinian land will have been built up, and returning it to its legal owners will have become non-negotiable. And where is Tony Blair, the appointed Middle East mediator in all of this? His contribution is a scandal. The only time I saw him in action was shortly after Barack Obama was elected in 2008. Obama sounded as if he might be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, so Blair had better visit the West Bank quickly before being asked some embarrassing questions. Why are these embarrassing questions not being asked? Leo Haks Nelson, New Zealand
When you have had enough

When do you give up on a book? (2August). A fascinating question, and one that has been exercising my mind of late. I have recently read The Hydrogen Sonata by the late Iain M Banks. In retrospect, I regret my persistence in nishing the book: my respect for an acclaimed and recently deceased author won against my growing feeling that it was lacking in plot development, characterisation and innovation. I might have enjoyed it more as a novella or short story. Ive also just nished reading The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, to which the same reservations apply. As a Pratchett fan, in particular of the Discworld series, I found the book sadly short of his habitual insight and wit. Perhaps I should have applied the same standards of judgment to them that I do to relatively unknown Subscriptions You can subscribe at guardianweekly.co.uk/subscribe Or manage your subscription at myguardianweekly.co.uk Or email guardian.subs@ quadrantsubs.com Or call +44 (0)845 120 4733 Advertising Call +44 (0)20 3353 2000 Or email sales@theguardian.com
Briey
Randye Soref referring to investors who buy city bonds as folks is a politicised statement that should not be included in a serious article. The vast majority of those bond holders are banks (Detroit les for bankruptcy, 26July). Michael Ages Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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Eyewitnessed
Young Free Syrian Army ghters in the suburb of Jobar, one of the frontlines that has seen erce ghting recently in the battle for the capital, Damascus Mohamed Abdullah/Reuters
Singapores former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, left, at national day celebrations. He said the city-state might not be around in 100 years if it did not pick good leaders Edgar Su/Reuters
Small pearl-bordered fritillaries are one of the many buttery species becoming much rar due to both intensive farming and forestry, and the changing climate Ross Hoddinott/PA Wi
People release balloons as demolition begins on the property of Ariel Castro. Castro held three women captive for nearly a decade at his home in Cleveland, Ohio Barcroft Media
Cooling o in a fountain in Shanghai, as the city continues to experience hotter than usual weather. A local health ocial said 10 people have died as a result of the heatwave Getty/AFP
A Muslim Khawateen Markaz (MKM) activist at a protest march in Srinagar demands the protection of Muslims in Jammu after Hindu-Muslim clashes left three dead Rouf Bhat/Getty
The new Jerusalem

In the Holy City, Jews are buying upArab properties, aiming to reclaim its ancient Muslim Quarter. HarrietSherwood meets one family thats determined not to be moved
n the heart of Jerusalems ancient Old City, the Via Dolorosa the route that Jesus took, burdened by a wooden cross, on the way to his public execution almost two millennia ago straddles the busy El-Wad thoroughfare. This is where the Najib family encounters an obstruction almost every time one of them climbs the worn stone steps to their home of three generations. The obstruction is an Israeli security guard with a weapon slung across his body, a baseball cap shadowing his face and an uncompromising attitude written on his features. He stands, according to members of the Palestinian family, in the middle of the gloomy staircase, his body almost lling the narrow passage to the upper oors. He doesnt move, they say. Sometimes they edge past, eyes averted, wanting to avoid any confrontation. Sometimes they stand their ground, argue, even: Let us pass, this is our home, move out of our way. Such encounters may bring a eeting triumph, but rarely do they last longer than a second or two. In reality, the Najibs fear that they and others like them are ghting a battle that may already be lost.
High times Uruguay prepares to legalise cannabis Review, page 32
Living on the frontline Ebtahaj Najib, 58, looksover three of her grandchildren. Eight adults and four children live in a three-room apartment in the Old City Tanya Habjouqa Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Western Wall or the al-Aqsa mosque. But away from the souvenir shops selling religious trinkets, olive-wood chessboards and belly-dancing outts, a religious and nationalistic struggle is ratcheting up tensions. Palestinians say a programme of Judaisation of the Old City is accelerating; ideologically driven and biblically inspired Jewish settlers insist they are simply redeeming land gifted to them by God. Around 1,000 Jewish settlers now live among 31,000 Palestinians in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, taking over homes that have been inhabited by Muslim families for decades or even centuries, and ying Israeli ags from the walls and rooftops of their properties. They are the frontline ghters in a broader battle backed by the Israeli government, city authorities and security services to ensure Jewish control of Jerusalem and to drive its Palestinian population down to a minimum. Twelve members of the Najib family eight adults and four children live in the three rooms of their rst-oor apartment on El-Wad street. Ebtahaj Najib, 58, moved into the house on the day she married her cousin in 1973 and all nine of her children were born and brought up in the house, including her 38-yearold son Youssef. Her husband died eight years ago. By custom, Palestinian extended families live together or close by, but there is insucient space at the Najibs house, and some of her sons have been forced to move out since getting married and starting families of their own. You think everyone has a room? laughs Ebtahaj when I ask where the remaining family members sleep. The answer is: crowded together, with the couches in the living room becoming beds when night falls. Even so, the Najibs home is spacious compared with many in the Muslim Quarter. Light streams through large windows into a high-ceilinged living room, the walls of which are adorned with 1950s portraits of Youssefs dapper, moustachioed grandfather and glamorous, lipsticked grandmother. Outside the sparsely furnished room, a balcony overlooks shops and cafes the Old Citys best-known hummus place, Abu Shukri, is almost below. Immediately above the balcony, ve large Israeli ags hang from the second oor. To casual passersby, these symbols of the Jewish state, along with the Hebrew sign over the arched entrance announcing the Synagogue of the Union of the Fighters of Jerusalem in the Old City, send a clear message: this building is in Jewish hands. The Najib familys presence is rendered almost invisible. For the past 30 years, a yeshiva a place for religious study has been based in the oors above the Najibs home. According to the Najibs, the students, teachers and round-the-clock armed security guards make noise, throw garbage down the stairwell and intimidate the children. Every minute midnight, midday, evening, morning they are singing, praying, playing music, slamming doors, coming up and down the stairs. But they never speak to us, says Youssef. Nobody at the yeshiva is willing to speak to the Observer, either. As I leave the Najibs home, under the watchful eyes of a security guard stationed in a sentry box almost opposite the familys front door, a group comes down the stairs. I ask to hear their side of the story. They push past without making eye contact. Daniel Luria, the spokesman for Ateret
The setting for this battle is the historic Old City: a small walled enclave of less than one square kilometre within the sprawling city that is Jerusalem, divided into loose quarters for Muslims, Jews, Christians and Armenians. It is the heart of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conict, the centre for the worlds three great monotheistic religions, and a magnet for pilgrims and tourists from all over the world. In this crucible of faith, priests, rabbis and imams brush past bare-limbed backpackers as they make their way over the treacherously smooth agstones of its narrow alleyways. Gaggles of pilgrims from eastern Europe, west Africa and Latin America jostle with ultra-Orthodox Jews and devout Muslims on their way to pray at the
Unfortunately, some Arabs have not come to terms with having Jews live next door to them
Cohanim, the organisation behind the yeshiva, later tells me that none of the settlers a term he rejects in the Muslim Quarter would be willing to be interviewed. Its never advantageous. We are always seen as the occupier the Palestinians are always seen as the residents, he says. According to Ateret Cohanims website, ateret. org.il, the yeshiva is the spiritual epicentre of a community of almost 1,000 residents in the heart of the Old City in the so-called Muslim Quarter. It now refers to the area as the Renewed Jewish Quarter. But Ateret Cohanim is much more than a promoter of religious studies. It is dedicated to helping Jews buy up Arab properties in the Old City and East Jerusalem in furtherance of what Luria calls the physical and spiritual redemption of the city. Ateret Cohanim has assisted in the purchase of at least 50 properties in the Muslim Quarter, and plans to build on that number. The complex and violent history of this city has filled countless books. There is no dispute that Jews were its earliest inhabitants, but the presence of Muslims and Christians also stretches back over many centuries. More recently, at the end of the war following the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948, Jerusalem was divided, with the Old City on the Jordaniancontrolled eastern side of the armistice line, known as the Green Line. The Jewish population within the ancient stone walls sank to zero. Nineteen years later, Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 six-day war, liberating in its terminology the Old City. Jews returned to live close to their revered site of the Western Wall and Israel declared the reunied, indivisible city of Jerusalem to be its eternal capital. Israels annexation of East Jerusalem has never been recognised by the international community. The Palestinians want Arab-dominated East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, but Israel is determined to resist any division or sharing of the city: hence the states policy of establishing Jewish neighbourhoods settlements, to the rest of the world in areas across the pre-1967 Green Line. Some of these settlements are big developments, housing thousands of Israeli Jews in modern apartment blocks. Others are tiny pockets of hardliners in the heart of Palestinian communities, where the presence of settlers and their security guards causes friction and animosity. With little prospect in sight of a peace deal involving a shared Jerusalem, Ateret Cohanim, one of the key drivers of religiously motivated settler pockets, is increasing and consolidating the Jewish presence in the Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters of the Old City. According to Luria, the organisation facilitates purchases but does not buy property itself. This is disputed by its critics, who say it runs a network of front companies in an attempt to disguise its involvement in acquisitions. A report, Jerusalem, The Old City, published in 2009 by the International Peace and Co-operation Centre (IPCC) a Palestinian civil society organisation said Ateret Cohanim was taking the lead in the process of Judaising the Old City. Properties were acquired using three different methods, it said: claiming historic Jewish ownership and securing a court order to evict Palestinian residents; taking over absentee property; or using underhand transactions, in which the identity of the buyer is concealed. Luria denies that Ateret Cohanim uses front companies but concedes that buyers sometimes use Palestinian intermediaries. Arab law says that an Arab should be killed if he Continued on page 28
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Continued from page 27 sells property to a Jew, he says. Its a disgrace in a modern, democratic country, but Arabs sometimes have to be protected. He cant openly be a party to the sale in some circumstances. So Arab middlemen are sometimes used, and legal somersaults are performed. Not in every deal, but when necessary. The organisations current targets include properties near Herods Gate, a Palestinian community centre near Lions Gate, and homes near the Little Western Wall, just below the Haram al-Sharif or Temple Mount, say Palestinian activists. This is the heartland of the Jewish people. Why shouldnt we return especially if were paying good money? says Luria. Were not kicking people out. Jews should be able to buy here, just like in London or New York. We are the indigenous people in this land. He adds: The Arabs are illegal squatters occupying this land. If an Arab feels uncomfortable with Jews living in the Muslim Quarter, thats a shame. But if he doesnt like it, there is no shortage of other countries with Muslim majorities. If they cant accept us, thats their problem. Why should I apologise or feel bad? Despite being loquacious on the rights of Jews to the land, Luria is reticent on the funding of Ateret Cohanim. I ask him if Irving Moskowitz, an octogenarian US bingo tycoon whose eponymous foundation funds settler activities in East Jerusalem and who is widely reported as giving millions of dollars to Ateret Cohanim, is one of his backers. We receive donations from here and abroad, but we dont discuss any individual who supports the organisation, is all Luria is willing to say. Support also comes from the state of Israel, not least in the form of security for the settlers. A few metres from the Najibs home, at the junction of El-Wad street and Via Dolorosa, the Israeli border police maintain a daily presence, routinely demanding to see Palestinians identity papers, where they live and where they are going. They never stop the Jews, says Youssef Najib. They are here to help the Jews. Meanwhile, in the narrow alleys and hidden courtyards of the Muslim Quarter, the daily grind of life is worsening little by little. In the past 30 years its population has doubled, exacerbating already high levels of overcrowding and poverty. A report on the Palestinian economy published earlier this year by the United Nations said housing density in the Muslim Quarter was almost three times as high as in the Jewish Quarter, and many Palestinian homes lacked running water and a proper sewage system. More than 80% of dwellings require major rehabilitation or urgent maintenance, according to the IPCC. Three out of four children in the Muslim Quarter live below the poverty line, and unemployment is more than 30%. Garbage collection is sporadic in these backstreets, and there are almost no open spaces for children to play in. The use of child labour is widespread; the dropout rates from schools are high. Domestic violence and drug abuse are on the rise. A major reason for the migration into the Old City is an Israeli requirement for Palestinians to prove that Jerusalem is their centre of life in order for them to keep their valued residency rights in the city, giving greater access to jobs, education and healthcare. More than 7,000 Palestinians had Jerusalem residency rights revoked between 2006 and 2011; faced with such a threat, thousands more moved from suburbs and villages outside Jerusalem back into the city including the Old City to secure their identity papers. Others, who found themselves cut o from the city centre by the vast
All-seeing Arab women are watched by Israeli soldiers Tanya Habjouqa concrete separation wall, moved into the Old City to avoid daily checkpoint ordeals. On top of this, says the UN, Palestinians in the Old City are caught between the frontlines of interaction with Israeli settlers and authorities on a daily basis and the frontlines of a struggle to preserve and assert Palestinian cultural and political identity and its Islamic and Christian roots. This has entailed a growing sense of siege and conict for indigenous Palestinian residents, who perceive their lifestyles, livelihoods and social cohesion to be at risk in the discordant climate reigning in the Old City, with religious fervour easily degenerating into communal tensions. Luria dismisses such a picture. Jewish families are living in the Old City side by side with Arabs, in some cases even in the same courtyard. OK, it is not necessarily beautiful puppy love, but it is basic coexistence, which is the best you can hope for in a place as volcanic as Jerusalem. Unfortunately, some Arabs have not come to terms with having Jews live next door to them Arabs who in general have a problem living in a national Jewish homeland. But the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people. In the house on El-Wad street beneath the uttering Israeli ags, along from the armed security guards and Israeli police ocers, and where the sound of the muezzin from the mosque across the street sometimes competes with the chant of Jewish prayers from the upstairs yeshiva Youssef Najib shrugs when I ask if he thinks the Jews are here to stay in the Muslim Quarter. They wont even give us the West Bank for a state, so do you think theyll give back East Jerusalem? he says. But he has created his personal frontline in the battle for the Old City. Many times settlers have knocked on the Najibs door to oer the family money to leave the property. But Youssef says: If you give me the whole wealth of Israel, I will not give you my home. Observer
They wont even give us the West Bank for a state, so do you think theyll give back East Jerusalem?
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Diamond heist heralds the return of the Pink Panthers
Letter from Uzbekistan
Tashkent has its own version of recycling

John Standingford
Daylight robbery ... the Carlton International hotel, in Cannes, France Lionel Cironneau/AP
Crime gang with Hollywood-style panache may be behind record jewel theft, says Kim Willsher
ast month, in a heist described by Cannes police as absolutely incredible, a thief strolled into a diamond exhibition at the Carlton International, on the chic Croisette, and walked out 60 seconds later with $138m in jewels. Astonishingly, the robber fell as he jumped from a hotel window dropping his loot, but was still able to gather up the most expensive pieces and escape. The daring daylight raid that resonated with Hitchcocks lm To Catch a Thief, entered the record books as Frances biggest jewel theft. Ocers say the Carlton robbery bears certain hallmarks of the notorious Pink Panther gang suspected of carrying out two other high-prole heists netting around $3m in the French Riviera in recent months. The Cte dAzur lives up to its doubleedged reputation as a playground for the worlds beau monde and what Somerset merset Maugham described as a sunny place for shady people. When bored of bronzing, ing, the rich go shopping. Often for diamonds. It is s no secret that at the height of summer, the designer igner and jewel shops are packed with valuable e stock. Interpol believes the Pink Panthers, nthers, named after the diamond in the Peter r Sellers comedies, is a loosely aliated gang ng of 200 jewel thieves from the former Yugoslavia. slavia. Since the 1990s, the gang has been n linked to dozens of spectacular robberies in 20 countries, including Dubai, Japan, London, Paris, Belgium and the United States, snatching ng jewels to the tune of some $500m. Their heists are characterised by y impeccable planning, attention to detail, threats of extreme violence and Hollywood-style theatrics. In Dubai, they drove a pair of limm-
ousines through a jewellery store window; in Paris, they donned blonde wigs and scarves to rob the Harry Winston store; in St Tropez they wore owery T-shirts and escaped with their loot on a speedboat. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, a leading gang member was busted out of a Swiss jail just three days before the Carlton robbery. Milan Poparic, serving a sentence for a 2009 heist, was the third Panther to escape from jail in the last two months. One Panther, speaking to journalist David Samuels, who spent a year investigating the gang, explained it emerged from the black market created by international sanctions against Serbia during the Balkan wars. It operates using a centralised command that picks targets and assigns crews to carry out jobs. The man told Samuels there were four main Panther groups originating from a gang of diamond thieves from Montenegro. The thieves in his group had travelled to Italy and seen how people lived there: Some of us went insane and tried to have everything at once, he said. The greedy, rash ones wound up with long prison terms; others spent two or three years in Italian jails. jai The most important, like Poparic, are sprung. sp Whoever took them, the Carlton diamonds are unlikely to be found even if the mo thief is captured, says Vashi Dominguez, of London-based Diamond Manufacturers. Lon By now, theyll have been cut and polished, their shape and size changed without ish altering the value too much and nobody will alt be able to t trace them, Dominguez explains. In a f forthcoming documentary, Chief InspecYan Glassey of the Swiss Central Brigade, tor Ya who has long pursued the thieves, is interviewed in his oce, where a large Pink Panther view dangles from a noose. If you take all their toy d crimes together, they are the best thieves in crime world, he says. the w If the brazen robbery at the Carlton Cannes was the work of the Pink Panthers, it is clear wa that in this game of cat and mouse, the th mouse has the upper hand.
dont get many visitors, so when the doorbell of my apartment rang at 7.30 one Friday morning my rst thought was, Ovir! Ovir is the acronym of the Oce of Visas and Registration, responsible for registering foreigners in Uzbekistan and other former Soviet republics. I had heard of early morning visits to check that foreigners are really staying at their registered addresses. But when I opened the door I saw a small, dark-skinned woman carrying a big bag. She spoke to me in Uzbek, of which I know little. I thought I caught the word katk, which I knew to mean yoghurt. I replied in poor Russian and she used the word moloko. Milk. Aha! I remembered a colleague telling me the only way to get fresh, natural yoghurt was to buy it from the vendors who go round the apartment blocks. If you are a Londoner of a certain age you will remember the street-cries. As a boy I used to hear the costermongers with their costard apples, and men in at caps selling newspapers. The cry of the milk-and-yoghurt vendors of Tashkent is a crow-like Kwoa! That is how it sounded to me at rst anyway. Now that I know what they are selling I can detect the rst two half-sounded syllables that make a more intelligible Mlkwoa! I asked the price of her milk and yoghurt. Both were about 90 cents a litre so I asked for a litre of each. She handed me two jars, I paid and started to retreat into my apartment. She started gesticulating and pointing at her jars. She was asking for a gift of jars, essential for her business! I left the door open while I hurried into the kitchen and returned with my whole collection of empty honey jars. She came into the kitchen and started miming. She wanted me to pour my purchases into my own containers and give her jars back to her. Well of course she did. I sheepishly complied. I grew up in Britain when all milk was delivered to homes in glass bottles with colour-coded caps of aluminium foil. My mother always washed the foil caps and kept them in a jar. When the jar was full she gave them to a charity that sold the aluminium and used the proceeds to train guide-dogs for the blind. So I always keep the mlkwoa ladies waiting down below while I wash their jars.
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Americas heiresses apparent

Women are rising to thefore in US political dynasties that were once father-and-son aairs, says Emily Heil
merican political dynasties historically have been built on power passed from fathers to sons, brothers to brothers, even husbands to wives: the Adamses, the Kennedys, the Bushes, the Clintons. Now, it is the daughters turn. When Michelle Nunn announced her bid to become a US senator from Georgia, she scrambled the usual red state/blue state political calculus, putting in play a seat that could tip the balance of power in the Senate. Without Nunns powerful political last name, there would be little hope that the 46-yearold Democrat, who has never run for public oce, could win in that solidly conservative state. But in politics, names have coat-tails. In Nunns case it will boost her ability to raise money and build support from backers of her father, former senator Sam Nunn, revered in his home state for his 24-year Senate career and his post-congressional work on nuclear non-proliferation. A similar father-daughter tale is unfolding in Wyoming, where Liz Cheney, daughter of longtime congressman and former vice-president Dick Cheney, is mounting what would otherwise be a long-shot bid to topple incumbent senator Mike Enzi in the Republican primary. Perhaps more than any previous year, the 2014 midterm campaigns feature a wave of daughters eager to embrace their fathers political legacies while forging their own political futures. And at a time when the 2016 presidential eld appears likely to include both the son of a prominent politician (Rand Paul) and the wife of a president (Hillary Clinton), it is no surprise that daughters are forming a political class of their own. Political newbie Gwen Graham is expected to amass an impressive war chest in her bid for a north Florida House seat, thanks in part to her father, former Democratic senator Bob Graham. In Nevada, Democratic political consultant Erin Bilbray-Kohn is running to unseat two-term incumbent Republican representative Joe Heck. Her campaign website identies her only as Erin Bilbray, perhaps trading on the name recognition of her father, former congressman James Bilbray. And Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes is trying to unseat Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, a task that might seem quixotic yet her political pedigree (her father, Jerry Lundergan, is a former state senator) has helped make her a credible candidate. Another political scion, representative Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, has launched her rst Senate run. Though the seven-term Republican is no newbie, she owes some of her political chops to her dad, Arch Moore, a former West Virginia governor and congressman.
Family aair Liz Cheney hopes to follow her father Dick into the US Senate Cli Owen/AP By contrast, theres only one son of a lawmaker, Mike Collins of Georgia, son of former Republican congressman Mac Collins, seeking a congressional seat in the next election. When I was growing up, there was no expectation of the girls going into politics, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend recalls of her experience as a daughter of Americas most storied political dynasty. The former lieutenant governor of Maryland is the eldest child of the late senator Robert Kennedy, just one luminary in a clan that has also produced a president, two senators and a handful of congressmen. Kennedy Townsend remembers that her own political ambitions were welcomed, if not expected, something thats changed for a younger generation. These women grew up in a very dierent time, and Im excited to see that change. Politicians passing down political DNA to daughters isnt new. But as women enter politics in greater numbers, its becoming more common for a daughter to be the one to take up the family mantle. The current boomlet of political daughters may be a signal that politics is an increasingly gender-neutral family business. Debbie Walsh, director of the Centre for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, sees the rise of political daughters as part of an evolutionary trend in how women come to power. Youve always seen children going into the family business, whether thats a grocery store or politics, she says. Its a situation where women hadnt been as welcomed into the business or political world, and thats changing. The same advantages that have long applied to the sons of politicians seeking oce themselves apply to women, of course. Name recognition is a big benet. If a political race is a 100m dash, having a well-known name can put a candidate at the 10m marker just to start. Access to a ready-made political network and potential donors also doesnt hurt. But Matt Canter, the deputy executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, says names are only part of the equation. Family stories, he says, are important for any candidate, whether their surname is well-known, like Kennedy, or unfamiliar, like Obama. If a candidate does come from a family that has a strong tradition, that has done remarkable things, and a voter already has information about that, it can be helpful, Canter said. And he notes that though candidates with political family connections may well have networks they can tap to raise a campaign war chest, so might other candidates with deep roots in their home state or district. For some, the biggest advantage might be learning the nuts and bolts of politics at the dinner table. Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking political daughter right now, didnt have the benet of strong name recognition, and she ran 4,800km from the district represented by her father, Tommy DAlesandro, the legendary Democratic congressman and Baltimore mayor. But she learned some job skills early on. As
Why a champion of womens rights thinks we need a mens movement

Kira Cochrane
Anne-Marie Slaughter strides backstage after her latest TED talk, fast-talking and hungry she hasnt had time for breakfast yet, and its well past midday. A little over a year ago, Slaughter was a highly respected but relatively anonymous academic. Her life changed last June, when her article for The Atlantic, Why Women Still Cant Have It All, became the most read in the magazines history. Almost 220,000 people shared it on Facebook. Her TED speech, entitled Real Equality, considers what it would take for those twin pillars of human life caregiving and breadwinning, as she terms them to be given equal value, and for men and women to reach proper parity, at work and at home. The article and subsequent talk followed her decision to leave her job as the rst female director of policy planning at the US state department, after a two-year stint working under Hillary Clinton. She left after concluding that juggling high-level government work with the needs of two teenage boys was not possible. She had been commuting from New Jersey to Washington each week, leaving the house at 4.20am on Monday and arriving back late on Friday, and her 14-year-old son was having problems at school failing to do homework and disrupting classes. She decided enough was enough. The article prompted a restorm. Many read the title as simply saying women could never have it all (ignoring the still that Slaughter had insisted upon) and assumed it was yet another piece concluding women should give up and get back to the kitchen. Others recognised it was arguing for social change, but pointed out that work-family balance is also very dicult for men to achieve. Then there were criticisms based on class. Slaughter was writing about the kind of structural change it might take for elite women to become leaders, but the problems she tackled punishingly long work hours, and inadequate or nonexistent childcare provision aect those on low incomes too. I didnt anticipate the whole thing would go so viral, says Slaughter, now 54. I became a poster child, certainly in the media, for women cant have it all, when my whole life stands for the opposite proposition It never dawned on me that people would read the still as never. I thought people would read it as: Its coming but its not there yet, and heres what we have to do. Not long after her piece was published, she announced shed never use the term erm having it all again, having realised it failed d to resonate in the same way with younger women as older ones. She had simply meant ant a career and a family too, while some me people see it as shorthand for the notion ion that unless women are perfectly satis tised in every aspect of their lives, feminism minism can be said to have failed. On meeting Slaughter, its quite hard to imagine magine how anyone could see her as anti-feminist. There can be Vocal Anne-Marie Slaughter Getty few people who have thought more energetically about the issues obstructing womens progress, and she has a brilliantly enthusiastic manner. She is currently writing a book, due out next year, also (provisionally) entitled Real Equality. In the US, issues of work-family balance are especially pressing. It is one of only four countries in the world that doesnt have mandatory paid maternity leave the others are Lesotho, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea. The US is also the only advanced industrial economy that doesnt guarantee workers paid holiday time. I ask why Americans arent out marching on these issues, and she replies, Its a cult of work I honestly think so many Americans are scrambling so fast just to keep up that: a) theyre not aware of what theyre missing; and b) they dont have time to agitate. The structural problems are corporate as well as governmental. Earlier this year, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, advised women to Lean in to their careers to be ambitious, to sit at the top table; the other side, says Slaughter, is that people need to lean on corporations, to push them to improve their policies. One measure that could help parents is scheduling all meetings in school hours, and she says that the really innovative corporations, are the results-only workforces This can be done at dierent levels, but the basic idea is heres your work, heres your deadline, and then I dont care where you get it done. So it gets rid of the culture of face-time. Childcare remains resolutely low-status, and Slaughter thinks this is partly due to the attitude, well, its womens work, and since we denigrate women, we denigrate caregiving. But thats not to say men arent concerned about these issues. In 2008, 60% of American men reported feeling a conict between their work and family life. I really think we need a mens movement, says Slaughter, and youre starting to see it. Guys are starting to speak up for themselves about masculinity, about caregiving. You know, women are hypocrites this way, because we would go crazy if men treated us in the workforce the way we typically treat them at home if a guy in the workforce assumed he was more competent than you are, and told you what to do but thats the way most women treat men in the household. Theres a growing body of research suggesting men who prioritise family are stigmatised in the workplace viewed as weak, more likely to be harassed. I ask how quickly she thinks this might change, and shes upbeat upbe as ever; she emphasises how much more mo visible fathers now are in the public eye, from Brad Pitt to Barack Obama. Obama One useful shift, she says, would be b for working dads normal a phrase as working to be as norma the change she would mums, but t see is this: Any time a most like to s man says: Were expecting a child W adopting a child, someor, Were a body says say to him: How are you going to manage that? Because single thing the fact that that sin nobody says it sends the nobod signal [to his partner]: This signa baby bab is all yours.
a little girl, she was in charge of the book her father kept that tallied favours owed and paid. And in the campaigns of the political daughters now running for Congress, one can see their fathers inuence. Lundergan Grimes, for example, is drawing from her fathers friendship with former president Bill Clinton: the Clinton imprimatur is expected to give her a fundraising boon, and her sta includes veterans of Hillary Clintons failed 2008 presidential bid. In Cheneys case, her fathers national prole might help with fundraising, but the goodwill he enjoys in the Cowboy State is considered to be her best defence against accusations of carpetbagging: she spent decades in the Washington area before moving back to Wyoming last year. Its too soon to tell where or if the candidates will break with their famous fathers political views. Cheney, in particular, is seen as an alter ego of her notoriously hardline conservative father. We can get our nation back on track, Cheney said in a video announcing her candidacy. Instead of cutting deals with the presidents liberal allies, we should be opposing them every step of the way. All of them appear happy to accept the gravitas that might be implied by their parents often-storied careers. Yet the names on the ballots will ultimately be their own, and voters brand loyalty extends only so far. Eventually, of course, you are judged by your own accomplishments, Kennedy Townsend says. The next step in the evolutionary process may very well see women as the bequeathers of political legacies, not just inheritors. Washington Post
Weekly review
Uruguay heads towards a legal high

Country set to become rst in world to legalise production and sale of marijuana, says Uki Goni
he weed brothers have been turning away potential pot-buying customers from their tiny shop in Montevideo quite a lot recently. They come about three times a day to ask if were selling marijuana yet, say Juan and Enrique Tubino. Theyve had to put up a sign stating: We dont sell marijuana. Its not just because the Tubino brothers keep their shop packed high with cannabis pipes, herb grinders and rolling paper or because of the giant green hookah in the window that would-be customers are pouring in. The big excitement is because tiny Uruguay, a country so small that a single dialling code covers the whole territory, is about to become the rst in the world to legalise the production and sale of marijuana. The Tubinos are hoping that their Yuyo Brothers shop (yuyo is Spanish for weed) can capitalise on its fame among Montevideo cannabis users to sell legally what goes into the pipes. When people think of liberal drug laws, they tend to think of Holland, but actually its Uruguay that has always been at the forefront, says Hannah Hetzer, a young dual-nationality Austrian-American from the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) who landed in Uruguay in February to help local drug reform activists. The DPA is a weighty US drug policy reform NGO that can boast tycoons such as George Soros and Sir Richard Branson and celebrities including Sting on its board of directors. Uruguay never banned private consumption of any drug at all, including hard drugs such as heroin, even though their production and sale is banned, says Hetzer. When Jos Mujica, Uruguays president, put his considerable political weight behind drug law reform in this ultra-liberal South American state, the DPA sent Hetzer to Montevideo to guide money from Soross Open Society Foundations into an unprecedented media campaign that helped to push the groundbreaking legal changes through the lower house of congress. Approval by the senate, where Mujica holds a strong majority, is expected soon, probably in October. Other Latin American countries, such as Colombia and Bolivia, emboldened by Uruguays move and frustrated over their own failure to beat the powerful and bloody illegal cartels that control drug production in the region, will be looking carefully at how the reform fares. The law will grant licences to private producers for large-scale cannabis farming and regulate the distribution of marijuana at controlled prices through pharmacies to registered consumers, all under the strict eye of the government. It will also allow home growing of up to six plants per household, and the creation of cannabis clubs in which home growers will be able to band together to produce marijuana in greater quantities as long as it is not for sale. This is music to the ears of 27-year-old Enrique Tubino, the youngest of the two weed brothers, who has been growing cannabis illegally at home for years. Now well be able to grow our weed in peace without having to hide. Thats going to be
Open support a man smokes marijuana outside Uruguays congress Matilde Campodonico/AP a big change, in our heads, in the concept, on the street. Theres going to be many colourful balconies now, he laughs. Marijuana consumption seems to be high in Uruguay, especially among young people. Surveys show that about 4.5% of the population smokes marijuana on a more or less regular basis, says Sebastian Sabini, the 32-year-old bearded and sneakerwearing congressman who drafted the new law. Even though support for the reform is low among the population at large, there is no strong vocal opposition so far. Polls placed those against the law at about 66% at the start of this year, says Hetzer. And even after our intense media campaign, that only dropped by about three points, but it is not an issue that could sway an election. Opponents of the law disagree with technical aspects, but not the essence. Smoking marijuana is legal in Uruguay, you cant be arrested for smoking on the street; you could smoke here in front of the building of congress without any problem, even before this law, says Javier Garca, a congressman who voted against the change. Im a doctor and I dont agree with the law for medical reasons. I dont believe that marijuana is not a stepping stone to harder drugs such as cocaine, as its proponents allege. I feel we just dont have enough scientic research yet to back this law; theres no international precedent. It raises the risk of drug tourism and consumption is already legal, so whats the basis for it? Not individual freedom, because private consumption is already guaranteed. Supporters and critics of the reform both see the ghost of American imperialism behind legalisation, on the one hand, and the war against drugs on the other. Sabini sees US support for the war on drugs in Latin America as a tool for dominance over weak nations. The US provides the arms and we provide the dead, he says. But Garca sees instead a new brand of US imperialism behind powerful NGOs such as the Drug Policy Alliance pumping dollars into Uruguay to support the new law. They are using us as a testing ground for reforms that they wouldnt dare test at home. Theyre treating us like guinea pigs. Hetzer sees it dierently. Uruguay is the perfect country to do this; its small, its got good institutions, very little corruption, she says. And this drug law reform follows in the same year that Uruguay legalised abortion and same-sex marriage. Its part of a broader trend towards a more liberal society thats taking place; its not just a single issue. Despite the consensus, some aspects of the law remain contested. Small entrepreneurs such as the Tubino brothers are unhappy about only pharmacies so far being allowed to sell marijuana. Thats giving too much power to the multinationals or anyone with big money, as they would be the only ones who could nance such a distribution system, says Enrique Tubino. Theres a rumour that tobacco companies are studying this, which would be the worst. Can you imagine? The Green Marlboro! Weve been having oers from investors from Spain and Holland. Those are big tigers, says Juan Tubino. Wed like the government to set up some protectionism to defend us Uruguayans against that. But if it doesnt, well just have to grow tough nails and ght against the tigers, too. Observer
Its part of a broader trend towards a more liberal society thats taking place; its not just a single issue
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Vegetables can be just as good served al dente
New York woman says her familys interest in the purchase of pressure cookers and backpacks led to a home visit by six police investigators demanding information about her job, her husbands ancestry and the preparation of quinoa. Michele Catalano, who lives in Long Island, New York, said her web searches for pressure cookers, her husbands hunt for backpacks and her news junkie sons craving for information on the Boston bombings had combined somewhere in the internet ether to create a perfect storm of terrorism proling. Members of what she described as a joint terrorism task force descended on Catalanos home. Catalano was at work, but her husband was sitting in the living room as the police arrived. She attributed the raid largely to her hunt for a pressure cooker, an item used allegedly by the two Tsarnaev brothers in Boston, but also used by millions to prepare vegetables while retaining most of their nutrients. The story later took on a dierent complexion when police explained that the investigation was prompted by searches a family member had made for pressure cooker bombs and backpacks made at his former workplace. The former employer, believing the searches to be suspicious, alerted police. Catalano said the family member was her husband. After the visit the incident was determined to be non-criminal in nature, according to police. Adam Gabbatt has sold 450,000 copies. He splits his time between homes in Paris and LA, where he lives with his fourth wife and two adopted Vietnamese daughters. Kim Willsher
Kicker here like this Then a short description here like this Then Section and Page XX
against yourself without any further notice, it said. David Smith
Debt collector has no mercy
Trac holiday for Colosseum

busy road that cuts through Romes ancient forum to the Colosseum was blocked to private trac in the rst stage of a plan to pedestrianise the area that has angered some locals but which the mayor says is of global importance. In the hours before the closure, motorbikes and cars circled the Colosseum taking photos to mark the last time they would take a route immortalised by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Pecks scooter ride in the 1953 lm Roman Holiday. The almost 2,000-year-old arena, where gladiators fought bloody battles for the entertainment of vast crowds, has been blackened with exhaust from heavy trac that for years passed close to its walls. By closing most of the Fori Imperiali road that runs about 1km from the Colosseum to the giant marble Victor Emmanuel II monument, centre-left Mayor Ignazio Marino hopes eventually to turn the whole area into an archaeological park. We must choose whether we want cars or to value our monuments, said Marino. I dont think any other city in the world ... would have turned the Colosseum, probably the most famous monument on the planet, into a roundabout. The building of the road over the remains of ancient Rome by the dictator Benito Mussolini is a sore spot with archaeologists, but many Romans are fond of the striking avenue it created. Reuters
H
Not just in French ... Johnny Hallyday
Hallyday rocks Anglophones

n France and Quebec, stars do not come much bigger than Johnny Hallyday, the so-called French Elvis. But the 70-yearold rocker, veteran of more than 180 tours, 70-plus albums 18 of which went platinum and 110m record sales, has never cracked the Englishspeaking world. Now the man once billed in Las Vegas as the biggest rock star youve never heard of is hoping to woo Anglophone music fans with an album of duets in what the French call the language of Shakespeare. I shall be working on the record in Los Angeles. Im hoping for duos with Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi and others, he told Le Parisien. The album is aimed at the United States and England, but it will come out in France too. Hallydays last album, LAttente, released in France last November,
aving spent 27 years in jail, brought down racial apartheid and been elected South Africas rst black president, Nelson Mandela might have expected city council bureaucrats to cut him a little slack. Yet a notice attached to the 95-year-olds Johannesburg home recently warned that he owed around $650 in unpaid bills and risked being cut o and prosecuted. Before bailis could loom at his bedside, however, ocials admitted they had made a terrible mistake and had sent the pre-termination notice to the wrong address. They apologised to the Mandela family and promised to discipline those responsible. All was quiet at the Mandela residence in the upmarket suburb of Houghton a few days later, where drawings and painted messages of support for the ailing hero were still visible. The debt notice from Johannesburg city councils credit control department had been removed. Dated 1 August and addressed to 49 Fourth Street in Oaklands, the notice said the occupiers account had been in arrears for more than 30 days and payment was required within two weeks. Failure to do so may, without any further notice to yourself, result in the following actions: Discontinuation or restriction of services and/ or legal action being instituted
Maslanka puzzles
1 The probability of a coin coming up heads ona single throw is p. Show that the average number of times you have to ip it to get a head is 1/p. Hence show that you need to ipafair coin on average 3 times to see bothahead and a tail. 2 We all know how to dividea triangle into three congruent parts, said Triangular Merkel. [See right.] Everyone gets 1/3. But life isnt fair. Idlike you to divide the triangle up into 3similar parts, no pair of which are equal. Whatare the shares this time? 3 A town mouse and a country mouse move into a skirting board in Mousehole. There are 5 holes in a row and each takes up separate residence in one of these at random. Each day they move to an adjacent hole at random. What are the chances they never move in together? email: guardian@puzzlemaster.co.uk c) Yiddish for favourite aunt d) Russian pudding topped with beaten egg-whites EYRIR a) Norwegian crocus b) Icelandic monetary unit c) north-east gale in Faroes d) witch in Icelandic folklore
Cryptic
Corny painter? (6) Varnish one language after another (6, 6)
Missing Links
Find a word that follows the rst word in the clue and precedes the second, in each case making a fresh word or phrase. Eg the answer to sh mix could be cake (shcake & cake mix)... a) running recall b) magic dance c) postal nurse d) parachute suit e) ying potato f) bat don
CMM2013 For solutions see page 47
Wordplay
Wordpool
In each case, nd the correct denition: ZELKOVA a) Asian tree b) Yiddish for landlady
Jumblies
Rearrange the letters of BINUCLEAR to make another word.
Bran Tub
Prex a string of 5 letters to a school to get a university.
Discovery
Super-lasers blaze knowledge frontier

Ultra-powerful technology could boost medicine, physics and industry, writes David Larousserie
he global leaders for ultra-powerful lasers are French and the technology is much in demand abroad, with many applications such as nuclear simulation, medical treatment, redirecting thunderstorms and basic physics. To maintain their lead, researchers have recently proposed a new concept based on optic bre. Its picking up, says Laurent Boudjemaa, head of the laser development and products department at the French electronics rm Thales, in reference to sales of high-power laser systems. His team has almost finished fine-tuning one of these giants, codename Cetal. Due for delivery this summer to a destination near Bucharest, Romania, it is one of the rst in this category in Europe, with a peak power of one petawatt (PW), or 1bn MW, equivalent to a million nuclear reactors. In 2012 Thales delivered another of these monsters, appropriately named Bella and currently the worlds most powerful, to the University of California, Berkeley. The market for lasers exceeding 0.1 petawatts is expanding at the rate of about 30% a year, says Gilles Riboulet, head of Amplitude Technologies, launched in 2001 by former Thales sta. The two companies now share most of the global market. In the Amplitude factory at Evry, in the Paris suburbs, 150 wooden crates containing another 1-PW behemoth, aka Draco, are ready to leave for Dresden, Germany. Another one, Vega, will soon follow, destination Spain. Each unit sells for about 10m ($13m). Nor is that all. These instruments are in such demand because they allow scientists to push back the frontiers of knowledge. They are less expensive and less bulky than other infrastructures such as synchrotron x ray sources or particle accelerators, says Philippe Balcou, head of the Intense Laser and Applications Centre ( Celia ) near Bordeaux, a joint laboratory backed by the National Centre for Scientic Research (CNRS), the Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA) and Bordeaux-I University. It is also a way for countries to compete with the great powers, he adds, citing South Korea, China and Brazil, among others. But it is important to understand that these next-generation lasers are no replacement for power stations. Their huge power is due to the fact that energy is released in extremely short bursts, or pulses, lasting a few tens of femtoseconds (one femtosecond is one-millionth of a nanosecond or 10-15). Blink and 100,000bn femtoseconds go by. The energy, equal to about one joule, is equivalent to lifting a one-kilo mass by 10cm. Yet this extremely short, highly concentrated release of energy may be sucient to make sciencection projects possible, leading, among others, to new forms of cancer treatment, transmutation of radioactive elements to obtain less hazardous sub-
stances, ring a beam into a vacuum in search of dark energy, atomic fusion with the promise of a new energy source, and precipitating thunderstorms. Super-power lasers might also be used to produce the Higgs boson, a particle discovered in 2012 responsible for the mass of elementary particles, or indeed for laboratory simulation of stars, supernovas and planet cores. Depending on their purpose, two main categories of laser exist, with a third just beginning to emerge. The priority for the rst category is energy rather than duration. It has been developed by the military, as part of research into nuclear deterrence. The aim is to reproduce, in a laboratory, the physical conditions of a thermonuclear explosion. The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the US started working towards this goal in 2010, drawing on the power of 192 intense-laser beams, so far without success. Meanwhile in France CEA is building its Megajoule laser facility near Bordeaux. The rst tests are due to start in 2015. On these systems the pulse lasts about a nanosecond, yielding a burst of energy just below 1PW. Reecting civil interest in such systems, Petal, a laser similar to Megajoule (with which it is partnered) is under construction. It will have just one beam and will be used to test alternative concepts for achieving fusion, as well as for studying the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions. But ultra-short pulse lasers, which make up the second category, are the ones that are driving the market. The power results not from the energy itself, but rather the very short duration of each ash, typically 10 joules lasting 10 femtoseconds. In the 1980s this technique only worked on paper, because in practice the energy output was more than the amplifying materials could withstand. So Grard Mourou, now head of the Izest laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique, suggested spreading the short initial pulse before amplifying it, then recompressing it at the output stage. Laser power started increasing by leaps and bounds. Ever since we have seen a 10-fold increase in power every six years. Its our version of Moores law! says Riboulet. New applications soon presented themselves. By exciting matter, such as a gas, with such intense light, electrons can be stripped from atoms and turned into ions. The resulting plasma is extremely hot, with streams of electric and magnetic elds that can simulate the hydrodynamic or electromagnetic phenomena found at the core of a star or planet. The huge electric elds also made it possible to accelerate particles such as electrons or protons over very short distances. These beams could be used to destroy malignant tumours, using proven techniques that require equipment with a larger footprint and stricter safety measures. By increasing the energy of electrons, com-
We must take care not tooversell these projects. Alot of the applications will take 10 years to cometo fruition
Dispatches
Pushing the boundaries ... the Megajoule laser project, under construction in Le Barp, France Regus Duvignau/Corbis physics, Malka arms. Ten years ago they were a bit wary of my community, but this year they invited me to one of their conferences to present a paper at the plenary session. Malka is excited by the potential for using these lasers to create other radiation sources, such as xrays. With sources of this sort we would be able to detect cracks in components that are dicult to reach, like in nuclear power stations or aircraft, he explains. But Mourou, who launched this whole process, wants to make lasers even better. They still have a number of defects: pulses are often not frequent enough and they consume too much electricity. They can achieve several pulses per second, whereas applications such as particle physics really require something at least 1,000 times faster. Whats more youre inputting 100kW only to obtain a few watts of power in output, he complains. To break through this barrier Mourou has proposed another departure, based on fibre lasers. Rather than a single monolithic rod amplier, the idea is to use an array of bre lasers. Less overheating would be caused by the light, making much more frequent pulses. And to prevent energy wastage the size of the array can simply be increased. Easier said than done though, because light can only be combined if the beams in each bre laser are coherent, or in phase. So the length of the lines must not vary by more than 10 or so nanometres. This was not enough to discourage the International Coherent Amplication Network, a consortium of 17labs formed by Mourou 18 months ago. It has already demonstrated, with a test, that 64 bre lasers can be controlled to emit a coherent beam. At the end of June Ican organised a symposium at Cern, outside Geneva, to round o the rst stage of its work. Looking ahead, Ican-B aims to build a PW-rated array pulsing 10,000 times a second, with at least 10,000 bre lasers. In an article published in 2008 Mourou proposed an alternative means of achieving atomic fusion. He now believes that bre lasers could be used to transmute elements, as a way of disposing of highly radioactive waste from nuclear power stations. The laser would accelerate protons which, on impacting a lead and bismuth target, would create neutrons. These in turn would bombard the waste itself, transmuting it into elements with a shorter half-life. Optics has reached a turning point. With these extreme light sources we are on the way to unifying optics and high-energy physics, Mourou claims. Im optimistic: this is the future. He has initiated a string of fairly crazy schemes. Among others he contributed to the European Extreme Light Infrastructure programme, which is taking shape at three locations, in Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary. In France he convinced various parties to endorse construction of the 10PW Apollon laser at Saclay, south of Paris. It should be operational by 2015. We must take care not to oversell these projects. A lot of the applications will take 10 years to come to fruition, a specialist warns. If we dont watch out, France will have lost its leadership position in 10 years. It is based on mutual understanding between research at CEA, CNRS and industry, but also defence players such as the Defence Procurement Agency (DGA), Riboulet cautions. If we no longer have any French buyers for our lasers we may well lose these assets. Whats more we source most of the components abroad. Le Monde
Synthetic hamburger becomes a reality

The rst synthetic burger, made of muscle bre from cow stem cells, was cooked and tasted last week. Mark Post, the scientist behind the burger, said his ambition was to improve the eciency of the cell-growing process and also to improve avour by adding fat cells. He wants to create thicker cuts of meat such as steaks, though this would require more tissue engineering expertise, namely the ability to grow channels a bit like blood vessels that can feed the centre of the growing steak with nutrients and water. The $330,000 cost of making the burger was paid by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who said he got into the idea for animal welfare reasons.
Heat linked to violence

A study from scientists in the US draws a link between increased rates of domestic violence, assault and other violent crimes and a warming climate. The authors of the study, published in the journal Science, have looked at patterns of violence in Brazil, China, Germany and the US. The authors suggest that even a small increase in average temperatures or unusual weather can spark violent behaviour. They found an increase in reports of domestic violence in India and Australia at times of drought; land invasions in Brazil linked to poor weather; and more controversially, a rise in the number of assaults and murders in the US and Tanzania.
Space robot welcome

When the Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata arrives at the International Space Station in November, a companion will be waiting for him: Kirobo, the worlds rst talking humanoid space robot. It has been programmed to recognise his face, and greet him warmly in Japanese. Its developer, Tomotaka Takahashi, said: Kirobo will remember Mr Wakatas face so it can recognise him when they reunite up in space. I wish for this robot to function as a mediator between a person and machine, or a person and the internet, and sometimes even between people.
Better biofuels wanted

The UK will play host to one of the rst large-scale demonstration of plants for advanced biofuels liquid replacements for petrol made from waste materials under a scheme to be unveiled by the government. A competition is planned with a $38m prize to come up with the most viable demonstration plants for liquid fuels made from waste organic material, such as straw or wood waste.
pared with existing techniques, we will be able to dig deeper down into the tissue, says Victor Malka, at the applied optics laboratory, also at Ecole Polytechnique, which is involved in various projects focusing on proton and electron therapy. Malka is working with Amplitude too. They are developing Saphir, a 0.2 PW laser intended to demonstrate the merits of such proton sources in medicine. Particle acceleration also interests specialists in high-energy
Books
Our tools are failing us

John Naughton is impressed by two studies of how the internet isfailing to live up to its promise
Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age ofConnection by Ethan Zuckerman WW Norton 288pp 18.99 Untangling the Web: What the Internet Is Doing to You by Aleks Krotoski Faber/Guardian Books 224pp 12.99
Open a street map of a city any city and what you see is a diagram of all the possible routes that one could take in traversing or exploring it. But superimpose on the street map the actual trac ows that are observed and you see quite a dierent city: a city of ows. And the ows show how the city is actually used, as distinct from how it could be used. This is a useful metaphor for thinking about the internet and digital technology generally. In itself, the technology has vast some think limitless possibilities. So narratives like those of Googles Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen in their recent book tend to sketch out all the things that networked technology could enable us to do. But what we will actually wind up doing with it is, at any point in time, largely unknown. In that sense, Ethan Zuckermans book provides a welcome antidote to the current narrative of technological determinism. His central thesis is that while the internet does, in principle, enable everyone to become a true cosmopolitan, in practice it does nothing of the kind. Cosmopolitanism does not just involve being tolerant of those who are dierent from us. As the Ghanaian American philosopher Anthony Appiah puts it, true cosmopolitanism challenges us to embrace what is rich, productive and creative about this difference. Much of the early part of Rewire is taken up with demonstrating the extent to which the internet, and our use of it, fails that test. We shape our tools, said Marshall McLuhan, and afterwards they shape us. The truth of this adage is corroborated every time most of us use the net. Weve built and use information tools (such as search and social networking systems) that embody our biases towards things that aect, or are relevant to, those who are nearest and dearest to us. They give us the information we think we want, but not necessarily the information that we might need. This gap between potential and actuality is everywhere evident. In principle, we in the west could be much better informed about Islamic societies, for example. In practice, despite all the connectivity at our disposal, we are probably as ignorant as we were in the bad old days of mainstream media. In fact, Zuckerman argues, in some ways we might have been better then, because serious mainstream media outlets once saw it as their professional duty to curate the ow of the days news. But sometime in the mid-90s, as the internet went mainstream, we switched from curation to search at the same time as we moved from directionless surfing to purposeful search. As a result, the gatekeepers of big media gradually became less powerful, which in some respects was a positive development because it eroded the power of large multimedia conglomerates. But it also had the unanticipated consequence of increasing the power of the tools that enable us to search for information and news and, indirectly, the power of the corporations that provide those tools. Ethan Zuckerman is a true cosmopolitan in Appiahs sense. He now lives and works at MIT, but his outstanding blog is called My Hearts in Accra, a reference to his long-standing commitment to Africa. He is also a co-founder of Global Voices, a web service dedicated to the realisation of the nets potential to enable anyones voice to be heard. Rewire provides a welcome contrast to the current Panglossian narrative about the transformative power of networked technology, and a perceptive diagnosis of whats wrong. Where it runs out of steam slightly is when he gets to contemplating potential solutions, of which he identies three: transparent translation; bridge gures bloggers who translate and contextualise ideas from one culture to another; and what he calls engineered serendipity, which is basically technology for enabling us to escape from lter bubbles. In due course, the technology will deliver transparent translation; cloning of Ethan Zuckerman would provide a supply of suitable bridge gures, but for the time being we will have to make do with pale imitations. Engineering serendipity, however, is a tougher proposition. Which is where Aleks Krotoski might be able to help. She is a perceptive observer of our information ecosystem. Her book, Untangling the Web, is a collection of 17 thoughtful essays on the impact of comprehensive networking on our lives. These essays cover the spectrum of stu we need to think about from the obvious ones (such as privacy, identity, the concept of online friendship and the psychological and social impact of the net) to topics to which we dont pay enough attention (such as the ways in which online anonymity empowers those who are physically disabled or disgured, and what medics sneeringly call cyberchondria the ways in which the net can increase health anxieties). Although shes a glamorous media star, people underestimate Krotoski at their peril. Shes a rare combination of academic (she has a PhD in psychology), geek, reporter and uent essayist. Her chapter on the concept of friendship online is a good example of this combination in action: on the one hand, shes read the work of Robin Dunbar, Claude Fischer and Everett Rogers; but shes also alert to what she experiences as emotional anaemia the sense that what youre getting from your online social group is emotion-lite. In other words, you might not feel the online love from the people you should, because your nearest and dearest may be drowned out in the ocean of sociability. Which, in a way, brings us back to Zuckermans insight about the difference between what networked technology could, in principle, do and what it actually does. As the Rolling Stones might put it: you cant always get what you need, but you usually get what you want. And its not necessarily good for you. Observer Information pathways why do we keep using the same ones over and over? Mike Perry/Alamy
Being on the outside, but craving to be in

Memories of a Marriage by Louis Begley Doubleday 188pp $25.95 Marie Arana Washington Post
In a feat of extraordinary timing in a summer when F Scott Fitzgeralds masterwork on love and ambition is being peddled as countless commercial knockos Louis Begley gives us the literary equivalent of a hat trick: the anti-Gatsby novel. Here is a tale of New York society and its parvenus; but, unlike with Fitzgeralds classic, ambitions are met, sex is brazenly consummated, mysteries are revealed, beauty is trumped by old age and not a character in sight is in love. Here is the tale of a loveless marriage. Begley is nothing if not an elegant wordsmith. He has made his mark in nine exquisitely crafted, brittle novels with largely unsympathetic characters. His best known is About Schmidt, in which a curmudgeon looks back on a lifetime of material gain and attendant losses. Begleys best work, however, is his dazzling rst: Wartime Lies, an autobiographical novel about a Jewish boy running from the Nazis and passing as a goy. In every opus, he casts a dispassionate eye and delivers a trunkload of human failings. In this, his eighth decade, he brings us face-to-face with perhaps his grittiest theme the business of want. Of being on the outside, craving in. From the rst, we know that our narrators brief and happy marriage has been destroyed: by his childs death, by his wifes eet and fatal illness. Philip is a widower, a childless father, an outsider. That essential loneliness is made more acute by the fact that Philip is a writer. He is a tale-monger, a soul-stealer, a man who is all too eager to look into someone elses heart. That someone else is Lucy De Bourgh Snow, a socialite with whom he once had a passing dalliance and whom he sees all of a sudden, 40 years or so later, in one of those vast public spaces in New Yorks Lincoln Centre. It is during intermission at a tedious Balanchine ballet Philip is reintroduced to this erce, man-eating blue blood, a De Bourgh whose pedigree dates to the Mayower, whose accumulated wealth entitles her to sojourns in Paris and mansions in Rhode Island, but whose love life has been a spectacular failure. By the second intermission, Philip is listening to Lucys life story, hearing her call her dead ex-husband a garage mechanics son turned highly successful banker a perfect monster. The writers curiosity is piqued. As he hears more about Thomas Snows ravenous sexual appetite, his grasping hunger for social acceptance, his sudden demand for a divorce, and his subsequent remarriage, Philip is hooked. Perhaps its the rawness of the narration, the endless detail, the startling intimacy, but Philip nds Lucys account of her marriage as compelling as it is repellent. But he is too drawn into the drama to walk away. Prudence be damned: I was determined to understand how the quirky but beautiful, charming, and seductive young woman I had known had changed so, had become an embittered and aggressive shrew.
Begley is no stranger to the glitter and caprice of Manhattan society, and he tells this tale with all the archness and yearning of a voyeur. I will follow the authors advice and not say what this absorbing, altogether harrowing story is truly about nor tell you much about its prickly and singularly unlikable characters but I will venture that, in it, despite a false note here and there (tears running down cheeks at implausible moments, for example), Begley proves he is a master dissector of the American character.
Set free from misery

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo Chatto & Windus 304pp 14.99 Helon Habila
I was at a Caine prize seminar a few years back and the discussion was on the state of the new ction coming out of Africa. One of the panellists, in passing, accused the new writers of performing Africa for the world. To perform Africa, the distinguished panellist explained, is to inundate ones writing with images and symbols and allusions that evoke, to borrow a phrase from Aristotle, pity and fear, but not in a real tragic sense, more in a CNN, western-media-coverage-of-Africa, povertyporn sense. We are talking child soldiers, genocide, child prostitution, female genital mutilation, political violence, police brutality, dictatorships, predatory preachers, dead bodies on the roadside. The result, for the reader, isnt always catharsis, as Aristotle suggested, but its direct opposite: a sort of creeping horror that leads to a desensitisation to the reality being represented. The question to be asked then is whether this new writing is a fair representation of the existential realities of Africa, or if it is just a Caine-prize aesthetic that has emerged in a vacuum created by the judges and the publishers and agents over the years, and which has begun to perpetuate itself. NoViolet Bulawayos We Need New Names is an extension of her Caine prize-winning short story, Hitting Budapest, and yes, it has fraudulent preachers and is partly set in a soul-crushing ghetto called Paradise, somewhere in Zimbabwe. Yes, there is a dead body hanging from a tree; there is Aids the narrators father is dying of it; there is political violence (pro-Mugabe partisans attacking white folk and expelling them from their homes and chanting Africa for Africans!); there are street children from the ranks of whom the narrator, Darling, nally emerges and escapes to America and a better life. Did I mention that one of the children, 10- or 12-year-old Chipo, is pregnant after being raped by her grandfather? And this is all in the rst hundred pages, before the narrator is whisked away to America to Detroit, Michigan, or as the children call it, Destroyedmichygen. What stops the book collapsing under its own thematic weight is a certain linguistic verve, and the sense that this is a really talented and ambitious author who might at any moment surprise the reader by a plot twist, some technical bravura, or a thematic transcendence that will take the story beyond its gratuitously dark concerns to another, more meaningful level. Continued on page 38
Books
Continued from page 37 For really, what is the purpose of suering in literature, especially in a coming-of-age novel, but to serve as midwife to spiritual and psychological growth? In America, the narrator does grow when she nds out that, despite the material wealth, all she has dreamed of wont necessarily come true. Her aunt Fostalinas marriage falls apart even as she struggles every day to look like the rake-thin women she sees on TV. The failure of the marriage becomes a metaphor for the illusoriness of the American dream. Bulawayos keen powers of observation and social commentary, and her refreshing sense of humour, come through best in moments when she seems to have forgotten her checklist and goes unscripted. These moments show what Bulawayo can do when she is enjoying herself. The world is a dark and ugly place, a lot of that ugliness and injustice is present in Africa, but we dont turn to literature to conrm that. The news is enough. What we turn to literature for is its ability to transport us beyond the headlines. Until the 1960s, county sides routinely appointed socially superior captains whose playing abilities were at best mediocre a hangover from the days when teams were raised and nanced by aristocrats who didnt expect to take a back seat at their own party. Besides, cricket requires even the top players to do things theyre not very good at. Monty Panesar may be Englands best left-arm spin bowler, but his elding and batting are comically clumsy. That was why English cricket followers took him to their hearts. Notwithstanding a few recent o-eld issues, Panesar charms the English cricketing public because he is a throwback. Even bowlers are now expected to practise their batting in the rst test of the current Ashes series, the highest scorer in Australias first innings and the fourth highest scorer in the second batted at No 11 and lack of physical tness is not tolerated at all. At every level, the game has become far more professional. Even village teams play in leagues. Cricket has become meritocratic like everything else in national life and the traditions of beer, fellowship and selfdeprecating humour have been expunged. But not quite. Last year, a group of writers, including Sebastian Faulks, decided to revive the Authors XI, a team for which Arthur Conan Doyle and PG Wodehouse opened the batting in the early 20th century, but that played its last match in 1912. Of the new XI, only one had experience of top-level cricket. Several others were occasional cricketers but the sole female member had never previously played at all. Charlie Campbell, team captain and literary agent, confesses that he was only once selected, aged 10, for a school team, but has recently rediscovered the joys of playing cricket badly. The XI arranged matches at venues including Eton, Lords and Hambledon, the most famous home of 18th-century cricket. They were rarely disgraced and even won wo some matches. In The contributes a chapter about Authors XI, each writer c one xture, interspersed with reections on some aspect of cricket, such as broadcasting, books, history or social class. The result is a distinguished games extensive and eclectic addition to the game Throughout, pride in the teams literature. Througho achievements vies with the traditional English reluctance to admit they took themselves seriously. In the rst s match, several catches are dropped. With each fumbled chance, recalls one writer, exquisitely capturing crickets strangely t conicting emotions, the c mood of the team lightens m in sympathy and relief that if it happens to us next, th we wont be the only ones. Yet even the laid-back representatives of literary Engres land cant resist the modern lan approach to the game. Before app the season started, they went the Edgbaston ground for to th coaching and conditioning. coac On the eve of the fixture O against Eton, the authors ask to again play the schools third XI, not second as scheduled, but the s lose heavily a defeat mitistill l gated for the historian Tom Holbecause, as he explains in land b detail, he at last hits a six afvivid d lifetime of trying and failing. ter a lif
Agony and ecstasy

1913: The Year Before the Storm by Florian Illies, trans by Shaun Whiteside Clerkenwell 304pp 14.99 Philip Oltermann
Can you write a history of the year 1913 and ignore the disaster waiting around the corner? With the centenary of the rst world war approaching that may sound perverse, yet it is precisely what Die Zeit journalist Florian Illies tries to do in his new book, which was a bestseller in Germany when it was published there last year. In 1913: The Year Before the Storm, Illies tells the story of that year through a series of snapshots from the lives of artists, scientists, inventors and politicians, relayed with a novelists eye for detail and a livebloggers sense of urgency. He also tries to write the teleology out of early 20th-century history. Theres more on Kaiser Wilhelms passion for stag-hunting than on the consequences of the Reichstag bill to increase military spending. Far from teetering on the edge of the abyss, the generation of 1913 looks surprisingly carefree. A few broodier minds are already thinking about war, but Illies is keen to expose their vanity. Thomas Mann, who in March is earnestly harking back to the Franco-Prussian war as a moral cleansing, a grandiose stride of lifes seriousness beyond all sentimental confusions, spends most of the year chewing over a devastating review of his rst play and obsessing about whether he got ripped o for the new rug in his study. Oswald Spengler, author of The Decline of the West, pops up repeatedly only to be exposed as a fatalist who confuses his own hang-ups about women with a wider crisis in European civilisation. Illies gives plenty of space to the chance encounters of Europes cultural elite Freud, Hofmannsthal and Rilke bumping into each other in Munichs Englischer Garten, Joyce giving English lessons to Italo Svevo in Trieste but we nd out little about what was happening in the coee houses of Algiers, Bombay or Constantinople. That would sound like a big ask had Charles Emmerson not managed to write just such an international account, published earlier this year. But Illies, it turns out, is as astute a researcher as he is an observer of the zeitgeist: the section on Arnold Schnberg who was so superstitious about the number 13 that he deliberately misspelled the title of his opera Moses and Aron so it only has 12 letters, but ended up dying on a Friday the 13th reads like something out of a magic realist novel. The book works best when it zooms in on the lives of artists hovering between hypochondria and hyperactivity. The aair between Gustav Mahlers widow Alma and the ragingly possessive painter Oskar Kokoschka is as gripping as Franz Kafka and Felice Bauers is desperately sad. Both of these stories have been told before, but rarely with such directness. Kafka christened the 1910s the nervous era, and if there is one thing that unites the dierent characters in this book, its a state of heightened anxiety. The Spenglers of this world, would have diagnosed a chronic disease in need of a radical cure. But Illies notes that neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion, may have been little more than love sickness, and cheerily adds that 1913 was also the year in which the drug ecstasy was invented.
Gentlemans cricket
The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon by The Authors Cricket Club Bloomsbury 226pp 16.99 Peter Wilby
The rst live cricket I ever experienced was a village match involving our local club of which my father, though completely uninterested in cricket, was for some reason president. I asked ed one of our local ocal team, listed to bat at No 9, whether her he bowled fast or slow. Neither, he said; he didnt bowl at all. So why was he e batting so low in the order? Because he wasnt a very good batsman, he replied. My y eight-year-old head struggled to get round the concept of an anti-all-rounder. Perhaps he was in the side for his elding, I suggested. He just grimaced and d shook his head and, when our r men elded, he gave ample proof of that he hadnt lied, dropping at least two simple catches. I later realised that I had stummbled on one of the central traditions ons of English cricket. In all other major ajor cricket-playing nations, particucularly Australia, the point of playing ying the game was always to win. Here, ere, the point was to celebrate amiable le incompetence. Cricket was a game e not only for all sizes and shapes (players ayers such as Englands Mike Gatting g and Pakistans Inzamam-ul-Haq were re renowned for their ample stomachs) hs) but for all abilities. In other sports, the incompetent get in the way, spoiling ing the enjoyment of teammates. In cricket, ricket, your duck neednt stop your fellow ow team member scoring a century, and d it may well enhance his pleasure in it.
Books
Running Proust doesnt miss a beat

Jack Kerouacs 13 books spanning almost 50 years possess a voice thats his alone. By David Barnett
read Jack Kerouacs On the Road for the rst time on the way to the bull-running at Pamplona in 1991, on a rattling 24-hour bus ride from London. I missed most of France, my nose buried in the paperback captivated, as all 21-year-olds should be, by Kerouacs bebop prose, his spontaneity. That paperback survived San Fermin somehow and, when I got home, I started pursuing the other Kerouac novels it listed. Because thats what I thought they were: novels, ctions. But by the time Id found The Dharma Bums and Big Sur, I had an inkling that these apparently unconnected novels were nothing of the sort. It wasnt until a few years later, standing one blazing July afternoon at his grave in his Massachusetts hometown of Lowell, that I began to appreciate the scope of what Kerouac intended: a roman-euve, a memoir cycle woven into the mythic, wondrous tapestry of his life. It seemed natural to assume that the Kerouac books published after On the Road were written after it became a bestseller in 1957. But many were written well before, as part of a huge history Kerouac had rst envisaged 14 years earlier, when he was just 21, called The Duluoz Legend. According to biographer Gerald Nicosia, it was during a stopover in war-torn Liverpool, while he was serving in the merchant navy, that inspiration struck: On his last morning in Liverpool that vision of beatness, as he later called it, prompted him to conceive of The Duluoz Legend. Sitting at his typewriter in the pursers oce, he suddenly foresaw as his lifes work the creation of a contemporary history record. Nicosias title, Memory Babe, was one of Kerouacs childhood nicknames, earned by prodigious feats of recollection. Indeed Kerouac modelled his project on Marcel Prousts writing from remembrances, telling his editor Malcolm Crowley in 1955 that everything from now on belongs to The Duluoz Legend. He added: When Im done, in about 10, 15 years, it will cover all the years of my life, like Proust, but done on the run, a Running Proust. He hoped it would t right nice on one good-sized shelf after Im gone. Fearing legal repercussions, however, his publishers insisted he fictionalise his friends and acquaintances into a kaleidoscope of different names. Duluoz (French-Canadian slang for louse) is one of the names Kerouac gave himself, while the poet Allen Ginsberg appears as Carlo Marx, Alvah Goldbrook and Irwin Garden. Youll nd William S Burroughs as Old Bull Lee; Bull Hubbard, Frank Carmody; while Neal Cassady, as well as being Dean Moriarty, becomes variations on Cody or Neal Pomeray. Although some add his poetry Atop an Underwood and the dream-journal Book of Dreams to the sequence, for me it works best if you stick to the novels. This means the series that spawned On the Road is eectively celebrating its 50th birthday, given that Visions of Gerard, the opening volume, was published in 1963. It deals with the older brother Kerouac adored, who died when the writer was just four. Written in pencil in two Benzedrine-fuelled weeks in his sister Nins kitchen, Visions of Gerard was called a pain-tale by Kerouac: its the story of an almost divine, Buddha-like child wracked with sickness and suering. Visions of Gerard reminds us that Kerouac didnt write the books in order, instead itting, magpielike, through his own memories to write a book about childhood here, a memoir of his Beat adventures there. But it was always his intention that his books should t together in a neat chronology from his earliest memories to his last days, and be read in that order. Doctor Sax comes next, mingling Kerouacs boyhood and his love of such pulp ction heroes as the Shadow with a dark, mythic tale that Ginsberg dismissed as undigested fantasy. Maggie Cassidy, a paean to his childhood sweetheart Mary Carney, pretty much closes the Lowell years, while Vanity of Duluoz introduces his college encounters with Burroughs and Ginsberg and the birth of the Beat generation, as these and other writers became known. This is the point that On The Road nds its place in the legend, when Kerouac meets Neal Cassady. The direct sequel is Visions of Cody, concentrating on Kerouacs image of Cassady as the last great American pioneer cowboy hobo. Lonesome Traveller is more a collection of essays about Kerouac working and travelling around the States. His New York years (and romance with Alene Lee, perhaps one of the few African-American members of the Beats) are documented in The Subterraneans, later a Beatsploitation movie that saw the Alene character whitewashed into a French girl. Tristessa covers his month in Mexico before the west coast phase begins with The Dharma Bums (marrying mountaineering and Buddhism) and Desolation Angels, in which Kerouac spends a summer as a mountain re-warden and, in meta-style, covers the publication of On the Road. The beginning of the end is documented in Big Sur, charting his descent into alcoholism, and concludes with something of a whimper in 1966s Satori in Paris, in which an almost pitiable and lonely Kerouac heads to Brittany to search for his antecedents. Despite the vastness of a canvas that covers almost 50 years, Kerouac somehow maintains an integrity and a voice throughout all 13 books, each one individual and wearing his latest obsession a person, a god, a drink on its sleeve. Nicosia rejects the division some critics draw between the Lowell novels and the Beat ones. Jack was never capable of making such a distinction, he writes. Unconsciously, for the most part, he was dening the Legends central theme which might be termed the loss of life as it is lived through the very intensity and urgency of his drive to get it all down. Rereading Kerouacs novels as one huge, episodic work takes me back to that day I spent at his graveside. That stone in the ground conrmed that Kerouac took his nal trip on 21 October 1969 82 days before I was born. But he did achieve immortality of a sort with On the Road. The series stands up proudly to its Proustian inspiration. On the Road will always be Kerouacs heart, but if youre looking for his esh, blood and soul, youll nd them in The Duluoz Legend. His memories may be fallible, but they are related with honesty and truth. And, as Kerouac insisted, they were put together not from the safe distance of his deathbed but on the run.
Memory Babe ... Jack Kerouac on New Yorks Bleecker Street, 1958 Jerry Yulsman/AP
I began to understand the scope of what he intended: a memoir cycle woven into the tapestry of his life
Culture Indian cinema
I dont have an image to protect

Both in India and the US, Irrfan Khan has become thego-to character actor, writes Nosheen Iqbal
haracter actors, we are routinely told, are usually the sort with interesting looks. The kind directors wouldnt hang a blockbuster on the cheekbones of, but would, say, use for depth, avour, grit every euphemism that conveys solid acting, shame about the face. At 48, Irrfan Khan is a character-acting veteran. Considered too unconventional-looking for Bollywood leads and, too little-known and Indian for Hollywood, Khan has perfected the art of being that guy, from that thing. Since his breakthrough in Asif Kapadias The Warrior in 2001, up to Ang Lees awardmagnet Life of Pi just over a decade later, Khan has built up the steady level of kudos that comes from being a serious, dependable actor. Its a shock, then, when he emerges from the hotel lift. Khan is, in fact, Blue Steel good-looking. True, hes just swallowed up half of our allotted interview time to be preened by hair and makeup, but he is head-turningly handsome: tall, lean, rash, chiselled. In the esh, theres none of the world-weariness characterised in the dozen or so cops hes played on the screen, or the creepy intensity that makes him a great Bollywood villain. The second surprise is that hes funny in a dry, deadpan way that is all about the delivery. Youre an entertainment writer, then? he says by way of introductory small talk. Its culture, really, comes my prissy mumble. Ah, yes, culture. Hmm. Which isnt entertaining at all, is it? And were o. Khan makes polite chit-chat about the London Indian lm festival and why hes keen to promote it (although, curiously, there is no major screening of his new lm, D-Day, within it). He is here for the seasons agship event: a masterclass at the BFI with Asif Kapadia, the director Khan gratefully credits for saving his career when, in the late 90s, he was considering quitting.
I came into this industry to tell stories and do cinema and I was stuck in television. Which, on the Zee and Star Plus networks in south Asia, meant soap operas chasing middle-class housewives and the [poor and illiterate]. Once, they didnt even pay me because they thought my acting was so bad. Then Kapadia and The Warrior came along and Khan had suddenly bagged an acclaimed feature-film role. And a lead at that. Asif and I have been longing to work together again since then. Ive been watching his last lm [Senna]. There was a pirated DVD version in India I could have watched but I thought, No, I want to watch it on a proper screen. He builds up the importance of really saving it, to appreciate Kapadias Bafta-winner as intended. I did eventually see it on a screen. A kind of tiny screen. Where? Oh, on an airplane. And theres the humour, teasing throughout the edges of our chat. Khan was born to Muslim parents in the Jaipur village of Tonk. His mothers side has royal lineage and his fathers side was well-to-do, but Khan Sr was a self-made man. He had a tyre shop but, really, he was a hunter. Khan, the eldest of two brothers and one sister, side-stepped the family business when his father died and escaped to drama school. No one could have imagined I would be an actor, I was so shy. So thin. But the desire was so intense, I thought Id suocate if I didnt get admission. Three decades later and he is no less passionate. Danny Boyle described his performance in Slumdog Millionaire as beautiful to watch, and the late Roger Ebert commended him for subtle, engrossing work in Mira Nairs The Namesake. Its perhaps this attitude and a distinct lack of baggage I dont have an image to protect that explains why he, rather than much bigger domestic stars such as Anil Kapoor or Amitabh Bachchan, has cracked both domestic and international markets.
In the west, he has become the go-to Indian, bitparting his way through Darjeeling Limited to The Amazing Spider-Man. Meanwhile, Mira Nair has made him something of a muse: she was the rst to spot his talent and plucked him from the National School of Drama (NSD) in Delhi for Salaam Bombay in 1988. Khans part ended up on the cutting-room oor but the pair reunited on The Namesake in 2006 and for Nairs segment in New York, I Love You. In Bollywood, his career has stealthily progressed over dozens of lms.
The first thing I do when Iread a script is to find what hits me emotionally. Thats what I connect to
How the movies came to Mumbai

Pamela Hutchinson
In October 1917, Hiralal Sen was bankrupt and just a few days away from death when he received some cruel news. His brothers warehouse was on re and, as it burned, Sens career as a lm-maker went up in ames. The warehouse contained the entire stock of the Royal Bioscope Company, the Sen brothers rm, which showed and produced lms in the Kolkata area in the early years of the 20th century. The blaze destroyed Sens films, and with them much of the proof of Indias early cinema history. Centenary celebrations suggest that Indian lm production began in 1913, but that is far from the truth. The history of Indian cinema before 1913 is a fragmentary one, but it is no less interesting for that, says Luke McKernan, moving-image curator at the British Library. It is still not fully understood, and too much overlooked. We cant watch these lms today in fact, estimates suggest that 99% of Indian silents are lost. But what we do know is that the history of Indian cinema has a little-known prequel. Movies rst came to Mumbai on 7 July 1896. The Lumire brothers sent Marius Sestier to screen their short lms to a mostly British audience at the swanky Watson hotel. Sen was not there he would see the cinema two years later in Kolkata. But photographer Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar was at one of those rst Mumbai shows and he promptly ordered a camera from Britain. Bhatavdekars first movie, and the first by an Indian lm-maker, was shot in 1899 a wrestling match in Mumbais Hanging Gardens. Sen began showing imported films in theatre intervals, the local paper raved: This is a thousand times better than the live circuses performed by real persons. Moreover it is not very costly Everybody should view this strange phenomenon. Soon he added his own titles, shooting scenes from The Flower of Persia to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. After 1904, he specialised in news footage. We know that all this film-making and
More online
Celebrating a century of the Indian lm industry bit.ly/Indianlm
Reviews
The eyes have it Irrfan Khan in his latest release, the Indian crime thriller D-Day I always object to the word Bollywood, he explains. I dont think its fair to have that name. Because that industry has its own technique, its own way of making lms that has nothing to do with aping Hollywood. It originates in Parsi theatre. So what denes Indian cinema? Celebration, [we] celebrate everything and Indian cinema is an extension of that, so why did they lose their identity by calling it Bollywood? What about the indie Indian cinema scene the Hindies? The sorts of lms programmed in the London Indian lm festival are feted and gaining traction with the south Asian diaspora in recent years, but how do they play at home? They are doing great! Thats why the industry is changing, because those films are bringing in money and they cant ignore it. Everybodys watching them. Admirably, Khan and his wife, writer Sutapa Sikdar, whom he met in his NSD days, are setting up a production company to support the lms he says are bringing back the creative spirit of Indias onceburgeoning parallel cinema movement. I wouldnt call [the Hindie lms] arthouse but they do have a more original voice. You still have to entertain [Indian audiences], you cannot make them think. Or, you cannot leave them thinking. If you leave them thinking, you have to give them catharsis. I warn him this could sound grotesquely patronising in print. But that is the way it is in India, they want an emotional connection. If you see a dark lm that disturbs you, India wont take it. If it is tragedy, they will love it. They love to cry. Thats for me, also. The rst thing I do when I read a script is to nd what hits me emotionally. Thats what I connect to. Centennial a biopic of Dadasaheb Phalke lm-watching was going on in the 1900s and 1910s, but if the movies are lost, whats the relevance? It was at a screening of an imported lm that stage magician and photographer Dadasaheb Phalke had the Indian lm industrys Eureka moment. Phalke was watching a lavish lm based on the Christian bible: While the life of Christ was rolling before my eyes I was mentally visualising the gods Shri Krishnu, Shri Ramchandra, their Gokul and Ayodhya, the father of Indian cinema later wrote. Could we, the sons of India, ever be able to see Indian images on the screen? Raja Harishchandra is Phalkes 1913 work, and the centenary celebrates it as the rst Indian lm.
Ballet
Theres no doubting the love that many British ballet fans feel for the Bolshoi, nor their sympathy for the companys recent trials. But in spite of such loyal enthusiasm, they will be hard-pressed to ignore some of the direr elements in the companys opening production of Swan Lake at Covent Garden. Ive never been a fan of Yuri Grigorovichs versions of the classics. His 2001 version of Swan Lake wreaks more violence than most. Its left to the dancers to save the stage, and here the Bolshoi come into their own. Certainly, Svetlana Zakharovas Odette may be the nest performance Ive seen from her. Theres a weight in her arms, a wildness in the movements of her head that pitches this Swan Queen eloquently between human and bird. Alexander Volchkovs Siegfried is neatly handsome in act one. In act three, however, he loses focus, as momentarily does Zakharova, although she recovers to snap through her fouetts at record speed. Judith Mackrell
Art
There is a painting in the terric Peter Doig retrospective at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, that shows a palm-fringed beach in high summer, waves sparkling, sun blazing, sand stretching into the distance beneath a scintillating sky or so it seems. In fact, the picture is almost entirely blank. What you see is a great expanse of raw canvas into which faint traces of oil have seeped here and there, leaving only the vaguest hints. The rest is all in your mind. One looks at Doigs mesmerising pictures, with their complex surfaces diaphanous, scumbled, stippled, stained and straight into an irreducible enigma. Laura Cumming Observer
Music
Right after Like a Virgin, which he produced for Madonna, and before Lost in Music, the 1979 hit he wrote for Sister Sledge, Nile Rodgers beams out into this adoring crowd at Indigo2 in London. You know what tonight is like? he inquires. It is like, This is Your Life, Nile Rodgers in song! It is, and what a life it has been. Rodgerss revival, at 60, in 2013 after surviving prostate cancer is due to his guiding presence on Get Lucky, Daft Punks irresistible hit. It has triggered, too, a welcome rehabilitation of Chic, his 70s disco group. Rodgerss scratchy, James Brown-indebted guitar is at the heart of all that is good about the band. For the encore of Chics manifesto statement, Good Times, the band are joined on stage by audience members doing the kind of heroically bad dancing that usually happens around handbags. It makes the unassuming Rodgers appear even cooler. Ian Gittins
Diversions
Notes & Queries
Try not to nibble if there areearrings in your way
What are earlobes for? Decoration. Avril Taylor, Dundas, Ontario, Canada Thats a piercingly good question. Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia To pull miscreants out of the gutter. David Tucker, Halle, Germany Some elephants actually gain income by using them as advertising space. Roger Morrell, Perth, Western Australia For hanging on. To every word. Jennifer Rathbone, Toronto, Canada They are for starting the argument between mothers and young daughters about piercings, tattoos and such. Chris Brown, Montpelier, Vermont, US The answer turns on your cultural heritage and your sex. Philip Stigger, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada To hang things from, of course. Ionce saw a Kenyan tribesman with more than a half-metre of copper telephone wire hanging from each of his. Dick Hedges, Nairobi, Kenya Jewellers. Bill Lucas, Grith, ACT, Australia Nibbling. Peter Vaughan, St Senoch, France life containing three essentials: someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to. Margaret Wilkes, Perth, Western Australia Whatever turns you on. Dana F Wood, St Senoch, France Yes, in two words, Live well. Terence Rowell, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
Nature watch Wenlock Edge

I was lifting a pot from a neglected corner of the garden and suddenly there was an apparition. Violently exposed to a bright interlude between showers, the creature lay unmoved a span in length, tail coiled in a question mark, its skin dark, warty and glistening. The tips of its toes were almost luminous orange and its eyes heavy, unresponsive to the world meditative, enraptured or stoned. This was a great crested newt: a creature with powers strong enough to confound the ambitions of property developers; a political animal with followers prepared to go to great lengths to protect it; a charismatic amphibian whose existence in the liminal space between earth and water is beguiling. The newt remained motionless while all about it was frenetic. Worms wriggled into cracks between stones, ground beetles scarpered
Dont worry about Chernobyl

Could one produce a newspaper with just positive news? What eect would it have on the readers? In 1986 I spent three months as an exchange student in Bulgaria, where the shops were almost empty but the news was always good (even Chernobyl was no cause for concern). I dont know what the Bulgarians made of this, but I found the Soa News hilarious, and took out a subscription. Veronica Tapp, Brighton, UK
More Notes & Queries See additional answers online http://bit.ly/notesandqueries
Ear for fashion ... a Masai woman
Whatever turns you on

Is there a better philosophy for happiness, which is expressed in under six words, than work hard, play hard? Duty rst; work; then pleasure. Edward Black, Sydney, Australia Six words? Four letters. E Slack, LIsle Jourdain, France Consider others. David Isaacs, Sydney, Australia The Beatles had the answer: All you need is love. John Anderson, Pukekohe, New Zealand Happy wife = happy life! Chris Roylance, Paddington, Queensland, Australia The search for happiness, which is elusive, may be misplaced. For contentment I know no better than Freuds advice to have a
Any answers?
What governs attention span, and is it xed or variable ? E Slack, LIsle Jourdain, France Can anyone explain why girls put their hands over their mouths when they laugh? Jim Fielding, Ledbury, UK Send answers to weekly.nandq@ theguardian.com or Guardian Weekly, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9GU, UK and woodlice blundered around like tiny vehicles, the smallest of them even trying to hide underneath the newt. There, the creature concealed its true identity. When seen from aboveit was as dark as the shadows that had concealed it, but its undersides were a dazzlingly amboyant sunset orange ecked with black marks. Here was the salamander of myth, the re creature that so fascinated Aristotle, which grew new limbs and could regenerate itself from a kind of magic that dated back to its origins in the Jurassic era more than 160m years ago. The dorsal line along its spine was where its dragon crest would form for the underwater breeding drama next spring. For now, the newt regarded being in the world through trichromic colour and ultraviolet shortsighted in air, longsighted in water through low frequency sound detected by its forelegs and smell-taste organs in its nose and sides of its mouth. Its gaze seeemed enigmatic, lled, perhaps, with too much knowing. Paul Evans Read More Nature watch online http://bit.ly/naturewatch
Good to meet you David Thompson

Greetings from Sheeld Beach, on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast of South Africa, which has been my home for a number of years. The Manchester Guardian became my newspaper of choice as a student at Kings College, Durham University in the UK. Since graduating from there in 1964, geological mineral exploration activities have taken me to many parts of the world. The Guardian Weekly has followed with me to Nigeria, Denmark, South Africa, Mozambique and the former Rhodesia, where my wife and children were born, then toSouth Africa again. Each edition is read from back to front. There is usually something of interest in all sections and I have always considered the reporting to be objective, informative and accurate. In particular, David Smiths contributions over the years on African aairs have been most enlightening. Once read, each edition usually ends up with some other willing recipient, likemy son and daughter in New Zealand, or with former friends and colleagues, or with young Swaziland border post ocials. Some even end upin the doctors or dentists waiting room. Perhaps the digital edition will enable the transfer, in the future, of selected articles to other interested parties worldwide. If you would like to feature in this space, send a brief note to guardian.weekly@theguardian.com
Quick crossword
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Cryptic crossword by Gordius

Across
1 Poor relationship that could be almost cowardly (4,3) 5 Help paper to bed in formal cover (7) 9 Shell has vehicle going swiftly (5) 10 Note a father with time for whats on TV (4,5) 11 Chic lost as turning to bluestocking? (10) 12 Area of land would have added value in West London (4) 14 Important character its heavy (in gravity, not so) (7,5) 18 Shriek about owning toiletry (7,5) 21 How Israelis used to measure a messy heap? (4) 22 Observe band keeping time? (5,5) 25 Model glad to work for a symbol of achievement (4,5) 26 Priest not soft on crime (5) 27 Gins in season at early evening (7) 28 English reader, occasionally getting a choice (7)
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10 11 12 13 14
15 18 19
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Across
1,8 Cough up more than a fair price (3,7,3,4) 9 Buy balls (anag) sweet (8) 10 With some diculty (2,1,7) 12 Incitement to do something (6) 14 Limited (6) 15 By a great margin (3,3,4) 19 Soldiers accommodation (8) 20,21 Hypertension (4,5,8)
13 Where Satan lives and sinners go (7) 14 Subtlety in handling dicult situations (7) 16 Run through again (5) 17 Remains of anything burnt (5) 18 Keel over (4)
Down
U N P R M S B A Y R C A D H E O B E L U I O T O G S T I E N C H R A S E L F E N V I S A G E L A M P C E G I G N I O G A P L A S N T I O S D E E I L S N C G A N B O O E D L S E N T E A N D W E R MM E U R C I E S S E D R C E S L D E O N E D R R E A E D
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2 Appropriation from another source (8) 3 Adolescent years (5) 4 Modesty store (7) 5 Without illumination (5) 6 Unbeliever (7) 7 Lug (4) 11 Rent rags (anag) (8)
Last weeks solution, No 13,488 Puzzle No 13,492 published in the Guardian 6 August 2013
1 Base with rm bottom (6) 2 Dislike of bad language in the French (6) 3 Conveyance preparatory to interment (7,3) 4 Wars of heaving sores (5) 5 Shopkeeper burst into tears (9) 6 Rise makes young man about turn (4) 7 Preparation of horse for time under cover (8)
8 Go without a garment in parody (8) 13 Mrs Mop works after hours without conviction (5,5) 15 Its easy to call in doctor with a stroke (3-6) 16 Devotion with no right to be allied to autism (8) 17 Composer takes part backing single (8) 19 Like a time bomb, something given without prior notice (6) 20 One begins a test with need for bottle (6) 23 Deliver state victory (5) 24 Vocative fellows get a warning (4)
Puzzle No 26,020 published in the Guardian 7 August
T E N T P E O O H B E N T O I D T T H O R O U S M G F E R E I N J A C K I N E E C C O W E T A C O N T H E D R E L S U R P L U
G S E U I L A B U A I G H L Y A M E N T E C T H E B A P I S C H P O L E R L S T O
M I N A L I E A R N U M S E R S I D O T T I A T I O N X C G O X N T N O P A T E M B S I R O N S S O I T A S T E
Last weeks solution, No 26,016
Futoshiki Hard
Fill in the grid so that every row and column contains the numbers 1-5. The greater than or less than signs indicate where a number is larger or smaller than its neighbour.
3 > 2 5 4
CLARITY MEDIA LTD
Sudoku classic Hard
5 <
<
< 4 >
3 4 7 9 8 4 8 2 6 9 5 3 4
2 8 2 6 3 5 7 9 5 7 1 9
Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 to 9. We will publish the solution next week.
Free puzzles at theguardian.com/sudoku
4 3 < 4 1 5 2 < 3 < 4 5 2 3 5
5 2 1 3 4
<
>
2 > 1
2 4 9 5 8 7 1 6 3
6 5 3 4 1 9 8 7 2
1 8 7 3 6 2 4 9 5
4 7 8 9 5 6 3 2 1
9 1 2 8 7 3 6 5 4
3 6 5 2 4 1 7 8 9
7 2 6 1 3 5 9 4 8
8 9 1 7 2 4 5 3 6
5 3 4 6 9 8 2 1 7
Last weeks solution
Last weeks solution
Mind&Relationships Oliver Burkeman This column will change your life If a talent comes naturally, you conclude that its nothing special. And so you gravitate toward whatever it is you cant do
dont have much patience, generally speaking, with the ideas of economists such as Murray Rothbard, a freemarket extremist who thought the government shouldnt run the police or the army, let alone hospitals or schools. Still, we owe him gratitude for the tonguein-cheek observation he called Rothbards Law: People tend to specialise in what theyre worst at. He was thinking of his fellow academics: [Milton] Friedman is great except on money, so he concentrates on that, he once said. Other examples may spring to your mind: the comedian intent on being taken seriously as an actor; the religious gure who cant stop making pronouncements about science; the manager with zero people skills who nominates himself to run the corporate retreat. Given his views, Im tempted to suggest that Rothbard himself was a victim of his law. But hed seen that cheap shot coming. He was immune to the law, he liked to say, because hed failed to specialise in anything. At rst glance, Rothbards Law resembles the similarly half-serious Peter Principle, which describes how, in organisations, people tend to rise to their level of incompetence. They keep getting promoted until theyre in a role where their performance is too mediocre to merit further promotion so that, over time, a company gets lled with sta who cant do their jobs. But
The trick easier to say than do is to pick challenges adjacent to your existing skills, notdiametrically opposed to them
trating I can never let my thoughts drift away like a motorist or pedestrian. Sometimes it feels as if Im having to do the thinking for both of us. When you open your car door without checking or nip across the road without looking, its always me
Rothbard seems to have had a dierent problem in mind: if a talent has always come naturally or if its been decades since you last found it difcult you conclude that its nothing special. And so, in your eorts to achieve something impressive, or to gain a feeling of accomplishment, you gravitate toward whatever it is you cant do. You stride out into exactly those fresh pastures in which you shouldnt be setting foot.
Rothbard was exaggerating for the sake of humour. Yet his insight adds an interesting twist to the timehonoured debate about strengths and weaknesses. If you want to improve, should you focus on developing what youre good at, or on patching things up where youre bad? In a series of bestselling books, the consultant Marcus Buckingham has made a persuasive case for a strengths-based approach: its both more eective and more enjoyable, he argues, than struggling to plug your weak spots. But Rothbards Law raises two complicating thoughts. One is that you might not perceive your strengths at all, imagining them instead to be run-of-the-mill capabilities possessed by everyone. The other is that focusing on them might feel boring, even meaningless, compared with the thrill of the unknown. The trick easier to talk about than to do, as ever is to pick challenges adjacent to your existing skills, not diametrically opposed to them. The more profound diculty is to learn to see your unique skills for what they are and, when it comes to salary negotiations and suchlike, to resist undervaluing them. All this might sound like the cheesiest sort of self-esteemboosting advice: Everyones good at something! Im sure that mushy conclusion would have appalled Rothbard. The more down-to-earth, more genuinely cheering implication of his law is that you may well be more talented than you think.
What Im really thinking The cycle courier

When I dont know what Im delivering, my imagination runs wild. How many state secrets have I pedalled across town, when Ive been directed to No 10 Downing Street? At other times the story seems all too clear. That pair of high heels I had to pick up from a hotel and drop o rst thing at your oce? You must have known that I had a good idea what youd been up to. That doesnt mean Im not concen-
who has to take evasive action. Ive learned to take your abuse without returning it, secure in the knowledge that Ive just saved us both from a trip to A&E. Far better to be the peacemaker than the aggressor at least I know Im in the right.
Chris Madden/Lo Cole
Im 48 and know I wont be able to keep this up for ever. But my wife appreciates my muscular thighs, and Im sure this work has increased my brain capacity. Ive learned to read the road so far ahead, I must be semi-psychic. Im looked down on by drivers and reception sta alike, but I wouldnt be in your shoes. Id rather be on my bike than steaming in an oce or stuck in slow-moving trac. I know all the short cuts, the little streets and alleys that arent on the map theyre where I feel most alive.
Weekly International review development
Guinea starts to target corruption

Hard task to tackle years of mismanagement in west African democracy
Afua Hirsch Conakry
There is a saying in Guinea that is popular among development workers: Everything is a priority. It is a wry observation that, in a country in which almost nothing works, it is difcult to work out what to tackle rst. The facts are stark. A recent survey showed that 62% of Guineans have no access to running water, 62% have no access to electricity, 65% say they have inadequate access to roads and 72% think the justice system is broken. The UN ranks the countrys development 178th of 185 in the world. As a result, Guineas first democratically elected government since independence led by Alpha Cond, a former doctor of law and professor at the Paris-Sorbonne University in France is trying to reform and rebrand the country after decades of chronic mismanagement. Former World Bank economist and minister of nance in Guinea, Kerfalla Yansan, says: We want to attract not only donor money but to interact with the private sector, and we are working hard at this. We are trying to reach out to all partners, to ensure that we can be in a position to send our message across. Cond, Yansan and other government gures convened investors at a hotel in London in June to promote the merits of doing business in the west African country. At the heart of efforts to attract investors are reforms to the mining code, and setting up a committee to re-evaluate all 18 mining contracts and make recommendations for some to be renegotiated. We are making an in-depth assessment of the contracts. If there are some imbalances, our mandate is to negotiate with the mining companies in order to regulate them, says Nava Tour, president of the committee. But the review has come under criticism from all sides. Mining companies many of which are watching the criminal investigation of BSG Resources (BSGR), which is accused of using bribery to obtain concessions are nervous about the prospect of scrutiny and dubious about being asked to renegotiate legally binding contracts. Anti-corruption activists say the process lacks teeth and depends on the goodwill of companies, something the government admits.
Where to start? President Alpha Cond needs to show Guinea is a better bet for investors Idrissa Soumare/AP Its true that it will be through persuasion we are going to work, and through evidence, says Yansan. We expect these companies to be concerned about the image, their credibility. They should sit down around the table and discuss with us. Olivier Manlan, principal economist for Guinea at the African Development Bank, which is supporting the review process, says: The process is more symbolic than anything else. It is really about setting the tone for the future governance of Guinea. But it is important that these messages are sent now, so that any future government can build on them. Guinea is not short of anti-corruption bodies. In addition to the mining review committee, the country has an anti-corruption agency, audit committee, and an inspectorate division of the nance ministry, which was applauded this year for uncovering corrupt practices among its sta. But corruption remains a formidable problem. A recent survey found that 98% of businesses in Guinea, and 93% of citizens, experienced corruption. Some question whether anticorruption bodies have the power to make a dierence. Abdoul Rahamane Diallo, Guinea programme co-ordinator for the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, says: The problem with all these bodies is that they do investigations, they get reports, but they cannot prosecute. They refer their les to the government, who sit on them. Some of the people in the current government were also in the past government, and if they are implicated, then they are not going to act. These bodies have no real authority, their funding is a problem. If you visit their oces, you can see that they are yet to function properly in terms of mobility, oce supplies, salaries. Guineas government says it has demonstrated its commitment to tackling corruption by taking on BSGR and by investigating its own sta. Last year, several central bank employees were convicted of embezzling state funds using fake documents. This is evidence that we cant sit down and ignore corruption within, says Yansan. But in response to allegations that only the most junior civil servants involved had been prosecuted, the minister admitted that until the judiciary was strengthened, accountability would remain imperfect. Guineans say they were the only neighbouring country whose supreme court judges were not invited to Dakar to meet Barack Obama on his Senegal tour in June, which has been interpreted as a damning but not unfair indictment on the state of the judiciary. We have to keep addressing the weaknesses of all our institutions, particularly in the judiciary, says Yansan. If there is no judiciary, there is no security for contracts, and if there is no security, there will be no investment. One western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, agreed: We are starting from an extremely low base. It will take decades for Guinea to transform itself the way that some other countries in the region have. But it has made a start.
Room for improvement
62%
Of Guineans are without access torunning water or electricity
98%
Of businesses in Guinea reported they had experienced corruption
Sport
New managers with one goal in mind

Change on the touchline points to a fascinating Premier League season
Football Paul Wilson Observer
Managers dont win matches, players win matches. Managers may choose the players and the tactics, but they dont score goals or make tackles. Plenty of managers seem to think they are the stars of the show, but the game is about players. That was, broadly, the advice given to most football writers when they were starting out, and it remains true that you should concentrate on what happens on the pitch and not be unduly influenced by what managers have to say about it. Even now, the game is not about managers, but the 2013-14 Premier League season just might be. Certainly it is dicult to make any sort of predictions, to extrapolate anything from what was won or lost last season, when clubs from Manchester United and Chelsea down to Stoke and Sunderland have changed managers over the summer. All right, Paolo Di Canio was installed at Sunderland before the break, but this is still his rst full season in charge and anything may happen. A wise old Sunderland supporter said he had identied three possible outcomes: outrageous success, outrageous failure or outrageous behaviour. Everton supporters are similarly divided over the recruitment of Roberto Martnez, who led his team to relegation last season. At this stage it is impossible to tell whether Everton are going to be a riproaring success, or trade the robustness developed under David Moyes for the perplexing inconsistency that Wigan fans had to put up with for the past few seasons. Talking of robustness, most people still have Mark Hughes down as a capable manager and a good appointment for Stoke. Hughes may manage to tone down the teams physicality, though probably not much since his Blackburn gained a similarly bruising reputation, finishing bottom of the Fair Play League every season between 2004 and 2008. Moyes, of course, is part of the main theme of managerial change. A good time to take over at United? Moyes claims it is, or at least he did when he was still staging press conferences, though at this stage it seems inauspicious, to say the least, that Sir Alex Fergusons voluntary stepdown happened to coincide with Jos Mourinhos return to Chelsea. There are those who say Fergusons successor at Old Traord was always going to be on a hiding to nothing, and that the clever policy would have been to wait until others had tried and failed. At least Moyes was brave enough to accept the challenge, though between the Wayne Rooney on-off transfer saga and the eagerness with which Mourinho pounced on the possibility of picking up a player that Ferguson may have been wrong to marginalise, the former Everton manager must feel as though he has been in the Old Trafford hot seat for two years rather than two months. Three of last seasons top-four clubs have changed manager over the summer, an unusual situation in itself, and given Arsenals almost wilful stasis that probably means the title will be won by a club with a new manager, or in Chelseas case a returning one.
Matthew Ashton/Ama/Corbis; Victor Fraile/Getty
Envious glances ... Manchester Uniteds David Moyes will be hoping to stay one step ahead of Manuel Pellegrini and Jos Mourinho Tottenham have been spending impressively over the summer, and one imagines will shortly have the bounty to invest from the sale of Gareth Bale, subject of a number of substantial bids from Real Madrid, though that does not quite propel them into the ranks of genuine title contenders. As has been all too obvious at White Hart Lane in recent seasons, success for Spurs amounts to cracking the Champions League, and success beyond their wildest dreams only amounts to doing so at the expense of north London rivals Arsenal. Andr Villas-Boas may have other ideas, but even he does not have the sort of managerial pedigree to set beside the CVs of Mourinho and Manuel Pellegrini at Manchester City. The latter has bought decisively and astutely, making City fans feel the club are moving forward again after standing still last season. Pellegrini improved all the clubs he managed in Spain, so it is reasonable to assume he will be able to give City the nudge they need to do better than last season, and that may well be enough to see them nish above United. Whether it will be enough to see o Chelsea is another matter. With Mourinho back in London, especially if he hijacks Rooney, the title is not going to be another two-horse race between the Manchester clubs. There are three sides with a realistic chance of winning the Premier League, and with questions already surfacing about how Moyes might react to adversity and criticism, it is possible that the
A-Rod is baseballs unlikeliest whistleblower

Sport blog Hunter Felt
n one of the more surreal moments in baseball history, New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez made his season debut mere hours after Major League Baseball suspended him for 211 games. Rodriguez was booed lustily by Chicago White Sox fans, and probably some Yankees supporters. Oddly enough, this may have been the least memorable part of the day for the suspended but not-suspended Rodriguez, who, alone among players singled out for their involvement with the now-defunct Biogenesis Clinic, is planning to appeal his suspension. Rodriguez has been called many things during his career in professional baseball, most of them vulgar, but no one has ever called the highest-paid player in the game an underdog until now. By ghting his suspension (MLB claims that evidence from Biogenesis proves that Rodriguez and other accused players have violated league drug policy), Rodriguez has made enemies of not just MLB but quite likely with his own club. The New York Yankees, who have allegedly explored the possibility of voiding his contract, would save themselves big money if Rodriguezs suspension for the 2014 MLB regular season holds up. He is ghting these charges alone. The other players connected to Biogenesis named last Monday have all accepted the terms of their suspensions: 50-game bans. What evidence does Major League Baseball have about these players on the list? Well, we dont really know, and if Rodriguez hadnt made the decision to ght his suspension, we might never have got a chance to know. Rodriguez has found himself in the role of a whistleblower,
Roundup Barney Ronay

Lightning Bolt strikes gold at the athletics in Moscow
Dogged by pre-competition pharmaceuticals, the world athletics championships in Moscow nally got on with the real business of scantily attended track and eld as Usain Bolt of course won the 100m in a scarcely credible 9.77sec on a sodden track. Which, under the conditions, and given the absolute necessity of beating Justin Gatlin into second place, should probably count as two gold medals in one. Previously Mo Farah had won a thrilling 10,000m title, seeing o the Ethiopian champion Ibrahim Jeilan in a sprint nish inside a hot, humid and half-empty Luzhniki stadium. Farah has now won more championship golds than any other British runner, tting reward for spending the last ve years living up a mountain eating pasta. brilliant Test match at Chester-leStreet. Having lost their shot at the urn over 15 days in July, Australia appeared to have transformed themselves belatedly into The Real Australia. Chasing 299 to win and nicely poised at 120 for one at tea, things looked good for the tourists. Quite what was in tea is unclear, but coupled with Stuart Broads spell of six for 20 in 45 deliveries it sparked a batting collapse to 224 all out. Another belatedly lively dead rubber awaits at the Oval.
Golden 100m victor Usain Bolt
Rafa and Serena rule again

Rafas back. Again. Or at least half-back (again) after a familiarly muscular 6-2, 6-2 swatting aside of Milos Raonic by Rafael Nadal in the nal of the Rogers Cup in Montreal. Raonic had earlier become the rst Canadian man in more than half a century or as we call it at Wimbledon: a Murray to reach the Rogers nal. No last-ditch surprises in the womens draw as Serena Williams devoured Romanias Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 6-0 to take her 54th singles title, putting her level with Monica Seles in fth on the all-time list of tournament winners, and still a lustrously groomed head and shoulders ahead of the rest of the world.
Dufners winning way

Nothing does pastel-sweatered, middle-aged sporting romance quite like big-time golf, and so it was at Oak Hill as 36-year-old major-virgin Jason Dufner won the US PGA Championship, leading from the front and taking the tournament
with a nal round 68 to nish two shots ahead of Jim Furyk. This hasnt hit me yet, Dufner said afterwards, wincing and closing his eyes, while it was another week of not-somuch for Rory McIlroy, who never looked even close to being close to getting anywhere near sning distance of retaining his title.
Australian life after death

Test cricket remains nothing if not stubbornly perverse. Now that its eectively over, the home leg of this years twin Ashes series kicked into vibrant sporting life with another
defending champions will be the ones with most to prove. Enough procrastination, you will now be wanting a naming of names so you can laugh at me this time next year. Fair enough. Top three City, Chelsea, United, in that order. Fourth Champions League place Tottenham. Relegated Cardiff, Crystal Palace, Fulham. Teams to do surprisingly well Hull, Stoke, Aston Villa. Teams to struggle against relegation Norwich, Southampton, Sunderland, West Ham. Teams that could finish anywhere between fifth and 17th and, to be absolutely honest, your correspondent hasnt got a clue how they will go Liverpool, Everton, Newcastle. Teams that havent been mentioned yet but are too good to be ignored Arsenal, Swansea, West Brom. Lets put those three well-managed sides down for the cups.
Chess
Leonard Barden Michael Adams had a great time in Dortmund when the England No 1 routed the Russian champion and the world No 4 and raised his world ranking to No 12. The 41-year-old Adams has long been a ne strategist but has added an extra dimension with more sharpness to his style and a readiness to seek the full point when playing Black. His win from the world No 4, Fabiano Caruana, received wide acclaim as he imaginatively sacriced a bishop to activate his rooks. Caruanas king proved weak and Adams steered into a won ending where the Italians knight was trapped. Caruana, perhaps smarting from his 1/5 score in previous games with Adams, tried for more but his king was too weak and 27 ... Rxc3+! sealed his fate. The Italians knight never escaped from its prison and when he resigned Adams was poised for f6 and Ne5 when the b8 knight falls.
Maslanka solutions
8 Qxd8+ Kxd8 9 h3 Bd7 10Rd1 Kc8 11g4 Ne7 12 Ng5 Be8 13 f4 h5 14 Kf2 b6 15 f5 Kb7 16 Nc3 hxg4 17 hxg4 Rh2+! 18 Kg3 Rxc2 19 Nh7 c5 20 Nxf8 Bc6 21 f6? Rg2+ 22 Kf4 gxf6 23exf6 Rf2+ 24 Ke3 Rxf6 25 Nh7 Rf3+ 26 Kd2 Rd8+ 27 Kc2 Rxc3+! 28 bxc3 Ba4+ 29Kb2 Rxd1 30 Bg5 Nc6 31 Rxd1 Bxd1 32 Bf4 Bxg4 33 Nf6 Bf3 34 Ne8 Na5 35 Nxc7 Bc6 36 Kc2 Kc8 37 Kd3 Kd7 38 Kc2 Nc4 39 Na6 Bb7 40 Nb8+ Kc8 41 Kd3 b5 0-1
3317 Gawain Jones v John Reid, Torquay 2013. How did the British champion (White, to play) force resignation in two moves?
3317 1 Rxc5+! bxc5 2 Qb2! Resigns. Whites double threat of 3 Qb8 mate and 3 Qxh8+ is decisive.
possibly to his own detriment as exposing the particulars could very well leave no doubt about his guilt. Even if his appeal might end up doing some good, lets not suggest that Rodriguez is ghting for anything other than himself here. But thanks to Rodriguezs refusal to accept his suspension, nobody oneither side will be able to hide and that actually might be in the best interests of the game in the long run.
Fabiano Caruana v Michael Adams 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nf6 4 O-O Nxe4 5 d4 Nd6 6Bxc6 dxc6 7 dxe5 Nf5
1 In n ips the average number of heads will be np; so the average number of ips per head will be n/np = 1/p. In the example given, you ip the coin and get a result lets say head. Thereafter we have a chance each go of 1/2 of having the opposite result, which completes the set head and tail; the average number of goes you wait for a tail is 1/(1/2) = 2, making 3 goes in all; the same applies mutatis mutandis if your rst throw delivers a tail. 2 She cut the triangle as shown. The shares are1/2, 3/8, 1/8 (of the area). 3 The chances are entirely determined by the initial conditions. Number the holes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5. If they start from holes of the same parity (both odd; or both even) then they can end up in the same hole. If the opposite parity, they cannot. Number of distinct pairs of occupied holes = (5 X 4)/2 = 10; of distinct pairings of dierent parity = 3 X 2 = 6; so probability of never meeting = 6/10 = 3/5. Wordpool a), b) Jumblies INCURABLE Bran Tub PRINC + ETON = PRINCETON Cryptic MILLET, FRENCH POLISH Missing Links a) running/total/recall b) magic/square/dance c)postal/district/nurse d) parachute/jump/suit e) ying/jacket/ potato f) bat/ten/don Correspondence If you have emailed guardian@puzzlemaster.co.uk lately your letter may have been lost as a result of a crashed disc. Please resend and I will get to it (eventually!). Your correspondence creative, critical or confused is read and appreciated.
Guardian News and Media Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Guardian News & Media Ltd., Centurion House, 129 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WR, UK. Editor: Abby Deveney. Le Monde translation: Harry Forster. Printed by GPC. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Oce. Annual subscription rates (in local currencies): UK 99; Europe 164; Rest of World 127; US $181; Canada $200; Australia $259; NZ $330 Quarterly subscription rates: UK 25; Europe 42; Rest of World 32; US $46; Canada $50; Australia $66; NZ $84
Hidden talents Why do we neglect the things were best at?

Mind & Relationships, page 44
Afua Hirsch t A Ukip politician has complained about Britishaidmoney being sent toBongo Bongoland. Here is our west Africa correspondents essential travel guide tothis mysteriousand exotic country
he decision to travel to Bongo Bongo land needs to be considered with the utmost care. A vast, junglelike area, it is populated with one, immense Bongo tribe, a people of strange contradictions that can leave the visitor feeling confused. On the one hand, these dark-skinned natives are primitive people, prone to the backwardness and cannibalism so well reported by our rich British heritage of explorer literature. But despite their tendency to walk around naked, their lack of any intelligible language or literature and their bizarre food habits, they have an unpredictable tendency to drive Ferraris through the rainforest, creating havoc for the unsuspecting explorer. This surprising habit has arisen over the years due to a surplus in British pounds in the Bongo economy, sent there by hard-working British rugby players who intended the money as foreign aid to alleviate suering among small children. Although unpredictable, you will be relieved to know that some law and order prevails in Bongo Bongo land, due mainly to their fondness for the death penalty, which is implemented swiftly and unsentimentally for most crimes. Concern for human rights and other frustrating distractions is refreshingly absent in almost all of the country, except on the rare occasion when Guardianreading aid workers attempt to foster these politically correct ideas. Be wary of a false sense of familiarity with Bongo culture, which you may have acquired in Paris or other capital cities where Bongos tend to own most of the exclusive apartments, also purchased at the expense of British workers. They are not like you they have dark skin, smell funny and may not believe in either your God, or your devil, the EU. The British pound is used to purchase another item Ray-Ban sunglasses which it is worth carrying on your person in case in need of a bribe, since Bongo people are deeply corrupt. Very, very
few people are aware of the fact that, despite unsophisticated taste in all other aspects of their personal attire, Ray-Bans are frequently worn by Bongo people. They consider these the perfect accessory to their traditional dress of loincloths and animal teeth. In particular, be sure, while in Bongo Bongo land, to visit the shrine to the people of Hull and West Yorkshire, a disproportionate amount of whose income is used to sustain the more luxurious aspects of Bongo life. Of course, the ordinary Bongo, plagued by a lack of intellect, poverty and disease, is unaware of this ow of cash, but the handful of politicians and chiefs who run the country have enough gratitude for all of them.
E
Bongos are not like you they have dark skin, smell funny and may not believe in either your God, or your devil, the European Union
Ocean/Corbis
ven though this small number of Bongo natives benet from British aid, it is still always wise to try to make natives feel comfortable when one encounters them. Therefore upon meeting a Bongo, be sure to mention your non-racist credentials by boasting that your sta and spouse have their own exotic origins. My wife is from a backward, foreign country too you know, is a popular phrase. Dont wait for a prompt before oering this information; Bongos, and other non-white people in general, will immediately feel empathy with you for saying it. Be prepared to conclude, after visiting Bongo Bongo land, that these people were far better catered for under colonial rule, when they were bestowed with an English education and when their labour and mineral riches were used to generate breathtaking wealth for Brits, rather than the other way round. It may comfort you to know, however, that the 1bn ($1.5bn) a month currently being donated by the workers of Hull and West Yorkshire in actual fact pales in comparison to the stupendous booty our great nation of Britain is still enjoying, thanks to the legacy of centuries of exploitation at their expense.

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A week in the life of the world | 16-22 August 2013

Vol 189 No 10 2.20 4.20* Exclusions apply

Kolkatas fading beauty The city falters as India booms

p Taking up the reins cas South Africa y star jockey

The light fantastic Super-lasers blaze a trail

Gay Russian teens live in fear

2 The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13

Obama urged to get tough with Putin

Mali presidential candidate concedes

Mexican drug lords release riles US

Two charged after cyberbullying death

Israel and Palestinians to open talks

The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13 3

Eyewitnessed The weeks events in pictures Centre pages 24-25

Baghdad car bombs raise Iraq tensions

Nairobi airport reopens after blaze

Six killed as Indonesian volcano erupts

Chinese people smugglers arrested

Research links Sars-like virus to camels

Bangladesh holds human rights activist

China to trigger rain to ease drought

4 The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13

International news US surveillance

Obama publishes legal background to snooping

Pledges and reassurances: a presidents progress

The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13 5

Global mistrust US model of internet now in disrepute Comment, page 20

NSA review promised

6 The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13

Its every jockeys dream

Capital city of Africas millionaires

Julius Malema tactics likened to Hitler and Mussolini

The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13 7

Reform and rebrand Guinea starts to target corruption Development, page 45

Namibia wipes colonial era o the map

Losers challenge Mugabes election win in court

Indigenous bourse planned

8 The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13

Dams endanger ecology of Himalayas

New leader Xi Jinping opens door to reform in China

The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13 9

An industrial giant of colonial times, Kolkata falters as rest of India booms

India diary Gethin Chamberlain

10 The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13

Comment&Debate International news

Firebrand bidding for Russias soul

Gay teens in Russia face hatred and rejection

IOC reassured on Sochi Games

12 The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13

Migrants die at Sicilian resort

Italian laws tackle abuse of women

Rail safety under review after Galicia crash, say bosses

The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13 13

Yemen drone strikes increase

Most US embassies reopen in Middle East and Africa

Irans political prisoners urge Obama to seek detente

14 The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13

Sharing economy here to stay

The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13 15

Nations exercise levels shockingly low

16 The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13

Bank pledges to keep interest rates low

Buy-to-let mortgages help fuel house price boom

The Guardian Weekly 16.08.13 17