Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, with parliamentary colleagues, at an event in support of the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill, which will protect and extend the right of scientists to perform crucial stem-cell research.
The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.
But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper.
Which is odd, because it means that footage of the Free Tibet Olympic torch harassing in London, Paris or San Francisco must have squeezed past Chinese censors.
The Obama Campaign has an online map, where campaigners can track the wins and losses of the marathon primary season. Andrew Sullivan replicates it approvingly on the Daily Dish, I assume to demonstrate the popularity of the Illinois senator, who he supports.
But this is childsplay - first, because the states vary in population density, so a large swathe of one colour may be less significant than smaller pockets of another. Second, since the Democratic Primary process is no longer modelled on the winner-takes-all system for delegates, the colour of the state is less relevant. I would like to see a county-by-county map.
Many Democrats and even more internationalists will recall the dismay of seeing the electoral map turn bright red in the 2004 Presidential Election, as George W Bush crawled to re-election. I am reminded of a couple of articles I saw around that time: First, the concept of Purple States reminds us just how diverse public opinion can be, even in ’safe’ Republican States. Related to that is The Stranger’s editorial on the Urban Archipeligo, which shows how political preferences relate to the town-country divide, and shows a county-by-county breakdown of how people voted in 2004. Its the map I show British people when they enmbark on a lazy whine about “stupid Americans“.
What all these maps highlight is the divisiveness of American politics. How the the country is essentially embroiled in a bitter cultural war which began in the 1960s. That’s fine, and probably an accurate portrayal of the political landscape. However, Barack Obama’s campaign is based on the promise of reconciling the “two Americas” in a post-Bush consensus. So its odd that he, of all people, is dealing in this kind of deceptive mappery.
As the farcical torch relay reaches India, and Western political leaders fret over whether to boycott the Beijing Games, Adrian Hamilton has a cheeky route out of the impasse:
I have a suggestion for breaking out of the impasse over the issue of Tibet and the Olympics. It is for the West to make the Dalai Lama the arbiter of whether we should attend the opening ceremonies or not.
Did I mention I’d met the Dalai Lama. I did? Oh, well, sorry to have troubled you.
I saw this aged notice tatooed onto a wall in Westminster, just off Smith Square. That’s the nice thing about living in old cities - there’s a piece of history on every corner.
I wonder if the vaults are still there, or whether they have been turned into luxury, windowless apartments for rich agraphobics.
I am finding the coverage of the recent gap-year crash in Ecuador rather uncomfortable. No less a broadcaster than the BBC could be found broadcasting the collapse of two grieving parents.
What is so cruel about this kind of coverage is the way in which the bereaved feel somehow obliged to co-operate with the media. The poor couple, Mr and Mrs Swann, looked like rabbits caught in headlights. But to refuse to go on TV to “pay tribute” to their daughter Indira Swann would now be seen as somehow dishonouring her memory.
All the crucial details of the incident are known. There is no wider political or social side to a tragic accident. That the roads in Ecuador are clearly very bad is undoubtedly a development issue. But the only thing that makes this a “second-day” story is the participation of the parents.
What are the chances that a news columnist will become indignant over the symbolism of this? “We are only interested in the story because they are good looking”, “gap years are the finishing school for the middle-class” etcetera. Or a mile-by-mile account of the survivors’ repatriation. Anything to print the photos of those five pretty women again.
Here’s an interesting video of a debate between British ex-pats Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens. They discuss Barack Obama’s faith, and its role in his campaign. Sullivan thinks Obama’s approach is refreshing and necessary to break the crippling deadlock in American political discourse. Meanwhile, Hitchens thinks that the Senator’s association with the Reverend Jerimiah Wright will be his Achilles Heel.
Having consumed a lot of Sullivan’s Daily Dish recently, I am persuaded by his analysis. However, I worry that Hitchen’s cynicism will win out in the end.
I do like this talking head type of TV. Its simplicity is perfect for the Internet.
A couple of years ago I was part of the team that produced The Unrecognized, a film highlighting the plight of the Bedouin population of the Negev (Naqab) desert in southern Israel. Despite having lived and worked on the land since the time of the British Mandate and before, their settlements and farms are not acknowledged by the state. Despite paying taxes, the residents are denied basic services such as water and healthcare, which their Jewish neighbours in the area take for granted.
Their story has been in the news again recently, due to a recent report by Human Rights Watch that renews the criticism of Israel’s discriminatory laws.
Highlighting the the terrible plight of the Bedouin is an important element in the campaign to end the discriminatory policies of the Israeli state. While campaigners in the West Bank and Gaza are undermined by the extremism of Hamas and its surrogates, no such counter exists for the Bedouin, who welcome their status as part of the Israeli state, and just want to be treated as equals within it. This gives the lie to the idea that Israeli discrimination is simply a response to Arab aggression in the region. Instead, it demonstrates the state’s drive towards ethnic purity, and the inevitable denial of human rights this entails.
For those of us who have visited the Naqab, some of the propaganda disseminated by Zionist groups is quite galling. The JNF extorts people to come and live in the Negev with pioneering slogans such as “You See a Desert, We See an Opportunity” which implies that the land is empty and uncultivated. In fact, as our film The Unrecognized shows, much of the land has already been farmed… by the Bedouin. Our film shows state authorities ploughing up crops that have been planted by Bedouin farmers, and that many kibbutzes were actually established not on new desert ground, but on land that was forcibly taken from its Bedouin owners. The JNF fails to acknowledge the existence of the Bedouin in its publicity material, which has an air of sinister idealism as a result. Gordon Brown, a patron of the charity, should insist that its activities do not discriminate against minority groups. Israel could be a beautiful place to settle, work and live, but only if all its peoples are treated equally.
Cross posted at the LiberalConspiracy, where all comments should be directed, I reckon.
I know its perhaps a forced comparison, but I wonder if there aren’t some similarities between the Presidential elections in Zimbabwe, and the Presidential Primaries in the USA. Not, of course, between the policies, candidates or the reliability of the democratic process. I am thinking more terms of concepts like momentum, perception, and the role of bit-players in the race.
Over the past months, watching Obama overtake Clinton in the polls, and watching John McCain come from near bankruptcy to seal the Republican nomination, its clear that the art of PR is crucial to the winning of an election, and I think the MDC need to be similarly savvy in shaping the message in Zimbabwe. What is tortuous just now, is watching the momentum that the opposition party built-up towards the vote of Saturday, slowly disperse as the results are further ‘delayed’. This uncertainty allows people to doubt, and consider where their allegiances lie. The relatively long delay between Primaries seems to have hurt Obama in a similar manner.
Crucial to both examples is the role played by supporting characters in the contest. It seems very much as if the Zimbabwean security chiefs will play King-maker in that country, while the so-called ’super delegates’ will probably have a similar role in the Democratic Convention in Denver. In both cases, pundits will look to see how these people ‘break’ to one candidate or another. Each faction seeks to persuade the power-brokers that they are the inevitable choice, although in both the African and American examples, this can never be conclusively proved. Each candidate seeks to prompt a stampede of power-brokers in their direction. They need to engineer a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is, of course, profoundly depressing and anti-democratic, since the actual number of votes cast for a given candidate becomes just one of many factors in the decision making process, and not the last word on the matter. However, the one source of optimism in this is that we are reminded how fragile a person’s grip on power can be. Mugabe is more weak now than he has ever been, and that’s purely a perception thing.
In the case of the US Primaries and the Zimbabwe elections, what we need know is a killer blow to definitively swing the power-brokers. In America, I would say that the endorsement of Al Gore, rightly timed, could be crucial. In the Zimbabwean case, it is probably the actions of South African President Thabo Mbeki that could break Mugabe. Do either men have the cojones to make history, or are they waiting to see which way the wind is blowing too?
It looks like others have draw a similar parallel, with similar provisos. (via Patrick at the Daily Dish).
Zimbabweans have voted in presidential elections. Good luck to them.
Ten years ago, I was living in Zimbabwe, working for the charity SOS. I lived in Chiwaridzo, a township attached to the town of Bindura, a mining town and capital of the Mashonaland Central province. Its one of the northern provinces currently being described as ‘Mugabe’ country, and he has been holding rallies in the area in the run up to today’s vote. About an hour from Harare, Bindura sits at the top of the Mazowe Valley, one of the most fertile parts of the country.The period 1997/98 was a very interesting time to be in Zimbabwe. In retrospect, it was the turning point in the country’s fortunes and its international reputation. At the start of my time there, the economy was in rude health, with the exchange rate sitting at about seventeen Zim dollars to the pound.
The new British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, met Robert Mugabe. A photo of the two men appeared on the front page of the Herald, Zimbabwe’s state owned newspaper. (I remember it well, because the obnoxious white farmer who showed me the photo pointed out how both men were sitting with their legs crossed. “What a couple of poofters,” he said, and I was too young and nervous to challenge this casual prejudice). So when people say that Mugabe has spent the last 28 years ruining his country, remember that only a decade ago he was a leader of good international standing. He was not an international pariah in 1998, nor was he in the business of demonizing the British in the manner he does today. (more…)