Professional Documents
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Incorporating material from the Observer, Le Monde and the Washington Post
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Everything must go ... many European countries are ogging national assets to escape debt Corbis estimated that privatisation could raise, at best, 1bn to 2bn a year. Portugal is also in stark need of money after accepting a 78bn bailout. Last week the newly elected centre-right prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, announced a rush sale of state holdings in the utility company Energias de Portugal and the power-grid operator REN by October. Passos Coelho recently told the Financial Times that he wanted to sell o up to 49% of water utilities as well as several state media interests, plus the national news agency Lusa. The state airline TAP and the airport owner ANA which runs airports in Lisbon, Faro, Oporto and the Azores are also due to be sold along with the insurance business of the state-run bank CGD, although the government had not given a time frame. Portugal will also be selling o real estate belonging to its civil governors oces, which are being scrapped. Spain is not as badly indebted as other European countries, but bond yields have soared and its socialist government, led by Jos Luis Rodrguez Zapatero, has set strict decit targets to avoid the fate of its southern European neighbours. The worlds biggest annual lottery payout, Spains famous Christmas El Gordo (Fat One) is to be partially sold. The 151-year-old El Gordo will become what may be the worlds biggest listed gambling company, valued at up to 25bn. The company recorded 3bn net profit in 2009 on sales of 9.8bn meaning the sell-o will reduce treasury income by about 1bn a year. British bank RBS recently won a contract to run the privatisation of up to 49% of Spains airports authority, AENA, which has a book value of 2.6bn. The government also plans to auction off Continued on page 2
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News
Sell, sell, sell: Europes re sale
Continued from page 1 Madrids Barajas airport and Barcelonas El Prat by the end of the year. In Britain, the government is in the process of selling off the 49% state stake in the air trac control service Nats. It has also put on the block decommissioned naval ships and its collection of ne wine. In the March budget the chancellor, George Osborne, set a target of raising 2bn ($3.2bn) from asset sales to nance a green investment bank. The bulk of that is coming from the sale of its remaining stake in Nats and the Tote, the government-owned bookmakers. The private bookmakers Betfred have been chosen to buy the Tote for a reported price of 200m. Ministers will decide this summer whether to proceed with the sale of the student loan book and in the March budget, the Treasury indicated that plans for a new Public Data Corporation would involve selling public data to the private sector. Plans in the budget to sell o government buildings have been stymied by the poor property market and many departments are opting to sweat their assets instead by squeezing more people into the buildings to get out of expensive leases elsewhere. But plans to sell off as much as 150,000 hectares of woodland in England in the biggest sale of public land for nearly 60 years were conrmed by MPs in October last year. The U-turn after a huge groundswell of public opposition came in February. In Ireland, while in theory the national airline, ports, power stations and even the Irish National Stud face being broken up or sold o under plans to get the country out of the red, theres doubt about many of the plans. A government-commissioned review of state assets in April said privatisation could raise about 5bn. Energy suppliers, transport and sporting assets, including Rosslare port, Dublin Bus and the governments 25% stake in Aer Lingus, which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, were earmarked for divestment. However, the plans could end up in the shredder. The report was attacked in parliament and the government agreed there would be no re sale of assets and certainly no sale until market conditions improve. Joe Higgins, a Socialist member of parliament, branded the privatisation blueprint a neoliberal hucksters deal which will involve pawning the assets of the people to pay o moneylenders. Top of the governments wish list is the sale of its stakes in the ve bailedout banks, but until they emerge from the wreckage, buyers are unlikely to be found.
Greek plan seen as default, page 17
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International news
Passing the parcel The US system of nuclear waste disposal is a farce Review, page 30
Haven children of displaced Nubian families shelter in the hills Phil Moore
Threatening the lives of millions ... at Kenyas Dadaab camp Getty Images and repair existing water sources. The NGO is also introducing drip irrigation schemes in Ethiopia to ensure water is better directed to the root of the crop to avoid the loss of excess water. But, as Claire Hancock, Tearfunds disaster management project ocer for east and central Africa, says: You cant forget this is sub-Saharan Africa, which is a challenging environment and this is going to keep happening for some of these people. And with climate change this is going to happen more frequently and will be worse each time. As well as two successive bad harvests in the region, food price rises and climate change, Hancock says it is important to look at the wider issues such as access to markets, and soil erosion and land tenure which, if addressed, could make farmers more food secure. Tearfund works in many communities where farmers and pastoralists do not have sucient access to land or land tenure and some Tearfund partners in some countries are lobbying for this to change. The NGO is joining a growing number of organisations pushing for an international commitment to address climate change concerns, but it is also encouraging its partners on the ground to press national governments to address the particular concerns of the communities in which they work.
International news
Winner Yingluck Shinawatra will be Thailands rst female PM Getty ister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, said he would quit as party leader, though his righthand man, Surichoke Sopha, a Democrat MP, said he believed the party still wanted Abhisit. He added: I dont think this [Puea Thai] government will last long ... They will have to compromise with the ruling class and at the same time satisfy the grassroots. The country has become polarised between Thaksin supporters, particularly the rural poor and new money, and the old elites that sought to keep him from power with the support of the urban middle classes. The split became wider when more than 90 people died as the military cracked down on Thaksin-supporting protesters in the centre of Bangkok last year. While redshirt leaders were jailed over the demonstrations, the government refused to acknowledge that the army had caused any deaths. General Prawit Wongsuwan, a former army chief close to leaders involved in the ousting of Thaksin, also said the military would not intervene or stop Yingluck forming a government. I can assure you that the military has no desire to stray out of its assigned roles, he told Reuters. The army accepts the election results. Political analyst Chris Baker cautioned: They always say they have nothing to do with politics and then they keep interfering. But he added: They are obviously feeling quite sensitive after the last five years. They
International news
A US official in Pakistan accused the government of engaging in diplomacy by headline but refused to comment further. The spat marks another low point in Pakistan-US relations after the raid to kill Osama bin Laden on 2 May and the furore over a CIA agent, Raymond Davis, who shot dead two men in Lahore in January. Pakistans military and the ISI intelligence service have sought to restrict CIA activities by seeking lists of spies, closing intelligence co-operation centres, and restricting visas for US personnel. The US, meanwhile, is trying to repair the relationship, recognising Pakistans importance in fighting al-Qaida. Although at least 120 military trainers have been ordered to leave the country, the US recently agreed to replace two Orion surveillance planes that were destroyed in a militant assault on a Karachi naval base in May.
International news
Favela reborn A renamed shantytown in Brazil rouses both hope and scorn Review, page 29
The supremes ... the consistency of the new justices may reect the greater scrutiny that they undergo Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
he supreme court term that ended last week lacked the blockbuster decisions of years past but appeared to make one thing clear: George W Bush and Barack Obama got what they hoped for when they nominated the justices who will shape the courts future. Presidents have been disappointed by their nominees when they reach the bench. But this year, the four youngest justices separated neatly into the courts ideological wings and then presented a unied front. Obamas choices, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, agreed 94% of the time this term, according to statisticians at Scotusblog.com. The only pair that agreed more were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Bushs picks, who parted ways in only 4% of the courts decisions. Roberts joined the court in 2005, Alito the next year, Sotomayor in 2009 and Kagan last August and this term allowed the four to divide into debate partners. Alito and Sotomayor brought dierent lessons from their time as prosecutors and judges as they wrangled over criminal justice issues; he was more likely to
cite public safety, while she mentioned common sense. And it seemed like the opening act of what will be a very longrunning play when Kagan ended her rst term with a rare decision to read from the bench a rebuttal of Robertss opinion that struck down Arizonas campaign nance law. If conservatives never doubted Roberts and Alito, the left had questions about Sotomayors philosophy and the lack of a paper trail for Kagan. But Sotomayor has voted consistently with liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, and Kagan has written two powerful dissents in cases controlled by the conservative majority. By now there should be no question that Justice Kagan was ready to be a supreme court justice, said Paul Clement, solicitor general for Bush. Washington lawyer Gregory Garre, who succeeded Clement in the Bush administration, said that the consistency of the new justices, on the left and the right probably shows the greater scrutiny that goes into vetting nominees these days. But he and others warned against drawing too many conclusions from a session that lacked standout decisions, such as 2010s Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, which loosened campaign nance restrictions on corporations and unions. First amendment cases dominated the courts agenda.
The justices overwhelmingly agreed that even hurtful speech on public issues deserves protection, ruling in favour of Westboro Baptist churchs right to picket the funerals of fallen troops. Alito was the lone dissenter. The court extended the protection to some forms of commercial speech, and said free speech rights mean that a state may not prohibit the rental or sale of violent video games to minors. And the conservative majority invoked political speech rights to strike down Arizonas law giving matching public money to candidates with well-funded opponents. The court looked and sounded dierent, with Kagan boosting the number of women on the bench to a historic high. Lisa Blatt, a Washington lawyer who holds the record for arguments before the court by a female attorney, noted the new triumvirate of Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan as sharp questioners in oral arguments.
This year, the four youngest justices separated neatly into the courts ideological wings
But some things dont change. Justice Anthony Kennedy remains the most inuential member of the court when ideological divides prevail. In the 16 cases decided by a vote of 5 to 4, he was in the majority in all but two. In the few cases in which liberals prevailed including a ruling that California must reduce the number of prison inmates or that children must be treated dierently when given Miranda warnings [made aware of their rights when arrested] it was because Kennedy sided with them. Twice as often, the Ronald Reagan appointee voted with the courts consistent conservatives. Perhaps reecting the nature of the cases this term, the percentage decided unanimously or with only one dissenting vote 63% was an all-time high for the court headed by Roberts. Harmony may be more illusive next term. The court already has agreed to decide the Federal Communications Commissions authority to police the airwaves for indecency, the governments power to track suspects with global positioning systems and unions ability to collect dues. Waiting in the wings are Arizonas immigration law, same-sex marriage, armative action in higher education and, depending on how quickly lower courts move, the Aordable Care Act. Clement said: Not all supreme court terms are created equal. Washington Post
International news
Target Obama is under pressure to make a deal on Capitol Hill Reuters pass budget bills, another to borrow the money. There have been plenty of rows about the borrowing limit in the past. But after compromises, the limit has always been raised before the US treasury ran out of cash. This year may be dierent. With US debt at levels unseen in 60 years, Republicans are insisting on at least $2tn in spending cuts over 10 years and no tax increases. If a deal cannot be reached before 2 August, the treasury says it will be forced to default on its debts. No one knows quite what that means. Will it choose to stop paying interest, a move that could trigger a global financial crisis? Or will pensioners, soldiers, contractors and other government workers nd Uncle Sam welching on his bills? Either way, economist argue, nancial markets could go into meltdown. When you start to voluntarily jeopardise the perceived integrity of your government in nancial markets, you are creating long-term difficulties, said David Levy, of the Jerome Levy forecasting centre. Last week 235 senior economists wrote to Washingtons bigwigs, warning: Reaching the limit on total outstanding debt could force a dramatic and sudden cut in federal spending that would destroy jobs and threaten the recovery. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics, said: Our biggest problem now is the fragile nature of the recovery. Condence is lacking. If anything goes o track, people freeze. He predicts that if the row continues nancial markets distracted in recent weeks by Greece will start to get more and more unsettled. If we get to August, things will get a lot worse. Even if an agreement cannot be
Arab unrest
Reconciliation talks between Bahrains Sunni-led government and the majority Shia opposition have begun after four months of protests against the regime. The main Shia opposition party, Al Wefaq, decided at the last minute to join the governmentled talks, which opened in the capital, Manama. Parliamentary speaker Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Dhahrani hailed the gathering of about 300 delegates from dierent parties and government-linked groups as a historic opportunity for all of us to overcome this critical stage of the nations history through dialogue. The Sunni monarchy has made token concessions ahead of the national dialogue, including sanctioning an international investigation into the conduct of the security forces. But the government has not relented on opposition demands to free all detainees and clear other demonstrators, including eight activists jailed for life last month. The ercest street ghting seen in central Cairo since the fall of Hosni Mubarak has left more than 1,000 people injured, as popular dissatisfaction with the military-led transitional government boiled over into violence. In what analysts called a critical turning point in Egypts revolution, several thousand people clashed with heavily armed riot police in and around Tahrir Square last week, leading to dozens of arrests. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces blamed sedition and vowed to hunt down those responsible. Protesters chanted demands for the resignation of Egypts de facto leader, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, as security forces red teargas and rubber bullets into the crowds. There has been growing frustration among many sections of the public over the slow pace of reform since an 18-day uprising toppled Mubarak and ushered in a military junta, which promised to hand power to a democratically elected civilian government later this year. Thousands of people protested in Morocco last Sunday over constitutional reforms they said did not go far enough, but an ocial said they were outnumbered by people demonstrating in support of the changes. Moroccos King Mohammed VI handed over some of his powers to elected ocials in a referendum viewed in other Arab monarchies as a test case for whether reform can hold back the wave of uprisings. The reforms were endorsed by 98.5% of people who voted in the referendum last Friday, said the interior ministry, but opponents say the gures were inated. Protesters marched through a working-class district of Tangier, chanting: The interior minister is a liar!
Family protest ... Syrians in Cairo at citizens in Karm al-Sham on 1 July without any reason and no demonstrations. The cameraman is lming from an upper oor against a background of chanted slogans. Jerky images of the street and balconies are followed by a blurred glimpse of a man in olive green, standing in the shadows, carefully moving forward and raising and ring a weapon followed by a single shot, moaning, and distraught voices pleading for help. The cameramans identity is not known. Foreign journalists and human rights groups are largely banned from Syria and it has not been possible
International news
Accused Hugo Chvez now has too much power, Chomsky believes Getty ternal threat of attack, thats a legitimate debate. But my own judgment in that debate is that it does not. Chomsky, a linguistics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke on the eve of publishing an open letter that accuses Venezuelas authorities of cruelty in the case of a jailed judge. The self-described libertarian socialist says the plight of Mara Lourdes Auni is a glaring exception in a time of worldwide cries for freedom. He urged Chvez to release her in a gesture of clemency for the sake of justice and human rights. Chomsky reveals he has lobbied Venezuelas government behind the scenes since late last year after being approached by the Carr centre for human rights policy at Harvard
UK politics
Key recommendations
A cap of 35,000 on lifetime individual liability for care costs. Food and accommodation costs not capped, but liability limited to 10,000 a year. Assets threshold for cut-off of state support raised from 23,250 to 100,000. New national eligibility criteria for state support, set no higher than current denition of substantial needs. Free care for life for all disabled children and anyone developing eligible care needs by the age of 40. All local councils to oer loans to homeowners to pay care costs.
Members of the Dilnot commission will be disgusted if the government shelves their recommendations , a commission member warned. Dame Jo Williams, one of three members of the commission, said: Its time for action. It seems to us that people have already waited for change far too long and want more than talk now. The report is designed to alleviate fears of losing savings and homes. If ministers kicked it into the long grass, the commission would certainly be disappointed, Williams said. But disappointment is not an adequate word; disgusted comes to mind. But disgusted of the Dilnot commission, we hope not to be, she added. Dilnot said that the existing funding system was confusing, unfair and unsustainable. The proposals for change would cost the government an initial 1.7bn a year 0.25% of total public spending which was a price well worth paying. Although the commission wished to see its proposals implemented with pace, Dilnot said, it did not expect immediate acceptance by ministers. Downing Street rejected suggestions that the commissions report had been dead on arrival and would now simply be shelved by ministers. The prime minister welcomes the report, a No 10 spokeswoman said. This whole area is complex, as well as multifaceted. The whole funding issue is not something that can be looked at in isolation. We have always said there is a price tag, but we are not going to back away from the issue. Michelle Mitchell, charity director at Age UK, the biggest older peoples charity, said the report, which applies only to England and Wales, set out a clear blueprint for sustainable reform.
the austerity plans. Thousands of parents had to take a day o work with nearly 6,000 schools closed and 5,000 partly closed. In total, half of schools were aected. Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: Teachers cant stand back and see their pensions attacked when all the evidence shows they are affordable and sustainable and that their costs are falling. Downing Street said just half of members of the PCS the civil service union took part. Some rival unions also turned on the strikers, accusing them of a tactical error. Figures compiled by government departments suggested that 100,000 civil servants had walked out, reducing services at job centres, tax and benefit offices, ports, courts and airports. PCS insisted 200,000 people took action.
Polly Toynbee, page 21
British government ofcials approached nuclear companies to draw up a coordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known. Internal emails show how the business and energy departments worked behind the scenes with multinationals EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail plans for a new generation of nuclear plants in the UK. A project to replace 46 re control centres in England with nine regional sites was condemned as a comprehensive failure in a damning report that says at least 469m ($755m) of taxpayers money has been wasted. The National Audit Oce criticised the FiReControl project as awed from the onset and accused the Department for Communities and Local Government of rushing into it, managing it poorly and failing to follow proper procedure. The project, launched in 2004, was axed in December, with no IT system delivered, and eight of the nine purpose-built regional control centres remaining empty. Patients face increasingly long delays for organ transplants, with the average wait for a new heart rising almost 70% over three years and patients needing a new kidney having to hang on for 20% longer, NHS gures show. More than 7,500 people need an organ transplant and an average of three a day die while waiting, the NHS Blood and Transplant service said, launching a campaign for more people to sign up to the organ donation register. One of Britains top police ocers has warned that the governments police reform programme, combined with spending cuts, risks compromising public safety. Sir Hugh Orde, the president of the Association of Chief Police Ocers, warned that if the introduction of elected police commissioners, the creation of a national crime agency and other changes were mismanaged they risked undermining the historic British tradition of policing.
Pricey purchase? News Corporation insisted it would not overpay Reuters of 875p, which would cost News Corporation 9.3bn some 1.9bn more than the media giant was originally prepared to oer. Hunt said he was aware of the huge interest in the takeover, but thought that the undertakings to spin o Sky News were still sucient to ensure media plurality. He said he had made the undertakings more robust, by ensuring, for example, that it was necessary to have an independent director with senior journalism expertise present at Sky News board meetings where decisions on editorial matters are taken. City experts said Murdoch could agree the terms of a 9.4bn takeover bid as early as 29 July. Observers believe Hunt is keen to give nal conrmation by 19 July, when the summer parliamentary recess begins. Chris Goodall, an analyst at Enders Research, said the two sides were likely to agree on price within a month of Hunts nal approval. Nick Bell, equity analyst at Jeeries, said there was a strong possibility the two sides would reach agreement on price by 29 July to tie-in with BSkyBs nancial results. But it was not clear if the spun-o Sky News would be viable.
Finance
Collision course ... French and German proposals have been thrown into disarray Getty Images it will have to be the German nance ministry or the ECB. The Financial Times reported that the ECB will continue to accept Greek debt as collateral for loans unless all the major credit rating agencies it uses declare it to be in default. The ECB itself declined to comment on the S&P ruling. It is understood, however, that the central bank will not back down on its rule that bonds that have defaulted cannot be used as collateral. The onus is therefore on the French and German banks to come up with an alternative proposal that will not trigger a default, with the ECB expected to play an advisory role in the process. One source said: The way these things work is you come up with a proposal, the ratings agency puts out its assessment, then the proposal is adjusted, and the ratings agency reassesses it and so on. Im reasonably sure that the details of the French and German proposal could be adjusted in a way so that S&P doesnt view it as a default. S&P said that each of the two nancing options described in the proposal would likely amount to a default under our criteria. A default on Greek bonds would cause havoc across the nancial system, cutting the value of investors holdings and possibly leading to struggling economies such as Portugal and Ireland having their debts downgraded.
The Lagarde le
Born 1 January 1956 in Paris. At 18 a political intern in Washington. Graduated from law school in Paris; masters degree, Institut dtudes politiques, Aix-en-Provence. Best of times: In 2007 she was appointed French nance minister, becoming the rst woman to hold the post in any of the G8 countries. Worst of times: In 2007 a prosecutor called for a judicial review of her decision to intervene in a state dispute with tycoon Bernard Tapie, who won huge damages. What she says: It is a huge challenge that I am undertaking with a great deal of humility. What others say: She is enormously impressive, politically astute and a strong personality. Kenneth Rogo, former IMF chief economist Kim Willsher Observer Lagarde exceptional talent Lagarde, 55, has the support of most European states, and is seen as an ideal candidate to handle the IMF bailout of weak eurozone countries. Many observers felt the time had come for a non-European but India, China and Russia have backed Lagarde. She had the explicit support of states, including Indonesia and Egypt, representing more than half the IMFs 24 voting board members. Her closest rival, Mexican central banker Agustn Carstens, won endorsements from Mexico, Canada and Australia. Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin said: I think she has all the necessary qualities, and we support her candidacy. She will be able to make this key international organisation more dynamic and assure its future reform. Lagardes appointment caps a tumultuous time for the IMF, which has been led by Strauss-Kahns deputy, John Lipsky. Her rst move was to support the IMF-backed plans for austerity measures to tackle Greeces debt. Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, said: I dont think this was the right choice for Europe or the IMF. The IMFs policy in Greece, supported by Lagarde, had failed, and appointing another European sent the wrong signal to the rest of the world. You cant demand that these countries show greater responsibilities while continuing to exclude them from the top jobs.
Japanese scientists have discovered huge deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial for making electronics products such as smartphones, tablets such as the iPad and at-screen TVs, on the oor of the Pacic Ocean near Hawaii. The discovery could have important implications for the production of materials requiring rare earths such as tantalum and yttrium. China produces about 97% of the global supply. Business condence at major Japanese manufacturers tumbled to its lowest level in more than a year as the impact of the earthquake and tsunami became clearer, the central bank said, though it expects improvement later this year. The Bank of Japans quarterly tankan survey of business sentiment shows that the main index for large manufacturers was at its lowest level since March 2010. Bank of America has agreed to pay $8.5bn to settle claims that it sold poor-quality mortgage loans to investors ahead of the housing collapse. The settlement follows legal action from a group of 22 investors. The deal represents the single biggest settlement so far tied to the sub-prime mortgage boom and bust. Chinas economic boom showed signs of easing, with factory production growing at its slowest pace in more than two years in June. While the gures do not indicate a sharp drop-o in economic growth, they were slightly worse than foreseen and raised expectations that Chinas central bank may be less aggressive in tightening monetary policy this year. Investors are sensitive to wobbles in China when recovery in the US and Europe is faltering.
Foreign exchanges
Sterling rates (at close) 4 July 1.50 1.54 8.26 1.11 12.50 129.82 1.94 8.60 1.97 10.07 1.36 1.61 27 June 1.53 1.58 8.36 1.12 12.46 129.45 1.99 8.75 1.99 10.31 1.34 1.60
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Comment&Debate
The economic crisis has only intensied the implosion of political legitimacy. Multinationals, not nation states, now rule
n 24 March the Portuguese prime minister, Jos Scrates, resigned after all the opposition parties rejected his austerity plan, which included slashing pensions by more than 1,500 ($2,200) a month and more cuts in tax benets. His governments collapse triggered an election, which could not take place for another two months. During the interim Scrates stayed on as acting prime minister and reached an agreement with the EU and the International Monetary Fund for a 78bn bailout. The terms? Almost exactly the same as those proposed by him and rejected by the Portuguese parliament six weeks earlier. When the elections nally took place the political class could sense a certain degree of cynicism. The Portuguese president, Anbal Cavaco Silva, warned voters they could not complain about what politicians did at a time of sacrice and serious doubts about our future if they did not take part. But the future had already been decided. With major economic decisions rejected and then imposed by powers beyond their control, there was precious little to vote on. At 58%, turnout was the lowest since Portugal became a democracy. [When people] see the prime minister go to Brussels to announce austerity measures, they understand that the government itself decides very little, the political analyst Marina Costa Lobo told Agence France-Press. The basic assumption about electoral politics in a democracy is that the process connects popular will to political power. In the absence of that fundamental assurance, disaection and the cynicism that comes with it are almost inevitable. In the gap between democratic aspirations and the stasis of the political class, legitimate resentments fester. Where solutions are needed, scapegoats are oered. With a handful of exceptions (including the US), voter turnout is falling across the globe while condence in electoral politics is fading. This is not a new dilemma. The question of how to render democratic engagement viable at the national level within the context of neoliberal globalisation has been a key question for some time. By many measures, corporations are more central players in global aairs than nations, writes Benjamin Barber in Jihad vs McWorld. We call them multinational but they are more accurately understood as postnational, transnational or even anti-national. For they abjure the very idea of nations or any other parochialism that limits them in time or space.
But the nature of the economic crisis has intensied the implosion of democratic legitimacy within nation states and made the consequent contradictions particularly acute. When the Greeks default and how is a matter for the EU, the IMF, the bond markets. The Greeks will nd out with the rest of us. In this context the huge demonstrations on the streets of Athens and elsewhere, while encouraging to the left on an emotional level, seem more like expressions of impotent rage than a strategic intervention. It is telling that the youth protest movement that has emerged around Europe is called the indignant ones. Theyre angry. But there is little sense that they see the polling booths as a means to get even, or that some other route has emerged that might also be eective. This comes more by way of critique than criticism. For now anger may be all that is available. The big question is whether any political force is capable of stemming the tides of globalisation of capital, trade, nance, industry, criminality, drugs and weapon tracking, terrorism, and the migration of the victims of all these forces, writes the eminent sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, who has spearheaded much of the thinking in this area. While having at their disposal solely the means of a single state. his global south, saddled with colonial legacies, overbearing neighbours, interfering sponsors, is no stranger to these democratic decits. In June 2009 the Haitian parliament unanimously passed a law that would raise the minimum wage to $5 a day. Given Haitis endemic poverty and brittle democratic culture, the fact that an elected parliament could pass a law that would earn such popular support was encouraging. The US thought otherwise. According to WikiLeaks, the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy, David Lindwall, insisted the law did not take economic reality into account but was a populist measure aimed at the unemployed and underpaid masses. A series of articles based on the WikiLeaks cables by a Haitian paper, Haiti Libert, in collaboration with the US magazine the Nation, revealed how the US then lobbied alongside factory owners, including contractors for some of the priciest jeans and underwear in the west, to force the 60 cents an hour rate in the poorest nation in the western hemisphere even lower. They pressured the former Haitian president, Ren Prval, to undermine the popular democratic will in the interests of greater prots for garment manufacturers until he created two-tier minimum wage with workers in the textile industry getting just $3 a day. Two years later, during presidential elections, the US was back, interfering even as it preached democracy and good governance. The countrys main party, Fanmi Lavalas, was excluded and turnout was only 24%. The former singer Michel Martelly who has previously allied himself with coup leaders and a convicted human rights abuser was elected with the help of a Spanish marketing company. Martellys victory crudely illustrates the broader nature of electoral politics in a period in which the outcome has little relationship to who wields power. For without that basic connection two key questions arise. Why vote if real power resides beyond democratic control? And why stand if you wont be able to do anything? The rst is answered in the low turnouts. But the second answer comes by way of the transformation of a singer into a politician by way of marketing. This is not to say that voting is necessarily a waste of time. The outcomes of national elections can be relevant but the parameters for that relevance are narrowing to within fairly slim margins. National electorates may chose the protagonists. But increasingly it is global economics that shapes the narrative.
How can we render democratic engagement viable at the national level within the context of globalisation?
Comment&Debate
Its encouraging to see the US acknowledge the nancial hole that it is in. Its a pity that Americans cannot agree how to get out of it
his week the US celebrated its Independence Day. As we all know, 15 years ago an alien invasion, deploying giant saucershaped warships hovering over earth, was repulsed by the ingenuity, true grit and heroism of US forces, leading a worldwide coalition of the willing. President Thomas J Whitmore declared that the Fourth of July would henceforward be celebrated as Independence Day not just for the US but for the entire world. Its just a movie, of course, but the 1996 blockbuster returns us to a moment when America seemed to rule supreme, all-powerful, irresistible, in life as in the movies. The new Rome, Prometheus unbound, boasting the mightiest military the world has ever seen: here was the hyperpower at the heart of a unipolar world. What a dierence 15 years make. The mightiest military the world has ever seen has since fought two major wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither of them can be called resounding victories. Iraq, which dominated US debate for so many years, is largely forgotten in the US media. Its history in the American usage of the phrase. Afghanistan is not over yet. The country is still far from basic security, let alone liberal democracy. But, despite mutterings from his military commanders, Barack Obama has declared that American troops will be pulling out according to his preordained timetable. The US, he says, needs to concentrate on nation-building at home. Most Americans seem to agree. The latest Pew poll has 56% of them saying US troops should be brought home from Afghanistan as soon as possible. A recent blog compares Obama with another leader who pulled out of Afghanistan after a decade of military action so as to concentrate on economic and social reconstruction at home. It describes the US president as Barack Gorbachev. Well, hang on. To compare the US in 2011 with the Soviet Union in 1988 is to highlight the huge dierences between them. Maybe a comparison with Britain in 1911 would be nearer the mark. Yet clearly the US is wrestling with its own version of the kind of economic, social and political problems that tend to accumulate whenever a country has been a great power for some time. I sometimes think that the only trouble with the historian Paul Kennedys famous book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers is that it was published a quarter-century too early, and picked the wrong rising power. Appearing in 1987, shortly before the Soviet Union collapsed
and Japan went into a decade of stagnation, it could be dismissed by bullish Americans as scaremongering. But imagine it being rst published this year, and identifying China as the rising power. The US carries some of the burdens of strategic overstretch that Kennedy described. The cost to the US of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other post-9/11 operations, has been calculated at nearly four times that of the cost to the US of the second world war, in todays dollars. Because of the tremendous growth of the American economy this translates into a much smaller proportion of GDP: an estimated 1.2% in 2008, as against 35.8% in 1945. But the decade of worldwide armed struggle initially forced on the US by Osama bin Laden but then followed by a war of choice in Iraq has devoured a much larger percentage of Americans time, attention and energies. Even when Washington tries to leave a conict to others, as with Libya, it keeps getting dragged in as, so to speak, the military lender of last resort.
The US is wrestling with the problems that accumulate whenever a country has been a great power for some time
Matt Kenyon
eside strategic overstretch, the US suers from welfare overstretch. In this respect the dierences between Europe and the US are smaller than most people on both sides of the Atlantic imagine. Our self-images differ more than the realities. According to Peter Orszag a former director of the White House Oce of Management and Budget Medicare, Medicaid and social security will account for almost half of American government spending by 2015. The other half is mostly interest payments on the countrys soaring debt and discretionary spending, with about half of the latter going on defence. In some individual states, such as California, the scal picture is even more grim. So public spending has to be cut, yet the countrys own infrastructure shows all the marks of long neglect. Every time I come back to the US, I am struck by the signs of visible decay. Beyond the potholes there are much deeper issues, such as the shortfalls in primary and secondary education. Far from leading the world in the rankings of OECDs programme for international student assessment, the US hovers around the middle. Only its universities are still second to none. To address these deep structural problems America needs decisive political action across party lines. On this, most agree. This is what Obama promised in the brief, unforgettable dawn of 2008-09. This is what he has so far failed to deliver, in part through shortcomings of his own but mainly because it will require something close to an American Gorbachev on steroids to break through the countrys polarised politics. Last week the president vented his frustration at the latest example: partisan clihanging about lifting the countrys debt ceiling. A magnicent constitutional framework of checks and balances, designed to prevent the return of British tyranny, has atrophied into a system that makes reform almost more dicult than revolution. And this, too, is familiar from history. Over time, superpowers acquire dysfunctionalities that they can carry because of their sheer plenitude of wealth and power, rather as a super-strong athlete can carry deciencies in technique. When your strength wanes you suddenly need the technique; but it may be too late to get it back. Beside technique, there is the all-important condence. But the old American can-do optimism is shaken. Of course others are still worse o. The new Rome has not yet become the new Greece. But between the EU and the US it may now be a case of competitive decadence. America denitely still has the edge, but it was a Republican not a Democratic senator I heard say last year this country is going to become Greece, except we dont have the European Union to bail us out. That Americans have obviously now woken up to the hole theyre in is a sign of hope. Less encouraging is the fact that they cannot agree how to get out of it.
Comment&Debate
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Steve Bells blog Read the comments that were inspired by this weeks editorial cartoon http://bit.ly/Belltoon More than just Mladic Justice in the Balkans must encompass not just war criminals, but their whole communities http://bit.ly/MoreMladic History is best hands on The British Library-Google tie-up will make thousands of texts available. But nothing beats the thrill of an original document http://bit.ly/HandsonHistory
The pensions protest showed that private and public workers are not separate tribes, but are truly all in this together
he success of last weeks strike was not in numbers always unreliable on all sides but in exposing the government on the gold-plated public sector. Because the coalition does broad-brush bombast, not forensics, the paymaster general Francis Maude was wrong to claim pension costs were rising when John Huttons report shows costs already falling. The Oce for Budget Responsibility and the National Audit Oce say there will be no rise. Why? The public accounts committee credits Labours 2008 raising of civil servants retirement age from 60 to 65, with many public pensions already switched from nal salary to career average cheaper and fairer to the lower paid. All this was done with negotiation. Whats more, Hutton says there is no rush: this can wait until growth is healthier. That leaves only Camerons worst argument: public pensions are unfair because they are better than the private sector, where two-thirds of employees have none at all. But that has become the lightbulb moment, when people suddenly realise just how many employers contribute nothing, while the taxpayer gives generous relief to the richest: FTSE 100 directors get an average 3.4m ($5.5m) pension. Talking to strikers last Thursday, many only recently understood how much will be taken from their pay packets. Many of those on middling-to-below median pay face a hefty pay cut during a second year of pay freeze, with ination at 4 to 5%. I started out reporting on many industrial disputes through the 1970s, observing bitter conicts between sometimes brutish managements and sometimes bullying trade unionists. It would have been quite unthinkable to take sums such as these out of peoples pay, let alone to be cutting the pensions of those already retired. Surprisingly, the unions are less intransigent than you might expect: most accept there will be further cuts. In the decade to 2008, the high pay commission shows how the 34% GDP growth was so unfairly shared that 95% of the people received less while most went to the top 1%. The bottom 10% had nearly 10 times less than GDP growth. This year there were 50 times fewer strike days than in the dying days of the 1970s not 50
days, but 50 times fewer. However, to measure union power by strike days would be a mistake: where unions are strongest, they dont need to strike. In Germany and Scandinavia they are so woven into management and the national structure that co-operation, not confrontation, benets the economy. The 1970s ended in catastrophe for trade unionism. Now Labour needs to frame a new plan to give employees constructive power: Ed Miliband wants employees on remuneration committees, but they should be represented in boardrooms too. Last week the Tories tried to resurrect fears of the bad old 1970s but it didnt work. Cameron tried to paint Miliband as the creature of the unions that elected him: he sidestepped that trap and rightly castigated the governments behaviour over the pensions issue. A bit of history may help: as far as I can discover, no Labour party has ever ocially supported a strike, not the General Strike, nor any miners strike. Labour MP Shirley Williams was pilloried for joining the Grunwick picket line, but it wasnt party policy. Neil Kinnock was tormented for not backing the miners against Margaret Thatcher in 1984, or the six-month-long ambulance strike in 1989-90. Public sympathy usually wanes: for all the Brassed O popular romance, Arthur Scargill started out 2:1 against him and ended with 5:1 against. For Labour, a party aspiring to govern cant stand against an elected government, nor easily back producers against the people. Founded and nanced by the unions, Labour has always stood apart, but of course that makes the party writhe. Last week, according to Peter Kellner of YouGov, the people swung to support the public workers against Cameron by 50:40. But they didnt support the strike, with 50:40 against. The day of protest made its point forcefully, but unions need to nurture that public backing. Miliband says strikes are a sign of failure, but he needs to map out a better bargaining power for fairer distribution of wealth. As for Cameron, his divide-andrule strategy will fail. Had he talked to strikers, he would know how public and private workers are not separate tribes, but in the same households. All use public services and many move uidly between jobs in both sectors: truly all in this together.
theguardianweekly
Libya
8 July 1960
Reply
No danger of a bubble
I honestly dont see the danger in search engines, namely Google, customising our text queries and thereby, as Eli Pariser suggests, severely limiting us to a selfreinforcing world-view (In our own little internet bubbles, 24 June). Google is still a good, quick rst stop, an easy way of dipping into the huge worldwide glut of cheap information. But for quality ltering and critiquing of information, the discerning user should also rely on the sta of the Guardian and other trustworthy, intelligent journalists and librarians who have the experience and expertise to help us ward o what Pariser calls in his book, The Filter Bubble, a global lobotomy. I assume, however, that Pariser is most worried about those poor unfortunates who will lose their Faustian bargain with technology by becoming so severely personalised by algorithmic observers on Google that they will lose all their powers of discernment. He suggests that as a result they will become myopic, antipathetic and just plain unfriendly, trapped in a world where all their ideas are cloned. Richard Orlando Montreal, Canada
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UN Women and WHO, published by the WHO this year. Jane Cottingham Geneva, Switzerland
Gary Kempston
health services, or safe houses for women and children, or the academic or businesswoman mentoring younger women into careers, or the mother arguing for genderfree curricula, or the collectives advocating womens representation in government, boardrooms and policy development (Lets focus on the aws, 24 June). A fullling career, wonderful children, a lovely home and fabulous grooming? I think that was a margarine ad. Andrea Shoebridge South Perth, Western Australia
renewables, coal and browncoal will certainly play a major and possibly an increasing role in the energy mix. So, while the EU clamps down on turf cutters in rural Ireland, the big energy-producing companies are busy cutting turf here in the Rhineland area of Germany, only a few hundred kilometres away from those wise men in Brussels. This is a clear case of one rule for the small man and another rule for corporate business. But of course that doesnt come as a surprise, does it? Alan Mitcham Cologne, Germany
Briey
Figuratively speaking (17 June) states that the oldest person in the world, 114-year-old Maria Gomes Valentim, was born only eight years before the abolition of slavery in Brazil. In fact, slavery was abolished on 13 May 1888 and the lady must have been born seven or eight years later. Alaisdair Raynham Truro, UK Im afraid that Timothy Garton Ash didnt get it completely right (3 June). The primary ideal that the G20 group should pursue is not a free world, but a sustainable world. Ingo Niehaus San Jos, Costa Rica The piece by Costas Douzinas on the public crisis debates in Athens reminded me of an orator at Speakers Corner here who gave speeches advancing an Aristotelian view that the best way of lling positions of power and responsibility in society is to do so by lottery (24 June). The lottery approach has merit: it would be much fairer in giving all participants an equal chance to lead; and, within certain parameters, by taking the machinations out of it and relying on luck instead, theres every chance we would get better more truly democratic leadership. We should give it another try. Terence Hewton Adelaide, South Australia In recent talks with Taliban representatives, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan (24 June) apparently said: We would like our disgruntled Taliban brothers to come and accept the Afghan constitution, the gains of the past 10 years, democracy and the right of free press and women. Was he trying to oer the Taliban paradise on Earth and stop suicide bombers who only get such rewards after death? Felicity Oliver Ostermundigen, Switzerland
Comment&Debate
Understanding the cult of martyrs can help open our minds to the beliefs of others
hortly after I entered my convent in 1962, the entire community processed to the altar one Sunday evening to kiss a reliquary that, I was told, contained a fragment of Jesuss swaddling clothes. In those early days I was ready to swallow anything but I balked at this. It seemed as preposterous as the claim of Chaucers Pardoner that his pillowcase was a piece of the Virgin Marys veil. For similar reasons, I suspect, some may feel that the new exhibition at the British Museum, Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, is not for them. In recent years the museum has performed the immensely important task of helping the public to appreciate cultures, such as Babylonia, Shia Iran and Afghanistan, that play a critical role in contemporary politics; next year, there will be a major exhibition on the Hajj. But unless we come to terms with our own past, we cannot hope to understand the beliefs and enthusiasms of others. Far from being an unfortunate eruption of popular religion, historians such as Peter Brown have taught us that the cult of relics was in fact a serious attempt to explore the full dimensions of our humanity; surprisingly, it has much to teach us today. A ritualised journey to a holy place, where pilgrims encounter the divine, has been an important practice in nearly all religious traditions. The Hajj exhibition will show how crucial the pilgrimage to Mecca has been to Muslim spirituality, and Treasures of Heaven explores the development of Christian pilgrimage. Because Christians were persecuted by the Roman imperial authorities for nearly 300 years, they were unable to build their own cult centres. But by the time Christianity was legalised in 312, they had begun to locate the divine in other human beings, a controversial idea that inspired intense debates about the divinity of Jesus. If a mere man could embody the sacred, what were the implications for the rest of us? God became human, replied Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, so that humans can become divine. Nobody had revealed this divine dimension of humanity more clearly than the martyrs, who were revered as other Christs because they had followed Jesus to their death. Their tombs became the new Christian holy places. The physical remains (reliquiae) of the martyr, whose soul was now with God, were experienced as a direct link with heaven. As friends of God, martyrs could
intercede with Him on behalf of their devotees, in rather the same way as a patron in late Roman society mediated between the mighty and the powerless; the sick could thus nd healing and the destitute comfort. By the sixth century, the landscape of Europe was dotted with countless shrines, each containing a martyrs body or, more frequently, a bone, hair, drop of blood, or even something that had merely touched one of the martyrs relics. This was not simple credulity. Like many art forms, the rituals of the shrine were designed to evoke transcendence. Medieval pilgrims did not question a relics authenticity as we would today, because they had actually felt the martyrs powerful presence for themselves. At the end of an arduous journey weary, fasting, in a state of heightened anticipation they were primed for a transformative experience. We do not handle death very well in modern western society: we prefer to speak of somebody passing away and push the dying out of sight into hospices and nursing homes. But the relic forced pilgrims to come literally face to face with their mortality. They had to overcome their natural revulsion for a corpse by kissing the relic, pushing themselves into a new realisation: because humanity was divine, even dead esh, redolent of our ultimate defeat and corruption, could become pregnant with sacred power. The holy place became an image of the world as it ought to be. The shrine was home to societys rejects. The crippled, the destitute and the mentally ill were all given shelter and employment; they took part in processions in which aristocrats, slaves, rich and poor walked together. The holiness of the patron saint threw into relief the brutality of the late Roman patronage system, and the passio reminded pilgrims that he had been an innocent victim of a cruel imperial power. Finally the profane wealth of an oppressive aristocracy was redeemed in the exquisitely crafted golden reliquaries and transferred from the rich to the realm of the sacred. Like the medievals, we too have our limitations. Do we honour our humanity even our humble esh as sacred? And how do our celebrities measure up to the heroic gure of the martyr? By opening our minds to this initially alien symbolism, we can begin to learn, like Spinoza, the crucial art much needed today of making room in our minds for the other: I have laboured carefully, when faced with human actions, not to mock, not to lament, not to execrate, but to understand.
lleluia! The pope has won the race into digital space well, ahead of the archbishop of Canterbury, for one. With his own fair nger the holy man not only typed in a message launching his new media agency, but hit the holy return key. Believe it. Actually hes not the rst pope to tweet, just the rst genuine pope. He already has an altar ego, @Pope_ Vatican, who has told us all about his own eggs benedict and Dom Prignon 60th jubilee in breathy confessional style Time for mass! Big shout out to #Prada for the vestments = fabulous! I love being #Pope watch me live on #ewtn in 5 minutes! If the pope is serious about this, he must be himself better than the army of impersonators out there already. If he gets others to speak for him, he will lose in authenticity anything he may hope to gain by trendiness. Hes entering an environment he cant control, in which any truth claims will be tested, and hes as good as his last tweet. Hes got to learn to keep it short. First big decision. Why is he doing this? Is it to humanise himself, by allowing us all to see the person within the role? Thats a noble aspiration but it does require a willingness to take risks, and a commitment to personal alignment.
I was asked once by a senior ecclesiastic for a bit of help because he was told his internet output made him look vain, arrogant and self-important. I sucked my pencil long and hard before suggesting a rather lame solution Have you thought of being less vain, arrogant and self-important? Next up, his holiness needs to decide who to follow. The eld is currently wide open, as I see his address has issued 1,288 micro-diktats to its current 32,175 followers, but listens to nobody. No, really. It follows nobody. This is a problem because social media is interactive. If you dont listen theres no point turning up. Someone should tell his holiness. If they can get his ear. The pope will need to start following people as well as expecting them to follow him. Anyway, theres a principle in the Rule of St Benedict that the wise abbot listens carefully to the whole community, taking special care to hear the youngest and most challenging. They may be mad, or the voice of God. How could you ever know if you simply suppressed it? I hope, on best Benedictine grounds, he wont only be following the voices of those beholden to him. He will of course follow @stephenfry. Everybody does. Shame he cant follow @rowanwilliams because out there in digital space, where everybody can hear you scream, he doesnt exist. Yet.
Rotten tomatoes Investigating the knock-on eect of all-year-round salad crops Books, page 38
Vanishing lifeline
Water is essential, but Earths growing populations are draining supplies and wells are running dry. Theres no easy solution, says Damian Carrington
ind water and you nd life. This simple maxim guides scientists searching distant planets for aliens. But if the astrobiologists were to reverse their telescopes and look at our own globe, they would nd a conundrum: billions of people living in places with little or no water. That unsustainable paradox is now unravelling before our eyes in the Middle East and north Africa. The 16 most water-stressed states on Earth are all in that troubled region, with Bahrain at the top of the ranking from risk analysts Maplecroft. Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia and Syria follow not far behind. All are built on an environmental Ponzi scheme, using more water than they receive: 700 times more in Libyas case. Arguably the most fundamental of the causes of the Arab springs unrest is the crumbling of a social contract that linked cheap water with subservience to dictators. The regions population is rocketing 10,000 new mouths to feed each day
as grain production plummets. The deep, ancient aquifers that enabled crops to green the deserts are almost exhausted, and the oil that res the desalination plants to make up the loss is dwindling, too. Its a perfect storm of water, food and energy crises, two decades sooner than analysts expected. Across the world warning signs are ashing from the sinking of Mexico City as its aquifers are sucked dry to the docking of freshwater tankers in Barcelona. The worlds population tripled in the 20th century, but the thirst for water grew sixfold, most of it sprinkled on elds. The UN predicts that, by 2025, two-thirds of us will experience water shortages, with nearly 2 billion suffering severe shortfalls. Today China, struck by droughts in its agricultural heartlands, is the worlds biggest importer of virtual water: billions of tonnes of water to produce the food and other goods brought into the worlds most populous nation. China, with other water-stressed nations such as Saudi Arabia and South Korea, has
sought to acquire land in wetter places in order to grow and send food home. The so-called land grabs across the global south are the result. From Australia to Hong Kong to India to Spain, nations caught between the stormy equator and the damp high latitudes are running out of water. Global warming will evaporate more moisture, but this will fall in harder downpours in already wet areas rather than relieve arid lands. Desalination with 14,000 plants built is one solution, but is energy-intensive, expensive and heavy on carbon. Mega-engineering projects, such as Chinas 50-year south-north waterdiversion scheme, might oer relief, but at vast cost. Lack of clean water and sanitation in poor nations remains a problem. Ultimately, Ponzi schemes crash. Fresh or virtual water can be imported from distant rainy nations, but at a price many cannot aord. The ultimate solution is simple but challenging: plug leaks, recycle waste and treasure each drop. Case studies, page 26
Weekly review
Case study: El Paso
One maverick desert city teaches Texas how to beat the drought
When Ed Archuleta rst arrived in El Paso to manage the local water authority, the cotton barons and cattlemen who run this desert city had a blunt message for him. This is Texas: we dont do conservation. Its a good thing Archuleta didnt listen. As a record drought scorched Americas south-west this spring, El Paso went 119 days without rain. The Rio Grande, the border with Mexico, shrunk into its banks. An hours drive out of town, ranchers sold o cattle so they wouldnt have to watch them die. Archuleta saw no reason for panic even though, in his words, the amount of precipitation in the rst rain this year was about as much as someone spitting on a water gauge. Were going to be ne this summer, he said. Were basically drought-proof. The city will be ne next year, too, even if it doesnt rain and the Rio Grande stays low. Under Archuletas lead, El Paso has emerged as a model to other cities in the south-west forced to adapt in a hurry to a world running out of water. The prolonged dry spell and declining snowfalls in the mountains due to climate change are forcing cities into crisis measures. This years drought has for the rst time cajoled cities into water rationing. San Antonio banned all fountains and lawn sprinklers. Galveston asked citizens to avoid lling their swimming pools. Odessa, which could drain its main source of ground water by the end of 2012, is thinking of building a reclamation plant. Its a shock awakening. According to some projections, 900 communities in the south-west could go dry by the middle of the century if there is a serious drought. But Texas is a conservative state, reluctant to talk about climate change. It is also the only western state that does not have a central authority to manage groundwater. In the lone star state, its everyone for themselves. It is basically a pirates approach, said John Matthews, director of fresh water and climate change at Conservation International. The right of capture is the legal framework. If youre able to get it, then its yours. If youre on a river and draw all the water, then its just tough luck for the people downstream. If you deplete an aquifer on your land and that aquifer serves a much larger area, then its just tough luck to the other people. But El Paso, on the border with Mexico and more than 800km away from the state capital, Austin, has always operated a bit outside the norm. It was already confronting a water emergency when Archuleta came to town 22 years ago. The Chihuahua desert city had grown rapidly over the years, because of the Fort Bliss military base and migration from Mexico. The city had two sources of water: the Rio Grande, whose waters are shared with New Mexico and Mexico, and two underground aquifers, which contain both brackish and fresh water. By the time Archuleta took over El Paso Water Utilities (EPWU), the city was close to exhausting its ground water. In some areas of the Hueco aquifer, levels had dropped 20 metres or more. Fresh water was running out, and the share of brackish water was rising. And there were increasing demands on the Rio Grande from the expanding populations of El Paso, Las Cruces in New Mexico and Ciudad Jurez across the border. Archuleta saw two choices: use less water or let the city die. So the water authority encouraged a series of conservation measures. One of the biggest targets was reducing the water sprayed on gardens, which accounts for nearly a third of household use. Over the years, residents were paid $1 per 0.3 metres of sod to replace their lawns with less thirsty varieties of grass, or sand. Neighbourhood associations promoted replacement of thirsty imported plants like palm trees with kinds needing less water. Homeowners were oered rebates to install more ecient air-conditioning systems, which oered big savings over popular swamp coolers, and to swap washing machines and toilets for new low-water models. A few years ago the authority ran a programme handing out free low-water showerheads from school parking lots. At the same time, it invested heavily in treatment plants to recycle wastewater for use on golf courses, cemeteries, school and military parade grounds. It sold the recycled water to industries as coolant, and to local farmers. The city now recycles and sells about 12% of wastewater. The authority also expanded its supply, building a desalination plant the biggest inland facility in the US to treat the brackish water from the aquifer. It pumps water back into the aquifer to replenish it. Next door, a water museum teaches children about the importance of purple water named after the purple pipes that carry the recycled wastewater and how to save water at home by watering their
gardens less, or turning o the taps when theyre brushing their teeth. It does not immediately look as if El Paso is doing without. The mansions that cling to the hills west of town still have swimming pools and lushly tended shrubs but no lawns. Residents are only allowed to water their gardens on alternate days, and only in the early morning or evening hours in the summer. By now, such measures are a way of life. Per capita water use for the city of El Paso has dropped in the last 20 years from 754 litres of water a day to 505 litres, according to ocial gures. Thats barely a quarter of the average daily use in the US. Archuleta now believes that El Paso has reached its limit for conservation. Future plans even allow
the surface. The government must adopt a new policy to reduce water consumption, Zheng said. The main thing is to reduce demand. We have relied too much on engineering projects, but the government realises this is not a long-term solution. Zhengs comments are based on his studies of the aquifers under the north China plain, one of the countrys main wheat-growing regions. He said the water table was falling at the rate of about a metre a year mainly due to agriculture, which accounts for 60% of demand. The water situation in the north China plain does not allow much longer for irrigation, Zheng said. We need to reduce food production, even though it is politically difficult. It would be much more economical to import.
The government will be reluctant to accept such a radical step, which could weaken the countrys ability to feed itself. But it may not have a choice. Over the past 10 years, Zheng estimates the annual water decit in northern China at 4bn cubic metres. This is increasingly made up from underground sources, which account for 70% of water supplies. Although some aquifers remain 500 metres thick, others are emptying at an alarming rate. This has created depletion cones, the deepest at Hengshui, near Xizhuajiang. Before trimming agricultural production, the government will try to improve usage eciency. Plans are now being drawn up to measure and centrally manage the remaining resources, which are currently under the control of regional governments
Freak weather despite the excess demands on it, even the Rio Grande can overow Eric Gay/AP for water use to creep up again an idea that angers environmental groups. And the citys thirst for water means less for everyone else: the farmers who rely on the Rio Grande to irrigate their alfalfa elds, and the ranchers. On George Paradas land, next to the border wall with Mexico, a Rio Grande tributary is now just ankle-deep. Unless the authorities release more water from the river, there will not be enough grass for grazing. His cows are feeding on pods that hang from mesquite trees and are growing thin. But Archuleta does not see how the people of El Paso can do with any less. Conservation eorts have gone as far as they can, which brings him to a far more controversial phase of his water plan: securing future supplies. In recent years the city has bought up 40,470 hectares of land in outlying areas, purchasing the rights to the water underneath. He also foresees the day when it will have to invest in water pipelines, pumping water in from much further away. That is our insurance policy, Archuleta said. With proper management, underground aquifers will still have 75% of their water in 100 years. We decided 20 years ago we had to be prepared for just about everything, Archuleta said. When you live out in the desert like we do, it doesnt hurt to have extra capacity. Suzanne Goldenberg
that often tend to draw up water unsustainably for the short-term benet of the local economy. The Yellow River Conservancy Commission which has the nations most advanced river management network is expected to serve as a model. The government is considering a system similar to ours that will collect data on underground water resources and connect it to our Yellow River monitoring system, said Pei Yong, director of the water regulation division. I think it will start three or four years from now. Even before this begins, controls on underground water use are slowly being tightened. Well digging once a lucrative, ubiquitous and poorly regulated business is already feeling the pinch. Kaifeng Well Drilling, a company in Henan,
charges $15 to $80 for each metre, but it has laid o workers because it gets permission for only two wells a year, compared with about 30 in the 1980s. Business is very bad. Many rms have had to change business, said the director, who only gave his surname, Wang. The controls are very tight now. You only get permission to drill in areas with severe water shortages. Such restrictions are said to have slowed the rate of aquifer depletion, but the situation remains critical. Zheng said much more needed to be done, including demand reduction, water transfers and greater use of desalination plants. We will get there because we have to, he said. If nothing changes, then in 30 years we will face a dire situation. Jonathan Watts
Weekly review
Custom that kills ... caught up in blood feuds, young Albanians often have to ee abroad Dan Chung January and he should be starting at the high school in another village, Ina explains. I dont want to take that risk. We want to send him abroad. Everything has changed in Albania since the end of the communist regime. Organised crime has taken hold and human tracking has ourished thanks to arranged marriages, giving rise to more family strife. Above all many violent disputes have focused on land ownership. Despite the relatively small size of the country the governments authority has been severely challenged. In 1997 the Lottery uprising, a conict verging on civil war, erupted following the collapse of various nancial pyramid schemes. In the ensuing chaos arms dumps were ransacked, the arms boosting the old patriarchal system. With no eective law enforcement, families resorted to the Kanun. Albanians penal code refers to vendetta as premeditated murder, but the courts are still at a loss to know how to cope with this parallel system of justice. Families feel entitled to take vengeance, says Prparim Kulluri, the public prosecutor in Shkodr. Weve seen cases where the relations of a victim have given testimony clearing the accused, so that they can settle the score themselves. In 2006 Liliana Luani, a schoolteacher in the city, started an NGO to look after children suering from the consequences of the Kanun. With increasing numbers leaving the land to look for work in the towns, many young people belong to families embroiled in feuds. Luani knows of 120 cases in and around Shkodr. Her organisation provides tutoring so the children can study at home. Theoretically under Kanun rules children cannot be touched. But the old rules have disappeared since the fall of communism, Luani says. Old conicts have resurfaced, new ones have started, mainly linked to land ownership rights. There was a case in Shkodr where a man tried to kill a three-year-old. According to the National Reconciliation Committee some 1,650 families are living in isolation, locked up inside their homes. The gure is up by 200 on 2010 and 2009, because of families returning to Albania after failing to obtain asylum in a western country, says the chair of the committee, Gjin Marku. It is very dicult to nd any rm statistics to gauge the scale of the problem. In a report in February 2010 the UN Human Rights Council estimated the number of feuds had signicantly dropped over the previous ve years, but admitted that ocial statistics were incomplete. The committee says settling of scores caused 95 deaths in 2010, 75 in 2009 and 9,870 since 1990. The prime minister, Sali Berisha, sees things dierently. A native of Tropoj, he thinks the Kanun has its merits. It acted as a very powerful deterrent imposing incredible self-control. There are very few instances of such feuding, proof that the law of the state prevails, Berisha says. When I entered the government [in 2005] there were 1,800 people in prison; now there are 5,000. Such gures are probably misleading. NGOs, assisted by village elders, are the only bodies making any eort to mediate disputes. Reconciliation between two families is a complex process, subject to strict rules, which may take years. The higher you go up into the mountains, the further back into the past you travel. The more the spirit of vengeance contaminates the next generation, the more the Kanun loses its original meaning. Le Monde
A victims relatives will testify to clear the accused so they can settle the score themselves
Weekly review
A favela reborn
Renaming a shantytown after Brazils president rouses scorn and hope, writes Tom Phillips
hey call her Dilma Rousse s daughter: a dribbling three-month-old girl, covered in puppy fat and smothered by cooing relatives. But Karen da Silva is no relation of Brazils rst female president. She is the rst child to be born into one of the countrys newest favelas the Comunidade Dilma Rousseff, a roadside shantytown on the western outskirts of Rio de Janeiro that was recently rebaptised with the name of the most powerful woman in the country. Shes Dilmas baby, said Vagner Gonzaga dos Santos, a 33-year-old brick-layer-cum-evangelical preacher and the brains behind the decision to change the name of this hitherto unknown favela. In May, just as Rousse was about to complete six months in power, Santos says he received a heavensent message suggesting the renaming. God lit up my heart, he said. The idea was to pay homage to the president and also to get the attention of the government, of our leaders, so they look to us and help the families here. The poor are Gods children too. Until recently, the 30-odd shacks that ank the Rio-So Paulo highway were known simply as kilometre 31. But its transition to Dilma Rousse has not been entirely smooth. At rst, locals plastered posters on the areas walls and front doors, announcing the new name. But the posters referred to the Comunidade Roussef one f short of the presidents Bulgarian surname. A sign was erected welcoming visitors to their shantytown, but again spelling proved an issue. This time the name given was Dilma Rusself. That mistake has now been corrected, after the preachers wife intervened and took a pot of red nail varnish to the sign. Locals say the name-change is starting to pay o.
Its been good having the presidents names, said Marlene Silva de Souza, a 57-year-old mother of ve and one of the areas oldest residents. Now we can say our communitys name with pride. Before we didnt have a name at all. Dozens of Brazilian newspapers have ocked to the community poking fun at its misspelt sign but also drawing attention to the poor living conditions inside the favela. It has brought us a lot of attention The repercussion has been marvellous. Today things are starting to take shape, things are improving, said Santos, who hopes local authorities will now formally recognise the favela, bringing public services such as electricity and rubbish collection. Still, problems abound. Sewage trickles out from the houses, through a patchwork of wooden shacks, banana and mango trees and an allotment where onions sprout amid piles of rubbish. Rats and cockroaches proliferate in the surrounding wastelands. Ownership is also an issue. Dilma Rousse is built on private land The owners are Spanish, I think, says Santos and on paper the community does not ocially exist. Without a xed abode Karen Rousse da Silva has yet to be legally registered. In May, the Brazilian government launched a drive to eradicate extreme poverty with programmes that will target 16 million of Brazils poorest citizens. My governments most determined ght will be to eradicate extreme poverty and create opportunities for all, Rousse said in her inaugural address in January. I will not rest while there are Brazilians who have no food on their tables, while there are desperate families on the streets [and] while there are poor children abandoned to their own fate. Residents of Rousse s namesake, who scratch a living selling biscuits and drinks to passing truck drivers, hope such benets will soon reach them. A visit from the president may be on the cards. We dream of her coming one day, said the preacher, perched on a wooden bench outside his red brick church, the House of Prayers. It might be impossible for man to achieve, but for God everything is possible.
Whats in a name? Dilma Rousse favela, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro Tom Phillips
Weekly review
We must move on to a better solution for long-term management of our nuclear waste
in temporary storage, typically in pools of water that cool radioactive material. Such a storage system is not foolproof, as seen in the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, where spent fuel pools allowed radiation to leak out. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan the following year, compelled the department of energy to search for a deep geological repository among potential sites. Powerful politicians found ways to leverage their states o the list of candidate sites. Congress eventually decided that the only place suitable was Nevada, not far from land that had already been irradiated in above-ground atomic weapon tests in the 1950s. In 1987, in what is commonly known as the ScrewNevada Bill, Congress designated Yucca Mountain as the focus of the programme. Utility customers across the US pay a slight surcharge on their monthly bills to fund the waste disposal project money sitting in a $24bn account. But Nevada politicians, including Senator Harry Reid,
Weekly review
But do they come in orange? The way we consume is wasteful China Photos/Getty Images the glue that binds it together. None of this would work if we didnt have faith that the invariably anonymous person at the other end of the transaction will do what they promise; namely, pay for your goods or services, or deliver what they have advertised. Really interesting things are happening with trust at the moment, says Botsman. We dont trust centralised monopolies, but we do trust decentralised systems. So we see peer-to-peer money-lending sites such as Zopa proving popular, in stark comparison to banks. Trust circles are being built online for things such as skill-sharing, space rental and task-running. eBay has shown us that trust-based transactions work online. The US is about 18 months ahead of the UK at the moment with all this, but sites such as TaskRabbit and Hey, Neighbor! are redening what a neighbour is. One of Botsmans most radical ideas is that the rise of collaborative consumption will see the advent of reputation banks. In her book, she writes: Now with the web we leave a reputation trail. With every seller we rate; spammer we ag; comment we leave; idea, video or photo we post; peer we review, we leave a cumulative record of how well we collaborate and if we can be trusted. Soon, Botsman argues, our reputation rating will be as, if not more, important than our credit rating. It is only a matter of time before there is some form of network that aggregates your reputation capital across multiple forms of collaborative consumption. Well be able to perform a Google-like search to see a complete picture of how people behave and the degree to which they can be trusted. Botsmans advice for anyone considering diving into the world of collaborative consumption is to begin by drawing up an inventory of your assets. Gumtree.com estimates that the average UK home has nearly $1,000 worth of unused items collecting dust. But Botsman says to think more laterally: consider the spare storage space you might have under the stairs or in a garage; the electric drill you could rent to neighbours; your unique skills dog-walking, accountancy, shelf-tting you could hire by the hour, or exchange for someone elses skill. But critical mass seems to be just as an important an ingredient to collaborative consumption as trust and the connectivity of the internet. If there arent enough people out there oering or demanding these goods and services, then these systems quickly wither. Yes, youve got to have critical mass for this to work, says Botsman.
Lets move away from the concept of outright ownership towards one where we share
Science
and are hopeful life may exist deep underground. As a result, several missions to Mars are being planned over the next few years, with the US, Russia, China and Europe all preparing spacecraft. These will include automated rovers, with one, called ExoMars, that is being built in the UK; craft that drill deep below the planets surface; another that will land on Marss moon, Phobos, and survey the planet from there; and, ultimately, a robot spaceship that will re samples of Martian soil and rocks back to Earth for analysis. Once we get our hands on that, we will have a real chance of nding out if there is life underneath the Martian surface, says David Parker, director of space science at the British National Space Centre. The rst probes arrived at Mars courtesy of the US Mariner 4 in 1965 and Mariners 6 and 7 in 1969. These were y-by missions and took only a few dozen photographs and measurements. From these, Mars looked like the Moon, a dead world. It was a low point, says Taylor. However, all that changed two years later with Mariner 9, which got us our rst proper look at Mars. It was an orbiter and could study the planet for a long time. And yes, parts of it did look like the Moon. But there are also these wonderful mountains, polar caps and valleys as well as dried-up river valleys, which showed water had once own there. Suddenly, Mars looked as if it had a much more Earth-like climate in the past though we didnt know if that was the recent past or the distant past. And we still dont know. It is for this reason that Mariner 9 remains of such importance today. It restored hopes of nding life on Mars and revealed a world of surprising variety. A 4,000km gash was discovered in the side of Mars, Valles Marineris (the Mariner Valley), an A revolution in our understanding ... Mars Express, an artists impression AFP/Getty Images
Dispatches
immense complex of canyons, more than 6km deep and 100km across. Crucially, from the eastern end of this great rift valley, Mariner 9 sent back pictures of what appeared to be dried-up river beds connected to the bed of a former ocean. Almost overnight, the forbidding impression relayed by earlier missions was replaced by a vision of a planet with a water-rich history like the Earths and, therefore, a place much more suitable to the development of life. So Mars was a warm, wet place when life arose on Earth. Life could have evolved there, and could still be thriving below the surface, safe from harmful solar ultraviolet radiation and nourished by underground water supplies. What was needed now were craft that could nd those life forms, a task that has proved awkward and elusive but which may soon be resolved, say scientists. The rst stab at following Mariner 9 was made when the US embarked on the Viking missions of 1976. These involved two craft being carried to Mars and landed with precision on its surface. Soil was scooped from the surface and analysed in tiny robot laboratories for evidence of biological activity. It was an incredibly expensive undertaking, says Taylor. And it was a great success except that there didnt appear to be any life. People were very disappointed. They wanted to nd life but they didnt. After that, Nasa gave up on Mars for 20 years. Martian studies reached an all-time low until, in 1996, Nasa scientists, led by David McKay, announced they had found possible signs of life on a Martian meteorite called ALH84001. This lump of rock, weighing almost 2kg, fell to Earth 13,000 years ago. Found in the Allan Hills of Antarctica, it is one of an estimated 100 that is reckoned to have come from Mars. Analysis of ALH84001 revealed chemicals that could have been produced by living organisms, as well as rod-shaped structures that looked like terrestrial bacteria, said McKay and his colleagues. Nasa launched the Mars Pathnder mission in 1996, landing a tiny robot rover, Sojourner. The more advanced Spirit and Opportunity robot rovers landed in 2003. The ultimate aim of future missions is returning a sample of Martian soil to Earth, where it can analysed for signs of life. The consequences of nding life on Mars, no matter how primitive it turns out to be, will be considerable. In the next few decades, we should nd answers. In the meantime, Mariner 9, the craft that kickstarted our hunt for life on other worlds in our solar system, continues to orbit Mars, a silent, dead craft whose fuel and electricity have been used up and its work completed. Observer
Head-butting dinosaur
A small, two-legged dinosaur that browsed leaves and berries in the forests of the late Cretaceous fought o rivals by unleashing some of the most formidable head-butts ever seen, say scientists. Stegoceras validum, a beast no bigger than a goat, was engaging in headto-head combat to overpower its sexual competitors 72m years ago in what is now North America. The Stegoceras skull is almost like an enhanced motorcycle helmet. It has a sti outer shell and a compliant layer beneath, and then another really sti layer over the brain, said Eric Snively a co-author of the study at Ohio University.
still carried out some remarkable missions including those to repair the Hubble Space Telescope and to construct the International Space Station. Then, on 1 February 2003, tragedy struck again. Columbia disintegrated over Texas as it swept towards its landing site in Florida. All seven astronauts on board were killed. In the end it was agreed to resume ights, but to ground the craft once the station had been completed. With the ight of Atlantis, that task will have been achieved and the three surviving shuttles will be given homes at museums. After that, America will have to rely on Russian rockets to take its astronauts into space: an ignominious end for the mission of an extraordinary ying machine. We will not see its like again.
Jerusalem discovery
Israeli archaeologists have discovered part of a 3,000-year-old clay tablet covered with cuneiform script that they say is the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem. The thumb-sized fragment, which is described as an archived copy of an Akkadian-language letter that Canaanite King Abdi-Heba wrote to the king of Egypt, was placed on display at the Davidson Centre in Jerusalems Old City. It was found in excavations of a site from the First Temple period led by Hebrew University archaeologist Eilat Mazar. Washington Post
Culture
House of love and friendship landlady Anna Madrigal (Judy Kaye, left) with Mona Ramsey (Mary Birdsong) Kevin Berne
Culture
Soft power I wonder what my heroes think of the space race (1962) by Derek Boshier GAC and naked. Nick Clegg goes for an outsize thermos flask standing alone at a gloomy picnic, surely a post-referendum choice. Ed Vaizey, current culture minister, shows his contemporary credentials by pushing Tory Tracey Emin. The choices of Sawers and Dame Anna Pringle, our woman in Moscow, are much stronger as art: Walter Sickert, Heath, some bittersweet space-race Pop by Derek Boshier and Bridget Rileys Reection, bought for the British embassy in Cairo partly because her sheaf of stripes was inspired by the colours of tomb walls in Upper Egypt, but also because the abstraction dovetailed felicitously with Muslim culture. All these works were purchased on a shoestring budget. GAC criteria state works must be cheaply acquired, they must act as an extension of the diplomatic service and t with all sorts of unusual environments. The result is a most quirky collection. What you see at the Whitechapel is just how ne a face the collection gives to Britain at home and abroad. Of course, there is no need to put good art on the walls of government buildings. But what this rst show reveals is just how civilised it looks as Britains national image instead of a ag or a framed photo of the latest dictator. Observer Government Art Collection. At Work, is at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, until 4 September
Culture
Stars who are bankable in both east and west Seth Rogen, left, and Jay Chou in The Green Hornet Jaimie Trueblood
o, the Kung Fu Panda, may look like an innocuous, chubby animal, but he could turn out to be the most devastating double agent since Mata Hari shimmied her way to infamy in the rst world war. Last month, the sequel to the Chinese-themed, US-made animation broke box-oce records in China, taking $19m in its opening weekend. Its great news for its creators at DreamWorks, mildly irritating news for Chinese animators and intriguing news for the rest of the cinema-going world, coming just as a newly condent China squares up to the original moviemaking superpower. In Hollywood, movies that borrow far-eastern exoticism to entertain western audiences are as old as Manns Chinese Theatre and usually as authentically Chinese. Kung fu movies have been popular in the west since the 70s. What is new, however, is the tempting prospect of more than a billion Avatarappreciating movie fans in mainland China. Already the worlds second-largest economy, China is set to overtake Japan and become the second-largest cinema market after the US. According to the predictions of the China Film Producers Association, by 2015 China will have built more than 7,000 new
Culture
Reviews
Exhibition
A Million Miles from Home: Folkestone Triennial 2011 Various venues, Folkestone
Migration and exile, place and belonging are among the themes of A Million Miles From Home, the second Folkestone Triennial (until 25 September). The depressed resort and port is trying hard to reinvent itself. Maybe it needs to nd itself rst, and this triennial, curated by Andrea Schlieker for the second time, with 19 new artists projects and commissions, provides several kinds of focus on the place itself and its place in the world. In the National Coastwatch Institution cabin, perched on a cli above Folkestone, the volunteer guards scan the sea. Mumbai-based collective CAMP recorded the view, the constant trac plying the Channel, and the volunteers casual commentary. The result is an almost hour-long lm recorded over a year. French church spires break the horizon, seen through a telescope. The artists in Mumbai recorded the observations and anecdotes of the volunteers via broadband. Its a case of the watchers watched, and we watch too, following near-collisions out at sea, and blokes hauling up lobster pots. Lobsters are giant Jurassic insects, someone says. Id happily stay all day. The P&O ferries go back and forth, also watched by hopeful migrants waiting on the French coast. Living in awful squalor and makeshift encampments, almost within sight of Folkestone, and desperate to nd a new life in the UK, they await their chance on the ferries and trucks passing through the Calais security checks. Danish lm-maker Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsens Promised Land, screened in an abandoned beach cafe, follows the plight of a number of Iranian migrants. Its a story of illegal tracking, dodgy passports, hope and fantasy, ingenuity and yearning. Promised Land makes me will the illegal migrants to get through. But what will they nd if they make it to Folkestone? A horrible monster part camel, part carps skeleton, part rotten idea by Charles Avery, mouldering on the oor of the public library; a shop displaying gorgeous, folkloric village peasant-wear from Kosovo, collected by Erzen Shkololli in his homeland; an overcomplicated and impenetrably dark and confusing installation following a days schooling in Israel, in a suite of rooms next to Boots the chemist. But Folkestone is still Folkestone. The clock above Debenhams department store entrance has been changed, one of 10 around the town that Scottish artist Ruth Ewan has replaced, to tell French revolutionary time an unworkable scheme, introduced in 1793, to decimalise the time and ditch the Gregorian calendar. Each day lasted 10 hours, of 100 minutes each. The decimal clock makes you feel out of whack, just as it threw France into confusion until it was abandoned at the end of 1805. It would cause havoc to shipping, birthdays and assignations on Folkestones deliciously named Rendezvous Street. On the beach, a decommissioned 16th-century church bell, suspended on a wire 20 metres above the beach, tolls among the gulls in the huge sky. Londonbased Norwegian artist AK Dolven has given the bell a new clapper and a new voice. Its the best thing Ive seen her do. The same is true of Hew Lockes motley otilla of model boats some of which he built, others
Sense of rightness Huw Lockes model boats, part of the Folkestone Triennial Manu Palomeque/London News Pictures
he bought on eBay hanging in the nave in the ancient church above the town. The boats jostle each other in the air, all facing the altar. It has a sense of rightness that I havent found before in Lockes work. Meanwhile, Cornelia Parkers Folkestone Mermaid, a naked bronze life-cast of a local resident by the beach, looks out across the Channel, emulating Copenhagens Little Mermaid. Maybe she dreams of migrating. I just wish shed go away. Adrian Searle
deeper into this mystery. Even as it deals with the tangled knots left by conict, Villeneuve never seems deceptive with his storytelling. War has a merciless logic, a former warlord tells Melissa, and this story powers to a climax some might nd contrived but that left me reeling. Jason Solomans Observer
Theatre
Fools in the Forest Thtre de la Ville, Paris
Pack up your goods in the stu of dreams and take a stroll through the woods with Shakespeare, when the moon stirs secret desires. In this world fools and philosophers (generally one and the same), lovers (also fools), poets, banished princes, robbers, elves, imps and even players all meet in the woods. Here men are turned into beasts, and vice versa. Ccile Garcia-Fogel, who you may have seen in productions by Jol Jouanneau, Stuart Seide or Alain Franon, has had the idea of using this rich material to conjure up a theatrical and musical show (touring in the autumn and spring of 2012). The stage is set in a poets camp, with most of the atmospheric eects achieved by cunning lighting and projected woodland images (using a good old slide projector). Garcia-Fogel is accompanied by the singer Thierry Pala, with Pierrick Hardy on guitar and clarinet. Fools in the Forest switches back and forth between two languages, with Shakespeares sonnets sung in English and extracts from A Midsummer Nights Dream acted out in French, between the Bards precious poetry and its celebration of loves crazy race against mortality and the rened, melancholic music of John Dowland. All is not perfect in this performance, which does occasionally ag: Pala is better at singing than acting, and the opposite is true of Garcia-Fogel, but then she does act particularly well. Fools in the Forest is nevertheless well worth seeing for what it is, a gentle musical stroll, which may well lead o into individual reveries. Fabienne Darge Le Monde
Film
Incendies Directed by Denis Villeneuve
From its arresting opening to its shattering conclusion, the Canadian lm Incendies is muscular, emotional lm-making of the highest order, self-condent in its delivery yet always respectful of its characters plight. It starts in slo-mo, to the sound of Radiohead, in what looks like a childrens Quran school, in a desert, where we see boys having their heads shaved by soldiers. One of the boys xes the camera with a chilling stare as hair falls around his feet. The film then switches to a law firm in Montreal, where a mothers will is being read to her grief-stricken twins, daughter Jeanne (Mlissa Dsormeaux-Poulin) and son Simon (Maxim Gaudette). The lawyer Matre Lebel is played by the great Quebecois actor Rmy Girard, from another Canadian family saga, Denys Arcands Les Invasions Barbares. This, too, is a tale of family, identity and, perhaps, forgiveness as the will sets Jeanne, a student of pure maths, o on a quest to discover what happened in her mother Nawals past as she was growing up in the Middle East. The lm cuts from Nawals (Belgium-born actress Lubna Azabal) turbulent past back to Melissa as she, listening to Radiohead on her iPod, sifts the war-ravaged ruins of this unspecied country in the present. Director Denis Villeneuve, adapting a stage play by Wajdi Mouawad, daubs chapter headings in a bold red font across the screen, helpful signposts as we plunge
Books
Immokalee (rhymes with broccoli), ground-zero to the Florida tomato industry. Ironically, Estabrook explains, the Sunshine State is anything but an ideal place to grow tomatoes. The soil is sand, which lacks nutrients and therefore must be supplemented with chemical fertiliser. The rarity of frosts provides pests and pathogens a haven, requiring growers to spray tons of chemical pesticides. The humidity encourages blights, spots and mould. But Florida does have one key benet: its proximity to customers in densely populated and very cold east coast cities. Estabrooks exposure of the resulting environmental and human tragedies places Tomatoland in the tradition of the best muckraking journalism. There are plenty of shocking statistics: in 2006, Florida growers sprayed nearly 363,000kg of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides on their tomato crops, nearly eight times as much as California growers used for a similar-size crop. But by and large, Estabrook lets people migrant workers, activists and scientists tell the story. In the case of pesticides, there is no tale more heart-wrenching than that of three families whose children were crippled or killed, it was later proved, because of their mothers work in the winter tomato elds. All three women worked at a company called Ag-Mart, whose products include the nearly ubiquitous Santa Sweets grape tomato. The companys advertising boasts, Kids love to snack on this
nutritious treat. Not so the womens newborn babies, all born within seven weeks of one another. Francisca Herreras son, Carlitos, was born with no arms and legs. Sostenes Macedas son, Jesus, was born with a deformity of the lower jaw that put him at constant risk of choking on his own tongue. Maria Meza gave birth to Jorge, who had one ear, no nose, a cleft palate, one kidney, no anus and no visible sexual organs. It was later determined that Jorge was a girl, and she was renamed Violeta. She lived just three days. Most instances of pesticide misuse, Estabrook reports, dont result in charges or fines because workers are afraid to come forward and because of a shameful lack of enforcement. In the case of the deformed babies, agents levelled 88 counts against Ag-Mart, ning the company $111,200. A judge later reduced the ne to $8,400. It took a pro-bono personal injury lawyer to win one family an undisclosed settlement, enough to sustain the little boy nancially for life. Ag-Mart admitted no guilt. Its easy to get enraged reading such stories. But Estabrook is careful to maintain his journalistic distance. The tomato growers and regulators, whom most readers will consider the bad guys, get to have their say. (Sadly, this is a rarity in the ever-growing crop of books on food politics, which embrace an either-youre-with-us-or-against-us sensibility.) But Estabrook also does not allow political spin or
pages to great eect on Liszts setting of Via crucis (the Stations of the Cross). A Book of Liszts alternates between chapters of ctionalised and true memoirs, and chapters that resemble a script from a play. More theatrical than scholarly, it will appeal to anyone who enjoyed Benita Eislers similar approach in her novel Chopins Funeral. Those wishing for an in-depth, less fractured study should look to Walkers three-volume biography, but if you are happy with a lighter insight into Liszts life then Spurlings book oers many pleasures.
Muses revenge
Mr Fox by Helen Oyeyemi Picador 278pp 12.99 Justine Jordan
A fairytale marriage can be murder. Helen Oyeyemis fourth novel jumbles together variations on the Bluebeard myth (the usual wooing, seduction, then the discovery of a chopped-up predecessor, should you need reminding) with a meditation on inspiration and intimacy explored through the character of a 1930s American novelist, St John Fox, whose imaginary muse, Mary Foxe, comes to life and starts to talk back to him. Over the course of the book she moves from being words on a page or a voice in the head to a esh-andblood woman with a penchant for trying on hats. She and Mr Fox engage in a battle of hearts and wits, much to the confusion of Mrs Fox Daphne who experiences Mary variously as her husbands insanity, her own haunting, and a conduit for liberation. Mr Fox or Reynardine appears in fairytales and ballads as a spiritual brother to Bluebeard, the deadly bridegroom. St John Foxs marriage to Daphne can be seen through the lter of sinister fairytale domination or the milder tradition of masculine control: I xed her early. I told her in heartfelt tones that one of the reasons I love her is because she never complains. So now of course she doesnt dare complain. Marys beef with St John is more literary: she claims hes a villain and a serial killer because his novels are built around the gruesome murders of women. She wants to chop his head o for a change. But as artist and inspiration, they are also aspects of each other, mysteriously conjoined. Interspersed with this strange love triangle are a series of stories, versions of the courtship-cum-duel of Mary and Mr Fox that range from the playfully metactional to the impressionistic and obscure. In Be Bold, Be Bold, But Not Too Bold, Mary is the shy young ladies companion who sends her stories to the famous novelist (the title is a nod at the refrain running through the fairytale Mr Fox, in which, refreshingly, the heroine Lady Mary triumphs through her curiosity and pluck). We encounter our Mary again as a wistful orists assistant advertising for a fairytale prince, a romantic novelist in hiding from the world and, in one of the novels most charged and eective sections, a damaged young woman in present-day England negotiating the new dangers of a relationship with an older psychiatrist. Reynardine appears variously as a medium for Yoruba ancestors, and a psychopathic killer. As the book progresses, these stories refract away from the core narrative, through the magical realist fable of a boy who searches the world Continued on page 40
Not such a healthy treat at work in the Florida tomato elds Joe Raedle/Getty Images misleading facts to stand unchallenged. When Reggie Brown, the executive vice-president of the Tomato Growers Exchange, protests to him that his industry complies with labour laws and pays competitive wages, Estabrook follows with an account of a 2008 Senate hearing in which committee members demolish the industrys claims that workers earn an average of $12 per hour. For workers to do that, one senator points out, pickers would have to pick 3,000 tomatoes each hour, nearly one per second. Tomatoland doesnt oer xes for the industrys failures. But it does spotlight the people working to change it. Among them: Lady Moon Farms, an organic Florida grower that pays workers an hourly wage and provides them free housing and still manages to compete on grocery-store shelves; Barbara Mainster, a teacher who provides free or low-cost childcare and education for migrant farmworkers children; John Warner Scott, an old-style plant breeder who developed the Tasti-Lee, a tomato that can keep its avour even when shipped. Each of them oers a ray of hope for the industry and for consumers who want a delicious, juicy and guilt-free tomato. But there is still much work to be done. By the end of Tomatoland, a far more obvious solution will present itself to some readers: grow your own. Washington Post
Books Paperbacks
Gambling is really a disease of the brain Although the author himself does not always seem to realise it, this cheerful summary of the brains reward system is a profound experience. David Linden is professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, so he knows what he is talking about, and he explains it early. Shopping, orgasm, learning, highly caloric foods, gambling, prayer, he says, they all evoke neural signals that converge on a small group of interconnected brain areas called the medial forebrain pleasure circuit. Our understanding of this began, Linden goes on to explain, with some luridly unethical experiments. In one of the more laidback laboratories of the 1970s, an American study sought to examine whether one could cure homosexuality by electrically stimulating someones pleasure centres while subjecting them to heterosexual experiences. To this end, researchers implanted electrodes deep inside the brain of a 24-year-old gay male whom they called B-19. Having waited for the surgery to heal, they handed him the controls. As the paper reports, B-19 stimulated himself to a point that, both behaviourally and introspectively, he was experiencing an almost overwhelming euphoria and elation and had to be disconnected despite his vigorous protests. Later, the researchers gave B-19 the button back, but only after hiring him a prostitute, whom he very happily had sex with while they watched. A woman in a dierent trial self-stimulated throughout the day, neglecting her personal hygiene and family commitments. A chronic ulceration developed at the tip of the nger used to adjust the amplitude dial. Having established our respect for the medial forebrain (specically its ventral tegmental area), Linden explains the exact pleasure processes involved in drugs, food, sex, gambling and generosity. These chapters are lled with similarly entertaining fragments from the learned journals. We discover that overdosing on Parkinsons medication can make you a compulsive gambler; that reindeer fight over patches of hallucinogenic urine; that 19th-century Ireland was struck by an epidemic of ether-drinking. None of which dilutes the books academic content. For the most part, what we actually read are accounts of dierent experiments that have been conducted on genetically modied rats. For optimum absorption of the books ideas by general readers, Linden might have dialled down his scientic language by a notch. That said, it is part of the joy of popular science writing that it can lead one to the point of comprehending sentences such as: These ndings with MK-801 pretreatment suggested that LTP and/or LTD of the excitatory synapses received by the neurons of the VTA was induced in rats as a result of taking cocaine. Even now, I feel a tourists pride in understanding that. Yet, though Pleasure is certainly pleasurable, in both its sweet and savoury moments, it is what the book reveals most obviously about addiction that is so utterly compelling. In brief, addiction really is a disease, which you can observe with microscopes, and which should be treated non-judgmentally. Every obese person in the world should read the chapter on overeating to discover the scientic basis for why it is not their fault. Those of us lucky enough to have dierent genes should read it too, if only for the humbling description of how a slimmers body craves food with the intensity of someone actually starving. To be clear, this book has aws. Its thematic structure is repetitive. The concluding section on the future, meanwhile, fails to explore the many new ideas it broaches. I even spotted an error, when Linden includes benzodiazepines on a list of non-addictive drugs. (Surely Valium dependence must be known to any doctor?) But these are details worth forgetting. Pleasure is a superb book. My brain has been changed by reading it. Continued from page 39 to construct a woman out of artworks and a girl who stores her heart in a shrine, and two sparse parables of love and incomprehension between woman and fox. By the end, Oyeyemis narrative has danced a long way from the screwball comedy of 30s Manhattan. One story, My Daughter the Racist, about the spark of female rebellion under occupation by both foreign soldiers and chauvinist society, is a socio-political tale that doesnt seem to sit with the rest of the book at all. Oyeyemi wrote her rst novel as a teenager and is still only 26. Where her previous books explored childhood possession and teenage hysteria, mediated through Cuban mythology, Yoruba storytelling and the Gothic novel, Mr Fox threads a story of love and literary ambition through the texture of fairytales, and sees her extending the range and clarity of her voice to remarkable eect. It is an incredibly selfreexive book, in which the solution to everything is the writing of stories, and structurally it resembles a dropped pack of cards; but its also funny, deep, shocking, wry, heart-warming and spine-chilling.
MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 by Keith Jeery, Bloomsbury 12.99
The oldest continuously surviving foreign intelligence-gathering service, MI6 was founded in 1909 in response to the spy fever stirred up by sensationalist (and untrue) press reports about German agents inltrating Britain. It proved its worth during the second world war when it supervised the deciphering operations at Bletchley Park. This is the rst time a historian from outside the service has been allowed access to the top secret archives. The result is authoritative and as compelling as any spy novel. Jeery tells how a Soviet agent tried to defect in 1945, promising to unmask British double-agents. Unfortunately, Kim Philby was given the case and the man disappeared. It was as if he had pulled the trigger himself. PD Smith
Hard-wired to enjoy
Pleasure by David Linden Oneworld 256pp 10.99 Leo Benedictus Observer
The Wagon and Other Stories from the City by Martin Preib, Chicago University Press, 9
I never aspired to haul the dead from their death places. I only wanted to be a writer, a Chicago writer. At the age of 40, after years in dead-end jobs, Preib joined the Chicago police department. His rst job was driving the wagon to collect dead bodies, the messy remains of failed life. Preib is clearly not a typical cop. He considers quoting King Lear in a police report and, in between calls, he tells his female partner about how he is inspired by Walt Whitmans work. An eloquent and shrewd observer of city life, he is motivated by a love for Chicago that endures despite the violence, as well as a desire to explain its elusive mystery in prose. These personal essays oer a powerful portrait of the dark side of one of Americas greatest cities. PDS
Books
Not just a primitive victim of evolution ... a model of Neanderthal man from the Neanderthal Museum, Mettmann, Germany Jochen Tack/Alamy
human evolution and, as a palaeontologist at Londons Natural History Museum, has been involved in much of the crucial research. This is probably why in writing this popular account he cannot wrench himself away from the academic arena in which one authority is forever contesting the ndings of another. Such wrangling is unfortunately necessary because if recorded history has, as Eliot wrote, many cunning passages, thats as nothing compared to the waxing and waning of human fortunes, battling with ice ages and natural catastrophes over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. And the evidence, of course, has to be pieced together from analyses of mineralised fragments of the past. Stringer is most concerned with the period from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa, around 195,000 years ago, to their arrival in Europe and the subsequent demise of the Neanderthals. The archaeological record shows Homo sapiens in Africa several times on the verge of a cultural breakthrough, but this is not consolidated until their arrival in Europe. Stringer writes: It is as though the candle glow of modernity was intermittent, repeatedly ickering on and o again. The introduction of farming, first in Iraq and Turkey, was the single greatest event in the evolution of Homo sapiens since its emergence. From farming flowed, in an incredibly short time, population growth, craft, art, religion and technology. New cultural practices led to radical genetic changes, the ability of northern Europeans to digest cows milk being the most dramatic. This followed the adoption of cattle rearing and reverses the idea that genetic mutations have initiated innovation. Just as often, it seems, it has been culture that has led, genes that have followed. Although new fossil and archaeological evidence continues to mount, the driving force in understanding human evolution today, as Stringer empha-
sises, is genomic. It is now possible to compare the genomes of Neanderthals with modern humans and with chimpanzees. This work will go on for many years but already dramatic results are emerging. Stringer has been a strong advocate of the dominant Out-of-Africa theory that modern humans emerged from that continent and entirely replaced earlier human types such as Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and the Neanderthals. But while Outof-Africa still holds sway, the picture is losing some of its classical simplicity. Last year, the Neanderthal Genome Project, led by the Swedish biologist Svante Pbo, nally established that modern humans in Europe and Asia (but not Africa) have some admixture of Neanderthal genes, thus ending decades of speculation. And in December last year the same team produced a total surprise: a genomic analysis of human remains from a cave in Denisova, southern Siberia, which proved to be genetically distinct from all known human types. The team declined at this stage to give the nd a Linnean species name, but, by analogy with the Neanderthals, named it Denisovan after the location. The actual Denisovan specimens in Siberia were 30-50,000 years old, and the type predated both modern humans and Neanderthals. Apart from having what is probably a new species to t into the pattern of human evolution, the big shock of the Denisovans is that they also have contributed something to the modern human stock in Melanesia. We now see a pattern emerging of interbreeding between modern humans and earlier types: Neanderthals in Europe and Asia and Denisovans in Melanesia. There will surely be further nds. Especially interesting is east Asia, rst peopled by Homo erectus as long as 1.7m years ago. Stringers book does not quite live up to its magisterial title; the story is still too much in ux for that. But you will need a primer to make sense of the story so far. Here is that book.
Diversions
Notes & Queries
President Hillary Clinton and her dude, Mr President
The Americans have a rst lady, but if they elect a married woman as president, what will they call her husband? HBH her better half. Cynthia Dummett, Basingstoke, UK Either Dude or Dud. Roger Morrell, Perth, Western Australia Here in Australia, our female prime ministers long-term partner is known as the First Bloke. Hilary Vallance, Sydney, Australia
First Guy? Hillary and Bill Clinton
Maslanka puzzles
Bit them, of course, hence the term tooth and nail. Bryan Furnass, Canberra, Australia Between a rock and a hard place. Ross Kelly, Paddington, NSW, Australia With a saber-tooth tiger very carefully. James Carroll, Geneva, Switzerland They didnt need nails the cave was their house. Adrian Cooper, Queens Park, NSW, Australia Let me chew on that. Sally Foster, Edinburgh, UK 1 Pedanticus almost choked on his panino when he read the estate description of a property as deceptively spacious. Why did he feel the walls were moving in? 2 In Arbitraria Kane Clark suggests that those owning up early to serious crimes thereby saving the taxpayer money that could be spent on services have their sentences reduced. But he escapes the tedious criticism that he is soft on crime. How does he do it? 3 HAL the onboard IBM computer monitors a rockets approach to the surface of a planet of radius R and res boosters when a third of the planetary surface is R visible. How far is it from the centre of the planet at that point? [See picture] 4 You add one integer to the reciprocal of a second, and multiply it by the sum of the second integer added to the reciprocal of the rst. The fractional part of the mixed fraction resulting is 14. Whats the integer part? 5 Monty Ball confronts an urn with a huge number of balls with whites outnumbering black 4 to 1. He withdraws 5 balls at random. What are the chances he has 4 whites and 1 black? email: guardian@puzzlemaster.co.uk
The governor of Washington state is Christine Gregoire and her husband is called the First Gentleman. Barbara Long, Seattle, Washington, US Whatsisname. John Ralston, Mountain View, California, US A rst! David Ross, Robertsbridge, UK President Consort, perhaps or maybe a Republican would be First Gentleman, while First Guy would better suit a Democrat. Alaisdair Raynham, Truro, Cornwall, UK I dont know, but a woman seeking the presidency should improve her chances of election by marrying someone whose rst name was Adam (the rst man). Walter H Kemp, Halifax, NS, Canada Bill. Catherine Andreadis, Ottawa, Canada
William, the Duke of Arkansas. John Anderson, Pukekohe, New Zealand Mr Clinton. Though in this particular case, it might be confusing, since ex-presidents retain the honoric. Atul Sharma, Montreal, Canada Hed be her coyboy. E Slack, LIsle Jourdain, France Poor gent. Lynne Weinerman, Mendocino, California, US Second ddle. Margaret Wyeth, Victoria, BC, Canada
Any answers?
Why does the answer Yes sound agreeable but Yes, Yes doesnt? Dorothy Holmes, Palmerston North, New Zealand What shouting is it all over bar? Doug Nichols, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia Send answers to weekly.n&q@ guardian.co.uk or Guardian Weekly, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK
Wordplay
Wordpool
Find the correct denition: PSCHENT a) Eastern Jewish term of opprobrium b) false dealer c) worthless object d) ancient Egyptian headdress
Same Dierence
Identify these words which dier only in the letters shown: ***** (Sly character) C***** (Game)
Cryptic
1979 war lm with its own cosy appeal (10, 3)
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) jump stream b) throw benches c) oil stripper d) see dust e) kitchen top f) metal king
CMM2011 For solutions see opposite page
in this centre in that if you do not actually see any dolphins you can watch a video of them taken at Chanonry Point, or listen to their strange noises via hydrophones. The centre is dominated by its panorama window that overlooks the rth: it provides binoculars to watch the seals and dolphins in the sea below. The noticeboard outside, regularly updated by the attendant, informed
Diversions
Quick crossword
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Across
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5 With these dancing is a problem! (3,4,4) 7 Computer geek? (4) 8 Practice of staying faithful to one partner (8) 9 Direct phone access (for presidents?) (7) 11 Harmful agent to animals and computers (5) 13 Rap (5) 14 Terminate a call (4,3) 16 Native American of Montana or Oklahoma (8) 17 Indian musical scale (4) 18 Lewis Carroll creation (living in a burrow?) (5,6)
Across
6 Latin tag found on clocks and sundials, indicating that time waits for no man (6,5) 10 Lottery (5,3) 12 Passenger carrier attached to a motorcycle (7) 15 Show contempt by contorting the face (5) 17 Arched bones extending from the spine (4)
First published in the Guardian 29 June 2011, No 12,834 Last weeks solution, No 12,832
1 Warty amphibian (4) 2 New England state, capital Montpelier (7) 3 Smell great fuss caused (5) 4 Hunting on foot with hounds (8) 5 Secombe, Sellers, Milligan, Bentine etc (3,4,4)
Down
B O T T O M S U P H O O O O M O A N N O Y I M P L A N T L E S L S L T L A U N C H E D S L A Y E P O T B F T Y U M Y U M H U M O U R S A T C N R A C O N K C O N F E T T I O S D U I U N M A H J O N G G U N G E E I V A H E D T O P S E C R E T
1 A conservative asking price for buttonhole (6) 2 Parishioner put down anc (6) 3 In spite of having lifted trophy Labour leader makes retraction (10) 4 Painter departs and wise man turns up (5) 5 Stunt man died? Thats a ruddy disaster! (9) 6 Mood is part of aggressive instinct (4) 7 Turkeys sick and hanging back (8) 8 Despite that has aair with bird (4,4)
Down
13 Amber helps reform one uttering profanities (10) 15 Royal guard initially executes exploit when in drink (9) 16 Sweet girl introduced to expert (8) 17 I report a disturbance in the capital (8) 19 A sign, for example, mounted on a car (6) 20 Girl holds shoddy item to be work of art (6) 23 Bills free to be bitter (5) 24 Investigate fellow found stowing away in hold (4)
S C A B B H L A A U B A D M A T O N E A I S A N A S T R E R I P E O A T W E L L A H M N E S T O N A O E D E P A R
Y E
R M A I G I A C S C Q U I A N R T E D
P S P Y E E E D C M A M C E R U A
A L O A R E B A L T S P T A I N H C O P B E
M I N L O R N D E A R A T N A
S T I N G H I T R G O P B L E L E D N W D O R E A R U P
Maslanka solutions
1 Insecure professionals often feel the need to pimp their language. Presumably it is meant to mean that something looks small but is in fact big. (How often one hears that argument!) Its rather like saying hes not as ugly as he looks. Thanks to Jim Muir for this gem. 2 He increased the sentences for serious crimes by a factor of f, while reducing those that owned up early by 1/f. No sentence was shorter than under the previous regime; so he escaped tedious attacks about being soft on crime. 3 3R. The area of a R spherical R-x cap equals x that of an d open cylinder of the same height and base [See picture]; so for
13 of the area to be visible, x = (2R/3). Then (R - x)/R = R/3R = R/d, giving d = 3R. Moving each letter of HAL by one letter through the alphabet you get IBM. 4 6. [(a + 1/b)(b + 1/a) = ab + 2 + 1/ ab. ab = 4; so (a, b) = (1, 4), (4, 1) or (2, 2). Either way: ab + 2 + 1/ab = 614.] 5 Just over 40%. [Of BWWWW, WBWWW, WWBWW, WWWBW & WWWWB each has chances of 4/5 X 4/5 X 4/5 X 4/5 X 1/5 giving chances of 5 X (4/5)4 X 1/5 = (4/5)4 = 0.4096] Wordpool d) Same Di RAMBO/CRAMBO Cryptic Apocalypse Now Missing Links a) jump/jet/stream b) throw/back/benches c) oil/paint/stripper d) see/saw/dust e) kitchen/roll/top f) metal/bar/king
7 3 8
9 1 4 4 7
5 9 8 1
1 6 5 2 3 7 8 4 9
3 8 9 4 5 1 7 2 6
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2 1 8 5 6 3 4 9 7
5 4 7 9 2 8 3 6 1
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Shortcuts
New school? We demand a senior centre
mericas suburbs are home to a rapidly growing number of older people who are changing the image and priorities of a suburbia formed around the needs of young families with children, an analysis of census data shows. Although the entire US is graying, the 2010 census showed how much faster the suburbs are growing older when compared with the cities. Thanks largely to the baby-boom generation, four in 10 suburban residents are 45 or older, up from 34% just a decade ago. Thirty-ve percent of city residents are in that age group, an increase from 31% in the last census. During the past decade, the ranks of people who are middle-aged and older grew 18 times faster than the population younger than 45, according to Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, who analysed the 2010 census data on age for his report, The Uneven Aging and Younging of America. For the rst time, they represent a majority of the nations voting-age population. The political ramications could be huge as older voters compete for resources with younger generations. When people think of suburban voters, its going to be dierent than it was years ago, Frey said. They used to be people worried about schools and kids. Now theyre more concerned about their own wellbeing. Carol Morello Washington Post and economy of country areas. Regional NSW is a great place to live, work and raise a family these grants will provide extra assistance, said the NSW deputy premier, Andrew Stoner. The one-o grants will be payable to individuals or families, provided they sell their Sydney home and buy one in the country. The country home must be worth less than $650,000, something that wont be hard in most rural areas. It will cost the taxpayer up to $50m a year. As much as boosting regional areas, the scheme is also about making Sydney more liveable. The citys population is 4.5 million and predicted to grow by 40% over the next 30 years, putting unprecedented pressure on infrastructure and housing. Alison Rourke
Greying of America ... the politics of suburbia is changing Preston C Mack/Getty Images
that aliens would most likely resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a head. They may have dierent colour skin, but even we have that, he said. Finkelsteins institute runs a programme launched in the 1960s at the height of the cold war space race to watch for and beam out radio signals to outer space. The whole time we have been searching for extraterrestrial civilisations, we have mainly been waiting for messages from space and not the other way, he said. Reuters
Similarly interested in rebelling against what she felt was a lack of personality, history or unique ambiance in Singapores restaurants, Zina Alam, 27, decided to start her own Bangladeshi-style supper club. Singapore is changing every day, politically and culturally, said the former journalist, whose own change of direction was inspired by a visit to Edinburghs supper clubs. People are a lot more open and adventurous now. Ideas are also emerging beyond the dinner plate. At Blink-BL-NK, an evening out, once a month, where people exchange ideas, participants share their expertise. Recent talks focused on pilgrimages, psychosis and sex the latter two traditionally taboo subjects in a rational, eciency-orientated society, according to one regular attendee, Stella Lee, 28. You wouldnt see this anywhere else in Singapore, she said. Isaac Souweine, co-founder of Blink-BL-NK, said: This city is growing up. A hundred years ago, this place was a swamp. The economic development here happened really fast. Now the cultural development is following. Kate Hodal
rom a distance Sydney may seem like one of the worlds most desirable place places to call home: a sparkling harbour, enticing k klin beaches and a climate b bea to die for. Its rated as one of worlds 10 most o l liveable cities. But the government of New South Wales says it will pay residents $7,500 to leave it. Its part of a plan to b boost the population
International development
New hopes ... a rice variety on trial at the International Rice Research Institute in Laguna Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images
was spreading rather rapidly throughout the hamlets of each of those four villages. The transformation of farmers lives brought about by this new rice was truly dramatic. The IR-8 rice had a much shorter growing cycle than traditional varieties. Two crops could now be produced each year, whereas the traditional rice it replaced would only produce one crop. And the yields were much greater. This also left time for enterprising farmers to grow a third crop, of melons or vegetables. The new road also allowed trucks from the capital, Saigon, to come to the farm gate to pick up surplus rice or fruits and vegetables and take them back to large markets. In every village along the new road, I saw life improve. Houses suddenly began to have metal roofs; more radios and even a few television antennas; children looked much better nourished and better clothed; young children, and especially young girls, stayed in school longer, since there was now a rudimentary inter-hamlet taxi service that could transport them to the next level of education; child mortality began to decrease, as mothers could seek medical help for their sick children; and government representatives from the provincial capital found it easier to get to the villages to provide services and information. Where the road improvements stopped, though, so did any increased agricultural productivity. While no sign or physical obstacle kept the new miracle rice from the villages without an improved road, for some reason that was the case. In the villages
without the improved road, houses were still ramshackle; children were poorly clothed and looked less nourished; schools were poorly attended and child mortality remained high: essentially, life was unchanged from 50 years earlier. The lesson I took from this was that dramatic change in the fortunes of smallholder farmers came from the combination of new agricultural technology and improved rural infrastructure. Perhaps most dramatic was that the combination of new roads and new rice also significantly lessened the level of warfare (this was during the Vietnam war) that had so aected the district where I worked. As lives improved rapidly in the four villages along the road, it became much safer to travel there and the number of military incidents decreased. I was so fascinated by the powerful transformation I had witnessed that I wrote to the state department to ask them to cancel my assignment to Europe. I stayed in Vietnam for six years. I took that lesson with me throughout the rest of my diplomatic career, and used the formula of new roads and new rice in the Philippines, as well as in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia, to uplift smallholders in the villages in those countries. It was this focus on rural development that brought me home to Iowa after my time as ambassador in Cambodia. I recall my rst meeting with Borlaug in 1999, when he and John Ruan III hired me to lead the World Food
Prize. When Borlaug asked me about my background and experiences, I described for him my time in the Mekong delta in the 1960s and my observation about roads and rice. When I said roads, he interrupted me and, slamming his st on the table, said in a very loud voice, Roads!. I was startled, and thought I had said the wrong thing. He then added: Roads are essential to any type of agricultural development. Even though our backgrounds were very dierent, Borlaug and I were kindred spirits from that moment on. When he died in 2009, Borlaugs reported last words, take it to the farmer, perfectly summed up his life and legacy, and made me think about my own experiences. As a young man, I saw the dramatic, positive inuence of agricultural development on smallholders. Villages remained intact, incomes increased, young children gained exceptional opportunities and benets spread throughout rural society. Increased yields were key to lifting people out of poverty and eliminating hunger all from the new rice and the new roads. Its a lesson that is still appropriate and resonant today. Kenneth M Quinn is president of the World Food Prize
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with blood dripping down his leg. In the second an Astana team member clipped a rogue spectator, sending more than 20 riders to the tarmac. Blood, triumph and men falling o bicycles: not bad for a rst day.
David Hayes bid to take Wladimir Klitschkos heavyweight belts ended up being an inverted process: garrulously combative in the build-up with Haye threatening to knock Klitschkos head o, and then meekly non-combative on the night, with the Haye head taking a pounding from the champions jab in a unanimous points defeat in Hamburg. The Londoner then drew further derision by blaming the defeat on a broken toe, the referee and the crowd. Haye has yet to conrm if he will honour his promise to retire in October.
Guardian News and Media Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Guardian News and Media Ltd., Centurion House, 129 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WR, UK Editor: Natalie Bennett. Le Monde translation: Harry Forster. Printed by GPC. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Oce. Annual subscription rates (in local currencies): UK 90; Europe 149; Rest of World 115; US $165; Canada $200; Australia $235; NZ $300 Quarterly subscription rates: UK 23; Europe 37; Rest of World US $41; Canada $50; Australia $59; NZ $75 29;
Sport
Sealed with a kiss ... Djokovic beat Nadal in four sets Tom Jenkins
08 July 2011
Learning English
Stock rising ... a broker in Karachi, among the minority in Pakistan to benet from English Akhtar Soomro/Reuters benets of English are seen predominantly by urban elites, who have access to a better standard of teaching mostly delivered through private education and higher-paid jobs. Professor Chris Kennedy, director of the Centre for English Language Studies at the UKs Birmingham University, welcomed the report but said that it stopped short of offering insights into the eectiveness of government policies promoting English language learning, such as using English as the medium of instruction in schools, which is hotly debated. The report highlights the benets, advantages and necessity of English in the modern world, but you also need to look at the complexities of the situation when you try to take the results of the report and implement them in policy, Kennedy said. Journalist Zubeida Mustafa, whose book about her native Pakistan, Tyranny of Language in Education, was published last month, says the benets of English in Pakistan are restricted to a tiny minority and have resulted in ineective education policy. English cannot solve our ills. There are not enough teachers who know English and can teach in English. Children cannot comprehend what they are taught, Mustafa said. The articially created demand for English has distorted the language in education strategy. In fact there is no strategy and schools are following a hit-and-miss method mixing English, Urdu and local languages. Michael Carrier, head of the Councils ELT arm, said the report provided the statistical evidence to back up the organisations belief that English had economic benefits for developing countries, but it was a rst step and further research is needed. This helps to confirm my view that we should be investing time and resources in developing countries. We should be doing more to bridge the gap highlighted in the report between urban elites and the rural population, Carrier said. One of the ways we want to do this is by exploiting mobile phone usage. Mobile phone penetration in Africa is over 90% and we can use the technology to deliver lessons and teacher training to rural areas.
Learning English
ELT diary
UK could lose $3.8bn from tougher student visa rules
The British economy could lose up to $3.8bn as tougher student visa rules introduced from last month start to take eect, according to a report commissioned by the minister responsible for the visa changes, Damian Green (pictured below). An impact assessment report by the Home Oce says the new policy will deter bogus students and improve compliance, but the expected 230,000 reduction in the numbers of applicants for the Tier 4 student visa from outside the EU over the next four years will have wider costs. The report estimates that income from fees will be cut by $270m over four years, while up to $3.2bn will be lost because students enrolled at ents private colleges have lost their e right to work part-time and me contribute to the economy. onomy. Private English language nguage training providers, which had 21,000 Tier 4 visa applicants pplicants in 2010, are likely to see applicants drop by 13,000 in 2014, with a net loss $4.8m. The report estimates that the decision to raise the minimum level of English prociency for students from non-English-speaking countries who want to study on degree courses will cut t applicants by 11,000 0 per year. Meanwhile, lobbying by the British Council and the English UK trade association to have the Accreditation UK inspection scheme for private English language programmes accepted by the Home Oce for Tier 4 visa applications has failed. Accreditation UK was not included on a nal list of recognised accrediting bodies published by the UK Border Agency last month. Institutions currently approved by Accreditation UK that want to continue to enrol Tier 4 students will need to gain approved accreditation by the end of 2012. gap at fourth-grade reduced from 24 points in 1998 to 15 points in 2009. However Hispanic children who were classied as English language learners were 44 points behind their white counterparts in 2009.
What keeps you motivated? The ou positive reaction of students to the selection and creation of really interesting classroom activities. Getting positive feedback from students about your teaching also helps. Best teaching moment? Recently I selected two local newspaper crime reports for an intermediatelevel reading activity. Split into two groups (A and B), the students co-operated to understand and nd interesting details in the article given to them. Afterwards, each student from group A was paired o with another from group B to exchange information about their dierent articles. I was pleased because students became very absorbed in the activity, which boosted their reading, vocabulary and speaking skills. And worst? Not dealing appropriately with a classroom management situation such as a student coming late for class. However, this can be a spur to developing better strategies in future. What have you learned? My students have taught me the importance of being self-condent and adopting a positive attitude. This has enabled them to develop very good communication skills in their mother tongue, which can be transferred to the learning of other languages such as English. They have also taught me the importance of smiling more and being very tolerant when things do not go quite according to plan. Biggest challenge? We recently moved to a new campus where the classrooms are equipped with interactive white boards. Learning how to use this new technology was hard at rst, but it has opened up some exciting new possibilities such as displaying websites on the board. Whats next? I hope to become more involved in professional development activities that will benet other teachers (and maybe, indirectly, students I will never teach). Top tip? Try to be aware of the cultural factors that have an impact on the ways students approach learning and their relationship with you. George Murdoch, 59, from Britain, has taught in Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Sri Lanka and the UK. He teaches at the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain
Learning English
Fractal inspiration ... by using language we change it Corbis if you like but unlike the Euclidean geometry of perfect circles and triangles, fractals are forms that are present in nature and that embody the key features of self-organisation, self-similarity and dynamism. Human language shares these traits; like the weather, it changes in a dynamic way as seemingly insignicant factors are fed back into a loop of cause and eect in which the magnitude of the outcome bears no relation to that of the input values, a phenomenon which frequently produces unexpected results, the so-called buttery eect of chaos theory. For this reason the dynamic nature of the English language does not properly lend itself to static analysis; it is not governed by simple rules but driven by an ongoing, iterative process of self-referential contextualisation. In other words, English usage obeys a set of laws, but these are complex in nature and often defy prediction. The paradigm used in the fractal approach to ELT concentrates on creative output rather than on a xed initial state of the language. Since the model is rooted outside any notion of formal language structure, it may be counterintuitive to many language teachers, but also opens up new possibilities by placing more emphasis on non-verbal contributors to meaning, acknowledging more grey areas of acceptability, stressing the eeting nature of the spoken language and allowing the teacher to use material that may previously have been disregarded since it did not conform to a previously perceived pattern. Each time a word or expression
If a grammar rule fails a harsh reality check, then it is time to throw it out
Learning English
Speak up ... technology connects The Councils Learn English Kids site is truly outstanding, with some wonderful examples of language learning games and stories as well as some nice video clips and advice for parents on how to guide their kids through the materials. Meanwhile, the Councils latest venture embraces mobile learning and it now oers a range of free language learning apps that can be downloaded to hand-held devices. But its not just the bigger organisations that are providing sound learning opportunities for free. Increasingly small companies and enthusiastic teachers are finding that they can produce good-quality learning content. Many of these sites may look less
Learning English
I before e ... a competitor ponders during the American Scripps National Spelling Bee Kevin Lamarque/Reuters mould to mold and masque to mask though he lost the ght on women vs wimmen and ache vs ake. But a world in which every English word could take any form would be a strikingly different place. In a best-case scenario, we would write every word exactly as we pronounce it. If orthography faithfully reected pronunciation, new English speakers would have an easier time, and linguists could more easily track changes in the sounds of English across regions and centuries. Without a recognised system of standard spelling, primary education would be turned upside down. No more spelling books, spelling tests or points o for spelling. In place of spelling bees, perhaps wed see contests for the most creative, beautiful or evocative formulations of words, turning spelling from a chore into an art form. Making ambigrams words that can be read from dierent orientations and palindromes would be much easier, too, and English would have even more onomatopoeic words such as oink and meow. In a world without standard spelling, writers would pledge allegiance to different spelling schools. Some would fancy double letters; others would dispense with the silent e or add decorative umlauts; and science-ction writers would use even more of the letters x and q. Fans would copy the spellings of their favourite authors, and your letter choices would identify you as a loyal reader of particular publications. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds: for more than 40 years, the Chicago Tribune advocated the simplied spelling of words such as hemloc, iland, tarif, rime, philosofy, photograf and burocrat. Some were dropped, but the spellings thru and tho were used until the mid-1970s. Computers, however, might have a harder time, with search engines struggling to retrieve the right links. On the plus side, though, wed have no more problems with the Cupertino effect spellcheck softwares tendency to suggest inappropriate words to replace misspellings and words not in its dictionary, such as suggesting Cupertino for co-operation. But a world without spelling would also rob us of the pleasure we get from mastering the complicated, illogical English language. Theres a certain satisfaction to mastering a words such as silhouette or subpoena. English spelling is messy and dicult. As spelling bee competitors understand, thats what we like about it. Erin McKean is the founder of Wordnik, an online dictionary, and a former editor in chief for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press
Learning English
Lesson plan
Focus: listening, reading, present perfect Materials: article, dictionaries Time: 50 minutes
pairs and check meanings in dictionaries. Establish fast food. 7 mins Write up the gapped headline: No stopping after eating _____ Big Macs. Explain that Don Gorske has eaten a Big Mac every day for a long time. What number might go in the gap? Note their ideas. 5 mins Write the questions below on the board. Read out the rst three paragraphs twice. Students listen and note answers. Paircheck. Give out the article. Students check their answers. Who guessed the nearest number of burgers? 10 mins a How many years ago did Gorske begin to eat Big Macs? b How many Big Macs has he eaten? c How old is he?
Ask the class: Is there anything that you eat or drink every day? Why? For example, I always have a cup of coee in the morning because it wakes me up. Students move around the class, they ask/answer the question and try to nd somebody with the same food habits. Feedback. 8 mins
d On what date did he start eating Big Macs? e How many burgers did he eat on the rst day? f How many days has he gone without a Big Mac? Answers: a Thirty-nine. b 25,000. c Fifty-seven. d 17 May 1972. e Nine. f Eight days.
Write on board: sesame seed bun, pickles, onions, sauce, cheese, fries, soft drinks, fat, calories, packaging. Ask: What type of food is the article about? Students discuss in
Write up these sentences. Students read the rest of the article and complete them. 8 mins a Gorskes doctor thinks hes b A Big Mac has high quantities of c Gidus thinks it is positive that Gorske doesnt d When Gorske eats a Big Mac he Answers a healthy b fat/sodium. c have fries or soft drinks. d always enjoys it.
Students complete the text with the present perfect or simple past. Feedback. 12 mins Gorske (a) _____ (eat) at least one Big Mac every day for thirty-nine years. He rst (b) _____ (start) buying the burgers in 1972 and he (c) _____ (consume) thousands since then. Last month, he (d) _____ (order) his 25,000th Big Mac and he (e) _____ (celebrate) the event at his local McDonalds. Gorske knows the exact number because he (f) _____ (keep) a record of the burgers that he (g) _____ (buy) over the years. Answers: a has eaten b started c has consumed d ordered e celebrated f has kept g has bought Materials prepared by Janet Hardy-Gould
Learning English
Glossary
volume (noun) a formal term for a book; also the amount or quantity of something launch (verb) to make a product available to the public for the rst time commentator (noun) a person who is an expert on a particular topic and who talks or writes about it in the media range (noun) a set of products of a particular type
Questions
Before reading
1 Vocabulary from the article. What is the dierence in meaning between these phrases? a an ebook/a print book b an online book retailer/a traditional bookseller c a hardback/a paperback 2 Look at the headline, photo and caption of the article. Answer the questions below. a What would be the full version of the headline? b What does the verb eclipse mean here? What is the original use of the verb? c What do you think the article is about? Write a sentence in your own words to summarise the main point. Compare your sentence with a partner. 3 Write three questions to ask other students about their experiences and opinions of electronic book readers. Ask as many students as possible and report your ndings to the class. For example: In 10 years time, do you think most people will use electronic book readers?
b value of ebooks sold in the US and UK. c volume of ebooks sold with each new electronic reader. d proportion of ebooks to print books sold in the US and UK. 2 On the US version of Amazon people now buy more: a ebooks than other media products combined. b ebooks than all other book formats. c electronic Kindle readers than hardcovers. d hardbacks than other print books. 3 Neill Denny thinks the ebook statistics are unclear because: a many titles are purchased for little cost. b the bestsellers are given away with Kindles. c ebooks are sold in low-priced bestseller collections. d gures are shown in actual money terms. 2 Complete the questions with the words below. Then read the article again and nd the answers. how many, how much, what, when, where, who, why a ___ ebooks are now sold on US Amazon for every hundred print books? b ___ did ebook sales rst overtake print books in the US? c ___ in Europe was Kindle put on the market last year? d ___ is Bezos surprised? e ___ is the proportion of ebooks to hardbacks sold in the UK? f ___ are some ebook titles sold for? g ___ is concerned about ordinary bookshops? Why?
After reading
1 Word building verbs and nouns Complete the table below. Which noun appears in the plural in the article? Verb Noun announce a _____________ introduce b _____________ sell c _____________ warn d _____________ respond e _____________ choose f _____________ succeed g _____________ 2 Complete the summary with the nouns from exercise 1. Since the initial (a) _____ of the Kindle to the UK last year, (b) _____ of ebooks have soared dramatically. The recent (c) _____ of new gures has shown the very positive (d) _____ of readers to this device and it seems that the preferred (e) _____ of many customers is now for ebooks rather than print books. However, the great (f) _____ of this new reading format is not without its downside. There has been a clear (g) _____ from many in the book industry that traditional booksellers will suer. Look at the summary. Which other words are used in conjunction with the nouns?
like to convince student B of the benets and also the increasing popularity of this device. Student B is sceptical and can see the many downsides. Make notes about the arguments you would put forward. 3 Conduct the role play. Refer back to ideas in the article where appropriate. 4 Class feedback. Have any student Bs been converted to electronic readers? Materials prepared by Janet Hardy-Gould
Answers
Before reading 1 a a downloadable digital book; a traditional book printed on paper b a company that sells books on the internet; a bookshop c a book with a hard cover; a paper cover 2 a Amazon announces that ebooks are eclipsing print book sales. b Have overtaken and become more important than. When the moon eclipses the sun etc. While reading 11d2b3a 2 a How many; 105. b When; 1 April this year. c Where; the UK. d Why; Hes surprised because ebooks have overtaken print books so quickly. e What; More than two to one/242 to 100. f How much; As little as 80c or $2. g Who; Neill Denny. They are suering because Kindle is taking their customers. After reading 1 a announcement b introduction c sales d warning e response f choice g success 2 a introduction b sales c announcement d response e choice f success g warning
While reading
1 Read the whole article and choose the correct answers. 1 Amazon has announced new gures for the: a volume of ebooks purchased worldwide.