Shortage of Love

There are many reasons behind the various crises of our times, and they all can be summed up as one: a shortage of love.

(Igino Giordani, here)

Make Your Choice

Obama '08 Tote Bag: $30.00
McCain Tote Bag: $20.00



Obama '08 Acrylic Coffee Mug: $15.00
McCain Acrylic Coffee Mug: $10.00



Obama Golf Ball (sleeve of 3): $15.00
McCain Golf Balls (sleeve of 3): $10.00



Obama Logo Water Bottle: $12.00
McCain Water Bottle: $10.00


[Sources: ObamaStore/McCain Store]

Pogrom

Fr Augustine Kanjamala, a Verbite clergyman who teaches at the University of Mumbai, appeals to the Churches of the world to "express their protest to the government of India" which has remained "inactive" with regards to anti-Christian violence.

He openly charges the Orissa state government for its increasingly explicit collusion with the pogrom currently underway against the community of faithful.

According to Father Kanjamala a plan to cleanse Orissa of its Christian population has been in the making for years, especially in the district of Kandhamal (where most of the atrocities have taken place) where Christians now constitute around 5 per cent of the population.

Conversions by, development for and emancipation of Tribals and Dalits are confronted by Hindutva conservatism. [AsiaNews]

Religious Intelligence provides updated news on the situation.

Right or Wrong & Relax

Leon Redbone...

Pump Up the Volume

Both candidates have a series of know-them-by-heart popular songs that routinely can be heard at their campaign events. [Sara Just, ABCNews' Political Radar]

BARACK OBAMA is partial to Bruce Springsteen's The Rising and U2's Beautiful Day. At Saturday's rally in Springfield, Illinois with new ticketmate Joe Biden, the Obama campaign played country mega-hit, Only in America, by Brooks & Dunn, which was, ironically, also a staple of President George W. Bush's campaign events when he was running for office.

JOHN MCCAIN's campaign has also favored the sounds of Brooks & Dunn this year, playing That's What It's All About, as well as Tina Turner's Simply the Best at many rallies. ABCNews' Bret Hovell reports hearing Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, at a few McCain events.

Say Cheese

Go Out and See for Yourself

Investigative journalism is less banana daiquiris in Miami, and more a cup of tea in Rotherham bus station.

(BBC reporter John Sweeney)

'Olympic Disaster'

With just two days to go to the closing ceremony, the Paris-based watchdog Reporters sans Frontières today gave a negative evaluation of respect for free speech during the Beijing games. While most foreign reporters were able to cover the sports events without a problem, police and their civilian auxiliaries repeatedly prevented journalists from covering demonstrations or investigating subjects which the government regards as sensitive.

"As we feared, the Beijing Olympic games have been a period conducive to arrests, convictions, censorship, surveillance and harassment of more than 100 journalists, bloggers and dissidents," RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard said.

"This repression will be remembered as one of the defining characteristics of the Beijing games. The International Olympic Committee will have to accept much of responsibility for this failure. We think it is vital that the IOC's members should draw the necessary conclusions in their choice of a president to succeed Jacques Rogge when his term of office is up in a year's time.

"We also call for respect for free expression to become one of the criteria when selecting cities to host the games. Although the Olympic movement repeated its Beijing mistake when it chose the Russian city of Sochi for the 2014 Winter Games, Reporters Without Borders will continue to campaign for guarantees for press freedom during sports events.

"We hail all those in China and abroad who did not stop pressing for more freedom of expression before the Olympic Games," Ménard added. "We will remain vigilant in case the post-Olympic period ushers in a new wave of repression."

No Chinese prisoner of conscience has been released since the games began on 8 August. But several (including Sun Lin, Huang Qi and Hu Jia) have seen a deterioration in their prison conditions and their health. A total of 31 journalists, bloggers and free speech activists have been arrested or given prison sentences since the start of the year.

Surveillance of foreign reporters was stepped up before and during the games. "They don't stop following me, filming me and photographing me," a foreign news agency journalist based in Beijing said. "I think twice before interviewing Chinese about sensitive issues for fear that they could be arrested."

Commitments to respect press freedom were nonetheless made at the highest government level. President Hu Jintao himself said in the presence of the foreign press on 1 August that China would "facilitate the work" of foreign journalists "before and after the Beijing Olympic Games." Liu Binjie, the person in charge of the General Administration of Press and Publications, said the "open door" for the foreign media "will not close after the games."

A few figures

At least 22 foreign journalists were attacked or arrested or otherwise obstructed during the games. Two US video-bloggers, Brian Conley and Jeffrey Rae, are currently detained in Beijing for covering the activities of pro-Tibetan activists. They have been sentenced to 10 days in prison for "disrupting public order." Reporters Without Borders calls for their immediate release.

At least 50 Beijing-based human rights activists were placed under house arrest, harassed or forced to leave the capital during the games.

At least 15 Chinese citizens were arrested for requesting permission to demonstrate. Dozens of others, including the blogger Zhou "Zola" Shuguang and the handicapped petitioner Chen Xiujuan, were physically prevented by police from travelling to the capital.

At least 47 pro-Tibet activists, mostly members or supporters of Students for a Free Tibet, were arrested in Beijing.

Ability of foreign press to work in China

In 2001, Wang Wei promised "total freedom for the press" during the Olympic Games. This promise was not kept.

1. Violence and obstruction: Reporters Without Borders is aware of 22 incidents between 6 and 22 August in China. Properly accredited foreign journalists such as British television news reporter John Ray were manhandled or, as in the case of two Japanese reporters in the northwestern city of Kashgar (Xinjiang), were arrested.

2. Freedom of movement: Journalists were able to visit the province of Xinjiang but found it hard to get into Tibet. The foreign press was prevented from visiting the Beijing home of Zeng Jinyan, the wife of imprisoned dissident Hu Jia. In the weeks prior to the games, several journalists were prevented from working freely in Sichuan, the province hit by the 12 May earthquake.

3. Freedom to interview: Many journalists complained of police or civilian volunteers intervening when they tried to interview Chinese. A news agency reporter said that, in the course of a week, at least five of the people she had interviewed were subsequently arrested.

Two journalists - one working for a Hong Kong daily and the other for Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan service - were refused visas for China although that had been given press accreditation for the games. Chinese embassies refused to issue visas to six members of Reporters Without Borders.

During the news conferences that the Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG) held for the international media, its representatives, above all BOCOG vice-president Wang Wei, refused to comment on the various incidents involving freedom of expression. With the IOC's agreement, BOCOG even cancelled some of the news conference after English-language journalists were too insistent with their questions.

The authorities promised that the more relaxed rules for the foreign media adopted in January 2007 would be maintained after the Olympic Games but no directive has so far been issued putting this into effect. If no such directive is issued, the foreign media's freedom of movement and freedom to interview will end in October, after the Paralympic Games.

Reporters Without Borders accuses the government of blackmail, of conditioning the maintenance of the more favourable rules on the foreign media's good behaviour.

Right to demonstrate

The organisers designated places in Beijing for demonstrators but permission was not given for any demonstration, although 77 applications were filed with the Beijing Public Security Bureau. More seriously, at least 15 Chinese were arrested for requesting permission, including two women in the late 70s. Sentences of reeducation through work were imposed on some of the applicants.

The Chinese authorities accused the would-be demonstrators of intending to commit an offence, and punished them for this. The IOC has accused the Chinese government of breaking its promises in this respect.

In view of the impossibility of demonstrating freely in Beijing, several international organisations staged unauthorised street protests or gave news conferences in hotel rooms.

Reporters Without Borders clandestinely broadcast FM radio programmes in Chinese and English on 8 August in Beijing, above all as a protest against the state's monopoly of broadcast news and information and its jamming of international radio stations that broadcast in the Chinese, Tibetan and Uyghur languages. This censorship did not stop during the games.

Dissidents in danger

"I hope that the 2008 games will be over as quickly as possible as this event has brought us too much suffering," the wife of one of the "Olympic prisoners" told Reporters Without Borders. Around 10 human rights activists including cyber-dissident Hu Jia were arrested before the games and most of them were given prison sentences for criticising the Olympics. These "Olympic prisoners" were treated very harshly. One of them, Yang Chunlin, who got a five-year sentence, was brought into court in chains.

Leading figures such as Ding Zilin of the Mothers of Tiananmen and Wan Yanhai, who heads an NGO that cares for AIDS victims, were forced to leave the capital during the games for fear of reprisals. There has been no news of Zeng Jinyan, the well-known blogger and wife of Hu Jia, or their eight-month-old daughter since the start of the games.

Many human rights activists and Xinjiang inhabitants fear a crackdown after the games to punish those who spoiled the authorities. One of the police directives whose existence was revealed by Reporters Without Borders on 20 August says Chinese who criticise the government in interviews for the foreign news media must be properly investigated. It also tells policemen to follow the foreign journalists who carry out this kind of interview.

Reporters Without Borders fears that once the thousands of foreign journalists have left Beijing, the political police will step up its control of human rights activists and the population in Xinjiang and Tibet.

Internet censorship

Reporters Without Borders has confirmed that access to around 30 human rights websites and Chinese-language news websites is still blocked in China, including in the foreign press centres. The latest website to be censored is iTunes. A pro-Tibetan NGO said this was because the iTunes site enabled athletes in Beijing to listen to pro-Tibetan songs.

The Chinese authorities discriminated against Tibetan Internet users as many websites that were unblocked for the games, such as those of Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International, continued to be blocked in Tibet.

The government departments in charge of online censorship stepped up monitoring and controls during the games. Chinese Human Rights Defenders released a memo from ISP Xinwang Hulian to website editors saying: "To ensure the safety of information on the Internet during the Beijing Olympics and in accordance with requests from higher authorities, Xinwang Hulian will conduct a safety inspection of its sites." Discussion forums took measures against their most outspoken participants, denying them access during the games.

Hacker attacks on human rights websites increased during the games. This was the case both for sites in China, such as the online publication Yizhou Xiwen, and those outside the country, such as www.rsf.org.

Propaganda and revelations in the Chinese press

The more independent-minded Chinese newspapers ran some stories that were embarrassing for the government. The business magazine Caijing, for example, did not hesitate to report a senior official’s suicide during the games. The daily Xinjingbao (Beijing News) was censored for inadvertently publishing a photo of a victim of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Copies of the newspaper were withdrawn from sale and the website was censored.

The Propaganda Department remained vigilant, issuing frequent instructions to the media restricting coverage of certain Olympic-related news such as the faking that took place during the opening ceremony.

Other newspapers, such as Global Times, distinguished themselves by their hostility towards the foreign media. And the state media kept pumping out reports that reflected well on the organisers of the games. Footage of anti-Olympic protests in China and abroad were never broadcast.

International Olympic Committee's responsibility

When the IOC voted to award these games to China in 2001, it knew that the issue of human rights would be at the heart of the event. But, throughout the seven long years from the vote until the start of the games, the IOC and its president, Jacques Rogge, proved incapable of getting the Chinese authorities to make lasting improvements in respect for freedom of expression.

The IOC had an obligation to ensure respect for the Olympic Charter, which says sport must serve "the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity." It is guilty of a serious dereliction of duty.

Instead of ensuring respect for the dignity of Chinese human rights activists, Rogge preferred to censor athletes who wanted to wear a badge saying "For a better world" and to expel a Senegalese coach who called for "Friendship first, then competition."

Reporters Without Borders urges those at the head of the Olympic movement to ask themselves what the criteria for awarding future games should be. The current criteria are not only technical and material, but also environmental. Why not add respect for free expression in the would-be host city's country to the criteria used? The IOC could, for example, take account of the existence (or not) of independent media, the degree of censorship and the freedom of national and foreign journalist to move about the country.

Prague Spring (and Summer)

The radio came on a minute or two before 8am on the morning of August 21, 1968. It always did.

That was the start of family routine in our north London home. This morning, however, was shocking and unforgettable. The BBC bulletin led on the news that 165,000 Warsaw Pact forces had invaded Czechoslovakia from all points of the compass.

The blessed few months of the "Prague Spring", when Czechoslovaks tried to carve out a society of dignity and freedom, were brought to a brutal end by the tanks of the Soviet Union and their allies.

(Sir John Tusa, Telegraph)

The Cover

In the quest to find the best British magazine cover of all time, The Great Cover Debate have shortlisted 16 covers to battle it out for the title.

Here's my favourite:


(Tatler, April 1989)

For the record I like those other two too:


(Oz, 1967)


(Nova, 1968)

The winner will be announced during Magazine Week (29 September–5 October).

The Pen and the Sword

A television camera is not a weapon; it is a potent tool for truth. A pen is not a sword; its blade separates truth and fiction and empowers readers to judge their world. A journalist is not a combatant; a journalist is an agent for exposing the facts and giving the world needed transparency. [David Schlesinger, here and here]

Holy Tear

Salty tear drop of fear,
liquid sorrow on the morrow
or brief grief: thick thief -
melted pearl - wet curl;
dew of sadness, bitter medicine
...gutta crucis...
holy tear, oh dear
drip drip drip.

(Léon Bertoletti, Holy Tear)

The Beast

"By the way, Tina Brown is starting a new Web site called The Daily Beast. Nice name." (Howard Kurtz, WP)

The Daily Beast is the paper for which Evelyn Waugh's journalist hero William Boot works in Scoop, a 1938 novel.

Metaphysical Gossip

After he had listened for a minute and a half, he was gripped by a devilish doubt. Perhaps he had dragged the two English policemen to the wastes of a nocturnal heath on an errand no saner than seeking figs on its thistles. For the two priests were talking exactly like priests, piously, with learning and leisure, about the most aerial enigmas of theology. The little Essex priest spoke the more simply, with his round face turned to the strengthening stars; the other talked with his head bowed, as if he were not even worthy to look at them. But no more innocently clerical conversation could have been heard in any white Italian cloister or black Spanish cathedral.

The first he heard was the tail of one of Father Brown's sentences, which ended: '... what they really meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens being incorruptible.'

The taller priest nodded his bowed head and said:

'Ah, yes, these modern infidels appeal to their reason; but who can look at those millions of worlds and not feel that there may well be wonderful universes above us where reason is utterly unreasonable?'

'No,' said the other priest; 'reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost borderland of things. I know that people charge the Church with lowering reason, but it is just the other way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God himself is bound by reason.'

The other priest raised his austere face to the spangled sky and said:

'Yet who knows if in that infinite universe -- ?'

'Only infinite physically,' said the little priest, turning sharply in his seat, 'not infinite in the sense of escaping from the laws of truth.'

Valentin behind his tree was tearing his fingernails with silent fury. He seemed almost to hear the sniggers of the English detectives whom he had brought so far on a fantastic guess only to listen to the metaphysical gossip of two mild old parsons. In his impatience he lost the equally elaborate answer of the tall cleric, and when he listened again it was again Father Brown who was speaking:

'Reason and justice grip the remotest and the loneliest star. Look at those stars. Don't they look as if they were single diamonds and sapphires? Well, you can imagine any mad botany or geology you please. Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants. Think the moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire. But don't fancy that all that frantic astronomy would make the smallest difference to the reason and justice of conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would still find a notice-board, "Thou shalt not steal."'

(GK Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown)

Not Red and Dead

But I return to that terrible statement of Bertrand Russell's: "Better Red than dead." Why did he not say it would be better to be brown than dead? There is no difference. All my life and the life of my generation, the life of those who share my views, we all have had one viewpoint: Better to be dead than a scoundrel. In this horrible expression of Bertrand Russell's there is an absence of all moral criteria. Looked at from a short distance, these words allow one to maneuver and to continue to enjoy life. But from a long-term point of view it will undoubtedly destroy those people who think like that.

(Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West)

Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, has died at the age of 89.

He died in his home in the Moscow area, where he had lived with his wife Natalya, at 2345 local time (1945 GMT) on Sunday.

Reuters factbox:

Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11, 1918. He served in the Red Army in World War Two but in 1945 was convicted for criticising Stalin's conduct of the war, and spent the next decade in prison camps and internal exile.

He came to literary prominence in 1962 with "One Day on the Life of Ivan Denisovich", a short novel based on his own labour camp experiences, the only work published in his homeland during Soviet rule.

For his later writings, published abroad, he was stripped of his citizenship and put on a plane to West Germany in 1974 for refusing to keep silent about his country's past, and became an icon of resistance to the communist system from his American home in Vermont.

He received the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature for a body of work including "The First Circle" (1968), and "Cancer Ward" (1968). His monumental history of the Soviet police state, "The Gulag Archipelago", was published in Paris in three volumes between 1973 and 1978.

He made a hero's return to Russia in 1994, then reeling from the fall of the Soviet Union. But far from celebrating the shape of a homeland freed from the shackles of communism, he railed against its heady materialism and corruption.

This Is the Word of Hu

We hope that foreign reporters while in China will respect our laws and rules, report objectively and help communication and understanding between China and the peoples of the world.

(President Hu Jintao of the People's Republic of China)

[E&P]

Lone Wolves

Today the "special" correspondents, the "sons of a bitch" are reduced to a tiny patrol, all the others work in a pack.

(Journalist and writer Igor Man in the Turin daily La Stampa)