August 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/us/politics/28race.html?_r=1&hp&oref=sloginBy MICHAEL POWELL
DENVER — She figured this dream for dead so many decades ago.
Dezie Woods-Jones plans to stand Thursday night with her California delegation in a stadium here and listen to Barack Obama, the first black major-party presidential nominee in the nation’s history, give his acceptance speech. Ms. Woods-Jones, now in her 60s, is one of a tiny handful of delegates who on the same day in 1963, Aug. 28, stood with hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington and heard a young minister, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., deliver his soaring “I Have a Dream” speech.
“I was young, naïve enough to think I would see that in 5, 10 years,” she said. “Then you see leaders killed, you see police brutality, residential segregation in cities. About 10 years ago I thought: I won’t see this. This is something for my grandchildren.”
She paused, her eyes now red-rimmed.
“What to say except, ‘Oh, hallelujah!’ ” she said. “We have a lot of work, a lot, but we are so much closer than I expected.”
These veterans of the March on Washington are the living connective tissue to the America of 1963, when the police in some cities and towns still beat blacks with truncheons, and the story of their journey is as complicated as race itself.
At least five veterans of that march traveled to Denver this week as Democratic delegates, among them Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who is the last man alive of the 10 who spoke that day at the Lincoln Memorial. This son of sharecroppers, who was almost beaten to death by police officers in Selma, Ala., when he marched with civil rights activists across a bridge, stood on a sun-splashed street in Denver and considered the distance traveled.
His bald head still bears near half-century-old scars.
“We’ve had disappointments since then, but if someone told me I would be here,” Mr. Lewis said, shaking that head. “When people say nothing has changed, I feel like saying, ‘Come walk in my shoes.’ ”
Many veterans of the march will gather at televisions in their living rooms Thursday night, or sit with friends and old comrades and watch an event they would have considered impossible not just in 1963, but perhaps in 1983, or 1993. Theirs is often a cautious optimism; time has left them with a sense of the provisional nature of progress.
David R. Jones, now president of the Community Service Society in New York, recalled milling about in Washington in 1963, a 15-year-old there with classmates from a lefty school in Manhattan. Then Dr. King began to speak, and they fell quiet. “I never saw that kind of a speech,” Mr. Jones said.
He was transported. But the years ahead often cast a deep shadow. Mr. Jones, who is black, was beaten by the side of the road in Maine. He fought for decades to integrate middle-class housing developments and saw young whites wave watermelons at black marchers in Brooklyn. There were great victories, too, not least the election of dozens and dozens of black members of Congress, a few senators, and in his own city, Mayor David N. Dinkins. But he is left with a chary view of history’s march.
“Obama doesn’t have all the burdens of my generation,” Mr. Jones said. “We have one foot in both eras. We’re still living out a lot of anger.”
The Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy can bubble with anger still; his 75 years have not dulled his outrage. He served as the District of Columbia’s delegate in the House in the 1970s and 1980s, and often raged at what he saw as the racism of denying Washington statehood and full voting rights.
Years earlier, as a 30-year-old, he was asked by Dr. King to coordinate the logistics for the March on Washington. Those were precarious days; just a week before, white segregationists had marched through Washington carrying signs reading “Martin Luther Coon go home.” When he traveled across the Potomac to Virginia, he rode in the back of the bus.
“People ask what has changed, and I say don’t trivialize the changes,” Mr. Fauntroy said. “I’m seeing the fruit of the changes that began in 1964. I was close to Bobby Kennedy. He said to me: ‘You know, America’s going to change. Forty years from now, a black man could achieve what my brother has achieved.’ ”
At least 20,000 whites were among the marchers who stood on the Washington Mall that hot and sticky day 45 years ago. Many had ventured south to work for civil rights in the hamlets of Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi.
Cappy Harmon, 59, remembered her father, an Episcopal minister who had been jailed in North Carolina, loading her two sisters and her mother into a Volkswagen bus and driving south from Roxbury, Mass.
“It was one of those times when it was very clear what was right and what was wrong,” Ms. Harmon said.
The years to come offered less clarity. The civil rights movement fractured, Dr. King was assassinated, and Ms. Harmon, who works at Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, spoke of exploring her views with a new clarity.
“I was learning about my own racism, which was ingrained in ways that you don’t always understand,” she said. “It really was a long journey for all of us. But, in a way, an exciting one, too.”
On Thursday night she plans to watch the candidate she has supported from the beginning accept the nomination, an experience she likens to that march 45 years ago. “It’s incredibly exciting,” she said.
And yet, even for these veterans, fear can temper their joy. They have seen too many defeats — many supported Jesse Jackson’s two losing runs at the nomination in the 1980s — to assume a near majority of white voters would elect a black man.
Ms. Woods-Jones, president of Black Women Organized for Political Action, nearly vibrates with the joy of living in this moment. She describes her 35-year-old son sitting on a couch with her grandson, crying as he watched Mr. Obama this week. This is a hopeful woman tempered by history.
“The concern for me, well, America has grown to a point,” she said. “Having said that, there will still be those who go into the booth, their closet, and can’t vote for him. I hope, I pray, most of us are past that.”
A little earlier, Archie Spigner, a retired New York city councilman from Queens, sat on a park bench in Denver in his pin-striped suit. Gray now, he was a Young Turk in 1963 when he and other activists forced their white-run union to send buses to Washington. He came back enraptured but noticed that the world had not changed.
Mr. Spigner recalls real estate agents who would not return calls, burger joints in Queens that would not hire his constituents. Months ago, he endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton, because she is his state’s senator (he harbors a lifelong allegiance to the powerful Queens Democratic Party machine) and because she might have had an easier joust with history.
“Would it have been easier with Hillary? Maybe,” he said. “We’re rolling the dice. As a black man, I hope, I hope.”
Ralph Blumenthal contributed reporting from New York, Robbie Brown from Atlanta, and Rachel L. Swarns from Washington.
28 August 2008
25 August 2008
Pakistan coalition in major split
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7580931.stm
Page last updated at 13:47 GMT, Monday, 25 August 2008 14:47 UK
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says his PML-N party is pulling out of the country's multi-party governing coalition.
He has been in dispute with the country's biggest party, the PPP, over who should be the next president.
The two sides also disagree on the reinstatement of judges sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf.
The move throws Pakistan into further turmoil at a time of economic gloom and growing threats from militants.
'Constructive role'
Mr Sharif told journalists in Islamabad that the PPP had broken promises, in particular over the issue of the judges. "When written documents are repeatedly flouted, trust cannot remain," he said. "We cannot find a ray of hope."
However, he said his party wanted to play a constructive role in opposition, indicating that he will not try to bring down the government for now.
PPP leader Asif Zardari, whose wife Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December, has announced that he will stand for the presidential election on 6 September.
Mr Sharif now says his party will put up a candidate against him.
Uncomfortable
The PPP fears that if all the judges sacked by Mr Musharraf get their jobs back, they may invalidate an amnesty that paved the way for Mr Zardari and Ms Bhutto to return to the country last year.
That would leave Mr Zardari open to prosecution on long-standing corruption charges.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Islamabad says the PPP has other parties in coalition and the government will not fall. However, the PPP may find Mr Sharif to be an uncomfortably powerful figure to have in opposition at a time when the country lacks a sense of political direction.
Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif worked together to threaten Mr Musharraf with impeachment which led him to resign last week.
The two party leaders had also agreed to reduce the powers of the presidency in a country where the president has in the past dismissed democratically elected governments.
Mr Sharif says as long as the presidency remains a powerful post, a non-partisan candidate acceptable to everyone, rather than Mr Zardari, should have been agreed on.
Page last updated at 13:47 GMT, Monday, 25 August 2008 14:47 UK
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says his PML-N party is pulling out of the country's multi-party governing coalition.
He has been in dispute with the country's biggest party, the PPP, over who should be the next president.
The two sides also disagree on the reinstatement of judges sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf.
The move throws Pakistan into further turmoil at a time of economic gloom and growing threats from militants.
'Constructive role'
Mr Sharif told journalists in Islamabad that the PPP had broken promises, in particular over the issue of the judges. "When written documents are repeatedly flouted, trust cannot remain," he said. "We cannot find a ray of hope."
However, he said his party wanted to play a constructive role in opposition, indicating that he will not try to bring down the government for now.
PPP leader Asif Zardari, whose wife Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December, has announced that he will stand for the presidential election on 6 September.
Mr Sharif now says his party will put up a candidate against him.
Uncomfortable
The PPP fears that if all the judges sacked by Mr Musharraf get their jobs back, they may invalidate an amnesty that paved the way for Mr Zardari and Ms Bhutto to return to the country last year.
That would leave Mr Zardari open to prosecution on long-standing corruption charges.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Islamabad says the PPP has other parties in coalition and the government will not fall. However, the PPP may find Mr Sharif to be an uncomfortably powerful figure to have in opposition at a time when the country lacks a sense of political direction.
Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif worked together to threaten Mr Musharraf with impeachment which led him to resign last week.
The two party leaders had also agreed to reduce the powers of the presidency in a country where the president has in the past dismissed democratically elected governments.
Mr Sharif says as long as the presidency remains a powerful post, a non-partisan candidate acceptable to everyone, rather than Mr Zardari, should have been agreed on.
23 August 2008
Wall*E + Kleenex = Iron*E
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/wall-e-kleenex-iron-e#embed
Disney/Pixar's new animated film Wall*E is set in a distant future when the Earth is barren of all life forms and humans have survived only by leaving the wasted planet to live in outer space. The sole inhabitant of planet Earth in this doomsday scenario is Wall*E, a lovable but lonely robot that has been tasked with cleaning up the mess us humans left behind. If you’ve seen the movie, you probably got the same thrill out of its environmental theme as us here at Greenpeace. Meanwhile, the movie's smashing success at the box office is a clear indicator that its message resonates with Americans' concerns for the future.
That’s why it’s perplexing to see that K-C is featuring Wall*E on boxes of Kleenex. If you look on the bottom of these boxes, you’ll see a little recycled symbol that says: “This box is made from 100% recycled paper.” What you won’t see on the bottom of that box is a message telling you that the tissues inside it are made from centuries-old trees that were cut from forests that had been around for as much as 10,000 years – until K-C came along with its clearcutting practices, that is. Nor will the box tell you that K-C refuses to use any recycled material in Kleenex even though doing so would save huge areas of ancient forests.
Wall*E + Kleenex = Iron*E
For the past few years, Greenpeace has been running the Kleercut campaign to pressure K-C to stop devastating ancient forests. Naturally, we couldn’t let K-C’s blatant attempt to use Wall*E as a means of greenwashing Kleenex’s image go by without comment. So we commissioned celebrated political cartoonist Mark Fiore to create an animated movie of our own.
Our animated short features a new character called Kleer*E who gobbles up forests and spits out boxes of Kleenex. He is a precursor to Wall*E, who spends his days cleaning up a world where all the forests (and animals and people) are gone, a world where nothing is left but trash and empty boxes. Like Kleer*E, Kimberly-Clark is working to bring you that world, one box of Kleenex — and one forest — at a time.
In order to make sure K-C’s attempts at deceiving the public are unsuccessful, we need to band together to get the truth out about the company’s dishonest marketing. Help save the world’s ancient forests by viewing the Kleer*E video and then telling all your friends and family about it. The more people who are aware of K-C’s destructive business practices and refuse to buy Kleenex or other disposable products made by the company, the sooner they’ll change their ways.
Join us in telling K-C to stop the Iron*E! Instead of putting money towards looking like they’re “green,” the company needs to actually become green by improving their environmental practices. Specifically, they need to stop clearcutting ancient forests and start using recycled material in Kleenex and other consumer paper products. And when they do have to use virgin pulp, they should be sourcing it sustainably through the Forest Stewardship Council.
If we stop Kimberly-Clark from destroying any more of the world’s ancient forests, we will be able to avoid the dismal fate depicted in Wall*E. Untold future generations will surely thank us for giving them hope and a healthy planet to live on.
____________________________________
Disney/Pixar's new animated film Wall*E is set in a distant future when the Earth is barren of all life forms and humans have survived only by leaving the wasted planet to live in outer space. The sole inhabitant of planet Earth in this doomsday scenario is Wall*E, a lovable but lonely robot that has been tasked with cleaning up the mess us humans left behind. If you’ve seen the movie, you probably got the same thrill out of its environmental theme as us here at Greenpeace. Meanwhile, the movie's smashing success at the box office is a clear indicator that its message resonates with Americans' concerns for the future.
That’s why it’s perplexing to see that K-C is featuring Wall*E on boxes of Kleenex. If you look on the bottom of these boxes, you’ll see a little recycled symbol that says: “This box is made from 100% recycled paper.” What you won’t see on the bottom of that box is a message telling you that the tissues inside it are made from centuries-old trees that were cut from forests that had been around for as much as 10,000 years – until K-C came along with its clearcutting practices, that is. Nor will the box tell you that K-C refuses to use any recycled material in Kleenex even though doing so would save huge areas of ancient forests.
Wall*E + Kleenex = Iron*E
For the past few years, Greenpeace has been running the Kleercut campaign to pressure K-C to stop devastating ancient forests. Naturally, we couldn’t let K-C’s blatant attempt to use Wall*E as a means of greenwashing Kleenex’s image go by without comment. So we commissioned celebrated political cartoonist Mark Fiore to create an animated movie of our own.
Our animated short features a new character called Kleer*E who gobbles up forests and spits out boxes of Kleenex. He is a precursor to Wall*E, who spends his days cleaning up a world where all the forests (and animals and people) are gone, a world where nothing is left but trash and empty boxes. Like Kleer*E, Kimberly-Clark is working to bring you that world, one box of Kleenex — and one forest — at a time.
In order to make sure K-C’s attempts at deceiving the public are unsuccessful, we need to band together to get the truth out about the company’s dishonest marketing. Help save the world’s ancient forests by viewing the Kleer*E video and then telling all your friends and family about it. The more people who are aware of K-C’s destructive business practices and refuse to buy Kleenex or other disposable products made by the company, the sooner they’ll change their ways.
Join us in telling K-C to stop the Iron*E! Instead of putting money towards looking like they’re “green,” the company needs to actually become green by improving their environmental practices. Specifically, they need to stop clearcutting ancient forests and start using recycled material in Kleenex and other consumer paper products. And when they do have to use virgin pulp, they should be sourcing it sustainably through the Forest Stewardship Council.
If we stop Kimberly-Clark from destroying any more of the world’s ancient forests, we will be able to avoid the dismal fate depicted in Wall*E. Untold future generations will surely thank us for giving them hope and a healthy planet to live on.
____________________________________
16 August 2008
Under the Abbaya: Female Producers in Saudi Arabia
After you read the blog, watch the episode below!!
July 15, 2008 4:47 PM
By Amy Teuteberg, Producer
http://no-reservations-crew-blog.travelchannel.com/2008/07/under-the-abbaya-female-produc.html
“Did you have to wear the black thing?”
Just got back from my first “No Reservations” road trip, and the number one question from friends, family and co-workers isn’t about the food, the shoot, or how it was to work with Tony. It’s about what I had to wear.
Of course, the question is less about the garment, than how far I had to go to conform. It’s about what the garment represents, or at least what everyone thinks it represents. It’s about what it was like to be a woman working in Saudi Arabia.
I’m a producer. That means I’m ultimately responsible for everything that happens on a shoot: directing, story, logistics, details, feeding, transporting, lodging, gear, crew happiness, you name it. Big job, but I don’t do it alone. My right arm is known as a Segment Producer, and is an unbelievably crucial member of the team. This position was also held by a woman, Nari Kye. Of course the winner of the contest, ultimately responsible for making it all happen, was Danya Alhamrani, yet another woman.
And yes, we all wore the black thing. It’s called an abbaya, and it’s basically a long-sleeved, floor-length dress that you pull over your head, and wear over your clothes. We also covered our hair with matching black scarves, so three women in abbayas produced an episode of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” in Saudi Arabia. Oh, but I’m leaving out someone else who moved mountains making this episode: Dania Nassief, yep, another woman.
How did a group of women pull off a TV show in a country where women can’t drive, can’t vote, and really aren’t supposed to hang out with non-related males? Well, they have a saying in Danya’s hometown, “Jeddah is different.” And for the record, so is she.
When we stepped off the plane after a brutally long flight from New York, I had no idea what to expect. Would Nari and I be shunned, ignored, treated like a lesser by the men we’d come in contact with? Having spent the last 15 years working as a woman in a male-dominated industry, I didn’t really worry about it, since I’ve been dealing with that crap for years. That said, I’ve never had to do it in a country where the separation of the sexes was so strictly enforced by both law and culture.
One of the first and most obvious signs of that division was the abbaya. You can’t help but notice, since literally every woman is wearing one. Most men wear a thobe, which is a long white cotton tunic, worn over white pants. So it’s women in black, men in white. Needless to say, the contrast is striking. After all, what could be more “black and white” than black and white?
But that wasn’t the only sign. In fact, there were literally signs, signs denoting separate male and female entrances for mosques, the “single” section (for men only) and a “family” section (for men and women) at many restaurants. No women allowed in the hotel pool. At the hotel restaurant, Nari and I were seated behind a screen, which Nari called it our “pen”, separating us from male diners. I found myself wondering, “If even the breakfast buffet is segregated, how are we going to make this work?”
Nari and I had arrived ahead of the crew, to scout, bring over the equipment, and take care of last minute details. For about a week, we worked with Danya and Dania (names pronounced the same) taking care of the gazillion details that go into making a TV show. It took about 15 minutes in their company to realize that the separation of the sexes may dictate seating arrangements in certain restaurants, but it was not going to get in the way of making this show. Although the law may prevent the Danyas from literally taking the driver’s seat, it did not prevent them from taking charge. Together they were an abbaya-clad dynamic duo of problem-solving, refusing to take no as an answer from anyone, male or female, that got in the way - my kind of ladies.
We also worked with a lot of local men: drivers, government officials and a “fixer” helping us out. Nearly every place we shot was male-owned, operated and staffed, and a whole host of male characters lent a hand along the way. And you know how all of them responded to women in charge? Great. Actually, they were a lot more than great. They were about the most warm, wonderful, welcoming group of people that you could possibly imagine. That bunch, with Danya at its center, was an extraordinary collection of people.
Now, before you think I drank the Kool-Aid, there was also plenty of evidence that things aren’t exactly free and equal. Case in point: Danya and Dania operate Saudi Arabia’s first female-owned production company granted permission to work without a male present. The first. And it took them over five years of fighting the system to get that paperwork in place. So they’re not the norm, they’re trailblazers.
And of course, Danya is no ordinary woman. She’s pretty much the definition of extraordinary, and absolutely one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. Having grown up between Jeddah and North Dakota, she’s got a pretty unique perspective on the similarities and differences between our cultures. There are an incredible number of things that I learned from her on this journey, including some unexpected perspective on the practice of wearing abbaya.
I should probably mention that I hate the idea of anyone telling me what to wear. I shun uniforms and conformity, they completely freak me out. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find that I didn’t really mind wearing an abbaya. Ok, forget all the symbolic meaning for a second. For starters, it’s practical. You never have to think about what you’re wearing. You can toss it over a bikini or your jammies, and head out the door. And yes, I did both.
It’s also the best way to blend in that you can imagine. Working on the show, the last thing that you want to do is call attention to yourself, since all eyes belong on Tony and Danya. Producers are there to get the show made, and need to find a way of making that happen, while blending into the woodwork. I can’t imagine a better way of doing that than wearing an abbaya. Accidentally stumble into a shot? No problem. Instead of out-of-place Western eyesore, I look like a local.
Of course it goes without saying that you also want to respect all the local laws, customs, and tradition and in that sense, no problem. Abbaya-me.
But besides all that, I began to realize how the abbaya affects the way you communicate with women, how it shifts your focus. Without all the visual cues that wardrobe, hair, or even subtleties of gesture provide to help you “see” someone, you begin to read them in a different way. The art of conversation and eye contact gain more weight, because that’s all you’ve got. The face, where attention really belongs in the first place, is where it stays. It forces you to work harder to see someone, and to pay deeper attention to the words coming out of their mouth. Certainly the most important abbaya-related thought I had had during the trip. Ironic that I didn’t even notice all this was happening, till the first time I saw Danya take off her abbaya.
Although everyone wears an abbaya in public, it comes off at home. When you are hanging out with friends or family, no abbaya necessary. Underneath, many women dress just like they do in New York: skirts, heels, low cut tops, you name it. One particularly scorching day, after Danya, Nari and I had spent hours scouting locations in the desert sun, we had a meeting in my hotel room. The second the door shut behind us, we tossed our sweat-drenched abbayas and head-scarves to the floor. Danya was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. For the first time, I could see her hair, her arms, her legs. I noticed immediately how different this felt. In some ways, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. Like a layer that was new and more intimate had been revealed. I realized in that moment that that was likely the point of the abbaya, or at least part of it. It’s saving that kind of intimacy for those that are close to you, your friends and family, who have earned the privilege. For the first time, I saw that the abbaya may have a role in protecting women, and not as something simply designed to control them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for the abbaya. I don’t want to see them parading down the runways, in a window on 5th Avenue, or on the sale rack over at Old Navy. I don’t want to see rules about women’s or men’s clothing anywhere of any sort. I can’t even get behind the idea of Black Tie. And honestly, in terms of focusing communication, none of us should require an abbaya to make that happen. Still, having that simple “abbaya insight” felt like an incredibly important step toward understanding Danya’s culture. And isn’t that exactly what travel is all about? Taking a walk in someone else’s shoes, or under their abbaya, and trying to find a way of seeing things from their perspective.
I’ve been back in New York for about a week now. Last night as I walked home, I was thinking about how much I missed Danya, her incredible laugh, and the warmth and hospitality of her friends and family. The spell was broken when a stranger approached me, offering a graphic description of something he’d like to do involving his face and my backside. For a second, I couldn’t help but miss my abbaya.
July 15, 2008 4:47 PM
By Amy Teuteberg, Producer
http://no-reservations-crew-blog.travelchannel.com/2008/07/under-the-abbaya-female-produc.html
“Did you have to wear the black thing?”
Just got back from my first “No Reservations” road trip, and the number one question from friends, family and co-workers isn’t about the food, the shoot, or how it was to work with Tony. It’s about what I had to wear.
Of course, the question is less about the garment, than how far I had to go to conform. It’s about what the garment represents, or at least what everyone thinks it represents. It’s about what it was like to be a woman working in Saudi Arabia.
I’m a producer. That means I’m ultimately responsible for everything that happens on a shoot: directing, story, logistics, details, feeding, transporting, lodging, gear, crew happiness, you name it. Big job, but I don’t do it alone. My right arm is known as a Segment Producer, and is an unbelievably crucial member of the team. This position was also held by a woman, Nari Kye. Of course the winner of the contest, ultimately responsible for making it all happen, was Danya Alhamrani, yet another woman.
And yes, we all wore the black thing. It’s called an abbaya, and it’s basically a long-sleeved, floor-length dress that you pull over your head, and wear over your clothes. We also covered our hair with matching black scarves, so three women in abbayas produced an episode of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” in Saudi Arabia. Oh, but I’m leaving out someone else who moved mountains making this episode: Dania Nassief, yep, another woman.
How did a group of women pull off a TV show in a country where women can’t drive, can’t vote, and really aren’t supposed to hang out with non-related males? Well, they have a saying in Danya’s hometown, “Jeddah is different.” And for the record, so is she.
When we stepped off the plane after a brutally long flight from New York, I had no idea what to expect. Would Nari and I be shunned, ignored, treated like a lesser by the men we’d come in contact with? Having spent the last 15 years working as a woman in a male-dominated industry, I didn’t really worry about it, since I’ve been dealing with that crap for years. That said, I’ve never had to do it in a country where the separation of the sexes was so strictly enforced by both law and culture.
One of the first and most obvious signs of that division was the abbaya. You can’t help but notice, since literally every woman is wearing one. Most men wear a thobe, which is a long white cotton tunic, worn over white pants. So it’s women in black, men in white. Needless to say, the contrast is striking. After all, what could be more “black and white” than black and white?
But that wasn’t the only sign. In fact, there were literally signs, signs denoting separate male and female entrances for mosques, the “single” section (for men only) and a “family” section (for men and women) at many restaurants. No women allowed in the hotel pool. At the hotel restaurant, Nari and I were seated behind a screen, which Nari called it our “pen”, separating us from male diners. I found myself wondering, “If even the breakfast buffet is segregated, how are we going to make this work?”
Nari and I had arrived ahead of the crew, to scout, bring over the equipment, and take care of last minute details. For about a week, we worked with Danya and Dania (names pronounced the same) taking care of the gazillion details that go into making a TV show. It took about 15 minutes in their company to realize that the separation of the sexes may dictate seating arrangements in certain restaurants, but it was not going to get in the way of making this show. Although the law may prevent the Danyas from literally taking the driver’s seat, it did not prevent them from taking charge. Together they were an abbaya-clad dynamic duo of problem-solving, refusing to take no as an answer from anyone, male or female, that got in the way - my kind of ladies.
We also worked with a lot of local men: drivers, government officials and a “fixer” helping us out. Nearly every place we shot was male-owned, operated and staffed, and a whole host of male characters lent a hand along the way. And you know how all of them responded to women in charge? Great. Actually, they were a lot more than great. They were about the most warm, wonderful, welcoming group of people that you could possibly imagine. That bunch, with Danya at its center, was an extraordinary collection of people.
Now, before you think I drank the Kool-Aid, there was also plenty of evidence that things aren’t exactly free and equal. Case in point: Danya and Dania operate Saudi Arabia’s first female-owned production company granted permission to work without a male present. The first. And it took them over five years of fighting the system to get that paperwork in place. So they’re not the norm, they’re trailblazers.
And of course, Danya is no ordinary woman. She’s pretty much the definition of extraordinary, and absolutely one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. Having grown up between Jeddah and North Dakota, she’s got a pretty unique perspective on the similarities and differences between our cultures. There are an incredible number of things that I learned from her on this journey, including some unexpected perspective on the practice of wearing abbaya.
I should probably mention that I hate the idea of anyone telling me what to wear. I shun uniforms and conformity, they completely freak me out. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find that I didn’t really mind wearing an abbaya. Ok, forget all the symbolic meaning for a second. For starters, it’s practical. You never have to think about what you’re wearing. You can toss it over a bikini or your jammies, and head out the door. And yes, I did both.
It’s also the best way to blend in that you can imagine. Working on the show, the last thing that you want to do is call attention to yourself, since all eyes belong on Tony and Danya. Producers are there to get the show made, and need to find a way of making that happen, while blending into the woodwork. I can’t imagine a better way of doing that than wearing an abbaya. Accidentally stumble into a shot? No problem. Instead of out-of-place Western eyesore, I look like a local.
Of course it goes without saying that you also want to respect all the local laws, customs, and tradition and in that sense, no problem. Abbaya-me.
But besides all that, I began to realize how the abbaya affects the way you communicate with women, how it shifts your focus. Without all the visual cues that wardrobe, hair, or even subtleties of gesture provide to help you “see” someone, you begin to read them in a different way. The art of conversation and eye contact gain more weight, because that’s all you’ve got. The face, where attention really belongs in the first place, is where it stays. It forces you to work harder to see someone, and to pay deeper attention to the words coming out of their mouth. Certainly the most important abbaya-related thought I had had during the trip. Ironic that I didn’t even notice all this was happening, till the first time I saw Danya take off her abbaya.
Although everyone wears an abbaya in public, it comes off at home. When you are hanging out with friends or family, no abbaya necessary. Underneath, many women dress just like they do in New York: skirts, heels, low cut tops, you name it. One particularly scorching day, after Danya, Nari and I had spent hours scouting locations in the desert sun, we had a meeting in my hotel room. The second the door shut behind us, we tossed our sweat-drenched abbayas and head-scarves to the floor. Danya was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. For the first time, I could see her hair, her arms, her legs. I noticed immediately how different this felt. In some ways, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. Like a layer that was new and more intimate had been revealed. I realized in that moment that that was likely the point of the abbaya, or at least part of it. It’s saving that kind of intimacy for those that are close to you, your friends and family, who have earned the privilege. For the first time, I saw that the abbaya may have a role in protecting women, and not as something simply designed to control them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for the abbaya. I don’t want to see them parading down the runways, in a window on 5th Avenue, or on the sale rack over at Old Navy. I don’t want to see rules about women’s or men’s clothing anywhere of any sort. I can’t even get behind the idea of Black Tie. And honestly, in terms of focusing communication, none of us should require an abbaya to make that happen. Still, having that simple “abbaya insight” felt like an incredibly important step toward understanding Danya’s culture. And isn’t that exactly what travel is all about? Taking a walk in someone else’s shoes, or under their abbaya, and trying to find a way of seeing things from their perspective.
I’ve been back in New York for about a week now. Last night as I walked home, I was thinking about how much I missed Danya, her incredible laugh, and the warmth and hospitality of her friends and family. The spell was broken when a stranger approached me, offering a graphic description of something he’d like to do involving his face and my backside. For a second, I couldn’t help but miss my abbaya.
10 August 2008
Could Globalization Be Going In Reverse?
Alex Steffen
August 4, 2008 11:19 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008313.html
For the last three decades, it's been more or less assumed that globalization was a force that moved in only one direction -- towards ever-greater integration.
And due to the logic of global trade, the assumption of ever greater integration led to the prediction that manufacturing would continue to move from countries with low labor costs to those with even lower labor costs and even looser laws, while supply chains would tend to grow ever-longer and more complex. The world would grow flatter.
So far, these predictions have held true, but will they always? For the first time in recent decades, it seems there are now real reasons to question the logic underlying the official future of ever-increasing global trade.
The biggest, of course, is the rapidly mounting cost of transportation. As oil prices rise, reports the New York Times, shipping costs are driving decisions to shorten supply chains:
When Tesla Motors, a pioneer in electric-powered cars, set out to make a luxury roadster for the American market, it had the global supply chain in mind. Tesla planned to manufacture 1,000-pound battery packs in Thailand, ship them to Britain for installation, then bring the mostly assembled cars back to the United States.
But when it began production this spring, the company decided to make the batteries and assemble the cars near its home base in California, cutting more than 5,000 miles from the shipping bill for each vehicle.
“It was kind of a no-brain decision for us,” said Darryl Siry, the company’s senior vice president of global sales, marketing and service. “A major reason was to avoid the transportation costs, which are terrible.”
But transportation costs are not the only reasons why globalization as we know it might be in for some rapid evolution. Consider:
*Far-flung supply chains may drop costs (even with higher oil prices), but the multiply climate change emissions. That already presents a marketing challenge as consumers grow more aware of their carbon footprints. And if political consensus emerges on pricing carbon (as seems likely), some of the price advantages of global complexity could vanish overnight.
*Manufacturers and others are already increasingly aware of, and worried about, supply chain diversity. When the entire supply of a critical part or material comes from a distant factory or mine, every company that depends on that part or material is at risk. Increasingly, companies are trying to find multiple sources (and alternative sources), preferably close to home.
*Some of the economic advantages of globalization have come from companies gaining the ability to skirt labor and environmental laws by doing business in countries with high levels of political corruption (corruption they have often helped create). But now, transparency activism has blown the cover of secrecy off these practices; now it is easier than ever to cause enormous brand damage simply by revealing an unsavory backstory.
*Much of the logic of globalization assumes a one-way flow of materials, mined and grown in the poorest countries, manufactured into consumer goods in China, Brazil or Mexico, sold on the shelves of megastores in Europe or North America, then shipped away to the landfill. But as we move into zero waste and closed-loop systems (where there is no "away"), reverse logistics start to become a real concern. Producers become responsible for their products, meaning that running their current supply chains in reverse doubles (at least) their already mounting transportation costs. This alone could drive more local manufacturing.
*Globalization suffers from some big disruptive vulnerabilities. An extreme act of terror, say a dirty bomb in a shipping container, could easily bring the whole system screeching to a halt. Ditto bird flu. Same with mass migrations triggered by environmental degradation and climate change in already desperately poor countries. Heck, even the right kind of invasive species scare could put a hiccup in the system, but some of these could stop trade altogether for quite some time.
Now, none of these mean that industrialization itself is likely to stop or even slow down (though the disruption of trade could mean that prices on some things we're used to thinking of as cheap, like clothes and minor electronics, grow suddenly more expensive). Especially in the developed world -- where we can draw on a huge basin of wealth and a huge capacity for innovation -- even a dramatic reversal in globalization would not fundamentally undermine our civilization (though it would certainly contribute to a number of real changes already underway, like greater urbanization, local food movements, cradle-to-cradle design and so on). We won't be headed back to de-industrialized farming any time soon.
But if the scenario of a reversal in globalization in fact comes to pass, there will be some economic upheaval, and that upheaval will create winners and losers -- an effect that will be magnified if economic chaos occurs at the same time that the impacts of climate change begin to be felt in earnest. Some regions will plan ahead and do well. Others will suffer.
What might regional or local economic policy in a time of de-globalization and climate impacts look like? What key industries or capacities should regions be looking to foster? What sorts of infrastructure development should they subsidize? What sort of agricultural capacities and ecosystem services should they aim most to preserve? If you were planning your region's economic future, what would you be looking to do?
One point is probably worth making in conclusion: because communications technologies are (comparatively speaking) dematerialized, a reversal in material trade patterns almost certainly would not also mean a reversal in intellectual trade patterns -- rising oil prices or climate change won't shut down the web or stop Bollywood from making movies or prevent innovators from licensing their ideas in other countries. In fact, it might be that expertise, innovation and culture will flow more freely in a world where goods flow more slowly. We might actually grow more interconnected in a world where supply chains shrank
August 4, 2008 11:19 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008313.html
For the last three decades, it's been more or less assumed that globalization was a force that moved in only one direction -- towards ever-greater integration.
And due to the logic of global trade, the assumption of ever greater integration led to the prediction that manufacturing would continue to move from countries with low labor costs to those with even lower labor costs and even looser laws, while supply chains would tend to grow ever-longer and more complex. The world would grow flatter.
So far, these predictions have held true, but will they always? For the first time in recent decades, it seems there are now real reasons to question the logic underlying the official future of ever-increasing global trade.
The biggest, of course, is the rapidly mounting cost of transportation. As oil prices rise, reports the New York Times, shipping costs are driving decisions to shorten supply chains:
When Tesla Motors, a pioneer in electric-powered cars, set out to make a luxury roadster for the American market, it had the global supply chain in mind. Tesla planned to manufacture 1,000-pound battery packs in Thailand, ship them to Britain for installation, then bring the mostly assembled cars back to the United States.
But when it began production this spring, the company decided to make the batteries and assemble the cars near its home base in California, cutting more than 5,000 miles from the shipping bill for each vehicle.
“It was kind of a no-brain decision for us,” said Darryl Siry, the company’s senior vice president of global sales, marketing and service. “A major reason was to avoid the transportation costs, which are terrible.”
But transportation costs are not the only reasons why globalization as we know it might be in for some rapid evolution. Consider:
*Far-flung supply chains may drop costs (even with higher oil prices), but the multiply climate change emissions. That already presents a marketing challenge as consumers grow more aware of their carbon footprints. And if political consensus emerges on pricing carbon (as seems likely), some of the price advantages of global complexity could vanish overnight.
*Manufacturers and others are already increasingly aware of, and worried about, supply chain diversity. When the entire supply of a critical part or material comes from a distant factory or mine, every company that depends on that part or material is at risk. Increasingly, companies are trying to find multiple sources (and alternative sources), preferably close to home.
*Some of the economic advantages of globalization have come from companies gaining the ability to skirt labor and environmental laws by doing business in countries with high levels of political corruption (corruption they have often helped create). But now, transparency activism has blown the cover of secrecy off these practices; now it is easier than ever to cause enormous brand damage simply by revealing an unsavory backstory.
*Much of the logic of globalization assumes a one-way flow of materials, mined and grown in the poorest countries, manufactured into consumer goods in China, Brazil or Mexico, sold on the shelves of megastores in Europe or North America, then shipped away to the landfill. But as we move into zero waste and closed-loop systems (where there is no "away"), reverse logistics start to become a real concern. Producers become responsible for their products, meaning that running their current supply chains in reverse doubles (at least) their already mounting transportation costs. This alone could drive more local manufacturing.
*Globalization suffers from some big disruptive vulnerabilities. An extreme act of terror, say a dirty bomb in a shipping container, could easily bring the whole system screeching to a halt. Ditto bird flu. Same with mass migrations triggered by environmental degradation and climate change in already desperately poor countries. Heck, even the right kind of invasive species scare could put a hiccup in the system, but some of these could stop trade altogether for quite some time.
Now, none of these mean that industrialization itself is likely to stop or even slow down (though the disruption of trade could mean that prices on some things we're used to thinking of as cheap, like clothes and minor electronics, grow suddenly more expensive). Especially in the developed world -- where we can draw on a huge basin of wealth and a huge capacity for innovation -- even a dramatic reversal in globalization would not fundamentally undermine our civilization (though it would certainly contribute to a number of real changes already underway, like greater urbanization, local food movements, cradle-to-cradle design and so on). We won't be headed back to de-industrialized farming any time soon.
But if the scenario of a reversal in globalization in fact comes to pass, there will be some economic upheaval, and that upheaval will create winners and losers -- an effect that will be magnified if economic chaos occurs at the same time that the impacts of climate change begin to be felt in earnest. Some regions will plan ahead and do well. Others will suffer.
What might regional or local economic policy in a time of de-globalization and climate impacts look like? What key industries or capacities should regions be looking to foster? What sorts of infrastructure development should they subsidize? What sort of agricultural capacities and ecosystem services should they aim most to preserve? If you were planning your region's economic future, what would you be looking to do?
One point is probably worth making in conclusion: because communications technologies are (comparatively speaking) dematerialized, a reversal in material trade patterns almost certainly would not also mean a reversal in intellectual trade patterns -- rising oil prices or climate change won't shut down the web or stop Bollywood from making movies or prevent innovators from licensing their ideas in other countries. In fact, it might be that expertise, innovation and culture will flow more freely in a world where goods flow more slowly. We might actually grow more interconnected in a world where supply chains shrank
09 August 2008
The Guantanamo Cell Tour
Amnesty International brought a bright-orange, 1-ton chunk of activism to American shores.
It’s the Guantanamo Cell Tour – the centerpiece of our campaign to end the U.S. government's immoral, illegal and ineffective detention and interrogation program.
The Cell is proof that we’re not afraid to throw our weight around for justice and so far, we’re making a big impact.
Overwhelming momentum—across the political spectrum—is building to shut down Guantanamo:
Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, ''I'd like to see it shut down…I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it's been pretty damaging."
Five former U.S. secretaries of state, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher—Republicans and Democrats—publicly called for Guantanamo to be closed. Kissinger called it a “blot on us.” (And you know if he said it, it must be really bad.)
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees have a Constitutional right to habeas corpus (the right to have the legality of their detention reviewed)--a ruling that has sent the Administration scurrying to shore up its illegal detention program.
And thousands of people have signed our global petition to end illegal U.S. detentions, www.TearItDown.org.
Now, we’re bringing the Cell Tour to Denver and then Minneapolis – Saint Paul to coincide with the Democratic National Convention (August 25 – 28) and the Republican National Convention (September 1 – 4).
National and local media have covered the tour, including Reuters, FOX, NPR, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Examiner, and even the Daily Show with John Stewart; here are just a few examples:
Activists Offer a Taste of Guantanamo Prison
By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 26, 2008; Page B02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062502061.html?tr=y&auid=3877007
To the long list of tourist attractions on the Mall -- the museums, monuments and vistas -- human rights advocates added their own Kodak moment yesterday: a replica of a Guantanamo prison cell.
Metal toilet included.
Up stepped Colby Cashion, 14, of Orlando, intent on absorbing the infamous Guantanamo experience, albeit one with the Washington Monument in the background.
The teenager lasted less than a minute in the 10-by-6-foot cell, with its eight-foot-high ceiling, sliver of a window, fluorescent light and thin pad for a mattress.
"It would stink to be in there all day," Colby said, while his grandmother, Faye Cashion, stood at the entrance, ignoring a stranger's chant of "Go in! Go in!"
She said she is not all that opposed to Guantanamo. "I'm kind of hardheaded. I think they ought to be there, some of them," she said before leading her grandson to their next stop, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Amnesty International USA, the human rights group, set up the cell to dramatize its opposition to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where since 2002 the United States has kept hundreds of prisoners, many of them terror suspects. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this month that Guantanamo prisoners have the right to go to federal court to challenge their detention.
Amnesty International has taken the cell on the road, displaying it in Miami, Philadelphia and Portland, Maine, to educate Americans about what it contends are human rights violations that the United States is committing at Guantanamo.
"How do you get through to jaded and cynical journalists and the public?" asked Larry Cox, the organization's executive director. "We can't take them to Guantanamo. So we're bringing Guantanamo to them."
The Mall might not be the ideal place for the cell, which will be on display through Sunday. When Cox convened a noontime rally, the number of Amnesty volunteers, reporters and photographers far outnumbered members of the public.
Not even the bright orange sign -- "Welcome to Guantanamo, your cell is waiting" -- created a buzz.
Dressed in orange prison jumpsuits, Amnesty International staff members such as Jason Disterhoft, 32, posed for photographs inside the cell, apparently not minding the temperature, which approached 90 degrees.
"This is all meant to illustrate conditions," he said.
Not everyone was impressed.
"It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be," said Scott Henry, 22, of Toledo. "That's as big as some dorm rooms at colleges."
His pal Zach Howard, 20, a California native who is spending the summer in Washington as an intern, nodded in agreement.
"Kind of what I expected," he said. "I shrug my shoulders."
Mark Sedlander, 27, a Georgetown University law student, said he wanted to see the cell to help educate himself about the issues surrounding Guantanamo.
He stepped inside, sat on the mattress, eyed the toilet seat and pronounced himself done.
"It's nice to go in, but it's nothing like what the guys are going through down there," Sedlander said. "What's really pressing are the legal reasons they're there. The lack of an appeals process. This is what we're putting people in."
Guantanamo, stateside
By Carol J. Williams
May 09, 2008
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/09/nation/na-gitmocell9?tr=y&auid=3877017
Life-size human silhouettes cut from orange cardboard direct passersby at busy Bayfront Park to the latest effort by human rights groups to get the Guantanamo prison for terrorism suspects shut down.
A replica of a maximum-security Camp 5 cell from the detention site at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay is at the center of an exhibit that opened Thursday in Miami and will tour major U.S. cities through summer.
Rights advocates from Amnesty International USA, the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Bar Assn. appealed to Washington to end what they see as an international embarrassment and breach of law.
“The U.S. government has made it impossible for people to get to Guantanamo to see this, so we wanted to bring a bit of the reality to the public,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “To stand inside this cell gives them some sense of the psychological hell of being held in a box for years and not knowing if you’ll ever get out.”
Organizers of the tour say that more than six years into the controversial detention and trial operations, Guantanamo has become a remote concept for most U.S. citizens.
“I’ve seen Guantanamo close up and personal … and that’s convinced me that there has never been a greater threat to the rule of law than what we have at Guantanamo now,” said Neal R. Sonnett, head of the American Bar Assn. task force on the treatment of enemy combatants and its observer at the Guantanamo war court.
The 7-by-10-foot cell painted orange and emblazoned with the words “Counter Terror With Justice” was built by Amnesty International of Australia for a campaign there two years ago to get Australian detainee David Hicks released from Guantanamo, said Amnesty’s Jumana Musa, also a tribunal observer.
The specifications for the cell – white-walled and containing only a benchlike bunk, steel sink and toilet – were once posted on the Defense Department’s website but have since been removed, she noted.
Hicks, one of the first terrorism suspects captured in Afghanistan and brought to Guantanamo, was released to the Australian government in spring 2007 after a plea bargain reduced the charges against him. He served a nine-month sentence in Adelaide, Australia, and was freed in December.
The touring exhibit is intended to draw attention to Guantanamo as the Pentagon prepares for the first U.S. war-crimes trial in 60 years at the end of this month. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as Osama bin Laden’s $200-a-month driver in Afghanistan, faces charges of conspiracy and material support to terrorism. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison. Pentagon officials have said they plan to prosecute about 80 of the 270 men still at Guantanamo.
The first cells, chain-link pens topped with razor wire, were erected and filled in January 2002. Subsequent camps built at the base in southern Cuba have been concrete-and-steel facilities modeled on prisons in Michigan and Indiana.
As the cell exhibit was unveiled Thursday, people strolling the waterfront recreation area flanking the high-rises of downtown Miami wandered over for a peek. David Galarca, an 18-year-old from North Miami, said he didn’t know much about Guantanamo. The cell exhibit stirred his interest, he said. Then he wandered back to the waterfront with his friends.
“We are from Italy, and we – many Europeans – don’t understand why the United States is doing this,” said Cesare Longo, a Roman in Miami for his honeymoon. “The problem we have with Guantanamo is that the justice there isn’t the same as in the United States. They should make the same guarantees for the people they accuse of terrorist acts as they do for people in the United States.”
Some passersby shouted derisive comments and expletives at the exhibit and at the dozen or so demonstrators who showed up in orange jumpsuits similar to those worn by Guantanamo detainees in the first years the prison was in operation.
“What kind of due process did they get in 9/11, buddy?” a middle-aged man shouted at Sonnett as he cut across the grassy field behind the pavilion where the lawyer was speaking.
The human rights groups have planned a seven-hour concert at the Miami cell site Saturday, before the exhibit moves on to Philadelphia.
carol.williams@latimes.com
A night in Guantánamo
Staying in a replica cell, with no waterboarding included
By JEFF INGLIS | June 18, 2008 |
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/63123-A-night-in-Guant%E1namo/?page=1&tr=y&auid=3877020#TOPCONTENT
First thing in the morning, a man stopped at my door, leaned in, looked me square in the eye, called me “a piece of shit,” and spat on my floor. I tried not to take it personally.
I was in a prison cell and wearing a day-glo-orange inmate’s jumpsuit, sitting on a thin mat, where I had sat and slept intermittently — and uncomfortably — through the preceding seven hours.
Amnesty International brought the cell to Portland’s Monument Square and arranged several days of events about the offshore prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, last week to draw attention to the 270 or so inmates still held there, and to highlight the support of some of Maine’s congressional delegation for suspending the legal rights of inmates there, most of whom have never been charged with any crime.
I’d volunteered to spend the night in the replica cell (which is modeled on the ones at Gitmo, which are very like the standard isolation units used in US “supermax” prisons) because we’ve all heard stories about unlivable conditions at Gitmo but can’t come close to imagining what it must be like to live for as long as seven years in a small box with little contact with the outside world, and even less hope of release. I hoped my few hours of simulated incarceration — even without the alleged abuse visited on Gitmo “detainees” by US service personnel — would help me appreciate the nightmare those prisoners endure.
When I first entered the cell, I sized things up. I could take three normal-size steps from side to side, four from the door to the bed; a “lap” around it involved 12 reasonably normal-sized steps. With my arms outstretched to the sides, I could touch the walls; reaching up, I could touch the ceiling with my stocking feet flat on the floor. Lying on the raised platform that served as my bed, my head touched one wall and my feet pressed against the other. The walls and ceiling were white; the toilet/sink fixture by the door was stainless steel; the floor was gray. There was one small window — easily covered by my forearm — by the bed and another in the door.
I was already in the jumpsuit, so I sat on the thin sleeping mat, got out my iPod, put in the earbuds, selected the “Gitmo” playlist, and turned the volume up. (The guards play a wide selection of American music — though mostly dark heavy stuff like Drowning Pool and Marilyn Manson — at high volume, at all hours, as a form of psychological torture for the prisoners.)
I read from the Koran, opening it at random and finding the 36th sûrah (chapter), entitled “Yâ Sîn,” or “O Man.” According to the annotation in my copy, that chapter is often recited by Muslims at times of adversity, to sustain their faith. At one point in the text, a group of believers approaches a city of non-believers to try to convert them: “(The people of the city) said: we augur ill of you. If ye desist not, we shall surely stone you, and grievous torture will befall you at our hands.” But, Allah explains through the prophet Mohammed, whatever suffering his followers must endure will be relieved if they stick to their faith, while those who did the torturing will be condemned to burn in hell. After a few readings, I found my hope rising and my discomfort decreasing, even though I am not a Muslim.
I also read — for the first of three times that night — a book of poems written by Guantánamo inmates, seeking a sense of what they feel and think. Despite great discomfort, hardship, and fear, some inmates are able to transcend themselves and their situation and find hope, and dreams, and a sort of freedom.
It’s really far worse
My night was only a tiny taste of what the detainees held at Guantánamo experience. The most obvious difference, of course, was that I spent just over seven hours in a replica of a cell sitting in downtown Portland. Many of the inmates have spent more like seven years in real cells in a remote base in Cuba. By comparison, my imprisonment was soft time.
A Portland police officer sat in his patrol car outside, mostly to protect the cell itself and its accompanying gear (a generator, electronic equipment, parts of a disassembled information booth), but I took comfort in his presence, knowing that if any harm befell me, aid would be nearby. The Gitmo detainees have their own uniformed, armed guards, but they are as likely to be their tormentors as their rescuers.
It was mostly dark in my cell, though a few streetlights shined in. Some detainees’ lawyers claim their clients are suffering permanent psychological damage because the lights in their cells have been kept on 24 hours a day for years.
I was warm and not hungry, equipped with a sleeping bag and fortified with a good meal at home before going into the cell; the inmates get blankets if they’re lucky and regularly complain about both the quantity and the quality of food served at Gitmo.
I could control the volume on my iPod (and I confess to skipping a couple songs); the detainees can neither control the volume nor prevent a guard from playing one song over and over for hours on end, as happened on at least one occasion with Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” from their 1991 eponymous album.
But the biggest difference, the one that really made it possible for me (a somewhat sane person who functions fairly well in this weird world) to handle my time inside, was this: I knew when I would eventually leave. The men held in Guantánamo don’t. Even those who have been declared not dangerous, not worth holding, whose arrests and incarceration are acknowledged mistakes, are held for months before being finally released. One man, Maher Rafat al-Quwari, has been cleared for release since February 2007, but as a Palestinian with no passport or other national paperwork, he has nowhere to go, so he stays in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement.
Without a future
I thought about what it would take to close the prison. Calls for just that have come from such high Bush administration officials as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and even the president himself, as well as both major-party presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama. And yet it remains open, stalled at best by the practical difficulties of moving terrorism suspects into other prisons, or, at worst, held up by people who may not mean what they say.
Maine’s DC delegation is split on the issue: Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democratic representative Mike Michaud voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006. [Please see clarification, below.] It recreated a kangaroo-court show-trial system for “trying” detainees in front of military judges (after a nearly identical arrangement created by the Pentagon was struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2006), and granted the US government the power to indefinitely imprison anyone — even US citizens — without charging them with a crime, and without ever bringing them before an independent civilian judge. Democratic representative Tom Allen opposed it; Republican senator Olympia Snowe didn’t vote, but later voted to overturn some of its harsher provisions.
And then there was that passerby who spit into my cell. I wondered if his attitude, amplified by the isolation of being stationed at a remote military base, and inflated by being allowed to carry large automatic weapons, might turn him into a rage-filled guard who just might do some of the things prisoners have described.
I wanted to judge him, to accuse him of insensitivity, of sympathizing with those who abuse and torture inmates. But I know as little about that man as we Americans do about the people held at Guantánamo Bay. I don’t know his name, and can tell you only the very basic outline of what he did. Without talking to him, without finding out why he did it, or where inside him that feeling came from, I cannot honestly “convict” him of anything more serious than common rudeness.
He walks free, though, so I’m less worried about him. The men in Guantánamo do not. Whatever they may be suspected of, why they were arrested, has never been made public, nor have the results of any subsequent investigations. Little wonder, then, that they have not been convicted of anything either. Justice has been slow in coming, and for some, may never arrive — at least four of them have committed suicide since the camp opened, and at least 40 of them have attempted it, often repeatedly.
Five others, among the most high-profile ones, appear to be seeking death another way. The morning I left the cell, they went in front of a military judge, in a proceeding that was widely criticized by lawyers and other observers for its departure from common legal standards (such as preventing co-defendants from talking to each other). After they were told what charges were being laid against them for their alleged involvement in the attacks of September 11, 2001, some of them said they wanted to be “martyred,” apparently asking for the death penalty. But like their fellow inmates, they wait.
I did, too. As people walked by throughout the night, some looked in, a few asked me what I was doing; others didn’t seem to notice the cell was even there, much less occupied. It was impossible to know what they thought.
I thought of the young men, some as young as 14, kidnapped from the streets of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and sold to US troops as alleged terrorists for thousands of dollars in reward money, who now sit, as I did, in small cells awaiting the next dawn. And when I became cold, tired, and cramped, I reminded myself that they are enduring worse and suffering more. Their fortitude was a thin, cold comfort, but it gave me strength.
Visions from inside
Inmates’ smuggled words show pain, frustration
I discovered during my time in the cell that it is possible to look for so long at one spot — on the floor, the wall, the ceiling — that the spot actually disappears from view. With enough uninterrupted time — or enough detachment from the brutality of the “real world” — it must be possible to make everything you can see just disappear.
What appears in its place? We know some answers, courtesy of the men held at Guantánamo. They have, with the help of their lawyers, published fragments of poetry shedding light on their thoughts, dreams, and visions.
Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak, published last year by the University of Iowa Press, includes 22 poems that made it past the US military’s censors. The one that struck me most deeply, in the middle of the night as I read the poems aloud to myself, was “O Prison Darkness,” by an author identified only by his first name, Abdulaziz. It ends with these lines.
Even though the bands tighten and seem unbreakable,
They will shatter.
Those who persist will attain their goal;
Those who keep knocking shall gain entry.
O crisis, intensify!
The morning is about to break forth.
Playlist
These were some of the songs I listened to while in the cell. My selections were based on reporting by Spin, Mother Jones, the BBC, the New York Times, Time, Transcultural Music Review, and FBI documents, all of which listed songs or bands played by soldiers at Guantánamo, usually at very high volumes, as a way to break down detainees’ psychological defenses.
“Soldier Like Me (Return of the Soulja),” 2Pac & Eminem, Loyal to the Game, 2004
“Don’t Get Mad, Get Even,” Aerosmith, Pump, 1989
“Dirrty,” Christina Aguilera featuring Redman, Stripped, 2002
“One Eight Seven,” Dr. Dre, Chronicles — Death Row Classics, 2006
“Step Up,” Drowning Pool, Desensitized, 2004
“Bodies,” Drowning Pool, Sinner, 2001
“If I Had,” Eminem, The Slim Shady LP, 1999
“Take a Look Around,” Limp Bizkit, Greatest Hits, 2005
“This Is the New S**t,” Marilyn Manson, Lest We Forget — The Best of Marilyn Manson, 2004
“The Burn,” Matchbox Twenty, Mad Season, 2000
“For Crying Out Loud,” Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell, 1977
“Whiplash (Live),” Metallica, Kill ‘Em All, 2008
“Meow Mix” radio commercial
“Killing in the Name,” Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine, 1992
“Naked in the Rain,” Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, 2006
“Sometimes,” Britney Spears, . . . Baby One More Time, 1999
“How Mountain Girls Can Love,” Stanley Brothers, 16 Greatest Hits, 2004
“Walking Man,” James Taylor, Greatest Hits, 1974
“The Star Spangled Banner,” United We Stand, Songs for America, 2001
Jeff Inglis can be reached atjinglis@phx.com.
Clarification: The original version of this story did not fully explain the positions Maine Democratic US Representative Mike Michaud took on the Military Commissions Act of 2006. He voted in favor of the bill as it was introduced in the US House of Representatives, but in a subsequent vote changed his mind and opposed it.
07 August 2008
Split verdict in first Guantanamo war - crimes trial
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 6, 2008
Filed at 6:30 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Guantanamo-Bin-Ladens-Driver.html
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- The conviction of Osama bin Laden's driver by a U.S. military court after a 10-day trial provides an indication of what to expect as dozens more Guantanamo prisoners go to court: shifting charges, secret testimony -- and quick verdicts.
Salim Hamdan held his head in his hands and appeared to weep Wednesday as the six-member military jury declared the Yemeni guilty of aiding terrorism, which could bring a maximum life sentence. But in a split decision, the jury in America's first war-crimes trial since the aftermath of World War II cleared Hamdan of two charges of conspiracy.
Deputy White House spokesman Tony Fratto applauded what he called ''a fair trial'' and said prosecutors will now proceed with other war crimes trials at the isolated U.S. military base in southeast Cuba. Prosecutors intend to try about 80 Guantanamo detainees for war crimes, including 19 already charged.
But defense lawyers said their clients' rights were denied by an unfair process, hastily patched together after the Supreme Court rulings that previous tribunal systems violated U.S. and international law.
Under the military commission, Hamdan did not have all the rights normally accorded either by U.S. civilian or military courts. The judge allowed secret testimony and hearsay evidence. Hamdan was not judged by a jury of his peers and he received no Miranda warning about his rights.
Hamdan's attorneys said interrogations at the center of the government's case were tainted by coercive tactics, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.
All that is in contrast to the courts-martial used to prosecute American troops in Iraq and Vietnam, which accorded defendants more rights.
''This outcome was pre-determined -- not by the court, but by the government -- well before the trial even began,'' said Sahr MuhammedAlly of Human Rights First, who has observed hearings in the hilltop courtroom.
The five-man, one-woman jury convicted Hamdan on five counts of supporting terrorism, accepting the prosecution argument that Hamdan aided terrorism by becoming a member of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and serving as bin Laden's armed bodyguard and driver while knowing that the al-Qaida leader was plotting attacks against the U.S.
But he was found not guilty on three other counts alleging he knew that his work would be used for terrorism and that he provided surface-to-air missiles to al-Qaida.
He also was cleared of two charges of conspiracy alleging he was part of the al-Qaida effort to attack the United States -- the most serious charges, according to deputy chief defense counsel Michael Berrigan.
Berrigan noted the conspiracy charges were the only ones Hamdan originally faced when his case prompted the Supreme Court to halt the tribunals. Prosecutors added the new charges after the Bush administration rewrote the rules.
''The travesty of this is that Mr. Hamdan should have been acquitted of all charges,'' he said.
The verdict will be appealed automatically to a special military appeals court in Washington. Hamdan can then appeal to U.S. civilian courts as well.
The jury reconvened for a sentencing hearing in which psychologist Emily Keram testified that Hamdan was orphaned by the age of 10, has only a fourth-grade education and worked for bin Laden because he felt it was the only way to support his family.
She said Hamdan, who is about 37, wept when prosecutors showed video of airplanes crashing into the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
''He told me it was hard on his soul,'' Keram testified at the hearing, which was to continue Thursday.
The military judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, gave Hamdan five years of credit toward his sentence for the time he has served at Guantanamo Bay since the Pentagon decided to charge him.
The Pentagon describes the Hamdan proceedings as the first ''contested'' U.S. military war crimes trial since World War II. In March 2007, Australian David Hicks reached a plea agreement that sent him home to serve a nine-month prison sentence in what the military considers the first trial.
The U.S. now holds about 265 prisoners at Guantanamo. The U.S. has been struggling to persuade other countries to take in the detainees it doesn't plan to prosecute, including many already cleared for release and dozens who officials consider too dangerous to let loose, even if they don't want to put them on trial.
Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said the split verdict proved the trial was fair.
''The fact that the jury did not find Hamdan guilty of all of the charges brought against him demonstrates that the jury weighed the evidence carefully,'' McCain said.
His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, also praised the military officers involved but said the process has ''dangerous flaws'' and that such trials belong in traditional military or civilian courts.
Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001 and taken to Guantanamo Bay in May 2002.
The military accused him of transporting missiles for al-Qaida and helping bin Laden escape U.S. retribution following the Sept. 11 attacks by serving as his driver. Defense attorneys said he was merely a low-level bin Laden employee, a minor member of a motor pool who earned about $200 a month.
Army Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, a former Guantanamo official who has since become critical of the legal process, mocked the choice of Hamdan for the tribunal's first trial.
''We can only trust that the next subjects ... will include cooks, tailors, and cobblers without whose support terrorist leaders would be left unfed, unclothed, and unshod, and therefore rendered incapable of planning or executing their attacks,'' Abraham said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Published: August 6, 2008
Filed at 6:30 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Guantanamo-Bin-Ladens-Driver.html
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- The conviction of Osama bin Laden's driver by a U.S. military court after a 10-day trial provides an indication of what to expect as dozens more Guantanamo prisoners go to court: shifting charges, secret testimony -- and quick verdicts.
Salim Hamdan held his head in his hands and appeared to weep Wednesday as the six-member military jury declared the Yemeni guilty of aiding terrorism, which could bring a maximum life sentence. But in a split decision, the jury in America's first war-crimes trial since the aftermath of World War II cleared Hamdan of two charges of conspiracy.
Deputy White House spokesman Tony Fratto applauded what he called ''a fair trial'' and said prosecutors will now proceed with other war crimes trials at the isolated U.S. military base in southeast Cuba. Prosecutors intend to try about 80 Guantanamo detainees for war crimes, including 19 already charged.
But defense lawyers said their clients' rights were denied by an unfair process, hastily patched together after the Supreme Court rulings that previous tribunal systems violated U.S. and international law.
Under the military commission, Hamdan did not have all the rights normally accorded either by U.S. civilian or military courts. The judge allowed secret testimony and hearsay evidence. Hamdan was not judged by a jury of his peers and he received no Miranda warning about his rights.
Hamdan's attorneys said interrogations at the center of the government's case were tainted by coercive tactics, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.
All that is in contrast to the courts-martial used to prosecute American troops in Iraq and Vietnam, which accorded defendants more rights.
''This outcome was pre-determined -- not by the court, but by the government -- well before the trial even began,'' said Sahr MuhammedAlly of Human Rights First, who has observed hearings in the hilltop courtroom.
The five-man, one-woman jury convicted Hamdan on five counts of supporting terrorism, accepting the prosecution argument that Hamdan aided terrorism by becoming a member of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and serving as bin Laden's armed bodyguard and driver while knowing that the al-Qaida leader was plotting attacks against the U.S.
But he was found not guilty on three other counts alleging he knew that his work would be used for terrorism and that he provided surface-to-air missiles to al-Qaida.
He also was cleared of two charges of conspiracy alleging he was part of the al-Qaida effort to attack the United States -- the most serious charges, according to deputy chief defense counsel Michael Berrigan.
Berrigan noted the conspiracy charges were the only ones Hamdan originally faced when his case prompted the Supreme Court to halt the tribunals. Prosecutors added the new charges after the Bush administration rewrote the rules.
''The travesty of this is that Mr. Hamdan should have been acquitted of all charges,'' he said.
The verdict will be appealed automatically to a special military appeals court in Washington. Hamdan can then appeal to U.S. civilian courts as well.
The jury reconvened for a sentencing hearing in which psychologist Emily Keram testified that Hamdan was orphaned by the age of 10, has only a fourth-grade education and worked for bin Laden because he felt it was the only way to support his family.
She said Hamdan, who is about 37, wept when prosecutors showed video of airplanes crashing into the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
''He told me it was hard on his soul,'' Keram testified at the hearing, which was to continue Thursday.
The military judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, gave Hamdan five years of credit toward his sentence for the time he has served at Guantanamo Bay since the Pentagon decided to charge him.
The Pentagon describes the Hamdan proceedings as the first ''contested'' U.S. military war crimes trial since World War II. In March 2007, Australian David Hicks reached a plea agreement that sent him home to serve a nine-month prison sentence in what the military considers the first trial.
The U.S. now holds about 265 prisoners at Guantanamo. The U.S. has been struggling to persuade other countries to take in the detainees it doesn't plan to prosecute, including many already cleared for release and dozens who officials consider too dangerous to let loose, even if they don't want to put them on trial.
Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said the split verdict proved the trial was fair.
''The fact that the jury did not find Hamdan guilty of all of the charges brought against him demonstrates that the jury weighed the evidence carefully,'' McCain said.
His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, also praised the military officers involved but said the process has ''dangerous flaws'' and that such trials belong in traditional military or civilian courts.
Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001 and taken to Guantanamo Bay in May 2002.
The military accused him of transporting missiles for al-Qaida and helping bin Laden escape U.S. retribution following the Sept. 11 attacks by serving as his driver. Defense attorneys said he was merely a low-level bin Laden employee, a minor member of a motor pool who earned about $200 a month.
Army Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, a former Guantanamo official who has since become critical of the legal process, mocked the choice of Hamdan for the tribunal's first trial.
''We can only trust that the next subjects ... will include cooks, tailors, and cobblers without whose support terrorist leaders would be left unfed, unclothed, and unshod, and therefore rendered incapable of planning or executing their attacks,'' Abraham said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Bush: China must ensure freedoms
President rebukes Beijing's on human-rights, praises its market reform
The Associated Press
updated 1:56 p.m. ET, Wed., Aug. 6, 2008
BANGKOK, Thailand - With all eyes on Beijing, President Bush bluntly told China that America stands in "firm opposition" to the way the communist government represses its own people, a rebuke delivered from the heart of Asia on the cusp of the Olympic Games.
Bush balanced his chiding with praise for China's market reforms and hope that it will embrace freedom, reflecting the delicate balance that Bush seeks to strike with the potent U.S. rival.
"We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly, and labor rights not to antagonize China's leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential," Bush said in perhaps his last major Asia address.
"And we press for openness and justice not to impose our beliefs, but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs," the president said.
Three-country tour
Bush's brought his message to Thailand, a turbulent democracy. The marquee speech of his three-country trip hailed deepening ties between the U.S. and Asia. He pledged that whoever follows him in the White House will inherit an alliance that is now stronger than ever.
The president planned to quickly pivot from his speech to a full day of outreach toward the people of Myanmar, also known as Burma, who live under military rule across the border.
Yet heading eagerly to the Beijing Olympics himself as a sports fan, Bush faced pressures all around: a desire not to embarrass China in its moment of glory, a call for strong words by those dismayed by China's repression, and a determination to remind the world that he has been pushing China to allow greater freedom during his presidency.
The White House released Bush's prepared remarks about 18 hours in advance, which had the buffer effect of putting a news cycle between his speech and his arrival in Beijing on Thursday.
But his message will surely be noted in China, which has already knocked Bush for intruding in its affairs by hosting Chinese dissidents at the White House ahead of the games.
"The leadership in Beijing will almost certainly find his comments irritating or objectionable," said Sophie Richardson, the Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "But they will clearly understand that the United States will not impose any real consequences if they do not make progress on human rights."
Seeking an event scrubbed free of protest, China has rounded up opponents and slapped restrictions on journalists, betraying promises made when China landed the hosting rights.
"America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates, and religious activists," Bush said. He tempered his remarks by saying China has the right to choose its own course.
"America and our partners are realistic, and we are prepared for any possibility," Bush said. "I am optimistic about China's future. Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas."
The president added: "Change in China will arrive on its own terms and in keeping with its own history and traditions. Yet change will arrive."
Bush says he built a relationship with China's leaders that has built up honesty and candor and allowed him to have more influence. He cited examples of significant alliance over Taiwan, North Korea's nuclear program and shared economic concerns. He has also been adamant that the Olympics is not a time to pursue the U.S. political agenda.
Given his setting, Bush devoted a surprisingly small portion of his speech to Myanmar.
'End to tyranny'
One of the world's poorest countries, Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962, when the latest junta came to power after brutally crushing a pro-democracy uprising in 1988. Mass street demonstrations, led by Buddhist monks, were again put down last September.
"Together, we seek an end to tyranny in Burma," Bush said. "This noble cause has many devoted champions, and I happen to be married to one of them."
First lady Laura Bush is an outspoken advocate for Myanmar, drawing attention to a southeast Asian nation unfamiliar to many Americans. On Thursday in Thailand she will visit a border refugee camp in Mae La, home to thousands of people who fled Myanmar's violence.
After his speech, Bush will visit Mercy Centre, which is based in Bangkok's largest slum and provides help to children living with HIV or AIDS.
Bush will also get an update on the recovery from the cyclone that devastated Myanmar's heartland and killed more than 80,000 people in May; have lunch with Burma activists; and do an interview with local radio journalists in hopes of influencing events across the border.
Allies in war
Bush heralds Thailand's democracy as alive and well, but it is deeply embattled.
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's 6-month-old coalition government came to power in elections, but only after a bloodless coup against predecessor Thaksin Shinawatra.
Samak faces daily demonstrations demanding his resignation. He is accused of blocking corruption charges against Thaksin and trying to amend the constitution to cling onto power.
Though Samak regards himself as a friend of Myanmar's generals, Bush heaped praise on his Thai hosts when he arrived, calling them close allies in the war on terror.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26049628/
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The Associated Press
updated 1:56 p.m. ET, Wed., Aug. 6, 2008
BANGKOK, Thailand - With all eyes on Beijing, President Bush bluntly told China that America stands in "firm opposition" to the way the communist government represses its own people, a rebuke delivered from the heart of Asia on the cusp of the Olympic Games.
Bush balanced his chiding with praise for China's market reforms and hope that it will embrace freedom, reflecting the delicate balance that Bush seeks to strike with the potent U.S. rival.
"We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly, and labor rights not to antagonize China's leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential," Bush said in perhaps his last major Asia address.
"And we press for openness and justice not to impose our beliefs, but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs," the president said.
Three-country tour
Bush's brought his message to Thailand, a turbulent democracy. The marquee speech of his three-country trip hailed deepening ties between the U.S. and Asia. He pledged that whoever follows him in the White House will inherit an alliance that is now stronger than ever.
The president planned to quickly pivot from his speech to a full day of outreach toward the people of Myanmar, also known as Burma, who live under military rule across the border.
Yet heading eagerly to the Beijing Olympics himself as a sports fan, Bush faced pressures all around: a desire not to embarrass China in its moment of glory, a call for strong words by those dismayed by China's repression, and a determination to remind the world that he has been pushing China to allow greater freedom during his presidency.
The White House released Bush's prepared remarks about 18 hours in advance, which had the buffer effect of putting a news cycle between his speech and his arrival in Beijing on Thursday.
But his message will surely be noted in China, which has already knocked Bush for intruding in its affairs by hosting Chinese dissidents at the White House ahead of the games.
"The leadership in Beijing will almost certainly find his comments irritating or objectionable," said Sophie Richardson, the Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "But they will clearly understand that the United States will not impose any real consequences if they do not make progress on human rights."
Seeking an event scrubbed free of protest, China has rounded up opponents and slapped restrictions on journalists, betraying promises made when China landed the hosting rights.
"America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates, and religious activists," Bush said. He tempered his remarks by saying China has the right to choose its own course.
"America and our partners are realistic, and we are prepared for any possibility," Bush said. "I am optimistic about China's future. Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas."
The president added: "Change in China will arrive on its own terms and in keeping with its own history and traditions. Yet change will arrive."
Bush says he built a relationship with China's leaders that has built up honesty and candor and allowed him to have more influence. He cited examples of significant alliance over Taiwan, North Korea's nuclear program and shared economic concerns. He has also been adamant that the Olympics is not a time to pursue the U.S. political agenda.
Given his setting, Bush devoted a surprisingly small portion of his speech to Myanmar.
'End to tyranny'
One of the world's poorest countries, Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962, when the latest junta came to power after brutally crushing a pro-democracy uprising in 1988. Mass street demonstrations, led by Buddhist monks, were again put down last September.
"Together, we seek an end to tyranny in Burma," Bush said. "This noble cause has many devoted champions, and I happen to be married to one of them."
First lady Laura Bush is an outspoken advocate for Myanmar, drawing attention to a southeast Asian nation unfamiliar to many Americans. On Thursday in Thailand she will visit a border refugee camp in Mae La, home to thousands of people who fled Myanmar's violence.
After his speech, Bush will visit Mercy Centre, which is based in Bangkok's largest slum and provides help to children living with HIV or AIDS.
Bush will also get an update on the recovery from the cyclone that devastated Myanmar's heartland and killed more than 80,000 people in May; have lunch with Burma activists; and do an interview with local radio journalists in hopes of influencing events across the border.
Allies in war
Bush heralds Thailand's democracy as alive and well, but it is deeply embattled.
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's 6-month-old coalition government came to power in elections, but only after a bloodless coup against predecessor Thaksin Shinawatra.
Samak faces daily demonstrations demanding his resignation. He is accused of blocking corruption charges against Thaksin and trying to amend the constitution to cling onto power.
Though Samak regards himself as a friend of Myanmar's generals, Bush heaped praise on his Thai hosts when he arrived, calling them close allies in the war on terror.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26049628/
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U.S.: Scientist was anthrax killer
Disclosure is part of the release of documents ordered by judge
The Associated Press
updated 5:35 p.m. ET, Wed., Aug. 6, 2008
WASHINGTON - Army scientist Bruce Ivins "was the only person responsible" for anthrax attacks in 2001 that killed five and rattled the nation, the Justice Department said Wednesday, backing the claim with dozens of documents all pointing to his guilt.
Documents made public alleged that Ivins, who committed suicide last week, had sole custody of highly purified anthrax spores with "certain genetic mutations identical" to the poison used in the attacks. Investigators also said they had traced back to his lab the type of envelopes used to send the deadly spores through the mails.
Ivins killed himself last week as investigators closed in, and U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said, "We regret that we will not have the opportunity to present evidence to the jury."
"A plan to kill'
The prosecutor's news conference capped a fast-paced series of events in which the government partially lifted its veil of secrecy in the case that followed closely after the airliner terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The newly released records depict the scientist as deeply troubled, bordering on desperation as he confronted the possibility of being charged.
"He said he was not going to face the death penalty, but instead had a plan to kill co-workers and other individuals who had wronged him," according to one affidavit.
The affidavits also said Ivins submitted false anthrax samples to the FBI, was unable to give investigators "an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of" the attacks and sought to frame unnamed co-workers.
He was also said to have received immunizations against anthrax and yellow fever in early September 2001, several weeks before the first anthrax-laced envelope was received in the mail.
The documents were released as the FBI held a private briefing for families of the victims of the episode, and officials said the agency was preparing to close the case.
"We are confident that Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks," Taylor told a news conference at the Justice Department.
Documents disclosed
Noting that Ivins would have been entitled to a presumption of innocence, Taylor nevertheless said prosecutors were confident "we could prove his guilt to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt."
Ivins' attorney, Paul Kemp, has repeatedly asserted his late client's innocence.
The events in Washington unfolded as a memorial service was held for Ivins at Fort Detrick, the secret government installation in Frederick, Md., where he worked. Reporters were barred.
More than 200 pages of documents were made public by the FBI, virtually all of them describing the government's attempts to link Ivins to the crimes.
"It is a very compelling case," said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who attended a briefing for lawmakers and staff.
Tracing the source
The government material describes at length painstaking scientific efforts to trace the source of the anthrax that was used in the attacks.
It says that in his lab, Ivins had custody of a flask of anthrax termed "the genetic parent" to the powder involved — a source that investigators say was used to grow spores for the attacks on "at least two separate occasions."
Anthrax culled from the letters was quickly discovered to be the so-called Ames strain of bacteria, but with genetic mutations that made it distinct. Scientists developed more sophisticated tests for four of those mutations, and concluded that all the samples that matched came from a single batch, code-named RMR-1029, stored at Fort Detrick.
Ivins "has been the sole custodian of RMR-1029 since it was first grown in 1997," said one affidavit.
Powder from anthrax-laden letters sent to the New York Post and Tom Brokaw of NBC contained a bacterial contaminant not found in the anthrax-containing envelopes mailed to Sens. Patrick Leahy or Tom Daschle, the affidavit said.
Investigators concluded that "the contaminant must have been introduced during the production of the Post and Brokaw spores," the affidavit said.
Search and seizure
The documents disclosed that authorities searched Ivins' home on Nov. 2, 2007, taking 22 swabs of vacuum filters and radiators and seizing dozens of items. Among them were video cassettes, family photos, information about guns and a copy of "The Plague" by Albert Camus.
Investigators also reported seizing three cardboard boxes labeled "Paul Kemp ... attorney client privilege."
Ivins' cars and his safe deposit box also were searched as investigators closed in on the respected government scientist who had been troubled by mental health problems for years.
According to an affidavit filed by Charles B. Wickersham, a postal inspector, the scientist told an unnamed co-worker "that he had `incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times' and 'feared that he might not be able to control his behavior."'
A mental health worker who was involved in treating Ivins disclosed last week that she was so concerned about his behavior that she recently sought a court order to keep him away from her.
Allegations that Ivins sought to mislead investigators ran through the material made public.
One FBI document said Ivins "repeatedly named other researchers as possible mailers and claimed that the anthrax used in the attacks resembled that of another researcher" at the same facility.
The name of the other researcher was not disclosed.
Stephen A. Hatfill's career as a bioscientist was ruined after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft named him a "person of interest" in the probe. The government recently paid $6 million to settle a lawsuit by Hatfill, who worked in the same lab.
The documents made public painted a picture of Ivins seeking to mislead investigators beginning in 2002, when he allegedly submitted the wrong samples to FBI investigators.
It wasn't until more than two years later, in March 2005, that he was confronted with the alleged switch, according to U.S. Postal Inspector Thomas Dellafera, who added that Ivins insisted he had not sought to deceive.
The documents, which were expected to shed light on many of the mysteries surrounding the case, were released following an order from U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. Among them were more than a dozen search warrants issued as the government closed in on Ivins in an investigation into the terrifying mail poisonings a few weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Lamberth ordered the release after consultation with Amy Jeffress, a national security prosecutor at the Department of Justice.
The investigation dates to 2001, when anthrax-laced mail turned up in two Senate offices as well as news media offices and elsewhere. At the time, the events were widely viewed as the work of terrorists, and delivery of mail was crippled when anthrax spores were discovered in mailing equipment that had processed the contaminated envelopes.
The FBI's investigation had dragged on for years, tarnishing the reputation of the agency in the process.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26054859/
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The Associated Press
updated 5:35 p.m. ET, Wed., Aug. 6, 2008
WASHINGTON - Army scientist Bruce Ivins "was the only person responsible" for anthrax attacks in 2001 that killed five and rattled the nation, the Justice Department said Wednesday, backing the claim with dozens of documents all pointing to his guilt.
Documents made public alleged that Ivins, who committed suicide last week, had sole custody of highly purified anthrax spores with "certain genetic mutations identical" to the poison used in the attacks. Investigators also said they had traced back to his lab the type of envelopes used to send the deadly spores through the mails.
Ivins killed himself last week as investigators closed in, and U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said, "We regret that we will not have the opportunity to present evidence to the jury."
"A plan to kill'
The prosecutor's news conference capped a fast-paced series of events in which the government partially lifted its veil of secrecy in the case that followed closely after the airliner terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The newly released records depict the scientist as deeply troubled, bordering on desperation as he confronted the possibility of being charged.
"He said he was not going to face the death penalty, but instead had a plan to kill co-workers and other individuals who had wronged him," according to one affidavit.
The affidavits also said Ivins submitted false anthrax samples to the FBI, was unable to give investigators "an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of" the attacks and sought to frame unnamed co-workers.
He was also said to have received immunizations against anthrax and yellow fever in early September 2001, several weeks before the first anthrax-laced envelope was received in the mail.
The documents were released as the FBI held a private briefing for families of the victims of the episode, and officials said the agency was preparing to close the case.
"We are confident that Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks," Taylor told a news conference at the Justice Department.
Documents disclosed
Noting that Ivins would have been entitled to a presumption of innocence, Taylor nevertheless said prosecutors were confident "we could prove his guilt to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt."
Ivins' attorney, Paul Kemp, has repeatedly asserted his late client's innocence.
The events in Washington unfolded as a memorial service was held for Ivins at Fort Detrick, the secret government installation in Frederick, Md., where he worked. Reporters were barred.
More than 200 pages of documents were made public by the FBI, virtually all of them describing the government's attempts to link Ivins to the crimes.
"It is a very compelling case," said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who attended a briefing for lawmakers and staff.
Tracing the source
The government material describes at length painstaking scientific efforts to trace the source of the anthrax that was used in the attacks.
It says that in his lab, Ivins had custody of a flask of anthrax termed "the genetic parent" to the powder involved — a source that investigators say was used to grow spores for the attacks on "at least two separate occasions."
Anthrax culled from the letters was quickly discovered to be the so-called Ames strain of bacteria, but with genetic mutations that made it distinct. Scientists developed more sophisticated tests for four of those mutations, and concluded that all the samples that matched came from a single batch, code-named RMR-1029, stored at Fort Detrick.
Ivins "has been the sole custodian of RMR-1029 since it was first grown in 1997," said one affidavit.
Powder from anthrax-laden letters sent to the New York Post and Tom Brokaw of NBC contained a bacterial contaminant not found in the anthrax-containing envelopes mailed to Sens. Patrick Leahy or Tom Daschle, the affidavit said.
Investigators concluded that "the contaminant must have been introduced during the production of the Post and Brokaw spores," the affidavit said.
Search and seizure
The documents disclosed that authorities searched Ivins' home on Nov. 2, 2007, taking 22 swabs of vacuum filters and radiators and seizing dozens of items. Among them were video cassettes, family photos, information about guns and a copy of "The Plague" by Albert Camus.
Investigators also reported seizing three cardboard boxes labeled "Paul Kemp ... attorney client privilege."
Ivins' cars and his safe deposit box also were searched as investigators closed in on the respected government scientist who had been troubled by mental health problems for years.
According to an affidavit filed by Charles B. Wickersham, a postal inspector, the scientist told an unnamed co-worker "that he had `incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times' and 'feared that he might not be able to control his behavior."'
A mental health worker who was involved in treating Ivins disclosed last week that she was so concerned about his behavior that she recently sought a court order to keep him away from her.
Allegations that Ivins sought to mislead investigators ran through the material made public.
One FBI document said Ivins "repeatedly named other researchers as possible mailers and claimed that the anthrax used in the attacks resembled that of another researcher" at the same facility.
The name of the other researcher was not disclosed.
Stephen A. Hatfill's career as a bioscientist was ruined after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft named him a "person of interest" in the probe. The government recently paid $6 million to settle a lawsuit by Hatfill, who worked in the same lab.
The documents made public painted a picture of Ivins seeking to mislead investigators beginning in 2002, when he allegedly submitted the wrong samples to FBI investigators.
It wasn't until more than two years later, in March 2005, that he was confronted with the alleged switch, according to U.S. Postal Inspector Thomas Dellafera, who added that Ivins insisted he had not sought to deceive.
The documents, which were expected to shed light on many of the mysteries surrounding the case, were released following an order from U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. Among them were more than a dozen search warrants issued as the government closed in on Ivins in an investigation into the terrifying mail poisonings a few weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Lamberth ordered the release after consultation with Amy Jeffress, a national security prosecutor at the Department of Justice.
The investigation dates to 2001, when anthrax-laced mail turned up in two Senate offices as well as news media offices and elsewhere. At the time, the events were widely viewed as the work of terrorists, and delivery of mail was crippled when anthrax spores were discovered in mailing equipment that had processed the contaminated envelopes.
The FBI's investigation had dragged on for years, tarnishing the reputation of the agency in the process.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26054859/
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