World View

Global Dispatches From ABC News Reporters

ABC News staff around the world report on what makes the news and what doesn't.

Subscribe to this blog's feed

MONTHLY ARCHIVES

May 2009
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

« September 2008 | Main | November 2008 »

What the World Is Reading

October 31, 2008 9:17 AM

By CLARK BENTSON, ABC News Rome

The countdown to the historic U.S. election filled newspapers and dominated Web sites again this week. One might wonder what everyone will write about after Tuesday. Read on. Click the links to various foreign publications to see what is making news in other parts of the world.

Changing Faces in Chile

Chile’s CIPER, a Spanish-language investigative journalism Web site, published a lengthy article on a 1985 meeting between Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Republican candidate John McCain. The Santiago Times called the meeting between Pinochet, “a dictator and …one of the world’s most notorious violators of human rights,” and McCain a contradiction of his campaign pledge that he wouldn’t sit down with dictators without preconditions.

Chileans are seeking change in big numbers, the Santiago Times reports in the same edition. One in three Chileans would like to have plastic surgery and nearly one in 10 have already undergone a procedure.

Medvedev the Mediator: Remember Nagorno-Karabakh?

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili shook up his Cabinet this week, designating a little-known diplomat named Grigol Mgaloblishvili to be the next prime minister. This was just days after the European Union had pledged $4.5 billion to help strengthen the Georgian economy after its war with Russia in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, according to Georgia Today newspaper.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ignored the criticism by the United States and other Western countries for what the West saw as Russian aggression in the region. The Russian parliament approved friendship pacts with the two disputed regions, the Kommersant paper reported, paving the way for permanent Russian military bases in the two territories.

Yet, during a recent state visit to Armenia, Medvedev declared that all territorial disputes in the Caucuses region should be resolved diplomatically. The recent Russian military conflict with Georgia has shown the need to settle territorial disputes through negotiation, he added. Putting words to action Medvedev announced he will host diplomatic talks between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. More than 30,000 people were killed when fighting erupted after the breakup of the old Soviet Union. A fragile cease-fire took hold in 1994. The chances of progress will be tough. The AzerNews agency had little to report on the meetings, leaving it to a British analyst to assess the chances of success.

Armtown, the Armenian news site, carried brief comments by Armenia’s president saying the opportunity for success depended completely on the Azeris. “Resolution of the conflict is possible if Azerbaijan recognizes the right of Nagorno-Karabakh people to self-determination,” said Serzh Sargsyan.

As for the Karabakh press (referred to as the Garabagh by the Azeris) they had a prominent story in the Artsakhtert newspaper site about the celebration of a mass wedding of 700 ethnic Armenian couples and the need to repopulate Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenians because the war killed a great number of its reproducing age population nearly 20 years ago. The editor says that the conflict has left the region with a demographic concern – calling it a national security issue to protect Karabakh from returning to Azerbaijan’s control. Medvedev is going to have to prove his diplomatic skills.

Attitude in the Arab World; I Think You Misunderstand Me…

In the Middle East headlines this week there were condemnations of the United States for its cross border attack into Syria, speculation on Israel’s political fortunes now that an election has been asked for, and more on the U.S. presidential elections.

But there were also headlines about changing attitudes in the Arab community regarding the treatment of women and how attitudes need to be changed where ignorance prevails.

Cairo Now, on Internet news service, had a breaking news story on its home page about a man who was sentenced to three years in jail for sexually harassing a woman on the streets. In Egypt, where many women don’t cover themselves as more conservative Muslim women do, leering and jeering men have been a daily obstacle that women to date have had to endure.

The home page of the Bahrain Tribune carried a story about the presentation of a book from American academic Mary Coons titled “Culturally Speaking: Promoting Cross-Cultural Awareness in a Post-9/11 World. Coons interviewed Bahrainis and Americans about their knowledge and attitudes of the other’s culture in an effort to promote dialogue through understanding. The findings of the author, as the headline of the article suggests, is that Americans remain ignorant of Arab culture.

Can’t Go Home/Chagos Islanders' Home Considered Too Strategic

The weekly Mauritius Times carries a blog about the disappointment of the residents of the Chagos Islands after losing their legal battle for the right to return home. The British government resettled all of the Chagos residents in the 1970s before leasing the main island of Diego Garcia to the United States where the Americans maintain a highly restricted naval facility. Planes have used Diego Garcia as a base during bombing runs over Iraq and Afghanistan. The British foreign office says since Sept. 11 the base has been regarded by the United States as a "defense facility of the highest importance.” Many of the Chagossians were resettled in Mauritius and the Seychelles.

Despite the ruling by the Lords in favor of the British government, the residents vowed to continue their efforts to return home. Lord Hoffman noted that the government had said it was acting "in the interests of the defense of the realm, diplomatic relations with the U.S. and the use of public funds in supporting any settlement on the islands." A full review of the Law Lords decision and the arguments were presented in the L’Express, another Mauritius-based publication.

Tony Blair: $20 Million Man

October 31, 2008 8:10 AM

BY PHILIP VICTOR, ABC News London

For some the credit crunch isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair is said to have earned close to $20 million since leaving office in June 2007.

Much of Blair’s income has come as a result of his speaking engagements, which can run up to $250,000 for a 90-minute speech. The former prime minister’s inter-faith charity had also embarked on an agreement with Yale on Blair's teaching a seminar about religion in the interconnected world titled “Faith and Globalization,” for which the university reportedly paid over $200,000.

The currently salary for a U.K. prime minister is £189,994 ($310,539). Blair, however, has earned that amount many times over with his speaking tours and company dealings. The U.K. Times reports Blair has earned £4.6 million ($7,520,143) from his memoirs, £2 million ($3,268,965) from JPMorgan Chase, £500,000 ($817,048) from Zurich Financial Services, and £5.8 million ($9,480,095) from speaking engagements. Blair also receives a taxpayer sum of £84,000 ($137,297) in addition to his annual pension of £63,468 ($103,745).

Blair has served the Swiss firm Zurich, assisting them with developments and trends in the international arena as well advising on matters of climate change. At JPMorgan Chase, Blair has advised the bank on global political and strategic issues.

The Times indicates that Blair's employers are quite happy about with his services. JPMorgan says Blair “has played an extremely valuable role here.” “He provides us with pretty useful insights,” Zurich Financial said.

Some believe that Blair’s extracurricular activities have sidetracked him from carrying out his duties as the Quartet’s Middle East envoy. Blair’s mission as envoy was to work toward a sustainable peace agreement and solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on behalf of the U.N., U.S., Russia and the E.U.

A senior U.N. official quoted in the Times says of Blair: “There’s a view in the UN that he’s not making any progress and that from all the status he brings to the position, he doesn’t seem to be achieving anything.”

But Blair’s office told the Times that the former PM’s role as Middle East envoy “takes up the largest portion of his time,” adding “No official of the UN or any other Quartet member has ever raised any such concerns with us.”

Contributing an op-ed to the Times, Alice Thomson writes, “A prime minister shouldn’t take advantage of their position in office…but once a prime minister has left office and given up his seat, he should be free to do whatever he wants as long as his snout isn’t in the people’s trough.”

Thomson downplays the earnings and writes that despite Blair’s multimillions, “he still spends one week a month saving the world, unpaid as the Quartet’s Middle East representative.”

Indonesia Passes Anti-Porn Bill

October 31, 2008 8:07 AM

By Margaret Conley, ABC News, Jakarta

In Indonesia, the passage of a long-debated anti-pornography bill by the House of Representatives Thursday has reignited controversy in the predominately Muslim country.

Critics argue the bill threatens personal and cultural freedoms, while supporters applaud tighter restrictions on the distribution of what they see as indecent material.

“This is what we need to fight pornography. This law will complete our legal system to protect us from pornographic materials,” Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni told the Jakarta Post.

Contention among the general public, human rights groups, religious activists and political parties is not only about whether such a bill should exist, but also about the interpretation and implementation of the new law.

The definition, for example, of what “may incite obscenity, sexual exploitation and/or violate moral ethics in the community” is debatable, especially among a vast and diverse population ranging from cutting-edge artists in Bali, to tribes whose traditional attire nears nudity in Papua.

Another article of the bill states that “the public can play a role in preventing the production, distribution and use of pornography.”

"We're worried it will be used by hard-liners who say they want to control morality," Baby Jim Aditya, a women's rights activist, told The Associated Press. She adds concern about the public’s policing role. "It could be used to divide communities."

Violation of the law can result in up to 12 years in prison or up to $750,000 in fines, according to the AP.

On the mainly Hindu island of Bali, Gov. Made Mangku Pastika told reporters, “We will continue opposing the porn law because this has been our stance from the very beginning,” according to the Jakarta Post.

The issue of indecency is a familiar one in Indonesia. Last year, headlines spun when Erwin Arnada, the editor of the local version of Playboy, was acquitted on charges of publishing indecent material. The Indonesian and more conservative version of the U.S. magazine had been on sale at the time here for two years. Though models wear barely there clothing, there is no nudity.

A Foreign Correspondent's View of U.S. Elections

October 31, 2008 7:11 AM

By EVA SOHLMAN, journalist and writer for the Swedish magazine Fokus, covering the U.S. elections

As the clock ticks down to Election Day, I wonder whether Americans realize just how eagerly – almost fervently – the rest of the world awaits the outcome of their vote.

My editor in Sweden summed it up when she urged me in my curtain raiser for the election not just to tell her who might win but what was America thinking and what were the various moods I'd found in my travels around the country.

As I see it, there is a dark cloud of uncertainty and worry hanging over this historic vote.

Americans know they will bring forth either their first black president or their first female vice president. They are also battling a financial crisis that threatens not only to wreak havoc on their livelihoods and the country’s standing in the world, but also to kill the American Dream.

Little wonder then that the entire world is watching this election far more closely than many of the past.

The writer Joan Didion depicts a country struck with a kind of blindness, or coma. “…We approach this election with no clear idea where bottom is: what damage has been done, what alliances have been formed and broken, what concealed reefs lie ahead,” she wrote in The New York Review of Books. “Whoever we elect president is about to find some of that out.”

My friend Joanne, a 62-year-old editor temporarily out of work, is one of thousands of middle-class Americans who are going through housing foreclosure. She observed that the country has woken up to a new reality and has moved from feeling rich to feeling poor. This identity crisis is a brutal and paralyzing experience. “It is like standing on a beach with a tsunami coming at you,” she said.

Joanne worries that many Americans do not yet appreciate how much they will have to change in order to get it back on track, especially when it comes to their culture of consumption and credit. “At this moment in time I see us as a bunch of astronauts floating idly in a little tin can lost in space, hoping for a miraculous happy ending.”

Grim words, I know, but it is a mood I have constantly run into as Americans seem to be seeking in this election not just to choose a new president but a happier, calmer and more optimistic future.

They want the American Dream back. And they want it back in this election.

“Growing up, you knew you could fulfill your dreams. Today, you don’t even know if you’ll be able to pay the utility bill,“ said Jim Edmunds, owner of the Stonewall bar in the small town of Winchester, Va.

So how do you avoid the feared scenario of the so-called American Century crumbling like the Roman Empire? And what will a future America look like if, and when, it weathers this financial and identity crisis?

Internationally, pundits agree the era of dominant superpowers is nearing its end as people and markets – nations – become increasingly interconnected in the "global village."

For a weakened America, whose political and economic credibility and clout have dwindled, this means an increased need to seek alliances and strategic partnerships. As China, India and Russia continue to grow and the issues become more complex, “there is a great opportunity for the U.S. to swallow a dose of humility and learn to listen,” Anne Marie Slaughter, the principal of Woodrow Wilson School, explained to me.

At home, the United States will have to sort out its markets and get better regulation, not necessarily more, financier George Soros concluded at a seminar on the financial crisis at Columbia University in New York last week.

One of the main problems, he agreed with economists Nouriel Roubini of New York University and Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia, was that the markets focused on surface appearances and did not recognize underlying reality. This superficiality appears to have become perhaps a common attitude in the wider American society.

While Americans are voting on their future, they are also voting on their past. A dark history of slavery and discrimination is being brought into clearer daylight. To move forward and into the 21st century, some intellectuals say, the country will now have to address the fact that even if a black American is elected president, equal opportunity still will not be a reality for all – especially for people with dark skin – and that America is in fact a class-based society.

Caryl Phillips, a Yale literature professor and writer, who writes about race, identity and belonging, concludes the "trickle-down" economy clearly hasn’t worked when 1 percent of the population sits on about a third of the country’s wealth. He says the country is still run by a white gentleman’s club that doesn’t represent what America looks like today.

“America is at a historical crossroads. But if she chooses the wrong way she could lose her soul,” he said.

Back to Joanne.

She sees an America where her 30-year-old daughter Kelly won’t have the same opportunities as she did in her youth. Although she has a law degree from an Ivy League university, Kelly can’t afford to buy a home. She is lucky to have a job. “I can see how I myself might end up like one of those old ladies on a park bench eating cat food,” Joanne said.

But, even in her grimmer moments, Joanne can still show a glimmer of that can-do American attitude that is still so admired and yearned for again around the world.

She believes something positive will come out of the financial crisis. She predicts Americans will become engaged again in their grass-roots community, just like in the '60s and '70s:

”I can see an America, which gets back to some of her core values. I can see people helping each other and sticking together when the going gets tough.”

Maybe she is right because it is one of the great things that have struck me about this country -- how it never stands still. Change and failure might be hard and uncomfortable, but as so often in the past, for Americans, they are often seen as something positive.

America should stick to that belief as it searches again for a new American Dream.

In Congo, Keeping Peace on the Verge of War

October 30, 2008 3:21 PM

DANA HUGHES is the ABC News Digital Reporter for Africa, based in Nairobi

When I first arrived in Nairobi a year ago, I met with several NGOs and humanitarian organizations, many of them based here. I remember speaking with one U.N. official and asking him, “What’s the story everyone is missing? Where’s the most serious crisis in East Africa?” I expected him to say Somalia or Darfur, but instead he said, “Eastern Congo. It keeps me up at night.” He said the situation was already extremely tenuous -- more than 1 million displaced people, routine rape as a weapon of war, child soldiers, rivaling rebel groups -- but that it very well could get worse and blow up.

Reports coming out of Eastern Congo seem to confirm his fear. The United Nations estimates that more than 30,000 people have fled their homes in the last few days as the Tutsi rebel group continues to advance and “capture” villages. New refugees are overflowing camps already home to hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the ongoing conflict. Many humanitarian agencies, including the World Food Program, have had to suspend much of their activities – leaving some of the most vulnerable civilians without food or aid. A spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders told me that the organization continues to work in the rebel-controlled areas, although the situation changes “hour by hour.” Humanitarian organizations are used to the continuous low-level violence and tension in the region, but the latest round seems on the verge of all-out civil war.

War is nothing new to the DRC; it took nearly 40 years before the country held its first democratic elections. As the largest country in Africa, roughly the size of Western Europe, the DRC borders the countries that make up Southern Africa, West Africa and East Africa and it often gets caught up in regional wars. The situation in Eastern Congo is the latest example. Today’s conflict can be traced to 1994, as a direct result of the genocidal war in Rwanda. Many of the Hutu perpetrators of the genocide fled across the border to Eastern Congo and formed a militia group. The rebels advancing today are led by Gen. Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi who says he is protecting the minority Tutsi community in Eastern Congo from the Hutu milita. Nkunda signed a peace agreement in January, but now says his rebels will continue to fight until the Hutu militia disarms. Throw in an under-paid, rogue military force that both the Hutu and the Tutsi militias accuse of conspiring with the other, and you have a situation where it’s the civilians paying the price.

The United Nations estimates that there are currently more than 1 million people who are displaced. Eastern Congo is also synonymous with mass rape as a weapon of war. In January the International Rescue Committee published a study estimating that from 1998-2003, 5.4 million civilians had died because of the conflict, many from starvation and disease, as well as violence. The study pointed out that the ongoing conflict has had more fatalities than World War II. But the United Nations, along with international humanitarian organizations, is trying to help create peace in the region. There are 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers in the DRC, the largest number in the world, mostly concentrated in the east. But in this recent wave of violence, for the first time, MONUC, the U.N. mission in Congo, has found itself under attack. Rebels fired on a peacekeeping convoy last weekend, causing the peacekeeping force to resort to military action. The peacekeeping force had to disperse helicopter gun ships to fire on rebel areas in order to keep them from advancing into Goma, the provincial capital of Eastern Congo, home to around 1 million people.

Michael Bonnardeaux, the spokesman for MONUC, told me that the United Nations “has always made it clear that we will use all available means at our disposal to protect urban centers.” But even within Goma, there were violent demonstrations at MONUC compounds with civilians frustrated at what they view is a lack of protection by the peacekeepers from the rebels. For its part the United Nations says it’s completely overwhelmed, peacekeeping missions are there to keep the peace, it’s why they don’t go into a region until after a war is more or less over. But as the situation in Eastern Congo continues to deteriorate, U.N. officials, humanitarian organizations and world leaders may be forced to face the question once again of what to do when there’s no peace to keep?

Man Most Wanted By 'The Godfathers'

October 30, 2008 12:55 PM

By CLARK BENTSON, ABC News Rome

Roberto Saviano is a household name in Italy. As an author of a best-selling book that has now been made into an acclaimed international film, Saviano, at the age of 28, is probably at the height of his career. But instead of red carpets and book tours, Saviano can only celebrate his success in hiding, under 24 hour police protection, since his book "Gomorrah" was published two years ago.

"Gomorrah" is the story of organized crime in Saviano’s native city of Naples, Italy. Known locally as the Camorra -- a loose group of families whose hands are found in all aspects of life in Naples and the surrounding towns in the southern province of Campania -- the book and film starkly portray its actions as a cancer slowly destroying the community.

The book was not the first on the Camorra or other organized crime syndicates, such as the Mafia in Sicily, but this story has touched a chord with Italians, and now also with an international audience. It has also touched a nerve with the Camorra.

Saviano never sleeps in the same bed two nights in a row. Instead, he rotates from one local police precinct bunkhouse to another. All his movements must be relayed in advance for security purposes. Interviews to promote the book and film are conducted in safe locations.

Recently, a plot by the Casalesi clan to blow up Saviano sometime before Christmas was alleged by a police informant. And while the plot has now been denied, it harkens back to the assassination of two anti-Mafia crusades killed in a similar fashion in Sicily that shocked the nation.

A leading newspaper in Rome, La Repubblica has launched a petition drive urging Italians to rally the state to crack down on organized crime and safeguard Saviano’s rights as a journalist. Many Nobel laureates have signed the petition and civic and student organizations have expressed solidarity. But after two years on the run from death threats, the strain is beginning to wear on Saviano. He has started to speak of seeking a new identity and life in the United States.

The film "Gomorrah" is the Italian candidate in this year’s Oscar candidates for best foreign film. The book has been translated into English and is now available in the United States. Perhaps Roberto Saviano will become a household name in America too -- but only for the reason that he is a good journalist and author.

Enrico Caria, an author and film director, like Roberto Saviano, a native of Naples. Caria’s film, "See Naples and Then Die (Vedi Napoli e Poi Muori," looked at the resurgence of the Camorra. Caria offered this perspective to ABC News on what makes Roberto Saviano’s character, why Saviano’s "Gomorrah" has made such an impact on Italians, and why it has so infuriated the Camorra crime families.

By Enrico Caria

I didn’t know Roberto Saviano, and I didn’t want to interview him.

It was autumn 2005, and neither he nor I could presume that the book he was editing then would sell more than a few thousand copies. That is the usual f fate for essays about the Camorra, even if they are novels.

I was about to finish the shooting of a documentary movie about Camorra, and I wanted to interview Chiara Marasca, a young, good-looking editor of a local newspaper there on the frontlines against crime. But Chiara is shy, so she showed up with this skinny young man with two large eyes who wrote for a biweekly magazine telling me that he knew more about the Camorra than Maradona (the revered Argentine soccer player) knows about soccer balls.

I was sceptical. I had been convinced that Chiara would have a good onscreen presence while this nearly bald freelance journalist with a beard wouldn’t.

But I conceded. I said, “Action!” The camera started rolling and Roberto stopped smiling. He started talking about the nature of the people usually perceived as local petty criminals. He talked about the degree of their penetration inside the financial and industrial world at the national level; their trafficking and money laundering from France to Germany, from Scotland to Canada and Sweden. It was a very detailed and astonishing description. Then he started rattling off names and surnames of the Camorra bosses, and his eyes lit up with rage. It was at this point he came alive on the screen.

Never before had specific names been stated for the record on-camera, not to mention in such a challenging tone. Never before had a book been able to explain Camorra and at the same time tell such a great story.

"Gomorrah" is not investigative journalism because none of the facts in the narration were previously unknown to judges, police or politicians. It is not a novel because nothing in the book is fiction. It has the rhythm of a news report, but it is not an “instant-book.” Its appeal and its power come from the first person narration. Saviano clashes with the Camorra bosses with his head first; insulting them, provoking them with a language that melds dialect and slang in a breathtaking one-on-one fight.

According to the sociologist Amato Lamberti, founder of the Observatory on the Camorra, there are two ways for a journalist to become the target of a Camorra boss: Reveal unknown plans (as Giancarlo Siani, who was killed by the Camorra in 1985 at the age of 26 -- the same age as Saviano when he wrote "Gomorrah" -- did), or treat them with derision.

The bosses can tolerate criminal trials, wire-tapping, confiscation of their finances, or hard time in jail; none of these things diminish their stature in front of their followers. Nothing does -- except public and unpunished insults.

Saviano, who understood Lamberti’s theories, didn’t listen. While his book was a becoming a literary phenomenon, selling more than 20,000 copies, Saviano wanted to present it publicly in the main square of Casal di Principe, the hometown of the very bosses whom he challenged in the book. He started screaming from the podium, “Schiavone, Jovine, Zagaria, you are nothing; you are not worth anything; and you must leave this land.”

The next day the fugitive godfathers, the most ferocious of bosses who know how to express their wishes through the local press made their first move. A small, disreputable daily, The Corriere di Caserta, wrote that there were bosses on the square asking around to find out the names of each and every person who had been cheering loudly. The same paper described the speech as “daring” and retorted that not everyone had been impressed by Saviano’s insults.

Next, the telephone calls at all hours of the night began with no one on the other end.

The feeling of isolation began -- waiters would tell him that you are not welcome, the shopkeepers he had always frequented began murmuring “Why do you shop here for your bread?” -- not to mention the initial dismissal by the local government. Even the most prominent leaders criticized him, such as the mayor of Naples, Rosa Russo Iervolino, who said of Saviano immediately after the speech -- in an interview with L'Espresso -- that “he has a cross-eyed obsession.”

Saviano, on the contrary, demonstrated that he can see and can make people see; he can understand and make people understand. That is because in this book there is his life, the heart of his generation, people who are often forced to choose between crime and immigration. Casal di Principle, besides being Camorra’s capital, is Saviano’s hometown where he was born and raised. This is where he shared experiences at the school, on the soccer fields, at the bar, at the playground with these Camorra bosses’ children.

But there is more in Saviano’s history, in his rage, in his challenge. There are wounds and ghosts that seem to come from an epic Greek tragedy. As he writes in his book, Saviano’s father is a doctor who taught him from childhood how to shoot and gave him the idea that only a man with a university diploma and a gun is a real man. This is the same father who when his son Roberto was given a round-the-clock armed security escort turned his back on him and no longer acknowledges him.

The rest of the story is known. By selling millions of copies, Saviano has put the spotlight on the Casalesi family boss and the Spartacus criminal trials that prosecuted them. He showed up at the trials and cheered loudly when the Casalesi clan members were convicted to multiple life sentences. This earned Saviano even more explicit death threats. These threats have made "Gomorrah" a better-selling book all over the world and sustain the continuing success of the movie, which, with the book, continues the vicious, terrible circle.

The Nouvel Observateur journalist Marcelle Padovani (who wrote the biography of the assassinated judge Giovanni Falcone) told me her impression of Saviano, after meeting him. “He is like Falcone, who was able to fight the mafia because he grew up among them and spoke their same language.” And then she revealed, “You know what he told me? That he would like to marry a good girl and raise a family. He would like to marry a virgin.”

Is this the heritage of a chauvinist culture that Saviano grew out of? Is it a subconscious ghost of a misogynist mentality that is based on respect, honor and abuse of power that explains why he is fighting to risk his own life? Probably none of this. Probably in the fantasy of an ideal for “untouched” love Saviano nourishes the dream of a life that he would have wanted: without the past.

October 30, 2008 in Clark Bentson | Permalink | User Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Russia Bails Out Its Richest Men

October 30, 2008 12:37 PM

By CLARISSA WARD, Correspondent, ABC News Moscow

In 1998, when Russia was in the throes of a devastating financial crisis, a group of very rich young tycoons, known as “the oligarchs,” stepped in and bailed out the country. How quickly things change. Ten years later, it’s the government that’s doing the bailing out and it’s the government that will decide which oligarchs to save and which to cut loose.

In the last six months Russia’s 25 richest men have lost more than $230 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg News. On Wednesday night, Russia’s state development bank announced that it would lend $10 billion to Russia’s oligarchs as part of a larger $50 billion bailout that many say could shake up the Russian contingent of the Forbes rich list.

One of the men getting a piece of the pie is Oleg Deripaska, Russia’s richest man. His company RusAl will receive $4.5 billion to refinance a Western loan due this week. Deripaska is a personal friend of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Putin skis on the man-made mountain in the grounds of Deripaska’s country house. Multibillionaire Mickhail Fridman’s Alfa Group will also receive part of the state bailout funds. But the real question is, which oligarchs won’t be bailed out… and why?

In the last week, Russia’s international reserves fell a record $31 billion and not everyone in the country will be happy that the richest men in the country are getting a big chunk of that. But with minimal coverage of the crisis in the mainstream media and with confidence in President Dimitry Medvedev and Putin still very high, most Russians won’t really care.

North Korea: A Journalistic Predicament

October 29, 2008 12:52 PM

By Joohee Cho, ABC News Seoul, South Korea

There is probably nothing more frustrating for a reporter than covering a country that you cannot actually visit. Instead of firsthand interaction the reporter is forced to rely on third-party recollections, propaganda and academic analysts as news sources. That has been precisely my predicament for the last 13 years while trying to cover North Korea from South Korea.

Aside from my rare half-dozen trips to the most reclusive state in the world, I’ve found that figuring out what’s going on in that hollow, gray nation is an endless guessing game. Take Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s leader, for example. For the last few weeks rumors have circulated about his health. Even today South Korean newspaper Dong-a Ilbo claims that Kim has suffered a "serious setback," citing an unnamed official who says that he has been hospitalized.

There has been even more extreme conjecture in the past. In September, Japanese professor Toshimitsu Shigemura from the well-respected Waseda University published a book saying that Kim had died in the autumn of 2003. Shigemura claimed that the world had been fooled by a series of stand-ins who appeared at official state events. In May, a Korean Internet news Web site reported that Kim had been assassinated while traveling along a highway. Last year, rumors of Kim’s illness also circulated after a Japanese newspaper reported that six German doctors had visited Pyongyang.

The big question: Who churns out these bits and pieces of information? Most of the time, it is the small-size media from South Korea, China or Japan, citing anonymous sources: “close North Korean watchers,” “government officials,” “residents near the North Korean border” or “sources close to Pyongyang.” And these reports are only the beginning of a bizarre hoopla.

In the age of the Internet, the original report is immediately quoted by other local media platforms. And then, the international wires such as The Associated Press or Reuters diligently pick up the story citing “local media reports.” Once it’s out there in the global community, the anonymously sourced information becomes an almost fact and is picked up by other international print or TV media.

The original report often travels full circle when the local media that began the cycle run a follow-up story citing international media claims. Eventually this sourcing circus turns a rumor into legitimate information.

Until North Korea opens up, this hoopla will not end. At times, the governments of South Korea, Japan, the United States or China officially announce that they believe some of the North Korean rumors are untrue, but even they do not cite a reliable source. But unless we, the journalists, witness with our own eyes the status of the almighty Kim, this guessing game will go on and on.

Italian Students Stage Noisy Protests

October 29, 2008 11:53 AM

By CLARK BENTSON and PHOEBE NATANSON, ABC News Rome

Opposing student groups faced each other down in Rome’s famous central Piazza Navonna as protests continued after parliamentary approval today of a controversial education reform bill. The usually packed restaurants that border the square were empty of tourists. Waiters were cleaning up broken glass and debris or, in some cases, guarding shuttered cafe doors among overturned tables.

Three students and one policeman were injured after they battled with sticks and with chairs and tables from the cafes. Fourteen students are being held by police, all from "blocco sudentesco," a student movement associated with right-wing political organizations.

The students, who had been holding an all-night sit-in outside the Senate in torrential rain, moved into the square early this morning. Graffiti and banners covered the scaffolding where restoration work on the famous Four Rivers fountain continued despite the unruly crowds.

High school and university students have been marching and holding impromptu sit-ins across Italy for two weeks now to protest against the raft of educational reform measures approved today. In addition to cutting costs, the reform package, driven by the governing majority, mandates a return to a single-teacher system for most subjects in elementary schools, and, in an effort to stop bullying, to grading the behavior of secondary school students.

At the university level, reforms include a reduction of degree offerings and a plan to open schools to private investment by allowing them to become foundations. Opposition politicians claim the package is only motivated by the need to cut costs rather than a true commitment to reform. They argue that the new bill will ruin the current, well-regarded elementary school system.

The protests seem to be supported by a cross section of Italian society, including parents, university professors and teachers. Lessons have been staged outdoor in the historic squares in Rome, Naples, Bari and Florence with curious onlookers and supporters following class. Loud, colourful and rambunctious marches by students have disrupted traffic in Milan, Rome, Palermo and Potenza.

Two days ago, as a provocation, unknown students put two of Rome's Universities - La Sapienza and Tor Vergata - on eBay for a modest price of one euro. Included in the price for the university building and grounds were "the professors, students AND their future, ample parking, classrooms laboratories, and bar."

Education Minister Maria Stella Gelmini has stood firm on the government reforms and played down the protests, saying that only a few thousand of Italy's nine 9 million students were protesting.

An anti-protest backlash started several days after Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi declared that those who wished to study should have the right to do so and the government would not tolerate sit-ins in schools and universities. Some students fear that they will not be ready to take exams or graduate this year. Groups calling themselves "I Want To Study" and "Have a Sit-In at Your House" have appeared on Facebook, while in Florence 10,000 postcards were printed to be sent to the local university dean asking that lectures resume.

An official nationwide protest has been called and is set to take place tomorrow. Students and teachers are expected to crowd the streets in every major city by the thousands.

Baghdad Rocks!

October 29, 2008 7:45 AM

By AADEL RASHID, ABC News Baghdad

Just a few nights ago, Baghdad was rocking to more than the usual roadside bombs and mortars when some 220 heavy metal music fans gathered for Baghdad’s second heavy metal gig since the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003.

The enthusiastic male and female fans packed into a small, local venue for more than two hours to hear the Baghdad band Brutal Impact knock out popular covers from the heavy metal stable, such as Slayer’s South of Heaven, Death’s The Philosopher and Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters.

Lateef, the band’s drummer, said that the gig was “awesome” because they managed to perform several difficult songs from some famous metal bands, for a very appreciative audience.

The other band members told ABC News that they were thrilled with the show, despite losing one million Iraqi dinars ($800) in compensation to the club venue after seven tables were broken during the concert. They added that they didn’t mind the financial loss because they had done the gig for the sake of the music not money and that they were now looking forward to performing in more shows in the future. Lateef, the drummer, said, “it feels like our gig represents the rebirth of heavy metal in Iraq”, adding that his dream was to see more bands in the country.

The concert faced many obstacles: Lateef received an anonymous, threatening phone call, and while distributing fliers for the gig, Aws Adnan and Mustafa Muhanna, the Band’s managers, were stopped by police who thought they were distributing anti-government material. Luckily, according to the managers, there was an officer present who could read and reassured his fellow officers as to the nature of the fliers.

Wameed, a 30-year-old pharmacist, who attended the event, said it was an amazing night and one which would hopefully be repeated soon, as it has been quite a while since Baghdad has had a heavy metal party. Wameed fondly recalled the good old days when the Baghdad metal scene was flourishing back in the 90’s. “I really couldn’t imagine that there was still an underground metal scene remaining here in Baghdad, I thought everyone had left,” he said.

The band sold 280 tickets to the show and despite the heavy traffic jams caused by the unseasonal rain storms, 220 of Baghdad’s most dedicated heavy metal fans braved the elements and omnipresent security risks to get to the show.

In the words of the band, what made their night, was to see their head-banging, loyal fans venting out their frustrations by banging their heads to some heavy metal tunes.

It was a full metal night!