Author: Mick Hartley

e.

United Nations investigators have found most of the small arms fuelling the conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur are Chinese, despite an arms ban on a region where tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million squat in squalid camps.

“China has been, and continues to be, a major supplier of light weapons to the government of Sudan and many of the neighbouring states,” said Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, one of four U.N. experts on an panel which recommended 17 players in the Darfur conflict be sanctioned for obstructing peace.

And from the BBC:

Aid worker Matthew Langol has twice been airlifted out of southern Sudan, where he was delivering medicines to villages ravaged by cholera, after rebels ambushed aid convoys travelling behind him, blocking his way out.

“It’s very dangerous work,” he admits.

“No-one likes making the journey. But the disease comes in waves here, and no medicine would mean higher fatalities and a chain reaction of transmissions.”

The attacks are staged by the feared Lord’s Resistance Army, which has moved to Sudan from northern Uganda.

At least five aid workers travelling along this road have been ambushed and killed by the rebels since October 2005, with others suffering serious injuries.

Southern Sudan – one of the poorest parts of the world after a 21-year civil war that ended 18 months ago – has suffered over 500 cholera deaths since January.

Another 13,800 people have been affected by the disease in the region.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned the epidemic could spread to Sudan’s neighbours, and on Wednesday the agency confirmed reports it has spread to Darfur, where 2.5m refugees live in squalid conditions and close proximity. […]

Dr Claire-Lise Chaignat of the WHO’s Global Task Force on Cholera Control in Geneva says Khartoum is so wary of the effects cholera could have on exports that it has renamed the disease altogether.

“Officially Sudan does not speak about cholera, they speak about Acute Watery Diarrhoea. But it’s cholera,” she says.

“It has a stigma, and it’s generating a lot of panic. Some countries place sanctions on the import of foods and other products from countries that declare cholera, and while the Sudanese government isn’t pretending cholera doesn’t exist, there’s an understanding not to refer to it as such.”

This, in the NYT, strikes me as strange:

The German flag, long weighted by the country’s postwar reluctance about open displays of national pride, is flying again, an expression of exuberance as Germany plays host to the World Cup.

“When you see so many German flags flying from windows, that’s a development that was long overdue, while not forgetting what happened in this country before,” said Christoph Metzelder, a defender on the German team.

Indeed, the chief indicator of the national mood is that almost overnight, once the World Cup began and all those people from other countries arrived with flags and T-shirts in their national colors, it became almost mandatory, certainly desirable, to respond in kind.

You could almost substitute England for Germany here, apart from the references to a troubled past. In fact it would apply better to England, where the usual squirming at the ghastly chavs displaying the flag, and how they’re all horrible working-class racists, is at last being countered with the dawning realisation that there are thousands of non-white English happily – and proudly – flying the old St George’s Cross.

I don’t recall the Germans having a problem with showing their flag in earlier World Cups, or in any other international sporting context for that matter. It has no Nazi connotations, after all. I realise that Germany’s trying to use the World Cup to change people’s perceptions of them – and good luck to them – but this story looks a bit forced to me.

riving around in their cars honking the horns. Everywhere you look you can see people waving the Ghana flag.

There is so much noise and excitement, you cannot believe!

I’ve never been so happy in all my life. And I think a lot of people feel the same.

We are going to party right through the night. I think the churches are going to be half-full tomorrow because people won’t be able to get up.

I have to go now and join the dancing, and the party!

What can you say? Go Ghana! Go Razak Pimpong!

And what was that all about, with one of the Ghanaians pulling out the Israeli flag whenever they scored?

Update: here we are (via Norm)

place in the world of culture – nevermind their large bank balances – in the face of the redefinition of art as whatever you want it to be. It seems to me that the main way this has been accomplished over the last few decades has been by promoting the cult of the artist: that is, by presenting the artist as some sort of cultural shaman with special gifts, whose work has significance not for its intrinsic merits, but simply because of its connection to the artist. The artists transfer their magical potency to their works of art, which acquire their value, in a quasi-religious way, from who made them.

It’s also worth noting the language that people like Mark Lawson use to defend their position. Those who criticise postmodern art are conservatives, anti-modernists, reactionaries railing against the forces of progress. Somehow (in the Sixties? or back to Dada again?) politics has crept into the equation, and art has been co-opted into the battle against the forces of reaction. So a tired piece of conceptual art has to be defended because of its presumed progressive and liberatory potential, and the defenders can pat themselves on the back as being up-to-date, modern, and on the right side of history.

That anti-modernist label also implies that the blinkered mindset which laughed at Picasso or sneered at Van Gogh is the same one now criticising Tracey’s unmade bed or this latest plinth masterpiece: as though it’s still the same battle between progressives and the forces of reaction, between the thrusting young rebels and the classically-trained academicians, between cutting-edge street art and Women’s Institute water-colour exhibitions. That’s why I think we should refer to postmodern as opposed to modern art, to distinguish the vital and powerful art movements of the end of the 19th and much of the 20th Centuries from the vapid and sterile art world we’re now lumbered with. This is not a story of steady progress – a sort of Whig history of art – where each new generation revolts against the old order and surpasses them, only to set up their own orthodoxy etc. etc.. It’s a story of how a large part of the current art world has disappeared up its own arse in recent times: a large part, but, as the artists now showing at the National Portrait Gallery demonstrate, thankfully not all.

Here’s Al-Qaradhawi again. For those of us living in London there’s always a special pleasure in hearing the great man’s thoughts, as he’s such a bosom buddy of our mayor. Strangely, in the course of expounding his challenging views on homosexuality, he seems to be saying that Bush isn’t right-wing enough. Does Ken know about this?

Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: Kerry, who ran against Bush, was supported by homosexuals and nudists. But it was Bush who won [the elections], because he is Christian, right-wing, tenacious, and unyielding. In other words, the religious overcame the perverted. So we cannot blame all Americans and Westerners.

But unfortunately, because the Westerners – Americans and others – want to flatter these people on account of the elections, a disaster occurs. In order to succeed and win the elections, he flatters these people, rather than saying to them: No, you are sinning against yourselves, against society, and against humanity. This is forbidden. Instead of leveling with them, people flatter them to win their votes. This is the disaster that has befallen humanity. […]

Interviewer: How should a homosexual or a lesbian be punished? We mentioned the story of the people of Sodom and how Allah punished them, but how should someone who commits this abomination be punished today?

Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: The same punishment as any sexual pervert – the same as the fornicator. […]

The schools of thought disagree about the punishment. Some say they should be punished like fornicators, and then we distinguish between married and unmarried men, and between married and unmarried women. Some say both should be punished the same way. Some say we should throw them from a high place, like God did with the people of Sodom. Some say we should burn them, and so on. There is disagreement. […]

The important thing is to treat this act as a crime.

Interviewer: There is an issue that some people may find strange. If homosexuals and lesbians belong to the same category – an inclination towards the same sex – why are there different punishments for men and women, for homosexuals and lesbians?

Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: A punishment for who?

Interviewer: For homosexuals and lesbians – the punishment for a woman who favors women, and for a man who favors men.

Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: Lesbianism is not as bad as homosexuality, in practical terms.

y had been caused by an errant Israeli shell targeting a Palestinian rocket base. But then a few days later, an army investigation concluded that it was not Israel’s doing at all.

First, because the shrapnel taken from the victims (treated at Israeli hospitals — some “genocide”) were not the ordnance used in Israeli artillery. Second, because aerial photography revealed no crater that could have been caused by Israeli artillery. And third, because Israel could account for five of the six shells it launched at the rocket base nearby, and the missing one had been launched at least five minutes before the one that killed the family.

An expert at a local chapter of a human rights group disputes the Israeli claims. OK. Let’s concede for the sake of argument that the question of whether it was an errant Israeli shell remains unresolved. But the obvious question not being asked is this: Who is to blame if Palestinians are setting up rocket launchers to attack Israel — and placing them 400 yards from a beach crowded with Palestinian families on the Muslim Sabbath?

Answer: This is just another example of the Palestinians’ classic and cowardly human-shield tactic — attacking innocent Israeli civilians while hiding behind innocent Palestinian civilians. For Palestinian terrorists — and the Palestinian governments (both Fatah and Hamas) that allow them to operate unmolested — it’s win-win: If their rockets aimed into nearby Israeli towns kill innocent Jews, no one abroad notices and it’s another success in the terror war against Israel. And if Israel’s preventative and deterrent attacks on those rocket bases inadvertently kill Palestinian civilians, the iconic “Israeli massacre” picture makes the front page of The New York Times, and the Palestinians win the propaganda war.

example of minimalist art.

“It’s a quirky little piece [without the head],” he told The Times. “We were quite puzzled by it and that’s why we liked it.”

No one noticed the error until Hensel, a 64-year-old sculptor and jeweller based in East Grinstead, Surrey, visited the gallery last Friday during a preview exhibition for friends of the Academy.

“I was very excited about going to London to see my sculpture on display, but I walked all the way round the gallery looking for it and couldn’t find it,” he said.

“Eventually, I saw just the base on a shelf with the piece of wood that was meant to keep the head in place on it, which looks like a bone.”

Sadly there’s no picture online, but the sculpture itself is in fact an accomplished and effective piece of art – and therefore clearly of little interest to the Royal Academicians.

Update: see the sculpture and plinth here (thanks Dom)

Two weeks back Alan Kuperman wrote an op-ed in the NYT:

Darfur was never the simplistic morality tale purveyed by the news media and humanitarian organizations. The region’s blacks, painted as long-suffering victims, actually were the oppressors less than two decades ago — denying Arab nomads access to grazing areas essential to their survival. Violence was initiated not by Arab militias but by the black rebels who in 2003 attacked police and military installations. […]

Advocates of intervention play down rebel responsibility because it is easier to build support for stopping genocide than for becoming entangled in yet another messy civil war. But their persistent calls for intervention have actually worsened the violence. The rebels, much weaker than the government, would logically have sued for peace long ago. Because of the Save Darfur movement, however, the rebels believe that the longer they provoke genocidal retaliation, the more the West will pressure Sudan to hand them control of the region.

Here’s a fairly convincing rebuttal at Coalition for Darfur, worth reading if you’re interested in some of the history of the conflict, which concludes that:

while the rebels can surely be blamed for a lot of things, they cannot rightly be blamed for setting off Khartoum’s brutal campaign as it was just this campaign – less systematic and widespread, to be sure – that helped give rise to the rebellion in the first place.

What’s been missing from the World Cup so far? That’s right….controversial penalties. We’ve had one now though. A Ukrainian defender puts his hand on the bottom of a Spanish attacker as he runs into the penalty area, and – presumably to punish the disgraceful homoerotic implications – has a penalty awarded against him.

They won’t be happy about that in Kiev.

(Good article on Andriy Shevchenko in the Times, by the way – on Chernobyl, and what makes a hero.)

The peace talks initiated by South Sudan Vice-President Riek Machar between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan government, coming after he was filmed handing over cash to the LRA, are off to a bad start:

Gunmen in southern Sudan have attacked the outskirts of the city of Juba, killing nine people.

Residents said the gunmen belonged to the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army who have been fighting for many years in northern Uganda.

The attack comes just after LRA leaders arrived in Juba having been invited by south Sudan Vice-President Riek Machar.

He has offered to mediate a peace agreement between the rebels and the Ugandan government.

But both Uganda and the International Criminal Court in the Hague have complained, saying that Sudan should arrest the LRA leaders as indicted war criminals.

Update: the LRA deny responsibility:

The Ugandan rebel group denied being involved in an attack on the outskirts of the south Sudanese capital Juba on Sunday night where nine people killed by gunmen.

In a press release issued Tuesday the Lord Resistance Army High Command denied “categorically any involvement” in Juba attack. The LRA said “none of our soldiers were anywhere near the reported area”

The attack occurred on Sunday 11 June at about 10 p.m. (1900 GMT) in the Gumba area on the east bank of the Nile and a few miles from the city centre. Nine people were wounded, including two children and five women.

The LRA accused the Ugandan government of attempting to undermine the South Sudan government peace initiative to bring peace in Uganda.

The rebel group “strongly believes that this is a characteristic and a cynical attempt by the Museveni’s dictatorship to sabotage the current peace initiative.” Ugandan army “has used such tactics before in Ugandan soils in order to torpedo previous peace processes”, the statement said.