An Artist Takes Role of China’s Conscience
In a 30-year career he has combined, often at calculated personal risk, both aspects of his persona to create a role as an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, delivering his most stingingBuy nike running shoes online rebukes from within China itself. In light of his arrest and detainment, however, his ability to sustain this role, in China at least, would seem to be in serious doubt.
From a Western perspective, Mr. Ai’s career fits a familiar profile. We tend to like our contemporary Chinese artists to come across as aesthetic tradition-busters. (This is one reason that Pop-style Mao paintings by the likes of Wang Guangyi remain big-selling auction items.) In this regard Mr. Ai has not disappointed. In the 1990s he painted Coca-Cola logos on ancient Chinese pots, broke up classical Chinese furniture and photographed himself making a single-digit rude gesture in front of the White House, the Eiffel Tower and Tiananmen Square.
But gradually such Duchampian moves have given way to large-scale, socially critical projects. For a conceptual piece called “Fairytale” at the 2007 Documenta in Kassel, Germany, he placed 1,001 antique Chinese chairs, available for use, throughout the exhibition. He built an outdoor structure from 1,001 doors salvaged from Ming and Qing houses that had been eliminated by rampant development in Chinese cities. Through the Internet he recruited 1,001 Chinese citizen-volunteers to come to Kassel to live for the duration of the show.
In short, he brought a sense of China that was at once inviting, puzzling and pathetic. The chairs were nice to sit in. It was hard to know what to make of the mini-army of temporary residents, who seemed equally uncertain of why they were there. The structure built from old doors finally just collapsed. Over all, “Fairytale” was not a winning picture of his homeland.
Politically, he was coming to be known to the Chinese authorities as a loose cannon with a suspect history: a late-1970s free-speech agitator, later a member of renegade art movements,Fivefingers Kso-Vibram fivefingers Kso online and a full-time resident of New York from 1981 to 1993. But as an international celebrity he was still a feather in China’s cap at a time when the country was making an all-out effort to become a major cultural presence prior to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.
With this in mind the Chinese government asked Mr. Ai to collaborate with the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron on the design for the Olympic stadium, known the Bird’s Nest. He did so. The result was a triumph.
Then something startling happened: He denounced the Olympics as a feel-good whitewash on China’s repressive, market-hungry government. And after the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, which killed thousands of children who were crushed when their shoddily built schools collapsed, he became an intrepid antiestablishment activist.
As China’s official news channels broadcast upbeat videos of earthquake rescue operations, Mr. Ai was in Sichuan making his own films of the destruction, talking with distraught parents of dead or missing children and using his widely read daily blog to accuse the Sichuan officials of financial corruption that resulted in structurally faulty schools. His accusations of a cover-up extended to the highest levels in Beijing.
To anyone familiar with China’s hardball official politics, Mr. Ai’s aggressive words sounded suicidally aggressive and the silence from the government in Beijing was perplexing. But at this juncture,Buy nike cheap mens acg sandals black both parties were almost ceremonially enacting ancient roles. In Chinese culture, going back to Confucius, there has been a tradition of individual scholars and intellectuals denouncing rulers for wrongdoing that was bringing disharmony to society, and particularly if that wrongdoing was injurious to innocence.
Examples of such face-offs recur in traditional literature and painting. And often, but not always, the self-sacrificing honesty of the accuser has rendered him immune to retaliation.
Defections and dilemmas
From the beginning of the intervention in Libya the encouragement of defections has played an absolutely central role. nike running shoes online Indeed it has been the constant refrain of prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers as they sought to explain how they thought the coalition would achieve its aims in north Africa. Libyan civilians of course had to be protected from attack. But otherwise the military measures, the economic sanctions and even the threat of international legal proceedings were not ends in themselves.
They were instead means, as William Hague, Hillary Clinton, Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama repeatedly made clear, to signal to Libyan soldiers, civil servants and high functionaries that the regime had no future – and nor would they, if they stuck with it. The important thing was to peel away from the Gaddafis the supporters without whom they could not maintain their rule. The defection of the Benghazi garrison in the early days of the protests brought about the swift collapse of the Gaddafi government's authority in the east, while the resignations and declarations of many Libyan diplomats undermined what little was left of the regime's legitimacy abroad. Defections were the way to go, and the prospect of more was relished.
When it was a matter of barely known military officers changing sides, or western-educated diplomats whose unease at representing the regime had long been noted, or even of Gaddafi ministers migrating to the Benghazi camp in Libya itself, all was grist to the mill. But there was a contradiction looming. When defection is vital to success,cheap nike mens acg sandals 2011 can amnesty be far away? This is the problem dramatised by the defection of Moussa Koussa to Britain this week. Koussa has both harmed and helped Britain in the past, with the emphasis in recent years more on the latter than the former. And, with his knowledge of the workings of the Gaddafi inner circle, he can still help us now by pinpointing its weaknesses and identifying other figures who might come over soon.
Some are demanding he be put on trial if evidence emerges of responsibility for attacks on western targets. But it would be amazing, whatever David Cameron says in public, if Koussa had not been given assurances about his own future. And it would be foolish not to listen to what other Gaddafi associates who come to Britain have to say.
One does not have to look far in regional history for examples of the practical taking precedence over the ideal. General Eisenhower confirmed the Vichy Admiral Darlan as chief in north Africa in order to secure the allegiance of Vichy army units. Later the second world war allies installed Field Marshal Badoglio, a general who had fought in Libya but abandoned Mussolini, as head of an interim Italian government.
The short history of the international criminal court, which has since earlier this month been investigating the possibility of charging members of the Gaddafi regime with war crimes, shows that an indictment can have the effect of isolating a head of state, as it did in the case of Slobodan Miloševic. The wider the criminal net is cast, however, the more it may stiffen rather than undermine a faltering regime. There is sometimes, in other words, a choice to be made between absolute justice and bringing a desperate and dangerous phase in a nation's affairs to an end.
Ultimately the decisions about who should be punished, who pardoned, and who allowed, in spite of past sins, to continue to play a part in Libya's political life, should be made by Libyans themselves.Buy nike cheap mens acg sandals But the coalition has for the moment the responsibility of measuring how high a price we should pay for the defections we encourage. The line should surely be drawn at the ruling family itself. How much wider it should go is a hard question. But there may be some unpalatable compromises ahead.
India's population grows to 1.2 billion
Though India's population growth rate slowed significantly to 17.6% over the last decade, putting it on target to double in size in about 50 years, the nation added almost enough people to match the biggest country in South America.
"We have added almost one Brazil to our population in the last one decade," C. Chandramouli, India's census commissioner, told reporters Thursday.
The combined populations of just two states, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, exceed that of the United States.
Continued migration is expected from rural to urban areas, as is a slowing in overall population growth as the economy improves, said K. Srinivasan, professor emeritus at Mumbai's International Institute for Population Sciences.
Another wrinkle is the changing gender breakdown. India has 623 million males and 586 million females, underscoring a continued preference for boys that, activists say, plays out in the abortion of female fetuses and other illegal gender-selection methods. Chandramouli characterized the statistic as "grim."
India now has 914 girls younger than 6 for every 1,000 boys, down from 927 girls to 1,000 boys a decade ago.
"The appearance is that India has a lot of economic growth," said Sudha Sundaram, general secretary of the Delhi-based All India Democratic Women's Assn. "But a large sector, women and those in rural areas, are not gaining."
Because dowry and wedding costs have skyrocketed along with India's booming economy, girls are seen as an even greater burden in many areas, Sundaram said.
Census data show that 74% of Indians are literate, an increase of 10 percentage points from a decade ago.
"This is a welcome step," said Avinash Kumar, a campaigner with Oxfam aid group. "But often if you can write your name,shoes Buy nike cheap mens acg sandals you're considered literate. Many can't write one complete sentence in their mother tongue."
Despite a pledge to spend 6% of its budget on education, the government has spent only 3.1%, analysts said, and many eighth-grade students can't read or do math at first-grade levels. And many teachers can't pass eighth-grade level exams.
"There's a lot of talk of the population dividend of a young population," Kumar said. "If they're not employed usefully, how are you going to compete on the global stage vis-a-vis China? Obviously you don't have the productive muscle."
Conducting the census was a mammoth task in its own right. Training manuals were published in 18 languages as 2.5 million census workers fanned out to 640,000 villages and 7,300 towns and cities. The 10-month exercise grappled with millions of homeless people, Maoist insurgencies and extremely remote locations. Full results are expected in 2012.
A major debate centered on whether to ask for information on castes, which hadn't been done since the 1930s.
According to Hindu teachings, people are born into the caste of their parents, which assigns them a position in the social hierarchy for life. The four broad groupings, in order of status, are: Brahmins, or priests; Kshatriyas, or warriors; Vaisyas, merchants and farmers; and Sudras, manual workers. About 6,000 subcastes are delineated, made even more complicated by regional variations.
Critics feared that census questions about caste would increase caste-based discrimination, which is illegal under the constitution but nevertheless widespread. Newspapers carry pages of off, Find brand shoes to classified matrimonial advertisements each weekend listed by caste and sub-caste, often with the not-so-subtle message that so-called lower castes need not apply.
Supporters countered that a mapping of the caste landscape would give a more accurate picture of Indian society and help deliver aid to those most in need, including dalits, or so-called untouchables who fall outside the caste system, and tribal groups.
The governing Congress Party, which for decades had resisted the idea, reversed its position in an apparent bid to placate the many caste-based parties that wield growing clout in national and regional politics, and it was included.
During the last caste-based census, conducted under British rule, respondents tended to inflate their caste in an effort to improve their social status. With so many social programs now aimed at lower castes, experts fear the opposite, namely that people will understate their position to qualify for government benefits.
Netanyahu confirms Gaza man held by Israel
"Abu Sisi is a Hamas man. He is being held in detention in Israel. It is a legal arrest, "Netanyahu said, replying to a question from an Israeli reporter who moderated the forum.
"He has provided valuable information, that is all I can say," Netanyahu added.
Relatives of Abu Sisi, an engineer and manager of the main power plant in Hamas-ruled Gaza, say he was abducted while aboard a train in Ukraine, where authorities say the disappearance is under investigation.
Israeli officials confirmed some weeks later that Abu Sisi is in custody but have refused further comment, citing court-issued gag orders. Sources in Gaza have said he was not known to have political affiliations to Hamas.
Smadar Ben-Natan, an Israeli lawyer for Abu Sisi, accused Israel in an interview of trying to concoct charges against her client, linking his detention to efforts to gather intelligence on Hamas and on an Israeli soldier held by the group.
COVER-UP?
The court sessions had led her to believe "they are trying to cover up the mistake" of seizing him, she said.
"When someone came along who they thought was senior (in Hamas) and was located outside the Gaza Strip, they got their hands on him, without this matter being really justified, in retrospect," Ben-Natan said.
"Instead of confessing and saying, 'Sorry, turns out what we thought was a mistake, we are sorry, go home, Sir,' they are trying to find what they can blame him with so that it doesn't became clear this whole matter was one big farce," she added.
German newspaper Der Spiegel on Tuesday quoted an unnamed source as saying Israel may have suspected Abu Sisi of knowing the whereabouts of Shalit, held since a 2006 cross-border raid.
Netanyahu would not answer any questions about whether Abu Sisi was being questioned or had given any details about Shalit.
But he laid out some of Israel's negotiating position when asked about the prospect of swapping Palestinian prisoners for Shalit.
Netanyahu said he was willing to release some 450Buy cheap nike mens sandals prisoners as the Islamists want, but would not agree that 150 of those whom Israel accuses of involvement in lethal attacks could return to the West Bank, saying they had to go to Gaza or abroad.
"We are taking a lot of action (on the case), and only a small amount of this is known (published)," Netanyahu added.
Abu Sisi was scheduled to appear at another remand hearing on Thursday. Ben-Natan, an Israeli, said she expected to know then "how the state intends to indict (him), if at all."
Israel occupation 'morally and politically unsustainable, must end'
The UN secretary general called on Israel Wednesday to halt settlement building in occupied territory, and put a stop to all forms of violence and incitement, the UN News Center reported. nike running shoes online
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke at the UN Latin American and Caribbean Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace, convened by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People that opened in Uruguay Wednesday. According to the report, Ban saying said it was a "crucial time" for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
 |
UN Chief Ban Ki-moon meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu |
| Photo by: EPA |
“The target dates for reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement on permanent status issues and completing the Palestinian Authority’s two-year State-building program are fast-approaching. Yet, the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations remain at a worrying standstill. We must intensify efforts to break the deadlock,” Ban said. Buy cheap nike mens acg sandals
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians hit a standstill in September after Israel resumed building in the West Bank following a moratorium on settlement building.
The secretary general continued, saying “actions that prejudge the outcome of the process must stop,” referring to Israel's continued settlement building in the West Bank and Jerusalem, demolition of Palestinian homes and any form of violence or incitement.
Ban then commended the Palestinian Authority for its efforts, the UN News center report said, praising the PA's efforts to establish state institutions, enforce security in the West Bank and receive international funding and recognition of its statehood goals.
The UN chief chastised Israel, the report said, calling on the government to take the necessary steps to improve economic and security conditions for Palestinians by removing obstacles to freedom of movement, stopping military operations and enhancing the PA's scope of influence in the West Bank.
Ban also implored Israel to further ease its blockade in Gaza, the report said, which has been under Hamas control since 2007. Israel has refused to negotiate with Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction and is responsible for numerous attacks perpetrated against Israel and its civilians.
In recent weeks, Hamas and the more moderate West Bank-based Fatah have been engaging in preliminary talks, with the possibility of unification in the future. Israel has made it clear that in the event that Fatah and Hamas join forces, Israel will not be open to negotiations, and Fatah must choose its ally.
The secretary general reportedly condemned the recent escalation in rocket fire from Gaza to Israel, calling on both sides to prevent civilian casualties and act in conformity with international law. He then, according to the report, reiterated his “strong condemnation” of the recent bombing in Jerusalem, in which a 59-year-old Briton was killed and over 30 wounded.
“Time is of the essence in realizing the two-State solution, " Ban said, "the occupation that started in 1967 is morally and politically unsustainable, and must end. The Palestinians have a legitimate right to the establishment of an independent and viable State of their own." Buy nike cheap mens acg sandals
He stressed that "Israel has the right to live in peace and security within internationally recognized and secure borders." According to the report the secretary general then said that both Palestinians and Israelis are entitled to Jerusalem as its capital, with "arrangements for holy sites acceptable for all."
The UN chief also said there "must be a just and agreed solution to the prolonged plight of the Palestinian refugees," an issue that has been highly disputed in past peace negotiations.
The two-day meeting in Uruguay will discuss settlement expansion, Jerusalem and the recent recognition of Palestinian statehood by governments in the region, including Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, the report said.
Carter arrives in Cuba
Jimmy Carter met here privately Monday with Cuba's Catholic primate, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, and with leaders of the Jewish community as the former U.S. president began a three-day private visit to the island.Buy nike running shoes online
Neither Ortega nor Carter spoke to reporters after their one-hour talks at the Havana Archdiocese.
"Mr. Carter expressed to Cardinal Ortega his happiness over the process of dialogue Cuba's Church is pursuing with the government of President Raul Castro Ruz, one of whose results has been the release of more than 100 Cuban (political) prisoners," the archdiocese said later in a statement.
While most of the freed prisoners accepted what they hope will be temporary exile in Spain, the Communist government has allowed some to remain on the island.
Carter met with Ortega after paying a call on the Council of the Jewish Community of Cuba.
The former president spoke with Chairwoman Adela Dworin and several other council members before touring the offices and adjacent synagogue. nike cheap mens acg sandals
Dworin told reporters they did not discuss the case of U.S. government contractor Alan Gross, recently sentenced by a Cuban court to 15 years in prison on charges of trying to undermine the island's independence.
Gross, 61, was arrested in Havana in December 2009 while distributing computers and satellite gear. He said the equipment was intended to help Cuba's small Jewish community better communicate with the outside world.
"In reality, we didn't talk any politics. We told him about the Jewish community in Cuba, how many members it has, and that we openly practice our religion," Dworin said of the meeting with Carter.
Carter, making his second visit to Cuba in nine years, is the highest-ranking U.S. politician to set foot on the island since the triumph of the 1959 revolution.
His current visit was prompted by an invitation from Raul Castro, who formally succeeded ailing older brother Fidel three years ago and is to receive the former U.S. president on Tuesday.Find brand shoes
The United States and Cuba have not had diplomatic relations for nearly half a century, but interests sections were established in the respective capitals during Carter's 1977-1981 administration.