Delayed Gratification issue three

He lived like the blues, he lived on the edge like a blues man, died like a blues man, sadly” – Umar Bin Hassan remembers Gil Scott-Heron

Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct

Nov

Dec

2011

‘‘ 27th May

‘‘ 23rdMay

Jan

Pushing a trolley through Tesco’s sliding doors seems as wilful an act of defiance as crossing a picket line” – Stokes Croft after the riot

‘‘

The SNP yellow began to spread across the electoral map as if the entire country had contracted jaundice” – the triumph of Alex Salmond

When I met Bin Laden I was expecting a table-thumping revolutionary, but he turned out to be very low-key” – Peter Bergen

An apology could never be enough.

The accusations made by Germany destroyed the work of thousands of farmers” – Europe’s E coli crisis 10th Jun

Apr May Jun 2011

‘‘ ‘‘

‘‘

6th May

1st May

21st Apr

Tohoku is in dire need of a plan.

But then this was the case long before the tsunami struck” – Jon Wilks on Japan’s future 6th Apr

The international borders were as much a fantasy as Father Christmas” – Michael Hodges in the Golan

One must never think that one almost has God by the coat-tails” – Mikhail Gorbachev

‘‘

‘‘‘‘

Instead of the triumphant scenes Hollywood has led us to expect, we got a more honest account of what happens when you speak out against a superpower” – Ai Weiwei’s last interview before his imprisonment

The Slow Journalism magazine | Last to breaking news

22nd Jun

5th Jun

The surprise for me about Guantánamo is not how many devils it contained (about 150, since you ask), but how many saints” – The stories behind the Wikileaks

12th Jun

I think it’s a question of balance: on one side you have people’s liberty and on the other you have their embarrassment” – John Hemming MP on super-injunctions

‘‘

00003

‘‘ 24th Apr

ISSN 2046-1933

9 772046 193008

£10 Issue 03

29th Apr

I would have advised Kate and Prince William to sign a prenuptial agreement” – Ayesha Vardags, divorce lawyer

‘‘

The largest mass murder since World War II happened in Srebrenica, a town in the centre of Europe” – Šejla Kameri´c

26th May

3

‘Looking West’ by Hush

WHAT’S THE

BIG IDEA? Print is not dead.

For all the wily charms of the digital world with its tweets, feeds, blogs and apps, there is still nothing like the pleasure created by ink on paper.

T

he server farms and all their delights cannot replace time spent in the company of something you can actually hold, whose pages you can turn down and whose spine you can crack. We believe in magazines which engross and inspire at the end of a long week. We have no interest in creating throwaway media – we want to make something which is treasured, which ends its days making the bookshelf, coffee table or toilet just that little bit prettier and more civilised.

And we believe that everyone needs a screen break.

Perspective, too, is not dead. Kneejerk punditry, live-blogging and the pounding waves of the 24-hour news cycle have their appeal. But there’s also joy in getting your head above the water, sucking in a lungful of clear air and taking your bearings.

This is our starting point. With our belief in print and perspective we bring you , the UK's quarterly almanac. A handsome devil that curates the news and captures the times, written by journalists armed with three months’ worth of hindsight, and without the albatross of an hourly deadline around their necks.

As the weeks and months zip by, we are keeping track, picking out the patterns, and seeing what is left after the dust has settled. We will strip out the white noise and give you the essentials, telling the story of the UK and the world over the last quarter.

This publication, then, is our flag in the sand – a magazine of record from editors determined to swim against the electronic tide.

We'd love to have you with us.

contents

SHORT

Fri 1st Apr – Thu 30th Jun 2011 M I

Retrospectives M Moments that mattered I Infographics and illustrations

The month in M job security I MAY OPENER

The month in cabinet scandals

The SNP’s victory M Fri 6th May

by Andrew Picken, I

journalist

Ryan Giggs unveiled M Mon 23rd May

by John Hemming, MP I

The Guantánamo leaks M Sun 24th Apr

byISeán Clarke of The Guardian

Ratko Mladic arrested M Thu 26th May by Šejla Kameri´c, artist I

The E.coli outbreak

Euro crisis timeline

M Fri 10th Jun

by José I Antonio Arcos,

The downward spiral of the continental currency

editor

Thu 7th Apr

SERIOUS

Bin Laden is killed Gil Scott-Heron remembered

Wed 6th Apr

The continuing tragedy in Tohoku province

Fri 27th May

Modern Day Outlaws

Umar Bin Hassan on his friend and contemporary

Rewriting history Thu 14th Apr

Textbooks: a powerful weapon

Tue 21st Jun

Behind the scenes with the climate activists

“I am afraid of jail” The battle for the Golan Sun 5th Jun

Inside Syria’s own occupied territiories

DG03_CONTENTS.indd 2

Wed 22nd Jun

Ai Weiwei’s last interview

M I

M

The great escape Sun 1st May

The last best chance to kill Bin Laden

Stokes Croft and the ‘Battle of Tesco’ Thu 21st Apr

Stokes Croft after the riots

I “There are no happy reformers” 12th Jun

Mikhail Gorbachev interviewed

LONG

Japan: what happened next?

M Sun 1st May

by Peter I Bergen, security analyst

09/08/2011 19:57

M royal month The

How to astroturf Ma turkey

I APR OPENER

The month in Royal engagements

Square numbers Sat 16th Apr

I Thu 2nd Jun

Generate public support for your crap product

SHORT

Global real estate at a glance

The man who...

Sun 29th May

The quarter in civil unrest

The quarter in internet attacks

The quarter in unusual food

...brought divorce to Malta

Sat 25th Jun

Thu 16th Jun

Thu 21st Apr

A spring of kicking off

Who’s battling whom in cyberspace

Three months of bizarre comestibles

M month at 10 The

The smart money

I JUN OPENER

The News At Ten broken down

Fri 29th Apr

One list to rule M them all

The M butterfly effect

I Sun 26th Jun

I Sun 24th Apr

Eurovision song M watch

The events that led to the 2011 Easter egg price rise

The pop contest visualised

Who gained the most from this year’s Glastonbury festival?

I Sat 14th May

“I don’t feel incredibly happy with myself” Adele beats Madonna

The bets you should have made this quarter

Tue 21st Jun

The strange tale of A Gay Girl In Damascus

The film formula Sat 30th Apr, Tue 31st May, Thu 30th Jun

Every film release of the quarter boiled down

M Sun 3rd Apr

by I Andi Osho, comedian

fRIvOLOUS

The Premier M League digested I Sun 22nd May

Who scored what, when, where and how…

Planking and the contagiousness of culture

The Royal Wedding M Fri 29th Apr

by IAyesha Vardag,

divorce lawyer

Apocalypse now M (and then) I Sat 21st May

The end of the world timeline

All dogs don’t go to heaven

Sun 15th May

The science of crazes

Sat 21st May

The pet-sitting service for the paradise-bound

Return to glory Sat 21st May

LONG

AFC Wimbledon’s footballing fairytale

DG03_CONTENTS.indd 3

M I All creatures great and small 18th Apr

The fabulous tale of Walter Rothschild

09/08/2011 19:57

Apr Mon 4th

Two men are arrested in Pakistan after allegedly digging up a freshly buried corpse and eating the flesh in a curry. Police, who raided the

brothers’ home after discovering the empty grave of a 24-year-old woman, say the two men have been eating human remains for at least a year.

Apple comes under pressure to remove an iPhone app

by pro-Christian group Exodus International, received a four-star rating from Apple suggesting it has ‘no objectionable content’. m 8th Apr North Korea announces that its former railways minister Kim Yong-sam has been executed in connection with the 2004 Ryongchon disaster, when a train explosion killed 160 people.

A three-panel Zhang Xiaogang oil painting, entitled ‘Forever Lasting

Love’, sells for HK$79 million (£6.3 million) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong,

breaking the record for the highest-selling piece of Chinese contemporary art.

Tue 5th

A civil partnership between a same-sex couple takes place in Dublin, the first time this has

happened publicly in Ireland.

Barry Dignam and Hugh Walsh say their vows at a registry office, three months after Ireland’s Civil Partnership Act came in to effect in January.

Forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, who claims victory in the disputed Ivory Coast election, say they have

captured President Laurent Gbagbo’s palace in Abidjan.

Wed 6th

Japanese nuclear engineers claim to have plugged the leak from the

tsunami-striken Fukushima nuclear power plant, stopping the flow of

radioactive material into the sea, using newspaper, sawdust, concrete and liquid gas. g

DG03_APR.indd 10

Japan: What On 6th April, officials claimed to have plugged the radioactive leak at the Fukushima Daiichi power station, and the world’s gaze slowly began to turn elsewhere. But just as the Japanese catastrophes began to lose exposure in the global headlines, the country’s momentum faltered. Words: Jon Wilks

Wed 6th

T

he inevitable before-andafter photographs have begun to do the rounds: the east coast of the Tohoku region as a devastated pile of beached ships and rubble, contrasted with more recent shots of diminished rubble, with slightly fewer ships. The cleaning process is well under way – surviving hotels in the region report a boom in trade, with volunteers and construction workers block-booking for months to come. But progress here is all on the surface. While the rubble is clearly being shifted, real development needs to be worked into the re-laid foundations, and it’s here that the problems lie.

Tohoku is in dire need of a plan.

But then this was the case long before the tsunami struck: the outer reaches of the Japanese archipelago have been in severe economic decline ever since the so-called Bubble Years of the 1980s drew to a close two decades ago. A combination of low birthrate and low employment mean that towns such as Kesennuma and Ichinomaki, both of which made world headlines as they washed away on that merciless black tide, have long been places whose population of young people is swiftly diminishing. In the 2010 census, Tohoku recorded a population decline of three per cent, the highest in the country, with no clear road map for regeneration.

Masanori Genko/AP/Press Association Images

that advocates a ‘cure’ for homosexuality. The app, produced

09/08/2011 20:04

happened next?

DG03_APR.indd 11

09/08/2011 20:04

Sun 1st May 2011

Moment that mattered

Osama Bin Laden is killed Peter Bergen

“I was as surprised as anybody else when I found out Bin Laden had been killed, because I had heard from multiple people in the US government that the trail had gone cold. Typically people do get caught eventually, whether it’s Karadži´c or Mladi´c but in my mind it could have gone on for another ten years. Look at Eichmann: it took 15 years for the Israelis to find him, and it was not for a lack of trying. It was totally unsurprising, though, that Bin Laden was found in Pakistan. He spent much of the 1980s living there, he founded Al-Qaeda in 1988 in Peshawar, and this was a place he was very comfortable in.

When I met Bin Laden in 1997 I was expecting a tablethumping revolutionary, but he turned out to be very low-key, quite thoughtful and intelligent. He had been a religious zealot since the age of 13. His idea of fun as a teenager was to get a group of buddies together and chant religious songs about

DG03_MAY.indd 44

09/08/2011 01:13

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

DG03_MAY.indd 45

Palestine: even by the standards of 1970s Saudi Arabia, he stood out as somebody who was very observant. And when that religious zealotry fused with the military experience he gained fighting the Soviets it became a pretty combustible mix.

Bin Laden was someone who learned all the wrong lessons. He thought that America was a weak version of the Soviet Union that could be defeated, and that it would pull out of the Middle East if enough pressure was applied. That turned out to be wrong, and just as Pearl Harbor was a tactical victory but a strategic error for Imperial Japan, 9/11 was a huge tactical victory and a strategic disaster for Al-Qaeda. It never recovered to where it was on 10th September 2001. It was very hard to understand that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but with the benefit of ten years and a rear-view mirror we can see that Al-Qaeda got lucky, and that 9/11 was the climax of its activities, not the beginning.

Al-Qaeda has changed a lot since it was created by Bin Laden. The group that existed in pre-9/11 Afghanistan was highly bureaucratised: it even had generous vacation policies for its members. It had 36 pages of by-laws in English, it was paying people salaries: bigger salaries if they had more than one wife. It was really running a sort of parallel state, and all that got obliterated when the Americans invaded.

Even before the Arab Spring, Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were losing the war of ideas in the Muslim world, and not because the United States or Britain or any other Western country was winning them, but because here was a group that was positioning itself as the defender of Islam and in fact was killing mostly Muslims. This point was widely recognised in the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda’s ideas, foot soldiers and leaders have been totally absent from the Arab Spring. I haven’t seen a single picture of Osama Bin Laden or even al-Zawahiri in any of these protests in the Middle East. For somebody who was keen to talk about everything, Bin Laden was very quiet on the issue, because the outcomes weren’t going to be to his liking.

The one thing people aren’t asking for in Egypt or Libya is a Taliban-style theocracy, his preferred end state.

I think there is a concern that Al-Qaeda has infected other South Asian groups with its ideas: Lashkar-e-Taiba was a very provincial group focused on attacking India, but went out of its way to kill Americans, other Westerners and Jews in Mumbai in 2008. And this is now a large-scale group with substantial above-ground capacity in Pakistan. It operates a bit like Hezbollah, with hospitals and welfare services and everything else. And then the Pakistani Taliban sent suicide bombers to Barcelona in 2008 and a suicide bomber to Times Square in 2010. The fact that these other groups that don’t call themselves Al-Qaeda are operating in a more Al-Qaeda-like manner is worrisome.

But as for the longest war between American and Al-Qaeda, I think it finally began to wind down in 2011. There are people who say that the war on terrorism isn’t over: of course terrorism as a tactic is not going to go away, and there will always be somebody somewhere in the world that is attracted to these ideas. But the ability for Al-Qaeda to carry out a 9/11-style attack is very constrained. This group will continue to be something of a threat, but will it be an existential threat or even a big problem? I’m pretty sceptical.” l Peter Bergen is National Security Analyst for CNN and author of ‘The Longest War’.

09/08/2011 01:13

Apocalypse now (and then) Your handy at-a-glance guide to the end of days Illustration: Christian Tate. Words: Marcus Webb German Emperor Otto III was convinced that the world would end in 1000. As predictions stated that an emperor would rise to fight the Antichrist, he had the body of Charlemagne, who died in 814, exhumed on New Year’s Eve 999 ready to slay Satan.

In 1205 biblical scholar Joachim of Fiore believed that Muslim leader Saladin was the sixth head of the biblical seven-headed dragon (the seventh being the Antichrist who would end the world). His predictions encouraged Richard The Lionheart (who Joachim claimed would eventually kill Satan) to pursue the Third Crusade.

In 1806 the Prophet Hen of Leeds started laying eggs emblazoned with the words “Christ is coming”. People panicked.

Christ didn’t come. It turned out to be the work of a hoaxer who wrote on the eggs in corrosive ink before reinserting them into the animal.

Respected meteorologist Albert Porta claimed that alignment of the six planets on 17th December 1919 would “cause a magnetic current that would pierce the sun, cause great explosions of flaming gas and eventually engulf the Earth”. When the fireball failed to appear, Porta was widely ridiculed and cast out of academic life. He spent the rest of his life working as a DNE> newspaper weatherman.

While drying dishes in his Maida Vale flat in1954, taxi driver George King claimed to have received a message from Venus saying the world would end 22 years later in 1976.

Thankfully King and his followers, known as the Aetherius Society, were able to avert the end of days by piling 700 hours of prayer energy into a book and releasing it on the appointed day.

YB E SU

6081

YB E

608SU 1 USE BY

1806

USE BY

1806

USE BY USE BY

1806

1806

USE BY

1806

1000

1205 1736 1806 1843 1919 1967 1976 2011 USE BY

1806

>END >EN

YB E SU

6081

European Christians prepared for Jesus’s Y1K return by by waging wars on pagans and donating worldly goods to the Church. When the son of God failed to reappear in the year 1000, many remained blissfully unaware for quite some time: lack of education meant they didn’t know either the month or the year. The Church refused to return any donations.

DG03_MAY.indd 62

William Whiston, an early researcher into comets (he’d already attributed Noah’s great flood to space rocks), predicted that one would hit Earth on 16th October 1736, bringing about its end. His prediction caused such panic that the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, had to officially refute this prediction to ease the public’s fears.

After intense Bible studies William Miller convinced the New York Herald to publish his prediction that the world would be destroyed by fire on 3rd April 1843. Believing the dead would get to Heaven first, some of his followers murdered relatives and committed suicide and one broke his arm trying to fly to Heaven using turkey wings attached to his shoulders.

Anders Jensen, the leader of a sect known as the Disciples of Orthon, appeared on ‘The David Frost Show’ to announce that a nuclear holocaust was coming on Christmas Day 1967.

Jensen invited people to spend the festive period in his bunker – The Ark. A few days into 1968 the 30 people who took him up on his offer sheepishly emerged.

DNE>

Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted ‘the Rapture’ would occur on 21st May 1988, 15th September 1992, 27th September 1992, 2nd October 1992, 7th September 1994, 21st May 2011 and 21st October 2011.

Sat 21st

09/08/2011 01:13

YB E SU

6081

Having counted down the previous 5,126 years, the Mayan calendar stops at the end of 2012. Predictions of what happens when the clock stops include alien invasion, the restoration of a true balance between Divine Feminine and Masculine and the world colliding with a passing planet called Nibiru.

YB E SU

6081

NE>

USE BY

1806

History’s most famous forecaster, Nostradamus, had the world ending when Easter fell on 25th April. So far we’ve dodged Easter annihilation in 1666, 1734, 1886, and 1943. Next up is Easter 2038. Alternatively, some Nostradamus scholars claim that he predicted the world will end in 3797, with the timeline predicting the arrival of a third Antichrist from the Middle East, a 30-year war, 1,000 years of peace and then nowt.

YB E

608SU 1

British astronomer Brian G Marsden, a fellow of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, claimed in 1992 that a six-mile-wide comet – similar to the one which scientists believe wiped out the dinosaurs – will collide with Earth on 14th August 2126.

Subsequent researchers have revised the date to 15th September 4479.

May Thu 19th YB E SU

6081

In a highly-anticipated speech at the State Department, President Obama says that the US will

always stand on the side of protesters demanding reform and

democracy in the Middle East rather than supporting dictators.

Human rights campaigners criticise the prime minister David Cameron

for meeting Bahraini crown prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa at Downing Street. The Bahraini government has used violence against protesters.

DNE>

It’s revealed that the Ergo division of German insurance company Munich Re rewarded its most

>END

successful salesmen with an orgy

at a thermal baths in Budapest.

A man wins £353,000 with a single bet of £1 at a Glasgow branch of

2012 2038 2038 2060 2126 3240

William Hill. He placed the 50p each-way accumulator on seven horses at four different tracks.

After several members of the public report the sighting of a live tiger in a field near Southampton, a major police operation is launched involving helicopters and armed officers. The tiger turns out to be a stuffed toy.

Fri 20th

>END

In a meeting at the White House, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells Barack Obama that Israel

won’t withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, as requested by the

Technology doommongers claim that a problem in the calendar systems of Unix software will lead to the true millennium bug at 3:14:08 on 19th January 2038.

Expect satellites falling out of orbit, power cuts, hospital life support systems failing, phone system interruptions and banking systems crashing.

>END

DG03_MAY.indd 63

>END

Isaac Newton was a keen decoder of the Bible and private letters revealed he believed the second coming would arrive in 2060. Newton claimed Christ’s comeback would follow wars, plagues and disasters and would be followed by a 1,000-year reign by the saints on Earth – of which Newton would be one.

Followers of Talmud and mainstream Orthodox Judaism believe that 6,000 years on from the creation of Adam (which would be 2240) the Messiah will return and the end of the world could well follow 1,000 years later in the year 3240. Signs will include seas turning black, the voice of God speaking out of fire and the house of the Lord being established at the top of mountains.

American president, due to security concerns.

Sat 21st

The apocalypse predicted by Harold Camping fails to materialise. The world is still here. fj‘All dogs go to heaven’ Around 10,000 Georgians march in Tbilisi demanding president Mikhail Saakashvili’s resignation.

Protesters accuse the president of monopolising power.

AFC Wimbledon is promoted to League Two.m ‘Return to Glory’

09/08/2011 01:13

Jun Wed22nd

The Greek government narrowly survives a vote of confidence with parliament approving prime minister George Papandreou’s new cabinet by 155 votes to 143. j 6th April ‘euro Crisis Timeline’ Brazilian authorities say they have discovered an uncontacted tribe living in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest. The community was detected after forest clearings were seen on satellite images.

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is released after being detained for three months but tells the media that he is forbidden from giving interviews. Chinese police say he confessed to tax evasion and is not permitted to leave Beijing because he is still under investigation. g Thu 23rd

Dozens of gay and lesbian couples tie the knot in Brazil in an attempt to set a new world record for mass homosexual weddings.

The former Republican vicepresidential candidate Sarah Palin

reveals she has been summoned to do jury service after rumours

circulated that her “One Nation” bus tour had been cancelled.

Fri 24th

Japanese music producers reveal that their newest pop icon, Eguchi

Aimi, is in fact computer generated. The virtual singer, who

has thousands of fans in Japan, is a composite of six members of chart-topping band AKB48.

After 16 years on the run, fugitive gangster James “Whitey” Bulger appears before a Boston court

charged with 19 murders in the 1970s and ’80s. The life of the “Winter Hill” gang leader inspired Jack Nicholson’s character in gritty crime film ‘The Departed’.

Hundreds of inmates remain

barricaded within Venezuela’s El Rodeo prison as the official

“I am afraid of jail” On 3rd April Ai Weiwei, China’s most controversial contemporary artist, vanished into state custody. Eleven weeks later he was released – gaunt, bowed and silent.

Jake Hamilton, the last journalist to interview him before his arrest, recalls meeting one man and seeing a very different one released. Portrait: Calvin Sit Wed22nd

death toll from the 19th June riots hits 29.

DG03_JUN.indd 102

09/08/2011 01:46

A

fter the uproar comes the silence. The reaction to Ai Weiwei’s sudden release from Chinese state custody was alarmingly muted. After a cacophony of cries by his peers and the Western press calling for his release throughout spring and early summer, his appearance back at his Beijing studio, following a simple tweet of “I’m out!” seemed to deflate expectations. Instead of the triumphant scenes Hollywood has led us to expect – our hero emerging unbowed and as angry and outspoken as ever – we got a more honest account of what happens when you speak out against a superpower.

Ai looked tired and gaunt, and had lost a considerable amount of his hefty weight. Rumours circulated that the controversial artist had been slapped with some sort of gagging order. “Please understand,” he said elliptically as he retreated behind the blue doors of his FAKE studio, where he both lives and works. Behind those same doors three months before – where I was the last journalist to interview Ai Weiwei before his arrest – I had found a very different man.

Following a series of secret communications with Ai’s staff, I had arrived in Beijing on 5th March, less than a month before his arrest. The capital, at that time, was swarming with an intimidating police presence comprising hordes of leather-jacketed patrolmen and hard-faced undercover agents (equally conspicuously dressed) there to oversee the annual National People’s Congress, where the Chinese government would set out its twelfth five-year plan at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square.

But there was also another reason for this overwhelming show of force on the streets. The success of the Arab Spring uprisings in February had filtered into the hearts and minds of many Beijing students, and was now threatening to trigger China’s own so-called Jasmine Revolution.

Rather than taking to the streets, however, young, disenfranchised Chinese citizens were congregating online, seeking assurances from one another that a genuine, physical “revolution” could be possible. The Beijing Politburo, which was in the process of handing over power to a

DG03_JUN.indd 103

new, hardline breed of successors in 2012, noted the sign of the times and instantly cracked down on this social networking movement.

More than 100 ringleaders were arrested, lawyers were dragged in for questioning, lecturers were severely warned not to incite their students, the word “jasmine” was flagged, then banned, by the internet thought police, and any suspicious “street activity” (say, a gathering of more than 35 young people milling about a street corner) was instantly targeted by convoys of police vans. The air was thick with fear, suspicion and paranoia.

It was in this atmosphere that I met with Ai Weiwei. Naturally, the

‘Study of Perspective – Tiananmen, 1995-2003’, by Ai Weiwei

“For the past 60 years, any intellectual who holds a different opinion to the government has been punished, jailed or killed”

artist’s studio was under 24-hour surveillance. “Sometimes it’s one car, sometimes it’s three cars,” Ai said, followed by a knowing nod: “Undercover police.” But what of his safety? “My safety is actually okay,” he said. “I think if you watch the secret police you are especially okay.

They will make sure nothing happens to you. But they are still trying to

remind you that everything is under their control.” The artist was certainly right in this respect. I was photographed both arriving and departing the studio, and in all probability was followed back to my hotel prior to my swift departure from the city.

The interview, against my expectations, went spectacularly well. Ai was in fighting spirit, and the immense personal bravery of the man (which I can attest is genuine and far from opportunist) manifested itself in a blistering attack on the People’s Republic of China’s hatred of its own people. “It’s so much like Chinese parents from the olden times, where the children just had to listen to them without showing any sign of disagreement, or questioning, or different attitudes,” he said. “To try and challenge the economic and political situation today is not going to be okay. That is going to be devastating. This nation has had no creativity for the past 100 years.”

Ai’s movements, bank accounts, computers and phones were certainly being monitored at the time of the interview, yet he did not hold back his feelings: “For the past 60 years, any intellectual who holds a different opinion to the government has been punished, jailed or killed.

The government wants to crush the concept of freedom forever. China is a totalitarian society that cannot create the simple joy of the people.”

I asked about the absurdity of a situation just days before our interview, when a Beijing student was arrested downtown for placing a “white-coloured” flower on the ground.

“It’s absurd for you, but not so absurd for us,” said Ai, “because you can be sentenced here for putting up tweets.

The internet is designed as a space for discussion, for different opinions, and how can a government after 60 years in control be unable to take even a small slight? They can’t take opinions.

They can’t take different viewpoints.

Internet users really look up to me.

They say, ‘This guy is established and has possibilities but he is standing for me in criticising the current situation and wants it changed.’ So my position gives a lot of people hope through this impenetrable darkness.

People have been sick of the situation, some for several generations, and

09/08/2011 01:46

Jun Tue 28th

Kabul InterContinental hotel comes under attack by insurgents

and at least seven people are killed. Police report that gunmen opened fire on guests and two suicide bombers entered the hotel and blew themselves up.

Actress Michelle Yeoh, who is set

to play pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a forthcoming film, is refused entry to Burma when

she arrives at Rangoon airport.

“She was deported on the same day because she is on a blacklist,” an unnamed official told Reuters.

As concerns grow over the longterm health effects of exposure to radiation, the Japanese government announces that children

living near the Fukushima nuclear power plant will receive personal

25th Jun

The Slutwalk

Location: Auckland, New Zealand Earlier in the year Michael Sanguinetti, a mid-ranking police officer from Toronto, was speaking to ten students at a local law school about personal safety when he uttered the now infamous words: “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised.” The story spread and women across the world took to the streets to reclaim the word “slut” and strike back against what they see as a culture which blames the victims of sexual violence rather than the perpetrators. In June tens of thousands of women – some provocatively dressed – marched in Auckland, London, Cardiff, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

24th Apr

The airport rave

Location: Castellon, Spain Politicians have shamelessly courted publicity for as long as there have been babies to kiss. But Carlos Fabra, council leader in Castellón, Spain, stooped lower than most photo-op opportunists – he triumphantly opened an airport with no shops, staff, air traffic control or planes.

Undeterred by the fact the place clearly wasn’t ready, he declared it the perfect time for locals to check out the facilities without the danger of planes flying in. Taking Fabra at his word, 40,000 Facebook users signed up to a rave at the ghost facility and many arrived on the night with sound systems in tow, only to be turned away by police.

radiation dosimeters.

j 6th April Japan: What happened next? ’ Wed 29th

The Greek parliament votes in favour of a drastic austerity package designed to prevent the country from defaulting on its debts. j 7th April ‘euro crisis timeline’

The quarTer In ciViL Unres t

‘Love’s Kitchen’, a new British film featuring chef Gordon Ramsay, takes just £121 at the UK box office in its first week.

Two French journalists held

hostage by the Taliban for 18 months are freed. One of the

hostages, Hervé Ghesquière, says he believes a deal was made involving money and prisoner exchanges to secure their release.

This is denied by both the French and Afghan governments.

A receipt displaying an account balance of almost $100m is found in an ATM machine in New York.

There’s speculation over who the person with $99,864,731.94 in a savings account could be.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive in Ottawa for

the start of their first official overseas trip together.

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15th Jun

17th Jun

The ice hockey riots

The female drivers

Location: Vancouver, Canada The Vancouver Canucks’ 4-0 at-home defeat to the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup final was celebrated with a full-on riot.

Over 100 people were arrested, four people were seriously injured, and several shops were trashed and looted. Among the mayhem, cameras caught what looked like a stolen kiss between two young lovers, oblivious to the riot police and screaming fans around them: the picture went viral and the mystery of their identity became an internet sensation. It later emerged that they weren’t kissing, just lying on the ground after being knocked over by the police.

Location: Saudi Arabia Sadly for Saudi Arabia’s religious authorities, the Quran doesn’t offer any definitive rulings on the ever-thorny subject of whether women should be allowed to drive. But they’re not ones for taking chances and female driving remains haram.

In May, however, Manal al-Sharif uploaded a video of herself behind the wheel in Jeddah, a minor act of defiance for which she was imprisoned for ten days. Her bravery was contagious and a month later around 40 Saudi women took to the road on an organised day of protest. Despite five arrests it was declared a success and future acts of defiant motoring are planned.

David Cheskin/PA Wire | Paul White/AP | Getty | TR/AP/Press Association Images

Thu 30th

09/08/2011 01:47

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