The Week | Preview Issue 2014

COMEDY’S TRAGIC STAR

Bob Geldof: The return of the Boomtown Rat

Bollywood’s young guns under pressure

OBITUARIES P29

MUSIC P27

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THE WEEK The singer who fought for civil rights OBITS PXX

9 MARCH 2014 | PREVIEW ISSUE

THE BEST OF MIDDLE EAST AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Egypt’s baby boom Why it’s a ticking bomb Page 4

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS

The main stories…

4 NEWS What happened

Crisis in Crimea

What the editorials said The Ukrainians are not blameless, said The New York Times.

They should have reassured ethnic Russians. Instead, one of their first acts was to strip Russian of its status as an official language of Ukraine.

But that doesn’t justify Putin’s de facto annexation of Crimea. “Nowhere were Russian speakers or interests seriously threatened – certainly not in Crimea, where Russians are the majority.” It was the same type of land grab Putin engineered in Georgia, said The Guardian.

In a bid to ease tensions with the West, President Putin declared that Russia would use military force in Ukraine only as a “last resort”. He added that Russia reserved the right to employ “all means” to defend its compatriots there. The Russian parliament authorised Putin to deploy troops in Ukraine after the ousting of the country’s pro-Russian president, Yanukovych. Over the next few days, “The West should be taking a tough line,” thousands of Russian troops without insignia said The Sunday Times. It’s a breach of the occupied military bases and other strategic Russian forces in Perevalne, Crimea 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which sites across the Ukrainian peninsula of Russia and the West pledged to respect Crimea, leading to fears of war. Putin insisted Ukrainian territorial integrity. So far, the West has only dared these were “local self-defence forces”, not Russian troops. freeze preparations for June’s G8 summit. Putin is gambling Western leaders condemned what they called a clear act of that the West lacks the stomach for tough action. But it should Russian aggression and warned of sanctions. President Obama remember that “Russia needs the foreign exchange earnings as said Russia was on “the wrong side of history”. much as Europe needs the gas”.

What happened

Egypt’s population explosion Egypt is struggling to contain a population explosion that has surged in the past three years, exacerbating many of the social tensions that led indirectly to the 2011 uprising.

was elected in 2012, that negligence became official policy. His administration publicly declared that population control was not a government concern.

The number of births in Egypt in 2012 was 560,000 higher than in 2010, according to the most recent statistics. It is the largest two-year increase since records began. The rise keeps Egypt on course to overtake countries such as Russia and Japan by 2050, when forecasters predict it will have more than 110 million people.

When Mubarak came to power in 1981, there were 44 million Egyptians. Today there are 84 million and most live in the narrow ribbon of the Nile Valley, an area that makes up just over three per cent of the country. Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat and buys more than half of its requirements from abroad, much of which goes into subsidised bread for The rising population has been central to social the quarter of its population that lives below New arrivals stretch Egypt unrest, with rising food prices and high the poverty line. The share of water per citizen unemployment rates being major factors in the currently stands at 640 cubic metres, compared so-called Arab Spring revolution. With 60 per cent of with an international standard of 1,000. Due to the rapid Egyptians under 30 already, a bulging population will further population growth, this amount will decrease to 370 cubic reduce the limited opportunities for young people. metres by 2050. Ethiopia’s diversion of the Blue Nile as part of its massive Renaissance Dam project loons large over any Population control, which was relatively successful during discussion of Egypt’s future water supplies. the 80s and 90s, started to fall off the agenda during the last years of Hosni Mubarak’s government – and was The current population explosion and the pressure it puts on largely ignored in the chaos that followed his removal in food, education and employment will necessitate a long-term 2011. And after Mohamed Morsi, a religious conservative, vision from the Egyptian government.

It wasn’t all bad Memory is usually one of the casualties of advancing age, but Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Saad Al-Motaleq is bucking the trend. The 64-year-old from Makkah has been dubbed ‘The Saudi Google’ because he retains vivid memories of the 1956 Suez Crisis and everything since. Asked about the first final between Al-Helal and Al-Nasser, he responded without hesitation. The match took place on May 17, 1981, he said, and ended with a 3-1 victory to Al-Nassar.

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

British boy band One Direction are avid users of social media.

Tweets by the quintet – particularly their best-known member Harry Styles – regularly trend on Twitter. So, it comes as something of a relief that 1D’s Liam Payne has told the group’s millions of young fans to stop obsessing about social media and go out and have some fun. “Kids should be out living their lives, getting out and enjoying themselves,” he said. Better still, Payne didn’t make his comments in a tweet, so he couldn’t be accused of hypocrisy.

The secret of eternal youth may finally be at hand. Tests of a rejuvenating drug have raised hopes that a pill that wards off the effects of ageing may be just around the corner.

Scientists found that activating a protein called sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) extended the lives of mice and delayed the onset of agerelated diseases. They believe their experiments could lead to drugs that help to keep people younger and healthier.

…and how they were covered

NEWS 5

What the commentators said

What next?

The Ukraine has a great emotional importance for Russia said The Times. If Putin were deemed to have “lost” Ukraine or Crimea, it would be politically disastrous for him. For the West to intervene in this struggle it would be “futile” and dangerous. As a former US secretary of state once said of the Balkans: “We ain’t got no dog in this fight.”

Russia and the EU should never have made Ukraine choose between them, said ZócaloPublicSquare.org. It was always going to tear the country apart. The Ukrainians could sacrifice Crimea if it’s the price for taking the rest of the country out of Russia’s orbit. The peninsula was “never part of historic Ukraine”. But if Putin tries to grab other bits of the country, it could spark conflict. Moscow would pay a high price for such revanchism, said the FT. The crash in Moscow’s stock market showed the extent to which Russia is now financially intertwined with the West. Putin and his cronies have “used the rhetoric of the Cold War while enjoying the fruits of globalisation”. They now face a choice. “They can have a new Cold War. Or they can have access to the riches of the West. They cannot have both.”

The Obama administration is considering a series of punitive economic and diplomatic measures to isolate Russia, reports The Guardian. These include throwing the country out of the G8 club of leading economies, which includes the US, UK and Germany.

Europe is also threatening action unless Russian troops leave the Ukraine and return to their bases. But like other EU countries, and especially Germany, which obtains almost 40% of its gas and oil from Russia, the UK is reluctant to adopt punitive measures that might damage its fragile economic recovery.

What the commentators said

What Next?

The rising population is seen as a “social timebomb” which, if untackled, “will exhaust Egypt’s depleted resources, worsen a dire jobs market, and contribute to yet more social frustration,” said The Guardian. Every year, “more than 800,000 young Egyptians join the job market – which already has an unemployment rate of 13.4 per cent”. With an unchecked birthrate and a falling death rate, joblessness is expected to rise quickly. An expanding population will “drain Egypt’s natural resources,” said The Guardian. The country already faces water, energy and wheat shortages - and “lacks the foreign currency reserves needed to import extra supplies”. “It’s an issue that cuts across everything in Egypt,” said Hala Youssef, the head of Egypt’s national population council (NPC).

The new Egyptian government will need to follow a multi-pronged strategy. Reducing population growth through a properly administered voluntary birth control strategy is essential. But so is job creation in order to give Egyptians, especially the youth, more economic opportunities and reduce poverty. Agriculture will also be high on the agenda, which will necessitate tackling Egypt’s outdated irrigation practises to increase production and food security. The question is whether the new government will have the long-term vision and political will to tackle these issues. And if it does, are the Egyptian people willing to wait for results?

If only that were true, said the Daily Mail. It’s too easy to imagine this “local incident” affecting us. Ukraine may end up splitting, with western regions becoming a “rump statelet” dependent on Western support, and the rest joining Russia. There could be huge trouble if Russia’s crucical east-west oil and gas pipelines which run through the Ukraine were disrupted.

An emboldened Putin could also try to repeat his Crimea gambit in Baltic states such as Estonia and Latvia, whose success since leaving the Soviet Union is a “constant irritation” to him.

The Islamist government of President Morsi blamed Egypt’s “chaotic transition” for the spiking birthrate, said Tara Todras-Whitehill in the New York Times. Yet for decades, “the Muslim Brotherhood and ultraconservatives chafed” at President Mubarak’s “almost single-minded focus on contraception and two-child families as a core component of public policy.” As a result, the Morsi government viewed climbing birthrates “as a problem of economic management,” said Todras-Whitehill. However, that’s not the full story according to Patrick Kingsley in Gulf News. Changes to housing regulations in the 90s made it easier for couples to marry and move in together – “perhaps leading to a surge in pregnancies”. More recently, the administrative chaos that followed the 2011 uprising led to a drop off in contraception-related awareness programmes.

“If Egypt does not continue to reduce fertility rates, they will have a huge problem because it is the most populous country in that region, with economic problems and questions about feeding, educating and finding jobs for its population,” said Hania Zlotnik, the director of the UN Population Division, in The National. This view was echoed by Shelly Kittleson in The Daily New: “Heavy reliance on water intensive crops, a major upstream dam project for the Nile basin, and rising groundwater levels will be pressing issues for the next Egyptian president – whether military or civilian”.

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09 March 2014 THE WEEK

6 NEWS

Controversy of the week

Denmark’s Halal ban

“This is not great timing,” said Leo Benedictus in The Guardian – the Danish government has “effectively banned” Halal and Kosher slaughter on the grounds of animal cruelty.

It looks bad as only a week ago Denmark authorised the “shocking” slaughter of a giraffe called Marius because the young, healthy animal was surplus to requirement at a family zoo.

The method at the heart of the matter is pre-stunning said Benedictus. The technique knocks the animal out before slaughter and is claimed by many countries to be the only humane way to kill an animal. It is not usually allowed in religious slaughter however, which demands that the animal is conscious and healthy before being killed.

This is “far from the first flare up” over the issue Benedictus Halal ban: a stunning decision said. The same tooing and froing has been going on in many countries, with Poland most recently rejecting a government bid to overturn a 1997 ban on religious slaughter.

But “no animals have been slaughtered in Denmark for the past 10 years without pre-stunning” said Andrew Brown in The Guardian. The ban is political rather than ethical, aiming to “cause fundamentalists suffering”. It’s “absurd” to question religious slaughter on ethical grounds whilst allowing the Danish farming industry to operate as a “monstrous engine of suffering”. Isn’t it obvious that the ethical treatment of an animal during its lifetime is more pressing than how it is slaughtered at the end?

Denmark is likely to lose “millions of dollars” in tourism and trade said Rashid Hassan in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Arab News. The country currently exports a “large amount” of Halal products to Gulf countries, with around 55 per cent of Danish exports to Saudi Arabia being “food-based”.

He quoted the Council of Saudi Chambers (CSC) who said the ban should be lifted “immediately” or risk straining ties between the two countries at a cost of $1.5 billion.

The ban “flies in the face” of heavily invested transnational talks between animal rights advocates and religious groups said Johan Fisher in TheConversation.com. It is a highly controversial and emotive subject and the Danish ban treats it like a “closed conversation.”

The ban places the rights of an animal to a painless death above the sensibilities of religious people said The Independent. Are there not much more pressing issues with meat production in Denmark?

Only in the UAE Some people take their kids with them when they visit the mall. A Dubai resident went one better this week when he was spotted with a fully-grown lion in the back of his Nissan Armada. Video of the incident went viral, prompting authorities to issue a warning to motorists to leave their big cats at home when they take the car for a spin.

Where is the world’s most successful Rolls Royce sales team located? Beverly Hills?

London? Nope. The team that shifted the most ‘Rollers’ in the world last year is in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi Motors sold 23% more cars in 2013 compared to 2012. As a result, the Umm Al Nar-based firm has been voted the luxury marque’s Global Dealer of the Year for 2013. Well done indeed.

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Good week for: People with mild to severe hearing loss, as a man from Saudi Arabia became the first person in the UAE to undergo a middle ear implant that is likely to restore his hearing within four weeks. The patient was fitted with a Vibrant Soundbridge, a device that offers acoustic features that are “streets ahead” of conventional hearing aids, his surgeon said.

People who like to dress up as Hobbits, as the organisers of The Middle East Film and Comic Con (MEFCC) confirmed it’s returning to Dubai for the third time. The show will be held from 3-5 April at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

The LEGO movie, which raced to the top of the box office charts in its third week of release. The building brick flick has earned $31.5 million according to estimates.

Bad Week for: Actor Sam Worthington, after the Avatar star was arrested in New York for allegedly punching a photographer. The Aussie actor reportedly lashed out after the snapper kicked Worthington’s girlfriend in the shin. Ouch.

Talk show host Piers Morgan, after CNN announced it was cancelling his prime-time talk show, Piers Morgan Live. Morgan took over from Larry King three years ago, but the Englishman has failed to connect to his American audience and ratings have been lackluster.

Boring but important India beats polio

India is cautiously celebrating a “landmark achievement in public health” – the eradication of polio. The country has not reported a single case of the disease in the past three years, an achievement hailed by Bill Gates – the Microsoft founder and health campaigner – as the greatest health achievement he has seen. The last person to contract polio in India was a two-year-old girl who got polio paralysis on 13 January, 2011 in West Bengal. India’s victory over polio paves the way for the certification of South-East Asia as polio-free by the World Health Organisation next month.

It’s a gas, gas, gas

A massive natural gas field has been discovered on the coast of the Gaza Strip, a senior Hamas official has said. The field was first uncovered when fishermen noticed bubbles coming out of seawater in a section of ocean about 300 metres from the beach. “The fact that the field is so close to the beach will facilitate the work of any company that might invest in this field.

The return will be great for the Gaza Strip, in economic terms,” the Hamas official added.

Poll watch You can hear the sighs of relief in the UAE as a new poll reveals that 41% of firms in Dubai intend to raise the housing allowance they pay employees this year. Of the companies asked the same question in Abu Dhabi, 24% said they would follow suit. If you translate the new figures to the actual workforce, it means that 22% of workers in Abu Dhabi and 33% of workers in Dubai should expect a housing allowance boost in the next 12 months.

And guess what ... UAE expats need that extra cash badly. Why? Because 28% of respondants who were asked if they had saved any money last year said they had not. The figure is much higher than the 19% of expats living in the GCC region as a whole who said they saved nothing.

Middle East at a glance Amman, Jordan Israeli ambassador expelled: Jordan’s parliament has voted unanimously to expel the Israeli ambassador from Amman in response to a deepening row over the administration of holy sites. The vote came after lawmakers in Tel Aviv debated whether to assume control of a Jerusalem holy site administered by Jordanians. The vote by the 150-seat Jordanian parliament is “not binding” on the country’s cabinet which is anxious to maintain diplomatic ties with Israel, The Guardian says. Gulf News applauded the push to expel the ambassador, publishing an editorial that said “swift action” was required to “put Israel in its place”.

Cairo, Egypt Egyptian ‘terror group’ sentenced: A court has sentenced a group of 26 men to death for founding a ‘terror group’ that aimed to attack ships using the Suez Canal. Local media reports the men were also convicted of manufacturing missiles and explosives, the BBC reports. The defendents, who were tried in absentia, had harmed “national unity”, inciting violence against the army, police, and Christians, the court said. The case will now be referred to the mufti, Egypt’s top Islamic official, who has to validate the sentence. A final ruling is expected by 19 March.

Damascus, Syria Slaughter continues: An estimated 175 rebel fighters were killed in an ambush by forces loyal to President Assad. The killings took place in the Eastern Ghouta area of Syria and many of those who died were aligned to the [Islamic] Al Nusra Front, according to a report by state television. Those killed in the attack were referred to as “terrorists” in the TV report that added that their weapons had been seized. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the report saying: “Dozens of Islamist fighters were killed and wounded in an ambush by loyalist troops, with the help of [Lebanon’s Shiite group] Hezbollah, near Otaybeh village in the Eastern Ghouta area.” Gulf News says many of the dead fighters were Saudis and Jordanians.

NEWS 7

Varamin, Iran Praying robots: An Iranian schoolteacher has developed a robot to help teach children how to pray. Akbar Rezaie created the humanoid bot at home using “basic tools” said The Independent. Using a kit from Korean manufacturer Robotis Bioloid, Rezaie modified the design by adding two extra engines. This allows the robot to adopt prayer positions with “greater ease” reported The National.

Rezaie has named the product Veldan, a Quranic term meaning “Youth of heaven”.

The product has been a great success with children and the idea has been approved for patenting by the Iranian government.

Ras Al Khaimah, UAE Wedding guest killed by gun shot: Police in RAK have issued a stern warning that wedding guests should not fire live ammunition at celebrations – including weddings – after the accidental death of a reveller. Emirati Mohammed Hassan Al Habsi, 37, died after being hit in the stomach by a stray bullet at a party following the wedding. An ambulance raced to the scene, but Al Habsi died of his injuries at Saqr Hospital. Police have arrested a 16-year-old Emirati boy in relation to the incident, Gulf News reports. The teenager allegedly told police that his father had given him the gun to discharge at the wedding. It fired accidentally after he fell over at the reception, the boy said. One bullet hit Al Habsi, while another struck a wall.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Bachelor Parties: The all-male celebrations held in Western countries by men who are about to be married are becoming fashionable in Saudi Arabia, reports the Saudi Gazette. The parties are also known as ‘stag parties’ or ‘bull’s parties’. While they are exclusively for men in the West, they are being enjoyed by groups of both men and women in the Kingdom, the Gazette says. Not everyone is happy at the development. Um Sahar, whose daughter is soon to be married, denounced the parties as “against our religion and traditions”.

Another Saudi interviewed by the Gazette said the parties were a “fad”.

Abu Dhabi, UAE US soap in the Emirates: A little bit of TV history will be made in the UAE this month when the long-running US drama The Bold and the Beautiful films several episodes in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It is believed to be the first time an American daytime drama has been filmed in the UAE. The episodes will feature three of the series’ lead actors: Thorsten Kaye, Don Diamont and Katherine Kelly Lang. Locals will get a chance to see Lang and Diamont in person when the actors take part in the Abu Dhabi International Triathalon on March 15.

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

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Europe at a glance Annecy, France Murder mystery: A former police officer arrested last week in connection with the so-called Annecy killings has since been released without charge. Eric Devouassoux, 48, was said by police to bear a striking resemblance to an e-fit of a motorcyclist seen near the lay-by where the Iraqi-born engineer Saad al-Hilli, his wife and her mother were shot dead in September 2012, along with a French cyclist. The family, from Surrey, had travelled to the Alpine region for a holiday.

Detectives thought that in identifying Devouassoux they had made a major breakthrough. But although they are continuing to investigate him on unrelated weapons charges, following the discovery of wartime firearms at his home, he is no longer a suspect in the Annecy case.

Rome Restaurant row: Italian politicians have condemned the latest dining sensation in Spain – a chain of mob-themed pizza and pasta joints called La Mafia. The restaurants are decorated with images of notorious mob killers, and even offer Mafia loyalty cards to regular customers.

In Spain, they have proved a big hit. There are now 34 outlets, and plans for 15 more, including one in Portugal. But when the existence of the chain was brought to public attention in Italy last month, via a feature article in La Repubblica, many were appalled. Senators denounced the “squalid” use of the word Mafia in a commercial brand, and described the restaurants as “offensive to our national image”, and to those who have “paid with their lives” in the battle against the clans.

“Can you imagine what would happen in Spain if Italy opened restaurants dedicated to terrorists from Eta?” wrote La Repubblica’s Mafia writer Attilio Bolzoni.

NEWS 9

Moscow Anti-protest crackdown: Two hundred people were arrested in Moscow last week while protesting against the jailing of seven Russians who’d taken part in an anti-Putin demonstration in 2012. The guilty verdicts had been handed down three days earlier, at the end of what Amnesty International described as a “show trial”. However, the court had waited until the end of the Sochi Olympics, before passing sentences of between two-and-a-half and four years.

Those arrested for demonstrating against the prosecutions included the opposition politician Alexei Navalny and the two members of Pussy Riot who were freed in a pre-Olympic amnesty. Analysts say the crackdown may be a sign of Kremlin nervousness over the turmoil in Ukraine.

Megève, France Ski arrests: Seven British ski instructors have been arrested in one of the French Alps’ most popular ski resorts – and are facing possible prison sentences of up to three months – for allegedly teaching without the necessary qualifications. Simon Butler, a 51-year-old advanced-level instructor who has lived and worked in the resort for 30 years and runs a wellestablished tour business catering mainly to Britons, was arrested by armed police last week in front of half-term crowds – and forced to spend a night in the cells, as were six colleagues. All seven had their passports confiscated and are facing a criminal trial on 7 April. The French authorities say the instructors have failed to comply with French employment laws; the Britons say their only crime is being British, not French, and that it is France which is not complying with EU laws on free movement of labour.

Bilbao, Spain Eta “starts to disarm”: The militant Basque separatist group Eta has begun to decommission its cache of weapons and explosives – a further step towards drawing a definite line under decades of armed conflict with the Spanish state. The first phase of disarmament, which comes two years and four months after Eta declared an end to its armed campaign for an independent Basque state, was confirmed by the International Verification Commission, a group of former diplomats and negotiators which is operating without the recognition of Madrid. Eta, which has killed more than 800 people since the late 1960s, wants to draw Spain’s government into a negotiated peace process. However, its latest move was dismissed as “theatrics”

by Madrid, which says it must disband and disarm without conditions, and that the only relevant “verifiers” in the matter are Spanish police officers.

Ankara Erdogan accused: The growing political crisis in Turkey took a sensational twist last week when tape recordings, which appear to directly implicate the prime minister, in a major corruption scandal, were posted on social media sites. In the recordings, two men – allegedly Erdogan and his son, Bilal – are heard discussing how to get rid of up to $41.2m in cash from their homes. The wiretapped conversation dates back to 17 December, the day on which the sons of three of Erdogan’s cabinet ministers were arrested as part of a corruption probe.

At one point, the voice said to be Erdogan’s tells the younger man that the houses of several ministers were being raided. “Whatever you have in your house,” he says, “you get it out, okay?” Erdogan (pictured) claims the recordings are “fabricated” – montages created from illicit recordings of his real phone calls as part of a “dirty conspiracy” to unseat him. However, the main opposition party has called on him to resign, and on Tuesday hundreds of protesters shouting “Erdogan the thief” gathered in Istanbul. They were dispersed by police using tear gas.

The tapes are the latest of several apparent leaks from the now-stalled court-led investigation into corruption among Turkey’s business and political elite, including many Erdogan allies. Erdogan claims that the investigation amounts to an attempted coup by followers of Fethullah Gülen.

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

10 NEWS

The world at a glance

Sacramento, California Six-state solution: A leading Silicon Valley investor is trying to have California – the US’s largest state by population and thirdlargest geographically – broken up into six smaller states.

“California, as it is, is ungovernable,” says Tim Draper, citing long-standing problems in the state’s prisons, schools, transport and other state-run infrastructure. “With six Californias, people will be closer to their state governments and states can get a refresh.” The move would also give Californians a greater say in Washington, with ten new senators to represent the five extra states. Last week Draper secured formal permission to collect signatures in support of a ballot measure (a form of local referendum). If he can attract more than 807,000 by 18 July, the vote could be held as early as November. However, it would still need to be passed by Congress, which is considered highly improbable.

Washington DC Smallest army for decades: US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has unveiled plans to shrink the country’s army to its smallest size since before the Second World War to meet budget cuts. The proposal involves reducing the number of active-duty soldiers from 522,000 to 450,000, and closing some domestic army bases (a move that is likely to be rejected by Congress). Hagel also wants to scrap the air force’s Cold War-era A-10 attack jets and U-2 spy planes, and put half of the navy’s 22 cruisers on limited deployments. Although US military spending remains by far the largest in the world, the Pentagon’s reduced budget of $496bn represents a major retrenchment after 12 costly years of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The shrinking of the army reflects shifts in defence strategy, away from lengthy ground wars and towards the use of special operations forces, cyberwarfare and drones.

Mazatlán, Mexico Got Shorty: One of the world’s most-wanted drug barons, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, has been captured in a joint Mexican-US operation. El Chapo (“Shorty”) is the head of the world’s biggest drugs cartel, the Sinaloa, which controls much of the flow of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine into the US. Guzmán (left) had been on the run since 2001 when he escaped from a supposedly high-security Mexican jail in a laundry basket by paying $2.5m in bribes. The US now wants to extradite him, believing its facilities can do a better job.

Washington DC Obama angers China: President Obama met the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at the White House – a meeting at once condemned by China as a “gross interference in China’s domestic politics” which would “inflict grave damages on the China-US relationship”. A White House spokesman said that the US wasn’t in favour of Tibetan independence, but that it “strongly supports human rights and religious freedom in China”. When Obama met the Buddhist leader in 2011, Beijing issued similarly vitriolic warnings, but did not follow up with concrete measures. By contrast, after David Cameron met him in 2012, China cut off high-level diplomatic ties with the UK for about a year.

Caracas Protests swell: Violent anti-government protests continued in several Venezuelan cities amid reports of police and military repression, and worsening food shortages.

Several streets in suburban Caracas were barricaded, and there were reports that even in poorer areas (where support for the socialist government has been strong), some residents have joined in the demonstrations. To add to the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro, the governor of Táchira, a fellow chavista socialist, condemned what he described as the government’s use of excessive force, and expressed sympathy with some of the marchers’ complaints. The unrest began in early February, when students in the Andean city of San Cristóbal took to the streets to protest against a crime wave on their university campus, and the tanking economy. When the government reacted with a police crackdown, the protest spread and its demands widened. So far 13 people have been killed in protest-related violence, and more than 500 have been arrested, including opposition leader Leopoldo López. Maduro has denounced the protests as acts of terrorism by USsponsored “fascists”. But he has called for a national peace conference to address the protesters’ concerns.

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Itu, Brazil Devastating drought: More than 140 cities in 11 states across Brazil are rationing water because their reservoirs have dried up during the worst drought in decades.

Brazil is experiencing one of its driest summers on record, and in many towns the local authorities are turning off the water supply every other day in order to conserve water. In at least one city, Itu, running water is only available for half a day every three days.

The drought has devastated crops, and global prices for coffee, soybeans and sugar – all major Brazilian exports – are already rising as a result. The record heat has also produced an immense slick of algae off the Brazilian coast which stretches for 800 kilometers and is visible from space.

The world at a glance Cairo Journalists on trial: Three journalists from the Qatar-owned TV station Al Jazeera English have gone on trial in Cairo, in a case that appears to offer a stark illustration of the authorities’ intolerance of dissent. Cairo bureau chief Mohammed Fahmy, producer Baher Mohamed and Australian reporter Peter Greste have been in prison since 29 December, when they were arrested on suspicion of “aiding and abetting” the Muslim Brotherhood, the former ruling party which had been designated a terrorist organisation four days earlier. Al Jazeera, which is accused

by Egypt’s new rulers of being too sympathetic to the Brotherhood, says it was merely reporting the news. The three are among 20 people on trial in relation to the case, six of whom – including two UK journalists – are being tried in absentia.

Damascus Resolution on aid: In a rare show of unity on Syria, the UN Security Council has unanimously passed a resolution demanding an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid. The Assad regime, and to a lesser extent the rebels fighting to overthrow him, has been accused of preventing food and medical care from reaching the quarter of a million people in besieged areas of the country. The UN resolution requires an end to such tactics; it also condemns the use of barrel bombs by the regime and all terrorist attacks – threatening “further steps” if the Syrians do not comply. Russia and China have vetoed three similar resolutions in the past; Moscow agreed to support this one once a specific threat of sanctions was removed. Aid workers and diplomats have expressed scepticism that the resolution will prove effective.

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Beijing Corruption drive: China has been shocked by the arrests of one of its best-known businessmen and the country’s former spy chief on corruption charges. Liu Han and Liang Ke are both associates of Zhou Yongkang (pictured), the former supreme head of security, who is reported to be the focus of a massive corruption probe. Analysts say the arrests, and the sacking of another Zhou associate, suggest that Beijing is preparing to move against Zhou in what would be easily China’s biggest-ever corruption scandal.

Tokyo Anne Frank mystery: Police are investigating a bizarre case of vandalism in which 265 copies of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, and other books relating to the teenage Holocaust victim, had pages ripped out at 31 public libraries across Tokyo. Japan has no history of Jewish settlement and no real history of anti-Semitism, and police are baffled as to the motive. Frank’s story is well known in Japan, however, and in recent years has reached new audiences via comic books.

Kampala Anti-gay law condemned: President Museveni has signed Uganda’s controversial Anti-Homosexuality Act into law, in spite of a last-minute plea from global figures including South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who compared anti-gay discrimination to the horrors of Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa.

Same-sex relations are already criminal in Uganda, as they are in 38 of 54 African countries. However, the new bill introduces harsher penalties, including life terms for some acts, and covers lesbians for the first time. A day later, a national tabloid printed the names of what it described as the country’s “top 200 homos”, under the headline “EXPOSED”, raising fears of a witch-hunt.

Marondera, Zimbabwe Birthday boy: President Robert Mugabe marked his 90th birthday with a giant party at a stadium in Marondera, 80 kilometres from Harare – and with a warning to rivals that he has no plans to retire. Mugabe (above) spent his actual birthday in Singapore for what officials said was a cataract operation, though his frequent trips there have led to speculation that his prostate cancer has returned. But the president, who has led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, said he felt as “youthful and energetic as a boy of nine”.

Miranshah, Pakistan Attacks on Taliban: Pakistan has launched a sustained assault on what it believes are Taliban hideouts in the northwest of the country, killing between 60 and 100 insurgents. The strikes come in the wake of the breakdown of nascent peace talks between the government and Taliban negotiators; these fell apart after 16 February, when a Taliban-linked group announced that it had killed 23 security force personnel abducted in 2010.

Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani, a senior Taliban commander who is believed to have supported the talks, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in a village close to Miranshah, the regional capital of North Waziristan. According to the BBC, the attack was the fifth of its kind in February alone. Some think the deaths are the result of factional infighting; others suspect the involvement of Pakistani intelligence.

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

People Tyson’s childhood trauma It’s not hard to find the root of Mike Tyson’s troubles, says Donald McRae in The Guardian.

The former heavyweight champion – who made and then squandered almost a billion dollars, bit off Evander Holyfield’s ear during a fight, and served time for rape and assault – had a deeply traumatic childhood. He was raised in the Brooklyn slums by a drugaddicted mother who beat him mercilessly. “Even today I don’t like looking in the corner of a room,” he says. “I think of being in the corner getting beaten by my mother.” He grew up thinking of women as aggressors.

“If you sleep they might kill you – especially if you disrespect them. I remember my mother – boom! boom! – attacking these men. It was a violent household.

Once,” he recalls, “my mother was fighting with this [boyfriend], Eddie, and it’s barbaric. Eddie knocked out her gold tooth, and me and Denise [his sister] are screaming. But my mother’s real slick. She puts on a pot of boiling water. The next thing I know she’s poured boiling water over Eddie. He was screaming, his back and face covered in blisters. We put him on the floor. My sister takes a lighter and sterilises a needle and then, one by one, she bursts the blisters.” The young Tyson, desperate to comfort the injured man, gave him a quarter.

Eddie staggered to his feet and went to the shop to buy alcohol for Tyson’s mother.

“So you see, he rewarded her for it.

NEWS 13

That’s why I was so sexually dysfunctional.” And yet, he concedes, a person’s upbringing needn’t decide their fate. His brother Rodney, for example, went to medical school and is now a surgical assistant in California. “He’s the No. 1 trauma guy in the country,” says Tyson proudly. “He’s taken bullets out of some of my friends.” Yet they hardly ever see each other. “It’s the really sad part about my family. We don’t have a close connection. Too many demons. Too much pain.”

Dancing with Diana John Travolta has had some memorable moments on the dance floor including his showstopping turns in Grease and Pulp Fiction. But perhaps his favourite dance was with Princess Diana, at the White House gala dinner of 1985.

“I’d seen her dance with Charles beforehand so I knew that she was strong,” he told Celia Walden in The Daily Telegraph. “But she looked like she was leading him, and because I knew the world was watching I needed to give her certainty that I knew what to do. I put my hand in the middle of her back, brought her hand down so that it wouldn’t be so high and gave her the confidence that we would do just fine.” He smiles. “There really was something lovely and girlish about her, and I felt that I had taken her back to her childhood, when she had probably watched Grease – and for that moment I was her Prince Charming.”

Juhi Chawla’s fears The actress often described as one of Bollywood’s greatest stars of the 80s and 90s made success look effortless. But Chawla believes the current crop of actors have too much to handle in terms of competition and visibility. The 46-year-old told Gulf News: “I think there’s too much pressure now. There are so many newcomers… Earlier, once you had made your mark, at least you had a chance of getting ahead. I think, today, you really have to stand your ground to be able to sustain.” Chawla, who was crowned Miss India in 1984, starred in a string of big screen romances and comedies including Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), Darr (1993), Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke (1993) and Ishq (1997). She says she always enjoyed her career, but wonders if all the public relations and marketing hype surrounding modern Bollywood – not to mention the media’s obsession with the size of female actors’ waistlines – has sucked a lot of the fun out of the industry. Chawla’s own transition from actor to TV presenter and businesswoman seems to have been as effortless as her time in front of the camera. She now produces movies, appeared as a judge on the third season of the dance show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa and is the co-owner of the Indian Premier League cricket team Kolkata Knight Riders.

Antonio Nogueira, the mixed martial arts fighter set to go head-to-head with Roy Nelson in Abu Dhabi’s Du Arena on 11 April, is best described as a “man mountain”, says The National. He’s so sturdy, in fact, he came out on top when he had a childhood tussle with a two-tonne lorry. The 6 foot 3 inch fighter from Brazil was 11 years old when he was knocked down by the truck, an accident that left him in a coma and fighting for his life. He “not only survived” the accident, says The National, he “thrived”. Three years down the track Nogueira was making his living from fighting and had gained the nickname “Minotauro”, a name bestowed by a trainer who was awestruck by his talent. The trainer called his wife one night and told her: “I’m not going to make it home for dinner. I’m training with a kid who is like a minotaur.” This natural ability to destroy his opponents in the ring and an indefatigable work ethic have led Nogueira to acquire a 4th degree black belt in Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu and a black belt in Judo. He’s won 34 out of the 44 martial arts championships he has competed in since 1999 and his next big challenge is the bout against Nelson at the UFC Fight Night at the Du Arena. Describing his fighting style to The National he said: “I fight like I am running a marathon. I have a lot of endurance. That is the strategy of my fights.”

For tickets to UFC Fight Night on 11 April visit ticketmaster.ae

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

Briefing

NEWS 15

Dubai rents: How high can they go?

Some experts say Dubai’s housing market is headed for another rent bubble

Towering rents: Dubai’s expansive, expensive skyline

What’s all the fuss about?

The soaring rents in Dubai have not gone unnoticed by the UAE’s press. “Bubble ahead?”, a headline in the Khaleej Times, was a typical response. The UAE’s successful bid for Expo 2020 has caused “fears of a lurking rental bubble” the newspaper added. Meanwhile, Bloomberg.com described the situation as “hitting” Dubai’s competitive ability. Fears of another property bubble are “heightened,” said Lucy Barnard in The National, whilst an editorial in Gulf News said the “rapacious greed” of landlords could cause “great damage” if not controlled. “The vast majority of Dubai lives in rented accommodation” the newspaper pointed out. “If the government wishes to underpin a stable workforce in the emirate, people have to be able to afford accommodation”.

win. Plumb does not see the Expo as a major influence on the rental market for 2014. “Any short term impact is purely limited to sentiment” he said. “As we get closer to 2020 however, the positive affect of Expo 2020 will become more clear”. Some believe however, that Dubai’s new rent cap, which came into force in December, is a result of the Expo success.

How does the rent cap work?

A rent cap has been in place for a long time in Dubai, however in December a limit was placed on the percentage increase in rent a landlord can charge. Previously, if the rent being charged for a property was 25% less than the average for similar properties, the landlord could ask for more money. However, that has now been changed so that if the property’s rent is only 11 to 20% lower than the average of similar properties, the landlord can ask for a maximum of 5% more rent. The increase can rise to 10% if the rental value is 21 to 30% lower than similar properties, and a maximum of 15% if the property is 31 to 40% lower than comparable lets and 20% more rent if the property is being leased for 40% less than the average.

Will 2014 be 2008 all over again?

It’s understandable that Dubai’s renters are worried about soaring prices. “Investors can have incredibly short memories,” said ArabianMoney.net. The IMF has warned that Dubai could face another potential property bubble if authorities are not “careful” said Reuters. Some locations are witnessing prices at “the 2008 What do property experts advise? level” reported Emirates 24/7. But Craig Plumb, Head of Research “My strongest advice to all renters in Dubai is to get their leases at real estate experts Jones Lang LaSalle thinks it’s too early to registered with Ejari” said Plumb. “This will mean you are panic. “No one is saying we are back at 2008 peak levels yet – the covered by the rental controls enforced by the Real Estate correct comparison is between now and the market in Regulatory Agency (RERA) – which limits the ability of 2006/2007.” The market is “smarter” in several ways, but “more landlords to increase rentals excessively” he said. needs to be done to make it stable” said Plumb. Although various property experts say a correction in Is it just a case of greedy the market is unlikely to happen in Should I move to another Emirate? landlords cashing in?

2014, Jones Lang LaSalle told The According to the Economic Times National that a correction “could be It depends which one. The traditional movement landlords becoming “greedy” is an looming in the longer term if both between Abu Dhabi and Dubai to avoid higher issue in some cases. Whilst Gulf house prices and rents continue to rents is unlikely to continue as Abu Dhabi’s rent News highlighted two key ways in grow at unsustainable levels.” cap has been completely removed, causing rents to which landlords could exploit the escalate in the capital. According to Plumb, the system to push up rents in the city.

Is Expo to blame for the current historically quieter northern emirate of Sharjah is The maximum amount that rent can rent hike? set to become increasingly appealing for renters be pushed up must be treated as an Many landlords have been raising due to lower rates in the city. The property expert extreme and “not used every time” rents since the Expo win, with prices said that residents who live in parts of Dubai the newspaper said. The data used to in some areas jumping “as much as considered more affordable will be most affected.

30%” said the Dubai Chronicle. It’s The rent changes will see this group forced to share calculate the rent cap needs to be looked at very carefully and “be unfair, the website said, as private properties or move to cheaper locations in the both complete and realistic” Gulf sector salaries in Dubai didn’t northern emirates.

News continued. “miraculously jump” after the Expo

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

16 NEWS

Best of the Arabic language articles

Only the US can end the Syrian conflict Ali Al Khusheiban Al Riyadh

Frustrated with US, Saudi Arabia turns east Mohammed Al Harthi Al Bayan

Qatar builds workers’ city to counter human rights charges Al Raya

Arab Spring will not bring democracy Mohammed Al Kinaan Al Jazirah

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

The United States should stop considering Russia as its partner in efforts to settle the Syrian conflict and should act alone to end the civil war, by force if necessary, says Ali Al Khusheiban. Although Russia has been involved in the Syrian crisis since its beginning, it cannot resolve the problem. “Russia is no longer the Soviet Union and the global political formula has drastically changed,” says Al Khusheiban. But why does the US not take a crucial decision and end the war by military force? The answer is that “Russia is weak” but it is a permanent member of the Security Council. Moscow holds an important card which it can play by vetoing any US decision to intervene militarily, says Al Khusheiban. “Nonetheless, we are convinced that a solution to the Syrian conflict lies in US hands and not in the [hands of] the UN Security Council, even if the war drags on for tens of years.” The writer believes the US made a “serious mistake” by merely monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme without trying to stop it. Therefore it should not commit the same error in Syria, he says, warning that the conflict could get out of control and hurt America’s interests and those of its regional allies. “The US must act quickly by identifying the hot spots in the Middle East and starting to extinguish the fires one by one… otherwise, it could pay a high price for the years to come.”

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia has long been an outspoken ally of the US in the volatile Middle East, but the relationship has been upset in recent times, says a well-known Saudi writer. Frustrated by Washington’s behaviour towards the Syrian conflict and the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia appears to be turning east as it sent its crown prince on historic visits to Pakistan, India and Japan in February, says Mohammed Al Harthi. “The visit to these countries by the crown prince and Defence Minister Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz shows that Saudi Arabia is moving according to its interests… the visit also proves the Kingdom is acting independently politically and economically,” Harthi says in an article published by the UAE daily Al Bayan.

“Riyadh’s decision to turn to the east is a right and wise one,” adds the writer. “It enhances Saudi Arabia’s political pragmatism in dealing with the new developments.”

While Al Harthi believes the new Saudi approach would not totally undermine Riyadh’s “strategic relationship” with the US and its Western allies, it constitutes a significant step that will give more options to Saudi Arabia and creates new common interests. “Policies are built on interests and the possession of sources of power… the intelligent player is the one who is prepared for all possibilities and keep his important cards for the right moment,” Al Harthi notes.

Qatar is building a massive village near its capital Doha to house more than 50,000 foreign workers. These workers have been there for years, so why now? The project followed charges by Amnesty International and other organisations that the superrich Gulf country is violating the rights of its foreign workers. It “is a strong response to allegations by western parties about the foreign workers’ rights,” says the Qatari Arabic language daily Al Raya. The project, dubbed “Burwat Al Barraha” comprises houses, shopping malls, hotels and other facilities that will ensure “the welfare of foreign workers.” Qatar is hosting the 2022 World Cup and the “hostile campaign” by foreign media is designed to show the country is not qualified to play host to the games. “It has become clear that the unfair campaigns spearheaded by foreign parties under the subterfuge of protecting the rights of expatriate workers are politicised and undermining,” the paper said. It argues that those parties do not care for the foreign workers in Qatar but that they mount such “hostile” campaigns with the aim of putting pressure on the international community to deprive Qatar and any other Arab state from hosting sport events. “The recent government decision to force all companies in Qatar to abide by a wage system for foreign workers is another example that illustrates the country’s credibility to pay workers on time and protect their rights.”

The political turmoil sweeping the Middle East has led to the overthrow of some Arab dictators, but will it bring democracy to the people? Furthermore “are the Arab people prepared to accept and engage in a real democratic practice?” The answer is no, says Mohammed Kinaan. “Some believe that no matter how solid the will of the Arab people is to reach the oasis of democracy, this is not enough. Democracy is not a magic prescription that can be applied anywhere or at any time but a political process and a civilised value that requires an effective practice at all social levels, including the family, the individual and the political, economic and education systems.” It also requires an acceptance of the Western democratic example, the writer says. “It must be based on respect of the individual right of expression and participation.” Al Kinaan believes that what is happening in the Arab world is just “popular protests for civil rights and power change” while the march towards democracy has remained “very weak and very slow and very fragile.” He adds “democracy is of no use for people who still think in a tribal way and are suffering from illiteracy and backwardness as well as serious development problems. What the Arab needs today is his natural rights and full development services – when this happens, he will be able to better understand the surrounding culture and civilisation and consequently this will allow him to better understand the required democratic process, accept it and practice it.”

Best of the American columnists Can Russia be reined in?

Peter Baker The New York Times

Students get too much homework Karin Klein Los Angeles Times

Captain Phillips tells wrong story Brian Klass and Jamal Abudlahi USA Today

How Washington DC lost its groove Robert G. Kaiser The Washington Post

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President Obama has warned Russia there “will be costs” if it moves to a full-scale intervention in Ukraine. But is it empty rhetoric?

Quite possibly, because the US has “few palatable options” for cracking the whip and “recent history has shown that when it considers its interests at stake, Russia has been willing to pay the price”. Baker draws parallels between Obama’s options in 2014 with those available to President W. Bush in 2008 when Russian tanks rolled into Georgia. Bush did his best to look tough, said Baker, but US sabre-rattling did little to halt the Russian advance. “The costs imposed Ukraine: Russian interests at stake at that time [by the US] proved only marginally effective and short-lived. Russia stopped its advance but nearly six years later has never fully lived up to the terms of the cease-fire it signed. And whatever penalty it paid at the time evidently has not deterred it from again muscling a neighbour.”

No-one doubts that homework improves the performance of students. The issue is whether they’re being given too much home study. A new poll of teachers suggests US students are being given about 3.5 hours of homework a night (or more than 17 hours a week) by the time they reach High School. “That strikes me as too much by far,” said Klein. Why? Because “kids, including teenagers, need well-balanced lives that include extracurricular activities, outside pursuits, physical activity, fun with friends and family, and just hanging around accomplishing nothing”. To be fair, many kids would not be completing that much homework, said Klein. And teachers likely over-reported the amount of extra-curricular study they handed out. But even so, it’s “clear” that many students are doing too much homework. Part of the problem is that teachers tend to underestimate how much time children require to complete certain tasks, said Klein. They don’t take into account the “fatigue and frustration that slow young children. Little hands are much slower at printing and writing. Teachers too often seem to think half an hour of homework means what they can accomplish in 30 minutes, not what a nine-year-old is capable of doing.”

Sadly, Barkhad Abdi – the Somali actor who plays the pirate leader in the thriller Captain Phillips – missed out on an Oscar. But America’s fascination with Abdi’s rags-to-riches story has obscured some of the other, more important issues raised by the film, wrote Klass and Abudlahi. For a start, the idea that Somali pirates pose a clear and present danger is rather out-of-date. There were no hijackings off the coast of Somalia in 2013. None, the authors said.

By putting the focus on piracy, Captain Phillips obscures “the central plot line: Somalia is a failed Barkhad Abdi: rags-to-riches state, a forgotten poster-child of human suffering and a geopolitical security risk. We cannot afford to ignore it.” As Somalia festers, hundreds of thousands of civilians have died from war, famine, and disease, said Klass and Abudlahi.

Captain Phillips is a magnificent film, they said, but it does not tell the key story. Instead, it “showcases a symptom of the lawlessness, desperation, and poverty created by Somalia’s decades-long war: piracy.”

When the Washington Post’s managing editor Robert G. Kaiser retired from the paper in February, plenty of people asked him if he missed the “political circus”. The truth: he doesn’t miss it at all. “I don’t miss Washington, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon,” he wrote.

“For me, the fun has drained out of the game.”

Kaiser admitted he used to get excited by “big issues” such as civil rights, women’s liberation, the fate of the country’s great cities and the end of the Cold War. He loved the politicians who “brought those issues to life”. Sadly, their successors, today’s crop of underwhelming Robert G. Kaiser: DC is ‘depressing’ senators and representatives, are “just depressing”.

Wrote Kaiser: “Lies and intellectual inventions are now typical of our public life, which made Washington difficult for me. Of course, a politician lying is hardly a shock, but there is a difference between telling untruths and making stuff up. I liked Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s dictum: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

18 NEWS

Best articles: Europe

Legalising infanticide? The outcry over Belgium’s new law make one gasp, said Fabian Lefevere in It’s not often Belgium becomes the focus Nieuwsblad (Brussels). Belgians lack of international outrage, said Wided compassion, they claim, and even make Bouchrika in Knack (Brussels). But that’s comparison between this law and the what happened two weeks ago, when country’s past colonial crimes. It’s so MPs decided to abolish the lower age limit misguided. What could be more humane for euthanasia. Mercy-killing has been than offering suffering children a way legal here since 2002, but now terminally out? Far from “legalising infanticide”, sick children and infants, as well as adults, the law applies only to those with can ask to end their lives. Foreign pundits incurable conditions who are expected to expressed amazement that the measure die shortly. The decision can only be has proved so uncontroversial in Belgium: made with the children’s permission, after polls suggest that 75% of the public close consultation between parents and agrees with it. (People seem more angry about plans to bring in a mileage tax for Young protesters call for a “No” vote in Brussels health professionals. And there isn’t a parent in the world “who would not motorists.) The most violent reactions fight to the bitter end to save their child, unless all hope were have been in America, where it was dubbed “child murder” in lost”. In the Netherlands, where the age limit is 12, only five the media, and compared to the Holocaust. One US TV children have been euthanised in the last ten years. commentator even said it put him in mind of Belgian colonists in the Congo cutting off the hands of rebellious slaves.

Which makes one wonder why the law is needed at all, says Francis Van de Woestyne in La Libre (Brussels). Many Belgian No wonder people are angry, said Eckhard Fuhr in Die Welt paediatricians are opposed to it, and oncologists insist that even (Hamburg): euthanasia for children is a “monstrous” idea. the most distressing cases can be managed by the right palliative There are things that one simply can’t do, and one of them is to care. Most say they have never encountered a single case of a ask a sick child: “Do you want to die?” A child might accept child wanting to die. Why has this law been pushed through so death only because he or she can’t bear the anguish caused to quickly, with so little debate? I rather suspect it was driven more his or her parents. What on earth has got into the Belgians? A by liberal politicians’ desire to chalk up a victory than by a country that permits such a thing must have fallen into “an ethical abyss”. The extreme reactions of these foreign journalists genuine desire to relieve children’s sufferings.

turkey

A doomed attempt to hide the internet Today’s Zaman (Istanbul)

germany

Our grand coalition stinks of rotten fish Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich)

SPaIn

They sought a better life and we shot them El Diario (Madrid)

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Turkey’s government wants to copy the “infamous” Great Firewall of China, says Hayri Taskan. It has often gone to court to block internet content it deemed insulting to national sensibilities, but now it has gone the whole hog – pushing through a law that lets it censor any site at will. In theory, this is only to protect people from pornography and images of violence. But everyone knows the real aim is to try to calm the corruption scandals that have engulfed the government of late. Newspapers and TV are too scared to publish evidence of wrongdoing, and now it won’t be posted on the internet either. At least that’s what politicians are hoping – but they’ll soon find out their mistake. Censorship may delay information being spread over the internet, but it is impossible, in the tech-savvy modern world, “to block or hide it”. We saw that happen here three years ago when air force pilots attacked and killed 34 smugglers, thinking they were terrorists – a media blackout only made the public suspicious, and when the news came out people were doubly furious. So let’s not worry about our rulers’ latest fit of illiberalism – it will blow up in their faces soon enough.

Germany’s coalition has been in office for just two months, says Thorston Denkler – and already it smells of “rotten fish”. Earlier this month, police searched the apartment and offices of Sebastian Edathy, an MP in the social democrat SPD party, whose name had been found on a list of customers of a child porn website. They found nothing illegal, but suspected he had been tipped off in advance, giving him the opportunity to get rid of compromising images. Agriculture minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, from the conservative CSU, then admitted he had leaked details of the ongoing investigation to SPD leaders when he was interior minister in the last government; he was pressured into resigning. But that caused “massive anger” among his party colleagues. Why on earth, they complain, should one of their number be forced to take the rap for something that happened in another party – a party that lost the last election and is only in power because of a quirk of electoral arithmetic? That’s typical of the backbiting since this lot took office. The “Grand Coalition” was an “emergency” measure, taken as a last resort. But now it has produced a squabbling government, which nevertheless has an overwhelming majority. And we’re stuck with it for a full four years.

Spain has plumbed new depths in its attempts to deter illegal immigrants, says Antón Losada.

Sub-Saharan Africans have long tried to reach Europe from Morocco by breaking into the heavily fortified Spanish enclave of Ceuta. In an incident on 6 February, 200 people tried to swim round a breakwater, and at least 11 were killed. The survivors claimed they’d been shot at with rubber bullets and tear gas while struggling in the water. The police denied it: a video was produced to suggest that the victims had drowned because they couldn’t swim. Any journalist who believed otherwise was “pandering to people-traffickers”. But then another video emerged that told a very different story.

After a full week of lies, the police finally admitted they’d edited the violence out of their clip. They’ll come to regret this. For years there has been a stream of complaints by migrants about violent harassment, unlawful detention and so on. “Their word against ours,” the police always say – and the public believes them. No longer. These events are as “terrible as they are unjustifiable”. We Spaniards should “hang our head in shame”. Making sure that our beaches aren’t filled with corpses should matter far more “than trying to deter a few desperate human beings from seeking a better life”.

Best articles: International

NEWS 19

Are trigger-happy racists getting away with murder? criminals, and treated accordingly.

White fear or black life – which should What “histrionic” nonsense, said carry more legal weight? In US courts, Yolanda Young on CNN.com. If it’s the former trumps the latter every time, wrong to stereotype all young black said Brittney Cooper on Salon.com. males as potential thugs, it’s just as Last July, neighbourhood watch pernicious to imply that all white males volunteer George Zimmerman was are trigger-happy racists. Statistics acquitted of all charges over his show that Martin and Davis were the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an victims of “freak incidents”. Of the unarmed black youth who had 53,000 or so US homicides between apparently menaced him. Now another 2005 and 2010, white-on-black ones white-majority Florida jury has just accounted for just 3.9%, while blackfailed to convict a second man for on-white ones accounted for 8.8%. killing another black 17-year-old.

White-on-white and black-on-black Michael Dunn, 47, got into an homicides made up 44.1% and 43.2%, argument with four teenagers on a Davis (left) and Dunn: a “freak incident”? respectively. garage forecourt over what he called the loud “thug music” playing in their vehicle. It ended with Such comparisons miss the point, said Jamelle Bouie in Time.

Dunn firing multiple shots at the car, killing Jordan Davis.

Shootings like this may be rare, but they grow out of a wider Although Dunn claimed he had seen a gun, the youths were all culture. In a letter from prison, Dunn wrote: “This may sound unarmed. The fact that Dunn had apparently felt threatened, radical, but if more people would arm themselves and kill these however, was enough to get him off the murder charge. “How f***ing idiots when they’re threatening you, eventually they much more are black people in this country supposed to take?” may take the hint and change their behaviour.” That thinking relies on “long-standing ideas of black criminality”. Besides, the The “irrelevance of black life” has been drilled into the US real issue is not that whites are killing loads of blacks; it’s that “since its infancy”, said Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic. It when they do, they’re much more likely to get away with it than didn’t matter that Martin and Davis were law-abiding boys a black who kills a white. “That is the injustice, and that is why from good homes. Such is the ineradicable racism of wider US discussions of racism aren’t just necessary – they’re vital.” society that all young black men are seen as dangerous

syria

The camera never lies? It does in Syria Foreign Policy (Washington)

nigeria

At home, we’re broken. In the US, we blossom Daily Trust (Abuja)

United states

A modest proposal for Barack Obama The New York Times

A “heartbreaking” image went viral on the internet last week, says Katelyn Fossett. It showed a fouryear-old Syrian boy arriving at a remote refugee camp in Jordan, apparently alone. There was just one problem: it subsequently emerged that the boy wasn’t alone at all but following behind his family, who were just out of shot. The image is merely the latest example of “misleading Syria coverage – intentional or otherwise – that has muddied rational discussion” of this war. A month ago, a similar fuss erupted over a photo apparently showing a Syrian boy sleeping between his parents’ graves. The image turned out to be part of an art project by a Saudi photographer. With ever fewer reporters on the ground in Syria, and an opposition movement desperate to win support, doctored or inaccurate footage is everywhere. Videos purportedly showing the atrocities of the Assad regime have depicted scenes from Lebanon, Russia and even Mexico. This stuff isn’t just misleading; it also undermines the cause it’s meant to promote by enabling the Syrian regime to dismiss all evidence of its crimes as forgeries. “As the fakes stack up, it’s a defence that only gets easier to use.”

Nigerians are flourishing, says Murtala Opoola – or at least the ones in the US are. Of all the immigrant groups in the US, they’ve been among the most successful, producing a disproportionate number of business leaders, scientists and Ivy League academics. Indeed, in parts of New Jersey, nearly two-thirds of doctors are Nigerians. In The Triple Package, the new book by Amy Chua, of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother fame, Nigerians are held up as one of the elite US cultural groups, possessed of what she believes are the three crucial traits for success: notions of exceptionalism, insecurity and a willingness to delay gratification. This praise makes a welcome corrective to the “odious” image we Nigerians tend to have elsewhere in the world, as a nation of “loathsome scammers and fraudsters”. And yet, the negative image still rings true where it matters most: at home in Nigeria. Why do Nigerians who go abroad do so well, “while the ones who stay at home struggle without end against odds, and eventually succumb to deviant behaviours”? It’s obviously not our genes, so it must be our failed governance. A Nigerian raised in the US will blossom, while the same man raised here will end up “stunted and broken – just like the system in which he grew up”.

Barack Obama still has three more years in office, says Witold Rybczynski, but plans for his presidential library are already in train. Chicago, where Obama built his career, seems the likeliest site, although some are making the case for Hawaii, where he was born, or New York, where he is thought to want to live after leaving the White House. The location of the library, however, is less important than its style. The question is, will Obama “follow the grandiose example of his predecessors, or chart a new course”? Franklin Roosevelt was the first US leader to build a library, in 1939 (previous presidents simply donated their papers to the Library of Congress). Since then, presidential libraries have grown in size, aiming to be “an archive, museum and shrine, rolled into one”. JFK’s contains his sailboat; Reagan’s houses “the largest of all presidential artefacts: Air Force One”. Attempting to encapsulate a president’s entire life in a building seems rather “futile” when our knowledge of them is shaped by so many other sources, such as biographies and documentaries.

That would be particularly true in the case of Obama, who has already written a moving book about his early life. “In an austere age, a modest library could be the grandest statement of all.”

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

20 NEWS

Health & Science

What the scientists are saying…

A “feeling” bionic hand...

this data to a British firm, which produced the new half pelvis. This involved fusing layers of A Danish man who lost his left hand in a titanium powder together with a laser, then firework accident a decade ago has been able to coating the titanium with a mineral into which “feel” objects again, thanks to a “bionic” limb the remaining bone cells could grow. The connected to sensors in his upper arm, reports titanium pelvis was then inserted into the BBC News online. “It is the first time that an patient, and a standard hip replacement was amputee has had real-time touch sensation from fitted into its socket. Three years later, the a prosthetic device,” said Professor Silvestro patient can walk again, albeit with a stick.

Micera of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, one of the international team behind the development. The patient, Dennis Aabo Crocodiles climb trees Sørensen, described the sensory feedback as If you’re being chased by a crocodile, don’t “amazing”. He was able, he said, to tell if assume you can escape it by scrambling up a tree. objects were hard or soft, square or round. The Researchers at the University of Tennessee have hand picks up electric discovered that some signals from artificial species of reptiles are tendons controlling its surprisingly agile climbers, fingers, which are sent quite capable of getting down fine wires to themselves into high electrodes implanted in branches, reports The sensory nerves in the upper Huffington Post. One arm. Sørensen, 36, had the crocodile was seen electrodes fitted for only a climbing four metres (13ft) month, but the surgeons up the tree, and five metres are confident they would (16.5ft) along a branch. have gone on working for Another was observed Crocodiles: surprisingly agile years. The next step is to trying to scale a chain link “miniaturise” the technology so that it can be fence. But it does not appear that the reptiles implanted under the skin, and become practical were in pursuit of prey, human or otherwise. The for everyday use. biologists, who monitored crocodiles in North America, Africa and Australia, noted that they become “skittish” in trees, and fall or jump into ...and a 3D printed pelvis the water below when approached. This led them A bone cancer sufferer who three years ago had to have half of his pelvis removed has had a new to theorise that the creatures climb trees to survey their territory for potential threats and prey. They one created on a 3D printer, reports The Daily may also use them to regulate their body Telegraph. The unnamed patient in his 60s temperature: if there is nowhere to bask on the suffered from a rare tumour, chondrosarcoma, ground, they’ll hop onto a branch. which had affected most of the right side of his pelvis. “Since this cancer does not respond to drugs or radiotherapy, the only option was to Medical file remove half of it,” said Craig Gerrand, a Deaths from “legal highs” have increased consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Newcastle dramatically, reports BBC News online. A study upon Tyne NHS Trust. The bone area needing to of post-mortem reports by St George’s, be replaced was so big that a standard University of London suggests that in 2012, 68 handmade implant could not be fitted – so people died from new psychoactive substances, doctors arranged for a bespoke pelvis to be up from ten in 2009. Designed to mimic the “printed”. First, they used CT scanning to effects of illegal drugs, these drugs tend to be obtain precise measurements of the hole that made on an industrial scale abroad, then would be left after surgery; then they supplied marketed in Britain as plant food.

Tens of thousands of chimps discovered in war-torn DR Congo A huge, previously unknown community of chimpanzees has been found in a remote forest in war-torn DR Congo.

Researchers say the area, which covers 50,000km², may be home to one of the last chimp “mega cultures” still flourishing. “This is one of the few places left with a huge continuous population,” Cleve Hicks, a primatologist at the Max Planck Institute, told The Guardian. He estimates that the Bili-Uele forest, in the far north of DR Congo, is populated by thousands – possibly tens of thousands – of chimps, which are unusually large and display similar behaviour across the area, including using long tools to dip for termites, and a taste for giant African snails.

Footage from cameras left in the forest for eight months reveals that it is home to a host of other wildlife too, including leopards, forest elephants and giant forest hogs. The cameras didn’t capture a single human. However, with poachers travelling ever further in search of bush meat, the Lord’s Resistance Army coming through the area, and armed groups from neighbouring Central African Republic setting up bases in the region, experts say there is little hope of this part of the forest remaining untouched for long.

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Millions more to be offered statins Should millions more people be given statins, the cholesterol-lowering drug?

Currently, British GPs recommend the drugs to patients who are deemed to have a 20% risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke, based on factors such as their age, weight and whether they smoke or drink. Now, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has produced draft guidelines suggesting that the threshold be lowered to 10%. Experts say that more than 80% of men over 50 will be deemed to have that risk, as well as 50% of women over 60, meaning that around five million more people could be advised to take statins.

Supporters of the proposal say it could save thousands of lives a year relatively cheaply – statins cost just ten pence a day. But others have serious objections to the idea of mass medicating the population.

In the Daily Mail, cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra points out that according to one study, 20% of patients who take statins experience serious side effects. That, he says, means that if the guidelines result in five million largely healthy people taking statins, a million of them could end up back in the GP’s surgery complaining of digestive problems, muscle pain or erectile dysfunction – a cost not factored in by Nice.

There is also data showing that although statins reduce cholesterol, they don’t have an impact on overall death rates. But a bigger worry, he says, is that middle-aged people will regard them as a “magic pill” that obviates the need for a healthy lifestyle. Far better to persuade people to eat well and exercise regularly than medicate them.

Technology

NEWS 21

Dating: Is the Web getting in the way of love? texts or online messages, and 9% Is technology ruining your have resolved disputes online or by relationships? asked Jess Carbino in text message when they were having Huffington Post.com. A new study trouble discussing it in person. by the Pew Research Center has found that gadgets have “a Certainly, “hyperconnectivity is a pronounced effect” on dating and double-edged sword,” said Eliana relationships, especially among Dockterman in Time.com. “Young teenagers and young adults. Almost couples are operating in a competitive, one fifth of young people say they geographically diffuse job market” that have argued with partners about can separate them by continents. At how much time they spend online, first glance, that might make our compared with just 8% of older connectedness seem like a good thing. adults. Yet many young adults also But researchers have found that “the find that technology provides “a The ‘double-edged sword’ of constant positive aspects of long-distance all forum to resolve conflicts.” Having connectivity seem to be based on how little couples “grown up revealing more about see one another.” All that Skyping could just be “sabotaging themselves in an online forum,” Millennials feel more at your long-term relationship.” So as socialising online home with the medium. becomes easier, “consider the value of space.”

But even some grown-up couples say tech can improve their For singles, though, the web has been a real boon, said Julia relationships, said Sharon Gaudin in ComputerWorld.com.

Wood in CNBC.com. “With so many fish in the sea, more Overall, about 27 percent of the people surveyed said singles are heading online to find their soul mate.” A survey technology had an impact on their relationships, with most

by Match.com found that 31% of respondents said they met rating the impact as positive. “It gives people the ability to communicate in more and different ways,” said Dan Olds, an their last date online, compared with 33% who met dates through friends and or at work. That doesn’t mean online analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group. “Text messages make it easy to toss out those quick ‘I’m thinking about you’’’ dating is without its own challenges: There are now so many dating sites and apps that “choosing one is almost as difficult or “‘I’m still mad about last night’ messages.’’ One out of as finding someone who matches your standards.” four couples said they felt closer to their partner because of

Innovation of the week

Many an otherwise blissful relationship has been put to the test by snoring, said Anita Hamilton in Time.com—not the soft kind, but the “full-on choo-choo train that blares without fail right when you’re in deep sleep mode.” Now there’s a technological solution: the Snore Activated Nudging Pillow. The contoured cushion conceals a motorised air bladder that inflates by about seven centimeters anytime the built-in microphone picks up the sound of snoring. That is supposed to be “just enough movement,” retailer Hammacher Schlemmer says, to encourage the snorer to shift positions— hopefully to a less resonant one. The pillow has to be plugged into a wall socket, and it costs a hefty $150. But “if it works well enough to keep you from fleeing to the couch for some peace and quiet, it could put the fun back in sleepovers.”

Bytes: What’s new in tech Wider Wi-Fi coverage

If your Wi-Fi coverage doesn’t go far enough, there are a few measures you can take to extend its range, said Kim Komando in USA Today. One place to start is to ponder the proper placement of your router. “High places” and anything “out in the open” work best, and you should always keep your router away from walls and obstructions. Some electric devices, such as microwaves and cordless phones, are prone to causing interference, so keep your Wi-Fi device far from other wireless gadgets. “Finally, if your Wi-Fi router is old,” it may be time to consider an upgrade. Swap out older 802.11b or 802.11g routers for the newer standards, known as 802.11n or 802.11ac. It will likely turn out to be a wise investment.

Blocking on LinkedIn

You no longer have to put up with stalkers on LinkedIn, said Richard Nieva in CNET.com. The site last week rolled out a new member-blocking feature that will be “welcome news for anyone who’s ever been spammed on the social networking site.” LinkedIn users can now block any member by visiting that person’s profile and choosing “Block or report” from the drop-down menu next to the “Connect” and “Send In Mail” buttons. “Blocking a member will disallow both of you from seeing each other’s profile, and if you’re connected,

that connection automatically breaks.”

You also won’t be able to send or receive messages to or from blocked users, “and all endorsements and recommendations will be removed.” But some information such as any comments you’ve made in public groups – will still be viewable.

A new Apple TV on the way

An upgraded Apple TV is on the way, said Adam Satariano and Edmund Lee in Bloomberg. com. Industry sources say the iPhone-maker “is planning to introduce a new Apple TV set-top box” in April. It’s expected to feature a faster processor “and an upgraded interface to make it easier for customers to navigate between TV shows, movies, and other online content.” The company is also negotiating with content providers such as Time Warner Cable to let Apple TV customers access “a wider array of live TV channels” using their iTunes credentials. But the prospect of such access has become a roadblock for Apple’s deals with distributors like DirecTV, which “prefer keeping their customer information separate from Apple.”

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

22 NEWS

Talking points

Viktor vanquished: inside the home of a fallen president Independent on Sunday. You can hardly It was no secret that Ukraine’s ousted visit this country, let alone do business president had a lavishly appointed home, here, without paying a bribe. The said Patrick Kingsley in The Guardian. president was well known to have handed Customs documents had revealed some massive preferments to his inner circle – time ago that the panelling on his aka The Family. (A Forbes report found staircases alone had cost $200,000. But that 50% of government contracts had while Viktor Yanukovych was in office, been awarded to firms owned by his son, few Ukrainians were allowed inside his a former dentist.) Even so, many have sprawling, 340-acre Mezhyhirya estate, been shocked by the scale of Yanukovych’s 20km outside Kiev, to see just how much personal extravagance. This, after all, is a of their money had been spent on his country where the average daily wage is private residence. All that changed last just $13; and millions lack adequate week. After protesters in Kiev awoke on health and social care. “It didn’t have to Saturday to find that the police had be like this.” Ukraine is blessed with a disappeared from the city’s streets, they Yanukovych’s sprawling, 340-acre estate mild climate in its southern regions, made their way to the estate, and – finding natural resources and an educated workforce. In 1992, a year it abandoned – threw open its gates to the public. after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its economy was roughly the same size as neighbouring Poland’s; now it is half its size.

Families and young couples flocked to gawp at the opulence of their former president’s lifestyle, said Roland Oliphant in The Ukraine has been badly damaged by a political elite that, instead Daily Telegraph. They played golf on his course, peered at the of building a modern state, simply enriched themselves, said The exotic animals in his private zoo, counted his elaborate duck Economist. But its problems have been compounded by a “deeply houses, and “mused on what kind of man puts an ancient Greek buried division” between the European-leaning west of the folly” next to a five-storey Russian-style wooden chalet perched country, which was part of Poland and the Austro-Hungarian on classical stone pillars. Everything on the estate is outsized: a empire until it was annexed by Stalin in 1939, and the vast galleon housing a banqueting hall bobs on a industrialised, Russian-speaking east. disproportionately small lake; the (The Crimea was actually part of the skewers for the huge marble barbecue “An inventory dated March 2010 Russian Soviet Republic until 1954, and are the size of broadswords, and kept in shows that Yanukovych blew Sevastopol is still home to Russia’s Black a mock treasure chest. “It’s simply Sea Fleet.) Yet this conflict is not an incredible,” said one visitor. “And the $41.35m on chandeliers” ethnic one, said Anne Applebaum in The taste of the man! It explains Daily Telegraph: it is political. On one everything.” Much of the work seems side are Ukrainians (Russian-speaking and otherwise) who favour to have been shoddily executed – visitors tripped on badly paved close ties with Moscow. They are not just the corrupt elite, but paths, although Yanukovych spared no expense: an inventory also those alarmed by the violence of the recent protests, and who dated March 2010, a month after his inauguration, shows that he generally fear the forces of disorder; workers in industries that blew $41.35m on chandeliers; the one for his lobby cost $11m. profit from Russian trade links, and others who worry that an association with the EU would entail structural reforms that Yet the biggest shock for some was the discovery of reams of would cost them their jobs. On the other side, are people who documents that the president’s henchmen tried to destroy as he hanker for the EU’s democratic principles, as well as far-right fled in a helicopter, said Shaun Walker in The Guardian. These were hurled into a lake, but since they were held in plastic folders, nationalists and those with memories of Stalin’s crimes. many floated back to the surface. Divers then retrieved the rest.

They have different ideas about Ukraine’s future, said Mary According to the journalists examining the papers, these reveal Dejevsky in The Guardian, but polls have shown that neither side not only excessive spending ($2m on a sauna) but rampant wants the country to split. Still, that could happen, said Ben corruption. There are allegedly receipts for millions in cash Hoyle in The Times. In the Crimea, the parliament has declared payments – presumed to have been bribes – and evidence that that civil war is under way. To many there, the protesters are not billions of dollars were poured into Tantalit, the mysterious freedom fighters but bandits and fascists – and they want Russia holding company that owns the president’s estate, in 2007/2008. to help them fight back.

Ukrainians are used to corruption, said Oliver Poole in The foothills...

I’ll suck the bones pretty.”

Pick of the week’s

Gossip

In case Hollywood ever tires of her, Kristen Stewart has another string to her bow. The Twilight actress has taken up writing poetry. For an interview in this month’s Marie Claire, Stewart (pictured) recited one of her verses, titled My Heart is a Wiffle Ball/Freedom Pole.

It reads: “I reared digital moonlight, You read its clock, scrawled neon across that black,

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Kismetly... ubiquitously crest fallen, Thrown down to strafe your

Julian Assange’s former ghostwriter has revealed some of the dismaying personal habits of the WikiLeaks founder. Andrew O’Hagan was commissioned to write Assange’s autobiography in 2011 – when he was living under house arrest at a supporter’s house in Norfolk – and the two men worked together closely for months. In a long essay for the London Review of Books, O’Hagan declares: “Julian scorns all attempts at social graces. He eats like a pig.” In particular, he

recalls one meal where Assange ate a baked potato and a jam pudding with his fingers. And his table manners were only the half of it. “If you told him to do the dishes he would say he was trying to free economic slaves in China and had no time to wash up.”

O’Hagan also reveals that, although Assange was initially enthusiastic about the book project – saying he “hoped to have something that read like Hemingway” – he pulled out at the last minute because “the man who put himself in charge of disclosing the world’s secrets simply couldn’t bear his own.”

Talking points That’s fur enough: UAE club bans pelts The fur is flying in Dubai after one of the city’s top nightclubs introduced a ban on patrons wearing fur coats.

The popular Mahiki Dubai on Jumeirah Beach Road says it has followed the example of its sister club in London by refusing entrance to people wearing garments made from real fur.

A ban on people wearing fur was introduced by the London branch of Mahiki about a week ago. After consulations with the pressure group PETA, it has erected a neon ‘no fur’ sign above the club’s entrance and says it hopes other night spots will follow its example.

Will the London club’s ban make a difference? Fashion writer Melanie Rickey told The Guardian that the introduction of the British ban at the start of Spring suggests it “won’t be terribly effective” because few people wear fur in milder weather. “But what is interesting is the age group and wealth level of the people who attend Mahiki, so it is a good place to target and educate,” she said.

Mahiki Dubai’s decision to ban fur-wearers was applauded by Sabrina Walle, managing director at Petzone Veterinary Clinic in Dubai. “I love that,” she told 7 Days. “Not everybody has to be vegan, but wearing fur is unnecessary. There are

stories of animals who are skinned alive for their fur.”

On the contrary, said John Naughton in The Observer: the future of our economy depends upon improving the way we teach maths. The next wave of innovation – in robotics, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies – will require a workforce highly educated in the so-called “stem” subjects: science, technology, engineering and maths. Historically, Britain has always punched above its weight in these areas: Cambridge alone has had 90 Nobel laureates, more than France’s entire tally. But the number

Wit & Wisdom

Walle hopes that more venues in Dubai and the rest of the UAE will follow Mahiki Dubai’s lead. “It would be good,” she said. “I don’t see it happening, but it would be great.”

“I miss Air Force One. In eight years, they never lost my baggage.”

George W. Bush, quoted in The Sunday Times

The popularity of fur in the UAE is a matter of record. In 2008, The National reported that many Russians visited the fur shops on Al Maktoum Street because “relaxed tax rules” meant prices are about five per cent cheaper in the Emirates than in their homeland. Given that the average mink coat costs upwards of $2,000, this concession often translates into “hundreds of dollars of savings”, the paper said.

“As soon as a politician tells you that decent, law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear from a particular measure, you can be sure that someone, somewhere is losing a part of their freedom.”

Julian Barnes, in The Guardian

A Russian man interviewed by Emirates 24/7 said owning a fur jacket is “very important” for most Russian women. “When you have a long, fur jacket it means you are from a wealthy family,” he said. “It gives you status.”

Dubai’s steamy summer weather does not seem to deter fur buyers. The Observer reports that there are 400 shops in Dubai selling fur and business is booming. Last year, 7 Days reported that the manager of Ciler Mexa, a fur trader in Deira’s fur district, was getting “between 100 and 200 buyers a day” in summer.

Maths: the secret of China’s success “It makes The Hunting of the Snark look like sanity,” said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian.

The UK’s Education Minister Elizabeth Truss set off for Shanghai this week with a posse of loyal head teachers, determined to find out why Chinese pupils are so good at maths. Truss and her “control-minded” boss, Michael Gove, have been sent into a panic by the most recent Pisa survey of international education standards, which found that pupils in Shanghai are the best in the world at maths and science. Never mind that these Pisa surveys are notoriously unreliable, or that Shanghai is not a country, but a rich and relatively autonomous city. The very idea that maths “holds the secrets of the universe” is wrong-headed. Having studied maths myself, I can tell you that it is “even more pointless than Latin or Greek”. For everyday life, we need to learn only “the rudiments”.

NEWS 23

of pupils taking stem subjects at A-level has been falling for years, especially at state schools.

And those that do often get taught badly: only 30% of state school physics teachers have a degree in the subject, compared to 80% of private school teachers.

That is one of the secrets of Shanghai’s success, said Ray Tarleton in the Times Educational Supplement. Every maths teacher in Shanghai – even at infant schools – has a maths degree.

They waste no time learning “theories of education”; instead, “subject knowledge is king”. It helps, too, that Chinese children are brought up to take their lessons seriously. “In China, the children work far harder than their teachers. In England, the reverse is true.” I’m not sure that’s such a good thing, said Clare Pennington in The Sunday Times. When I taught maths at a state boarding school in rural China, I was shocked by the intense pressure on pupils.

Even during what should have been their summer holidays, they all signed up for extra tuition – working 12-hour days at their desks, before falling into bed in huge dormitories with steel bars instead of glass in the windows. They were exhausted, stressed-out and homesick.

They had no hobbies, and the narrowness of their curriculum discouraged free thinking. That might be useful in a one-party state – but it’s hardly something to aspire to.

“One of the truisms of my industry is that at the very point when journalists are getting weary of a subject, the larger public is just waking up to it.”

Journalist Melanie Reid, in The Times “I don’t want loyalty. I want loyalty. I want him to kiss my ass in Macy’s window at high noon and tell me it smells like roses.’

Lyndon Johnson on Gerald Ford, quoted in The Independent “The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.”

Voltaire, quoted in The Times “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Theodore Roosevelt, quoted on The Huffington Post “Great men are almost always bad men.”

Lord Acton, quoted in The Sunday Times “If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.”

H.L. Mencken, quoted in The Herald, Monterey County, California

Statistic of the week There are more than 11 million empty homes across Europe – enough to house the continent’s homeless twice over. Many are holiday homes, bought as invest­ ments but never occupied.

Spain has 3.4 million empty homes, France two million and the UK 700,000.

The Guardian

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

24 NEWS

Sport

Football: the “touchline monster” butts his way into trouble disciplinary process to be discredited again.” Don’t bet on it, said Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail.

The FA had a chance to teach Pardew a lesson 18 months ago, when he pushed a linesman in the back during a match against Tottenham. Given the 52-year-old’s chequered history – even his fellow managers privately admit that he “goes too far” on the touchline – it was a perfect opportunity to show him that his unruly behaviour would not be tolerated. Instead, they let the “touchline monster” get away with a measly two-game ban and a $33,420 fine.

Newcastle manager Alan Pardew has “accumulated quite the rap sheet of touchline transgressions”, said Niall McVeigh in The Guardian. He has been in altercations with everyone from Arsène Wenger to Martin O’Neill. Only a couple of months ago he abused Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini in memorably crude terms. But his latest indiscretion was a “spectacular new low”. With his Newcastle side comfortably leading Hull City 3-1, Pardew reacted to a push by Hull midfielder David Meyler by headbutting him. There was minimal contact, but the intent was clear. Pardew was sent to the stands, fined $167,137 by his club, and has been charged by the FA with “nonstandard” improper conduct.

This whole debacle just highlights how much of a shambles Newcastle United has become in recent times, said Dave Kidd in the Sunday Mirror. Ten years ago, the club boasted Bobby Robson – “one “No ifs, no butts,” said Henry Winter in The Daily Pardew headbutting Meyler of world football’s greatest statesman” – as its Telegraph – Pardew needs to be banned for the rest of the season. And not just from the dugout, but from the ground, manager. But under Mike Ashley’s ownership we have seen the “potty-mouthed clown” Joe Kinnear twice appointed to positions too. As a Premier League manager, he needs to realise that his of authority; St James’s Park temporarily renamed the Sports actions have consequences throughout English football. All too Direct Arena, after Ashley’s “chain of plimsoll shops”; and often, what is seen on Match of the Day is “copied on a Sunday regional journalists inexplicably banned from the stadium. That morning in public parks”. The FA has already heaped embarrassment on itself this season, when its independent tribunal Pardew hasn’t been sacked already is a disgrace. But “it will punished Nicolas Anelka for his anti-Semitic quenelle gesture with surprise no one with even the faintest knowledge of Ashley’s classless regime”. only a five-game ban and an $133,714 fine. “It cannot afford its

Formula One: new season, new engines – and new winners? ones Red Bull use – and switched to Mercedes The new Formula One season is about to begin, ones. As a result, their car has “looked said Andrew Benson on BBC Sport online, and it bulletproof”: even more reliable than the is set to be the “most dramatic start for years”.

Mercedes cars themselves, and “right up there in Rule changes mean that all cars have to use new terms of pace”. Drivers Felipe Massa and Valtteri electric-petrol hybrid engines; suffice to say, some Bottas will be licking their lips with anticipation. teams are adapting better than others. Over 12 days of testing in Bahrain and Spain, reigning How the teams fared in testing wasn’t the only champions Red Bull lurched from one big news in F1 this week, said Kevin Eason in mechanical disaster to another. Until the final day, “their longest run of the entire winter was Vettel: will his car make the grade? The Times. The prospect of a London Grand Prix – taking in the likes of Big Ben and Trafalgar just 20 laps – a third of a race distance”. There Square – has moved a step closer. When the idea was mooted in were even rumours – fiercely denied by Red Bull – of a hissy 2012, it was dismissed as a publicity stunt by Santander, sponsors fit from world champion Sebastian Vettel over his car’s of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. But last week the inadequate performance.

Government launched a consultation on closed-road motor sport events in Britain – if ministers’ proposals go through, it will be It’s difficult to see Vettel and his new teammate Daniel Ricciardo much easier for local councils to organise races on public roads. even finishing the first race in Australia, said Daniel Johnson in As you’d expect, Bernie Ecclestone is desperate to make it happen.

The Daily Telegraph. Williams, on the other hand, are flying.

He claims it would be “a lot better than the Olympics”.

Ahead of this season they stopped using Renault engines – the

Football: is Wayne Rooney worth it?

“You have to hand it to Wayne Rooney,” said Mark Ogden in The Daily Telegraph. The Manchester United striker “certainly knows how to play the money game”. Just 12 months ago, he was “hurtling towards the exit door” at Old Trafford: his relationship with Alex Ferguson had broken down; he had lost form and fitness, and Robin van Persie had “usurped him as United’s main man”. Now, the 28-year-old is sitting on a new fiveand-a-half-year contract worth $501,000 a week.

apparently earns less. But United manager David Moyes had little choice. Finding an available replacement would be hard enough, let alone paying for them. And with his side languishing sixth in the league, and out of both domestic cups, he can’t afford to lose one of his best players. Rooney knew that – and capitalised.

The contract is a sign of things to come for United, said Oliver Kay in The Times. Assuming they don’t Rooney and Moyes qualify for next season’s Champions League, they will have to offer world-class It’s a “dizzying” amount of money, said Daniel players much more money than clubs with a Taylor in The Observer – especially when you place in Europe’s elite competition. If United are consider that Lionel Messi, who is two years to get out of this mess, they’re going to have to younger and has four Ballons d’Or to his name, pay over the odds to do it.

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Sporting headlines Football Chelsea beat Fulham 3-1 to remain at the top of the Premier League. Arsenal’s 1-0 loss at Stoke allowed Liverpool to move up to second, with a 3-0 win over Southampton.

Cricket England went into their final ODI against West Indies drawing the series 1-1, having lost the first game and won the second. South African captain Graeme Smith announced his retirement from international cricket.

Snooker Ronnie O’Sullivan racked up his 12th career 147 to win the Welsh Open final over Ding Junhui.

SPRING SUMMER 2014

ARTS Review of reviews: Books

Book of the week The Triple Package

by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld Bloomsbury 336pp $31.67

The Triple Package is “one of the most controversial books of recent years”, said Matthew Syed in The Times.

Written by Amy Chua – author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a book extolling the virtues of harsh Chinese parenting – and her husband Jed Rubenfeld, it “tackles an age-old but rather taboo subject”: why certain ethnic or cultural groups do better than others. Why are 20 of the top 50 richest people in the US Jewish, when Jews make up only 1.7% of the population? Why do Asian Americans, who account for 5% of the US college-age population, make up almost a fifth of students at Ivy League colleges?

Nigerian-Americans, Mormons, Cubans and Lebanese have also been notably successful. Chua and Rubenfeld, both Yale law professors (and respectively Chinese and Jewish) argue that it has nothing to do with genes. Rather, these groups share three clear cultural traits, the “triple package”: first, “a superiority complex” (the Jews, for instance, are “the chosen people”); second, a sense of “chronic insecurity”; third, they have “impulse control”, the ability to forgo current enjoyment for future gain.

“I do admire Amy Chua’s spirit,” said Jenni Russell in The Sunday Times.

Having ignited “an international firestorm” with her last book, she’s determined to be just as “incendiary” with her follow-up. In the US, The Triple Package caused an outcry on publication, and has been dubbed “a despicable theory of racial superiority” that risks dismissing certain groups as undesirable layabouts. But the book, though “provocative”, is interesting, thoughtful and “deserves more than knee-jerk accusations of racism”.

Indeed, said Emma Brockes in The Guardian. The response seems to suggest that it is not possible to look at how ethnicity affects your chances in life without resorting to racial stereotypes – “which is absurd”. The authors’ willingness to pursue a line of enquiry that others wouldn’t is “bracing”. Yet the book is often “too flimsy or too broad to be meaningful”.

The problem with the thesis is that the authors ignore “the more obvious explanation for differences in group success”, said Daria Roithmayr on Slate.com: history. Many Cubans have done well in the US because a large chunk of the country’s upper class was dislodged by Fidel Castro, and arrived in Miami with their “investments and elite connections” intact. Indians and Nigerians don’t get ahead because they feel they are “capable of anything”; they do well because visa requirements have allowed only welleducated immigrants to settle in the US. As a rigorous argument, The Triple Package “doesn’t begin to make the grade”.

I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies

by Yaron Matras Allen Lane 276pp $33.52 Derided as “swarming and noisy, dirty and barely civilised”, Roma are a regular target for our “talk-radio gobmeisters”, said Sukhdev Sandhu in The Guardian.

But such prejudice is hardly new, according to Yaron Matras’s history.

Henry VIII expelled them from England in 1530; in 16th century Germany, the murder of Roma was not considered a criminal offence; by the 18th century, Roma found in parts of Austria were branded on the back. Worst of all, at least 100,000 were killed by the Nazis in a period that Roma refer to as “the Great Devouring”. Yet despite centuries of persecution, the majority have clung to their culture and lifestyle. Even today, most Roma people live below the poverty line. This may be the price they pay for cleaving, in Matras’s words, “to independence and flexibility in earning their livelihood”.

This “absorbing study” suggests that “almost everything we think we know or imagine about gypsies is wrong”, said Margarette Driscoll in The Sunday Times. Most aren’t wanderers: they travel only to fairs or annual gatherings. They probably originated in India, not Romania. Matras, a professor of linguistics who speaks fluent Romani, also describes Roma codes of behaviour. Displays of prosperity, such as lavish weddings, are considered honourable, while to knock on the door before entering a caravan would be dishonourable: homes are not regarded as private. The upper half of the body is free of shame; the lower half is shameful, and must be washed with different soap and towels. This book is full of “fascinating insights” said Katharine Quarmby in The Sunday Telegraph – and suggests that “the way we ‘gadjes’ (non-Roma) talk and write about Roma” usually “holds a mirror up to us rather than reflecting their reality”.

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Novel of the week The Strangler Vine

by M.J. Carter Fig Tree 352pp $25.12 The publishers describe this book as “a rip-roaring caper”, said Jane Jakeman in The Independent on Sunday. And it’s certainly a “fast-moving drama”; but it’s also a rich, compelling portrait of India in the 1830s, when British imperialism began to take a particularly “brutal” form. It tells the story of a young, naive lieutenant, William Avery, sent out from Calcutta in the company of an eccentric scholar to find a famous poet, who has vanished while investigating the murderous Thuggee cult. Carter’s first novel is “a great read, white tigers and all”.

“I do not remember when I enjoyed a novel more than this,” said A.N. Wilson in the FT. It is tremendously atmospheric; Carter must have spent a lifetime “reading and soaking up Indian history and geography”.

Before turning to fiction, she was an award-winning historian, said Frances Wilson in the London Evening Standard. Especially enjoyable in this novel is her portrait of the East India Company, “an early Victorian British multinational” with a hierarchy “marinated in corruption”.

It comes as “a relief” to know that a sequel is promised.

© Mike MCGReGoR/The GuARdiAN

26

The List

27

Best books… Hanif Kureishi The author and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi picks his five favourite books. His latest novel, The Last Word, has just been published by Faber at $31.63 Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud, 1901 (Penguin $18.33). A seminal work of psychology. Freud looks at memory, loss of it, mis-remembrances, words and malapropisms to investigate the mechanics of his subjects, and their engagement with the quotidian.

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, 1913-1927 (Modern Library, 6.

Vols. $125). I remember reading this when I was on the dole, and I should thank the Government for that. I spent three hours reading it every afternoon, and it was a joy. This book had a profound impact on my own writing. Proust’s gimlet eye and focus on the minutiae of the everyday, and

its reflective transcendence, has continued to inspire me. Perhaps the greatest examination of memory in fiction – but it also bursts with colourful characters and gorgeous prose.

To Sir With Love by E.R. Braithwaite, 1959 (Vintage $15). Maybe the first book to deal with what it meant to be black in postwar Britain. A British Guiana-born ex-serviceman begins work as a teacher at an East End school, and has to negotiate not only the prejudice of his peers but the scorn of his pupils. He slowly gains respect and motivates his despondent class. A heroic book, guided by the integrity and heroism of one man.

Music

Eroticism by Georges Bataille, 1957 (Penguin $18.33). Bataille looks at sex through the cipher of transgression, and how, to surpass loneliness and ephemerality, we must overcome taboo and engage with eroticism. The prose is coruscating, and Bataille’s insights brave, startling and unique.

Sound waves

Gig of the week: Bob Geldof

The Irish Village, Dubai, 7pm, Friday, 14 March Ireland’s Bob Geldof is better known as a media tycoon and talking head nowadays than as a working musician. But last year’s reunion tour by his former band The Boomtown Rats proved there’s plenty of life in the 62-year-old Live Aid founder. Indeed the Louder than War website was full of praise for Geldof’s ability to get the crowd “clapping and cheering” and a high-energy performance that saw him “gesturing wildly, spinning and dancing, often leaning out over the crowd”. Hardly anyone goes to see Bob Geldof to hear new songs, of course. He’ll be relying on old Rats favourites like I Don’t Like Mondays, Rat Trap and She’s So Modern to get the crowd going. Fans of the Irishman’s solo career – a more select group one suspects – will be waiting to hear a handful of hits including This is the World Calling and The Great Song of Indifference. This concert is part of the Irish Village’s St Patrick’s Day celebrations so the, erm, crack should be exceptional.

New albums

The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant

by Mavis Gallant, 1996 (Bloomsbury $28.33). Mavis Gallant was one of the most sagacious observers of the human condition. Her portraits of struggling individuals – particularly in her stories set in Paris – are among the most moving things I’ve read.

CEO Wonderland (Modular)

Various New Faces (Kitsune)

Does the world really need another “Scandi electronically-enhanced indie band” who sound a bit like Little Dragon or Lykke Li, asks Hype magazine. CEO certainly hope so. Best track on the album is the Cocteau Twins-influenced Harakiri, which is “as ecstatic a song as we’ve heard in a long time”, says Hype.

This compilation from the Kitsune label provides a showcase for new talent.

You may never have heard of Antimatter People, Hyetal, Gallant, Superfood and Solomon Grey, but at least one of them is going to make it big.

“All in all, this is a mixed bag that is a bit more relaxed and less inclined towards the full-on electro of yore,” says Hype.

Some of the biggest names in pop were vying for the Oscar for Best Original Song this year, but none of them could beat a Disney princess.

Let it Go, a tune from the studio’s animated flick Frozen, won the category against competition from U2, Pharrell Williams and Karen O from the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. No-one was too surprised that the Disney song – written by Kristen AndersonLopez and Robert Lopez – won the honour, the LA Times reports. Songs from Disney movies have won the original song Oscar in three of the past four years.

Can you belieb it? Justin Bieber is only 20. The Canadian pop star has been in no end of trouble recently, but he took a break from his hellraising to celebrate his 20th with his family in Atlanta, Georgia.

It can’t be easy having famous musicians as parents, particularly if they give you a daft rock star name.

Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale have dubbed the latest addition to their family Apollo Bowie Flynn Rossdale. Which is a bit odd, but not as odd as Moon Unit Zappa (Frank’s kid).

Crypto-currencies are all the rage and the music industry now has its own version of the Bitcoin. The Songcoin is the brainchild of Pimovi, a music and entertainment company, which has teamed up with one of the architects of the Namecoin currency, reports International Business Times.

Pimovi said it will offer discounts that cater to musicians and fans.

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

28 arts The Monuments Men Dir: George Clooney 1hr 58mins (PG-15) World War II caper ★★

Mr Peabody & Sherman Dir: Rob Minkoff 1hr 32 mins (PG)

Animated adventure ★★★★

Non Stop

Dir: Jaume Collet-Serra 1hr 46mins (PG-13) Action thriller ★★★★

Make Your Move

Dir: Duane Adler (PG-13) 1hr 50mins Dance romance ★★

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Film George Clooney seldom seems to put a foot wrong, both as an actor and a director. But watching The Monuments Men, his World War II art-recovery thriller, one gets the feeling that the crown has slipped, writes Andrew Pulver in The Guardian. The tale of a US Army unit devoted to recovering works of art looted by the Nazis landed with a “thud and a splutter” at the Berlin Film Festival because it lacks action and excitement. That’s only the start of the film’s problems, writes Pulver. “Filled with unearned patriotic sentiment, sketchy to the point of inanity, and interrupted every few minutes with neurotic selfjustification”, the movie displays “none of the nimble-witted sleight of hand, nor indeed oldfashioned suspense, of Argo, the last historical caper movie with which Clooney was involved.”

Writing in The Independent, Geoffray McNab says The Monuments Men is “profoundly frustrating”. Why? Because Clooney “simply can’t settle on a tone for the story he is trying to tell.

As a result, he ends up stranded in some no man’s land between joshing Robert Aldrich-style action movie, rousing Second World War epic and essay in sappy art-history nostalgia.”

The two stars of Mr Peabody & Sherman are unusual, writes David Gritten in the Daily Telegraph.

Mr Peabody is a wealthy canine who also happens to be a genius. Sherman, his adopted human son, is also whip-smart and excels at school. The duo is well served in this big screen animation by director Minkoff, whose credits include The Lion King. The vehicle “literally driving the plot” is Peabody’s timetravel machine the WABAC (pronounced way back), which spirits him and Sherman off to the French Revolution, ancient Egypt, the Renaissance and the Trojan wars, writes Gritten. “In each era, there’s a light sprinkling of historical fact within the context of comedic situations. We learn why Mona Lisa’s smile might have been so discreet, what was going on inside the Trojan horse – and the importance of cake in the France of 1789.” Variety’s Guy Lodge says the movie is “sufficiently bright and gag-laden to lure families”, but its success at the box office will depend on how children accept its “bizarre premise”. Lodge says its important not to over-think the ideas that underpin the film or the bizarre relationship of its two central characters.

Irish star Liam Neeson began his transformation into a B movie action star with the highly successful Taken movies. Now he’s crowned himself king of the B movies thanks to this “airplane thriller that never threatens to make any sense,” writes Tom Shone in The Guardian. Every “Neesploitation” film has certain conventions, writes Shone. He’s always having his daughter or his wife stolen from him and things always go badly when he gets on a plane or arrives at an airport. Non Stop is no different. No sooner has Neeson’s nervous air marshal settled in his seat and fastened his seat belt that someone begins sending him text messages demanding $150 million. If the money isn’t forthcoming, the anonymous blackmailer threatens to begin executing passengers at 20-minute intervals. The good news is that Non Stop works, writes Scott Mendelsohn in Forbes. This is the “kind of film that Hitchcock might have made in his heyday, or at least one he would have enjoyed”. Variety’s Scott Foundas agrees that director Collet-Serra has done a fine job with the material. The director is an “able-bodied genre craftsman with a love of old-fashioned plot mechanics and an unusual generosity to actors”, writes Foundas.

Romeo and Juliet meets Saturday Night Fever in this “frivolous dance romance”, writes Edmund Lee in the South China Morning Post. The idea of warring families settling their differences on the dance floor is as formulaic as it sounds. Hardly surprising, because director Adler was also responsible for 2001’s Save the Last Dance, 2006’s Step Up and 2008’s Make it Happen. Make Your Move only makes sense when the characters bust some moves. “Between the dance sequences lies the embarrassment that is the story proper – one which involves a pair of star-crossed lovers from duelling New York gangs who run the city’s hottest underground nightclubs,” writes Lee. The movie’s principal cast members are Dancing with the Stars’ “hottie” Derek Hough and BoA (aka The Asian Queen of pop). The best thing about the movie is “the blend of dancing and art,” writes Suloshini Jahanath in the Star Online. But here’s the problem: “while the dance scenes are amazing, they are the only good thing about this movie.

The plot is so formulaic you know what’s going to happen way before it happens.”

Obituaries

29

Classics scholar who helped build a nation Palestine where a love for the Arab world William Duff William Robert ‘Bill’ began. It was also there that he met his 1922-2014 Duff, whom the Financial Polish wife Irenka.

Times called “the last official link between the Gulf’s colonial After returning to Oxford to study Arabic, era and its commercially dynamic Duff was then posted to Kuwait with Bank present” passed away of natural causes in of Iran and the Middle East, a forerunner Dubai on 14 February. He was a financial of HSBC. After Duff was appointed as the expert who served Dubai’s previous ruler, financial adviser to Sheikh Rashid in 1960, His Highness Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al he designed and built the financial Maktoum, during the early years of the architecture that channelled two decades of emirate. Duff devoted his life to Dubai oil revenues into infrastructural and played a bigger part than any other development, from electricity and water to westerner in the early transformation of ports, airports and hotels. the emirate from obscure outpost into global hub. Among his many Duff: nation builder Gerald Lawless, President and Group CEO contributions Duff set up the Dubai of Jumeirah Group, said Duff was an example to all. “All I can Department of Finance and Dubai Customs. He was a say is that he was a real gentleman, a great example of the founder member of the Seamens Mission and also expatriates who lived in Dubai and contributed to this nation. instrumental in the establishment of Dubai Ports World and He loved Dubai. His generation contributed so much and was a Jebel Ali Free Zone. big part of the fabric of Dubai for so long,” Lawless said.

Duff also established the first British curriculum kindergarten, Unlike other expatriates such as Sir Maurice Flanagan, Emirates primary and secondary school, the Dubai English Speaking Airline’s founding chief executive, Duff went unhonoured by the School. Furthermore, he was the founding member of the British government, despite decades of promoting UK-Dubai ties.

Christian Cemetery Committee and the Dubai Electricity Co, which is now the Dubai Water and Electricity Authority.

But Duff, who is survived by Irenka, daughters Diana and Sheila and four grandchildren, never regretted his life as a civil servant.

Born in Singapore on 13 May 1922, Bill Duff attended As he told his family: “It is not about the money. How many Cheltenham College before reading classics at Oxford. After people get to help build a country?”

World War II interrupted his studies, his soldiering ended in

The troubled genius who invented the TV sketch show numbers. He rose to prominence in the Admiral Einstein invited him to tea.

Broadway Revue in 1949, opposite the Hitchcock called him the diminutive Imogene Coca. During intensive greatest comic since Charlie meetings, his gag-men, who also included Chaplin. In his 1950s heyday, he fronted TV Woody Allen and Neil Simon, would face him programmes – Your Show of Shows, Caesar’s in a semi-circle. It was a little like “the Sun King Hour – attracting some 60 million viewers. Yet and his courtiers”, as Simon recalled. like so many brilliant comedians, Sid Caesar was punished by “a law of negative Caesar made the most of their material. In one compensation”, said Dick Cavett in The New of his best sketches, he conjures hilarity from York Times. Offstage, he seemed diminished – the simple premise of a German general being tormented by self-doubt, prone to rages. dressed by an agile valet (Howard Morris). In “Without a character to hide behind, Sid was another, he plays a reluctant guest on a This is lost,” Larry Gelbart, one of his remarkable Your Life-style TV show, who soon collapses stable of writers, observed. As his star waned, into helpless sobbing. “It was fun, but hard,” Caesar fell prey to drug and alcohol addiction.

Caesar confessed of his glory years.

There were months in the 1970s when he never got out of bed, except to phone for beer His colleagues knew the great man lost his when his wife’s back was turned. Once, he Caesar: the world’s strongest comic temper (there was the time he asked a cabbie if was astonished to learn he had recently made he recalled what it was like to be born, before a film in Australia. His only memories of the attempting to drag him out of his cab through the window), but trip were of getting on the outward flight and a particularly few realised how much Caesar was drinking, said The Daily beautiful sunset.

Telegraph. When his show was axed in the late 1950s, the comic, aged 36, disappeared into what he called his 20-year blackout.

Caesar, who has died aged 91, was born in Yonkers, New York, where his Jewish parents ran a 24-hour diner. Young Sid never understood the babble of languages spoken by the clientele, but he Sightings were rare, and usually sponsored by his alumni.

Simon wrote a one-man show for him in the 1960s; in the did develop an uncanny ability to imitate them, honing the 1970s he appeared in Brooks’s Silent Movie (and also in a “double-talk” (fluent gibberish that sounded foreign) that became cameo in Grease, as Coach Calhoun). In the 1980s he sobered a staple of his act. Not gifted academically, he was shy and short up with the help of a self-created form of therapy. Every day he as a boy but eventually grew to a strapping 6ft 2in, his physique recorded improvised dialogues between “Sid”, the wise paternal consolidated by weightlifting. Mel Brooks, another of his writers, remarked that his boss wasn’t only the world’s funniest comedian, version of himself, and “Sidney”, his unruly infantile side.

“Everybody wants to have a goal,” he once reflected. “Then he was also the strongest. you get to that goal, and then you gotta get to another goal.

But in between goals is a thing called life that has to be lived Caesar started his professional career playing the saxophone, but and enjoyed. it soon became clear his real talent was for the patter between Sid Caesar 1922-2014

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

Best properties

30 Middle East: Space and style in Dubai

Dubai: Le Reve, Dubai Marina. A state-of-the-art, furnished penthouse spread across 13,400ft2. The large balcony has extensive views of the Marina and there’s a cinema room for when you feel the need to look at something else. Other features include five bedrooms and separate rooms for a maid and a driver. Le Reve amenities include valet parking and a temperature-controlled swimming pool. $19,057,990; Provident Estate, (971 56 758 4841).

Dubai: Shams 1, Jumeira Beach Residence. A new release of two-bedroom apartments is up for sale in one of Dubai’s most popular districts.

Located on the upper levels of the Shams 1 building, they offer views of the Arabian Gulf and Dubai Marina.

Each apartment has about 1400 ft2 of living space including a large terrace. From $598,565 Cluttons, (971 55 106 7755).

Europe: Golf course living Portugal: Quinta Do Lago, Algarve. San Lorenzo North, a resort development, offering 26 plots ranging from 2,000 to 3,000m2, is a rare chance to own an architecturally-designed home in this part of the Algarve. The houses are designed by Irish firm De Blacam & Meagher and overlook a golf course. Comprised of a “monolithic white structure” built up out of rectilinear forms, the residences are defined by an outdoor dining area on the edge of a swimming pool.

Other features include a double-height living room and a master bedroom with a large private terrace. The swimming pool, which is shaded by the main roof of the house, is illuminated at night. Price on application. Knight Frank, (020 7861 1097).

Spain: PGA Catalunya Resort, Gerona. If you take golf seriously, it’s worth noting that the PGA Catalunya resort will host the Spanish Open from 15-18 May this year. The residences are 90-minutes from the Pyrenees ski resorts, five-minutes from Girona’s main airport and 70-minutes from Barcelona. You’ll also be living just 25-minutes from the Santa Marta Beach Club. Prices on application. Catalunya Real Estate Sales Centre, (34 972 472 957)

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

on the market

31

UK: Grade II Gems

Lincolnshire: Theddlethorpe Hall, Theddlethorpe, Mablethorpe. An immaculate thatched hall set in 4 acres – which include a lake, tennis court, courtyard and a 9-acre paddock. Master suite with dressing room, 6 further beds, 2 baths, large double recep comprising dining and drawing rooms, one further recep, entrance hall, kitchen/breakfast room, office, garage and conservatory. $1.72m; Savills (01522-508908).

Devon: Exe Dene, Follett Road, Topsham, Exeter. An elegant townhouse in the Topsham Conservation Area. Master suite with dressing room, guest suite, four further beds, bed seven/sitting room, two showers, WC, 3 receps including a snug, kitchen/breakfast room.

The lovely rear courtyard garden includes a garage, garden shed and two garden stores. $1.36m; Savills (01392-455755).

Wiltshire: 1&2 Kingsbury Street, Calne. Originally a pair of attached houses and believed to date from the end of the 17th century, with an additional 18th century wing. Master suite, two further beds, attic room/study, family bath, two receps, recep hall, kitchen, study and cellar. $548,920; Carter Jonas (01672-514916).

North Essex: Spices, Wethersfield. An outstanding 14th century country home, with a 2-bed annexe created within the detached granary. four beds (one suite), two showers, two receps, garden room, kitchen/breakfast room and study. Lawned gardens include a bridge brook and storage sheds. Around 0.58 acres. $1.09m; Carter Jonas (01787-882881).

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

LEISURE Food & Drink

32

What’s On. The bresaola pizza was “huge and tasted authentic” and the spaghetti alla chitara – a simple peasant dish of fresh pasta, ricotta cheese and black pepper – had a similar ring of authenticity. Summing up: Eataly has a “lovely buzz” and it’s fun to wander the aisles of the store after your meal and buy the ingredients for the dish you’ve just consumed.

Café D’Alsace Yas Marina, Yas Island, Abu Dhabi (02) 5507896 France and Germany may not always be the best of neighbours, says What’s On, but the food at Café D’Alsace is evidence that the two nations can combine harmoniously – from a culinary perspective at least. The proximity of the Alsace region to Germany means the region’s food comes with a Teutonic accent. That’s easy to spot in Alsace’s “most emblematic dish”: the Germansounding Flammkuchen. A kind of pizza topped with cream and various meats, it is done full justice at Café D’Alsace, says What’s On. “The turkey bacon side was generously layered with meat and had just the right amount of cream so each bite didn’t ooze out of control. It was like a lighter version of the traditional pizza, as was the salmon half, which was also light and tasty, even though the salmon got lost a little in the final product”.

Café D’Alsace

Eataly The Dubai Mall, lower ground floor, (04) 3308899 Eataly is an Italian restaurant set at the rear of a “huge, bustling cafeteria”, says What’s On. Indeed it takes quite a while to reach the restaurant, a journey that takes you past a gelato bar, a coffee bar, a kitchen gadgets section, a man making mozzarella and a counter

serving chocolates. It’s worth persevering, however, because the food at Eataly is impressive. What’s On kicked off with a paper cone filled with “delicious, herby meatballs” doused with a creamy tomato sauce. An Elegante salad with sticks of pear and Parmesan was also “very good”. As you would expect, pizza and pasta “dominate the main courses”, says

Recipe of the week Try this “exotic” North African-inspired patty for a spicy alternative to a traditional burger, says Paul Merrett in his latest book. Courgette makes a less watery tzatziki, but you can always use the traditional cucumbers.

Moroccan spiced lamb burger with tomato chilli jam and courgette tzatziki For the burger: 500g minced lamb ½ onion, very finely chopped 1 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp ground coriander pinch of salt ½ tsp paprika For the tzatziki: 2 medium courgettes about 20 mint leaves, shredded 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 100g Greek yoghurt To serve: 4 floury white baps tomato chilli jam lettuce sliced red onion

• For the tzatziki, grate courgettes coarsely, squeeze out excess moisture, and add mint, garlic and yoghurt. Chill until required.

• Place burger ingredients in a bowl and mix well with your hands.

• Shape into 4 equal patties, cover and chill

until required.

• Grill the burgers

for 4 minutes each side (less if you like).

Split baps and toast on a griddle pan to give them a crisscross look. Build each burger with a blob of tzatziki and chilli jam, followed by salad.

Taken from Spice Odyssey by Paul Merrett, published by Kyle Books at $33.47

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Fuego Souk al Bahar, Burj Khalifa, Dubai (04) 4409300 Located at the base of Dubai’s best-known landmark, Fuego is a contemporary Mexican restaurant serving “a handcrafted menu and scrumptious signature dishes”, says the DubaiFoodie blog. The men shaping that menu behind the scenes are celebrity chef Anil Kumar and Mexican chef Jose (no surname supplied). They’ve created a restaurant which is “very calm and peaceful” and allows diners to “feel their unique flavours in every dish”.

DubaiFoodie sampled the guava and tequila shot ribs with papas bravas and pico de gallo (a Mexican salsa). The dish also came with a corn on the cob. The combination of the food and drink – including traditional Mexican drinks – is “wonderful”. It was followed by a selection from the tacos section: Tacos De Azada. The dish is a char-grilled premium wagyu beef tenderloin steak in a soft corn tortilla with pinto beans, Mexican rice and pico de gallo.

Out of town The Brackenbury

129-131 Brackenbury Road, London W6 (020-8741 4928) When it opened in 1991, The Brackenbury was dubbed the “ideal neighbourhood restaurant”, says Fay Maschler in the London Evening Standard. The owners sold up, but after an unsuccessful hiatus as a Filipino restaurant, The Brackenbury has recaptured its charm under Ossie Gray (son of the late Rose Gray), and chefs Humphrey Fletcher and Andy Morris. We started with a punchy Tamworth terrine (served with a celeriac remoulade), and tagliatelle alla cacciatore in a pleasing ragù of pheasant, rabbit and wood pigeon. To follow came steak: rosy slices of Aberdeen Angus bavette, frites, watercress and Béarnaise – a dish that held “no surprises” but was well executed. Also good was a spicy fish stew of bream, cuttlefish and mussels with a “slick of aioli”.

A brace of quails came with the classic garnish of Montpellier butter made with bitter leaves, herbs, anchovies and capers.

The Yorkshire ginger pudding was a “preternaturally” light sponge set off with “pretty” pink rhubarb (and custard) – perfect winter food. The Brackenbury is back, “safe and sound”. Dinner around $79 a head with wine and service.

Consumer

leisure 33

▲ Reisenthel bikebasket plus light, durable and waterproof, the Reisenthel has a useful pocket for phones and keys, and clips onto your handlebars in a flash ($60$108; www.amazon.co.uk).

▲Carrera Foldable Helmet A collapsible helmet may sound like a bad idea, but the 330g carrera complies with all safety standards, and can easily be stowed in a handbag ($90; www.probikekit.co.uk).

Mudguard Race SKS Mudguard Race ▲SKS Blade Blade If you can’t be bothered with bolting on mudguards, try these: using elasticated cable ties, they wrap onto your forks in seconds (£34; ($90; www.wiggle. co.uk).

▲

Crank Brothers 19-Function Multi Tool With all the gadgets a cyclist needs – hex keys, screwdrivers, spokes keys and a chain tool – this multi-tool is essential ($37.44; www.wiggle.co.uk).

▲

Copenhagen Wheel Available for pre-order now, this back wheel essentially turns any bike into a semi-electric model. It stores up the energy you generate when pedalling, then uses it to give you a boost when needed ($795.44; www. superpedestrian.com).

Topeak Race Rocket Master Blaster Just 18cm long, these minipumps are among the smallest on the market – but they still fill tyres quickly and efficiently ($37.44; www. wiggle.co.uk).

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Thereare aremany manyways ways ▲ Burley Honey Bee Bicycle Trailer There to carry your children by bike, but the honey bee bicycle Trailer is probably the safest. Easy to attach, it is fitted with an internal roll cage, and five-point safety belts for the two seats ($550.50; www.amazon.co.uk).

● Ideally you want to double-cleanse your face every evening. ● The first cleanse is to get rid of make-up and “daily grime”: wipe around your face using a cotton disc soaked in oil-based make-up remover. ● The second cleanse is to clean the skin.

Squeeze some non-oily facial cleanser onto your fingertips, then massage it into your face using “firm upward and outward movements with the heel of your palm”. ● Always use tepid water to rinse; anything too hot or too cold can cause broken veins.

Pat dry – don’t rub – with a towel. ● To take off waterproof mascara, “hold a remover-soaked cotton disc on the eye for 10 seconds, before gently wiping the area”.

Repeat this until the disc is clean. Do the same for “stubborn” lipsticks. ● Electronic brushes with pulsing heads are “fantastic” for stimulating the skin in your face – and they help dislodge dirt and dead skin. Use one three to four times a week.

SoURcE: ThE SUnDAy TElEgRAPh

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Tips of the week... how to remove make-up

Knog Strongman Lock A fresh take on the classic U-lock, the siliconcoated Strongman has the top Sold Secure gold rating ($108.17; www. amazon.co.uk).

▲ Brass Bicycle Bell If you’ve got an oldfashioned bike, here’s an old-fashioned bell to go with it (from $25; www. lionbellworks.co.uk).

And for those who have everything…

Already used by the likes of Google and Microsoft, the Lifespan Treadmill Desk TR 1200-DT5 enables you to walk while you work. It takes some getting used to – but will keep you fitter and healthier in the long run. $2496; www.gymworld.co.uk SoURcE: ThE MAIl on SUnDAy

Where to find... computer coding courses In September, computer programming will be added to the UK curriculum. Here are a few extra-curricular courses.

Code Club provides free extracurricular coding sessions for children, There are 1,000 clubs in the UK – and the number is growing (www.codeclub.org.uk).

Treehouse is an online coding course covering everything from building websites and apps, to creating a tech business (from $50/month; www.teamtreehouse.com).

Maker’s Academy offers intense, highly selective 12-week computer science courses in london, for beginners and intermediates ($15,975; www.makersacademy.com).

Code Academy gives free online tutorials for children in hTMl, cSS and other coding languages. It uses “badges” and “streaks” to “turn the experience into a computer game” (www.codeacademy.com).

Khan Academy offers for free a very basic online coding course for beginners and children (www.khanacademy.org).

SoURcE: ThE obSERvER

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

SoURcES: ThE SUnDAy TIMES/ThE InDEPEnDEnT/ThE DAIly TElEgRAPh/gQ

The best… cycling equipment

34 leisure

Travel

This week’s dream: South Carolina’s old-fashioned charm such a small city (population 130,000), One of the smallest and least-known US and it has some “fascinating” sights: its states, South Carolina has a “gentle” Museum of Art displays works by beauty and “unassuming” charm, says Botticelli and Monet alongside Richard Chris Leadbeater in National Samuel Roberts’s 1920s photography Geographic Traveller. Founded as the of local African American life. lower half of the colony of Carolina in The 1930s seaside resort of Myrtle 1663, it has some of the US’s loveliest Beach has plenty of tacky shops and antebellum architecture, concentrated in arcades, but is charmingly “faded and the graceful old port of Charleston. old-fashioned” too – and the wild Most tourists stick to the coast, with its backwaters around it are great for pristine marshlands and palm-lined kayaking (guides might even fish out beaches, but there’s much to see inland banded water snakes for you to too, including sleepy old towns, eerie examine). Still, the state’s most blackwater swamps and the glorious spectacular landscapes lie far inland, Blue Ridge Mountains. where the Blue Ridge Mountains rise to This is the Deep South, and it often Charleston – South Carolina meet the Appalachians. The Chattooga feels a world away from big-city River here featured in John Boorman’s America – deeply traditional, and 1972 thriller Deliverance. You won’t run into murderous “staunch” in religion. Billboards luring sinners into churches “hillbillies” today – but the “quiet beauty” of the scenery is clutter its suburban highways, and in the capital, Columbia, the unchanged, and the white-water rafting is as exhilarating as ever.

Confederate battle flag still flies outside the State House, where it America As You Like It (www.americaasyoulikeit.com) has a was deployed in protest against school desegregation in 1962. But 12-night trip from $1,744pp, incl. flights and accommodation.

Columbia is surprisingly “cosmopolitan and multicultural” for

Hotel of the week

Getting the flavour of…

A secret Greek island

It has been attracting attention from the rich and famous lately, but the lush and beautiful Greek island of Meganisi is still “firmly off the tourist radar”, says Caroline Phillips in The Times. Part of the Ionian archipelago, just off the country’s west coast, it feels lost in time, with patchy mobile reception and a population of just 1,200, none of whom locks their house or car. The Hotel Meganisi offers excellent cooking lessons, and there’s a nightclub on neighbouring Nidri, to which there are regular ferries. But the true joy here is to do nothing but sunbathe, or bounce around “hidden bays” in a speedboat, or to swim with dolphins and picnic on the shore. Ionian Holidays (020-8459 0777, www.ionianislandholidays.com) has a seven-night trip incl. flights and car hire from $945pp.

The Drunken Duck, Ambleside, Cumbria A 300-year-old inn set in 60 acres of private land above Lake Windermere, The Drunken Duck is one of the Lake District’s most popular pubs – and deservedly so, says Condé Nast Traveller. Its situation is pretty, it produces great beer in its on-site microbrewery, and its food is “outstanding” (especially the signature drunken duck, cherryglazed and served with braised red cabbage and roast potatoes).

Bedrooms are spread between the inn and an outbuilding; the best is the Garden Room, which has French windows opening onto a balcony overlooking the valley.

Doubles from $175 b&b.

01539-436437, www. drunkenduckinn.co.uk

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

An exquisite Cuban sugar town

Trinidad is Cuba’s prettiest town, and one of the New World’s oldest – a peaceful and perfectly preserved colonial gem, says Brendan Sainsbury in The Independent on Sunday. Its cobbled streets are largely carfree (horse-drawn carriages are a common sight), and the “handsome” 19th century sugar-merchants’ mansions that line them have been meticulously restored in the past few decades. Since the country’s recent economic reforms, many new private guest houses and some excellent restaurants have opened in them, and even the old government-run hotels are improving.

There are several fine museums in the town, and other attractions nearby: the Escambray Mountains are great for riding, and there is a dazzling beach at Ancón, 12km away. Scott Dunn (020-8682 5030, www.scottdunn.com) has a seven-night Cuba trip from $3,278pp, incl. flights.

A great Australian resort

A hippie Queensland surf haven that’s now reached a “classy maturity”, Noosa is like “a montage of Australia’s greatest hits”, with fantastic beaches, food and wine, and glorious wilderness all around, says Tom Fordyce in The Sunday Times. Situated 90 minutes’ drive from Brisbane, the town retains a wonderfully laid-back atmosphere despite the sophistication of its new restaurants and boutiques. Its seafront is alive with swimmers, surfers and t’ai chi classes from dawn to dusk; and even complete novices can take part in the races held every Wednesday by its yacht and rowing club. For those seeking an escape, the forests and “surf-smashed coastline” of Noosa National Park are an easy walk away, while to the north lie the only everglades outside Florida, a “watery forest of peeling paperbarks” best explored by canoe.

Travelbag (0845-543 6615, www.travelbag. co.uk) has a seven-night trip from $2,335pp, incl. flights and car hire.

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Business Companies in the news ...and how they were assessed

37

Qantas: Joyce warns of turbulence ahead

Qantas is facing another bout of turbulence, said Steve Creedy in The Australian. The Australian airline has weathered some tough times recently, but a new warning by its chief executive, Alan Joyce, has got analysts worried. Joyce told the company’s AGM that yields – the average fares paid per kilometer – are set to fall by 3 per cent on both domestic and international routes. But wait: there’s more bad news. Fuel costs are continuing to rise, exchange rates are bouncing around like an agitated kangaroo and there’s a cloud hanging over Australia’s once bulletproof economy. The airline said it was unable to give profit guidance but Deutsche Bank wasn’t as reticent.

The bank slashed its estimate of Qantas’ pre-tax profit for fiscal 2014 by $A229m – a loss of $A52m. The bank predicted a net loss at Qantas of $A36m.

Mt. Gox: Bitcoin bad apple?

The crash of Bitcoin’s “biggest bank” is the virtual equivalent of “RBS, Barclays and HSBC all going down at once”, said Emma Haslett in Management Today. “Only in this case no one will bail it out.” That’s bad news for punters who have lost 744,000 coins held by Tokyo-based Mt. Gox – equivalent to 6% of the 12.4 million coins in circulation. It’s also bad for everyone holding Bitcoins: values plunged again to around $465 this week, down from highs of $1,200 at the end of last year. Although sudden, Mt. Gox’s closure was hardly a bolt from the blue. Withdrawals from the online exchange have been suspended for weeks on the “gloriously euphemistic” grounds of “transaction malleability” problems. Put simply, it seems a “debilitating theft” has gone “unnoticed for years”, said Susan Thompson in The Times. “Hackers appear to be able to exploit a design flaw in the software that underlies the virtual currency.” Punters are divided on what this means for Bitcoin, “which has been inching towards broader acceptance despite wild swings in value and a series of scandals”. Some proclaim “the death of the Bitcoin” (again). But several rival exchanges have banded together to denounce Mt. Gox as “a bad apple” whose failure to implement good protocols led to its downfall.

RBS: what cost boring?

In banking, as we have learnt to our cost, “boring is good”, said The Independent. So we should surely welcome news of a “massive restructuring” at RBS, which will see the bank “all but eliminating” its “casino” investment banking business – even if it does mean a swathe of redundancies. CEO Ross McEwan’s plan to bolster capital at the lender (81% owned by the taxpayer) and return it to profitability involves “a brutal series of costcutting measures and disposals”, said the FT. The bank’s headcount could fall 25% in the next three to five years, equating to 30,000 jobs lost. Among the measures on the table are the disposal of the US bank Citizens. The dramatic overhaul “finally brings down the curtain on decades of attempts to turn the group into a global powerhouse”. McEwan’s strategy was resisted by his predecessor, Stephen Hester, “who firmly supported RBS’s position as a global universal bank” – but is likely to find favour in Whitehall. Still, getting there won’t be easy. The one certainty is “years more uncertainty for anyone unfortunate enough to own the shares”.

HSBC: bonus bypass

Over at HSBC, meanwhile, attempts “to get round” the EU bonus cap have resulted in chief executive Sir Stuart Gulliver being paid “allowances” of more than $53,360 a week – on top of his $2.01m salary, said Jill Treanor in The Guardian. The bank, which reported profits up 9% to $22.5bn in 2013, is the first to reveal how it will sidestep EU restrictions limiting bonuses to 200% of salary. More than 600 HSBC “stars” will be paid six or seven-figure allowances; in some cases, the payouts will be greater than base pay. No one, from the TUC to the bank itself, likes the new allowances, said Ian King in The Times. “The brothers think they stink” because they’re “weaselly”. For HSBC, it means higher fixed costs, less flexibility to reward on performance and an end to clawback arrangements. “This cannot really be what Brussels intended.”

Gulf business The region’s airlines continue to expand with Qatar Airways announcing a threetimes daily service to Sharjah International Airport and double daily flights to Dubai World Central (DWC) Al Maktoum International Airport.

Meanwhile, those heading further afield will be pleased to learn that Etihad is starting double daily flights to New York using Boeing 777-300 aircraft leased from partner Jet Airways.

Hotels in Abu Dhabi are rubbing their hands after clocking up record occupancy rates in January, Gulf Business reports. A staggering 276,970 people stayed in the city’s hotels in the first month of 2014, providing revenue of more than $142 million. The occupancy rate represents a 36 per cent increase on last year’s figures for the same period.

German firm Siemens was the last man standing when the winner of the $253 million contract to expand Qatar’s power supply system was announced. The contract, awarded by the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation, will lead to the construction of nine substations and will take about 26 months to complete.

State oil giant Saudi Aramco has filled a major post with the appointment of Abdallah Al Saadan as senior vicepresident of finance, strategy and development. Saadan is no stranger to the business having joined Aramco in 1980. He has previously worked as vicepresident of corporate planning and chief executive of the Aramco-Exxon Mobil refinery in Yanbu. Saadan replaces Mohammad al Ali, a senior vicepresident of finance, which was a post equivalent to chief financial officer.

Going up?

“Lift users at Goldman Sachs can rest easy. Or at least easier,” says John Aglionby in the FT. It transpires that the Twitter user who posted chatter purportedly from inside the investment bank, under the handle @GSElevator, was never an employee there. The writer, who won a book deal from his occasionally very embarrassing “conversational nuggets”, turns out to be John Lefevre, an ex-Citigroup bond trader from Texas. His unmasking by The New York Times will relieve Goldman: executives have long believed the tweets were a parody, but could not be certain.

The bank has announced that “the official ban on talking in elevators will be lifted, effective immediately”.

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

Shares

38 Business

Who’s tipping what The week’s best buys HSBC Investors Chronicle Despite missing its annual earnings forecast, HSBC’s capital strength and focus on faster-growth emerging markets make for a robust story. Shares are “undemandingly” rated and yield nearly 6%. Buy. 628.5p.

GKN The Daily Telegraph Shares in the car and aerospace parts-maker have risen steadily, driven by economic growth and the bull run in civil aerospace. Good geographical spread and technical edge offer resilience. Trades at a discount to peers. Buy. 410.7p.

Manx Telecom The Mail on Sunday Recently floated on Aim, the Isle of Man’s main telecoms group is a strong, well-run business with a lucrative data management arm. It is expanding, profits should soar and it is forecast to yield about 6%. Buy. 161p.

St James’s Place Investors Chronicle A wealthy customer base and a strong distribution network position the life assurer to benefit from better economic conditions. New business sales are growing and so is its asset management arm. Buy. 859p.

William Hill The Sunday Telegraph Given onerous taxation and regulatory threats, Britain’s biggest bookie is seeking to reduce its reliance on the UK market, with some success.

48% of profits are now generated online and in Australia. The balance sheet looks healthy. Buy. 397.6p.

Ocado 700

Director sells 58,000 600

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A major disposal by departing co-founder Jason Gissing hasn’t hurt shares in the online grocer, which subsequently closed above 600p for the first time. Having bought 18 months ago, non-exec Doug McCallum has banked over £300,000 in profits, after selling 85% of his stake.

…and some to sell

Form guide

Primary Health Properties Investors Chronicle The doctors’ surgery landlord continues to finance acquisitions by issuing more shares, which is off-setting growth in rental income. The dividend is still growing, but shares trade at an unjustifiable premium. Sell. 354p.

Drax Group Investors Chronicle The transformation from fossilfuel dinosaur to cleaner, greener biomass generator looks shrewd. But with uncertainty over EU renewable subsidies and the mild winter depressing power prices, shares look stretched. Sell. 802p.

Hargreaves Services Shares Coal price weakness and lack of demand in the UK is worrying for the coal miner-to-haulier. Geological problems have forced it to close a mine. Fraud problems in the Belgium business haven’t helped. Sell. 881p.

Hiscox Investors Chronicle A special payout from the Lloyds insurer has boosted the yield to a fat 8.7%. But competition is putting premium rates under pressure and the share price may struggle to retain momentum.

Sell. 652p.

JD Sports Fashion Shares Despite a strong Christmas, the sportswear-to-outdoor clothing retailer, which owns Blacks and Millets, is discounting heavily.

It is threatened by valuefocused rival Sports Direct, which is fighting for greater market share. Sell. £15.50.

Debenhams Shares Poor clothing sales and low online delivery income are worrying for the department store. The continued struggle to service the costs of long leases on its 156 stores puts pressure on margins and cash.

Sell. 74.6p.

Shares tipped 12 weeks ago Best tip RM Education Shares up 21.05% to 138p Worst tip Hyder Consulting The Daily Telegraph down 21.89% to 445.25p

Market view “Geopolitical risk is no longer a tail risk. You have to assume that it is going to rise in the short term, and not just in Ukraine.”

Callum Henderson of Standard Chartered. Quoted on CNBC.com

Market summary Key Key numbers numbers for investors investors FTSE 100 FTSE All-share UK Dow Jones NASDAQ Nikkei 225 Hang Seng Gold Brent Crude Oil DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) UK 10-year gilts yield US 10-year Treasuries UK ECONOMIC DATA Latest CPI (yoy) Latest RPI (yoy) Halifax house price (yoy) £1 STERLING

4 Mar 2014 6823.77 3671.88 16395.88 4351.97 14721.48 22657.63 1351.01 109.30 3.53% 2.71 2.69 1.9% (Jan) 2.8% (Jan) +7.3% (Jan)

$1.668 s1.216 ¥170.771

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

Best shares Best and and worst worst performing shares Week before 6830.50 3669.33 16179.66 4287.59 15051.60 22317.20 1337.00 109.51 3.45% 2.75 2.70 2.0% (Dec) 2.7% (Dec) +7.5% (Dec)

Change (%) –0.10% 0.07% 1.34% 1.50% –2.19% 1.53% 1.05% –0.19%

WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS RISES Price 956.00 Ashtead Group 2536.00 Weir Group 1038.00 Rolls-Royce Holdings 397.00 William Hill 1146.00 Capita

% change +10.14 +7.82 +6.03 +5.22 +5.14

FALLS 329.60 –9.05 Royal Bank of Sctl.Gp. 1024.00 –6.74 Pearson 95.90 –5.05 RSA Insurance Group 1419.00 –4.83 Admiral Group 1570.00 –4.44 Aggreko BEST AND WORST UK STOCKS OVERALL 0.71 +694.42 Verdes Management 0.27 –31.25 Sports Stars Media Source: Datastream (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 4 Mar (pm)

Following the Footsie 7,000

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6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index

SourCe: FinAnCiAl TiMeS

Essentra Shares The healthcare packaging and filters group is well-diversified with improving margins. It has established firm relations with tobacco companies and is ready to sell its new “superior” e-cigarettes and components.

Buy. 873p.

Directors’ dealings

The last word

40

How Lego conquered the world It was an Englishman, Hilary Page, who invented the first plastic interlocking bricks – but a Dane who patented the idea.

Charlotte Williamson reports on how a global empire was built from Lego

Lego’s HQ in Billund, Denmark: Scandinavian cosiness

You imagine that the headquarters of Lego will have been made using millions of primary-coloured interlocking bricks.

The reality, alas, is quite the opposite: the second-biggest toy company in the world, whose most recent annual profits were $4.24bn is based in a series of unassuming buildings in the drizzly town of Billund, Denmark. Inside, it’s a different story.

The ambience here is the very essence of Scandinavian cosiness (or hygge, as they say in Danish), with cheerful nods to Lego at every turn, from Lego sculptures and Lego candle-holders to the personalised Lego minifigures handed out instead of business cards by smiling employees.

they had as a child, or that they wanted.” Indeed, I spot a grey-haired granny, a precursor to the minifigure that I owned and loved.

The early sets were simple, consisting mainly of houses. Then the franchises poured in: Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Hobbit.

One of the criticisms often lobbed at Lego is that the vast majority of today’s sets encourage the building of a certain structure – be it the Star Wars Millennium Falcon or The Simpsons’ family house – with little opportunity for more creative play. Lego, of course, doesn’t see it like that. “When you’re building something in particular, the child feels proud “We’ve always said that Lego is “The bricks’ studs fit within a tolerance of a to have achieved it. But then more than a toy,” says Jatte Orduna, head of the Lego Idea 200th of a milimetre – that’s ten times finer we encourage the child to break it apart and make up House. “It’s a type of learning than the width of a human hair” something else using their that uses both halves of the imagination,” says Orduna. brain – structure and Those endless themed sets make smart business sense, though. creativity.” Orduna has been here 15 years and is full of facts.

“It’s a struggle for us because we want to sell Lego, but the For instance, there are 86 Lego bricks for every person on bricks last forever.”

Earth. The products are on sale in more than 130 countries.

More than two-thirds of British households have Lego. And Another criticism is of Lego’s perceived attitude towards girls. based on their current growth, the population of Lego minifigures will outnumber the population of humans by 2019. Last month, a letter written by seven-year-old Charlotte Benjamin went viral. “I love my Lego,” she wrote, “but I don’t like that there are more Lego boy people and barely any Lego The design studio – the company employs 180 designers – is girls.” She had a point – currently 86% of minifigures, the tiny very much off-limits; they’re working on top-secret products characters introduced to encourage role play, are male. When that will hit the shelves in two or three years’ time. Instead, Friends, the range targeted specifically at girls, launched in Orduna takes us around the Idea House, an extensive 2012, its pink-plastic stereotyping was met with howls of exhibition devoted to Lego through the years that reveals just dismay from adult women. As Charlotte said: “All the girls did how much the toy has changed (as well as how much it hasn’t was sit at home, go to the beach and shop and they had no – its first bricks still fit with the pieces produced today). In the jobs, but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people basement is an archive of every box since the early 1970s. and had jobs, even swam with sharks.”

“You get people crying here,” says Orduna. “They see the set THE WEEK 09 March 2014

The last word Yet Friends sells by the bucket-load.

Little girls clearly love the model pet salons and juice bars, while Olivia’s House, one of the main character’s homes, was Lego’s bestselling toy of 2012.

Friends was four years in development and is Lego’s most extensive research project to date. The company spoke to 3,500 girls – and their mothers – and discovered that girls prefer figures to look more realistic, so they can identify with them, as opposed to the traditional blocky minifigure. “We also found that girls like details, things they can change around a lot, and things they have seen on TV, such as exotic destinations,” says Orduna. “I know boys play with Friends, too, until they’re five. Then there’s a separation between the sexes.”

41 To maintain the quality championed by Christiansen, Lego is still made in Billund – but there are also factories in Mexico, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Inside the Billund factory, the vast floor space has been taken over by robots, 768 in all. Humans are only required for quality control. The precise engineering that ensures the pieces can be put together and pulled apart again with ease remains a closely guarded secret, while the bricks’ studs work with a tolerance of a 200th of a millimetre – that’s ten times finer than the width of a human hair.

“We’re constantly doing research with children,” says Ashton. “We go into homes, watch children play behind two-way mirrors. And we discover things we would never have thought of – such as children being so detailYet, seeing adverts from the 1960s and focused.” Employees put on gloves to 1970s of boys and girls constructing the play with the bricks to better same buildings, you can’t help but feel understand the motor skills of a sad that girls today will be building a Changing times: an advert from the early 1980s five-year-old; and the company works poodle parlour instead of a petrol (above), and the 2012 Friends range (below) with academics from the University of station. The great Lego gender imbalance Cambridge and MIT on childhood development. Play has might be about to change, though. Last month, the first Lego changed over the years. “Children today don’t have as much film, The Lego Movie, was released. It’s a charming tale of an free time as they used to, due to sports and homework,” ordinary minifigure mistaken for a “master builder” who has says Orduna. “They have a schedule. They’re not allowed to to save the universe. But the star of the piece, and the coolest be bored.” character, is a girl. “Wyldstyle is the real hero in this movie,” agrees Matthew Ashton, vice-president of design and an executive producer of the film. Ashton and his design colleague Lego has its adult fans, too, who make up around 5% of its sales. These include David Beckham, who recently revealed Michael Fuller (both of whom, incidentally, are British – there are 20 nationalities working at Lego in Billund) worked closely that he spends his evenings constructing grand edifices like Tower Bridge and the Taj Mahal. The appeal is partly with the Hollywood studio. Everyone involved wanted to make the film appear authentic, from the restricted movements nostalgia, partly escapism. “People want their moment away from a computer and want a creative and tangible experience,” of the minifigures – as if an invisible child’s hand is guiding the says Jamie Bernard, a design manager who oversees the Lego action – to the fingerprints on the bricks. “The message was Creator series aimed at the adult market. particularly important for us,” says Fuller. “Every time the characters get into trouble, a creative building solution solves Bernard, 38, is a true Lego geek. “Before I got this job, every their problem.” night I’d come home and build. Then one day I was in a toy store and there were all these other adults. I asked the assistant Lego (the word comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, who they were and was told they’re the local Lego club. I meaning “play well”) was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk joined on the spot! Before the internet, it was hard to find out Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, out of necessity. It about other fans.” Bernard visits fan events around the world was the time of the Great Depression and his wife had died, – “They’re doctors, lawyers, lots of architects and teachers” – leaving him with four children. So Christiansen started and witnesses some amazing achievements, from life-size making wooden toys. He moved into plastic after coming dinosaurs to the Brick Testament, which features 2,000 scenes across Kiddicraft self-locking bricks, a British invention by from the Bible. And no, they’re not all men.One of the best Hilary Page (who never lived to see the success of his builders is Alice Finch, who has created a sprawling Hogwarts invention; instead, his company received an out-of-court Castle out of 400,000 bricks. “She’s a rock star when she turns settlement of $74,897 from Lego in 1981). Lego modified the up to these events,” says Bernard. bricks and patented the design in 1958. The brand launched in Britain the following year. The first minifigures were The company remains tight-lipped about its product plans for introduced in 1978 – a policeman and a nurse – and the future – although staff will admit that fans are pushing for thousands followed. Their distinctive yellow faces are to Dr Who and Sherlock Holmes themes. There are plans to make them ethnically neutral. expand into China, too. The possibilities are endless – as indeed are the Given that Lego is now one of the most recognisable brands possibilities with Lego tself. As in the world, it is remarkable to think that, just a decade Bernard says: “Think of the ago, the company was losing $1m a day. The problem? greatest works of literature, and Lego had diversified too much. The solution? Jørgen they’re made up of just 26 letters.

Vig Knudstorp, previously a management consultant Lego has 9,000-plus elements – with McKinsey, who became the first nonjust imagine what that allows family member to lead the business when you to do.” he took over from Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen (Christiansen’s grandson) in 2004. The This article first appeared in The Sunday Lego theme parks were sold off, products Telegraph. © Charlotte Williamson/The discontinued and the number of elements Sunday Telegraph. more or less halved.

09 March 2014 THE WEEK

Crossword

42 THE WEEK CROSSWORD 001 Across 1 A large conifer growing on high mountains (6) 4 Group in fine voice, an abnormally high one (8) 10 When there’s time for a bit of cricket, pick Asian? Could be me (9) 11 Garment seen in a lot of African capital clubs (5) 12 Wise picker of prizes? (5) 13 Cereal’s so wrong in this dish (9) 14 Programme I came across in cut down iPad (9) 16 Just fancy a pork pie after conclusions from team day (2,3) 18 Heard famous economist in the sticks (5) 20 Fruity US boss? (3,6) 22 Excellent, wise person in US sporting occasion (5,4) 25 Power off, TV button pressed again (5) 26 Cold house in partial darkness almost after one? (5) 27 Ethical M&S developed this brand (2,7) 28 Prize sheep for new businesses (5-3) 29 Rank university in figures (6)

DoWN 1 A very quiet King tempts joints to provide youth training (15) 2 Enigma KP small number treated as a fossil (6,3) 3 Northern climb starting to develop (7) 5 Expensive, like the entry to St Paul’s cathedral (1,3,5) 6 I’m one on motorway for fixed period (3,4) 7 Relish nothing in a dance (5) 8 Where music suddenly stops in Symphony Hall? (9,6) 9 Soft stuff taken from antenatal clinic (4) 15 Rump served on raised toast (7,2) 17 School boss’s hostess gives an advantage (4,5) 19 Order beer cases for fellow leaving (4,3) 21 Stew mostly tropical fruit (7) 23 Dot may be associated with this dance (5) 24 Tree a German boy’s climbing (4)

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sudoku 429 (easy)

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8 solution to sudoku 228

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A PIONEERING BOOK ABOUT HUMAN CAPITAL OPPORTUNITIES IN THE GCC

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Fill in all the squares so that each row, column and each of the 3x3 squares contains all the digits from 1 to 9

charity of the week

The Al Noor Training Centre for Children with Special Needs is a specialist facility located in Al Barsha, Dubai. Designed to help integrate special needs students into society, it was founded in 1981. The centre, which accommodates about 300 children, has no direct funding and relies on private donations. The children it looks after range in age from 2½ to 18 years and face challenges such as Downs Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy and Autism.

These are addressed through special education methods, physiotherapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy. Al Noor also has its own Work Placement Unit, which trains children for employment. Visit www. alnoorspneeds.ae to find out how you can help.

THE WEEK 09 March 2014

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