4 NEWS

The main stories

What happened

What the editorials said

Shock win for Erdoan

For Erdoan, violence made all the difference, said an

editorial in The New York Times. The June election result,
which gave the AKP 248 seats was too
short for Erdoan to form a majority.
Instead, the president called for a snap
election in November, and has used the
past five months to promote a politics
of instability in the country casting
himself as the only antidote.

Turkeys ruling Justice and Development

Party (AKP) defied pollsters predictions to
win a clear majority in last weekends snap
election a victory which has further
strengthened the position of the countrys
increasingly authoritarian president, Recep
Tayyip Erdoan. President Erdoan was PM
from 2003-14; his partys win means he can
Its true, said Jadaliyya.com. It was
now carry out his plan to transfer political
an election won through nationalism
power to the presidency previously a
and war-mongering. Erdoan won his
ceremonial role. Following his victory,
gamble by appearing as the strong
Erdoan told foreigners that they should
man and the safe bet, in a time
respect Turkish democracy, and stop criticising
of war and uncertainty. The AKPs
his leadership style. The whole world must
hardened nationalist rhetoric also
show respect, he said. However, this was
A vote for Erdoan
helped to attract many votes from the
ignored by Andreas Gross, the leader of the
far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), which saw its
Council of Europes election monitors, who said the security
vote share decline from 16% to 12%.
situation, arrests of opposition activists and assaults on press
freedom had made the election unfair. Erdoan has been
Erdoans gamble may have paid off to keep the AKP in
accused of re-igniting the conflict with Kurdish separatists in
power, but the countrys troubles are far from over, said
order to foment nationalism, and present himself as the
an editorial in The Guardian. In recent months, there has
guarantor of security and stability. Many commentators believe
been an increased crackdown and manipulation of the media
his win will exacerbate divisions in a country already polarised
in Turkey, while the worst development has been the
on ethnic and religious lines, and further destabilise the wider
renewal of war with the PKK (the armed wing of the Kurdish
region. Meanwhile the Organisation for Security and
insurgency). If Erdoan did not engineer the breakdown, he
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said they had serious
has certainly capitalised on it.
concerns over the fairness of the Turkish election.

Disaster in Sinai

now suggests that the terror group or its

affiliates planted a bomb on the plane, said
CNN. And a Middle East source briefed on
intelligence matters also said it appears likely
someone placed a bomb aboard the aircraft.
Furthermore, a US satellite detected a heat
flash over Sinai at the time of the crash,
raising the possibility that a bomb exploded
on board. Built in 1997, the A321 was among
the oldest in service, but its operators, Metrojet,
insist it was in good repair.

President Putin declared a national day of

mourning for the 224 people who died when
a Russian airliner crashed over the Sinai
Peninsula in Egypt on October 31. The Airbus
A321, heading for St Petersburg, broke up in
mid-air shortly after leaving the Red Sea resort
of Sharm el-Sheikh. There were no survivors.
Almost all of the passengers were Russian
The debris from the A321
holidaymakers. The plane had abruptly
If this does indeed turn out to be a terrorist attack, the effect
disappeared from radar screens without making a distress
on Egypts tourism industry will be catastrophic, said
call. A local jihadi group with links to ISIL claimed to have
Richard Spencer in The Daily Telegraph. Tourism, which
orchestrated the crash, to kill the Russian crusaders.
once accounted for a tenth of the national economy, has been
blighted by five years of unrest, but Sharm el-Sheikh was
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi dismissed the ISIL
its one bright spot. Proof of a jihadi link would be just as
claim as propaganda and warned against jumping to any
unwelcome to Putin, said John R. Bradley on his Spectator
conclusions before investigators had a chance to study the
blog. The president has sold his military intervention in Syria
black box flight recorders. While most experts believe the
to his fellow Russians as a way of making them safer. Yet
insurgents lack surface-to-air missiles capable of shooting
the opposite may now be true.
down a plane flying at 30,000ft, a US intelligence analysis

It wasnt all bad

Researchers from the University of
Tokyos Institute of Industrial Science
have developed a new type of glass
that is almost as tough as steel. The
revolutionary new substance which
does not break when dropped or
when struck by another object
would be useful in a wide variety
of applications, from automobile
windows, to skyscrapers to
smartphones and tablets, said
phys.org. Atsunobu Masuno, an
assistant professor at the institute said
that there were plans to move into
mass production of the new durable
glass within the next five years.

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

In a remarkable act
of generosity, a New
Zealand rugby star
gave his World Cup
winners medal to a
young fan, moments
after the final whistle.
Charlie Lines, 14, was
so thrilled by the All
Blacks victory, hed
raced onto the pitch,
only to be wrestled
to the ground by a
steward. Sonny Bill
Williams saw the incident and, sympathising with Charlies overexcitement, helped him up, put the medal around his neck and
insisted he keep it, even after the boys parents offered it back.
Why not try and make a young fellas night? Williams said.

Dubai-based domestic
helper Shanti Robin struck
gold this week when she
became the lucky winner of
a 50gm gold bar. Robin 52,
who has been working as a
domestic helper for the past
22 years, was one of 30
frequent users of the
Dubai metro and RTA public
buses to be awarded the
prize. Robin, who is the sole
breadwinner of her family
and supports her four
children back home in India,
could not hold back her
tears as she received the
prize, reported Gulf News.

and how they were covered

NEWS 5

What the commentators said

What next?

The hijacking of an electoral democracy by a president who has a singular view of the future
may not be new, but it certainly is a new phenomenon in Turkey, said Mostafa Minawi
on TheHill.com. The very real worry now facing Ankara is a
quick descent into autocracy. If the sweeping amendments to
Turkeys constitution that Erdoan proposed in 2014 were to pass,
Ankaras political system would swiftly degenerate from one of a
strong parliamentary democracy to a system where the real power
would become concentrated in the hands of Erdoan.

Following the election,

Turkey has ramped up its air
strikes against the Kurds,
reported Foreign Policy. In
addition to the strikes, the
military has also imposed
curfews in the southeastern
Diyarbakir province.

Indeed, the election result has brought up the question of

whether Turkey will slide further down an authoritarian path,
said Deutsche Welle. But there are still some constitutional barriers
to Erdoan being able to advance any autocratic goals. The AKP
would need 331 votes, or 14 more that its current number of
seats, to pass an amended constitution and send it to a
referendum, or 367 votes to pass a new constitution outright in
parliament without a referendum. And all opposition parties
Turks protest in Istanbul
are against a presidential system. The one loophole is if the AKP
tries to assimilate the far-right MHP, after its poor performance in the election.

Erdoan now holds a strong

position both in Turkey and
with his countrys European
neighbours. In the absence
of any external pressure,
Erdoan is likely to continue
his suppression of the media,
and will make sure critical
outlets and journalists
are silenced.

For Turkeys western allies in Europe and the US, Erdoans victory presents a mixed
blessing, said Marco Vicenzino on HuffingtonPost.com. The West sees Erdoan as a known
quantity in an increasingly turbulent region. The recent talks between Erdoan and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel have also highlighted the presidents key role in any agreement to
stem the migrant flow from Syria. Its likely that any agreement would require European
funding in exchange for reopening Turkeys EU accession talks. Meanwhile, Erdoan will keep
using his leverage to extract maximum concessions from Europe. For now at least the pressing
situation in the region has caused other Western concerns about Turkey such as human rights
abuses in the country to take a backseat.

Just a day after the election

Turkish authorities raided a
weekly magazine and charged
it with insulting the
President, said Ranj
Alaaldin on the LSE website.
The rule of law will further
suffer now that Erdoan has
his majority.

Aamers release
At last, hes free, said The Observer. After a
nightmare 14 years in US captivity during
which time he was never charged with any
crime the last British resident held at
Guantnamo Bay was released and flown home
last week. Extraordinary that Aamer, now 46,
should have suffered this appalling ordeal at
the hands of our closest ally.

Aamer: Justice

Aamers years of inhuman and degrading treatment

began in 2001, said Ruth Blakeley on TheConversation.com,
when he was seized by Afghan bounty hunters, and sold to
the Americans. A Saudi national with a British wife, he
claims to have been working for an Islamic charity in
Afghanistan. While still there, he was regularly beaten and
interrogated, allegedly in the presence of British intelligence
agents. Aamer was then transferred to Guantnamo, where
he was singled out for particularly harsh treatment,
perhaps for leading protests about conditions at the prison.

He spent long periods in solitary confinement,

and was brutally force-fed when he went on
hunger strike. Although recommended for
release, this was repeatedly blocked by the US.
But lets not treat him as returning hero, said
Douglas Murray on his Spectator blog. He
may not be the innocent he claims to be.
Leaked documents reveal the US suspected him
of being a close associate of Osama bin
Laden; former Guantnamo inmates have
fingered him as an al-Qaeda activist.

Aamer may indeed be an enemy of the West, said the

Daily Mail. And it certainly leaves a bad taste that, like
other former detainees, he may now be in line for $1.53m
in compensation. But the rule of law must be upheld.
If Washington believed it had enough proof to convict him,
Aamer should have been put on trial. The reality is that
much of their evidence was almost certainly extracted
under torture, and was thus worthless. There are still
unanswered questions about Britains collusion in that
torture, but by and large this was a good week for justice.

THE WEEK

Russia observed a
national day of
mourning last Sunday,
in response to the deaths of 224 people last Saturday on
board a Metrojet Airbus returning to St Petersburg from
the Egyptian holiday resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. In the
aftermath of the tragedy, the UK halted all flights to and
from the country, amid fears that an ISIL bomb caused
the crash. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoan
celebrated a return to power after his AKP party
succeeded in gaining a majority in the countrys snap
election on 1 November (see Main stories, above). China
remained in the headlines too, after announcing the end
of the countrys one child policy (see Talking points, page 25) and declaring that the dispute
over the Spratly islands could lead to war (see Controversy, page 6).

Editor-in-Chief: Obaid Humaid Al Tayer

Managing Partner and Group Editor: Ian Fairservice
Editorial Director: Gina Johnson
Group Editor Business: Guido Duken
Deputy Editor Business: Vishwas Kulkarni
Deputy Editor: Emma Hodgson
Senior Art Director: Tarak Parekh
Designer: Sanil Kumar
Picture Researcher: Hilda DSouza
Editorial Assistant: Londresa Flores
General Manager Production: S Sunil Kumar
Assistant Production Manager: Binu Purandaran
Chief Commercial Officer: Anthony Milne
Group Sales Director: Craig Wagstaff
Publisher: Imane Eddinari
Sales Manager: Katie Coleman

Head office: Media One Tower, Dubai Media City,

PO Box 2331, Dubai, UAE.
Tel: +971 4 427 3000; Fax: +971 4 428 2260
email: motivate@motivate.ae

OUR
OFFICES

Dubai Media City:

Office 508, 5th floor, Building 8,
Dubai, UAE
Tel: +971 4 390 3550; Fax: +971 4 390 4845

Abu Dhabi:
PO Box 43072, UAE
Tel: +971 2 677 2005; Fax: +971 2 677 0124
email: motivate-adh@motivate.ae

London:
Acre House, 11/15 William Road,
London NW1 3ER, UK
email: motivateuk@motivate.ae

Printed by: Emirates Printing Press, Dubai

The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. Licensed by
Dennis Publishing, 30 Cleveland Street, London, W1T 4JD

8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

6 NEWS

Controversy of the week

Tension builds in the South China Sea

The Hagues Permanent Court of
Tensions in the South China
Arbitration. The ongoing case is
Sea reached a new high
being closely watched by the US
when a US warship sailed
and other Asian nations that are
close to two of Chinas
claimants in the South China
newly built manmade
Sea, said the newspaper.
islands without warning in
late October. Located more
Its true, said The Wall Street
than 500 miles from the
Journal, and support for US
Chinese mainland, the
action has been growing
islands (which have been
amongst other Pacific-Asian
built on top of several reefs
countries. Malaysian Defence
in a contested area) include
Minister Hishammuddin
port facilities, military
Hussein described the patrol
buildings and an airstrip,
of the USS Lassen as very
with the most recent images
important and said that
showing two further
Filipinos: Protesting Chinese construction
countries with a stake in the
airstrips under construction.
region should exercise their right to operate in
In response to the US sailing the USS Lassen by
international waters. The ministers comments
two of the islands, Beijing warned that the
follow similar expressions of support from
dangerous and provocative act could lead to
Australia, the Philippines and South Korea.
a minor incident that sparks war, reported
The Guardian.
Whats interesting is the response by the heavily
state-controlled press in China, said Chun Han
There is no doubt that the US has officially
Wong in the WSJ. Traditionally, Beijing has used
stepped into a very complicated matter and
such antagonist actions to rally jingoism amongst
its a risky one, said CNN. Aside from the
the Chinese people. With the latest crisis, however,
stern warning to Washington, China also
Chinas state media diligently broadcast Beijings
summoned its US ambassador to Beijing, reported
diplomatic dmarches, but commentators also
the news site. China regards the South China Sea
called for calm. The dual tones, analysts say, reflect
as one of its core national interests. That means, if
necessary, China would go to war to defend them. the challenge for the Communist Party during
Reducing the tension between the two global powers times of diplomatic tension: how to harness
populist patriotism without triggering excessive
has become a key critical issue for countries.
nationalistic outbursts. The fact is the economies
and therefore fates are increasingly
But does China have a legitimate claim over
intertwined. Perhaps symbolic of the Chinese
the Spratly islands area of the South China
reaction, a sole protester outside the US
Sea, questioned The New York Times. The
Embassy in Beijing was swiftly removed by
Philippines also lays claim to the area, and have
police, within minutes of arriving.
recently had their case approved to be heard at

Only in the UAE

UAE sports officials have
said they are open to the
prospect of staging Manny
Pacquiaos last fight here in
Dubai, said Gulf News. The
Filipino boxer arrived at
Dubai Airport on Monday
night. Pacman is out injured
until March, having damaged
his shoulder in his defeat to
Floyd Mayweather Junior in
May this year, but he is
expected to have one last
fight in April 2016 before
retiring ahead of the
Philippine general election
in May, where he is standing
for senator. Dubai Sports
Council general secretary
Saeed Hareb said, Definitely,
we are looking for that,
nothings official but if he
wants to, definitely we will sit
and discuss it. When asked
at the airport if hed like to
stage his last fight in the
emirate, Pacquiao said: Of
course, Id love to have a fight
here in Dubai.

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Good week for:

Charlie Sheen, after Margarita Palestino, a dentist who had
filed a lawsuit against the troubled Hollywood actor, decided
to drop the case. According to the suit, Sheen was seeking
treatment for an abscess and allegedly ripped off the nitrous
oxide mask Palestino had placed on him and shouted, Im
going to kill you!
Justin Bieber, who has been taken off formal probation after
he was found guilty of vandalism last year for pelting eggs at his
neighbours house. As part of his sentence, he performed 40
hours of community service at a family homeless shelter, doing
maintenance and janitorial work. He also attended 12 anger
management counselling sessions and was required to pay his
former neighbour $80,900 in restitution.

Bad week for:

Oscar Pistorius, as South African prosecutors have started
an appeal hearing to determine whether the athlete should
be convicted of murder instead of culpable homicide. The
Paralympian was released from prison last month after
serving one year of his five-year term for killing his girlfriend
Reeva Steenkamp.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, who has been slapped with
a one-match stadium ban and a $61,729 fine following his
conduct during his sides 2-1 loss to West Ham on 24 October.
The ban arrives at a bad time for Mourinho and Chelsea, which
currently stands at 15th in the Premier League with 11 points.

Boring but important

The Emirates Red Crescent
(ERC) has announced that
the first batch of waste
disposal trucks has arrived
to Aden, Yemen, said Gulf
News. The initiative is a
part of the UAEs pledges
to enhance environmental
sanitation in Yemen,
particularly following the
countrys recent wave of
shattering events. The ERC
has reported that up to
$1.23 million has been
allocated to acquire a
total of 16 waste disposal
trucks and 1,600 waste
containers. For the first
phase, 150 containers and
four trucks will be used to
clean up Adens eight
districts. The ERC reported
recently that a total of
91,987 families in Yemen
have been receiving
extensive humanitarian aid.

Poll watch
Plus-size labelling is out of
fashion in a poll conducted
by ModCloth, an e-commerce
site specialising in vintageinspired fashions and
accessories. The online
retailer interviewed about
1,500 women between 18
to 35 years in the US who
identify as wearing a US size
16 or larger. About 60% of
them reported feeling
embarrassed about going
to a separate store or
department to find their
size, the survey found, while
about 65% said theyd prefer
to find their size in the same
section as all the other sizes.

Middle East at a glance

Cairo, Egypt
Blogger back behind bars: Prominent
Egyptian blogger, Alaa Abdel Fattah, who
had previously been released on bail, has
been ordered back to jail. The activist was
arrested due to his participation in an illegal
protest. The arrest of Abdel Fattah, 32, came
a day after his sister, 20-year-old Sanaa Seif,
who was tried alongside 22 others, was
handed a three-year sentence in a separate
case for breaking the same law, said Al
Jazeera. The legislation has evoked shock
and outrage, both in Egypt and abroad. The
bill, which stipulates that protests cannot be
held without government approval, initially
targeted supporters of deposed former
president, Mohamed Morsi. Since then, it
has also targeted secular and youth activists
such as Abdel Fattah.

Maheen, Syria
ISIL advances westwards: ISIL militants
have captured the town of Maheen, in
Homs province in western Syria a
breakthrough which brings the territory
controlled by the terrorist group to within
13 miles of the main road linking
Damascus to the city of Homs. ISILs next
target appears to be the Christian town of
Sadad, close to Maheen; there have
already been reports of clashes there this
week. Talks between regional and world
powers on how to end the Syrian civil war
took place in Vienna last Friday, and for
the first time they included Iran, a key ally
of Bashar al-Assad. Tehran has long
clamoured to join the talks, but within
days had threatened to quit the next
round, due within weeks, citing the
negative and unconstructive role played
by its regional rival Saudi Arabia.

NEWS 7

Baghdad, Iraq
Ahmed Chalabi dies at 71: Ahmed
Chalabi, the Iraqi politician notoriously
credited with influencing the US decision
to invade Iraq in 2003, was found dead
in his home in Baghdad, apparently
having suffered a heart attack. Chalabi
lived in Baghdad following years of exile
in the UK and US. His political career,
(much of it in exile) spanned decades
and his knack for political survival was
the one constant in a career marked by
dramatic dips, said The Wall Street
Journal. Chalabi, a Shiite, briefly stood for
prime minister last year, but failed to reach
his goal of running the country. He never
completely shed his tainted reputation from
the Iraq war and the contentious policies he
championed afterwards.

Tehran, Iran
Kentucky Fried Confusion: Only a
day after it opened, officials shut
down what was rumoured to be
the first and only branch of the
American fast food giant KFC.
However, the restaurant manager
claimed that the establishment,
called Halal KFC, had nothing to
do with the American firm. Police
justified the decision alleging that
the outlet was operating with a
fake license. The closure comes
amid concerns amongst
hardliners about growing
Western influence in Iran as
relations with a number of
countries improve, said BBC
news. Several Western countries are
seeking closer business ties with
Tehran following a historic nuclear
deal between Iran and P1+5.
Hebron, Israel
Military shuts down Palestinian radio
station: The Israeli military raided a
Palestinian radio station in the West
Bank on Tuesday and confiscated
equipment it said was being used to
broadcast calls to attack Israelis, said
Huffington Post. The military shut
down the Al Hurria radio station in
Hebron overnight, accusing it of
inciting violence in the volatile West
Bank city. Eleven Israelis have been
killed by Palestinian attacks, while 69
Palestinians have been killed as a
result of Israeli violence. Over the
past month Palestinians have carried
out 29 attacks in the city, including
22 stabbings, four vehicular assaults
and three shooting attacks according
to the military, said the New York
Times. The apartheid state of Israel
has received sharp international
criticism for the death of 2,200
Palestinians, including women and
children, after it launched a vicious
military assault in Gaza in 2014.

Mukalla, Yemen
Cyclone ravages al-Qaeda stronghold: A rare
tropical cyclone lashed the southern coast of
Yemen last Tuesday. The port city of Mukalla,
controlled by militants from al-Qaeda, suffered
enormous damage. Thousands fled as the storm,
named Chapala, brought hurricane-force winds,
heavy rain and huge waves to the area. While no
casualties were reported, residents of Mukalla, the
capital of Hadramawt province, told Reuters that
the seafront promenade and many homes had been
destroyed by the cyclone. The World Health
Organisation (WHO) delivered trauma kits for
1,000 patients in Mukalla, which has been
controlled by al-Qaeda since April.

Dubai, UAE
Fox to open a theme park: 20th
Century Fox announced its plans to
open a theme park in Dubai by 2018.
The complex, monikered 20th
Century Fox World Dubai, is to
follow the opening of a similar park
in Malaysia. Al Ahli Holding Group
has signed an agreement with 20th
Century Fox Consumer Products that
allows it to build four Fox parks
anywhere outside the US, said The
National. The first will be a four
million square foot property in Dubai
containing attractions based on Fox
products such as The Simpsons, Ice
Age, Night at the Museum, Planet of
the Apes and Titanic. Dont be
surprised if you see Kate Winslet
landing in Dubai in the near future.
8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

8 NEWS

Europe at a glance

Sumte, Germany
Tiny village sent 750 refugees: A one-street
village in Lower Saxony has become a
potent symbol of the difficulties facing
Germany as the nation scrambles to
accommodate the thousands of refugees
pouring daily across its borders. In early
October, the mayor of Sumte population
102 was told that the rural hamlet would
be required to absorb 1,000 asylum
seekers, after officials identified disused
office buildings on its edge as ripe for
conversion into housing. In response to
concerns raised by local residents, most of
whom are pensioners, as well as a survey
showing the sewerage system would be
unable to cope, the number of incomers
was later reduced to 750 the first of
whom were bussed in this week. According
to The New York Times, one of the few
locals who seemed enthusiastic about the
resettlement plan was Holger Niemann,
32, the lone neo-Nazi on the district
council. It is bad for the people, but
politically it is good for me, he said.

Berlin, Germany
Hitler comedy is
a hit: Look
Whos Back, a
film comedy
about the
return of Hitler
to modern-day
Germany, has
become an
unlikely hit,
topping the
box-office charts
in its third week of release. The film, based
on the novel by Timur Vermes, uses a
Borat-style format, in which scenes
featuring real people reacting to Hitler
as he wanders around Berlin are
interweaved into the narrative. Germans
should be able to laugh at Hitler rather
than viewing him as a monster, director
David Wnendt told The Guardian.
But it should be the type of laugh
that catches in your throat and
youre almost ashamed.

Moscow, Russia
Ministers $18m palace: Russias defence
minister, Sergei Shoigu, has built a $18m
country retreat outside Moscow, and
sought to disguise his ownership of it,
according to anti-corruption campaigners.
Documents published by the AntiCorruption Foundation, led by Kremlin
critic Alexei Navalny, suggest that Shoigu
first tried to hide his ownership of the vast
residence built in the style of a Chinese
pagoda by registering it first in his
daughters name and then his sister-inlaws. The propertys value is equivalent to
around $18m; yet the Shoigu familys total
declared income for 2010-12 was $2.7m,
raising questions over how they could
afford such a palatial residence.

Paris, France
Weatherman fired: One of Frances
best-known TV weathermen has been
sacked by the state broadcaster for writing
a book in which he accused politicians,
scientists and others of exaggerating the
threat posed by climate change. Philippe
Verdier announced his dismissal in an
online video over the weekend, describing
it as an attack on media freedom. He
claims the French authorities are trying to
stifle dissenting voices ahead of the major
UN global conference on climate change
which begins in Paris at the end of the
month. The so-called COP21 conference
aims to cement the most ambitious
agreement yet to mitigate the effects of
global warming and cut carbon emissions.
However, in his book, Verdier argues that
global warming could be good news for
France boosting tourism, cutting energy
bills and improving health.
Bucharest, Romania
PM resigns over fatal blaze: Romanias
prime minister resigned this week, along
with his government, a day after more
than 20,000 people took to the streets to
protest about a nightclub fire that killed at
least 32 people last Friday, and seriously
injured many more. The blaze at the
Colectiv club, housed in a basement in
Bucharest, started when fireworks set off
during a rock concert set alight foam
pillars. Hundreds of people, some as young
as 14, then stampeded for the only exit.
On Monday, police arrested the owners of
the club on suspicion of manslaughter. But
protesters blamed the government too, for
allowing corruption to compromise the
enforcement of safety regulations. This
week, PM Victor Ponta already facing
unrelated charges of fraud and tax evasion
said he hoped the resignations would
satisfy the protesters.
THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Dhekelia, Cyprus
David Camerons own private Guantnamo Bay? Migrants pleaded to be allowed to
Britain or mainland Europe after disturbances in which two tents were burnt down in
a British military base on the island of Cyprus, reported Ben Farmer, defence
correspondent for The Telegraph. The migrants have likened their captivity to being
held at Guantnamo Bay prison, as they pleaded with British PM David Cameron to
let them into Britain. The 114 refugees from Lebanon and Syria urged him to show
humanity a day after disturbances broke out and members of the group burnt down
two tents at the holding camp. The migrants are being held in Dhekelia as Cypriot
authorities process their asylum claims and details, a fortnight after they washed up at
Britains other soveraign base on the island, RAF Akrotiri. Michael Fallon, the Defence
Secretary, has emphasised that the current UK policy refuses to allow the sovereign UK
territory to become a backdoor for migrants to enter Britain. The migrants have been
given a choice of claiming asylum in Cyprus, or being deported to their home countries.
On Tuesday, one of those in the camp urged David Cameron to show humanity. Were
in his hands, if hes a real human and cares for humanity were human as well, said
Ibrahim Maarouf, 37. So dont make a lesson of us. Hes making a lesson of us so
other people do not come. He wont take us because hes afraid if we go to the UK other
people will come. We want our freedom. Mr Maarouf, an English teacher fleeing the
Shatila refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, said the situation is so dire that one of
the refugees had tried to hang himself 10 days earlier.

10 NEWS

The world at a glance

Boulder, Colorado
Rubio gains ground: Marco Rubio, the
44-year-old first-term senator from
Florida, has seen his campaign donations
surge and won the backing of a major
Republican donor, hedge-fund manager
Paul Singer following a TV debate last
week in which he outshone the other
contenders for the partys presidential
nomination. Rubio (pictured), who is
now the bookies favourite to win the
Republican race (though not the pollsters), deftly batted away Jeb Bushs
demand that he focus on his job as a senator, rather than the
campaign. Someone has convinced you that attacking me is
going to help you, he told Bush, to roars of approval from the
audience. My campaign is going to be about the future of
America, [not about] attacking anyone else on this stage.

Washington, DC
Violent crime row: The director of the FBI, James Comey, has
thrown his weight behind claims that a spike in violent crime in
US cities is at least partly down to the Ferguson effect. Ferguson
is the town in Missouri where an unarmed black teenager was
shot by a white police officer last year; believers in the Ferguson
effect say the resulting pressure on police to be more cautious in
their dealings with suspects has led to criminals becoming more
brazen. According to Comey, some of the USs biggest cities have
seen a surge in murders this year, and the chill wind blowing
through police departments may be behind this. Police, he said,
feel under siege, and are wary of leaving their cars for fear of
being surrounded by youths filming them on smartphones. His
views put him at odds with President Obama, who insists there is
no clear evidence of a crime wave, or of police changing their
behaviour, though he has asked his attorney general to investigate.

Washington, DC
$43m gas station: The US government body charged
with monitoring the cost of reconstruction efforts in
Afghanistan has revealed that the department of defence spent
almost $43m on a single fuel-filling station for motorists. The
facility, in Sheberghan in the north of Afghanistan, was the first
natural gas filling station in the country, and was intended to
show how the nations natural gas reserves could be used as an
alternative to petrol. However, it cost more than 140 times as
much as a similar project in neighbouring Pakistan. There may
be fraud. There may be corruption, said John Sopko, the special
inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.
Tupelo, Mississippi
Flag fan bombs Walmart: A Mississippi man known locally for
flying a 4ft-long state flag from his car has been arrested for trying
to bomb a Walmart supermarket that had stopped stocking them.
The Mississippi state flag features the Confederate rebel flag in
its upper left-hand corner, and following the mass killing of nine
black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in
June, Walmart, along with several other big retailers, stopped
selling the flag and related items. The home-made bomb thrown
by Marshall E. Leonard, 61, failed to detonate, and he was caught
half-an-hour later, after police spotted his Mazda car still flying
the rebel flag running a red light.
Atlanta, Georgia
Octogenarian recidivist: A notorious
jewel thief who spent decades
stealing gems in both the US and
Europe is back behind bars at the
age of 85 after being caught
shoplifting a pair of $690 earrings
from an Atlanta department store.
Doris Payne (pictured) kicked off
her criminal career at 23 by stealing
a diamond valued at $22,000. She served several stretches in jail
before apparently retiring from crime aged 75. The US authorities
believe she has used at least 22 aliases over the years, and got
away with her crimes more often than she was caught.
Cancn, Mexico
Seaweed causes stink: Thick layers of smelly brown seaweed have
been accumulating on beaches across the Caribbean, and are now
threatening the economies of tourist spots across the region. The
algae, called sargassum, has been documented in the area for
centuries, but oceanographers say that this years bloom is the
largest ever. In Antigua, piles of the seaweed have grown to more
than 4ft high; in Tobago, the authorities have declared it a natural
disaster, citing the disgusting stench emitted by the algae rotting,
along with the dead fish and turtles caught within it. And in
Mexico, the Cancn authorities have offered petty criminals
release from custody in exchange for their help in clearing some
1,000 truckloads of the stuff from the beaches.
THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Bogot. Colombia
Government offers truce: Colombias
President Juan Manuel Santos has
offered to enter into a bilateral ceasefire
with the FARC rebel group starting on 1 January boosting
hopes that a permanent peace deal with the Marxist insurgents is
now within grasp. The Bogot government has been engaged in
Cuba-brokered peace talks for almost three years, but until now
had always refused to declare a truce on the grounds that FARC
has used previous ceasefires to re-arm and re-group. However,
the rebels have been observing their own ceasefire, and have
repeatedly urged Bogot to join them. The move follows a
breakthrough in talks in September on the issue of transitional
justice or how to punish rebels who have committed crimes.

The world at a glance

Sambisa Forest, Nigeria
Hostages freed: Government troops have
rescued 338 people, almost all of them
women and children, who had been held
hostage by the Islamist militant group
Boko Haram in an encampment in the
Sambisa Forest in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria. A military spokesman said
that 138 women and 192 children had
been freed in last weeks operation.
Reports suggest that none of the rescued
women or girls were from the group of
276 schoolgirls kidnapped back in April
2014, in the town of Chibok an incident
that drew international attention to the
Boko Haram insurgency. President Buhari
came to power in May promising to crush
the militants, whose insurgency has killed
at least 17,000 people since 2009. He has
given his commanders until the end of
December to defeat them.

Turgai, Kazakhstan
Who built these mysterious 8,000-year-old
geoglyphs? Space imagery has revealed
more than 260 shapes including a
swastika and cross etched into a barren
northern steppe of Kazakhstan, said The
Daily Mail. These mystery patterns are
believed to be at least 8,000 years old and
range in size from 300-1300ft. Known as
geoglyphs, researchers believe they could
reveal details about ancient rituals in the
area, but so far progress in trying to
decipher the shapes has been slow. Now
NASA has released clear satellites
photographs of some of the shapes from
692km above Earths surface in the hopes
of speeding up the effort. Archaeologists
estimate they were created around 8,000
years ago, but have no idea who built
them, or why.

NEWS 11

Naypyidaw,
Burma
Historic election:
Burma is to hold
its first free
elections for more
than 25 years on
Sunday with the
National League
for Democracy
(NLD), led by
veteran prodemocracy
campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi (pictured),
expected to win. But a quarter of the 664
seats in parliament are still reserved for the
army, and no one from Burmas Muslim
minority, about 5% of the population, will
be standing. Even the NLD has failed to
field a single Muslim candidate following
pressure from Buddhist ultra-nationalists.

Pyongyang,
North Korea
Forced labour: The North
Korean regime is earning
up to $2.3bn a year by
sending its citizens abroad
to work in conditions that
amount to forced labour,
according to a UN
investigator. Marzuki
Darusman, an Indonesian,
said that as many as
50,000 people had been
sent abroad, mostly to do
hard physical work in
mining, construction and
textiles, in China and
Russia. The bulk of their
wages are paid directly to
the Pyongyang government;
the workers themselves
receive just a few
dollars a day.
Harare, Zimbabwe
Elephant deaths:
Three journalists
were arrested in
Zimbabwe this
week for
implicating an
unnamed police
officer and other
officials in the poisoning of scores of
elephants in the Hwange National Park.
Last month, 62 elephants were found
dead, having consumed cyanide hidden in
salt licks and oranges. Its not the first such
massacre in the park: two years ago, up to
300 elephants were killed with cyanide.
Then, poachers from local villages were
blamed. But last weekend, the state-owned
Sunday Mail cited unnamed sources who
pointed the finger at a syndicate made up
of an assistant police commissioner, park
rangers and foreign nationals. The next
day the papers editor was arrested, with
two of his staff, and charged with
publishing falsehoods.

Dhaka,
Bangladesh
Secularist slain:
A publisher of
secular books
was hacked to
death in his
office in the
Bangladeshi
capital last
Saturday, in the
latest in a spate of horrific attacks on
secularists. Faisal Arefin Dipan (pictured),
43, was killed by a group of men wielding
machetes, hours after two writers and
another publisher were attacked, though
not killed. Police believe local Islamist
extremists are behind the wave of violence:
al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent has
claimed responsibility for Dipans death.
At least four secular bloggers have also
been murdered this year in Bangladesh.

Canberra, Australia
Knighthoods scrapped: Australias
staunchly republican new PM, Malcolm
Turnbull, has scrapped the awarding of
knighthoods and damehoods a system
that had been introduced in 1976, dropped
in 1986, and then controversially revived
by Turnbulls monarchist predecessor, Tony
Abbott. Turnbull, who ousted Abbott as
leader of the Liberal party in a coup in
September, said the system was not
appropriate in a modern Australia.
Abbotts award of a knighthood to Prince
Philip is widely considered to have been
instrumental in his downfall.
8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

12 NEWS
Teetotal Flintoff

Freddie
Flintoff is
famous for
two things:
cricket and
partying. But
these days,
he doesnt do
either, says
Robert
Crampton in
The Times. Flintoff retired from
Test cricket six years ago, and
gave up drinking last year. I
just woke up one morning and
felt terrible. I thought, I cant
do this any more. I dont like
feeling like this. I dont like
what it does. So Ill stop.
Despite his laddish reputation,
his mental health is fragile.
Drinking doesnt help with
my depression. With any other
illness, if there was something
that was making it worse, you
would stop doing it. I dont see
this as any different. There are
some who think Flintoffs
boozing also took a toll on his
cricketing, and stopped him
fulfilling his true potential. But
the truth, he says, is that he
wasnt all that talented to start
with. If you
look at the
way in
which I
bowled,
it was

People
horrible. The way I batted was not
technical, really. When I first
started, I didnt set out to be great
at cricket and I didnt achieve it,
so Im not disappointed. I enjoyed
it. I played in a period when we
beat everyone in the world and
won the Ashes. Im comfortable
with what I did.
The cop with super
recognition powers
British policeman Gary Collins
never forgets a face, said Katrin
Bennhold in The New York Times.
Since 2011, Londons police force
has had an elite unit of so-called
super recognisers cops with
exceptional facial recognition
skills, who can pick out known
pickpockets at tourist spots, spot
sex offenders in concert crowds,
and recognise suspects on security
camera footage. Constable Collins,
the units star, can match a grainy
security camera image to a face he
saw on a database or street corner
years earlier. I always recognised
people, he says, but as a kid you
dont know you have a gift; you
just think everybody is like you.
During the 2011 London riots the
groups first assignment facial
recognition software identified just
one of 4,000 suspects caught on
camera; Collins identified 180. His
abilities have won him admirers on
both sides of the law. Whenever one
particular gang leader sees him on
the street, he tests Collins on the
names of his gang mates. When I
tell them, they cheer and give me a
high five. But when hes off duty,
his powers can be a curse. Recently,
Collins was almost punched.
Sometimes I stare a bit too
long, but I cant help it.
This guy I was looking
at was like, What
are you looking at?
What are you
looking at?

Gomezs secret battle with lupus

Selena Gomez wants to set the record straight, said Chris
Martins in Billboard. Two years ago, the singer and former
Disney Channel star abruptly cancelled a tour of Asia
and Australia, saying she needed to spend some time on
myself. When Gomez checked into an Arizona rehab
facility the following month, tabloids and gossip sites began
speculating about reasons for her stay. Some claimed she
was addicted to painkillers or alcohol; others suggested she
couldnt cope after her breakup with Justin Bieber, her
boyfriend of two years. In fact, Gomez had been diagnosed
with the autoimmune disease lupus. Thats what my break
was really about. I couldve had a stroke, she says. I wanted
so badly to say, You guys have no idea. Im in chemotherapy.
But I was angry I even felt the need to say that. The false
rumours made her recovery all the harder. Its awful walking
into a restaurant and having the whole room look at you,
knowing what theyre saying. I locked myself away until I
was confident and comfortable again. Rather than get angry
at the gossip sites that still hound her daily, Gomez, 23, has
learnt to channel that energy back into her acting and music
career. The hate, she says, motivated me.

Life with Elvis

Priscilla Presley was 14 when she moved to Memphis to live with Elvis. For
three years, she stayed almost in hiding wearing disguises on the rare
occasions she left the house because Elvis father was terrified that the
press would find out. He was worried that it would be another Jerry
Lee Lewis, where he married his 13-year-old cousin and that was the
end of his career, she told Tim Jonze in The Guardian. Even after they
married, she had very little freedom. Elvis kept her at home in Graceland
(while he was mostly in Hollywood, romancing a string of leading ladies),
banned her from working, and decided everything from the cut of her
clothes to the colour of her nail polish. I remember sitting down doing my
homework, she says, and when I looked up at him, he would slap me on my
forehead and say: Dont do that, it gives you wrinkles. I didnt even think about
wrinkles back then! But she was so in love that she didnt mind his overbearing
ways. At that time, I just liked that he was paying attention to me. I was a young
kid, 16 years old, so I thought, Oh, OK! As she got older, and started developing her
own opinions, the relationship became impossible. They divorced after six years, but
remained close friends. Now, at 70, she has no regrets. I missed my teenage years,
she admits. But was it worth it? It was so worth it.

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

A FULL-BOARD ISLAND ESCAPE,

WHERE ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS RELAX.

Escape to an island paradise and relax in luxury amidst the captivating natural
wonders of Sir Bani Yas Island, with a full-board stay at Desert Islands Resort &
Spa by Anantara.
With an array of recreational activities available to suit everyone, this is the perfect
place to discover a new passion. Explore the island and watch free-roaming
wildlife grazing the savannah, try mountain biking over rugged terrain or simply
unwind by the innity pool.
Full-board package includes:
Deluxe Seaview Room
Breakfast, lunch and dinner, with soft beverages
One activity per person, per stay (excluding activities from third party operators)
Rates start from AED 1,650* per room per night, based on double occupancy
*Rates are subject to 10% service charge and 6% tourism fee. Bookings are subject to availability
and minimum stay of two nights. Additional beverage packages are available on request.

Email crome@minor.com or
call from within the Middle East 800-MINOR
Internationally +971 2 656 1399
LIFE IS A JOURNEY. Visit anantara.com
CAMBODIA CHINA INDONESIA MALDIVES MOZAMBIQUE THAILAND QATAR UNITED ARAB EMIRATES VIETNAM ZAMBIA
OPENING SOON: OMAN SRI LANKA

Briefing

NEWS 15

Firearms and self-defence

The NRA says the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Is that right?
Health, meanwhile, determined
Are guns used often in
that a person with a gun was
self-defence?
4.5 times more likely to be
Not very although the evidence
shot in an assault than
on this issue is hotly disputed.
someone who was unarmed.
National Rifle Association
executive vice president Wayne
What about home
LaPierre is often quoted as
intrusions?
saying, The only way to stop a
Having a gun close at hand
bad guy with a gun is with a
might make you feel better
good guy with a gun. LaPierre
protected against violent
and gun-rights advocates point
burglars, but, in fact, the
to research that supports this
annual per capita risk of
argument, chiefly a 1994 study
death during a home invasion
by Gary Kleck, a Florida State
is 0.0000002% essentially
University criminologist. Based
zero. On the other hand, a
on a telephone survey of about
2014 study from the
6,000 people, Kleck concluded
University of California, San
that guns are used defensively to
Francisco, shows that people
stop a range of crimes, from
with a gun in the house are
simple assault to burglary to
three times as likely to kill
rape, up to 2.5 million times a
themselves as non-firearm
year. But other academics and
owners. More than 20,000
statisticians have criticised
Americans shoot themselves
Klecks conclusions, saying he
to death each year, accounting
relied on firearms owners selfIs he one of the good guys?
for two-thirds of gun
reporting their defensive gun use
fatalities. Its not that gun
problematic because some
owners are more suicidal, said Catherine Barber, who heads a
respondents might have categorised aggressive, unlawful gun
suicide prevention project at the Harvard School of Public
use as self-defence and then extrapolated that unreliable data
Health. Its that theyre more likely to die in the event that
to cover the entire nation. Those critics point to other figures
they become suicidal, because they are using a gun.
that suggest defensive gun use is actually quite rare.
Do armed civilians ever foil mass shootings?
What figures?
Yes, but not regularly. An FBI study of 160 active-shooter
Gun sceptics note that in 2012 there were 8,855 criminal gun
events between 2000 and 2013 found seven incidents in which
homicides in the FBIs database, but only 258 fatal shootings
an armed civilian shot the gunman and ended the rampage.
that were deemed justifiable which the agency defines as
Only one of those involved a typical good guy with a gun;
the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a
professionals off-duty cops and armed security guards fired
private citizen. Another study by the nonpartisan Gun
in the six other cases. Still, good guys do occasionally stop
Violence Archive, based on FBI and Justice Department data,
shooting sprees: earlier this year, a concealed-carry holder in
found that of nearly 52,000 recorded shootings in 2014, there
Philadelphia shot a gunman who suddenly opened fire inside a
were fewer than 1,600 verified cases where firearms were used
packed barbershop, killing him before he took anyone elses
for self-defence. Gun advocates counter that not all instances of
life. It could have been a lot worse, said police captain Frank
defensive gun use are reported to the police, and that in most
Llewellyn. He saved a lot of people in there. But generally
cases shots are never fired, because simply displaying a weapon
can deter a criminal. Firearms can ensure your or your familys speaking, authorities are uneasy about such civilian interventions.
personal safety, said Brian
Whys that?
Doherty, author of Gun Control on
When good guys stand down
Because most civilians dont have
Trial, even if you dont actually
Student and Air Force vet John Parker Jr. was legally
the skills to handle an activeplug some human varmint dead.
armed and ready for action when shooter Chris Harpershooter situation. In some states, a
Mercer went on a rampage and killed nine people at
Oregons Umpqua Community College in early October.
concealed-carry permit requires no
Will a gun make you safer?
But Parker and several other veterans on campus
firearms training at all. The
Most Americans think so.
resisted the urge to enter the fray, fearing police would
notion that you walk into a gun
According to recent Gallup polls,
mistake them for additional shooters. Luckily we made
store and youre ready for game
63% of adults believe having a gun
the choice not to get involved, Parker said, which
day is ridiculous, says David
in the house will make them safer
could have opened us up to being potential targets
Chipman, who served on a SWAT
and 56% think the country would
ourselves. Joe Zamudio, a hero in the 2011 mass
team with the Bureau of Alcohol,
be safer if more people carried
shooting in Tucson that seriously wounded former Rep.
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
concealed weapons. But numerous
Gabrielle Giffords, helped subdue gunman Jared
A recent case in Houston
studies suggest that owning a gun
Loughner but not before he nearly shot an innocent
man. Leaving a drug store as shots rang out, I clicked
highlights the risks of good guys
can actually increase a persons risk
the safety off, and I was ready, Zamudio recalled. I
opening fire: a man who saw a
of bodily harm and death. Research
had my hand on my gun [in] my jacket pocket. As he
carjacking in progress shot at the
published this year in the American
rounded a corner, Zamudio saw a man holding a gun.
perpetrators, but missed and hit
Journal of Epidemiology found that
And thats who I at first thought was the shooter. I told
the car owner in the head.
the 80 million Americans who keep
him to Drop it, drop it! In fact, it was another man,
Sometimes, Chipman says, the
guns in the home were 90% more
who had wrested the gun away from Loughner.
best thing to do is not to play
likely to die by homicide than
Fortunately, Zamudio held his fire. Honestly, it was a
hero, but instead try to be the
Americans who dont. A paper in
matter of seconds, he said. I was really lucky.
best witness you can be.
the American Journal of Public
8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

16 NEWS

Best of the Arabic language articles

America
wants to
divide Syria
Assim Abdul Khaliq
Al Khaleej

Kuwait: Need
to end Bedoons
suffering
Ahmed bin Bahar
Alanba

Bashar al-Assad
is set for
Russian exile
Ayman Al Hammad
Al Riyadh

Bahrain:
Targeted by
terror campaign
Jihad Al Khazin
Al-Hayat

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

The United States has not been serious

about removing Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad as it wanted the
civil war to continue and culminate
in the countrys division, an
Egyptian columnist claims in an
article published in the UAE daily
Al Khaleej. Assim Abdul Khaliq
believes the US wanted to prolong
the Syrian conflict to drain the
resources of the Arab countrys
main allies, namely Iran and its
Lebanese proxy Hezbollah. The US says one thing and does another. Its real objective
in Syria has been to maintain the regime of Bashar al-Assad in order to prolong the civil
war. Using this bad option, the US wants to achieve some strategic and tactical goals,
he argues. The first goal is to drain the financial and human resources of Syrias allies,
Iran and Hezobllah, by having them directly involved in the conflict. The second goal is
to disintegrate Syria so it will be unable to return to normality after the wars end.
Perhaps Russia knows these plans, which is why it has intervened militarily. Russia
has military bases in Syria and could use its power to protect a new Alawite state.
Kuwait should take action to end the suffering of its Bedoon community, which has
been living in the emirate for decades without any attempts to give them an identity, a
Kuwaiti columnist says in an article published in the local daily Alanba. Ahmed bin
Bahar believes that the Bedoon, an Arabic word that means without identity, have
suffered enough and that their treatment amounts to racial discrimination although they
were all born in Kuwait. He argues that the government should reward them for their
strong affiliation and allegiance to the emirate instead of neglecting them and treating
them as second-class citizens. What the Bedoon are going through is a real tragedy.
They are suffering from discrimination, isolation, negligence, marginalisation and
repression. What have they done to deserve all this? the writer asks. Thousands of
expatriates have poured into Kuwait and thousands others are still coming and receiving
the best treatment at a time when the Bedoon are neglected and ostracised. We believe
that it is time for the government to take action in this respect without delay. There is a
need for immediate decisions that will end the suffering of the Bedoon community.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
seems to have chosen Russia as his
home in exile after the end of the civil
conflict in his country, writes Saudi
columnist Ayman Al Hammad in an
article published in the Saudi daily
Al Riyadh. Assads recent visit to
Moscow and highly-publicised
meetings with Russian President
Vladimir Putin were intended to pave
the way for the Syrian leaders exit
from power in his country, which has
been rocked by a civil war for more than four years. The visit was a clear message that it is
time for Assad to leave. It appears that Putin wanted to show Assad an exit strategy. It also
appears that Assads exile has been set up and his address has been registered in Moscow,
he says. The writer stresses that the powers behind Syrias warring parties need to reach a
decision at their Vienna talks on Assads departure as a solution to the conflict. Saudi
Arabia has made it clear that it wants the Vienna meeting to focus on one issue: how Assad
will leave. Saudi Arabia doesnt want Iran to block such a breakthrough with meaningless
ideas that waste time and effort. We also expect Russia to guide Iranian behaviour to ensure
the success of these talks and end the crisis, he argues.
Bahrain has been subject to a terror campaign spearheaded by some opposition figures loyal
to foreign powers, says well-known Arab columnist Jihad Al Khazin. In an article published
in the Saudi daily Al-Hayat, he argues that statements by international human rights
organisations that Bahrain is suppressing the opposition are wrong and that they are
misinformed about what is really happening in the country. Khazin, who personally knows
most Gulf leaders, recalls his meeting with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and his crown
prince in 2011 who expressed their desire for a solution that would be acceptable to all
parties in Bahrain. I believe Amnesty International and other global human rights groups
are not aware of what is really going on in Bahrain, they just believe what they hear, Khazin
says. What is really happening in this Gulf country is not a movement pushing for
democracy but terrorism, sabotage and treachery by those who have loyalty to foreign
powers. Some of them are so shameless that they cry out for help while they are trying to
destroy Bahrains present and future. In his address at the UN General Assembly in
September, Bahrains foreign minister presented evidence of terrorism and sabotage plans
by some parties in the country. Democracy should not be sought with violence and terror.

Best of the American columnists

NEWS 19

US schools: What are cops doing there?

to the police; but it was in the late
Once again we find ourselves mired
1990s, notably after the 1999
in controversy about the way police
Columbine school massacre, that
in the US treat people of colour,
the number of full-time cops in
said Matt Taylor on Vice.com. This
US schools or School Resource
time, the target of police violence
Officers (SROs) began to
was not a young black man but a
mushroom, often with new
teenage girl sitting at her desk. The
federal grants to pay for them.
shocking video of a black highAccording to the National
school student in South Carolina
Association of School Resource
being tossed around like a rag
Officers, there are now as many
doll by a white cop went viral last
as 15,000 across the country.
week. School Resource Officer Ben
Fields had been called to the
And as a result, our public schools
classroom at Spring Valley High
have gradually become miniafter the girl was caught using her
camps, reminiscent of prisons,
mobile phone in class. When she
said Charles F. Coleman Jr on
refused to leave, he flipped the girls
TheRoot.com. Students are made
chair, slammed her to the ground,
Racism: A reality for black students
to walk silently in line through the
dragged her across the floor and
hallways, and instructed when and to whom they may speak.
handcuffed her. The FBI and the Justice Department are now
That may seem relatively benign, but add the consistent
launching separate investigations into the violent arrest, and
presence of uniformed (and, in some cases, armed) guards
Fields has been fired. But the ugly incident raises major questions
and the picture is far more frightening. But this isnt about all
about why police are in schools at all.
schools, said Jamelle Bouie on Slate.com. You dont find SROs
in posh middle-class districts. You find them in poor ones with
Am I missing something? asked David French on National
large minority populations. In 2007, 70% of in-school arrests
Review website. Ive watched this video several times and I
were of black and Latino students. The same disparity holds for
keep coming to the same conclusion. The student could have
other punitive school policies: black students are far more likely
got up when first the teacher and then the schools administrator
to be suspended from school for a minor first-time offence such
demanded she leave, so she left Fields no option but to use
as phone use. From 1972 to 2010, the suspension rate for black
physical force. This is what happens when a person resists a
students more than doubled, to 24.3%; the rate for whites crept
lawful order from a police officer to move. On the contrary,
up from 6% to 7.1% . Heres the truth: what happened at
this is what happens when you put cops in schools, said
Spring Valley High wasnt an exception or a scandal. Its how
German Lopez on Vox.com. During the crime wave of the
things work for black students.
1970s and 1980s, teachers began outsourcing discipline

How money
makes Jeb
tone deaf
Froma Harrop
Newsday

When police
refuse to
do their job
David Graham
TheAtlantic.com

What happened to Jeb Bush? asked

Froma Harrop. The one-time Republican
presidential favourite is desperately
lagging in the polls hes in single digits
in his home state of Florida and last
week slashed his campaign payroll by
40% and asked some staff to work as
volunteers. Bushs Super PAC, which,
crucially, cannot pay his staff or any other
direct campaign costs, raised an
astonishing $103 million in the first six
months of this year. Bushs mistake was
to think that this cash pile freed him from the chore of dealing with the partys difficult
grassroots voters. He cast himself as the go-to man for business interests seeking favours from
government, a stance that alienated members of the GOP base who despise corporate
welfare. Bush further aggravated the hard right with his relatively moderate stance on
immigration, and even alienated some corporate donors by behaving as if they need him more
than he needs them. Sure, the man who has replaced Bush as front-runner, Donald Trump, has
way more money in the bank. But Trump is focusing his energies on appealing to the little
people. Bush seems to have forgotten that dollars dont win elections votes do.
FBI Director James Comey seems to believe you can have a transparent police force or
an effective police force, but not both, said David Graham. Addressing police chiefs at
a conference last week, Comey said he had a strong sense that the heightened public
scrutiny of officers following last years police shooting of a Ferguson, Missouri, teenager
was behind a recent spike in crime. Cops feel constrained, he said, wary of becoming the
next viral villain in someones cellphone video, and consequently criminals have been
growing bolder. As Comey acknowledged, theres no clear evidence supporting the so-called
Ferguson effect, and factors like cheaper street drugs could be contributing to higher crime
rates. But imagine Comey is right, and camera-shy police really are holding back. The
implication of the Ferguson effect argument is that police cant keep citizens safe and crime
rates low without massive civil rights violations such as the aggressive use of force, racial
profiling, and so on that cause outrage when caught on camera. If thats true, then American
policing is much more troubled than Comey and other officials are willing to admit.
8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

20 NEWS

Best articles: Europe

Poland: Return of the xenophobes

and a fall in unemployment. But what

Democracy in Poland has taken a
made voters lurch to the right was the
giant step backwards, said Gazeta
sense that Tusks party had little to offer
Wyborcza. Since 1989, we have
the people in small towns and villages
made steady advances towards
who had been left behind by the boom.
establishing a free market, social
The influx of refugees has also caused
justice and respect for human
huge anxiety in a country with little
rights. But all that is in jeopardy
experience of immigration. PiS stoked
following the victory of the
such anxieties and made eye-catching
conservative Law and Justice party
pledges to raise child benefit and to cut
(PiS) in last weeks elections. The
the retirement age, pledges so costly that
partys persistent violation of the
economists doubt they can be honoured.
rule of law was alarming enough
Civic Platforms failure to get Polands
when it ruled in coalition between
youth into work also cost it dear, said
2005 and 2007. But now that it
Adam Szostkiewicz in Polityka. Youth
enjoys an absolute majority, its
PiS supporters: a right-wing renaissance?
unemployment is at 24%, compared
leader, Jarosaw Kaczynski, has
with 9% for the general population. Indeed, most young Poles
made no secret of his desire to lead Poland down the same
are embarrassed to admit to left-wing leanings two-thirds of
authoritarian path as Hungarys Viktor Orbn appointing
18-29-year-olds voted for the PiS.
party members as judges, muzzling the media, and changing
voting rules to strengthen the ruling partys grip on power. We
The new right-wing government wont want to antagonise the
can expect him to repay the Catholic bishops who supported
EU by aping Hungary, said Lubo Palata in Mlad fronta Dnes.
him, with a complete ban on abortion, and to hear ministers
It will face too much opposition from the many Poles who feel
rail against foreigners, homosexuals and other undesirable
they owe their new prosperity to the EU. But PiS will still make
minorities. Only last week, Kaczynski spoke of how migrants
life uncomfortable for EU leaders, said Bartosz Dudek in
could bring parasites and diseases to Poland.
Deutsche Welle. Its likely to copy Hungarys hard line against
accepting refugees, and to resist Brussels attempts to reduce
The defeat of Civic Platform, the centrist party that had been in
Polands reliance on coal. Relations with Russia, already icy, will
power since 2007, is in some ways surprising, said Christoph
worsen as it steps up rhetoric in support of Ukraine and demands
von Marschall in Die Tageszeitung. The partys open policies
permanent NATO bases be set up in Poland. After eight years of
and active engagement in the EU (its leader, Donald Tusk, is now
president of the European Council) led to soaring economic growth acquiescence, Poland is set to become a difficult partner.

FRANCE

Death of an
intelligent
nation
Die Welt

IRELAND

Why we
shun the
Travellers
Irish Examiner

RUSSIA

We ignore the
horror at our
own risk
The Moscow Times

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

I moan, therefore I am. That seems to be the motto of French intellectuals these days, says Martina
Meister. The new reactionaries are everywhere, uttering apocalyptic warnings about their nation
being swamped by unchecked immigration. In The Submission, novelist Michel Houellebecq depicts
a France ruled by Islam. Similar fears are voiced in The Unfortunate Identity by philosopher Alain
Finkielkraut (hitherto considered left-wing), and in The French Suicide by writer Eric Zemmour both
bestsellers. Strident nationalism, once taboo, is now la mode. The doom-mongers have swallowed
wholesale the Great Replacement thesis of Renaud Camus: the idea that as immigrants breed ever
faster, France will soon be mainly Muslim. Nonsense, of course about 3% of French people have a
Muslim background but it goes unchallenged by the media, which loves to stoke fierce battles
between these writers and left-wingers. One has to fear for the health of a country whose thinkers
are so obviously retreating into swansong and self-flagellation.
Even in their hour of need, Travellers find little pity in Ireland, said Victoria White. These gypsy-like,
ethnically Irish nomadic people suffered a terrible loss recently, when a fire broke out at one of the
temporary stopover sites where they park their campers. Ten Travellers died, five of them young
children. Surviving members of that family are now returning from the funerals, and they have
nowhere to go. Already, local councils and politicians are offering reasons why they cant be housed
in this or that locale nobody wants a Traveller encampment in their neighbourhood. Indeed, some
officials advocate forcing Travellers to abandon their nomadic ways and settle down in conventional
housing, which is tantamount to saying they should stop being who they are. Why do we resent
the Travellers so? Is it because they embody our own recent past? Their community suffers from the
former Irish ills of widespread illiteracy, and shockingly low life expectancy. Yet they also have a
profound Catholic faith and rich spiritual traditions connected to the land. Ireland has a duty to
embrace these people, our cousins, by providing safe and hygienic stopover sites in our communities.
After all, dont Christians open their doors to others when they are in trouble?
Will reports of Russian soldiers dying in Syria turn Russians against their rulers? Its what
happened during the 1980s war in Afghanistan, but its unlikely to happen now, says Ivan Sukhov.
The publics responses have become troublingly blunted. Russians were emotionally deaf to
reports of Russian casualties in eastern Ukraine last year. Despite the ceaseless television bulletins
showing trucks carrying the coffins of soldiers back to Russia, the public barely mumbled a
response. And we appear to be seeing the same blank response to reports of Russian deaths and
injuries in Syria. What would normally have been the lead story in news reports is now featured
as an afterthought. The Russian people appear to be in a state of emotional abnormality.
Maybe its the natural consequence of years of relentless state propaganda. Maybe the quiet
restoration of totalitarianism has turned a society of emotionally healthy individuals into a single
aggressive mass. Whatever the reason, it is vital that we Russians rouse ourselves from this
stupor while we still can.

Best articles: International

NEWS 21

Pope Francis: Showdown at the Vatican

votes to endorse concrete
Threats of a schism. False
change. Ultimately, theres a
rumours that Pope Francis has a
huge difference between a
brain tumour. Bishops accusing
document that can be
each other of doing the devils
interpreted as a permission slip
work. The Roman Catholic
for liberal bishops and one
Church has just endured a
that, from a conservative
three-week theological
perspective, actively teaches
slugfest, said Anthony Faiola
error. Alas, the bishops
in The Washington Post. The
compromise on communion
setting was the most closely
will almost certainly deepen the
watched Vatican summit, or
churchs divide, said Pascalsynod, in decades, where 270
Emmanuel Gobry in The Week.
bishops from 122 countries
Allowing national and regional
discussed the popes vision of
clerics to take divergent
creating a more inclusive
approaches on such a key
church. Liberal bishops said
question might embolden liberal
the church should do more to
bishops to go one step further
accommodate gays and the
blessing same-sex unions, for
divorced; conservatives warned
The Roman Catholic church: The fault lines erupt
instance, or saying abortion is
that doing so would undermine
OK. More-conservative bishops would then condemn their
Catholic dogma. In the end, both sides claimed victory, said
liberal peers, and voila! another schism.
Elisabetta Povoledo in The New York Times. The synods
deliberately uncontroversial final document a set of
The ball is now in Francis court, said Andrew Brown in
recommendations for Francis endorsed by at least two-thirds
TheGuardian.com. The pope clearly hoped free and honest
of the bishops ruled out any acceptance of gay marriage.
discussions would swing opinion toward his preferred
But on the question of whether divorced Catholics who
course. But three decades of conservatism in the Vatican,
remarried without an annulment should be allowed to receive
under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, wont be easy to undo.
communion, it suggested local clergy make decisions on a
While Francis is unlikely to impose a solution on church
case-by-case basis.
conservatives as is his right he has at least demonstrated
that disagreement on these matters is possible. Moreover,
If anyone won, it was conservatives, said Ross Douthat in
he has encouraged Catholics to think for themselves. God
NYTimes.com. Francis is desperate for the church to adopt
knows where that could end.
his liberal ways, but his episcopal cheerleaders lacked the

GUATEMALA

The people
demand only
honesty
El Quetzalteco

MEXICO

Vigilantes
arise where
police fail
Proceso

Guatemala has awakened, said El Quetzalteco. The election of comedian Jimmy Morales as
president this week is a new dawn for the country, a chance to scrub away the corruption
festering at all levels of government. Morales is the ultimate outsider, a man with no political
experience or connections, and an evangelical Protestant in an overwhelmingly Catholic country.
His election isnt the victory of his centre-right party, nor even of the candidate, but rather the
victory of the people who have been protesting in the streets since April, calling for a
transcendental transformation. The corruption scandal that brought down former President
Otto Molina, now in jail awaiting trial for a scheme of kickbacks and bribes, demoralised the
country. Voters turned to Morales because he promised he would be neither corrupt nor a
thief, and would speak the truth to them, no matter how uncomfortable. His task is daunting.
He must utterly reform the broken tax system and the electoral law. And he must accomplish all
this with a fractured legislature in which he has little support, his party having won just 11 out of
158 seats. This will take patience and consensus building. But as long as Morales keeps his vow
of transparency, Guatemalans will be with him.
Mexico is descending into outright
lawlessness and violence, said Jos Gil
Olmos. Killings and kidnappings by
drug gangs and dirty cops have become
routine, and now the violence is
infecting ordinary Mexicans. Last week,
two young men from Mexico City, who
went to the town of Ajalpan to conduct
a poll on tortilla consumption, were
lynched by a mob that suspected them of
trying to kidnap a child. Police said the
men were entirely innocent and tried to
protect them, but since nobody trusts the
police anymore, the officers assertion was worth nothing. A crowd dragged the men out of
City Hall, beat them to death, and burned their bodies. Such misplaced mob justice is a social
expression of weariness at the failure of government and state to ensure the safety of the
population. Mexicans are tired of being abused, assaulted, kidnapped, killed, or disappeared
by criminal gangs acting with the collusion of authorities. Since former President Felipe
Caldern declared war on the cartels nine years ago, 160,000 people have been killed and 26,000
have gone missing, and the toll is rising under President Enrique Pea Nieto despite his pledge
to halt it. What happened in Ajalpan could be repeated anywhere in the country.
8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

Health & Science

22 NEWS

What the scientists are saying

Man evolved to throw punches

Did the human hand evolve so that early

man could punch his love rivals in the
face? The received wisdom is that shorter
palms and fingers, and longer, stronger
thumbs, made early man better able to
manipulate tools, and that it was this
that drove their evolution. But scientists
at the University of Utah have run a
gruesome study to back the theory that
these proportions also confer another
advantage the ability to throw a
powerful punch. For the study, the
researchers took arms from nine
cadavers, and attached fishing wire to
the tendons in the hands. Tightening or
slackening these wires enabled them to
create either an open hand for slapping,
or a closed fist for punching. Then, using
a pendulum, they swung the dead arms
towards a force-measuring pad. Their
results showed that a punch with a
clenched fist has twice the force of a
slap with an open hand, and also that
the strain on the metacarpal bones is
greatly reduced when the fist is clenched.
An individual who could strike with a
clenched fist was better able to fight for
mates, and thus more likely to
reproduce, said Professor David
Carrier, the studys author.

A dry January does work

Countless people gearing up for the

Christmas party season will be pencilling
in a dry, or teetotal, January, in the hopes it
will undo some of the damage wrought by
festive drinking. And it could work, says
The Daily Telegraph: a study at University

study is a larger version of one involving

10 journalists at New Scientist magazine,
which got similar results earlier this year.
However, neither study established how
long the effects last if (or when) abstainers
return to their former drinking levels.

Life on early Earth

Rocky: Built for the fight

College, London, found that abstaining from

the party life style for four weeks heals the
liver, and improves blood pressure and
cholesterol levels. The researchers tracked
102 people who had all drunk heavily in
December, then went teetotal for January.
After the four-week break, their liver
stiffness an indication of damage
was reduced by 12.5%, on average; while
resistance to insulin a marker for diabetes
risk was down by 28%. The participants
also typically lost 3kg in weight. Their
blood pressure and cholesterol levels
dropped, and many said they were finding
it easier to sleep and to concentrate. The

Googles balloons to fly over Indonesia

How do you provide reliable internet
access across a country made up of
17,500 mountainous and junglefilled islands? Indonesia is home to
255 million people, but only 29%
of them have access to the web and
connections tend to be slow, largely
because the countrys geography and
scattered population makes it
expensive to lay networks of cables.
But now, Google thinks it has the
answer. Last week, the tech giant
unveiled an ambitious plan,
developed with local partners, to float clusters of giant helium balloons over areas
where there are no fixed line services.
The balloons will be 12 metres tall, and flying at altitudes of 18 to 25km, reports
The Guardian. Each of these aerial cell towers should provide connectivity to an
area of 40km in diameter using a wireless communications technology called LTE.
Subscribers to the service will connect to the network using a mobile device, and
the balloons will then relay the traffic back to the global internet. To provide a
continuous service youre talking about a complex choreography where thousands of
balloons are steered and programmed in an automated fashion, said Mike Cassidy,
leader of Project Loon, Googles global initiative to improve connectivity in remote
areas. However, local tech firms are not happy about the plan: they say it will
undermine their investment in fibre optic services.

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

In the first 700m years after the Earths

formation, scientists have long believed,
our planet was a hellish realm devoid of
life with asteroids raining down on a
landscape riddled with volcanoes, molten
rock, and poisonous gases. But new
research suggests that life may have taken
root in the Earths turbulent youth
300 million years earlier than previously
suspected, reports HuffingtonPost.com.
Our planet formed roughly 4.5bn years
ago, and was heavily volcanic for eons
as it slowly cooled. The earliest fossil
records date to about 3.8bn years ago,
when single-celled creatures began to
appear. But by studying tiny crystals
that form in magma, called zircons,
geochemists at the University of
California at Los Angeles found
microscopic flecks of pure carbon with
a signature indicating it had been left
behind by living organisms 4.1bn years
ago. Life on Earth may have started
almost instantaneously, says study
co-author Mark Harrison. With the
right ingredients, life seems to form very
quickly. He said the study suggests that
simple life-forms may be quite common
throughout the universe.

The plastic in your fish

Scientists have long suspected that waste

dumped into the ocean would ultimately
find its way into the seafood that ends up
on dinner tables. A new study provides
evidence that this is more than just a
theory, reports PopularScience.com. After
analysing fish caught off the coasts of
California and Indonesia and sold in local
markets, researchers found 25% contained
man-made debris. All of the fragments
found in Indonesian fish were plastic,
while textile fibres accounted for 80% of
the debris found in fish from California.
The studys authors say this difference
reflects the waste management strategies
in each region. Indonesia often dumps
garbage directly onto beaches and into
rivers. The United States has more
advanced waste-processing systems,
including plastic recycling, but effluent
from washing machines sent to wastewater
treatment plants is laden with synthetic
fibres. In each case, the waste is becoming
part of marine habitats. This is a wakeup call, says the studys author, Chelsea
Rochman, warning that waste dumped
into oceans might be coming back to
haunt us through the food chain. So far,
researchers have found plastic and fibre in
the fishes guts, not their flesh. But they
noted that further research is needed.

Technology

NEWS 23

Companies: Yahoos stalled turnaround

focus and discipline. Yahoos product
Three years after taking over as CEO of
lineup which includes email, search,
Yahoo, Marissa Mayer is still searching
social media, news, and even fantasy
for a viable turnaround plan, said Vindu
sports is like a buffet, said Richard
Goel in The New York Times. Yahoos
Nieva on CNET.com. Its got a little bit
third-quarter revenue and profits fell well
of everything, but no main dish. When
short of analysts expectations last week,
the company unveils its nimbler strategy, I
touching off another round of speculation
wont be surprised if some popular products
about the companys and Mayers
disappear. But a few trims here and there
future. In a call with investors, Mayer
wont do it; Yahoo needs a classic reset.
admitted Yahoo lost tens of millions of
Trouble is, Mayer is exceedingly vague about
dollars on its heavily hyped investment
how exactly thats going to happen, said
in original video content, including an
Shira Ovide on BloombergView.com.
online revival of the cancelled NBC
Luckily, the deal with Google, combined
comedy Community, and revealed she
Mayer: Trying to extend the clock
with a similar deal with Microsoft Bing,
has cut a deal with Google to power
buys her some time and revenue to keep tinkering.
some of Yahoos advertising and search results. Under
pressure from investors, Mayer said Yahoo is now working on
Mayer should take a page from AOL CEO Tim Armstrongs
a plan to narrow its strategy, promising more details within
playbook, said The Economist. Armstrong also took over an
the next three months.
internet behemoth that had fallen on hard times. But he was
bolder in investing in growth areas, such as targeted
Saving Yahoo was always going to be a stretch, said Erin
advertising and video technology. The result: in June, Verizon
Griffith in Fortune.com. When Mayer arrived in 2012, the
bought AOL for a hefty $4.4 billion. Its possible Yahoos
company had just cycled through several CEOs and was
problems are bigger than any leader can fix, said Mark
stagnating after years of uncertainty. She deployed a kitchen-sink
Garrison in Marketplace.org. Much of the companys value
strategy of trying anything and everything, spending billions to
comes from its $27 billion investment in the giant Chinese
acquire dozens of startups and luring high-profile stars like TV
e-commerce company Alibaba, which Yahoo plans to spin off as
anchor Katie Couric and tech journalist David Pogue to build
a separate company. Once that happens, investors focus will be
original content. But even though one billion people surf to Yahoo
squarely on Yahoos fundamentals. As Mayer surely knows, thats
websites and apps every month, the company still hasnt figured
out a way to make money. Now Mayer is preaching the gospel of when the pressure for a turnaround gets even tougher.

Innovation of the week

The Vivi
headset,
designed
to instantly
provide a
patients
vitals to
surgeons
during
operations, is a far cry from many
of the slickly designed wearables
you see today, said Adrian Covert
on FastCompany.com. The small
plastic device, notable for its
simplicity, clips onto the headbands
and glasses many surgeons already
wear in the operating theatre, and
can be swivelled out of the way
when its not needed. Vivi is
designed to deliver nothing but
the most crucial information,
like breathing and heart rates,
communicated via a Bluetooth
connection with the ORs medical
equipment. San Francisco-based
design firm Method initially
considered using Google Glass for
Vivi, but the designers quickly realised
it wasnt practical to shoehorn their
operating-room technology into a
product built for general use. Method
expects the soon-to-be-released
device to be cheaper than other headmounted displays.

Bytes: Whats new in tech

23andMe resumes tests
Genetic-testing
company 23andMe
once again will
provide customers
with health data after
winning FDA approval, said Andrew
Pollack in The New York Times. The
biotech startup became a Silicon Valley
sensation when it launched in 2006 by
offering consumers insights into their
ancestry and potential future health risks
through affordable DNA saliva tests. But
it hit a snag in 2013 when the FDA
barred it from providing health
information without demonstrating that
its results were accurate. The company
will now offer a scaled-down health test,
showing the risk of passing certain
inherited diseases to ones children.
Its also raising the services price from
$99 to $199.

Ad-free YouTube, for a price

YouTube is taking another
step further away from its catvideo roots, said Victor
Luckerson on Time.com. The
Google-owned companys
newly launched subscription service
dubbed YouTube Red offers ad-free
versions of YouTube videos as well as music
streaming and exclusive content from the
sites most popular video makers, such as
video game player PewDiePie and comedians

the Fine Brothers. YouTube Red costs $9.99

per month, similar to other streaming
services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime
Instant Video, and Hulu. While YouTube is
an advertising behemoth, pulling in $4bn
in revenue in 2014, reports say the site still
isnt profitable. A subscription service might
finally put it in the black. It could also line
the pockets of YouTube stars; YouTube says
the vast majority of subscription payments
will be shared with creators.

Amazon sues fake reviewers

Amazon is going
on the offensive
against fake
reviews, said
Jason Abbruzzese on Mashable.com. The
e-commerce giant has filed a lawsuit against
more than 1,000 people who allegedly
offered to write five-star reviews of products
for pay. The reviewers were listed on
Fiverr.com, an online marketplace where
users can offer their services doing everything
from graphic design to copywriting, often for
as little as $5. Amazon didnt include Fiverr
in the suit, opting instead to go after the
reviewers. The retailer has been working to
improve the quality of its reviews, revamping
its system to more heavily weight the reviews
of customers who actually bought the
product in question on Amazon. In April,
the company filed a similar lawsuit against
a group of websites that were charging for
positive Amazon reviews.
8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

24 NEWS

Talking points

Syrian refugees: Still heading for northern Europe

many Syrians think theyll never be able
Winter is setting in. Temperatures are
to go home and the prospect of staying
falling in southern Europe, and the wind
in Turkey forever is intolerable. Its
is whipping up rough seas. Experts had
government has been generous, taking in
predicted that when the summer ended,
1.9 million Syrians. But it does not give
the great migration from Syria and
refugees full legal status, which means
elsewhere into Turkey, and across the
they cannot work or even rent property
water to Greece would slow, said The
legally. Moreover, Ankara has repeatedly
Observer. But the people keep coming,
proposed that safe zones be established
spurred in part by the renewed fighting
in Syria, raising fears among refugees that
in northern Syria. According to the
sooner or later, theyll be resettled in
UN, a record 218,000 migrants crossed
zones that could prove highly unsafe.
the Mediterranean in October. Some
But events in Europe must also be
110,000 of them made landfall on
encouraging the influx, said The New
the Greek island of Lesbos (population
York Times. With the weather
85,000). There, piles of discarded
Migrants: Now or never
deteriorating, and Germany still taking
life jackets litter the coast in a stark
illustration of the scale of the crisis, while aid workers say they are refugees, but becoming very much less receptive, this must seem
running out of blankets to give the refugees, many of whom arrive like a now or never moment to get to northern Europe and
begin a meaningful life, before the shutters come down.
soaking wet and freezing. In the camps, some children are having
to sleep on bits of cardboard, wrapped in rubbish bags to keep
In Germany, there is still considerable public support for Angela
them dry. And with storms hitting the Aegean, the death toll is
Merkels policy of welcoming Syrians. But it has led to tensions
mounting. At least 50 people among them babies and children
with her political partners in Bavaria where most of the
drowned last week.
migrants arrive and among voters, who see the strain on public
services. The problem of housing the newcomers was highlighted
For those who have made it to Lesbos, the journey is far from
recently when the 102 residents of a tiny hamlet in Lower Saxony
over, said The Independent. Most will now face even harsher
were told that 750 refugees were about
conditions as they negotiate the various
to be rehoused there, in a disused office
borders that separate them from their
Why
do
they
risk
their
own
and
complex, although the one-road
ultimate destinations in northern
their childrens lives to get into
settlement doesnt even have a shop.
Europe. Hungary, which provided one
of the main transit routes into Austria,
Europe, when they could stay in the
Thats why I get fed up with the likes
sealed its border with Croatia last
relative safety of Turkey?
of Benedict Cumberbatch, said Libby
month. As a result, 100,000 people
Purves in The Times. The actor, playing
have been diverted into tiny Slovenia,
Hamlet in the West End, has taken to coming on stage after the
leading to desperate scenes on its bottle-necked frontiers and
curtain call to address his audience about the plight of Syrian
threats to close its borders too. Police reported 12,000 people
refugees, and solicit donations to the Red Cross. Fine. But last week,
entering the country in one day, many without winter coats.
he veered into Russell Brand territory by ranting about the British
Camps set up to hold a few hundred people have become squalid
government only taking in 20,000 refugees. Its easy for a charismatic
and overrun; aid agencies have warned that it may not be long
actor to get all impassioned, throw out his arm and say, Come!
before migrants, sleeping in flimsy tents or out in the open, start
But if 20,000 is not enough, could he tell us how many is? Two
to freeze to death.
hundred thousand? Two million? And were we to welcome such an
influx, where would they be housed? How well would they integrate?
Why do they come? asked Bill Frelick on OpenDemocracy.net.
Where would they work? Cumberbatch is a creative; he
Why do they risk their own and their childrens lives to get into
doesnt have to worry about the practicalities of costs and budgets,
Europe, when they could stay in the relative safety of Turkey? Its
rules and regulations; nor does he have an electorate to answer to.
a question Europeans often ask, and that the Syrian refugees
Those are things politicians must agonise over, and the answers are
themselves find hard to answer. There are many factors at play
not so easily found.
but it may boil down to this: after more than four years of war,
said. The Prime Minister of
the Lego country, Denmark, did
an excellent job of creating a
duck. But At this, Cameron
piped up. We struggled, he
confessed. It looked more like
a dog, what you produced,
agreed Gunnlaugsson. Still, he
added, they had learnt a useful
lesson: There is no wrong
way of making a duck! You can
make a duck in nine million
different ways! At least!
chimed in Cameron.

Pick of the weeks

Gossip

David Camerons EU
negotiations seem to have
taken an unexpected turn. At a
press conference following last
weeks summit of northern
European leaders, Cameron
and Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson,
prime minister of Iceland, were
asked what topics they had
covered. Gunnlaugsson
replied: We discussed
whether Keith Richards of the
Rolling Stones was disciplined,
or whether he was a slacker.
And we came to the conclusion

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

that he was an extremely

disciplined man. He practised
his guitar 15 hours a day for a
decade. That wasnt all. We
also learnt how to make a duck
from six pieces of Lego, he

In London last week, the

American author Robert Caro
recalled how he first got
started on his epic biography
of Lyndon Johnson 33 years
in the writing, and still not

finished. Caro chose the 36th

president because he seemed
a decent, likeable character. But
then one of Johnsons college
classmates told him to look at
their yearbook. At college, she
said, he was ridiculed for his
self-promoting ways and
nicknamed Bull Johnson.
Caro looked through the book
but couldnt find anything, so
he called the classmate back.
Its on pages 52 and 53, she
said. Caro then realised
someone had removed those
pages of the yearbook with a
knife from almost all the
hundreds of copies in
existence. That, said Caro, was
when he first glimpsed his
subjects true character.

Talking points
China: End of the tragic social experiment
serious gender imbalance.
One of the biggest social
Its estimated that, by 2020,
experiments in history is
China will have 30
drawing to a close, said
million more men than
Michael Sheridan in The
women. And it was all so
Sunday Times. Last week
unnecessary. Experts
China formally abandoned
believe Chinas birth rate
its one-child policy,
would have naturally come
announcing that all couples
down as the country
would henceforth be
industrialised as it has in
allowed to have two
other developing Asian
children. The strict birth
countries that have seen a
control regime was first
comparable decline without
introduced in 1979.
such draconian policies.
Officials claim that it has
Policy empowered rich elite
prevented about 400
million births, thereby easing pressure on resources Chinese demographers have been urging the
Communist Party to abandon the one-child
and accelerating Chinas economic development.
policy for at least a decade, said Simon Denyer
The policy was never applied universally, however.
in The Washington Post. But the party was loath
Ethnic minorities such as Tibetans and Muslims
to give up a policy that has empowered and
were always allowed more than one child, and an
often enriched officials across the nation, many
early reform extended the same privilege to rural
of whom took large bribes to overlook the
couples whose firstborn was a girl. In 2013, the
rules. And indeed, the vast enforcement
policy was further relaxed to allow families two
apparatus remains in place: the only difference
children if one of the parents was an only child.
is that the child limit has been raised to two.
But faced with a rapidly ageing population, Beijing
That increase may not make much difference in
has now extended the right to everyone.
practice, said Jane Bradley in The Scotsman.
The relaxation of the one-child policy in 2013
Historys verdict on the one-child policy will be
resulted in far fewer babies than expected. Many
damning, said Carrie Gracie on BBC News online.
For more than three decades, Beijing has controlled Chinese have come to think of a one-child family
as a natural unit, even if they could afford more
the most intimate details of peoples lives: issuing
children. The whole concept of extended
baby permits, policing menstrual cycles, ordering
families aunts, uncles and cousins has
forced abortions and sterilisations. The policy has
disappeared. In short, said the Chicago
caused countless personal tragedies and as a
Tribune, China may find it is too late to undo
result of people selectively aborting girls, or killing
all the damage caused by its cruel experiment.
them in infancy in order to secure a male heir a

Benghazi hearings: A victory for Hillary?

If Hillary Clinton gets elected president in 2016,
she should send thank-you notes to the House
Select Committee on Benghazi, said Chris Cillizza
on WashingtonPost.com. The former secretary of
state last week made her second appearance
before the Republican-led panel, and her first since
Rep. Kevin McCarthy let slip that the real goal of
the investigation was not to investigate the 2012
killing of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, but
to drag down Clintons poll numbers ahead of
next years election. If that was the plan, which
committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy denies, it
backfired spectacularly. Eleven hours of theatrical
badgering by Republicans succeeded only in
making the GOP look like petty, paranoid
partisans, while Clinton came across as in
control, poised, and smart. This may explain
why the hour after the committee closed for the
day was the most lucrative 60 minutes of
fundraising in Clintons campaign. Hillary is
never more alluring than when a bunch of
pasty-faced, nasty-tongued white men bully
her, said Maureen Dowd in The New York
Times. The cool composure she showed last
week may have put her in the HOV lane of
a superhighway to the presidency. Liberal
pundits are fawning over Clintons poise
and grace, said Jonah Goldberg on
NationalReview.com, rather than reporting the
hearings bombshell revelation. Two hours in,

Rep. Jim Jordan confronted Clinton with an

email sent soon after the Benghazi assault, in
which the then secretary of state told her
daughter, Chelsea, that the attack was executed
by an al-Qaeda-like group. But in public
statements made around the same time,
Clinton claimed the attack arose spontaneously
out of a street protest against an anti-Muslim
YouTube video. This is no mere game of
gotcha, said The Wall Street Journal in an
editorial. The Benghazi attacks occurred in the
heat of an election campaign in which President
Obama wanted voters to believe al-Qaeda was,
thanks to him, all but defeated. Clintons apparent
willingness to bend the truth to support that
narrative raises serious questions about her
judgement as a potential commander in chief.
The questions will never end, said Andrew
OHehir on Salon.com, because Benghazi, to
many Republicans, is no longer about the
deaths of four Americans. To them the very
word has become an ideological touchstone,
representing every paranoid, right-wing fantasy
about how Muslims, liberals, secularists,
the media and the rest are conspiring to
destroy the soul of America. Last weeks
embarrassing hearings may lead to Gowdys
committee finally being disbanded, but
Benghazi will always be with us.

NEWS 25

Wit &
Wisdom
If you want to see what
children can do, you must
stop giving them things.
Novelist Norman Douglas,
quoted on Forbes.com
Making a speech on
economics is a lot like
urinating down your leg. It
seems hot to you, but it
never does to anyone else.
Lyndon B. Johnson, quoted
in The Guardian
Everyone is entitled to
his own opinion, but not
to his own facts.
US politician Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, quoted in
Standpoint
Many people take no care
of their money till they come
nearly to the end of it, and
others do just the same with
their time.
Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe, quoted in
The Sunday Times
Like being in heaven,
without going to all
the bother and expense
of dying.
P.G. Wodehouse on visiting
New York, quoted in
The Observer
Criticism is easier to take
when you realise that the
only people who arent
criticised are those who
dont take risks.
Donald Trump, quoted in
Townhall.com
The reason people become
funny is to overcome pain.
Sarah Silverman,
quoted in Time
Better to be busy than to
be busy worrying.
Angela Lansbury,
quoted in the International
Business Times

Statistic of the week

ISIL earns about $50m a
month in oil sales, despite
US-led air strikes designed
to shut down ISIL-held oil
fields. The extremist group
extracts about 50,000 barrels
per day from wells in Syria
and Iraq selling the oil to
smugglers for a discount, in
some cases for as little as
$10 a barrel.
Associated Press

8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

Sport

26 NEWS

Rugby union: Another World Cup for the All Blacks

New Zealand have blackwashed world rugby,
said Alex Lowe in The Times. Last Saturday, in
a thrilling final, they defeated Australia 34-17 to
win their second World Cup in a row. The epic
events at Twickenham proved them to be the
greatest team in the sports history, said Chris
Foy in the Daily Mail. Indeed, they stand
comparison with any side in any sport: Brazils
footballers of 1970, say, or the West Indies
cricket kings of the 1980s. And in Richie
McCaw and Dan Carter, they possess two of the
finest players rugby has seen. It was Carter who
illuminated the grand occasion last week. In his
final match for the All Blacks, at the age of 33, the
fly-half scored 19 points including a sublime
drop-goal, ten minutes from the end, that put an
end to Australias hopes.

The Sunday Times. The All Blacks are all about

the collective. They play an all-court game:
their forwards supreme athleticism and
dexterity is just as important as the centre
partnership of Conrad Smith and Maa Nonu.

In their completeness, the All Blacks are much like

the German football team that won last years
World Cup, said Paul Hayward in The Daily
Telegraph. And thats because both have made a
religion of player development. In New Zealand,
rugby is all about the inculcation of skills: when
children learn to play, handling and running are
prioritised. Yet while skills are crucial, they arent
enough alone as the All Blacks found when they
failed to win a World Cup from 1991 to 2007.
Carter: The complete package What they lacked then is what they have now
acquired: a winning mentality. And, unlike in
England, the All Blacks coaches put their faith in players, said
What a way to go out, said Andy Bull in The Observer. Yet at the
Brian Moore in the same paper. They identify them for the long
start of the year, when Carter was struggling with injuries, many
term, ignoring blips in form. That made for a hugely experienced
in New Zealand doubted hed even make the World Cup squad.
side: Saturdays squad had a total of 1,339 caps. The fact theyre
They should have known better. Carter has not been at his
fittest in the final he wore strapping on his thigh. Yet that made now losing some of their best Nonu, Smith and Keven Mealamu
retired after the final; McCaw may follow would be disastrous
little difference, said Robert Kitson in The Guardian. Carter
for any other team, said Dean Ryan in The Observer. Not the All
proved he is still virtually the complete package: he has the
Blacks. Theyve spent years grooming replacements. Good as this
surgeons precision, the assassins calmness with the boot.
side is, theyre likely to get even better.
But its a mistake to focus on individuals, said Stephen Jones in

Football: Leicesters remarkable run

at Leicester, seldom making any changes to the line-up.
In training, Ranieri often arranges for one group of
players to outnumber another, and this experience of
playing at a disadvantage has fed the sides never-say-die
spirit. The star of the team is undoubtedly Jamie Vardy,
said Paul Hayward in The Daily Telegraph. The English
striker is the leagues top scorer, and last Saturday he
scored for the eighth successive match. But hes not the
only talent. Theres also Riyad Mahrez, the Moroccan
winger who scored the other two goals against West
Brom. Signed last year for $500,000, his old-school
wizardry may make him the best bargain in the league.
The Foxes have a knack for cheap signings, said Nick
Lucy in The Times. Marc Albrighton, a pacy winger
No one expected much of Ranieri, said Martin
Mahrez: Wizardry
with excellent delivery, joined on a free transfer. And the
Laurence in The Guardian. When the bubbly
goalkeeper, Kasper Schmeichel, is finally fulfilling his enormous
Italian was appointed in July, he was written off as a nearly man
potential. Half a year after the club looked doomed, their fans are
who had managed nine teams in the past 11 years. At Chelsea, he
earned the nickname Tinkerman yet he has belied that reputation now daring to dream of European football.
Leicester City are comeback kings, said John
Percy in The Sunday Telegraph. Bottom of the
league in April, they appeared destined for
relegation. But in a stunning turnaround, they won
seven of their final nine matches to finish the season
in 14th place. This season, under new manager
Claudio Ranieri, their remarkable run has
continued: last Saturday they beat West Brom 3-2
to go third. Having fallen behind, the Foxes fought
back in characteristic fashion they have lost just
once this season, giving them the joint-best record
in the league.

The referee whos a social media phenomenon

Sporting headlines

Referees are rarely treasured, said

Owens isnt only popular for his
Michael Calvin in The Independent
accuracy, said BBC Sport online.
on Sunday. In whichever sport they
Unusually for a referee, he is
officiate, theyre bound to alienate
genuinely funny. In 2007, he
the fans of at least one side. But Nigel
literally came out of a wooden
Owens, the Welshman who refereed
closet on a Welsh TV show (the
the Rugby World Cup final last
announcement was met with no
Saturday, is a glorious exception.
fuss in the sport). Owens is
Hes not just the best referee in rugby;
renowned for his quick-witted
hes the best in any of our major
patter with players, which is
sports. The antithesis of a rulebook
broadcast live over the
automaton, he is authoritative
microphones that all referees
without being condescending. Owens
now wear in Test matches. His
simply makes fewer mistakes than
one-liners Im straighter than
anyone else, said Steve Bale in The
that one, he once said about a
Sunday Times. Hes not infallible: at
crooked line-out throw have
Owens: In charge
Twickenham last week, he overlooked
made him a social media
a forward pass that led to a New Zealand
phenomenon.Yet he is equally capable of
penalty. But he understands that in sport, you
delivering stern lectures and the players
sometimes just have to let it go to let it flow.
never forget that he is in charge.

Football Liverpool beat

Chelsea 3-1. Arsenal beat
Swansea 3-0. Rmi Garde
was appointed manager of
Aston Villa.
Rugby union South Africa
beat Argentina 24-13 in the
Rugby World Cup third-place
play-off.
Gymnastics Great Britain won
a record haul of five medals
at the World Championships.
On the pommel horse, Max
Whitlock became the first
British man to win a gold in
the Championships.
Rugby league England beat
New Zealand 26-12 in the first
Test of a three-match series.

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

PRESENTED BY

AND MUCH MORE

BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW

platinumlist.net

tickets.virginmegastore.me

partyinthepark.ae

28

ARTS
Review of reviews: Books
If Le Carr has a yen for the business of
deception, theres no secret where he got it
from, said Roger Lewis in the Daily Mail.
His father, Ronnie the books most
fascinating figure was a conman,
whose extravagant schemes included
manufacturing laxative pills and cornering
the Chinese cracker market. Regularly
broke, he defaulted on his childrens
boarding school fees, cheated widows of
their pensions, and once served six months
in prison for fraud. Worse, he also abused
his two sons and slapped his women
around: Le Carrs mother did an
understandable bunk when the future
novelist was just five years old.

Book of the week

John Le Carr: The Biography
by Adam Sisman
Bloomsbury, $39
In the autumn of 1948, a shy 17-year-old
Englishman, sent to study German in
Switzerland, was approached by a member of
the British Embassy. Would he be prepared to
report on other foreign students attending leftwing meetings? The scene may be straight
from a John Le Carr novel, said Dominic
Sandbrook in The Sunday Times, but it is
borrowed exactly from the novelists own life.
For David Cornwell (Le Carr is a nom de
plume), espionage began early. Within a few
years of that first meeting, as Adam Sisman recounts in this
astute and thoroughly readable biography, he would be
informing on his friends at Oxford. And after a brief stint
teaching at Eton, he would go on to serve first with MI5 and then
with the more glamorous MI6 (he learnt knife-fighting from a
former Shanghai policeman). In 1964 the success of The Spy
Who Came in from the Cold allowed him to leave the intelligence
services for full-time writing, but his books were always to be
full of lies and masks. In his own words, he was born to lying,
bred to it, trained to it by an industry that lies for a living,
practised in it as a novelist.

The Witches:
Salem, 1692
by Stacy Schiff
Little, Brown, $32
In the Salem, Massachusetts,
of 1692, one moment
children were playacting; the
next, peoples grandparents
were being publicly tortured
to death, said Adam
Goodheart in The Atlantic.
Stacy Schiffs engrossing new
account of the hysteria that
overtook the village achieves
wizardry of a sort itself, making
wonderfully visible the distant world in
which the famous witch hunt unfolded. The
entire affair began when two girls started
complaining about being pinched or bitten
by invisible agents. Within nine months, 19
women and men accused of sorcery had
been hanged and one elderly farmer pressed
to death with large stones. Schiff, a Pulitzer
Prize winner, keeps our focus on the several
girls whose accusations fuelled the whole
frenzy, though. Her retelling reads most
compellingly as a kind of true-life version of
young-adult fiction. Not that the crisis
should be interpreted as merely an
adolescent prank gone awry, said Peter
Manseau in Bookforum. Among the
Puritans of Massachusetts, belief in
witchcraft predated this particular uproar,
and rearing children was such a fraught
undertaking that parents were primed to
THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Le Carr was happy to co-operate with his

biographer, said John Sutherland in The
Times, but at 84, elusion remains his
trade. So its hard to say if Sisman has uncovered the whole
truth. Indeed, he himself refers to what he euphemistically calls
Le Carrs false memories. Sisman has produced an admirable
book, said Jason Cowley in the FT, even if he does skimp a bit
on the literary criticism. But Le Carr remains an enigma because
he is a man of multiple contradictions . Hes a patriot, but has
turned down all official honours; he is friends with strident rightwingers but identifies himself as a Labour supporter. Next year,
however, should see the publication of his own memoir. Only
then, perhaps, will we have a fuller understanding of a writer
who, you suspect, remains a mystery even to himself.

believe that the Devil might want

to take them. Death by accident and
disease was so common, Schiff
writes, that a mother and father
could expect to lose two or three of
their young offspring. In this case,
the girls who began barking,
shaking and fainting eventually
started naming adult sorcerers as the
source of their affliction. As Schiff
maps the contagions spread across
25 communities, she never simplifies
the dynamics. Instead, she presents
the main actors in all their poignant,
if infuriating, humanity.
Clearly, the executioners
quickly became ashamed of their
actions, said Ruth Franklin in Harpers.
The Puritans left piles of diaries and letters
behind, but what most of them wrote in
1692 seems to have disappeared. Schiff
works brilliantly with the materials she has,
though, and she never lacks for an apt
detail as she paints a picture of 17th-century
New England as a hardscrabble land where
the Devil was so omnipresent that a
servant could credibly confess to entering
into a pact with him in order to obtain his
help with her chores. Though Schiffs
narrative slows when the trials begin, she
regains her stride in the books conclusion,
said Hamilton Cain in the Minneapolis Star
Tribune. Nimbly invoking McCarthyism
and todays movement conservatism, she
reminds us that the biggest mystery about
1692 Salem is why America remains so
susceptible to similar infections today.

Novel of the week

Dictator
by Robert Harris
Hutchinson, $30
With the final novel in his Cicero trilogy,
Robert Harris brings to an end a
remarkable literary achievement, said
Stephanie Merritt in The Observer. In the
first two books, he charted the early
fortunes of the great Roman orator and
statesman. Now we have a fitting finale
an account of his heros role in the
vicious conflicts that marked the rise of
Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman
Republic. Leaning on Ciceros own
writings, Harris seamlessly blends the
real and invented to give us a full-blooded and authentic portrait of an extraordinary figure. The book as a whole is as
gripping as its predecessors, said Oliver
Moody in The Times. But this was
Harris toughest gig yet: the events
described are hugely complex, and he
sometimes seems defeated by the one
thing-after-anotherness of history. My
problem is the language, said Sam Leith
in the FT. The story is narrated by Ciceros
slave, Tiro, and Harris struggles to turn
colloquial Latin into an apt English
idiom. But if you are untroubled by
ever so slightly cardboardy prose,
there is a huge amount to enjoy in
this Roman romp.

The List

29

Best books David Mitchell

David Mitchells new novel, Slade House, is a haunted-house story for a new
century. Below, the bestselling author of Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks names
his favourite ghost stories.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
(Dover, $3). A perfectly crafted novella
by one of literatures all-time master
stylists. A young governess arrives at an
English estate and begins seeing ghosts.
Or is she just having the mother of all
nervous breakdowns? James feeds the
reader twisted suspicions but not
straight answers. By refusing to satisfy,
he satisfies.
Strangers by Taichi Yamada (out of
print). Like every ghost story, Strangers is
also a detective story, whose core
mysteries are the questions Who are the
ghosts? What do they want? and
Can I get out of here alive? After

encountering the ghosts of his parents,

Hideo Harada starts ageing at an
unnatural speed. Are the parents
sucking the life out of him?
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley
Jackson (Penguin, $16). A paranormal
investigator rents a country manor with
an 80-year history of murder and suicide,
hoping to prove the validity of his field of
endeavour. This strange, rewarding 1959
novel by a strange, gifted novelist both
belongs to and transcends its era.
The Shining by Stephen King (Anchor,
$8). If you think you know Kings The
Shining because youve seen Stanley

Dont miss...

GIG OF THE WEEK: Vans party in The Park

Friday, 13 November, 2pm-Midnight, Dubai Media City Amphitheatre,
Dubai, UAE, www.partyinthepark.ae
Described as Dubais answer to
Glastonbury, Vans Party in the Park
presented by Whats On is Dubais
biggest multi-stage music festival, with
last years event attracting more than
7,000 people. This years festival is set
to follow suit with international acts
performing at the main stage, cuttingedge talent spinning the vinyl at the
Hype clubhouse, multiple F&B outlets,
artisan vendors and chill-out areas at the
Good picnic garden, and the hugely
popular Brunch Deck. The line-up
boasts the internationally acclaimed
Welsh band Stereophonics, indie rock
band Razorlight and The Parlotones.
Regular tickets are $95 (including
entrance to all music concerts and
areas); Brunch Deck tickets are sold out
(including access to the barbecue brunch
deck, plus entrance to all music concerts
and areas); VIP tickets are $270
(including access to the VIP deck with
unlimited food and beverages plus
entrance to all music concerts and areas).

New albums
5 Seconds of Summer
Sounds Good Feels Good (Capitol)
For its sophomore
album, Sydney quartet
5 Seconds of Summer
tasked itself with
resolving the boy
band vs. rock band
conflict that has
plagued the group since it became an
international sensation by touring with
One Direction, said Billboard music.
And the effort indeed paid off: the
album premiered at the top of the US
Album Charts.

A Great Big World

When Morning Comes (Epic)
After meeting in the
crowded practice rooms
at NYU, Ian Axel
and Chad King knew
their musical talents
combined were a force
to be reckoned with,
said Village Voice. Their music has
featured on TV shows such as One Tree
Hill and The Amazing Race. This 12-track
album features collaborations with
artists such as Futuristic. Bring out
those headphones.

Kubricks famous adaptation, youre not

wrong but youre also not right. Jack
Torrance takes a job as the off-season
caretaker of the snowbound Overlook
Hotel, which is most definitely sentient
and evil. Kings prose is matter-of-fact,
and the pacing is perfect, all the way
through the exquisite, gruelling crescendo.
Sugar Hall by Tiffany Murray (Seren, $26).
Murrays latest novel, set in crumbling
postwar England, brings a 21st-century
sensibility to a haunted Victorian house.
Sugar Hall is host to themes of slavery,
migration, exploitation, and historys habit
of updating its uglier productions with new
actors and costumes.

Best of rest
Urban:ness: Encountering the City
26 Oct-10 Nov, 10am-10pm,
DUCTAC, Level 2, Mall of the
Emirates, Dubai, UAE
Urban:ness features a whole
programme of talks, workshops and
events to initiate critical responses
to the Asian urban experience.
Showcasing 30 multi-disciplinary
works by 17 artists, the show examines
the psychological and social narratives
that unfurl in urban contexts, thus
replacing the clich of a citys skyline
as merely an advertising platform or
national emblem. Exploring the impact
of rapid urbanisation in Delhi, Dubai,
and Singapore, Urban:ness: is the
starting point for East/East-East, an
ongoing experimental platform
focusing on arts from the geographical
East, says Muhannad Ali, DUCTACs
Art Centre manager.
Omar Khairat Live
12 November, Emirates Golf Club,
Dubai, UAE
The legendary pianist, composer
and conductor returns to Dubai for
one night only. Omar Khairat has
been touted as one of the most
awarded and respected musicians
in the field of Arabic music. The
musician currently performs at the
Cairo Opera House. Soak in music
from the magical composer of
such classics as The Magic Perfumes
(1989) and the Arab Rhapsody
(1992) at this concert organised
by Sundance Live. Tickets
($75-$217)are available online
at www.platinumlist.net

8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

Film

30 ARTS

Titli
Dir: Kanu Behl

Dur: 2hr 7mins

A dark relentless art-house thriller (15+)

In one of the finest performances
Ive seen this year, Ranvir Shorey is
spectacular as the elder brother in
Kanu Behls Titli, said Raja Sen in
Rediff.com. It is a performance of
rage and nuance, of unexpected
tenderness and misplaced nobility,
and bloodthirsty cynicism. Shorey
nails it, and its hard to take your eyes
off Vikram. Siddharth Dewans
cinematography is voyeuristically
intrusive, with some strikingly
poignant compositions highlighting
the films authentic art-direction.

Kanu Behls directorial debut is that rare

Hindi film that is powerful, brutal, and
fully committed to its characters, said
Mihir Fadnavis in Hindustan Times. Titli
centres around a family of impoverished
criminals, depicting the gradual
development of a toxic environment and
its effects on its captives. Newcomer
Shashank Arora lives and breathes
Titli, the young fellow looking
desperately for a way out, said Shubhra
Gupta in the Indian Express. Shashank
Arora, as the youngest of three brothers
involved in a car-jacking ring, gives an
impressive performance, portraying the
nervous nature that outlines his
character perfectly.
Once his family is introduced, its
apparent why Titli is so anxious to
get out, said Variety: Vikram (Ranvir
Shorey) is a belligerent tyrant whos driven his wife to file for
divorce, and middle brother Baawla (Amit Sial), through his calm
demeanour, enables Vikrams expansive ruthlessness and their
fathers silent control. The film places realism as its epicentre,
with virtually every scene a reminder of this recurring motif. Titli
explores the conditions responsible for spewing out monsters
such as Vikram, but at the same time showcases these characters
in an incredibly well-rounded manner.

Our Brand
Is Crisis
Dir: David Gordon Green
1hr 25mins (18+)
A brash spin doctor takes
her act to a foreign land.

The familys cramped apartment is the

theatre of many domestic dramas,
but also symbolises the close ties
that bind everyone together, like the
humorous intimacy of their noisy
tooth brushing, said Deborah
Young in Hollywood Reporter. All the technical work is top
quality. Namrata Raos editing keeps the rhythm flowing,
while sound effects and music are used to great effect to pump
up the mood. But this is the sort of noir that is clearly not for
the squeamish, and the grizzly realism of the have-nots of
post-liberalisation India may not be easy to stomach: Titli is
not an easy film to watch. It hits you in the guts and spills out
blood, said Gayatri Gauri in Firstpost.

Sandra Bullock plays a whirlwind named Calamity

Jane Bodine in her new comedy, and the character
easily rates as one of the best female roles of the last
10 years, said Peter Debruge in Variety. Though the
film itself is something more of a mess, Bullocks
Bodine is fabulously intimidating a smart, jittery,
cynical American political consultant who has only
selfish reasons when she takes over the campaign of
an unpopular ex-Bolivian president whos seeking to
regain office. For a viewer, its fun just knowing that
Bullocks shark-like operative was originally written
for George Clooney. Unfortunately, the film is in
need of an edge, said Benjamin Lee in The Guardian. Bodine learns soon enough that her nemesis
is running the campaign of the races leading candidate, but the back-and-forth between Bullock
and co-star Billy Bob Thornton isnt quite as smart and screwball as it could be. Worse, the
screenplay fails to mine the satirical potential in having the fate of Bolivia determined by two
egotistical Yanks. Still, Bullock proves unnervingly good at pitching Janes prowess somewhere
between sharp insight and outright insanity, said Richard Lawson in VanityFair.com. This is a
frequency she should work in more.

New on DVD and Blu-ray

The Gift
(Universal, $30)

Southpaw
(Anchor Bay, $30)

Dressed to Kill
(Criterion, $30)

A chance meeting
with an old
acquaintance leads an
LA couple into a
snare in this recent
thriller, said the
Chicago Sun-Times.
Rebecca Hall, Jason
Bateman and Joel
Edgerton all deliver
first-rate performances in director
Edgertons wonderfully warped take
on long-range karma.

Youve no doubt seen

boxing movies like
this one many times
before, said The
Times-Picayune,
New Orleans.
But Southpaw has
at least one thing its
predecessors dont:
Jake Gyllenhaal,
whos mesmerising as a champion
who loses it all and chooses to
fight back.

Brian de Palmas
classic thriller
still shocks 35
years later, said
PopMatters.com.
Though lust and
murder are givens in
the genre, here theyre
pushed to such
absurd extremes
that the viewer is left completely
off-balance, and this fine restoration
highlights de Palmas visual artistry.

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Obituaries
The wild comic who wed a Hollywood star
attack while performing
After Marty
Marty
on The Tonight Show,
Ingels and his
Ingels
more or less ending his
wife, the Oscar19362015
stand-up career, said
winning actress
The New York Times.
Shirley Jones, went through a
He spent months as a
difficult, yearlong separation in
recluse, before turning to
the early 2000s, the two agreed
voiceover work and
to meet for a therapy session.
founding a successful
Ingels, a comedian for whom no
celebrity-booking agency
stunt was too outrageous,
for advertisers. I
turned up wearing a big hat and
was once invited to
playing a trombone. Well,
an agoraphobic
sighed the therapist, looks like
convention, he later
you havent changed a bit, Marty.
joked. How can
The couple got back together and
that be? I pictured a
stayed happily married a
giant stadium with
relationship that confounded many
Ingels: More than just a funny guy
nobody there.
Hollywood observers. I was a
Jewish kid from Brooklyn and she was Miss
America, he said. A lot of people never got that. For all his show business achievements, Ingels
was best known as half of one of Hollywoods
oddest couples, said the Los Angeles Times.
Born in Brooklyn to a family of dentists, Ingels
When courting Jones, whom he married in
got his break as an actor at the Pasadena
1977, he showed up at her movie set in a 38Playhouse in Los Angeles, said Variety.com.
foot motor home with bubbly, mood music and
After realising he wasnt suited to stage work
her favourite Cobb salad from Hollywoods
the audience erupted in laughter whenever he
Brown Derby. Jones once arrived home to find
tried to deliver a serious line he turned to
Ingels, her husband by then, dancing on their
comedy and TV, landing parts in The Dick Van
lawn with her Oscar for Elmer Gantry,
Dyke Show, The Addams Family, and other
accompanied by a hired mariachi band. He
sitcoms. His biggest role was as a carpenter
often drove me crazy, Jones said last week.
called Fenster in the short-lived but much-loved
But theres not a day I wont miss him and love
1962 ABC comedy Im Dickens, Hes Fenster. In
the early 1970s, Ingels had a paralysing anxiety him to my core.

The curry king who brought Bombay Mix to UK

to return. This he duly did in
Gulam Noon
Gulam
1970, with just $77 in his
was a hugely
Noon
pocket, which he used to
successful
19362015
open a sweet shop in Southall,
Indian-born
west London. He also
entrepreneur who transformed
founded a food business
Britains eating habits, said The
called Bombay Halwa, which
Guardian. First, he popularised
produced Bombay Mix. His
Bombay Mix (some say he also
timing was good: thousands
gave the spicy snack its name);
of Ugandan Asians expelled
then he commercialised chicken
by Idi Amin were settling in
tikka masala, helping it supersede
Britain, vastly increasing his
fish and chips as Britains favourite
market. Then, in the 1980s,
dish. Deeply committed to his
having noted Britains
adopted country, he spoke out
growing taste for Indian food,
against extremism, and gave
he began making curries for
millions to good causes in the UK
Gulam Noon: Zesty entrepreneur
sale in supermarkets, with
as well as in India. He also
chicken tikka masala chief among them. As the
donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to
the Labour Party, an act of generosity that led demand for microwave-able ready meals
started to boom, he was able to expand into
to embarrassment when he was unwittingly
Thai, Chinese and Mexican food too. By the
dragged into the cash-for-honours scandal that
time Noon Products was sold to Kraft for
tarnished Tony Blairs government.
$154m 2005, it was employing 800 people,
and processing 80 tonnes of chicken a week.
Born into a Muslim family in what is now
Mumbai in 1936, Gulam Kaderbhoy Noon
In 2006, Noon was put forward for a peerage. But
was the grandson of a confectioner, and
when he submitted his forms for the nominations
worked in the familys sweetshops from a
committee, the Labour fundraiser Lord Levy told
young age. At 17, his father having died, he
him to remove a reference to a 250,000 loan hed
took over the shops, and renamed them Royal
made to the party, saying that as it was not a gift,
Sweets, to broaden their appeal. The business
it neednt be declared. Apparently hurt and
prospered, and he was soon feeling confident
embarrassed by the row that followed, Noon
enough to buy an office block without
asked that his nomination be withdrawn. He
consulting his relatives. In 1964, he visited
was finally made a life peer in 2011.
Britain for the first time, liked it, and resolved

31
The engineer who
spearheaded the
Apollo programme
In 1961,
George
President
Mueller
Kennedy
19182015
announced
an ambitious goal for
America: landing a man on
the moon and returning him
safely to Earth before the
end of the decade. George
Mueller, NASAs head of
manned spaceflight, knew
how to make it happen.
Rather than testing rocket
parts individually a timeconsuming process Mueller
convinced his scientists and
engineers to adopt an allup approach and launch all
the pieces at once. It
sounded reckless, but [his]
reasoning was impeccable,
said Wernher von Braun,
who oversaw the building of
the Apollo programmes
Saturn V rocket. Without
all-up testing, the first
manned lunar landing could
not have taken place as early
as 1969. Born in St. Louis,
Mueller had a boyhood
interest in building model
airplanes and radio
receivers, said the Los
Angeles Times. After
studying electrical
engineering and physics in
college, he began his career
at the aerospace firm
Ramo-Wooldridge Corp.,
and joined NASA in 1963.
Five years later, after only
two test flights of Saturn V,
the three-astronaut crew of
Apollo 8 became the first to
orbit the moon and return
to Earth. Mueller left
NASA for the private sector
in 1969, four months after
Neil Armstrong set foot on
the moon. Besides the lunar
landing, he also played a
part in the development of
the Skylab space station, and
urged the development of a
reusable space shuttle, said
The New York Times. His
tenure wasnt without
tragedy: three astronauts
were killed in a launch pad
test in 1967. But Mueller
insisted risk-taking was
essential. If you designed
your programme to be
absolutely safe, he
reasoned, youd absolutely
never fly.

8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

32
UAE: Delightful homes in Dubai

Dubai: Located in the prestigious Emirates Hills community this grand villa
boasts an open floor plan layout measuring 7500sq.m. The 9-bedroom
residence features several living rooms, dining rooms, panelled study, master
suite with spa, oversized custom closets, steam room, family/media room, wine
cellar. The private roof terraces are decked out with a private bar, sundeck, and
an oversized hot tub for 10. The fully-furnished basement has two bedrooms,
kitchen, cinema and games room with access to the sunken garden and terrace.
Outside, there is a landscaped garden, dining area, sunbathing deck and pool.
Price on application; Luxhabitat (+971 4) 550 8335.

International: Villas in South Africa and Spain

Spain: The designer villa is situated in the La Selva area of the PGA Catalunya
resort in Girona. The single storey villa is airy and bright and its panoramic windows
afford spectacular vistas of the golf course. The living-dining area with an open plan
chic kitchen made by Bulthaup is ideal for entertaining. Both the living room and the
3 bedrooms have direct access to the spacious outdoors that are planned with a
terrace, garden and custom-designed infinity pool.
$1.3m; PGA Catalunya Resort (+34 972) 472957.
South Africa: This Tuscan-style villa offers grand views over Cape Town and False
Bay from its mountainside locations in Constantia. Surrounded by formal gardens the
property offers versatile accommodation comprising a 5-storey villa and two separate
units. The main house has 6 beds and the two independent accommodations
consisting of 2 beds, 2 baths, living, dining and kitchen. There are several large
entertainment areas, a state-of-the-art cinema, a gymnasium, indoor pool, steam
room, spa bath, a flood-lit tennis court, and smart home automation system that
control lights, pool pump, irrigation, security gates and the alarm system.
$7.2m; Shaun Ascough (+27 21) 813 6850

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Best properties

on the market

33

Dubai: This brand new villa sits on a lakefront within

the exclusive Sanctuary Falls community of Jumeirah Golf
Estates. The versatile layout offers 5 bedrooms, formal
dining rooms, 3 reception areas, impressive cinema zone
and several utility rooms. The contemporary interiors are
well-appointed and feature oakwood floors and customdesigned details including mood lighting and a sleek
kitchen. The garden has been beautifully shaped around
the pool area and an alfresco dining deck that looks out
onto the popular Greg Norman golf course.
$2.9m; Knight Frank (+971 4) 4267 610.

UK: Interesting conversions

London: The Old Courthouse, North
End Road, West Kensington W14.
An interior designed triplex apartment
in this beautifully converted Grade II
listed courthouse, formerly the West
London County Court. Renovation of
the building was finished in 2012.
Master suite, 2 further beds (1 on
mezzanine), family bath, kitchen/double
recep, 2 further receps, utility, courtyard.
$3.848m leasehold; Savills
(+44 20) 3618 3777.

Devon: Middle Flat, The

Roundhouse, Falmouth. Having
undergone a complete renovation
four years ago, this flat forms the
centre of this distinctive building
on the edge of Falmouth. Master
suite, 1 further bed, bath, kitchen,
2 receps, hall, utility, 2 parking
spaces, fine views.
$386,000; Stags
(+44 1872) 264 488.

Nottinghamshire: The
Pump House, Misterton. A
modern conversion of this
striking Grade II former pump
house, in a rural setting with
gardens and land. The property
is divided into two halves,
which are connected by a wide
glazed link. Master suite, 4
further beds, family bath,
shower, breakfast/kitchen,
utility, 2 large receps, snug,
study, games room, WC,
mature gardens, terrace, barn,
field, 5.6 acres.
$1.3m; Jackson-Stops & Staff
(+44 1904) 625 033.

8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

LEISURE
Food & Drink

34

Sweet potato and dill soup

Sweet potatoes are both tasty and
healthy, says Vanessa Kimbell; this
fragrant and warming vegan-friendly
soup is easy to make and just the kind
of hearty dish you need to keep you
going as we head into winter.

Recipe of the week

Sweet potato and dill soup

3 tbsp coconut oil

3 bay leaves
1 large onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1kg sweet potatoes, peeled diced
1kg potatoes, peeled and diced
2 litres hot vegetable stock
a large handful of fresh dill
salt and freshly ground
black pepper
crusty bread, to serve

Add both types of potatoes and the stock.

Stir well. Cover and simmer for 18-20
minutes. Check that the potatoes are
cooked, then remove the bay leaves.

Heat the coconut oil in a deep pan. Add

the bay leaves, onion and garlic, then
saut lightly.

Chop the dill and add half to the pan.

Divide the soup into two equal
portions. Set one half aside and
liquidise the other. Mix the two halves
back together in the pan to give you a

smooth, thick base, with chunks of

vegetable for added texture.
Stir in the remaining dill and season
with the salt and black pepper. You
can adjust the thickness of the soup by
adding a little water and reheating,
if needed.
Serve with warm crusty bread. Serves six.

Taken from Food for Thought by Vanessa Kimbell, published by Kyle Books

Brawn

Umi

49 Columbia Road, London

E2, UK, (+44 20) 7729 5692

The Waldorf Astoria,

Ras Al Khaimah, UAE
(+971 7) 203 5555

Usually with desserts I

have a taste or two, then
Your expectations, when you visit
push them away, says
the Walforf Astoria in Ras Al
Marina OLoughlin in The
Khaimah are naturally high, said
Guardian. But the panna
The National. Although the
cotta at the effortlessly
hotels Lexington Grill restaurant
cool Brawn is genuinely,
seems to get all of the attention,
sublime. With the texture
there is a subtle coolness about
of clotted cream and only
its Japanese restaurant, Umi
the teensiest shimmy of
with its dark floors, dimly lit
wobble, its thickly freckled
walls and cream leather chairs.
with inky vanilla seeds
The wasabi rock shrimp was
and sits in a pool of
irresistible; the 10 prawns are
Inka
sharp-sweet juice from its
covered in just the right amount
Floor 31, The Sofitel Dubai Downtown, Downtown Dubai,
macerated raspberries and
of creamy wasabi sauce while
UAE (+971 4) 346 9295
strawberries. I know
leaving the shrimps crisp exterior
Latin American food has certainly struck a chord with Dubais
its only a pudding. But
intact. A favourite of the night
diners, said Whats On Dubai, and Inka is a pleasantly
turning a dish this simple
was the Alaskan king crab legs.
surprising addition. The restaurant looks stunning. It has a
into a sigh-inducing
The soft crab is topped with a
thoughtful art deco vibe, low lighting, Balearic beats and a
showstopper is a mark of
spicy tobiko sauce mixed with
constant flux of impeccably groomed couples. The dining room
chef Ed Wilsons greatness.
ginger, orange peel and creamy
is intimate seating only 50 people with spectacular views of
As a Wilson fangirl, I
mayonnaise. My only complaint
the Burj Khalifa. The restaurant focuses on two Peruvian
revisited Brawn on hearing
was that the crab was gone too
specialities: seafood and highland grills. We spent much of the soon you will need more than
that this culinary genius,
night raving about the tiraditos tuna sashimi dish wed have
who used to have only a
one of this main to fill you up.
taken a bucketful home if we could. Meanwhile, the hearty
stake in the restaurant (as
For dessert the lychee mousse
skewers of chargrilled beef resting on a handful of crispy potatoes was the standout dish. At
a co-owner of the Terroir
were a carnivores dream. In a city with many Latin American
group), had made it entirely
the bottom of this layered dish
restaurants jostling to be crowned king, Inka is the new
his own. Turns out its even
was a lychee-infused sponge
contender to the throne.
better than it was;
that was topped with a cold
everything from the
lychee sorbet and a mound of
home-made black pudding to the gorgeous sourdough
ultra-light, jasmine tea-infused foam. It was a citrusy delight
touched with the bliss of clever simplicity.
with an explosion of textures and flavours.
THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Travel

LEISURE 35

This weeks dream: An epic journey in the wilds of Zambia

balloon. Drifting with the wind
The Kafue National Park is Zambias
(without wind-noise therefore) just a
greatest wilderness: it contains just 16
few feet above the ground, and
lodges and little other human life.
watching as the plains unrolled all
Visitors usually choose one small area to
around, was utterly bewitching.
focus on but to get a sense of its true,
Further south, the sweeping,
stunning diversity, I journeyed across it
indifferent beauty of the plains gave
by Land Rover from end to end, says
way to miombo woodland. From the
Horatio Clare in The Guardian. Along
comfortable Musekese Camp, we
the way, I also explored on foot, by canoe
walked into the bush to spend a night
and by hot air balloon, to better
listening to the roar of lions in a fly
appreciate the landscape and wildlife.
camp (a line of mosquito nets
Note, however, that this is a true
suspended over sleeping bags), guarded
adventure, and very occasionally,
by an armed ranger. At Kaingu Lodge,
animals will attack: at one point, my
the river was at its loveliest, flowing in a
canoe was overturned by a bull hippo.
A true adventure
maze of channels around tumbles of
Fortunately, he soon lost interest and
smooth boulders; while our final camp, Konkamoya, was like a
there were no crocodiles around to finish the job. After landing at
vision of heaven, perched on the shores of a vast lake where some
Busanga, in the North, my guide and I drove to Shumba Camp, a
100 elephants come to drink in nudging family groups. Natural
collection of luxury huts on stilts on a vast plain. There we
High Safaris (naturalhighsafaris.com) has a 9-day trip from
spent a day cruising slow sandy tracks, spotting lion, cheetah,
$5,750pp, not including flights.
and 60 crowned cranes feeding together. We also rode in a hot air

Getting the flavour of

KLs street food

Kuala Lumpur is known for

its gleaming skyscrapers, but
its most impressive asset
can be found at pavement
level, says Will Hawkes in
The Independent. Wherever
you walk in the Malaysian
capital, you pass stalls,
hole-in-the-wall restaurants
and hawker markets offering
some of the worlds best street
food. These are no-frills
places, with plastic furniture
and bowls. The dishes they serve are simple and very cheap, but
they are also the product of a messy food culture, reflecting the
citys core ethnic mix (Malay, Indian and Chinese), and are often
fascinating as a result. Check out Wong Ah Wah, which claims
to sell all of Malaysias most famous street foods; Sri Niwana
Maju, for Indian food, Malaysian-style; and Tang City food
court, a big enclosed barn, cooled by huge fans. Alan Wong runs
food tours for visitors (alanwong29@yahoo.com).

Messners museums

He was the first person to

climb Everest solo without
extra oxygen, and now
Reinhold Messner arguably
the greatest mountaineer of
all time has completed
another grand project, says
Michelle Jana Chan in The
Daily Telegraph. The fruit of
20 years labour, the Messner
Mountain Museum (MMM)
is actually a series of six
idiosyncratic museums about
mountains, set amid the jagged spires of the Dolomites, in
north-east Italy. Designed by Zaha Hadid, the final instalment
MMM Corones, which opened this summer explores the
history of Alpinism, and looks like a Bond villains lair, with
its vast mirrored portholes set into the 2,275-metre peak of the
Kronplatz. Among the others are MMM Firmian (dedicated to
art) and MMM Ripa (focused on mountain peoples), both housed
in medieval castles. See messner-mountain-museum.it.

Four of the smartest family villas for winter holidays

Set apart in the grounds of stylish resorts, these villas offer peace, fun and help when needed, says Cond Nast Traveller
Amanjena, Marrakech

A welcome antidote to the

hurly-burly of Marrakechs
medina, the terracottacoloured villas here are as
elegant and serene as youd
expect to find in an Aman
hotel. But not far beyond the
gate lies the Sahara, for
hiking, biking and sandy
escapades on camelback. Kids
are encouraged to run free
in the grounds too, with
donkey rides, cooking classes,
tennis courts, a swimming
pool and huge lawns to play
on. Sleeps 4, from $2,240 per

night (aman.com).

GoldenEye, Jamaica

Now owned by record

producer Chris Blackwell, the
GoldenEye estate is famous
for having belonged to Ian
Fleming. The original house
(complete with the desk
where 007 was brought into
existence) is available to
rent, and has its own pool and
a gaggle of staff. There are
also some smaller beach
villas, and one on the lagoon
behind the most fun choice
for older kids, with kayaks and
an over-water deck. Two-

bedroom villas from $1,280

per night (goldeneye.com).

Boschendal, South Africa

A mere 45-minute drive from

Cape Town, in the Drakenstein
Valley, sits the historic estate
of Boschendal. It offers a good
farm-to-table restaurant and
an array of activities, from
mountain-biking and trout
fishing to grape tasting. If
possible, stay in the
whitewashed Rhodes cottage:
designed for Cecil Rhodes
more than a century ago, it
comes with bicycles, two
pools, and a housekeeper
called Jones. Sleeps 10, from

$5,440 for 7 nights

(boschendal.com).

Esencia, Mexico

Once owned by an Italian

duchess, and still midcentury classy, the Esencia
estate is the chicest beach
spot on the Riviera Maya. Its
two-bedroom family villa has
its own pool and offers both
peace for those who just
want to fly and flop, and the
chance to dip into hotel life
whenever you want. Outside
the gates, theres plenty to
keep the crew exhilarated,
from zip-lining to swimming
with turtles. Sleeps 4, from

$4,860pp for 7 nights

(hotelesencia.com).

8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

36

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

Fitch Ratings Inc: Downgrades three Saudi banks

Fitch Ratings Incorporated, one of the Big Three

credit ratings agencies, has revised its outlook on
the long-term Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) of the
Saudi British Bank (SABB), Banque Saudi Fransi
(BSF) and Arab National Bank (ANB) to
Negative from Stable. The Agency also
upgraded the Viability Rating (VR) of Alinma
Bank. The revision of the banks Outlooks to
Negative reflects Fitchs view of a tougher
operating environment facing the Saudi Arabian banking sector, mainly due to the
affect of lower oil prices on government spending and the filter down effect this has
on the rest of the economy, said Reuters. The petroleum sector alone accounts for
roughly 80% of Saudi Arabias budget revenues, 45% of GDP, and 90% of export
earnings. Due to this, a fall in global oil prices is hugely damaging to the Saudi
economy. A deteriorating operating environment will see slowing loan growth, a
reduction in earning and profitability growth, deterioration in asset quality metrics,
and subsequent impact on capital, as well as tighter liquidity, said Gulf Business.
According to Fitch, Alinma has built a more significant Islamic corporate franchise
in Saudi and is building a solid Islamic retail franchise. It is now a strongly-recognised
Islamic brand in the Kingdom and a more mature bank, having finished the start-up
and growth phase.

Volkswagen: Porsche entangled

The corporate crisis engulfing Volkswagen isnt getting any easier, said Robert Wright
in the FT. US regulators have turned up the heat again, accusing the carmaker of
installing test-cheating software in the latest models of its prestige brands, Porsche
and Audi. This marks the first time that Porsche has been dragged into the scandal a
particular embarrassment for VWs new chief, Matthias Mller, who ran Porsche
before taking the top job in September. According to the US Environmental Protection
Agency, VW had installed defeat devices in at least 10,000 more diesel vehicles than
it had previously admitted, including the 2015 Porsche Cayenne and the 2016 Audi
A6 Quattro. VW has set aside an initial $7.05bn to pay for the emissions scandal,
though the final sum when potential compensation and fines are included is likely to
be much bigger, said Julia Lhr in The Guardian. The reputational damage, both to
VW and to the wider German badge of manufacturing excellence, is harder to
quantify. I do not believe that made in Germany got a scratch by what happened
at Volkswagen, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, observed last week. Others
are more sceptical. The research firm, Brand Finance, reckons the recent hammer
blow to Germanys international reputation threatens to undo decades of
accumulated goodwill.

Amazon: First real-life shop

The online nemesis of independent bookstores didnt quite manage to kill off the
real thing, said Rachel Savage in Management Today. And now its launched a shop
of its own. Amazon Books, which opened this week in the companys home city of
Seattle, will stock around 6,000 of the most popular titles from Amazon.com at the
same price. But can the online giant, which isnt known for its touchy-feely customer
service, make it in a business that requires real human interaction? The company,
which is muscling in on everything from TV and film streaming to grocery delivery,
already has a number of click and collect pick-up points, and has hopes of rolling
out more stores. The experiment is evidence that physical and online retail are
moving closer than ever, even if the exact relationship hasnt been worked out just
yet. Google opened its first physical shop in London earlier this year.

Glencore: At loggerheads with Zambias president

Zambian President Edgar Lungu has said that he will not allow Glencore Plcs local
unit to cut about 4,000 jobs, said Bloomberg. The nation is Africas second largest
copper producer. The company plans on suspending production at its Mopani Copper
Mines unit for 18 months while it invests $950 million in constructing new shafts and
upgrading plants; this move comes amid copper prices hitting a six-year low. In a
broadcast on state-owned ZNBC TV last Tuesday, Lungu implored Mopani to use the
profits it made during the times of high copper prices to sustain its workforce currently.
He also communicated the governments willingness to find other investors if mining
companies fail to run their operations. Falling metal prices and a power shortage have
contributed to a 49% decline in the Zambian kwacha against the dollar this year. Lets see
if Glencore proves its mettle with this crisis.
THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Gulf business

UAE-based e-commerce firm JadoPado

announced that it sold a minority stake
to venture capital firm Beco Capital for
$4m, signifying increasing investor interest
in the regions e-commerce industry. The
company will now be valued at $28m. The
e-commerce firm expects to have up to
20,000 vendors selling 200,000 products
on its platform over the next 18 months.
With Oman Airs recent launch of B787
services, the Gulf region now has three
Boeing Dreamliner operators. Underpinned
by 3.1% Middle East gross domestic
product growth, Boeing expects to see
around 6.2% traffic growth regionally until
2034 and predicts demand for 3,180 planes
valued at $730bn. Globally, it projects
demand for 38,050 planes valued at
$5.6 trillion.
National Bank of Abu Dhabi has launched
operations in India with a new branch office
in Mumbai, expanding its international
presence as its domestic market slows.
The new office will provide wholesale
banking services covering areas of debt
origination and distribution, project
finance, trade finance and asset finance.
The Indian office will significantly boost
NBADs client base and help service the
local market.
Two funds owned by NCB Capital
bought over 50% of Saudi Research
and Marketing Group (SRMG), publisher
of pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat
and one of the Middle Easts largest
media companies. The announcement
was made after Kingdom Holding sold
its 29.9% stake in SRMG for $223.3m.

Hello Skylon
Investment in space tourism ventures
has long been the preserve of
billionaires, said The Independent. But
now BAE Systems is taking the plunge.
The aerospace and defence giant has
spent $31.69m on a 20% stake in
Reaction Engines, a UK-based company
which is developing a next-generation
engine to power a planned space
plane called Skylon. The British
government has also thrown in a $92.2m
grant. The new Sabre engine is a hybrid
rocket and jet propulsion system, and
could open up commercial space travel
and make it possible to fly from the UK
to Australia in four hours. Dont hold
your breath, though. A viable engine is
still at least a decade away.

Commentators
US: Sending
billions of
dollars to Iraq
Emily Glazer And
Jon Hilsenrath
Wall Street Journal

Inflations
surprising
disappearance
Steve Chapman
Chicago Tribune

Hedge funds
have become
herd funds
Steven Davidoff Solomon
The New York Times

Why is HSBC
still tarting
itself around?
Alistair Osborne
The Times

Its complicated, but the billions of dollars being sent from the
US to Iraq is actually Iraqi money, said Emily Glazer and Jon
Hilsenrath. The Central Bank of Iraq, along with many other
countries central banks, has accounts with the Federal Reserve.
The money in Iraqs account comes largely from oil reserves and
not money the US is giving to the country for assistance or
otherwise. When Iraq needs more paper currency, the money is
drawn from the countrys account at the Federal Reserve funded
largely by oil reserves and flown to Baghdad. The Federal
Reserve and Treasury Department temporarily shut off the flow of
Iraqs money to the countrys central bank this summer, as concerns
mounted that the currency was ending up at sanctioned Iranian
banks and possibly being funnelled to ISIL militants. What were
trying to do is make sure [Iraqis] get those dollars, but also put into
place safeguards to make it harder for ISIL to get them, Daniel
Glaser, assistant secretary for terrorist financing in the Treasurys
Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence told the WSJ.
Who could have imagined a few decades ago that in 2015 inflation
would no longer be much of a threat? said Steve Chapman. Like
communism, inflation is mostly a relic of a bygone era present
in severe form in a few isolated places, but otherwise virtually
extinct. In Venezuela, for instance, the socialist government has so
mismanaged the economy that feeding a family for a month costs
three times more than it did last year. With inflation topping 150%,
even robbers reject Venezuelan bolivars. There was a time when
such a chaotic state of affairs in the US wouldnt have required much
imagination. Baby Boomers, who were raised on lurid tales of the
hyperinflation in 1920s Germany that led to Hitlers rise, retain a
fear of inflation in their bone marrow and had a frightening taste of
double-digit inflation in the 1970s. But most young Americans today
simply dont know the dread experience of sky-rocketing prices.
The US inflation rate has been below 4% since 1991, and was
effectively zero for the past year. If anything, the threat today is
deflation and slow growth. Its hard to believe, but weve gotten to
the point where a little inflation might be a good thing.
Goldman Sachs has compiled what it calls a VIP list of the
favourite hedge funds hotels those hot and trendy stocks that
fund managers have been piling into. It makes uninspired reading,
says Steven Davidoff Solomon. Top of the list is pharma company
Allergan, second is Apple, third is Facebook; Amazon and Google
are also in the top ten. In fact, Goldmans index shows that almost
62% of hedge fund investments are in blue-chip S&P 500 firms.
Investors must wonder what theyre paying for. After all, we could
all invest in big, well-known companies for much less than the
20% fee on profits (and 2% commission) that hedge funds
charge. One has to wonder how much research and monitoring
is actually being done. If hedge funds are all about alpha
finding investments that are undervalued and can outperform the
broader market surely they should home in on smaller stocks
where research can bear the most fruit, rather than chasing the
latest flavour of the month. The fundamental idea behind a
hedge fund is supposed to be intelligent investing.
After months of tarting itself around, HSBC has still to reach
a decision about where its future home will be, says Alistair
Osborne. A domicile review, begun in April, may now be
extended into 2016, as the board awaits further information
before deciding where HSBCs $2.5trn balance sheet should end
up. Would it be better off under communist dictatorship in
China, or assuming that US regulators might gouge the bank
a bit less if it was formally an American one in New York. Its
hard to avoid the impression that HSBC is milking this review for
all its worth. Why not, given the UK chancellors response? Hes
already reduced the bank levy, taken the wire-cutters to the ring
fence, and replaced a bank-bashing regulator. Hes also scrapped
a hated new rule stipulating that if there was wrongdoing on their
watch, bankers would be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
HSBC says it is focusing on long-term perspectives. Really?
Second-guessing Chinas tax-rate ten years out, perhaps? No. The
more likely explanation is some pretty shameless posturing in the
hope of another bauble from the British government.

NEWS 37
City profiles
Hind Hobeika
The former professional
swimmer turned entrepreneur
is doing quite well for herself.
The Lebanese engineer
created a swimming-tracking
device known as Instabeat,
which is the first waterproof
heads-up display for
swimming. Hobeikas idea
won the third place in Qatars
Stars of Science Competition
and the first prize at the MIT
Enterprise Forum Pan Arab
Business Plan Competition.
She has raised funding for her
products through both
traditional and crowd funding
platforms. Hobeika (pictured),
who speaks four languages,
surpassed her initial goal of
$35,000, collecting more than
double the amount.The
engineer is now preparing for
the Instabeat product launch
in San Francisco, where she is
working with a manufacturing
partner, said Gulf Business.

Yahya Alabdallah
The Jordanian Independent
filmmaker was born in Libya
in 1978, but raised in Saudi
Arabia.The writer, director,
producer and literary critic has
two Masters Degrees, one in
literature and the other in film
from the ECAIR Cinema
School in Paris.Yahya
Alabdallah has made a series
of short films and also works
as a literary critic. His short
film, SMS, was included in the
38th international film festival
in Rotterdam in 2008. Since
then, he has been involved in
several international film
festivals including Berlinales
Talent Campus, Produire au
Sud, the Festival des 3
Continents and the Producers
Network at the Festival de
Cannes. In 2005, he founded
the production company ME
Films in Amman, while his
first feature film The Last
Friday (2011), won three
awards at the Dubai
International Film Festival
(DIFF). His latest film, 5th Floor
Room 52, will be screened at
this years DIFF.

8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

Shares

38 BUSINESS

Whos tipping what

The weeks best buys

Directors dealings

Hostelworld Group
The Times
The Dublin-based online
travel booker looks built for
growth the youth market is
expected to grow by more than
200bn in five years. Floated
on Monday at 185p per share,
it promises a decent dividend
policy. Buy. 185p.

Next
The Times
With 500-odd shops in the UK
and Ireland, the clothing and
homewares retailer is regarded
as a bellwether of the British
high street. Well run and
cash-generative, it continues to
outperform rivals and pay out
to shareholders. Buy. 79.

GlaxoSmithKline
The Daily Telegraph
GSK has been hurt by generic
competition for its asthma
drug Advair. But strong sales
of HIV drugs and vaccines
have helped the company beat
market expectations. Theres
a prospective 6.7% yield.
Buy. 14.20.

Hutchison Chi-Med
Investors Chronicle
The China-based pharma is
an attractive growth story with
a bright development pipeline
and plenty of cash. Plans for
an additional listing on the
biotech-friendly Nasdaq
should improve liquidity.
Buy. 26.

Shoe Zone
The Times
The bargain footwear retailer
hasnt disappointed since
floating last year at 160p.
With 535 UK outlets and a
profitable online business, its
grown into a solid, cashgenerating, high-yielding
company. Buy. 194.5p.

SuperGroup
1,600

1,400

1,200

Director
sells 264,900

1,000

800

Jun

Jul

International Airlines Group

The Times
BAs takeover of Iberia has
proved a success; the group has
since acquired Aer Lingus and
is reportedly eyeing up Finnair.
But shares are at an all-time
high, and its a cyclical industry.
Take profits. Sell. 597.5p.

Sep

Oct

Nov

Shares in the fashion group

behind Superdry fell after a
chill wind from the East blew
across global markets in
mid-August. With recovery
under way, design director
James Holder has pared back
his stake with a 4m disposal.

and some to sell

Home Retail Group
Shares
The Argos-to-Homebase
retailer has been savaged by
a profit warning, and heads
into the Black Friday
discount bonanza and an
unpredictable Christmas on
already razor-thin margins.
The risks are too high for a
recovery punt. Sell. 113.3p.

Aug

Form guide

Intertek
Investors Chronicle
The product-testing specialist
has expanded its reach by
acquiring the US-based MT
Group. But it continues to
suffer from oil and gas
weakness; and the mineral
division faces poor market
conditions too. Sell. 26.05.

TalkTalk
Shares
Shares in the telecoms group
were already in decline and
have slumped further following
the recent cyber-hacking
attack. An increasingly likely
takeover target, its own targets
look doomed to failure.
Sell. 255.1p.

Polymetal International
Investors Chronicle
Despite operational progress,
the miner is suffering from the
faltering gold price, rising
operating costs and a debt
burden on top of wider
negative sentiment towards
Russian stocks. Jefferies names
a 470p target price. Sell. 574p.

Utilitywise
Shares
Analysts have cut sales and
earnings forecasts following
a difficult set of results. The
energy consultants accounts
are increasingly hard to grasp,
and the update left more
questions than answers.
Sell. 175p.

Shares tipped 12 weeks ago

Best tip
Proactis Holdings
The Mail on Sunday
up 53.29% to 128p
Worst tip
Halfords Group
Investors Chronicle
down 18.53% to 431.8p

Market view

Financial markets have

stabilised and the global
slowdown may not be as
sharp as feared. The door [is]
wide open for an interest rate
rise in early 2016.
Simon Wells, HSBC. Quoted
in The Sunday Telegraph.

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

3 Nov 2015
6383.61
3497.52
17924.77
5145.36
18683.24
22568.43
1123.10
49.96
3.82%
1.98
2.21
0.1% (Sep)
0.8% (Sep)
+8.6% (Sep)

$1.542 g1.412 186.974

THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

Best
shares
Best and
and worst
worst performing shares
Week before
6365.27
3484.16
17570.64
5012.06
18777.04
23142.73
1165.70
46.62
3.84%
1.77
2.02
0.0% (Aug)
1.1% (Aug)
+9.0% (Aug)

Change (%)
0.29%
0.38%
2.02%
2.66%
0.50%
2.48%
3.65%
7.16%

WEEKS CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS

RISES
Price
119.45
Glencore
403.25
BP
1037.00
Ashtead Group
2615.00
Ictl. Htls. Gp.
411.90
Merlin Entertainments

% change
+6.60
+6.12
+5.65
+4.98
+4.28

FALLS
373.10
19.14
Meggitt
666.00
8.39
Standard Chartered
586.50
8.00
Barratt Developments
233.50
6.92
Barclays
4310.00
4.56
Randgold Resources
BEST AND WORST UK STOCKS OVERALL
81.75
+104.38
Pantheon Resources
1.87
46.43
Eco City Vehicles
Source: Datastream (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 3 Nov (pm)

Following the Footsie

7,500

7,000

6,500

6,000

5,500

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index

SOURCE: FINANCIAL TIMES

Card Factory
The Mail on Sunday
The greetings card firm is
cash-generative with high
profit margins and growing
revenues. Its cutting costs,
adding around 50 new stores a
year, and developing an online
range. Special dividends add to
the attraction. Buy. 360.75p.

Under the patronage of

H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum
Vice President, Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai

The Knowledge
2015

Summit

7-9 December 2015, Grand Hyatt, Dubai

The way to innovation

The largest annual event of its kind in the region, where leaders and pioneers
from the world of knowledge exchange ideas that will help shape the future.

mbrf.ae

@mbrf_news

Main Sponsor

mbrf_news

www.knowledgesummit.ae

mbrf.newschannel

Media Sponsor

Transportation Sponsor

The last word

40

How to transplant a head

The Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero is preparing to perform the first ever head transplant perhaps as soon as 2017.
Is he a genius or a crank? Tom Lamont met him to find out

Outside a large concrete hospital in Turin, Sergio Canavero is

trying to persuade a pair of security guards to let us use the staff
car park. Allora, he begins, explaining to the guards that he
used to be employed at the hospital, as a surgeon in the neurology
department, and is back for a visit. At the end of his speech, he
moves a stiff hand across his neck, a cut-throat gesture that would
represent a threat if made by almost anyone else. The guards grin
in recognition and wave us through. I told them Im the guy
whos going to do the first human head transplant, Canavero
tells me. Italians are suckers for a celeb.
Earlier this year, Canavero became famous around the world when
he enlarged on plans, long cherished, to remove the heads of two
people. One would be alive, with an ailing body (a paraplegic, say),
the other newly dead or doomed (perhaps the brain-dead victim of
an accident). As Canavero explained in academic papers and
speeches, he planned surgically to attach the first head to the second
body, fusing the spinal cords so that the owner of the first head
might enjoy the functional use of the second body. It might be best
understood as a body transplant, but the wider world has tended
to settle on the more sensational phrase. Head transplantation,
body transplantation, whatever, Canavero says as we walk around
the busy hospital. Technicality!
He once thought the first head transplant would be performed
here, at the hospital in Turin. Canavero arrived as a medical
student in the 1980s, and had been employed on its wards for
much of his professional life. Then he went and caused the
brouhaha, as he now calls it publishing papers on head
transplants in the medical journal Surgical Neurology
International, giving TED talks in Limassol and Verona, making
headlines, becoming that celeb. Canavero says the Italian
medical establishment turned against him. Last February, he and
the hospital that had employed him for so long agreed to rescind
his contract. Ive become a pariah, he says, making sure I
notice the frosty reception he receives from some of his former
colleagues in the neurology department. You see? No hugs.
So he has had to look abroad for somewhere to stage his surgery.
He tells me that, after lengthy negotiation, it will take place in
THE WEEK 8 NOVEMBER 2015

China, in the northern city of Harbin. The Harbin Institute of

Technology will provide assistance, as will Harbin Medical
University, which has made him an honorary professor in
anticipation. With the Chinese providing the hospital and
personnel, his operation will be ready to go sooner than anybody
might have expected as early as Christmas 2017, he thinks.
Canavero has a very clear picture of this surgery in action, having
outlined it in two TED talks, in a keynote address last summer at
an American conference of neurosurgeons, and in a new book,
Il Cervello Immortale (The Immortal Brain). He describes it to
me in detail: the operating theatre of the near future, where two
bodies will be clamped tight in special frames. One will be the
anaesthetised patient; the other a brain-dead donor. Using either
a specially fashioned diamond microtomic snare-blade or a
nanoknife made of a thin layer of silicon nitride (he isnt sure
yet), the bodies will be severed at the neck between the C5 and C6
vertebrae. Then, after the cuts, the frames that are clamping the
two bodies will begin to separate, their upper parts rotating and
taking the two heads with them. The patients head will be
deposited atop the donors body.
Next, a marathon of surgery, somewhere between 36 and 72
hours long and requiring a crew of 150 medics. About 80 of
them, Canavero thinks, will need to be surgeons. At first, it will
be expensive around $17m, he guesses, admitting that private
sponsors are still needed. Later, as the technique gets perfected,
the costs will be slashed. In the operating room, those 80
surgeons will relay in and out as expertise dictates. The head-body
arteries will be joined first, so that blood recirculates around the
brain. As for the other connections required (windpipe, gullet,
spine, everything that links a humans head to the rest), Canavero
says he will stand aside until it comes to the spinal cord.
Functional neurosurgery, or that relating to movement, is his field.
In order that his patient regains movement in the end, some of the
millions of nerves that exist inside the two spinal cords will need
to connect. Canavero has novel ideas about ways to sprout
such connections during the surgery, including delivering small

The last word

41

stick to that word. I interact when I have

electric shocks to the spinal cord at the
to learn, then I go my way. You can only
point of fusion, and by flushing in a
go alone on such a path.
substance called polyethylene glycol,
or PEG, something he believes will
Canavero is aware of his idiosyncrasies.
super-charge the process. Not all the
Im not normal, he says. I have no
nerves in the spine will need to regrow
problem admitting that. Even if I didnt,
and join, Canavero thinks, for the
you would probably notice, right?
patient to regain some movement;
Youd sense something? Perhaps. At
say, 10% or 20% of them. After the
one point he seizes me by the neck to
operation, the patient will be kept in a
demonstrate a ju-jitsu chokehold. Later,
coma for about three weeks, in part to
he cheerfully describes winning his wife
inhibit movement. Then rehab, months
away from another man, who was
of it. Canavero expects this will involve
taller. As well as several influential
some kind of virtual-reality simulator,
medical papers, he once published a
to help the patient acclimatise to the
book, Donne Scoperte, or Women
unfamiliar body. There might be
Uncovered, that outlined his tried-andhypnosis. Afterwards, he anticipates
tested seduction techniques. Im not
recovery, a press conference and (Why
really a feminist, so, sorry to the girls.
not?) a Nobel prize. For the next 100
years, it will be on TV. It will be much
Sergio Canavero (r) with a colleague: New science
Canavero likes to talk about medical
more than landing on the moon, Im
pioneers who were outcasts and fringe-dwellers in their day. Louis
pretty sure about that This will be the greatest revolution in
Pasteur, he says, was called crazy for suggesting illnesses could be
human history. If it pans out as I expect it to.
caused by microbes. The history of mankind is trial and error.
But we have to be dreamers. If you dont dream, youre not going
One very tangible piece of the plan is in place. At the meeting of
anywhere. Societys challenge, Canavero thinks, is to tease apart
American surgeons last summer, Canavero introduced a man
the kooks from the super-kooks. And maybe you can only know
named Valery Spiridonov. A 31-year-old graphic artist from
that after the caper. It is a theory echoed by Spiridonov, the
Russia, Spiridonov has severe muscular atrophy and has been a
man whos offered to risk his life to be Canaveros first patient.
wheelchair user all his life. Spiridonov has volunteered, whenever
Some people are geniuses and some people are cranks, he says.
Canavero is ready, to be a test patient: the first guy to go under
And you might never know before the project is finished.
the microtomic knife. I call him Gagarin, Canavero says.
Head transplants have been attempted before on Russian puppies
in the 1950s, on an American monkey in the 1970s, on hundreds of
Chinese mice between 2013 and 2014. The puppies lived less than
a week, the monkey just over that. The mice tended to linger about
a day. But in all of those cases, proof of concept was the aim, less so
patient survival. It is a regrettable truth that very little innovation
takes place at the sharp, scalpel end of medicine without a lot of
animals getting killed first. Heart transplants, kidney transplants:
all were based on years and years of animal work, says the
eminent British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. Many of those who
are sceptical about Canaveros scheme, Marsh among them, have
wondered: where are his carcasses?

I ask about Chinas involvement in all this. Canavero has said that
hes committed to the procedure being open to public view at all
stages scrutinised. I point out that China isnt famous for that.
Chinas China. The medias state-controlled. But China will
want you to know about this, just to spite the West. He admits,
suddenly, that in all likelihood Spiridonov wont be the first
patient to undergo the procedure. Actually, he will not be the
absolute number one. Probably the Chinese will want to do that
on a Chinese patient. Canavero expects it will be somebody with
terminal cancer. Someone with minimal life expectancy, in order
to test it, like Apollo 10. Valery will be Apollo 11.

If Spiridonov recovers, gets used to his new body and goes on to

have children, whose children will they be? Not his, Canavero
Canavero tells me he is morally opposed to experiments on
says. Thats the only ethical question you might ask. But
animals. I dont want to kill any more animals. Weve killed
imagine: you have a child, and
enough. We dont need more
this child one day is involved
animal data. He believes the
It will be bigger than the moon landing.
in a car crash, brought to the
necessary research for his
hospital, declared brain-dead.
surgery has already been done.
It will be the greatest revolution in human
Theres nothing that can be done.
In disparate studies over a
history If it pans out as I expect it to
But now imagine this: Im the
century, he says; not just those
doctor on call. I come down and
experiments on puppies,
tell you, For the brain of your child I have no solutions. But if
monkeys, mice. Canavero has dug up papers relating to an
you grant me his or her body, and one day that body, with a new
American woman who in 1902 had her spinal cord severed by
head, will reproduce. And those children will be your
a gunshot; also a skier, similarly injured in an accident on the
grandchildren. Life will not end!
slopes in 2005. In both cases, the patients spines were
successfully re-fused by surgeons, leading to recovery of
When it comes to the implications of all this, Canavero doesnt
limited movement.
really consider them to be his problem. Scientifically, what can
be done, will be done. All he feels obliged to do is encourage
Canavero remembers reading in a newspaper about the head
transplant attempted on a monkey, and immediately thinking about people to ponder the implications. If we are to live longer, for
being the first to perform such surgery on a human. He was poor at instance, what about overpopulation? He guesses well have to
think about conquering other planets. When I ask how there will
the time, his upbringing rough. It steeled me, he says. My
be enough bodies to support all the transplants, he says, Cloning
father told me, Either your grades are good or you go to work. I
will come into play. I must show my exasperation, because he
was best in class at the end of elementary school, ottimo. At the
looks at me with concern. I know its hard, he says. Its hard
end of junior high, eccellente. He enrolled at medical school,
to swallow, I understand that, its crazy. Sometimes, when I look
and within a couple of years was submitting papers to academic
at it, I say, Will mankind be able to handle this? I dont know!
journals. In the mid-1980s, he moved to the hospital in Turin and
But society must prepare itself for a major tectonic shift.
began to train as a functional neurosurgeon. What did his peers
make of him back then? Ive always been a loner, he says. But he
A longer version of this article first appeared in The Guardian.
had friends? Of course, from time to time you interacted. I would
8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK

WINNERS ANNOUNCED
NOVEMBER 25TH
E M I R AT E S W O M A N . C O M / AWA R D S
Category sponsors

Official car sponsor

Presented by

Beauty partner

Venue partner

Beverage partner

Print partner

Crossword

43

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 081

ACROSS

DOWN

9
10
11
12
14
15
17
20
22
24
25
27
28

Oman a bit hot? Try this part of North

America (8)
Pianist in The Piano film? (6)
Insect comes from filthy
container (10)
Paisley is one animated
character (4)
Times journalist is got rid of (6)
Pepper perhaps in place around new
range (8)
Screen unknown surprisingly showing
a theatrical background (7)
Women in hanky-panky at an
exhibition? (4,3)
Censor restricting lines is a Greek
character (8)
Clothing store for each student on a
break (6)
Tree experts right (4)
Clauses perhaps badly written in
actors lease? Not entirely (10)
Test estuary ultimately overwhelmed
by fish (3,3)
As one part of foots yellow, apply no
end of salve (2,6)

2
3
4
5
6
7
13
16
18
19
21
23
26

Screw jack trouble starts to exasperate

repairman (6)
Keg I tried regularly in place of a
Guinness (4)
Situation without an American singer
isnt surprising (2,6)
Southern European chap keeping
place back (7)
Develop a quiet conference, for
example (6)
Conductor upset some in rickety
vehicle (6-4)
Abandon prime features of really
excellent nutrition and put on a little
weight (8)
More losing out in minimal
accommodation (6,4)
Its risky to embrace the Queen in
court (8)
Nice gal ordered a cake decoration (8)
What may be splashed with oil etc on
top of pedal? (3,4)
Slender and elegant model leaves time
for one (6)
Very great force put out gets a lengthy
reprimand (6)
Very short measure for you (4)

Clue of the week: Make water boil for Earl Grey etc.
(7, first letter P) Guardian

Solution to Crossword 079

ACROSS: 1 Basket case 6 Sown 10 Toast 11 Shambling 12 Sedative
13 Right 15 Amateur 17 Slips up 19 Lissome 21 Convict 22 Poppa
24 Irritate 27 Palmistry 28 Balsa 29 Rank 30 Free-for-all
DOWN: 1 Butt 2 Space-bars 3 Extra 4 Cashier 5 Shavers 7 OKing
8 Nightspots 9 Abortion 14 Daily paper 16 Egomania 18 Scintilla
20 Evictor 21 Carlyle 23 Pylon 25 Taboo 26 Gaol

The definitive cross-cultural guide

to business and life in the Gulf

Clue of the week: Hazel, be it nuts or a girls name (9)

Solution: ELIZABETH
Sudoku 081 (very difficult)
Fill in all the squares so that each row,
column and each of the 3x3 squares
contains all the digits from 1 to 9

Solution to Sudoku 080

BESTSELLER

Charity of the week

Adopt-a-Camp
Adopt-a-Camp (AAC) is an initative designed to improve the lives of the
thousands of migrant labourers who live and work in the UAE. It has been
working for eight years and currently has 50 camps and more than 50,000
men under its wing. Programmes offered by AAC include English language
lessons for labourers and the delivery of Ramadan care packages.
Visit www.adoptacamp.ae to find out how you can help.

Available in all leading bookshops

and at booksarabia.com.
Also available as an ebook.

8 NOVEMBER 2015 THE WEEK