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INTERNATIONAL
Monday, August 16, 2010
Hollywood diplomacy in France shows up Sarkozy PARIS: “Rocky, Rocky,” yelled the crowd, as Sylvester Stallone mimed uppercuts on the red carpet. This was not Hollywood, however, but a Paris suburb more used to riot police than to movie stars. The same day, another visit took place in the eastern city of Grenoble, where Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux inaugurated a special police unit to secure its run-down housing states after recent gunfights and riots. For some, the contrast reveals a failure in the government’s approach to minorities in the troubled outskirts of its cities, the “banlieue”. Stallone handed out autographs, while Hortefeux - the top general in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s newly-declared “war on crime” - delivered non-lethal riot guns and bullet-proof shields to local police. “It’s empowering for people to see Hollywood stars visit these areas that are lashed by the politicians,” said Rokhaya Diallo, 32, the leader of an anti-racism association, Les
Indivisibles, after Stallone’s visit. “I find it a shame that on the one hand there are people who want to bring a power hose to clean the banlieue, who say the people there are ‘scum’, and on the other there are people who bring Hollywood stars,” Diallo told AFP, quoting incendiary statements Sarkozy made in 2005. Stallone, the star of “Rocky” and “Rambo”, appearing in Rosny-Sous-Bois on the outskirts Paris, was the third allAmerican action hero to venture into the banlieue this year. John Travolta attended a Rosny premiere in February, and Samuel L Jackson, his co-star in “Pulp Fiction”, met youngsters in nearby Bondy in April. Jackson’s visit, with an inspirational speech about his upbringing as a black American child in the days of racial segregation, stood out. He was accompanied by the man who invited him: former Hollywood executive Charles Rivkin, who is now the United
States’ ambassador to France. Diallo said she has met Rivkin several times in neighbourhoods such as La Courneuve - a trouble spot where Sarkozy, interior minister at the time, made headlines in 2005 by vowing to “clean it out with a power hose”. Jackson’s visit - unlike Stallone’s or Travolta’s - was an official part of a wide American political networking drive, encompassing art projects, debates and a long-running exchange program. Diallo was among 30 local figures taken to tour the United States this year on a USfunded project for budding French leaders in their 30s, a program whose past participants include Sarkozy himself. The US activities in France have intensified in recent years as part of efforts to reach out to Muslims since the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, and in particular since Rivkin’s appointment by Obama last year. Tensions have long run high between
French police and locals living in deprived districts where young people and immigrants struggle to find work, notably during an explosion of riots in late 2005. On that sensitive issue, supporters of the US programs draw inspiration from America’s own racial history. “The United States have substantial experience in all matters of social integration,” said a spokeswoman for the French urban policy ministry. US diplomats “have understood that in these neighbourhoods we have talented young people - the young people who are making the France of tomorrow,” said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be named. With critics questioning national leaders’ own commitment to the banlieues, she insisted that the embassy’s project complemented similar efforts by the French government, including housing, jobs and art projects. US officials are at pains meanwhile to avoid the sense that they are preaching to France. “We
seek to engage with as wide a spectrum of French society as possible,” said Paul Patin, a spokesman for the Paris embassy. “Other countries can learn from the American experience, just as we in the USA can learn things from the French.” Nordine Nabili, head of a journalism school in Bondy in regular contact with the US embassy, said US initiatives had ruffled the feathers of some French officials, though none have complained publicly. “For once we’re going out of the set framework: the elite schools that reproduce French society,” he said. “The French have the feeling the Americans are coming to play in their back yard. It’s a bit of a thorn in their side.” The ministry spokeswoman acknowledged that “at first there were questions about what the embassy’s aims were, what it wanted to do. But I think now it is considered something that works well.” Five years after the 2005 riots, the tension has not slackened in some
areas. The unrest in Grenoble last month drove security still higher up the political agenda. “We are suffering the consequences of 50 years of insufficiently regulated immigration which has led to a failure of integration,” Sarkozy said last month. He announced a “war on crime” and vowed to strip some foreign-born criminals of French nationality. Critics accused him of a heavy-handed votegrabbing approach. “All this talk of security in the banlieues handicaps the French economy,” said Nabili. “There is fantastic energy in the banlieues which could help get French society out of a lot of its problems.” Nacim Ben Younes, a student from the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers, said that even Jackson’s visit left him with an empty feeling. “It is easy for us to identify with these personalities,” he told AFP. “But neither Samuel Jackson nor Sylvester Stallone can provide the opportunities that young people in the banlieues are so cruelly lacking.” — AFP
Orthodox Patriarch holds Mass at Turkey monastery Worshippers flock to once-banned site MACKA, Turkey: Orthodox Christians held the first Mass in almost 90 years at an ancient monastery on the side of a Turkish mountain yesterday, after the government allow ed w orship there in a gesture tow ard religious minorities. At least 1,500 pilgrims, including from Greece and Russia, traveled to the Byzantine-era monastery of Sumela for the service led by Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the w orldís Orthodox Christians. The Islamic-oriented government, w hich is aiming to expand freedoms as part of its bid to join the European Union, has said w orship can take place at the monastery once a year. Services w ere previously banned.
TRABZON, Turkey: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, conducts a service at the Sumela Monastery in northeastern Turkey yesterday. — AP
Fires still threaten Russian nuclear site as smog returns MOSCOW: Shifting winds brought the acrid smell of smog back to Moscow yesterday and fires continued to burn near Russia’s main nuclear research centre as residents complained of ash in the air in central Russia. Amid the worst heatwave in its history, Russia has for days battled to cut back hundreds of blazes across the country, including fires in a nature reserve near its top nuclear research centre in Sarov, a town still closed to foreigners as in Soviet times. The secret nuclear research centre tucked into the woods in central Russia straddles two regions - the Nizhny Novgorod and Mordovia regions - and the emergency ministry said on Sunday the number of fires in both regions had been reduced. “Despite the continuing hot weather, man is prevailing over the wildfires. There has been a firm trend of cutting the number of wildfires in the region for the first time in the past days this week,” the emergency ministry’s Volga regional branch said. But the fires were still burning in the villages of Popovka and Pushta in the nature reserve where more than 1,200 people and over 150 pieces of equipment were fighting the flames, Mikhail Turkov, a spokesman for the ministry’s Volga regional branch, told AFP. Turkov said the situation remained under control and “stable”. The fire in Popovka still covered 1,000 hectares but has been partially contained and the area of the most active blaze covers just 30 hectares, the
ministry said. The fire near Pushta covering 200 hectares has been contained, the ministry said. Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said he had personally inspected the area around Sarov and that there was no danger of nuclear explosions or other environmental threats even if the fire reached the territory of the centre. The
threat of the fire reaching the premises of the nuclear centre, which is surrounded by forests on all sides, was “very real” several days ago but the situation is now under control, he said on Friday in comments released by Rosatom on Saturday. “The fire is constantly spreading from the Mordovia reserve and as long as it has not been put out, this risk for Sarov will remain. The threat of fire
MOSCOW: A Russian man wears a face mask to protect himself from forest fire smoke in central Moscow yesterday. — AFP
from the Mordovia natural reserve will only be fully eliminated once protracted rains have come. Until then, we’ll have to be on high alert,” Kiriyenko added. Across Russia there were 498 fires covering an area of 53,500 hectares, down from 56,000 hectares the day before, a quarter of the area of almost 200,000 hectares reported at the peak of the crisis. Authorities managed to reduce an area of wildfires around Moscow by almost 25 hectares over the past day and there were seven burning peat bogs over an area of a mere eight hectares, a Moscow-based emergency ministry spokeswoman told AFP. But an acrid smell returned to Moscow as shifting winds brought back smog from the neighbouring Ryazan and Vladimir regions in central Russia where three major peat bogs were burning. A spokesman for air pollution monitoring service Mosekomonitoring, Alexei Popikov, told AFP carbon monoxide levels in the Moscow air were 1.3 times higher than acceptable levels due to the smog as of 0800 GMT. Shifting winds are expected to clear the smoke later in the day, he said. A heavy smog also cloaked the city of Nizhny Novgorod some 430 km east of Moscow, the emergencies ministry said. Vitaly Dubonin, a resident of Nizhny Novgorod, said on the popular Echo of Moscow radio, that the smoke was very dense with small specks of ash in the air. —AFP
The symbolic event was also likely to boost reconciliation efforts between Turkey and Greece, two NATO allies that came to the brink of war three times between 1974 and 1996 over the ethnically divided island of Cyprus and territorial rights in the Aegean Sea. Sumela, a spectacular structure cut into the side of a mountain, was abandoned around the time of Turkeyís foundation in 1923. The last Mass was held a year earlier amid conflict between Turks and Greeks. The remote site near the Black Sea has become a big tourist draw in the last few decades. The patriarch, who is based in Istanbul, wore a white robe with golden lace, and carried a staff. Priests sang hymns and spread incense amid faded frescoes. Visitors who could not fit into the crowded monastery watched on a giant television screen several hundred meters below the building. ´It is a very exciting moment for us Greeks because itís the first time we get to have such a Mass,ª said 24-year-old Ketevan Nadareishvili. ´We can pray on the land of my great-greatgrandfathers.ª The patriarch said he hoped the desire to pray would not be misinterpreted. ´The culture of living together is a heritage our civilization left for us. Letís make that heritage live on, and let us teach all, so that we do not suffer anymore, and families do not perish,ª Bartholomew said in Turkish after the service. ´The Sumela monastery has lived like a legend for decades among us, patiently waiting for this day to come.ª Despite the sense of celebration, the story of Orthodox Christians and religious expression in general in Turkey is a troubled one. Turkeyís government says it will increase freedoms, but critics believe change is too slow in a country with a staunchly secular system introduced by the national founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Most of Turkeyís 72 million people are Muslim, but even many of those feel that their rights are curtailed by law. Female employees of the state are not allowed to wear Muslim headscarves at work, and in 2008, the Constitutional Court struck down a governmentbacked amendment lifting a ban on the wearing of headscarves in universities. The Greek Orthodox community in Turkey has dwindled to about 2,000. One of their key demands is the reopening of the Halki Theological School, a Greek Orthodox seminary on Heybeliada Island near Istanbul. The school was closed to new students in 1971 after a law put religious and military training under state control. It shut its doors in 1985, when the last five students graduated. Western leaders, including US President Barack Obama, want Turkey to allow it to reopen. On a visit to Greece in May, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was optimistic it would reopen. —AP
JAKARTA: Indonesian Christian women shout slogans during a protest against attacks on churches yesterday. — AFP
Hundreds rally in Jakarta, call for religious freedom JAKARTA: Several hundred Indonesians rallied in Jakarta yesterday demanding that the president do more to protect freedom of religion and to punish hardline Muslim groups which have attacked minority faiths. The protest reflects growing public alarm over recent attacks on churches, Christian prayer gatherings, and on mosques used by the Ahmadiyya, an Islamic sect that some Muslims deem heretical. Such attacks have hurt Indonesia’s reputation for religious tolerance, and could potentially threaten the status of Southeast Asia’s biggest and most-populous economy as an attractive investment destination, in turn derailing growth and development. Indonesia is officially secular and recognises six main faiths - Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism - of which Islam is the most widespread, accounting for about 85 percent of the population and making Indonesia the world’s most populous Muslim country. In the past, attacks on minority religions in other parts of the country have led to wider outbreaks of violence, for example in the aftermath of President Suharto’s ouster in 1998. Several of the recent attacks have involved members of Muslim gangs such as the Islamic Defenders Front or FPI, a hardline group whose members are considered as little more than thugs
and racketeers because of their suspected links to the police and use of intimidation and violence. Many Indonesians were outraged when Jakarta’s governor, Fauzi Bowo, and the head of the Jakarta police, attended the FPI’s 12th anniversary celebration recently - a move seen as an official endorsement of the group’s vigilantism. On Sunday, about 500 people, many carrying red-and-white Indonesian flags and red ribbon arm bands, chanted “freedom of worship, freedom for all religions,” and sang religious songs as they rallied around the National Monument in Jakarta. “We’ve been patient enough over these recent incidents of violence and brutality, even against women and children. We have reported these criminal acts to the police, and we’ve seen no firm response against the attackers,” said Saor Siagian, spokesman of The Forum for Religious Freedom Solidarity. “If this escalates it could potentially lead to a more dangerous situation and poses a real threat to this nation. So far, the president hasn’t taken any firm action.” The Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace last month reported an increase in the number of attacks by “intolerant groups”, citing forced closures of churches, the withholding of building permits for churches, and torching of church buildings. —Reuters
HONG KONG: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe shops for shoes in the Harbor City mall on Saturday. — AFP
Mugabe goes shopping in HK HONG KONG: Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe spent the weekend shopping for highend suits and shoes in Hong Kong, where he owns a house and his daughter attends university, local media reported yesterday. Mugabe’s shopping trip came several days after he visited the World Expo in Shanghai for Zimbabwe Day. China is not a party to international sanctions on Mugabe, who is the subject of a Western travel ban and asset freeze. A team of officers from the Hong Kong police VIP protection unit flanked the octogenarian president on Saturday as he visited high-end shops in the city’s Kowloon district, local media said. “In general, police
would make appropriate security arrangements forvisiting foreign dignitaries,” a spokesman said in an email to AFP. “Due to operational reasons, police would not comment (further).” A government spokesman was quoted as saying Mugabe was not on an official visit. Mugabe’s daughter Bona is studying accountancy at City University of Hong Kong and he owns a home in the outlying New Territories district, the Sunday Morning Post reported. The leader’s wife Grace sparked a diplomatic row last year when she escaped assault charges after allegedly striking a British photographer as he took her picture during a shopping trip. Hong
Kong’s justice department said she was entitled to diplomatic immunity as the Zimbabwean president’s wife, a decision that sparked a storm of criticism. In Shanghai on Wednesday, Mugabe thanked China for its support in helping his nation rebuild its shattered economy. He said his country “immensely benefited” from China’s “generosity in several areas, including the supply of agricultural materials, and food assistance where inclement weather has affected our harvests”. Once a breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s food shortages have been brought on by drought and Mugabe’s crippling land-reform program. —AFP