Snow was snowin'
Wind was blowin'
When the world said,
'Goodbye, Buddy.'

Those words, written by a young British songwriter named Geoff Goddard, paid early homage to the death of Buddy Holly in a plane crash, 50 years ago on Tuesday. Sung by Mike Berry, A Tribute to Buddy Holly remains one of Britain's best early attempts at rock'n'roll, not far behind Cliff Richard's Move It and Johnny Kidd's Shakin' All Over. Swathed in the studio effects beloved of Joe Meek, the maverick London-based producer who had borrowed some of his techniques from Holly's hits, the record used the American singer's own language to articulate the sense of loss felt by those with whom the music of the bespectacled 22-year-old from west Texas had formed a powerful bond.

If Elvis Presley made a generation want to play rock'n'roll, Buddy Holly showed us how. Seen from this side of the Atlantic, the lip-curling confidence of Presley's smouldering sexuality made the Memphis truck driver seem shrouded in delicious mystery, a being from another universe. There was no mystery about Holly. He looked and sounded like an unpretentious kid. The glasses and the gawkiness told us that we, too, could have a go at what he was doing, if we were prepared to put away skiffle's tea-chest bass and washboard and invest in those solid-bodied electric guitars that appeared to have come off the same drawing board responsible for the era's befinned and chrome-laden Packard and De Soto automobiles and Wurlitzer and Rock-Ola jukeboxes.

That'll Be the Day was the record that brought a distant, alien world within our reach. Released under the name of Holly's group, the Crickets, in the US in May 1957, and in the UK soon afterwards, it opened with a tumbling guitar introduction novel enough to rivet junior skifflers. It also set a pattern: how many great records made in the last half-century are instantly recognisable by their guitar intros alone, from Move It (and Shakin' All Over) to Smells Like Teen Spirit? Terse, twangy and echoladen, the pioneering prologue to That'll Be the Day cleared the way for a song that created a quite different mood from that of Presley's records by combining the new driving beat with a lilting melody and an appealingly boyish vocal.

Addressing a girl who is trying to tell him goodbye, Holly alternates between naked vulnerability and a facade of careless arrogance: a very teenage condition, at a time when teenagers were coming to recognise themselves as a separate and special group. Like his listeners, this singer was not old enough (Holly was 19 when he first recorded it ) to think in terms of drowning his sorrows among strangers in the dimly lit bar of a Heartbreak Hotel.

The song's throwaway title was borrowed from a line used by John Wayne in The Searchers, a John Ford western that Holly and the fellow members of his group went to see on its release in 1956: a vernacular phrase that made the perfect start to a conversational lyric. The songs Holly wrote and those he chose from the pens of other writers would often have that same unpretentious directness: a flip remark like "Maybe, baby!" or "Oh, boy!" gained an italicised potency, while an offhand phrase such as "I don't know, I've been told …" opened a lyric (Peggy Sue Got Married, one of his last) with the informality of someone addressing his best friend.

Holly's enunciation also made teenage ears prick up. His singing was full of playful little hiccups, repetitions and distortions. In That'll Be the Day, a simple "well" became a "weh-hey-hey-hell". He sang of "tuh-hurtle-dovin'" and "ah-all your hugs and kisses". Every now and then a vowel would be distended, as though he were stretching his mouth wide as he sang. Together with the "yeahs" and "gonnas" and "atchas", this was not the kind of diction parents were going to appreciate.

And yet, particularly by contrast with Elvis, Holly turned out to be impossible for parents to fear and detest. Whereas the smouldering greaseball Presley represented the darkness of mortal sin, Holly sang with a kind of light in his voice: he sounded as though he might be about to put down his guitar and set off on his paper round, or give his father a hand with chopping the firewood. Probably no one did more to make rock'n'roll acceptable to adult society without neutering its essence. That veneer of smiling innocence was to achieve a similar effect for the Beatles, his greatest disciples, who also managed to reconcile the apparently opposing forces of core-audience credibility and parent-friendliness during the two or three years in which Beatlemania gripped the nation, between their appearances at the Palladium and the Palace.

But the point about Holly was that he could play rock'n'roll like ringin' a bell, to borrow Chuck Berry's phrase, and he showed that it could be done by cleancut, nicely mannered white boys just out of high school. He and his boyhood friend Jerry Allison, the Crickets' drummer and the co-writer of That'll Be the Day, were the first to assemble the elements of early rock'n'roll into the template that would serve successive generations, from the former skiffle musicians in Soho's 2i's coffee bar in 1958 to an indie band playing its first gig in a Camden Town pub in 2009.

The Crickets, as they became known, settled quickly on the classic instrumentation of two guitars, bass and drums. Their repertoire included covers of Berry's Brown Eyed Handsome Man, a selection of Little Richard's hits, and the song Bo Diddley named after himself. They took Berry's guitar leads, Diddley's rumbling beat and Little Richard's lack of inhibition, and fitted them together with the plangent, wellstructured country music of Hank Snow and Hank Williams, the soundtrack to their childhoods in the small town of Lubbock.

Straight away they made a special impact in repressed mid-50s Britain, where there were no Packards and few Wurlitzer jukeboxes, and where teenagers greeted rock'n'roll as if it were a rainstorm in a desert. The first UK artist to cover a Holly song was Larry Page, a young singer destined for a successful career as a promoter and producer. Supervised by one of EMI's sceptical staff producers, his version of That'll Be the Day was fatally compromised by the company's conservatism and withered in the shadow of the full-blooded original. "The label saw no future in rock'n'roll," Page told Pete Frame, the author of The Restless Generation, an exhaustive and entertaining account of the music's arrival in Britain, published last year. "They had to make all the great American records sound like Workers' Playtime. They didn't have a clue. Consequently, I made the Mickey Mouse version of That'll Be the Day."

In March 1958, temporarily down to a three-piece, Holly and the Crickets arrived in the UK for a 31-date tour that began at the Trocadero in south London and wound its way through such towns as Wigan, Doncaster, Hull and Worcester as well as Liverpool, Cardiff and Sheffield, playing two shows a night. The disc jockey and author Charlie Gillett was 16 when he saw them at the Globe in Stocktonon-Tees, and he was astonished by the volume and the raw intensity generated by Holly, Allison and string-bassist Joe B Mauldin, with their tiny amplifiers. That tour resonated throughout the emerging world of British rock'n'roll, and Holly was to play a significant role in the development of the three most important British groups of the 60s.

The graduation of Hank B Marvin from the world of skiffle was accelerated when he became the first British guitarist to learn Holly's licks and the first to own a Fender Stratocaster, just like Buddy's. That guitar would become a trademark of the Shadows, as would Marvin's blackframed spectacles.

The spirit of Holly's music is all over the first three or four Beatles albums: John Lennon and Paul McCartney virtually apprenticed themselves to his blend of big beat and melodic invention. Their early song titles – Love Me Do, Please Please Me, From Me to You – mimicked Holly's unembellished teentalk. Beatles for Sale, the album they released in time for the Christmas of 1964, contained an explicit salute in the form of a word-perfect rendering of Words of Love, a song that (like It Doesn't Matter Anymore and Raining in My Heart) might have been the blueprint for any number of Lennon/McCartney romantic rockaballads.

Earlier that year, the Rolling Stones had exploited the other side of Holly's musical character, the one rooted in a response to black rhythm'n'blues. When the Stones picked the Crickets' Not Fade Away for their second single, they chose a song that would take them into the UK top five for the first time and give them their initial entry in the US top 40. The original recording was the most extraordinary of Holly's career, a radical recasting of the Diddley beat played by a deftly strummed acoustic guitar and a barely audible string bass, with Allison tapping out the syncopated rhythm on a cardboard box. That box was an idea borrowed from Buddy Knox's Party Doll, a 1957 hit also recorded in the Lubbock studio of the producer Norman Petty, but Allison and his colleagues made something new of it: who would have imagined that Diddley's shave-and-a-haircut rhythm could be rearticulated with such finesse? The Stones, however, took it back to the source: a Mississippi Delta blues moan transplanted to the bustling Chicago stockyards, with Mick Jagger's wailing harmonica and Charlie Watts's thundering tom-toms.

By the time the success of Not Fade Away wrenched the Stones out of the R&B clubs of the Thames Delta and gave them the beginnings of a worldwide following, Holly had been in his grave for five years, along with Richie Valens, JP Richardson (the Big Bopper) and Roger Peterson, the 21-year-old pilot whose error, according to the subsequent inquiry, led to the fourseat single-engined Beechcraft Bonanza plunging into a frozen field five and a half miles north-west of Clear Lake, Iowa, a few minutes after midnight on 3 February, en route to the next stop of the Winter Dance Party tour in Moorhead, Minnesota.

A stream of posthumous releases helped confirm Holly's place in rock history, and later there would be a Hollywood biopic, a Broadway musical, books and tribute bands. And, in 1971, there came Don McLean's American Pie, the song that gave an indelible name – and a poetic truth, if demonstrably not a literal one – to the first of rock'n'roll's many brushes with mortality: the day the music died.

Richard Williams, The Guardian, 30.01.09

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jan/30/buddy-holly-rock-roll

L'Île rouge s'embrase. Au moins 68 personnes sont mortes dans les troubles qui secouent Madagascar depuis le début de la semaine. La plupart des victimes ont péri dans des incendies lors de pillages de magasins à Antananarivo, la capitale, et en province à Toliara, notamment, où les autorités évoquent des décès par «électrocution». Le secrétaire d'État français à la Coopération, Alain Joyandet, a, pour sa part, fait état de «plus de 80 morts en quelques jours».

Les émeutes ont éclaté en marge des rassemblements quasi quotidiens des opposants au président Marc Ravalomanana. La fronde est orchestrée par Andry Rajoelina, le maire d'Antananarivo, qui accuse le chef de l'État d'abuser de ses prérogatives. Elle se développe sur fond de paupérisation et de hausse des prix. Les habitants de la capitale reprochent à Marc Ravalomanana, un ex-chef d'entreprise qui dirigeait Tiko, un empire économique dans le secteur agroalimentaire, de se comporter en autocrate, de gérer le pays en fonction de ses intérêts personnels et de le brader à des sociétés étrangères. Son projet de mise en location d'une partie des terres cultivables de l'île au trust coréen Daewoo est vivement dénoncé.

Guerre des télévisions

La situation présente des similitudes avec les événements de 2002 qui avaient conduit le président malgache, à l'époque maire d'Antananarivo, au sommet du pouvoir. Novice en politique, le riche homme d'affaires Marc Ravalomanana, dit «le roi du yaourt», avait poussé vers la porte de sortie le président Didier Ratsiraka en s'appuyant sur un mouvement populaire parti de la capitale. Il est aujourd'hui défié par un jeune businessman, Andry Rajoelina, 34 ans. Surnommé «TGV» en raison de son caractère fonceur, il a créé un mouvement dont le sigle reprend ces trois lettres, le Tanora malaGasy Vovona, les «Jeunes Malgaches décidés» en français.

L'épreuve de force a débuté par une guerre des télévisions. Marc Ravalomanana a fermé, en décembre, Viva, la chaîne privée de son rival, après la diffusion d'une interview du président déchu Didier Ratsiraka, qui vit en exil à Paris. Le 17 janvier, Andry Rajoelina a réuni quelque 30 000 partisans sur la place du 13-Mai, haut lieu de la contestation malgache. Les rassemblements ont dégénéré lorsque les manifestants ont saccagé le siège de MBS, la station télé présidentielle, ainsi que des magasins appartenant au chef de l'État. Réputé pour ses réactions irrationnelles, Marc Ravalomanana a refusé d'employer la force pour endiguer les émeutes. «C'est moi qui ai donné l'ordre aux militaires de ne pas intervenir. Il faut bien gérer la crise, sinon cela aurait été un bain de sang», a déclaré le président malgache. «C'est lui, le maire, qui est l'initiateur des troubles», a-t-il ajouté. Son adversaire a paru d'abord désemparé face à l'ampleur des dérapages, mais il semble décidé à poursuivre son bras de fer. «TGV» fustige plus que jamais un «recul des libertés» et la «spoliation des terres malgaches» via le projet agricole du colosse coréen Daewoo.

D'après le Financial Times, Daewoo a obtenu du gouvernement une licence gratuite pour cultiver 1,3 million d'hectares de terrains arables considérés comme sacrés selon le culte malgache des ancêtres. La société coréenne prévoit de fournir près de la moitié des importations en maïs de la Corée du Sud, un pays très peuplé disposant de peu de ressources agricoles.

Madagascar pourrait bénéficier en retour des investissements de Daewoo sous forme de routes, de réseaux d'irrigation et d'équipements. L'île a subi de plein fouet, l'an dernier, les effets de la crise alimentaire mondiale. Le Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM) estime que 70 % de la population malgache vit en dessous du seuil de pauvreté. Jeudi, un calme précaire s'est instauré à Antananarivo à l'occasion d'une journée «ville morte», mais le cycle des manifestations devrait reprendre en fin de semaine.

Thierry Oberlé, Le Figaro, 30.01.09

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2009/01/30/01003-20090130ARTFIG00006-les-emeutes-fragilisent-le-pouvoir-a-madagascar-.php

El último aguijonazo lo han dado el canal de televisión TVI y Visao y Sábado, los dos principales semanarios, que aseguran que el procurador (fiscal) general de la República ha recibido una misiva de la justicia británica que compromete al primer ministro en un caso de soborno y corrupción. La carta rogatoria dice tener sospechas de que Sócrates pudo haber "solicitado, recibido o facilitado pagos" en el curso de la licitación del Freeport Outlet Alcochete, el mayor centro comercial de Europa de tiendas de descuento, inaugurado en el estuario del Tajo en septiembre de 2004.

Sócrates se dirigió ayer al país para "repudiar" las noticias publicadas y afirmar con rotundidad: "Con campañas negras e insidias no me derrotarán". El primer ministro aludió a "fugas de información selectivas y manipuladas" para atacarle políticamente, aseguró que la licitación del centro comercial Freeport se hizo conforme a la ley, y aseguró estar preparado para afrontar "una prueba de resistencia".

Sócrates era ministro de Medio Ambiente del Gobierno que autorizó en 2002 a la compañía británica Freeport Leisure la construcción del centro comercial en los límites de una zona protegida. La falta de pruebas en aquella época dejó el asunto en el olvido, hasta que, años después, ha saltado de nuevo a la palestra. Sócrates ya no es un simple ministro, sino el jefe de Gobierno que aspira en las próximas semanas a la reelección al frente de la secretaría general del Partido Socialista y a revalidar el cargo de primer ministro tras las generales previstas para otoño.

"Ante la alarma social", la fiscalía de la República, que dirige Fernando Pinto Monteiro, emitió ayer un comunicado de respuesta a la carta de la Oficina de Fraudes Graves de Londres, recibida el 19 de enero, en la que advierte que hasta la fecha no tiene indicios que permitan acusar a nadie. Asegura que el caso Freeport está bajo investigación desde septiembre de 2008 y que, en este momento, la policía judicial rastrea diversos flujos bancarios.

Pese al impacto mediático, el caso Freeport no es el más relevante de los que se acumulan en el poder judicial portugués, que se mueve a paso de tortuga, según ha admitido el propio procurador Pinto Monteiro. Este año será particularmente exigente para la justicia, ha declarado María José Morgado, adjunta del procurador general. Esta mujer de 57 años dirige el grupo de investigación de la fiscalía más importante. El martes, una quincena de fiscales y agentes de la policía, encabezados por un juez de instrucción, se presentaron en la sede del Banco Privado Portugués (BPP) con un mandato de busca y aprehensión de documentos. Cumplían órdenes de Morgado. El BPP está intervenido por el Estado desde el pasado 24 de noviembre.

Otro banco, el Banco Portugués de Negócios (BPN), está siendo investigado después de que el Gobierno decretara en noviembre su nacionalización. José Oliveira e Costa, ex presidente de la entidad, es el primer banquero de relieve que ha sido detenido en Portugal. La justicia investiga al BPN y BPP por abundantes irregularidades, que incluyen fraude, lavado de dinero en paraísos fiscales, evasión fiscal y falsificación de documentos.

Sin duda, el caso más grave sin resolver es el de los abusos sexuales en la Casa Pía, un internado que acoge a muchachos marginados o huérfanos. El escándalo salió a la luz en noviembre de 2002, cuando se descubrió una red de pedofilia en la que están implicados nombres conocidos de la política, la televisión y el deporte.

Francesc Relea, El Pais, 30.01.09

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Socrates/fuego/elpepuint/20090130elpepiint_11/Tes

After yet another fierce, 45-minute gun battle, Majdi Abed Rabbo was ordered once again to negotiate his perilous way across the already badly-damaged roof of his house, through the jagged gap in the wall and slowly down the stairs towards the first-floor apartment in the rubble-strewn house next door. Not knowing if the men were dead or alive, he shouted for the second time that day: "I'm Majdi. Don't be afraid."

All three men – with Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles, wearing camouflage and headbands bearing the insignia of the Izzedine el Qassam brigades – were still alive, though one was badly injured and persuaded Mr Abed Rabbo to tighten the improvised bandage round his right arm. The youngest – perhaps 21 – was taking cover behind fallen masonry from where he could see the Israeli troops who had sent the visitor. Nervously, Mr Abed Rabbo told them: "They sent me back so I can take your weapons. They told me you are dead." It was the youngest who replied defiantly: "Tell the officer, 'If you're a man come up here'."

When the soldiers had arrived at about 10am, Mr Abed Rabbo, 40, had no inkling that over the next 24 hours he would make four heart-stopping trips, shuttling across increasingly dangerous terrain between the Israeli forces and the three besieged but determined Hamas militants who had become his unwelcome next-door neighbours. He would recall every detail of an episode which, in the telling, resembles the more melodramatic kind of war movie, but which was all too real for a man who by the end had lost his house and thought (wrongly) that his wife and children were dead. He had also witnessed at too close quarters the last stand of the men from the Qassam brigades in the face of relentless Israeli ground attacks and Apache helicopter fire.

Civilians were not killed in this episode, as they were in all too many during Operation Cast Lead. Instead, it offers a rare and detailed glimpse of an actual engagement between the Israeli military and Hamas fighters. And while it helps to reinforce Israel's contention that Hamas operates in built-up civilian areas, it also suggests that its own commanders were prepared to use civilians as human shields to protect Israeli troops.

It is one man's version of what happened, of course. But as the soldiers would find out when they checked later, Mr Abed Rabbo is a former member of the Fatah-dominated intelligence, still being paid by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. He believes the Hamas gunmen had no right to be in the house next door. But he also strongly objects to the use made of him by the Israeli military. "I could have been killed," he explained.

The soldiers arrived on 5 January, the second day of their ground offensive, with a Palestinian he knew only by his family name of Daher. After telling him to remove his trousers and roll up his shirt to establish he had no weapons, the soldiers told him to bring out his wife, Wijdan, 39, and family. Then, with Mr Abed Rabbo escorted at gunpoint by three soldiers and his family still in the yard, the troops searched his house up to the roof. The Arabic-speaking soldier assigned to Mr Abed Rabbo then asked him about the house next door. He told them he thought there was no one in the property. Then, he said, one of the soldiers brought a sledgehammer with which Mr Abed Rabbo was told to smash a hole in the wall between the two roofs, each opening to the apartments below.

An officer arrived and ordered a search of the house next door. The officer went first, stepping cautiously sideways down the stairs with his M16 rifle pointing downwards, then Mr Abed Rabbo with the soldiers and their guns pointed at his back. Suddenly, the officer turned and started screaming at his men. "We went back upstairs. The soldiers were pulling me and I fell twice," Mr Abed Rabbo said. "We went back to the roof of my house." It became apparent what the officer had glimpsed when suddenly the soldiers, by now on high alert and outside the yard of Mr Abed Rabbo's house, came under fire. He was taken into a mosque, which was already full of soldiers, across the road, then handcuffed and told to sit. After a 15-minute silence, the Hamas militants opened fire again. "The soldiers took position at the windows of the mosque and started shooting back. I was screaming at the soldier who spoke Arabic, 'My wife and children are in danger'." Mr Abed Rabbo said he was then told "shut up or I'll shoot you". "I collapsed and started to cry," he added. "I felt my family was dead."

He remained in custody for the next two days, sometimes handcuffed, staying with the Israeli unit as it moved through the area, often amid heavy exchanges of fire. Once, he was told to open the doors of two cars at another house to check them, before summoning the female occupants of the house downstairs. Then, in the afternoon, he was ordered to visit the damaged building where the armed Hamas men were. "I said I will not go. Maybe they will shoot me. I have a wife. I have kids," he recalled. But, he added, the Israeli officer told him he had "fired 10 rockets and killed them". He was then told to go into the house and bring out the weapons, after being hit with a rifle butt and given a kicking to reinforce the order. "I went to my house and saw my family was not there. I looked to see if there was any blood but there was nothing. It was empty. As I went down the stairs I was calling 'I'm Majdi' so they would not think I was Israeli and shoot me." Approaching the apartment door, he saw one gunman, his AK-47 pointed out, standing guard in the hall with two others behind him. Staying at the doorway, he told them the Israelis believed they had been killed. "They asked me where the army was and I said, 'They're everywhere'," he added. "They asked me to leave."

The soldiers, concealed behind the wall of a house 100 metres away, told him to strip naked to show he had not concealed any weapons as he left the house. Later, he was asked to make a third trip – his second journey alone – to the gunmen's redoubt. Mr Abed Rabbo says the Israeli officer cursed and hit him when he heard his report. Shortly afterwards, an Apache helicopter fired three missiles which he says "destroyed" the house containing the gunmen.

Night had fallen when he set out yet again under orders from the troops, but Mr Abed Rabbo persuaded them that the route through the rubble on his roof was impassable in the dark. "I kept asking about my family and they kept saying 'they're OK, they're OK'." The gunmen, incredibly still alive, opened fire yet again.

Mr Abed Rabbo was then taken to another house and told to stay there, handcuffed, cold and "worried about my family, my house". The Israeli soldiers came to fetch him again at about 6.30am, assuring him "we killed them last night" and telling him to go and see. "I said, 'How can I go? My rooftop is destroyed. It is very dangerous'," Mr Abed Rabbo explained. But given no choice, he managed to reach the stairs and descending cautiously, calling out as he had done twice before. "I saw everything was destroyed. They were all injured but the one who had been bleeding was worst. He was holding his finger up and saying, 'There is no God but Allah'. One of them was lying under rubble but still alive. The one in better condition said there was no way they would surrender, they would become martyrs. One gave me his name and told me to give a message to his family."

Mr Abed Rabbo said the Israelis started shooting while he was there and he ran away. "I went back to the Army. I lied to them. I said, 'They said if I went back they would kill me'."

The Israeli troops now used a megaphone to tell the gunmen in Arabic: "You have families. Come out and we will take you to hospital and take care of you. [The] district is full of special forces. All the Hamas leaders are hiding underground."

According to Mr Abed Rabbo: "While they were talking like this the [Hamas men] opened fire again, the officer pushed me against a wall and said, 'You've been lying to me. There are more than three in there'."

The soldiers then ordered two other residents to take cameras into the house to photograph it and the Hamas fighters. Next, the army sent in a dog which returned injured and died soon afterwards. The gunmen were then told: "You have 15 minutes to come out with no clothes on and with your hands up. If you don't, we will bring the house down on you."

After 15 minutes, Mr Abed Rabbo said, a bulldozer moved into the area between the houses and the mosque, destroying large parts of his house before systematically demolishing the one the gunmen were hiding in. It was now Tuesday afternoon.

Before he was taken away, Mr Abed Rabbo had a clear view of his wrecked house, the pulverised property next door, and the bodies of the three Hamas gunmen lying in the rubble.

Donald Macintyre, The Independent, 30.01.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/my-terror-as-a-human-shield-the-story-of-majdi-abed-rabbo-1520420.html

Multi-instrumentiste, compositeur de disques singuliers et de bandes originales de films à succès (La Fabuleuse histoire d'Amélie Poulain ou encore Good Bye Lenin !), ce dernier finit de réaliser le nouvel album de Miossec, à paraître en août.

Comme pour sceller publiquement cette collaboration, les deux Brestois se retrouvaient en ville, jeudi 22 janvier, dans la salle du Quartz, scène nationale la plus fréquentée de France, pour la première des quinze dates d'une petite tournée produite par la salle.

Miossec a pris l'habitude de s'imposer un intermède en plein enregistrement pour tester sur scène un répertoire en constitution. L'été 2003, quelques mois avant la sortie de l'album 1964, il avait ainsi donné une série de concerts avec l'Orchestre lyrique de la région Avignon-Provence.

Cette fois, le duo a privilégié les guitares - celles de Miossec, de Tiersen et de Marc Sens -, la batterie d'Arnaud Dieterlen, la basse de Stéphane Bouvier, le piano et les ondes Martenot de Christine Ott.

"Désolé, plaisante Miossec devant les 1 500 spectateurs, on joue des chansons que personne ne connaît." A quelques exceptions près, le concert n'est constitué que de morceaux que les deux Brestois ont composés et joués seuls dans le studio d'enregistrement parisien de Yann Tiersen. Le groupe se les a appropriés en répétant une semaine au Quartz. L'excellente acoustique du lieu donne de l'ampleur aux sons, même dans les tâtonnements. Mise en avant, la voix rugueuse de Miossec nourrit ses émotions à vif et ses blues dérisoires de formules qui font déjà mouche : "Comme la mer empêche les poissons de voir le ciel", "Seul ce que j'ai perdu m'appartient à jamais", "Donner sa vie, pour qui, pour quoi/Pour quel patronat, pour quel résultat"...

DES CLIMATS ORAGEUX

La veille du concert, dans leur QG du Vauban, bar mythique des embardées noctambules brestoises, le chanteur et le compositeur revenaient sur la genèse de leur collaboration. "Un soir, Christophe m'a fait écouter une maquette où il jouait du piano, j'ai trouvé qu'il y avait là une super matière, je lui ai proposé de bosser ensemble", raconte le violoniste-pianiste-guitariste-accordéoniste, diplômé du conservatoire de Rennes. "Habituellement, ajoute Miossec, les musiciens regardent d'un drôle d'oeil mes tentatives d'instrumentiste. Yann, lui, m'a donné confiance." "L'important ce n'est pas la technique, mais l'idée, l'émotion", affirme son camarade.

Si, en studio, les deux complices disent avoir joué d'une large palette instrumentale, leur concert se concentre sur les guitares. Celle de Marc Sens dessine des climats orageux, à la limite du bruitage. Celle de Tiersen s'inspire souvent de la new wave ténébreuse des années 1980, au point de manquer parfois de personnalité. On préfère sa six cordes quand elle se fait brumeuse dans le fantomatique Fortune de mer ou sautillante dans La Plaisanterie.

Mais le musicien ne sert-il pas mieux le chanteur quand il se met au piano, exprimant un particularisme mélodique fait de fragilité romantique et de fraîcheur enfantine ?

Sur scène, les deux flibustiers se chambrent à la bonne franquette. Ces amis de longue date, habitués des virées dans l'île d'Ouessant, où Tiersen possède une résidence secondaire, savent mettre en commun leur rudesse et leur sensibilité. Pour Miossec, "le disque reste à peaufiner". Selon Tiersen, "les albums les plus bruts sont les meilleurs". La vérité de leur projet se trouve sans doute entre les deux.

Stéphane Davet, Le Monde, 23.01.09

http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2009/01/23/miossec-tiersen-flibustiers-du-rock_1145614_3246.html

Más de 40 años atrás, en época de Nikita Jruschov, Raúl Castro ya había estado en Zavídovo de caza con su hermano Fidel. En total, Raúl visitó Rusia en la época soviética 23 veces, la última en 1985, cuando viajó con su hermano mayor a los funerales de Konstantín Chernenko, el último líder comunista antes de Mijaíl Gorbachov, que comenzó la perestroika y, con ella, el distanciamiento de Cuba.

Raúl Castro espera obtener del Kremlin un crédito millonario que se destinará a la compra de productos rusos; además, firmará una serie de acuerdos "en las más diversas esferas", según adelantó el viceprimer ministro Ígor Sechin, copresidente de la comisión gubernamental bilateral que impulsa las relaciones comerciales y la colaboración entre ambos países. Entre los acuerdos destaca uno sobre ayuda humanitaria ?envío de alimentos gratuitos a Cuba? y, según los especialistas, otros referentes a la cooperación en la explotación de hidrocarburos y en el campo de la educación y la ciencia.

Sechin subrayó que Rusia continuará la cooperación técnico-militar con Cuba. En el marco de esta colaboracion, a mediados del pasado diciembre visitó el puerto de La Habana una flotilla de buques, encabezada por el destructor cazasubmarinos Almirante Chabanenko, la primera visita de naves de guerra rusas desde la desintegración de la Unión Soviética. "Nuestra colaboración en la esfera militar está dirigida a crear garantías de seguridad para la existencia de nuestros Estados", señaló Sechin, y agregó que dicha cooperación se realiza "en consonancia con los acuerdos internacionales" y con el "derecho soberano" de los dos países.

Reflote de las relaciones

La prensa rusa destacaba ayer la visita de Raúl Castro y señalaba el deseo del Kremlin de remediar, dentro de lo posible, los errores cometidos en las relaciones con Cuba. Nezavísima Gazeta opinaba al respecto que "el último gran error de Moscú fue la renuncia, en 2002, a continuar arrendando la base militar de Lourdes, desde la que la estación de espionaje raidolectrónico podía escuchar cómodamente los ánimos imperantes en Wahington".

A pesar de la mejora de las relaciones ruso-cubanas, éstas todavía dejan mucho que desear. Basta comprobar que el intercambio comercial entre ambos países ronda sólo los 200 millones de euros: según los últimos datos disponibles, éste alcanzó el año pasado, hasta noviembre incluido, apenas algo más de 182 millones. No obstante, en la esfera política las cosas van mucho mejor: La Habana apoyó a Moscú en el conficto con Georgia, y, como subraya el Krelim, ambos tienen "las mismas o cercanas posiciones sobre los principales problemas de las relaciones internacionales".

Rusia está dando últimamente gran importancia al desarrollo de las relaciones con América Latina, como lo demuestran las recientes visitas de los presidentes de Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, y de Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, y las previstas para febrero del bolivanio Evo Morales y la chilena Michelle Bachelet. Los estrechos lazos del venezolano Hugo Chávez con Rusia son conocidos gracias a las periódicas visitas que realiza a Moscú, y se asientan principalmente en la colaboración militar y en la cooperación en la esfera de los hidrocarburos. La compañía rusa Gazprom está interesada también en otros proyectos relacioados con el petróleo y el gas en América del Sur.

Rodrigo Fernández, El Pais, 30.01.09

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Raul/Castro/abre/nueva/pagina/relaciones/Rusia/Cuba/elpepuint/20090130elpepuint_2/Tes

She is one of the most glamorous women on the planet, whose every red-carpet appearance is scrutinised by an army of photographers and tooth-sucking style commentators. But Angelina Jolie stands accused of an extraordinary fashion faux pas.

The actress sparked heated debate yesterday, after it emerged that the striking, but somehow odd-looking, blue dress she wore to Sunday's Screen Actors Guild awards in Los Angeles had been worn back to front.

Sharp-eyed pundits who pored over the pictures of Jolie negotiating the event's 200-yard red carpet noticed that her dress bore a striking resemblance to a $798 (£560) ball gown showcased at catwalk previews of designer Max Azria's spring collection.

The cornflower-blue frock had the same kimono-style sleeves and waistline as the silk dress worn by Azria's wafer-thin models, they remarked, together with identical detailing on the skirt. But its plunging neckline appeared to have been reversed to show off her back.

After the influential Red Carpet Fashion Awards website noticed the dress-reversal, fashion commentators began discussing the crucial issue of whether Jolie had been aware that it was on back-to-front.

Some speculated that she had accidentally got dressed the wrong way round. In a celebrity version of The Emperor's New Clothes, they said neither her partner Brad Pitt nor dozens of domestic staff had been brave enough to tell her of her wardrobe malfunction. Others described the move as an intentional, and ingenious, way for the 33-year-old actress to wear a dress that would otherwise have exposed an enormous portion of cleavage. They also claimed that reversing the garment allowed Jolie to showcase the collection of tattoos on her back.

Jolie's stylist, Jen Rade, issued a short statement to USMagazine yesterday, saying that her client had intentionally wore the dress that way round to make the outfit "more blouson".

But not everyone was convinced, noting that when Jolie discussed the garment in a red carpet interview with the TV show E! on Sunday, she made no mention of the fact it was on backwards, commenting merely: "I just like to be comfortable, I see what comfortable options are out there."

Cynics also noted that, if she had intended to expose her tattoos, the dress was hardly an unqualified success: the v-shaped neckline actually covered up half of the artworks.

Either way, the affair left some influential fashion commentators with egg on their faces. The Los Angeles Times critic Booth Moore, for example, failed to notice that the dress was on back-to-front when composing a lengthy analysis for Monday's newspaper. "Jolie is one of the few celebrities who has developed a signature red carpet look: drapey, goddess-like dresses that show off her tattooed shoulders, natural hair, minimal make-up and jewellery. Some have criticised the look as dowdy, but I would call it self-aware," he wrote.

"She's using clothing to control her image. In a way, Jolie is telling us she's transcended fashion and won't be at the whims of whatever designer or jeweller happens to be the highest bidder. That alone sets her apart from the starlet pack, giving her integrity as an actress and mother, instead of just a mannequin."

Attention will now turn to Jolie's outfit at next month's Oscars, for which she has been nominated for the Best Actress award for her role in Changeling. Meanwhile, whether she reversed the dress deliberately or not, the actress can at least reflect that she is following in a small yet memorable show-business tradition.

During the 1990s, the adolescent rap duo Kriss Kross sparked a trend for wearing jeans and t-shirts back to front. Meanwhile, at the 1999 Oscars, Celine Dion famously wore a white Dior tuxedo, backwards. That outfit, topped-off with an extravagant white fedora hat, was variously described as "bizarre" and "unflattering", and in some quarters even saw Dion compared to a "pimp".

Guy Adams, The Independent, 30.01.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/next-time-angelina-do-check-the-label-1520388.html

"Les Néerlandais sont redevenus très positifs sur la coopération européenne, explique au Monde M. Timmermans. La crise économique a, par ailleurs, rendu l'euro très populaire dans mon pays. Et nous nous réjouissons tant du développement du multilatéralisme que du fait que, sous l'impulsion de l'excellente présidence française notamment, le Conseil devienne une sorte de vrai gouvernement européen."

Ancien membre de la Convention qui avait rédigé le projet de Constitution européenne et ancien fonctionnaire à Bruxelles, le ministre admet la défaite de ceux qui, comme lui, avaient plaidé pour la Constitution. Il a acté le refus de ses concitoyens d'être inclus dans un ensemble dont ils redoutaient qu'il soit trop "fédéraliste" et dans lequel ils ne se reconnaissaient plus, après un élargissement qu'ils avaient mal digéré.

Aujourd'hui, il souligne toutefois que l'Union a besoin du nouveau traité. "Parce que les grands pays ne vont pas accepter longtemps encore des procédures et des institutions inadaptées suite à l'élargissement." "Nous avons tous besoin de règles nouvelles et d'un renforcement de la Commission. Et les "petits" pays doivent éviter que les "grands" s'arrangent entre eux, en dehors des structures européennes", explique le ministre. Il lance un appel à l'Irlande, qui se prononcera à nouveau fin 2009 et qui "s'est rendue compte, en ces temps de crise, de l'utilité de l'Europe". Il demande aussi à la Pologne et la République tchèque de "rassurer les Irlandais en indiquant clairement qu'ils veulent bel et bien ce Traité".

STABILITÉ POLITIQUE

Pour le reste, les Néerlandais se feront entendre dans quelques débats à venir. Pas question, souligne par exemple M. Timmermans, d'accepter autre chose qu'une réponse "claire, concertée, commune" aux éventuelles demandes américaines pour l'accueil d'ex-détenus de Guantanamo. Les Pays-Bas dont dit non par principe mais accepteront une discussion au niveau adéquat, celui de l'Union. Et puis, pas question d'approuver dès maintenant la reconduction de José Manuel Barroso à la tête de la Commission. "J'ai vu cette candidature. Nous en discuterons au sein de mon gouvernement. Mais l'essentiel sera la composition de la Commission et le Traité sur lequel elle s'appuiera."

Si les Pays-Bas "reviennent en Europe", c'est aussi parce qu'ils ont pu retrouver une stabilité politique au plan interne, souligne le ministre travailliste. "Après des hésitations, notre programme a été bien reçu et notre réponse à la crise financière appréciée. Nos débats sur l'immigration, l'identité et l'islamophobie, thèmes sur lesquels notre société, par sa pratique, nous devance largement, me semblent apaisés."

Le retour d'un "modèle néerlandais" ? "Notre image a été longtemps trop positive. Puis exagérément noircie. Je suis simplement convaincu qu'ils faut affronter les problèmes actuels, sous peine de tracer la voie à une droite radicale."

Jean-Pierre Stroobants, Le Monde, 30.01.09

http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2009/01/29/les-pays-bas-reviennent-en-europe-affirme-l-executif-neerlandais_1147981_3214.html#ens_id=1057332

In the biggest demonstrations seen in France for more than a decade, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets yesterday to protest against everything from the global economic crisis to President Nicolas Sarkozy's efforts to shrink the French state.

About 300,000 people – mostly representing the many tribes of a rejuvenated left-wing movement – marched raucously through the centre of Paris to demand higher wages, more job protection and greater government efforts to stop the country from tipping into a deep recession.

In a carnival atmosphere – one of political defiance, rather than deep popular anger – the trades union and left-wing sympathisers marched to a chanted refrain, in English, of "Yes, yes, yes, we can". This must be the first time that any left-wing French demonstration has invoked the absent spirit of an American president.

A 24-hour nationwide strike, mostly observed by public sector employees, was less effective than predicted but rail and bus services, airports, schools and postal services were disrupted, especially outside Paris.

More worryingly for M. Sarkozy, a poll found that 69 per cent of voters supported the protests – a figure which embraced not just the traditional left and centre, but a large number of right-wing respondents. The President may be further disturbed by the fact that yesterday's demonstrations were held before the recession has begun to bite savagely into the real economy. With France's manufacturing and luxury industries – from cars and aircraft to wine and leather goods – beginning to feel the squeeze, far deeper and angrier unrest may lie ahead.

About 1.5 million people in a dozen cities were said to have joined the rallies, which were called by the eight rival trade union federations. Union leaders said it was the largest social protest since a wave of demonstrations forced President Jacques Chirac to back down on state reforms in 1995.

The marches were the most powerful challenge so far to M. Sarkozy's authority. Police estimated the number of demonstrators in Paris at 65,000 but this was manifestly too low. A dense crowd more than a mile long blocked the Grands Boulevards in the east of the city centre, from the Bastille to La République and beyond, suggesting a turnout of at least 300,000.

The placards carried by marchers were anti-recession, anti-banker, anti-capitalist and anti-reform but most of all, anti-Sarkozy. The parade was led by people carrying an effigy of the President as a green-skinned vampire, with the slogan "Black Death" pinned on his back. Alongside him was an effigy of a donkey in a dunce's cap with the slogan "€36bn for the bankers and we get screwed". The protests, following similar unrest in Greece, the Baltic states and even Iceland, will be closely followed by other European governments. EU leaders have been concerned for weeks that popular anxiety about the recession – and anger and incomprehension at the scale of the banking bailouts – might spill over on to the streets.

Yesterday's rallies across France were mostly good-natured and almost jubilant. The left was delighted to find a unifying issue after 20 months of being outmanoeuvred and humiliated by M. Sarkozy. Leading figures in the Socialist and Communist parties ostentatiously joined the Paris march. The danger for M. Sarkozy, however, is that he so weakened the credibility of the moderate left that social protest will jump to the extremes. Yesterday's march was dotted with crude anti-capitalist images such as bankers in top hats, lighting cigars with €500 notes.

President Sarkozy has already unveiled a €26bn package to boost the economy, as well as special measures to shore up flagging sales of cars and aircraft. But even the most moderate union leaders say more must be done to boost people's declining incomes (something M. Sarkozy repeatedly promised voters in 2007).

Bernard Thibault, the head of the largest union federation, the CGT, said the marches were a "social event of the utmost importance, not just a passing shout of anger". He urged M. Sarkozy and his Prime Minister François Fillon to "re-examine their consciences" and reconsider the scale of their stimulus package. François Chérèque, of the moderate CFDT federation, called for "concrete measures for workers" – in other words pay rises.

M. Sarkozy remained deliberately and obstinately silent yesterday. Last year, he boasted that he had tamed the unions and that "when there is a strike in France, no one notices any more". It appears that he spoke too soon. He may take comfort from the fact that yesterday's strike was mostly observed by public-sector workers whose jobs are not directly threatened by recession. And he will note that the strikes were not as damaging as the unions had forecast: seven in 10 trains ran on the Paris Métro, while six in 10 high-speed TGV trains were operating normally.

Former French first lady's jewels stolen

Burglars have stolen jewels worth €500,000 (£450,000) from the home of President Nicolas Sarkozy's former wife Cécilia, police said yesterday.

A friend of the former first lady – who was divorced from President Sarkozy in October 2007 – said that the stolen valuables were worth far less than the police estimate. She said they were worth around €50,000.

The raid on a house in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the wealthy area just west of Paris where M. Sarkozy was once mayor, was on New Year's Eve. It was kept secret until it was leaked yesterday to Le Parisien newspaper.

The former Cécilia Sarkozy, who goes by her new married name, Attias, and her new husband, Richard Attias, are living in Dubai. They were not present at their home at the time.

"The amount of jewellery stolen was [worth] €50,000," said Corinne Debury, a friend of the couple.

Ms Attias, who divorced M. Sarkozy five months after he took office, married M. Attias last March – a month after M. Sarkozy married Carla Bruni. After a period out of the limelight, the former first lady has begun to appear once again on the front cover of glossy French magazines.

John Lichfield, The Independent, 30.01.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-demonstration-sarkozy-vs-the-street-1520412.html

C'est l'histoire de cet astéroïde, cousin en désespoir de François Villon et Paul Verlaine, que la dessinatrice Florence Cestac et le scénariste Jean Teulé (auteur, justement, de deux romans biographiques sur Villon et Verlaine) ont choisi de raconter en la titrant Je voudrais me suicider mais je n'ai pas le temps, repartie dont usait Charlie Schlingo quand on le questionnait sur son humeur du moment. Tous deux l'ont connu, tous deux l'ont aidé et aimé. Et il fallait des tonnes d'affection pour supporter cette boule de souffrance mâtinée de violence !

Charlie Schlingo a des excuses. Né avec une jambe mal fichue due à la polio - trois mois avant que le vaccin soit trouvé -, il est surnommé le "Vilain" par ses parents qui l'obligent à se cacher sous la table quand viennent des invités. Moqué par les autres écoliers, il apprend à marcher sur les mains afin ne pas souffrir en boitant et développe des bras aussi musclés que ceux de Popeye. Heureusement, Charlie a une grand-mère italienne, Goro-Goro, qui l'initie à la BD en lui offrant les illustrés des années 1960-1970 : Pepito, Tartine ou... Popeye. "Quand je lis ça, j'oublie tout", s'émerveille-t-il.

Le jeune Charlie décide, logiquement, de devenir auteur de BD. Pour oublier, pour exister, pour être aimé. Il écrit et dessine des planches délirantes et cinglées, maniant la crétinerie et la scatologie avec génie, du Havane primesautier, son premier fanzine, à Canetor, son dernier ouvrage.

Dans la vie, il se comporte comme ses héros. Il boit, beaucoup. Et puis vomit, y compris dans le képi d'un gendarme venu le réprimander, lui et ses amis fêtards de Charlie, un des journaux auxquels il collabore. Il se bat pour un oui pour un non, tout en refusant la "brutalitude" (sic). Ses copains éditeurs se refilent cet ovni hyperaffectif - Les Humanoïdes associés, Futuropolis, Magic Strip, le Square, Albin-Michel, Le Seuil...

Il est idolâtré par certains, admiré par des pros comme le Professeur Choron, Jean-Pierre Dionnet ou Etienne Robial, méprisé par d'autres. Ses albums se vendent mal. Trop incorrects, trop caustiques, trop vitaux. Sa personnalité et ses écarts en font un être à part. Lors de l'intronisation de Florence Cestac, Grand Prix d'Angoulême en 2000, il s'écrie, du balcon de l'hôtel de ville : "Moi, monarque de la lose, bonheur des soldeurs, roi des retours..." "Sa réalité, c'était la souffrance", rappelle Jean Teulé. Il la dominait. En jouant au foot ou en faisant Montmartre-Créteil (12 km !)... sur les mains.

UN ALBUM "QUI PIQUE LES YEUX"

Jean Teulé a enquêté plus de trois mois pour engranger anecdotes, témoignages et récits sur cet ami trop tôt parti. "J'ai enquêté comme pour Verlaine, Villon ou Montespan, explique l'écrivain-scénariste. Tous ceux qui ont connu Charlie Schlingo ne serait-ce qu'une demi-heure ont une histoire à son propos !" Les parents de Charlie ont accepté de parler de lui, comme ses copains et ses ex-petites amies (une seule a menacé les auteurs d'un procès). "Quand il draguait des filles, il leur disait des énormités. Il leur assenait tant de choses, comme quand il se battait, que cela marchait !", s'étonne encore Jean Teulé. "Avec les filles, il pouvait être adorable", tempère Florence Cestac. Les auteurs ont retiré deux anecdotes, jugées "trop glauques". Pas plus : "Toutes les citations et anecdotes sont vraies", note Florence Cestac, dont le dessin "gros nez" (rond et dynamique) a l'art de désintoxiquer les situations tragiques ou sordides.

L'album, le premier rédigé par des auteurs de BD sur un auteur de BD, raconte l'histoire d'un gamin qui n'aurait pas voulu naître et qui tente de guérir grâce à l'alcool, la came et la dérision, fût-elle "hénaurme". C'est un album de rires et de larmes, "qui pique les yeux", selon l'expression de Jean Teulé. Au 36e Festival d'Angoulême, un prix Charlie-Schlingo sera décerné pour la première fois à l'album "le plus Schlingo". Il sera récompensé par une gerbe.

Yves-Marie Labé, Le Monde, 30.01.09

http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2009/01/30/la-bd-vraie-de-charlie-schlingo_1148382_3260.html#ens_id=1147246

Miles de personas, algunas con banderas palestinas y turcas, se agolparon en el aeropuerto Ataturk de la ciudad del Bósforo para recibir a Erdogan coreando lemas como "Turquía está orgullosa de ti" y "Damos la bienvenida al líder del mundo".

Erdogan se marchó encolerizado diciendo que nunca más volvería a Davos, indignado porque sólo se le dieron 12 minutos de réplica a una intervención de Peres, quien durante 23 minutos defendió exaltado el ataque de su país a la franja de Gaza.

"Hemos dicho que siempre respaldaremos principios rectos, que nos mantendremos firme defendiendo el Derecho. Lo hicimos y vamos a seguir haciéndolo. Es lo que le corresponde a Turquía", dijo Erdogan a las personas congregadas en el aeródromo.

En una rueda de prensa posterior, criticó al moderador al explicar que Peres pudo exponer sus puntos de vista durante 23 minutos sin ninguna interrupción y que a él sólo le dieron la mitad. "La forma en la que Peres habló no encaja en la manera en que un presidente tiene que hablar. Fue insultante y elevó mucho la voz. Estaba diciendo cosas que no eran correctas, y eso no puedo aceptarlo", dijo Erdogan.

Críticas de la oposición
El mayor partido opositor turco, el 'kemalista' Partido Republicano del Pueblo (CHP), acusó a Erdogan de actuar "como un portavoz de Hamas".

"En la diplomacia no existe un lenguaje de ese tipo. Ha debilitado el prestigio de Turquía. Para el mundo civilizado Erdogan está acabado", dijo el vicepresidente del CHP y antiguo diplomático Onur Oymen.

A pesar de ello, la mayoría de los diarios y de los ciudadanos apoyan la decisión de Erdogan de dejar plantados a los demás oradores.

"No puedo hablar con el lenguaje que los diplomáticos jubilados entienden. Yo vengo de la política. No soy el líder de una tribu. Soy el primer ministro de la República Turca. Ser suave no encaja con nuestra nación", respondió Erdogan a las críticas sobre su falta de tacto.

Erdogan explicó que el propio Peres le llamó después del debate para disculparse por el incidente y que no elevó la voz contra él.

Algunos analistas como Murat Yetkin, del diario 'Radikal', creen que la posición mediadora de Turquía en el conflicto de Oriente Medio se ha debilitado, porque su fuerza consistía en tener la capacidad de hablar al mismo tiempo con Israel, Irán y Siria.

Turquía, un país musulmán con claras simpatías por la causa palestina, es uno de los aliados más firmes de Israel en la región, aunque el ambiente se ha enturbiado por la ofensiva israelí en Gaza en la que murieron más de 1.400 palestinos y 13 israelíes.

La Vanguardia, 30.01.09

http://www.lavanguardia.es/internacional/noticias/20090130/53629850597/miles-de-turcos-reciben-entre-vitores-a-erdogan-tras-su-incidente-con-peres.html

Each week, along with the basic album and singles sales charts, there are myriad other charts published that track the diverse fortunes of the music industry, including those for the various major download sites, and the number of radio plays each track has secured. The one thing that isn't measured, however, may be the most influential of all: the prominence a piece of music achieves on that most powerful of all media, television.

Television is important in a way that the other charts, by their very nature, ignore: less concerned with immediacy, it can afford to ignore the rapidly changing tastes of a fickle industry like music, but employ the same piece of music over and over again, establishing it as the musical livery of a programme or strand, and confirming it as one of the emblematic musical signatures of its era. For the last year or two, it's been Sigur Rós's heavenly "Hoppípolla" that can't be avoided.

You've all heard it hundreds of times: that tentative piano figure cycling around and around, seeming to climb up and up expectantly like an MC Escher belvedere, until it finally reaches some emotional tipping-point and brims over, cascading in soul-lifting waves of fulfilment as strings and brass crowd round to hymn along.

It's become utterly ubiquitous since its release in 2005, as directors discovered how perfectly it seemed to suit all manner of situations, from baby whales being reunited with mommy whales on nature programmes, to some clueless pleb finally mastering a meaningless task on any of a hundred bogus reality-TV shows. Look! She's managed to run that half-marathon! Cue "Hoppípolla". See! The courting swans entwine their necks! Cue "Hoppípolla". Wow! He's not just conquered his fear of flying, he's enduring barrel-rolls! Cue "Hoppípolla". Gasp! It's the winning goal, in slow motion! Cue "Hoppípolla". And so on.

By last year, it was almost possible to channel-hop randomly and never hear anything else. It was even used in an episode of Doctor Who, and more recently in trailers for Slumdog Millionaire. And Oxfam adverts. And The X Factor, the audio equivalent of sleeping with the enemy. Small wonder that when Sigur Rós were recording it, they gave it the nickname "The Money Song" – they immediately gauged its appeal – before settling on "Hoppípolla" (Icelandic for "jumping in puddles").

You can hear why it's so popular among programme-makers. Because Jónsi Birgisson is singing in his native language, it's not stained by lyrical associations, while it fulfils our current yearning for aspirational sonic euphoria. It's like Coldplay minus the simpering-twatness, Radiohead minus the bitter curmudgeonly aftertaste, U2 minus the overweening egotism. It's the perfect musical soundtrack, it seems, for a UK blinded by vague empathy as it hurtles towards bankruptcy.

But it's not, Birgisson claims, as ubiquitous on Icelandic telly as it is here. "No, that's definitely a British thing," he says. "Everything dramatic and 'Hallelujah', every dramatic ending – cue it up!" (I'm not sure, in retrospect, whether he's referring to that "Hallelujah" or is using the word as an emotional analogue and has, spookily, simply stumbled across TV's new-found replacement for "Hoppípolla".)

"Hoppípolla" thrust Sigur Rós on to an entirely new plane of fame and fortune. The album from which it was taken, Takk..., was their fourth full-length outing, its predecessors having appealed predominantly to a refined art-rock constituency. Their debut album Von, for instance, sold a grand total of 313 copies in Iceland when first released in 1997, only accruing popularity when it was reissued in the wake of subsequent successes with 1999's Agætis byrjun and 2002's (). Since then, they have earned vast sums from their art, a position ironically exaggerated by the recent financial upheavals in Iceland. "Because we get our salaries and stuff from England, and the krone to the English pound has just doubled, it is actually good for us personally," explains Birgisson, with slight embarrassment. "But for the people around us, it is not good."

() still represents perhaps the furthest extremity of aesthetic insularity in pop music. Besides having no title as such (it's usually referred to as "Brackets" or "Parentheses"), and a largely white, albeit elaborate, packaging, its eight tracks lacked titles, and even the songs, sung by Birgisson in the distinctive fallen-choirboy falsetto that has enchanted millions, were written in the band's made-up language of Hopelandic, a meaningless succesion of phonemes that seems as though it ought to mean something, but doesn't. Did meaning matter much to them?

"I think if you want to have lyrics, then meaning has to matter," Birgisson says. "But yes, we have this kind of love-hate relationship with lyrics, because music flows so naturally for us, and when you come to write lyrics you have to put yourself in a different space. We usually start by singing some nonsense over the songs, then I listen to that, and usually, within that gobbledigook, there is often some spark of meaning – so you take out one word and start from there, and find out what the song should be about."

Intriguingly, the band's most recent album, last year's Med sud í eyrum vid spilum endalaust ("With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly"), even contained a track entitled "Gobbledigook" – which with typical perversity made perfect sense in translation, being an ode to the "hair-stroking, hem-blowing prankster-boy" wind ("You make hats fly into the air, you turn umbrellas inside out too often", etc). According to Birgisson, it was inspired by the Eurovision Song Contest, a claim that beggars belief given Sigur Rós's reputation for creating "cathedrals of sound". Surely Eurovision represents the diametric opposite of all they stand for?

"That was two years ago, when we were writing the songs for ...endalaust," he explains. "We had rented a big farm out in the country, and the Eurovision Song Contest was on television one night, so we watched that. The whole competition, all the way through. Then, after the contest, we just picked up instruments straight away and started playing, and this song came out. I don't know where it came from. It's such a crazy contest – it's crazy that you can actually have a contest about music – and it has such amazingly bad 'good' songs!"

By their own standards, "Gobbledigook" was a bizarre song, its stomping beat, static structure and light-heartedness operating at a sharp tangent to the slow, steadily developed sense of anthemic yearning for which they had become celebrated. If one were to assemble all the reviews and features written about Sigur Rós, the adjective used most often would probably be "glacial", and the critical stratagem most frequently employed would discuss their music in terms of the imposing Icelandic landscape – lazy clichés, of which the band themselves have become thoroughly sick and tired.

So how would they themselves describe their music? "I think the words that come to my mind are, like, 'organic', maybe," Birgisson eventually concedes. "There's something quite natural about it, and we think a lot about soundscapes when we are doing it. Basically, when you strip everything away from the music, at its quietest it's normal pop songs; but it's the way that you produce it that puts the meat on the bones of what you do. But it's always hard for us to describe how we sound."

Most bands, if pressed, will make similar claims on inexplicability, but in Sigur Rós's case there's more justification than most, their music being less permeable to descriptive, physical comparisons than abstract, emotional comparisons. And even then, they seem to have the gift of finding the gaps between emotions, sometimes leaving the listener adrift on a sea of conflicting moods and vague yearnings. In terms of instrumentation, however, they have shifted more towards using acoustic sources than electronic ones, particularly on ...endalaust. This, it transpires, was more a matter of convenience when they found themselves in unfamiliar surroundings.

"When we rented the farm in Iceland, we started out using mainly acoustic instruments, and it just developed from there," explains Birgisson. "But the basic structure of most of the songs is just acoustic, that is always our starting point."

Do you have a favourite sound?

"My favourite sound, ever?"

Yes, a sound source, such as marimba, piano or violin...

"Definitely," he decides, "it would be something like wind in trees, a nature sound of some sort. But as regards instruments, I like piano, celesta... there are so many beautiful-sounding V C instruments around. It depends how you play them."

This observation leads into a discussion about Washington Phillips, a gospel singer and songwriter from the Twenties, of whom we are both fans. Like Robert Johnson, Phillips recorded only a handful of songs (16 in total) but he accompanied himself on a mysterious instrument – either a dulceola, dolceola, celestaphone, phonoharp or fretless zither – related to the hammer-dulcimer. But, as with Johnson, the lack of documentary evidence and the unique sound of Phillips's instrument have provoked feverish debate among enthusiasts ever since.

"Is it a dulcimer?" queries Birgisson. "But it seems like he's strumming it! It sounds amazing, like some form of harp-guitar." His fascination with Phillips makes obvious sense, both musicians' work exhibiting a haunting blend of certitude and vulnerability – what might best be called a fragile majesty, especially when the band's sound is swelled by the addition of the Amiina string quartet, or the subtle lowing of horns which, on ...endalaust, relates more to the British brass-band tradition than the American R&B tradition. This may or may not have something to do with their collaboration on that album with the British producer Mike "Flood" Ellis, best known for his work with indie and goth acts such as Nick Cave, Nine Inch Nails, U2 and The Killers."We had never worked with a producer before, and it was a good learning experience for us," Birgisson says. "Before, it was always just the four of us together, doing everything for ourselves. When he first came, it was a weird situation, because he has his own way of working, and we have ours. He is so focused, and such a hard worker. He became like a father figure to ...endalaust: he was always there, from 10 in the morning to 10 in the evening. When you have your own studio, like we do, and no pressures of time, it's easy to just have a coffee and decide to do it tomorrow! That had been happening quite a lot with us. And it was good for us to go to other studios: we recorded the basic tracks in New York, and basically, you're just locked in a room all the time. It was fun, though."

Their tentative outreach programme for ...endalaust did encounter one stumbling block, however, when they decided to commission the Berlin-based artist Olafur Eliasson, who created the Sun installation in the Tate Modern turbine hall, to do the album artwork, an alliance that didn't work out as well as hoped.

"We had long talks with him and met a couple of times to discuss ideas with him, but basically it just didn't work out," Birgisson says. "We had just totally different characters in our working methods – he is so methodical and mathematical, so well-thought-out and correct, and has definite meaning, and we are so spontaneous and rough, and everything we do has a huge amount of soul, but no meaning."

Instead, they opted to use a picture by the photographer Ryan McGinley of naked youths running across a road, which the band felt captured their spontaneous quality. Even that caused problems in America, where bare buttocks – at least those not belonging to porn stars – seem to offend the sensibilities.

"That was so weird!" recalls Birgisson. "When we played in America, we would arrive at venues and there would be posters outside advertising the gig, and they would be blacked out! And the CD would have stickers put over the asses! Why should they be embarrassed by naked bodies? There's nothing offensive about it. Look at rap album covers and you see, say, 50 Cent, and he's posing with guns and stuff, flexing his muscles – what a role model! That should be censored, surely? It's crazy! But hopefully, times are changing."

Oddly, for such a guileless, reserved band, Sigur Rós now seem to be the favourite band of every A-list celebrity, from tattooed rocker Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe, who appears to use them as some form of meditative chill-out refuge from his racy lifestyle, to megastar Brad Pitt. More queasily, the band's music was apparently playing when Gwyneth Paltrow produced her little Apple. It all seems a million miles away from their lives in Iceland, as Birgisson confirms.

"It's nothing to do with us," he says. "We just live our normal lives in our small Reykjavik, we have our own apartments, our own families and kids, and our fame doesn't affect us at all, I think. We never think about it, we never talk about it, and we don't make a big thing out of it – we don't play the media game, stuff like that. We just like to be able to walk down the street and go to a coffee-house, things like that."

Andy Gill, The Independent, 30.01.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/sigur-r243s-why-were-mesmerised-by-the-hypnotic-icelandic-band-1519898.html

Le patrimoine de votre Fondation a été réduit de 20 % avec la crise. Mais vous vous apprêtez à augmenter le montant des aides, les faisant passer de 3,3 milliards de dollars à 3,8 milliards en 2009. Sa durée de vie va-t-elle s'en trouver raccourcie ?

L'essentiel de ma fortune va aller à la Fondation. Sa taille va donc s'accroître dans les années à venir. Le but est d'éliminer le paludisme, d'améliorer les conditions de vie des pauvres, et non de se préoccuper du compte de résultats de la Fondation.

La crise, qui accroît aussi la pauvreté aux Etats-Unis, va-t-elle modifier la répartition de vos investissements ?

Un million d'enfants meurent du paludisme chaque année. La crise ne provoquera rien de pire. Nous ne changerons pas nos priorités.

Vous avez dit, en 2008, qu'il était nécessaire que le capitalisme devienne plus créatif. Etait-ce une critique du capitalisme actuel ?

Non ! Les innovations des grandes entreprises ont permis de doubler l'espérance de vie en cent ans. Grâce au développement des affaires en Chine, en Inde, au Brésil, au Mexique, en Thaïlande, en Malaisie, les populations très pauvres sont devenues minoritaires. Je ne critique donc pas du tout les grands groupes.

Le capitalisme créatif vise à regarder comment les entreprises les plus florissantes peuvent adapter ce qu'elles savent très bien faire aux besoins des pauvres. Il faut surtout s'assurer que l'on ne revienne pas en arrière, que les engagements soient tenus. Car certains gouvernements se demandent s'ils ne vont pas couper les aides.

Qu'est-ce qui incite les laboratoires à faire de la recherche pour les maladies absentes des pays riches ?

L'aide gouvernementale, les dons philanthropiques et le capitalisme créatif. Nous sommes presque venus à bout de la poliomyélite grâce aux avancées dans les pays riches. Pareil pour la tuberculose. Dans le cas du sida, les pays riches ont considéré qu'ils pourraient traiter les malades et n'ont pas massivement investi dans la recherche d'un vaccin, alors qu'il est indispensable dans le monde en développement.

Quelques firmes pharmaceutiques financent ces recherches. Notre fondation y contribue à hauteur de 300 millions de dollars (232millions d'euros) par an. L'agence américaine de recherche Niaid est le plus gros financeur dans ce domaine.

Pensez-vous que le paludisme pourra bientôt être éradiqué ?

Non, ce serait être trop optimiste. Les moustiquaires et les pulvérisations d'insecticide réduisent bien la transmission du parasite. Avec le vaccin en cours d'essai de phase 3 développé par GSK, nous espérons diminuer de moitié en 2025 le nombre de décès dus au paludisme.

Les organisations des Nations unies fixent des objectifs qui ne sont jamais atteints à la date prévue. L'échéance prévue pour les Objectifs du millénaire pour le développement (OMD), 2015, est-elle réaliste selon vous ?

Les OMD sont comme des bulletins scolaires, et nous n'aurons pas que des 20 sur 20. Mais ils sont très utiles pour voir ce qui avance bien – tout progresse en Chine –, mais aussi ce qui évolue peu – la mortalité maternelle en Afrique subsaharienne. Aux Etats-Unis, on apprend les OMD aux lycéens. Ils s'intéressent ainsi à la mortalité maternelle, à l'accès à l'eau potable, aux grandes maladies. Le public est incité à s'interroger sur ce que fait son gouvernement. Si les plus pauvres vivaient parmi nous, nous serions infiniment plus incités à les aider.

Quel sera votre principal message au Forum de Davos ?

Depuis le sommet de Gleneagles, le G8 ne s'occupe plus seulement des problèmes de gens riches et des politiques économiques. Il y a eu des engagements impressionnants pour augmenter l'aide à l'Afrique. Nous espérons que ces efforts seront maintenus. Mon message principal sera centré sur les réussites, et sur ceux qui tiennent leurs engagements, comme la France, l'Allemagne, le Royaume-Uni.

Certains de vos investissements personnels et de ceux de la Fondation ont été critiqués. Comme celui dans Pacific Ethanol, qui produit du bioéthanol et contribuerait à la famine dans le monde. Que répondez-vous à cela ?

Est-ce bien ou mal d'investir dans le bioéthanol ? Est-ce bien ou mal de posséder des obligations de l'Etat américain? De cet Etat qui a fait la guerre à l'Irak… Nous préférons travailler sur les maladies plutôt que de faire des petits rapports sur ces sociétés pour juger de leurs actions.

Banished to the wilderness, the embattled US Republican Party could choose its first ever black leader today as a first step in reinventing itself for the new political era.

In the House of Representatives, Republicans demonstrated remarkable unity this week when they voted unanimously against Barack Obama's $825bn (£580bn) economic stimulus package. The bill passed the House without their support but, next week, some Republicans in the Senate are expected to break ranks and support it.

But nowhere, it seems, is there a Republican figurehead with the capacity to challenge the Obama star power and charisma. The choice of the next chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) marks a chance to begin the fightback.

In a tightly contested race, the low-key incumbent Mike Duncan holds a small lead in endorsements. But if the party decides to make a symbolic break with its past, it may pick a black leader.

There are two black candidates in the running for the job: former Maryland lieutenant-governor Michael Steele, and former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell. While the position lacks the visibility of a governor or a member of the Senate, the role is a crucial organisational one for the electoral battles ahead, and the party is in desperate need of a strong hand on the tiller. "We are at a low-water mark," said John Cornyn, a prominent Texas Senator. "You might say there is nowhere to go but up. I don't think that is necessarily true."

Since the 1960s, the Republican Party has counted on the "Southern Strategy" of stirring up white fears, especially in the Deep South, to ensure victory at the polls. Mr Obama's victory, and his upset victory in the traditionally Republican states of North Carolina and Virginia, are forcing the party leadership to think hard about the future.

The old race-baiting style of politics works less well now that voters are more urban than rural. That's what Chip Saltsman, a Tennessee candidate for the leadership, discovered after he circulated a song called "Barack the Magic Negro" in December. As of yesterday afternoon, Mr Saltsman has no public endorsements from the 168 voting Republicans and his name was not expected to appear on ballots.

Seeing how the wind was blowing, the Republican South Carolina state chairman Katon Dawson, decided to resign from his whites-only country club in September. He is still hopeful of being elected.

Incumbent Mike Duncan's 36 endorsements, meanwhile, are still a long way from the 85 he needs to win the contest. And for those Republicans looking for a charismatic megastar, Mr Duncan seems an unlikely candidate. When he announced that he was seeking re-election as chairman of the Republican National Committee, The New York Times ran a photo of his opponent, the Michigan party chairman Saul Anuzis instead.

To cheer themselves up as they contemplate their options, Republican Party leaders in Washington need only glance from their senatorial campaign headquarters to see the still-blazing Eternal Flame of Freedom outside. It commemorates the day their party took charge of Congress in 1994.

The prospects of the party returning to prominence anytime soon don't look great but choosing a leader who will reinvigorate the party after its string of defeats is a start. Overcoming the anger at the mess left by George Bush and dealing with the star power of Mr Obama could take longer.

President Obama's approval rating stands at 84 per cent, according to a CNN poll, and 56 per cent of Americans say the country is better off with Democrats controlling Congress. The next Republican chairman will have to rebuild the party from the ground up and is unlikely to emerge as a potential presidential candidate.

The next Republican leader? Three front-runners

Mike Duncan

Endorsements: 36

The current chairman of the RNC, Mike Duncan is hoping the party faithful will look past last year's election loss and choose him for a second term. However, his perceived ties to George Bush – he was chosen by the former president for the post, running unopposed in 2007 – may mean that his time is up.

Ken Blackwell

Endorsements: 13

One of two African-American candidates vying for the position, Blackwell has a strong backing from social conservatives. In a debate earlier this month he said too many Republicans "campaign like Ronald Reagan and govern like Jimmy Carter". Some fear Blackwell – a former Ohio Secretary of State – lacks the charisma for the top position.

Chip Saltsman

Endorsements: 0

Saltsman's achievements as campaign manager for Mike Huckabee's impressive run for the Republican nomination have been undone by a CD he distributed which included a parody song entitled "Barack the Magic Negro". And would the former Tennessee party chairman remain impartial if Huckabee ran again?

Leonard Doyle, The Independent, 30.01.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/republicans-may-choose-their-first-black-leader-to-claw-back-support-1520415.html

El librero y comisario de este evento, Paco Camarasa, ha explicado que Saviano, amenazado de muerte por la Camorra napolitana tras publicar su libro 'Gomorra', aceptó la invitación de la Semana "desde el primer momento, porque le apetece mucho estar en Barcelona, un lugar del que conoce su tradición de novela negra".

Saviano participará en una mesa redonda, abierta al público, en el Saló de Cent del Ayuntamiento, que presidirá el alcalde, Jordi Hereu, y que contará con la participación del periodista Carles Quílez y del comisario de los Mossos d'Esquadra y escritor Joan Miquel Capell. Además, aprovechando su estancia en la capital catalana, se presentará su nuevo libro, "Lo contrario de la muerte", que publica Debate Editorial y recibirá el premio Vázquez Montalbán.

Paco Camarasa ha resaltado que Barcelona, que es una ciudad "que siempre ha luchado por la libertad, ahora tenía que homenajear al hombre que es en este momento un símbolo, que consigue la solidaridad de premios Nobel o de intelectuales de todo el mundo".

El comisario de Barcelona Negra espera que la presencia del italiano la próxima semana "motive algún manifiesto de intelectuales españoles, porque Saviano es mucho más que un escritor". Para Camarasa, "si en el siglo XX eran los nazis los que quemaban libros, ahora en el siglo XXI, alguien que no tiene el poder del Estado, pero sí el de la economía sumergida, de la que no sale a la luz, es quien amenaza la vida de una persona por culpa de un libro".

El librero sostiene que, una vez más, "vuelve a confirmarse que el libro es un objeto subversivo porque explica la libertad" y agrega que le gustaría que un día Saviano pudiera pasear tranquilamente por las calles de esta ciudad y que pudiera "ver Nápoles desde el Bogatell".

El festival de novela negra de invierno más importante de Europa, según el delegado de Cultura del Ayuntamiento, Jordi Martí, reunirá entre el 2 y el 7 de febrero a un total de 78 autores de nueve países de todo el mundo especialistas en el género, para que participen en conferencias, mesas redondas y encuentros con los lectores.

La Vanguardia, 29.01.09

http://www.lavanguardia.es/cultura/noticias/20090129/53629491075/roberto-saviano-participara-en-la-semana-de-novela-negra-de-barcelona-gomorra-camarasa-camorra-vazqu.html

Among the family heirlooms that Charles Darwin inherited, symbolically speaking, was a china cameo depicting a black slave in chains, asking "Am I not a man and a brother?" The image had been mass-produced as a campaigning device, some 20 years before Charles's birth, by his grandfather, the potter Josiah Wedgwood. An impassioned and active opposition to slavery was at the heart of the Darwin-Wedgwood family's values.

The cameo's question has long since been answered once and for all in the affirmative, but the questions about race that led on from it seemingly refuse to accept that they have been settled. Religion may have monopolised Darwinian controversy lately, but race remains a source of unease and suspicion. The fault-lines Adrian Desmond and James Moore have been treading in their new book Darwin's Sacred Cause: race, slavery and the quest for human origins (Allen Lane, £25) are still active.

When Charles Darwin entered the world 200 years ago, there was one clear and simple answer to the slave's question. All men were men and brothers, because all were descended from Adam. By the time Darwin had reached adulthood, however, opinions around him were growing more equivocal. During his vision-shaping voyage on the Beagle, he was able to consult an encyclopedia which arranged humankind into 15 separate species, each of a separate origin.

By the mid-19th-century, many influential voices denied that the enslaved African was a brother, and it was broadly taken for granted that as a man, he was of an inferior sort to his white master. Darwin stepped into the centre of the stage just when such ideas were helping to tear the northern and southern states of America apart.

To many scientists, that doubtless seems no more than coincidence. Darwin's devotion to observation and experiment, epitomised by the eight years he spent studying barnacles, lends itself to the interpretation that his concerns were solely with the facts of nature. In the introduction to his book Darwin's Island: the Galapagos in the garden of England (Little, Brown, £20), Steve Jones seems to suggest that we would do well to follow "the tradition of the great naturalist himself, who was dubious about the many infantile attempts to apply his ideas to society". That goes for the "empty arguments" about evolution and religion too. "Today's biology in its success emphasises how little relevance it has to the issues so often, and so tediously, discussed by non-biologists," he remarks.

The rest of us thus put in our place, Jones makes his point with a tour of topics that Darwin explored in his fleet of mature works, steering away from the flagships The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. Jones cross-fertilises Darwin's pioneering studies of animals' expressions, orchids' contrivances and earthworms' exertions, among other subjects, with his own vivid and eclectic resumé of what science has discovered about these and much more since.

This is not the reflection on Darwin's relationship with his home in Kent and his native land that the title suggests – Darwin's biographer Janet Browne has already provided such a study in her volume The Power of Place – but it's certainly a showcase for the success of biology.

For those who feel that there is more to science than nature, however, Adrian Desmond and James Moore offer a bold new account of what drove Darwin on. His opposition to slavery in principle is well known, as are his appalled reactions to the evidence of its brutality he encountered on his Beagle voyage, such as the use of thumbscrews to punish slaves, or the man who cowered at his harmless gesture, reflexively anticipating a blow. What's new in Desmond and Moore's interpretation is the idea that this humanitarian concern motivated Darwin's science and guided it on its unique course. Evolutionary thinking enabled him to rescue the idea of human unity, taking it over from a religion that no longer provided it with adequate support, and put the idea of common descent on a rational foundation.

Desmond and Moore resume the bravura style they employed to dramatic effect in their 1991 biography of Darwin, spurring the historical horses into a gallop, striding across far-flung shores, echoing the thunder of distant battlefields, anatomising the machinations of power, and spicing the whole with artful touches for the reader to relish. Yes, Darwin surely was "the most gentlemanly gentleman anyone had ever met".

Their new Darwin differs somewhat in emphasis from the earlier one. After an encounter with "savages" in Tierra del Fuego, Darwin exclaimed in his diary "one can hardly make oneself believe that they are fellow creatures". In 1991, Desmond and Moore observed that he "almost begrudged them the status of 'fellow creature'". In their new light, they affirm he "believed that the Fuegians were 'essentially the same' as himself, 'fellow creatures' of one God."

It might have been more illuminating to admit his moment of doubt. Darwin was subject to conflicting impressions. He was not only sensitive to other people's suffering, he was sensitive to other people's opinions. In successive editions of The Origin of Species, he responded to criticisms by rowing back on his revolutionary idea, reducing the emphasis on natural selection and according more significance to other possible mechanisms of change.

As attitudes to race became harsher, sympathies for black people in the Americas more scant, and the fate of "savages" a matter of indifference, Darwin's own sympathies were blunted by the prevailing fatalism. Starkly displaying his own readiness to apply his ideas to society, he observed in The Descent of Man that "the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world".

Though he hoped that man would by then have reached a "more civilised state ... even than the Caucasian," he expressed no hope that extermination might be prevented by the kind of moral and political pressure that had by then achieved the prohibition of slavery in the US. It was simply inevitable. Nature would take its course.

In this passage, widely quoted by opponents of evolutionary theory, Darwin suggests that the break between "man and his nearest allies" will be widened through the extinction of the great apes, leaving a gap between the more civilised man "and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla". No doubt about it: he regards Africans and Australians as closer than Europeans to the apes. This, he implies, is a natural condition that will frustrate any cultural efforts to mitigate it.

Desmond and Moore emphasise how impressed he had been by the changes that his compatriots had induced in several Fuegians by forcing a crash course in European manners upon them: these "savages" readily showed a capacity to become civilised. But he was younger then, and so was the century: both were more idealistic and optimistic.

Desmond and Moore tell a story that is persuasive and emotionally compelling. It is frequently thrilling and intriguing too, offering a tumult of insights into the struggles around slavery, race and science. A particularly striking instance is the Confederate States' covert effort to manipulate British public opinion using agents in the Anthropological Society of London, who argued the case for slavery and flyposted Confederate flags on London streets.

They conclude with an explanation for the structure of The Descent of Man, which appears to be a book about human origins bundled with one about sexual selection, birds and butterflies fluttering through it. This was all part of the unity project, Desmond and Moore argue: Darwin saw sexual selection, in which basically trivial preferences shaped the appearances of populations over time, as a means by which races with a common origin could have acquired their visible differences.

Darwin thus emphasised human unity and dwelt upon superficial differences, while acquiescing in the contemporary assumption that some races were superior to others. At the time that Josiah Wedgwood's "A Man and a Brother" cameos were being fired in his kilns, three great principles were firing up on the other side of the Channel. Each was subsequently at stake in the interlinked questions of slavery and race. Liberty was the simplest. Darwin held to the conviction he grew up with, that human beings must not be bought, sold or owned. Fraternity was the principle that, in Desmond and Moore's reading, he worked to establish by building a theory of common descent. But equality was a different matter. Equality so often is.

Creationists of various stripes have seized the opportunity to include racism in their indictments of Darwin. From their point of view, it is one more wicked consequence of teaching that people are animals. Considering the comfort slave-owners in the American South drew from scripture, a selective biblical quotation comes to mind: the one about beholding the mote in thy brother's eye without perceiving the beam in thine own. On the other side, those who argue that some peoples are cleverer than others insist that theirs are scientific claims, to be judged by their content rather than their context, according to facts rather than values. Here modern idiom springs to mind: "Bring it on."

Desmond and Moore observe that their Darwin is "a man more sympathetic than creationists find acceptable, more morally committed than scientists would allow". Whether or not his sacred cause was what made him so special, their Darwin is a character that will speak eloquently to many people who have reached their middle years: somebody who strove to work the ideals of his youth into the fabric of a world that exalted some kinds of change, but had turned its face against others.

Marek Kohn's 'A Reason for Everything: natural selection and the English imagination' is published by Faber

Science and inequality: after Darwin

Francis Galton

Statistician and anthropologist

Charles Darwin's cousin, born in 1822, Galton made his name as a geographer of Africa. His later research in statistics and anthropology led him to apply his relative's breakthrough findings to human differences. As a strong proponent of the role of heredity in variations between individuals and groups, his championing of "nature" versus "nurture" was developed in the 1869 book 'Hereditary Genius' and then via the study of twins. In 1883, he coined the word "eugenics", and advocated strategies for improving human stock to give "the more suitable races or strains of blood" a better chance of success. His idea of "negative eugenics", designed to restrict the reproduction of less "fit" populations, would eventually feed into the policies of sterilisation followed by many from Nazi Germany to Social Democratic Sweden.

Arthur Jensen

Psychologist

The dispute over race, intelligence and heredity crackled into life again in 1969 when Jensen published, in the 'Harvard Educational Review', a paper entitled "How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement?" He concluded that heritable differences in intelligence between white Americans and African Americans meant that schemes to improve black children's performance would fail. His claims provoked lasting controversy both scholarly (in rebuttals such as Stephen Jay Gould's 'The Mismeasure of Man') and practical (student protests outside his office in Berkeley) as critics accused him of reviving 19th-century "scientific" racism. Jensen has continued to promote the genetic components of intelligence variations but, in 1996, his synthesis of research and arguments, 'The g Factor', was refused by publishers. It finally appeared in 1998.

Marek Kohn, The Independent, 30.01.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/did-charles-darwin-believe-in-racial-inequality-1519874.html

Les médias ne sont pas les seuls concernés. Fin décembre, l'ambassadrice de Nouvelle-Zélande a été sommée de quitter le pays, accusée de discuter avec les opposants au régime.

Le retour à la démocratie semble donc éloigné pour les 830 000 habitants. Frank Bainimarama, chef des armées dirige le pays sans le Parlement, dissous, et a promis, lundi, que les futures élections pourraient avoir lieu d'ici "cinq ou dix ans".

Mardi, au Forum des îles du Pacifique - organisation régionale de 16 nations -, le premier ministre australien, Kevin Rudd, a élevé le ton et menacé d'exclure Fidji du Forum si aucune échéance n'était fixée pour les élections. "S'il est exclu, le pays s'enfoncera dans l'isolement", prévient Jon Fraenkel, spécialiste de Fidji à l'université nationale australienne.

Marie-Morgane Le Noël, Le Monde, 30.01.09

http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2009/01/29/aux-iles-fidji-la-democratie-attendra-cinq-ou-dix-ans_1147970_3216.html#ens_id=1148050