"It's funny," he said, "because I'm not the kind o' artist to really get into politics. But if he [Obama] doesn't get into office, I'm gonna change my citizenship. 'Cos I'm very afraid. I'm scared."

To what extent?

"To every extent!" He begins to chuckle. "Like, where are we now, if the people don't see it? That's a dangerous place to be next year. I'm literally movin' back to Africa. I'll just come visit, make some money and head back."

What, you have to wonder, is the Senegal-born star afraid of? A ratcheting up of racial tension? An escalation of wars that may help increase the risk of terrorist attacks? More Toby Keith albums?

"I can't even envision how bad it's gonna be," he sighs. "I see it now: just what we have had to go through in this past year. Like, I'm drivin' down the highway, I see cars parked with emergency lights on because they can't afford to buy gas. The shoulder lane has never been this full - you got families walkin' with kids in they hand, carryin' infants to the next exit to take a taxi, because the taxi get them home cheaper than the actual gas! That's crazy.

"No," he says, emphatically, shaking his head. "You think the crime rate is high now? Nah. I'll move me an' my family home. Seriously. I'm scared."

It's a surprising spiel from someone whose political songwriting is non-existent, unless you count tracks like his breakthrough hit, Locked Up, which was less social commentary than personal lament. Over the course of his brief but hugely successful career, Akon has become synonymous with the accessible end of hip-hop - with supplying hooks and hits that help rappers cross over into pop territory, and which have redrawn the boundaries of contemporary R&B.

Whether annoying or delighting in roughly equal measure with the speeded-up, Tweetie-Pie-on-helium UK No 1, Lonely, or duetting with Eminem on the smutty Smack That, Akon is many things, but challenging and politicised aren't among them. He and his associate, T-Pain, a key signing to
his Konvict Muzic label, have created a formula that has done more than cause everyone from Gwen Stefani to Michael Jackson to beat a path to the Atlanta-based maven's door. "That 808 clack, autotune sound," as he puts it, has become so ubiquitous that even those you'd think could beat the Konvict crew have decided to join them: Kanye West's current album owes a considerable debt, with the Chicago star claiming his take on the sound constitutes a new genre.

It seems an odd time for Akon to, as he puts it, "remodel the image", but that's precisely what he's done with a third album that makes two decisive breaks with his past. It all but abandons his sonic trademarks in favour of uptempo, club-inspired pop that puts him closer to Ne-Yo than any of the artists he's normally bracketed with, while its title breaks with his self-imposed nomenclature tradition. The first was called Trouble, the second Konvicted, but the previously announced Acquitted was retitled Freedom. Why?

Earlier this year, the US website The Smoking Gun published a 4,000-word investigation into Akon's claims - widely made during his meteoric rise to worldwide prominence - to have spent some years in prison as a result of a conviction for car theft. The website found several major discrepancies between the PR spiel - that his arrest and incarceration followed an FBI wiretap investigation into a car-stealing gang he ran in Atlanta in the 1990s - and the verifiable record. Notably, they could find evidence of only one six-month spell in jail, and an interview with the arresting officer elicited a derisive dismissal that Akon played a role in any auto-theft conspiracy. It was also pointed out that the date of birth of one of his children proved he couldn't have been in prison on at least one occasion when his biography implied he had been.

"Honestly? What they wrote was what I would have loved for my life to be," he smiles as he dances around the topic, preferring to despair at the website's motivation than attempt to explain what aspects of their story were wrong. "My whole argument was that if I did one day in jail or three years, it doesn't matter: it was that experience that changed my life for the better. They wrote it, people read it - whoever chooses to believe it, it's really on them.

"The whole purpose [of the Konvict brand and image] was to let everyone know, 'OK: this is who I used to be, and this is what I've become,'" he explains. "As time went by, I started to realise the misconception for those who didn't know the story; to them, it almost felt like we were promoting the convict thing, which wasn't the case whatsoever. When you use words like 'acquitted', it automatically gives you a negative vibe. So that's why we changed the title to Freedom, which means the exact same thing, but is more positive."

There is some substance to the defence that Akon eventually, and in fits and starts, manages to mount. He implies The Smoking Gun was unable to unearth his complete legal history because his real name and date of birth have not always been accurately recorded (it appears he was born Aliaune Thiam, but his name has appeared in versions up to 12 words long; and April 16 1973 is the most frequently reported of several different potential birth dates), and he refuses to give any definitive answers. He has routinely said he was born in Senegal and moved to America as a pre-teen, while The Smoking Gun claims he was born in the US. He says he has one felony to his name, from when police found a gun in a stolen car he was driving in New Jersey "around 2000". Yet trying to verify his version - or the website's - ends up posing yet more questions, criminal records searches unearthing only an unclear reference to a three-year sentence for a probation violation in Georgia in 1999, and a $10 speeding ticket in North Carolina.

It's hard to fathom Akon. He's clearly someone who enjoys spinning a yarn and watching it develop its own life - an interview technique used well over the years by everyone from Bob Dylan to the Beastie Boys. He may or may not have set out to mislead, but he has at the very least been complicit in his story being embellished. This shouldn't obscure the conspicuous good he's doing, whether it's through his charitable foundation, which is building its second school in Dakar, or in taking the kind of plunge less than a handful of American label-owners have dared, and signing a British rapper - fellow west African emigree, Sway - to a US deal. But the result is a confusion that risks undermining the credibility of the message it is his calling to deliver.

Akon believes, evidently sincerely, that his purpose beyond making music (and money) is to promote his redemption as an example. Yet curiously, it is to that figure in whom he has such a profound lack of faith - John McCain - that he turns for an explanation of why, in an era where models and actors eating insects is called "reality TV" and nations go to war over embellished research, all too often the truth is not enough.

"John McCain went to war. He was tortured. He experienced everything that a soldier would never want to experience," Akon says. "But at the same time, he's using that experience to gain votes. He brought it to the front so that people would vote for him. You wonder, like, 'Why would he do that?' And it's because he has to put them in the shoes that he was in to understand what he saw.

"If you tell someone something and they don't believe you, they're not gonna support it," he concludes. "So you have to pull out details that's shocking or something that they would actually have to imagine and close their eyes and be like, 'Ooh, I would never wanna have to go through that,' for them to actually understand. The drama of it is what makes it real."

Angus Batey, The Guardian, 28.11.08

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/28/akon-interview-new-album

Le déclic est venu d'une rencontre avec Vladimir Vasak, correspondant de la chaîne Arte en Alsace et président du Club de la presse à Strasbourg, venu à l'atelier pour un reportage sur le photographe. «Il existe très peu d'images de l'Alsace durant cette période», s'émeut le journaliste.

Voici plus de cent cinquante clichés réalisés du nord au sud de la région au cours de l'été 1945. C'est une Alsace éternelle, des ronds dans l'eau depuis les berges du quartier pittoresque de la Petite France à Strasbourg, des vues des toits de la ville depuis la cathédrale, des prairies plongées dans la brume, des travaux des champs, la forêt dense du ballon de l'Alsace, des scènes de la vie quotidienne, des vendanges, des nuées d'oies dans les rues pavées et bordées de maisons à colombages, des petites filles coiffées du «schlopf», le gros nœud noir traditionnel…

Immense solitude

«Pour moi, ce n'était pas ça l'Alsace, en 1945 !  », s'exclame la comédienne Dina Faust, tenant à rappeler que l'ambiance n'était pas aussi apaisée que ces images le laisseraient croire. Ses propos sont rapportés dans un beau livre réalisé à l'occasion de cette double exposition, par Vladimir Vasak et Anka Verrang (lire ci-contre).

On ne voit guère «les meurtrissures» de la guerre qui s'achève. Rien qui puisse supposer qu'«il arrive dans une Alsace qui n'était pas française, mais annexée par le IIIe Reich allemand, une région dialectophone où le photographe peine à se faire comprendre, une région enfin qui compte 350 000 membres du parti nazi et 130 000 “malgré nous”, ces Alsaciens et Mosellans qui ont été enrôlés de force dans la Wehrmacht, la police régulière allemande, et qui commencent à rentrer  », souligne Vladimir Vasak. Et encore aujourd'hui, «le sujet est tabou», confie-t-il. «On n'en parle pas.»

Paysages, architectures, gens de dos : difficile de reconnaître la griffe de ce photographe rendu célèbre pour son attention particulière portée aux écoliers, aux femmes, aux amants… Doisneau est en retrait. Volontairement. «Mon père avait répondu à une commande de l'imprimeur Pierre Braun, qui dirige alors la revue littéraire Le Point, pour un livre de voyage. Il n'était pas question d'entrer dans l'actualité. Le propos était esthétique », raconte Francine Deroudille. Mais l'ouvrage n'est pas paru. Et le projet est tombé dans l'oubli. «Visiblement, cela ne l'intéressait pas», poursuit sa fille qui se souvient de l'avoir entendu juger ces clichés «trop classiques». Elle poursuit : «L'Alsace était un sujet qu'il n'abordait jamais. Il y avait fait son service militaire en 1933, avait dû y retourner en 1939. Son souvenir de l'Alsace, c'était l'horreur.»

Voilà qui peut expliquer la distance qu'il instaure avec son sujet. Pourtant, à bien y regarder, ses nouvelles d'Alsace donnent une impression d'immense solitude. Il ne peut malgré tout faire l'impasse sur la guerre, fige la cathédrale de Strasbourg bombardée, les ruines à Mittelwihr. Et son cliché de la fête de la crémation des Trois Sapins, à Thann, est saisissant d'humanité : accoudées à une fenêtre d'une maison criblée de balles, trois jeunes filles sourient à la foule, en habit traditionnel, juste au-dessus d'un tout petit portrait enguirlandé du général de Gaulle.

Cette œuvre est exposée en deux lieux, dans le Haut-Rhin et le Bas-Rhin : 92 vintages et planches contact originales sont à la Filature de Mulhouse (jusqu'au 11 janvier) et 64 tirages grand format au Club de la presse, à Strasbourg (jusqu'au 30 janvier). Objectif : toucher toute l'Alsace.

Valérie Sasportas, Le Figaro, 29.11.08

http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/2008/11/29/03004-20081129ARTFIG00124--inedits-de-robert-doisneau-en-alsace-.php

Nada más salir la visita de su despacho, el diplomático español se puso a redactar un informe sobre la inesperada entrevista. Iba dirigido al ministro de Asuntos Exteriores, Josep Piqué, y a su secretario de Estado, Miquel Nadal. Lo firmó, estampó el sello de "muy secreto" en el encabezamiento y lo numeró con el 3329/02.

Este documento, al que ha tenido acceso EL PAÍS, demuestra que el Gobierno de José María Aznar sabía que aviones de EE UU que sobrevolaban y hacían escala en España llevaban a bordo a personas detenidas en condiciones cuya legalidad era más que dudosa. Ni el Ejecutivo del PP, ni luego el del PSOE, han reconocido hasta ahora estar al corriente de estos traslados, que investiga la Audiencia Nacional.

"Los EE UU van a iniciar muy próximamente vuelos para trasladar prisioneros talibanes y de Al Qaeda desde Afganistán hasta la base de Guantánamo, en Cuba", escribió Aguirre de Cárcer. "Estos vuelos se realizarán con aviones de largo alcance y, en consecuencia, sin escalas", proseguía. "Sin embargo, en caso de que por razones no previstas fuera necesario realizar un aterrizaje de emergencia, el Gobierno de EE UU quisiera disponer de autorización del Gobierno español para utilizar algún aeropuerto de nuestro país".

"El Gobierno de EE UU", puntualizaba, "asegura que estas escalas serían por el tiempo mínimo imprescindible para poder trasladar otro avión al aeropuerto en cuestión para continuar vuelo y que, a estos efectos, dispondrían de aviones de reserva en la región preparados para desplazarse con carácter inmediato si fuera necesario. En todo momento, los EE UU se harían cargo de la seguridad de las personas transportadas".

La petición resultaba sorprendente por superflua. Nadie necesita una autorización previa para un aterrizaje de emergencia. Le amparan las reglas internacionales de aviación.

Y menos que nadie lo necesitaba Estados Unidos, que disponía de un convenio de cooperación para la defensa con España cuyo artículo 25.7, entonces y ahora vigente, es taxativo: "En caso de emergencia en vuelo, las aeronaves norteamericanas operadas por o para las Fuerzas de Estados Unidos de América, están autorizadas a utilizar cualquier base, aeródromo o aeropuerto español".

Pero la Administración estadounidense quería que España supiera que esos aviones transportaban a "prisioneros talibanes y de Al Qaeda". Y no sólo España. Según le hizo constar su interlocutor a Aguirre de Cárcer, "esta misma gestión las están realizando [los estadounidenses] con varios países que se encuentran a lo largo de la ruta que deben seguir los aviones en cuestión". Por lo menos, Turquía, Italia y Portugal.

En ese momento, EE UU aún no había dilapidado el capital de solidaridad que generaron en todo el mundo los atentados del 11-S en Nueva York y Washington. Pero, en noviembre de 2001, George W. Bush ya había firmado una orden, como comandante en jefe de las Fuerzas Armadas, que autorizaba la creación de tribunales especiales para juzgar a sospechosos de terrorismo. Los miembros de dichos tribunales serían militares, los acusados no podrían acceder a las pruebas en su contra (supuestamente, para preservar la seguridad nacional) y ni siquiera se les aplicaría el principio de presunción de inocencia.

Poco después, la Casa Blanca decretó que talibanes y miembros de Al Qaeda eran "combatientes enemigos ilegales" y no les reconocía los derechos previstos en la Convención de Ginebra para prisioneros de guerra.

Estas medidas provocaron una gran polémica en Europa, a la que el Gobierno español no pudo sustraerse, pues José María Aznar ejercería, a partir del 1 de enero de 2002 y durante un semestre, la presidencia de turno de la Unión Europea.

La Fiscalía de la Audiencia Nacional y numerosos juristas advirtieron de que España no podría extraditar a EE UU a ningún sospechoso de pertenecer a Al Qaeda, ya que no estaba asegurado el derecho a un juicio justo y con mínimas garantías.

Cuando el 28 de noviembre Bush recibió a Aznar en el Despacho Oval, por primera vez después del 11-S, el presidente español dijo que "Estados Unidos tiene todo el derecho a organizar su jurisdicción de la manera que le resulte más oportuna, como corresponde a una democracia". Pero agregó: "Cualquier decisión que se adopte en España respecto a estos detenidos, si se pidiera su extradición, será acorde con las leyes españolas".

En su conversación con el consejero político-militar de la Embajada de Estados Unidos en Madrid, Aguirre de Cárcer no consiguió que éste le concretara el calendario de los vuelos previstos ni cuántos sería preciso realizar para llevar a Guantánamo a los prisioneros capturados en Afganistán y otros países.

Pero sí le indicó, según el informe secreto, que el traslado se iniciaría "muy pronto". Y le urgió a que el Gobierno español respondiese a la demanda de Washington "lo antes posible". Aguirre de Cárcer se comprometió a hacerlo "antes de mañana viernes a mediodía". Es decir, menos de 24 horas después.

Aguirre de Cárcer preguntó a su interlocutor si tenían preferencia por algún aeropuerto en particular para el caso de que esos aviones tuvieran que hacer escala en España. El consejero estadounidense le contestó que no. Por iniciativa propia, el diplomático español le sugirió que "sería preferible, en todo caso, utilizar aeropuertos en bases militares como Morón o Rota en vez de aeropuertos civiles". Seguramente, pecó de exceso de celo, ya que el Gobierno español aún no había dado una respuesta.

Miguel González, El Pais, 30.11.08

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/EE/UU/aviso/Aznar/paso/Espana/presos/Guantanamo/elpepuesp/20081130elpepunac_1/Tes

Johnny Warne points across to the other side of the Shannon and grins: 'For many on this side, over there is enemy territory.' In this run-down part of Limerick, Ireland's longest river acts as a natural frontier between the warring criminal clans of the republic's third city, whose murderous feuds have now claimed the life of an innocent bystander, a respected rugby player - the 11th killing in the past three years.

Warne gestures to his left, towards a large boggy field strewn with bags of rubbish, including piles of used syringes, discarded pieces of tin foil and other drug abusers' detritus. Limerick urban legend has it that this piece of muddy earth was the first battlefield in the war between crime gangs. That a catfight in 2001 between two teenage girls, each from families who used to co-operate in crime, ended up with women's faces scarred with Stanley knives and fathers shot at in front of their children. This street row would mushroom into a mini-civil war, with each side using pistols, machine guns, rifles and grenades. There has even been an attempt to procure rocket launchers.

'That's where they shot at kids playing football about a year and a half ago. They just fired over at random towards the kids. They weren't shooting at anyone in particular,' Warne remarks. Around us, scabrous, semi-feral horses forage for the remains of food.

'They' are a gang known as the Dundon-McCarthy faction, an alliance of criminal families that are dominant in two parts of Limerick City: Moyross, a public housing estate under the shadow of Thomond Park stadium, the home of Munster rugby, and Ballinacurra Weston, an impoverished district not far from the city's main railway station.

'A lot of older people will have relatives in Moyross and still go over there, but if you're from here and are a teenager, or in your twenties, you just wouldn't,' Warne says.

The chubby, friendly Warne says he has lived in St Mary's (also known as the Island) for 25 years and has never known it to be so bad.

'Most people just want this area regenerated and for the violence to stop,' Warne adds. 'After what happened recently, with that murder, people are just sick and tired of it all.'

On this side of the river, in the St Mary's Park area, another gang holds sway, the rival Keane-Collopy faction. Their hatred and disdain for the Dundon-McCarthy is made clear on the walls of the public housing estate wedged between the Shannon and the city's medieval walls. To the left of a neatly kept shrine to the Virgin Mary someone has daubed in fresh blue spray paint: 'Dundons are rats'.

Someone in the area has heard that The Observer has arrived, and soon an unknown person calls on a mobile, referring to himself somewhat officiously as a 'representative of the other side', ie the Keane-Collopy gang. He expresses his contempt for the Dundon-McCarthy clan, who shot to international fame this month after members posed for a series of photographs in which they resemble the 'soldiers' of the LA street gangs, with their stencilled outlines of guns and menacing slogans tattooed on exposed upper bodies. Their bitter rivals on the Island are unimpressed with this very public show of strength.

'How stupid can they be?' the voice who calls himself simply 'John' shouts down the line. 'Why draw that kind of attention to yourself? Who do they think they are - Tupac and his crew? You won't get people on this side making fools of themselves in public like that,' he assures me, as all around St Mary's people come out of their doors, and cars cruise about, checking out the strangers who have just come into their area. Then, the 'representative' adds: 'It was terrible what they did to that lad, the rugby player. After that you'd think all this would be knocked on the head.'

The young rugby player he referred to was Shane Geoghegan, the captain for the thirds at Garryowen, one of Ireland's most renowned clubs, the side that invented the famous 'up and under' rugby kick. In the early hours of Sunday 9 November, Geoghegan was walking back to the house he shared with his girlfriend, Jenna Barry, in Clonmore, a quiet, private housing development not far from Garryowen's ground. He had been returning from a night out with friends after watching the Ireland-Canada rugby match. As he headed home, Geoghegan noticed he was being followed by a blue Renault people carrier. At around 1.30am a lone gunman wearing a hoodie got out of the vehicle and started chasing after the 28-year-old aircraft fitter.

Geoghegan's fate was sealed when he literally hit a wall, a 6ft barrier in the garden of a house less than 100 yards from his home. When the rugby player failed to vault the wall and escape his pursuer, the gunman, using a high-powered Glock semi-automatic pistol, first fired four shots at Geoghegan. Then, when his quarry was lying on the ground, he delivered a final, fatal shot to the head.

At first, detectives sent to the scene were bewildered over a possible motive. Shane Geoghegan was a respectable, hard-working young man who had no connection whatsoever to any of the crime gangs of Limerick.

It has since emerged that the gangsters who targeted Geoghegan shot the wrong man. Their victim bore a slight resemblance, due to his beard, to a rival hated by the Dundon-McCarthy gang, who had moved into Geoghegan's neighbourhood because he believed it was immune to the violence.

The tragedy in the cul-de-sac was horribly reminiscent of a series of murders during Northern Ireland's Troubles, when paramilitaries shot dead politically uninvolved victims they mistakenly believed were either policemen, soldiers or rival terrorists.

Shane Geoghegan lies at rest in Mungret cemetery, in the same grave as his younger sister Katie, who died of a brain tumour while at primary school. His burial place lies close to the ruins of an abbey dating back to 1100. The grave is covered in floral tributes, the largest an arrangement of light blue and white flowers, the colours of Garryowen, that spell out 'GAGSY' - the captain's nickname.

It is the morning of Tuesday 18 November, the day of the much-anticipated rugby clash between Munster and New Zealand. Over the next 24 hours more than €6m will be spent in the city by rugby fans who have come to Limerick to see if Munster can repeat its historic defeat of the All Blacks 30 years ago. Rugby is the dominant sport in Limerick, introduced to the city by the British military garrison prior to independence. It is the only city on the island of Ireland where in working-class housing estates you are more likely to see children play with an oval ball than a round one.

Returning from another grave nearby is Steve Kenny, who says he is a neighbour of Geoghegan and describes himself as a 'true Munster fan without a ticket'. 'He tried to jump over that garden wall and they gunned him down like a dog,' Kenny says, bitterly. 'The poor guy was running for his life, he must have wondered why he was being chased. He was a quiet lad who lived for rugby, his family and his girlfriend. To be honest, nobody decent cared when the scumbags were shooting scumbags, but this murder has crossed the line.'

The intense autumn sunshine lights up the cemetery beside the ancient ruins. Kenny looks back towards the city in the distance. 'They have to sort these people once and for all,' he says. 'Everybody knows who's doing this. Names are being bandied about. It's time the government got serious and started hunting these gangsters down. We've all had enough of them.'

In Limerick, there are conflicting rumours about the fate of the gunman and his driver. It is believed that the former is a 23-year-old 'hired in' from a north Dublin criminal gang for the hit, the latter a 19-year-old associate of the Dundon-McCarthy faction. Some underworld sources suggest one or possibly both men may have been 'disappeared' by the Dundon-McCarthy gang as a punishment for bringing national opprobrium down on their heads.

The clan's ruthlessness even with its own members was reinforced with a murder earlier this year. On 5 April, 20-year-old James Cronin was taken along to his first 'hit'. He was driven by an armed gang sent out to hunt down and kill Mark Moloney, a friend of the Keane-Collopy's. Having shot Moloney dead in a drive-by shooting the team drove back to a safe house and celebrated by throwing a party. As the night wore on and drink and drugs took their hold, Cronin became increasingly paranoid; he'd suffered a panic attack on witnessing the murder. Those around him panicked, too, according to Garda sources, and, fearing that the young man might break under interrogation if arrested, they decided to act.

On 7 April Cronin was asked by senior figures in the Dundon-McCarthy group to help them move some weapons to a new arms dump in Limerick. When they arrived at a secret hide, Cronin was told to dig a hole near a railway line close to the Hyde Road. Little did he know he was digging his own grave. James Cronin was shot in the back of the head when he finished, and dumped in the shallow grave. According to Garda sources, the two killers were the same who were sent out to hunt down and kill the man resembling Geoghegan eight months later. Garda sources indicated two weeks ago that the duo may have fled the country, in all likelihood to one of the many properties in Spain owned by the Dundon-McCarthy gang on the Costas.

The callous way in which the Dundon-McCarthy clan dispatched Cronin was matched by their brazen nature. The 'top boys' in the gang even went to a family friend of Cronin's and asked if they could attend his funeral. The man they made this ghoulish request to is a key figure in the Limerick underworld. In fact, he is believed to be the real brains behind the gang. This man, unrelated to the Dundon or McCarthy families, is in his fifties and lives a quiet life in a coastal town in nearby County Clare. He has extensive connections with the criminal underworld, not only in Ireland but across Britain and Europe. It is he who organises the shipments of heroin and cocaine into Ireland's southwest that, over the past five years, have made the Dundon-McCarthy group the richest, most feared gang in the region.

Affluent Limerick City, with only around 50,000 inhabitants, hates its reputation as Ireland's crime capital. Although its murder rate per capita is higher than, say, Glasgow's, from the centre of the city it appears to be enjoying boom times. Two weeks ago, as the locals prepared for the New Zealand-Munster clash, the city partied. New hotels and luxury apartments have sprung up along the riverside, and in the Shannon a giant illuminated floating Christmas tree lit up the skyline after dark, as those revellers without tickets prepared to watch the match in the city's bars and clubs. Motels that normally charge €49 per night had trebled their prices.

Yet amid the euphoria and legendary Munster passion the shadow of Geoghegan's murder - the 17th victim of gangland shootings in Ireland this year - hangs over the festivities. Even some of New Zealand's most famous sons have been touched by the murder. On the day before the big game, All Black legend Jonah Lomu arrived in Limerick to turn on the city's Christmas lights. Prior to switching on the illuminations, Lomu referred to Geoghegan:

'We have lost somebody who is quite dear to the rugby community itself and I think you can be pretty sure that everybody that runs out on the paddock will be running out in memory of him and hopefully they can piece something together in terms of respect to him,' Lomu told the crowds.

The following day, the 26,000 fans packed into Thomond Park paid their respects with a minute's silence; thousands more did the same in pubs across the city. Inside the 'Sin Bin', a huge drinking emporium owned by former Irish rugby star Peter Clohessy, the whistle blows after the tribute and the crowd applauds wildly. Stacey Grant shouts out towards a huge flat television screen: 'Go on Munster! Let's win it for Shane.' In the end the team lose, narrowly and bravely, to New Zealand.

Grant, 23, knows the Geoghegan family, and describes the murdered Garryowen man as 'a gentle giant'. Her view of how Ireland deals with its proliferating crime gangs is typical of the public's attitude.

'If people are sent to jail for murder then it should mean they are in for the rest of their lives,' she says. 'The trouble with our system is that the criminals are hardly into jail when they are released early for good behaviour.'

In the wake of the Geoghegan killing, Irish political leaders vowed to catch his murderers and put the gangs out of business. There were even comparisons between the rugby captain's murder and the national outrage sparked over the killing of campaigning journalist Veronica Guerin 12 years earlier by Dublin gangsters. The comparisons are initially seductive: two respectable middle-class professionals murdered by drug-dealing criminals, a republic shaken from its torpor and spurred to action.

Guerin's brother Jimmy watched the Munster-New Zealand game in a pub close to Dublin's St Stephen's Green. Jimmy admits there was a chill running down his spine during the minute's silence. The experience transported him back to the summer of 1996, when Ireland collectively stood still in a minute's silent protest against the criminal group behind his sister's murder.

'For a short time after the tribute I thought this might be the tipping point,' he says, 'but then I remembered what happened after Veronica was killed. The gang [behind her murder] may have been smashed but others have taken their place. The gangs have gone forth and multiplied all over this country. The state has the power to smash these guys' doors down in Limerick and arrest dozens of them. It doesn't have the political will to do that. I suspect, no, I fear that Shane's death as a national cause will be forgotten about within six weeks,' Guerin predicted gloomily.

One of the monuments to Veronica Guerin was the creation of the Criminal Assets Bureau, the body empowered in the Irish Republic to freeze the bank accounts, properties, luxuries and other assets belonging to suspected gangsters. Gerry 'Ginger' McLoughlin is as cynical as Jimmy Guerin about the state's ability to take on the Limerick mafias. McLoughlin, now an Irish Labour councillor, is a legend in Limerick, a prop forward who played in Munster's historic win over the All Blacks in 1978. Four years later he wrote his name into Irish rugby's history books again by scoring a try against England at Twickenham, during Ireland's Triple Crown-winning season. A native of the St Mary's Park area, he enjoys a cult hero status among the residents. Women blow kisses from cars or stop to chat to him in the street. He is passionate about regenerating St Mary's and Moyross across the Shannon.

'There are about 10 problem families on the Island and it's probably true all over the city in each area affected,' he says.

McLoughlin, a guest of honour at the Munster-New Zealand game, wants the state to become far more proactive against the gangs.

'They could start by seizing these guys' assets and freezing their bank accounts. Many of them drive around in flashy cars, some of them bullet-proof. They own houses on the estates and villas in Spain. Yet do you know how many CAB experts there are working here in Limerick? Two! Just two officers to investigate the gangsters in the whole of Limerick. That is not enough, no way.'

Ballinacurra Weston appears to be even more run-down than the streets of St Mary's Park. There is not a road on the estate, where the Dundon-McCarthys rule, that doesn't have boarded up or fire-gutted empty houses. One of the gang's self-confessed soldiers is Jimmy Collins, who earlier this month posed for the cameras, exposing an automatic pistol tattooed on his torso. Collins has stated that the 'war' with the men from the Island is far from over, warning: 'It's war now, and the streets are going to see blood pour.'

Local priests and community workers have tried in vain to negotiate a truce between the warring tribes, but there seems little prospect of peace. Shortly after Christmas the former head of the Keane-Collopy clan will be released from prison. Originally from St Mary's Park, Christie Keane will have served seven years of a prison sentence for possessing almost 20kg of cannabis back in 2001. He is being released early for good behaviour.

The 47-year-old has neither forgiven nor forgotten how the Dundon-McCarthy gang supplanted his crew as the kingpins of the Limerick underworld, killing several of his family and friends in the process. From inside Portlaoise, Ireland's top-security prison, rumours abound that Keane has vowed to wreak revenge on his rivals, holed up in their two strongholds across the river. If true, few in Limerick, especially those in the neighbourhoods neglected and forgotten during the boom years of the Celtic Tiger, would regard Keane senior's warning, or the promise of more blood from Jimmy Collins, as an idle threat.

Some of the interviewees' names have been changed.

Mean streets: The gangs of Limerick

• The Keane-Collopy gang was the first to move into the drugs trade in the city. Their first feud was with a former enforcer, Eddie Ryan, who had turned against them.

• A more serious turf war erupted in 2001, with the sons of Kenneth Dundon,
a convicted criminal. His boys, alongside their cousins the McCarthy's, formed an alliance on return from England. They intervened against the Keane-Collopy faction and introduced automatic weapons they had obtained from English and Dublin criminals.

• Dundon-McCarthy has now become the 'Corleonesi' of Limerick crime. Like the Sicilian family, which emerged as the winner of the intra-Mafia wars of the Eighties and Nineties, Dundon-McCarthy has been responsible for most of the bloodshed. Their victims include Limerick's former drugs lord, Kieran Keane.

• The illicit trade in cocaine and heroin in Limerick and Ireland's southwest is estimated to be worth €50m a year, most of it controlled by the Dundon-McCarthy gang.

Henry McDonald, The Observer, 30.11.08

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/ireland

Un brin provocateur, Bénabar, avec son air de petit garçon malicieux, a intitulé son nouvel opus, Infréquentable. Pourtant la majorité des personnages et des lieux qui composent ses 12 mini-scénarios sont plutôt respectables. D’ailleurs, nous en sommes parfois les acteurs nous-mêmes. Que ce soit dans cette scène de jalousie que l’on peut faire à son meilleur ami, au CV que l’on embellit en passant par cette société dans laquelle nous vivons et qui nous réduit à de simples numéros.

Musicalement, Bénabar s’est fait plaisir en conviant l'orchestre de Londres et sa trentaine de musiciens, et l'Haïdouti Orkestar, fanfare acoustique tsigano-bulgare. Le célèbre arrangeur David Whitaker, compositeur et arrangeur britannique est aussi présent sur Malgré tout. Il est connu pour son travail avec Air, Etienne Daho, Eurythmics ou Marianne Faithfull pour ne citer qu’eux.

Autres rôles

A son habitude, l’auteur-compositeur-interprète, signe tous les textes et musiques. Une exception faite tout de même cette fois pour la mélodie de Pas du tout, confiée à Louis Chédid. Le chanteur l’avait convié dans son spectacle musical Le Soldat Rose dans lequel il tenait le rôle du petit chimiste.

C’est presque le sien qu’il interprète dans le film d'Eric Lavaine, un vieux complice, avec qui il a écrit les scénarios de la série télé H. Un chanteur s’approprie les textes d’un ex-ami qu’il croît décédé. Incognito, titre de ce long-métrage, sortira sur les écrans français en juillet 2009.

Depuis la sortie de ce disque, l’artiste est resté plus que fréquentable, puisqu’il n’a pas hésité à sillonner une bonne partie de la France pour répondre aux questions des journalistes et de ses fans locaux. Après un tel exercice, on pouvait s’inquiéter de la spontanéité des réponses de l’interviewé. Ce dernier confie et prouve qu’il a toujours plaisir à parler de son travail tout en arrivant à ne pas se répéter. Parmi les thèmes abordés, les risques, non pas du métier, mais de l’Internet, sa passion pour le cinéma de Claude Sautet, ses nouvelles activités de comédien et d’auteur pour enfants.

Alain Pilot, Radio France Internationale, 28.11.08

http://www.rfimusique.com/musiquefr/articles/107/article_17449.asp

Patil envió la carta de dimisión al primer ministro, Manmohan Singh, quien aún no ha decidido si la acepta.

El ministro "ha asumido la responsabilidad moral y ha decidido dimitir", dijo la portavoz del Partido del Congreso, Jayanti Natarajan.

El ataque contra Bombay "es horrendo y el Gobierno se lo toma muy muy en serio. Es un ataque intolerable a la soberanía india", añadió la portavoz, citada por la agencia IANS.

Singh celebra hoy una reunión con los líderes de los principales partidos del país para analizar la situación tras los atentados en Bombay, que causaron la muerte de 183 personas y heridas a más de 300, según el último cómputo oficial.

Anoche, Patil compareció ante el comité central del Partido del Congreso, ante el que dijo que asumía la responsabilidad por lo ocurrido en Bombay, informó hoy la agencia PTI.

En esa reunión, presidida por Sonia Gandhi, otros miembros del Gobierno reclamaron una "acción severa" y la asunción de responsabilidades al más alto nivel por el ataque a Bombay.

Según las agencias PTI e IANS, los participantes demandaron medidas "ejemplares" tras la ola de atentados que la India ha sufrido este año para restaurar la confianza ciudadana en el Gobierno.

Antes de Bombay, varias ciudades indias como Nueva Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad o Bangalore han padecido atentados con la colocación de bombas en distintos puntos que han causado decenas de muertos.

La mayoría de los atentados han sido reivindicados por el grupo Indian Muyahidin, mientras que un desconocido Deccan Muyahidin se atribuyó la autoría del ataque contra la capital financiera india, perpetrado por comandos terroristas armados con metralletas, granadas y otros explosivos.

La India ha acusado del ataque al Lashkar-e-Toiba, un grupo con base en Pakistán que lucha por la independencia de la región de Cachemira.

Las acusaciones han elevado la tensión entre estos dos Estados vecinos, que se han enfrentado en tres guerras desde su independencia en 1947.

Según la NDTV, el Gobierno está estudiando la posibilidad de suspender el diálogo abierto con Pakistán en 2004, así como el alto el fuego que rige en la frontera cachemir desde 2003.

Un diputado del opositor Bharatiya Janata Party consideró hoy que la dimisión del ministro Patil es una respuesta "demasiado escasa y demasiado tardía". "La India nunca ha parecido tan vulnerable" como ahora, dijo en entrevista con NDTV el diputado Ravi Prasad, para reclamar al Gobierno medidas más contundentes.

Terrorista detenido dice que hizo "lo correcto" y no se arrepiente

El terrorista detenido en Bombay durante la operación contra el comando que atacó esta semana la capital financiera india aseguró a la Policía que hizo "lo correcto" y no se arrepiente de su participación en los atentados.

"He hecho lo correcto, no tengo remordimientos", dijo Ahmal Amin, según fuentes policiales citadas hoy por la cadena delhí NDTV.

De acuerdo con las versiones ofrecidas por distintos medios indios, Amin ha reconocido su pertenencia al Lashkar-e-Toiba, un grupo con base en Pakistán que lucha por la independencia de Cachemira.

El atentado fue reivindicado el pasado miércoles, poco después de comenzar el asalto de los comandos terroristas contra Bombay, por un desconocido grupo que se identificó como "Deccan Mujahidin".

Los investigadores han rastreado la dirección IP del correo electrónico desde el que se envió la reivindicación del atentado para concluir que se encuentra fuera de la India.

Otras revelaciones de los investigadores, basadas tanto en el testimonio de Amin como en la interceptación de conversaciones entre los terroristas y el análisis de pruebas incautadas, indican que un grupo distinto al que atacó Bombay hizo hace cuatro meses la misión de reconocimiento previa al ataque.

Según las filtraciones a los medios indios, el grupo disponía de fotos tomadas por satélite y mapas de sus objetivos.

Dos de los presuntos terroristas habían reservado una habitación en el lujoso hotel Taj Mahal, utilizando documentos falsos de identidad de estudiantes de Mauricio. Los terroristas acumularon explosivos en la habitación, donde recibieron "muchas visitas" que la Policía está ahora investigando, según las fuentes policiales de NDTV.

Al menos once terroristas participaron en la acción contra la ciudad portuaria india, que ha sufrido tres grandes atentados desde 1993.

La Vanguardia, 30.1.108

http://www.lavanguardia.es/internacional/noticias/20081130/53590279963/dimite-el-ministro-del-interior-indio-tras-los-atentados-en-bombay.html

He has always been a much more intriguing and complex, occasionally contradictory, proposition than his peers. His background - born in Chicago, he's the son of a university professor and a former Black Panther - and his 'Preppy' image set him apart from other urban artists. His steely ambition and drive is such that he recorded his debut single 'Through The Wire' in hospital, with his mouth wired partly shut, after a near-fatal car crash. He's notoriously arrogant, once claiming he'd be a leading character in the Bible if it was rewritten: 'You don't think I would be one of the characters of today's modern Bible?' He's as famous for his outbursts as he is for his music. When he didn't win best video at the MTV European Awards in 2006 he stormed the stage, shouting 'Fuck this! My thing cost a million dollars man ...

I had Pam Anderson, I was jumping across canyons and shit. If I don't win, the award show loses ... credibility.' Even those who don't know his music will recall him speaking out against the outgoing president, when he appeared on live TV for a Hurricane Katrina benefit concert. West went off message and declared: 'George Bush doesn't care about black people.'

Following earlier hits such as the Shirley Bassey-sampling 'Diamonds From Sierra Leone', 'Gold Digger' and 'Stronger' and an unrivalled succession of production credits for everyone from Alicia Keys to Jay-Z, the success of Graduation put the multi-Grammy-winning, multi-million-selling West right at the top of his game. Exactly where he told us he should be from day one. Then came the double heartbreak. Or the 'Shakespearian tragedy' as he calls it. 'That's what this is,' he tells me, 'it's a modern-day tragedy.'

An only child (Kanye is Ethiopian for 'the only one'), West was raised mainly by his doting mother Donda, who deemed him 'destined for greatness from an early age'. A former chairwoman of Chicago State University's English Department, she later managed her son's businesses and chaired the Kanye West Foundation. He called her his 'momager'. When I spent six months with him on and off for Observer Music Monthly, she was rarely far from his side. She was there at his 30th birthday party in Manhattan last June, there when he stole the show at the Concert for Diana at Wembley in July 2007, and they turned out together in New York and London for signings of her book, Raising Kanye: Life Lessons from the Mother of a Hip-hop Superstar. They were as tight as a son and mother could be. He wrote a song for her called, 'Hey Mama'; and she used it as the ringtone on her cellphone.

On Saturday 10 November 2007, Donda West died due to complications from cosmetic surgery. Reports suggested another Beverly Hills physician had advised her not to have the surgery. Kanye was in London when he heard and rushed back to the States. But the following Saturday he was back on stage in Paris. When he started to introduce 'Hey Mama', he cracked. 'This song is for my mother ... ' he started, before his voice faltered and he stood alone, head bowed, sobbing in the spotlight, before being led off stage by members of his band.

Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Pharrell Williams, Erykah Badu and others turned up to pay tribute at Donda's funeral where West reportedly broke down as he gave a short speech. Two days later he was back on stage at the O2 arena in London. On 10 January 2008, the Los Angeles County Coroner concluded that Donda West died of 'coronary artery disease and multiple post-operative factors due to or as a consequence of liposuction and mammoplasty'.

Then, in April, West split with his fiancée, designer Alexis Phifer. They had dated on and off since 2002, and were engaged in Capri in August 2006. 'It's always sad when things like this end ... we remain friends,' Phifer said. 'I wish him the best in his future and all of his endeavours. He's one of the most talented people I've ever met.' An oddly worded statement that sounds more like a reference for an ex-colleague than regret over the loss of a soulmate.

West, meanwhile, was embarking on his global 'Glow In The Dark' tour. In Japan last year, before all the heartbreak, he had explained to me how he had always struggled to set a mood that suited him in the studio until he tried putting neon lights in there. 'Now I know my mood is neon ...' he said. 'I AM neon ... '

You are neon? I repeated

'I. Do. Glow. In. The. Dark.'

The ambitious set placed West alone in the middle of the stage, his band removed to a pit in front. If that were not prescient enough, the plot behind the show's concept saw West marooned in space when his spaceship crashed.

The first proper indication of where West's head was at, musically and emotionally, was his guest appearance on Young Jeezy's single 'Put On', back in June. His voice cracked and distorted by Auto-Tune - a vocoder gadget widely adopted in hip-hop recently (although OM readers may recall Cher using it on her 1998 number one single, 'Believe'.) 'I lost the only girl in the world that know me best,' poured out West in a cracked ephemeral pitch. 'I got the money and the fame and it don't mean shit ... man, the top is so lonely.' His voice twisted and stretched like never before, he moaned 'I-I-I-I-I-I-'m so lonely.'

After touring for six months through North America, South America and Asia, the Glow In The Dark tour finally arrived in the UK this month. I flew out to Dublin to see the show before it arrived in England. It's a hugely ambitious show, but the most poignant point came halfway through when West, dripping with sweat and alone on stage expanded his 'Put On' verse into a long, impassioned rant about the vacuousness of celebrity and the gaping chasm in his personal life. 'I lost my mom, I lost my girl, I lost the only things that matter,' he spat, the words bouncing round the huge venue and straight over the heads of the audience, 'but at least it's fun,' he added sadly, 'that I can get you to say, "Hell, yeah!"

'Hell, yeah!' hollered back the young crowd, oblivious to the pathos.

Two days later, when we meet in West's favourite London hotel, The Landmark, it's a year and a day since his mother passed. He walks into the suite wearing a Raf Simons jacket, Retro Super Future shades, a thick Louis Vuitton scarf and shoulder bag. He politely but firmly refuses to remove his shades, scarf or shoulder bag for the photoshoot. When we sit down to talk, he removes the bag and scarf, but the shades remain in place. He talks more quietly than usual. In the 36 hours since Dublin, West has been to Paris for meetings with Louis Vuitton about the shoe range he is designing for the label. The self-christened Louis Vuitton Don is also working on his own fashion label, Pastelle, and counts designers such as Kim Jones as close friends. 'I'm like the fly Malcolm X, buy any jeans necessary,' he rapped on Graduation. He's only had a couple of hours' sleep in the past two days and is so exhausted that when I listen back to the interview later he sounds drunk, slurring his words.

His new album is entitled 808s & Heartbreak, and is steeped in both. The 808 is the Roland TR-808, a drum machine beloved of early dance-music pioneers. The heartbreak seeps through every song, with titles such as 'Welcome to Heartbreak', 'Love Lockdown', 'See You In My Nightmares', 'Heartless', 'Paranoid', 'Bad News' and 'Coldest Winter'.

His previous albums, College Dropout, Late Registration and Graduation have been a masterful mix of artful intentions and mainstream appeal, somehow straddling the hoods and suburbs. Heartbreak is a complete departure. An incessant tweaker, West used to spend up to 18 months working on an album. Last year he worked with eight engineers around the world on 'Stronger' alone, recording more than 50 versions. Heartbreak more or less poured out of him in one studio in a mere three weeks. He hardly raps on it; almost every vocal has the ghostly Auto-Tune effect with West half-singing, half-speaking, and there's none of the skits that littered previous albums. It's quite a break from his opening trilogy.

'Yeah, it definitely is,' nods West. 'It was just a brand new idea. It was like these are the sounds, these are the instruments I want to use and this is the subject matter.'

Previously he would ensure there was something for all his fans, a concession he no longer feels he needs to make.

'Now I just make music for me. It's like my house, because it's where I have to live. It's what I have to perform, 100 shows a year. So people may comment on it to their friends, but when they try and make a suggestion to me, it's like suggesting I change the couch in my living room - "Fuck you, it's my couch." I'm just allowing people in my home... if you don't like it, you can leave.'

Which came first, the 808s or heartbreak?

'The music, then I came up with the title because I was taking an 808 and pitching it. A lot of people have used 808s in the past but because it was so low, nobody bothered messing with the pitch. I actually call the effect "heartbreak". It sounds distorted and electronic, and just the sound of it represents where I'm at.'

'I've created a new genre for myself called "pop art",' he continues. 'I know they have that genre of visual art but they don't have it in music. Either call it "pop" or "pop art", either one I'm good with.'

Do you think people will be shocked by Heartbreak? 'They'll definitely be surprised it's so personal and so heartfelt. It was just pouring out of my soul. It was therapeutic ...'

To get the hurt out of your system? 'Well, to try my best. To scream at the top of my lungs about what I'm going through.'

Previously, West told me he thought proper rock stars settle down and have kids. On Heartbreak he morosely recounts how 'My friend showed me pictures of his kids, but all I could show him was pictures of my cribs.' This is not exactly typical hip-hop lyrical fodder, Kanye.

'Especially for me,' nods West. 'How many times have I had songs just about what I've bought blah, blah, and now it's like - take all that away and what do you have?'

Do you think it will polarise your fanbase?

'Definitely. Some people just want to hear a lot of rap lyrics. I'm just trying to make the best music possible. I'll use the advantage of being a rapper to give an urban flavour to pop hits, which is an incredible combination. That chorus to "Heartbreak" could be a Broadway chorus, it's so classic' - In the night, I hear 'em talk, the coldest story ever told, somewhere far along this road he lost his soul, to a woman so heartless - the message is classic. The heartbreak. The Shakespearian tragedy. That's what this is - it's a modern-day tragedy. Devastation. Multiple losses in my life.'

You've always been a control freak, but you must have felt you had no control over what's happened in the past year.

'Yeah, but it helped me grow as a person. To have things that were out of my control and to have to accept those things. I'm less judgmental now, I think.'

Has it forced you to re-evaluate your beliefs?

'Yeah,' he says softly. 'Well, my beliefs... I don't partake to any specific religion, I just believe in God. I always had a problem with the specifics of religion. Like having to go to church on the third Sunday and eat the cracker and drink the wine...'

On College Dropout you said God was the executive producer of your life. Do you still feel like that? 'Yeah, I feel like he has a path for me. I let him guide me. I open my mouth in the studio and let him say what he wants me to say, because I'm sure this music, even though it's gut wrenching, is going to help people get through their situations. You know we talked last time about being the soundtrack to people's lives? Well, really, that's what it is.'

You mean you need to reflect the peaks and troughs of life in your music?

'Yeah,' he nods, 'because people go through heartbreak and then people have a good time.'

So, the personal heartbreak - is it harder to deal with in the public, or weirdly cathartic?

'It's weird, it's kind of therapeutic ... but to have to answer all these questions ... it's hard.'

But you're obviously going to be asked about it because it's the theme of the album.

'Yeah, they're going to ask them a little more because of the songs, but the full explanation is in the songs ... the little things here and there, I don't really have to clarify them.'

We continue a little longer, but West's head is dropping behind the shades. 'Yo, I need to take a nap. I'm just falling asleep. You're trailing with us today, right? We can talk some more later.' He curls up on the sofa and I leave the room.

After West wakes up we travel in a convoy of people carriers to tonight's gig at the O2 arena. Before the gig, Kanye hosts a playback of the album for a select group of journalists. He is re-energised on hearing the music and more bullish when he answers a few questions. Most of the journalists are a little taken back by the curveball that is Heartbreak. It's either very brave or very foolish, one suggests - are you prepared for a backlash? 'Yeah, I'm prepared,' retorts West. 'For anyone who doesn't like it, fuck you in advance.'

Asked about the heartbreak he says: 'It's lonely at the top. Losing my mom, having no woman in my life to support me. I feel I'm on my own and can only express it through my music.'

After the gig, he unwinds backstage by taking on Damon Albarn at Connect 4, another one of his quirky obsessions.

The following lunchtime we meet just off Leicester Square. West picks up a sandwich from Subway before we head into Capital for some pre-recorded interviews for radio. He's asked again about the album's themes. 'I'm not going to Oprah Winfrey the situation, y'know what I'm saying?' he says. 'I've dealt with a lot of fucked-up shit in my life and my heart, and I'm not a celebrity, I'm a real person and people don't realise what that's like.'

Partly in an attempt to open a straight dialogue with fans and bypass the media, West has also launched his own blog. He posts up to 10 times a day, a mixture of pictures of contemporary architecture, pieces from his favourite clothing designers, scantily clad models - usually with a speech bubble saying, 'Where are you Yeezy?' - videos and the odd MP3. He thinks the blog 'saved me a whole bunch of money', reasoning that instead of spending millions on several homes, a fleet of cars and a trophy wife to prove his taste and success like a traditional pop star, he can simply showcase his impeccable taste on his blog. Occasionally, when he feels particularly misrepresented, there'll also be a BREATHLESS RANT IN CAPITALS WITHOUT ANY PUNCTUATION AGAINST SOME PLAYER HATERS WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT YE GIVES IT ALL FOR HIS FANS EVERY NIGHT!!!

Leaving Capital, on the way to Radio One, I'm invited to ride with West in his car to carry on the interview. Which is a little difficult when I'm in the front and he's sat behind me with Virgil Abloh, a designer who is showing him images on a laptop.

So you've fallen out of love with fame, I suggest. 'Yeah,' he nods, 'it's weird, it's always been a love-hate thing. But now I blame fame for the losses of my life. In the future, I've got to figure how to handle that, with being super-famous.'

You no longer want to be the biggest star in the world? 'I'm completely fine with somebody else being the biggest star. I don't need that. I just need to be expressive in my own right. I'm still going to do what I do and if by default that's the biggest thing then it is, but it's not my goal.'

We talk about Obama's victory.

'It was the most unbelievable thing in the world,' says West. 'So incredible, so unimaginable, that America picked him. Especially after the Al Gore thing, where he got all those votes and still didn't win.'

He's written a song with Jay-Z inspired by Obama, called 'History', which has been leaked online, but already seems tired of being asked about it. 'The thing about Barack is that any question that you can ask has already been answered,' he says. 'Barack's win is like a comfortable silence. Whenever I think of the shit that is going on in my life, I just think of Barack and it makes everything seem OK.'

Kanye has already met Obama. 'I met him with my mom in Chicago ... '

'I would definitely like to be cool with the president,' West concludes, after a while, 'I would just like to hoop with him. Everything else we can talk about on the court.'

Two days later West is arrested after an incident with a paparazzi outside Tup Tup Palace nightclub in Newcastle. The next day, after posting pictures of the new Aston Martin One-77, Peruvian model Stephanie Cayo, a diving mask with built-in camera, new work by Beijing artist Li Wei and new Air Jordans, West blogs 'WHO'S WINNING ME OR THE MEDIA? NO MATTER HOW MUCH LIGHT I PUT OUT, THERE ARE PEOPLE WORKING JUST AS HARD TO ONLY DELIVER DARKNESS.' He continues: 'LET US NOT FORGET THE PAPS KILLED PRINCESS DIANA.'

Almost all of the comments in response are positive, but some of West's fans seem a little concerned for his mental state. So much so that he feels the need to respond. 'THANKS EVERYBODY FOR YALL SUPPORT! I'M ACTUALLY DOING REALLY GOOD AND I'M INSPIRED AND CREATIVE RT NOW! ... NO MORE TWELVE MINUTE MISERY FREESTYLES LOL!!!'

So what becomes of Ye, brokenhearted? He talks about taking six months off from music and going to work in a fashion house, giving himself some time off. 'It's like, I'd much rather talk about making this collar red,' he said in the car, pointing at a polo shirt on the laptop screen, 'than answer your questions right now.'

He also talks about leaving LA and possibly moving to Europe. What doesn't seem in doubt is that he blames fame and success, and hence himself, for what happened over the past year.

'I feel like I moved to California, then my mom moved to California,' he said, 'and she did stuff she wouldn't have done if we'd stayed in Chicago. If I'd never made it in the music business, it never would have happened.'

Luke Bainbridge, The Observer, 30.11.08

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/30/kanye-west-new-album-heartbreak

Seulement voilà, trois ans après avoir été mis en examen, entre autres chefs d'accusation, pour avoir acquis un certain nombre de biens dont il n'a pas réussi à justifier l'origine, mais qui se chiffrent en millions d'euros, Adrian Nastase n'a toujours pas été jugé. Or, à en croire un expert, «même un tribunal corrompu aurait du mal à le déclarer innocent»…

Près de deux ans après son adhésion à l'Union européenne, la Roumanie peine à nettoyer ses écuries d'Augias. Sous la pression de l'UE, elle s'est dotée d'un arsenal législatif aux normes européennes, d'un Parquet national anticorruption (DNA) aux moyens considérables (le DNA dispose notamment de sa propre police) et même d'une Agence nationale pour l'intégrité (ANI) unique en Europe. Force est de constater cependant que la grande opération mains propres lancée en 2005 par le président Traian Basescu n'a débouché jusqu'ici sur aucune procédure de jugement et donc aucune sanction. À coup de manœuvres juridiques dilatoires, les «gros poissons» sont parvenus à passer à travers les mailles du filet. En guerre ouverte avec un gouvernement et un Parlement qui ont vainement tenté de le destituer en avril 2007, le chef de l'État roumain se dit aujourd'hui impuissant face au retour en force d'une culture de l'impunité solidement ancrée dans les mœurs politiques roumaines.

Le cas d'Adrian Nastase n'est que l'arbre qui cache la forêt, mais il est édifiant. En 2005, le DNA ouvre une enquête. En 2006, l'ancien premier ministre est mis en examen. En 2007, ses avocats invoquent une clause d'anticonstitutionnalité dans la procédure pénale. La Cour constitutionnelle donnera raison aux avocats au terme d'un arrêt byzantin. En août dernier, Nastase fait jouer son statut de député et nonobstant les mises en garde de la Commission européenne, le Parlement manifeste sa solidarité avec l'ex-chef du gouvernement en refusant d'autoriser l'ouverture de poursuites judiciaires.

Vieux démons

Pas dupe, Bruxelles, qui s'attendait à ce que des réseaux d'influence très puissants fassent de la résistance, a maintenu un monitoring sur la réforme de la justice et la lutte anticorruption. Mais de toute évidence, les « mesures correctives » que la Commission laisse planer depuis l'entrée de la Roumanie dans l'UE n'ont guère dissuadé les élites roumaines de renouer avec leurs vieux démons. Non contentes de se protéger, elles ont contre-attaqué. Le gouvernement libéral et l'opposition de gauche s'escriment ainsi depuis deux ans à se débarrasser du chef du DNA, Daniel Morar, qui n'a survécu à cette offensive que grâce au soutien de Bruxelles et de la société civile.

Début octobre, le Parlement a adopté une loi qui, s'indigne un observateur, revenait « à vider le judiciaire de sa substance ». Outre qu'elle interdisait les écoutes téléphoniques et les perquisitions, elle exigeait une expertise pour prouver la légalité des moyens utilisés par le DNA lors de ses enquêtes. Face à la levée de boucliers des ONG et de plusieurs ambassadeurs, dont celui des États-Unis, la loi a été légèrement remaniée. L'Agence nationale pour l'intégrité risque de son côté de demeurer une coquille vide. Entrée en fonction au début de l'année et chargée de contrôler les avoirs des parlementaires, elle est supervisée par un Conseil dont les membres sont nommés par… le Parlement.

Observateur désabusé de la vie politique roumaine, le sociologue Cristian Pirvulescu reconnaît que la corruption en Roumanie « est un problème structurel, une stratégie de survie propre à la culture politique balkanique ». À l'approche des élections, l'ONG qu'il dirige, Pro Democratia, s'est refusée pour autant à baisser les bras. Elle a publié sur son site Internet plusieurs listes de candidats suspectés de corruption. Ils se chiffrent à plus d'une centaine.

L'introduction, dimanche, d'un vote uninominal présenté par les uns comme un gage de transparence et par les autres comme «une absurdité qui renforcera l'instabilité politique», ne devrait pas changer la donne. À en croire les sondages, les électeurs devraient afficher leur incrédulité en boudant les urnes.

Arielle Thedrel, Le Figaro, 29.11.08

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2008/11/29/01003-20081129ARTFIG00572-la-lutte-anticorruption-reste-au-point-mort-en-roumanie-.php

Hay un libro sobre el despacho de Nubia Macías, la directora de la feria. Tiene 206 páginas. Es un catálogo, sólo un catálogo. Pero lo que trae dentro es la promesa de una semana inolvidable para cualquier aficionado a la aventura de leer. Hasta el 7 de diciembre, y sobre un escenario de 4.000 metros cuadrados, los que escriben los libros compartirán con quienes los leen -en un cuerpo a cuerpo que no se produce en ninguna otra feria- su pasión por la literatura.

De esa refriega gozosa no escapará ni Carlos Fuentes -agasajado en su 80 cumpleaños- ni António Lobo Antunes ni Ken Follet ni Carlos Monsiváis... Mil jóvenes se sentarán frente a John Boyne -autor de El niño con el pijama de rayas- y le preguntarán por su manera de contar el Holocausto. Y se presentará la Cátedra de estudios Jesús de Polanco, el hombre cuya trayectoria como editor de libros, apasionado por América Latina, fue premiada por esta feria. Y los niños les preguntarán sus dudas a los autores de los cuentos y luego harán un periódico en una rotativa pequeña. Y se hablará de música, de cine, de periodismo...

Fue precisamente por el periodismo por donde la feria -que este año tiene a Italia como país invitado- empezó a caminar. La reportera mejicana Alma Guillermoprieto pronunció una conferencia en la Cátedra Cortázar, Cómo ser periodista y no morir en el intento. En el estrado, García Márquez la miraba con atención cuando ella contó sus andanzas por América Latina, su llegada al periodismo en la Nicaragua de la revolución sandinista -"para mí la vida se había vuelto mejor que cualquier lectura"-, o su tristeza al ver a una madre pidiendo limosna para poder enterrar al hijo que yacía a su lado en una calle de El Salvador: "Si no tomaba yo nota de la muerte de aquel muchacho, ¿quién? Nuestro trabajo ha sido una cruz que han cargado las víctimas...". El premio Nobel seguía mirándola. Y diciendo que sí con la cabeza.

Y volvía a asentir Gabriel García Márquez cuando Alma Guillermoprieto -periodista como él al fin y al cabo- enmarcó la feria en el contexto en que se celebra. La terrible violencia que padece México -el viernes fueron asesinadas otras 12 personas y el parte de bajas supera ya la espantosa cifra de los 4.700 cadáveres en lo que va de año- y la crisis financiera, de consecuencias impredecibles, que atenaza al mundo "con un miedo helado".

Fue justo después de esa conferencia cuando García Márquez se encontró con el chaval y se dejó hacer la foto. A unos metros de ellos, el ambiente pesado de la ciudad de Guadalajara, los policías apostados en las esquinas para garantizar la seguridad de la feria, los coches blindados, los guardaespaldas... Pero, por encima de todos esos reflejos ciertos de la situación que atraviesa México, se impuso la sonrisa cómplice del viejo escritor y del muchacho.

Durante una semana, escritores, lectores, libreros, agentes literarios y editores también se confabularán con los vecinos de Guadalajara para que el presente sólo sea un capítulo pasajero de una historia hermosa.

Pablo Ordaz, El Pais, 30.11.08

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/Cuerpo/cuerpo/literatura/elpepucul/20081130elpepicul_2/Tes

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that 5.1 million Zimbabweans will need food aid by the end of the year. That is more than half the people remaining in the country, with another three million having fled abroad, mainly to South Africa. But the WFP is being forced to cut the ration, because it is short of funds, leaving the most deprived to dig for roots or strip the trees to survive. More than once, labourers have fainted from hunger while unloading consignments of WFP food. A weakened population has no ability to resist the diseases, including anthrax, now springing up.

Though these disasters have been worsened by the disintegration of a health system that was once among the best in Africa, Zimbabwe's economic collapse underlies everything. The official annual inflation rate is 243 million per cent, but independent economists calculate that it is actually 2.8 quintillion – a quintillion is one followed by 18 zeroes.

Doctors and teachers whose monthly wage does not buy one square meal are leaving their jobs to forage for food like everyone else. Poverty drives people to the cities in most Third World countries, but in Zimbabwe there is migration to the countryside, where there is a chance of growing something to eat. As the year ends, the surge of hope following the September power-sharing agreement between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition has turned to despair, as the deal has failed to have any impact on people's lives. This weekend, there were reports that the constitution will be amended to implement the agreement, but progress has been fitful and fundamental disagreements remain.

The first sight that greets visitors who fly into Harare is that of people tilling public land beside the airport. Even where doctors and teachers are still working, they are defeated by the lack of basic materials such as dressings, surgical gloves, books and writing materials. Harare's hospitals have stopped functioning, and schools around the country are shutting down.

Last week Catherine Bragg, a senior UN aid official, said school attendance had plunged from above 90 per cent to below 20 per cent. A total of 1.6 million, roughly one in four children, have lost one or both parents, the highest proportion in the world. That is almost entirely due to HIV/Aids, but now it is the young who are dying. "We are not too far away from seeing children being carried off by hunger," said Rachel Pounds, country director of Save the Children (UK). Chronic malnutrition under the age of five stunts children physically and mentally for life.

But Zimbabwe's people are amazingly resilient, she adds, and a little aid goes a long way. In the parts of the Zambezi River valley where the organisation works, villagers who have been living on roots and leaves share handouts of maize meal with their neighbours. When seeds are distributed, they will see that family members who did not qualify receive some.

Save the Children is feeding 140,000 people in the area, but another 45,000 are losing out, because the WFP does not have enough food supplies. The communities decide who qualifies for help, but the distinction between the desperation of those in category A, who will receive food first, and those in category D, who will rarely if ever get supplies, can seem microscopic.

Take 13-year-old Thandi Munkuli, who was digging up makuli roots in Matabeleland North province with her mother, Mary. Her family is certainly category A: her father has been in hospital for two years, probably suffering from Aids, they have no livestock, and can no longer grow their own food. "We used to beg for seed from friends and relatives, but they do not have enough for themselves," she said. A simple way to gauge deprivation in Zimbabwe is to ask when someone last had sadza,the staple food made from maize meal. The poorest cannot afford enough meal to make the stiff mash that is considered essential to life. Instead they have to make a watery porridge that gives very little nutrition.

For Thandi and the two other children in the family, the answer was three days previously. "We have been living on makuli since then," she said. The potato-sized roots are white, crunchy and utterly tasteless, yet small children have been seen to grab and eat them as soon as they are dug up, without even cleaning the dirt away. Though the roots have no nutritional value, they fill empty stomachs. But they can be dangerous: some carry toxic parasites, and can be so poisonous they need to be boiled for hours to make them edible. Many other wild fruits give people stomach cramps and diarrhoea, yet are still eaten. This contributes to the spread of cholera, as does the movement of people in search of food.

No rations have yet been distributed in Thandi's area, but if and when they arrive, she and her family will be entitled to them. But Mercy Shumba will not, even though she has not had sadza for a month. Sometimes all she eats is a stew of mulberry leaves, boiled up by her great-grandmother, Zandile Nkomo, who has never known such hard times in all her 74 years.

Mercy, who thinks she is seven – she has no birth certificate – lives in a dilapidated mud and thatch house, 20 minutes' walk from the nearest track. The mulberry leaves came from a tree planted by an absent neighbour, next to a mango tree which had been stripped of its fruit by Mercy and her six-year-old cousin, Nesta, too desperate to wait for it to ripen. "I feel sad and weak all the time," said Mercy. She is the oldest of Mrs Nkomo's five great-grandchildren, four of whom sat with her on a mat. The youngest, seven-month-old Sibongile, looked unnaturally quiet in her great-grandmother's arms, and her sister, three-year-old Patricia, had the greying, turning to ginger, hair that is a clear sign of severe malnutrition. They were so listless that no one cracked so much as a smile when their only chair toppled over and I sprawled in the dirt.

Mercy used to go to school, a walk of several hours. "I liked the Ndebele language lessons, but I was finding it difficult to learn, because I was so hungry," she said. Her education would have come to a halt anyway – her school has been closed since August.

"What we try to do," said Ms Pounds of Save the Children, "is to improve children's chances of survival, and then to get them some kind of education." If anyone sounds deserving of this, it is Mercy, but her family is in category D, for two reasons. One is that there are two able-bodied adults in the household. Mrs Nkomo's two grand-daughters, the children's mothers, go off in search of food each day, taking Mercy's disabled three-year-old sister with them. Since each of their five girls has a different father, it is not hard to guess how they earn the maize meal and cooking oil they bring back.

The second reason the family is seen as less wretched than some is that Mrs Nkomo still has two cows. "If I sell them to buy seed, or slaughter them, we would not be able to plough our plot," she said. "We don't have any seed now, but perhaps we might get some." Barter has almost entirely replaced cash in Zimbabwe's rural areas, but this does not make country dwellers immune from the effects of economic collapse. One goat used to be worth 50kg of maize meal, but now fetches only 10kg – another reason why owners don't want to sell. But anthrax has flared up in Matabeleland North, threatening to leave people like Mrs Nkomo with nothing. Even worse, hungry people have eaten the infected meat, spreading the disease to humans, at least three of whom have died. Once again, given the collapse of administrative systems, the outbreak may be hard to contain.

"I am just waiting for God to do whatever he can, because I have lost all hope," Mrs Nkomo said.

Save the Children is seeking to set up emergency feeding centres for children under five. Even the severely malnourished can be brought back from the brink with Plumpynut, an enriched mixture of peanut butter, powdered milk and sugar.

The work of agencies such as Save the Children was suspended for months during the violent election campaign. When Ms Pounds and her staff resumed operations, conditions were infinitely worse than before. Zimbabweans do not deserve the fate that has befallen them. If they are to be given any hope this Christmas, it will have to come from us.

Some names have been changed

You can also pledge at www.independent.co.uk/iosappeal

The Independent, 30.11.08

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/appeals/ios-appeal/the-iiosi-christmas-appeal-mugabes-disgrace-starvation-threatens-millions-in-zimbabwe-1041643.html

Les attentats se sont produits avant une démonstration de force des partisans du premier ministre Somchai Wongsawat, prévue dimanche. Cette contre-manifestation, dans le centre de Bangkok, près d'un site occupé par des opposants, fait craindre une effusion de sang.

Les militants de la PAD, vêtus de jaune en signe d'allégeance au roi, continuaient dimanche de tenir tête aux autorités dont ils ont ignoré les sommations policières autour des aéroports. Samedi, ils ont forcé des policiers à battre en retraite de barrages établis à l'aéroport international Suvarnabhumi aux mains des protestataires depuis mardi. Malgré l'état d'urgence décrété autour de Suvarnabhumi et Don Mueang, aucun assaut n'a été lancé par les policiers alors que le gouvernement redoute l'engrenage et un éventuel coup d'Etat. Le chef de l'armée a fait savoir qu'il était opposé au recours à la force contre la PAD et de vives tensions ont été signalées entre lui et Somchai.

L'aéroport fermé jusqu'à lundi

Des milliers de touristes tentent de quitter le royaume via notamment la base militaire d'U-Tapao, à 190 km au sud-est de la capitale, où des compagnies ont été autorisées à opérer, au compte-gouttes, pour des vols prioritaires. L'aéroport international de Bangkok, qui peut gérer jusqu'à 700 vols quotidiens, restera fermé au moins jusqu'à lundi, a indiqué samedi son directeur. Mais des experts de l'industrie touristique ont aussitôt douté de cette affirmation en raison de la gravité de la situation.

«Assiéger les aéroports est un acte aux conséquences extrêmement risquées. Cela conduira les pays étrangers à perdre confiance en la Thaïlande», a averti Somchai, retranché depuis mercredi dans la ville septentrionale de Chiang Mai, à 700 km de Bangkok. De son côté, le vice-premier ministre Olarn Chaiprawat a prévenu que le rapatriement des passagers piégés en Thaïlande pourrait prendre jusqu'à «un mois».

Les Etats-Unis et l'Union européenne ont demandé aux opposants d'évacuer sans tarder les aéroports, dont l'occupation a sérieusement perturbé le trafic aérien international et bloqué plus de 100.000 passagers en Thaïlande. De nombreux gouvernements étrangers ont déconseillé à leurs ressortissants de se rendre en Thaïlande et des compagnies aériennes ont affrété des vols spéciaux pour des opérations d'évacuation.

Les opposants ont affirmé rejeter toute négociation avec le gouvernement. Ils exigent comme préalable à la fin de leur action la démission de Somchai. Ils l'accusent d'être «l'homme de paille» de l'ancien homme fort de la Thaïlande Thaksin Shinawatra qui n'est autre que son beau-frère.

Le Figaro, 30.11.08

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2008/11/30/01003-20081130ARTFIG00024-manifestation-sous-tension-a-bangkok-.php

Tenía una biografía repleta. Natural de Brooklyn, hijo de cubano e irlandesa, aseguraba haber colaborado con el IRA y conocer la revolución castrista (de lo primero, no se sentía muy orgulloso). Con 29 años, desarrollaba una doble carrera: el escribir era tarea dura y solitaria; Richard descubrió la gratificación instantánea del músico.

Fariña se reinventó, a pasos acelerados, en folksinger. Y entró en la aristocracia del folk por vía de seducción. Se casó con Carolyn Hester, vocalista de prestigio. En 1963, lo volvería a hacer con Mimi Baez, hermana menor de Joan. Como Richard and Mimi Fariña, grabaron canciones que tuvieron dinámicas versiones folk-rock a cargo de Fairport Convention o Ian Matthews. Positively 4th Street, memorable libro de David Hadju, estudia la relación de esas dos parejas doradas de la bohemia folk neoyorquina: Richard y Mimi, Joan Baez y Bob Dylan.

Pero el cancionero de Fariña ha sido olvidado: no hay ningún disco de homenaje y cuesta encontrar las reediciones de sus grabaciones. Por el contrario, Been down so long it looks like up to me ha adquirido carácter de libro de culto. En parte, por la bendición de Thomas Pynchon: el evasivo autor de El arco iris de la gravedad fue compañero de Fariña en la Universidad de Cornell y aquellos años de descubrimientos constituyen el trasfondo de Hundido hasta el cielo.

El libro de Fariña se escapa de las convenciones del bildungsroman. Su protagonista está de vuelta de diversas y aterradoras "experiencias formativas". Gnossos Pappadopoulis domina la universidad Athené como el perfecto hipster, experto en cool jazz y seriales radiofónicos o personajes de cómic. Es un astuto bromista, que sabe engatusar a las autoridades: abundan las escenas hilarantes, como cuando solicita la extremaunción de un capellán del campus.

Estamos en 1958 y las universidades estadounidenses empiezan a levantarse contra los reglamentos que imponen un toque de queda a las estudiantes. Por amor y por venganza, Gnossos se pone al frente de los disturbios pero, confiado en la exención, una inmunidad contra las desdichas, olvida que todos -incluyendo sus compinches- tienen una agenda oculta.

Hundido hasta el cielo muestra todas las marcas de la novela primeriza, esa borrachera prolongada donde el autor no puede contenerse y todo cabe. Se hace, además, costosa de entender en castellano, debido a una traducción perezosa que deja incluso palabras en inglés. Pero se mantiene como un texto premonitorio de la contracultura, astuto en su desmitificación de las drogas, las religiones orientales, el amor liberal, la revolución y otras panaceas de los sesenta.

That, at least, is the shock conclusion being drawn by anyone lucky enough to have had a sneak preview of a new TV documentary in which the 26-year-old singer talks freely about her career, romantic history, and the mental illness that saw her sectioned by a judge earlier this year.

Spears, who last night made a special appearance on the ITV talent show The X Factor as part of a European visit to promote her new CD Circus, has rarely agreed to in-depth TV interviews. But she was followed for more than three months by the makers of Britney: For the Record.

The 90-minute show hits America's screens tonight before being broadcast on Sky One tomorrow and then in almost every country in which people have avidly followed Spears's progress since she flounced into the public consciousness wearing a schoolgirl's uniform almost 10 years ago.

In lifting the lid on her life of luxury hotels, badly lit rehearsal rooms and cat-and-mouse car chases with the dozens of photographers who still follow her every move, Spears manages to portray herself as bright and articulate, but rather lonely.

"I miss going out and doing stuff, or seeing a guy and hanging out, the way I used to live," she says. "I was a pretty cool chick. I'm not really that way any more... Sometimes it can get lonely... So I'm just stuck in this place... I just cope, and that's what I do, every day."

She will trace the public disintegration that saw her sectioned and placed under the guardianship of her father, James, back to the break-up of her three-year marriage to Kevin Federline, the father of her two children, in 2007.

"I think I married for the wrong reasons. Instead of following my heart and doing what really made me happy, I just did it for the idea of everything. And when it ended, I felt so alone... Now, I sit, and I look back, and I'm like 'what the hell was I thinking?'"

Spears is now firmly on the comeback trail, and also reveals a whiff of discontent about the legal rulings that give her only limited time with her sons Jayden and Sean Preston, and have put her father and lawyer in control of her assets and lifestyle.

"I think it's too in control. If I wasn't under the restraints I'm under right now... with all the lawyers and doctors and people analysing me every day... I'd feel so liberated."

There has been some scepticism about whether the documentary's stated "warts-and-all" remit has been fulfilled. Spears's manager, Larry Rudolph, is listed as one of the show's executive producers, and her father is thought to have maintained rights to "final cut" over the programme.

The rise, fall, and rise again

1993 The 11-year-old is discovered on 'Mickey Mouse Club' TV show.

1998 Debut single 'Baby One More Time'.

2000 Success for album 'Oops!... I Did it Again'.

2003 Kisses Madonna at the MTV Awards.

2004 Marries Jason Allen Alexander in Las Vegas. It lasts 55 hours.

2004 Marries Kevin Federline.

2005-06 Gives birth to her two sons a year apart.

2006 Files for divorce.

Feb 2007 Causes a stir by shaving her head.

Sept 2007 Comeback appearance at the MTV awards unsuccessful.

Oct 2007 Loses custody of her two children. Faces charges of hit and run and driving without a licence.

Sept 2008 Comeback with release of single 'Womanizer'.

Guy Adams, The Independent, 30.11.08

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/can-britney-do-it-again-1041638.html

Le principe d'une adhésion de l'Ukraine et de la Géorgie à l'OTAN a été acté pour la première fois au sommet de Bucarest, début avril, sans qu'un calendrier n'eût été précisé. Depuis, le chaos politique ukrainien et surtout la guerre éclair d'août, qui a opposé la Géorgie à la Russie, ont confirmé les réserves de certains pays - en particulier la France et l'Allemagne. Pour eux, pas question, actuellement, d'accorder le statut officiel de candidat, via le plan d'action en vue de l'adhésion (MAP).

Mesurant les résistances internes et la virulence de l'opposition de Moscou, l'administration américaine s'efforce de contourner l'obstacle en proposant une nouvelle hypothèse : celle d'une entrée directe - à une date non déterminée - de l'Ukraine et de la Géorgie dans l'OTAN, sans passer par l'étape du MAP. Ces pays "ne sont pas prêts pour être membres. C'est très clair, a affirmé la secrétaire d'Etat Condoleezza Rice, le 26 novembre. (...) Mais il y a d'autres façons de préparer des pays à l'adhésion. Je vous ferais remarquer que la Pologne et la République tchèque n'avaient jamais eu de MAP, par exemple." Assurant l'attachement des Etats-Unis au concensus de Bucarest, Mme Rice a prôné une intensification des rapports entre l'OTAN et ces deux pays.

SATISFACTION RUSSE

Côté russe, seule la première partie de la déclaration de la responsable américaine a été retenue. En visite, vendredi 28 novembre, à Cuba, le président Dmitri Medvedev s'est félicité du recul des Etats-Unis au sujet du MAP. "Le plus important est qu'on ne fait plus avancer cette idée avec acharnement et absurdité, comme c'était le cas il y a quelques années", a-t-il déclaré.

A Tbilissi, l'attention est concentrée sur les auditions de la commission parlementaire qui étudie le déclenchement de la guerre d'août. Le président Saakachvili a été entendu vendredi, répétant que l'opération militaire géorgienne était "inévitable", en raison du bombardement de villages à population géorgienne en Ossétie du Sud et de l'entrée des chars russes sur le territoire de la région séparatiste.

Mais cette semaine a été marquée par l'audition très animée d'Erosi Kitsmarichvili. Ambassadeur en Russie entre mai et juillet, il a assuré que les autorités géorgiennes s'étaient persuadées à tort que l'administration américaine les soutiendrait en cas d'offensive militaire. Celle-ci aurait été préparée et discutée depuis le printemps et avait pour première cible l'Abkhazie, l'autre région séparatiste. M. Kitsmarichvili, qui a quitté son poste en septembre et rejoint l'opposition, a suggéré que le président Saakachvili "demande pardon" aux réfugiés, estimant que la guerre aurait pu être évitée.

Piotr Smolar, Le Monde, 30.11.08

http://www.lemonde.fr/organisations-internationales/article/2008/11/29/l-ukraine-et-la-georgie-restent-a-la-porte-de-l-otan_1124897_3220.html#ens_id=1124989

La Casa Pía de Lisboa es una institución cuyos orígenes se remontan a 1780, cuando fue fundada por María I, conocida como Pía, ante el caos social provocado por el terremoto de 1755. El objetivo declarado es acoger, en régimen de internado, a muchachos marginados o huérfanos y darles la formación necesaria para su integración en la sociedad. Buenos propósitos para una institución que ha sido escenario de las historias más sórdidas.

El escándalo salió a la luz pública el 23 de noviembre de 2002, cuando Joel, ex alumno, acusó de abusos sexuales a varias figuras públicas y al ex funcionario de la Casa Pía Carlos Silvino da Silva, conocido con el sobrenombre de Bibi. La periodista Felicia Cabrita destapó el caso en el semanario Expresso y el canal de televisión SIC. Empezó a tirar de la madeja y asomó una red de pedofilia que incluía a diplomáticos, políticos, deportistas, animadores de televisión. Gente importante, en suma.

Dos días después, Silvino da Silva fue detenido y, desde entonces, es el principal acusado del caso. El perfil de este antiguo jardinero y chófer de la institución merece una historia aparte. De muchacho fue alumno en la Casa Pía, donde, según ha declarado, fue violado desde que tenía cuatro años. Bibi pasó "hambre, frío y miseria" y a los 10 años ya consideraba normales las relaciones homosexuales con otros alumnos. Fue descubierto abusando de un menor que necesitó atención médica; acabó expulsado del centro, pero, misteriosamente, fue readmitido tras presentar un recurso judicial.

Esta periodista tuvo acceso a documentación de los años setenta en la que ya aparecen hombres ricos estadounidenses que acudían a la institución en busca de muchachos. "Había médicos de California", precisa Cabrita. Silvino da Silva era el suministrador de niños que participaban en orgías en las que recibían dinero a cambio del silencio. Individuos que llegaban a Lisboa en aviones privados, vehículos de alta gama con alumnos de la Casa Pía en el aeropuerto para ser trasladados a Estados Unidos "para efectuar filmaciones y sexo". Portugal padecía todavía la dictadura salazarista en aquella época.

Américo Henriques, profesor de relojería en la Casa Pía, se cansó de clamar en el desierto sobre las andanzas del antiguo chófer. Informó a la dirección del centro, abrió un proceso disciplinario a Bibi, acudió a la Policía Judicial... sin ningún resultado. Teresa Costa Macedo, en 1982 secretaria de Estado de Asuntos Sociales para la Familia, entregó a la Policía Judicial documentos y fotografías que probaban que no se trataba sólo de un personaje siniestro, sino de una red de pederastia que implicaba a políticos del Partido Socialista (PS) y del Partido Social Demócrata (PSD), las dos grandes fuerzas políticas que se han repartido el poder en Portugal a lo largo de los últimos 30 años.

Cuando Expresso destapó el escándalo, el entonces director de la Casa Pía, Luis Rebelo, trató de convertir a Silvino da Silva en el chivo expiatorio, al declarar que se trataba de un solo funcionario entre más de 1.000. Fue destituido. El Gobierno nombró en su puesto a la prestigiosa educadora Catalina Pestana, 61 años, primera mujer que ocupaba el cargo. "El ambiente que se vive en la Casa Pía es el de una película de terror. Existen otras personas involucradas, pero los menores no saben sus nombres, sólo conocen las caras y les llaman señor doctor y señor ingeniero", dijo, después de comprobar lo que se cocía en la institución.

Empezaron a salir nombres, además del de Carlos Silvino, acusado de más de 1.000 delitos, de los que se ha declarado responsable. Dos alumnos de la Casa Pía desaparecieron y fueron encontrados días más tarde en la casa del ex embajador Jorge Marques de Leitão Ritto, 72 años, en Cascais. Está acusado de nueve delitos de lenocinio y dos de abusos sexuales. Más adelante, tres alumnos de la Casa Pía dieron el nombre del implicado más mediático: Carlos Cruz, 66 años, uno de los presentadores de televisión más populares. Está acusado de cinco delitos de abuso sexual y uno de actos homosexuales con adolescentes. João Aibeó, fiscal del caso, afirma que al menos dos delitos están probados.

En mayo de 2003, el escándalo adquirió proporciones alarmantes y puso en la picota al número dos del Partido Socialista, Paulo Pedroso. Detenido por abuso sexual de menores, a los cuatro meses fue liberado y regresó como un héroe al Parlamento, donde conserva su escaño de diputado.

Ferreira Diniz, médico de 54 años, está acusado de 18 delitos de abuso de menores; Manuel Abrantes, 54 años, antiguo director adjunto de la institución, responde por 43 delitos de abuso de persona interna, 5 de abuso sexual de menores, 2 de lenocinio y 1 de fraude; el abogado Hugo Marçal, 48 años, está acusado de 22 delitos de lenocinio y 14 de abusos sexuales; y Gertrudis Nunes, 66 años, es la dueña de la casa de Elvas, junto a la frontera con Extremadura, donde se organizaban orgías con menores. Son en total siete procesados. Los tres jueces del tribunal -Ana Peres (presidenta), Ester Santos y Jose Manuel Lopes Barata- tendrán que dictar sentencia cuatro años después del comienzo del juicio.

Francesc Relea, El Pais, 30.11.08

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/reportajes/Aberraciones/casa/pia/elpepusocdmg/20081130elpdmgrep_6/Tes

Film-makers have long valued Swinton's other-worldly characteristics - her glassy, rarefied quality, the translucence of her facial features. Early in her career, she played a robot visiting Earth in the 1987 film Friendship's Death; then hovered between sexes and time frames in Sally Potter's 1992 adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando. More recently, she was an archangel in pinstripes in the Hollywood fantasy Constantine.

That's the eerie, ethereal Swinton. But she can be gritty too: a surly biker dame in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers; a roaring, sewer-mouthed doyenne of London's demi-monde in Love Is the Devil, John Maybury's 1998 portrait of Francis Bacon. She also, now that she's a Hollywood star of sorts, did what you can't imagine many Hollywood women doing: she appeared in last year's corporate thriller Michael Clayton, with sweaty armpits soaking through her ostensibly ice-cool executive blouse. That sweat, and that nerve, contributed to a Best Supporting Actress award at this year's Oscars.

Tilda Swinton is surely the most elusive and malleable personality on screen today, yet is unnervingly no-nonsense about what she does. What interests her in film-making, she tells me when I meet her, "is so much less than acting - it's dressing up and playing and being in communication with the director, and that's it." Recent years have brought ample opportunity to dress up, Swinton's sveltely enigmatic looks making her a fashion muse to designers including Hussein Chalayan and Viktor and Rolf. Even seated over tea at Claridge's, she could be a living installation piece: pale composed face, short hair swept back in a boyish flop, and wearing a gleaming white Vivienne Westwood blouse that's all angles and flaps, so that she resembles a Vorticist portrait or a complex piece of origami.

Swinton, now 48, has an aura of grandness, rather than grandeur, about her: a confidently upper-crust English accent that you suspect she's almost playing for laughs, and a crisply articulate way with words. You don't normally think of her as being one for comedy - although her cut-glass Washington virago in the Coen Brothers' screwball Burn After Reading was one of the year's surprises. Yet Swinton once claimed that she saw herself as more a clown than anything else.

"That's more accurate than 'actress'," she says. "I think I'm funny a lot of the time - but other people don't see it. Maybe people get put off by tall people with serious expressions. But Buster Keaton was very funny, and he didn't laugh much." Maybe, she speculates, it's because her early work with her mentor and discoverer Derek Jarman was seen as terribly serious; but even with him, she did comic parts, she points out. "I love this," she says, "me pleading for you to admit that I was once funny," and lets out a raucous cackling laugh.

Swinton insists she's clowning even in her new film Julia, an emotionally gruelling portrait of a Los Angeles drunk. Again, she hits the outer edges of earthiness in the title role: she's first seen staggering round a barroom in high heels and glitter eyelashes, then emerging from her car the next morning, sweaty, fleshy, dishevelled and in raucously mean spirits as she discards a used lover.

In constrast to Swinton's recent high-profile US films - which include David Fincher's forthcoming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, opposite Brad Pitt - Julia was made on a low budget in classically frantic indie-film circumstances, after severe budget cuts ."Shooting 17-hour days over six-day weeks, everybody with dysentery - it made that film." The director was Erick Zonca, the Frenchman behind the acclaimed The Dream Life of Angels in 1998. Swinton had previously met him in Cannes at an official party to which they were both refused admission: "It became hilarious, and it involved trying to storm the door with a fire extinguisher. I was left with a memory of a very jolly individual, and then I saw his films."

Zonca proved something of a wild man on set, showing Swinton a line of moving traffic on a motorway and telling her to rush across it, no questions asked. She responded to a pitch of intensity in both the director and her character, connecting with ideas she had already had about playing an alcoholic, to do with capturing "the kind of inventiveness and imagination and energy and courage and va-va-voom that I recognised in all the drunks I've known." All that, she feels, comes across in the very feel of Julia: "It's not that we made a film about an alcoholic but that we made an alcoholic film."

Swinton's other new release is darker still: The Man From London, a hyper-severe Georges Simenon adaptation by the legendarily sombre Hungarian maestro Bela Tarr, whose work an enthusiastic Swinton has described as "mediaeval". "It feels to me as if these films were dug up out of some tomb in Transylvania and they've always been there. It's not about being timeless exactly, it's about being ancient."

Of course, you expect to find Swinton working with challenging, off-mainstream directors such as Tarr and Zonca. These days, however, what's surprising about Swinton's CV is how many big-name US productions it includes. Her embrace of the mainstream can be traced back to 2000, when she appeared opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Danny Boyle's The Beach. Overnight, high-profile roles started to crop up: the Tom Cruise vehicle Vanilla Sky, Spike Jonze's self-deconstructing farce Adaptation; and, most spectacular and improbable of all, the Disney-produced The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, with Swinton as a supremely glacial White Witch. She took that part, she says, partly "for Derek Jarman's sake, because of his great attachment to screen witches. What Disney doesn't necessarily acknowledge is that little children love that witch - and most of them think the wrong side won."

I've never yet heard anyone accuse Swinton of selling her art-cinema birthright for a mess of Tinseltown pottage - perhaps because of the quality of her US work, perhaps because people think of her operating there as a foreign body in the studio soup. In any case, she insists, "I've never been in something that didn't feel like an experimental film, even if two hundred thousand million dollars was spent on it." I wonder whether she now has people around her, agents or studio people, who beg her not to make Bela Tarr films as it'll ruin the new Tilda brand. Absolutely not, she says: "The people who work with me seem to get it and the people who don't get it don't come near." But her intransigence used to drive people crazy; she remembers a casting agent lamenting, "When, oh when, is Tilda Swinton going to do something she doesn't want to do for a change?"

Her change of direction may be partly to do with being a mother to 11-year-old twins, Xavier and Honor. "I woke up in every way when I had children. I just stopped arseing around. I can say [its]pretttttty[its] well," she slurs, knowingly, " I've not had one moment to waste since giving birth. Not one moment.

"Having twins will do that to you. If anything, it's widened my view on pretty much anything, and cinema particularly. Any tendency in me to be judgmental or elitist evaporated instantly. My children in their tenth year were exposed to both Bela Tarr and Pixar, and they found the Pixar film more boring." Was it WALL?E, by any chance? I ask. She leans forward, fascinated by this enigma. "What is it about children and WALL?E? They don't like it. It's too conceptual. It is a great, [its]great[its] film."

Swinton is famously a scion of a long-established Scottish family that includes Sir Walter Scott and the Sitwells somewhere among its branches, her father Major-General Sir John Swinton a former head of the Queen's Household Guards. She was also a Communist Party member, and stayed on when it became the Democratic Left but, she admits, "When I had my babies and left London, all sorts of subscriptions lapsed." She studied at New Hall, Cambridge, originally intending to be a writer, although she stopped writing as soon as she arrived and found herself acting instead. After graduating, she had an unhappy spell on the professional stage, including the RSC. She has had her moments in theatre, including an acclaimed single-hander performance in Manfred Karge's play Man To Man, which she says ruined the theatre for her, as nothing afterwards could match the experience.

It was when she met Derek Jarman, in the mid-80s, that Swinton realised that film was her thing. She was "high and dry", she remembers, confused about what she was supposed to be doing: Jarman "just allowed me to come and work it out in his soup kitchen - and work it out through silent cinema, through Super-8 autobiographical meanderings. You can't call it acting, because it isn't, you can barely call it performance, it's just getting used to being filmed and to the possibility of just doing nothing." Jarman cast her in in his 1986 Caravaggio, and Swinton became a fixture in the director's ensemble and social circle, his muse and the best-known torch-bearer for his values. Swinton's impassioned open letter to her late friend, attacking the stagnation she sees as afflicting British cinema today, was the basis of Isaac Julien's documentary tribute Derek, earlier this year.

As for "the possibility of just doing nothing", Swinton explored it to the hilt in the 1995 Serpentine Gallery installation/performance piece The Maybe, a collaboration with artist Cornelia Parker. An oblique but crowd-pulling piece, seen by some three thousand people a day, it featured Swinton lying eyes closed and largely motionless in a glass box for a week. What was going through her head all that time? " I can only tell you that when I've decided never to do it again. I've never talked about the experience, because part of the way it works is no-one knows the answer to that question. [its]No-one knows the secret of the black magic box[its]," she says, mock-portentous. "But I do intend to do it again. I'd like to do it as a very old lady and actually expire - see if we can arrange that."

Swinton turned a corner this year in terms of fame, as a result of her Oscar for Michael Clayton. She made her talk show debut on Letterman, and started finding her photo in newspapers she hadn't done interviews for. "People now wave at me in airports, and I'm pretty sure none of them have seen [Jarman's] The Last of England."

That's not the only aspect of her new celebrity. Earlier this year, Swinton caused a stir in the transatlantic press after appearing in public with her boyfriend Sandro Kopp, a 30-year-old German artist, whom she met on the set of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. This might not have been considered news if Swinton had not been known to be the long-standing partner of Scottish painter and playwright John Byrne, the father of her twins. The gist of Swinton's domestic arrangements - or "Bizarre Double Life", as one headline put it - was that, as she explained at the time, she and Byrne were still living together, but both had new partners, and that it was an amicable state of affairs with which everyone was comfortable.

Dealing with this sudden burst of press scrutiny - Swinton says, a touch wearily - was "like that ritual that Aboriginal Austalians do, of standing in the desert and letting wasps and bees fly over them and go in all the orifices and you just have to stand really still and let them do their stuff and then fly on.

"A friend of mine told me there had been a Radio 2 phone-in about us and our scandalous existence, and every single person rang in and said, 'What's the problem?' They couldn't get anyone to ring in and say anything different."

In fact, while Googling her, I found Swinton's name on several 'polyamory' websites, hailed as an inspiring example for the multi-partner lifestyle. Swinton takes this information with wryly exaggerated scepticism. "[its]Rrrrright[its].... Well, that's good. I'm sure there are red-headed websites that are claiming me, and people above a certain height. It's all fine," she sighs, cheerfully, "I'm friend not foe. One man's polyamory - is that the word? - is another man's being really, really good friends with the co-parent of one's children while we're both in other relationships. I don't think that's so strange. But maybe it is - and that would be really sad."

Meanwhile, Swinton caused an entirely different stir in her home town of Nairn, on the Moray Firth, where she lives with John Byrne and their children. This autumn, she and critic Mark Cousins got together to create a film festival there, the somewhat preciously named Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams. Very much a front-parlour showcase for favourite films, the festival invited people to turn up in pyjamas or bring their own home-baked cakes. The whole thing sounds utopian, loopy and rather precious, and I'm kicking myself that I missed it.

Her favourite festival moment, Swinton says, involved a 75-year-old woman who arrived in pyjamas with a teddy bear to see Margaret Rutherford in Murder Most Foul. "Her friend told her" - she slips into a genteel Highland accent, "'Oh, Enid, now everyone will know you weren't at church,' and she said, 'Well, this is better than church.' We had a song before every screening and that morning it was 'Morning Has Broken'. I also got them singing Marilyn Manson." Next spring, Swinton plans to take the festival to Beijing: she's looking forward to seeing Mandarin subtitles on Powell and Pressburger's Scottish classic I Know Where I'm Going.

Swinton once characterised her ideal of cinema as a 'Church for the Aliens', and she is without doubt today's most extra-terrestrial celebrant at that particular shrine. Perhaps she has never been quite so alien as in the 1996 music video she appeared in for dance act The Orb: wearing a blue rubber helmet and a Keaton-esque expression of blank bemusement, she paces slowly around a London that whizzes in speeded-up motion around her. It's a wonderfully concise visual metaphor for the way that Swinton has always walked out of step with - almost in a parallel dimension to - cinema as most of us know it. The Maybe aside, this video may be Swinton's consummate appearance as [its]object[its] rather than performer. "I think of myself most accurately," she says, "as an artist's model, and that's really what I am. Beyond that, I'm a piece of production design. I'm not interested in acquiring acting skills. What good would they do me?"

Jonathan Romney, The Independent, 30.11.08

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/tilda-swinton-im-not-interested-in-acting-skills-1038275.html

Les hauts magistrats ont fait valoir que le titre de propriété des colons n'était pas probant, que c'était aux tribunaux de déterminer qui est le véritable propriétaire mais que, en attendant, les occupants devaient quitter cette énorme bâtisse à l'entrée de Hébron que les colons ont investie en mars 2007.

Le choix de la maison ne s'est pas fait au hasard. Elle est située sur l'axe stratégique qui relie la colonie de Kiryat Arba au caveau des Patriarches, lieu vénéré des juifs et des musulmans, ainsi qu'au chapelet d'implantations juives dans le coeur de la vieille ville. Une cité que les plus hardis et les plus fanatiques des colons ont entrepris de reconquérir après en avoir été évincés en 1929 à la suite d'un pogrom qui avait fait 67 morts.

"Nous poursuivons l'oeuvre d'Abraham", proclame une immense banderole qui barre la façade de "Beit Hashalom", la maison de la paix, comme on l'a appelée au début. Désormais c'est "la maison de la discorde" et le nouvel abcès de fixation dans la lutte des colons pour la conquête des lieux historiques du judaïsme. C'est un combat sacré, une mission divine pour ceux qui se considèrent comme les pionniers de la reconquête. Pas seulement Hébron mais toute la Cisjordanie, comme l'affiche clairement Daniela Weiss, égérie d'un groupuscule intitulé Les Jeunes pour la terre d'Israël, de jeunes adolescents radicaux qui sont la force de frappe des colons les plus déterminés.

Ils déambulent autour de la maison étroitement protégée par l'armée et refusent tout dialogue avec la presse. Daniela Weiss est leur porte-parole. Femme de combat, elle prévient : "On ne va pas se concentrer sur une forteresse. Le feu va éclater dans tout le pays. Nous allons nous battre pour toute la Judée. Nous avons appris beaucoup depuis l'éviction des colons de la bande de Gaza (juillet 2005) et celle mouvementée de la colonie d'Amona (janvier 2006). Si nous commençons une rébellion, elle se répandra partout. Ce sera Amona à la puissance dix. Personne ne veut la guerre civile mais nous nous défendrons."

Daniela Weiss qualifie la décision de la Cour suprême d' "antisémite". "On n'a pas le droit d'expulser les juifs de chez eux. Je suis prête à me sacrifier si l'on touche à une seule lettre de la Bible. C'est un sacrilège !" Pas question non plus de négocier avec quelques autorités que ce soit "même sur un seul grain de poussière de la terre d'Israël".

Depuis la décision d'expulsion, c'est le branle-bas pour la mobilisation. Des familles entières sont venues s'installer sur les lieux. Il y aurait désormais près d'une centaine de personnes. Les rideaux métalliques des portes-fenêtres ont été soudés. A l'intérieur, les occupants se seraient barricadés pour résister à toute intervention des forces de sécurité. Un fort Chabrol !

A l'extérieur, les rassemblements succèdent aux manifestations de soutien. Ce qui donne lieu à quelques débordements. La semaine dernière, des croix de David ont été tracées sur les pierres tombales du cimetière musulman à quelques dizaines de mètres et une inscription sur la mosquée toute proche affirmait "Mahomet est un porc".

La maison est située dans un secteur palestinien dont les habitants doivent subir les harcèlements des colons qui veulent les chasser. La situation est de plus en plus tendue. Le gouvernement va-t-il procéder à l'éviction en période préélectorale avec les répercussions que cela pourrait entraîner ? Ehoud Barak, ministre de la défense, y est résolu. Ehoud Olmert, le premier ministre de transition, préfère tempérer, estimant que la décision de justice est "ambiguë". Il a néanmoins ordonné que cessent "les intolérables attaques répétées contre les Palestiniens et leurs propriétés".

Officials said they believe the terrorists who carried out attacks that left almost 200 people dead, and who held off the security forces for three days, may have numbered as few as 10. Only one – apparently a Pakistani national identified as Mohammed Ajmal Qasam by a senior Indian official – was captured alive. And a report claimed that, under interrogation, he told officials that he and his colleagues wanted to carry out "India's 9/11" – a title that local television channels have already attached to this week's events. Other reports said the men were linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group that has fought Indian forces in disputed Kashmir and was blamed for a 2001 attack on India's parliament.

Despite suggestions that one or more of the terrorists may have been British, authorities in the UK and India damped down talk of such a connection. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, said that the Indian government had assured him there was no evidence that the terrorists had British origins. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said that British authorities had "no knowledge" of any links with the massacre. In India, Vilasrao Deshmukh, the Maharashtra state chief minister, said: "There is no such authentic information. We totally deny this." David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, was more circumspect. In an interview with Sky News yesterday, he said it was "too early to say" if any of the terrorists were British.

What is certain is that the series of co-ordinated incidents involved a new level of planning and training for terror attacks in South Asia. The terrorists apparently had GPS equipment, were heavily armed, well disciplined and in all likelihood had carried out a reconnaissance mission. Some may have checked into the Taj Mahal hotel several days before launching the violence on Wednesday. One of their first acts once inside the hotel was to blow up the CCTV control room.

Surviving hotel staff said the men seemed to have a practised knowledge of the hotel's less obvious internal routes. And they may also have recruited local help.

Yesterday, the Indian navy said it was investigating the possibility that a trawler found drifting off the coast of Mumbai, with a bound corpse on board, was used in the attack. The authorities suspect the Kuber had sailed from the neighboring state of Gujarat, and that the militants used a rubber dinghy found nearby to come ashore.

For the paramilitaries and commandos confronting the gunmen, it was no easy matter. An army general told reporters the terrorists were well armed and well trained, something that would explain why a relatively small number of them could hold off the security forces for so long. "At times we found them matching us in combat and movement," said one commando. "They were either army regulars or have done a long stint of commando training."

They were equipped with sophisticated weapons, mobile and satellite phones, and were "constantly in touch with a foreign country", police said.

"Whenever they were under a little bit of pressure they would hurl a grenade. They freely used grenades," said commando chief Jyoti Krishna Dutt. The gunmen were prepared for a long haul, carrying bags of almonds and dried fruit to keep their energy levels high. One man's backpack contained 400 rounds of ammunition.

The three-day siege ended around 7am yesterday, when commandos killed the last three terrorists, who were holed up in the seafront Taj Mahal hotel, near the Gateway of India monument. Since Thursday, the authorities had repeatedly said they were on the brink of "cleaning out" the hotel, but the last three fighters put up tough resistance. At least one commando was also killed in the running gun battle.

Mr Dutt told reporters crowded outside the battle-scarred building that gunmen had set parts of the hotel ablaze as they played cat and mouse with the security forces and left bodies in their wake, some with grenades stuffed into their mouths or concealed underneath them.

An American tourist, identified as Patricia, who had been trapped in her room, told a television news channel: "The blood, everywhere the blood. And when we came down to the lobby, all the hundreds and hundreds of policemen were standing there looking so fried and so sad."

Yesterday, the authorities began removing bodies and taking them to hospital mortuaries for identification. It is unclear how many bodies were removed from the hotel, but it is likely that the death toll will rise considerably. A number were being delivered to the Sir JJ Hospital in Mumbai, where tearful families came to identify the bodies of relatives.

Pakistan's President, Asif Ali Zardari, said he would act against any groups in his country shown to be responsible for the attacks. The country's ISI intelligence agency is due to dispatch a senior official to India to help in the investigation. "As President of Pakistan, if any evidence comes of any individual or group in any part of my country, I shall take the swiftest of action in the light of evidence and in front of the world," he said.

Meanwhile, the leader of militant groups in Pakistani Kashmir called the slaughter of civilians in Mumbai "reprehensible" and denied that any member of his alliance was involved. Syed Salahuddin, who heads the United Jihad Council, told Reuters: "I can say with utmost certainty that none of the Kashmiri jihadi groups has any involvement with the events in Mumbai."

Andrew Buncombe and Jonathan Owen, The Independent, 30.11.08

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/just-ten-trained-terrorists-caused-carnage-1041639.html

) ou en marge si l’on préfère, le théâtre de Nanterre et le TNP ont demandé un coup de main à l’université de Chicago, à Sciences Po et à la Cité internationale universitaire afin de monter un ambitieux

Gérald Garutti a inventorié tout ce qui dans cette pièce résonne avec une brûlante actualité : lutte des classes, crise perpétuelle, pire régime, bestiaire fratricide, dissension infinie, corruption fatale, salut par l’impérialisme, expulsion du héros, bureaucratie désenchantée, règne de la représentation. Toutes choses qui seront âprement discutées par des philosophes, des politologues, des sociologues, des metteurs en scène au nombre desquels Alain Badiou, Pierre Manent, Blandine Kriegel, Jean-Pierre Vincent, Etienne Balibar, Alexandre Adler, Enzo Cormann… Dommage que Jacques Rancière, l’essayiste de La haine de la démocratie, n’en soit pas.

Pierre Assouline, La république des livres, 29.11.08

http://passouline.blog.lemonde.fr/