The ANSA news agency said that Antonioni died at his home on Monday evening.

"With Antonioni dies not only one of the greatest directors but also a master of modernity," Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni said in a statement.

Antonioni depicted alienation in the modern world through sparse dialogue and long takes. Along with Federico Fellini, he helped turn post-war Italian film away from the Neorealism movement and toward a personal cinema of imagination.

In 1995, Hollywood honored his career work -- about 25 films and several screenplays -- with a special Oscar for lifetime achievement. By then Antonioni was a physically frail but mentally sharp 82, unable to speak but a few words because of a stroke but still translating his vision into film. The Oscar was stolen from Antonioni's home in 1996, together with several other film prizes.

His slow-moving camera never became synonymous with box-office success, but some of his movies such "Blow-Up," "Red Desert" and "The Passenger" reached enduring fame.

His exploration of such intellectual themes as alienation and existential malaise led Halliwell's Film Guide to say that "L'Avventura," Antonioni's first critical success, made him "a hero of the highbrows."

The critics loved that film, but the audience hissed when "L'Avventura" was presented at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. The barest of plots, which wanders through a love affair of a couple, frustrated many viewers for its lack of action and dialogue, characteristically Antonioni.

In one point in the black-and-white film, the camera lingers and lingers on Monica Vitti, one of Antonioni's favorite actresses, as she plays a blond, restless jet-setter.

"In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting," Jack Nicholson said in presenting Antonioni with the career Oscar. Nicholson starred in the director's 1975 film "The Passenger."

Antonioni was born on Sept. 29, 1912, in the affluent northern city of Ferrara. He received a university degree in economics and soon began writing critiques for cinema magazines.

Antonioni's first feature film, "Story of a Love Affair" (1950) was a tale of two lovers unable to cope with the ties binding them to their private lives.

But Antonioni grew more interested in depicting his characters' internal turmoil rather than their daily, down-to-earth troubles. The shift induced critics to call his cinema "internal Neorealism."

After the international critical acclaim of "L'Avventura," which became part of a trilogy with "The Night" (1961) and "Eclipse" (1962), Antonioni's style was established. He steadily co-wrote his films and directed them with the recognizable touch of a painter. His signature was a unique look into people's frustrating inability to communicate and assert themselves in society.

On Oscar award night, his wife, Enrica Fico, 41 years his junior, and "translator" for him since his 1985 stroke, said: "Michelangelo always went beyond words, to meet silence, the mystery and power of silence."

The first success at the box office came in 1966 with "Blow Up," about London in the swinging '60s and a photographer who accidentally captures a murder on film.

But Antonioni with his hard-to-fathom films generally found it hard to convince Italian producers to back him. By the end of the 1960s, he was looking abroad for funds. American backing helped produce "Zabriskie Point" (1970), shot in the bleakly carved landscape of Death Valley, California.

Asked by an Italian magazine in 1980, "For whom do you make films" Antonioni replied: "I do it for it an ideal spectator who is this very director. I could never do something against my tastes to meet the public. Frankly, I can't do it, even if so many directors do so. And then, what public? Italian? American? Japanese? French? British? Australian? They're all different from each other."

Using sometimes a notepad, sometimes the good communication he had with his wife and sometimes just his very expressive blue eyes, Antonioni astonished the film world in 1994 to make "Beyond the Clouds," when ailing and hampered by the effects of the stroke.

With an international cast -- John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons, Irene Jacob, and Fanny Ardant -- the movie wove together three episodes based on Antonioni's book of short stories "Quel Bowling sul Tevere" ("Bowling on the Tiber") to explore the usual Antonioni themes.

Worried that Antonioni would be too frail to finish the movie, investors had German director Wim Wenders follow the work, ready to step in if the Italian "maestro" couldn't go on. But Wenders wound up watching in awe and letting Antonioni put his vision on film.

Antonioni is survived by his wife. He had no children. ANSA said that a funeral would be held Thursday in Antonioni's hometown of Ferrara in northern Italy.

The New York Times, 31.07.07 

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/movies/AP-Obit-Antonioni.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

O realizador morreu por volta das 18h00 locais (mesma hora em Lisboa), "calmamente, na sua casa, com sua mulher Enrica Fico a seu lado", refere a agência italiana. O corpo de Antonioni ficará a partir de hoje em câmara ardente na câmara de Roma.

Um dos cineastas italianos modernos mais conceituados internacionalmente, Antonioni chegou à fama no fim dos anos 60 e início dos 70 com uma série de fimes altamente individualizados.

Depois de vários anos a trabalhar com alguns dos maiores nomes do movimento neo-realista italiano, Antonioni foi aclamado mundialmente com filmes que exploravam aquilo que, na sua opinião, era a esterilidade emocional da sociedade moderna. Ficou também conhecido como o cineasta da incomunicabilidade, "mal-de-vivre" e do amor impossível. O seu percurso internacional ficou marcado por prémios como o Leão de Ouro na Bienal de Veneza em 1964, pelo filme “Il Deserto Rosso”, a Palma de Ouro no festival de Cannes em 1967, pelo filme “Blow up” e um prémio especial atribuído pelo júri do Festival de Cannes, pelo filme “Identificazione di una donna”, em 1982.

Em 1995 foi homenageado com o Óscar de Carreira e em 1997 recebeu o Leão de Ouro em Veneza, como reconhecimento do seu percurso de realizador.

Paulo Branco: Antonioni era "alguém transmitia uma enorme confiança aos jovens"

O produtor Paulo Branco recordou hoje o cineasta italiano Michelangelo Antonioni, ontem falecido, como "alguém transmitia uma enorme confiança aos jovens" que se propunham trabalhar com ele, como foi o seu caso.

"Era uma pessoa reservada, mas ao mesmo tempo com humor. Era um humor escondido que quando vinha ao de cima era muito curioso. Era alguém transmitia uma enorme confiança aos jovens. Quando era um jovem produtor não hesitou em trabalhar comigo (...). Havia nele uma enorme curiosidade em tudo o que se passava à volta nas outras artes", disse Paulo Branco, em declarações à TSF.

Ouvido pela Lusa, Branco diz que Antonioni foi um dos "grandes inventores do cinema moderno.

O produtor português, que chegou a trabalhar com Antonioni na década de 1980, refere-se ao autor de "Blow Up - História de Um Fotógrafo" como um dos "grandes monstros do cinema". "Tive uma experiência única de trabalho com ele", sublinhou Paulo Branco.

Com o desaparecimento, em 24 horas, de duas figuras maiores do cinema europeu - Ingmar Bergman e Antonioni, Paulo Branco lembra que "as obras deles ficarão sempre" para os recordarmos. "Os dois foram muito importantes para dar uma dimensão de liberdade e inconformismo ao cinema europeu", reforçou o produtor.

Michelangelo Antonioni deixou obras como "O Grito" (1957), "A Noite" (1961), "O Deserto Vermelho" (1964) e "Blow Up - História de Um Fotógrafo" (1966).

Antonioni murió a las ocho de la tarde de ayer en su casa de Roma, donde residía junto a su mujer Enrica Fico.

El Ayuntamiento de la capital italiana acogerá la capilla ardiente con sus restos mortales.

El entierro se celebrará el jueves en Ferrara, al norte del país, donde el director nació el 29 de septiembre de 1912.

El cineasta sufría dificultades para hablar y desplazarse desde 1985 tras sufrir un acccidente cerebral.

Entre la filmografía de Antonioni destaca su película Blow-up, premiada en el festival de Cannes en 1967, basada en un relato del escritor argentino Julio Cortázar, en la que se narra la vida de un fotógrafo en Londres que descubre un asesinato a través de sus fotografías.

Antonio fue en primer lugar crítico de cine en un estudio local antes de llegar a Roma donde cursó estudios en el Centro Experimental del Cine y colaboró en el Estudio Cine, considerados como los centros de resistencia al fascismo.

En 1942 en París, trabaja de ayudante de Marcel Carné y posteriormente colabora con Roberto Rossellini. En 1950 rueda su primer largometraje Crónica de un amor. Su estilo se afirma en su trilogía La Aventura en 1960, La noche, 1961 y El eclipse, 1962, interpretada por Monica Vitti, su actriz talismán, su compañera y su musa durante una decena de años.

The factors behind the re-evaluation range from a drought here in the Amazon rain forest, the world’s largest, and the impact that it could have on agriculture if it recurs, to new phenomena like a hurricane in the south of Brazil. As a result, environmental advocates, scientists and some politicians say, Brazilian policy makers and the public they serve are increasingly seeing climate change not as a distant problem, but as one that could affect them too.

Brazil remains suspicious of foreign involvement in its management of the Amazon, which it views as a domestic matter. But negotiators and others who monitor international climate talks say Brazil is now willing to discuss issues that until recently it considered off the table, including market-based programs to curb the carbon emissions that result from massive deforestation in the Amazon, in which areas the size of New Jersey or larger are razed each year.

“I think things have advanced, certainly, compared to three years ago, when the government simply refused to discuss deforestation in international forums,” said Márcio Santilli, a former government official who helped start the Socio-Environmental Institute, an environmental group in Brasília. “There has been a change of posture which reflects the worries of Brazilian public opinion on this issue, which in turn puts pressure on politicians.”

For years, Brazil’s position in international climate change talks has been that Northern Hemisphere industrial countries must shoulder the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Fearing a loss of sovereignty, it has resisted plans to create market mechanisms to provide payments for reductions in deforestation and carbon emissions, accompanied by international monitoring.

Brazil’s stance on such issues is vitally important because by most calculations it is the fourth-largest producer of the greenhouse gases that most scientists believe are the principal cause of global warming. Three-quarters of those emissions result from deforestation, the overwhelming bulk of which occurs here.

The government’s new, slightly more nuanced position is not a result of a sudden burst of green awareness on the part of Mr. da Silva, whose knowledge of the technical details of the debate is widely described as sketchy. And in public, Mr. da Silva continues to want to shift the blame northward.

“Everyone knows that the rich countries are responsible for 60 percent of the gas emissions, and therefore need to assume their responsibilities,” he said during a meeting of the Group of 8 in June. “We don’t accept the idea that the emerging nations are the ones who have to make sacrifices, because poverty itself is already a sacrifice.”

A number of recent events have led political leaders and ordinary Brazilians to conclude that they are not immune to climate change. First and foremost was a disastrous 2005 drought in the Amazon that killed crops, kindled forest fires, dried up transportation routes, caused disease and wreaked economic havoc.

Brazil sees itself as an emerging agricultural and industrial power, and global warming could have a disastrous impact on those aspirations. Scientists note that Brazil’s southern breadbasket flourishes largely because of rainfall patterns in the Amazon that are likely to be altered if droughts recur or climate change accelerates.

“Once they really register that the Amazon rain machine is very important to the south of Brazil, they are going to be much more interested in avoiding deforestation,” said Thomas Lovejoy, president of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. “You don’t have to be interested in biodiversity to want rain to keep that amazing agricultural system going.”

Brazil also envisions constructing a large network of dams throughout the Amazon over the next several decades to supply electricity to its industrial heartland in São Paulo, 2,000 miles south of here. But those plans depend on water flows in the region’s vast rivers not drying up.

“If rainfall is reduced, as many projections show, either you are not going to have enough water at all or you will have to have much bigger lakes to fill the dams,” said Paulo Moutinho, scientific coordinator at the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research.

In addition, in 2004 a hurricane formed in the South Atlantic for the first time since weather records began being kept. The storm came ashore in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, which was not prepared for it, and destroyed houses and forced thousands to flee.

“There was no previous registry of this happening, not even in the literature of colonial times,” said Carlos Nobre, Brazil’s most prominent climate scientist, who works at the National Institute for Space Research.

The latest report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued in April, has added to concerns here. “By mid-century, increases in temperature and associated decreases in soil water are projected to lead to gradual replacement of tropical forest by savanna in eastern Amazonia,” it predicted, while also warning that “crop productivity is projected to decrease for even small local temperature increases” in tropical areas, “which would increase risk of hunger.”

Among climatologists who study the Amazon, the buzz words these days are “tipping point” — the moment at which damage to the environment is so severe and widespread that it pushes the ecosystem into an irreversible cycle of self-destruction.

Scientists disagree how close the Amazon is to such an event. Some warn that it is just a few years away, while others argue that the margin of safety is decades. But almost all agree that the danger exists.

“Obviously the uncertainty range is huge, but the momentum is pushing us in that direction, and the fact that it is close is important, because the process is like steering a big ship,” said Philip Fearnside, a researcher here at the National Institute for Amazon Research. “People on the Titanic saw the iceberg, but they couldn’t turn in time.”

In the debate over how to reduce carbon emissions and postpone or avoid such a tipping point, one area of disagreement between Brazil and the international community has been the issue of compensation for what is known as “avoided deforestation.” This approach sets a monetary value for greenhouse gas emissions and pays farmers and indigenous people not to raze the forest.

Brazil has been wary of allowing such a market mechanism, preferring that donations flow into a government fund that it would administer. Potential donors say they worry about waste and inefficiency and fear that such a fund would end up, as one person said, asking not to be identified because negotiations were still under way, being “money down a rathole, a total scam that did nothing at all for the people out there in the forest.”

In the absence of a clear direction at the federal level, governors of some Amazon states are moving on their own. In June, Eduardo Braga, governor of Amazonas, announced a new climate change law, the first in Brazil, that allowed compensation for “environmental services,” including payments to farmers and river dwellers for avoiding deforestation.

“This action would have raised big questions and objections just four months ago, but there’s been a big turnabout,” Mr. Braga said.

Mr. Braga’s initiative is especially important because his state, the biggest in Brazil, has largely avoided the devastation occurring in neighboring states to the east and south.

But in the end, how much and how rapidly policy shifts depends largely on Mr. da Silva, who has consistently argued that “the Amazon is not untouchable.” In April, he saw Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” in Brasília in the company of some of Brazil’s leading environmentalists.

“My impression is that Lula’s intuitive sensitivity to the gravity of the situation is greater than that of those who surround him,” said Mr. Santilli, who was present at the screening. “I think he understands and accepts the idea of these differentiated instruments, but I don’t know if he realizes that the government’s position is contrary to this.”

Larry Rohter, The New York Times, 31.07.07

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/americas/31amazon.html?ref=americas

But even if they could have heard him, most of the people sprinkled through the little courtroom, including the defendant and the witnesses, could not have understood what he was saying.

The judge was speaking in Portuguese, the newly designated language of the courts, the schools and the government — a language that most people in East Timor cannot speak.

The most widely spoken languages in this former Portuguese colony are Tetum, the dominant local language, and Indonesian, the language of East Timor’s giant neighbor.

For a quarter of a century, Portuguese had been a dying tongue, spoken only by an older generation. It was banned after Indonesia annexed the territory in 1975 and imposed its own language.

In a disorienting reverse, a new Constitution re-imposed Portuguese after East Timor became independent in 2002. The marginalized became mainstream again, and the mainstream was marginalized.

Linguistic convenience was sacrificed to politics and sentiment. In a nation that had never governed itself and had few cultural symbols to unite it, this language of resistance to the Indonesian occupiers was an emblem — particularly to the older generation — of freedom and national identity.

The choice has brought a tangle of complications, disenfranchising a generation of Indonesian speakers and introducing a new language barrier among the country’s many other problems.

Along with a struggle to provide health care, education, government services, jobs and even food for its people, East Timor is now on a crash course to learn its own official language, importing scores of teachers from Portugal to help.

“I have finished two levels of Portuguese, but I still don’t speak it well, just basic Portuguese,” said Zacharias da Costa, 36, a lecturer in conflict management at the National University of East Timor.

Within five years, according to the government’s plan, he will be required to teach all his courses in Portuguese, a language that is hardly heard on the campus here.

A bulletin board at the entrance to the campus carries 14 notices from teachers. Eight are written in Tetum, four in Indonesian and two in English. None are in Portuguese.

For all its awkwardness, East Timor’s experience is not uncommon, said Robert B. Kaplan, a senior co-editor of the journal Current Issues in Language Planning.

The imposition of new national languages happens when countries are colonized and it happens when they decolonize, he said. Sometimes, as in East Timor, it happens a second time when they decolonize again.

East Timor’s language problems are those of many countries that decree a language shift, complicating the daily business of the nation and cutting off its people from their history and literature, which has been written in what may well become an alien language.

In Azerbaijan, for example, a former Soviet republic that is now fully independent, a simple change in alphabet, from Cyrillic to Roman, has created a new class of illiterates.

East Timor’s courts are among the hardest-hit institutions. Translations back and forth among Portuguese, Tetum and Indonesian produce a game of telephone in which outside monitors say testimony is often distorted.

During a just-completed parliamentary election, news conferences were held in four languages, sometimes producing somewhat different versions of the news.

At The Timor Post, an English-language newspaper, reporters said they could not read government news releases in Portuguese, so they ignored them.

The reported number of Portuguese speakers in East Timor varies widely, perhaps because of different standards of fluency and perhaps because of the effects of the current language-training programs.

The United Nations reported in 2002 that only 5 percent of the population of 800,000 spoke Portuguese. In the 2004 census, 36 percent said they had “a capability in Portuguese,” said Kerry Taylor-Leech, a linguist at Griffith University in Australia who has written about the languages of East Timor. “Since the 1990s, you’ll see that a language shift has taken place,” she said. “The changes from what I see are taking place quite rapidly.”

According to the census, 85 percent claim a capability in Tetum, 58 percent in Indonesian and 21 percent in English.

The new Constitution establishes Portuguese and Tetum as the country’s two official languages, but Tetum is seen as thin and undeveloped, and most of the nation’s official business is conducted in Portuguese.

“This is a political decision and I have to implement it, like it or not,” said Judge Maria Pereira, a Dili District Court judge who has taken crash courses and now writes her decisions in what she calls fairly good Portuguese. “I have no choice. As a judge I have to implement the law.”

Some young Indonesian speakers, who had at first opposed the use of Portuguese, now say they embrace it as a means of enriching and developing Tetum. Already as much as 80 percent of Tetum is made up of Portuguese loan words or Portuguese-influenced words, Ms. Taylor-Leech said, although she said speaking Portuguese was unlikely to increase this number.

Another approach comes from President José Ramos-Jorta, one of the authors of the Portuguese-language law. “We have to rethink our language policies,” he said in a telephone interview.

As a first step, he said, English and Indonesian should be added to Portuguese and Tetum as official languages. “I see no problem with a nation having four official languages.”

But his plan does not end there, suggesting that questions of language could preoccupy his country for years to come.

Once they have become accustomed to their four official languages, he said, “We can give the people the option to choose two of them as compulsory languages.”

Seth Mydans, The New York Times, 31.07.07

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/asia/31timor.html?ref=asia 

La justice belge a estimé que la détention d'Angelica en centre fermé avait violé la convention européenne des droits de l'homme. Evoquant des "plaies" et des "douleurs", l'avocate d'Angelica, Selma Ben Khalifa, assure que des violences ont été exercées durant cette détention sur Angelica et sa mère. Dès l'ordonnance rendue, les autorités belges ont décidé de rapatrier les deux Equatoriennes vers Bruxelles.

TOUJOURS EN SITUATION IRRÉGULIÈRE

Toutefois, cette demande de libération immédiate ne signifie pas qu'Angelica et Ana Cajamarca pourront demeurer en Belgique. En effet, l'Office belge des étrangers compte faire appel de la décision du tribunal car, rappelle-t-il, "l'ordonnance ne change rien à la situation irrégulière" d'Ana et Angelica.

Depuis plusieurs jours, la Belgique suit avec émotion le destin de la jeune adolescente. Dimanche, la femme belge du président équatorien, Rafael Correa, avait appelé les autorités à la clémence. M. Correa, de passage à titre privé en Belgique, avait lui-même rendu visite aux deux Equatoriennes le 17 juillet et tenté d'intercéder en leur faveur, mais sans succès.

Angelica et sa mère avaient été interpellées lors d'un contrôle de police dans la rue. Selon l'Office des étrangers, elles n'ont jamais déposé de demande d'asile ou de régularisation. Largement couverte par les médias belges, cette affaire a jeté une lumière crue sur l'internement de mineurs, durant des semaines voire des mois, dans des centres fermés, dénoncée depuis des années en Belgique comme contraire à la convention internationale des droits de l'enfant.

Le Monde, 31.07.07

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3214,36-940548@51-939053,0.html

"Todo ha ido empeorando; estamos ya en el punto en el que algunos enfermos no pueden ir al hospital porque el que les toca está ubicado en una zona donde su comunidad es minoría y no se atreven", explica Mofarah en conversación telefónica desde Ammán (Jordania), donde tiene su cuartel general el Comité de Coordinación de las ONG en Irak (NCCI, en inglés). Si el enfermo vence el miedo y se atreve, tampoco es garantía de nada: el 92% de los 180 hospitales del país carece de los más elementales instrumentos para funcionar.

El centro de referencia para las ONG sobre Irak está en Ammán, y no en Bagdad, por razones obvias: el miedo a la violencia desbocada. En tres años han muerto en el país 100 cooperantes -la gran mayoría iraquíes-, cuando en un polvorín como el de Afganistán han fallecido 30 en tres décadas. Pese a ello, sigue habiendo cerca de 40 ONG extranjeras -ninguna española- dentro del país, pero la gran mayoría han levantado la base en Ammán y desde allí alimentan a las pequeñas ONG locales.

El ruido de las bombas es tan ensordecedor que no deja escuchar los gritos que demandan ayuda humanitaria básica. El NCCI difundió ayer un exhaustivo informe, elaborado con información recogida sobre el terreno y también procedente del Gobierno y de Naciones Unidas, que retrata la catástrofe humanitaria que vive el país: ocho millones -un tercio de la población total- necesitan con urgencia ayuda de emergencia, cuatro millones dependen de la ayuda para alimentarse, el 54% vive por debajo del umbral de la pobreza y el paro roza el 50% de la población.

Lo peor, sin embargo, es la evolución: "La situación actual es peor que nunca, la gente está desesperada", subraya Mofarah. Todos los datos avalan su pesimismo: salvo por el hecho de que hubo elecciones, todos los demás indicadores han empeorado desde la invasión.

Los ciudadanos sin acceso adecuado a agua han pasado de representar el 50% del total al 70%, la desnutrición infantil ha subido del 19% al 28%, el país ha perdido 12.000 de los 34.000 médicos -la gran mayoría se han exiliado-; casi el 12% de los niños nace con peso inferior al normal, cuando en 2003 eran sólo el 4%; los desplazados internos crecen sin parar -800.000, el 40% del total, lo son desde el año pasado-, y así sin fin.

Las ONG admiten que la erradicación de la violencia es un requisito previo para que la vida cotidiana mejore y puedan trabajar directamente en el país. Pero en su informe sugieren algunas medidas inmediatas, que contribuirían a aliviar la penuria, como la descentralización.

"Es contraproducente que tanto la recepción de la ayuda como las decisiones en cualquier ámbito lo centralice exclusivamente Bagdad", sostiene Irene Milleiro, de Intermón Oxfam, una de las ONG del comité que han participado en la elaboración del informe. Oxfam, una de las mayores redes internacionales de ONG, sopesa desde 2004 la posibilidad de trabajar directamente en el país, pero no acaba de decidirse porque es demasiado arriesgado para los cooperantes.

Las ONG apuntan entre líneas otro elemento clave que podría mejorarse aun en estas condiciones extremas: la parálisis del Gobierno explica parte del deterioro humanitario. En 2006, el Ejecutivo iraquí dejó de gastar 19.000 millones de euros por su incapacidad. Tenía el dinero, pero no sabía cómo gastarlo. El informe trimestral del inspector general de EE UU para Irak divulgado ayer llega a la misma conclusión: en 2006, subraya, el Gobierno sólo gastó el 22% del presupuesto asignado a proyectos de reconstrucción.

Lo único que avanza, además de la violencia, es la corrupción: aunque Sadam Husein había puesto el listón muy alto, la nueva Administración es todavía peor, según Transparencia Internacional. En 2003, esta ONG occidental situaba al país árabe en el puesto 115 sobre los 133 analizados en su índice de corrupción. Ahora ha descendido hasta el 160 sobre un total de 163.

Pere Rusiñol, El Pais, 31.07.07

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/milagro/diario/sobrevivir/Irak/elpepuint/20070731elpepiint_7/Tes 

Portmeirion is actually a resort where no one has ever lived. A self-taught Welsh architect named Sir Clough Williams-Ellis built it from architectural salvage from the 1920s to 1970s, loosely based on his memories of trips to Portofino on the Italian Riviera. He kept improving Portmeirion until his death at age 94 in 1978. In his long career, he designed almost nothing else memorable, except some country houses for British aristocrats.

Portmeirion now belongs to a charity, run by Sir Clough’s grandson, Robin Llywelyn, a Welsh novelist who is the co-author of a gloriously illustrated and lively history, “Portmeirion” (Antique Collectors’ Club, 2006). The family dutifully maintains the 50 bright-colored buildings and has even brought them a bit upscale the last few years, hiring Sir Terence Conran to redecorate some public spaces in a taupe and celadon palette. But no renovation has yet tamped down the abiding weirdness of Portmeirion, which is surrounded by gray slate hills and gray slate villages. When I mentioned my planned trip to a Welsh friend, I was a little nervous that he would consider it a Disney-fied tourist trap, but instead he went wide-eyed and nostalgic. “It’s an absolutely batty place,” he said. “We got married there.”

In the summer high season, about 200 guests a night pack into Portmeirion’s two hotels and dozens of rental cottages. Another hundred or so pay £6.80 ($13.60 at $2 to the pound) just to stroll the grounds. Sir Clough (pronounced CLUFF) wrote gleefully in his 1971 autobiography that he knew visitors might “find it all insufferably chaotic, contrived, whimsical or out of place.” He wanted them to at least remember the place, which had a polemic subtext: he hated his era’s taste for modernist architecture.

When he started building Portmeirion, the rectilinear glass walls of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe were becoming fashionable, but “their work seems to me to be so unfeeling,” he said. He called the resort “a home for fallen buildings,” and its ragged skyline and playful narrow passageways were meant to provide “more fun for more people.”

An aristocrat who declared ancestry from a 12th-century king, Sir Clough was such a committed neotraditionalist that he dressed in breeches and waistcoats. When he wasn’t tweaking Portmeirion, he often proselytized pro bono for environmentalist causes; he was an early promoter of wind farms, bike paths, national parks and bans on billboards.

Modernist critics like Lewis Mumford dismissed Portmeirion as “a monumental joke” or “ridiculous Welsh fantasy,” but the British government declared it a protected landmark in 1971, and it seduced tourists as well. “Its economic success has staggered me,” Sir Clough declared near the end of his life. Mr. Llywelyn’s book, which contains a loving essay by the travel writer Jan Morris, who lives nearby, lists bold-face visitors including Bertrand Russell, the Duke of Windsor, King Zog of Albania, and the actor Patrick McGoohan (his creepy 1960s TV series “The Prisoner” was filmed at Portmeirion). Noel Coward wrote “Blithe Spirit” at a Portmeirion cottage in a five-day sprint in 1941 (he’d been suffering from writer’s block in London, where his home had been destroyed during the Blitz), and the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, spent a few summer vacations in a suite tucked above a Portmeirion archway.

The celebrities returned year after year, partly to see what Sir Clough had newly wrought. He kept teams of carpenters and masons on call. They never knew what salvage delivery would arrive next: gilded statues of Burmese goddesses, 18th-century cannons, a Victorian sandstone fireplace, a 1640s ballroom ceiling. Wherever an appropriate antique wasn’t available, Sir Clough improvised: many windows and pilasters are trompe l’oeils, painted illusions, and the domes on the lighthouse and the town hall are both made from overturned pig boilers.

Staff gardeners meanwhile lined paths with formal topiary rows and palm trees. They also set aside 70 acres for unkempt stands of tree ferns, redwoods, gingkos and rhododendrons (Gulf Stream currents in the estuary make for a subtropical microclimate). The contrast between the architecture and the exotic groves is surreal: in an essay in Mr. Llywelyn’s book, the British garden writer Stephen Lacey describes “the magical shock of exchanging bustling Riviera for silent rainforest in a single step.”

On my own all-too-short two-day visit a few months ago, I mostly clambered along hairpin turns in the village’s cobblestone paths, puzzling over Sir Clough’s inventions, stage-set tricks and juxtapositions. After a while, I pitied the maintenance crews, and said as much to Mr. Llywelyn, when I called his office for an interview after my incognito trip.

“I don’t think my grandfather realized how long this place would be popular, how long the buildings would be expected to withstand the sea air and winds here,” he said rather wearily. Nor have his grandfather’s furnishings choices held up well, he added: “Especially the four-poster beds in the guestrooms, those were, unfortunately, quite creaky, quite narrow and so uncomfortable.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the Conran-inspired replacement beds, with leather-upholstered headboards, seem hopelessly generic in such a loopy place.

The regulars and celebrities aren’t fazed by the changes, apparently. Portmeirion is booked solid for August; Welsh and English families return annually to the same cottages, which have cute names like Salutation, Neptune and Unicorn. (Consider a fall trip, so you can reflect on the season’s shortening days at a town constantly battling decay.) Sightings of Jude Law and Liam Neeson, Mr. Llywelyn told me, have been reported in the last few years.

But I saw no one even faintly fabulous, just serious hikers with water bottles dangling from backpacks as they headed into the faux wilderness and khaki-and-loafer-wearing hotel guests photographing one another along the colonnades or browsing the gift shops. The souvenir stock, I found, was rather perfunctory, dominated by “Prisoner” memorabilia and mermaid-logo pencils and magnets. So instead I picked up a pinky-size fragment of stucco painted turquoise from a housekeeper’s pile of sweepings of palm fronds and pebbles.

No one saw me pocket this treasure, but I felt compelled anyway to confess the looting to Mr. Llywelyn. He said he didn’t mind at all, he’d heard similar stories before. Still, I felt better that he knew a salvaged piece of his grandfather’s 50-year salvage operation had reached New York. I keep the artifact next to my computer, in case I am ever tempted to think that my trip to Portmeirion was a dream.  

Eve M. Kahn, The New York Times, 29.07.07

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/travel/29journeys.html

Hijo de un severo pastor luterano que frecuentemente le castigaba, Bergman concebía la figura de Dios como un enigma, y al hombre, por su maldad, como un producto deforme de la naturaleza, al decir de sus propias definiciones. Inquieto por la dificultad de los seres humanos para entenderse entre sí, reflexionó en algunas de sus películas sobre las relaciones de pareja y la incomunicación -Persona (1966), La carcoma (1971), Gritos y susurros (1972)-, o explicitó su terror al abuso de los poderosos y a la guerra -La vergüenza (1968), El huevo de la serpiente (1977)-. Su influencia en la obra de otros directores de cine ha sido y sigue siendo enorme, y no sólo en la admiración confesada públicamente por Woody Allen en películas como Interiores (1978) o Septiembre (1987).

Las referencias autobiográficas de Bergman fueron constantes en sus películas, y a veces obvias -El rostro (1958), Como en un espejo (1968), Fanny y Alexander (1968)-, dando a su cine el carácter de confesión personal, aunque no hasta el punto de aquel eslogan oportunista con el que se lanzó en España su película Escenas de un matrimonio (1973): "¿La vida íntima de Ingmar Bergman y Liv Ullmann?", utilizando como reclamo la relación personal del director con la actriz, de la que nació una hija.

Hombre pasional y de grandes amores, Bergman contrajo matrimonio en otras cuatro ocasiones, alimentando con ello la curiosidad de muchos de sus seguidores. Como igualmente ocurrió con su gesto de rebeldía contra el fisco sueco que le impulsó a abandonar su país natal en 1976 para refugiarse provisionalmente en Alemania. A su regreso dirigió para el cine dos de sus obras inmortales: Fanny y Alexander, y Saraband (2003).

Hoy pueden verse en formato DVD casi todas sus películas, pero hubo un tiempo en que en España era casi un milagro conocerlas, al menos tal como habían sido concebidas por el autor. La censura, personificada en este caso por el jesuita Carlos María Staehlin, no dudó en introducir diálogos, músicas o textos que distorsionaran su significado, llegando incluso a convertir a Bergman en un católico practicante. Aquella dificultad para tener acceso hizo que no todos apreciáramos sus películas con similar entusiasmo o entendimiento.

A veces críptico o con referencias simbólicas que resultaban muy oscuras, siempre complejo, el cine de Bergman fue entonces más respetado que comprendido. Sólo cuando comenzaron a verse algunas de sus películas prohibidas -Juegos de verano (1950), estrenada 26 años después y con cortes de 30 minutos, los mismos que la censura suprimió de Cara a cara (1975), estrenada dos años más tarde- y se descubriera que Bergman también podía ser divertido -Sonrisas de una noche de verano (1955), por la que unos curas escolapios clausuraron su cineclub en Madrid al no responder la película al "apostolado catequístico" que ellos pretendían-, el cine de Ingmar Bergman, una vez superada la censura, fue aceptado plenamente en España. Hoy son legión sus admiradores. No podía ser de otro modo. Bergman aplicó su gran talento a la contemplación de las dudas, ansiedades, cobardías y temores de los hombres y mujeres de nuestro tiempo, y logró calar hondo en cualquier rincón del planeta.

Diego Galán, El Pais, 31.07.07

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/voz/soledad/muerte/elpepucul/20070731elpepicul_2/Tes

The Bush administration, with odd-bedfellows support from liberal Democrats, has called for allowing the purchase of some food in poor countries to quicken responses to emergencies. But even so, its proposal would not have prevented the paradoxical deepening of hunger here during a long-term project to combat hunger in the harsh, arid reaches of northwestern Kenya.

Families participating in an American-financed irrigation project from 2002 to 2006 were promised payment in corn for clearing the land and digging canals. The Kenyan government objected to the importation of American corn because the country was awash in a bumper harvest that had caused corn prices to plunge.

The result: American officials, prohibited by law from buying the corn locally, could not deliver it. As the impoverished families waited in vain for sustenance from the American heartland, malnutrition among the youngest children worsened and five people died of hunger-related causes.

Ikai Moru, 19, still recalls the hunger that gnawed at her and her mother as they chopped down thorny acacia trees on their tiny plot, hoping one day to reap a bountiful harvest from the parched earth. She watched her mother grow thinner and paler, and finally sicken and die.

“My mother was a very hard worker,” Ms. Moru offered in a brief epitaph.

Through sheer grit, the 2,000 families finished the irrigation system last year and are successfully farming. But long-term projects to help Africa’s rural poor feed themselves are chronically underfinanced, charities say.

Across Africa, the United States is more likely to give people a fish — caught in America — that feeds them for a day than to teach them to fish for themselves. Since last year, for example, the United States has donated $136 million worth of American food to feed the hungry in Kenya, but spent $36 million on agricultural projects to help Kenyan farmers grow and earn more.

And even that small budget for long-term projects in Kenya is expected to dwindle. The United States Agency for International Development, known as Usaid, in seeking to concentrate scarce resources, has dropped Kenya from the list of countries eligible for undertakings like the irrigation project here.

Such efforts are dwarfed by the epic scale of the need. Viewed from a prop plane buzzing like a mosquito overhead, the irrigated land here shimmers as a tiny oasis in a vast, dun-colored landscape.

With the guidance of the Christian charity World Vision, which implemented the project, the families hacked an irrigation system from the barren landscape with machetes, hoes and shovels, clearing 1,000 acres and digging 99 miles of canals along the Kerio River.

Ms. Moru will soon be feeding her four younger brothers and sisters with an abundance of sorghum and corn harvested from their half-acre farm, fulfilling her mother’s dream.

The success is noteworthy, but the families’ sacrifices also illustrate the risks of an American food aid system that is designed to benefit domestic agribusiness and shipping interests and enmeshed in an intricate framework of farm subsidies.

Members of Congress who favor the current system say the support of influential commercial groups is needed to sustain political support for food aid. They warn that ill-timed purchases of food in Africa in times of scarcity could send food prices higher, harming poor consumers.

But critics in Congress contend that the United States could feed far more people more quickly if it could buy surplus food in Africa. It might also help boost the incomes of African farmers, by providing a market for their crops, they say.

The Bush administration is now trying to change the law so that up to $300 million of food can be bought in poor countries during emergencies. 

The Senate Agriculture Committee chairman, Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, where growers and landowners got $1.58 billion in corn subsidies in 2005, is advocating a $25 million pilot program to test buying food in poor countries for both emergency and long-term aid.

Even that modest proposal is meeting stiff resistance from farm state legislators. The House Agriculture Committee’s version of the farm bill includes no such pilot. The committee chairman, Collin C. Peterson, Democrat of Minnesota, said of his members,` “They’re still of the mode that this should be American products we’re using our tax dollars to provide them.”

Mr. Peterson’s district got $367 million in corn subsidies in 2005, according to government data analyzed by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organization.

Even without the American corn that was supposed to keep them going, the families here were determined to grasp their once-in-a-lifetime chance at fertile plots of farmland. Ms. Moru, 14 years old when construction began, recalled how she and her widowed mother had taken on the acacia trees together. They lopped off branches barbed with thorns, burned the trunks and uprooted the stumps.

“It was the heaviest work we had ever done, but we had no choice,” Ms. Moru said. “It was the only way to get land to plow.”

Their success was all the more extraordinary given this desiccated region’s history as a graveyard for well-intended foreign aid efforts to help the Turkana tribe, mostly nomadic herders, escape punishing cycles of drought, hunger and death.

The participants themselves credit a man who gave them fortitude when they faltered: Daniel Mwebi, a Kenyan engineer who managed the project here for World Vision.

From 1992 to 2004, he lived for much of each year in this remote place, far from his wife and children. He said he had been determined to avoid the mistakes of earlier aid projects that relied on heavy earth-moving equipment and diesel-run pumps that required costly fuel, expertise and maintenance.

So he designed a very basic system and trained the Turkana in the masonry, carpentry and welding skills they needed to keep it running. The earthen irrigation systems — built in two United States-financed projects — are powered only by gravity and the sweat of the local people.

What Mr. Mwebi could not have anticipated, however, was how the workings of the American food aid system would deeply complicate that plan, which Usaid financed for $4 million over five years.

When it came to tiding the families over with American corn, the Kenyan government objected, said Simon Nyabwengi, then World Vision’s Nairobi-based manager of the Turkana project. “They offered a very reasonable option,” he said. “They said we appreciate the project, it’s a good project, but we don’t want you to bring in maize.”

William Hammink, who heads the office of Food for Peace at Usaid, confirmed that the corn was never delivered because the United States was prohibited from buying it in Kenya or paying duties on imports.

“We kept waiting,” said Aemun Imong, a 32-year-old mother of four. “They told us, ‘Food is coming, food is coming.’ But we saw it wasn’t coming.”

The lack of food was particularly dire for children under age 5. World Vision surveys documented that the proportion of them stunted by malnutrition rose to about a third in 2004, from about a fifth when construction began in 2002.

The five people who died were Ms. Moru’s mother, another woman and three children, according to Mr. Lokolonyoi, who said he reported the deaths to district authorities.

Mr. Hammink of Usaid said he did not know what caused the worsening of malnutrition, though he said that provision of corn to the families would most likely have lessened it.

The United Nations World Food Program, with contributions from other nations, was able to obtain 75 percent more corn to feed Africa’s hungry from 2001 to 2005 by purchasing it in Kenya, Zambia and Uganda, rather than shipping it from the United States, Michigan State researchers found.

As the building stretched over years, a portion of the promised beans and vegetable oil from the United States was delivered in 2004, Mr. Mwebi said. Some corn bought in Kenya with private money also came. But it was too late to avert the hunger of the early years.

By 2005, the families each had a half-acre of cleared land to farm. They grew enough food to donate almost 14,000 pounds for the needy still around them, said Hosea Lotir, who heads the local water users’ association.

As they settled down to farm instead of wandering with their animals, the number of children in the Lokwii primary school more than doubled, to 857 — and would have doubled again if it had not closed its admissions, school officials said.

The families here continue to nurture their verdant green spots of progress. Nearby villages are clamoring for irrigation projects of their own, but American officials say they do not expect to have the money to finance them.

As the sun neared its zenith one recent morning, the main canal in Morulem — the site of the first irrigation project — was a cauldron of flailing hoes and shovels. Women glistening with sweat gouged out tons of silt to clear a clogged channel.

On a later shift, it was the men’s turn, and women squatting on the banks hectored them. Don’t just shovel at the sides of the canal, they yelled, dig out the middle of it. That’s the hard part!

“I know what I’m doing,” Julius Edukon barked back. “I don’t need your advice.”

Arupe Eoto, a withered old woman, sought to mollify him with praise and a nod to the tribe’s sternest taskmaster. “You really seem to know what you’re doing,” she told him. “The hunger has taught you well.”

Celia W. Dugger, The New York Times, 31.07.07

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/africa/31food.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Kazaa, adopté en quelques mois par des centaines de millions d'internautes, a changé pour toujours la façon dont les jeunes du monde entier découvrent et écoutent leur musique, mais cela ne rapporte à Niklas que des ennuis. Naïvement, il était allé à Hollywood dans l'espoir de signer des accords avec les majors de la musique, qui, croyait-il, seraient séduites par ce mode de distribution planétaire, d'une puissance et d'une efficacité inégalables. Pour toute réponse, une cinquantaine de multinationales du show-business l'avaient traîné en justice pour violation de copyright et piratage. Avec le recul, Niklas comprend son erreur : "Kazaa est arrivé trop tôt, les patrons des maisons de disques n'avaient rien compris, ils pensaient pouvoir tuer Internet."

Niklas réussit à se débarrasser de Kazaa en catastrophe, en le vendant à une femme d'affaires australienne, et se lance aussitôt dans une aventure encore plus ambitieuse : créer sur Internet un système de téléphonie mondial gratuit, toujours sur le modèle du peer-to-peer, où chaque utilisateur est à la fois émetteur, récepteur et relais. Il baptise sa nouvelle invention "Skype", monte une start-up au Luxembourg, installe des bureaux à Londres et rassemble une équipe de programmeurs en Estonie, où il a travaillé dans sa jeunesse.

Skype apparaît sur Internet dès août 2003, et, à nouveau, le succès est immédiat. Cette fois, l'invention de Niklas arrive au bon moment, la déréglementation des télécoms est en cours. En quelques semaines, des millions d'internautes téléchargent le logiciel gratuit permettant de téléphoner, toujours gratuitement, vers un autre ordinateur n'importe où dans le monde, sans limite de temps. Pour appeler un téléphone ordinaire, il faut payer, mais les tarifs sont dérisoires comparés à ceux des compagnies classiques.

Pourtant, dès 2005, la situation se complique, car les géants américains Google, Yahoo et MSN se lancent à leur tour dans la téléphonie gratuite. Niklas comprend que, pour les affronter, il devra s'allier à une grosse entreprise. Il a l'embarras du choix, car tous les investisseurs rêvent de s'offrir Skype. Il finit par choisir l'Américain eBay, leader mondial des ventes aux enchères sur Internet : "Au début, je n'étais pas chaud, se souvient Niklas, mais ils m'ont promis que Skype continuerait à exister en tant que société autonome et que je resterais directeur général. Et puis ils m'ont proposé 2,6 milliards de dollars cash, pour une société qui avait deux ans. Une somme étonnante, comment refuser ?"

A l'été 2007, près de 200 millions d'internautes utilisent Skype régulièrement. La société emploie plus de 500 personnes et a ouvert des bureaux aux Etats-Unis et en Asie. Au premier trimestre, elle a produit un chiffre d'affaires de 80 millions de dollars et vient de commencer à dégager des bénéfices. Niklas affirme qu'il n'a pas changé depuis la période héroïque, et on est tenté de le croire. Malgré sa haute stature et ses larges épaules, il a gardé une allure d'enfant sage. Installé dans les bureaux de Skype, qui occupent deux étages d'un bel immeuble dans le centre de Londres, il parle avec simplicité : "Je travaille dur, je voyage trop, mais je suis un homme heureux. L'argent n'est pas l'essentiel - d'ailleurs Catherine et moi ne faisons pas de dépenses extravagantes. Tous les midis, je mange la même petite salade de poulet dans son emballage plastique."

L'idée de prendre sa retraite pour jouir de sa fortune ne l'a même pas effleuré : "Je fais le plus beau métier du monde, j'imagine des choses extraordinaires et je leur donne vie. En fait, c'est une activité totale, qui me définit en tant qu'homme. Tous mes projets sont des défis complexes, stimulants au plan intellectuel. Ce qui me rend heureux, c'est de changer le statu quo. D'ailleurs, j'ai réinvesti mon argent dans de nouveaux projets innovants."

Pendant son temps libre, Niklas vient de lancer Joost, un système mariant la télévision et Internet. Egalement fondé sur le principe du peer-to-peer, Joost permet de regarder gratuitement des programmes de télévision sur son PC, n'importe où, n'importe quand. Niklas et ses associés sont retournés à Hollywood pour négocier des accords de distribution avec les majors, et cette fois ils ont été reçus à bras ouverts : "Les producteurs de télévision ont vu comment l'industrie du disque a failli se ruiner en essayant de lutter contre Internet et ont décidé de ne pas faire la même erreur." Niklas a aussi retenu la leçon de l'affaire Kazaa : les internautes ne pourront pas se servir de son système pour distribuer des copies pirates. Joost a déjà signé des contrats avec Viacom, CBS et Warner, et ce n'est qu'un début. Le paiement des droits sera financé par la publicité : Joost est déjà en contact avec de gros annonceurs comme Nike ou Coca-Cola.

Comme cela ne suffit pas à son bonheur, Niklas participe au développement de Fon, une société espagnole qui a créé une communauté internationale d'utilisateurs de Wi-Fi (Internet sans fil). Fon permet notamment à ses membres de se connecter gratuitement quand ils sont loin de chez eux : "J'avais eu la même idée, affirme Niklas, mais je n'ai pas eu le temps de la mettre en pratique. Alors quand j'ai vu que les Espagnols l'avaient fait, j'ai eu envie de les aider." En fait, Niklas imagine déjà une fusion entre Skype et Fon, qui permettrait de créer un réseau de téléphonie mobile planétaire, entièrement gratuit.

Yves Eudes, Le Monde, 31.07.07

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-651865,36-940339,0.html

Estas declaraciones las ha realizado Raúl en el cementerio de Santa Ifigenia de Santiago de Cuba, en el este de Cuba, en un acto de homenaje al mártir de la revolución Frank País, muerto hace 50 años a manos de la dictadura de Fulgencio Batista, durante el que encendió una llama eterna en homenaje a los mártires de la patria.

"Su fuego será tan eterno como esta revolución por estar sustentada firmemente en la unidad de un pueblo que ha demostrado con creces su disposición a dar la vida por la patria y sus ideales", declaró Raúl Castro en la víspera de cumplir un año como presidente provisional del país.

Vestido con su habitual uniforme de general de Ejército añadió que la llama "arderá también por los que caigan en lo adelante en el cumplimiento de su deber revolucionario o en cada nuevo combate que nos imponga el enemigo enarbolando bien alto las banderas del socialismo y la dignidad".

Fidel reivindica los avances de la revolución

Por su parte, Fidel Castro ha expresado que los avances alcanzados por la Revolución “son una suma de ejemplos y esfuerzos realizados durante mucho tiempo". Asimismo, subrayó que "el más importante éxito de la Revolución es la capacidad de resistir casi medio siglo de bloqueo y privaciones de todo tipo".

Las reflexiones de Fidel Castro no hacen referencia al discurso autocrítico que su hermano realizó el pasado 26 de julio, en Camagüey, en el que subrayaba la necesidad de cambios estructurales en la economía.

En el mismo discurso también advirtió a los cubanos de que el país no ha superado aún el periodo especial en el que se sumió después de la caída del bloque soviético. 

El Pais, 31.07.07

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Raul/Castro/revolucion/sera/eterna/elpepuint/20070731elpepuint_3/Tes

Au XVIe siècle, le poète iranien Mohtacham écrit encore des odes funèbres à Hussein, fils d'Ali, petit-fils du prophète Mahomet, assassiné neuf siècles plus tôt à Karbala. Karbala, où une antique rivalité tribale et une lutte de pouvoir inégale ont dégénéré en un drame cosmique dont la lamentation chiite, depuis, entretient l'impérissable souvenir.

Le 10 octobre, l'armée omeyyade décide d'en finir et de briser la résistance des derniers descendants mâles du Prophète. Le combat est désespérément inégal. Les têtes volent une à une dans le sable. Hussein et ses guerriers sont transpercés, décapités, écartelés, piétinés par le sabot des chevaux et des chameaux. Les Omeyyades s'acharnent sur les cadavres. Ubayd Allah Zyad, gouverneur de Koufa, s'amuse, avec son bâton, à curer les dents du crâne d'Hussein. La vie des femmes est épargnée, mais Zainab, demi-soeur d'Hussein, est transférée de force à Damas où elle vivra jusqu'à sa mort en résidence surveillée. Quant à son épouse, princesse iranienne selon la légende, elle aurait été tuée en fuyant ou réfugiée en Iran. Les dépouilles des "martyrs" sont ensevelies à Karbala où, chaque année, le jour de l'Ashura, les chiites défilent encore en pèlerinage.

Karbala est une échauffourée plus qu'une bataille rangée. Elle décide pourtant du cours de l'histoire. Elle met un terme à la saga de fer et de feu qui a suivi la mort du Prophète en 632. Cette litanie impie de conspirations et de trahisons s'achève, dans une plaine désertique, par une complète victoire omeyyade. Mais le rituel du massacre d'Hussein par des mains musulmanes en dit long, près d'un demi-siècle après la naissance de l'islam, sur la résistance des mentalités ancestrales et tribales. Dans le baptême de sang de Karbala, naît une piété chiite fascinée par le deuil et le martyre. Les chiites font de Karbala le lieu du sacrifice suprême et consenti, et d'Hussein le modèle du combattant valeureux, défendant sa liberté et son honneur, prêt à mourir pour revenir à la pureté de l'islam des origines.

Pourquoi a-t-il fallu que le sang coule, du vivant même du Prophète et après son ensevelissement, projetant sur l'islam une tache indélébile ? Si Mahomet, le dernier des prophètes - le "Sceau" - ne peut avoir de successeur, la direction de l'empire naissant suscite bien des convoitises. Il n'a pas d'autre descendance mâle qu'Hassan et Hussein, encore enfants, nés de sa fille Fatima et d'Ali, son cousin et son gendre. Il n'a désigné de manière explicite aucun successeur. Après les funérailles de 632, à Saqifa, près de Médine, deux légitimités s'affrontent donc : celle des compagnons du Prophète, les sahaba, hommes d'expérience, premiers convertis selon la tradition sunnite, soit une légitimité de type tribal traditionnel ; et celle, minoritaire, de la famille du Prophète, qu'incarne le jeune Ali, premier converti aussi (mais que vaut une conversion à 9 ans ?) selon les "alides", précurseurs des chiites (de chia, le parti d'Ali), soit une légitimité de type coranique, encore faiblement suivie.

Les premiers l'emportent. Ils vont donner à l'histoire les trois premiers califes de l'islam (632-656) : Abu Bakr, qui réprime le retour à l'apostasie, Omar et Othman qui consolident l'Etat, conquièrent l'Iran, l'Afrique du Nord, l'Asie centrale, jusqu'aux confins de l'Inde. Les deux derniers finiront dans le sang. Mais il est impossible de comprendre le schisme originel de l'islam sans s'arrêter sur la mise à l'écart d'Ali qui, aujourd'hui encore pour les chiites, constitue le coup d'Etat initial, la faute première, le début de la décadence de l'islam majoritaire.

Ils n'ont jamais cru qu'un chef de l'envergure de Mahomet ne se soit pas donné de successeur. C'est contraire à toute logique coranique et à la tradition prophétique : Moïse avait à ses côtés Aaron et Josué, Jésus avait Simon-Pierre. Les chiites accusent donc les sunnites d'avoir trahi le Prophète, expurgé du Coran les consignes de sa succession par Ali. Ils créent leur propre tradition, à base de hadith (les "dits" des imams), faisant d'Ali l'héritier naturel, le premier des musulmans, le premier Imam. La polémique sur la falsification du Coran entretiendra, de longs siècles, l'animosité entre sunnites et chiites.

Mais où finit l'histoire et où commence la légende d'Ali ? Dans les mille récits de sa vie, rédigés dans les temps de persécution chiite, le merveilleux le dispute aux exégèses infinies. Mahomet a 30 ans quand Ali naît à La Mecque, vers l'an 600. Mahomet, orphelin, a été adopté par son oncle, Abu Talib, père d'Ali. Ali, qui a 9 ans quand Mahomet reçoit la Révélation, deviendra "l'enfant du Coran", le "deuxième musulman", après Khadija, l'épouse bien-aimée du Prophète. S'il est trop jeune pour combattre les infidèles de La Mecque, il émigre avec Mahomet à Médine, épouse sa fille Fatima qui, avec ses deux fils, Hassan (né en 625) et Hussein (en 626), occupe une place centrale dans le panthéon chiite. 

Ali est plutôt replet, myope et chauve, mais la sira (tradition biographique) chiite en fait un "lion", un combattant toujours "couvert de poussière". Elle le pare de toutes les vertus, jeunesse, audace, éloquence, sagesse. Il est celui qui tire Mahomet des situations les plus difficiles, conquiert des positions imprenables. Quand Mahomet s'enfuit de La Mecque, Ali dort dans son lit pour abuser ses poursuivants. L'iconographie le dépeint portant l'épée à deux pointes héritée du Prophète et c'est à lui que Mahomet aurait confié - privilège insigne - tous ses biens et les intérêts de son clan.

D'innombrables anecdotes font d'Ali le successeur désigné. En mars 632, Mahomet et Ali se reposent près de l'étang de Khoum à mi-chemin entre Medine et La Mecque où le Prophète revient pour mourir. Mahomet prend alors Ali par la main et déclare : "Toute personne dont je suis le maître a également Ali pour maître." Ce sont des paroles d'adoubement. Les témoins ne s'y trompent pas, félicitent Ali et le plébiscitent comme "commandeur des croyants". Cette scène est encore commémorée chaque année par les chiites. Les sunnites ne contestent pas le propos du Prophète, mais n'y voient qu'un simple témoignage de confiance pour son cousin, son gendre et frère en islam.

Un quart de siècle s'écoule avant qu'Ali ne succède enfin comme calife à Othman, assassiné en 656 par une population révoltée par son népotisme. Un quart de siècle qui va nourrir chez les chiites un infini ressentiment contre les premiers califes usurpateurs, mais aussi une attente de type messianique, donnant toute son originalité et sa force au chiisme naissant. Voulu par Dieu, ce temps de patience est une mise à l'épreuve des vertus d'Ali. L'idée se développe que l'Imam, écarté du pouvoir, est porteur d'une vérité qui finira par triompher.

La réalité spirituelle de l'"imamat" dépasse l'exercice d'un pouvoir politique considéré comme impur et injuste. Il n'est nul besoin d'être sous le regard des hommes pour gouverner une communauté. La doctrine du Mahdi, "l'imam caché", est en germe dans ces premiers temps de l'attente chiite.

Si le califat d'Ali (656-661) est un accomplissement, c'est aussi une suite de guerres civiles, les premières dans l'islam. Le temps de la fitna - la "grande discorde" - a commencé. A Siffin, en 657, sur la rive droite de l'Euphrate, Ali est défié par le fondateur de la dynastie omeyyade à Damas, Muawiya, parent du précédent calife Othman dont il réclame vengeance. Mais, coup de théâtre, Muawiya ordonne à ses soldats d'arracher des feuillets du Coran et de les attacher au bout de leur lance. Une trêve est décrétée. Les deux belligérants en appellent à l'arbitrage du Livre sacré pour savoir si Othman avait contrevenu aux ordres divins et méritait d'être assassiné.

En acceptant cette procédure, Ali indispose ses troupes pour lesquelles les armes avaient déjà rendu leur verdict. A leurs yeux, un jugement humain ne saurait remettre en question le califat qui procède de l'ordre divin. Une partie de ses fidèles se révoltent contre Ali. C'est la première des dissidences chiites : les kharidjites (de kharaja, s'en aller, sortir) exigent d'Ali qu'ils reconnaissent son impiété. La répression du calife dans ses propres rangs est féroce. Les kharidjites sont décimés. Ce n'est pas tout : la procédure d'arbitrage pour décider du sort de la bataille de Siffin lui est défavorable. Elle établit qu'aucun acte du calife Othman ne fut contraire à la volonté de Dieu. Muawiya en conclut qu'Ali est coresponsable de son assassinat et se fait proclamer calife en 660.

L'umma, la communauté musulmane, explose. L'islam n'est plus un, mais plusieurs, l'autorité divisée entre la dynastie syrienne des Omeyyades à Damas et les chiites qui se replient à Koufa en Irak. Comme un malheur n'arrive jamais seul, Ali est assassiné en janvier 661 par un kharidjite assoiffé de vengeance. Hassan, fils aîné d'Ali, est investi comme deuxième Imam, mais son règne n'est qu'un intermède. Il refuse un nouveau bain de sang avec les Omeyyades, capitule, quitte l'Irak et finit ses jours à Médine. C'est donc à Hussein, second fils d'Ali et troisième Imam, qu'il appartiendra de solder les comptes de cette interminable guerre de succession. La bataille de Karbala est en filigrane. Le schisme est définitivement consommé.

L'étonnant est que tout se soit joué dès les premières années. Du destin tragique de la famille d'Ali naît une religion de "la passion et du mystère", comme dit du chiisme André Miquel, en guerre contre tout tyran, porteur d'une violence révolutionnaire de type messianique, obsédée par des pulsions de pureté et de mort, exaltant le martyre pour le triomphe de la justice et du vrai islam. D'autres massacres suivront sous les règnes omeyyade et abbasside. Mais Karbala est le condensé de toutes les persécutions, le symbole qui rappelle aux chiites que leur malheur présent n'est rien en comparaison du malheur que fut le double assassinat d'Ali et d'Hussein. Depuis, les mausolées d'Ali à Nadjaf, d'Hassan à Médine, d'Hussein à Karbala, de Zeinab à Damas, des dizaines d'autres sanctuaires en Iran et en Irak ne désemplissent pas. Ils donnent lieu à des processions sanguinolentes, avec flagellations, amputations, qui défient l'imagination.

Deuil et espérance millénariste font partie de la mentalité chiite. Une espérance qui repose exclusivement sur l'Imam. Car si les 200 millions de chiites - 20 % du monde musulman - partagent avec les sunnites la même croyance en l'unicité de Dieu, ils s'en distinguent par le culte de l'Imam, de lignée prophétique par Ali et Fatima, calife de Dieu sur terre, "guide infaillible et impeccable", être pur qui ne médit jamais, ne fornique pas, ne se livre pas aux jeux de hasard, a une science innée de toute chose, est le dépositaire du "sens caché" du Coran. Car la vision duelle du monde chiite comprend toujours un niveau secret, ésotérique, et un niveau manifeste, exotérique.

A cet égard, l'Imam constitue la révélation aux hommes du Dieu inconnu. Les chiites ne parlent pas d'incarnation comme le font les chrétiens, mais de manifestation divine, de théophanie. Pour les chiites, l'Imam est "le reflet" de Dieu, l'être céleste, cosmique, l'homme primordial, l'homme-Dieu. Le Coran est "l'Imam muet, le guide silencieux", et c'est l'Imam qui le fait parler : il est le "Coran parlant". Ali est le premier d'une longue chaîne d'Imams chargés de garantir la pureté de la foi, d'enseigner les fidèles, de préparer le retour de Dieu avant le Jugement dernier. A ce titre, Ali est l'Imam le plus vénéré. Il est Ali "le Suprême".

Les Imams sont tous de sa descendance et leur initiation obéit aux règles les plus stupéfiantes de la mystique chiite. L'Imam dispose de pouvoirs miraculeux, de relations avec le surnaturel, le monde des morts et des prophètes. Il transmet ses connaissances sur le mode initiatique, connaît le moment de sa mort, l'identité de son successeur. La majorité des chiites - dits "duodécimains" - croient que la lignée des Imams visibles s'est arrêtée au IXe siècle, avec Mohammed Al-Mahdi, le 12e Imam, "occulté" par Dieu du regard des hommes. Les chiites "septimaniens" - dont l'un des chefs spirituels est l'Aga Khan - se sont séparés sur le choix du 7e Imam, Ismaïl, occulté plus tôt (762). Mais pour les duodécimains, majoritaires, le Mahdi (le "Bien guidé") caché continue de vivre sur terre et réapparaîtra à la fin des temps pour restaurer la religion vraie.

Comment ignorer la force de cette espérance, tissée de miracles, d'apparitions, de récits inspirés par ce messie que les fidèles chiites croient apercevoir parfois jusque dans les rues de La Mecque, à qui ils écrivent en utilisant les tombes des saints comme des boîtes à lettres ? Une armée porte aujourd'hui le nom du Mahdi en Irak. Le même a sa milice au Liban. Son nom est porteur d'une mythique espérance de purification du monde. Comme tous les messianismes, le chiisme situe son combat au niveau cosmique, celui des justes contre les pécheurs, de la lumière contre les ténèbres.

Henri Tincq, Le Monde, 31.07.07

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-781732,36-940340@51-940408,0.html

Costello llegó acompañado por el pianista estadounidense Allen Toussaint, con quien desde 2006 mantiene un pacto en forma de disco titulado The river in reverse, firmado tras una serie de conciertos a beneficio de los damnificados por el huracán Katrina en Nueva Orleans. Costello aportó a sus chicos de The Imposters, mientras que Toussaint (Luisiana, 1938) invitó a su cuarteto de viento, The Crescent City Horns. Y juntos lograron hacer hervir en la plaza de la Trinidad a un público de varias generaciones que siguió los guiños de los músicos en todo momento.

Salió Costello con un impecable traje gris marengo y una camisa a cuadros de color malva, unas gafas de sol que impidieron observar su mirada durante todo el concierto y armado con una guitarra Fender Telecaster de la que salieron rifs y ecos de soul y rythm and blues.

Temas como Chelsie, Wonder woman o Internacional echo sirvieron para demostrar que, pese a la calidad de dúo, la colaboración entre Toussaint y Costello parece más una ampliación de la banda del británico nacido en Liverpool. Pese a que Elvis también es generoso y le hizo coros al músico americano cuando cantó apenas dos temas propios.

Costello bromeó a mitad del concierto: "De las más de setecientas y media canciones que tengo y que son grandes éxitos no sé muy bien cómo elegir". Pero, ¡vaya si supo! Armado con la guitarra eléctrica o con una Gibson acústica en la que tenía pegado una especie de billete de dólar donde podía leerse la palabra Elvis, llevó al público a mover los pies como si aquello fuera el carnaval de Nueva Orleans. Pero también se adivinaron lágrimas entre los más sensibles cuando atacó los compases de Alison. Como postre, y para dejar caldeada la plaza de la Trinidad y con ganas de que pase el año que queda para la próxima edición, donó Sharpert Thorn.

Tal vez en 2008 los organizadores, que con buen criterio han programado a grupos que poco tienen que ver con el jazz, se inventen una sección Zabaltegi donde entren grandes nombres sin necesidad de justificaciones extrañas. 

M. Cuéllar, El Pais, 31.07.07

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/revista/agosto/Elvis/vive/elpeputec/20070731elpepirdv_4/Tes