UN envoy tries to revive Syria peace plan

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy to Syria, said today that he is in Damascus and Moscow this week to try to revive a peace plan for Syria that was shelved this summer. However, rebel gains on the ground make it unlikely that the plan will go anywhere without more concessions to the Syrian opposition.
Russia is standing by its red line – that the plan not push President Bashar al-Assad from power. Meanwhile, the opposition still wants to bar current members of the Syrian regime from participating in a transitional government; the current proposal doesn’t appear to contain any such provision, the Associated Press reports.
What has changed is the opposition's strength: In recent months, it has captured swaths of territory, acquired better weaponry, and organized itself into a true fighting force, all allowing it to pose a legitimate challenge to the Syrian Army. The progress makes it unlikely the opposition will accept a proposal that allows former regime officials to participate in a new government if it rejected such a plan previously, when it was considerably weaker.
Recommended: What is Russia thinking on Syria? A brief guide
Mr. Brahimi was vague about how the plan might be amended this time around. CNN reports that during an appearance on Syrian state-run television today, he said only that, "The Geneva communique had all that is needed for a road map to end the crisis in Syria within few months."
The shift in the opposition's fortunes has led to a corresponding shift in Russia's own position. While Russia, where Brahimi will be later this week, was previously a steadfast supporter of the Assad regime and refused to entertain any proposals for a post-Assad Syria, Moscow now seems "resigned" to the possibility, the AP says.
Reuters reports that Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich stated plainly that Mr. Assad's departure could not be treated as a precondition for talks this time around, but did not insist that the possibility of his removal be off the table.
"The biggest disagreement ... is that one side thinks Assad should leave at the start of the process – that is the US position, and the other thinks his departure should be a result of the process – that would be the Russian position," Dmitry Trenin, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, told Reuters.
But Trenin said battlefield gains made by the Syrian rebels were narrowing the gap between Moscow and Washington.
Mr. Lukashevich said, contrary to speculation, there is not yet a concrete plan for resolving the Syrian conflict. "In our talks with Mr. Brahimi and with our American colleagues, we are trying to feel a way out of this situation on the basis of our common plan of action that was agreed in Geneva in June," he said, according to Reuters.
Officials have been vague about what is on the table as a series of high-level officials meet. Brahimi arrived in Damascus on Dec. 24 and Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad was in Moscow today, possibly meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russia's envoy for Middle East affairs, Reuters reports.
CNN says that the Geneva plan was able to find some common ground between Russia and China on one side and France, Britain, the US, and Turkey on the other. That was, however, partially due to the fact that it didn’t address question of Assad's role in a transitional government.
According to the communique, the transitional government "could include members of the present Government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent."
Ghanem Nuseibeh, founder of political risk analysis firm Cornerstone Global Associates, told Bloomberg that it is unlikely we will see a public "abandonment" of Assad because of Russia's naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus and billions of dollars worth of arms contracts with Damascus.

Read More..

Syrian conflict threatens to fracture Iraq

In September, as the Iraqi government reached one of its lowest points in relations with Turkey in years, Ankara welcomed Iraqi Kurdistan's President Massoud Barzani as a guest of honor at a convention hosted by the ruling Justice and Development Party.
The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq and the federal government in Baghdad have not seen eye to eye for years, and the gap between the two is now widening, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. That's been put in stark relief by the ongoing civil war in Syria, which has shifted the fortunes of Iraq's Kurds.
A decade ago, Iraq was a Sunni Arab-dominated dictatorship that shared many problems with the Sunni Turks to the north. Both countries had restive ethnic-Kurdish separatist movements and uneasy relations with their Shiite and Persian neighbor, Iran.
Today, Iraq has a Shiite-dominated government that is close to Tehran, which is supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria's civil war. Turkey, still eager to prevent Kurdish separatist sentiments within its borders, now sees the Iraqi Kurds as a potential ally in opposition to the interests of Iran, Baghdad and Damascus.
The emerging sectarian alliances have prompted Baghdad and the KRG to throw themselves into opposing camps in the Syrian war, creating conflicting interests in the supposedly unified country.
Recommended: Sunni and Shiite Islam: Do you know the difference? Take our quiz.
As regional and Western diplomats point fingers at Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for aiding embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – a charge which Baghdad vehemently denies – Iraqi Kurds are increasingly involved with the opposition, lured by the possibility that in a post-Assad Syria, Kurds there might achieve some degree of autonomy. That would allow the KRG to expand its foothold.
The KRG has hosted leaders of the Syrian opposition in its regional capital, Erbil, much to Baghdad's dismay. It has also lent support to Kurds in northeastern Syria – Barzani publicly admitted in July that his government is providing them with military training. And now some of the Kurdish factions there are holding talks with the mostly Arab Syrian opposition to decide whether and how to join them in the fight against President Bashar al-Assad, even though the relationship between the two camps has been strained by several bouts of fighting.
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
"The Syria crisis is forcing everyone around Syria to choose sides," says Joost Hiltermann, who follows Iraq for the International Crisis Group (ICG). "Maliki is worried about the emergence of a post-Assad Sunni Islamist order in Syria... he finds that he has to support Assad by default. This puts him de facto in the Iranian camp and in conflict with Turkey."
The Iraqi Kurds are at the opposite end of the equation from Maliki. Though Turkey treats its own Kurdish population poorly, the KRG's deep mistrust of Baghdad has seen a tactical relationship developing between Ankara and Erbil and, by extension, the regional Sunni powers backing the Syrian uprising.
Although the majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims, Hiltermann says the KRG's interest is not about religion, but an attempt to further nationalist goals. "They [Kurds] have long-term aspirations to independence, and today this means allying themselves with Turkey, which is encouraging them to take distance from Baghdad," Hiltermann says.
Although Iraq's constitution gives the federal government theoretical control of the country's foreign policy, the KRG seldom defers to Baghdad on matters of international relations.
Iraq's Kurds have enjoyed a high level of autonomy in northern Iraq since the 1990s, when the West backed a no-fly zone to protect the Kurds during an uprising against Saddam Hussein's regime. The KRG has its own diplomatic representatives in some key international capitals – Washington, London, Paris, and Moscow among them – and more than 20 countries, including the US, have diplomatic missions in Erbil.
To say that Baghdad has a problem with the KRG's overtures to the Syrian opposition and its backers is to put it mildly.
"They have completely gone their way and are sometimes on a collision line with the federal government [in Baghdad]," says Saad al-Muttalebi, a prominent figure in Maliki's coalition. "Unfortunately the KRG behaves as if it's an independent state and sets up its own international policies... without any consideration to the central government."
Politicians in Baghdad are particularly unhappy with KRG's closer ties to Turkey, which harbored exiled Sunni Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi after he fled Iraq earlier this year. Mr. Muttalebi, who used to serve as an adviser to Maliki, lashed out at Turkey for choosing "an unwise course of action" and "misusing its relations with Iraq."
But Erbil sees Ankara as a critical counterbalancing factor against Baghdad, which the Kurdish government accuses of being increasingly heavy-handed.
"It is true that there is a federal broad-based coalition government in Baghdad, but day after day we see it becoming more autocratic," Safin Dizayee, the official spokesperson for the KRG, told The Monitor at his office in Erbil.
"[Iraq's] foreign policy is determined not by the institutions of the state, but by certain individuals within the state or a certain party," Dizayee explains, referring indirectly to Maliki and his Shiite Dawa Party. "And when it comes to the policy of that party toward Syria, that might be actually questionable."
Turkey's annual trade with Iraq stood at around $11 billion in 2011, according to Turkish government's figures, but Kurdish officials say about 70 percent of the trade occurs with the Kurdish region. The discovery of large oil reserves in Iraqi Kurdistan has only made the energy-thirsty Turkey more interested in developing closer ties with the KRG without much regard for Baghdad's opposition. Erbil has been happy to go along.
But for a country with a long history of internal conflict and instability, the current regional shift may not pay off in the end.
"Baghdad and Erbil are taking decisions that they believe will enhance their regional and domestic positions," says Ahmed Ali, a Middle East analyst at Georgetown University. But in a region of ever-shifting alliances, there is danger in charting "domestic policy while thinking that regional alliances are permanent and will help them fulfill their plans.

Read More..

In 2013, possibilities for stability from Somalia to South China Sea

The international news of any year is a disparate affair, a global chronicle of courage, calamity, and close calls. The interconnectedness of events is not always clear.
But looking ahead to 2013, whether in Syria, South America, or the South China Sea, policymakers have a common New Year's wish: for unity to usher in and consolidate political and economic stability.
EUROPE TURNS TOWARD INTEGRATION
After another year in the depths of a debt crisis that has tested the viability of the European Union, leaders made a major step forward at the end of the year: agreeing to give the European Central Bank oversight of the biggest banks in the Union.
Recommended: How well do you know global Christmas traditions? Take the quiz
Skeptics dismiss the agreement as a watered-down initiative of common-denominator compromises and delays. But it paves the way for an eventual banking union, and caps off a year of expressed commitments to deeper integration.
"The decision of European heads of state to create a banking union and a fiscal union still needs to be implemented. But that was a genuine game changer in a sense," says Jan Techau, director of Carnegie Europe at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Brussels. "It is by no means perfect and is not seen in action yet; but if this comes, that will create momentum for more political integration."
IN AFRICA, A NEW DAWN FOR SOMALIA?
In Somalia, Al Qaeda was on the run in 2012 after four years in control of the country's south, pushed out of all of its major urban strongholds by African Union military offensives.
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
Somalia's Western allies – also its financiers – have begun proclaiming a new dawn. International commercial flights now land regularly at Mogadishu's refurbished airport. Investors from the large Somali diaspora are returning home. Aid workers have ever-greater access to the millions of people still in grave need.
But analysts are wary. A large number of rank-and-file fighters may have deserted Al Shabab, but hard-line commanders remain. Many of them, trained in Pakistan with Al Qaeda, are regrouping in Somalia's north.
"The Somali government is going to need very quickly to show that it brings dividends, health, education, road repairs, to the population, or they may well turn back to supporting Shabab," one Western diplomat focused on Somalia says in an e-mail. "There is a very narrow window to prove the government is the better option. Probably less than nine months. The early part of 2013 will be crucial."
Meanwhile, across the continent in Mali, events moved in the opposite direction in 2012. An ethnic Taureg rebellion spiraled into a takeover of the north by Islamist militants, while the army ousted Mali’s democratically elected president. Malians hope that in 2013 their country can reunite and that democracy will be restored. If not, Western and African leaders fear Mali could become a failed state.
Some Malians say only force can dislodge the Islamists, while others place hope in dialogue. Meanwhile, worry is growing that ethnic grudges might transform a possible intervention into a tragedy of unintended consequences.
“Families affected by crisis may seek vengeance,” says Mohamed Ag Ossad, the director of Tumast, a Tuareg cultural center in Bamako. “The state should take things in hand before there’s an ethnic war.”
This month soldiers loyal to coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo removed Mali’s interim prime minister – a brazen show of force that the US said endangered national dialogue and delayed a government recapture of the north, according to a statement on Dec. 11. Members of the security forces are also accused of beating, detaining, and killing critics of the army, as well as Tuareg and Arab men, said a December 20 report by Human Rights Watch.
For Moussa Mara, an accountant and district mayor in Bamako, such problems underline the need to reestablish democratic rule by holding presidential elections that were derailed by this year’s coup. “Crisis can be an opportunity for our country,” he says. “If we’re intelligent.”
MIDDLE EAST: TO THE VICTORS, MORE DIVISIONS?
As pressure has mounted against Syria's embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, many are starting to ask what will come of the opposition Free Syrian Army should the regime fall.
A number of Syria experts warn that without a plan to disarm opposition groups, they risk destabilizing the country.
"What do you do with the men with guns? The men who don't have jobs.... We've seen this in Libya, and we also saw it in Iraq," says Aram Nerguizian, a Syria expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The vast majority of Free Syrian Army units in Syria say they will put down their weapons and let democracy determine their future after Mr. Assad. Still, a number of observers worry that there is a possibility armed groups may want an undue stake in Syria's government, and the challenge for 2013 will be to incorporate them into civilian life.
Recommended: How well do you know global Christmas traditions? Take the quiz
In Israel and the Palestinian territories, positions on both sides hardened as the window for a two-state solution rapidly closed. Israel moved further to the right heading into January elections, while Palestinians became more assertive with a perceived victory against Israel in the November Gaza conflict and an overwhelming vote recognizing Palestine as a state at the United Nations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly invited the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table without preconditions at any time and indicated that the Palestinians’ failure to do so shows they are not serious about peace. But Palestinians say they cannot afford to negotiate while Israel steadily expands settlements in the West Bank. Nearly 10 percent of Israeli Jews now live over the 1967 borders, which the recent UN resolution recognized as the basis for a future Palestinian state.
In 2013, Palestinians want to see an end to settlement expansion before it is too late to implement a two-state solution. “We are witnessing today a very crucial moment … a moment of irreversibility,” says Mustapha Barghouthi, a former Palestinian presidential candidate and democracy activist.
Israelis, for their part, seek Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as assurances that a peace deal will mark the end to the conflict and not merely a stepping stone to regaining all of historic Palestine.
EAST ASIA'S SYMBIOTIC TIES
In a year when China made several neighbors nervous over its territorial claims, Beijing's most alarming spat was with Japan over a handful of uninhabited islands known in China as the Diaoyu and in Japan as the Senkaku. Although a war over the issue is highly unlikely, it has come to be seen as not altogether impossible, as tensions have risen in recent months.
But it is the economic fallout already under way that analysts say the two must address immediately. "China is Japan's biggest market, and Japan is a very important source for China to learn new science and technology," says Zhou Weihong, a Japan expert at Beijing Foreign Studies University. If the second-largest economy in the world [China] and the third-largest [Japan] are not getting along, "that is bad news for the rest of the world," Professor Zhou says. "There are big enough motives for both sides to want to improve their relationship."
THE REACH OF CHáVEZ
The biggest story of 2012 in Venezuela was the reelection of President Hugo Chávez in October, despite significant gains made by the opposition. But now, facing illness, Mr. Chávez might not be able to stand for his Jan. 10 inauguration – and may have to step down.
Venezuela is holding its breath – as is the region that sees Chávez as a beacon of the left, some of whose members, like Cuba, depend heavily on his largess. Within the oil-rich country, political tensions will flare in 2013 until a new leader is selected, while daily problems such as crime and inflation mount, says Caracas-based political analyst Jose Vicente Carrasquero. "Over time, we will adjust under a new government," he says, "and surely after this process of transition we will discover a new way of doing politics in Venezuela, something that we need.

Read More..

Benazir Bhutto's son takes up the family trade in Pakistan

Five years after the assassination of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, her son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari made his first major speech today aimed at galvanizing supporters of the Bhutto family-led Pakistan Peoples Party.
The speech, delivered in the family’s hometown of Garhi Khuda Bux in Pakistan’s Sindh Province, was attended by thousands of party supporters gathered to mark the anniversary of Benazir Bhutto’s death. Days after her 2007 assassination, the then 19-year-old Bilawal was elected as the party’s chairperson, though his role has been largely symbolic until now.
As Mr. Bhutto Zardari takes a more active role in his party, it is a reminder that Pakistani politics have long been dominated by influential families and that one's position in government is often determined by family ties.
While many of the Pakistan Peoples Party's voters, particularly in rural areas, are happy that the party is led by Benazir's son, nepotism in politics and government has increasingly become a sore point for urban, middle class voters who are less supportive of the PPP. Of late, most political scandals in Pakistan have involved family members of leading politicians, including the Chief Justice's son, who is accused of taking money from a prominent businessman.
“If you look at any mainstream political party in Pakistan, it is seen as a family business at every level, passed down from father to son – and occasionally daughter – to grandson,” says Cyril Almeida, an assistant editor at Pakistan’s leading daily Dawn. “It is the nature of politics out here. Society puts a premium on personality rather than performance; and so last names matter.”
Recommended: Think you know Asia? Take our geography quiz.
The Pakistan Peoples Party was founded in 1967 by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a charismatic yet controversial leader, who was deposed in a military coup and executed on charges of abetting murder. After he was imprisoned, his widow Nusrat Bhutto led the party, followed by his daughter Benazir, who chaired the party until her death. Though grandson Bilawal was elected to lead the Pakistan Peoples Party, his father Asif Ali Zardari was also elected co-chairperson before he became president of Pakistan in 2008, and has largely run party affairs.
The trend of family-dominated politics is prevalent across the subcontinent.
In India, members of the Gandhi/Nehru dynasty have led the Congress Party and the country as prime ministers for decades. Sheikh Hasina, the twice-elected prime minister of Bangladesh, is the daughter of the country’s founder, and her leading rival Khaleda Zia is the widow of a former president. The other leading political party in Pakistan, the Pakistan Muslim League, features a number of members of the Sharif family in prominent positions, and many major politicians in Pakistan have a similarly strong lineage.
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
Mr. Almeida points out that in the case of Sindh Province, where the Pakistan Peoples Party has long held sway, there is a “cult of personality and a client-patron relationship in politics,” and Bilawal leading the party was a “a connection to the original person who energized political support.” In some way, he says, the parties are just trying to capture that original energy the name still garners to affect political change.
In his speech, Bhutto Zardari did mention his bloodline, but also reaffirmed the party’s vision, including providing basic needs to every citizen and opposition to terrorist groups. He recalled the assassinations of prominent party leaders such as Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, who were killed in 2011 for their opposition to misuse of the country’s controversial blasphemy laws.
Still, says journalist Sohail Warraich, the author of an extensive tome on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and who was on stage as Bhutto Zardari spoke on Thursday, “You have to know how to handle people. Both Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto made their way [in] politics” by proving they had what it took to govern, he says.
Mr. Warraich acknowledges there are many challenges ahead for the aspiring politician, despite his name and because of his name: He still has to answer for the PPP-led government’s failures in governance.
“Even abroad, you see the Kennedy family etc, people do have these feelings of attachment toward them [family names]. But the real test is in politics. Benazir, after 1988 [when she became prime minister], was assessed on how she conducted politics, not just because of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,” he says. “Bilawal will also be tested on the same.

Read More..

India gang rape spurs national dialogue

The Indian government’s crackdown on the anti-rape protests that have continued for nearly two weeks in New Delhi has only aggravated public anger and concern about women’s safety.
The protests were sparked by the gang rape and brutal assault of a 23-year-old student on a bus in the elite South Delhi district on Dec. 16.
As the girl battles for her life in a Singapore hospital, Indians are debating how to make the country safer for women. Ten days after the incident, it dominates newspaper headlines and op-ed pages, pushing to the margins stories like the retirement of cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, the popular Indian sportsperson, highlighting just how much the case has affected people.
Sexual harassment is rampant in India, and the public has been largely apathetic to women’s plight, but many are hoping the attack could be a turning point in the way India treats women.
Recommended: Think you know Asia? Take our geography quiz.
Calls for capital punishment, including the chemical castration of rapists, have died down, with various women’s groups decrying them. Given that in 94 percent of rape cases the rapist is known to the victim, Nilanjana S. Roy, writing in the Hindu, she wonders if the protestors would be okay with death penalty for fathers, uncles, neighbors, and Indian security forces in conflict zones.
The Monitor reported that India is considering a fast-track court process to expedite rape cases and step up punishment for sexual violence on the heels of the bus rape incident.
Beyond the law, what needs to happen, writes Shilpa Phadke, author of a book on women’s safety in Mumbai, has to do with how Indians use their streets: “We are safer when there are more women (and more men) on the streets. When shops are open, when restaurants are open, when there are hawkers and yes, even sex workers on the street, the street is a safer space for us all.”
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
The outrage that this case has spurred might finally bring about a cultural change in India, Stephanie Nolen of The Globe and Mail suggests in a report:
Women assaulted leaving bars or late at night or while wearing Western clothes have been chastised by police, judges and politicians for bringing their misfortune on themselves. This time, however, there is a current of defiance in the protests, noted Subhashini Ali of the All India Democratic Women’s Association. A young woman in central Delhi on Tuesday carried a sign saying, “Stop telling me how to dress, start telling your sons not to rape.”
But rape is still not seen as a men’s issue, Ms. Ali said. “I don’t think many people are asking that question yet [of how men are being brought up and how it shapes their attitude toward rape].”
“But that’s where we have to go.”
And that should start with using sexual education in schools as a means to counter systemic patriarchal attitudes, writes Ketaki Chowkhani in Kafila, a collaborative blog that I work with.
That need for an emphasis on social change rather than law enforcement was also highlighted by Praveen Swami in The Hindu newspaper. India could learn a lot from the United States, he writes, where the incidence of rapes have fallen:
“The decline in rape in the U.S. has mainly come about not because policing has become god-like in its deterrent value, but because of hard political and cultural battles to teach men that when a woman says no, she means no.”
Meanwhile, the crackdown on the protests in Delhi has drawn sharp reactions and much anger across the Internet. On Facebook, graphic designer Sangeeta Das narrated her experience of the protests on Dec. 23, republished on the Kafila blog:
“There were many volunteers distributing biscuits and water to every protestor. We were talking ... on how to tackle the violence on women and children starting from ourselves, our homes, and communities. We were simply talking ... when the police, hundreds of them ... charged at us from behind, without any warning.”
Meanwhile, the media have drawn the government’s ire. On Sunday, the same day one journalist was killed in Manipur when police opened fire on protestors, the government issued an advisory to news channels to show “maturity and responsibility” in their coverage of protests:
No programme should be carried in the cable service which is likely to encourage or incite violence or contains anything against maintenance of law and order or which promotes anti-national attitude.

Read More..

Congress won't act on gun control. But Obama and the states can

For starters, the president can and should close the "gun show loophole"
It has now been nearly two weeks since the Newtown massacre once again cast an ugly shadow of gun violence over our country. In the ensuing fortnight, the pundits have been working overtime generating their ideas on "what to do" about guns.
Their ideas aren't new: Ban assault weapons. Limit high-capacity magazines. Make access to mental health care as easy as access to a gun. All reasonable ideas, though it must be acknowledged that 1) such hand-wringing after past shootings has faded rather quickly as the public moves on and 2) if anything, because today's congressional districts are drawn up so safely, lawmakers are less inclined to do anything about guns than ever before.
Let's face facts: Congress hasn't passed a major gun control bill since 1994, when at the behest of Ronald Reagan, it approved an assault weapons ban (long since expired) and, in 1993, the Brady Bill, which requires background checks on gun buyers when a gun is bought for the first time. (Subsequent sales of those used weapons are often unregulated, thus the so-called "gun show loophole.") The fights to pass those laws were nasty and protracted, and in the ensuing years, positions have hardened even more. Bottom line: As disturbing and outrageous as the Newtown massacre was, there is essentially zero chance that Congress will do anything of substance about it.
So what can be done?
The Constitution grants any president of the United States executive powers. Some have argued that President Obama could exercise them to close the gun show loophole — which has arguably allowed up to 40 percent of all private gun purchases to occur with no background check whatsoever, just pay and be on your way. This appears to be easy politics. Even before Newtown, a survey by GOP pollster Frank Luntz said that 85 percent of non-NRA gun owners and 69 percent of NRA members favored this.
Look for this to be among the recommendations given to Obama by his "gun czar," Vice President Biden. These background checks could also include any known information on a customer's mental health. The Justice Department has also studied the idea of better information-sharing among different agencies, sort of like how the CIA and FBI began working better together after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. These are all ideas worth discussing, though state's rights and privacy laws are legitimate barriers.
Even the National Rifle Association has a few ideas. The NRA's Wayne LaPierre, blaming just about everyone other than his own organization for Newtown, says Hollywood is at fault for gratuitous violence, as are the manufacturers of violent videogames (one, he said, was called "Kindergarten Killer"). He calls this kind of content "the filthiest form of pornography." On this one point, LaPierre is right. Parents should know better than to expose their kids to this kind of garbage. But here's a question for Mr. LaPierre: If the NRA insists that the Second Amendment is sacred and must be protected, is it not hypocritical to suggest that the First Amendment, whose free speech protections cover movie and game makers, be weakened? (It's a moot point anyway: The Supreme Court, in June 2011, upheld the free speech rights of videogame makers to spew out their filth.)
LaPierre has also suggested, as you've no doubt heard, that guns in schools might have prevented the Newtown massacre. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he insisted. LaPierre, whose rantings caused former President George H.W. Bush to quit the NRA in outrage in 1995, seems to have forgotten that an armed guard at Columbine High School couldn't prevent the murder of 12 students and a teacher (he fired four times and missed). There were plenty of good guys with guns at the Fort Hood army base in 2009. And on and on.
So why not go after guns — and the NRA itself — the way 46 states went after cigarettes back in the 1990s? Guns are similar to cigarettes in one key respect: Long after they are used, both incur very large and ongoing costs that states, local communities, and thus taxpayers are forced to absorb. Aside from the immediate anguish and grief that can result from the use of a gun, the economic burden is spread over many years, in the form of lost work, medical care, insurance, law enforcement, and criminal justice. One study puts a price on this: $174 billion a year.
The societal cost of just one gun homicide averages $5 million, according to the institute. That includes $1.6 million in lost work; $29,000 in medical care; $11,000 on surviving families' mental-health treatment; $397,000 in criminal-justice, incarceration and police expenses; $9,000 in employer losses; and $3 million in pain, suffering and lost quality of life.
Who pays for much of this? You do. Doesn't matter whether you have a gun or not. Just like smoking. You pay for much of its after-effects whether you smoke or not.
Here is what the states did about cigarettes: In November 1998, Big Tobacco, worn down by legal wrangling on dozens of fronts, agreed to pay 46 states a minimum of $206 billion over 25 years. The landmark deal, known as the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), exempted Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard from private tort liability resulting from harm caused by tobacco use. In addition to paying billions, the companies agreed to end or limit marketing of cigarettes, fund anti-smoking education campaigns, and dissolve industry-funded trade groups such as the "Tobacco Institute."
The landmark agreement with the states wasn't designed to put cigarette makers out of business, just make them more accountable and responsible for the use of their product, which was and remains legal. Guns, by virtue of the Second Amendment, are even more protected, but this hardly excuses their defenders from accountability for their use. Only a handful of states and the District of Columbia have laws governing private sales at gun shows. Those who lack such laws can cite states' rights, a legitimate point — but often it's the taxpayers in those states who pay for years to come. States with tougher laws can sue neighboring states that don't to recover their costs; the NRA can be sued for similar reasons. Want a gun? Oppose reasonable restrictions on them? Fine. But you know the saying: Freedom isn't free. Give those who oppose tighter gun laws an economic incentive to comply.

Read More..

Is it wrong to publish the names and addresses of gun owners?

A suburban New York newspaper plots a map of the names and addresses of gun owners, and many readers are up in arms
As the debate over gun control continues to rage in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings in Connecticut, a suburban New York newspaper fanned the flames by publishing a controversial interactive map listing the names and addresses of gun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland Counties. The article, "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about weapons in your neighborhood," was published by the White Plains-based Journal News and on its affiliated website, LoHud.com. The paper noted that the map uses data obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request and cautioned that "being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location owns a weapon, just that they are licensed to do so."
The reaction: This is outright intimidation, says Ben Shapiro at Breitbart.com. "Publishing the names and addresses of gun owners makes them more vulnerable to robbery when they aren't at home, since criminals will know where the guns are." On the contrary, says conservative radio host Tammy Bruce on Twitter, the Journal News' map "reveals to criminals which homes *are not* protected by firearms." Regardless of who is put in the most danger by this map, this is "unforgivable," tweeted Town Hall's Katie Pavlich. "Time to publish the names and addresses of everyone who works at the Journal News." Amid the controversy, the newspaper has defended its decision. "We knew publication of the database would be controversial but we felt sharing as much information as we could about gun ownership in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings," said the Journal News' editor CynDee Royle in a statement. While "any member of the public has a right to inquire about a specific person as to licensure status," said Journal News reader Mark T. Hoops, a "newspaper does not have the right to ADVERTISE this information WHOLESALE. What you have done is reprehensible."

Read More..

The 5 best fiction books of the year

1. Bring Up the Bodies
by Hilary Mantel (Holt, $28)
In Hilary Mantel's hands, Thomas Cromwell has become "one of literature's most compelling characters," said Radhika Jones in Time. Henry VIII's chief adviser was both "loyal and scheming, generous and cruel" — traits Mantel brought to the fore in 2009's Wolf Hall, the first installment of her Cromwell trilogy. In the second, she "deepens her portrait of the master puppeteer." Mantel's "exhilarating prose, unrivaled in contemporary fiction," puts us whisper-close to Cromwell as he maneuvers Anne Boleyn toward the executioner's block while inescapably sowing the seeds of his own eventual demise. Mantel obviously understands that "what gives fiction its vitality is not the accurate detail but the animate one," said James Wood in The New Yorker. "Quite a few readers would be prepared to yawn" at an encounter between Cromwell and theologian Thomas Cranmer, but Mantel makes such scenes "alive, silvery," and "rapid with insight."
A caveat: This book feels too much like a bridge to the next installment, a "highly entertaining throat-clearing," said William Georgiades at Slate.
2. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
by Ben Fountain (Ecco, $15)
The Iraq War era has found its Catch-22, said Jeff Turrentine in The Washington Post. Ben Fountain's "masterful gut-punch of a debut novel" unfolds on a recent Thanksgiving Day as the surviving members of a combat unit, fresh from battlefield heroics celebrated endlessly by Fox News, are feted during the megawatt halftime show of the holiday's Dallas Cowboys game. With "hardly a false note," Fountain records the spectacle through the 19-year-old eyes of Billy Lynn, who's just hours away from redeployment and trying to hold his emotions in check as he soldiers his way into the belly of the beast of American excess. Fountain's novel "left me breathless," said Jonathan Evison at NPR. This brilliant satire is also remarkably visceral. "From the sodium glare of the stadium lights to the acid sting of bitterness in the throat," you "feel the story with your whole body."
A caveat: Billy Lynn is "95 percent the most entertaining novel I've read in ages," said Adam Langer in the San Francisco Chronicle. But the ending feels forced.
3. NW
by Zadie Smith (Penguin, $27)
When in doubt, return to your roots, said K. Thomas Kahn at TheMillions.com. Zadie Smith's fourth novel circles back to Willesden, the northwest London neighborhood of her youth and the setting of her stunning 2000 debut, White Teeth. But NW is a "more poetic and abstract novel," with stream-of-consciousness sections that owe a debt to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Leah and Natalie, the dual protagonists, grew up together in a neighborhood housing project, and both have made it out. But each friend is struggling, amid the claims that race, class, and gender make on her, to find and embrace a comfortable identity. This is a "deeply ambitious" novel, said David L. Ulin in the Los Angeles Times. But it's also "exuberant, lush with language," and "intensely readable, intensely human": It signals the maturation of a writer already wise beyond her years.
A caveat: "The people in this book are more stereotypes than individuals, more ham-handed cartoons than emotionally detailed human beings," said Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times.
4. Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn (Crown, $25)
"A great crime novel is an unstable thing, entertainment and literature suspended in some undetermined solution," said Laura Miller at Salon. Gillian Flynn's "ingenious, pitch-black" third novel mixes the ingredients to perfection. Nick and Amy lead charmed lives in New York City until a turn of the economy demotes them to a McMansion in the Missouri town where Nick grew up. Then Amy disappears, leaving a trace of blood, and all signs point to Nick. From then on, readers ache to solve "two mysteries — what happened to Amy, and what happened to Nick-and-Amy?" Neither puzzle is easily solved, said Janet Maslin in The New York Times. "Both Nick and Amy are extremely adept liars, and they lied to each other a lot." They lie to you, too — Nick in the present tense and Amy in diary entries. All along, Flynn displays "ice-pick sharp" control, with "characters so well-imagined they're hard to part with — even if, as in Amy's case, they are already departed."
A caveat: Flynn's characters are "slightly cartoonish, and more than once, their over-the-top scheming strains credulity," said Amy Gutman in the Chicago Tribune.
5. Building Stories
by Chris Ware (Pantheon, $50)
This remarkable work of fiction is less a book than a "keepsake box full of things you don't want to forget," said Melissa Maerz in Entertainment Weekly. Each board-game-size box contains 14 odd-shaped bits of "beautifully illustrated" literature, from a flip book to a poster to an ersatz children's reader. The whole package is the work of graphic novelist Chris Ware, and there's no right way in. Picking things up at random, you find your way into an affecting story about the lonely lives of four inhabitants of one Chicago brownstone. My initial irritation at having to piece Ware's story together "gave way to enchantment," said Steve Almond in The New Republic. A "poet of solitude," Ware has used the comic-book format as a tool of psychological investigation — conveying the scope of his characters' "private torments" and "unfulfilled lives" in a few well-wrought panels. Building Stories might be too bleak for some readers, but it's "brutal in the way all great art is." In fact, it's "one of the most important pieces of art I have ever experienced."

Read More..

Did a rapidly changing climate make early humans smarter?

A new study points out that a constantly shifting environment may have forced us to get smart or die trying
The question: Scientists are always on the hunt for clues in our evolutionary history that might help explain why we have such highly advanced brains. Some have pointed to the advent of cooked food as a tipping point, giving our brains the nutrients and proteins needed to grow. Others say it's the invention of agriculture, which diverted our attention away from merely surviving to more intellectual pursuits. Now, scientists from Penn State University think the rapidly fluctuating climate some 2 million years ago may have forced homo erectus — a direct ancestor of modern humans — to change their behavior as they migrated from the forest to the dry, flat grasslands and back again. Did climate change spark a period of major intelligence gains?
How it was tested: Researchers focused on a region in Africa called the Olduvai Gorge — an area where humankind is thought to have originated. Scientists believed that the area began drying up 3 million years ago in something they call the "Great Drying," robbing the area of trees and other lush plant life. Biochemists used techniques like gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to analyze carbon isotopes from wax leaf samples. With that data, they were able to create a timeline for the amount of vegetation in the area over a period of 200,000 years.
The outcome: The area didn't dry out slowly and consistently over time, but was instead highly variable, meaning it was changing all the time. In just 10 to 100 generations, early humans would have had to migrate from areas with trees and forest cover to vast open areas with only grass — and vice versa. The temperature was constantly in flux, possibly as a result of changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun. More intriguingly, variability in the environment happened to coincide with a critical period in human evolution when the first hand tools began to emerge.
What the experts say: "Changes in food availability, food type, or the way you get food can trigger evolutionary mechanisms to deal with those changes," says researcher Clayton Magill. "The result can be increased brain size and cognition, changes in locomotion, and even social changes — how you interact with others in a group. Our data are consistent with these hypotheses." Yes, "there was a complete restructuring of the ecosystem from grassland to forest and back again," says researcher Katherine Freeman. "I've worked on carbon isotopes my whole career, and I've never seen anything like this before."

Read More..

The 13 biggest pop culture moments of 2012

From the rise of an unexpected NBA superstar to the announcement of a royal baby, this was a year of smiles, shocks, and sheer Gangnamminess
1. Linsanity takes over the NBA
When the New York Knicks picked up Jeremy Lin as a backup point guard in late 2011, he was widely regarded as a temporary Band-Aid designed to cover for injured players Iman Shumpert and Baron Davis. Shocking both fans and analysts, Lin came from nowhere and absolutely dominated for a weeks-long stretch in early 2012, averaging nearly 25 points and 9 assists per game, with a peak of 38 points in a February 10 game against the Lakers. Lin's remarkable ascent led The New York Times to dub him the Knicks' "most popular player in a decade," and, though Lin's subsequent tenure this season with the Houston Rockets has been less successful, the brief period of "Linsanity" qualifies as the NBA's most surprising and entertaining story in years.
2. Whitney Houston dies
The music world was rocked in February by the unexpected death of best-selling singer and actress Whitney Houston at age 48. Famous for songs like "The Greatest Love of All" and "I Will Always Love You," Houston enjoyed enormous success in the 80s and 90s but floundered amid widely publicized reports of drug use in the early 2000s. Despite numerous attempts at rehabilitation, Houston drowned in a bathtub after ingesting drugs that included Xanax, marijuana, and cocaine. Her death triggered an outpouring of grief from admirers and friends including Oprah Winfrey, Dolly Parton, and Mariah Carey, who called Houston "one of the greatest voices to ever grace the earth."
3. Encyclopedia Britannica suspends print edition
In a March blog post titled "Change: It's okay. Really," the editors of the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica — the massive, leather-bound tomes seen in libraries and schools since 1768 — announced that they were discontinuing the printed edition. The blog post goes on to promise that "the encyclopedia would live on" in "bigger, more numerous, and more vibrant digital forms," but the end of the 244-year old institution was yet another harbinger of the death of printt.
4. Fifty Shades of Grey sparks "mommy porn" revolution
There was no bigger story in the literary world this summer than the remarkable rise of E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey and its two sequels, which sold even faster than the works of J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter) or Stephenie Meyer (Twilight). The books — which chronicle the sadomasochistic romance between billionaire Christian Grey and the virginal Anastasia Steele — were largely consumed by married women over 30, which led many in the media to dub them "mommy porn." And as 2012 draws to a close, a Fifty Shades film is reportedly in development, with fans eagerly debating who should step into the lead roles.
5. The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises square off at the box-office
Though superhero blockbusters have dominated the summer movie season for the better part of a decade, two of the most anticipated takes on the genre, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, upped the stakes this year. In the end, the funnier, looser Avengers, an ensemble piece, came out on top, earning over $1.5 billion worldwide — but Warner Bros. shouldn't feel too bad about the box-office take of their grimmer star vehicle, The Dark Knight Rises, the only other movie to earn more than $1 billion worldwide in 2012.
6. "Gangnam Style" takes over the world
Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" may have been this summer's buzziest new single, but no song has defined 2012 more than Psy's inescapable "Gangnam Style," which recently set the record for most-viewed YouTube video ever. "Gangnam Style" has become a worldwide phenomenon, earning more than 1 billion views (and counting), spawning thousands of tribute videos, and giving the South Korean singer the opportunity to do his crazy horse-riding dance with everyone from Madonna to Britney Spears. Hey, sexy lady, indeed.
7. London's Summer Olympics delight
The 2012 Summer Olympics, which took place from July 27 to Aug. 12, were a widely celebrated, headline-dominating affair. More than 10,000 athletes from 204 countries hopped a flight to London, England to participate in more than 300 events. In the end, the United States won more gold medals and more medals overall than any other nation, with China and Great Britain taking second and third.
8. NHL lockout: No end in sight
NHL fans have suffered through lockouts before, but virtually no one expected the 2012 lockout, which officially began on Sep. 15, to last for more than a few weeks — let alone for nearly half the season. But as December draws to a close, no end is in sight for the lockout, as the franchise owners and the NHL Players' Association continue to battle over contracts and hockey-related revenue — all to the increasing frustration of fans. "It's pure madness in my opinion. All of it. Both sides," said ESPN's Pierre Lebrun in a recent column.
9. Felix Baumgartner completes world's highest skydive
On October 14, daredevil Felix Baumgartner leapt from a capsule floating nearly 24 miles over the earth in a successful attempt to break the record for the world's highest skydive. To complete his daring feat, Baumgartner relied on a specially designed balloon and pressure suit, and the help of an entire ground control team. Baumgartner's leap was also a triumph for online media: The event set a record for live-streaming with the most concurrent views on YouTube.
10. AMC's The Walking Dead smashes ratings records
AMC's The Walking Dead has always been a hit, but few TV analysts foresaw the strength with which the show would begin its third season. An average of 10.9 million viewers tuned in for the gory zombie drama's Oct. 14 premiere, making it the most-watched drama-series telecast in basic cable history, and soundly trouncing any of the show's network competitors.
11. Disney buys Lucasfilm, prepares Star Wars: Episode VII for 2014 release
Hundreds of thousands of Star Wars fans felt a great disturbance in the Force when Disney announced it was acquiring Lucasfilm and all of its assets, including the venerable Star Wars franchise, and was planning to release a new installment in the series in 2014. Though virtually nothing is known about the tentatively titled Star Wars: Episode VII, the announcement may herald a new direction for the franchise. Star Wars' future has never been more open-ended.
12. The Twilight Saga draws to a close
The Nov. 16 release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 marked the end of the massively popular tween franchise, though the series' influence will be felt in the countless paranormal-romance novels and films its revenues have inspired. The five films in the Twilight series earned a combined total of $1.35 billion at the box office, and turned young, relatively untested stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson into international icons.
13. Will and Kate announce royal pregnancy
On Dec. 3, St. James Palace announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge — otherwise known as William and Kate — are expecting their first child. Unfortunately, the joyful news has been tempered by Kate's hyperemesis gravidarum, a pregnancy illness that resulted in her extended stay at a hospital, and the suicide of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, which occurred shortly after Saldanha was the victim of a prank phone call by a pair of Australian DJs.

Read More..