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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

New Year’s Eve, Stuck in a Church in Bangui

Churches in Bangui have drawn thousands of Christians seeking refuge amid the conflict.Reuters Churches in Bangui have drawn thousands of Christians seeking refuge amid the conflict.

In the brutally violent week before Christmas, dozens of families poured into a church in Bangui in the Central African Republic, my colleague Carlotta Gall reported last week. Run by Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga, the building had become a small island of refuge in the Central African Republic’s rapidly unraveling capital.

Each day since, hundreds more have arrived, from across the city and other parts of the country. Over a wavering cellphone line, The Lede spoke to one woman preparing to ring in the new year from the crowded lawn in front of the church.

“The people, they have nothing to eat. Only rice. More rice. They are hungry,” said Corinne, who has been at the church since Dec. 19 and preferred to share only her first name. “There are children, pregnant women. We pray out of fear.”

Corinne during a field trip as part of her professional training in Australia, a few weeks before she returned to Bangui.Lynda Lawson Corinne during a field trip as part of her professional training in Australia, a few weeks before she returned to Bangui.

A month ago, Corinne was sitting comfortably in Brisbane, Australia. She had just completed a training program for mining professionals from Africa, sponsored by the Australian government. She had the option of claiming asylum in Australia, something that Saleem H. Ali, the director of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, where she studied, said was a common choice for attendees from conflict-ridden countries. But Corinne was determined to return to her family and to help her country, Mr. Ali said by email.

Even as her flight to Bangui was canceled, Corinne persisted in her journey. She took a circuitous route back home via Douala, Cameroon. By the time she was reunited with her family, Bangui was in bloody disarray. The Christian militia had attempted to seize Bangui, prompting Muslim Seleka fighters to retaliate and set Christian neighborhoods on fire â€" sparking more retaliation from Christians and then yet more from Muslims.

“There is nothing to see at my house,” Corinne said at the church, where she now sleeps on the ground. “There is no way I can go there. The rebels burned it.”

Although it is a desperate situation in Bangui, staying in Australia was not an option, she said.

Thousands of angry people flooded the runway of the international airport in Bangui on Tuesday.Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press Thousands of angry people flooded the runway of the international airport in Bangui on Tuesday.

“I am with my aunts, my uncles,” she said. “This is my country. I had no one there. No one at all.”

Throughout the brief conversation, more terrified Christian families continued to file onto the church grounds. Corinne said she had spent the day listening to the radio to reports of developments at the Bangui airport.

Thousands of people blocked the runway, demanding aid and the resignation of President Michel Djotodia, who promised in April to bring stability to his country.

“We are capable of doing it, of securing the whole Central African territory, the whole country,” he said, a few weeks into his presidency.



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French Comic’s ‘Anti-System’ Salute Is Frequently Used to Mock Jewish Suffering

Video from BFMTV of the French striker Nicolas Anelka celebrating a goal on Saturday with a salute known in France as a quenelle.

Until three days ago, when a French soccer star celebrated a goal for his club in England with a form of stiff-armed salute devised by a stand-up comic who stands accused of inciting hatred of Jews, the English-speaking world was largely unaware that the meaning of the gesture, called a quenelle, is a source of heated debate in France.

The salute is controversial because it was invented by a comedian known as Dieudonné, who frequently makes crude jokes about Jews, and, after its use in a campaign poster when he ran for office in 2009 at the head of what he called an Anti-Zionist List, it was adopted by anti-Semites.

Within hours of the incident on Saturday, the player, Nicolas Anelka, got into a public spat on Twitter with the French minister for sport and youth, Valérie Fourneyron, who denounced the salute made in front of a worldwide television audience as a “disgusting, shocking provocation.” There was, the minister wrote, “no place for anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred on the football pitch.”

The player responded, in English and in French, that the salute was simply a way of dedicating his goal to his friend, the comedian. Over the following 24 hours, Mr. Anelka continued to defend the gesture on Twitter: first by posting an image of President Obama, Jay Z and Beyoncé making a different but vaguely similar-looking gesture of brushing dirt off their shoulders; then by quoting a Dieudonné tweet tagged “the quenelle is not a Nazi or anti-Semitic sign”; and finally by arguing, as the comedian himself has, that the salute is “anti-system,” rather than anti-Semitic.

“With regard to the ministers who give their own interpretation of my quenelle,” Mr. Anelka concluded, “they are the ones who create confusion and controversy without knowing what this gesture really means.”

Two other French sports stars, the soccer player Samir Nasri and the basketball player Tony Parker, offered similar explanations this week after images of them making the quenelle in private surfaced online.

“While this gesture has been part of French culture for many years, it was not until recently that I learned of the very negative concerns associated with it.” Mr. Parker wrote in a statement on Monday. “Since I have been made aware of the seriousness of this gesture, I will certainly never repeat the gesture and sincerely apologize for any misunderstanding or harm relating to my actions. Hopefully this incident will serve to educate others that we need to be more aware that things that may seem innocuous can actually have a history of hate and hurt.”

Mr. Nasri was less willing to acknowledge that the gesture could have any negative meaning, writing on Twitter: “The pose in the picture I posted over 2 months ago symbolizes being against the system. It has absolutely nothing to do with being anti-Semitic or against Jewish people. I apologize for causing any hurt to anyone who might have been mislead into thinking this means anything of that nature.”

But, as John Lichfield explained in The Independent, what Dieudonné’s critics see as an inverted Nazi salute, his fans, including far-right politicians, call a version of a traditional, and obscene, French hand signal, known as the bras d’honneur, which signifies roughly the same thing as a raised middle finger in the Anglo-Saxon world. Although a quenelle is a kind of French meat dumpling, Mr. Lichfield notes that, in frequent off-color jokes about assaulting the Zionists that Dieudonné sees as a global enemy, he “always uses the word quenelle in its slang meaning as a ‘finger,’ or a ‘penis.’ ”

As my colleague Maïa de La Baume reported last year, Dieudonné’s recent obsession with Zionism has alienated many former fans, and his childhood friend, the Jewish comic Élie Sémoun, but earned him the cult following of a shock-jock. The mixed-race comic once brought a noted Holocaust denier onstage with him, to present him with an award, and he recently joked that criticism from a Jewish journalist made him nostalgic for the gas chambers.

The tribute from Mr. Anelka came one day after France’s interior minister announced that he was considering a ban on public performances by Dieudonné, in the name of preventing hate speech.

In an interview in September with the French newspaper Libération, an academic who studies far-right culture, Jean-Yves Camus, described the quenelle as a kind of code for a certain rebellious identity, like a gang sign, “which has acquired a real popularity among the young.” Many of those flashing the sign, Mr. Camus suggested, might not have any awareness of “the significance of the gesture.”

Dieudonné himself and his most ardent fans, however, seem to see it as a sign of a populist resistance to “a world order dominated by a Washington-Tel Aviv axis,” orchestrated by Jews. “Behind speeches criticizing NATO and the global financial system, while supporting Bashar al-Assad,” Mr. Camus suggested, “there is the conviction that deep down it is the Jews who pull the strings.”

That interpretation seems supported by comments Dieudonné made in August in a YouTube clip in which he introduced images of police officers and soldiers making the salute with the comment that he dreamed of a coup against the French establishment, supported by the people, along the lines of what took place in Egypt last summer. The fact that the comic made that comment while wearing a Hamas scarf, which he described as a personal gift from the militant Islamic group’s leader, suggested some confusion about the dynamics of events in Egypt, where the military ousted an elected Islamist leader.

Video posted on the YouTube channel of the French comedian Dieudonné in August.

Support for the idea that the salute is seen by some in France as a relatively harmless sign of cheeky disobedience can be found in thousands of images posted on social networks showing young people from all walks of life â€" from basketball stars to glamour models to doctors â€" making the gesture in settings as innocuous as ski slopes and class photos. A lawyer defending Dieudonné against charges of incitement to hatred told Le Parisien that he had colected more than 9,000 images of people making the quenelle in photographs posted on social networks and that “99.9 percent of them have no racist of anti-Semitic connotation.”

However, as Stephan Marche explained in a post for Esquire, it is not hard to find a significant number of photographs online where the gesture is clearly intended to mock Jewish suffering. “Making the quenelle has turned into an anti-Semitic game played on social media, where people post themselves making the gesture in the most Jewish places they can find,” Mr. Marche wrote. “Auschwitz for example, or the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, or at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.”

In response to Mr. Anelka’s claim that there was nothing anti-Semitic about the salute, several bloggers, including the socialist politician Yann Galut, shared links to dozens of images posted on social networks showing young people flashing the quenelle in front of sites associated with the Holocaust and the Jewish people.

Others mocked Mr. Anelka by pointing to Nazi salutes that looked very like the quenelle.

The most shocking of the images appeared to show a man making the quenelle salute outside the Jewish school in Toulouse, France, attacked by Mohammed Merah, who killed three French soldiers, a rabbi and three young children last year. The French police began an investigation this week into that image, hoping to identify the man who struck the pose outside the scene of the rampage killings.

Writing on the left-leaning French news site Rue 89, the journalist Pierre Haski argued that it was vital for supporters of the Palestinians to clearly denounce this popular form of anti-Semitism, as it lent support to the argument in Israel that all anti-Zionism is really just a front for anti-Semites. Mr. Haski noted that one militant supporter of Israel had written on a social network that Dieudonné “deserves a gold medal from the Israeli military for discrediting anti-Zionism.” The viral popularity of the quenelle, Mr. Haski concluded, “forces those who want to sincerely oppose Israeli policy to better define and to break with those whose agenda has nothing to do with Israel, but with a quite classic anti-Semitism.”



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Colorado Counts Down to Legalized Marijuana Use

Colorado residents have more to count down to on Tuesday than just the approach of a new year: on Wednesday, their state will become the first in the nation to permit the sale and use of marijuana for recreational purposes, after landmark votes in November significantly eased marijuana laws there and in Washington State.

As my colleagues Jack Healy and Kirk Johnson have reported, legal marijuana sales are not expected to begin in Washington State until spring 2014, but marijuana retailers in Colorado are planning to open their doors on New Year’s Day. On Monday, The Denver Post published a list of almost three dozen stores across the state â€" with names like The Medicine Man and Green Grass L.L.C. â€" that planned to begin selling pot on Jan. 1.

State and local authorities across Colorado began issuing licenses in late December to those who wanted to grow or sell marijuana or wanted to sell marijuana-infused products. Kristen Wyatt, an Associated Press reporter in Colorado, reported on Twitter last week that Denver had issued 30 licenses to grow pot, eight licenses to retail outlets wishing to sell it, and four licenses allowing the sale of pot-infused products. She also posted a picture of a marijuana license issued by the Colorado State Department of Revenue.

Ms. Wyatt also tweeted a picture of a sign that marijuana retailers must post in their shops, outlining the legal parameters within which use of the drug will be permitted in Colorado beginning Wednesday. Rules governing the use of marijuana include prohibitions against its use by those under the age of 21 or giving or selling it to those under the age of 21, driving while high, using it in public or transporting it out of the state.

As the first state to legalize recreational marijuana use, Colorado will be a laboratory of sorts. There are a host of questions that may be answered in the coming months and years about the effect of the newly eased policies on the criminal justice system, public health, teenage drug use and the state’s tax coffers. Simply put: Was legalizing pot a good idea?

But The Denver Post reported on Tuesday that some in Colorado have a more practical question in mind: How can we make some money off this? For some entrepreneurs, the answer is marijuana tourism that “will bring shuttle buses to the state’s first recreational marijuana shops, guides sharing their stashes with out-of-staters and watchful eyes at ski resorts and Denver’s airport.”

One businessman quoted in the article, Peter Johnson of Colorado Green Tours, identified as a former stock trader and “tech entrepreneur,” told The Post: “We are professionals in the travel business. We’re not a bunch of stoners trying to have a party.”

At least three marijuana tourism companies plan to begin pot-themed getaways to the state in 2014, according to the report, although they have the support of neither the state tourism board nor Colorado’s many ski resorts. Most lie on federal land where marijuana is banned.

In a post to Twitter, Larry Ryckman, an editor at The Denver Post, said that marijuana would not be available on Jan. 1 in the resort town of Aspen, where retailers were “in no hurry to submit applications” for licenses.



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When Stranded in the Antarctic, Get Ready and Wait

Participants on the expedition voyage helped to prepare a landing area on Dec. 31 for a rescue helicopter.

Icebreakers have so far failed to reach the Australian research expedition ship that has been stuck in Antarctic ice for a week.

So passengers and crew have no other choice but to prepare for rescue. And then wait.

On Tuesday, linking arms and stomping in the snow and ice, a team of people from the Australasian Antarctic Expedition disembarked from their ship to try to create a landing pad for a helicopter.

It was New Year’s Eve, so they sang “Auld Lang Syne” as they tamped down the deep snow in heavy boots and big marching steps, their voices barely audible in the whipping wind.

“We have just learned the Aurora can’t reach us,” Dr. Chris Turney, an expedition leader, said in the video message posted on the expedition’s YouTube account, Intrepid Science, as more than a dozen of about 70 people total on the ship moved in a straggling row across deep snow behind him.

Dr. Turney said once the landing pad was cleared, a helicopter could try to evacuate them.

“When the weather improves,” he added.

Dr. Turney was referring to the Aurora Australis icebreaker, which got within 12 miles of the chartered Russian ship, the 233-foot Akademik Shokalskiy, early on Monday but had to turn back because of snow and high winds.

Maritime officials made preparations on Tuesday to airlift all 52 passengers aboard the Russian ship to a Chinese icebreaker, while the ship’s 22 crew members would stay behind.

With the expedition ship been jammed in an unyielding field of ice in the Antarctic since last Tuesday, passengers and expedition members have passed the time by sending out video messages to the outside world.

Oceanographer aboard the stranded ship describes his work as he waits for rescue on Dec, 31.

Erik Van Sebille, the oceanographer with the expedition, said on Tuesday in a video diary message that they had all been instructed to be ready for a possible evacuation but that in the meantime he was continuing to work on a joint project with the ornithologist, studying what effect the ocean temperature has on the number of birds they encounter.

“Everything must be ready to go as soon as possible, but in the meantime it’s a lot of waiting here.”

The videos and updates on Twitter have provided a running diary of life on the ship and efforts to keep up morale as the rescue attempts came and went.

On Tuesday a small group from the ship recorded an upbeat song composed just as New Year’s Eve approached, with light-hearted lyrics about thick ice, news coverage, and the appearance of would-be rescuers who had to turn back. “Bloody great shame we are still stuck here!” went a refrain.

New Year message from some of those stranded on the expedition ship in the Antarctic on Dec. 31.

But a National Geographic editor, Christine Dell’Amore, wrote that an Australian photographer on board the ship, Andrew Peacock, said in an email to the magazine that “the mood is getting more frustrated by the day.”

“There are so many variablesâ€"every briefing is differentâ€"and people are getting a little worried now while the weather stays poor. Lack of control and missing loved ones are starting to put some emotion into our conversations!”

Dr. Turney posted a blog item with descriptions of the weather and changes in the ice that conspired to trap the ship a week ago. He wrote, in part:

It has been a sobering week. At the time we were initially caught by the sea ice, the Shokalskiy was just 2 to 4 nautical miles from open water. Now the sea ice distance has become even greater with the continued winds from the east, putting our nearest point of exit at some 16 nautical miles.

The thick chaotic surface we see around the Shokalskiy is consistent with the idea that this ice is several years old and is considerably more difficult to break through by icebreaker than single year ice. The presence of dark watersky to the southeast shows the presence of open water which is reflecting off the underneath of clouds.

We hope the Australian ice breaker Aurora australis may have more luck finding leads from this ice edge to reach the Shokalskiy. We are all hoping the Shokalskiy will find a route out thanks to the efforts of the Australian and Chinese icebreakers.

Meanwhile on board the Shokalskiy, moral remains good and the team are pulling together in an extraordinary way. Everyone is working hard to support one another. Take a look at the video diaries on the Intrepid Science YouTube Channel to see what we are up to.

We are all keeping busy, with twice daily briefings outlining all the information we have to hand, alongside classes through the day (knot tying, languages, yoga, photography and many others) while the science programme has continued as best we can.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



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Monday, December 30, 2013

Egypt Arrests 4 Al Jazeera English Journalists

As my colleague Kareem Fahim reported, Egyptian authorities arrested a team of journalists from the news channel Al Jazeera English on Sunday, accusing them of broadcasting “false news” that damaged national security as well as possessing written materials that promoted “incitement,” including information about student protests in support of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Three of the four journalists were arrested at the Cairo Marriott hotel, where they were said to have turned a series of rooms into an improvised bureau. The journalists have been described in many Egyptian media reports as “a terrorist cell” working in support of the Brotherhood, which the government declared a terrorist organization last week. On Monday evening it was reported that their case had been referred to a special national security prosecutor.

Al Jazeera said that the four journalists detained were Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, a Canadian citizen and the channel’s Cairo bureau chief, who previously worked for CNN and contributed to The New York Times; Peter Greste, an Australian and two-decade veteran of Reuters, CNN and the BBC who last year won a Peabody Award for his coverage of Somalia; Baher Mohamed, a Cairo-based producer; and the cameraman Mohamed Fawzy.

Peter Greste filed a report on antigovernment protests at Al-Azhar University in Cairo just days before he and other Al Jazeera English employees were arrested on Sunday.

In a statement, Al Jazeera English demanded the release of its employees and called their arrest part of a pattern of “harassment by Egyptian security forces which has arrested our colleagues, confiscated our equipment and raided our offices despite that we are not officially banned from working there.”

The arrest of the four men, and the possibility that they could be charged with a terrorism-related offense, came as a shock to many Egyptian bloggers and activists who had grown accustomed to seeing the work of Mr. Fahmy in particular published by reputable international news organizations.

Mahmoud Salem, a well-known blogger, said on Twitter that he and Mr. Fahmy were friends.

Nervana Mahmoud, another prominent Egyptian blogger, said that she had always considered Mr. Fahmy’s work to be critical of the Muslim Brotherhood. After a week in which Islamist militants carried out three bombing attacks in towns in the Nile Delta, Ms. Mahmoud also expressed disbelief that the Egyptian government would choose to prosecute journalists.

Sherif Mansour, coordinator of the Middle East Program at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the arrests were a politically motivated attempt on the part of Egypt’s military-installed government “to justify the idea that any attempt to interview members of the Muslim Brotherhood are acts of terrorism.”

“These arrests are part of an atmosphere of a government crackdown on any civic activity and using fear-mongering and propaganda to say that any independent or critical views help the Muslim Brotherhood and should be considered terrorist acts,” Mr. Mansour said. “It is happening to nongovernmental organizations, it is happening to political activists and now it is happening to the media.”

Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, one of the Al Jazeera English journalists arrested on Sunday, previously worked for CNN in Egypt.

Egyptian journalists received more ominous news on Monday. In a special report, the Committee to Protect Journalists, which is based in New York, said that in 2013 Egypt, for the first time, was one of the three most deadly countries in the world for journalists, after Syria and Iraq. Six journalists were killed in the line of duty in Egypt in 2013 â€" three on a single day, Aug. 14, as security forces dispersed a Muslim Brotherhood sit-in, killing hundreds of protesters. Egypt and Iraq displaced Pakistan and Somalia as the second and third most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.

Earlier in December, the Committee to Protect Journalists named the top 10 countries that imprisoned journalists in 2013, with Egypt at No. 9. At the time the report was issued, five journalists were in jail in Egypt, including two others from a branch of Al Jazeera. Abdullah al-Shami and Mohamed Badr, both employees of Al Jazeera Arabic, have been in prison since last summer.

“This year there were a lot of precedents for Egypt,” Mr. Mansour said. “It is now among the top 10 jailers of journalists, and in the top three killers of journalists.”



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Assange’s Father Met Assad in Damascus

Julian Assange’s father met with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria during a visit to Damascus last week as a member of “a solidarity delegation,” The Australian reported on Monday.

A photograph of the meeting, posted on the Syrian presidency’s Twitter feed and released by the state news agency, showed Mr. Assange’s biological father, John Shipton, seated two places away from Mr. Assad.

A spokesman for the Wikileaks Party, set up earlier this year to support Mr. Assange’s failed bid for a seat in the Australian Senate, confirmed on Monday that its chief executive, Mr. Shipton, had traveled to Syria with two members of the party’s national council.

A Syrian state television report on the delegation’s meetings with senior officials featured comments from Mr. Shipton, who said the visit was intended “to show the solidarity of the Australian people and Wikileaks Party with the difficulties that Syria is … having at the moment.”

A video report from Syrian state television on the visit to Damascus by a delegation from Australia that included John Shipton, the chief executive of the Wikileaks Party.

Mr. Assange’s father, who bears a striking physical resemblance to his son, also called the courage of the Syrian people “an example to the rest of the world in how to resist this plague of terrorism which is sweeping the Middle East and Central Asia.” He added that the Wikileaks Party planned to lend Mr. Assad’s government a hand in getting its message out. “We’ll continue to expose the truth to the Australian people and to our international audience, and next year we will set up an office in Damascus,” Mr. Shipton said.

Another member of the delegation, Gail Malone, wrote during the visit that the group had come “to promote peace and transparency.” She also reminded readers that the Wikileaks Party had warned against Western military intervention in Syria “based on unsubstantiated reports of the Syrian Army’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians.”

Jamal Daoud, a Palestinian-Australian who is also a leader of the Wikileaks Party, reported on Twitter that before leaving Syria the group had traveled to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, the scene of one of the first large demonstrations against Mr. Assad’s dynastic rule in the Syrian capital in 2011.

Responding to reports of the delegation’s visit, the Syrian activist Razan Ghazzawi accused Wikileaks of hypocrisy for exposing the abuses of Western democracies but seeming to have less to say about autocratic governments.



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Scenes of Life Aboard a Ship Stranded in Antarctic Ice

Video update on life aboard the stranded ship posted Dec. 30 on Prof. Turney’s Intrepid Science Youtube account.

With the bleak, icy weather outside their windows, passengers and crew on a research ship stranded in the Antarctic are occupying themselves in the cozy interior by reading books or laptops, chatting in small groups and passing food to each other at a communal dining table.

Set to slow, jazzy music, those scenes on Monday were part of a one-minute video meant to offer a glimpse into the life of the people aboard the chartered Russian ship, the 233-foot Akademik Shokalskiy, which has been jammed in place in an unyielding field of ice in the Antarctic since last Tuesday.

But just hours later, a professor leading the scientific expedition posted a series of messages on Twitter that veered from bleak to buoyant after the news came through that yet another attempt by an icebreaker to reach them at their ice-locked position had failed.

For nearly a week, about 70 scientists, crew, students and others have been trying to keep up their spirits and entertain themselves aboard the ship. Their ordeal has been tracked through a steady flow of social media postings and videos, providing a snapshot of rescue efforts and the mundane efforts at keeping themselves occupied.

As my colleague Henry Fountain reported, the Aurora Australis icebreaker got within 12 miles of the Shokalskiy early Monday but had to turn back because of snow and high winds. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the rescue, said the ship may try again to reach the Shokalskiy if the weather improves, or a helicopter could be used if the weather permits.

While Dr. Turney, a professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said there was enough food and other necessities to last several weeks, his timeline on Twitter, @ProfChrisTurney and YouTube account Intrepid Science are a forum for the narratives of isolation and resilience that the unforgiving weather has imposed on those aboard.

News of the latest failed attempt at rescue came after several video messages had been recorded by passengers and expedition members; eager, cold and hopeful.

On Monday, an expedition member onboard, Terry Gostlow, was recorded standing outside on deck, speaking to a snow-flecked video camera lens. “It’s minus 1 and blowing snow,” he said, his shoulders hunched inside his parka. “We are all in a really good mood because the Australis is only 20 kilometers away.”

He said one woman was giving out hugs in the corridor to everyone she saw. A nightly briefing was keeping everyone informed. An impromptu dance routine in the ship’s auditorium provided light entertainment. “All good fun here in the Antarctic,” said Mr. Gostlow. “We love you all we are missing you, but we will be with you soon,” he said.

An expedition member, Terry Gostlow, recorded a video letter on Dec. 30 that was posted on Intrepid Science.

John Black, another expedition member, also appeared in a video letter on Monday, wobbling on deck as he appeared to try to keep his footing in the bullying winds.

“It’s blowing an absolute blizzard here. There is a total white-out. There is snow blowing everywhere and it’s damned cold outside,” he said. He said everyone was “fine” as they they waited for rescue by land or by air. “Either way it’s a fantastic adventure we are having.”

Expedition member John Black in a video message on Dec. 30

The Australian government’s antarctic division, on its website, shows a time lapse video of the changing weather as the Australian icebreaker made its way toward the stranded vessel over the past several days. The days flit by with gray skies and obscured horizons.

On Dec. 29, Nicole De Losa, who was sent on the ship through a contest, sent a video message to her parents and others. She said she has passed her time drawing. There was dancing, and there were plans for singing, on the ice.

“We are all having a good time here as well,” she said. “The morale on the boat is excellent.”

“It is absolutely spectacular here. It is like this magical winter wonderland,” she added.

A video message from Nicole de Losa, another person aboard the stranded ship, on Dec. 29.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



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Friday, December 27, 2013

Turkish Game Show Pulled After Hinting at Corruption Scandal

Video of the host of the Turkish quiz show “The Word Game” asking a guest a question about corruption.

Last Updated, 7:43 p.m. | A popular Turkish game show disappeared from the airwaves this week after its host appeared to make a veiled reference to a widening corruption scandal by asking a contestant to name a slang term for a person who takes bribes.

As the Turkish sociologist Zeynep Tufekci explained, Ali Ihsan Varol, the star of the quiz show “Kelime Oyunu,” or “The Word Game,” apparently crossed a line in an episode broadcast last week when he informed a stumped guest on the show that the word he was looking for was “yiyici,” a Turkish word for an “eater,” commonly used to describe a corrupt official.

This was the second time in six months that Mr. Varol has apparently been rebuked for introducing politics into his vocabulary quiz. The program was also halted in June, after he devoted an entire episode to words associated with the antigovernment protests in Gezi Park â€" like “Taksim,” “gas mask” and “dictator” â€" that the local news media had largely ignored.

As the journalist and blogger Sevgi Akarcesme noted in Today’s Zaman, an English-language news site, advocates of press freedom expressed concern that the show had been removed as part of a wider crackdown on media reporting on the scandal, “such as the restriction of certain newspapers on Turkish Airlines (THY) planes, blocking access to journalist Mehmet Baransu’s website and the decision to shut down press offices within the country’s police departments.”

The game show commentary came amid self-censorship in the Turkish media so widespread that a news channel’s website even failed to report that a government minister who resigned on the air during one of its own live broadcasts had also called for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to step down.

As Ms. Akarcesme also reported in Today’s Zaman, one of the country’s leading comedians, Cem Yilmaz, rallied to Mr. Varol’s defense. Writing on Twitter, the comedian told his five million followers: “The most decent TV program has stopped being broadcast. I once volunteered to be a contestant on the show. It was my favorite. I condemn the decision.”

The journalist Emre Kizilkaya also saluted the game show host in a post on his blog headlined, “On Turkish TV, Even Implied Criticism Is Not Allowed.” Mr. Varol, the blogger wrote, “pushed away a handsome salary and a chance to remain as a face on a popular TV to stake a claim on his right to criticize â€" although in a veiled way. He is a man of principles with a much better grade than many journalists.”



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A Taste of the Social Web’s Turkey Legs

In this video posted to YouTube by Lisa Chen in May, a family shares a turkey leg at one of the Disney parks.

The web is studded with a perhaps surprising number of examples of Disney customers indulging in the massive drumsticks known as the Jumbo Turkey Leg â€" from otherwise mild-mannered seemingly nuclear families to all-female groups of carnivores to whole collections of Instagrams that depict man versus meat.

A screen grab from Statigram showing Instagram pictures of Disney turkey legs. A screen grab from Statigram showing Instagram pictures of Disney turkey legs.

As The Times’s Brooks Barnes writes, the turkey legs have been around since the 1980s. (David Jarrett, posting on the Unofficial Disney Turkey Leg Fan Club site in 2011, said that he first took the turkey leg to Magic Kingdom/Walt Disney World on Dec. 9, 1989. “I was the Frontierland/Adventureland/Liberty Square/King Stefan’s F&B Manager at the time and it was my idea to bring the legs to WDW,” he wrote on Nov. 11, 2012; F&B means food and beverage. “The food cart in front of Pecos Bill was the first location and the original spec size was 20-24 oz.”

But whatever its origins, the leg has become a part of Disney lore for many. For instance, Tonya Schadle posted on Instagram four months ago a nostalgic image of her son Skyler Harris eating one in 2000 at Magic Kingdom when he was a tyke: “Love him!!! ❤❤❤ He is still that sweet baby boy!!”

And yet, new converts are coming all the time. Someone who calls herself Piggy posted this message on Twitter on Friday:

Cathi Reed of Indiana reported that there was an hourlong line for turkey legs on Christmas Eve at Disney World.

The fever has spread beyond North America, with Shawn Acheson, who goes by the Twitter handle SHAWNofINDIA, reporting:

Fans celebrate such brand extensions:

Indeed, they demand more:

This lover of the leg recorded her 2011 encounter and, as she said, was so enraptured that she couldn’t turn off the camera: the clip is longer than 10 minutes. At one point she looked at the turkey leg next to her own and judged the two to be comparable in size.

“Be jealous,” she said, as she tore into the meat.



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On Twitter, Documenting an Antarctic Journey and a Countdown to a Rescue

Prof. Chris Turney posted this video on YouTube on Dec. 27, talking about waiting for the icebreaker.

A Chinese vessel is battling severe weather and ice jams as it tries to make its way toward a research ship wedged in Antarctic ice, and the ordeal has been documented in social media postings by a professor on the ship, Chris Turney.

On his website and Twitter account, @ProfChrisTurney, Professor Turney is tracking the progress of the rescue, and describes what he and his colleagues are enduring and their surroundings: the penguins, the reflections of the water on the sky, and the efforts at keeping their spirits up since they became trapped.

Reuters reported that the Chinese icebreaker was expected to reach the ship, a Russian vessel called the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, by Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The research ship has been locked in Antarctic ice since just before Christmas with about 74 passengers and crew members on board.

“We are surrounded by sea ice, we just can’t get through,” Professor Turney said in a video posted on the day after Christmas.

Video posted on Dec. 26 showing the blizzard.

As the Chinese icebreaker appeared on Friday, the mood lightened.

Professor Turney, a climate scientist leading the Australasian Antarctic Expedition and a professor in Australia, said in a video at about 3 p.m. on Friday that those on board had just heard from the Chinese vessel Snow Dragon that it was en route to assist them, about 12 miles away.

An earlier video on Friday in which Professor Turney says that weather conditions have improved, but that the Chinese vessel is still in the distance.

In a later video, recorded at 9:30 p.m., he said that there were a lot of “happy faces” as he and the team spotted the Chinese icebreaker on the horizon. He said it was expected to draw alongside his ship in about two hours.

Professor Turney, on YouTube, posted a more than seven-minute-long video introducing the journey, which celebrates and retraces the voyage of the polar explorer Douglas Mawson.

Chris Turney gives an overview of the expedition.

Professor Turney told Sky News that before Christmas Day, the conditions changed when those on board had been conducting research, and they realized they could not get free of the ice. The ship was listing, and the captain put out an alert on Christmas Eve.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



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On Twitter, Documenting an Antarctic Journey and a Countdown to a Rescue

Prof. Chris Turney posted this video on YouTube on Dec. 27, talking about waiting for the icebreaker.

A Chinese vessel is battling severe weather and ice jams as it tries to make its way toward a research ship wedged in Antarctic ice, and the ordeal has been documented in social media postings by a professor on the ship, Chris Turney.

On his website and Twitter account, @ProfChrisTurney, Professor Turney is tracking the progress of the rescue, and describes what he and his colleagues are enduring and their surroundings: the penguins, the reflections of the water on the sky, and the efforts at keeping their spirits up since they became trapped.

Reuters reported that the Chinese icebreaker was expected to reach the ship, a Russian vessel called the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, by Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The research ship has been locked in Antarctic ice since just before Christmas with about 74 passengers and crew members on board.

“We are surrounded by sea ice, we just can’t get through,” Professor Turney said in a video posted on the day after Christmas.

Video posted on Dec. 26 showing the blizzard.

As the Chinese icebreaker appeared on Friday, the mood lightened.

Professor Turney, a climate scientist leading the Australasian Antarctic Expedition and a professor in Australia, said in a video at about 3 p.m. on Friday that those on board had just heard from the Chinese vessel Snow Dragon that it was en route to assist them, about 12 miles away.

An earlier video on Friday in which Professor Turney says that weather conditions have improved, but that the Chinese vessel is still in the distance.

In a later video, recorded at 9:30 p.m., he said that there were a lot of “happy faces” as he and the team spotted the Chinese icebreaker on the horizon. He said it was expected to draw alongside his ship in about two hours.

Professor Turney, on YouTube, posted a more than seven-minute-long video introducing the journey, which celebrates and retraces the voyage of the polar explorer Douglas Mawson.

Chris Turney gives an overview of the expedition.

Professor Turney told Sky News that before Christmas Day, the conditions changed when those on board had been conducting research, and they realized they could not get free of the ice. The ship was listing, and the captain put out an alert on Christmas Eve.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



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Last Words From a Beirut Bombing Victim

Mohamad B. Chatah in a recent interview in Arabic with Future TV of Lebanon.

Video and social media images of a bomb blast in downtown Beirut were widely shared online, highlighting the first such attack in several years to hit the capital’s business district as well as some of the final public remarks and writings of a prominent Lebanese politician who was among the six people killed.

While there has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, as my colleagues Anne Barnard and Dan Bilefsky reported, much of the attention in the aftermath settled on Hezbollah and the war in neighboring Syria.

The politician who was killed, Mohamad B. Chatah, was a former ambassador to the United States and former finance minister. While it was not clear whether he had been specifically targeted, he had been a vocal critic of the government in neighboring Syria and its ally, the Lebanese militia and political party Hezbollah.

In an interview with the Future Television network last month, Mr. Chatah said, in part, that Hezbollah should be viewed more broadly than as just a domestic political party.

“It is bigger than that,” Mr. Chatah said in the interview. “We should look at Hezbollah’s speech on a broader context. Hezbollah is not like any other party. Hezbollah is playing an essential role on behalf of a grand coalition, based in Iran, of course. And we should look at the Republican Guards and the Iranian leadership to read Hezbollah stances here.”

On his Twitter account, @mohamad_chatah, his apparent final post just hours before the bombing was a single message about Hezbollah that was apparently intended for the widest possible audience, written both in English and in Arabic.

His timeline reflected a history of his thought on the subject of Syria and Hezbollah, a theme he also explored extensively on his blog, where he linked the conflict in Syria with Lebanon’s violent past.

Fact number 1: A united and peaceful Syria ruled by Assad is simply not possible anymore. It has been like that for some time. The status quo ante cannot be restored. Iran and Hezbollah realize this more than anyone else.

Fact number 2: The Assad regime is incapable of adapting to a power sharing arrangement as contemplated by the Geneva principles. The regime is brittle and fragile as it is brutal and ruthless. It can break but cannot bend. Assad knows it and Iran knows it.

Fact number 3: A free and democratic Syria would be a strategic disaster for Tehran. If given a choice, the Syrian people would be certain to sever their country’s geopolitical alliance with the Islamic Republic and stop providing a geographic corridor to Iran’s military arm in Lebanon..

Fact number 4: Iran’s second best alternative to the irretrievable status quo ante is simply a protracted war. This is now Iran’s victory strategy. A bloody and chaotic Syrian theater will still be usable by Iran and Hezbollah more flexibly and efficiently than their western enemies. Remember the civil war in Lebanon?

Fact number 5: A protracted war in Syria will help terrorism flourish even more. Both the kind manipulated used by the regime to blackmail the west and the “authentic” strain that festers and spreads in open wounds, like opportunistic parasites.

Conclusion: If Iran’s militant ideology and hegemonic ambitions and radical “Islamic” terrorism are the two strategic threats that need to be overcome, then the policy towards Syria should aim at bringing to a quick end both the devastating war and Assad’s rule. Humanitarian considerations aside, any policy that is based on the premise that a protracted conflict in Syria is costless is misguided and dangerous. It is exactly what Iran wants and it will help the scourge of terrorism to thrive.

As Ms. Barnard reported, Hezbollah issued a statement calling the bombing “a heinous crime” and calling for a full investigation by the security forces. On Twitter, she shared excerpts from her reporting, as did other journalists with firsthand material.

Images from journalists with The Associated Press showed some of the damage.

Footage from The Associated Press of the aftermath of the bomb attack in Beirut on Dec. 27.

Future TV posted dramatic and graphic footage on its YouTube account of the blast and rescue efforts of some of the casualties.

Future TV footage, including graphic images, of the aftermath of the Dec. 27 bomb blast in Beirut.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



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Freed Pussy Riot Activists Stand Firm and Shift Focus

Radio Free Europe narrated remarks from Pussy Riot members as part of a Dec. 27 daily news roundup.

Four days after their release from a Russian prison, two members of the punk band Pussy Riot gave their first news conference to emphasize that they were starting a human rights organization, while sticking by the message that put them in jail: ending the presidency of Vladimir V. Putin.

The activists, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and another woman were arrested last year after they performed a crude anti-Putin song on the altar of a Moscow cathedral. Ms. Alyokhina and Ms. Tolokonnikova were later sentenced to two years in a penal colony. The third woman, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released on appeal, with a two-year suspended sentence.

On Monday, Ms. Alyokhina and Ms. Tolokonnikova were freed from prison colonies under a new amnesty law, which they dismissed as a publicity stunt. According to Reuters, Ms. Tolokonnikova said “their release was aimed solely at improving Russia’s image before it hosts the Winter Olympic Games.”

The news agency added that Ms. Tolokonnikova called the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi “Putin’s pet project” and said that “anybody attending them would be supporting him.”

Excerpts of the news conference on Friday were provided by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as part of a news roundup. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was among several news organizations that reported that the women said they supported the idea of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, who was released from prison this week under a presidential pardon, becoming Russia’s president.

The women said they would shift their focus to human rights work, such as improving prison conditions, and The Associated Press quoted Ms. Tolokonnikova as saying, in part:

As for Vladimir Putin, we still feel the same about him. We still want to do what we said in our last performance for which we spent two years in prison: drive him away.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



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Thursday, December 26, 2013

‘I Have Been Totally Abandoned and Forgotten,’ Captive Says

An American kidnapped in Pakistan more than two years ago has sent an impassioned video message to President Obama, imploring the administration to negotiate with his captors for his release and saying he felt “abandoned and forgotten.”

As my colleague Salman Masood reported, Warren Weinstein, 72, was abducted from the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore in August 2011 when a group of armed men broke into his house.

The video was released by Al Sahab, the media wing of Al Qaeda, and first reported on Thursday by journalists working in Pakistan, including for The Associated Press and The Washington Post.

Here are excerpts:

My name is Warren Weinstein. I am addressing this video to President Obama.

It has been more than two years since I was taken prisoner by Al Qaeda while I was working as a consultant on U.S. government programs in Pakistan. I am now over 72 years of age. I am not in good health. I have a heart condition. I suffer from acute asthma. The years have taken their toll.

I have been cut off from my family. My wife who is over 70, my two daughters, my two grandchildren, my son-in-law and perhaps new members of the family whom I have never met. Needless to say I have been suffering deep anxiety every part of every day. Not knowing what is happening to my family. Not knowing how they are. And because I am not with them.


In the 13-minute video, Mr. Weinstein mentioned his public and government service over 30 years, such as his work in the Peace Corps in West Africa and for the Agency for International Development. At the time he was abducted, he worked as the Pakistan director for J. E. Austin Associates, an international development consulting company based in Arlington, Va.

Nine years ago I came to Pakistan to help my government and I did so at a time when most Americans would not come here. And now when I need my government it seems that I have been totally abandoned and forgotten.

You are now in your second term as president of the United States. And it seems you can now take hard decisions without worrying about re-election. And so I again appeal to you to instruct your appropriate officials to negotiate my release.

In order to alleviate my pain and suffering and to help me to re-establish my health I have asked my captors if they will allow my family to visit me. They have agreed to do so. But they have done so on the basis that you will make an agreement, an arrangement with them that will provide a quid pro quo with respect to their people who are being held as prisoner.

Mr. Obama, you are a family man, and so you understand the deep mental anxiety and anguish that I have been experiencing for these past more than two years. I am therefore appealing to you on a humanitarian basis, if nothing else, and asking that you take the necessary actions to expedite my release and my return to my family and to my country, to our country.

I am also appealing to you as someone who has served his country and who now needs his country to help him. I hope and I pray to God that you as leader of the United States along with your administration will feel an adequate level of responsibility towards me to work for my release.

The video was the second since his capture in which he directly addressed Mr. Obama. He appeared in another video in 2012 saying he was fine, and getting medications, but he asked Mr. Obama to cede to his captors’ demands. “My life is in your hands, Mr. President,” he said. “If you accept the demands, I live. If you don’t accept the demands, then I die.”

The Site Intelligence Group posted another Al Sahab video of Mr. Weinstein last year.

In the video released on Thursday, Mr. Weinstein also directed his plea to Secretary of State John Kerry, emphasizing that he had worked on conflict resolution in parts of Africa and Asia.

I understand how difficult it is to work in these areas, yet I am appealing to you to take interest in my case and to use your skills to help the Obama government to achieve my release.

As a first step I would ask that you take action with respect to their people who are being held as prisoners. Action that would be acceptable to my captors so that they will allow my family to visit me. I think you can well understand how important that is to me. And how much it will do to help me re-establish my good health.

If anyone in the administration, if anyone in the Obama government, can understand my predicament and the need for serious and straightforward negotiation to obtain my freedom it is yourself. Like Mr. Obama, you are also a family man, so I am asking you to please make the time and make the effort to take up my case and negotiate my release and reunite me with my family.

I hope that one day soon I will be able to meet you as a free man and to thank you for your efforts.

Mr. Weinstein appeared gaunt. He was dressed in a tracksuit and a dark cap. He asked the media to pursue his story, and then finished with a message to his family, telling them not to lose hope.

I would like them to know that I love them very much. That I think about each and every one of them every moment of every day of my captivity.

Unless you continue to try to get President Obama and his administration to actively pursue my release, we may never see each other again.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



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Tuesday, December 24, 2013

In South Sudan, Reports of Massacres and Mass Graves

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan posted this video of displaced people in Bentiu on Tuesday.



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Live Video of NASA’s Christmas Eve Spacewalk to Repair International Space Station

After taking steps on Saturday to repair a malfunctioning pump module for the International Space Station, as my colleague, Kenneth Chang reported, two NASA astronauts returned for a spacewalk Tuesday to finish the job.

The Christmas Eve spacewalk by astronauts, Col. Michael S. Hopkins of the Air Force and Richard A. Mastracchio, is expected to allow them to complete the repair to the cooling system. NASA provided a live video and audio feed of the spacewalk on Tuesday and regular updates on Twitter.



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Monday, December 23, 2013

Defiant Remarks From Pussy Riot Activists as They Step From Prison

Twenty-one months after they were detained for barging into a Moscow cathedral to record their “punk prayer,” calling on the Virgin Mary to prevent Vladimir V. Putin’s return to the Russian presidency, two members of the feminist band Pussy Riot were released from prison colonies on Monday under a new amnesty law.

Both activists, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, immediately dismissed the amnesty, issued just three months before the end of their jail terms, as a “cosmetic” publicity stunt tied to the Winter Olympics that Russia is hosting in Sochi in February.

Subtitled video of Ms. Tolokonnikova’s remarks to the television crews waiting for her outside the Siberian prison hospital where she had been held for the past month was posted online by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the American-financed news network.

Video of the Russian activist Nadezhda Tolokonnikova speaking to the news media outside a prison hospital in Siberia after her release on Monday.

Asked about her future plans, Ms. Tolokonnikova told Russia’s TV Rain that she and Ms. Alyokhina had “a plan for a human rights organization to help prisoners in Russia.” According to an English translation of her complete remarks prepared by The Interpreter, a website supported by the dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Institute of Modern Russia, she added:

I don’t consider this time lost for myself. I acquired a unique experience. Therefore, it will be much simpler to be involved in concrete human rights activity than before. I have become more mature and have come to know the state from inside; I saw this little totalitarian machine, what it is like from inside. Russia is really built on the model of the colony. Therefore it is so important to change the colony now, so as to change Russia along with the colony. The colony and the prison are the face of the country.

“We didn’t ask for any pardon,” Ms. Alyokhina told my colleague David Herszenhorn. “I would have sat here until the end of my sentence because I don’t need mercy from Putin.”

Mr. Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon who was suddenly released on Friday into de facto exile in Germany after a decade in prison, said something similar in a news conference on Sunday in Berlin.

Video of the dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky speaking in Berlin on Sunday, subtitled by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Mr. Khodorkovsky, who described the circumstances of his release to the journalist Yevgenia Albats on Saturday, told Russian reporters at the news conference that their attention had been crucial in his case and also “helps very many people who remain unjustly in our Russian prisons preserve their lives, health and hope for freedom.” He urged the journalists not to see his release “as a symbol that there are no political prisoners left in Russia.”

“I would like you to take me as a symbol that the efforts of civil society may lead to the release of people whose release was not expected by anyone,” he said.

TV Rain also captured video of Mr. Khodorkovsky’s emotional reunion with his parents as they arrived in Berlin from Moscow to be with him.

Video recorded by the Russian news channel TV Rain showed the dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s reunion with his parents in Berlin after his release from prison.



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