TALKING to Islamists is the new order of the day in Washington and London. The Obama administration wants a dialogue with Iran, and the British Foreign Office has decided to reopen diplomatic contacts with Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group based here.
But for several years, small groups of Western diplomats have made quiet trips to Beirut for confidential sessions with members of Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamist groups they did not want to be seen talking to. In hotel conference rooms, they would warily shake hands, then spend hours listening and hashing out accusations of terrorism on one side and imperial arrogance on the other.
The organizer of these back-door encounters is Alastair Crooke, a quiet, sandy-haired man of 59 who spent three decades working for MI6, the British secret intelligence service. He now runs an organization here called Conflicts Forum, with an unusual board of advisers that includes former spies, diplomats and peace activists.
Mr. Crooke has spent much of his career talking to Islamists. In the 1980s, as a young undercover agent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, he helped funnel weapons to jihadists fighting the Soviets. Later, he spent years working with Hamas and Fatah as a negotiator for the European Union, and helped broker a number of cease-fires with Israel between 2001 and 2003. He earned a reputation for courage and tenacity, but in person he is disarmingly polite and mild-mannered, a slight-figured man with a beaky, impish smile.
The mission of Conflicts Forum, which he founded in 2004, resembles a kind of blueprint for the Obama administration’s current outreach efforts: to “open a new relationship between the West and Muslim world” through dialogue and better mutual understanding.
Yet Mr. Crooke, who is legendary for his deep network of contacts among Islamist groups across the Middle East, is not sanguine about the prospects for mere dialogue, especially with Iran.
“I think there is a real fear there will be a process of talking past each other,” Mr. Crooke said. “The Iranians will say, ‘we want to talk about justice and respect.’ The U.S. will say, ‘are you willing to give up enrichment or not?’ ”
To get past that impasse with Iran, and with Islamist groups generally, the West will need to change its diplomatic language of threats and rewards, Mr. Crooke said, and show more respect for their adversaries’ point of view.
Mr. Crooke has spent the past few years trying to explain that to suspicious Westerners, in a stream of articles, speeches and conferences. Although not an Arabist by training, he has developed a deep knowledge of modern Islamist movements, and launches easily into analyses of Palestinian politics, or even of medieval Islamic philosophy.
Recently, he has taken his explanatory efforts a bit further. In a new book, “Resistance: the Essence of the Islamist Revolution,” he deliberately avoids the most controversial subjects, like Israel and the status of women in the Islamic world. Instead, he focuses on what he calls the core of the Islamist revolution, which he defines as a metaphysical resistance to the West’s market-based definition of the individual and society. He invokes European social critics like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, endorsing their critiques of Western thinking and arguing that Islamism offers a more holistic model.
NOT surprisingly, the book has received some stinging reviews, and renewed accusations that Mr. Crooke has gone native. Even some of his fellow board members at Conflicts Forum say they are a little baffled — not by his sympathy for Islamists, but by the book’s broad philosophical themes.
Mr. Crooke says the book grew out of his own efforts to find common ground with Islamists, and to look beyond the usual stumbling blocks.
“It seemed to me there was a real need to understand what was happening inside Islamism better, and to valorize what they were saying in ways that could be understood in the West,” he said.
That project seems inseparable from his broader argument about dialogue. To illustrate it, Mr. Crooke describes an episode from the conflict in Northern Ireland in which the British put two opposing factions into a room for talks, “naïvely imagining that talking would help.” It did the opposite, reinforcing their anger. So the negotiators tried another approach: they asked both sides to write down their history and vision for the future on a piece of paper. After three more years of talks, the factions finally reached the point at which they acknowledged the legitimacy of the other side’s piece of paper.
“George Mitchell once said to me, ‘you don’t even have a political process until you accept that the other side has a legitimate point of view,’ ” Mr. Crooke said, referring to Mr. Mitchell’s landmark 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland and relating it to the many obstacles between the United States and Iran.
“Does America have the will and the patience for that?” he said. “I’m not sure we’re there yet.”
Patience, by all accounts, is something Mr. Crooke possesses. Mark Perry, the co-director of Conflicts Forum, describes an episode in Gaza in 2002 when the two men tried to establish a cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian factions. After weeks of negotiations, Israel dropped a bomb on the Hamas leader whose signature they needed, shattering their efforts.
“We were exhausted,” Mr. Perry recalled. “The next day in the hotel room, I looked at Alastair and said ‘what do we do now?’ He just said, ‘We try again.’ ”
It is not entirely clear where that steadfastness comes from. He is a little evasive about his own life and career, perhaps by training. Born in Ireland, he grew up mostly in Rhodesia, today Zimbabwe, and was educated at a Swiss boarding school and at St. Andrew’s in Scotland, obtaining a degree in economics. Before joining MI6, he worked in finance in London.
“It’s a dangerous area to work in,” he said of his years as a banker, without apparent irony, “because it’s so easy to get caught up in enrichment.”
He is barred by law from discussing his service with MI6, which included years of diplomatic work on the Israel-Palestine issue. As a negotiator in the Palestinian territories, he is said to have traveled alone, by taxi, eschewing the armed security convoys of many Western diplomats. Colleagues who worked with him say Yasir Arafat and the leaders of Hamas trusted Mr. Crooke completely, as did some high-level Israeli officials.
SOME Israelis, however, apparently complained that he was too close to Hamas. In late 2003, he was recalled to London — he had reached retirement age — and quietly ushered out of government service, with a commendation. He says he has no regrets, but some of his colleagues in Conflicts Forum say he retains some bitterness about the way he was treated.
In 2005, he moved to Beirut, where he lives with his partner, Aisling Byrne, and their 1-year-old child, Amistis, in an elegant, old French mandate-era apartment, working out of a home office.
Mr. Crooke smiles at the suggestion that Conflicts Forum may offer him a back-door route back to diplomacy, but does not entirely deny it. “We’re not implementers," he said. “What we’re trying to do is catalyze and create ideas. The second part is, how do you multiply something done by a small number of people in one room into something larger?”
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Communists’ Land Plan Could Backfire in India
Promising land to the landless, the Communists won Abdul Bakir Shah’s heart decades ago. Under an ambitious land reform drive, Mr. Shah, a sharecropper all his life, got title to nearly one fertile acre. His village and others like it have voted Communist since, keeping the party in power for an uninterrupted 32 years here in West Bengal State.
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Villagers who once supported the Communists have become disillusioned. They showed a ration card to explain the shift.
But things went topsy-turvy two years ago. As Bengal belatedly joined India’s slow but inexorable march to capitalism, the Communist-run state government sought to scoop up this entire cluster of mud-and-thatch hamlets to make way for the construction of a multinational chemical industrial complex. The Communists, under whose leadership factory after factory had been shuttered across this state, said it was time to bring private industry and jobs back to Bengal.
“Reform or perish,” became their rallying cry.
That is when the Communists lost Mr. Shah’s trust.
“We don’t have any faith in them anymore,” he said.
Now, in the parliamentary elections under way, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) faces one of the toughest political fights of its long history. It is a party divided between the pull of industrial capitalism — not unlike in China — and its tradition of championing the rural poor. That struggle reflects much of the conflict that has bedeviled India in recent years, and bitter discord over land acquisition has broken out in many parts of the country.
How the Communists perform here in their stronghold of West Bengal will, to a large extent, determine how much influence they have over the next government of India, and by extension, over the nation’s economic and foreign policy.
Even though the Communists here are unabashedly capitalist, at the level of the central government they hew to more traditional ideology, blocking a slew of economic reforms and raising a ruckus over India’s deepening friendship with the United States.
In the past five years, controlling one in 10 seats in India’s 543-member Parliament, they have been particularly influential. This time, they may not be, having been made vulnerable by the turn away from their old core principles. The fight for the hearts of men like Mr. Shah is at the heart of their challenge.
“Our basic constituency is the rural poor,” insisted Mohammad Salim, a veteran member of Parliament in the party. “Their thought processes were hijacked by a powerful coterie, by big noise.”
Much of that “big noise” has come, on the one side, from the feisty political opposition leader, Mamata Banerjee, who has usurped the Communist Party rhetoric and cast herself as the savior of the rural poor.
On the other side, Maoist guerrillas have begun gaining ground, particularly among indigenous people in remote, destitute corners of the state. The other day, wielding bows and arrows, hundreds of them blocked traffic in the center of the state capital, Calcutta.
As Bengal’s voters went to the polls on Thursday, suspected Maoists planted bombs, ambushed a car, killing three election workers and imposed a fairly successful boycott call in pockets of the state.
Acquiring the land of folks who know no other life is difficult any way. But here in Bengal, the fury is even greater than elsewhere. The land is fertile and exceptionally crowded — with an average of 904 people in each square kilometer — and, as Mr. Salim acknowledged, all the more coveted by those who were landless for so long.
Ms. Banerjee has seized on that anxiety, and has succeeded in blocking several industrial projects that the Communists sought.
A factory to build the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano, was forced to move out of the state. Plans for a nuclear power plant have been scrapped. The same has happened to the would-be chemical plant, which the state proposed relocating near the Sunderbans delta; that, too, has faced protests. A steel plant farther east is a target of Maoist attacks.
Ms. Banerjee, for her part, once aligned with the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party, has turned herself into a friend of the have-nots. “You used to say, ‘Long live Karl Marx,’ ” she said of the Communists while on the campaign stump the other day. “Now you say, ‘Long live Tata, Karl Marx, you go.’ ”
She promises reopening factories shuttered under the Communists. She pledges more money for those who lose land. She accuses the Communists of intimidating voters. Ms. Banerjee is often seen on television scuffling with the police at street protests.
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
A rally in a West Bengal village for Mamata Banerjee, who has usurped the Communists and cast herself as the savior of the poor.
The New York Times
In West Bengal, Communism has lost luster with rural poor.
“Today they will take your vote, tomorrow they will take your land, the third day they will ask for your daughter, your son,” she warned darkly. “This fight is for your survival.”
Her critics call her an opportunist. A Communist Party campaign billboard, in the center of Calcutta, shows a young man with a briefcase and his head hung low, and a slogan that blames Ms. Banerjee for driving jobs out of the state.
Another, a cartoon, shows a portly Ms. Banerjee, holding a begging bowl and placards that read: “No Industry,” “No Progress,” “No Roads.”
Each party accuses the other’s cadres of murder and mayhem. Their campaign posters contain graphic images of maimed, charred bodies.
Part of the problem is that Bengal, after more than 30 years of leftist leadership, remains among the country’s most destitute and dysfunctional states. It has one of the highest school drop-out rates. Nearly half the poor do not have access to public food subsidies, as they are supposed to. Land reform slowed to a crawl in the last decade.
In Nandigram, discontent had piled up against the government. It exploded over its bid for the land. In the spring of 2007, at the height of the troubles, at least 14 people died in clashes between Communist Party supporters and opponents.
A year later, Ms. Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress Party swept the local village council elections for the first time in more than three decades. So tense does it remain that in one hamlet, a conversation with visiting journalists nearly brought supporters of the two rival parties to blows.
The people of Mr. Shah’s hamlet were all once Communists. Now, the few Communist holdouts cluster together on one side of the main road. They say they are forbidden from the tea shop on the main road. They are afraid to vote. They seethe at Ms. Banerjee for having driven a potential factory from their area.
“She just wants the poor to stay poor,” said Zahidul Mullick, who guessed his age to be around 18. He said he dropped out of school after the fifth grade and worked as a tailor, as most of the men in the hamlet do.
“Look, we are not educated,” said Halima Begum, 22, balancing a baby on her hips. “We couldn’t work in the factory. But we could clean the houses of the people who come to work there.”
Across the street, Mr. Shah said he was immediately suspicious of the proposed chemical complex. He was terrified of being displaced. For the first time in more than 30 years, he and his neighbors turned against the Communists.
“They thought the party was so strong we would do whatever they say,” said one of his neighbors, Atibul Shah, 22.
His family, he said, had voted Communist for three generations. This time, he had ridden the train for two days from Mumbai, where he works in a garment factory, for the chance to vote the Communists out.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Villagers who once supported the Communists have become disillusioned. They showed a ration card to explain the shift.
But things went topsy-turvy two years ago. As Bengal belatedly joined India’s slow but inexorable march to capitalism, the Communist-run state government sought to scoop up this entire cluster of mud-and-thatch hamlets to make way for the construction of a multinational chemical industrial complex. The Communists, under whose leadership factory after factory had been shuttered across this state, said it was time to bring private industry and jobs back to Bengal.
“Reform or perish,” became their rallying cry.
That is when the Communists lost Mr. Shah’s trust.
“We don’t have any faith in them anymore,” he said.
Now, in the parliamentary elections under way, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) faces one of the toughest political fights of its long history. It is a party divided between the pull of industrial capitalism — not unlike in China — and its tradition of championing the rural poor. That struggle reflects much of the conflict that has bedeviled India in recent years, and bitter discord over land acquisition has broken out in many parts of the country.
How the Communists perform here in their stronghold of West Bengal will, to a large extent, determine how much influence they have over the next government of India, and by extension, over the nation’s economic and foreign policy.
Even though the Communists here are unabashedly capitalist, at the level of the central government they hew to more traditional ideology, blocking a slew of economic reforms and raising a ruckus over India’s deepening friendship with the United States.
In the past five years, controlling one in 10 seats in India’s 543-member Parliament, they have been particularly influential. This time, they may not be, having been made vulnerable by the turn away from their old core principles. The fight for the hearts of men like Mr. Shah is at the heart of their challenge.
“Our basic constituency is the rural poor,” insisted Mohammad Salim, a veteran member of Parliament in the party. “Their thought processes were hijacked by a powerful coterie, by big noise.”
Much of that “big noise” has come, on the one side, from the feisty political opposition leader, Mamata Banerjee, who has usurped the Communist Party rhetoric and cast herself as the savior of the rural poor.
On the other side, Maoist guerrillas have begun gaining ground, particularly among indigenous people in remote, destitute corners of the state. The other day, wielding bows and arrows, hundreds of them blocked traffic in the center of the state capital, Calcutta.
As Bengal’s voters went to the polls on Thursday, suspected Maoists planted bombs, ambushed a car, killing three election workers and imposed a fairly successful boycott call in pockets of the state.
Acquiring the land of folks who know no other life is difficult any way. But here in Bengal, the fury is even greater than elsewhere. The land is fertile and exceptionally crowded — with an average of 904 people in each square kilometer — and, as Mr. Salim acknowledged, all the more coveted by those who were landless for so long.
Ms. Banerjee has seized on that anxiety, and has succeeded in blocking several industrial projects that the Communists sought.
A factory to build the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano, was forced to move out of the state. Plans for a nuclear power plant have been scrapped. The same has happened to the would-be chemical plant, which the state proposed relocating near the Sunderbans delta; that, too, has faced protests. A steel plant farther east is a target of Maoist attacks.
Ms. Banerjee, for her part, once aligned with the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party, has turned herself into a friend of the have-nots. “You used to say, ‘Long live Karl Marx,’ ” she said of the Communists while on the campaign stump the other day. “Now you say, ‘Long live Tata, Karl Marx, you go.’ ”
She promises reopening factories shuttered under the Communists. She pledges more money for those who lose land. She accuses the Communists of intimidating voters. Ms. Banerjee is often seen on television scuffling with the police at street protests.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
A rally in a West Bengal village for Mamata Banerjee, who has usurped the Communists and cast herself as the savior of the poor.
The New York Times
In West Bengal, Communism has lost luster with rural poor.
“Today they will take your vote, tomorrow they will take your land, the third day they will ask for your daughter, your son,” she warned darkly. “This fight is for your survival.”
Her critics call her an opportunist. A Communist Party campaign billboard, in the center of Calcutta, shows a young man with a briefcase and his head hung low, and a slogan that blames Ms. Banerjee for driving jobs out of the state.
Another, a cartoon, shows a portly Ms. Banerjee, holding a begging bowl and placards that read: “No Industry,” “No Progress,” “No Roads.”
Each party accuses the other’s cadres of murder and mayhem. Their campaign posters contain graphic images of maimed, charred bodies.
Part of the problem is that Bengal, after more than 30 years of leftist leadership, remains among the country’s most destitute and dysfunctional states. It has one of the highest school drop-out rates. Nearly half the poor do not have access to public food subsidies, as they are supposed to. Land reform slowed to a crawl in the last decade.
In Nandigram, discontent had piled up against the government. It exploded over its bid for the land. In the spring of 2007, at the height of the troubles, at least 14 people died in clashes between Communist Party supporters and opponents.
A year later, Ms. Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress Party swept the local village council elections for the first time in more than three decades. So tense does it remain that in one hamlet, a conversation with visiting journalists nearly brought supporters of the two rival parties to blows.
The people of Mr. Shah’s hamlet were all once Communists. Now, the few Communist holdouts cluster together on one side of the main road. They say they are forbidden from the tea shop on the main road. They are afraid to vote. They seethe at Ms. Banerjee for having driven a potential factory from their area.
“She just wants the poor to stay poor,” said Zahidul Mullick, who guessed his age to be around 18. He said he dropped out of school after the fifth grade and worked as a tailor, as most of the men in the hamlet do.
“Look, we are not educated,” said Halima Begum, 22, balancing a baby on her hips. “We couldn’t work in the factory. But we could clean the houses of the people who come to work there.”
Across the street, Mr. Shah said he was immediately suspicious of the proposed chemical complex. He was terrified of being displaced. For the first time in more than 30 years, he and his neighbors turned against the Communists.
“They thought the party was so strong we would do whatever they say,” said one of his neighbors, Atibul Shah, 22.
His family, he said, had voted Communist for three generations. This time, he had ridden the train for two days from Mumbai, where he works in a garment factory, for the chance to vote the Communists out.
Voices Reflect Rising Sense of Racial Optimism
Although the civil rights movement gave Samuel Sallis equality under the law a long time ago, he was left wanting most of his life, he says, for the subtle courtesies and respect he thought would come with it. Being a working-class black man downtown here meant being mostly ignored, living a life invisible and unacknowledged in a larger white world.
"You literally saw people of all kinds of backgrounds finding common ground," said Alan Ingram, a Web site designer in Milwaukee, with Nicole Nelson, a law student.
Then Mr. Sallis, 69, noticed a change.
“I’ve been working downtown for 30 years, so I’ve got a good feeling for it,” Mr. Sallis said. “Since President Obama started campaigning, if I go almost anywhere, it’s: ‘Hi! Hello, how are you, sir?’ I’m talking about strangers. Calling me ‘sir.’ ”
He added: “It makes you feel different, like, hey — maybe we are all equals. I’m no different than before. It’s just that other people seem to be realizing these things all around me.”
In dozens of interviews in seven states over the last several days, black men and women like Mr. Sallis said they were feeling more optimistic about race relations than even a year ago, when Mr. Obama emerged as a serious presidential contender after a string of primary and caucus victories. Many whites said they were feeling better, too, expressing an invigorated sense of openness toward people of other races.
Yet no one claims that racial prejudice has disappeared.
In a recent report to law enforcement agencies, the Homeland Security Department warned that right-wing extremists could use Mr. Obama’s election as a recruiting tool. And the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, reported finding 926 active groups in the United States in 2008, up 50 percent from 2000.
Still, Mr. Sallis said, “it feels like there’s a possibility now that wasn’t there before.”
In Tampa, Fla., Milton Patrick, 33, an auditor who is black, went to a baseball game this spring for the first time at the invitation of his white colleagues. In Karen Jackson’s multiracial Los Angeles office, where race, politics and religion were once taboo subjects, Ms. Jackson, a black woman, said people were engaging her in friendly and meaningful discussions. And in Brooklyn, Shel Harris, a black man, said he dropped his “skeptical, more on guard” attitude toward whites after working alongside so many on the Obama campaign.
“Whenever they said something, I was always looking out for their ulterior motives,” said Mr. Harris, 62, a retired phone company worker. “Now I find that I take white people’s statements more on face value.”
The interviews reflect findings in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, in which two-thirds of Americans said race relations were generally good, with the percentage of blacks who said so doubling since July.
In just over 100 days, Mr. Obama’s presidency seems to have done much to alter the greater American public’s perception of race relations.
And perhaps, in some cases, even the reality.
“I feel a lot more comfortable starting up a conversation with people of other races on the streets now than I did before,” said Mitch Hansch, 29, a white waiter in New York City. “Since Obama was elected, racial tensions seem a little lower. I think it’s fantastic.”
Northeast of Los Angeles, M. J. J. Schmidt, 62, a real estate executive who is white, said he also felt something different.
“I go to a gym where there are a number of black people,” Mr. Schmidt said. “We don’t often communicate. They tend to have their own circle of friends. But now, there’s been more communication. Now you have an opener. After the election, I started saying hello. I said, ‘Hey, what do you think of Obama, about our new president?’ ”
The power of positive images of the Obama family has no doubt played a role for both races.
“From my vantage point, what contributes to African-American numbers is just the outright awesome pride we feel when we see President Obama stand up with world leaders,” said Clifford Whitby, 46, a black real estate developer in Macon, Ga., referring to the poll. “That does a great deal for the psyche of African-American people. If those numbers weren’t as high as they are, I would think there was something wrong with the polls.”
Some whites pointed to a slightly different dynamic
"You literally saw people of all kinds of backgrounds finding common ground," said Alan Ingram, a Web site designer in Milwaukee, with Nicole Nelson, a law student.
Then Mr. Sallis, 69, noticed a change.
“I’ve been working downtown for 30 years, so I’ve got a good feeling for it,” Mr. Sallis said. “Since President Obama started campaigning, if I go almost anywhere, it’s: ‘Hi! Hello, how are you, sir?’ I’m talking about strangers. Calling me ‘sir.’ ”
He added: “It makes you feel different, like, hey — maybe we are all equals. I’m no different than before. It’s just that other people seem to be realizing these things all around me.”
In dozens of interviews in seven states over the last several days, black men and women like Mr. Sallis said they were feeling more optimistic about race relations than even a year ago, when Mr. Obama emerged as a serious presidential contender after a string of primary and caucus victories. Many whites said they were feeling better, too, expressing an invigorated sense of openness toward people of other races.
Yet no one claims that racial prejudice has disappeared.
In a recent report to law enforcement agencies, the Homeland Security Department warned that right-wing extremists could use Mr. Obama’s election as a recruiting tool. And the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, reported finding 926 active groups in the United States in 2008, up 50 percent from 2000.
Still, Mr. Sallis said, “it feels like there’s a possibility now that wasn’t there before.”
In Tampa, Fla., Milton Patrick, 33, an auditor who is black, went to a baseball game this spring for the first time at the invitation of his white colleagues. In Karen Jackson’s multiracial Los Angeles office, where race, politics and religion were once taboo subjects, Ms. Jackson, a black woman, said people were engaging her in friendly and meaningful discussions. And in Brooklyn, Shel Harris, a black man, said he dropped his “skeptical, more on guard” attitude toward whites after working alongside so many on the Obama campaign.
“Whenever they said something, I was always looking out for their ulterior motives,” said Mr. Harris, 62, a retired phone company worker. “Now I find that I take white people’s statements more on face value.”
The interviews reflect findings in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, in which two-thirds of Americans said race relations were generally good, with the percentage of blacks who said so doubling since July.
In just over 100 days, Mr. Obama’s presidency seems to have done much to alter the greater American public’s perception of race relations.
And perhaps, in some cases, even the reality.
“I feel a lot more comfortable starting up a conversation with people of other races on the streets now than I did before,” said Mitch Hansch, 29, a white waiter in New York City. “Since Obama was elected, racial tensions seem a little lower. I think it’s fantastic.”
Northeast of Los Angeles, M. J. J. Schmidt, 62, a real estate executive who is white, said he also felt something different.
“I go to a gym where there are a number of black people,” Mr. Schmidt said. “We don’t often communicate. They tend to have their own circle of friends. But now, there’s been more communication. Now you have an opener. After the election, I started saying hello. I said, ‘Hey, what do you think of Obama, about our new president?’ ”
The power of positive images of the Obama family has no doubt played a role for both races.
“From my vantage point, what contributes to African-American numbers is just the outright awesome pride we feel when we see President Obama stand up with world leaders,” said Clifford Whitby, 46, a black real estate developer in Macon, Ga., referring to the poll. “That does a great deal for the psyche of African-American people. If those numbers weren’t as high as they are, I would think there was something wrong with the polls.”
Some whites pointed to a slightly different dynamic
Police to destroy DNA profiles of 800,000 innocent peopl
DNA profiles of almost a million innocent people are to be destroyed as part of a major overhaul of the police national database. They include people who have been arrested and never charged, and those taken to court but found not guilty.
Civil rights groups gave a cautious welcome to the proposals - which will be announced by the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, this week - but said more needed to be done.
An estimated 800,000 of the 5.1m DNA profiles on the database belong to people in England and Wales who have no criminal conviction.
A Home Office consultation paper will also outline plans to delete all physical DNA samples on the database, including mouth swabs, hair and blood. The move follows widespread concerns that the samples could be shared with third parties.
The campaign group Genewatch, which opposes the DNA database, has warned that health and drug companies want access to the samples to create profiles to predict who is genetically susceptible to different illnesses and diseases. There have also been fears the samples could one day be used for racial profiling or even to predict criminal behaviour.
The proposal to scale back the database and destroy the samples comes after a landmark judgment by the European court of human rights last December that ruled the government was wrong to hold the DNA profiles - the genetic codes that identify individuals - of innocent people indefinitely.
Yesterday Smith told the Observer that there were genuine concerns over the size and scope of the DNA database. "It is crucial that we do everything we can to keep the public safe from crime and bring offenders to justice," she said.
"The DNA database plays a vital role in helping us do that. However, there has to be a balance between the need to protect the public and respecting their rights. Based on risks versus benefits, our view is that we can now destroy all samples."
Legal experts said the government had little choice but to comply with the human rights court ruling.
"This is not a privacy-friendly Home Office," said Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty. "Any developments in this area are because the Home Office has been dragged here by the European court of human rights."
But the Home Office insists that in deciding to destroy all samples on the database it has gone much further than it was compelled to by the court's ruling.
Last night privacy campaigners said the consultation must answer the crucial question of how long the police would be allowed to retain the DNA data of innocent people before being forced to delete them. There were also claims the proposals did not go far enough.
"The DNA database is already too big," said Simon Davies, director of the campaign group Privacy International. "We would argue that the samples of anyone convicted of even minor offences should be removed."
Despite mounting outrage over the use of the DNA database, the government insists that DNA can play an essential role in fighting crime. The Home Office says that between April 1998 and September 2008 there were more than 390,000 crimes with DNA matches.
DNA has played an essential part in solving thousands of cases, including finding Mark Dixie guilty of the murder of Sally Ann Bowman, the 18-year-old model murdered close to her home in Croydon, south London, in 2005, and the conviction of Steve Wright for the murder of five prostitutes in Ipswich.
It has also played a crucial role in proving innocence and overturning miscarriages of justice. Earlier this year DNA was a vital factor in proving the innocence of Sean Hodgson, who spent nearly 30 years in prison for the death of a young woman in 1979.
Civil rights groups gave a cautious welcome to the proposals - which will be announced by the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, this week - but said more needed to be done.
An estimated 800,000 of the 5.1m DNA profiles on the database belong to people in England and Wales who have no criminal conviction.
A Home Office consultation paper will also outline plans to delete all physical DNA samples on the database, including mouth swabs, hair and blood. The move follows widespread concerns that the samples could be shared with third parties.
The campaign group Genewatch, which opposes the DNA database, has warned that health and drug companies want access to the samples to create profiles to predict who is genetically susceptible to different illnesses and diseases. There have also been fears the samples could one day be used for racial profiling or even to predict criminal behaviour.
The proposal to scale back the database and destroy the samples comes after a landmark judgment by the European court of human rights last December that ruled the government was wrong to hold the DNA profiles - the genetic codes that identify individuals - of innocent people indefinitely.
Yesterday Smith told the Observer that there were genuine concerns over the size and scope of the DNA database. "It is crucial that we do everything we can to keep the public safe from crime and bring offenders to justice," she said.
"The DNA database plays a vital role in helping us do that. However, there has to be a balance between the need to protect the public and respecting their rights. Based on risks versus benefits, our view is that we can now destroy all samples."
Legal experts said the government had little choice but to comply with the human rights court ruling.
"This is not a privacy-friendly Home Office," said Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty. "Any developments in this area are because the Home Office has been dragged here by the European court of human rights."
But the Home Office insists that in deciding to destroy all samples on the database it has gone much further than it was compelled to by the court's ruling.
Last night privacy campaigners said the consultation must answer the crucial question of how long the police would be allowed to retain the DNA data of innocent people before being forced to delete them. There were also claims the proposals did not go far enough.
"The DNA database is already too big," said Simon Davies, director of the campaign group Privacy International. "We would argue that the samples of anyone convicted of even minor offences should be removed."
Despite mounting outrage over the use of the DNA database, the government insists that DNA can play an essential role in fighting crime. The Home Office says that between April 1998 and September 2008 there were more than 390,000 crimes with DNA matches.
DNA has played an essential part in solving thousands of cases, including finding Mark Dixie guilty of the murder of Sally Ann Bowman, the 18-year-old model murdered close to her home in Croydon, south London, in 2005, and the conviction of Steve Wright for the murder of five prostitutes in Ipswich.
It has also played a crucial role in proving innocence and overturning miscarriages of justice. Earlier this year DNA was a vital factor in proving the innocence of Sean Hodgson, who spent nearly 30 years in prison for the death of a young woman in 1979.
Hazel Blears savages Gordon Brown over 'lamentable' failures
The first cracks in Gordon Brown's cabinet appear today as a senior minister attacks his government's "lamentable" failure to communicate and warns of "dire" consequences if it continues to blunder on policy and misread the mood of the British people.
After a disastrous week in which the prime minister suffered his first Commons defeat and was forced into a humiliating retreat over MPs' expenses, the communities secretary, Hazel Blears, openly criticises the government's handling of the Gurkhas issue and says that voters no longer believe many of its big policy announcements.
In a clear reference to the prime minister, who has been ridiculed for his appearance on YouTube, the strongly Blairite cabinet minister says such use of "new media" by politicians is far less effective than old-fashioned campaigning. "YouTube if you want to," she says in an article in today's Observer. "But it is no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre."
However, it is her savage criticism of the government's failure to connect with the instincts of the British people that is most devastating. On the issue of the Gurkhas' rights to settle in this country, she says the government put itself "on the wrong side of the British sense of fair play, and no party can stay there for long without dire consequences".
While she says Brown will lead the party into the next election and that Labour has the "right policies", she argues that the government has to appear more "human". "Labour ministers have a collective responsibility for the government's lamentable failure to get our message across," she says.
"All too often we announce new strategies, five-year plans, or launch new documents, often with colossal price tags attached, which are received by the public with incredulity at best and at worst hostility. Whatever the problems of the recession, the answer is not more government documents or big speeches."
Most ministers, and a majority of Labour MPs, are playing down suggestions that Brown could face a leadership challenge, or be asked by a cabinet delegation to step down, if Labour suffers a mauling in local and European elections on 4 June. Blears's remarks nonetheless reflect growing disquiet at all levels of the party.
Up to now, cabinet ministers have remained studiously loyal to Brown, despite a terrible month that saw the sacking of his political adviser Damian McBride for trying to smear leading Tories, widespread criticism of the budget and chaos over Gurkhas' rights and MPs' expenses.
Now the Blears intervention suggests that discipline is breaking down. A senior party figure said Blears was "making her move" and believed she could lead the party. "She thinks she is the one. She is part of a very active rightwing faction within the party which has a lot support among women MPs and in the student wing. She knows precisely what she is doing. You have to say she is brave."
The former education secretary, Ruth Kelly, writing for the Observer's website, joins Blears in demanding a greater focus on domestic reform, in a further sign of anxiety and unrest among Blairites.
Kelly stood down from the cabinet last year amid rumours that was she was unhappy with Brown's leadership, but has done nothing to criticise the prime minister since. Now she says: "Somehow in the immediacy of the economic crisis, New Labour's strong message on public service reform, on devolution and on climate change has got lost in the fog."
Last night Blears, whose comments will infuriate No 10, hastily put out a statement that she had not intended them as a criticism of Brown.
"I want to make it clear that the Prime Minster enjoys my 100% support. Any suggestion that I intended what I wrote as criticism of him or his leadership is completely wrong," she said.
With Brown's problems piling up, pressure is also growing on ministers to drop controversial plans to part-privatise Royal Mail, which are opposed by more than 120 Labour MPs. The legislation is due to return the Commons days after the European and council polls.
Government sources denied that ministers were about to pull the plug on the reforms, which they insisted were essential. But Labour MP John Grogan, a leading member of the leftwing Compass Group, said: "It would be a kamikaze move for Brown to reintroduce it to the Commons in June."
After a disastrous week in which the prime minister suffered his first Commons defeat and was forced into a humiliating retreat over MPs' expenses, the communities secretary, Hazel Blears, openly criticises the government's handling of the Gurkhas issue and says that voters no longer believe many of its big policy announcements.
In a clear reference to the prime minister, who has been ridiculed for his appearance on YouTube, the strongly Blairite cabinet minister says such use of "new media" by politicians is far less effective than old-fashioned campaigning. "YouTube if you want to," she says in an article in today's Observer. "But it is no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre."
However, it is her savage criticism of the government's failure to connect with the instincts of the British people that is most devastating. On the issue of the Gurkhas' rights to settle in this country, she says the government put itself "on the wrong side of the British sense of fair play, and no party can stay there for long without dire consequences".
While she says Brown will lead the party into the next election and that Labour has the "right policies", she argues that the government has to appear more "human". "Labour ministers have a collective responsibility for the government's lamentable failure to get our message across," she says.
"All too often we announce new strategies, five-year plans, or launch new documents, often with colossal price tags attached, which are received by the public with incredulity at best and at worst hostility. Whatever the problems of the recession, the answer is not more government documents or big speeches."
Most ministers, and a majority of Labour MPs, are playing down suggestions that Brown could face a leadership challenge, or be asked by a cabinet delegation to step down, if Labour suffers a mauling in local and European elections on 4 June. Blears's remarks nonetheless reflect growing disquiet at all levels of the party.
Up to now, cabinet ministers have remained studiously loyal to Brown, despite a terrible month that saw the sacking of his political adviser Damian McBride for trying to smear leading Tories, widespread criticism of the budget and chaos over Gurkhas' rights and MPs' expenses.
Now the Blears intervention suggests that discipline is breaking down. A senior party figure said Blears was "making her move" and believed she could lead the party. "She thinks she is the one. She is part of a very active rightwing faction within the party which has a lot support among women MPs and in the student wing. She knows precisely what she is doing. You have to say she is brave."
The former education secretary, Ruth Kelly, writing for the Observer's website, joins Blears in demanding a greater focus on domestic reform, in a further sign of anxiety and unrest among Blairites.
Kelly stood down from the cabinet last year amid rumours that was she was unhappy with Brown's leadership, but has done nothing to criticise the prime minister since. Now she says: "Somehow in the immediacy of the economic crisis, New Labour's strong message on public service reform, on devolution and on climate change has got lost in the fog."
Last night Blears, whose comments will infuriate No 10, hastily put out a statement that she had not intended them as a criticism of Brown.
"I want to make it clear that the Prime Minster enjoys my 100% support. Any suggestion that I intended what I wrote as criticism of him or his leadership is completely wrong," she said.
With Brown's problems piling up, pressure is also growing on ministers to drop controversial plans to part-privatise Royal Mail, which are opposed by more than 120 Labour MPs. The legislation is due to return the Commons days after the European and council polls.
Government sources denied that ministers were about to pull the plug on the reforms, which they insisted were essential. But Labour MP John Grogan, a leading member of the leftwing Compass Group, said: "It would be a kamikaze move for Brown to reintroduce it to the Commons in June."
Hospital 'hit by Sri Lankan army'
The Sri Lankan army has killed 91 people at a makeshift hospital inside a civilian safe zone in the last two days, two doctors have told the BBC.
The doctors said bombardments from the army had killed 64 people on Saturday, including patients, their relatives and bystanders in Mullivaikal.
About 87 people were injured. Another 27 people reportedly died on Friday.
The army has denied bombing the hospital, saying that Tamil Tiger rebels carried out suicide attacks.
A doctor in Mullivaikal has sent images he says show shelling at the hospital
A spokesman for the Sri Lankan army said that although soldiers had heard explosions in the area, they had not fired any shells.
The army had not used heavy weapons for some days, he said, since the government announced on Monday that it was halting its use of heavy weapons in the conflict zone.
The army spokesman said Tamil Tiger rebels had launched eight suicide attacks in the space of two days.
A doctor working within the zone has e-mailed the BBC a number of photographs which, he says, show the aftermath of recent shelling at the hospital in Mullivaikal.
One image appears to show a father and son killed as they slept.
The hospital lies within a government-designated safe zone set up to protect civilians.
In contrast, the defence ministry has put on its website video clips which, it says, show the rebels moving an artillery piece through the zone they control, our correspondent says.
Journalists are not allowed near the conflict zone, so the conflicting accounts cannot be independently verified.
Trapped civilians
The images sent by a doctor appear to show bodies and damage to structures
The reports centre on a tiny strip of land on the north-east coast, where Tamil Tiger rebels are still holding out against government forces.
The Sri Lankan military has restricted the rebels to a 12 sq km (5 sq miles) area and believes it is close to defeating them.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped in the area, and the EU and the UN have urged Sri Lanka to observe a pause in its campaign to let them out.
The government says a halt would serve no purpose. Diplomatic efforts to bring more help for the civilians in the war zone have so far made little progress.
The Tamil Tigers have fought for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority since 1983.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the war, but that figure could now be far higher
The doctors said bombardments from the army had killed 64 people on Saturday, including patients, their relatives and bystanders in Mullivaikal.
About 87 people were injured. Another 27 people reportedly died on Friday.
The army has denied bombing the hospital, saying that Tamil Tiger rebels carried out suicide attacks.
A doctor in Mullivaikal has sent images he says show shelling at the hospital
A spokesman for the Sri Lankan army said that although soldiers had heard explosions in the area, they had not fired any shells.
The army had not used heavy weapons for some days, he said, since the government announced on Monday that it was halting its use of heavy weapons in the conflict zone.
The army spokesman said Tamil Tiger rebels had launched eight suicide attacks in the space of two days.
A doctor working within the zone has e-mailed the BBC a number of photographs which, he says, show the aftermath of recent shelling at the hospital in Mullivaikal.
One image appears to show a father and son killed as they slept.
The hospital lies within a government-designated safe zone set up to protect civilians.
In contrast, the defence ministry has put on its website video clips which, it says, show the rebels moving an artillery piece through the zone they control, our correspondent says.
Journalists are not allowed near the conflict zone, so the conflicting accounts cannot be independently verified.
Trapped civilians
The images sent by a doctor appear to show bodies and damage to structures
The reports centre on a tiny strip of land on the north-east coast, where Tamil Tiger rebels are still holding out against government forces.
The Sri Lankan military has restricted the rebels to a 12 sq km (5 sq miles) area and believes it is close to defeating them.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped in the area, and the EU and the UN have urged Sri Lanka to observe a pause in its campaign to let them out.
The government says a halt would serve no purpose. Diplomatic efforts to bring more help for the civilians in the war zone have so far made little progress.
The Tamil Tigers have fought for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority since 1983.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the war, but that figure could now be far higher
Swine flu spread 'not sustained'
There is no evidence of the swine flu virus spreading in a sustained way outside North America, a top World Health Organization official says.
Dr Michael Ryan, WHO Director of Global Alert and Response, praised European nations' handling of cases and said events did not seem out of control.
Mexico has cut its suspected death toll by 75 to 101, indicating the outbreak may not be as bad as initially feared.
The country has ordered a five-day shutdown in a bid to contain the virus.
Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told the BBC that, based on samples tested, the mortality rate was comparable with that of seasonal flu.
Dr Ryan, meanwhile, said that there was "no evidence of sustained community spread outside of North America".
CONFIRMED CASES
Mexico: 101 suspected deaths - 16 confirmed
US: One death, 160 confirmed cases
New Zealand: 4 confirmed, 12 probable cases
Canada: 35 confirmed cases
UK, Spain: 15 confirmed cases
Germany: 4 confirmed cases
France, Israel, Costa Rica: 2 confirmed cases
Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, South Korea, Italy, Irish Republic: 1 confirmed case
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Countries with confirmed cases of secondary transmission:
Mexico
US
Canada
Spain
Germany
UK
Mapping the outbreak
Price hikes in Mexico amid flu panic
Did Mexico over-react to flu?
"I think it would be, at this stage, unwise to suggest that, in any way, those events are out of control or spreading in an uncontrolled fashion," he said. "I think the next few days will tell as this develops."
"At the present time I would still propose that a pandemic is imminent because we see the disease spread," Dr Ryan added.
The WHO is sending 2.4m courses of antiviral treatment to 72 nations around the world, Dr Ryan said, among them many developing countries.
But in cases of the virus outside Mexico, the effects do not appear to be severe.
Italy and the Irish Republic reported their first cases on Saturday, bringing the number of countries affected to 18.
Canada has announced that a herd of pigs has tested positive for swine flu.
A senior agriculture official told a news conference that the pigs may have been infected by a farm worker who fell ill after returning from Mexico last month.
In Egypt, authorities have begun in earnest the slaughter of more than 300,000 pigs, in what was originally described as a precaution against swine flu.
Officials now say the move is a general health measure aimed at restoring order to Egypt's pig-rearing industry.
International experts say there is no scientific rationale for Egypt's pig cull
Experts say the virus cannot be caught from eating pork and there is no scientific rationale for the cull.
Five countries outside Mexico have confirmed person-to-person transmission.
China is trying to stop the spread of the virus, after getting its first case on Friday.
It says it will quarantine all those who travelled on a flight from Mexico with a man suffering from swine flu.
Flights from Mexico have been suspended, and fellow guests and staff at the Hong Kong hotel where he was staying have been quarantined.
On Saturday, Mexico's foreign minister advised citizens not to travel to China to avoid the health measures being taken there against Mexicans.
Risk remains
The US has now confirmed 160 cases of swine flu across 21 states but has seen only one death, of a Mexican toddler in Texas.
SYMPTOMS - WHAT TO DO
Swine flu symptoms are similar to those produced by ordinary seasonal flu - fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and fatigue
If you have flu symptoms and recently visited affected areas of Mexico, you should seek medical advice
If you suspect you are infected, you should stay at home and take advice by telephone initially, in order to minimise the risk of infection
Q&A: What is swine flu?
Mexican economy squeezed by flu
In pictures: Flu concern grows
The quest for a swine flu vaccine
President Barack Obama said in his weekly radio address that the US was taking "all necessary precautions" to ensure it was prepared if the virus developed into "something worse".
Dr Anne Schuchat, acting deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that although experts were concerned about the possibility of severe cases, the majority so far had been "mild, self-limited illness".
The new virus lacked the traits that made the 1918 flu pandemic so deadly, another CDC official said.
Mr Cordova appeared to agree, saying that the Mexican authorities may, on reflection, have overestimated the danger.
He said 43.7% of samples from suspected cases so far tested had come back positive, a total of 397. Sixteen in this group had died.
"That means that apparently, the rate of attack is not as wide as was thought," he said.
But he stressed that the risk of a rise in infection remains and said some elements of the five-day shutdown - in which many public buildings and businesses have been closed and people urged to stay at home - might be extended.
Dr Michael Ryan, WHO Director of Global Alert and Response, praised European nations' handling of cases and said events did not seem out of control.
Mexico has cut its suspected death toll by 75 to 101, indicating the outbreak may not be as bad as initially feared.
The country has ordered a five-day shutdown in a bid to contain the virus.
Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told the BBC that, based on samples tested, the mortality rate was comparable with that of seasonal flu.
Dr Ryan, meanwhile, said that there was "no evidence of sustained community spread outside of North America".
CONFIRMED CASES
Mexico: 101 suspected deaths - 16 confirmed
US: One death, 160 confirmed cases
New Zealand: 4 confirmed, 12 probable cases
Canada: 35 confirmed cases
UK, Spain: 15 confirmed cases
Germany: 4 confirmed cases
France, Israel, Costa Rica: 2 confirmed cases
Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, South Korea, Italy, Irish Republic: 1 confirmed case
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Countries with confirmed cases of secondary transmission:
Mexico
US
Canada
Spain
Germany
UK
Mapping the outbreak
Price hikes in Mexico amid flu panic
Did Mexico over-react to flu?
"I think it would be, at this stage, unwise to suggest that, in any way, those events are out of control or spreading in an uncontrolled fashion," he said. "I think the next few days will tell as this develops."
"At the present time I would still propose that a pandemic is imminent because we see the disease spread," Dr Ryan added.
The WHO is sending 2.4m courses of antiviral treatment to 72 nations around the world, Dr Ryan said, among them many developing countries.
But in cases of the virus outside Mexico, the effects do not appear to be severe.
Italy and the Irish Republic reported their first cases on Saturday, bringing the number of countries affected to 18.
Canada has announced that a herd of pigs has tested positive for swine flu.
A senior agriculture official told a news conference that the pigs may have been infected by a farm worker who fell ill after returning from Mexico last month.
In Egypt, authorities have begun in earnest the slaughter of more than 300,000 pigs, in what was originally described as a precaution against swine flu.
Officials now say the move is a general health measure aimed at restoring order to Egypt's pig-rearing industry.
International experts say there is no scientific rationale for Egypt's pig cull
Experts say the virus cannot be caught from eating pork and there is no scientific rationale for the cull.
Five countries outside Mexico have confirmed person-to-person transmission.
China is trying to stop the spread of the virus, after getting its first case on Friday.
It says it will quarantine all those who travelled on a flight from Mexico with a man suffering from swine flu.
Flights from Mexico have been suspended, and fellow guests and staff at the Hong Kong hotel where he was staying have been quarantined.
On Saturday, Mexico's foreign minister advised citizens not to travel to China to avoid the health measures being taken there against Mexicans.
Risk remains
The US has now confirmed 160 cases of swine flu across 21 states but has seen only one death, of a Mexican toddler in Texas.
SYMPTOMS - WHAT TO DO
Swine flu symptoms are similar to those produced by ordinary seasonal flu - fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and fatigue
If you have flu symptoms and recently visited affected areas of Mexico, you should seek medical advice
If you suspect you are infected, you should stay at home and take advice by telephone initially, in order to minimise the risk of infection
Q&A: What is swine flu?
Mexican economy squeezed by flu
In pictures: Flu concern grows
The quest for a swine flu vaccine
President Barack Obama said in his weekly radio address that the US was taking "all necessary precautions" to ensure it was prepared if the virus developed into "something worse".
Dr Anne Schuchat, acting deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that although experts were concerned about the possibility of severe cases, the majority so far had been "mild, self-limited illness".
The new virus lacked the traits that made the 1918 flu pandemic so deadly, another CDC official said.
Mr Cordova appeared to agree, saying that the Mexican authorities may, on reflection, have overestimated the danger.
He said 43.7% of samples from suspected cases so far tested had come back positive, a total of 397. Sixteen in this group had died.
"That means that apparently, the rate of attack is not as wide as was thought," he said.
But he stressed that the risk of a rise in infection remains and said some elements of the five-day shutdown - in which many public buildings and businesses have been closed and people urged to stay at home - might be extended.
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