|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Yoselyn Ortega, who worked for a New York family, has been charged with knife killing of Lucia Krim, 6, and brother Leo, 2 The nanny to a New York family who is accused of stabbing to death two children in her care has been charged with murder. Yoselyn Ortega had recovered enough from her own self-inflicted wounds by Saturday to be interviewed in her hospital bed at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell medical centre, police said. After the interview she was formally charged with two counts each of first- and second-degree murder. Police didn't know if Ortega had a lawyer. Police say that on the evening of 25 October while the children's mother was out with a third child, Ortega repeatedly stabbed six-year-old Lucia Krim and her two-year-old brother, Leo. When their mother, Marina, returned with her three-year-old daughter she found their bodies in the bathtub and Ortega lying on the bathroom floor with stab wounds to her neck. A kitchen knife was nearby. The children's father, Kevin, a CNBC executive, had been away on a business trip when the killings occurred. The couple's apartment building is in an affluent neighbourhood a block from Central Park, near the Museum of Natural History and blocks from Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts. Some of Ortega's friends and relatives said she appeared to have been struggling emotionally and financially but they could not believe what had happened.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Move intended as gesture of goodwill before negotiations with US over nuclear programme begin next week Iran has suspended the enrichment of uranium stockpiles to the 20% purity needed to bring it a short step from building a nuclear device, news services in the region have reported. Mohammad Hossein Asfari, a member of parliament responsible for foreign policy and national security, was quoted as saying that the move was a "goodwill" gesture, aimed at softening Iran's position before a new round of scheduled talks with the United States after this week's presidential elections. Asfari said he hoped sanctions would be lifted in return for Iran's actions, otherwise it would resume the programme, according to a website belonging to the Al Arabiya news channel. Talks aimed at halting Iran's enrichment programme have made little progress, leading to the west tightening sanctions and increasing the prospect of military action by Israel. The Islamic republic's economy has plummeted in the grip of punitive economic measures and Tehran indicated earlier this month that it would be willing to negotiate. However, the offer to suspend enrichment required so many concessions that it was dismissed by the United States. Iran has a stockpile of 20% uranium weighing just over 90kg (200lb), according to an International Energy Agency watchdog report in August. Experts say between 200-250kg is needed for one nuclear device. Once uranium reaches 20% purity, it is close to becoming weapons grade. Experts have estimated it would take Iran another year to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile. Tehran is said to have nearly completed a nuclear enrichment plan with the last of 3,000 uranium centrifuges installed at the underground site of Fordo, near the holy city of Qum. The machines were working at only half capacity, but the development was a crucial step in developing a nuclear device, the New York Times reported. Israel has drawn a "red line" in spring next year based on its own calculations, when it could launch a pre-emptive military strike to stop the programme. Iran has said it needs to refine uranium for civilian use, with the material converted to fuel rods used for medical isotopes to diagnose and treat illnesses.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Many Rohingya people are attempting dangerous voyages to Bangladesh and Thailand, but most are sent back on arrival First one body appeared, floating in the waters of the Bay of Bengal, then another, and another, until those on board the little fishing boat that had gone to their rescue began to lose count. Those bobbing lifeless among the waves had set out the night before, so desperate to escape the growing sectarian violence in Burma that they were prepared to risk boarding the dangerously overcrowded boat. At least 130 had clambered aboard, but the boat foundered – whether it capsized because of the weight of bodies or because it struck rocks remains unclear. The sinking last week was the worst reported incident resulting from the outbreak of violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in western Burma. The death toll is continuing to rise amid reports of a deepening humanitarian crisis. "The situation is dire. The UN is doing its best, but it is trying to find more funding to help them," said Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, an NGO working with the Rohingya. With at least 32,000 people displaced by the latest violence – and at least 107,000 since trouble broke out in June – thousands have sought safety in refugee camps around the Burmese town of Sittwe. Those camps are at crisis point, according to Refugees International, which estimates that nearly a quarter of children were malnourished. "Conditions in these camps are as bad, if not worse, than ones in eastern Congo or Sudan," said Melanie Teff, a researcher with the charity who visited Sittwe in September. "Child malnutrition rates are startlingly high. There's an urgent need for clean water and food. If further aid does not come through, there will be some unnecessary deaths." In Baw Du Pha relief camp, where several thousand Rohingya refugees from Sittwe are surviving on rations and are severely short of medical care, Laila, 20, a mother of four, said: "I cannot give my baby rice when she needs it. We are suffering. When my daughter gets sick we have no money for medicine." Compounding the need for essentials such as rice, water and oil, aid workers said refugees were facing a mounting psychological toll, with children bearing the brunt. "They lost their houses in the fires. Children cannot be left alone like before. So they're depressed," said Moe Thadar, a local Red Cross worker. The death toll and fear of further violence have prompted many of the Rohingya to look for sanctuary in neighbouring Muslim countries. Many have concluded that the only realistic escape route is by sea. Thousands are reported to have been waiting for the end of the rainy season to put to sea. Those that have tried to get away have found that those countries are unwilling to accept them. Lewa said at least two boats had been turned back by Bangladesh last week and had returned to Sittwe. "On Wednesday, we heard that about 7,000 people had arrived in Sittwe from Kyaukpyu [on the coast to the south] and Pauktaw [inland and to the east]. There were still about 900 of them sitting on the beach in Sittwe, while others had moved to camps or villages." The UN has urged the Burmese government to tackle the causes of the conflict, prompting authorities to order people to turn in their weapons to police. It also urged Burma's neighbours to not to close their borders, but the appeal brought no immediate change of heart. Some of those who have fled, such as the victims of last week's sinking, headed for Malaysia, where people-smugglers will take them for a fee. Others are looking closer to home – to Bangladesh and Thailand – but neither country wants them. Bangladesh is already home to around 300,000 Rohingya and is concerned about rising numbers. It has said that it will turn away boats, although people near Cox's Bazar, close to where last week's accident happened, said that some had made land and gone into hiding. Thailand does not want them and has been accused of forcing refugee boats back out to sea when they have tried to land. The latest assessment from the Burmese government – which regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants – said 89 people had been killed in clashes between 21 and 30 October, with another 136 injured and 32,231 made homeless. At least 5,000 houses had been burned down. Activists say the true figures are likely to be higher. "The villages have been burned down and some people have fled. A few have remained in the area, but others have tried to flee to the camps in Sittwe," said Lewa. "In some villages quite a lot of people have been killed, but we are still trying to find out how they died. Some died in the fires and some were attacked by Rakhine [Buddhists]. We also heard that the army shot at some of the Rakhine people. We heard about 170 people killed in one village alone." Teff said the outlook for peace was grim. "There is a total lack of hope for the Rohingya. They have been rejected by many countries," she said. "The only way out is for the international community to act on the current situation."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Beppe Grillo, the anti-politics hero who promised to clean up the system sparks storm over angry outburst After a decade in which Italian politics was dominated by showgirls and sleaze, Beppe Grillo's brand of web-based democracy and anti-corruption campaigning has been taking Italy by storm, and his movement became Sicily's biggest party in regional elections last weekend and came second in nationwide polls. But the tousle-haired comedian and blogger has now been dragged into a very familiar sounding Italian row after he was accused of being a "medieval" sexist and no different to politician Silvio Berlusconi. At first glance, Grillo appears the antithesis of the permatanned former prime minister, who packed his TV shows and his cabinet with showgirls and passed around a phallic statue to break the ice at his famous bunga bunga parties. But the comedian's non-sexist credentials were called into question when Federica Salsi, a local councillor representing his Five Star Movement in Bologna, appeared on a TV talk show, ignoring Grillo's strict instructions to his councillors to stay off TV and stick to the internet. Reacting angrily to her appearance on TV, Grillo likened the lure of television to "the G-spot, which gives you an orgasm in talk-show studios. It is Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame. At home, your friends and relations applaud emotionally as they share the excitement of a brief moment of celebrity." Forty-year-old Salsi was quick to fight back, calling Grillo's outburst "disappointing", adding: "He has shown himself to be a victim of the Berlusconi culture … a chauvinist like the others." Grillo's reference to the G-spot, she said, gave "a negative connotation to a quality women have" – and that, she concluded, "is medieval, really degrading". Salsi was backed up by another Five Star councillor, Raffaella Pirini, who said: "She did well, she said the right things." The row vividly recalled the years in which Berlusconi's TV channels featured leering male game show hosts flirting with semi-naked dancing girls, while the tycoon-turned-politician's cabinet ministers appeared in public with attractive young women on their arm. Since Berlusconi stepped down last November, replaced by a government of technocrats led by sober academic Mario Monti, lewd TV advertising has been toned down, Miss Italy contestants have been ordered to show less flesh and the new, female, head of the state TV network demanded daytime hosts put a stop to endless discussions of plastic surgery. Grillo's visceral loathing of the rowdy talk shows aired nightly on Italian TV is based on the idea that they give visibility to the caste of professional politicians his movement is seeking to oust. Grillo himself was banned from state TV in 1987 after joking about government corruption, prompting him to take his routine to live audiences and build his blog into one of the world's biggest. But his belief in online democracy, where policy is shaped by his supporters in web forums, could be challenged as more of them gain elected office and are tempted by invitations from chat shows. Fifteen more took office as regional councillors in Sicily after regional elections last weekend, which saw Grillo's movement poll 285,000 votes to become Sicily's largest party, even if it lost out to a coalition between the centre-left and centrist parties. After swimming the Strait of Messina to kick off a series of rallies across Sicily, Grillo told a crowd: "The police vote for us because they are fed up with driving politicians to do shopping or have sex." Compared with a 2008 election on the island, Berlusconi's party lost 654,000 votes in the election, which came two days after he was convicted of tax fraud. Grillo's leading candidate in Sicily said the movement would not now be tempted by backroom alliances with other parties, preferring to be "bitter spinsters who never have boyfriends". He also announced that he and his fellow councillors would hand back a portion of the inflated salaries that local politicians in Sicily are paid. Now, with one pollster predicting that the Five Star Movement could become the biggest party in Italy, Grillo will be eagerly awaiting regional elections due in Lazio and Lombardy, where the reputations of the local authorities have been ravaged by corruption scandals.Then, next spring, national elections are due as Monti steps down. Grillo has not stood for office himself to date but, in a video posted on his blog this week, he called himself a "political leader" of the movement for the first time and added: "We are about to confront something extraordinary." Sitting at a desk covered in piles of paper in front of a guitar propped against the wall, the comedian warned: "It will be an epochal change, tough, and we will make mistakes, I will make mistakes, you will accuse me of everything." But, he asked, "instead of hammering us, give us advice, a hand, we need both".
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | With social problems spreading, a younger generation may be ready to question Communist party policy China's incoming leaders face a growing clamour for reform as the days count down to the country's once-a-decade power transition, with demands for changes across the policy spectrum: from reining in the vast state-owned enterprises to increasing the accountability of cadres. "Economic and political reforms must go together," urged an editorial in the influential magazine Caixin last week. "Too often, the heavy hand of government in the market and the dominance of state monopolies stifle competition, distort the market and allow rent-seeking and corruption to thrive. "Abuses of power have wreaked havoc in society, causing political divisions, the income gap to widen and animosity between government and people. The polarisation and fragmentation in society is deeply worrying ... If reformers don't check the abuse of power and push for political reform, China could easily lose the gains it has made." Many saw the current leaders as potential reformers when they took office. Now, however, they are accused of missing opportunities and maintaining the status quo. "Deng Xiaoping had a famous saying about how reform should go: 'Crossing the river by feeling the stones'," said Gao Wenqian, previously an official researcher and now a senior policy adviser at the New York-based Human Rights in China, who says that he is sceptical that any significant changes will actually materialise. "The present situation is 'feeling the stones, but not crossing the river'." "The effervescence of the debate in recent weeks over reform and the Chinese Communist party's future is consistent with the atmosphere that always precedes a leadership turnover," noted Christopher Johnson of the US thinktank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The handover process begins on Thursday, when delegates gather for the 18th party congress in Beijing. A week or so later, the new politburo standing committee – the country's top political body – will be unveiled. Xi Jinping is Hu Jintao's designated successor as China's leader. It is assumed that Li Keqiang will replace Wen Jiabao as prime minister, but the full composition of the standing committee remains uncertain. It is expected to shrink from nine to seven members, which should make decision-making easier in the consensus-based system and, potentially, pave the way to bolder moves. The latest indications, however, suggest that figures who are thought to be more open to reform – such as Li Yuanchao, head of the powerful Organisation Department, and the Guangdong party secretary Wang Yang – have not been selected, though some believe Li may squeeze in. Optimists say that a younger generation of leaders may be more willing to rethink policy. They have more experience of the outside world; they have studied subjects such as law rather than engineering; and Xi has the confidence that comes of being born into a powerful communist family. Reformers are also buoyed by a recent meeting between Xi and Hu Deping, an influential liberal figure, and the fact that thinktanks have been drawing up proposals for overhauling the economy. They argue that problems such as corruption and state inefficiency have accumulated and become more obvious over the last decade. "In the past, the high speed of economic growth could ease the problems. China's pace of economic development has declined right now, and it has exposed the social problems," said Gao. Others say that meetings and proposal requests commit Xi to nothing, and that any plans he develops will require the agreement of colleagues and party elders. In particular, the sceptics insist, any political reforms that do occur are likely to be minor, most likely in the form of fresh attempts to explore "intra-party democracy". That, argues Jeremy Paltiel, an expert on the Communist party at Carleton University in Canada, is simply a contradiction. "The party cannot be an organisation of executives who are subject to a single discipline and at the same time a deliberative assembly of people free to present their opinions and pursue their interests," he said. "If the discipline were to be relaxed, the party would cease to function as the backbone of the state and lower levels could no longer be relied upon to follow the will of the centre." Neither are economic reforms straightforward. Ideological opposition may have faded – these days, elders such as former president and prime minister Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji have their own record of reform – but in its place are powerful vested interests. Economic and political power are more closely wed than ever. Another powerful deterrent is the lesson the elite has drawn from the Soviet Union – that it would be most vulnerable at the moment of reform. Only a crisis, many think, could prompt major change. But in the end, argued the Beijing-based scholar Deng Yuwen, the future course of China must be down to its people. "Whether reform can happen depends on society, not the leaders," he said. "If society strongly demands reform, even if the leaders don't want to do it, they have to. For that reason, I think that the next generation will carry out stronger and more powerful reform than before."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Race still too close to call according to polls, but many think Obama is edging out Romney in crucial swing states President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney on Saturday began the last frantic days of campaigning in their battle for the White House by criss-crossing America's key swing states. Obama's team was planning a series of large events aimed at drawing big crowds. His closing weekend included two joint events with former president Bill Clinton: a rally on Saturday night in Virginia and an event on Sunday in New Hampshire. At a rally in Ohio – the most important swing state in the contest – Obama touted his first-term record and promised that he would do more to get America's struggling economy back on track. "We've made real progress these past four years. But Ohio, we're here today because we all know we've got more work to do," he told the crowd in the town of Mentor. "As long as there's a single American who wants a job and still can't find work; as long as there are families who are working harder and harder but are still falling behind; as long as there's a child anywhere in this country who is languishing in poverty, or barred from opportunity, we got more work to do," he added. Though national polls show a race that is virtually tied, it appears that Obama has maintained a slim but steady lead in the swing states, making him the favourite of most media pundits as the election comes to a close. Influential New York Times election blogger Nate Silver put Obama's current chances of winning at around 80%. The latest Wall Street Journal/Marist/NBC poll in Ohio put Obama up by six points in a state that no Republican challenger has ever won the White House without. But elsewhere things were more fluid. In Florida one poll early on Saturday morning showed Obama with a two-point lead, while another claimed Romney was six points ahead. Both campaigns tried to claim a boost from the jobs numbers released on Friday in an election in which the economy, and the fragility of America's recovery, has been the core issue. Obama's team pointed to a better than expected number of new jobs at 171,000. But Romney and other Republican figures seized on the rise in the nation's jobless rate to 7.9%, though that increase was largely due to people returning to the job market to look for work. Obama will face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any incumbent president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Romney and his team were not letting up with their message that change was sorely needed in order to get America's economy growing again. He said Obama's first term had been marked by an endless series of broken promises, from job creation to working with Republicans. "He made a lot of promises, but they were promises he couldn't keep. I've made promises that I've kept and will keep for the American people," Romney told a crowd in Dubuque, Iowa, another vital swing state. The Romney team also released a new TV ad that criticises Obama for saying "voting is the best revenge" at a rally in Friday in Ohio. That line has given Romney a new avenue of attack in trying to portray Obama as a divisive figure compared with Romney's own attempted image-makeover as a centrist. "Vote for revenge?" the Republican candidate asked at a rally in New Hampshire. ,"Let me tell you what I'd like to tell you: vote for love of country. It is time we lead America to a better place." Both sides are now engaged in an all-out push. Virtually Romney's entire senior team has left the campaign's Boston headquarters to travel with him for the contest's final few days. Meanwhile, some of Obama's top aides from his historic campaign four years ago were planning to join him on the road, including Robert Gibbs, who served as Obama's first White House press secretary, and Reggie Love, the president's former personal aide. Romney and the Republican party have raised some eyebrows by seeking to expand the political battleground to include Pennsylvania, despite the fact that a Democrat has won the state for the last five presidential contests. Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 10 percentage points in 2008 and the latest polls in the state give him a four- to five-point lead. Nevertheless, Romney will campaign in the Philadelphia suburbs on Sunday. Republican strategists say that they think the state is in play, pointing to a disillusioned Democratic base. However, Democratic aides, including Obama's campaign guru, David Axelrod, have laughed off the Romney visit there as a piece of clever spin. But they are also seeking to head it off by adding television spending in the state, and have even sent Bill Clinton to campaign there on Monday. Vice-president Joe Biden has also visited the area. Democrats have also put huge emphasis on trying to get their side to vote early. At some Democratic rallies, buses park outside waiting to take attendees to early voting booths. Though no votes will be counted until election day itself, several battleground states have released the party affiliation of people who have voted early. So far, Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. Republicans have the lead in Colorado. The immediate political impact of hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of New York, New Jersey and other north-eastern states earlier in the week, was starting to recede. Though many of the worst-hit towns and neighbourhoods remained in trouble and without power, life was getting back to normal in many other areas. Power had been returned to nearly all of Manhattan and the military was taking steps to ease a dramatic fuel shortage in New Jersey that had led to huge queues and the need for a police presence at gas stations. The main political consequence of the storm seemed to be the embrace of Obama by New Jersey governor Chris Christie. Christie, who has been an active surrogate for Romney and gave a high-profile speech at the Republican party convention in Tampa, was effusive in his praise for Obama's performance during the disaster. Images of the two men working together were seen as a coup for the president and have raised Republican hackles that Christie might have deliberately undermined Romney's campaign at the last minute to serve his own political needs.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Race still too close to call according to polls, but many think Obama is edging out Romney in crucial swing states
• Graphic: how the race for the White House will be won and lost President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney on Saturday began the last frantic days of campaigning in their battle for the White House by criss-crossing America's key swing states. Obama's team was planning a series of large events aimed at drawing big crowds. His closing weekend included two joint events with former president Bill Clinton: a rally on Saturday night in Virginia and an event on Sunday in New Hampshire. At a rally in Ohio – the most important swing state in the contest – Obama touted his first-term record and promised that he would do more to get America's struggling economy back on track. "We've made real progress these past four years. But Ohio, we're here today because we all know we've got more work to do," he told the crowd in the town of Mentor. "As long as there's a single American who wants a job and still can't find work; as long as there are families who are working harder and harder but are still falling behind; as long as there's a child anywhere in this country who is languishing in poverty, or barred from opportunity, we got more work to do," he added. Though national polls show a race that is virtually tied, it appears that Obama has maintained a slim but steady lead in the swing states, making him the favourite of most media pundits as the election comes to a close. Influential New York Times election blogger Nate Silver put Obama's current chances of winning at around 80%. The latest Wall Street Journal/Marist/NBC poll in Ohio put Obama up by six points in a state that no Republican challenger has ever won the White House without. But elsewhere things were more fluid. In Florida one poll early on Saturday morning showed Obama with a two-point lead, while another claimed Romney was six points ahead. Both campaigns tried to claim a boost from the jobs numbers released on Friday in an election in which the economy, and the fragility of America's recovery, has been the core issue. Obama's team pointed to a better than expected number of new jobs at 171,000. But Romney and other Republican figures seized on the rise in the nation's jobless rate to 7.9%, though that increase was largely due to people returning to the job market to look for work. Obama will face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any incumbent president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Romney and his team were not letting up with their message that change was sorely needed in order to get America's economy growing again. He said Obama's first term had been marked by an endless series of broken promises, from job creation to working with Republicans. "He made a lot of promises, but they were promises he couldn't keep. I've made promises that I've kept and will keep for the American people," Romney told a crowd in Dubuque, Iowa, another vital swing state. The Romney team also released a new TV ad that criticises Obama for saying "voting is the best revenge" at a rally in Friday in Ohio. That line has given Romney a new avenue of attack in trying to portray Obama as a divisive figure compared with Romney's own attempted image-makeover as a centrist. "Vote for revenge?" the Republican candidate asked at a rally in New Hampshire. ,"Let me tell you what I'd like to tell you: vote for love of country. It is time we lead America to a better place." Both sides are now engaged in an all-out push. Virtually Romney's entire senior team has left the campaign's Boston headquarters to travel with him for the contest's final few days. Meanwhile, some of Obama's top aides from his historic campaign four years ago were planning to join him on the road, including Robert Gibbs, who served as Obama's first White House press secretary, and Reggie Love, the president's former personal aide. Romney and the Republican party have raised some eyebrows by seeking to expand the political battleground to include Pennsylvania, despite the fact that a Democrat has won the state for the last five presidential contests. Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 10 percentage points in 2008 and the latest polls in the state give him a four- to five-point lead. Nevertheless, Romney will campaign in the Philadelphia suburbs on Sunday. Republican strategists say that they think the state is in play, pointing to a disillusioned Democratic base. However, Democratic aides, including Obama's campaign guru, David Axelrod, have laughed off the Romney visit there as a piece of clever spin. But they are also seeking to head it off by adding television spending in the state, and have even sent Bill Clinton to campaign there on Monday. Vice-president Joe Biden has also visited the area. Democrats have also put huge emphasis on trying to get their side to vote early. At some Democratic rallies, buses park outside waiting to take attendees to early voting booths. Though no votes will be counted until election day itself, several battleground states have released the party affiliation of people who have voted early. So far, Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. Republicans have the lead in Colorado. The immediate political impact of hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of New York, New Jersey and other north-eastern states earlier in the week, was starting to recede. Though many of the worst-hit towns and neighbourhoods remained in trouble and without power, life was getting back to normal in many other areas. Power had been returned to nearly all of Manhattan and the military was taking steps to ease a dramatic fuel shortage in New Jersey that had led to huge queues and the need for a police presence at gas stations. The main political consequence of the storm seemed to be the embrace of Obama by New Jersey governor Chris Christie. Christie, who has been an active surrogate for Romney and gave a high-profile speech at the Republican party convention in Tampa, was effusive in his praise for Obama's performance during the disaster. Images of the two men working together were seen as a coup for the president and have raised Republican hackles that Christie might have deliberately undermined Romney's campaign at the last minute to serve his own political needs.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Participants who traveled far express anger at mayor's last-minute decision but are finding ways to make it worthwhile The late cancellation of the New York Marathon has disappointed tens of thousands of would-be race-goers, but determined runners have already signed-up for a replacement race. Virginia's Anthem Richmond Marathon – dubbed "America's Friendliest Marathon" – has seen a surge of entrants for its 10 November race following mayor Michael Bloomberg's abrupt U-turn on the staging of the New York City event. On Friday, Bloomberg announced the cancellation of the marathon just 48 hours before it was due to start, stating that he did not want "a cloud to hang over the race". That decision came after he had mounted a defiant defence of his intentions to give the race a green light, despite growing calls for to to be cancelled as a result of hurricane Sandy. The confused manner in which the race was eventually called off angered some runners, even if most appeared to agree with the sentiments behind the move. Eric Jones, who was part of a group of Dutch runners who had collected $1.5m for a children's cancer charity, said: "We understand, but maybe the decision could have been made earlier, before we traveled this far." Close to 50,000 participants had been training for Sunday's event. Around 30,000 of them are out-of-towners and many, like Jones and his group from the Netherlands, had travelled from overseas. "I have no words," said Roberto Dell'Olmo, from Italy. He added: "I would like that the money I give from the marathon goes to victims." It was a common sentiment among disappointed runners. Until late afternoon Friday, participants had been reassured by Bloomberg that despite the devastation upon lower Manhattan and Staten Island – the race's start point – the marathon would go ahead. Bloomberg even likened the situation to the running of the 2001 marathon in the shadow of the then still recent terrorist attacks in the city. "We have to find some way to express ourselves and show solidarity with each other," he said, adding: "We have to have a city going forward". City officials also cited the revenue brought in by the annual event. More than 1 million spectators turn out annually to line the 26-mile route, piling money into local shops, bars and restaurants. But hours after confirming the race would go ahead, Bloomberg changed his position Friday under intense pressure from those who believed it would be insensitive to stage the marathon. Disbelief and anger was particularly sharp from residents of Staten Island – the borough worst hit by Monday's storm. In a joint statement with New York Road Runners, Bloomberg said: "While holding the race would not require diverting resources from the recovery effort, it is clear that it has become the source of controversy and division." He added: "We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event – even one as meaningful as this – to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track." The statement added that disappointed participants would receive additional information in the days ahead. They will now have to wait 12 months if they are to run the annual New York race. Some are not waiting until then for their chance to complete a marathon. Brooke Wood, 31, is one of those who searched elsewhere for a race to run after Bloomberg's change of mind was made public. Originally from Australia but now living in Brooklyn, Wood said she wanted to do the right thing by those who had donated to the cause she was running for – the SLE Lupus Foundation. As such she opted for the Anthem Richmond Marathon, due to be staged next Saturday. On Saturday, the website for the Richmond race noted that the cancellation of the New York Marathon had resulted in a "surge" of entries. As a result of the increased numbers, participants would have to wait for finisher medals to be posted to them in the mail, organaisers noted. For those who have dedicated a sizable chunk of the year getting their body ready for the ultimate running test, it was a small price to pay. "Doing Richmond means I won't let four months of training go to waste, and it leaves New York City to focus on other critical things right now," Wood said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The ascent of the first black president has coincided with a steep descent in the economic fortunes of black Americans. But that hasn't impeded their outward optimism about Obama When Barack Obama was contemplating a run for the White House his wife, Michelle, asked him what he thought he could accomplish if he won. "The day I take the oath of office," he replied. "The world will look at us differently. And millions of kids across this country will look at themselves differently. That alone is something." Four months after he was sworn in, at least one kid saw himself differently. It was May 2009 and 5-year-old Jacob Philadelphia had gone with his dad, a black ex-marine, to the Oval Office for a family photograph with the president. With him were his mum, Roseanne, and his older brother, Isaac, 8. The boys were allowed to ask Obama one question each. The parents had no idea what they were going to say. Isaac asked why the president had got rid of the F-22 jet fighter. The president said because it cost too much. Jacob asked: "I want to know if my hair is just like yours." He was so quiet, Obama asked him to repeat the question. Jacob obliged. Obama said: "Why don't you touch it and see for yourself?" He bent down lowered his head so that it was within Jacob's reach. Jacob paused. The president prompted. "Touch it, dude!" he said Jacob reached out and rubbed the presidential pate. "So, what do you think?" Mr Obama asked. "Yes, it does feel the same," Jacob said. The White House photographer snapped the moment. "Every couple of weeks the White House photographers change out the photos in the West Wing," Michelle Obama said at a fundraiser in September. "Except for that one. So if you ever wonder whether change is possible, I want you think of that little black boy in the Oval Office of the White House touching the head of the first black president." The symbolic resonance of Obama's victory for black Americans has not diminished. At rallies the hawkers are still there with T-shirts setting him alongside Martin Luther King, setting his logo within Superman's crest or insisting: "I like my coffee black. Like my president". According to Gallup 90% of African Americans intend to back him and they plan to turn out at the same rate as white voters. No other block of voters is more loyal. No other block of voters is more optimistic. Over the past few years polls have consistently shown that African Americans are more likely than any other group to be bullish about their own future, to think the country's best days are yet to come and that the economy is already recovering. A Pew survey in January 2010 indicated that the percentage of black Americans who thought blacks were better off than they were five years before had almost doubled since 2007. There were also significant increases in the percentages who believed the standard-of-living gap between whites and blacks was decreasing. No wonder they love the president. There was only one trouble with these assessments. They weren't true. African Americans, as a group, are far worse off now than they were when Obama came to power and the gap between whites and blacks in terms of wealth and income has increased under Obama's tenure. The overall rate of unemployment may be close to where it was when Obama took office, but black unemployment is up 11%. Meanwhile the wealth gap has doubled during this recession with the average white American now having 22 times more wealth than their black counterparts. So too has the educational achievement gap with the rate at which white Americans graduate from high school growing at a far faster clip than black students. "We haven't seen much of the stimulus trickle down to our people here," Mark Allen, a Chicago-based community organiser who used to work alongside Obama, told the Washington Post. "I liked the community organiser Obama better than President Obama … Democrats say Barack has got 90% or whatever of the black vote wrapped up. What they don't tell you is it's 90% of those who actually come out and vote. What if it's 90% of just 30 or 40% who vote?" In short, Jacob's odds of getting a decent job when he gets older actually got worse since he felt the president's hair, while the gap between his life chances and his white schoolmates widened and his odds of going to prison remained pretty much the same. In empirical terms "the change that [has been] possible" for Jacob and his family under Obama has been change for the worse. One can argue about the cause of those changes and the degree to which Obama bears any responsibility for either creating them or fixing them. But one cannot argue about the fact of them: the ascent of America's first black president has coincided with the one of the steepest descents of the economic fortunes of black Americans since the second world war both in real terms and relative to whites. Herein lies the dual paradox. The group that has fared worse under Obama is not only the group most likely to support him but also the most likely to feel optimistic about the deteriorating situation in which they find themselves. And why has that loyalty to the president yet to be fully tested? What do they know that the numbers don't show? Discussing this dilemma within the black community can be tantamount to heresy. Wagons circle, messengers are shot, ranks close, critical faculties are suspended. "Too many black intellectuals have given up the hard work of thinking carefully in public about the crisis facing black America," Princeton professor Eddie Glaude told fellow academic Fred Harris recently. "We have either become cheerleaders for President Obama or self-serving pundits." Not only are criticisms shunned but even constructive critiques are unwelcome. At times it seems like questions as to how his tenure has affected black communities either should not be asked or, at the very least, should not be answered honestly. "I have friends," says Virginia state delegate, Onzlee Ware from Roanoke, who is an ardent Obama supporter, "who, if I bring [his shortcomings] up as an intellectual conversation, they say I'm a traitor." There are some sound reasons for this. The first is the overt racism that Obama has faced from a significant portion both of the political class and the public as a whole. There are plenty of reasons why one might oppose Obama that have nothing to do with race. When you look at how the things they accused the Clintons of – killing people, smuggling drugs from abroad, embezzling – the Obama's are not unique in being the targets of a right wing hyper-caffeinated lie machine. Nonetheless, the nature of these particular lies and attacks have, as often as not, been rooted in race. Half of white Americans in one Pew survey shared the birthers' doubt that Obama was born in this country. The percentage of Americans who believed he is a Muslim has doubled since he took office. After the president produced his long-form birth certificate, Donald Trump demanded his college transcripts (claiming he was not smart enough to get into an Ivy League school). Newt Gingrich branded him the "food stamp president". Southern congressmen shout "liar" while he's speaking, Romney surrogates question his connection to "Anglo-Saxon values". Far from his election signalling a post-racial era of equality it has exposed and unleashed a visceral level of intolerance that has produced the most racially polarised electorate for at least a generation. Having alienated blacks and Latinos, a recent poll revealed that Romney's support is 91% white – that's a higher proportion than any candidate since Bush's father stood in 1988 and may yet surpass it. Meanwhile a recent AP poll revealed that, if anything, racist attitudes have hardened in the country since Obama's election. The poll showed that "51% of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48% in a similar 2008 survey". The proportion who express anti-Hispanic feelings is roughly the same. That's within the margin of error. But what's clear is that it's not going down. Anyone who seriously believes Obama's election ushered in a new period of racial harmony simply hasn't been paying attention. In this atmosphere many African Americans become understandably defensive. Under such sustained racial onslaught the space for free-wheeling conversation and constructive criticism becomes limited because the issue has shifted from what Obama has done to who he is. Given the nature of the attacks the need to defend Obama's right to be in office at all eclipses any more nuanced conversation about his actual record. Moreover much of the criticism Obama has faced from the black community has been either ridiculous or self-defeating. Last year former Princeton professor Cornel West led a well-publicised assault insisting that Obama has "a certain fear of free black men". "It's understandable," he said. "As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening ... He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable." Essentialising Obama's racial and cultural makeup in such a way makes the very mistake that the right makes – assessing Obama not on what he does but by who he is. It also harps back to an era of black political leadership, where black politicians emerged from the church or historically black colleges, and fought not to win office outside the black community (white people wouldn't vote for them) but to put the needs of that community on the agenda. There was, in a previous generation, a sense of ownership that black communities had over their politicians that no longer exists. This is partly progress. Ivy League universities will admit them, corporations will hire them, funds will come to them, white people will now vote for them. A whole range of opportunities are open to politicians of Obama's generation that were created by Cornel West's generation. But that, in turn, has changed what it means to be a black politician and what, if anything, we mean when we talk about black politics. Unlike, say, Jesse Jackson or Martin Luther King, Obama was not politically produced by the black community, but presented to it after he had made his way through the mostly white elites. His political ties to the black community are not organic but symbolic. His arrival in the political class is hailed as the progress of a community when in fact it is the advancement of an individual. "[Obama] is being consumed as the embodiment of color blindness," Angela Davis, professor of history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told me in late 2007. "It's the notion that we have moved beyond racism by not taking race into account. That's what makes him conceivable as a presidential candidate. He's become the model of diversity in this period … a model of diversity as the difference that makes no difference. The change that brings no change." That is why criticisms of him for "not doing enough for his own people" both miss and devalue the point. The demand to close the racial gaps bequeathed by centuries of discrimination is not a sectional interest but a national one. Demands for equality and racial justice should be made to any president of whatever race or party. Obama should do more for black people – not because he is black but because black people are the citizens suffering most. Black people have every right to make demands on Obama – not because they're black but because they gave him a greater percentage of their votes than any other group, and he owes his presidency to them. Like any president, he should be constantly pressured to put the issue of racial injustice front and centre and if black people aren't going to apply that pressure then nobody else will. But in fact precisely the opposite has been happening. With Obama in the White House African Americans representatives have been backpedalling. Black politicians, too, have held their fire. "With 14% unemployment, if we had a white president we'd be marching around the White House," said the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Emmanuel Cleaver. "The president knows we are going to act in deference to him in a way we wouldn't to someone white." That's pathetic and counterproductive. These are the very people who are now showing up with empty hands and trying to galvanise the black community to go to the polls. Their reticence is partly explained by the fear of a backlash. "If we go after the president too hard, you're going after us," Maxine Waters, a California Democrat in the House, told a largely black audience in Detroit last year. But then that's what leadership is about. Explaining to those audiences that there are large numbers of people lobbying for Obama's attention, including people with huge amounts of money and power. If the black community wants it they must demand it. Some have spoken out. In August after a month-long round of job fairs organised by the CBC across the nation John Conyers, the longest serving black American in Congress said. "We want [Obama] to know from this day forward that we've had it. We want him to come out on our side and advocate, and not to watch and wait … We're suffering." Unfortunately it was followed by little in the way of action. In the absence of that pressure Obama has felt little need to focus his attention on the problem, even rhetorically. In his first two years in office he talked about race less than any Democratic president since 1961. In all of his state of the union speeches he mentioned poverty just three times: last year's was the first since 1948 to not mention poverty or the poor at all. When he did talk about it it was to preach better parenting, healthy meals and greater discipline. At a Congressional Black Caucus meeting in September he told his former colleagues: "Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying." Compare that to the meeting he had with bankers not long after he was elected when they thought he was going to impose serious regulation. "I'm the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks. I'm not out there to go after you," he told them. "I'm protecting you." This would not be the first time that the black Americans have shown great loyalty to a Democratic president who did not return the favour. Bill Clinton is still revered even though when he ran in 1992 he made a special trip back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector – a black, lobotomised inmate so mentally incapacitated that when given his last meal, he opted to save the dessert for after the execution. When in power he signed off on a welfare reform that would prove devastating to large numbers of black families, especially women. He presided over an economic boom Obama does not even have that. It may be in this mixture of realism and low expectations that one can understand where logic of optimism in harder times. That black Americans are doing worse than everyone else, and that the man they elected to turn that around has not done so, does not fundamentally change their view of how American politics works; almost every other Democratic president has failed in a similar way while Republicans have not even tried to succeed. Conversely the fact that a black man might be elected president, that enough white people might vote for him and that nobody has shot him, really has changed their assumptions about what is possible. Jacob's story from the Oval Office is new and inspiring; the story of his odds of success beyond that moment are wearily familiar. The day Obama took office, the world may have looked at black America differently, but black America has yet to look at Obama differently. When he went from being an aspiration to a fact of political life, the posters that bore his likeness in socialist realist style over single-word commands like Hope, Believe and Change should have been replaced with posters bearing the single-word statement: power. As Frederick Douglass said: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
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