Humanity is actually making progress, believe it or not

October 09, 2014

Humanity is actually making progress, believe it or not
Thursday October 9th, 2014 at 11:51 AM

(Sergey Nivens/Bigstock)

By Robert J. Samuelson October 8 at 12:15 PM

Progress has lately gotten a bad rap, because there seems to be so little of it. Violence wracks the Middle East; economies are sputtering; Ebola strikes fear. But if you step back a bit, there is plenty of progress. We ought to remind ourselves periodically that, in history’s broad sweep, the long-term advances often overshadow the short-term defeats.

How far should we step back? How about to 1820.

This seems an eternity, but as history, it’s just a blink. The year roughly coincides with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, arguably the most important dividing line in the human experience. Before, societies were largely rural and traditional; after, they were increasingly urbanized and modern. A useful confirmation of these truths comes in a new study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that reports changed living conditions since 1820. (The study — “How Was Life? Global well-being since 1820” — is available at http://ow.ly/Clpwp.)

The biggest upheaval is the most obvious: population. Since 1820, the number of people on Earth has exploded, from 1 billion to about 7 billion now. (The United Nations forecasts it will reach nearly 11 billion by 2100.) This could not have occurred without immense improvements in farming and the rise of industries that favored living in densely populated cities.

Viewed over two centuries, economic growth has produced huge gains in incomes and living standards. New technologies delivered massive benefits. On a global basis, average per-capita incomes rose 13 times from 1820 to 2010. Until recently, gains were concentrated in Western Europe and the United States, which recorded even larger increases. Europe’s leap was 17 times to $20,841; America’s was 22 times to $30,491. (All amounts are expressed in dollars at 1990 levels; in today’s dollars, they would be higher.)

There were continuous, though erratic, improvements in health. In the 1830s, someone born in Western Europe typically lived 33 years; today, that is roughly 80 years. The study’s earliest U.S. figures put life expectancy at birth at 39 in the 1880s; in the 1900s, it was 51. Today, it is also near 80. Better fed, people almost everywhere have gotten taller (one exception: Africa).

These powerful forces have redefined societies. Rising life expectancies and falling birth rates constitute a “demographic transition” that characterizes most advanced nations. In turn, this slowly transformed women’s economic and social roles, because with fewer children they were not forced “to spend large parts of their lifetime in pregnancy and child care,” the OECD study says.

With more children surviving, there was a “perception that larger families were becoming too costly.” This was reinforced by “compulsory schooling introduced in most of Western Europe in the 1870s and 1880s” and by child labor laws. The nature of the family shifted, as children were viewed less as economic producers. Instead, there was a “growing cultural appreciation of the child, who was to be kept away from the labor market for as long as possible.”

Something similar happened to political systems. As long as most people lived in rural squalor, feudal hierarchies and monarchies had an easier time surviving. Landlords and royal families wielded great power over peasants. But as people migrated to cities, these controls loosened. Pressures grew for democracy and individual rights, though authoritarian governments often resulted.

Our pessimistic biases distort the present. Consider one of today’s hot topics: economic inequality. Yes, there’s more of it within nations, including the United States. But there’s less of it between nations, as gains in China, India and elsewhere have closed the gap with wealthy societies.

Progress is not a straight line. It’s a permanent zigzag, and there is no utopia at the end of the rainbow. Advances come mixed with new problems and tragedies. Since 1820, there have been plenty of these, chief among them World War I, the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression and World War II. But was there ever some golden era of peace and prosperity that most people would gladly exchange for what we have today? It seems doubtful.

Read more from Robert Samuelson’s archive.

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The Guardian view on the battle for Kobani: Turkey has good reasons for caution | Editorial | Comment is free
Thursday October 9th, 2014 at 11:48 AM

World News | The Guardian

The eyes of the world have been focused for the last few days on a little Kurdish town in Syria which few had heard of until a week or so ago. The plight of Kobani, close to the Turkish border, and under siege by Islamic State forces as they try to establish control over ever-larger territory in Syria and Iraq, is being presented as a sort of morality tale. There is growing international pressure on Ankara to prevent yet another military advance by Islamic State (Isis) and a further humanitarian disaster in a region that has already undergone much suffering. Turkey, after all, has tanks and troops on the border just across from Kobani. If it reinforced the efforts of the US-led air campaign by action on the ground, Turkey could compensate for the limitations of that campaign. Surely, it is argued, Turkey would not wish Isis to take control of long sections of its border with Syria. Turkish involvement would also be in line with its Nato membership, even if the alliance isn’t formally mobilised against Isis.

The Barack Obama administration is certainly pressing such arguments on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, sending its special envoy for Syria, General John Allen, to Ankara to test Turkey’s proclaimed resolve to treat Isis as a major international security threat. Yet the government in Ankara has so far been biding its time. It is doing so in spite of a parliamentary vote last week allowing – but not committing Turkey to – military action inside Syria and Iraq. Turkey has instead made its fuller support conditional on a widening of the coalition’s strategy to include the aim of bringing to an end the Assad regime in Damascus. This is an objective that has all but vanished from western rhetoric.

Turkey is in a dilemma and it has probably never been under such strain as a regional actor. The caution demonstrated by Mr Erdoğan and his influential prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, the architect of Turkish foreign policy over the last decade, springs in part from the failures and contradictions of that policy. Syria has after all been the tombstone of Turkey’s supposed “neo-Ottoman” diplomacy, which initially aimed at having “zero problems” with all its neighbours. Mr Erdoğan’s AKP party, with its pro-Sunni message, closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, has sided since the autumn of 2011 with the anti-Assad armed opposition. Turkey had hoped that the United States would prop up the rebels with heavier weapons, but Washington balked at more than a modest support.

On top of that, Turkish officials were baffled by Mr Obama’s turnaround in 2013 when the US president abandoned a plan to bomb Syrian military targets after the Assad regime used chemical weapons. They saw this as a lost opportunity to bring Mr Assad down. A mistrustful Turkey is thus in no hurry now to let the US push it into sending ground forces into Syria, even in a limited one-off operation to do with Kobani, without assurances on overall objectives and especially as no clear international mandate is available at the UN. Turkish restraint also arises from its own difficult internal political and ethnic balance. Helping the Kobani Kurds could empower pro-PKK factions at a moment when Ankara is negotiating a delicate peace agreement with that movement in Turkey itself. But not helping the Kobani Kurds may fuel more Kurdish unrest inside Turkey. It is a catch-22 situation which Mr Erdoğan has not resolved.

Joining the fight against Isis also risks a backlash, since that group, experts believe, has cells inside Turkey. The Ankara government recently secured the release of 46 of its diplomats held hostage in Iraq since June. The terms of this negotiation may well have included a quid pro quo.

Mr Erdoğan will want to make sure that whatever decision he takes serves him and his country politically. In the face of humanitarian disaster in Kobani, this may appear coldhearted to western opinion. But Mr Erdoğan is no different from any of the other regional actors, be they in Damascus, Tehran, Riyadh or Abu Dhabi. All are consulting their own interests. We cannot blame Turkey, weighing momentous decisions, if it wants some clearer answers to the question of what the western endgame is in Syria and Iraq.

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ISIS Marches to a Massacre - WSJ
Thursday October 9th, 2014 at 11:47 AM

A month ago President Obama ordered the world’s greatest military “to degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. America’s word isn’t what it used to be. As we went to press on Tuesday, ISIS was on the verge of a major military victory in Kobani, a mostly Kurdish city along Syria’s border with Turkey.

The siege of Kobani has left hundreds dead and forced some 200,000 to flee, mostly to Turkey. The city’s fall would mean a massacre of civilians and Kurdish fighters—ISIS doesn’t distinguish among...

Effort to prevent panic over Ebola went too far
Thursday October 9th, 2014 at 11:45 AM

Effort To Prevent Panic Over Ebola Went Too Far - Los Angeles Times

In their early attempts to prevent panic in the United States, government officials spoke too quickly and with too much assurance when they told Americans not to worry about the Ebola virus crossing the country's borders. Last month, President Obama announced that all the necessary steps had been taken “so that someone with the virus doesn't get on a plane for the United States.” Had the public realized what those precautions consisted of — merely checking travelers' temperatures, even though infected people can remain without a fever for weeks, and asking them whether they had been in close contact with Ebola patients — many Americans probably would have disagreed with the president. It was only a matter of weeks before Obama's words proved inaccurate.

Nor were all U.S. medical facilities as prepared to recognize the signs of Ebola as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believed they were. That was made evident after a Dallas hospital sent Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan home with antibiotics, even though the hospital knew that he had recently arrived from Liberia. On Wednesday, Duncan died.

Preventing unnecessary anxiety is good, but not if it means failing to address valid concerns. Now the president and the CDC must consider not only which safety measures to invoke and when, but how to rebuild trust with the American public.

After Duncan's death, the government announced that in addition to the preflight screenings performed in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, travelers from those nations would be rescreened when they arrived in the United States — at least in the five airports where 94% of them arrive. Temperatures will be taken and passengers questioned a second time about contacts with infected people. Of course, some might lie, as Duncan did, but there is less incentive to do that once they have arrived safely in the U.S.

To these measures, authorities should consider adding a waiting period of several hours in the airport before checking for fever, to be sure that it has not been masked with acetaminophen or another medication, and expanding the screening to arrivals anywhere in the nation. And they should ask for detailed information about where the travelers will be staying and give them a phone number to call immediately should they feel ill.

No one should pretend that this is a fail-safe arrangement. But so far, this country has experienced only one lapse, and so far, none of the people with whom Duncan was in contact have fallen ill. It's too early to think about more draconian measures, such as quarantines or travel bans from the high-risk countries. But officials should reassure the public that they are open to strengthening safety precautions should that become necessary.

The Obama administration is doing the most important thing to keep the American public safe: providing resources to quell the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. By saving lives abroad, the United States might be able to prevent dangerous destabilization of the nations involved, and keep the outbreak from growing out of control so that there is no way to contain it within national or continental borders.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionhttp://twitter.com/latimesopinion

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Turkey’s Refusal to Fight ISIS Hurts the Kurds
Thursday October 9th, 2014 at 11:44 AM

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, once aspired to lead the Muslim world. At this time of regional crisis, he has been anything but a leader. Turkish troops and tanks have been standing passively behind a chicken-wire border fence while a mile away in Syria, Islamic extremists are besieging the town of Kobani and its Kurdish population.

This is an indictment of Mr. Erdogan and his cynical political calculations. By keeping his forces on the sidelines and refusing to help in other ways — like allowing Kurdish fighters to pass through Turkey — he seeks not only to weaken the Kurds, but also, in a test of will with President Obama, to force the United States to help him oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whom he detests.

It is also evidence of the confusion and internal tensions that affect Mr. Obama’s work-in-progress strategy to degrade and defeat the Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim extremist group also called ISIS or ISIL. Kurdish fighters in Kobani have been struggling for weeks to repel the Islamic State. To help, the Americans stepped up airstrikes that began to push the ISIS fighters back, although gun battles and explosions continued on Wednesday.

But all sides — the Americans, Mr. Erdogan and the Kurds — agree that ground forces are necessary to capitalize on the air power. No dice, says Mr. Erdogan, unless the United States provides more support to rebels trying to overthrow Mr. Assad and creates a no-fly zone to deter the Syrian Air Force as well as a buffer zone along the Turkish border to shelter thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled the fighting.

No one can deny Mr. Assad’s brutality in the civil war, but Mr. Obama has rightly resisted involvement in that war and has insisted that the focus should be on degrading ISIS, not going after the Syrian leader. The biggest risk in his decision to attack ISIS in Syria from the air is that it could put America on a slippery slope to a war that he has otherwise sought to avoid.

Mr. Erdogan’s behavior is hardly worthy of a NATO ally. He was so eager to oust Mr. Assad that he enabled ISIS and other militants by allowing fighters, weapons and revenues to flow through Turkey. If Mr. Erdogan refuses to defend Kobani and seriously join the fight against the Islamic State, he will further enable a savage terrorist group and ensure a poisonous long-term instability on his border.

He has also complicated his standing at home. His hesitation in helping the Syrian Kurds has enraged Turkey’s Kurdish minority, which staged protests against the Turkish government on Wednesday that reportedly led to the deaths of 21 people. Mr. Erdogan fears that defending Kobani would strengthen the Syrian Kurds, who have won de facto control of many border areas as they seek autonomy much like their Kurdish brethren in Iraq. But if Kobani falls, Kurdish fury will undoubtedly grow.

The Americans have been trying hard to resolve differences with Mr. Erdogan in recent days, but these large gaps are deeply threatening to the 50-plus-nation coalition that the United States has assembled. One has to wonder why such a profound dispute was not worked out before Mr. Obama took action in Syria.

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How Shrien Dewani used Gaydar to trawl for group sex with men as young as 18
Thursday October 9th, 2014 at 11:41 AM

News | Mail Online

Dewani set up profile on gay dating website under the name 'asiansubguy'
He accessed Gaydar two days before he 'plotted wife's honeymoon murder'
'States preference for for 1-on-1 sex or group sex... with gays or bisexuals'
His lawyers are expected to argue that his account logged in automatically
Bosses from Gaydar and fetish site Recon are set to testify against Dewani
'Link man' who hired two hit men played far bigger role in plot, court heard
Defence lawyers continue to question hitman 'hired to carry out the murder'
Mziwamadoda Qwabe, 29, was convicted of killing Anni Dewani in carjacking
Admits he received no instructions about how or where she would be killed

By Jane Flanagan For Mailonline In Cape Town and Simon Tomlinson for MailOnline

Published: 08:27 GMT, 9 October 2014 | Updated: 13:58 GMT, 9 October 2014

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Shrien Dewani described himself as 'submissive, filthy-minded and perverted' in his profile on a gay hook-up website, it was claimed today.

The millionaire used the logon 'asiansubguy' to access Gaydar on his honeymoon two days before he allegedly arranged the murder of his wife Anni, court papers suggest.

On a profile cited as belonging to him, it states a preference for hooking up with men aged between 18 and 99 years old 'for 1-on-1 sex, group sex or other activities... with single gays or bisexuals'.

It describes the user as a 'passive' partner who practiced safe sex 'always'.

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Shrien Dewani (pictured outside court today) reportedly described himself as 'submissive, filthy-minded and perverted' in a profile on a gay hook-up website which he accessed on his honeymoon

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Trawling for men: A profile believed to have been used by Dewani on the gay hook-up website Gaydar shows the user is looking 'for 1-on-1 sex, group sex or other activities... with single gays or bisexuals'

Describing his body type as 'defined', Dewani apparently cites himself as 'submissive c*********, filthy-minded and perverted' who is looking for like-minded partners the 'same as me, filthy and perverted but safe.'

Dewani was a member of Gaydar from 2004 until deactivating his account a week after her murder.

Gaydar boasts of being 'the premier gay dating site. Home to millions of men'.

Leopold Leisser, the gay escort Dewani admits to having liaisons with, is expected to give evidence in court next week, having met Dewani via Gaydar.

In his statement to police, British-based Mr Leisser, known to his clients as the German Master, said Dewani liked to be physically and verbally abused with fetish paraphernalia and racially-insulting names.

An admissions bundle released by the court yesterday suggested Dewani had also surfed a gay fetish hook-up website the day after his murdered wife's body was found.

The 34-year-old, who claims to be bi-sexual, used the logon name of 'asiansubguy' to take out premium membership of Recon, according to his admissions statement released by the court.

The term 'sub' is believed to refer to 'submissive'.

The document shows he was signed into Recon the day before Mrs Dewani was killed and two days after she died, staying logged on for several hours.

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Shrien Dewani's parents, Shila and Prakash (centre) arrive at the Western Cape High Court

Anni Dewani's uncle, Ashok Hindocha arrives at the Western Cape High Court

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State prosecutor Shireen Riley arrives at court on Day three of the trial

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Anni Dewani's uncle, Ashok Hindocha (left) and State prosecutor Shireen Riley (right) arrive at court

Recon describes itself as the 'world's largest hook-up site for men into fetish gear' and has 38,000 members.

Senior executives from gay and fetish websites Gaydar and Recon are scheduled to be early witnesses for the state against Dewani in his murder trial.

Described by court insiders as 'technical experts', two senior figures from Gaydar and Recon are being flown to South Africa by prosecutors who are keen to demonstrate that Dewani’s secret life as a gay man was a strong motive for wanting his new bride killed.

It will be essential for prosecutor Adrian Mopp to establish that electronic devices owned by Dewani could only have been logged into the sites if he was actually operating his phone or computer himself, using his chosen user names and password.

It is thought that Dewani’s lawyers will seek to cast doubt over the fact that it was the Bristol-based businessman who was actively visiting the sites and that as a premium paying member, his phone or laptop could connect to them automatically.

When one a source close to the businessman’s defence team was yesterday asked outside court about the fact that Dewani was surfing fetish and gay websites - sometimes simultaneously - he replied curtly that 'his computer was logged onto them, not him, there is a difference.'

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'Surfing on his honeymoon': Dewani logged onto gay dating website Gaydar (above) while he and his new bride waited for an internal flight after two nights at a luxury safari lodge

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'World's largest hook-up site for men into fetish gear': Court documents revealed Dewani surfed the bondage website Recon (above) the day after his wife's body was found

Meanwhile, the role of a middle man who recruited two hit men on behalf of Dewani's driver today emerged as a more significant player in the killing of Mrs Dewani.

Monde Mbolombo has provided police with a new version of the part he played in the November 2010 murder in recent weeks which directly contradicted the evidence he gave at earlier hearings, it was revealed today.

One of the hit men convicted over the murder, Mziwamadoda Qwambe, has repeatedly downplayed Mbolombo's role during his testimony, including under fierce cross-examination by Francois van Zyl, insisting that Mbolombo was merely 'a link man'.

Mbolombo was granted immunity from prosecution in return for giving evidence against Tongo and the two hit men he briefed to carry out the contract killing.

He is expected to be called by the state in the weeks to come.

Mr van Zyl confronted Qwabe with phone records which showed Mbolombo called him repeatedly before and after the death of Mrs Dewani.

The defence has also obtained CCTV footage and audio recordings from the hotel reception desk where Mbolombo worked, in which he is heard to be giving Tongo instructions about providing gloves for the hit men, the court heard.

'If that is true then Monde was more than just a link. He's now part and parcel here of this whole plan,' Mr van Zyl told Qwambe.

Court proceedings adjourned early for the day after Qwabe complained of an upset stomach which made him 'too uncomfortable' to give evidence.

Earlier in the day, Dewani appeared extremely fidgety and had to leave the dock - his lawyer telling the court that his stomach was also bothering him.

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Hitman: Mziwamadoda Qwabe (pictured, right, at an earlier hearing) claims he and an accomplice were promised R15,000 (£1,300) to shoot Anni Dewani in a carjacking on the couple's Cape Town honeymoon

Yesterday, Qwabe, 29, told the court how he and an accomplice were promised R15,000 (£1,300) to shoot Mrs Dewani in a staged carjacking.

But the millionaire's defence team made early gains towards clearing Dewani of any involvement by getting Qwabe to admit he had received no instructions about how or where his new bride would be killed.

Under cross-examination from defence counsel Francois van Zyl, Qwabe also admitted he had previously lied under oath.

The former insurance worker told the trial yesterday how he was first told about the 'job' to kill the 28-year–old the previous night by Dewani's taxi driver Zola Tongo.

Qwabe, who was jailed for 25 years for his part in the execution, claimed Tongo told him: 'There was a husband who wanted his wife killed.'

He then organised the plot in a 20-minute meeting the following day – just hours before she was shot dead after they ambushed Tongo's cab.

But Qwabe admitted that despite accepting promise of payment for the hit, he had not discussed details about how she would be killed.

'You accepted an instruction to kill someone for R15,000 (£1,300 at rates at the time)... but you never even thought about how this person had to be killed?', asked Mr van Zyl.

Qwabe replied 'no'.

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Shrien Dewani with his wife Anni, whom he is accused of murdering by hiring at hitman to stage a violent carjacking on their honeymoon in South Africa four years ago

He added that he did not discuss the method or who would do it.

In the next breath, however, he said before the night of the murder he gave his firearm to convicted gunman Xolile Mngeni.

He said they both knew a firearm was going to be used, but they did not know when or where.

'That's why I got a shock after she had been shot,' he explained.

Prosecutors claim 34-year-old entrepreneur Dewani wanted out of his marriage to Swedish-raised Anni and arranged a carjacking in which he survived and his wife did not.

Qwabe described how he and accomplice Xolile Mngeni – who has also been convicted for the murder – waited to intercept the couple's cab as they toured a township.

After a first aborted attempt, they seized the car at gunpoint and released driver Tongo and Dewani unharmed – telling him to ‘report the hijacking’.

As the hitmen drove on, Mngeni shot Mrs Dewani.

Qwabe said: ‘I got a shock. I asked him what he had done? He said he had shot the lady.

‘We had never discussed where she was going to be killed or how she was going to be killed.

Asked if he knew if she was alive or not, he said: ‘I didn’t take much notice.’

After disposing of evidence, they counted the money that had been left by Tongo in a pouch – and found just £860.

The trial resumes on Monday.

THE TIMELINE OF THE HONEYMOON MURDER

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2010

November 13 - Shrien and Anni Dewani's cab is hijacked as their chauffeur drives them through the rough township of Gugulethu on the outskirts of Cape Town on their honeymoon.

Dewani escapes but his wife is driven off and killed. Her body is found the next morning in the back of the abandoned vehicle. A subsequent post-mortem examination finds she was shot in the neck.

November 16 - Dewani leaves South Africa. Xolile Mngeni, from the township of Khayelitsha, is arrested by Western Cape Police.

November 17 - Mngeni is charged with the hijacking and murder.

November 18 - Police arrest a second suspect, Mzwamadoda Qwabe, also from Khayelitsha.

November 20 - Police arrest a third suspect, the couple's taxi driver Zola Tongo, from Cape Town.

November 23 - Dewani rejects speculation that he was somehow involved in the car-jacking, telling The Sun: 'People who suggest this could not have seen us together.'

December 7 - Tongo is jailed for 18 years after making a plea agreement with prosecutors. The taxi driver claims Dewani offered him 15,000 rand (£850) to have his wife killed - something strongly denied by the British businessman's family.

Dewani is arrested in Bristol under a South African warrant on suspicion of conspiring to murder his wife.

December 8 - Dewani, originally from Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, appears at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in London and is remanded in custody as the South African authorities fight to extradite him.

2011

March 3 - Dewani, who is said to be suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, is sent to the Priory Hospital in Bristol.

April 20 - He is compulsorily detained under the Mental Health Act at Fromeside Clinic, a secure hospital in Bristol.

May 3 to 5 - Dewani's extradition hearing begins at Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London. Prosecutors cite an unnamed witness who claims Dewani confessed he needed to 'find a way out of' his marriage months before the wedding.

August 10 - District Judge Howard Riddle rules that Dewani can be extradited to South Africa to stand trial.

September 20 - Wynberg Regional Court in South Africa hears claims that Dewani approached an airport shuttle service operator and sought a hitman to murder his wife almost immediately after the couple arrived at a five-star hotel in Cape Town.

September 28 - Home Secretary Theresa May signs an order for Dewani to be extradited to South Africa.

September 30 - Dewani lodges a High Court appeal against Mrs May's decision.

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Prakash Dewani (right), father of British businessman Shrien Dewani and brother Preyen Dewani (centre) arrive with family members and legal representatives at the Western Cape High Court, South Africa, in May

2012

February 10 - The Western Cape High Court in South Africa hears that Dewani is to be added as the fourth accused when the murder trial eventually gets under way.

March 30 - The High Court temporarily halts Dewani's extradition, ruling that it would be 'unjust and oppressive' to order his removal. But the court said it was plainly in the interests of justice that he should be extradited 'as soon as he is fit' to be tried.

August 8 - South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority announces that Qwabe has pleaded guilty to murdering Mrs Dewani along with charges of kidnapping, robbery and the illegal possession of a firearm.

He is jailed for 25 years. In a statement as part of his plea deal, Qwabe said that after he and Mngeni staged the fake hijacking, he drove the car as Mngeni kept a pistol pointed at Mrs Dewani in the back seat before shooting her.

November 19 - Mngeni is found guilty of premeditated murder at the Western Cape High Court. He is also convicted of robbery with aggravating circumstances and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. But he is acquitted of Mrs Dewani's kidnapping.

December 3 - Dewani is allowed to switch from Fromeside to Blaise View mental health hospital in Bristol, described as a more 'open, relaxed and calm environment', after a court hears he is a 'husk' of his former self and 'adapted poorly' to treatment.

Xolile Mngeni is jailed for life for shooting Mrs Dewani.

2013

February 13 - Dewani is admitted to hospital suffering chest pains, his family say.

April 11 - Dewani's mental health is said to have improved 'significantly,' a court hears.

May 15 - His QC Clare Montgomery tells another court update that his mental health has deteriorated.

July 1 - The full extradition hearing begins at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

July 24 - Chief Magistrate Howard Riddle rules Dewani should be extradited to South Africa. Lawyers acting for Dewani immediately announce their intention to appeal.

October 22 - Dewani's extradition is delayed as a panel of High Court judges decides the murder suspect can have a further hearing as there are outstanding legal issues the court must decide.

2014

January 31 - Dewani, compulsorily detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act, loses his latest High Court bid to block his extradition after assurances about the suspect's treatment by South African authorities.

February 21 - The Judicial Office confirms Dewani is applying to the High Court to try to get his extradition case heard by the Supreme Court, the highest in the land, in an effort to delay his removal from the UK.

March 3 - Three High Court judges reject Dewani's current grounds of appeal, further paving the way for his extradition.

March 23 - South African officials confirm Dewani will be extradited on April 7.

April 7 - Hours before Dewani's departure, Anni Dewani's brother tells of the family's anguish in their quest for answers. Anish Hindocha tells ITV: 'We are just focusing on this case at the moment and it is hard to even start making the grieving process final yet because there are so many questions we need answers to.'

April 8 - Dewani arrives in Cape Town at around 8.15am ahead of a court hearing, having flown out of Bristol Airport the night before. He is later sent to a psychiatric unit. His family say in a statement: 'Shrien remains committed to proving his innocence in a court of law and uncovering the truth behind his wife's murder.'

May 12 - Staff at the Valkenberg Hospital in Cape Town where Dewani is being treated say the murder suspect's condition has improved. He will remain at the unit for further treatment, they confirm.

June 20 - Dewani's defence counsel Francois van Zyl tells Western Cape High Court his client will be 'fit to plead' at the start of his trial on October 6, subject to being found fit by a mental health panel.

October 5 - On the eve of the trial, Anni Dewani's family say they are looking for 'closure' before they can finally mourn.

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Islamic State seizes large areas of Syrian town despite air strikes
Thursday October 9th, 2014 at 11:39 AM

MURSITPINAR Turkey/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State fighters seized more than a third of the Syrian border town of Kobani, a monitoring group said on Thursday, as U.S.-led air strikes failed to halt their advance and Turkish forces nearby looked on without intervening.

With Washington ruling out a ground operation in Syria, Turkey described as unrealistic any expectation that it would conduct a cross-border operation unilaterally to relieve the mainly Kurdish town.

The U.S. military said Kurdish forces appeared to be holding out in the town that lies within sight of Turkish territory, following fresh airstrikes in the area against a militant training camp and fighters.

However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State, which is still widely known by its former acronym of ISIS, had pushed forward on Thursday.

"ISIS control more than a third of Kobani - all eastern areas, a small part of the northeast and an area in the southeast," said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Observatory which monitors the Syrian civil war.

The commander of Kobani's heavily outgunned Kurdish defenders confirmed that the militants had made major gains in a three-week battle that has also led to the worst streets clashes in years between police and Kurdish protesters across the frontier in southeast Turkey.

Militia chief Esmat al-Sheikh put the area controlled by Islamic State, which has already seized large amounts of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, at about a quarter of the town. "The clashes are ongoing - street battles," he told Reuters by telephone from the town.

Explosions rocked the town throughout Thursday, with black smoke visible from the Turkish border a few kilometers (miles) away. Islamic State hoisted its black flag in Kobani overnight and a stray projectile landed 3 km (2 miles) inside Turkey.

The United Nations says only a few hundred inhabitants remain in Kobani but the town's defenders say the battle will end in a massacre if Islamic State prevails, giving it a strategic garrison on the Turkish border.

They complain that the United States is giving only token support through the air strikes, while Turkish tanks sent to the frontier are looking on but doing nothing to defend the town.

However, the U.S. Central Command said it conducted five air strikes near Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, and that the Kurdish fighters in the area appeared to "control most of the city and are holding out against" the militants.

The strikes had damaged an Islamic State training camp and destroyed one of its support buildings as well as two vehicles, CENTCOM said in a statement. They also hit one small unit and one large unit of militant fighters.

UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

Despite Kurdish appeals for help, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu played down the likelihood of its forces going to the aid of Kobani.

"It is not realistic to expect Turkey to conduct a ground operation on its own," he told a joint news conference with visiting NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. However, he added: "We are holding talks.... Once there is a common decision, Turkey will not hold back from playing its part."

Ankara resents any suggestion from Washington that it is not pulling its weight, but wants broader joint action that also targets the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "We strongly reject allegations of Turkish responsibility for the ISIS advance," said a senior Ankara government source.

"Our allies, especially the U.S. administration, dragged their feet for a very long time before deciding to take action against the catastrophic events happening in Syria," he added.

Turkey has long advocated action against Assad during the civil war, which grew out of a popular uprising in 2011. However, the United States called off air strikes on Damascus government forces at the last minute last year when Assad agreed to give up his chemical weapons.

Retired U.S. General John Allen, tasked by President Barack Obama to oversee the creation and work of the anti-Islamic State coalition, was in Ankara on Thursday and Friday for talks with the Turkish leadership.

President Tayyip Erdogan says he wants the U.S.-led alliance to enforce a "no-fly zone" to prevent Assad's air force flying over Syrian territory near the Turkish border and create a safe area for an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey to return.

But Stoltenberg said that establishing a no-fly zone or a safe zone inside Syria has not been discussed by NATO.

TURKISH CLASHES

At least 21 people died in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey on Wednesday during clashes between security forces and Kurds demanding that the government do more to help Kobani. There were also clashes in Istanbul and Ankara.

The fallout from the war in Syria and Iraq has threatened to unravel Turkey's peace process with its Kurdish community. Ankara has long been suspicious of any Kurdish assertiveness as it tries to end its own 30-year war with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Following Wednesday's violence in Turkey, streets have been calmer since curfews were imposed in five southeastern provinces, restrictions unseen since the 1990s when PKK forces were fighting the Turkish military in the southeast.

Erdogan said that protesters had exploited the events in Kobani as an excuse to sabotage the peace process. "Carrying out violent acts in Turkey by hiding behind the terror attacks on Kobani shows that the real intention and target is entirely different," he said in a statement.

Selahattin Demirtas, the head of Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) which called on Turkish Kurds to take to the streets earlier this week, rejected accusations that this call had provoked the violence. Appealing for calm, he also said jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan had called for talks with the government to be stepped up.

Kurdish leaders in Syria have asked Ankara to help establish a corridor which will allow aid and possibly arms and fighters to cross the border and reach Kobani, but Ankara has so far been reluctant to respond positively.

Syrian Kurds annoyed Ankara last year by setting up an interim administration in the northeast after Assad lost control of the region. Turkey wants Kurdish leaders to abandon their self-declared autonomy and has also been unhappy with their reluctance to join the wider opposition to Assad.

On the Turkish side of the frontier near Kobani, 21-year-old student Ferdi from the eastern Turkish province of Tunceli said if Kobani fell, the conflict would spread to Turkey. "In fact it already has spread here," he said, standing with a group of several dozen people in fields watching the smoke rising from west Kobani.

Turkish police fired tear gas against protesters in the town of Suruç near the border overnight. A petrol bomb set fire to a house and the shutters on most shops in the town were kept shut in a traditional form of protest against state authorities.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul and Orhan Coskun, Tulay Karadeniz and Jonny Hogg in Ankara; Editing by David Stamp)

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How Obama's broken promises have put America in danger says Piers Morgan
Thursday October 9th, 2014 at 11:31 AM

News | Mail Online

By Piers Morgan for MailOnline

Published: 18:47 GMT, 8 October 2014 | Updated: 14:40 GMT, 9 October 2014

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If you’re President of the United States, and therefore unofficial Leader of the Free World, then your most important job every day is to make everyone feel calm and secure even as chaos reigns.

POTUS is supposed to be a global figurehead for stability.

That’s why when George W Bush was told about the second World Trade Center attack while sitting in a classroom full of kids, he didn’t jump up and race out of the room. He remained sitting, determined not to exude fear or panic in front of the cameras. It’s what Presidents have to do.

That’s also why Martin Sheen’s character President Jed Bartlet in the West Wing was so popular – he took everything, even being shot, in his easy, confident, reassuring stride.

Yet today, Barack Obama gave a speech to fellow Democrats in New York where he said the following words: ‘There’s a sense possibly that the world is spinning so fast and nobody is able to control it.’

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Barack Obama gave a speech to fellow Democrats in New York where he said the following words: ‘There’s a sense possibly that the world is spinning so fast and nobody is able to control it.’

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He let the AP shoot him trying to show control: Here Obama speaks during a phone call about Ebola, in the Oval Office on Wednesday

Really, Mr President?

You think what we all need to hear that from you right now is that the whole planet’s going to hell in a handcart?

YOU’RE the guy who’s supposed to be controlling it!

Perversely, Obama then went on to infer he HAS got everything under control, boasting of how America’s had to tackle just about every major problem facing the world right now - ISIS, Ebola, Russia, climate change – virtually on its own.

Interestingly, he also deployed the word ‘we’ as he took credit throughout this speech – in direct contrast to the word ‘they’ he deployed last week when chucking his intelligence agencies under the bus for NOT stopping the rise of ISIS. I’ve never trusted bosses who say ‘we’ when talking about supposed success and ‘they’ when talking about failure.

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The popular version: Martin Sheen’s character President Jed Bartlet 'was so popular – he took everything, even being shot, in his easy, confident, reassuring stride.'

I trust Obama even less when he talks up the way he’s dealt with ISIS, Ebola and Russia as some kind of triumph.

In every case, the glaring warning signs were ignored until it was way too late. ISIS is now on the rampage thoughout the Middle East, Russia grabbed Crimea and is trying hard to grab vast swathes of Ukraine, and Ebola’s both out of control and now on American soil.

All this comes as former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave a damning verdict on Obama’s leadership skills, particularly over Syria, in his new book.

Obama, of course, vowed to hit Syria hard militarily if they ‘crossed the red line’ and used chemical weapons, but then did nothing when Assad promptly used them to kill 1,400 of his own people.

‘It was the right thing to do,’ said Panetta, ‘but once he did that, the credibility of the United States is on the line. It was important for us to stand by our word and go in and do what a commander in chief should do.’

Obama seems to have a lot of trouble standing by his word.

He repeatedly promised to close down Guantanamo Bay if he became President. It’s still open.

He repeatedly promised Newtown families he would get action on gun control after Sandy Hook. Nothing happened.

He repeatedly promised ‘no more secrecy’ in open, more transparent government. Five years later, we discovered the NSA were secretly bugging and hacking almost the entire planet.

As a father of four children, I’ve learned the hard way that the number one rule of parenting is never break a promise to your son or daughter. If you say you’re going to do something, then do it.

By not keeping his promises, Obama has emboldened Assad, Putin and ISIS on the foreign stage. And made America less safe.

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Could Ebola be used as a weapon by ISIS?
Thursday October 9th, 2014 at 11:29 AM

News | Mail Online

Isis fanatics may be thinking of infecting themselves with Ebola, says expert
A U.S Naval War College lecturer says strategy is entirely plausible
The virus is running rampant in West Africa, with 3,800 dead in a few months

By Ted Thornhill for MailOnline

Published: 11:57 GMT, 9 October 2014 | Updated: 14:56 GMT, 9 October 2014

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Terrorist group Isis may be considering using Ebola as a suicide bio-weapon against the West, according to a military expert.

The virus is transmitted by direct contact with an infected person who is showing the symptoms – and it wouldn't be difficult for fanatics to contract it then travel to countries they want to wreak havoc in, according to a military expert.

Capt. Al Shimkus, Ret., a Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, said that the strategy is entirely plausible.

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Terrorist group Isis may be considering using Ebola as a suicide bio-weapon against the West, according to a military expert

He told Forbes: 'The individual exposed to the Ebola Virus would be the carrier. In the context of terrorist activity, it doesn't take much sophistication to go to that next step to use a human being as a carrier.'

And Professor Anthony Glees, Director at Buckingham University's Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, agrees that the strategy might be considered.

He said: 'In some ways it’s a plausible theory – IS fighters believe in suicide and this is a potential job for a suicide mission. They are sufficiently murderous and well-informed to consider it, and they know that we’ve been remiss in the UK.'

The virus is running rampant in West Africa, with 3,800 dead in just a matter of months and the first cases appearing in Europe at the U.S.

The possibility that Isis, also known as Islamic State and Isil, could make the situation far worse is one that should be taken very seriously, another expert said.

In the May 2013 issue of the journal Global Policy, Amanda Teckman, author of the paper The Bioterrorist Threat Of Ebola In East Africa And Implications For Global Health And Security concluded: 'The threat of an Ebola bioterrorist attack in East Africa is a global health and security concern, and should not be ignored,' Forbes reported.

Far from being lone voices on this theory, concern in America about Ebola being used as a bioweapon was in fact a catalyst for its $5.6billion Project Bioshield, according to a source familiar with the matter, who did not wish to be named.

The virus is running rampant in West Africa, with 3,800 dead in just a matter of months and the first cases appearing in Europe at the U.S

Signed off by President George W. Bush in 2004, it ensures generous funding for scientists researching bioweapon counter-measures, as well as accelerating research against chemical, radiological and nuclear agents.

It also grants the U.S government the power to stockpile huge quantities of medical countermeasures.

However, Jennifer Cole, Senior Research Fellow, Resilience & Emergency Management, at the Royal United Services Institute, while acknowledging that Isis using Ebola as a weapon isn't out of the question, says that now would not be the best time to employ this strategy.

She told MailOnline: 'Everyone's looking out for signs of Ebola at the moment so they'd be very unlikely to get away with it.

'The other issue with Ebola is that it's very hard to control. The militants could just end up wiping themselves out before they've had the chance to pass it on.

'For a suicide attack, strapping sticks of dynamite to your chest is far more effective.'

Middle East security expert Andreas Krieg, from King’s College London's Department of Defence Studies, echoed Cole's scepticism.

He said: 'It is certainly possible for Isis to use the Ebola virus as it is a cheap and accessible source in West Africa. However, considering the WHO’s and international community’s effort to contain the spread of the virus it will be increasingly difficult to "export" the virus via air transport to other parts of the world. It would require a lot of effort and have a low chance of success.'

He added: 'Isis is not currently focusing on the West. At the moment Isis’ focus is on expanding its territory and influence in Syria and Iraq. It is bogged down there. Within this context I do not see any place for Ebola as a bio-weapon to be used against any of the opponents. It would be too risky as they would likely infect their own fighters and people living in their territory.'

Professor Glees added: 'It would be logistically very difficult to get an IS fighter to West Africa, come into contact with Ebola, wait to find out if they were infected, then leg it to London.'

The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. died on Wednesday despite intense but delayed treatment, and the government announced it was expanding airport examinations to guard against the spread of the deadly disease.

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The possibility that Isis, also known as Islamic State and Isil, could make the situation far worse is one that should be taken very seriously, another expert said.

The checks will include taking the temperatures of hundreds of travelers arriving from West Africa at five major American airports.

The new screenings will begin Saturday at New York's JFK International Airport and then expand to Washington Dulles and the international airports in Atlanta, Chicago and Newark. An estimated 150 people per day will be checked, using high-tech thermometers that don't touch the skin.

The White House said the fever checks would reach more than 9 of 10 travelers to the U.S. from the three heaviest-hit countries - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

President Barack Obama called the measures 'really just belt and suspenders' to support protections already in place. Border Patrol agents now look for people who are obviously ill, as do flight crews, and in those cases the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is notified.

As of Wednesday, Ebola has killed about 3,800 people in West Africa and infected at least 8,000, according to the World Health Organization.

A medical official with the U.N. Mission in Liberia who tested positive for Ebola arrived in the German city of Leipzig on Thursday to be treated at a local clinic with specialist facilities, authorities said.

The unidentified medic infected in Liberia is the second member of the U.N. mission, known as UNMIL, to contract the virus. The first died on September 25. He is the third Ebola patient to arrive in Germany for treatment.

The virus has taken an especially devastating toll on health care workers, sickening or killing more than 370 of them in the hardest-hit countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone - places that already were short on doctors and nurses.

There are no approved medications for Ebola, so doctors have tried experimental treatments in some cases, including drugs and blood transfusions from others who have recovered from Ebola.

The survivor's blood could carry antibodies for the disease that will help a patient fight off the virus.

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