Newsweek - January 30, 2015 USA
Transcript of Newsweek - January 30, 2015 USA
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ISSN 2052-1081
YOSEMITE: THE INSIDE STORYBy Andy Cav
THE DEATH OF FAT
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FOR MORE HEADLINES,GO TO NEWSWEEK.COM
Newsweek (ISSN 2052-1081), is published weekly except for a double issue in December. Newsweek (EMEA) ispublished by Newsweek Ltd (part of the IBT Media Group) 25 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5LQ, UK.
Printed by Quad/Graphics Europe Sp z o.o., Wyszkow, Poland
For Article Reprints, Permissions and Licensing www.IBTreprints.com/NewsweekPARS International (212) 221-9595 x210 [email protected]
30.01.2015 N.5
COVER CREDITSDANIEL BIDDULPH, SHUTTERSTOCK
B I G S H O T S
6 ChinaRiver rescue
8 BrazilCrowd cooling
10 ChechnyaPoster girl
12 IndiaShake it all about
P A G E O N E
14 Frances problemwith secularismby Lucy Wadham
18 The socialitemurder grippingthe Statesby Lynnley Browning
20 The Greek rebelshaking up the EUby Yiannis Baboulias
22 Inquiry opens onthe spy poisonedby Russiaby Mary Dejevsky
26 A dating
revolution forIslams millenialsby Vivian Nereim
N E W W O R L D
52 How magnets canstop machineswearing outby James Badcock
D O W N T I M E
56 Seductress orscholar the realAnne Boleynby Leanda de Lisle
60 Eastwoods latestlm explores thesoul of warby AlexanderNazaryan
64 Hitchocks lostWWII footagereturns to TVby Abigail Jones
66 This week in 1966Truman Capotes In
Cold Blood
FEATURES
28Al-Qaida: the comebackAfter a year in which the leadership of global terrorism was
seized by Isis, al-Qaida is launching its return.Newsweekreports from its new stronghold in Yemen
by James Fergusson
36The truth about the Dawn FaceThe inspirational feat achieved by two young adventurerson Californias El Capitan rock gripped millions. But only
another climber can possibly know the real storyby Andy Cave
42The death of fatThe medical arms race to find a magic pill that will defeatobesity is nearly over and the winner will make a fortune
by Catherine Ostler
COREYRICH/AURORA
VERTICAL LIMIT: After19 days on the wall,Yosemite climbers
reached the summit ofEl Capitan, see p36
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Andy Cave
is an award-
winning author,
world class
mountaineer. He
has led expedi-
tions around theworld, including the Himalayas, the
Alps and Alaska and is the author of
Thin White Line.
CatherineOstler
is a contributing
editor toNews-
weekand to the
Daily Mail. She is
the former editor
of Tatlerand theEvening Standard
Magazine.James
Fergusson
is the author of
several acclaimed
books on Afghani-
stan and Somalia.
He recently
completed a Masters degree in hydro-
geology at Strathclyde University.
Lucy Wadham
is a British
novelist andjournalist based in
Paris. She is the
author of the
bestselling TheSecret Life of France, a study of the
French mindset.
Mary Dejevsky
has worked as a
foreign correspon-
dent in Moscow
for The Times, andin Paris and Wash-
ington DC for TheIndependent. A member of the Cha-tham House thinktank and the Valdai
Group, she is also an Honorary
Research Fellow at the University of
Buckingham.
CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Johnathan Davis Jim Impoco Etienne Uzac
I N T H I S I S S U E
NEWSWEEK (Europe, Middle East & Africa)
Published by Newsweek Ltd, a division of IBT Media Group Ltd
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HELPSAVE
THEFRIDGE
Spitsbergen, Norway. Wild Wonders of Europe / O le Joergen Liodden / WWF-Canon
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E
PA
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CHINA
River rescueRelatives o
passengers missingrom an overturnedtugboat in theYangtze River huddletogether, united intheir grie. A manseeks news on hismobile telephone.Only three out o22 people on boardwere saved, one owhom was reed aull 14 hours aterthe boat capsized
when rescuers cutthrough the bottomo the hull. The30-metre-long boatwas undergoing testswhen it suddenlyturned over,ooding the cockpitwithin 20 seconds,according to one othe survivors.
WU HONG
BIG
SHOTS
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BIG
SHOTS
BRAZIL
Crowdcooling
Temperatures inBrazil have reached40C during the mostsevere heatwave inthe country or 50years. Some respiteis at hand or theseresidents o Rio,cooling off in the seaat Copacabana Beach,where traditionallyit is unusual to swimater the sun has gonedown. Elsewhere,
in the city o Santos,close to So Paulo,at least 30 elderlypeople have diedin the heat. Thiscomes ater 2014 wasdeclared the warmestyear, globally, sincerecords began in1880, says Nasa.
MARIO TAMA
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BI G
SHOTS
CHECHNYA
Poster girlA woman holds a
placard expressingher commitment
to the prophetMuhammad during
a state-sponsoredrally in the NorthCaucasus region
o Chechnya.Demonstrators chant
Allahu-Akbar(God is great) and
release balloons intothe sky as speakersharangue Western
governments orallowing publications
to print caricatureso the prophet.
Chechnya is loyal toRussia, where theleadership extended
its condolences toFrance over the
Charlie Hebdokillingsbut also accused
the cartoonists oprovoking the attacks.
MAKSIM BABENKO
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BIG
SHOTS
INDIA
Shake it allabout
Makar Sankrantimarks one o the
most importantestivals o the Hindu
calendar, celebratingthe suns celestialjourney into the
northern hemisphere.On Sagar Island, at
the conuence othe river Ganges and
the Bay o Bengal,a Sadhu or holy
man casuallytosses his head ater
taking a dip in thewater, creating animpressive arc o
water. The estivalmarks the arrival ospring in India.
RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI
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BETWEEN WORLDS:Malek Chebel, right,an Algerian-bornFrench academic, hasremarked upon thecontinuing tensionbetween secularismand multiculturalismin France
AN EMOTIONAL shock oten makes us lookor some kind o echo, some proo in the worldaround us that everything has changed, but themorning ater last weeks terrorist attacks ontheir city, Parisians woke to pristine winter sun-shine and a clear blue sky.
Crossing town to meet Malek Chebel, one oFrances most prominent Muslim intellectuals a man who always meets anaticism, wherever it
hails rom, with the same reassuringly sagacioussmile I thought o the tears in my daughtersvoice when shed called me rom work the daybeore. Her office is not ar rom Charlie Hebdosand she said she could hear the sirens. No ones
scared, though, she told me. People are cryingat their desks. That evening she let her owndesk and went straight to the Place de la Rpub-lique, along with about 35,000 others, and calledme rom the vast square.
Its such a beautiul, poignant atmosphere.And it has nothing to do with patriotism or poli-tics. It really gives you hope. I didnt ask her howmany Muslims she thought might be out on that
square, but that was what I was think-ing as I spoke to her.
I met Malek Chebel in the EnglishBar o the Hotel Raphael in the 16tharrondissement a quiet, oak-pan-elled room with crimson velvetupholstery and antique Persian rugs,
designed to look like the French idea o anEnglish gentlemans club. Chebel was visiblydelighted to be there. It was only 10 oclock andhed already given our interviews. Im usuallycalled in at times like these to calm things down,
MILLIONS OF MUSLIMS INFRANCE FELT DEEPLY INSULTED
One of Frances most eminent Muslimintellectuals, Malek Chebel, discussespost-Charlie Hebdo multiculturalism
France no longer just wantsintegration, it wants assimilationand thats just not acceptable.
BY
LUCY WADHAM@LucyWadham
P A G E O N E
P
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he said. Out there its a Greek tragedy, every-ones passions unleashed.
Later that aternoon hed been invited to a tele-vised debate with the right-wing polemicist, EricZemmour, whose terriyingly successul mis-ery essay, Le Suicide Franais (which has sold400,000 in three months) argues that ever sincede Gaulle, French identity has been irredeem-ably corroded by eminists, homosexuals and
Arabs. That day in particular, I looked orward toseeing Chebel dismantle Zemmours passionswith his usual skill and charm.
With his religious upbringing in Algeria, ol-lowed by his two French doctorates in socialanthropology and psychology, Malek Chebel haspassports into both worlds. He earned his reputa-tion in Arab society by translating the Koran intoFrench in an edition that won the approval o allthe key Muslim clerics rom the Maghreb to Indo-nesia. But he has also tackled the two subjectsclosest to French hearts: sex and psychoanalysis.
Chebels titles include The Arabic Kama Sutra,Arab Eroticism, and the just-published TheIslamic Unconscious. Impressively, he has to dateno atwa on his head. Thats because ew Mus-lims have actually read the Koran. Its a very, verydifficult text. I gave 10 years o my lie to studyingit and that earned me peoples respect.
Using his erudition to spread a message o lib -eration rom what he calls the dangerous ideol-ogies that have taken possession o his religion,Chebel regularly cites the learned and inclusiveIslamic society that was established under theAbbasid caliphates o the Middle Ages as proo
that Islam can be reormed.I asked Chebel i hed experienced much rac-ism in his adopted land. He told me that whenhed rst arrived in France rom Algeria in themid-1970s hed gone to see the Alps with his girl-riend at the time. They had stopped in a remotevillage and an old woman, ater circling him sev-eral times, had approached him and offered himsome household bleach or his skin. Somethingremains o that womans desire in many Frenchpeople the desire to wash us all whiter thanwhite, he said with a orgiving smile.
When I asked him whether he thought France
was Islamophobic, his answer was coy and rueul:Im araid theres a subtle system o thought inplace here, which lends itsel to an Islamophobicatmosphere. Chebel was talking about Francesobsession with la lacit, which in English meanssecularism as in the separation o church andstate. This translation, however, doesnt quitecover it. Today, the word in French carries with ita history o deep antagonism and mutual distrustbetween the worlds o political belie and reli-
gious aith. Its a visceral hatred that was uelledby the excesses o the Catholic church under theancien rgime, nurtured by the Revolution, reig-nited under the Third Empire and, even ater theofficial separation o church and state in 1905, hasared up regularly ever since. Unortunately,la
lacithas become a dogma in this country whichoten masks a posture o intolerance.This intolerance is not only expressed towards
Muslims. A Jewish riend o my daughters, whohas recently begun practising her religion indeance o the disapproval o her orceully lacparents, as well as nearly all her riends, told methat to be a practising anything in this countryrequires real strength o character.
That lacitmight be seen as a orm o oppres-sion would be deeply offensive to many Frenchsecularists who pride themselves on their egal-itarian values. These are the people who sup-
ported the ban on French Muslim girls wearingtheir headscarves at school, and o course thelaw against wearing a burka in public. Their mainargument in support o these measures (whichmany outside France perceive as an inringemento personal liberty) is somewhat paradoxical:young French Muslim women must be protectedrom patriarchal oppression (o which the head-scar is a symbol) by being told what they can orcant wear in public.
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PARIS IS BURNING:In the wake of theattacks on the officesof the satiricalmagazine CharlieHebdo, demonstratorsmade their wayalong the Place de laRpublique in Paris,left. Chebel, belowleft, who received theLegion of Honour from
President NicolasSarkozy, has spokenabout Frances failureto truly integrateIslamic culture
MARC
PIESECKI/DAVID
RAMOS/GETTY/GERARD
CERLES/2008AFP
In act, as Chebel pointed out, Frances allergyto the Muslim headscar may have more to dowith Frances own patriarchal traditions, whichmake the idea o a woman choosing to cover upher charms distinctly unpalatable.
Perhaps Islams unction in the French col-lective unconscious is to mask its own regressivetendencies, Chebel suggested. The Frenchpatriarchy can hide behind Islam, which every-
one thinks o as a patriarchal and misogynisticreligion. He said he was against headscarves inschools at rst and supported the ban, but hassince changed his mind. When I realised thatmany Muslim girls wear the headscar becauseit made them eel more comortable, I could nolonger oppose it.
Whats not oten discussed here is whetherreligious intolerance is just another orm o racialdiscrimination. According to a study carried outby the French institute o national statistics inApril 2014, a candidate with an Arabic-sound-ing name here is still considerably less likely tobe called back or interview, even i he or she hasbetter qualications, than a rival with a Europe-an-sounding name.
When I mentioned the idea o positive actionto counteract this kind o discrimination, Chebel
expressed the view o the majority o French peo-ple: Positive action signals an admission that, ina society o equal opportunity, the person youreavouring is weaker. Its a mark o disdain.
Chebels argument echoes the prevailing egal-itarianist orthodoxy the same orthodoxy thatsupports Frances law against gathering dataabout ethnic minorities, even as a tool to combatdiscrimination. The argument is that the Frenchare so attached to the ideal o equality beore thelaw that they perceive any departure rom thatprinciple as a orm o injustice.
Chebels caution towards his host culture is
very occasionally replaced by a gentle mock-ery. When I brought up the horror that hadspread across France when it was revealed thatnon-Muslim children had been given halal meatin their school caeterias, he said, The reasonor the violence o that reaction was their uncon-scious belie that we were invading them romthe inside. And we were using meat to do it,which o course is sacred here.
As we settled into the conversation and Chebel
realised, perhaps, that my prejudices might notbe the ones against which he had armed him-sel so careully, he began to lower his guard. Heconessed that, wedded as he was to the idea oreedom o expression, hed elt that the Char-lie Hebdo cartoons had indeed been offensive.There are millions o Muslims in this countrywho elt deeply insulted. O course death shouldnever be the consequence, but we must havemore understanding.
In todays multicultural society, Frances sec-ularist doctrine creates an unbearable tensionand behind this dogmatic orm o lacit thereoten lies a undamental lack o acceptance oother cultures. The trouble is, he added. Franceno longer just wants integration, it wants assim-ilation and thats just not acceptable. I think the
British model, which prac-tices tolerance towards allminorities, is wonderul.But were still a long wayrom that.
When it was time orhim to ace Zemmour, we
walked together to the nearest Metro station. Onthe Place de LEtoile, a young man recognisedhim, came up to us and made a heartelt speechabout his horror at the terrorist attacks: Im aMuslim but Im well-integrated, he began, hishand on his heart. He went on to say how theshootings had made him eel physically sick, howthat wasnt Islam, how grateul he was to Franceor welcoming him in (rom Morocco), or givinghim a job (he was a waiter in a nearby ca), andor helping him to educate his children.
Ater Chebel and I had said goodbye, I remem-bered the young mans words: Im a Muslim but
Im well-integrated. I tried to imagine a BritishMuslim making that kind o statement today. Irealised that it was something you might haveexpected to hear back in the 1960s rom some-one whod just moved to Britain rom Pakistan.
Its true, I thought as I descended the stepsinto the Metro or all Frances beautiul ideasand high moments o popular ervour, there is,in practice, a long way to go beore its practisingMuslims will eel at home. n
The French patriarchy can hide behindIslam, which everyone thinks of as apatriarchal and misogynistic religion.
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AS WALL STREET investor Thomas Gilbert Sr.
stood under the giant elm trees shading Prince-ton Universitys stately Nassau Hall on a sunnyJune Commencement Day in 2009, he saw agleaming uture or his son, Thomas Jr. Hesgoing to run a hedge und! the senior Gilbert,also a Princeton alumnus, declared with pridewhen asked what the handsome, 6t 3in, blond-haired Tommy planned to do with his econom-ics degree. Things turned out very differently orboth Tommy and his ather.
Tommy, now 30, never held down a job atergraduating and lived off his parents handouts.And on 4 January he was arrested on suspicion
o shooting his 70-year-old ather in the headinside his parents eighth-oor Manhattan apart-ment. Tabloids and TV news were riveted by thedrama o the wealthy scion who, according to anindictment, killed his ather on a Sunday ater-noon with a .40-calibre Glock pistol ater askinghis mother, Shelley, to run out and etch him asandwich. When she returned to her expensiveBeekman Place apartment shortly ater 3.15pm,Tommy was gone and her husband was dead in
the bedroom, the Glock not so artully placed on
his chest, as i to suggest this was a suicide. Shecalled 911 and reported that she thought Tommyhad murdered his ather, court papers show.
When police descended on Tommys shabby,one-bedroom apartment in New York CitysChelsea neighborhood around 11pm, ater track-ing him down by pinging his iPhone and order-ing him to return to his apartment, they oundammunition or a .40 Glock, a Glock manual andcarrying case, a speedloader, a red dot sight or ahandgun, 21 blank credit cards and a skimmerused to steal credit card numbers. Arrested onthe spot, Tommy was indicted by the Manhattan
district attorneys office a ew days later.The details o the Tommy Gilbert case have
captured the imagination o a certain portion osociety in Manhattan and the Hamptons. Aterall, i money, good looks, an Ivy League educa-tion and an entre to Wall Street arent sufficientingredients or happiness and success, what is?
People are calling him a monster, but the per-son I knew wasnt a monster, a ormer Prince-ton classmate tells Newsweek. He was a human
THE TRUSTFUND BABY WHOSHOT HIS FATHER IN THE HEAD
Since the murder earlier this month,
New Yorks socialites have been tryingto explain likeable Tommy Gilbert
BY
LYNNLEY BROWNING
IN NEW YORK
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WASP ON TRIAL:
Gilbert was arrestedafter his mothercalled the policeand reported he hadmurdered his fatherat their apartment inManhattans BeekmanPlace
and a likeable one. Marc Agnilo, a lawyer or
Tommy, declined to comment.With his model looks, Tommy seemed a clas-sic New York Wasp. The amily belonged to theobsessively exclusive Maidstone Club in ash-ionable East Hampton, New York, close to wherehis ather and mother own a house worth morethan $10m. As blogs bristled with barbs abouta spoiled brat and trust-und baby, NYPDchie o detectives Robert Boyce indicated ata press conerence that money was behind theghastly crime. The senior Gilbert had beenpaying the $2,400-a-month rent on TommysChelsea apartment, and tabloids reported that
Tommy was not happy with his athers threat tocut his weekly allowance to $300 rom $400 hardly a princely sum in Manhattan.
Last 18 September, court records show,Tommy was charged by police in Southampton,Long Island, with violating a June 2014 protec-tion order taken out by Peter Smith Jr, whoseather rode the Hampton Jitney bus on weekendsrom Manhattan with Tommys ather. Threeearlier, in nearby Sagaponack, the Smith home,
a 17th-century historic mansion, burned to theground in circumstances that are unclear. LisaCosta, a detective with the Southampton policewho is investigating the re, says Gilbert is aperson o interest in the blaze.
Tommy spent the ve years since he letPrinceton doing not much more than surng,practicing Bikram yoga, working out, eatingsushi and watching Netix, according to Anna
Rothschild, who dated him in early 2014. Roth-schild is a 49-year-old Manhattan socialite whoruns a public-relations rm. Until he moved intothe Chelsea apartment in May 2014, he lived ina dark, cramped basement studio apartment,also paid or by his ather, near 86th Street andLexington Avenue, where the Upper East Sidestarts to turn rom pricey to gritty. Tommy wasquite well dressed and very clean, but that stu-dio, with ragged urniture and a television withno cable service, was appalling, says a personwho saw it. Friends and ormer classmates told
Newsweek he was quiet. He seemed kind o gen-tle but insecure, a ormer classmate says. Healways seemed ambivalent. He was sweet, but heseemed abnormally calm.
Despite his athers bold prediction, Tommywas skeptical o Wall Street. He saw it as hav -ing way too much power and control, the ormerclassmate says. Others say that was a reec-tion o his attitude to his ather, who was also aHarvard Business School graduate. He wouldtalk about how anything he attempted to do, itwasnt good enough or his ather, Rothschildsays. He probably gured, Whats the point o
having a job? Last May, Tommy did register ahedge und, though it never raised any money,securities lings show. While wealthy in absoluteterms, the Gilbert amily was not super rich byNew York standards. A will led in ManhattanSurrogate Court shows Gilbert Srs estate worth$1.627m. Slayer laws would prevent Tommyrom inheriting his one-third share i convicted.In a possible sign o a cash crunch, according to aormer colleague o the ather, the Gilberts listedtheir East Hampton home or sale last monthor $11.5m. (The listing was canceled ater themurder.)
At the Main Beach Sur Shop in East Hampton,George McSurer McKee remembers Tommyas someone who always took the path o leastresistance, who was a little below-average inturning and catching waves. He was kind o ool-ing around. While he always had plenty o sur-boards, he tended to avoid the tough-to-controlshort boards, preerring a longer, wider shtailboard. He would always, McKee says, ride theeasiest one to ride. n
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THE NEW LEFT:Alexis Tsipras, leaderof Syriza, above, andPablo Iglesias, belowright, who spurredSpains left-wingparty Podemos toits amazing lead inthe 2014 Europeanelections have struckup a rm friendship
ITS ELEVEN at night, on 12 January, and AlexisTsipras, the 40-year-old leader o the radicallet-wing Syriza party, is being interviewed liveon Greek TV. Speaking with the condence oa man who the polls say will give him a lead oat least 3.5% over the incumbent conservativeparty, New Democracy, he looks like he is givinghis rst prime ministerial interview, two weeks
beore the actual election date on the 25 January.We have sacriced enough. [Stay within the]
Euro with justice, solidarity and democracy.Its what we deserve and what well demand. . . There is no alternatively, there is no otherway, he says. That night, 650,000 peoplewatched the interview, at a time when when
most in Greece have lost their appetite or grand-standing politicians. Two days later, Tsipras tookquestions on Twitter, making #AskTsipras thenumber one trending hashtag in Greece and thethird globally.
No longer the anti-Euro maverick introducedto the mainstream when Syriza was a marginalpolitical orce, Tsipras is promising to end aus-
terity and renegotiate Greeces mas-sive debt now standing at more than170% o the countrys GDP whilestaying within the Eurozone. More
bodly still, he promises to go to warwith Greek oligarchs, an intentionindicative o the extend o his ambi-
tion to break with traditional politicking in thiscorruption-ridden country.
For those who remember his early days at thehelm o a tiny party that hardly won 4,6% o thevote, the contrast between Tsipras past and hiscurrent image, is huge. When the state-educatedson o an engineer took over Syriza (then Syn-
Staying in the Euro with justice,solidarity and democracy. . . Itswhat we deserve.
GREEKS BEARING 12M EURODEMANDS SPOOK EURO LEADERS
Alexis Tsipras is the new face of apan-European left-wing movementdetermined to upset the staus quo
BY
YIANNIS BABOULIAS
IN ATHENS
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as supremely sure o himsel. He had just deliv-ered two major talks in the space o a week andthe let-wing British press had treated him withreverence.
Now, in 2015, he is becoming the ace o theEuropean let and yet its surprising how littleis known about him. Born in 1978, he is marriedto his high-school sweetheart and as the ather otwo children he still tries to walk them to school
every morning. The amily lives in downtownAthens in an area many would consider rough miles away rom the sons and daughters opolitical dynasties that have reigned over Greekpolitical lie in the past seven decades.
His rst steps in Greek political lie were takenearly on, during the wave o school occupationsrocking Greece in the early 1990s. Then a long-haired student and member o the commu-nist party youth, Tsipras represented a groupo schools and soon became adept at playingpolitics.
He joined the Synaspismos youth movementater a split in the Communist party and was theleader o the barely 500-strong group rom 1999and until 2003. But his star really began to shinewhen he ran or mayor o Athens in 2006, winning10% o the vote. Alekos Alavanos, then leader othe party, hand-picked him as his successor, andin 2008 he was elected by party-members as theleader o Synaspismos with a convincing 70%.He wasnt actually elected as an MP until a yearlater, ater the 2009 elections.
Within three turbulent years, the 35-year-oldtook what had by now become Syriza (Coali-
tion o the Radical Let) rom 4,6% in 2009 to26,7% in 2012 and transormed the party into thede-acto opposition.
But today there is another dimension to Tsip-rashis his links to Spains Podemos leader, PabloIglesias. Dubbed Tsiglesias by Bloombergs JoeWeisenthal, the duo is heralded as the new aceo the European Let, with Podemos activistssaying that Tsipras is treated like a hero when hevisits Spain.
Tsiprass anti-austerity policy calls or a 12 mil-lion Euro increase in social spending, puttingGreece on collision course with the European
Union. But opinion polls show that some 75 %o Greeks want the country to stay within thesingle currency. At the time o writing, a likelyresult in the ballot is that no party will win anoverall majority. Tsipras publicly has ruled out acoalition with the ast-rising centre let To Pot-ami party but a power-sharing deal would giveSyrizas energetic leader a valid reason to tonedown his radical proposals and avoid an outrightconict with the European Union. n
aspismos) in 2006, he was the youngest politicalleader in the country.
In 2013, when I interviewed him in the back oa car or theNew Statesman as he crossed Lon-don with his youngest son on his lap on the wayto a Tottenham Hotspur match he came across
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IT HAS TAKEN more than eight years. But nally,at 10am on Tuesday 27 January, the doors to
court 73 at Londons Royal Courts o Justice willswing open; the barristers, solicitors, reporters,and a host o other interested parties will troopin, and judge Sir Robert Owen will declare thestart o a public inquiry into the death o Alexan-der Valterovich Litvinenko, a ugitive rom Rus-sia and newly-minted British citizen, who died ina London hospital on 23 November 2006.
At the centre o proceedings will be MarinaLitvinenko, Alexanders wie or 12 years and agure o preternatural calm and dignity amid allthe hurly-burly and rustration o the near-de-cade since his death. In large measure, that these
hearings are being held at all, and that they havebeen designated a public inquiry rather thanan inquest, represents a personal victory or Lit-vinenko, reecting her dogged determination tond out how and why her husband died.
She also wants to know whether the UK secu-rity services could have done something to saveher husband. The British government, in its stan-dard phrase, neither conrms nor denies herassertion that Alexander received a regular sti-
pend rom the British intelligence agencies.At the time o his death, he had lived in Brit-
ain with his wie and young son, Anatoly orsix years. A ugitive rom Russia, he had spokenout ever more boldly against President Vladimir
WHO KILLED THE SPY? MAYBENOT RUSSIA AFTER ALL
Alexander Litvinenko was slipped
radioactive poison in 2006. Now, themystery of his murder deepens
BY
MARY DEJEVSKY
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DIPLOMATIC ROW:Below left, copiesof the book Deathof a Dissident byLitvinenkos friendAlex Goldfarb andwife Marina, picturedoutside the HighCourt, below right.The main suspectin the case, AndreiLugovoi, below centre,said he would notcooperate with theinquest becausepolitical pressurein Britain waspreventing him from
getting a fair trial
Putin and rights abuses in his homeland.What else he may have done with his lie, how-
ever, was largely eclipsed by the way in which hedied: poisoned, as it was established too late, bythe radioactive isotope, polonium-210. To read-ers o the British press, Litvinenko will oreverbe a bald and emaciated gure in a green gownin a hospital bed, whose last testament was toaccuse Putin o his murder. At the time, all the
elements combined to tell a simple story, and anofficial narrative soon settled down. Accordingto it, Litvinenko had been killed on the orderso the Kremlin because o his increasingly vocalopposition.
Russia was one o very ew countries to producepolonium-210. Scotland Yards investigation ledinvestigators to a certain KGB officer-turned-se-curity consultant, Andrei Lugovoi, who was
charged in absentia. Efforts were made to securehis extradition, but they ailed, with Russia invok-ing a constitutional ban on extraditing nationals.A diplomatic stand-off between the UK and Rus-sia ensued, with tit-or-tat expulsions initiatedby a urious David Miliband, who at the time had
background in Soviet and then Russian intelli-gence. There were the polonium tracks acrossLondon and in British Airways planes in distantparts o the world. Dont panic, Londoners weretold, even as the spectre was conjured up o acriminal, armed with deadly radiation, loose inthe UK capital.
Litvinenkos movements shortly beore hebecame ill included lunch with an Italian agent
and investigator, Mario Scaramella, in a Pic-cadilly sushi bar, and a meeting with Lugovoi who, it turned out, was a long-time associate at the Pine Bar in Mayairs Millennium Hotel.It was here, police concluded, that the deed hadbeen done, when a deadly dose o polonium wasadded to Litvinenkos tea. Boris Berezovsky, themigr oligarch, erce Putin oe and incorrigibleschemer, had more than a bit part. Litvinenko,
it emerged, had been partly in hisemploy, and Berezovsky had undedthe amily in London. Reinorcing thecloak-and-dagger atmosphere was thecoincidence o the new James Bondlm, Skyfall, hitting the screens, withspectacular sequences shot around
the Thames-side headquarters o MI6.Months trundled by; then years. The law
requires that mysterious deaths be investigated,and they hardly come more mysterious than Lit-vinenkos or more potentially threatening topublic saety or to diplomatic relations. The rst
He will forever be the emaciated
gure, whose last testament wasto accuse Putin of his murder.
just become oreign secretary.But this was not just a dry tale o diplo-
matic shenanigans. The Litvinenko affair cameadorned with all the seductive baubles o a spythriller. There was Litvinenkos own shadowy
step is to conduct a post-mortem, which was dulydone in the hospital basement, by three doctorsencased in protective clothing. The second is toopen an inquest and the third, where a crime issuspected, is to put the presumed perpetrator
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on trial. In act, a trial commonly supersedesan inquest, as the same evidence is likely to beheard. In the Litvinenko case, Russias reusalto deliver up Lugovoi delayed, and eventuallythwarted, the possibility o a trial.
There was urther delay to the inquest whenthe coroner, who should have conducted it, rstell ill and was then replaced or (unrelated) mis-conduct. It was postponed once more by gov-
ernment attempts to protect most intelligenceevidence. And lastly, it was delayed by judicialwrangling about its status: whether a case with somany ramications should not take the orm o
an inquiry. The home secretary opposed this. Butater a court challenge and something minis-ters deny was related the implication o Russiain the downing o the Malaysian airliner in east-ern Ukraine last year, the government changedits mind. The inquest was redesignated a publicinquiry.
In practice, the distinction will be modest. Theinquiry allows the judge but no one else to con-sider secret intelligence evidence; that would nothave been so with an inquest. But how much willremain secret is still in doubt.
The years o delay nourished a clutch o con-
spiracy theories, but the official version o eventsand motives has been set or so long that ewexpect Owen to turn up any surprises, despitehis repeated resolutions to undertake a air andearless inquiry. UK public opinion has largelytired o the story, dismissing it as just anotherexample o Kremlin thuggery.
Yet the gaps and inconsistencies that havebeen pointed out by some o those lumpedwith conspiracy theorists are undamental to
documenting, i not actually explaining, whathappened. The most glaring, seen as the keyto any inquiry by the US investigative author,Edward Jay Epstein, among others, is the pub-lication o the post-mortem indings. AlthoughLitvinenkos death provoked shocked head-lines and prompted a drawn-out diplomaticrow, the actual post-mortem results have neverbeen released, not even to support the UKs
extradition request or Lugovoi.As the British investigative reporter David
Habakkuk notes, it is still not at all clear whocontaminated whom, and in what order. Thereremain questions about the role o Berezovskyin managing inormation, and the role o acertain businessman, Yuri Shvets (who was theocus o a BBC radio investigation soon aterLitvinenkos death).
A Soviet-era exiled scientist, Zhores Medve-dev, insists that Russia itsel is among those whoargue that the country is not the only source o
polonium. There is evidence, too, thatin the wake o Berezovskys death lastyear, Scotland Yard is taking a newlook at its earlier investigation intothe Litvinenko case. Some also main-tain that Owen has retreated romhis earlier assumption that this was a(Russian) state-directed assassination.This line was put about, rst by anony-
mous security sources, and later by the directoro public prosecutions at the time, Ken Macdon-ald. I true, this would change a great deal.
There is plenty, in other words, or Sir Rob-
ert Owen to get his teeth into, i he so chooses.Marina Litvinenko, meanwhile, remains stalwartin her aith in British justice. In interviews, shehas said that there is no such thing in Britain asRussian-style telephone justice, and the thatlaw had to be allowed to take its course. Hersolicitor, Elena Tsirlina, insists that her client ishappy with the inquiry arrangements, includ-ing the anonymity granted to many witnessesand the amount o evidence likely to be heardin secret. She has ull condence in Sir RobertOwen, she told me.
In Ben Emmerson, Marina Litvinenko has one
o the countrys most revered barristers whenit comes to challenging the establishment. Butthere are many including Epstein, in a recentbook about unsolved cases who doubt that thetruth will ever come out. He observes that theleast likely to be resolved are those where thereis state, and especially multiple-state, involve-ment. Less conspiratorially, there is the abidingtruth that justice delayed is justice denied. A loto truth can go missing in eight years. n
In the wake of Berezovskysdeath last year, Scotland Yard istaking a new look at its earlierinvestigation into the case
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NOW GET THE BOOK
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Read the extended versions of Newsweeksmost gripping stories online and in print
What made a young Harry Potter fan from a Britishsuburb become a martyr for Allah in the Syrian desert?
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A LOT LIKE LOVE:Islamic weddings,right, have, untilrecently, traditionallybeen arranged by thefamilies of the couple,but as the internet
allows young Muslimsto connect directlywith one another, aWestern-style datingculture is emerging
IN ANOTHER AGE, the engagement betweenMubarak al-Balooshi and his cousin would havebeen arranged by their amily, with little inputon the decision rom him or her. Instead, the23-year-old Omani met his ance on Instagram,
the photo-sharing application.I was liking her photos, then it turned out shewas rom my amily, al-Balooshi says. As he tellshis story, he is sitting with riends on a seasideroad in Muscat nicknamed Sharia Al Hub Ara-bic or Love Street. The ca-lined promenade isa popular place or dates, increasingly commonin Oman as the Persian Gul sultanate adjusts toour decades o oil-uelled development. Whilethe sun sets over the Indian ocean, young mencall out honeyed words to emale passers-by.
But in this traditional Islamic society, wheremixing between genders is limited, social media
offered one o the only discreet ways or al-Ba-looshi to woo a girl.
I got to know the charisma o her personal-ity, he says o his cousin, whom he did not knowpersonally because she lives in the United ArabEmirates. Two months ago, he proposed. Theiramilies welcomed their plans.
Marrying or love was rare just 20 years ago inOman, a peaceul nation o our million that bor-ders Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Arranged matches
FOR THE ISLAMIC INSTAGRAMGENERATION, DATING TAKES OFF
Young Omanis, raised on socialmedia and disillusioned with arranged
marriage, are nding love online
BY
VIVIAN NEREIM
IN MUSCAT@viviannereim
were or a long time the norm, with minimal con-tact between a couple beore their wedding. Butcustoms are evolving rapidly. Oil wealth, global-isation and widespread higher education havetransormed the country since Sultan Qaboos
bin Said seized power rom his ather in 1970 andopened Oman to the world.Its a new generation, says Rahma al-Mah-
rooqi, director o the humanities research centreat Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat. Peopleare becoming more open-minded, says AmmarAli, 26, an Omani who met his wie Sarah (hal-Omani, hal-Scottish) through a mutual riend.
In a survey o 921 Omanis aged 18 to 60,al-Mahrooqis research centre ound that 83%were against arranged marriage. More than alove marriage, young Omanis want a compat-ible marriage, al-Mahrooqi says. Somebody
with, or example, the same kind o educationand background, instead o the same kind oamily. As a result, many are looking or part-ners at university, at work or on social media.
Similar changes are happening in the neigh-boring United Arab Emirates, says Jane Bris-tol-Rhys, associate proessor o anthropologyat Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. Exposure toother cultures whether through television, theinternet, or direct contact with oreigners has
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inuenced ideas about what a good marriageshould look like. Theyre not living in a vacuumhere, and they know there are other choices,Bristol-Rhys says.
An arranged marriage was unthinkableor Waleed Abdullah, a 28-year-old Omani.Because I had relationships beore, its impos-sible I could be convinced easily by any girl, hesays. I need to know the girl.
Abdullah married a woman he met at univer-sity. She ollows a different sect o Islam, butater many months o discussion, he convincedhis amily that she was the right choice.
In some segments o Omani society, datingand marrying or love has become ordinary.Samar al-Mawali, 23, did not tell her parentsabout her relationship with her high-schoolsweetheart at rst, but when they ound out any-way, they supported her. The couple married inDecember ater eight years together. Persuadingher amily was simple, she says. They may beconservative in terms o religion and praying vetimes a day and asting . . . but theyre not conser-vative in the sense that they dont allow us to mixwith boys, she says.
But in other segments o Omani society, datingis still completely taboo. While the country lacksthe religious police o Saudi Arabia, vigilant rel-atives can play a similar role. Amira, 23, who hasdated in secret or years, has always been careul.Imagine i somebody sees me, my cousin or mybrother, by chance? she says. So its always inplaces a bit closed-off, places like the seaside atnight, or a park, places ar rom people close to
us. She asked Newsweek not to publish her lastname, so that her amily does not nd out.Amira met her rst boyriend in an online chat
room when she was 18. Charmed by his words,she talked to him or two years beore they metin person. It was the rst date in my lie, and Iwas shaking, she remembers. It was the rsttime I sat with a man. Over two more years, theyell deeply in love, picking names or their uturechildren. Then he told her his amily would neverapprove, cut off contact and married his cousin.
Amira was hurt, but she recovered. A year aterthe break-up, he asked her to be his second wie;
men are permitted to marry up to our womenin Islam. She reused. Ater this love, I said,Enough, whats the point o love? And guys areidiots, she said. Ill try a traditional marriage.Her amily arranged three matches, none o themright. Now she is dating a man she met at work.With dating, o course, come broken hearts.
Mohammed al-Hinai, 29, is happily married,but wistully remembers his rst love. Their am-ilies were too different, he says. Opposition rom
relatives sunk the relationship. Sometimes theculture kills us here, he says.
Twenty-six-year-old Dana not her real name hopes to avoid a similar ate. Ater she mether boyriend on Facebook our years ago, theyschemed to win over her ather, who has no ideashe dates. Her boyriend prayed at the mosquenear her house and trained at the gym herbrother attended, hoping to run into her amilymembers. Dana ound a job at the office whereher boyriend worked, giving them a sae expla-nation or how they met.
But when he proposed, three times, her ather
demurred. He never inormed Dana she had anoffer, rejecting the proposal because the boy-riend has two daughters rom a previous mar-riage and is separated but not divorced. Thisdoes not matter to Dana; she loves him. But shecannot tell her ather, she says. For us, its ashame or the girl to say to her ather, I want thisone or that one, she says. Unless the ather hasreached a level o open-mindedness that . . . shelaughs, as i the thought were absurd.
Sitting on a lawn chair on Love Street, al-Hi-nai says he has moved on rom his disappoint-ment. Ater reusing a marriage his ather had
arranged, he chose a wie or himsel, a womanrom his village. His eyes are bright as hedescribes the way their two-year-old son callsout Baba each morning. Its impossible toget everything, impossible, he says. The mostbeautiul thing in lie is hope. And a message toevery lover, every madman: dont say that I lovedand it didnt happen, so enough, end o lie.
When love ails, look around, he says. I onedoor is closed, 99 will open. n
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Al-Qaidasnext act
In Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osamabin Laden, al-Qaidas most deadly franchise
has claimed responsibility for the recentattacks in Paris. Now, it is increasing its
stranglehold by controlling the water in acountry dying of thirst
By James Fergusson in Sanaa MOHAMMED
HUWAIS/AFP/GETTY
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DEADLY FRANCHISE: Al-Qaida in Yemen
struck a police academy in central Sanaa
with a car-bomb explosion on 7 January
killing 37 people queuing outside
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The ancient city o Sanaa is one o theoldest continuously-inhabited cities onthe planet. Its astounding street mar-kets, almost unchanged since the timeo the Prophet, used to attract hordeso Western tourists. Not any more. Therisk o kidnap has become too great; theBritish Embassy advises its nationals toleave the country i possible, and i not,to keep any movement around the cap-ital to an absolute minimum. Walkinganywhere in the city these days raiseshairs on the back o the neck.
The kidnap o oreigners, usually byhill tribes seeking leverage over the
Sanaa government, has a long history inYemen. It used to be considered bad orbusiness to harm the victims, who weretraditionally released unhurt that haschanged too. In a sign o the resurgenceo Islamic extremism in the region,kidnappers have started selling theirvictims to al-Qaida and abducted or-eigners increasingly end up dead.
For the last year or more, the Westsear and attention has been ocusedon the emergence o Isis in Syria andnorthern Iraq. The Islamic States ide-
ology, the brutality o its methods, andthe success o its territorial campaignhave eclipsed al-Qaida, the movementthat spawned Isis, but which also or-mally disavowed them a year ago. Sincethe death o Osama bin Laden, al-Qa-ida has seemed divided, directionless; adiminished orce.
Its ranchise in Yemen, al-Qaida in theArabian Peninsula (AQAP), was perhaps
best known abroad or thwarted attackson the West, such as that o UmarFarouk Abdumutallab, the so-calledunderpants bomber, who tried to blowup a plane over Detroit in 2009, or thecargo-planes bomb plot o 2010. Butwith the groups claim o responsibilityor the recent attacks in Paris, however,al-Qaida appears to have made a dra-matic international comeback.
In truth, Yemen has always been anal-Qaida stronghold. As the ancestralhomeland o bin Laden himsel, Yemenis arguably where the movement wasborn. The rst ever al-Qaida attack took
place in Yemen, when US Marines stay-ing in two hotels in Aden were bombedin 1992, and, despite some setbacks,al-Qaida has never been extinguished inYemen since. In 2010, the CIA declaredAQAP the most potentially dangerousranchise on the planet. In 2011, the yearo Yemens Arab Spring, AQAP exploitedthe revolutionary chaos by taking overthe southern province o Abyan, whichthey declared an Islamic Emirate. Ittook the Yemeni military a year to drivethem out again.
In recent times AQAPs targets havebeen mostly domestic. A suicide bombattack on a Parade Day rehearsal inMay 2012 killed 120, and injured 200more; a horrendous assault on a deenceministry hospital in December 2013 let56 dead; on the same day as the Parisattacks, a car bomb outside a Sanaapolice college killed 37.
In 2013, when a 10-month, UN-spon-
sored National Dialogue Conerenceopened in Sanaa, with the promise oa new constitution ahead o resh elec-tions in 2015, AQAPs prospects seemed,briey, to dim. But then, in September,Yemens transition to democracy wasdramatically derailed when disgruntledShia Houthi tribesmen rom the northo the country rst surrounded and thentook over the capital. With the Houthiscontinuing to tighten their grip thisweek, the Presidents Chie o Staff,Ahmed bin Mubarak, was abductedat a Houthi checkpoint all bets on a2015 election are now off. Instead, with
rumours swirling that the Houthis arecovertly supported by Iran, the pros-pect o an Iraq-style sectarian conictbeckons. Renewed instability is a boonto AQAP, who have always ought theapostate Shia Houthi, and have posi-tioned themselves as a logical rallyingpoint or Sunni resistance. Yemen nolonger looks like the model o peaceultransition to democracy that it did a yearago, but more like the next Middle Eastnation to spin violently apart.
Terrors returnAl-Qaida has a long track record oexploiting sectarian differences. InYemen, though, it has developedanother, more surprising, method owinning tribal hearts and minds: itsmembers have become championexploiters o the countrys chronicwater shortage. (The country is oneo the ve most water-stressed in the
T
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WATER WEAPON: Above: Flooding on
the outskirts of Sanaa. Below: Islamist
idealogue Anwar al-Awlaki, killed by a US
drone in 2011, was an engineer
world, with just 86 cubic metres avail-able per capita per annum, accordingto the World Bank. Even drought-proneSomalia has 572 cubic meters available
per capita. The UK, by contrast, has2,262 cubic metres).In regions south and east o Sanaa,
where many communities have beenignored or years by the central gov-ernment, AQAP has won signicantsupport not just by providing villagerswith water, but also by helping them todig wells and install other vital waterinrastructure. Sharia, the Islamic lawthat al-Qaida is determined to impose,means, in one o its many possibletranslations, the path to the water
hole a metaphor or spiritual salva-tion with obvious appeal to ollowers oa religion that originated in the Arabiandesert. AQAP is trying to make thatmetaphor a reality.
This activity goes ar beyond socialwork. In an impoverished armingnation, where over hal the populationstill lives off the land, access to water,and the ability to irrigate crops, is oten
a matter o lie or death. Even govern-ment offi cials estimate that local dis-putes over land and water already leadto 4,000 deaths every year.
Sanaa is badly affected, too. Supply isalready so poor here that municipal tapsunction on average only once a month.Its 2.6 million residents have long reliedon rootop cisterns lled with waterexpensively tankered in rom elsewhere.According to a study commissioned by
the World Bank, the city could be unsus-tainable as soon as 2019. Unless actionis taken soon, Sanaas residents maybe orced to leave the city to wither and
die. The wars o the uture, it is otensaid, will be ought not over oil but overwater. Yemen offers us a glimpse o thecoming apocalypse.
Worse, AQAP is looking to export itswater weapon. In a document discov-ered by the Associated Press in 2013,addressed to AQIM (al-Qaida in theMaghreb), AQAP suggested trying towin locals over by taking care o theirdaily needs like water. Providing thesenecessities will have a great effect onpeople, and will make them sympathise
with us and eel that their ate is tied toours. AQAP has identied the provi-sion o water and its inrastructure asa key means o doing this. The UnitedStates ormer Enemy Number Onein the region, the Islamist ideologueAnwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a USdrone strike in 2011, was the holder o aBSc in Civil Engineering rom ColoradoState University.MO
HAMMED
HUWAIS/AFP/GETTY,TRACYWOO
DWARD/WASHINGTON
POST/GETTY
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AQAP may also have learned rom themistakes o other AQ ranchises, such astheir neighbours in Somalia, al-Shabaab.The greatest reversal suffered by thatorganisation came during the southernSomali drought o 2011, which it dealtwith by asserting that it existed only inthe minds o Western propagandists.Reugees eeing the drought zones wereordered to return to their homes and topray or rain. Tens o thousands died asa consequence, and popular support oral-Shabaab collapsed.
Wells, not drones
The Sanaa government is miles behindAQAP in its appreciation o the problem.A new strategy or managing the nationsdwindling resource is urgently needed.At the National Dialogue Conerence,Yemens tiny, beleaguered communityo hydrologists lobbied hard or theirsector to be made a priority but in thisyears spending round, the budget o theministry o water and environmentsNational Water Resources Authority(NWRA), was cut by 70%. As NajibMaktari, a senior ministry adviser, put
it: It shows you how little importanceHadi attaches to the sector.
The vast majority o the governmentsresources is spent on the military, asit has been or years. There are over400,000 men under arms in Yemenghting Houthis in the north, separat-ists in the south, and al-Qaida just abouteverywhere. They are aided in this lastcampaign by US drones though the
Yemeni government does not haveits own drones, it is widely believedto provide American drone operatorswith target intelligence. In act, Yeme-nis have judged their president such anenthusiast or drone strikes that he haslong been nicknamed Drone al-Hadi.The results o these policies, very muchabutted by the strong Western supporto al-Hadis government, have ranged
rom ineffective to catastrophic.Mohamed Ali al-Gauli is a school-
teacher rom the remote mountain dis-trict o Khawlan. His brother and cousinwere killed in a US drone strike whiledriving in their car and, as a remindero the tragedy, he keeps a scrap o tail-n, complete with American markings,rom the missile he holds responsibleor the deaths. His brother and uncle,
he insists, had nothing to do with AQAP.Their mistake had been to pick up ourarmed hitch-hikers in the course o aroutine shopping trip.
As in Pakistan and elsewhere, theaccuracy o the drone strikes used inYemen has been called into question.A recent study by Reprieve, the NewYorkbased human rights group, whichwas widely circulated on Yemeni social
media, suggested that strikes aimedat 17 named men have so ar killed 273people, at least seven o them children;while at least our o the targets are stillalive. You know, those drones are veryexpensive, Al-Gauli observes bitterly.Yet in our village, it takes a 2km donkeyride to etch water rom a well. I some-one spent a tenth o the cost o a missileon a well or our village, maybe no-one
AQAPsmembers
have becomechampion
exploiters ofthe countryschronic water
shortage.
Low stress (80%)
Water warsThe demand for water is growingworldwide as populations expand,
but groundwater sources are beingsucked dry. The result, in places likethe Middle East, is simple: whoevercontrols the water holds the power.
Ratio of withdrawals to supply
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would pay attention to al-Qaida andthey would go away.
The Sanaa administration has mademistakes, but the crisis in Yemen is notall o President al-Hadis making. Atits root, say sociologists, is Yemensextraordinary population growth, romve million in 1960, to 26 million today,to a projected 40 million by 2030 numbers that would be a challenge to
provide with resh water even i Yemenwere rich and stable. Sanaa, with a pop-ulation growth o almost 7% morethan double the national rate aces thegreatest challenge. There were ewerthan 20,000 people living in the city in1910. Soon there will be three million.Desalination is not an option or Sanaa,which is both too ar rom the oceanand, at 2,250m above sea level, too high
to make it practical. For its size, Sanaais a city in the wrong place, said BrettGrist, a British ormer consultant toNWRA. Its as simple as that.
Water for drugsYemens water crisis has been in pipe-line, as it were, or at least 40 years.Until the 1970s Yemenis irrigated theircrops as they had always done, with sea-
sonal rainwater captured in elaboratesystems o mountain terraces. Increas-ing demand or ood as the populationexpanded, however, led armers to seeka more reliable source o irrigation andthey ound one in groundwater, pumpedup by tubewells rom beneath their eet. The switchover accelerated with thediscovery o oil in the 1970s when thegovernment, anxious to increase agri-
cultural production, introduced uelsubsidies to encourage armers to drill.Without maintenance, much o thebeautiul, millennia-old mountain ter-racing, or which Yemen is amed, wasabandoned. It soon collapsed, deepen-ing the armers dependence on ground-water.
The political ramications o thatdecision are still being elt. There were
mass protests by Houthi tribesmen lastautumn over the central governmentsattempt to reduce those uel subsidieswhich, now that Yemens oil is runningout, it can no longer afford. The Houthis,though, would not countenance thehigher water drilling costs that a sub-sidy cut would entail. The governmentquickly reversed their decision, but notquickly enough to avert a coup.PO
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Switching to groundwater irrigationhas also been an environmental disas-ter. Aquiers take time to recharge, butYemenis arent giving them a chance.In the Houthi heartland o Saadah,or instance, groundwater is beingextracted 12 times aster than naturecan replace it. Thirty years ago, it waspossible to nd groundwater at a deptho 100m in the Sanaa basin. Todaysdrillers sometimes have to go as deep as1,200m. The shallow, sel-replenishingreserves were plundered long ago; thewater now being exploited is so-calledossil water that may never be replaced.
Tens o thousands o armers, orcedrom their land, have headed or the bigcity looking or alternative employmentwhere there generally is none. As the
Sanaa basin aquier depletes urther,this trickle o displaced armers lookscertain to become a ood.
Perhaps the biggest challenge in con-serving the countrys dwindling aquierscomes rom what is actually cultivatedon Yemeni arms. The governmentsintention, when it rst subsidised agri-cultural diesel in the 1970s, was thatarms should produce ood. But armerssoon ound it much more protable togrow qat, the amphetamine-like chew-ing lea to which Yemen, as a nation,
is addicted. An estimated one in threeYemenis, perhaps eight million people,are regular users o the drug, which,although a controlled substance in theWest, is legal in Yemen and throughoutthe Horn o Arica. Yemenis spend, onaverage, between a quarter and a thirdo their income on qat, about $4bn ayear nationally. According to one Dutchstudy, the qat business accounts or 16%
o employment and 25% o GDP.Qat trees are deep-rooted and thirsty,
and because only the sot, leay tops othe tree are suitable or consumption,they are notoriously wasteul to grow.Some analyses suggest that 40% oall the resh water available in Yemenis used in the cultivation o a productthat has no nutritional value whatso-ever and this in a country where morethan hal o all children under ve arestunted by malnutrition. Yet the area oland dedicated to the cultivation o qatcontinues to expand by 10% a year.
Attempts to rein in the trade haveall oundered due to insurmountablevested interests. The land-owning tribalsheikhs and military gures who protmost rom qat arming tend also to be
members o parliament and block anychange. When, or example, parlia-ment tried to discuss the import o qatrom Ethiopia a measure designed toundercut local prots, thus reducingthe appeal o the crop and thereore theamount o Yemeni land dedicated to it one MP stood up and announced: Wellshoot down the planes.
Our greatest problem in Yemenadds the deputy chairman o NWRA,Abdulla al-Thary, is that noone everthinks about the common good. It is
always I, I, I and never We, we, we.
The Wildcat DrillersPrivate and unlicensed wells continue tobe sunk at an astonishing rate by so-calledwildcat drillers who own and operatea vast eet o mobile rigs. Estimatessuggest that there are 14,000 private-ly-owned tube wells in the Sanaa basintoday, with more being drilled every day.
The under-resourced water ministrydoes its best, but has effectively lost thewar against the wildcatters, who tendto be employees o the same inuentialsheikhs who control the qat trade. Forexample, a government programme toinstall supposedly tamper-proo GPS
transmitters in all known rigs ailedwhen the operators ound ways toremove or destroy them. In 2012, NWRAset up a public hotline and encouragedSanaanis to report any suspicious-look-ing drilling operation. But the uptakewas minimal; and even when NWRAoffi cials turned up to try to preventan illicit operation, they were quicklychased off by tribal gunmen, or even, onone occasion, by co-opted police.
Recently, Noori Gamal, a seniorhydrologist with the water ministry,
heard a rumor that a wildcatter was inaction in Hadda, the main downtownbusiness district, and invited me to meethim there. I could hear nothing at rst,but his experienced ear immediatelydetected the rumble o a deep hydrau-lic rotary drill. He lead me three blocks,and there it was: a tall Heath-Robin-son contraption in the side garden oa private house belonging (as we later
If someone spent a tenth of
the cost of a missile on a well forour village, maybe no-one wouldpay attention to al-Qaida.
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THIRSTY NATION: Farmers in Sanaa are
drilling unlicensed boreholes to irrigate
their thirsty qat crops. President Hadi,
below, has failed to stop the practice
discovered) to a qat-arming, land-own-ing sheikh. Backed up to the wellhead,blocking the road, was a long, lowtruck loaded with hundreds o metreso drill pipe. The street was lled romside to side with a waist-high river odrill lubricant that oozed rom the bore
hole, a wobbling mass o soapy whiteoam through which two boys were pull-ing wheelies on mountain bikes. Hal adozen labourers stood about, surly andstaring, their cheeks distended rom thelumps o qat in their mouths.
The oreman o the operation was notpleased to see us, but Gamal soon madeit clear he wasnt there to try to stophim. Obstructing a drilling operation,he explained aterwards, had becomea perilous business; the sheikh whoemployed the oreman could manipu-
late the political system to have Gamalred, or arrested, or much worse.
I see unlicensed drilling rigs asmobile artillery batteries, and the tank-ers that distribute the groundwater asmissiles landing in every neighbour-hood, Gamal added. I dont thinkthat language is too strong. What weare doing to our water resource doesas much damage to our country as any
military campaign and the water short-age is already killing more o our peo-ple than al-Qaida ever will.
Off the precipiceThere are no easy solutions in Yemen.Last November, in co-operation withthe UN and the Dutch embassy, thewater ministry launched a three-yearproject in the Sanaa basin aimed atpersuading its armers to start con-serving their resources, and to pumpless groundwater. To the south o thecity, meanwhile, where a large aqui-er remains untapped, new municipal
wells are being sunk. These and othermeasures can buy Sanaa some time.Yet tapping more aquier water will onlypostpone the inevitable. Yemen is likea man sliding towards a precipice, saida ormer water minister, Abdul-Rahmanal-Eryani. He will denitely go over theedge. The only question is when.
Not everyone is so gloomy. Some senioroffi cials believe the wholesale change oapproach to water management that thecountry needs is possible, and that theyhave time. The experience o a commu-nity o Ismaili Shia in Haraaz in the west-ern highlands offers some hope. Fiteenyears ago they decided to uproot their qatorchards some 200,000 trees have soar been destroyed and plant crops ocomparable commercial value, notably
premium coffee, or which Yemen wasonce amous. (The Mocha coffee beantakes its name rom the Yemeni RedSea port o that name.) The Ismailis alsointroduced modern drip irrigation andhave begun to repair their water-harvest-ing terraces. As a result, the Haraaz watertable is no longer alling, and the localeconomy is thriving. Could this braveexperiment become a model or the resto the country?
The chairman o NWRA, Alial-Suraimi, seems to think so. He
believes that even Sanaa could be sus-tainable i highland armers reduce theirdependence on groundwater. We needto repair our terraces and go back to theold ways, and to live like our granda-thers did, he says. It is an unhappy par-adox, but the uture o Yemen, togetherwith its ancient capital, may depend onthe ability and willingness o its peopleto turn back the clock. nMO
HAMMED
HUWAIS/NATALIAKOLESNIKOVA
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THEDAWN
WALLLast week, two young
men mastered themind-bogglingly diffi cult
Dawn Wall of El Capitan,Yosemite, their every movewatched by an audience
of millions. Mountaineerand authorAndy Cave
explains what made theirachievement so remarkable
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TOP OF THE WORLD:American climbers Tommy Caldwelland Kevin Jorgeson, left, successfullyascended the Dawn Wall of El Capitan,Yosemite, earlier this month
For many people, climbing seems anodd activity; strange really, as we allstart out climbing instinctively howelse do we go up and down stairs inthe rst ew months o lie? Most o usgive up early, due to discouraging par-ents and a sense o sel-preservation.Tommy Caldwell never did; he wasrock-climbing aged just three.
Caldwells Dawn Wall journey beganseven years ago when he rst inspectedthe line as a potential ree-climb. Origi-nally designated an aid-climb, whereclimbers x ropes and use shunts, theDawn Wall was considered even by tal-ented climbers to be impossible to ree-climb due to its sheer lack o holds andthe walls relentlessly steep angle. I, too,have glanced across at the ace whileclimbing a neighbouring route; it is anextraordinary expanse o rock.
Caldwell, 36, had the vision and thesel-belie. He dared to dream. And aterwatching a movie o Caldwell trying toclimb sections o the route, Jorgeson, aormer indoor world champion, asked tojoin him on the project. They ailed onve occasions spread over several years.
The ultimate aim was or both climb-ers to climb all 32 pitches (sections orock) rom bottom to top without all-ing, gripping the rock eatures with onlytheir hands and eet. While the men hadsaety ropes, they were merely to halt a
all and couldnt be relied upon or prog-ress up the wall.There were other aspects o the climb
that were unusual. For one, the cama-raderie between the two climbers. Ina show o team-spirit, Caldwell statedthat it was crucial that both memberso the team made the summit a raresentiment in a sport that has, in recentyears, ollowed the trend o many main-stream sports in celebrating the cult othe individual. More than anything, Iwant to top out together, Caldwell said
on day 13. We gotta make that happen.It would be such a bummer to nish thisthing without Kevin. I cant imagineanything worse, really.
rass-roots climbers are uncomortablewith statements like the hardest climbin the world. But most would agree thatlast weeks rst ree ascent o the DawnWall on El Capitan, Yosemite, ranks asone o the toughest rock-climbs ever tobe completed.
Americans Tommy Caldwell andKevin Jorgeson spent 19 days on the
amous 3,000-oot wall in Caliornia.Full-time proessional climbers, themen are no strangers to elite-level per-ormance. Nevertheless, the projectdrained them entirely. Keen to graspany marginal gains they could, the two30-year-olds climbed the most difficultparts in the shade or at night; the coolertemperatures allowing them better pur-chase on the razor blade-thin graniteholds. During rest periods they repairedthe holes in their ngertips with sand-paper and superglue, and sanded therough edges o their tight-tting, rubbercompound rock shoes.
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BLIGH
GILLIES/BIG
UP
PRODUCTIONS/AUR
ORAPHOTOS
2,307mEl Capitan, YosemiteNational Park
301mEiffel Tower,
Paris
115mRedwood Tree,California
, m
308mThe Shard,London
632mShanghaiTower,Shanghai
830mBurj Khalifa,Dubai
HOW IT COMPARES
The conditionswere just magic.
It was the onemoment over the
last 10 days whenit was cloudyand cold enoughto climb during
daylight.
ANDY CAVE: WRITER AND ADVENTURER
But that ambition was severely testedwhen Jorgeson struggled or an age onpitch 15. Everything was in the balance.With bleeding ngertips, worried thathe was holding his teammate back,Jorgeson nally made it and, exuber-antly, he posted on Instagram: Ater 11attempts spread across 7 days, my battlewith pitch 15 o the Dawn Wall is com-
plete. Hard to put the eeling into words.Theres a lot o hard climbing above,but Im more resolved than ever to reethe remaining pitches. The men hadtrained so hard and prepared as well asthey possibly could. Still, they neededthe gods on their side.
The conditions were just magic. Itwas the one moment over the last 10days when it was actually cloudy andcold enough to climb during daylight. Itall lined up to create this one moment inwhich my skin was good enough and theconditions were perect, said Jorgeson.
The level at which top climbers nowoperate is abbergasting, even to themost experienced. Jorgeson climbedpitch 16 by making a jump six eet hor-izontally to catch a downward-slopingedge o rock, which he then had to holddespite the swinging momentum o hisbody. Now, with the most diffi cult sec-tion o the wall completed, the duo eltinvigorated, and the people watching,via their social media updates, began to
scent success.
GYMNASTS, BALLERINAS,
CHESSPLAYERSSo what does it take to climb at thislevel? There are three broad spheresrequiring mastery: physical, technicaland mental. Being strong in all three israre. Think elite gymnast, ballerina andchess-player rolled into one.
Physical requirements include ngerstrength, the ability to maintain contactwith a variety o different-shaped holds;the ability to generate anaerobic powervia ast-twitch muscle bres or single,desperate moves; good lactate toler-ance in the orearms to sustain strengththrough consecutive diffi cult moves;core strength and exibility to ensurethe eet can reach and engage ootholds.
Technically, these climbers have
thousands o movement patternsingrained rom years o experience, aswell as very specic moves or this climbthat are rehearsed over several years.These mental schemes mean they canact on a sequence o moves quickly,almost unconsciously. The glaciatedgranite o Yosemite is notoriously diffi -cult to climb, requiring a whole suite omovement skills.
A VETERAN OF SOME OF THE WORLDS
most formidable summits, Cave is amountaineer, academic and writer. Hiscareer began at 16 in a Grimethorpe coalpit, an experience that was to brace himfor a lifetime of determination: In thatlthy, dangerous hell, I learned essentiallessons about teamwork. Without it, youcouldnt survive. His climbing career
began at 17, and within three years hefound himself atop the infamous northface of the Eiger. He has since scaled someof climbings toughest peaks, from MountKennedy in Canada to Divine Providencein the Alps. Returning to education tocomplete a PhD, and then writing twobooks on his experiences, he is one of theworlds leading voices in adventure sport.
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Caldwell has dedicated most o hisclimbing career to ascending the bigwalls o Yosemite. Mental tenacity andthe ability to ocus under extreme pres-sure are what distinguish the best climb-ers. Overcoming the ear o alling andthe ear o ailure is oten the biggestchallenge, whatever the level.
But Caldwell has overcome many di-culties in lie. In 2000, while climbingin Kyrgyzstan, he and his team weretaken hostage by Islamist militants. Letbriey with a single guard, Caldwellpushed him over what he assumed wasa cliff, allowing his team to escape atnight. Finally, it emerged the guard hadsurvived the all. But Caldwell was trau-matised by the incident and the mediainterest it stirred. Then, just a year later,he cut off his own index nger with a sawin a DIY accident. It was re-attached bysurgeons but it lost most o its unction,so Caldwell had it re-amputated.
MASTERING EL CAP
To complete pitch 15 alone o this climbwould be considered world-class. In thecontext o 32 pitches, it is mind-bog-gling. On top o this, Caldwell andJorgenson had to work out the logis-tics o living in winter on a sheer rockace or almost three weeks, haulingup their supplies behind them and set-ting up porta-ledges mobile, dou-ble-mattress-sized camp beds erectedat 90 degrees to the wall. Their suppliesincluded resh coffee and iPhones. Theypractised yoga and did press-ups to
TOUCHING THE VOID:The successful ascent of oneof the worlds most diffi cultclimbing routes by TommyCaldwell, far right, and KevinJorgeson, whose taped handsare pictured right, attractedunprecedented attention forthe sport on social media
maintain good orm between attemptsat each section. A small, expert lm crewaccompanied them, moving around ona complex web o xed ropes. Nothingwas let to chance.
Above pitch 16, the climbing relentsto some extent. On the nal part o theclimb, I am sure the climbers will havebeen accustomed to the ow at onewith the wall and utterly ocused. Ver-tical and overhanging terrain becomesnormal and, with each small success,the will to succeed grows deeper. Thedream closer.
What is so special about El Cap? Therst time I saw it, I had just nished the
rst year o university. I was mesmer-ised. I had climbed the north ace o theEiger and a couple o Himalayan peaksby rst ascents, but still I had never seena piece o stone so big and awless asthis. The act that you can drive under-neath it makes it logistically simple toreach. Even with a big load, a 30-minutehike rom the parking lot through treesbrings you to the base.
The descent off the back requires cau-tion and a ew abseils not unreason-able as ar as climbing descents go. But
its ront is a smooth, sheer, stupeyingcliff ull o history.
There is oten a great sense o cama-raderie among the climbers in the Val-ley, particularly on Camp 4, a placesteeped in legend. Just next to it is thebase o the Yosemite rescue team, com-prised o top climbers. There is a eelingthat you are part o something special inYosemite. On that rst trip, I had spentthree days on the wall. It is a strangealien world. For days aterwards, I wasdehydrated and my hands were cut andswollen. But I elt so alive.
Over the past 30 years, almost everyclimber I have met has either visited
Yosemite or desperately wants to. A trueclimbing Mecca, even the easiest bigree-climbs on El Cap, such as Freerider,are still too diffi cult or the majority.Some complete the West Buttress andthe shorter East Buttress, but they arenot tackling the highest, steepest part othe wall. Most people come to climb TheNose, right up the centre, using at leastsome aid. In peak season, small interna-tional teams are strewn rom bottom totop, inching their way up.
Most o the routes here started out as
BREAKTHROUGH CLIMBS: A CHRONOLOGY
1786MONT BLANC,
FRANCE
As the rst to reach thesummit, Jacques Balmatand Michel Paccard wona prize that was offered
y a Swiss scientist 26years previously.
1865MATTERHORN,SWITZERLAND
The English illustratorEdward Whymper led
he rst successfulascent, in which four
of the party fell totheir deaths.
1889MT. KILIMANJARO,
The peak was rstreached by the Austrian
mountaineer Ludwigurtscheller and theerman geographer
ans Meyer.
1953T. EVEREST,
fter many abortiveattempts, Sir EdmundHillary and a Sherpa
mountaineer, TenzingNorgay, reached the top
from the south side.
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aid climbs, the pioneers linking cracksand corners up to the top. Later, bolderaid climbs were established, with bigreputations and requiring specialistskill. The rst major line to be reeclimbed was Salath by Paul Pianaand Todd Skinner, a real breakthoughachievement in 1988. In 1993, LynnHill broke a huge barrier by ree-climb-ing The Nose
American climbers havent monop-olised pioneering here, however: theBavarian brothers, Thomas and Alex-ander Huber, were extremely prolicbetween 1995 and 2007. UK climbershave made an impact too, notably Leo
Houlding, whose route, The Prophet,is still one o the most serious big-wallclimbs in the world. El Cap is a verticalstage that continues to allow the eliteto search out the limits o possibility.Climbers like Houlding and the Hubershave applied their Yosemite skills inmore remote big walls in the Himala-yas, Baffi n Island and Antarctica. Theextra complications o diffi cult access,altitude, glaciers, and little chance orescue mean that the stakes are muchhigher than a climb in Yosemite.
REALTIME CLIMBS
While climbers have been surprised bythe media storm surrounding Caldwelland Jorgensons ascent, in some ways ElCap has always been in the public space.Tourists spend hours watching climb-ers in action, in a similar way to peo-ple at Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland,who point telescopes at alpinists on the
Eiger. The difference this time is that theadventurers themselves could drip-eedtweets, Facebook posts and video clipsto a breathless audience, providing ablow-by-blow account o their progress.
People go climbing or many reasons:to escape the mundane pressures owork, to be close to nature, to be lost inthe endeavour. Surely spending hourson social media detracts rom this? Crit-ics will doubtless claim the duo havecreated a media circus. But look closelyat their messages and there is a sel-e-acing tone. I am not sure Barack Obamaquite understood that sentiment, how-ever, passing on his congratulations inanother tweet: So proud o TommyCaldwell and Kevin Jorgeson or con-quering El Capitan. You remind us thatanything is possible.
Nevertheless, the spotlight on such agreat achievement by two elite climb-ers is a positive step. The public needsto know what todays pioneers aredoing. Yes, many o them are virtually
unheard-o outside climbing circles, butthe Dawn Wall story makes a welcomechange rom the usual uss around quiteordinary climbers being guided up Ever-est, on a route rst climbed 60 yearsago, and rigged all the way by Sherpas.
Hopeully, the better-inormed mediapieces have educated the public in anew narrative that reveals elite climb-ers not to be thrill-seeking adrenalinejunkies, but as extraordinarily talentedindividuals who have spent hours per-ecting this vertical ballet. n
I had climbedthe north face
of the Eiger anda couple of
Himalayan peaksby rst ascents,
but still I hadnever seen a
piece of stone sobig and flawless
as this.
1996NECESSARY EVIL,UNITED STATES
ged 15, hris harmacompleted what was, at
the time, the highest-rated climb in North
America, between Utahand Arizona.
1958L CAPITAN,
UNITED STATES
he rst ascent of Elapitans most famous
route, The Nose, tookarren Harding, WayneMerry and eorge
hitmore 47 days.
2011BURJ KHALIFA,
D BA
lain Robert, widelyubbed the French
piderman, scaled theworlds tallest buildingn six hours as the world
looked on.
COREYRICH/AURORAPHOTOS
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ur airwaves, like our organsand limbs, are suffocated byexpanding ab. Fat domi-nates the news. In the lastmonth alone, the NationalObesity Forum suggestedthat regular weight checksshould be compulsory; a
European court ruled that obesity is a dis-
ability after the sacking of a 25-stone Danishchild-minder; and the chief executive of NHSEngland called the same ruling daft, declar-ing war on obesity after a study found thatonly Hungary has fatter adults than the UK.
Queensland, meanwhile, declared an obesitystate of emergency; the Saudis organised ananti-obesity run; federal regulators in the USapproved an appetite-suppressing implant;a Canadian study linked a type of serotoninwith obesity; and a Harvard team found twocompounds that turn bad white fat cells intogood brown fat ones.
The Western world is preoccupied with obe-
sity, and rightly so, because the statistics of ourexpanding girths are shocking by any mea-sure. Twenty-ve per cent of citizens in mostWesternised countries, including the UK, arenow obese; and about half of the population is
Prepare for a magic pill to end obesity
CORBIS
BY
CATHERINE OSTLER
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overweight.The problem is so immensethat liespans, it is predicted, may beginalling, rather than rising, or the rst
time in history.Even more worryingly, it is not so
much the length o lie as its quality thatis affected by at. Being obese means weare more likely to suffer rom mobilityand joint problems such as aching knees,type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cer-tain cancers as well as social stigmaand diminished mental health.
A predisposition or obesity, alongsidea ondness or smoking and drinking(exacerbated by its pervasive associa-tion with the underclass) has been con-demned in the court o public opinionas a moral weakness. It is an issue orthose who lack sel-control or the abilityto help themselves; in other words, anissue only or those without any sense opersonal dignity or responsibility.
In the course o writing this pieceI spoke to several intelligent, usuallysympathetic, types who displayed thenear-anger, disgust even, that the edu-cated classes eel or the eckless at.They just need to eat less, people say.
While this is true, things arent quitethat simple. For a start, less o what?Once it was saturated ats; now sugaris the ashionable smoking gun. Some,reductively, argue that a sugar tax
would bring an end to the problem.Certainly sugary drinks, rom soda toruit juice, are particularly unhelpulbecause though they are caloric theydo not alleviate hunger. In obesityterms, this is toxic.
But politicians are reluctant to leveltaxes on oodstuffs partly becausethey dont want to annoy the ood-and-drinks lobby, a signicant player in anyeconomy, and partly because such taxesalways disproportionately penalise the
poor. In Denmark and New York, scalmeasures didnt work, and were shelved.So while everyone knows there is