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My wife is an Olympic gold medalist, WNBA All-Star, Jeopardy! champion and Rhodes Scholarship finalist who was sung to by President Clinton, sung about by Ludacris and serenaded on Sesame Street by a chorus of Muppets. But it wasn't until I saw her basketball jersey in the Smithsonian - opposite Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz - that it finally hit me: I, without a doubt, married up.
My wife's name, Rebecca Lobo, is on sandwiches and street signs in New England. It adorns the arena rafters at the University of Connecticut, where she first became a basketball star. Her high school in Massachusetts is on Rebecca Lobo Way, a nice trump card to play at reunions. So people naturally assume that I took her name when we tied the knot eight years ago. I saved the UPS mailing label from our first wedding present, which was addressed, without irony, to "The Lobos."
Because I'm a bald, dim-witted writer, people think I couldn't possibly be her husband, so they occasionally confuse me for someone more glamorous. At O'Hare airport, a man asked if he could take Rebecca's photo. When I reflexively stepped away, he said, "No, no, no. I want your picture too, Andre Agassi." But more often, photographers, with their eye still pressed to a viewfinder, frantically wave me out of the frame.
People assume that my diminished marital stature is reflected in my height. My wife is 6-foot-4, but I'm an inch taller than she is, a fact that always surprises people, who expect to see her unpack me out of a trunk, like a ventriloquist with her dummy.
But she does love me, she did marry me and she is proud of me, I'm sure. It was Rebecca who urged me to write a novel, and when The Pint Man was published last year - it's about a man dating up - she threw a party. She was more excited than I was. And just the other morning, when I woke, she said, "I need you." Okay, what she really said was: "I kneed you. In the groin. By accident. Go back to sleep." But a good marriage requires selective hearing, and I think we have a good marriage.
There are plenty of men, I've discovered, who literally want to marry up. A few summers ago, a very short man approached Rebecca at a Houston Astros baseball game. "Rebecca," he said. "You gotta marry me. I want tall kids. You're my only hope." Rebecca's reply, in its small way, moved me unexpectedly. "I can't," she said. "I already have a husband."
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They're the power couple behind the throne of Kim Jong-il, North Korea's increasingly frail leader, a husband-and-wife team who may have edged closer this week to the centre of power in the reclusive Stalinist dictatorship.
While most of the attention this week is on Kim Jong-un, the Dear Leader's youngest son and heir apparent, his aunt and uncle are probably being groomed for a role as his mentors.
State media confirmed last night that Jong-un was elevated to the Workers' Party of Korea's Central Committee, following in the footsteps of his father, who was elected to the committee in 1972 – the first major step on his road to power. It was Jong-un's first known political post and followed his promotion to four-star general in the nation's all-important military.
Kim Kyong-hui, 64, who was also given four stars this week , is the ailing autocrat's only sister and daughter of the country's founding father, Kim Il- sung. Her husband, Jang Song-taek, 64, is now widely considered North Korea's number two. They were also both given significant political posts.
The couple are believed to have survived at least one purge and the death of their daughter, who reportedly took an overdose of sleeping pills in France after her parents demanded she end a relationship there and return home.
The appointment of Kim's immediate family to senior positions at the ruling party's biggest conference in decades is fuelling rumours that he is trying to extend the country's messianic leadership cult for another generation.
Kim Jong-il, 69, was also given a military role at the last Workers' Party conference in 1980, though he had to wait for his father, Kim Il-sung, to die in 1994 before assuming his current role. In the 16 years since, he has solidified his grip on the country by cultivating a quasi-religious cult around him and his father – the "eternal president".
The official announcements confirm pre-conference speculation that Jong-il, who suffered a stroke in 2008, would cement his family's hold on power before he dies. In June, Jang was appointed chairman of the National Defence Commission – the North's supreme governing body – making him the country's effective second-in-command behind the Dear Leader.
Kim himself was yesterday reappointed general secretary of the party with what state media called "the unanimous will and wishes" of the North's citizens. State-run television said that Kim, who attended the conference, had been "enshrined" by conference delegates, who "enthusiastically gave celebration with a storm of acclaim and the highest respect".
The Russian-educated Jang is thought to have been purged by his brother-in-law from 2004-06 – punishment for flaunting his opulent cadre's lifestyle. But he has since been allowed back into the Kim family's inner circle as the leader's health ebbs and he leans more on family members he can trust.
Jang and his wife met in the 1960s at Kim Il-sung University. He was expelled when the relationship became public but the pair continued to date despite the fierce opposition of Kyong-hui's father, and married in 1972. Both have been at the centre of power in North Korea for four decades.
Kyong-hui is thought to be, in effect, an economic enforcer for her brother in her role as director of Economic Policy Inspections. Defectors say one of her tasks is factory inspections and ordering the imprisonment and execution of failing managers and officials.
The presence of two powerful and ambitious mentors alongside the young heir Jong-un has raised concerns about a tussle for power. But the normally well-informed online newspaper Daily NK said this week that Kim's autocratic leadership made that "impossible", at least until after he is dead. "Rumours of a full-blooded power struggle are remote and show a lack of understanding about North Korea's reality," said the newspaper.
Pyongyang's neighbours in Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing are watching this week's conference carefully for signs of who will eventually run the world's newest nuclear power. Although few ordinary citizens have ever seen the young heir, he has been increasingly seen accompanying his father during his famous "on-the-spot" guidance tours to workplaces and the army.
But there appear to be few immediate signs of any softening in the hardline Stalinist stance. The party's official newspaper this week said that it would continue to stress the importance of Kim's "Songun" policy of putting the military first, and his father's philosophy of "Juche", or self-reliance.
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German business confidence unexpectedly hit its highest level in more than three years this month, a closely watched survey showed today. But it also indicated that the coming months were likely to be more difficult.Posted in news
A barrister who was killed by armed police was assured he would not be shot by officers stationed outside his home shortly before they opened fire on him, an inquest heard yesterday. Mark Saunders died in May 2008 when he was shot by armed police after he opened fire on them following a five-hour siege at his west London home.
Yesterday, at the inquest into his death, the jury heard recordings of conversations Mr Saunders had with a trained police negotiator in the two-and-a-half hours before his death.
They heard Superintendent John Sutherland, who undertook the majority of the negotiations, tell Mr Saunders: "You are not going to burst out and you are not going to get gunned down. Nobody is going to get hurt today. That is the deal... You have my word that nobody is going to harm you. Listen Mark, you are not going to die today. It is as simple as that."
After asking him to turn the music down – Mr Saunders was playing songs by The Doors at high volume – Mr Sutherland added: "You are in the driving seat and when you come out of the front door you can talk it through."
During the negotiations, which started shortly before 7pm on 6 May, Mr Saunders, who was drunk, told police it would be "painless" to shoot himself. Mr Sutherland told Mr Saunders that it would be "agony" for his wife if he committed suicide and said: "You have got a future, Mark."
Earlier, the inquest heard that Mr Saunders, who had a recurring alcohol problem, had been in his flat for more than two hours during which he had repeatedly opened fire on neighbouring properties.
He held up notes to the police at his window. In one he wrote "Please let me talk to my wife. I don't know how this happened. I am not a bad lad. I want to say goodbye and kill myself."
Mr Saunders' wife, Elizabeth, had suggested going to speak with him, but officers refused to allow this. Mr Saunders' family have criticised this decision, saying that he would still be alive if police had allowed his wife to speak with him.
Yesterday Mr Sutherland explained that officers feared he would kill himself immediately if they had allowed him to do so. He said: "If their stated intention is to say goodbye to somebody, that to me as a trained negotiator is a sign that they want to do so as an immediate precursor to taking their life. The fact that he wanted to say goodbye, to me, meant that it was a very bad idea to introduce Mrs Saunders or anybody else he wanted to speak to for that purpose."
During the negotiations, lines of communication between Mr Saunders and the negotiator repeatedly failed as his mobile phone malfunctioned. In recorded excerpts, one officer suggests that Mr Saunders will not commit suicide, saying: "This is not a bloke who wants to die. The biggest danger is he shoots himself by mistake or comes wandering out with his gun and gets popped."
Officers eventually got through to Mr Saunders again. At 9.09pm Mr Saunders told Mr Sutherland that he "needed to blow off some steam" before firing two shots through the window, prompting two officers to fire back. It was the last thing he said to negotiator. Less than half an hour later, at 9.32pm, Mr Saunders again pointed his gun at police. Seven officers fired, hitting Mr Saunders in the head and chest and killing him.
Yesterday the jury was shown footage of the barrister's final moments. Recordings taken from a police helicopter showed the 32-year-old waving a shotgun in the air as he hung from the fourth-storey window of his home in Markham Square, Chelsea.
As the negotiator pleaded with him to put the weapon down, he lowered it. As it reached a horizontal position, a volley of shots rang out from armed officers positioned on buildings opposite the property. The film shows Mr Saunders doubled-up and thrown backwards by the force of five bullets fired by the police.
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Huong's dank shop provides some brief respite from the waves of horn-blaring luxury SUVs bullying pedestrians on the pavements of Hanoi. But more crucially, it offers a final resting place, of sorts, for some of Vietnam's wild elephants.
Huong is the beaming owner of Artcen Company, an "import-export" outfit specialising in crafted ivory products. And, like those of the SUV-driving government officials cashing in on foreign investor paranoia about missing out on "the next little China" – Artcen's coffers are swelling.
"A few years ago, our customers were all Japanese, Chinese and Korean. But we get rich fast now too, and rich people always want to show what they have," says Huong, indicating a fashion that is likely to further endanger the slow-reproducing mammal.
The wild elephant population has plummeted from more than 2,000 in the mid-90s to between 72-80 animals at liberty today, according to Vietnam's ministry of natural resources and environment. A large number of them have succumbed to illegal logging, agricultural encroachment and landmines left over from what Vietnamese call "the American war".
However, it is clear that over the last decade, most of Vietnam's wild herd has fallen victim to the rifle. Increased poaching in one of south-east Asia's fastest-growing economies has ignited fears that the once-revered animal will disappear from the jungles within a generation if conservation efforts are not stepped up soon.
"Most of our small pieces are locally sourced," admits Huong as she hands me crudely made Buddha and Jesus icons to inspect. "Our prices are already too high, so we don't want to pay off more customs to bring it in from Laos or Cambodia."
Her comments underscore another dark layer in Vietnam's march to economic development. The country has quickly shifted from a transit point in the wildlife trade to a major end-consumer, now rivalling the richer Asian markets of Taiwan, South Korea, China and Japan.
Conservation group Traffic estimates that 4,000 tonnes of illegal wildlife products pass through Vietnam every year. Surging consumer demand means poaching is also spreading to forests in neighbouring Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma.
"It's also moving into new technology," says wildlife conservationist Duac Fegot. "We're starting to see more avenues for trade in endangered wildlife in Vietnam emerge on the internet."
"The situation is becoming very critical and serious," says Huynh Tien Dung, World Wildlife Fund Vietnam's national policy co-ordinator. "If the right efforts are spent, it is possible to bring the wild elephants back from the brink. If international donors give more priority to elephants, we are sure that it will help."
Blaming the lack of donor funding may seem disingenuous given the amount of aid pouring into Vietnam for environmental programmes and strategies. Yet the real problem could well be that wildlife protection laws in Vietnam are toothless.
Hanoi officially banned ivory sales in 1992 when it ratified the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. But a loophole was left, allowing for ivory traders to sell stock purchased before the treaty was ratified. Analysts say the loophole is a veiled nod to the continuation of poaching and smuggling.
"These pieces we have on display are all new and would be even more expensive if they dated to before 1992," says Huong. "But we still say they're from before then."
To the ongoing irritation of conservationists, traders and their inventories are never monitored. "The two things that are causing the problems are: weak law enforcement and low awareness of the poor communities on protection of wild elephants," Huynh says.
However, according to conservationists, the cost of street-level ivory – Traffic says tusks are selling for up to $1,500 a kg and cut pieces for up to $1,863 a kg – have encouraged law enforcement agents to seize consignments rather than attempt to halt poaching in the first place.
Authorities recently seized 30 elephant tusks and 15 elephant tusk segments that were being transported to the northern province of Móng Cái on the Chinese border. And last year, a container of tusks shipped from Tanzania to Vietnam – its contents worth millions of dollars – was "confiscated" by the government. But no charges have been brought and the whereabouts of the ivory is unknown.
Nevertheless, the ministry of environment says it is trying to crack down on traders such as Huong, and claim a "master plan" is in the offing. It remains to be seen if this measure will prevent the extinction of the Asian elephant in the wild.
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Four people have died and two others were injured after two incidents in southern Germany yesterday which culminated in a woman opening fire in a hospital.
Police said they were investigating the shooting at the Sint Elisabethen hospital in Lörrach, in the south-west of the country, and an explosion earlier at a nearby apartment block in which the bodies of a man and a child were found.
Officials confirmed the shooting and said that the woman had opened fire at the hospital with an automatic weapon, killing one person and wounding a member of hospital staff and critically injuring a policeman.
The woman, who has not been named, is thought to have been shot dead after turning her gun on officers.
Police said they were investigating a connection between the two incidents. Shots were heard following the explosion and witnesses reported seeing a woman armed with a gun running out of the block.
The police said the woman opened fire in the gynaecology unit of the hospital and according to local reports managed to fire off several rounds during the incident.
Speaking to Germany's national public television station, ZDF, Lörrach prosecutor Dieter Inhofer said: "There was a very heavy exchange of gunfire in the hospital that had the potential to be very dangerous, but based on what we know right now … no one else was injured."
Police, who arrived within 15 minutes of the shooting, said they had sealed off the area. A motive for the shooting has not yet been established but at a news conference, German prosecutors said a domestic dispute may have triggered the shooting.
The incident comes amid debate over the tightening of gun ownership in Germany and three days after Jörg Kretschmer, the father of a German teenager who killed 15 people on a shooting spree at his former Stuttgart school last March before killing himself, went on trial for violating German gun laws. The 51-year-old businessman is accused of failing to keep his 9mm Beretta pistol secure.
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The recent financial crisis has again demonstrated the inherent instability of capitalism. It could be argued that the current pensions reform concocted by the Fillon government is showing the inherent instability of Sarkozyism. On 7 September, 3 million people took to the streets for the biggest one-day strike in years. The strike action was supported by 70% of the public. Workers were protesting against the government's plan to raise France's legal minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, and from 65 to 67 to benefit from a full pension.
An employee will have to work 41 years in 2012, 41 years and 3 months in 2013 and 41.5 years in 2020 in order to claim full pension benefits. This change is deeply unfair for unemployed workers, part-time employees (notably women), people who have started to work at an early age and for students who have entered the job market at a late stage. These vulnerable categories will have to work beyond the new statutory threshold of 62 to earn a decent pension.
Yet, the neoliberal narrative says, isn't France the most "privileged" country in Europe when it comes to pension regimes (which are deemed "generous"), public services (obviously "bloated") or working hours (which allegedly make France economically "uncompetitive")? If the Sarkozy-Fillon reform goes through, the Conseil d'orientation des retraites (Cor) estimates that France's system would become one of the harshest in industrialised countries (Germany's new legal minimum of 67 will only be implemented in 2029).
Still, the neoliberal story goes on: isn't there an "insoluble" demographic problem here? The system is allegedly coming under intolerable strain as the postwar baby boomers leave the workforce, with the prospect of a longer lifespan in retirement as a result of improvements in diet, medicine and lifestyle. This is a cynical and offensive argument. First, what matters is not life expectancy in abstracto, but life expectancy in good health. In France, it is 63.1 years for men and 64.2 for women. Blue-collar workers have a good health expectancy, which is 10 years inferior to professionals.
Second, to delay the legal minimum retirement age by two years won't help sort out high unemployment among young people. Third, the "demographic" argument creates a crucial political diversion. The government has refused to consider increasing general contributions, notably employers' contributions. As usual, profits will remain in private hands whereas the public will always foot the bill when banks or firms fail. As a consequence of this deliberate political choice, 84% of the €30bn to be invested in pensions by 2020 will be paid by employees and only 7% by employers. Independent studies have shown that it would take a 15% increase in general contributions between 2010 and 2050 to keep the system afloat – an increase of 0.37% per year.
French people categorically reject British or US-style pension funds and defend their "pay-as-you-go" pension system. Who would blame them? Should they stoically embrace casino-style pension regimes on the grounds that other European countries have implemented them? In the end, it all boils down not to demography, but to politics. European governments have responded to the latest cyclical crisis of capitalism by imposing fierce austerity measures on their peoples. In London, Athens, Berlin or Paris, they pursue the same political agenda (cuts to salaries, public services and pensions), that hits workers hard.
In France, there is more to it. For Sarkozy, the reform carries symbolic importance. It would reverse decades of cutting the time people spend in work (François Mitterrand lowered the retirement age from 65 to 60 in 1983 and Lionel Jospin launched the 35-hour week in 2000). Sarkozy has already accomplished his fair share of "pro-market" reforms: he has loosened labour laws, encouraged overtime and, more infamously, implemented the so-called "fiscal shield", which handed back €586m in taxes to the richest last year.
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Plans by the energy giant BP to sink an oil well off the Libyan coast could have disastrous consequences for the region's rich heritage of coastal ancient city sites and shipwrecks – already under threat from oil tankers, coastal erosion and tourist developments – archaeologists from around the world have warned.
The energy company has been under increased scrutiny following the leak from its well in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year which spewed oil for three months in the world's worst maritime spill.
Last week a report into the blowout from BP blamed a "complex and interlinked" series of events, including human errors and mechanical failures, for the explosion that killed 11 engineers and led to the spill.
BP has, however, announced that it intends to go ahead with plans to sink a well – which would be 200m deeper than the one in the Gulf of Mexico – around 125 miles off the coast of Libya. Work is due to begin before the end of the year.
Archaeologists fear that an oil spill in the region could destroy the area's numerous ancient coastal and underwater sites and that thousands of historic shipwrecks could be at additional risk from drilling activity.
These include the ancient harbour town of Apollonia, in Cyrenaica – which dates from the 7th century BC and is five metres below sea level – along with two ancient cities in the region of Tripolitania, both of which are World Heritage Sites.
Claude Sintes, the director of the Museum of Ancient Arles in the south of France and director of the sub-aquatic team of the French archaeological mission to Libya, said that the sites are either on the beaches or underwater close to the shore. Washed-up oil would soak the porous stone and be impossible to clean, he added.
"They are very important sites and they are very fragile," he said. "If there is a problem with oil, like in the US, and it washes on to the shore it's going to be very difficult to clean the remains because the stones are porous. Apollonia is five metres under the water, and is complete with streets and buildings. In Tripolitania there are two important sites, Leptis Magna, a former Roman city, and Sabratha, where there is a theatre and mosaics. Some remains are on the beach and, if there was a leak, oil could wash up and certainly cause problems."
Paul Bennett, head of mission for the Society of Libyan Studies, which oversees British archaeological expeditions to the country, agreed that an oil spill would be disastrous for the coastal sites.
He added, however, that the area contains tens of thousands of wrecks from the Roman period, and that an opportunity to map the seabed using data collected by BP and other oil companies is being lost – along with the opportunity to ensure the wrecks aren't damaged by seismic surveying or drilling.
"If there was the kind of impact assessment you'd expect in European countries, we could see where these wrecks were," he said. "We should be taking advantage of the data collected to map the seabed. There must be tens of thousands of wrecks off the Libyan coast. We'd then be in a position to advise, to ensure they weren't damaged."
Steven Anthony, President of the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society in Washington DC, added that the wrecks – described as "time capsules" – could also be at risk from a potential spill.
"There needs to be more research of what happens to spilled oil before drilling begins," he said. "The oil industry and BP say that leaked oil floats. But in the Gulf of Mexico oil was observed in great clouds near the bottom of the sea.
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Violence is expected to flare up in Afghanistan in the run-up to forthcoming elections, experts have cautioned. The warning came as the Ministry of Defence announced it would today name the latest British soldier to die in Afghanistan.
The MoD said the member of the 2nd Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, died in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, from injuries received when he was hit by small-arms fire in Nahr-e Saraj on 23 August. The death takes to 335 the number of British military losses since the war began in 2001, 295 of these resulting from combat injury.
His death was the first in a week, during what has been a relatively calm period after a spate of British casualties earlier this year.
The Taliban leader Mullah Omar issued a rallying cry last week in which he claimed: "The victory of our Islamic nation over the invading infidels is now imminent and the driving force behind this is the belief in the help of Allah and unity among us."
Fraud and vote-rigging are expected to contaminate the elections scheduled for Saturday, according to new research released yesterday by the Afghan Analysts Network (AAN). Its report details the chaos that resulted from millions of excess voter cards during the 2009 provincial council elections, loss of control over where ballot boxes went and near secrecy over how many polling stations had opened. These, it says, provided huge opportunities for ballot-stuffing, tally fraud and manipulation of the results.
The report says a large number of polling centres were added to the final count without further review, amounting to tens of thousands of extra votes. In the three most problematic provinces, Kandahar, Ghazni and Paktika, after a massive invalidation of polling stations the number of votes went up rather than down. Martine van Bijlert, a co-director of the AAN and one of the authors of the report, said: "It is strange that you can remove and add tens of thousands of votes and still arrive at largely the same results. It seems that the extra votes were mainly added to ensure that certain candidates kept their seats. It basically consolidated the outcome, by neutralising the invalidations."
Candidates will revert to the same tactics they used in last year's election. Ms Van Bijlert said: "There is no reason to believe there will be less fraud. Many candidates have concluded that you don't really stand a chance if you don't manipulate the process. And their backers know how to do it."
She outlined her concerns as tensions escalated in Afghanistan, with widespread unrest as thousands of Afghans took part in protests. Tyres were set ablaze in the streets as crowds chanted "Death to America" even after the decision by an American pastor to call off plans to burn copies of the Koran to mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Police fired warning shots to prevent protesters from storming the governor's residence in Puli Alam in Logar province, officials said.
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Vitaly Mutko is in a confident mood. Surveying Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium, with its luridly green artificial pitch, Mutko recalls watching Russia beat England 2-1 here during their 2007 European qualifier. It had seemed like England's night, he recalled. "Everyone was in a miserable mood at half-time. We were losing 1-0. I predicted we would score twice. And we did," he says happily.
The next installment in Russia's rivalry with England takes place on 2 December, when Fifa's executive committee meets in Zurich to decide who will host the 2018 World Cup. Mutko refuses to make any hubristic pronouncements about Russia's chances. "Self-confidence sometimes leads to tragedies in sport," he says.
And yet with three months to go until Fifa's secret ballot, the Russians appear quietly certain that they and not England will emerge victorious. Mutko's optimism stems from a single powerful idea – that a Russian World Cup would be a more dynamic, more compelling, and more nation-transforming event than a 'safe', and possibly dull, English one. It would, in short, be a moment in history.
At a time when Fifa's president, Sepp Blatter, is pondering his legacy to world football, the Russians are pledging to bring the tournament to the former communist bloc for the first time. Asked whether Russia's bid might be more interesting than England's, Mutko jumps off his feet, and sweeps his fist through the air with a triumphant and affirmative "Da". "I would just grab this country Russia and say there will be so much done for football!" he says.
Mutko, Russia's minister for sport, is clearly irritated by recent stories in the British press reporting how Lokomotiv Moscow fans celebrated Peter Odemwingie's recent sale to West Bromwich Albion with a banner showing a banana and the message: "Thanks West Brom." He is also rattled by reports suggesting widespread corruption in Russia, believing these themes have been deliberately overblown to sabotage Russia's bid.
But it is the concept, and not the on-going Anglo-Russian information war, that Mutko believes will win over Fifa. Intriguingly, Sergei Fursenko, the president of Russia's Football Union, talks about Russia's 2018 bid in highly mystical terms. He says that many fans have only a vague idea of what Russia is like, and says that hosting the tournament would enable visitors who come to Russia to experience the "Russian soul". "People are very hospitable and very open. The soul is all embracing, including of foreigners. You have to be not scared of Russians."
Russia's well-organised bid committee – which hosted Fifa's inspection team last month – talk about their ambitions in sweeping terms. They see a Russian World Cup as nothing less than an event of historical proportions, on a par with the second world war and the heroic defeat of the Nazis.
"England had everything," said Alexander Djordjadze, the director of bid planning and operations. "You ruled the world. You invented football. You have the richest league. You are solid and strong as a cultural entity.
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