CHINA CONFIDENTIAL
Monday, November 10, 2008
Ataturk Biopic Stirs Emotions in Turkey
Foreign Confidential....
Words and images matter.
Ibon Villelabeitia reports from Ankara that a "new film that portrays Turkey's revered founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as a lonely, hard-drinking man beset by doubts has whipped up emotions in a country still grappling with his legacy 70 years after his death."Ataturk, a former soldier, founded modern Turkey as a secularist republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
Portraits of a stern-looking Ataturk adorn the walls of government offices, schools, shops and living rooms across the sprawling nation, testament to a man who has achieved the status of a demi-god among most Turks.
"Mustafa", a documentary that chronicles Ataturk's life from childhood to his death on Nov. 10, 1938, presents an intimate and flawed Ataturk rarely seen before, angering hardline secularists who have called for a boycott and say the film is an enemy plot to humiliate "Turkishness".
The film, which has drawn large crowds, has fed into a climate of soul searching in Turkey, where democratic reforms, social changes and an impassioned debate over secularism is shaking the pillars of the autocratic state left by Ataturk.
"This documentary is the product of an effort to humiliate Ataturk in the eyes of Turkish people," wrote columnist Yigit Bulut in the secularist Vatan newspaper.
"Do not watch it, prevent people from watching it and most importantly keep your children away from it to avoid planting seeds of Ataturk humiliation in their subconscious," he said.
On Monday, at 9.05 a.m., factory sirens wailed, traffic halted and school children stood to attention, a ritual Turks have followed for 70 years to mark the moment of his death.
Click here to continue.
Ag Futures Rise in Response to China's Stimulus
Dateline USA....
Agriculture futures and other commodities rose Monday in response to China's announcement that it will spend $586 billion to stimulate its slowing economy.
The Agriculture Department's latest crop forecast deflated some of investors' enthusiasm and sent grain and soybean futures lower for much of the session, but prices rebounded to end mostly higher.
"This report wasn't specifically very surprising," said Elaine Kub, an analyst with DTN in Omaha, Neb., adding that the changes in the report from previous USDA estimates were very minor.
Rallies Sparked
Instead, investors focused on China's plans to boost its economy through a mix of spending, subsidies, looser credit policies and tax cuts. The announcement sparked rallies on Asian and European stock markets, but U.S. stocks were unable to hold on to their early gains in response to China's announcement.
China plans to use some of the money for infrastructure projects, which will likely boost demand for raw materials, Kub said. Commodities prices have largely fallen in recent months amid signs of a global economic slowdown; the prospect of higher demand in China revived the belief that demand around the world might also pick up.
Corn and Soybean Forecasts
The USDA tweaked its forecasts for this year's U.S. corn and soybean harvests, with corn production now expected to come in below analysts' estimates.
The department said corn production is expected to be 12.02 billion bushels, down from last month's revised estimate of 12.03 billion and below analysts' estimates of 12.08 billion. Corn yield per acre is expected to come in at 153.8 bushels, down from last month's estimate of 153.9.
The soybean harvest is forecast to be 2.92 billion bushels, down from 2.94 billion. The new projection matched analysts' estimates. Soybean yield per acre is expected to be 39.3 bushels, down from 39.5 last month.
Corn for December delivery rose 8 cents to settle at $3.835 a bushel, while January soybeans jumped 27 cents to $9.48 a bushel. December wheat futures slipped 1 penny to 5.20 a bushel, after rising as high as $5.31 earlier in the session.
Metals and Energy
Precious metals and energy prices also rose on expectations that the global economy would be lifted by China's stimulus plans.
Gold for December delivery jumped $12.30 to $746.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
December silver rose 25.7 cents to $10.220 an ounce, and December copper futures rose 5.5 cents to $1.7520 a pound.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average fell about 73 points to the 8,870 level, having risen in early trading on China's stimulus plans but later falling on the belief that U.S. companies might not be big beneficiaries of the plan. U.S. stocks also fell on a litany of downbeat corporate news; broader market indexes fell more than 1 percent.
Currencies and Oil
The U.S. dollar was mixed against other major currencies. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 3.75 percent from 3.79 percent late Friday.
Oil prices fluctuated throughout the day Monday. The weakening of the U.S. dollar, partially driven by the Chinese stimulus package, likely gave oil a small boost. When the dollar falls against foreign currencies, investors often sell the greenback and buy oil.
Light, sweet crude for December delivery rose $1.37 to settle at $62.41 a barrel on the Nymex, but swung as low as $59.10 at one point.
- APEnriched Uranium Reportedly Found in Syria
Foreign Confidential....
Investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency reportedly found traces of enriched uranium in Syria.
The finding by the agency, which works under the auspices of the United Nations, is a potential sign that Syria had been attempting to develop a nuclear program, Reuters quoted diplomats familiar with the IAEA probe as saying.
According to Monday’s report, the uranium was discovered at the same site that was allegedly bombed by the Israeli Air Force in September 2007.
The leaked information came shortly after the IAEA Director Mohammed ElBaradei announced he would release a formal, written report on the subject, Reuters reported. The IAEA had no immediate comment.
"It isn’t enough to conclude or prove what the Syrians were doing, but the IAEA has concluded this requires further investigation," a diplomat with ties to the organization said.
- JTAA Legend Left Us Today
Miriam Makeba, the "Mama Africa" whose sultry voice gave South Africans hope when the country was gripped by apartheid, died Monday of a heart attack after collapsing on stage in Italy. She was 76.
In her dazzling career, Makeba performed with musical legends from around the world — jazz maestros Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie, Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon — and sang for world leaders such as John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela.
Her distinctive style, which combined jazz, folk and South African township rhythms, managed to get her banned from South Africa for over 30 years.
"Her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile and dislocation which she felt for 31 long years. At the same time, her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us," Mandela said in a statement.
Last Moments on Stage
He said it was "fitting" that her last moments were spent on stage.
Makeba collapsed after singing one of her most famous hits "Pata Pata," her family said. Her grandson, Nelson Lumumba Lee, was with her as well as her longtime friend, Italian promoter Roberto Meglioli.
"Whilst this great lady was alive she would say: 'I will sing until the last day of my life'," the family statement said.
Makeba died at the Pineta Grande clinic in Castel Volturno, near the southern city of Naples, after singing at a concert in solidarity with six immigrants from Ghana who were shot to death in September in the town. Investigators have blamed the attack on organized crime.
'Mama Africa'
The death of "Mama Africa" sent shock waves through South Africa, where callers flooded local radio stations with their recollections of her. In Guinea, where Makeba lived most of her decades in exile, radio and television stations played mournful music and tributes to their adopted icon.
The first African to win a Grammy award, Makeba started singing in Sophiatown, a cosmopolitan neighborhood of Johannesburg that was a cultural hotspot in the 1950s before its black residents were forcibly removed by the apartheid government.
She then teamed up with South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela — later her first husband — and her rise to international prominence started in 1959 when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary "Come Back, Africa."
When she tried to fly home for her mother's funeral the following year, she discovered her passport had been revoked.
In 1963, Makeba appeared before the U.N. Special Committee on Apartheid to call for an international boycott of South Africa. The white-led South African government responded by banning her records, including hits like "Pata Pata," "The Click Song" ("Qongqothwane" in Xhosa), and "Malaika."
Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording in 1966 together with Belafonte for "An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba." The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid.
Thanks to her close relationship with Belafonte, she received star status in the United States and performed for President Kennedy at his birthday party in 1962. But she fell briefly out of favor when she married black power activist Stokely Carmichael — later known as Kwame Ture — and moved to Guinea in the late 1960s.
Sang with Paul Simon
Besides working with Simone and Gillespie, she also appeared with Paul Simon at his "Graceland" concert in Zimbabwe in 1987.
After three decades abroad, Makeba was invited back to South Africa by Mandela shortly after his release from prison in 1990 as white racist rule crumbled.
"It was like a revival," she said about going home. "My music having been banned for so long, that people still felt the same way about me was too much for me. I just went home and I cried."
Tributes flooded in Monday from across Africa.
Congo's minister of culture, Esdras Kambale, called Makeba a role model for all Africans.
"We are very saddened," Kambale said. "Fortunately, she left a large body of music that will be immortal."
Percussionist Papa Kouyate — who played in Makeba's band for 20 years and is the widower of her daughter Bongi — remembered Makeba as a giving person.
"I married her daughter Bongi and she adopted me as her own child," he said. "I will mourn Mama Africa for a long time."
Still, Makeba attracted controversy by lending support to dictators such as Togo's Gnassingbe Eyadema and Felix Houphouet-Boigny from Ivory Coast, performing at political campaigns for them, even as they violently suppressed democratic movements in West Africa in the early 90s.
The first person to give her refuge was Guinea's former President Ahmed Sekou Toure, who has been accused in the slaughtering of 10 percent of his country's population.
Not a Political Singer
Makeba insisted, however, that her songs were not deliberately political.
"I'm not a political singer," she insisted in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper earlier this year. "I don't know what the word means. People think I consciously decided to tell the world what was happening in South Africa. No! I was singing about my life, and in South Africa we always sang about what was happening to us — especially the things that hurt us."
The U.S. State Department sent condolences to Makeba's family as international tributes for Makeba also flooded in Monday.
"Her voice and her battles influenced the process of liberation and democratic rebirth in South Africa," Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said in a statement.
Jacques Diouf, director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, praised Makeba for the work she did for the poor as its goodwill ambassador. "We will miss her energy and her respectful concern for the world's most vulnerable," he said in a statement.
Makeba announced her retirement three years ago, but despite a series of farewell concerts she never stopped performing. When she turned 75 last year, she said she would sing for as long as possible.
Makeba is survived by her grandchildren, Nelson Lumumba Lee and Zenzi Monique Lee, and her great-grandchildren Lindelani, Ayanda and Kwame. A funeral will be held in South Africa, but details have not yet been announced.
- APWall Street Frozen by Fear of Prolonged Recession; Main Street, by the Threat of Mass Pauperization
Dateline USA....
During the Great Depression preceding the passage of the Social Security Act, so-called soup kitchens provided the only meals some unemployed Americans had. The soup kitchen seen above was sponsored by the Chicago gangster Al Capone.
Is this America's future? Will Wall Street come back? Will Main Street survive? Except for preventing another mega-attack on a US city, nothing is more important than the economy. The nation needs jobs ... and affordable energy.
Meanwhile, this reporter is hoarding cash, stocking up on canned foods and ammunition, and investing in gold.
CNNMoney reports:Stocks slumped Monday, as ongoing recession fears overshadowed any relief about China's $586 billion stimulus plan and the government's revamping of its deal with AIG.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 0.8%, according to early tallies. The Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index lost 1.2% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) shed 1.9%.
All three major gauges had initially risen in the morning, before giving up those gains in the early afternoon.
Monday brought a heavy spate of corporate news, including AIG's huge restructuring, Circuit City's bankruptcy and more weakness for the automakers.
"When the top companies are giving the kind of guidance they're giving and announcing layoffs, that tells you we are looking at at least a few more quarters of this recession," said John Wilson, chief technical strategist at Morgan Keegan.
In global news, China announced a $586 billion stimulus package, aimed at tempering the impact of the global financial crisis.
"I think right now the market is grappling with the length and the duration of the recession," said Wilson.
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Posts
