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World Cup 2010: Rustenburg

Fabio Capello calls it "the curse of the captain" - now he must hope the man he is believed to have thought too timid to lead England breaks the spell.

Capello set out a simple line of succession for the captaincy when he appointed John Terry, but the Italian's preferred choice was sacked amid personal problems and his successor Rio Ferdinand's South African World Cup adventure was over before it began.

So Gerrard, third in line even though he was the first captain Capello selected to audition for the job, steps forward with the task of repeating the inspirational leadership he demonstrates at Liverpool for his country.

Frank Lampard, installed as vice-captain after Ferdinand's knee injury forced his departure before the end of England's first training session, gave Gerrard a glowing reference.

He said: "I think he will do the job he does for Liverpool, in which he's been fantastic. It will mean everything to him to captain England at the World Cup. Steven has got that quiet way about him off the pitch, but everybody respects him and he is an inspirational player."

It is Gerrard's "quiet way" that is understood to have caused Capello concern and persuaded him to place the armband elsewhere. Now he has it back by a combination of default and ill-fortune and has been presented with the game's biggest stage to demonstrate he is up to the job.

There have been suggestions Gerrard is something of a reluctant England captain. An introspective individual despite the powerhouse performances that have won silverware for Liverpool almost single-handedly on occasions, Gerrard has often given the impression that he has enough on his plate defining his own role in England's team without carrying the cares of captaincy as well.

He is also still being used in a role not strictly designed to bring out his best, lurking on the left flank with licence to roam. There is a sense that he would prefer either a central midfield role or being dropped in just behind Wayne Rooney - but Capello is clearly reluctant to grant him that wish.

Gerrard insisted recently that there would be no repeat of his miserable Euro 2004 campaign when he fretted in his Portugal hotel room about his Liverpool future as Jose Mourinho attempted to take him to Chelsea.

No distractions was the message - but he has been presented with plenty to occupy his mind should he choose let it wander again.

Gerrard, now 30, arrived in South Africa as manager Rafael Benitez left Liverpool, and as Real Madrid's interest started to gather momentum, with Mourinho once again a central figure.

Spanish newspaper Marca, famed for close connections with the Bernabeu, devoted its front page to Gerrard this week and former Anfield team-mate Xabi Alonso - whose departure bitterly disappointed England's latest captain - rolled out the welcome mat.

Gerrard has insisted all deliberations on his future must wait until after the World Cup, and now he has England's captaincy to crystallise his thoughts.

And, despite many supporters mysteriously believing England might be better off with someone else occupying his place in Capello's side, Gerrard is fully equipped with all the tools to make a success of the job.

No-one can seriously believe Gerrard is anything less than 100% committed to delivering for England. This outstanding player is respected not just by his England team-mates, but around the football world.

He has thrived on responsibility at Liverpool and despite a chequered history as England captain, Capello saw no reason to consider any other members of his squad as replacement for Ferdinand.

England and Capello do not want Gerrard to undergo a transformation into a fist-pumping, patriotic leader of men or issue tub-thumping jingoistic rhetoric - they simply want him to be the world-class player he undoubtedly is and finally shine at a major showpiece.

Injured for the 2002 World Cup in Japan, badly distracted at Euro 2004 and subdued in Germany four years ago, if Gerrard is going to make an indelible mark at international level, it is arguably now or never.

Indeed, he may just flower away from the woes of Liverpool that dragged him down into a decline below his normal standards last season.

Capello can help him cope with any additional pressure he may feel. He has never quite grasped the interest that surrounds the man with the armband in England, believing all his players have leadership responsibilities and the role itself is purely symbolic. He has never bought into the hoopla that surrounds the captaincy.

Terry remains a natural leader on the pitch, and it was Chelsea's captain who made sure he was one of the first to greet Michael Dawson with a warm handshake when he arrived on the margins of England's training session after his arrival in Rustenburg.

So Gerrard should not feel the need to take all of the weight on his shoulders. If he ever needed the perfect platform to show he can be as indispensible for England as he has become for Liverpool, then Ferdinand's misfortune and this South African World Cup have just provided it.

Picasso's Mediterranean inspiration

An exhibition in London brings together some of the works Pablo Picasso produced when, after
World War II, he left Paris and went to live in the south of France.



The show focuses on Picasso's emotional and family life

Picasso - The Mediterranean Years contains 150 pieces, most still in his family's possession. They give an insight into his complex private life.

During the World War II Pablo Picasso, the most famous artist alive, had lived quietly in occupied Paris. When the war ended he was 63 and decided it was time to reinvent himself.

The new French government had banned the ownership of second homes so Picasso decided to quit Paris for good and head south where previously he'd spent his summers. He moved his studio to the plain little town of Vallauris, near Cannes, known for its ceramic industry.

Picasso - The Mediterranean Years gives an insight into what the the artist did there from 1945 to 1962. His British-born biographer, John Richardson has helped stage the show and says he hopes to shed light on a less well-known part of Picasso's career.

"In a way most of Picasso's life was a Mediterranean period. He was born in Malaga in Spain and from 1918 took a house in Antibes or nearby every summer.

"His big stylistic discoveries were almost all made in the south. After three of four months he'd go back to Paris and work on what he'd discovered," says Mr Richardson.

Devoted partner

It's always tempting to trace Picasso's career through a timeline of women he was involved with. Picasso's main relationship at this time was with Francoise Gilot (though he was still married to his first wife Olga).

When the Gilot relationship ended he became involved primarily with Jacqueline Roque, more than 40 years his junior. There are portraits of each woman in the exhibition.

The Gagosian show is quite different from the one at Tate Liverpool

Mr Richardson first met Picasso in the late 1940s and knew both Gilot and Roque. After Gilot left he witnessed a series of women being "interviewed for the role".

"But I knew Jacqueline Roque would be the winner because she had absolutely what it took. She was totally devoted to him and prepared to sacrifice herself on the altar of his art. Which she did: after he died eventually she committed suicide".

The new show features paintings, linocuts, sculpture and ceramics which show Picasso focusing on his emotional and family life.

It's a contrast to the current show at Tate Liverpool (Picasso - Peace and Freedom) which looks at his political side, though Mr Richardson thinks his Communist belief wasn't profound.

Also at the exhibition's opening was the artist's grandson, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. He says toward the end of this period some people Picasso knew urged him to return to Franco's Spain but his family were against it.

"My grandfather was a Spaniard in exile. The colours of nature in the south of France reminded him of Spain - and the light, the sea. He was able to reinterpret his past work," says Mr Ruiz-Picasso.

But was his grandfather happy during this Mediterranean period?

"He was pleased to have his family and friends around him and to make art. But I don't know if artists or great people are really happy. It's more complicated."

Indian film 3 Idiots sweeps Bollywood awards

Bollywood director Rajkumar Hirani received several awards for 3 Idiots

A film that broke box-office records in India has won nearly all the top International Indian Film Awards - often called the Bollywood Oscars.

The comedy 3 Idiots, starring Aamir Khan and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, won 16 out of 27 awards, including best director and best film.

The ceremony was held in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.

Members of the film industry from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu had asked Bollywood stars to boycott the event.

They wanted to protest against the treatment of Sri Lanka's Tamil minority.

Many ethnic Tamil civilians died during the country's civil war which ended last year, rights groups allege.

The stars who stayed away from the awards ceremony included Amitabh Bachchan, who won best actor for the film Paa.

Some of the Bollywood stars who came defended their presence.

One, veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha, said: "We are not representing north, east, west or south India, but I am representing the whole of India for that matter as a world citizen... And our only caste, our only religion, is entertainment."

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says that the controversy shows that a year after the government's victory against Tamil Tiger separatists, Sri Lanka is still overshadowed by the conflict.

Bangladesh housing collapse rescue operation called off

The building is reported to have collapsed like a "house of cards"

Rescue workers in Bangladesh have stopped searching for bodies in the ruins of a four-storey building that collapsed in Dhaka on Tuesday.

The collapse killed at least 25 people and injured several others.

The building, constructed on the edge of a canal, fell down on top of three flimsy homes where scores of low-paid garment workers and labourers lived.

Officials say the building collapsed as the owner was adding another floor to an already unsafe structure.

"Having recovered 25 dead bodies from the rubble, we have called off the search and rescue operation," the director of Dhaka's fire brigade, Sheikh Mohammad Shahjalal, told the AFP news agency.

"We don't have reports of anyone else missing," Mr Shahjalal said, pointing out that the army and fire brigade had removed large quantities of debris from the nearby canal.

Police say that six children and nine women are among the dead.

In 2006, at least 15 people died and 50 were injured when a five-storey building collapsed in Dhaka.

And in 2005, more than 60 people died when an illegally constructed garment factory collapsed near Dhaka.

India buries unidentified Mangalore plane crash victims

Some relatives have not been able to perform the last rites

Twelve unidentified bodies of the Air India Express flight which crashed in southern India last month have been given a mass burial, officials say.

They say that soon after the crash - which killed 158 people in Mangalore - the bodies of some of the dead may have been wrongly claimed by relatives.

Officials say that they have no DNA matches for the 12 deceased.

The Air India Express Boeing 737 overshot Mangalore airport's hilltop runway and crashed into a valley.

It immediately burst into flames - only eight passengers survived.

The bodies were so badly burnt that identifying them was almost impossible for the families.

Officials say they conducted DNA tests on 22 dead people - and the 12 bodies did not match the samples given by victims' families.

'Tragedy'

"They may have been claimed by relatives of other victims earlier," K Swaminathan, spokesperson for Air India told the BBC.

The Boeing 737 crash was the first in India in nearly 10 years

"After consulting with relatives who could not get the bodies [of their loved ones] officials decided for a mass burial in the presence of those families. It was conducted in Mangalore on 2 June."

Meanwhile the Mumbai Mirror newspaper has reported that one of the bodies mistakenly given to the wrong family was that of flight attendant Sujata Survase.

Her father, Siddarth, told the daily: "I was informed by the Air India authorities that by mistake somebody else has taken away my daughter's body and cremated it.

"How can I come to terms with this tragedy when I didn't even perform her last rites?"

Air India Express is the low-cost arm of the national carrier, Air India.

India's air safety record has been good over the past decade, a time when there has been a rapid increase in the number of private airlines in the country.

US says 80% of al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq removed

Gen Odierno was upbeat about the timetable for withdrawing US forces

About 80% of al-Qaeda's leaders in Iraq have been captured or killed during the past three months, says the country's top US commander.

Only eight of the group's 42 chiefs in Iraq remained at large, Gen Ray Odierno told a Pentagon news conference.

But he cautioned against complacency, saying that, even with the setbacks, al-Qaeda was trying to regroup and would remain a problem for years.

"I will never take my eyes off of al-Qaeda," said the general.

He added that the number of attacks and casualty figures suffered by US troops had fallen to their lowest level since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

"All of those statistics for the first five months of 2010 are the lowest we've had on record."

April airstrike

Gen Odierno, who is leaving his post in the autumn, said the successes were rooted in the infiltration of a network in Mosul by US and Iraqi forces earlier this year.

[Al-Qaeda] are clearly now attempting to reorganise themselves... They're struggling

Gen Ray Odierno US commander in Iraq

"We made some significant inroads in Mosul, where their headquarters basically was," he said.

"And we got inside of AQI. We picked up several of their leaders that did the financing, that did planning, that did recruiting."

This prompted a crackdown which culminated in the deaths of Iraqi al-Qaeda leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who led an affiliate group, in an April airstrike.

"They are clearly now attempting to reorganise themselves," said the general. "They're struggling a little bit.

"They've lost connection with [the al-Qaeda senior leadership] in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

Gen Odierno said he was confident he could safely reduce the number of US combat troops in Iraq to 50,000 within three months, as US President Barack Obama has promised.

He said there were currently 88,000 American troops in Iraq, supported by 90,000 contractors.

While Mr Obama has pledged to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by the end of August, up to 50,000 are expected to remain there until the end of 2011 to help train and equip Iraqi forces.

Israel deports activists challenging Gaza blockade

The activists say they will not give up

Israel has deported seven activists who tried to sail an aid ship to Gaza in defiance of Israel's blockade.

They were among 11 campaigners and eight crew who signed deportation papers on Saturday, after troops boarded their ship the Rachel Corrie.

On Monday, Israeli forces killed nine activists in clashes as they tried to break the blockade.

Post-mortems in Turkey said 30 bullets had been found in their bodies - one activist had four in the head.

The examinations were carried out in Turkey because eight of those killed were Turkish, and the ninth had joint US-Turkish nationality.

The BBC's Jonathan Head, in Istanbul, says some of the details seem to contradict the Israeli assertion that their commandos used minimum lethal force during the violent confrontation with those on board the Turkish Mavi Marmara.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday the soldiers had been attacked by a group of people - separate from the peace activists - who had boarded the ship "in a way that allowed them to avoid a security check", intending "to initiate a violent confrontation with IDF soldiers".

Israel has faced an international outcry over the incident, which has also soured relations with Turkey.

Israeli officials say UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has telephoned Mr Netanyahu to propose setting up an international commission to investigate what went wrong.

It would include representatives from the US, Turkey and Israel, and could be headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer.

Barack Obama greets new Japanese leader Naoto Kan

The Futenma base has angered Okinawans for years

US President Barack Obama has telephoned Japan's new leader Naoto Kan to congratulate him and to pledge co-operation, amid tensions over a US military base on the island of Okinawa.

Tokyo officials said Mr Kan had promised to make "strenuous efforts" to resolve the issue.

Japan's previous government resigned after failing to implement an election pledge to move the US base off Okinawa.

Many residents on the island resent the military presence.

Incidents including the rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl in 1995 by three US servicemen have inflamed public opinion.

Compromise plan?

The White House said in a statement that the two leaders had agreed to work closely together on a number of issues.

"They emphasised the importance they each place on the US-Japan alliance," the statement said.

Barack Obama and Naoto Kan spoke for about 15 minutes

Washington did not mention the Futenma military base, which has been in place since World War II ended and has become crucial to US efforts to maintain a balance of power in East Asia.

The administration of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama - who resigned last week - had tried to organise moving the base away from Okinawa.

But he failed to find an agreeable site and so proposed a compromise - to relocate it elsewhere on Okinawa.

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported that Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa had confirmed that Tokyo wanted to press ahead with the compromise plan.

The agency said Mr Kitazawa had told US Defense Secretary Robert Gates about the new government's intentions during talks on the sidelines of a security conference in Singapore.

Tokyo has not commented on the report.

Pakistan to increase defense spending

Pakistani troops have faced stiff resistance in the restive north-west

Pakistan has announced it is to increase defence spending by 17% in the coming year, with analysts saying much of it will be used to combat militants.

In his budget speech to parliament, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said security forces should know they had the support of MPs.

Defence spending will rise to more than $5bn a year from next month.

Pakistani forces have carried out major offensives in the north-west over the past year.

However, there has also been a wave of deadly attacks by Islamic militants throughout the country.

"I think security is our topmost issue," said Mr Shaikh.

"We are facing a situation in which our armed forces, paramilitary forces and security forces are laying down their lives. They are bearing pain for the country and the people, I salute them. They should know from this house that we all stand by them."

Suicide attacks

In the past three years more than 3,400 people have been killed across Pakistan in bomb blasts and suicide attacks blamed on Taliban militants.

Last week more than 90 people were killed in co-ordinated attacks on two mosques of the minority Ahmadi Islamic sect in Lahore.

Pakistan, a vital ally for the US, has been heavily burdened by the cost of fighting Taliban insurgents along its Afghan border.

Mr Shaikh said government policies had reined in inflation - from 25% down to 13% - and brought economic stability.

"We are seeing the beginning of recovery," he said.

In 2008 Pakistan secured a $10bn loan package from the International Monetary Fund to keep its economy on track.

Analysts say the IMF is now putting pressure on Pakistan's financial institutions to make further reforms.

President Hamid Karzai orders Afghan prisoner review

The conference discussed measures to promote reconciliation

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered a review of the cases of every Taliban suspect in the country's prisons.

He said that where evidence against suspects was doubtful, they must be released.

Meanwhile, Mr Karzai's office says Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh have resigned.

It said they quit over the attack on last week's national peace conference.

The statement said the explanations they gave the president for last week's attack by the Taliban on the peace jirga was "not satisfactory", and Mr Karzai had accepted their resignations.

None of the delegates were hurt in the Taliban assault, which saw rockets fired at the Kabul venue.

Mr Karzai's announcement of prisoner case reviews is the first official response to the national peace conference, which ended on Friday.

The conference discussed measures to promote reconciliation, including negotiations with militant factions, and recommended the release of Taliban suspects being held in Afghan police custody and by the US military if they were being held on "inaccurate statements or unsubstantiated allegations".

It is unclear how many people the review will affect. Hundreds of prisoners are accused of Taliban involvement.

A committee will be set up to oversee the investigation of each case.

Meanwhile, Nato says five international troops have been killed in three separate incidents in Afghanistan on Sunday.

The Western military alliance said three members of its force were killed in a vehicle accident in southern Afghanistan.

Another soldier died in a bomb explosion in the south, while a fifth was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan.

Cambodia's corruptor-in-chief vows to fight corruption: Can he send himslef to jail?

Hun Sen speaks during a graduation ceremony Thursday at the National Institute of Education. (Photo by: Uy Nousereimony)

PM vows to fight corruption

Friday, 04 June 2010
Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

GOVERNMENT officials caught engaging in corrupt practices will be swiftly prosecuted under the Kingdom’s new Anticorruption Law, Prime Minister Hun Sen vowed Thursday.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for students from the Royal School of Administration, the premier urged officials to stamp out corruption in all its forms, and called institutional graft “a dangerous disease”.

“I am optimistic that we still have the capacity to fight against this dangerous disease,” Hun Sen said. “Corruption will damage our institutions.”

But the premier also defended the Kingdom’s police, military and government institutions, saying that most officials do not engage in corruption.

“People who commit corruption, they do it secretly. But be aware that other people working with you will find some way to know about it,” he said.

Cambodia is regarded as one of the most corrupt nations in the region, according to Transparency International, which ranked the Kingdom 158th out of 180 countries in its 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Observers have questioned whether the Anticorruption Law, passed earlier this year, will give officials enough tools to effectively and thoroughly combat graft.

Yong Kim Eng, president of the People’s Centre for Development and Peace, said he is concerned the new law lacks safeguards to protect whistle-blowers. Particularly troubling, he said, is an article outlining punishments of up to six months in jail or 10 million riels (US$2,386) in fines for complaints that lead to “useless inquiry”.

“This makes it a problem for the public to report about corrupt people,” Yong Kim Eng said.

It also remains to be seen whether the new Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) will be able to ensure witness confidentiality, he said, or whether the unit will be sufficiently independent – both politically and financially, since it falls under the auspices of the Council of Ministers – to carry out investigations.

After the law was passed in March, ACU officials acknowledged that extensive training would be required for those tasked with fighting graft.

Deputy Director Chhay Savuth said Thursday that the body was still in the process of “forming an internal structure”.

Art for creating social change

Sunday 6 June 2010
KAMAYANI BALI-MAHABAL, Women’s Feature Service
Deccan Herald (India)

Ali is a performance artist, writer and global agitator. She is a first generation Muslim Khmer woman born in Cambodia and raised in Chicago.

“Is the change I seek revolutionary? Is every revolution going to require bloodshed? When the revolution comes will I be able to take my mother and father with me? The revolution came to us in Cambodia in 1975. Two million Cambodians died. My parents never left me behind even when the revolution left us with nothing. The change I seek has to include my family even if their politics differ from mine. ... I believe that you can’t serve your people if you don’t love your people,” says Anida Yoeu Ali, a Chicago-based Cambodian Muslim artist, quoting from her manifesto (which is currently still a work-in-progress, titled ‘Towards a Manifesto’).

Ali is a performance artist, writer and global agitator. She is a first generation Muslim Khmer woman born in Cambodia and raised in Chicago. Her father is half Cham and half Malaysian, and her mother is half Thai and half Khmer. “I was born with two tongues, caught between definitions and borders, desperate to find home,” Ali says, “My family lived in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge, a genocidal regime, took over and changed everything. As Cambodian Muslims they were an ethnic minority in a country that is 98 per cent Buddhist. Before the war, the borders were much more fluid and that’s why I have such a diverse bloodline.”

Today, it is this transnational identity that fuels Ali’s art. She works with video, sound and performance art and utilises her memories to create her mix-media pieces. “Art is a powerful and critical tool for creating social change. Art is more than object-based production. It is more than abstract, head-heavy concepts. Art includes the production of knowledge and the transformation of social spaces. Art is action. It requires labour. It requires love. It requires people. My Asian/Pacific Islander American identity is a political identity, a way to come together and mobilise people of a shared historical struggle specific to the US. This identity is a way to give voice to our invisible and complex stories. It is my means to become an ethnographer for my family, my community and a larger world. Only when I know my history can I begin to change it. This is at the heart of my work as an artist, educator and agitator,” she says, talking about her art and her identity.

As a young student, Ali chose performance poetry as a form of resistance. “After college I stumbled into performance poetry and writing because it was an inexpensive form of expression. With writing all I needed was a pen and paper. With performance poetry all I needed were my words and anywhere could become a stage. For me, everything happened around 1998, because that’s when I became motivated to write and perform. My meeting with Isangmahal, a radical Filipino American arts collective from Seattle, spurred me on. A month later, I wrote ‘I Was Born With Two Tongues’,” she recalls. Ali has toured over 300 colleges and venues with the pan-Asian spoken word ensemble, ‘I Was Born With Two Tongues’, and the multi-media theatrical collective, ‘Mango Tribe’. It was pioneering work that ignited a new generation of Asian American voices.

Identity apart, another theme that is strongly reflected in her work is religion. Ali strongly believes in religious freedom. “Freedom to worship and practice one’s faith is a human right. This means that all people practicing their faith, in whatever form, should be allowed to do so as long as no one else is harmed in the process. This means if women in France and Belgium choose to cover themselves with a headscarf or full burqa, then they should be allowed to do so without the State implementing neo liberal policies veiled in xenophobia,” she argues.

According to her, it’s not religion that is an obstacle. It’s the people who use it for their own power moves, a kind of power based on self-righteousness, patriarchy and oppression. Religion is not destructive; it’s when religion is controlled for power that it becomes a tool for repression.

A great believer in the power of collective creations, Ali, 38, has co-founded Young Asians With Power, an Asian American Artists Collective in Chicago; and the MONSOON fine arts journal. Her most recent work — her graduate thesis — ‘The 1700% Project: Otherance’ intervenes against the racial profiling of Muslims through poetry, video, audio recording, performances and installation. ‘The 1700% Project’ was conceived as a collaborative work and it utilises art not just as a means to address critical issues but as a strategic intervention. According to Ali, it implements a trans-disciplinary approach to the development of audience-specific and process-specific works based on the iteration of an original poem, ‘1700%’. “The prose-poem is a cento I composed of 100 lines of writings from actual reported hate crimes. The text is an unapologetic response to injustices against Muslims while acknowledging the resonance of historical persecution,” she explains.

Regarding the number 1700%, she explains that it refers to the exponential percentage of increase in crimes against Arabs, Muslims and those perceived to be Arab or Muslim since September 11, 2001. Currently, her project includes a poem, video, dance, audio recording and performance installation. She has collaborated with a filmmaker, a dancer, musicians and over 50 volunteer participants from Chicago’s Muslim community for the video that subverts the typical music format in order to educate the public about the dangers of racially-motivated fear and violence. “I strongly believe racial profiling is a device used throughout history to control and maintain power structures. The video, like the other components of the project, uses art to intervene with a sense of urgency,” Ali points out.

But Ali’s efforts for harmony were defeated when recently her installation was defaced with large caricatures and a word bubble strategically highlighting the text: “Kill all Arabs.” Across a wall space measuring 18 feet x 9 feet, the installation exhibits 100 lines of white vinyl text composed from actual hate crimes experienced by people perceived as Muslims and Arabs. As part of the live performance of her installation, the wall had been stained with ink drippings to make the seemingly invisible ‘hate crime’ text more visible. “What this proves to me is that this is not just a student art piece, this is not just another graduate thesis project. This work extends beyond campus and institution walls. It is at the centre of a critical point where xenophobia, violence and fear intersect. It is disheartening to see my work defaced, but it is not surprising considering its politically charged content,” she says.

The installation has been destroyed and all Ali can do, she says, is to make the most of it. “Because anyone who has experienced hate, racially-motivated acts, or any form of violence knows that when it happens, it leaves you defenceless, in shock, and renders you powerless. Still you live with it and are forced to move on,” she says.

According to Ali, her husband, Masahiro Sugano, and her daughter, 20-month-old Minara Noor, remind her every day that art making is so much bigger than her. Her family grounds her, she says.

Finally, for Ali, her work is a transformative experience. As she puts it, “My work is about the refusal to end in violence and if I didn’t strongly believe in that, I would not be able to pick up the pieces and make this into something more empowering.”

"Axis of Evil" in connivance with "Evil Dictator"?

The crossed-eye evil twins: Ahmedinejad (L) and Hun Xen (R)

Iran Visit Prompts Warmer Diplomatic Ties

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Friday, 04 June 2010

"If we have strong relations with Iran, we will receive strong experience in producing oil and drilling for gas and in mining."

Cambodia is considering increasing formal diplomatic relations with Iran, including establishing an embassy in the capital Tehran, officials said Friday.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently considering the “proper time” for a visit to Iran by Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, a ministry spokesman said.

The decision follows the visit of an Iranian delegation of five National Assembly members this week that ended Thursday. The delegation met with high-ranking members of the National Assembly and Senate and with Foreign Affairs officials.

The delegation requested the establishment of an embassy or trade center to promote Iranian investment for oil, gas and mining, said Cheam Yiep, a Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker that met with the delegation.

Kuy Kuong, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said a potential visit by Hor Namhong to Iran would be to discuss “the economy, trade, investment and tourism.” Cambodia was also considering an embassy, he said.

Cambodia restarted diplomatic relations with Iran in 1992, “but we do not have an embassy yet,” he said. “We contact Iran through the Iranian Embassy in Hanoi.”

The Iranian delegation leader, Mohsen Kouhkan, told lawmakers here Iran could offer technical assistance for oil, gas and mining, Kuy Kuong said.

“If we have strong relations with Iran, we will receive strong experience in producing oil and drilling for gas and in mining,” he said.

International censure of Iran for its nuclear policies was not a concern of Cambodia, which is focused on economy, trade, investment and tourism, he said.