Iranian cartoonist's conviction condemned

Cartoonists have condemned the conviction of an Iranian colleague sentenced to 25 lashes for drawing a caricature of an MP that was deemed insulting.

Mahmoud Shokraye was put on trial after an Iranian MP, Ahmad Lotfi Ashtiani, took offence to a cartoon he drew of the parliamentarian in Nameye Amir, a city newspaper in Arak, the capital of Iran's central province of Markazi.

The Ilna semi-official news agency reported that a media law court in Markazi had found Shokraye guilty of insulting the MP, handing down the unprecedented punishment.

In the cartoon, Ashtiani is depicted in a football stadium, dressed as a footballer, with a congratulatory letter in one hand and his foot resting on the ball. The MP's forehead has a dark mark, said to be the sign of a pious Shia Muslim, caused (supposedly) by frequent prostration during prayer. The cartoon contains little exaggeration and Ashtiani's forehead has a prayer mark in reality.

Shokraye drew Ashtiani following widespread criticism in Iranian society towards a number of politicians who have been accused of interfering in the country's sports.

His sentence has sparked an outcry among cartoonists, with some calling on their colleagues to draw new caricatures of the MP in condemnation of the court's decision. Iran's online community has taken to social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook to express anger.

Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson has contributed his own new cartoonof Ashtiani in protest. "The sentence of 25 lashes is outrageous, appalling and barbaric," said Rowson. "The surest mark of a healthy society is the degree to which public figures accept the right of everyone else to laugh at them, something which cartoonists and caricaturists have helped enable for centuries.

"So Ashtiani's response to Mahmoud Shokraye's cartoon of him is a far greater indictment of him and his character than any cartoon could ever be."

Jo Glanville, the editor of the campaigning group Index on Censorship, said: "This is a new low for freedom of expression in Iran, making any legitimate comment or criticism of politicians impossible – never mind satirical comment."

Despite the outcry, not everyone is angry with the sentence. Speaking to an Iranian journalist, Esmail Kowsari, a member of the parliamentary committee on national security, defended the sentence: "[A cartoonist] should be persecuted if the cartoon is not ordinary and ridicules someone … Any crime has its own punishment, including lashing, imprisonment or being fined."

It is the first time a lashing sentence has been handed down over a cartoon in Iran, although many have fallen victim to the state's aggression towards cartoonists. Nikahang Kowsar fell foul of the authorities for portraying a prominent cleric as a crocodile. The cleric soon became known as Ayatollah Temsah (Ayatollah crocodile) among his opponents. Kowsar was briefly imprisoned and later fled the country.

Chen Guangcheng says Chinese police taking revenge against family

A guard outside Chaoyang hospital, where Chen Guangcheng is reportedly being treated after his escape from house arrest. Photograph: Jason Lee/Reuters

The Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has said police detained his sister-in-law and nephew in a campaign of revenge against his family, as he prepares to move to the US.

Chen's escape last month from house arrest in Dongshigu, Shandong province, cast a harsh light on local officials, embarrassed China's internal security apparatus and earned diplomats' consternation as they struggled to cope with his request for refuge.

Officials from Beijing and Washington appeared to strike a face-saving deal last week that would allow Chen to study in New York or Washington with his wife and children. But while he is confident of his own safety, Chen told the Guardian he was worried about relatives left behind.

"The crazy retaliation against my family has started," he said by phone. "My sister-in-law was arrested and is now released on bail. They have accused her of harbouring a fugitive, but they didn't say who."

His nephew Chen Kegui was detained earlier this month and is under investigation over the stabbing of village guards who intruded into his home while they were searching for the blind activist.

Chen said he still expected to move to the US but was unsure when. He is receiving treatment in Chaoyang hospital for an intestinal infection and is in plaster after he broke his foot during his escape.

The Chinese foreign ministry said it would accept his application to travel overseas, but Chen said he had not yet received a response from them about his application.

Chen has been offered fellowships by New York University and the University of Washington.

It is thought he will study law, but he may first need a language primer. Chen said he can manage conversational English, which he taught himself many years ago.

Gay rights campaigners around the world hail Obama's message of support

Russian police detain a gay rights activist during a protest in St Petersburg. Photograph: Stringer/REUTERS

President Barack Obama's support for same-sex marriage in the US has been hailed by campaigners as a significant boost for gay rights around the world – but they warned there was much work to be done.

"President Obama joins the British prime minister and the new French president in backing same-sex marriage," said Peter Tatchell, veteran campaigner and national coordinator of the UK's Equal Love campaign, which is seeking to overturn the twin legal bans on gay civil marriages and heterosexual civil partnerships.

"It's an unstoppable global trend, with more and more countries planning to end the ban on gay couples getting married. There is growing momentum for same-sex marriage in many countries, from Cuba to Nepal, Denmark, Australia and Colombia.

"Obama's support will boost the worldwide campaign for marriage equality and, through media reporting of his support, raise awareness of gay marriage among billions of people in every corner of the earth."

Obama's comments came as New Zealand's prime minister, John Key, broke his own long silence on gay marriage and said his government may consider allowing it "at some stage".

A few mostly European countries – as well as Canada, Argentina and South Africa – already permit gay marriage.

Despite welcoming the announcement, however, many gay rights campaigners pointed out that in their own countries a debate over single sex marriage had yet to even begin.

Russia

Gay rights activists in Russia welcomed Obama's statement, but feared it would have little effect on their own struggle to reverse the crackdown on gay rights at home.

"I respect him for his bravery," said Nikolai Alexeyev, a leading gay rights activist in Russia. "But I don't think it will effect our politics, which are totally retrograde."

In the past few months, five Russian cities have passed laws banning so-called "homosexual propaganda" among minors.

A nationwide law is due to be considered this year. Activists have called the law a throwback to the Soviet era, when homosexuality was illegal.

"Of course, it's a strong move for LGBT rights globally, it always helps," said Alexeyev. "When we talk about issues here, we can say – look at how things are done in a civilised country, the president even gives his support. But in the end, it won't change anything – [President Vladimir] Putin can always say, look 90% of my electorate is against gay rights."

China

In China the situation is even worse, according to activists.

"The government treats homosexuality like it does not exist," said Xiong Jing, an activist who volunteers in gay support groups in Beijing. She said legalising gay marriage there would be unrealistic and impossible.

Sodomy was a crime in China until 1997, and the government considered homosexuality a mental disorder until 2001.

Today gay people are frequently discriminated against and ostracised in the country, which shows little tolerance for activism of any kind.

Xiong welcomed Obama's support for gay marriage but wished he had done more. "If he, as president, was able to not just express his own personal opinion but to support policies on this, that would be even better," she said.

Africa

Obama's comments were sharply at odds with the situation in most of Africa, where every country except South Africa has some form of legislation criminalising homosexuality. Many countries – including South Africa – are considering introducing new laws further stigmatising same-sex relationships.

The plethora of proposed new laws – from Liberia to Nigeria – has the backing of religious and political leaders who have been equally vociferous in their insistence that homosexuality is culturally unacceptable to Africans. Gay rights activists say that the message of tolerance emanating from the White House will only prompt these leaders to defiantly raise the volume on their anti-homosexual stance.

"Obama's comments will provide another opportunity for religious fundamentalists to raise their homophobic rhetoric," said Damian Ugwu, regional Africa programme coordinator for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. "In Nigeria, and Africa as a whole, these remarks are going to get a lot of bashing."

Nigeria's senate has passed a bill which criminalises gay rights advocacy with up to 10 years' imprisonment, although critics say it is unlikely to become law.

"Nigeria has a lot of aspiration to exert influence on the world stage in international affairs," Ugwu said. "I doubt that the executive will allow this bill to be passed, bearing in mind the policy implications.

"Nevertheless, at the moment this bill is still very much alive, and for us as gay rights activists in Africa, it's a welcome development to know we have an ally like Obama. The fact that the most powerful person in the world is recognising the need to respect people and promote the rights of sexual minorities, can only help us."

In Uganda – where consensual homosexual acts are already a criminal offence – the speaker of parliament has resisted pressure to drop a new bill that creates an offence of "aggravated homosexuality" and would make the "promotion of homosexuality" a criminal offence, criminalising the work of human rights activists.

"This bill is not out of the picture yet," said Christopher Senyonjo, a retired Anglican bishop who has been vocal in his support of gay rights. "President Obama is seen as a friend to the people of Uganda, and it is good to hear him speaking out. I think his comments will help to combat some of the ignorance here.

"But what we really need is education, dialogue and time – the ignorance surrounding homosexuality here is a complicated issue. For those of us who are convinced that human sexuality is not exclusive, we will continue to stand up to these problems but it will not be easy."

In Kenya, where homosexual offences carry penalties of between five and 14 years imprisonment, activists say Obama's comments will have more traction with ordinary people because of his own Kenyan roots.

"The fact that these comments come from Obama make it much harder for people in Kenya to sit back and say that gay rights are just a western idea," said Monica Mbaru, a gay rights activist in Kenya. "If it had been say President Clinton, people would have said homosexuality is just a white disease, but with Obama there is an ownership for the people here. Just like we have heard statements from others like Desmond Tutu, these are African elders who resonate with the local people, and their statements are taken very seriously – they are opinion shapers in this region."

"There is still a huge problem here of the law criminalising homosexuality and people being attacked because of their sexual orientation," Mbaru added. "We will be definitely be using his comments to try and get more support from communities in Kenya."

India

In India, where homophobia remains widespread, campaigners said they were "heartened and inspired" by Obama's words, but pointed out that a lot of work remained to be done.

"It's an incredible precedent. It will definitely be having an impact in India. Americans and Europeans and all of us are all the same. We are culturally diverse but all human beings," said Ashok Row Kavi, a veteran campaigner for homosexual rights.

Kavi said that since a key judgement in Delhi high court in 2009 that effectively decriminalised homosexuality, activists had been keeping a low profile. "We are waiting for the supreme court to uphold the judgment and we don't want to provoke anyone. We will have the whole religious right against us otherwise," Kavi said. "If the judgment is upheld then a whole series of rights will flow from that."

Rest of the world

Thai activist Natee Teerarojjanapongs was positive about Obama's statement. "I was starting to lose hope in fighting for gay marriage legalisation in Thailand," Natee said, "but now Barack Obama's endorsement is rekindling my fire and is giving me the encouragement to go on."

In Argentina, which became the first Latin American country to approve gay marriage in 2010, gay-rights activist Cesar Cigliutti said Obama was playing catch-up.

"It seems to me that by taking this position Obama is aligning himself with the entire world, with these times we're living in, with the achievements of rights in other countries," Cigliutti said.

In Australia, however, where there are presently three bills in parliament which would allow same-sex couples to marry, and support is widespread, a change in the law is being blocked because both Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, oppose it.

"I think it just reinforces this as a matter that people form their own views on, a deeply personal question people will think about, work their way through it; obviously President Obama has and he's announced a decision," Gillard said.

France also has a population largely in support of gay marriage and a head of state who opposes it, but that is about to change. François Hollande, who defeated President Nicolas Sarkozy in elections on Sunday, campaigned for marriage rights and set legislative passage for no later than June of next year.

Though Obama's change of heart does not appear to have changed the battle lines in the debate, those on one side feel they have won a powerful ally.

"We're living in other times where acceptance is growing more and more," said restaurant owner Carlos Santiago in Mexico City's Pink Zone gay district. "It's impossible to hold back a wave, against something that is natural."

Name of Federico García Lorca's lover emerges after 70 years

Box of mementoes reveals that young art critic Juan Ramírez de Lucas had brief affair with Spanish poet

Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca. Photograph: Popperfoto

The identity of the lover to whom Federico García Lorca wrote passionate verse in his final year has been a mystery ever since the poet's assassination during the Spanish civil war. But now, more than 70 years later, his name has finally emerged.

The art critic and journalist Juan Ramírez de Lucas kept a box of mementoes of their year-long passionate relationship, including a previously unseen poem and a diary, hidden away throughout his life.

He handed the box to his sister shortly before his death in 2010.

The box revealed that García Lorca and 19-year-old Ramírez de Lucas had planned to go to Mexico together after falling for each other in Madrid, where the latter was studying both public administration and theatre. But Ramírez de Lucas was too young to travel without his parents' permission, so he went back to his native Albacete to talk to them days before the Spanish civil war broke out, when rightwing rebels launched a coup attempt against the republican government.

García Lorca, meanwhile, had gone to his native Granada where – once the war started – he sought refuge in the house of his friends, the Rosales family. With Granada in the hands of the fascist-backed forces of General Francisco Franco, the notoriously leftwing poet was in danger of being targeted by death squads operating in the city.

In August 1936, aged 38, he was taken to a nearby hillside and shot along with two anarchist bullfighters and a one-legged schoolteacher.

His body has never been found.

His love for Ramírez de Lucas explains why he had waited to travel to Mexico despite warnings that, even before the civil war, right-wing gunmen might try to kill him.

Ramírez de Lucas's conservative family had been appalled by his request to go to Mexico with García Lorca and refused him permission to travel, threatening to send the Civil Guard after him if he tried to leave. He could not legally travel abroad without their permission until he was 21.

García Lorca wrote him a letter, told him to be patient and assured him that it was important not to break with his family. "Count on me always. I am your best friend and I ask you to be political and not allow yourself to be washed along by the river (of fate)," the poet wrote, according to a version of the letter published by El País newspaper.

The letter – accompanied by orange blossom from Granada – was one of the documents Ramírez de Lucas held on to, along with a Lorca poem which describes his hopeless attraction to the "blond young man from Albacete".

"I can't even look at him!" he repeats in the poem, which was apparently written on a journey the two lovers made to the southern city of Córdoba. The poem is handwritten on the back of a receipt for the Orad Academy in Madrid, where Ramírez de Lucas was studying. A handwriting expert has reviewed the poem and declared it to have been written by García Lorca.

The poem is dated in May 1935, at the same time as Lorca was writing his famous sonnets of dark love.

Author Manuel Francisco Reina, who has seen some of the contents of the box, said this proved the sonnets were addressed to Ramírez de Lucas rather than to a previous Lorca lover, the football player Rafael Rodríguez.

"Federico didn't want to go to Mexico without his love ... Some people knew this story all along, including the poets Luis Rosales and Antonio Hernandez, who confirmed this to me," said Reina who has based a forthcoming novel around the affair.

Reina said that even before the war shots had been fired when García Lorca was at a famous Madrid bar, los gabrieles, as well as at his Madrid house.

"This is very important," said Miguel Caballero, author of a recent study of García Lorca's last days.

Lorca spent his final days carefully revising and correcting the sonnets. "It seems likely that the sonnets were addressed to him," Caballero said.

Ramírez later joined the volunteer Blue Division to fight for Hitler against the Russians in an attempt to give himself the necessary credentials to survive in Franco's Spain. He also kept his relationship with García Lorca secret, refusing to answer questions from his biographers..

Nato plans to upgrade nuclear weapons 'expensive and unnecessary'

Nato is preparing to replace 'dumb' free-fall nuclear bombs with precision-guided weapons carried by US F35 strike aircraft. Photograph: -/EPA

Nato's plans to upgrade the US's estimated 180 tactical nuclear weaponsin western Europe are unnecessary, expensive and likely to exacerbate already difficult relations with Russia, according to a report.

The alliance is preparing to replace "dumb" free-fall nuclear bombs and ageing delivery aircraft with precision-guided weapons that would be carried by US F35 strike aircraft, according to a report from the European Leadership Network (ELN), a thinktank supported by former UK defence ministers including Lord Des Browne and Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

The report, Escalation by Default?: the Future of Nato Nuclear Weapons In Europe, is by Ted Seay, who until last year was arms control adviser to the US mission at Nato headquarters in Brussels.

The plans to upgrade significantly the US's stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons would increase its ability to reach targets in Russia at a time when Nato and Russia are already locked in a tense standoff over missile defence, warns the report.

Nato possesses 180 B61 free-fall tactical nuclear bombs in Europe stored at bases in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Turkey. The bombs, relics of the cold war, have no guidance systems and are regarded as having no real military purpose or value, says the report. The aircraft tasked with delivering them are also in need of replacement.

Despite defence spending cuts, the US is planning to upgrade the bombs with precision-guided B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs at a cost of $4bn (£2.5bn), according to the report. European countries, whose pilots are trained to deliver the B-61s to their targets, are also facing expensive decisions to replace their existing aircraft with the US F35 Joint Strike Fighter, whose cost has risen to more than $100m (£62m) each.

Nato's plans would produce a "formidable increase in nuclear capabilities for Nato in Europe", according to Seay, who adds that modernisation would be a form of expensive nuclear escalation by default that could be expected to draw a hostile reaction from Moscow.

Ian Kearns, the ELN chief executive, said: "The planned upgrade of Nato's tactical nuclear forces in Europe will be expensive and is unnecessary. Nato states are fully secure without this additional capability and should be focused on removing all tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, not on modernising them".

Syria suffers worst terror attack since start of uprising

Syrian state TV footage of the aftermath of the Damascus blasts Link to this video
Syria suffered its worst terrorist attack since the start of the uprising when 55 people were reported killed and nearly 400 injured in twin car bomb blasts near a government intelligence building in Damascus.

Syrian officials and media blamed foreign-backed terrorist groups for the attack on Thursday, saying it was carried out "in the service of the interests of Israel and its allies in the region". Russia hinted that other unnamed countries were involved.

The opposition accused the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of carrying out the bombings to smear them as terrorists supported by foreign governments.

The death toll was the biggest in Damascus since the start of the uprising in March 2011. It was sophisticated and carefully co-ordinated. Witnesses said the first blast, at rush hour peak, was quickly followed by a second, larger one, maximising casualties, damage and terror. Most of the victims were reported to be civilians.

"Two booby-trapped cars loaded with more than 1,000kg of explosives and driven by suicide bombers carried out the terrorist blasts," said a statement by the interior ministry. The explosions left two large craters.

Syrian state TV showed bodies lying in the street amid smouldering vehicles. The official health ministry tally of the dead and 372 injured included a reference to "15 bags of body parts".

On Thursday night, it was reported that Syria's UN ambassador said there had also been an explosion in Aleppo. Bashar Ja'afari said the explosion on Thursday morning in Syria's second city "led also to … civilian victims and massive damages to private property". He gave no further details.

Experts compared the Damascus attacks to those on Iraqi government ministries in 2009, which were blamed by the authorities in Baghdad on groups based in Syria.

Thursday's blasts were condemned internationally. Kofi Annan, the special envoy for the UN and Arab League, said it was vital to implement his six-point plan for peace in Syria. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said the bombings "remind us of the urgent need for a political solution in Syria before it is too late". The UN security council condemned the attacks.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, also condemned the blasts, adding: "Yet again it is the people of Syria who are suffering as a result of the repression and violence, which must come to an end."

Russia, a close ally of Assad, accused unspecified foreign countries of being behind the bombings. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have both called for the arming of anti-Assad rebels, and Gulf money is helping the Syrian opposition. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said in Beijing: "Some of our foreign partners are doing practical things so that the situation in Syria explodes in a literal and figurative sense."

The question of who was behind the latest grim scenes of craters, blast-damaged buildings, burned-out vehicles, charred and mutilated corpses and body parts was being asked before the smoke had cleared in the al-Qazaz area, a busy intersection on the ring road in southern Damascus.

Haitham Maleh and Bassam Ja'ara, leading opposition spokesmen, blamed the regime and claimed it was reacting to earlier criticism from Annan about the failure to implement his plan. The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main armed wing of the opposition, insisted it was observing a ceasefire under the terms of the Annan plan.

Syria's divided opposition has repeatedly accused the government of organising bombings to smear its enemies as terrorists and to deflect attention from the peaceful origins of the uprising and continuing popular support for it – though it does now include a significant armed element. Jabhat al-Nusra, a little known jihadi organisation, has claimed responsibility for previous bombings in Damascus, Hama and Aleppo.

Analysts note that Syria's intelligence services have a track record of dirty tricks, including assassinations and bombings in Lebanon and Iraq, and of manipulating Islamist groups for their own purposes.

One angry supporter of the regime described the bombings as the work of "Nato-backed FSA terrorists". Syrian TV showed a man pointing to the debris and saying: "Is this freedom? This is the work of the Saudis."

The opposition Revolution Leadership Council of Damascus reported security forces had shot and killed a 24-year-old man who was watching the scene of the explosion from his roof. It said mobile phone lines were cut off at the time of the blast and claimed that some bodies had no blood on them, suggesting they might have been brought to the scene by the regime.

It is possible that the escalation in violence may slow the already sluggish deployment of UN observers charged with monitoring implementation of the Annan plan: only 70 of a planned 300 are in the country.

Opinions are still divided about two attacks on similarly sensitive security installations in the Kafr Sousseh area of Damascus before Christmas. Opposition sources described mysterious transfers of prisoners to the heavily guarded buildings the day before the blasts, which coincided with the arrival of Arab League monitors. Western governments concluded that those attacks had been carried out by an al-Qaida-type group using military explosives and methods perfected in Iraq.

The next attack, a suicide bombing on 6 January in the nearby suburb of Meidan, was widely believed to have been staged by the Syrian authorities.

Film inadvertently broadcast on state media showed apparently dead or injured people moving around after being filmed, and objects such as shopping bags being placed at the scene by security personnel. State media arrived surprisingly quickly, adding to suspicions that it was an elaborate fake. Opposition sources claimed that names on the casualty lists in these incidents have been duplicated.

As Ratko Mladic trial begins, followers are poised to take power in Srebrenica

A ruling this week means Muslims who fled Srebrenica will no longer be able to vote there, making a Bosnian Serb mayor likely



Ratko Mladic at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he is accused of genocide over the Srebrenica massacre. Photograph: Serge Ligtenberg/Getty Images
Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb warlord of the 1990s, goes on trial for genocide next week at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, almost 17 years after his forces sealed control of eastern Bosnia through the mass murder of more than 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.

Following a decision in Sarajevo this week, however, Mladic's followers are poised finally to take political power in the small hilltown whose name has joined Guernica and Oradour in the horrors of history lists.

Deciding on the conduct of local elections in Bosnia in October, the country's election authority declined to make Srebrenica an exception that would have enabled native Bosnian Muslims who escaped the slaughter to vote for the mayor there.

Srebrenica is an exceptional place, the sole site in the 1992-95 war where the gravest crime of all, genocide, was perpetrated, according to the judges at the international tribunal. Mladic's political boss, Radovan Karadzic, is also being tried on genocide charges in The Hague because of his perceived responsibility for the Srebrenica massacre.

The town was granted exceptional status in 2008, allowing Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica but no longer living there to vote in the local elections.

The result is Srebrenica has a Bosnian Muslim mayor, Camil Durakovic. But the likelihood is that from October the town will fall under a Bosnian Serb mayor and a government in denial about Europe's worst atrocity since the Nazis.

"We want the people who were born here and who had to escape the mass murder to be able to vote in Srebrenica," said Durakovic. "Otherwise the town will be taken over by politicians who propagate lies, who negate the genocide."

During the war, Srebrenica was a Muslim enclave in an area controlled by the Serbs until Mladic's forces overran it in July 1995 and murdered 8,100 men and boys in just a few weeks. Srebrenica remains a form of enclave, a Bosnian Muslim-governed island in the Serb half of Bosnia, whose strongman leader, Milorad Dodik, plays down the crimes committed and regularly calls for the breakup of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

This week's decision on the running of the election looks final, but could be overturned by the international powers who continue to wield last-resort absolute authority in Bosnia, although they are reluctant to use it. Valentin Inzko, the Austrian diplomat who is the international high representative, is said to be sympathetic to the Bosnian Muslim case, but has been overruled by western ambassadors in Sarajevo who believe Bosnia's feuding politicians need to sort out their problems and stop passing the buck to the international community almost two decades after the end of the war.

"It is not viable for the international community to care more for the electorate than the politicians themselves," said a western diplomat. "It must be up to the parties to deal with a situation like this in a timely and co-ordinated manner, not rely on the international community to impose solutions last-minute."

The Americans have taken the lead on the controversy, say western diplomats, and have opposed awarding Srebrenica a special status.

"Unfortunately, the Americans don't want to support us this year," said Durakovic. "This is a legal, political, moral, and humanitarian question. The international community has its obligations. But it is not on the side of the victims."

There were 30,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica before the war, 80% of the population. There are now little more than a 10th of that, with the population split roughly evenly between Bosnian Muslims and Serbs. But Durakovic said the electoral rolls showed Bosnian Serbs outnumbering Muslims 2-1.

The Muslims who escaped the massacre live mainly in the other half of Bosnia, the Muslim-Croat federation. The two main parties there, the governing social democrats and the Muslim-dominated Democratic Action Party, are accused of doing little to resolve the issue in favour of the Srebrenica Muslims, not least because it could dent their voter support elsewhere in their own half of the country.

"We need to get the election law changed … Srebrenica needs to be an exception," said Emir Suljagic, who survived the massacre and wrote a memoir about his experiences in 1995. "We can't allow genocide to be a way of legalising and legitimising the takeover of bits of this country."

Lord Mandelson confirms he is advising company accused of illegal logging

Peer's consultancy works for paper and pulp multinational alleged to have chopped down protected trees

Bomber jacket sales surge as London 2012 Olympics boost sporty fashion

Justin Bieber, Will.i.am and Jude Law in bomber jackets. Photograph: Rex Features
Thanks to stars such as Jude Law, Justin Bieber and Will.i.am and the influence of this summer's Olympics, retailers are reporting a surge in interest for the bomber jacket.

Luxury retailers and the high street have seen major interest from consumers despite the squeeze on personal finances, with styles in leather, jersey and technical fabrics all selling well.

The online retailer Asos has sold more than 5,000 bomber jackets in the past two months and recently ordered 20,000 more worth £1m for next season.

Topman has also had an "extremely positive reaction" to the jacket shape both in its larger stores and online. It plans to roll out more variations regionally in the coming weeks and will be building on its current range of 15 styles for autumn.

Robert Johnston, associate editor of GQ, said the appeal was simple. "It's express fashion," he said. "Bomber jackets are really easy to wear because you can just shove them on with jeans and a T-shirt. Plus they have pockets, which makes them practical."

Terry Betts, senior buyer for Mr Porter, flagged up their versatility. "They work well with chinos and denim, and create a clean silhouette accentuated by the fact they are fitted and stop at the waist," he said. They have the "wearability factor" said John Mooney, head of men's design at Asos. "There's something for everyone in the bomber jacket repertoire, whether you're a lad's lad or a fashion guy.".

Bomber jackets also have relatively ageless appeal, as shown by the celebrities who have taken to wearing them of late. Stacey Smith, menswear buyer for Matches, said: "Ryan Gosling in Drive last year proved they're not just for the twentysomething man."

Esquire has featured the look on its cover for the past two months. The May issue shows John Hamm in a seersucker style while the current cover has Michael Fassbender in a black leather Gucci version.

Betts said the bomber had evolved from a simple "utility garment in nylon", helping it reach a broader audience. "We have them in seersucker, linen, leather and even reversible versions," he said.

Reece Crisp, men's contemporary and design wear buyer at Selfridges, said the bomber had proved a hit because of strong performances across the board, from traditional varsity styles to luxury versions in leather by labels such as Alexander Wang.

But the bomber's popularity is also a reflection of a move in men's fashion towards sportier clothes, said Crisp. "Sportswear as an aesthetic is really having a moment and the bomber is a staple piece within that look.".

This sporty look has been seen in menswear from upcoming designer names at London fashion week, such as the increasingly influential Christopher Shannon, to powerhouse brands in Paris and Milan. Johnston said luxury sportswear was becoming "increasingly sophisticated".

One of the most influential collections for spring/summer 2012, by Louis Vuitton, featured designer versions of varsity jackets and sporty shorts made from expensive fabrics such as suede.

These are also selling well. Smith has seen a great response from customers towards statement bombers this season. "It seems men are more willing to explore bolder colours and textures when they are tempered by a sportier shape," she said.

From jets to sets – MPs ride the wave of cuts

As parliament argues over another coalition U-turn – this time fighter jets – praise for hairdressers proves far more grounding

Tory MP Richard Fuller used his tribute to the late Vidal Sassoon (above) to praise all hairdressers. Photograph: Graham Whitby Boot/Sportsphoto/Allstar

The omnishambles in government continues. Day after day it rolls on. Now it's a megashambles. Or in the jargon, a shambles going forward. Yesterday's Guardian story, about the U-turn on the navy's aircraft carrier jets, was the latest.

But before that, we had a brief discussion about hairdressers. Richard Fuller, the Tory MP for Bedford, paid tribute to the late Vidal Sassoon, who had "revolutionised hairstyling". But he was not alone. Fuller furnished a list of other crimpers in the Bedford area, including "Sugar, at Sugaz". Even more exciting, the National Hairdressers' Federation is, it turns out, based in Bedford. He praised the work of barbers. They promote entrepreneurship, apprenticeships, and "making all of us feel a little bit better". Not so much omnishambles as omnishampoo and set.

It has to be said that his remarks were greeted with a certain amount of sniggering. They were unfitting, perhaps, for the solemn matter of business questions. He was not riding along on the crest of a permanent wave. But I was reminded of a speech the Rev Jesse Jackson used to give during his periodic attempts to win the American presidency. He would say: "Hands up, any of you folks got a video recorder at home" and almost every arm would rise. Then: "Hands up, which of you got an MX missile at home?" Everyone would laugh, and Jackson would say: "That's our problem. We're making stuff ain't nobody wants to buy."

And parliament spends a lot of time debating stuff ain't nobody interested in. How many of us have ever gone for a haircut? And how many of us have ever had to choose between the F-35B and the F-35C version of the Joint Strike Fighter? In my experience, parliament is often at its best when it's debating things that relate to everyone's daily lives.

The gist of the Guardian story was, and I paraphrase, that the government had planned to purchase one version of the fighter, better than the Labour government had intended to buy. But they've been told that it would cost billions to convert our two (at present non-existent) aircraft carriers. So they have gone back to plan A, which is to buy B, or F-35B, if you catch my drift.

So the defence secretary, Philip Hammond, had a difficult case to make. He did it with his customary aggression, claiming that it was all the fault of the Labour government that the Conservative government was obliged to go back to what the Labour government planned in the first place.

"When the facts change, the responsible thing to do is change," said Hammond, to loud Labour mockery. "It shows that we at least are not afraid to take the difficult decisions when they are right for Britain," he declared, failing to add, "when those difficult decisions were actually taken years ago by the other side." Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said that "omnishambles" was now a compliment compared to reality. It was incompetence piled upon hubris.

A former defence secretary sort of came to Mr Hammond's aid, but it was Liam Fox, so that didn't count.

As Vidal Sassoon would have said: "No more savage cuts."

National Geographic: 17th Week in 2012 with Breathtaking Photos [Big Picture]

Check out the National Geographic this week’s most awesome photos – submitted by people just like you.

Elections 2012: Richard Grenell Flap ‘Blown Over,’ Romney Campaign Staff Thought

Romney spokesman Richard Grenell had to leave the candidate’s campaign because he felt like his reputation was being destroyed by criticism and he was unable to defend himself.

Richard Grenell was under pressure to leave Romney's campaign because social conservatives did not approve of him being hired as a spokesperson. Photo: Enough Project/Flickr

By the time Grenell revealed last weekend his intention to quit, the Romney campaign viewed any controversy about his hiring as having largely evaporated, and Romney aides were surprised when they learned of Grenell’s wish to resign, reports The Huff Post.

“In the scale of things, we didn’t view it as a major story and in fact thought it had blown over,” a source close to the Romney campaign said of the controversy around Grenell.

“The main source of the criticism was from a person on the far right that Romney had taken on before,” the Romney source said.

Grenell was hired specifically to assist Romney on foreign policy. He previously was George W. Bush’s spokesperson to the United Nations, and worked under conservative favorite, Ambassador John Bolton.

His selection raised talks initially  after the comments from Fischer on Twitter came,  in an April 23 blog post  and during an April 24 appearance on CNN.

Then an April 24 blog post on the National Review’s website elicited a back and forth over whether conservatives should be concerned that Grenell would advocate for gay marriage inside a Romney White House.

On April 25, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council expressed dismay at Grenell’s hiring.

Romney campaign officials tried to persuade Grenell to stay on and enlisted former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, one more openly gay GOP figure, to appeal to him as well, revealed a source with knowledge of Mehlman’s involvement.

However, the former Romney’s spokesman thinks the campaign staffers could have done more to quiet conservative leaders and that they lacked the willingness or ability to publicly confront or privately persuade those leaders, claim sources familiar with his thinking.

Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, a group dedicated to promoting gay conservatives, agreed. “Those attacks would not have carried the weight that they did had there been a strong pushback from the campaign,” LaSalvia said in an interview.

But even LaSalvia expressed some concerns why Grenell felt compelled to quit. “Certainly Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins were very loud publicly. There was also the National Review piece,” LaSalvia said. “But I just don’t know what was going on behind the scenes that would have elevated this to such an issue.”

“If you want to be a gay rights activist, there’s GOProud and [Human Rights Campaign] and a number of things that you can do. But if you want to try to elect Mitt Romney president, then get on board and do your job, which is to talk about foreign policy,” an GOP operative said. “He broke every rule of every book of the political staffers on a presidential campaign: It isn’t about you.”

The Romney campaign asked Grenell to “be quiet and not to speak up until it went away,” said a source familiar with the matter, referring to criticism of his sexual orientation.

The candidate’s officials said Grenell had not been sent out to talk about foreign policy issues before this week because he was not scheduled to start until May 1. But that explanation did not make sense to some, including one former high-ranking Bush administration official.

“Why wasn’t Rick the spokesman in the last couple of days, when foreign policy was paramount?” former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer wondered. “That’s the piece I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know why he wasn’t the spokesman on foreign policy for the last several days. It’s something that nobody understands,” Fleischer added.

Barack Obama’s ex-girlfriends have shed a light on President’s early years in her new book.

Obama’s ex-girlfriends recall his "sexual warmth" and disclose the contents of love letters that he sent during his 20s, in a new biography. Photos by Lisa Jack / M+B Gallery via DesignYouTrust

A new biography about President Obama sheds light on a little-known part of his life – his college and post-college years in New York – through the letters and journals of two women – Alex McNear, whom Obama met at Occidental College before transferring to Columbia, and Genevieve Cook, the daughter of a prominent Australian diplomat.

Details of the 1980s romance between Genevieve Cook and a 20-something Obama in New York were excerpted by “Vanity Fair” magazineon Wednesday from a forthcoming book called “Barack Obama: The Story” by David Maraniss, a Pulitzer prize-winning author.

Letters that Mr Obama sent to Ms McNear and journal entries by Ms Cook show a serious young man trying to come to terms with his racial identity and place in modern American society, The Telegraph says.

In one diary entry from February 1984, Ms Cook writes that in their relationship “the sexual warmth is definitely there – but the rest of it has sharp edges and I’m finding it all unsettling and finding myself wanting to withdraw from it all”.

The woman also recalled “feeling anger” at Mr Obama, whose “warmth can be deceptive”. Foreshadowing a criticism often levelled at the President today, she said: “Though he speaks sweet words there is also that coolness.”

“I have to admit that I am feeling anger at him for some reason, multi-stranded reasons. His warmth can be deceptive. Tho he speaks sweet words and can be open and trusting, there is also that coolness — and I begin to have an inkling of some things about him that could get to me,” she wrote in one entry in February 1984.

Ms. Cook remembered how she met “Barry” at a Christmas party in 1983. After drinking Bailey’s Irish Cream from the bottle, she chatted with him on an orange beanbag, before exchanging telephone numbers.

Her journal describes a 22-year-old man wearing “a comfy T-shirt depicting buxom women”, and was marked by the smells of “running sweat, Brut spray deodorant, smoking, eating raisins, sleeping, breathing”.

Ms Cook “engaged [Mr Obama] in the deepest romantic relationship of his young life,” Maraniss says. He writes that “when she told him that she loved him, his response was not ‘I love you, too’ but ‘thank you’—as though he appreciated that someone loved him.”

Reflecting on the “emotional scarring” that made him hard to get close to, she wrote when the couple split: “I guess I hoped time would change things, and he’d let go and ‘fall in love’ with me”

In her journal entries Cook tries to understand Obama. “How is he so old already, at the age of 22?” she asked herself. “I have to recognise (despite play of wry and mocking smile on lips) that I find his thereness very threatening.”

Another entry claims that there was “so much going on beneath the surface, out of reach,” adding that Mr Obama was “guarded, controlled.”

In her diary Cook is predicting Obama’s eventual marriage to first lady Michelle Obama. “I can’t help thinking that what he would really want, be powerfully drawn to, was a woman, very strong, very upright, a fighter, a laugher, well-experienced—a black woman I keep seeing her as,” she wrote.

As for Alex McNear, another Obama’s former girlfriend, she revealed an attempt at literary criticism by the young Mr Obama, whom she had met at Occidental University in California, where they had both been studying.

The two were inseparable during the summer of 1982 in New York, following Mr Obama’s transfer to the city’s Columbia University, and continued to correspond after Ms McNear returned to Los Angeles.

In one exchange, Mr Obama gave a densely-written opinion on T.S. Eliot, on whom Ms McNear was writing a thesis. “There’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism,” he wrote. “Eliot is of this type.”

Maraniss – whose book is excerpted in the new issue of Vanity Fair magazine – thinks that Mr Obama was “obsessed with the concept of choice”, musing: “Did he have real choices in his life? Did he have free will?”

Cook’s diary entries, as well as McNear’s, will be in a new biography by David Maraniss called ‘Barack Obama: The Story.’ It will be published next month, ABC News reports.