Author: Mick Hartley

. Sicily, Bagheria. Italy. © Ferdinando Scianna | Magnum Photos

Wayne Miller. A girl "reading" Ebony magazine. Chicago. Illinois. USA. 1947. © Wayne Miller | Magnum Photos

Steve McCurry. A man displays paintings while he reads in his car. Rome. Italy. 1984. © Steve McCurry | Magnum Photos

Steve McCurry. The Old Delhi Train Station in an uncharacteristically quiet moment. Old Delhi. India. 1983. © Steve McCurry | Magnum Photos

Harry Gruyaert. © Harry Gruyaert | Magnum Photos

Martin Parr. 'From Home and Abroad'. Snowdonia. GB. 1989. © Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

s://mickhartley.typepad.com/blog/2016/10/red-monk-blue-sky.html”>back in 2016, after it was featured in the Sony World Photography Competition. The writing was already on the wall at the time, when I noted the threats of destruction from the Chinese authorities. For tourism, yes – for Tibetan culture, no.

As Free Tibet reports, young Tibetans aiming to get a government job now – some of the most sought after jobs in the country – have to join the Chinese Communist Party and study the political thought of President Xi Jinping.

Meanwhile China is set to win election to the United Nations human rights council today, along with Saudi Arabia, Russia, Cuba and Pakistan…

advantages he has, whatever his testosterone level, in muscle strength, stamina, lung capacity, and all the rest.

Statements from British Cycling, Welsh Cycling, and LGBT+ Sport Cymru, at the bottom, are fully 100% behind Emily and her brave stance.

Facebook reactions at Save Women's Sports take a different view.

“>She knows she will be attacked for speaking out, but she has decided to do so because she fears that protections and rights won by previous generations of feminists are in danger of being undermined. […]

The MP, who is 49, insists that she has always campaigned against prejudice in all its forms. “I’m not anti-trans; everyone has the right to express themselves and be whatever and whoever they need to be.” But she is angry about what she describes as the “erasure of women”.

TEDx London recently published its autumn schedule of lectures using the word “womxn”. The MP decided she could not ignore the trend. “Men seem to have a space or a door with the word ‘man’ on, then women have ‘women and anyone else’. Why are we encroaching on women’s spaces but not men’s?”

Does she not think that trans women are women? “Yes, obviously that’s an important thing to say — if you’ve transitioned and you’re recognised as that, that’s up to you, then fine,” she replies. “From a woman’s point of view what we are really terrified of is the erasure of women’s safe spaces, access to a female GP if you want for intimate physical examinations . . . changing rooms . . . We seem to have galloped to the point where women’s spaces are being taken away and that’s deeply terrifying.”

It's unfortunate, though perhaps understandable in the circumstances, that she's bullied into saying that trans women are women. On the contrary, it's important to say that trans women are not women. She has to be careful here though – after all she's the one who's receiving the death threats, not her interviewers – and the bald question "do you think trans women are women?" is specifically designed to dare people to cross the line and set themselves up as targets for the trans activist mob. I take her position to be that once a man has transitioned it's reasonable, and a matter of simple courtesy, to treat that person as a woman, except where it involves gaining access to women's safe spaces.

Duffield knows her comments will make her unpopular with some in her party. “I did not set out to offend anyone,” she says. “The vast majority of my colleagues are afraid to even raise it as a subject that we should be talking about. There is an argument that the Tories are making it look as though they’re more tolerant than the Labour Party, and I think if we can’t discuss it then we’re in danger of that happening.”

The suffragettes chained themselves to the railings outside Parliament to get women the vote, and it horrifies Duffield that female politicians are in her view yet again being silenced. “If I had thought when I wanted to be an MP that after all of the things that women before me went through to get into politics I would be facing the kind of misogyny that I am on a daily basis I would have thought twice,” she says.

“Anything that ramps up the hate is terrifying. I’ll probably be killed at some point.” This is — almost — a throwaway comment, which only makes it more chilling.

Misogyny is the key here. This is a perfect vehicle for some men to express their hatred of women under the guise of appearing progressive.

Improbable colours and improbable waists. More Fifties Ford publicity shots from Shorpy:

"1957 Thunderbird. Removable glass-fibre hard top has stylish 'port' windows."

"1954 Fords — Dearborn assembly plant final line."

Previously.

dling of the COVID-19 crisis has made it even more unpopular. An IRGC intelligence officer who defected reports that the regime’s popularity is in single digits among Iranians, which—if true—points to a complete collapse in its popular legitimacy even among its traditional base. Demographics are working against the regime, as well. Declining birth rates indicate a concomitant decline in religion, which is bad news for a theocracy.

Furthermore, the Persian Shi’ite population is in relative decline. Credible statistics are scarce, but even official reports (which are almost certainly exaggerated) suggest that Persians constitute only 60 percent of the population, and the vast majority of minorities have historical grievances against the regime. A recent poll has found that 73 percent of the society object to compulsory hijab, a core value of the regime, while 58 percent personally do not want to observe hijab. 37 percent drink alcohol, despite the legal prohibition, and an additional eight percent do not drink because of a lack of access and not due to any religious objection or medical restriction. To make matters worse for the regime, 68 percent believe that religion should not be a source of legislation, even if religious factions are democratically elected, and only 32 percent identify as Shi’ite Muslims.

The regime is a victim of its own fanaticism, corruption, and incompetence. The failure of the reform movement in the 1990s and 2000s has convinced Iranians that the regime is incapable of change. After eight years of domestic and foreign policy mismanagement under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was hoped that the presidency of Hassan Rouhani would bring some pragmatism to governance. In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear deal with the United States and its partners that released frozen Iranian assets worth a quarter of the country’s GDP. Campaigning on this success, Rouhani was re-elected in a landslide. Just months after his second inauguration and before the re-imposition of US sanctions, however, hyperinflation and depression plunged the country back into economic crisis, and sparked unprecedented anti-regime protests….

The Islamic Republic has been the source of much evil in the Middle East. But for the first time in its history, it finds itself opposed by a coalition of the United States, Israel, the Arab countries, and its own people. By supporting democratic actors and anti-regime elements, this alliance can force the Islamic Republic to direct its resources to domestic security and in effect self-contain, while the bloc of anti-regime states provides external containment. Beset by internal unrest and economic strife, overextended in its costly foreign entanglements, and facing unprecedented unity from its external foes, the Islamic Republic has never looked more vulnerable. An end to the Revolutionary theocracy and the misery it has inflicted on its own people and the region since 1979 may finally be in sight. Iranians have now realized that the problem is not the sanctions or Israel or America or its own “hardliners” but the Islamic regime in its entirety.

Let's hope he's right. We could do with some positive news about now.

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[Photos: Edwin Rosskam]

“padding-left: 40px”>The language of some of the organisers of that genocide also anticipated the depraved biological bilge of the Nazis. Dr Mehmed Resid, the governor of Diyarbakir province, declared: “We will liquidate them before they liquidate us … the Armenian bandits were a load of harmful microbes that had afflicted the body of the fatherland. Was it not the duty of the doctor to kill the microbes?”

In fact the British PM’s family is intimately linked to this episode, and heroically so. Boris Johnson’s paternal great-grandfather, Ali Kemal Bey, was a Turkish journalist and newspaper editor who entered politics and became the Ottoman interior minister. He was, perhaps more than any other Ottoman public figure, determined to bring to justice the thousands of perpetrators of the massacres of the Armenians — and explicit about it. In 1919, he wrote: “Don’t let us try to throw the blame on the Armenians; we must not flatter ourselves that the world is filled with idiots. We have plundered the possessions of the men we have deported and massacred … a historically singular crime has been perpetrated, a crime before which the world shudders.”

It was precisely these expressions (which have something of the prose style of his great-grandson) that led to Kemal’s kidnap from an Istanbul barbershop and, in due course, his stoning and lynching. One account described how “his blood-covered body was subsequently hanged with a scrawl across his chest which read ‘Artin Kemal’.” The point being that “Artin” is an Armenian name: this was, in the view of the killers, the ultimate insult to perpetrate on his corpse.

As far as I know, while Boris Johnson is said to be proud of his Turkish ancestry — and when he became PM, he was acclaimed as “an Ottoman grandson” by the Turkish press — he has never spoken in public about his antecedent’s murder, or the reasons for it. I doubt very much he brought it up during his telephone call with Erdoğan on September 28, which, apparently, did touch on the events in Nagorno-Karabakh. Erdoğan’s office released a statement to the effect that “the two leaders discussed economic steps to reach a $20bn trade volume between the two nations, as well as moves to further co-operation in the defence industry”.

This raises three questions. Is Erdoğan really the person to whom the British government should be increasing arms sales? How will the prime minister feel if they are used to massacre more Armenians? And what would his great-grandfather say?

I wasn't aware of Johnson's great-grandfather's role. Perhaps Boris would be better off taking his ancestor as a role model, rather than indulging in the sub-Churchillian bluster he tends to favour.

t like other coronaviruses. But one thing that makes a big difference is that every year new people are born. They are susceptible to Covid, but for children it is a very mild disease. That is an advantage we have in fighting Covid compared to, say, measles, which is a very serious disease for children. If you look at it with a long-term perspective, if everybody gets Covid as a child, it is not going to be a major problem.

Kulldorff, clearly, is keen to speak to as many news outlets as possible, to get the message out there. Spiked, despite its controversial reputation, is one such. Why not? His interview clearly doesn't imply that he agrees with everything else that appears there.

He's also, apparently, been interviewed on the Richie Allen Show. [No, me neither.] Likewise, no reason that should mean he agrees with all their other interviewees. Well, unless you're from the Guardian. Freddie Sayers at UnHerd relates how Kulldorff received a letter from a Guardian journalist to the effect that they're planning to publish an article stating that he, Kulldorf, was interviewed on an internet radio show, the Richie Allen Show, which had previously hosted antisemites and Holocaust deniers, and would Kulldorf care to comment. In other words, a smear job.

Well, it's certainly easier than actually dealing with Kulldorf's arguments.

And it's especially rich coming from the Guardian, with its dubious record of hosting antisemites. 

As was widely anticipated, World Rugby have now made their new transgender policy official: it is not recommended that transwomen play women's rugby.

World Rugby has approved updated transgender participation guidelines following a comprehensive, collaborative and inclusive review of its existing guidance.

The new guidelines [which can be accessed here] cover the participation of transgender athletes in men’s and women’s contact rugby where it is possible to do so safely and fairly.

As with many other sports, the physiological differences between males and females necessitate dedicated men’s and women’s contact rugby categories for safety and performance reasons. Given the best available evidence for the effects of testosterone reduction on these physical attributes for transgender women, it was concluded that safety and fairness cannot presently be assured for women competing against transwomen in contact rugby.  

As a result, the new guidelines do not recommend that transwomen play women’s contact rugby on safety grounds at the elite and international level of the game where size, strength, power and speed are crucial for both risk and performance, but do not preclude national unions from flexibility in their application of the guidelines at the community level of the game. Transmen are permitted to participate in men’s contact rugby.

As I've noted before, there somehow isn't much demand from transmen to participate in men’s contact rugby. Funny, that.

StonewallUK are deeply disappointed.