Even before the terror attacks in Volgograd, sports fans’ concerns about price, logistics, lack of quality lodging and Russia’s antigay law have left demand for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi far below other recent Winter Games, tour operators said.
Ludus Tours and Sports Traveler, two of the largest sports-tour operators in the U.S., said that together they are bringing roughly a third of the amount of people they brought to the 2010…
Follow this link: Tour Operators: Fans Aren’t Game for Sochi
IN AGONY: A man writhed in pain after having three fingers amputated at a hospital in Bangui, Central African Republic, Monday. After he picked up an object that hit him on the back, it blew up in his hand, forcing doctors to amputate his thumb and first two fingers. Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press
Go here to see the original: Photos of the Day: Dec. 30
Dec. 30, 2013 1:48 p.m. ETThe group charged with overseeing the dismantling of Syria’s chemicals-arms program is set to miss Tuesday’s deadline for removing the most dangerous weapons from the country because of volatile security conditions and various logistical challenges.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemicals Weapons and the United Nations said over the weekend that the year-end deadline for removing the most dangerous arms, which include mustard gas, sarin and VX, likely wouldn’t be met. An OPCW spokesman confirmed that remained the case on Monday.
The OPCW said the delay, which was widely expected, was due to a range of factors “not least the continuing volatility in overall security conditions, which have constrained planned movements.” The OPCW said bad weather and the logistical challenges of lining up safe transport of the weapons had contributed to the delay.
No new deadline has been set to carry out and complete the work, the OPCW spokesman said. The situation will be reassessed at a meeting of the OPCW’s executive board on Jan. 8. The same day, OPCW-UN Special Coordinator Sigrid Kaag will provide an update to the U.N. Security Council on the work.
Under the OPCW-approved plan, the most dangerous category of Syria’s chemical weapons were to be transported to the port of Latakia, where they would be shipped on commercial vessels provided by OPCW members. They are then supposed to be loaded onto a U.S. ship and destroyed at sea.
The OPCW still hopes less-lethal weapons, which make up more than half of Syria’s chemical arsenal, will be destroyed on the territories of willing countries by private companies.
On Saturday, the spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement there would be “a limited delay” in the transport of the most dangerous weapons out of Syria.
However Mr. Ban’s spokesman said the joint OPCW-UN mission would continue working “intensively” with the Syrian government “to begin safe and secure removal and transportation operations as soon as possible.”
The OPCW’s campaign in Syria was set out in a U.S.-Russian agreement following an Aug. 21 chemical attack near Damascus that the U.S. said killed more than 1,400 people. Under the plan, the OPCW must oversee the elaborate task of supervising the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, estimated at roughly 1,000 tons, within the first half of 2014.
The OPCW met its Nov. 1 deadline for destroying critical chemical weapons production equipment, which the Netherlands-based organization said means Syria cannot produce new weapons.
—Naftali Bendavid contributed to this article
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com
Read the original post: Syria Chemical-Weapons Deadline Likely to Be Missed
1916: A month after flying the B&W, an experimental sea plane, timber mogul William Boeing, shown here in 1934, and U.S. Navy engineer Conrad Westerveldt found the Pacific Aero Products Co. in Seattle. The company, eventually renamed the Boeing Airplane Co., would go on to become the world’s largest producer of commercial aircraft, designing dozens of airliners, including the Boeing 707, the first commercially successful jetliner. Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
Read more here: From Flying Boats to Jumbo Jets: 100 Years of Commercial Flight
Updated Dec. 30, 2013 7:39 a.m. ET
Omar al-Kurdi, 17 years old, works 14 hours a day in a vegetable shop, earning $15 a day, which pays for rent and food for his family. Kate Brooks for The Wall Street Journal
BEIRUT—Back home in Syria, Omar al-Kurdi was always the good kid. He got top grades. He helped his disabled father manage a small shop selling cigarettes and snacks. He hung laundry for his mother.
Now, as a refugee in Lebanon, Omar is again the good kid, this time as the family’s breadwinner, working 14 hours a day in a vegetable shop. His salary of $15 a day pays for rent and food.
“At the beginning, I got tired of the responsibilities,” he said, walking to work shortly after dawn on a cool fall morning. “I was comfortable in Syria. Here I have to worry all the time. But I’m used to it now, what choice do I have?”
As he does every day, Omar woke up quietly while the sky was still dark and his parents and six siblings, ages 2 to 18, slept in a cluster of thin mattresses spread on the floor of the family’s one-room apartment. The three youngest children share a spot on their mother’s single mattress.
Omar tiptoed to a small storage room and flicked on a light. He sifted though the bottom shelf of a cupboard that held his wardrobe: three T-shirts, a sweater, two pairs of socks and two pairs of pants. He dressed and combed his hair.
In the kitchen, Omar found a cup of rich-scented Arabic coffee left on the counter by his mother, who awoke for morning prayer. The scrawny 17-year-old boy had no time or budget for breakfast.
A pickup truck delivering the day’s produce waited for Omar at the curb near the vegetable shop. He climbed up and began unloading. His skinny arms lifted boxes of eggplants and bananas. He dragged heavy sacks of potatoes and onions, sliding them off the truck to the pavement.
Omar is the breadwinner for his parents and six siblings, who share a one-room apartment. Kate Brooks for The Wall Street Journal
Omar sorted through the shop’s stock of herbs and vegetables. His fingers expertly separated out the rotten pieces. He took out the trash, swept the floor and, in less than an hour, opened the shop, ready for business.
“Omar is a hard worker and more important he is very polite,” said Joseph Nakhle, the shop owner. “That’s the reason I’ve kept him around.”
Omar didn’t say that in Syria his grades were good enough for a shot at college, or that when he finished ninth grade—his last formal schooling—pursuing a degree in physical therapy seemed a plausible goal. His father’s legs were partially paralyzed from a childhood disease, and Omar became interested in physical therapy on trips to his father’s doctor.
But circumstance, Omar said, took him from Syria to the vegetable shop in Beirut’s working-class neighborhood of Borj Hamoud. “Before the war, I was a happy kid,” he said, hanging a bunch of bananas on a hook.
Omar aimed to look cheerful but tough. He liked projecting a demeanor that suggested he was game for hard work without complaint. Toughness, he thought, ensured job security in a labor market filled with desperate Syrian refugees, adults and children.
Syrians stopped by the vegetable shop every day to ask for work; nearly all of them, Omar’s boss said, boys younger than 17.
“I already have one Syrian,” Mr. Nakhle would say, pointing to Omar. “Go someplace else.”
Since he started working at the shop a year ago, Omar determined that Mr. Nakhle, a burly middle-aged Christian, had no tolerance for anxiety or weakness, either physical or mental.
Omar also learned that the ladies in the predominately Armenian Christian neighborhood, who occasionally tipped Omar a few cents for carrying their grocery bags home, had tired of the woes of Syrian refugees.
Omar’s 10-year-old brother, Hamoudi, second from right, is the only sibling in school. Kate Brooks for The Wall Street Journal
So Omar smiled often, greeted customers politely and only spoke to answer questions. Occasionally, a customer asked about his family, and he gave the same short reply: “Hamdullelah,” Thank you, God.
Privately, Omar’s optimism was waning. He was often hungry and tired. He worked six days a week from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., and a half day on Sundays, earning about $400 a month. He got an hour for lunch, which he usually spent at home, resting. Omar wasn’t allowed to sit at work. The shop’s single chair was behind the cash register.
Omar worried about making ends meet. Winter was coming and his family needed blankets and a carpet for the bare tile floor. “My salary comes from this hand and goes out the other,” he said.
New Family Authority
Eid al-Adha, one of the Islamic calendar’s major holidays, was in October, and Omar’s mother, Raghda al-Kurdi, searched the pocket of her dress for a sweet to give her three youngest kids.
The 38-year-old mother pulled out a stick of chewing gum that she divided into three pieces and placed on the tiny open palms of Nour and Saad, the 5-year-old twins, and 2-year-old Majed.
“Chew it slowly for the sweet taste to last longer,” she said in a soft voice.
The home’s only decoration this year was a strip of bright pink tinsel taped to the bottom of a TV the family had salvaged. Ms. al-Kurdi found the tinsel on the sidewalk, perhaps dropped from a holiday shopping bag.
Omar’s boss at the vegetable shop says he turns away other Syrians every day looking for work, most of them boys younger than 17. Kate Brooks for The Wall Street Journal
The children played with a blue plastic ball on the floor. When an Arabic music video aired on TV, Majed stood and swayed his arms. Everyone laughed.
“It’s a good thing he is too young to have memories of home. He is not sad like the rest of us,” said Omar’s father, Abdel Nasser al-Kurdi. The 42-year-old man sat on the sofa, his crutches next to him. He suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure and is often too tired to leave the house.
At first, Lebanon was a welcome escape for Omar’s parents. Then, in a role reversal, they became dependent on their son. Mr. al-Kurdi has had to adjust to sharing authority with Omar.
Omar was the one who asked 10-year-old Hamoudi, the only sibling in school, about his studies; he interrogated his 14-year-old brother Ahmad about looking for work and checked on his 18-year-old sister, Khadija.
Ms. al-Kurdi, long accustomed to relying on her husband, now takes the list of family needs directly to Omar.
“We weren’t poor in Syria. I could provide for my family. We aren’t used to this,” said Mr. al-Kurdi, a former shopkeeper, tears in his eyes.
“I never saw him cry so much in 20 years of marriage,” she said, handing him a tissue.
When the couple married, Mr. al-Kurdi vowed to care for his family despite his disability. They had a two-bedroom apartment in the small town of Kfar Batna, in the al-Ghouta district around Damascus. It had a big kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. Farms and olive groves surrounded their building.
Mr. al-Kurdi had managed a stall in a market next door. Like most working-class Syrian families, they relied on social services from the government, including free health care and education, as well as discounted food and fuel.
In a rare free moment, Omar, at far left, played cards with friends from Syria who are also refugees in Beirut Rima Abushakra/The Wall Street Journal
Back home, the parents said, their children had colorful toys and books. Their clothes filled closets and were organized by season. If Mr. al-Kurdi made extra money at his shop, he would take his family to the souks of Damascus for kebabs.
Omar grew up thinking life was simple as long as you didn’t get involved in politics. His grandfather, father and uncles had anchored their lives to hard work, moderate religious beliefs and strong family values.
Omar saved three weekends’ worth of tips, about $9, to celebrate the holiday with a haircut. He walked quickly to the barbershop, avoiding a glance at store windows filled with things he wished he could buy.
The barber, a talkative Syrian, cracked jokes and treated Omar to a free shave. “We Syrians have to look out for each other,” the barber said as he applied shaving cream to Omar’s smooth, childlike face.
“Nobody looks out for us here,” Omar said from the barber’s chair. “The Lebanese want to make money from us. Our landlord wants to raise the rent. My boss throws vegetables away but doesn’t give me a bag of cucumbers.”
Avoiding Fighters
Back home, in the summer of 2012, Omar’s parents worried constantly their children would be killed by shrapnel or snipers. They feared that Omar would be recruited by rebels or drafted by the army.
“Please don’t talk to the fighters. Keep your head down,” Ms. al-Kurdi would tell her son when he left the house.
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to touch a gun,” Omar would reply.
At first, the family watched peaceful protests from their balcony and supported the revolution. Like most Sunnis, they saw President Bashar al-Assad as an oppressor and thought Syria would be better without him.
But slowly, violent conflict engulfed the country, and fear replaced hope. The family saw rebel groups form, then divide and disintegrate. Islamist and foreign fighters arrived and recruited boys as young as 12 years old.
The family lived in the restive suburbs around Damascus, and their town turned into a battleground. Schools closed when local roads and alleys became too dangerous to walk. Mr. al-Kurdi closed his stall. Most state-funded services were suspended.
During one round of shelling, Nour, then 3 years old, screamed for 15 minutes. Her twin brother silently curled up in a corner.
“We have to leave,” Ms. al-Kurdi told her husband that night.
“How will we leave?” he said. “We don’t have a car. There are no taxis or buses here.”
Omar volunteered that he had a friend with a pickup: “He could give us a ride to Ain Tarma.”
Ms. al-Kurdi took only a diaper bag. They were the last people to leave their building. At every stop on the family’s journey, Omar found work as a peddler, busboy and cleaner. They traveled to the towns of Ain Tarma, Aqraba and Adra. The war followed them.
After three months, Omar’s father asked him, “Do you want to go to Beirut and look for a job? We can follow you once you are settled.”
“If you think I should go,” Omar said, “I will go.”
He boarded a minibus with $10, a small plastic bag with an extra set of pants, a shirt, socks, and the address of a cousin working in Borj Hamoud. Eight hours later, he showed up at his cousin’s room, which he shared with three other Syrian workers.
They let him sleep on a blanket in a corner and shared their one meal of the day—mostly vegetables. He could repay them when he got a job.
For three weeks, Omar searched. “I went from shop to shop asking for work. Sometimes they’d make fun of me and say you are too young to work,” said Omar, whose small size makes him look several years younger.
He finally got a job at a scrap metal plant, where he worked 10 hours a day for two months, earning $6 a day. When Omar found the job at the vegetable shop, he borrowed his cousin’s cellphone to tell his parents the good news.
“Rent a room,” his father told him. “We want to join you. We can’t take it here anymore.”
Out of School
Omar’s family arrived in Beirut in February. They rented a room in a building filled mostly with refugees. They had no kitchen and shared a bathroom.
After a month, Omar saw the neighborhood’s unofficial leasing agent to find a bigger space. The man placed refugees with landlords who wanted proof of income and a reference. He charged Omar $100 and found the family their one-room apartment.
The room was at street level, making it easier for Omar’s father, and it was close to the vegetable shop. The bathroom had no shower or faucet. The family washed with water in buckets, standing between the toilet and a moldy wall.
Women who shopped at Omar’s store donated plates, cups, pots and pans. Omar hunted for abandoned furniture. One day he saw a man hauling away two sofas with a purple leopard-skin pattern and snagged them for the apartment.
By the standards of many refugees, Omar’s family is a success, with a roof, a steady income and all of them still alive.
They registered with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and now receive monthly food vouchers for each one of the family. The vouchers pay for about one meal a day.
The first time Ms. al-Kurdi shopped with her vouchers, she filled a basket with rice, beans and cooking oil at a local supermarket. The cashier turned her away. The quota for refugees had finished, she was told.
The al-Kurdi children had missed two years of school, but the family couldn’t afford to send them. In July, Alexis Hurd-Shires, a volunteer from a Christian Adventist church in Oregon who has befriended the family, helped get Hamoudi, 10, into a school the church set up. The new refugee school, called the Adventists Learning Center, had sun-filled classrooms, pink walls and child-size tables and chairs. It offered art classes with crayons and watercolors, and music lessons. There was a rooftop playground with donated toys.
“Hamoudi is the happiest of my brothers and sisters because of this school,” Omar said. “The little ones get bored and sad sitting at home all day. It makes me wish I could be his age and go and play and laugh and not have to worry.”
‘My Favorite Place in All of Lebanon’
What Omar missed most were his friends. Then, miraculously, one surfaced.
Mahmoud, 17, was scouting Omar’s neighborhood on behalf of a vegetable wholesaler looking for new customers. Omar overheard a Syrian accent in his shop and looked up. He saw his old friend talking to the boss.
Mahmoud and his twin brother, Ahmad, had come to Lebanon without their family and worked at Beirut’s main produce market. (They asked that only their first names be used.)
On a recent Sunday afternoon, Omar trekked crosstown to visit his friends. “This is my favorite place in all of Lebanon,” he said, climbing three flights of rickety iron stairs. At the top, was a small room facing a garbage dump in front and the blue Mediterranean in back.
“Ahlan, Marhaba,” greeted Mahmoud, throwing his arms around Omar. “Are you ready to get beat today?” he said, referring to the card game they played for points.
Another friend, Abed, who fled Syria, was also there. He had lived near Zamalka, one of the areas hit by chemical weapons that killed more than 1,000 civilians in August.
Omar sat cross-legged on one of the three mattresses along the wall. Ahmad poured tea into miniature glass cups. “What are you making for lunch today?” Omar said.
“Green beans and olive oil,” Mahmoud said. “Last week we missed you because I made chicken.”
“What? How come when I’m here you never eat meat? I haven’t had chicken in months,” Omar said.
Ahmad reached under the mattress for a deck of cards, a notebook and a pen. The boys played cards and smoked Winston Lights, a habit Omar hides from his parents. They dumped ashes in an ornate, handmade brass ashtray the twins’ mother brought on her last visit.
“I told my mother bring me back a souvenir from Syria that tourists usually buy and she brought this,” Ahmad said.
As the teenagers joked and reminisced, Ahmad, the only one with a cellphone, played a music video that showed images of the Syrian countryside. Omar held the phone on his lap and a fleeting look of grief skipped across his face. He passed the phone.
“I miss you my country,” the lyrics went. “I miss to kiss my mom’s hand…My country, you are my breath.”
After the song ended, Omar said, “It might be years before we go back.”
“What will be left of it?” Ahmad said.
“Before it was not so good, but now it’s not good, either,” Omar said. “Assad was an oppressor and he has made everything worse by not stepping down. But the rebels did no service for Sunnis, either.”
“If Assad stays now he will be more oppressive,” Abed said. “He will control us and punish us.”
Mahmoud sprang up to close the window and the door. He hushed Omar and Abed. The neighborhood is predominantly Shiite, the sect in Lebanon that mostly supports Syria’s regime. Mahmoud feared trouble from neighbors.
When the boys rode a bus or shared a taxi, they didn’t speak, afraid to reveal their accent. Seemingly ordinary questions such as “What part of Syria are you from?” could categorize them on one side of the conflict or the other.
They played cards in silence for a few minutes, scribbling scores and sipping the sugary tea. Omar asked about a mutual friend, Hejaz, who had stayed with them in Beirut over the summer but returned to Syria.
“If he comes back, he could tell us who is alive and who is dead,” Ahmad said.
Hejaz had arrived with hands and legs burned in a phosphate chemical attack. He carried mental scars, too. Hejaz sometimes picked up a cup of tea during a card game and smashed it against the wall. He slept with the kitchen knife under his pillow and had pulled it once on Omar.
Omar also endured trauma, though he seldom spoke of it. Images haunted him: the disfigured corpse he saw in a garbage bin; bloated bodies of small children; the body of a friend’s teenage sister, killed by shrapnel.
At the beginning of last summer, Omar’s best friend was killed in a rocket attack. Omar had shared his secrets with him, like his crush on a chubby girl named Roghaya.
“At first everyone hid the news from me but my mother eventually told me,” Omar said. “I cried a lot.”
He ripped a page from the notebook and sketched the attack in red ink. He drew a line of shops, a road, cars and a vehicle in the distance launching rocket-propelled grenades. Then he drew a boy trying to run. “See, he had no place to hide,” Omar said, “no place at all.”
Thoughts of Turkey
One afternoon in October, Omar came home for lunch looking haggard. He dropped a few bags of greens from the shop. His baby brother ran to him. Omar picked him up and tickled his belly.
“You look like you didn’t sleep last night,” his mother said.
Omar walked to the window and lifted the curtain to look out at the street. He showed his little brother the passing cars. Mr. al-Kurdi gestured for Omar to sit. He had news.
“We talked to your uncle in Turkey this morning,” Mr. al-Kurdi said. “He thinks we should move there.”
Omar protested. “What do I do for a living?” he said. “I have a job here.”
Ms. al-Kurdi backed her husband. “Your uncle said there are lots of jobs in Turkey,” she said. “And rent is only $150.”
His father pressed the idea. “Imagine, Omar, $150,” he said. “That would leave us with extra cash. And we won’t be alone. We will have your uncle there.”
Omar rubbed his eyes and looked annoyed.
In the past week, the landlord had issued an eviction order. He lived on the top floor and had complained the children made too much noise.
All week, Omar spent lunch breaks looking for apartments. Three days earlier, he had taken his mother to see one and she complained the rooms didn’t have doors. Omar lost his temper. “What do you want from me?” he said. “I’m done, you go look for a place yourself.”
The next day his mother apologized and said they should take the apartment. When Omar called, it was already taken.
To Omar, Lebanon was no great land of opportunity. But he couldn’t imagine resettling his family in a country where he didn’t speak the language.
“If we go to Turkey we have to start all over again,” Omar said. “I have to start all over again. We have stuff now. I have a job. How would we even get to Turkey?”
“We could go through Syria,” his father said.
“There is no safe passage through Syria, it’s too risky,” Omar replied.
“Why don’t you try to call your cousin and find out a little more?” his mother said.
“Fine, I’ll call, whatever gives you comfort,” Omar said.
The family sat silent for a few minutes. Omar thought of the months of hardship that had finally delivered his family here, and what might lay ahead.
A midday TV news broadcast from Syria showed grainy images of bombed-out buildings. Men holding guns skipped across the screen. No one bothered to turn up the sound. It looked like a silent horror movie.
Omar finally stood. His lunch break was over. “Will you really think about Turkey?” his mother asked. Omar nodded. He clung to the idea he could ease his family’s pain.
“This is what God wanted for me,” Omar said, as he walked to work, “to grow up very fast.”
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com
Read more: Syrian Kids Grow Up Fast
CARACAS—Venezuela’s consumer prices rose 56% in 2013 as the rate of economic growth slowed sharply to 1.6%, officials said Monday.
The preliminary numbers given out by the central bank and by President Nicolás Maduro compare to the oil-rich country’s 5.6% economic expansion and 20% inflation recorded last year, and underscore the challenge faced by Mr. Maduro, who earlier this year inherited the heavy state-spending policies of his…
Read the original here: Venezuela’s Consumer Prices Climbed 56% in 2013
BUENOS AIRES—Argentina’s foreign-currency reserves will likely finish the year just above $30 billion after the federal government pays about $900 million in debt this week, a government official said Monday.
So far this year, Argentina has used about $12.5 billion in reserves to pay creditors and buy imported goods ranging from luxury cars to badly needed natural gas. Some analysts and investors fret the country might struggle to…
Go here to see the original: Argentine Reserves Set to End Year at About $30 Billion
BEIJING—Police shot and killed eight suspected assailants and arrested another person Monday in a clash outside a police station in the restive western region of Xinjiang, state media said.
A brief report posted on the Xinjiang government’s news website said the assailants, armed with machetes, attacked the police station in far western Yarkand…
Excerpt from: Police Shoot Eight Dead in China Clash
ATHENS—Unidentified gunmen opened fire on the German ambassador to Greece’s residence early Monday, police said, an attack Athens and Berlin quickly condemned, with both governments saying the incident wouldn’t undermine ties between the two countries.
The attack caused no injuries and only minor property damage, but comes amid lingering anti-German sentiment in Greece, just days before the Southern European country takes on the…
Link: Gunmen Fire On German Envoy’s Home in Athens
ZURICH—Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oil tycoon freed a week and a half ago after spending a decade in prison, has been granted a Swiss visa that will allow him to travel broadly in Europe, the Swiss government said Monday.
The Swiss department of foreign affairs said in an email that Mr. Khodorkovsky had been granted a visa that will allow him to stay for up to three months in the Schengen area, a group of European countries that…
Original post: Russia’s Khodorkovsky Granted Swiss Visa
SYDNEY—Snow showers, strong winds and poor visibility are hampering attempts to rescue dozens of researchers, holidaymakers and crew on a ship trapped in Antarctic ice for almost a week.
Australia’s maritime authority said the Aurora Australis, a vessel designed to break through thick blocks of ice, had come close to the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, a Russian ship that remains stranded after two earlier rescue attempts by other…
Excerpt from: Weather Impedes Antarctic Rescue
BEIJING—China suggested Monday its leaders would shun Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the latest measure of how his visit to a controversial Tokyo shrine has further strained already tense ties.
High-level visits between Japan and China have been on hold for months, due to territorial and other disputes and despite assurances by Mr. Abe that the door is open to dialogue, and Beijing’s latest comments further decreased prospects…
Read the original here: China Says It Will Shun Abe
SHANGHAI—New Chinese government figures illustrate how pollution and other effects of China’s urbanization and industrialization continue to take a toll on farmland, providing fresh insight into one of the country’s least understood environmental challenges.
Figures released by the Ministry of Land and Resources on Monday in Beijing indicated as much as 2.5% of China’s soil could be too contaminated by heavy metals and other pollutants to farm. Meanwhile, the share of China’s land that is arable fell by a fifth of a…
Read the rest here: Data Give Insight on China’s Soil
RIGA, Latvia—Nearly a decade after joining the European Union, Latvia adopts the euro as its currency Wednesday, marking another big move out of the shadow of its large neighbor Russia.
The nation of 2 million has been divided over the currency change, with less than half the population fully supporting giving up their lats, according to recent polls. But the government argues the public effectively accepted the switch when it voted…
Continue reading here: Latvia Heads Into Euro Zone, Warily
TEL AVIV—Secretary of State John Kerry will present Israeli and Palestinian negotiators with a U.S. proposal for a broad peace framework when he arrives in the region Thursday, deepening the Obama administration’s involvement in the talks, the State Department said on Monday.
Mr. Kerry is bringing with him a “proposed framework” aimed at bridging gaps on the core issues of Jerusalem, refugees, borders, settlements and…
Originally posted here: Kerry to Present Mideast Peace Framework
Iraqi security forces on Monday raided and dismantled an antigovernment protest camp in the restive western city of Ramadi, in a fresh outburst of violence that threatens to inflame Iraq’s simmering sectarian tensions.
At least one person died in the raid, which comes two days after Iraqi security forces killed at least six people while arresting Sunni Parliament member Ahmed al-Alwani in the same city. Mr. Alwani’s brother and five…
More: Iraqi Forces Raid Sunni Protest Camp
PARIS—Michael Schumacher remained in a critical condition Monday after the seven-time Formula One race-car champion sustained life-threatening head injuries in a skiing accident in the French Alps, doctors at a local hospital said.
Mr. Schumacher, 44, was skiing off-piste near the luxury resort of Méribel on Sunday when he fell and hit his head on a rock. He was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in the nearby town of Moutiers,…
The rest is here: Schumacher Still in Critical Condition
MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill that allows the authorities to block websites that promote rioting or contain extremist content within 24 hours and without a court order.
The law, the latest step by the Kremlin to increase regulation of the Internet, will take effect on Feb. 1.
Its backers say the law is necessary…
See more here: Putin Signs Bill Blocking Extremist Websites
JUBA, South Sudan—In the space of two weeks, the world’s youngest nation has tumbled from a promising protégé of the West to a broken state with little hope for peace.
South Sudan now stands divided between government and rebel-controlled territory. The battle between the president and his former deputy has split much of the nation along ethnic…
Continue reading here: In South Sudan, Ethnic Warfare Is New Normal
CARACAS, Venezuela—Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said China has given his country $5 billion in credits under a deal reached in September.
Mr. Maduro said on Saturday that the money will be used in areas such as housing, transportation, satellite technology and the military.
Venezuela’s leftist government has received roughly $36…
Read more: Caracas Says It Received China Credits
Updated Dec. 28, 2013 2:46 p.m. ET
Al-Azhar University student supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood made the four-finger Rabaa gesture as they hold tear gas canisters during clashes with riot police. Reuters
CAIRO—Riot police moved into Egypt’s main Islamic university on Saturday, firing tear gas and breaking up a strike by students that threatened to disrupt midterms. One student was killed in the melee, an administration building was torched and students fled from exam rooms.
Police say they entered eastern Cairo’s Al-Azhar campus, the site of frequent clashes in recent weeks, and deployed around other Egyptian universities to prevent supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi from intimidating other students trying to take the tests.
Pro-Morsi activists have called for an exam boycott but deny government claims that they threatened anyone.
Raw video shows the campus of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University as clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and police broke out. Photo: Getty Images
Students at al-Azhar, a stronghold of Morsi supporters, have been protesting for weeks against his ouster and a subsequent state crackdown, which this week saw his Muslim Brotherhood group declared a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood dismisses the label and has vowed to keep up its protests against Egypt-military backed authorities.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Higher Education Hossam Eissa said authorities will go after those he said were financing non-peaceful protests on campuses, and accused the Brotherhood of seeking to derail exams.
“The aim of the terrorist Brotherhood group is to call off university exams,” he said according to comments published on the state news agency MENA. “The role of the government is to restore security especially before the referendum on the constitution.”
The government is intensifying its crackdown on Brotherhood and Morsi supporters ahead of a Jan. 14-15 constitutional referendum they see as a milestone in the transition plan. Authorities fear Morsi supporters would seek to derail the key vote, through protests or by violent means.
University professors and security officials accused protesting students on Saturday of blocking entrances to classes and harassing students as they made their way into the campus.
A statement from the Interior Ministry, in charge of the police, said students stormed several buildings on campus to “terrorize students and faculty.” It said some fired shotguns into the air and smashed furniture.
The ministry statement said that the attack prompted the police to move in to disperse the crowd, leading the students to setting the Faculty of Commerce on fire.
Aya Fathy, a student spokeswoman, disputed the officials claim, saying the students were protesting peacefully. She said police moved in to break up protesters outside the faculty building, firing indiscriminately at them, and killing student Khaled el-Haddad.
She accused the police of setting the building on fire to blame the students. She said the police force was chasing students on campus.
Footage from local TV stations and social media websites showed the campus as a battleground. Flames rose from the three-story building, with rooms inside badly torched. Pitched battles pitting police against rock-throwing students, some armed with what appeared to be homemade guns or projectile launchers, left the campus deserted, strewn with rocks and debris.
Other images showed masked protesters on roofs of university buildings lobbing rocks at security, and students jumping out of windows to escape the violence.
Other video showed plainclothes security with sticks grabbing a woman by her veil, kicking her, and manhandling her away.
Exams were postponed at the Faculty of Commerce and other schools on campus. The university dean said the delay will only be for hours. Osama el-Abd, the dean, told Egypt’s state news agency that alternative classrooms will be provided for the students to carry out the exams, and those scheduled Sunday. He said investigation will be launched to determine the students behind Saturday’s violence.
The Interior Ministry didn’t mention the student’s death in its statement. But a security official confirmed he was killed and said 14 others were injured. He blamed the students for the violence, and said 68 students, including seven female students, were arrested. He said three policemen were injured. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The violence in Al-Azhar university set off protests on a university campus in the Nile Delta city of Zagzig, where students lobbed rocks at police forces.
Following the Brotherhood’s designation as a terrorist group, officials have warned that anyone joining the group’s protests will face stiff prison sentences.
The designation has coincided with the revival of old tactics used by the security forces, some of which have the potential to spark new kinds of violence. Officials in Egypt’s south sought help from tribes and large clans, who are traditionally heavily armed, to ward off protests by pro-Morsi supporters.
The government accused the Brotherhood of orchestrating a series of attacks by Sinai militants against troops to destabilize the transition— but have provided little evidence to prove the connection. It was the main justification for the authorities labeling the group a terrorist one.
Human Rights Watch said Saturday that the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group was “politically motivated” and would affect the health and education services provided by the group to thousands of beneficiaries.
On Saturday, security officials said they have diffused a homemade explosive device planted on a public transportation bus in northeast Cairo. The officials said the driver discovered the device under a passenger seat. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
The Brotherhood denied it adopts violence. But amid the crackdown and with hundreds killed, the group’s supporters have become increasingly defiant. In a statement late Friday, the group accused security agencies and intelligence of “committing terrorism” to frame their enemies.
More: Egyptian Student Dies in Protest
TOKYO—Japan’s finance minister says that the government’s priority remains an improvement to the economy, remarks that could help reassure investors over whether a visit last week by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to a war-linked shrine signaled a change in focus.
“We’ve been saying that the Abe cabinet places its top priority on the economy, and that is how it played out this year,” Finance Minister Taro Aso said in an interview…
View post: Japanese Official Affirms Focus on Economy
NEW DELHI—One of India’s foremost anticorruption crusaders was sworn in Saturday as the chief minister of Delhi after an electoral debut that has shaken the Indian political establishment.
Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi, or Common Man, Party was born just one year ago out of India’s anticorruption movement, which brought tens of thousands of middle-class Indians to the streets to protest endemic official graft.
“Today, the…
Original post: Delhi’s Common Man Leader Sworn In
TEL AVIV—A Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon landed in northern Israel Sunday morning, raising concerns about renewed volatility between the countries two weeks after an Israeli soldier was killed on the same border.
There were no initial reports of injuries or property damage, and the Israeli army said that four other rockets that were fired in the direction of Israel didn’t land in its territory. Israel’s army said it returned fire…
Follow this link: Rocket From Lebanon Hits Israel
This normally is peak season for divers like Joe Williams, who search the chilly waters of the Pacific Northwest for giant clams called geoducks that are a delicacy in China.
But Mr. Williams and fellow clam harvesters are now scrounging to replace their usual winter haul of hundreds or thousands of dollars a day, after China halted imports this month of geoducks and other shellfish from the U.S. West Coast because of alleged…
Read more: Giant Clams Spark Trade Spat
Washington has gained a little-known ally in its bid to win crucial Arab support for curbing Iran’s nuclear program: Oman, a small kingdom that is expanding its role on the Middle East’s diplomatic stage.
After playing a behind-the-scenes role in the Obama administration’s diplomatic overture to Iran, the Sultan of Oman and his royal court are working to help sell the deal to skeptical Arab governments, said U.S., Iranian and Arab officials. The Obama administration is pressing to gain the support of its key Mideast…
Originally posted here: Oman Stands in U.S.’s Corner on Iran Nuclear Deal
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pakistan’s former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, said Sunday that the country’s civilian government and courts are pursuing a vendetta against him, days before his landmark treason trial is set to begin.
The court hearing, due to begin Wednesday, would be the first time that a former Pakistani military ruler has faced prosecution.
Mr. Musharraf could face the death penalty if found guilty, and the case is…
Go here to see the original: Musharraf Calls Treason Trial a Vendetta
Seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher was in critical condition following serious head injuries after a skiing accident at the French luxury resort of Meribel on Sunday, a local hospital said.
Schumacher, 44, hit his head on a rock after a fall while skiing off-piste (away from official slopes), said a police officer with the Bourg-Saint-Maurice forces, who handled the incident. He was initially taken by helicopter to a…
Go here to read the rest: Schumacher Injured in Skiing Accident
BANGKOK—Thai election officials Sunday struggled to register candidates for national elections slated for just over a month from now, with antigovernment protesters blockading registration centers in a bid to sabotage the contentious polls.
The blockades, which involved thousands of protesters and according to election officials halted candidate registrations in seven southern provinces, come after nearly two months of increasingly…
Go here to see the original: Blockades Thwart Candidate Registration for Thai Election
SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia—In this quiet beach town, Lim Loeung says she spends up to 80 hours a week gluing soles onto shoes at a factory that does work for companies including Japanese sneaker-maker Asics Corp. The factory believes Ms. Lim is at least 18 years old.
Except she’s not. According to her parents and her birth record, Ms. Lim soon will…
Read the original post: Cambodia Grapples With Underage Worker Issue
Dec. 28, 2013 9:14 a.m. ET
Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
PRESIDENTIAL RETREAT: Tourists enjoyed Waikiki beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, Saturday. President Barack Obama and his family arrived in Hawaii on Friday for their annual vacation.
Mitya Aleshkovsky/ITAR-TASS/Zuma Press
NO MORE POLITICS: Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said he won’t return to politics at a news conference at the Wall Museum in Berlin, Sunday, in his first public address after a decade of defiance behind bars. He was imprisoned on allegations of fraud and tax evasion in 2003.
TEAM WORK: Paid volunteers cleared snow from the bleachers at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis, Saturday ahead of the Green Bay Packers’ game against Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.
Dennis M. Sabangan/European Pressphoto Agency
CHRISTMAS AFTER HAIYAN: People arranged a Christmas tree made of trash in the typhoon-devastated village of Pinamitian, eastern Samar province, Philippines, Monday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday urged international donors to increase aid for typhoon victims.
Ravell Call/Deseret News/Associated Press
THE HAPPY COUPLE: Becky Dustin, left, and Jennifer Rasmussen, right, exited the Salt Lake County clerk’s office with their marriage license Monday. On Friday, Federal Judge Robert Shelby struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban.
Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images
CASUALTY: French troops carried the body of a demonstrator who was shot dead during a protest against the president of the strife-torn Central African Republic at the airport in Bangui early on Monday.
Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
WINDY DINNER: Workers closed off the side of cafes and restaurants in Cancale, France, to protect customers from heavy winds Monday after 14 regions in the northwest of France were placed under alert for a strong storm.
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
SNOWY STOP: Reindeer herder Eve Grayson fed members of the herd Monday in Aviemore, Scotland. The herd ranges on 2,500 hectares of hill ground and stays above the tree line all year round, regardless of the weather conditions.
STORMY SURF: A surfer struggled in white water during the Big Wave Challenge in Punta Galea, near Bilbao, Spain. South African surfer Grant Baker won the competition.
Sean Durkan/AFP/Getty Images
RUNWAY MISHAP: A picture released on Twitter shows the wing of a British Airways plane clipping an office building at OR Tambo International airport in Johannesburg, after the plane turned onto the wrong runway Sunday. Four airport employees were slightly injured.
Amru Salahuddien/Xinhua/Zuma Press
BLAST: Police stood at the site of an explosion in Mansoura, Egypt, Tuesday. At least 11 people were killed and more than 100 injured in an explosion at a police headquarters in the city, state-run media reported.
Dennis M. Sabangan/European Pressphoto Agency
NOCHE BUENA: Maureen Olendan, 8, sat outside her makeshift house Tuesday in Tacloban, Philippines, which was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan, as her mother prepared a traditional holiday dinner.
Paul Kitagaki Jr/MCT/Zuma Press
TAILGATE TIME: Ron Katsanes cooked for friends before the game between the San Francisco 49ers and Atlanta Falcons at Candlestick Park in San Francisco Monday. The 49ers beat the Falcons 34-24.
Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images
RELIGIOUS RITES: Shiite Muslims beat their chests at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, Monday during the Arbaeen religious festival.
BLOWN AWAY: Wind blew an umbrella inside out in Paris Tuesday. High winds and torrential rain lashed France, disrupting transportation networks and causing power cuts.
Alex Christofides/London News Pictures/Zuma Press
CHRISTMAS EVE AT THE AIRPORT: Thousands of passengers were stuck at Gatwick Tuesday after hundreds of flights were canceled.
Jeff Forman/News-Herald/Associated Press
MASSIVE PILE UP: Crews worked to clear the I-90 in Leroy Township, Ohio, Tuesday after a series of crashes involving up to 40 vehicles.
Peter Kollanyi/i-Images/Zuma Press
MEAT SALE: Members of Harts the Butchers sell off surplus meats during the annual Christmas Eve meat auction at London’s Smithfield Meat Market.
Oded Balilty/Associated Press
CONTINUING UNREST: Bedouins gathered around the grave of Salah Abu Latif for his funeral in Rahat, southern Israel, Wednesday. He was working on the fence between Israel and Gaza when he was killed by a Palestinian sniper. Israeli air and ground forces launched a series of attacks Tuesday on targets across the Gaza Strip.
Rungroj Yongrit/European Pressphoto Agency
RETURN TO SENDER: A protester threw a tear-gas canister back at police during clashes in Bangkok on Thursday. Thailand’s election commission on Thursday urged the country’s government to delay elections scheduled for Feb. 2 after a day of violence that pushed this Southeast Asian nation’s fragile democracy closer to the brink of collapse.
Themba Hadebe/Associated Press
INTO THE SEA: People enjoyed the surf in Durban, South Africa, Thursday.
Bethany Clarke/Getty Images
RIDING THE RAPIDS: Participants took part in a raft race Thursday in Matlock, England.
Andrew Parsons/i-Images/Zuma Press
BOXING DAY HUNT: People watched members of the Essex Hunt turn out Thursday for the traditional Boxing Day hunt in Matching Green, England.
Paul Vallejos/European Pressphoto Agency
SETTLE THE SCORE: Two women fought during the celebration of the ‘Takanakuy’ tradition in Lima, Peru, on Wednesday. The annual fighting ritual event sees two people of the same sex fight each other to settle conflicts.
Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
CUTTING THROUGH: Dry river beds snaked through the terrain in Afghanistan on Thursday.
BOXED IN: A boy carried a cardboard box on Friday across a United Nations compound in Juba, South Sudan, that has become home to thousands of people displaced by the recent fighting in the area.
Bodo Marks/DPA/Zuma Press
FINDING UTOPIA: Attendees at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany, used their laptops in a foam ball pool. The conference, also known as 30C3, concerns technology, society and utopia.
Bilal Hussein/Associated Press
HELPING HAND: A man carried an injured woman away from the scene of an explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday that killed a prominent politician and adviser to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, as well as at least five others.
THE FACE OF VICTORY: Bea Rose Santiago, crowned Miss International 2013 in Tokyo earlier this month, snapped a self-portrait during a parade Friday in the business district of Manila in her home country, Philippines.
Tolga Bozoglu/European Pressphoto Agency
ON EDGE: Turkish protesters clashed with police during an antigovernment protest in Istanbul Friday. Embattled Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sacked 10 of his 26 ministers late Wednesday, in a bid to ease political uncertainty that has blighted the country since the start of a bribery investigation that has ensnared government officials.
Continue reading here: Photos of the Week: Dec. 22-27
Dec. 27, 2013 7:34 p.m. ETAs Christmas neared, an 85-foot-high tree presided over the little square in front of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Kindergarten children with Santa Claus hats entered the church and listened to their teacher explain in Arabic the Greek inscriptions on the walls, while a group of Russian pilgrims knelt on their knees and whispered in prayer. In Nazareth’s old city, merchants sold the usual array of Christmas wares.
This year, however, the familiar rhythms of Christmas season in the Holy Land have been disturbed by a new development: the rise of an independent voice for Israel’s Christian community, which is increasingly trying to assert its separate identity. For decades, Arab Christians were considered part of Israel’s sizable Palestinian minority, which comprises both Muslims and Christians and makes up about a fifth of the country’s citizens, according to the Israeli government.
But now, an informal grass-roots movement, prompted in part by the persecution of Christians elsewhere in the region since the Arab Spring, wants to cooperate more closely with Israeli Jewish society—which could mean a historic change in attitude toward the Jewish state. “Israel is my country, and I want to defend it,” says Henry Zaher, an 18-year-old Christian from the village of Reineh who was visiting Nazareth. “The Jewish state is good for us.”
LOOKING UP: Celebrating Christmas in Nazareth, December 2012 Reuters
The Christian share of Israel’s population has decreased over the years—from 2.5% in 1950 to 1.6% today, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics—because of migration and a low birthrate. Of Israel’s 8 million citizens, about 130,000 are Arabic-speaking Christians (mostly Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox), and 1.3 million are Arab Muslims.
In some ways, Christians in Israel more closely resemble their Jewish neighbors than their Muslim ones, says Amnon Ramon, a lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a specialist on Christians in Israel at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. In a recent book, he reports that Israeli Christians’ median age is 30, compared with 31 for Israeli Jews and only 19 for Israeli Muslims. Israeli Christian women marry later than Israeli Muslims, have significantly fewer children and participate more in the workforce. Unemployment is lower among Israeli Christians than among Muslims, and life expectancy is higher. Perhaps most strikingly, Israeli Christians actually surpass Israeli Jews in educational achievement.
As a minority within a minority, Christians in Israel have historically been in a bind. Fear of being considered traitors often drove them to proclaim their full support for the Palestinian cause. Muslim Israeli leaders say that all Palestinians are siblings and deny any Christian-Muslim rift. But in mixed Muslim-Christian cities such as Nazareth, many Christians say they feel outnumbered and insecure.
“There is a lot of fear among Christians from Muslim reprisals,” says Dr. Ramon. “In the presence of a Muslim student in one of my classes, a Christian student will never say the same things he would say were the Muslim student not there.”
“Many Christians think like me, but they keep silent,” says the Rev. Gabriel Naddaf, who backs greater Christian integration into the Jewish state. “They are simply too afraid.” In his home in Nazareth, overlooking the fertile hills of the Galilee, the 40-year-old former spokesman of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem is tall and charismatic, dressed in a spotless black cassock. “Israel is my country,” he says. “We enjoy the Israeli democracy and have to respect it and fight for it.”
That is the idea behind the new Forum for Drafting the Christian Community, which aims to increase the number of Christians joining the Israel Defense Forces. It is an extremely delicate issue: Israeli Arabs are generally exempt from military duty, because the state doesn’t expect them to fight their brethren among the Palestinians or in neighboring Arab countries. Israeli Palestinians, who usually don’t want to enlist, say they often face discrimination in employment and other areas because they don’t serve.
“We were dragged into a conflict that wasn’t ours,” says Father Naddaf. “Israel takes care of us, and if not Israel, who will defend us? We love this country, and we see the army as a first step in becoming more integrated with the state.”
According to Shadi Khaloul, a forum spokesperson, the total number of Christians serving in the Israeli military has more than quadrupled since 2012, from 35 to nearly 150. This may seem a drop in the ocean, but it was enough to enrage many Palestinian Israelis. Father Naddaf says that his car’s tires were punctured and that he received death threats, worrying him enough that he got bodyguards. Hanin Zoabi, an Arab-Muslim member of the Israeli parliament, wrote Father Naddaf a public letter calling him a collaborator and accusing him of putting young Christians “in danger.” “Arab Palestinians, regardless of their religion, should not join the Israeli army,” Ms. Zoabi told me. “We are a national group, not a religious one. Any attempt to enlist Christians is part of a strategy of divide-and-rule.”
Many Arab Christians don’t see it that way. “We are not mercenaries,” says Mr. Khaloul, who served as a captain in an IDF paratrooper brigade. “We want to defend this country together with the Jews. We see what is happening these days to Christians around us—in Iraq, Syria and Egypt.”
Since the Arab revolutions began in Tunisia in 2011, many Christians in the region have felt isolated and jittery. Coptic churches have been attacked in Egypt, and at least 26 Iraqis leaving a Catholic church in Baghdad on Christmas Day were killed by a car bomb. Islamists continue to threaten to enforce Shariah law wherever they gain control.
The Christian awakening in Israel goes beyond joining the IDF. Some Israeli Christian leaders now demand that their history and heritage be taught in state schools. “Children in Arab schools in Israel learn only Arab-Muslim history,” says a report prepared by Mr. Khaloul and submitted to Israel’s Ministry of Education, “and this causes the obliteration of Christian identity.”
Some Israeli Christians even recently established a new political party, headed by Bishara Shlayan, a stocky, blue-eyed former captain in the Israeli navy who told me that he once beat up an Irish sailor in Londonderry who called him an “[expletive] Jew.” The new party is puckishly called B’nai Brith (“Children of the Covenant”), and Shlayan says it will have Jewish as well as Christian members. Nazareth’s mayor, Ramez Jaraisy, recently told the Times of Israel that Shlayan was a “collaborator” with the Israeli authorities.
“The current Arab political establishment only brought us hate and rifts,” says Mr. Shlayan. “The Arab-Muslim parties didn’t take care of us. We are not brothers with the Muslims; brothers take care of each other.” Mr. Shlayan, who advocates better education, housing and employment for Israeli Christians, says he also dreams of turning Nazareth into an even busier tourist spot by erecting the world’s biggest statue of Jesus.
Should this Christian awakening succeed, it would be yet another notable shift in the balance of power among religious groups in the Middle East.
—Mr. Schwartz is a former staff writer and senior editor for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Read more: Israel’s Christian Awakening
Updated Dec. 28, 2013 6:11 p.m. ETCasting an eye back on 2013 through the lens of language can feel like looking at a series of bubbles: words that momentarily caught our fancy, often tied to passing trends or breaking-news stories. But those bubbles in the language almost always go “pop!” before too long, as new ones rise to take their place.
Blame the information overload brought about by new and old media ceaselessly competing for mindspace. Or blame a collective attention span that can rival that of a goldfish. It often seems that 21st-century trends in English are increasingly transient, with neologizers whipping up a linguistic churn that leaves little of permanence behind.
Rather than bemoaning the frothy and fleeting nature of new words and phrases, however, we can embrace it. The effervescence of language, the constant churning of those bubbles, serves as evidence of something more enduring: the always-present creativity of our word-making faculties, innovating in ways both serious and playful to find novel ways of labeling social phenomena and experiences.
And at a time plagued by anxieties over how our communications are being monitored, with our data perhaps stashed away in some secret National Security Agency facility, there is great solace to be found in ephemerality. As my Wall Street Journal colleague Farhad Manjoo wrote in his tech column last week, services such as Snapchat are taking advantage of a newfound interest in “ephemeral messaging”: interactions that leave hardly a trace. Let us pause to look back at some of those ephemeral messages that bubbled up in 2013.
Where better to start than with the words we use for online chatter? Since the way we converse with each other electronically is very much in flux, the metalanguage we use to talk about such talk is changing too. Those keeping track of the latest Twitter trends, for instance, would have noticed the rise of the “subtweet”: Short for “subliminal tweet,” it is the equivalent of talking behind someone’s back, tweeting about a person without including his or her Twitter handle.
A more malicious kind of online interaction goes by the label “catfishing,” which hit the news back in January, when Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o was revealed to have been the victim of an elaborate online hoax. When someone is “catfished,” a love interest turns out to be nothing more than a fabricated identity on social media. MTV continues to air a reality series called “Catfish,” spun off from the documentary that gave the phenomenon its name, but interest dropped precipitously after the Te’o story passed.
The Internet meme of the moment goes by the name of “doge” (a whimsical misspelling of “dog”), in which images of the fluffy Shiba Inu breed of dog are overlaid with enthusiastic, if ungrammatical, exclamations—heavy on words like “such,” “much,” “very” and “wow.” The “doge” meme may have already run its course, though, as it has already seeped into the halls of power. Earlier this week, Rep. Thomas Massie (R, Ky.) tweeted, “Much bipartisanship. Very spending. Wow. #doge.”
Politicians appropriating the latest in online slang is nothing new, though. Back in April 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton played along with a satirical blog called “Texts from Hillary” by sending her own text to the blog. “Nice selfie,” she wrote, referring to a photo that one of the blog’s creators had taken of himself.
Mrs. Clinton (or rather, whichever young staffer helped her compose that text) was clearly ahead of the pack, as 2013 became the year of the “selfie.” As a slangy term for a cellphone self-portrait, “selfie” originated more than a decade ago in Australia, where the “-ie” diminutive suffix runs rampant. But when even Pope Francis is posing with well-wishers for a “papal selfie,” the word has clearly arrived. President Obama may wish the word never existed: After Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt snapped a casual photo with him at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service, it sparked a mini-controversy dubbed “Selfie-gate.”
In pop-culture circles, the word that made the biggest splash this year was undoubtedly “twerk.” When Miley Cyrus did her rump-shaking dance at MTV’s Video Music Awards in August, anyone unfamiliar with “twerking” (which actually originated two decades ago in New Orleans) got a quick primer. But within weeks, sarcastic “twerking” jokes already felt stale. “If I never hear the word ‘twerk’ again, it will be too soon,” wrote the Salon.com writer Feminista Jones, echoing a common sentiment.
You might say that we were temporarily caught up in a “twerknado,” to use a suffix that hit the big time this year. In July, the Twitterverse betrayed an unquenchable fascination with “Sharknado,” a cheesy movie on the Syfy channel that, true to its billing, showcased tornadoes filled with sharks. Pretty soon everyone was jumping on the “-nado” bandwagon. Crossroads GPS, a conservative group affiliated with Karl Rove, got in on the action with a video slamming the Affordable Care Act, entitled “ObamaCareNado.”
Food-savvy New Yorkers, meanwhile, might remember 2013 as the year the ‘cronut’ was introduced to the world. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Food-savvy New Yorkers, meanwhile, might remember 2013 as the year the “cronut” was introduced to the world. The croissant-doughnut hybrid from Dominique Ansel’s Soho bakery quickly became a must-have confection. Many sought to imitate its success, but since Ansel trademarked “cronut,” the copycats had to come up with new names such as “dossant.”
November saw a once-in-a-lifetime calendrical confluence, when Thanksgiving coincided with the first night of Hanukkah. But what to call this double holiday? “Hanukkahgiving,” “Hanugiving” and “Turkukkah” were all proposed, but the most popular name was “Thanksgivukkah.” An enterprising fourth-grader from New York came up with the “menurkey,” a turkey-shaped menorah, as the perfect accessory for the day. But “Thanksgivukkah” is guaranteed to fade from memory, as the two holidays won’t converge again for another 70,000 years, according to some calculations.
Even more serious news stories engendered their own transient lingo. April’s Boston Marathon bombing might have seemed to be an ill-advised time for neologizing, but some attempted to popularize terms like “marabomber” and “brofiling” as the perpetrators were hunted by authorities. What is most remembered is a two-word phrase encapsulating the way the city rallied together after the tragedy: “Boston strong.”
Popular culture and international affairs sometimes intersected in unexpected ways. In June, the world’s attention turned to Gezi Park in Istanbul, where antigovernment protesters clashed with Turkish police. When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the demonstrators “çapulcu” (“looters”), they wore the term with pride, even adding an English verb ending to make “çapuling.” “Every day I’m çapuling” became a slogan displayed on signs and T-shirts, playing off the line “Every day I’m shuffling” from the band LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem.”
Despite the now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t nature of many of these words, we can discern some intriguing overall patterns in the way that neologisms are formed these days. Now more than ever, “portmanteau words” that fuse two existing words are a popular way to create new mashups, such as “cronut,” “sharknado” and “Thanksgivukkah.” It is an easy way to convey novelty while not appearing too novel: If you can figure out the components, the meaning of a portmanteau word will be as obvious as, well, a tornado full of sharks.
Sometimes, a word-chunk that goes into building a portmanteau can become so recognizable that it can happily attach itself to other words. The “-nado” of “sharknado” achieved this special status this year, though it is still a long way off from the super-productivity of other calamitous suffixes, such as the “-mageddon” of “armageddon” or especially the “-pocalypse” of “apocalypse.” When cicadas began swarming in the Northeast in the late spring, some warned of the looming “cicadapocalypse,” while the extreme air pollution in Beijing and northeastern China was described this year as an “airpocalypse.”
All of this word-blending can get a little out of hand, however. Take “selfie,” Oxford Dictionaries’s Word of the Year and the subject of endless variations. “Drelfie”? That’s a drunk selfie, like the first known use of the word “selfie” by an inebriated Aussie in 2002. “Grelfie”? A group selfie. “Lelfie”? A selfie showing off your legs (following in the wake of Kim Kardashian’s notorious “belfie,” or bottom selfie). Then there’s “shelfie,” a photo showing off the contents of one’s bookshelf. And for this winter, Weather.com is asking people to send in their selfies in the snow, or “snowfies.”
While we may look back at 2013 and chuckle over this profusion of terms for narcissistic self-presentation, the many spinoffs of “selfie” undeniably indicate that the word itself has a certain stickiness to it. “Selfie” does well on the “FUDGE” scale introduced by Allan Metcalf in his book “Predicting New Words.” “FUDGE” is his mnemonic for judging the viability of neologisms: Frequency of use, Unobtrusiveness, Diversity of users and situations, Generation of other forms and meanings, and Endurance of the concept.
Mr. Metcalf himself lauded “selfie” in a post on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Lingua Franca blog in October, a month before Oxford Dictionaries chose it as their Word of the Year. “Selfie” is “a word that has come into its prime this year as a perfect expression of the actions and preoccupations of today’s youth, the so-called millennial generation,” he wrote. “You can see the millennials as they see themselves with this word.”
I share a professional interest in all of this word-watching with Mr. Metcalf, as we are both involved in the American Dialect Society’s own selection for Word of the Year, which will take place next week at the society’s annual meeting, held in Minneapolis. Linguists, lexicographers and other scholars will be gathering to discuss research on varieties of American English, and the Word of the Year vote (WOTY to its friends) is a pleasant diversion from all the academic paper presentations.
The ADS selection of noteworthy words has been going on since 1990 and has inspired various other WOTY votes, even some in other languages. Last year, after strenuous debate, the Twitter-friendly word “hashtag” won out over such worthy competitors as “YOLO” (an acronym for “you only live once”), “marriage equality” and “fiscal cliff.” (Note that phrases and even prefixes and suffixes are acceptable as candidates, so long as they are vocabulary items that could receive dictionary treatment.)
Besides “selfie” and perhaps “twerk,” what else might be in the running this year for WOTY accolades? Mr. Metcalf suggests that “Obamacare” would be a timely choice, given the troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. While “Obamacare” was first broached by Mitt Romney back in 2007 when Barack Obama was still a senator and presidential candidate, the word’s fortunes have waxed and waned since then. It was used as a cudgel against Obama in 2010, but by last year’s campaign season the president and his supporters had managed to reappropriate it in a positive way. This year, however, the negative connotations of “Obamacare” have returned with a vengeance.
To those nominees I would add a few more that I predict will be remembered as more than mere word bubbles. “Drone,” as I discussed in these pages in July, has been in use for unmanned aerial vehicles since the 1930s, but controversy over the Obama administration’s program of covert drone strikes has extended the word in new directions. Now it can be a transitive verb, as in, “Pakistanis are tired of getting droned.”
We might all get droned if Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has his way, since he revealed to “60 Minutes” earlier this month that the company is planning a huge fleet of delivery drones. With all these drones flying around, some wonder about how they might be captured, in what has been dubbed “drone-jacking.”
Another strong contender is “bitcoin,” the virtual currency introduced in 2008 that gained a patina of respectability this year, despite the FBI’s shutdown of Silk Road, an online black market that traded in bitcoin. Or should that be traded in “bitcoins”? Standard usage is still being worked out, so for now, “bitcoin” appears both as an uncountable mass noun and a countable unit.
Similar confusion reigns over Glass, Google’s grand plan in wearable computing. It is still unclear whether we will be talking about people wearing Google Glass or Glasses. Either way, Glass-wearers hope to avoid the nasty epithet “Glassholes.”
My sentimental favorite is actually a phrasal verb: “lean in.” When Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg used it as the title and mantra of her book, published in March, she put a brand-new spin on a phrase. “Leaning in” had once been mostly limited to sports such as skiing and sea kayaking before serving as a kind of physical metaphor for embracing risk and not shying away from obstacles in one’s path.
With Ms. Sandberg exhorting women in the business world to “lean in,” the expression has become closely connected with the idea of female empowerment. By working its way into the popular lexicon, the phrase has boldly asserted itself to stand above the more bubbly, evanescent mementos of 2013.
— Ben Zimmer writes Review’s weekly Word on the Street column and is the executive producer of Vocabulary.com and VisualThesaurus.com.
Corrections & AmplificationsDominique Ansel’s last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this article.
View original post here: The Words That Popped in 2013
BUENOS AIRES—Argentina’s federal government has refinanced the debts it is owed by 18 provinces, as governors struggle to plug budget deficits aggravated by double-digit inflation.
The federal government reprogrammed 75 billion pesos ($11.5 billion) in principal and interest payments due in 2014 for a net savings to the provinces of around 11 billion pesos, President Cristina Kirchner’s cabinet chief, Jorge Capitanich, said in a…
More: Argentina’s Federal Government Refinances Provincial Debts
Updated Dec. 27, 2013 4:04 p.m. ET
Protesters of Mexico’s pet-food tax rally in front of the finance ministry in October. One sign reads: ‘No to the Value Added Tax on our food.’ Associated Press
MEXICO CITY—Mexico’s pet owners are bracing for a new tax on pet food, which the government recently declared a “luxury item.”
Starting Jan. 1, a 16% sales tax will be placed on processed pet foods, part of a fiscal overhaul from President Enrique Peña Nieto that seeks to raise revenue for a government that depends on oil income for a third of its revenue.
Processed pet-food sales top $2.2 billion a year in Mexico, led by multinationals like Mars Inc. and Nestlé SA, making Mexico the world’s 10th-biggest market for pet food, according to Euromonitor International data.
The U.S. is the largest market, where consumers spend more than $20 billion a year to feed their pets.
The 16% sales tax will be applied at the retail level, and pet-food companies fear their sales will decline as a result.
There are roughly 14 million pet dogs and cats living in Mexican households, according to Mexican pet-food associations. Another 13 million animals live on the streets.
“Half of Mexican homes have pets. Many of them want to give their pets prepared food because it’s more practical and healthier,” said Lorena Cerdán, who lobbied against the tax on behalf of companies like Mars and Nestlé.
In the bill proposing the tax, the government called pet ownership a “recreational activity,” not a “basic need.”
Kibble makers beg to differ. “When we’re talking about a pet, we’re talking about a member of the family, even if that family has a low income,” says Fabián Ortiz, director of the Mexican Association of Food Producers.
Pet-food companies estimate that half of the country’s pet owners use commercial pet foods, while the rest whip up homemade concoctions, usually a mixture of chicken, rice and tortillas.
Whole foods like chicken and eggs have been tax-free in the country since 1981, to promote nutrition for the poorest Mexicans. Commercial pet food was previously a part of the tax-exempt food category.
The pet-food tax was part of a revenue-raising effort that hit the middle class hard, said Manuel Solano, head of the international tax-services group at Mancera S.C., Ernst & Young’s member firm in Mexico.
The government also suggested taxing real estate sales and private school tuitions, but those proposals were scrapped due to fierce opposition in Congress.
Antonio Fragoso is exactly the type of consumer that the Mexican government had in mind when it proposed the tax. The 30-year-old consultant spends about $200 a month on high-end kibble for his Great Dane puppy, Ramona, which he adopted about two months ago.
Mr. Fragoso said he doesn’t plan to change his buying habits after the tax takes effect in a matter of days.
“I knew that owning a big dog like this would be an expense,” said Mr. Fragoso, who believes top-notch dog kibble is important for Ramona’s growing bones. “This tax will affect me, not her,” he said, while Ramona romped around in a dog-filled park in Mexico City’s trendy Condesa neighborhood.
But the bulk of the kibble sold in Mexico is at the cheapest price points, the companies say, figuring that the tax will hit more than one-third of the country’s low-income households.
The tax is expected to spur more Mexicans to use table scraps for pet food.
Veterinarians frequently recommend industrial pet food, saying it is formulated to meet the nutritional needs of dogs and cats for proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, the American Veterinary Medical Association explains in a policy statement on its website. Commercial pet food is also less likely to cause food-borne illnesses, the association said.
“A lot of people count their coins to be able to buy kibble for their animals, because they’re told that’s what’s best for their pets,” said Ana Magalí Canosa, head of community outreach at Cambia un Destino, an animal shelter in Mexico City.
Claudia Pérez, who earns $600 a month working as a nanny, says she’ll continue to feed her five dogs kibble despite the tax. “It’s just easier,” said Ms. Perez, who estimates that she spends $25 a month on a bargain-basement brand for the dogs, several of which she took in from the street.
Animal welfare advocates such as Ms. Canosa are concerned that the tax could lead to more homeless animals, or act as a disincentive to adopt pets.
Several shelters contacted by The Wall Street Journal said they buy the vast majority of the pet food they need. Higher food costs, they say, could mean they help fewer animals.
Tax experts said there’s little hope of overturning the pet-food tax. While the tax may sound silly to some, it adds revenue at a time when the government is looking to raise money wherever feasible.
However, a pet favored by the Mexican elite—horses—will still eat tax free, since the government will exempt livestock feed in an effort to support the agricultural sector.
Write to Amy Guthrie at amy.guthrie@wsj.com
Go here to read the rest: Mexico to Tax Luxury Item: Pet Food
LIMA, Peru—Peru’s military chief resigned on Friday, a few weeks after a political scandal resulted in the departure of other high-ranking state-security officials.
Adm. José Cueto, 58 years old, had served as the head of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces since May 2012. He is replaced by Gen. Leonel Cabrera, who has close ties with President Ollanta Humala, himself a former military officer.
Mr. Cueto became entangled in…
See the article here: Peru Military Chief Resigns
BRASILIA—Brazil is raising taxes on more transactions its residents make abroad, as the country tries to increase government revenue and reduce the outflow of dollars.
Starting Saturday, the tax on financial transactions known as IOF will go to 6.38% from 0.38%, the finance ministry said late Friday.
The ministry said the IOF increase will…
Follow this link: Brazil Boosts Levy On Overseas Transactions
MEXICO CITY—From a Mexican tax on sugary drinks to legislation banning Happy Meal toys in Chile and Peru, Latin America is becoming a laboratory for public policies meant to steer consumers away from processed food.
Since 2012, Peru, Uruguay and Costa Rica have banned junk food from public schools. Ecuador recently mandated a nutritional label system inspired by a traffic light, in which warnings of high salt, sugar and fat content are placed on red circles; lower levels will be indicated on yellow or green circles….
Read more here: Junk Food Feels Heat in Latin America
MANILA—Police said Friday they seized a large quantity of methamphetamines south of the capital, asserting for the first time that they suspect a large Mexican drug-trafficking syndicate has gained a foothold in the Philippines.
The Philippine National Police said three Mexican nationals were arrested and 84 kilograms,185 pounds of methamphetamines were seized in the raid on a game-fowl farm in Batangas, a province south of the…
More here: Philippines Raid Yields Suspected Mexico Drugs
Updated Dec. 27, 2013 6:16 p.m. ET
An authorized cutter saws a sandalwood tree in Western Australia. The Australian
PERTH, Australia—Long valued for its scent by perfume makers and worshipers at Indian temples, sandalwood is proving irresistible to another group: packs of smugglers roaming the Australian outback.
The lure is a surge in prices for sandalwood—an ingredient used in making incense sticks, cosmetics and aromatherapy oils—as demand in major consuming countries such as India and China grows. Illegal logging is rising and product makers are looking elsewhere, including Australia, for sources of a tree some call “wooden gold” for its high value, authorities and industry experts say.
Australian authorities tell of illegal loggers in SUVs and small trucks who cut down the small, bushlike sandalwood trees with chain saws before making their escapes. In their haste, they leave roots and stumps behind, even though these can also can be worth hundreds of dollars.
“Most of the criminal activity involves in-and-out, smash-and-grab-type operations,” said Ian Kealley, a regional manager of Western Australia’s Department of Parks and Wildlife. “But there have been operations where they’ve used machines—small Bobcats ripping trees out of the ground.”
Western Australian authorities have made several seizures and arrests this year as they attempt to clamp down on the poaching. In the latest, police searching three properties in the suburbs of the state capital of Perth last month found 200 metric tons of what they said was illegally harvested sandalwood. The haul’s estimated commercial value of 1.5 million Australian dollars ($1.35 million) makes it the state’s biggest single seizure to date.
Australia ships about 2,000 metric tons of legally harvested wood each year worth A$30 million. Legal plantations have attracted investment from Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds and U.S. pension funds, as global demand for Australian sandalwood rises.
The illegal logging has become so prevalent that Western Australia’s lawmakers are deliberating harsher penalties and boosting resources to prosecute poachers in a continuing inquiry.
Prices for top-quality Indian sandalwood, which has a high content of fragrant oil, rose to more than A$114,000 a metric ton in May from just over A$5,000 a decade earlier, according to the most recent data from Australian supplier TFS Corp. TFC.AU -0.53% TFS Corp. Ltd. Australia: Sydney $0.94 -0.01 -0.53% Dec. 27, 2013 4:11 pm Volume : 61,669 P/E Ratio 5.50 Market Cap $266.64 Million Dividend Yield 6.35% Rev. per Employee $864,210 More quote details and news » TFC.AU in Your Value Your Change Short position Native Australian sandalwood, scattered across Australia’s semiarid hinterland, isn’t as valuable, though a metric ton sells for A$15,000—more than twice the price of copper—up from A$3,000 a decade earlier.
Sandalwood exports from Australia date back to 1844, before the country’s first gold rush and the modern-day boom in iron-ore mining. It now accounts for around 40% of global supply. But officials say the price increase is creating a black market worth millions of dollars, with logs shipped vast distances by road across Australia and concealed on boats headed to Asia for use in religious rites, traditional medicines and even a popular breath freshener in India.
These illegal sales are cutting into the prices legitimate suppliers can charge, says Tim Coakley, executive chairman of Wescorp Holdings, which processes and markets about 2,500 metric tons a year of wild sandalwood as agent for the state’s Forest Products Commission.
“You get this enormous amount of wood being dumped in Asia, which blows the long-established marketing structure apart,” said Mr. Coakley.
Companies harvesting sandalwood legally are taking measures to combat the poachers. Perth-based TFS says it is building fences and installing cameras around its plantations in Western Australia’s Ord River region. “Poaching is a bigger industry than people imagine,” said Frank Wilson, chief executive of TFS.
Police say small-scale poaching has been taking place in Western Australia for more than a decade, but now they suspect criminal gangs have been lured by the high prices. Up to 800 metric tons a year of Australian sandalwood are now being pillaged from conservation reserves, private land and even the sides of roads, authorities say.
Mr. Coakley said the authorities underestimate the impact of poaching activity because they only tally logs—the more valuable sections of sandalwood trees that contain the so-called heartwood. “The logs are only 30% of the tree, so you are talking about 2,500 metric tons as either illegally harvested or left in the bush to rot.”
In October 2012, forestry officials traveled to a remote part of Western Australia’s dusty Goldfields region to survey trees ahead of a legal harvest. What they found instead were scores of stumps, trees with missing limbs and multiple tire tracks.
“It was very brazen,” said Benjamin Sawyer, manager of sandalwood for the Forest Products Commission. “They’d used flagging tape on the road to show people how to get in and out of the area.”
A few months before that, police attending to a truck that had jackknifed on a highway near the southern coastal township of Eucla found it contained a stash of sandalwood logs. When authorities returned the next day, the truck remained but the illicit cargo had gone.
Before the seizure last month, according to Western Australia’s Department of Parks and Wildlife, the state had seized around 170 tons of illegally harvested native sandalwood worth around A$2.5 million since 2011 in more than 20 separate busts.
Sandalwood poaching is now grouped alongside illegal exports of Western Australian rare reptiles and birds as the biggest priority for Parks and Wildlife rangers. Still, Western Australia’s size—a quarter the size of the U.S.—makes tracking and apprehending criminal activity tough. Also, the fines for illegal sandalwood harvest and law-enforcement powers aren’t sufficient to fight such a lucrative crime, some police, lawmakers and wildlife officials say.
Without an overhaul, including tougher sentences for the specific crime, sandalwood poaching is likely “to be an industry of choice for organized criminals, now and into the next decade,” Murray Smalpage, regional police commander of Western Australia, told a state parliamentary inquiry.
Write to Stephen Bell at stephen.bell@wsj.com
Continue reading here: Illegal Loggers Tap Australian Prize
WASHINGTON—The White House is pushing Congress to include provisions in a new spending bill that would change how the U.S. finances the International Monetary Fund and give emerging markets greater influence with the organization.
As developing economies have expanded rapidly, their power within the fund hasn’t grown in proportion. Obama administration officials say those nations need more say at the IMF to encourage them to act…
Originally posted here: White House Pushes Changes at IMF
