Do you remember those school exercises in which you look at the same news events through the coverage of two or more different newspapers, to show how devices such as placement, framing and choice of words make a big difference in the overall effect of the story? It’s an old-school method but a good one, and for any teachers out there looking for material, a story in today’s New York Times that has gotten picked up in a number of other papers offers a fine case study. Let’s read it together, shall we? The headline is: U.S. Seeks Closing of Visa Loophole for Britons. We begin with the statement of the problem:

LONDON, May 1 — Omar Khyam, the ringleader of the thwarted London bomb plot who was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday, showed the potential for disaffected young men to be lured as terrorists, a threat that British officials said they would have to contend with for a generation.

But the 25-year-old Mr. Khyam, a Briton of Pakistani descent, also personifies a larger and more immediate concern: as a British citizen, he could have entered the United States without a visa, like many of an estimated 800,000 other Britons of Pakistani origin.

The next graf is where the action is. In two tight sentences, it provides the scoop (Chertoff’s recent talks) and describes the problem as a “loophole,” a framing that, as you can see, percolated up to the headline, and thence to other papers, Google News links, and so on.

American officials, citing the number of terror plots in Britain involving Britons with ties to Pakistan, expressed concern over the visa loophole. In recent months, the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, has opened talks with the government here on how to curb the access of British citizens of Pakistani origin to the United States.

We proceed now to some analysis. The article plainly suggests that the reason Britain is resisting Chertoff’s proposals is that accepting them would be damaging to the governing Labour Party. Don’t take my word for it:

At the moment, the British are resistant, fearing that restrictions on the group of Britons would incur a backlash from a population that has always sided with the Labor Party. The Americans say they are hesitant to push too hard and embarrass their staunch ally in the Iraq war, Prime Minister Tony Blair, as he prepares to step down from office.

Continue reading →

Ardy sent us a link to an excellent story in the Christian Science Monitor on the ongoing conflict with the Naxalites in the eastern Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

The story is by Mark Sappenfield, who is also briefly interviewed by another reporter at the CSM. Sappenfield was recently in Afghanistan, but he found the mood in Chhattisgarh actually much more depressing:

War zones can take their toll on the outlook of civilians caught in the conflict. Staff writer Mark Sappenfield was only in Chhattisgarh, India, for 10 days, yet he struggled with the dark mental climate there. In India, fighting between Maoist insurgents and Indian security forces has gone on for three decades (see story). He found Chhattisgarh more depressing than Afghanistan.

“In Afghanistan, there remains a fierce pride and strength of will, ” says Mark. “Perhaps these qualities cause their fair share of trouble, but they also produce an iron defiance in the face of the most terrible atrocities – an unyielding resolution to be unbowed.”

“In the jungles of Dantewada district I saw a people utterly broken. Whereas Afghans looked you directly in the eye, chin resolute, the people at the refugee camp had all but conceded, slump-shouldered and speaking softly, staring at nothing.” (link)

The depression amongst villagers is caused partly by displacement: the intensifying conflict has resulted in thousands of tribals coming out of the forest (where the Naxalites operate) to live in government-run camps. The camps aren’t run very well (malnutrition is rampant), and life for many of the people living there seems to have drifted into a kind of limbo: they can’t go home until the fighting ends, and there is no sign of that happening anytime soon. Meanwhile, their entire way of life has been disrupted.

Along similar lines, check out this YouTube video by Neil Katz, an independent reporter who went to one of the camps in Chhattisgarh, and put together an informative video story on it [update: see Neil Katz’s blog here]. One of the issues that comes up in both Katz’s YouTube video and the CSM story is the controversial role played by the Salwa Judum, a government-backed “peace” movement composed of tribals against the Naxalites. But it’s possible that some of the actions of the Salwa Judum — particularly the clearing of tribal villages, and the resettlement of tribals in camps — have actually exacerbated the problem. Also, it’s not clear how “peaceful” this peace movement actually is. In the CSM article linked to above, Salwa Judum head Mahendra Karma talks about the organization as a “Gandhian peace movement.” But elsewhere he has called for tribal youth to be trained and armed to fight the Naxalites as a kind of paramilitary force. In my view, this would be a dangerous development.

(Earlier SM post on Maoists/Naxalites here) Continue reading →

Remember Kenneth Eng? He’s the young gentleman whose column in a San Francisco Asian-American paper headlined “Why I Hate Black People” caused a certain amount of agitation back in late February and early March. Though it was that article that led to his column being pulled, it turned out that in previous writings he had also lobbed large quantities of idiotic, racist invective at any number of other ethnic and cultural groups — whites, Latinos, Muslims, working-class people, fellow Asians accused of self-hatred — on grounds, apparently, of some combination of inherent inferiority and complicity with some kind of conspiracy to devalue and degrade Asian people in America.

So then the Virginia Tech massacre happens and, returning to the Eng thread here, commenter “A Black Muse” asks the following question:

Ok, now, I’m just waiting for the Cho/Eng connection. Did you read about the disturbing behavior Cho exhibited prior to his rampage? Did it remind you of anyone? About two weeks ago, Eng posted reply to the FoxNews video to drone on about a concept he has no understanding, and in the middle of it states that the killing of cashiers, teachers and lawyers would make little difference to the world as they are people of limited awareness and impact on the world. (wtf?) […] The day after the shooting, Eng posted another video LAUGHING about it and congratulating Cho!

Well, now the connection is complete, per this article in the Village Voice today that contains comments in which Eng gives props to Cho for his actions and suggests that Cho may have read Eng’s “works” for inspiration. Behold: Continue reading →