Hannah Levintova is a lover of stories—both telling and consuming them—and is an advocate for public broadcasting, golden delicious apples, the Oxford comma, and the em-dash.
A Boston native, Hannah earned her BA at Brown University in Comparative Literature and International Relations. Prior to joining Mother Jones, Hannah worked at The Washington Monthly and National Public Radio.
In foreign policy vocabulary, the word "famine" pretty much functions like an expletive.Two months ago, the UN brandished "the F-word" when it declared two parts of southern Somalia official famine zones. Soon, four more regions were bestowed with the dreaded title.
This curse word of sorts, though, can't be tossed around lightly. Before using it, the UN requires serious number-crunching to show that at least 20 percent of households in an area face extreme food shortages, that acute malnutrition exceeds 30 percent, and that the death rate is more than two people per 10,000, daily. Given its weight, a declaration of "famine" is a serious call for global awareness and aid. And yet, while reports of other natural disasters have jam-packed American news-pages, "famine"— this rare word, for what is supposedly a rare natural calamity—has barely flickered across the daily newscycle.
All this is why Thomas Keneally's latest book—Three Famines—couldn't have come out at a more appropriate time. In it, Keneally, the Booker Prize-winning author of the novel Schindler's List, has set out to prove that famines are borne of man-made disasters, not natural ones.Sure, natural flukes are the starting point, he writes, but it's politics that feed famine's terrifying momentum. If you follow the situation in Somalia—where tallies of the starving are going up, not down, and where Western aid stands blocked by militant group al-Shabaab—you'll get the sense that Keneally’s hypothesis is legitimate even before he's launched into the evidence.
In theory, America's mega rich could pay off all of America's student debt, halve global poverty and hunger by 2015, and replace 70% of money lost in the 2008 recession. Bevy of problems solved, right? Not quite. A study released this week sheds light on why a billionaire bailout isn't very likely. Titled "Social Class as Culture: The Convergence of Resource and Rank in the Social Realm," the report, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, concludes that individuals from rich backgrounds are, to put it simply, more selfish.
The report's authors—social scientists Dacher Keltner, Michael Kraus, and Paul Piff—have done 12 different studies to measure empathy, Keltner told MSNBC, and they keep coming back to the same idea: "Lower class people just show more empathy, more prosocial behavior, more compassion, no matter how you look at it," Keltner says.
EDITORS' NOTE: As of August 12, 2011, this explainer is no longer being updated on a daily basis. You can read on for the basics of what happened during the UK riots, how the government responded, and why the riots erupted in the first place. If you're interested in the very latest, we also have some recommendations for other sources you can monitor listed below. Going forward, major developments will be noted on our main Political Mojo blog.
The basics: On Thursday, August 4, Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four, was fatally shot by police in Tottenham, a neighborhood in north London. Police had stopped the cab Duggan was in to carry out a planned arrest, and Duggan got caught in the crossfire. On Saturday, August 6, crowds gathered for a peaceful protest against police violence, but the calm soon deteriorated into chaos—and it's unclear what sparked the transition. The New York Timesreported:
A statement by Scotland Yard said the flash point came when police cars were attacked at 8:20 p.m. by "certain elements"—a phrase that other police comments suggested meant local troublemakers who used the protest as a chance to act violently. But Tottenham residents talked about rumors of a physical confrontation between a police officer and a 16-year-old girl that enraged the demonstrators.
A raucous, helter-skelter confrontation between hundreds of officers and rioters continued late into the night on August 6. Since then, the turmoil has spread; on Monday, copy-cat riots cropped up in at least eight London neighborhoods, as well as in Birmingham, Liverpool, and Bristol. In each location, rioters are following a similar script: using makeshift weapons to destroy and loot shops and setting fire to buildings. As of Thursday morning, more than 900 people had been arrested in London, and more than 400 were charged with crimes. Metropolitan Police say that 111 officers have been injured.
Why are the riots happening? Media reports and opinionators point to three main causes: racial tensions, high youth unemployment rates, and a desire to loot and profit in the midst of chaos. Al Jazeera columnist Dan Hind's op-ed points out that these causes are pretty intertwined:
So there is no single meaning in what is happening in London and elsewhere. But there are connections that we can make, and that we should make. We have a major problem with youth unemployment. There have already been cuts in services for young people. State education in poor areas is sometimes shockingly bad. Young people cannot afford adequate private housing and there is a shortage of council-built stock. Economic inequality has reached quite startling levels. All this is the consequence of decisions made by governments and there is little hope of rapid improvement.
Somewhat prophetically, a Bloomberg Businessweek graphic titled "The Jobless Young," published this July, warned of youth unrest across the world, including the UK:
Prime Minister David Cameron’s employment minister called chronic youth joblessness a "ticking time bomb."
Here are columnist Darcus Howe and former MP Edwina Currie debating the roots of the riots on BBC Newsnight:
Here is video of Darcus Howe discussing the riots with BBC News presenter Fiona Armstrong on Tuesday. BBC publicly apologized to Howe today for Armstrong's suggestion that Howe was a participant in the violence.
Kurt Volker, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Transatlantic Relations, told Mother Jones that determining one cause for the riots is nearly impossible. "In addition to youth unemployment, I'd also have to point to a general sense of unease," he says. "With austerity cuts, controlling the debt, watching what's happening in the eurozone. It's just gotta be very unsettling for people. You take this element of great uncertainty, and it has somehow turned into this."
Some have speculated that the News of the World scandal fueled a frustration with Scotland Yard that came to a head with the Duggan shooting last week. Volker doesn't think it's quite so simple. "I wouldn't single out Scotland Yard," he says. "I think the Rupert Murdoch thing made people realize there's a whole incestuous, back-scratching elitist class, to use that kind of brazen language. I think that got people. I think that got them saying 'What is all this? There is just no credibility to all this. It's just decrepit.' So this is a little bit more frustration and being fed up with the entire establishment."
What role are social media platforms playing in the unrest? Blackberry Messenger (BBM) is to the UK riots as Twitter was to Arab Spring protests. Though Scotland Yard has been monitoring Twitter for signs of additional riots, multiple reports note that many of the rioters are communicating via BBM. Blackberries are the preferred smartphone of British teenagers, perhaps because BBM's are free—and aren't traceable. And like Twitter, BBMing enables you to send messages to a large audience. Blackberries have become so essential to the rioters that the UK newspaper the Guardian has opened itself up to messaging from the general public so as to better report the news in real-time.
How is the government responding? On Tuesday morning, Prime Minister David Cameron—who cut off an Italian vacation to return to London for crisis management—met with members of COBRA, the UK's emergency response committee. (The name comes from the Cabinet Office Briefing Room, where the team meets). After the meeting, Cameron announced that the number of police officers deployed throughout London would be increased to 16,000 (a 10,000 person jump), that all police leave had been canceled, and that court proceedings would be expedited to ensure that rioters were punished in a timely fashion. The prime minister also said that parliament would be recalled from its summer recess for a one-day session on Thursday. A second COBRA meeting convened on Wednesday morning, where Cameron extended additional resources to police—including permission to use rubber bullets, and plans to make water cannons available at 24 hours' notice (though police have been clear about not yet needing to use one). Police have also activated their "Section 60" privileges, emergency rules that allow them to legally stop and search people in the street. London Mayor Boris Johnson, who was on vacation with his family, has also returned to London early to handle the chaos, as have Labour Party leader Ed Miliband and numerous other officials.
Watch Cameron's statement on the unrest:
What are the locals saying about it?
Natalie Cohen, Primrose Hill resident: "I'm not particularly concerned because we live in an affluent, residential area, so I'm not sure what they would come to loot down here. But we're just completely shocked. When my mother [mentioned the riots on Sunday], I thought, 'She must have misheard something—Why would there be riots going on in London?' ...I heard there were no more cells to put these people in. The whole thing is getting out of hand, really."
Marya Hannun, Hackney resident: "All night last night, we heard sirens going by and helicopters overhead. It felt a bit like a war zone... It seems like there is a general disregard for authority—a sort of 'anything goes' attitude in the areas where the looting has been. It's a problem that people feel disconnected enough from their city and community to cause so much damage and violence. Locals have been pretty angry, but a lot of people are also seeing this as a wakeup call to maybe examine why young people have been driven to the brink this way."
Here is a video of a local West Indian woman castigating rioters for their violence:
Here are some photos of the riots:
A building burns on Tottenham High Street. Joel Goodman/ZUMA
Two women flee the riots in Tottenham. Jules Mattsson/ZUMA
Rioters lit cars on fire and looted shops in Hackney, London. National News/ZUMA
Young rioters run through the streets of Manchester. Joel Goodman/ZUMA
Clapham Junction residents gather to clean up the riots' damage. National News/ZUMA
A police dog attacks a rioting suspect in Enfield. National News/ZUMA
Looters in Manchester. Joel Goodman/ZUMA
Paramedics tend to a young man injured in the Hackney riots. National News/ZUMA
Police arrest a young looter in Brixton, London. Matt Cetti-Roberts/ZUMA
Here is an August 8 video of police and rioters clashing in Woolwich, London:
UPDATE, Wednesday, August 10: A heavy police presence of 16,000 officers in London last night kept the city relatively calm. But the violence continued in other communities, including Birmingham, Manchester, and Gloucester, where there were fewer police to enforce order.
The riots' death toll rose to four after a car ran over three men attempting to guard their Birmingham neighborhood against rioters and looters. The Guardian reports:
West Midlands police arrested a man near the scene and recovered a vehicle, which forensics experts are examining. They later launched a murder inquiry… [A] group of British Asian men said they had seen…the victims flung into the air as a black Audi rammed into them. One, who declined to give his name, said: "Of course it was deliberate. No way was it an accident. The driver went on to the pavement and rammed them. He knew what he was doing."
UPDATE 2, Thursday, August 11: Five days after the riots erupted, England's cities, including riot hot spots in London, Birmingham, and Manchester, experienced their first relatively calm nights. The New York Times reports:
With thousands of police reinforcement on the streets, heavy rain in some areas and residents in some places patrolling their own residential areas, there were no new reports of major violence overnight. Despite the apparent lull, concern was growing about many of the ethnically segregated districts battered by the rampages, particularly Birmingham, Britain's second-largest city, where the police and political leaders worried about a potentially explosive new pattern of interracial violence that could be set off by the past days and nights of mayhem.
During a candlelight vigil for brothers Shazad Ali and Abdul Musavir, 32 and 30, and Haroon Jahan, 19, the three men killed Tuesday night, members of local Sikh and Muslim communities discussed concerns about how to diffuse heightening racial tensions.
Here is a video of the vigil:
UPDATE 3, Thursday, August 11: Starting last night, courts across the UK stayed open throughout the night to deal with some of the more than 1,600 people arrested during the riots. The Guardian is maintaining a detailed list of all riot-related cases and convictions processed so far in the UK court system. A glance at the roster shows those being tried for rioting and looting are mostly male, young, and unemployed.
UPDATE 4, Friday, August 12: The riots' death toll now stands at five after an elderly Ealing man succumbed to his injuries late Thursday night after being brutally beaten during the riots. The Telegraph reports:
Richard Mannington Bowes, 68, died from head injuries days after the attack in Ealing, west London on Monday night. He was pictured lying face down in a pool of blood after being assaulted while trying to stop youths setting fire to large rubbish bins across the green from the flat where he lived alone. The suspect was held in west London on suspicion of murder, rioting and carrying out three burglaries, Scotland Yard said.
The total of riot-related arrests is now around 1,700, but the number is changing. The Greater Manchester Police department has created a Flickr photostream frequently updated with surveillance images of individuals rioting and looting; citizens are encouraged to call and identify anyone they recognize.
Maps and Graphs: For quick context, check out these visualizations of what's going on. HuffPostUK blogger @JosephStash has created a Storify of the Manchester riots, while this map lends credence to the idea that poverty is, at least in part, fanning the riot flames—it shows locations of the riots, superimposed over a map showing neighborhood poverty levels. Click here for an interactive map of where incidents are happening.
How can I follow news about the riots in real time? Use Twitter to follow either #UKriots or #Londonriots. Also, follow Guardian editor and reporter @PaulLewis, who's reporting on the riots and tweeting developments live. For official police updates, follow London's Metropolitan Police Service (@metpoliceuk) and the Greater Manchester Police Feed (@gmpolice). We'll update this post as the situation unfolds. You can find other coverage of the riots at the Guardian and BBC News.
On July 19, 2007, a 33-year-old Chinese immigrant named Hiu Lui Ng arrived at his final green-card interview. Instead of a green card, he got arrested—on a faulty, six-year-old deportation order that he had no idea existed. A year later, Ng died in custody at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island. He had a fractured spine, bruises, a blood clot, and cancer that had gone untreated for so long that it had "spread throughout his entire body," according to court records. Ng received medical care only five days before his death on the order of a judge, after begging—and ultimately, legally petitioning—to get it for seven months.
The grim details of Ng's death would likely never have surfaced if his wife hadn't teamed up with the ACLU to file suit against Wyatt. (The case, if you're wondering, is still ongoing.) Why? Because currently, there isn't a single federal law requiring state-run jails and prisons to report detainee deaths, or what caused them. Not one.
Last week, the House Judiciary Committee moved to change that, approving the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2011. If passed, the law would mandate that each time someone dies in law enforcement custody, the incident's details must be reported to the attorney general. The bill applies to people in the process of being arrested, inmates, and immigrants held in detention centers.
In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama ran down a long list of things the nation needs to do better. Among expected topics, like education and healthcare, Obama noted infrastructure, and more specifically—high-speed rail. Parts of Europe and Russia invest more in their railways than we do, he said, and it's high time we start catching up.
That mission made some headway this week—but not in quite the way the rail industry would have hoped for. On Wednesday, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a legislative hearing to discuss a draft bill that aims to improve high-speed and intercity passenger rail for the nation. How? By privatizing Amtrak.
If implemented, the GOP-sponsored bill would transfer control of the Northeast Rail Corridor—the train web connecting major Northeast cities—from Amtrak to the Department of Transportation. DOT would then oversee a private sector bidding process for high-speed rail projects in the Northeast, and for intercity routes nationwide.
