| Read
BOOKS, TRAVELS and INTERNET. See our new INYT
sections devoted to books, travel and internet
sites. |
| Gore Vidal's
novel published in 1948 was one of the
first to speak openly of homosexulaity
in the USA. Sixty years later this
highly recommendable novel is still a
good read even the the theme no longer
shocks most Western minds. |
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| by John
Minihan, "the man who shot Beckett",
so-called because of his uniquely
personal, black-and-white portraits of
the Irish playwright. Of the 20 works in
this quiet side-show, part of the Celtic
Heart Festival, the three of Beckett are
magnetic character studies among more
informal portraits of Irish writers.
During Beckett's Waiting for Godot
rehearsals at Riverside Studios in 1984,
Minihan followed him into rehearsals - a
tall, slender, aquiline figure, hands
behind his back and one long thumb
upturned - and produced close-up head
shots revealing the elegant beauty and
character in his extraordinary face; he
even drew a slightly bemused smile. The
unmistakable crest of badger hair frames
small eyes as alert as a suspicious
small mammal's, tuned to the mysteries
of human existence. After rehearsals,
Minihan stopped him outside, wrapped in
a cool suede coat, satchel over one
shoulder, and the writer projects a
resigned smile onto a photographer
almost as intense as his subject. A year
later, Minihan's self-portrait on a
Paris street while Waiting For Beckett,
reveals the anxiety of hoping for the
perfect shot. Like his portraits of
Beckett, the image fits his credo: "Good
photography is good literature." |
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'Death in Kovalam' by John Francis Kinsella
Tom Barton, a City mortgage broker, arrives
in Kovalam, India, after abandoning his business in
the wake of the subprime crisis. In his luxury hotel he meets Emma, the wife
of Stephen Parkly, the CEO of a London bank,
West Mercian Finance. Stephen Parkly falls gravely ill with a
mysterious infection and is hospitalized in
a local clinic.
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The disease is diagnosed as
cholera, panic sets in when tourists start to
fall ill with the deadly infection, just as the
tourist season is getting into full swing. TFor all
details please contact:
sumpinein@gmail.com |
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EURO2008 |
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Germany goes into
semi-final after beating Portugal 3-2 |
| Europe is football crazy as the
qualifying countries' teams battle it out for
the cup in the semi-finals. For the first
time England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are
absent from the finals of the competition. The
countries that will be watched by hundreds of
millions of fans will be:
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| Israel and
Hamas agree to six month cease fire
period. Under the terms of the truce,
which is set to begin on Thursday,
Israel will ease its blockade on the
Gaza Strip. At the same time, talks to
release an Israeli soldier held by Hamas
would intensify, an Israeli official
said. |
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The Independent New
York Times will be pleased to receive your
articles and comments. Please contact our
editorial desk at the following address
sumpinein@gmail.com
and we shall endeavour to answer you promptly. |
| The Movement for the
Emancipation
of the
Niger Delta
has claimed responsibility for the attack on an
oil platform in the Niger Delta. this little
known
militant
indigenous people's movement is dedicated to
armed struggle against the exploitation and
oppression of the people of Niger Delta and the
degradation of the natural environment by
foreign multinational corporations involved in
the extraction of
oil
in the Niger Delta and the Federal Government of
Nigeria. MEND has been linked to many attacks on
foreign owned
petroleum
companies in
Nigeria
. |
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We thank all our willing and... unwilling
contributors... |
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Will our banking
system go the way of
Dinosaurs? |
Molecular research places a
non-avian dinosaur in a
phylogenetic tree that
traces the evolution of
species. Scientists also
report that similar analysis
of 160,000- to
600,000-year-old collagen
protein sequences derived
from mastodon bone
establishes a close
phylogenetic relationship
between that extinct species
and modern elephants. With
only had six peptides --
just 89 amino acids -- from
T. rex, sicentists were able
to establish these
relationships with a
relatively high degree of
support. This promises to
establish the T. rex branch
on the phylogenetic tree
between alligators and
chickens and ostriches.
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Barclays is
understood to be in the final stages of
negotiating a capital tie up with one of
Japan’s largest financial groups in a
deal that could see a 100 billion yen
injection of cash for the battered
British lender from Sumitomo Mitsui
Banking Corporation. The capital
injection is expected to take the form
of a private placement of shares that
would leave Japan’s third largest
financial giant with a stake of two or
three per cent in the British lender.
Japan’s largest banks, which have
emerged relatively unscathed from the US
sub-prime mortgage collapse. |
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Will they both share the same fate?
Today almost 100 years after the Titanic
hit an iceberg the world's banking
system is in perilous waters |
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The 100th
anniversary of the Titanic disaster in 2012 is
expected to attract tourists. A life-size
replica of parts of the Titanic could be added
to Belfast's Odyssey Arena if a US-backed
development plan is accepted. Suspended behind
glass, the £64m scale model of the boat would
incorporate a five-star hotel, an exhibition
area and conference rooms. The Odyssey Trust and
Florida-based exhibition firm WLM Inc are
seeking more than £39m in government funding.
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French truckers block motorways to
protest fuel costs |
| Across Europe
truckers and other demonstrators
including taxi drivers, ambulances and
fishery unions have held up traffic in
their protest against rising fuel costs. |
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| The Aral Sea is
disappearing even faster than previously
thought. Since the 1960s, the sea has been
drying up as a result of poor management of
irrigation channels that steal water from rivers
feeding it. Once the area of Ireland, it is now
a quarter that size and broken into two
fragments - the North Aral Sea and South Aral
Sea. Only the smaller North Aral has been
earmarked for rescue and several dams to stem
water loss from it have been build since the
mid-1990s. Meanwhile, the South Aral has been
abandoned, and as it dries up it is wreaking
havoc on the environment. It is leaving behind
vast salt plains, transforming the climate with
hotter summers and colder winters, destroying
what remains of local fisheries, and producing
massive dust storms that spread disease. Peter
Zavialov from the Shirshov Institute of
Oceanology in Moscow and his team have completed
the first hydrographic survey of the South Aral
since the early 1990s. Zavialov's survey shows
it has dropped to 30.5 metres, 3.5 metres more
than predicted. |
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BANKS NOT OUT OF CRISIS |
As FBI
agents arrest Matthew
Tannin, the former Bear Stearns
hedge fund manager, HBOS
annouces more difficulties
related to housing mortgages and
Barclays call on Japanese for
new funding.
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Britain's
biggest mortgage
lender disclosed
yesterday that
it has almost £5
billion of
problem home
loans on its
books as it gave
a downbeat
forecast for
this year's
housing market.
HBOS predicted a
9 per cent fall
in property
prices this
year, up from
its previous
predictions of a
“mid-single
digit” decline,
and wrote down
£100 million on
its own
investments in
the troubled
housebuilding
sector. |
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| War
crimes warning to Robert Mugabe as terror
grows |
| With just a
week to go before Zimbabwe’s run-off
elections – and with the body count
growing – President Mugabe has been
warned that he could be hauled before
the International Criminal Court in The
Hague over the atrocities inflicted on
his opponents. A key Western diplomat,
speaking yesterday on condition of
anonymity, said: “He needs to know he is
moments away from an ICC indictment.”
Twelve bodies of activists, most of them
showing signs of torture, were found
across Zimbabwe yesterday. In New York,
Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of
State, convened a crisis meeting at the
United Nations. She said: “By its
actions, the Mugabe regime has given up
any pretence that the June 27 elections
will be allowed to proceed in a free and
fair manner. We have reached the point
where stronger international action is
needed.” |
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Philemon Chipilyo’s son
was one of four men killed trying to defend his
house from a Zanu (PF) mob. The mutilated bodies
of four young men bore witness yesterday to the
latest atrocities of the Mugabe regime in the
run-up to next week’s elections. The victims
were murdered while defending the home of a
local leader of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), as the campaign of
terror against the opposition reached a new
pitch. |
| Read Sudan Tribune
for Sudan's view of Darfur crisis |
| People
displaced by fighting in Abyei in
southern Sudan wait for assistance and
aid supplies in the village of Agok May
21, 2008. http://www.sudantribune.com |
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