David Cameron puts case for Syria airstrikes

David Cameron has urged MPs to back UK airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria, saying that the terrorist organisation is using the sanctuary of northern Syria to launch plots with deadly intent against the British people.

In a statement to the Commons the prime minister asked: “If not now, when?” Cameron said the UK could not afford to stand aside from the fight and it was morally unacceptable to leave the US, France and other allies to carry the burden.

In a written response to the foreign affairs committee published before he addressed MPs, the prime minister says: “The threats to our interests and to our people are such that we cannot afford to stand aside and not to act. 

“Throughout Britain’s history we have been called on time and again to make the hardest of decisions in defence of our citizens and our country. Today one of the greatest threats we face to our security is the threat from Isil [Isis].”

Cameron says: “The longer Isil is allowed to grow in Syria, the greater the threat it will pose. It is wrong for the United Kingdom to subcontract its security to other countries, and to expect the aircrews of other nations to carry the burdens and the risks of striking Isil in Syria to stop terrorism here in Britain.”

He says all seven terror plots in the UK this year have been directed by Isis or inspired by the group’s propaganda. He claims the terror group has an external operations group dedicated to causing mass casualty attacks around the world. He insists the strikes against Isis will be part of a comprehensive political and diplomatic plan to deny the group space and create the circumstances for an end to the civil war in Syria. 

The aim, he says, must be to close down ungoverned space. 

Cameron’s case was set out in a 36-page memorandum to the foreign affairs select committee, before he made his Commons statement on Thursday.

Cameron said he would not call a vote in the Commons on airstrikes in Syria until he was sure there was a clear majority in favour of action as defeat would be a “publicity coup” for Isis. He told MPs that Britain must judge whether inaction in Syria carried greater risks than action. 

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, did not immediately make clear whether he would tell his MPs to back military action in a Commons vote. A shadow cabinet meeting to discuss the issue was scheduled for Thursday afternoon.

Corbyn warned of “unintended consequences” if Britain got involved in military action in Syria in the same way it had in Iraq and Afghanistan, and urged the prime minister to make clear whether he was ruling out the use of UK forces on the ground.

The Scottish National party’s leader in Westminster, Angus Robertson, said his party’s MPs would not vote for airstrikes in Syria unless they were convinced that there was effective ground support and a fully costed plan for postwar reconstruction. 

But the chairman of the foreign affairs committee – which earlier this month released a report urging caution over Syria – said he was now ready to back military action. Crispin Blunt said: “It is now my personal view that, on balance, the country would be best served by this house supporting his judgments that the UK should play a full role in the coalition, to best support and shape the politics, thus enabling the earliest military and eventual ideological defeat of Isil.”

Cameron told MPs: “The reason for acting is the very direct threat that Isil poses to our country and our way of life. 

“They have already taken the lives of British hostages and inspired the worst terrorist attack against British people since 7/7 on the beaches of Tunisia.” 

Cameron said seven attacks over the past year had been linked to Isis or inspired by its propaganda.

“I am in no doubt that it is in our national interest to stop them. And stopping them means taking action in Syria, because it is Raqqa that is their headquarters,” he said.

He added: “We shouldn’t be content with outsourcing our security to our allies. If we won’t act now, when our friend and ally France has been struck in this way, then our friends and allies can be forgiven for asking: if not now, when?” 

Cameron’s reply also acknowledges that airstrikes have their limits and that ground troops would be necessary to defeat Isis. 

“Airstrikes can degrade Isil and arrest its advance, but they alone cannot defeat Isil. We need partners on the ground to do that and we need a political solution to the Syria conflict,” the prime minister says in the memorandum.

Cameron’s foreword refers to the need for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to stand aside. He says: “An orderly political transition in Syria would preserve Syrian state structures but deliver a new Syrian government, which is able to meet the needs of the Syrian people, and with which the international community could cooperate fully against Isil, as we do with the government of Iraq. 

“But that is not possible for as long as Assad remains in power without any timetable for his departure, and for as long as his security forces murder, torture, gas and bomb his own people.”

He claims Isis “poses a significant threat to the stability of the region, including to the security of Jordan, one of the UK’s key allies. Isil’s offshoots and affiliates are spreading instability and conflict in Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen and Nigeria. 

“In the Middle East, they are seeking to establish their vision of a caliphate across Iraq and Syria, forcing people in those areas to yield to their rule or face torture or death. They have beheaded aid workers, organised systematic rape, enslaved Yazidi women and thrown gay people off buildings. All these atrocities belong to the dark ages.”

In the memorandum Cameron also addresses those, including many in his own party, who say the government should abandon its opposition to Assad’s regime as the lesser of two evils and so focus on the threat posed by Isis.

The prime minister states: ”But this misunderstands the causes of the problem; and would make matters worse. By inflicting brutal attacks against his own people, Assad has in fact acted as one of Isil’s greatest recruiting sergeants. We therefore need a political transition in Syria to a government that the international community can work with against Isil, as we already do with the government of Iraq.”

He also claims there has been diplomatic progress to a wider peace through the Vienna talks process, which has brought together all the key players in the region. “We can now see, through the Vienna process, involving all the key players, a possible pathway – however rocky and uncertain – to a political resolution of the war in Syria,” he asserts. 

Setting out the military contribution the UK can make, he says Isis cannot be negotiated away, and insists there are moderate forces on the ground with which the British air force can ally. He rules out UK ground troops, saying it would inflame the conflict, but says an orderly political transition is not possible without Assad. 

He states: “Although the situation on the ground is complex, our assessment is that there are about 70,000 Syrian opposition fighters on the ground who do not belong to extremist groups.” 

He says: “With coalition air support, Iraqi forces have halted Isil’s advance and recovered 30% of the territory it had captured in Iraq. Only this month, Sinjar was liberated after last year’s Isil rout and mass killing of Yazidis, with the help of vital RAF and other partners’ air support for Kurdish peshmerga forces on the ground. Together with the RAF’s Reaper drones, RAF Tornadoes have flown more than 1,600 missions over Iraq and carried out over 360 airstrikes."

P&G reassessing PR work for baby, feminine care brands

 Procter & Gamble is reviewing its PR, marketing, and media requirements for its baby and feminine care segment, along with a number of its other businesses globally.

The CPG behemoth's baby-care brands include Pampers and Luvs; brands in its feminine care portfolio include Always and Tampax.

P&G’s newly minted director of external communications Damon Jones told PRWeek via email the company is taking a broad look at how it can best leverage agency partners to strengthen its brand-building efforts and drive greater reach, higher frequency, and greater effectiveness at less overall cost.

As part of this, he said P&G is "looking at different options for our baby and feminine care business globally."

Procter & Gamble's move comes after a company spokesperson told PRWeek in August it is slashing the number of agencies it works with globally in PR, advertising, and marketing by 40% to improve spending efficiency across the business.

In April, P&G CFO Jon Moeller said on an earnings call that cutting back on its agency roster could result in cost savings of up to $500 million.

Amid a reduction in its global brand portfolio, P&G also told PRWeek in September it had expanded its global communications team from two directors to five.

As part of the comms team restructure, Jones, who has worked at P&G for more than 18 years, took on his new position on August 1 after serving as Asia communications director in Singapore since 2012.

Jones succeeded Paul Fox, who moved to the newly created role of M&A communications director. Jamie Endaya, previously associate comms director for P&G Asia, took Jones’ former role.

Greg Icenhower transitioned from corporate communications director to executive comms director; and corp comms team member Patrick Blair became associate director of internal communications. P&G also appointed communications director for India, the Middle East, and Africa, Antonio Boadas, as director of global operations.

Jones, Blair, and Boadas – along with Fox and Icenhower, report to Craig Buchholz, VP of company communications. Meanwhile, Buchholz and Kelly Vanasse, who oversees global brand communications, both report to global brand officer Marc Pritchard.

All five comms directors are based in P&G’s Cincinnati, Ohio headquarters.

Another major change at the company occurred in July, when P&G agreed to sell 43 hair and beauty brands to Coty for $12.5 billion, a move Jones referred to in an interview at the time as the company’s "most significant business transformation." The brand cull was a part of P&G’s plan, announced in October 2014, to ax its 100 least profitable brands.  

In September, Giovanni Ciserani became the group president of global fabric, home, baby, and feminine care. He was formerly the group president of global fabric and home care. Before he took on the position, Martin Riant, the global head of the paper products business, oversaw Pampers diapers, Always feminine care and Charmin toilet paper brands. Riant stepped aside on October 1 and retires in June, according to media reports.

Donald Trump under fire for mocking a disabled reporter

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has come under fire for mocking a disabled New York Times reporter during a speech in South Carolina

Trump appeared to imitate Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from arthrogryposis - a congenital condition that affects joint movement - during a speech to his supporters on Tuesday night.

"Now, the poor guy - you've got to see this guy, 'Ah, I don't know what I said! I don't remember!'" Trump said, as he made a crude impersonation of what he felt someone who had a condition that affected their joints would look and sound like.

Al Jazeera's Shihab Rattansi, reporting from Washington, said the incident stemmed from one of Trump's claims that he had witnessed thousands of people celebrating on the banks of New Jersey as the World Trade Center was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"To bolster his claim he used a report in the Washington Post [written by Kovaleski, who worked for the newspaper at the time] that did say police were investigating allegations of celebrations in New Jersey on that day," Rattansi said.

Kovaleski has said since that he does not remember thousands of people celebrating, "and that's what drew the ire of Trump, who then at his campaign rally mocked the reporter, and did an impersonation of how he felt the reporter comes across," Rattansi said.

Various local officials in New Jersey said in the weeks following the September 11 attacks that no celebrations ever took place, Rattansi said.

"According to a former governor of New Jersey - who also sat on the September 11 commission - yes, there were rumours that there were celebrations but these were all checked out and none of them proved true," he said.

Following Trump's impersonation, Kovaleski said he was not surprised by the businessman's behaviour.

"The sad part about it is, it didn't in the slightest bit jar, or surprise me, that Donald Trump would do something this low-rent, given his track record," he was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the New York Times told news site Politico that "it's outrageous that he [Trump] would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters".

Trump's campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has been dominated by controversial comments he has made.

The 69-year-old property mogul, who has insulted Muslims, refugees, Mexicans and blacks on a number of occasions, was widely criticised last week after saying that he wanted a database to track Muslims in the US.

Africa child bride numbers 'may double' by 2050 UN warns

More than one in three girls are married before the age of 18, mostly in poor rural families, it said.

The projection was based on slow rates of reduction and rapid population growth across the continent.

The African Union (AU) wants to set 18 years as the minimum age for marriage.

The AU launched a campaign earlier this year to end the practice of child marriage and its head, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, told the BBC that the practice can "oppress women"

"It's something we are dead against in every country as we don't think children should be wives," she added.

The Japanese Ballerina Who Overcame Critics to Become a Star

In a studio full of professional ballet dancers, it’s harder than you might think to spot the ones who are principals—the highest rank in a company. But there’s something different about Yuriko Kajiya, tucked in the corner of the Houston Ballet’s company class. When she lifts her leg into an arabesque, she holds it there longer than her neighbors; she, not gravity, seems to decide when it’s time to come down. When she turns on the tops of her pointe shoes, she sails around the corner with control.

“She has that ability to take your breath away at times on stage,” says artistic director Stanton Welch, who’s teaching today’s class. “That’s what you’re looking for as a choreographer and a director: somebody who has that unexplainable thing.”

For Kajiya, 31, that magic was hard earned. As a 10-year-old girl, she moved from her hometown of Nagoya, Japan, to China in 1994 to attend the Shanghai Dance School, a government-run institution where students were handpicked from countless applicants for their perfect ballet bodies—the long legs and high arches. Which was a problem for Kajiya. “I didn’t have any of that,” she says.

Kajiya was the only foreigner in her class, and the teachers mostly ignored her. The treatment too was harsh. “In China they weigh you after a weekend,” she says, and the teachers often beat their students with a stick. Trying to fit in, “my identity was lost,” she says. “I wanted to be Chinese so badly … just because I wanted everyone to treat me the same.”

But Kajiya’s position as an outsider only motivated her to work harder. When the instructors began to teach solo variations, “that’s when I started getting addicted to practicing,” she says. “I was a real bunhead.” Kajiya would arrive an hour early to class and leave the studio only when they shut off the lights. “The teacher would say, ‘You know who’s the worst one in class? It’s Yuriko. But she works the hardest.’”

Ballet is an art of delayed rewards, and Kajiya’s started flowing in at age 15, when she competed in the international Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland. Even though she was the youngest age eligible for the competition, she won and was awarded a yearlong scholarship to Canada’s National Ballet School.

By age 17, Kajiya could go practically anywhere she wanted, and she chose the American Ballet Theatre in New York City, one of the country’s most prestigious companies. For the first 10 of her 12 years with the main company, she was the only Japanese dancer. “As a student [in Japan], I idolized all the Japanese dancers who went abroad to go to different companies,” she says. “I realized I had become one of them. I had all these little ballerina girls come up to me and say how they wanted to be like me.” Now Kajiya frequently performs in Japan and makes a point to interact with her young fans. “I want to offer what I have to the Japanese dialogue: what I have learned from ­America,” she says.

Even though Kajiya is one of the most recognized dancers in Japan, she still writes back to every email and fan letter. “It’s very important to me,” she says. Kajiya gained inspiration from the ballet idols she wrote to as a child. “It gave me so much hope and joy. I want to do the same thing, and that’s what I can offer.” Most of her letters come from young Japanese ballerinas, who ask Kajiya everything from why they can’t pirouette properly to why their parents won’t let them do ballet. “She’ll respond, and sometimes we’ll meet these people at a gig,” says Jared Matthews, a fellow dancer who met Kajiya at the American Ballet Theatre and who is now her fiancé. “They’ll say, ‘Two years ago, I wrote, and you wrote back to me. It changed my life.’”

In 2014, Kajiya and Matthews left the American Ballet Theatre to join the Houston Ballet, where they are now both principal dancers. She has a whole audience of new young ballerinas to inspire. “The way dancers really lead, I think, is through their work ethic,” says Welch, and Kajiya’s determination to succeed against the odds is especially motivating. “When you can see someone working and performing and being smart and growing, that is what is inspirational to young dancers.”

As the studio clears out from the morning class, Kajiya slips on a practice tutu and turns to smile at her partner waiting across the studio. Matthews and Kajiya are practicing the wedding scene from Don Quixote before they leave in a few hours for a performance tour of Japan. As the music starts, they turn away from the mirror to dance to the window, the vast open Houston sky their imaginary audience. The real one, full of lots of starstruck ballerina girls, will come tomorrow.

How To Acknowlege Native Americans this Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, you might vaguely remember from elementary school, celebrates a feast shared by the Wampanoag tribe and European settlers the tribe had saved from starvation. It turned out, of course, that the presence of Europeans was tragic for the Native Americans who had welcomed them.
With such a troubled history, how can we talk with our kids about Thanksgiving in a way that recognizes both sides of the tradition? Here are some tips from Dr. Randy Woodley, a Keetoowah Cherokee descendent, Director of Intercultural and Indigenous Studies at George Fox University, and author of Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision.


For young kids, “It’s important to understand that the ‘first Thanksgiving’ was not really the first,” Woodley says. “Native Americans were celebrating Thanksgiving feasts for thousands of years prior to the European arrival. And those celebrations took place many times throughout the year.”
Middle school aged kids can understand their role in the occasion a bit more clearly. “Native Americans were the hosts of Thanksgiving,” says Woodley. “It’s part of our values, to welcome people.” Thanksgiving is still a celebration of hospitality. But Woodley also believes it’s a good time to think about what kind of guests we want to be, either at a feast, or as visitors to a new country.
By high school, the lens can be widened. 

“Feasts, and the hospitality of the Native Americans, can serve as a lesson for inter-cultural hospitality in America,” says Woodley. To him, it’s a natural time “to encourage reconciliation between your family and those who share a different history.” What does it mean to be a host, to extend yourself? This also might be the time to talk about how many Native 
Americans do not celebrate the holiday because of the painful history that followed. “Eventually the story did not end well for the Native Americans,” Woodley says. “We are still waiting for justice and reconciliation to take place. Perhaps over another feast in the future.”

Egyptian Coptic pope pays historic visit to Jerusalem

Pope Tawadros II has arrived in Jerusalem in a historic visit that marks the first time that a head of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church has visited the city since Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.

The website of the Coptic Church in Jerusalem said the pope's only reason for the visit on Thursday was to attend the funeral prayer of the Bishop of Jerusalem Anba Abraham, the head of the Coptic Church in the Holy Land, who died on Wednesday.

The late Egyptian Pope Shenouda III had issued a ban in 1979, in the aftermath of the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, preventing Egyptian Coptics from pilgrimage to Jerusalem while under Israeli occupation. 

Father Boules Halim, the spokesman for the Coptic Church in Cairo, said that the visit was arranged for an  "exceptional situation".

Halim told the AFP news agency that the visit will not change the stance of the Egyptian Church towards the occupation which it historically opposes.

"The stance of the Coptic Orthodox Church concerning travelling to the Holy Lands will always remain the same. The Pope's visit came as an exception," said Halim.

"The position of the church remains unchanged, which is not going to Jerusalem without all our Egyptian [Muslim] brothers."

The Egyptian government does not ban Egyptian citizens from visiting Israel and encourages normal relations between the two countries.

Shenouda III, who was head of the Egyptian Coptic Church for more than 40 years, until his death in 2012,   was against normalising relations with Israel despite the peace treaty between the two countries.