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| Middle East company to launch Muslim newspaper in UK Pakistan's ARY is backing the liberal weekly title, to be based in London and aimed at the worldwide Muslim diasporaA media company based in the Middle East is launching a London-based weekly newspaper aimed at Muslim people across the world.The paper, which is backed by the Pakistani pay-TV operator ARY Digital and will be able to tap its network of reporters covering south Asia, is earmarked to launch early in the new year.ARY, known for broadcasting the Pakistani version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, also broadcasts to several Gulf states and in North America and the UK, where it launched in 2000 as the Pakistani Channel on Sky.The paper, which does not yet have a name, will be edited by Burhan Wazir, a former deputy features editor at the Times who was named young journalist of the year in 1999.Wazir is a former executive at the National, the English-language newspaper based in Abu Dhabi launched by former Telegraph editor Martin Newland.He launched a weekend edition of the National two years ago, leaving London for Abu Dhabi and recruiting more than 40 journalists.Wazir said the title, which will also be published in Pakistan and several Gulf states, will serve the Muslim diaspora in the countries where it is available.It will be a liberal title aimed at a young and relatively affluent readership aged between 20 and 45, including second- or third-generation British Muslims.Wazir added that its target audience of young readers with Muslim backgrounds will share a modern, cosmopolitan outlook. "I suppose you could say they have a foot in both camps," he said.Plans are at an early stage and negotiations with distributors are ongoing, but Wazir said the title should be on sale in around four months' time.British titles aimed at a south Asian audience include Eastern Eye, which was saved from bankruptcy last year when Asian Media & Marketing Group bought it from its administrators. It is aimed primarily at the UK's immigrant population from across the region, however.Wazir said the new title will have a different focus with a more international outlook and upmarket content.He will be hiring reporters and production staff to cover Britain, continental Europe, the US and the Middle East, including at least six reporters based in the UK.It will have a large freelance base elsewhere and will draw on ARY's existing network of more than 100 reporters who cover south Asia.Wazir could not give details of the amount of money ARY is investing.ARY Digital is owned by Haji Abdul Razzak Yaqoob, a Pakistani businessman based in Dubai whose other business interests include banking and retail. ARY Digital also holds a licence to distribute VH1 and operates a news channel in Pakistan. ARY News also has an English-language website. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".NewspapersNewspapers & magazinesTelevision industryPakistanJames Robinsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Barack Obama effect makes it tough for Democrats in midterm elections Difficult economic conditions and disappointment at the US president's record point to a bleak outcome for the partyAround three years ago, Joe Perez quit trying to restore his three period-piece Chevys (a 52 and two 68s) and dedicated himself to mending America's politics instead. After seeing Barack Obama's address to the Democratic convention in 2004 he pledged he would join the campaign if he ever ran for president."I liked his words of inclusion," says Perez, a Latino born in Nebraska. "That's all I ever wanted, was to be an American. I've been called every derogatory name under the sun but I never felt personally included as an American."Then along came Obama. Soon after he announced he would be running, Perez cleared the garage of his cars and turned it into the hub of the local Obama campaign in Greeley. People he'd never seen involved in politics before flocked to his back garden, to work phones and lick envelopes in the garage – one of the first activists' centres in the state and probably the country.This year's midterm elections are proving much tougher, he concedes. Some people have been impatient, the Republicans left the country in a mess and are massively outspending Democrats, and the nation's problems do not fit neatly into soundbites, he says. It's not fair or reasonable to blame Obama, he insists. The polls are wrong. People will come around.Perez is a believer. The walls of his garage are plastered with Obama's campaign posters and a large cut-out of the President stands in the corner. He feels more is being asked of the president than any one human being can reasonably deliver. For every question about the president's inadequacies he has an answer rooted in someone else's mistakes. Unfortunately for Democrats, compared to two years ago, there are relatively few like him. People aren't coming around.In the race for Colorado, Senate Ken Buck, a Tea Party Republican, holds a narrow lead over the Democrat, Michael Bennett. In Perez's congressional district the incumbent Democratic candidate, Betsy Markey, is trailing so badly that the day before I met him the party wrote her seat off as a lost cause and stopped channelling funds her way.It's not difficult to see why. Last month saw a record number of foreclosures with the repossession of 100,000 homes by banks; last week saw claims for unemployment benefit rise. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are still serving and dying. Despite financial regulation, Wall Street is poised to pay itself billions in bonuses; despite health care reform, millions are still not covered. Some of the more long-term benefits to his agenda have not yet kicked in; some of the short-term benefits have not been that great. In Chafee County, a Republican stronghold where Democrats came within 13 votes of winning two years ago, activist Tom Thomas admits his most persuasive argument to reluctant Democrats this year is possibly his weakest. "I tell them look at who's going to get in if we don't win." Some Democratic candidates have started to run ads distancing themselves from the President. When asked what grade they would give Obama if they were his teacher, even his most ardent supporters give him a C.There are two popular answers to the question: "What happened to the euphoria of 2008?" The first is that Obama promised more than he could deliver. His rhetoric made people hope change was imminent, his administration has now shown them how limited the scope for change really is."It was my first time voting," said a student outside the Colorado senatorial debate last week. "I was campaigning for Obama and helping him get the vote out. I grew up under Bush. During my entire conscious life politics sucked. Finally something really exciting happened. But it didn't deliver as much as I expected it to."The second is that people expected more than was possible. On Thursday, a student in a town hall meeting asked Obama why he had not ushered in a post-racial society. A few weeks ago Velma Hart was asked whether her hopes in the president were realistic after she told him: "I'm exhausted defending you."She answered: "Absolutely. It took decades to get here. He's only been in office for two years. But I guess I started to believe, on some small level, that he had a magic wand."Obama's dilemma can be exaggerated. Over the last few weeks he has held huge rallies across the country in an attempt to galvanise his base and has been enthusiastically received. He remains by far the most popular serving politician in the US and is in similar shape to Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan at this time in their first term. He is also more popular than his own party, the Republican party and any potential Republican contender. Some at least are keen to couch their disappointment in context to what he followed. "He took over a sinking ship," said one man in Greeley. "You can't expect one guy to plug all the holes." Unlike George Bush in 2006 Obama is not yet toxic throughout the country.Nonetheless, the unique coalition that Obama built to cruise to victory two years ago is crumbling. Back in 2008 he received the vote of 97% of Blacks, 67% of Latinos, 63% of Asian Americans and 67% of white union members. In galvanising large numbers of new people to go to the polls he also transformed the electorate. Blacks voted in greater numbers by 14%, Latinos by 25% and young people aged between 18 and 29 by 25%.Now that electoral alliance is falling apart. In 2008, 62% of young people between 18 and 29 aligned themselves with the Democrats compared with 30% for Republicans. By the end of last year that 32-point lead had shrunk to 14 points. Just 44% of college students approve of Obama's performance today compared with 60% in May last year. While the Democrats have maintained their lead among Latinos, far fewer of them appear likely to vote than Latino Republicans. Paradoxically the group among which he does best – black Americans – is also the group that has fared worst under his tenure. Unfortunately for Democrats, America's black population happens to be underrepresented in the states and seats that are up for grabs.When it comes to the breadth of support the Democrats fare respectably well. A recent Gallup poll of registered voters gave the Republicans a three-point lead. But when the issue turned to who was most likely to show up to vote, the Republican advantage leapt to double figures. That discrepancy is what has become known as the "enthusiasm gap".The good news for Democrats is that their supporters are not going over to the Republicans. The bad news is they aren't necessarily going to the polls, either. So the task between now and election day is not so much political as organisational and presentational. They have a receptive audience; they have not yet found a way to captivate them. They have to reframe the last two years not as the dispiriting end of a lost opportunity but the tough beginning of a transformational period.That won't be easy. Sandy Wilson works in advertising in Colorado Springs and now fears the Democrats may have sold her a bill of goods when she voted for Obama. "The campaign did a great job of getting me excited and looking forward to four more years," she says. "But for the most part I've been underwhelmed. I haven't seen any of the changes and the hope that he had promised."Wilson (not her real name) knows she won't vote Republican. Whether she votes at all, however, is entirely another matter. Is there anything Obama could say to persuade her one way or another? Wilson pauses."No," she says.US midterm elections 2010Barack ObamaDemocratsRepublicansUS politicsUnited StatesUS economyEconomicsGary Youngeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Moscow Permits Small Rally Moscow city officials delivered a concession to a growing opposition movement by giving permission for a rally by up to 200 people, just five days after the Kremlin installed a new Moscow mayor. online.wsj.com |
French depots 'clear of strikers' Strikes end at three oil terminals and all of France's fuel depots are said to be cleared of protesters as the government's pension reforms are set to become law. bbc.co.uk |
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