September/October 2004

Sudan:

Morning bath

Sudanese refugee children seven-year-old Guisama Djamal Ibrahim and three-year-old Araba Djamal Ibrahim take an early morning wash in Bredjing camp.

'In front of my eyes'

Eighteen-year-old Hawa Adam Aboullaye sits in a food queue. She described how her village was attacked.
?The soldiers came on horses, camels and on foot. It was about 2pm and suddenly there was noise and we saw people with guns shooting at us.

?We started to run but some soldiers? shot my father and my brother in front of my eyes.

?My father was still alive, so my husband picked him and ran into the bush, but my father did not survive. My aunt was also killed.?

 

Funnyman

The rather aristocratic Mr Kerry - who is having to counter the allegation that he is aloof and lacking in charisma - may have particular need of a humour consultant to convince voters that he is just a regular guy.

You know, John Edwards and I have a lot in common. His name is John, my name is John. He's a lawyer, I'm a lawyer. He was chosen 'the sexiest politician' by People Magazine. I read People Magazine

John Kerry

But George W Bush, whose problem is seen as more one of goofiness than aloofness, also employs a joke writer - a character who has in recent decades become an integral figure in most political campaigns, and a crucial sidekick if their jokes help win office.

Ronald Reagan's joke writer dates the advent of strategic presidential humour back to, perhaps unsurprisingly, Ronald Reagan.

"Sure, JFK was funny - and very good at the off-the cuff remarks. But it was Reagan who pulled it together, planned it, and used it to push home a political message," says Doug Gamble.

"He set a standard that presidential candidates since have struggled to emulate - they've all had joke writers since."

Reagan's jokes
On age:
I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience

On his work ethic:
I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency - even if I'm in a cabinet meeting

On the deficit:
I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself

The fact that the comedy show has become a political rite of passage may also have fuelled the phenomenon; recent research suggests these programmes have begun to rival main news outlet as a source of information for young people.

But there is little doubt former President Reagan was the trailblazer when it came to the type of jokes employed - perfectly timed self-effacement that took the wind out of his critic's sails on their main hobby horses: his age, his work ethic and the deficit.

And while he managed to ridicule his younger opponent Walter Mondale when the issue of age came up in a 1984 debate with the line: "I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience", he tended to avoid mean jokes.

He wrote a book at Yale, I read one

George Bush

Bob Dole's clever dry wit - rather than being an advantage in the 1996 campaign against Bill Clinton - was ultimately a little too cutting.

"You shouldn't do mean," says Mr Gamble. "Unless you can make it look soft and playful, it doesn't work."

Indeed an alleged off-the-cuff, cutting remark by Mr Kerry shortly after Mr Bush fell off his bicycle earlier this year was quickly deemed off-the-record. "Did the training wheels fall off?" he reportedly quipped.

"Self-deprecation is by far the best option," agrees Mr Baer.

Stealing thunder

It is certainly the one that George W Bush has opted for. Following in Ronald Reagan's footsteps, he has sought to steal his opponent's thunder by poking fun at his own anti-intellectualism, noting once of a prestigious fellow student at his alma mater: "He wrote a book at Yale, I read one," and of his perceived laziness: "I've seen how things can work out pretty well for a C student."

His occasional failure to grasp grammar, his articulation and sometimes curious choice of words have also been the butt of his own jokes. On meeting a Denver hockey player from the Czech Republic, he joked: "He uses unique English to confuse the opponents. Kind of sounds like the strategy I use at the press conferences."

But stealing your opponent's tirades and making a joke out of them can backfire, as Mr Bush learned earlier this year while making fun of the fact that no weapons of mass destruction had turned up in Iraq. "They've got to be here somewhere," he declared as he showed pictures of himself looking under his desk at the Oval Office.

The audience of correspondents found the joke riotously funny that evening. But then came the hangover.

"It was like making a joke about Aids," says Mr Gamble. "You can't make fun of something as serious as WMD.

"But the worst thing is that someone will have spent a lot of time thinking up that joke."

 

Napoleon 'may have been poisoned'

New evidence suggests the French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, did not die of cancer but was poisoned.
According to two French forensic specialists in Strasbourg, tests on five strands of Napoleon's hair preserved since his death confirm "major exposure to arsenic".

The level of arsenic found in Napoleon's hair is higher than seven to 38 times normal amounts and is an unmistakable sign of poisoning

Pascal Kintz, forensic expert

Napoleon, who was born in Corsica, died at the age of 52 on 5 May 1821, on the island of St Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean, where he had been banished after his defeat at Waterloo.

Officially, he was said to have died of stomach cancer.

Poison theory

According to Pascal Kintz, one of the two Strasbourg Forensic Institute's experts, "the level of arsenic found in Napoleon's hair is higher than 7 to 38 times normal amounts and is an unmistakable sign of poisoning".

The analysis was commissioned by Ben Weider, a Canadian millionaire businessman and Napoleon enthusiast who for years has defended the poison theory.

Mr Weider believes Napoleon was poisoned as the result of a conspiracy

Mr Weider, the founder of the International Napoleonic Society, received confirmation from an American laboratory of arsenic concentrations in the emperor's hair five years ago.

A year ago, he presented French journalists with evidence of his claims.

One theory for the presence of the arsenic is that it was found in paint or wallpaper in Napoleon's room on St Helena, or that the local water was contaminated with it.

But the experts ruled this out, saying the amounts showed it must have been deliberately administered.

English conspiracy

Against the opinion of mainstream historians, Mr Weider argues the British governor of St Helena, Hudson Lowe, conspired with French count Charles de Montholon to assassinate Napoleon for fear he would escape from the south Atlantic island and return to France.

But according to others, it was in fact one of Napoleon's aides on the island who gave him the poison, with the intention of making him ill and thus persuading the English to let him back to France.

Napoleon, who rose swiftly through the ranks of the revolutionary French army, proclaimed himself emperor in 1804.

He was exiled a first time to the Mediterranean island of Elba in 1815 before returning for a Hundred Day rule, which ended with defeat by the English at Waterloo, and a second exile.

Mr Weider plans to ask the French Government to open Napoleon's tomb at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris to compare the DNA in the hair samples with that of his remains.