Cannabinoids and Chromosomes

Bush backfires

Oops! Dubya does it again. Last week’s Diary reported a widespread crackdown on liberal reformers in Iran. With the Revolutionary Court flexing its reactionary muscles, many reformers – accused of seeking to overthrow the Islamic republic – were banged up, the reformist newspaper Norooz was shut down, while the opposition Iran Freedom Movement was banned from existence. This week, the finger of blame is pointing at just one person: George W. Bush.

While no one is accusing Bush of being a member of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Court, or a friend of the Ayatollahs, the idea is that the Commander-in-Chief’s enthusiasm for reform in Iran got the better of him and has backfired. Alluding to the sentiments of Iranian analysts and foreign diplomats, a report in the Washington Post suggests that the crackdown was brought on by Bush’s statement on 12 July, in which he encouraged Iran to move toward “a future defined by greater freedom, greater tolerance”. It seems his words have acted as a fillip for the religious conservatives, who seized on the speech as evidence of an outside plot, one to which Iran’s intellectuals, liberals and reformers were partial. So began the wave of repression.

The Washington Post quotes one unidentified analyst in Iran as saying, “The authorities here – even some of the reformists – interpreted that as interference in Iran’s internal affairs and condemned it.” A foreign diplomat in Tehran is quoted as saying, “At the moment when reformers were coming out stronger, it allowed the regime to concentrate on the ‘external threat’.” And Saeed Laylaz, editor of Norooz, said, “Unfortunately the government of the United States usually chooses action that benefits the conservatives. Every response by the United States on internal Iran issues is to the benefit of the conservatives.”

Ayatollah Khomeini

The tension in the country continues to rise. At the weekend, one hundred and fifty reformist members of the Iranian Parliament issued an open letter, denouncing the crackdown. “We frankly and honestly warn that these policies are drawing the country into despair and causing discontent,” the letter said. “What good will it do to send to prison people who do not think the way you do? … Is there any room left for thinking and questioning?”

Bush’s comments followed the extraordinary outburst of Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri – widely respected pal of the ‘79 revolution architect, Ayatollah Khomeini – who condemned Khomeini’s successors for their “crookedness, negligence, weakness”, and “Genghis-like behaviour”, accusing them of treating Iran as “their private hereditary property”. He argued that, “Now the Shah and America are not in control of this country, we don’t have to blame them.” The comments led to the closing of Norooz, after they were ordered not to print Taheri’s words. They didn’t, but left blank spaces where the story would have gone.

In the following days, thousands of students took to the streets, marching for change. Then Bush spoke, promising that, after the overthrow of the religious clerics, “Iran will have no better friend than the United States of America.”

The conservatives had what they wanted, and took control. Even Taheri issued a call for anti-American demonstrations. “The whole internal debate was heating up,” lamented one Western diplomat in Tehran to the Post. “The last thing anybody needed was some heavyweight comment coming in from overseas.”

(Sources: Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Reuters)

Tadatoshi Akiba

Remembering and forgetting the bomb

To Japan, where criticism of Dubya doesn’t relent. Mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, used this week’s fifty-seventh anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on the city to warn the US President of the dangers of moving the world closer to nuclear war.

Arguing that the events of 11 September made the threat of nuclear conflict much greater, Akiba said that, “Just like the phrase ‘history repeats itself’, threats and possibilities of nuclear wars and use of nuclear weapons are growing as the memory of Hiroshima starts to fade. I strongly urge President Bush to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki… to see for himself what nuclear arms do to humankind.”

As the US debates the possibility of war in Iraq, Mayor Akiba warned the US government against acting as the world’s peacekeeper. “The US Government has not been given the right to impose a ‘Pax Americana’ and to decide the fate of the world,” he said. “In this environment, only the weak become victims, many of them women, children and the elderly.”

The ceremony was attended by forty-five thousand people, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who reiterated his country’s promise not to obtain nuclear weapons. “As the only nation to suffer nuclear bombing in human history, we resolve not to repeat the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to strictly abide by our peace constitution,” he said.

Hiroshima

Mind-bending chemicals

Ever wanted to puff some weed but were freaked out by the prospect of being sent down on drugs charges? Well, the Diary hears you man, and may be able to help.

This week’s New Scientist reports that, “Our brains may do the equivalent of rolling themselves a joint when they want to forget something awful.” In other words, if there is something we would rather not remember, our brains can actively produce their own version of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which, as luck would have it, is the active chemical in marijuana.

Here’s how it happens. When we puff on a reefer, THC binds to the brain’s cannabinoid receptors. These receptors are linked to pain sensations, emotions and movement. Now, Beat Lutz (the THC tambourine man at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich) and his crew have discovered that the brain’s natural version of THC can rid our minds of bad memories.

Cool, huh?

Beat Lutz (this is not made up) and his lab posse experimented on some mice. They found that those doped up on their own brain chemicals were better at overcoming, or forgetting, fear. By hooking up some music to an electric shock, the dudes scared the mice into freezing with fear every time they heard the sound (something by Donovan surely?). The genetically modified mice (those lacking the cannabinoid receptor CB1) stayed scared for eleven days after the shocks stopped. The normal mice (those stoned rodents) were easy man, relaxin’.

Even better than this, it seems that this natural chemical intoxication is stronger than the hit marijuana brings. In other words, there ain’t no point in skinning up – your brain can do it for you, and probably roll a lot tighter.

Now, how will governments get around that one?

(For a more official and scientifically accurate account of this story go to New Scientist or Nature.)

We’re all Middle Eastern now

If Washington is thinking of enlisting European support for US military escapades in the Middle East, they may have an even tougher time than expected. A new study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that most modern Europeans can trace their ancestry back to Middle or Near Eastern farmers who migrated to the continent ten thousand years ago.

In those days, Saddam wasn’t in power but, with the spread of farming across the European continent, many Middle and Near Eastern people were attracted to the economic and labour opportunities available in Europe’s hunter–gatherer communities. So over they came, a mass movement of people, settling and mixing with the natives.

The findings are part of a computer and genetics study looking into agrarian technologies in the region. They come as a result of analysis at University College London (UCL) into modern genetic “signatures”, or mutations on Y-chromosomes. The scientists estimate that Middle Eastern farmers contributed about 50% of the analysed genes to the modern European population. That’s a lot more than anyone had previously thought.

Figures differ between regions. In France, England and Germany, Middle Eastern contributions range from only about 10–30%, but in Greece and the Balkans, individuals have between 70–100% of genes from Middle Eastern farmers.

Could this affect the Common Agricultural Policy, one wonders? And what about those Washington war plans?

(Source: BBC)

(click for bigger image)

Weirder stories

A couple of stranger tales now.

Firstly, it was confirmed this week that more than one hundred New Yorkers stole $15 million from a municipal credit union, after a computer glitch, caused by the 11 September attack, allowed them access to the funds. Some of the beneficiaries were city workers.

So much for civic spirit. The computer problem allowed them to withdraw big sums from cash machines – $500 a day – regardless of whether they had anything like those funds in their account. The problem began just after 09/11 and went on until November. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau confirmed that fifty-five people have been arrested, and forty-six others are being sought.

Meanwhile, a robbery of a different kind in St Petersburg. Six robbers, armed with just one gun between them, raided a medical warehouse this week. After tying up two female employees in the warehouse, they got away with one photocopying machine and one million condoms.

Between six guys? That’s got to mean no more embarrassing chemist trips.

(Sources: AP, AFP)

Quotes of the week

“Even though I am mad, I still think peace is possible.”
George W. Bush airing his views on the conflict in the Middle East after hearing of the American deaths in the blast at Hebrew University.

“We can do better than this in the civilised world.”
The Revd Jesse Jackson on the prospect of a US attack on Iraq and the inevitable “collateral damage”.

“The EU is not all that serious, either. There’s a lot of doubt among member states about whether Turkey really belongs in the club.”
Unnamed EU diplomat quoted in the New York Times. Turkey’s parliament voted on Friday to give preliminary approval to ending the death penalty.

“Corrupt corporate executives are no better than common thieves.”
US Attorney General John Ashcroft.

“There hasn’t been anyone in handcuffs from Enron, and we don’t know the reason why.”
Senate majority leader Tom Daschle asking why, while WorldCom chiefs and others are subjected to “Perp walks”, Enron executives escape the reach of the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“What has been put at risk is nothing less than the future of democratic capitalism.”
Al Gore, writing in the New York Times.

“Is there anything in history not connected to politics?”
Maria Schmidt, curator of Budapest’s House of Terror, defending the museum against the charge that it was a stunt by Victor Orban to gain political capital. Some say the museum – which dramatises the tortures and executions of Hungary’s Communist and Fascist past – is designed to make the socialists look bad. Others say it is a necessary confrontation of the nation’s past. (Source: International Herald Tribune)

“Control has no meaning on the Internet. It would crash like the Berlin wall.”
Shaaban Sahidi, Deputy Minister for the Press at Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. (Source: New York Times)

Contact the Diary editor: dominic.hilton@opendemocracy.net