John Lloyd and Åsne Seierstad

It has been four years since Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 of his fellow Norwegians in a heinous act of violence that shocked the world. Joining an audience at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 26 May, award-winning foreign correspondent Åsne Seierstad discussed her new book examining the atrocity, One of Us, with contributing editor to the Financial Times, John Lloyd.

Drawing on extensive testimonies and interviews, Seierstad explores both the psyche of Breivik and the lives of his victims. The book’s title, One of Us, draws on this approach, and is a reference to Breivik and the Norwegian children he brutally murdered in 2011. “I struggled hard to find a title that would talk about both him and the victims,” admitted Seierstad.

The title is also a reference to Norwegian society, from which Breivik remained apart. “It’s important not to portray Anders Breivik as something alien. Being evil is being human. That’s the sad truth,” she said. “What made him, how was it possible? He was one of us.”

The discussion largely focused on the character of Breivik, with Lloyd posing the question of how it was possible for one man to commit such an atrocious act.

“Most of us, at some level, see the ‘other’ is us, we have some kind of empathy… that ceased to happen with Breivik.”

“In his worldview, he’s at war,” said Seierstad. “When he turns his brain into being at war, having a mission, there is no pity because these were not civilians, they were the enemy.”

Drawing parallels with other militant terrorist groups, Seierstad asked: “Do you think the guys in ISIS see the ‘other’ in the people they kill? I don’t think they do.”

“You must have asked yourself, where did the badness come from?” said Lloyd.

Seierstad used the analogy of the perfect storm to make sense of the ‘badness’ in Breivik: “If you had taken out one factor, one degree, one something, it wouldn’t have happened. For Breivik, there’s not one dramatic answer.”

Seierstad described a dysfunctional childhood and life of isolation, in which Breivik was incapable of finding a community to which he could belong.

After his political manifesto was ignored by far-right, anti-islamic websites, Seierstad explained: “He’s thinking, ‘what can I do to be read? I need to do something dramatic.’ He calculates how many people [he has to] kill to be noticed… he ends up killing 77 and he calls that day, the massacre, his ‘book launch’.”

An audience member asked Seierstad about the influence of public figures and hate preachers such as Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.

“These people have a huge influence on Breivik,” said Seierstad. “The ingredients of their ideology, it’s the same at Breivik… I would hold them responsible for inspiring him and making him believe that what he did have followers.”

As the conversation came to an end, Seierstad recalled a letter from the mother of a victim. “She wrote to me and said: ‘I struggled my way through the book. It took me some time [but] I’ve decided that I now see it as a declaration of love towards my daughter and towards the other victims.’”

“Seierstad’s books have told stories that illuminate some part of human life,” added Lloyd. “We need these stories, and the greatest hope for the continuation of journalism is that people will still need to understand the world through narratives.”

Click here for more information about One of Us.

By Nicole Hunt

UN-Arab League Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan is back in Moscow on Monday for a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Despite a Russian-backed agreement signed in Geneva at the end of June, international action on Syria has been slow-moving ever since, despite the US and the UK taking a strong stance against Syria and China just a week later at the Friends of Syria meeting. Annan’s meeting with Lavrov comes on the heels of a reported massacre in Treimsa on 12 July, in which at least 200 Syrians were killed.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton begins a two-day trip to Israel, where she’ll discuss the Middle East peace process with Israeli and Palestinian officials. The visit is Clinton’s first in two years, and comes ahead of a trip by Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney next week; in addition to the diplomatic meetings, Clinton will surely be hoping to shore up some support for the Democrats from wealthy ex-pat Americans in Israel.

Monday also marks the 70th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv roundup, which saw over 13,000 of France’s Jews deported to Germany, where most ended up at Auschwitz. Paris is marking the anniversary with a Day of Commemoration and the release and exhibition of meticulously kept records related to the roundup. The documents had previously been kept secret to hide the extent of the collaboration between French police and the Germans under the Vichy regime during World War II.

Abd al Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al Nashiri, the Guantanamo Bay detainee charged with the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, appears for a three-day motions hearing on Tuesday. Fifteen motions due to be heard, including one requesting that Judge James Pohl recuses himself or is disqualified from the case, one to dismiss the charges, and one requesting that the proceedings are broadcast via traditional media, rather than the military’s current closed circuit system.

Former US President George W. Bush is a contributor to a new book published Tuesday called The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs. The idea of Bush Jr. sharing his thoughts on economic growth has raised some eyebrows among those who remember that the economy wasn’t exactly the strongpoint of his presidency.

The UN Security Council is due to adopt a resolution on the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) in New York on Wednesday, two days before the mission’s three-month mandate expires. Given that the mission has been suspended since 16 June, and in the wake of ongoing violence and the Houla and Treimsa massacres, any renewal is likely to be dependent on a change in the form the mission takes or tougher sanctions on the Syrian regime.

Indians go to the polls on Thursday to elect their president for a five-year term. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee resigned from his post last month in order to run for the UPA party, and now looks likely to win. Mukherjee has been campaigning hard to convince the electorate to follow tradition and vote for whichever candidate their party leaders back, and indeed to make sure he’s the one smaller parties are throwing their support behind.

The month-long Muslim festival of Ramadan is likely to officially start on Friday, though Muslims will begin to observe it from sundown on Thursday. The exact date for the festival’s beginning is still a bit up in the air, as the beginning of the lunar month is dependent on the sighting of the new moon.

Apple’s iPad goes on sale in China on Friday, the launch having been delayed due to a naming dispute with Chinese firm Proview. China is Apple’s second-strongest market (after its home ground in the US), but while the release of the iPhone 4s last year caused havoc, Chinese analysts are predicting the new iPad won’t fare as well, as cheaper, ‘gray market’ versions have been available from Hong Kong for months.

Francesco Schettino, the skipper of the Costa Concordia who has been nicknamed ‘Captain Coward’ after he allegedly fled the ship as it went down in January, is scheduled to be back in front of the court in Grosseto, Italy on Saturday. The court is expected to be presented with the results of the analysis of data from the ship’s Voyage Data Recorders (or ‘black boxes’). Schettino has recently appeared in several TV interviews, most recently apologising for the disaster and admitting to being ‘distracted’ at the time.

The 19th biennial International AIDS Conference kicks off in Washington on Sunday. Bill Clinton, Elton John, Bill Gates, Whoopi Goldberg and Aung San Suu Kyi (via videolink) are among those attending to discus

s the major challenges facing the global response to AIDS and to preview new scientific research. Norway marks the first anniversary of the 22 July attacks, which saw 77 people killed in a bombing in Oslo and a mass shooting at a Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utoya. Right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik , who has admitted carrying out the attacks but claimed they were justified, recently stood trial for the killings; the verdict in his case is expected on 24 August.

On the one hand, Breivik is gaining another bout of publicity for his crimes.

On the other, the journalist’s role is to document a trial which inevitably has attracted significant public attention.

Although Twitter’s use in court is not new, this is a particularly high profile case which also presents a wealth of potential ethical issues for journalists using the microblogging tool to cover the trial.

I have a new article up at Index on Censorship which explores some of the issues.

Head over there to read more. 

By Nicole Hunt

This week’s roundup includes no fewer than eight elections at all levels of government, beginning with a leadership ballot for Australia’s Labor Party on Monday. Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the snap ballot on Thursday after the sudden resignation of Foreign Minister (and former PM) Kevin Rudd amid allegations of infighting and leadership coups. Gillard has said she expects the support of her party, but will retreat to backbench politics if she loses the ballot.

If you feel like there’s a US Republican primary every week, you’re probably not far off. On Tuesday, Arizona and Michigan take their turns at choosing who they want to lead the party into battle against Barack Obama. So far, Mitt Romney is leading the pack with a delegate count of 91 to Newt Gingrich’s 32, Ron Paul’s nine and Rick Santorum’s four, but as the winner needs 1,144 delegate votes to win, everyone still has a long way to go.

The Pakistani Supreme Court is going through what one might call a bit of a busy period at the moment, handling two high profile, national interest cases. The first, which has seen Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani charged with contempt of court over his decision not to investigate corruption among politicians (including President Asif Ali Zardari) after passing a controversial amnesty law in 2007, is back in court on Tuesday, with Gilani’s defence lawyer’s expected to make representations.

The second case is in court on Wednesday, and addresses allegations that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, better known as the ISI, distributed $6.5 million to opponents of the Pakistan Peoples Party in what amounts to vote-rigging in the 1990 election. The much-feared ISI is also facing a separate case involving 11 men it allegedly abducted from Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail in May 2010; the spy agency is being asked to explain the mysterious deaths of four of the detainees over the past six months.

Two psychiatrists asked to assess the mental health of Anders Behring Breivik, who admitted to carrying out the deadly 22 July attacks in Oslo and Utoya, are due to begin their four-week psychiatric evaluation on Wednesday. The experts have been asked to report back on Breivik’s mental state by 10 April, just days before he is due to stand trial. A November evaluation declared Breivik insane and unfit to stand trial.

On a day that only comes once every four years, the European Central Bank offers up something unusual, too – a 36-month longer-term refinancing operation (LTRO), one of three announced in December as part of emergency measures to support bank lending and market activities.

The success (or otherwise) of the LTRO will feed into what’s sure to be the now-customary high-pitched frenzy ahead of Thursday’s European Council meeting, at which the participating member states (that is, everyone besides the UK and the Czech Republic) are planning to sign the new fiscal responsibility treaty. The Council is also carrying out a review of the European Financial Stability Facility’s €500bn lending capacity.

Villagers in Wukan, China, hold a democratic election to choose their new village committee, unusual in China even at this level of politics. The villagers, who held unprecedented protests in December last year after a man negotiating a land dispute with authorities died in custody, had a practice run in February when they voted for the committee that would oversee Thursday’s polls.

Back to Pakistan on Friday, where the country elects 54 of the 104 members of the Senate for six year terms. The remaining 50 members are safe in their seats for another three years, when the other half of the Senate is up for grabs. Four new seats, which are reserved for minorities, have been added for this round of votes, which some hope will be followed quickly by parliamentary polls.

Iranians also go to the polls on Friday, to elect the 290 members of the Majlis for four-year terms. The election is the first national poll since controversial 2009 presidential elections, which saw the emergence of the opposition Green Movement, a subsequent crackdown on dissent, and disputed results. Reformist candidates will be hoping to beat the 51 seats won in the 2008 elections, especially as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to appear before Parliament for questioning over alleged mismanagement of the economy sometime soon.

France’s Constitutional Council is due to rule by Friday on a challenge lodged by two groups of MPs and Senators against a law criminalising denial of the Armenian genocide. The law was passed by the Senate on 23 January, but on 31 January was referred to the Council for a ruling on its validity. The Council is due to rule within one month.

Prince Harry begins a Caribbean tour as part of the Royal Family’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. I think most people would envy him this business trip, which kicks off in Belize, and takes in the Bahamas and Jamaica before wrapping up in Brazil on 9 March.

On Saturday, a Cairo court is due to rule on charges against Free Egyptians Party founder and telecoms mogul Naguib Sawiris, who is accused of defamation and contempt of Islam over a picture he posted last summer depicting Mickey and Minnie Mouse in traditional Muslim garb.

The last of five local elections scheduled in India this quarter takes place in Goa three days before the results for all five are due to be announced. Elections have already taken place in Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Punjab, and Uttarakhand; elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are expected later this year. The local elections are being closely watched as an early barometer of party support ahead of 2014 general elections.

The last election of the week is also the biggest, as Russia gears up to elect its next President on Sunday. While the election of former President/current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is basically a foregone conclusion, the recent spate of anti-government protests and anti-Putin rhetoric means that Putin might find his vote percentage closer to the 52 per cent he received in his first election in 2000 than the 71% he managed in 2004.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Barack Obama is scheduled to address the annual American Israeli Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) policy conference. At last yea
r’s meeting, Obama famously and controversially referred to a two-state solution based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, borders which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later called ‘indefensible’.

By Nicole Hunt

Towards Healing and Renewal, the Catholic Church’s four-day long symposium on sexual abuse within the Church, begins on Monday in Rome. The conference brings together over 200 representatives from bishops’ conferences and other religious orders, as well as doctors, theologians and child abuse specialists.

Anders Behring Breivik is in court in Oslo again, for what will probably be a routine remand hearing ahead of his trial in April. Breivik is scheduled to stand trial on 16 April, pending a psychiatric report due some time before then. An initial assessment declared Breivik insane and unfit to stand trial.

This week also sees two back-to-back big anniversaries in the UK: Queen Elizabeth marks 60 years since her accession to the throne in 1952 on Monday, while the country marks 200 years since the birth of Charles Dickens on Tuesday.

Italy’s Constitutional Court convenes in Rome on Tuesday to hear a motion brought by the Senate requesting that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s trial for abuse of power and paying for underage sex be moved from Milan to a special minister’s court. The motion was passed by the Senate on 14 September, 2011, when Berlusconi still headed the government.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg issues its judgement on two cases involving media coverage of celebrities. One of the cases was brought by Princess Caroline of Monaco and her husband Prince Ernst August von Hannover, challenging the publication of photos of their family under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects the right to respect for family and private life.

News Corporation announces its second quarter results on Wednesday, covering October to December 2011. During that period, the company faced threats of a revolt against James Murdoch at its AGM in October, allegations that it tried to bribe an Australian Senator, and calls to reform a stock structure that ‘disenfranchises’ the vast majority of News Corporation’s shareholders.

The Pakistani Supreme Court Commission investigating the ‘memogate‘ scandal sits in Islamabad on Thursday, hearing further evidence from Mansoor Ijaz, the man who revealed the existence of the memo, in which President Asif Ali Zardari appears to offer increased cooperation with the US in return for staving off a coup by military figures.

The European Central Bank’s Governing Council meets in Frankfurt to decide whether to raise, lower or maintain the euro zone’s interest rate. At last month’s meeting, the Council decided to maintain the record-low rate of one per cent.

In Frankfurt on Friday, a verdict is expected in the case of Kosovan Arid Uka , who is charged with two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder in connection with the 2 March, 2011, shooting of US soldiers outside Frankfurt airport.

Meanwhile, two men on trial for the November 2010 murder of British honeymooner Anni Dewani are before a Cape Town court. Mziwamadoda Qwabe and Oxlile Mngeni are charged with murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances and kidnapping; Zola Tongo has already been tried for his role in the killing, while Dewani’s husband Shrien, who is accused of arranging his new wife’s death, is awaiting an extradition judgement in the UK.

Saturday sees the celebration of two successful revolutions, though the celebrations are expected to be quite different. Iranians celebrate Victory of the Revolution Day, the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s monarchy, typically with mass rallies and parades.

Though mass rallies are likely in Cairo to mark the one year anniversary of the resignation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after 17 days of protests, celebrations may be muted in the aftermath of the football tragedy. Demonstrations in recent months have been increasingly angry with the speed of the handover from military to civilian rule, a fact likely to be exacerbated by the failure of security services to stop the football violence.

Presidential elections take place in Turkmenistan on Sunday. Incumbent Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow stands for a second term against a number of candidates – all members of the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, the only party in town.

Venezuelans also go to the polls to choose which opposition candidate will face off against Hugo Chavez in the country’s 7 October election. Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles is currently the front-runner to lead the Democratic Unity coalition.

Finally, the Africa Cup of Nations tournament wraps up as the final takes place in Libreville, Gabon.