Six In The Morning

Michelle Obama and the evolution of a first lady
First struggle, then turnaround and greater fulfillment, author says in new book

By JODI KANTOR
Michelle Obama was privately fuming, not only at the president’s team, but also at her husband. In the days after the Democrats lost Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in January 2010, Barack Obama was even-keeled as usual in meetings, refusing to dwell on the failure or lash out at his staff. The first lady, however, could not fathom how the White House had allowed the crucial seat, needed to help pass the president’s health care legislation and the rest of his agenda, to slip away, several current and former aides said.

Tibetans set fire to themselves in China to demand return of Dalai Lama
Self-immolations in Sichuan province come days before talks between Britain and China covering human rights

Jonathan Watts in Beijing The Guardian, Saturday 7 January 2012
A Tibetan burned himself to death and another was taken away by the authorities on Friday as the number of self-immolation protests against China's rule rose to 14 since March, exile groups said . The two cases near Kirti Monastery in Aba, Sichuan Province, come days before Britain and China meet for a human rights dialogue. Citing eye witnesses, Free Tibet said a lay protester called for the return of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, before setting himself alight. The flames were extinguished by soldiers and he was taken away.

Curtain comes down on liberal Hungary
An economic disaster may be averted, but as Tony Paterson reports, a cultural crisis looms large in Budapest

TONY PATERSON SATURDAY 07 JANUARY 2012
In the centre of Budapest yesterday, the number 26 stood picked out in big red letters above the magnificent blue and gold Art Nouveau facade of the city's renowned New Theatre, where Schiller's Don Carlos is on its final run. The number is the liberals' last stand. It tells passers-by just how many days the New Theatre's leftist director, Istvan Marta, has left before he is forcibly evicted on the orders of Hungary's new conservative nationalist government

The Revolution Returns to Egypt
One year after the Arab Spring, SPIEGEL correspondent Alexander Smoltczyk set out on a journey through the Maghreb to assess the changes the region has undergone. On the third and final leg of his journey through North Africa, he ends in Cairo, where the revolution is still underway.


On Dec. 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a young man in rural Tunisia, poured gasoline on himself -- and ignited an entire region. One by one, the people of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya toppled their rulers. One year after Bouazizi's self-immolation, much has changed in the Maghreb. But a lot has remained the same. In places where secular rulers prevailed for decades, Islamists are now trying to seize the reins of power. And many people there are just as poor and hopeless as they were before the revolutions.

Fashionistas flaunt RG Mugabe
Zimbabwe's swag merchants love their Giorgio Armani, Paul Smith and Hugo Boss. Now they are also buying their RG Mugabe.

JASON MOYO
A group of young businesspeople are doing good business selling a clothing line whose label is President Robert Mugabe's signature. On the day we meet at their office, a man has just bought a full kit -- the RG Mugabe golf shirt, the RG Mugabe T-shirt and the cap. The young woman at reception is in a bust-hugging black top, with "RG Mugabe" in silver studs running across her chest. Inside the offices of Yedu Nesu, the company behind the House of Gushungo clothing label, there is R&B on the television and, on the desk, the latest edition of the Harvard Business Review.

Eating Christmas trees at the 'world's best restaurant'
Rene Redzepi is the Willy Wonka of food science, conducting gastronomic experiments so popular that customers fly round the world to eat at his £150-a-head Copenhagen restaurant.

By Stephen Sackur BBC News, Copenhagen
If you have just thrown out your Christmas tree, may I make a suggestion? Next year don't dump it, burn it or shred it - just eat it. Believe me, the needles from your average Christmas fir can be delicious. How do I know? Well I am just back from from the most extraordinary gastronomic journey of my life - the citrusy tang of freeze dried Christmas tree was just one of the surprises along the way.