Water, Now Fire, and Shore Nightmare Goes On Seaside Heights and Seaside Park Reel From 2nd Blow

¶Nick Dionisio is a third generation Boardwalk guy. Having peeled shrimp as a 7-year-old in his grandfather’s clam bar, he decided to go into banking, but when the markets collapsed came back to what he knew, pulling his father out of retirement to help him start a fried-fish place, and then another a little more upscale.¶He was still trying to make up the cost of starting the businesses when Hurricane Sandy hit 10 months ago, flooding them with nine feet of water and ruining expensive equipment. His father died unexpectedly just weeks later. The electricity and gas were restored only five days before Memorial Day, the weekend when Boardwalk places typically make up much of their rent. Summer business was terrible, with so many renters and tourists staying away. Still, Mr. Dionisio kept going, because he loved it.¶The fire in the Jersey Shore towns of Seaside Park and Seaside Heights on Thursday did to his restaurants what the hurricane had not: It destroyed them.¶Flames ravaged about five blocks of boardwalk in the two towns, which had been among those hardest hit by the storm. As Mr. Dionisio and other business owners surveyed the rubble on Friday, they struggled to summon what it would take to start over so soon after starting over.

¶“It’s like someone who’s in a war,” said Mr. Dionisio, 34, the owner of the two Park Seafood stalls on the Seaside Park Boardwalk. “After a time, they’re so used to seeing destruction, they become numb to it.”¶“Everything has been a bad dream already,” he added in a phone interview. “To have this happen, it hasn’t even hit me yet. This sums up how awful this year has been. It doesn’t get any worse than what it is right now.”¶Investigators had roped off the scene with yellow police tape and declared it a crime scene, though the governor and local officials would not go so far as to speculate that the blaze was arson. They said only that the cause was unknown, and that the fire, which apparently began in an ice cream shop, had been fueled by tar roofs and unusually strong winds.

¶Officials estimated the fire had damaged between 30 and 50 businesses. “Places where decades of memories were built for families are destroyed,” Gov. Chris Christie said in a morning news conference — beloved institutions like Jack-N-Bills Bar, Maruca’s Tomato Pies, Berkeley Sweet Shop, and countless balloon and souvenir stands.¶Mr. Christie vowed to “get aggressive and rebuild,” as he did when he visited Seaside Heights in October and declared the Jersey Shore of his childhood gone. “I will not permit all the work we’ve done over the last 10 months to be diminished or destroyed by what happened last night,” he said.¶But those left said they were not sure how they could.¶“I have it in me to do it,” said Mr. Dionisio, who is married and has two children younger than 3. “Financially, I don’t know if I can make it happen. You spend all this money and then this happens, it doesn’t seem you can catch a break.”

¶Officials in the two towns said they were lucky that no one had died — on weekends, the Boardwalk adjoining their beaches can be filled with tens of thousands of people; the fire happened just weeks after families had departed for the start of school.¶And the continuing work to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy provided a small saving grace: construction equipment that had been in use nearby was moved up the beach to cut the 25-foot-wide trench that finally halted flames that had burned for nearly six hours.

¶“I’m not going to say it doesn’t get old,” said Bill Akers, the mayor of Seaside Heights. “The only good thing about it is, when we went through it the first time, we were flying by the seat of our pants because no one had been through anything like that.” This time, Mr. Akers said, the towns have engineering plans to rebuild the boardwalks, and lumber companies and builders are already engaged.¶But it would be easier, he acknowledged, to rebuild the boards than to re-create the businesses, many of which did not have fire insurance.¶“I know a lot of people who put themselves back together after Sandy went into their own resources,” he said. “That’s kind of running dry right now.”

¶

Girl’s Suicide Points to Rise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies

MIAMI — The clues were buried in her bedroom. Before leaving for school on Monday morning, Rebecca Ann Sedwick had hidden her schoolbooks under a pile of clothes and left her cellphone behind, a rare lapse for a 12-year-old girl.Inside her phone’s virtual world, she had changed her user name on Kik Messenger, a cellphone application, to “That Dead Girl” and delivered a message to two friends, saying goodbye forever. Then she climbed a platform at an abandoned cement plant near her home in the Central Florida city of Lakeland and leaped to the ground, the Polk County sheriff sIn jumping, Rebecca became one of the youngest members of a growing list of children and teenagers apparently driven to suicide, at least in part, after being maligned, threatened and taunted online, mostly through a new collection of texting and photo-sharing cellphone applications. Her suicide raises new questions about the proliferation and popularity of these applications and Web sites among children and the ability of parents to keep up with their children’s online relationships.

For more than a year, Rebecca, pretty and smart, was cyberbullied by a coterie of 15 middle-school children who urged her to kill herself, her mother said. The Polk County sheriff’s office is investigating the role of cyberbullying in the suicide and considering filing charges against the middle-school students who apparently barraged Rebecca with hostile text messages. Florida passed a law this year making it easier to bring felony charges in online bullying cases.

Rebecca was “absolutely terrorized on social media,” Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County said at a news conference this week.Along with her grief, Rebecca’s mother, Tricia Norman, faces the frustration of wondering what else she could have done. She complained to school officials for several months about the bullying, and when little changed, she pulled Rebecca out of school. She closed down her daughter’s Facebook page and took her cellphone away. She changed her number. Rebecca was so distraught in December that she began to cut herself, so her mother had her hospitalized and got her counseling. As best she could, Ms. Norman said, she kept tabs on Rebecca’s social media footprint.

It all seemed to be working, she said. Rebecca appeared content at her new school as a seventh grader. She was gearing up to audition for chorus and was considering slipping into her cheerleading uniform once again. But unknown to her mother, Rebecca had recently signed on to new applications — ask.fm, and Kik and Voxer — which kick-started the messaging and bullying once again.“I had never even heard of them; I did go through her phone but didn’t even know,” said Ms. Norman, 42, who works in customer service. “I had no reason to even think that anything was going on. She was laughing and joking.”

Sheriff Judd said Rebecca had been using these messaging applications to send and receive texts and photographs. His office showed Ms. Norman the messages and photos, including one of Rebecca with razor blades on her arms and cuts on her body. The texts were full of hate, her mother said: “Why are you still alive?” “You’re ugly.”One said, “Can u die please?” To which Rebecca responded, with a flash of resilience, “Nope but I can live.” Her family said the bullying began with a dispute over a boy Rebecca dated for a while. But Rebecca had stopped seeing him, they said.

Rebecca was not nearly as resilient as she was letting on. Not long before her death, she had clicked on questions online that explored suicide. “How many Advil do you have to take to die?”

In hindsight, Ms. Norman wonders whether Rebecca kept her distress from her family because she feared her mother might take away her cellphone again.

“Maybe she thought she could handle it on her own,” Ms. Norman said.

It is impossible to be certain what role the online abuse may have played in her death. But cyberbullying experts said cellphone messaging applications are proliferating so quickly that it is increasingly difficult for parents to keep pace with their children’s complex digital lives.

“It’s a whole new culture, and the thing is that as adults, we don’t know anything about it because it’s changing every single day,” said Denise Marzullo, the chief executive of Mental Health America of Northeast Florida in Jacksonville, who works with the schools there on bullying issues.

No sooner has a parent deciphered Facebook or Twitter or Instagram than his or her children have migrated to the latest frontier. “It’s all of these small ones where all this is happening,” Ms. Marzullo said.In Britain, a number of suicides by young people have been linked to ask.fm, and online petitions have been started there and here to make the site more responsive to bullying. The company ultimately responded this year by introducing an easy-to-see button to report bullying and saying it would hire more moderators.“You hear about this all the time,” Ms. Norman said of cyberbullying. “I never, ever thought it would happen to me or my daughter.”

Questions have also been raised about whether Rebecca’s old school, Crystal Lake Middle School, did enough last year to help stop the bullying; some of it, including pushing and hitting, took place on school grounds. The same students also appear to be involved in sending out the hate-filled online messages away from school, something schools can also address.

U.S. and Russia Reach Deal to Secure Syria’s Chemical Arms

GENEVA — The United States and Russia have reached an agreement that calls for Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.Under a “framework” agreement, international inspectors must be on the ground in Syria by November, Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a news conference with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. In addition, Syria must submit a “comprehensive listing” of its chemical weapons stockpiles within a week.

American and Russian officials also reached a consensus on the size of Syria’s stockpile, an essential prerequisite to any international plan to control and dismantle the weapons.“If fully implemented,” Mr. Kerry said, “this framework can provide greater protection and security to the world.”If President Bashar al-Assad of Syria fails to comply with the agreement, the issue will be referred to the United Nations Security Council.Mr. Kerry said that any violations would then be taken up under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which authorizes punitive action. But Mr. Lavrov made clear that Russia, which wields a veto in the Security Council, had not withdrawn its objections to the use of force.

The joint announcement, which took place on the third day of intensive talks here, eased the United States’ confrontation with Syria.Arms control officials on both sides worked into the night, a process that recalled the treaty negotiations during the cold war.The issue of removing Syria’s chemical arms broke into the open on Monday when Mr. Kerry, in a news conference in London, posed the question as to whether Mr. Assad could rapidly be disarmed only to state that he did not see how it could be done.

“He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that,” Mr. Kerry said. “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.”

Now, however, what once seemed impossible has become the plan — one that will depend on Mr. Assad’s cooperation and that will need to be put in place in the middle of a civil war.Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov had a series of meeting on Friday, including a session that ended at midnight. On Saturday morning, the two sides reconvened with their arms controls experts on the hotel pool deck, sitting under a white umbrella drinking coffee as they pored over the text of the agreement.Before the news conference, Mr. Lavrov said that he had not spoken with Syrian officials while he was negotiating in Geneva. Obama administration officials say the Russia’s role was critical since it has been a major backer of the Assad government.Entitled “Framework For Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons,” the agreement is four pages, including its technical annexes. The agreement, which outlines procedures for “expeditious destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons program and stringent verification,” says that the United States and Russia will submit a plan in the next several days to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which oversees compliance with the chemical weapons accord.

Under the framework, the initial inspection of the chemical weapons sites that the Syrian government declares must be completed by November. Equipment for producing chemical weapons and filling munitions with poison gas must be destroyed by November.The document also says that there is to be “complete elimination of all chemical weapons material and equipment in the first half of 2014.”The framework agreement and the annexes are to be incorporated in a United Nations Security Council resolution that is to be adopted New York. A senior administration official said the schedule outlined in the documents “is daunting, to say the least.” The agreement notes that the United States and Russia have reached a “shared assessment” on the amount and the type of chemical weapons involved, “and are committed to the immediate international control over chemical weapons and their components in Syria.”

U.S.-Russia Talks on Syria’s Arms Make Progress

 

  WASHINGTON — President Obama will not insist on a United Nations Security Council resolution threatening Syria with military action, senior administration officials said Friday, as American and Russian negotiators meeting in Geneva moved closer to an agreement that would seek to ultimately strip Syria of its chemical weapons.

After a second day of marathon talks in Geneva between Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia, both sides expressed optimism, while American officials here said they would give the process a couple of weeks to see if it gained traction. But daunting obstacles remain to dismantling Syria’s vast chemical arsenal as negotiators try to defuse a confrontation that has inflamed politics on three continents.A significant sign of movement at the United Nations came when the Obama administration effectively took force off the table in discussions over the shape of a Security Council resolution governing any deal with Syria. Although Mr. Obama reserved the right to order an American military strike without the United Nations’ backing if Syria reneges on its commitments, senior officials said he understood that Russia would never allow a Security Council resolution authorizing force.

As a strategic matter, that statement simply acknowledged the reality on the Security Council, where Russia wields a veto and has vowed to block any military action against Syria, its ally. But Mr. Obama’s decision to concede the point early in talks underscored his desire to forge a workable diplomatic compromise and avoid a strike that would be deeply unpopular at home. It came just days after France, his strongest supporter on Syria, proposed a resolution that included a threat of military action.

Instead, Mr. Obama will insist that any Security Council resolution build in other measures to enforce a deal with the government of President Bashar al-Assad, possibly including sanctions or other penalties, according to officials who requested anonymity in order to discuss negotiations candidly. The president would not agree to Syria’s demand to renounce any use of force, said the officials, who argued that it was the threat of force that had brought Moscow and Damascus to the negotiating table.Administration officials were encouraged by the talks in Geneva. They said the Russians seemed serious enough to not simply be trying to disrupt the possibility of a military strike, but the officials added that there was no guarantee they could resolve significant disagreements on any eventual deal.In Geneva, a senior administration official said the two sides had moved closer to consensus on the size of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, an essential prerequisite to any joint plan to control and dismantle it.

Russian officials arrived in Geneva with a substantially lower assessment of the arsenal’s size than the 1,000 tons Mr. Kerry had cited. But two days of talks between Russian and American arms control experts, including an intelligence briefing by the American side, came closer to producing a common understanding of the scope of Syria’s chemical weapons program.

Mr. Obama expressed cautious optimism on Friday after meeting at the White House with the visiting emir of Kuwait, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah. “I shared with the emir my hope that the negotiations that are currently taking place between Secretary of State Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov in Geneva bear fruit,” the president said. “But I repeated what I’ve said publicly, which is that any agreement needs to be verifiable and enforceable.”

The administration has not laid out publicly how that might be achieved, and officials on Friday left open the possibility that there might be an acceptable alternative to a Security Council resolution, although they did not go into specifics. Verification, they said, cannot simply be a vague commitment but must be a concrete process.

Europe's public health disaster: How austerity kills

Riot police walk past blazing flames in Athens on August 16, 2013, as they clash with protesters during a demonstration.

(CNN) -- If austerity had been a clinical trial, it would have been stopped. As public health experts, we have watched aghast as a slow motion disaster arose from austerity policies in Europe, while politicians continue to ignore the evidence of their disastrous effects.

Austerity was designed to shrink debts. Now, three years after Europe's budget-cutting began, the evidence is in: severe, indiscriminate austerity is not part of the solution, but part of the problem -- and its human costs are devastating.

In the U.S., Greece, Italy, Spain, the UK and elsewhere in Europe there were more than 10,000 additional suicides from 2007-2010, a figure that is over and above historical trends, with the largest rises concentrated in the worst performing economies.

But suicides and depression are not unavoidable consequences of economic downturns: countries that slashed health and social protection budgets have seen starkly worse health outcomes than nations which opted for stimulus over austerity.

Greece, for example, is in the middle of a public health disaster. To meet budget-deficit reduction targets set by the European Central Bank, European Commission, and International Monetary Fund (the so-called troika), Greece's public health budget has been cut by more than 40%.

As Greece's health minister observed, "these aren't cuts with a scalpel, they're cuts with a butcher's knife." The spending was reduced to 6% of GDP, a figure lower than the UK, at 8%, and Germany, at 9%.

As a result, HIV infections have jumped by more than 200% since 2010, concentrated in injection drug users, as needle-exchange program budgets were cut in half. There was a malaria epidemic in Greece -- the largest in 40 years -- after mosquito-spraying budgets were slashed.

More than 200 essential medicines have been de-stocked from some pharmacies as the state's drug budget was reduced and pharmaceuticals companies exited the country in arrears.

Since 2008 there has been a rise of more than 40% of people who report being unable to access healthcare that they believe to be medically necessary, the majority concentrated in pensioners.

As patients cannot afford private care and forego preventive care, public sector hospitals have experienced a 24% rise in hospital admissions. Doctors and clinics are therefore overstrained. Were these all inevitable consequences of recession, rather than consequences of austerity? Of course the Greek financial and political elites have made mistakes. And of course Greece's fiscal and monetary options were severely restricted as part of the bailout deals. But the suffering of the Greeks was not inevitable.

The timing of many of these health effects coincided not with the onset of recession in 2008 and 2009, but with the implementation of deep budget cuts starting in 2010.Several prevailing myths are commonly offered as alternative explanations for Greece's devastating health outcomes, including these three:The first myth: "Greece's healthcare system is excessive and inefficient." But there are just five hospital beds in Greece per 1,000 people, versus more than eight beds per 1,000 people in Germany.

The second myth: "Greeks are lazy." But in 2011 the average Greek citizen worked 2,038 hours per year -- 600 hours more than the average German, according to the OECD.

The third myth: "Europe's bailout money is being squandered." But bailout money is not flowing in to support Greece's healthcare system -- it is instead circulating back to large international banks in Germany, France and the UK.

What we learned from analyzing past crises is that people do not inevitably get sick or die because the economy has faltered. Fiscal policy can be a matter of life and death.

Severe, indiscriminate austerity is not part of the solution, but part of the problem 
David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu

During the Great Depression in the U.S. in the 1930s, mortality rates actually fell by about 10%. Even though suicide rates increased among the unemployed between 1929 and 1933, this increase was outweighed by short-term drops in road traffic deaths, as people drove less to save on fuel costs.

Then, at a time when total debt was over 200% of GDP, President Franklin Roosevelt implemented the New Deal, which created the U.S. social safety net. New Deal programs to re-house people who lost their homes, help people return to work, and build a public health infrastructure were highly effective -- and each additional $100 per capita in New Deal spending reduced suicides by 4 per 100,000 and infant deaths by about 18 per 100,000.

Tuberculosis rates also fell, but disease rates were substantially reduced in those states that aggressively implemented the New Deal rather than those avoiding its implementation -- a "natural experiment." 1934, the year after the New Deal started becoming effective, marked the beginning of the U.S. economic recovery.

Another "natural experiment" occurred in the aftermath of the East Asian financial crisis from 1997 to 1998. Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia all had large market crashes: their currencies plummeted, GDP collapsed, and unemployment soared.

Brutal reality of immigrant life

But their politicians responded differently to the crisis, creating a rare laboratory in which we can identify the health effects of economic policy. Indonesia and Thailand turned to the IMF for help, implementing deep cuts to its HIV prevention, whereas Malaysia charted a different path, investing in preventive measures during the crisis.

Tourism a lifeline for Greece

Indonesia and Thailand suffered large pneumonia and tuberculosis outbreaks, but Malaysia avoided these effects.

Can Qatar revive Greek economy?

Turning to the current recession in Europe, Iceland is another case study revealing that there is an alternative to austerity. Five years ago its three largest banks failed, and their total debt rocketed to over 800% of GDP. It was the largest banking crisis in history relative to the size of an economy and it forced Iceland to turn to the IMF for help.

The troika's bailout plan called for reductions in spending equivalent to 50% of the budget in order to finance bank bailouts. The health minister resigned in protest at plans to cut the healthcare budget by 30%, as detailed in our book.

Then the president of Iceland took a radical step: asking the people what they wanted to do.

In March 2010, 93% of the Icelandic people voted against financing a bailout for foreign savers of Icesave Bank through draconian budget cuts. Instead, Iceland stabilized healthcare spending.

Thanks to this boost to the nation's universal healthcare system, no one lost access to healthcare even as the cost of imported medicines rose as an effect of the devaluation of the Icelandic Krona.

Fiscal policy can be a matter of life and death
David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu

There was no significant rise in suicides or depression. Nor were there any significant infectious disease outbreaks. Indeed, last year GDP growth was 2.7%, and unemployment rates have fallen below 5%.

Having seen the results, the IMF turned tail, praising Iceland's successful approach.

Each of these crises -- America's Great Depression, the Asian financial crisis, and Iceland's bank meltdown -- had different origins, but they led to potentially similar health threats. But their contrasting outcomes support our conclusion that an economic crisis does not inevitably increase in death and disability. The real danger is austerity.

But if austerity is not working, and indeed is part of the problem (as the IMF has recently admitted), why are European leaders continuing its pursuit?

British economist John Maynard Keynes indirectly outlined thedangers of austerity in 1919. Germany's unpayable debt from World War I, he argued, exacted by European nations in the Treaty of Versailles, would cause economic collapse and, ultimately, social instability in Germany.

Tragically, his premonition was borne out: Germany's deep austerity under "hunger chancellor" Heinrich Bruning as it struggled to repay debts to France, Belgium, and the U.S. fueled the rise of the Nazi party and, as some historians argue, ultimately World War II in Europe.

In the aftermath of that war, West Germany benefited from the U.S.-sponsored Marshall Plan, whereby America injected $14.5 billion in funds to invest in German industry and rebuild vital infrastructure. The Marshall Plan's stimulus package helped spur recovery, paving the way for decades of prosperity and peace in Western Europe.

Collectively we seem to be losing sight of the lessons from our past. In Greece, austerity packages in Europe are sparking the rising popularity of neo-Nazi parties, such as Golden Dawn.

But there is an alternative. In 2009, the German parliament approved a 50 billion euros stimulus package to spur growth. Across Europe we have found that economies that introduced greater stimulus investment have charted faster economic recoveries.

Thanks to smart investments in "active labor market programs"—programs that help people access job retraining and return to work quickly-- Germany, Sweden and Iceland have mitigated rises in depression and suicides from unemployment.

Our research has found that each euro invested in public health can yield up to a three euros return if invested wisely in data-supported government programs.

New Van Gogh painting discovered: "Sunset at Montmajour"

More than 120 years after Vincent van Gogh's death, a new painting by the Dutch master has come to light.The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the largest collection of the artist's work, announced Monday the discovery of the newly identified painting, a landscape titled "Sunset at Montmajour.""A discovery of this magnitude has never before occurred in the history of the Van Gogh Museum," the museum's director, Axel Ruger, said in a statement.

Van Gogh is believed to have completed the relatively large painting in 1888, two years before his death and during "a period that is considered by many to be the culmination of his artistic achievement," Ruger said.The picture depicts a landscape in the vicinity of Arles in the south of France, where Van Gogh was working at that time, the museum saiuger said the museum attributed the painting to Van Gogh after "extensive research into style, technique, paint, canvas, the depiction, Van Gogh's letters and the provenance."Starting September 24, it will appear in "Van Gogh At Work," an exhibition currently on show at the museum in Amsterdam.

From the 'Sunflowers' period

Van Gogh (1853-1890) crafted some of the world's best known and most loved paintings, including "Sunflowers," "Irises" and "Starry Night," and a number of self-portraits.He painted "Sunset at Montmajour" during the same period in which he produced "Sunflowers," Ruger said.Van Gogh achieved little recognition as an artist during his lifetime, but his reputation blossomed in the years after his suicide at the age of 37, following years of mental illness.His works now hang in leading museums and galleries around the world.

During the art market boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s, three of Van Gogh's works succeeded each other as the most expensive paintings ever sold: "Sunflowers" for $39.9 million, "Irises" for $53.9 million and "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" for $82.5 million.

In its statement, the Van Gogh Museum didn't divulge the full story behind the discovery of "Sunset at Montmajour," saying it would be published in the October edition of The Burlington Magazine, a fine art publication, and at the museum.

Louis van Tilborgh and Teio Meedendorp, two senior researchers at the museum, said the painting had belonged to the collection of Van Gogh's younger brother, Theo, in 1890 and was sold in 1901.

Nelson Mandela ‘no saint’ in new biopic

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• Toronto 2013: Reporter's diary
• Mandela biopic gets Toronto premiere
• Naomie Harris on playing Winnie MandelaWatch

A new screen biopic of Nelson Mandela does not shy away from the less flattering aspects of his character, according to its British star.

"It was important we had both sides, the good and the bad," said Idris Elba.

Early scenes in Justin Chadwick's film show Mandela as a womaniser who was violent to his first wife Evelyn.

"I didn't want to deface Mr Mandela in any way," the Luther actor continued. "But I didn't want to portray him in a way that wasn't honest."

Elba was speaking at the Toronto Film Festival, where Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom had its world premiere this weekend.

Based on the former South African president's autobiography, the film charts his early life as a lawyer, his political activism and the 27 years of imprisonment that preceded his democratic election in 1994.

Naomie Harris, also British, plays Mandela's second wife Winnie in Justin Chadwick's two-and-a-half hour drama.

'Brave choice'

The film has had a mixed reception from critics, with one calling it "more dutifully reverential than revelatory or exciting".

"We've seen the saintly Mandela we all know and love," continued Elba, who did not meet "Madiba" before embarking on the project.

"It was important for us to take the audience on a journey prior to that and understand who he was."

The internationally revered anti-apartheid campaigner, now 95, was released from hospital last week after three months of treatment for a recurring lung infection.

"Like everybody I've been very concerned for his health but I've been keeping optimistic," Elba told reporters on Sunday.

According to Chadwick, the Hackney-born actor was the right person for the biopic despite being from England and bearing little physical resemblance to its subject.

"There were other obvious choices, but Idris was the brave choice," said the director, whose other credits include the BBC's 2005 dramatisation of Dickens' Bleak House.

"He doesn't look like Madiba, but we weren't going for a lookalike, soundalike version."

"Idris managed to capture the Mandela magic," agreed Terry Pheto, the South African actress who plays Evelyn in the film.

Industry reviews

Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover, David Harewood and Sidney Poitier are among the others to have portrayed the beloved statesman on film and television.

Elba, whose other films include summer blockbusters Thor and Pacific Rim, has been singled out for praise by critics who have seen the film in Toronto.

"It takes a commanding actor to fill the shoes of the man most instrumental in ending institutionalised oppression in South Africa," wrote David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter.

"The charismatic Idris Elba proves equal to the task."

According to Screen International, though, the film is "too tasteful and conventional to offer much insight into the remarkable man it wishes to celebrate".

"It doesn't have much of a point of view about its narrative, serving more as a rote recitation of memorable moments."

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is one of several Toronto titles this year to draw their inspiration from real-life figures.

Julian Assange, Jimi Hendrix and Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts also feature in films in this year's line-up.

The launch of Chadwick's film coincides with the UK release of Diana, a biographical drama about Diana, Princess of Wales that drew a withering response from the British media.

No 'irrefutable' evidence that Assad behind chemical attack in Syria: Obama's top aide

McDonough conceded the United States doesn't have concrete evidence Assad was behind the chemical attacks.

WASHINGTON: The White House asserted on Sunday that a "common-sense test" dictates that the Syrian government is responsible for a chemical weapons attack that President Barack Obama says demands a US military response. But Obama's top official says the administration lacks "irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence" that sceptical Americans, including lawmakers who will start voting on military action this week, are seeking.

"This is not a court of law. And intelligence does not work that way," White House chief of staffDenis McDonough said during his five-network public relations blitz on Sunday to build support for limited strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"The common-sense test says he is responsible for this. He should be held to account," McDonough said of the Syrian leader who for two years has resisted calls from inside and outside his country to step down.

Asked in another interview about doubt, McDonough was direct: "No question in my mind."

The US, citing intelligence reports, says the lethal nerve agent sarin was used in an August 21 attack outside Damascus, and that 1,429 people died, including 426 children.

The number is higher than that, said Khalid Saleh, head of the press office at the anti-Assad Syrian Coalition, who was in Washington to lobby lawmakers to authorize the strikes. Some of those involved in the attacks later died in their homes and opposition leaders were weighing releasing a full list of names of the dead.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from a network of anti-government activists, says it has so far only been able to confirm 502 dead.

The actual tally of those killed by chemical weapons is scant compared to the sum of all killed in the upheaval: more than 100,000, according to the United Nations.

In an interview Sunday, Assad told US journalist Charlie Rose there is not conclusive evidence about who is to blame for the chemical weapons attacks and again suggested the rebels were responsible. From Beirut, Rose described his interview, which is to be released Monday on the CBS morning program that Rose hosts, with the full interview airing later in the day on Rose's PBS program.

Asked about Assad's claims there is no evidence he used the weapons, secretary of state John Kerry told reporters in London: "The evidence speaks for itself."

At the same time, Obama has planned his own public relations effort. He has scheduled six network interviews on Monday and then a primetime speech to the nation from the White House on Tuesday, the eve of the first votes in Congress.

On Sunday night, Obama dropped in on a dinner held by Vice President Joe Biden for Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Bob Corker of Tennessee.

Obama will meet with Senate Democrats on Tuesday, a Senate aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the meeting before its official announcement.

Obama faces a tough audience at Capitol Hill. A survey by The Associated Press shows that house members who are staking out positions are either opposed to or leaning against Obama's plan for a military strike by more than a 6-1 margin.

"Lobbing a few Tomahawk missiles will not restore our credibility overseas," said representative Mike McCaul, the Texas Republican who chairs the house homeland security committee.

Added representative Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif, "For the president to say that this is just a very quick thing and we're out of there, that's how long wars start."

Almost half of the 433 house members and a third of the 100-member Senate remain undecided, the AP survey found. Two seats in the 435-member house are vacant.

"Just because Assad is a murderous tyrant doesn't mean his opponents are any better," said Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

But some of Assad's opponents are pleading for aid.

"The world is watching, and Syrians are wondering: When is the international community going to act and intervene to protect them?" said Saleh.

On Saturday, a US official released a DVD compilation of videos showing attack victims that the official said were shown to senators during Thursday's classified briefing. The graphic images have become a rallying point for the administration. Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, chairwoman of the intelligence committee, also posted videos on the committee's website.

But McDonough conceded the United States doesn't have concrete evidence that Assad was behind the chemical attacks.

Recent opinion surveys show intense American scepticism about military intervention in Syria, even among those who believe Syria's government used chemical weapons on its people.

Congress, perhaps, is even more dubious.

"It's an uphill slog," said representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the house intelligence committee who supports strikes on Assad.

"I think it's very clear he's lost support in the last week," Rogers added, speaking of the president.

Complicating the effort in the Senate is the possibility that 60 votes may be required to authorize a strike.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said he would consider a filibuster, but noted the delay tactic was unlikely to permanently nix a vote. Paul would, however, insist his colleagues consider an amendment to the resolution that would bar Obama from launching strikes if Congress votes against the measure.

Still, Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, has predicted authorization and McDonough, too, on Sunday telegraphed optimism.

"They do not dispute the intelligence when we speak with them," McDonough said of members of Congress.

But while the public discussion lacks a direct link between Assad and weapons, the private briefs are no better, two lawmakers said.

"The evidence is not as strong as the public statements that the president and the administration have been making," said Representative Justin Amash, R-Mich. "There are some things that are being embellished in the public statements. ... The briefings have actually made me more sceptical about the situation."

Representative Buck McKeon, R-Calif, said, "They have evidence showing the regime has probably the responsibility for the attacks."

But that's not enough to start military strikes. "They haven't linked it directly to Assad, in my estimation," said McKeon, chairman of the house armed services committee.

McDonough, an Obama foreign policy adviser dating back to his 2008 presidential campaign, said the dots connect themselves.

The material was delivered by "rockets which we know the Assad regime has and we have no indication that the opposition has".

Congress resumes work on Monday after its summer break.

Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, plans to discuss Syria in a speech on Monday at the New America Foundation and later meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus Bipartisan. Classified briefings for Congress are set for Monday and Wednesday.

McDonough plans to meet with the House Democratic Caucus on Tuesday.

Obama planned to address the nation on Tuesday ahead of Wednesday's first showdown vote in the Senate over a resolution that would authorize the "limited and specified use" of US armed forces against Syria for no more than 90 days and barring American ground troops from combat. A final vote is expected at week's end.

A house vote appears likely during the week of September 16.

McDonough spoke with ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation," NBC's "Meet the Press," CNN's "State of the Union" and "Fox News on Sunday." McCaul and Sanchez were on NBC. Cruz appeared on ABC. Rogers and Amash spoke to CBS. Paul was interviewed on Fox. McKeon was on CNN.