Newsean

Thailand is putting a little heat on Malaysia to help to solve the southern violence. While only a few Bangkok officials think Kuala Lumpur is actively involved in the southern insurgency in any manner, many feel Malaysia could do a lot more to help. Most southern Muslims are ethnic Malay, and many of them have closer ties to Malaysia than Thailand.

In the first of two subtle moves, the Thai governor of the border province of Narathiwat has “requested” Malaysia help by shutting off cellphones along the common frontier. Of course Malaysia will do no such thing, so governor Pracha Taerat's fallback “suggestion” is that Kuala Lumpur provide some access to the registration details of some Malaysian phones.

This will be much harder for Malaysia to resist. Last Saturday, a bomb at a tea house in the border town of Sungai Golok wounded three people including a Malaysian man. Mr Pracha says the mobile phone trigger for that bomb was a Malaysian-registered telephone.

The second pressure on Malaysia this morning is far more subtle.

As Newsean columnist Wassana Nanuam reports in the Bangkok Post, the Thai government has given citizenship papers to 253 former members of the Malayan Communist Party. Under an agreement last century, the ex-CPM fighters laid down their arms in exchange for sanctuary in southern Thailand.

Now, however, they may be able to extract a bit of revenge on the Malaysian government.

“Although we were Malay, when we came to Thailand, we became Thai, ” said Herng-u sae Loo, 50, who used to lead a company of the former communist party.
He could sing the Thai national anthem clearly at the ID card presentation ceremony. In return, he promised to help the government solve violence in the far South.
“As a Thai, I am now ready to help solve problems, especially the unrest situation. If the government needs help from me, I am ready to do anything, ” he said. He also expects Malaysia to help Thailand end violent movements in the southern region.
“Malaysia already believes that we won't do anything against it because we have promised the Thai government that we have laid down our weapons and will stay away from politics. This proves Thailand's sincerity with Malaysia, so Malaysia should help Thailand solve the unrest, ” he said.
Yungfu sae Shai, 78, the former secretary-general of the communist party, said he too was keen to help the government handle the southern situation.
“The southern situation concerns us. We are ready to help by keeping an eye on border movements and promoting peace in the village, ” he said.

Of course there is neither a connection nor comradeship between the Muslim extremists and the old communists. But the ex-CPM soldiers are in a position now to embarrass and even control information about how much (or how little) Kuala Lumpur is willing to help Thailand in the Thai South.

Officially of course, the Thai government line is that the southern violence is an internal matter, outside interference is unwelcome and so on. Unofficially, pretty well every government spokesman, minister and general will tell pretty well any listener that “Malaysia can do a lot more to help.”

By pointing out where Malaysia is not helping, and by even using the brand-new Thai citizens to do it, Thailand puts a squeeze on Malaysia that Kuala Lumpur will be hard-pressed to resist.

One of the Thai victims of the terrorist attack on New York more than four years ago was Orasri Liangthanasarn, the 26-year-old banquet coordinator of Windows on the World, the international restaurant on the top floor of the World Trade Center.

Orasri had just got to work on the morning of Sept 11, 2001, when hijackers slammed two planes into the twin towers. She and 73 fellow workers in the restaurant all perished.

Orasri is gone but not forgotten

Many times since then, former colleagues and Ms Orasri's family in Bangkok described her as hard working and popular.

For an amazing four years, the surviving staff of Windows on the World have stayed - not just in touch, but together. And now they have opened a new restaurant in New York City, with the same name and a menu in tribute to their own origins and those of Orasri and the others who did not survive.

Thai food at the new Colors restaurant, as it is symbolically called, joins a truly international menu served by a staff that represented the restaurant and, in fact, the restaurant. They and their dishes are from all over the world. Colors is in Greenwich Village near the former WTC site.

An Associated Press story says the former restaurant staff never dropped their dream of reopening the restaurant after the 9/11 attacks.

"After 9/11, the only thing that keeps us going is belief in each other," said Fekkak Mamdouh, 45, a Morrocan-born former Windows waiter. "We can't fail."

On Sept. 11, everything at the Windows on the World restaurant was obliterated: Chairs, tables and windows were decimated by the infernal force of the attack. Smoke engulfed every corner of the business. All 73 workers were killed.

At first, the grieving workers considered making their restaurant a sort of tribute to 9/11, including memorabilia. But a survey they commissioned concluded that customers want to enjoy fine food and atmosphere, not be reminded of terror and death.

So they decided on a restaurant with dishes that include favourite family recipes contributed by the workers, whose native lands include Thailand, Haiti, Jamaica, Italy, Mexico, Colombia, Egypt, Bangladesh and China-- and even a handful of workers born in the United States. The eclectic menu will change with the seasons and aims to satisfy both traditional and exotic tastes with fare ranging from organic chicken with cranberries and New York aged ribeye steak to bartender Silverio Moog's Philippine lobster and minted sweet potato spring rolls.

"This is the new American food. It's cooked in a kitchen where everyone is equal, no yelling, no screaming. And you actually own the dishes you're washing," said executive chef Raymond Mohan, originally a native of Guyana.

"Nobody thought we could pull it off on our own as immigrants, as people of color -- even the consultants we hired," said attorney Saru Jayaraman, ROC's executive director. "This is not about money. It's about creating an economic model of a restaurant that does well -- but not just for the owners, on the backs of the workers."

Exclusive to Newsean
New investigations into the financing of extremist causes and terrorism have disclosed closer links to both local and cross-border crime than experts previously had believed.

“Radical leaders and groups may be turning more and more to crime in some sort of desperate attempt to get funding,” said one source familiar with results of recent investigations in Southeast Asia. “But the more likely explanation is that crime and extreme terrorism always was a natural partnership” which has expanded in recent years.

The latest round of investigations began last month, when the National Intelligence Agency spent a special task force to look into how extremists were supporting the insurgency against local agencies and the national government.

The results so far have been mixed. Experts from four agencies have recently pooled their reports, and agree there is no hard evidence of involvement by the most notorious international terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah.

“The various teams have been pretty well unanimous in a month of investigations,” said the source. “The funding for southern violence is local. The bad news is that includes some Malaysian money as well as funds from the South, and from gangs in Bangkok.”

Read all of this story, exclusive to Newsean.

The past year may go down as the classic mixed bag of news. On the one hand, terrorist attacks got nastier at home and abroad as extremists attacked Muslim homelands, repeated the Bali suicide attacks and killed on a daily basis in the South. The Iraq war continued, there were ugly race riots in France and Australia. The year 2005 is likely to be remembered for a trio of dreadful natural disasters, as the tsunami losses became clear and storms including Hurricane Katrina struck America, leaving colourful New Orleans shattered. The third calamity, an appallingly deadly earthquake centred in Pakistan, killed tens of thousands and created the greatest refugee crisis since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan of 1979. Burma remained enslaved by a military junta that advanced from merely brutal to suspiciously neurotic with an unannounced move to a new capital far from the sea, the neighbours and the vast majority of its people.

On the other hand, Iraqis led an undeniable battle against dictatorship. Freedom House added three African nations to the list of “fully free” countries and Lebanese kicked out Syrian bullies to regain their country. The terrorist attacks on the London subways and in Muslim nations lengthened the list of countries strongly involved in the international struggle against terrorism. Jordanian King Abdullah came to Thailand to denounce extremists and violence. As protests and mud-slinging rose to fever pitch between combative Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and opponents, His Majesty the King stepped in once again to save the country from sometimes self-destructive tendencies.

Read the whole article.

A curious factoid in the email from Microsoft (Liverpool, England) informing me I have won GBP 5,500,000.00 POUNDS IN CASH!!!! :

All participants were selected through our microsoft computer ballot system drawn form 21,000 names,3,000 names from each continent, as part of International 'E-MAIL' Promotions Program

Seven continents. What kind of educational system do they have there in Nigeria? Or did 3,000 penguins from Antarctica and 3,000 Arctic Orca get email service? I think we should be told.

Newsean columnist Wassana Nanuam reports from Pattani that one man is doing his part to encourage harmony in the troubled region.

A veteran performer of nang talung, the traditional southern stage performance of leather shadow puppetry, has added the southern situation in his show scripts in a bid to encourage Buddhists and Muslims to help the state douse the southern flames. Buntham Therdkiartchart, 55, has performed nang talung since he was 17.

Nang talung or dalang puppets are a popular tradition in southern Thailand. (Click for larger photo in a separate browser window.)

He has now created two new puppet characters – one represents soldiers and the other the police – to tell his audiences what is happening in the three southernmost provinces.

Police Captain Yoi and Sgt-Maj Hoop are the new characters in Mr Buntham's puppet performance group from Nakhon Si Thammarat. Existing key figures in nang talung are Teng, Noo Nui, Yodthong and Kaew.

In his new script, the two new characters have been assigned to work in the strife-torn deep South.

“I try to tell the audience that the southern problems are a national problem which all people must join forces to tackle. As my audiences are both Buddhists and Muslims, I want them to end their mistrust and be united because the southern bandits want us to break up,” he said.

Mr Buntham has performed regularly in all the 14 southern provinces. His show normally comprises stories drawn from the Ramakian tales.

But with the upsurge of violence he has stopped taking his show to the three southernmost provinces. “The people there are in no mood to watch nang talung or any other folk performance,” he said.

However, his group was invited by the National Reconciliation Commission to perform nang talung in Pattani last week. All 10 team members carried pistols for self-defence.

They say Britain has a fine legacy, that its colonial days created countries where there is a respect for law and order, where the bureaucracy runs rather well, where communications are good and where education is valued. While this is only the positive side of the ledger, of course, it seems fairly objective.

Take Australia, for example, where parliament stood up, passed an anti-terrorism bill, enforced it, and came up with 17 terrorist suspects said to be planning attacks inside the country.

Take the United States for another example, where Congress stood up and passed anti-terrorist legislation which has resulted several terrorist plots being broken up at home and abroad, and where there has been no terrorist attack since 2001.

Unfortunately, there is also the United Kingdom, former colonialist, former example and ruler, which has had a series of deadly terror attacks, where openly pro-terrorist people openly call for more murderous assaults, and where parliament stood up and defeated proposals for anti-terrorist legislation, including a clause to allow detention without charge or trial of terrorist suspects for 90 days.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of the former world power vowed he will serve a full term. Opposition leader Charles Kennedy explained that Mr Blair is a lame duck.

Charles “Prince Charles” Windsor, the former husband of the famous Princess Diana, has scheduled a visit to the United States, and will return the hospitality of a gala (i.e. expensive) dinner and ball at the White House to lecture America, specifically his host President George W. Bush, about how to treat Muslims. The prince, who has remarried but never has taken his new wife abroad, will be graciously treated anyhow.

According to a White House spokesman, the president welcomes whatever topic the prince wants to engage in.

In London, non-confrontation works well. (Click for larger photo in a separate browser window.)

[Editor's note: Prince Charles arrived in the United States several days ago, although it is not clear exactly when. The writer, along with 81% of Americans hadn't noticed.]

According to The Telegraph of London, Mr Windsor “thinks the US has been too intolerant of the religion since September 11,” 2001. The paper had no idea of what Prince Charles thought of American tolerance prior to September 11.

Mr Windsor, according to the newspaper, told some Muslims in Britain that “I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational.”

Well, what a shame foreign citizens of nations which used to be colonies don't have a vote. And how polite can one man be to hold a gala (i.e. expensive) dinner and ball for a visiting British man and receive a lecture?

Prince Charles was travelling from a country where members of the Muslim community, blaming government and public treatment of the Muslim community, had bombed subway and trains and killed several dozen people. He was travelling to a country he thinks is too confrontational to Muslims, but where no Muslims have organised violence against their fellow Americans or complained that the government policies were driving them to organise such violence.

The British have 2 million Muslims and dozens of dead and high alerts and special laws for their Muslims. The Americans include 7, maybe 8 million Muslims. Period.

But the Americans are too confrontational. Right. So, it seems there was a good reason after all, constantly demonstrated too, for asking British royalty to leave America back in the 18th century.

Here are the six main reasons that you, or at least someone close to you will die in the next influenza pandemic:

OK, just kidding. There really is only one reason that you or a loved one or both of you will be sickened and then perish painfully in the next influenza pandemic:

The United States flew a whole passel of experts and wannabes to Washington this week to talk about avian flu. Unless you just returned from a long trip out of the atmosphere, avian influenza (chicken flu) is a rapidly evolving disease that has killed millions of birds and several dozen people in Thailand and neighbouring countries. It is the most likely candidate to evolve into a human-to-human people killer similar to the last great bird flu pandemic that wiped out 50 million or so in 1918.

On September 14, US President George W. Bush talked to the United Nations General Assembly about bird flu. He had a proposal, and he had a real reason why he had a proposal:

[W]we must also remain on the offensive against new threats to public health such as the Avian Influenza. If left unchallenged, this virus could become the first pandemic of the 21st century. We must not allow that to happen. Today I am announcing a new International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza. The Partnership requires countries that face an outbreak to immediately share information and provide samples to the World Health Organization. By requiring transparency, we can respond more rapidly to dangerous outbreaks and stop them on time. Many nations have already joined this partnership; we invite all nations to participate. It's essential we work together, and as we do so, we will fulfill a moral duty to protect our citizens, and heal the sick, and comfort the afflicted.

Now, the reason for all this is that nations are not sharing information. They're supposed to. Membership in the World Health Organisation requires them to. But they don't.

It could be incompetency. Every nation except Thailand that has encountered bird flu is. . . well, let's say a little under-endowed in the medical field. China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia — these are not countries with a strong tradition of fighting major diseases effectively. Nothing especially wrong with China's medicine, mind you, but look at how that country actually helped the spread of SARS. Russia has always been strong in medical treatment, but hasn't come up with a pandemic since a year after the communist revolution, and they didn't handle it well at all.

The problem isn't medical capability — however underwhelming medicine is in Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia. The problem is secrecy. Totalitarian states or (in the case of Indonesia) countries which are democratic in name but still bureaucratically unaccountable are secretive. Which raises three questions:

And? So? The point is?

Well the point is that if countries fail to do what Mr Bush says and keep track of their bird flu and report to the world in milliseconds when they have an outbreak, then you and your loved one have a serious problem.

The only experts we have figure the only chance we have against the appearance of a bird flu that evolves and starts spreading human-to-human is fast action. Stockpiles of anti-flu medicine will be rushed to the local outbreak scene, which will be isolated and quarantined and maybe — just barely possibly perhaps maybe — the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and international experts on disease can stop the next flu pandemic in its tracks.

If the local officials or national governments is slow in a place where this flu epidemic begins, the world is doomed to a pandemic.

Yet there is every possibility, no, check that. . . There is a probability edging on certainty that this will happen. It could be incompetence, it could be an official just doing his job and having lunch before checking that new patient, it could be a Beijing bureaucrat who knows for an absolute fact he never will be fired from her dependable job for not giving out information to anyone but her boss who is on a two-week holiday. These people could cause the next flu pandemic.

Ah, but it's much worse than this. It's as bad as you can imagine, times 10, at least a magnitude greater. We have a strong indication that even the most open, the most committed, the most expert and the best-prepared government in the avian flu zone has a policy to keep any new flu outbreak secret. We don't have it from some businessman or pro-business politician, either. We have it from the scariest source, the director of the Bureau of Epidemiology of the Department of Diseases Control at the Ministry of Public Health. He was Thailand's top delegate to Mr Bush's committee of excellence and glasnost on bird flu, Kumnuan Ungchusak.

Mr Kumnuan was interviewed on the sidelines of the closed-door Washington meeting by reporter John Lauerman of the Bloomberg news agency. What Mr Kumnuan said was chilling:

“People ask for transparency, but we need to discuss incentives. The international community has to avoid unnecessary barriers to trade and tourism.”
Countries need assurances that borders and trade won't be shut down without good cause, he said.

The report then buttressed Mr Kumnuan's scary pronouncement:

“Whether it's a democracy or a dictatorship, which government leaders are going to be willing to say, ‘ Shut us down?’ ” said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious-disease researcher, in a telephone interview today. “A number of countries will be reluctant to pull the trigger.”

Of course he means “pull the trigger” in the sense of reporting quickly and internationally that a country has an outbreak of human-to-human avian flu, or even a new pattern of bird-to-bird transfer. Such an admission could “kill” the country's tourism, as the SARS outbreak and last December's tsunami disaster showed.

Put Mr Osterholm's choice of word is as accurate as it is chilling. A delay, even of hours, in reporting a flu epidemic could trigger a pandemic that would make the casualties of war look benign by comparison.

Here is another kicker.

Bird flu has all the characteristics of a bioterror attack. It's so close to the ideal that some experts have studied bird flu to see whether al-Qaeda was involved.

No it isn't, but when a bioterrorist strikes again, his gang will almost certainly be using the bird flu as an example.

We know that al-Qaeda has experimented with chemical agents in Afghanistan, killing dogs. Gang leader Osama bin Laden has asked a cleric in Saudi Arabia if it were permissible under Islam to employ weapons of mass destruction against the “infidels”. We know that al-Qaeda and JI operatives are among us, including at our schools where professors teach the technology that underlies biological weapons as surely as US flight instructors teach men to fly airliners without having to land them.

In July, an Indonesian laboratory confirmed the first human-to-human transmission of bird flu — fortunately still an isolated case. In August, the Canadian military intelligence service reported that bird flu could actually be used as a bioterrorism weapon. The released portions of its heavily classified Recent Human Outbreaks of Avian Influenza and Potential Biological Warfare Implications asserted the bird flu virus could be repeatedly “pushed䄙 or recycled in an ordinary laboratory, to ratchet up its virulence.

All of these are warnings, and should be weighed in how the world proceeds against bird flu.

The economic harm of an influenza pandemic is undeniable. So is the physical harm to the world if one country takes it upon itself to withhold information on an influenza outbreak in case it causes tourism to stop.

Thailand is the only front-line country which has already demonstrated its competency and its core desire to cooperate on combatting the H5N1 flu that is the most likely candidate for evolution to worldwide, human disaster. If the top official involved in current cooperation with WHO and the CDC is ready to justify holding back information because it might hurt the tourist industry, we all need to start laying in our own Tamiflu stocks as surely as the Thai government should start examining its core values and responsibility.

Two great examples of how and how not to handle press corrections. Both are from Britain, both are textbook cases. The kicker is at the end.

Reuters news agency reported on Thursday morning that a British cleric and author, during a talk with school children, had called the Harry Potter character “gay.” It was a silly but intriguing story since Rev Graham Taylor also writes children's books, so might be considered a rival of Harry and her creator, J.K. Rowling.

Well, it turned out Mr Taylor was speaking the language children understand, not the rigid adult definition of “gay.”, and the adult who reported the Reuters story, as well as his/her copy- and sub-editors were equally mystified by children.

But they did what trained, professional news people always do when they make a mistake. They climbed down off their high horse, admitted their error in full, totally retracted the original story and offered a replacement.

CORRECTION: Harry Potter (Reuters)
Thu Oct 6, 2005 11:14 PM BST
Reuters - The story headlined 'J.K. Rowling rival labels Harry Potter “gay”' is wrong and is withdrawn.
A substitute story follows:
School expels children's author for swearing
LONDON (Reuters) - A top-selling British children's author — also a minister of religion into the bargain — has been thrown out of school for “swearing” in a talk to 12- and 13-year-olds.

And so on. The full text of the corrected and original articles is below.

And then we have the BBC, some of whose reporters are trained professionals, although after that we can draw no general conclusions about anyone, at any level in the editorial department.

The Beeb has made a documentary about the Middle East and violence and how George Bush acts entirely on what God tells him to do. The only problem is that the BBC has no recording or tape or proof of any kind that Mr Bush ever said any such thing. Mr Bush said he didn't, the White House spokesman said he didn't, no one ever remembers him saying any such thing... except

Mr Shaath said that in a 2003 meeting with Mr Bush, the US president said he was “driven with a mission from God”.
“God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did.
“And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I'm gonna do it.”

That is from a BBC press release which the BBC also turned into a news story and which was picked up by all the world's news agencies and re-broadcast over and over again. Within 24 hours, it was the most-read news story on the entire Yahoo news site, for example. It had 477 sources on the Google News site.

“Mr Shaath” is that well-known and highly reliable news source Nabil Shaath, described as the Palestinian foreign minister by the BBC, but described as the information m of the Palestinian Authority by the Palestinian Authority.

You probably remember Mr Shaath has one of the world's best minds and recalls, and has earned the trust of the world as the single most reliable source, able to remember specific conversations without notes or recordings. Right? You remember that, right?

The French and German news agencies spread the news and jihadists chortled and Indians feigned shock at the “revelation̶ (great word Times of India!) about Mr Bush and the Chinese chuckled and the Turks were amazed.

Never mind the truth. America faked the moon landing, 10,000 people died in the New Orleans hurricane and Bush gets his instructions from God. The BBC will broadcast the death of truth, live, and so will the US Public Broadcasting System, this coming week, starting Monday. Spread the news, Bush thinks God talks to him.

Funny thing, funny-haha and funny-odd — there was an exception to this BBC murder of the facts. Its name is Truth. Really.

The Russian newspaper Pravda, on its website didn't simply report the BBC story was (let's be charitable) once again a “sexed-up” (love that phrase) bunch of hooey designed exclusively to make the BBC staff feel good and sanctimonious. Pravda went to the source and started investigating.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Friday denied an account by another Palestinian official of a meeting with US President George W.Bush in which Bush is cited as saying he believed that God told him to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A statement in Abbas' name released by his office said that an excerpt from an interview with Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Shaath due to be broadcast by The British Broadcasting Corp in which Shaath described a meeting with Bush in June 2003 gave a “completely false” account.
. . . “This report is not true,” the Abbas statement said Friday. “I have never heard President Bush talking about religion as a reason behind the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush has never mentioned that in front of me on any occasion and specifically not during my visit in 2003.”
Shaath could not be reached for comment Friday.

Well, maybe he will be, later. In the interest of truth, now that the BBC story has spread around the world.

Here is the full text of the way the BBC handled the (heh) revelation that it had a bogus, indefensible story on its hands:

07 Oct 2005
Bush 'God' claim denied
The White House rejects claims made in a BBC TV series that President Bush said God told him to invade Iraq.
The White House has dismissed as “absurd” allegations made in a BBC TV series that President Bush claimed God told him to invade Iraq.
“He's never made such comments,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace will be broadcast on BBC Two on Monday 10, 17 and 24 October at 2100 BST.

(Emphasis added)

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And finally, as promised here are the Reuters stories as the news service sent them on its wires, the Internet and so on in a professional and credible manner. BBC and aspiring BBC reporters and editors should take careful note of the proper manner of correcting the grievous harm done to your audience:

07 Oct 2005

CORRECTION: Harry Potter (Reuters)

Thu Oct 6, 2005 11:14 PM BST

Reuters - The story headlined ‘J.K. Rowling rival labels Harry Potter “gay”’ is wrong and is withdrawn.

A substitute story follows:

School expels children's author for swearing

LONDON (Reuters) - A top-selling British children's author — also a minister of religion into the bargain — has been thrown out of school for “swearing” in a talk to 12- and 13-year-olds.

Reverend Graham Taylor, who wrote the novel “Shadowmancer”, which centres on witchcraft and battling evil, said teachers had got upset because he used the words “crap, poo, fart and bogey” in his talk at Penair School, in Truro in southwest England.

“I think that my language was appropriate,” he said. “Language changes, and words that once were deemed unacceptable are now part of our culture.”

The school said in a statement that teachers had asked Taylor to leave after the children became excitable on hearing his “inappropriate” language.

“Shadowmancer” topped British book charts for 15 weeks and the film rights have been sold for 2.25 million pounds.

---

J.K. Rowling rival labels Harry Potter “gay”

Thu Oct 6, 2005 10:08 AM BST

LONDON (Reuters) - A cleric turned top-selling author of supernatural children's novels was thrown out of a school where he was delivering a talk after he told pupils that Harry Potter was “gay”.

Reverend Graham Taylor, who penned the novel “Shadowmancer” which, like the tales of the famous boy wizard created by J.K. Rowling, centres on witchcraft and battling evil, got his marching orders after teachers accused him of homophobia.

“As for Harry Potter, well, he's not the only gay in the village,” the former Anglican priest told children at Penair School in Truro, southwest England, referring to a catchphrase from the popular comedy TV show “Little Britain”.

He also described the villains in Rowling's blockbuster series as “wimps” and called TV “crap” compared to books.

Teachers brought Taylor's talk to the 12-year-olds on Tuesday to a premature end, saying the youngsters had become “excitable”, and asked him to leave.

“We were very disappointed to have to curtail a visit from Mr Taylor,” the school said in a statement on Thursday.

“The seven staff from the school who were present were very embarrassed and uncomfortable with what was being said.

“The remarks that were made were thought by the staff to be offensive and were well below the standards that we expect of responsible and thoughtful adults working in our school.”

Taylor, whose book topped the book charts for 15 weeks with the film rights also sold for 2.25 million pounds, was unrepentant and accused staff of censorship.

“It was a joke; a joke from Little Britain that the children would know,” Taylor was quoted by newspapers as saying.

“I didn't set out to offend. I'm a priest and I'm very careful about not offending people.”