1920s USSR: Rights for lesbians, gays, transgenders, transsexuals! Leslie Feinberg, Feb 7. 2014

According to historian Dan Healey, "Unlike their male counterparts, Russian women who had erotic relations with members of their own sex had less access to the public sphere and so were less able to construct for themselves a coherent subculture with the attributes of the male homosexual world. This is not to suggest that no female homosexual subculture existed in revolutionary Russia."

posted from Original article (of a series): Lesbian, gay, bi and trans pride series part 12: http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/prideseries0819.php

Healey has made a great contribution towards digging up some of the records of the lives of lesbians, masculine females and transsexual men in revolutionary Russia during the 1920s. Much of this research can be found in his book "Sexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia." (Univer sity of Chicago Press, 2001)

He offers this caveat: "Adequate sources about this love between lower-class women have yet to emerge, and its character must be judged through the distortions of a single ubiquitous occupation, prostitution."

In the business of prostitution during the capitalist era, "same-sex relations could be sheltered and even tolerated, particularly in licensed brothels, and the freedom (or opportunity) to express same-sex love in this environment was evidently sought by some women as prostitutes and as clients." Brothels, he writes, "constituted a social sphere that undoubtedly sheltered some same-sex relationships," but "this harsh environment offered sex workers rather limited prospects for agency and self-expression."

But the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution both abolished licensed brothels and took over privately owned hotels and other businesses. This had an impact on prostitution. "The abolition of licensed brothels," Healey says, "turned prostitution into a very unstable and dangerous livelihood for female sex workers."

During the 1920s, "The housing shortage and the decline in private control over sheltered urban spaces appeared to drive illicit heterosexual sex into the streets, railway stations and carriages, restaurants, bathhouses, and taxicabs.

"Russian historians have argued that more urban women and more declassed women from the former elite supposedly turned to casual or occasional heterosexual prostitution in the 1920s as urban unemployment hit them hardest."

The Bolsheviks tried to abolish sexual exploitation, but they did not prosecute the women. "The revolutionary regime repeatedly declared that women who sold their bodies were victims of economic exploitation, not to be criminalized, and campaigns to discourage them from taking up sex work were launched."

However, ending the economic need that drove people into prostitution required raising the living standard for all. The constant imperialist sabotage of the Soviet economy from within and without, and the devastation that was the legacy of the world war, made that essential economic task difficult.

Demanded right to same-sex marriage

In both Europe and the U.S. at that time, very rigid social codes enforced what was deemed appropriate behavior and dress for males and females. In Soviet Russia, however, "masculine" females were finding a prominent place in the early revolutionary society. They included many "out lesbians." Masculine, cross-dressing females could be found in academic and cultural institutions as well as in the military--even high up in the Red Army command.

This acceptance sheds light on the vulgar anti-communist typecasting of Soviet women as so "mannish" that they might really be males in drag.

"If there was any sign of a lesbian subculture moving into the public realm of urban streetscapes, the workplace, or halls of study," Healey elaborates, "it was in the 'almost masculine' styles cultivated by some women entering public life. Medical and lay sources confirm that, at least in towns, the woman regarded as 'masculine' was a fixture of early Soviet society."

Healey says: "Their image as energetic and enterprising participants in the new society's political, economic and military life earned the so-called 'active' (that is, imitative of 'masculine' traits) female homosexual admiration from some sexological authorities."

In an earlier essay Healey notes, "In a 1929 discussion about 'transvestites' and the 'intermediate sex' conducted by the Expert Medi cal Council of the Com mis sariat of Health, women of the 'masculinized type' (cross-dressing army commanders, for example) were considered with fascination and indulgence."

And some of these cross-dressing females demanded the right to same-sex marriage. ("Russian Queen")

But while there was an "out" social current of masculine females who were identified with same-sex love, other female-bodied individuals sought to live as males.

Was the motivation of all these female-bodied individuals to express their masculinity and/or cross-dress driven solely by sexuality? In other words, in today's U.S. terms, were they all "lesbians"? Or would some of them be more accurately identified as "transgender" or "transsexual"?

Transgender and transsexual lives emerge

The Bolsheviks tried to replace mysticism and idealism with a scientific approach to all social and economic questions, including gender expression and sexuality and what in modern terms would be called "transsexuality."

"Soviet psychiatry of the 1920s took an interest in women who convincingly occupied a male gender identity," Healey states, "and in accordance with the evolving sexological categories of European science, labeled them 'female homosexuals' or occasionally, 'transvestites.'"

Healey adds that "The reasons why some women decided to acquire manhood by changing their identity documents, assuming male variants of their names, and altering their dress, manners, and hairstyle, are hard to reconstruct."

One of the most famous of these individuals was the soldier Evgenii Federovich, born Evgeniia. While posted with a regiment, Federovich married a woman postal employee in a provincial town in 1922. When Federovich's birth sex was discovered, local authorities charged the marriage was a "crime against nature." But the Commissariat of Justice found that the marriage was "legal, because concluded by mutual consent."

Evgenii Federovich wrote using concepts of the period in which homosexuality and intermediate sex were intertwined. Federovich argued for acceptance of "same sex love ... as a particular variation" of human sexuality and stated with conviction that once individuals of the "intermediate sex" were "no longer oppressed and smothered by their own lack of consciousness and by petty-bourgeois disrespect," their lives would become "socially worthwhile."

Demand for sex reassignment

As the Bolsheviks tried to examine social questions in a scientific light, individuals came forward to press social demands on the scientific community. That included the request for medical sex reassignment.

A 23-year-old female-bodied respondent to a 1923 sex survey of students at Sverdlov University in Moscow wrote, "I want to be a man, I impatiently await scientific discoveries of castration and grafting of male organs (glands)." The student expres sed optimism that science would one day be able to achieve this desired goal.

Healey explains that this request was not exceptional or unusual.

However, "The medical techniques of gender reassignment in Soviet Russia in the 1920s were as rudimentary and broadly unsuccessful as those then available in the West."

Despite this limitation, individuals began seeking out "clinical psychiatrists and biologists engaged in the emergent study of the mechanisms of sex differentiation" to request sex reassignment.

'Passing' in the countryside?

It's not clear from the following description by Healey whether he is talking about the pre- or post-revolutionary epochs, or both. "Outside of Russia's great cities, some 'female homosexuals' turned to more traditional methods of appropriating the privileges of masculinity, effecting self-transformations with clothing and ges ture that allowed them to 'pass' as men."

Healey ascribes sexuality as a primary reason why some would live as another sex. "Some used their acquired masculinity as a pathway to sexual relations with other women," he writes. "These total transformations typified the survival of the 'passing woman' in Russian culture."

Sexuality may, or may not, have been a driving factor for some individuals, but it doesn't explain the entire phenomenon. Many of these individuals must certainly have lived without a sexual partner for fear of being "outed." Therefore, going "underground" with an identity would not have easily facilitated finding sexual partners.

And it was no secret in any village or rural area that there were jobs--and greater anonymity--in the cities.

At the time, of course, homosexuality was inextricably linked to the "intermediate sex." However, in actuality, a feminine homosexual female would have found it difficult to live as a male. Comfort with mas culine gender expression and body type certainly also played an important role.

It would also be of great interest to know whether these individuals were "in the closet" or whether some found social acceptance--unspoken or not--among the peasantry. While peasants had been chained to the land under medieval conditions in the tsarist era and force-fed superstition and prejudice as a class, they were keen observers of variance in nature. And Healey himself notes that the sexual patterns and practices of the mass of Russians was marked by pagan survivals. The pre-class beliefs about the sexes, gender expression and sexuality still held some sway amongst the peasantry.

Dan Healey found the research of a lexicographer who, gathering material in the 1830s and 1850s in central Russia, discovered numerous terms for masculine females, and none of them were insults. And the researcher found that female-bodied peasants were defined as "resembling a man in their appearance, movements, voice, et cetera," "by structure, by body formation," or because they might "even approach the condition of a 'hermaphrodite-woman.'"

This fact from Healey's study of the peasantry is very illuminating: "Rural and lower-class Russians possessed an array of terms to describe individuals who appeared or behaved like members of the opposite sex. They associated this gender marginality with hermaphroditism observed in domesticated animals, linking social qualities with the familiar phenomenon of physical sexual indeterminacy."




Reprinted from the Aug. 18, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper

The U.S. Hypocrisy over Russia’s Anti-Gay Laws by Emma Cornish, in Curve Feb 7, 2014

source: http://www.curvemag.com/Curve-Magazine/Web-Articles-2014/The-US-Hypocrisy-over-Russias-Anti-Gay-Laws/

Russian Anti-Homosexual Laws Threaten to Overshadow Sochi Olympics.

Controversy over a Russian law that prohibits advocacy of homosexuality threatens to overshadow athletic competition at the upcoming Sochi Olympics. Thoughtful world leaders, including President Obama, have criticized Russia for stigmatizing gay identity.
Many of these critics find it hard to believe that in 2014 a modern industrial government would have this kind of medieval language in its statutory code:
●“Materials adopted by a local school board . . . shall . . . comply with state law and state board rules . . . prohibiting instruction . . . in the advocacy of homosexuality.”
●“Propaganda of homosexualism among minors is punishable by an administrative fine.”
●“No district shall include in its course of study instruction which: 1. Promotes a homosexual life-style. 2. Portrays homosexuality as a positive alternative life-style. 3. Suggests that some methods of sex are safe methods of homosexual sex.”
●“Instruction relating to sexual education or sexually transmitted diseases should include . . . emphasis, provided in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense.”
Amid the rush to condemn Russia’s legislation, however, it is useful to recognize that only the second quoted provision comes from the Russian statute.
The other three come from statutes in the United States. It is Utah that prohibits “the advocacy of homosexuality.” Arizona prohibits portrayals of homosexuality as a “positive alternative life-style” and has legislatively determined that it is inappropriate to even suggest to children that there are “safe methods of homosexual sex.” Alabama and Texas mandate that sex-education classes emphasize that homosexuality is “not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public.” Moreover, the Alabama and Texas statutes mandate that children be taught that “homosexual conduct is a criminal offense” even though criminalizing private, consensual homosexual conduct has been unconstitutional since 2003.
Eight U.S. states, and several cities and counties, have some version of what we call “no promo homo” provisions. Before the United States condemns the Russian statute’s infringement of free speech and academic freedom, it should recognize that our own republican forms of government have repeatedly given rise to analogous restrictions.
It is no coincidence that these examples focus on what must and must not be said to children. An explanatory note accompanying the 2013 Russian legislation makes clear that the statute seeks to protect children “from the factors that negatively affect their physical, intellectual, mental, spiritual, and moral development.” Proponents of the U.S. statutes have offered similar justification. And, like Russian President Vladimir Putin this month, the U.S. laws warn gay people and sympathizers to “leave kids alone, please.”
The underlying ideology of these statutes is the same: Everybody should be heterosexual, and homosexuality is per se bad. This ideology has never rested on any kind of evidence that homosexuality is a bad “choice” that the state ought to discourage. The ideology is a prejudice-laden legacy of a fading era. (In fact, the strategy is daffy: Even if homosexuality were a bad lifestyle choice, state laws are not an effective way to head off such a choice.)
Putin has assured the International Olympic Committee that the law is merely symbolic. But in the United States, officially sanctioned anti-gay prejudice has contributed to classroom bullying and to the high level of suicides among gay teens.
The actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein has called on the United States to boycott the Sochi Games because Russia prohibits “propaganda of homosexuality.” But recall that in 2002 the United States proudly, and without comment, sent its Olympic athletes to a state — Utah — that prohibits the “advocacy of homosexuality.” Maybe Obama ought to send Olympic delegates Billie Jean King and Brian Boitano to Alabama and Texas.
We offer that suggestion somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but there is an important lesson here. Sometimes the moral failings of others can help us see moral failings in ourselves. It was revulsion toward Nazi Germany’s eugenics policy that, in part, caused U.S. legislatures and courts to renounce state sterilization programs. Opposition to South African apartheid and the Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime generated greater national pressure for the Eisenhower administration and the Warren court to renounce apartheid in the American South.
Putin’s inability to justify this law puts a spotlight on the inability of Utah, Texas, Arizona and other states to justify their gay-stigmatizing statutes. They should be repealed or challenged in court. Just as judges led the way against compulsory sterilization and racial-segregation laws, so they should subject anti-gay laws to critical scrutiny.
As things stand, one could imagine Putin responding to U.S. criticism by saying: “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye.”

Obama's manipulation of LGBT issue an opportunistic ploy to deflect from US Foreign Policy failures, Hot headlines, Mark Adomanis, 08/09/2013

[ Blogger Note: This article though from a mainstream neo-liberal US source adeptly highlights the egregious hypocrisy of Obama's manipulation of the LGBT rights
struggle in the service of US foreign policy. The White House uses a selective morality toward the nations of the world vis-a-vis queer people and only assumes a mantle of political correctness when such ruses deflect shade from its foreign policy blunders such as the Snowden-NSA portfolio or the recent fiasco of Obama's abandoned plan to start a new US Middle-East War on Syria.]

________________________________

Barack Obama made headlines the other day when he harshly criticized Russia’s laws against gay propaganda on the Jay Leno show [Bloggers note: This article refers to the week prior to its publication: 08/09/2013]. In a tone that, at least for him, amounted to righteous indignation Obama said the following:

    “I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them…One of the things I think is very important for me to speak out on is making sure that people are treated fairly and justly because that’s what we stand for, and I believe that that’s a precept that’s not unique to America. That’s just something that should apply everywhere.”
 
Source: http://www.hotheadlines.com.au/redirect.php?h=Barack_Obamas_Surprising_Lack_of_Patience_for_Russias_Anti_Gay_Laws&artid=2417207

His comments were immediately reproduced in a host of other media outlets and became part of the generalized (and justified!) push-back against Russia’s harsh new anti-gay laws. The whole episode even allowed Obama, who is often criticized by his conservative political adversaries and even  liberal interventionists for the lack of “morality” in his foreign policy, to strike a pose as a crusading human rights activist. That’s certainly an unusual pose for someone like Obama whose entire political persona is built around his overwhelming steadiness and lack of emotion, but his takedown of Putin got rave reviews from across the political spectrum and it wouldn’t surprise me if we got a lot more of “no-patience’” Barack in the days and weeks to come.

Here’s the problem: Obama actions, and the actions of his government, conclusively show that he has virtually limitless patience for countries that mistreat gays. In case anyone forgot, we’re very close military and political allies with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and numerous other countries in which homosexuality is not only illegal but it sometimes punished with the death penalty. Gays in Saudi Arabia are banned from schools, thrown in jail, and even whipped simply for the crime of being gay. Despite this, the United States sells the Saudis tens of billions of dollars worth of high-tech weapons and, among other things, is working with them to overthrow Bashar al-Asad. Much the same can be said about the other Gulf Monarchies, which have been close US allies for decades and which violently repress not only “gay propaganda” but any expressions of homosexuality whatsoever.

Maybe it’s impolite to note this, maybe I’m being a “whataboutist” by noting the far more violent and intractable homophobia of numerous close US allies. But here’s the thing: even if you think I’m being insufficiently supportive of Obama’s policy and even if you think I’m being unduly defensive of the Russians,* the Russians are still going to point out the US’ double standard because that’s what they always do. If you think that Sergei Lavrov and the rest of the Russian Foreign Ministry are going to just sit there and passively listen to lectures on gay rights from the US president, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. The Russians positively hate this sort of “values-based” diplomacy and they absolutely revel in pointing out the US’ inevitable shortcomings in fulfilling it.

And so when the Russians, as they undoubtedly will, highlight the US’ extreme inconsistency in supporting gay rights…well what then? What do we say? When our official position is that we have “no patience” for countries that mistreat their LGBT citizens and the Russians say “but what about the Saudis?” how to we respond? I suppose we can say “the Saudis don’t count” but that’s not exactly a thrilling message of universal values, is it? I suppose we could simply ignore the Russian response, but that also doesn’t seem like the sharpest strategy since the Russians have some pretty loud megaphones of their own and could succeed in making us appear rather foolish. We could also say “well we’re friends with the Saudis and not with you, so tough luck,” but that, again, is sending a message that values aren’t universal but are contingent on a country’s political relationship with the US (exactly the opposite of the message Obama was attempting to send).

This is all a slightly roundabout way of highlighting the real problem with a “values-based” foreign policy: American economic and security interests demand close cooperation with a number of highly unsavory regimes, and, because of this cooperation, any appeal to universal values is necessarily going to fall very far short of the mark. I’m not particularly agitated by America’s alliance with the Gulf Monarchies or other less-than-democratic countries because, hey, it’s a rough world out there and you cooperate with whomever you need to. America wouldn’t have become nearly as powerful as it is today if it had only cooperated with countries that were purer than the driven snow, and virtually every other country in the world partners with at least a few decidedly unsavory characters. But closely cooperating with some of the most homophobic countries on earth while simultaneously claiming to support universal human rights for gays and lesbians? How can that possibly be an effective strategy?

Opposition to Russia’s “gay propaganda” ban is richly justified because its a stupid and indefensible law. But, for the sake of honesty if nothing else, we shouldn’t pretend that the United States has some sort of universal and non-negotiable stance in favor of gay rights because this simply isn’t the case.

*I’ve written about three dozen different columns on my opposition to the ban on “gay propaganda” but in case anyone is curious I’ve openly opposed the law from the beginning and think that, ultimately, the Russians have only themselves to blame for the PR disaster now on their hands

“Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan” by: Conn Hallinan, peoplesworld, Jan 30 2014

Source: http://www.peoplesworld.org/empire-s-ally-canada-and-the-war-in-afghanistan/

Book information:
"Empire's Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan"
Edited by Jerome Klassen and Greg Albo
2013, University of Toronto Press

Americans tend to think of Canadians as politer and more sensible than their southern neighbors, thus the joke: "Why does the Canadian chicken cross the road? To get to the middle." Oh, yes, bit of a muddle there in Afghanistan, but like Dudley Do Right, the Canadians were only trying to develop and tidy up the place.

Not in the opinion of Jerome Klassen and a formidable stable of academics, researchers, journalists, and peace activists who see Canada's role in Central Asia less as a series of policy blunders than a coldly calculated strategy of international capital. "Simply put," writes Klassen, "the war in Afghanistan was always linked to the aspirations of empire on a much broader scale."

"Empire's Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan," by Klassen and Greg Albo, asks the question, "Why did the Canadian government go to war in Afghanistan in 2001?" and then carefully dissects the popular rationales: fighting terrorism; coming to the aid of the United States; helping the Afghans to develop their country. Oh, and to free women. What the book's autopsy of those arguments reveals is disturbing.

Calling Canada's Afghan adventure a "revolution," Klassen argues, "the new direction of Canadian foreign policy cannot be explained simply by policy mistakes, U.S. demands, military adventurism, security threats, or abstract notions of liberal idealism. More accurately, it is best explained by structural tendencies in the Canadian political economy - in particular, by the internationalization of Canadian capital and the realignment of the state as a secondary power in the U.S.-led system of empire."

In short, the war in Afghanistan is not about people failing to read Kipling, but is rather part of a worldwide economic and political offensive by the U.S. and its allies to dominate sources of energy and weaken any upstart competitors like China, and India. Nor is that "broader scale" limited to any particular region.

Indeed, the U.S. and its allies have transformed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from a European alliance to contain the Soviet Union, to an international military force with a global agenda. Afghanistan was the alliance's coming out party, its first deployment outside of Europe. The new "goals" are, as one planner put it, to try to "re-establish the West at the centre of global security," to guarantee access to cheap energy, to police the world's sea lanes, to "project stability beyond its borders," and even concern itself with "Chinese military modernization."

If this all sounds very 19th century - as if someone should strike up a chorus of "Britannia Rules the Waves" - the authors would agree, but point out that global capital is far more powerful and all embracing than the likes of Charles "Chinese" Gordon and Lord Herbert Kitchener ever envisioned. One of the book's strong points is its updating of capitalism, so to speak, and its careful analysis of what has changed since the end of the Cold War.

Klassen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies, and Greg Albo is an associate professor of political science at York University in Toronto. The two authors gather together 13 other academics, journalists, researchers and peace activists to produce a detailed analysis of Canada's role in the Afghan war.

The book is divided into four major parts dealing with the history of the involvement, its political and economic underpinnings, and the actual Canadian experiences in Afghanistan, which had more to with condoning war crimes like torture than digging wells, educating people, and improving their health. Indeed, Canada's Senate Standing Committee on National Security concluded that, in Ottawa's major area of concentration in Afghanistan, Kandahar, "Life is clearly more perilous because we are there."

After almost $1 trillion poured into Afghanistan - Canada's contribution runs to about $18 billion - some 70 percent of the Afghan population lives in poverty, and malnutrition has recently increased. Over 30,000 Afghan children die each year from hunger and disease. And as for liberating women, according to a study by TrustLaw Women, the "conflict, NATO airstrikes and cultural practices combined" make Afghanistan the "most dangerous country for women" in the world.

The last section of the book deals with Canada's anti-war movement.

While the focus of "Empire's Ally" is Canada, the book is really a sort of historical materialist blueprint for analyzing how and why capitalist countries involve themselves in foreign wars. Readers will certainly learn a lot about Canada, but they will also discover how political economics works and what the goals of the new imperialism are for Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin.

Klassen argues that Canadians have not only paid in blood and gold for their Afghanistan adventure, they have created a multi-headed monster, a "network of corporate, state, military, intellectual, and civil social actors who profit from or direct Canada's new international policies."

This meticulously researched book should be on the shelf of anyone interested in the how's and why's of western foreign policy. "Empire's Ally" is a model of how to do an in-depth analysis of 21st century international capital and a handy guide on how to cut through the various narratives about "democracy," "freedom," and "security" to see the naked violence and greed that lays at the heart of the Afghan War.

The authors do more than reveal, however, they propose a roadmap for peace in Afghanistan. It is the kind of thinking that could easily be applied to other "hot spots" on the globe.

For this book is a warning about the future, when the battlegrounds may shift from the Hindu Kush to the East China Sea, Central Africa, or Kashmir, where, under the guise of fighting "terrorism," establishing "stability," or "showing resolve," the U.S. and its allies will unleash their armies of the night.

Book information:
"Empire's Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan"
Edited by Jerome Klassen and Greg Albo
2013, University of Toronto Press

This originally appeared in Hallinan's blog, Dispatches From the Edge: http://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/empires-ally-the-u-s-canada/

Major Parts of the World Ignored by US TV News in 2013, By Jim Lobe, pridenews, 01, 02, 2014

source: http://pridenews.ca/2014/01/15/major-parts-of-world-ignored-by-u-s-tv-news-in-2013/

If people outside the United States are looking for answers why Americans often seem so clueless about the world outside their borders, they could start with what the three major U.S. television networks offered their viewers in the way of news during 2013.

Syria and celebrities dominated foreign coverage by ABC, NBC, and CBS – whose combined evening news broadcasts are the single most important media source of information about national and international events for most Americans. Vast portions of the globe went almost entirely ignored, according to the latest annual review by the authoritative Tyndall Report.

Latin America, most of Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia apart from Afghanistan, and virtually all of East Asia – despite growing tensions between China and Washington’s closest regional ally, Japan – were virtually absent from weeknight news programmes of ABC, NBC, and CBS last year, according to the report, which has tracked the three networks’ evening news coverage continuously since 1988.

Out of nearly 15,000 minutes of Monday-through-Friday evening news coverage by the three networks, the Syrian civil war and the debate over possible U.S. intervention claimed 519 minutes, or about 3.5 percent of total air time, according to the report.

That made the Syrian conflict and the U.S. policy response the year’s single-most-covered event. It was followed by coverage of the terrorist bombing by two Chechnya-born brothers that killed three people at the finish line of last April’s Boston Marathon (432 minutes); the debate over the federal budget (405 minutes); and the flawed rollout of the healthcare reform law, or Obamacare (338 minutes).

The next biggest international story was the death in December of former South African President Nelson Mandela (186 minutes); the July ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and its aftermath; the coverage of Pope Francis I (157 minutes, not including an additional 121 minutes devoted to Pope Benedict’s retirement and the Cardinals’ conclave that resulted in Francis’ succession); and the birth of Prince George, the latest addition to the British royal family (131 minutes).

The continued fighting in Afghanistan came in just behind the new prince at 121 minutes for the entire year.

The strong showings by the papal succession, Mandela’s death, and Prince George’s birth all demonstrated the rise of “celebrity journalism” in news coverage, Andrew Tyndall, the report’s publisher, told IPS. He added that “a minor celebrity like Oscar Pistorius (the South African so-called “Bladerunner” track star accused of murdering his girlfriend) attracted more coverage [by the TV networks – 51 minutes] than all the rest of sub-Saharan Africa in the [11] months before Mandela’s death.”

Surveys by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press, among other polling and research groups, show that about two-thirds of the general public cite television as their main source for national and international news, more than twice the number of people who rely on newspapers, and about one-third more than the growing number of individuals whose primary source is the internet.

An average of about 21 million U.S. residents watch the network news on any given evening. While the cable news channels – CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC – often get more public attention, their audience is actually many times smaller, according to media-watchers.

“In 2012, more than four times as many people watched the three network newscasts than watched the highest-rated show on the three cable channels during prime time,” Emily Guskin, a research analyst for the Pew Research Centre’s Journalism Project, told IPS.

As in other recent years, news about the weather – especially its extremes and the damage they wrought – received a lot of attention on the network news, although, also consistent with past performance, the possible relationship between extreme weather and climate change was rarely, if ever, drawn by reporters or anchors.

Last year’s tornado season, severe winter weather, drought and wild forest fires in the western states constituted three of the top six stories of the year, according to the report. Along with the aftermath of 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, those four topics reaped nearly 900 minutes of coverage on the three networks, or about six percent of the entire year’s coverage.

“A major flaw in the television news journalism is its inability to translate anecdotes of extreme weather into the overarching concept of climate change,” noted Tyndall. “As long as these events are presented as meteorological and not climatic, then they will be covered as local and domestic, not global.

“An exception in 2013 was Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines,” he noted. That event captured 83 minutes of coverage among the three networks, making it the single biggest story by far out of Asia for the year.

By comparison, the growing tensions between Japan and China in the East China Sea – which many foreign-policy analysts here rate as one of the most alarming events of the past year if, for no other reason, than the U.S. is committed by treaty to militarily defend Japan’s territory – received a mere eight minutes of coverage.

Two other major U.S. foreign policy challenges received more coverage. North Korea and the volatile tenure of its young leader, Kim Jong-un, received a total of 87 minutes, including 10 minutes to visiting basketball veteran Dennis Rodman, of coverage during 2013.

Events in Iran, including the election of President Hassan Rouhani and negotiations over its nuclear programme, received a total of 104 minutes of coverage between the three networks over the course of the year, nearly as much attention as was given the British royals.

Libya received 64 minutes of coverage, but virtually all of it was devoted to the domestic controversy over responsibility for the September 2012 killings of the U.S. ambassador and three other officials there. The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria and the civil war and humanitarian disaster in the Central African Republic received no coverage at all.

As for the Israel-Palestinian conflict which Secretary of State John Kerry has made a top priority along with a nuclear deal with Iran, it received only 16 minutes of coverage in 2013. “Palestine has virtually disappeared from the news agenda,” noted Tyndall.

As has Latin America, which received virtually no attention, according to Tyndall who suggested that the lack of coverage may be due to the growth of Spanish-language networks here. “The assumption seems to be that anyone interested in Latin American coverage would likely speak Spanish and find it in that language.”

Altogether, the three networks devoted just under 4,000 minutes, or about 27 percent of total air time, to coverage of overseas stories or U.S. foreign policy. That was somewhat under the average amount of 25-year average. Indeed, the 1,302 minutes’ worth of stories focused on U.S. foreign policy marked a nearly 50-percent reduction from the average.

“In general, foreign policy coverage has risen when the president is bellicose,” according to Tyndall, who noted that such coverage had risen sharply as a result of armed conflicts during the administrations of the two Presidents Bush and fallen under Presidents Clinton and Obama.

But the collection by the National Security Agency (NSA) of “metadata” on U.S. citizens and of private conversations and email of foreign leaders as disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden – a story with both domestic and international repercussions – also placed among the top 10 stories of the year with 210 minutes of coverage.