Speak Christian!

Rapayet Pushaina thinks he is about 80 years old; he is pretty sure he was not born on 31 December, and he is absolutely certain his name is not Iron Scraper.

But that is the information that appeared on his Colombian national ID card for more than 50 years.

Pushaina, an elder of his clan of Wayúu Native Americans, who live in the deserts of the north-western Guajira peninsula, chafes at the mockery of a name that was given to him by an official of the national registry office who went to his remote village 50 years ago.

"I don't want to be Raspahierro [Iron Scraper], I am Rapayet," he said through his Spanish-speaking granddaughter.

He is one of thousands of Wayúu Indians who were given derisive names, according to Estercilia Simanca, a Wayúu lawyer.

"In some cases there may have been a misunderstanding but in others it was clearly intentional," she said.

Wayúu ID cards show names such as Arrancamuelas (Tooth Puller), Bolsillo (Pocket), Cabezón (Big Head), Chichí (Piss), Coito (Coitus), Gorila (Gorilla), Monja (Nun), Payaso (Clown) and Teléfono (Telephone).

Others are Alka-Seltzer, Land Rover, Marilyn Monroe and Tarzan.

Most neither speak nor read Spanish so were unaware of the mockery. The Wayúu native tongue is an Arawak language.

They do not use the Gregorian calendar either, but rather mark dates with knots on a yarn. Because of this, registry officials opted to give everyone the same birth date: 31 December.

"Since I was little, I thought it was strange that all my family had the same birthday," Simanca said.

She has conducted an investigation into the apparently widespread practice of making up names and birth dates and estimates about 70% of Pushaina's generation were given humiliating names by visiting registry officials, and nearly all were listed as having been born on 31 December.

Pushaina only became aware of his "official" name when he began to attend meetings with NGO and government officials about 10 years ago as a representative of his community.

"At first I thought they were pronouncing my name wrong," he said. Then he realised that what was on his ID card was a twisted joke.

Film-maker Priscilla Padilla has documented the abuses in a documentary called Born on 31 December, which was screened last month in Bogotá.

The Colombian registry office has said it does not know how or why the changes to names and birth dates – the bulk of which happened in the 1960s and 70s – were made, and has promised an investigation.

The director of the office, Carlos Ariel Sanchez, vowed to "correct the names that make people uncomfortable or that are ridiculous".

Simanca said she was encouraged by the official statement but that name changes were too costly for most Wayúu, who live in remote rural areas and can hardly afford travel and legal costs which can add up to more than 200,000 pesos (£67).

"Just like they have ID card drives where they go from village to village registering people, they should send out officials to rectify the names," she said.

Pushaina is now privileged among his clan. With the help of Simanca and Padilla, he was able to reclaim his true name.

He says he is happy with his new card. "Now no one can make fun of me any more."

What Is Multiculturalism?

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

In diplomatic parlance, the term "frozen conflict" generally refers to unresolved disputes affecting countries of the Black Sea region. But in the post-ideological, non-interventionist age that dawned with the fall of George Bush and Tony Blair and the rise of new, ruthlessly pragmatic, self-interested great powers such as China and India, a widening range of intractable conflicts, from Somalia, Kashmir and Kurdistan to Kyrgyzstan, Burma and Tibet might fairly be described as frozen, too.

In many if not most of such cases, external conflict-resolution efforts are underpowered, stalled, failing, or nonexistent. The appeals of pressure groups, thinktanks and activists increasingly fall on deaf ears. The US and its junior partner, Britain, no longer actively seek to spread freedom and democracy across the globe. Instead, Washington has "reset" relations with authoritarian Russia, sought a strategic accommodation with communist China, moved to cut its losses in still shambolic Iraq and Afghanistan, and is aggressively arming Middle East autocrats.

What George Bush Sr called the "vision thing", exemplified by his bid to build a post-Soviet, post-cold war "new world order", is almost wholly lacking now. Today's more blinkered emphasis is on trade, oil and security, not self-determination or human rights. Diplomacy, in its highest form of independent, impartial mediation, is out of fashion. Only the current American-led peace efforts in Israel-Palestine contradict the overall trend. Even there, Barack Obama was obliged to justify his intervention by redefining the conflict as a threat to US national interests.

The UN, ever a convenient scapegoat, is blamed more often than not for failures in tackling outrages such as the murderous treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka or Tibetans in China. But, as always, it is the member states, and particularly the security council's veto-wielding permanent five, that carry prime responsibility for collective action or, more commonly, inaction. Thus, for example, the major powers have put expediency before principle in tacitly agreeing not to pursue Sudan's indicted president, Omar al-Bashir, for alleged war crimes, at least until the looming issue of southern Sudan's secession is settled. Likewise, the Darfur peace talks are on the backburner.

Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Freedom League and former convenor of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference opposition coalition, bears eloquent witness to the invidious consequences of such neglect. A journalist, author and political activist, he has spent nearly 10 years in jail, on and off, since first being arrested by Indian security forces in 1968. Kashmiris want the withdrawal of the Indian army and a plebiscite on self-determination, as promised repeatedly by the UN since 1947, he said. They are still waiting.

"If the killing of innocents continues, the violence could get worse," Rehmani, who lives in exile in Islamabad, said in London this week. This summer's clashes, curfews and security crackdowns in the state capital Srinagar and elsewhere might only be termed an "uprising" that could be exploited by Islamist jihadis. Yet powers such as the US and Britain were reluctant to pressure a newly important India for a deal, he said. There was no peace process, no peace, and no prospect of it.

Sadly, Kashmir's plight is unexceptional. Attempts by Turkey's Kurds to win greater autonomy have stalled in the past year, mirroring the bigger problems facing an unrecognised Kurdish nation straddling Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. But there is zero international appetite for tackling the Kurdish question. Despite years of western hand-wringing over terrorism, piracy and immigration, Somalia remains a de facto no-go area for international diplomacy; likewise long-suffering Zimbabwe; likewise Thailand's disadvantaged southern Malay minority; the much put-upon Uighurs of China's Xinjiang province; and the Muslim peoples of the Russian Caucasus.

Even where the international community has stepped in, lack of leadership, selfish calculation, and a craven reluctance to make a stand increasingly characterise much of what is happening now. Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions remain under Russian occupation, despite the French-brokered 2008 deal for a troop withdrawal; Burma's criminal generals carry on regardless of international sanctions; and even Kosovo, that great test-bed of liberal humanitarian interventionism, is still too weak and divided to leave to its own devices, more than 10 years after its "liberation".

It may be this apparent diplomatic drift, this reluctance of individual governments and collectives such as the EU to risk new international entanglements or enforce existing rules and standards, comes in reaction to the ideologically driven excesses of the Bush years. Perhaps it is linked to the economic downturn in the west, with falling business confidence matched by falling diplomatic and political confidence. But perhaps, more than anything, it is the product of a new, narrow, self-serving national self-interestedness – a sort of Tea Party philosophy writ large in which charity begins at home, the weak go to the wall, and the devil take the hindmost. Whatever the reason, it's all very short-sighted, and dangerous, too.

Lost In Translation

E-mail error ends up on road sign

When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.

Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated".

So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket.

"When they're proofing signs, they should really use someone who speaks Welsh," said journalist Dylan Iorwerth.

It's good to see people trying to translate but they should really ask for expert help Dylan Iorwerth, Golwg magazine

Swansea Council became lost in translation when it was looking to halt heavy goods vehicles using a road near an Asda store in the Morriston area

All official road signs in Wales are bilingual, so the local authority e-mailed its in-house translation service for the Welsh version of: "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only".

The reply duly came back and officials set the wheels in motion to create the large sign in both languages.

The notice went up and all seemed well - until Welsh speakers began pointing out the embarrassing error.

Welsh-language magazine Golwg was promptly sent photographs of the offending sign by a number of its readers.

Managing editor Mr Iorwerth said: "We've been running a series of these pictures over the past months.

"They're circulating among Welsh speakers because, unfortunately, it's all too common that things are not just badly translated, but are put together by people who have no idea about the language.

"It's good to see people trying to translate, but they should really ask for expert help.

"Everything these days seems to be written first in English and then translated.

"Ideally, they should be written separately in both languages."

A council spokeswoman said: "Our attention was drawn to the mistranslation of a sign at the junction of Clase Road and Pant-y-Blawd Road.

Other confusing signs

"We took it down as soon as we were made aware of it and a correct sign will be re-instated as soon as possible."

The blunder is not the only time Welsh has been translated incorrectly or put in the wrong place:

• Cyclists between Cardiff and Penarth in 2006 were left confused by a bilingual road sign telling them they had problems with an "inflamed bladder".

• In the same year, a sign for pedestrians in Cardiff reading 'Look Right' in English read 'Look Left' in Welsh.

• In 2006, a shared-faith school in Wrexham removed a sign which translated the Welsh for staff as "wooden stave".

• Football fans at a FA Cup tie between Oldham and Chasetown - two English teams - in 2005 were left scratching their heads after a Welsh-language hoarding was put up along the pitch. It should have gone to a match in Merthyr Tydfil.

• People living near an Aberdeenshire building site in 2006 were mystified when a sign apologising for the inconvenience was written in Welsh as well as English.

We Are No Chinese!

China regards militants from its Uighur minority as a major threat to security at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The militants are blamed for a bloody attack on a border post in western China in the run-up to the Games. Human rights groups have long accused China of persecuting the Uighurs.

Who are the Uighurs?

The Uighurs are Muslims based in north-western China's Xinjiang region. Their language is related to Turkish and they regard themselves as culturally and ethnically close to other Central Asian nations.

The region's economy has for centuries revolved around agriculture and trade, with towns such as Kashgar thriving as hubs along the Silk Road.

In the early part of the 20th Century, the Uighurs briefly declared independence. The region was brought under the complete control of communist China in 1949.

Officially, Xinjiang is now described by China as an autonomous region, like Tibet to its south.

What are China's concerns about the Uighurs?

Beijing says Uighur militants have been waging a violent campaign for an independent state by plotting bombings, sabotage and civic unrest.

Since the 9/11 attacks in the US, China has increasingly portrayed its Uighur separatists as auxiliaries of al-Qaeda.

It has accused them of receiving training and indoctrination from Islamist militants in neighbouring Afghanistan.

However, little public evidence has been produced in support of these claims.

More than 20 Uighurs were captured by the US military after its invasion of Afghanistan. Though imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for six years, they have yet to be charged with any offence.

What complaints have been made against the Chinese in Xinjiang?

Activists say the Uighurs' religious, commercial and cultural activities have been gradually curtailed by the Chinese state.

China is accused of intensifying its crackdown on the Uighurs after street protests in the 1990s - and again, in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

Over the past decade, many prominent Uighurs have been imprisoned or have sought asylum abroad after being accused of terrorism.

China is said to have exaggerated the threat from Uighur separatists in order to justify repression in the region.

Beijing has also been accused of seeking to dilute Uighur influence by arranging the mass immigration of Han Chinese, the country's majority ethnic group, to Xinjiang.

Han Chinese currently account for roughly 40% of Xinjiang's population.

What is the current situation in Xinjiang?

Over the last decade, major development projects have brought prosperity to Xinjiang's big cities.

The activities of local and foreign journalists in the region are closely monitored by the Chinese state and there are few independent sources of news from the region.

China has been keen to highlight improvements made to the region's economy while Uighurs interviewed by the press have avoided criticising Beijing.

However, occasional attacks on Chinese targets suggest Uighur separatism remains a potent - and potentially violent - force.