Guardian

'Eco-pirate' Paul Watson is in danger of losing his boat

2011-07-31T18:23:00.000-07:00

Terri Irwin, widow of the late crocodile hunter Steve Irwin, and Paul Watson aboard the Sea Shepherd flagship in Melbourne in 2007. Photograph: William West/AFP

"Eco-pirate" Paul Watson is losing a race against time to recover his flagship boat, the Steve Irwin, which has been impounded in Shetland.

The world's most radical conservationist, Watson is being sued for $1.4m (?850,000) by a Maltese fishing company, Fish and Fish, one of Europe's leading tuna processors. The law suit against Watson's Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was filed last year after activists aboard the Steve Irwin freed 800 bluefin tuna from a pen in the Mediterranean.

Watson has just 10 days to raise the bond required to release the boat, which was named after the late Australian conservationist. It has been impounded in the harbour at Lerwick ever since the company sued him for damages. By last night, the society had raised about $500,000, after a global Twitter campaign and appeals to celebrities who have helped Watson in the past.

A co-founder of Greenpeace, Watson was picking up volunteer crew and restocking the Steve Irwin in preparation for a trip to protest against whaling in the Faroe Islands when he was served with the writ. The tuna cage that had been intercepted 40 miles off the Libyan coast in June last year held an estimated 35 tons of fish.

After a fracas in which there was hand-to-hand fighting between the two crews, Sea Shepherd sent in divers to release the 800 tuna.

Joseph Caruana, the owner of Fish and Fish, declined to speak to the Observer, but has claimed in the Maltese press that two of his divers were injured in the encounter, an allegation strongly denied by Watson. "Sea Shepherd cannot continue behaving this way. My aim is for justice to be done. I wanted to show that we mean business and we will fight our cause," he said.

Malta has become a global capital of tuna fishing, exporting ?80m-worth of the fish, mainly to the Middle East and Japan. Ships surround the fish with nets and then tow them to cages, where they are fattened for export.

Catches are limited to two weeks a year and ship owners have been given strict quotas to meet by governments, but, with little policing, the industry has been able to openly flout the law in Libyan waters.

Greenpeace and WWF called last month for a suspension of the Mediterranean tuna fishing season, saying that stocks were at critically low levels. "Mediterranean bluefin tuna is on the slippery slope to collapse," said Dr Sergi Tudela, of WWF Mediterranean.

In a statement last week, Watson said that if Sea Shepherd could not raise the money, the Steve Irwin could be held indefinitely and possibly sold. "This would not only be a financial hardship, but it could threaten our ability to defend whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary from the Japanese whaling fleet this December. Fish and Fish are claiming damages for bluefin tuna we believe were illegally caught after the season had closed," he said.

In a separate incident, the Namibian government has declared Sea Shepherd a "threat to national security" after it tried to film the annual slaughter of 90,000 Cape fur seals on the west African coast. It is a crime to document seal clubbing in Namibia.

"The group tried to document the seal slaughter, but was detected by Namibian special forces," said Watson. "It was a good plan, but Sea Shepherd is no match for the Namibian military." The group fled to South Africa, having had its rooms burgled and cameras destroyed.

View the original article here

Students given tips to stop gap year travel being 'a new colonialism'

2011-07-31T17:09:00.000-07:00

Volunteering in developing countries such as Nepal can help young people gain confidence and a sense of self-reliance. Photograph: Jonny Cochrane/Alamy

The multi-million pound gap-year industry is in danger of damaging Britain's reputation abroad and raising fears that the west is engaged in a new form of colonialism, according to a leading thinktank.

Young people planning a gap year should focus on what they can offer their hosts in order to discourage the view that volunteering is merely a new way of exercising power, says a new report by Demos.

Those who carefully select the projects in which they take part are likely to make the most of their time, while doing the most to dispel the belief that their trips are merely self-interested, says the report.

Nine out of 10 young people surveyed by YouGov for Demos said they had improved their self-confidence, self-reliance and sense of motivation following a stint of volunteering in a developing country.

However, the gap-year industry is a ?6bn business for western companies, costing volunteers between ?1,500 and ?4,500 for a mere two-month experience. One in five people who took a gap year said they believed their presence in the place they visited made no positive difference to the lives of those around them.

Jonathan Birdwell, author of the Demos report, said there was even evidence that an ill thought-out gap year could be bad for local communities and Britain's relations with other countries. "There is a risk of such programmes perpetuating negative stereotypes of western 'colonialism' and 'charity': a new way for the west to assert its power," he said.

Birdwell added that "projects that do not appear to have benefits or make a difference for communities abroad leave volunteers unmotivated and disillusioned".

One respondent to the survey's report said: "I felt that the local community could have done the work we were doing; there were lots of unemployed people there. I'd have preferred to work with local unemployed and helped them in some way to benefit their community."

The study comes in the wake of the government's launch of the International Citizen Service which, in the words of the prime minister, is designed to "give thousands of our young people, those who couldn't otherwise afford it, the chance to see the world and serve others".

The scheme is means tested, allowing those who come from families with a joint income of less than ?25,000 the chance of a gap year for free. The pilot of the scheme will involve 1,080 young people visiting 27 different countries.

The Demos report found that 64% of 3,000 parents surveyed want their children to take part in the ICS scheme. However, Demos's research indicated that there were key factors which make a gap year successful and the report recommends the ICS should incorporate them.

There should be post-placement support, which allows the young person to continue the work they started abroad once back home, it claims.

The report says there should be pre-departure training to ensure that young people are able to offer relevant skills. It says placements which are short are just as likely to have positive outcomes in personal development and civic participation as long-term ones. Young people who live with a host family are also more likely to report positive outcomes in "skills, identity and values".

The report found that the typical UK overseas volunteer tended to be young, affluent, white and female, although those with few qualifications and those from low-income backgrounds reported the most positive experiences.

Birdwell said he hoped the ICS would grow to help around 3,000 young people a year and that these would be the least well-off in society. He said: "The new International Citizen Service is an exciting opportunity for young British people to experience the world and gain invaluable experience and skills while helping to contribute to the UK's international development goals.

"However, the ICS is competing with an already crowded gap-year market. In order to be successful, it must ensure that activities benefit communities abroad and it must target recruitment to young people who couldn't afford commercial gap year programmes."

Harry went on an expedition with funding from the charity Raleigh International to Costa Rica and Nicaragua before starting at Manchester on a business studies course. "I wanted a gap year which gave me work experience, a chance to travel and the chance to give something back to a community. When I returned, I managed to get on to an internship with IBM. I could have just travelled to Australia like everyone else, but how often do you get to trek through rainforests, build a community centre for a remote village or reforest a national park?"

Amy spent eight weeks in Nakavika village, Fiji, in 2008 before studying English at Nottingham. "I learnt nothing. By and large, the villagers living there seemed really happy. Probably earlier projects would have been rewarding, when you helped to build their toilets and when they didn't have sports equipment and text books already. I felt the only impact I had was the money I paid. Realistically, my presence only positively impacted the children there, as we played with them a lot when we were meant to be 'building'!"

View the original article here

Jude Law interview: 'I was an optimist. A champion of the human spirit'

2011-07-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

Jude Law can't speak about phone hacking. I'm told this by his publicist before the interview. And when I bring it up during our chat – it's the day after the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks have given testimonies to the Commons committee – Law smiles and makes a zipping action with his finger across his lips. "I just can't because I'm in legal proceedings and it's in various stages with various people, and part of that is classified, and they've promised to keep it quiet if I keep it quiet, so I've got to be really careful. But believe me, there's an awful lot I want to say, though. An awful lot."

But then he can't not speak about it either, because he's right at the very heart of it all. The peak phone-hacking years coincided with the peak Jude Law tabloid-mania years and he has not one case pending against News International but three. It's a very big deal, not just to him – his relationship with the tabloid press, and particularly News International, has both defined and circumscribed his life for much of the past decade – but a big deal, too, in terms of what will happen to Rupert Murdoch's media empire. His cases are the very crux of the story.

We're in an empty meeting room at the Jerwood Space in south London, where Law is in the thick of rehearsals for his new play, an Eugene O'Neill revival, Anna Christie. It starts at the Donmar Warehouse this week, and his head is full of it: it's a gritty love story set in 1920 between a prostitute and a ship's stoker. "I've got really sucked into the world of the play," he says. "So it's very much get up, go to rehearse, go home, learn lines, go to bed." And watch the news. He's right in the middle of one drama – he plays the ship's stoker, Mat Burke – but, of course, he can't help but be compelled by the other thrilling spectacle playing itself out on the television news. "I mean, of course I'm watching it," he says. "Who isn't?"

It's just so dramatic, I say, isn't it?

"It's a movie. It's a scene from a movie."

And you've already got your role sorted, I say, meaning that, of course, if it ever was a film, he could simply play himself. But he doesn't catch my drift.

"James, you mean?" And then realises his mistake. "Oh! You mean myself? Oh dear. I can't believe I said that." But, of course, he'd be brilliant as James Murdoch. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before. He's specialised in characters who have an edge, a slightly slippery elusiveness, and there are obvious overtones of what is still, perhaps, his most famous role – the role that saw him burst into public consciousness in Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley in 1999: the heir to a shipping fortune, Dickie Greenleaf. There really is more than a touch of Dickie Greenleaf to James Murdoch, isn't there, I say.

"Oh dear," he says. "I've got to be really careful what I say here."

He's obviously itching to speak about it. Phone hacking, privacy, press intrusion – these are matters that he has thought long and hard about, but because he can't go into detail, he ends up delivering slightly gnomic one-liners. "The thing is," he says, "it involves us all." What do you mean? "It involves us all. All of us. That's the closest I can come to talking about it. We're all involved. We're all complicit. On some level, if you think about what has happened and what will come out in the end. I think it's easy to think that things are mending if we think, 'Oh things are over now.' Or: 'It's their fault.' But we're all complicit."

Do you think it's just the beginning, I say. "I hope it's just the beginning." And he makes the zipping action across his lips again. "I don't want to quote myself so I'm going to quote someone else. There was an interesting Thought for the Day on Radio 4 yesterday. I came in halfway through so I don't know who it was, but he was talking about Murdoch being sorry. No, not being sorry, he was saying that he was asking for atonement. He was asking for forgiveness. And the guy said, he hasn't been judged yet. He hasn't any right to ask for that yet because we still have to judge him. And judgment is what this whole thing is about. They judge people. Those papers have judged people. I have been judged. They have yet to all be judged, and I hope they are ready for it."

He's referring, of course, to the time when, for a while, he was one half of the most glamorous couple on earth, the Jude Law-Sienna Miller coupling, a gift to tabloid editors and celebrity magazines everywhere. He was the Oscar-nominated, chisel-jawed actor (he was shortlisted for his part in The Talented Mr Ripley and Minghella's next film, Cold Mountain), and Miller, whose face launched a million boho skirts, was his golden-haired consort. They seemed to embody beauty and talent and a certain slightly louche London-LA lifestyle at the heart of the Primrose Hill-Hollywood Hills nexus, right up until the News of the World printed a story which detailed how Law had had an affair with his children's nanny and all tabloid hell broke loose. Miller left. Law made a public apology. Soap opera ensued. And then just as that was dying down, in 2009, another story in the News of the World detailed he'd had a fling with an American model, Samantha Burke, who was subsequently carrying his child.

They're obviously not incidents that Law is particularly proud of, but they're also not incidents which have got anything to do with his day job – acting – and what the phone-hacking case seems to have done, I say, is to throw open the whole concept of privacy. Of precisely who is entitled to a private life and what that means. "Well, again I use this word judgment. It's someone thinking that they have the right to have a moral judgment when a) there is no recourse. I'm not going to be able to morally judge them back and say, 'Well, let me look at your life.' And b) is that healthy? For everyone reading that… what about the person reading that who's done a similar thing. You know it's part of life. Don't make moral judgments, just give me some information. Give me some facts. Get off my page."

Jude Law shot at the Jerwood Space in London. Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Observer

The new play, Anna Christie, is part of the final season of the Donmar's artistic director, Michael Grandage, who in 2009 directed Law in Hamlet, a role that saw him feted by the critics and nominated for an Olivier award. He started out in the theatre and was a successful stage actor long before he was an international film star: he was nominated for his first Olivier (best newcomer) for his first West End play, Les Parents Terribles.

I wonder if he's nostalgic for that period of his life: when he had success without this all-encompassing fame. "I don't really look back, if I'm honest. I've always been someone who's really tried to live in the here and now. My memory isn't very good so maybe that's why, but it just seems like I've been living this life, my current chapter, for a really long time and I don't really remember what it was like before. It's just been sort of ingrained in me. What I deal with day to day."

He has a whole slew of new films coming out later in the year, but he was also determined to go back to the theatre.

"I was still very excited by my experience of playing Hamlet and was keen to keep the relationship with the theatre up. I'd really dropped the baton and had a gap of about seven years and I didn't want that to happen again."

So he's back and while Hamlet was a great triumph, it was overshadowed in some ways by the Samantha Burke episode ("Jude knows he's been a Bard boy" was one of the headlines), and this time around, it's inevitable that phone hacking will also cast a certain light. But then the play, he says, and his character in particular, is about youth and experience, and loss of innocence, and the gaining of knowledge, themes which are close to his heart too, and which have preoccupied him for much of the last few years.

His 30s (he's 38 now) have been, at best, a mixed time. "I think everyone goes through chapters in their life and there was a time when I wasn't feeling terribly positive about what I was contributing to film, or wasn't feeling as if I was going in the direction I wanted and I re-evaluated what I was doing. I've never been a fan of just doing. I like to do things for a reason."

As a young man, he was a self-described idealist. "I was an optimist, a great champion of the human spirit. And I lost that for a time. I feel like I've regained a bit of that in the last few years but there was a period of my life in which I had a very low opinion of people in general."

What, I say? Everybody? The entire human race?

"Well, yeah. I just felt a little bit down on what people seemed to be interested in. And down on what the general consensus of what the interesting things were. It was just so far away from what I found interesting and what I was interested in and what I found fascinating about people. It just felt like this slurry pit."

And at the heart of the slurry pit was the tabloid press. It's hard to overstate how profoundly his experience of the press seems to have affected his life. And how profoundly, potentially, his life could now influence the press. Because the three cases he is bringing against News International are some of the most crucial, and possibly damaging, of them all. The first accuses the News of the World of tapping his and his assistant's phone in New York in 2003: the first case to be brought that is alleged to have happened on US soil and which opens the way for News International to be prosecuted in the US, potentially jeopardising Murdoch's entire American news operation. Another is against the Sun for allegedly hacking into his phone in 2005 and 2006 – when Rebekah Brooks was editor – and which suggests the problem went much wider than just the News of the World. And the third is against the News of the World which has been selected to be a test case in a civil litigation action brought by 30 public figures. His case was selected to determine how far up the chain of command the decision went: Law's QC alleges it was a "very senior News of the World executive" who authorised Law's phone to be hacked.

But it goes even deeper than that. When looking through old cuttings, I find an interview that Jude Law did with the Observer in 2003 before any of this came to light, in which he talked about two instances in which he called the police to the house he was then sharing with his wife, Sadie Frost, and their children, and which subsequently ended up in the newspapers. And another instance in which his decree nisi was sent directly from the high court to a British tabloid "before it was sent to me". It was, he claimed, "the high court and then the police selling stories, so how are you going to live in the country and feel safe?"

I read back his quotes to him and he nods. "That's right, yeah. That's where I've been. That's where a lot of people in this country have been living for years."

You really felt like the establishment wasn't working? That it was corrupt?

"Yes. Truly. That's certainly how I felt. I was aware back then that certain avenues, even the most official ones, would ultimately lead to media exposure so you were left with a situation where you don't know quite where to go. I've been in scenarios, several times, often involved in being chased, often involved being stalked, having my privacy infringed upon, and not been able to go to the police because having done it in the past I knew that those stories would then end up being leaked.

"Having said that, I've also been treated really well by the police where they've been really respectful and really helpful, so it's clearly individuals."

But it's a fundamental pillar of democracy, I say, to have a police force that you can trust…

"Apparently, yes. It's funny, isn't it? It does come down to fundamentals. I still believe in the democracy of our parliament. Even though none of it has clearly been working. But I still believe in it, I have to. I also, for the first time for a long time, wouldn't want to live anywhere else, even though it seems like the pillars of our institutions are crumbling. I went through a long period of feeling really uncomfortable in this country, in this town in particular, just feeling really harassed and chased, and really hating it.

"And I couldn't move because my children are growing up here, and their mum lives here, and we've got a really good setup where we have a very healthy 50-50 custody arrangement and we live close by, so moving abroad was just impossible. But I came back in 2009 from New York – I'd been living there for three months with the kids – and I completely fell in love with London again."

What he's done, he says, is to "work out a way around the system". There's been a process of renegotiation, of finding a way of being in the city with his children – Rafferty, 14, Iris, 10, and Rudy, eight (he's also supporting Sophia, 22 months, his daughter born to Samantha Burke in the US). "I've created a haven that works for me and my family that hasn't necessarily involved the law. That's just my way of doing things. Having said that, it's not like I've been a prisoner in my home. I don't want some sort of sob story. I still enjoy a very normal life with my kids. We use trains and buses and that's often the best way. If you build up some sort of psychological bubble around you, I think you're asking for trouble."

In some ways, it sounds as if Law has got his midlife crisis out of the way early. But then he's done everything early. Growing up in Blackheath, south-east London, with his teacher parents and an older sister, he joined his first theatre at 12 – the National Youth Music Theatre – left school at 17 to film his first television series, Families, and had his first child by the age of 23.

"People often say that to me [that he did things early]. Especially about being a father, but it was just the way I did it. It never felt like an issue at the time… But I really feel that the years between 40 and 50 are going to be the 10 most productive years of my life. It's just a great age to be an actor. It's a bit of a minefield being 20 because you've got all these aspirations and ideals. Well, I had. I had all these aspirations and artistic ideas that I wanted to fulfil. And then you get cynical. And for me, my 30s have been about re-evaluating what I'm doing. And my 40s and 50s, I think, will be a really interesting time. I want to get back into production, which I've done a bit of, and I've always been interested in directing and my kids are all at an age where I don't have to be tied to London necessarily."

He wasn't even sure, for a time, if he wanted to carry on being an actor. "But I'm a father and I have to provide and that's my job." He was named after Jude the Obscure ("my mum just liked the book") and what he wanted more than anything was to be recognised by the world "but I don't know if I do any more. I did and I think any performer who claims not to have, at some point in their career, is probably telling a fib. But there's part of you, or at least part of me, where you think, 'Oh God. What will people make of this?' But it doesn't have a bearing on why you're doing it. It certainly didn't when I was doing Hamlet.

"It was the doing it which was the achievement. It was a very inner experience."

As a younger man, Law struggled against being defined by his looks. At 38, even heavily muffled by the beard he's been growing for Anna Christie, he's still an undeniably handsome man. But there's a wider range of roles available to him now: he had the looks of a romantic lead, but always hankered after the character roles. "I just think that I felt a bit disappointed that that's what people wanted me to be, whereas I felt that I had lots of things to offer so I wanted to choose roles that went against it."

Growing older has possibly come as something of a relief. His new films due out later this year include Anna Karenina, with a new script by Tom Stoppard, in which he plays not dashing Vronsky, but cuckolded Karenin opposite Keira Knightley. He is also reunited with two of the cast of The Talented Mr Ripley – Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow – in a hotly anticipated Steven Soderbergh thriller about a killer virus, Contagion.

And his role in Anna Christie has made him think about ageing too. "I guess part of it is simply wising up. Growing up. There's an interesting scene in the play where my character criticises his father, Chris, because he blames the sea for making his life a misery, whereas Mat loves the sea, the sea is everything. You rove the earth, he says, and you don't give a damn for landlubbers, and yet what you're actually hearing is the innocence of youth. And what's happened to Chris is that life has happened to him. He's lost his wife, he's lost his brothers, he's lost his father… life has an effect on us all. It's why we don't look younger as we get older."

In Law's case, getting older, has been accompanied by a rather enforced getting of wisdom. It's been a long, hard, public process, although I'd read one interview in which he'd described the washing of his dirty laundry in public as "liberating" in some ways. "Well, what else are you going to do? I mean, it's either going to force you into a hole and you're going to be a hermit and you're going to be in some sort of state of shame. Or you are going to go, oh well, all right, then. So what? Well, sorry. Am I saying sorry? I don't know. It also makes you look at things on a broader level. Don't tell me there isn't anyone who has done things they regret, or done things they shouldn't have. Or done things that are silly. Or said silly things. That's life, right? That's what's wonderful about life. We all do this stuff we shouldn't do. And then we say, I won't do that again. I mean, so be it."

The other effect of it has been that he's wary not just of the press, and interviews, but of talking about anything; his life, his work. "I just want to be seen doing my work and I'm just a bit tired of being talked about for what I'm wearing, or what I'm not wearing, or what my hairline is doing, or who I've been seen with. Any of that. Jesus. I don't want any of this. I don't even want to talk about my acting, because I think the acting should just talk for itself." He even doesn't really want to talk about the causes he supports.

I've met Law before, on two occasions, when he's come out to support the work of the Belarus Free Theatre and its artistic director, our mutual friend, the dynamic Natalia Kaliada. On both occasions, he was notably unstarry, simply turning up when asked and doing his best to be supportive in a commendably low-key way. He just doesn't seem to play the A-list celeb, but then he "hates the word celebrity… which means that I am in some sort of messy, mushy bracket with people who have won reality shows and chefs and socialites, and it's just not something I see myself as. I don't invite people into my home and I've never courted the press unless I'm talking to them about some work I'm doing. And I don't do that very much. I used to talk to the press about things like this and I even find that pretty hard now, because there's just been so much cynicism. Why are you banging your drum about this? Or why are you going on about that?"

His other big cause is Peace One Day, an organisation which is attempting to make 21 September recognised as a day of peace throughout the world. In many ways it's an outlandishly ambitious idea, dreamed up by an Englishman called Jeremy Gilley. Law agreed to make a video appeal for Gilley back in 2007 and ended up travelling out to Afghanistan with him to try and make the ceasefire actually happen. What's interesting to me about this is that for all Law's world-weariness, his talk of the "slurry pit" and the self-described "cynicism" that has marked his 30s, this is not the action of a cynic. Two weeks ago, at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, I heard Gilley talk about how he came to set up Peace One Day – a preposterous tale of how he'd had this idea "because basically I was really worried about humanity" and had tried to organise the whole thing from a bedroom in his mum's house. And how for a decade he struggled to get anyone to pay any attention to it at all, until, that is, he got Law involved.

Gilley is an idealist. A dreamer through and through. And to be sucked into his world, I say, it seems quite obvious to me, that you'd have to be something of a dreamer too. And in some ways, it seems as if the trip marked Law's return to himself. "It's interesting. Because I've never really put those pieces together like that," he says. "But yes." And he's rightly proud of the trip: in 2007, Peace One Day managed to broker a one-day ceasefire between the Taliban and UN forces and to arrange for 1.4 million children to be inoculated against polio on that day. A similar result was achieved in 2009 too.

But then he's wary again. "I have to be careful. I don't want to be too highfalutin. It's also been that working with people in my field has reignited the possibilities of what you can do in acting. I've just had this fantastic experience in Cannes, judging these incredible films from around the world. They were just great pieces of art and it really made me believe in the medium all over again."

If Afghanistan seems to have been one turning point in his life, the phone-hacking cases will almost certainly be another. "I think people in the public eye are often seen as cosseted and spoiled. This idea of what have you got to complain about? But when you come down to it, it's basic civil rights and basic demands of privacy. The argument that 'We write about you so we make you money' is just not true. And what blew this all open was the public outcry about the appalling abuse of people in heightened places of anguish. And yet in a way, people's privacy being invaded, whoever they are, is always the same issue. And if you turn it around and say, 'Well, would you like that done to you?', you really wouldn't. Because the bottom line is that it's your life being invaded, being used to make stories, not to report stories, but to make stories."

So, does it constitute a revolution, I ask him, as some people have suggested? "We'll have to wait and see, won't we? You never know when you're in the middle of something. You can only tell later." And the same probably applies to him too. It's yet to be seen what the net effect of this will be on his life. But he could be right – his 40s may well be his best years yet.

Anna Christie is at the Donmar Warehouse, London WC2 from 4 August to 8 October. Box office: 0844 871 7624; www.donmarwarehouse.com

View the original article here

Glenn Mulcaire 'acted under instructions' over voicemails

2011-07-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

Glenn Mulcaire said he had not acted 'unilaterally' when he intercepted voicemails. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

The private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal has denied suggestions he acted without orders from the newspaper.

In an attack on News International, Glenn Mulcaire said he was "effectively employed" by the tabloid publisher from 2002 as a private investigator and had not acted "unilaterally" when he intercepted voicemails. "As an employee he acted on the instructions of others," a statement issued by his lawyers said.

His comments came 24 hours after it emerged that Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, was abducted and murdered in 2000, learned Mulcaire may have targeted her phone.

Hours after his statement, Sara Payne made her first public comments, saying she was "very distressed and upset" that details relating to her may have been found in Mulcaire's files.

"I can confirm reports that I was given a phone by the campaign team [for the NoW's Sarah's Law campaign] and that my voicemail was only activated after my first aneurysm," she said. This relates to a report on Thursday that she had not turned her voicemail on the phone until 2009, the year of her first aneurysm. She was given the phone by NoW in 2000.

In a statement that indicated she still appreciated her work on Sarah's Law with the NoW, she said: "Notwithstanding the bad apples involved here, my faith remains solidly behind all the good people who have supported me over the last 11 years. I will never lose my faith in them. My way would be to challenge the bad apples head-on, learn from the facts of the matter, and be a proactive part of stopping this from happening again."

Brooks said the allegations about Payne were "abhorrent", and that it was "unthinkable" "anyone on the newspaper knew Sara or the campaign team were targeted by Mulcaire".

The private investigator's statement challenges News International's central defence since Mulcaire and Clive Goodman, the paper's former royal editor, were jailed in 2007 for hacking into Prince William's phone. The company claimed that one "rogue reporter" was responsible.

Mulcaire's statement from his lawyers said: "There were also occasions when he [Mulcaire] understood his instructions were from those who genuinely wished to assist in solving crimes. Any suggestion that he acted in such matters unilaterally is untrue. In the light of the ongoing police investigation, he cannot say any more."

His statement focuses attention back on News International executives, who face another grilling by MPs on the Commons culture select committee.

James Murdoch is likely to be summoned to appear before MPs for a second time after Colin Myler, the NoW's former editor, and Tom Crone, the paper's former head of legal affairs, challenged his evidence to the select committee on 19 July.

Crone and Myler accused Murdoch of being "mistaken" when he told the committee that he had no knowledge of an email that implicated a member of the News of the World staff in Mulcaire's activities.

The pair said they had shown Murdoch the so-called "for Neville" email, which raised the possibility that the paper's former chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck knew about phone hacking at the time that the BSkyB chairman approved payments to victims of phone hacking. Murdoch said earlier this month that he did not have a "complete picture" when he approved the payments.

Committee chair John Whittingdale, who said he wanted to hear from the pair and James Murdoch in writing first, is expected to summon them next month. He would also be asking Myler and Crone to exlain why they now think the "for Neville" email is so significant after they played down its significance when they appeared before the committee in July 2009.

"Tom Crone and Colin Myler … told us they had discovered no evidence suggesting that anybody else beyond Clive Goodman had been involved," Whittingdale said. "We are now told, we understand from the statement they issued to the media, that they had drawn James Murdoch's attention to the significance of the 'for Neville' email. It appeared, when they came before us, that they did not regard that it was significant. But clearly they are now suggesting it is."

The committee is also writing to Jon Chapman, a former director of legal affairs at News International, who challenged Rupert Murdoch's claim to the culture committee that he had a copy of a report "for a number of years" which showed evidence of illegality.

Chapman said he was responsible for corporate and legal matters at News International and did not have responsibility for dealing with allegations about phone hacking.

Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 after pleading guilty to charges of phone interception and is currently appealing against a High Court order that would force him to give more information about hacking to his alleged victims. Glenn Mulcaire had claimed the privilege of self-incrimination but lost a High Court battle against comedian Steve Coogan and football pundit Andy Gray.

There is now a prospect that this appeal against the order arising from this case is abandoned after News International announced it was ceasing to cover Mulcaire's legal fees with "immediate effect".

Mulcaire's solictors wrote to News International earlier this week warning the publisher they were still legally liable to indemnify him against legal costs until the appeal case was resolved.

View the original article here

Syrian tanks storm Hama

2011-07-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

Residents of Hama protest against President Bashar al-Assad after Friday prayers, less than 48 hours before government forces used tanks to storm the city. Photograph: Reuters

Syrian troops in tanks have stormed the flashpoint city of Hama, killing and wounding scores of people in a barrage of shelling and gunfire that left bodies scattered in the streets.

Residents shouted "God is great!" and threw firebombs and stones at the tanks as they pushed through the city before dawn on Sunday.

"It's a massacre, they want to break Hama before the month of Ramadan," an eyewitness who identified himself by his first name, Ahmed, told the Associated Press by telephone.

Hospitals were overwhelmed with casualties and were seeking blood donations, he said.

Activists have predicted that demonstrations will escalate during Ramadan, which starts on Monday, as protesters and government forces try to use the Muslim holy month to tip the balance of the uprising that began in March in their favour.

Ahmed, a Hama resident, said he saw up to 12 people shot dead in the streets in a district known as the Baath neighbourhood. Most had been shot in the chest and head, he said.

"Troops entered Hama at dawn today," another resident told AP by telephone. "We woke up to this news, they are firing from their machine guns randomly and there are many casualties."

A doctor, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Reuters that the city's Badr, al-Horani and Hikmeh hospitals had received 24 bodies.

There were scores of wounded people and a shortage of blood for transfusions, he said by telephone from the city, which has a population of around 700,000.

"Tanks are attacking from four directions. They are firing their heavy machine guns randomly and overrunning makeshift roadblocks erected by the inhabitants," the doctor said. Machine gun fire could be heard in background as he spoke.

"There are bodies uncollected in the streets," said another resident, adding that army snipers had positioned themselves on the roofs of the state-owned electricity company and the main prison.

Tank shells were falling at the rate of four a minute in and around northern Hama, residents said, and electricity and water supplies to the main neighbourhoods had been cut off - a tactic used regularly by the military when storming towns.

During Ramadan, Muslims throng mosques for special night prayers after breaking their daily dawn-to-dusk fast. The gatherings could trigger major protests throughout the predominantly Sunni country and activists say authorities are moving to try to ensure that does not happen.

An estimated 1,600 civilians have died in the crackdown on the largely peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime since the uprising began. Most of the dead were killed in shootings by security forces at anti-government rallies.

Hama, about 130 miles (210 kilometres) north of Damascus, has become one of the hottest centres of the demonstrations. In early June, security forces shot dead 65 people there, and since then it has fallen out of government control, with protesters holding the streets and government forces ringing the city and conducting overnight raids.

The city has a history of dissent against the Assad dynasty. In 1982, Assad's late father, Hafez al-Assad, ordered his brother to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement. The city was sealed off before air strikes destroyed parts of the city. As many as 25,000 people, human rights groups say.

The real number may never be known. Then, as now, reporters were not allowed to reach the area.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had compiled the names of 13 dead from hospitals and residents in Hama, but the figure could not be independently confirmed. The Syria-based Local Coordination Committees said it had the names of four victims, but thatthere were more bodies still to be identified.

View the original article here

Rogue landlords flourish as would-be buyers forced to rent

2011-07-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

Slum landlords of the type that enjoyed a boom in the 1980s are again doing brisk business because of major changes sweeping the property market, say housing experts.

Millions of people are being priced out of buying a property as mortgage availability becomes scarce and they struggle to raise a deposit. Latest figures suggest mortgage lending is now a third of what it was at the height of the boom in 2007.

A dearth of social housing, which is under acute pressure as local authority budgets are cut, is also contributing to a lack of affordable accommodation. An increasing number of people have no option but to rent, creating intense competition in the private rental market.

There are now 3.4 million households living in the private rented sector in England, a 40% rise over the past five years and the biggest increase on record, according to new analysis by Shelter. The trend has alarmed the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) whose officers are charged with ensuring the nation's housing stock meets adequate standards.

"People who are in relatively secure jobs but can't afford to buy are moving into the rented sector," said Stephen Battersby, president of the CIEH. "People who have traditionally used the private sector will drop further down the ladder into the hands of the more exploitative, neglectful landlords, if not those who are downright criminal."

The government claims three quarters of private tenants report they are happy with their accommodation, but experts point out that this leaves some 800,000 who have concerns, many with the way they are treated by their landlords.

In the past year, Shelter says it has seen complaints about landlords increase by 23%. Almost nine out of 10 environmental health officers say they have encountered landlords harassing or illegally evicting tenants from their homes. And almost all environmental health officers say they have encountered landlords who persistently ignore their responsibilities, with half believing they do this to make as much money as possible

"A chronic shortage of social housing and more people priced out of the housing market means that renting is fast becoming the only option for thousands of people in this country," said Campbell Robb, the chief executive of Shelter. "Yet our figures show a worrying increase in the number of people seeking help regarding problems with their landlord. It would appear that rogue landlords could be cashing in on this growing market."

Housing charities warn there is very little policing of landlords and the condition of their properties. In 2009, the English Housing Survey identified 1.5m homes in the private rented sector as "non-decent". Of these, 970,000 failed the Decent Home Standard. This has led the CIEH to call for a national register of landlords. "It's a public health issue that affects us all," said Battersby. "The NHS is spending ?800m a year because of poor housing, factor in social costs and it's ?1.5bn."

Environmental health officers working for Local Housing Authorities (LHAs) are responsible for monitoring standards in private properties rented out to benefit claimants. But, according to new evidence obtained by the CIEH under the Freedom of Information Act, four fifths of LHAs have never carried out a prosecution of a landlord.

Cutbacks have prompted fears that this situation is unlikely to improve given the amount of time and manpower a prosecution involves. But experts fear the need to tackle the issue of rogue landlords in the private sector will become more urgent in the coming months. The localism bill currently before parliament allows local authorities to discharge their duties to homeless people by using private rented accommodation, rather than social housing, without the applicant's agreement. Changes to the amount of housing benefit paid to claimants will also have an impact.

"With cuts to housing benefit and changes to the homelessness safety net, we are concerned there will be an influx of people pushed to the bottom end of the private rented sector which will lead to an imbalance between supply and demand for properties," Robb said. "This could see some rogue landlords exploiting the lack of accommodation, with the most vulnerable tenants left with little choice of who to rent from."

View the original article here

Zara Phillips weds Mike Tindall but the royals keep it simple

2011-07-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall after their wedding ceremony at Canongate Kirk. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

The bride, as ever, looked radiant in a beautiful little off-the-shoulder number and the groom looked simply delighted. Then a white stretch limo pulled up and disgorged the ushers and a gaggle of bridesmaids, all pink and giggly. A lone piper greeted them at the door of the MacDonald Hotel then guests who had been sipping beers and Bacardis at the cafes on Holyrood Road followed them.

It was the wedding day of local couple Paul and Sharon, and they didn't seem in the least fazed by the thousands heading in the other direction for the union of a royal and a rugby star in the Canongate.

The Edinburgh Evening News had predicted a crowd of only 2,000, but there looked to be at least double that gathered 10-deep in the Edinburgh sunshine and stretching most of the way up the Royal Mile.

Earlier, I had sought to secure one of the little commemorative union flags that most people in the crowd seemed to be sporting. For this was Edinburgh's Old Town – perhaps the only place in Scotland where you can wave the red, white and blue without making an exhibition of yourself.

In the days before the wedding of the Princess Royal's daughter, some had tried to induce outrage at the cost of the event to the public purse. They had chosen the wrong target, though. Anne is Scotland's favourite royal and seems cast in our image and likeness. She doesn't seem to brook any nonsense and you can imagine her helping the servants bring the coal in of a winter night. Besides, she's patron of the Scottish Rugby Union and attends all Scotland's matches in a tartan skirt.

Zara herself seems a fresh and sonsie young woman who has emulated her mother as a world-ranking equestrian. The occasion had a down-to-earth feel – even, dare I say it, couthie. Two of Mike Tindall's ushers were family members while three came from his rugby background. One was Peter Phillips, Zara's brother. The groom's brother, Ian, was also among their number. And there was also a little human touch becoming of Anne: as she watched the couple set off for Holyroodhouse she firmly linked arms with Tindall's elderly father, Phil.

The choice of the Canongate Kirk as the venue for the nuptials struck some as unusual and iconoclastic, but it wasn't really. This 17th-century chapel, one of the most handsome in the city and commissioned by James VII, is the parish church of the Palace of Holyroodhouse and of the Scottish parliament. Indeed, did the Queen not worship there just the other week? She was also welcomed to this church 59 years ago, not long before her coronation.

In the Canongate kirkyard, perhaps one of the most beautiful urban resting places in Scotland, lie the remains of David Rizzio who loved a queen once then paid for it with his life. There, too, are the bones of Robert Fergusson, a great Scottish poet who inspired Robert Burns, and the philosopher Adam Smith is interred just ahead of him. One of the best views in Edinburgh lies just beyond.

The spirit of another, whose remains do not lie in the Canongate, nevertheless haunts the Royal Mile.

Before his life of Samuel Johnson, James Boswell wrote his Edinburgh Journals based on his nocturnal adventures in this most historic of streets. This was 18th-century Scotland's Sunset Strip and housed many of the capital's shebeens and whorehouses.

Boswell, it seemed, visited every one. He would have chuckled at the procession of Daimlers ferrying the entire top tier of Britain's aristocracy to a church he once sashayed past while royally inebriated.

I digress. Across the road, Caroline and Lesley from Kirkcaldy were enjoying their day in the sunshine. Like many others in the throng, they would not regard themselves as great supporters of the royal family, but when the Queen whisked by with a wave, there were tears. "She's a lovely woman, I hope she enjoys her granddaughter's wedding," said one.

Thomas was there with three young children, his bronzed features belonging to someone who works outside for a living. Did he not resent the reputed ?500,000 cost of the occasion? "Not a bit of it," he said. "This is the Queen's parish and she does a lot for this country. I wouldnae begrudge her a penny."

It had just gone four o'clock when Zara and her new husband emerged from their nuptials. Everyone cheered. Soon she would arrive back at Holyroodhouse and be serenaded by the Royal Scots Association pipe band. As a sidenote, though, she will not take her husband's name and become Mrs Tindall. Zara Phillips it was, and still is.

"Who do you think made the dress?" asked Lesley. I told her it looked suspiciously to me like a Stewart Parvin number, having seen the couturier's triumphant 2010 show at London's White Gallery. She regarded me with renewed suspicion. "Are you havin' a laugh?"

View the original article here

Public sector workers need 'discipline and fear', says Oliver Letwin

2011-07-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

Oliver Letwin says he is determined to 'instil' fear among public sector workers to push productivity. Photograph: David Levene

Oliver Letwin, the coalition's policy minister, has revealed the government's determination to instil "fear" among those working in the public sector, who he claimed had failed for the past 20 years to improve their productivity.

Letwin, architect of the coalition's plans to reform public services, told a meeting at the offices of a leading consultancy firm that the public sector had atrophied over the past two decades.

In controversial comments angering teachers, nurses and doctors, he warned that it was only through "some real discipline and some fear" of job losses that excellence would be achieved in the public sector.

Letwin added that some of those running schools and hospitals would not survive the process and that it was an "inevitable and intended" consequence of government policy.

"You can't have room for innovation and the pressure for excellence without having some real discipline and some fear on the part of the providers that things may go wrong if they don't live up to the aims that society as a whole is demanding of them," he said.

"If you have diversity of provision and personal choice and power, some providers will be better and some worse. Inevitably, some will not, whether it's because they can't attract the patient or the pupil, for example, or because they can't get results and hence can't get paid. Some will not survive. It is an inevitable and intended consequence of what we are talking about."

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCSU), reacted angrily to Letwin's comments, describing them as "nonsense".

He added: "Public sector workers are already working in fear – fear of cuts to their job, pension, living standards and of privatisation. Far from improving productivity, the cuts are creating chaos in vital public services."

Letwin was speaking at the launch of a liberal thinktank's report at the London headquarters of KPMG, one of the biggest recipients of government cash, which won the first contract for NHS commissioning following the decision to scrap primary care trusts and further open the health service to private companies.

Letwin's recent white paper on public sector reform had been dismissed as watered down earlier this month amid speculation that the Liberal Democrats had vetoed radical change. But Letwin said on Wednesday that he believed he was prosecuting "the most ambitious set of public service reforms that any government in modern Britain has undertaken", adding that productivity had improved across the economy except in the public sector in the past 20 years.

A spokesman for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said he did not know where Letwin had sourced his figures. However, an ONS analysis that works back to 1997, shows that productivity in public services fell on average by 0.3% a year between 1997 and 2008 because the level of inputs, such as staff and equipment, increased faster than the output, such as operations performed and numbers of pupils taught.

Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, said last night that she did not recognise Letwin's portrayal of the public sector. "Death rates in hospitals have been falling, satisfaction levels have been rising," she said. "What hasn't changed is the Tories' antipathy to public services. And the idea that the way to improve public services is to put fear into those who provide them is absolutely grotesque."

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: "It is widely acknowledged that there is a problem with productivity in public services. The government's policy is to improve it and provide the best value for the taxpayer."

View the original article here

Nobel chairman warns Europe's leaders over 'inflaming far-right sentiment'

2011-07-31T08:52:00.000-07:00

David Cameron leaves the Norwegian embassy after signing the book of condolences for the victims of Norway attacks. Photograph: John Stillwell/AFP/Getty Images

Europe's leaders, including David Cameron, have been warned to adopt a more "cautious" approach when discussing multiculturalism. The Norwegian chairman of the Nobel peace prize committee has told them they risk inflaming far-right and anti-Muslim sentiment.

Thorbjorn Jagland, a former prime minister of his country, said leaders such as the British premier would be "playing with fire" if they continued to use rhetoric that could be exploited by extremists.

Four months ago in Munich, Cameron declared that state multiculturalism had failed in Britain, a view immediately praised by Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, as "a further huge leap for our ideas into the political mainstream". Marine Le Pen, vice-president of the far-right National Front party in France, also endorsed Cameron's view of multiculturalism, claiming that it corroborated her own party's line.

Jagland's comments come in the wake of the Oslo bomb and the massacre on Utoya Island that left 77 people dead. The killer, Anders Behring Breivik, said he was inspired by the right-wing English Defence League. Breivik sent his manifesto, published online hours before the attacks, to about 250 British members of the BNP, the EDL and the Stop Islamisation of Europe group.

Jagland, who is also secretary general of the Council of Europe, told the Observer: "We have to be very careful how we are discussing these issues, what words are used.

"Political leaders have got to defend the fact that society has become more diverse. We have to defend the reality, otherwise we are going to get into a mess. I think political leaders have to send a clear message to embrace it and benefit from it.

"We should be very cautious now, we should not play with fire. Therefore I think the words we are using are very important because it can lead to much more."

Jagland has also urged leading politicians to change their terminology. He said the word "diversity" was better than multiculturalism because the latter had become defined in different ways by different groups. "We also need to stop using 'Islamic terrorism', which indicates that terrorism is about Islam. We should be saying that terrorism is terrorism and not linked to religion," said Jagland.

Over the years before his attacks, Breivik developed an ultra-radical stance that initially incorporated the forced repatriation of Muslims from Europe, but ultimately targeted Norway's centre-left government, which had encouraged multiculturalism. During his court appearance on terrorism charges, the 32-year-old said he had acted to prevent the "Muslim takeover" of Europe.

It hasemerged that during a 10-hour interrogation, Breivik told police that he also considered attacking other government and Labour party targets in Norway. Police attorney Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby revealed that Breivik had again asked interrogators how many people he had killed and "showed no emotion" when they told him.

As Norway struggles to come to terms with the killings, with the first of the dead being buried on Friday, the process of establishing whether Breivik is insane, as his lawyer has asserted, is due to begin. Psychiatrists said the process would involve months of observation, interviews and analysis, insisting that it is hard to fake mental illness. It has also emerged that more than 250 people were picked up by boats from the waters off Utoya Island as Breivik conducted his 90-minute shooting rampage. About 650 people were on the island, of whom at least 68 were killed, most of them teenagers.

During Cameron's Munich speech, which combined a passage on terrorism with one on integration, the prime minister talked extensively about "Islamist extremism" as being the source of terrorism.

Breivik saw David Miliband, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair as worthy of assassination because, according to his 1,500-page manifesto, they had a "friendly attitude" to immigrants.

Jagland says he has sympathy with Cameron's attempt to robustly promote a shared set of British values as an alternative to multiculturalism, if not with his delivery. "We are not searching for a society where we have only different cultures. We also need to have something that holds us together, to respect common values," he said.

Jagland, who last year gave the Nobel peace prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was represented by an empty chair at the ceremony in Oslo, added that the immigration debate also needed to be less negative.

View the original article here

Somali refugees brave fighting in Mogadishu in hope of UN food aid

2011-07-31T07:48:00.000-07:00

Despite continued fighting in Mogadishu, thousands of refugees from Somali's drought-hit south are arriving in the capital. Above, refugees queue for food in a camp in the suburbs. Photograph: Mustafa Abdi/AFP/Getty Images

Hit by the worst drought in 60 years, tens of thousands of people are leaving the rural areas of central and southern Somalia for the war-ravaged capital, Mogadishu, where last week the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) started an airlift operation to deliver to 20 feeding centres.

Despite continuing fighting, with troops of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and African Union-led forces battling the Islamic militants of al-Shabaab, more and more people are coming into the city, hoping to find relief from a drought that is affecting 11 million in Somalia alone.

The WFP said it has been able to provide 85,000 meals a day in Mogadishu but with mortar shells frequently hitting civilian areas the TFG military offensive that started last week is likely to hamper the delivery of food.

The UN declared a famine in two southern regions of Somalia on 20 July, but Abdirahman Omar Osman, the Somali government's spokesman, said the emergency is even more serious. Every day about 3,000 people arrive in Ifo, Dagahaley and Hagadera, the three camps at Dadaab in Kenya, which now have more than 380,000 refugees, 100,000 of whom arrived this year.

Barack Obama has said the emergency in east Africa has not had the attention it deserved in the US. Speaking during a meeting with the presidents of Benin, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Niger on Friday, Obama asked Africa to play a bigger role in assisting the people affected by the drought.

The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs has predicted that famine will spread to all of southern Somalia, parts of which are controlled by al-Shabaab, which banned foreign aid in 2009.

After talks with relief organisations, al-Shabaab has allowed some food to be delivered in the past weeks but so far no regular supplies have reached the areas controlled by the Islamist militants, who are linked to al-Qaida.

Djibouti, eastern Ethiopia and northern Kenya have been badly hit as well. The scale of the crisis has even prompted long-time refugees in Dadaab to join the relief efforts. Mosques and Islamic associations in the camps are collecting food and clothes to give to the newcomers.

"We have also asked the population to give priority to the new refugees at the water points," says Mahmoud Jama Guled, who chairs a section of Ifo camp. He said that in his area one water tank is now serving more than 6,500 families.

View the original article here

Plane from New York crashes at Guyana airport

2011-07-31T06:03:00.000-07:00

A Caribbean Airlines jet carrying 140 passengers from New York crashed and broke in half on landing in Guyana, injuring several people but causing no deaths.

The Boeing 737-800 reportedly overshot the 7,400ft (2,200m) runway at Cheddi Jagan international airport in rainy weather, just missing a 200ft ravine that would have made fatalities more likely, according to the Guyanese president, Bharrat Jagdeo.

"We are very, very grateful that more people were not injured," he said as authorities closed the airport, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded and delaying dozens of flights.

Authorities struggled at first to remove passengers without adequate field lights and other emergency equipment. About 100 people received medical attention, with four treated for serious injuries, said Devant Maharaj, transportation minister in Trinidad, where Caribbean Airlines is based.

He said the company was sending a team to Guyana to help investigate the crash. No further details were available. Maharaj spoke at a press conference in Trinidad and took no questions, saying the investigation is ongoing.

Among the injured was Geeta Ramsingh, 41, of Philadelphia, who said passengers had just started to applaud the touchdown "when it turned to screams", she said, pointing to bruises on her knees. She said she hopped onto the wing and then onto the dirt road outside the runway fence.

"I am upset that no one came to rescue us in the dark, but a taxi driver appeared from nowhere and charged me $20 to take me to the terminal. I had to pay, but in times of emergencies, you don't charge people for a ride," she said, sitting on a chair in the arrival area surrounded by relatives. She was returning to her native country for only the second time in 30 years. The plane had left New York and made a stop in Trinidad before landing in Guyana.

Jagdeo said he has asked the US National Transportation Safety Board to help investigate the crash. He said crews were pushing to reopen the airport as soon as possible.

The crash of Flight BW523 is the worst in recent history in Guyana, and only one of the few serious incidents involving the Trinidad-based airline. It is the single largest carrier in the region, operating at least five daily flights.

View the original article here

China rail crash families accept compensation as Beijing moves to silence furore

2011-07-31T05:18:00.000-07:00

China's premier Wen Jiabao places flowers as he mourns the victims who died during the high-speed train crash at Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province. Photograph: Str/AFP/Getty Images

Relatives bereaved by China's high-speed rail crash have accepted compensation after the government doubled its original offer, as authorities tried to silence the furore over the disaster. Ten families have agreed to the deal – 915,000 yuan (?87,000) per victim – the state news agency reported. The death toll is now 40, with another 190 injured.

Other relatives say the compensation is insufficient and that the ministry of railways, which has apologised for last weekend's disaster, should take more responsibility. "Our deceased relatives were in the prime of their lives; they have children and senior parents to support," said Chen Engfen. He said he would not accept less than ?141,000.

The crash, near Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, happened when one train ploughed into the back of another. Six coaches were derailed, with four plunging from a viaduct. Officials have blamed design flaws in signalling and are checking the equipment at 58 other stations.

The disaster, and the government's handling of it, unleashed an outpouring of anger. Many see the crash as epitomising the problems facing China in its headlong rush towards development, including the lack of transparency.

However, unusually aggressive reporting has come to an abrupt halt. "Some newspapers have been told not to run articles, or had prepared far harder coverage but at the last minute had the rug pulled out from under them," said David Bandurski of Hong Kong University's China Media Project.

China has seen a similar pattern in previous disasters, with censors shutting down discussion and relatives coming under pressure to sign compensation deals and stop raising questions about the incident.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported a relative as saying the family stopped protesting about the crash "because pressure was applied privately".

Chinese journalists have said that a television producer was disciplined after his programme asked searching questions about the crash. A note on Wang Qinglei's microblog said that "as long as a country has journalists who resist pressure… it still has a soul".

View the original article here

US debt crisis: talks to avoid default make 'significant progress'

2011-07-31T04:27:00.000-07:00

Negotiations to raise the US debt ceiling and avert the country's first ever default continued through the night on Saturday as Republicans and Democrats tried to reach a deal before markets open on Monday. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

The White House and Republican leaders in Congress have made significant progress toward a deal to raise the US debt ceiling and avert a potentially catastrophic default, according to officials familiar with the talks.

Under a plan negotiated late on Saturday night, the ceiling would be raised in two steps by about $2.4tn (?1.5tn) and spending would be cut by a slightly larger amount, the officials said. The first stage – to raise the ceiling by about $1tn – would take place immediately and the second later in the year.

Congress would be required to vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, but none of the debt limit increase would be contingent on its approval.

President Barack Obama is seeking legislation to raise the government's $14.3tn debt limit by enough to tide the US treasury over until after the 2012 elections. He has threatened to veto any proposals that might lead to a recurrence of the current crisis next year but has agreed to Republican demands that deficits be cut – without tax increases – in exchange for authorising additional US borrowing.

Without a compromise in place by Tuesday, administration officials say the treasury will run out of funds to pay the nation's bills.

The subsequent default, which would be the first in US history, could prove catastrophic for the US economy by causing interest rates to rise and financial markets to sink, and sending shockwaves around the world. With financial markets closed for the weekend, the parties to the negotiations had a little breathing space, but not much. Asian markets open for the new working week late Sunday afternoon Washington time.

"There is very little time," Obama said in his weekly radio and internet address on Saturday. He called for an end to political gamesmanship, saying: "The time for compromise on behalf of the American people is now."

One official commenting on the late night negotiations said the two sides had settled on general concepts, but that there were numerous details to be worked out – and no assurance of a final agreement.

"There are many elements to be finalised," Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate said. "There is still a distance to go."

Still, word of significant progress after weeks of stalemate offered the strongest indication yet that a default might be averted.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said at a joint news conference with the House speaker John Boehner that he was confident a deal could be reached "in the very near future".

After a meeting at the White House with Obama and the House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Reid initially disagreed with that optimistic assessment.

Past increases in the US debt ceiling have been routine, but Republicans, citing the giant US deficit, have demanded huge spending cuts as a condition for approving the increase this time.

After weeks of intense partisanship, there was renewed talk of compromise as both the House and Senate convened for extraordinary Saturday sessions.

McConnell and Boehner held their news conference shortly after the House of Representatives had rejected a Senate Democratic bill drafted by Reid to raise the government's debt limit by $2.4tn and cut spending by $2.2tn.

The House vote was 246-173, mostly along party lines and after a bitter debate. The vote was unusual in that Republicans lined up to kill Reid's legislation before it had even cleared the Senate. It was orchestrated as political payback because late on Friday Reid had engineered the demise of Republican proposals hours after it they were passed in the House.

Before the House vote, Republicans said Reid's proposals were full of gimmicks and would make unacceptable reductions in defence spending.

Pelosi said Boehner had chosen "to go to the dark side" when he changed his own legislation to satisfy the Tea Party movement and other critics, who insist taxes must not be raised to cut into federal deficits, even for the wealthiest US companies and individuals.

View the original article here

Norway attacks: live coverage

2011-07-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

Injured people lay on the ground at the site of an explosion near the government buildings in Norway's capital Oslo. Photograph: Holm Morten/AFP1.09pm: My colleague Peter Beaumont has been examing what is known about Anders Behring Breivik, who has been arrested over yesterday's attacks.

One of the few who knew him, who have spoken so far, was an anonymous friend who told the Norwegian newspaper VG that Breivik had been a far right winger since at least his late twenties, when he had begun posting a series of controversial opinions on Facebook.
What has emerged so far paints a disturbing picture: a Christian fundamentalist with a deep hatred of multiculturalism in his country, of the left and of Muslims who had written disparagingly of prominent Norwegian politicians. A far of violent video games as well who some former neighbours have told Norwegian media had sometimes been seen in
"military-style" clothing.
In the pictures that have so far emerged of him Breivik appears well dressed, slender and clean-shaven, a picture of the young entrepreneur he wanted to be.
Breivik's businesses, however, were not much of a success, each one of them being dissolved after a short while after making a loss until he established his farm business in 2009 and moved out of Oslo.
But the man who listed Kafka and George Orwell's 1984 as his favourite books on Facebook, made little secret to the friends he had, or others on the Christian fundamentalist and far right websites that he frequented, of his racist views.
The darkest side of all was revealed not only in the killings but in how he undertook them, not least on the island teaming with several hundred teenagers, where wearing earplugs and a police uniform he calmly called over his victims to join him so he could begin his
executions.
A Freemason, reportedly a body builder and a hunter with two registered weapons – a Glock pistol and an automatic rifle - it has been Breivik's online profile that has, so far supplied the most public information.
Breivik was also a former "a youth member" of his country's conservative Progress Party – a party he criticised in one posting for embracing "multi-culturalism" and "political correctness" rather than taking an "idealistic stand". Despite that, those who knew him in the party then, described him as "calm and quiet", his extremism coming later.

12.54pm: The king, queen and crown prince of Norway, along with the with prime minister, are meeting relatives of the shooting victims at the Sundvollen hotel now, Neil Perry writes.

The Queen is hugging everyone and the King appears to be wiping away tears. In typical Norwegian style, it is all very unfussy and personal.

12.48pm: Frank Mersland, a journalist with FVN TV, says Anders Behring Breivik, who has been arrested over yesterday's attacks, has been linked to the anti-immigration Progress party.

He writes via email: "The suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, has been tagged as a former member of the right winged political party Frp (Progress party). It's the second largest political party in Norway and their main issues are lower taxes and a much stricter policy on immigration. The Frp-leader, Siv Jensen, verified his membership on Norwegian TV2 a little while ago."

12.44pm: Here's AP's report on the arrest of a man outside a hotel where Norway's prime minister was meeting families of Utoya shooting victims.

The man told reporters he was detained "because I have a knife."
The man, who appeared to be around 20 years old, was standing outside the hotel next to reporters when two officers apprehended him and led him to a police car.
The man told reporters he was a member of the Labor Party's youth wing and was carrying a knife "because I feel unsafe."

12.42pm: Around 19 victims of the Utoya shootings are having surgery for gunshot wounds, according to Norwegian media reports.

12.37pm: Journalist Liss Goril Anda says the attacks were "squarely aimed at the values Norwegians treasure most (...) openness, freedom of expression and feeling of safety."

You can read here comment on the BBC website here.

12.32pm: The second man was arrested outside the Sundvollen hotel, where prime minister Jens Stoltenberg is due to give a press conference about yesterday's attacks.

12.25pm: The Norwegian paper Dagbladet has more information about the man arrested in Sundvollen.

Neil Perry in Oslo has sent me this from the reports:

Police Inspector Einar Aas of Oslo police said that the police in Ringerike have arrested a man in Sundvollen.

The police threw themselves on him. He was then taken into a car and driven away.

When asked by reporters why he was armed, he said, "because there are so many weird people here. I do not trust anyone. "

Before the man was pushed into the police car, he stated that he was a member of the AUF (the Labour Party youth organisation), Dagbladet reporter Jonas Sverrison Rasch said.

The man was wearing shorts and t-shirt. He had dark hair. He smiled as he was led into the police car, according to TV2.

12.17pm: A second man has been arrested and taken into custody, according to Norwegian media reports.

It is reported that he had a knife on him.

Neil Perry in Oslo has sent through this update about the arrest:

"Police walked up to a young man stood in the street outside the hotel in Sundvollen where
the survivors have been taken and arrested him."

Here is an article (in Norwegian) about the arrest from the Norwegian Broadcasting Company, known as NRK.

12.11pm: Here's an edited version of PA's timeline of the attacks in Norway (times in BST).

Friday July 22:

1430: A loud explosion shatters windows and leads to evacuations of office buildings near the government headquarters in Oslo city centre. The buildings include the office of prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, who is soon confirmed to be safe, as he was working at home.

1545: There are reports that at least one person has been killed in the explosion.

1615: It is confirmed that the explosion was caused by a bomb.

1645: It is confirmed that there are injuries in addition to the death and some people are trapped at the bomb site.

1700: Police confirm two people are dead and 15 injured.

1745: Police say they are sending anti-terror police to a youth camp on an island outside Oslo after reports of a shooting there. The news site VG reports that a man dressed in a police uniform has opened fire at the camp at Utoya, and several people are injured.

1815: Norway Labour Party spokesman Per Gunnar Dahl says a man has been shooting at youths assembled for the party's annual youth camp at Utoya. Unconfirmed reports are that five people were hit. He says around 700 people, mostly teenagers aged 14 to 18, were assembled for the camp.

1835: It is reported that one person has been arrested after the youth camp shooting.

1850: Police say they suspect the two incidents in Norway are linked.

1900: It is confirmed that seven people died in the bomb blast.

1945: An eyewitness to the shootings says he saw more than 20 bodies.

2050: Police say the man arrested after the shooting is linked to the bombing in Oslo. It emerges that Stoltenberg had been due to speak at the summer camp on Saturday.

2055: Police say that nine or 10 people were killed in the shooting.

2150: Norway's justice minister says the gunman is Norwegian.

Saturday July 23:

0040: It emerges that bomb disposal teams are searching for unexploded devices on Utoya. A police source says there is at least one device at the camp which is being disarmed. The gunman is named in media reports as Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, 32. The suspect is said to have acted alone, with no links to international terrorist organisations.

0250: At least 80 people were killed in the shooting, police say.

0450: Police say the suspect had right-wing and anti-Muslim views, but the motive for the attacks was unclear. They warn the death toll from the shootings could rise, and others are severely injured.

0850: The suspect posted on websites with Christian fundamentalist tendencies, police say. The man is co-operating with police and wants to explain himself, they add.
The death toll from the shooting stands at 84 and with the bombing it is 91.

12.05pm: AP has more dramatic eye-witness accounts of the shootings on Utoya:

A 15-year-old camper named Elise who was on Utoya said she heard gunshots, but then saw a police officer and thought she was safe. Then he started shooting people right before her eyes.
"I saw many dead people," said Elise. "He first shot people on the island. Afterward he started shooting people in the water."
Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. "I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock," she said.
She said it was impossible to say how many minutes passed while she was waiting for him to stop.
At a hotel in the village of Sundvollen, where survivors of the shooting were taken, 21-year-old Dana Berzingi wore pants stained with blood. He said the fake police officer ordered people to come closer, then pulled weapons and ammunition from a bag and started shooting.
Several victims "had pretended they were dead to survive," Berzingi said. But after shooting the victims with one gun, the gunman shot them again in the head with a shotgun, he said.
"I lost several friends," said Berzingi, who used the cell phone of one of those friends to call police.

11.54am: Reuters has more about the suspect Anders Behring Breivik buying six tonnes (four tons) of fertiliser in May.

The suspect placed the order through his company, the supplier Felleskjopet said.

"These are goods that were delivered on May 4," Oddny Estenstad, a spokeswoman at agricultural supply chain Felleskjopet Agri, told Reuters, without giving the exact type of fertiliser purchased.
"It was 6 tonnes of fertiliser, which is a small, normal order for a standard agricultural producer."
"I do not know him or the company, except that it is a company that has contacted us in a normal manner and ordered fertiliser and had it delivered," she said.

11.46am: An link purported to show Anders Behring Breivik's Facebook page has been posted on Twitter.

We cannot verify the accuracy of this post.

11.41am: Felleskjopet, a farm supply chain, has said the suspect bought 6 tons of fertiliser on May 4, Reuters reports. This confirms earlier reports in the Norwegian media and on Twitter.

11.33am: Journalist Ketil B Stensrud has posted a comment from the Norwegian police regarding the reports of a second gunman>

He Tweeted: "We've just received the same information about a possible second shooter. We're working hard to determine if there is indeed a second shooter," the spokesman said to VG.

He has also posted a link to an article in the VG paper that mentions a second gunman.

11.27am: The Norwegian newspaper VG has interviewed witnesses of the Utoya shooting who believe there was a second gunman.

Norwegian journalist Ketil B Stensrud has Tweeted about the reports: "Utoya eye-witness: "I'm certain that I heard shooting from two different directions. Then I saw another man, about 180 cm tall."

11.17am: Here's the latest Guardian gallery of the Norway attacks.

11.03am: The Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet has posted footage from the rescue operation at Utoya on its website. Please be advised this footage does contain some graphic imagery.

10.55am: A survivor of the shooting on Utoya says their attacker shouted he would "kill everyone".

In a telephone interview with CNN, county registrar Adrian Pracon, from Skien, described how he and two others lay on the ground among the bodies and pretended to be dead.

I was perhaps seven feet away from him when he shouted that he would kill everyone, and everyone would die. He charged at me with a gun, but did not shoot. I could feel his breath. I could hear his shoes.

Pracon, who says he also saw the attacker chase his panic-stricken young victims, also described how he jumped into the water to escape from the carnage:

I had swallowed a lot of water, after I jumped in the water. I had no time to take off my clothes, and felt that I was heavy my clothes went down while I was swimming.

10.42am: Reuters has an interview with two people who came to the aid of shooting victims on the island of Utoya yesterday.

Lise Berit Aronsen and Ole Haugen, who were on holiday in Nes camp nearby, said they jumped into a boat when they heard about the shooting on the news.

The couple told the VG newspaper, they were met with shocking scenes. Aronsen said they were met by police and explained that they wanted to help. They went on to picked up four survivors from the water and 12 people who had sought safety in the caves and cliffs nearby.

We were told to find people in the water. The first thing we found were four children, two boys and two girls, who swam in the water. They shouted for help. They were powerless and could barely lift her arms.
There were people crying for help everywhere. We saw children who hid in caves and on cliffs. They dared not come out until we said that the person who shot was taken. Then they wept freely.
One of them we picked up had seen the person that shot. He stood on top of the cliffs, and fired those who were at or in the water.
One person had seen someone shot in the head, and we also saw several dead bodies in the water.
Because we had such a small boat, we could not take many with us at a time. We were there early, so it was frustrating, but fortunately there were several boats eventually.
It is absolutely unbelievable what has happened.

10.27am: Norwegian daily Verdens Gang has quoted a friend of the suspect Anders Behring Breivikis as saying he became a right-wing extremist in his late 20s.

The paper said he expressed strong nationalistic views in online debates and had been a strong opponent of the idea that people of different cultural backgrounds can live alongside each other.

Breivik's Facebook page appeared to have been blocked by late Friday, Reuters reports.

The news agency said it had listed interests including bodybuilding, conservative politics and freemasonry.

Norwegian media said Breivik had set up a Twitter account a few days ago.

There is only one post on it, dated July 17, saying: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."

10.22am: The Queen has written to the King of Norway to express her shock and sadness at the attacks in his country, Buckingham Palace said today.

She said her and the Duke of Edinburgh's thoughts were with the Norwegian people.

Her message to King Harald read:

I am deeply saddened and shocked by the tragic loss of life of so many people on the island of Utoya and in Oslo.
Prince Philip joins me in extending our heartfelt sympathy to Your Majesty and the people of Norway. Our prayers and thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by the dreadful atrocity.

The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrave Square, central London, was open today, its flag flying at half mast.

A spokesman said: "We're open for any Norwegians who might need someone to speak to or feel the need to be with someone."

But he said most Norwegians living in the UK are currently on holiday. The embassy has mainly been dealing with enquiries from Britons concerned about loved ones in Norway, he added.

Between 20,000 and 40,000 Norwegians are estimated to be either living or visiting the UK at any given time.

10.19am: The bombing of the government building in Oslo has already drawn comparison with Timothy McVeigh's attack on the Oklahoma City federal building 16 years ago.

The explosion at the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995 killed 168 people and injured more than 600.

The US Army veteran and security guard was 26 when he carried out the attack by detonating a lorry bomb outside the building. McVeigh was convicted on federal murder charges and executed in 2001.

10.13am: The twin attacks in Norway are the worst in Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings when 191 people were killed.

Prime minister Jens Stoltenberg said he knew many of the victims of the shooting on Utoya personally:

I know the young people and I know their parents. And what hurts more is that this place where I have been every summer since 1979, and where I have experienced joy, commitment and security, has been hit by brutal violence - a youth paradise has been transformed into a hell.
What happened at Utoya is a national tragedy. Not since World War Two has our country seen a greater crime.

10.10am: My colleague Peter Beaumont has more on the attacks, including reactions from survivors:

Survivors of the island attack, which took place barely two hours after a huge bomb was detonated close to the offices of Norway's prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, described how the gunmen moved across the small, wooded Utoya holiday island on Friday firing at random as young people scattered in fear.
Teenagers at the lakeside camp organised by Stoltenberg's ruling Labour party fled screaming in panic, many leaping into the water or climbing trees to save themselves, when the attacker began spraying them with gunfire.
Witnesses and survivors of the island attack described scenes of horror and panic.
"I just saw people jumping into the water, about 50 people swimming towards the shore. People were crying, shaking, they were terrified,"
said Anita Lien, 42, who lives by Tyrifjord lake, a few hundred metres from Utoya.
"They were so young, between 14 and 19 years old."
Survivor Jorgen Benone said: "It was total chaos...I think several lost their lives as they tried to get over to the mainland.
"I saw people being shot. I tried to sit as quietly as possible. I was hiding behind some stones. I saw him once, just 20, 30 metres away from me. I thought 'I'm terrified for my life', I thought of all the people I love.
"I saw some boats but I wasn't sure if I could trust them. I didn't know who I could trust any more."
"We had all gathered in the main house to talk about what had happened in Oslo. Suddenly we heard shots. First we thought it was nonsense.
Then everyone started running," one survivor, a 16-year-old called Hana, told Norway's Aftenposten.
"I saw a policeman stand there with earplugs. He said 'I'd like to gather everyone'. Then he ran in and started shooting at people. We ran down towards the beach and began to swim."
Hana said the gunman fired at people in the water.

You can read the full story here.

10.05am: The Norwegian police have released more details about their response to the attacks.

Police official Johan Fredriksen said a SWAT team was put on standby after a bombing in Oslo.

He added that it took the team around 30 minutes to arrive at the island of Utoyo after the shooting began.

Police initially said about 10 were killed at the forested camp on the island but that death toll rose considerably overnight.

Police director Oystein Maeland said the death toll could rise even more. He said others were severely wounded, but police didn't know how many were hurt.

10.00am: deputy police chief Roger Andresen said police are still searching for victims of the shooting on Utoya.

"At Utoya, the water is still being searched for more victims," he told a press conference.

9.50am: Norway has not changed its threat level after attacks on the capital and Utoya, said justice minister Knut Storberget.

But he told a news conference the situation was under assessment: "The debate on the threat level is ongoing."

9.43am: At a press conference this morning, Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg said he had spent many summers on the island of Utoya, which was hosting a youth retreat for his party.

Utoya is "my childhood paradise that yesterday was transformed into Hell," he said.

9.49am: David Cameron has expressed outrage over the attacks in Norway, and pledged Britain's help in overcoming the "evil" behind them.

Meanwhile Britons in Norway have been urged to stay indoors in the wake of the attacks.

Foreign Office travel advice warned there was a high threat from terrorism and called on British nationals to take extra care, PA reports:

In a statement on its website, the Foreign Office said: "On the afternoon of 22 July there was an explosion in the centre of Oslo resulting in a number of casualties.
"This was followed by a further attack at a youth camp on Utoya Island, 40km west of Oslo.
"We recommend that British nationals stay indoors for the time being. British nationals are advised to exercise caution, monitor local media reporting and follow advice given by the emergency services."
The Foreign Office said that although it had reviewed it, its overall level of travel advice had not changed and there were no travel restrictions in place in Norway.
About 250,000 British tourists visit the country every year.

9.23am: Deputy police chief Roger Andresen has told reporters that a suspect was in custody and being questioned over both attacks.

AP reports that the suspect, named by Norwegian national broadcaster NRK as Anders Behring Breivikis, is co-operating with the investigators:

Though police did not release his name, and said police searched his Oslo apartment overnight. NRK and other Norwegian media posted pictures of the blond, blue-eyed Norwegian.
"He is clear on the point that he wants to explain himself," said Andresen.
National police chief Sveinung Sponheim told NRK that the suspected gunman's Internet postings "suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but whether that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen."
Andersen said the suspect posted on websites with Christian fundamentalist tendencies.
A police official said the suspect appears to have acted alone in both attacks, and that "it seems like this is not linked to any international terrorist organisations at all." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that information had not been officially released by Norway's police.
"It seems it's not Islamic-terror related," the official said. "This seems like a madman's work."

9.10am: This is David Batty bringing you the latest on the twin attacks in Norway yesterday in which at least 91 people have been confirmed killed.

• At least 84 people were shot dead by gunman at a youth summer camp on the island of Utoya, after an explosion at government buildings in Oslo killed at least seven. Many others have been injured.

• Police have charged Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian man, over both attacks. Oslo police say Breivik's website indicates he is a right-wing Christian fundamentalist.

• Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, whose offices were among those badly hit by the Oslo bomb blast, said the attacks were "like a nightmare". He was due to have been on Utoya a few hours after the attacks began.

• Survivors of the Utoya shooting said the gunman shot his victims twice to make sure they were dead.

• Concerned relatives should call 004723132700.

The Guardian has a gallery of the attacks here.

You can follow me on Twitter at David_Batty.

View the original article here

Iran public execution outrages human rights groups

2011-07-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

WARNING: contains graphic images

A disturbing video of the public execution of three men in Iran has sparked anger among human rights activists.

The graphic video, released by Amnesty International on Thursday, showed guards standing on top of buses draping ropes around necks of three convicts sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of rape. The men were later hanged from an overhead bridge after the vehicles drove away.

The executions, which took place on 19 July in the western city of Kermanshah, home to Iran's Kurd minority, attracted significant crowds, including children. Some of the crowds appear to be filming hangings by mobile phones.

The video, which was supplied to Amnesty by an Iranian human rights activist, Fazel Hawramy from kurdishblogger.com, highlights the use of public executions, in which officials publicly hang convicts from a large crane or a high place in front of crowds.

"What is so alarming about this video is the apparent normality of the event. Thousands of people are watching as if it were a football match. People are shouting and cheering. But what is most shocking is the participation of children in this barbaric 'spectacle'," Hawramy said.

The release of the video follows human rights groups' alarm over the sharp escalation in capital punishment in Iran.

Activists said two weeks ago that Iran has executed an average of almost two people a day in the first six months of this year. Iran insists the executions are related to serious crimes such as drug-trafficking although at least two political activists have been identified among those hanged in the first half of 2011.

Amnesty said Iranian authorities have acknowledged public executions of at least 28 people so far this year.

Speaking to the Guardian by phone from Kermanshah, the Iranian who filmed Amnesty's video said: "I was there, the executions took place at the centre of the city in Azadi Square at 10 in the morning when people were busy with their businesses or shopping.

"Authorities didn't have any consideration for innocent children who were accompanying their parents and suddenly watched an execution which I would guess would be carved in their mind for ever."

Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa deputy director, said: "Not only those executed, but all those who watch public executions, including, children, are brutalised and degraded by the experience. These public displays of killing perpetuate a culture of acceptance of violence and bloodlust, rather than a belief in justice."

She added: "It is deeply disturbing that despite a moratorium on public executions ordered in 2008, the Iranian authorities are once again resorting to this inhuman practice."

Amnesty said Kermanshah's executions follow "several widely publicised gang rapes of women this year in Iran. In some cases, officials blamed the victims for failing to adhere to the official code on dress or gender segregation."

In criticism to Iran's use of capital punishment as a solution to the country's rape issue, Hadj Sahraoui said: "Executions after speedy, unfair trials are no solution to the extremely serious problem of rape in Iran, which feeds on the acceptance of violence against women at all levels of society.

"The Iranian authorities should be aiming to combat this culture of violence rather than perpetuate it through these public displays of brutality."

Rebin Rahmani of HRANA, a human rights website, said 450 people in Kermanshah prison, convicted of charges such as rape or drug-trafficking, have been handed down death sentences and are currently awaiting execution.

View the original article here

Chris Huhne orders inquiry into fossil fuel lobby influence over Tory MEPs

2011-07-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

Chris Huhne has ordered an inquiry into the influence of fossil fuel lobby groups over Conservative MEPs. Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA

Chris Huhne has ordered a private inquiry into which fossil fuel lobbyists "got to" the Conservative MEPs who defied David Cameron and voted down an ambitious carbon emissions target in the European parliament on 5 July.

"I have asked for a full analysis of what happened," said the energy and climate change minister, speaking at an event in parliament. "We thought the vote was going to be close, but it was not close. We want to see which lobby groups managed to get to the MEPs."

New research by the Guardian and Greenpeace into lobby groups and businesses seen by Tory MEPs in 2010 reveals there were more than four times as many meetings with fossil fuel companies, carmakers and others against stronger action on global warming than with green businesses and those pushing for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Huhne, a Liberal Democrat, has caused a storm by comparing Tory campaigning tactics on the AV referendum to those of the Nazis and by repeatedly challenging Cameron at a cabinet meeting on the issue. By investigating the EU climate vote, he risks further increasing tensions within the coalition.

"It is extraordinary for Huhne to instigate an investigation into his coalition partners," said Luciana Berger, Labour's shadow minister for climate change. "It shows Lib Dems and Conservatives are too busy squabbling with each other to take decisive action to reduce carbon emissions."

Huhne had been successful in gathering support from other countries to increase the EU's 2020 greenhouse gas target from 20% below 1990 levels to 30%, arguing it was in the UK's best economic interests. But Tory MEPs were key in carrying a vote against the plan, despite Cameron promising to intervene after their intention was revealed by the Guardian.

"I'm happy for Huhne to investigate whatever the hell he likes. I just wish he'd spend more time investigating the huge economic damage that his green policies will do," said Tory MEP and climate sceptic Roger Helmer. He added: "The prime minister is in no position to 'bring Conservative MEPs into line'. I vote in what I conceive to be the best interests of my country and my constituents: the party whip comes a poor third."

Martin Callanan, leader of the Conservatives in Europe and an environment spokesman, said: "Our position on [deeper emission cuts] has not been influenced by lobbyists and has remained unchanged since the idea was first mooted.

"Europe already has the world's most ambitious targets and, in the absence of a worldwide agreement, forcing business and industry to pay more for their CO2 emissions in Europe will merely result in them relocating outside of the EU."

But a spokesman for No 10 said: "Government policy is, and remains, to persuade the EU to adopt the 30% emissions reduction target."

Callanan said any discussions he had with No 10 were confidential but he added: "Conservative MEPs are the most open and transparent UK members. We publish details of all lobbying meetings."

Chris Davies, the Lib Dem environment spokesman in Europe, said: "The prime minister's promises to lead the greenest government ever sound very hollow indeed when his own party fails to walk the walk on cutting carbon emissions."

The research by the Guardian and Greenpeace (January to June and July to December) shows that the 25 Tory MEPs met at least 300 representatives from fossil fuel businesses and their lobbyists in 2010 at more than 200 meetings, compared with about 70 representatives from green industries or lobby groups. The latter includes meetings on climate change, renewable energy and similar issues, but excludes meetings about unrelated issues such as agriculture and biodiversity.

The research also found the Tory MEPs attended at least 100 meetings with gas and oil companies and 75 meetings with car manufacturers last year.

Ford was one of the most hospitable companies, enjoying meetings with at least nine of the MEPs, most of them more than once.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders was also popular, alongside Jaguar Land Rover.

The UK's Association of Electricity Producers, which has strongly opposed any increase in carbon emissions cuts, was well-represented among the numerous fossil fuel energy lobbyists, along with oil industry groups such as the UK Petroleum Industry Association.

Meetings with green lobbyists, aside from the many devoted to issues such as the common agricultural and fisheries policies, were far fewer, with WWF figuring a handful of times and Greenpeace once.

Several renewable energy companies enjoyed a little more success, including First Solar which met three of the MEPs.

One member, Giles Chichester, Tory MEP for southwest England and Gibraltar, met the European Wind Energy Association but only at a large energy dinner.

Several green companies also attended a large dinner on food security and climate change attended by Chichester and fellow MEP Julie Girling last December, and a small number of other dinners. By contrast Helmer had four meetings in six months about beer.

"The Conservative party in Europe is in the pocket of big oil," said Berger. "The prime minister needs to get a grip of his party and start leading a government that is serious about tackling climate change."

Martyn Williams of Friends of the Earth said: "There is a huge list of major companies who have told Conservative MEPs that getting serious about tackling climate change will give a boost to the European economy. The MEPs should stop listening to special pleadings and examine the big picture."

Huhne's private office did not respond to requests for comment and a spokesperson at Huhne's department of energy and climate change declined to respond, saying it was a "political" matter.

View the original article here

Northern Ireland violence drives out immigrant families

2011-07-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

Nationalist youths clash with police in the Ardoyne area of Belfast on 12 July. Photograph: Cathal Mcnaughton/Reuters

Immigrant families from East Timor fled a Catholic area of Northern Ireland on Friday night when loyalist rioters tried to attack nationalist homes, a Sinn Fein councillor said today.

"Around 100 loyalists attacked police who prevented them attacking nationalist homes," said John O'Dowd, who is a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The families from East Timor packed their bags and ran from their homes in Portadown, Co Armagh on Friday night, when the area was engulfed in violence, he said.

"They packed their bags, so distressed were they at the violence. Their neighbours tried to reassure them that they would be safe in their homes but they left," he told Reuters.

A significant number of families from East Timor have settled in the Northern Irish town, where they work in the food packing industry alongside many Poles and Portuguese.

For several hours, police were attacked by people armed with petrol bombs, bricks, bottles, fireworks and other missiles in the latest violence surrounding the high point of the loyalist marching season.

The police fired around 20 plastic bullets and arrested three people. They confirmed that loyalists provoked the violence when a planned peaceful protest was hijacked by a violent minority.

The Mayor of the local Craigavon council, Democratic Unionist Alan Carson, condemned the violence.

"This does not do anyone any good. People have a right to live peacefully and feel safe in their own homes. The violence we saw last night is something we assigned to the history books," he said.

In recent days, nearly 50 police have been wounded and dozens have been arrested during violence in both loyalist and republican areas surrounding the annual 12 July parades.

More than 500 parades were held on Tuesday across Northern Ireland, the high point of the Orange Order marching season celebrating the victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The majority passed off peacefully but they sparked outbreaks of street violence.

View the original article here

Rupert Murdoch's empire must be dismantled – Ed Miliband

2011-07-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

Ed Miliband has called for cross-party agreement on new media rules to curtail Rupert Murdoch's power. Photograph: Getty Images

Ed Miliband has demanded the breakup of Rupert Murdoch's UK media empire in a dramatic intervention in the row over phone hacking.

In an exclusive interview with the Observer, the Labour leader calls for cross-party agreement on new media ownership laws that would cut Murdoch's current market share, arguing that he has "too much power over British public life".

Miliband says that the abandonment by News International of its bid for BSkyB, the resignation of its chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, and the closure of the News of the World are insufficient to restore trust and reassure the public.

The Labour leader argues that current media ownership rules are outdated, describing them as "analogue rules for a digital age" that do not take into account the advent of mass digital and satellite broadcasting.

"I think that we've got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20% of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News," Miliband said. "I think it's unhealthy because that amount of power in one person's hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organisation. If you want to minimise the abuses of power then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous."

The move takes Miliband's campaign against the abuse of media power to new heights after a fortnight in which he has reinvigorated his own leadership by leading the attack on the Murdoch empire. While he insisted that the recently announced inquiries should take their course, the Labour leader said he hoped the main parties could agree on a common approach.

His latest intervention, as a poll on Saturday night showed his personal rating up seven points on a month ago, comes ahead of what promises to be a dramatic appearance by Rupert Murdoch, his son James, the chief executive of News Corporation Europe and Asia, and Brooks before the Commons culture, media and sport committee.

Committee members preparing to grill the trio are to be given legal advice on the morning of the hearing on how far they can push the News Corp boss and his son for answers. The committee's chairman, the Tory MP John Whittingdale, has asked for details of their lines of questioning to avoid duplication.

News Corp is understood to be concerned that the committee will set a trap by asking questions the Murdochs are unable to answer due to the continuing criminal investigations and are taking advice on how to avoid yet another public relations disaster as the company attempts to rebuild its reputation.

Further pressure was piled on Murdoch after the Liberal Democrats wrote to the media regulator, Ofcom, urging it to launch an investigation that could see his holding company, News Corp, forced to sell its stake in satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

The Broadcasting Act places a duty on the regulator to consider "any relevant conduct of those who manage and control such a licence".

Although News Corp, whose News International subsidiary owned the News of the World, has only a minority 39% share in BSkyB, the Lib Dems argue the company is "strongly placed materially to influence the policy and strategic direction of BSkyB", suggesting the regulator is duty bound to investigate.

Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem party's deputy leader, Don Foster, its media spokesman, and Tim Farron, its president, are demanding that the watchdog's members "take measures now to satisfy yourself that the owners of the BSkyB licence continue to be 'fit and proper'", given "the manifest public concern about News International's activities, the close integration of News International with its parent company News Corporation, [and] News Corp's effective control of BSkyB".

The three dismissed claims that the regulator could not act while criminal investigations were current, saying there were "no legal reasons to stop Ofcom from conducting its work alongside that done by the police".

A spokeswoman for Ofcom said: "We received this letter early on Friday evening. We will be considering our response next week."

She added that the regulator was continuing to gather information, which it hoped would assist in the discharge of its duties. "We have already written to a number of relevant authorities and can confirm that follow-up meetings will now be taking place."

In his interview Miliband said that once a Sunday Sun was launched, possibly in August, this would add further to the Murdoch empire's penetration of the UK media market.

Meanwhile, the foreign secretary, William Hague, defended David Cameron's regular meetings with News International executives and his decision to invite Andy Coulson, his former director of communications who was arrested 10 days ago, to Chequers several weeks after Coulson's resignation over the phone-hacking scandal.

"In inviting Andy Coulson back, the prime minister has invited someone back to thank him for his work – he's worked for him for several years – that is a normal, human thing to do," Hague told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "I think it shows a positive side to his character."

He added: "Personally I'm not embarrassed by it in any way – but there is something wrong here in this country and it must be put right. It's been acknowledged by the prime minister and I think that's the right attitude to take."

Hague continued: "It's not surprising that in a democratic country there is some contact between leaders of the country, and indeed opposition leaders, and indeed I believe on that list of meetings there are also meetings with the executives of the Guardian and Trinity Mirror and whatever other news organisations."

Cameron has acknowledged that he met Coulson since his resignation, but "not recently and not frequently".

"When you work with someone for four years as I did, and you work closely, you do build a friendship and I became friends with him," the prime minister said.

View the original article here

Julia Neuberger: 'A nudge in the right direction won't run the big society'

2011-07-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

Baroness Julia Neuberger at the West London Synagogue. Photograph: Sophia Evans for the Observer

Ever since her appointment a year ago to head the House of Lords inquiry into behavioural change, Baroness (Julia) Neuberger has noticed that her grocery shopping habits have altered. "I've been looking at the labels very closely," she says. "Takes much longer. The usual thing of throwing it all into the trolley – no!"

The labels that Neuberger has been examining with such intent are designed to provide customers with colour-coded guidance on the amounts of salt, sugar and fat within each product. It is hoped that by using the "traffic light" system to highlight the more harmful ingredients, in say, a chocolate Hobnob, members of the public will be persuaded to eat more healthily.

It is an example of "nudge", the belief, promulgated by two American professors in a 2008 book, that human beings can be encouraged to make life-improving choices through incentives and social cues rather than through regulation and government legislation.

The theory – outlined by Richard Thaler, professor of economics and behavioural science at Chicago Graduate School of Business, and by Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein – has been eagerly adopted by David Cameron, who set up a behavioural insight team last October. The unit was charged with introducing nudge to the "big society" or, as the coalition agreement puts it, "finding intelligent ways to encourage people to make better choices for themselves".

It was hoped issues such as the obesity crisis could be tackled by nudges – clearer food labelling, placing fruit not chocolate near supermarket checkouts – rather than by heavy-handed (and expensive) state intervention.

The problem, as Neuberger saw it, was that there was "precious little" evidence to show that nudge worked beyond a purely individual basis. So the Lords set up a subgroup of its respected science and technology committee to examine the issues. After 12 months of research, 148 written submissions and evidence from 70 witnesses, the report will be published on Tuesday. It will make uncomfortable reading for Cameron because, according to Neuberger, nudging people is not normally enough.

"Basically you need more than just nudge," she says, when we meet in the Lords. "Behavioural change interventions appear to work best when they're part of a package of regulation and fiscal measures," she adds, putting down her papers and a large canvas bag from Daunt Books in Hampstead. She notices me looking at the bag. "I use it for everything! I don't like briefcases."

The difficulty with nudge theory, she says, is that "all politicians love quick fixes. I mean, they look at very short time frames. I think one of the problems with all of this is if you really want to change people's behaviour it takes a very long time … you have to look at a 20- to 25-year span before you get a full change of behaviour."

As an example, Neuberger points to the efforts to persuade people to wear seat belts in the 1970s, which incorporated an advertising campaign and legislation. "So it was a whole series of measures that did eventually change the climate." Later, she adds: "I think politicians would be well advised to use these sorts of behavioural interventions as part of an armoury."

"Politicians all have a split personality," she adds. "On one level, they engage their brains and they know perfectly well that things do take quite a long time to happen. On the other, they've got a very short time frame: they want to get re-elected, they need to make a mark. They have been, I think, very persuaded by the work of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. I think they found that very appealing because, broadly, they prefer the idea of using behavioural change interventions to legislating or using fiscal measures."

Presumably, part of the appeal is also that, in a time of austerity, nudging costs much less than legislating? Neuberger nods. "There needs to be a huge amount of work, which I think the government will eventually have to pay for."

Did she enjoy Nudge when she read it? "It's quite engaging," she replies, not entirely enthusiastically. "It's quite compelling as a book but, like all of those sorts of book – like The Tipping Point, like Bowling Alone, those books that have made quite an impact on politicians – I would say, you want to stand back for a few minutes and say: 'But, but, but'."

From September, Neuberger will become a full-time rabbi at the West London Synagogue and going on to the crossbenches. "Because I've got members of the congregation of all religious faiths and none, I don't want people to think I'm preaching Lib Dem politics from the pulpit."

She has clearly enjoyed heading the select committee – "it's been a fantastically good experience" – but there is one thing she won't miss. "There was a huge amount of written evidence," she says, holding her hands at least 10 inches apart. "I mean, it's like that – absolutely vast. It's been with me backwards and forwards to Leamington Spa [where she lives with her husband, Anthony], but it always has to go in the car because it's just too much to lug about." She pauses, then adds with an impish grin: "Even in my Daunts bag."

View the original article here

Libyan rebels win official recognition as their forces close in on Brega

2011-07-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

Libyan rebels cheer with their weapons as their comrades drive towards the Brega front line. Photograph: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP

Libyan fighters said on Saturday they were close to surrounding the key government-held oil town of Brega, the day after the US and other nations in the Libya contact group officially recognised the rebel administration.

Radio reports said that after three days of heavy fighting, aided by substantial Nato bombing, rebel units had bypassed the town – cutting off the garrison from its supply lines. "Fighters are around the town," said Radio Misrata journalist Alseddiq Abuzaian. "They begin to go around, heading for Ras Lanuf [an oil terminal to the west]."

A rebel spokesman in Benghazi, Mohamed Zawi, said that fighters launched a probing attack into Brega itself on Friday night before withdrawing, but expected to resume this weekend.

Brega is a key oil terminal and has repeatedly changed hands during the civil war. Its capture would be an important psychological boost for the rebels after six weeks of stalemate.

Nato denied claims from Tripoli that it had launched a "land, air and sea" offensive at Brega in support of rebels, but the international alliance's own figures show a sharp escalation in bombing around the town.

On Friday, Nato jets – soon to be bolstered by four extra Tornados from the UK – destroyed 14 military vehicles at Brega, compared with 17 destroyed there during the previous six days.

The rebel push on Brega is one of the most ambitious of the war, with newly trained units launching a three-pronged attack. While a central advance is struggling to clear minefields near Brega, other units have enveloped government forces from the north and south. The rebel forces say 10 fighters have died and 170 were wounded. Tripoli has released no casualty figures of its own.

Further to the west, rebels in the Nafusa mountains say their efforts to advance on Tripoli are being hampered by a lack of weapons or Nato support.

They have made significant gains against Muammar Gaddafi's forces in recent weeks and now have Gharyan, a pivotal gateway to Tripoli, in their sights. But they are relying almost entirely on hardware captured from Gaddafi's fleeing troops, and their momentum stalled last week. This raised the prospect of a stalemate going into Ramadan in August.

Ibrahim Taher, a history teacher turned battalion commander in the rebel stronghold of Zintan, has just one rifle for every two fighters – most of whom are young university graduates.

"The biggest problem we have now is the lack of weapons, ammunition, communication equipment and vehicles," he said. "These 230 fighters have five radios between them. Over huge areas, it's hard to co-ordinate between people. and say 'advance' or 'retreat.'?"

Nato has carried out regular air strikes against Gaddafi's army in the Nafusa mountains, but Taher says more is needed. "Nato could turn this situation upside down in one day," he said. "It hits one tank a day and goes home. I don't know why it does that."

As on other rebel front lines to the east, this is an amateur and sometimes amateurish campaign, compensated by courage and will. The battalion has one anti-aircraft gun, seized from Gaddafi's men, which it aims horizontally to target heavy weapons and machinery.

After military training on Friday, young men cleaned the 14.5mm gun with pride on a pickup truck caked in mud for camouflage except for a sticker depicting the red, black and green rebel flag. It is operated by Muftah Fitoure, 33, previously a worker in a youth development programme run by Gaddafi's son Saif.

"The first time I used it, I was scared," he recalled. "My aim was some way off. But the second time was better. They [Gaddafi's troops] are still better than us at firing them."

Fitoure, married with a 15-month-old daughter, has lost two cousins and said he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. "I've heard too many horror stories. It's better to be killed than captured. I heard that in the Qawalish fight the Gaddafi forces cut out someone's heart and killed the others. I have six brothers. If I die trying to reach Tripoli, one of my brothers will reach it in my place."

View the original article here

Grieving couple's plea: 'Don't let visa rules split us up'

2011-07-17T12:45:00.000-07:00

Jessica Nicholl visits the grave of her daughter, Meadow. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

A couple grieving for their stillborn daughter face being split up, after immigration authorities ruled that there was insufficient justification for them to be allowed to stay together in Britain.

Despite the intervention of the couple's local MP, the business secretary, Vince Cable, a judge last week refused Californian Jessica Nicholl's appeal to stay with her husband, John, who is suffering from depression.

She has been told to return to the US by Thursday, after which she will have to go through the process of applying for a spousal visa before the couple can be reunited.

John, who had a string of family bereavements – including the deaths of James, his baby son from a previous relationship, and that of his father – before he met Jessica, has been in an especially fragile state since the death at birth of the couple's daughter, Meadow.

"I am really concerned about his wellbeing, we have both been relying very much on each other to get through this and I cannot bear to think what will happen if I have to leave him on his own," said Jessica, 23.

The pair met online five years ago and married in August 2009. They set up home in Twickenham, south-west London, to be close to John's children from his previous relationship.

"I came over on a visitor visa and didn't think anything of it," said Jessica. "We hadn't even realised there would be an issue until after we got married and I had fallen pregnant, which is when we started to look into immigration and visas in depth and realised just how complex and difficult it really is."

Cable has written to Damian Green, the immigration minister, calling it a "deeply tragic case". Describing Jessica's predicament, the letter states: "Her attempt to regularise her status as a spouse has been unsuccessful. Clearly things have not been done as they would have been in an ideal situation. Nonetheless, we are where we are and this is a couple who are devoted to one another and dependent on each other's support following the loss of their baby and the process of mourning and bereavement."

The couple are appalled by the legal nightmare in which they have found themselves. "It's still a shock to us to be presented with the situation where a husband and wife aren't allowed to live together," said Jessica, "or even stay and support each other through such stressful and traumatic experiences as losing a child.

"We need time to get over this, together. They are most likely going to let me back in, so why do I have to leave him at all?"

She was also "deeply hurt" when Meadow's death was described as a miscarriage when her appeal to stay was being considered. "I found it very offensive. That was our daughter and the judge dismissed our grief in a sentence."

West London Sands, a self-help bereavement charity for those who have suffered a neonatal or stillbirth, said it was common for such losses not to be considered on the same level as the loss of an older child. Colette Murphy, from the charity, said: "Jess had a really bad time when Meadow was born, a particularly traumatic birth. Unfortunately, time after time we see the loss of a baby undervalued."

There is no available parental home for Jessica to go back and live in while her spousal visa application is processed. "Our family in the UK is guaranteeing to support me if necessary," said Jessica. "I am willing and eager to work, pay taxes and contribute to the welfare of my new home, as well as giving up any rights to any social benefits. I want to work in the care sector. It seems unfair to punish John for his condition, especially because of the lack of control he had over the circumstances that triggered his condition."

The couple's lawyer, Duncan Grant, said: "What right-minded person would say they have to be split up now, when they clearly need to be supporting each other? They are quite clearly in love and reliant on each other."

View the original article here

MPs condemn tactical mistakes that ruled out victory in Helmand

2011-07-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

A British patrol returns to camp in Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province last year. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

The five-year British military campaign in southern Afghanistan has been woefully under-resourced and hampered by inadequate equipment, according to a damning report by MPs.

The Commons defence select committee, which has been analysing UK operations in Helmand province since 2006, says that it was "unacceptable" British forces were handicapped by insufficient numbers, poor equipment and low-quality intelligence when the deployment began.

For the first three years of the operation – during which 132 British personnel died and more than 2,000 were hospitalised in Helmand – victory was more or less unattainable given the levels of manpower, military vehicles available and knowledge of the enemy.

The initial deployment of 3,500 solders into Helmand, of whom around 1,000 were infantry, was "not fully thought through", the report says.

James Arbuthnot, a former Conservative defence minister and chairman of the committee, said: "The force levels deployed throughout 2006, 2007 and 2008 were never going to achieve what was being demanded."

The report questions how the Ministry of Defence failed to anticipate that the presence of foreign troops in Helmand "might stir up a hornets' nest". The then defence secretary, John Reid, was famously reported as saying that he would have been happy if British forces had left Helmand "without a shot being fired". By the end of 2008, however, British forces were expending almost four million bullets a year against an increasingly strident insurgency.

The report also raises concerns that UK troops were in effect sent to tackle an enemy of which virtually nothing was known because available intelligence "was contradictory". By the summer of 2006, military tactics dictated that individual platoons of about 30 soldiers were cornered in isolated towns, provoking an aggressive response from the surrounding Taliban. During August and September of that year, 27 soldiers were killed as the enemy launched repeated attacks against remote outposts.

The committee's first report on Afghanistan for more than a year also criticises the military's failure to make clear the need for more resources. Representations to government are described as "inadequate at best".

As the conflict progressed, the MoD was criticised for failing to keep up with the evolving tactics of the Taliban, who switched from conventional warfare to guerrilla tactics involving suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices. In particular, a failure to provide bomb-proof vehicles and counter-IED support was a serious flaw that almost certainly cost British lives. The flimsy armoured vehicles first sent to Helmand – the Snatch Land Rover and armoured personnel carriers dating from the 1960s – offered minimal protection.

"It took some time to get a suitably capable vehicle fleet into theatre. The MoD should prioritise the protection of personnel when considering the funding of such needs that emerge in the future," the report says. Even now, it adds, British forces still lack sufficient helicopter numbers. A dispute in Whitehall over supplying 12 more Chinook helicopters to Helmand has yet to be settled.

Looking ahead to Britain's withdrawal from the province, MPs warn that the government's room for manoeuvre is limited. Earlier this month David Cameron confirmed a "modest reduction" in British troops next year, probably by around 500. A further 400 are due to return home this year, leaving a core of 9,500 service personnel.

Arbuthnot said: "The government's clear determination to withdraw combat forces should not undermine the military strategy by causing the Afghan population to fear that the international coalition might abandon them or by allowing the Taliban and others to think that all they have to do is bide their time."

View the original article here

UN mission accuses Sudan of shelling and torturing civilians in Nuba war

2011-07-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

The Khartoum government has bombed Nuba villages.

The full horror of the campaign of violence that the government in Khartoum has unleashed against the black African Nuba people of Sudan has been laid bare in two confidential reports by the UN peacekeeping force that the Observer has obtained.

The accounts of "devastating" daily aerial bombardment of civilians, "indiscriminate shelling" of crowded civilian areas, summary executions and deliberate targeting of dark-skinned people are contained in a 19-page report requested by the UN security council. A second report details how "active obstruction by state authorities (in South Kordofan) has completely undermined the ability of the peacekeeping force, UN Mission in Sudan (Unmis), to fulfil the most basic requirements of its mandate" in the Nuba region.

The report says the humanitarian assistance and protection provided by Unmis have become "inconsequential" as it prepares to leave Sudan, at Khartoum's insistence, by 31 July. Unmis officials say privately that they have been "deaf and blind" in South Kordofan ever since war broke out on 5 June and cannot even estimate how many people have been killed and displaced by the fighting – widely perceived as a first step towards President Omar al-Bashir's stated goal of suppressing ethnic and cultural diversity in favour of a rigid Arab-Islamic regime, following South Sudan's decision to separate from the North.

The UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Valerie Amos, said on Friday that 1.4 million people were affected by what she called "skirmishes" in South Kordofan, which borders the now independent Republic of South Sudan, and by Khartoum's refusal to grant "unhindered access" to them. Causing fury among hard-pressed colleagues on the ground, who have been crying out for much stronger support from the security council, she appeared to cast doubt on their reporting, saying: "We do not know whether there is any truth to the grave allegations of extra-judicial killings, mass graves and other violations in South Kordofan."

The Nuba Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) – formerly allied with the South, but now seeking a northern alliance to overthrow the Bashir government – claims that more than 400,000 people have been displaced and 3,000 killed or disappeared. One Unmis staffer, quoted in one of the documents seen by the Observer, reported seeing the bodies of approximately 150 Nuba lying in pools of blood in just one of the many army barracks in the state capital, Kadugli.

Khartoum and the SPLA have accused each other of starting the fighting, after a ceasefire that began in 2002. Unmis's report for the security council, prepared by its human rights section, notes that the SPLM/A refused to accept the results of disputed state elections in May, but says there is no evidence that it initiated military operations. Rather, it says, the fighting may have been triggered by an ultimatum for Nuba fighters to move to South Sudan by 1 June – an order that was tantamount to "disenfranchising them of their citizenship", given the promise of partition in July.

The report suggests that the "especially egregious" crimes committed by government forces justify referral to the international criminal court. It argues that "the international community cannot afford to remain silent in the face of such deliberate attacks by the government of Sudan against its own people".

Deploring the "gross contempt" and "violent and unlawful acts" of government forces towards Unmis – including execution of a staff member, assaults, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and ill treatment "amounting to torture" – the report says: "Condemnation is insufficient… The international community must hold the government of Sudan accountable for its conduct and insist that it arrest and bring to justice those responsible."

National staff of international aid organisations have also come under attack. Unmis cites the case of a young Nuba woman arrested and accused of supporting the SPLM. Unmis human rights officers saw bruises and scars on her body consistent with her claim to have been beaten with fists, sticks, rubber hoses and electric wires.

Underscoring the need for the "independent and comprehensive investigation" Unmis recommends, the Observer has been told – by a hitherto impeccable source not connected to the SPLM/A – that 410 captured SPLM sympathisers were ordered executed on 10 June by Major-General Ahmad Khamis, one of four senior army officers sent to South Kordofan from Khartoum at the start of the war. The source told the Observer that the order to kill divided the military and security services. "Many disagreed with Khamis," he said. "The prisoners who were taken by military intelligence and the (paramilitary) Popular Defence Forces were murdered. Those with the National Intelligence and Security Service are still alive. There is a possibility some will see sunlight again…"

Khamis was one of the main implementers of a government jihad in the early 1990s that brought the Nuba people to the brink of destruction. On my first visit to SPLA-controlled areas in 1995, Khamis, then head of military intelligence, was repeatedly named as being responsible for torture and executions – including by his own hand.

With the Nuba region now closed to independent observers, and Unmis unable to move freely, it is impossible to verify or disprove claims like this. Significantly, perhaps, Unmis's human rights report makes mention of "fresh mass graves" seen on 10 June, the day of the reported executions, near Kadugli's police training centre. Unmis interviewed eyewitnesses who testified to two other mass graves: one in Tilo, four miles east of Kadugli, where an independent UN contractor saw government troops bulldozing bodies into the ground, and a second between army headquarters and Kadugli's main market. UN military observers attempting to reach the market site were arrested, stripped and threatened with execution.

Despite fighting talk by President Bashir on the eve of partition, senior government officials say a framework political agreement mediated by the African Union last month is still alive. Ethiopia and Rwanda have offered to contribute to a post-Unmis mission to monitor a cessation of hostilities, facilitate negotiation, and support the integration of the SPLA into the Sudanese army. The main point of contention is the timeframe for achieving this: the army wants weeks, the SPLA years.

View the original article here

University tuition fee hike will hit 100,000 of this year's unlucky students

2011-07-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

Students at St Andrews University take their weekly Pier Walk. Photograph: public domain

More than 100,000 students will face a double disappointment when they fail to find a place at university this summer and are hit with the prospect of trebled tuition fees when they try again in 12 months' time.

Official figures reveal the size of the group who will fail to attain a university place in the last year before fees shoot up. It is made up of 75,000-85,000 who would have gone on to standard university courses and a further 10,000 to 20,000 nursing, midwifery and teacher training applicants.

It is about 10,000 people larger than it would have been because of the coalition's decision to renege on the Labour government's pledge to increase the total intake in 2011 as they did in 2010.

Usman Ali, the National Union of Students' vice-president for higher education, said the stakes were high for students. "For several years now we have seen the numbers of qualified and ambitious students applying to university outstripping the number of places available, forcing those young people to fight for jobs in an ever-shrinking youth job market," said Ali.

"The most determined choose to reapply the following year, but those who miss out this year will find themselves with fees trebled and government funding slashed simply because the government is not willing to expand investment in skills and education for young people when it is most needed.

"Those students will find themselves stuck between the rock of high youth unemployment, and the hard place of spiralling debt.

"Those who do enter university in 2012 will accrue more debt at university than any generation before, and once the implications of the white paper become clear, they could even find that their fees are higher than those who follow them."

According to the research from the House of Commons library, those most likely to miss out are mature, disabled or black students, or those with lower educational attainment.

Meanwhile, the Royal Society of Chemistry has raised concerns over the debts prospective scientists face. Using the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills' own figures, it claims a senior academic on a salary of ?75,000 would pay back three times the ?45,000 loan they would be expected to take in order to complete their studies.

However, Professor David Phillips, president of the society, said that the publishing by universities of employment prospects by degree would highlight how well the sciences fare against other subjects.

He said: "These consequences affect all students, whatever subject they study. However, students would do well to consider what the employment prospects are for any course they undertake.

"For some subjects these are bleak, but for the 'hard' sciences, and particularly chemistry, employment prospects are very good, so we urge schools to encourage science students into subjects like chemistry [and engineering and physics] where employment is not only highly likely, but fills a national need also."

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: "Going to university has always been a competitive process and not all who apply are accepted. Despite this, we do understand how frustrating it is for young people who wish to go to university and are unable to find a place.

"We are opening up other routes into a successful career. Our reforms will make part-time university study more accessible."

View the original article here

Vatican excommunicates bishop ordained by Chinese state

2011-07-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedict XVI. The Vatican says only the Holy See can ordain bishops. China sees this as foreign interference. Photograph: Getty Images

The Vatican excommunicated a Chinese bishop as relations between the Catholic Church and the government in Beijing plunged to their lowest level in recent memory.

Joseph Huang Bingzhang was thrown out of the church just two days after he was ordained without papal approval as bishop of Shantou. It was the third such ordination pushed through since November by the state's religious authorities, who have also reportedly coerced Chinese bishops to attend the ceremonies.

In a statement, the Vatican said the latest ordination was illegitimate. "The Holy See does not recognise him ... and he lacks authority to govern the Catholic community of the diocese," it said.

Pope Benedict XVI was said to "deplore" the way communist authorities are treating Chinese Catholics who want to remain faithful to Rome instead of to the state-backed church.

The schism has put China's 8-12million Catholics in a difficult position as they have to choose devotion to the pope or obedience to authorities who can restrict their worship. Rather than attend the disputed ordinations, some bishops have tried to hide. Others have been taken away by officials.

The Vatican insists that only the pope has the right to appoint bishops, but the Chinese government sees that as foreign interference and insists that its own religious organisation – the Patriotic Association – makes the final decision. In recent years the two sides compromised by trying to find mutually acceptable candidates, but this has proved difficult and time-consuming.

View the original article here