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Writer and Filmmaker With a Genius for Humor

2012-06-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

nora ephron, an essayist and humorist in the Dorothy Parker mold (only smarter and funnier, some said) who became one of her era’s most successful screenwriters and filmmakers, making romantic comedy hits like sleepless in seattled and “When Harry Met Sally,” died Tuesday night in Manhattan. She was 71.
The cause was pneumonia brought on by acute myeloid leukemia, her son Jacob Bernstein said.
In a commencement address she delivered in 1996 at Wellesley College, her alma mater, Ms. Ephron recalled that women of her generation weren’t expected to do much of anything. But she wound up having several careers, all of them successfully and many of them simultaneously.
She was a journalist, a blogger, an essayist, a novelist, a playwright, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a movie director — a rarity in a film industry whose directorial ranks were and continue to be dominated by men. Her later box-office success included you have got mail and " julie and julia" By the end of her life, though remaining remarkably youthful looking, she had even become something of a philosopher about age and its indignities.
“Why do people write books that say it’s better to be older than to be younger?” she wrote in “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” her 2006 best-selling collection of essays. “It’s not better. Even if you have all your marbles, you’re constantly reaching for the name of the person you met the day before yesterday.”
Nora Ephron was born on May 19, 1941, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the eldest of four sisters, all of whom became writers. That was no surprise; writing was the family business. Her father, Henry, and her mother, the former Phoebe Wolkind, were Hollywood screenwriters who wrote, among other films.
“Everything is copy,” her mother once said, and she and her husband proved it by turning the college-age Nora into a character in a play, later a movie, " Take her she,s mine" The lesson was not lost on Ms. Ephron, who seldom wrote about her own children but could make sparkling copy out of almost anything else: the wrinkles on her neck, her apartment, cabbage strudel, Teflon pans and the tastelessness of egg-white omelets.
She turned her painful breakup with her second husband, the Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein, into a best-selling novel, "Heartburn" which she then recycled into a successful movie starring Jack Nicholson as a philandering husband and Meryl Streep as a quick-witted version of Ms. Ephron herself.
When Ms. Ephron was 4, her parents moved from New York to Beverly Hills, where she grew up, graduating from Beverly Hills High School in 1958. At Wellesley, she began writing for the school newspaper, and in the summer of 1961 she was a summer intern in the Kennedy White House. She said later that perhaps her greatest accomplishment there was rescuing the speaker of the house, Sam Rayburn, from a men’s room in which he had inadvertently locked himself. "In an eassy for the new york tion 2013" she said she was also probably the only intern that President John F. Kennedy had never hit on.
After graduation from college in 1962, she moved to New York, a city she always adored, intent on becoming a journalist. Her first job was as a mail girl at Newsweek. (There were no mail boys, she later pointed out.) Soon she was contributing to a parody of The New York Post put out during the 1962 newspaper strike. Her piece of it earned her a tryout at The Post, where the publisher, Dorothy Schiff, remarked: “If they can parody The Post, they can write for it. Hire them.”
Ms. Ephron stayed at The Post for five years, covering stories like the Beatles, the Star of India robbery at the American Museum of Natural History, and a pair of hooded seals at the Coney Island aquarium that refused to mate.
“The Post was a terrible newspaper in the era I worked there,” she wrote, but added that the experience taught her to write short and to write around a subject, since the kinds of people she was assigned to cover were never going to give her much interview time.
In the late 1960s Ms. Ephron turned to magazine journalism, at Esquire and New York mostly. She quickly made a name for herself by writing frank, funny personal essays — about the smallness of her breasts, for example — and tart, sharply observed profiles of people like Ayn Rand, Helen Gurley Brown and the composer and best-selling poet Rod McKuen. Some of these articles were controversial. In one, she criticized Betty Friedan for conducting a “thoroughly irrational” feud with Gloria Steinem; in another, she discharged a withering assessment of Women’s Wear Daily.
But all her articles were characterized by humor and honesty, written in a clear, direct, understated style marked by an impeccable sense of when to deploy the punchline. (Many of her articles were assembled in the collections “Wallflower at the Orgy,” “Crazy Salad” and “Scribble Scribble.”)
Ms. Ephron made as much fun of herself as of anyone else. She was labeled a practitioner of the New Journalism, with its embrace of novelistic devices in the name of reaching a deeper truth, but she always denied the connection. “I am not a new journalist, whatever that is,” she once wrote. “I just sit here at the typewriter and bang away at the old forms.”
Ms. Ephron got into the movie business more or less by accident after her marriage to Mr. Bernstein in 1976. He and Bob Woodward, his partner in the Watergate investigation, were unhappy with William Goldman’s script for the movie version of their book "ALL THE PRISIDENT,S MEN" so Mr. Bernstein and Ms. Ephron took a stab at rewriting it. Their version was ultimately not used, but it was a useful learning experience, she later said, and it brought her to the attention of people in Hollywood.
Her first screenplay, written with her friend Alice Arlen, was for "silkwood" a 1983 film based on the life of Karen Silkwood, who died under suspicious circumstances while investigating abuses at a plutonium plant where she had worked. Ms. Arlen was in film school then, and Ms. Ephron had scant experience writing for anything other than the page. But Mike Nichols, who directed the movie (which starred Ms. Streep and Kurt Russell), said that the script made an immediate impression on him. He and Ms. Ephron had become friends when she visited him on the set of catch_22"
“I think that was the beginning of her openly falling in love with the movies,” Mr. Nichols said in an interview, “and she and Alice came along with ‘Silkwood’ when I hadn’t made a movie in seven years. I couldn’t find anything that grabbed me.” He added: “Nora was so funny and so interesting that you didn’t notice that she was also necessary. I think a lot of her friends and readers will feel that.”
Ms. Ephron followed “Silkwood” three years later with a screenplay adaptation of her own novel “Heartburn,” which was also directed by Mr. Nichols. But it was her script for “When Harry Met Sally,” which became a hit Rob Reiner movie in 1989 starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, that established Ms. Ephron’s gift for romantic comedy and for delayed but happy endings that reconcile couples who are clearly meant for each other but don’t know it.
“When Harry Met Sally” is probably best remembered for Ms. Ryan’s table-pounding faked orgarm sences with Mr. Crystal in Katz’s Delicatessen on the Lower East Side, prompting a middle-aged woman (played by Mr. Reiner’s mother, Estelle Reiner) sitting nearby to remark to her waiter, indelibly, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The scene wouldn’t have gotten past the Hollywood censors of the past, but in many other respects Ms. Ephron’s films are old-fashioned movies, only in a brand-new guise. Her 1998 hit, “You’ve Got Mail,” for example, which she both wrote (with her sister Delia) and directed, is partly a remake of the old Ernst Lubitsch film ‘The Shop Around the Corner.”
Ms. Ephron began directing because she knew from her parents’ example how powerless screenwriters are (at the end of their careers both became alcoholics) and because, as she said in her Wellesley address, Hollywood had never been very interested in making movies by or about women. She once wrote, “One of the best things about directing movies, as opposed to merely writing them, is that there’s no confusion about who’s to blame: you are.”
Mr. Nichols said he had encouraged her to direct. “I knew she would be able to do it,” he recalled. “Not only did she have a complete comprehension of the process of making a movie — she simply soaked that up — but she had all the ancillary skills, the people skills, all the hundreds of things that are useful when you’re making a movie.”

Her first effort at directing, "this is my life" (1992), with a screenplay by Ms. Ephron and her sister Delia, based on a novel by Meg Wolitzer about a single mother trying to become a standup comedian, was a dud. But Ms. Ephron redeemed herself in 1993 with “Sleepless in Seattle” (she shared the screenwriting credits), which brought Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan together so winningly that they were cast again in “You’ve Got Mail.”
Among the other movies Ms. Ephron wrote and directed were "lucky number" (2000), "bewitched"(2005) and, her last, “Julie & Julia” (2009), in which Ms. Streep played Julia Child.
She and Ms. Streep had been friends since they worked on “Silkwood” together. “Nora just looked at every situation and cocked her head and thought, ‘Hmmmm, how can I make this more fun?’ ” Ms. Streep wrote in an e-mail on Tuesday.
Ms. Ephron earned three Oscar nominations for best screenplay, for “Silkwood,” “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally.” But in all her moviemaking years she never gave up writing in other forms. Two essay collections (2006) and “I Remember Nothing” (2010), were both best sellers. With her sister Delia she wrote a play, “Love, Loss, and What I Wore,” about women and their wardrobes (once calling it “ ‘The Vagina Monologues’ without the vaginas”) and by herself she wrote "imagniry friends" a play, produced in 2002, about the literary and personal quarrel between Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy.
She also became an enthusiastic blogger for The Huffington Post, writing on subjects like the Las Vegas mogul Steve Wynn’s accidentally putting a hole in a Picasso he owned and Ryan ONeal’s failing to recognize his own daughter and making a pass at her.
Several years ago, Ms. Ephron learned that she had myelodysplastic syndrome, a pre-leukemic condition, but she kept the illness a secret from all but a few intimates and continued to lead a busy, sociable life.
“She had this thing about not wanting to whine,” the writer Sally Quinn said on Tuesday. “She didn’t like self-pity. It was always, you know, ‘Suck it up.’ ”
Ms. Ephron’s first marriage, to the writer Dan Greenburg, ended in divorce, as did her marriage to Mr. Bernstein. In 1987 she married Nicholas Pileggi, the author of the books “Wiseguy” and"casino" (Her contribution to “Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure,” edited by Larry Smith, reads: “Secret to life, marry an Italian.”)
In addition to her son Jacob Bernstein, a journalist who writes frequently for the Styles section of The Times, Ms. Ephron is survived by Mr. Pileggi; another son, Max Bernstein, a rock musician; and her sisters Delia Ephron; Amy Ephron, who is also a screenwriter; and Hallie Ephron, a journalist and novelist.
In person Ms. Ephron — small and fine-boned with high cheeks and a toothy smile — had the same understated, though no less witty, style that she brought to the page.
“Sitting at a table with Nora was like being in a Nora Ephron movie,” Ms. Quinn said. “She was brilliant and funny.”
She was also fussy about her hair and made a point of having it professionally blow-dried twice a week. “It’s cheaper by far than psychoanalysis and much more uplifting,” Ms. Ephron said.
Another friend, Robert Gottlieb, who had edited her books since the 1970s, said that her death would be “terrible for her readers and her movie audience and her colleagues.” But “the private Nora was even more remarkable,” he added, saying she was “always there for you with a full heart plus the crucial dose of the reality principle.”
Ms. Streep called her a “stalwart.”
“You could call on her for anything: doctors, restaurants, recipes, speeches, or just a few jokes, and we all did it, constantly,” she wrote in her e-mail. “She was an expert in all the departments of living well.”
The producer Scott Rudin recalled that less than two weeks before her death, he had a long phone session with her from the hospital while she was undergoing treatment, going over notes for a pilot she was writing for a TV series about a bank compliance officer. Afterward she told him, “If I could just get a hairdresser in here, we could have a meeting.”

Kevin Youkilis traded to White Sox

2012-06-25T02:45:00.000-07:00

By Peter Abraham and Nick Cafardo, Globe Staff

The Red Sox have traded infielder Kevin Youkilis to the Chicago White Sox, major league sources told the Globe.
The Red Sox received 25-year-old righthander Zach Stewart and utility player Brent Lillibridge.
The Red Sox also will be picking up $5.5 million of the $6.6 million Youkilis has remaining on his contract for this season. The White Sox would be responsible for a $1 million buyout on a $13 million team option for 2013.

Stewart, 25, is a former third-round pick from Texas Tech who was once considered a hot prospect. But thisis the third time he has been traded in a span of four years, going from the Reds to Blue Jays and then to the White Sox and now to the Red Sox.
Stewart is 3-8 with a 5.92 earned run average in 31 career appearances, 12 of them starts. He was 1-2 with a 6.00 ERA in 18 appearances (one start) for the White Sox this season. He has thrown 30 innings, giving up 41 hits and striking out 16 with four walks.
The Reds traded Stewart, Edwin Encarnacion and Josh Roenicke to the Blue Jays for Scott Rolen at the 2008 trade deadline.
In 2011, again in July, he and Jason Frasor went to the White Sox for Edwin Jackson and Mark Teahen. Stewart could be developed as starter depth by the Red Sox.
Lillibridge, 28, is a career .215 hitter with the Braves and White Sox. He has played every position except pitcher and catcher.
Lillibridge will be reporting to the Red Sox with Stewart being assigned to Triple A Pawtucket.
To make room on the 40-man roster, the Red Sox designated Double-A left fielder Oscar Tejeda for assignment

UFC's Franklin survives Silva in hostile territory

2012-06-25T02:26:00.000-07:00

BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil — Rich Franklin's best days may be behind him, but the veteran mixed martial artist still has a flair for the dramatic.
The former middleweight champion survived a second-round knockdown and rallied to outpoint Brazilian legend Wanderlei Silva in hostile territory at Saturday's UFC 147 event.
The 190-pound catchweight fight headlined UFC 147's pay-per-view lineup and took place at a sold-out Estadio Jornalista Felipe Drumond in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte.
Franklin, who took the fight on four weeks' notice for injured Vitor Belfort, silenced a very pro-Silva crowd with a five-round unanimous-decision victory (49-46 on all scorecards). Franklin also outpointed "The Axe Murderer" three years ago at UFC 99.
The 37-year-old Franklin and 35-year-old Silva entered UFC 147 a combined 5-9 in their previous 14 fights. It's hardly the success that warrants headlining spots, but the fan favorites have been proven draws. So with few other options available, officials booked the rematch and hoped to capitalize on Silva's fame in his home country.
Franklin, though, proved quicker to the punch throughout the fight, and despite a 16-month layoff due to shoulder-surgery recovery, his conditioning and durability were superb. Both helped him survive Silva's second-round knockdown and subsequent ground-and-pound assault that had "Ace" in survival mode until he was saved by the bell.
The series, in fact, admittedly sapped Silva (34-12-1 MMA, 4-7 UFC) of energy, and Franklin (29-6 MMA, 14-5 UFC) capitalized in the later rounds to set up the decision win.
"I honestly don't remember it," Franklin said of the second-round right hook that floored him. "When that kind of stuff happens, you remember bits and pieces. ... I was operating on auto-pilot for a while."
Franklin, who had been toiling in the light-heavyweight division after losing his middleweight belt to dominant champ Anderson Silva, said he's planning a return to his former weight class for one final title run before retirement.
-- Ferreira, Bezerra win 'TUF: Brazil'
In the night's other featured bouts, two tournament winners were crowned as part of the conclusion of "The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil."
The first international edition of the UFC's long-running reality series drew big ratings in Brazil, so it was fitting the tourney conclusions were booked for the UFC's Brazilian event.
In the middleweight-tournament final, Cezar "Mutante" Ferreira (5-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC) topped Sergio "Serginho" Moraes (6-3 MMA, 0-1 UFC) via unanimous decision. In the featherweight final, Rony "Jason" Mariano Bezerra (10-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) did the same to Godofredo "Pepey" de Oliveira (8-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC).
Both winners receive long-term UFC contracts and will feature prominently on future cards.
-- Full UFC 147 results:
Rich Franklin def. Wanderlei Silva via unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46)
Cezar "Mutante" Ferreira def. Sergio "Serginho" Moraes via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27) - to win "TUF: Brazil" middleweight tourney
Rony "Jason" Mariano Bezerra def. Godofredo "Pepey" de Oliveira via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) - to win "TUF: Brazil" featherweight tourney
Fabricio Werdum def. Mike Russow via TKO (punches) - Round 1, 2:28
Hacran Dias def. Yuri Alcantara via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
Rodrigo Damm def. Anistavio "Gasparzinho" Medeiros via submission (rear-naked choke) - Round 1, 2:12
Francisco "Massaranduba" Drinaldo def. Delson "Pe de Chumbo" Heleno via TKO (punches) - Round 1, 4:21
Hugo "Wolverine" Viana def. John "Macapa" Teixeira via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
Thiago "Bodao" Perpetuo def. Leonarda "Macarrao" Mafra via TKO (punches) - Round 3, 0:41
Marcos "Vina" Vinicius def. Wagner "Galeto" Campos via TKO (strikes) - Round 3, 1:04
Felipe Arantes and Milton Vieira fight to a split draw (29-28, 28-29, 28-28)

Alan Turing’s Brother: He Should Be Alive Today

2012-06-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

June 23rd is the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, father of computer science and artificial intelligence, who committed suicide just shy of 42. In a shocking and frank memoir, his late elder brother John says Alan’s life might have turned out a lot better if his mother was not so nagging—and he recounts the details of his brother’s awful death.

Alan Turing, who was born 100 years ago on June 23, 1912, might not have invented the computer. (That honor goes to Charles Babbage and Lord Byron's daughter.) But today’s computing would be unthinkable without the contributions of the British mathematician, who laid down the foundations of computer science, broke Nazi codes that helped win World War II at the famous Bletchley Park, created a secure speech encryption system, made major contributions to logic and philosophy, and even invented the concept of Artificial Intelligence. But he was also an eccentric and troubled man who was persecuted (and prosecuted) for being gay, a tragedy that contributed to his suicide just short of the age of 42 when he died of cyanide poisoning, possibly from a half-eaten apple found by his side. He is hailed today as one of the great originators of our computing age.

In 1959, four years after Alan Turing’s suicide just shy of the age of 42, his mother Sara published her biography Alan M. Turing. Shortly after, his elder brother John began his own alternative account, seeking to “put the record straight” and correct any inaccuracies or biases in his mother’s version. Although he worked on the essay throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, John declined to release the account until after his mother’s death, and ultimately left it unpublished in his private papers. It was found in a drawer by his son John Dermot Turing, and finally included as part of the re-release of alan m turning, in celebration of the centenary of his birth. The following is adapted from the book:

My brother Alan was born on 21* June 1912 in a London nursing home. At this, and at all other times, my father took all decisions of consequence in the family. Now, rightly or wrongly, he decided that he and my mother should return alone to India, leaving both children with foster parents in England. Alan and I were left with “the Wards”—always we referred to them as “the Wards.” We were the wards and they were our guardians but no matter—this was to be the centre of our existence for many years and our home from home. I believe it was here, perhaps in the first four or five years at the Wards, perhaps even in the first two, that Alan became destined for a homosexual. Has anyone mentioned it until now?

No. My mother was fully aware of it before Alan’s death (not, I imagine, that she had the faintest idea of what it implied), but she makes no reference to it in her book. One can put that down to Edwardian reticence if one pleases. In my view, based on such conversation as I had with my mother about it, necessarily reduced to a minimum, her reaction was much what one might expect if a specialist had informed her that her son was color blind or had an incurable obsession with spiders: it was a nasty shock of brief duration and of no great significance. I am trying to make this memoir as truthful as I can, so I will not go to the length of pretending that I like homosexuals. To my mind, what is intolerable is the world of the “gay crusade” and, as my unfortunate brother may be cast in the part of an early and valiant crusader, this is by no means an irrelevant comment.
My mother, perhaps unwittingly, gives the impression in her book that she recognized Alan’s genius from the start, and that she sedulously fostered it. If so, she did not give that impression in the family at the time; in fact, quite the contrary.

My father, on the whole, either ignored my brother’s eccentricities, or viewed them with amused tolerance but (as will appear) there were deep dudgeons when Alan started to accumulate appalling school reports at Sherborne. As for myself, with the selfishness of youth, and separated by a gap of four years, I did not care what Alan did, and I was content to go my own way, as indeed he was content to go his. Our interests were so dissimilar that they never clashed. The only person in the household who was forever exasperated with Alan, constantly nagging him about his dirty habits, his slovenliness, his clothes and his offhand manners (and much else, most of it with good reason) was my mother. If this was due to some early recognition of his genius, she was certainly doing nothing to foster it by trying to press him into a conventional mould. Needless to say, she achieved nothing by it except a dogged determination on Alan’s part to remain as unconventional as possible. The truth of the matter, as I now view it in retrospect, is that neither of Alan’s parents or his brother had the faintest idea that this tiresome, eccentric and obstinate small boy was a budding genius. The business burst upon us soon after he went to Sherborne. After a few terms, it became apparent that he was far ahead of the other boys in mathematics: when Alan was sixteen, the maths master told my mother that there was nothing more that he could teach him and he would have to progress from there on his own. I think it must have been when Alan was due to take the School Certificate examination (now replaced by “O” levels) that he read Hamlet in the holidays. My father was delighted when Alan placed the volume on the floor and remarked “Well, there’s one line I like in this play.” My father could already see a burgeoning interest in English literature. But his hopes were dashed when Alan replied that he was referring to the final stage direction.

Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson 'arrested in Germany'

2012-05-14T02:27:00.000-07:00

The founder of US-based anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd, Paul Watson, has been arrested in Germany, the group says.

In a statement, it said Mr Watson was detained in Frankfurt and now faces extradition to Costa Rica.
It quotes German police as saying the arrest relates to a confrontation over shark fining in 2002.
Sea Shepherd is a controversial direct action group best known for disrupting Japan's annual whale hunt.
In the past there have been collisions between its vessels and the whaling fleet, and its activists have also boarded Japanese vessels.
Mr Watson tweeted late on Sunday: "I am currently being held in Frankfurt on charges from Costa Rica. Court appearance in the morning."
Attempted murder claim The German warrant related to an "alleged violation of ships traffic" which took place in Guatemalan waters in 2002, the group said, when it "encountered an illegal shark fining operation" - referring to the practice of catching sharks, slicing off their valuable fins and returning the shark to the water where it will usually die.
On order of the Guatemalan authorities, the group says, it instructed the crew of the Costa Rican vessel in question, the Varadero, to head back to port to be prosecuted.
"While escorting the Varadero back to port, the tables were turned and a Guatemalan gunboat was dispatched to intercept the Sea Shepherd crew," the statement claims.
"The crew of the Varadero accused the Sea Shepherd of trying to kill them, while the video evidence proves this to be a fallacy.
"To avoid the Guatemalan gunboat, Sea Shepherd then set sail for Costa Rica, where they uncovered even more illegal shark fining activities in the form of dried shark fins by the thousands on the roofs of industrial buildings."
Media cite Costa Rican reports as saying Mr Watson also faces an outstanding warrant for attempted murder stemming from the same incident.
According to Sea Shepherd, Mr Watson is being assisted in jail by European deputies Daniel Cohn Bendit and Jose Bove.

Syrian clashes 'kill 23 soldiers' in city of Rastan

2012-05-14T02:20:00.000-07:00

At least 23 soldiers have died in heavy clashes in the central Syrian city of Rastan, according to activists.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens were wounded in the attack in the city, in the restive province of Homs.
Three troop carriers were destroyed in fighting, the group said.
If confirmed, the attack would be one of the deadliest suffered by security forces in the 14-month-long uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
It comes after government forces launched a fresh assault on the city at the weekend, despite a UN-backed nominal ceasefire that was supposed to come into effect just over a month ago.
Dozens of people have been wounded in shelling in the city, the Observatory said.
At least 30 people died on Sunday - mainly civilians - as violence surged at flashpoints across the country despite an increase of UN observers.
The figures cannot be verified independently, as journalists' movements are severely restricted in Syria.
The UN on Sunday said it had 189 observers in Syria, two thirds of the total intended for deployment as part of the six-point peace plan mediated by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

Unemployment set to keep on rising, says forecaster

2012-05-07T00:18:00.000-07:00

Unemployment in most parts of the UK is likely to continue to rise over the next five years, according to a respected economic forecasting group.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research says the overall jobless rate could hit 10.7% by 2016 the highest its been for more than a decade.
The CEBR also believes unemployment could in time rise to levels not seen since the recession of the early 1990s.
UK unemployment fell by 35,000 to 2.65m between last December and February.
BBC business correspondent Ben Thompson says the CEBR warned that areas reliant on public sector jobs and government spending will be badly hit - especially Wales, Scotland and the North East of England.
But in Northern Ireland, where almost one in three people now work in the public sector, the impact could be even worse, he said.

“Start Quote

Five more years of pain are expected for much of the UK, with unemployment continuing to rise in almost every region”

Rob Harbron Report's author

The report suggests the jobs market in London, the South East and East of England will remain "relatively buoyant".

That is down in part to a stronger private sector - which is more able to make up for losses in the public sector.
Rob Harbron, one of the report's authors, said: "Five more years of pain are expected for much of the UK, with unemployment continuing to rise in almost every region.
"The outlook is tough for UK households, particularly those in places with a high dependency on public sector employment.
"Family budgets are being squeezed between the pressures of rising unemployment, low earnings growth and stubbornly high inflation."
Experts predict unemployment is expected to rise again with local authorities and other public sector bodies shedding jobs to cut costs.
The union Unison said 625 public sector jobs had been axed every day since the general election in May 2010.
Motoring job cuts Liam Byrne MP, shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, said unemployment was still "unacceptably high" and that the country was sliding back into a recession "built in Downing Street".
He added: "Ministers cannot afford to continue to stand aside, they must now accept responsibility for Britain's jobs crisis and take decisive action.
"They should start with Labour's five point plan, including a Real Jobs Guarantee, paid for by a tax on bankers' bonuses, that would guarantee a proper job for 110,000 young people out of work for a year, which they would have be made to take."
Last week, the head of Ford's European operations warned jobs would be lost in the car industry following free trade deals with some Asian economies which had increased imports.
Car sales in Europe have fallen from around 18.5 million a year before the downturn to an expected 14 million this year.

Mali Islamist militants 'destroy' Timbuktu saint's tomb

2012-05-07T00:14:00.000-07:00

Islamist fighters said to be linked to al-Qaeda have destroyed the tomb of a local Muslim saint in the Malian town of Timbuktu, officials and locals say.

The gunmen attacked the shrine and set it on fire, saying it was contrary to Islam, according to the official.
Tuareg rebels and Islamist fighters took control of Timbuktu, a UN heritage site, after a military coup in March.
Unesco said the town's capture could endanger its "outstanding architectural wonders" .
Residents said armed men from the Islamist group Ansar Dine threatened locals going to worship at the grave of Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar.
"What you are doing is haram! (forbidden). Seek help from God directly rather than the dead," one of the gunmen said, according to a resident quoted by the Reuters news agency.

A local politician, El Hadj Baba Haidara, told Reuters about the atttack:

"They attacked the grave, broke doors, windows and wooden gates that protect it. They brought it outside and burn it," he said. "This tomb is sacred, it is too difficult to bear."
A local official said the fighters had threatened to destroy other saints' tombs, according to the AFP news agency.
Strict Islamists regard shines as idolatrous, while some Muslims, especially Sufis, regard them as an accepted part of Muslim worship.
On its website, Unesco, the UN's cultural agency, says Timbuktu is the location of three great mosques dating back to the 14th century, as well 16 cemeteries and mausoleums.
Founded in the 12th Century, Timbuktu became wealthy at the nexus of important trading routes for salt and gold, reaching its apogee in the 15th and 16th centuries.
It became a major intellectual and religious centre, and still houses tens of thousands of manuscripts, some dating back centuries.
Rebels demanding independence for a Tuareg homeland and fighters of Ansar Dine, which is said to be linked to al-Qaeda, took advantage of the chaos that followed the March coup to overrun the northern half of Mali.

Egyptian military detains 300 protesters after unrest

2012-05-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

About 300 people are still being detained after deadly clashes between protesters and security forces in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, military sources said.

Violence outside the defence ministry on Friday left one soldier dead and hundreds wounded.
A curfew will be in force in the area around the ministry on Saturday night for the second night in a row.
The violence comes less than three weeks before presidential polls.
Military prosecutors say that the 300 people detained, including a number of journalists, will be held for 15 days while they're investigated for their part in the clashes.
But the authorities have moved to defuse the situation a little by saying they are releasing all the women who were arrested; activists say less than 20 women had been detained.
The head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, on Saturday attended the public funeral in Cairo of the soldier killed in the unrest.
Friday's arrests came after protesters tried to break through an army roadblock to reach the ministry, in Cairo's Abbassiya district, resulting in clashes with the army which lasted several hours.
The area is now reported to be calm after a curfew was imposed on Friday night. Saturday's curfew comes into force at 23:00 local time (21:00 GMT) and ending at 06:00 local time (04:00 GMT) on Sunday.
The protesters had been angry at the generals' failure to protect a demonstration on Wednesday which came under attack from armed men, resulting in the deaths of at least 20 people.
The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo say the mass arrests are a stark contrast to Wednesday's attack - for which it appears no-one has been arrested or charged.
Nevertheless, he says, many Egyptians will applaud the tough way these clashes have been handled - they are longing, above all, simply for a return to law and order, and to normality.

SPECIAL PRESENTATION – A Nuclear Iran: The Expert Intel

2012-05-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

What do we really know about the Iranian nuclear threat? Iran says it wants the right to have its peaceful nuclear program formally recognized. But from the outside, Iran has long given the impression it has something to hide. And fear that Iran may soon have the capability to build a nuclear weapon, has spurred talk of a need to take action, even suggestions of a pre-emptive strike against Iran by Israel or the United States. But is that fear based on fact?
CNN's Christiane Amanpour presents what you need to know about Iran, the threat of war over its nuclear program, and the path forward. From murky evidence of weapons testing, to the uncertain intentions of its leaders, we find out from those who know the most: the experts.
If Iran decided to produce weapon-grade uranium, how long would it take to make enough for a bomb, and when would the world know? If Israel were to send fighter jets to bomb the Natanz or Fordo enrichment sites, what damage could they do? What the experts know and what they don’t know, may surprise you.
And what exactly does Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, mean when he declares the pursuit of nuclear weapons to be a “great sin?” How would Iran respond to an act of aggression by the West? And is there hope for a diplomatic solution? One expert explains why no U.S. President has been able to come to terms with the Islamic Republic. And a long-time adviser to the Supreme Leader reveals Iran’s bottom line.

'Sacrificed for a future that never came': Family tragedy tells the story of Greece

2012-05-06T07:35:00.000-07:00

The bank where she died in Athens is still shrouded in green tarpaulin and boarded off with corrugated iron. Graffiti scrawled in black across the front reads: "Traitors" and "killers."

This is where Angeliki Papathanasopoulou put in 12-hour days as a financial analyst at Marfin Egnatia Bank, working not only for the benefit of her family but also with a desire to contribute to the country she loved.

The site -- in the center of Athens, just minutes from Syntagma Square and in a commercial hub of the city -- is one door down from the historic Attikon Cinema, one of dozens of buildings torched during the city's explosive protests of February this year.

Now, two years since Greece took its first bailout and Angeliki died The election is expected to produce the most fractured result in decades.

My sister is around me all the time. I think about her every minute of the day. She is beside me and next to me, her spirit is around me.
Sissy Papathanasopoulou, sister

At 8am on May 5, 2010, Angeliki's husband Christos dropped her at the bank, on Stadiou Street. The couple lived just five kilometers away, in Vyronas, in the small apartment they had purchased a couple of years earlier.

Around 11am, Angeliki chatted on the phone with her mother Tota, then her older sister Sissy an hour later. Sissy was due to drive from her home in Patras to Athens that afternoon, before flying to meet her husband in Milan. The sisters discussed where they might eat together that evening. By then, Angeliki would have exciting news to share.

Four months pregnant with their first child, Angeliki and Christos were scheduled to learn the sex of their baby at an appointment that afternoon.

The plan was for Christos to pick her up at 3pm for the 4pm appointment, then they would see Sissy later. But, around 2pm, Christos took a call from his 32-year-old wife.

The bank was on fire.

A promising life remembered

Two years later, at the family home, an inches-deep pile of photographs frames the country's tragedy through a personal lens:

Angeliki as a baby, holding herself up by the tapestry chair where her father now sits to remember her; leaping across the stage in a white tutu during a ballet production as a young girl; sporting a Jackie O-esque hair-style in a photograph her father raises to his face to kiss.

Angeliki is with us all the time.
Haris Papathanasopoulos, father

The family has gathered in Aigio, two and a half hours by road from Athens, up a coastline flanked by the Ionian Sea and scattered with olive groves, lemon and orange trees.

On the dining table are delicate yellow freesias, brightening a room which is dense with love, and loss.

Sissy, who comes to the door with a wide smile, has made the short drive from Patras with her husband, Nikos Vasileiou.

Angeliki's mother, Tota, elegant in black with a simple silver cross around her neck, enters the living room carrying home-made yogurt cake, followed by braided koulourakia [Greek biscuits] and black coffee. The patriarch of this proud family, Haris, a retired lawyer, enters a few minutes later.

They greet Angeliki's husband, Christos Karapanagiotis, who has driven from Athens where he works for a shipping company, with kisses.

It is hard not to look at him without also glancing at the photograph of Angeliki on their wedding day in Loggos, the day she told her mother, "I feel like a princess," like "the center of the world."

The family recalls childhood summers, when the sisters spent the hot months of June to September with their cousins, Zeti and Angelina, at the family's beach-house in Loggos. "We would play grown-ups... from morning to midday, afterwards we were swimming and in the afternoon we would play in the mud," says Sissy, who is now a lawyer. "That was the program."

The sisters were close, exchanging letters and cards weekly and talking daily after Sissy moved to Athens to study. When Angeliki turned 18, they traveled to Paris together and spent 15 "perfect, perfect" days, says Sissy.

We were the closest friends.
Sissy Papathanasopoulou, sister

In Paris, they practiced their French, fell in love with the ancient Greek statue of Aphrodite of Milos at the Louvre, and bought posters of Monet and Manet to decorate their flat in the Exarcheia area of Athens. When the sisters were in their teens and their early 20s, the family traveled together to Italy, Austria and Switzerland.

"We were the closest friends. I knew everything about her and she knew everything about me," says Sissy. They would cover for each other when their parents called. "I was going out late, they would call and she would say 'no she can't [talk] she is sleeping'."

Angeliki grew up to be a sophisticated, erudite and witty woman who excelled in mathematics. She studied actuarial science at Cass Business School in London before returning to Athens in mid-2004, when the country was flush with the glory of the Olympic Games.

"That was a very, very good period for Greece," Christos says. "We wanted to come back. If you have a good job [in Greece], you can have a very good life. And we had the view that it was better to spend your efforts for Greece -- we wanted to spend our efforts for Greece."

Of his wife, Christos says: "It is difficult to find people who are so intelligent and well-balanced at the same time." With a quiet smile he adds, "Einstein was a genius but he was a genius in mathematics. Angeliki was not only a genius in mathematics -- she was a genius in everything. That is something you don't find easily in real life."

Christos and Angeliki both grew up in close families, and holidays were often spent with relatives.

She was a very sweet child.
Tota Papathanasopoulou, mother

Sissy saw Angeliki for the last time during Easter, which coincides with Sissy's "name day" -- a tradition to celebrate the provenance of one's name. Around 30 family members had gathered in Loggos to feast on oven-baked lamb and salads put together by Sissy and Angeliki. The sisters had both observed Lent by declining meat for seven days. Angeliki retired early that day, as her pregnancy was fatiguing. "She was sleeping all the time," says Sissy. But her sister was "very happy."

Angeliki and Christos were rooted. "We had no plans to leave," Christos says. "We are Greek citizens, and we would like to support ...Greek society. This is a beautiful country."

But by 2010, the country was in desperate financial trouble.

Rebellion sparks violence

On Sunday May 2, 2010, the eurozone's finance ministers declared they would inject €110 billion into Greece to save it from bankruptcy. Greece had finally capitulated to the demands of its eurozone peers. "The alternative course would be a catastrophe and greater pain for all," declared then-Prime Minister George Papandreou.

The situation was threatening global stability. The bailout was meant to save the hard-fought "European project," but it would leave the Greek people paying dearly for their boom times. In return for the funds, the government agreed to cut and freeze pension payments and public sector pay wages. Christmas, Easter and summer bonuses were abolished and taxes were raised.

A nationwide strike was called for May 5.

Angeliki and Christos were not worried. The streets were often rowdy with protests, but it was directed at government, and attacks against people were rare. Angeliki was in a "very big company," Christos says. "We thought it was safe," Sissy adds.

Angeliki was a genius in everything.
Christos Karapanagiotis, husband

There had been dozens of marches up Stadiou Street, Christos says. "Everybody had the feeling [Angeliki] was working in a safe environment. You could never forecast what might have happened."

Greece's history of being ruled by others -- invaded by Italy in 1940 before being occupied by Germany, then shredded by civil war, ruled by a military dictatorship between 1967 and 1974 and now at the mercy of the European Troika of financial masters -- has traditionally set its people against the state.

"What makes Greece different from other European countries is that the state has always been an alien," says journalist Pavlos Tsimas. "The average citizen who pays taxes doesn't feel like they are doing good for society. They feel like they are being robbed. [Because] it is not the state we ourselves made out of our revolution.

"There is always ...this resistance. This gives any part of rebellion against the Greek state some kind of legitimacy."

But this time, violence would erupt against fellow Greeks.

Protests explode

Greece's economic demise

January 1, 2001 Greece drops its currency, the drachma, to join the eurozone.

November 15, 2004 Greece admits that it gave misleading information to enter eurozone.

November 2009 PM George Papandreou says the 2009 budget deficit will be 12.7% of GDP, far above EU limit of 3%.

May 2, 2010 Greece gets a three year aid package from the International Monetary Fund and other eurozone countries, worth €110 billion.

July 21, 2011 European leaders agree to a second bailout package.

March 9, 2012 Creditors agree to restructure Greek government bonds, meaning the country can access its €130 billion bailout program

Marfin Egnatia -- like most banks -- was a target for attacks.

At around 1:30pm on May 5, 2010, about 50 masked and gloved protesters -- one group among tens of thousands of people who protested in Athens that day -- were charging up Patission Street, recalls photographer Giorgos Moutafis. They turned left into Stadiou Street, toward Angeliki's workplace. Moutafis swung in behind them, snapping pictures until he felt it was too dangerous to continue.

Moutafis recalls the group -- who he says did not belong to any political movement -- bragging of 150 molotov cocktails, chanting "burn them, burn the rich." When the group got to Marfin, other protesters begged them not to attack the bank: "No, there are people in there." But they were ignored: "F**k them, burn it, burn the rich," the cries continued. The windows were smashed, gasoline splashed over the bank's floor and Molotov cocktails lobbed in. The protests rolled on toward tear gas being exploded in Syntagma Square.

Black smoke began pouring out of the windows of Marfin Egnatia Bank. Angeliki and two colleagues, Paraskeui Zoulia and Epameinondas Tsakalis, were killed by the toxic fumes.

Court documents allege a series of failings by a bank executive, the bank's external health and safety consultant and two managers -- including asking staff to remain inside and locking the main doors during the riots -- that contributed to the tragedy.

The documents say the staff were unable to access an emergency exit, with a door for disabled people that could be used in an emergency blocked by the fire. Further, they said the bank did not have a fire safety certificate, unbreakable windows, or security shutters drawn in readiness for the riots.

The bank rejects these allegations. Thirteen days after the fire, the then non-executive chairman of Marfin Popular Bank Group, Andreas Vgenopoulos, released a letter to staff denying liability. In it, he said the bank had all the statutory measures in place, including reinforced glass and an emergency exit.

What makes Greece different from other European countries is that the state has always been an alien
Pavlos Tsimas, journalist

It said the staff were not pressured to work or prevented from leaving, but had decided to stay inside for safety reasons. It also said the bank cooperated with external consultants, who reported to them every month and had not noted a problem. The letter said the attack was "murderous" and "wouldn't stop unless there were dead people."

A representative for Marfin said the bank maintains that position. He said the bank was in compliance with all statutory requirements, including those for emergency exits, and that there had been no request for staff to lock the doors. The representative also said the bank did not require a fire safety certificate, due to it being built before 1989.

Further, he said, the bank was confident the courts would rule in favor of the executives and there was "surprise" those who caused the incident remained free.

Within the labyrinthine interiors of the Athens courts, investigations into Marfin Egnatia Bank case inch along.

On June 18 the four employees will go to trial in Athens, accused of causing the three deaths by neglecting safety duties.

If convicted, the executives each face a sentence of three months to five years, which can be suspended, for each death. They also face charges in connection with the injuries of 21 people.

Up to five protesters are also being investigated for the fire-bombing of Ianos, the bookstore opposite Marfin Egnatia Bank. The inquiry remains in the preliminary stages but investigators suspect this group may also have been involved in the attack on Marfin Egnatia Bank.

Greece fractured

Angeliki was sacrificed for a good future. But the better future never came.
Pepi Spiliotopoulou, Filodimos newspaper

Today, Greece's social and political landscape is splintered, with support for the old guard of New Democracy and PASOK plummeting as parties on the edges attract votes from the disenchanted.

Last month, after Greece had been forced into taking its second bailout, 77-year-old retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas killed himself in Syntagma Square, leaving a suicide note citing pain from the austerity measures.

Tsimas believes the election will be decided by one of two sentiments: Anger and fear. The former will vote for the fringe parties, the latter the establishment.

Either way, the Greek people face a fifth year of recession, and the country remains at risk of being expelled from the eurozone.

"The numbers of really poor people has doubled," Tsimas says. "And the middle classes, who established themselves in the 80s, have lost their sense of security. They have the fright of the fall that could come every other day. " Further, he said, "there are millions in the public sector who feel betrayed."

Pepi Spiliotopoulou is owner and editor of newspaper Filodimos and Radio Egio, and went to the same school as the Papathanasopoulou sisters. Since the crisis hit, she has watched Aigio diaspora return, seeking solace in family plots which can produce the food they can no longer afford to buy.

But the country's struggles continue. Yorgos Avgeropoulos, of documentary production house Small Planet, says the greatest fear now is of "social explosion. You cannot stop hungry people entering, breaking into a supermarket. Right now if the police tear gas [people] they run. But in one moment they will stay because they have nothing to lose."

FA Cup success primes Chelsea for Champion League final

2012-05-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

What started out as Chelsea's worst season since owner Roman Abramovich arrived in 2003 is now on the verge of becoming one of the English club's best.

Saturday's FA Cup final success, the London side's fourth in six years in the world's oldest football competition, is the latest step in a revival that could end in the realization of the Russian billionaire's longheld dream.

The nailbiting 2-1 victory at Wembley is but a tasty precursor to a Champions League final in Munich on May 19 that offers the chance for Abramovich to finally win Europe's top club prize.

He brought Premier League success to Stamford Bridge in 2005 after spending millions on coach Jose Mourinho and a swathe of star players, achieving Chelsea's first English title in 50 years.

Two more followed, but not before Mourinho departed after failing to repeat the European triumph at Porto that earned Abramovich's attention -- and Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari and Carlo Ancelotti also exited as Champions League success proved elusive.

FA Cup Final preview

Louis Saha: 'Thinking inside the box'

Hodgson 'not popular choice' for manager

Andre Villas-Boas, "the new Mourinho," was bought out of his contract at Porto to replace Ancelotti -- a European champion as both player and coach -- but the Portuguese prodigy alienated Chelsea's powerful old guard of players as he sought to stamp his authority and rebuild the squad.

His assistant Roberto di Matteo, a former Chelsea player himself, has had no such problems winning their respect as he has reverted to the style so successful under Mourinho, allowing the likes of veterans Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba to restore their pre-eminent roles in the team.

Drogba scored the vital winner in the first leg of the remarkable Champions League semifinal success against arguably the world's best team, Barcelona, and he netted the ultimately decisive second goal against Liverpool.

The 34-year-old Ivory Coast captain is now the only player to score in four FA Cup finals, equaling the five goals in total scored by legendary Liverpool striker Ian Rush in three title matches.

Drogba may yet make his Chelsea exit after the Bayern Munich clash in two weeks' time -- a match which not only holds the key to Abramovich's hopes, but could also be part of a solution to the challenges the club faces under European soccer's new financial fair play rules.

Each team will get a reported $66 million for making the final, when television money is added to the prize total on offer, representing a major budgetary boost for a club like Chelsea -- which under the new regulations can no longer rely on Abramovich's deep pockets.

Chelsea's bid to become more financially self-sufficient took another step ahead of Saturday's final, with news the club is seeking to buy the nearby iconic Battersea power station and turn it into a new home ground with capacity greater than the present one.

The world's 10 best-paid sports teams

Chelsea stun Barcelona to reach final

The $2.9 million earned by winning the FA Cup final for the seventh time will also help, as well as furthering the prospects of Di Matteo being made Chelsea's permanent manager.

Brazil midfielder Ramires followed up his second-leg goal against Barcelona with the opening strike in the 11th minute as he beat goalkeeper Pepe Reina at the near post with a low shot.

Drogba doubled the lead seven minutes after halftime, but Liverpool substitute Andy Carroll ensured a nervy finish after reducing the deficit on 64.

The striker -- who has struggled since joining Liverpool for a club-record $50 million fee in January 2011 after Fernando Torres left for Chelsea for $30 million more than that -- thought he had leveled the scores with a late header.

However, Chelsea keeper Petr Cech clawed the ball clear off the underside of the crossbar apparently before it had crossed the line -- much to the disgust of Liverpool striker Luis Suarez, who was booked for remonstrating with the line official.

"We've been heavily criticised this season and we've got a trophy and we've got the chance for another," said Di Matteo, who scored in two FA Cup final wins for Chelsea in 1997 and 2000.

"This group of players have made the club proud. It's been hard work, but we came through it."

Liverpool will play in Europe next season, albeit the second-tier Europa League after winning the League Cup in February, but it has been an otherwise disappointing season under manager Kenny Dalglish.

The 18-time English champions trail sixth-placed Chelsea by 12 points with two games to play in the Premier League, a situation which cannot please the club's American owners -- who are looking to emulate the success they have had with baseball's Boston Red Sox.

"They were better than us for the first hour," Dalglish said after the final. "We finished really strong and if we'd started the way we'd finished we'd maybe have been happier than we are now. We've just got to learn the lessons."

Abramovich's hopes of Champions League football next season, meanwhile, appear to rest solely on victory in Munich, despite a slip-up by third-placed London rivals Arsenal on Saturday.

Arsenal's 3-3 draw with Norwich gave Tottenham and Newcastle the chance to move up to third and fourth with victories on Sunday.

Spurs, who hold the edge on goal difference only, face relegation-threatened Aston Villa while the in-form Magpies will seek to follow up Wednesday's 2-0 win over Chelsea with another result against league leaders Manchester City.

Both clubs are five points clear of Chelsea, but know that the fourth-placed team will be bumped down to the Europa League if Abramovich gets what he really wants in Germany.

Samsung unveils Galaxy S III smartphone with face, voice recognition

2012-05-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

London (CNN) -- Samsung has launched its Galaxy S III smartphone, which it hopes will help solidify the company as the leading challenger to Apple and its iPhone 4S.

The new handset, with a whopping 4.8-inch screen and an 8-megapixel camera, was unveiled at a slick launch party in London on Thursday, complete with a backing orchestra.

Billed by Samsung as having been "designed for humans," the phone features voice and eye-recognition technology that the company hopes will set the handset ahead of its rivals in the crowded smartphone market.

Samsung has overtaken Nokia as the world's best-selling mobile phone maker, and Juniper Research reported Tuesday that Samsung also overtook Apple in smartphone sales in the first quarter, in what it described as "increasingly a two-horse race."

The new Galaxy handset, which runs the most up-to-date version of Google's mobile operating system -- Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich -- recognizes when a user is looking at it, and ensures the screen doesn't go dark while it has eye contact.

Palestinian policewomen break traditional stereotypes

2012-05-06T00:03:00.000-07:00

It is rare to see women police officers on the streets in any part of the Arab world.

But in the Palestinian territories where civil police are themselves, a relatively new concept, concerted efforts are under way to bring more women into the force.
In Hebron, the West Bank's biggest city, there are now about 50 women among the 900 police officers deployed locally.
Their presence challenges stereotypes but it is traditional values that make it necessary.
"The idea came about because Hebron is a conservative city and people didn't accept policemen entering and searching a house where women were present," says Hebron police chief, Brig Ramdan Awwad.
He says some Palestinian criminals have been taking advantage of strict religious and social codes to literally hide behind their wives' skirts.

“Start Quote

The plan is not to go inside any house without having a police woman with the team”

Brigadier Ramdan Awwad Hebron Police Chief

Drug-dealers have used women as couriers, hiding contraband beneath their clothes in the certain knowledge that no Palestinian policeman would dare to search them.

Raids on suspects' homes have been fruitless because drugs and other illegal items were secreted with the women of the house.
The new women's police unit has ended this.
"The plan is not to go inside any house without having a police woman with the team," says Brigadier Awwad.
Women officers are given special riot training and proudly take part in raids alongside their male colleagues.
Insherah Abu Allam recalls one occasion when a team of male officers were denied access to search a house by its female residents.
She and her fellow women officers were also turned back so they scaled the walls and climbed onto the roof to gain entry.

Palestinian policewomen say they do not get special treatment

"The male officers and all the neighbours couldn't believe what they were seeing. They stood there watching in awe," says Insherah. "We do not see women in these types of roles in the West Bank."
The women also play an important role in community liaison, particularly with young Palestinians.
Wajeeha Tahboub is in charge of the Juveniles' Unit in Hebron.
"My unit was established a year ago. I specialise in dealing with people under the age of 18," she says.
"I work at increasing trust between the community and the police. I visit schools and talk to children about the police force." Cultural shift
Such a role is important in terms of changing perceptions of the police.
Crimes among Palestinians are still often still settled between families. The Hebron Police are trying to encourage people to seek their help.

Community liason officers try to build up public trust in the police

A functioning police force is a key building block in the Palestinian's quest for statehood.
The Palestinian civil police force was set up after the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords.
It is responsible for internal security and public order in areas fully controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
There is still co-operation with Israel, which says more effective West Bank policing will decrease the security threats it faces.
The new Palestinian police have received training and funds from the European Union and the United States.
They have encouraged the inclusion of women in the force. Several women have been appointed to high profile roles in the West Bank.
For her part, Wajeeda says her gender has never been an issue at work.
"The job in the police force is the same for men and women. There is no difference," she says.
However, Wajeeda and her female colleagues do get asked to pose for photographs more often then their male colleagues and say they are happy to oblige.

London 2012: Olympic Stadium is officially opened

2012-05-05T23:54:00.000-07:00

A nine-year-old girl has officially opened the the 2012 Olympics stadium, at a ceremony in east London.

Niamh Clarke-Willis joined Locog head Lord Coe to hit a button which launched balloons into the sky above the venue for this summer's Games.
Around 40,000 members of the public were at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford to witness the opening, which included a laser light show.
The "2,012 hours to go" event tested the park's management and security.
Lord Coe said: "It's a fantastic feeling. The seven years have just flown by. Tonight is only the start of the story.
"We want thousands of young people to be inspired to take up sport. We hope that for a few of them it will be the start of their journey.
"I'm grateful to everyone who came here tonight to celebrate this moment in history."
Spectators had to queue to enter the venue after airport-style security checks.
'Insufficient clothing' Simon Levy, who came to the Olympic Park for the first time on Saturday, said: "It's not a problem, really. It's much quicker than the airport and it's good to be checked because now we know we're safe."
Police helicopters flew over the park and armed police patrolled the area.
Adrian Casy, a security guard at the Olympic Stadium, said Saturday's events were among the main rehearsals for the games, particularly in moving and managing the crowds of spectators from the park and from one venue to another.
"Honestly, so far, so good, although we're still trying hard to make it run smoother," said Mr Casy, adding that some spectators were wearing "insufficient clothing" to cope with the weather conditions.

London 2012 - One extraordinary year

TV presenters Vernon Kay and Gabby Logan hosted the event which saw entertainment from impressionist Jon Culshaw, actor Hugh Bonneville, singer and former Spice Girl Melanie C, rapper Chipmunk and comedian Jack Whitehall.

Some 140,000 people are expected at the Olympic site over six days.
The celebrations are part of the British Universities and Colleges Sport Outdoor Athletics Championships and the Visa London Disability Grand Prix which are test events for the venue.
London 2012 hopefuls Perri Shakes-Drayton and Holly Bleasdale are competing at the BUCS event which runs from 4-7 May.
Later in the week, the Olympic Stadium will also play host to the Sainsbury's 2012 School Games, for 1,600 school-aged elite athletes.

World War II scoop reporter receives AP apology

2012-05-05T23:51:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press news agency has apologised for sacking a reporter who broke the news World War II was over in Europe a day before the agreed embargo.

Ed Kennedy defied the military censors to report the Nazi surrender on the night of 7 May 1945 in France.
The UK and the US had agreed to suppress the announcement for a day so that Russia could stage a second surrender ceremony in Berlin.
AP has now said Kennedy did the right thing in breaking the embargo.
"It was a terrible day for the AP. It was handled in the worst possible way," said president and CEO Tom Curley.
Sworn to secrecy Kennedy was one of 17 reporters taken to witness the formal surrender of German troops to the Allies at 02:41 on 7 May 1945.
The group were sworn to secrecy by US military commanders, told not to report the news until 15:00 on the 8th - a full 36 hours later.
But when Kennedy heard that German radio had announced the surrender at 14:41 on the 7th, he went ahead and published his story an hour later - a day ahead of the competition.

US drone 'kills nine' in Pakistan's North Waziristan

2012-05-05T23:23:00.001-07:00

A US drone strike has killed at least nine suspected militants in the volatile tribal areas of north-west Pakistan, say Pakistani officials.

The drone fired missiles at a suspected militant compound in the Shawal area of North Waziristan, close to the Afghan border, officials said.
Drones often target Pakistan's tribal areas, thought to be the hub of Taliban cross-border insurgent activity.
Pakistan said the drone strike was illegal and counterproductive.
Security officials in North Waziristan told the AFP news agency that the compound, which militants were using as a training centre, was completely destroyed.
The US does not normally comment on individual drone operations, which have killed hundreds of people in recent years.
In January, President Barack Obama confirmed for the first time that the covert programme targets militants on Pakistani soil.
Those killed in the drone operations have included al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, as well as civilians and other militants.
In US officials' first detailed comments on drone strikes, President Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, said last month that the attacks were helping to win the war on the militant network.
But he also conceded that there had been civilian deaths as a result of some strikes.
The frequency of the attacks rose after Mr Obama took office in 2008. More than 100 raids were reported in the area in 2010, and more than 60 took place last year.
Pakistan's Foreign Office on Saturday repeated its assertion that drone attacks were a violation of the country's sovereignty.