|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | GOP nominee tells Republican national convention that Barack Obama has delivered only 'disappointment and division' Mitt Romney formally launched his bid to become the next US president with a promise to deliver economic recovery and the hope that he can capitalise on widespread disillusionment with Barack Obama to carry him into the White House. Accepting "with humility" the party's nomination to face Obama on 6 November, Romney repeatedly appealed to disappointed voters who had high expectations for Obama on election night in 2008. "You know there's something wrong with the kind of job he's done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him," Romney said. In a largely pedestrian speech, Romney won some of the loudest applause of the night when he said: "President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet." After a long pause to milk the raucous laughter of the crowd he delivered his own pledge: "My promise ... is to help you and your family." But overall he failed to rise to the occasion, his flat delivery contrasting badly with the man who introduced him, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who showed rhetorical flair in an assured speech. Romney appeared teary-eyed throughout, unusual for a politician who generally avoids shows of emotion. He was effective when reminiscing about his parents and raising his children, an apparent concession to party strategists who have pressed him to offer glimpses into his family life. He also heeded their advice to confront two of his biggest weaknesses, his Mormon religion and his contentious record at Bain Capital, the investment firm where he made his fortune. But he made no mention of another obstacle lying between him and the White House: his stubborn refusal to release his tax returns beyond the last two years, breaking with custom. While the delegates dutifully cheered as thousands of balloons mixed with confetti fell from the ceiling at the end of the speech, it fell far short of the raucousness and excitement at the end of the 2008 convention. Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist, said Romney had ticked all the boxes. "I thought he did a workmanlike job," he said. The convention has been patchy, disrupted by hurricane Isaac and lack of enthusiasm for Romney among conservatives, and he must hope that it looked better on television than it sounded in the hall so that it delivers at least a modest bounce in the polls. In what is going to be one of the main Republican themes of the gruelling campaign to come, he contrasted the euphoria that greeted Obama when he won the election on a slogan of hope and change with the sense of disillusionment in America now. "Hope and change had a powerful appeal," he said. "But tonight I'd ask a simple question: if you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he's President Obama?" In the build-up to the keynote address the convention listened to a series of tributes from members of his Mormon church, former business colleagues and fellow politicians. But the night was perhaps stolen by the Oscar-winning director and actor Clint Eastwood, who ad-libbed his way through an "interview" with an empty chair representing Obama, and spawned his own Twitter trend – #eastwooding. "Referring all questions on this to Salvador Dali," Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt emailed reporters. Shortly after Obama tweeted a picture of himself in the president's chair in the White House cabinet room with the caption: "This seat's taken." The heart of Romney's speech was a five-point plan for economic recovery which he promised would deliver 12m new jobs within four years. The plan – deliberately lacking in detail – energy independence, small business, deficit reduction, skills training and international trade, including the veiled threat of a trade war with China. Romney touched on foreign policy only briefly, pledging to show "backbone" to Russian President Vladimir Putin and deriding Obama for failing to halt Iran's nuclear development. But while he praised Obama for ordering the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden there was no mention of other international issues, notably Afghanistan, and in the main he focused on attacking Obama's domestic record. "I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed," Romney said. "But his promises gave way to disappointment and division. This isn't something we have to accept. Now is the moment when we can do something. With your help we will do something." He promised to repeal Obama's healthcare reform and vowed: "As president I will protect the sanctity of life. I will honor the institution of marriage. And I will guarantee America's first liberty: the freedom of religion." Although the former Massachusetts governor has been out on the road campaigning for months, this has been largely ignored by the vast majority of voters. It is only from this week onwards that most begin to look seriously at the candidates, and Romney badly needs a bounce in the polls from the convention. Now that he has been formally nominated, he can start spending the hundreds of millions of dollars in his general election war chest. Badly trailing Obama in the polls among women, he made a clear pitch to female voters, devoting a large passage to his mother, who ran for the Senate, and the women who had come through the ranks of the Republican party. "When my mom ran for the senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, 'Why should women have any less say than men about the great decisions facing our nation?'"
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | No Easy Day author is in breach of agreements not to reveal classified information, says letter that foreshadows legal action The Pentagon is threatening legal action against a former US navy Seal who has written a firsthand account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. In a letter addressed to Mark Owen, the writer's pseudonym, lawyers from the US defence headquarters say the book he is about to release violates agreements not to divulge classified information. The Pentagon's top attorney also warns it is considering legal options against anyone "acting in concert" with the author to publish the book. The letter identifies two separate non-disclosure agreements the Seal signed with the navy that legally committed him to never divulge official secrets. "You are in material breach and violation of the non-disclosure agreements you signed," said the letter by Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon's general counsel. "The department of defence is considering pursuing against you, and all those acting in concert with you, all remedies legally available to us in light of this situation." US officials had earlier said they were surprised by the book and that it had not been vetted by government agencies to ensure no secrets were revealed. The book has received widespread media coverage and the Pentagon letter notes that some copies have already been released, even ahead of the book's formal release next week. "Further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breach and violation of your agreements," the letter warns. This week the author said in a statement via his publisher that the book was written "with respect for my fellow service members while adhering to my strict desire not to disclose confidential or sensitive information that would compromise national security in any way". The Pentagon did not release copies of the nondisclosure agreements that it said the author had signed in 2007. A spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, said they were being withheld because they included the author's real name and his signature. Other special forces figures have privately expressed disappointment in recent days over the book and the publicity it has received. An official al-Qaida website has posted a photograph and the real name of the former navy commando, calling him "the dog who murdered the martyr Sheikh Osama bin Laden".
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former ANC youth leader calls for 'revolution in the mining sector' after charges brought under obscure apartheid-era law The 270 miners arrested during violent strikes in South Africa have been charged with the murder of their 34 colleagues who were shot dead by police. The murder charge – and associated charges for the attempted murder of 78 miners injured at the Marikana mine near Johannesburg – was brought by the national prosecuting authority under an obscure Roman-Dutch common law previously used by the apartheid government. The move came as the men appeared in court charged with public violence over the clashes at the Lonmin platinum mine on 16 August when striking miners armed with clubs, machetes and at least one gun allegedly charged police, who opened fire. Julius Malema, the former African National Congress Youth League leader, who has called for President Jacob Zuma to resign over the "massacre", told supporters of miners outside the courthouse that the charges were "madness". Malema, who was expelled from the ANC four months ago, said: "The policemen who killed those people are not in custody, not even one of them. This is madness. The whole world saw the policemen kill those people." Frank Lesenyego, spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), said: "It's the police who were shooting, but they were under attack by the protesters, who were armed, so today the 270 accused are charged with the murders [of those who were shot]." More than 150 of the arrested miners have filed complaints that they have been beaten up in police cells by officers, according to the Independent Police Complaints Directorate. Directorate spokesman Moses Dlamini said the complainants accused police of beating them with batons and fists and kicking and slapping them to force them to give the names of miners who hacked two police officers to death in a week of violence preceding the shootings. Eight other people were killed, including three miners and two mine security guards whom striking miners burned alive in their vehicle. Pierre de Vos, Claude Leon Foundation chair in constitutional governance at the University of Cape Town, wrote on his blog that he could not imagine the NPA really believed that "any court will find the miners guilty of murder for the killing of their comrades by the police". He added: "The NPA seems wrongly to conflate (either deliberately or out of shocking ignorance) allegations that the miners provoked the police, on the one hand, with allegations that the miners themselves incited the police to shoot at them because they had the intention to commit suicide by getting the police to kill them." Police commissioner general Riah Phiyega has faced criticism for saying that her officers "did nothing wrong" and acted in self-defence. Less than one in 10 Lonmin miners turned up for work at the mine on Tuesday, the lowest level since workers returned to work following the clashes. Violence has since spread to Lonmin's other operations. The firm said 8% of its 28,000 workers showed up as union protests continued. Lonmin had initially threatened to sack striking workers. Malema said on Thursday that black South Africans are worse off than during apartheid and called for a campaign of nationalisation in South Africa including all iron, platinum and zinc resources. Staging his political comeback from a liquidated gold mine, Malema launched what he called a "revolution in the mining sector", according to the Independent. He told mineworkers not to trust the ANC government. "Every mine had a politician inside," the 31-year-old said. He added that all miners should be paid a minimum of 12,500 rand (£930) a month, three times the current rate.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Half the students in Ivy League college's Introduction to Congress class may have copied each other's final exams To be caught cheating at Harvard is bad enough. The august university prides itself on incubating America's elite in the world of law, business and politics. But now it has been revealed that scores of Harvard students are suspected of cheating on a single class. And the course's title? An Introduction to Congress. Though that will likely fail to surprise the many cynical observers of American politics, it has certainly stunned college officials. Harvard has immediately launched an investigation. "These allegations, if proven represent totally unacceptable behaviour that betrays the trust upon which intellectual inquiry at Harvard depends," said Harvard president Drew Faust in a statement. After the allegations first became public the college refused to reveal the exact nature of the course in question. But the student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, broke the story of the politics link and immediately sent a ripple of shock, mixed with humour, around the blogosphere. "That's funny on so many levels," tweeted Andreas Goeldi, who works for an online video marketing firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Harvard is located. The Crimson said the politics course in question was taught during the spring by Professor Matthew Platt. After similarities were noticed in up to 20 student exam papers by an examiner the matter was brought to the attention of the administrative board and an investigation was launched. That probe has now found some 125 of the course's final papers were suspicious and has begun contacting students involved. Possible punishments range from being suspended for a year to an official warning. The class was taken by only 250 students meaning a staggering half are now suspected of cheating. The newspaper quoted an email sent to students taking the exam that said it was "completely open book, open note, open internet, etc.." but warned them not to discuss it with each other and to treat it as an "in-class" exam. The Associated Press reported that Harvard had now launched a committee on academic integrity to be headed by Jay Harris, the university's dean of undergraduate education. The panel may even consider bringing in an "honour code" for academic honesty. "We believe in due process for students and fairness. Everyone wants it done yesterday, but we have to be patient. It's going to take as long as it takes," Harris told the news agency. The rise of the internet, and the ubiquity of laptops among a student body, has led to many complaints that it is now too easy for students to take exam answers and course work from the world wide web. However, the Boston Globe said that it appeared the Harvard students in question had not taken material from outside sources but appeared to have copied parts of the answers from each other. If the scandal is proved true it will doubtless be the largest cheating ring to have hit an elite Ivy League college in recent memory.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | New federal barrier that surrounds New Orleans may have done more harm than good, say locals as they confront clean-up Strengthened levees may have saved New Orleans from catastrophe as hurricane Isaac swept through Louisiana, but residents of outlying areas believe the city's upgraded defenses contributed to the flooding that wrecked their homes. Outside the protection of the costly new federal shield that rings the city, some flood barriers were overwhelmed and, in scenes reminiscent of Katrina, many people had to be rescued from rooftops as floodwaters submerged their streets. Some of those whose homes were damaged claimed that New Orleans's upgraded levees had done them more harm than good. "We've never got caught like this, right there where I was at my house. In Katrina I never had no water – never got none in the house. This time, here, eight feet of water," said Jimmie Hutchinson, of Braithwaite, a town in Placquemines parish that was almost completely swamped when water spilled over a levee that was supposed to protect the community. Isaac plowed inland on Thursday, causing fresh flooding and power outages in Louisiana and Mississippi and prompting emergency evacuations and warnings, even as New Orleans began its post-hurricane clean-up. About 500 people had to be rescued by boat, and there were at least two deaths. Officials began releasing a water dam at a lake near the Louisiana-Mississippi border, hoping to ease the pressure. They were also working on a breach in Plaquemines Parish. As Isaac moved north, power lines were downed and trees knocked over. The region to the north of New Orleans was badly affected, with numerous roads impassable in Slidell and surrounding areas. Businesses bordering Lake Pontchartrain off Interstate 10 were under several feet of water, cars had been abandoned and mobile homes detached from their foundations. While winds were light, heavy rain continued Thursday afternoon, making driving difficult and hampering attempts to restore electricity. Residents of Braithwaite,on the east bank of the Mississippi less than 15 miles from central New Orleans, sought refuge in attics and were rescued from rooftops by boat after floods engulfed the area. They were taken to the lesser-affected town of Belle Chasse, a short distance away on the other side of the Mississippi. Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu said this week that there were political squabbles over funding and location of flood defenses after Katrina and expressed regret that the federal system was not more comprehensive. In some cases, outlying regions have had to organize and fund their own protective measures. "Unfortunately … low-lying areas outside the federal system, in particular lower Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes [were hit]," she told CNN. The coast's refineries are vital to the US oil industry. "Hurricane Isaac has reinforced for us once again just how vulnerable these critical areas are. We must re-engage the Corps of Engineers on this," she said. After Katrina, the federal government allocated about $14.5bn to the US Army Corps of Engineers to improve hurricane defenses in New Orleans. The system is largely complete save for some planned drainage improvement work. St Bernard Parish was badly hit by Katrina but escaped serious damage this time thanks to significant upgrades including doubling the height of its levee and adding concrete walls to replace the old dirt structure. Its defenses were not breached. Braithwaite's levee, however, is not part of the federal system and is maintained by Plaquemines parish. That will change, after the Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement earlier this month that will see $1.4bn spent on taking control of non-federal levees and improving them. Work was planned to start in September but the accord came too late for those left homeless this week. Residents whose homes were badly damaged told the Guardian that they believed the new levees in an adjacent parish had contributed to the unexpected flooding of their neighborhoods as the repelled water was pushed towards lower and weaker defenses. "They've got floodgates over there that King Kong couldn't get out of, around St Bernard," Jinx Easley said. "We've been fighting over 30 years for the levees." Jimmie Hutchinson said: "Them levees ain't no good at all. Especially with the new levees around St Bernard, new waters and all that, it just funnels in on us. And our levee's not federalized." Like others in Plaquemines parish, he ignored a mandatory evacuation order. He rode out Katrina with few problems and as a result had not expected a far less powerful hurricane such as Isaac to cause any serious issues. Inside a YMCA in Belle Chasse that had become a shelter for last-minute evacuees, Zonia Guillot said her house had been similarly affected. It came as a shock because when her family moved the short distance from St Bernard to Plaquemines after Katrina they thought they were moving to a safer area. "We went through the same thing with Katrina but we were in St Bernard Parish when that happened and we bought on this side thinking that it'd be better," she said. "I think this was worse because Katrina, we only had four feet of water, we were able to save a lot of things. This time, it went over the house. The levee wasn't strong enough. They put a deep levee for St Bernard and that got us in a hole made of water." A spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers said that its defenses had been designed to have a "negligible" impact on areas outside the perimeter. "The system built post-Katrina was heavily studied and modeled for that reason, to make sure it wouldn't have any additional impacts to areas outside the system," she said. A lack of co-ordination among local communities and state and national authorities had been evident until recently, according to Professor Robert A Thomas, director of the Center for Environmental Communication at Loyola University. "Until the beginning of the summer we didn't have what I would call a 'coastal-wide plan'" for protecting at-risk areas, he said. Thomas added that disparate needs meant it was hard to strike a balance between economic, environmental and cultural forces when deciding how best to protect and exploit the Louisiana coastline. "I'm not saying parishes have made mistakes," he said. "[But] as long as we have parishes making individual decisions that are not linked to the overall plan you are at risk of having failures."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Three serving members of US military accused of setting up group that stockpiled weapons for plot to assassinate Obama Three serving soldiers who allegedly set up a militia group within the US army, which plotted to overthrow the government and assassinate President Obama, face the death penalty after they were arraigned on murder charges. Prosecutors in Georgia announced on Thursday they would seek death sentences in one of the most startling and potentially serious cases of an anti-government militia to be brought before the courts in recent years. They alleged that the soldiers stockpiled almost $90,000 worth of guns and bomb-making equipment which they planned to use to kill the president and carry out a range of other violent acts. The three accused – Isaac Aguigui, fellow private Christopher Salmon and sergeant Anthony Peden – are all on active duty at Fort Stewart in Georgia, home of the army's 3rd infantry division. They are accused of having killed in execution style their former army comrade, Michael Roark, 19, and his 17-year-old girlfriend Tiffany York. Earlier this week another serving soldier, private Michael Burnett, who was allegedly part of the militia, cut a deal with the prosecution in which he pleaded guilty to lesser charges of manslaughter and gang activity in return for turning prosecution witness. He gave evidence in which he said he was present at the murder of the couple on 4 December. He said he and the soldiers lured the pair into the woods near the army post on pretence they were going for gun target practice. Burnett said he saw Peden shoot York twice in the head while she was getting out of their car, and then witnessed Salmon force Roark to fall onto his knees before shooting him similarly: twice in the head. According to the chief prosecutor, Isabel Pauley, the militia group called itself F.E.A.R. – Forever Enduring Always Ready. The soldiers had come up with a range of wild and violent plots, including a takeover of Fort Stewart, poisoning apple orchards in Washington state and planting bombs in public parks. Investigators have given no indication of how serious a threat the militia posed, beyond charging each of the three soldiers with 13 counts including murder and illegal gang activity. Pauley has linked the militia to domestic terrorism, though no terrorism charges have been laid. She told a court in a hearing on Monday: "This domestic terrorist organisation did not simply plan and talk. Prior to the murders in this case, the group took action. Evidence shows the group possessed the knowledge, means and motive to carry out their plans." The potential severity of the threat was dramatised in court in the Atlantic judicial circuit district where the men were arraigned on Thursday. They were brought in to face the charges separately, an hour apart, with armed officers flanking them. One of the many mysteries about the case is that the militia was allegedly founded and led by Aguigui, 21. Of all the accused, he held the lowest military rank, having joined the army less than two years ago and having never been in combat. Yet he is alleged to have persuaded superior soldiers to join him in the militia, and then ordered them to carry out the murders of Roark and York. At the hearing, Roark's father, Brett Roark, yelled at Salmon from his seat in the courtroom, calling the soldier a "piece of shit." Then during Peden's turn in the courtroom later, York's stepfather bolted from his third-row seat in the courtroom gallery and rushed toward the suspect at the defense table. "You fucking killed my kid!" Wesley Thomas cried out before at least four deputies and officers wrestled him to the floor and handcuffed him. Brett Roark stood in his seat and yelled to the deputies: "Get off him!" and "Let him go!" Both men were led from the courtroom, but neither was charged for the outburst. Prosecutors have told the courts that Isaac procured $87,000 worth of semi-automatic assault rifles and other weapons as a stockpile for the militia. He is alleged to have paid for it out of about $500,000 he received as a life insurance payment for his wife, another serving soldier called Deirdre Aguigui. She died suddenly a year ago while pregnant with Aguigui's son. The soldier has not been charged with her death, but prosecutors have described it as "highly suspicious". According to the prosecution account of events, Roark was used by Aguigui as a go-between to buy the guns and bomb components. Last December, Roark left the army, allegedly arousing suspicions of the group that he was going to snitch on them; he was killed two days later. Now that they face the death sentence, the defendants will be provided with a new set of lawyers with experience in capital cases. Aguigui's previous defence lawyer, Keith Higgins, told the AP: "At this point, there has been no evidence presented to prove anything. The fact that certain statements are being made does not necessarily mean these allegations are true."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WikiLeaks suspect faces charges that he 'aided the enemy' by leaking thousands of documents to the whistleblowing site A military judge presiding over the court martial of the WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning has set the date for what is likely to be the biggest whistleblower trial in US history. Judge Denise Lind set aside six weeks for the trial of the US soldier, between 4 February and 15 March. Manning faces 22 counts relating to charges that he leaked hundreds of thousands of secret US state documents, including war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq and diplomatic cables, to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The trial start date looks likely to hold firm despite months of postponement. By February Manning would have been in custody for almost three years – far longer than the 120-day period normally allowed under military rules between charges being preferred and the start of a trial. The judge made her ruling at the end of a three-day pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade in Maryland, which was attended by Manning. The soldier, who worked as an intelligence analyst at forward operating base Hammer outside Baghdad, where he was arrested in May 2010, faces life in military custody. Two other issues dominated court proceedings this week. The first concerned a batch of emails between military personnel at Quantico marine base in Virginia, where Manning was held towards the start of his detention. The soldier's lawyers, led by David Coombs, want the army to release all 1,384 emails to them in hope they will provide information that will allowing them to challenge Manning's ongoing incarceration on the grounds that he was subjected to cruel and unusual treatment during the 10 months he was held at Quantico. A pre-trial hearing scheduled for 27 November will examine the issue. Manning's lawyers claim he was held in solitary confinement and subjected to a harsh regime that included being stripped of his clothes at night. So far, the prosecution has released only 684 of the emails – 600 of them as recently as this week. Lind announced on Wednesday that she would review the remaining 700 emails before deciding whether to disclose them to the defence. The hearing in October will be Manning's last real hope of avoiding many of the charges. Technically, Lind has the power to throw out the case in its entirety if she finds he was subjected to illegal pre-trial treatment. The second pre-trial issue related to a YouTube video that Manning posted before his arrest, in which he discussed his daily life using sensitive words such as "top secret" and "classified". When his superiors found out about the video in 2008, they put him through "corrective training" designed to reinforce the idea that he should not share classified information with anyone unauthorised to receive it. The prosecution want to present the video to the jury at next year's court martial as a means of proving that Manning was fully aware of the consequences of making state secrets available on the internet. The most serious charge against him is that he "aided the enemy", in this case al-Qaida, by providing confidential documents to WikiLeaks. "The evidence shows the accused has knowledge that information posted on the internet is accessible to and sought after by the enemy," prosecution lawyer Captain Angel Overgaard, told the hearing. Lind ruled that Manning's YouTube video would be admissible.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | NYU student Josh Begley dismayed that his software – which shows no graphic images – was blocked from Apple's store Software giant Apple has blocked an app that would notify subscribers every time a US drone carried out a deadly mission on the grounds that it is "objectionable and crude", according to the program's designer. Josh Begley, a graduate student at New York University, developed Drones+ to provide up-to-date information on strikes, using reports collated by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism – an organisation that tracks the use of unmanned CIA aircrafts. But repeated attempts to get Apple to offer the software at its app store have been fruitless. At first, Begley was informed that the program – which he hoped would raise awareness of the growing death toll from drone strikes – was "not useful" enough and did not appeal to a "broad enough audience". The company position has since shifted, but only in the reasoning behind its refusal to stock Drones+. In the latest rejection email, Apple reportedly informed him: "We found that your app contains content that many audiences would find objectionable, which is not in compliance with the app store review guidelines." A video demonstration of Drones+ shows that the app is designed to flash up an alert when a new strike is reported, with details of how many people were killed. An interactive map shows subscribers where the air assault took place and how many others had taken place near it. Begley, 27, told the Guardian that he didn't expect the app to be wildly popular, but hoped it would raise awareness. He added: "I built it because it is something I would like to use myself". There has been a marked increase in the use of drones by the US in recent months in Pakistan and Yemen as part of a stated strategic move towards a slimmed down military that relies more on technology. Earlier this year, defence secretary Leon Panetta unveiled proposals to increase America's fleet of unmanned armed aircraft by nearly a third. The attacks have led to increased tensions between Washington and Islamabad. Pakistan has long criticised the use of drones and the high rate of civilian casualties that can result from their use. Figures from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism show that drones struck Pakistan 75 times in 2011, causing up to 655 fatalities. The majority of those killed were alleged militants, but as many as 126 civilians may have also lost their lives in last year's attacks, the bureau's figures reveal. Begley's app does not link to any graphic images of drone attacks, but reveals information about their existence. Even so, Apple looks unlikely to sanction the app, having come down against it on three separate occasions. It has left the software developer looking elsewhere as he plans to take the software forward. "The plan now is to try and develop it for Android," he said. Apple did not return the Guardian's request for comment.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Game-by-game report: Serena Williams is back in action for a second-round match against Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Spain. Join Martin Pengelly now!
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As it happened: Serena Williams was made to work by Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Spain. Martin Pengelly was watching
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | So far, indie band Alt-J have come from nowhere to enjoy success without the fame. But that could all be about to change Darius is the head trimmer at Legend's, a smart London barber that specialises in traditional wet shaves. Before he came to the UK, Darius trained in Poland, learning how to perform a cut-throat shave by smothering an inflated balloon in shaving foam and then removing it with a single blade. Awaiting his razor-sharp skills are four Cambridge lads sporting varying degrees of bum fluff. Keyboardist Gus (a little shadow above his top lip), guitarist Gwill (a coating of wispy blond pelage), drummer Thom (early-onset beard) and singer Joe (as close to clean shaven as you can get with an old disposable on the seventh go of a disposable Wilkinson Sword). They are Alt-J, and by almost all accounts they are the most successful new British band of the year. Their album went top 20, the single is all over the radio and they are now odds-on favourite to win the Mercury music prize, even though nominations are a week away from being announced. They are playing sold-out shows in the US, and have charted in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. At a time when guitar music is in the doldrums, they have come from nowhere to buck the trend. Yet while most British bands spend years slogging through magazine interviews, starting fake tiffs with other bands for column inches and touring the nation's Barflys in hope of some elusive buzz, Alt-J have somehow managed to find success without fame. The group's first single, Tessellate, an onomatopoeic puzzle of angular beats and pointed sexual advances, became a radio hit before anyone knew who they were. This is probably the first time you've seen their photograph. "We've got this far with pretty much nobody knowing anything about us," says keyboardist Gus. Gwill is first in the barber's chair. He is the baby face of the band, all black-rimmed emo glasses and blond floppy hair. His face is smothered in pink shaving foam and Darius gets to work with the blade. "Gwill uses quite a lot of long words in interviews," Joe warns me when he's out of earshot. "He keeps talking about our songwriting style being nomadic or rhizomatic, but I don't think he knows what that means." Much of my conversation with Alt-J is almost town-planning meeting in tone. Instead of answering questions, they often descend into discussions of whether they're giving a boring answer and what another band would say. At times I think we are all part of a meta in-joke, undermining the whole charade of a music interview. "We only have two rock'n'roll stories," says frontman Joe, trying to be helpful. "The first one is that we were chucked out of a hotel for peeing off a balcony. Well, I wasn't personally, but our guitarist Gwill was. In fact I was the one suggesting he just went upstairs and did it in his own hotel room, but he ignored me and just started … hosing it. The other one is we were doing a gig in Sicily and I met some people and went back to their house and I fell asleep and missed my flight the next day." Joe sighs, realising his tales don't pack the punch he was hoping for. "We are actually pretty tame. We have a lovely collection of magazines onboard when we're on tour." Alt-J are far more endearing than they realise. Their genuine disregard for the clichés of being in a band means conversation is relaxed, while their rarefied wealth of music, film and TV geekery makes for good gags. They find the idea of sleeping with fans refreshingly garish and are "just too knackered" to drink every night. They're not apologists for their middle-class background either. During the course of the interview we discuss how intimidating roadies can be, what happens when you've nothing to eat but Kettle Chips and how it can be quite nice to go to a restaurant alone when you've got something to read. (They're also obsessed with the Guardian. "What's Alexis Petridis like?" asks Gus, when we nip outside for a cigarette. "I've always thought that we'd be really good friends, we've just got a lot in common. We both shop at Folk!")Do they ever want to have a night of excess? "I suppose the thing is that we like to be polite," says Joe, "and you can't do that when you've just done a fat line of ket before an interview." It was the same when they met at Leeds University. While most of their friends spent three years getting smashed and dancing to electroclash, they formed a little bubble in their student house. "Oh God, we didn't go out much," remembers Gus. "We weren't socialites at all. We'd just keep working on the record." "We're our harshest critics," agrees Joe. "We're not one of those bands that bash things out really quickly. We didn't want to look like morons, so we spent ages on the little things." Was there a concerted effort to make something that would get on the radio? "Not at all. We don't even know where the choruses are. Our producer helps us with that! We're more like artists, he's more like a designer. We make the print and then he puts in on a scarf and sells it in the V&A gift shop." The result of five years' hard work is a record that sounds more like a mature "big ideas" third album than something a bunch of unsigned students recorded in their digs. Certainly there's a pop immediacy, but it's underpinned by complex scoring, well-crafted hooks and some slightly esoteric lyrical flourishes. One song, Taro, is about the death of 20th-century war photographers Robert Capa (who stepped on a mine in Indo-China) and Gerda Taro (who was run over by a tank during the Spanish civil war.) "It was only after reading all this that I discovered she was his love interest and they were engaged," says Joe. "I liked those two and that story. That really gripped me and I really trawled through as much as I could to get a good song out of it." Conversation dies down as the four of them relax into the shaves. "This feels like a dog licking your face," says a mummified Joe from underneath a hot towel. When it's over I give their faces a prod. They are undeniably silky. Of course, if Alt-J do win the Mercury, they can kiss their nonchalance towards public persona goodbye. The hype machine will come careering through the door, wondering why it wasn't consulted in the first place. But in the meantime, they can continue to muddle along as they are: affable, a bit posh and fine with it. "I feel so relaxed," announces Gus, smoking a post-shave menthol cigarette outside the barber's. "I'm going to start getting shiatsu when I get back to Cambridge."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President Mohamed Morsi uses speech in Iran, which is key sponsor of Syrian regime, to assert Cairo's regional ambitions Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi has said that the "oppressive" Syrian regime had lost all legitimacy, in a blistering speech in Tehran that provoked the Syrian delegation to storm out and amounted to a stunning rebuke to his Iranian hosts. During the first visit by an Egyptian leader to Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Morsi said the world had an "ethical duty" to support Syria's rebels. "Our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people against an oppressive regime that has lost legitimacy is ... a political and strategic necessity," he said. "We all have to announce our full solidarity with the struggle of those seeking freedom and justice in Syria. [We should] translate this sympathy into a clear political vision that supports a peaceful transition to a democratic system of rule that reflects the demands of the Syrian people for freedom." Morsi's comments to a meeting of the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran amounted to a verbal handgrenade tossed at Iran's shocked leadership. Iran is the key regional sponsor of Syria's embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, and one of his few remaining international allies. The remarks are also a bold assertion of post-revolutionary Egypt's renewed regional leadership ambitions. With the Middle East now dividing sharply along sectarian lines, Morsi has thrown his weight behind a powerful group of Sunni states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey that support Syria's rebels – with only Shia Iran, evermore isolated, backing Assad and his Shia Alawite-led regime. Syria, predictably, responded with fury. Its foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, walked out. Damascus accused Egypt of interfering in its internal affairs and instigating bloodshed. In his own speech, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, failed to mention the 17-month Syrian conflict, while Iran's state-run media blanked out Morsi's criticism of Assad. Morsi, a moderate Islamist, has proposed that Iran take part in a four-nation contact group including Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia that would mediate in the Syrian crisis. Morsi declared: "The bloodshed in Syria is the responsibility of all of us and will not stop until there is real intervention to stop it. The Syrian crisis is bleeding our hearts." Morsi was apparently referring to diplomacy rather than any potential foreign invasion. He also hailed both Syrians and Palestinians for their "brave" struggle against oppression. He later met Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Analysts said the week-long summit had not been the smooth diplomatic triumph Iran might have hoped for. "The Iranians rolled out the red carpet for Morsi. But he didn't follow the Iranian script. It was embarrassing for the Iranians," said David Hartwell, senior Middle East analyst at IHS Jane's, adding: "The non-aligned movement tries to be fairly anodyne and focused on anti-imperialism. But Syria has made it problematic. Egypt also views Iranian influence in Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories as particularly unhelpful. It sees it as an Iranian/Shia attempt to spread influence in the region." Of Morsi, he said: "We are learning about him. We don't know what his foreign policy is going to be." Morsi is the first Egyptian leader to visit the Iranian capital since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Egypt and Iran fell out over Cairo's support for the Shah and its peace deal with Israel. Despite recent improvements, neither has upgraded ties to ambassadorial level. Iran, meanwhile, faces diplomatic isolation and sanctions because of its alleged nuclear programme. On the ground in Syria, fighting continued on Thursday. Opposition activists said rebels had shot down a government warplane over the northern province of Idlib, the second time in a week rebel fighters claimed to have brought down an aircraft. One video appeared to show a pilot parachuting to the ground. A subsequent video showed his dead body. Government shelling continued in several parts of the country, with residents in Kafr Batna, in the Damascus suburbs, reporting heavy bombardment. "The Syrian regime is attacking us with mortars and helicopters. Today there are lot of soldiers and armoured vehicles massing up at the entrance to Kafr Batna. They might storm the district at any moment," one resident, Rima Sami, told the Guardian via Skype. Sami said all the bakeries were shut and the shelling had made it impossible for the Free Syrian Army to smuggle in food. Human Rights Watch said government forces had dropped bombs and fired artillery at or near at least 10 bakeries in Aleppo province over the past three weeks, killing and maiming scores of civilians who were waiting for bread. The attacks were at least recklessly indiscriminate and the pattern and number of attacks suggested government forces had been targeting civilians, it said. Both reckless, indiscriminate attacks and deliberate targeting of civilians are war crimes. One attack in Aleppo on 16 August killed up to 60 people and wounded more than 70. Another attack in the city on 21 August killed at least 23 people and wounded 30. "Day after day, Aleppo residents line up to get bread for their families, and instead get shrapnel piercing their bodies from government bombs and shells," said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch who has just returned from Aleppo. "Ten bakery attacks is not random – they show no care for civilians and strongly indicate an attempt to target them."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Judges find that law requiring voters to present photo ID at the ballot box placed 'unforgiving burdens on the poor' A federal court has struck down a Texas law requiring voters to present photo identification at the ballot box in the second ruling this week to effectively accuse the state of racial discrimination and attempting to manipulate elections. In an escalating legal battle between mostly Republican-controlled states and the Obama administration over voter ID and other election laws, a panel of three judges in Washington DC found that the Texas legislation imposed "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" because of the cost and process involved in obtaining identification. It said that racial minorities are more likely to live in poverty in Texas than white people. The court concluded that if the law was implemented it "will likely have a retrogressive effect" by limiting access to the ballot box. It said that evidence submitted by Texas in support of its claim that the law was not discriminatory was "unpersuasive, invalid, or both". The US justice department told the court there are 600,000 people registered to vote in Texas whose names are not on driving licence or state identification databases. It said the voter ID laws in Texas and other states is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise African American and Hispanic voters. On Tuesday another federal court ruled that an attempt by Texas to redraw its electoral maps was illegal because it was intended to diminish the impact of the Latino vote. In both cases, the justice department blocked the laws as in breach of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires those states with a history of systematic racial discrimination to seek approval from Washington for changes to electoral legislation and procedures. The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, said he will take the issue to the supreme court, which has already endorsed the right of states to require photo IDs at the ballot box under certain conditions. "The supreme court of the United States has already upheld voter ID laws as a constitutional method of ensuring integrity at the ballot box. Today's decision is wrong on the law and improperly prevents Texas from implementing the same type of ballot integrity safeguards that are employed by Georgia and Indiana and were upheld by the supreme court," Abbott said. As the judges issued their verdict in the Texas case, another court nearby was hearing a challenge from South Carolina to the justice department's blocking of its voter ID law in December. South Carolina said that it will issue identification cards free to those who do not have a driving licence, passport or other approved document. The justice department says there is still a cost involved as individuals must buy a birth certificate, if they do not already have one, in order to obtain the free ID. Critics say that the claim by South Carolina, Texas and others that voter fraud is a serious problem is not borne out, because there have been very few prosecutions. They say the Texas legislation, passed by a Republican-controlled state legislature with the support of the governor, Rick Perry, is intended to discourage black and Latino voters who are more likely to support the Democratic party. Eight states have passed voter identification laws over the past year. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has described the legislation as an attempt to roll back some of the gains of the civil rights era by disenfranchising minorities. Holder told a conference in May that there is a "growing need to protect the voting rights of every eligible citizen" amid a flurry of legislation and executive orders by state legislatures and governors. The meeting was told the laws are intended to prevent African Americans in particular from voting because nearly one in four black people lack photo identification. "In my travels across this country I've heard a consistent drumbeat of concern from citizens who for the first time in their lives now have reason to believe that we are failing to live up to one of our nation's most noble ideals and some of the achievements that defined the civil rights movement now hang, again, in the balance." Some critics see the legal challenge by Texas and other states as a co-ordinated attempt to kill off at least parts of the voting rights act as outdated. In May, Alabama challenged the validity of the legislation over a justice department block on the redrawing of constituency boundaries. A US appeals court said in rejecting Alabama's case that the implementation of the voting rights act is legitimate because it is intended to stop racially motivated disenfranchisement which he called "one of the greatest evils".
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Murder charges brought against 270 miners under obscure law previously used by apartheid government The 270 miners arrested during violent strikes in South Africa have been charged with the murder of their 34 colleagues who were shot dead by police. The murder charge – and associated charges for the attempted murder of 78 miners injured at the Marikana mine near Johannesburg – was brought by the national prosecuting authority under an obscure Roman-Dutch common law previously used by the apartheid government. The move came as the men appeared in court charged with public violence over the clashes at the Lonmin platinum mine on 16 August when striking miners armed with clubs, machetes and at least one gun allegedly charged police, who opened fire. It suggests President Jacob Zuma's government is trying to shift the blame for the killings to the striking miners. The prosecuting authority said all 270 miners had been charged. Less than one in 10 Lonmin miners turned up for work at the mine on Tuesday, the lowest level since workers returned to work following the clashes. Violence has since spread to Lonmin's other operations. The firm said 8% of its 28,000 workers showed up as union protests continued. Lonmin had initially threatened to sack striking workers.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mitt Romney's acceptance speech was the highlight of the final day of the Republican national convention in Tampa
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mitt Romney's acceptance speech is the highlight of the final day of the Republican national convention in Tampa
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Authorities rescue stranded people north of New Orleans, as Isaac causes fresh flooding and knocks out power to more homes Tropical storm Isaac ploughed inland on Thursday, causing fresh flooding and power outages in Louisiana and Mississippi and prompting emergency evacuations and warnings, even as New Orleans began its post-hurricane clear-up. Authorities sent convoys of military Humvees, buses and specialised high-water vehicles around the shores of Lake Ponchartrain, north of New Orleans, to rescue stranded people and evacuate others deemed at risk. They ordered residents to leave low-lying, rural areas along the Tangipahoa river amid concern the 700-acre dam at Percy Quin state park may fail and add to the already swollen river. Flood waters rose waist-high in some areas, trapping people in cars and homes, and three tornadoes were reported overnight in Mississippi and Alabama, prompting warnings to Arkansas and Missouri to brace for Isaac on Friday even though it was now downgraded to a tropical depression. Rains around New Orleans eased enough to allow helicopters operations, including the rescue of a couple and their dogs from a flooded house. Pets have been a leitmotif of the emergency, with many people ignoring evacuation orders because they had nowhere to bring pets, or wading through waters with nothing but pets in their arms. President Barack Obama declared federal emergencies in Louisiana and Mississippi late on Wednesday, freeing federal aid for affected areas. The nightmare scenario – a devastating hit on New Orleans on the anniversary of hurricane Katrina – failed to materialise. Isaac skirted the city on Wednesday as a category 1 hurricane, dumping more than a feet of water in places and turning streets into wind tunnels, but no serious flooding was reported. Officials said the $14.5bn bolstering of the city's flood control system worked as it should, averting a repeat of the 2005 catastrophe when levees failed and 1,800 people died. There was at least one technical glitch: the US army corps of engineers could not start drainage pumps for the 17th St Canal remotely overnight, causing a delay as they had to be operated manually. It was not a significant problem as the canal was not full, said Sandy Rosenthal of levees.org, an advocacy group, but could potentially have been a "major disaster" had the storm been more powerful. Overall, she said, he preparation and response was "100 times better" than seven years ago. "We felt much safer." Even so, the 70mph winds knocked out power to 730,000 homes in Louisiana and Mississippi. Police, state troopers and national guard units enforced a dawn to dusk curfew to deter looters and keep people off streets littered with debris and broken power lines. "If you loot, you'll wear an orange suit," the mayor, Mitch Landrieu, told a news conference. Sixteen looting-related arrests were reported by Thursday. He tweeted an appeal for caution amid signs of returning normality. "I would ask everyone to work really really hard to be patient & to assist public officials by staying out of their way." Homeowners began to take down boards from windows and some stores opened. Just 20 miles south however in Plaquemines parish, a sparsely-populated rural area, there were still dramatic scenes of surging waters and rescues. The town of Braithwaite was drowned, with tops of buildings peeking from the water. Uniformed officials were checking homes for signs of people left behind. About 800 homes in the parish were damaged, said Bobby Jindal, Louisiana's governor. Officials considered intentionally breaching a levee this weekend to let some floodwater flow back out of the inundated area, he added. Major flooding was also reported in the town of Slidell, north-east of New Orleans. There were two reported casualties in and around New Orleans – a tow-truck driver felled by a tree, and another man who fell from a tree. Several highways and airports remained closed on Thursday.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | In accepting the party's nomination for president, Romney will take on two subjects that have pursued his campaign Mitt Romney will use the his primetime speech at the Republican national convention on Thursday night to address the biggest of his perceived weaknesses: his Mormon religion and his record as chief executive of Bain Capital, the company where he made his fortune. Republican party strategists said the main aim of the final day of the convention was to try and reverse the negative perception not only in relation to his Mormonism, but his image as a rich, uncaring businessman. Over the past few months, the Obama campaign has sunk $120m in ads that portrayed Romney as a out of touch elitist with questionable tax practices who made his fortune by shutting down businesses and leaving thousands of workers redundant. Mormonism is an especially sensitive issue, with many Christian evangelicals still queasy about the prospect of backing a candidate whose religion some have described as a cult. Instead of ignoring the issue as in the past, the Republicans have decided to address it head on at the convention. Republican officials, briefing reporters ahead of Romney's speech, said a senior member of the Mormon church would address the convention as well as two Mormon families who would tell how Romney helped them in their time of need. Paul Ryan, Romney's Catholic vice-presidential running-mate, touched on the issue in his contentious speech on Wednesday night, saying the two "shared the same moral creed". The convention will also address other perceived vulnerabilities, such as his time as governor of Massachusetts, when Romney introduced, to the disgust of many conservatives, a form of healthcare similar to that later introduced by Barack Obama. Thursday night is make-or-break for Romney. His speech, watched by tens of millions of Americans, provides one of the few remaining chances for him to open up a poll lead after months in which he has been tied with Obama. The convention, intended as launchpad for the autumn campaign, has so far been patchy, with the first day lost through Hurricane Isaac and a lack of energy in the days that followed, mainly because many delegates remain unconvinced by Romney as a candidate. On Wednesday, Ryan and Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state in the Bush administration, finally created some buzz with speeches that brought the delegates to their feet. But Ryan's speech, intended as a warm-up for Romney, left him at the centre of a major political row over a series of inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Even as Ryan was delivering his speech, reporters, political analysts and members of the public were pointing out the misleading statements, in particular that Obama had robbed Medicare, the popular healthcare programme for those who are 65 and over, to help pay for his own healthcare plan. Ryan's own budget plan anticipates the same cuts. Ryan also suggested the closure of a car plant in his home town of Janesville, Wisconsin, was Obama's fault, even though it was shut down before Obama took office. The Obama campaign's deputy manager, Stephanie Cutter, at a press conference Thursday morning, said: "There is no delicate way to put this: last night Paul Ryan lied." In a letter to potential Democratic donors, the Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote: "If you've seen any coverage of Paul Ryan's speech in Tampa, you know that the consensus among journalists and independent observers is that it was … factually challenged. "He lied about Medicare … he even dishonestly attacked Barack Obama for the closing of a GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin – a plant that closed in December 2008 under George Bush." Russ Schiefer, the organiser of the convention, in a conference call with reporters, said that in spite of losing the opening day of the convention because of hurricane Isaac "we have had a very good week". In his first response to an incident in which two Republicans threw peanuts at black CNN member of staff, he said: "It was absolutely deplorable." Romney was scheduled to be introduced by senator Marco Rubio, one of the most high-profile Latinos in the Republican party. The Republicans have another, mystery speaker lined up ahead of Romney's speech. Schiefer refused to disclose the identity of the speaker, but Oscar-winner Clint Eastwood, who backed the Republican presidential challenger John McCain in 2008 and also endorsed Romney, is in Tampa. The convention organisers said the build-up to Romney's speech would include business associates talking about his time as head of Bain Capital, including the founder of the Staples office supply company that Romney helped build up, his rescue of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and his tenure as governor of Massachusetts. Also warming up the convention for Romney are the former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who was one of Romney's challengers in the primaries and caucuses earlier this year, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Bush, in a round of television interviews on Thursday morning, acknowledged the difficulties Romney faced, given his lack of oratorical skills and failure to lack of warmth in public. He acknowledged he was never going to be "a new-age kind of guy". Bush said: "Where it matters is connecting with other people's concerns."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | America's top military chief, General Martin Dempsey, reinforces Washington's opposition to unilateral Israeli action An Israeli attack on Iran would delay but probably not stop its nuclear programme, the most senior US military officer has claimed. General Martin Dempsey reinforced Washington's opposition to unilateral Israel military action as he made clear that US military chiefs were equally wary of getting ensnared in Syria. In common with Nato's supreme commander, US admiral James Stavridis, who wrote about Afghanistan for the Guardian on Thursday, Dempsey put a brave face on the situation there. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was speaking to journalists in London, where he attended the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games as head of the US delegation. Distancing himself from any Israeli plan to bomb Iran, Dempsey said such an attack would "clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran's nuclear programme". He added: "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it." Dempsey said he did not know Iran's nuclear intentions, as intelligence did not reveal intentions. What was clear, he said, was that the "international coalition" applying pressure on Iran "could be undone if [Iran] was attacked prematurely". Sanctions against Iran were having an effect, and they should be given a reasonable opportunity to succeed. On Syria, he said, Washington was collaborating with the country's neighbours, sharing intelligence and helping with military planning. The US was supplying humanitarian aid to Turkey. But Dempsey warned of the implications of establishing a "humanitarian zone" inside Syria, as suggested by others, including France, have suggested. Syria was not Libya, he said, there was no comparison. Those who established a humanitarian zone would be obliged to assume responsibility for protecting it, Dempsey said. That would mean not merely establishing a no-fly zone but providing protection against Syrian missiles. The US, like the UK, was supplying "non-lethal" aid to Syrian rebels. What he described as "any broader activities inside Syria" would have to be discussed and conducted within the Nato framework, Dempsey said. The worst-case scenario would be Syria ending up as a failed state, he said. He was reflecting growing concern in the west and elsewhere, including Russia, about the crisis allowing armed extreme jihadists and al-Qaida sympathisers with the opportunity to increase their influence and expand control across Syria. In Afghanistan, the Taliban were using young men in "green on blue" attacks – attacks by Afghans in army uniform – as part of a new asymmetric weapon, as improvised explosive devices had been in the past, Dempsey suggested. A rapid expansion of Afghan security forces from some about 200,000 to more than 300,000 in two years had "exposed vulnerabilities in vetting practices", he said. Nato had to help develop Afghan forces to ensure Nato troops ended their combat role by the target date of the end of 2014, "and we will", Dempsey said. Stavridis wrote that "measurable and substantial progress" has been made in Afghanistan in three specific areas. Firstly, Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for terrorists, he said. Secondly, Afghan national forces have improved markedly over the past 18 months, "to the point where they are making significant gains in the fight against the Taliban". As a result, "this has been a particularly difficult summer for the insurgency, which has seen the elimination of two top-level commanders in the past few days alone". Thirdly, the international community has made specific pledges on long-term partnerships with Afghanistan. Stavridis said Afghan society was changing for the better every day, but acknowledged that the Nato-led coalition faced formidable challenges over the next few years. "I have no doubt that there will still be difficult days ahead."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ordered to leave, many stayed anyway and awoke Tuesday night to flood waters quickly rising through their low-lying homes As a short story author, Samuel George conjures surreal plots and characters, but when hurricane Isaac crashed through his home, trapping him inside amid rising flood waters, nothing prepared him for the drama to follow. It was 5am on Wednesday when the 53-year-old writer awoke to the sound of howling wind and water rushing through his home, an elevated trailer by the Mississippi river just outside New Orleans. George, like thousands of others in the low-lying parish of Plaquemines, had ignored an evacuation order despite hammering rain and the fateful anniversary of hurricane Katrina. "I suppose it was foolish to stay, but I had no money, so I stayed," he said. In 2010 he published an ebook of short stories, Journey to Absentia, a blend of science fiction and western genres, but it made no money, so home was a trailer – and, it turned out, salvation. He tumbled out of bed into cold water rapidly rising up his legs. Disorientated amid the storm's roar he tried to open the front door but the surge jammed a set of steps and porch against it, wedging it shut. "I tried to get out the window but there was a smell of gas coming from the utility room so I went back to the door. Everything was pitch black, frightening. I was alone. I had a moment of panic." The bespectacled writer, a slight, balding figure with long hair and a goatee, managed to force the door open only to be confronted by a terrifying torrent. He looked up and saw a glow: his neighbour, Mike, on the roof with a flashlight. The writer scrambled up with the aid of Mike and an adjacent oak tree – "You could say Mike saved my life." But they were marooned and the water continued rising. Simultaneously thousands of others were locked in their own battles for survival as Isaac bore through the mouth of the Mississippi and up across Louisiana, reviving memories of Katrina's lethal carnage on the same day in 2005. Rain emptied 5.6in of water on Louis Armstrong airport, a record, and four times that elsewhere. Much of the town of Braithwaite drowned. Television pictures showed eerie images of floating caskets apparently from a cemetery. Yet catastrophe was averted. New Orleans' fortified flood controls withstood Isaac. By Wednesday night the only reported fatality was a man who fell from a tree in the city. The true extent of damage in and around New Orleans will emerge piece-meal in following days. The city declared a dawn-to-dusk curfew to avert looting and accidents. "There is no such thing as 'just' a tropical storm," said Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "You have significant weather impacts still to occur." Even so there was a sense – as rains and wind abated somewhat – that the worst had passed and that the post-Katrina $14.5bn flood controls had saved New Orleans. The mayor, Mitchell Landrieu, told local radio the system of walls, floodgates, levees and pumps had prevailed. "It is holding exactly as we expected it to and is performing exactly as it should." 'All I know is we were very glad to see them'In Plaquemines, a rural outpost where surges swamped a levee, there was destruction but no reported deaths. Bodies may be discovered when waters recede but it seemed neighbours' acts of valour and a speedy official response saved most if not all lives. George and Mike's survival typified this success – and ran counter to his fiction which abounds, according to Amazon's book description, with "hopeless calamities in which the outcome is not always favorable". Cold and thirsty, as hours passed they improvised ponchos from bin liners and collected rainwater from the oak tree's leaves. As the flood water reached the roof and pooled around their ankles they kept their spirits up with stories. Then they scooped a doe from the torrent. An armadillo also clambered aboard the refuge. By around 2pm on Wednesday they spied a boat. "There was so much foliage and rain we yelled and shined a light to get attention." George was so exhausted he did not even register whether the rescuers were police, national guard or the "Cajun navy" – private citizens with their own boats. "All I know is we were very glad to see them." The men brought the young deer aboard and to safety – a scene to rival Life of Pi had they not left the armadillo behind because of its claws. By Wednesday night George, barefoot but dry, was at a YMCA centre in Belle Chase hosting 120 other people, one of numerous improvised shelters.
Officials warned that Isaac, though downgraded to a tropical storm, would continue to wreak havoc as it ploughed northwest toward Baton Rouge, possibly adding to the 600,000 people left without power. Here in Plaquemines Parish, which includes Braithwaite, some complained that their defence system, separate from New Orleans, had been neglected. But even the desolation of those who lost homes was tinged with relief that they and their loved ones survived. Mike Easley, a shipyard foreman, stood outside the YMCA entrance, brim of his baseball cap bowed against the wind and rain, wrapped in a blanket big enough for three. In his arms he cradled Candy and Little Bit as tenderly as if they were new-born babies. One a Pomeranian, the other a rat terrier, the pets were not permitted inside the building, so Easley braved the elements while waiting for friends to collect them. He and his wife had spent 11 hours cowering in an attic in Braithwaite with a friend, Jimmie Hutchinson, and his wife. "Where I was it floods all the time so we went to his house, which never floods," Easley said. "Except for this time." Hutchinson said they had never previously been flooded. "In Katrina I never had no water – never got none in the house. This time, here … it was outrageous. All that was left sticking up was the roof." But there was a moment of black humour under the gray sky as the couples joked about the first name of Easley's wife: Jinx. She gestured at a blue suitcase, little enough to take on an airplane as cabin baggage, with the zipper open to create a small gap at the top. Inside was a kitten she had saved. "She pops her paw out now and then," Jinx said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Farmers hope for better next year after summer of record drought leads to rising prices and brings tensions to the surface Flying into Des Moines, the corn fields look surprisingly green. America's midwest produces half the world's corn and Iowa its largest harvest, yet amid the worst drought in living memory all the untrained eye can see is the occasional brown mark, like a cigarette burn on the baize of a pool table. But appearances can be deceptive. In Boone, Iowa, 30 miles away from the state capital, traffic backs up for miles bringing 200,000 people to Farm Progress, the US's largest agricultural show one. Here, all the talk is of the drought. Pam Johnson, first vice-president of the National Corn Growers Association, says she can't remember one as bad as this in her 40 years of farming. "My parents say you have to go back to the 1930s for anything comparable," she says. In June, her farm in northern Iowa got an inch and a half of rain. "We usually get that a week. In July we got seven-tenths of an inch, for the month." Rain may be coming soon, thanks to hurricane Isaac, but it's too late for America's corn crop. The US planted 97m acres of corn for this year's crop – the most since 1937. If everything had gone according to plan, this year's harvest would have produced a new record, at close to 15bn bushels of corn (a bushel is 24 million metric tonnes). It's too early to say what the final tally will be, but the US department of agriculture has slashed its forecast to 10.8bn. Dan Basse, president of AgResources, an independent agriculture analyst, says that figure is likely to come down. "We've lost 4bn bushels of corn. That's the largest loss in history, and we could lose another," he says. The USDA has declared counties in 38 states to be "disaster areas". About 72% of cattle areas are experiencing drought. Corn prices are at record highs, suggesting corn producers might be among the few winners in this situation. But many sold their crop before the drought swept the country, and those with corn to sell now have less of it. Nevertheless, the price hike has set corn producers against livestock farmers and by the end of the year food prices will rise. The spike in food prices is unlikely to be enough to ruffle US consumers. Basse says the people likely to feel it most are the 1.7bn people across the world who get by on $2 a day. "They are the ones who will really suffer," he says. In 2008 drought-driven food price rises led to unrest in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Things could have been a lot worse this year, says Johnson. She says bio-tech and agricultural innovations have allowed corn to produce even during this record drought. Those still greenish fields are only green thanks to bio-engineered corn, she says. "If we were using the seeds my parents had used, we would really be in trouble. Those plants would all have fallen over" she says. But for the livestock industry, it's not enough. Jeff Erb, a Boone county cattleman who farms a few miles from the show, says he has not witnessed a summer this dry since 1985. "And that was nowhere near as bad," he says. "Temperatures were pushing a hundred for nine, 10 days after another. The creeks are dry, the pastures been gone since June. "A lot of guys have been using their winter supplies this summer." Corn costs are $8 a bushel – double what he paid last year. A large round bail of hay costs $150-$160 – also double last year's price. And while his costs have soared, there's little chance cattle farmers will be able to put their prices up. "We have no control at all," he says. Erb says there's no point in blaming corn producers. Others are less sanguine. At the show there are dark words about "profiteers" and "speculators" but no one wants to attack their fellow farmers on the record. In private, they are lobbying hard. Arkansas congressman Steve Womack is leading a charge to repeal a law that requires 10% of the US's gasoline supply to come from corn-based ethanol – a law that swallows up to 40% of the country's annual corn production. "If something isn't done – and done fast – food prices will soar," he said in a recent statement. In the 2008 drought it was Cuba's Fidel Castro leading the charge against America's use of food for fuel. Johnson says this summer is an "aberration". In the long run she believes ethanol is a good bet and will mean cheaper fuel for Americans, something that worries them more than small rises in food prices. But the pressures are mounting. Richer consumers in China and other developing nations are eating more corn-fed meat, and the ethanol subsidy isn't going anywhere, especially in an election year when so much is riding on corn-fuelled swing states like Iowa. Even corn farmers seem to have had enough. A recent survey by Farm Futures magazine found farmers planning to cut the land they will set aside for corn next spring. Willie Vogt, editorial director of Farm Progress, which organises the giant show, says the big issue now is what happens next. Last year was tough on livestock farmers. This year is tougher still. With supplies dwindling for livestock farmers, there is little room for error. "We don't need to be too worried about agriculture this year," he says. "But if we have another drought next year, you better get a gun."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Lawyer for man who accused Christian girl of burning Qur'an raises spectre of vigilante act if Rimsha Masih is not convicted A lawyer representing the man who accused a Pakistani Christian girl of blasphemy has claimed that if she is not convicted, Muslims could "take the law into their own hands". Rao Abdur Raheem, who appeared in court for the first time at a bail hearing on Tuesday, cited the example of Mumtaz Qadri, the man who last year gunned down a senior politician who had called for the reform of the much-abused blasphemy law. The lawyer's comments are likely to further complicate a bitterly contentious case which has caused international outcry and embarrassed the Pakistani government. The girl, Rimsha Masih, whose family says she is 11, was arrested earlier this month and charged with desecrating the Qur'an after a neighbour, Malik Hammad, claimed that he saw her with burnt pages of the holy text in a bag she was carrying. Her family had hoped that she would be granted bail on Thursday after a medical report this week found that she was a minor – thus eligible for bail – and has learning difficulties. But those hopes were dashed when Raheem challenged the report in court and the hearing was postponed. According to Raheem, the medical report on Masih was illegal, as it followed the orders of a civil servant and not the court, and went beyond its remit of determining her age. He accused the government of supporting her and manipulating court proceedings. Speaking outside the Islamabad court after the hearing, Raheem said: "There are many Mumtaz Qadris in this country … This (medical) report has been managed by the state, state agencies and the accused." Later, sitting in his office beneath a large poster of Qadri, Raheem told the Guardian: "If the court is not allowed to do its work, because the state is helping the accused, then the public has no other option except to take the law into their own hands." Last year, many lawyers rallied around Qadri, who had killed Punjab governor Salman Taseer in public, showering him with rose petals when he first appeared in court. Raheem said he had taken on the case for free because he was convinced that Masih should be punished. "This girl is guilty. If the state overrides the court, then God will get a person to do the job," said Raheem. "There is so much evidence against her, a reasonable court is not in a position to find her not guilty." It remains unclear why the accuser suspected Masih and how he saw inside the bag that she was apparently carrying. Also unclear is whether any burnt pages were actually from the Qur'an or another book that contained religious verses. Following Raheem's objections to the medical report, the court has asked the authorities for clarification and will hear the case again on Saturday, when bail for the girl could again be considered. Blasphemy allegations are often made on the flimsiest of evidence but enraged mobs pressure the police into registering cases. In court, the alleged act of blasphemy cannot even be repeated, as that would be an act of blasphemy in itself, so verdicts are based on not hearing the main piece of evidence. Earlier this year, a mentally disturbed Muslim man in Bahawalpur, a city in the middle of the country, was accused of blasphemy and arrested. After a crowd of up to 2,000 stormed the police station and dragged him out, he was beaten and burnt alive. In 2009, a mob attacked an area where Christians lived in Gojra, a town in Punjab province, burning at least eight people to death. The fate of the Christians at Gojra hangs heavily over Masih's own community, who were settled in Mehrabadi, a poor mixed Christian-Muslim area on the outskirts of Islamabad. They fled en masse after Masih was taken away by police from her home. Two weeks later, many of the Christians have trickled back, but they remain terrified. Arif Masih returned to his house in Mehrabadi after nine days, to find it looted. "People are so afraid, they cannot sleep at night," he said. "Christians and Muslims have been living here next to each other, like brothers and sisters, for 20 years. But now we just want to leave, we want to be given somewhere else to live."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Wife of Bo Xilai's sentence for murdering British businessman in China likely to be commuted to life imprisonment after two years Relatives of British businessman Neil Heywood will not challenge Gu Kailai's suspended death sentence for his murder, a lawyer hired by the family said as the deadline for an appeal passed. The wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai was spared execution at a hearing last week, with a court in Hefei instead handing her the suspended penalty. Many saw that as unusually lenient for premeditated murder: unless she commits another crime while in jail, it will be commuted to life imprisonment after two years. In China, crime victims and their families have five days to ask prosecutors to appeal against verdicts and sentences. Prosecutors then have another five days to take the matter to the court. But He Zhengsheng, a lawyer hired by relatives of Heywood to represent them, said on Thursday that they had not contacted him to dispute the decision. He told the Guardian the judgement would therefore take full effect on Friday morning. The businessman's Chinese widow has not responded to reporters' queries and his family in Britain have chosen not to speak to the media. A spokesman for Hefei intermediate court said after Gu's hearing that the suspension of the death penalty reflected her regret, the fact she had given information about other people's crimes, and mental impairments she had suffered, which had weakened her self-control. It also said she believed Heywood was a threat to her son, Bo Guagua, because he had made verbal threats to the young man. Friends of the dead man say they do not believe he would have done so and allege he was smeared to justify a lighter sentence. Experts say a commuted death sentence usually leads to between 14 and 24 years in prison, and that Gu could be freed on medical parole in as little as nine years. A family aide, Zhang Xiaojun, was jailed for nine years for the same crime. The court said his sentence was lightened because he was an accessory to the murder, not the instigator, and because he had confessed and shown remorse. Lawyers for Gu, 53, and Zhang, 33, told the court during the hearing that they would not appeal against the judgement. Experts say there would be little point in them doing so in any case: the Communist party controls China's courts and such a sensitive decision would have been made at the highest level of the party.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fortified levees and an elaborate flood containment plan appear to have spared city from disaster Heavy rain continued to drench Louisiana and Mississippi as tropical storm Isaac trudged slowly northwards, but fortified levees and an elaborate flood containment plan appeared to have spared New Orleans from disaster. Isaac, which was downgraded from hurricane status on Wednesday night, was expected to weaken further throughout the day, to become a tropical depression as it heads west towards Arkansas and Missouri. The National Hurricane Center said that Isaac is likely to be reclassified as a tropical depression on Thursday, but heavy rains and flooding could persist over the next few days. Winds – which had reached speeds of 70mph (112kph), just below the hurricane threshold of 74mph – are expected to drop below 39mph. The mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, said the $14.5bn system – an array of walls, floodgates, levees and pumps built for the city by the Army Corps of Engineers – had performed exactly as it should. In New Orleans, rescuers picked up dozens of residents who had ignored warnings to leave low-lying areas, seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. Power lines were cut and debris littered the streets, prompting city authorities to declare a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Louisiana officials said they would intentionally breach a levee in Placquemines Parish, south of New Orleans, as Isaac lumbered inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities feared many residents would need help after a night of torrential rain and harsh winds knocked out power to more than 700,000 households and businesses. Rescuers in boats and trucks plucked a handful of people who became stranded by floodwaters in thinly populated areas of south-east Louisiana. Emergency officials in Plaquemines Parish said floodwaters had flowed over an 8ft levee between Braithwaite and White Ditch districts. Authorities evacuated hundreds of families from Plaquemines on Wednesday afternoon amid fears of fresh flooding. Convoys of people clutching children, pets and bags streamed in driving rain down state highway 23 while a fleet of ambulances with blaring sirens headed in the opposite direction towards the Mississippi to aid people still in danger. A YMCA centre in Belle Chase, just south of New Orleans, became an improvised refugee station for 125 people after two other nearby shelters filled up. "The waters had reached the seventh step of my porch and the lawmen told us we had to evacuate the premises," said Veraldine Garrison, 72, who arrived with four adult children. "All we had was the wind and the rain. The wind and the rain." Like others, she feared for her home. "There ain't nothing you can do with mother nature. You can't control that water." Beside her, huddled in a blanket, sat a woman rescued from her rooftop, too exhausted or traumatised to speak. Some evacuees complained they were forced to leave pets and valuables behind. "My chihuahuas, Tiki and Tutu, are still in my trailer home," said Thomas Wyman, 80, slumped in a plastic chair. "And my money, my medicine, it's all there." Jim Gabour, who lives in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, just next to the French Quarter, said that with electricity knocked out, trees downed and the wind still up, residents were in survivalist mode and did not expect relief until the weekend. "No electricity, no running water and 80mph gusts," Gabour wrote in an email on Wednesday. "Right now, cutting trees off house in high winds and stinging rains. Cell batteries gone soon. Land lines not working." He added later: "Generator too erratic for computer. No electricity, cable or land lines until weekend. Will have to turn off generator soon, and be in dark again, as we have to ration gas and no stations open. And it is suffocatingly hot."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Researchers find 6.7% of drug-resistant tuberculosis patients have a form of the disease that may take years to treat Cases of tuberculosis that are resistant to virtually all drugs currently available to treat the disease are increasing at an alarming rate around the world, according to a study. The paper, in the Lancet medical journal, shows that nearly half (47%) of TB cases that were already resistant to the two basic antibiotics used as standard treatment were also resistant to one of the second-line drugs that doctors try when the standard combination fails. The problem was worst in Latvia, where 62% of multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR TB) was not susceptible to at least one second-line drug. The researchers also found a worrying increase in cases that were resistant to the entire class of oral second-line antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones, as well as one of the injectables – which is the criteria for being categorised as extensively drug-resistant (XDR TB). Overall, they found that 6.7% of patients with drug-resistant strains had XDR TB, which is very hard and expensive to treat and takes years rather than months in affluent nations. In poorer countries, the necessary treatment is not available. The highest rates of XDR TB were in South Korea, at 15.2%, and Russia, at 11.3%. Drug-resistant tuberculosis has spread around the world and has now been identified in 77 countries, but many of the worst-hit have inadequate laboratory diagnostic capacity and poor data collection so the exact prevalence is difficult to know. The survey, by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, found that XDR TB was most likely to develop when treatment for MDR TB had not been properly completed. It found that the risk of XDR disease was more than quadrupled in previously treated patients. Previous treatment with second-line drugs was consistently the strongest risk factor for resistance to these drugs. "Drug-resistant TB is more difficult and costly to treat, and more often fatal," said Tracy Dalton, the study's lead author. "Internationally, it is particularly worrisome in areas with fewer resources and less access to effective therapies. As more individuals are diagnosed with, and treated for, drug-resistant TB, more resistance to second-line drugs is expected to emerge." She added that social factors needed to be taken into account in the care of TB patients, who were more likely to develop resistance to second-line treatment if they were unemployed or had a history of imprisonment, alcohol abuse and smoking. Sven Hoffner from the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control said new information on the spread of drug-resistant TB was urgently needed. "Most international recommendations for TB control have been developed for MDR TB prevalence of up to around 5%. Yet now we face prevalence up to 10 times higher in some places, where almost half of the patients with infectious disease are transmitting MDR strains," he said in a commentary published with the paper in the Lancet. The most recent estimates on drug resistance from the World Health Organisation suggest that around 9% is XDR TB. Dr Karin Weyer of the WHO's Stop TB Partnership said she welcomed any new data emerging but warned that in all but Estonia and Latvia, the studies were centred on specialist MDR TB referral centres and were not necessarily representative of the epidemic in each of the eight countries. "The findings apply to the catchment areas around those centres, but you can't infer that the results are population-based and representative of the whole country," she said. She saw the study as a wake-up call, however. "If you don't manage MDR properly, you end up with XDR," she said. Dr Mel Spigelman, the chief executive of TB Alliance, which is working to develop new drugs to fight the disease, said the findings further confirmed the urgency of addressing the TB epidemic. "Specifically, these data reflect both the inadequacies of current TB treatments and the ability of drug-resistant TB to spread from person to person," she said. "Faster-acting, simpler, more affordable, novel therapies are crucial and have the potential to treat both drug-resistant and drug-sensitive TB, improving adherence to treatment and expediting scale-up of suitable, cost-effective treatment, especially of drug-resistant TB." New treatments were in the pipeline, but money and political will would be needed to make them reality, he said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow the day's developments as they unfolded
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Man backed his car on to pavement and hit 11 people near school, injuring four children, city authorities say A 100-year-old man backed his car on to a pavement and hit 11 people, including nine children, near a primary school in southern Los Angeles just after classes had ended, authorities in the Californian city said. Four of the children were injured and in a critical condition when firefighters arrived but their condition became more stable at hospital, city fire captain Jaime Moore said. Everyone was expected to survive, he said. The blue Cadillac backed slowly into the group of parents and children buying snacks from a pavement vendor, witnesses said. The crowd banged on the car windows and screamed for the driver to stop, the witnesses said, but some of the children were trapped under the car. Police said the driver, named as Preston Carter, was co-operating. He was due to turn 101 in a few days, they said. Asked about hitting the children, Preston said his brakes failed and told a television station: "You know I'm sorry about that. I wouldn't do that for nothing on Earth. My sympathies for them." Carter was pulling out of the grocery store car park but instead of backing into the street he backed on to the pavement, police captain George Rodriguez said. "I think it was a miscalculation on his part. The gentleman is elderly," Rodriguez said. "Obviously he is going to have some impairment on his decision-making." Older drivers have been involved in other US tragedies. In 2003 an 86-year-old man mistakenly stepped on the accelerator pedal of his car instead of the brake and then panicked, ploughing into an open-air market in Santa Monica. Ten people were killed and 63 injured. According to California's department of motor vehicles, people aged over 70 must renew their driving licence in person rather than via the internet or by mail. Older drivers can be required to take a supplemental driving test if they fail a vision exam, or if a police officer, a physician or family member raises questions about their ability to drive. Rodriguez said the collision was being investigated as an accident and Carter was not under arrest. He had a valid driving licence.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Man backed his car on to sidewalk and hit 11 people near school, injuring four children, city authorities say A 100-year-old man backed his car on to a sidewalk and hit 11 people, including nine children, near a primary school in southern Los Angeles just after classes had ended, authorities in the Californian city said. Four of the children were injured and in a critical condition when firefighters arrived but their condition became more stable at hospital, city fire captain Jaime Moore said. Everyone was expected to survive, he said. The blue Cadillac backed slowly into the group of parents and children buying snacks from a street vendor, witnesses said. The crowd banged on the car windows and screamed for the driver to stop, the witnesses said, but some of the children were trapped under the car. Police said the driver, named as Preston Carter, was co-operating. He was due to turn 101 in a few days, they said. Asked about hitting the children, Preston said his brakes failed and told a television station: "You know I'm sorry about that. I wouldn't do that for nothing on Earth. My sympathies for them." Carter was pulling out of the grocery store car park but instead of backing into the street he backed on to the sidewalk, police captain George Rodriguez said. "I think it was a miscalculation on his part. The gentleman is elderly," Rodriguez said. "Obviously he is going to have some impairment on his decision-making." Older drivers have been involved in other US tragedies. In 2003 an 86-year-old man mistakenly stepped on the accelerator pedal of his car instead of the brake and then panicked, ploughing into an open-air market in Santa Monica. Ten people were killed and 63 injured. According to California's department of motor vehicles, people aged over 70 must renew their driving licence in person rather than via the internet or by mail. Older drivers can be required to take a supplemental driving test if they fail a vision exam, or if a police officer, a physician or family member raises questions about their ability to drive. Rodriguez said the collision was being investigated as an accident and Carter was not under arrest. He had a valid driving licence.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • Paul Owen with live coverage of day one of the London Paralympic Games, with Britain's Sarah Storey hoping to add to her eight gold medals at the velodrome
• Contact me at paul.owen@guardian.co.uk or @paultowen
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • James Riach with live coverage of day one of the London Paralympic Games, with Britain's Sarah Storey hoping to add to her eight gold medals at the velodrome
• Contact me at paul.owen@guardian.co.uk or @paultowen
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Paralympic Games got underway with Great Britain already in the mix for gold medals
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Prime Minister Julia Gillard says deaths are Australia's worst combat losses in nearly half a century Five Australian soldiers have died in southern Afghanistan over the last 24 hours, a toll Australia's prime minister described as the country's worst combat losses in nearly half a century. Three soldiers were shot dead in southern Uruzgan province by an Afghan army soldier who turned his gun on them as they were relaxing at their base late on Wednesday evening. Two others died in a helicopter crash in neighbouring Helmand province in the early hours of Thursday morning. "I believe this is the most losses in combat since the days of the Vietnam war and the battle on Long Tan," said Prime Minister Julia Gillard. In that 1966 battle, 18 Australians were killed. "This is news so truly shocking that it's going to feel for many Australians like a physical blow," she said. Gillard said she would be heading home early from a conference of Pacific nation leaders she was attending in the Cook Islands, the Australian Associated Press reported. The Afghan soldier who turned on his Australian comrades-in-arms shot them at close range with an automatic weapon, killing three and wounding two, said Air Marshal Mark Binskin, vice-chief of the Australian Defence Force. Troops on the scene returned fire, but the shooter managed to scale a fence and escape from the base, Binskin said. Australian and Afghan soldiers were hunting for him. It was the latest in a growing number of insider attacks by Afghan police and soldiers on the foreign troops training them or fighting beside them; 45 people have been killed this year to date, compared to 35 in the whole of 2011. Afghan and Nato commanders are struggling to find ways to prevent the attacks, which are undermining the training mission at the heart of the international vision for long-term support of Afghanistan. Last year, four Australian soldiers died at the hands of their allies, although the majority of casualties have come from the US. Australia makes the largest contribution to the Afghan mission of any nation outside the Nato alliance, with 1,550 troops on the ground. It has lost 38 soldiers in Afghanistan.
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