|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • German defeats Steve Stricker on final hole
• Singles surge completes dramatic turnaround Even the great man himself never experienced anything like this. Europe sought inspiration from the late Seve Ballesteros and retained the Ryder Cup in a fashion which proved the ultimate tribute. This was the finest Sunday comeback in Ryder Cup history given how Europe had trailed 10-6 overnight on Saturday. It is the highest achievement of José María Olazábal's career. And, for every onlooker, one of the most astonishing sporting spectacles in living memory. The bare statistics will show a Europe win by 14½ points to 13½; anyone who fails to look beyond that fact is doing both themselves and the tournament an epic disservice. Europe's team donned the navy and white colours so closely associated with Ballesteros for the Ryder Cup's final round. They proceeded to display the exact elements of spirit which made the Spaniard such a revered figure in golf. Given the close link between Olazábal and Ballesteros, Europe's triumph was so perfectly appropriate. "This is for the whole of Europe," Olazábal declared. "Seve will always be present with this team. He was a big factor in this event for the European side. Last night, I think the boys understood that believing was the most important thing; they did that." To those involved, talent almost seemed an afterthought amid surely the most colossal test of collective nerve in the 39 stagings of this event. On the 18th green, at the denouement of the penultimate match in the competition, Martin Kaymer holed from 6ft to prompt European scenes of wild jubilation. It seemed almost poetic that Kaymer had been such a peripheral figure until the closing holes of his meeting with Steve Stricker. The United States recovered from four points behind to win the Ryder Cup in 1999 at Brookline. That, however, was done on their own soil. Before their Medinah success, Europe's best Sunday turnaround was from two points adrift. "It has been a tough week," Olazábal added. "For the first two days nothing went our way. This morning I felt a little change, we started to make a few putts, the Americans started to miss them and winning those early matches was key. I have been under pressure hitting golf shots but today tops that." Olazábal, earlier criticised for elements of his captaincy, was vindicated entirely by close of play. As Kaymer's putt dropped, Olazábal looked to the heavens with tears in his eyes; earlier Luke Donald, Ian Poulter, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Paul Lawrie, Sergio García and Lee Westwood had won the matches which scratched Europe back from a seemingly inevitable defeat. "We wanted to do it for Seve," admitted Donald. "We wanted to show our grit. We've been known not being that great in singles, and we showed that we can win. It's going to go down in history. "We talked about Brookline in '99, losing that one. We wanted to come back and show that we could win from behind, too. We were able to get off to a fast start today, and we did it." Donald, rightly, pointed to the value of wins for himself and Garcia, plus McIlroy and Poulter, in the dying throngs of Saturday's fourballs. Olazábal opted to deploy Donald, rather than Poulter, at the front of his singles order. That tactic paid dividends, Donald defeating Bubba Watson and Poulter – who returned a perfect four wins from as many matches in Chicago – seeing off Webb Simpson in the following match. Even at that stage, the odds were so firmly stacked against Olazábal and his team that the United States had little cause for concern. But something had changed; namely that the clutch of Europe's players who had under-performed on Friday and Saturday started to discover some form. Lawrie dismissed Brandt Snedeker 5&3, Europe's biggest winning margin, with that result only partly offset by Dustin Johnson claiming a point in his match against Nicolas Colsaerts. Graeme McDowell, who had been out of sorts all week, was the next European to slip to defeat, to Zach Johnson. Yet Rose had brilliantly recovered from one down with two holes to play to beat Phil Mickelson on the 18th green and Garcia was to benefit from a missed Jim Furyk putt from 6ft, also on the last, to win a point. All of this ensured the final batch of matches were so pivotal. Jason Dufner saw off Peter Hanson but that was to prove the last American success; Westwood displayed his finest Ryder Cup touch to swat Matt Kuchar aside which left only two matches on the course; Kaymer v Stricker and Francesco Molinari against Tiger Woods. Therein lay the possibility, one Olazabal had surely wanted to avoid, of Woods controlling the destiny of the Ryder Cup. Kaymer averted that turn of events. The German, who has toiled so badly in recent times that his value to Europe was widely doubted, found the green from a fairway bunker on 18 and two-putted. As is always awkward in such scenarios, Woods and Molinari were waiting on the 18th fairways as Kaymer led the victory dance. After the duo eventually got around to playing, Woods sportingly conceded a 5ft putt to his Italian opponent to halve the match. "I thought for a second on Saturday that the US were going to drive off into the sunset on us," conceded McDowell. How wrong he was; Seve will be smiling in that great clubhouse in the sky.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Shia neighbourhoods and Iraqi security forces targeted in attacks described as rallying call by al-Qaida Coordinated bombings shattered Shia neighbourhoods and struck at Iraqi security forces on Sunday, killing at least 26 in attacks that one official described as a rallying call by al-Qaida just days after dozens of militants escaped from prison. The blasts brought September's death toll from sectarian violence to nearly 200 people – a grim, above-average monthly total for the period since US troops left last year. The steady pace of attacks has worked to undermine confidence in the government. "The people are fed up with the killings in Iraqi cities," said Ammar Abbas, 45, a Shia and government employee who lives in a Baghdad neighbourhood near one of the bombings. "The government officials should feel shame for letting their people die at the hands of terrorists." Police said the wave of explosions stretched from the restive but oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the north to the southern Shia town of Kut, wounding at least 94 people. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but bombings are a hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency that has been struggling for years to goad Shia militias back towards civil war. A key Shia lawmaker said the bombings likely sought to galvanise al-Qaida in the wake of a prison break last Friday in Saddam Hussein's northern hometown of Tikrit. Scores of inmates escaped – including as many as 47 convicted al-Qaida militants – in a massive security lapse that the government acknowledged had help from inside. "Al-Qaida leaders have no intention of leaving this country or letting Iraqis live in peace," said Hakim al-Zamili, a Shia member of parliament's security committee. "The jailbreak in Tikrit has boosted al-Qaida's morale in Iraq and thus we should expect more attacks in the near future." "The situation in Iraq is still unstable," Zamili added. "And repetition of such attacks shows that our security forces are still unqualified to deal with the terrorists." Spokesmen for the government and Baghdad's military command could not immediately be reached for comment. Sunday's deadliest attack struck the town of Taji, a former al-Qaida stronghold just north of Baghdad. Police said three explosive-rigged cars in a Shia neighbourhood went off within minutes of each other, killing eight and wounding 28 in back-to-back blasts that began around 7:15am. At almost the same time, in Baghdad, police said a suicide bomber set off his explosives-packed car in the north-west Shia neighbourhood of Shula. One person was killed and seven wounded. Police could not immediately identify the target. "So many people were hurt. A leg of a person was amputated," said Shula resident Naeem Frieh. "What have those innocent people done to deserve this?" The chain reaction of blasts continued throughout the morning, petering off around noon. Another suicide bomber drove a minibus into a security checkpoint in Kut, 1100 miles south-east of Baghdad. Three police officers were killed and five wounded. A military patrol hit a roadside bomb in Tarmiyah, about an hour north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and wounding six passers-by, officials said. And car bombs exploded outside the northern city of Kirkuk, the north-eastern towns of Balad Ruz and Khan Bani Saad in Diyala province, and in the town of Madain outside Baghdad. In all, seven people were killed. Also in Baghdad, a double car bomb struck the mostly Shia neighbourhood of Karradah in the most recent episode of an all-too-familiar insurgent tactic. The first explosion came as a security patrol passed, killing a police officer and a bystander, and wounding eight other people. As emergency responders rushed to the scene, the second car blew up, killing three passers-by and injuring 12, according to officials.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hole-by-hole report: Will Europe have enough to beat the USA and defend their Ryder Cup title? Join Scott Murray to find out
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Libya embassy attack becomes election issue as Republicans call for Susan Rice's resignation over alleged misinformation The White House has defended its ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, after criticism from Republicans determined to exploit the Obama administration's shifting position on the attack in Libya that killed the US ambassador. David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, said on Sunday that Barack Obama had "100% confidence" in Rice, who initially described the Benghazi attack as a spontaneous assault in the wake of anti-US protests elsewhere in the Middle East. Late last week the White House began calling it a planned terrorist attack by forces who may have been linked to al-Qaida, prompting criticism of Rice from senior Republican figures. On Friday, Peter King, chairman of the House of Representatives homeland security committee, said Rice should resign for "misinforming" the American public in the interviews she gave in the aftermath of the attack. "Somebody has to pay the price for this," he told CNN. Republicans sense an opportunity in what they regard as the White House's faltering reaction to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on 11 September, when a mob set fire to the building, killing the ambassador, Chris Stevens. After initially describing the attack as opportunistic in the wake of protests against an internet video made in the US that was offensive to Muslims, the White House changed tack. Speaking to reporters on the campaign trail on Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney described it as "terrorism". Libya's president, Mohamed Magariaf, has also blamed "al-Qaida elements" for the death of Stevens and three other Americans working for the state department. The issue is sensitive to the Obama campaign, which has made the killing of Osama bin Laden and the president's determination to beat al-Qaida a central plank of his re-election effort. Also, any suggestion that groups linked to al-Qaida were gaining ground in Libya would be a blow to the US-backed international coalition that mounted air strikes which eventually led to the downfall of the former Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In a statement on Friday, Shawn Turner, the director of public affairs for national intelligence, clarified the position. He said: "In the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo. We provided that initial assessment to executive branch officials and members of Congress, who used that information to discuss the attack publicly and provide updates as they became available. Throughout our investigation, we continued to emphasize that information gathered was preliminary and evolving." A lack of information about the circumstances of the attack has left open the question of whether it was planned in a few hours, to take advantage of a spontaneous anti-US protest in Egypt against the anti-Muslim video, or whether it was planned over longer term to mark the 11th anniversary of al-Qaida's 9/11 attacks on the US. In the NBC interview on Sunday, Plouffe defended the change of explanation for the Benghazi attack. "I think now based on the recommendations and the investigation of the intelligence community, they made the decision to conclude that this was a terrorist attack. In the days after, that was not clear. This was a very fast-moving period of time … we provided information that we received from the intelligence community as we got it." Plouffe insisted that Rice had the full backing of the administration. Asked by Meet the Press host David Gregory if Barack Obama had "100% confidence in her", he said: "Absolutely. She's done a terrific job for this country, for this administration." The response to the attack has rapidly become an election issue in the past few days. On Friday, the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who sought the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2008, accused the White House of a cover-up. Speaking to Fox News, Giuliani said: "This is a deliberate attempt to cover up the truth, from an administration that claimed it wanted to be the most transparent in history. And it's the worst kind of cover-up: the kind of cover-up that involves our national security. This is a cover-up that involves the slaughter of four Americans."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Inning by inning report: Time is running out for the Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays to sneak into the MLB playoffs. Follow along live with Hunter Felt
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The two campaigns are feverishly preparing for the first of three debates that could be Romney's last chance to turn it around Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were gearing up on Sunday for three days of intense preparations for the first of the US presidential debates, which is almost certain to be the Republican candidate's last chance to turn around his struggling campaign. The 90-minute debate in Denver on Wednesday will be the first opportunity Americans will have to see the two candidates side by side and compare not only their policies but how they look and behave. The outcome could be decided by a hesitation in explaining a policy, a smart riposte or a display of arrogance. Each side took part in the usual ritual of talking up their opponent at the weekend in an attempt to dampen expectations. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, speaking on Fox News on Sunday, described Obama as "a very gifted speaker". Supporters of Obama claimed Romney had won nearly all of the debates during his gruelling nomination process. Estimates for the number of viewers in America range from 50 million to 60 million, almost double the number who watched the party conventions. There will be two additional debates, in Long Island and Florida, but it is the first that usually has the most impact. Obama, with significant poll leads in the swing states, can play defence, just getting through the evening without making a mistake. The onus is on Romney to make an impression. Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, acknowledged on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that Romney would need to do well in the first debate. "You're going to have tens of millions of people for the first time really tuning in and paying attention to this race ... On Thursday morning the entire narrative of this race is going to change." Both candidates were readying themselves for three days of intensive preparation. Obama, after a campaign event in Las Vegas on Sunday night, heads to Henderson half-an-hour's drive away for three days of preparation. Romney will also do three days of preparation, arriving in Denver Monday. Do debates make a difference?Some political analysts argue that the debates do not matter, usually ending inconclusively and quickly forgotten. Others point to debate moments over the last 52 years, since the first televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon, that have turned out to decisive. John McCain, failed Republican presidential candidate in 2008, who has debated with both Obama and Romney, did not anticipate any "breakthrough" moments, saying they they have become rarer in recent decades. "I can't remember the last time there was one of these comments that grabbed everybody's attention because, frankly, the candidates are too well prepared," McCain told CNN on Sunday. But debates can dramatically change a campaign. Hillary Clinton was a seemingly insurmountable 30 points ahead of Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination until she hesitated when asked a question in a 2007 debate about illegal immigration. Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist involved in presidential campaigns from Mondale in 1984 through to Kerry in 2004, believes debates are important. He recalled Mondale jumped 23 points in a poll after having a good first debate with Reagan and that Gore lost a three to four point lead in 2000 after his debate with George W Bush. He argues it is possible for Romney to use the debate to mount a comeback. "Romney has got to get himself back into the race. He needs voters to have one more look at him and this is it," said Devine. "If the Romney team are smart, they will not try to do it all in the first debate. They need to make up some ground and get people to like this guy a little. It is all about how he comports himself. If they are smart and he starts repairing his image, you can change a lot in 90 minutes." PreparationsRomney's campaign team has long argued that the debates are pivotal and, because of that, the candidate has been rehearsing since at least August, locking himself away for mock-up debates with senator Rob Portman from Ohio standing in for Obama. According to the Obama team, the president has had less time to prepare because of his White House duties, though he has occasionally taken time out for visits to the Democratic national committee's headquarters in Washington for debate sessions, with senator John Kerry standing in for Romney. The preparations at the rival camps will be intensive, with soundbites rehearsed over and over again. They will prepare on replicas of the Denver stage, the rehearsals filmed and analysed. Obama, with a tendency for long answers, is being encouraged by staff to be snappier. One of his advisers, Jen Psaki, said last week: "The president is familiar with his own loquaciousness and his tendency to give long, substantive answers." The relentless preparations include appearance as well as policy, with ties and suits chosen to avoid blending in with the stage backdrop. Devine remembers that, in spite of all the detailed preparations for one Gore-Bush debate, one of the problems was a failure to check how Gore's make-up would look on camera. Viewers complained he looked "too orangey". ExpectationsIt has become commonplace that, ahead of the debates, the two camps talk up the opposing candidate in an effort to lower expectations. Romney supporters talk up Obama's oratorical skills, while the president's campaign has been claiming that Romney has had a great deal of practice at debates during his nomination process. In reality, neither candidate is a great debater. Often forgotten is that Obama, while one of the best orators in the US, performed poorly at debates during the during Democratic primaries and caucuses before the 2008 election, though he improved towards the end. The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, at the time a reporter, admitted last week that Obama had become the nominee in 2008 "in spite of his debate performances". Romney tends to be a poor debater too but has produced occasional good performances when he has had to, particularly against Republican rival Newt Gingrich in Florida earlier this year. It will be completely different after the debate, with both teams fielding supporters in the spin-room to talk up their candidates. IssuesOne of the big issues on Wednesday night will be the secret video of Romney's speech at a May fundraiser in Florida in which he dismissed 47% of Americans as freeloaders. Obama will seek to exploit this to the fullest while Romney has to try to explain it away. Romney's success against Gingrich in debate was attributed at the time to his debate coach, Brett O'Donnell, who subsequently left his staff. O'Donnell, in an interview with the Associated Press last week, said Romney has to try to confront the 47% remark. "He has to turn the 47% and make sure people understand the reasoning behind that argument, how that's the result of the president's policies." The dominant issue will be the slow economic recovery, from an unemployment rate over 8% to the burgeoning deficit and taxation. Other issues will be healthcare reform, immigration and women's rights. Foreign policy is not on the agenda until the final debate. Debates that made a differenceThe first televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 cost the Republican the election. Kennedy looked better on television while Nixon appeared unshaven and ill at ease. There was a long gap in debates until they resumed in 1976. In 1980, Reagan won a debate and the election with the question "Ask yourself, 'Are you better off now than you were four years ago?'" Gore came off second best in a debate with Bush in 2000. Devine recalled that the Gore team thought it had won but the Bush campaign successfully spun to the press that Gore had looked arrogant, sighing repeatedly throughout the debate and rolling is eyes. The spin worked.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Bill bars mental health providers from engaging in therapies meant to 'cure' homosexuality in children and teenagers California has become the first state in the US to ban controversial "gay cure" therapies from being administered to children and teenagers. Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed the bill into law on Saturday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The bill, sponsored by state senator Ted Lieu, bars mental health providers "from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts". Brown said in a statement provided to the Chronicle: This bill bans non-scientific 'therapies' that have driven young people to depression and suicide. These practices have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.
Such therapies have been denounced by by mainstream psychiatry in the US. The American Psychiatric Association has condemned so-called "conversion therapy" and says it is unethical. Earlier this year, one leading figure in the "ex-gay" movement renounced the theory that sexual orientation could be changed by therapy. Alan Chambers, president of Exodus, one of the leading proponents of reparative therapy, said there could be no cure for homosexuality. But the idea that homosexuality can be cured – by therapy and/or prayer – persists in conservative Christian circles. The California move has been welcomed by gay rights campaigners. Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in a statement: Governor Brown has sent a powerful message of affirmation and support to LGBT youth and their families. This law will ensure that state-licensed therapists can no longer abuse their power to harm LGBT youth and propagate the dangerous and deadly lie that sexual orientation is an illness or disorder that can be 'cured.'
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Cracks in walls and ceilings the effects of minor tremors near Dallas-Fort Worth airport with no serious damage reported A small earthquake followed by an aftershock hit a suburb west of Dallas overnight, causing minor damage. Emergency officials said they had no indications of any injuries from Saturday's late-night quake. The epicenter was near Dallas-Fort Worth airport, but was not large enough to affect flight operations. The tremors caused cracks in walls and ceilings, and knocked down pictures, but authorities reported no serious damage. The US Geological Survey's national earthquake monitoring center in Golden, Colorado recorded a quake of preliminary magnitude of 3.4 at 11.05pm local time on Saturday, two miles north of the Dallas suburb of Irving. USGS Geophysicist Randy Baldwin told the Associated Press from Colorado that the initial quake lasted several seconds and appeared strong enough to be felt up to 15 or 20 miles away. He said the smaller aftershock with an estimated 3.1 magnitude occurred four minutes later and just a few miles away in another area west of Dallas. Irving's emergency operators were flooded with more than 400 calls after the initial quake as people reported such minor damage as cracks in some walls and a ceiling, pictures knocked down and a report of a possible gas leak, according to an emergency official, Pat McMacken. City officials said they were still following up on the various reports early Sunday. Beverly Rangel, of New Haven Street in Irving, which was at the epicenter of the first quake told local TV station WFAA: "The table started shaking," she said. "It's a pretty heavy table for it to be shaking." Dallas-Fort Worth airport continued routine operations even though the shaking was felt at the airport partly located in Irving's city limits, airport public affairs officer David Magaña said. He told AP that the airport, which has 1,800 daily departures and arrivals, was in a quiet period with very little air traffic late Saturday night. Airport staff felt the quakes, he said. "I wouldn't call it panic. I would call it surprise," Magaña said. The airport operations team immediately conducted a special inspection of the airfield, buildings and found nothing harmed by the quake. "We don't have any damage to report. There were no impacts or [power] outages and no disruptions to flights," Magaña said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Thousands take to the streets of Paris in move described by government minister as 'fundamental error' Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to protest against the spread of economic "austerity" in France and Europe. Chanting "resistance, resistance", the crowds had been rallied by around 60 organisations, including the leftwing Front de Gauche and the French Communist party, which oppose the European budget treaty. "Today is the day the French people launch a movement against the politics of austerity," said the Front de Gauche president, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. A few hours before the protest started Jérome Cahuzac, a junior budget minister, described the demonstration as a "fundamental" error. "I think they are committing a fundamental error in thinking that the policies we are following are weakening France, when in fact these policies are strengthening it," he told Europe 1. The French prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, defended the European budget treaty and accused the protesters of taking a risk with history. "To take the risk of aggravating the crisis, which is not only an economic crisis but also a euro crisis … The ambiguity of saying 'non' is also something that could lead to the end of the euro." He added that he and the president, François Hollande, "would never be responsible … for the disappearance of the euro. The support of the majority in these circumstances is essential. We can't swerve away, the future of the euro as well as growth and prosperity are in doubt," Ayrault added. For Annick Coupé of the Solidaires union, the demonstration on Sunday was aimed at creating a "show of force for the weeks to come" in which the government will consider pension, social security and employment reforms. "Just because we helped defeat Nicolas Sarkozy [the former right of centre president] doesn't mean we're now going to shut up," she said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sanctions creating great economic difficulties, says finance minister in a further indication that military action may be on hold Sanctions against the Iranian regime are pushing the Islamic Republic's economy into deep crisis, according to key Israeli officials in comments seen as a further indication unilateral military action may have been put on hold. The Iranian rial fell 5% to an all-time low against the US dollar on Saturday, according to financial websites. The value of the rial has fallen by almost 57% since June last year, leading to big price increases for imported goods. Israel's finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, said Iran's economy "is not collapsing, but it is on the verge of collapse". The loss of oil revenue would approach $45bn-$50bn (£28bn-£31bn) by the end of the year, he told Israel Radio. "The Iranians are in great economic difficulties as a result of the sanctions." His comments followed the leak last week of an internal foreign ministry report, which said international sanctions were having a profound effect on Iran's economy and could be destabilising the government. But the measures had yet to persuade the regime to abandon its nuclear programme and, therefore, additional sanctions were needed. According to an anonymous Israeli official quoted in Haaretz, Israel had stepped up efforts to persuade the EU to impose a fresh round of sanctions. The move suggests a distancing by Israel from the military option, at least for the next few months. In his address at the UN general assembly last week, Binyamin Netanyahu, said Iran was likely to cross the "red line" he set for its uranium enrichment process by next spring or summer. That was widely interpreted as the Israeli prime minister backing away from the immediate threat of a military strike, although he sought to keep his options open in subsequent interviews. "I haven't conceded Israel's right to defend itself at any point," Netanyahuh told reporters. Ävigdor Lieberman, his hardline foreign minister, who has never expressed full-throated support for a military strike‚ suggested that Iran could face an Egyptian-style people's revolution. "The opposition demonstrations that took place in Iran in June 2009 will come back in even greater force," he told Haaretz. "The situation in Iran and the feelings of the man on the street is one of economic catastrophe … There's a shortage of basic goods, a rise in crime, and people are trying to flee the country, sending money abroad."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Reports indicate talks over payment for the 2010 disaster have hit a snag as BP split over whether to push for $15bn payout Talks between BP and the US government over a settlement for the 2010 oil spill have stalled because the US is insisting that the British oil giant pay at least $18bn, according to reports. According to the Sunday Times in the UK, a settlement deal may not happen until early next year. A settlement between $18bn and $21bn is near the level which BP would be required to pay should it be found grossly negligent under the Clean Water Act, said the paper. BP, which declined to comment on the story, has always denied any liability for the United States' worst offshore environmental disaster. Reports in July suggested that the US was looking for a settlement of $25bn. The newspaper said that BP's board is split over whether to pay $18bn or continue to push for a settlement at $15bn, the level it is widely reported to be hoping to settle at.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ang Lee's adaptation of Yann Martel novel is the summation of the principle powering his career: still waters run deep In his gently astonishing new film, Life of Pi, adapted from Yann Martel's 2001 bestseller, director Ang Lee melds so many disparate elements – Aesopian fable and cutting-edge 3D technology, east and west, young and old – that he may have just succeeded in rebranding himself as the Obama of world cinema. The fiercely urgent candidate of 2008, of course, not the stealth version currently working the stump. The sheer number of world religions given a shoutout in the film – Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist – is enough to send Donald Trump's comb-over scampering up the nearest tree trunk, looking for cover. It takes a while to get going, like someone roused from their morning meditation, with lots of flowers and candles and people wearing kindly, fixed smiles suggesting enlightenment, or as if they had been hit around the head with a brass pot. In French India, the young son of a zoo owner collects world religions the way other kids collect stamps. "They were my superheroes," he says, checking off a list of deities. Such good karma, sad to say, doesn't necessarily make for good drama. You're almost grateful for the storm when it arrives, sinking the boat bearing Pi, his family and their animal entourage to the new world, leaving the boy alone on a boat with one of his father's tigers. They are soon pacing around one other with the same mixture of wariness and hungriness last seen on the faces of Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Lee's 2005 film Brokeback Mountain. One of the things that tells you the director is in his prime right now – a model of creative evolution – is that his films feel like total surprises when first announced but fit snugly into his oeuvre once you've seen them. Immersing himself in the latest technology — 3D, digital paintboxes, motion capture and control – as Martin Scorsese did in last year's Hugo, Lee summons delights with his fingertips. But where Hugo was cold to the touch, Life of Pi feels warm-blooded, the perfect summation of the principle powering Lee's entire career: still waters run deep. You see it both in the Zen minimalism of his compositions – check out the shots of sky reflected in a glassy ocean, the boat suspended in the middle as if hanging in thin air – and the sonar-like skill with which he sounds out the emotional depths of Martel's tale. Lee's pixels are animated by empathy. Life of Pi feels so simple, yet knotted with resonance, that you wonder why Lee bothered with the framing narrative in which a grownup Pi chews over the spiritual implications of his tale with a writer in Toronto. For one thing, the argument they come up with for the existence of God turns out to bear a suspicious similarity to an argument for the all-round grooviness of magic realism. For another: Toronto. A nice city, but it's neat patches of parkland and grey high-rises are no match for breaching whales, phosphorescent fish and crouching tigers, or the sight if Pi, howling like Job into stormy skies. Hollywood has been waiting for this movie. Get ready for the year of the Tiger. The New York Film festival runs from 28 September to 14 October Rating: 4/5
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ang Lee's adaptation of Yann Martel novel - which opened the New York film festival - is the summation of the principle powering his career: still waters run deep In his gently astonishing new film, Life of Pi, adapted from Yann Martel's 2001 bestseller, director Ang Lee melds so many disparate elements – Aesopian fable and cutting-edge 3D technology, east and west, young and old – that he may have just succeeded in rebranding himself as the Obama of world cinema. The fiercely urgent candidate of 2008, of course, not the stealth version currently working the stump. The sheer number of world religions given a shout-out in the film – Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist – is enough to send Donald Trump's comb-over scampering up the nearest tree trunk, looking for cover. The film takes a while to get going, like someone roused from their morning meditation, with lots of flowers and candles and people wearing kindly, fixed smiles suggesting enlightenment, or as if they had been hit around the head with a brass pot. In French India, the young son of a zoo owner collects world religions the way other kids collect stamps. "They were my superheroes," he says, checking off a list of deities. Such good karma, sad to say, doesn't necessarily make for good drama. You're almost grateful for the arrival of the storm that sinks the boat bearing Pi, his family and their animal entourage to the new world, leaving the boy alone on a boat with one of his father's tigers. They are soon pacing around one other with the same mixture of wariness and hungriness last seen on the faces of Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Lee's 2005 Brokeback Mountain. One of the things that tells you the director is in his prime – a model of creative evolution – is that his films feel like total surprises when first announced but fit snugly into his oeuvre once you've seen them. Immersing himself in the latest technology — 3D, digital paintboxes, motion capture and control – as Martin Scorsese did in last year's Hugo, Lee summons delights with his fingertips. But where Hugo was cold to the touch, Life of Pi feels warm-blooded, the perfect summation of the principle powering Lee's entire career: still waters run deep. You see it both in the Zen minimalism of his compositions – check out the shots of sky reflected in a glassy ocean, the boat suspended in the middle as if hanging in thin air – and the sonar-like skill with which he sounds out the emotional depths of Martel's tale. Lee's pixels are animated by empathy. Life of Pi feels so simple, yet knotted with resonance, that you wonder why Lee bothered with the framing narrative in which a grown-up Pi chews over the spiritual implications of his tale with a writer in Toronto. For one thing, the argument they come up with for the existence of God turns out to bear a suspicious similarity to an argument for the all-round grooviness of magic realism. For another: Toronto. A nice city, but it's neat patches of parkland and grey high-rises are no match for breaching whales, phosphorescent fish and crouching tigers, or the sight if Pi, howling like Job into stormy skies. Hollywood has been waiting for this movie. Get ready for the year of the Tiger. The New York film festival runs until 14 October Rating: 4/5
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hole-by-hole report: Nobody expected a European victory, but that's what happened on one of the greatest days in Ryder Cup history. Scott Murray was watching
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Al-Jazeera English journalists protest after being ordered to re-edit UN report to focus on Qatar emir's comments on Syria Al-Jazeera's editorial independence has been called into question after its director of news stepped in to ensure a speech made by Qatar's emir to the UN led its English channel's coverage of the debate on Syrian intervention. Journalists had produced a package of the UN debate, topped with excerpts of President Obama's speech, last Tuesday when a last-minute instruction came from Salem Negm, the Qatar-based news director, who ordered the video to be re-edited to lead with the comments from Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Despite protests from staff that the emir's comments – a repetition of previous calls for Arab intervention in Syria – were not the most important aspect of the UN debate, the two-minute video was re-edited and Obama's speech was relegated to the end of the package. There are hints at staff dissatisfaction within the film, available for viewing on al-Jazeera's website and YouTube, which notes that the emir "represents one of the smallest countries in the Arab world … but Qatar has been one of the loudest voices condemning Syria". The episode left a bitter taste among staff amid complaints that this was the most heavy-handed editorial intervention at the global broadcaster, which has long described itself as operating independent of its Qatari ownership. An al-Jazeera spokesman said the emir's speech was "a significant development" that day and the broadcaster "consequently gave it prominence". Obama's speech had been carried live, the spokesman added, and the emir's comments were balanced with disagreement from the Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi. However, insiders said Morsi's contribution had to be taken from an interview with another broadcaster, because none of the world leaders speaking at the UN had, or was, intending to take notice of the emir's comments. Al-Jazeera English was set up in 2006 by the Arabic broadcaster of the same name and both are owned by the Qatari state. The network, founded in 1996, gained credibility with audiences in the region for its seemingly independent coverage in the post 9/11 period. Its English channel was launched to offer an alternative, non-western-centric worldview. However, in recent years, Qatar has taken steps to consolidate its control over the channel as the country seeks greater political influence in the Gulf. In September 2011, Wadah Khanfar, a Palestinian widely seen as independent, suddenly left as director-general after eight years in the post and was replaced by a member of the royal family, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim al-Thani, a man with no background in journalism. In his resignation letter, Khanfar said, after noting that the channel had been criticised by Donald Rumsfeld and hailed by Hillary Clinton, that "al-Jazeera is still independent and its integral coverage has not changed". He added: "When we launched in 1996, media independence was a contradiction in terms", but al-Jazeera had managed "to pleasantly surprise" its critics by "exceeding all expectations".
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Lawyers for jailed punk rockers hope to reduce two-year sentence for performing anti-Kremlin song in Moscow cathedral A Russian court is due to hear the appeal of jailed punk band Pussy Riot on Monday against a two-year sentence for performing an anti-Kremlin song in a Moscow cathedral. The case against Pussy Riot highlighted the crackdown on freedom in Vladimir Putin's Russia and the rising power of the Russian Orthodox church. The three women members of Pussy Riot – Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30 – are expected to attend the hearing at a Moscow city court. A decision is likely on Monday. They were found guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" in mid-August in a case that drew condemnation from musicians and activists around the world. Most recently, Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi called for their release. The three women were arrested in February after performing a "punk prayer" against Vladimir Putin at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox church said the court should take into account whether the women had "repented" before issuing its decision. "The church sincerely desires remorse for the desecration of a holy place, convinced that it will benefit their souls," a spokesman, Vladimir Legoida, said. "And since the point of punishment is correction, if the words of the tried will show evidence of remorse, and a rethinking of what they did, we would not want that to be ignored." During a speedy trial, the three women apologised for any offence they caused to believers but said they were committing a political act. Their lawyers say they doubt the women's sentence will be struck down, but believe it could be reduced. "To dream of the sentence being overthrown is too optimistic for the current Russian reality," Nikolai Polozov, a lawyer for the women, said. "I very much hope it will be lessened a bit."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Four separate blasts apparently targeting Shia Muslims kill nine people in and around Baghdad Iraqi police and health officials say four separate car bomb attacks apparently targeting Shia Muslims have killed nine people in and around Baghdad. A police officer said three car bombs exploded early on Sunday in Taji, killing eight and injuring 28 others near Shia homes in the mainly Sunni town about 20km (12 miles) north of Baghdad. Another police officer said a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden car in Baghdad's Shia north-western neighbourhood of Shula, killing one and injuring seven others. The target was unknown to the police. Two health officials in nearby hospitals confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke anonymously as they were not authorised to release information. Insurgents frequently target Shia Muslims in an apparent bid to rekindle widespread sectarian conflict and undermine support for the government.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Exchange of fire kills two Americans and three Afghan soldiers, marking 2,000th US death in the conflict Two Americans were killed in Afghanistan during an exchange of fire between Nato-led forces and the Afghan army that may have been the result of a misunderstanding, as the death toll of US military and civilian personnel passed 2,000. A US official, who asked not to be identified, said on Sunday that an American soldier and a civilian contractor had been killed in the incident in eastern Afghanistan, the circumstances of which remain unclear. The coalition initially said the incident may have been the result of an "insider attack" and another example of a member of the Afghan national security force turning on coalition troops in a war that began in 2001. But it later said that nearby insurgent gunfire may have led to a misunderstanding. "The circumstances were somewhat confused ... There was a report of insurgent firing taking place in this incident which we believe may have been a factor," lieutenant general Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of the Nato-led coalition, said. It was the latest setback for the coalition after the United States said joint operations with Afghan forces were returning to normal. Joint operations were halted two weeks ago after a surge of attacks on the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) by its Afghan allies. At least 52 Isaf service members have been killed this year in so-called "green-on-blue" attacks. The suspension of joint operations was a blow for Nato which wants to train the 350,000 members of the Afghan security forces so that they can try to ensure stability after coalition forces withdraw. Pentagon data listing the number of US troops and contractors killed in Afghanistan since combat began 11 years ago showed the two new deaths pushed the total combined number of US personnel killed past the 2,000 mark. The attack took place in the Sayed Abad district of the Wardak province, according to local police sources, who said a gun battle had broken out between coalition soldiers and Afghans when an Afghan National Army member opened fire on American troops. Three members of the Afghan National Army were also killed in the firefight, while three other US citizens and one Afghan were wounded, police spokesman Wali Mohammad said on Sunday. "We appreciate the sacrifice of our fallen heroes, every death is tragic and important - none more than any other," Isaf said in a statement after the incident on Saturday. Tension between coalition forces and their Afghan allies has been rising due to an escalation of so-called "insider" attacks, but Bradshaw denied the incident was a reflection of growing mistrust between Afghan and coalition forces.
"There is a very strong relationship between Isaf and our Afghan colleagues," Bradshaw told a press conference late on Sunday. Separately on Saturday, police in eastern Kunar province said they had found the beheaded bodies of three male civilians in a forest. The Taliban had kidnapped the men three days ago for allegedly spying for the government and Nato forces, Kunar police chief Shirwah Sameen told Reuters.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Latest 'insider attack' at checkpoint kills two Americans and two Afghan soldiers, marking 2,000th US troop death of conflict An Afghan soldier has turned his gun on American troops at a checkpoint in the east of the country, killing two Americans and two fellow members of Afghanistan's army. The shooting continues the trend of "insider attacks" and marks the 2,000th US troop death in the long-running war, officials said. The series of insider attacks is one of the greatest threats to Nato's mission in Afghanistan, endangering a partnership key to training Afghan security forces and withdrawing international troops. Saturday's shooting took place at an Afghan army checkpoint just outside a joint US-Afghan base in Wardak province, said Shahidullah Shahid, a provincial government spokesman. At least two Afghan soldiers also died, he said. "Initial reports indicate that a misunderstanding happened between Afghan army soldiers and American soldiers," Shahid said. He said investigators had been sent to the site. It was not clear if the assailant was killed. The attack happened about 5pm local time in Sayd Abad district, the Afghan defence ministry spokesman, General Zahir Azimi, said in an emailed statement. He did not provide further details. Nato forces said the attack was a "suspected insider attack" and confirmed that a Nato service member and civilian contractor were killed. One US official confirmed that the service member killed was American, while another confirmed that the civilian was also American. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the nationality of the dead had not yet been formally announced. Afghan soldiers and policemen or militants in their uniforms have killed more than 50 foreign troops so far this year, eroding the trust between coalition forces and their Afghan partners. An equal number of Afghan policemen and soldiers also died in these attacks, giving them reason as well to be suspicious of possible infiltrators within their ranks. The attacks are taking a toll on the partnership between international and Afghan forces, prompting the US military to restrict operations with small-sized Afghan units earlier this month. The close contact with coalition forces working side by side with Afghan troops as advisers, mentors and trainers is a key part of the US strategy for preparing the Afghans to take the lead in security operations as the US and other nations prepare to pull out their last combat troops at the end of 2014.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 'Princeling' defends former leader accused of responsibility for wife's murder of Briton, taking bribes and abusing power Bo Guagua, the high profile son of toppled politician Bo Xilai and his wife Gu Kailai, has defended his "upright" and dutiful father in his first comments on the toppled politician since scandal engulfed his family. His comments come shortly after Chinese leaders announced that they had expelled the former Chongqing party secretary from the Communist party and that he would face criminal charges. Bo Xilai was once tipped for possible promotion in this autumn's leadership transition. But his spectacular fall culminated in Friday's announcement that he was accused of offences including abusing power and taking massive bribes. He was also accused of bearing "major responsibility" in relation to his wife's murder of a British businessman and maintaining improper sexual relationships with several women. "Personally it is hard for me to believe the allegations that were announced against my father, because they contradict everything I have come to know about him throughout my life," his son wrote in a message posted online. He confirmed via email that he had written the statement. "Although the policies my father enacted are open to debate, the father I know is upright in his beliefs and devoted to duty. He has always taught me to be my own person and to have concern for causes greater than ourselves. I have tried to follow his advice.
"At this point, I expect the legal process to follow its normal course, and I will await the result." Bo Guagua graduated from a postgraduate course at Harvard's Kennedy School this summer - having previously studied at Oxford - and is thought to remain in the United States. He has said little since his parents' detention in spring this year, although he confirmed he had given a witness statement to his mother Gu Kailai's trial. He said at the time he had faith that the facts would speak for themselves. Gu was convicted of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood - who was friends with Bo Guagua - last month and handed a suspended death sentence.
Prosecutors alleged she killed the 41-year-old Briton because he had threatened her son over a business dispute. An unofficial account of the trial said the court heard Heywood had demanded millions of pounds from the family and at one point held Bo Guagua captive at a house in the UK - allegations that friends of the dead man strongly disputed. Bo Guagua was a subject of fascination long before his father's fall, thanks to his flamboyant lifestyle at Oxford. Pictures of him partying and pretending to urinate against a college gate with friends were not shocking by Western standards, but raised eyebrows in China, where the "princeling" children of powerful leaders are supposed to be more discreet. In a separate statement issued earlier this year he attempted to lay "rumours and allegations" to rest, writing that his "extracurricular-activities enabled me to broaden my perspective, serve the student community, and experience all that Oxford has to offer". He added that his tuition and living expenses at Harrow, Oxford and Harvard were funded exclusively by academic scholarships and his mother's savings. The details of those scholarships remain unknown. "Guagua is smart and an accomplished debater," said a family friend who met the couple and their son in the US and China. "He has excellent presentation skills and a logical mind. I wouldn't exactly call him a playboy. But he's certainly trendy. He likes the good things." The friend said he was respectful to elders but added: "Behind the politeness there is a cockiness. He's very much aware he comes from the elite."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Everyone's watching Claire Danes, star of Homeland, TV's post-9/11 hit espionage thriller. As the acclaimed show begins its second series, Hermione Hoby grills her on patriotism, psychology and parenthood Claire Danes is glowering at me through a subway window with a look in her eyes that makes me want to confess to crimes I never committed. That face – the surly set jaw and stony scowl – is all over New York's subway walls right now. And below it, in big letters, the words "IT HITS HOME" and "9/30". This is the date that Homeland, the drama threatening to trump The Wire as the crowning show of this television "golden age", returns with a second series. It's the kind of TV that makes for a wipe-your-weekend-plans box set: the ending of every crack-fix of an episode had me twitchily reaching for the remote to a muttered internal monologue of: "Next one, next one, now, now…" Danes carries the series as the bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison, whose furious vigilance is hard to distinguish from pathological mania as she investigates, and ultimately falls for, Sergeant Brody (Damian Lewis), a Marine who may or may not be a terrorist after eight years held captive by al-Qaida. The plotting, which tips viewers back and forth between suspicion and conviction, is virtuosic. We've arranged to meet in the poolside bar of the Trump SoHo, where women in very short dresses and very high heels are shouting in each other's ears and failing to hear anything over brain-pulverisingly loud Ibiza beats. Danes appears – not unhinged-savante CIA agent, nor radiant red carpet celebrity but just an unmistakably pregnant lady in jeans, cardigan and a red T-shirt stretched taut by a neatly swelling belly. She slopes in, stops, and takes in the scene wearily. "Well, this," she says, "is not going to work." We end up taking refuge in a corner of the half-renovated, closed-off library, which, a member of staff anxiously explains, "hasn't been Trumpified yet". I look at Danes and can't imagine anyone caring less. Her characters have always had an edge of unease to them, and that seems true, too, of her own sense of herself in the world: the oddness of this half-built corner seems appropriate. The creators had Danes in mind when they were writing the Homeland pilot, so much so that in the original scripts the character is called Claire. "So that was very flattering and a little surprising," she says. "And a little alarming, actually – that it was a role tailor-made for me. I mean, I didn't see myself in that particular light. When I talked to my agent, she said: 'Well, ya know, you'll have a lot to do' – which was a bit of an understatement." Towards the end of the series her character experiences a manic episode – a difficult state to portray without risking cartoonishness. But Danes is electrifying, weather fronts of expression rushing over her malleable face. "I think it's important to never play 'crazy' – you have to know what kind of crazy you're playing. There are very few opportunities to play characters that are this rich, this active. It's a filet mignon of a role." She's signed up for seven years of it and already garnered a Television Critics Association award; she has also won best actress for the role at both the Golden Globes and last week's Emmys. Mandy Patinkin, who plays her mentor Saul, has talked about her talent in words extravagant even for the realms of luvvie hyperbole. He recently told the Hollywood Reporter that he would die for her. "She is one of our great gifts as an artist... and I am one of the privileged people to get to be with her and learn from her every day." The show's biggest endorsement, though, has been from Barack Obama, who reportedly requested four copies of the season finale. When the president sat next to Danes's co-star Damian Lewis at a recent state dinner, he told him: "While Michelle and the two girls go play tennis on Saturday afternoons, I go in the Oval Office, pretend I'm going to work, and then I switch on Homeland." I wonder what goes through his head as he watches. There's one episode in which the vice president attempts to conceal his government's drone strike on an Iraqi school by claiming terrorists have faked the images of maimed and killed children. "It's very provocative," she agrees. Before accepting the role, "I certainly had questions, if not reservations, because it is so immediately relevant to what's happening in the world. I was concerned that it might become exploitative in some way. But I'm so impressed with how the writers have managed to tell a very volatile story without being reckless. "The first time I realised I was patriotic was after September 11th," she says. She was living in Sydney. "I couldn't have been farther away, physically, from the event, but I grew up in downtown New York, not even a mile away from the towers. One of my friends wanted to have a debate about it, and when she was pressing me to take an intellectual position I just kind of barked: 'My house is on fire!' That's how it felt; it just felt personal and visceral. Growing up in New York with artist parents – a very liberal environment, where we were always encouraged to challenge the status quo – I think for a long time I confused jingoism with patriotism. And that is a mistake." Danes spent a day with an officer at Langley, the CIA's headquarters in Virginia, and that seems to have fortified her patriotism, too. "They were very earnest in their devotion to the United States of America. I was very touched by that." And then she switches from serious citizen to excited kid as she starts talking about what the real-life CIA agents do. "I was just struck by the fact that these spies do really spy-y things! They'll get into a car crash with somebody – they'll literally bump into somebody to initiate and then cultivate a relationship. I mean, in some ways – this seems a little presumptuous and it's not entirely accurate – but actors and CIA agents are [both] migratory and assume different roles. It's very hard to maintain relationships when you are having to conceal so much. They often marry each other – kind of like actors. I mean, who else is gonna get it?" She speaks from experience: Danes met British actor Hugh Dancy in 2007 on the set of romantic drama Evening, and they married two years later. The couple is about to move into a new Manhattan apartment, and from her hotel room she can see both this new place and the building she's lived in since she was 18. A new address must seem like a minor change compared to impending motherhood. "I've been fantasising about this for a long time. I want to know: who is this person?" She addresses her belly. "I just want to meet this little nugget! Who's this – she, he – gonna be?" When I ask her about the films she loved as a teenager, she responds: "Oh god – Molly Ringwald! Those John Hughes movies. Oh my god did I love her." People talk the same way about Angela Chase, the sardonic and sentimental heroine of My So-Called Life, the teen TV series that began Danes's career in 1994. Thanks to its appearance on Netflix, the show has been granted a new cultural currency by a generation of teenagers hungry for the borrowed nostalgia of oversized plaid shirts and velvet scrunchies. "There was that whole resurgence of grunge, that 90s revival," she smiles. "It was a good era – there was Sassy magazine, Daria – this whole crop of droll, knowing, wonderfully off girls. Now we've got very 'off' women." Was she a very serious 15-year-old? "I was, but so many teenagers are serious, that's why they're so hilarious. For a long time I was playing at being a grown-up and it was a slightly confused idea of what that meant. I was all," she frowns and balls her fists, "serious face and phoney moustache. Now I kind of realise that the grown- ups never really knew what they were doing, and that's OK." The irony of being a teen star synonymous with the angst of high-school life is that you never get to experience that life yourself. "I lived my adolescence on that set, with styrofoam lockers, in some abstracted version of a high school, so I don't really know who I would have been in high school. I didn't have a peer group to figure that out within; it was all sort of suspended." It sounds like she had a truly terrible time at school. "I was busy being misanthropic and miserable, as most 13-year-olds are. Wuh," she exhales. "God. Yes, that was not a great time. Girls at 12 are horrid. There were so many intricate social rules that I just could not be bothered to observe. I didn't know that you were supposed to dumb down. But I learned it fast when I made myself so vulnerable to ridicule." After a certain point she just ran away from it to act. "It was such a relief, because I was so ready to borrow Winnie's [Holzman, the creator of My So-Called Life] perfect words and just scream them out: 'Fuck. Y'all.'" She won her first Golden Globe for the series, and YouTube obliges with footage of 15-year-old Danes hunched behind the podium in her spaghetti-strap dress and making an endearingly gauche speech. A year after this, in 1996, she played Juliet to Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo in Baz Luhrmann's blockbuster. Soon after, she turned down the role of Rose in Titanic. Chasing stardom never seems to have been her priority. "I've always wanted to play a woman who drives the story forward, [who] doesn't just facilitate somebody else's story. And you have to be an actor-protagonist in order to do that," she says. "I mean, I also like playing supporting roles, but they have to have some course to take, not just be insipid and attractive." By 1998 the extent of her celebrity was confirmed with a Vogue cover. "Ivy League Star" ran the strapline: this was also the year that she enrolled as an undergraduate at Yale University. Her two years there seem to have satisfied more of a social than an intellectual need. "I was so relieved at college to discover that people became much less awful – they stopped being assholes after a certain point." She majored in psychology and says that if she weren't an actor she'd be a therapist. "Psychology and acting are very closely linked. It's just about studying people and how they work. It can be an incredible discipline and exercise. I haven't been in a while – I haven't really needed to – but I'm glad it's there if I ever do." She first went to therapy when she was six. A fact which, she protests, has been overstated. "I had these imaginary friends who followed me around and made me do things," she says dismissively. "I don't know – I was a little OCD. But it's not that relevant, not that big a deal." Acting doesn't seem like that big a deal to her either. "It's not where I experience my personal catharsis," she says. "It's ridiculous what we do, and I find it endlessly amusing. As a young performer I didn't know that you can have a great time playing someone in terrible crisis. The more you know it's not real, the deeper you can go in to it. And the easier it is to let it go when it's done. It means," she shrugs, "you feel much more entitled to your happiness." Homeland season 2 starts on Channel 4 on Sunday 7 October at 9pm
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