|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Influential paediatricians' group falls short of a complete support for procedure, saying parents should make final call The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) has issued guidelines saying the health benefits of infant circumcision outweigh the risks of the surgery, but the influential physicians' group has fallen short of a universal recommendation of the procedure for all infants, saying parents should make the final call. The change was prompted by scientific evidence that suggests circumcision can reduce the risk of urinary tract infections in infants and cut the risk of penile cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV and the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical and other cancers. The AAP's guidance, published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics comes down in favour of the procedure, saying the health benefits of newborn male circumcision "justify access to this procedure for families who choose it". "We're not saying you have to have it," said Dr Andrew Freedman, a paediatric urologist at Cedars-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles, who chaired the AAP's circumcision task force. "We're saying if a family thinks it is in the child's best interests the benefits are enough to help them do that," he said. Circumcision, the surgical removal of the foreskin of the penis, is a ritual obligation for infant Jewish boys and is also a common rite among Muslims, who account for the largest share of circumcised men worldwide. Other populations including wider US society adopted the practice due to potential health benefits but those advantages have become the subject of debate, including recent efforts to ban circumcision in San Francisco and Germany. Based on a review of more than 1,000 scientific articles, the taskforce said male circumcision does not appear to adversely affect penile sexual function, sensitivity of the penis or sexual satisfaction. The AAP said parents should be given unbiased information about the procedure and be allowed to make the call on their own. But the group did say it was imperative that those performing circumcision are adequately trained, that they used sterile techniques and offered effective pain-relief. Last week, an unnamed doctor in Germany filed charges against a rabbi for performing ritual circumcisions on infant boys, two months after a court in Cologne angered Jews and Muslims by banning the practice. Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, said circumcisions done for religious purposes did not typically involve pain medication but he noted that the procedure was quick and had a long tradition of success. "We've performed it for centuries with no adverse effects to our children," he said. "For us, it is such a critical component of our religious life that an attempt to eradicate it is an attempt to eradicate our religion. To have this happening in Germany, given our history, is particularly saddening to us." In the US, the guidelines may begin to turn the tide on infant circumcision, which has begun to fall in recent years as insurers have balked at paying for a procedure without a strong medical justification. In as many as 18 states the public Medicaid programme has stopped paying for the procedure, a trend some doctors fear could significantly increase US health costs because of increased cases of urinary tract and HIV infections. In a statement issued on Friday in anticipation of the guidelines, the anti-circumcision group Intact America said most of the studies underlying the guidelines were based on research done on adult men in Africa. "The taskforce has failed to consider the large body of evidence from the developed world that shows no medical benefits for the practice, and has given short shrift, if not dismissed out of hand, the serious ethical problems inherent in doctors removing healthy body parts from children who cannot consent," said Georganne Chapin, the group's executive director. Dr Douglas Diekema, a paediatric bioethicist from the Seattle Children's Research Institute and the University of Washington who served on the taskforce, said the group considered a wide range of ethical issues, including pain experienced by the child and whether parents have the right to make the decision without the child's consent. "There is no decision you can make that doesn't potentially put a child at risk. If you choose to circumcise, there is a risk he'll grow up to be a man who wishes he wasn't circumcised," Diekema said. Diekema said waiting until the child was older to make the choice about circumcision would lose much of these early benefits, and because the foreskin was thicker in teenagers the procedure carried more risks. "I really don't think there is an easy answer … [but] we were unanimously agreed that it's inappropriate to do this procedure without adequate pain control. That, in many ways, is one of the biggest ethical issues."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Residents say strong smell of gas and fog-like haze hung in air for days before blast killed dozens at Amuay plant Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, has angrily denied claims that early warning systems at the country's main Amuay oil refinery failed as residents reported there had been a strong smell of gas before Saturday's deadly explosion but no action was taken. Three refining tanks exploded at Venezuela's biggest refinery complex, killing 41 people and injuring more than 80 people in the Opec nation's worst ever oil accident. Officials at the 645,000 barrel-per-day Amuay refinery were on Sunday trying to stop the fire still raging at two storage tanks from spreading to other nearby fuel storage facilities. That would delay Amuay's restart beyond the current estimate of two days. More than 200 homes were reported damaged by the shockwave. Some were across the street from the refinery, which is on a peninsula in the Caribbean Sea in western Venezuela. Puddles of petroleum mixed with water covered roads in the area. The victims from Saturday's blast included 18 national guard troops and 15 civilians; six remained unidentified. On Sunday two of the dozens of people wounded died in hospital, a national guard general told reporters. Chávez, who visited the scene on Sunday, said there were still several people unaccounted for, as well as at least 35 people still in hospital, so the death toll could rise. As fire continued to burn on Sunday the president angrily denied claims that a strong smell of gas experienced by residents in the days preceding the explosion could have indicated a possible failure of the complex's warning system. "What you say you heard suggests something that is practically impossible in an installation of this kind, the largest refinery in the world. It is completely automatised and it has thousands of responsible workers here day and night, civilians and military," Chávez said. "There is no way that there could have been a gas leak during three or four days and that no one did anything." People living close to the refinery have spoken of a dense fog-like cloud descending in the days before the huge explosion, which sent a shockwave tearing through the surrounding area, shattering shops and homes and littering the streets with debris "The smell of gas could be normal close to a refinery, especially on a windless day like Friday, but [this] wasn't," said Mario Theis, who worked as operations manager in the Amuay complex for more than 30 years. "At the first hint of a gas leak sirens should go off and all access roads get closed. It didn't happen." The cause of the blast has yet to be determined but with presidential elections only six weeks away political accusations are flying. Chávez has said that a gas leak that concentrated into a cloud led to the explosion, while the general manager of the Paraguana refining integrated complex comprised of the Amuay and Cardon plants, Jesus Luongo, denied any negligence of maintenance practices. This accident and a large oil spill in the eastern state of Monagas have revived allegations from industry professionals that safety protocols and standard maintenance practices were neglected after a general strike by the company's employees in 2002 led to the firing of more than 20,000 people. According to Gente del Petroleo, an organisation of retired oil executives, since 2003 there have been 79 accidents in the Paraguana refining complex, where 19 workers have died and 67 have been gravely injured. The blast ranks as one of the deadliest oil industry accidents in recent history, approaching the toll of the 1997 fire at Hindustan Petroleum's Visakhapatnam refinery in India that killed 56, and topping the 2005 BP Texas City refinery blast that killed 15 workers. The state-owned PDVSA oil company is not only the lifeline of the country's economy but in recent years has moved away from its core business to operate social and housing projects for the government on a massive scale. "In my time there we knew what the objectives of the oil industry were. Now PDVSA diverts its resources into politicking" said Theis. According to the blogger Miguel Octavio, citing PDVSA's official 2011 annual report, the Amuay refinery was scheduled to undergo nine maintenance shutdowns but only two were conducted because of lack of parts. Chávez, who has called for an extensive investigation into the cause of the explosion, suggested the reporting of the event could be playing into the opposition's political agenda. "I recommend to all those who claim this [lack of maintenance] not to speculate. This all coincides with a line of opinion being generated," he said. On Saturday morning the energy minister, Rafael Ramirez, assured Venezuelans there was enough fuel in store to satisfy domestic demands and that the Amuay refinery would be operating in a maximum of two days. But as the flames rose up in the night sky skeptics worried that what was already deemed a tragedy could worsen. "The situation is not under control. They are waiting for the fuel to extinguish itself but the neighbouring [storage] sphere could very well be heating up," said Alexis Acosta, who had to flee the area because of the damage done to his house by the blast. "The safety valves might not stand the pressure."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Nine years after she was killed protesting in the Gaza Strip, the verdict in a lawsuit brought by her family is about to be heard Her blonde hair, megaphone and orange fluorescent jacket with reflective stripes made 23-year-old Rachel Corrie easily identifiable as an international activist on the overcast spring afternoon in 2003 when she tried to stop an advancing Israeli military bulldozer. The young American's intention was to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in Rafah refugee camp, close to the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Scores of homes had already been crushed; Corrie was one of eight American and British volunteers acting as human shields for local families. "She was standing on top of a pile of earth," said fellow activist and eyewitness Richard Purssell, from Brighton, at the time. "The driver cannot have failed to see her. As the blade pushed the pile, the earth rose up. Rachel slid down the pile. It looks as if her foot got caught. The driver didn't slow down; he just ran over her. Then he reversed the bulldozer back over her again." The question of whether the driver of the Caterpillar D9R bulldozer saw the young woman in the orange jacket, and drove deliberately at and over her, has been at the centre of the Corrie family's decade-long battle for accountability and justice. On Tuesday that struggle is set to culminate when an Israeli court gives its verdict in a civil lawsuit that the family have brought against the state of Israel. An Israeli Defence Forces investigation has already found that its forces were not to blame and that the bulldozer driver had not seen the activist. No charges were brought and the case was closed. The IDF report concluded: "Rachel Corrie was not run over by an engineering vehicle but rather was struck by a hard object, most probably a slab of concrete which was moved or slid down while the mound of earth which she was standing behind was moved." Corrie and other International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists were accused by the investigators of "illegal, irresponsible and dangerous" behaviour. But witness accounts gathered in Rafah in the aftermath of Corrie's death on 16 March 2003 suggest little doubt as to what happened. According to Tom Dale, from Lichfield in Staffordshire: "the bulldozer went towards her very slowly, she was fully in clear view, straight in front of them". Corrie tried to scramble on top of the earth being pushed into a mound by the bulldozer blades. "Unfortunately she couldn't keep her grip there and she started to slip down. You could see she was in serious trouble, there was panic in her face as she was turning around. All the activists there were screaming, running towards the bulldozer, trying to get them to stop. But they just kept on going," Dale said. The incident lasted around six or seven seconds. Corrie was taken by a Red Crescent ambulance to the Najar hospital, arriving at the emergency room at 5.05pm. She was still alive – just. At 5.20pm she was declared dead. It was, the Israeli military said later that day, a "very regrettable accident". Rachel Corrie had arrived in the Holy Land on January 22, a young woman brimming with idealism, anger at injustice, and a determination to make a difference, however small. She had volunteered for the ISM, an organisation of pro-Palestinian activists who engage in direct action against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. After two days of training workshops, Corrie headed for Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. In early 2003, Israeli troops, tanks and armoured vehicles were a daily presence in Rafah and other cities. Snipers were stationed in watchtowers; helicopters and military planes buzzed in the skies. The second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, had begun more than two years before, and suicide bombers were being regularly despatched from Gaza and the West Bank to cause death and destruction in Israel. Death and destruction was also a feature of life in Gaza. Corrie was shocked by what she saw. "No amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just cannot imagine it unless you see it," she wrote in one of her many emails to family and friends at home in Olympia, Washington state, on 7 February. Three weeks later, she told her mother, Cindy, in an email: "I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it's a good idea for all of us to drop everything and devote our lives to making it stop... Disbelief and horror is what I feel." Corrie and other ISM activists in Rafah were mainly engaged in trying to obstruct house demolitions being carried out by the IDF, which said the targeted homes were suspected of sheltering militants or concealing the entrances to tunnels dug under the border with Egypt to facilitate the smuggling of weapons and explosives. The activists said the demolitions were collective punishment for the actions of a minority of militants. The presence of international activists was a nuisance for the IDF, but the military was not to be deterred. "During war there are no civilians," an IDF training officer later told Haifa district court during a hearing into the Corrie family's civil lawsuit, implying that militants, Palestinian civilians and international activists were all legitimate targets. A Israeli military spokesman described ISM activists as "a group of protesters who were acting very irresponsibly, putting everyone in danger — the Palestinians, themselves and our forces — by intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone." But Corrie's death caused an outcry far greater than that of any Palestinian. According to the Observer, nine Palestinians, including a girl, 4, and 90-year-old man, were killed on the same day. But inevitably the death of young American woman made headlines around the world and caused serious diplomatic reverberations. The next day, Israel's then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, promised US president George W Bush that Israel would conduct a "thorough, credible and transparent" investigation into the incident. Corrie's body was taken by the Israeli authorities to the National Centre of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, where an autopsy was conducted. No report was published but, according to Human Rights Watch, the conclusion was that death was caused by "pressure on the chest ... with fractures of the ribs and vertebrae ... and tear wounds in the right lung with haemorrhaging of the pleural cavities". The Corrie family was not satisfied with the IDF report. Seven years after their daughter's death, in March 2010, they launched a civil case against the state of Israel, accusing its military of either unlawfully or intentionally killing Corrie or of gross negligence. It was, said the family, "absolutely our last resort". Sporadic hearings dragged on for 18 months. The court heard testimony from four ISM activists who witnessed the incident, but a Gaza doctor who examined Corrie's wounds was refused an entry permit to Israel to give evidence. The driver of the bulldozer, whose identity has not been made public, testified from behind a screen for "security reasons". He repeatedly insisted that the first time he saw the activist was when she was already dying: "I didn't see her before the incident. I saw people pulling the body out from under the earth." When the hearings ended in July last year, Corrie's mother Cindy said the family was "at this moment in much the same place as we were when they began – up against a wall of Israeli officials determined to protect the state at all costs, including at the expense of truth." Last week, back in Israel for the verdict in the civil lawsuit, Cindy told the Guardian the ruling would be "a milestone" in the family's long battle for justice and accountability. "The lawsuit is only one part of what we've done. There has still been no 'thorough, credible and transparent' investigation into Rachel's death. Whatever happens, this is not the end."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Multiple states under threat of substantial damage as hurricane warning issued for northern Gulf of Mexico coast Millions of residents in four vulnerable Gulf Coast states were bracing for the arrival of a powerful tropical storm that has already claimed several lives on its path through the Caribbean. The governor of Florida, Rick Scott, declared a state of emergency ahead of tropical storm Isaac's expected landfall Sunday night in the Florida Keys, with the storm then expected to intensify into a 105mph hurricane as it moves north into the Gulf of Mexico and towards the Alabama-Mississippi-Louisiana coastline. But with tropical storm-force winds extending up to 200 miles from Isaac's centre, the area under threat for moderate to substantial damage covered much of southern and western Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Louisiana. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center have issued a hurricane warning for the northern Gulf of Mexico coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, but said it was too soon to predict where Isaac, blamed for at least six deaths in Haiti, would make its second landfall, probably in the early hours of Wednesday. The current predicted track, subject to a wide margin of error, points the eye of the storm close to Biloxi, Mississippi, with a hurricane watch posted along the coast for hundreds of miles in either direction. "Waters along the forecast track are very warm and upper level winds are forecast by the global models to become conducive to strengthening," said Dr Michael Brennan, a senior hurricane centre expert. "It's important not to focus on the exact forecast track since significant hazards extend well away from the centre." Scott cancelled his appearance at tomorrow's Republican national convention in Tampa to concentrate on storm preparations, shortly before event organisers announced that the first day and a half would be shelved anyway to allow the storm to pass. "This is a state that has dealt with hurricanes forever. We are a state [where] we know we have to get prepared for hurricanes," Scott said. No mandatory evacuation of the Florida Keys was ordered, but a steady stream of traffic was building on Highway 1 towards the mainland late on Saturday and early today as conditions began to worsen. The storm has already contributed to two deaths on the roads, Florida Highway Patrol reported, with a crash on the Florida turnpike near Miami blamed on conditions. Many businesses were boarded up in Key West at the tip of the 150-mile island chain, and emergency managers called for all visitors to leave. By mid-morning Sunday, the Keys were being lashed by torrential rain and wind gusts in excess of 60mph as Isaac's outer bands closed in. Further east, thousands of families in Miami and surrounding towns lost power, still several hours ahead of the worst expected conditions. Florida Power and Light, the state's largest electricity provider, amassed a large fleet of vehicles and put more than 8,000 engineers on standby to move into affected areas and restore power once conditions allowed. "We've seen a gradual increase in thunderstorm activity," said Dr Rick Knabb, director of the hurricane centre. "People should stay indoors. We've lost lives in previous tropical storms when people have been out and about in their cars." Commanders at the naval air station in Pensacola, Florida, began moving more than 100 aircrafts to safety Sunday morning while long queues formed at DIY stores and supermarkets in southern Alabama and Mississippi as residents stocked up on supplies. Among the six deaths reported so far by the Red Cross in Haiti were an eight-year-old girl and a 10-year-old girl killed when a wall fell onto her. The aid agency said that although the centre of the storm had passed, the country was still being drenched with rain. Almost 14,000 people, mostly those still living in tents since the devastation of the 2010 earthquake, were evacuated to emergency shelters. "The west and south-eastern departments are the most affected by the storm, causing the deaths of at least two persons and damaging bridges, roads and canals," United Nations spokeswoman Eliana Nebaa said in a statement. "The storm is also responsible for flooding, high water areas, and damages to tents and tarps in some camps." Several people were also reported missing in the Dominican Republic following Isaac's crossing on Saturday.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WikiLeaks founder has been living in Ecuador's London embassy for more than two months Britain says it remains committed to reaching a diplomatic solution to the presence of Julian Assange in Ecuador's London embassy, after both countries took steps to defuse a row over his action in taking refuge. The WikiLeaks founder has been living in the embassy's cramped quarters for more than two months in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, said on Saturday that Britain had withdrawn a threat to enter the embassy to arrest Assange, to whom Ecuador has granted asylum, and that he now considered the "unfortunate incident" over. Correa was responding to a British assurance that it was not threatening the embassy and that Britain was committed to the Vienna Convention, which protects the inviolability of diplomatic premises. "We remain committed to the process of dialogue we have entered into and we want that to resume with the government of Ecuador," a British Foreign Office spokeswoman said. There was a furious reaction in Ecuador when the UK said that an obscure domestic law allowed it, under extreme circumstances, to remove the embassy's diplomatic status, exposing Assange to immediate arrest by police. Ecuador accused Britain of planning to storm the embassy and demanded it withdraw the threat. Britain said it had not meant to threaten Ecuador, a plea that fell on deaf ears, prompting it to send Ecuador a formal communication on Thursday confirming that the embassy was safe. The communication was copied to diplomats at a meeting on Friday of the Organisation of American States (OAS) in Washington, which discussed the spat. A British diplomat attending the meeting invited Ecuador to resume "constructive discussions" on Assange, the Foreign Office said. "We believe that our two countries should be able to find a diplomatic solution," the diplomat added, according to a transcript issued by the Foreign Office. Britain says it is determined to fulfil a legal obligation to send Assange to Sweden. Correa responded to the British diplomatic approach by saying in a weekly media address on Saturday: "We consider this unfortunate incident over, after a grave diplomatic error by the British in which they said they would enter our embassy." The OAS had condemned the British threat, and South American foreign ministers backed Correa's position that Britain's warning was unacceptable and could set a dangerous precedent. Correa says he shares Assange's fears that if handed over to Sweden, he might be extradited to the United States to face charges over WikiLeaks' 2010 publication of US cables. US and European government sources say the United States has issued no criminal charges against the WikiLeaks founder and has made no attempt to extradite him.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Reports in local media that messages signed by Knights Templar drugs cartel discovered alongside bodies Eleven corpses showing signs of torture and execution-style gunshot wounds were found in south-western Mexico on Sunday, according to local authorities. Ricardo Monreal, an official with the Guerrero state prosecutor's office, said the bodies were recovered in three different locations along the costal road north-west of the Pacific resort city of Acapulco. He declined to confirm which cartel was believed to be responsible for the deaths, but local media reported that two "narco messages" signed by the Knights Templar cartel were found alongside the bodies. The cartel, based in Michoacan state north of Guerrero, is the most bizarre cult-like group to have emerged since President Felipe Calderón declared war against Mexico's drug cartels in 2006. The conflict has triggered a series of turf wars that have claimed more than 55,000 lives. Propaganda from the Knights Templar blends a mix of Michoacan regionalism, Christianity and revolutionary slogans. It is one of the biggest traffickers of crystal meth to the United States and has an army of about 1,200 gunmen, according to a report by Mexico's military intelligence. It is blamed for the worst attack on a multinational company in Mexico in recent years. In May, assailants torched more than 30 trucks and two Michoacan warehouses belonging to PepsiCo's Sabritas, a leading potato chip brand.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ohio trial to begin Monday against group leader Samuel Mullet Senior on charges of hate crimes against Amish members Sixteen members of a breakaway Amish group accused of hair-cutting attacks against members of their own faith in Ohio are set to go on trial this week in Cleveland. The group's leader and several family members are among those charged with hate crimes in what prosecutors say were attacks motivated by religious differences. They could face prison terms of 20 years or more if convicted. The community split from another Amish settlement in Ohio nearly two decades ago following a dispute over religious differences. Those charged include the group's leader Samuel Mullet Sr. Authorities claim that as the head of the splinter faith group, he allowed beatings of those who disobeyed him, had sex with married women to "cleanse them", and then, last fall, instructed his followers to cut the beards and hair of his critics, an act considered deeply offensive in Amish culture. He, alongside nine other men and six women, are due to stand trial from Monday on charges of hate crimes in the hair-cutting attacks. Other charges include conspiracy, evidence tampering and obstruction of justice. The defendants including four of Mullet's children, his son-in-law and three nephews say the government shouldn't intrude on what they call internal church disciplinary matters not involving anti-Amish bias. They've denied the charges and rejected plea bargain offers carrying sentences of two to three years in prison. Mullet has said he didn't order the hair-cutting but didn't stop anyone from carrying it out. He also has defended what he thinks is his right to punish people who break church laws. "You have your laws on the road and the town if somebody doesn't obey them, you punish them. But I'm not allowed to punish the church people?" Mullet told the Associated Press last October. "I just let them run over me? If every family would just do as they pleased, what kind of church would we have?" The tactics Mullet is accused of violates basic principles of the Amish who value non-violence and forgiveness even when churches break apart. "Retribution, retaliation, the use of force; that's almost unheard of," said Thomas J Meyers, a sociology professor at Goshen College in Indiana. Schisms within the church, which has no central authority, go back centuries and have created a range of Amish churches with varying rules and beliefs. The Amish famously broke away from the Mennonites in 1693 over the practice of shunning church members. Another group known as the Beachy Amish formed in 1927 and soon began allowing the use of electricity and automobiles. There are a dozen groups living in Ohio's Holmes County alone, home to one of the nation's largest Amish settlements, said David McConnell, an anthropology professor at Wooster College. The number has grown as churches struggle over where to draw the line on allowing modern technology into their simple, modest lifestyle. Those decisions often revolve around dealing with young people and those who have been forced out of the church, he said. Matthew Schrock, who left Holmes County's Amish community during the mid-1990s, said religious disputes were common and often took an emotional toll even on those not directly involved. "When there are conflicts and you find yourself outside the accepted set, it's a very difficult place to be," he said. Mullet relocated the members of his group in 1995 to a hilly area near the West Virginia panhandle where they live on farms along a gravel road. The 66-year-old, who has fathered at least 17 children, has denied characterizations from authorities that his group is a cult. The hair-cuttings, he said last fall, were a response to continuous criticism he'd received from other Amish religious leaders about his being too strict, including excommunicating and shunning people in his own group. The Amish believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry. In one of the attacks, authorities say, one couple acknowledged that their two sons and another man came into their house, held them down, and cut the father's beard and the mother's hair. They refused to press charges.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ohio trial to begin Monday against group leader Samuel Mullet Senior on charges of hate crimes against Amish members Sixteen members of a breakaway Amish group accused of hair-cutting attacks against members of their own faith in Ohio are set to go on trial this week in Cleveland. The group's leader and several family members are among those charged with hate crimes in what prosecutors say were attacks motivated by religious differences. They could face prison terms of 20 years or more if convicted. The community split from another Amish settlement in Ohio nearly two decades ago following a dispute over religious differences. Those charged include the group's leader Samuel Mullet Sr. Authorities claim that as the head of the splinter faith group, he allowed beatings of those who disobeyed him, had sex with married women to "cleanse them", and then, last fall, instructed his followers to cut the beards and hair of his critics, an act considered deeply offensive in Amish culture. He, alongside nine other men and six women, are due to stand trial from Monday on charges of hate crimes in the hair-cutting attacks. Other charges include conspiracy, evidence tampering and obstruction of justice. The defendants including four of Mullet's children, his son-in-law and three nephews say the government shouldn't intrude on what they call internal church disciplinary matters not involving anti-Amish bias. They've denied the charges and rejected plea bargain offers carrying sentences of two to three years in prison. Mullet has said he didn't order the hair-cutting but didn't stop anyone from carrying it out. He also has defended what he thinks is his right to punish people who break church laws. "You have your laws on the road and the town if somebody doesn't obey them, you punish them. But I'm not allowed to punish the church people?" Mullet told the Associated Press last October. "I just let them run over me? If every family would just do as they pleased, what kind of church would we have?" The tactics Mullet is accused of violates basic principles of the Amish who value non-violence and forgiveness even when churches break apart. "Retribution, retaliation, the use of force; that's almost unheard of," said Thomas J Meyers, a sociology professor at Goshen College in Indiana. Schisms within the church, which has no central authority, go back centuries and have created a range of Amish churches with varying rules and beliefs. The Amish famously broke away from the Mennonites in 1693 over the practice of shunning church members. Another group known as the Beachy Amish formed in 1927 and soon began allowing the use of electricity and automobiles. There are a dozen groups living in Ohio's Holmes County alone, home to one of the nation's largest Amish settlements, said David McConnell, an anthropology professor at Wooster College. The number has grown as churches struggle over where to draw the line on allowing modern technology into their simple, modest lifestyle. Those decisions often revolve around dealing with young people and those who have been forced out of the church, he said. Matthew Schrock, who left Holmes County's Amish community during the mid-1990s, said religious disputes were common and often took an emotional toll even on those not directly involved. "When there are conflicts and you find yourself outside the accepted set, it's a very difficult place to be," he said. Mullet relocated the members of his group in 1995 to a hilly area near the West Virginia panhandle where they live on farms along a gravel road. The 66-year-old, who has fathered at least 17 children, has denied characterizations from authorities that his group is a cult. The hair-cuttings, he said last fall, were a response to continuous criticism he'd received from other Amish religious leaders about his being too strict, including excommunicating and shunning people in his own group. The Amish believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry. In one of the attacks, authorities say, one couple acknowledged that their two sons and another man came into their house, held them down, and cut the father's beard and the mother's hair. They refused to press charges.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | At least 200 dead in poor Sunni community on outskirts of capital targeted by President Bashar al-Assad's troops The Syrian civil war reached new heights of brutality on Sunday with government troops accused of massacring civilians a few miles from Damascus on a weekend which saw one of the worst reported death tolls in 17 months of conflict. Opposition groups claimed more than 200 bodies had been found in Daraya, a poor Sunni community on the south-west outskirts of the capital, after Syrian troops had stormed the town on Saturday, going door to door in what President Bashar al-Assad's regime described as a counter-terrorism operation. Opposition and human rights activists claimed many of the dead were civilians. A New York Times employee in Daraya reported seeing "scores of bodies lined up on top of each other in long thin graves moist with mud". The paper quoted a 40-year-old resident, Abu Ahmad, as saying: "The Assad forces killed them in cold blood … I saw dozens of dead people, killed by the knives at the end of Kalashnikovs, or by gunfire. The regime finished off whole families, a father, mother and their children. They just killed them without any pretext." The claimed death toll could not be independently verified, but if confirmed, it would be the worst single massacre of the civil war. With the world's major powers still divided on how to respond to the bloodletting, Syria's neighbours took urgent steps to try to stop the violence spreading on to their territory. Turkey temporarily closed its borders to refugees, trapping 2,000 people trying to flee the conflict on the Syrian side of the frontier, until shelters could be built to accommodate them. Jordan appealed for more international aid for looking after more than 160,000 Syrian refugees, who it said were arriving at the rate of 2,000 a day. The spillover into Lebanon was being held back by a fragile ceasefire in the port city of Tripoli, where Sunni-Shia clashes broke out as a result of the abduction of Lebanese pilgrims by an anti-government militia in Syria, evoking uneasy memories of Lebanon's own long civil war. Egypt called for a regional peace conference, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both supporters of the Syrian rebels, as well as Assad's main ally in the Middle East, Iran. Anxiety over the risks of a regional conflagration deepened further as it became clear that the violence in Syria was intensifying, with more civilians killed. The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), an opposition network, claimed that more than 200 bodies had been found in Daraya, and activists circulated a video appearing to show dozens of bodies lined up in dimly lit rooms, described in the commentary as being in the town's Abu Suleiman al-Durani mosque. The government, which has rejected previous allegations of atrocities, portrayed the attack as a counter-terrorism operation. "Our heroic armed forces cleansed Daraya from remnants of armed terrorist groups," the state news agency said. The junior foreign minister responsible for the Middle East, Alistair Burt, said that if the reports were verified "it would be an atrocity on a new scale, requiring unequivocal condemnation from the entire international community". The storming of Daraya followed three days of heavy bombardment by government tanks and artillery, which the opposition said killed another 70 people. The offensive appeared to be part of a larger struggle for control of the southern fringe of the capital. Residents said that government tanks on the Damascus ring-road shelled the neighbourhoods of al-Lawwan and Nahr Aisheh late into Saturday night and that there was also heavy fighting in the Ghouta suburbs to the east of the city. The LCC said forces loyal to Assad had killed 440 people across Syria on Saturday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based activist group drawing information from a network of monitors across Syria, put the nationwide death toll for the day at 370, including 174 civilians. If confirmed, it would be one of the bloodiest days the country has suffered since the anti-Assad revolt broke out in March 2011. It was impossible to verify such claims because of severe Syrian government restrictions on independent or foreign media coverage. A United Nations report this month into an earlier massacre at Houla found that the indiscriminate attacks against civilian populations and other atrocities were "state policy" and claimed Assad's forces and allied Shabiha militia were involved at the highest levels in "gross violation of international human rights". The UN inquiry found that anti-Assad forces had also committed war crimes including "murder, extrajudicial execution and torture" but that these abuses "did not reach the gravity, frequency and scale of those committed by government forces and the Shabiha". A new Amnesty International report on the fighting in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, also found that "the overwhelming majority of victims were killed in air strikes and artillery attacks by government forces", but it criticised rebels for using imprecise or indiscriminate weapons like mortars and home-made rockets. Activists in Daraya alleged that most of the victims had been summarily executed by government troops moving from house to house. "Assad's army has committed a massacre in Daraya," Abu Kinan, an activist in the town, told Reuters news agency by telephone, using an alias to protect himself from reprisals. "In the last hour, 122 bodies were discovered and it appears that two dozen died from sniper fire and the rest were summarily executed by gunshots from close range," he said. The activist said he witnessed the death of an eight-year-old girl, Asma Abu al-Laban, shot by army snipers while she was in a car with her parents. "They were trying to flee the army raids. Three bullets hit her in the back and her parents brought her to a makeshift hospital. Nothing could be done for her," he said. A thorough investigation of atrocity claims can only be carried out by the international criminal court in the The Hague if it is given a mandate by the UN security council, but that has been blocked by Russia, the Assad regime's principal backer and arms supplier, together with China. Moscow and Beijing have also vetoed resolutions threatening Assad with sanctions for non-compliance with a peace plan backed by the UN and the Arab League. The last UN monitors in Damascus left earlier this month when the security council failed to agree on a new mandate for them. Western officials say they have largely given up on security council diplomacy and are stepping up their assistance to the fragmented opposition, though they say that assistance stops short of weapons. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are reported to be shipping arms to rebel groups, however, as the conflict continues to escalate. Egypt became the latest country to offer its services as a peace broker, calling for a regional conference on the crisis, aimed at bridging the Sunni-Shia divide. The new Egyptian president, Mohammad Mursi, is due in Tehran for a meeting of more than 120 countries in the Non-Aligned Movement this week. He will be the first Egyptian leader to visit Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. While Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have all backed the mainly Sunni Free Syria Army rebels, Iran's Revolutionary Guard forces have fought alongside Assad's forces. Syria's vice president Farouq al-Sharaa met an Iranian delegation on Sunday, according to Syria's state news agency, marking his first appearance in several weeks. It put an end to opposition rumours that he had defected. In the increasingly daunting search for a diplomatic solution, the UN and Arab League have appointed a new special envoy, a veteran Algerian diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi, after the resignation of the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. On Friday, Brahimi declared himself "honoured, flattered, humbled and scared" to be given the job. Escalating violenceFebruary 1-8 More than 100 killed in shelling of Homs March 17 Bombs in Damascus kill more than 30 April 25 Dozens killed in rocket strike on the city of Hama, central Syria May 10 At least 50 die in bomb attacks at intelligence building in Damascus May 25 More than 100 people, including children, killed in Houla, western Syria June 6 Around 80 people killed at Qubair, near Houla July 13 Dozens of people killed in the village of Tremseh July 18 Suicide bomber kills senior defence and security officials in Damascus August 25 Regime accused of killing 200 at Daraya in suburban Damascus
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | At least 200 dead in poor Sunni community on outskirts of capital city targeted by President Bashar al-Assad's troops The Syrian civil war reached new heights of brutality on Sunday with government troops accused of massacring civilians a few miles from Damascus on a weekend which saw one of the worst reported death tolls in 17 months of conflict. Opposition groups claimed more than 200 bodies had been found in Daraya, a poor Sunni community on the south-west outskirts of the capital, after Syrian troops had stormed the town on Saturday, going door to door in what President Bashar al-Assad's regime described as a counter-terrorism operation. Opposition and human rights activists claimed many of the dead were civilians. A New York Times employee in Daraya reported seeing "scores of bodies lined up on top of each other in long thin graves moist with mud". The paper quoted a 40-year-old resident, Abu Ahmad, as saying: "The Assad forces killed them in cold blood … I saw dozens of dead people, killed by the knives at the end of Kalashnikovs, or by gunfire. The regime finished off whole families, a father, mother and their children. They just killed them without any pretext." The claimed death toll could not be independently verified, but if confirmed, it would be the worst single massacre of the civil war. With the world's major powers still divided on how to respond to the bloodletting, Syria's neighbours took urgent steps to try to stop the violence spreading on to their territory. Turkey temporarily closed its borders to refugees, trapping 2,000 people trying to flee the conflict on the Syrian side of the frontier, until shelters could be built to accommodate them. Jordan appealed for more international aid for looking after more than 160,000 Syrian refugees, who it said were arriving at the rate of 2,000 a day. The spillover into Lebanon was being held back by a fragile ceasefire in the port city of Tripoli, where Sunni-Shia clashes broke out as a result of the abduction of Lebanese pilgrims by an anti-government militia in Syria, evoking uneasy memories of Lebanon's own long civil war. Egypt called for a regional peace conference, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both supporters of the Syrian rebels, as well as Assad's main ally in the Middle East, Iran. Anxiety over the risks of a regional conflagration deepened further as it became clear that the violence in Syria was intensifying, with more civilians killed. The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), an opposition network, claimed that more than 200 bodies had been found in Daraya, and activists circulated a video appearing to show dozens of bodies lined up in dimly lit rooms, described in the commentary as being in the town's Abu Suleiman al-Durani mosque. The government, which has rejected previous allegations of atrocities, portrayed the attack as a counter-terrorism operation. "Our heroic armed forces cleansed Daraya from remnants of armed terrorist groups," the state news agency said. The junior foreign minister responsible for the Middle East, Alistair Burt, said that if the reports were verified "it would be an atrocity on a new scale, requiring unequivocal condemnation from the entire international community". The storming of Daraya followed three days of heavy bombardment by government tanks and artillery, which the opposition said killed another 70 people. The offensive appeared to be part of a larger struggle for control of the southern fringe of the capital. Residents said that government tanks on the Damascus ring-road shelled the neighbourhoods of al-Lawwan and Nahr Aisheh late into Saturday night and that there was also heavy fighting in the Ghouta suburbs to the east of the city. The LCC said forces loyal to Assad had killed 440 people across Syria on Saturday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based activist group drawing information from a network of monitors across Syria, put the nationwide death toll for the day at 370, including 174 civilians. If confirmed, it would be one of the bloodiest days the country has suffered since the anti-Assad revolt broke out in March 2011. It was impossible to verify such claims because of severe Syrian government restrictions on independent or foreign media coverage. A United Nations report this month into an earlier massacre at Houla found that the indiscriminate attacks against civilian populations and other atrocities were "state policy" and claimed Assad's forces and allied Shabiha militia were involved at the highest levels in "gross violation of international human rights". The UN inquiry found that anti-Assad forces had also committed war crimes including "murder, extrajudicial execution and torture" but that these abuses "did not reach the gravity, frequency and scale of those committed by government forces and the Shabiha". A new Amnesty International report on the fighting in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, also found that "the overwhelming majority of victims were killed in air strikes and artillery attacks by government forces", but it criticised rebels for using imprecise or indiscriminate weapons like mortars and home-made rockets. Activists in Daraya alleged that most of the victims had been summarily executed by government troops moving from house to house. "Assad's army has committed a massacre in Daraya," Abu Kinan, an activist in the town, told Reuters news agency by telephone, using an alias to protect himself from reprisals. "In the last hour, 122 bodies were discovered and it appears that two dozen died from sniper fire and the rest were summarily executed by gunshots from close range," he said. The activist said he witnessed the death of an eight-year-old girl, Asma Abu al-Laban, shot by army snipers while she was in a car with her parents. "They were trying to flee the army raids. Three bullets hit her in the back and her parents brought her to a makeshift hospital. Nothing could be done for her," he said. A thorough investigation of atrocity claims can only be carried out by the international criminal court in the The Hague if it is given a mandate by the UN security council, but that has been blocked by Russia, the Assad regime's principal backer and arms supplier, together with China. Moscow and Beijing have also vetoed resolutions threatening Assad with sanctions for non-compliance with a peace plan backed by the UN and the Arab League. The last UN monitors in Damascus left earlier this month when the security council failed to agree on a new mandate for them. Western officials say they have largely given up on security council diplomacy and are stepping up their assistance to the fragmented opposition, though they say that assistance stops short of weapons. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are reported to be shipping arms to rebel groups, however, as the conflict continues to escalate. Egypt became the latest country to offer its services as a peace broker, calling for a regional conference on the crisis, aimed at bridging the Sunni-Shia divide. The new Egyptian president, Mohammad Mursi, is due in Tehran for a meeting of more than 120 countries in the Non-Aligned Movement this week. He will be the first Egyptian leader to visit Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. While Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have all backed the mainly Sunni Free Syria Army rebels, Iran's Revolutionary Guard forces have fought alongside Assad's forces. Syria's vice president Farouq al-Sharaa met an Iranian delegation on Sunday, according to Syria's state news agency, marking his first appearance in several weeks. It put an end to opposition rumours that he had defected. In the increasingly daunting search for a diplomatic solution, the UN and Arab League have appointed a new special envoy, a veteran Algerian diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi, after the resignation of the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. On Friday, Brahimi declared himself "honoured, flattered, humbled and scared" to be given the job. Escalating violenceFebruary 1-8 More than 100 killed in shelling of Homs March 17 Bombs in Damascus kill more than 30 April 25 Dozens killed in rocket strike on the city of Hama, central Syria May 10 At least 50 die in bomb attacks at intelligence building in Damascus May 25 More than 100 people, including children, killed in Houla, western Syria June 6 Around 80 people killed at Qubair, near Houla July 13 Dozens of people killed in the village of Tremseh July 18 Suicide bomber kills senior defence and security officials in Damascus August 25 Regime accused of killing 200 at Daraya in suburban Damascus
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Water scarcity's effect on food production means radical steps will be needed to feed population expected to reach 9bn by 2050 Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages. Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world's leading water scientists. "There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations," the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said. "There will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories and considerable regional water deficits can be met by a … reliable system of food trade." Dire warnings of water scarcity limiting food production come as Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Prices for staples such as corn and wheat have risen nearly 50% on international markets since June, triggered by severe droughts in the US and Russia, and weak monsoon rains in Asia. More than 18 million people are already facing serious food shortages across the Sahel. Oxfam has forecast that the price spike will have a devastating impact in developing countries that rely heavily on food imports, including parts of Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East. Food shortages in 2008 led to civil unrest in 28 countries. Adopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in an increasingly climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to 10 times more water than a vegetarian diet. One third of the world's arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals. Other options to feed people include eliminating waste and increasing trade between countries in food surplus and those in deficit. "Nine hundred million people already go hungry and 2 billion people are malnourished in spite of the fact that per capita food production continues to increase," they said. "With 70% of all available water being in agriculture, growing more food to feed an additional 2 billion people by 2050 will place greater pressure on available water and land." The report is being released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where 2,500 politicians, UN bodies, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries meet to address global water supply problems. Competition for water between food production and other uses will intensify pressure on essential resources, the scientists said. "The UN predicts that we must increase food production by 70% by mid-century. This will place additional pressure on our already stressed water resources, at a time when we also need to allocate more water to satisfy global energy demand – which is expected to rise 60% over the coming 30 years – and to generate electricity for the 1.3 billion people currently without it," said the report. Overeating, undernourishment and waste are all on the rise and increased food production may face future constraints from water scarcity. "We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future," said the report's editor, Anders Jägerskog. A separate report from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) said the best way for countries to protect millions of farmers from food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia was to help them invest in small pumps and simple technology, rather than to develop expensive, large-scale irrigation projects. "We've witnessed again and again what happens to the world's poor – the majority of whom depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and already suffer from water scarcity – when they are at the mercy of our fragile global food system," said Dr Colin Chartres, the director general. "Farmers across the developing world are increasingly relying on and benefiting from small-scale, locally-relevant water solutions. [These] techniques could increase yields up to 300% and add tens of billions of US dollars to household revenues across sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Martin Skrtel scored one, and gifted City another, as the teams shared the spoils after an entertaining match at Anfield The last time Manchester City were the reigning champions of England, they started their title defence at Anfield. The opening day of the season didn't go too well for them. Liverpool captain Ron Yeats set the tone. Instead of running out and pelting the ball into the net at the Kop end, he slowly led his team out towards the centre circle - think David Sole before the Calcutta Cup in 1990 - and lined them up to bask in the crowd's acclaim. "By the time City arrived in working gear," reported Eric Todd in the Guardian, "the Kop was on the boil, and not only because of the weather." Bill Shankly's side set about Joe Mercer's men in robust fashion. Tommy Smith committed a "monstrous" foul on Mike Summerbee, who along with Colin Bell and Glyn Pardoe were kicked around like old socks. City actually took an early lead, through Neil Young, but Bobby Graham soon equalised, Peter Thompson finished off a Swansealona combination between Emlyn Hughes and Ian St John on 72 minutes, and City had no response. "We are the champions!" chanted the away contingent. "You won't be champions any more!" replied the Kop. Todd concluded that "City were made to realise ... as champions they must expect to work twice as hard as they did when they were ordinary mortals". The message applies today as it did then. It's 1968 revisited: City travel to Anfield early in their title defence to face a Liverpool side very much in transition. They're favourites to win this match, having won their last seven league games on the bounce, while Brendan Rodgers' side were belted 3-0 at West Brom on the opening day - and are currently bottom of the division. Having said all that, City have only won once here since embarrassing Bruce Grobbelaar on Boxing Day 1981, a smash-and-grab by Nicolas Anelka against the run of play in 2003. Before those wins, we go back to 1953. Also, despite being the champs and the best side in the land, City are still City - it's part of their charm - and as such, you never quite know how they're going to go about things. Witness their shambolic brilliance against Southampton this time last week. Or, hell, the way they won the title back in May. So, then, the jittery Anfield Artisans, an aesthetic work in progress, versus the unpredictable geniuses of Manchester City. It could be a cracker. It could be a dire 0-0, too, I'm promising nowt. But it kicks off at 4pm. Liverpool, who go with the exciting 17-year-old Raheem Sterling: Reina, Kelly, Johnson, Coates, Skrtel, Lucas, Allen, Gerrard, Borini, Suarez, Sterling.
Subs: Jones, Jose Enrique, Carroll, Henderson, Carragher, Shelvey, Downing. Manchester City, with no notable weak points, unless you count substitute Stefan Savic, who had a shocker at Anfield in the Carling Cup back in January, but you can't really do that: Hart, Zabaleta, Kolo Toure, Kompany, Kolarov, Milner, Yaya Toure, de Jong, Nasri, Tevez, Balotelli.
Subs: Pantillmon, Lescott, Savic, Rodwell, Razak, Silva, Dzeko. Referee: Andre Marriner (W Midlands) The teams are out! Liverpool are very red these days. Very red. The yellow splashes - the badge, the sponsor - give their kit a very 1970s feel. A 1970s burger joint, that is. City are kitted out in a crisp take on their traditional garb too: powder blue shirts, white shorts, three stars now above their badge. (I thought the two stars were meant to be purely decorative? Ah well, whatever.) A classic aesthetic to proceedings today. "Bill Shankly looms rather ominously over Brendan Rodgers' shoulder in your picture," notes Simon McMahon, who isn't about to let any cheap symbolism slide by. "I wonder what he's thinking? Ed Miliband, what have you done, perhaps?" I'm sure he'd have one or two words to the young Labour leader re: jiggering his beloved socialism, aye. I'm sure he'd approve of Mr Sahin, though. A cracking atmosphere at Anfield today. You'll Never Walk Alone blasts from the speakers, then a warm round of applause as the teams prepare to start the match. Liverpool will kick off - playing towards the Kop in the first half. They've obviously lost the toss, then. And we're off! A bit of skittering about, and then on 29 seconds Steven Gerrard takes his first flay towards the Kop of the season. It's a low shank, well wide left. A fast start, though. 2 min: Tevez drops a shoulder and tries to make himself a bit of space down the right. There's not a lot for him to work with, but he gets the ball into the area, where it's immediately hoicked upfield. 3 min: Johnson, cutting in from the left at pace, is tackled 25 yards out by Kompany. The ball breaks to Gerrard, who sends another low fizzer goalwards, but again accuracy's not his friend. 5 min: Poor old Lucas, who was injured for such a large chunk of last season, is jiggered again. He's got something wrong with his right thigh, if the way he's pulling his shorts up is anything to go by. He walks off, straight down the tunnel, in some pain and with no little unhappiness. Shelvey comes on in his wake. 6 min: It's got a nice, open, end-to-end feel, this game. Sterling goes on a sortie down the left, but ends up down a blind alley. Then Balotelli powers down the inside-right, but can't quite get the ball inside to Tevez, Skrtel getting in his way. Ninety minutes of this should produce a goal or two, one would hope. 9 min: Balotelli spins round Skrtel and looks to charge off down the inside-right channel. Skrtel drags him down. Coates is over to cover, so there's no worry of a red card, but you'd expect the defender to be booked. The referee shows leniency. Skrtel can count himself lucky there. The resulting free kick, belted by Kolarov from the best part of 30 yards, flies straight down Reina's gullet. 10 min: Sterling kills a long, raking, diagonal Coates pass with one superb touch, then cuts inside from the left at high speed. He loses control, but the ball breaks to Borini, who tries to release the young winger down the inside-right channel. Kolarov gets in the way. Borini claims handball and penalty, but no way. Kolarov sweeps up, racing off in the calm style. 12 min: Brilliant skills by Milner down the right, who drops a shoulder this way, feints that way, and reaches the byline. He gets a cross flying towards the six-yard box, with Tevez and Balotelli waiting, but Reina comes out to claim. 14 min: Tevez zips down the left and turns Coates inside out. He checks back and whips a cross into the area. Too strong, as it turns out, but not by much, and Nasri was in space to volley an effort goalwards from the edge of the box had the ball been a tad closer to him. Coates has the good grace to look slightly embarrassed after that passage of play, hands on hips, his eyes darting this way and that, possibly still haunted by an imaginary Tevez. 17 min: What a miss by Borini. Sterling jiggles in from the left wing, and whips an inviting inswinger towards the penalty spot. Rushing in from the right is the young Italian, who connects well, but guides a firm shot wide left of goal. Hart was rooted to the spot, and wouldn't have got that were it on target. Sterling has started very well indeed. 19 min: This is farcical. Tevez is released down the inside-right channel. Reina comes to claim, but can't get to the ball before the City man, who tinkles an effort past the keeper from an exceptionally tight angle. The ball looks like it's going in, and rolls right across the face of the goal, hitting the inside of the left-hand post - but coming back out, allowing Reina to claim. Why the nearby Balotelli didn't chase that in is anyone's guess. But the woodwork, so cruel to Liverpool last season, has done them an absurd favour there. 22 min: Brendan Rodgers is all about possession, right? Well, to illustrate the size of the task he's got at Liverpool, City are currently enjoying 61% of it. The only way is up. 24 min: Sterling is a real jack in the box. He scampers down the left, is knocked to the ground, then springs up immediately to show for a one-two with Suarez, who is this close to carving out a chance from a tight angle to the left of goal. Nothing comes of it, but that's better from Liverpool, who have been under the cosh of late. 25 min: Balotelli fights and scraps down the inside-left channel, first besting Coates, then winning a free kick from clumsy Kelly. Nasri swings the set piece, from the left-hand corner of the Liverpool box, to the far post. Reina flaps, but gets away with it, the ball flying out on the full. Anfield is beginning to feel a wee bit nervous, as City slowly turn the screw. 28 min: Liverpool triangulate awhile in front of the City box. With the dangerous Sterling hugging the left touchline, Liverpool are stretching the City defence a wee bit, and Borini finds space down the inside-left channel to have a dig. His shot is deflected and spins out for a corner, which is wasted. But this is a better spell from the home side, and the crowd holler accordingly. 30 min: Shelvey steams in from the right and feeds Suarez, cutting in from the other side. Suarez opens up his body and looks to sidefoot into the top right, but the effort is blocked. "Any thoughts on what Brendan Rodgers is writing on his notepad?" asks Gary Naylor. "My guess is the
names of Swansea City players whom he would like to see in his squad. I hope
he's got a sharp pencil." And a bigger pad? 31 min: Suarez is brushed off the ball near the City area. No foul. He's got the hot heat. Play moves down the other end, where Balotelli spins and sashays down the left, into the area, and blasts a shot over the bar from reasonably close range. What a chance. 32 min: Suarez is still up the other end, gesticulating in the expansive style. He's on a rolling boil. He's a bain-marie of belligerence. 33 min: Gerrard plays a delicious curling ball into the City area from a deep position on the right. Kompany sticks out a leg, and sends the ball shinning just over the crossbar. That was so close to an inept own goal. Corner to Liverpool, though, from which... 34 min: GOAL!!! Liverpool 1-0 Manchester City. From the right, Gerrard whips a ball into the six-yard area. Skrtel bombs in, level with the left-hand post, and nuts a violent header into the net. Liverpool once had a fanzine called Another Wasted Corner, did they not? The erstwhile editors will have enjoyed the vicious simplicity of that. 37 min: Anfield is bubbling, and Liverpool are hunting down City, and passing the ball around, with more confidence now. Liverpool have responded brilliantly to a shaky start to this match. City are currently struggling to retain possession. What a turnaround. 39 min: The balls aren't quite arrowing to City feet any more. A long pass down the inside-left for Balotelli, but it skids off the turf and harmlessly out of play. Meanwhile here's Joshua Collis, with a cry from his old-school heart: "Full blooded tackles can't happen in footy anymore. Full blooded use of the shoulder or body isn't allowed. Thank god for the centre-back thumping header, because without it, there wouldn't be much left for the likes of me." 41 min: Balotelli looks to release Tevez straight down the middle, but Reina is out quickly to smother the ball, and the City striker is a shade offside anyway. 42 min: Space for Suarez on the edge of the City area. He takes a touch and looks for the top-right corner, but can't quite get enough curl on the ball, which sails harmlessly into the Kop. "The photo heading your MBM report makes me wonder whether Shanks in the background is pulling the ever popular rabbit ears behind the new boss or, perhaps more prosaically, Ronnie James Dio's Devil's horns," notes Neil Macknish. "I suppose it will only take one more game for our 'you'll never walk alone' singing brethren to decide." 44 min: With Balotelli looking to break clear into the Liverpool area, Johnson toe-pokes out for a corner. Milner can't beat the man at the near post. It's cleared. But here they come again, Milner winning another corner. This one goes deep, and is volleyed clear by Kelly. Apart from that ridiculous incident with Tevez, Reina hasn't had much to do. HALF TIME: Liverpool 1-0 Manchester City. Sterling and Balotelli battle down the City right. Balotelli, a wily veteran compared to his pursuer, goes down under the lightest of touches. A free kick's sent towards Nasri in the centre, but Skrtel - the man of the half - blocks. And that's that for the half. Liverpool just about deserve their lead, they were superlative for the last 15 to 20 minutes of that half, but City will reasonably point to Tevez hitting the post, a spinning shot which would have gone in 99 times out of 100. We're lined up for a cracking second 45. HALF-TIME ENTERTAINMENT FROM GRANADALAND:
Two legendary figures from the 1970s Manchester scene - plus Rodney Marsh!!! A marvellous decade of football, arguably the greatest. By way of illustration, one of the era's most iconic games is Fulham versus Hereford United, for goodness sake.
And we're off again! An eager Liverpool take to the pitch early doors, and are forced to wait for City, who troop out in the shambolic style, no doubt trying to lull their opponents into a false sense of security. One of their men kicks the ball off the spot painted in the middle of the pitch, and we're underway once more. 47 min: An early free kick for City down the right. Kolarov lumps a quite useless set piece out of play to the left of goal. There are mild recriminations from Kolarov's team-mates, but nothing wholly dramatic, everyone's still pals. "The US Open starts tomorrow, so here goes: football teams as tennis players," begins Simon McMahon. "Liverpool - Stefan Edberg; popular, stylish and relatively successful but unable in the end to compete with more powerful rivals. Man City - Jimmy Connors; brash, successful, loyal fanbase but unable to emerge completely from the shadow of a more illustrious neighbour." But who are Fulham and Hereford United? John Lloyd? Jeremy Bates? 48 min: Sterling goes shoulder to shoulder with Kolo Toure down the left, no mean feat seeing there's about a foot in height and a fair few kilos between man and boy. The City man lands on top of the Liverpool youngster, and somehow wins a free kick upon doing so. On the touchline, Brendan Rodgers throws semaphore shapes, possibly spelling out EFF and CEE. The crowd bay for the referee's blood. They have really taken to Raheem Sterling. 50 min: Borini, alert, robs the ball from De Jong in the centre circle and tears down the inside-right channel. He feeds the ball on to Suarez, who is never quite in control of the ball and pokes a lame, low shot wide left of goal. Hart had it covered all the way. "Anyone know why, if Sebastian Coates' dad is Scottish, all the commentators pronounce it KerWatEz instead of Coats?" wonders Fraser Thomas. Fair point well made. I've been prosthelytizing for COATS too, oh aye, but then I still pine for the innocently ignorant days of JOOventus and A-Jacks, so I'm probably not the best person to chair this debate. 53 min: City can't get going at all. Liverpool are looking very comfortable. Until the visitors step it up a gear or two, complacency is the home side's biggest foe. "Has nobody emailed in to thank you for your use of 'bain-marie'?" enquires Mark Taylor. Nope. In fairness, everybody's probably maxed out on Cookery Patter after spending the morning with Tim Lovejoy. "Every day's a school day. At least for those of us who aren't frustrated would-be chefs." 55 min: Allen and Reina execute a hellishly risky long-range one-two. Tevez was sniffing around, but the keeper escapes from danger with a drop of the shoulder. Both players seem to enjoy the moment. You sense Liverpool are going to concede quite a few goals from self-inflicted wounds as they learn their new possession game. One way and another, they're probably going to be fun to watch this season. Something for everyone. 57 min: Liverpool Swansea it around for a while, a proper minute or two's worth of possession football. Eventually Johnson attempts to skin Milner down the left, but doesn't manage it and runs the ball out of play. "Surely Liverpool are Ivan Lendl?" writes Duncan Smith. "Dominant in the eighties, haven't done much since." 58 min: Komik kutz in the City area, Balotelli accidentally deflecting a clearance into the path of Suarez. The ball's bouncing to the right of goal, and it attracts not only Suarez but also Borini and Gerrard. Suarez dinks the ball into the middle - where he expects his two team-mates to have remained - and City clear. Farcical play all round. 60 min: Nasri is sacrificed for Rodwell. "Arsenal would be Tim Henman," suggests Tom Shaw. "Pretty to watch but never going to win anything big." And proving fools seldom differ great minds think alike, here's Gary Naylor: "Swansea City are Anna Kournikova - look good, but never going to win anything." 61 min: Milner dances down the inside-right channel, reaches the byline, and pulls the ball back for the onrushing Balotelli. The City man hits the right-hand post, the woodwork once again repaying its karmic debt to Liverpool, but it's a wasted payment, because it turns out that Milner's offside. 62 min: Another change for City, Balotelli - who started brilliantly only to fade - being replaced by one of the visitor's QPR-slaying title heroes in Dzeko. 63 min: GOAL!!! Liverpool 1-1 Manchester City. Tevez bullies his way past Sterling down the right, and whips a dangerous ball towards the far post. Kelly clumsily miscontrols, the ball landing at the feet of Yaya Toure, six yards out. He's not going to miss, and doesn't, clipping home past an irate Reina, who starts jumping up and down in the cartoon style, with jets of steam coming out of his lugs, and all that. 65 min: Gerrard takes a whack from distance - some things never change - and his effort is handled by Rodwell. That'll be a free kick, 25 yards out, just to the right of goal. Before it's taken, Jose Enrique replaces the hapless Kelly. And then... 66 min: GOAL!!! Liverpool 2-1 Manchester City. Suarez steps up, and whips a majestic free kick around the right-hand side of a well-positioned City wall, and into the bottom-right corner. That ball squeezed in between post and Hart's despairing hand, with not an inch to spare. That was a simply wonderful free kick. Rodwell has the radge on, believing the free kick was a bit unfair - he was sliding across the floor to block at the time. But this is how it is. 69 min: City were 2-1 down last weekend against Southampton, and came back to win. Can they do it again? They certainly can't afford to concede again, and nearly do so when Borini tears off into acres of space down the right, but fails to find either Suarez or Gerrard in the middle when the red shirts are three on two. A really good opportunity spurned. "Stoke City = Marat Safin," begins metaphor mathematician Liam Kiney. "Both very tall, both like breaking things." 72 min: Liverpool are attempting to take the sting out of this game by stroking it around the back a lot in the 1980s style. They're doing a half-decent job of it, but these are early days, and the team are making the crowd edgy. "Hear, hear, Mark Taylor, you can never have enough bain-marie or rolling boil references in a MBM," suggests Simon McMahon. "But forget Tim Lovejoy, I listened to Brendan Rodgers lookalike Paul Hollywood giving Ronnie Corbett instructions for making ciabatta this morning on Saturday Kitchen Best Bites. It's what John Logie Baird would have wanted. TV just doesn't get better than that." 73 min: Johnson swaggers in from the right and looks to carve open some space in the area. Kolarov leans in from behind, sending Johnson sprawling, but there's not much contact, Kolo Toure is hacking clear anyway, and the Liverpool defender doesn't make any claim whatsoever. The crowd scream for a penalty, but the referee's quite rightly having none of it. 75 min: Liverpool are pressing very well. Borini and Gerrard cause City all sorts of bother down the right, and the captain's nearly sprung clear into the area, but Kompany isn't having any of it and steps in to clear. 76 min: Roberto Mancini makes his last roll of the dice, and what quality he brings on, swapping Milner for Silva. 78 min: Yaya Toure slides a pass down the inside-left channel towards Dzeko, who spins and hammers a shot from a tight angle over the bar. He did well to get anything away there. "Chelsea last season were the football equivalent of Jim Courier," writes David Wall. "Unattractive and attritional but efficiently boring their way to the major trophies. Their transition towards providing something entertaining this season so far also mirrors his re-invention to be entertaining and informative in the commentary box." 79 min: City are beginning to ramp it up. Tevez disco-dances across the face of the Liverpool area, then nearly releases Dzeko, but Skrtel bounds in to hack upfield. 80 min: GOAL!!! Liverpool 2-2 Manchester City. "You sense Liverpool are going to concede quite a few goals from self-inflicted wounds as they learn their new possession game. One way and another, they're probably going to be fun to watch this season. Something for everyone." And so Liverpool lay on their second gift of the afternoon. Skrtel, under no pressure whatsoever down the left, turns and plays a blind backpass towards Reina. The ball only finds Tevez, who jogs into the area, rounds the keeper on the right, and rolls his 100th goal in English football into the empty net. Oh Martin! Hw cld y! 82 min: Liverpool looked momentarily stunned, but have decided one last push is better than sitting around feeling sorry for themselves. Gerrard, down the inside-right channel, tees up Shelvey, whose rising drive towards the top right only just flies over the bar. 83 min: Down the other end, Dzeko is very, very close from threading a long-distance shot into the bottom-right corner. Reina had that covered, just about, I think. Brendan Rodgers then makes his last change, sending Andy Carroll on for Borini, who has had a mixed afternoon. 86 min: Kolarov bundles down the left and slides a low ball into the area. Dzeko sidefoots over the bar from close range. What a chance, and how close were Manchester City to yet another 3-2 victory? There's still time! "Manchester United must be Andre Agassi," argues Justin Kavanagh. "Very successful at serving up the $$$, but a little too Las Vegas for most people's taste. And not opposed to the odd hair enhancement." 88 min: Corner for Liverpool down the right. The ball ends up at the feet of Shelvey, on the edge of the area to the left of goal. He looks for the top-right corner, but his curling effort is deflected out for a second corner. From which the ball's shuttled out left to Suarez, who clips the ball back to the right-hand post, where Carroll guides a header goalwards. There's not enough meat on the effort, though, allowing Kolo Toure to eyebrow it away. 90 min: There will be four added minutes. If anyone looks like scoring a winner, it's City, who are enjoying the lion's share of possession right now. 90 min +1: Each team take their turn for a sortie down the right, Gerrard failing to find Carroll in the middle with a low cross, Tevez not quite latching onto a loose ball down the inside-right channel, Reina coming out to smother. 90 min +2: City win a throw down the right, deep in Liverpool territory. They're quite happy to run the clock down, making no effort whatsoever to take it quickly. 90 min +3: City eventually get going, and after a fashion win a corner down the left. Silva swings it in. The ball breaks to Tevez on the edge of the box. He attempts to Le Tissier a spectacular effort into the net, but the ball sails miles wide left. FULL TIME: Liverpool 2-2 Manchester City. Suarez is booked for some mouth music. Allen takes a shot from distance that's miles wide right. And that's that. A fair result, though it'll be Liverpool who feel slightly deflated, having gifted the champions two goals. Skrtel hangs his head as he leaves the pitch, but he scored a thunderbolt as well as presenting Tevez with the equaliser, and shouldn't feel too bad about things. But will do, needless to say. Still, a point well earned by both sides. City can be happy with their escape at a venue where they rarely do well, while Liverpool can look back at fine home debuts for Raheem Sterling and Joe Allen, and are off the bottom - where Aston Villa now reside. Po' Paul! Po' Paul Lambert!
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The St Louis Cardinals (69-57) put Adam Wainwright on the mound to take on the NL Central-leading Cincinnati Reds (77-51) at Great American Ballpark
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The St Louis Cardinals (70-57) collect 17 hits on the way to a 8-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ballpark.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Multiple states under threat of substantial damage as Isaac looks set to become potentially major hurricane overnight Millions of residents in four vulnerable Gulf Coast states were bracing for the arrival of a powerful tropical storm that has already claimed several lives on its path through the Caribbean. The governor of Florida, Rick Scott, declared a state of emergency ahead of tropical storm Isaac's expected landfall Sunday night in the Florida Keys, with the storm then expected to intensify into a 105mph hurricane as it moves north into the Gulf of Mexico and towards the Alabama-Mississippi-Louisiana coastline. But with tropical storm-force winds extending up to 200 miles from Isaac's centre, the area under threat for moderate to substantial damage covered much of southern and western Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Louisiana. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said it was too soon to predict where Isaac, blamed for at least six deaths in Haiti, would make its second landfall, probably in the early hours of Wednesday. The current predicted track, subject to a wide margin of error, points the eye of the storm close to Biloxi, Mississippi, with a hurricane watch posted along the coast for hundreds of miles in either direction. Officials were, however, confident that Isaac had the time to become a much more powerful storm, possibly approaching the status of a major hurricane with winds in excess of 110mph. "Waters along the forecast track are very warm and upper level winds are forecast by the global models to become conducive to strengthening," said Dr Michael Brennan, a senior hurricane centre expert. "It's important not to focus on the exact forecast track since significant hazards extend well away from the centre." Scott cancelled his appearance at tomorrow's Republican national convention in Tampa to concentrate on storm preparations, shortly before event organisers announced that the first day and a half would be shelved anyway to allow the storm to pass. "This is a state that has dealt with hurricanes forever. We are a state [where] we know we have to get prepared for hurricanes," Scott said. No mandatory evacuation of the Florida Keys was ordered, but a steady stream of traffic was building on Highway 1 towards the mainland late on Saturday and early today as conditions began to worsen. Many businesses were boarded up in Key West at the tip of the 150-mile island chain, and emergency managers called for all visitors to leave. By mid-morning Sunday, the Keys were being lashed by torrential rain and wind gusts in excess of 60mph as Isaac's outer bands closed in. Further east, thousands of families in Miami and surrounding towns lost power, still several hours ahead of the worst expected conditions. Florida Power and Light, the state's largest electricity provider, amassed a large fleet of vehicles and put more than 8,000 engineers on standby to move into affected areas and restore power once conditions allowed. "We've seen a gradual increase in thunderstorm activity," said Dr Rick Knabb, director of the hurricane centre. "People should stay indoors. We've lost lives in previous tropical storms when people have been out and about in their cars." Commanders at the naval air station in Pensacola, Florida, began moving more than 100 aircrafts to safety Sunday morning while long queues formed at DIY stores and supermarkets in southern Alabama and Mississippi as residents stocked up on supplies. Among the six deaths reported so far by the Red Cross in Haiti were an eight-year-old girl and a 10-year-old girl killed when a wall fell onto her. The aid agency said that although the centre of the storm had passed, the country was still being drenched with rain. Almost 14,000 people, mostly those still living in tents since the devastation of the 2010 earthquake, were evacuated to emergency shelters. "The west and south-eastern departments are the most affected by the storm, causing the deaths of at least two persons and damaging bridges, roads and canals," United Nations spokeswoman Eliana Nebaa said in a statement. "The storm is also responsible for flooding, high water areas, and damages to tents and tarps in some camps." Several people were also reported missing in the Dominican Republic following Isaac's crossing on Saturday.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Tampa officials fail to evict tent encampment as human rights group plans protests and marches to herald start of convention They have dubbed it "Romneyville" but the name is not meant as a compliment to the Republican grandee shortly to be nominated as the party's presidential candidate. Instead the rag-tag denizens of this makeshift encampment of homeless people, leftist activists and protesters are determined to be a thorn in the Republican party's side as the GOP's national convention unfolds. City officials have tried to evict the protesters, who are collected in several buses, cars and a score of tents outside on a patch of gravel just outside Tampa's downtown – and just inside a restricted "event zone" declared by the host city. But their efforts failed on a technicality and now occupants of the camp are determined to go ahead with a series of unauthorised marches and protests to herald the start of the convention. "I don't believe in zoning free speech. That's censorship. If you are law abiding and peaceful than you should be able to address your government," said camp organiser Cheri Honkala, an anti-poverty campaigner and the Green Party's nominee for vice-president in the 2012 election. Honkala is also the co-founder of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, which is the main driving force behind the encampment which was begun in May. The group rented the lot, situated just outside an army-navy general store beside the main freeway exit into downtown Tampa, making it a certain sight to the thousands of Republicans and media pouring into the city each day. Among those on view will be Elijah Seabrookes, 56, who arrived in Florida in recent weeks after failing to find work in his native New York. He is now living out of a tent on the lot alongside Occupy movement protesters, Green Party members and the homeless and down-on-their-luck. "I came here because I wanted to find a home and a job. But I found that there was neither. So now I am living in a tent here," said the former security guard. Organisers say the name "Romneyville" is meant to play on the "Hooverville" settlements that sprung up during the Great Depression. "We want to show that the 'P Word' is not a curse word. With that word being 'poverty'," said Bruce Wright, one of the campaign's organisers. The group also plans to protest at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, but the Republican gathering in Tampa is all that is on their minds now. "It is a right-wing extremist party and we want to show people that," Wright added.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Officials at Denali national park recover camera documenting bear grazing peacefully prior to fatal attack on San Diego man A hiker in Alaska's Denali national park photographed a grizzly bear for at least eight minutes before the bear mauled and killed him in the first fatal attack in the park's history, according to officials. Investigators have recovered the camera and looked at the photographs, which show the bear grazing and not acting aggressively before the Friday attack, Denali park superintendent Paul Anderson said. A state trooper shot and killed the male bear on Saturday. The hiker was identified late Saturday as Richard White, 49, of San Diego. He was backpacking alone along the Toklat river on Friday afternoon when he came within 50 yards of the bear, far closer than the quarter-mile of separation required by park rules, officials said. "They show the bear grazing in the willows, not acting aggressive in any form or manner during that period of time," Anderson said of the photos. Officials learned of the attack after hikers stumbled upon an abandoned backpack along the river about three miles (five kilometers) from a rest area on Friday afternoon. The hikers also spotted torn clothing and blood. They immediately hiked back and alerted staff park. Rangers in a helicopter spotted a large male grizzly bear sitting on the hiker's remains, which they called a "food cache" in the underbrush about 100 to 150 yards from the site of the attack on Friday. Investigators examined the bear's stomach contents, looked at White's photos and used other tests Saturday evening to confirm that it was the animal that killed White, park officials said in a statement Saturday night. White's remains were recovered Saturday evening and were being sent to the medical examiner in Anchorage. There's no indication that the man's death was the result of anything other than a bear attack, investigators said, adding that it's the first known fatal mauling in the park's nearly century-long history. "Over the years, and especially since the 1970s, the park has worked very diligently to minimize the conflict between humans and wildlife in the park," Anderson said. "We have some of the most stringent human-wildlife conflict regulations in the National Park system, and I think those are largely responsible for the fact that there hasn't been a fatal attack." Denali is located 240 miles north of Anchorage. It spans more than 6m acres and is home to numerous wild animals, including bears, wolves, caribou and moose.
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• And click here for all the latest tables and stats Referee: Andre Marriner (W Midlands) Manchester City, with no notable weak points, unless you count substitute Stefan Savic, who had a shocker at Anfield in the Carling Cup back in January, but you can't really do that: Hart, Zabaleta, Kolo Toure, Kompany, Kolarov, Milner, Yaya Toure, de Jong, Nasri, Tevez, Balotelli.
Subs: Pantillmon, Lescott, Savic, Rodwell, Razak, Silva, Dzeko. Liverpool, who go with the exciting 17-year-old Raheem Sterling: Reina, Kelly, Johnson, Coates, Skrtel, Lucas, Allen, Gerrard, Borini, Suarez, Sterling.
Subs: Jones, Jose Enrique, Carroll, Henderson, Carragher, Shelvey, Downing. So, then, the jittery Anfield Artisans, an aesthetic work in progress, versus the unpredictable geniuses of Manchester City. It could be a cracker. It could be a dire 0-0, too, I'm promising nowt. But it kicks off at 4pm. The message applies today as it did then. It's 1968 revisited: City travel to Anfield early in their title defence to face a Liverpool side very much in transition. They're favourites to win this match, having won their last seven league games on the bounce, while Brendan Rodgers' side were belted 3-0 at West Brom on the opening day - and are currently bottom of the division. Having said all that, City have only won once here since embarrassing Bruce Grobbelaar on Boxing Day 1981, a smash-and-grab by Nicolas Anelka against the run of play in 2003. Before those wins, we go back to 1953. Also, despite being the champs and the best side in the land, City are still City - it's part of their charm - and as such, you never quite know how they're going to go about things. Witness their shambolic brilliance against Southampton this time last week. Or, hell, the way they won the title back in May. Bill Shankly's side set about Joe Mercer's men in robust fashion. Tommy Smith committed a "monstrous" foul on Mike Summerbee, who along with Colin Bell and Glyn Pardoe were kicked around like old socks. City actually took an early lead, through Neil Young, but Bobby Graham soon equalised, Peter Thompson finished off a Swansealona combination between Emlyn Hughes and Ian St John on 72 minutes, and City had no response. "We are the champions!" chanted the away contingent. "You won't be champions any more!" replied the Kop. Todd concluded that "City were made to realise ... as champions they must expect to work twice as hard as they did when they were ordinary mortals". The last time Manchester City were the reigning champions of England, they started their title defence at Anfield. The opening day of the season didn't go too well for them. Liverpool captain Ron Yeats set the tone. Instead of running out and pelting the ball into the net at the Kop end, he slowly led his team out towards the centre circle - think David Sole before the Calcutta Cup in 1990 - and lined them up to bask in the crowd's acclaim. "By the time City arrived in working gear," reported Eric Todd in the Guardian, "the Kop was on the boil, and not only because of the weather."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President Hugo Chávez orders investigation after pre-dawn blast at country's largest oil facility injures at least 80 At least 39 people have been killed and more than 80 injured after a huge explosion tore through Venezuela's biggest oil refinery in one of the deadliest disasters to hit the country's oil industry. Bystanders posted video on the net showing balls of fire rising over the Amuay refinery in Punto Fijo, among the largest in the world. Government officials pledged to restart the refinery within two days and said the country has plenty of fuel to meet domestic needs as well as export commitments. Saturday's explosion shattered walls of nearby shops, ripped out windows from homes and left the surrounding streets covered with rubble and twisted scraps of metal. The president, Hugo Chávez, declared three days of mourning and ordered an investigation to determine the cause of the explosion. "This affects all of us," Chávez said by phone on state television. "It's very sad, very painful." The vice-president, Elías Jaua, who travelled to the area in western Venezuela, said the dead included 18 national guard troops and six of the bodies had not yet been identified. Other officials said earlier that the dead included a 10-year-old boy. In a neighbourhood next to the refinery, a shopkeeper, Yolimar Romero, said she was at her computer when a shockwave swept over the area shortly after 1am. "At that instant, the whole house shook as if it were an earthquake," she said. "The windows went flying off with their frames and everything." Electricity was knocked out, leaving Romero in the dark and her house filled with smoke. She found a torch and started looking for her husband and three children. Outside on the street, the family saw scattered hunks of brick walls and ruins of a national guard post and about 20 other homes. Bodies were being pulled from buildings down the street. At least 86 people were injured, nine of them seriously, the health minister, Eugenia Sader, said at a hospital where the wounded were taken. She said 77 people had suffered light injuries and had been released. Flames reaching 30 metres into the night air still crackled almost 20 hours after the explosion occurred, giving off searing heat felt by the residents of the neighbourhood located approximately 300 metres from the refinery. "This does not seem to be getting any better. I see and feel more and more flames," said Francisco Rojas, a 29-year-old taxi driver from the neighbourhood, as he loaded some of his belongings into a truck. "I have a young daughter and my wife, and we don't want to take the risk of dying here," Rojas added. Officials said firefighters had largely controlled the fire at the refinery on the Paraguana peninsula, where flames were still visible on Saturday night after billowing dark smoke all day. The blast occurred about 1.15am when a natural gas leak created a cloud that ignited, the oil minister, Rafael Ramírez, said. "That gas generated a cloud that later exploded and has caused fires in at least two tanks of the refinery and surrounding areas," Ramírez said. Images shortly after the explosion showed the flames casting an orange glow against the night sky, and injured survivors on a stretcher and in a wheelchair. The bloodied bodies of victims were loaded onto pickup trucks. Ramírez said a panel of investigators was being formed to determine the cause of the gas leak. A prosecutor had been appointed to lead the investigation and troops had been deployed to the area. While the cause of the disaster remains unclear, some oil workers and critics of Chávez's government have recently pointed to increasing numbers of smaller accidents and spills as an indication of problems within the state-run oil company, PDVSA. "We warned that something was going to happen, a catastrophic event," said Iván Freites, the secretary general of a 1,200-member union of oil and natural gas industry workers in Falcón state, where the refinery is located. He spoke in a telephone interview from an area near the refinery, where he could see the flames raging in the distance. The refinery complex's general manager, Jesus Luongo, denied that a lack of maintenance was to blame, saying that in the past three years more than £3.8bn has been invested in maintaining the country's refineries. Ramírez said the explosion had hit an area of storage tanks, damaging nine tanks. "All of the events happened very quickly," Ramírez said. "When we got here in the middle of the night, at 3 or 3.30 in the morning, the fire was at its peak." The oil minister said that supplies of fuel had been cut off to part of the refinery and that firefighters were using foam to extinguish the flames in one of the remaining tanks. "This regrettable and sad event is controlled, is under control," Ramírez said on television, while plumes of smoke continued to billow. Amuay is part of the Paraguaná refinery complex, which also includes the adjacent Cardón refinery. Together, the two refineries process about 900,000 barrels of crude a day and 200,000 barrels of petrol. Venezuela is a major supplier of oil to the US and a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Ramírez said PDVSA should be able to "restart operations in a maximum of two days". "We want to tell the country that we have sufficient inventories of fuel. We have 10 days of inventory of fuel," Ramírez said. He said the country's other refineries were operating at full capacity and would be able to "deal with any situation in our domestic market". A PDVSA official said the country also has enough supplies to guarantee its international commitments. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to speak publicly about the matter. In terms of international oil markets, the disaster is not likely to cause much of a ripple, said Jason Schenker, an energy analyst and president of Austin, Texas-based Prestige Economics. Noting that other refinery accidents and shutdowns regularly occur around the world, he said: "There's likely to be relatively limited impact on global crude or product pricing." Schenker said: "The real tragedy is that these events continue to happen, not just in Venezuela but everywhere. It is a dangerous business." Gustavo Coronel, an energy consultant and former PDVSA executive, called the tragedy "probably the worst one the oil industry has had in many years. "Accidents happen, of course, although the problem with PDVSA is the inordinate amount of accidents that have taken place during the last years," Coronel said. Considering the overall record, "we are not talking about bad luck but about lack of maintenance and inept management," he said. Freites, who has worked at the refinery for 29 years, said workers had repeatedly alerted PDVSA officials to problems that they feared could lead to an accident. "We've been complaining about problems and risks, including fires, broken pipes and a lack of spare parts," Freites said. One opposition group comprising former PDVSA employees, Gente del Petróleo, or Oil People, said it could not yet pass judgment on the cause of the explosion. But it noted there had been ample concerns about lack of maintenance and poor management. The group said in a statement that since 2003, 79 other serious accidents have been reported at Paraguaná, killing a total of 19 workers and injuring 67. The opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, who is challenging Chávez in the presidential election on 7 October, expressed condolences to the victims and their families. "We Venezuelans are one, and we grow in the face of this type of situations," Capriles said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Media mogul claims lack of free press in UK to justify publishing Las Vegas photographs freely available on the internet Rupert Murdoch has defended the decision of the Sun to publish the pictures of a naked Prince Harry in a Las Vegas hotel room saying it was necessary to make a point about the lack of "free press" in Britain. His comments come as the row over the pictures, published on Friday, escalated with an intervention from culture secretary Jeremy Hunt who said the Sun was wrong to publish. Murdoch however believes the British blackout was wrong in light of widespread availability on websites and in international newspapers and told his Twitter followers the paper had to take a stance. Showing no signs of retreating from a dust-up with regulators in Britain, the media mogul tweeted in reply to praise of the publication: "Needed to demonstrate no such thing as free press in the UK. Internet makes mockery of these issues. 1st amendment please." He has also urged people to give Prince Harry "a break" over his antics in Las Vegas. "Prince Harry. Give him a break. He may be on the public payroll one way or another, but the public loves him, even to enjoy Las Vegas." His comments come after more than 850 complaints were made to the Press Complaints Commission about an alleged invasion of privacy, but will be seen as a bid to re-establish the Sun's brand as a brash paper which will dare to take on the establishment in despite the threat of statutory regulation from the Leveson inquiry into press ethics. The Sun's decision to publish was widely seen as a defiant act, coming just 48 hours after Prince Charles's personal solicitors Harbottle & Lewis issued a letter to newspapers warning them there was no justification for publication in English law. Initially the paper had complied with Prince Charles's wishes and on Thursday it got its features picture editor and an intern to strip off and pose in a mocked-up photo of the prince and the unknown woman with him in the Las Vegas hotel room. On Friday it did an about-turn, claiming the fact that the pictures were widely available on the internet made a mockery of British papers. It claimed the Palace was trying to "muzzle" the British press and there was a "clear public interest" in publishing the photographs "in order for the debate around them to be fully informed". On Sunday Hunt said he did not believe the Sun was acting in the public interest but said it wasn't his place to tell editors what to do. Speaking to BBC News, he said: "Personally I cannot see what the public interest was in publishing those. "But we have a free press and I don't think it is right for politicians to tell newspaper editors what they can and cannot publish. That must be a matter for the newspaper editors. "I just hope that people won't remember this, but they will remember the amazing good work that Prince Harry has done." He added: "We can agree with what someone like Mr Murdoch does or you can disagree with it. "But in the end that is not for politicians to tell editors what to publish. As I understand it even Buckingham Palace have said that editors have a right to publish what they want to and that is a matter for editors." The publication comes at a sensitive time, ahead of what is expected to be a highly critical report by Lord Justice Leveson into press ethics following his the public inquiry which was launched following the phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's now defunct News of the World. Journalists on the Sun and other tabloids believe Leveson has already had a taming effect on the British media and say if the News of the World was still around it would have served up as many titillating pictures of Harry as possible for Sunday breakfasts. News International has refused to comment on the speculation that Murdoch personally sanctioned publication but insiders say executives wanting to fire a warning shot across Leveson's bows. One executive said if it hadn't published the photos, the "line in the sand would be drawn in the wrong place" in terms of the boundaries of privacy. Sources at the Leveson inquiry say Lord Justice Leveson will have noted the issues surrounding publication but it was "unlikely" that the appeals court judge would be summoning anyone from the paper to explain themselves. There has been mixed reaction to the publication of the pictures – the Daily Mail published an editorial in full support of the paper even though it decided against publication of the photographs. However media lawyers are less convinced. Christopher Hutchings of Hamlins law firm said the Sun's decision was commercially motivated. "It has calculated that the risk of legal action and financial penalties is outweighed by the increase in circulation which will be generated by publication," he said. Louise Mensch, the soon-to-resign Tory MP and a supporter of Rupert Murdoch, has said the publication was in the public interest as Prince Harry receives money from the civil list and his royal protection squad are funded by the taxpayer. Opposing publication, Lord Prescott attacked the Sun for publishing the pictures, saying it proved that self-regulation of the press is dead.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Two members of band who escaped arrest after February's protest in Moscow's main cathedral leave the country Two members of Russia's anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot have fled the country to avoid prosecution for staging a protest against Vladimir Putin at a church altar, the band said on Sunday. A Moscow court sentenced three members of the all-female opposition band to two years in prison on 17 August for staging a their song Punk Prayer at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February and calling on the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin. The sentence drew sharp international criticism of the Russian government, while opposition groups at home have portrayed it as part of a Kremlin clampdown on dissent. Police said earlier this week they were searching for other members of the band. "In regard to the pursuit, two of our members have successfully fled the country! They are recruiting foreign feminists to prepare new actions!," a Twitter account called Pussy Riot Group said. Defence lawyers of the convicted Pussy Riot members - Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich - are expected to appeal against their sentences next week. Tolokonnikova's husband, Pyotr Verzilov, told Reuters on Sunday that the two members of the group who have fled Russia had taken part in the cathedral protest along with his wife. "Since the Moscow police said they are searching for them, they will keep a low profile for now. They are in a safe place beyond the reach of the Russian police," he said by phone. Asked if that meant a country which had no extradition agreement with Russia, Verzilov said: "Yes, that suggests that." "But you must remember that 12 or even 14 members who are still in Russia actively participate in the band's work now; it's a big collective," he added. The Kremlin has dismissed criticism by western governments and prominent musicians including Madonna and Sting as politically motivated. Putin, back at the Kremlin since May for his third presidential term, said before the three band members were sentenced that they should not be judged too harshly. Under Russian law the three Pussy Riot members put on trial could have faced as much as seven years' jail for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, but the prosecutors asked for three years and they were sentenced to two.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Opposition claims government forces killed many by close-range execution after storming town south-west of Damascus Syrian government troops have been accused of a massacre of civilians in Daraya, a town on the outskirts of Damascus which the regime retook from rebels on Saturday. The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), an opposition network, claimed that more than 200 bodies had been found in the poor Sunni community south-west of the capital, and activists circulated a video appearing to show dozens of bodies, mostly of young men, lined up in dimly lit rooms, described in the commentary as being in the town's Abu Suleiman al-Durani mosque. The government portrayed the attack as a counter-terrorism operation. "Our heroic armed forces cleansed Daraya from remnants of armed terrorist groups," the state news agency said. Britain's foreign office minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt, said that if the reports were verified, "it would be an atrocity on a new scale, requiring unequivocal condemnation from the entire international community". The storming of Daraya on Saturday followed three days of heavy bombardment by government tanks and artillery, which the opposition said killed another 70 people. The offensive appeared to be part of a larger struggle for control of the southern fringe of the capital. Local residents said that government tanks on the Damascus ring road shelled the neighbourhoods of al-Lawwan and Nahr Aisheh late into Saturday night and that there was also heavy fighting in the Ghouta suburbs to the east of the city. The LCC said forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had killed a total of 440 people across Syria on Saturday alone. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based activist group drawing information from a network of monitors across Syria, put the nationwide death toll for the day at 370 including 174 civilians. If confirmed, it is one of the bloodiest days the country has suffered since the anti-Assad revolt broke out in March 2011. It was impossible to verify such claims because of severe Syrian government restrictions on independent or foreign media coverage. A United Nations report this month into an earlier massacre at Houla found that the indiscriminate attacks against civilian populations and other atrocities were "state policy" and claimed Assad's forces and allied "Shabiha" militia were involved at the highest levels in "gross violation of international human rights". The UN enquiry found that anti-Assad forces had also committed war crimes including "murder, extrajudicial execution and torture" but that these abuses "did not reach the gravity, frequency and scale of those committed by government forces and the Shabiha." A new Amnesty Report on the fighting in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, also found: "The overwhelming majority of victims were killed in air strikes and artillery attacks by government forces." But it criticised rebels for using imprecise or indiscriminate weapons such as mortars and home-made rockets. Activists in Daraya alleged that most of the victims had been summarily executed by government troops moving from house to house. "Assad's army has committed a massacre in Daraya," said Abu Kinan, an activist in the town, told Reuters news agency by telephone, using an alias to protect himself from reprisals. "In the last hour, 122 bodies were discovered and it appears that two dozen died from sniper fire and the rest were summarily executed by gunshots from close range," he said. The activist said he witnessed the death of an 8-year-old girl, Asma Abu al-Laban, shot by army snipers while she was in a car with her parents. "They were trying to flee the army raids. Three bullets hit her in the back and her parents brought her to a makeshift hospital. Nothing could be done for her," he said. A thorough investigation of atrocity claims can only be carried out by the international criminal court in the the Hague if it is given a mandate by the UN security council, but that has been blocked by Russia, the Assad regime's principal backer and arms supplier, together with China. Moscow and Beijing have also vetoed resolutions threatening Assad with sanctions for non-compliance with a peace plan backed by the UN and the Arab League. The last UN monitors in Damascus left earlier this month when the security council failed to agree on a new mandate for them. Western officials say they have largely given up on security council diplomacy and are stepping up their assistance to the fragmented opposition, though they say that assistance stops short of weapons. However, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are reported to be shipping arms to rebel groups as the conflict continues to escalate. Iran is the regime's only major ally in the region and Iranian officials have said that Revolutionary Guards have fought alongside Assad's troops. Syria's vice president Farouk al-Sharaa met an Iranian delegation on Sunday, according to Syria's state news agency, marking his first appearance in several weeks. It put an end to opposition rumours that he had defected. In the increasingly daunting search for a diplomatic solution, the UN and Arab League have appointed a new special envoy, a veteran Algerian diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi, after the resignation of the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. On Friday, Brahimi declared himself "honoured, flattered, humbled and scared" to be given the job.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Two members of band who escaped arrest after February's protest in Moscow's main cathedral leave the country The Russian punk band Pussy Riot says two of its members who were being sought by police have left the country. Five members of the feminist group took part in a provocative performance inside Moscow's main cathedral in February to protest against Vladimir Putin's rule and his relationship with the Russian Orthodox church. The women wore their trademark balaclavas and only three were identified and arrested. After a controversial trial, they were sentenced on 17 August to two years in prison. Days later, Moscow police said they were searching for the others, in what was seen as a warning to the group to stop its anti-Putin protests. Pussy Riot tweeted on Sunday that the two activists had fled Russia and are "recruiting foreign feminists to prepare new protest actions".
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • Six people killed in Haiti
• Three missing in Dominican Republic
• US Republicans delay start of Tampa convention Tropical storm Isaac has lashed Cuba with winds and rain as it sweeps toward the Florida Keys, where it was expected to strike on Sunday as a minor hurricane. The storm left six dead in Haiti, still recovering from a 2010 earthquake, and at least three missing in the Dominican Republic after battering their shared island of Hispaniola on Saturday. No deaths or injuries had been reported in Cuba, which got off lightly when the storm crossed its eastern flank instead of raking up the length of the island as originally predicted, but still suffered damage. Though still 340 miles (545km) east-southeast of Key West, it was already causing problems in the US. Energy producers in the Gulf of Mexico were shutting production and the Republican party said it would delay its national convention in Tampa, Florida, for a day out of safety concerns as the storm bore down on the state. The storm could force a short-term shut-down of 43% of US offshore oil capacity and 38% of its natural gas output, according to forecasters at Weather Insight, an arm of Thomson Reuters. In its latest advisory, the national hurricane centre in Miami said Isaac was 65 miles (105km) north-east of the Cuban city of Camagüey and cruising north-west at 17mph (28kph). Its top winds were near 60mph (96kph), but the centre said it appeared to be gathering steam and was expected to be at or near hurricane strength when it reached Key West, 90 miles (145km) north of Cuba. A storm becomes a hurricane when sustained winds reach a minimum of 74mph (119kph). After passing through the Keys, Isaac was expected to move into the north-eastern gulf, add more punch and hit the Florida panhandle or further west as a category 2 storm with 100mph winds (160 kph). In Cuba, Baracoa, the island's easternmost city, appeared to get the worst of the storm, which sent 13ft (3.9m) waves crashing over the seawall and into the streets. Cuban TV reports said more than a thousand people had to be evacuated and 50 buildings were damaged. "The force of the waves has destroyed the farmer's market for small businesses, also the children's area of a park and various homes," said Baracoa resident Olider Aguilera by telephone. "But I can tell you that the people are not afraid. They're accustomed to meteorological phenomena stronger than this," he told Reuters. In Haiti, Isaac added to the misery of more than 350,000 survivors of the 2010 earthquake still living in flimsy resettlement camps as water gushed into tents and corrugated plastic shacks ripped apart by the wind. Authorities said six people were known dead, including a 10-year-old girl killed when a wall fell on her and a woman crushed to death by a falling tree. Many main roads were blocked or impassable and 14,000 people had been evacuated to shelters, they said. In the Dominican Republic, officials said three people were missing, including the mayor of a town near Santo Domingo swept away as he tried to save another person from a flooded river. They said 764 homes had been damaged by the storm and more than 9,600 people evacuated from storm-struck areas.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Senior Afghan commander and his bodyguards are wiped out The family of the key operational commander of the Haqqani network, the group behind some of the most high-profile attacks on western and Afghan government targets in Afghanistan, has been killed in a CIA drone strike. The death of Badruddin Haqqani had been earlier claimed by Pakistani and American officials. Haqqani, who was also believed to handle the network's business interests and smuggling operations, died in one of a series of strikes last week that also killed a key Pakistani Taliban leader in Afghanistan, Mullah Dadullah, along with 12 of his bodyguards. Dadullah had also been accused of being behind a series of cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. According to a senior Pakistani intelligence official, Badruddin had fled the compound he was staying in after it was hit by a missile, but was then killed by a second drone strike on the car in which he was travelling. "Our informers have told us that he has been killed in the drone attack on the 21st, but we cannot confirm it," said one of the Pakistani intelligence officials. Badruddin is the son of warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani and brother of the network's chief, Sirajuddin, who is responsible for day-to-day operations. The Haqqanis are the most experienced fighters in Afghanistan and the loss of one of the group's most important leaders could ease pressure on Nato as it prepares to withdraw most of its combat troops at the end of 2014. US officials blame the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network for some of the boldest attacks in Afghanistan, including one on embassies and parliament in Kabul in April which lasted for 18 hours, leaving 15 dead, including four civilians. According to a Nato statement yesterday, Mullah Dadullah and his deputy, Shakir, were killed in an air strike in Afghanistan 15 miles from the Pakistan border. It added there had been no civilian casualties or damage to civilian property.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | NI owner's tweet comes amid claims Sun published naked pictures under Murdoch's orders to defy Leveson inquiry Rupert Murdoch has sympathised with Prince Harry in the wake of the royal's naked photograph controversy, urging critics to give him "a break". It comes after the media mogul's tabloid newspaper The Sun became the first British publication to print the embarrassing images of the prince taken during a party weekend in Las Vegas. News International owner Murdoch took to his Twitter account to show his support for Harry. He wrote: "Prince Harry. Give him a break. He may be on the public payroll one way or another, but the public loves him, even to enjoy Las Vegas." More than 850 complaints have been made to the press watchdog about the naked photographs of the 27-year-old prince frolicking in the nude with an unnamed woman after they were published in Friday's edition of The Sun. Nearly all are about invasion of privacy and are to be investigated in due course. The Independent has reported that Murdoch, 81, ordered newspaper bosses to publish the images because he wanted to fire a warning shot at Lord Justice Leveson, the man leading the inquiry into press standards in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. News International has refused to comment on the speculation. On Saturday night Murdoch tweeted in reply to praise from US journalist Sergio Bichao: Thanks! Needed to demonstrate no such thing as free press in UK. Internet makes mockery of these issues. Ist amendment please The Murdoch-owned tabloid argued that printing the images was in the public interest and a "crucial" test of the country's free press. TMZ, the celebrity gossip website which first published the pictures, said they were taken last Friday after Harry and his entourage met some women in a hotel bar and invited them up to the royal's suite. The group played a stripping game and someone in the party is thought to have captured the images of the naked prince on a camera phone.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Assad's forces accused of massacre in Daraya after scores killed 'execution-style', Syrian activists claim Syrian opposition activists accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of committing a massacre of scores of people in a town close to the capital that the army had just retaken from rebels. More than 200 bodies were found in houses and basements around Daraya, a working-class Sunni town to the southwest of Damascus, according to activists who said most had been killed "execution-style" by troops on house-to-house raids. Due to restrictions on non-state media in Syria, it was impossible to independently verify the accounts. "Assad's army has committed a massacre in Daraya," said Abu Kinan, an activist in the town, using an alias to protect himself from reprisals. "In the last hour, 122 bodies were discovered and it appears that two dozen died from sniper fire and the rest were summarily executed by gunshots from close range," Abu Kinan told Reuters by telephone. The activist said he witnessed the death of an eight-year-old girl, Asma Abu al-Laban, shot by army snipers while she was in a car with her parents. "They were trying to flee the army raids. Three bullets hit her in the back and her parents brought her to a makeshift hospital. Nothing could be done for her," he said. The official state news agency said: "Our heroic armed forces cleansed Daraya from remnants of armed terrorist groups who committed crimes against the sons of the town and scared them and sabotaged and destroyed public and private property." The Local Coordination Committees, an activists' organisation, said Assad's forces killed 440 people across Syria on Saturday, including dozens of women and children, in one of the highest death tolls since the uprising against his rule broke out in March last year. The organisation, which monitors Assad's military crackdown, said 310 people were killed in Damascus and its environs, including Daraya, 40 in the northern province of Aleppo and 28 in Syria's Sunni tribal heartland region of Deir al-Zor. The rest were reportedly killed in the Idlib, Deraa, Hama and Homs, outlying provinces where poverty and discontent with Assad's minority Alawite rule have been building up since bloody repression by Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, killed tens of thousands of people in the 1980s. Video footage from activists showed numerous bodies of young men side-by-side at the Abu Suleiman al-Darani mosque in Daraya, many with what looked like gunshot wounds to the head and chest. "A massacre," said the voice of the man who appeared to be taking the footage. "You are seeing the revenge of Assad's forces … more than 150 bodies on the floor of this mosque." The southern fringe of Damascus is a frontline in what has snowballed over the last 17 months from anti-Assad protests into a sectarian civil war. Tanks deployed on the Damascus ring-road shelled the southern neighbourhoods of al-Lawwan and Nahr Aisheh late into Saturday night and fighting raged in the eastern Ghouta suburbs of the capital, residents said. The army overran Daraya, one of a series of mostly rundown Sunni Muslim towns that surround Damascus, on Saturday after three days of heavy bombardment that killed 70 people, according to opposition sources and residents. They said most of the dead were civilians. UN investigators said in a report this month that both sides in the conflict had performed summary executions – a war crime – but that Assad's troops and militia loyal to the president had committed many more offences than the rebels. The report said government forces and militiamen loyal to Assad committed a massacre of more than 100 civilians in the town of Houla in May that the government blamed on Islamist "terrorists". The UN estimates that more than 18,000 people have been killed in the conflict that pits a mainly Sunni opposition against a ruling system dominated by the Assad family for the last five decades.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Republican National Committee chairman says party officials working with state officials to ensure safety of attendees Modern political campaigns are tightly controlled events but no one can control the weather and a storm barrelling towards Tampa has forced the cancellation of the first day of the Republican party's national convention. Tropical storm Isaac is expected to develop into a hurricane and sweep up Florida's western coastline on Sunday night and Monday morning, missing Tampa directly but dumping heavy rain and causing a storm surge across the low-lying swampy region. As a result Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus issued a statement nixing the first day of events and throwing a spanner in the carefully choreographed process that will officially nominate Mitt Romney for president. Priebus said the convention would briefly meet on Monday and then reconvene for Tuesday, leaving Florida's emergency services to face the storm without the huge event going on. "Our chief priority is the safety of the residents of Florida, of those visiting the convention, and all those in Gulf Coast states who may be impacted by tropical storm Isaac," said Republican national convention president Bill Harris in a statement. Former Massachusetts governor Romney was campaigning with his running mate, Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, in the battleground state of Ohio as thousands of delegates, journalists, protesters and party officials arrived in Florida by the planeload. Meanwhile technicians completed the conversion of a hockey arena along Tampa Bay into a red, white and blue-themed convention hall and in downtown Tampa tight security cordons were set up in city streets. But conventioneers and everyone else arriving in the city now face the same task as more permanent residents of Florida: bedding down to ride out the storm. It is expected to have passed by the end of Monday afternoon, meaning there will be a more crammed schedule for an event now truncated to three days from four. There will be no impact on Romney's actual nomination though no doubt campaign managers and party officials will be frustrated at the disruption to their carefully laid plans of introducing him to a prime time audience and seeking to get a strong bump in the polls. However, this is not the first time such an event happened. In 2008 the Republican convention that nominated Arizona senator John McCain also cancelled its first day due to a hurricane. Though that meeting was being held in Minnesota, hurricane Gustav was headed for the Gulf Coast and a decision was taken to cancel the festivities until the impact of the storm was clear. The opening day had been dubbed "We Can Do Better" and was supposed to highlight the ailing American economy. It was slated to feature ordinary people and other speakers who would address what they considered to be the Obama's administration failure to create jobs and stimulate economic growth.
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