|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Two massive explosions rock heart of Syrian capital near army and air force headquarters Two massive explosions have rocked the heart of the Syrian capital near the army and air force command headquarters, Syria's official news agency reported. The information minister, Omran Zoubi, said the blasts were caused by two roadside bombs, adding that one of them may have been placed inside the grounds of the army headquarters, and that there had been 'material' damage. The explosions went off minutes apart just before 7am local time near the landmark Omayyad square in Damascus, shattering the windows of nearby buildings, and were heard several miles away. Columns of thick black smoke covered the Syrian capital and ambulances were rushed to the site of the explosions as police sealed off the area to traffic. Damascus has been hit by a series of car bombs and roadside bombings in the past few months, as the uprising intensifies against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Syria's unrest began in March 2011 when protests calling for political change met a violent government crackdown. Many in the opposition have since taken up arms as the conflict has turned into a civil war that activists claim has caused the deaths of nearly 30,000 people. On 18 July, rebels penetrated the heart of Syria's power elite, detonating a bomb inside a high-level crisis meeting in Damascus that killed three top regime officials, including Assad's brother-in-law and the defence minister. The explosions on Wednesday were followed by gunfire, witnesses said, suggesting security forces clashed with gunmen in the high-security area.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Brooks and Coulson, along with six others, will be in court to face charges related to alleged phone hacking Former News International chief executuve Rebekah Brooks and ex-No 10 communications director Andy Coulson are due to appear in court to face charges linked to the investigation into phone hacking. The pair are due at the Old Bailey in London on Wednesday with five other journalists from the now-defunct tabloid the News of the World, as well as private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. Ex-managing editor Stuart Kuttner, former news editor Greg Miskiw, former head of news Ian Edmondson, ex-chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and former reporter James Weatherup are also facing charges. The seven former NotW staff face one general accusation of conspiracy to access voicemails that prosecutors say could affect up to 600 victims, along with other charges related to specific people. Mulcaire is accused of four counts related to particular individuals. Brooks, 44, from Churchill, Oxfordshire, is also due to appear with husband Charlie, 49, and five other people accused of perverting the course of justice. The charges relate to an alleged attempt to conceal material from police investigating claims of phone hacking and corrupt payments to public officials at the Sun and the News of the World. Brooks's former personal assistant Cheryl Carter, head of security at News International Mark Hanna, Brooks's chauffeur Paul Edwards and security staff Daryl Jorsling and Lee Sandell are also due to appear.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Judge orders the arrest of Fabio Jose Silva Coelho for failing to take down YouTube videos attacking a mayoral candidate A judge in Brazil has ordered the arrest of Google's most senior executive in the country after the company failed to take down YouTube videos attacking a local mayoral candidate. Google is appealing the order to arrest Fabio Jose Silva Coelho, which follows a similar decision taken earlier another Brazilian election judge. In that case, a judge found a senior executive responsible for violating local election law. That decision was overturned last week. The legal challenges underline broader questions about Google's responsibility for content uploaded by third parties to its websites, such as an anti-Islam video that sparked a wave of protests and violence in the Muslim world. A spokesman for the regional elections court in Brazil's Mato Grosso do Sul state said on Tuesday that a judge had ordered the arrest of Coelho, Google's top executive in Brazil, unless the videos attacking a mayoral candidate were removed. "Google is appealing the decision that ordered the removal of the video on YouTube because, as a platform, Google is not responsible for the content posted to its site," the company said through a spokesman in Brazil. The arrest warrants for Google executives follow the filing of criminal charges in March against Chevron Corp and Transocean Ltd and 17 of their employees and executives, in a case that showed the Brazilian justice systems' willingness to target senior executives for alleged misdeeds. Public prosecutors, who have almost total independence to bring cases in Brazil, are seeking jail terms of up to 31 years in the case, which resulted from a November oil spill. Chevron is the No. 2 US oil company. Transocean is the world's largest offshore oil-drill-rig operator. In Google's case, judges have held executives responsible for resisting the removal of online videos in violation of a stringent 1965 Electoral Code. The law bans campaign ads that "offend the dignity or decorum" of a candidate.
Earlier this month an electoral court in the state of Paraiba ordered the arrest of another senior Google executive, Edmundo Luiz Pinto Balthazar, after the company refused to take down a YouTube video mocking a mayoral candidate there. The video clip loaded by the user Paraiba Humor seized on a verbal slip by a candidate in a montage remarking, "What an idiot - give him an F!" Within days another judge overturned the order to arrest Balthazar, writing that "Google is not the intellectual author of the video, it did not post the file, and for that reason it cannot be punished for its propagation." The company also defended users' political rights in a statement at the time. "Google believes that voters have a right to use the internet to freely express their opinions about candidates for political office, as a form of full exercise of democracy, especially during electoral campaigns," the company wrote. Google faces frequent legal scrutiny over the limits of users' expression in Brazil, where it opened an office in 2005. Over the years, the company has received repeated requests from Brazilian authorities to reveal the identity of bloggers and users of its social networking site Orkut, whose posts violated local libel and anti-racism laws. In the second half of last year, Google removed four Orkut profiles after an electoral court order, the company said on a portion of its website called the Transparency Report.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, tells audience in Berlin that policymakers must continue striving to save the euro
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Civil rights activists protest in Houston after unarmed man in wheelchair is shot dead by police at home for the mentally ill Civil rights activists staged a protest in Houston on Tuesday, after an unarmed man in a wheelchair was shot dead by police at a care home for the mentally ill. Members of the National Black United Front marched in front of city hall and joined with other local pressure groups in demanding an independent investigation into the shooting. At around 2am on Saturday, police were called to the Healing Hands Assisted Home Care house, about a mile south-east of downtown Houston, after a resident became agitated because he was refused cigarettes and soda. According to a police statement, Brian Claunch grew violent and threatened to kill two patrolmen and others in the home. He "waved a shiny object in his hand in their direction" and attempted to stab one of the officers, at which point the other officer, Matthew Marin, shot Claunch. The shiny object proved to be a ballpoint pen. Claunch was reportedly killed by a single shot to the head. The 45-year-old was a schizophrenic who had lost most of his right leg and his entire right arm when he was hit by a train, the Houston Chronicle reported. He had a criminal record, including drug convictions. Marin, who became an officer in 2007, also killed a suspect when on duty in 2009, when he fired on a man who had stabbed his neighbor to death and who refused to drop the knife. Shootings by police appear to be on the rise in the US's fourth-largest city. The Houston Chronicle reported that in the first seven months of this year, the city's police had been involved in 14 shooting incidents, killing seven people – almost double the number of shootings compared with the same period last year. Twenty-one people were shot in the whole of 2011, nine fatally. The Greater Houston Coalition for Justice had previously called for the US Attorney General to investigate alleged civil-rights violations by Houston police. After the latest incident, it will ask for an acceleration of the request. "This occurs quite often," Johnny Mata, a member of the Coalition, told the Guardian. "This is an horrendous death that could have been handled differently." Mata also pointed to the case of Rufino Lara, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was shot dead by a police officer who stated that Lara ignored repeated orders to stop and show his hands. The officer said she had believed that Lara may have had a weapon, since he turned to face her with one of his hands tucked under his shirt. A search showed that there was a beer can in his waistband and two witnesses claim that he had his hands against a wall both before and as he turned. Amin Alehashem, staff attorney at the Houston office of the Texas Civil Rights Project, told the Guardian that Claunch's death was "absolutely disturbing. A lot of people are very upset." He described the killing as "particularly egregious", given the circumstances, and "in cold blood. I don't understand why the officer didn't shoot a Taser or something else." Alehashem said that in the wider context Claunch's death was indicative of a "systemic failure" that puts officers in situations they are ill-equipped to handle. "With all the budget cuts in social services you're seeing police being put in the role of social worker and it's not a role they're really trained to play," he said. Charles McClelland, the Houston chief of police, said he had asked the local FBI office to investigate the incident. "The Houston Police Department places the highest value on human life and events like these are tragic and unfortunate for everyone involved," he said in a statement. "All Houston Police Officers receive mandatory crisis intervention training specifically dealing with persons experiencing mental crisis. "As we do in all instances of this nature, the Houston Police Department's Homicide and Internal Affairs Divisions, and the Harris County District Attorneys Office, Civil Rights Division, are investigating this incident."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Thousands of events are happening all across the US today as part of an initiative to register as many people as possible for the 2012 election
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Accused New York madam admits to one count and will be sentenced in November to time served and probation A suburban mother of four charged with moonlighting as a multimillion-dollar madam pleaded guilty Tuesday to promoting prostitution. The Scotland-born Anna Gristina made the plea in Manhattan court. The judge said she'll be sentenced November 20 to time served and probation as part of a plea deal. The judge warned she could also be deported. She spent four months in jail before being released on $250,000 bond in June. Prosecutors had said Gristina, who now lives in Monroe, had a roster of wealthy, well-placed clients and boasted of law-enforcement connections during 15 years in a business that made her millions. She had said she was merely starting a dating service. She had been charged with a single count of promoting prostitution, stemming from a July 2011 tryst that authorities say she arranged involving two women and an undercover officer posing as a client. Gristina was arrested February 22 as she left a friend's Morgan Stanley office after a fundraising meeting for her business, prosecutors said. Gristina said in court papers that investigators told her they'd let her go if she gave them information about five men – not named in her filings, but described as a financier, an international banker and a member of a politically connected family, among others.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, tells audience in Berlin that policymakers must continue striving to save the euro
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Security correspondent Frank Gardner prompts crisis by telling how Queen lobbied home secretary for arrest of radical cleric An unscripted Today programme revelation about the Queen's hostility to the radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri forced the BBC into making an embarrassing apology to Buckingham Palace for breaching royal protocol. Frank Gardner, the BBC's security correspondent, prompted the early morning crisis by reporting on Radio 4's flagship news programme that the Queen had told him she was aghast that Abu Hamza, who faces imminent extradition to the US, could not be arrested during the period when he aired vehemently anti-British views as imam of Finsbury Park mosque in north London. With the tacit approval of director-general George Entwistle, in only his second week in the job, the BBC's director of news, Helen Boaden, swiftly authorised the release of a statement of apology that was highly critical of the journalist. Gardner – who corporation insiders said was contrite shortly after the broadcast – penned a personal apology to the palace. Speaking at about 8.15am, the journalist said: "And actually I can tell you that the Queen was pretty upset ... that there was no way to arrest him [Hamza]. She couldn't understand why – surely there was some law that he had broken." Naughtie, interviewing Gardner, paused and said "that's a fascinating piece of information". In turn, a clearly pleased Gardner said, "yes, I thought I'd drop that in" – and, revealing his source, he added: "She told me." Concluding the exchange, Naughtie said "that's a corker" – and the revelation swiftly topped the programme's news bulletin. Behind the scenes, however, BBC executives immediately sounded the alarm, worried that Gardner had revealed the Queen's private thinking. The monarch never expresses overtly political views in public – and the convention is that whatever is said at palace receptions or other meetings remains off the record. Although the Queen meets the prime minister weekly where possible, and has regular contact with other ministers, leaks about her views are rare. The veil of secrecy about royal political involvement also extends to other members of the royal family. Earlier this month the Guardian won a long battle to force government departments to disclose "black spider" memos written by the Prince of Wales to ministers and officials, although the ruling is the subject of an appeal. The reporter's revelation was "wholly inappropriate," the BBC said. "The conversation should have remained private and the BBC and Frank deeply regret this breach of confidence ... Frank is extremely sorry for the embarrassment caused and has apologised to the Palace." Sources at the BBC said that the broadcaster had little choice but to apologise firstly because Gardner had compromised a source – and secondly because "that source was the head of state around which there is a convention that their private conversations are never referred to". Gardner had not told anyone on the Today programme, which is edited by Ceri Thomas, that he intended to refer to the Queen on the air. Afterwards the correspondent, who uses a wheelchair after he was shot six times in Saudi Arabia by al-Qaida terrorists, tweeted: "Thanks to all those who've posted kind messages. Not exactly the best day but I can think of worse ones I've had ..." With Gardner's story already dominating its own news agenda, the BBC was forced to carry both the original report of the Queen's concern about Hamza alongside its own apology. The paradox was forced on the broadcaster, because it believed that Gardner's story was accurate, but that it was in fact wrong to have reported it. One employee said: "We are a big organisation, and we can have more than one thought at any one time." A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said she had no comment on Gardner's interview, and hinted that it was unlikely that the palace would respond any further, sparing the BBC any further embarrassment. It is understood that the Queen's remarks about Hamza were made at a private dinner in 2008 at which there were several other people present. During the Today programme, Gardner also said the Queen had lobbied ministers about her concerns. Gardner said: "She spoke to the home secretary at the time and said, surely this man must have broken some laws. Why is he still at large? He was conducting these radical activities and he called Britain a toilet. He was incredibly anti-British and yet he was sucking up money from this country for a long time. He was a huge embarrassment to Muslims, who condemned him." Gardner did not specify which home secretary was lobbied, although the most likely minister, David Blunkett, who held the post from 2001 to 2004 at the peak of Hamza's infamy, denied it was him. Following his initial arrest in August 2004, Hamza was convicted in 2006 of 11 charges connected to soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. Blunkett said: "I can categorically state that the Queen never raised the issue of Abu Hamza with me. Not surprisingly because my views and attitude in relation to this individual were very well known." A spokesman for the republican pressure group Republic said the comments, if true, showed the monarch had needlessly "waded into the debate". He said: "It is up to parliament and the courts to deal with these complex issues, not the Queen. Monarchists argue the Queen always remains above politics. Clearly that is not the case." The government has battled for eight years to secure Hamza's extradition to the US, where he is wanted in connection with alleged plans to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon, claims he provided material support to the Taliban, and allegations that he was involved in hostage-taking in Yemen in 1998. Hamza's fight against extradition ended on Monday when the European court of human rights rejected his appeal, as well as those of four other terrorism suspects, and agreed an earlier ruling that their human rights would not be violated by the prospect of life sentences and solitary confinement in a US prison. The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, is considering whether or not to sanction a private prosecution in the UK of Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan, two of the five terrorism suspects facing extradition. Ahmad has been held in detention without trial since 2004.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Olympic champions all love their painted nails. Polish sales are booming. So what's the lure of a high-concept manicure? At first, if I'm honest, I fail to understand the link between the serpent costume one model is wearing and the trees being fashioned out of her hands. Her nails form long, brown tree trunks, at the top of which sprout bright acrylic leaves. It takes me 20 minutes to realise it's the creation story, Adam and Eve, depicted entirely in nail art. Of course it is. A crowd has gathered at the Nailympics in London, straining against a rope to watch some of the world's best nail technicians work against the clock in the fantasy competition. Success rests on the model's look as a whole, and so there is a man, for instance, dressed as a leprechaun, complete with large fake ears, warts and a crushed-velvet costume. There is a woman dressed as a leopard, with wild animals attached to her nails: giraffe, elephant, panda, parrot, lion. A working water feature twines around one model's waist, gushing towards her feet, causing a woman in front of me to rush to the ladies. There is a heart-stopping moment when a model painted gold gets one 10in-long nail caught in her hair, and struggles for a second, before finally, perilously, extricating it. A competitor from Italy stops to tell me about her design. From left to right, a fable unfolds about a woman who gets mixed up with an amorous werewolf, becomes a vampire, ends up in a coffin, and is then saved by a handsome prince. The nails look heavy, but not painfully so. In some cases the models appear to be buckling beneath the weight of the designs. Head judge Elaine Watson tells me later that on one score sheet, for an otherwise excellent effort, she noted the technician should "give some consideration to the weight of their work", she says, "because the poor girl couldn't even lift her hands". This is the eighth year of the Nailympics, an event run by Scratch magazine editor Alex Fox, in which nail technicians compete in categories including nail embellishment, stiletto nails and soak-off gel manicure. There are 452 competitors, from 24 countries, with Moldova and Estonia taking part for the first time. It's expensive to compete, with technicians having to pay an entrance fee, plus travel and accommodation costs for themselves and their models, but the event's popularity reflects the boggling success of nail art right now. According to Euromonitor International, global sales of nail polish increased 43% between 2008 and 2011 – as sales of lip products grew just 7% and facial makeup 11%. Nail art was the fashion sensation of the 2012 Olympics, with the Minx brand creating flag designs for every nation's athletes, which were applied at nail salons in the Olympic Park. Almost every time a female winner held up her medal, some nail art seemed to flash up. The current success of the market is often attributed to affordability, but Fox mentions two other familiar factors: fashion and celebrity. "It probably started with London fashion week. Alexander McQueen was one of the first designers who said: 'I want the nails done to go with the hair and makeup. And now pretty much every show has nails backstage. So the fashion world woke up to nails about seven years ago, and now it's just, ka-boom!" Since then, she says, "you've had Rihanna, Katy Perry, Gaga, all those celebrities suddenly wanting to put nail art on their fingers, and go crazy with their costumes … We've had this explosion on the high street, and now we have nail bars popping up everywhere." Watson, who has worked as a nail technician in Los Angeles for almost two decades, says there has been a cultural shift too. "Customers who were coming to me in America in 1994 brought their children, and put nail art on them. Those children are adults now, with their own disposable income, so they have grown up around it, and it's gone mainstream." Fellow judge Izayah Jeffrey, from Palm Springs, California, feels the success is due to nail art's limitless possibilities. Jeffrey is in his early 40s and has always been an artist, but he first started painting nails eight years ago, after meeting "the godfather of nails", the late Tom Holcomb, who became his partner. "I was just intrigued, wanting to spend every moment with him," he says. After six months as a nail technician, training under Holcomb, he came to the first London Nailympics in 2005, entered three competitions – mixed-media, tip overlay and silk wraps – and won them all, becoming the grand champion of champions. The mixed media competition involves 10 artificial fingertips, he explains, each a different size, exhibited in a closed container, with at least three mediums used in their decoration. His entry was inspired by The Phantom of the Opera – an ornate, colourful masquerade ball. "One mask was the goddess of the stars, one was the king of the universe – they each had deities and gods and goddesses – doing this whimsical dance, going down a staircase, with a chandelier and then a gauze of flowers made of acrylic roses." Now, he says, if people like a certain time period, say the 1950s or 60s, "they can have that look, or if they like the hookers in the Victorian era, that whole bordello look, they can have that. They live vicariously through their nails." He's a big fan of marbling, particularly in colours that make nails resemble vintage Pucci fabrics. Fox mentions a trend for felt nails, and designs made from lace. UV-cured polishes – dried under a lamp, and exceptionally hardwearing – have also transformed the industry, says Watson. Ornate, painted, long, embellished nails nonetheless still seem one of the least practical fashion trends of all time. Professor Aileen Ribeiro, author of Facing Beauty: Painted Women and Cosmetic Art, says long nails have been popular for centuries, partly because they denote wealth and leisure. "People in the Ming dynasty had incredibly long fingernails," she says, "and obviously this implied they really couldn't do very much work at all. So it's about status, really. Leisurely status. And long nails give out a lot of different signals. They elongate the fingers, and for hundreds of years, long, slim fingers have been very much admired. People [displayed] their hands much more in the past than we do today. There was far more in the way of hand deportment, so a man would put his hands within the buttons of his waistcoat to show off their elegance, and a woman would use a fan." Yet the vogue for nail polish is surprisingly recent. Angus Trumble, senior curator of paintings and sculpture at the Yale Centre for British Art, and author of The Finger: A Handbook, says that in the 19th century, in European cultures, "there were all sorts of nostrums and powders, products that were designed to make nails look shiny, pink or fresh, youthful and smooth, but they were generally used rather like shoe polish. So you put it on, and polished it off, and it would leave a tint or a tinge." When women polished their nails back then, says Ribeiro, "they buffed them with chamois leather, or they put lightly coloured beeswax on their nails to give them a shine." It was a very natural look. So in the 1920s, when paints developed for cars and aircraft began being applied to nails, many found them startling. The question critics asked, says Ribeiro, is why women "with all these relative new freedoms, having won the vote, and able to stride out, no longer hobbled by skirts, tight whalebone corsets, and so on – why would they need to wear makeup and polish their nails so much? I think what the complaint is, from critics – and they're nearly always male critics – is that women are illogical. Long nails, particularly when polished, give out the look of a kind of harpie, a woman who is ferocious, and is almost prepared to be bloodthirsty in her quest for a man. There's been quite a lot of discussion as to why red is so popular, because it is the colour of blood, it is the colour of danger, it is the colour of subversion. But of course it is just an enhanced and artificial way of replicating the colour of one's lips." Early on in nail polish's evolution, brands began selling matching lipstick and nail colour. In the early days, too, some were so suspicious of the trend they suggested it was a form of self-harm. Trumble writes about lauded psychiatrist, Dr Karl A Menninger, who in 1934 "presented his case to the American Psychiatric Association that 'bobbed hair and tinted nails' were a form of self-mutilation no less harmful than the abnormal cutting off of an arm, or starving oneself to death". There were also suggestions that nail polish must be a means of covering up sin or dirt. Ribeiro says the trend might have been associated with "an element of sluttishness, that if you paint your nails, you hide dirt under the fingernails. Given the notion of health and hygiene, which was so big in the early 20th century, this again would seem to be going a step backwards. So I think there were a lot of quite complex feelings that people had, which they may not have fully understood." Nail polish was taken up by Hollywood stars, with actors including Rita Hayworth popularising red nails in the 40s and 50s. In the 70s, artificial nails were invented, and in that decade women in the African American community, and the African Caribbean community in the UK, began pioneering brilliant new styles and ideas. Dr Shirley Tate, author of Black Skins, Black Masks, says manicured nails were always a way of showing class distinctions. "Certainly, in the Caribbean, the people who used to have nails that were long and manicured were women who didn't have to do housework. So having long nails that were manicured was a way of showing class." If a woman couldn't afford a salon manicure, "you did your own manicure every Sunday, because that was about middle-class femininity, the aspiration for professional and middle-class life." What's interesting, says Tate, is how the meaning of different looks changes. "Now we have dancehall artists with fake nails and loads of art on them, and that shows a different version of femininity, maybe, than that middle-class one." Mainstream culture has appropriated nail art in the same way as it has other black beauty practices, including hair extensions, she says. As the models in the nail embellishment competition line up for the judging, I speak to them, and some of the artists. The theme for this competition is the Olympics. A model from Ostend in Belgium has designs painted in bright yellows and greens on her natural nails, each showing a different Olympic sport – diving, football, cycling, weight lifting. David Ciaccio, from Rome, is wearing acrylic nails painted blue, green and gold. Anita Podoba, a nail technician from Hungary, says she has tried to capture the Olympic spirit of Ancient Greece, so her design includes the Parthenon – as well as a nail depicting the Queen and James Bond parachuting into the park, my favourite of the whole competition. Karishma Patel is a professional hand model, working with the company Hired Hands, and while she likes the design she is wearing – when she holds her nails together, they form a union flag, picked out in crystals – she doesn't think she could wear long nails every day. "You can just about push your hair back, but you might scratch your eyes out – you'd be dangerous to yourself, and dangerous to other people." Like all the nail models I meet, those blessed with beautiful hands – the key is slender fingers, and long nail beds, apparently – she prefers the natural look. But there are many who insist that long nails enhance the hand's beauty, and are perfectly easy to work with. Olga Clapcott, a competitor from Bournemouth, has just created an immensely intricate, involved design, based around the Olympic flame, while sporting conical stiletto nails 4cm long. Doesn't she find it tricky to work with them on? On the contrary, she says; she finds everyday tasks of all kinds much more difficult without them. "When I'm typing," she says happily, "I can reach all the keys without moving my hand."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Venezuela president set for landslide win in next month's election despite challenger narrowing the gap President Hugo Chávez held a 10-point lead over rival Henrique Capriles in a polling company's final survey ahead of the elections next month, but the report released showed the challenger narrowing the gap. The poll by Datanalisis, one of Venezuela's most respected polling firms, found that about 49% said they intend to vote for Chávez, above, and about 39% said they plan to vote for Capriles. Luis Vicente Leon, a director of the polling firm, said that about 11% didn't reveal a preference. The results showed Capriles narrowing the 46-31% lead Chávez held in June's poll by the same company. The new figures already may have changed because the survey was carried out more than two weeks ago. It questioned 1,600 people between 25 August and 5 September, and had a margin of error of about 2 percentage points. It was paid for a group of about 100 clients, including businesses as well as government entities. Leon said Capriles's active campaigning in about 260 towns across the country has had an impact. Chávez, in contrast, has concentrated on a smaller number of campaign rallies, and has been less active after more than a year of cancer treatments including surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy. While Chávez has said he is now free of cancer, Leon said the president's campaign clearly has been affected by his health problems. He said that after nearly 14 years in office, Chávez for the first time will face a strong rival and that no other opposition candidate has achieved such a level of support in pre-election polls when facing Chávez. The pollster also cautioned that changes in public opinion can still occur in the weeks before the vote on 7 October.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Draghi warns of 'challenging' problems as protesters take to streets of Madrid and Greece prepares for general strike The head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has called on Germany to show eurozone unity to tackle the single currency's "challenging" problems as anti-austerity protesters thronged the streets of Madrid and Greece braced itself for a general strike. Amid fears that Greece's three-year debt crisis was entering a dangerous new phase, Draghi used a speech in Berlin to urge Germany to plan for the unlimited bond buying in its own economic interests. The pressure from the ECB president came amid signs that the summer lull in the three-year debt crisis was coming to an end. Police in Madrid baton charged demonstrators trying to reach the Spanish parliament at the end of a day that saw the ratings agency S&P shave its forecasts for eurozone growth in 2012 and 2013, the International Monetary Fund adopt a hardline approach to fresh financial help for Greece, and Germany, Finland and the Netherlands row back from the agreement at the eurozone summit in June to use Europe's bailout mechanism to recapitalise troubled banks. Reports from Greece said that the Washington-based fund was considering holding back payments of the next tranche of Greece's aid until agreement had been reached over the restructuring of the country's debt. According to the Greek television station, Skai News, the IMF is "not only examining" but may even already have slapped a veto on further rescue funds being given to near-bankrupt Greece unless there is an agreement to reduce debt to 120% of national output by 2020. A senior IMF official on the fund's administrative board was quoted as telling the news channel: "The role of the fund is the temporary provision of liquidity, not the role of being the indefinite lender." Skai cited the IMF official as also predicting that the fund will withdraw from giving "financial support to Greece within 2013" – maintaining a technical advisory role instead for as long as the country remains locked out of international markets. Ministers and officials in Athens believe the IMF has been stalling on negotiations for a new €12bn package of cuts because it wants European governments to agree to a debt writedown to make Greece's debts sustainable. European governments and the ECB are strongly opposed to taking a so-called "haircut" on their holdings of Greek debt. Despite the haggling, the coalition government in Athens remains hopeful that an agreement can be reached in the next week that will give the recession-ravaged country more time to implement its deficit-reduction strategy. Greece's economy has shrunk by 20% in three years, and Antonis Samaras's administration is looking for an extra two years in order to ease the pain of austerity and thus defuse mounting public anger. In Madrid, the government is expected to announce cuts to pensions, green taxes and levies on stock market transactions in an attempt to pave the way for an appeal to Europe for financial assistance. Speaking in Berlin, Draghi urged Angela Merkel to drop her opposition to unlimited bond buying by the ECB. Jobs, trade, and investment in Europe's biggest economy were all dependent on a thriving single currency, Draghi said as he warned member governments that they had to make good use of the breathing space in the crisis. But in a statement issued after a meeting of their finance ministers in Helsinki, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands set out the terms under which they would be willing to allow the eurozone's permanent rescue fund, the ESM, to recapitalise at-risk banks. It made a sharp distinction between future banking problems and "legacy" difficulties – essentially saying that highly indebted banks in Spain, Ireland and Greece will remain the responsibility of those countries' governments. That is likely to frustrate Spain and Ireland in particular, as both had interpreted the June summit as implying that a way would be found to break the debilitating link between their indebted banks and the debts of the government. "The ESM can take direct responsibility of problems that occur under the new supervision, but legacy assets should be under the responsibility of national authorities," read the statement by the Dutch, Finns and Germans, the three countries that have taken the hardest line during the debt crisis.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Groundbreaking move in Latin America would give women the right to a legal abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy Uruguay is preparing to legalise abortion, a groundbreaking move in Latin America where no country except Cuba has made abortions accessible to all women during the first trimester of pregnancy. Compromises made to get the measure through Congress disappointed both sides of the abortion debate, who gathered in protest. Once through Uruguay's lower house, the measure would go back to the Senate for approval of changes, but President José Mujica has said he will allow it to become law. The measure would give women the right to a legal abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and decriminalise later-term abortions when the mother's life is at risk or when the foetus is so deformed that it would not survive. In cases of rape, abortions would be legal during the first 14 weeks. The goal is to reduce the number of illegal abortions in Uruguay, Iván Posada of the centre-left Independent party told fellow legislators on Tuesday. Posada wrote the law and is expected to provide a 50th vote against the opposition's 49. "They talk of 30,000 a year, a hypothetical number, but whatever the number is, it's quite dramatic for a country where 47,000 children are born each year," Posada said in an earlier interview. Concessions include women seeking abortions must go before a review panel of at least three professionals – a gynaecologist, psychologist and social worker – to explain her request and listen to advice about alternatives including adoption and support services should she decide to keep the baby. Then she must wait five more days "to reflect" on the consequences before the procedure. "It's important that the woman who decides to have an abortion attend this meeting where she will be informed, where they'll explain all the options including alternatives that she is free to choose from," Posada said. The review panel should obtain the father's point of view, but only if the woman agrees. Women under 18 must show parental consent, but they can seek approval from a judge if they are unwilling or unable to involve their parents in the decision. The measure also allows entire private healthcare institutions, as well as individual healthcare providers, to decline to perform abortions. Such requirements raised objections from Amnesty International and other groups, which say layers of bureaucracy will create barriers and delay abortions until more than 12 weeks have passed, thus forcing women and healthcare providers into criminal territory. "This is not the law for which we fought for more than 25 years," said Marta Agunin, who directs Women and Health, a non-governmental organisation in Uruguay. Also opposed are Uruguay's Catholic and evangelical institutions, which along with public hospitals provide much of the available healthcare in Uruguay. A statement from Uruguay's Catholic University says it makes no sense to punish a woman for killing a foetus that is 12 weeks and one day old, but to decriminalise abortions before then. Conservatives also object to the removal of a proposal to require the father's consent before any abortion. Cuba, which decriminalises abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, is the only country in Latin America where legal abortion is common. Argentina and Colombia allow it only in cases of rape or when the mother's life is endangered. Colombia also allows it when there is proof of fetal malformation. Mexico City has legalised first-trimester abortions, but there are restrictions in most other parts of the country. Many countries ban abortions under any conditions. Uruguay's lawmakers have no desire to make their country a destination for women from other countries seeking abortions. The measure says only Uruguayan citizens and women who can prove at least one year's residency can apply. "This is a solution for those who live here, not that Uruguay becomes a place that attracts people from other countries for this procedure," Posada said. Opposition deputy Javier García, of the centre-right National party, accused legislators of treating living embryos as if they were "disposable," which he equated with murder. The margin for the law was razor thin on Tuesday after deputy Andrés Lima of the ruling Broad Front coalition said he would refuse to vote. With Posada joining the coalition, the measure appeared headed for passage by 50-49. Dr Marie Gonzalez, bioethicist at the University of the Republic, called the measure "evil" and vowed to work to persuade her fellow gynaecologists to refuse to perform the procedure if it becomes law. "The embryo-fetus is a human being, and as such has rights, like the human right to live," she said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President warns Iran time is running out in UN general assembly speech aimed at resetting relations between US and Arab world President Barack Obama today sought to reset US relations with the Arab world in the wake of anti-American riots triggered by an amateur video insulting the prophet Mohamed, that led to the death of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. Obama used his speech to the UN general assembly, expected to be his last major foreign policy address before the November elections, to pay a personal tribute to Stevens, highlighting the murdered diplomat's passion for Arab culture and support for democracy, and present it a model for American-Arab relations. The president also restated the US position on the Iran nuclear programme: that there was still time for diplomacy, but not "unlimited time". He also called for the emergence of a new, democratic and inclusive government in Syria, but offered no new ideas about how the international community should help attain that goal, or how the deadlock in the UN security council over Syria might be broken. In a landmark speech in Cairo three years ago, Obama promised a "new beginning" in the relationship between his country and the Islamic world, but that relationship is now at its lowest point since the start of the Arab spring as a result of a YouTube video clip made by an Egyptian American insulting the prophet Mohamed. The crude 14-minute clip went viral over the summer, triggering furious anti-American demonstrations across the Middle East and the wider Islamic world. Obama balanced condemnation of the "crude and disgusting" video, with a denunciation of the violence that it sparked and a demand for the new Arab governments to do more to defend American diplomats. "I have made it clear that the US government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity," Obama said. " It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well. We are home to Muslims who worship across our country." Obama rejected calls from Arab and other Islamic leaders for the YouTube video to be somehow banned, pointed to US constitutional protections of free speech and the technical impossibility of controlling such broadcasts. "[I]n 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete. The question, then, is how we respond. And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies mindless violence," he said. He also criticised double standards in the protection of religion in the Middle East. "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied," the president said. He also made clear his dissatisfaction with the reaction of some Arab governments to the wave of anti-American riots. US officials have singled out the Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, in this regard. "If we are serious about upholding these ideals, it will not be enough to put more guards in front of an embassy; or to put out statements of regret, and wait for the outrage to pass. If we are serious about those ideals, we must speak honestly about the deeper causes of this crisis," he said. Obama expressed gratitude to the government and people of Libya, after pro-American protesters seized control of the bases of the extremist militias implicated in the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, but he made it clear Washington did not believe all the perpetrators had been caught, and left open the option of taking direct action. "The attacks on our civilians in Benghazi were attacks on America. We are grateful for the assistance we received from the Libyan government and the Libyan people. And there should be no doubt that we will be relentless in tracking down the killers and bringing them to justice," the president said. Earlier, the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon issued an unusually stern denouncement of security council inaction over Syria, which he called "a regional calamity with global ramifications." "This is a serious and growing threat to international peace and security which requires security council action," Ban said. "The international community should not look the other way as violence spirals out of control." UN officials said that Ban has become increasingly frustrated by the security council's deadock over Syria and had decided to speak out in his bluntest speech to date. He also called for those responsibility for atrocities in Syria to be held accountable, noting "there is no statute of limitations for such extreme violence", and placing most of the blame on the Assad regime. At present, Russian and Chinese objections are blocking the international criminal court from launching an investigation into war crimes, and Ban's comments were widely seen at the UN as a direct rebuke for their obstruction of the machinery of international justice. "Brutal human rights abuses continue to be committed, mainly by the government, but also by opposition groups. Such crimes must not go unpunished," he said. "It is the duty of our generation to put an end to impunity for international crimes, in Syria and elsewhere. It is our duty to give tangible meaning to the responsibility to protect." The responsibility to protect was a principle adopted by the UN in the 1990s, stating that the international community to intervene to protect civilian populations when their states were unwilling or unable to do so. Ban also had pointed words for two leaders due to speak at the same UN podium later in the week: Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for them to pull back from the brink of a new Middle East conflict, and to ratchet down their rhetoric. "I … reject both the language of de-legitimisation and threats of potential military action by one state against another. Any such attacks would be devastating. The shrill war talk of recent weeks has been alarming," Ban said. "Leaders have a responsibility to use their voices to lower tensions instead of raising the temperature and volatility of the moment." Netanyahu has been successful in displacing the Israel-Palestinian impasse from the international agenda by repeated threats to take military action against Iran. But he was warned by Ban that his government's policies in the West Bank were stoking renewed conflict. "The two-state solution is the only sustainable option. Yet the door may be closing, for good. The continued growth of Israeli settlement settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory seriously undermines efforts toward peace. We must break this dangerous impasse," Ban said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President warns Iran time is running out in UN general assembly speech aimed at resetting relations between US and Arab world President Barack Obama today sought to reset US relations with the Arab world in the wake of anti-American riots triggered by an amateur video insulting the prophet Mohamed, that led to the death of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. Obama used his speech to the UN general assembly, expected to be his last major foreign policy address before the November elections, to pay a personal tribute to Stevens, highlighting the murdered diplomat's passion for Arab culture and support for democracy, and present it a model for American-Arab relations. The president also restated the US position on the Iran nuclear programme: that there was still time for diplomacy, but not "unlimited time". He also called for the emergence of a new, democratic and inclusive government in Syria, but offered no new ideas about how the international community should help attain that goal, or how the deadlock in the UN security council over Syria might be broken. In a landmark speech in Cairo three years ago, Obama promised a "new beginning" in the relationship between his country and the Islamic world, but that relationship is now at its lowest point since the start of the Arab spring as a result of a YouTube video clip made by an Egyptian American insulting the prophet Mohamed. The crude 14-minute clip went viral over the summer, triggering furious anti-American demonstrations across the Middle East and the wider Islamic world. Obama balanced condemnation of the "crude and disgusting" video, with a denunciation of the violence that it sparked and a demand for the new Arab governments to do more to defend American diplomats. "I have made it clear that the US government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity," Obama said. " It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well. We are home to Muslims who worship across our country." Obama rejected calls from Arab and other Islamic leaders for the YouTube video to be somehow banned, pointed to US constitutional protections of free speech and the technical impossibility of controlling such broadcasts. "[I]n 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete. The question, then, is how we respond. And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies mindless violence," he said. He also criticised double standards in the protection of religion in the Middle East. "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied," the president said. He also made clear his dissatisfaction with the reaction of some Arab governments to the wave of anti-American riots. US officials have singled out the Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, in this regard. "If we are serious about upholding these ideals, it will not be enough to put more guards in front of an embassy; or to put out statements of regret, and wait for the outrage to pass. If we are serious about those ideals, we must speak honestly about the deeper causes of this crisis," he said. Obama expressed gratitude to the government and people of Libya, after pro-American protesters seized control of the bases of the extremist militias implicated in the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, but he made it clear Washington did not believe all the perpetrators had been caught, and left open the option of taking direct action. "The attacks on our civilians in Benghazi were attacks on America. We are grateful for the assistance we received from the Libyan government and the Libyan people. And there should be no doubt that we will be relentless in tracking down the killers and bringing them to justice," the president said. Earlier, the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon issued an unusually stern denouncement of security council inaction over Syria, which he called "a regional calamity with global ramifications." "This is a serious and growing threat to international peace and security which requires security council action," Ban said. "The international community should not look the other way as violence spirals out of control." UN officials said that Ban has become increasingly frustrated by the security council's deadock over Syria and had decided to speak out in his bluntest speech to date. He also called for those responsibility for atrocities in Syria to be held accountable, noting "there is no statute of limitations for such extreme violence", and placing most of the blame on the Assad regime. At present, Russian and Chinese objections are blocking the international criminal court from launching an investigation into war crimes, and Ban's comments were widely seen at the UN as a direct rebuke for their obstruction of the machinery of international justice. "Brutal human rights abuses continue to be committed, mainly by the government, but also by opposition groups. Such crimes must not go unpunished," he said. "It is the duty of our generation to put an end to impunity for international crimes, in Syria and elsewhere. It is our duty to give tangible meaning to the responsibility to protect." The responsibility to protect was a principle adopted by the UN in the 1990s, stating that the international community to intervene to protect civilian populations when their states were unwilling or unable to do so. Ban also had pointed words for two leaders due to speak at the same UN podium later in the week: Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for them to pull back from the brink of a new Middle East conflict, and to ratchet down their rhetoric. "I … reject both the language of de-legitimisation and threats of potential military action by one state against another. Any such attacks would be devastating. The shrill war talk of recent weeks has been alarming," Ban said. "Leaders have a responsibility to use their voices to lower tensions instead of raising the temperature and volatility of the moment." Netanyahu has been successful in displacing the Israel-Palestinian impasse from the international agenda by repeated threats to take military action against Iran. But he was warned by Ban that his government's policies in the West Bank were stoking renewed conflict. "The two-state solution is the only sustainable option. Yet the door may be closing, for good. The continued growth of Israeli settlement settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory seriously undermines efforts toward peace. We must break this dangerous impasse," Ban said.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | London's St Thomas' hospital says Qatari man is being kept in isolation and having oxygen and blood pumped into his body A man who contracted a potentially fatal Sars-like virus has been connected to an artificial lung to keep him alive. The 49-year-old, from Qatar, is being treated in an intensive care unit at St Thomas' hospital in London after he became infected with a new type of coronavirus similar to the one that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars). A spokeswoman for the hospital said that the man, who is being treated in isolation, is receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (Ecmo), which delivers oxygen to the blood outside the body when the lungs are not able to. It also continuously pumps blood into and around the body. The man, who was suffering from acute respiratory syndrome and renal failure, was admitted to an intensive care unit in Doha, Qatar, on 7 September. He was transferred to the UK by air ambulance on 11 September. Before he became ill he had travelled to Saudi Arabia, a World Health Organisation spokesman said. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said the man has contracted a "new virus", which has only been identified in one other case. That patient, a 60-year-old from Saudi Arabia, died as a result of the virus. An HPA spokeswoman said preliminary inquires had found no contact between the two patients. The organisation is also investigating a "small number" of cases that could be linked to the virus. One patient, who travelled to the Middle East in the past three months, was treated in the UK but has since died, the HPA said. A spokeswoman for Guy's and St Thomas' foundation trust said: "The patient has been identified as having a new type of coronavirus and we are working closely with the HPA and following their guidance. "We are following strict infection prevention and control procedures to protect patients and staff. "There is no evidence that the virus has been transmitted to any other patient or member of staff. However, staff involved in caring for this patient are being followed up by occupational health as a precaution." Coronaviruses cause most common colds but can also cause Sars. In 2003, hundreds of people died after a Sars outbreak in Asia.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Farmers unable to afford soaring feed costs are cutting back on production and slaughtering pigs across Europe and the US Record droughts in the US and Russia are threatening to curtail the world's bacon supply, farmers in the US and Europe are warning. So dire is the situation that a world shortage of pork and bacon is "unavoidable" next year, according to Britain's National Pig Association. And in the US farmers predict pork prices will hit new highs in 2013 as farmers cut back on production due to soaring feed costs. Across Europe swine herds are shrinking. Ireland's farmers cut their herd 6.6% in the 12 months to June 2012, Denmark's fell 2.3%, Germany, Europe's largest pork producer, cut back 1.3% and there were cuts in countries including Spain, France, Italy, Hungary and Poland. In the US the cost of bringing home the bacon has almost doubled since 2006, according to economist Steve Meyer at Paragon Economics, and an adviser to the National Pork Producers Council. Consumption is falling as less pork is produced and prices rise, down from 50.8lbs per person per year in 2007 to a predicted 44.16lbs in 2013. "It's not that people don't want to eat pork, it's just that they increasingly can't afford to," said Meyer. "We've been warning about this for years. Now that we are talking about bacon, we've really got everyone's attention." US pork producers have been hit as corn and soy prices have soared following this year's drought. Livestock farmers blame a US government mandate that 10% of the US's fuel supply must come from corn-based ethanol for propping up sky high prices. The average cost of producing 100lbs of pork was $52.76 between 1999 and 2006, said Meyer. Next year he expects it to top $100. Dr Zoë Davies, general manager of the National Pig Association in the UK said US corn prices and the impact of the ethanol subsidy were being felt worldwide. "We are competing in a fierce global market for feed," she said. Davies said 7,000 extra pigs per month were now being slaughtered in the UK by farmers looking to get out of pork production. By the end of the year she expects an extra 35,000 sows to have been killed early. "The market will sort this out, people will go out of business, there will be less pork products and prices will rise," she said. Meyer said one person who might be pleased about rising bacon prices was Michelle Obama, a champion of health eating. "I'm not much for conspiracy theories but if people are eating less meat, that's a good thing as far as they are concerned," he said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, tells audience in Berlin that policymakers must continue striving to save the euro
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The controversial call to end the Green Bay Packers vs Seattle Seahawks game was just the latest poor decision bringing the NFL into disrepute over its use of replacement referees. Why is the NFL being so cheap? You might have watched the Green Bay Packers vs. Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football. If you didn't, you have already heard or will be hearing soon about what can only be described as some of the worst refereeing in NFL history. On the game's final Hail Mary pass, Seahawks receiver Golden Tate clearly "shoved" the Packers' Sam Shields - offensive pass interference. Then he was awarded a touchdown, though many would argue that the Packers M.D. Jennings should have been credited with an interception. To make matters worse, the referees disagreed with each other, only prolonging the agony even further. Why are these terrible calls occurring? The NFL (National Football League) and the NFL Referees association are currently in a financial tug-of-war. The heart of the issue seems to lie with the benefit packages and number of referees hired by the NFL (see more below). Because the NFL and its officials have not been able to reach an agreement, the NFL has locked out the referees. So, instead of the normal men in black-and-white arbitrating the field, replacements are in charge. As a Buffalo Bills fan who never misses a game, it has recently been impossible not to notice that the officiating has stunk. On Sunday, the Bills tried to challenge a fumble. CBS went to commercial. The referee went under the hood, about four minutes passed, and it was then determined that the play was not, in fact, reviewable. WHAT?! I know I'm not alone in my displeasure, and here's a list of five points that demonstrates that fans are upset, and why: 1). 35,390 – The number of Google hits for "replacement refs suck", "replacement referees suck" and "replacement officials suck" I'm not sure there is a better representation of frustration than the word "suck". Now, this number doesn't hold a candle to the phrase "Justin Bieber sucks" (1.15m). It's still, however, pretty good given that we're stuck with Bieber for forever, and replacement referees have only been on the job for three weeks. ~35,000 also beats the combined total for "LaGuardia airport sucks" and "Dulles sucks" (two of the worst airports) by about 30,000. A less specific search of "replacement refs", "replacement referees" and "replacement officials" drums up 4.1m hits. A search for Buffalo Bills phenom "CJ Spiller" racks up only 1.8m results. Any time the officials become more of a story than the players and the game, it's not good for the sport. 2). Four minutes and thirty seconds – the approximate time wasted on penalty administration more per game this year than last You might swear that there are more penalties being called this year, but you'd be wrong. The number of penalties at least through week two were the same as they were last year. The number of specific types of penalties are also approximately the same (except for personal fouls). So, then, why do the games feel so long? Yes, it turns out that there are more coaches' challenges given what is a fair lack of faith in the replacements, but it's more than that. ESPN argues that it's the amount of time it is taking to figure out what is a penalty, what isn't a penalty and how many yards to penalize. Even accounting for the increase in replay challenges, four and half minutes of time of inaction is being tacked onto games. See the Packers game example above, or the follies that ended the Redskins game at the weekend. Overall, this stoppage time made Week 2 games the third longest on average over the past 20 years (about 350 games in total). Put another way, 99.1% of weeks had shorter average game lengths than week 2 since 1993. Any of you sit through four hours of the Dolphins/Jets game on Sunday? I love football, but this is nuts. Most of the 4 o'clock games were well into the second quarter by the time the Jets marathon ended. You know NFL, we have lives outside of football… 3). 10% - the percentage difference of penalties being called against the away and home team Though the overall number of penalties is the same as history would dictate, you might have a point if you feel like the home team might be gaining the upper-hand more so than usual. Usually, the referees call as many penalties against the home team as away team. Not this year. Away teams through Week 2 has gotten 43 more penalties called against them than home teams. The Seahawks' finale and the lack of a penalty call fits right in with this phenomenon. The spread between home and away penalties has allowed the home team to win 13 percentage points more games than usual and beat spread expectations a ridiculous 60% of the time. 4). $90,000 – the amount of money the NFL is saving per official this year thanks to the lockout Much of the attention on the dollars has concentrated on the long-term costs (see below), but consider the immediate savings. The NFL is paying the replacement head officials only $3,500 a game. All other officials are making only $3,000 a game. The average NFL official made $149,000 last season. That means that NFL is spending half the amount officiating than they did last year. What is the NFL: a struggling young writer trying to make it in New York City? The fact of the matter is, the NFL struts around pretending it is a world-class product. World-class products don't skimp on ingredients. When I make dinner for a love interest, I don't buy farm-raised salmon. I buy wild salmon, and I watch the fishmonger wrap it. The NFL's operating income is $1bn. The ~$12m saved this season with replacement officials is a drop in the bucket to them. It says a lot that the NFL is willing to spend so little on something that affects the game so much. Maybe if the replacements were paid more, they'd do a better job. 5). 1% – the worst case percentage that giving the referees what they want will eat into the NFL's operating income over the next seven years The NFL doesn't want to give the officials pensions because the NFL claims that the officials are not full-time employees. Instead, they want to replace the pensions with 401k accounts. The NFL is still willing to give the officials the pay increases of 5% to 11%. Indeed, the free marketer in me sees where the NFL is going with all of this. They are willing to increase, but they recognize that the referees are only part-time employees and fans don't come out to see them. The problem is that the product is clearly suffering. Sometimes, you just have to recognize that you can be happy or right, but you can't be both. The gap between the NFL and the officials is at most $70m over the next seven years. When the NFL is slated to make a profit of over $7bn during the same period, it's time to recognize that maybe the money saved isn't worth the juice made. Conclusion The NFL should bring back the regular referees. Putting aside where you stand on labor relations, the product is suffering and there is an easy remedy.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Barack Obama addresses the UN general assembly in New York and warns that Syria crisis has 'global implications'
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Case-Shiller home-price indexes report increase for third straight month, suggesting fractured housing market is on the mend House prices rose in 20 of America's largest cities rose in July for the third month in a row, according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller home-price indexes. The Case-Shiller index of 10 major US metropolitan areas and its 20-city index rose 1.5% and 1.6% respectively, giving further evidence that the fractured housing market is finally on the mend. House prices in 16 of the 20 cities measured are now positive compared to last year. "The news on home prices in this report confirm recent good news about housing," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. "All in all, we are more optimistic about housing. Upbeat trends continue." The US housing crisis has been a major drag on the economy for more than six years, and its impact has been felt across the majority of the country. Blitzer said there were signs of optimism in some hard-hit markets. Prices are improving in Atlanta, Detroit and Las Vegas – all hard hit by the recession – but average home prices are still below their January 2000 levels. The rate of decline in Atlanta, which has posted nine consecutive months of double-digit annual declines, slowed to –9.9% annually in July, but was still the worst among the 20 cities. Cleveland, devastated by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, finally moved past January 2000 prices in June's report and continued to improve in July. Miami and Phoenix are both well off their lows and have recorded positive monthly gains since the end of 2011. The recovery in New York stalled in July, slowing from 1.9% to 1.2%, but remains positive. In a note to clients, BTIG Economics said the the rises were slightly less than expected and that some of the improvement was likely to have come from a fall in foreclosure sales, which would boost prices. "But the average person doesn't know that. An average potential home buyer merely sees headlines saying 'Home prices rising' and for the average person who might be sitting on the fence, debating getting into their first home, those headlines may be all that's necessary," BTIG wrote.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Three weeks after Syrian rebels entered the northern town of Aleppo, ammunition supplies had dwindled to 600 bullets and six rockets, resulting in a very bloody stalemate with Assad's forces. But despite a 'rotten' process, supplies are finally on their way The rusting green Mercedes truck could have been mistaken for a removal lorry. It was parked in a narrow street outside a luxurious villa a short distance from the Turkish border, and the arms and legs of chairs and tables protruded from the tarpaulin that covered the back. Beneath the furniture, however, was 450,000 rounds of ammunition and hundreds of rocket-propelled grenades destined for the Syrian rebels in Aleppo. Inside the villa two rebel commanders and a chubby civilian in jeans and T-shirt were exchanging pieces of paper, which the civilian signed. He issued a series of instructions to the men outside, who began transferring crates into the commanders' white Toyota pickup. "All what I want from you is that you shoot a small video and put it on YouTube, stating your name and your unit, and saying we are part of the Aleppo military council," the civilian told one of the commanders, who fought with the Islamist Tawheed brigade. "Then you can do whatever you want. I just need to show the Americans that units are joining the council. "I met two Americans yesterday in Antakya (Turkey) . They told me that no advanced weapons would come to us unless we were unified under the leadership of the local military councils. So shoot the video and let me handle the rest." Looking in the back, it was clear the ammunition was new. The RPG rounds were still wrapped in plastic. An orange flash
It was past midnight in Aleppo when Captain Abu Mohamed and Captain Abu Hussein received a phone call informing them the ammunition from Turkey had arrived. Mohamed, a portly 28-year-old member of Aleppo military council, perched unsteadily on a plastic chair in a garage on the edge of the Salah al-Din neighborhood. He had a handsome face and a great round belly. He and Hussein, a short man with a blond goatee, had been close friends since they were cadets in Aleppo military academy. Mohamed had defected first. Hussein followed him a couple of months later. Mohamed described where the weapons had come from. Different donors in Saudi Arabia were channelling money to a powerful Lebanese politician in Istanbul, he said. He in turn co-ordinated with the Turks – "everything happens in co-ordination with Turkish intelligence" – to arrange delivery through the military council of Aleppo, a group composed mostly of defected officers and secular and moderate civilians. Because of its virtual monopoly on ammunition supplies, the council has grown into a significant force in the Syrian civil war, rivalling existing powers like the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist factions. Stirred into action by the phone call, the two captains raced an old pickup through the dark streets near the front line, under a steady rain of shells. A few rebels, taking cover behind the corners of buildings, shouted at them to switch off their headlights. The captains continued in darkness and a state of burning paranoia, conjuring a sniper behind every shutter and a government tank on every street corner. They parked the pickup at their rendezvous point in front of a school and waited for the cargo to arrive. An orange flash burst from a balcony in front of them, followed by a loud explosion and the jangle of shrapnel rattling the roof of the car. A shell had hit the building less than 50 metres away. It was enough for Mohamed. "Let's go find some food," he said, crunching the pickup into gear and speeding away. 'We don't have the ammunition we were promised'
The rebel plan for the assault on Aleppo had been simple, Mohamed said. They were told by the leadership that if they took the fight to the heart of the city, the supply lines would flow. But three weeks after the rebels entered the town, the ammunition for a front stretching from the Saif al-Dawla boulevard in the north to the Salah al-Din neighbourhood in the south-west had dwindled to 600 bullets and six RPG rockets. The lines were close to collapse. "They told us to start the rebellion and then we would get support," Mohamed said. "The city was divided into three sectors and we split our forces and ammunition between the three fronts, but we didn't imagine that we would enter Aleppo so easily. We took 60% of the city in the first few days. We overstretched our units, while the regime had decided to concentrate all his power to fight in one sector, Salah al-Din. "We started pulling resources from the two other sectors and concentrated them here. At the same time the support we were promised stopped. That led to all three sectors buckling at the same time. We don't have the ammunition we were promised. Every day the [Syrian] army is pushing forwards. So we expend the one thing we have, men. Men are dying." Over the following days, a small amount of ammunition trickled to the rebels. The two captains piled an old Lada high with crates of bullets and drove a dozen times along sniper-infested streets to resupply the fighters at the fronts in Salah al-Din and Saif al-Dawla, handing bullets and rockets to the different units, noting the names of the recipients and the numbers of rounds they had been given in a small ledger. It was one of the most perilous jobs in Aleppo. They raced through the desolate Saif al-Dawla neighbourhood one morning, ducking low in their seats as they crossed intersections to avoid the snipers. A crisp breeze carried the oppressive smell of death and festering garbage. Fresh black smoke was rising from the campus of the University of Science. Their first meeting that morning was with Haji Bilal, a tall, wiry young man who had been a farmer before the revolution, but who had been transformed over months of fighting into a commander of a group of a dozen of his cousins and clansmen. Bilal was holding an intersection in Saif al-Dawla, but with his new ammunition he wanted to push a couple of kilometres down the road towards Aleppo's huge sports stadium complex, which was being used by government forces as a base for troops, tanks and artillery. After a short discussion about tactics, the two captains moved on to their next meeting, with a group of foreign jihadis who were fighting to regain a frontline they had lost a few hours earlier near the university. 'They are rotten, playing with us'That night the two captains grabbed what sleep they could in a commandeered apartment whose luxurious gold-painted chairs, pink plastic flip flops and school books spoke of a different, better era. The floor was strewn with the contents of their guerrilla existence: ammunition pouches, webbing and weapons, empty ration packets, spilled rice and plastic bottles. A gold fish was dying slowly in a glass tank filled with yellowish green water. The captains' uniforms stank and were caked with salt. "I have been fighting for eight months non-stop," Mohamed said, his head hanging wearily on his chest. "Sometimes I feel not only pain and fatigue but also boredom." Later, Hussein's brother arrived. He was a broad-shouldered major, the commander of a big rebel battalion that fought on the eastern side of Aleppo around the castle. "I know you are not taking care of my brother," he barked at Mohamed in a loud, cheerful voice. "You are sending him to the front alone. I am going to stay for a few days to take care of him." The major had been in Turkey looking for funds, and had now decided to spend a few days with Hussein before heading to his battalion. He described the difficulty of finding money and supplies across the border. "I tell you it's rotten up there," he said. "Everyone is willing to pay you just a little bit to buy you – the Muslim brotherhood, [the defected air force colonel] Riad al-Assad. They are rotten, playing with us. I sat for three weeks waiting there and nothing came." He had met the former head of the transitional national council, Burhan Ghalioun, in Turkey. "He took me with him into a meeting in Istanbul. I love this man, we met a prince in the Qatari armed forces. We talked and explained everything and he had an idea of what was going on, but he said the good times were coming soon. We left with nothing. "One of his men gave us some useful advice. He said if we all pointed our guns at a Mig fighter at once it would come down." The three officers burst with laughter. 'Human beings shouldn't see things like this'
The following morning, wind rustled the curtains in the shattered window frames of the apartment block. The shelling had continued all night, and at around 8am the Syrian troops added mortars to the bombardment. The captains set out to do their rounds, heading out to inspect the frontlines at the edge of Salah al-Din. There they found a collection of bodies. Two men lay next to each other in the middle of the street. One, wearing a clean maroon T-shirt and white trousers, was on his back, his arms and legs splayed out, his face swollen into a deep blue and grey shades and his mouth open. His head rested on a pile of garbage – small, dried shrivelled fruit spilled from a small bag he was carrying. The corpse next to him lay on his face, a big pool of dried blood covered the space between him and a black bicycle. A thick layer of flies covered the heads of the two men and when Captain Hussein went close by to look they flew up in humming clouds of disgust. A few metres down the road a yellow taxi stood in the middle of the road, the windshield riddled with 18 bullet holes. Inside, under a thick layer of flies, were the bodies of a man and a woman. From their positions it seemed that in their last movements the man had tried to shield her, and she had tried to hide beneath him. In the back seat lay a dead child. A short distance further up the street another body with a smashed face lay next to a garbage dump. All the bodies had swollen to become stout and plump, and the smell of death floated over the rancid stench of decomposing rubbish. A rebel sniper, walked with us to where the first two bodies lay. He was a hard looking man, short and solemn. He took us to the entrance of a building. "I was standing here when this man was shot," he said indicating the man in the maroon T-shirt. "He said he needed to get to his house. I shouted at him, telling him not to go. They shot him, but he wasn't dead. I tried to help but when I put out my head the sniper shot at me." He pointed at a neat line of five bullets on the edge of the wall next to us. "He said 'I kiss your hands. Help me.'" The rebel told the injured man to roll his body over towards him, but instead he had flipped over in the other direction. "He stopped talking and I left him," the man said. Mohamed stood next to the bodies holding his mouth and closing his eyes. He looked shattered. "Human beings shouldn't see things like this," he said. "How will we go back to our lives?" "Do we have lives?" Hussein said. 'The haji is dead' By midday, the bodies had become part of the landscape. Fighters walked past without registering them. A small supply truck carrying food and drink for the fighters parked next to the taxi full of bodies and the flies buzzed between the rebels' water can and the dried patches of blood in the street. As the two captains left, driving their Lada up Saif al-Dawla boulevard to inspect the northern part of the frontline, two men arrived in a small truck to take the body that lay next to the bicycle. He was their brother. A skirmish was taking place in the middle of the boulevard. Bilal had led his small unit down a side street and was advancing towards the government base in the stadium complex. The thuds of artillery fire rocked the street and the crackle of machine guns echoed between the deserted buildings. A big man came running up, covered with dust and sweat. "We advanced," he gasped. "They started shelling us. There are injured. The haji is dead!" Hussein could not contain his agitation, wanting to join the fight, but in few minutes a group of men arrived in a small van carrying the body of young Haji Bilal. Mohamed drove his small Lada to rescue the rest of the unit. They piled on top of it and he reversed, screeching, back into the main street. In front of the supply van another man, one of Bilal's cousins, opened his hands and lowered his head and began to scream, running around in a tight circle. Hussein held him, but the man tried to wrestle himself free. He wailed, rocking himself forward and backward. They carried the body and laid it on the floor, his men gathered around him, touching him kissing his bloody face. Hussein's brother, the major, had been in the skirmish with Bilal. We drove to a small cafe that had become a resting place for the fighters. The major gulped cold water. Mohamed seemed to have reached breaking point. "You meet a guy for a day or two in battle and you feel you have known him for a long time," he said. "The trouble with simple people like Haji Bilal is they see an officer and think he knows everything. They put their trust in him. 'I am happy when fighting' "He asked me about the attack [near the stadium] and I gave him ammunition for it. I feel it's my fault. I am responsible." The major, by contrast, was elated. He told us how the Syrian army had fired mortars at them, killing Bilal and injuring another fighter. The major had then carried the injured fighter on his back as they retreated. "I followed them because I didn't want the civilians to call me a defected military officer, a coward," he said. He turned to Mohamed. "You know when you are in the middle of battle and mortars start slamming the earth around you, you forget all your fears and there is a strange joy and happiness. I am so happy when I am fighting," he said, his eyes sparkling. The next day found Hussein and Mohamed hugging and weeping like children in the shadow of Aleppo's castle. The quirky and affectionate major lay dead next to them. A single sniper bullet had entered his neck. There was a splash of blood on his right cheek. The major was laid in a coffin and covered with laurel branches. Hussein held his head between his hands and wept, repeating "thanks be to God" over and over. The captains returned to the apartment, where Hussein collapsed on a sofa and buried his weeping face on his friend's chest. The names of captains Hussein and Mohamed have been changed to protect their identities
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, tells audience in Berlin that policymakers must continue striving to save the euro
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Thousands of events are happening all across the US today as part of an initiative to register as many people as possible for the 2012 election
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Security correspondent told how Queen lobbied home secretary to secure arrest of Islamist cleric The BBC has apologised to the Queen after its security correspondent recounted a private conversation in which the monarch told him she had lobbied a home secretary to secure the arrest of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical Islamist cleric. Frank Gardner said the monarch personally told him she was aghast that Abu Hamza, who faces imminent extradition to the US, could not be arrested during the period when he regularly aired vehemently anti-British views as imam of Finsbury Park mosque in north London. The Queen never expresses overtly political views herself, and the convention for people conversing with her, for example at palace receptions or other meetings, is that whatever is said remains off the record. During an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme about the wider issue of the 54-year-old's newly approved extradition to the US, Gardner said of Abu Hamza's former activities that there was a sense MI5 had been too slow to realise how dangerous he was in radicalising other people. Gardner continued: "Actually, I can tell you that the Queen was pretty upset that there was no way to arrest him. She couldn't understand – surely there had been some law that he had broken? In the end, sure enough, there was. He was eventually convicted and sentenced for seven years for soliciting murder and racial hatred." A clearly surprised James Naughtie, interviewing Gardner, described this revelation as "a corker". Gardner said: "Yes, I thought I'd drop that in. She told me." Gardner said: "She spoke to the home secretary at the time and said, surely this man must have broken some laws. Why is he still at large? He was conducting these radical activities and he called Britain a toilet. He was incredibly anti-British and yet he was sucking up money from this country for a long time. He was a huge embarrassment to Muslims, who condemned him." The BBC reported that the corporation had written to Buckingham Palace to express their regret and that the conversation should have stayed private. Gardner's comments were "wholly inappropriate", the letter said, adding that the BBC correspondent was personally very sorry. A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said she had no comment on Gardner's interview. Gardner did not specify which home secretary was lobbied, but it appears most likely to be David Blunkett, who held the post from 2001 to 2004, at the peak of Abu Hamza's infamy before he was arrested. Following his initial arrest in August 2004, Abu Hamza was convicted in 2006 of 11 charges connected to soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. There was no immediate comment from Blunkett's office. A spokesman for the republican pressure group Republic said the comments, if true, showed the monarch had needlessly "waded into the debate". He said: "It is up to parliament and the courts to deal with these complex issues, not the Queen. Monarchists argue the Queen always remains above politics. Clearly that is not the case." The government has battled for eight years to secure Hamza's extradition to the US, where he is wanted in connection with alleged plans to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon, as well as claims he provided material support to the Taliban. He is also wanted in connection with allegations that he was involved in hostage-taking in Yemen in 1998. Abu Hamza's fight against extradition ended on Monday when the European court of human rights rejected his appeal, as well as those of four other terrorism suspects, and agreed an earlier ruling that their human rights would not be violated by the prospect of life sentences and solitary confinement in a US prison. The Queen's political views
Gardner's first-hand account of the Queen's specific views on a politically charged subject is notable for two reasons: firstly, the idea of the monarch directly lobbying a home secretary on so specific a subject, but also the sheer rarity of hearing her opinions at all. Unlike Prince Charles and, to a lesser if more indiscreet extent, Prince Philip, the Queen more or less never expresses an overtly political view, barring perhaps her support for the 1982 Falkands war, in which the involvement of her own son, Prince Andrew, added a personal element. This is not because she is not interested in such affairs, or informed: David Cameron is now the 12th prime minister with whom she has discussed the issues of the day in weekly chats. Yet such is the perceived importance of the political neutrality of her constitutional role, and the iron-clad convention that conversations with her remain unreported, that virtually no royal opinions leak out. What does emerge is generally the personal: the official Downing Street website, for example, notes her warmer relations with some prime ministers, such as James Callaghan, than others, like Ted Heath. Anything more political generally emerges, at best, via second-hand sources. Last year the former partner of Denis MacShane, Europe minister in the last Labour government, recounted the Queen saying at a Buckingham Palace drinks party that she opposed Turkey's EU membership. A 1996 book by the historian Ben Pimlott, based on interviews with royal courtiers and friends, portrayed her as almost left-leaning, supposedly questioning the wisdom of the Suez intervention and Margaret Thatcher's policies towards poor people.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Senior political and military figures say government has lost control of security amid wave of Boko Haram bombings The Nigerian government has lost control of security, according to its own advisers, and lacks a coherent strategy to counter the threat of terrorism. Senior political and military figures have told the Guardian of their growing pessimism over the government's ability to contain Boko Haram, the Islamist sect responsible for a deadly wave of bombings and kidnappings in northern Nigeria, and are bracing themselves for an escalation in attacks. "We have a serious problem in Nigeria and there is no sense that the government has a real grip," a senior official close to the government said on condition of anonymity. "The situation is not remotely under control. It is just a matter of time before we see more large-scale attacks that pose a significant threat to national security, and now Nigeria's economic growth is also at risk." Boko Haram – whose name is often translated as "western education is sinful" – has become increasingly sophisticated in its operations since first launching mass attacks in northern Nigeria in 2010. The sect first began using violence against the Nigerian government and police in 2003, and is believed to have advanced its operations in recent months by attracting funding and support from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Shabaab. In 2009 Boko Haram launched a new phase of operations following the killing of its leader, Muhammad Yusuf, by police and security forces. Since then, a spate of deadly church bombings has left hundreds dead, while attacks on mobile phone base stations have paralysed telecommunications in northern Nigeria, causing an estimated £3m worth of damage. The government has attempted to fight back against the sect, and claims to have killed at least 35 suspected militants earlier this week, and detained 60 others during raids in Adamawa and Yobe states in northern Nigeria – two of the areas most affected by the violence. But its failure to stop Boko Haram attacks has led many to question the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan, who promised in March that security services would have ended the insurgency by June. A senior defence official, who asked not to be named, expressed concern that the government had failed to demonstrate the necessary political leadership to combat the threat posed by Boko Haram. "Leadership is the problem," said the source. "When we had military dictatorships in Nigeria, we did not experience this kind of weak decision-making. There is no way we can combat this threat without more decisive action. You cannot divorce what is happening from weak leadership and the failure to repair the divisions in our society." "The level of poverty in the north, and the way southerners are behaving with impunity – it is not surprising that there is this level of discontent in northern Nigeria." Experts have frequently attributed the rise of Boko Haram to the growing divide between rich and poor in Nigeria, compounded by regionalism that has often pitched the largely Christian south against the predominantly Muslim north. Of the two-thirds of Nigerians – 100 million people – living below the poverty line, Nigeria's national bureau of statistics said that the number living on less than one dollar a day was higher in the north, with rates of around 70%, compared with rates closer to 50% in the south. Much of the north has illiteracy rates of above 75%. "These acts are a reaction against decades of neglect," the source close to the government said. "They are similar factors to what we saw driving revolution in the Arab spring. "The Boko Haram phenomenon underlines the failure of the Nigerian state," said Manir Dan Ali, editor of the Daily Trust newspaper. "The government has ignored the advice of its own security officials, who warned of the danger signals long ago, and worse, lacks a coherent strategy for dealing with the problem and its underlining causes of poverty, neglect and a lack of opportunities for the young." Resentment towards the Nigerian authorities has been compounded by human rights abuses, including extra-judicial killings, experts say. "Male members of security forces have been going in and raiding women's quarters – terrifying the women and humiliating the men," said Chidi Odinkalu, chair of Nigeria's national human rights commission. "These are minimal things that the state should be able to achieve – to train the soldiers on these sensitivities and use female soldiers. You can't fight an insurgency by alienating part of the community." The source close to the government said: "There are middle-ranking senior officers who understand the counter-productive nature of raids and extrajudicial executions. But that understanding is not filtering down quickly enough to junior officers – they are making bad decisions and they are not adequately trained. The police are ethically broken, and the armed forces don't trust the police. "If you talk to Nigerians in the north, the misbehaviour of the security forces has become a significant factor in strengthening support for Boko Haram." The military said it had addressed the problem of abuses by security services and changed its approach to operations in northern Nigeria. "We are beginning to win the hearts and minds of the people," said Colonel Muhammad Yerima, director of defence information. "We are closing in on the terrorists – the more we catch them and interrogate them and get information, and stop the people that are supporting them, the more we will be able to combat this threat." But the relationship between Boko Haram and officials is complex, experts say, with some members of the security services assisting the sect. "Some members of the security forces have been working as double agents," said Adunola Abiola, founder of Think Security Africa, a thinktank specialising in security issues in Africa. "Improved and regular vetting of security personnel is very important for improving security management in the country generally." The Nigerian government has been under renewed pressure to combat Boko Haram since the US decided to designate three members of the sect as foreign terrorists, giving US authorities powers under US law to take action. "This designation would in theory give various departments and agencies in the US government the power to actively pursue these men which could in theory result in a violation of Nigeria's sovereignty and possibly even territorial integrity," said Abiola. "It was severely embarrassing for the federal government and reinforced domestic criticism that it was incapable of performing the most basic of sovereign functions."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President says US will 'do what we must' to thwart an Iranian bomb and calls on UN to help protect diplomatic missions Barack Obama will warn Iran that the US will "do what we must" to prevent it acquiring a nuclear weapon, and appeal to world leaders for a united front against further attacks on US diplomatic missions in Muslim countries. Preparing to take the podium on Tuesday at the UN six weeks before the US presidential election, Obama hopes to counter criticism of his foreign policy record by Republican rival Mitt Romney, who has accused him of mishandling the Arab uprisings, damaging ties with Israel and not being tough enough on Iran. Seeking to step up pressure on Iran, Obama will tell the UN general assembly there is still time for diplomacy but that "time is not unlimited". His tough talk appears aimed at easing Israeli concerns about US resolve to curb Tehran's nuclear drive, as he reasserts before the world body that he will never let Iran develop an atomic bomb and then simply contain the problem. But he will stop short of meeting demands by the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to set a clear "red line" that Iran must not cross if it is to avoid military action. "A nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained," he will say. "It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations and the stability of the global economy." Obama is also seeking to reassure US voters that he is doing everything he can to head off any more violence like the attack in Libya that killed the US ambassador and three of his colleagues. "The attacks of the last two weeks are not simply an assault on America. They are also an assault on the very ideals upon which the United Nations was founded," Obama will tell the assembled world leaders. This eruption of violence has confronted Obama with the worst setback yet in his efforts to keep the Arab revolutions from turning against the US and has demonstrated he has few easy options. In his speech, he has the delicate task of articulating US distaste for insults to any religion while at the same time insisting there is no excuse for a violent reaction. Obama is not expected to offer detailed solutions to crises that threaten to chip away at a foreign policy record that his aides hoped would be immune from Republican attack. Obama's final turn on the world stage before facing voters has left little doubt about his immediate priorities. He skipped the customary one-on-one meetings with foreign counterparts but went ahead with the taping of a campaign-style appearance on the popular television talk-show The View, a trade-off that drew Republican criticism. Obama planned to be in and out of New York in 24 hours and off to the election battleground state of Ohio on Wednesday . Despite Obama's international concerns, administration officials are heartened by Romney's recent foreign policy stumbles and doubt that the president's critics will gain traction in a campaign that remains focused mainly on the US economy.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Claimants include executors of Jade Goody's estate, Davina McCall's husband and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson The high court is to hear details of nearly 300 damages claims against News International for alleged News of the World phone hacking, from people including the late reality TV star Jade Goody. At least 155 new civil lawsuits – involving 174 individuals – for invasion of privacy were lodged with the high court by the 14 September deadline set by Mr Justice Vos, the high court judge overseeing the process. Vos will also be given an update from News International on its separate phone-hacking compensation scheme, which has accepted 137 claims, at a high court case management conference on Tuesday. The extent of phone hacking at the now-closed News of the World is expected to be confirmed by lawyers for both the claimants and News International. The 292 new claims are in addition to 58 lawsuits settled by the publisher earlier this year. Many of the names on the court register of claims are not well-known figures to the public and are what Lord Justice Leveson called "collateral damage" – relatives of celebrities or victims of crime, such as the parents of former nanny Louise Woodward, who was found guilty of manslaughter in the US when she was 19, and Lorna Hogan, the former girlfriend of Calum Best. Janet Woolf, the mother of Ken Livingstone's eldest child, is one who believes she was targeted because of her connection to a famous politician. Others who have not sought the public spotlight include Matthew Robertson, husband of Davina McCall. TV producer Kate Jackson, who made a fly-on-the-wall documentary about Goody as she was dying of cancer in 2009, is also making a claim along with two of the reality TV star's best friends, Simon Bridger and Danny Hayward. As executors of her estate, they are making the claims on her behalf. Lauren Pope, now known as a star from reality TV show The Only Way is Essex, is suing in relation to a night out with Prince Harry in 2004. Other civil claims not previously reported include actions taken by Yousef Bhailok, the former secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. On the entertainment front, former EastEnders actor Lacey Turner is suing as is Claire Powell, Kerry Katona's former agent, and Footballers' Wives actor Laila Rouass. Suzanne Dando, the former British Olympic gymnast and ex-girlfriend of former Sky Sports presenter Andy Gray, is also claiming damages for alleged hacking. Joining the ranks of current and former Premier League footballers seeking damages are Noel Whelan, Chris Kiwomya and Neil Ruddock. Among the other claimants who filed before Vos's 14 September deadline were actor Hugh Grant, the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock and his wife Glenys, and former secretary of state for trade and industry Stephen Byers. The names of claimants will be confirmed before Vos during the case management conference on Tuesday. Earlier this month, he ordered a three- to four-day hearing in a bid to clear the way for potential trials of the second wave of phone-hacking claims against News International sometime after May next year. This second tranche of claims has become a protracted matter – this is ninth hearing this year – with ongoing legal arguments over what News International should and could reveal to claimants. The publisher settled 58 claims in January and February this year, including suits brought by Jude Law, Steve Coogan and Sienna Miller. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Monarch 'aghast' radical cleric could not be arrested and lobbied home secretary, according to BBC's security correspondent The Queen lobbied the then-home secretary to secure the arrest of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical Islamist cleric who faces imminent extradition to the US, the BBC's security correspondent has said. Frank Gardner said the monarch personally told him she was aghast that Abu Hamza could not be arrested during the period when he regularly delivered vehemently anti-British views as imam of Finsbury Park mosque in north London. During an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme about the wider issue of the 54-year-old's newly approved extradition to the US, Gardner said of Abu Hamza's former activities: "The Queen was pretty upset that there was no way to arrest him. She couldn't understand – surely there had been some law that he'd broken? In the end, sure enough there was. He was eventually convicted and sentenced for seven years for soliciting to murder and racial hatred." A clearly surprised James Naughtie, interviewing Gardner, described this revelation as "a corker". Gardner replied: "Yes, I thought I'd drop that in. She told me." Gardner added: "She spoke to the home secretary at the time and said, surely this man must have broken some laws. Why is he still at large? He was conducting these radical activities and he called Britain a toilet. He was incredibly anti-British and yet he was sucking up money from this country for a long time." Gardner did not specify which home secretary was lobbied, but it appears most likely to be David Blunkett, who held the post from 2001 to 2004, at the peak of Abu Hamza's infamy before he was arrested. Following an initial arrest in August 2004, Abu Hamza was convicted in 2006 of 11 charges connected to soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. The government has since battled to secure his extradition to the US, where he is wanted in connection with alleged plans to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon, as well as claims he provided material support to the Taliban. He is also wanted in connection with allegations that he was involved in hostage-taking in Yemen in 1998. Abu Hamza's eight-year battle against extradition ended on Monday when the European court of human rights c rejected his appeal, as well as those of four other terrorism suspects, and agreed an earlier ruling that their human rights would not be violated by the prospect of life sentences and solitary confinement in a US prison.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, will hold talks with German chancellor Angela Merkel later today
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | China sends first aircraft carrier into service in naval show of strength as Sino-Japanese relations worsen over islands dispute China has sent its first aircraft carrier into formal service in a show of naval ambition that could spur regional worries about territorial rows with Japan. China's ministry of defence said the Liaoning would "raise the overall operational strength of the Chinese navy" and help Beijing to "effectively protect national sovereignty, security and development interests". In fact, analysts say the carrier, refitted from a ship bought from Ukraine, will have a limited role and will be used mostly for training and testing ahead of the possible launch of China's first domestically built carriers after 2015. But China cast the formal handing over of the carrier to its navy as a triumphant show of national strength – at a time of bitter tensions with neighbouring Japan over islands claimed by both sides. Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated sharply this month after Japan bought the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from a private owner, sparking anti-Japanese protests across China. "China will never tolerate any bilateral actions by Japan that harm Chinese territorial sovereignty," the vice-foreign minister, Zhang Zhijun, said on Tuesday. "Japan must banish illusions, undertake searching reflection and use concrete actions to amend its errors, returning to the consensus and understandings reached between our two countries' leaders." The risks of military confrontation are slight, but political tensions between Asia's two biggest economies could fester. For the Chinese navy, the addition of carriers has been a priority as it builds a force capable of deploying far from the Chinese mainland. China this month warned the US, with Barack Obama's "pivot" to Asia, not to get involved in separate territorial disputes in the South China Sea between China and US allies such as the Philippines. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in turn urged China and its south-east Asian neighbours to resolve disputes "without coercion, without intimidation, without threats and certainly without the use of force". The timing of the carrier launch might be associated with China's efforts to build up patriotic unity ahead of a Communist party congress that will install a new generation of top leaders as early as next month. Narushige Michishita, a security expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, said he thought the timing had nothing to do with the islands dispute. "China is taking another step to boost its strategic naval capability," he said. "If they come to have an operational aircraft carrier, for the time being we are not super-concerned about the direct implications for the military balance between the US and Japan on the one hand, and China on the other. This is still not cutting edge." The East China Sea tensions with Japan have been complicated by the intervention in the dispute of Taiwan, which also lays claim to the islands. Japanese coastguard vessels fired water cannon to turn away about 40 Taiwan fishing boats and eight Taiwan coastguard vessels on Tuesday. Japan protested to Taiwan, a day after it lodged a complaint with China over what it said was a similar intrusion by Chinese boats. Taiwan has friendly ties with Japan, but the two sides have long squabbled over fishing rights in the area. China and Taiwan both argue they have inherited China's historic sovereignty over the islands. Japan's top diplomat, the vice-foreign minister, Chikao Kawai, was in Beijing for a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Zhang Zhijun, in a bid to ease tensions. The flare-up in tension comes at a time when both China and Japan are confronting domestic political pressures. The government of the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, faces an election in a few months' time, adding pressure on him not to look weak on China, while China's Communist party is preoccupied with the leadership turnover, with President Hu Jintao due to step down.
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