|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Minute-by-minute report: It was a good day for Keegan Bradley and the USA, with Nicolas Colsaerts the only European shining light. Scott Murray was watching
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Could the next big animal-human disease wipe us out? Astrid Joosten was a 41-year-old Dutch woman who, in June 2008, went to Uganda with her husband. At home in Noord-Brabant, she worked as a business analyst. Both she and her husband, Jaap Taal, a financial manager, enjoyed annual adventures, especially to Africa. The journey in 2008, booked through an adventure-travel outfitter, took them to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home to mountain gorillas. While there, the operators offered an optional trip, to a place called the Maramagambo Forest, where the chief attraction was a peculiar site known as Python Cave. African rock pythons lived there, languid and content, grown large and fat on a diet of bats. Most of the other travellers didn't fancy this trip, Taal told me. "But Astrid and I always said, maybe you come here only once in your life, and you have to do everything you can." Inside the cave, the footing was bad: rocky, uneven, slick with guano. The ceiling was thick with bats, big ones, many thousands of them, agitated at the presence of human intruders. Astrid and Jaap kept their heads low and watched their step, trying not to slip, ready to put a hand down if needed. "I think that's how Astrid got infected," he told me. "I think she put her hand on a piece of rock [covered with bat droppings]. And so she had it on her hand." No one had warned Joosten and Taal about the potential hazards of an African bat cave. They knew nothing of a virus called Marburg, first identified in 1967 and thought to be carried by bats (though they had heard of Ebola, another filovirus). They stayed in the cave for only about 10 minutes. Then they left, visited the mountain gorillas, did a boat trip, and flew back to Amsterdam. Thirteen days after the cave visit, at home in Noord-Brabant, Astrid fell ill. At first it seemed no worse than flu. Then her temperature went higher and higher. After a few days she began suffering organ failure. Her doctors suspected Lassa fever and moved her to a hospital in Leiden, where she developed a rash and conjunctivitis; she haemorrhaged. She was put into an induced coma, a move dictated by the need to dose her more aggressively with antiviral medicine. Before she lost consciousness, Taal went back into the isolation room, kissed his wife and said to her, "Well, we'll see you in a few days." Blood samples, sent to a lab in Hamburg, confirmed the diagnosis: Marburg. Astrid worsened. As her organs shut down, she lacked oxygen to the brain, suffered cerebral oedema, and before long she was declared brain-dead. "They kept her alive for a few more hours, until the family arrived," Taal told me. "Then they pulled out the plug and she died within a few minutes." The doctors, appalled by his recklessness in kissing her goodbye, had prepared an isolation room for Taal himself, but that was never needed. The news of Astrid Joosten's death carried far. She was the first person known to have left Africa with an active filovirus infection and died. Back in 1994, a Swiss graduate student from Ivory Coast had recovered. Did any other person, apart from those two, ever pass through an international airport and depart the continent with Ebola or Marburg virus incubating in his or her body? No one of whom the experts were aware. Astrid Joosten's case proved that Marburg could travel in a human, though it didn't travel as well as Sars or influenza or HIV-1. Five thousand miles away, in Colorado, another woman heard the news with a shudder of recognition. She had visited Python Cave, too. Infectious disease is all around us. It's one of the basic processes that ecologists study, along with predation and competition. Predators are big beasts that eat their prey from outside. Pathogens (disease-causing agents, such as viruses) are small beasts that eat their prey from within. Although infectious disease can seem grisly and dreadful, under ordinary conditions, it's every bit as natural as what lions do to wildebeests and zebras. But conditions aren't always ordinary. Just as predators have their accustomed prey, so do pathogens. And just as a lion might occasionally depart from its normal behaviour – to kill a cow instead of a wildebeest, or a human instead of a zebra – so a pathogen can shift to a new target. Aberrations occur. When a pathogen leaps from an animal into a person, and succeeds in establishing itself as an infectious presence, sometimes causing illness or death, the result is a zoonosis. It's a mildly technical term, zoonosis, unfamiliar to most people, but it helps clarify the biological complexities behind the ominous headlines about swine flu, bird flu, Sars, emerging diseases in general, and the threat of a global pandemic. It's a word of the future, destined for heavy use in the 21st century. Ebola and Marburg are zoonoses. So is bubonic plague. So was the so-called Spanish influenza of 1918–1919, which had its source in a wild aquatic bird and emerged to kill as many as 50 million people. All of the human influenzas are zoonoses. As are monkeypox, bovine tuberculosis, Lyme disease, West Nile fever, rabies and a strange new affliction called Nipah encephalitis, which has killed pigs and pig farmers in Malaysia. Each of these zoonoses reflects the action of a pathogen that can "spillover", crossing into people from other animals. Aids is a disease of zoonotic origin caused by a virus that, having reached humans through a few accidental events in western and central Africa, now passes human-to-human. This form of interspecies leap is not rare; about 60% of all human infectious diseases currently known either cross routinely or have recently crossed between other animals and us. Some of those – notably rabies – are familiar, widespread and still horrendously lethal, killing humans by the thousands despite centuries of efforts at coping with their effects. Others are new and inexplicably sporadic, claiming a few victims or a few hundred, and then disappearing for years. Zoonotic pathogens can hide. The least conspicuous strategy is to lurk within what's called a reservoir host: a living organism that carries the pathogen while suffering little or no illness. When a disease seems to disappear between outbreaks, it's often still lingering nearby, within some reservoir host. A rodent? A bird? A butterfly? A bat? To reside undetected is probably easiest wherever biological diversity is high and the ecosystem is relatively undisturbed. The converse is also true: ecological disturbance causes diseases to emerge. Shake a tree and things fall out. Michelle Barnes is an energetic, late 40s-ish woman, an avid rock climber and cyclist. Her auburn hair, she told me cheerily, came from a bottle. It approximates the original colour, but the original is gone. In 2008, her hair started falling out; the rest went grey "pretty much overnight". This was among the lesser effects of a mystery illness that had nearly killed her during January that year, just after she'd returned from Uganda. Her story paralleled the one Jaap Taal had told me about Astrid, with several key differences – the main one being that Michelle Barnes was still alive. Michelle and her husband, Rick Taylor, had wanted to see mountain gorillas, too. Their guide had taken them through Maramagambo Forest and into Python Cave. They, too, had to clamber across those slippery boulders. As a rock climber, Barnes said, she tends to be very conscious of where she places her hands. No, she didn't touch any guano. No, she was not bumped by a bat. By late afternoon they were back, watching the sunset. It was Christmas evening 2007. They arrived home on New Year's Day. On 4 January, Barnes woke up feeling as if someone had driven a needle into her skull. She was achy all over, feverish. "And then, as the day went on, I started developing a rash across my stomach." The rash spread. "Over the next 48 hours, I just went down really fast." By the time Barnes turned up at a hospital in suburban Denver, she was dehydrated; her white blood count was imperceptible; her kidneys and liver had begun shutting down. An infectious disease specialist, Dr Norman K Fujita, arranged for her to be tested for a range of infections that might be contracted in Africa. All came back negative, including the test for Marburg. Gradually her body regained strength and her organs began to recover. After 12 days, she left hospital, still weak and anaemic, still undiagnosed. In March she saw Fujita on a follow-up visit and he had her serum tested again for Marburg. Again, negative. Three more months passed, and Barnes, now grey‑haired, lacking her old energy, suffering abdominal pain, unable to focus, got an email from a journalist she and Taylor had met on the Uganda trip, who had just seen a news article. In the Netherlands, a woman had died of Marburg after a Ugandan holiday during which she had visited a cave full of bats. Barnes spent the next 24 hours Googling every article on the case she could find. Early the following Monday morning, she was back at Dr Fujita's door. He agreed to test her a third time for Marburg. This time a lab technician crosschecked the third sample, and then the first sample. The new results went to Fujita, who called Barnes: "You're now an honorary infectious disease doctor. You've self-diagnosed, and the Marburg test came back positive." The Marburg virus had reappeared in Uganda in 2007. It was a small outbreak, affecting four miners, one of whom died, working at a site called Kitaka Cave. But Joosten's death, and Barnes's diagnosis, implied a change in the potential scope of the situation. That local Ugandans were dying of Marburg was a severe concern – sufficient to bring a response team of scientists in haste. But if tourists, too, were involved, tripping in and out of some python-infested Marburg repository, unprotected, and then boarding their return flights to other continents, the place was not just a peril for Ugandan miners and their families. It was also an international threat. The first team of scientists had collected about 800 bats from Kitaka Cave for dissecting and sampling, and marked and released more than 1,000, using beaded collars coded with a number. That team, including scientist Brian Amman, had found live Marburg virus in five bats. Entering Python Cave after Joosten's death, another team of scientists, again including Amman, came across one of the beaded collars they had placed on captured bats three months earlier and 30 miles away. "It confirmed my suspicions that these bats are moving," Amman said – and moving not only through the forest but from one roosting site to another. Travel of individual bats between far-flung roosts implied circumstances whereby Marburg virus might ultimately be transmitted all across Africa, from one bat encampment to another. It voided the comforting assumption that this virus is strictly localised. And it highlighted the complementary question: why don't outbreaks of Marburg virus disease happen more often? Marburg is only one instance to which that question applies. Why not more Ebola? Why not more Sars? In the case of Sars, the scenario could have been very much worse. Apart from the 2003 outbreak and the aftershock cases in early 2004, it hasn't recurred… so far. Eight thousand cases are relatively few for such an explosive infection; 774 people died, not 7 million. Several factors contributed to limiting the scope and impact of the outbreak, of which humanity's good luck was only one. Another was the speed and excellence of the laboratory diagnostics – finding the virus and identifying it. Still another was the brisk efficiency with which cases were isolated, contacts were traced and quarantine measures were instituted, first in southern China, then in Hong Kong, Singapore, Hanoi and Toronto. If the virus had arrived in a different sort of big city – more loosely governed, full of poor people, lacking first-rate medical institutions – it might have burned through a much larger segment of humanity. One further factor, possibly the most crucial, was inherent in the way Sars affects the human body: symptoms tend to appear in a person before, rather than after, that person becomes highly infectious. That allowed many Sars cases to be recognised, hospitalised and placed in isolation before they hit their peak of infectivity. With influenza and many other diseases, the order is reversed. That probably helped account for the scale of worldwide misery and death during the 1918–1919 influenza. And that infamous global pandemic occurred in the era before globalisation. Everything nowadays moves around the planet faster, including viruses. When the Next Big One comes, it will likely conform to the same perverse pattern as the 1918 influenza: high infectivity preceding notable symptoms. That will help it move through cities and airports like an angel of death. The Next Big One is a subject that disease scientists around the world often address. The most recent big one is Aids, of which the eventual total bigness cannot even be predicted – about 30 million deaths, 34 million living people infected, and with no end in sight. Fortunately, not every virus goes airborne from one host to another. If HIV-1 could, you and I might already be dead. If the rabies virus could, it would be the most horrific pathogen on the planet. The influenzas are well adapted for airborne transmission, which is why a new strain can circle the world within days. The Sars virus travels this route, too, or anyway by the respiratory droplets of sneezes and coughs – hanging in the air of a hotel corridor, moving through the cabin of an aeroplane – and that capacity, combined with its case fatality rate of almost 10%, is what made it so scary in 2003 to the people who understood it best. Human-to-human transmission is the crux. That capacity is what separates a bizarre, awful, localised, intermittent and mysterious disease (such as Ebola) from a global pandemic. Have you noticed the persistent, low-level buzz about avian influenza, the strain known as H5N1, among disease experts over the past 15 years? That's because avian flu worries them deeply, though it hasn't caused many human fatalities. Swine flu comes and goes periodically in the human population (as it came and went during 2009), sometimes causing a bad pandemic and sometimes (as in 2009) not so bad as expected; but avian flu resides in a different category of menacing possibility. It worries the flu scientists because they know that H5N1 influenza is extremely virulent in people, with a high lethality. As yet, there have been a relatively low number of cases, and it is poorly transmissible, so far, from human to human. It'll kill you if you catch it, very likely, but you're unlikely to catch it except by butchering an infected chicken. But if H5N1 mutates or reassembles itself in just the right way, if it adapts for human-to-human transmission, it could become the biggest and fastest killer disease since 1918. It got to Egypt in 2006 and has been especially problematic for that country. As of August 2011, there were 151 confirmed cases, of which 52 were fatal. That represents more than a quarter of all the world's known human cases of bird flu since H5N1 emerged in 1997. But here's a critical fact: those unfortunate Egyptian patients all seem to have acquired the virus directly from birds. This indicates that the virus hasn't yet found an efficient way to pass from one person to another. Two aspects of the situation are dangerous, according to biologist Robert Webster. The first is that Egypt, given its recent political upheavals, may be unable to staunch an outbreak of transmissible avian flu, if one occurs. His second concern is shared by influenza researchers and public health officials around the globe: with all that mutating, with all that contact between people and their infected birds, the virus could hit upon a genetic configuration making it highly transmissible among people. "As long as H5N1 is out there in the world," Webster told me, "there is the possibility of disaster… There is the theoretical possibility that it can acquire the ability to transmit human-to-human." He paused. "And then God help us." We're unique in the history of mammals. No other primate has ever weighed upon the planet to anything like the degree we do. In ecological terms, we are almost paradoxical: large-bodied and long-lived but grotesquely abundant. We are an outbreak. And here's the thing about outbreaks: they end. In some cases they end after many years, in others they end rather soon. In some cases they end gradually, in others they end with a crash. In certain cases, they end and recur and end again. Populations of tent caterpillars, for example, seem to rise steeply and fall sharply on a cycle of anywhere from five to 11 years. The crash endings are dramatic, and for a long while they seemed mysterious. What could account for such sudden and recurrent collapses? One possible factor is infectious disease, and viruses in particular. The dangers presented by zoonoses are real and severe, but the degree of uncertainties is also high. There's not a hope in hell, as Webster told me, of predicting the nature and timing of the next influenza pandemic. Too many factors vary randomly. I have asked not just Webster, but many other eminent disease scientists the same two-part question: 1) will a new disease emerge, in the near future, sufficiently virulent and transmissible to cause a pandemic on the scale of Aids or the 1918 flu, killing tens of millions of people?; and 2) if so, what does it look like and whence does it come? Their answers to the first part have ranged from maybe to probably. Their answers to the second have focused on various viruses prone to mutation, especially those for which the reservoir host is some kind of primate. But the difficulty of predicting precisely doesn't oblige us to remain blind, unprepared and fatalistic. We can at least be vigilant; we can be well prepared and quick to respond. The scientists are on alert. They are our sentries. But we, too, should understand in some measure the basic outlines and dynamics of the situation. We should appreciate that these recent outbreaks of new diseases, as well as the recurrence and spread of old ones, are part of a larger pattern, and that humanity is responsible for generating that pattern. We should recognise that they reflect things that we're doing, not just things that are happening to us. We have increased our population to the level of 7 billion and beyond. We live at high densities in many cities. We have penetrated, and continue to penetrate, the last great forests and other wild ecosystems of the planet. We cut our way through the Congo, through the Amazon, through Borneo. We shake the trees, figuratively and literally, and things fall out. We kill and butcher and eat many of the wild animals found there. We settle in those places, bringing in our domesticated animals. We multiply our livestock as we've multiplied ourselves, under conditions that allow them to acquire infections, to share them with one another, and to infect humans. We export and import livestock across great distances and at high speeds. We travel, moving between cities and continents even more quickly than our transported livestock. We stay in hotels where strangers sneeze and vomit. We eat in restaurants where the cook may have butchered a porcupine before working on our scallops. We visit monkey temples in Asia, live markets in India, picturesque villages in South America, bat caves in East Africa – breathing the air, feeding the animals, touching things, shaking hands with the friendly locals. And then we jump on our planes and fly home. This is an edited extract from Spillover: Animal Infections And The Next Human Pandemic, by David Quammen, published by Bodley Head at £20. To order a copy for £16, including UK mainland p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop, or call 0330 333 6846.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Network was showing Arizona chase on tape-delay but failed to cut the feed before suspect shot himself in the head Fox News was forced to apologise on Friday after showing a man shooting himself in the head on live television. The network was broadcasting a car chase – a staple of cable news – when at about 3.30pm the suspect dumped the car, stumbled down a track, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Sergeant Tommy Thompson from the Phoenix police department said the man died at the scene. "Efforts to revive him were futile", Thompson said. "He died of his injuries." Thompson said the man had stolen the car, a Dodge Caliber, at gunpoint before the chase began. He fired at police officers in pursuit and at a police helicopter before shooting himself, Thompson added. While Fox issued an immediate and unqualified apology, other websites – including the vogueish social news site Buzzfeed and longer-established rival Gawker – chose to re-publish unedited video of the apparent suicide. The incident raised questions about the fascination of US news networks with car chases, as well as the lengths to which popular websites will go to attract an audience. For much of Friday afternoon, Fox News had been streaming helicopter footage, with a voiceover commentary from host Shepard Smith, of a car chase near Pheonix, Arizona. For part of the time, police were pursuing the Dodge through the state. By mid-afternoon, police had stopped following the car, but it continued to be tracked by media helicopters. Just before 3.30pm the vehicle had slowed to a crawl; the driver turned off the road and onto a dirt track. The driver's door was slightly ajar as the car advanced through the field, before coming to a halt after around 15 seconds. A man wearing a dark sports shirt stepped out of the car, and appeared to reach back inside before walking away. The man looked around him before stumbling down the dirt track and then into long grass. He stopped, raised what appeared to be a gun to his head, and fell to the ground. Fox News went back to the studio, where Smith was seen looking off camera and shouting: "Get off it, get off it." The network swiftly cut to a commercial break. When Smith returned, he apologised for the graphic coverage, saying that the channel had been carrying the chase on a delay to avoid such an incident, but had made a mistake in broadcasting it anyway. "While we were taking that car chase and showing it to you live, when the guy pulled over and got out of the vehicle, we went on delay," Smith said. "We created a five-second delay so that we would see in the studio what was happening five [seconds] before you did, so if anything went horribly wrong we were able to cut away from it." "We really messed up, and we're all very sorry. That didn't belong on television. We took every precaution ... I personally apologise to you that that happened," Shepherd continued. "It's not time appropriate, it's not sensitive: it's just wrong," he said. "That won't happen again on my watch, and I'm terribly sorry," Smith said. Fox News did not immediately respond to the Guardian's request for comment. Officers did not appear to be following the car at the time the man abandoned it. After Fox News apologised for its error, the Buzzfeed website posted a clip of the incident on its website. It offered users an edited version without the apparent suicide, and an unedited version. Fox News had not responded to a request for further comment by the time of publication. Buzzfeed issued a statement, which said: "Making an editorial decision on how to cover a sensitive, tragic news event like this is never an easy one. But it is, indeed, a news event and we are a news organization. We posted both an edited version and the full version and we respect our readers' judgment." Gawker writer Hamilton Nolan posted: "Some Gawker staffers were against publishing the clip. My position was that it is clearly news, and that we should run it on that basis. When we heard that Fox News had aired a suicide, what was the first thing we all did? Search on the internet for the clip. The clip is news. It is unpleasant, but it is news. You may legitimately decide to watch it or not, but it is news." • In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be contacted toll-free on 1-800-273-TALK or at www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. • In the UK the Samaritans can be contacted on 08457 909090 or at www.samaritans.org.uk.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | LGBT advocates welcome move to consider same-sex partners as being in 'family relationship' during immigration The department of homeland security has agreed to consider same-sex partners as being in a "family relationship" during immigration proceedings, in a move that may spare undocumented immigrants in long-term partnerships with US citizens the grief of forced separation. The concession, enshrined in writing in a letter from the DHS secretary, Janet Napolitano, softens one of the most bitterly resented aspects of the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and woman. Under DOMA, immigration rights that are extended to bi-national heterosexual couples are not similarly offered to gays and lesbians. "One of the most painful aspects of the Defence of Marriage Act is when couples are separated. So we are happy to see the DHS acting on this," said Victoria Neilson, legal director of Immigration Equality, a group that advocates for changes in US immigration laws relating to the LGBT community. Napolitano's letter is the latest move by the Obama administration to use its procedural powers to ameliorate some of the harshest aspects of immigration law without having to face political opposition in Congress. In June the administration allowed young undocumented immigrants who had come to the US as children and were in education to apply for a deferral of any threat of deportation for two years. More than 80,000 people have applied for deferred action so far. The procedural shift on deportations of gay partners is much smaller in its likely reach. It is estimated that there are about 24,000 gay and lesbian couples in the US where one partner is a national of another country, though how many of those are without immigration authorisation is not known. The DHS has been saying for more than a year that it wanted to focus its resources on priority cases for deportation, such as those with criminal records. It has made clear that it would treat favourably anyone with strong family or community ties in the US, though until now it left the status of gay relationships unclear. Napolitano's letter removes the ambiguity. She writes that guidance will now be sent to all immigration officers in the field, to clarify for them that "family relationships includes long-term, same-sex partners". The DHS secretary has been coming under mounting pressure to do something about the status of gay couples facing immigration problems. In July, a group of 84 members of Congress wrote to her, asking her to put into writing the equal position of gay couples in terms of deportation proceedings. One of the authors, Michael Honda of California, told NBC News: "No one should have to choose between their spouse and their country, and no family should be left out of the immigration system." Immigration Equality has tried to persuade the DHS to grant what would in effect be temporary visas to undocumented immigrants. DOMA prohibits LGBT partners of American citizens from applying for green cards that would grant them resident status. Under the Immigration Equality proposal, people could apply for the cards and their applications would then be put on hold, pending the repeal of DOMA which the Obama administration has indicated it supports. While their applications were on hold they would be granted temporary permission to stay in the country, although they would not have the right to work. The DHS, however, has indicated that it is not likely to implement such a proposal.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President cites national security concerns in rejecting acquisition from Ralls Corporation of site in northern Oregon Barack Obama has revoked a Chinese company's acquisition of four wind farms, citing national security for the first time in two decades against a foreign investor. The executive order from the White House on Friday, against the privately held Ralls Corporation, follows accusations from Mitt Romney that Obama has failed to stand up to Chinese businesses. The president said in the executive order he had "credible evidence" that Ralls "might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States". Ralls had been installing wind turbines made by another privately held Chinese firm, the Sany Group, at a site close to restricted air space used by a Navy weapons systems training facility in northern Oregon. Ralls will now be forced to shelve the project, and divest its interests in the wind farm projects that it acquired earlier in the year. It was the first time a president has invoked national security against a foreign investor since 1990 when the first President George Bush blocked a state-owned Chinese aero-technology company from obtaining a US manufacturer. The treasury department said in a statement that Friday's decision was an exceptional case. "The President's decision is specific to this transaction and is not a precedent with regard to any other foreign direct investment from China or any other country," the statement said. Concerns about the Chinese firms' involvement in the wind farms first surfaced last spring, after the company bought the projects. The US navy objected to the siting of the project, and the treasury department's foreign investment committee ordered Ralls to halt construction on the project pending a government review. Ralls sued to reverse the order earlier this month. Even so, Friday's order from Obama will likely be seen within context of an election race in which Obama and Romney are trying to demonstrate who could best protect US jobs and manufacturing from Chinese competitors. Romney, on the campaign trail, has called China a currency manipulator. The Obama camp meanwhile has been running television ads in battleground states claiming Romney's Bain Capital shut down American firms and shipped overseas.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Chinese politician ousted from Communist party, accused of involvement in wife's crime, taking bribes and abusing power
China's Communist leaders have dealt a hammer blow to the disgraced politician Bo Xilai, expelling him from the party and accusing him of everything from corruption to improper sexual behaviour as they seek to clear the stage for a November leadership handover. The state news agency Xinhua said the flamboyant leader now faced criminal charges. It alleged that he took huge bribes and abused his power, bore "major responsibility" in relation to his wife's murder of a British businessman, maintained sexual relationships with several women and was involved in unspecified other offences. The decision by the 25-member politburo, to which Bo himself once belonged, means he is destined to face the biggest political court case since the show trial of the Gang of Four in 1981, following the Cultural Revolution. While others of his rank have stood trial, none have had such influence. The scandal surrounding his family, which led to his wife Gu Kailai's conviction last month for the murder of Neil Heywood, has overshadowed this year's transition of power to a new generation of leaders, marked by the 18th party congress, which Xinhua announced will start on 8 November. Some think that the party will want to conclude Bo's case before the handover. But Cheng Li, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, suggested that this would be difficult because the politburo's decision to expel him should be ratified at a party gathering set for 1 November, and it was very unlikely authorities would put him on trial until that was done. The 63-year-old former party secretary of Chongqing was once tipped for higher office in this autumn's handover. Many in China – particularly among neo-Maoists and in his former strongholds of Dalian and Chongqing – are privately sceptical about the true causes of his ousting, suggesting corruption and power abuses alone are insufficient to unseat senior leaders. His obvious ambition alienated many in the party. "I have doubts on any criminal wrongdoings of Bo Xilai. I need to see the evidence … I think this is a political battle turned into a criminal one," said Han Deqiang, an economics professor at a Beijing university and a well known figure on China's left. Rana Mitter, an expert on Chinese politics at Oxford University, told Associated Press: "They want to drive a stake through the heart of his political career, and make it absolutely impossible, not only for him to reappear but for anyone else who has that idea of trying to create that sort of personalised, political, charismatic leadership in some part of China which may challenge the leadership." Chongqing's former police chief, Wang Lijun, precipitated his former patron's fall when he fled to an American consulate and announced he believed Gu had killed Heywood. He has been convicted of defection, helping to cover up the murder and other crimes. Xinhua said Bo "bore major responsibility" in Wang's and Gu's cases but did not specify how. It said he sought profits for others and took huge bribes personally and via relatives, and his family accepted a huge amount of money and property because his wife abused his position. It added that he had made wrong choices in promoting people, "leading to serious consequences". His serious violations of party discipline dated back even to his time as mayor of Dalian more than a decade ago, it said. His actions had damaged the cause of the party and the people and undermined the image of the party and China. Bo had not been mentioned by name since the spring, when he was placed under internal party investigation. That, allied with the long wait for the announcement of the congress, prompted speculation about disagreements among senior leaders. Steve Tsang, an expert on Chinese politics at Nottingham University, noted: "The fact they can agree on a solution over Bo Xilai suggests they have come to some sort of general agreement." Many analysts had thought leaders would be reluctant to try Bo because of his connections as the "princeling" son of a revered revolutionary leader, his enduring popularity in some quarters and the questions it would raise about leaders in general. Tsang suggested the authorities might hold the hearings entirely behind closed doors if they feared Bo might use the trial to fight back. Wang and Gu had no reason to use their trials as "political theatre", because it could have brought tougher sentences. "The chances of [Bo] having a comeback are practically zero and he's not going to get a bullet through the head . How much difference can it make whether he gets 15 years or zero? He might well decide he didn't want to play ball," said Tsang. But Li noted Xinhua's claim that the party investigation had found clues to his suspected involvement in other crimes. "This is the most important card in playing against Bo: 'If you do not co-operate – if you do not confess – if you make too much noise – then we have other things we can use'. I'm not saying they will use it; the chances are slim. But they certainly want to use it as a card," he said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The GOP not long ago stood to take control of the Senate, but key races are slipping away as party's top candidate stumbles Mitt Romney's collapsing campaign is beginning to hurt Republican chances in key congressional races, risking their hopes of taking the Senate as a bastion against a second-term Barack Obama presidency. More and more Republican congressional candidates are distancing themselves from their party's White House ticket as they are hit by ads from their Democratic opponents linking them to Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan. With Romney still reeling from one bad poll after another in swing states, the Obama campaign opened up a new front on Friday, sending vice-president Joe Biden on a two-day visit to Florida to warn the elderly that a Romney-Ryan victory would mean new taxes on their social security benefits. Biden, in excerpts from his speech released in advance, said: "Right now, the majority of seniors don't have to pay taxes on their social security benefits … But if governor Romney's tax plan goes into effect, it could mean everyone, everyone, would have to pay more taxes on the social security benefits they now receive." Creating fear among the elderly is a potent message not only in Florida, a state with a high proportion of retirees, but in other swing states. A new poll, by the Washington Post and the health group the Kaiser Foundation, by Ryan to reform Medicare, the healthcare programme for those 65 and over, has alienated potential Republican voters.. The poll found that in three battlegrounds – Florida, Ohio and Virginia – the changes to Medicare proposed by Ryan have tilted the elderly towards Obama. The issue ranked with them as high as the state of the economy. Sixty-five percent of those polled in Florida want to keep Medicare as it is. In Ohio, Obama held a 19% advantage over Romney among voters asked who they trusted most with the health programme, 15% in Florida and 13% in Virginia. Romney's lacklustre campaign, compounded by the threat to social security and Medicare coming on top of last week's secret video of a Romney speech, appears to be pulling down Republicans in congressional races. Candidates can usually count on receiving a boost in their districts and states from a successful presidential campaign. Stu Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, told the Washington Examiner: "Republicans still have a chance, but it's not what it was six months ago or a year ago. And if you had to weigh the two parties' chances, you would have to say the Democrats have a better chance of holding the Senate." The Republicans hold the House and had high hopes of adding the Senate too. With control of Congress, they would be able to throw up a formidable barrier to Obama implementing new domestic policies. The Democrats hold only a four-seat majority in the Senate and had looked vulnerable. But the disarray in the Romney campaign has thrown those hopes into doubt. The Democrats are threatening to win seats the Republicans had been expected to win easily, such as Virginia. The Democratic candidate in Virginia, Tim Kaine, is up 3% on his Republican opponent, George Allen. The one remaining opportunity for Romney to turn the presidential campaign round is the first presidential debate on Wednesday in Denver, Colorado. Tens of millions are expected to tune in for the first opportunity to see Obama and Romney one-to-one in a debate in which issues such as tax, health care and the secret video of Romney disparaging 47% of the population as freeloaders are all likely to figure. Debates usually end in draws that are quickly forgotten, as in 2008, but they can make a difference, as in the classic one between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 and more recently George W Bush and Al Gore in 2000, in which Gore annoyed lots of voters by rolling his eyes while Bush was speaking. Both the Obama and Romney campaigns on Friday talked up expectations for their opponents while downplaying their own candidate's chances. The Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod predicted Mitt Romney would be a "prepared, disciplined and aggressive debater". Fears that the White House may be beyond the Republican party this year has already seen fighting start among conservative commentators. The conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer, rounded on Romney, saying he had "fumbled" the opportunity offered by the Middle East crisis. He argued that it is not too late for Romney. "Make the case. Go large. About a foreign policy in ruins. About an archaic, 20th century welfare state model that guarantees 21st century insolvency. And about an alternate vision of an unapologetically assertive America abroad unafraid of fundamental structural change at home. It might just work. And it's not too late," Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post. Jennifer Duffy, who covers the Senate races for the independent Cook Political Report, which had leaned a year ago to the Republicans taking the Senate, now argues that the range of possible outcomes goes from the Republicans picking up two or three seats – not enough for a majority – to actually losing a seat or two. Charlie Cook, writing in the National Journal, said that if Romney does not pick up in the polls in the next week to 10 days, he faces "the very real prospect that Republican donors, Super Pacs and other parts of the GOP support structure will begin to shift resources away from helping him and toward a last-ditch effort to win a Senate majority – which once seemed very likely – and to protect the party's House majority."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ecuador prepared to set up operating theatre in London embassy if necessary, says foreign minister Ecuador is prepared to set up an operating theatre in its London embassy if Julian Assange needs urgent medical attention and the UK is not prepared to guarantee his safe passage to a hospital and back, according to the Ecuadorean foreign minister. As the WikiLeaks founder spent his 100th day in the Ecuadorean embassy, where he has sought refuge from extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual crimes, the country's foreign minister met his British counterpart, William Hague, to ask about contingency plans should Assange fall ill. Hague told Ricardo Patino that he would consult officials and lawyers and respond within a few days, but a British official commented: "Maybe the Ecuadoreans should have thought of that before they granted him asylum." The official added that British police were under obligation to arrest Assange as soon as he stepped out of the embassy. "One thing we have proposed is to have an ambulance parked outside," Patino told the Guardian in an interview in New York. "What we have said, if such a case should happen, we should be ready to install an operating theatre inside the premises, unless Mr Hague responds, as he promised in the next few days, that he [Assange] would be able to go to a hospital." The Ecuadorean foreign minister said that the Australian government had offered to help organise Assange's healthcare during an indefinite stay in an embassy apartment, given the diplomatic impasse over his fate. Ecuador offered him asylum last month, saying he faced political persecution in the US, but the UK insists it has a legal duty to arrest him and extradite him to Sweden to face questioning. Australian officials have not confirmed Patino's claim that Canberra had offered medical help. When Assange addressed diplomats at the UN general assembly this week, via a satellite link from the London embassy, he appeared pale, with dark rings under his eyes. His voice was hoarse and his sniffed frequently. Patino said he was not aware of any immediate health concerns for Assange but added: "We know that anyone who lives in these conditions of confinement may easily suffer from health issues, not only physical but also psychological. Imagine you have to stay in a room for three months. Imagine if you are going to be five years in this confinement." In November 2010, a Swedish court ordered Assange be detained for questioning after allegations by two women that what had started as consensual sex had turned non-consensual. This week, Amnesty International called on Sweden to provide a guarantee that if Assange travelled there to answer questions over the sex-crime allegations, he would not be sent on to the US for charges connected to WikiLeaks' publication of thousands of US diplomatic and military cables. A spokeswoman for the Swedish foreign ministry said the country's legislation did not allow any judicial decision like extradition to be predetermined. The UK, which would also have to permit an extradition to the US, has given the same response but Hague stressed to Patino at their New York meeting that the European Convention on Human Rights sets strict limits on such extraditions, forbidding them, for example, if the charges in question carry the death penalty. "The foreign secretary described the extensive human-rights safeguards in UK extradition law. He requested the government of Ecuador to study these provisions closely in considering the way ahead," a foreign office spokesman said. Officials said that the treatment of the alleged source of the WikiLeaks US cables, Bradley Manning – an American soldier whose lawyers say was subject to brutal and humiliating treatment and who has so far spent more than two years in jail without trial – would be taken into account if and when any future extradition decision was made. However, Patino said that it was too late for such assurances, since Ecuador's decision to offer asylum was irrevocable. "When we hadn't yet granted asylum, we could talk about guarantees," the foreign minister said. "Now that we have granted asylum we are under the obligation not to surrender Mr Assange."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As polls continue to show Obama leading in key states, Republicans engage in war of words aimed at Mitt Romney
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Syrian rebels in Aleppo reach Kurdish PKK areas, allied to regime, while summary executions are reported in Damascus Sieges crippling Syria's two leading cities intensified on Friday, as opposition forces mounted their most concerted push to take control of Aleppo and loyalist troops conducted a huge security sweep through anti-regime strongholds in Damascus. Fighting in Aleppo is reportedly heavier than at any point since rebel groups attacked the city on 19 July, with rebel leaders claiming they are nearing a "do-or-die" moment in their bid to claim the city. Speaking to the Guardian, Bashir al-Haji, commander of Tawheed brigade in Aleppo, said: "The decisive battle for Aleppo started at 4pm local time [on Thursday]. We wanted to surprise the Syrian army, which had started to creep forward towards the southern neighbourhoods." For the first time, fighting is reported to have reached several Kurdish areas in Aleppo, where supporters of the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK), who are considered aligned to the regime, are thought to be. Several other fronts have also been opened in the ancient city, where fighting over much of the past eight weeks has become a grinding stalemate, with neither side able to move forward. Parts of north Aleppo and restive areas along an unofficial demarcation line in the centre, which separates rebel forces in the east from regime troops in the west, also saw fighting on Friday. A building in the Syrian town of Azaz, only kilometres from the Bab al-Salam border crossing into the Turkish town of Killis, was bombed by a jet shortly before noon. There was no immediate word on casualties. Fighter jets have wreaked destruction on a daily basis in and around Aleppo, forcing rebel groups to frequently move command centres and disrupting their supply lines. Ahead of the latest assault on Aleppo, the rebel leadership had tried to overcome frequent criticisms that it lacks co-ordination or even relevance on the battlefield by moving key commanders from the Turkish border to frontline areas in Syria. The move did not meet a warm welcome from battle-weary commanders and fighters, who had displayed open resentment to senior defectors who had stayed in Turkey, rather than joining the fray. Throughout the past year, as the popular uprising against the Assad regime morphed into unrestrained insurrection, the Free Syria Army has functioned more as a brand than a cohesive fighting force. Rebel units seek funding and weapons from different sources and do not answer to a high command. Operations are often carried out unilaterally and decisive large-scale pushes have been rare. The lack of co-ordination has been most evident in Damascus, where rebel groups have been on the back foot confronted by a relentless regime counterattack for the past month. Regime troops swept though the suburb of Barzeh on Friday, raiding homes and arresting suspects. There have been similar assaults in recent days in the Douma and Thiyabiya areas, where activists have reported scores of summary executions. Damascus, home to the military establishment and key leaders of the regime, was rocked by a suicide bombing that hit an army headquarters on Wednesday. CCTV footage released by the regime showed a car blowing up while it was being driven past the building. The attack was claimed both by the Free Syria Army and a jihadist group. Rebel leaders in the capital later acknowledged that the strike had been a "collaborative" effort. Despite the regime offensive, many businesses remain shut in Damascus and commercial life has ground to a halt in many districts. The United Nations has said that it expects close to 700,000 refugees to have fled Syria and registered with it by the end of the year. The overall figure is likely to be at least tens of thousands higher with many of those who have so far escaped to Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq not registering with international organisations. Eastern Aleppo has largely emptied of residents. Turkish authorities say they are now dealing with up to 2,000 refugees every day.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Next stage of multi-million dollar campaign has members of Congress urging US to support group against Tehran Members of Congress and supporters of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) are to press the Obama administration to recognise it as the "legitimate opposition" to the Iranian government after the group is removed from the US list of banned terrorist organisations in the coming days. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is to formally delist the MEK as a terrorist group by October 1 following a well funded campaign to change the image of the group – which was banned in 1997 because of a history of killing Americans, assassinating Iranian politicians and violent support for Saddam Hussein – and portray it as Washington's ally in confronting Tehran. But critics say it is a marginal organisation with little popular support in Iran, even among opponents of the Islamic government. Its removal from the terrorism list is seen as a political move that may complicate negotiations over Tehran's nuclear programme and provide a pretext for a further crackdown against the opposition. A group of 20 pro-MEK Iranian American groups in the US, some of which poured significant sums of money to donations to political campaigns and paying lobby firms to press the case for the group's unbanning on Capitol Hill, issued a statement praising the delisting. "This action will liberate the largest peaceful, secular, pro-democratic Iranian dissident group from the constraints of US sanctions law and it represents a significant step by the Obama administration to promote a democratic and nuclear weapon-free Iran," they said. MEK supporters and members of Congress at the forefront of the campaign to unban the organisation now want the Obama administration to back it as a spearhead to regime change in Tehran. The delisting will leave the group free to raise funds without concerns of breaching anti-terrorism laws and to shift the focus of its now considerable political support, which includes scores of members of Congress and former top officials including ex-directors of the FBI and CIA, toward its campaign to topple the present government in Iran. A Texas congressman, Bob Filner, who has been among the most vigorous proponents of delisting the MEK, has described it as "Iran's main opposition" and a US "ally" against the Tehran government. Filner was the author of a pro-MEK resolution in Congress in favour of unbanning the organisation. Another member of Congress, Dana Rohrabacher, is also pushing for the US government to embrace the group as the "legitimate opposition" to the Iranian government. He has praised it as "among the first to warn us of the Iranian nuclear programme" and said he believes it to have cooperated with Israel in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. Rohrabacher welcomed the delisting. "The MEK was placed on the foreign trrorist organisations list in a misguided attempt by the Clinton administration to gain favour with the government in Tehran. The MEK are Iranians who desire a secular, peaceful and democratic government. Nothing threatens the mullah dictatorship more than openness and transparency," he said. Ted Poe, a member of Congress from Texas who has received political donations from Iranian Americans campaigning for the MEK to be delisted, has described the group as "freedom fighters" fighting "the mullahs of Iran" who he described as the "real terrorists". He, too, is pressing for the Obama administration to recognise the group. Homeira Hesami, president of the Iranian American Community of North Texas, said the delisting would free the MEK to campaign in the US. "The removal of the MEK from the terrorist list will unshackle the movement in its efforts to bring change to Iran, will send a very strong message to the Iranian people that they can pursue their democratic aspirations, and serves notice to the ruling Ayatollahs that the days of blackmail and intimidation are over," he said. The MEK has described itself as a government-in-exile and self-appointed its leader, Maryam Rajavi, as Iran's de facto president in waiting. However, there is likely to be strong resistance from within the state department and US intelligence services – mindful of the experience of dealing with Ahmed Chalabi, who portrayed his Iraqi National Congress as having far more support than it had – to working with the MEK because it is seen by many US officials as a fringe organisation, even a cult, with little support on the ground in Iran. If anything, opinion in Iran is broadly hostile to the MEK in large part because it allied itself with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The group is also viewed by many as a tool of the American and British intelligence services, and possibly Israel's Mossad.
Iran's pro-democracy Green Movement spurned the MEK after the government tried to link the two in an attempt to discredit the popular opposition. Zahra Rahnavard, a Green Movement leader and wife of the former prime minister and now opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has said the MEK is not representative of Iranians. "The MEK can't be part of the Green Movement. This bankrupt political group now makes some laughable claims, but the Green Movement and the MEK have a wall between them and all of us," she told Foreign Policy magazine in 2010. Reza Marashi, a former official on the US state department's Iran desk who is now research director for the National Iranian American Council in Washington, said unbanning the MEK will do little to help the Iranian opposition. "The majority in the country know that these guys fought with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and they view them as traitors. During my time in Iran, and I'm still hearing this from people who are on the ground in Iran, there's little to no support," he said. Marashi said the delisting feeds into Tehran's narrative that the US is using the MEK for attacks on Iran and may complicate negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme. "That affiliation will likely become even more of an excuse for the persecution of students and legitimate indigenous pro-democracy, pro-reform activists. But more than that, the delisting will be seen as a general hostile act. It's a boost to the regime because now they can use this as a pretext to crack down on the legitimate opposition inside the country. Any effect of the delisting on nuclear negotiations is going to be negative. The Iranian government will read it as one more indication that the US is only interested in hostility and regime change without coming to terms with the regime itself," he said. John Limbert, a state department diplomat who was held hostage in the US embassy after the 1979 Iranian revolution, and later served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran, called the delisting decision a "strange and disappointing decision". "I know the group claims it has abandon its violent and anti-American past. I wish I could believe them. They have a very dubious history and a similarly dubious present," he told Lobelog. The state department will not publicly discuss the decision to delist the MEK until Clinton formally announces it. But it follows a multi-million dollar campaign that won the support of members of Congress and a slew of prominent former officials, including former heads of the US military and ex-White House officials for unbanning the MEK. Iranian American groups recognised that contribution as they praised the decision to unban the group. "The delisting was in part due to the perseverance of members of Congress and the courage shown by senior former US officials," said Ross Amin of the Iranian American Community of Northern California.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Harry Enten describes how the US electoral college works and the implications for the 2012 presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Huge day for François Hollande as France's toughest budget in decades is announced, while Spain's bank stress test results are due tonight
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Shareholders brought suit claiming BoA had misrepresented the health of both institutions when it made $50bn purchase in 2008 Bank of America has agreed to pay $2.43bn to settle a shareholder lawsuit brought over its controversial acquisition of Merrill Lynch in the midst of the credit crunch. Shareholders brought a suit against the bank in 2009 claiming it had misrepresented the financial health of both institutions. In a statement, Bank of America denied the allegations and said it was "entering into this settlement to eliminate the uncertainties, burden and expense of further protracted litigation." Bank of America agreed to buy Merrill Lynch for $50bn on September 15 2008 – the day Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, triggering the worst financial crisis in a generation. The move initially won praise for saving Merrill from possible collapse, but investors soon soured as it emerged that Merrill's debts were far worse than first thought, reaching $15.84bn in the fourth quarter of 2008. The bank was also intending to honor $3.6bn in bonuses for Merrill's top executives. In a scathing memoir released this week, Sheila Bair, the former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, said Ken Lewis, then Bank of America's chief executive, was viewed as "somewhat as a country bumpkin by the CEOs of the big New York banks, and not completely without justification. He was a decent traditional banker, but as a deal-maker his skills were clearly wanting." As part of the proposed settlement, Bank of America also agreed to improve its corporate governance policies and allow shareholders a non-binding "say on pay" vote of executive remuneration. "Resolving this litigation removes uncertainty and risk, and is in the best interests of our shareholders," said Brian Moynihan, Bank of America's chief executive. "As we work to put these long-standing issues behind us, our primary focus is on the future and serving our customers and clients." The settlement will be covered by Bank of America's litigation reserves. Merrill Lynch is not the only credit crisis deal to weigh on Bank of America. The bank bought Countrywide, once the US's largest seller of sub-prime mortgages, for $2.5bn in 2008. That deal, too, has cost the bank tens of billions of dollars in write-offs for bad loans, legal costs and settlements with government agencies.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hollande's 2013 budget asks for 'unprecedented effort' to find €36.9bn in savings and includes 75% supertax on the rich
To the dismay of a swath of French bankers, business leaders and the wealthy, President François Hollande has remained true to his word and unveiled €20bn (£16bn) in new taxes, including a 75% "supertax" band that will hit the rich. In what Hollande has described as France's harshest budget in 30 years, business and personal taxpayers were asked on Friday to make an "unprecedented effort" to slash the country's public spending deficit. However, the Socialist government sidestepped swingeing cuts in public spending, including pensions and state salaries, in its 2013 budget, which aims to find €36.9bn in savings. It was also forced to concede it could not keep its pledge to get the country out of the red by 2017. The budget was a delicate balancing act in which Hollande sought to reassure investors and the financial markets, while simultaneously hiking taxes on large businesses and high-earners. However, it commits the government to an austerity programme that will be unpopular with leftwingers in the party, at a time when unemployment is rising and the economy teeters on the brink of recession. Hollande and the prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, had stressed prior to what they described as a "combat" budget their aim to reduce France's public deficit to 3% of GDP by 2013, in line with its EU commitments. The deficit is around 4.5% of GDP for this year. The budget aims to raise two-thirds of the £36.9bn savings with extra taxes split evenly between households and large companies, plus more than €10bn in public spending cuts. The burden between taxes and spending cuts would be shared 50-50 from 2014, the government said. The standout measure, from a public perspective, was a new 75% tax rate on people earning more than €1m a year. This is expected to hit only 2,000 taxpayers. A new 45% income tax band is to be introduced for those earning more than €150,000 a year. Business leaders, including L'Oréal chief, Jean-Paul Agon, have criticised the "supertax", claiming it would prevent France from attracting the cream of executives and drive the wealthy into tax exile. On Friday, France's opposition UMP party reacted to the budget with dismay. Former agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire said he was worried and disappointed, adding: "France is going to the wall." He told Europe 1 radio: "None of the solutions announced will get the country back on its feet, fight unemployment or create jobs." Marine Le Pen, president of the far-right Front National, described the budget as "absurd hyper-austerity". She said: "This budget puts France on the same road as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain." François Rebsamen, president of the Socialist party group in the senate – the upper house of parliament – said the budget was "constructive". He said: "The battle to put our country back on its feet, for employment, for the return of growth and spending power, has started and the 2013 budget, which is fair, rigorous and constructive, will be a decisive factor in winning it. "Efforts have been asked of the wealthiest while the middle and working classes are spared. The tax burden on companies has been rebalanced in favour of small and medium enterprises, and therefore in favour of competitiveness." Ayrault promised on television on Thursday that the budget deficit target of 3% – a pillar of Hollande's presidential campaign earlier this year – would be met. He insisted France had to avoid the escalating borrowing costs that have torpedoed the economies of other eurozone countries. "If we abandon this goal, then straight away the rates will rise and we will find ourselves in the same situation as Italy and Spain. I do not want that," he said. "We cannot continue with the debt and the deficits we have now." The government fears any sign it is not addressing its inflated deficit might see the financial markets turn on France, the eurozone's second biggest economy. However, Ayrault admitted France would not balance its books by 2017, when Hollande's term in office ends, but would have a public deficit of around 0.3% of GDP. He also confirmed he was expecting growth of 0.8% for 2013, which economists say is too optimistic. He said the figure was "realistic" and "attainable". The government is then expecting 2% growth every year between 2014 and 2017. Just four months into his five-year term, Hollande is under fire from all sides. As well as the grumbling from business leaders, unemployment that topped the symbolic 3 million in August, and tumbling popularity in the polls, the president is facing revolt from traditional allies in the unions and leftwing groups that are threatening strikes if the budget is too austere. A demonstration is planned for Sunday against the EU budget treaty, which imposes strict deficit limits. The French finance minister, Pierre Moscovici, said getting the public deficit down to 3% was "vital for the credibility of the country". "We are committed to it and we will meet it," he said. However, Eric Heyer of the Economic Conjuncture Observatory, was sceptical: "It has never been done before," he told French journalists. Elie Cohen, director of research at the CNRS thinktank, added: "A 1.5% reduction of the deficit represents a considerable effort at the best of times. In a period of zero growth it would be exceptional." Ayrault has claimed that only 10% of French taxpayers will pay more as a result of the 2013 budget, but analysts estimate the new taxes mean 4.1m households will pay more, and 8.5m will pay less. The prime minister added that the increased taxes on businesses would not hit small and medium-sized companies crucial for job creation. "The effort we are demanding from our biggest companies is reasonable and fair. Not only have we spared small companies, we are going to help them create the jobs the country needs," he said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Todd Akin was pilloried as anti-women and anti-science after his remarks on 'legitimate rape'. But a group in Missouri is standing up for a Senate candidate they say wants the best for women Outside the Renaissance Grand hotel in downtown St Louis, a grey-haired man in a blazer argues with a group of women in pink T-shirts, one of whom is in a motorised wheelchair. The man is one of hundreds of pro-life Missouri pastors who, moments earlier, had re-ignited Todd Akin's campaign for the US Senate with ringing endorsements and shouts of "amen." The women in T-shirts are part of a noisy and increasingly angry protest against the Republican congressman. They accuse Akin of "going backwards" on everything from equal pay for women and free school lunches for children, to banning emergency contraception, abortion and funding for Planned Parenthood. The furore caused by Akin's now infamous and much-criticised "legitimate rape" comments – suggesting that victims of rape can "shut down' potential pregnancies – shows little sign of abating. Despite signs of a U-turn from the Republican party who abandoned him over the comments, Akin, who believes abortion should be banned even in cases of rape, has become associated with bad science and an anti-woman agenda. Akin did nothing to overcome that perception on Thursday, when he said that his Democratic opponent Claire McCaskill had not acted "ladylike" during a recent debate. Patty Murray, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, described the remark as "demeaning to women and offensive to all". Yet, against this backdrop of anger, Akin has attracted a small but determined band of female supporters who believe they can stem the tide of resentment against him. Missouri Women Standing with Todd Akin (MWSTA) began with eight women in a suburban living room a month ago, and launched last Tuesday with a rally in Chesterfield in Akin's St Louis congressional district, attended by 300 people. At events this week, Akin's aides handed out leaflets with testimonials and photographs of nine women, including his daughter, Hannah, who is heavily involved in the campaign. Almost all gave just their first names. Two videos on the Akin site, one of which was later removed, have also appeared, as has a photograph of a score of women, dressed in white, some holding babies. The Guardian spoke to some of the women, all volunteers, to find out why they decided to come out in support of a conservative whom the mainstream Republican party and many women in the US consider a pariah. Among the 25 core members of MWSTA, are stay-at-home moms, single mothers, students, churchgoers and friends of Akin's family, particularly his son, Perry. One is a doctor in paediatrics, one a part-time interior designer. Another is a registered nurse. They are not all conservative Republicans. What they share the most with Akin is strong belief in God, and what unites them is their unshakable pro-life views. His supporters refer to Akin's "mistake", his apology and their frustration with the Republican party "throwing him under the bus". But a deeper look reveals some also share Akin's disregard for science and a staunch pro-life view at odds with the vast majority of Americans, who support legal abortion in the case of rape or incest. One of Akin's supporters, Kelly Burrell, describes herself on the video as a "single mother and saved alcoholic". When we meet in downtown St Louis, Burrell reveals she is also a rape victim twice over. An independent, who has never been involved in politics and who votes "100% on issue" she is still torn over who to vote for in the general election. She is an unlikely ally of a conservative Republican. "I'm a follower of Christ, so what I read in my bible and my experience is what counts," said Burrell, a mother of two, Abby, 11 and Katy, 8, from Wildwood, Missouri. A former drug addict and alcoholic, Burrell, pictured, has been sober for three years and is now a student at the liberal arts Missouri Baptist University. She also works in the prison ministry, and met Akin thorough his son. She was "heartbroken and completely frustrated" when she heard about Akin's remarks back in August. "What Todd meant and what he said I can't know – but it is true that there have been instances of women claiming rape when they were not raped," she said. "I don't excuse his comment, but I also forgive him misspeaking. But he was demonised. Knowing him and knowing his two daughters, he absolutely has a heart for women. I know him and his family. You get a glimpse into someone's soul. He is a man of principle, a man of faith." Asked what she thought about the science behind Akin's comments over a rape victim shutting down a potential pregnancy, Burrell said: "I'm not a scientist, but there are a lot of contradictions. There was a time in the world when scientist thought the world was flat. I don't buy into science." As one of five women who appear in a video on Akin's website, Burrell's testimony stands out as the most extraordinary. She met Akin at a wedding reception and was surprised, she said, when he was friendly towards her, having previously had "bad experiences" with conservative Republicans. Her voice cracks and she appears close to tears as she reveals that she had an abortion, but "grieves every year" for what might have been. Asked about whether, having had the choice herself, she would vote to remove that choice for others, she said she wished the choice had not been there at the time. Burrell said her decision also affects her two daughters, who have a "void" in their lives where a brother or sister could have been. "I have spent the past few years regretting that the choice was in existence," she said. Burrell insists Akin wants the best for women, and said she is taken aback at the negative comments the Akin website receives. Burrell said the idea for the campaign came after a meeting of eight women, including Heather Kesselring, now the assistant director of MWSTA and Debbie Cochran, the director, when they met and prayed together after Akin was ostracised by the mainstream Republican party. It was her idea, Burrell said, to have all the women in the photograph dress in white, because white "shows who you are". She said that one of the videos, which was pilloried for having an unidentified women in silhouette, was a trial run and never intended to be used as part of the campaign. Kesselring, 32, a part-time interior designer from Maryland Heights and mother of three boys aged two, four and nine, has known the Akin family for 22 years. She said: "We know he supports women's issues and we want to stand with him. I believe he protects life and views men and women equally. I know the decisions he makes and the votes that he makes." Asked if she believes women who are raped should have access to abortion, Kesserling said: "Often the focus has been in terms of the life of the victim. But if there is an abortion, the baby is a victim too." She said she wasn't sure about whether Akin has voted against school lunches for children, affordable healthcare or equal rights for women but that if he had, it would have been because it interfered with other beliefs. Akin voted against federally funded school breakfasts and lunches, the Affordable Healthcare act and the final passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which makes it easier for women who are victims of wage discrimination to seek redress. Another grassroots Akin supporter, Linda Becker, now a spokeswoman for MWSTA, said she got to know Akin better after organising a country-themed fundraiser for him in St Old Monroe in Lincoln County. Akin, who enjoys gospel music, brought his guitar and played. Becker, one of the women in the main photograph, said she believes he should be forgiven for his comments. A conservative Republican and pro-lifer, she is voting for him because "he votes the way I would. I believe in smaller government, and smaller spending. He is a fiscal conservative and doesn't believe the government has a right to interfere in our healthcare." Asked how she reconciles these beliefs with Akin's belief that the government should have a say in what women choose to do with their bodies, she said: "There is a real war on women today because of pornography and abuse. I don't think anyone is trying to tell women what they can and can't do with their own bodies."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Minute-by-minute report: The Ryder Cup begins with the foursomes and the afternoon fourballs. Join Scott Murray for the action
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Cecil Chao's appeal for a man to wed his daughter Gigi, who is a lesbian, attracts thousands of responses from all over world When Hong Kong property tycoon Cecil Chao offered a $65m (£40m) "marriage bounty" to any man willing to marry his daughter, who is a lesbian, it seemed to many like the most indecent of proposals. Offers quickly poured in from all over the world, ranging from simple date requests to humorous bids for ménages à trois. Around 100 would-be suitors for Chao's 33-year-old daughter Gigi have beaten a path to his office door since Wednesday's announcement, but thousands of others have resorted to letters, email and fax to proclaim their interest. They include "war veterans from the US, someone from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, from Istanbul, South America, Portugal – really, just from all over the world," she said. According to the Hong Kong English-language daily the South China Morning Post, one man suggested his brother, a George Clooney body double, as "the picture-perfect date that your father craves". One Frenchman was more modest in his proposal: "I think I can make this woman happy. I'm as soft as a woman," he wrote. An American suitor said: "I'm interested in your offer to wed your daughter, who also happens to be gay. I am a male person, who also happens to be gay." Gigi, who serves as the executive director of the luxury property development company Cheuk Nang Holdings, of which Chao is chairman, has denied being upset by her father's offer and described it instead as his "very interesting way of expressing his fatherly love". "I was really quite touched, very touched and very – how should I say? – moved by Daddy's announcement," she told the Associated Press. "I mean, it's really his way of saying, 'Baby girl, I love you. You deserve more,' basically." Cecil Chao, 76, is said to have created the dowry after learning that his daughter had had a "church blessing" with her long-time partner in France earlier this year. Homosexuality has been decriminalised in Hong Kong since 1991, but same-sex marriages are not recognised in the city. Chao says Gigi is neither gay nor married and has dismissed reports of her same-sex marriage as rumours. "What this whole episode really highlights," Gigi said, "is that perhaps still, the Chinese – or in fact the Hong Kong mentality – can perhaps tolerate the 'don't ask, don't tell' view of sexuality. But as a social statement, it's still very much a sensitive issue." Chao's so-called bounty wields a wide net indeed: open to men of every nationality and economic background, the only stipulation, according to the Post, is that the man "loves my daughter, and she loves him". As for what kind of wife his daughter would make, Chao promised that "Gigi is a very good woman with both talents and looks [who] is devoted to her parents, is generous and does volunteer work". Surprised by the reaction his bounty received, which he described as "thousands of people writing to say they want to be my in-laws" – Chao said he only wanted to make sure his daughter had a secure future. "Living a comfortable life in Hong Kong, not super-luxury, takes HK$500m (£40m)," he said, adding that a house alone costs HK$150m (£12m). Perhaps Chao, who boasts of having slept with over 10,000 women and never married, would be better getting married himself. The sunglass-sporting tycoon has received a mere few hundred marriage proposals in the past two days. Whatever happens, a fairytale ending may still be had. One Hollywood producer is said to be among Gigi's would-be suitors – but only to buy her story.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Bo faces multiple criminal charges and is accused of bearing 'major responsibility' in relation to murder of Neil Heywood The disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai has been expelled from the Communist party and faces multiple criminal charges, including abusing power and taking massive bribes. He is also accused of bearing "major responsibility" in relation to his wife's murder of a British businessman and maintaining improper sexual relationships with several women. The decision by the 25-member Politburo, to which Bo once belonged, means he is all but certain to face the biggest political court case since the show trial of the Gang of Four in 1981, following the cultural revolution. The scandal surrounding his family, which led to his wife Gu Kailai's conviction last month for the murder of Neil Heywood, has overshadowed this year's transition of power to a new generation of leaders – now set for early November. The 18th party congress will start on 8 November, the state news agency Xinhua said in a separate dispatch; a few weeks later than had been anticipated. That could allow sufficient time for Bo, the former party secretary of Chongqing, to be charged and tried before the meeting opens. The Xinhua report gave no indication of where or when he would stand trial. The 63-year-old was once tipped for higher office in this autumn's handover. Many in China are privately sceptical about the true causes of his fall, suggesting corruption and power abuses alone are not sufficient to unseat senior leaders. He is known to have alienated many in the party with his obvious ambition. Chongqing's former police chief, Wang Lijun, precipitated his former patron's fall by fleeing to a US consulate after telling Bo he believed Gu had killed Heywood, and repeating his claims to diplomats. Wang was convicted of defection, helping to cover up Heywood's murder and other crimes earlier this month. Xinhua said Bo "bore major responsibility in the Wang Lijun incident and the intentional homicide case of Bogu Kailai", but did not specify how. The allegation may relate to a claim aired in Wang's trial, that Bo slapped Wang and turned on him after learning of his suspicions. Xinhua added: "He took advantage of his office to seek profits for others and received huge bribes personally and through his family. "His position was also abused by his wife, Bogu Kailai, to seek profits for others and his family thereby accepted a huge amount of money and property from others. "Bo had affairs and maintained improper sexual relationships with a number of women." It said he had made wrong choices in promoting people "leading to serious consequences" and added that the party investigation "found clues to his suspected involvement in other crimes". The news agency said Bo had seriously violated party discipline as mayor of Dalian, a position he held more than a decade ago, as well as in his roles as minister of commerce and then party secretary of Chongqing. His actions had "badly undermined the reputation of the party and the country, created very negative impact at home and abroad and significantly damaged the cause of the party and people", it added. The twin announcements were made on Friday evening, while millions of Chinese citizens were getting away for the start of the week-long October holiday. The long silence over Bo's case – there had been no word on him since officials announced in spring he was facing an internal party investigation – allied with the long wait for the announcement of the congress and the mysterious absence of heir apparent Xi Jinping earlier this month had led to extensive speculation about disagreements at the top of the party. Steve Tsang, an expert on Chinese politics at Nottingham University, said: "The fact they can agree on a solution over Bo Xilai suggests they have come to some sort of general agreement … It actually looks better than a few weeks or months ago in the sense that the leadership being able to reach some kind of agreement on the details of the succession." Analysts initially believed that leaders would be reluctant to try Bo because of his connections as the "princeling" son of a revered revolutionary leader, Bo Yibo, his enduring popularity in some quarters of society, particularly among neo-Maoists and in his former strongholds of Dalian and Chongqing, and because it would raise so many questions about the behaviour of China leaders in general. Some also suggested that Bo might attempt to use a trial to fight back. That could still be the case, said Tsang, suggesting authorities might hold the hearings in private if they worried about his reaction. "The difference with Wang Lijun and Gu Kailai is that there was no point for them to use the trial as political theatre which could only bring a harsher sentence," said Tsang. "The chances of [Bo] having a comeback are practically zero and he's not going to get a bullet through the head. How much difference can it make whether he gets 15 years or zero? He might well decide he didn't want to play ball." The Gang of Four tried in 1981 consisted of Mao Zedong's last wife, Jiang Qing, and her associates Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | François Hollande's cabinet agree tens of billions in tax rises and spending cuts in France's toughest budget in decades. Spain's bank stress test results are due tonight
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Disgraced politician to face charges of corruption, abuse of power, bribe taking and improper relations with women China's ruling Communist party has accused disgraced former senior politician Bo Xilai of abusing his power, taking huge bribes and other crimes, opening a new phase in a scandal of murder and cover-ups that has shaken a leadership succession due to start on 8 November. Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, and his former police chief, Wang Lijun, have both been jailed over the scandal stemming from the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood in the southwestern city of Chongqing, where Bo was Communist party chief. A government statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency said that in the murder scandal, Bo "abused his powers of office, committed serious errors and bears a major responsibility". "Bo Xilai's actions created grave repercussions, and massively damaged the reputation of the party and the state," it said. Bo has been expelled from the party as well as the elite decision-making Politburo and Central Committee "in view of his errors and culpability in the Wang Lijun incident and the intentional homicide case involving Bogu Kailai". Bogu is his wife's official but rarely used surname. Bo's "grave violations of party discipline" extended back to his time as an official in Dalian and Liaoning, and as minister of commerce, said the statement. The announcement comes weeks before the Chinese Communist party holds a congress that will unveil the country's new central leadership line-up. Bo, 63, was widely seen as pursuing a powerful spot in the new political line-up before his career unravelled after Lijun fled to a US consulate for more than 24 hours in February and alleged that Gu had poisoned Heywood. The statement also said that Bo "had or maintained improper sexual relations with multiple women". It said that the investigation also discovered clues of other, unspecified crimes. "Bo Xilai's actions created grave repercussions and did massive harm to the reputation of the party and state, producing an extremely malign effect at home and abroad."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Paolo Gabriele faces up to four years in jail amid claims he stole Pope Benedict XVI's letters and leaked details to Italian media A scandalous tale of corruption, rivalry and betrayed trust at the Vatican reaches a climax on Saturday when Pope Benedict's butler goes on trial for stealing and leaking the pontiff's private correspondence. Paolo Gabriele, 46, who dressed the pope and travelled with him on public occasions, faces up to four years in jail after Vatican police discovered piles of stolen letters in his apartment, as well as gifts meant for Benedict, including a cheque for €100,000 and a gold nugget. Gabriele had leaked the choicest letters to an Italian journalist, lifting the lid on accusations of kickbacks paid to win Vatican contracts, infighting among cardinals and claims the pope's secretary of state started rumours of homosexuality against a hostile newspaper editor. Placed under custody in a secure room at the Vatican, the father of three confessed and claimed he was an agent of the Holy Spirit, seeking to expose and root out the "evil and corruption" surrounding his employer. An expert appointed by his lawyer suggested Gabriele was a victim of "restlessness, tension, rage and frustration". His trial before three lay judges is likely to shed light on the secret world within the world's smallest state. On Saturday morning a small pool of journalists will be admitted into the Vatican's wood-panelled court, which is dominated by a large papal crest on the ceiling, to watch the proceedings. No filming or recording will be allowed. The Vatican's justice system has shifted down a gear since the days when popes burned heretics – it now relies on a 19th-century Italian legal code to try about 30 cases a year, mainly pickpockets arrested in St Peter's Square. Gabriele's trial starts on a Saturday because it is when the judges, who work in Italy's court system, have a free day. The Vatican has had its share of serious crime, although Ali Agca, who shot Pope John Paul II as he drove through St Peter's Square in 1981, was tried in Italy, while the young Swiss guard suspected by the Vatican of killing his commander and his wife in 1998 killed himself before he could be tried. A woman who pounced on Pope Benedict at a mass in 2009, knocking him to the ground, was deemed to be mentally disturbed and not put on trial. Vatican officials have hinted that Benedict may use his papal prerogative to hand Gabriele a quick pardon, but warn that more staffers at the Holy See may yet be arrested as detectives hunt other moles they believe are still at large. Gabriele has claimed 20 people were involved in squirrelling embarrassing documents out of the Vatican and fresh clues may be provided by a separate investigation carried out by three senior cardinals who reported to the pope this summer. Gabriele will not be alone in the dock. Due to stand trial as an accessory is Claudio Sciarpelletti, a Vatican staffer who was allegedly handed documents to hand to Gabriele by two people, mysteriously referred to in the court documents as X and W.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as 'unprecedented' fighting is reported in Aleppo after rebels launch what they claim is a decisive battle
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Martin Wheatley promises to repair the 'broken' rate setting system through tougher regulation City dealers who rig Libor should face criminal charges and jail, the head of the review into reforming the benchmark interest rate has said, as he promised swift action to repair the "broken" rate setting system through tougher regulation. Martin Wheatley, a senior regulator at the Financial Services Authority, said on Friday that other institutions faced similar punishments to those handed out to Barclays, which was fined £290m this summer for its attempts to manipulate the rate used to set borrowing costs for companies and households around the world. He recommended that the FSA should regulate the Libor system, and told the Today programme that in the extreme cases those who manipulate Libor should go jail. "I think society has lost confidence in banks," he said. "We're going to be on the front foot" The firms involved in Libor were regulated but not the market itself so Wheatley wants the law to be changed to make it an offence to make a false or misleading statement to manipulate Libor. "This would enable the FSA to use criminal powers for the worst cases of attempted manipulation," Wheatley said in a speech as he published his review into the 25-year-old market. But while he believed Libor could be preserved, he called for an international discussion about alternative benchmarks. News agency and data provider Bloomberg was quick to say it was looking at devising alternatives, but Dan Doctoroff, the president of Bloomberg, admitted: "I agree with the observation that Libor cannot be immediately replaced, but must be immediately reformed". Libor, the London interbank offered rate, represents the prices banks pay to borrow from each other. Addressing an audience of City figures in London's Mansion House, Wheatley said: "The reason we are here … is that we have been misled. The system is broken and needs a complete overhaul. The disturbing events we have uncovered in the manipulation of Libor have severely damaged our confidence and our trust – it has torn the very fabric that our financial system is built on." "Today we press the reset button," he said. "Governance of Libor has completely failed resulting in the sort of shameful behaviour that we have seen. This problem has been exacerbated by a lack of regulation and a comprehensive mechanism to punish those who manipulate the system". Libor is set by a panel of banks asked the price at which they expect to borrow over 15 periods, from overnight to 12 months, in 10 currencies. The rates the banks submit are published on the same day. Wheatley proposes that those 150 benchmark rates are reduced to just 20 – in five currencies and four maturities. More banks should participate in making submissions, but he is proposing that the individual rates submitted should not be published for three months to avoid a rerun of 2008 when, at the height of the banking crisis, rates were artificially reduced to avoid any stigma of appearing to be in trouble. The managers of the so-called submitters should be subjected to direct authorisation by the FSA, and a code of conduct drawn up for the operation of the rates. Wheatley's hasty review was sparked by the Barclays scandal which eventually led to the departure of chief executive Bob Diamond. Wheatley, who is head the Financial Conduct Authority, when it is spun out of the FSA next year, attacked the "careless" way the rate setting process was overseen by the British Bankers' Association, which will be stripped of any further involvement. A tender process for a new body to oversee Libor starts on Friday. Baronness Hogg will lead the panel selecting the successful bidder. Wheatley also wants the banks involved to "stand up and take responsibility".
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