|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Canada closes Tehran embassy and expels Iranian diplomats over support for Syria, nuclear plans and alleged rights abuses Canada has closed its embassy in Tehran and ordered the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from Ottawa. Canada's foreign affairs minister, John Baird, issued a statement citing Iran's support for Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, its disputed nuclear programme and continued human rights violations as reasons behind his country's move. He said the Canadian government perceived Iran to be "the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today". "Canada has closed its embassy in Iran, effective immediately, and declared personae non gratae all remaining Iranian diplomats in Canada," Baird said. All Canadian diplomatic staff had left Iran and Iranian diplomats in Ottawa had five days to leave the country. "The Iranian regime is providing increasing military assistance to the Assad regime; it refuses to comply with UN resolutions pertaining to its nuclear programme; it routinely threatens the existence of Israel and engages in racist anti-Semitic rhetoric and incitement to genocide," Baird said in the statement published on Canada's government website for foreign affairs and international trade. Canada is an outspoken critic of Iran's human rights record and has actively pursued the effort to hold Tehran leaders accountable for their right's violations on international platforms in recent years. "[Iran] is among the world's worst violators of human rights; and it shelters and materially supports terrorist groups, requiring the government of Canada to formally list Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism under the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. "Moreover, the Iranian regime has shown blatant disregard for the Vienna convention and its guarantee of protection for diplomatic personnel. Under the circumstances, Canada can no longer maintain a diplomatic presence in Iran. Our diplomats serve Canada as civilians, and their safety is our number one priority." According to the statement, the Canadian embassy in Ankara, Turkey, will provide services to Canadians living in Iran in the absence of Tehran's mission. The Canadian foreign ministry has upgraded its Iran travel advice, urging all its citizens not to travel to Iran. "Canadians who have Iranian nationality are warned in particular that the Iranian regime does not recognise the principle of dual nationality," it said. "By doing so, Iran makes it virtually impossible for government of Canada officials to provide consular assistance to Iranian-Canadians in difficulty."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Up to 10,000 guests at popular national park may have been exposed to rodent-borne illness for which there is no cure
• Yosemite hantavirus – key questions answered A West Virginian is the third person to die so far from a rodent-borne illness linked to some tent cabins at Yosemite National Park that has affected eight people in all, health officials said. Five people are ill from the outbreak reported last week by officials at the California park, who said up to 10,000 guests could have been exposed to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome from sleeping in the cabins since 10 June. More infections could be reported. Alerts from the US Centers for Dsease Control and Prevention sent to public health agencies, doctors and hospitals have turned up other suspected cases that have not yet been confirmed. This week the European CDC and the World Health Organization issued global alerts for travellers to any country to avoid exposure to rodents. Dr Rahul Gupta, director of the Kanawha-Charleston health department, declined to release details of the West Virginia victim at a news conference.
Gupta said the victim had visited the park since June but declined to be more specific, citing the family's wish to grieve in private. The other deaths occurred in California and Pennsylvania. Those that were sickened also were from California and the National Park Service said Wednesday they were either improving or recovering. Seven of the cases involved guests at the insulated "signature" cabins in the park's historic Curry Village section. The California department of public health said the other case involved someone who stayed in several High Sierra Camps in a different area of Yosemite in July. Yosemite officials said the cabins have been closed and the park is reaching out to overnight guests who have stayed in the cabins. Gupta declined to elaborate on whether anyone was travelling with the Kanawha County victim, although he said his department knew of no other cases of hantavirus. "The time has lapsed in a way that it should not be a concern," Gupta said.
Health officials say the disease isn't spread from person to person. There is no cure for the virus, which can affect people of any age. The disease is carried in the feces, urine and saliva of deer mice and other rodents and carried on airborne particles and dust. People can be infected by inhaling the virus or by handling infected rodents. Infected people usually have flu-like symptoms including fever, shortness of breath, chills and muscle and body aches. The illness can take six weeks to incubate before rapid acute respiratory and organ failure. Anyone exhibiting the symptoms must be hospitalized. More than 36% of people who contract the rare illness will die from it. Health officials said there have been 602 hantavirus cases nationally since the virus was first identified in 1993. The Yosemite cases are unique because they occurred in clusters, while previous cases have been individual exposures.
Park concessionaire Delaware North Company had sent letters and emails to nearly 3,000 people who reserved the cabins between June and August, warning them that they might have been exposed. Because the rooms can hold up to four people, up to 7,000 more visitors might have been exposed, a park spokesman has said. Yosemite's hantavirus hotline has received thousands of calls about the outbreak. "We want to make sure that visitors have clear information about this rare virus and understand the importance of early medical care," Yosemite superintendent Don Neubacher said Wednesday. "We continue to work closely with state and national public health officials, and we urge visitors who may have been exposed to hantavirus to seek medical attention at the first sign of symptoms." More than 60 hantavirus cases have been diagnosed in California since 1993. In West Virginia, the densest population of carrier mice are found in higher elevations. Gupta said only three cases of hantavirus have been documented in the state since 1981.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Unemployment ticks down to 8.1% but remains high as disappointing figures the focus of first official campaign day The US economy added just 96,000 new jobs in August, far below economists' expectations and dealing a crushing blow to President Barack Obama after the close of the Democratic national convention. The numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics came after a positive independent report had stoked expectations that August might have been a good month for US jobs. In July the US added 163,000 jobs and economists expected that figure to be about 125,000 in August. In fact, the numbers were much worse that predicted, and ensured the would be no post-convention glow for Obama. While the unemployment rate fell two percentage points to 8.1%, it has remained above 8% for three years, a figure unseen since the Great Depression. In any case, the rate only fell because fewer unemployed people were looking for work. Obama, who was aware of the numbers when he spoke in Charlotte on Thursday night, promised that things would improve. "America, I never said this journey would be easy, and I won't promise that now," he said. "Yes our path is harder, but it leads to a better place. Yes, our road is longer, but we travel it together." Mitt Romney wasted no time in claiming political advantage. He said in a statement: "If last night was the party, this morning is the hangover. For every net new job created, nearly four Americans gave up looking for work entirely." He said that Obama had failed to live up to his promises and pushed home the message that the US is not better off than it was four years ago. Promising to create 12m new jobs by the end of his first term, he said: "America deserves new leadership that will get our economy moving again." Earlier this week an independent survey from payroll specialist ADP showed private employers hired 201,000 people last month, the most in five months. raising expectations that the numbers would not be so bad. But in fact, they were worse even than they first appeared. The headline payroll increase of 96,000 is below population growth, and the figures for July and June were revised downwards. The report puts the spotlight back on the Federal Reserve: last week Fed chairman Ben Bernanke made clear the fragile jobs market remained a "grave concern", in a speech that raised expectations for a further easing of monetary policy. The US economy has added jobs every month since September 2010. But after a winter that was better than expected, the hiring rate cooled significantly over the last three months to an average of 105,000. Between January and March, the figure was 226,000. Economists blame the slowdown on Europe's continuing economic woes and US worries over the so-called fiscal cliff, the expiration of Bush era tax cuts and imposition of draconian spending cuts at the end of the year unless political compromise can be made in Washington. Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG, said the details of the report were even worse than the headline numbers. "As negatively as people will take the headline number, the earnings data is even worse. Average hourly earnings were flat in the month as the year on year rate fell to 1.7%. While this is unchanged from the prior month, it remains at extraordinarily low levels and has been low since early 2010," Greenhaus wrote in a note to clients.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Unemployment ticks down to 8.1% but remains high as disappointing figures the focus of first official campaign day The US added just 96,000 new jobs in August, far below economists expectations and a crushing blow to President Barack Obama after the close of the Democratic national convention. The Bureau of Labor Statistics report came after a positive independent report had stoked expectations that August might have been a good month for US jobs. In July the US added 163,000 jobs and economists had been expecting that figure to slow to 125,000 in August. The jobs report hung over the president's convention speech in Charlotte last night. The economy is the main battleground of the 2012 election and while the unemployment rate declined in the latest report to 8.1% it remains historically high and has been above 8% for three years, a figure unseen since the Great Depression. "America, I never said this journey would be easy, and I won't promise that now," Obama said last night. "Yes our path is harder, but it leads to a better place. Yes, our road is longer, but we travel it together." Earlier this week an independent survey from payroll specialist ADP showed private employers hired 201,000 people last month, the most in five months. The latest figures come as the Federal Reserve is considering pumping more money into the still moribund US economy. Last week Fed chairman Ben Bernanke made clear the fragile jobs market remained a "grave concern", in a speech that raised expectations for a further easing of monetary policy. The US has added jobs every month since September 2010. But after a winter of better than expected jobs growth hiring has cooled significantly over the last three months to an average of 105,000 per month from 226,000 in the January-March period. Economists blame the slowdown on Europe's continuing economic woes and US worries over the so-called fiscal cliff, the expiration of Bush era tax cuts and imposition of draconian spending cuts at the end of the year unless political compromise can be made in Washington. Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG, said the details of the report were even worse than the headline numbers. The unemployment rate fell because there fewer people in total in the jobs market. The "participation rate" fell to a 30-year low of 63.5%. "As negatively as people will take the headline number, the earnings data is even worse. Average hourly earnings were flat in the month as the year on year rate fell to 1.7%. While this is unchanged from the prior month, it remains at extraordinarily low levels and has been low since early 2010," Greenhaus wrote in a note to clients.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The motive behind the deadly attack on a British family still seems unclear, but speculation has followed diverse paths The brutality of the murder of three members of a holidaying family in the French Alps, a near fatal beating and shooting of the family's seven-year-old child and the killing of a fourth witness who happened to be cycling past has put intense pressure of the French police to find a perpetrator. The local prosecutor, Eric Maillaud, has described the killing of Iraqi-born Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife, Iqbal, and the grandmother of the two children as an "act of gross savagery". However for the moment there appear to be no definitive leads. French investigating authorities are not yet saying outright whether they believe it was a targeted or a professional killing, instead describing the way in which the killing happened as "strange modus operandi", which appears to mean that it is not obvious why the attack happened. They also say they have no real leads but plenty of theories. "It's not that we have no idea; we have many ideas, many hypotheses, all of which are being looked at, but there are no real leads at the moment. My worry is that we may never find the killer," Maillaud said. However, there are currently four theories with some credibility, variously saying that it was a racist killing, a robbery, the consequence of a family dispute or that there was a national security connection. RobberyEarlier this year the Foreign Office warned tourists of an emerging "pattern of incidents" in this part of France, after gangs appeared to be targeting foreign-registered cars on highways. On Thursday the Evening Standard reported that there had been a series of hold-ups involving masked attackers 50 miles away. The gang tried to steal a Ford Fiesta and a Peugeot and police were investigating whether there was a link between the incidents. Edmund King president, of the motoring organisation the AA, added: "There have been incidents in the south of France and around Lyon. They look for UK-registered cars then they flash their lights and perhaps point at the car's wheels. The tourists stop their car and while one gang member distracts them, another steals from their car. "French police have been cracking down on these gangs but there have been isolated and organised incidents from particular gangs in particular areas." The Telegraph noted that France is very much more relaxed than the UK about civilian gun ownership. National security
The nature of the killing has given rise to speculation about who might be able to dispatch an assassin to the French Alps. Three of the four killed were shot through the middle of the head, and initial details of the shooting seemed to suggest a degree of control to the massacre. It was not someone spraying bullets around. The theory was kept alive when the Daily Mail claimed Mr Hilli had been placed under special branch surveillance during the second Gulf war, in 2003. Philip Murphy, a neighbour of Hilli in Claygate, Surrey, was quoted by the paper as saying he thought special branch used his driveway during the 2003 Iraq war to monitor Hilli's house. "I watched them [the officers] from the window and they were watching Mr al-Hilli and his brother," Murphy told the Mail. "I thought they were from special branch. They would sit there all day in their parked car just looking at the house. "When Mr al-Hilli came out and drove off, they would follow him. It was all very odd. I never told the family they were being watched." Scotland Yard said they would not comment, because Hilli had not been formally identified as the victim, and Surrey police had nothing to add. One Whitehall source suggested caution. In essence these responses are neither denials or confirmations. There is a huge sensitivity in the UK, more so than in other countries, in talking about anything to do with national security. In 2003, members of the Iraqi community would have been of interest to security officials for a number of reasons. First, as the prospect of war with Iraq loomed, they would have been searching for anyone who may take reprisal action. Secondly, British counter-terrorism officials were trying to get anyone with any knowledge of Islamic communities in the UK to inform. Their approach was somewhat haphazard. Even if security officials did monitor the Hilli family during the second Gulf war, this may not mean in itself that Hilli was necessarily seen as a threat. There have also been a number of theories based around Saad al-Hilli's work – computer-assisted design engineering – and his ethnicity – Iraqi – that have led some to speculate whether the killing was the work of an intelligence agency or linked with one. Hilli, it has also been established, worked as a computer-assisted designer for the firm Surrey Satellites. Surrey Satellites is owned by EADS, a large defence and engineering contractor. On Thursday a family friend and fellow engineer James Matthews. said Hilli was a freelancer and that the last major project he worked on was designing the galley kitchen of the new Airbus. The picture painted of Mr Hilli so far by friends and neighbours is tof a hard-working family man with a love of caravanning who was a respected member of the suburban Surrey community he made his home – less James Bond, more Terry Scott. Family feudFrench police confirmed on Friday morning that this was one of the theories they were investigating and that they were working with their British counterparts on this. It seems extraordinary that a family dispute could erupt in such a fashion – with the deaths of so many family members and witnesses in a foreign country. The idea could be that there may have been a paid assassin involved. However, few currently available details back this up. A neighbour of the Hillis, Jack Saltman, 67, said that he had reported a family-related "problem" to the police but gave few details as to what it might be. The Mirror carried the story here and reported Saltman as saying Mr Hilli mentioned "two or three times" over the last two months something which gave him "cause for concern". Saltman told the Mirror: "He had family in Iraq and I know he was worried about their safety and spoke to them on the phone. "He told me something about a problem he had and before he left he came round and saw me and asked if I would keep an eye on his house." The Mirror's story also reported the existence of a family dispute over an inheritance "worth more than €1.2m". Zaid Alabdi, described as a family friend, said: "He [Mr Hilli] told me he had employed lawyers and was involved in a dispute over a lot of money." The Daily Mail, spoke to Hilli's accountant, Julian Stedman, 67, who described his accounts as "straight up". Racist killingThe theory of a lone killer driven by psychopathic, religious or racial hatred is, perhaps, one of France's worst fears in the aftermath of the Annecy shootings. It would take the country back to the dark days earlier this year when Mohamed Merah, who claimed links to Islamic extremism, went on three separate killing sprees in and around the south-western city of Toulouse. Merah, 23, gunned down seven people, including two young children, a rabbi and two French paratroopers, at point-blank range before he police eventually shot him dead at his Toulouse flat on 22 march after a 32-hour siege. Although France's intelligence service had French-Algerian Merah on its radar, he was believed to have acted alone. Before he was shot dead he told police he had killed the servicemen in retaliation for the French army's involvement in Afghanistan and killed the Jewish victims in support of Palestinian Muslims.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Claimants include the former Arsenal and England footballer, Sol Campbell and former Atomic Kitten singer, Kerry Katona News International is expected to face at least 230 new compensation claims from alleged victims of News of the World phone-hacking, including former England footballer Sol Campbell. Other new claimants include former Atomic Kitten singer Kerry Katona, her ex husband Brian McFadden, formerly of boyband Westlife, and The Apprentice contestant Ruth Badger. The names were revealed at a high court case-management conference overseen by Mr Justice Vos on Friday, during which it emerged that 68 new civil claims for phone-hacking damages have now been lodged. Hugh Tomlinson, QC, representing phone-hacking victims, also told the high court that 395 people had now applied for disclosure of phone-hacking evidence from the Metropolitan police and up to 40 more claims were expected to be lodged by the deadline set by Vos of next Friday, 14 September. Tomlinson added that in addition, 124 phone-hacking claims have been accepted into the News International compensation fund. He said he believed the total number of new claims will be "somewhere under 300". The numbers for expected civil claims and people applying separately to the compensation scheme revealed at the high court on Friday suggests the final figure will be at least 230. These claims are in addition to more than 50 civil cases settled by News International earlier this year with victims including actors, Jude Law and Steve Coogan, singer, Charlotte Church, former deputy prime minister John Prescott and Sara Payne, the mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah. Friday's case-management hearing was the eighth organised by Vos to manage the final round of civil litigation over News of the World phone hacking, with court dates currently pencilled in for February 2013. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | At least 43 people dead and 20,000 homes damaged in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces after series of quakes A series of earthquakes hit south-west China on Friday, killing at least 43 people and damaging 20,000 homes, the government said. The quakes, which ranged in magnitude from 4.8 to 5.6, struck agricultural areas of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. A spokesman for the Yunnan seismological bureau, Zhang Junwei, said the deaths occurred in Yiliang county, and that another 150 people were hurt. A statement on the bureau's website said more than 100,000 people had been evacuated from their homes in Yunnan. The state-run China Central Television showed several hundred people crowded into a school athletic field in Yiliang's county seat. A black cloud of dust rose over the horizon, apparently from a landslide in a nearby valley. The official Xinhua news agency said the provincial government had sent work teams to the quake-hit area and the civil affairs department was sending thousands of tents, blankets and coats. It said no casualties had been reported in Guizhou, but homes had been damaged or destroyed there. Buildings in rural areas in China are often poorly constructed. In 2008, a severe earthquake in Sichuan province, just north of Yunnan, killed nearly 90,000 people, with many of the deaths blamed on poorly built buildings including schools. The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 5.6 quake hit at a depth of 6.1 miles. Shallower earthquakes often cause more damage than deeper ones.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Captain Wales begins four-month tour of duty with British army in command of Apache helicopter based at Camp Bastion Prince Harry has flown into Afghanistan to begin a four-month tour of duty with the British army, during which he will command one of the UK's Apache attack helicopters. The prince, who is known as Captain Wales within the armed forces, flew into the conflict zone from RAF Brize Norton along with hundreds of other military personnel as part of the regular rotation of forces. The 27-year-old who is third in line to the throne looked relaxed, if slightly tired on Friday, and gave a thumbs-up after a long journey on a standard troop flight from England. During his stay, he will be based at Camp Bastion in Helmand province, the biggest military base in the country and the UK's logistical and support hub. The prince's commander said on Friday he hoped he would be "left to get on with his duties", though the media interest is likely to be intense. As a recently qualified co-pilot gunner with 662 Squadron, the 27-year-old royal will be in charge of one of the two-seater Apaches. The army has 67 of the aircraft in total, but the number being used in Afghanistan is a closely guarded secret. Prince Harry has wanted to return to the country ever since his first tour in 2008 ended in farce when an agreed – but controversial – media blackout was inadvertently broken by an Australian magazine and he was rushed back to Britain for his own safety. Once he successfully completed his 16-month training in February this year, the Ministry of Defence made it clear there was every likelihood the prince would return to Afghanistan as part of normal duties, and probably before the end of the year. Though critics have raised concerns that his presence in Afghanistan could encourage insurgents to target both him and his colleagues, and have accused the MoD of putting good PR before common sense, commanders believe Harry's new role, and the base from where he will fly, will offer him and those around him adequate security. The UK has not lost any Apache helicopters during the campaign against the insurgents, and Camp Bastion is generally regarded as safe. On this deployment the MoD decided again to work with the UK's major media organisations, including the Guardian, but this time to publicise it rather than keep it secret. An agreement involving 800 news outlets allows the media to report on the prince's activities, as long as the stories do not compromise "operational security". Editors have agreed to act responsibly and to inform the MoD when any potential issues arise. At the end of his tour, the MoD is expected to release pooled footage of the prince on duty and an interview. It will be given to those organisations that have stuck to the deal. Given the prince's proclivity for buffoonish behaviour, the military knows that publicising his deployment is a potentially risky strategy. It is only three weeks since the most recent embarrassment, when Harry was photographed naked at a private party in Las Vegas on what appears now to have been a last drunken "hurrah" with friends before his deployment. On Thursday, the Press Complaints Commission concluded that an investigation into the Sun's decision to publish nude photos of Prince Harry would be inappropriate at this time. However, the prince, who will celebrate his 28th birthday in less than two weeks, is a popular figure in the armed forces, and personnel serving in Afghanistan leaped to his defence during the most recent furore, posting naked photos of themselves on Facebook. The army's top brass also believe it inconceivable that Capt Wales, who is now considered to be responsible enough to take on royal duties on his own, would repeat "in theatre" the kind of high jinks and misjudgments that have drawn criticism in the past. The prince has been training for the tour at RAF Wattisham in Suffolk, home to the 3 Regiment, Army Air Corps. His co-pilot, who has not been named, has been with him since the spring and will accompany him throughout the tour. When he qualified on the Apache, the prince was awarded the prize for being "best front-seat pilot" – an accolade to "mark out the student whose overall performance during the course is assessed as the best amongst his peer group". Lieutenant Colonel Tim de la Rue, deputy commander of the Joint Aviation Group (JAG), which provides helicopter support to Nato forces, said: "Captain Wales is a serving soldier and a qualified Apache pilot having completed the Apache conversion to role course earlier this year. "As such, and after further flying experience, he has deployed along with the rest of the squadron as part of a long-planned and scheduled deployment to provide support to ISsaf and Afghan forces operating in Helmand." Captain Jock Gordon, commander of the JAG, said: "Working alongside his colleagues in the squadron, he will be in a difficult and demanding job and I ask that he be left alone to get on with his duties and allowed to focus on delivering support to coalition forces on the ground."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rihanna performing on a golden throne and a flying Pink – the MTV video music awards have it all. Did we mention the giant python head … ?
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Group that started as part of anti-Soviet jihad has moved into mafia-like violence, intimidation and extortion The US has decided to blacklist as a terrorist group the Haqqani network, perhaps the most ruthless and feared branch of the Afghan insurgency, the New York Times has reported. For many, the surprise was not the decision itself, but how long it has taken. The group is believed to have been behind most of the spectacular attacks in Kabul in recent years, including a rocket assault on the US embassy, as well as deadly suicide bombings of US troops. But there have been concerns that targeting the group will worsen already difficult relations with Pakistan, long suspected of supporting the group through its feared ISI intelligence agency. Some officials also thought it might dim hopes for peace talks, although the Haqqanis have always been considered the faction least open to reconciliation. The group was founded as part of the anti-Soviet jihad by Jalaluddin Haqqani, the network's patriarch, who has now delegated most day-to-day operations to the next generation. He was once funded by the CIA and lionised by some in the US, including the congressman Charlie Wilson, who reportedly described him as "goodness personified". Haqqani joined the Taliban government as minister for tribal affairs after they captured Kabul in 1996, fleeing after they were ousted in late 2001 and taking up arms again. His stronghold is in the eastern province of Khost, a lawless area where the Afghan government has little reach, although the group's leaders are widely believed to live across the border in Pakistan. There they are out of reach of the US forces that regularly capture senior insurgent leaders inside Afghanistan, but are still targeted by drones that last month killed Jalaluddin's son and operational commander Badruddin Haqqani. They are considered the most sophisticated, ruthless and well-organised of the groups that make up the Afghan insurgency, and claim nominal allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. In addition to the embassy attack they are believed to have co-ordinated or supported a string of other deadly attacks including assaults on Kabul's high-end Serena and Intercontinental hotels, a bombing of the Indian embassy, and several kidnappings. Since the 1980s, however, the group has expanded beyond insurgency to become a mafia-like operation, as focused on "the pursuit of wealth and power" as they are on "the Islamist and nationalist ideals for which [they] claim to fight," according to a recent paper by Gretchen Peters, at the Combating Terrorism Centre in West Point. "Over the past three decades they have penetrated key business sectors, including import-export, transport, real estate and construction in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Arab Gulf and beyond," Peters wrote in the paper, Haqqani Network Financing. "The Haqqanis employ violence and intimidation to extort legal firms and prominent community members and engaged in kidnap for ransom schemes … they protect and engage in the trafficking of narcotics and the precursor chemicals used to process heroin."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rimsha Masih to be released after bail hearing is told Islamic cleric tried to frame her on charges of burning Qur'an pages The Pakistani Christian girl who has been in police custody for more than three weeks after being accused of desecrating the Qur'an is to be released from prison after a judge granted her bail. Rimsha Masih, who is thought to be 14, has been at the centre of an international furore over Pakistan's blasphemy laws. But in a bail hearing in an Islamabad courtroom on Friday her lawyers argued that she should be released, in large part because a mullah from her neighbourhood had been accused by colleagues of attempting to frame her on charges of burning sacred texts. They claim the cleric Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti planted pages of the Qur'an in a bag of burned refuse that Masih had been seen carrying through her neighbourhood on 16 August. She lives in an impoverished near-slum on the outskirts of Islamabad where a minority community of Christians live. Lawyers representing the man who originally claimed to have caught Rimsha carrying what he thought were burned verses from Islam's most holy book tried to block the bail. Rimsha's legal team responded by saying they were using "hyper technical arguments" to try to challenge the paperwork of the bail hearing. The prosecution also attempted to undermine a medical board's assessment that Rimsha was legally a minor and that she was "mentally slow". Rimsha's supporters have long claimed she has Down's syndrome. A decision on whether she will have to stand trial will be made after officials have finished their investigation into an affair that has cast unprecedented light on Pakistan's notorious blasphemy laws, which have been widely abused over the years and can carry the death penalty or long jail terms. Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan director of Human Rights Watch, said the organisation welcomed the court decision and urged the government to guarantee her security. "The fact is that this child should not have been behind bars at all," he said. "All charges against her should be dropped and Pakistan's criminal justice system should instead concentrate on holding her accuser accountable for inciting violence against the child and members of the local Christian community." He said the organisation hoped the case would "lead to a considered re-examination of the law". However, most analysts say reform, let alone repeal, of the decades-old law is highly unlikely as the country gears up for national elections.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as EU foreign ministers meet to discuss the Syria crisis and activists in Bahrain plan to go ahead with a banned rally
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live as two separate explosions hit Damascus after the army shells suburbs of the city
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Forensic and ballistic tests expected to reveal whether more than one person killed British family and French cyclist in Annecy French forensic and ballistic experts are to examine the 15 bullet casings found at the scene of the French Alpine murder of three British holidaymakers and a French cyclist to try to identify the killer's DNA and weapon. Postmortem examinations will also be carried out on Friday on the four victims, three of whom were shot in the head with a semi-automatic pistol. The results are expected late on Friday or Saturday. Investigators at Annecy in the Haute Savoie region of France said the two children who survived the slaughter are at separate hospitals under protection in case the killer, or killers, returned to threaten the only witnesses to the shootings. The youngest girl, who lay terrified and traumatised undiscovered in the car for eight hours after the attack, was said to have spoken to detectives, who hope she may give some threads of information to help the inquiry. Iraqi-born businessman Said al-Hilli, 50, from Claygate in Surrey, was found slumped in the driver's seat of his BMW estate car at a beauty spot in the French Alps on Wednesday. His wife, Iqbal, 47, and 77-year-old mother-in-law were dead in the back of the car. The couple's elder daughter, Zainab, seven, had been shot in the shoulder, violently beaten around the head and left for dead while her sister, Zeena, four, escaped injury and remained hidden under the bodies of her mother and grandmother. Zainab was said to be in a serious but stable condition at a hospital in Grenoble. A French man who appears to have cycled past during the killings was fatally shot in the head. Detectives have admitted they have many theories but no leads in the killings. Between 60 and 100 investigators are working on the case, described by the local prosecutor, Eric Maillaud, as "extremely savage". He urged journalists to let investigators "do their job". Friday's tests were expected to reveal whether there was more than one killer and if the victims were killed with the same weapon. The local newspaper, Le Dauphiné Libéré, reported the murders as "a massacre, a miracle and a mystery". A member of the Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale (National Gendarmerie Institute for Criminal Research) told the paper: "It appears to be an execution."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Asian markets rallied strongly overnight after the Outright Monetary Transactions was announced by the European Central Bank on Thursday
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Four-year-old and critically injured sister being protected by police who say they have 'no real leads' on killings of Britons French police believe a deeply traumatised four-year-old girl who hid for eight hours under the bodies of her slain relatives, and her critically injured sister may hold the key to the gruesome murder of four people in an Alpine beauty spot. The two girls were under extremely high protection as police hunted for the gunman who shot dead her parents and grandmother as well as a passing cyclist on Wednesday afternoon in what officials described as an "act of gross savagery". Three of the four victims were shot in the middle of the head with a semi-automatic pistol meaning the killer pulled the trigger for each shot, leading to fears the professional nature of the attack may indicate a contract killing. Police said they were not sure how the fourth person, believed to be the children's mother, died. The four-year-old, named in Britain as Zeena al-Hilli, asked for her family after she was finally pulled from the scene of carnage, "terrorised, motionless, in the midst of the bodies", said a French official. British consular officials, despatched from Paris, were trying to comfort her and her older sister Zainab. The dead man, who was found slumped over the steering wheel, has been named as Iraqi-born engineer Saad al-Hilli, 50, from Claygate in Surrey, but there was no official confirmation of his identity or those of the two women shot while sitting in the back of the car. One of them was reported to be carrying an Iraqi passport and the other a Swedish passport. Their bodies were found in a British-registered BMW estate car near the picturesque village of Chevaline in the French Alps near where they had been camping. French police refused to rule out any motive for the killings but described it as a "strange modus operandi" and said they had "plenty of ideas, but no real leads". Eric Maillaud, the public prosecutor, said: "At the moment we cannot say what happened, except four people were killed, or why. It's not that we have no idea; we have many ideas, many hypotheses, all of which are being looked at, but there are no real leads at the moment. My worry is that we may never find the killer." The body of French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, a local man and father of three children, who was on paternity leave, was found nearby. The car engine was still running when a former Royal Air Force officer came across the vehicle whose windows had been shattered by bullets shortly before 4pm on Wednesday. He first spotted the body of the elder girl, who had been violently beaten to the head and left for dead near the car and, seeing she was still breathing, called the emergency services. He then broke the driver's window of the car to cut the ignition and saw the three bodies in the car. Nearby, the man recognised the body of a cyclist who had overtaken him on the hill leading to the beauty spot only minutes before. Maillaud said the man, who he would not name, was "as you can imagine, profoundly shocked". It was not until almost eight hours later that police found the second little girl cowering in the footwell in the back of the car under the legs of the dead women, where she had not moved or made a sound. At a press conference in Annecy, police said the child was only found after holidaymakers at the camping site where the family had stayed, told detectives there were two children and not one. "There was nothing to lead us to believe there was another human being in the car. She was invisible and completely silent," said Maillaud. "She was clearly happy to be taken into the arms of the gendarme who brought her out. She smiled and started to speak in English. Almost straight away she asked where her family was." Lt Col Bertrand François added: "We did not search for survivors because there was never any indication there was a living person in that car. The girl was small and hiding under the legs of one of the women. She was too small to show up on a heat detector." The elder girl, who as well as being "violently beaten" was also shot in the shoulder, was said to be in a stable condition and out of danger in hospital where doctors said they had put her into an artificial coma to aid her recovery. The bodies of the victims will undergo detailed forensic examinations on Friday. Investigators say they will try to gently question the traumatised girl, but are unsure whether she will be able to help their inquiry. "She's only four years old. Can you imagine? This child stayed still and silent next to a dead body for eight hours," Maillaud said. "She will need to be helped and protected," he added. The French president François Hollande said authorities will do their "utmost to find the perpetrators". In Britain, Surrey police said they were assisting the French inquiry. If robbery is ruled out as a motive, then inquiries may focus on Hilli's background to see if there was any clue in his life and work as to why he may have been targeted. Hilli came to Britain over 20 years ago from Iraq, settling in Claygate where he was a popular and respected member of the community. Neighbour Jack Saltman said: "They are quite beautiful kids and so well behaved. He was an extraordinarily nice man and helpful. He was a very tactile loving father. He loved to gather the girls up and cuddle them … they would go running at him and he'd catch them in his arms and kiss them. He adored them. His wife was a delightful person and I can't think why anybody would want to harm them. "My wife is in floods of tears, she's heartbroken. When I stop to think about it I'll cry for those little kiddies. What sort of life are they going to have now?" The foreign office said: "Our consular officials are on the ground and providing full consular assistance. Very experienced consular staff have spent time with the youngest survivor to reassure her." Hilli is listed as being involved with two companies. Filings at Companies House say he is director of a company called SHTECH. The company dealt with computer aided mechanical design work, mainly in the civil aviation industry, said Hilli's accountant Julian Stedman. Hilli set up the company in 2001 and got most of his work through industry contacts. The company was "doing well", Stedman said. "I knew he worked on [designing] the kitchen of the European Airbus." Saad and Ikbal got married in August 2003 and had Zainab two years later.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US military judge orders forced shaving of Nidal Hasan, ruling his beard is not covered by laws protecting religious freedom A US military judge has ordered the Fort Hood massacre suspect, army major Nidal Hasan, to shave or be forcibly shaved, ruling that his beard is not covered by federal laws protecting religious freedom. Colonel Gregory Gross ruled following a hearing that Hasan's attorneys failed to prove he has grown the beard, which he has worn since June, for religious reasons. Hasan, 41, has said he grew the beard in line with the beliefs of his Islamic faith and that it is part of his free exercise of religion. Hasan, an army psychiatrist, faces 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the shootings at the army base in Texas in 2009. "Bottom line is the judge ordered him to be forcibly shaved," Fort Hood spokesman Tyler Broadway said. The court of appeals for the armed forces ruled in August that if Gross ordered Hasan to shave the ruling could be appealed against. "[The shaving] won't happen until the army criminal court of appeals, or the court of appeals for the armed forces, makes a decision," Broadway said. Hasan is accused of opening fire on 5 November 2009 at a deployment centre at Fort Hood, one of the largest US army bases, killing 13 people. Gross ruled Hasan must be in the courtroom during his court martial but without a beard. Gross said army grooming regulations, which prohibit beards, overrode religion. Gross has repeatedly declared Hasan to be in contempt of court when he has appeared in court for pre-trial hearings with the beard, declaring it to be disruptive, and ordering him out of the courtroom. If Hasan is forcibly shaven it would not be a simple process, Broadway said. Army regulations are specific on how forced shaves can be carried out. "Electric clippers will be used exclusively and the policy does allow for a senior correctional supervisor to administer the shave," Broadway said, quoting army policy. Five military police officers would restrain the prisoner, the procedure would be videotaped and a person with medical training would be on hand to attend to any injuries, army procedure dictates. Army correctional facilities have carried out forced shavings six times since 2005, Broadway said. Hasan was preparing for military deployment to Afghanistan when he allegedly opened fire at Fort Hood. During the shooting he was paralysed from the chest down by bullet wounds inflicted by civilian police officers.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Officials argue blacklisting would help curtail fundraising activities and pressure Pakistan to act against militants The US is poised to blacklist as a terrorist organisation the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, according to a report.. Designation by the state department as a foreign terrorist organisation, which could happen as early as Friday, would bring sanctions including criminal penalties for anyone providing material support to the group and seizure of any assets in the US. The administration was facing a congressional deadline this weekend. The New York Times said senior officials who argued against blacklisting the group, which has been accused of high-profile terrorist attacks, were concerned it could further damage relations with Pakistan and possibly jeopardise the fate of US Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who is being held by the militants. But state department and military officials who argued for the designation believed it would help curtail the group's fundraising activities in countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and pressure Pakistan to act against the militants, the newspaper said. "This shows that we are using everything we can to put the squeeze on these guys," the paper quoted an administration official as saying. Four officials had confirmed the move, the New York Times said. Asked to comment on the story, a senior state department official said: "As she noted earlier this week, the secretary expects to send her report on the Haqqani network to Congress today, September 7, and announce her decision regarding designation of the Haqqani network." The Haqqani network is linked to al-Qaida and has been blamed by American officials for some of the worst attacks in Afghanistan, including recent attacks on the US embassy in Kabul and on US troops. Washington accuses Pakistan's intelligence agency of supporting the Haqqani network and using it as a proxy to gain leverage against the growing influence of India in Afghanistan.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President accepts Democrats' nomination for second term with frank speech acknowledging that challenges remain Barack Obama has made his pitch for a second White House term, pleading in his keynote address to the Democratic convention for more time in spite of the slow economic recovery and warning of the dangers posed by a Mitt Romney presidency. Employing sombre pragmatism in place of the soaring optimism of the 2008 campaign, he told 23,000 people in the arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the tens of millions watching at home: "I won't pretend the path I'm offering is quick or easy. "You didn't elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. "But know this, America: Our problems can be solved. Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder but it leads to a better place. And I'm asking you to choose that future." Throughout the week Obama campaign officials had been briefing that he would lay out a "roadmap" for the next four years to secure economic recovery. He did hold out the prospect of a program that would reverse US decline, hinting at embarking on an ambitious and bold Franklin Roosevelt-style New Deal if re-elected. But he failed to offer much in the way of detail, focusing instead on telling the activists in the hall and the millions watching at home that it was up to them to choose which future they wanted for the country. Obama's formal acceptance of the party's nomination to face Romney for the White House on 6 November was greeted with deafening applause from delegates. The speech had been moved from a 73,000-seater football stadium to the much smaller Time Warner Cable arena, leaving disappointed ticket-holders, mainly party volunteers, to line up for seats at a screening in the nearby convention centre. The thunderstorms that party officials had cited as the reason for the venue change failed to materialise. The tone of Obama's message – delivered a few hours before the release of the latest monthly job figures – was subdued compared with the sense of euphoria he created at the Denver convention four years ago. He also struck a very different note from Bill Clinton the night before. The more sober approach was deliberate, a recognition of the mood of disenchantment among some voters, tired of fine oratory and and more interested in his plans for a second term. So Obama was careful to recognise his own shortcomings, at one point telling the crowd that one of the difference from 2008 was that he was "far more mindful of my own failings, knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said: 'I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.'" Over the course of the 47-minute speech there were occasional flashes of the old idealistic language. "If you turn away now – if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn't possible … well, change will not happen," he pleaded. In a direct call to voters who backed him in 2008 he acknowledged that the challengers are harder this time around. "Our road is longer – but we travel it together. We don't turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up. We draw strength from our victories and we learn from our mistakes, but we keep our eyes fixed on that distant horizon." He portrayed the election as the most important facing the US for generations, offering a clear choice between those who wanted a government actively engaged in trying to make life better, the Democratic view, and those who favoured small government, the Republicans. "When all is said and done – when you pick up that ballot to vote – you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation. Over the next few years big decisions will be made in Washington, on jobs and the economy; taxes and deficits; energy and education; war and peace. Decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children's lives for decades to come. "On every issue the choice you face won't be just between two candidates or two parties. It will be a choice between two different paths for America." Though the main focus of the speech was the economy, Obama delivered an extremely effective swipe at Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan's inexperience over foreign policy. "My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy, but from all that we've seen and heard they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly," he said. He cited Romney's criticism of British preparations for the Olympics. "You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can't visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally." Drawing parallels between his goals and those of FDR, he said the kind of America he wanted to create would take more than a few years to achieve. "It will require common effort, shared responsibility and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one," he said. Obama promised to create a million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016.
The president also promised to double exports by the end of 2014 and cut net oil imports in half by 2020. Romney, who is at his home in New Hampshire, told reporters he would not be watching the speech but his campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, said: "Tonight President Obama laid out the choice in this election, making the case for more of the same policies that haven't worked for the past four years." The reaction among Democrats was less ecstatic than the reception they accorded to Clinton or even Obama's wife, Michelle, on Tuesday night. James Carville, a Democratic strategist, described the speech as "muscular". The final night of the convention had a Hollywood flavour with speeches by Scarlett Johansson and the Desperate Housewives start Eva Longoria. There were also emotional moments, with the delegates rising to their feet to welcome to the platform Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman recovering after being shot in the head in an assassination attempt in Arizona last year. One of the strongest speeches came from John Kerry, lambasting Romney for his lack of experience or knowledge of foreign policy. A teary-eyed Joe Biden also accepted the nomination to stand again for the vice-presidency with a speech heavy on auto bailouts and the killing of Osama Bin Laden, designed to appeal to wavering white working class male voters who supported Obama last time. The Democrats paraded Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor of Florida, as evidence that the Tea Party-infused Republican party had become so extreme that moderates such as Crist had been forced out.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The time for soaring rhetoric has passed – with four years to account for, the president had to drive home his achievements As Obama speeches go it was plodding. As a man whose presidency was launched on a great convention speech, he can do better and we know it. Like a master sculptor he has proven his ability to take the raw material of a political moment and carve it rhetorically into something of aesthetic value that both engages and rouses. Indeed, for his opponents that has been their criticism: his inspiring words have not been matched by impressive deeds. He can talk the talk. Last night he had to show he could walk the walk. So fittingly it was a pedestrian address: a deliberate, methodical case for a second term. The best lines had been taken. A nation where people "get a fair shake" and "do their fair share" and everybody "plays by the rules" had been hammered home for the last three days. Both his wife, Michelle, and his surrogate, Bill Clinton, had raised the bar in terms of oratory. His task tonight, though, was not to excite but to explain and engage. "You could not step twice into the same river," noted the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. "For other waters are ever flowing on to you." As Obama pointed out he is now the president, not a candidate, and the country's in a different place. Those looking for Obama's speech to match the impact of his convention address in Denver in 2008 were always in for a disappointment. Back in Denver he could stand on his promise. Now he must stand on his record. He had to give a credible account of the last four years and make a case for the next four. Patience is a tougher sell than hope; endurance will always inspire less than change. He spoke not in terms of a grand narrative but discrete chapters: healthcare, women's rights, energy, educate, manufacturing, foreign policy. "I won't pretend the path I'm offering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn't elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades," he said. "It will require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one. And by the way – those of us who carry on his party's legacy should remember that not every problem can be remedied with another government programme or diktat from Washington." With the convention season over there is little doubt that the Democrats had a better week than the Republicans. They needed it. For all the ways in which Obama outshines Mitt Romney, as a candidate he remains vulnerable. The night that the Democratic convention started one poll showed that a majority of Americans believe the country is in "worse condition" than when Obama accepted the nomination four years ago and he does not deserve a second term. In an election with few undecided voters he was preaching to the choir. But every choir needs a song to sing. The Democratic faithful have struggled to find their voice against a strident Republican right and stubborn economic ills. on Thursday night Obama was at pains not to promise the earth, but to sound down to earth.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The time for soaring rhetoric has passed – with four years to account for, the president had to drive home his achievements As Obama speeches go it was plodding. As a man whose presidency was launched on a great convention speech, he can do better and we know it. Like a master sculptor he has proven his ability to take the raw material of a political moment and carve it rhetorically into something of aesthetic value that both engages and rouses. Indeed, for his opponents that has been their criticism: his inspiring words have not been matched by impressive deeds. He can talk the talk. Last night he had to show he could walk the walk. So fittingly it was a pedestrian address: a deliberate, methodical case for a second term. The best lines had been taken. A nation where people "get a fair shake" and "do their fair share" and everybody "plays by the rules" had been hammered home for the last three days. Both his wife, Michelle, and his surrogate, Bill Clinton, had raised the bar in terms of oratory. His task tonight, though, was not to excite but to explain and engage. "You could not step twice into the same river," noted the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. "For other waters are ever flowing on to you." As Obama pointed out he is now the president, not a candidate, and the country's in a different place. Those looking for Obama's speech to match the impact of his convention address in Denver in 2008 were always in for a disappointment. Back in Denver he could stand on his promise. Now he must stand on his record. He had to give a credible account of the last four years and make a case for the next four. Patience is a tougher sell than hope; endurance will always inspire less than change. He spoke not in terms of a grand narrative but discrete chapters: healthcare, women's rights, energy, educate, manufacturing, foreign policy. "I won't pretend the path I'm offering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn't elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades," he said. "It will require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one. And by the way – those of us who carry on his party's legacy should remember that not every problem can be remedied with another government programme or diktat from Washington." With the convention season over there is little doubt that the Democrats had a better week than the Republicans. They needed it. For all the ways in which Obama outshines Mitt Romney, as a candidate he remains vulnerable. The night that the Democratic convention started one poll showed that a majority of Americans believe the country is in "worse condition" than when Obama accepted the nomination four years ago and he does not deserve a second term. In an election with few undecided voters he was preaching to the choir. But every choir needs a song to sing. The Democratic faithful have struggled to find their voice against a strident Republican right and stubborn economic ills. on Thursday night Obama was at pains not to promise the earth, but to sound down to earth.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US president to make the case for his re-election in a highly anticipated speech at the Democratic national convention in Charlotte. Follow all the latest here
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Four-year-old and critically injured sister being protected by police who say they have 'no real leads' on killings of Britons French police believe a deeply traumatised four-year-old girl who hid for eight hours under the bodies of her slain relatives, and her critically injured sister may hold the key to the gruesome murder of four people in an Alpine beauty spot. The two girls were under extremely high protection as police hunted for the gunman who shot dead her parents and grandmother as well as a passing cyclist on Wednesday afternoon in what officials described as an "act of gross savagery". Three of the four victims were shot in the middle of the head with a semi-automatic pistol meaning the killer pulled the trigger for each shot, leading to fears the professional nature of the attack may indicate a contract killing. Police said they were not sure how the fourth person, believed to be the children's mother, died. The four-year-old, named in Britain as Zeena al-Hilli, asked for her family after she was finally pulled from the scene of carnage, "terrorised, motionless, in the midst of the bodies", said a French official. British consular officials, despatched from Paris, were trying to comfort her and her older sister Zainab. The dead man, who was found slumped over the steering wheel, has been named as Iraqi-born engineer Saad al-Hilli, 50, from Claygate in Surrey, but there was no official confirmation of his identity or those of the two women shot while sitting in the back of the car. One of them was reported to be carrying an Iraqi passport and the other a Swedish passport. Their bodies were found in a British-registered BMW estate car near the picturesque village of Chevaline in the French Alps near where they had been camping. French police refused to rule out any motive for the killings but described it as a "strange modus operandi" and said they had "plenty of ideas, but no real leads". Eric Maillaud, the public prosecutor, said: "At the moment we cannot say what happened, except four people were killed, or why. It's not that we have no idea; we have many ideas, many hypotheses, all of which are being looked at, but there are no real leads at the moment. My worry is that we may never find the killer." The body of French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, a local man and father of three children, who was on paternity leave, was found nearby. The car engine was still running when a former Royal Air Force officer came across the vehicle whose windows had been shattered by bullets shortly before 4pm on Wednesday. He first spotted the body of the elder girl, who had been violently beaten to the head and left for dead near the car and, seeing she was still breathing, called the emergency services. He then broke the driver's window of the car to cut the ignition and saw the three bodies in the car. Nearby, the man recognised the body of a cyclist who had overtaken him on the hill leading to the beauty spot only minutes before. Maillaud said the man, who he would not name, was "as you can imagine, profoundly shocked". It was not until almost eight hours later that police found the second little girl cowering in the footwell in the back of the car under the legs of the dead women, where she had not moved or made a sound. At a press conference in Annecy, police said the child was only found after holidaymakers at the camping site where the family had stayed, told detectives there were two children and not one. "There was nothing to lead us to believe there was another human being in the car. She was invisible and completely silent," said Maillaud. "She was clearly happy to be taken into the arms of the gendarme who brought her out. She smiled and started to speak in English. Almost straight away she asked where her family was." Lt Col Bertrand François added: "We did not search for survivors because there was never any indication there was a living person in that car. The girl was small and hiding under the legs of one of the women. She was too small to show up on a heat detector." The elder girl, who as well as being "violently beaten" was also shot in the shoulder, was said to be in a stable condition and out of danger in hospital where doctors said they had put her into an artificial coma to aid her recovery. The bodies of the victims will undergo detailed forensic examinations on Friday. Investigators say they will try to gently question the traumatised girl, but are unsure whether she will be able to help their inquiry. "She's only four years old. Can you imagine? This child stayed still and silent next to a dead body for eight hours," Maillaud said. "She will need to be helped and protected," he added. The French president François Hollande said authorities will do their "utmost to find the perpetrators". In Britain, Surrey police said they were assisting the French inquiry. If robbery is ruled out as a motive, then inquiries may focus on Hilli's background to see if there was any clue in his life and work as to why he may have been targeted. Hilli came to Britain over 20 years ago from Iraq, settling in Claygate where he was a popular and respected member of the community. Neighbour Jack Saltman said: "They are quite beautiful kids and so well behaved. He was an extraordinarily nice man and helpful. He was a very tactile loving father. He loved to gather the girls up and cuddle them … they would go running at him and he'd catch them in his arms and kiss them. He adored them. His wife was a delightful person and I can't think why anybody would want to harm them. "My wife is in floods of tears, she's heartbroken. When I stop to think about it I'll cry for those little kiddies. What sort of life are they going to have now?" The foreign office said: "Our consular officials are on the ground and providing full consular assistance. Very experienced consular staff have spent time with the youngest survivor to reassure her." Hilli is listed as being involved with two companies. Filings at Companies House say he is director of a company called SHTECH. The company dealt with computer aided mechanical design work, mainly in the civil aviation industry, said Hilli's accountant Julian Stedman. Hilli set up the company in 2001 and got most of his work through industry contacts. The company was "doing well", Stedman said. "I knew he worked on [designing] the kitchen of the European Airbus." Saad and Ikbal got married in August 2003 and had Zainab two years later.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Traumatised four-year-old and her critically injured sister are being protected by police who say they may hold key to killings French police believe a deeply traumatised four-year-old girl who hid for eight hours under the bodies of her slain relatives, and her critically injured sister may hold the key to the gruesome murder of four people in an Alpine beauty spot. The two girls were under extremely high protection as police hunted for the gunman who shot dead her parents and grandmother as well as a passing cyclist on Wednesday afternoon in what officials described as an "act of gross savagery". Three of the four victims were shot in the middle of the head with a semi-automatic pistol meaning the killer pulled the trigger for each shot, leading to fears the professional nature of the attack may indicate a contract killing. Police said they were not sure how the fourth person, believed to be the children's mother, died. The four-year-old, named in Britain as Zeena al-Hilli, asked for her family after she was finally pulled from the scene of carnage, "terrorised, motionless, in the midst of the bodies", said a French official. British consular officials, despatched from Paris, were trying to comfort her and her older sister Zainab. The dead man, who was found slumped over the steering wheel, has been named as Iraqi-born engineer Saad al-Hilli, 50, from Claygate in Surrey, but there was no official confirmation of his identity or those of the two women shot while sitting in the back of the car. One of them was reported to be carrying an Iraqi passport and the other a Swedish passport. Their bodies were found in a British-registered BMW estate car near the picturesque village of Chevaline in the French Alps near where they had been camping. French police refused to rule out any motive for the killings but described it as a "strange modus operandi" and said they had "plenty of ideas, but no real leads". Eric Maillaud, the public prosecutor, said: "At the moment we cannot say what happened, except four people were killed, or why. It's not that we have no idea; we have many ideas, many hypotheses, all of which are being looked at, but there are no real leads at the moment. My worry is that we may never find the killer." The body of French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, a local man and father of three children, who was on paternity leave, was found nearby. The car engine was still running when a former Royal Air Force officer came across the vehicle whose windows had been shattered by bullets shortly before 4pm on Wednesday. He first spotted the body of the elder girl, who had been violently beaten to the head and left for dead near the car and, seeing she was still breathing, called the emergency services. He then broke the driver's window of the car to cut the ignition and saw the three bodies in the car. Nearby, the man recognised the body of a cyclist who had overtaken him on the hill leading to the beauty spot only minutes before. Maillaud said the man, who he would not name, was "as you can imagine, profoundly shocked". It was not until almost eight hours later that police found the second little girl cowering in the footwell in the back of the car under the legs of the dead women, where she had not moved or made a sound. At a press conference in Annecy, police said the child was only found after holidaymakers at the camping site where the family had stayed, told detectives there were two children and not one. "There was nothing to lead us to believe there was another human being in the car. She was invisible and completely silent," said Maillaud. "She was clearly happy to be taken into the arms of the gendarme who brought her out. She smiled and started to speak in English. Almost straight away she asked where her family was." Lt Col Bertrand François added: "We did not search for survivors because there was never any indication there was a living person in that car. The girl was small and hiding under the legs of one of the women. She was too small to show up on a heat detector." The elder girl, who as well as being "violently beaten" was also shot in the shoulder, was said to be in a stable condition and out of danger in hospital where doctors said they had put her into an artificial coma to aid her recovery. The bodies of the victims will undergo detailed forensic examinations on Friday. Investigators say they will try to gently question the traumatised girl, but are unsure whether she will be able to help their inquiry. "She's only four years old. Can you imagine? This child stayed still and silent next to a dead body for eight hours," Maillaud said. "She will need to be helped and protected," he added. The French president François Hollande said authorities will do their "utmost to find the perpetrators". In Britain, Surrey police said they were assisting the French inquiry. If robbery is ruled out as a motive, then inquiries may focus on Hilli's background to see if there was any clue in his life and work as to why he may have been targeted. Hilli came to Britain over 20 years ago from Iraq, settling in Claygate where he was a popular and respected member of the community. Neighbour Jack Saltman said: "They are quite beautiful kids and so well behaved. He was an extraordinarily nice man and helpful. He was a very tactile loving father. He loved to gather the girls up and cuddle them … they would go running at him and he'd catch them in his arms and kiss them. He adored them. His wife was a delightful person and I can't think why anybody would want to harm them. "My wife is in floods of tears, she's heartbroken. When I stop to think about it I'll cry for those little kiddies. What sort of life are they going to have now?" The foreign office said: "Our consular officials are on the ground and providing full consular assistance. Very experienced consular staff have spent time with the youngest survivor to reassure her." Hilli is listed as being involved with two companies. Filings at Companies House say he is director of a company called SHTECH. The company dealt with computer aided mechanical design work, mainly in the civil aviation industry, said Hilli's accountant Julian Stedman. Hilli set up the company in 2001 and got most of his work through industry contacts. The company was "doing well", Stedman said. "I knew he worked on [designing] the kitchen of the European Airbus." Saad and Ikbal got married in August 2003 and had Zainab two years later.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President sends clear statement over economy as he prepares to reinforce message from Bill Clinton's wisely praised speech Barack Obama has stated categorically that Americans are better off than they were four years ago, as he prepares for primetime acceptance speech on Thursday night to the Democratic national convention in Charlotte. "We are absolutely better off than we were when I was sworn in and we were losing 800,000 jobs in a month," Obama told Virginia radio station NBC 12 in a interview broadcast a few hours before he was scheduled address delegates in North Carolina. It was a clear statement after a week of confused messaging by the normally disciplined Obama campaign, with senior figures swithering between saying the country was not better off and others saying it was. Obama earlier in the week adopted a cautious position in the middle, avoiding saying definitively that the country was better off, only that his work was incomplete. The comments reinforced the message from a barnstorming, largely ad-libbed speech on Wednesday night by former president Bill Clinton, who was receiving plaudits from across the US political spectrum. Some Republican strategists went so far as predicting that the speech had handed Obama four more years in the White House. "I wish to God as a Republican we had someone on our side who had the ability to do that," Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist who helped run John McCain's campaign against Obama in 2008, told MSNBC. Another Republican strategist and media commentator, Alex Castellanos, was equally gushing. "This will be the moment that probably re-elected Barack Obama," he told CNN. A leading Democrat, senator Chuck Schumer, disclosed that Clinton will follow up his speech with a series of campaign appearances on behalf of Obama next month. But Obama and Clinton will face a sobering set of figures on Friday when the monthly jobs figures are published. Expectations are that they will show more positive news for Obama in previous months, with between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs created, but the overall unemployment rate is expected to remain stubbornly around the 8.3% mark – dangerously high for Obama's re-election chances. The Republicans – who viewing Americans' anger over unemployment as one of the keys to the White House – are set to pounce on those figures, arguing that the country is worse off now than when Obama became president in January 2009. In his Virginia radio interview, Obama also expressed regret over his remark earlier on the campaign trail in which he said 'You didn't build that', a comment that the Republicans adopted as the theme of their convention in Tampa, Florida, last week."Obviously, I have regrets for my syntax," Obama said. But he stood by the point he was trying to make, that though individual entrepreneurs build businesses, they still needed the infrastructure that the federal government provided. Obama also held a conference call to express his regret that thousands of campaign volunteers, many of whom had travelled a long way to attend, would be unable to hear his nomination speech at the 73,000-seater Bank of America stadium, after the event was moved to the smaller Time Warner Cable arena over bad weather fears. The president said: "I just want to begin by saying how much I regret we are not all gathered in one place … I know it is disappointing. I know a lot of you have come a long way." Obama's campaign staff, including senior adviser David Plouffe, did a series of interviews on Thursday, saying they did not anticipate a poll bounce following the convention, even though it is generally regarded to have had more energy and better speeches than the Republican event in Florida last week. "We've always believed that there's very little elasticity in the election," Plouffe told ABC. "You're not going to see big bounces in this election. For the next 61 days, it's going to remain tight as a tick." But Democratic delegates are hoping for a poll breakthrough after speeches by Michelle Obama on Tuesday night and Clinton on Wednesday night. Clinton lifted morale with a 48-minute speech that combined folksy ad-libs with a detail-packed, point-by-point rebuttal of Republican attacks on Obama's record. He couched the November 6 ballot as a choice between whether voters wanted to be part of a "We're all in this together society" or or a "Winner take all, you're on your own society". "We simply cannot afford to give the reins of government to someone who will double down on trickledown," Clinton said. It was also a powerful positive argument for re-electing Obama to finish the job of securing recovery, a task Clinton said neither he nor any other president could have delivered in just four years. In a week that has seen the Obama campaign grapple unconvincingly with the question "Are voters better off than four years ago?", Clinton had an unequivocal response. "Now, are we where we want to be today? No. Is the president satisfied? Of course not. But are we better off than we were when he took office? The answer is: yes." Since 1961, Clinton said, Democrats had held power for 24 years, the Republicans 28, and the economy had created 66m private sector jobs in that period. "So what's the job score? Republicans, 24 million; Democrats, 42 [million]," he said. It is a long way from 2008, when Clinton made many bitter remarks about Obama during the campaign by his wife, Hillary, for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Obama campaign officials branded the former president a racist. Even the most diehard member of Obama's inner circle, where there is still lingering animosity from four years ago, would find it hard to say that Clinton did not deliver for his successor on the night. Even Obama said: "He broke down the issues as effectively as anyone could." The president, Clinton said, contrary to accusations by the Republicans, had sought to work with the other side in Congress but had been repeatedly rebuffed. His instinct was towards co-operation. "Obama appointed several members of his cabinet even though they supported Hillary. Heck, he even appointed Hillary," he said, his best joke of the night. The core of his speech dealt with the ideological divide between the parties. "My fellow Americans, all of us in this grand hall and everybody watching at home, when we vote in this election we'll be deciding what kind of country we want to live in. If you want a winner-take-all, you're on your own society you should support the Republican ticket. Obama held a conference call to express regrets to the thousands of campaign volunteers, many of whom had travelled a long way to attend hear his nomination speech at the Bank of America stadium. But the open-air event at the 73,000-seater stadium had to be cancelled and the event moved to the smaller 23,000 convention centre, meaning most of them are unable to attend. Obama made the call to try to placate them, some of them having paid a lot of money to make the trip.
"I just want to begin by saying how much I regret we are not all gathered in one place......I know it is disappointing. I know a lot of you have come a long way." "But if you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibility, a we're-all-in-this-together society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden." Some of the volunteers had received tickets for the stadium as a reward for completing at least nine hours of campaign work.
He said he could not put the volunteers, the police and others at risk from the threat of the thunderstorms. It was not just getting people in but, possibly more problematic, getting people out.
Disputing Republican claims that the Demcoratic base is dispirited, he insisted there is no "enthusiasm issue".
He would set out tonight what is at stake in the election. "We can't let a little thunder and lightening get us down. We will just roll with it."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President sends clear statement over economy as he prepares to reinforce message from Bill Clinton's widely praised speech Barack Obama has stated categorically that Americans are better off than they were four years ago, as he prepares for primetime acceptance speech on Thursday night to the Democratic national convention in Charlotte. After a week of confused messaging by the normally disciplined Obama campaign, the president attempted to state the case clearly. "We are absolutely better off than we were when I was sworn in and we were losing 800,000 jobs in a month," Obama told Virginia radio station NBC 12 in a interview broadcast a few hours before he was scheduled address delegates in North Carolina. Earlier in the week, senior Democratic figures gave different answers, with some saying the country was not better off and others saying it was. Even Obama had earlier adopted a cautious position, saying definitively that the country was better off, only that his work was incomplete. Obama was on Thursday preparing for his main speech of the convention, which aides said would focus in part on foreign policy. Although polls suggest that foreign affairs is low down on the list of voter priorities, the president is to tout US success in finally tracking down Osama bin Laden, the exit from Iraq and the start of the process of winding down the war in Afghanistan. Jen Psaki, Obama's media spokeswoman, noted that Mitt Romney had last week gone through a 45-minute speech without once mentioning Afghanistan or Iraq. Psaki said Obama would offer much more "concrete" policy detail than Romney last week and no-one on Friday would be unaware of his plans for another four years in office. Even as voters are digesting Obama's remarks on Friday, there will be a sobering moment when the monthly jobs figures are published. Expectations are that they will show more positive news for Obama in previous months, with between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs created, but the overall unemployment rate is expected to remain stubbornly around the 8.3% mark – dangerously high for Obama's re-election chances. Asked about the impact of the figures, Psaki said Obama would note the 29 straight months of increases in new jobs. Meanwhile delegates in Charlotte were buoyed by a barnstorming, largely ad-libbed speech on Wednesday night by former president Bill Clinton, who was receiving plaudits from across the US political spectrum. Some Republican strategists went so far as predicting that the speech had handed Obama four more years in the White House. "I wish to God as a Republican we had someone on our side who had the ability to do that," Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist who helped run John McCain's campaign against Obama in 2008, told MSNBC. Another Republican strategist and media commentator, Alex Castellanos, was equally gushing. "This will be the moment that probably re-elected Barack Obama," he told CNN. A leading Democrat, senator Chuck Schumer, disclosed that Clinton will follow up his speech with a series of campaign appearances on behalf of Obama next month. The Republicans – who viewing Americans' anger over unemployment as one of the keys to the White House – are set to pounce on those figures, arguing that the country is worse off now than when Obama became president in January 2009. In his Virginia radio interview, Obama also expressed regret over his remark earlier on the campaign trail in which he said 'You didn't build that', a comment that the Republicans adopted as the theme of their convention in Tampa, Florida, last week. "Obviously, I have regrets for my syntax," Obama said. But he stood by the point he was trying to make, that though individual entrepreneurs build businesses, they still needed the infrastructure that the federal government provided. Obama also held a conference call to express his regret that thousands of campaign volunteers, many of whom had travelled a long way to attend, would be unable to hear his nomination speech at the 73,000-seater Bank of America stadium, after the event was moved to the smaller Time Warner Cable arena over bad weather fears. The president said: "I just want to begin by saying how much I regret we are not all gathered in one place … I know it is disappointing. I know a lot of you have come a long way." Obama's campaign staff, including senior adviser David Plouffe, did a series of interviews on Thursday, saying they did not anticipate a poll bounce following the convention, even though it is generally regarded to have had more energy and better speeches than the Republican event in Florida last week. "We've always believed that there's very little elasticity in the election," Plouffe told ABC. "You're not going to see big bounces in this election. For the next 61 days, it's going to remain tight as a tick." But Democratic delegates are hoping for a poll breakthrough after speeches by Michelle Obama on Tuesday night and Clinton on Wednesday night. Clinton lifted morale with a 48-minute speech that combined folksy ad-libs with a detail-packed, point-by-point rebuttal of Republican attacks on Obama's record. He couched the November 6 ballot as a choice between whether voters wanted to be part of a "We're all in this together society" or or a "Winner take all, you're on your own society". "We simply cannot afford to give the reins of government to someone who will double down on trickledown," Clinton said. It was also a powerful positive argument for re-electing Obama to finish the job of securing recovery, a task Clinton said neither he nor any other president could have delivered in just four years. In a week that has seen the Obama campaign grapple unconvincingly with the question "Are voters better off than four years ago?", Clinton had an unequivocal response. "Now, are we where we want to be today? No. Is the president satisfied? Of course not. But are we better off than we were when he took office? The answer is: yes." Since 1961, Clinton said, Democrats had held power for 24 years, the Republicans 28, and the economy had created 66m private sector jobs in that period. "So what's the job score? Republicans, 24 million; Democrats, 42 [million]," he said. It is a long way from 2008, when Clinton made many bitter remarks about Obama during the campaign by his wife, Hillary, for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Obama campaign officials branded the former president a racist. Even the most diehard member of Obama's inner circle, where there is still lingering animosity from four years ago, would find it hard to say that Clinton did not deliver for his successor on the night. Even Obama said: "He broke down the issues as effectively as anyone could." The president, Clinton said, contrary to accusations by the Republicans, had sought to work with the other side in Congress but had been repeatedly rebuffed. His instinct was towards co-operation. "Obama appointed several members of his cabinet even though they supported Hillary. Heck, he even appointed Hillary," he said, his best joke of the night. The core of his speech dealt with the ideological divide between the parties. "My fellow Americans, all of us in this grand hall and everybody watching at home, when we vote in this election we'll be deciding what kind of country we want to live in. If you want a winner-take-all, you're on your own society you should support the Republican ticket." "But if you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibility, a we're-all-in-this-together society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Afghanistan's system of indefinite detention condemned by lawyers as 'setting a dangerous precedent' US forces will continue to hold prisoners in Afghanistan even after they transfer their main detention centre to Afghan authorities this week, a report from a rights group said, in a decision likely to anger Kabul officials who believed they had won control of all Afghan detainees. Afghanistan has also created a system of indefinite detention without trial for some inmates transferred from the US system. Afghan lawyers have warned that this is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent for the country's security forces. "Administrative detention" is used by US forces when prisoners are deemed a threat but there is not enough evidence for a criminal prosecution. It was needed as grounds to hold some prisoners, Afghan officials said, but may not be limited to those held in the Bagram jail. "There are some very serious problems about the scope of the [detention]," said Rachel Reid, regional director at Open Society Foundations, which published the Remaking Bagram report. "There is no time limit on it, there is very little clarity about who they can detain, how long they hold them, what the conditions are and what due process rights they have when they are held," she told a news conference in Kabul to launch the report. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had for years demanded control of the prison in Bagram, outside Kabul, arguing that it was a serious violation of Afghan sovereignty to have US soldiers holding Afghans captive in their own country. The US agreed to the transfer in March, to help seal a "strategic partnership" deal that lays the foundation for a long-term relationship between the two allies, and a US military presence beyond 2014. But US forces are now apparently at odds with the Afghan government over what the agreement binds them to, the report said. They plan to keep at least two detention blocks in the Bagram jail, as well as continuing to take Afghan prisoners. "They believe they have a continued authority to capture and detain Afghans on Afghan soil where they need to for security reasons," Reid said. Some 600 have been captured since the transfer was agreed, and the terms of their transfer are unclear, she added. The Nato-led coalition said the pact with the Afghan government set a date only for the transfer of existing prisoners, not for all prison facilities, and left US forces with the right "to continue to capture, process and then transfer detainees". Afghan officials however see this as a violation of their agreement. "We cannot allow allies and friendly countries to have detention centres here. This is illegal," the report quotes national security advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta saying. At the time of the signing ceremony more than 3,000 prisoners, most of them Afghans, were being held in the detention centre; they will all be handed over to Afghan authorities by the official transfer on Monday. Around half will face criminal trials, but at least 50 are already in "administrative detention" that the government argues is legal under international law. "The constitution says freedom is the right of every human being, so if we see that a person is detained without any crime, its a violation of his rights," said Rohullah Qarizada, president of the Afghan Independent Bar Association, going on to detail at least five articles of the constitution violated by the detention without trial. There are also concerns about the fate of around 50 foreign prisoners held at Bagram. "Most Afghans do not want the Americans to keep holding these third-country nationals in Afghanistan as if it is some kind of mini-Guantánamo," Reid said. "They have said very clearly to us that they want the Americans to hand over these non-Afghans to them or take them out of the country."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Afghan system of indefinite detention also condemned as 'setting a dangerous precedent' US forces will continue to hold prisoners in Afghanistan even after they transfer their main detention centre to Afghan authorities this week, a report from a rights group said, in a decision likely to anger Kabul officials who believed they had won control of all Afghan detainees. Afghanistan has also created a system of indefinite detention without trial for some inmates transferred from the US system. Afghan lawyers have warned that this is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent for the country's security forces. "Administrative detention" is used by US forces when prisoners are deemed a threat but there is not enough evidence for a criminal prosecution. It was needed as grounds to hold some prisoners, Afghan officials said, but may not be limited to those held in the Bagram jail. "There are some very serious problems about the scope of the [detention]," said Rachel Reid, regional director at Open Society Foundations, which published the Remaking Bagram report. "There is no time limit on it, there is very little clarity about who they can detain, how long they hold them, what the conditions are and what due process rights they have when they are held," she told a news conference in Kabul to launch the report. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had for years demanded control of the prison in Bagram, outside Kabul, arguing that it was a serious violation of Afghan sovereignty to have US soldiers holding Afghans captive in their own country. The US agreed to the transfer in March, to help seal a "strategic partnership" deal that lays the foundation for a long-term relationship between the two allies, and a US military presence beyond 2014. But US forces are now apparently at odds with the Afghan government over what the agreement binds them to, the report said. They plan to keep at least two detention blocks in the Bagram jail, as well as continuing to take Afghan prisoners. "They believe they have a continued authority to capture and detain Afghans on Afghan soil where they need to for security reasons," Reid said. Some 600 have been captured since the transfer was agreed, and the terms of their transfer are unclear, she added. The Nato-led coalition said the pact with the Afghan government set a date only for the transfer of existing prisoners, not for all prison facilities, and left US forces with the right "to continue to capture, process and then transfer detainees". Afghan officials however see this as a violation of their agreement. "We cannot allow allies and friendly countries to have detention centres here. This is illegal," the report quotes national security advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta saying. At the time of the signing ceremony more than 3,000 prisoners, most of them Afghans, were being held in the detention centre; they will all be handed over to Afghan authorities by the official transfer on Monday. Around half will face criminal trials, but at least 50 are already in "administrative detention" that the government argues is legal under international law. "The constitution says freedom is the right of every human being, so if we see that a person is detained without any crime, its a violation of his rights," said Rohullah Qarizada, president of the Afghan Independent Bar Association, going on to detail at least five articles of the constitution violated by the detention without trial. There are also concerns about the fate of around 50 foreign prisoners held at Bagram. "Most Afghans do not want the Americans to keep holding these third-country nationals in Afghanistan as if it is some kind of mini-Guantanamo," Reid said. "They have said very clearly to us that they want the the Americans to hand over these non-Afghans to them or take them out of the country."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | In 2008, Barack Obama promised to turn Elkhart's fortunes around. But as the president puts forward his case for four more years, workers in this Indiana car town continue to feel the pinch
• Elkhart voices: reflections from Obama's city of hope For the past three years Ed Neufeldt has been wearing the same green rubber bracelets stamped "Jobs for America". He plans to take them off when unemployment in his home town of Elkhart, Indiana, falls below 8%. That day appears, finally, to be approaching – albeit achingly slowly. "The whole United States is not doing that good," Neufeldt says. "But here we're better off than we were three years ago." Few towns hold as much history for Barack Obama's presidency as Elkhart. This was the city where he fought to establish himself as the candidate of hope and change, first in a bruising encounter with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and then for the presidency. On his road to victory, Obama visited here four times in 15 months, and in February 2009 he chose Elkhart for his first trip outside Washington since his inauguration. Neufeldt, then an unemployed recreational vehicle worker, was thrust into the national spotlight when he was chosen to introduce the newly inaugurated president of the United States at a local rally. "I am hoping and praying that president Obama will put the people of Elkhart County back to work. The stakes are high," Neufeldt said then. "I promised you back then if I was elected, I would do everything I could to help this community recover, and that's why I'm back here today," said Obama as he pushed the American Recovery Act, an $800bn stimulus plan he hoped would get America back to work. Back then unemployment in the area was 18%. Obama charmed the locals, playing basketball with children in the streets and dipping into local diners to the shock and delight of proprietors and patrons alike. And he made big promises. Four years on, Elkhart has gone from a symbol of Obama's message of hope to a perfect example of the biggest hurdle the president faces in his bid for re-election: the gap between empirical measures that show economic recovery, and the pain people continue to feel. That is why Obama will have one clear goal when he delivers his acceptance speech to the Democratic national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday night: spelling out a compelling economic case for giving him four more years. "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Ronald Reagan famously asked voters in the 1980 campaign. It is the question that looms over the 2012 presidential election, and one which has dogged the Obama campaign this week as they have struggled to come up with a convincing answer. The data suggests the American people are. On Friday, economists expect the latest employment figures to show that the US added another 100,000-plus jobs last month. The US has added jobs every month since October 2010. There are other positive economic signs: car sales are bouncing back, and even the housing market seems on the mend. In Elkhart, too, the numbers say people are far better off than they were when Obama took office. Unemployment in the region is now around 8.9%, and the city, with a population shy of 51,000, is clearly on the mend. Local unemployment is still above the national average, just, but shipments in the RV industry, the area's biggest employer, are nearly back to pre-recession levels after hitting 20 year lows in 2009. 'We're never gonna go under 8% unemployment'Life has got better, too, for Ed Neufeldt since he introduced the president during his visit. Now 72, Neufeldt is back in work, but things are not good enough for him to contemplate retirement. Once he lived in relative comfort, earning $20 an hour job at Monaco, an RV manufacturer that went bankrupt in 2009. Now he works part-time as a bread truck driver for $9 an hour, and has an evening job cleaning offices for another $11 an hour. It doesn't add up to his pre-recession income. "I had to work three years for a dime raise," he says. "When I met president Obama I really liked him, but I think because of automation and modern technology we're never gonna go under 8% employment," he says. America's midwest and the Great Plains are rebounding from the recession faster than other parts of the country – helped in large part by the recovery in the auto industry that followed Obama's bailout. The region is home to three swing states – Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin – and in all three the economy is pulling, slowly, out of the doldrums. But it's far from assured that Obama can benefit politically from that recovery. In 2008, he became the first Democratic nominee to win Indiana in 44 years. And yet strategists in both parties say Indiana is the state he is least likely to hold on to in 2012. Summer Sellers, 33, is another Elkhart resident who was worse off in 2008. Several stints of unemployment eventually led her to the social media job she has now. And while Sellers admits that the enthusiasm Obama's visits generated in those early visits has faded, she still has hope that the people who voted for him in 2008 will return to the polls to cast a vote for him in November. "I haven't really heard too much from other people about Obama staying in office versus getting somebody else," Sellers said. " I still have the feeling that people in my generation around here who voted for Obama before will vote for him again." The RV museum, Elkhart's museum to the industry that provides two thirds of its jobs, is celebrating 100 years of RV evolution. Visitors walk a road that shows how the industry has developed from a 1913 Earl Travel Trailer, which looks like well-made a camp tent on wheels and is towed by a Model T Ford, past the rather modest RV Mae West used on set and spartan shining silver Airstreams on to today's hi-tech, Wi-Fi ready behemoths. The museum's president, Darryl Searer, gives Obama little credit for Elkhart's turnaround, however. "I've witnessed four major recessions in my life: this one has lasted the longest," he says. "Why? I think because Washington is not business-friendly." Searer sees himself as a political independent. When Obama was elected he was hopeful that something would change. But he says the administration has failed to tackle the housing crisis and is angry that it poured billions into saving the auto industry and other bust businesses that he believes should have been allowed to fail. "When you reward failure, you just create more failure," he says. Elkhart's RV industry has bounced back but at the expense of other areas of the country that have lost market share, he says. It's survival of the fittest. Searer, who says the RV industry has always been sensitive to the economic cycle, also runs Ultra-Fab Products, a parts business he says grew at 30% a year between 2003 and 2008 before the recession hit hard. After a couple of losing years, business is back again, but he doesn't believe Obama's policies have helped. "It's not because of government. It's because I figured out how to make money," he says. He says Obama is "anti-business". "I think everybody here had hope but as time has gone on it just hasn't worked out," he says. 'Obama hasn't done a thing for agriculture. I'd give him an F'It's not just those in the RV industry that are disappointed. At the massive Elkhart County 4-H Fair, attendances are back to levels last seen in 2006. About 250,000 people visited in July to see children show off their prize sheep and cows, enjoy the rides, eat deep-fried Twinkies and other delights and watch '80s rockers Styx and Glenn Campbell on his goodbye tour. But agriculture is in crisis, too. Drought has sent the price of corn rocketing, and Obama's ethanol mandate will mean 40% of this year's crop is turned into fuel, keeping prices high. "I don't think Obama's done one thing for agriculture," says John Hochstetter, a local dairy farmer. He calculates the soaring cost of corn cost him $100,000 extra over July and August. He's not impressed with Mitt Romney, either. "A country is not a business," he says. But as far as Obama is concerned: "I'd give him an F." There are uglier views on Obama at the fair. "He's not even American. If I had his background, they wouldn't let me even board a plane," says one clearly angry lawnmower salesman before refusing to give his name. But mostly Obama's critics are more disappointed than angry. "A man can only do so much," says Phillip Ray, a retired RV industry worker. "But it's the economy that is going to decide whether he gets re-elected or not whether that's fair or not." Douglas Agbetsiafa, a professor of economics at Indiana University, says the turnaround in the region has been "remarkable." Elkhart and the surrounding region was hit harder and faster by the recession than almost any other part of the US, he said. It wasn't until the end of 2010 that recovery really started to take hold, but by then the turnaround was dramatic, Agbetsiafa said. In the last three month of 2010 unemployment dropped from 17% to 13% and has continued to fall sharply ever since. Agbetsiafa says the stimulus money and the car industry bailout "probably did help, especially in the early stage." But it is very difficult to separate out what came from the stimulus and what from the area's historically business friendly policies. Who gets the credit may well ultimately be decided by political persuasion as much as economics, he says.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Richard Henry Bain suspected of killing one man and wounding another at victory rally for newly elected separatist premier The gun belonging to the man suspected of killing a lighting technician at the victory rally of Quebec's new separatist premier jammed after the initial shots were fired. Richard Henry Bain, 62, from La Conception, Quebec, was scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning after he was accused of opening fire at the rally on Tuesday night, killing one man and wounding another. A police official said Thursday that Bain's gun jammed after the first shots were fired. Meanwhile, neighbours and acquaintances of the man said he was a friendly but often frustrated businessman who had overseen several failed ventures, but never had any public outbursts, leaving them to wonder how he could become the rambling masked man shown on television. People who know Bain, the owner of a hunting and fishing resort 90 miles north of Montreal, recalled his complaints about bureaucracy but could think of no political grievances he held. Quebec provincial police said the masked gunman wearing a bathrobe opened fire just outside the building where Pauline Marois of the separatist Parti Quebecois was giving her victory speech just before midnight Tuesday. The gunman was shown on television ranting and shouting "The English are waking up!" in French as police dragged him away. The mayor of La Conception, Maurice Plouffe, said he was "very surprised" to hear Bain was tied to the shooting and said the images of the suspect being dragged away by police "were not easy to watch". Plouffe said Bain was sometimes frustrated in his dealings with the city after seeing a number of zoning requests were rebuffed, but added "I have never seen him become aggressive, he was quite normal." Marc-Andre Cyr, the owner of a campground near Bain's lodge, also said he was friendly and never showed any anger toward French-speaking Quebecers. Cyr said they occasionally had a beer together and that they always spoke French. "He's someone I would meet from time to time," he said. "We never talked politics." A list of members of the Mont Tremblant Chamber of Commerce describes Richard Bain as the owner of Les Activités Rick, which promotes itself as a major fly-fishing destination. Marie-France Brisson, director general in the municipality of La Conception, said Bain frequently met community officials, and dealt with them in French, not English, though it was broken French. He complained about bureaucratic obstacles, but there were no outbursts about language, she added. Brisson said she had seen Bain in recent weeks and noticed no change in his usual demeanor. The suspect was a heavy-set man wearing a black ski mask or balaclava, glasses and a blue bathrobe over a black shirt and black shorts. Police didn't identify what weapons he had, but camera footage showed a pistol and a rifle at the scene. Police said there is no reason to believe anyone else was involved. Marois was whisked off the stage by guards and was not injured. She later called the shooting an isolated event and said it was probably a case of a person who has "serious health issues". "I am deeply affected by this, but I have to go forward and assume my responsibilities," Quebec's first female premier said Wednesday, calling Quebec a non-violent society. "An act of folly cannot rid us of this reality." Police said a 48-year-old man, later identified as Denis Blanchette, was pronounced dead at the scene and a 27-year-old man was wounded but would survive. A third man was treated for shock. The victims worked at production company Productions du Grand Bambou Inc, a person answering the phone at the Montreal company confirmed. Friends of Blanchette, a lighting technician, packed a downtown Montreal street Wednesday night in a candlelight vigil outside the hall where he was killed. It was not clear if the gunman was trying to shoot Marois, whose party favors separation from Canada for the French-speaking province. Marois had just declared her firm conviction that Quebec needs to be a sovereign country when she was pulled off the stage. Outgoing liberal premier Jean Charest, who announced he is stepping down as party leader after ruling Quebec for nearly a decade, said "Quebec has been struck directly in the heart" by the shooting.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Central bank governor Mario Draghi overcomes Germany's fears over inflation to announce new intervention in debt markets The European Central Bank unveiled its boldest attempt yet to stabilise the battered single currency on Thursday when its president, Mario Dra ghi, announced a new programme of open-ended, unlimited buying of distressed government bonds. The scheme is aimed at depressing the costs of borrowing for Spain and Italy. But Draghi also set strict terms for triggering the bond-buying programme – terms which put pressure on the eurozone's political leaders to request help, enter austerity programmes, and agree on direct bailouts for struggling governments before the ECB will act. Draghi brushed aside strong resistance from Germany's powerful Bundesbank, which lodged the only vote against the new policy in the ECB's 23-strong governing council, to come good on his pledge in London in July that the central bank would do "whatever it takes" to save the euro. The new bond-buying scheme, to be known as outright monetary transactions or OMTs, means that the ECB will intervene in the secondary markets to buy up the debt of governments whose bond yields are too high and are therefore jeopardising the uniform conduct of monetary policy across the eurozone, Draghi said. The purchases would apply only to short-term debt of up to three years. The countries benefiting from the help would first need to request a eurozone bailout and governments in the single currency would need to decide to use the bailout funds to lend directly to struggling states. Draghi said he could not order the participation of the International Monetary Fund, but would strongly seek it in any future bailout programmes. Spanish and Italian 10-year borrowing costs fell to three- and five-month lows following Draghi's announcements. "A necessary condition for outright monetary transactions is strict and effective conditionality attached to an appropriate European financial stability facility/European stability mechanism [bailout]," Draghi said. "Such programmes can take the form of a full EFSF/ESM macroeconomic adjustment programme or a precautionary programme, provided that they include the possibility of EFSF/ESM primary market purchases," he announced. "There is no ex ante quantitative limit to the interventions." Draghi said that the interventions could be halted if they were seen to have been successful in curbing the cost of borrowing, and also suspended if the country benefiting from the help breached the terms on which it received it. The Bundesbank has argued that a bond-buying programme would be tantamount to direct financing of governments, which is proscribed by the ECB's statutes. But While Germany's central banker, Jens Weidmann, has been a vocal monetarist hawk in the contentious debate leading to Thursday's move, the other German in the ECB governing council, Jörg Asmussen, played a key role in drafting the new policy. The government in Berlin has mounted minimal resistance to the new ECB policy. The OMT initiative is the third time since the spring of 2010 that the ECB has intervened in this way, first buying up Greek debt in May that year, then mounting an unsuccessful attempt last summer to relieve the pressure on Rome by buying Italian debt. These two previous attempts are viewed as having done little to contain the euro crisis. This time, Draghi said, "it will actually work." The reasons he cited were the strict terms attached to receiving assistance; the decision to forgo the ECB's status as a senior creditor and take equal ranking with other creditors; and because the bond-buying would be restricted to short-term debt. Although having overcome the Bundesbank's resistance, Draghi emphatically argued – in terms clearly aimed at assuaging German objections – that the new policy was fully in line with the ECB's fundamental monetary policy remit. He repeatedly stressed that the aim was to "repair monetary policy transmission channels". He laid out analysis stressing that inflation risks in the eurozone were low over the next two years, and emphasised the tough terms that would need to be observed to qualify for the aid. All ECB bond-buying will be "sterilised" – that is, offset by removing equivalent liquidity from other parts of the euro system – to counter inflationary risks. Spain is the strongest candidate for becoming the first beneficiary of the new programme. But following talks in Madrid on Thursday with Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy avoided all talk of whether Spain would request a bailout. It remains unclear how and when the new policy will be implemented. Madrid will be hoping that the very notion of unlimited ECB purchases might be enough of a deterrent in the markets to depress Spain's borrowing costs, avoiding the need to ask for a bailout. The opposite scenario is that now the markets will now test the intentions outlined on Thursday, forcing Spain into a eurozone bailout and ECB support. The plans unveiled, as well as the commanding manner in which it was delivered, have burnished Draghi's growing reputation as the most impressive performer in the long-running euro crisis, putting Europe's political leaders in the shade.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Activists cry foul as Republican-led legislatures plan showdown with US government over key provision of Voting Rights Act A rash of legal challenges to a core piece of US civil rights legislation is threatening the foundations of nearly half a century of laws to combat racial discrimination. Republican-led state legislatures from Florida and Texas to Alaska have engineered a series of legal showdowns with the federal government over the 1965 Voting Rights Act that, following several court rulings last week, appear likely to end up before a US supreme court which has already hinted it is ready to revisit the heart of the law. Civil rights activists warn that if the supreme court strikes down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, which gives the federal government some control over elections in states with a history of blocking African Americans from voting, then separate legislation affecting discrimination in other areas, such as in employment, education and housing, may also be vulnerable. The moves against the Voting Rights Act also come as Texas and other states separately challenge the legality of racially-based affirmative action programmes in what some lawyers see as a concerted attempt to undermine and even kill off decades of civil rights legislation. The legal assault has zeroed in on a provision of the Voting Rights Act which requires nine states – Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia – to seek approval from the US justice department in Washington for changes to voting laws or procedures. Some districts in seven other states are also bound by the legislation. "There has been a proliferation of cases that aim to take down and rip out this core provision of the Voting Rights Act," said Debo Adegbile, acting president and lead counsel of the NAACP legal defence fund, who has argued in the defence of the law at the supreme court. "I think it's fair to say that the supreme court invited these challenges." Several states have taken on the Obama administration over the law with legislation requiring people to produce photo identification to vote, redrawing electoral boundaries and measures limiting voter registration. Obama's justice department has won a series of victories in recent weeks in which federal courts ruled that the changes amounted to racial discrimination and attempts to manipulate elections. Last week, courts in Washington DC separately struck down plans by Texas to redraw constituency boundaries because they diminished the impact of a rapidly growing Latino vote and to require photo identification at the polls, which the court said would discourage minorities from voting. The justice department has won similar victories over changes to election laws and procedures in other states, including Alabama and Florida, and is fighting legislation by South Carolina in a case the Obama administration appears likely to win. But they may prove pyrrhic victories. Several state governments are looking to the conservative-leaning supreme court – which has already expressed its doubts about racially-based policy – to challenge the provision of the Voting Rights Act requiring "pre-clearance" by the US justice department, known as Section 5. Nathaniel Persily, a Columbia University law professor whose work was cited in earlier supreme court opinion on the issue, said it is only a matter of time before the supreme court strikes at the heart of the Voting Rights Act by limiting the federal government's ability to enforce the legislation. "The question is not whether Section 5 of the voting rights act will be struck down, but when and how. Will it die a death of a thousand cuts? Or will it be killed with one swift blow?" he said. Persily said the supreme court hinted at its willingness to declare Section 5 unconstitutional in a 2009 ruling which upheld the Voting Rights Act while laying the seeds of its potential destruction. In that case, officials in Austin, Texas said they should not have to ask Washington's permission to move a polling place from a house to a public school. The supreme court upheld the Voting Rights Act, which was extended for 25 years by large majorities in both houses of Congress in 2006. But the chief justice, John Roberts, raised doubts about whether Section 5 could survive. He said the failure of Congress to update the law to take account of the changes it has brought about – such as black and white people voting in similar proportions across the south – raised questions about its constitutionality. "The south has changed. The evil that Section 5 is meant to address may no longer be concentrated in the jurisdictions singled out for pre-clearance. The statute's coverage formula is based on data that is now more than 35 years old, and there is considerable evidence that it fails to account for current political conditions," Roberts wrote. While flagging up his doubts, Roberts said that "the importance of the question does not justify our rushing to decide it" – a view widely read as encouraging further legal challenges to the law so the supreme court can consider the matter at length. The chief justice's comments opened the floodgates. Since the 2009 ruling there have been more legal challenges to Section 5 than in the previous 44 years of its existence. Texas and Florida have already said they intend to ask to the supreme court to hear their cases. Two weeks ago, Alaska filed a constitutional challenge to its obligations under Section 5. But the case closest to a hearing is out of an Alabama county, Shelby. The county's legal bills are being paid by the Project on Fair Representation, which describes itself as a legal defence fund fighting "the creation of racially gerrymandered voting districts". Its director, Edward Blum, says that Section 5 exceeds Congress's powers under the constitution and that it punishing states for past sins. "Section 5 was a draconian yet completely necessary provision in 1965 when mostly southern jurisdictions we purposely shutting out blacks from the ballot box. Today, however, Section 5 is no longer a needed remedy and has evolved into a racial gerrymandering tool," he said. "African Americans and Hispanics no longer live in barrios and ghettos. Over the last 40 years, inner city America, which was heavily minority, has emptied out and African Americans and Hispanics live in all corners of these large major metropolitan areas now." But Adegbile said that the proliferation of laws being blocked by the justice department and courts under Section 5 is evidence of continued need for the Voting Rights Act. "Courts with judges appointed by Republican presidents and Democratic presidents are saying these underlying voting changes are discriminatory and will harm minority voters," he said. "What we see is a rash of voting measures targeted at minority voters in a number of places across the country that surprises folks who believed we had moved beyond though practices. I think the average person understands that it seems there's still different ways that you can try to win elections. One is by mobilising your voters. The other is by blocking a certain segment of the electorate and that second approach remains, unfortunately, a technique that is being deployed in too many places around the country." The supreme court has also taken up another case, involving race based affirmative action, that potentially has a profound impact on civil rights. Abigail Fisher sued after she was denied a place at the University of Texas claiming that she was discriminated against because she is white. In 2003, a divided supreme court ruled that a student's race could be considered in order to achieve a diverse university student body, but only after attempting to use other means. Fisher argues that Texas law already provides for a diverse admissions policy and therefore race based affirmative action was unnecessary. The Project on Fair Representation is financially backing that legal challenge, too. Blum said that he regards affirmative action based on race as a mistake from the beginning. "Affirmative action assumed that all African Americans regardless of their family income or their family educational background were deserving of some special help," he said. Persily said that if that central part of the Voting Rights Act is struck down then other civil rights legislation is likely to come under legal attack. "The thing about Section 5 of the voting rights act is that it's been the standard against which all other exercises of federal power in the civil rights realm have been judged. When you're talking about the disabilities act or the age discrimination in employment act or any number of other pieces of legislation, when the courts find problems with those laws they say they're not as good as the voting rights act," he said. "So now the gold standard for civil rights legislation is potentially going to be declared unconstitutional with unclear repercussions for all kinds of other laws." Adegbile agrees. "If the rulings were overly broad, the knock-on effect could be felt in other areas such as employment, education and the like. I think that there are serious threats," he said. Blum hopes so, saying that he believes employment laws and public contracting, in which a proportion of government contracts are awarded to minority-owned firms, will be particularly vulnerable to legal challenge. For Adegbile, the looming supreme court battles are a test of where the US stands on civil rights half a century after the laws that changed America. "Right now we are at a moment where there are competing visions of equality and opportunity in America. One side says that we have to celebrate our progress but recognise that we can do better. The other view is that we should stop talking about our history. We should deny the context, and we should move past all of this as if to pretend that racial discrimination does not continue to exist in America."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Survey shows private businesses beat economists' forecasts before closely watched release of nonfarm payrolls on Friday Private businesses added 201,000 jobs in August, far more than expected and a positive sign before Friday's release of the US government's monthly jobs tally. According to the latest report from payroll processor Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers, the jobs market achieved its biggest gain in five months in August, easily beating economists' forecasts. ADP also increased July's estimated jobs gain from 163,000 to 173,000. On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release its latest nonfarm payroll data, a closely watched tally of government as well as private sector jobs. The nonfarm payroll figures have become a monthly flashpoint in the 2012 election and few are likely to receive as much attention as Friday's, which will follow president Barack Obama's closing speech at the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Last month ADP's figures matched the nonfarm figures almost exactly but overall they have proven to be a spotty guide to the BLS numbers, which include government jobs, which have been heavily cut in recent years. Economists polled by Reuters are predicting nonfarm payrolls increased by 125,000 in August. The ADP survey comes amid other signs that suggest a pick up in the labour market. Initial jobless claims fell back to 365,000 last week, from 377,000 and employers' plans to lay off staff dropped to a 20-month low in August, according to the latest survey by consultant Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics said his forecast of 100,000 new jobs for Friday's nonfarm payrolls was now looking "pessimistic". But in a note to clients he said the jobs news was unlikely to take the pressure off Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to act. In a speech last week, Bernanke described the state of the US economy as "far from satisfactory" and said the still high rate of unemployment could "wreak structural damage on our economy that could last for many years". Bernanke indicated the Fed was preparing to act to stimulate the economy. "More generally, we wouldn't expect this improvement to persuade the Fed to hold fire next week. Employment would need to grow by a lot more than 200,000 per month to bring the unemployment rate down at a pace more agreeable to the Fed," said Ashworth.
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