|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Attempt to kill activist Malala Yousafzai, 14, could be 'watershed' moment that turns public tide against militants and extremism The Taliban's attempt to kill a 14-year-old girl, famous for speaking out against the Islamic militants and their attacks on girls' education, has triggered a wave of national revulsion in Pakistan . Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck while she sat with classmates on a school bus as it prepared to drive students home after morning classes in Mingora, a city in the Swat valley, where the army mounted major operations in 2009 to crush a Taliban insurgency. She was taken to hospital before being whisked in a military helicopter to an intensive care ward in Peshawar. Police said a bearded man approached the bus and asked which of the girls was Malala. When one of the girls pointed at her she denied it. The gunman shot both girls, although police say three people were wounded in all. A Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, claimed responsibility on behalf of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani offshoot of the Taliban movement notorious for its restrictions of women's freedom and female education during the five years before late 2001 when they were in power in Afghanistan. "She was pro-west, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her ideal leader," Ehsan told Reuters. "She was young but she was promoting western culture in Pashtun areas," he said, referring to the main ethnic group in north-western Pakistan and Afghanistan from which the Taliban finds most of its followers. The Taliban had previously announced the girl was on their "hit list" because of her backing for "the imposition of secular government" in Swat. With the country's boisterous news channels turning their attention to detailed discussions of the incident, leaders of all the mainstream parties issued statements harshly condemning the shooting. Raja Pervez Ashraf, the prime minister, ordered the helicopter be sent to move her from Mingora, while President Asif Ali Zardari sent flowers to her bedside. Yousafzai rose to fame in 2009 during the Pakistani army operations to crush a Taliban insurgency that had taken hold in the Swat valley, a beautiful mountainous area three hours drive from Islamabad. It was a popular place for Pakistani tourists before the Taliban began a takeover of the area, closing girls' schools, forcing men to grow beards and beheading their opponents. At a time when even Pakistani politicians appeared to be appeasing the Taliban, Yousafzai spoke out against the militants. She wrote a blog for the BBC's Urdu service website under the pseudonym Gul Makai ("cornflower") about the chaos of the time, including the fears of her classmates that their educations would be abruptly stopped. Her efforts were recognised by the then prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, who awarded her the country's first National Peace Award and a reward of £3,300 after she missed out on winning the International Children's Peace Prize for which she was nominated in 2011. Recently she had spoken of her desire to set up her own political party and a vocational institute for marginalised girls in her area. The attack led alarmed locals to raise doubts about government claims that the military has completely dismantled the militants' operation in Swat. "An attack on Malala in a highly secured area has sent a shiver down the spine of Swati people," said Fazal Maula Zahid, a member of Swat Qaumi Jirga, a local anti-Taliban group working for peace in the region. "We are holding urgent meeting of our jirga [tribal assembly] to chalk out a future strategy. We demand of the government to arrest the attackers or the confidence of the people in the government will greatly be shaken." Although Pakistanis have grown used to the horrors of Taliban bombings and attacks around the country, some media figures said the attempt on Yousafzai's life could be a watershed. Murtaza Salangi, the director of Pakistan Radio, said people were standing up to be counted as if this was their own daughter. "I think it is a watershed moment because the outpouring of sympathy and support for this young girl is just unprecedented. She could be a rallying poster for people who think that extremism and terrorism is the biggest challenge, even an existential challenge, for this country." He said the mood of revulsion extended beyond just the "educated elite", saying the switchboard at Radio Pakistan's Peshawar studio had "lit up like Christmas lights" after phone lines were opened for people across the country to contact a phone-in programme. Rana Jawad, Islamabad bureau chief of Geo, the country's biggest news channel, compared footage played throughout the day of the unconscious Malala being loaded on to a helicopter to a 2009 clip showing a woman in Swat being beaten by the Taliban, which was constantly replayed and horrified the country. "The reason the military was successful in its campaign against the Taliban in 2009 is that the whole nation was supporting them after they watched a young girl being beaten by a handful of militants," he said. "Today we have seen the reaction of the people is one of outrage, revulsion and a sense of shame at what has happened to Pakistan." Although he noted none of the country's religious conservative parties have yet condemned the attack, he said the Malala incident could "help the nation gel together in dismissing this mindset which attacked an innocent, harmless girl". The country's supreme court on Tuesday ordered an investigation into the alleged barter of seven girls to settle a blood feud in a remote district.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Yongda Huang Harris held on suspicion of transporting hazardous materials on flight from Japan, say customs officials A man wearing a bulletproof vest and fire-resistant trousers was arrested at Los Angeles international airport after a smoke grenade, gas mask, leg irons and weapons were discovered in his luggage, US authorities have said. Boston-bound Yongda Huang Harris, 28, was arrested on Friday on suspicion of transporting hazardous materials on a flight from Japan, according to immigration and customs officials. Harris was not co-operating with federal officials attempting to interview him, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Harris was not believed linked to a terrorist organisation but his motive had not been determined. Harris was a US citizen whose permanent residence was in Boston and he recently started living and working in Japan, officials said. He has been charged with one count of transporting hazardous materials, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Harris made a brief court appearance on Tuesday and his detention hearing was postponed to Friday. Harris aroused suspicion when customs officers at the airport noticed he was wearing the bulletproof vest and fire-resistant trousers under his trenchcoat. That triggered a formal investigation by homeland security agents. During a search of Harris's checked luggage, numerous suspicious items were uncovered, including knives, body bags, hatchet, collapsible baton, biohazard suit, full-face respirator, billy clubs, respirator, handcuffs, leg irons and a device to repel dogs, authorities said. The smoke grenade was subsequently X-rayed by the Los Angeles police department's bomb squad. Officers said the device fell into a category prohibited on board passenger aircraft by the United Nations. "Depending on the conditions when it is ignited, the smoke grenade … could potentially fill the cabin of a commercial airplane with smoke or cause a fire," federal officials said in a news release. Many of the other items – including the hatchet and knives – would not violate guidelines for what is permissible in checked luggage but may be illegal under California law, according to an affidavit filed in the US district court. Harris travelled from Kansai, Japan, to Inchon, South Korea, before landing in Los Angeles.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Zhou Xiaochuan had been due to deliver a keynote closing lecture but will not now attend meeting China's central bank governor has pulled out of the IMF's upcoming meeting in Japan in an apparent snub to the hosts over disputed islands in the East China Sea. The International Monetary Fund confirmed that Zhou Xiaochuan would not be attending the meeting, where he had been due to deliver a keynote closing lecture. Relations between China and Japan have deteroriated over their competing claims to sovereignty of the archipelago known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China. "We were informed two days ago that Governor Zhou's schedule might require him to cancel his lecture in Tokyo," an IMF spokeswoman said. "It has now been confirmed that his deputy Yi Gang will represent him." A Japanese government official said Zhou's absence would be "regrettable". "At all events Japan-China economic relationship is very important and Japan will continue to communicate with China from a broader standpoint," the official said. There have been violent protests and calls for boycotts of Japanese products in China over the islands row. Japanese carmakers including Toyota have reported a fall in sales in the world's biggest car market. According to Chinese protocol, only the most senior official would usually lead the delegation to an IMF meeting. Instead, the governor's place will be taken by Yi Gang, deputy head of the People's Bank of China, and Zhu Guangyao, deputy minister for finance . The disputed islands are located near rich fishing grounds and potentially huge oil and gas reserves. Taiwan also asserts its sovereignty over the chain. Japan is scheduled to host the IMF and World Bank annual meetings for the first time in nearly half a century. About 20,000 people are expected to attend the event, making it one of the world's largest international conferences. China's state-owned banks Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China are also staying away from the IMF and World Bank meetings. Tokyo and Beijing have traded increasingly sharp words in the dispute, which has seen both countries send patrol boats to waters near the disputed islands, raising concerns that an unintended collision or other incident could escalate into a broader clash. The Japanese prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, declared in late September that his country would not compromise on the islands, saying they were "an inherent part of our territory in light of history and also under international law". Chinese state media has said the islands have been China's "sacred territory since ancient times". In September Japan bought the islands from their private owner to stop a nationalist politician getting in first.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Venezuelan leader lambasts Washington, backs Assad and laments death of Gaddafi in ebullient address Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez may have started a new term, but it was the old, anti-imperialist, anti-US drive that characterised his first press conference since winning re-election for six more years. Lambasting Washington, backing Syria's president Bashar al-Assad and accusing Europe of cashing in on the death of Muammar Gaddafi, Chávez came out swinging after his comfortable victory on Sunday. On ebullient and provocative form, the president accused the US of fomenting unrest in the Middle East, particularly in Syria. "This is a crisis that has been planned and provoked … Syria is a sovereign nation. This crisis has a single cause: the world has entered into a new era of imperialism. It's madness. The US government has been among the most irresponsible. I hope Obama rethinks this," he said. Venezuela has supported the Syrian government by shipping oil to make up for shortfalls caused by US-initiated embargoes. "How can I not support Assad. He's the legitimate leader … We will continue in our support and advocate peace," Chávez told reporters at the presidential palace in Miraflores. He also lamented the death of his friend, former Libyan leader Gaddafi. "The way he died was a barbarity. Gaddafi was assassinated almost on TV." He said the former Libyan leader had sent him a last message, in which he compared himself to Che Guevara: "I shall die like Che – I will be a martyr." Europe, he said, had frozen billions in Libyan assets, which was "convenient" at a time when it was facing its own financial crisis. Chávez accused outside forces of trying to oust him in the presidential election. "We didn't just defeat [his rival, Henrique] Capriles. We also defeated an international coalition. This wasn't just a domestic battle." He said voters had been inundated with 500,000 automated messages from the US and Europe urging them to back his Capriles. "How much did this cost? Who has the capacity to do such a thing?", he asked. "The great transnational phone companies were supporting Capriles. It was electoral harassment." Friendlier foreign forces were, however, quick to congratulate Chávez on his victory. Other leftwing leaders in Latin America gave celebration calls. Russian president Vladimir Putin reportedly told him the election news was the "best present I could have for my 60th birthday". Chávez also castigated the foreign media's coverage of the election, which he won with 54.4% of the vote against Capriles's 44.9%. "I've read that Venezuela is divided. But the US is also divided. Every country is divided," Chávez said. "I won by 10 points and the foreign media call the victory slim. How much did Hollande win by in France? How much will Obama win by? You know Obama is my candidate? … I would vote for him if I could." With six more years in power, the Venezuelan president said he would ask the opposition for proposals and look for possible areas of collaboration, though he emphasised that past efforts had come to nothing. "The opposition has a catastrophic vision for the country," he said. "They deny everything the government achieves."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Secretary general says Turkey can rely on Nato solidarity and that 'all necessary plans are in place' Nato is ready to defend Turkey, the alliance's top official said on Tuesday, in a direct warning to Syria after a week of cross-border artillery and mortar exchanges dramatically escalated tensions between the two countries. Ankara has sent additional fighter jets to reinforce an air base close to the frontier with Syria where shells killed five Turkish civilians last week, sparking fears of a wider regional crisis. Syria has defended its shelling of neighbouring Turkey as an accidental outcome of its civil war. The comments by Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen were the strongest show of support to Turkey since the firing began on Wednesday – though the solidarity is largely symbolic. Nato member Turkey has sought backing in case it is attacked, but despite publicly supporting Syria's rebels Ankara isn't seeking direct intervention. And the alliance is thought to be reluctant to get involved militarily at a time when its main priority is the war in Afghanistan. "Obviously Turkey can rely on Nato solidarity," Rasmussen said in advance of a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels. "We have all necessary plans in place to protect and defend Turkey if necessary." When pressed on what kind of trouble on the border would trigger those plans, Nato's chief said he could not discuss contingency plans.. Nato officials said the plans have been around for decades and were not drawn up in response to the Syria crisis. In an address to lawmakers from the ruling party, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated that Ankara will continue retaliating to attacks from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime. "Every kind of threat to the Turkish territory and the Turkish people will find us standing against it," Erdogan said. "Soldiers loyal to Assad fired shells at us, we immediately reacted and responded with double force. We shall never stop responding." At least 25 additional F-16 fighter jets were deployed at Turkey's Diyarbakir air base in the south-east of the country late on Monday, Turkey's Dogan news agency said, quoting unidentified military sources. The military's chief of staff inspected troops along the border with Syria on Tuesday. A Sunni extremist group called Jabhat al-Nusra claimed responsibility for an attack on a Syrian air force intelligence compound in the Damascus suburb of Harasta on Monday evening. A statement on a militant website by the group's media arm, Al-Manara al-Bayda, said the bombing aimed "to avenge the killing of Muslims and those who suffered injustice". The Syrian state-run news agency did not report the explosion and there were conflicting reports on how badly the compound was damaged. There were no official reports on casualties, but the pro-government al-Ikhbariya channel said on Monday the blast was heard across Damascus. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported that Syrian Nation Council leader Abdulbaset Sieda visited rebel-controlled areas in Syria on Tuesday. It said he entered Syria from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing and "made observations in rural areas" of Idlib province before travelling to Aleppo's Etarib area, where he met with commanders of the Free Syrian Army. If confirmed, the trip would be Sieda's first into Syria since he became the council's leader in June. Anadolu quoted Sieda as saying: "We are here to see what the opposition in Syria and the opposition outside of Syria can do together to serve the Syrian people."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sky dive from 23 miles above Earth called off due to high winds, but team looks to Thursday to attempt record-breaking freefall Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner's attempt to parachute to earth from the edge of space has been postponed for at least 48 hours after gusty winds in New Mexico hampered the launch of the balloon that would take him skywards. Baumgartner, a 43-year-old former soldier, was aiming to jump from 23 miles above the Earth in a specially pressurised suit, plummetting to the ground at speeds that would break the sound barrier before he triggers his parachute. Team spokeswoman Sarah Anderson later said no new launch attempt would be made before Thursday. She said Wednesday had been ruled out due to further weather concerns and to give the mission's support crew a day off. The stunt, if successful, would break five world records. Baumgartner would become the first human to ever break the sound barrier in free-fall; make the highest free-fall altitude jump, ride the highest manned balloon flight and longest free-fall and his jump platform is believed to be the largest manned balloon in history. Baumgartner has made a name for himself with acts of derring-do. The former paratrooper, known as "Fearless Felix" for reasons that need no explanation, has parachuted off buildings and mountains and once into a 600 foot deep cave. Baumgartner had already done two practise freefalls – one from 71,000 feet in March this year and a second from 97,000 feet in July. Tuesday's jump was due to take place far above an airfield near the town of Roswell, which is famous for its UFO sighting. All had appeared well as Baumgartner donned his special suit, climbed into the capsule and then waited for the balloon to inflate. "I am strapped into the capsule and I am ready to go," he had told the stunt's mission control team. However, as the slivery balloon began to be inflated it was buffeted by heavy winds and the mission was postponed. Baumgartner, whose attempt is sponsored and run by the caffeinated drinks brand Red Bull, had postponed his first attempt on Monday, also after high winds. There was, unsurprisingly, little sign that he was contemplating giving up. On the mission's official Twitter feed, Baumgartner issued a simple statement promising the attempt would go ahead at some stage. "It's all about what we do now and accomplish now. We've made it so far, there's no way turning back," he said. If successful Baumgartner's feat will raise the prospect that stricken astronauts might be able to survive a disaster of the type that hit the space shuttle Columbia in 2003 by actually bailing out of their craft. Baumgartner's top medical man in the stunt is Dr Jonathan Clark, whose wife Laurel Clark died in the Columbia accident. Clark is now dedicated to improving astronauts' chances of survival in a high-altitude disaster.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | New Jersey becomes 10th US state to report at least one case of meningitis, health officials say, with 119 people now infected The death toll from a fatal outbreak of meningitis has reached 11, with 119 now sick with the illness, according to health officials. An update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued on Tuesday afternoon, has now included New Jersey to the list of states in which at least one person has contracted meningitis. Some of the patients have had strokes but health agencies have provided no details of the conditions of any patients. Officials have linked the disease – a rare form of meningitis that is not contagious – to a contaminated steroid injection produced by a company in Massachusetts. At least one tainted vial was found at the company. An investigation is still taking place. Patients contracted the illness after being given spinal injections of the preservative-free steroid methylprednisolone acetate, which was contaminated by a fungus. The steroid is most commonly used to treat back pain and inflammation, but a recent medical report has cast doubt on its efficacy. As many as 13,000 people may have received medication from the suspected source between May 21 and September 25, the CDC said. It is unclear how many of the shots were infected, however. The figure includes not only patients who received spinal injections – those believed to be most at risk – but those who received injections in other parts of the body, such as knees or shoulders. Tennessee remains the worst affected state so far, with 35 infections and six deaths. Four patients have died from the illness in Michigan, one in Maryland and one in Virginia. Other states where people have contracted meningitis include Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Ohio. Officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have told doctors, hospital and medical clinics to contact thousands of patients who may have received an infected dose, in order to look out for symptoms. The incubation period is believed to be from two days to a month, which means many will not know whether they have contracted the illness for more than two weeks. The New England Compounding Center (NECC) recalled the steroid, which was sent to clinics in 23 states, and later recalled everything it produces. Last week, it surrendered its license to operate until the ongoing FDA investigation into the contamination is complete. Health officials say 75 medical facilities in 23 states received the contaminated steroid injections from NECC. Infected patients have developed a variety of symptoms including fever, new or worsening headache, nausea, and "new neurological deficit [consistent with deep brain stroke]," the CDC said in a news release. Some of these patients' symptoms were very mild in nature. Cerebrospinal fluid from these patients has shown findings consistent with meningitis, the agency said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Israeli PM announces vote early next year, with campaign likely to focus on economy and security Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has called a general election early next year in a move designed to avoid a damaging defeat over a proposed austerity budget but also likely to give him a renewed and potentially increased mandate for military action against Iran. "I have decided, for the benefit of Israel, to hold elections now and as quickly as possible," Netanyahu said at a press conference, without specifying the date of the poll. Israel's economy and national security are the two issues likely to dominate the election campaign, with the question of a peace agreement with the Palestinians being pushed down the political agenda. The election is expected to be in late January or early February. Netanyahu's party, Likud, is expected to comfortably win the largest share of the Israeli parliament's 120 seats, almost four years after the last election in February 2009. The prime minister had the option of waiting until next October before going to the electorate. His coalition government has proved unexpectedly stable despite repeated threats by his small rightwing coalition partners to bring down the government. Under Israel's electoral system of proportional representation the leader of the biggest party will have to negotiate with smaller parties to form a new coalition government. Netanyahu's decision to call early elections rests on two main domestic considerations. The first is the forthcoming national budget. The prime minister faces a struggle to get an austerity budget passed in the face of the warring interests of the smaller parties in his coalition who have an eye on their constituencies. He may believe it is better to call an election than see the government fall in the wake of the budget crashing in flames. The second concerns his political opponents. Kadima, the main opposition party, is currently floundering in the polls. The latest Haaretz survey gives it eight seats, down from 28 at the last election. Labour is the principal beneficiary, with its projected number of seats rising to 20 from 13. But Netanyahu's Likud is predicted to be the biggest party by some measure in the 120-seat Knesset, with 28 seats. The prime minister's personal ratings on suitability to lead the next government are way ahead of those of his rivals. On the assumption that Netanyahu forms the next coalition government, he may opt for a more centrist complexion than the current rightwing composition. After the last election Netanyahu's first move was to bring Kadima into the coalition, only resorting to the small religious parties when that failed. A "national unity" government may give him cover to pursue military action against Iran. Iran is Netanyahu's primary issue. At the United Nations he publicly deferred the likely date of Israeli military action against Iran's nuclear programme until next spring or summer. Netanyahu will hope to win a renewed electoral mandate before such a high-risk move, rather than launch a potentially disastrous war in the months running up to a general election. The outcome of the US election may also be a factor in Netanyahu's decision. If Barack Obama is re-elected in November, he may seek to punish the Israeli prime minister for his perceived support for the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney. That approach will be harder if Netanyahu also has a renewed mandate. Opposition parties will be keen to make the economy the significant issue of the election. Before Netanyahu's announcement the Labour leader, Shelly Yacimovich, said early elections would end an "unstable and unhealthy" situation.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sixty-two years after a historic ruling, the University of Texas becomes a testing ground once more as justices hear arguments on a key piece of civil rights-era legislation: affirmative action Nosa Almuyo represents a dilemma for the US supreme court. The young African American student cannot say precisely how he won a place at the University of Texas in Austin. His grades were good although not near enough to the top of his class to guarantee him entry. But he had a couple of extra strings to his bow as a musician and in speaking a foreign language. Then there was the colour of his skin. "I can't say what got me in. I was raised in an upper middle class neighbourhood in Dallas, and went to a middle class school so I wasn't disadvantaged," said Almuyo. "But my background is unusual. I was born in Oklahoma but my parents are from Nigeria. In school, I played in the band, I was a volunteer, I was in French class. There was more to me getting in than just my academics and just my race." The supreme court may see the things differently as it takes up the divisive issue of affirmative action in education on Wednesday. The nine judges will hear arguments on behalf of a white woman, Abigail Fisher, who says she was denied a place at the University of Texas because black and Latino students got precedence. Students such as Almuyo. Fisher is backed by an array of interests that see the case as part of a broader challenge to civil rights-era laws and policies intended to reverse the historic injustices endured by racial minorities, in particular African Americans. Those groups argue that even if affirmative action was at one time legitimate and necessary – and not all accept that – the need for racial preferences is past and they are now unfairly disadvantaging white people. Critics want the court to rule that it is illegal to consider race in any shape or form in university admissions, a move that could turn efforts to broaden higher education in the US on their head. The University of Texas says it is a mistake to portray the issue as black and white. It argues that race plays a "modest and nuanced" part in its admissions procedure as the university seeks to create a diverse student body that also takes account of other factors such as class, where the student grew up, school performance relative to classmates, and political and religious affiliations. Greg Vincent, the University of Texas vice-president for diversity, said it is difficult to separate race out from the circumstances and experiences that shape potential students – and that without taking those on board, white students from privileged backgrounds and private schools would have a significant advantage. "You look at all of the factors that make up a person. It's not this neat formula. Race is a very important factor in today's society – there's no getting around that. But there are many other dimensions about an individual. All of those things become a factor. If race doesn't fit into a category it's because it's not supposed to," he said. The university has the backing of Obama administration. In a brief to the court, it said that diversity in education is a national security issue with the military, FBI, CIA and department of homeland security relying on a regular supply of well educated recruits from an array of backgrounds. Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state and ex-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, joined other retired senior military officers in urging the supreme court to rule in favour of the University of Texas. So have large corporations, including Microsoft and Walmart, which told the supreme court that they "must be able to hire highly trained employees of all races, religions, cultures and economic backgrounds". 'Race is still a huge determining factor in your quality of life'Texas has an unusual but not unique law that allocates 75% of places at the university to the best performing students in each state-run school. That has made its own significant contribution to diversity by, ironically, relying on the reality that many Texas schools are effectively segregated by geography, class and race. This year, the top 9% of pupils from every state school – from inner city Latino neighbourhoods, wealthy Houston suburbs, poor white rural small towns and districts with mostly African American residents – secured automatic places at the University of Texas. The legal fight is over how the remaining 25% of students are admitted – or rejected, in Fisher's case. Her lawyers argue that the automatic entry for top performing students is its own form of affirmative action in providing a path for underprivileged Latino and black students, and no more is needed. Vincent said it has contributed to diversity but it is not enough. "Things have improved in some significant ways. There's no doubt the world is better today than it was 50 years ago. That being said, race is still a huge determining factor in your quality of life," he said. "You have at least a third of African Americans who are solidly in the underclass, who are mired in poverty and have very little opportunity to get out." The Center for Equal Opportunity is among more than 20 groups and individuals filing briefs with the supreme court in support of Fisher. Its president, Roger Clegg, who served in senior legal positions in the Reagan and Bush senior administrations, calls the university's policy "racial gerrymandering". "The costs of engaging in racial discrimination in college admissions are huge and they overwhelm any conceivable benefit. The benefits are negligible if not non-existent," said Clegg. "You begin with the fact that by making an exception to the principle of non-discrimination you're setting a very dangerous precedent and also it's personally unfair to tell somebody that you would have gotten in if you'd had a different skin colour. You create resentment. You stigmatise so-called beneficiaries." Almuyo is not among the beneficiaries who feels stigmatised. "Affirmative action is supposed to remedy a lot of historical inequalities that have been the result of the civil rights tensions our country has gone through. There's so much less opportunity in underprivileged areas of this state," he said. "And so this Fisher case is so important because it could have a drastic effect on how the university admits people if the supreme court is against it." Students appreciative of diversityThe University of Texas has been at the heart of a groundbreaking supreme court decision on race before. In 1950, the court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine when an African American man, Heman Sweatt, sued after he was barred from the university's law school in Austin because the Texas state constitution imposed segregation in education. When Sweatt took the issue to court, the university established a separate law school for black students in Houston. The supreme court ruled that the black law school might be separate but it was not equal both in the quality of its facilities and teaching staff. More than 60 years later, a series of supreme court rulings have barred the use of racial quotas or a points system based on ethnicity as part of university admissions. But the court did permit the consideration of race as an influence in pursuit of a diverse student body provided it is not the deciding factor. "One of the reasons why diversity is so important is that having a diverse class both promotes cross-cultural, cross-racial understanding and decreases the harmful effects of stereotypes," said Vincent. That does not mean the University of Texas is without its racial problems. Last week, a few hundred students led a protest march through the campus against incidents of racism including the throwing of balloons filled with bleach at black students. Four such attacks took place last month alone. Students at the University of Texas generally said they appreciated the value of diversity because it brought different experiences and ideas into the classroom. But that did not necessarily translate into support for racial preferences. "I think on a college application you shouldn't even be able to print what your ethnicity is," Kaitlin Valentine, a biology major. "They just shouldn't even look at that. Then the top people would get in. That would be the criteria." Adison Martinez, an information science student who describes his family as Anglo even though he has a Hispanic name, is also sceptical. "I don't think racial discrimination is as pressing as it used to be. I know Hispanics do fall under the umbrella of being a minority but in Texas I don't feel like there's discrimination against Hispanics," he said. "My relatives are in north Texas, and they say they're white people and a minority now. Obviously there's so many minorities they're displacing white people in Texas." But Sam Hermitte, a graduate student at studying public affairs, scorns that view. "Until there's equal treatment all the way up the pipeline, I don't think you can be at the end of the pipeline and say now everything's completely level when others haven't had the same opportunities for education because they grew up in poor areas. There are lots of things that are still very inequitable in the system and so I think it is still necessary in the university," she said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The German chancellor insisted she was not in Greece as a task-master, but protesters outside were having none of it Up close Angela Merkel is very static. She stands immoveable, her eyes flashing this way and that. In Athens, as she stood behind a lectern following talks with the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, the German chancellor was so restrained she hardly moved at all. The Greek capital resembled Fort Knox – with riot police guarding her every move, helicopters roaring overhead and sharp shooters installed on the rooftops of buildings great and small – but Europe's most powerful woman was having none of it. The angry chants and hoarse slogans of the thousands of protesters who had also come out to greet her, eliciting one of the biggest security operations ever put on by near-bankrupt Greece, belonged to another world. As did the copious amounts of acrid teargas that wafted through the Athens air. In the hushed marble interior of the mansion that is the prime minister's office, Merkel had a message and on this, her first visit to Greece since the eruption of Europe's debt drama, it was a message she was determined to convey. "I have not come as a task-master," she said, her eyes elevated towards the room's ornate sunlit ceiling as if focusing on some indefinable spot. "And nor have I come as a teacher to give grades," she added, now focusing intently on the marble floor. "I have come as a friend to listen and be informed." Three years into the crisis that began in Athens, Merkel also wanted to say that she understood "a lot" was being demanded of Greece. She was not the austerity warmonger that critics had painted her to be. "I come in full and firm awareness of what the people of Greece are going through," she insisted. But, she continued, Europe's weakest link was badly in need of change – and, if reforms were not made now, they would come back "in a much more dramatic way". "I come from East Germany and I know how long it takes to build reform," she said, almost by way of reassurance. "The road for the people of Greece is very tough, very difficult, but they have put a good bit of the path behind them. I want to say you are making progress!" But even as the leader attempted not to sound like the matriarch in charge of the family till, there is no denying that that is exactly what she is. "Saying that she is not here to preach is bullshit," said one of the small retinue of Berlin-based journalists who follow her every move. "She is here to tell them exactly what to do." For the vast majority of Greeks, no person is more identified than Merkel with the punitive measures that have ensnared the country in unprecedented recession and record levels of poverty and unemployment. As up to 300,000 took to the streets in a massive display of fury over the savage cuts and tax increases that have brought growing numbers to the brink of penury, it was the woman who is widely seen as the "architect of austerity" that was firmly in their sights. "If I met her I would say if you had read Greek history you would have been more aware," said Takis Stavropoulos, a bearded leftist who had converged with thousands of other protesters on Syntagma square. "If she had done that she would have known we would resist." No government has been in as difficult a place as the ruling coalition that Samaras has lead since June. Although Merkel's surprise visit was seen as a major coup, with officials hailing it as further proof of Berlin's new-found willingness to keep Greece in the 17-member eurozone, there was also an acceptance that the chancellor's six-hour presence in Athens, while rich in symbolism, did not yield much in the way of substance. Merkel's Calvinist approach to dealing with Europe's crisis-hit southern periphery may have softened, as the leader looks to re-election next year, but as tiny Greece stares into the abyss with enough funds to survive only until the end of next month, the message was clear: apply more draconian measures and the rescue funds will keep pouring in. Echoing the complaint of German commentators, Greek analysts agreed that the visit was long-overdue. "It is hard not to see that this visit had a more important message for Germany ahead of [next September's] general elections than it did for Greece," opined the prominent commentator Yiannis Pretenderis. The sad reality remained. After the biggest debt write-down in the history of world finance and two EU-IMF-sponsored bailouts worth a mammoth €240bn, Greece was still far from being saved and, even worse, was slipping inexorably into social meltdown with its political arena becoming ever more radicalised. The draconian €13.5bn package of spending cuts that is the price of further aid could, many fear, push Greece further to the edge. Back at the heart of the government, untouched by the discord of everyday life, the awkwardness of Greece's disharmonious relationship with its big brother Germany was on full display in the awkwardness of the body language of its prime minister. As Merkel, the pastor's daughter, spoke, Samaras, whose background is privileged elite, Harvard and moneyed, looked on and winced. "Greeks are a proud people," he said. "And our enemy is recession. But we are not asking for favours. In my discussion with the German chancellor I pointed out, however, that the Greek people are bleeding." As he spoke, Merkel remained absolutely static before pursing her lips and looking away.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The German chancellor insisted she was not in Greece as a task-master, but protesters outside were having none of it Up close, Angela Merkel is very static. She stands immovable, her eyes flashing this way and that. In Athens, as she stood behind a lectern after talks with the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, the German chancellor was so restrained she hardly moved at all. The Greek capital resembled Fort Knox – with riot police guarding her every move, helicopters roaring overhead and marksmen installed on the rooftops of buildings great and small – but Europe's most powerful woman was having none of it. The angry chants and hoarse slogans of the thousands of protesters who had also come out to greet her, eliciting one of the biggest security operations ever put on by near-bankrupt Greece, belonged to another world. As did the copious amounts of acrid teargas that wafted through the Athens air. In the marble interior of the mansion that is the prime minister's office, Merkel had a message and on this, her first visit to Greece since the eruption of Europe's debt drama, it was a message she was determined to convey. "I have not come as a taskmaster," she said, her eyes elevated towards the room's ornate sunlit ceiling as if focusing on some indefinable spot. "And nor have I come as a teacher to give grades," she added, now focusing intently on the marble floor. "I have come as a friend to listen and be informed." Three years into the crisis that began in Athens, Merkel also wanted to say she understood "a lot" was being demanded of Greece. She was not the austerity warmonger that critics had painted her to be. "I come in full and firm awareness of what the people of Greece are going through," she said. But, she continued, Europe's weakest link was badly in need of change – and if reforms were not made now, they would come back "in a much more dramatic way". "I come from East Germany and I know how long it takes to build reform," she said, almost by way of reassurance. "The road for the people of Greece is very tough, very difficult, but they have put a good bit of the path behind them. I want to say you are making progress!" But even as the leader attempted not to sound like the matriarch in charge of the family till, there is no denying that that is exactly what she is. "Saying that she is not here to preach is bullshit," said one of the small retinue of Berlin-based journalists who follow her every move. "She is here to tell them exactly what to do." For the vast majority of Greeks, no person is more identified than Merkel with the punitive measures that have ensnared the country in unprecedented recession and record levels of poverty and unemployment. As up to 300,000 took to the streets in an enormous display of fury over the savage cuts and tax increases that have brought growing numbers to the brink of penury, it was the woman who is widely seen as the "architect of austerity" that was in their sights. "If I met her, I would say if you had read Greek history you would have been more aware," said Takis Stavropoulos, a bearded leftist who had converged with thousands of other protesters on Syntagma square. "If she had done that she would have known we would resist." No government has been in as difficult a place as the ruling coalition that Samaras has led since June. Although Merkel's surprise visit was seen as a major coup, with officials hailing it as further proof of Berlin's new-found willingness to keep Greece in the 17-member eurozone, there was also an acceptance that the chancellor's six-hour presence in Athens, while rich in symbolism, did not yield much in the way of substance. Merkel's Calvinist approach to dealing with Europe's crisis-hit southern periphery may have softened, as the leader looks to re-election next year, but as tiny Greece stares into the abyss with enough funds to survive only until the end of next month, the message was clear: apply more draconian measures and the rescue funds will keep pouring in. Echoing the complaint of German commentators, Greek analysts agreed that the visit was long overdue. "It is hard not to see this visit had a more important message for Germany ahead of [next September's] general elections than it did for Greece," opined the prominent commentator Yiannis Pretenderis. The sad reality remains. After the biggest debt write-down in the history of world finance and two EU-IMF-sponsored bailouts worth a mammoth €240bn (£190bn), Greece is still far from being saved and, worse, is slipping inexorably into social meltdown with its political arena ever more radicalised. The draconian €13.5bn package of spending cuts that is the price of further aid could, many fear, push Greece further to the edge. Back at the heart of the government, untouched by the discord of everyday life, the awkwardness of Greece's relationship with its big brother was on display in the body language of its prime minister. As Merkel, the pastor's daughter, spoke, Samaras, whose background is privileged elite, Harvard and moneyed, looked on and winced. "Greeks are a proud people," he said. "And our enemy is recession. But we are not asking for favours. In my discussion with the German chancellor I pointed out, however, that the Greek people are bleeding." As he spoke, Merkel remained static before pursing her lips and looking away.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | High winds force daredevil to delay his attempt to break the sound barrier in a freefall from 23 miles above Earth Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner's attempt to parachute to earth from the edge of space has been postponed for the second day running after gusty winds in New Mexico hampered the launch of the balloon that would take him skywards. Baumgartner, a 43-year-old former soldier, was aiming to jump from 23 miles above the Earth in a specially pressurised suit, plummetting to the ground at speeds that would break the sound barrier before he triggers his parachute. The stunt, if successful, would break five world records. Baumgartner would become the first human to ever break the sound barrier in free-fall; make the highest free-fall altitude jump, ride the highest manned balloon flight and longest free-fall and his jump platform is believed to be the largest manned balloon in history. Baumgartner has made a name for himself with acts of derring-do. The former paratrooper, known as "Fearless Felix" for reasons that need no explanation, has parachuted off buildings and mountains and once into a 600 foot deep cave. Baumgartner had already done two practise freefalls – one from 71,000 feet in March this year and a second from 97,000 feet in July. The jump was due to take place far above an airfield near the town of Roswell, which is famous for its UFO sighting. All had appeared well as Baumgartner donned his special suit, climbed into the capsule and then waited for the balloon to inflate. "I am strapped into the capsule and I am ready to go," he had told the stunt's mission control team. However, as the slivery balloon began to be inflated it was buffeted by heavy winds and the mission was postponed. Depending on weather conditions, another attempt is likely to be made on Wednesday. Baumgartner, whose attempt is sponsored and run by the caffeinated drinks brand Red Bull, had postponed his first attempt on Monday, also after high winds. If successful Baumgartner's feat will raise the prospect that stricken astronauts might be able to survive a disaster of the type that hit the space shuttle Columbia in 2003 by actually bailing out of their craft. Baumgartner's top medical man in the stunt is Dr. Jonathan Clark, whose wife Laurel Clark died in the Columbia accident. Clark is now dedicated to improving astronauts' chances of survival in a high-altitude disaster.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Funeral parlour says corpse of Zetas boss known as the Executioner was seized by heavily armed gang The Mexican authorities have claimed one of their biggest victories against the notoriously bloody Zetas drug cartel, but admit they have lost the body of Heriberto Lazcano, the gang's brutal leader, who they say was killed in a shootout with the navy. Most of the original members of the Zetas cartel, which was formed in the 1990s, have been captured or killed, but Lazcano, who went by the nicknames "el Lazca" and "the Executioner", had appeared untouchable. The United States had offered $5m and the Mexican authorities $2.3m in rewards for information leading to his arrest. Authorities in the northern state of Coahuila were called out by the navy on Sunday at about 6pm to recover two bodies killed in a shootout near the town of Progreso, about 80 miles from the US border, the state's attorney general, Homero Ramos, told reporters on Tuesday. Ramos said the bodies were handed over to a local funeral parlour after being fingerprinted and photographed. Reading from a statement and refusing to answer questions, he added that the owner of the parlour had informed the authorities at about 8am on Monday that a masked and heavily armed unit had snatched both bodies. The Zetas are known for their strong esprit de corps, and often go to great lengths to recover the bodies of cartel members killed in clashes with other gangs and the authorities. Ramos did not say when the authorities realised that fingerprints taken from one of the cadavers matched those of Lazcano on a national database, and that photographs of the corpse matched descriptions of the trafficker. The navy released details of the prints along with two pictures of Lazcano's body, apparently taken on a morgue slab. This backed its earlier statement late on Monday that referred only to "strong indications" that it had killed Lazcano. It was left to Ramos to give details of the shootout, which he said began when a navy patrol tried to stop a suspicious vehicle near a baseball field. He said that after the driver of the vehicle was killed, the passenger got out and ran, but was shot dead about 300 metres away. The authorities said weapons recovered in the vehicle included two rifles, grenades, and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The Zetas cartel is one of the main combatants in Mexico's horrific drug wars, which have killed more than 55,000 people since President Felipe Calderón launched a military-led offensive against organised crime nearly six years ago. Lazcano was one of the founders of the Zetas, which started out in the late 1990s as an enforcement unit within the Gulf cartel, formed from a core of deserters from an elite army unit. Born in 1975, Lazcano spent seven years in the army before deserting in 1998. He originally went by the codename Zeta 3. The Zetas later developed into a major cartel in their own right, known for the discipline of the military-style training and tactics they employed in battles with rivals and the authorities, as well as for the wide range of criminal activities they pursued alongside drug trafficking, such as the mass kidnapping of Central American migrants passing through Mexico and extensive extortion rackets. But the Zetas are probably most famous for the no-holds-barred brutality they employ to keep the territories they control docile, as well as during incursions into areas under the influence of rivals. While other cartels, most notably the Sinaloa cartel, headed by the infamous trafficker Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, regularly form alliances of convenience with other groups, the Zetas tend to go it alone. From late 2011 Calderón made it clear that the Zetas were the most urgent target of his wider offensive against all the cartels, because of their extreme violence. The string of hits against the group has intensified in the past few weeks, with the pressure spiralling in Coahuila in particular after the murder of the son of a prominent politician was blamed on the group. The most recent arrest of a major Zeta operative came on Saturday when the navy captured Salvador Martinez Escobedo in Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Laredo in Texas. The navy said Martinez, nicknamed "the Squirrel", had ordered the massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas state in August 2010, among many other atrocities. Unofficial reports on Tuesday said Martinez had identified Lazcano from the photographs taken of one of the men killed in Sunday's shootout. In recent years Lazcano had shared the Zetas' leadership with another founding member, Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, known as "Zeta 40", although there had been some reports that the pair had split. Treviño Morales has a reputation that is even more bloody than Lazcano's.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Officials confirm death of Heriberto Lazcano, but say funeral parlour owner claims armed unit snatched corpse The Mexican authorities have claimed one of their biggest victories against the notoriously bloody Zetas drug cartel, but admit they have lost the body of Heriberto Lazcano, the gang's brutal leader, who they say was killed in a shootout with the navy. Most of the original members of the Zetas cartel, which was formed in the 1990s, have been captured or killed, but Lazcano, who went by the nicknames "el Lazca" and "the Executioner", had appeared untouchable. The United States had offered $5m and the Mexican authorities $2.3m in rewards for information leading to his arrest. Authorities in the northern state of Coahuila were called out by the navy on Sunday at about 6pm to recover two bodies killed in a shootout near the town of Progreso, about 80 miles from the US border, the state's attorney general, Homero Ramos, told reporters on Tuesday. Ramos said the bodies were handed over to a local funeral parlour after being fingerprinted and photographed. Reading from a statement and refusing to answer questions, he added that the owner of the parlour had informed the authorities at about 8am on Monday morning that a masked and heavily armed unit had snatched both bodies. The Zetas are famous for their strong esprit de corps, and often go to great lengths to recover the bodies of cartel members killed in clashes with other gangs and the authorities. Ramos did not say at what time the authorities realised that fingerprints taken from one of the cadavers matched those of Lazcano on a national database, and that photographs of the corpse also coincided with descriptions of the trafficker. The navy released details of the prints along with two pictures of Lazcano's body, apparently taken on a morgue slab. This backed its earlier statement late on Monday that referred only to "strong indications" that it had killed Lazcano. It was left to Ramos to give details of the shootout, which he said began when a navy patrol tried to stop a suspicious vehicle near a baseball field. He said that after the driver of the vehicle was killed, the passenger got out and ran, but was shot dead about 300 metres away. The authorities said the weapons recovered in the vehicle included two rifles, grenades, and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The Zetas cartel is one of the protagonists of Mexico's horrific drug wars that have killed more than 55,000 people since President Felipe Calderón launched a military-led offensive against organised crime nearly six years ago. Lazcano was one of the founders of the Zetas, which started out in the late 1990s as an enforcement unit within the Gulf cartel, formed from a core of deserters from an elite army unit. Born in 1975, Lazcano spent seven years in the army before deserting in 1998. He originally went by the codename "Zeta 3". The Zetas later developed into a major cartel in their own right, known for the discipline of their military-style training and tactics they employed in battles with rivals and the authorities, as well as for the wide range of criminal activities they pursued alongside drug trafficking, such as the mass kidnapping of Central American migrants passing through Mexico and extensive extortion rackets. But the Zetas are probably most famous for the no-holds-barred brutality they employ to keep the territories they control docile, as well as during incursions into areas under the influence of rivals. While other cartels, most notably the Sinaloa cartel headed by the infamous trafficker Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, regularly form alliances of convenience with other groups, the Zetas tend to go it alone. From late 2011 Calderón made it clear that the Zetas were the most urgent target of his wider offensive against all the cartels, because of their extreme violence. The string of hits against the group has intensified in the past few weeks, with the pressure spiralling in Coahuila in particular after the murder of the son of a prominent politician was blamed on the group. The most recent arrest of a major Zeta operative came on Saturday when the navy captured Salvador Martinez Escobedo in Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Laredo in Texas. The navy said Martinez, nicknamed "the Squirrel", had ordered the massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas state in August 2010, among many other atrocities. Unofficial reports on Tuesday said Martinez had identified Lazcano from the photographs taken of one of the men killed in Sunday's shootout. In recent years Lazcano had shared the Zetas' leadership with another founding member, Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, known as "Zeta 40", although there had been some reports that the pair had split. Treviño Morales has a reputation that is even more bloody than Lazcano's.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Attempt to kill activist Malala Yousafzai, 14, could be 'watershed' moment that turns public tide against militants and extremism An attempt by the Taliban to kill a 14-year old girl, famous for speaking out against the Islamic militants and their attacks on girls' education, triggered a wave of national revulsion in Pakistan on Tuesday. Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck while she sat with classmates on a school bus as it prepared to drive students home after morning classes in Mingora, a city in the Swat Valley where the army mounted major operations in 2009 to crush a Taliban insurgency. She was taken to hospital before being whisked by military helicopter to an intensive care ward in the city of Peshawar. Police said a bearded man approached the bus and asked which of the girls was Malala. When one of the other girls pointed at her she denied who she was. The gunman then shot both girls, although police say a total of three people were wounded. Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan quickly claimed responsibility on behalf of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani offshoot of the Taliban movement which became notorious for its restrictions of women's freedom and female education during the five years before late 2001 when they were in power in Afghanistan. "She was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her ideal leader," Ehsan told Reuters. "She was young but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas," he said, referring the main ethnic group in Pakistan and Afghanistan from which the Taliban finds most of its followers. The Taliban had previously announced the girl was on their "hit list" because of her backing for "the imposition of secular government" in Swat. With the country's boisterous news channels turning their attention to detailed discussions of the incident, leaders of all the mainstream parties issued statements harshly condemning the incident. Raja Pervez Ashraf, the prime minister, ordered the helicopter be sent to move her from Mingora, whilst Asif Ali Zarari sent flowers to her bedside. Yousafzai won fame in 2009 during the Pakistani army operations to crush a Taliban insurgency that had taken hold in the Swat Valley, a beautiful mountainous area three hours drive from Islamabad. It was a popular place for Pakistani tourists before the Taliban began a takeover of the area, closing girls schools, forcing men to grow beards and beheading their opponents. At a time when even Pakistani politicians appeared to be appeasing the Taliban, Yousafzai spoke out against the militants. She wrote a blog for the BBC's Urdu service website under the pseudonym Gul Makai ("Face like a flower") about the chaos of the time, including the fears of her classmates that their educations would be abruptly sopped. Her efforts were recognised by the then prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, who awarded her the country's first National Peace Award and a reward of around £3,300 after she missed out on winning the International Children's Peace Prize for which she was nominated in 2011. Recently she had spoken of her desire to set up her own political party and a vocational institute for marginalised girls in her area. The attack alarmed locals who said it raised doubts about government claims that the military has completely dismantled the militants' operation in Swat. "An attack on Malala in a highly secured area has sent a shiver down the spine of Swati people," said Fazal Maula Zahid, a member of Swat Qaumi Jirga, a local anti-Taliban group working for peace in the region. "We are holding urgent meeting of our jirga [tribal assembly] to chalk out a future strategy. We demand of the government to arrest the attackers or the confidence of the people in the government will greatly be shaken." Although Pakistanis have grown used to the all-too-regular horrors of Taliban bombings and attacks around the country, some media figures said the attempt on Yousafzai's life could be a "watershed". Murtaza Salangi, the director of Pakistan Radio, said people were "standing up to be counted as if this was their own daughter ... I think it is a watershed moment because the outpouring of sympathy and support for this young girl is just unprecedented. She could be a rallying poster for people who think that extremism and terrorism is the biggest challenge, even an existential challenge, for this country." He said the mood of revulsion extended beyond just the "educated elite", saying the switchboard at Radio Pakistan's Peshawar studio had "lit up like Christmas lights" when phone lines were opened for people across the country to contact a phone-in programme. Rana Jawad, Islamabad bureau chief of Geo, the country's biggest news channel, compared footage played throughout the day of the unconscious Malala being loaded onto a helicopter to a 2009 clip showing a woman in Swat being beaten by the Taliban, which was constantly replayed and horrified the country. "The reason the military was successful in its campaign against the Taliban in 2009 is that the whole nation was supporting them after they watched a young girl being beaten by a handful of militants," he said. "Today we have seen the reaction of the people is one of outrage, revulsion and a sense of shame at what has happened to Pakistan." Although he noted none of the country's religious conservative parties have yet condemned the attack, he said the Malala incident could "help the nation gel together in dismissing this mind set which attacked an innocent, harmless girl". The country's supreme court on Tuesday alsoordered an investigation into the alleged barter of seven girls to settle a blood feud in a remote district.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Tens of thousands of people protested in Athens today as German chancellor pays her first visit to Greece since the financial crisis began
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Radical Islamist cleric extradited to the US from Britain pleads not guilty to charges and will face trial in August next year Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical Islamist cleric extradited to the US from Britain, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired with American citizens to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon. Abu Hamza entered the plea shortly before US district judge Katherine B Forrest set an August 2013 trial date. Abu Hamza is also accused of helping abduct 16 hostages, two of them American tourists, in Yemen in 1998. Earlier two men brought from Britain to face terrorism charges made their first appearance before another Manhattan judge. Their trial was set for October next year. Khaled al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary are charged with participating in the bombings of embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. They were indicted in a case that also charged Osama bin Laden. Both pleaded not guilty on Saturday. The judge on Tuesday set their trial date for October 2013. Abu Hamza, indicted under the name Mustafa Kamel Mustafa with al-Masri listed as an alias, became well known in the 1990s as his Finsbury Park mosque in London became a training ground for extremist Islamists including September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. He had been jailed since 2004 in Britain on separate charges. Abu Hamza has unusual needs in prison after losing part of each of his arms in what he says was a fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He also is missing an eye. His lawyers in England said he suffers from depression, chronic sleep deprivation, diabetes and other ailments. His court-appointed lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, said that he needed the use of his arms and wanted his prosthetics back. "Otherwise, he will not be able to function in a civilised manner." . Traci Billingsley, a US Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman, said she could not provide specific information about individual inmates. "In general, if an inmate arrives at any of our facilities with a prosthetic that we believe could pose a danger, it would not be permitted inside," she said, adding that the inmate would be medically evaluated to determine if other accommodations or devices would be appropriate. John N Billock, head of the Orthotics and Prosthetics Rehabilitation Engineering Centre in Warren, Ohio, and a pioneer in the field, said a hook for a hand would "definitely be considered a weapon". "You could brutalise somebody with it," he said. "You can put somebody's eyes out or knock out their teeth." He said hooks are typically made of stainless steel or aluminium. The price of prosthetics in place of hands can range from $15,000 to $100,000 (£9,400 to £63,000), he said. Abu Hamza is being held prior to trial in the same federal lockup where a prison guard lost an eye and was left brain damaged when he was stabbed with a sharpened comb in 2000 by a terrorism defendant awaiting trial in the embassy bombings plot. Mamdouh Mahmud Salim is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to the stabbing.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mexican navy says fingerprints of man shot near US border match those in records for drugs cartel leader Fingerprints confirm that the leader of the Zetas drugs cartel, Heriberto Lazcano, was killed in a shootout with marines in a state bordering Texas, the Mexican navy has said. It said fingerprints taken of a man shot on Sunday in Coahuila state matched records for Lazcano on a database. Photographs of the body also appeared to match. Referring to reports in several Mexican newspapers that cited unnamed sources as saying the body has since disappeared, the statement said only that the navy gave the body to local authorities. The US Drug Enforcement Agency said it was still awaiting confirmation that Lazcano has been killed. His death is one of the most significant victories in Mexico's battle with organised crime – two months before the man who turned to the military, President Felipe Calderón, leaves office. Lazcano, an army special forces deserter, has been credited with bringing military tactics and training to the enforcement arm of the Gulf cartel, before splitting from his former bosses and turning the Zetas into one of the country's two most potent cartels. The Zetas have been responsible for headline-grabbing atrocities. Its activities stretch along the US border and at least as far south as Guatemala. The cartel was linked to the murder of the nephew of the Coahuila governor last week, which prompted the federal government to dispatch additional troops, police and investigators to the state. Lazcano's death may benefit Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of the Zetas' main rival, the Sinaloa cartel. The two cartels have waged a vicious turf war along the US border and across Mexico. The Mexican authorities have announced a string of arrests of high-profile Zetas members in recent months. These arrests have often lead authorities to higher-ranking figures in the cartel. The Zetas, which Lazcano helped found with other deserters from an elite army unit, have carried out some of Mexico's bloodiest massacres, biggest prison breaks and fiercest attacks on the authorities. Lazcano, who is also known as El Verdugo (the Executioner), is suspected in hundreds of killings, including the 2004 assassination of Francisco Ortiz Franco, co-editor of Zeta, a weekly newspaper in Tijuana that often reported on drug trafficking. The US had offered a $5m reward and Mexico an additional $2.3m for information leading to Lazcano's arrest. He was killed in Progreso, a rural area about 80 miles (125km) west of the US border. The navy said a patrol checked complaints about armed men in the area. Gunmen threw grenades at the patrol from a moving vehicle, wounding one marine. Two gunmen were killed in a shootout, the navy said. In their vehicle, authorities found a grenade launcher, 12 grenades, what appeared to be rocket propelled grenade launcher and two rifles. Under Lazcano, the Zetas recruited many former soldiers as hitmen and hired kaibiles, Guatemalan soldiers trained in counterinsurgency. The Zetas had been in charge of protecting the Gulf cartel's drug shipments until a split in 2010 and have since been fighting for control of trafficking in north-east Mexico, the traditional base of the Gulf cartel. The result has been a surge of drug-related killings. Lazcano "is credited with strengthening the organisation … he created a new structure of regional cells that specialise in specific crimes", a profile by Mexican federal prosecutors said. The Zetas earned particular notoriety for becoming the first to display the severed heads of rivalsIn 2006 in Acapulco, the heads of tow police officers were found on spikes outside a government building with a message, signed "Z", that said: "So that you learn to respect." With the death of Lazcano, the Zetas will be run by Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, who has a reputation for being more brutal than his late boss. Officials say Treviño Morales, also known as "Z40", had already taken on a greater leadership role and had even been reported to have replaced Lazcano as operational chief. Lazcano's death came hours after the navy arrested a suspected Zetas regional leader accused of involvement in notorious crimes. Navy spokesman Jose Luis Vergara said Salvador Alfonso Martinez Escobedo was arrested on Saturday in Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. Martinez was believed to have masterminded the massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas state, northern Mexico, in 2010. Known as "Squirrel", he had also been linked to the escape of 151 prisoners in 2010 from a jail in Nuevo Laredo, the recent flight of 131 prisoners in Piedras Negras and the killing of a US citizen, David Hartley, in 2010 on Falcon Lake, which straddles the US-Mexico border. Hartley and his wife, Tiffany, were on a leisure trip when he was shot while boating on the lake. The navy has blamed Martinez for killing the Tamaulipas state police commander and chief investigator in the case, an attack that hampered the investigation. It said Martinez was a suspect in dozens of killings of people who were buried in mass graves at the site of the 2010 massacre. Nearly 200 bodies were discovered in April 2011 in San Fernando, a town near the US border.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow the day's developments after the Islamist al-Nusra Front claimed it bombed an intelligence complex near Damascus and the Syrian army advanced in Homs
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Latest polling shows tighter races in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Obama had led comfortably before debate President Obama and Mitt Romney descended on the vital swing state of Ohio on Tuesday as a slew of new polls confirmed that the race has tightened across the country in the wake of last week's fateful televised debate. Exactly four weeks before election day, all eyes are now on Ohio and a handful of other key battleground states where the race for the White House is likely to be won. Local polls released by Survey USA and the American Research Group have put Romney and Obama within one point of each other among likely voters in Ohio, a stunning reversal of the commanding lead Obama had enjoyed before the TV debate of as much as nine points. Other local polls indicated a dramatic closing of the gap between the two candidates even in Michigan and Pennsylvania - two states that had been considered already in the bag for the president. A national poll by the Pew Research Center has further shaken up the race by giving Romney a four-point lead among likely voters, turning Obama's eight-point lead in September on its head. With the Romney campaign feeling a surge in energy following the televised head-to-head, which Gallup suggested was the biggest victory for a presidential candidate since it began polling debates, it has begun to pile in resources into Ohio mindful of the fact that no Republican has become president without first winning this state. The former governor of Massachusetts is spending Tuesday and Wednesday in Ohio, following on from his running mate Paul Ryan who was in Swanton, Ohio, on Monday. Unlike his challenger, Obama has alternative routes to a renewed term in the White House that bypass Ohio and its rich crop of 18 of the 270 electoral votes needed to triumph on 6 November. But he is taking no chances, travelling to Ohio state university in Columbus on Tuesday to address students. In the five days since his hapless debate performance, which has been almost universally denounced as listless and defensive, Obama has stepped up his attacks on Romney. He has been relentlessly pounding his rival with the accusation that he misled the 70 million viewers of the debate with false information. At a campaign rally in San Francisco on Monday night, Obama said: "A few nights ago a guy pretending to be Mitt Romney stood on a stage next to me and said he's changing his plan. He is just going to pretend it doesn't exist. 'What $5tr tax cut – I don't know anything about a $5tr tax cut'." On a lighter note, Obama, backed by a new TV advert, is also ridiculing Romney's threat issued during the debate to cut funding for the public broadcasting TV network PBS and its star Big Bird of Sesame Street. "For all you moms and kids out there, you should have confidence that finally somebody is cracking down on Big Bird. Elmo has been seen in a white Suburban: he's driving for the border," Obama quipped. Apart from the seismic shift in the race indicated by the polls, the election is entering a new and final phase as the two campaigns switch their focus from registering new voters to persuading voters to show up at the polling stations or send in their absentee ballots. Today is the deadline for registering new voters in 16 states and Washington DC. They include three of the nine most hotly-contested states - Colorado, Florida and Ohio. With the presidential campaigns now turning their efforts towards get-out-the-vote, Obama will be hoping that his superior ground operation, built up lovingly over the past two years, will give him a vital edge. In Ohio, for instance, Obama For America has about 100 local offices to Romney's 30. More immediately, the pressure is now on Joe Biden who has the onerous task of undoing the damage caused by his boss in Thursday's single vice-presidential debate. Biden will need to kick their re-election campaign back onto the offensive, without getting overheated and committing gaffes like the one last week in which he referred to America's middle class "that's been buried the last four years".
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Two girls say they were raped almost daily by large groups of men in run-down estates outside Paris A harrowing trial over the alleged gang rape of teenage girls in the high-rise tower blocks of a poor Paris suburb has shocked France, exposed a culture of youth violence and threatens to spark a row over the justice system when verdicts are delivered this week. Nina and Stephanie – not their real names – said that for years they were too scared to speak out about what they allege were months of almost daily gang rapes when they were 15 and 16, growing up on rundown estates in Fontenay-sous-Bois outside Paris. In 2005, Nina was left unconscious by one final brutal beating following years of abuse and told a female police officer. What followed was a trial that has shaken the country as it struggles to deal with a spate of gang rapes of teenage girls by youths on estates across France. The alleged Fontenay-sous-Bois attacks took place between 1999 and 2001. Nina, now 29, told the newspaper Libération she had moved to the housing estate aged seven with her mother and brother after a divorce. She was described as good at school and a tomboy. One night returning from the cinema, aged 16 and a virgin, she said, she was grabbed by a local group of youths, taken to basement cellars in the flats, raped and subjected to a series of brutal sex attacks by scores of local boys. The extremely violent, prolonged attacks by large groups of boys continued daily, in car parks, stairwells, apartments, cellars and the empty playground of a local nursery school. She said there would be "at least 25" youths present during attacks in which she screamed, protested, cried and vomited. One witness described 50 boys "queuing" to attack her. Told that her flat would be burned down if she spoke out, she was afraid to tell her mother, who noticed she was washing eight to 10 times a day. Nina, who has put on 70kg (150lb) since the attacks, described gaining weight as a "shell" behind which to hide. She allowed herself to be filmed by the media outside the trial hearings to encourage other victims to go to the police, saying: "It was the accused who should hide, not me," and was praised by her lawyers for speaking out in what they said had become a dangerous "culture of silence" on the estates. At the start of the trial, the alleged victims were hailed in the media for their bravery. But the jury trial, held behind closed doors because the accused were minors at the time, has taken place under a tense and heavy atmosphere. One alleged victim, Stephanie, tried to kill herself four days into the hearings. Nina, left infirm by the attacks, was overcome and had to leave court for much of the proceedings. The 14 men on trial, now aged between 29 and 33, many of whom are married with families and jobs including one ambulance driver, deny rape. Some of them said sex took place but was consensual and that the alleged victims "liked sex". Details from the trial conveyed to the press showed some defendants making comments such as that the women were too ugly to rape, or that sexual relations had not taken place "because if they had I would have heard Nina moaning in pleasure". The women's lawyers complained that some had dismissed the alleged victims as "liars or nymphomaniacs". Reports by psychiatric experts concurred that the women had been sexually attacked. In theory, the accused risk a maximum of 20 years in prison, but the state prosecutor this week recommended prison sentences of between five and seven years for eight of them, all minors at the time of the attack. For six others, the prosecutor said there was a "doubt", without elaborating. The women's lawyers said they were shocked by the sentence recommendations. Lawyers on both sides have complained of an incoherent trial. Verdicts will be delivered on Thursday.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Austrian extreme sportsman Felix Baumgartner will attempt a sky dive from a record height over New Mexico. Follow live updates
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | New polls show that Mitt Romney's debate performance has boosted his presidential chances in swing states
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former Penn State coach defiant before sentencing as he blames media and legal conspiracy for his June conviction The former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky has been sentenced Tuesday to at least 30 years in prison – effectively a life sentence – in the child sexual abuse scandal that brought shame to the university and led to legendary coach Joe Paterno's downfall. A defiant Sandusky gave a long, rambling statement in which he denied the allegations and talked about his life in prison and the pain of being away from his family. The 68-year-old former Penn State assistant coach was found guilty in June of 45 counts of child sexual abuse, convicted of molesting 10 boys over a 15-year period. Witnesses said Sandusky used the charitable organization he founded for troubled children as his personal hunting ground to find and groom boys to become his victims. Judge John Cleland sentenced him to 30 to 60 years in prison. Under Pennsylvania law, Sandusky cannot be released on parole before the minimum term is up. His arrest 11 months ago, and the details that came out during his trial over the summer, transformed Sandusky's public image from a college coach who had been widely admired for his work with The Second Mile charity into that of a reviled pervert who preyed on the very youngsters who sought his help. Eight of the boys he was found guilty of molesting testified at his trial, describing a range of abuse that included fondling, oral sex and anal intercourse. One of the prosecution's star witnesses, former graduate assistant Mike McQueary, testified that he saw Sandusky raping a boy in a locker room shower. Sandusky has consistently maintained his innocence and plans to appeal.
In a three-minute monologue aired Monday night by Penn State Com Radio that used some of the same language as his courtroom statement, Sandusky said he knows in his heart that he did not do what he called "these alleged disgusting acts" and described himself as the victim of Penn State, investigators, civil attorneys, the media and others. "They can take away my life, they can make me out as a monster, they can treat me as a monster, but they can't take away my heart," he told the radio station. "In my heart, I know I did not do these alleged disgusting acts. My wife has been my only sex partner and that was after marriage." The scandal brought devastation in State College that will take years to fully assess, as Sandusky's victims are pressing civil claims and a January trial is pending for Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, two university administrators charged with failing to properly report suspicions about Sandusky and lying to the grand jury that investigated him. Soon after the three were arrested in November, the board of trustees fired Paterno, the school's most famous figure and a man who won two national college football championships in the 1980s. Paterno died of lung cancer in January. Over the summer, an investigation commissioned by the university and led by former FBI director Louis Freeh concluded that Paterno and other top officials covered up allegations against Sandusky for years to avoid bad publicity.
The scandal also toppled university President Graham Spanier and led to crippling NCAA sanctions against the football team that included a $60 million fine, a ban on postseason play and a reduction in the number of football scholarships the school can award. The NCAA also erased 14 years of victories for Paterno, stripping him of his standing as the coach with the most wins in major college football. At least four young men have sued Penn State over the way the university responded to disturbing complaints about Sandusky. Eight legal teams representing at least 20 young men have surfaced, and the school recently announced an effort to settle as many claims as possible by the end of the year.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | To mark his first 100 days in office Egyptian president pardons all those convicted for roles in uprising against Hosni Mubarak Egyptian protesters detained and tried in incidents relating to the country's uprising have received a blanket pardon from the president, Mohamed Morsi, to commemorate his first 100 days in office. All felony convictions or attempted crimes "committed to support the revolution and its goals" were to be pardoned, the decree stated, with the exception of murder cases. The pardon covers the period from the onset of the revolt against the regime of Hosni Mubarak on 25 January, 2011 through the army-led transitional period that ended on 30 June, 2012, when Morsi assumed office. "It's good politics, it's a way of reaching out to the secular revolutionary youth and an attempt to curry favour from a constituency that has been sceptical and critical of him and his achievements in his first 100 days in office," said Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "He might sincerely see that the people he's pardoning did a lot to bring him to power. Without the revolution there wasn't a chance that Morsi would be president, and it wouldn't have happened without the support and participation of the Egyptian people." The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) assumed power following the overthrow of Mubarak, and during the transitional period in which it ruled, 12,000 civilians were arrested, detained and convicted in military tribunals. Critics of Morsi's pardon contend that while it is applicable to those arrested in relation to protests and clashes with security forces, it does not affect civilians arrested for non-political matters who were also subjected to military trials under Scaf rule. Additionally, the pardon will not extend to those detained during the clashes at the US embassy in September when irate protesters breached the embassy walls after the release of a film in the US deemed offensive to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. The ambiguous language of the decree could also make it difficult to implement, according to the human rights lawyer Tarek Abdel Aal of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a group that has advocated on behalf of many of the detainees. However, he said: "We should use the generalisations in the language of the decree to our advantage. The decree states that the pardon extends to all those detained in association with the revolution, and that gives us room to manoeuvre." Morsi's pardon came the day before the one year anniversary of the Maspero massacre, in which 27 mainly Coptic Christian protesters were killed in Cairo having been shot with live ammunition by army troops as well as being run over by military vehicles. The Maspero massacre was a turning point in the perception of the military junta's handling of country's affairs. There is still resentment that the perpetrators of the attacks were not brought to justice, the junta limiting the inquest to the conviction of two drivers of the armoured personnel carriers in a military tribunal. They were given three-year sentences. To commemorate the anniversary, demonstrators marched in the footsteps of last year's protest, which had set off from the predominantly Coptic Christian neighbourhood of Shubra towards the radio and television building in Maspero, but was attacked en route.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Tens of thousands of people protested in Athens today as German chancellor pays her first visit to Greece since the financial crisis began
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Malala Yousafzai, 14, attacked for championing education for girls and highlighting Taliban atrocities, says group A 14-year old Pakistani activist who championed education for girls has been shot in the head by a Taliban gunman. The attack on Malala Yousafzai, who became famous for highlighting Taliban atrocities, happened as she sat in a bus preparing to leave the school grounds in Mingora, the main city in the Swat valley which was the scene of intense fighting between the army and the Taliban in 2009. At least one other girl was also hurt in the attack on Tuesday that a Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, quickly claimed the group was responsibility for. He said the teenager's work had been an "obscenity" that needed to be stopped: "This was a new chapter of obscenity, and we have to finish this chapter." Doctors said the gunshot wounds to her head and neck were serious and that she might have to be moved to a larger hospital in Islamabad or Peshawar. Fazal Maula Zahid, a member of Swat Qaumi Jirga, a local anti-Taliban group working for peace in the valley, said the gunman had asked which of the girls was Malala. One of the girls pointed to Malala, but the activist denied it was her. The gunman shot both of the girls. "An attack on Malala in a highly secured area has sent a shiver down the spine of Swati people," Zahid said. "It has also created doubts about the claims of the authorities that militants have been flushed out from Swat." Malala won fame in 2009 during the Pakistani army operations to crush a Taliban insurgency that had taken hold in the Swat valley, an area popular among Pakistani tourists three hours drive from Islamabad. As part of her campaign for girls' education she wrote an anonymous blog for the BBC about the chaos at the time, including the burning of girls' schools. Her efforts were recognised by Pakistan's prime minister who awarded her the country's first National Peace award and a reward of around £3,300 after she missed out on winning the International Children's Peace Prize for which she was nominated in 2011. She had also spoken of her desire to set up her own political party and a vocational institute for marginalised girls in her area. But all the publicity displeased the Pakistani Taliban, which had put her and her family on its "hit list" for backing "the imposition of secular" government in Swat. The attack in the army-dominated Mingora has led some to question government claims that the military has dismantled the militants' operation in Swat. "We are holding urgent meeting of our Jirga to chalk out a future strategy," said Zahid. "We demand of the government to arrest the attackers [otherwise] the confidence of the people in the government will greatly be shaken." Zahid Khan, another Quami Jirga activist who was attacked earlier in the year, said the authorities were not doing enough. "More than 20 people have been killed in militant attacks after the army finished its operations but all the army does is protect itself and government buildings," he said. "It seems that innocent civilians are once again are at the mercy of miscreants." Also on Tuesday a case before the supreme court highlighted other problems faced by women when justices ordered an investigation into the alleged barter of seven girls to settle a blood feud in a remote district in south west Pakistan. Chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry began proceedings into the allegations, which were first reported in the local media. The alleged trade happened in the Dera Bugti district of Baluchistan province between two groups within the Bugti tribe. A tribal council ordered the barter in early September, the district deputy commissioner, Saeed Faisal, told the court. He did not know the girls' ages but local media reported they were between four and 13. Chaudhry ordered Faisal to make sure that all members of the tribal council appear in court on Wednesday, as well as a local lawmaker who belongs to one of the two subtribes believed involved in the incident. The tradition of families exchanging unmarried girls to settle feuds is banned under Pakistani law but still practiced in the country's more conservative, tribal areas.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | You may know the candidates' views on the economy and foreign policy but what about the important stuff - like where they stand on mayonnaise, or Coco Pops?
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former Italian PM rules himself out of race next spring after four months of uncertainty Silvio Berlusconi has signalled that he will not, after all, run for prime minister at the next general election in Italy, due next spring. Instead, he floated the prospect of his successor, Mario Monti, leading the right in the hustings. Speaking about himself in the third person, the media tycoon told one of his own television channels: "Silvio Berlusconi has always said and continues to say that he is ready to stand aside to allow all moderates to unite in a single force that can face the left together." His comment brought to an end – albeit a somewhat fuzzy end – four months of uncharacteristic dithering. In June, he was widely assumed to have thrown his hat back into the ring after calling, at a rally of young conservatives, for the electorate to "give me 51% [of the votes]". Since then, however, his chances of a triumphant comeback have been severely undermined by his party's involvement in a string of corruption scandals, notably in Lazio, the region around Rome, and elsewhere. Polls have repeatedly shown that not even Berlusconi's acknowledged campaigning skills could revive the fortunes of the Freedom People (PdL), the movement he founded on the basis of an alliance between his own followers and former neo-fascists. In a comment for the website of the daily La Stampa, the paper's political correspondent, Ugo Magri, said: "Judging by the most reliable estimates, if [Berlusconi] were to run he would risk a catastrophic fall [in votes]." In sharp contrast, support for Monti has grown since the early summer, despite harsh economic measures by his "technocratic" government aimed at pulling Italy out of the euro crisis. A poll this month indicated that he was far and away the most popular choice for prime minister, with 43% of Italians favouring a second mandate. Asked if Monti might replace him, Berlusconi told his interviewer: "I absolutely would not rule out it being Mario Monti. Ever since I've known him he has always been in the liberal camp, so it could easily be Mario Monti." The prime minister, who took office last November, has international credibility and the support of many in the financial and business communities. But it remains to be seen whether he would be ready to put himself at the head of a party so discredited by scandal.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Serge Haroche and David Wineland have won the Nobel prize in physics for their work on quantum optics. Get the low-down on the science, the researchers and reaction to the award here
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sandusky says he did not carry out 'these alleged disgusting acts' as he prepares for sentencing on 45 counts of child abuse Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach due to be sentenced for child molestation on Tuesday, has professed his innocence and vowed to continue fighting his conviction. In the three-minute monologue aired on Monday night by Penn State Com Radio, Sandusky said he knows in his heart that he did not do what he called "these alleged disgusting acts" and described himself as the victim of Penn State, investigators, civil attorneys, the media and others. Sandusky was convicted in June of abusing 10 boys over 15 years, including some attacks inside Penn State athletic facilities. The case, which tarnished the reputation of one of the most storied college football programs in the US and stunned the nation, led to the firing of longtime head football coach Joe Paterno, who died from lung cancer in January. "They can take away my life, they can make me out as a monster, they can treat me as a monster, but they can't take away my heart," he said. "In my heart, I know I did not do these alleged disgusting acts. My wife has been my only sex partner and that was after marriage." Sandusky faces sentencing that is likely to send him to state prison for the rest of his life. His lawyers said on Monday that Sandusky would address the judge at sentencing. Defense attorney Karl Rominger at first said he was unaware of the recording, then called the Associated Press back early Tuesday to confirm its authenticity. In it, Sandusky blames an accuser he does not name for his legal predicament. "A young man who is dramatic – a veteran accuser – and always sought attention started everything," Sandusky said. "He was joined by a well-orchestrated effort of the media, investigators, the system, Penn State, psychologists, civil attorneys and other accusers. They won. I've wondered what they really won – [the] attention, financial gain, prestige will all be temporary." Sandusky also blamed his conviction on 45 counts of child sexual abuse on "speculation and stories." "We must fight unfairness, inconsistency and dishonesty. People need to be portrayed for who they really are," Sandusky said. "We've not been complainers. When we couldn't have kids, we adopted. When we didn't have time to prepare for a trial, we still gave it our best. We will fight for another chance." Mike Fliegelman, student general manager of the radio station, said the statement was recorded inside the county jail in Bellefonte, but he referred further questions to the station's faculty general manager, who did not return phone messages late Monday.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fifteen people arrested in Athens says they were subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation Fifteen anti-fascist protesters arrested in Athens during a clash with supporters of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn have said they were tortured in the Attica General Police Directorate (GADA) – the Athens equivalent of Scotland Yard – and subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation. Members of a second group of 25 who were arrested after demonstrating in support of their fellow anti-fascists the next day said they were beaten and made to strip naked and bend over in front of officers and other protesters inside the same police station. Several of the protesters arrested after the first demonstration on Sunday 30 September told the Guardian they were slapped and hit by a police officer while five or six others watched, were spat on and "used as ashtrays" because they "stank", and were kept awake all night with torches and lasers being shone in their eyes. Some said they were burned on the arms with a cigarette lighter, and they said police officers videoed them on their mobile phones and threatened to post the pictures on the internet and give their home addresses to Golden Dawn, which has a track record of political violence. Golden Dawn's popularity has surged since the June election, when it won 18 seats in parliament; it recently came third in several opinion polls, behind the conservative New Democracy and the leftwing party Syriza. Last month the Guardian reported that victims of crime have been told by police officers to seek help from Golden Dawn, who then felt obliged to make donations to the group. One of the two women among them said the officers used crude sexual insults and pulled her head back by the hair when she tried to avoid being filmed. The protesters said they were denied drinking water and access to lawyers for 19 hours. "We were so thirsty we drank water from the toilets," she said. One man with a bleeding head wound and a broken arm that he said had been sustained during his arrest alleged the police continued to beat him in GADA and refused him medical treatment until the next morning. Another said the police forced his legs apart and kicked him in the testicles during the arrest. "They spat on me and said we would die like our grandfathers in the civil war," he said. A third said he was hit on the spine with a Taser as he tried to run away; the burn mark is still visible. "It's like an electric shock," he said. "My legs were paralysed for a few minutes and I fell. They handcuffed me behind my back and started hitting and kicking me in the ribs and the head. Then they told me to stand up, but I couldn't, so they pulled me up by the chain while standing on my shin. They kept kicking and punching me for five blocks to the patrol car." The protesters asked that their names not be published, for fear of reprisals from the police or Golden Dawn. A second group of protesters also said they were "tortured" at GADA. "We all had to go past an officer who made us strip naked in the corridor, bend over and open our back passage in front of everyone else who was there," one of them told the Guardian. "He did whatever he wanted with us – slapped us, hit us, told us not to look at him, not to sit cross-legged. Other officers who came by did nothing. "All we could do was look at each other out of the corners of our eyes to give each other courage. He had us there for more than two hours. He would take phone calls on his mobile and say, 'I'm at work and I'm fucking them, I'm fucking them up well'. In the end only four of us were charged, with resisting arrest. It was a day out of the past, out of the colonels' junta." In response to the allegations, Christos Manouras, press spokesman for the Hellenic police, said: "There was no use of force by police officers against anyone in GADA. The Greek police examine and investigate in depth every single report regarding the use of violence by police officers; if there are any responsibilities arising, the police take the imposed disciplinary action against the officers responsible. There is no doubt that the Greek police always respect human rights and don't use violence." Sunday's protest was called after a Tanzanian community centre was vandalised by a group of 80-100 people in a central Athens neighbourhood near Aghios Panteleimon, a stronghold of Golden Dawn where there have been many violent attacks on immigrants. According to protesters, about 150 people rode through the neighbourhood on motorcycles handing out leaflets. They said the front of the parade encountered two or three men in black Golden Dawn T-shirts, and a fight broke out. A large number of police immediately swooped on them from the surrounding streets. According to Manouras: "During the motorcycle protest there were clashes between demonstrators and local residents. The police intervened to prevent the situation from deteriorating and restore public order. There might have been some minor injuries, during the clashes between residents, protesters and police." Marina Daliani, a lawyer for one of the Athens 15, said they had been charged with "disturbing the peace with covered faces" (because they were wearing motorcycle helmets), and with grievous bodily harm against two people. But, she said, no evidence of such harm had so far been submitted. They have now been released on bail of €3,000 (£2,400) each. According to Charis Ladis, a lawyer for another of the protesters, the sustained mistreatment of Greeks in police custody has been rare until this year: "This case shows that a page has been turned. Until now there was an assumption that someone who was arrested, even violently, would be safe in custody. But these young people have all said they lived through an interminable dark night. Dimitris Katsaris, a lawyer for four of the protesters, said his clients had suffered Abu Ghraib-style humiliation, referring to the detention centre where Iraqi detainees were tortured by US soldiers during the Iraq war. "This is not just a case of police brutality of the kind you hear about now and then in every European country. This is happening daily. We have the pictures, we have the evidence of what happens to people getting arrested protesting against the rise of the neo-Nazi party in Greece. This is the new face of the police, with the collaboration of the justice system." One of the arrested protesters, a quiet man in his 30s standing by himself, said: "Journalists here don't report these things. You have to tell them what's happening here, in this country that suffered so much from Nazism. No one will pay attention unless you report these things abroad."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Thousands of police are on duty in Athens today as German chancellor pays her first visit to Athens since the financial crisis began
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Huge protests in Athens as German chancellor pays her first visit to Greece since the financial crisis began
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Thousands of police are on duty in Athens today as German chancellor pays her first visit to Athens since the financial crisis began
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | MIT students have designed a 'wearable social media vest' that translates every virtual Facebook 'like' into a real hug Ever wanted more from your social media? Is all that clicking and typing not quite hitting the spot? When the momentary excitement from that vibrating alert in your pocket fades, are you left empty, hollow, wanting more? No, probably not. But if you did, then fret no longer, because some crafty MIT students have developed a wearable extension to your social media existence that translates every virtual Facebook "like" into an actual hug. They have turned that meagre pixelated thumbs-up into a full-body squeeze. The Like-A-Hug project is a "wearable social media vest", developed by Melissa Kit Chow in collaboration with Andy Payne and Phil Seaton, as part of the MIT Media Lab's Tangible Media Group. The vest, which looks like a slinky black bodywarmer, is designed to inflate like a lifejacket when friends "like" a photo, video, or status update on the wearer's Facebook wall, "thereby allowing us to feel the warmth, encouragement, support, or love that we feel when we receive hugs," says Chow. The project was developed as an exercise and exploration in tactile shape display, technology that allows the sense of touch to be experienced in virtual environments, pushing the possibilities of social media beyond the conventional graphic user interface. "We came up with the concept over a casual conversation about long-distance relationships and the limitations of video chat interfaces like Skype," explains Chow. "The concept of telepresence arose, and we toyed with the idea of receiving hugs via wireless technology." But hugs are of course a two-way thing, so the designers have developed a mechanism by which the hug can be sent back to the sender by squeezing the garment, deflating it in the process. While the like-to-hug conversion might seem clear enough, they have yet to expand the vest's repertoire to encompass other Facebook functions. What, for example, would the "poke" feel like – or the dreaded "defriend"? How might being "followed" translate into a sinister over-the-shoulder presence, and what would be the physical consequence of being "shared"? As Digital Trends has pointed out, this isn't the first product to offer physical contact through a digital medium. Back in April, robotics designer Hiroshi Ishiguro presented a body pillow that brings physical sensation to phone calls. The Hugvie translates the tone and volume of the person at the other end of the line into a simulated heartbeat within the squishy doll. It's also not the first time the ubiquitous Facebook "like" has been implemented in clothing. In May, Brazilian fashion store C&A embedded a digital like-counter into its clothes hangers, tracking the most popular items from an image gallery on its Facebook page. While the Like-A-Hug may be a provocative art project that questions our attachment to social media, the latter device could be a powerful commercial tool. But are these welcome innovations, bringing the crowd-sourced world of the internet to bear on physical reality, or ominous developments that let the likes of Mark Zuckerberg get too close to our bodily lives?
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ansar al-Sharia, which is believed to be responsible for death of Chris Stevens, fled to remote Jebel Akhdar region in September An Islamist militia suspected of the killing of America's Libya ambassador is being blockaded in a remote, forested region in the east of the country, but army commanders say they lack the firepower to capture the militiamen. The Islamist Ansar al-Sharia fled to the hilly Jebel Akhdar – Green Mountains – region after protesters ejected its members from their bases in Benghazi and Derna in late September. Last week they ambushed a police checkpoint near the small town of Susah, killing four officers. "They have 150 to 200 men and 17 vehicles, Toyotas and four-by-fours," said the army taskforce commander, Colonel Hamid Hassi. "These people are very dangerous." Libyan commanders say the militiamen have returned to the area from where they mounted an Islamist resistance against the former dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, 20 years ago. "Gaddafi tried to fight these guys here, he had 30,000 soldiers, in 1992, and he could not catch them," Hassi said. "We need help from the United Nations or the Europeans." Infantry units backed by pickup trucks carrying anti-aircraft guns have been set up in blocking positions on the coastal highway at Susah and Derna. In between are 40 miles of some of Libya's wildest and most beautiful country, a landscape of forests and twisting valleys famed as the hideout of Saint Mark. "You need good equipment to go in there," Hassi told the Guardian. "We asked the chief of staff to send us planes and helicopters, but we received nothing." Drones have been heard in the night skies in the region, prompting speculation that the US is poised to take action, four weeks after ambassador Chris Stevens and three diplomats were killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. Pressure for decisive action is mounting in Washington before a congressional hearing on Wednesday to examine the circumstances of the attack, and whether diplomats ignored prior warnings of jihadist violence. The Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, on Monday linked the consulate attack to al-Qaida, and questioned whether the Obama administration had the resolve to deal with it. Libya's government is for the moment in disarray following the sacking by parliament of prime minister-elect Mustafa Abushagur on Sunday after his proposed cabinet was rejected. Further west, Egypt and India have begun trying to evacuate nationals from the town of Beni Walid, a former Gaddafi stronghold now surrounded by government forces demanding the handover of men accused of murdering a prominent revolutionary. Tanks and artillery surround the town. The murder of the four policemen has shocked the small town of Susah, home of the ancient ruins of the Greek settlement of Apollonia, and local people have dubbed the day of the killings "Black Wednesday". "This is a small place, people are very upset," said one resident, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Steven Spielberg's biopic of the 16th US president starring Daniel Day-Lewis was the secret screening at the New York film festival last night. Viewers saw an effective if uneven portrait of a canny politician Politics was a dirty business even in the 19th century, and even when changing history for the better, as the best moments of Lincoln wittily and elegantly prove. Steven Spielberg's behemoth of a new film, which premiered in unfinished form at the New York film festival Monday night, has a title that suggests a sweeping portrait of the great 16th American president. But the film is largely too content depicting Abraham Lincoln as an all-knowing icon, and even with Daniel Day-Lewis's beautifully measured (and surprisingly soft-spoken) performance, Lincoln often recedes to the background of the very uneven movie that bears his name. The screenplay from Pulitzer prize-winner Tony Kushner focuses on just the last four months of Lincoln's life, as he works in Washington to end the civil war raging just south of him, but not before passing an amendment to officially outlaw slavery. The backroom deals and legal hurdles to make that happen are immensely complicated, but after some bulky exposition this wheeling and dealing among lawmakers makes for the film's strongest scenes. Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) hires a trio of hooligans (John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson and James Spader) to rustle up votes for the amendment through whatever means necessary, while on the floor of the House of Representatives, anti-slavery lawmaker Thaddeus Stevens (a gloriously scene-stealing Tommy Lee Jones) bellows at pro-slavery Fernando Wood (Lee Pace), with the roomful of men around them banging on their desks and shouting over each other. If only modern American politics were remotely as entertaining. We visit the battlefield a few times, with General Ulysses S Grant (Jared Harris) preparing to negotiate peace with the Confederacy, but Lincoln is largely set in the cramped chambers of the White House and Congress; between that and the many speeches about constitutional law, it can start to feel a little airless. Glimpses into Lincoln's personal life, including strained relationships with both his wife (Sally Field) and eldest son (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), are intended to add a human dimension to the president, but they're never as effective as simply seeing the man at work; Gordon-Levitt has had a fantastic year in other films, but his character here is entirely superfluous, and Field brings tremendous overacting to a cast that's otherwise quite restrained. Lincoln isn't as sentimental as you might expect from Spielberg, and though it never digs deep enough into Lincoln as a man, it's unafraid to show him as a canny politician willing to bend the law and make enormous compromises to accomplish a greater goal. With John Williams's gentle score, posh cinematography from Janusz Kaminski and a whole load of big costumes and facial hair for the cast, Lincoln veers too often toward becoming a somnolent period piece, but the strong cast and political texture always manage to perk things back up. Though it might have worked better as a tighter, purely political thriller with even less focus on the title character, Lincoln's smarty-pants pleasures manage to outweigh its stuffy drawbacks. Rating: 4/5
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Percentage of Protestant adults in US hits new low as one in five Americans say they have no religious affiliation For the first time in its history, the US does not have a Protestant majority, according to a study, with the number of Americans claiming no religious affiliation on the rise. The percentage of Protestant adults in the US has reached a low of 48%, the first time Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has reported with certainty that the number has fallen below 50%. The drop has long been anticipated and comes at a time when there are no Protestants are on the US Supreme Court and the Republicans have their first presidential ticket with no Protestant nominees. Among the reasons for the change are the growth in nondenominational Christians who can no longer be categorised as Protestant, and a spike in the number of American adults who say they have no religion. The Pew study, released on Tuesday, found about 20% of Americans say they have no religious affiliation, an increase from 15% in the past five years. Scholars have long debated whether people who say they no longer belong to a religious group should be considered secular. While the category as defined by Pew researchers includes atheists, it also encompasses majorities of people who say they believe in God, and a notable minority who pray daily or consider themselves "spiritual" but not "religious". Still, Pew found overall that most of the unaffiliated are not actively seeking another religious home, indicating their ties with organised religion are permanently broken. Growth among those with no religion has been a major preoccupation of American faith leaders who worry that the US, a highly religious country, would go the way of western Europe, where church attendance has plummeted. Pope Benedict XVI has partly dedicated his pontificate to combating secularism in the west. This week in Rome, he is convening a three-week synod of bishops from around the world aimed at bringing back Roman Catholics who have left the church. The trend also has political implications. American voters who describe themselves as having no religion vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Pew found Americans with no religion support abortion rights and gay marriage at a much higher-rate than the US public at large. These "nones" are an increasing segment of voters who are registered as Democrats or lean toward the party, growing from 17% to 24% over the past five years. The religiously unaffiliated are becoming as important a constituency to Democrats as evangelicals are to Republicans, Pew said. The Pew analysis, conducted with PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, is based on several surveys including a poll of nearly 3,000 adults conducted from 28 June-9 July. The finding on the Protestant majority is based on responses from a larger group of more than 17,000 people and has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.9 percentage points, Pew researchers said. Pew said it had also previously calculated a drop slightly below 50% among US Protestants, but those findings had fallen within the margin of error; the General Social Survey, which is conducted by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, reported for 2010 that the percentage of US Protestants was around 46.7%. Researchers have been struggling for decades to find a definitive reason for the steady rise in those with no religion.' The spread of secularism in western Europe was often viewed as a byproduct of growing wealth in the region. Yet among industrialised nations, the US stood out for its deep religiosity in the face of increasing wealth. Religion scholars now say the decreased religiosity in the US could reflect a change in how Americans describe their religious lives. In 2007, 60% of people who said they seldom or never attend religious services still identified themselves as part of a particular religious tradition. In 2012, that statistic fell to 50%, according to the Pew report. "Part of what's going on here is that the stigma associated with not being part of any religious community has declined," said John Green, a specialist in religion and politics at the University of Akron, who advised Pew on the survey. "In some parts of the country, there is still a stigma. But overall, it's not the way it used to be." The study has found the growth in unaffiliated Americans spans a broad range of groups: men and women, college graduates and those without a college degree, people earning less than $30,000 annually and those earning $75,000 or more. However, along ethnic lines, the largest jump in "nones" has been among whites. One-fifth of whites describe themselves as having no religion. More growth in "nones" is expected. One-third of adults under age 30 have no religious affiliation, compared with 9% of people 65 and older. Pew researchers wrote that "young adults today are much more likely to be unaffiliated than previous generations were at a similar stage in their lives", and aren't expected to become more religiously active as they age.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Death of drug gang founder at hands of marines will represent a major victory for Mexican authorities if confirmed Heriberto Lazcano, the leader of the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico, has apparently been killed in a shootout with marines, according to the country's navy. The navy said there was strong evidence after the firefight in the northern border state of Coahuila that Lazcano, known as El Lazca, was one of two men who died. But it added that further forensics tests would have to be carried out to confirm the identification. "Information was obtained after the first forensics tests were carried out that yielded indications that suggest that one of the bodies is Heriberto Lazcano," the navy's statement said. "The navy department is co-ordinating efforts with Coahuila state and will be awaiting the conclusions of the forensics examination in the case." The death of Lazcano would be a major victory for Mexican law enforcement. The Zetas cartel that he helped found with other deserters from an elite army unit has gone on to carry out some of Mexico's bloodiest massacres, biggest jail breaks and fiercest attacks on authorities. Lazcano, who is also known as El Verdugo (the executioner) for his brutality, is suspected in hundreds of killings, including the death in June 2004 of Francisco Ortiz Franco, editor of a crusading weekly newspaper in Tijuana that often reported on drug trafficking. Ortiz Franco was gunned down in front of his two young children as he left a clinic. The US has offered a $5m reward and Mexico an additional $2.3m for information leading to Lazcano's arrest. Under Lazcano's leadership the Zetas recruited more hitmen, many of them former Mexican soldiers, and hired "kaibiles" – Guatemalan soldiers trained in counter-insurgency, transforming what had been a small group of assassins into a ruthless gang of enforcers for the Gulf cartel. The Zetas were also in charge of protecting the Gulf cartel's drug shipments. The Zetas finally split from their former bosses in 2010 and have since been fighting a vicious battle for control of the drug business in north-eastern Mexico, traditional home base of the Gulf cartel. The result has been a surge of drug-related killings. Lazcano "is credited with strengthening the organisation ... he created a new structure of regional cells that specialise in specific crimes", Mexican federal prosecutors say in their profile of Lazcano.
The Zetas earned their notoriety for brutality by becoming the first to publicly display their beheaded rivals, most infamously two police officers in April 2006 in the resort city of Acapulco. The severed heads were found on spikes outside a government building with a message signed "Z'' that said: "So that you learn to respect."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Thousands of police are on duty in Athens today as German chancellor pays her first visit to Athens since the financial crisis began
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates after the Islamist al-Nusra Front claimed it bombed an intelligence complex near Damascus and the Syrian army advances in Homs
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Pakistan's most populous city hit by Naegleria fowleri, which is transmitted by contaminated water entering the nose A brain-eating amoeba has killed at least 10 people in Pakistan's most populous city since May, a World Health Organisation official says. Naegleria fowleri, which has a fatality rate of more than 98%, is transmitted when contaminated water enters the body through the nose. It cannot be passed from person to person. The 10 confirmed cases have all occurred in the southern port city of Karachi, said Dr Musa Khan, head of the WHO's disease early warning system in Pakistan. It is unclear if all cases have been reported, as residents may not be familiar with the disease and Pakistan's hospitals are severely overstretched. The amoeba travels from the nasal membranes to the brain. Symptoms are initially mild, including a headache, stiff neck, fever and stomach pain. Death usually occurs five to seven days after infection. Authorities were planning a campaign to raise awareness among health workers and the public, Khan said. Most health centres had already been alerted. "People should avoid getting water too deep into their nostrils and make sure their water supply is properly treated," he said. "Those with symptoms should seek help immediately." Victims commonly catch the disease through swimming in infected water, but Khan said most of those who died did not have a history of swimming. Authorities were testing water from various parts of the city. The disease first surfaced in Karachi, a city of 18 million people, in 2006. This year's outbreak has been the first since then and the most recent deaths occurred last week.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Republican candidate makes especially dramatic gains with female voters after strong performance in first debate The storm clouds gathering over President Obama's bid for re-election have thickened with the release of a new poll from the respected Pew Research Center that gives Mitt Romney a four-point lead among likely voters. The Pew survey of 1,511 adults was carried out over four days starting on the day after the first presidential TV debate last week. Its findings – including evidence that the Republican nominee is making dramatic headway with female voters, young people and those in the heartlands of the mid-west – appear to confirm that Obama's listless performance at the debate, and by contrast Romney's strong showing, has translated into a powerful political force. "We found a dramatic shift from a significant Obama lead to a slight Romney edge among likely voters – and this is the first evidence that the debate appears to have impacted the race," said Carroll Doherty, Pew Research Center's associate director. The poll records Obama and Romney on a direct tie of 46% each among registered voters, with Romney taking the lead by 49% to 45% among likely voters. The latter figure marks a striking turn-around in Romney's fortunes: last month the Pew poll marked him behind by eight points among likely voters. Romney's widely lauded performance at the debate in front of almost 70 million viewers appears to have had a particularly favourable impact on several groups that had been assumed to be unassailable strongholds for Obama. Among likely female voters, the two contenders for the White House now stand neck-and-neck on 47%, in contrast to a month ago when Romney trailed by a whopping 18 points. Support among voters under 50 has bounced in the past month for Romney by no fewer than 10 points, from 39% to 49%, and he now even leads among this demographic over Obama on 46%. The one feature that appears to be driving this sharp improvement in Romney's standing was the debate. Two-thirds of registered voters in the poll said that they thought Romney did the better job during Wednesday's televised head-to-head, with only 20% backing Obama. What is not clear is whether a post-debate bounce for Romney will last as the race for the presidency enters its final month. The latest tracking poll from Gallup has the two candidates on a 47% tie. One factor that could prove significant in terms of the final days of the campaign is that, in the Pew poll, the ground soldiers of the Republican party appear to have been energised by Romney's perceived debate victory. Some 67% of Romney's supporters said they now back him strongly, up from 56% in September. Engagement is one aspect of Romney's candidacy that the Republicans have been struggling with all year, including through the primary season when he was regarded with widespread suspicion by staunch conservatives as a result of the liberal policies – including healthcare reform – that he pursued while governor of Massachusetts. Romney needs a revitalised base if he is to wage an energetic get-out-the-vote ground operation come November. "This is perhaps the most important aspects of the results, that Republicans come out of the TV debate very energised," Doherty said. The poll will give Obama's top re-election advisers, led by David Axelrod, food for thought on how they are faring in terms of owning political issues. On the single most important policy area, the economy, Romney shows a 13-point lead among vital swing voters when asked who would do the better job on the job situation (Romney polled 37% to Obama's 24%). The Republican candidate is still seen as favouring the rich, but he is now given more credit by voters for policies that would help middle-class Americans, up from 41% in July to 49% today. In other policy areas, Romney has effectively closed the gap with the president over Medicare and health care, and is just four points behind Obama on foreign policy having lagged by 15 points last month. The Pew poll, conducted nationally, does not give a deep insight into what's happening in the vital swing states of Ohio, Florida, Virginia and elsewhere. The impact of the TV debate on these battle grounds will have to wait until state-wide polls are published. It does though give one intriguing finding, showing a six-point lead for Romney in the Midwest. The signs that Romney is making a spirited rally in the wake of his morale-boosting success on primetime TV will pile on the pressure on Joe Biden. He faces his only vice-presidential debate with Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, on Thursday night, with two further presidential debates following later in the month.
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