|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Payoff package for the former News International executive is far in excess of the £1.7m speculated on after her departure Rebekah Brooks received a payoff worth about £7m after resigning as chief executive of News International at the height of the Milly Dowler phone-hacking crisis in July 2011. The exact figure has never been disclosed by the Murdoch company – whose parent News Corporation holds its annual meeting on Tuesday – but one source said they believed it was between £6m and £8m. An intimate of Rupert Murdoch, Brooks started out as a secretary at the News of the World in 1989, becoming editor of the News of the World and the Sun in succession. She retained Murdoch's confidence as the phone hacking crisis intensified. After the News Corp patriarch flew into London in July last year, he took Brooks out for dinner, declaring that she was his "top priority" when questioned in the street by journalists. The payoff package, far in excess of the £1.7m that was speculated about after her departure, comprised cash payments for loss of service, pension enhancement, money for legal costs, a car and an office. News International declined to comment on the sum involved, but company insiders stressed there were "clawback" arrangements, which mean Brooks would have to pay some of the money back in certain circumstances. It is understood that payback would be enforceable if Brooks was to be found guilty of a criminal offence relating to her employment. She is currently facing charges relating to interception of communications and obstruction of charges. News Corp has not had to make any disclosure in public accounts, because its British companies have not reported their results to Companies House yet. News International companies have a financial year that ends on 30 June, so any filing covering the period of the Brooks payoff would not be due until next year. The revelations about the size of Brooks's payoff are likely to be raised at the company's annual shareholder meeting at News Corp's Fox studios lot in Los Angeles. Some investors, such as the British group Hermes, are expected to vote against Rupert Murdoch remaining as chairman in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, but the media tycoon controls 40% of the votes so he is unlikely to lose. The Independent newspaper reported on Tuesday that private emails between David Cameron and Brooks were withheld from the Leveson inquiry into press standards. A government lawyer advised the prime minister that the emails involved were not "relevant". They were said to reveal the close friendship between Cameron and Brooks and were described by sources as containing "embarrassing" exchanges. A Downing Street spokesman said: "All the material the inquiry asked for was given to them." It is understood that there was an agreement between No 10 and the Leveson inquiry that Cameron would provide all emails and texts relevant to the News International bid for broadcaster BSkyB, as Cameron set out in his witness statement to the inquiry. Government sources said this was accepted by the Leveson inquiry and some texts or emails handed to the inquiry by Cameron, deemed to be on the margin of this definition, were not published by Leveson. No 10 is not challenging the newspaper's claim that Cameron had sought legal advice on the nature of the exchanges to be given to Leveson.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former Bosnian Serb leader has been on trial since 2009 for orchestrating genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity Radovan Karadzic will begin his defence at the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal on Tuesday as the panel in The Hague also embarks on the trial of its last suspect. Karadzic is one of a trio of architects of the Balkan wars brought to trial in The Hague for wars among the successor countries and the peoples of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1999, in which well over 100,000 people were killed and millions were displaced. The Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic went on trial this year, and the former Yugoslav and Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic died in 2006 before the end of his trial. The trial of Karadzic began in 2009. He was arrested in 2008 after living in hiding under the name Dragan David Dabic and working as a natural healer. Goran Hadzic, the last of 161 suspects still alive and at large after the wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia, was arrested last year and is accused of murder, torture and forcible deportation at the very outset of those wars. Prosecutors say Hadzic, president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina from 1992-94, was responsible for killings and forced deportations of minority ethnic Croats from the region after the Croatian government in Zagreb broke away from Yugoslavia in 1991. Already sentenced in his absence to a total of 40 years in prison by Croatian courts in the mid-1990s, Hadzic was finally detained by Serbian authorities in 2011. The opening of his trial at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) coincides with the opening of the defence's case in the trial of the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, which began in 2009. The last suspect may be on trial but the ICTY's business still has several years to run, with eight cases under way and a further six under appeal. It expects to rule on its final appeals by 2016. After that any more cases arising from the Balkan wars of the 1990s must be tried in the countries where the crimes were committed.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Home secretary to announce whether British computer hacker will be sent to stand trial in US Theresa May will make a Commons statement on Tuesday on whether the computer hacker Gary McKinnon will be sent to the US to stand trial after a 11-year legal battle. The home secretary is also expected to give the official response to the review of Britain's extradition laws by the retired high court judge Sir Scott Baker, in the face of widespread criticism that the UK-US treaty is unbalanced and unfair. May spent the weekend reviewing the papers in the McKinnon case, which include a new government-commissioned report by two leading psychiatrists who warn that McKinnon, 46, who has Asperger's syndrome, is very likely to attempt suicide if his extradition goes ahead. If May orders his extradition, albeit with a string of fresh undertakings about his treatment by the Americans, McKinnon's legal team is expected to launch a last-ditch challenge with an application for judicial review. Provisional dates for a high court hearing on 28-29 November have already been pencilled in. McKinnon was arrested in March 2002 for allegedly hacking into dozens of Pentagon and Nasa computers from his bedroom in Wood Green, north London. He says he was looking for evidence of UFOs and left cybernotes mocking the Pentagon's lack of computer security. He could face up to 60 years in prison if convicted. The home secretary's decision will be a key test of the UK-US extradition treaty, which came into force in 2004 and was widely criticised by David Cameron and Nick Clegg while they were in opposition. McKinnon's lawyer, Karen Todner, said on Monday: "It has been a long 11-year battle to fight this extradition and we wait with anxiety, but hope, that the home secretary will uphold the promises made by Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg." They have both previously condemned plans to send McKinnon to the US. Todner said the two psychiatrists who were instructed by the home secretary had concluded: "We cannot offer reassurance that Mr McKinnon would not attempt to, or be successful in, harming or killing himself if he is arrested or extradited." Baker's 2011 review of the extradition arrangements found that many of the criticisms of the UK-US arrangements were founded on misunderstandings about how it operated in practice or ignored the public interest in having effective extradition procedures. He did not recommend major reform but voiced serious concerns over the operation of human rights legislation that allowed delays of months or even years, and cited the McKinnon case as a prime example. He recommended that the ability for those facing extradition to raise human rights concerns with the home secretary because of changes in their circumstances should be scrapped and the last word should rest with the judiciary.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Polling to take place on 22 January 2013 after Binyamin Netanyahu failed to push through austerity budget Israel's parliament has voted to dissolve itself ahead of early national elections set for 22 January 2013. The speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, made the announcement late on Monday after a long day of political speeches and debates that ended in a unanimous vote. The prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, had said last week that he would order elections, months ahead of time, because the parliament could not agree on a new austerity budget. Israeli leaders launched harsh attacks on one another during a parliamentary debate that preceded the vote, setting the parameters for what is likely to follow in the campaign. Netanyahu boasted of his achievements, while the opposition heckled and insulted him mercilessly.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | MLB Playoffs: Ryan Vogelsong powers his San Francisco Giants to victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in Game Two of the NLCS
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | American duo to present 70th ceremony after British comedian's controversial three-year stint The US comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will replace Ricky Gervais as next year's Golden Globe hosts – bringing perhaps a gentler touch to proceedings on the occasion of the awards' 70th anniversary. Organisers the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) and NBC said Fey and Poehler would bring their tried and tested chemistry to the 13 January gala dinner for Hollywood's leading film and TV stars.
Gervais hosted the event from 2010 to 2012, shocking many with his acid one-liners about the assembled celebrities. The creator of TV series The Office was the first person to host the Golden Globes since 1995. In the interim the live televised show went without a formal host and used presenters to introduce the various awards. After the 2012 ceremony, Gervais wrote on his blog that he would not be returning as host in 2013. "I had a blast actually. It was by far my favourite of the three hosting stints. "I've told my agent to never let me be persuaded to do it again though. It's like a parachute jump. You can only really enjoy it in retrospect when you realise you didn't die and it was quite an amazing thing to do. "The crowd were great this year too. I think they finally worked out that my gags only seemed rude and nasty but were actually not too scary at all. Or they were just drunker." Fey, 42, creator and star of 30 Rock, and Parks and Recreation actor Poehler, 41, have worked together for years – first on Saturday Night Live and later on the 2008 movie comedy Baby Mama.
Fey has won seven Emmy awards for her TV work, including her piercing impersonations of the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Poehler worked for eight years on Saturday Night Live, often playing Hillary Clinton, and went on to create and star in popular TV comedy Parks and Recreation. She also appeared alongside Fey in the 2004 comedy Mean Girls.
The Golden Globes are Hollywood's second most important ceremony to the Oscars, which take place next year on 24 February and will be hosted by Seth MacFarlane, creator of the animated comedy Family Guy.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | On eve of second presidential debate, secretary of state is seen as trying to deflect criticism of Barack Obama Hillary Clinton has taken responsibility for the deadly security breach at the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, saying the buck stopped with her and not the White House. The secretary of state took the blame in an interview to CNN on Monday night in what will be seen as an attempt to deflect Republican attacks on Barack Obama over the affair on the eve of the second presidential debate. "I take responsibility," she said in Lima, Peru, in her first interview about the 11 September attack that killed the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans. "I'm in charge of the state department's 60,000-plus people all over the world [at] 275 posts. The president and the vice-president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals [who are] the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision." Mitt Romney's campaign has hammered the administration over the security breach and its different explanations of how it happened. Romney is expected to continue the line of attack in Tuesday's debate. The issue gained traction during last week's vice-presidential debate when Joe Biden said the White House had been unaware of requests to bolster security at the consulate. That appeared to contradict testimony from state department officials who said requests had been made and rejected. A diplomatic cable presented to a congressional oversight and government reform committee tasked with investigating the affair showed that Stevens asked the state department for an additional 11 security personnel weeks before the attack. Republicans have demanded the administration reveal who knew what and when, saying there was a lack of transparency and that the attack showed the failure of Obama's Middle East foreign policy. On Sunday David Axelrod, a key member of the president's inner circle, said Romney was "working hard to exploit the issue" for political gain. Clinton's remarks on Monday tried to draw the fire by saying neither Obama nor Biden was involved in the decision. "I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha," she said, shortly after arriving in Lima for a conference on women and entrepreneurship. Commentators said it was an attempt to shield the president. "This was a purely political move to give Obama breathing room tomorrow night. That's it," said therightscoop.com. The secretary of state rebuffed criticism that administration officials continued to depict the attack as a spontaneous backlash against an anti-Islam film even after evidence emerged showing it was planned beforehand by a radical, well-armed group. In the immediate aftermath of such events there was always "confusion" and "fog of war", Clinton said. She described an "intense, long ordeal" for staffers at the state department on the night of the attack as they struggled to find out what was happening and respond. Clinton said her mission now was to make sure such an attack never happened again but that diplomacy, even in perilous parts of the Arab world, must continue. "We can't not engage," she said. "We cannot retreat."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | On eve of second presidential debate, secretary of state is seen as trying to deflect criticism from Barack Obama Hillary Clinton has taken responsibility for the deadly security breach at the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, saying the buck stopped with her and not the White House. The secretary of state took the blame in an interview to CNN on Monday night in what will be seen as an attempt to deflect Republican attacks on Barack Obama over the affair on the eve of the second presidential debate. "I take responsibility," she said in Lima, Peru, in her first interview about the 11 September attack that killed the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans. Mitt Romney's campaign has hammered the administration over the security breach and its different explanations of how it happened. Romney is expected to continue the line of attack in Tuesday's debate. The issue gained traction during last week's vice-presidential debate when Joe Biden said the White House had been unaware of requests to bolster security at the consulate. That appeared to contradict testimony from state department officials who said requests had been made and rejected. A diplomatic cable presented to a congressional oversight and government reform committee tasked with investigating the affair showed that Stevens asked the state department for an additional 11 security personnel weeks before the attack. Republicans have demanded the administration reveal who knew what and when, saying there was a lack of transparency and that the attack showed the failure of Obama's Middle East foreign policy. On Sunday David Axelrod, a key member of the president's inner circle, said Romney was "working hard to exploit the issue" for political gain. Clinton's remarks on Monday tried to draw the fire by saying neither Obama nor Biden was involved in the decision. "I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha," she said, shortly after arriving in Lima for a conference on women and entrepreneurship. Commentators said it was an attempt to shield the president. "This was a purely political move to give Obama breathing room tomorrow night. That's it," said therightscoop.com. The secretary of state rebuffed criticism that administration officials continued to depict the attack as a spontaneous backlash against an anti-Islam film even after evidence emerged showing it was planned beforehand by a radical, well-armed group. In the immediate aftermath of such events there was always "confusion" and "fog of war", Clinton said. She described an "intense, long ordeal" for staffers at the state department on the night of the attack as they struggled to find out what was happening and respond. Clinton said her mission now was to make sure such an attack never happened again but that diplomacy, even in perilous parts of the Arab world, must continue. "We can't not engage," she said. "We cannot retreat."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rolling report: the St. Louis Cardinals visit the San Francisco Giants for NLCS Game 2
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Payoff package for the former News International executive is far in excess of the £1.7m speculated on after her departure Rebekah Brooks received a payoff worth about £7m after resigning as chief executive of News International at the height of the Milly Dowler phone-hacking crisis in July 2011. The exact figure has never been disclosed by the Murdoch company – whose parent News Corporation holds its annual meeting on Tuesday – but one source said they believed it was between £6m and £8m. An intimate of Rupert Murdoch, Brooks started out as a secretary at the News of the World in 1989, becoming editor of the News of the World and the Sun in succession. She retained Murdoch's confidence as the phone hacking crisis intensified. After the News Corp patriarch flew into London in July last year, he took Brooks out for dinner, declaring that she was his "top priority" when questioned in the street by journalists. The payoff package, far in excess of the £1.7m that was speculated about after her departure, comprised cash payments for loss of service, pension enhancement, money for legal costs, a car and an office. News International declined to comment on the sum involved, but company insiders stressed there were "clawback" arrangements, which mean Brooks would have to pay some of the money back in certain circumstances. It is understood that payback would be enforceable if Brooks was to be found guilty of a criminal offence relating to her employment. She is currently facing charges relating to interception of communications and obstruction of charges. News Corp has not had to make any disclosure in public accounts, because its British companies have not reported their results to Companies House yet. News International companies have a financial year that ends on 30 June, so any filing covering the period of the Brooks payoff would not be due until next year. The revelations about the size of Brooks's payoff are likely to be raised at the company's annual shareholder meeting at News Corp's Fox studios lot in Los Angeles. Some investors, such as the British group Hermes, are expected to vote against Rupert Murdoch remaining as chairman in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, but the media tycoon controls 40% of the votes so he is unlikely to lose.The Independent newspaper reported on Tuesday that private emails between David Cameron and Brooks were withheld from the Leveson inquiry into press standards. A government lawyer advised the prime minister that the emails involved were not "relevant". They were said to reveal the close friendship between Cameron and Brooks and were described by sources as containing "embarrassing" exchanges. A Downing Street spokesman said: "All the material the inquiry asked for was given to them." It is understood that there was an agreement between No 10 and the Leveson inquiry that Cameron would provide all emails and texts relevant to the News International bid for broadcaster BSkyB, as Cameron set out in his witness statement to the inquiry. Government sources said this was accepted by the Leveson inquiry and some texts or emails handed to the inquiry by Cameron, deemed to be on the margin of this definition, were not published by Leveson. No 10 is not challenging the newspaper's claim that Cameron had sought legal advice on the nature of the exchanges to be given to Leveson.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other defendants say attending court proceedings will bring back memories of torture Lawyers for the Guantánamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks argued in a military pretrial hearing that the defendants should be allowed to voluntarily skip court proceedings because it might dredge up bad memories of torture in CIA detention. At one point in the hearing on Monday, a military judge angrily silenced a defence lawyer for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the worst terrorist attacks in US history, when he tried to discuss torture during an exchange on whether courtroom attendance was mandatory for the five men accused of organising and funding the attacks. The weeklong hearings, in Camp Justice, the war court compound at the US naval base in Cuba, are expected to focus on secrecy and transparency, but will cover a range of issues from whether the prison camps can force the men to attend their own trials to what they can wear in court, the Miami Herald reported. They are part of the legal proceedings required to move the case to trial, estimated to be at least a year away. Before they were transferred to Guantánamo Bay US naval base in 2006, the defendants were held for years in secret CIA prisons. All five have said they were tortured during interrogations, and the CIA's declassified documents record Mohammed being waterboarded 186 times. Their lawyers have said their harsh treatment in CIA custody affects all aspects of the case. The chief prosecutor has said it could be relevant later in determining whether prisoners' statements were voluntarily given and as a potentially mitigating factor during sentencing. The judge, army Colonel James Pohl, declared it was not relevant in a discussion of whether the defendants had the right to voluntarily skip court sessions, according to Reuters. Mohammed's lawyer, air force Captain Michael Schwartz, said forcibly removing them from their cells and hauling them into court would subject them to physical and emotional strain reminiscent of their time in CIA custody. "We have to talk about torture," Schwartz said. "No we don't," the judge replied. "I think we do," Schwartz said. "I'm telling you I don't think that's relevant to this issue. That's the end of that," Pohl snapped. When Schwartz persisted, Pohl said angrily: "Are you having trouble hearing me? Move on to something else!" Unlike previous sessions at the high-security courtroom at the Guantánamo Bay base in Cuba, the court security officer did not muffle the audio feed that spectators hear when the word "torture" was uttered. Pohl ruled the defendants had the right to voluntarily be absent from hearings, at least until jurors are assembled for the actual trial, estimated to be at least a year away. The exchange happened in proceedings that were otherwise orderly, in sharp contrast to the last hearing, in May, which was chaotic, marred by protests and outbursts from the five, who refused to answer the judge's questions and which stretched to 13 hours. One of the key issues at this week's hearing will be how much the men's lawyers and the wider world will be allowed to learn about their time in CIA custody. The government argue that whatever the men say about their time in the CIA's secret network of "black sites" is classified at the highest levels. Prosecutors have asked the judge to approve what is known as a protective order that is intended to prevent the release of classified information during the eventual trial of the five. Lawyers for the defendants say the proposed rules will adversely affect their defence. The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a challenge to the a protective order, says the restrictions will prevent the public from learning what happened to Mohammed and his co-defendants during several years of CIA confinement and interrogation. The order requires the court to employ a 40-second delay during legal proceedings, so that reporters and the public, who watch behind sound-proof glass, can be stopped from hearing details of the CIA's classified rendition and detention programme from officials, lawyers or the defendants themselves. On Monday, the defendants listened attentively and answered politely. Defendant Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni accused of helping the September 11 hijackers find flight schools, smiled when the judge told him the trial would go forward without him if he somehow managed to escape from Guantánamo. "I'll make sure to leave some notes," he said. Asked if he understood his attendance was voluntary for now, Mohammed said: "Yes, but I don't think there's any justice in this court." The defendants were allowed to wear their own clothes, after complaining that they had not been allowed to wear hats and vests traditional in their homelands of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Mohammed wore a dark vest over a white tunic, and his beard was dyed red with henna. He had on a turban while some of the others wore brightly checked kaffayahs, Reuters reported.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Record fundraising haul comes as Obama campaign promises more combative president for Tuesday's debate in Long Island Mitt Romney received a major boost on the eve of the second presidential debate when his team announced he had raised $170m in campaign donations in September, putting the 2012 election well on course to be the costliest ever. Romney's haul is $11m less than Obama took in over the same period. But the strong fundraising effort by Romney and the Republican party is notable because it came before the first debate in Denver a fortnight ago, at a time when Romney's campaign was thought to have stalled. Given that Romney took in $12m in the immediate aftermath of the Denver debate and that more people will become engaged as the election draws closer, the Romney campaign is looking to surpass the $170m figure this month. A fundraising meeting for wealthy donors is being held this week at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York following a similar successful event held at Park City, Utah, earlier this year. Romney's campaign team said it and the Republicans have $191m on hand to spend on the remainder of the campaign. Past election strategies by Romney has seen him favour late ad blitzes in contrast to the Obama campaign, which has been spending heavily on ads since the summer. With the amount of money available to both campaigns, Obama and Romney are at risk of reaching saturation point, running out of ad slots in the swing states to spend money on. The $170m, a record for Romney, was raised jointly by his team and the Republican party and easily outstrips the $111m Romney raised in August. The Romney campaign, keen to counter perceptions that it is funded by a clique of wealthy backers, said 93% of the money came from small donations, with more than 1 million giving $250 or less. The Obama campaign said 98% of its cash is from donors paying $250 or less. The fundraising boost for Romney came as Obama's campaign team Monday promised that a better-prepared and more combative president will turn up for Tuesday's debate. Polls showed the two tied in a dead heat in the race for the White House. "He's energised, and I expect he will make a passionate case," Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters said. Psaki acknowledged that the polls had tightened and the race is now "very, very close". With three weeks left to election day, the onus is on Obama to mount a strong comeback in Tuesday's Long Island debate to undo some of the damage caused by his dismal showing in Denver. Another poor performance is likely to seriously jeopardise his re-election chances. Psaki told reporters the president would be "firm but respectful" in his approach to Romney, suggesting he will not adopt the same strategy as Jode Biden, who was accused of being rude, patronising and disrespectful in his confrontation with his opponent, Paul Ryan, in Kentucky last week. The president has reviewed a video of the Denver debate, studied Romney's policies intensively and is practising hard with the Romney stand-in, former Democratic presidential candidate and senator John Kerry. Hinting at the strategy he will pursue, Psaki accused Romney of "trying to hide from his severely conservative record." Obama was heavily criticised by fellow Democrats of failing in Denver to exploit Romney's perceived weaknesses such as the secret video in which he dismissed 47% of Americans as freeloaders, his approach on women's rights, his record as chief executive of Bain Capital and his unwillingness to provide details of his plans for tax and deficit-reduction. Before the Denver debate, the race had seemed to almost all but over. Since then, Republican activists and enthusiasts have been energised and polls have tightened. If the polls remain unchanged, it is going to an unpredictable finish on November 6. A Washington Post/ABC poll published Monday had Obama on 49% to Romney's 46% among likely voters, statistically a dead heat. The detail showed a big increase in post-debate enthusiasm for Romney, up from 26% five months ago to 59% in the new poll, 11 points of this coming since the Denver debate. According to ABC polling analysts, enthusiasm for Romney is substantially higher than it was for Obama's Republican opponent in 2008, up 30 points. There was some consolation for Obama, enjoying a 13-point increase, up to 42%, since the summer in the number who believe the country is headed in the right direction. His job approval rating is 50%, poor but good enough to win an election on past historical precedent. Political commentators have drawn comparisons with 1984, when Ronald Reagan, after a poor first debate against Walter Mondale, rebounded with a strong second one. The format for the Long Island debate is different from the Denver one. It is billed as town-hall style, with questions taken from the audience rather than put by a moderator. Genuine town hall debates with politicians in front of the public can be exciting, rowdy and unpredictable, but this one will be more organised, with the 80 potential questioners chosen by Gallup. Still, the format requires a skilful approach by the debaters, careful not to be seen as condescending towards real voters, as opposed to journalists. Representatives from the two campaigns combined to express concern over the moderator, CNN journalist, Candy Crowley, a feisty anchorwoman who has said she views her role as asking follow-up questions as required. Debate negotiators from the Obama and Romney camps said that is not how they viewed her role and the agreement had been that questions from her would be limited. Psaki, briefing reporters on Monday, sought to end the minor row by saying Obama will happily take questions from either the audience or the moderator.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Greek officials say friction with creditors means parliament's approval doubtful despite desperate need for cuts-dependent aid Greek officials have admitted that friction with international creditors was such it was unlikely a package of austerity cuts that have been set as the price of further aid would be approved by the Athens parliament before mid-November. At no other time has near-bankrupt Greece so needed the €31.5bn (£25bn) in rescue funds dependent on the measures. With public coffers set to run dry by the end of November, the country could be forced to default on its debt mountain if there are further delays in the disbursement, put on hold since July. The setback on Monday, the latest in four often tumultuous months of tortuous negotiations with the country's "troika" of lenders – the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – has highlighted the difficulty in drafting draconian spending cuts so fiercely opposed by unions and political forces in a country already hit by record levels of unemployment and poverty. "They are pushing us to the absolute brink," said one high-ranking official at the labour ministry. "They don't just want our jacket but our shirt," he said, adding that Greece has already reduced its unit labour costs by a dramatic 15%. With what the state-run TV channel NET called "open fronts" on all the main issues – including demands for up to 15,000 civil servants to be laid off immediately – it is now unlikely that the €13.5bn package of cuts will be approved by the Greek parliament before the next meeting of eurozone finance ministers on 12 November. For the first time since assuming the post in June, Athens' technocrat finance minister, Yiannis Stournaras, looked unusually downbeat as he emerged from talks with the prime minister, Antonis Samaras, and attributed the latest hurdle to the "tremendous amount of work" that the negotiations entail. The conservative leader, whose fragile coalition reached a "basic agreement" on the measures last month, had hoped to attend his first EU summit on Thursday with the talks behind him and the package agreed. In an interview at the weekend, he confidently predicted that "we will have fully completed the agreement on the fiscal and structural prior actions for the disbursement" by the summit. Addressing a business conference in Athens, the socialist Pasok leader, Evangelos Venizelos, said the financial lifeline was crucial for an economy about to enter a sixth year of recession and "for a society that has reached its limits". Around €25bn of the cash injection will be used to recapitalise banks in the hope of re-energising Greece's cash-starved economy. The endless foot-dragging has exacerbated a fiscal and structural reform programme that is already badly off track. Missed targets have produced a "financing gap" that also appears to have added to the pressure of finalising the package. The IMF announced last week that Greece's debt looked set to increase from 170.7% of GDP to nearly 182% in 2013 – despite private sector creditors already taking a huge hit on Greek bonds. The pessimism has added to the difficulty in making headway amid signs that lenders are reluctant to meet demands by the Samaras government for a two-year extension to the fiscal consolidation programme before the country commits to further reforms. Indicative of the frustration the stalled talks have produced, the Swedish finance minister, Anders Borg, raised the spectre of a Greek exit from the eurozone in the coming months. "It's most probable that they will leave. We shouldn't rule out this happening in the next half year," he said, adding that a "Grexit" would not alarm financial markets.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Death toll from tainted steroid medication unchanged at 15 as 15th state is added to list of those to have been affected Nine more people have been diagnosed with fungal meningitis linked to possibly tainted vials of a steroid medication, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday. The total number of cases now stands at 212. The CDC said there were two additional cases of infection in joints after a steroid injection but these had not been confirmed as meningitis, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 214. The death toll from the unprecedented outbreak was unchanged at 15, the CDC said. Pennsylvania was the latest state to report an initial case of meningitis, bringing to 15 the number of states with cases. The nine new cases also included five in Michigan, two in Ohio and one in Minnesota. The outbreak has turned into a major health scandal after a company based in Massachusetts shipped vials that may have been tainted to 23 states and 76 medical facilities. The scare has prompted multiple investigations and the company, New England Compounding Center, has recalled the product and suspended operations.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Actors are calling up hair and makeup to make videos in support of the president – while Romney cancels on The View. Oops In today's political celebrity news: while Mitt Romney cancelled a planned appearance on The View, a show he previously described as "high-risk because of the five women on it, only one is conservative, and four are sharp-tongued and not conservative", the ladies of Hollywood have been busy making endorsement videos for Barack Obama. It's good for us to remember that actors are people too. And if they care about our country enough to call hair and makeup and recite a few lines in front of a camera, we say go for it, good citizens of Los Angeles.
The videos, most of which can be seen on the Barack Obama YouTube channel, range in quality from the sappy, highly produced and musically scored to a couple that I could have shot if I'd hit record on my iPhone. Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria and Scarlett Johansson
VOTE!VOTE! That's what Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria and Scarlett Johansson tell us in a Rob Reiner/Moveon.org release that hit YouTube on Monday. The gist of it is that Mitt Romney is no friend to women. It's a simple spot: 30 seconds, no music, white background, and any directing advice seems to have been limited to "be yourself". For Kerry Washington that means coming across as Olivia Pope in Scandal as she says: "He said he'd overturn Roe v Wade," as if she's talking to the president himself. Scarlett Johansson does natural by wearing jeans and a plaid shirt while Eva Longoria is dressed for the Desperate Housewives reunion. Longoria gets the highest marks for getting out the line, "trying to force women to undergo invasive ultrasounds" with primetime passion in her voice. Rating: two stars This would have been my favorite if it hadn't been 1.17 minutes long, which can be an eternity on YouTube. Everything about it is amateur and its lack of pretension makes it appealing. Olivia Munn, or Sloan Sabbith in The Newsroom as we currently know her, went to Virginia to make this video to remind Virginians that voter registration ends today. Not sure how effective it'll be as the spot was only put up on Friday, and so far it's only been viewed 3,569 times – four of those by me. But worth watching for the hand-drawn picture of the unicorn. Rating: four stars This is the awards-show video. Theme of President Obama being the only choice for us, he loves women, he's the man. Lots of stars, sappy music, soft focus, and clever production tricks done on someone's Mac. Olivia Wilde, Julianna Margulies, Julianne Moore, J Lo, Gloria Steinem (just to prove we mean business), Beyoncé – yes, Beyoncé. And Padma Lakshmi. Jane Lynch is in there. Everyone wearing just enough makeup to look natural in high def. Enough sincerity to make your laptop explode. Rating: one star Ohio is a swing state and Natalie's mom grew up in Cincinnati. Her grandma still lives there, which means you should vote for Obama. I liked this video because it had nice shots of Portman backstage and onstage speaking at pro-Obama events. So it felt "real". Also short. Rating: three stars "Black people... went still every year back again and again to try to vote," says Maya Angelou. "Imagine one vote – your vote might make the difference. Don't hesitate, don't sit on the sidelines and don't regret." OK Angelou is not an actress, but she is the coolest. Rating: four stars No, YOU are a powerful force, Alicia. Keys goes to Philly to get out the vote wearing a cool brown trilby. The video shows her tweeting (and her tweets) from the road. She is friendly and relaxed to the voters she meets and everywhere she is surrounded by fans. Not sure if this is a Barack Obama or an Alicia Keys promo, but who cares? "He definitely gets it," she tells a packed auditorium who roar as if she's just belted out Fallin'. Rating: five stars
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Athens officials say it's highly improbable that the €13.5bn package of EU-IMF mandated budget cuts will be put to parliament before November
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Lakhdar Brahimi calls on Iran to persuade President Assad to implement ceasefire as UN appeals for halt to arms flow Iran has been asked to persuade the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to implement a ceasefire later this month in tandem with an appeal by the UN to halt the flow of weapons to both sides in the country's bloody conflict. Lakhdar Brahimi, the envoy for the UN and Arab League, used a weekend visit to Iran, a loyal ally of Damascus, to appeal for help in securing a ceasefire to mark Eid al-Adha, the four-day Muslim holiday later this month. In Baghdad on Monday he called on the Iraqi government to use its influence, while Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, called for a speedy "political solution". Brahimi said a ceasefire would "help create an environment that would allow a political process to develop", said his spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi. But Fawzi denied a report that plans were afoot to send a 3,000-strong UN peacekeeping force to Syria, drawn from an existing UN contingent in south Lebanon. EU officials dismissed the idea as far-fetched, because it would first require a durable ceasefire and moves towards a political transition — both of which have proved elusive over the 19 months of the crisis. It is clearly being discussed, though. Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al Thani, said any such force would have to be "well-armed". The Syrian Network for Human Rights reported 69 people were killed in Syria on Monday, mostly in Damascus. Brahimi, who replaced Kofi Annan last month, was due to travel on to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, his latest stop on a regional tour aimed at forging a solution to a conflict which has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives. Last week, the Algerian diplomat met leaders in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the two Sunni states which have been the biggest supporters of the Syrian opposition. Syria, meanwhile, denied it was using cluster bombs to crush the uprising. Human Rights Watch accused it of using the banned weapons and produced video evidence. Russia denied it had been supplying the munitions to Syria. In Luxembourg, EU foreign ministers announced a 19th round of sanctions to freeze the assets of two Syrian firms linked to chemical and biological weapons programmes and more than two dozen people from Assad's entourage. Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, described the punitive measures as "a clear warning to those close to the regime that if they back Assad and commit acts of violence and torture against civilians, the international community will hold them accountable". Diplomats said one new element in the EU's approach was aid to "civil society" organisations on the ground inside Syria, part of a shift away from supporting the external opposition. The local co-ordination committees (LCCs) are likely to receive new help, especially in areas that are no longer under the permanent control of the Damascus government. It would, said Hague, "help build essential capacity to enable a peaceful transition". New announcements are expected shortly. In another development that highlighted the international complexity of the crisis, the New York Times reported that most weapons supplied to Syrian rebels by Qatar and Saudi Arabia were reaching jihadi-type or Salafi groups rather than the Free Syrian Army, which is backed by the mainstream opposition. A new report by the International Crisis Group, a respected thinktank, found that Syrian rebel groups were playing up their Islamist credentials by growing Salafi-type beards, for example, as a ruse to secure arms from these conservative Gulf-based donors. Groups with no ideological affiliation had begun to adopt the symbols, rhetoric – and facial hair – associated with Salafism for that purpose.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Athens officials say it's highly improbable that the €13.5bn package of EU-IMF mandated budget cuts will be put to parliament before November
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Renewed urgency comes as president faces tight polls and high expectations from supporters to deliver a better performance Barack Obama's campaign team Monday promised that a better-prepared and more combative president will turn up for Tuesday's vital debate with Mitt Romney as polls showed the two tied in a dead heat in the race for the White House. "He's energised, and I expect he will make a passionate case," Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters at his debate preparation camp in Williamsburg, Virginia. Psaki acknowledged that the polls had tightened and the race is now "very, very close". With three weeks left to election day, the onus is on Obama to mount a strong comeback in Tuesday's Long Island debate to undo some of the damage caused by his dismal showing in the first of the presidential debates in Denver a fortnight ago. Another poor performance is likely to seriously jeopardise his re-election chances. The sense of urgency in the Obama campaign camp was captured in an appeal to supporters sent out in Obama's name for more campaign donations. "What we do over the next 22 days will determine not just the next four years, but what this country looks like for decades to come. That's what I'll be fighting for up on that stage tomorrow night," he said. He needs to lift Democrats' morale, building on running-mate Joe Biden's aggressive showing on the vice-presidential debate last Thursday, and win over floating voters. In the run-up to the first debate, Obama seemed uninterested, finding excuses to avoid preparing, including a visit to the Hoover Dam near his debate camp in Nevada. This time round, there have been no side-trips, golf or similar distractions, other than walks in the grounds of his resort hideaway, according to his aides. Psaki told reporters the president would be "firm but respectful" in his approach to Romney, suggesting he will not adopt the same strategy as Biden, who was accused of being rude, patronising and disrespectful in his confrontation with his opponent, Paul Ryan. The president has reviewed a video of the Denver debate, studied intensively Romney's policies and is practising hard with the Romney stand-in, former Democratic presidential candidate and senator John Kerry. Hinting at the strategy he will pursue, Psaki accused Romney of "trying to hide from his severely conservative record". Obama was heavily criticised by fellow Democrats of failing in Denver to exploit Romney's perceived weaknesses such as the secret video in which he dismissed 47% of Americans as freeloaders, his approach on women's rights, his record as chief executive of Bain Capital and his unwillingness to provide details of his plans for tax and deficit-reduction. Before the Denver debate, the race had seemed to almost all but over. Since then, Republican activists and enthusiasts have been energised and polls have tightened. If the polls remain unchanged, it is going to an unpredictable finish on November 6. A Washington Post/ABC poll published Monday had Obama on 49% to Romney's 46% among likely voters, statistically a dead heat. The detail showed a big increase in post-debate enthusiasm for Romney, up from 26% five months ago to 59% in the new poll, 11 points of this coming since the Denver debate. According to ABC polling analysts, enthusiasm for Romney is substantially higher than it was for Obama's Republican opponent in 2008, up 30 points. There was some consolation for Obama, enjoying a 13-point increase, up to 42%, since the summer in the number who believe the country is headed in the right direction. His job approval rating is 50%, poor but good enough to win an election on past historical precedent. A Politico poll published Monday put Obama on 49% to Romney on 48%. The most significant shift over the past fortnight has been in the eight swing states, where Romney has largely eroded Obama's poll leads. A Public Policy Polling survey published Monday put Romney up 1% in Florida, the biggest of the swing states. Romney has risen five points since last month in the state. PPP also puts Romney up two points in another swing state, North Carolina, on 49% to Obama's 47%. In Ohio, one of Obama's last lines of defence if Florida, North Carolina and other east coast swing states fall to Romney, Obama maintains a five-point lead, according to PPP. It has Obama on 51% to Romney's 46%, little changed from a fortnight ago when it was 49% to 45%. Political commentators have drawn comparisons with 1984, when Ronald Reagan, after a poor first debate against Walter Mondale, rebounded with a strong second one. Obama has come back strongly after setbacks before, particularly in 2007, during the battle for the Democratic nomination, when his aides and donors criticised him for his seeming apathy, and again in 2008 when a row over remarks by his then Chicago pastor critical of the US threatened to end his political career. The format for the Long Island debate is different from the Denver one. It is billed as town-hall style, with questions taken from the audience rather than put by a moderator. Genuine town hall debates with politicians in front of the public can be exciting, rowdy and unpredictable, but this one will be more organised, with the 80 potential questioners chosen by Gallup. Still, the format requires a skilful approach by the debaters, careful not to be seen as condescending towards real voters, as opposed to journalists. Representatives from the two campaigns combined to express concern over the moderator, CNN journalist, Candy Crowley, a feisty anchorwoman who has said she views her role as asking follow-up questions as required. Debate negotiators from the Obama and Romney camps said that is not how they viewed her role and the agreement had been that questions from her would be limited. Psaki, briefing reporters on Monday, sought to end the minor row by saying Obama will happily take questions from either the audience or the moderator.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Schoolgirl shot by Taliban received at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, the primary centre for UK military casualties Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban because she campaigned for the right to be educated, arrived in the UK on Monday to be cared for at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital. "Doctors ... believe she has a chance of making a good recovery on every level," said Dr Dave Rosser, the hospital's medical director, adding her treatment and rehabilitation could take months. He told reporters she had not yet been assessed by British medics but said she would not have been brought to the UK at all if her chances recovery were not good. Six days after a gunman clambered into the back of a van full of her classmates and shot her from point blank range, the 14-year-old landed at Birmingham airport after flying by on a special air ambulance from Pakistan. Malala travelled to the UK on her own, but her family may follow later. The Queen Elizabeth hospital is also home to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, the primary receiving unit for military casualties returned from overseas. "Malala's bravery in standing up for the right of all young girls in Pakistan to an education is an example to us all," said the foreign secretary, William Hague. A spokesman for Pakistan's military said the girl would require "prolonged care to fully recover from the physical and psychological effects of the trauma that she has received". That is likely to include the partial rebuilding of her skull and "intensive neuro-rehabilitation". While in the UK she will also be safe from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the militant group that has claimed responsibility for shooting her and which has vowed to try and kill her again if she recovers. The attempted murder of the young peace activist sparked worldwide condemnation and sent shockwaves through Pakistani society. Politicians have been forced to make strong public stands against the TTP, tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets and journalists daring to reflect the public mood have been warned of planned reprisals by militants. Efforts to save the life of a young girl who rose to prominence in 2009 after writing a BBC blog describing the terror of living under Taliban insurgency in Pakistan's Swat valley have already seen her shuttled between hospitals. She was initially airlifted from Swat to Peshawar, where surgeons spent three hours removing a bullet that had become lodged near her spinal cord. Her injury was not instantly fatal because she ducked just before the gunman fired, apparently ensuring the bullet missed much of her brain. She was later moved to a hospital in Rawalpindi, the garrison town close to the Pakistani capital. Although she has been unconscious throughout her ordeal, relying on a ventilator to breathe, she has received bedside visits from some of the most powerful people in the land, including the prime minister and the army chief. The military has described her recovery as satisfactory and said she was able to move her legs and hands several days ago when her sedatives were reduced. It has not said whether she suffered any brain damage or other permanent trauma. Offers of assistance have poured in from across the world, including from paediatric surgeons at Johns Hopkins University's school of medicine in Baltimore, in the US. However, it was decided on Sunday that she should be moved to the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham. Moazzam Khan, spokesman for the Pakistani ministry of foreign affairs, said the decision not to accept the US offer of help had been taken by her doctors for purely medical reasons. "Several other countries had also offered treatment, and the US was among them," he said. "But due to the conditions of the patient and keeping in view the distance and the hours of travelling Britain was preferred." The Queen Elizabeth is one of Britain's 16 major trauma centres specialising in treating severe gunshot wounds and major head injuries. The Foreign Office said the Islamabad government is bearing the costs of transportation and treatment. Gordon Brown, the UN special envoy for global education, launched an I am Malala petition on Monday. "Today, sadly, 32 million girls are not going to school, and it is time to fight harder for Malala's dream to come true," he said. He added he would hand the petition to Asif Ali Zardari when he visited the Pakistani president next month and that it would also be given to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. Police have arrested at least three suspects in connection with the attack but the two gunmen who carried out the shooting remain at large. The biggest rally yet showing solidarity with Malala was held in Karachi on Sunday with an estimated 10,000 people. Although some politicians have been criticised for not specifically naming the TTP in their otherwise damning statements about the incident, many analysts have been impressed by the resolve of Pakistan's leaders. Last week, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the powerful army chief, released a statement in which he called Yousafzai an "icon of courage and hope" and vowed to fight against terror "regardless of the cost". There has even been speculation that the current mood of national outrage may lead to military operations to try and clear militants out of North Waziristan, an area near the border of Afghanistan where the US has long demanded action. On Monday however, Rehman Malik, the country's interior minister, said there were no such plans currently.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Speed daters would be surprised to learn concept based on work by two academics awarded Nobel prize for economics How to find a mate is one of the oldest problems in the world and one of many modern answers is to go on a speed dating evening. But most speed daters would be surprised to learn that the concept was based on academic work by an economist and a mathematician who have been honoured for their pioneering work with the Nobel prize for economics. Fifty years ago, Lloyd Shapley became the godfather of modern matchmaking when he wrote a paper in which he sought to answer the question of how individuals in a group of people could be paired up when all had different views on who might be their best partner. His work was later developed by Alvin Roth, who found other practical uses for the approach, including matching kidney donors with patients, and to make sure that students were allocated one of the schools of their choice. The American academics will share the $1.2m annual prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and were hailed for their work on ensuring economic agents found the right match in a market where price was not the deciding factor. Roth, 60, is a professor at Harvard Business School, but currently is a visiting professor at Stanford University. Shapley, 89, is a professor emeritus at University of California Los Angeles. Shapley is the son of renowned astronomer Harlow Shapley, whose work early in the 20th century included helping estimate the true size of the Milky Way galaxy. "Now, I'm ahead of my father," Shapley said. "He got other prizes ... But he did not get a Nobel prize." But the man who helped to develop game theory in the 1950s and 1960s added on hearing about the prize: "I consider myself a mathematician and the award is for economics. I never, never in my life took a course in economics." Roth, 60, used Shapley's work for a series of empirical studies that led to the redesign of institutions, including founding the New England Programme for Kidney Exchange in 2005. The work is said by other economists to have saved lives. Roth said it would take time to absorb the news having been woken by a call from Stockholm at 3.30am and he was planning to lecture as usual. "But I imagine that they'll be listening with renewed interest," he said. "I think this will make market design more visible to economists and people who can benefit from market design." The economics prize, officially called the Sveriges Riksbank prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968. It was not part of the original group of awards set out in the dynamite tycoon's 1895 will. The committee responsible said the prize was "for an outstanding example of economic engineering". Shapley was part of a four-man team that invented the board game So Long Sucker in 1950. The four-person bargaining contest involves the players making commitments they cannot keep and which have to be reneged upon in order for the game to be won.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Five defendants calm at legal proceedings plagued by months of delay as trial still estimated to be at least a year away Five Guantánamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks were back before a military tribunal on Monday for pre-trial hearings after months of delay. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – the alleged mastermind of 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in US history – and his four co-defendants sat quietly at the defence tables, watched by military guards. Defendant Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi responded to the judge's questions about his request for additional legal counsel, according to the Associated Press, before the hearing was adjourned. The calm start to the proceedings was in sharp contrast to the previous hearing in May, which was marred by protests, outbursts and the defendants' refusal to answer questions from the judge. It lasted 13 hours. The hearings, in Camp Justice, the war court compound at the US naval base in Cuba, are expected to focus on secrecy and transparency, but will cover a range of issues from whether the prison camps can force the men to attend their own trials to what they can wear in court, the Miami Herald reported. The hearings are part of the legal proceedings required to move the case to trial, estimated to be at least a year away. They were scheduled for August but delayed by tropical storm Isaac. Mohammed, a Pakistani citizen from Kuwait, who attended college in North Carolina, has told military officials that he planned the 9/11 attacks "from A to Z" and was involved in about 30 other terrorist plots. He has said, among other things, that he personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The other defendants in addition to Ahmad al-Hawsawi are Ramzi Binalshibh; Walid bin Attash; and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali. All five could face the death penalty if convicted. The five men were in the custody of the CIA for four years before being brought to the base for detention and trial. One of the key issues at this week's hearing will be how much the men's lawyers and the wider world will be allowed to learn about what happened during that time. The government argues that whatever the men say about their time in the CIA's secret network of "black sites" is classified at the highest levels. Prosecutors have asked the judge to approve what is known as a protective order that is intended to prevent the release of classified information during the eventual trial of the five. Lawyers for the defendants say the proposed rules will adversely affect their defence. The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a challenge to the a protective order, says the restrictions will prevent the public from learning what happened to Mohammed and his co-defendants during several years of CIA confinement and interrogation. The order requires the court to employ a 40-second delay during legal proceedings, so that reporters, who watch behind soundproof glass, can be stopped from hearing details of the CIA's classified rendition and detention programme from officials, lawyers or the defendants themselves. Hina Shamsi, an ACLU attorney who will be arguing against the protective order during the pre-trial hearing, said: "What we are challenging is the censorship of the defendants' testimony based on their personal knowledge of the government's torture and detention of them." The order, which is also being challenged by a coalition of media organizations, is overly broad because it would "classify the defendants own knowledge, thoughts and experience," she said. "It's a truly extraordinary and chilling proposal that the government is asking the court to accept," Shamsi said. In court papers, military prosecutors argue that the trial requires additional security because the accused have personal knowledge of classified information such as interrogation techniques and knowledge about which other countries provided assistance in their capture. "Each of the accused is in the unique position of having had access to classified intelligence sources and methods," the prosecution says in court papers. "The government, like the defense, must protect that classified information from disclosure." Brigadier general Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor for the military commissions, said on Sunday that the security precautions are necessary to prevent the release information that could harm US intelligence operations or personnel around the world, and not to prevent embarrassing the government or to cover up wrongdoing. "Our government's sources and methods are not an open book," Martins told the Associated Press. Some details of the five defendants' treatment are public knowledge. The CIA's declassified documents record Mohammed being waterboarded 186 times. In May, David Nevin, Mohammed's defence attorney, told reporters after the 13-hour hearing: "The government wants to kill Mr Mohammed. They want to extinguish the last eyewitness to his torture so that he can never speak about it." The May hearings followed a failed attempt to try the five men in Guantánamo in 2008. Families of 9/11 victims have been invited to watch the pre-trial hearings in military facilities in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland. Seven family members were viewing the Guantánamo proceedings on Monday via closed-circuit television at Fort Hamilton, a base in Brooklyn. In addition to 9/11 families and first responders, the general public can watch the proceedings at Fort Meade, in Maryland.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Iran faces more punitive measures against banking and energy sectors as EU tries to close loopholes over nuclear programme The EU has tightened its sanctions against Iran by imposing stricter measures targeting the country's banking, trade and energy sectors. The new punitive package, which includes an embargo on Iranian natural gas, was agreed at the EU foreign affairs council in Luxembourg on Monday. Its aim is to close major loopholes that allow Iran to circumvent sanctions and secure funds for its disputed nuclear programme. "The EU has today increased the pressure on Iran through another substantial package of sanctions," said Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, who along with his French and German counterparts called for tighter sanctions last month. "These are a direct response to Iran's continued refusal to take concrete steps to address our concerns about its nuclear programme." The west suspects a military dimension to Tehran's nuclear activities, but Iran has remained adamant in saying the programme is only for peaceful purposes. The White House welcomed the new EU sanctions, with press secretary Jay Carney saying: "Rallying the world to isolate Iran and increasing the pressure on its leadership so that they stop pursuing a nuclear weapon has been a top priority for the president." The move "further strengthens international efforts to pressure and isolate the Iranian government", Carney added. Six UN security council resolutions call on Iran to halt enriching uranium, address questions about its nuclear programme and be more transparent. Despite this, Iran has defied sanctions and threats of an Israeli military strike by continuing to enrich uranium. Meanwhile, talks between Tehran and world's major powers have reached stalemate. "[Iran] is enriching uranium on a scale that has no plausible civilian justification and increasing its enrichment capacity at a heavily protected site that it originally sought to keep secret," Hague said. "Today we have taken steps to prohibit financial transactions with Iranian banks, to intensify restrictions in the energy sector and to limit some areas of trade, in order to choke off revenue that Iran is using for its nuclear programme, prevent it from accessing materials for the programme, and prevent it from circumventing existing sanctions." The EU has imposed an embargo on the imports of Iranian oil – among other measures – since July. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, addressing crowds in the north-eastern city of Shirvan on Monday, said enemies would not be able "to disrupt the calmness in the country". Last week, he described western sanctions as "barbaric" and "a war against a nation". The new banking measures prohibit any transactions with Iranians banks and financial institutions unless specifically authorised or exempted, such as for humanitarian purposes. Iran will also face a ban imposed on the purchase, import and transport of its natural gas. The sanctions prohibit the construction of oil tankers for Iran, the flagging and classification of Iranian oil tankers and cargo vessels. Hague warned "the choices being made by Iran's leaders are already having a profound impact," a possible reference to Iran's recent financial problems. Earlier this month, its currency, the rial, was sent into a tailspin, hitting an all-time low. Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, reacted to the news by drawing a comparison between "the important principle" the EU had adopted and the one the UN had settle on with sanctions against Iraq. "With Iraq, that of course ended up with 500,000 Iraqi children dead, resulted in the shortage of medicine, and other needs, and ended up ultimately to forceful invasion and war.". Referring to continuing pressure on Iran from the west, Parsi said: "There's nothing peaceful about economic warfare at the end of the day and particularly when the embargo is as broad as this is, everything is forbidden unless explicitly permitted, that's the opposite of smart sanctions, when you don't have smart sanctions, you have economic warfare "The EU says this is aimed at getting Iran back to negotiate more seriously, to be frank it appears not to be about getting Iran to negotiate seriously but rather getting Iran to capitulate quickly."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Athens officials are now openly saying it is highly improbable that the €13.5bn package of EU-IMF mandated budget cuts will be put to parliament before November
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | After a decade spent with cold marvels such as The Polar Express, Zemeckis is back to adult drama, giving Denzel Washington his meatiest role since Training Day, making a fine end to the New York film festival When we first meet Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) in Robert Zemeckis's Flight, he is pulling himself from the wreckage of a hotel room decorated with minibar bottles, cigarette butts and the underwear of the flight attendant lying next to him. This being a work day, Whip perks himself up with a line of cocaine, dons his captain's uniform, strolls down the walkway and straps himself into the cockpit of the passenger jet he is flying out of Orlando, bound for Atlanta. Things get a little bumpy along the way: his tailplane snaps, sending the plane into a nosedive, but Whip, by the same law that allows drunken sailors to walk in straight line on a keeling ship, manages to crashland the plane, losing only six lives in the process. He flies upside down for part of the journey, but still. This is Denzel Washington we're talking here. Guy could find his centre of gravity in a black hole. The landing itself is as rivet-loosening as you might expect of the director who put us through a similar nosedive in Cast Away. I knew Zemeckis had outdone himself when I saw, in a touching moment of sympathy for the cabin attendant, an entire row of heads in front of me leaning hard left. Having flayed our nerves, the director then sets us down for – well, for what exactly? As a toxicology report came to light with blood-alcohol counts that would put down a buffalo, I readied myself for a courtroom drama, complete with hammered gavels and surprise character-witnesses. But the airline kills the toxicology report easily enough, and Whip holes up in a dilapidated farmhouse with a stack of bourbon bottles: ah, an alcoholism case study and one man's battle to tell the truth. Then the TV crews start crowding Whip's lawn, at which point I finally put a tick next to "Gumpian demystification of the American hero in the age of cable news". The film is a little of all of the above, which perhaps explains its 140-minute running time. I could have done with the Christianists and crazies, with their god-talk and chatter about the machinations of fate – a favourite Zemeckis theme, although he made the same point much better with a DeLorean in Back to the Future. His early films were cackling entertainments that moved too fast for you to notice the blackness of their humour – like a hi-tech Preston Sturges. That's what made Forrest Gump so hard to bear: half of that movie was a comic-absurdist take on American history as retold by an idiot not too far from Kurt Vonnegut's heart. But then Zemeckis fell in love with his idiot, swept the Oscars and that was that. After a decade spent tooling around with cold marvels such as The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol, Zemeckis's return to life-action film-making is being hailed as The Kind of Adult Drama They Don't Make Anymore. Flight is more entertaining and more cunning than that, its black humour buoyed by punchy Rolling Stones tracks and an ebullient cameo from John Goodman. Next to Gump, the film has the moral force of a George Steiner essay, but what lends it that force are not the carefully calibrated moral ambiguities of the script, but the bruised, defiant soul that appears to us in the form of Denzel Washington. He's barely off-screen. Flight is a star vehicle, rolled and inverted just like that plane – but then Washington is probably the only star of his stature capable of flipping our expectations on their back without a wink to reassure us that it's really him. This is probably his meatiest role since Training Day and he bites down deep. From Whip's cool amid the chaos of that cockpit to his darting glance when the word "toxicology" first comes up, Washington gives us all this man's cocksureness, his selfishness, belligerence and flashes of panic, safe in the knowledge that he has only to walk down a corridor using that patented Washington roll – as if he runs on lubricated ball bearings – and we will be with him, every step of the way. Rating: 3/5
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Bruce Springsteen will be hitting the road once more in support of Barack Obama. But can rock stars really make much difference in the brutal world of politics? Just when he thought he was out, they pull him back in. Having told the New Yorker that he was going to sit this election out, Bruce Springsteen has decided to saddle up once more in support of President Barack Obama's re-election bid. His first appearance will be alongside Bill Clinton at a rally in Parma, Ohio this Thursday. Like Clinton, whose convention speech thrilled the faithful last month, Springsteen is well-equipped to inject some emotional heat into a somewhat chilly and apologetic Obama campaign. In this area Springsteen knows failure as well as success. While 2008 was a dream election for the left in the US, Springsteen was also the star attraction on the 2004 Vote for Change tour in aid of John Kerry. Not one of the swing states visited by the tour changed direction as a result and George Bush returned to the White House. REM's Peter Buck has recalled talking to Springsteen's guitarist Steve Van Zandt backstage: "We both said: 'Y'know, I'm glad we're doing this, but it's not going to do anything. Kerry's losing.'" So you can see why Springsteen hesitated this time. In campaigning for broader issues, you can claim to be nudging public opinion in the right direction, however slowly, but the brutal calculus of elections allows only for winners and losers. It takes courage to risk being numbered among the latter. Rock music's first concerted effort to influence an election ended in the most crushing defeat of all. Such marquee names as Carole King, Grateful Dead and Simon and Garfunkel played benefit shows for anti-war liberal George McGovern in 1972 – Neil Young even recorded a single for the candidate, War Song – and the Republican Richard Nixon still won by a historic landslide. The cherished youth vote, expanded by the lowering in 1971 of the voting age from 21 to 18, failed to materialise in McGovern's favour. So much for the power of rock music to win hearts and minds, you might think. And yet Nixon had been troubled by John Lennon's plans to stage an anti-incumbent tour (cancelled due to his fight against deportation), so somebody was taking it seriously. Many disconsolate McGovern supporters, including Lennon and Young, steered away from politics for years afterwards. In Britain, the same happened to Paul Weller after Margaret Thatcher's re-election in 1987. Weller had stifled his suspicion of party politics in order to add his star power to the Red Wedge campaign in support of Neil Kinnock's Labour party, and his political commitment never recovered from Red Wedge's failure. "Before the Wedge, the Style Council had done a lot independently, raised a lot of money in benefits," he told Q magazine. "After the Wedge, we were so disillusioned it all stopped. We were totally cynical about all of it." Weller was simply too idealistic for electoral politics. That role requires the pragmatism to understand what is achievable, the strength to endure defeat and the humility to know that campaigning musicians aggravate as many people as they inspire. "[Political] capital diminishes the more often you do it," Springsteen admitted to the New Yorker. The principled yet pragmatic Springsteen must know he has a tricky task ahead. Unseating a president you hate is much more energising than re-electing one who has disappointed you. It's notable that many of the musicians who were shouting their support for Obama from the rooftops in 2008 will now only express approval if prompted by interviewers. Many have waited until late in the day before stepping forward, although Springsteen is not alone: a rally in Los Angeles last week featured Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi and Katy Perry. Perhaps the horrific prospect of a Romney-Ryan White House has only just sunk in. Jay-Z and Beyoncé hosted a fundraising party in New York in September for 100 guests who paid $40,000 (£25,000) each; under new campaign finance laws, perhaps the most practically useful thing celebrities can do is help fill the war chest. Springsteen's ability to affect the outcome is limited. No matter how passionately he sings Badlands, he has little chance of stopping white blue-collar men from backing Mitt Romney 2:1. They are more likely to see the singer as another celebrity liberal than as a fellow son of toil. But in a polarised country with few undecideds, ballot-box success rests more on getting out the vote than on winning over swing voters. Maybe Springsteen saw Obama's low-voltage debate performance and thought the base needed firing up in a hurry. An inspiring performance might just provide the visceral jolt that propels someone to the polling station on 6 November, but if Obama loses, then Springsteen is wise enough and tough enough not to take it personally. On the billion-dollar stage of a presidential election, even the biggest celebrities must settle for supporting roles.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US mobile carrier given much-needed cash boost as Softbank makes biggest overseas acquisition by a Japanese company The third largest mobile operator in the US is falling into Japanese hands, in the latest multibillion deal in an increasingly concentrated industry. Japanese telecoms company Softbank will buy up to 70% of Sprint Nextel for $20bn, giving the US company more firepower to compete with its larger rivals. After days of heated speculation, Softbank said on Monday it would buy $8bn of shares directly from Sprint and an additional $12.1bn of shares in the market. It expects to complete the deal by mid-2013. For Sprint, the deal represents a much-needed injection of cash. The US mobile operator has a debt pile of $14.5bn and is struggling in a market dominated by bigger players. Sprint chief executive Dan Hesse, who will remain chief executive of Softbank's new US subsidiary, New Sprint, said: "There couldn't be a better time for this infusion of cash." He said the funds could be used to grow the business "both internally and externally." Macquarie analyst Kevin Smithen said: "[It's] not a bad outcome for a company many investors told us was going bankrupt as late as March." Sprint's shares have risen 15% since it confirmed it was in advanced talks with Softbank last Thursday. The deal will also transform Softbank – with about 90m subscribers – into a global wireless player to rival Vodafone or T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom. The combined group would also benefit from the increased scale in buying handsets and telecoms equipment. But investors were unimpressed, sending Softbank's shares down 20% since the news broke. The biggest concern is the possible debt burden Softbank will be taking on. The Japanese company undertook a leveraged buyout of the Japanese arm of Vodafone in 2006, and still has more than $10bn of debt on its books. Critics add that it would also be entering a market where it has no experience. Softbank chief executive Masayoshi Son said he understood that some people considered the move too risky, but said: "For us to not challenge ourselves may be an even greater risk." Son built Softbank into Japan's third-largest mobile carrier by revenue in just a few years, partly by consolidating smaller players. The deal is the biggest overseas acquisition by a Japanese company, and is part of a growing trend for business owners keen to expand beyond their saturated market. Japanese companies have been buying overseas assets at a record pace – spending more than $65bn so far this year, according to data provider Dealogic – fuelled by a strong yen and cheap borrowing costs.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Germany's Wolfgang Schäuble has insisted that Greece will not default, after Sweden's finance minister suggested a Grexit was just months away.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Barack Obama and Mitt Romney finalise their debate preparation as polls show Obama clinging to narrow lead
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow how the day unfolded after international envoy appealed to Iran to help secure a ceasefire in Syria
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 100,000 people expected to line route from airport to Royal Palace for return of body after ex-monarch's death in Beijing Norodom Sihanouk, the former king of Cambodia who was a towering figure in the country's politics through half a century of war, genocide and upheaval, has died aged 89. Sihanouk saw Cambodia transform from colony to kingdom, US-backed regime to Khmer Rouge killing field and foreign-occupied land to guerrilla war zone, and finally to a fragile experiment with democracy. He abdicated the throne in 2004, citing his poor health. He had been getting medical treatment in China since January and had a variety of illnesses, including colon cancer, diabetes and hypertension. Prince Sisowath Thomico, a royal family member who also was Sihanouk's assistant, said the former king suffered a heart attack at a hospital in Beijing on Monday. "His death was a great loss to Cambodia," he said. Sihanouk had dedicated his life "for the sake of his entire nation, country and for the Cambodian people". Sihanouk's successor, Norodom Sihamoni, flew with the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, to Beijing to retrieve the body. State flags flew at half-mast. Officials said they expected as many as 100,000 people to line the route from the airport to the Royal Palace for the return of Sihanouk's body. In January, Sihanouk requested that he be cremated in the Cambodian and Buddhist tradition, asking that his ashes be put in an urn, preferably made of gold, and placed in a stupa at the Royal Palace.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President says poll proves he has people's support as United Russia party triumphs amid low turnout and fraud claims A day after candidates loyal to Vladimir Putin swept to victory in regional elections, the president hailed the result as proof that Russia's citizens supported him. Opposition activists alleged widespread fraud in the Sunday's poll, in which candidates from Putin's United Russia party won all five gubernatorial races and most elections for local parliaments. But a bigger problem proved to be voter apathy, with turnout nearing record lows. Putin, meeting with Russia's election chief on Monday, thanked voters for the result. "For me, the elections results are not unexpected," he said. "I think it's yet another step that confirms voters' intention to support the current institutions of power and the development of the Russian state." The elections, held in regions throughout Russia, were the first since Putin returned to the presidency in May amid unprecedented protests against the longtime leader's continuing rule. They were also the first to be held since Russia returned to the practice of electing governors – which Putin banned in 2004 as he moved to centralise control. Dmitry Medvedev, now prime minister, brought back the elections as one of his parting moves as president earlier this year – a move seen as an attempt to appease growing opposition among the urban middle classes. Putin added a so-called "filter" to the practice, leaving the Kremlin an outlet for control. The opposition shared videos of ballot-stuffing and reports of so-called "carousels" – vans driven from poll to poll so that paid voters could cast their vote more than once. Golos, an independent vote monitoring organisation, said it received 850 reports of polling violations. Yevgenia Chirikova, an opposition activist who lost the race for mayor of the Moscow suburb of Khimki, said she would file several law suits to contest the result. Opposition activists threw their support behind Chirikova, an outspoken environmental campaigner who picked up about 20% of the vote. They remained largely silent on other electoral contests, a stark contrast to their large-scale agitation in the runup to national parliamentary elections late last year and the presidential vote in March. The movement has instead turned inward, holding a series of debates leading up to the election later this month of a "co-ordinating council" that is due to be its governing body. Turnout was low, with less than 15% of the electorate in the far eastern regions of Kamchatka and Primorye voting, and just 28% in Khimki.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President says poll proves he has people's support as United Russia party triumphs amid low turnout and fraud claims Vladimir Putin has hailed victories by his supporters in regional elections as proof that Russia's citizens support him. Opposition activists alleged widespread fraud in Sunday's polls, in which candidates from Putin's United Russia party won all five races for governor and most elections for local parliaments. But a bigger problem was voter apathy, with turnout nearing record lows. Putin, meeting Russia's election chief on Monday, thanked voters for the result. "For me, the elections results are not unexpected," he said. "I think it's yet another step that confirms voters' intention to support the current institutions of power and the development of the Russian state." The elections, held in regions throughout Russia, were the first since Putin returned to the presidency in May amid unprecedented protests against the longtime leader's continuing rule. They were also the first to be held since Russia returned to the practice of electing governors – which Putin banned in 2004 as he moved to centralise control. Dmitry Medvedev, now prime minister, brought back the elections as one of his parting moves as president earlier this year – a move seen as an attempt to appease growing opposition among the urban middle classes. Putin added a so-called "filter" to the practice, leaving the Kremlin an outlet for control. The opposition shared videos of ballot-stuffing and reports of so-called "carousels" – vans driven from poll to poll so that paid voters could cast their vote more than once. Golos, an independent vote monitoring organisation, said it received 850 reports of polling violations. Yevgenia Chirikova, an opposition activist who lost the race for mayor of the Moscow suburb of Khimki, said she would file several law suits to contest the result. Opposition activists threw their support behind Chirikova, an outspoken environmental campaigner who picked up about 20% of the vote. They remained largely silent on other electoral contests, a stark contrast to their large-scale agitation in the runup to national parliamentary elections late last year and the presidential vote in March. The movement has instead turned inward, holding a series of debates leading up to the election later this month of a "co-ordinating council" that is due to be its governing body. Turnout was low, with less than 15% of the electorate in the far eastern regions of Kamchatka and Primorye voting, and just 28% in Khimki.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Prime minister and Scotland's first minister seal agreement in Edinburgh after months of negotiations David Cameron and Alex Salmond have sealed a deal granting the Scottish government the power to hold a referendum on independence. The prime minister and Scotland's first minister signed the agreement during a meeting at St Andrews House in Edinburgh. The deal, dubbed the Edinburgh agreement, follows months of negotiations. Private meetings between the two governments have covered contentious issues about the question on the ballot paper. Proposals for a second question on further devolution short of independence were firmly opposed by the UK government. The negotiations were led by Scotland's deputy first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and the Scottish secretary, Michael Moore. Cameron said: "I always wanted to show respect to the people of Scotland. They voted for a party that wanted to have a referendum. I've made that referendum possible and made sure it's decisive, it's legal and it's fair, and I think that's right for the people of Scotland." Asked what he had got in return for giving Salmond control of both the date and who votes, he replied: "What we have is what I always wanted, which is one single question, not two questions, not devo max, a very simple single question that has to be put before the end of 2014 so we end the uncertainty. "That for me was always the key. Now we've dealt with the process, we should get on with the real argument, and I passionately believe Scotland will be better off with the United Kingdom but also crucially the United Kingdom will be better off with Scotland. We're better off together, we're stronger together, we're safer together. Let the arguments now be put, and I hope that people will vote to keep this United Kingdom together." Salmond said: "It paves the way for the most important decision our country of Scotland has made in several hundred years. It is, in that sense, an historic day for Scotland and a major step forward in Scotland's home rule journey." He said securing an agreement on the process of the referendum meant there would be respect for the outcome, "whatever it is". It also allowed the SNP to now deal with the substantive arguments involved in devolution, he said. "Do I believe that independence will win this campaign? Yes, I do. I believe we'll win it by setting out a positive vision for a better future for our country economically and also, crucially, socially." The agreement states that the UK and Scottish governments have "agreed to work together to ensure that a referendum on Scottish independence can take place". It states: "The governments have agreed that the referendum should have a clear legal base; be legislated for by the Scottish parliament; be conducted so as to command the confidence of parliaments, government and people; and deliver a fair test and decisive expression of the views of people in Scotland and a result that everyone will respect." It notes that the governments have agreed to promote an order in council under section 30 of the Scotland Act to allow a single-question referendum on Scottish independence to be held before the end of 2014. The order "will put beyond doubt that the Scottish parliament can legislate for the referendum". The agreement goes on: "It will then be for the Scottish government to promote legislation in the Scottish parliament for a referendum on independence. The governments are agreed that the referendum should meet the highest standards of fairness, transparency and propriety, informed by consultation and independent expert advice. The referendum legislation will set out the date of the referendum; the franchise; the wording of the question; rules on campaign financing; and other rules for the conduct of the referendum."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | First study of its kind to compare records of vaccinated and unvaccinated girls finds no link to change in sexual behaviour Shots that protect against cervical cancer do not make girls promiscuous, according to the first study to compare medical records for vaccinated and unvaccinated girls. The researchers didn't ask girls about having sex, but instead looked at "markers" of sexual activity after vaccination against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV. Specifically, they examined up to three years of records on whether girls had sought birth control advice; tests for sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy; or had become pregnant. Very few of the girls who got the shots at age 11 or 12 had done any of those over the next three years, or by the time they were 14 or 15. Moreover, the study found no difference in rates of those markers compared with unvaccinated girls. The study involved nearly 1,400 girls enrolled in a Kaiser Permanente health plan in Atlanta. Results were published online Monday in Pediatrics. Whether vaccination has any influence on similar markers of sexual activity in older teens wasn't examined in this study but other research has suggested it doesn't. The study is the first to use medical outcomes data to examine consequences of HPV vaccination and the results are "comforting and reassuring", said lead author Robert Bednarczyk, a researcher at Kaiser and Emory University. Both institutions paid for the study. HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer and also has been linked with anal and oral cancers in women and men. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend HPV shots for girls and boys at age 11 or 12, before they have ever had sex. Three doses are generally recommended over six months. Some parents have raised concerns that the shots "are a license to have sex", but the study bolsters evidence against that concern, said Dr Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City. She was not involved in the study. A CDC study published in January suggested that the shots don't promote sexual activity among older girls, but it relied on self-reporting, at ages 15 to 24. That's a less reliable method than the new study, Alderman said. She has been a paid speaker for Merck & Co, which makes one of the two HPV vaccines sold in the United States, but said she has no current financial ties to the company. In the new study, at least 90% of vaccinated and unvaccinated girls did not seek pregnancy tests, chlamydia tests or birth control counseling, markers that were considered surrogates for sexual activity during up to three years of follow-up. Two in each group became pregnant. Chlamydia, a common sexually transmitted disease, was diagnosed in one vaccinated girl and three unvaccinated girls. Three of the study's four co-authors reported having done previous research funded by Merck.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Cambodian monarch who offered the prospect of continuity, but subverted the development of democracy No monarch in modern times has embodied the life and fate of his country so completely as Norodom Sihanouk, who has died aged 89. He was king, then prince, then king again of Cambodia, amending his royal role according to the needs of the hour and his own volatile will. He was also a film-maker, journalist, editor and impresario as well as a leading, and often dominant, politician for more than 60 years. He began adult life as a young king chosen by the French as a puppet. But, aided by the upsets of the second world war, he outfoxed the colonial power and led his country to independence. The epic tale continued as the prince protector shielded his people from the worst of the Vietnam wars, then as he held on through the dark years of usurpation and Khmer Rouge rule. Cambodia returned to something resembling normal life, with Sihanouk once again on the throne. But his country's rehabilitation was terribly flawed, and until his abdication in 2004 he found himself presiding over a poor, corrupt and divided nation, ruled by a bizarre duopoly of enemies. Over the years he sometimes succeeded in using his power and influence to avert the worst. But this domineering, mischievous and hyperactive man was undoubtedly the part-author of his own and his country's misfortunes. Sihanouk managed to keep his country out of the conflict between the Americans and the Vietnamese for many years. But he must also bear some of the responsibility for the tragedies that then overtook Cambodia as it was drawn into the war, suffered from massive American bombing, and fell under Khmer Rouge rule. How much responsibility is the great question raised by his life. Some would say that he dominated Cambodian politics because the political class was untalented, shortsighted and faction-ridden, and, as far as the left was concerned, too influenced by inexperienced and mediocre intellectuals. When Sihanouk was removed in the 1970 coup, these vices came into full play, at first in the incompetent, corrupt and unrealistic rightwing regime of Lon Nol and then, devastatingly, in the incompetent, ruthless and even more unrealistic leftwing regime of Pol Pot. Others have argued that the failings of the political class, left and right, were in part Sihanouk's handiwork, since he undermined every development that might have led to multi-party politics. In abandoning his policy of balance, he forced many of those on the left, who would otherwise have continued in conventional politics, into the jungle, where they joined the Khmer Rouge. And although he joined forces with the Khmer Rouge after the coup, he proved wholly unable to influence them or to protect his people from them. Sihanouk was a man of eccentric charm. Journalists who visited Cambodia in the difficult final years of his personal rule, when he was trying to manipulate both the US and North Vietnam, came to relish his extraordinary performances at press conferences. He would read out press clippings in his high voice and follow up with a stream of jokes and imprecations. He was a great talker, but his assumption of expertise was often false. Born into the royal family in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, Sihanouk received his early schooling at the main French lycée in the Vietnamese capital of Saigon. But he received no significant further formal training in political or military affairs, or in the artistic and scholarly pursuits in which he dabbled throughout his life, and for which he had some talent. Never subject to any discipline and never facing any serious criticism in his artistic endeavours, he remained, as some would say he did in politics, an egotistical if gifted amateur. His early private life was flamboyant. During the 1940s and 50s he took at least six wives and consorts and fathered at least 14 children. The political management of such a large family, with its inevitable rivalries between different consorts and their sons, remained a problem for the rest of his life. Monique Izzi, daughter of an Italian father and a Cambodian mother, was his principal partner from the late 1950s. The French – representing the Nazi-puppet Vichy regime – placed Sihanouk on the throne in 1941, setting aside more qualified candidates, including his own father. Sihanouk was 18, interested in football, jazz, riding, movies and girls. But an early sign that the French were mistaken about his pliability came after the Japanese ousted them in early 1945. Sihanouk followed the unavoidable, Japanese-managed proclamation of independence with laws reinstating the Khmer alphabet and calendar. The French were soon back in charge and gave Cambodia a democratic constitution in 1947, reserving most power, however, for themselves. Sihanouk sometimes played the French game, as they had expected, but increasingly came to use French techniques of political manipulation on his own behalf rather than theirs. He took the independence card from Cambodia's embryonic middle-class politicians, launching, in 1952, his own "royal crusade for independence". Aided by events in Vietnam, he effectively showed the French the door. In 1955 he abdicated, putting his father on the throne. This shrewd move enabled him to avoid the constitutional problems of trying to be king and the country's leading politician at the same time. Yet as "monseigneur" – the head of state – he never lost his monarchical aura, and indeed continued to exploit it in full. The great loss was that between 1947 and 1958 pluralist politics could have emerged in Cambodia around the middle-class Democratic party, but Sihanouk, with the French egging him on in the early years, seized every opportunity to undermine that party and eventually destroy it. Cambodia became a quasi-dictatorship and one-party state under Sihanouk and the Sangkum Reastr Niyum (Popular Socialist Community). Nor were his hands as clean as he liked to maintain. His regime killed, imprisoned and intimidated opponents – admittedly on a scale dwarfed by later excesses. Sihanouk's peak years came between 1955 and 1962, when his touch was sure and his dominance nearly absolute. He picked the candidates for the national assembly in 1958 and 1962, and expertly managed the country's cabinets. By sudden changes of direction, he threw rivals and allies off balance. As soon as a cabinet was formed or an assembly had gathered, even though he had chosen them himself, he immediately began to undercut the strongest groups and individuals. He had a sharp sense of the peasantry's needs and aspirations and continually played these off against the urban elite. On the radio, he endeared himself to rural folk with his jokes and rough language. He also gained popularity by a programme of school, road and factory building, although many of these ventures were ill-conceived. In the 1960s Cambodia's international position deteriorated. Sihanouk resisted pressures from South Vietnam and Thailand, including at least one serious plot, which he characteristically used as the basis for a film, Storm Over Angkor. He tried to keep in with communist and western states and to play them off against each other. But such tactics were less effective with outside powers than they were domestically. In 1963 he ended US military and economic aid. For the rest of that decade a gradual loss of his control was apparent. In Phnom Penh, a restive, rightwing elite was becoming impatient with his foreign manoeuvrings and resentful of his restrictions on their economic and political privileges. In the jungle, the North Vietnamese were more heavily ensconced, and a Khmer communist movement was growing up under their protection. Internationally, Sihanouk was never able to repair the rift with the US, despite efforts at the end of the decade. He grew visibly disheartened, turning for distraction to film-making and the entertainment of foreign guests. "It is almost as if he despaired of governing the country," David Chandler wrote in The Tragedy of Cambodian History (1991). When the plot against him took shape in 1970, he was in France. He did not rush home, as he had done on other occasions when his position was threatened, but seemed to dawdle in Russia and China. The coup brought Cambodia into the Vietnam war, a conflict for which, in spite of the boasts of Lon Nol, the new leader, it was wholly unprepared. Sihanouk, encouraged by the Chinese, went into a united front with the Khmer communists. He spent the five years of war that followed mainly in Beijing and the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, both governments providing him with lavish accommodation. He did make one trip to the Khmer Rouge zone of Cambodia with Monique, who wrote happily of the pleasant chalets prepared for them. But it was an alliance without warmth. After the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, they discarded the united front, and Sihanouk was soon a prisoner in the royal palace. He could do nothing about the Khmer Rouge's terrible mismanagement of the country, with its hideous human consequences. Five of his children died during this period, and he was probably lucky to escape execution himself. But after the Pol Pot regime provoked the Vietnamese into a full-scale invasion in 1979, Sihanouk again lined up behind the Khmer Rouge to oppose the occcupation and the Vietnamese-influenced communist regime of Heng Samrin. Apparently reckoning Vietnam to be a worse evil than the Khmer Rouge, he resisted occasional efforts by the Vietnamese to bring him over to their side. His decision helped to isolate the new regime, which, whatever its faults, had rescued Cambodia from a time of horror, and also contributed to the survival of the Khmer Rouge as a formidable force. Many of Sihanouk's friends in the west found this course of action hard to accept. Had he made his peace with the new regime, he would have given it international respectability. That would have made it more difficult for the Khmer Rouge to win the foreign support they did. Western and Chinese policy was aimed at punishing Vietnam and cutting it down to size. The welfare of the Cambodian people was a lesser consideration for them, but ought not to have been for Sihanouk. However, the argument may overlook the deep-seated Cambodian fear of being absorbed by Vietnam, which Sihanouk certainly shared with his countrymen, including Lon Nol and Pol Pot. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, their ally and patron, the Vietnamese could no longer sustain their intervention in Cambodian affairs. They withdrew their troops in 1990, and in 1991 a Cambodia peace conference in Paris led to the installation of a temporary government consisting of the Cambodian People's party and the three opposition factions, with Sihanouk as head of state. UN forces were sent in to disarm the factions, UN officials to supervise elections, held in May 1993. They were won by the royalist party Funcinpec, which had been founded by Sihanouk in 1981 as a guerrilla movement, and the Cambodian People's party, now headed by Hun Sen and which had ruled in Pnomh Penh since the invasion in 1979. Funcinpec's success was undoubtedly due in large part to the still potent Sihanouk magic. In June he was formally made head of state and in September restored as king. In spite of his age and ill health, he played politics with much of his old vigour, and often with no more sense of responsibility than before. Encouraged by Hun Sen, Sihanouk had suddenly proclaimed himself president, prime minister and commander-in-chief without consulting either the UN transitional authority or his son Ranariddh, leader of the royal party. The votes in the election were still being counted. It was an attempted coup that reminded those who knew him well of the high-handed tactics with which he had divided and ruled Cambodia in the past. Sihanouk then played a leading part, along with the UN transitional authority, in persuading Ranariddh to form a joint government with Hun Sen. Ranariddh's party had won the election by a wide margin, and joint government represented a dismal conclusion to the democratisation effort. The country has never recovered from the consequences of this concession to Hun Sen's entrenched power. The two sides have not co-operated except in a wary sharing of the spoils of office and in making empty promises to the international donors whose aid keeps Cambodia going. Sihanouk had early on offered the Khmer Rouge cabinet posts in return for a ceasefire, amending this to advisory posts when it was pointed out that cabinet positions had to be filled by members of the assembly. He continued to pursue the idea of reconciliation with the Khmer Rouge, in spite of its record, perhaps on the old principle that the more players are involved, the easier it is to manipulate them. Both Hun Sen and Ranariddh were soon vigorously pursuing reconciliation themselves: their competition for Khmer Rouge allies led to a coup by Hun Sen in 1997, of which Sihanouk initially seemed to approve. His direct political influence, whether for good or ill, diminished as his health worsened, involving long absences from the country. But he displayed some of his old divide and surprise tactics when he insisted on abdicating in October 2004, forcing the government to form a royal throne council to approve his choice of Prince Norodom Sihamoni as his successor. In his remaining years, Sihanouk spent much time in China, where he died. To Cambodians, Sihanouk represented continuity when so much in their country had been destroyed. They valued his warmth and his evident concern for his people, while recognising that he had made many mistakes. It was typical of Sihanouk that he started his own website, offering a running commentary on politics, by turn witty, acerbic or just dotty; and typical of Cambodians that the site attracted as many as 1,000 visits a day – a lot in a country of 13 million people with limited computer literacy. Cambodia's extreme weakness – the mystery of how a power that once made all of south-east Asia tremble has fallen so low – has obsessed all its modern leaders and encouraged excessive and mystical solutions. Sihanouk, Lon Nol and Pol Pot all seemed to share the idea that there was some fount of strength and power to be found in the nation's traditions which, if tapped properly, would solve its problems. Sihanouk saw it partly in his own person and in the monarchy: "I carry on my shoulders the overwhelming responsibilities of 16 centuries of royalty," he said in 1952. Lon Nol found it in the stars while Pol Pot and his associates believed that a total mobilisation of the population was the key. "If we can build Angkor, we can do anything," Pol Pot is supposed to have said – a sentiment all three men undoubtedly shared. Sihanouk was a Cambodian patriot who lacked neither energy nor courage. He was also often a conniving, arbitrary ruler who can be accused of never allowing his country's politicians the time or the room to reach maturity. After the 1970 coup, he was written off as a man who would never again play a significant role, but he remained an important figure. His return to the throne was a piece of theatre intended to reassure Cambodians that in his person, there was some kind of connection with a better past and therefore a bridge to a better future. His orchestration of the succession had the same end in mind. Whether such a continuity was really re-established remains to be seen. • Norodom Sihanouk, monarch and statesman, born 31 October 1922; died 15 October 2012
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | What was the most likely thing to kill him during his supersonic jump, what happened to his balloon – and is he married? All the questions about the Austrian daredevil you want answered What happened to the capsule and the balloon? As soon as it was confirmed that Baumgartner had landed safely, the attention of mission control shifted to the balloon and capsule. The team remotely detached the capsule from the balloon, allowing it to fall back to Earth under its own parachute. It hit the ground 55 miles east of Baumgartner's own landing site. The balloon was deflated via a nylon "destruct line", with the lightweight balloon material – known as the envelope – falling back to Earth to be gathered and removed by truck. The capsule could, in theory, be used again, but the balloon envelope can only be used once. Why did he not break up, or pass out, when he went supersonic? The precise physiological exertions experienced by Baumgartner's body as he momentarily reached 833.9mph, or Mach 1.24, during his descent are still being studied by his team. One of the jump's key scientific goals was to learn, via a series of monitors on his body, more about what such an experience does to the human body. All we know is that he survived, which proves that pre-jump speculation that his body might explode or disintegrate due to the stresses were ill-founded. Baumgartner himself says that he felt very little as he broke the sound barrier because his insulated suit buffered him from external sounds and forces. What was so special about the suit? Baumgartner's suit and helmet were described by his team as "his personal life-support system". The suit was modelled on those worn by pilots of high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, but it had never been tried in a free-fall before Baumgartner started testing it. It had four layers consisting of both "breathable" Gore-Tex, and heat- and flame-resistant Nomex. The internal layer was a "comfort liner". Next was a "gas membrane" that helped to retain air pressure. A "restraint layer" then helped to maintain the suit's shape. Finally, the external layer was constructed of Nomex to protect against fire and temperature extremes. It was made by a US company called David Clark that has been making suits for astronauts and high-altitude aviators since 1941. Did he have to fast before the jump? (via @nessymon) For at least a day before the jump, Baumgartner consumed a "low-residue, low-fibre" diet on the orders of his medical team. They wanted his food to pass quickly through his body without any build-up of gas. In a low-pressure environment, the gas might expand and cause him severe internal pain – a condition known as barotrauma. For the same reason, Baumgartner, much like a deep-sea diver, also "pre-breathed" oxygen for two hours before his ascent in the balloon to help reduce the amount of nitrogen in his blood. If his pressurised suit had failed at above 19.2km (the "Armstrong limit", where water boils at body-temperature), he would probably have experienced a usually fatal condition known as ebullism – or the "boiling" of the blood – whereby his body would start to swell painfully within seconds. Baumgartner had a straw inside his helmet to allow him to consume liquids (presumably not a can of Red Bull, his key sponsor). How much sleep did he get before the jump? (via @nessymon) Baumgartner's team built a schedule to ensure he was fully rested. This involved going to bed precisely 12 hours before the ascent for an eight-hour sleep. But due to the hectic schedule on jump day, he was awake several hours before dawn. Baumgartner has said that he likes to draw in a sketchbook as a way to clear his mind before a major jump. What was the biggest danger that Baumgartner faced? His team identified 16 key risks that had to all be overcome for the record attempt to succeed. They included ultraviolet radiation, wind shear, landing impact, extreme temperatures, hypoxia (oxygen starvation), decompression sickness, entering a flat spin during the descent, "shock-shock interaction" (an explosive effect when shock waves in the air collide when passing through the sound barrier) and fire aboard the capsule. But the team said two dangers hung over Baumgartner above all others – a "breach" in the suit or capsule, and the accidental deployment of a parachute. How did they know where he would fall? Given that he reached a height of 24 miles above the surface of the Earth, it seems remarkable that he was able to land with such accuracy back on the desert floor in New Mexico. His team later confirmed that his landing site was just 23 miles from where the balloon had taken off several hours earlier. Unlike an astronaut, Baumgartner remained within the Earth's atmosphere so never experienced the planet rotating underneath him as witnessed by anyone actually in orbit. His team waited for the perfect weather conditions when high-altitude winds that might have caused his balloon to drift were at a minimum. Once he exited his free-fall by deploying his parachute, Baumgartner was able to "steer" himself to a preferred landing spot. A beacon inside his suit meant his recovery helicopter was able to closely follow him. What next for Baumgartner? "I'm retired from the daredevil business," he said afterwards. "I want to find a nice decent job as a helicopter pilot. I'll fight fires and rescue people. No e-mails, no phone calls." How long will it be before every Tom, Dick and Harry adventure-seeker is queuing up to do this? (via bateleur) The non-reusable balloon used by Baumgartner cost $250,000, with the wider cost to the sponsor Red Bull of the whole record attempt estimated to have cost many millions of dollars. This will put off the vast majority of copycats, but the high-profile stunt is expected to provoke a surge in interest for parachuting. Is he married? A surprising amount of questions on social networking sites seemed to be about his marital status. Bad news, though: Nicole Oetl, his girlfriend, was waiting alongside his parents for news of his safe return.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US game theorists awarded 2012 prize for work which has had spin-off benefits in healthcare and education Two American economists whose pioneering work has enabled organ patients to be matched with potential donors have been awarded the 2012 Nobel prize for economics. Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley were recognised for their research into how to link up economic agents, which has had spin-off effects in healthcare and education. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Shapley, 89, one of the world's acknowledged experts in game theory, had compared different matching methods and found ways of ensuring matches would be acceptable to all parties. Roth, 60, used Shapley's work for a series of empirical studies that led to the redesign of institutions, including founding the New England Programme for Kidney Exchange in 2005. It has also led to students being matched with schools. "This year's prize is awarded for an outstanding example of economic engineering," said the committee in Stockholm awarding the prize. The two economists will share a prize of $1.2m (£750,000) for their work on "the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design". The economics prize, officially called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968. It was not part of the original group of awards set out in dynamite tycoon Nobel's 1895 will. Shapley, emeritus professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, was part of a four-man team that invented the board game So Long Sucker in 1950. The four-person bargaining contest involves the players making commitments they cannot keep and which have to be reneged upon in order for the game to be won.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Alvin E. Roth at Stanford and Lloyd S. Shapley at the University of California win prestigious prize for their work which helps organ donors and students
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | News Corp chairman angers phone-hacking campaigners by labelling them 'scumbag celebrities' on Twitter Charlotte Church has called on Rupert Murdoch to apologise and withdraw his comments after he called phone-hacking campaigners "scumbag celebrities" in a Twitter attack on the singer and others who are lobbying David Cameron to implement press reforms. Church, whose family got a £600,000 payout from Murdoch for phone hacking earlier this year, went on Twitter on Monday to join the growing number of people who have rounded on the News Corporation chairman and chief executive for his remarks. "It would be decent to withdraw & apologise for calling me, @CharlotteChurch and @jacquihames *scumbags*," Church said in a tweet. She was responding to Murdoch's outburst on Saturday when he lashed out against the prime minister for meeting a group of phone-hacking campaigners, including Church and the former policewoman Jacqui Hames who is suing News International over alleged hacking by the News of the World. He tweeted: "Told UK's Cameron receiving scumbag celebrities pushing for even more privacy laws. Trust the toffs! Transparency under attack. Bad." Church and Hames are part of the Hacked Off lobby group which is campaigning for press reforms. The group last week met with Cameron to discuss reports he was preparing to allow newspapers one more chance at self-regulation. Murdoch's remarks on Twitter have angered many including Evan Harris, one of the founders of Hacked Off who said: "The mask has slipped. This is no longer the humblest day of my life Murdoch is it?" Last year Murdoch went before a parliamentary select committee to apologise for the News of the World's hacking of the phone of murdered school girl Milly Dowler, calling his appearance as "the humblest day of my life". He also paid £3m to the Dowler family and charities of their choice in compensation. Murdoch's remarks come days after the high court heard News International was facing more than 170 claims for damages for alleged phone hacking by the News of the World, including cases brought by Cherie Blair, Neil Kinnock, Sarah Ferguson and Joanne Lees, whose boyfriend was killed in the Australian outback. On Twitter, Murdoch tried to back peddle for his "scumbag" remark telling Hames, he wasn't referring to her or Church, tweeting "not referring to these ladies" but then went on to make a direct attack on Hugh Grant, who is also part of Hacked Off and is also suing News International for alleged hacking. When one Twitter user responded to Murdoch: "Scumbags? And your journalists and executives are what?", the media baron replied: "They don't get arrested for indecency on major LA highways! Or abandon love child's." He then on Sunday linked the issue with the Jimmy Savile scandal. "Likes of Saville further protected if we don't fight Cameron, dodgy celebrities in UK," he tweeted. "Could not happen in US." Church hit back on Monday tweeting: "@rupertmurdoch What do you mean by 'dodgy'? My understanding of the word is 'lacking legitimacy', a term that befits NI before me or J.Hames". Hames then tweeted: "When you're in a hole Rupert....Celebrities not scumbags, just 'dodgy,' Murdoch tweets". • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Germany's Wolfgang Schäuble has insisted that Greece will not default, after Sweden's finance minister suggested a Grexit was just months away.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Officers sacked after troops miss North Korean soldier defecting to the south across heavily guarded border South Korea's defence chief has dismissed three officers and apologised publicly after his troops failed to spot a North Korean soldier defecting to the south across the heavily guarded border. No one detected the soldier – even though he scaled barbed wire fences on the South Korean side – until he knocked on the door of frontline South Korean barracks to say he was defecting. The incident on 2 October raises questions about South Korea's military surveillance capabilities. The defence minister, Kim Kwan-jin, told a news conference he "deeply" apologised for causing public concern over the defection. "There were an obvious failure in security operations and faults in situation-reporting systems," Kim said. Fourteen officers, including five at general level, will be investigated for possible punishment over the incident, ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said. The ministry dismissed three officers, including a division commander, from their posts on Monday, officials said. Last week, President Lee Myung-bak ordered stern punishment for those responsible for the security breach. A ministry statement said border security would be strengthened by deploying more guards and modern surveillance equipment and installing more wire fences. The Korean peninsula has remained divided along the 2.5-mile-wide (4km) demilitarised zone since the Korean war ended in 1953 with an armistice. There has never been a peace treaty. It is guarded by hundreds of thousands of combat-ready troops on both sides and is strewn with land mines and laced with barbed wire. About 24,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the war, but defections across the land border are rare, with the vast majority of defectors fleeing through China and south-east Asian nations for the south. Defections by soldiers are also unusual, although another North Korean soldier defected to South Korea via the land border after killing two officers earlier this month.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as international envoy appeals to Iran to help secure ceasefire in Syria
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The $21.1bn deal for a stake in No 3 US carrier is the most spent on an overseas acquisition by a Japanese mobile operator Japanese mobile operator Softbank Corp has said it will buy up to 70% of Sprint Nextel Corp, the third-largest US carrier, for $21.1bn (£13bn) – the most a Japanese firm has spent on an overseas acquisition. The deal – announced jointly by Softbank's billionaire founder and chief, Masayoshi Son, and the Sprint chief executive, Dan Hesse, at a press conference in Tokyo – will provide entry into a US market that still shows growth, while Softbank's home market is stagnating. It will also give Sprint the firepower to buy peers and strengthen its 4G network to compete better in a US wireless market dominated by AT&T and Verizon Wireless, analysts have said. While US analysts have long said the telecoms industry needs consolidation, few looked to Japan as a catalyst. But Son, known for his risk-taking, is betting that US growth can offer relief from cut-throat competition for subscribers in Japan's saturated mobile market. Combined, Softbank and Sprint will have 96 million users. Softbank said that as part of the deal it would buy $3.1bn of bonds, convertible into Sprint stock at $5.25 a share. Sprint shares closed on Friday at $5.73. Softbank shares fell more than 8% earlier on Monday, and closed at their lowest in five months, down 5.3%. The stock has lost more than a fifth of its value – or $8.7bn – since news broke late last week of the firm's interest in Sprint. Investors are concerned Son may be offering too much to enter the US telecommunications market. "There is always a risk when you face a big challenge," Son said at the briefing. "It could be safe if you do nothing and our challenge in the US is not going to be easy at all. We must enter a new market, one with a different culture, and we must start again from zero after all we have built. But not taking this challenge will be a bigger risk." Four banks have approved loans totalling 1.65tn yen ($21.1bn) to Softbank, sources told Reuters earlier on Monday. Mizuho Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Deutsche Bank submitted a commitment letter to Softbank promising the loans on Monday. Sprint, which has lost money in all of the last 19 quarters, has net debt of about $15bn, while Softbank has net debt of about $10bn. Brokers have warned the deal could leave Softbank with "unacceptably high" gearing, a ratio of its debt to shareholder capital. Standard & Poor's has warned the deal "may undermine Softbank's financial risk profile" and would pressure its free operating cash flow for at least the next few years. The companies said Hesse would remain chief exeuctive of Sprint. "It's the same [market] reaction as when Softbank said it was going to buy Vodafone a few years ago. Everyone came out and said it was far too expensive," Fumiyuki Nakanishi, general manager of investment and research at SMBC Friend Securities, said ahead of the announcement. Softbank bought Vodafone's Japan unit for $15.5bn in a 2006 deal that propelled the firm into the mobile carrier business. "Son made a company worth 3tn yen, and now it will be worth 6tn yen. That's quite impressive, and I think investors will realise he's making the right decision down the road," said Nakanishi. Analysts have said the deal would imply Sprint was worth about $28.6bn, two-thirds greater than its market capitalisation at Friday's close. Sprint, which is going through a $7bn upgrade of one of its networks and closing its Nextel iDen network, could use some of the proceeds to buy the part of Clearwire it doesn't already own, analysts have said. Clearwire has high-speed infrastructure attractive to mobile carriers struggling with the increase in data due to the rising numbers of smartphone users. Shares in Clearwire, 48%-owned by Sprint, soared on Friday. An alliance with Sprint could also give Softbank leverage when dealing with Apple, helping bolster its domestic position against KDDI, which also offers the iPhone in Japan, and market leader NTT Docomo, which is yet to offer the Apple smartphone. With Sprint in hand, Softbank may also look to acquire smaller US carrier MetroPCS Communications, Japanese media have reported. Sprint has had a long interest in MetroPCS, which earlier this month agreed to merge with T-Mobile USA, part of Deutsche Telekom. The Sprint deal takes outbound deals by Japanese firms to a record $75bn this year, Thomson Reuters data shows, underscoring a strong appetite for overseas assets seemingly unaffected by signs of slowing global growth. This is not the first Japanese foray into telecoms overseas. NTT Docomo racked up big losses after a string of failed investments in names such as AT&T Wireless and Taiwan mobile operator KG Telecom in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Raine Group and Mizuho Securities were lead financial advisers to Softbank.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | $21.1bn deal for stake in No 3 US carrier is the most a Japanese mobile operator has spent on an overseas acquisition Japanese mobile operator Softbank Corp has said it will buy up to 70% in Sprint Nextel Corp, the third-largest US carrier, for $21.1bn (£13bn) – the most a Japanese firm has spent on an overseas acquisition. The deal, announced jointly by Softbank's billionaire founder and chief, Masayoshi Son, and the Sprint CEO, Dan Hesse, at a news briefing in Tokyo, will provide entry into a US market that still shows growth, while Softbank's home market is stagnating. It will also give Sprint the firepower to buy peers and strengthen its 4G network to compete better in a US wireless market dominated by AT&T and Verizon Wireless, analysts have said. While US analysts have long said the telecoms industry needs consolidation, few looked to Japan as a catalyst. But Son, known for his risk-taking, is betting that US growth can offer relief from cut-throat competition for subscribers in Japan's saturated mobile market. Combined, Softbank and Sprint will have 96 million users. Softbank said as part of the deal it would buy $3.1bn of bonds convertible into Sprint stock at $5.25 a share. Sprint shares closed on Friday at $5.73. Softbank shares fell more than 8% earlier on Monday, and closed at their lowest in five months, down 5.3%. The stock has lost more than a fifth of its value – or $8.7bn – since news first broke late last week of the firm's interest in Sprint. Investors are concerned Son may be offering too much to enter the US telecommunications market. "There is always a risk when you face a big challenge," Son said at the briefing. "It could be safe if you do nothing and our challenge in the US is not going to be easy at all. We must enter a new market, one with a different culture, and we must start again from zero after all we have built. But not taking this challenge will be a bigger risk." Four banks have approved loans totalling 1.65tn yen ($21.1bn) to Softbank, sources told Reuters earlier on Monday. Mizuho Financial Group Inc, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Deutsche Bank submitted a commitment letter to Softbank promising the loans on Monday. Sprint, which has lost money in all of the last 19 quarters, has net debt of about $15bn, while Softbank has net debt of about $10bn. Brokers have warned the deal could leave Softbank with "unacceptably high" gearing, a ratio of its debt to shareholder capital. Standard & Poor's has warned the deal "may undermine Softbank's financial risk profile" and would pressure its free operating cash flow for at least the next few years. The companies said Hesse would remain CEO of Sprint. "It's the same [market] reaction as when Softbank said it was going to buy Vodafone a few years ago. Everyone came out and said it was far too expensive," Fumiyuki Nakanishi, general manager of investment and research at SMBC Friend Securities, said ahead of the announcement. Softbank bought Vodafone's Japan unit for $15.5bn in a 2006 deal that propelled the firm into the mobile carrier business. "Son made a company worth 3tn yen, and now it will be worth 6tn yen. That's quite impressive, and I think investors will realise he's making the right decision down the road," said Nakanishi. Analysts have said Softbank buying a 70% stake in Sprint for $20bn would imply the No 3 US wireless company was worth about $28.6bn, two-thirds greater than its market capitalisation at Friday's close. Sprint, which is going through a $7bn upgrade of one of its networks, while closing its Nextel iDen network, could use some of the proceeds to buy the part of Clearwire Corp it doesn't already own, analysts have said. Clearwire has high-speed infrastructure attractive to mobile carriers struggling with the increase in data due to the rising numbers of smartphone users. Shares in Clearwire, 48%-owned by Sprint, soared on Friday. An alliance with Sprint could also give Softbank leverage when dealing with Apple, helping bolster its domestic position against KDDI Corp, which also offers the iPhone in Japan, and market leader NTT Docomo, which is yet to offer the Apple smartphone. With Sprint in hand, Softbank may also look to acquire smaller US carrier MetroPCS Communications, Japanese media have reported. Sprint has had a long interest in MetroPCS, which earlier this month agreed to merge with T-Mobile USA, part of Deutsche Telekom AG. The Sprint deal takes outbound deals by Japanese firms to a record $75bn this year, Thomson Reuters data shows, underscoring a strong appetite for overseas assets seemingly unaffected by signs of slowing global growth. This is not the first Japanese foray into telecoms overseas. NTT Docomo racked up big losses after a string of failed investments in names such as AT&T Wireless and Taiwan mobile operator KG Telecom in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Raine Group LLC and Mizuho Securities were lead financial advisers to Softbank.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Luxury goods market is set to slump this year, with growth more than halving as Chinese shoppers cut back The luxury goods market is set to slump this year, with growth more than halving as Chinese shoppers cut back. A report by business consultancy Bain & Company and Italian luxury goods trade body Altagamma says that Chinese big spenders, the luxury industry's main engine of growth, are showing signs of slowing down. It pointed to the change in government in China and a crackdown on corruption. Global luxury goods sales are estimated to grow by just 5% this year to reach €212bn (£170bn), compared with 13% last year, at constant exchange rates. The European market is expected to grow by 5%, half last year's rate, with crisis-hit Italy and Spain seeing the biggest declines. Burberry has said the super-rich are spending more than ever, while "aspirational" middle-class shoppers are being squeezed. Chinese luxury goods sales are set to rise by 8% at constant currencies and 20% at current currencies to reach €15bn, while last year they climbed 30% on both measures, according to the Bain report. Even so, China has overtaken Japan as the world's largest market, behind the US, and accounts for one in four purchases of luxury goods. Chinese shopppers now make up half of the luxury purchases in all of Asia, and nearly a third of those in Europe. Claudia D'Arpizio, a Bain partner in Milan and lead author of the study, said: "We are seeing sharp disparities between brands that are not keeping up with the quickening pace of change in the market and those that are adjusting to shifts in tastes and demographics." The study found that accessories have become all-important. For the first time, leather goods and shoes have become the largest slice of the market, at 27% of sales. Men are spending more. Younger people are more focused on uniqueness than heritage, 24/7 access rather than exclusivity, and prize entertainment over mere shopping. Leather goods sales are expected to post the fastest growth, of 16%, to €33bn this year, while watches will be just behind with 14% growth to €35bn. Shoes and jewellery are seen growing by 13%, to €12bn and €11bn respectively.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov claims there is no confirmed use of Russian-made cluster bombs in Syria, while Turkey and Iraq are accused of blocking Syrian refugees
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Malala Yousafzai – shot because she campaigned for right of young females to an education – will be treated in NHS hospital A Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban because she campaigned for the right of young females to an education is en route to the UK for specialist treatment. Malala Yousafzai, 14, was shot in the head last Tuesday in an attack that prompted widespread revulsion, in Pakistan and abroad. It also raised fresh questions about the state's ability to tackle militancy. Malala's life was saved by neurosurgeons in a Pakistani military hospital and she has since been in intensive care. Doctors have recommended she be transferred to a UK centre "which has the capability to provide integrated care to children who have sustained severe injury", a Pakistani military spokesman said. The flight left Rawalpindi on Monday morning. She is travelling with an army intensive care assistant on a specially equipped air ambulance leased from the UAE and will be treated at an NHS hospital in the UK. The Pakistani government is bearing the costs of transportation and treatment. The UK foreign secretary, William Hague, said: "Last week's barbaric attack on Malala Yousafzai and her school friends shocked Pakistan and the world. Malala's bravery in standing up for the right of all young girls in Pakistan to an education is an example to us all. "Malala will now receive specialist medical care in an NHS hospital. Our thoughts remain with Malala and he family at this difficult time." The Foreign Office said the move followed an offer by the UK government to assist Malala in any way that it could. Malala 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 had become famous after writing a blog in 2009 for the BBC Urdu service about life under the Taliban insurgency. A Taliban spokesman issued a statement claiming it was obligatory to kill anyone "leading a campaign" against Islamic law and said it would again attempt to kill her if she recovers from her injuries. Police have arrested at least three suspects in connection with the attack but the two gunmen who carried out the shooting remain at large. The biggest rally yet showing solidarity with Malala was held in the southern city of Karachi on Sunday but the response to her shooting has been relatively low-key in Pakistan compared with last month's demonstrations against a film produced in the US that denigrated the prophet Muhammad. Government officials have condemned the attack but refrained from publicly criticising the Taliban by name over the attack, in what critics say demonstrates a lack of resolve against extremism.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | French data protection commissioner's ruling that web giant must separate user data could have global impact, say sources Google will be told on Tuesday to unravel the controversial changes introduced in March to its European privacy policy, legal sources have told the Guardian. The French data protection commissioner, the CNIL, will be holding a press conference on Tuesday to announce the results of its deliberations together with the data protection chiefs of the other European Union countries. As exclusively revealed by the Guardian last week, they have determined that Google's changes breached EU law because they did not give users any chance to opt out of the changes. Next the CNIL – one of the more aggressive European data protection commissioners – will tell Google to undo those changes, and recreate the setup that existed before, said Chris Watson, a partner and privacy expert at the London law firm CMS McKenna. "By putting the CNIL in charge of this, the EU was going for blood," said Watson. "It was a declaration of intent." The UK's ICO, he suggested, would have taken a softer line with Google. "The point is that Google is an international company which is leveraging its power in the browser and its other services in a way that affects national businesses all over the EU. There's great political importance in the data protection commissioners doing something, because if they think there's a breach and they don't do anything about it, what's the point of having them?" Bradley Shears, a US-based lawyer who specialises in digital privacy law and has campaigned for increased privacy for users of services including Facebook, said he expects the CNIL to find that Google broke EU privacy law, and to oblige it to unwind the changes. Shears told the Guardian: "Since Google had the technical capability to combine the data of all of its users' accounts it should have the ability to reinstate the previous barriers that acted like a digital Chinese wall between its services that better protected user privacy." He added: "Since Google refused to heed the EU's prior warnings that changing its privacy policies may violate data protection laws it would not surprise me if restrictions are placed on how Google may utilise the user data profiles it has created since the new policies went into effect. This [EU] decision may restrict Google's ability to fully monetise its users' personal data across its platforms and may cost Google tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue." Shears noted that "The EU's decision may create a domino effect and lead regulators in the US and other parts of the world to impose similar restrictions on Google's ability to intermingle and monetise user data." In the US, Google had to agree in October 2011 to privacy oversight by the Federal Trade Commission for 20 years after being accused of violating its own privacy policies and using "deceptive practices" in setting up its Buzz social network. In the changes, trailed in January and then carried out in March, Google brought together separate "silos" of data collected from services such as its search service, YouTube and Maps into a single datastore so that it could tailor adverts and content more closely. Google said then the new policy would simplify the user experience, and said it was confident it had obeyed "all European data protection laws and principles". But it was warned by the justice commissioner Viviane Reding that the changes might breach EU law. There have been suggestions that trying to separate the data back into individual services would be like "unscrambling an egg". Watson said that he believes that Google will in fact be able to do that: "To suggest that they couldn't would be like Microsoft's defence when it was accused of using its Windows monopoly for the Internet Explorer browser – that it couldn't separate them. It could. If Google's defence is that they can't, they're going to have a fight on their hands." Google declined to comment on the forthcoming CNIL report, but said: "We are confident that our privacy notices respect the requirements of European data protection laws." Separately, Google has been in intensive talks for months with the European Commission's competition arm. It is accused of anti-competitive behaviour in the way it orders its search results, uses other sites' content, and controls some elements of advertising. Reports last week said that Google has offered to "label" its own services where they appear in search results – though early reaction from affected companies suggested that would not be enough.
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