|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Suicide bomber kills 40 outside mosque in Maimana where people had gathered to celebrate Eid al-Adha holiday A suicide bomber has attacked holiday worshippers outside a mosque in northern Afghanistan, killing 40 people and injuring another 50, including a senior police officer. The blast in Maimana, capital of Faryab province, was the deadliest in the country for several months, and a reminder of insurgents' ability to strike far beyond their southern heartland and target officials. The bomber struck as a crowd streamed out of morning prayers for the Eid al-Adha holiday. Security was tight because the worshippers included the provincial governor, but the attacker waited for his victims to leave the building. Many police, soldiers and intelligence officials were among the dead and injured. "He blew himself up on the road just outside," said Ahmad Jawed Didar, spokesman for the governor of Faryab. Five of the dead were children, and the provincial police chief was wounded, he said. The governor was unharmed. "It was a massacre," said Khaled, a doctor who was at the mosque and narrowly escaped the blast. "There was blood and dead bodies everywhere," he told the Associated Press. Fifteen of the dead and just over half the wounded were civilians, a police spokesman, Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, told the Guardian. The rest were from the Afghan security forces. The attack came as the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, called on the Taliban to "stop killing other Afghans". "Stop the destruction of our mosques, hospitals and schools," he said in an Eid message to the nation. Afghanistan was already on heightened alert for the holiday, with extra checks on vehicles and patrols by the Afghan army. The Taliban would not claim or deny the Faryab bomb. "This issue is under investigation, and I am in touch with the local Taliban," said a spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi. This week the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, urged his fighters to "pay full attention to the prevention of civilian casualties", saying the enemy was trying to blame them on the insurgents. In July a suicide attacker killed a powerful anti-Taliban leader, security commanders and more than a dozen other guests at a crowded family wedding in neighbouring Samangan province. It was one of the bloodiest attacks on Afghan military and political leaders in the decade-long war.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Authorities censor publication after revelations that the premier's relatives have accumulated billions during his leadership China's foreign ministry has accused the New York Times of smearing the country by reporting that the premier Wen Jiabao's extended family has controlled assets worth at least $2.7bn (£1.67bn). A spokesman, Hong Lei, said the report "blackens China's name and has ulterior motives". Authorities have also blocked the news organisation's main and Chinese-language websites and banned searches for "New York Times" in English and Chinese on microblogs. "China manages the internet in accordance with laws and rules," Hong told reporters at a daily briefing when asked why the sites were inaccessible. The New York Times reported that several of Wen's close relatives had become extremely wealthy since his ascent to leadership. But in many cases their holdings were obscured by layers of partnerships and investment vehicles involving friends, colleagues or business partners, it said, in a detailed and lengthy account based on an extensive review of company and regulatory filings. A single investment held on paper by Wen's 90-year-old mother Yang Zhiyun – a retired schoolteacher – was worth $120m five years ago, the New York Times said. It added it was unclear if Yang was aware of the holdings in her name. The report is embarrassing not only for Wen himself – who comes from a modest background and is widely seen as the sympathetic, populist face of the government – but for the party. It is the latest in a string of unwelcome revelations about the vast wealth amassed by those around senior leaders. Authorities blocked the Bloomberg website earlier this year after it exposed the multimillion-dollar assets held by the extended family of Xi Jinping, heir-apparent to the presidency. The news agency has also reported that relatives of the disgraced politician Bo Xilai accumulated at least $136m in assets. Many people – particularly among the elite – had been aware of rumours about Wen's relatives, but the full detail of the report and the scale of their assets is striking. The timing is also sensitive, given that the once-a-decade leadership transition is weeks away. But the blocking of the websites and censorship on Chinese microblogs means that many may remain unaware of the New York Times report. Several users commented on the article on the Sina Weibo service, but the remarks were quickly deleted. A BBC news report was blacked out in Beijing as it referred to the article. Wen has repeatedly stressed the need to curb corruption, urging leaders to ensure their families and associates do not abuse government influence, and pushed for officials to disclose the assets of their immediate families. Such declarations are not made public and the Times said four-fifths of the assets they found were held by relatives such as his mother, younger brother and various in-laws – none of whom would be covered by the party rules. A former government colleague of Wen's, who spoke anonymously, told the Times: "In the senior leadership, there's no family that doesn't have these problems … His enemies are intentionally trying to smear him by letting this leak out." A US diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks, dating from 2007, quoted an executive in Shanghai as saying: "Wen is disgusted with his family's activities, but is either unable or unwilling to curtail them." In March, the prime minister made a point of telling reporters at his annual press conference that he had "never pursued personal gain", adding that while he had faced criticism, "history will have the final say". Wen's mother's shares, and those of other relatives, were held via an investment vehicle, Taihong, run by Duan Weihong, a wealthy businesswoman close to Wen's wife. Weihong told the Times that the investments were actually her own but she had sought a low profile so asked relatives to find other people to hold the shares on her behalf; they had by "accident" and without her knowledge chosen the prime minister's relatives. Wen's wife, Zhang Beili, who is rarely seen with her husband, works in the diamond trade. Their son Winston Wen runs New Horizon Capital, now one of China's biggest private equity funds. His wife Yang Xiaomeng told the Times: "Everything that has been written about him has been wrong. "He's really not doing that much business any more." The Times said members of Wen's family had declined to comment or did not respond. Separately, the Brookings Institution said the brother of the man expected to replace Wen Jiabao – Li Keqiang, already vice-premier – should be moved from his post as a senior official at China's state-owned tobacco monopoly. Li oversees public health as part of his duties. His younger brother Li Keming is deputy director of the tobacco body and Cheng Li, author of the Brookings report, suggested his role might have set back attempts to curb tobacco use in China.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Suicide bomber kills 35 outside mosque in Maymana where people had gathered to celebrate Eid al-Adha holiday A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a mosque in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing 35 people and wounding at least 70, government and hospital officials said. The attack in Maymana, capital of the northern Faryab province, happened as people gathered to celebrate the Eid al-Adha holiday, said Jawid Didar, a spokesman for the governor's office. Senior officials including the governor and the police chief were inside the building when the bomber set off his explosives outside, where a large crowd had gathered, Didar said. The officials were not hurt, but the casualties included police officers and soldiers, he said. "There was blood and dead bodies everywhere," said Khaled, a doctor who was in the mosque at the time of the blast. "It was a massacre." It appeared to have been the deadliest suicide attack in recent months. On 4 September 25 civilians were killed and more than 35 wounded in Nanghar province, and on 1 September 12 people were killed and 47 wounded in a suicide attack in Wardak province. The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, urged Taliban insurgents "to stop killing other Afghans" in his Eid message to the nation. He called on the insurgents to "stop the destruction of our mosques, hospitals and schools". The United Nations says Taliban attacks account for the vast majority of civilian casualties in the 11-year war. The insurgents routinely deny that they are responsible for attacks on civilians, saying they target only foreign troops or members of the Afghan security forces. On Wednesday the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, urged his fighters to "pay full attention to the prevention of civilian casualties", saying the enemy was trying to blame them on the insurgents. On Friday the Taliban claimed responsibility for killing two US service members in southern Uruzgan province, in what may have been the latest insider attack against western troops. In an emailed statement, the Taliban spokesman Jusuf Ahmadi said a member of the Afghan security forces had shot the two men the day before and then escaped to join the insurgents. A spate of insider attacks has undermined trust between international troops and Afghan army and police, further weakened public support for the war in Nato countries and increased calls for earlier withdrawals. Major Lori Hodge, a spokeswoman for US forces in Afghanistan, said on Thursday that authorities were trying to determine whether the latest attacker was a member of the Afghan security forces or an insurgent who donned a government uniform. It was the second suspected insider attack in two days. On Wednesday two British troops and an Afghan police officer were shot dead in Helmand province. Before Thursday's assault, 53 foreigners attached to the US-led coalition had been killed in attacks by Afghan soldiers or police this year.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | South Korean company's profits almost double – but shares fall on fears over crowded smartphone market Strong sales of Galaxy phones propelled Samsung's quarterly profits to a record high, but its shares dropped on the prospect that its growth will slow in an increasingly crowded smartphone market. Samsung Electronics said July-September net profit nearly doubled to 6.56 trillion won (£3.7bn) from 3.44tn won a year earlier. Revenue for the third quarter climbed 26% to 52.2tn won. The company's shares fell 2% in Seoul after the earnings announcement. Analysts said investors were worried the widespread adoption of smartphones in developed markets and heightened competition from rivals could squeeze profits. Samsung and Apple together account for nearly half of global smartphone sales. The South Korean company, which raked in more than half of its profit and revenue from its mobile communications business, said its Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II smartphones would help sustain its earnings momentum in the final quarter of the year. Samsung also plans to act more aggressively to advance its share of the tablet PC market next year, its vice presidents Kim Hyun-joon and Robert Yi said. "The tablet market is going through a very significant change," said Yi, Samsung's head of investor relations. The release of mini tablets that are between the size of smartphones and standard tablets could open up a new growth area next year, he said. Apple announced a smaller and cheaper iPad earlier this week, pitting its 20cm (7.9in) iPad mini against small tablets from Amazon, Google and Samsung. Samsung launched the Galaxy Note II, an overblown smartphone with a 14cm (5.5in) screen and a digital pen, in the US market earlier this week. A number of PC makers including Samsung launched tablet and laptop computers based on Windows 8 on Friday, as Microsoft introduced a major update to its operating system, allowing it to work on tablets and desktop computers. However, Samsung's head of investor relations said it was not clear if these new products would spur a huge increase in demand. Operating profit surged 91% to an all-time high of 8.12tn won in the third quarter, in line with the company's preliminary results released earlier this month. Samsung is the world's largest maker of computer memory chips, mobile phones and TVs. In the latest quarter, Samsung benefited from robust sales of its Galaxy smartphones as well as demand for high-end components for mobile devices, which offset weak global PC demand and a thin profit from its memory chip business. Its mobile communications division, which sells the Galaxy series of smartphones and tablet computers, generated revenue of 26.3tn won. Sales of the Galaxy S III smartphone topped 20m handsets in little more than three months after its 29 May launch. Samsung said the Galaxy Note II, the latest iteration of the Note series, is expected to exceed the 10m sales of its predecessor. The research firm IDC said Samsung had further widened its gap with the runner-up Apple in the smartphone market. IDC said Samsung had sold 56.3m smartphones versus Apple's 26.9m iPhone sales, capturing 31.3% of the global smartphone market in the third quarter. Kim, a vice president of Samsung's mobile communications team, said the company's smartphone sales saw "a substantial shipment growth" in China. Samsung, which is the largest smartphone seller in China according to IDC, did not disclose figures. With the latest result, Samsung set a record-high quarterly operating profit for a fourth quarter in a row. But some analysts are sceptical whether Samsung will post another increase in profit in the final quarter of this year because of higher marketing costs. The patent disputes between Apple and Samsung linger as another negative factor for Samsung's fourth-quarter earnings, although the company has sufficient cash reserves and earnings to cushion any impact. Samsung is trying to reverse the decision in August of a San José jury to fine it $1bn over copying Apple's design and technology for the iPhone and the iPad. The US judge's decision may be issued as early as December. The penalty could triple if the judge finds Samsung's act of copying was wilful. But recent developments surrounding the patent disputes between Samsung and Apple, such as the US patent office's initial ruling earlier this month to invalidate one of Apple's patents, could also scale back the penalty.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates on the first day of an unmonitored ceasefire in Syria to mark the Eid al-Adha holiday
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Extradited Briton set to re-enter plea next week on charges of conspiring to sell batteries for Iranian missiles Christopher Tappin, the retired British businessman extradited to the US over arms dealing charges, is expected to reach a deal with prosecutors next week. Tappin, 65, was extradited in February on charges of conspiring to sell batteries for Iranian missiles and faced up to 35 years in jail if convicted. He has always denied the charges. Prosecutors said he would appear in court to re-enter his plea on Thursday, four days before his trial in Texas was due to start. He is currently on bail in the US. Plea bargaining is common in the US, with defendants often able to secure a more lenient sentence if they admit an offence and co-operate with prosecutors rather than contest the charges in a trial. David Bermingham, who was one of three bankers jailed for 37 months over an Enron-related fraud in a deal with US prosecutors in 2008, said in March that no sane defendant would risk dozens of years in jail when a plea bargain could enable them to be home within months. "A prosecutor can now effectively be judge, jury and executioner," he said. "He can say: 'I'm going to charge you with 98 different counts, each carrying a five- or 10-year maximum sentence, and potentially you could be sentenced to literally the rest of your life in prison.' "And there's no parole. There's no two ways about it. A prosecutor can threaten a defendant with the rest of his life in prison. However, if you are willing to plead guilty, 30 years becomes five years. If you are then co-operating and willing to give evidence against others, five years becomes two." Tappin, from Orpington, Kent, will enter a plea at the court in El Paso, Texas, at 11.30am local time on Thursday.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Spain's jobless rate has hit 25%, while Asian markets fell overnight after weak results from Apple and Amazon. Will US GDP data provide reassurance?
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President hopes strategy to will inject urgency into his campaign as figures show election spending has passed $1bn mark Barack Obama became the first president to take advantage of early voting by casting his ballot in Chicago on Thursday, which he hopes will inject urgency into his campaign's relentless push to lock up early voters, a major part of a strategy designed to deliver a second White House term. As new fundraising figures showing election spending is for the first time over the $1bn (£620,000) mark, the battle is focused almost exclusively on getting out to vote. With 11 days left to polling day, voting is under way in 32 states, with an estimated 8 million people having cast their ballot. The percentage taking advantage of early voting is far higher than in 2008, especially in the swing states, testimony to the intensity of the door-to-door operations. A Washington Post-ABC tracking poll released on Thursday shows Mitt Romney ahead of the president for the first time in the campaign, winning 50% of likely voters, ahead of Obama's 47%. The president, dispensing with the usual ritual of voting on election day to provide television footage, returned to his hometown to raise awareness about voting early by casting his ballot. At the voting station, he said: "This is the first time a president's ever going to be early voting." He was asked for his driver's licence and joked: "Now ignore the fact that there's no grey hair in that picture." The official who took his licence gave it the sceptical examination that has become routine when dealing with officialdom in America. Obama laughed and mimicked her expression, before heading off to cast his ballot, presumably for himself and other Democrats on the long list of candidates seeking office. The Obama team is backing this up with an ad warning that only a relatively few votes determined the outcome of the 2000 election. The ad is titled 537, the number of votes that gave Bush victory in Florida – "the difference between what was and what could have been". "So this year if you're thinking that your vote doesn't count, that it won't matter, well, back then there were probably 537 people who felt the same way. Make your voice heard," the ad says. Obama's campaign spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said Obama was ahead of where he was four years ago in terms of early voting and winning in Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin. The president's early vote would send a signal to voters that "this is something they should do too," she said. The Democratic push reflects concern that apathy might see supporters fail to make the effort to vote on 6 November, especially if the weather is bad. It also pre-empts any last-minute surprises such as bad unemployment figures. Republicans tend to be better at turning out in large numbers on election day. Michael McDonald, associate professor at George Mason University, who monitors early voting, said almost 400,000 had cast their vote in Iowa, about 30% of the likely final tally, and about one million in Ohio, around 20%. "In Iowa, you could conclude that Obama is not doing as well as in 2008 when he won by 9%. The early voting shows him with a smaller lead than 2008, but still ahead by 4% to 5%," McDonald said. "In Ohio, who knows? It is just a mess, with lots of activity by both campaigns." He added: "If I was a betting man, I would put it on Obama. If he wins Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa, he wins. If Romney loses Iowa, it is difficult for him. If he loses Ohio, it is almost impossible for him to win. It all comes down to Ohio." Reflecting that, both Romney and Obama spent part of the day in Ohio.
The Romney campaign released its latest fundraising figures, showing a big haul over the first few weeks of this month. It raised $111.8m between October 1 and 17. Figures for the Federal Election Commission show there were 794,958 donations to the Romney campaign, 92% of them of $250 or less. It has $169m cash in hand. Obama received a boost when George W Bush's secretary of state, Colin Powell, came out in favour of the president, just as he did in 2008. "You know, I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012 and will vote for him and vice-president Joe Biden next month," Powell told CBS News. He praised Obama for his handling of the economic mess and for ending the war in Iraq, both inherited from Bush. Meanwhile, the normally disciplined Obama made a gaffe that could anger Republicans, indirectly describing Mitt Romney in a Rolling Stone magazine interview as a "bullshitter". McDonald warned that this remark could provoke Republicans. "Coaches warn players not to badmouth the other team. You do not want to rile them up."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Departure of Carroll after months of intense pressure from shareholders leaves just two female bosses in the FTSE 100 Anglo American's chief executive Cynthia Carroll is stepping down next year after months of intense pressure from shareholders. This will leave only two female bosses in the FTSE 100 index. Armed with degrees in geology, Carroll, now 55, became the first non-South African, the first woman and the first outsider to take the top job at Anglo when she became CEO in March 2007. She has been under pressure since her appointment, with some shareholders unhappy about the miner's share performance and Anglo's exposure to South Africa, where a series of mining disputes have grabbed the headlines. Other recent challenges include cost overruns at the Minas-Rio iron-ore project in Brazil, as well as a legal battle with Codelco, Chile's state-owned miner. Shares in Anglo were up 2.3% in early trading in London to £18.99 – making them the biggest riser on the leading index. But the company lauded Carroll's achievements, saying that under her leadership the group "successfully weathered the global financial crisis" and again achieved record profits last year. Carroll said: "It is a very difficult decision to leave, but next year I will be entering my seventh year as chief executive and I feel that the time will be right to hand over to a successor who can build further on the strong foundations we have created." Anglo's chairman, Sir John Parker, paid tribute to her, saying: "Cynthia's leadership has had a transformational impact on Anglo American. She developed a clear strategy, based on a highly attractive range of core commodities, and created a strong and unified culture and a streamlined organisation with a focus on operational performance." Despite billions in cost cuts that resulted in 26,000 job losses to streamline a sprawling consortium, analysts at Macquarie said this week that Anglo had lost a third of its value since Carroll became CEO, while its peers are worth at least the same as in 2007. The company is now worth some $25bn less. Following Dame Marjorie Scardino's departure from the helm of publisher Pearson, also announced this month, there will be only two female CEOs in the FTSE 100: Burberry boss Angela Ahrendts, who took the reins at the fashion group in 2006, and Alison Cooper, chief executive of Imperial Tobacco since 2010.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Departure of Carroll after months of intense pressure from shareholders leaves just two female bosses in FTSE 100 Anglo American's chief executive Cynthia Carroll is stepping down next year after months of intense pressure from shareholders amid wildcat strikes in South Africa. This will leave only two female bosses in the FTSE 100 index. Armed with degrees in geology, Carroll, now 55, became the first non-South African, the first woman and the first outsider to take the reins at Anglo when she became CEO in March 2007. Carroll, 55, will stay in the job until a successor is found, which could take up to nine months. Potential candidates include Brazilian Alex Vanselow, the former chief financial officer of BHP Billiton, and South African-born Mick Davis, the outgoing chief executive of Xstrata. Anglo's chairman, Sir John Parker, said the company would conduct a global search but "could not afford Davis". Carroll has been under pressure since her appointment, with some investors unhappy about the miner's share performance and Anglo's exposure to South Africa, where a series of mining disputes have hit output. Anglo American Platinum, a subsidiary, sacked 12,000 workers in early October. Other recent challenges include cost overruns at the Minas-Rio iron-ore project in Brazil, as well as a legal battle with Codelco, Chile's state-owned miner. Shares in Anglo were up nearly 3% in early trading in London to £19.12 – making them the second-biggest riser in the leading index. Parker said Carroll's decision to leave was her own as she started her seventh year in a "very gruelling and demanding role". The company lauded Carroll's achievements, saying that under her leadership the group "successfully weathered the global financial crisis" and again achieved record profits last year. Carroll said: "It is a very difficult decision to leave, but next year I will be entering my seventh year as chief executive and I feel that the time will be right to hand over to a successor who can build further on the strong foundations we have created." Parker paid tribute to her: "Cynthia's leadership has had a transformational impact on Anglo American. She developed a clear strategy, based on a highly attractive range of core commodities, and created a strong and unified culture and a streamlined organisation with a focus on operational performance." Despite billions in cost cuts that resulted in 26,000 job losses to streamline a sprawling consortium, analysts at Macquarie said this week that Anglo had lost a third of its value since Carroll became CEO, while its peers are worth at least the same as in 2007. The company is now worth some $25bn less. Following Dame Marjorie Scardino's departure from the helm of publisher Pearson, also announced this month, there will be only two female CEOs in the FTSE 100: Burberry boss Angela Ahrendts, who took the reins at the fashion group in 2006, and Alison Cooper, chief executive of Imperial Tobacco since 2010.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Storm lashes central Bahamas after raging through Haiti and Jamaica, killing at least 21 people across the Caribbean Hurricane Sandy has lashed the central Bahamas with violent winds and torrential rains after raging through the Caribbean, where it caused at least 21 deaths and forced the postponement of a hearing at the Guantanamo naval base on Cuba. State media in Cuba said houses were destroyed and 11 people killed in the eastern provinces of Santiago and Guantanamo as the category two storm swept over the island on Thursday. Nine deaths were reported in Haiti and one in Jamaica. By late on Thursday, Sandy had slowed to a category one hurricane, but forecasters warned it is likely to combine with a winter storm to cause a super storm in the eastern US next week, whose effects will be felt along the entire Atlantic coast and inland to Ohio. Some further weakening of the hurricane was forecast during the next 48 hours, but it was expected to remain a hurricane. Late on Thursday, the hurricane's centre was 185 miles (300km) east-southeast of Freeport on Grand Bahama Island as it spun between Cat Island and Eleuthera in the central Bahamas. The storm's maximum sustained winds had fallen to 90mph (150kph), with Sandy moving north-northwest at 13mph (20kph). Caroline Turnquest, head of the Red Cross in the Bahamas archipelago off Florida's east coast, said 20 shelters were opened on the main island of New Providence. "Generally people are realising it is serious," she said. Power was out on Acklins Island and most roads there were flooded, government administrator Berkeley Williams said. His biggest concern was that a boat filled with basic supplies for the island had to cancel its trip until next week. "Supplies were low before, so you can imagine what we are going through now," Williams said. The only school on Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas was flooded. "We have holes in roofs, lost shingles and power lines are down," said Charlene Bain, the local Red Cross president. "But nobody lost a life, that's the important thing." Steven Russell, an emergency management official in Nassau, said docks on the western side of Great Inagua island had been destroyed and that the roof of a government building was partially ripped off. "As the storm passes over Eleuthera and Cat Island, they should get a pretty good beating," he said. "There are sections of Eleuthera we are concerned about." The Atlantis resort went into lockdown after dozens of tourists left Paradise Island before the airport closed, said George Markantonis, president of Kerzner International, which manages the resort. He said Atlantis was less than half full but all of its restaurants, casinos and other facilities were still operating. Sooner Halvorson, a 36-year-old hotel owner from Colorado who recently moved to the Bahamas, said she and her husband, Matt, expected to ride out the storm with their two young children, three cats, two dogs and a goat at their Cat Island resort. "We brought all of our animals inside," she said, though she added that a horse stayed outside. "She's a 40-year-old horse from the island. She's been through tons of hurricanes." On Great Exuma island, guest house operator Veronica Marshall supplied her only customer with a flashlight and some food before Sandy bore down. The storm-hardened Bahamian said she was confident she and her business would make it through intact. "I'm 73 years old and I've weathered many storms," she said. Hurricane Sandy was expected to churn through the central and north-west Bahamas late on Thursday and early Friday. It might cause tropical storm conditions along the south-east Florida coast, the Upper Keys and Florida Bay by Friday morning. With storm conditions projected to hit New Jersey with tropical storm-force winds on Tuesday, there is a 90% chance that most of the US east coast will get steady gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and possibly snow from Sunday, US forecaster Jim Cisco said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Storm lashes central Bahamas after raging through Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, killing at least 21 people across the Caribbean Hurricane Sandy has lashed the central Bahamas with violent winds and torrential rains after raging through the Caribbean, where it caused at least 21 deaths and forced the postponement of a hearing at the Guantánamo naval base on Cuba. State media in Cuba said houses were destroyed and 11 people killed in the eastern provinces of Santiago and Guantánamo as the category-two storm swept over the island on Thursday. Nine deaths were reported in Haiti and one in Jamaica. By late on Thursday, Sandy had slowed to a category-one hurricane, but forecasters warned it was likely to combine with a winter storm to cause a super storm in the eastern US next week, whose effects would be felt along the entire Atlantic coast and inland to Ohio. Some further weakening of the hurricane was forecast during the next 48 hours, but it was expected to remain a hurricane. Late on Thursday, the hurricane's centre was 185 miles east-southeast of Freeport on Grand Bahama island as it spun between Cat Island and Eleuthera in the central Bahamas. The storm's maximum sustained winds had fallen to 90mph, with Sandy moving north-northwest at 13mph. Caroline Turnquest, head of the Red Cross in the Bahamas archipelago off Florida's east coast, said 20 shelters were opened on the main island of New Providence. "Generally people are realising it is serious," she said. Power was out on Acklins Island and most roads there were flooded, government administrator Berkeley Williams said. His biggest concern was that a boat filled with basic supplies for the island had to cancel its trip until next week. "Supplies were low before, so you can imagine what we are going through now," Williams said. The only school on Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas was flooded. "We have holes in roofs, lost shingles and power lines are down," said Charlene Bain, the local Red Cross president. "But nobody lost a life, that's the important thing." Steven Russell, an emergency management official in Nassau, said docks on the western side of Great Inagua island had been destroyed and that the roof of a government building was partially ripped off. "As the storm passes over Eleuthera and Cat Island, they should get a pretty good beating," he said. "There are sections of Eleuthera we are concerned about." The Atlantis resort went into lockdown after dozens of tourists left Paradise Island before the airport closed, said George Markantonis, president of Kerzner International, which manages the resort. He said Atlantis was less than half full but all of its restaurants, casinos and other facilities were still operating. Sooner Halvorson, a 36-year-old hotel owner from Colorado who recently moved to the Bahamas, said she and her husband, Matt, expected to ride out the storm with their two young children, three cats, two dogs and a goat at their Cat Island resort. "We brought all of our animals inside," she said, though she added that a horse stayed outside. "She's a 40-year-old horse from the island. She's been through tons of hurricanes." On Great Exuma island, guest house operator Veronica Marshall supplied her only customer with a flashlight and some food before Sandy bore down. The storm-hardened Bahamian said she was confident she and her business would make it through intact. "I'm 73 years old and I've weathered many storms," she said. Hurricane Sandy was expected to churn through the central and north-west Bahamas late on Thursday and early Friday. It might cause tropical storm conditions along the south-east Florida coast, the Upper Keys and Florida Bay by Friday morning. With storm conditions projected to hit New Jersey with tropical storm-force winds on Tuesday, there is a 90% chance that most of the US east coast will get steady gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and possibly snow from Sunday, US forecaster Jim Cisco said.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Unwelcome revelations about wealth of family of Chinese premier, known for his humble background and populist appeal Chinese authorities have blocked the Chinese website of the New York Times and most access to the main website after it revealed that the extended family of premier Wen Jiabao has controlled assets worth at least $2.7bn (£1.67bn). Several of Wen's close relatives have become extremely wealthy since his ascent to the top leadership, the news organisation said. But in many cases their holdings were obscured by layers of partnerships and investment vehicles involving friends, colleagues or business partners. A single investment held on paper by Wen's 90-year-old mother Yang Zhiyun - a retired schoolteacher - was worth $120m five years ago, the Times said. It added it was unclear if Yang was aware of the holdings in her name. The report is embarrassing not only for Wen himself - who comes from a modest background and is widely seen as the sympathetic, populist face of the government - but for the party. It is the latest in a string of unwelcome revelations about the vast wealth amassed by those around senior leaders. Authorities blocked the Bloomberg website earlier this year after it exposed the multi-million dollar assets held by the extended family of Xi Jinping, heir-apparent to the presidency. The news agency has also reported that relatives of disgraced politician Bo Xilai accumulated at least $136m in assets. Many people - particularly among the elite - had been aware of rumours about relatives of Wen. But the full detail of the report and the scale of their assets is striking. The timing is also sensitive, given that the once-a-decade leadership transition is weeks away. But the blocking of the websites and censorship on Chinese microblogs means that many may remain unaware of the Times account. Several users commented on the report on the Sina Weibo service, but the remarks were quickly deleted. A BBC news report was blacked out in Beijing as it referred to the article. Wen has repeatedly stressed the need to curb corruption, urging leaders to ensure their families and associates do not abuse government influence, and pushed for officials to disclose the assets of their immediate families. Such declarations are not made public and the Times said four-fifths of the assets they found were held by relatives such as his mother, younger brother and various in-laws - none of whom would be covered by the party rules. A former government colleague of Wen's, who spoke anonymously, told the Times: "In the senior leadership, there's no family that doesn't have these problems...His enemies are intentionally trying to smear him by letting this leak out." A US diplomatic cable obtained by Wikileaks, dating from 2007, quoted an executive in Shanghai as saying: "Wen is disgusted with his family's activities, but is either unable or unwilling to curtail them." In March, the prime minister made a point of telling reporters at his annual press conference that he had "never pursued personal gain", adding that while he had faced criticism, "history will have the final say". Wen's mother's shares, and those of other relatives, were held via an investment vehicle, Taihong, run by a wealthy businesswoman close to Wen's wife. Duan Weihong told the Times that the investments were actually her own but she had sought a low profile so asked relatives to find other people to hold the shares on her behalf; they had by "accident" and without her knowledge chosen the prime minister's relatives. Wen's wife Zhang Beili, who is rarely seen with her husband, works in the diamond trade. Their son Winston Wen runs New Horizon Capital, now one of China's biggest private equity funds. His wife Yang Xiaomeng told the Times: "Everything that has been written about him has been wrong. "He's really not doing that much business anymore." The Times said the Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the investments, the prime minister or his relatives. Members of Wen's family also declined to comment or did not respond. The Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a Guardian request for comment. Separately, the Brookings Institution said the brother of the man expected to replace Wen Jiabao - Li Keqiang, already vice premier - should be moved from his post as a senior official at China's state-owned tobacco monopoly. Li oversees public health as part of his duties. His younger brother Li Keming is deputy director of the tobacco body and Cheng Li, author of the Brookings report, suggested his role might have set back attempts to curb tobacco use in China.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rolling report: Detroit Tigers (0-1) visit the San Francisco Giants (1-0) for Game 2 of the World Series
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Gilberto Valle detained without bail by judge, who said allegations were 'profoundly disturbing' A New York City police officer was in federal court on Thursday on charges of plotting to kidnap, rape, torture, kill and eat women. Judge Henry Pitman detained Gilberto Valle without bail, saying the allegations against him were "profoundly disturbing". The 28-year-old, an NYPD officer for six years, was arrested after the FBI intercepted emails and instant messages allegedly showing him conspiring with others to abduct, "cook and eat body parts of a number of women". The FBI claims he met one of his potential victims for lunch, but did not follow through with the acts discussed with two unnamed co-conspirators. In a conversation in July, Valle discusses how to abduct and consume a specific woman. "I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus ... cook her over a low heat, keep her alive as long as possible." In another exchange he says the victim's "days are numbered", adding: "I love that she is asleep right now not having the slightest clue of what we have planned." In a February conversation he discusses kidnapping and delivering a woman for $5,000. Valle appears to suggest that he is hoping to make a career from such activities. "It is going to be so hard to restrain myself when I knock her out, but I am aspiring to be a professional kidnapper and that's business. But I will really get off on knocking her out, tying up her hands and bare feet and gagging her," Valle said. "Then she will be stuffed into a large piece of luggage and wheeled out to my van."A search of Valle's computer found records of at least 100 women with their names, addresses and photographs, it is alleged. There was no information that any women had been harmed. Public defender Julia Gatto had asked for bail, saying the alleged plot was "fantasy in a sexual world". She said it was a deviant fantasy and there was no crossing of the line into reality. A prosecutor disagreed, saying Valle had to be arrested because he was too close to carrying out the plot. Mary E Galligan, acting head of the FBI's New York office, said the allegations "need no description from us". "They speak for themselves. It would be an understatement merely to say Valle's own words and actions were shocking."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Madison Bumgarner throws seven shutout innings as the San Francisco Giants defeat the Detroit Tigers and take a 2-0 World Series lead.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Top bosses have pointed out that the math doesn't add up. But so close to an election even sensible messages get drowned out If there's one method of communication that the CEOs of American companies have mastered, it's how to send an opinion upon deaf ears, at the time least likely to make a difference. The credibility of corporate leaders is not exactly at an all-time high (just ask Jack Welch). Yet, trying to reverse this curse, 80 of America's most powerful, prestigious corporate chieftains signed their names to a petition on Thursday – a letter really – that encourages a perfectly rational response to the coming tax crisis that faces America. That coming crisis is called the "fiscal cliff". It will take place in two months. A lot of the talk about it is highly intellectual and mostly impenetrable, but it really will affect the average American taxpayer. Here's what will happen: a number of tax breaks will lapse, and regular people will feel the pinch when tax season comes next year. For instance, the mortgage interest-rate deduction will be over, which will make it more expensive to own a home – really unfortunate timing, as unemployment remains high, home budgets are under pressure, and housing seems to be on track for a recovery. Then there's the payroll tax cut. If that goes away, payroll taxes will go up, and nearly $125bn in household income in the US will disappear, according to JP Morgan. There are other potential tax breaks that will disappear from lower-income households, like the earned-income tax credit, which allows people with modest incomes to get tax breaks if they have children. Overall, Americans will pay more in taxes than they have in 12 years, and legislators would also be taking away the real power of the tax system: the government's moral incentives to having children, home-ownership, and hiring. So it's clear that most American households will suffer in some respect if Congress fails to stop us from going over this fiscal cliff. American businesses are already suffering, or at least believe they are. The New York Times said its revenues fell largely because advertisers were holding back on budgets for fear that the fiscal cliff would destabilize the economy. We don't even need the fiscal cliff to occur to hurt us – the fear of the fiscal cliff is enough. But the thoughts of 80 CEOs are not going to assuage those fears, or convince Congress or the candidates that they need to act urgently. That's too bad. The CEOs point out, simply and with no partisan tint, that the tax math we've been hearing on the political stump doesn't exactly make sense in the real world. It's not exactly a shocking suggestion that campaign promises aren't always rooted in reality. But even sensible messages get drowned in the noise of "October surprises" and other sensationalist election nonsense. For one thing, the timing of the letter is all wrong. The CEOs would clearly like to influence what happens immediately post-election, when a lame-duck Congress is supposed to use their last few breaths to pass legislation to keep the country from careening off the fiscal cliff. But both President Obama and Governor Romney are cramming for election day. It's probably a good day for each of them now if they can keep their shoelaces tied and read a few policy briefings on Benghazi while hitting five states in 24 hours for campaigning. Paying attention to to-do lists – even from donation-rich corporate America – is not likely to hit high on the agenda. "It's very weird timing," says Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center. "I wasn't quite sure why they put it out now. I can't picture Mitt Romney saying, 'I've been completely wrong about taxes, and we're now going to use tax increases to reduce the deficit!' I don't think that's the outcome." Another reason this letter won't change much is that it needs greater numbers for support. "There are only 80 CEOs who signed it, and there are lot of CEOs missing from that list," points out Gleckman. "There's a long way to go before the public and the business community are convinced." Gleckman says what voters and other business leaders need to be convinced of is the same thing that Congress needs to be convinced of: that avoiding the fiscal cliff will involve both raising taxes and cutting government programs. No shortcuts. No fairy tales. Yet another reason this letter is likely to have little impact is that the subject matter is not exactly the kind of thing you can rally voters around. There are few Americans who understand the fiscal cliff and its implications; making sense of tax policy is like falling down the rabbit hole. Even most CEOs don't care, says Gleckman. "I don't think voters feel despair. I think they've long since tuned these people out. I've even heard this from CEOs: 'Just tell me when this is over. When these guys actually have a plan, call me. I don't want to hear about this anymore.'" Guy LeBas, chief fixed-income strategist for Janney Montgomery Scott, says the fiscal cliff may be an impending financial crisis, but for now it's a political one. "It's a game of fiscal chicken, where both parties have their interests about how to support economic growth and control long-term budget deficits, and both have incentives to delay any long-term resolution. There's no incentive for anyone in Congress to act right now. it would be like shooting yourself in foot." Congress may not even feel that urgency after the election. The election could change the balance of power between Republicans and Democrats. New legislators will be uncomfortable delving into complicated issues; the old ones may not have a good grip on party loyalties. And that's even if Congress has a plan. It's more likely that, under the pressure of saving the country, they will not have a coherent vision of what to do about some very loaded issues. Many major investors and bankers expect Congress to do what it did before: delay the decision for another few months, or even a year. Then, come tax season in 2014, the average American household may see its taxes rise by $3,500, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center. LeBas says Congress has to act. "Economically speaking, the worst possible outcome is another kick the can down the road." Unfortunately, that's what many are expecting to happen. There was story in The Onion this week that seemed oddly prescient: "After Four Debates," the headline declared, "Entire Nation is Undecided." One could say the same of Congress – and average American households will pay the price. Corporate leaders, even in the most sensible of their talk, will have little influence.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Secret legal advice states pre-emptive strike could be in breach of international law as Iran not yet 'clear and present threat' Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law. The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories. The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly. They have pointed US officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general's office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. This makes clear that Iran, which has consistently denied it has plans to develop a nuclear weapon, does not currently represent "a clear and present threat". Providing assistance to forces that could be involved in a pre-emptive strike would be a clear breach of international law, it states. "The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans." Sources said the US had yet to make a formal request to the British government, and that they did not believe an acceleration towards conflict was imminent or more likely. The discussions so far had been to scope out the British position, they said. "But I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise." The situation reflects the lack of appetite within Whitehall for the UK to be drawn into any conflict, though the Royal Navy has a large presence in the Gulf in case the ongoing diplomatic efforts fail. The navy has up to 10 ships in the region, including a nuclear-powered submarine. Its counter-mine vessels are on permanent rotation to help ensure that the strategically important shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz remain open. The Guardian has been told that a British military delegation with a strong navy contingent flew to US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, earlier this summer to run through a range of contingency plans with US planners. The UK, however, has assumed that it would only become involved once a conflict had already begun, and has been reluctant to commit overt support to Washington in the buildup to any military action. "It is quite likely that if the Israelis decided to attack Iran, or the Americans felt they had to do it for the Israelis or in support of them, the UK would not be told beforehand," said the source. "In some respects, the UK government would prefer it that way." British and US diplomats insisted that the two countries regarded a diplomatic solution as the priority. But this depends on the White House being able to restrain Israel, which is nervous that Iran's underground uranium enrichment plant will soon make its nuclear programme immune to any outside attempts to stop it. Israel has a less developed strike capability and its window for action against Iran will close much more quickly than that of the US, explained another official. "The key to holding back Israel is Israeli confidence that the US will deal with Iran when the moment is right." With diplomatic efforts stalled by the US presidential election campaign, a new push to resolve the crisis will begin in late November or December. Six global powers will spearhead a drive which is likely to involve an offer to lift some of the sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy in return for Tehran limiting its stockpile of enriched uranium. The countries involved are the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China. Iran will be represented by its chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "As we continue to make clear, the government does not believe military action against Iran is the right course of action at this time, although no option is off the table. We believe that the twin-track approach of pressure through sanctions, which are having an impact, and engagement with Iran is the best way to resolve the nuclear issue. We are not going to speculate about scenarios in which military action would be legal. That would depend on the circumstances at the time." The Foreign Office said it would not disclose whether the attorney general's advice has been sought on any specific issue. A US state department official said: "The US and the UK co-ordinate on all kinds of subjects all the time, on a huge range of issues. We never speak on the record about these types of conversations." The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, warned at the UN general assembly last month that Iran's nuclear programme would reach Israel's "red line" by "next spring, at most by next summer", implying that Israel might then take military action in an attempt to destroy nuclear sites and set back the programme. That red line, which Netanyahu illustrated at the UN with a marker pen on a picture of a bomb, is defined by Iranian progress in making uranium enriched to 20%, which would be much easier than uranium enriched to 5% to turn into weapons-grade material, should Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, take the strategic decision to abandon Iran's observance of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and try to make a weapon. Tehran insists it has no such intention. In August, the most senior US military officer, General Martin Dempsey, distanced himself from any Israeli plan to bomb Iran. He said such an attack would "clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran's nuclear programme". He added: "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Territorial gains break more than two months of stalemate as large areas of country's second city change hands After more than two months of near stalemate, rebel groups have advanced into three regime-held areas of central Aleppo, edging them closer to a tightly-defended security district. While the day-long skirmishes mark the first time that swathes of territory have changed hands since mid-August, the fighting did not appear to mark a decisive shift in the battle for Syria's second city where a mooted three day lull in fighting is due to take hold tomorrow. Syrian officials and many rebel groups say they have agreed a truce to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival. If it takes hold, it will be the first to do so since Syria's popular uprising morphed into civil war. However, expectations of a meaningful truce were low after months of withering fighting across the country, which have left large parts of the country's historical cities in ruins and pitched rebel groups and regime forces into a seemingly unstoppable cycle of violence. Regime officials said they would honour the agreement brokered by peace envoy Lakdhar Ibrahimi, unless they were attacked or felt a need to defend borders. At least one Islamist group said it would not support the deal, while the deeply fragmented Free Syria Army said most units would cautiously back it. Rebel groups claimed gains in two Christian areas of the city as well as a Kurdish enclave, which had been protected by a militia force. A rebel fighter in Aleppo, Anu Yousef, said: "Brigades of the FSA were able to progress from al-Ashrafiyeh district where the Criminal Security branch is. There was also progress in al-Midan and Sulaiman al-Halabi districts. "In Khan al-Assal district, there is a police school which was under siege by the FSA for 10 days now. The Syrian army were sending reienfocrements every day to ease the siege on it. Today a convoy was heading towards the school and was faced by fire from the FSA and could not get there." Intelligence and security bases, such as the Air Force Intelligence headquarters, are a prime target for rebel groups, partly because they represent pillars of regime power, but also because they are known to house thousands of detainees rounded up since the uprising began 19 months ago "The FSA had to take al-Ashrafiyeh district to be able to reach the Criminal branch – and they did," said Abu Yousef. "The advance now is just around the Criminal Security and it is not easy to get control." "There are spots of power for the Syrian army like the Criminal Security in al-Ashrafiyeh, Political Security in al-Azziziyeh and Air Force security and intelligence in New Aleppo. If the FSA can liberate all these branches, we can say at that time that Aleppo has been liberated entirely." Rebels calimed that Kurdish groups, headed by the PKK, had facilitated their entry to the Ashrafiyeh district after a deal was struck for neither side to attack the other. The Free Syria Army has previously accused members of the PKK of siding with the Assad regime. "The PKK had agreed not to interfere and not to support any side of the conflict," said Abu Yousef. "We did not attack any members of the PKK [today], in fact they pulled out to clear the way for us. It was a deal that they would pull out before the arrival of the FSA. The clashes were with the Syrian army only. Since the beginning of the revolution the regime has been trying to keep the PKK on its side but I think now it is going to lose them." The position of the PKK has been unclear as the violence in Syria has intensified. An organised and motivated fighting force, they would pose a potent threat to Turkish interests if they chose to use the instability in Syria to intensify their decades-long cross-border insurgency. However, apart from sporadic clashes in Aleppo and the nearby countryside, PKK forces are yet to enter the fray.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Forecasters are predicting an unusual degree of severe weather, but it's much too early for the hurricane hysteria to kick in The 2011 meteorological autumn was unusual in that both a hurricane and an October snowstorm hit the north-east. They occurred two months apart, and the idea that either one would happen again in the near-term was not something high up on the probability scale. But if there is one thing more unpredictable than politics, it's the weather. Government forecasters are warning that the US east coast is likely to be battered next week, not by a winter storm or a hurricane, but by an unusual combination of steady gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and possibly snow. It has already been dubbed the "snor'eastercane". Hurricane Sandy is currently approaching the Bahamas. With 105mph winds and a central low pressure of 964 millibars, Sandy seems likely at this point to hit the east coast of the United States. Where and how Sandy will make her mark is still very much up in the up air. Here's what we know for sure: the National Hurricane Center's latest track has Sandy staying well off the coast for the next 72 hours. Pretty much all weather models agree on this track. Most often that a storm such as Sandy would go out to sea at this point – following the warm waters of the Gulf stream. The kicker here is that the jet stream, which carries weather systems across the country, is coming along at the perfect time and will block the eastward movement of Sandy. The jet will force the storm to head due north. The jet should then pick up the storm and bring it back towards to the coast. The result is a five day projection of Sandy as a tropical storm (ie winds of 39-74mph) into New York City by Tuesday midday. Note how there is a wide range of uncertainty in Sandy's track. You should embrace that uncertainty because there is a large degree of unknown at this point. We don't know exactly how Sandy will interact with the jet. The European model has a most forceful merging of the jet with Sandy and turns it into the coast somewhere around Virginia. That would lead to tremendous winds and coastal erosion to the north-east of there including New Jersey and up to New York City. This solution is mostly supported by the US navy model among others. Earlier runs of the American GFS were on the opposite end of the spectrum, with less interaction with the jet stream causing the storm to make its way up to Maine before turning inward. That would lead to less impact further to the south as the strongest winds are on the north-eastern side of tropical storms. I must admit it I'm not really buying this solution as the latest run of the GFS is starting to look more like the middle ground spoken about below. The middle ground track at this point seems to be the GFS ensembles and last night's run of the Canadian model. These models take Sandy parallel with the coast up to about the North Carolina/Virginia border before making a sharp left turn and into the New Jersey/New York City area. This solution would lead to heavy winds and rain on the order of perhaps a foot or more into the New York City metropolitan area. There would likely be coastal evacuations around New York City. Heavy rains could also extend back into areas away from the center such as Philadelphia. Again though, this middle ground is merely one scenario, and we're many days away. Within these different tracks, one thing is very clear: the storm is going to be very powerful. The models are printing out central low pressures of between 935 and 950 millibars. The lowest pressure on hurricane Isaac earliest this year was 968 millibars. What does that mean? This low pressure indicates that even if you aren't in the center of the storm you're going to get hit pretty hard if you are anywhere near it. That's why the exact track of Sandy isn't as important as it might be otherwise. You'll see at least some rain from the Carolinas all the way up into New England. Combine this with a full moon, and there is going to be some major flooding along the coast for many miles. The reason for this extremely low pressure is again due to the jet interaction. The air the jet stream is ushering in is rather cold. In fact, it's snowing right now in Minnesota. When you combine this cold air with the warm air of a cyclone of tropical origin, you're bound to get rapid intensification. The rapid intensification will also help to drag down cold air that the jet is ushering in as atmospheric heights drop. Snow is unlikely in the big cities, but snow seems possible to the west-south-west of wherever the storm hits. It's this sector where we will have moisture as well as a cutting off of the warm air associated with the cyclone. You could get some good snow in the Northern Appalachian Mountains with perhaps minor accumulations from State College to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and up to Buffalo, New York, if the middle ground track came to fruition. Like the rest of the storm, we don't know where that snow line is going to be just yet and how much will fall where rain changes over to snow. Overall, Sandy does not seem to be messing around. It's about as much the real deal as a storm can be at this point. We'll have to keep an eye out where the storm ultimately decides to go in the coming days.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President hopes strategy to will inject urgency into his campaign as figures show election spending has passed $1bn mark Barack Obama was expected to become the first president to take advantage of early voting by casting his ballot in Chicago on Thursday, a move he hopes will inject urgency into his campaign's relentless push to lock up early voters, a major part of a strategy designed to deliver a second White House term. As new fundraising figures were released that take election spending for the first time over the $1bn mark, the battle is focused almost exclusively on the ground operations and getting out the vote. With 12 days left to polling day, voting is already under way in 32 states, with an estimated 8 million people having cast their ballot. The percentage taking advantage of early voting is significantly higher than in 2008 and much higher in the swing states, testament to the intensity of the door-to-door operations. Obama has a substantial lead in early voting. The president, dispensing with the usual ritual of voting on election day to provide footage for television crews, is returning to his hometown to raise awareness about voting early by casting his ballot. The Obama team is backing this up with an ad warning that only a relatively few votes determined the outcome of the 2000 election. The ad is entitled '537', the number of votes that gave Bush victory in Florida. That is "the difference between what was and what could have been", the ad, which is to air in the battleground states, says. "So this year if you're thinking that your vote doesn't count, that it won't matter, well, back then there were probably 537 people who felt the same way. Make your voice heard," the ad says. The Democratic push reflects concern that apathy might see supporters fail to make the effort to vote on November 6, especially if the weather is bad. It also ties up votes in case of any last-minute surprises such as bad unemployment figures just days before polling day. Republicans traditionally tend to be better at turning out in large numbers on election day. Professor Michael McDonald, a professor at George Mason University who monitors early voting, said that almost 400,000 people have already cast their vote in Iowa, about 30% of the likely final vote, and about one million in Ohio, about 20%. "In Iowa, you could conclude that Obama is not doing as well as in 2008 when he won by 9%. The early voting shows him with a smaller lead than 2008, but still ahead by 4% to 5%," McDonald said. "In Ohio, who knows? It is just a mess, with lots of activity by both campaigns." He added: "If I was a betting man, I would put it on Obama … If Obama wins Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa, he wins. If Romney loses Iowa, it is difficult for him. If he loses Ohio, it is almost impossible for him to win. It all comes down to Ohio. Ohio is ground zero." Reflecting that, both Romney and Obama are spending at least part of the day in Ohio. Obama, on the second day of a tour that takes in eight states, is scheduled to speak in Cleveland while Romney has three stops in Ohio. The Romney campaign released its latest fundraising figures Thursday, a big haul over the first few weeks of this month. It raised $111.8m between October 1 and 17. Figures to be submitted to the Federal Election Commission show there were 794,958 donations to the Romney campaign, 92% of them of of $250 or less. It has $169m cash in hand. Obama received a boost when George Bush's secretary of state, Colin Powell, came out in favour of the president, just as he did in 2008. "You know, I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012 and will vote for him and vice-president Joe Biden next month," Powell told CBS News. "So that's an endorsement for President Obama for re-election." Powell praised Obama for his handling of the economic mess he inherited
from Bush and for ending the war in Iraq, also inherited from Bush. Powell expressed concern about what he said where Romney's changing positions on foreign and economic policy. Meanwhile, the normally disciplined Obama made a gaffe that could fire up Republicans, indirectly describing Mitt Romney in a magazine interview as a "bullshitter". The president made the off-the-cuff comment to Rolling Stone. Douglas Brinkley, who wrote up the interview, said: "We arrived at the Oval Office for our 45-minute interview … on the morning of October 11. As we left the Oval Office, executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his six-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president. She said: 'Tell him: You can do it.' Obama grinned. 'You know, kids have good instincts. They look at the other guy and say: 'Well, that's a bullshitter, I can tell.'" McDonald warned that this remark could provoke a backlash among Republicans. "Coaches warn players not to bad-mouth the other team. You do not want to rile them up. It looks like a gaffe to me."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | FBI says Gilberto Valle, an NYPD officer assigned to Manhattan, outlined a ghoulish scheme of torture and cannibalism A New York City police officer was charged Thursday with plotting to kidnap, rape, torture and kill women, and then cook and eat their body parts. Gilberto Valle was taken into custody by the FBI on Wednesday and suspended from the New York police department. He was expected to appear in federal court in Manhattan later Thursday. In a criminal complaint, investigators cited numerous emails and other internet communications that portray a ghoulish scheme of torture and cannibalism. They allege Valle met one potential victim over lunch, but there was no information that any women were harmed. "The allegations in the complaint really need no description from us," said Mary E Galligan, acting head of the FBI's New York office. "They speak for themselves. It would be an understatement merely to say Valle's own words and actions were shocking." The name of Valle's attorney was not immediately available. There was no immediate response to a message left with the NYPD on Thursday. According to the complaint, the FBI intercepted emails from Valle to an unidentified co-conspirator "discussing plans to kidnap, rape, torture, kill, cook and eat body parts of a number of women". In one online exchange in July, Valle and another person talked about abducting a woman and eating her, the complaint said. "I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus ... cook her over low heat, keep her alive as long as possible," Valle allegedly wrote. The complaint alleges that in February, Valle negotiated to kidnap another woman for someone else, writing, "$5,000 and she's all yours." It says he added: "I will really get off on knocking her out, tying up her hands and bare feet and gagging her. Then she will be stuffed into a large piece of luggage and wheeled out to my van." Valle, 28, lives in Queens. He had been assigned to a Manhattan precinct before his suspension on Wednesday.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Special rapporteur on counter-terror operations condemns Barack Obama's failure to establish effective monitoring process The United Nations is to set up a dedicated investigations unit in Geneva to examine the legality of drone attacks in cases where civilians are killed in so-called 'targeted' counter-terrorism operations. The announcement was made by Ben Emmerson QC, a UN special rapporteur, in a speech to Harvard law school in which he condemned secret rendition and waterboarding as crimes under international law. His forthright comments, directed at both US presidential candidates, will be seen as an explicit challenge to the prevailing US ideology of the global war on terror. Earlier this summer, Emmerson, who monitors counter-terrorism for the UN, called for effective investigations into drone attacks. Some US drone strikes in Pakistan – where those helping victims of earlier attacks or attending funerals were killed – may amount to war crimes, Emmerson warned. In his Harvard speech, he revealed: "If the relevant states are not willing to establish effective independent monitoring mechanisms … then it may in the last resort be necessary for the UN to act. "Together with my colleague Christof Heyns, [the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings], I will be launching an investigation unit within the special procedures of the [UN] Human Rights Council to inquire into individual drone attacks." The unit will also look at "other forms of targeted killing conducted in counter-terrorism operations, in which it is alleged that civilian casualties have been inflicted, and to seek explanations from the states using this technology and the states on whose territory it is used. [It] will begin its work early next year and will be based in Geneva." Security officials who took part in waterboarding interrogations or secret rendition removals should be made accountable for their actions and justice, Emmerson added. "The time has come," he said, "for the international community to agree minimum standard principles for investigating such allegations and holding those responsible to account. "Let us be clear on this: secret detention is unlawful as a matter of international law. Waterboarding is always torture. Torture is an international crime of universal jurisdiction. The torturer, like the pirate before him, is regarded in international law as the enemy of all mankind. There is therefore a duty on states to investigate and to prosecute acts of torture." The US stance of conducting counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaida or other groups anywhere in the world because it is deemed to be an international conflict was indefensible, he maintained. "The global war paradigm has done immense damage to a previously shared international consensus on the legal framework underlying both international human rights law and international humanitarian law," Emmerson said. "It has also given a spurious justification to a range of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations. "The [global] war paradigm was always based on the flimsiest of reasoning, and was not supported even by close allies of the US. The first-term Obama administration initially retreated from this approach, but over the past 18 months it has begun to rear its head once again, in briefings by administration officials seeking to provide a legal justification for the drone programme of targeted killing in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia … "[It is] alleged that since President Obama took office at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims and more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. Christof Heyns … has described such attacks, if they prove to have happened, as war crimes. I would endorse that view." Emmerson singled out both President Obama and the Republican challenger Mitt Romney for criticism. "It is perhaps surprising that the position of the two candidates on this issue has not even featured during their presidential elections campaigns, and got no mention at all in Monday night's foreign policy debate. "We now know that the two candidates are in agreement on the use of drones. But the issue of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques is an one which, according to the record, continues to divide them. "I should make it absolutely clear that my mandate does not see to eye to eye with the Obama administration on a range of issues – not least the lack of transparency over the drone programme. But on this issue the president has been clear since he took office that water-boarding is torture that it is contrary to American values and that it would stop. "... But Governor Romney has said that he does not believe that waterboarding is torture. He has said that he would allow enhanced interrogation techniques that go beyond those now permitted by the army field manual, and his security advisers have recommended that he rescind the existing restrictions." The Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, he pointed out, used the technique. "Anyone who is in doubt about whether waterboarding is torture should visit Tuol Sleng, the infamous S-21 detention facility operated by the Khymer Rouge in Phnom Penh. "Over a period of four years 14,000 people were systematically tortured and killed there. It is now a genocide museum. And right there, in the middle of the central torturing room, is the apparatus used by Pol Pot's security officials for waterboarding."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Arthur Sulzberger Jr says incoming chief executive played no role in dropping of sex abuse report while he was at the BBC The proprietor of the New York Times has reassured staff unsettled by the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal that Mark Thompson, the former BBC director general and incoming chief executive, "possesses high ethical standards and is the ideal person to lead our company". Arthur Sulzberger Jr, chairman and New York Times Company, said in an internal email on Thursday that he was satisfied Thompson "played no role" in the cancellation of BBC current affairs show Newsnight's investigation into the Savile sex abuse allegations in late 2011, when he was still director general. Thompson is due to begin his new job on 12 November. Thompson's knowledge of the Newsnight story and allegations about Savile has come under intense scrutiny since Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times public editor, published a blog on Tuesday saying it was "worth considering now if he is the right person for the job" in light of the scandal enveloping the BBC. Sullivan also called for the paper to "aggressively cover" Thompson's role in the BBC scandal. "Mark has provided a detailed account of [Newsnight's Savile story], and I am satisfied that he played no role in the cancellation of the segment," Sulzberger told staff. He said that he and the other New York Times Company directors had got to know Thompson very well in the months leading up to his appointment. "Our opinion was then and remains now that he possesses high ethical standards and is the ideal person to lead our company as we focus on growing our businesses through digital and global expansion," Sulzberger added. "As you all instinctively know, but it is worth stating again, we will cover the Savile story with objectivity and rigour. Mark endorses that completely as do I. "Both of us believe passionately in strong, objective journalism that operates without fear or favour, no matter what it is covering. We have dedicated a significant amount of resources to this story and this is evident by the coverage we have provided our readers." • 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
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Eighty chief executives including Steve Ballmer and Jamie Dimon write to Congress calling for urgent action on $16tn debt Eighty chief executives, from companies including Microsoft, JP Morgan and GE, have waded into the presidential election campaign with a call on Washington to use tax increases and spending cuts to address the US's $16tn debt. The intervention, less than two weeks before election day, comes as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have faced criticism for the scant details of their financial plans to tackle America's massive debt. According to the CEOs, no solution can be found without tax hikes, which Romney opposes, and cuts to public spending. The letter has been signed by many of the biggest names in US business, including Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, and Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs. According to the signatories, any plan has to "include comprehensive and pro-growth tax reform, which broadens the base, lowers rates, raises revenues and reduces the deficit" as well as limiting the growth spending in areas including healthcare. "Policymakers should acknowledge that our growing debt is a serious threat to the economic wellbeing and security of the United States," says the letter, put out by nonpartisan lobby group Fix The Debt. "It is urgent and essential that we put in place a plan to fix America's debt. An effective plan must stabilize the debt as a share of the economy, and put it on a downward path." The CEOs are stepping into a debate that has caused gridlock in Washington. At the end of the year, Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire and draconian spending cuts will be imposed unless a political solution is found. The so-called "fiscal cliff" could plunge the US back into recession, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan have signed a pledge with lobby group Americans for Tax Reform not to increase taxes. Obama has proposed raising the marginal income-tax rates for the top 2% of taxpayers. None of the CEOs endorse that plan either, and have instead called for an overhaul of the tax code that would eliminate or reduce deductions, credits and loopholes. The CEOs endorsed the bipartisan plan to tackle the deficit drawn up in 2010 by Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles. The Simpson-Bowles plan called for roughly $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. "When you talk about a $16tn debt, I don't see how you can avoid addressing both sides," said Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T. "The recommendations of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission, which saved $4tn and addressed all parts of the budget, provide an effective framework for such a plan," said the CEOs. "The plan should be conducive to long-term economic growth, protect the vulnerable, include credible enforcement mechanisms to ensure that debt reduction is achieved and leave the next generation better." Gus Faucher, a senior macroeconomist at PNC Financial said the letter was unlikely to change the course of the debate before the election but in the long term he expected whoever is elected to be forced to look at both tax hikes and spending cuts. "The big issue is how we pay for retiring babyboomers, and I don't think as a society we have really faced up to that yet. Nothing will get done until after the election but it's difficult to see a solution that only involved spending cuts," he said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | It's simpler to be the wife of the French president, supermodel-turned-singer who married Nicolas Sarkozy tells French Elle As Valérie Trierweiler tries to draw a line under the soap opera surrounding her private life with François Hollande, her predecessor Carla Bruni has suggested it would be easier if she were married and not a mere presidential partner, re-opening the debate about the role of the French first lady. Bruni, the supermodel-turned-singer who married the then president Nicolas Sarkozy less than three months after meeting him, told French Elle magazine: "I can only speak from my own experience but I think it's more simple to be the legitimate wife of the head of state than his partner. The French presidency is an official status that implies official situations. Maybe I'm wrong and their choice is modern, but for my part, I felt a real easing of the general concern about me when I married Nicolas. Curiously, it's through that private undertaking that I found my place in public life." Trierweiler, a journalist at Paris Match magazine, has been Hollande's partner for about seven years. Their relationship, dubbed a political "psychodrama", has been the source of intense scrutiny and a recent rush of books. Trierweiler detonated a bombshell during the June parliamentary elections by tweeting her support for a dissident Socialist who was running against Ségolène Royal, Hollande's former partner and the mother of his four children. Since then, French news weeklies have run front pages about the Hollande-Trierweiler-Royal "love triangle" and the new Socialist president – once seen as a plodding "Mr Normal" – was depicted as having a private life more complex than the three-times-married Sarkozy. Hollande and Trierweiler have said that any discussion of marriage would be a private matter. Trierweiler is twice divorced and Hollande, who had a relationship of more than 20 years with Royal, has never married. A poll for VSD magazine after his election in May 2012 found 79% of French people felt it was "of little importance" that the presidential couple lived together without being married. Trierweiler issued a mea culpa for the controversial tweet as an opinion poll for VSD found 67% of French people had a negative view of her. Asked about the tweet, Bruni said she refused to judge Trierweiler: "Who hasn't made mistakes in their life?" But she added that Trierweiler's situation as first lady was a "little hazy" and haziness was "not to be recommended at the highest levels of state". Bruni, who has an album due in the spring, said she stopped performing gigs during Sarkozy's presidency, saying it didn't seem right to sing when confronted with a climate of "unemployment, misery, difficulties". Asked if Trierweiler, who writes a culture column for Paris Match and also has an office at the Elysée, was right to continue working as a journalist, Bruni said: "Does she have the choice? It's complex and difficult … Journalism is supposed to be a counter-power, that's one of its missions." Asked if the rightwing Sarkozy would return to frontline politics, Bruni said it was unlikely, "although I'm not an expert on the movements of the political scene".
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Senior Republicans disown rape remarks by senate candidate as Barack Obama becomes first candidate to cast early vote
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Company reports small profit despite year-on-year falls in print and digital advertising The New York Times has reported an 11% increase in paid-for digital subscriptions to almost 600,000 in the three months to the end of September. However, both print and digital advertising at the paper suffered year-on-year declines. The Times reported a small profit of $2.28m in the third quarter. Digital subscriptions rose 11% between the second and third quarters to 592,000 with Arthur Sulzberger Jr, chairman and chief executive of the New York Times Company, saying that digital subscription trends have "remained robust". A breakdown shows that paid subscribers to the New York Times and its sister paper, the International Herald Tribune, totalled 566,000, an increase of 57,000 or 11%, quarter on quarter. Paid subscribers to the NYT-owned Boston Globe were 26,000 at the end of the third quarter, up 3,000 or 13% compared to the previous three months. "While our results for the third quarter reflect continued pressure on advertising revenues, total circulation revenues rose led by the ongoing expansion of our digital subscription base," Sulzberger said. Total revenue fell 0.6% year on year to $449m as the tough advertising market continues to batter the publishing company. Total advertising revenues fell 8.9% year on year in the third quarter to $182m. Print advertising at the company's newspapers, slumped by 10.9% year on year in the third quarter. Digital revenues fell 2.2% year on year to $44.6m mainly because of lower national display and property ads. Digital ad revenues account for 24.4% of total ad revenues. The publisher said this was "largely due to the challenging economic environment, ongoing secular trends and an increasingly complex and fragmented digital advertising marketplace". Circulation revenues increased a healthy 7.4% year-on-year to $234m, thanks to print cover price increases and growth in digital subscriptions. The company said that it expects circulation revenues to increase in the "mid to high single digits" in the final three months of 2012 thanks to the growth in digital subscribers and print price increases. Ad revenue declines are expected to be about the same in the fourth quarter as they were in the three months to the end of September. The company said it had completed the sale of how-to web operation About Group for $300m. • 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.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Three weeks ago, Traci Maccoux found out she had contracted meningitis from a tainted steroid shot. She describes her shock at being pitched into a 'whole new ballpark' of suffering When Traci Maccoux, 22, a graphic-design student from Minnesota, got a call on her cellphone warning that she was at risk from meningitis from a potentially contaminated steroid injection, she laughed it off. She was too young, she thought, as many of those who contracted the disease were in their 60s or 70s. Besides, Maccoux has a chronic pain condition and had spent the summer looking for a sympathetic and reputable clinic to treat it. Now that she had found one locally and had her epidural steroid shots, she wanted to get on with her studies, get back to her recent passion for photography and forget about all that medical stuff. Days later, when the headaches and vomiting came, she put on a pair of sunglasses and dismissed it as a bad migraine, which she has had before. Her mother, Cathy, had difficulty persuading her to go to hospital to get tested, just in case. On 5 October, the results of her lumbar puncture confirmed the worst. The black mould, aspergillis, had been detected in her spine. She became the fifth person in Minnesota to test positive for fungal meningitis linked to the tainted steroid produced by New England Compounding Center (NECC). Maccoux is one of more than 300 patients in 17 states who have been diagnosed with the disease from the outbreak linked to NECC. Some have had strokes associated with the infection. On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said another person had died, bringing the death toll to 24. Up to 14,000 people have been told they are at risk, though most are not expected to become ill. "I was alone when I got the call," said Maccoux, who has has reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), a condition that causes chronic pain in the arms and legs and for which she sought the steroid shot. "I was shocked. I thought: that's not possible. There are thousands of people who got that injection." When she got to hospital, doctors told her the fungus was in her brain and that, without treatment, it could kill her. "It hit me then," she said. "I started to get a little scared." Little is known about these affected individuals, save what appears in sporadic news reports, amid a scandal that has brought in its wake a litany of unanswered questions regarding oversight and responsibility for regulating compound pharmacies, of which NECC was one. But the diagnosis has pitched Maccoux and her family, who have coped with her pain since she contracted RDS at the age of 11, into a "whole different ballpark" of suffering. Step into the unknownMaccoux had two sets of two injections, in July and August at the Maps pain clinic in her Minnesota suburb, to alleviate the pain associated with RSD and to allow her to prepare for college life. The clinic is one of 75 that received contaminated steroids from NECC. It is not clear how many vials were contaminated among the tainted batches sent, according to CDC. But for Maccoux, the past three weeks have been a nightmare of operations, blood tests, new drugs and a frightening lack of knowledge from medical professionals about everything to do with the infection. She has been told very little about her prognosis, the treatment or the long-term side effects of the anti-fungal drug which she may have to take for up to a year, she said. She still has headaches and she has been told not to drive. She gets tired easily. She has had to drop out of her semester at college because of the battery of operations and tests she has had to undergo. Her initial drug treatment caused aural hallucinations which she described as "kind of creepy". The second drug, Voriconazole, worries her more. "It was kind of scary and it still is," she said. "They don't know the long-term side effects of what they are doing. They haven't used the medicine much. The doctors don't really say much; they are going by what the CDC says. They haven't experienced this type of infection before and that's scary, too." "I have to be on it for three or four months and that's only if I'm doing well." The possible side effects listed from Voriconazole are wide-ranging and include behavioural changes, visual disturbances, problems with speech and skin problems. Another issue for Maccoux and her family is the availability and the cost of the medicine. At $75 dollars a tablet and at three tablets a day, it costs them over $6,000 a month. And the hospital will only dispense two or three tablets at a time. Maccoux is now taking legal action against NECC and is being represented by Fred Pritzker, an attorney based in Minneapolis. Pritzker, who is representing about 40 of those affected by the health scandal, has described it as a example of "corporate irresponsibility abetted by regulatory failure", and has called on Congress to set up a compensation fund for people injured and the families of those killed by the outbreak. There is also an application under way to have a multi-district litigation (MDL) suit, which will bring litigants together under one court. Lawyers representing those affected expect NECC, which is no longer operational, to declare itself bankrupt and thus complicate the legal process further. As the outbreak has progressed, a picture has emerged of NECC as a company that repeatedly failed to follow standard procedures to keep its facilities clean and its products sterile. NECC was violating state law by shipping drugs in bulk without patient-specific prescriptions, officials from Massachusetts state have said. Records released this week also show the state knew NECC had violated prescription laws over the past decade, but the state never took disciplinary action, despite complaints from doctors and officials in Iowa, Wisconsin and Texas. One former compound pharmacist, Eric Kastango, who now works in quality control, described it as a "preventable" tragedy. Amid calls for about loopholes in federal regulation to be closed to better regulate compounding pharmacies, questions are increasingly being raised about the regulation of the company by the state. Lawsuits are rising in number and broadening in scope, with some attorneys filing suits against the pain clinics and the physicians who administered the shots. 'It could be a year before I'm done with the medicine'Asked whether the drugs are working, Maccoux said: "They can't really tell us. They have to check my blood every week and see how the level of fungal infection is, whether it goes up or down. It could be a few months to a year before I'm done with the medicine." The infection has also had an impact on a pain treatment that Maccoux was getting for her RSD, which flares up twice a month but which was beginning to be brought under control. Very quickly after her diagnosis, Maccoux had to undergo a spinal operation to remove a spacer for a spinal-chord stimulator – a device which had been inserted to treat her chronic pain with electrodes which alter the signals in her brain, turning the pain into tingling. Doctors told her if she kept the spacer, the fungal infection would never go away. Because of the infection, she was told, she would never be able to get the spacer inserted again – closing the door on a treatment for her pain that had not long been opened. "I was not happy about that," she said. "That was a huge problem. The stimulator really helps so that really sucked. It made me really sad." Maccoux's mother Cathy said that even for a family used to dealing with medical issues – she has another daughter with hydroencephalopathy – this has hit them very badly. They are dealing not only with the uncertainty of Maccoux's infection and the effect of the pain that was being managed and will now return – they are also struggling with the cost of the tablets. She said: "We know how to deal with the system, but this has been very hard for us. We are fighting with our insurance company right now. I don't think they are going to cover the cost of the drug. I can't imagine an elderly person going through this." Cathy Maccoux, who usually works in childcare but who has had to concentrate on looking after her daughter full-time, driving her to doctors and hospital appointments, said: "The most difficult thing is I'm really sad for her. After a rough year she was getting her life back on track." Maccoux herself said she is angry at the NECC and Maps, the pain-treatment clinic which administered the drug. Maccoux said: "I'm angry at the companies involved – Maps, and the company that made the drug. I know people make mistakes, but this is a huge mistake that caused a lot of deaths. I'm angry about it, and I'm sad."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • Lord Patten says BBC reputation has suffered terrible damage
• Radio 5 Live boss to lead editorial coverage of sex scandal
• BBC's head of editorial policy confronts Newsnight producer The BBC Trust chairman has defended George Entwistle's performance before parliament, saying he was unfortunate to be engulfed by a "tsunami of filth" – his description of the Jimmy Savile scandal – less than two weeks into his new role. In a Radio 4 interview, Lord Patten also admitted that the Savile sex abuse scandal had done "terrible damage" to the corporation's reputation. Patten's defence of the beleaguered BBC director general on Thursday came as Entwistle asked Radio 5 Live controller Adrian Van Klaveren to lead the corporation's editorial coverage of the Savile child abuse scandal, taking over responsibility from BBC News director Helen Boaden and her deputy, Steve Mitchell. The BBC's appointment of an executive with no involvement in the dispute over why a Newsnight story on Savile was dropped in December 2011 to oversee its reporting of the scandal comes against a background of intense scrutiny and criticism of the corporation's handling of the affair. Internal BBC discord over the scandal, described as a "civil war" by some papers on Thursday, has been highlighted by what ITV News reported was a "verbal confrontation" between Meirion Jones, a journalist who worked on the spiked Newsnight story, and its head of editorial policy, David Jordan, in front of colleagues late on Wednesday. Speaking on The World At One, Lord Patten said: "It was a very, very difficult initial baptism of fire for a new director general of the BBC. This broke over him, this great tsunami of filth, broke over him 11 days into the job". The peer resorted to unlikely political comparisons, saying that the great Victorian prime ministers would have found it difficult to endure the grilling from the culture, media and sports select committee on Tuesday. "If there had been a combination of Benjamin Disraeli and Mr Gladstone they would have had a pretty tough job. I'm not criticising the select committee. I think John Whittingdale did an exemplary job in managing that as he did in the Murdoch inquiries," said Patten. However, he conceded that he thought the Savile scandal was very damaging to the BBC – and voiced concerns for the victims of the late presenter of Jim'll Fix It. Patten said: "Our main concern has to be for the victims of the abuse and worse, men as well as women, but mostly women, who have been marooned for years trying to tell their stories and not being believed, including it seems, by the BBC and secondly we have to consider the terrible damage to the reputation to the BBC which has hitherto been a national institution that has been trusted." The peer and former Tory party chairman said it was he who insisted that a controversial blog by the Newsnight editor, Peter Rippon, had to be corrected after he was informed of inaccuracies in relation to the programme's original investigation into Savile. Patten said that he demanded changes to the blog on Sunday. The BBC's correction altered Rippon's initial explanation about the decision to shelve the Newsnight Savile film and followed objections about the editor's version of events by the reporter behind the investigation, Liz MacKean, and Jones. Patten had previously supported Rippon's explanation for dropping the programme's Savile investigation – and explained his decision to do so: "Should I have disbelieved what a senior editor said? I have at a certain point to believe. I can't disbelieve everything that is said … my concern is to get to the bottom of what's happened." He also rejected claims that he had acted inappropriately earlier this week when he told Maria Miller, the culture secretary, to stop interfering in the BBC Trust's management of the crisis, reminding her that the corporation was not a government body. "I think it's important in view of what some people have said. It's quite important to remember the BBC is independent. It is answerable to licence fee payers, it is not an agent of the government. We are a national broadcaster, we are owned by the license payers," he said. Earlier this week Miller told Patten that he needed to be aware of the deep public concern over the Savile scandal and the impact it was having on public confidence in the BBC. • 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.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Judi Dench takes centre stage, and 007 faces a terrifying blond-off with Javier Bardem, in a supremely enjoyable 50th-anniversary outing This is the seventh time Judi Dench has played the enigmatic spy-chief M. But it is only in this storming new Bond movie that her M has really been all that she could be. Under the stylish direction of Sam Mendes, Dench's M is quite simply the Bond girl to end all Bond girls. Watching this, I thought: of course. How could I have missed it? The real tension isn't with Moneypenny, but with the boss herself. Now M is an imperious, subtly oedipal intelligence-matriarch with the double-O boys under her thumb. She's treating them mean. She's keeping them keen. And she is rewarded with passionate loyalty, varying with smouldering resentment. It's a combination with its own unspoken eroticism, and it has also created the conditions for one of the most memorable Bond villains in recent times. M demands more and more from her agents, with less and less concern for their safety. At one stage, 007 actually appears in M's apartment, late at night, after a difficult stretch in the field. Following a curt exchange, weary and somewhat hurt, Bond says he will find a hotel. "Well, you're not staying here," is M's superbly timed and exquisitely hurtful reply. The 50th anniversary of the big-screen Bond was the right time to pull off something big. Skyfall is a hugely enjoyable action spectacular, but more grounded and cogent than the previous and disappointing outing, Quantum of Solace. It finds the right position on the spectrum between extravagance and realism: what I think of as the imaginary line running from Bond's invisible car in Die Another Day and Peter Guillam's Citroën DS in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. We kickstart the movie with an uproarious chase scene in Istanbul featuring 007 and Bond's glamorous colleague Eve, played by Naomie Harris. As well as revving up the film, this pre-credit sequence, with its cataclysmic finale, showcases a great new Bond theme song from Adele, Basseying those vocals mightily, and conveying the camp combination of Bond's machismo and strange and preposterous vulnerability. Daniel Craig's Bond (above) looks older, more careworn, slightly more jug-eared. This is a Bond who has something to prove, and who could be damaged goods, physically and even mentally. Even at his lowest, however, he is still capable of pulling off a very scary drinking trick involving a scorpion. But now he must face one of his tastiest adversaries ever – the chilling Silva, played by Javier Bardem. Silva makes his first entrance from far away, a virtual dot on the horizon, giving a sinuous speech about what happens when rats fight each other. Gradually, his unsettling face comes into focus – quite a visual coup from Mendes and his cinematographer, Roger Deakins. Silva is intensely blond, in both his hair and eyebrows, a Nordic-baddie effect that is weirdly complemented or counteracted by his Spanish accent. He has a very funny, sinister habit of wincing and tsk-ing with an aesthete's disdain, when 007 insists on foiling his plans. Various pundits have compared Bardem's appearance in Skyfall to Julian Assange and Jimmy Savile. For me, he looks like a malign James Hunt, or a psychopathic, shorter-haired version of bluesman Johnny Winter. But the point is that Bond has the same hair colour. This is a blond-on-blond faceoff, and both Craig's 007 and Bardem's villain look like the 21st-century descendants of Robert Shaw's peroxide Spectre baddie Grant in From Russia with Love. Silva is cut from the same cloth as 007 in many ways, and they have an emotional backstory with M. Yet despite the apparently new hi-tech dimension promised by Silva's evil skills in cyber-terrorism and computer hacking, this is not a futuristic Bond. More like back to basics, and I'm not sure Mendes is particularly inspired by Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight movies. The scene in which 007 steps suavely into the shower with delectable Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe) could have happened at any time in the last half-century. As with all Bond movies, you will need a sense of humour to go with the flow, and the flow does not involve a plot in the boringly normal sense of the word: more the impressionistic effect of scenes and moments and performances – and an entertaining one comes from Ben Whishaw as the gadgetmeister, Q. In recent years, Bond fans have had to tolerate some appalling product placements: fortunately, Bond's one appearance with a certain type of lager here is with his hand firmly over the logo. The biggest commercial branding is, I suspect, for a country, China: there are massive setpieces in Shanghai and Macau, and as with the recent sci-fi thriller Looper, a shrewd financial consideration may have been involved. But what a rush! From the opening in Istanbul to the final siege shootout in the Scottish Highlands, this film is a supremely enjoyable and even sentimental spectacle, giving us an attractively human (though never humane) Bond. Despite the title, he is a hero who just keeps on defying gravity. Rating: 4/5
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The naturalist warned it would take a terrible example of extreme weather to wake people up to global warming One of the world's leading naturalists has accused US politicians of ducking the issue of climate change because of the economic cost of tackling it and warned that it would take a terrible example of extreme weather to wake people up to the dangers of global warming. Speaking just days after the subject of climate change failed to get a mention in the US presidential debates for the first time in 24 years, David Attenborough told the Guardian: "[It] does worry me that most powerful nation in the world, North America, denies what the rest of us can see very clearly [on climate change]. I don't know what you do about that. It's easier to deny." Asked what was needed to wake people up, the veteran broadcaster famous for series such as Life and Planet Earth said: "Disaster. It's a terrible thing to say, isn't it? Even disaster doesn't do it. There have been disasters in North America, with hurricanes and floods, yet still people deny and say 'oh, it has nothing to do with climate change.' It visibly has got [something] to do with climate change." But some US politicians found it easier to deny the science on climate change than take action, he said, because the consequence of recognising the science on man-made climate change "means a huge section from the national budget will be spent in order to deal with it, plenty of politicians will be happy to say 'don't worry about that, we're not going to increase your taxes.'" Neither Barack Obama or Mitt Romney mentioned climate change in three TV debates, despite a summer of record temperatures and historic drought in the US. Romney used Obama's commitment to taking action on climate change as a joke in his convention speech. The president later hit back by saying "and yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke." However, environmentalists have been critical of Obama's silence on the subject and the Green party presidential candidate, Jill Stein, went as far as saying it meant he was, in effect, "another climate denier". Attenborough said he thought the US's attitude towards climate change and the environment was not just because of politics, but because of the country's history. "[It's] because they're a pioneer country. There has been the wild west, the western frontier… that's still there, you see it in the arms business, the right for everyone to bear arms. It's part of the pioneer stuff that you've [Americans] grown up with." By contrast, he said, people in the UK had "grown up with a mythology of black industry and wrecking the countryside." The current financial crisis has made it problematic for politicians to show leadership on climate change, Attenborough acknowledged. "Well it's a very difficult time to do it [show leadership]. In times of recession, it's a very difficult time to advance these arguments [on the urgency of tackling climate change] that mean you have to spend even more money and take money from taxes to do things," he said. Yet he also warned that it was becoming clear the impacts of climate change were worst than had been expected. Talking about the record Arctic sea ice melt this summer, he said: "The situation is worse than we thought [in the Arctic]. The processes of melting are more volatile than we thought. More complicated. The ice cap is really melting faster than we thought." The 86-year-old naturalist, who is also a patron of the charity Population Matters, said many of the environmental problems the world faced could be helped by addressing human population, which is believed to have reached the 7 billion mark last year, and is forecast to reach 10 billion by the middle of the century. The solution, he said, was to raise living standards and increase democracy in developing countries. "The only way I can think of it [tackling population] is by giving women the rights to control their own bodies and control how many children they have. In every circumstance where women have that right, where they have the vote, where they are proper medical facilities, where they are literate, where they are given the choice, the birth rate falls," he said. "That is a good start, if that could be spread."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | George Osborne says 1% growth in third quarter of 2012 shows 'economy is healing' George Osborne has seized on news that the economy has emerged from double-dip recession, growing by 1% in the third quarter of 2012, as evidence that his policies have put Britain "on the right track". The figures, announced by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday, mean the chancellor will be able to deliver his autumn statement on 5 December against the background of an economy that has returned to growth. "There is still a long way to go, but these figures show we are on the right track. This is another sign that the economy is healing and we have the right approach," the chancellor said. However, the ONS pointed out that GDP growth – the strongest rate since the third quarter of 2007 – had been artificially boosted by two short-term factors: the Olympic Games, which fell in July and August, and the bounce-back from June's extra Bank Holiday for the Queen's diamond jubilee. All of the income from Olympics tickets was counted towards economic output in the third quarter, whenever it was spent, and the ONS believes ticket sales alone may have added 0.2% to GDP. It said it was "not possible to quantify" other effects, such as increased employment and a boost to creative industries. In the second quarter of the year, when growth declined by 0.4%, the ONS said output had been depressed by the extra bank holiday cutting the number of working days, and could be up to 0.5% higher in the third quarter as a result. Amid a storm of criticism of the government's deficit-cutting strategy, including a major anti-cuts march last weekend, Osborne used the figures to insist that his approach was helping to build a stronger economy. "By continuing to take the tough decisions needed to deal with our debts and equip our economy for the global race we're in, this government is laying the foundations for lasting prosperity," he said. The ONS gave little breakdown of which parts of the economy had expanded most strongly, since Thursday's release is an early estimate, but it believes construction suffered a 2.5% decline in the quarter, while distribution, hotels and restaurants expanded by 1.6%, transport by 0.8%, and business services and finance – which includes the crisis-hit banking sector – by 1%. City economists said the 1% expansion was larger than they had expected, but warned that it was unlikely to be repeated in the months ahead. Chris Williamson, of the data provider Markit, said: "The government will most likely make the most out of this good news, but unfortunately it is unlikely that the UK will see such a strong performance again for some time. In reality, the danger is that this figure fuels a misguided belief that the economy is on the mend, when in fact there is plenty of evidence to suggest that momentum is being lost again. He added: "There is a real risk that a return to contraction might be seen again in the fourth quarter." Treasury officials conceded that the strong 1% growth rate was unlikely to be repeated in future quarters. Howard Archer, of the consultancy IHS Global Insight, said: "While the third-quarter GDP growth of 1.0% is encouraging and welcome news, the UK is by no means out of the economic woods and further relapses remain a very real possibility. Fiscal austerity, tight credit conditions, muted global economic activity and still serious problems in the eurozone are all likely to hamper growth."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Militants stop firing rockets and mortars and Israel ceases air strikes after two days of escalating violence A deadly flare-up in fighting between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas group has subsided after Egypt helped to restore calm before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. On Tuesday night Israel responded to rocket fire from Gaza with air strikes. On Wednesday militants fired 80 rockets and mortars at southern Israel, and Israeli aircraft struck Gaza four times. In all, four Palestinians including three militants were killed in the fighting and two foreign workers in Israel were critically wounded. The rocket and mortar fire stopped altogether overnight, though one projectile landed in southern Israel on Thursday morning, causing no damage. The military said it last struck Gaza on Wednesday morning. Eid al-Adha begins on Friday. Both sides confirmed Egyptian involvement in ending the fighting. Amos Gilad, an Israeli defence official told Army Radio that Egyptian security forces had "a very impressive ability" to convey to the militants that it was in their "supreme interest not to attack". Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman, said Egypt had conveyed Israel's desire to contain the violence. "We said we'll abide by the calm if the occupation abides," he said. "It happened over the phone with Egyptian intelligence." Egypt under Hosni Mubarak played an important role in halting multiple outbreaks of hostilities between Israel and Gaza militants. The new government of Mohamed Morsi, who belongs to Hamas's parent movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, has kept up the tradition. Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks, has largely avoided attacks since an Israeli military offensive nearly four years ago. It remains virulently anti-Israel but has sought to keep things quiet as it consolidates control of Gaza, which it overran five years ago. Still, it is under pressure from smaller groups to prove that it remains in confrontation with the Jewish state. The Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, suggested that the visit of Qatar's leader to Gaza on Tuesday, the first by a head of state to the territory since it came under Hamas rule, had emboldened Hamas to clash this week with Israel.
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