|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The former Mary Tyler Moore show star is still turning down work at 90. 'They don't know how to get rid of me,' she tells us "Why do people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding." If you happen to look this quote up, you'll see it attributed to notoriously sweet 90-year-old TV great Betty White. Only those words never passed her lips, and she'd quite like people to bear that in mind next time they see fit to quote it at her, as I have just done. "That's what I hate about Facebook and the internet," she sighs. "They can say you said anything. I never would have said that. I'd never say that in a million years." So while White's not a fan of the internet – when I tell her there was an internet rumour a couple of years ago that she had died, she says, "Tell them that at 90 there's no need to get impatient, I'm hurrying as best as I can" – the internet is certainly a fan of Betty White. In January 2010, a Facebook campaign appeared with the sole aim of getting White to host Saturday Night Live. When the announcement was made that White would indeed host a forthcoming episode that May, the group had reached over half a million followers. She stole the scene in the perfunctory Sandra Bullock romcom The Proposal. Then she had cameos in Community and 30 Rock, did Letterman and Larry King, and visited the White House (no relation). For the youth of America – already gorged on re-runs of The Golden Girls on the Lifetime channel – the love affair with Betty White has only just begun. While most waves of cultural nostalgia lean towards the ironic, there is genuine affection for White, a woman who embodies the slightly barmy but lovable grandmother figure we all secretly wanted as children, with the benefit of a softly sarcastic viewpoint that comes with a life well lived. In a TV landscape dogged by cynicism and emotional breakdowns, her charm, often masking a biting put-down, makes her re-emergence more satisfying. There's a tenacity bubbling beneath those cotton-mix trouser suits. As a young woman, Betty so desperately wanted to act that she wrote her own high-school graduation play and gave herself the lead role. In 1949, after her burgeoning career had been interrupted by the war, she produced her first television series, Life With Elizabeth, before going on to play "neighbourhood nymphomaniac" Sue Ann Nivens in The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She followed that with the lovably drippy Rose Nylund in The Golden Girls and a myriad of other characters before, after and in-between (she's received 20 Emmy nominations to date). White puts her success down to a mixture of old-fashioned perseverance and the public's unending patience. "I think after 63 years in the business people grow up with you, and they have children and then they grow up with you," she explains over the phone from her home in LA. "They think you're a fixture, so I think they don't know how to get rid of me, to be honest." 'I don't go around thinking "Oh, I'm 90, I better do this or I better do that". I'm just Betty. I'm the same Betty that I've always been'Unsurprisingly, White is old-school Hollywood. Her self-deprecation never allows her to come out and say that the main reason she's been around for so long is because she's completely brilliant at what she does, delivering comedic lines with an expert's timing and a knowing nod. It also means she doesn't "do" politics. A question about who she trusts least out of people who hate animals (Betty's on the board of directors at the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association) and Republicans is met with a friendly "I don't get political". She's also an expert at politely batting away suggestions that the idea of employing a 90-year-old woman to say rude words may be the start and end point of some producers' ideas. I ask her if she ever finds the things she's asked to do now patronising, such as an SNL sketch that played on her repeatedly talking about her "dusty muffin" ("Many bakers from my era have dry or even yeasty muffins"), or an appearance on the song I'm Still Hot by singer Luciana which involved White rapping, "I may be a senior but so what, I'm still hot" surrounded by men in gold hotpants. "No, I have to admit, Michael, I don't, because I've had an audience of this demographic range for 63 years," she explains, making a point of saying my name, which she does throughout the interview. As for the men in gold hotpants: "I think everybody should have a hobby!" She also makes a point of being able to veto anything she finds unsavoury on her hidden-camera show Off Their Rockers, which, during one episode, involves an elderly lady talking graphically about her sex life much to the horror of two young men sitting nearby. "Well, I didn't say we're always tasteful," she laughs, "but sometimes we go for the joke. I try to keep a pretty close eye on it." It exposes some people's attitudes towards older women and sex, I suggest, ie that it must be off the table once you reach 60. "Boy do they have a lot to learn," she laughs. "The fun is the reaction of the young people. They don't expect this to happen. Older people rarely get the fun of the pay off." White's currently so busy with Off Their Rockers and her successful sitcom Hot In Cleveland that she's constantly turning down work. "The bottom line is, Michael, I'm blessed with good health. On top of that, I don't go around thinking 'Oh, I'm 90, I better do this or I better do that'. I'm just Betty. I'm the same Betty that I've always been. Take it or leave it." BETTY'S BEST BITSLife With Elizabeth (1953–55)
Co-produced by a 31-year-old White, Life With Elizabeth – which focused on the ordinary suburban life of a married couple – introduced her warm but biting comedic style and made her one of most powerful women in TV at the time. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973–77)
Betty played against type to imbue Sue Ann Nivens, the outwardly sweet presenter of The Happy Homemaker TV show, with a brilliantly sardonic undercurrent, undermining the show's titular star and generally being a bit of a bitch. The Golden Girls (1985-91)
For seven glorious and critically acclaimed seasons, White played the widowed and endearingly naive Rose Nylund, whose convoluted and peculiar stories about her small-town upbringing clashed brilliantly with Bea Arthur's cynical Brooklynite, Dorothy. Cue an endless supply of confused facial expressions. Screen Actors Guild Awards (2010)
Collecting the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, White was humble and charming, opening her speech with, "Thank you from the bottom of my heart and from the bottom of my bottom." But it was co-star Sandra Bullock who got the full treatment. "Isn't it heartening to see how far a girl as plain as she is can go?" Saturday Night Live (2010)
While the extended "dusty muffin" sketch spread a double entendre paper thin, it was White's acidic opening monologue that stole the show. "I didn't know what Facebook was," she mused of the online campaign to have her appear as host, "and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Google says several services have been blocked just after the country's once-in-a-decade meeting to transfer power Google has said that said that several of its online services have been blocked in China – just after the country's once-in-a-decade meeting to transfer power to a new generation of leaders got underway. Traffic to its services in China dropped sharply on Friday evening according to an online "Transparency Report" website operated by Google, which measures traffic to its sites around the world. Google's search engine and its Gmail web email were among the services affected in China, where the internet company has had a fractious relationship with the authorities. "We've checked and there's nothing wrong on our end," said a spokeswoman for Google. Google's YouTube video service has been inaccessible in China since 2009, while access to other services in China are blocked sporadically. In 2010 Google relocated its Chinese search engine to Hong Kong after a spat with authorities over censorship and cyber-attacks that Google said originated in China. Google said in May of this year that it was changing its search service in China so that it will warn users when they are using terms likely to trigger interference from the authorities and suggest ways around the censorship. "Over the past couple years, we've had a lot of feedback that Google search from mainland China can be inconsistent and unreliable. It depends on the search query and browser, but users are regularly getting error messages like 'this webpage is not available' or 'the connection was reset'. And when that happens, people typically cannot use Google again for a minute or more," Google said in a blogpost. More than 2,000 Communist Party delegates from across China have convened in Beijing to participate in the 18th party congress, which began on Thursday morning.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Morell to take over CIA in short term after Petraeus said in resignation letter he had shown 'extremely poor judgment' The head of the CIA David Petraeus resigned on Friday, saying that he had shown "extremely poor judgment" by having an extramarital affair. It is an embarrassing downfall for one of America's most senior generals and one of the most high-profile members of the Obama administration. Petraeus, who went to see Barack Obama on Thursday to offer his resignation, said in a letter published on Friday it had been for personal reasons. "After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extra-marital affair. Such behaviour is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organisation such as ours." He met his wife Holly when he was a cadet at West Point. Her father was the superintendent at West Point at the time. The argument for resignation was that the affair had left him vulnerable to blackmail. All spy organisations warn their agents against affairs for that reason, and the head of the organisation could not then ignore the advice given to those further down the chain. But an alternative version in Washington was that Petraeus was under pressure over the killing of the US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in an attack on the US embassy in Benghazi in September. Although the CIA has now put out its own account of what happened, many on Capitol Hill who had previously been supportive of Petraeus were far from placated. He faced another behind-closed-doors session on Benghazi on Capitol Hill next week. The deputy CIA director, Michael Morell, an Asia specialist, is to take over in the short term on the understanding that Obama will nominate him to take over on a permanent basis. The nomination has to be formally approved by the Senate. Obama issued a statement praising him for what it called "extraordinary service" to the US for decades. "By any measure, he was one of the outstanding general officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end," the president's statement said. "As director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he has continued to serve with characteristic intellectual rigor, dedication, and patriotism. By any measure, through his lifetime of service David Petraeus has made our country safer and stronger." Obama continued: "Today, I accepted his resignation as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I am completely confident that the CIA will continue to thrive and carry out its essential mission, and I have the utmost confidence in acting director Michael Morell and the men and women of the CIA who work every day to keep our nation safe. "My thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Holly Petraeus, who has done so much to help military families through her own work. I wish them the very best at this difficult time." James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement: "Dave's decision to step down represents the loss of one of our nation's most respected public servants. From his long, illustrious Army career to his leadership at the helm of CIA, Dave has redefined what it means to serve and sacrifice for one's country." Petraeus only took over the CIA post in September 2011 after what was regarded in Washington as a glittering military career. He was credited with crafting – after listening to younger officers - the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq that helped the US beat al-Qaida with the help of Sunnis. Afghanistan was more difficult but again he was given credit in Washington for having done a good job given all the problems stacked against him. He was frequently tipped in Washington circles as a potential Republican presidential candidate.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Petraeus says he had shown 'extremely poor judgment' over affair, which came to light during an FBI investigation The head of the CIA David Petraeus resigned on Friday, saying that he had shown "extremely poor judgment" by having an extramarital affair. The affair was discovered during an FBI investigation, it emerged on Friday night. Federal agents had been investigating a potential breach of security, according to reports, with the possibility that his emails had accessible to the woman with whom he had the affair. No criminal proceedings were being considered. It is an embarrassing downfall for one of America's most senior and respected generals, and one of the most high-profile members of the Obama administration. Petraeus, who went to see Barack Obama on Thursday to offer his resignation, said in a letter published on Friday it had been for personal reasons. "After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extra-marital affair," the letter said. "Such behaviour is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organisation such as ours." He met his wife Holly when he was a cadet at West Point. Her father was the superintendent at West Point at the time. Mrs Petraeus is an official with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, working with the office of servicemember affairs, which looks after the financial interests of those serving in the military. The deputy CIA director, Michael Morell, an Asia specialist, is to take over in the short term on the understanding that Obama will nominate him to take over on a permanent basis. The nomination has to be formally approved by the Senate. In his statement, addressed to colleagues, Petraeus said: "As I depart Langley, I want you to know that it has been the greatest of privileges to have served with you, the officers of our nation's Silent Service, a workforce that is truly exceptional in every regard. Indeed, you did extraordinary work on a host of critical missions during my time as director, and I am deeply grateful to you for that." He added: "Teddy Roosevelt once observed that life's greatest gift is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. I will always treasure my opportunity to have done that with you and I will always regret the circumstances that brought that work with you to an end." Obama issued a statement praising Petraeus for what it called "extraordinary service" to the US for decades. "By any measure, he was one of the outstanding general officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end," the president's statement said. "As director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he has continued to serve with characteristic intellectual rigor, dedication, and patriotism. By any measure, through his lifetime of service David Petraeus has made our country safer and stronger." Obama added: "My thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Holly Petraeus, who has done so much to help military families through her own work. I wish them the very best at this difficult time." James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement: "Dave's decision to step down represents the loss of one of our nation's most respected public servants. From his long, illustrious Army career to his leadership at the helm of CIA, Dave has redefined what it means to serve and sacrifice for one's country." After news of the resignation first broke, on NBC News, it emerged that Petraeus would no longer have to testify before a congressional hearing next week on the Benghazi consulate attack. This prompted speculation that his departure was connected to criticism of the CIA's handling of the issue. But as the details of the FBI investigation and the possible security breach emerged on Friday night, this seemed unlikely. Petraeus only took over the CIA post in September 2011 after what was regarded in Washington as a glittering military career. He was credited with crafting – after listening to younger officers - the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq that helped the US beat al-Qaida with the help of Sunnis. Afghanistan was more difficult but again he was given credit in Washington for having done a good job given all the problems stacked against him. He was frequently tipped in Washington circles as a potential Republican presidential candidate. Senator John McCain, a champion of Petraeus down the years but now one of the leading critics of the administration's handling of Benghazi, issued a statement praising the former CIA director. Notably, McCain's praise was directed at his time as a general rather than at the CIA. "General David Petraeus will stand in the ranks of America's greatest military heroes. His inspirational leadership and his genius were directly responsible – after years of failure – for the success of the surge in Iraq," McCain said. Petraeus belonged to a new generation of officers who like to describe themselves as scholar-warriors, having spent part of his career in academe. He was different from them though in one important way, in that he was also extremely political, good at courting people in various administrations and in Congress. He left West Point in 1974 and followed a conventional career. It was his time in academia that made him different and helped him to the top of the military. While taking time out, he wrote extensively about the US experience in Vietnam, developing an alternative counter-intelligence philosophy. He caught the attention of senior figures during his command of northern Iraq in the early days of the 2003 and George W. Bush sent him back in 2007 with overall command of US and other international forces during the so-called surge. He then implemented the 'hearts and minds' policy he had developed during his Vietnam study, winning over Sunni tribal leaders and others to engage in operations against al-Qaida elements in what became known as the Sunni Awakening. He returned to the US in 2008 to take over Central Command. When the senior commander in Afghanistan, General Stan McChrystal, was forced to resign over comments reported in an article in Rolling Stone, Petraeus was called for again, this time by Obama. He did not enjoy the same success in Afghanistan as he had in Iraq.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | National Academy of Sciences recommends crash course for analysts on preparing for rise in sea level and food shortages The Pentagon was warned on Friday to stand guard against "climate surprises" which could throw off its efforts to secure America's future. An expert report, prepared for the intelligence community by the National Academy of Sciences, warns that the security establishment is going to have start planning for natural disasters, sea-level rise, drought, epidemics and the other consequences of climate change. The Pentagon already ranks climate change as a national security threat, putting US troops in danger around the world and adding fuel to existing conflicts. More than 30 US bases are threatened by sea level rise. It has also identified potential new danger zones, such as sub-Saharan Africa. The military is also working to cut back on its fuel costs in an age of budget austerity, by installing solar arrays and wind turbines, and monitoring electricity use. But Friday's report suggests strategic planners are going to have make sweeping adjustments to their planning to take account of climate change over the next decade and beyond. Current scenarios could be thrown completely askew by "climate surprises", the report said. These could be a single catastrophic event – such as a food price shock – or a cascade of reactions that could ultimately put America at risk. "It makes sense for the intelligence community to apply a scenario approach in thinking about potentially disruptive events," the report said. "It may make sense to consider the security implications of two or three more plausible trends as a way to anticipate risks." The study also recommends a crash course for intelligence analysts on the potential threat posed by sea-level rise, drought, food shortages and other consequences of climate change. "It is essential for the intelligence community to understand adaptation and changes in vulnerability to climate events," it said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former general David Petraeus has announced his resignation as director of the CIA after admitting to an affair
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Lancashire police interview Cath Burrows, 44, after collision in which Tour de France winner suffered a bruised hand and ribs A woman who allegedly knocked champion cyclist Bradley Wiggins off his bike with a van has been reported for summons by police. After a formal interview, Cath Burrows, 44, has been summoned by Lancashire police over driving without due care and attention. Wiggins, who this summer became the first Briton to win the Tour de France, was taken to hospital with a bruised hand and ribs after the collision near his home in Lancashire on Wednesday. The 32-year-old is now recuperating at home. In a statement on Friday night, a police spokesman said: "Following a voluntary attendance for interview with Lancashire police, a 44-year-old woman from west Lancashire has been reported for summons for driving without due care and attention. "However an investigation into the full circumstances of the incident is still under way." Wiggins was taken by ambulance to Royal Preston hospital after the crash in Crow Orchard Road, Wrightington, shortly after 6pm on Wednesday. The incident happened when a white Vauxhall Astra Envoy drove out of a garage forecourt. It was reported that Wiggins was riding a mountain bike to meet a group of local cyclists near his home in Eccleston. In a separate road accident, British cycling head coach Shane Sutton was also admitted to hospital on Thursday with a fractured cheek bone. Sutton, 55, was in a collision with a blue Peugeot 206 driven by a 61-year-old man on the A6 Stockport Road in Levenshulme while riding a bike shortly before 8.55am. He was part of the management team which helped Wiggins to many successes, including the world's toughest bike race and the time trial gold medal at the London 2012 Olympics.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Even if federal authorities allow measures to supersede US law, it will be more than a year before pot goes on sale in either state No sooner had the voters of Colorado and Washington passed measures to legalise marijuana than the predictions began: visions – both overexcited and apocalyptic – of busloads of stoned tourists turning the states into Rocky mountain or Pacific north-west versions of Amsterdam. However such speculation may be premature. There are a few more hurdles before legally buying and selling marijuana in the US can become reality. But in the interests of answering the age-old question "Where can I legally buy a joint?", here's a summary of what the votes really mean for the law in Colorado and Washington. ColoradoColorado amendment 64 passed on 6 November 2012, by 53.3% to 46.7%. The amendment allows "personal use and regulation of marijuana" for adults 21 and older. It also has a section which will address the legal cultivation, manufacture and sale of the drug. However, nothing will change until the vote is certified, which is scheduled to happen on 6 December. After that, those 21 and above will be legally allowed to grow up to to six marijuana plants, as long as they are in a locked space. People in the same age bracket will be allowed to possess up to one ounce of marijuana, and to give up to one ounce of the drug as a gift to other people 21 years old or above. Smoking marijuana in public will be specifically banned. The new measures do not just apply to people who live in Colorado – visitors are subject to the law too. It will be longer before people in Colorado can legally buy and sell marijuana, however. Amendment 64 has a section which will address the legal cultivation, manufacture and sale of cannabis, but the details have to be thrashed out in the state legislature. The new law mandates that the state adopt a regulatory framework for allowing businesses to sell marijuana by July 2013, according to USA Today. This could include provisions for shops selling the drug and the opening of cannabis cafes like those in Amsterdam. But even then, it will be January 2014 before the first state-approved marijuana stores actually open. Before all that, there is the quite real possibility of an injunction by the federal government, overruling amendment 64. Federal laws rule marijuana illegal and in theory have power over state rules. The Drug Enforcement Administration this week reiterated its stance that marijuana is an illegal drug and that possessing, using or selling it is a crime.
"The Drug Enforcement Administration's enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," the DEA said in a press statement. "In enacting the controlled substances act, Congress determined that marijuana is a schedule I control[ed] substance. The Department of Justice is reviewing the ballot initiatives and we have no additional comment at this time." WashingtonWashington's initiative measure No 502 passed on 6 November, by 55% to 45%. Like in Colorado, the measure will come into effect on 6 December, but it will also take longer for some parts of the law to be implemented. As of 6 December, it will be legal for people over 21 in Washington to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. Unlike in Colorado, however, people will not be allowed to grow their own marijuana plants, unless they are medically authorised to do so. Like in Colorado there will be a significant wait before provisions are put in place allowing the legal sale and cultivation of marijuana. Initiative measure 502 had an "implentation date" of 1 December 2013, by which date licensing and taxation portions of the initiative should be set out. Only after that will individuals 21 or older be able to apply for a license to grow and sell marijuana. It will cost $250 to apply for the license, according to the measure, and an extra $1,000 a year to keep it. "Licensed marijuana retailers could not sell any products other than marijuana and items used to store or use marijuana," 502 states. The laws on smoking marijuana are already very relaxed in parts of Washington. Seattle's city attorney has a policy "of not filing charges for simple marijuana possession", according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, while people attending the three day Hempfest in the city are generally allowed to smoke cannabis. That said, the new laws outlined in Washington's measure 502, like Colorado's amendment 64, could be overruled at the federal level.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President says he is not 'wedded to every detail of my plan' but insists he wants to raise taxes for wealthiest Americans Barack Obama used his first public appearance since his return to the White House to issue a challenge to Republicans in Congress to work with him to prevent the economy going into freefall next year. In a carefully posed statement from the East Room, during which he was accompanied by a crowd of "middle-class" Americans, Obama called on Congress to strike a deal before the January 1 deadline that would see an automatic rise in taxes across the board and swingeing cuts in spending. "I am not wedded to every detail of my plan. I am open to compromise," Obama said. But, in a hint of the strife to come, he said that he still wanted to raise tax rises for the wealthiest American – a policy most Republicans in Congress vehemently oppose. "We can't just cut our way to prosperity," the president said. "If we are serious about reducing the deficit, we have to combine spending cuts with revenue and that means asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes." As part of the search for a compromise, the president invited to the White House for talks next week the most senior Republican leader left standing amid the election debris, House Speaker John Boehner, as well as other Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress. As Obama grappled with the economy, his cabinet reshuffle and an agenda for the second term, Republicans were still trying to come to terms with the scale of the election defeat. New details emerged revealing that his Republican opponent Mitt Romney had been confident of victory right up until the first voting figures came through on election night. A source inside his camp said that at planning meeting after planning meeting he had been assured of victory. Not only had Romney planned an $25,000 fireworks display in Boston Harbour to mark his win but he had written only a victory speech, the reason his concession speech had been so brief. In a sign of how confident he had been, he had established a 200-strong transition team paving the way for the shift to the White House that even on election day was hiring more staff. In his White House statement, Obama said that creation of jobs and economic growth was his top priority. There was an urgent need to deal with the impending fiscal crisis. Without mentioning the word 'mandate", he waved his election win at the Republicans. He as not going to ask working-class Americana students and the elderly to pay for reducing the deficit while people like himself earning more than $250,000 were not asked to pay a dime more in taxes. "It was a central question during the election. It was debated over and over again, and on Tuesday night we found that the majority of Americans agree with my approach." Only a few hours before Obama's statement, Boehner held his first press conference since the election. He suggested he was prepared to engage with Obama in a new spirit of bipartisanship both on working out a grand bargain on the fiscal cliff but also on immigration reform. On the grand bargain, Boehner said: "This is an opportunity for the president to lead. This is his moment to engage the Congress and work for a solution that can pass both chambers … I am hopeful that productive conversations can begin soon." But any bipartisan spirit might prove short-lived. He also also went on to say that, unlike Obama and the Democrats, he does not favour raising taxes on the wealthy and that removing some loopholes and cleaning up the tax code would be enough to do the trick. He also expressed opposition to raising taxes on the wealthy. Part of Boehner's problem is that so far he has not been able to control all his colleagues, particularly those elected with Tea Party support. Ominously, in his first answer to a reporter, Boehner was less than truthful, saying: "When the president and I have been able to come an agreement, there has been no problem in getting it passed in the House. " Boehner and Obama reached an agreement on a 'grand bargain' to resolve the fiscal cliff crisis last year but when Boehner took it back to his colleagues in the House, they, led by the House majority leader Eric Cantor, blocked it. Asked about the Republican post-mortem, Boehner was curt, restricting himself to saying just that conversations were under way. After losing 434.36 points, or 3.28%, over the past two days, the Dow Jones Industrial Average held roughly steady following Obama's speech. Jack Ablin, the chief investment officer at BMO, said there were signs of compromise on both sides, and that hee expected a stop-gap compromise would be reached. "I am still under the belief that they will a comprehensive compromise soon and hopefully a bigger deal next year," he said. "Hopefully I am not being naive." Before the election 80 US business leaders, including Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, signed a letter calling for a balanced approach to tackling the budget deficit, including tax hikes and spending cuts. On Friday United Continental airline boss Jeff Smisek told CNBC that the fiscal cliff could have a potentially more disastrous impact on his business than superstorm Sandy. "It makes it difficult for us to operate," Smisek said. "The uncertainty that you get with the economy [and] a second recession would be bad for everybody," he said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rowdy demonstrations against corruption mark escalation of opposition to President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner The broad avenues of Buenos Aires were crowded on Thursday night by Argentina's biggest and noisiest anti-government demonstration in a decade, as hundreds of thousands of protesters marched or banged pots to express frustration at President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. After a smaller rally in September, the noisy but peaceful protest – estimated at between 250,000 to 500,000 people – marks an escalation of opposition to the Argentinian leader, particularly among a middle class that is upset at inflation, corruption, media controls and suggestions Fernández may want to amend the constitution so she can serve a third term. Congregating around the landmark obelisk in the centre of the capital, protesters carried handmade signs demanding "Stop corruption" and "No Re-election" while they chanted: "This is for Cristina who is watching us on TV." Tens of thousands of others joined a cacerolazo (casserole) demonstration outside the presidential palace, beating kitchen utensils so loudly their clamour cannot have been ignored inside. Word of the demonstration spread through social networks. Many organisers remain anonymous, but Mariana Torres, administrator of the Facebook page El Anti-K, one of the most active in calling for the rally, said she was delighted: "It was a true feast for democracy." There was no single cause of discontent. Many in the middle class are angry at the highest inflation in a decade, estimated at a yearly 25% by private economists, currency controls that have created a black market in dollars, and one of the slowest economic growth rates in Latin America. Banners and chants also took aim at recent corruption cases and Fernández's efforts to limit the power of big newspaper and TV conglomerates. Clarín, the country's most powerful media group, has stepped up its criticism of the government before the introduction on 7 December of a law that will weaken its empire. Before the protest, Fernández vowed "not to slacken, even in our worst moments". With the opposition in disarray and GDP moving in a positive direction, her allies played down the significance of the rally. "I didn't lose any sleep over the march last night and I'm not going to lose any sleep over it today," said Senator Aníbal Fernández, one of the president's closest aides. "I don't understand what the message is." But it marks a political low in Fernández's decade in the presidential palace. Since succeeding her husband, Néstor Kirchner, in 2007, she has won two landslide election victories and pursued a policy marked by wealth redistribution, greater investment in education, confrontation with Britain over the Falklands and the nationalisation of the Argentinian assets owned by the Spanish oil group YPF. With the economy faltering, Fernández's approval rating has fallen below 40%, according to a poll this week, and many of those who joined Thursday's protest have lost faith in her. "I voted for Cristina but now I feel let down," said one middle-aged marcher. "We need more security, more jobs; the government needs to stop lying to us." Opposition politicians hope this week's march through 9 de Julio Avenue will prevent proposed constitutional changes that would allow the president to run for more than two terms. "People are saying 'enough!'" said Senator María Eugenia Estenssoro, who joined the demonstration. "Enough corruption, enough lies. It will be very hard for her to change the constitution after tonight." Fernández has not said she would run again, but her allies are encouraging her to do so. If she pushed ahead, it would further comparisons with Hugo Chávez, who also extended his term, confronted major media conglomerates and used public broadcasting to spread his political message. That may be more difficult in Argentina. To reform the constitution, she would have to win by a substantial margin in next year's mid-term legislative elections to obtain the two-thirds majority needed in congress. After Thursday's massive protest, that looks a distant prospect. But the organisers of the march say the battle with the Kirchneristas is far from over. "They can't see reality, even when it's in their faces," said Torres. "They're just going to carry on as if nothing has happened."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Turkey and Jordan say they are close to being overwhelmed by numbers fleeing conflict, as UN and charities plead for help More than 11,000 refugees fled Syria on Friday, in what is thought to be the highest daily exodus since the insurrection began 19 months ago. At least 9,000 of those fleeing the unrelenting violence in Syria headed for Turkey and Jordan, who are both warning that refugee numbers could soon overwhelm them. The first large winter storm of the season made the journey miserable for the new arrivals in Turkey. Torrential rain along much of the eastern Mediterranean coast is not forecast to let up throughout the weekend, after which temperatures are expected to sharply chill. The onset of winter poses a new and dangerous dimension to the looming humanitarian crisis on Syria's borders. Many of the 400,000 registered refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq are now living in makeshift tents with few belongings. The International Committee for the Red Cross warned that it was struggling to cope with the scale of the exodus. A senior United Nations official warned that as many as 4 million Syrians would need humanitarian assistance by early next year. John Ging, director of operations at the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs said: "If the current rate of conflict continues at the current pace we can reasonably project that numbers in need to rise from 2.5 million to 4 million by the early new year." Turkey, which is expected to bear the brunt of the refugee flood said it feared being overwhelmed as winter draws near. The Turkish prime minister, Recap Tayyip Erdoğan, hit out at the 15-member UN security council, accusing it of of being impotent to stop an unfolding tragedy. "It is very strange. There are currently atrocities being committed in Syria and these atrocities are being directed by a state leader," he said during a trip to Indonesia. "While these atrocities are continuing … there is a United Nations that is remaining silent towards it. How far will this go? When will the permanent members of the UN security council take responsibility?" Britain this week stepped up its rhetoric against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, for the first time signalling it is willing to talk to members of the armed opposition. Prime Minister David Cameron also reitereated an offer to facilitate exile for Assad, who also this week claimed Syria was not in state of civil war and was instead under attack by foreigners. Meanwhile, fractious discussions to form a new opposition body that would pose an alternative administration to the Assad regime appear to have inched forward on Friday. Under threat of being sidelined by the Arab League and already deeply reluctant western backers, the Syrian National Council, said it would not leave a meeting in the Qatari capital, Doha, without forming a new representative body. The mooted new body would attempt to emulate the Transitional National Council, which took over Libya in the wake of the ousting of Colonel Muamar Gaddafi's regime. Both the political and military sides of Syria's opposition have been increasingly fragmented as the civil war in Syria has developed. The architects of the new body say it needs to be more inclusive and dynamic than the SNC, representing a united political and military leadership and laying the foundations for a civil society in Syria if Assad falls.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Brussels officials say deal to release latest rescue funds may not be agreed at meeting of eurozone finance ministers Greece faces a week of tense brinkmanship with its international paymasters after officials in Brussels conceded that a long-awaited deal to release €31.5bn of bailout cash is unlikely to be finalised on Monday. Athens is due to repay €5bn-worth of debts next week, and had hoped to unlock the latest tranche of rescue funds at Monday's meeting of eurozone finance ministers. But privately senior officials in Brussels say that the Europeans and the IMF are in deep dispute about Greece. Monday's meeting, postponed from this week, had been expected to sign off on the payout delayed since the summer, after the Greek parliament's adoption of a controversial new austerity package at the behest of its creditors. The parliament is also expected to pass a new budget on Sunday. But the Brussels official said: "One round of discussions may not suffice to come to a final decision on the whole package. I am not pretending we'll come to a result and a solution on this." The long-awaited report on Greece from the "troika" of the International Monetary Fund, ECB and European commission officials is expected this weekend. It will report on Athens's compliance with the bailout terms and also include a "debt sustainability analysis" which is the main sticking point and the focus of the row between the IMF and the Europeans. At IMF insistence, the bailout terms stipulate that Greek national debt may be no higher than 120% of gross domestic product by 2020 to qualify for the verdict of being "sustainable". The troika report is certain to state that this goal is unachievable. Janet Henry, European economist at HSBC, said: "When the IMF agrees to provide financing for a country [it is providing €28bn of the second Greek package], it is on the understanding that the debt burden is sustainable. This is difficult to argue in the case of Greece given that the debt stock is now expected to exceed 190% of GDP by 2014". There is broad agreement among Greece's creditors that as a result, the bailout regime will have to be extended by two years to 2016, generating a financing gap of up to €30bn. But there is no deal on how to fill that hole, and Henry, of HSBC, said a decision could take weeks. The ECB has rejected the idea of making a contribution by accepting a haircut on its holdings of Greek bonds. Renewed uncertainty about Greece's finances came as reports suggested the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaüble, had asked his experts to assess the risks for the French economy. The Reuters news agency suggested Schaüble had instructed his panel of "wise men", who provide economic advice, to examine the prospects for a slowdown in France, and the potential knock-on impact on Germany. Europe's leaders are also keenly awaiting a decision from Spain to request an official bailout, which would allow the ECB president Mario Draghi to unleash his latest weapon of "outright monetary transactions", buying Spanish bonds to bring down Madrid's borrowing costs. However, Spain's bond yields have remained safely below the 6% level that many analysts regard as unsustainable. Reports also emerged in Italy that a full EU summit, due to take place on 22 and 23 November to discuss the EU budget, could be postponed, as David Cameron has made clear that Britain is not willing to accept the proposal that is currently on the table. The prime minister lost an embarrassing Commons vote over the size of the EU budget last week, with Tory backbenchers uniting with Labour to reject his proposal of a spending freeze.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Photographer Richard Ross captures the lives of juveniles held inside American jails
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Austrian man's suitcase washes ashore on Italian island of Elba, 17 miles from where cruise ship capsized Nine months after the Costa Concordia cruise ship smashed into the Tuscan island of Giglio, one passenger is finally set to get his suitcase back after it washed ashore 17 miles away on a different island. The suitcase, which was found on a beach on the island of Elba on Monday, belonged to an Austrian man who was among the 4,300 passengers and crew who fled the vessel as it capsized in shallow water in January, leaving 32 people dead. Found by children, the suitcase contained clothes and was identified by cruise ship stickers and a handwritten baggage tag – still legible after its sea voyage. A source close to the team now attempting to right the Costa Concordia said the bag might have tumbled out of the ship and into the sea during rough weather on 31 October. The 114,500-tonne ship is now balancing on two underwater granite rock outcrops which have punctured holes in the hull, said the source. "Objects like mattresses tend to come out of the holes and I would not rule out the storm surging through the holes and pushing out the suitcase. After the storm divers did find material on the sea bed which is collected." Costa Crociere, the owner of the ship, has chosen not cut the ship up on site but to right it, float it and tow it away in one piece in order to avoid tonnes of rotting material still inside the ship spilling out into the surrounding protected marine area.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President Obama seeks tax and debt deal in post-election address as John Boehner offers to work with Democrats
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | There appears to be almost no chance of Eurozone finance ministers agreeing on Greece's next bailout payment when they meet next week
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Judges furious over 'lackadaisical' compliance with order to publicise acknowledgements that South Korean firm did not infringe designs Apple has come in for blistering criticism from judges at the court of appeal for its "lackadaisical" compliance with their order to publish newspaper adverts and website acknowledgements that Samsung did not infringe its registered designs for a tablet. Meanwhile, the company has quietly removed the Javascript code on its UK webpage that kept hidden the acknowledgement "below the fold" of the site, no matter how big a screen it was viewed on. The full ruling of the court of appeal hearing on 1 November shows the judges to be furious at Apple's attempts to stall on the acknowledgements and its addition of "false and misleading" additions to the statement that Apple was originally to put up. The court also awarded costs against Apple on an indemnity basis, which works out more expensive than the standard form, "as a mark of the court's disapproval of a party's conduct, particularly in relation to its respect for an order of the court", according to the final judgment. "Apple's conduct warranted such an order," wrote Sir Robin Jacob, who led the panel of three judges sitting at the court of appeal. Gary Moss, head of EIP Legal, which specialises in intellectual property, said: "Reading beyond the legal language used, the court of appeal clearly thought that Apple were taking the piss." The original version of the acknowledgement received more than a million hits, but the judges said that Apple had not displayed it with sufficient prominence. The judges also said that Apple's attempt to assert a registered design – in effect, the appearance of a product – against Samsung has failed at every attempt, including in the UK, Germany and the US. In the judgment, Sir Robin said: "The order required publication 'in the earliest available issue' of the specified newspapers and magazines. "I would have thought that self-evidently meant what it said – get the advertisements into each publication as soon as possible. What Apple chose to do as regards the newspapers and magazines was less than that." Sir Robin added: "[Apple's] vice president of worldwide marketing communications said he understood the approach to be adopted was 'to co-ordinate adverts across those publications in order to ensure the widest readership possible is exposed to the advert on the same day'. "That apparently meant to Apple so far as the newspapers were concerned the same day, but not the magazines which had longer lead times. Apple accordingly arranged for 16 November for all the newspapers. I note in passing that it is not said that 16 November was the earliest possible date even for just all the newspapers. I would be surprised if it were, given that our order was made on 18 October. So there was self-evident non-compliance with the newspaper/magazine aspect of the publicity order." He added that the lack of compliance originally shown by Apple was "much more serious" – and it was that which led to the order last week requiring Apple to link to the acknowledgement on its front page. Sir Robin said Apple's statement was "calculated to produce huge confusion" when it contrasted the decision of high court judge Colin Birss with that of a US jury that awarded Apple a billion dollars in damages in a legal battle with Samsung. Sir Robin pointed out that the US jury agreed with Birss, saying that Samsung didn't infringe Apple's design patents around the iPad. Of the original version posted by Apple, Sir Robin said: "Instead of simply publishing the text as ordered, Apple broke it up, interspersing it with text of its own devising." That included comments originally made by Birss in the high court in July, when he decided that Samsung did not infringe Apple's registered design for the iPad, contrasting the American company's product as having "a cool design", but saying the Korean company's didn't. Though both companies could claim PR victories from the decision, Birss also ordered Apple to acknowledge the fact on its site. After months of legal wrangling, and a reprimand a fortnight ago by the three judges at the court of appeal, Apple added the acknowledgement to its site last week – but also incorporated code so that no matter how tall the browser page that the site was loaded in, the acknowledgement would always appear "below the fold". Now, the acknowledgement can be seen directly, although it still needs a very tall browser page, of more than 1,000 pixels, which is found on very few devices. Apple appealed Birss's ruling, but the company was turned down – and it was ordered to put the ruling on its site with a link on its home page. Apple originally asked for 14 days, but was given 48 hours – an amount the judges called "generous". In the written ruling, Sir Robin said: "For the reasons we gave (essentially because Apple had created much uncertainty in the market place) we thought it necessary to make a publicity order requiring Apple to disperse the fog of confusion it had created." He added a final warning: "I hope that the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, was not present but sources say dead man was a 'familiar face' in the building A security guard working for Sweden's prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, has died in a shooting incident inside the prime minister's heavily protected official residence, police in Stockholm said on Friday. Detectives said no crime was suspected and it is unclear whether the shooting was an accident or suicide. Reinfeldt was not there at the time, but government sources said one of the prime minister's two teenage sons was in the building when the weapon was fired. "The Swedish PM and his family are fine. The prime minister was at a meeting in Stockholm. He wasn't in the building," Markus Friberg, Reinfeldt's press secretary said. Security for top politicians in Sweden has been a major concern since the unsolved murder in 1986 of Sweden's Social Democrat prime minister Olof Palme, and the murder in 2003 of the country's foreign minister Anna Lindh. Lindh was shopping in a Stockholm department store without bodyguards when an assailant, Mijailo Mijailović, stabbed her several times. She died in hospital. Following security advice, Reinfeldt lives in a closely guarded official residence in central Stockholm. The immediate area around the building is closed to the public and the prime minister has two personal bodyguards at all times. Security was tightened last summer following the attack and mass shooting by the neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik in Norway. Swedish government sources said on Friday that the dead man was not a bodyguard but had worked as a security guard in the building for a long time and was a "familiar face". "Many people knew him. We don't yet know whether the shooting was suicide or a mistake," Mats J Larsson, a reporter with the Swedish morning paper Dagens Nyheters, said from the scene. Larsson said police were talking to the prime minister's son in an attempt to establish what happened. Reinfeldt recently separated from his wife; his children – two sons aged 18 and 16, and a daughter – are frequent visitors. It is unclear where inside the building the shooting took place. The body was removed on Friday afternoon. The incident took place at 1.10pm local time when Reinfeldt was half a mile away, on a visit to the newsroom of Sweden's evening Aftonbladet newspaper. The prime minister had been holding a meeting with the paper's board and had also toured the newsdesk. Police began a major security operation and emergency services rushed to the official residence, Sagerska Palatset, in the centre of the Swedish capital. "There are three Swat teams, a police car and an operation leader here. They are not allowed to say anything. Two civilian policemen with bulletproof vests are in the building," Aftonbladet reported. "I can say nothing happened to the prime minister. He was not harmed," Stockholm police spokesman Lars Bystrom said. "And it wasn't one of his bodyguards but some security guard. We do not suspect any crime."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Swedish prime minister, Frederik Reinfeldt, was not present A bodyguard to Sweden's prime minister, Frederik Reinfeldt, has died in a shooting incident inside the prime minister's official residence, police in Stockholm said on Friday. According to media reports, the man had official clearance to be inside the building. A government spokesman said Reinfeldt was not there at the time. "The Swedish PM and his family are fine. The prime minister was at a meeting in Stockholm. He wasn't in the building," Markus Friberg, Reinfeldt's press secretary told the Guardian. Detectives in Stockholm said that no crime was suspected. Police began a major security operation and emergency services rushed to the official residence, Sagerska Palatset, in the centre of the Swedish capital. "There are three swat teams, a police car and an operation leader here. They are not allowed to say anything. Two civilian policemen with bulletproof vests are in the building," reported the Aftonbladet newspaper, which has a reporter on the scene at the start of the operation. The incident took place at 1.10pm local time.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Swedish prime minister, Frederik Reinfeldt, was not present A security guard working for Sweden's prime minister Frederik Reinfeldt, has died in a shooting incident inside the prime minister's heavily protected official residence, police in Stockholm said on Friday. Detectives said that no crime was suspected and it is unclear whether the shooting was an accident or suicide. Reinfeldt was not there at the time, but government sources said that one of the prime minister's two teenage sons was in the building when the weapon was fired. "The Swedish PM and his family are fine. The prime minister was at a meeting in Stockholm. He wasn't in the building," Markus Friberg, Reinfeldt's press secretary told the Guardian. Security for top politicians in Sweden has been a major concern since the unsolved murder in 1986 of Sweden's social democrat prime minister Olof Palme, and the murder in 2003 of the country's foreign minister Anna Lindh. Lindh was shopping in a Stockholm department store without bodyguards when an assailant, Mijailo Mijailović, stabbed her several times. She died in hospital. Following security advice, Reinfeldt lives in a closely guarded official residence in central Stockholm. The immediate area around the building is closed to the public and the prime minister has two personal bodyguards at all times. Security was tightened last summer following the attack and mass shooting by the neo-Nazi Anders Breivik in Norway. Swedish government sources said on Friday that the dead man was not a bodyguard but had worked as a security guard in the building for a long time and a "familiar face". "Many people knew him. We don't yet know whether the shooting was suicide or a mistake," Mats J Larsson, a reporter with the Swedish morning paper Dagens Nyheters, said, speaking from the scene. Larsson said police were talking to the prime minister's son in an attempt to establish what happened. Reinfeldt recently separated from his wife; his children – two sons aged 18 and 16 and a daughter – are frequent visitors. It is unclear where inside the building the shooting took place. The body was removed on Friday afternoon. The incident took place at 1.10pm local time when Reinfeldt was half a mile away, on a visit to the newsroom of Sweden's evening Aftonbladet newspaper. The prime minister had been holding a meeting with the paper's board and had also toured the newsdesk. Police began a major security operation and emergency services rushed to the official residence, Sagerska Palatset, in the centre of the Swedish capital. "There are three swat teams, a police car and an operation leader here. They are not allowed to say anything. Two civilian policemen with bulletproof vests are in the building," Aftonbladet reported. "I can say nothing happened to the prime minister. He was not harmed," Stockholm police spokesman Lars Bystrom told The Associated Press. "And it wasn't one of his bodyguards but some security guard. We do not suspect any crime."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Seals alleged to have divulged classified information to the maker of a video game called Medal of Honour: Warfighter Seven members of the secretive Navy Seal Team 6, including one involved in the mission to get Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information, senior navy officials said. Four other Seals are under investigation for similar alleged violations, one official said. They are alleged to have divulged classified information to the maker of a video game called Medal of Honour: Warfighter. Each of the seven received a letter of reprimand and a partial forfeiture of pay for two months. Those actions generally hinder a military member's career. The deputy commander of naval special warfare command, Rear Admiral Garry Bonelli, issued a statement acknowledging that nonjudicial punishments had been handed out for misconduct, but he did not offer any details. "We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as sailors in the United States Navy," Bonelli said. He alluded to the importance of honouring non-disclosure agreements that Seals sign. He said the punishments this week "send a clear message throughout our force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability". The two main complaints against the Seals were that they did not seek the permission of their command to take part in the video project and that they showed the video designers some of their specially designed combat equipment unique to their unit, said a senior military official. Seals, including some of those involved in the Bin Laden raid of May 2011, have been uncharacteristically prominent in the news this year. Matt Bissonnette, who participated in the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, but later retired from the Seals, wrote a first-hand account under the pseudonym Mark Owen, but he landed in hot water with the Pentagon even before it was published in September. The Pentagon accused him of disclosing classified information in violation of the non-disclosure agreements he had signed as a Seal. He disputes the charge. The Seal mission to capture or kill Bin Laden, while successful, encountered a number of unexpected obstacles, including the loss of a stealth helicopter that was partially blown up by the Seals after making a hard landing inside Bin Laden's compound. The head of naval special warfare command, Rear Admiral Sean Pybus, responded to the Bissonnette book by telling his force that "hawking details about a mission" and selling other information about Seal training and operations puts the force and their families at risk. Seals, both active duty and retired, possess highly sensitive information about tactics and techniques of their missions overseas. They are obliged to sign non-disclosure agreements when they enter service and when they leave. The punishments were first reported by CBS News.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | There appears to be almost no chance of Eurozone finance ministers agreeing on Greece's next bailout payment when they meet next week
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Protesters march through Rongwo in western China, demanding independence and return of Dalai Lama Hundreds of Tibetans have joined a demonstration in a town in western China, witnesses say, calling for freedom from Chinese rule in the latest act of protest apparently timed to send a signal to the Communist party elite as it gathers in Beijing to induct a new leadership. The protesters, mostly high school students, marched through the town of Rongwo, shouting for independence and for the return from exile of their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, according to residents and people visiting the town. "It was chaos this morning," said a Tibetan painter who lives nearby on Friday. The protest was the largest demonstration after days of growing tensions in the town, which sits at the edge of the Tibetan plateau and is dominated by the 600-year-old Rongwo monastery. A 22-year-old Tibetan farmer said protesters had started gathering at about 4am near a local high school not far from the monastery and swelled into the thousands. He said the protests were led by hundreds of teenage students, who were joined by local farmers. The painter and farmer both spoke by telephone on condition of anonymity out of fear of government reprisals. Government offices in Rongwo, known as Longwu in Chinese, and the county overseeing it in Qinghai province either declined to comment or did not answer telephone calls. Police kept watch over the protest but did not immediately make any arrests, said a mechanic who would give only his surname, Ma. The march comes after five Tibetans set themselves on fire this week, two of them in the area near Rongwo. The immolations are the latest of more than 50 such acts over the past year which Tibetans say show their growing desperation living under tighter religious and social controls imposed by China. In Beijing, Tibetan Communist party officials attending the party congress told reporters they believed much of the blame for the spate of self-immolations fell on the Dalai Lama and his associates, who they said were instigating the protests. "Everyone can see that these incidents are being manipulated by external Tibetan forces. They are calling the self-immolations heroic acts and making the self-immolators out to be heroes," said Lobsang Gyaincain, the Chinese-appointed vice-governor of Tibet. Gyaincain is in charge of "maintaining stability", the party's catchphrase for policing, surveillance and other efforts aimed at quashing unrest. "The external Tibetan forces and the Dalai clique are sacrificing other people's lives to attain their secret political motives," Gyaincain said in response to a reporter's question at a meeting of the region's delegates to the party congress. The official defended the party's religious policies, saying the authorities protected religious freedom but that Tibetan temples and monks had to undergo political and patriotic education. Tibet support groups overseas said the increase in protests in recent days was meant to highlight Tibetan unhappiness with Chinese rule as the country's current leaders begin to hand over power to younger successors at a party congress in Beijing.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as the UN warns of a sharp increase in the number of people needing humanitarian aid in Syria
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fears are growing that Eurozone finance ministers will fail to agree on Greece's next bailout payment when they meet next week
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | PM's website says Queen has nominated former oil executive and bishop of Durham for Church of England's top job Justin Welby, a former oil executive who was made a bishop just over a year ago, will be the next leader of the Church of England, Downing Street confirmed on Friday morning. A press conference at Lambeth Palace took place to announce that the 56-year-old bishop of Durham will be the 105th man to sit on the throne of Saint Augustine, succeeding Rowan Williams. Welby will be enthroned as archbishop of Canterbury in Canterbury Cathedral on 21 March 2013. He said: "To be nominated to this post is both astonishing and exciting. It is something I never expected, and the last few weeks have been a very strange experience. "It is exciting because we are at one of those rare points where the tide of events is turning, and the church nationally, including the Church of England has great opportunities to match its very great but often hidden strengths. "I feel a massive sense of privilege at being one of those responsible for the leadership of the church in a time of spiritual hunger, when our network of parishes and churches and schools and above all people means that we are facing the toughest issues in the toughest place." David Cameron said in a statement: "I welcome Justin Welby's appointment. I look forward to working with the archbishop in all of these areas. I wish him success." Williams said on Friday: "I am delighted at the appointment of the Right Reverend Justin Welby to Canterbury. I have had the privilege of working closely with him on various occasions and have always been enriched and encouraged by the experience. "He has an extraordinary range of skills and is a person of grace, patience, wisdom and humour. He will bring to this office both a rich pastoral experience and a keen sense of international priorities, for church and world. I wish him – with Caroline and the family – every blessing, and hope that the Church of England and the Anglican communion will share my pleasure at this appointment and support him with prayer and love." Welby, an evangelical, is a supporter of female bishops. He is also, like the prime minister and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, an old Etonian. Welby's name was passed to Downing Street by the secretive crown nominations commission this week after months of deliberation by the 16-member panel.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former Tory treasurer says he has 'never been' to children's home in Wrexham, 'nor have I ever visited any children's home' Former Tory treasurer Lord McAlpine of West Green has said allegations linking him to child abuse were "wholly false and seriously defamatory". After days of frenzied speculation, the peer released a statement vehemently denying that he abused Steve Messham or any other residents of a children's home in Wrexham, north Wales. He said he had visited Wrexham "only once" and that was in the company of an agent from Conservative central office. "I have never been to the children's home in Wrexham, nor have I ever visited any children's home, reform school or any other institution of a similar nature," he said. "I have never stayed in a hotel in or near Wrexham, I did not own a Rolls Royce, have never had a 'Gold card' or 'Harrods card' and never wear aftershave, all of which have been alleged. "I did not sexually abuse Mr Messham or any other residents of the children's home in Wrexham." McAlpine said that "ill- or uninformed commentators" had used the internet to accuse him of being "the senior Conservative party figure from the days of Margaret Thatcher's leadership who is guilty of sexually abusing young residents of a children's home in Wrexham, north Wales in the 1970s and 1980s". He said that a "substantial number of people" may have "reasonably inferred" that broadcast and newspaper reports of allegations against unnamed individuals referred to him. "Even though these allegations made of me by implication in the broadcast and print media, and made directly about me on the internet, are wholly false and seriously defamatory, I can no longer expect the broadcast and print media to maintain their policy of defaming me only by innuendo," he said. "There is a media frenzy and I have to expect that an editor will soon come under pressure to risk naming me. My name and the allegations are, for all practical purposes, linked and in the public domain and I cannot rewind the clock. "I therefore have decided that in order to mitigate, if only to some small extent, the damage to my reputation I must publicly tackle these slurs and set the record straight. "In doing so, I am by no means giving up my right to sue those who have defamed me in the recent past or who may do so in the future and I expressly reserve my rights to take all such steps as I and my solicitors consider necessary to protect my interests." • 'Mistaken identity' led to top Tory abuse claim
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | UK to halt state financial assistance to India in 2015 and will make no new cash commitments before then, says minister All financial assistance from the UK to India will end from 2015, the international development secretary, Justine Greening, has announced. Britain is to make no new financial aid commitments to India, and will save about £200m by 2015. Greening, who took responsibility for Britain's aid budget in September, said programmes already under way would be completed as planned but no new initiatives would be signed off. British support for India will in future be limited to skills sharing in area areas such as trade and investment and health. "After reviewing the programme and holding discussions with the government of India this week, we agree that now is the time to move to a relationship focusing on skills sharing rather than aid," Greening said. "Having visited India, I have seen first-hand the tremendous progress being made. India is successfully developing and our own bilateral relationship has to keep up with 21st-century India. It's time to recognise India's changing place in the world. "It is of course critical that we fulfil all the commitments we have already made and that we continue with those short-term projects already under way which are an important part of the UK and government of India's development programme." The move follows criticism of the government for maintaining aid to India, which has a booming economy and its own space programme. It will delight Conservative MPs critical of David Cameron's commitment to spending 0.7% of national income on overseas aid. The changes will mean Britain spending about £200m less from 2013 to 2015 than had been planned by the former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell. After 2015, the UK's relationship with India is to focus on "technical co-operation", with a hub of British development experts working with the Delhi government, and a programme of private sector investment to assist some of the poorest parts of India. Officials said the UK's technical assistance was expected to be about a 10th of the current programme of support. British funding to India was cut last year but still committed the UK to spending £280m a year until 2015. The Indian finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, last year said the country no longer wanted or needed the British aid, describing the money as "a peanut in our total development expenditure". In a statement to MPs, Greening said: "We have agreed that the UK's programme of financial grant aid to India will end. From now, all new development co-operation programmes will be either technical assistance programmes focused on sharing skills and expertise, or investments in private sector projects focused on helping the poor," she said. "We will finish existing financial grant projects responsibly, so that they all complete as planned by 2015." She said the changes reflected India's "rapid growth and development progress" over the past decade. "India's growing ability to finance its own development programmes means that the time has now come to end the UK's financial grant support. The growing two-way trade and investment between our two countries means that our development partnership should increasingly be about trade not aid. "As part of the new focus on sharing skills and expertise, we have agreed to develop a cross-government technical assistance programme focused on priority issues, such as growth, trade, investment, education, skills and health."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | China's economy will be biggest in world by end of 2016, says leading international thinktank
• Developing world to eclipse west as balance of power shifts China will overtake the US in the next four years to become the largest economy in the world, says a leading international thinktank. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said China's economy will be larger than the combined economies of the eurozone countries by the end of this year, and will overtake the US by the end of 2016. Global GDP will grow by 3% a year over the next 50 years, it says, but there will be large variations between countries and regions. By 2025, it says the combined GDP of China and India will be bigger than that of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US and Canada put together. Asa Johansson, senior economist at the OECD, said: "It is quite a shift in the balance of economic power we are going to see in the future." Inequalities will persist, even though people in the poorest countries will see their income more than quadruple by 2060, with those in China and India seeing a more than a seven-fold increase. By 2060, the OECD says living standards in the emerging countries will still only be 25%-60% of the level enjoyed by those in the US. Global imbalances, which created the conditions for the crash of 2007, will continue to widen and reach pre-crisis levels by 2030, it said. In the short term, this is largely a cyclical effect of the financial crisis. So the US, which had a large budget deficit before the crisis, experienced a sharper downturn than China, which had a budget surplus. The OECD warned that rising imbalances could undermine growth. But, it said, if countries undertook more ambitious reforms with regards to labour and production, they could be reduced. Johansson said these could address how easy it was to hire and fire employees, or regulations around starting up a business and restrictions over foreign business investment.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner defiant as thousands take to the streets in Argentina and abroad Angry about inflation, crime and corruption, people of all ages jammed the streets of Buenos Aires for nearly four hours to protest against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina's biggest anti-government demonstration in years. In a Thursday night march organised on social media, demonstrators filled the Plaza de Mayo in front of the presidential palace and crowded into the square around the city's obelisk, chanting: "We're not afraid." In a peaceful protest, toddlers in pushchairs and grandparents in wheelchairs joined the masses that marched through downtown Buenos Aires until nearly midnight. People banged on pots, whistled and waved the Argentinian flag. They held banners that read: "Stop the wave of Argentinians killed by crime, enough with corruption and say no to constitutional reform." Fernández's critics are angry over the country's high inflation, violent crime and high-profile corruption, and many worry the president will try to hold on to power by ending constitutional term limits. "I came to protest everything that I don't like about this government and I don't like a single thing starting with [the president's] arrogance," said Marta Morosini, 74. "They're killing policemen like dogs, and the president doesn't even open her mouth. This government is just a bunch of hooligans and corrupters." Police officials said the crowd numbered at least 30,000, while local media opposed to Fernández estimated hundreds of thousands turned out. Other demonstrations were held across Argentina, in major cities including Córdoba, Mendoza and La Plata, while protesters massed outside Argentinian embassies and consulates from Chile to Australia. In Rome, expats held a noisy protest outside the consulate on Via Veneto. Among the slogans being shouted was "Cristina, go away." About 200 demonstrators braved rain in Madrid to bang pots outside the Argentinian consulate. "In Argentina, there's no separation of power and it cannot be considered a democracy," said Marcelo Gimenez, a 40-year-old from Buenos Aires who has been living in Spain for two years. "Cristina is not respecting the constitution. The presidency is not a blank cheque and she must govern for those who are for her and against her." The protests hold deep symbolism for Argentinians, who recall the country's economic debacle of a decade ago. The "throw them all out" chants of that era's pot-banging marches forced presidents from office and left Argentina practically ungovernable until Fernández's late husband, Néstor Kirchner, assumed the presidency in 2003. "We came here because we don't want Cristina," said Shirley Brener, a 12-year-old student who protested in Buenos Aires with her mother, Monica, a 48-year-old school director. The president's supporters paid little attention to two earlier protests this year, but when the size of this week's demonstrations became clear, her loyalists spoke out in her defence. They dismissed the protesters as being part of the wealthy elite or beholden to discredited opposition parties. Fernández did not directly refer to the protest in a speech on Thursday, but she defended her policies, saying they helped rescue Argentina from its worst economic crisis a decade ago and kept it afloat during the 2009 world financial downturn. "During boom times it's easy to run a country but try running when it's crumbling down," Fernández said, while urging Argentinians to support her and pledging never to give up as her late husband had taught her. "Never let go, not even in the worst moments," she said. "Because it's in the worst moments when the true colours of a leader of a country comes out." The Buenos Aires mayor, Mauricio Macri, a member of the opposition and a fervent Fernández critic, praised the protest via Twitter. "People are being heard nationwide joined by a single flag," he said. Polls suggest neither side has a firm grip on Argentinians' sympathies. Fernández easily won re-election just a year ago with 54% of the vote but saw her approval rating fall to 31%in a nationwide survey in September by the firm Management & Fit. The poll of 2,259 people, which had an error margin of about two percentage points, also said 65% of respondents disapproved of her opponents' performance. Crime is the biggest concern for many of her critics. Newspapers and television programmes provide a daily diet of stories about increasingly bold home robberies, in which armed bands tie up families until victims hand over the cash that many Argentinians have kept at home since the government froze savings accounts and devalued the currency in 2002. The vast majority of the crimes are never solved, while the death toll is rising. Inflation also upsets many. The government's much-criticised index puts annual inflation at about 10%, but private economists say prices are rising about three times faster than that. Real estate transactions have slowed to a standstill because of the difficulty in estimating future values, and unions that won 25% pay rises only a few months ago are threatening to strike again unless the government comes up with more. The phrase "Cristina or nothing" was stencilled on to buildings surrounding the Plaza de Mayo in the capital. Demonstrators held up signs accusing the president of arrogance. While some featured a lengthy list of demands, others simply said "basta": enough.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President Cristina Fernandez defiant as thousands take to the streets in biggest anti-government demonstration in years Angry about inflation, crime and corruption, people of all ages jammed the streets of Buenos Aires for nearly four hours to protest against President Cristina Fernandez in Argentina's biggest anti-government demonstration in years. In a Thursday night march organised on social media, demonstrators filled the Plaza de Mayo in front of the presidential palace and crowded into the square around the city's iconic obelisk, chanting: "We're not afraid." In a peaceful protest, toddlers in pushchairs and grandparents in wheelchairs joined the masses that marched through downtown Buenos Aires until nearly midnight. People banged on pots, whistled and waved the Argentinian flag. They held banners that read: "Stop the wave of Argentinians killed by crime, enough with corruption and say no to constitutional reform." Fernandez's critics are angry over the country's high inflation, violent crime and high-profile corruption, and many worry the president will try to hold on to power by ending constitutional term limits. "I came to protest everything that I don't like about this government and I don't like a single thing starting with [the president's] arrogance," said Marta Morosini, a 74-year-old retiree. "They're killing policemen like dogs, and the president doesn't even open her mouth. This government is just a bunch of hooligans and corrupters." Police officials said the crowd numbered at least 30,000, while local media opposed to Fernandez estimated hundreds of thousands turned out. Other demonstrations were held across Argentina, in major cities including Cordoba, Mendoza and La Plata, while protesters massed outside Argentinian embassies and consulates from Chile to Australia. In Rome, expats held a noisy protest outside the consulate on Via Veneto. Among the slogans being shouted was "Cristina, go away." About 200 demonstrators braved rain in Madrid to bang pots outside the Argentinian consulate. "In Argentina, there's no separation of power and it cannot be considered a democracy," said Marcelo Gimenez, a 40-year-old from Buenos Aires who has been living in Spain for two years. "Cristina is not respecting the constitution. The presidency is not a blank check and she must govern for those who are for her and against her." The protests hold deep symbolism for Argentinians, who recall the country's economic debacle of a decade ago. The "Throw them all out" chants of that era's pot-banging marches forced presidents from office and left Argentina practically ungovernable until Fernandez's late husband, Nestor Kirchner, assumed the presidency in 2003. "We came here because we don't want Cristina," said Shirley Brener, a 12-year-old student who protested in Buenos Aires with her mother, Monica, a 48-year-old school director. The president's supporters paid little attention to two earlier protests this year, but when the size of this week's demonstrations became clear, her loyalists spoke out in her defence. They dismissed the protesters as being part of the wealthy elite or beholden to discredited opposition parties. Fernandez did not directly refer to the protest in a speech on Thursday, but she defended her policies, saying they helped rescue Argentina from its worst economic crisis a decade ago and kept it afloat during the 2009 world financial downturn. "During boom times it's easy to run a country but try running when it's crumbling down," Fernandez said, while urging Argentinians to support her and pledging never to give up as her late husband had taught her. "Never let go, not even in the worst moments," she said. "Because it's in the worst moments when the true colours of a leader of a country comes out." The Buenos Aires mayor, Mauricio Macri, a member of the opposition and a fervent Fernandez critic, praised the protest via Twitter. "People are being heard nationwide joined by a single flag," he said. Polls suggest neither side has a firm grip on Argentinians' sympathies. Fernandez easily won re-election just a year ago with 54% of the vote but saw her approval rating fall to 31%in a nationwide survey in September by the firm Management & Fit. The poll of 2,259 people, which had an error margin of about two percentage points, also said 65% of respondents disapproved of her opponents' performance. Crime is the biggest concern for many of her critics. Newspapers and television programmes provide a daily diet of stories about increasingly bold home robberies, in which armed bands tie up families until victims hand over the cash that many Argentinians have kept at home since the government froze savings accounts and devalued the currency in 2002. The vast majority of the crimes are never solved, while the death toll is rising. Inflation also upsets many. The government's much-criticised index puts annual inflation at about 10%, but private economists say prices are rising about three times faster than that. Real estate transactions have slowed to a standstill because of the difficulty in estimating future values, and unions that won 25% pay rises only a few months ago are threatening to strike again unless the government comes up with more. The phrase "Cristina or nothing" was stencilled on to buildings surrounding the Plaza de Mayo in the capital. Demonstrators held up signs accusing the president of arrogance. While some featured a lengthy list of demands, others simply said "basta" – enough.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow how the day unfolded after the UN warned of a sharp increase in the number of people needing humanitarian aid in Syria and 11,000 Syrians fled to neighbouring countries
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fears are growing that Eurozone finance ministers will fail to agree on Greece's next bailout payment when they meet next week
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Politicians urged to back nomination of 15-year-old girl shot by Taliban while campaigning for girls' education in Pakistan Thousands of people have called for a Nobel peace prize for Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old who was shot by the Taliban while campaigning for girls' education in Pakistan. Malala has the support of more than 60,000 people backing a petition to nominate her for the prestigious award. The call came ahead of Saturday's global day of action marking one month since Malala was shot in the head by the Taliban. In the UK, Shahida Choudhary is campaigning for the prime minister and prominent politicians to write to the Nobel committee to recommend Malala. Choudhary said: "Malala doesn't just represent one young woman, she speaks out for all those who are denied an education purely on the basis of their gender. "There are girls like Malala in the UK and across the world. I was one of them. "I started this petition because a Nobel peace prize for Malala will send a clear message that the world is watching and will support those who stand up for the right of girls to get an education." Choudhary was taken out of school in the UK aged 16 and forced into a marriage in Pakistan. She escaped back to the UK, returned to education aged 28, and runs a network in Birmingham to support women in similar situations. Malala, was attacked last month with two other girls while travelling home from school in the Swat Valley. The gunman who boarded the van in which she was travelling asked for her by name before firing three shots at her. In early 2009, Malala wrote an anonymous blog about life under the Taliban, who had banned all girls in her area from attending school. The global petition to have Malala nominated, on Change.org, was started in Canada by Tarek Fatah, a writer and broadcaster. Malala's nomination has won the backing of Canada's four largest political parties and has been supported in other countries including France and Spain. Nobel committee rules states that members of national assemblies and governments are able to make nominations for the prize. Nominations close in February.
  | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  |
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire