|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Man shot dead at checkpoint in heavily guarded diplomatic quarter after partial detonation of explosive vest A suicide bomber has killed two security guards in the heart of Kabul's heavily fortified military and diplomatic enclave, but it is suspected he was stopped short of his real target, Afghan police said. A senior police intelligence source said the attacker was aiming for a base "with foreign and Afghan forces". The blast happened at about 8.20am local time near Camp Eggers, a key US military base, and a couple of streets away from Nato headquarters. Shortly before the explosion a man in civilian clothes was seen arguing with Afghan security guards at a checkpoint. When the argument escalated, the bomber tried to detonate his vest, but was shot before all the explosives he was carrying went off, police said. Bomb disposal teams sealed the area, where glass from shattered car windows was strewn across the ground, to defuse the remaining explosives. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which they said targeted a nearby CIA office. The group often exaggerates in its public statements. Embassy alarms and ambulance sirens wailed after the explosion. The US, UK, Canadian, Japanese and German embassies are among those clustered in the area, but none suffered any damage. An armoured SUV belonging to foreign forces was damaged in the blast, but no one inside was hurt, a spokesman for the Nato-led coalition said. Mokhtar Amiri contributed reporting
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Eurozone leaders could not agree to give Greece its next bailout tranche at overnight talks in Brussels, leaving the country's future uncertain again
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Woman singing in French was told to 'speak English or die' and threatened with stabbing, YouTube footage shows Police in the Australian city of Melbourne are investigating the racist abuse of a French-speaking woman travelling on a bus in which she was told by a man to "speak English or die". The verbal abuse, captured on video by another passenger, shows a second man threatening to cut the woman with a knife.
"I'll fucking boxcutter you right now, you bitch, if you talk to my missus like that," said the male passenger, who was pushing a baby buggy, during the footage, which sparked national discussion on the level of racism in Australia. To varying degrees all Australian states and territories have laws against racial vilification. The incident began after the woman started singing a French song, according to another passenger on the bus, Mike Nayna. Nayna – whose YouTube video drew attention to the ugly incident – said another female passenger on the bus started to chant "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" in reply. Nayna, a comedian who turned the footage into an extended commentary on racism in Australia, said the French woman continued to sing, prompting a tirade of abuse from another male passenger.
"Speak English or die, motherfucker," the abuser says in the video. He then appears to threaten to "cut the bitch's tits off".
Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, has large migrant communities and the spread of the video is a setback for the image it cultivates of being Australia's most culturally sophisticated metropolitan centre. Media outlets described the incident as "shocking" and an ugly racist attack. One columnist described the perpetrators of the abuse as idiots who were being "caught on camera to their shame, and to our international embarrassment".
Listeners to one of Melbourne's talk back radio stations, 3AW, described the verbal attack as "disgusting" and "embarrassing". One said: "To the poor woman who had to endure such abuse, I hope you don't think all Australians act like this because we don't. The guy needs to be taught a lesson."
A spokeswoman from the French embassy in Australia, Lydie Bertrand, said the embassy has not been contacted by the woman who was the target of the abuse. "We disapprove of such attitudes towards these young French girls. The incident is regrettable but isolated," she said. Nayna told Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper: "It was just weird mob mentality. They [the abusers] were feeding off each other and breaking off into rant and encouraging each other over some racist stuff. It was like a bonding session."
Nayna said another of the passengers offered the abuser a beer and the use of his fishing knife. "Then he went off in a rant about filleting people and saying 'They're just scared cunts at the back of the bus'."
One of the men who had shouted abuse at the French woman got off the bus with his wife and child and taunted the victim to get off as well.
"Yeah, come on cunt, get off. Fucking ding, look at ya. You've been told about four times, get off," he said. Moments after he stepped off the bus he apparently smashed one of the bus windows, shocking passengers who called out for the driver to shut the doors and drive off.
The other abuser told the French woman that everyone on the bus wanted to kill her and that she would have to "get off eventually, bitch".
Victorian police say they are investigating the incident, which took place on 11 November at about 10.30pm, and have called for witnesses to come forward. The case has fuelled debate about racist attitudes in Australia. In 2010 India issued a travel warning to its citizens intending to come to Australia after the fatal stabbing in Melbourne of a 21-year-old Indian student. Other Indian students held protests, claiming attacks on them were motivated by racism and were not being addressed by the Australian government. Indian students are the second largest group of international students studying at a tertiary level in Australia. Their enrolments dropped by 30% in 2011 and by another 26% in 2012. In 2005 several days of racially motivated mob riots were whipped up in the Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla and neighbouring communities by reports of an attack on volunteer lifesavers by Middle Eastern men. In May a British woman was sentenced to 21 weeks in jail for racially abusing passengers on the tube in London. Jacqueline Woodhouse, 42, from Romford in Essex, launched her abusive verbal attack on several passengers on the Central Line. A seven-minute video of the tirade has been watched by more than 200,000 people on YouTube. Among her remarks, Woodhouse asked passengers around her: "Where do you come from? All over the world, fucking jokers. Fucking country's a fucking joke. "I would like to know if any of you are illegal? I am sure 30% of you are. Fucking jokers taking the fucking piss." The judge said Woodhouse would spend half of her sentence behind bars and was banned for five years from using the London underground and Docklands Light Railway network while drunk.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Greece's prime minister says there is no justification for the eurozone finance ministers' failing to agree a deal on its bailout in overnight talks
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, who was the only perpetrator to survive, is first person executed in India since 2004 India has hanged Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the only militant to have survived the 2008 attacks on the financial centre Mumbai, the country's home ministry has said. In August, India's supreme court upheld Kasab's death sentence over the attack on a string of targets in Mumbai that killed 166 people.
"Ajmal Kasab was executed at 7.30 this morning [Wednesday]," said KS Dhatwalia, a home ministry spokesman.
The execution at Yerawada prison in Pune, near Mumbai, came a few hours after the president, Pranab Mukherjee, rejected a mercy plea by Kasab, a Pakistani national who had said he belonged to the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
It is the first time a capital sentence has been carried out in India since 2004.
Many foreigners, some of India's wealthy business elite, and poor train commuters were killed by 10 Pakistani gunmen in a three-day rampage through some of Mumbai's best-known landmarks, including two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre.
Kasab was filmed walking through Mumbai's main train station carrying an AK-47 assault rifle and wearing a rucksack. Nearly 60 people were gunned down in the crowded station. India accuses Pakistan-based militants of organising the attacks, saying Islamabad is failing to act against those behind the raids. Pakistan denies involvement and says it is prosecuting seven suspected militants for their role.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Supervisor Scott Wiener's motion passed by six votes to five, prompting protests inside City Hall San Francisco has banned public nudity in a vote that is likely to spark protests among the city's many naturists. Two women stripped off as the result was read out at city hall on Tuesday. One said: "What are you afraid of? My government has failed me." Another man stripped off and chanted: "The body is beautiful." The vote went six to five in favour of the ban, which was supported by many residents and business owners in the city's Castro district. For the past two years, there has been an almost daily gathering of naked men at a plaza on the corner of Castro and Market streets – a busy commercial, tourism and transit point in the city's famous gay area. As soon as the ban was passed, one woman stood up and declared "this is not a democracy" before taking off her clothes. Another lady in the gallery stood up and said: "I'm going to do it too" before removing her top. Two men followed suit. Security removed a handful of others who had shouted their disapproval at the result of one of the most controversial votes the San Francisco city legislators have had in recent years. The vote was close. Five of the 11 supervisors opposed the ban, largely on the grounds that they did not see the need for a city-wide ban to deal with a problem that is confined to one small area. But supervisor Scott Wiener, who proposed the ban on nudity, said he had been hearing from upset residents of the Castro district for the past two years. "This situation has changed" he said. "It's no longer sporadic. It's seven days a week in this neighbourhood where people live and work and conduct their lives." He said people were standing at the corner of Market and Castro, "displaying their genitals to anyone who is passing by. It is very much a 'hey, look what I have' mentality." While he recognised that Castro was a place of "freedom of expression," he said: "That doesn't mean we have no standards whatsoever." He was opposed by supervisor John Avalos, who said he was concerned that a ban on nudity would be an infringement of civil liberties. "Sometimes there is a little weirdness about how we express ourselves and that's part of what is great in this city," he said. Outside city hall, protesters gathered to shout their disapproval of the ban, with some ignoring the cold to remove items of clothing. Opponents of the ban have until at least February to continue to walk naked in public. As a point of procedure the board must have a second vote in two weeks as a number of amendments were made to the legislation prior to Monday's decision. A spokesperson for the law firm representing the pro-nudists said that a legal objection is also being filed.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | UN urges restraint on both sides amid rising death toll as hundreds of Palestinians flee after leaflet warnings Hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinians hung in the balance on Tuesday night after six days of violence that have claimed about 120 lives and stoked fears of a wider regional war. Fierce fighting continued amid intense diplomacy throughout the day, with wrangling and uncertainty over whether any agreement was about to take effect. Egypt and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas initially claimed a truce had been agreed from 7pm GMT, only for this to be denied by Israeli officials. At a press conference in Jerusalem, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said his country would be a "willing partner" in negotiations to reach a long-term ceasefire. The public statements played out against a backdrop of ongoing violence, in what appeared to be efforts by both sides to get their last attacks in before a peace deal came into effect. Hundreds of Palestinians fled their homes in the coastal strip after Israeli leaflets warned them to leave 11 named areas for their own safety. Heavy bursts of artillery fire were reported. Meanwhile, rockets were launched sporadically from Gaza, one hitting a building in central Israel, another landing near Jerusalem. Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian president, who hosted the talks in Cairo, said he expected "Israeli aggression" to cease before the end of the day. The United States increased its involvement in the negotiations. President Barack Obama, returning to Washington from an Asian trip, spoke to Morsi three times in less than 24 hours, the White House said. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, arrived in Jerusalem and held talks with Netanyahu. Clinton pledged to work towards a truce in the region. "It is essential to de-escalate the situation in Gaza. The rocket attacks from terrorist organisations inside Gaza on Israeli cities and towns must end and a broader calm restored," she said. "The goal must be a durable outcome that promotes regional stability and advances the security and legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike." Netanyahu said: "If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem with diplomatic means, we prefer that. "But if not, I'm sure you understand that Israel will have to take whatever action is necessary to defend its people." Both sides are under pressure to back down, with Israel being asked not to launch a large-scale ground offensive as it did in Gaza in 2008, when 1,400 Palestinians were killed. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, urged Israel to exercise restraint. "A further escalation will be dangerous and will put the entire region at risk," he said in Jerusalem, where he held talks with leaders of both sides. "I call on everybody to restore calm. Rocket fire from Gaza on Israel is unacceptable and must stop immediately. I warn against a ground operation. We should protect civilians at all times." Claims of a ceasefire deal emerged during a day of conflicting messages. Earlier, the Hamas military commander Mohamed Deif announced on television that his fighters were preparing for a ground war. Israeli planes dropped leaflets over a large area of the coastal enclave, warning frightened residents to evacuate. Clinton is due to visit Ramallah early on Wednesday to meet the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and she will then go on to Cairo. "Her visits will build on American engagement with regional leaders to support de-escalation of violence and a durable outcome that ends the rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns and restores a broader calm," a US official said. Morsi, a leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood before he was elected president in the summer, has been at the forefront of attempts to secure a ceasefire. "The efforts to conclude a truce between the Palestinian and Israeli sides will produce positive results in the next few hours," he said. The US and Britain both praised Egypt's mediation efforts. Ceasefire negotiations centred on Hamas's insistence that the five-year economic blockade of Gaza be lifted by the opening of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt. Israel wants a cessation of rocket fire and other attacks and insists Hamas take formal responsibility for all fire from Gaza by other factions, including Islamic Jihad. Amid claim and counter-claim, as well as inevitable speculation and rumour, little hard detail was available about the contents of the purported agreement, but sources Sources in Cairo claimed the talks, supervised by Egyptian intelligence, would produce a two-stage solution: a cessation of violence, followed by a longer negotiated settlement over Gaza, which would require the involvement of Egypt and the US as guarantors of some kind. Israel was reported to have rejected a Hamas demand that it pledge to refrain from "targeted assassinations" of the kind that killed the Hamas military chief Ahmed al-Jaabari at the start of this latest crisis last Wednesday. It is estimated that at least 120 Palestinians have died in the fighting since, most of them civilians, including 27 children. Three Israelis were killed last week when a rocket fired from Gaza struck their house in Kiryat Malachi. Two Israelis were reported killed , one a soldier by mortar fireon Tuesday.. Israel's leaders appear to have weighed the benefits and risks of sending tanks and infantry into the densely populated enclave two months before an election, and indicated they would prefer a diplomatic solution backed by world powers. If a truce does take hold, there will be pressure for a renewed international diplomatic effort to ensure that the underlying issues of the conflict are resolved. An immediate issue will be the creation of an international monitoring mechanism to observe the ceasefire and report to the UN security council. Another will be the blockade of Gaza and the associated question of the network of tunnels that link southern Gaza to Egypt. Beyond that, efforts will be needed to relaunch a long moribund peace process and promote reconciliation beteeen Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the West Bank.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as a ceasefire agreement is expected to come into effect tonight
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former managers at British tech firm deny claims and accuse HP of destroying a 'world leader' Hewlett-Packard has revealed it has taken an $8.8bn (£5.5bn) writedown after "serious accounting improprieties" were discovered at Autonomy, the British tech firm it acquired in 2011 for more than $10bn. HP called on the US and British authorities to investigate what it called "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy" before the acquisition. The deal was brokered under HP's previous chief executive Léo Apotheker but finalised by current boss Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief and one-time candidate for governor of California, who joined the HP board in March 2011. The losses wiped out HP's profits for the latest quarter. The company reported a net loss of $6.9bn, compared with a $200m profit in the period a year earlier. Its shares had plunged 13% by mid-morning. HP said it would attempt to recoup shareholder money by seeking "redress against various parties" in civil courts. It is understood it intends to pursue senior staff and could take action against advisers such as Autonomy's auditor Deloitte. Autonomy founder Mike Lynch, who has flatly denied the allegations on behalf of himself and his management team, on Tuesday accused HP of destroying a "world leader" in less than a year. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, he said he had been "ambushed" by HP, only finding out about the allegations when the company's press release appeared at 1pm UK time. "I think what has happened here is that they have got themselves in a mess," said Lynch. "I can't understand how you can write down $9bn of value and say somehow this was all caused by something you didn't notice when you did due diligence with 300 people. It would be kind of a big elephant to have missed." Autonomy was one of Britain's brightest tech stars and helps firms store and search data across different networks, specialising in the search of "unstructured data" such as voicemail and email. Lynch, a Cambridge tech star with a taste for koi carp and model railways, had been feted as one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs. He initially called the merger "a historic day for Autonomy, our employees and the customers we serve". He made £500m from the sale. The deal soon soured as angry investors accused the company of over-paying. The row contributed to the ousting of Apotheker after 10 months in the job. Lynch left in May as HP announced 27,000 job cuts world-wide as part of a $3bn-$3.5bn cost-cutting programme. Lynch had been close to Apotheker. He initially appeared to have Whitman's full support but blamed a lack of independence at the company for his departure. HP in turn pointed to a "significant" decline in Autonomy's core licensing revenues and said the division needed new leadership. The Autonomy investigation is believed to have been started by a whistleblower in Autonomy's leadership who came forward after Lynch's departure. The executive alleged there had been a "series of questionable accounting and business practices" prior to the acquisition, HP said. The whistleblower gave "numerous details" of alleged accounting irregularities about which the company said it had no prior knowledge. HP called in PricewaterhouseCoopers to do a forensic review of Autonomy's historical financial results. Questions have been raised about how much HP knew of problems at Autonomy before the deal was approved by shareholders. A UK-based technology consultant, Alan Pelz-Sharpe, has told the Guardian he blew the whistle on Autonomy to the Serious Fraud Office in September 2011, a week before the deal closed. The SFO declined to comment. The documents Pelz-Sharpe based his allegations on were widely circulated to analysts and journalists at the time. "They [HP] probably realised pretty quickly what they had done but by then they had done it. It was very difficult for HP to get out of that deal." Whitman's investigation determined that Autonomy was "substantially overvalued at the time of its acquisition" owing to misstatements of financial performance, including revenue, core growth rate and gross margins. According to HP, Autonomy mischaracterised revenue from loss-making low-end hardware sales that represented as much as 15% of the company's revenue. HP said Autonomy also presented licensing transactions where no end-customer existed at the time of sale as revenue. "This appears to have been a willful effort on behalf of certain former Autonomy employees to inflate the underlying financial metrics of the company in order to mislead investors and potential buyers," HP said in a statement. "These misrepresentations and lack of disclosure severely impacted HP management's ability to fairly value Autonomy at the time of the deal." The company said it had alerted the US securities and exchange commission's enforcement division and Britain's Serious Fraud Office. A spokesman for Lynch and Autonomy's former management team said: "HP has made a series of allegations against some unspecified former members of Autonomy Corporation plc's senior management team. The former management team of Autonomy was shocked to see this statement today, and flatly rejects these allegations, which are false. HP's due diligence review was intensive, overseen on behalf of HP by KPMG, Barclays and Perella Weinberg. HP's senior management has also been closely involved with running Autonomy for the past year. "It took 10 years to build Autonomy's industry-leading technology and it is sad to see how it has been mismanaged since its acquisition by HP."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Charges for Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson raise prospect that News Corp could be prosecuted under US anti-bribery laws The new round of criminal charges brought in the UK against former senior News International editors has once raised again the prospect that Rupert Murdoch's New York-based parent company may be prosecuted under US anti-bribery laws, and complicates the rehabilitation of his son James as a possible successor to lead the global media empire. The charges brought against Rebekah Brooks, who ran Murdoch's newspaper holdings in Britain, Andy Coulson, former editor of the now defunct News of the World, and two other former News International employees exposes the parent News Corporation to possible action under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The FCPA exists to prosecute US-domiciled companies for acts of bribery and corruption that they might commit abroad. An official of the British ministry of defence, Bettina Jordan Barber, also faces trial for allegedly receiving £100,000 from Murdoch's tabloid newspapers for information that led to a series of published stories. The allegation that money passed hands clearly falls within the legal remit of the FCPA. Mike Koehler, professor of law at Southern Illinois school of law and author of the blog fcaprofessor.com, said the charges "would be hard for the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to ignore. We have been hearing allegations for a year and a half now, now we clearly have charges against high ranking officials at a foreign subsidiary," he said. The new charges, and the allegation of bribery of a military official, come as a setback for News Corporation at a very sensitive time for the company. The media giant is preparing to split itself in two, separating the TV and broadcasting arm from the scandal-hit newspaper and publishing division. The developments also bring to a crashing halt the recent perception in America that News Corporation had begun to recover its confidence after months on the defensive as a result of the phone-hacking scandal. Only on Monday, the New York Times ran an article headlined Clouds Lifting Over Murdoch, He's Out to Buy Again. News Corp has largely shrugged off the scandal in the US, where its shares have risen over 34% in the last year. At News Corp's recent annual shareholder meeting in October, Murdoch comfortably saw off attempts to appoint an independent chairman to the company. James Murdoch has recently been tipped to head Fox Networks, the News Corp television division that includes its flagship Fox channel, home to The Simpsons and American Idol. But the new charges will increase pressure on the company. Koehler said US authorities would be looking to see how high up the chain of command the bribery scandal reached. "The question will be what did James know and when did he know it," he said. Ultimately he predicted News Corp would reach a settlement with the Justice Department rather than go to trial, but he said that News Corp faced some uncomfortable investigations in the coming months. The FCPA has two main components, one that relates to the bribing of foreign officials and another that relates to books and record keeping. It is often the latter that causes companies the biggest headaches. Characterising a bribe as "miscellaneous expense" is a serious offence. "This latest news is an escalation of the FCPA case," said Koehler. But he said he expected the case could still take some years to be resolved. The latest legal difficulties to hit News Corporation could also potentially have ramifications on its 27 TV licences within the Fox network – the real financial heart of the operation. Three of the licences are up for renewal, and in August the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) filed a petition with the US broadcasting regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, that called for them to be denied on the grounds that the company did not have the requisite character to run a public service. Melanie Sloan, Crew's director, said the charges of the four former News International employees played into its petition. "News Corp argues that the conduct in Britain shouldn't matter here in the US, but the Atlantic ocean doesn't have cleansing properties – if Murdoch is seen to be unfit to run a global company in the UK, then he's unfit in this country, too." In May, the UK Commons culture committee censured Murdoch in their report into the phone hacking scandal, saying that he was "not a fit person" to exercise stewardship of a major international company. So far there have been no confirmed cases of News Corporation employees engaging in illegal activities within the US. This week the Daily Beast alleged that the Murdoch tabloids the Sun and the New York Post may have made payments to a US official on American soil in order to obtain a photo of a captive Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi leader, in his underwear. News Corporation has denied the claims. Mark Lewis, the UK-based lawyer who has represented many of the victims of News of the World hacking, has been investigating possible cases of data breaches within the US but has yet to issue legal proceedings.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | In dramatic scenes at Church House legislation that would have allowed women to become bishops was rejected by six votes The Church of England has been plunged into its gravest crisis in decades after legislation that would have allowed female clergy to become bishops, and swept away centuries of entrenched sexism, was rejected by just six votes. In dramatic scenes at Church House in Westminster, a long-awaited measure that was the result of 12 tortuous years of debate and more than three decades of campaigning was defeated by lay members, prompting one bishop to warn that the established church risked becoming "a national embarrassment". The legislation had needed a two-thirds majority in each house of synod to pass, but, despite comfortably managing that in both the houses of bishops and clergy, it was dealt a fatal blow in the laity, where lay members voted 132 votes in favour and 74 against. If just six members of the laity had voted for instead of against, the measure would have been passed. The result is a huge disappointment for campaigners who warned that the church's image in the eyes of parliament and the public had been severely damaged. It was also a bitter blow to Rowan Williams, the outgoing archbishop of Canterbury, whose time at Lambeth has been dominated by the issue and who had campaigned personally for a yes vote. "Of course I hoped and prayed that this particular business would be at another stage before I left, and of course it is a personal sadness, a deep personal sadness, that that is not the case," he said . The failure will also present a huge challenge to Justin Welby, the bishop of Durham, who takes over from Williams next year. In an impassioned personal plea before the vote, he had urged synod to support the measure, urging them to "finish the job" of women's ordination. Welby was "taking stock" on Tuesday night. The house of bishops, which voted 44 to 3 in favour of the reform, will meet for an emergency session to try to find a way to rescue the legislation. If it fails, the synod will not be able to return to women bishops legislation for another three years, during which time supporters are likely to push for a more uncompromising single clause measure. The rejected legislation would have worked alongside a code of practice to ensure those opposed to women bishops – chiefly conservative evangelicals and traditional Anglo-Catholics – could have requested an alternative male bishop. "We are deeply disappointed that the General Synod has made a decision so out of step with the will of the Church of England as a whole," said the Group for Rescinding the Act of Synod, which campaigns against the church's flying bishops. "The Synod's decision to reject the measure cuts right across what the vast majority of men and women in the Church of England long for and shows that our attempts at compromise have been ignored. It undermines the validity of the ministry of every ordained woman and sends out a negative message to all women everywhere." Tony Baldry, the Conservative MP who is responsible for speaking for the synod in parliament, said it would be "extremely difficult if not impossible" for him to explain the church's current predicament to MPs. He has previously warned it would be difficult for him to defend the guaranteed place for bishops in the Lords. While some have suggested the move could even call into question its status as the established church, Baldry said he thought the bigger risk was simple "disinterest". "I think the great danger for the church following this vote is that it will be increasingly seen as just like any other sect," he said. A source close to the culture secretary, Maria Miller, who is also minister for women and equalities, said: "Whilst this is a matter for the church, it's very disappointing. As we seek to help women fulfil their potential throughout society this ruling would suggest the church is at the very least behind the times." When the measure was put to the church's 44 dioceses earlier this year, 42 approved. A ComRes poll in July found that 74% of respondents thought female clerics should be able to attain the highest reaches of the church. The bishop of Lincoln, Christopher Lowson, said the failed vote could make the church look even more outdated. "This is a very sad day indeed, not just for those of us who support the ministry of women, but for the future of the church, which might very well be gravely damaged by this," he said. "The church has suffered a serious credibility problem while it worked on the legislation, and this is a setback that could cement the church's reputation as being outdated and out-of-touch," he said. The bishop of Chelmsford, Stephen Cottrell, said: "There's a risk the national church will become a national embarrassment." For opponents of the measure the victory was a long-awaited sign of conservatives' power in synod. Rod Thomas, chair of the conservative Evangelical Reform group, said: "It was as close as we thought it would be. My overall conclusion is that it is very good news for the Church of England. We have avoided what could have been a disastrous mistake for our unity and witness. We can now sit down and talk through how the Bible helps us to move forward together. It was very interesting that the archbishop designate pledged himself to working positively with both sides and we want to respond to that by making ourselves completely available for discussion." The Church of England said that, in all, 72.6% of synod members had backed the measure in the crucial vote, which came at the end of more than 100 passionate and moving speeches. But it was not enough to see it through. In the house of clergy the measure passed by 148 votes to 45. If six members of the laity had voted for instead of against, the measure would have received the two-thirds majority needed.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | M23 militia greeted by fraction of city's million residents, as many remain indoors fearful of repercussions if they show dissent The fighters arrived like a liberating army, greeted by more than 1,000 residents shouting and clapping as their lorries rolled down the streets. Goma, the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), had fallen to rebels. M23 fighters captured the seat of the world's biggest peacekeeping operation with ease on Tuesday, parading past UN troops who offered no resistance. Even by the standards of this turbulent region, it was a day of high drama that raised the stakes for further conflict. M23, allegedly backed by neighbouring Rwanda, marched into the city of 1 million people after the Congolese army crumbled and fled. Scores of heavily armed rebels walked through the city unchallenged as small groups of residents greeted them. "We are happy, we have been liberated!" said one resident, Pierre Ndjassiang. "We feared a bloody battle but they have taken control quite peacefully. We will work with [M23], and now we will listen more seriously to their demands." But the crowd streaming around the M23 lorries represented a small fraction of Goma's population, and even some of those present were more circumspect than Ndjassiang. "We are obliged to welcome M23 but we are not really for or against them," said Lucien Mulire, walking at a distance from the chaotic procession. "There is a very political element to these celebrations. Also, ultimately, people just want an end to hostilities. If that is brought about through victory for the rebels, then people will celebrate. But I would not say they are loved here." Others said M23's opponents had stayed indoors, fearful of repercussions for dissent. After nearly eight months of mutinies, skirmishes, advances, retreats, declarations, claims and counter-claims, the actual fighting lasted just a matter of hours. By Monday evening M23, which has been accused of killings, rapes and recruting child soldiers since it launched an uprising in April, had advanced to within four miles of Goma. On Tuesday morning some bolder civilians crept along the main city boulevard towards the central roundabout where the army and M23 exchanged fire for more than an hour. Volleys of bullets from the rebels' Kalashnikovs whizzed mostly towards army positions, but some flew down the boulevard and prompted those who had crept too close to throw themselves against walls and to the floor. Occasionally the army would respond with heavy arms fire, though that brought only more bullets from the rebels. In the late morning Gabriel Alamazani, a Congolese non-government organisation worker, appeared on the boulevard, coming from the direction of heavy gunfire. "There are no more Congolese troops in the town. M23 are here, they have entered the centre of the town, there is no doubt," he said. "I saw over 100 M23 fighters there. Monusco [the UN stabilisation mission in the Congo] is doing nothing; they saw M23 and then left in their trucks." Within 10 minutes Alamazani was proved right: M23 soldiers marched down Boulevard Kanyamahunga to the Rwandan border and secured the abandoned government buildings there, disarming police as they went. The only government vehicle circulating by the border was, aptly, for the provincial government funeral service. A crowd of people who had fled to neighbouring Rwanda gathered behind the barrier demarcating the border to watch the rebels assert control. Monusco armoured personnel carriers sped back towards UN bases, less than an hour after having been deployed to the front lines. Monusco had previously sworn that it would not allow M23 to take Goma, where it has about 1,400 troops; many Congolese were outraged by the UN's inaction. "What purpose do they serve?" demanded one man, who declined to give his name. "They drive out in their tanks, they watch the fighting, then they return. They do nothing!" A South African Monusco soldier, who did not wish to be named, said: "We [Monusco] have had no trouble with M23, to be honest." However, a senior UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters: "There is no army left in the town, not a soul ... once they were in the town what could we do? It could have been very serious for the population." As Goma's civilian population crept back to the streets, many expressed disappointment with the army's failure to defend the city. "We have been let down by the army," said Chantelle Kambeba. "We haven't seen them at all, we don't know where they are." The city secured, M23 soldiers climbed into trucks and drove through the streets. M23's military leader, Sultani Makenga, was present, though there was no sign or talk of Bosco "The Terminator" Ntaganda, who is sought by the international criminal court for alleged war crimes. Some in Goma fear that, once international attention is diverted, the rebels will commit abuses that have previously earned condemnation from the UN and human rights groups. Tens of thousands of people have fled neighbouring villages and refugee camps, prompting warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe. The fight for Goma was less brutal than some feared but did claim innocent victims. In the hot and humid atmosphere of the HEAL Africa hospital, a woman groaned as a bullet was removed from her leg, while a 12-year-old boy, Kakule Elie, had his arm amputated after a bullet smashed the bone. The hospital's Dr Justin Lussy said two people had been killed and 37 injured by stray bullets or shells. "Many have serious injuries: to the chest and stomach, or bullets which have fractured bones." The hospital was treating children whose arms were sheared off by exploding shells and teenagers paralysed from the neck down. "There were also three pregnant women who were shot," he said. "Two have lost their children." Lussy complained of power cuts, staffing shortages and lack of medicine and blood supplies. Rwanda is accused of equipping M23 with sophisticated arms, including night-vision goggles and 120mm mortars. On Friday the UN group of experts is expected to release its final report, detailing the role Rwanda, and to a lesser extent Uganda, played in the recruitment, financing and arming of the rebel movement. Lambert Mende, a DRC government spokesman, claimed Rwandan soldiers had crossed into Goma, hiking over footpaths across a volcano that looms between the two countries. "Goma is in the process of being occupied by Rwanda," Mende, speaking from Congo's distant capital of Kinshasa, told the Associated Press. "We have people who saw the Rwandan army traverse our frontier at the Nyamuragira volcano. They have occupied the airport and they are shooting inside the town. Our army is trying to riposte but this poses an enormous problem for them this is an urban centre where hundreds of thousands of people live." Rwanda called for an end to hostilities. Louise Mushikiwabo, its foreign minister, said: "What happened today in Goma is a clear indication that the military option has failed to bring about a solution to this crisis and that political dialogue is the only way to resolve the ongoing conflict." Rwanda denies supporting M23. Mushikiwabo added: "By focusing on the blame game and ignoring the root causes of conflict in the DRC, the international community has missed the opportunity to help the DRC restore peace and security for its citizens and bring about much needed stability in the Great Lakes Region. We just cannot afford to continue along a path that has failed to produce results." If the rebels succeed in taking another provincial capital, Bukavu, it will mark the biggest gain in rebel territory since at least 2003, when Congo's last war with its neighbours ended.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi says he expects 'Israeli aggression' to cease before the end of the day Hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinians hung in the balance on Tuesday night after six days of violence that have claimed about 120 lives and stoked fears of a wider regional war. Fierce fighting continued amid intense diplomacy throughout the day, with wrangling and uncertainty over whether any agreement was about to take effect. Egypt and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas initially claimed a truce had been agreed from 7pm GMT, only for this to be denied by Israeli officials. At a press conference in Jerusalem, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said his country would be a "willing partner" in negotiations to reach a long-term ceasefire. The public statements played out against a backdrop of ongoing violence, in what appeared to be efforts by both sides to get their last attacks in before a peace deal came into effect. Hundreds of Palestinians fled their homes in the coastal strip after Israeli leaflets warned them to leave 11 named areas for their own safety. Heavy bursts of artillery fire were reported. Meanwhile, rockets were launched sporadically from Gaza, one hitting a building in central Israel, another landing near Jerusalem. Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian president, who hosted the talks in Cairo, said he expected "Israeli aggression" to cease before the end of the day. The United States increased its involvement in the negotiations. President Barack Obama, returning to Washington from an Asian trip, spoke to Morsi three times in less than 24 hours, the White House said. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, arrived in Jerusalem and held talks with Netanyahu. Clinton pledged to work towards a truce in the region. "It is essential to de-escalate the situation in Gaza. The rocket attacks from terrorist organisations inside Gaza on Israeli cities and towns must end and a broader calm restored," she said. "The goal must be a durable outcome that promotes regional stability and advances the security and legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike." Netanyahu said: "If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem with diplomatic means, we prefer that. "But if not, I'm sure you understand that Israel will have to take whatever action is necessary to defend its people." Both sides are under pressure to back down, with Israel being asked not to launch a large-scale ground offensive as it did in Gaza in 2008, when 1,400 Palestinians were killed. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, urged Israel to exercise restraint. "A further escalation will be dangerous and will put the entire region at risk," he said in Jerusalem, where he held talks with leaders of both sides. "I call on everybody to restore calm. Rocket fire from Gaza on Israel is unacceptable and must stop immediately. I warn against a ground operation. We should protect civilians at all times." Claims of a ceasefire deal emerged during a day of conflicting messages. Earlier, the Hamas military commander Mohamed Deif announced on television that his fighters were preparing for a ground war. Israeli planes dropped leaflets over a large area of the coastal enclave, warning frightened residents to evacuate. Clinton is due to visit Ramallah early on Wednesday to meet the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and she will then go on to Cairo. "Her visits will build on American engagement with regional leaders to support de-escalation of violence and a durable outcome that ends the rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns and restores a broader calm," a US official said. Morsi, a leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood before he was elected president in the summer, has been at the forefront of attempts to secure a ceasefire. "The efforts to conclude a truce between the Palestinian and Israeli sides will produce positive results in the next few hours," he said. The US and Britain both praised Egypt's mediation efforts. Ceasefire negotiations centred on Hamas's insistence that the five-year economic blockade of Gaza be lifted by the opening of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt. Israel wants a cessation of rocket fire and other attacks and insists Hamas take formal responsibility for all fire from Gaza by other factions, including Islamic Jihad. Amid claim and counter-claim, as well as inevitable speculation and rumour, little hard detail was available about the contents of the purported agreement, but sources Sources in Cairo claimed the talks, supervised by Egyptian intelligence, would produce a two-stage solution: a cessation of violence, followed by a longer negotiated settlement over Gaza, which would require the involvement of Egypt and the US as guarantors of some kind. Israel was reported to have rejected a Hamas demand that it pledge to refrain from "targeted assassinations" of the kind that killed the Hamas military chief Ahmed al-Jaabari at the start of this latest crisis last Wednesday. It is estimated that at least 120 Palestinians have died in the fighting since, most of them civilians, including 27 children. Three Israelis were killed last week when a rocket fired from Gaza struck their house in Kiryat Malachi. Two Israelis were reported killed , one a soldier by mortar fireon Tuesday.. Israel's leaders appear to have weighed the benefits and risks of sending tanks and infantry into the densely populated enclave two months before an election, and indicated they would prefer a diplomatic solution backed by world powers. If a truce does take hold, there will be pressure for a renewed international diplomatic effort to ensure that the underlying issues of the conflict are resolved. An immediate issue will be the creation of an international monitoring mechanism to observe the ceasefire and report to the UN security council. Another will be the blockade of Gaza and the associated question of the network of tunnels that link southern Gaza to Egypt. Beyond that, efforts will be needed to relaunch a long moribund peace process and promote reconciliation beteeen Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the West Bank.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Athens officials expect to learn today when loan tranche will be paid, as Moody's one-notch downgrade of France causes little alarm in the markets
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Live coverage with Paul Owen as the Church of England votes whether to allow women to become bishops, its biggest decision for 20 years
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Scandal involving alleged criminality at Murdoch's tabloids grows as prosecutors bring the first charges against a Sun journalist The scandal involving alleged criminality at Rupert Murdoch's British tabloids grew on Tuesday as prosecutors brought the first charges against a journalist employed by the Sun and also brought fresh cases against the media mogul's most senior lieutenants. Rebekah Brooks was charged over an alleged conspiracy to make illegal payments to a public official while working as editor of The Sun. Also charged was the paper's chief reporter John Kay. Both are alleged to have been involved in a conspiracy to pay £100,000 over seven years to a defence ministry official. Andy Coulson was facing a fresh charge relating to his tenure as editor of the News of the World for allegedly authorising the payment of money, along with the paper's former royal reporter, Clive Goodman to get hold of confidential information about the Royal family. The Crown Prosecution Service made the announcements of the new charges, meaning prosecutors believe they can prove to a jury the conspiracies to bribe took place. Any convictions could have consequences for News Corporation in the United States where the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it illegal for officers of a US company to bribe foreign officials. Brooks and Coulson, both confidants of prime minister David Cameron, now face three separate sets of criminal charges, and the news of the fresh charges and the allegations against the Sun, which joins the defunct News of the World as having its journalists face trial, comes just before Lord Leveson's report on standards and regulation of the press is expected to be published next week. The announcement came as a result of Operation Elveden, in which the Metropolitan police are investigating claims of unlawful payments by News International staff to police officers and other public officials. Coulson, former deputy editor and then editor of the now defunct News of the World, and the former royal editor Clive Goodman, are both charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office. These relate to payments allegedly made to gain the "green book" which contains confidential royal family and palace phone numbers. In a statement, Alison Levitt, QC, principal legal adviser to the director of public prosecutions (DPP), said: "The allegations relate to the request and authorisation of payments to public officials in exchange for information, including a palace phone directory known as the "green book" containing contact details for the royal family and members of the household." Also charged are Brooks, editor of the Sun between 14 January 2003 and 1 September 2009, the Sun's former chief reporter John Kay, and a Ministry of Defence official Bettina Jordan-Barber, who is alleged to have been paid £100,000 over a seven-year period. The CPS said all three "conspired together, and with others, to commit misconduct in public office" between 1 January 2004 and 31 January 2012. Levitt said: "This conspiracy relates to information allegedly provided by Bettina Jordan Barber for payment which formed the basis of a series of news stories published by the Sun. It is alleged that approximately £100,000 was paid to Bettina Jordan Barber between 2004 and 2011." As part of the investigation into illegal payments, the Met has arrested 52 people, including 21 Sun journalists. The CPS has more decisions to make about whether any more journalists from Britain's best selling newspaper should be charged or not. Convictions in the UK over illegal payments could affect the Murdoch media empire in the US, said Tom Fox, a Houston-based lawyer and expert in the US's foreign corrupt practices act: "This may be the game changer some had been expecting. As a US firm News Corp is subject to the FCPA, if its executives are proven to have been directly involved in acts of bribery then I would expect there to a settlement with the FCPA. "The US authorities are likely to step back and let the UK authorities get on with their prosecutions." The charges are the third set faced by Brooks and Coulson. David Cameron's former director of communications, was first charged in Scotland over allegations of lying on oath when he gave evidence in court about phone hacking at the News of the World. He was then charged over phone hacking, which he denies. Coulson said: "I am extremely disappointed by this latest CPS decision. I deny the allegations made against me and will fight the charges in court." The criminal cases involving his friends poses potential problems for the prime minister. During a visit to Northern Ireland, Mr Cameron said he had expressed "regret" on many occasions regarding the issue. "I have also said very clearly that we should allow the police and the prosecuting authorities to follow the evidence wherever it may lead and I think that is very, very important," he said. "But I think, particularly as we get to a situation with pending court cases, I think we should probably leave it at that." Ms Brooks was first charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by allegedly concealing evidence from the police investigating her activities as a News International top executive. Also charged is her husband, Charlie, and both deny the allegations. Ms Brook's personal assistant and Mark Hanna, head of security at NI, were among four others also charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The former NI boss was then charged in July over phone hacking, which she denies.Brooks and Coulson were among eight people charged with 19 counts of conspiracy over the phone-hacking scandal involving the News of the World. The other News of the World staff facing phone-hacking-related charges are Stuart Kuttner, former managing editor, Ian Edmondson, former assistant editor (news), Greg Miskiw, a former news editor, Neville Thurlbeck, former chief reporter, James Weatherup, former assistant news editor, and a the private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire. Kuttner faces three charges, while Miskiw faces 10 charges. Edmondson faces 12 charges, Thurlbeck eight, and Weatherup eight. Brooks, Coulson and Kay will appear at at Westminster Magistrates' Court on November 29 over the allegations of illegal payments. Operation Elveden is also looking at payments at the Mirror and Express newspapers. The Met has said the investigations triggered by the phone-hacking scandal may last another three years and cost £40m. The force has 185 officers and civilian staff working on all the related investigations – 96 on Operation Weeting, looking at phone hacking, 70 on Elveden and 19 on Tuleta, which covers computer hacking.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Yekaterina Samutsevich claims original lawyers cared more about fame than clients, leading to trade of accusations A row has erupted around the jailed punk band Pussy Riot, with the group's members and supporters trading accusations of theft, lies and Kremlin collaboration with their lawyers. Bad blood has been simmering between the women and their legal team since the end of the Pussy Riot trial, which saw three of members found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for their performance of an anti-Putin "punk prayer" inside a Moscow cathedral. Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich were sentenced to two years in prison. Samutsevich was later released on appeal after ditching the group's legal team for a new lawyer. In a lengthy interview published on Monday, she accused the lawyers – Mark Feygin, Nikolai Polozov and Violetta Volkova – of failing to carry out their legal duties, caring more about their personal fame and careers inside the Russian opposition. She also accused Feygin, a former Duma deputy, of forging papers to register the Pussy Riot brand while the three women were still in pre-trial detention and of failing to return her passport to her. Samutsevich, 30, was released after an appeal hearing on 10 October. Alyokhina, 24, and Tolokonnikova, 23, have been sent to distant prison colonies to serve the remainder of their terms. "Our lawyers gave more speeches about the situation in Russia [during the trial]," Samutsevich told Lenta.ru. "It turned out we were like lawyers, and they were like artists, like co-authors of the trial. They were not lawyers." The trial in August was marked by procedural violations and absurdities, hearings were often interrupted by shouting sessions. "We're not masochists and we don't want to sit in jail," Samutsevich said, responding to earlier statements by Feygin that the women preferred to serve time in jail "and emerge like heroes". "It's strange that some people think that we went to jail to become stars," she said. "We fought until the end. Nadya and Masha don't want to be jailed." The legal trio announced late on Monday that they were no longer involved in the Pussy Riot case. They remain prominent in opposition circles, defending a host of clients that have been caught up in the Kremlin's crackdown on dissent. Yet they did not go quietly. In a storm of Twitter messages exchanged between the lawyers, journalists, and Pussy Riot supporters on Tuesday, Polozov accused the Kremlin of waging the campaign against them. "Back in summer I said that the authorities would carry out a campaign of discreditation against the Pussy Riot lawyers and here you go," he wrote. "Samutsevich's lies, reproduced in the media, are one element of the deal that allowed her to get out of the case." The lawyers insist Samutsevich collaborated with the Kremlin to win her release from prison. Samutsevich's new lawyer argued that she should be set free because she was detained before the women's February performance began. Analysts say her freedom provided a way for the politicised court to show leniency in a case that won attention around the world. "The lawyers are trying to show that I'm acting against them, but not everything is against them here, but around the criminal case itself," Samutsevich said. "What's important here is that we were found guilty – we should be discussing that."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fed chairman says US recovery remains 'disappointingly slow' and says expiration of Bush-era cuts poses 'substantial threat' Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, has warned that the fiscal cliff poses a "substantial threat" to the US recovery. In his first speech since president Barack Obama's re-election, Bernanke said that the year-end expiration of Bush-era tax cuts and imposition of deep spending cuts would send the US "toppling back into recession." Speaking at the New York Economic Club, Bernanke called the US recovery "disappointingly slow". He added: "Indeed, since the recession trough in mid-2009, growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) has averaged only a little more than 2% per year." He acknowledged some positive indicators: the job market continues to improve, inflation remains low and the housing market appears to be improving. But Bernanke said the Federal Reserve remained concerned about the fragility of the recovery, not least because of threats from abroad. "The elevated levels of stress in European economies and uncertainty about how the problems there will be resolved are adding to the risks that US financial institutions, businesses, and households must consider when making lending and investment decisions," Bernanke said. He also said the row over the fiscal cliff presented a major challenge to the US economy. "The realization of all of the automatic tax increases and spending cuts that make up the fiscal cliff, absent offsetting changes, would pose a substantial threat to the recovery – indeed, by the reckoning of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and that of many outside observers, a fiscal shock of that size would send the economy toppling back into recession." In his speech, Bernanke warned that a row over increasing the US debt ceiling in Washington would have dire consequences. A row over raising the debt limit in the summer of 2011 led to a historic downgrade of US debt by ratings agencies and triggered panic on financial markets around the world. "A failure to reach a timely agreement this time around could impose even heavier economic and financial costs," said Bernanke. David Semmens, senior US economist at Standard Chartered, said the speech signaled the Fed was unlikely to raise interest rates any time soon. "This is certainly a speech that is signally the risks remain firmly to the downside. We are likely to see the Fed on hold for longer rather than shorter and that they will only be hiking when they are assured of a self-sustaining recovery," he said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as a ceasefire agreement is expected to come into effect tonight
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fresh claims that Clash had sex with an underage boy prompts departure from the long-running children's programme Puppeteer Kevin Clash has resigned from the long-running US children's TV show Sesame Street after a new allegation that he had sex with an underage youth. A lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in New York accuses Clash, who provided the voice and actions of Elmo, of persuading Cecil Singleton to meet for sexual encounters when he was 15. An earlier accuser made similar allegations before recanting them. In a statement Tuesday, Sesame Workshop said the controversy had "become a distraction". The statement said: "Sesame Workshop's mission is to harness the educational power of media to help all children the world over reach their highest potential," the workshop said in a statement. "Kevin Clash has helped us achieve that mission for 28 years, and none of us, especially Kevin, want anything to divert our attention from our focus on serving as a leading educational organization. "This is a sad day for Sesame Street." A week ago Sesame Street said Clash had requested a leave of absence following an accusation by a Sheldon Stevens, 23, who said that he had had a relationship with Clash when he was 16. Clash denied the charge. Stevens recanted the allegation, reportedly as part of a $125,000 legal settlement. Clash created the high-pitched voice and child-like persona for Elmo, a furry red Muppet that became one of the show's most popular characters and one of the company's most lucrative properties.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Jim Messina claims team had built 'biggest grassroots campaign in history' and says future of political operations is digital The Chicago-based team that helped Barack Obama secure a second term in the White House raised $700m online – 70% of the total – exceeding even its own record-breaking heights of 2008. Jim Messina, the campaign manager of Obama for America, the president's re-election team, said that online fundraising had surpassed the historic sums raised four years ago by more than $200m. He said that the massive cash-raising operation underlined that the future of political campaigning was digital. "Campaigns will spend more and more of their money online every cycle from now until it reaches parity with television advertising," Messina said. Speaking at a Politico breakfast, Messina boasted that his team had built "the biggest grassroots campaign in modern American history". The concept, he insisted, came directly from Obama who from "the very first day he offered me this job said this has to be about the grassroots". That emphasis, Messina said, had allowed the Obama re-election campaign to combat the hundreds of millions spent on negative TV attack ads by Mitt Romney and his Super Pac supporters. The Republicans "will look back on their campaign and realise that we beat them at the doors, and that really matters." The Romney campaign's overwhelming focus on television, as opposed to online advertising and neighbourhood organising, led it into its biggest mistake of the presidential race, which Messina believes was the TV ad that misleadingly implied that Jeep was transferring its factories to China. The ad backfired, forcing Romney onto the defensive for the final two weeks before election day in the crucial swing state of Ohio, where Jeep is based. One of the best pieces of advice Messina received when he began forming a team almost two years ago came from the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt. Don't hire political people, Schmidt cautioned. Messina followed the tip, putting into one of the most positions – that of chief technology officer – the heavily tattooed, pierced and bearded Harper Reed, whose previous experience included working for a crowdsourced T-shirt maker. "Harper thought we were crazy aliens from Mars, and we thought the same about him; we spent a year learning each other's language," Messina said. Under Reed's direction, Obama for America steered political campaigning away from the traditional focus on a single medium – television – and towards a new concept: that voters should be followed wherever they went online. Rather than put most resources into a single website portal – MyBarackObama.com as in 2008 – dedicated sub-teams were created specifically to develop a presence on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, the thinking being that the campaign had to reflect the fact that modern voters receive their political news through multiple outlets including social media. Obama for America also targeted voters to an unparalleled degree, using digital technology pulled together in a new toolset called Dashboard. Messina told Politico that under a programme they dubbed "Operation Vote", the team split the US electorate up into eight key groups including young voters, women, African Americans and Latinos, and honed the messaging specifically to each. In the end, though, Messina said it all came down to the most traditional idea of all – communicating with individual voters on their doorsteps. The campaign built a network of local offices across the key swing states unmatched by any previous election, which allowed them to develop close relations with voters at neighbourhood level. Messina said that was the main takeaway of 2012 for the political campaigner. "In the future, campaigns are evolving in many ways into the campaigns of the past, door knocking is going to be more important than ever."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as a ceasefire agreement is expected to come into effect tonight
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Nudists vow to reject order from 'bunch of uptight Americans' to cover up but city officials cautiously optimistic ban will pass San Francisco nudists said on Monday they would continue to walk the streets naked regardless of a proposed law that would order them to cover up. City authorities are meeting on Tuesday to decide on a new anti-nudity law that is being supported by residents and business owners in the city's Castro district. The law would make it an offence for anyone over the age of five to "expose his or her genitals, perineum or anal region on any public street, sidewalk, street median, parklet or plaza". Lloyd Fishbach, left, who was standing naked at the corner of Castro and Market, said it should be his choice to dress as he wants, where he wants. "There is always someone who is not going to like what you are doing," he said. "I live in the Castro and I've been doing this since first grade. This is just a bunch of uptight Americans. But I'll still keep doing it and if I see the cops coming I will run and hide." Natalie Mandeau and her friend Dany, pictured below, said they travelled from Berlin when they heard of the proposed ban on nudity in San Francisco. Dany said: "If America bans this it would be a shame. San Francisco is one of the only places in the world where you can experience real American freedom." Castro resident George Davis added that there would be a backlash against the law and warned that Scott Wiener, the area representative who proposed the ban, will face strong opposition at the next election in 2013. He added: "I told him that if this passes I will run against him and I will do it in the nude." But many locals are fed up with the phenomenon that has seen nudists gather on an almost daily basis for the past two years at a busy intersection in the neighbourhood. The Castro is the city's gay district and famously a place for exuberant public displays and wild parties, particularly for Gay Pride, Halloween and various annual celebrations. The proposed ban makes exceptions for nudity during special occasions and on certain beaches, but Andrea Aiello, the executive director of the Castro Community Benefit District, said the current situation has to stop. "We support the ban on public nudity mainly because it has been taken to the extreme," she said. "Three or four years ago, there were occasionally nude men on Castro or Market, and it was fine, but since then there has been a larger and larger gathering, and it's spreading throughout the neighbourhood. "It's not a dead end or a beach; it's a busy transit district. There is an underground station and streetcars and buses, and people don't know when they're getting off a bus that they have to walk through this plaza where there are lots of naked men sitting around, displaying themselves spreadeagle. It has become a place for exhibitionism rather than nudism." Many business owners complained that some of the people attracted by the freedom to be naked in public were using nudity as an excuse for lewd behaviour. Some wear jewellery on their genitals that many find to be obscene, and there were also claims that some of the men are often visibly aroused. Philip Parr, who works at an adult store beside the plaza, said: "People think that this is a gay issue, but it's not. The gay community has changed. A lot of people here have kids now, through adoption or whatever, and there is a school one block away and the kids all come by here at about 2pm every day. But these people think that because gays are very tolerant that they can come here and do this, but it's not acceptable." Scott Wiener of the San Francisco legislature said he is "cautiously optimistic" that the ban he proposed will be passed. "Some of these people are very passionate about this issue and their right to be nude, and I respect their point of view – but I don't agree with them," he said. He said the situation was now "over the top", leaving no option other than the proposed ban. If the nudists flout the law, they face a $100 fine for a first offence. A third violation could result in a fine of $500 and a year in prison.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Truce reportedly near at hand with possible end to hostilities not far off, as Cairo talks continue between Israel and Hamas Egypt's president, Mohamed Morsi, has said a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was imminent, following a week of violence in Gaza, and a cessation of hostilities could be near. In public remarks made at the funeral of his sister in the Nile delta town of Zagazig, Morsi was quoted by a spokesman as saying that the "Israeli aggression" would end "today, Tuesday". His comments come ahead of a visit by Hillary Clinton to the region, who will visit Jerusalem, Ramallah on the West Bank and Cairo to discuss a long-term ceasefire. Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been at the forefront of efforts to secure a truce and appeared to confirm growing speculation that an end to the latest bout of violence was close. "The efforts to conclude a truce between the Palestinian and Israeli sides will produce positive results in the next few hours," he was quoted as saying. "Egypt has been trying to mediate a truce to end the conflict." A day earlier, Morsi had spoken to Barack Obama by phone, who has insisted that Hamas stop firing rockets into Israel, while "regretting" the civilian Palestinian deaths in the Israeli operation. Although both sides have made public demands of their preconditions for a ceasefire, sources suggested that in the private negotiations in Cairo and elsewhere in recent days both Hamas and Israel were close to agreeing an end to hostilities. Morsi's remarks came despite a bellicose speech by Mohamed Deif, the head of Hamas's military wing, saying that his men were preparing for a ground war. Sources suggest, however, that despite more rockets fired from Gaza and continuing Israeli strikes, progress has been made in talks. The arrival of Clinton has raised hopes of an end to the violence. An Israeli source said she was expected to meet the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, on Wednesday. A US state department official said: "Her visits will build on American engagement with regional leaders over the past days – including intensive engagement by President Obama with prime minister Netanyahu and President Morsi – to support de-escalation of violence and a durable outcome that ends the rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns and restores a broader calm." One of the stumbling blocks is understood to be the insistence by Hamas that Israel end assassinations of its members and lift the long-lasting economic blockade of Gaza. It was suggested on Monday that this issue may be left for a future negotiation on a long-term ceasefire after a halt to the violence had been achieved. A western official, speaking a little before Morsi's comments, told the Guardian there was optimism that a ceasefire might be in place soon. Senior western leaders and officials, including Obama and the British foreign secretary, William Hague, have been calling for a "de-escalation" for several days, which led to Israel putting on hold plans for a ground offensive against the coastal enclave. According to reports from Israel, it had given until Thursday to conclude a ceasefire. Some 115 Palestinians have died in a week of fighting, the majority of them civilians, including 27 children, hospital officials said. Three Israelis died last week when a rocket from Gaza struck their house. In Cairo, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called for an immediate ceasefire and said an Israeli invasion of Gaza would be a "dangerous escalation" that had to be avoided. He had held talks in Cairo with the Arab League chief, Nabil Elaraby, and the Egyptian prime minister, Hisham Kandil, before travelling to Israel for discussions with Netanyahu. Ban planned to return to Egypt on Wednesday to see Morsi, who was unavailable on Tuesday, due to the death of his sister. Israel's leaders weighed the benefits and risks of sending tanks and infantry into Gaza two months before an Israeli election, and indicated they would prefer a diplomatic path backed by world powers, including the US, the European Union and Russia.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Jury convicts Adoboli of two counts of fraud in relation to £1.5bn trading loss at one of world's best-known banks A rogue City trader who almost brought down the banking giant UBS by recklessly gambling huge sums in secret, off-the-book deals has been jailed for seven years for committing what police describe as the UK's biggest ever fraud. Kweku Adoboli, 32, ended up costing UBS more than £1.5bn. At one point the potential liabilities of his illicit trades totalled more than £7bn, a sum described by prosecutors as sufficient to bring down the bank. A jury at Southwark crown court convicted the Ghanaian-born, British educated former private schoolboy on two counts of fraud, one by a unanimous verdict the other on a majority. He was acquitted on four separate charges of false accounting. The judge, Mr Justice Brian Keith, jailed Adoboli for seven years. The detective chief inspector who led the investigation, Perry Stokes from City of London police, said after the Adoboli was a sophisticated fraudster. "To all those around him Kweku Adoboli appeared to be man on the make whose career prospects and future earnings were taking off. He worked hard, looked the part and seemingly had an answer for everything. "But behind this facade lay a trader who was running completely out of control and exposing UBS to huge financial risks on a daily basis. Rules put in place to protect the bank's position and the integrity of the markets were being bypassed and broken by a young man who wanted it all and was not willing to wait." Adoboli was arrested on 14 September 2011 after back-office accountants began to press him on apparent anomalies in his trading records. Walking out of UBS's London headquarters, Adoboli went home to compose an email accepting "full responsibility for my actions and the shit storm that will now ensue" and apologising for putting the bank at risk. The prosecution portrayed Adoboli, whose combined salary and bonus rose from £30,000 to £360,000 during eight years with UBS, as a reckless gambler obsessed with his status as a rising star and desperate to boost his bonus. From late 2008 he began making secret deals on the exchange traded futures desk, exceeding his daily limits and failing to make matching hedged trades, a requirement that restricts profits but, crucially, caps possible losses. Adoboli initially accrued substantial profits, which were lodged in a secret account he called his "umbrella" and drip-fed back on to the regular books. But as European markets hit turmoil in the summer of 2011 the trades began to make a loss, which he desperately attempted to recoup with ever-bigger punts. Giving evidence, Adoboli insisted his colleagues knew about the umbrella – an account supported in part by emails and electronic chats with fellow traders – and said UBS bosses placed him under enormous pressure to increase profits, whatever the means. But Stokes, from City police's economic crime directorate, said Adoboli was "a rogue trader who committed systematic unauthorised trading". "When challenged by colleagues within UBS, he tried to cover his tracks and lied about the true nature of his activity. He was trusted. He abused that trust. He lied and cheated to his colleagues but eventually justice caught up with him." Adoboli's sentencing is by no means the end of the story for UBS, for whom the trial has been a PR disaster. The bank's chief executive, Oswald Gruebel, stepped down in the wake of Adoboli's losses and a subsequent restructuring of its investment banking activities could result in the loss of more than 10,000 jobs. UBS is also being investigated by the Financial Services Authority and the equivalent Swiss watchdog, Finma, over how the bank's controls allowed a single trader to lose so much money. At the dramatic nine-week hearing, Adoboli was described as a gambling obsessive who worked long hours and devoted much of his leisure time to financial spread-betting. He lost £123,000 in the year before his arrest and, despite his huge income, was forced to take out a series of short-term payday loans. Adoboli, who sat with his legal team rather than in the dock so he could advise them on the many technical terms used, wept repeatedly when he first gave evidence, saying he had been devoted to UBS and only wanted to help the bank survive market turmoil. But prosecutors described him as someone who "believed he had the magic touch" and endlessly increased his bets. Sasha Wass QC said: "On 14 September last year his system crashed like a car hitting a wall at high speed. Due to a series of events that had been building up over the previous few weeks, Mr Adoboli's pyramid of fraud collapsed. He was left with no choice but to admit exactly what he had been up to."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Indianapolis police searching for white van seen nearby before blast that destroyed five homes and damaged dozens more The house explosion that killed two people and destroyed several homes in an Indianapolis neighborhood is now being investigated as a homicide, authorities said, though no suspects have been named. Indianapolis homeland security director Gary Coons made the announcement Monday evening, shortly after a funeral was held for the husband and wife who had lived next door to the house where investigators believe the blast occurred. "We are turning this into a criminal homicide investigation", Coons said after meeting with local residents, marking the first time investigators have acknowledged a possible criminal element to the November 10 explosion. Search warrants have been executed and officials are now looking for a white van that was seen in the subdivision on the day of the blast, Marion county prosecutor Terry Curry said. Federal authorities are offering a $10,000 reward for information in the case. Curry said the investigation is aimed at "determining if there are individuals who may be responsible for this explosion and fire", but neither he nor Coons took questions or indicated if investigators had any suspects. No arrests have been made. Officials have said they believe natural gas was involved in the explosion, which destroyed five homes and left dozens damaged, some heavily. Investigators have focused on appliances in their search for a cause. The explosion caused an estimated $4.4m in damage. "We thought something like this was not just an accident," said Doug Aldridge, who heads the neighborhood crime watch. Aldridge said he and other residents frequently saw a white van parked outside the home, though he didn't know who owned it. He said residents are angry and upset but that he expects most of them to stay in the neighborhood. "Everyone had their suspicions," said Chris Sutton, who lives a street away from the blast site. "It's kind of scary that someone might set off a gas explosion," he added. "It's really scary." Hundreds of people attended the funeral earlier Monday for John Dion Longworth, 34, and his wife, 36-year-old Jennifer Longworth. She was a second-grade teacher remembered for knitting gifts for her students, while her husband, an electronics expert, was known as a gardener and nature lover. The school where Jennifer Longworth taught was closed Monday so teachers and students could attend the funeral. Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard, who spoke at Monday's news conference, said he went to the Longworths' funeral and had been having a hard time coming to terms with what happened. "There is a search for truth and there is a search for justice," Ballard said. John Shirley – the co-owner of the house where investigators are focusing their criminal probe – said he had recently received a text message from his daughter saying the furnace in the home, which she shares with her mother and her mother's boyfriend, had gone out. Shirley's ex-wife, Monserrate Shirley, said her boyfriend, Mark Leonard, had replaced the thermostat and that the furnace had resumed working. She and her boyfriend were away at a casino at the time of the blast. The daughter was staying with a friend, and the family's cat was being boarded. Monserrate Shirley's attorney, Randall Cable, declined to comment Monday night.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | HP takes $8.8bn writedown and calls on British and US authorities to investigate 'serious accounting improprieties' Hewlett-Packard has revealed that it has taken an $8.8bn (£5.5bn) charge after "serious accounting improprieties" were discovered at Autonomy, the British tech firm it acquired in 2011 for more than $10bn. The Silicon Valley giant called on the US and British authorities to investigate what it called "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy" that occurred prior to HP's acquisition. The deal was brokered under HP's previous chief executive Leo Apotheker but finalised by current boss Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief and one time would-be governor of California. Autonomy was a one of Britain's brightest tech stars and helps firms search data across different networks, specialising in the search of "unstructured data" such as voicemail. Founder Mike Lynch, a Cambridge tech star with a taste for koi carp and model railways, had been hailed as Britain's answer to Bill Gates. He initially called the merger "a historic day for Autonomy, our employees and the customers we serve". But the deal soon soured. Lynch left in May as HP announced 27,000 job cuts world-wide as part of a $3bn-$3.5bn cost cutting programme. He had made $800m from the deal. Lynch had been close to Apotheker, who left after just 10 months with the company. He initially appeared to have Whitman's full support but blamed a lack of independence at the company for his departure. The company in turn pointed to a "significant" decline in Autonomy's core licensing revenues and said the division needed new leadership.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | William Hague gives full support to newly united opposition and announces £2m in aid to the anti-Assad uprising Britain has formally recognised the newly united Syrian opposition as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Syrian people and promised new aid for the uprising against Bashar al-Assad. William Hague made the announcement in a statement to MPs on Tuesday. It marks a significant shift in British policy and follows a similar move by France last week. It goes beyond a more cautious endorsement by the EU on Monday. The foreign secretary said he had sought and received "important and encouraging" assurances from the new National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces on agreeing a detailed political transition plan for Syria, as well as showing a "clear commitment to human rights and international humanitarian law, including the protection of religious communities and unfettered and safe access for humanitarian agencies". The National Coalition "have much to do to win the full support of the Syrian people and co-ordinate opposition efforts more effectively," Hague said. "But it is strongly in the interests of Syria, of the wider region, and of the United Kingdom that we support them and deny space to extremist groups." Britain, the US and France have become concerned about the rise of Salafi or Jihadi groups backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states, as well as mounting sectarianism as the conflict has deepened. The EU said after talks in Brussels on Monday that it considers the NC "legitimate representatives of the aspirations of the Syrian people". The addition of the word "sole" by the UK is noteworthy as it implies irreversible derecognition of the Assad regime. Britain is demanding that the Syrian president step down. The National Coalition, created under western and Arab pressure to overcome internal divisions, was formed in Qatar after talks this month. It hopes to secure wider international recognition and weapons, or at least support for a no-fly zone or humanitarian corridors to protect Syrian civilians. The coalition's leader, Moaz al-Khatib, a respected Damascus figure, met Hague in London last Friday. The National Coalition will be invited to appoint a political representative – in effect an ambassador – to the UK. Britain will provide a £1m package of communications support, which could include mobile internet hubs and satellite phones to improve the coalition's ability to communicate inside Syria, Hague said. It will "urgently deploy" a stabilisation response team to help the NC meet people's basic needs in opposition-held areas, he said. The team will recommend areas for further UK assistance. The new package of UK support is worth about £2m in immediate commitments and could be expanded considerably in coming months. The foreign secretary said nothing about arming the rebels but added that, in the absence of a political and diplomatic solution, "we will not rule out any option in accordance with international law that might save innocent lives in Syria and prevent the destabilisation of a region that remains critical to the security of the UK and the peace of the whole world". Talk of lifting the EU arms embargo, floated in London in recent weeks, appears to have faded for now in the face of legal and practical difficulties. French talk of weapons for "defensive purposes" would still breach the arms export ban.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | William Hague gives full support to newly united opposition and announces £2m in aid to the anti-Assad uprising Britain has recognised the newly united Syrian opposition as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Syrian people and pledged new aid in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad. William Hague made the announcement in a statement to MPs. It marks a significant shift in British policy and follows a similar move by France last week. It also goes beyond a more cautious endorsement by the EU. The foreign secretary said he had sought and received "important and encouraging" assurances from the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces on agreeing a detailed political transition plan for Syria, as well as showing a "clear commitment to human rights and international humanitarian law, including the protection of religious communities and unfettered and safe access for humanitarian agencies". The National Coalition "have much to do to win the full support of the Syrian people and coordinate opposition efforts more effectively," Hague said. "But it is strongly in the interests of Syria, of the wider region, and of the United Kingdom that we support them and deny space to extremist groups," he added. The EU said after talks in Brussels on Monday that it considers the group "legitimate representatives of the aspirations of the Syrian people". The addition of the word "sole" by the UK is highly significant. The National Coalition, created under western and Arab pressure to overcome bitter internal divisions, was formed in Qatar after talks this month. It hopes to secure wider international recognition and weapons, or at least support for a no-fly zone or humanitarian corridors to protect civilians. The coalition's leader, Moaz al-Khatib, met Hague in London last Friday. It will be invited to appoint a "political representative" – in effect an ambassador – to the UK. Britain is also to provide a £1m package of communications support, "which could for instance include mobile internet hubs and satellite phones to improve the coalition's ability to communicate inside Syria," Hague said. Britain is to "urgently deploy" a stabilisation response team to help the coalition meet people's basic needs in opposition-held areas, he said. The team will recommend areas for further UK assistance. The new package of UK support is worth around £2m in immediate commitments which could be expanded "considerably" in the coming months. The foreign secretary said nothing about arming the rebels, but added that, in the absence of a political and diplomatic solution, "we will not rule out any option in accordance with international law that might save innocent lives in Syria and prevent the destabilisation of a region that remains critical to the security of the United Kingdom and the peace of the whole world".
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Jury convicts Adoboli of two counts of fraud in relation to £1.5bn trading loss at one of world's best-known banks A rogue City trader who almost brought down one of the world's best-known banks by recklessly gambling huge sums in secret, off-the-book deals has been convicted of fraud. Kweku Adoboli, 32, lost UBS more than £1.5bn in what police have described as the UK's biggest-ever fraud case. At one point the potential liabilities to UBS of his illicit trades totalled more than £7bn, a sum described by prosecutors as sufficient to bring down the bank. Police described Adoboli as "an accomplished fraudster" who repeatedly misled colleagues. A jury at Southwark crown court convicted Adoboli on two counts of fraud, one by a unanimous verdict the other on a majority. He was acquitted on four separate charges of false accounting. The judge, Mr Justice Brian Keith, is scheduled to sentence him on Tuesday afternoon. The Ghanaian-born, British-educated trader was arrested on 14 September 2011 after back-office accountants began to press him on apparent anomalies in his trading records. Walking out of UBS's London headquarters, Adoboli went home to compose an email accepting "full responsibility for my actions and the shit storm that will now ensue" and apologising for putting the bank at risk. The prosecution portrayed Adoboli, whose combined salary and bonus rose from £30,000 to £360,000 during eight years with UBS, as a reckless gambler obsessed with his status as a rising star and desperate to boost his bonus. From late 2008 he began making secret deals on the exchange traded futures desk, exceeding his daily limits and failing to make matching hedged trades, a requirement that restricts profits but, crucially, caps possible losses. Adoboli initially accrued substantial profits, which were lodged in a secret account he called his "umbrella" and drip-fed back on to the regular books. But as European markets hit turmoil in the summer of 2011 the trades began to make a loss, which he desperately attempted to recoup with ever-bigger punts. Giving evidence, Adoboli insisted his colleagues knew all about the umbrella – an account supported in part by emails and electronic chats with fellow traders – and said UBS bosses placed him under enormous pressure to increase profits, whatever the means. But City of London police, who investigated the case, said Adoboli was merely "an accomplished fraudster". DCI Perry Stokes of the force's economic crime directorate said Adoboli was "a rogue trader who committed systematic unauthorised trading". He continued: "When challenged by colleagues within UBS, he tried to cover his tracks and lied about the true nature of his activity. He was trusted. He abused that trust. He lied and cheated to his colleagues but eventually justice caught up with him." While Adoboli faces a likely long jail sentence, this is by no means the end of the story for UBS, for whom the trial has been a PR disaster. The bank's chief executive, Oswald Gruebel, stepped down in the wake of Adoboli's losses and a subsequent restructuring of its investment banking activities could result in the loss of more than 10,000 jobs. UBS is also being investigated by the Financial Services Authority and the equivalent Swiss watchdog, Finma, over how the bank's controls allowed a single trader to lose so much money. At the dramatic nine-week hearing, Adoboli was described as a gambling obsessive who worked long hours and devoted much of his leisure time to financial spread-betting. He lost £123,000 in the year before his arrest and, despite his huge income, was forced to take out a series of short-term payday loans. Adoboli, who sat with his legal team rather than in the dock so he could advise them on the many technical terms used, wept repeatedly when he first gave evidence, saying he had been devoted to UBS and only wanted to help the bank survive market turmoil. But prosecutors described him as someone who "believed he had the magic touch" and endlessly increased his bets. Sasha Wass QC said: "On 14 September last year his system crashed like a car hitting a wall at high speed. Due to a series of events that had been building up over the previous few weeks, Mr Adoboli's pyramid of fraud collapsed. He was left with no choice but to admit exactly what he had been up to."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former editors among five to face charges over alleged corrupt payments by News International staff to public officials Prosecutors have announced new criminal charges against the former News International editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, this time over alleged illegal payments to public officials. The Crown Prosecution Service announced on Tuesday that four former News International employees, and a defence official alleged to have been paid £100,000 for information, should stand trial. The announcement came as a result of Operation Elveden, in which the Metropolitan police are investigating claims of unlawful payments by News International staff to police officers and other public officials. Coulson, former editor of the now defunct News of the World, and the former royal editor Clive Goodman, are both charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office. These relate to payments allegedly made to gain confidential information about the royal family. In a statement, Alison Levitt, QC, principal legal adviser to the director of public prosecutions (DPP), said: "We have concluded, following a careful review of the evidence, that Clive Goodman and Andy Coulson should be charged with two conspiracies. The allegations relate to the request and authorisation of payments to public officials in exchange for information, including a palace phone directory known as the "green book" containing contact details for the royal family and members of the household." Also charged are Brooks, editor of the Sun between 14 January 2003 and 1 September 2009, the Sun's former chief reporter John Kay, and the Ministry of Defence official Bettina Jordan Barber, who is alleged to have been paid £100,000 over a seven-year period. The CPS said all three "conspired together, and with others, to commit misconduct in public office" between 1 January 2004 and 31 January 2012. "We have concluded, following a careful review of the evidence, that Bettina Jordan Barber, John Kay and Rebekah Brooks should be charged with a conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office between 1 January 2004 and 31 January 2012. This conspiracy relates to information allegedly provided by Bettina Jordan Barber for payment which formed the basis of a series of news stories published by the Sun. It is alleged that approximately £100,000 was paid to Bettina Jordan Barber between 2004 and 2011." The Metropolitan police have arrested 52 people as part of Operation Elveden, including 21 journalists at the Sun. Among the public officials arrested are a member of the armed forces, a prison official, and police officers. In its statement, the CPS said: "All of these matters were considered carefully in accordance with the DPP's guidelines on the public interest in cases affecting the media. This guidance asks prosecutors to consider whether the public interest served by the conduct in question outweighs the overall criminality before bringing criminal proceedings. "Following charge, these individuals will appear before Westminster magistrates court on a date to be determined." The Met has said the investigations triggered by the phone-hacking scandal may last another three years and cost £40m. The force has 185 officers and civilian staff working on all the related investigations – 96 on Operation Weeting, looking at phone hacking, 70 on Elveden and 19 on Tuleta, which covers computer hacking. In July the CPS announced phone-hacking charges against Coulson and Brooks, who both edited the News of the World. They have denied the charges. Coulson also faces trial in Scotland over claims he committed perjury in a libel trial, which he denies. He is a former top aide to the prime minister, David Cameron. Brooks and Coulson were among eight people charged with 19 counts of conspiracy over the phone-hacking scandal, with prosecutors alleging that the News of the World targeted, among others, Labour cabinet ministers and celebrities – including at least one person associated with the Hollywood couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Brooks and her husband, Charlie, are also facing charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by allegedly concealing evidence from the police investigating her time as a top News International executive. Both deny those charges also. The other News of the World staff facing phone-hacking-related charges are Stuart Kuttner, former managing editor, Ian Edmondson, former assistant editor (news), Greg Miskiw, a former news editor, Neville Thurlbeck, former chief reporter, James Weatherup, former assistant news editor, and a the private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire. Kuttner faces three charges, while Miskiw faces 10 charges. Edmondson faces 12 charges, Thurlbeck eight, and Weatherup eight.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Jury convicts Kweku Adoboli of one count of fraud in relation to £1.5bn trading loss at one of world's best-known banks A "rogue" UBS employee who helped lose £1.5bn for one of the world's best-known banks by trading huge sums in off-the-book deals, has been convicted of fraud. A jury at Southwark crown court convicted Kweku Adoboli, 32, of one count of fraud. They are still considering one more count of fraud and four of false accounting. Adoboli bowed his head when the jury foreman gave the unanimous verdict of all 10 jurors. Judge Brian Keith told the jury to seek similar verdicts on the remaining counts, but told them he would accept majority verdicts of 9-1 if necessary. The trial heard how Adoboli accepted that his unofficial trades cost UBS more than £1.5bn, but he said he had been working in the best interests of a bank whose bosses placed him under enormous pressure to increase profits. He said colleagues on the exchange traded futures desk where he worked knew about his activities. Prosecutors told the court that at one point the potential liabilities to UBS of Adoboli's illicit trades totalled more than £7bn, a sum big enough to bring down the bank. The Ghanaian-born, British-educated trader was arrested on 14 September last year after back-office accountants began to press him on apparent anomalies in his trading records. Walking out of his London office, Adoboli went home to compose an email accepting "full responsibility for my actions and the shit storm that will now ensue" and apologising for putting the bank at risk. The prosecution portrayed Adoboli, whose combined salary and bonus rose from £30,000 to £360,000 during his eight years with UBS, as a reckless gambler obsessed with his status as a rising star and desperate to boost his bonus. From late 2008 he began making unofficial deals, exceeding his daily limits and failing to make matching hedged trades, a requirement which restricts profits but caps possible losses. Adoboli initially accrued substantial profits, which were lodged in a secret account he called his "umbrella" and then drip-fed back on to the regular books. But as European markets hit turmoil in the summer of 2011 the trades began to make losses, which he attempted to recoup with ever-bigger punts. Giving evidence, Adoboli insisted his colleagues knew about the umbrella, and spoke of a prevailing culture in which even relatively junior traders such as himself were given minimal oversight and tacitly urged to make money by whatever means necessary. The dramatic nine-week hearing saw Adoboli described as a gambling-mad markets obsessive who worked long hours and spent much of his leisure time devoted to financial spread betting. He lost £123,000 in the year before his arrest and, despite his huge income, was forced to take out a series of short-term "payday" loans. Adoboli, who sat with his legal team rather than in the dock so he could advise them on the technical terms used, wept repeatedly when he gave evidence, saying he had been devoted to UBS and only wanted to help the bank survive market turmoil.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US president wraps up Asian tour with summit dominated by Chinese maritime disputes over the South China Sea and Senkaku Islands Barack Obama urged Asian leaders to turn down the temperature on simmering maritime disputes as he wrapped up his tour of the region on Tuesday. Tensions over the South China Sea and a separate dispute in the East China Sea overshadowed economic and trade issues at the East Asia Summit in Cambodia. The meeting brought together the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) with the other significant powers in the region, including the US and China, Australia, India and Russia. It was the final leg of the US president's trip, which has also taken him to Thailand and Burma, where he met veteran democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi as well as President Thein Sein. The long-running row over the South China Sea, which involves China, Taiwan and four Asean members, has become increasingly fraught in the last few years. China claims almost all the sea but other countries say they own parts of it. The waters are rich in energy resources and fisheries and an estimated $5tn (£3tn) of cargo – half the world's shipping by weight – passes through them each year. "President Obama's message is there needs to be a reduction of the tensions," the US deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told reporters in Phnom Penh. "The US believes that any solution has to be consistent with international law, has to preserve the free flow of commerce that is important not just to the countries in this region but to the world. "The US is not a claimant in the South China Sea, but we have significant interest there given its role in the global economy." Vietnam and the Philippines have sought to deal with the dispute in international forums. But China says only bilateral negotiations are acceptable and has urged Washington not to internationalise the issue. State media commentaries this summer bluntly ordered Washington to "shut up" on the issue. The row is coloured by China's growing strength and Washington's foreign policy focus on Asia, which has raised Chinese concerns that the US is seeking to contain it. Cambodia, China's key ally in the bloc, announced on Sunday that Asean members had agreed to discuss the dispute only in talks with China and not multilateral contexts. But Benigno Aquino, president of the Philippines, publicly rebuked his host by announcing his country had not agreed to such a stance. Asean has requested that China start formal talks on a code of conduct to avoid tensions sparking outright clashes. Washington has been pressing for the early development of such a document. Most analysts see little hope of resolving the complex dispute at present and argue the most important step is to prevent further escalation. Shi Yinhong, an expert on international relations at Renmin University in China, said it was not realistic to expect a code of conduct to be agreed swiftly, but that it was important to reach general agreement on one. He said China was concerned about maintaining good relations with Asean and that the bloc should look carefully at Beijing's stance on the wider issue, noting: "China's position is that for the territorial dispute they will only accept negotiations between individual countries. For maritime rights I think it is much more flexible." Asean is trying to evolve into a more powerful regional grouping to help foster development. But the South China Sea row has threatened to undermine those ambitions. In July, a meeting of Asean foreign ministers failed to agree on a communiqué for the first time in the bloc's history due to disagreements over the issue. Beijing is also enmeshed in a tense dispute with Tokyo over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which sparked mass demonstrations in China earlier this year. The Japanese prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, told Obama in a meeting on the sidelines of the summit: "With the increasing severity of the security environment in East Asia, the importance of the Japan-US alliance is increasing." Earlier, the US president told outgoing Chinese premier Wen Jiabao that the world's two largest economies needed to work together to "establish clear rules of the road" for trade and investment. The meeting, held before the summit began, was his first with a Chinese leader since his re-election and follows a campaign in which both he and his Republican rival Mitt Romney criticised China for unfair trade practices.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The soon-to-be former MLS player will think about a move back to England, but Australia and China are the most realistic options When David Beckham says he intends to take on one more challenge before hanging up his boots, we had better take him seriously. Since Sir Alex Ferguson ended his dream of staying at Old Trafford for the whole of his playing career, Beckham has handled his moves across the football chessboard with considerable shrewdness and few missteps. One day he will probably take up the option he negotiated on his arrival in the United States, the one offering him the chance to head up a newly-formed Major League Soccer club (known as an expansion team). Or he might return to LA Galaxy as an investor. Before that, however, there is still business to be done, and the last dregs of pleasure to be squeezed out of playing on the pitch. Along with underestimating his talent for kicking a ball and influencing the course of a match, the mistake many people make about Beckham is to assume that somehow almost anything in his life takes precedence over the actual game. But look at his record: here is a man who made his first-team debut at 17 and is still competing for a national title at 37. On the way he has played with distinction for Manchester United, Real Madrid, Milan and LA Galaxy, for whom he will play a final match on 1 December, in an attempt to retain the MLS Cup. His six years at the Home Depot Centre, where he will make his farewell appearance, have been a time of steady growth for a league that came into being at the time of the 1994 World Cup but endured difficult times until his arrival, with weaker teams going to the wall on a regular basis. If life in Lotus Land has been good to him and his family, then he has been good for Major League Soccer. It is still no threat to the national popularity of baseball, basketball or college and pro football, but it has carved out a solid niche, and he has been its figurehead of its journey to stability. True, there are some Galaxy fans who resent the two winters he spent on loan in Milan while trying to maintain his fitness in order to keep playing for England. Elsewhere, however, the supporters of his various clubs have nothing but praise for his contribution and commitment. In Madrid he won over a deeply sceptical Fabio Capello and helped secure a league title at the end of a difficult season. A couple of years later he did well enough at Milan, where he played under Carlo Ancelotti and Leonardo, for the club to try to hang on to him after his loan period came to an end. He was also able to avail himself there of the expertise from the team of physiologists that had prolonged the active life of such players as Paolo Maldini, Pippo Inzaghi and Clarence Seedorf. If Beckham has been a shade manipulative, plotting his way through football to his maximum advantage, then perhaps we can blame Ferguson, who gave him a brutal demonstration that loyalty means nothing. Unable, in his old-school way, to see the substance beneath the flashy trappings, the United manager not only discarded Beckham but ensured that the club made a vast profit from a player who had cost them nothing and had given them so much. That, if nothing else, taught Beckham how football works. There will be plenty of offers for his services in his final season. Some of them will probably come from England, with Queens Park Rangers potentially to the fore, especially if Harry Redknapp – who welcomed him to the training facilities at Tottenham Hotspur – takes over from Mark Hughes. Given Beckham's inherent and essentially unpretentious love of football, the modest environment of Loftus Road might not prove a deterrent to the acceptance of Tony Fernandes's money. But what sort of a challenge would that represent to a man who has already proved himself in four countries? Our last chance of seeing him in England probably vanished with his omission from Britain's Olympic football team, a decision that, after all his work on behalf of the 2012 bid, he swallowed with no public display of disappointment, leaving the rest of us to conclude that Stuart Pearce's threadbare team could only have been improved by his presence. To Beckham, a new challenge is more likely to involve another venture into terra incognita, with Australia and China among the favourites. His family's needs will also be taken into consideration. Like her husband, Victoria Beckham has overcome scepticism to build a free-standing career. Her fashion business is an international success, and somewhere like Shanghai, where Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka play for one of the city's two Chinese Super League teams amid the fast-proliferating neon skyscrapers, might be appealing. Paris Saint-Germain, where Ancelotti is making use of the Qatar Investment Fund's resources and Mrs Beckham would no doubt enjoy seeing her clothes in the boutiques of the Faubourg Saint-Honore, is another possibility, although it is hard to see her husband making much of an inroad into a side with Champions League pretensions. All in all, as the rumours have been saying, Australia's A League looks the best bet: Sydney FC if he and his family want the bustle and glamour of another great international city, Melbourne Heart if he fancies a slightly more laid-back life by the bay in St Kilda, Adelaide United if he likes the idea of watching cricket at one of the world's loveliest grounds, Newcastle Jets if he's interested in a reunion with his former England colleague Emile Heskey, and Perth Glory, amid the mineral-rich remoteness of Western Australia, if money is the principal lure. Whatever he decides, it will probably involve an element of risk as well as guaranteed reward. There was no shortage of scoffing when he announced that he was taking off for Southern California, but he made it work. He usually does.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | CPS announces charging decisions following Operation Elveden investigation into payments to officials
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | M23 militia, which the UN says is backed by Rwanda, takes control of eastern city despite presence of peacekeepers Rebel fighters have seized a major city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo after the national army fled and UN peacekeepers offered no resistance. The militia group M23, allegedly backed by neighbouring Rwanda, marched into the city of 1 million people on Tuesday morning after days of clashes. Scores of heavily armed rebels walked through the city unchallenged as UN peacekeepers watched and small groups of residents greeted them. M23 spokesman Colonel Vianney Kazarama told Reuters: "The town of Goma fell at 11.33 local time, despite the attack helicopters, despite the heavy weapons, the FARDC [Congolese army] has let the town fall into our hands." M23 and the Congolese army were engaged in running battles in the centre of Goma from early on Tuesday morning. M23 made significant advances, particularly in the streets around the airport, which remained under the control of the UN peacekeeping mission, Monusco. Sporadic booms and persistent light arms fire echoed around the eerily deserted streets of the normally bustling city centre. By late morning M23 had forced the army towards the west of the city; many government troops then fled on the road leading west. At midday a patrol of some 20 M23 fighters marched down the principal Boulevard Kanyamuhunga, all the way to the Rwandan border. The few citizens who remained greeted the rebels with applause and cries of "Karibou!" – Swahili for welcome. Police gladly surrendered their weapons at the border post as M23 soldiers secured the abandoned immigration offices. Monusco did not engage M23 in battle in Goma, according to a South African soldier who did not give his name. "We [Monusco] have had no trouble with M23, to be honest," he said. The 20 M23 soldiers continued their patrol along the shore of Lake Kivu and met UN armoured personnel carriers along the way. No shots were fired or animosity shown. Not all citizens were as pleased as those applauding the rebels near the border. Bisimwa Sadiki sat with his family outside a Monusco base. "We came to Monusco to hide, but they won't open the gates," Sadiki said. "We're scared M23 will kill us. These soldiers haven't done anything but they are just the first wave – we don't know if others will come and attack us." Chantelle Kambeba was also keen to express her disappointment in the national army, which by early afternoon seemed to have abandoned the city. "We haven't seen them at all, we don't know where they are," she said. There was also scorn for the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila. "Kabila's little game is finished," said Gabriel Alamazani. "He must resign, he must hand power to [opposition leader Étienne] Tshisekedi. He cannot continue now." The M23 uprising against Kabila began in April. The group has been accused by the UN and Human Rights Watch of atrocities including rapes and the recruitment of child soldiers. There have been warnings of a humanitarian disaster if fighting continues. Tariq Riebl, Oxfam's humanitarian co-ordinator, said: "More than 50,000 people have fled camps and homes since Sunday and are in dire need of shelter, water and food. Families have been split up overnight and people are desperately going between sites trying to find loved ones. "If fighting intensifies further, there are very few places people can go for safety. With almost 2.5 million people now displaced across eastern Congo, this catastrophe requires a concerted humanitarian and diplomatic response." Goma was last threatened by rebels in 2008 when fighters stopped just short of the city.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Charges dropped against Rimsha Masih, who was accused of burning pages of the Qur'an, after protests from Islamic clerics A Pakistani Christian girl accused by her neighbours of burning sacred Islamic texts has had blasphemy charges against her dropped by the Islamabad high court. Rimsha Masih is believed to be one of the few people to escape prosecution under the country's religious laws, which have been subject to widespread abuse and false accusations. The initial police report against the girl was quashed this week, more than three months after she was accused of carrying charred Qur'an texts near her house in a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Islamabad. The conclusion to the high-profile case came after rare public opposition to a blasphemy case by senior Islamic clerics. Sympathy has been heightened by claims, which have been questioned by some, that Masih is mentally impaired and has Down's syndrome. And, in an extraordinary development, three officers from the local mosque accused the neighbourhood's mullah, Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti, of planting pages of the Muslim holy book among the charred refuse Masih had been carrying to strengthen the case against her. Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, one of Masih's lawyers, said the testimony of a local police officer, who told a court hearing there was no evidence against the girl, had been crucial. The officer appeared to have decided to arrest Masih in mid-August amid concern for her safety. At the time members of the majority Muslim community in the Mehrabad district had been protesting against her and blocking one of the main roads to the capital. Chaudhry had little hope Masih's case would be a catalyst for changes to religious laws, which were strengthened during the conservative rule of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s, when blasphemy became a capital offence. "It is very difficult to change these laws in Pakistan," he said. "But this judgment will set a precedent so that other cases can be properly investigated and pursued." There has been strong opposition from hardline conservatives against any reform to laws, which, experts say, are fraught with problems, including the difficulty of examining evidence in court for fear of repeating any alleged blasphemy and finding defence lawyers prepared to take on blasphemy cases. In 2011, Salman Taseer, a businessman and governor of Punjab province, was gunned down by one of his guards after he spoke out against what he had described as the "black law". There is concern for the safety of Masih, who has been living in an undisclosed location since her release from bail in September. "While I'm thrilled to hear the charges have been quashed, my foremost concern at the moment is her safety," said Tahira Abdullah, a rights activist in Islamabad. "Others have been acquitted before but they have not lived to tell the tale." The incident has damaged relations between Muslims and Christians in Mehrabad. Chishti has long campaigned against the Christian minority, most of whom are the descendants of low-caste Hindus and earn money as sweepers or sanitation workers. He has complained about the noise made by services held at its tiny churches and, before his arrest, had welcomed the departure of most of the area's Christians as a result of Masih's arrest. Although many have since returned to their homes, the Christian population has shrunk as many families opted to relocate to other parts of the capital amid safety concerns. A decision over the fate of Chishti, who has been released on bail, has not been made. His prospects of freedom have improved after witnesses retracted allegations against him. He retains strong support among many Muslims in Mehrabad.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Amount of Afghan farmland planted with opium poppies rises by a fifth as instability pushes up prices of 'black gold', UN says The amount of Afghan farmland planted with opium poppies has increased by nearly 20% this year, after high prices in 2011 tempted more farmers into growing the drug. Blight and bad weather meant the harvest of opium in the world's biggest producer of "black gold" fell by a third, according to the United Nations annual opium survey. But in the longer run that shortage could help keep prices near record highs, fuelling further expansion of poppy farming. "High opium prices were a main factor that led to the increase in opium cultivation", said Yury Fedotov, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in a statement. Despite the fall in actual production, the crop was still worth more than $500,000 (£315,000) this year. Concern about the future has helped push up prices for opium, which is easily transportable and can be preserved for years. In a country with a limited and unreliable banking system, these factors have made the valuable drug a source of income for many farmers and traders. "People are still hedging for an insecure future, so there is lots of speculation. Prices quietened in recent months but still are double what the normal economic price should be," said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, Afghanistan director for UNODC. "We are afraid that eventually lower production this year, combined with the still speculative mood overall, mean prices will inflate, which in turn will encourage more production in the coming year." Around half of Afghanistan's provinces grew poppies in 2012, the same as last year, but the amount of farmland turned over to the drug is closer to levels seen nearly five years ago. Farmers this year earned $200 a kilogram for dry opium, more than a policeman's monthly wage. The spread of poppy farming is bad news for efforts to control trade in a drug that provides millions of dollars to the Taliban, and helps fuel massive corruption across the Kabul-based government, undermining its legitimacy. Opium production is closely linked to insecurity, with the vast majority of poppy fields being in areas across the south and west of Afghanistan where there is little government control, a lot of organised crime and high levels of violence. Half of the crop is grown in Helmand province, where most British soldiers deployed to Afghanistan have fought. Government subsidies and aggressive eradication programmes have persuaded farmers in the most fertile areas by the Helmand river to grow food crops, but overall more land was sown with poppies across the province than in 2011. Afghan officials dug up more than twice as many fields this year compared with 2011, but this was equivalent to just 6% of the total national crop. Lemahieu warned it would take time to wean farmers, and the Afghan economy, off the drug, even if the government responded strongly to the rapid spread of poppy farming. "Are we alarmed? For sure. Are we panicked? No, because we know what needs to be done, and we hope that those alarming figures will give another incentive to the government," he told the Guardian. "As proven to its own peril, narcotics [control] today is still too much considered a footnote. "The art is to induce dramatic change without destabilising the government or the economics of the country. This is possible, but takes time."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US secretary of state breaks off from Asian tour with Obama as efforts to broker a ceasefire intensify Hillary Clinton is en route to the Middle East to join efforts to broker a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, in a move that suggests a breakthrough is close. The US secretary of state, who had been accompanying Obama on his visit to south-east Asia, left Cambodia on Tuesday for talks in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo, where she will meet the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, Palestinian officials and Egyptian leaders. Gaza City was relatively quiet overnight, but the Israeli military said it had struck 100 targets over the coastal strip, including the Gaza headquarters of the National Islamic Bank. Five rockets were fired from Gaza during the course of the night, following a pattern of reduced missile launches for the past three nights. Rocket fire resumed on Tuesday morning. A possible ground invasion by Israeli troops is on hold while talks in Cairo continue. However, there was evidence of the military buildup along the border with a heavy presence of reservist soldiers. In Cairo, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, warned that further escalation in the conflict could endanger the region. "This must stop, immediate steps are needed to avoid further escalation, including a ground operation," he said. He is to visit Jerusalem on Tuesday for talks with Netanyahu before heading to Ramallah to see the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Netanyahu met members of his security cabinet overnight. A senior Israeli official told Reuters after the meeting: "Before deciding on a ground invasion, the prime minister intends to exhaust the diplomatic move in order to see if a long-term ceasefire can be achieved." A White House spokesman said Clinton would make clear an escalation of the conflict would be in nobody's interest. The US, Britain and other western governments have urged Israel not to mount an assault similar to Operation Cast Lead, in which 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza were killed four years ago. By Tuesday, civilians accounted for 54 of the 113 Palestinians killed since the operation began. Some 840 people have been wounded, including 225 children, Gaza health officials said. Three Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rocket fire. Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, who was in Cairo for talks on Monday, told reporters Israel must be the first to halt military operations since it had begun them last week by assassinating the movement's military chief, Ahmed al-Jaabari. "A ground invasion will not be a walk in the park," Meshal warned. "We don't have the same military and deterrence capabilities [as Israel] but we have deterred them with our will. Our enemy is drowning in the blood of children." Officials in Jerusalem flatly denied Meshal's claim that Israel was seeking a ceasefire. It was Hamas, one official said, that was looking for a way to "climb down" after more than 400 air strikes in Gaza had significantly eroded the Palestinians' ability to launch missiles at Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. But diplomats in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were hopeful a deal could be forged. "The fact that the talks are still going on is a good sign," said one. "And the fact that Israel hasn't yet gone in on the ground is a good sign." The Cairo truce talks ran into trouble on Sunday after news that 10 members of one family had been killed in Gaza in an air strike apparently aimed at killing a Hamas or Islamic Jihad leader. British officials monitoring the crisis said the key was to de-escalate, secure a durable ceasefire, and then return to the key questions of promoting reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation and re-invigorating a moribund peace process. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, said in Brussels: "I am pleased that Israel has held back from a ground invasion while such negotiations go on, and that the rate of rocket attacks on Israel has fallen, for whatever reason, over the last 24 hours. These are positive developments, but of course it remains a desperately serious and difficult situation." Palestinian sources said that Abbas had responded angrily on Monday to Tony Blair, the Middle East Quartet's (the UN, US, EU and Russia) envoy, in a meeting in Ramallah. Blair is trying to persuade Abbas to refrain from seeking observer status at the UN – a move opposed by the US and Israel. Abbas reportedly told him to leave if he was not there to talk about the crisis in Gaza. Israeli sources made clear that a ceasefire deal would have to mean an end to all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, including small arms fire at troops near the border. Hamas fighters must also be stopped from crossing into Sinai to mount attacks against Israel from Egyptian territory. Hamas must not be allowed to rearm. Any ceasefire must not be a simple "time out" for Hamas but provide an extended period of quiet for southern Israel. Support for Operation Defensive Pillar remains solid in Israel. According to an opinion poll in the Haaretz newspaper, 30% of the Israeli public support a ground invasion despite the risk of high casualties. Overall the operation has the backing of around 84% of the public, with 12% opposed. But in one sign of dissent, 100 writers, intellectuals and artists on Monday issued a petition calling for a long-term ceasefire, and more significantly for talks with Hamas, which has long been a political taboo. "We must speak out because the people of southern Israel, like the people of Gaza, deserve to be able to look up at the sky in hope and not in fear," wrote the author Amos Oz, playwright Yehoshua Sobol and others. Additional reporting by Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US secretary of state breaks off from Asian tour with Obama as efforts to broker a ceasefire intensify The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is en route to the Middle East to join efforts to broker a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, in a move which suggests a breakthrough is close. The US secretary of state, who had been accompanying Obama on his visit to south-east Asia, left Cambodia on Tuesday for the Middle East, where she will meet the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, Palestinian officials and Egyptian leaders in Cairo. Gaza City was relatively quiet overnight, but the Israeli military said it had struck 100 targets over the coastal strip, including the Gaza headquarters of the National Islamic Bank. Five rockets were fired from Gaza during the course of the night, following a pattern of reduced missile launches for the past three nights. Rocket fire resumed on Tuesday morning. A possible ground invasion by Israeli troops is on hold while talks in Cairo continue. However there was evidence of the military build-up along the border with a heavy presence of reservist soldiers. In Cairo, the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon warned that further escalation in the conflict could endanger the region. "This must stop, immediate steps are needed to avoid further escalation, including a ground operation," he said. He is to visit Jerusalem on Tuesday for talks with Netanyahu, before heading to Ramallah to see the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Netanyahu met members of his security cabinet overnight. A senior Israeli official told Reuters after the meeting: "Before deciding on a ground invasion, the prime minister intends to exhaust the diplomatic move in order to see if a long-term ceasefire can be achieved." A White House spokesman said Clinton would make clear it was in nobody's interest to see an escalation of the conflict. The US, Britain and other western governments have urged Israel not to mount an assault similar to Operation Cast Lead, in which 1400 Palestinians in Gaza were killed four years ago. By Tuesday, civilians accounted for 54 of the 113 Palestinians killed since the operation began. Some 840 people have been wounded, including 225 children, Gaza health officials said. Three Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rocket fire. Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, who was in Cairo for talks on Monday, told reporters that Israel must be the first to halt military operations since it had begun them last week by assassinating the movement's military chief, Ahmed al-Jaabari. "A ground invasion will not be a walk in the park," Meshal warned. "We don't have the same military and deterrence capabilities [as Israel] but we have deterred them with our will. Our enemy is drowning in the blood of children." Officials in Jerusalem flatly denied Meshal's claim that Israel was seeking a ceasefire. It was Hamas, one official said, that was looking for a way to "climb down" after more than 400 air strikes in Gaza had significantly eroded the Palestinians' ability to launch missiles at Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. But diplomats in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were hopeful that a deal could be forged. "The fact that the talks are still going on is a good sign," said one. "And the fact that Israel hasn't yet gone in on the ground is a good sign." The Cairo truce talks ran into trouble on Sunday after news that 10 members of one family had been killed in Gaza in an air strike apparently aimed at killing a Hamas or Islamic Jihad leader. British officials monitoring the crisis said the key was to de-escalate, secure a durable ceasefire, and then return to the key questions of promoting reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation and re-invigorating a moribund peace process. British foreign secretary William Hague said in Brussels: "I am pleased that Israel has held back from a ground invasion while such negotiations go on, and that the rate of rocket attacks on Israel has fallen, for whatever reason, over the last 24 hours. These are positive developments, but of course it remains a desperately serious and difficult situation." Palestinian sources said that Abbas had responded angrily on Monday to Tony Blair, the Middle East Quartet's (the UN, US, EU and Russia) envoy, in a meeting in Ramallah. Blair is trying to persuade Abbas to refrain from seeking observer status at the UN – a move opposed by the US and Israel. Abbas reportedly told him to leave if he was not there to talk about the crisis in Gaza. Israeli sources made clear that a ceasefire deal would have to mean an end to all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, including small arms fire at troops near the border. Hamas fighters must also be stopped from crossing into Sinai to mount attacks against Israel from Egyptian territory. Hamas must not be allowed to rearm. Any ceasefire must not be a simple "time out" for Hamas but provide an extended period of quiet for southern Israel. Support for Operation Defensive Pillar remains solid in Israel. According to an opinion poll in the Haaretz newspaper, 30% of the Israeli public support a ground invasion despite the risk of high casualties. Overall the operation has the backing of around 84% of the public, with 12% opposed. But in one sign of dissent, 100 writers, intellectuals and artists on Monday issued a petition calling for a long-term ceasefire, and more significantly for talks with Hamas, which has long been a political taboo. "We must speak out because the people of southern Israel, like the people of Gaza, deserve to be able to look up at the sky in hope and not in fear," wrote the author Amos Oz, playwright Yehoshua Sobol and others. Additional reporting by Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Four men arrested for planning to bomb US government facilities and engage in 'violent jihad', federal officials claim Four Southern California men have been charged with plotting to kill Americans in the US and overseas by joining al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, federal officials said. The defendants were arrested for plotting to bomb government facilities and public places after federal authorities uncovered their plans to engage in "violent jihad", the FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. According to a federal complaint unsealed on Monday during their initial appearances, Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, introduced two other California men to the radical Islamist doctrine of Anwar al-Awlaki, a deceased al-Qaida leader. The two, Ralph Deleon, 23, and Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales, 21, converted to Islam in 2010 and began engaging with Kabir and others online in discussions about jihad, including posting radical content on Facebook and expressing extremist views in comments. In one online conversation, Santana told an FBI undercover agent he wanted to commit jihad and expressed interest in a jihadist training camp in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The complaint alleged the men went to a shooting range several times, including a trip on 10 September 2012 when Deleon told a confidential FBI source he wanted to be on the frontlines overseas and use the explosive C-4 in an attack. Santana agreed. "I wanna do C-4s if I could put one of these trucks right here with my, with that. Just drive into, like, the baddest military base," Santana said, according to the complaint, adding that he wanted to use a large quantity of the explosive. "If I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna take out a whole base. Might as well make it, like, big, ya know," Santana said. At the shooting range that day, both Santana and Deleon said they were excited about the rewards from becoming a shaheed – Arabic for martyr – according to the complaint. Authorities allege Kabir travelled to Afghanistan and communicated with Santana and Deleon so he could arrange for their travel to join him and meet with his contacts in terrorism organisations. They later recruited 21-year-old Arifeen David Gojali. If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison.
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