|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Attack targets Shia Muslim procession, wounding at least 62, and follows earlier mosque bombing in Karachi A Taliban suicide bomber has struck a Shia Muslim procession near Pakistan's capital, killing 23 people in the latest of a series of bombings targeting Shias during the holiest month of the year for the sect. The bomber attacked the procession around midnight on Wednesday in the city of Rawalpindi, located next to the capital, Islamabad, said Deeba Shahnaz, a state rescue official. At least 62 people were wounded by the blast, including six police officers. Eight of the dead and wounded were children, said Shahnaz. Police tried to stop and search the bomber as he attempted to join the procession, but he ran past them and detonated his explosives, said senior police official Haseeb Shah. The attacker was also carrying grenades, some of which exploded, said Shah. "I think the explosives combined with grenades caused the big loss," said Shah. "It was like the world was ending," said one of the victims, Nasir Shah, describing the blast. He was being treated at a local hospital for wounds to his hands and legs. Earlier on Wednesday, the Taliban set off two bombs within minutes outside a Shia mosque in the southern city of Karachi, killing at least one person and wounding several others, senior police official Javed Odho said. Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attacks in Rawalpindi and Karachi. "We have a war of belief with Shiites," Ahsan said. "They are blasphemers. We will continue attacking them." The Sunni-Shia schism over the true heir to Islam's Prophet Muhammad dates back to the 7th century. Shias are currently observing the holy month of Muharram. On Saturday, they will observe the holiest day of the month, Ashoura, which commemorates the seventh century death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson. The country has a long history of sectarian violence carried out by both extremist Sunni and Shia Muslims against the opposite sect. Most attacks in recent years have targeted Shias, who make up a minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim country. The Pakistani government increases security every Muharram to protect Shias. But attacks regularly occur, and activists criticise the government for not doing enough to safeguard the minority sect.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Body referred to as 'Fedex package' in cryptic military dispatches arranging disposal of al-Qaida leader's remains Osama bin Laden was buried at sea from a US warship amid high secrecy that included his body being referred to as "the package" delivered by "Fedex", secret military emails reveal. No sailors watched as the body of the al-Qaida leader – killed in a raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on 2 May 2011 – was tipped from a board into the North Arabian Sea from aircraft carrier the USS Carl Vinson after brief Islamic rites. The emails were obtained by the Associated Press under freedom of information. The news agency said they were heavily blacked out but nonetheless offered the first public disclosure of government information about the al-Qaida leader's death. Bin Laden was killed by a navy Seal team that swooped on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. One email stamped secret and sent on 2 May by a senior navy officer briefly describes how bin Laden's body was washed, wrapped in a white sheet, and then placed in a weighted bag. According to another message from the Vinson's public affairs officer, only a small group of the ship's leadership was informed of the burial. "Traditional procedures for Islamic burial was followed," the 2 May email from Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette reads. "The deceased's body was washed (ablution) then placed in a white sheet. The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased's body slid into the sea." Earlier, Gaouette, then the deputy commander of the navy's Fifth Fleet, and another officer used code words to discuss whether the helicopters carrying the Seals and Bin Laden's body had arrived on the Carl Vinson. "Any news on the package for us?" he asked Rear Admiral Samuel Perez, commander of the carrier strike group that included the Vinson. "Fedex delivered the package," Perez responded. "Both trucks are safely en route home base." The emails include a reference to the intense secrecy surrounding the mission and why few records were held. "The paucity of documentary evidence in our possession is a reflection of the emphasis placed on operational security during the execution of this phase of the operation," Gaouette's message reads. Recipients of the email included Admiral Mike Mullen, then the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and General James Mattis, the top officer at US Central Command. Mullen retired from the military in September 2011. The Obama administration has kept a tight hold on materials related to the Bin Laden raid. The AP said that in response to separate requests from the AP for information about the mission, the defence department replied in March that it could not locate any photographs or video taken during the raid or showing Bin Laden's body. It also said it could not find any images of Bin Laden's body taken while it was on board the Vinson. The Pentagon said it could not find any death certificate, autopsy report or results of DNA identification tests for Bin Laden, or any pre-raid materials discussing how the government planned to dispose of Bin Laden's body if he were killed. The defence department also refused to confirm or deny the existence of helicopter maintenance logs and reports about the performance of military gear used in the raid. One of the stealth helicopters that carried the Seals to Abbottabad crashed during the mission and its wreckage was left behind. People who lived near Bin Laden's compound took photos of the wrecked chopper. The AP has lodged an appeal requesting more information from the defence department. The agency said the CIA, which ran the Bin Laden raid and has special legal authority to keep information from ever being made public, had not responded to requests for records about the mission.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hostess fails in last-ditch negotiations to end strike and has been granted permission to terminate jobs of 18,000 workers A bankruptcy court judge on Wednesday approved a request by Hostess to begin winding down its operations. The ruling came Wednesday after the maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread failed in last-ditch negotiations to end a strike by its second-largest union. Hostess now has the green light to terminate the jobs of its 18,000 workers without risking legal action, and to sell off its brands. In court Wednesday, Hostess said it needed to begin the liquidation process quickly to take advantage of outside interest in its brands, which a banker said could fetch up to $2.4bn. That's about how much Hostess generates in annual sales. The banker, Joshua Scherer of Perella Weinberg Partners, told the court that interest in Hostess' brands has come from companies ranging from regional bakers to major national retailers that have long sold Hostessproducts. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get iconic brands separate from their legacy operators," Scherer said during the bankruptcy-court hearing in White Plains, New York. Hostess, based in Irving, Texas, also wanted to quickly shutter its business, because has been spending about $1m a day in payroll without any income since it halted operations last week. CEO Gregory Rayburn said the company will send out termination notices to its employees on Wednesday. "Those employees now need to look for work," he said. The snack maker's demise was years in the making. Management missteps, rising labor costs and changing tastes culminated in a crippling strike by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. Hostess shut down its three dozen plants late last week after it said the strike by the bakery union hurt its ability to maintain normal production. Management had said Hostess was already operating on razor-thin margins and that the strike was the final blow. The union, meanwhile, pointed to the steep raises executives were given last year, as the company was spiraling down toward bankruptcy. "This is a very hostile situation and in some respects rightfully so," Rayburn said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | House speaker John Boehner confirms the Illinois Democrat is resigning following months of treatment for bipolar disorder Chicago congressman Jesse Jackson Jr, who has been on a medical leave of absence for several months, has resigned his House of Representatives seat as he faces a federal investigation into his campaign finances as well as a separate ethics probe. Jackson, 47, the son of the renowned civil rights campaigner, was easily re-elected on November 6 but he will not now be taking his place in the new Congress which begins in January. In his letter of resignation to speaker John Boehner, Jackson, who has been in Congress since 1995, blamed his medical condition for the decision but he also publicly acknowledged the federal investigation for the first time. After parading a list of improvements in conditions on the South Side of Chicago during his time in Congress, describing it as a journey he and his constituents had shared, he went on to talk about his medical condition and the inquiry. "During this journey, I have made my fair share of mistakes. I am aware of the ongoing federal investigation into my activities and am doing my best to address the situation responsibly, co-operate with the investigators, and accept responsibility for my mistakes, for they are my mistakes and mine alone," he said. "None of us is immune from our share of shortcomings or human frailties and I pray that I will be remembered for what I did right." He is being investigated for allegedly misusing campaign finances on personal expenditure, including redecoration of the family home in Washington. He also faced a House ethics committee investigation into allegations that one of Jackson's aides had been involved in the Chicago 'pay-to-play' scandal, offering the then Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich $6m in return for awarding him Barack Obama's Senate seat, vacated when he became president. Blagojevich, who as governor had the power to award the Senate place, is serving a jail sentence after being convicted on several charges, including trying to sell a Senate seat. Although there will have to be special election to replace Jackson, his Chicago South Side district is solidly Democratic. His decision is not a surprise given Jackson's long absences this year; indeed, many were surprised that he chose to stand for re-election. He has missed 230 votes in the House this year and had not voted since June 8. He was treated in clinics in Arizona and Minnesota. Doctors said he had a bipolar disorder. In his letter, he wrote: "Over the past several months, as my health has deteriorated, my ability to serve the constituents of my district has continued to diminish. Against the recommendations of my doctors, I had hoped and tried to return to Washington and continue working on the issues that matter most to the people of the Second District. I know now that will not be possible. "The constituents of the Second District deserve a full-time legislator in Washington, something I cannot be for the foreseeable future. My health issues and treatment regimen have been incompatible with service in the House of Representatives. Therefore, it is with great regret that I hereby resign as a member of the United States House of Representatives, effective today, in order to focus on restoring my health."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Truce between Israel and Hamas announced by Egyptian foreign minister and US secretary of state Israel and the Palestinians have bowed to US and international pressure and agreed an end to eight days of fighting in the Gaza Strip that has claimed more than 160 lives. Under the truce, which came into force at 9pm local time (7pm GMT) and will be guaranteed by Egypt on the Palestinian side, Israel agreed to "stop all hostilities in the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air including incursions and targeting of individuals". In exchange it committed "all Palestinian factions" to "stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel including rocket attacks and all attacks along the border". Leaders on both sides were quick to claim victory. Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, said at a press conference in Cairo that Israel had "failed in its adventure" when it launched attacks on Gaza and had been forced to accept Palestinian terms. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said Israel had destroyed thousands of missiles as well as Hamas installations. Israeli operations and Hamas missile fire continued right up to the deadline, claiming at least one further Palestinian fatality, a member of Islamic Jihad. Israeli drones were continuing to fly overhead after the ceasefire had come into effect. Celebratory gunfire rang out across Gaza. The truce – announced in Cairo by Egypt's foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr, and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton – also included a pledge to open border crossings. That could ease the five-year blockade of the coastal enclave, a key point that is certain to be the focus of differing interpretations as the dust settles. But even as the truce was being announced, Netanyahu was warning more "forceful" action might be required if the ceasefire failed – a reference to a threatened ground invasion of Gaza that was postponed by Israel after pressure from the US president, Barack Obama. Speaking at a press conference, Netanyahu said the operation had destroyed "thousands of missiles" as well as Hamas installations. Israel could not "sit with their arms folded" under attack, he said. He also repeated his veiled threat of a wider army operation if the ceasefire failed: "I know there are citizens expecting a more severe military action, and perhaps we shall need to do so." Netanyahu's statement came as an instant poll by Israel's Channel 2 television revealed that 70% of Israelis opposed the ceasefire deal. Meshaal, speaking in Cairo, welcomed the ceasefire and said "the Israeli conspiracy" that had sought election propaganda and to "test Egypt" had "failed in its objectives". After the deal was struck Obama called Netanyahu to commend him for agreeing to the Egyptian proposal and told him he would seek more money for the Iron Dome defence system that has protected Israel from rocket attacks. Earlier in the day rumours had been circulating that Israel had been planning to announce a unilateral ceasefire that would be followed by Hamas doing the same thing. Israel launched well over 1,500 air strikes and other attacks on targets in Gaza, while more than 1,000 rockets pounded Israel after the fighting began on 14 November. The conflict has claimed the lives of at least 161 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, while five Israelis died. Announcing the ceasefire in Cairo, Clinton commended Egypt's mediation. "This is a critical moment for the region. Egypt's new government is assuming the responsibility and leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone for regional stability and peace." She also thanked Egypt's Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, for his mediation efforts and pledged to work with partners in the region "to consolidate this progress, improve conditions for the people of Gaza, and provide security for the people of Israel". The British foreign secretary, William Hague, welcomed the deal as "an important step towards a lasting peace". He added: "The priority now must be to build on the ceasefire and to address the underlying causes of the conflict, including more open access to and from Gaza for trade as well as humanitarian assistance, and an end to the smuggling of weapons." Despite securing support from western governments for its initial military operation against Hamas, Israel had failed to win US and European backing for a ground invasion as a series of key US allies in the region, led by Egypt and Turkey, strongly protested against the Israeli assault. The agreed truce, mediated by Morsi and his spy chief, Mohamed Shehata, came after days of talks and frantic shuttle diplomacy involving regional leaders, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and Clinton. Clinton had been engaged in talks with Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah before flying to Cairo to meet Morsi. Obama also intervened during a tour of Asia to call both Israel and Morsi to encourage them to find a solution, as well as making several calls to Netanyahu and Morsi. The deal as it stands – despite comments by Clinton that efforts would continue for a wider settlement – leaves considerable areas of friction and uncertainty. However, an Israeli government source said, following the ceasefire agreement, an "ongoing dialogue will start within 24 hours" covering underlying issues of concern to both parties. They include the further relaxation of border restrictions and targeted assassinations. On borders, he said: "These restrictions were imposed in the framework of hostilities." In the absence of hostilities, they may no longer be necessary. Targeted assassinations, he added, were "an irrelevant question". "If they are not attacking us, we don't need to shoot them." Two other issues to be discussed in further talks were the rearming of militant groups and the Israeli-imposed buffer zone inside the Gaza border. "The buffer zone was only introduced in the framework of hostilities." An earlier attempt to reach a truce 24 hours earlier, which had envisaged a lull in hostilities leading to wider negotiations over key issues, including a lifting of the Israeli blockade of the coastal strip, fell apart because of internal opposition on both sides. The last week of violence has seen the country's Muslim Brotherhood-led government emerge as a key force in a region transformed by the Arab spring. The agreement emerged despite a bus bombing in Tel Aviv that injured 15 Israelis close to the country's defence ministry. Israeli police quickly said was a terrorist incident, immediately awakening fears of a return to the sort of violence associated with the period of the second Palestinian intifada or uprising, in which some 1,000 Israelis and 5,000 Palestinians were killed. No one claimed responsibility for the attack. A Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, called it "a natural response to crimes of the occupation and the ongoing massacres against civilians in Gaza."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | European finance ministers fail to agree on unlocking long-delayed emergency aid for Greece The failure of European finance ministers to agree on unlocking long-delayed emergency aid for Greece, after unprecedented efforts to satisfy international conditions for the rescue funds, was met on Wednesday with anger and dismay in Athens. With the near-bankrupt country living on borrowed time, the inability of officials to sign off on the financial lifetime or agree on how to make Greece's debt mountain more sustainable exacerbated an explosive political atmosphere. In a rare display of pique, prime minister Antonis Samaras issued a scathing statement reminding Greece's eurozone partners that Athens had carried out a series of deeply unpopular reforms, including spending cuts of €13.5bn (£10.85bn), in return for the assistance. Prior to the meeting Greek officials had expressed the hope that finance ministers would at the very least draw up a timetable for the disbursement of a projected €44.6bn in bailout funding now desperately needed to energise an economy running on empty. "Greece has done what it had to and what it had committed to doing," Samaris said on learning of the deadlock after marathon talks in Brussels. "Our partners, along with the IMF, must also do what they have undertaken to do. Any technical difficulties in finding a technical solution do not justify any negligence or delays." The leader, whose tripartite coalition has become increasingly shaky amid deepening disgruntlement over the way the crisis has been handled, will press his case when he holds discussions on the sidelines of a two-day EU summit with Jean Claude Juncker, who presides over the eurozone group of finance ministers, aides said. Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, emerged from the 12-hour long euro meeting expressing disappointment that a solution to prop up the 17-nation bloc's weakest member had still not been found. Acknowledging that the sustainability of Greek government debt remained the stumbling block, he commended "the considerable efforts made by the Greek authorities and citizens to reach this stage". The praise did little to allay fury among Greece's political elite. Throughout the day politicians, including Samaras's two junior partners, reacted with anger to the news that the cash injection, delayed since June, had once again been put on hold. With the country's coffers practically dried up and its real economy mired in a recession not seen since the second world war – mostly as a result of austerity measures mandated by international creditors – the deadlock was widely viewed as deeply humiliating for a government that has sought so strenuously to meet foreign lenders' demands in the five months since it assumed power. Against a backdrop of mounting fears of a social explosion – with support for the euro plummeting among Greeks from 81.6% before the June general election to 63% this week according to a GPO opinion poll – Evangelos Venizelos, whose socialist Pasok party is a member of the power-sharing alliance, lambasted the eurozone for "using Greece as an alibi to justify its own weakness to effectively deal with the various manifestations of the crisis". The issue of Greece's debt viability had been on the table since February, said Venizelos, who as former finance minister negotiated Greece's second bailout accord with the EU and IMF. Piling the pressure on the government, the main opposition leader, Alexis Tsipras, denounced the failure as further proof that Athens' conservative-dominated government had been left helplessly watching events from the sidelines. "Europe finds itself before the dead end that its political choices have created," said the politician whose stridently anti-bailout radical left Syriza party is leading in the polls. "Day by day it is confirmed that the path of [the bailouts] is catastrophic for the European structure and painful for the people of Europe."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | House speaker John Boehner confirms the Illinois Democrat is resigning following months of treatment for bipolar disorder Jesse Jackson Jr, once seen as a rising star in the Democratic party and part of a new generation of black leaders, has resigned after a months-long leave for mental illness, a spokesman for the speaker of the House of Representatives said Wednesday. House speaker John Boehner's spokesman Michael Steel confirmed his office had received a letter of resignation from Jackson but did not comment further. Jackson, the 47-year-old son of civil rights leader Rev Jesse Jackson, began his career in Washington with a star power that set him apart from his hundreds of House colleagues. But his resignation ends a once-promising political career that was tarnished by unproven allegations that he was involved in discussions about raising campaign funds for imprisoned former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in exchange for an appointment to President Barack Obama's vacated US Senate seat. Jackson disappeared in June, and it was later revealed that he was being treated for bipolar disorder and gastrointestinal issues. He returned to his Washington home in September, but went back to the clinic the next month, with his father saying his son had not yet "regained his balance". He left the clinic a second time earlier this month. His return to the clinic in October came amid reports that he faced a new federal investigation into potential misuse of campaign funds. The Chicago Sun-Times first reported the probe, citing anonymous sources. An FBI spokesman in Washington, Andrew Ames, has told the Associated Press he could neither confirm nor deny the existence of a federal investigation into Jackson. Jackson was easily re-elected on 6 November representing his heavily-Democratic district, even though his only communication with voters was an automated call asking them for patience. He spent election night at the Mayo Clinic, but later issued a statement thanking his supporters and saying he was waiting for his doctors' OK before he could "continue to be the progressive fighter" they'd known for years. Jackson took office in 1995 after winning a special election in a landslide. Voters in the district have said Jackson's family name and attention to local issues have been the reasons for their support. He's easily won every election since taking office and brought home close to $1bn in federal money for his district during his tenure. The House Ethics Committee is investigating reports of the Blagojevich-linked allegations, which Jackson has denied. After the allegations surfaced, he cut back drastically on his number of public appearances and interviews. Blagojevich is now imprisoned on corruption charges that accused him of trying to sell the seat, among other things. The timing of Jackson's leave and the way it was handled also has invited scrutiny. Jackson's leave was announced just after a former fundraiser connected to the Blagojevich allegations was arrested on unrelated medical fraud charges. Illinois governor Pat Quinn, a Democrat, has five days to schedule an election to replace Jackson after he receives official notice, and the election must be held within 115 days, according to election officials. The vacancy left by Jackson's departure creates a rare opportunity for someone else to represent his district, which is made up of south side Chicago neighborhoods, several southern suburbs and some rural areas. Even this year, when Jackson was absent during the crucial final months of campaigning, he easily defeated two challengers on the ballot, Republican college professor Brian Woodworth and Independent postal worker Marcus Lewis.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Backed by politicians of all stripes, prime minister urges Church of England to 'get with the programme' and reconsider decision The stage is set for a clash of wills between church and state after David Cameron, backed by politicians from all sides, openly urged the Church of England to quickly revisit its decision to reject the ordination of female bishops. Church rules state that the measure cannot be brought back before the General Synod "in the same form" during the current term, which ends in 2015. But the prime minister's spokesman said the government did not understand this timetable. A saddened Cameron told MPs: "I am very clear that the time is right for women bishops; it was right many years ago. The church needs to get on with it and get with the programme." Parliament had to "respect individual institutions and how they work, while giving them a sharp prod", he added. "I think it's important for the Church of England to be a modern church, in touch with society as it is today, and this was a key step they needed to take." His remarks were designed to put pressure on the new church leadership to return to the issue more quickly than a strict interpretation of the church's rules allows. The shadow equalities minister, Yvette Cooper, told the church: "It can't just let this lie for the next five years." In a sign of the anxiety across parliament, the Speaker, John Bercow, urged backbench MPs to ask the equalities minister, Maria Miller, to make a formal statement to the Commons on Thursday . The government argues that the narrowness of the vote justified revisiting the issue quickly, and for ministers to step up the public pressure. Ministers were reluctant to join calls by some angry MPs to force the church to rethink by removing its protections from equalities legislation or by acting to debar bishops from the House of Lords. But, in a sign of the exasperation of leading politicians with the church decision, the normally measured defence secretary, Philip Hammond, warned that the church was no longer in the mainstream of Anglican thought. "It's not just … the ordination of women but a series of big, divisive issues which the church has to resolve. It has to heal. It has to find a way forward. Otherwise, it is going to increasingly find itself marginalised. It's going to find members of the church with strong views on one side or the other of these arguments, I think, increasingly [will] be attracted to splinter groups and splinter churches. "So it is essential that the Church of England finds a way of recovering that middle ground and becoming the mainstream of Anglican thought in this country again." Frank Field, a leading Christian Labour MP, said he would present a private member's bill to parliament on Thursday calling for the cancellation of the church's exemptions from equality legislation. "When we gave exemptions under the Sex Discrimination Act we were assured that the church didn't want to discriminate and that it would bring forward measures to eliminate such discrimination," he said. But Tuesday's vote had made clear that that had not happened. "Parliament made a gracious act under a misapprehension," he said. Chris Bryant, a Labour MP and a former Anglican priest, said the failure of the vote had caused many to call into question the future of the 26 bishops in the House of Lords. Reflecting an awareness in the church's leadership of how much damage the crisis could do, the outgoing archbishop of Canterbury warned the synod that it had to move forward as quickly as possibly with finding a way of getting women into the episcopate in order to avoid losing even more credibility than it already had. "Every day that we fail to resolve this to our satisfaction …is a day when our credibility in the public eye is likely to diminish," said Rowan Williams, in a strongly worded speech. The failure of the legislation had left the church looking "willfully blind" to the trends and priorities of secular society. "We have – to put it very bluntly – a lot of explaining to do," he said. "Whatever the motivations for voting yesterday … the fact remains that a great deal of this discussion is not intelligible to our wider society." As the campaigners and the wider church community continued to reel from Tuesday's dramatic outcome, Williams said the church's governing body could not "afford to hang about". "After all the effort that's gone into this process over the last few years, after the intense frustration that has been experienced in recent years … it would be tempting to conclude that it's too difficult, that perhaps the issue should be parked for a while," he said. "I do not believe that is possible because of … the sense of credibility in the wider society." Williams, for whom the failure of the vote was a bitter disappointment and a disastrous end to a fraught decade in Lambeth Palace, was given two standing ovations in an emotional farewell to the synod. The man who is to replace him, Justin Welby, joined the archbishop of York, John Sentamu, in insisting there would soon be female bishops in the Church of England. The church has voted overwhelmingly in favour of the principle," he said. "It is a question of finding … a real consensus that this is the right way forward. That is going to take some time, some care and some prudence."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is in the Middle East to try to try to bring about a ceasefire
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As David Cameron flies in to do battle over the EU's seven-year €1tn budget deal, we attempt to separate myth from fact In the otherwise ugly EU quarter in Brussels, something of a building boom is going on. There's the €300m (£241m)-plus being spent to convert an art deco pile into a palace fit for a European president. In a nearby park another €100m makeover is creating the European parliament's version of the continent's postwar history. That's after the parliament splashed out another €20m just down the street to create a multimedia tribute to itself last year, the Parliamentarium visitors' centre. Austerity Europe? Not at the European Union's Brussels HQ. While budgets, public spending, and civil service staffing levels are being slashed from Portugal to Poland, Greece to Great Britain, to be one of the 56,000 EU eurocrats is to escape most of the pain felt in almost every country in the union. Officially, they work a 37½-hour week and take Friday afternoons off, though many complain those conditions are theoretical and they in fact work inordinately long hours. Their children are educated for free at high-quality private schools – a big new one has just opened near the Belgian monarchy's summer residence in a leafier part of Brussels. They retire at 63 on generous pensions and dozens a year are granted early retirement on full pensions. According to UK government calculations, 214 of the most senior eurocrats get paid more than David Cameron's £178,000 a year. Staff not living in their native country – almost all – receive a 16% top-up on their salary for being expatriates. Despite their insulation inside the Brussels bubble from the economic storm battering Europe, the eurocrats are revolting. There was a small strike a couple of weeks ago and several hundred staff staged a lunchtime protest outside the European commission on Wednesday complaining about the impact of proposed cuts on people "who provide the necessary human resources for achieving the union's tasks". It comes as EU leaders gather for an almighty battle that could tear Brussels apart – the ritual showdown over the EU's €1tn budget. Cameron arrives in Brussels on Thursday morning for a summit to settle the next seven-year budget waving his veto, taking up a position more radical than Margaret Thatcher in her hand-bagging heyday, leading a populist Brussels-bashing charge intended for his restive backbenchers and Daily Mail readers. No one has the remotest idea when and how it will end. The perks and privileges of the eurocrats – particularly if they are threatening to strike – present Cameron with the easiest of targets. New, scaled-back budget figures drafted for the seven years between 2014-20 total €973bn, including a ceiling of €62.6bn for administration, or roughly €9bn a year, entailing a €500m cut in administration spending. The commission quietly warned Herman Van Rompuy, the EU council president in charge of the summit, to table only a minimal cut to its proposed administration bill, half a billion over seven years. "The commission is saying don't go further," said a senior EU official. Last summer, the UK and seven other governments asked the commission to come up with models for a streamlined administration based on €5bn, €10bn and €15bn cuts. "Most member states are responding to current economic and fiscal circumstances with efficiency measures or reforms affecting terms and conditions of their national civil servants. The staff of the European institutions should share the burden," their letter said. The commission simply ignored it. The fight over the pay and perks of an EU civil service that in its entirety is about the same size as the civil service of the city of Paris will be bitter, but mainly symbolic, given that administration takes up less than 7% of the overall EU budget. The real money, where the allegations of mismanagement, fraud, and also where the real benefits of the EU budget are, is all elsewhere, chiefly in the areas of agriculture and so-called cohesion funds. These make up the tens of billions directed to infrastructure development, public investment, and co-financing of thousands of projects in the poorer parts of the union. The annual EU budget is currently about €130bn, with €129.4bn being disbursed in payments last year, according to the European Court of Auditors in its mixed verdict on EU spending earlier this month. The infamous CAP or Common Agricultural Policy, hated by the British but entrenched by the French as the key lever in EU spending long before the UK joined what became the union 40 years ago, is by far the biggest item in the budget, comprising just over one third of spending last year, or €49.3bn. That sum, however, is a historical low, a far cry from butter mountain and wine lake scandals of 25 years ago when French farmers and others got plump on 70% of EU spending directed at production rather than nowadays on direct support to farmers based on arable land holdings. The CAP, in turn, engenders the equally infamous British rebate, worth €3.6bn last year because, ever since Margaret Thatcher "handbagged" Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand in 1984, the UK refund has been calibrated to the level of farm spending from which Britain is deemed to benefit less. The reason the CAP is so big is that it is the sole area where EU spending supplants national expenditure by and large – uniquely the only area of expenditure that is truly European. "It's the only federal policy of spending," Janusz Lewandowski, the budget commissioner said. "Some 77% of spending on farming in Europe comes from the EU budget." The CAP's smaller cousin, rural development spending, is the area of the budget most vulnerable to abuse, according to the auditors who failed again this month, for the 18th year in a row, to give the budget a clean bill of health, finding an overall "error rate" of 3.9%. That means that almost €5bn was mismanaged, embezzled, used improperly, or was otherwise "mistaken" last year. That 3.9% error rate doubled to 7.7% when it came to the €12.4bn spent on rural development. For example, a fruit farmer in Lombardy put in a claim for more than €220,000 to fund a new two-storey building for storing and processing fruit "with a terrace for drying fruit". The project was checked and he got the money. He built himself a new house. "The court found that the building had predominantly the characteristics of a private residence and not of an agricultural building," the auditors found. In other instances that were checked, there were claims for 150 sheep from a farmer who had no sheep. And repeated duplication of claims on land, or two or more parties claiming and receiving subsidies for the same bit of farmland, or non-farming scrub and forest being claimed as arable land. Of 160 "transactions" on rural development checked by the auditors, 93 were found to be dodgy or "affected by errors". While Brussels and the European commission routinely get the blame for these kind of malpractices, however, it is usually national rather than European authorities that have failed or have even been complicit in the scams. While tens of billions are shelled out to farmers every year, it is national authorities who disburse the funds and then claim it back from Brussels. And it is national inspectors who are responsible for monitoring how the money is spent. In the case of the nice new house in Lombardy, built at the expense of the EU taxpayer, the Italian authority checked and approved the project. "Most projects are picked and managed by member states themselves," argues one commission official. "It is at their level that mistakes are made." The auditors found that Britain ranked sixth of 27 in the list of offenders. The other big area both of spending and of disproportionate abuse concerns cohesion funds, taking up 27% or almost €35bn of the budget last year and going mainly, though not only, to the poorer countries of eastern Europe. It is an example of what the EU budget has always been – an exercise in social democratic redistribution of money from the wealthy net contributors to the budget (currently nine of 27) to the more needy who get more back than they pay in. The court checked 180 transactions from the cohesion funds and found that three out of five were faulty, with an overall error rate of 6%, meaning that more than €2bn may have been squandered, mismanaged, or fiddled. The criteria are being tightened. Officials in Brussels admit that for a long time the money has been sprayed around indiscriminately, but insist that is changing. "We would ask two questions when we got an application – was the form filled in correctly? Was it sent in on time?" says one. Apart from the two big items of farm subsidies and cohesion funds, the remainder of the budget goes on development aid (the EU is the world's biggest donor), on immigration and security, on the eurocrats and administration, and on the EU's foreign policy and its fledgling global diplomatic service headed by Britain's Lady Ashton. Amid the arguments raging this week over what should be cut or increased, — at bottom a dispute between net contributors and net beneficiaries — the commission points out that the budget has gone up at a much smaller rate than national EU budgets in the past decade. It counters the auditors' criticism by arguing that the verdict means 96% of spending was properly managed. The commission is constantly on the defensive, feeling the need to issue a "Myth Buster" leaflet in 23 languages to try to highlight the benefits of EU spending. It points to the example of building and supplying medical centres in Guatemala. The project failed the auditors' standards, but 61 of the 65 objectives were met and 130,000 people are estimated to have benefited. The commission also demands refunds when it decides money has been misspent. Most checks are carried out by the member states: the commission then audits the national auditors, including, sometimes, spot checks on individual projects. In 2011, it carried out more than 500 such checks, and demanded more than £2bn back of which £1.8bn has already been collected. It can be frustratingly difficult to establish exactly what the EU's money is spent on in any one year, especially if it is more recent. Many programmes or projects are advertised according to their multiyear budgets, there is an inevitable time lag between each stage of awarding money, spending it and assessing how well it was spent, and the main "beneficiaries" website which enables anybody to search out how money was spent gives project titles in their original language only and no links to details of what the money was actually spent on. Search that website for "golf", for example, to discover that the European taxpayer doled out €381,000 in grants to a long list of mostly sports and other hobby clubs in several member states in 2011, including tennis, climbing, bridge, petanque, a hotel and golf resort in Ireland and what looks like a restaurant in Belgium. There is no explanation as to why these payments were warranted. The EU staged a seven-year PR campaign in the province of Andalucia in southern Spain. A search to find out how much this cost unexpectedly showed a long list of grants to unions including football associations in countries such as Spain, France and the UK (and, curiously, the BBC) – again with no indication as to why these highly-paid representatives needed public support. Such spending makes it easy for critics to find laughable or shocking examples of ridiculous EU-funded projects. The Eurosceptic thinktank Open Europe, for example, publishes an annual list of the most wasteful schemes. Past examples include money for Austrian farmers to feel greater emotional connection with their land, and funding for a ski slope on a flat and unusually warm island off the coast of Denmark. Set against the mockery is a growing body of evidence which doesn't try to justify every individual decision, or mistake, but to make a wider argument about the value of the European project and joined-up European spending. A website set up by the European spending watchdog Bankwatch and two environmental charities, WWF and Friends of the Earth Europe, Wellspent.eu, hosts a map and list of projects they consider to be "benchmark" schemes for well-judged, well-managed spending. In 2011, for example, the commission granted just over €90m for an ongoing expansion of the metro network in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. The project is credited with reducing noise and traffic accidents by nearly 20% and a cut in "noxious gases". If the figures quoted are correct, the total €440m cost should be outweighed by the value of such benefits in 13 years. Keti Medarova-Bergstrom, senior policy analyst at the Institute for European Environmental Policy, makes a more general case: that there are many areas where the EU gets more by spending its money jointly, the so-called multiplier effect. Food safety, aviation and strategic railways are cited as examples. She even makes a case for preserving (or by extension even enhancing) the 6% administration budget, arguing that cutting the commission's staff would make it harder not easier to improve the quality of spending on projects. "Appropriate EU action can be cost-saving for member states, rather than cost-increasing," she argues. "Therefore, possible administrative 'costs' should be seen as 'investment' in improving the implementation and result-orientation of future spending." A more specific argument about the value to richer EU countries of transfers of money to the needier nations is made in a report commissioned by the Polish government by the Institute for Structural Research thinktank. This calculated that every euro spent in cohesion funds to help Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, returned more than 60 cents to richer countries in benefits such as sales and contracts. These arguments are the backdrop to a report from the UK's Department for Business, which estimated the overall value to the UK of being in the single market was £30bn-£90bn a year, five to 15 times the "cost" of being in the EU in 2011. Open Europe, by contrast, maintains there is "no conclusive evidence" that European spending creates jobs and growth, and that in some cases it has done harm. The report cites research, including a study by the Spanish Savings Banks Foundation, asserting that there had been no noticeable rise in GDP per person or productivity in Spain as a result of the billions of euros of economic aid it has received since it joined in 1986; another OECD report found only "patchy" evidence of success. In the midst of the single currency crisis, critics note that the worst affected countries – Greece, Spain, Italy and Ireland – have been some of the highest recipients of EU aid over the decades, suggesting this has been part of the problem rather than the solution: too much EU money swamping industries such as Spanish construction, contributing to their boom and bust. Similar reservations are now voiced about the massive transfers to eastern Europe where often the "absorption capacity" of the target countries is much lower than the funds available, leading to corruption and waste. Then there is the problem of the lack of coherence arising from conflicting policy aims and spending which can often be in contradiction with other stated aims –subsidising tobacco farmers while seeking to curb smoking, for example, or running ambitious programmes to combat climate change while funding an airport construction bonanza in Poland. For example, 2011 was one of the heaviest-cost years of a seven-year programme to spend more than €400m on airports in Poland, despite the fact that flying is one of the most polluting activities by humans and Polish evidence that apart from a handful of the busiest airports most end up losing money and costing local governments heavily. At least two of the projects, Modlin, north of Warsaw, and Lublin, in the south-east, have also attracted deep opposition from environment groups because they affect Natura 2000 sites – designated by the EU itself for special protection of the most threatened habitats and species. "We have a basic paradox: the EU finance investment in the Natura 2000 sites, which were set up by the EU and [are] sustained by the EU," says Patrycja Romaniuk, Bankwatch's EU funds co-ordinator in Poland. The paradoxes abound. The EU budget is a complex web of exasperating, transnational pluses and minuses, decent intentions and half-baked, madcap ideas. Under the pressure of the EU's worst ever crisis, the union is changing radically and the budget will be no exception to this rule. This week's summit threatens to be extremely bad-tempered, an exhibition of Europe at its worst. But it will set the parameters for the changes in how the EU spends our money.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is in the Middle East to try to try to bring about a ceasefire
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 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
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Nationwide employee protests ahead of Black Friday continue as international union asks ship operators to raise concerns An international trade union has asked ship operators handling goods in Walmart's global supply chain to raise concerns with the company about how it treats its US workforce. Walmart has been affected by a series of walkouts and protests by several union-supported groups seeking to highlight what they say are low pay, poor benefits and retaliatory measures against those employees who speak out. A series of high-profile protests are now planned to highlight "Black Friday" this week, which is the busiest single shopping day in the US calendar. Organisers behind the OUR Walmart and Making Change at Walmart groups say up to 1,000 actions are planned and several walkouts have already happened. Now the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) has written to shipping owners and ship captains who carry Walmart goods and asked them to contact the gigantic global company and express support for the protesting workers. "Walmart workers taking industrial action know that their jobs are at risk. The least we can do to help is use our expertise at sea and relations with the shipping industry to back them in any way we can." ITF acting general secretary Steve Cotton told the Guardian: "We're talking to captains and the ship operators moving Walmart goods, and asking them to register their concerns with the company about its treatment of staff – and the impact that could have on trade." The ITF is a global union federation representing around four and a half million transport workers worldwide. In recent months, parts of Walmart's outsourced warehouse supply chain in the US have been hit by strikes and demonstrations. Walmart has accused unions of seeking to cause trouble and organise its workforce. It has said previously that only a tiny minority of its 1.3 million US staff are joining the protests and has defended its wages and benefits as offering good jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans. But the protests do appear to have rattled the firm. Walmart has filed a complaint with the labor board asserting that OUR Walmart's protests violate federal law that prevents 30 days of picketing when a union is seeking recognition. Walmart says the protests fit that description and are actually sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. It has sought an injunction to prohibit the protests. Both OUR Walmart and the UFCW deny those allegations and say that they are not seeking union recognition. However, Walmart spokesman Steve Restivo said: "There are only a handful of associates at a handful of stores who are participating in these UFCW publicity stunts. Most of the folks who are turning out aren't Walmart associates but instead union representatives and members. An overwhelming majority of our associates are excited about Black Friday and are ready to serve our customers. We're proud of the job they do not only during this busy holiday time but also throughout the year." OUR Walmart has also filed complaints alleging that public statements made by Walmart executives have amounted to a threat to protesting employees. Walmart spokesman David Tovar this week warned on CBS Evening News of the possible consequences for employees walking off their scheduled shifts. "If associates are scheduled to work on Black Friday, we expect them to show up and to do their job. And if they don't, depending on the circumstances, there could be consequences," he said. That statement angered some OUR Walmart members. "Some of my co-workers are afraid, but this kind of intimidation by Walmart management is an example of why we are going on strike. I know my rights and I'm not afraid to protest," said Dan Hindman, a California Walmart worker and member of OUR Walmart. Those protests look set to go ahead and range from walkouts to leafleting of shoppers as they crowd into stores in the hunt for bargains to stunts like "flash mobs" and other events. They are currently planned in various cities in states that include California, Illinois, Texas, Maryland, Louisiana, Florida, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Wisconsin.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The gap between the carbon emission cuts pledged and the cuts scientists say are needed has widened, report warns The world is straying further away from commitments to combat climate change, bringing the prospect of catastrophic global warming a step closer, a UN report said on Wednesday. The warning came as nearly 200 governments prepare to meet in Qatar for international climate negotiations starting next Monday. The gap between what world governments have committed to by way of cuts in greenhouse gases and the cuts that scientists say are necessary has widened, but in order to stave off dangerous levels of global warming, it should have narrowed. There is now one-fifth more carbon in the atmosphere than there was in 2000, and there are few signs of global emissions falling, according to the new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep). The warning of increasing emissions came as fresh evidence was published showing the last decade was the warmest on record for Europe. The European Environment Agency (EEA) said all parts of the region had been affected, with higher rainfall in northern Europe and a drying out in the south, bringing flooding to northern countries including the UK, and droughts to the Mediterranean. According to the United Nations report, drawing on research from more than 50 scientists, the widening gap between countries' plans and scientific estimates means that governments must step up their ambitions as a matter of urgency to avoid even worse effects from warming. "The transition to a low-carbon, inclusive green economy is happening far too slowly and the opportunity for meeting [scientific advice on emissions targets] is narrowing annually," said Achim Steiner, executive director of Unep. The explicit goal of international policy is to prevent global warming of more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, which scientists say is the limit of safety beyond which climate change is likely to become irreversible and catastrophic. That goal that has been roughly translated as a concentration of carbon in the atmosphere of no more than 450 parts per million. To meet this, governments would have to ensure that no more than 44 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) is emitted per year by 2020. The UN's latest research, published on Wednesday as the Emissions Gap Report 2012, shows that on current trends, emissions by 2020 will be 58 Gt CO2e. This gap between the cuts needed and the cuts planned brings the prospect of dangerous levels of climate change - entailing more extreme weather including floods, droughts and fiercer storms, such as those witnessed this year - much closer. Even if countries manage to change direction in time and meet the emissions-cutting targets they have committed to in the past three years, the gap will still be large - about 8 Gt by 2020. To meet scientific advice, countries would have to agree to much bigger curbs on emissions than they have yet done - and there is little chance of that happening at the next round of annual climate negotiations, which begin on Monday in Doha, Qatar. At the fortnight-long talks, ministers are expected to set out a few more details of how they will work towards their agreed plan of drawing up a new global climate change treaty by 2015, to come into effect from 2020. Despite the slow pace of progress, Steiner said there was still a chance for the world to obey scientific advice. He said: "Bridging the gap remains do-able with existing technologies and policies." He said many of the measures governments were undertaking, from investments in renewable energy to public transport and higher energy efficiency standards for buildings, were yet to bear fruit, and their effects should start to be seen in the next few years. But he warned that countries must avoid being "locked in" to high-carbon infrastructure - power stations and buildings constructed today will still be in operation and spewing out carbon decades from now, and that will be unsustainable. It would be cheaper to make sure that all such infrastructure is low-carbon from the start, than to abandon it or refurbish in years to come. Christiana Figueres, the UN's top climate official, who will head next week's talks, said: "Time is running out, but the technical means and the policy tools to allow the world to stay below 2C [of warming] are still available to governments and societies." Environmental groups warned that the UN report showed governments were failing. Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy programme at the World Resources Institute, said: "This report is another harsh reminder that the world is simply not moving aggressively enough to tackle the climate challenge. The gap is growing and carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, yet the current pledges and commitments by countries remain sorely inadequate. We are already seeing how climate change – with more extreme weather events, rising seas and more droughts – is taking its toll on people, property and our economy. Without a rapid change in direction, the world is headed more and more firmly down a path to even more severe changes that will be felt around the globe." In Europe, the EEA said land temperatures in the decade from 2002 to 2011 were 1.3C warmer than the pre-industrial average. Europe could be between 2.5C and 4C warmer from 2050, according to projections. The study found heat waves have increased in frequency and length, while river droughts have been more severe and frequent in southern Europe. Glaciers in the Alps have lost about two-thirds of their volume since 1850. Prof Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the EEA, said: "Climate change is a reality around the world, and the extent and speed of change is becoming ever more evident. This means that every part of the economy, including households, needs to adapt as well as reduce emissions."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mother of Sattar Beheshti, who died in custody, says campaign of intimidation has been launched against family The mother of an Iranian blogger who died in custody has accused the authorities of killing her son and launching an intimidation campaign against her family. Sattar Beheshti was a 35-year-old blogger from the city of Robat-Karim who lost his life while being interrogated by Iran's cyberpolice, accused of acting against the national security because of what he had posted on Facebook. Iran's opposition activists have accused the regime of torturing Beheshti to death. In jail, Beheshti had no access to his family nor to a lawyer. Beheshti's mother, who has not been named but is pictured with him in one of the only images available of him online, has for the first time spoken out against the state pressure on her family not to speak to the press. "I have no fears. I can't accept that my son has died by natural causes," she told Sahamnews, a news website close to an Iranian opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi, who is under house arrest. "My son has been killed. He went to jail standing on his own legs and they gave us his dead body." Embarrassed by the fury among Iranians over the incident, officials from the judiciary acknowledged in a rare move that he had died in prison and promised a thorough investigation but have since sent out mixed messages about the causes of his death. Opposition websites also reported that an Iranian prisoner who witnessed the signs of torture on Beheshti's body and spoke about it to prison officials has since gone on hunger strike after being persecuted. Abolfazl Abedini, a journalist and labour activist, was sent from Tehran's Evin prison, where he was held along with Beheshti, to Zahedan prison in the south of the country after speaking out about Beheshti. Kaleme, a news website close to the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, said Abedini was brought back to Tehran on Friday but had since refused to accept food because of what appear to be the authorities' attempts to silence him over the blogger's case. Iran's state prosecutor, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, initially said that wounds were found on Beheshti's body and the judiciary was reported to have arrested a number of people believed to be involved in his case, but some regime officials have ruled out the possibility that he was tortured. The verdict of the forensic medical examiners is still not clear. An official from the coroner's office was quoted by agencies earlier this week as saying that Beheshti had died of natural causes, but it denied the comments later. A week after Beheshti's arrest, his family received phone calls from the prison authorities telling them to buy a grave and collect his body. His body received an Islamic washing ritual but the funeral was carried out by security officials and with the presence of only one family member. Beheshti's mother told Sahamnews that the shroud covering his body was bloody. "Why didn't they let us wash the body ourselves?" she asked, adding that the security officials had put the family under surveillance, closely watching all their moves since the blogger's death came to light. She said the authorities had threatened the family with the arrest of Beheshti's sister should they speak to the media. "Why did they have an arrest warrant for my daughter in their hands? Why do the officials follow us everywhere we go? Why was his shroud bloody?" said the mother.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Burmese government says it will sign agreement with IAEA to dispel suspicions of secret nuclear programme Burma's government has said it will open the country to comprehensive international inspection in an effort to demonstrate that it does not have a covert nuclear programme. The regime said it would sign an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that would, if implemented, mark an important breakthrough in the regime's relations with the rest of the world, and could help dispel longstanding suspicions that it is pursuing a clandestine programme in co-operation with North Korea aimed at building nuclear weapons. Burma has yet to approach the IAEA formally about the proposal, and hitherto had not been very forthcoming in response to the agency's enquiries about alleged covert work. The IAEA's voluntary additional protocol, which the Burmese government says it will sign, would give the agency's inspectors wide discretion to visit sites of their choosing at short notice, whether the state has declared them to be nuclear-related or not, in order "to assure the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities". The Institute for Science and International Security, an independent counter-proliferation watchdog, called this week's Burmese announcement "a remarkable decision". "This latest move by Burma is extremely positive for its ongoing push for openness about the nuclear issue and for building confidence and transparency with the international community," David Albright and Andrea Stricker wrote on the institute's website. The nuclear announcement, which was timed to coincide with Barack Obama's landmark visit to Burma this week, are part of a concerted effort by the president, Thein Sein, to break out of international isolation. But US sceptics argue the country should not be rewarded until it has implemented the deal. "The concern of the international community will not pause until full disclosure of the North Korea-Burma relationship is achieved," the senator Richard Lugar said. Two years ago, a report on Burma's nuclear aspirations by a former IAEA inspector, Robert Kelley, and commissioned by an opposition group, claimed there was evidence that Burma was carrying out a covert programme. It referred to a secret document from the country's "nuclear battalion", instructing a factory to build a "bomb reactor". Much of the information came from a Burmese defector, Sai Thein Win, who smuggled hundreds of photographs of the alleged programme when he left the country in 2010. IAEA inspectors were said to be intrigued if not convinced by the Kelley report, and they asked to visit sites mentioned in it. However, the Burmese government did not co-operate. "Burma may send the additional protocol to parliament and it may be signed. Then it has to be ratified, which many states take months to years to do," Kelley said in a sceptical reaction to the Burmese announcement. "Then Burma will have to submit a declaration of all nuclear materials and nuclear facilities. For countries just stepping up to the plate this process often takes several years."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is in the Middle East to try to try to bring about a ceasefire
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The nation's fiscal cliff nightmare played out in miniature form in the mountain town of Mammoth Lakes. But four months on, residents there say they have settled into acceptance It had endured earthquakes, volcanic gases and droughts, but Mammoth Lakes, a scenic town perched high in the Sierra Nevada, is best known for falling off its very own fiscal cliff. The town filed for bankruptcy in July after being bungling a huge property deal, a fiasco which made headlines and was calculated to cost each man, woman and child more than $5,000. It was a nation's fiscal nightmare played out in miniature amid the pine forests and ice-capped mountains of northern California, a picturesque stage for an ugly financial tale. Four months later the season's first snow blankets Mammoth Lakes and residents are making a discovery about fiscal disaster: life goes on. "It was almost like a grieving process," said Matthew Lehman, the mayor. "You go from denial to anger to blame and in the end, relief." Authorities and businesses have adapted, cutting costs and seeking new opportunities, and austerity's axe has, for now, spared residents the worst.
About $2m of the town's annual $18m budget must go to paying off the debt for the next 23 years, a figure which at first shocked, then slowly settled into acceptance. The police force will be slashed, snow clearing curbed and the municipal swimming pool may close but basic infrastructure will survive. "There is resignation. People are getting used to the idea that this is what it's going to be like," said George Shirk, news editor of the Mammoth Times. The town is not typical. Unlike Greece, the US federal government or broke California cities such as Stockton, it can rely almost entirely on tourism. "Here you can screw up everything but no one can take away the mountain and the whole reason Mammoth exists," said Shirk. About 1.5 million visitors come here each year to ski, snowboard, hike and fish, sustaining a permanent population of just 8,234. This summer's influx set records, packing hotels and restaurants like never before. The bankruptcy filing did not discourage visitors, said John Urdi, the town's tourism executive director. "If anything, the added exposure has been good for us. People who wouldn't otherwise have known about us saw us in the news and were curious." This week's snow augured a lucrative winter. "The phones are already ringing." Perched at 7,880 feet, Mammoth Lakes boasts a dramatic landscape of vertiginous peaks, hot springs and volcanic gases. It is subject to roving bears, droughts, storms and earthquakes, including a swarm which shut much of the town in 1989. It also suffered, according to Shirk, the news editor, a fit of "hubris and greed" which fuelled an ill-fated 1997 deal to let a developer build a $400m resort in exchange for improvements to the airport. When the town council subsequently reneged on the deal, partly because federal authorities opposed it, the developer, Terry Ballas, sued for breach of contract in 2006. Thus began a legal odyssey. A jury in Bridgeport, a nearby farming hamlet, awarded Ballas and his partners $30m. Many in Mammoth Lakes believe their rural neighbour used the judgment to punish their perceived city slicker, dollar-counting ways. "There has always been conflict between us and Bridgeport," said Lehman, the mayor. Mammoth Lakes appealed and lost again, legal fees snowballing the sum to $43m. The town council filed for bankruptcy but before it took effect reached a settlement with creditors in August to pay a reduced sum, $29.5m, over 23 years. Interest, if payments follow that schedule, will bring the total to $48.5m. "There was a whole spectrum of finger-pointing," said Lehman. Others recall it as a time of foaming rage. Greek-style austerity has not materialised but there is recrimination, not least in the police department which has been cut in recent years from 25 to 17 officers, and is now set to be whittled to 10. "It's terrible. It's a big morale issue for us because obviously the council doesn't respect the job we do," said Lt John Mair, one of those for the chop. "A consistent line of bad decisions has gotten us into this mess and this is another one." The town council is considering phasing out the department altogether and letting the county sheriff fill the void. Ruben Ramos, a police association board member, said the union was skimping on leaving parties to build up a legal fund. "It's like a big cloud. These guys deserve more." There is public sympathy for officers but few fear a crime wave. "This isn't Compton. We don't have gang wars, we have a bunch of drunks at the weekend," said Shirk. Rick Wood, a long-serving council member, defended slashing the police budget and said the level of public services needed to be debated. "I'm optimistic. It's not the end of the world for the government of Mammoth." To woo more off-peak visitors the town has launched a marketing drive and series of initiatives, including musical concerts, a downhill "kamikaze" bike race, a half-marathon and improved track facilities for elite athletes seeking altitude training. If President Barack Obama and Congress need extra wind for the federal budget tussle, they know where to come.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Colonel Farag al-Dersi played key role in curbing militia power in wake of murder of US ambassador Chris Stevens in September The Libyan security chief who led an anti-militia crackdown in the wake of the killing of the country's US ambassador has been assassinated in Benghazi, raising questions about the government's ability to impose the rule of law. Colonel Farag al-Dersi, Benghazi's chief of security, was shot dead by three gunmen in the eastern Libyan city where ambassador Chris Stevens and three fellow diplomats died after the US consulate was overrun on 11 September. The colonel had been instrumental in seeking to curb the power of extremist militias in Benghazi, banning some and trying to bring others under control of government-appointed officers. His death is the latest in a string of killings and car bombings in the city, most of them targeting officials who had high-profile roles in the former administration of Muammar Gaddafi. To date none of the assassins have been put on trial. The latest killing highlights the problems faced by Libya's new cabinet, which was sworn-in last week, in tackling the country's security vacuum. Police and army functions remain distributed among a patchwork of militias. Some, notably those in the former key rebel cities of Misrata and Zintan, are well organised, but other parts of the country remain chaotic. The new government is handicapped by the exclusion from office of eight of its 27 ministers, including both interior and justice ministers, by a commission investigating their alleged links to the former Gaddafi regime. No replacements have been announced by prime minister Ali Zidan, leaving the country still without a full cabinet four months after Libya held its first free national elections in more than 40 years. The assassination of Dersi also highlights the lack of progress made in catching the killers of Stevens, who died when the consulate was stormed and set ablaze by several dozen militiamen. Libya has yet to give details of any investigation into the death of what was the first killing of a US ambassador since 1979, or bring any suspects to trial. Also unclear is what role, if any, America's FBI has been given in the case. The uncertainty at the heart of government is also handicapping reform. A three-day international trade conference meeting this week in the capital, Tripoli, is taking place without the participation of government ministers or officials, leaving investors unsure about Libya's future economic policy, or what plans the government has for establishing security.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab is executed in Pune in India's first use of death penalty since 2004 Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only gunman to have survived the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, has been hanged in the central Indian city of Pune and buried in the prison yard. The execution – carried out days before the fourth anniversary of the attacks – was the first in India since 2004 and only the third in the past 17 years. The Indian minister for home affairs, Sushil Kumar Shinde, announced the execution, saying the president, Pranab Mukherjee, had turned down Kasab's appeal for clemency. "It was decided then that on 21 November at 7.30 in the morning he would be hanged. That procedure has been completed today," Shinde told reporters on Wednesday morning. Kasab, 24, was the only survivor of the group of gunmen who killed more than 160 people over three days in a string of attacks targeting luxury hotels, a railway station, tourist cafes and a Jewish centre. A photograph of Kasab walking through Mumbai's main railway station with an AK-47 assault rifle and a rucksack crammed with ammunition became an enduring image of the attack. Sachin Kalbag, editor of Mumbai's popular MidDay newspaper, said news of the execution had brought "considerable relief across the city and joy in some pockets where the most murders were committed. "Any happiness is not over the execution but because there is now some kind of closure for the families of those who died that day," he said. Leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba – the extremist group blamed by India for the attacks – said Kasab "was a hero and will inspire other fighters to follow his path". The Pakistan Taliban said they were shocked by the hanging. "There is no doubt that it's very shocking news and a big loss that a Muslim has been hanged on Indian soil," a spokesman told Reuters. Others in Pakistan said the execution of Kasab would make it harder to prosecute those who co-ordinated the attack by mobile phone from a house in Karachi, the southern Pakistani port city. "If we are to go after the network we have to have living evidence, but now we only have what is in the files," said Khalid Munir, a retired army colonel. "[Kasab] may have only been an operator, a foot soldier for those guiding him, but he could have given more information, given evidence in the Pakistani courts. The Bombay case ends here," he said. Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, has in the past said the country has been unable to take action against Hafiz Saeed, the cleric accused of heading Lashkar-e-Taiba, because evidence provided by India is "vague and insufficient". Delhi has denied the claim. Talat Masood, a former general, said the more important problem was a lack of political will in Pakistan. "If they were really determined they could punish these people, but the problem is the weakness of the state," he said. "They think that at the moment they can't afford an angry reaction from the militants." Pakistan has denied that its security agencies are in any way connected to the attack and says it is prosecuting seven suspected militants for their role. Testimony to American and Indian investigators from David Headley, a Pakistani-American involved in the plot, implicated junior officials within the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's main military security agency. There was no evidence that senior officials had knowledge of the plot, or at least its full extent, Headley indicated. Human rights groups criticised the execution. "The hanging of Ajmal Kasab marks a concerning end to [India's] moratorium on capital punishment. Instead of resorting to the use of execution to address heinous crime, India should join the rising ranks of nations that have taken the decision to remove the death penalty from their legal frameworks," said Meenakshi Ganguly, the south Asia director of the campaign group Human Rights Watch. On Tuesday a United Nations committee adopted a draft resolution calling for a moratorium on capital punishment. India was among 36 countries – including Pakistan, the US, Singapore, Egypt, Japan, China and Sri Lanka – who opposed the resolution, citing the right of each sovereign nation to decide its own legal system. Few analysts thought the killing of Kasab would interfere with political efforts in Delhi and Islamabad to improve relations between the two countries. On Tuesday the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, ratified a long-planned relaxation of visa requirements for Indians travelling in Pakistan. Indian analysts, however, say a repeat attack like that of 2008 could bring about a war between the two countries and criticise precautions taken to prevent such an attack. The absence of sectarian violence after the attack has been seen as a testament to the strength of India's secular democracy. Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, who runs the Delhi-based Urdu-language Milli Gazette newspaper, said Indian Muslims had no "concern" for Kasab. "Any terrorist should be hanged. He should have been executed long ago," Khan told the Guardian.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | M23 group says it will take control of Democratic Republic of the Congo after seizing city of Goma The rebel group M23 has said it is ready to march on the capital city of Kinshasa and take control of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), having captured Goma, the main city in the east of the country. At a gathering of civilians, police and government soldiers at the Stade du Volcan football stadium in Goma, thousands of Congolese troops defected to the rebels, as the M23 military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Vianney Kazarama issued a message to the president, Joseph Kabila. "People say we have balkanised the Congo, but that is wrong. We will go to Kinshasa, we will unite the country," he announced. "The DRC is indivisible. Nobody will divide the country." The crowd cheered its approval. Later, Kazarama told journalists: "We will go to Kinshasa if the people there invite us. We obey the will of the people. If they want Kabila [to resign], we will support the people." M23 seized control of Goma early on Tuesday afternoon after a brief fight with government troops in the centre of the city. The Congolese army soldiers – poorly supplied, underfed and rarely paid – fled the city without putting up any resistance of note. On Wednesday, the rebels began the process of recruiting army deserters and government police and securing a city that was left lawless as government agents fled alongside troops. In an effort to prevent an escalation of the rebellion in the central African country, Kabila flew to Kampala, Uganda, to meet Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, and Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda. Rwanda and Uganda are accused of supporting the rebels. Kabila's troubled government remains unwilling to negotiate with the M23. "We're no longer going to respond to these people who work for someone else," government spokesman Lambert Mende told Reuters, referring to the allegations of Rwandan and Ugandan support for M23. "We're negotiating with those who they work for … Even if Rwanda takes Kinshasa, we'll continue to fight." At the football stadium, Lieutenant Colonel Eric Mankesi Ndamba was one of the highest-ranking government troops who had come to join M23. "The soldiers are hiding, afraid to come out," he said. "But I will address them, and they will join M23 as I am doing." By the end of the morning he said he had compiled a list of 2,100 soldiers who would defect to the rebels, alongside 700 police. Kazarama also confirmed M23 troops were moving along the road west out of Goma, following the route taken by the deserting army soldiers. He said the rebels had taken control of Sake, a town some 20 miles (30km) away, and that their intention was to head to Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province. The capture of Sake was confirmed by a UN source. "The priority is to restore the security of the population of Goma," said M23's political leader, Bishop Jean-Marie Runiga. "The people who worked in the provincial government administration will continue to do their work, though eventually we will make political appointments. It is not yet time for that, though." Kazarama strenuously denied claims that the rebels were linked to Rwanda, insisting M23 was a Congolese affair. He offered a pardon to government soldiers and police and urged them to return to Goma and join the rebels who were working, he said, in the interests of the people. Human Rights Watch, however, said M23 had committed "widespread war crimes in eastern [DRC]" and that "the United States government should publicly support sanctions against Rwandan officials backing the armed group". There are reports that local human rights defenders have fled Goma, fearing for their security under M23 rule. There is no credible challenge to M23 control in Goma, and the rebels have taken towns to the west of the city unopposed as they march towards Bukavu. The government troops are disorganised and demoralised; for now there seems to no way for Kabila's administration to prevent the rebels' advance.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The second in a two-part series looking at how has art has evolved to take advantage of new technologies
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is in the Middle East to try to try to bring about a ceasefire
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Laity plunges church into crisis with General Synod vote that rejected opening up episcopate to female clerics Bishops of the Church of England are holding an emergency meeting at the General Synod to decide how to respond to the failure of legislation that would have allowed women to join their ranks. The church was plunged into its gravest crisis in decades after a vote that would have opened up the episcopate to female clerics was lost by just six votes in the house of laity. The house of bishops had voted massively in favour of the legislation. Rowan Williams, the departing archbishop of Canterbury, for whom the defeat was a bitter disappointment and a major blow to his legacy, is to give a statement to the synod after the meeting, a Church of England spokesman said. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the archbishop of York, John Sentamu, said the decision not to allow women to become bishops was "very disappointing". But he added: "There will be women bishops in my lifetime … The principle has already been accepted." In dramatic scenes on Tuesday 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 needed a two-thirds majority in each of the three houses of the 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 was a 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 Williams, whose time at Lambeth Palace 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 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 the synod to support the measure and to "finish the job" of women's ordination. Welby was "taking stock" on Tuesday night. The house of bishops, which voted 44 to three in favour of the reform with two abstentions, 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 these so-called 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: "While 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." 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 the 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.
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