|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Pike River Coal company exposed miners to unacceptable risks before the explosion which killed 29 miners in 2010, report finds A New Zealand coal mining company ignored 21 warnings that methane gas had accumulated to dangerous levels before an underground explosion killed 29 workers two years ago, an investigation concluded. The official report released on Monday after eleven weeks of hearings on the disaster found broad safety problems in New Zealand workplaces and said the Pike River Coal company was exposing miners to unacceptable risks as it strove to meet financial targets. Labor minister Kate Wilkinson resigned from her labor portfolio upon the report's release, saying she felt it was the right and honourable thing to do after the tragedy occurred on her watch. She plans to retain her remaining government responsibilities. New Zealand prime minister John Key said the primary blame lies with the mining company. "The company completely and utterly failed to protect its workers," he said. The Royal Commission report said New Zealand has a poor workplace safety record and its regulators failed to provide adequate oversight before the explosion. At the time of the tragedy, New Zealand had just two mine inspectors who were unable to keep up with their workload, the report said. Pike River was able to obtain a permit with no scrutiny of its initial health and safety plans and little ongoing scrutiny. Key said he agrees with the report's conclusion that there needs to be a philosophical shift in New Zealand from believing that companies are acting in the best interests of workers to a more proscriptive set of regulations that forces companies to do the right thing. The commission's report recommended a new agency be formed to focus solely on workplace health and safety. In the seven weeks before the explosion, the Pike River company received 21 warnings that methane gas had built up to explosive levels below ground and another 27 warnings of dangerous levels, the report said. The warnings continued right up until the morning of the tragedy. The company used unconventional methods to get rid of methane, the report said. Some workers even rigged their machines to bypass the methane sensors after the machines kept automatically shutting down something they were designed to do when methane levels got too high. The company made a "major error" by placing a ventilation fan underground instead of on the surface, the report found. The fan failed after the first of several explosions, effectively shutting down the entire ventilation system. The company was also using water jets to cut the coal face, a highly specialised technique than can release large amounts of methane. The report did not definitively conclude what sparked the explosion itself, although it noted that a pump was switched on immediately before the explosion, raising the possibility it was triggered by an electrical arc. The now-bankrupt Pike River Coal company is not defending itself against charges it committed nine labor violations related to the disaster. Former chief executive Peter Whittall has pleaded not guilty to 12 violations and his lawyers say he is being scapegoated. An Australian contractor was fined last month for three safety violations after its methane detector was found to be faulty at the time of the explosion.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | PM believes critics are wrong to say he has a secret cache, but acknowledges a wider search may yield more texts and emails David Cameron has acknowledged in private that he may be sitting on a further cache of emails and texts to and from Rebekah Brooks after a limited search was carried out for the Leveson inquiry. The prime minister faced fresh embarrassment over his links with the former News International chief executive as it became clear only a handful of his communications were searched for the inquiry, set up after the phone-hacking scandal. Cameron and his aides looked for emails and texts with News International or News Corporation employees only if there was a reference to the BSkyB bid. He checked his personal and office phone. The prime minister believes it is wrong of critics, such as the former Labour Europe minister Chris Bryant, to say he is hiding a secret cache of communications because the search requested by the Leveson inquiry yielded no texts or emails. A No 10 source said: "Chris Bryant has made a series of claims that are ridiculous." But Cameron knows a wider search could uncover more texts and emails. In his written statement to the Leveson enquiry, the prime minister made clear the limited nature of the request for texts. "In terms of electronic communications, as requested, I have looked for text messages between myself and representatives of News Corporation or News International in relation to the BSkyB bid," Cameron said. "I have not found any such texts on my personal phone or office phone." He faced further discomfort when the Mail on Sunday published a text from Brooks in which she admitted she had cried twice during his party conference speech. She wrote: "Brilliant speech. I cried twice. Will love 'working together'." The paper also published a more innocuous text sent by the prime minister to Brooks about a horse he rode in company with her husband Charlie, one of Cameron's oldest friends. "The horse CB [Charlie Brooks] put me on. Fast, unpredictable and hard to control but fun. DC." The texts were handed to the Leveson inquiry by Brooks, as were those published by the inquiry in the summer. These revealed Cameron signed some of his texts to Brooks LOL, which she claimed meant "Laugh out loud", not "Lots of Love". Bryant tweeted of the new revelations: "These new texts are the tip of an iceberg." The Mail on Sunday reported that Bryant had claimed to be in contact with a No 10 mole involved in search who is said to have described the texts as "salacious". Bryant told Cameron in the Commons on Wednesday: "There is a stash of embarrassing emails, isn't there? [Former special adviser] Adam Smith had to publish every single one of his emails and ended up resigning. Why will the prime minister not publish all his emails?" Cameron declined to respond to Bryant's point as he is awaiting an apology from him after he broke an embargo to leak information from the inquiry. David Willetts, the universities minister, admitted the relationship between politicians and some newspapers became too close. He told the Sunday Politics show on BBC1: "The prime minister has always complied with every request for relevant information from Leveson. "Now, of course, we wait and see what Lord [Justice] Leveson proposes."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | State's Democrats file lawsuit to keep polling places open as voter anger grows Florida Democrats have accused the swing state's Republican leadership of impinging on the fundamental rights of Americans amid growing voter anger at hours-long lines to vote, the shutting down of early voting and chaos in Miami over absentee ballots. The state's Democratic party filed a lawsuit on Sunday to keep polling places open until election day as the Republicans stood accused of attempting to disenfranchise its opponents with new limits on early voting that contributed to waits of more than seven hours to cast ballots in Democratic strongholds such as Miami. The Miami-Dade elections headquarters shut it doors on Sunday to people attempting to request absentee ballots because so many people showed up. Outside, would be voters protested, shouting: "Let us vote". Myrna Peralta, who waited in line with her four-year-old grandson for nearly two hours before being turned away, told the Miami Herald: "This is America, not a third-world country … They're not letting people vote." After the outcry spread over social media, the department opened its doors again later in the afternoon. But the incident reflected deepening frustration at what are widely seen as Republican attempts to manipulate the election. Long queues over the past week for early voting reflected a record turnout to vote early in Florida, with about 4 million people casting their ballots in advance of election day proper on Tuesday, as well as the longest ballot in the state's history, including complicated constitutional amendments. But Democrats say they were also caused by Republican legislation sharply cutting the number of days for early voting from 14 to eight. That included scrapping voting on the final Sunday before election day, when large numbers of African Americans traditionally went to the polls after church. The Florida Democratic party filed a legal action in Miami to try to keep at least some polling stations open for early voting in three key counties - Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach - which account for about one-third of the party's support in the state. The lawsuit said "inadequate polling facilities" contributed to voting lines up to seven hours long in all three places. The last voters in Miami cast their ballots at 1am on Sunday even though the polling place official closed at 7pm on Saturday. "The extraordinarily long lines deterred or prevented voters from waiting to vote. Some voters left the polling sites upon learning of the expected wait, and others refused to line up altogether," the legal action said. "These long lines and extreme delays unduly and unjustifiably burdened the right to vote." The state's Republican governor, Rick Scott, who has the power to extend early voting days, declined to do so. Rod Smith, the Chairman of the Florida Democratic party, accused Republicans on impinging on people's rights. "Voting is a fundamental right, and we all have an interest in assuring that all Americans have effective opportunities to vote," he said. "Florida's Republican state legislature has already reduced the number of days to early vote by six days. Because of Governor Scott's refusal to follow precedent and extend early voting hours in the face of unprecedented voter turnout in south Florida, we are requesting in federal court that more Floridians have a meaningful chance to early vote." Separately, a judge ordered an extension to early voting at an Orange county polling station after it was shut down by a bomb scare on Saturday. The US justice department – with one eye on the 2000 election debacle of hanging chads and discounted votes, as well as more recent Florida election legislation struck down in federal court as discriminating against minorities – is monitoring the conduct of the vote in Florida to determine if the long lines are a deliberate obstacle to voting and therefore in breach of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Officials say it was unclear whether boy, who was visiting zoo with his mother, died from fall or from the dogs' attack A young boy visiting the Pittsburgh zoo with his mother and friends was killed Sunday when he fell about 14ft off a deck into an area home to a pack of African painted dogs, who pounced on the boy and mauled him, zoo officials said. It was not clear whether he died from the fall or the attack, said Barbara Baker, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh zoo & PPG aquarium. When the boy fell, other visitors immediately told staff members, who responded along with Pittsburgh police. Zookeepers called off the dogs, and seven of them immediately went to a back building. Three more eventually were drawn away from the boy, but the last dog wouldn't come into the building, and police had to shoot him, Baker said. "It's clear that the dogs did attack the child, but whether he died of the attack or the fall has yet to be determined," Baker said. The dogs are about as big as medium-sized domestic dogs, 2 to 2½ft high and 37 to 80lbs, according to the zoo. African wild dogs are also known as cape hunting dogs, spotted dogs, and painted wolves. They have large, round ears and dark brown circles around their eyes and are considered endangered. Police and the Allegheny County medical examiner's office were investigating. Baker said the zoo, which has never had a visitor death, plans an internal investigation. In May, some of the dogs escaped into a part of the exhibit that is usually closed. The zoo was on lockdown for about an hour as a precaution. Ten African painted dogs were born at the zoo in 2009, and their mother died of a ruptured uterus shortly after delivering the litter. Five of the pups survived. The mortality rate for painted pups is 50%, even when born in the wild to a healthy mother. It was only the second litter to be hand-raised in captivity, zoo officials said at the time.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Pew figures show Obama leading 48-45% among likely voters as rivals make final dash across swing states before election Barack Obama has edged ahead of Mitt Romney in the final days of the presidential campaign, helped by his handling of superstorm Sandy, according to a new poll. As the two candidates criss-crossed the country in a last round of campaigning before Tuesday's election, a survey by the Pew Research Center, one of the more reliable pollsters, showed Obama leading Romney 48% to 45% among likely voters. The president's top campaign advisers accused Romney of desperation on Sunday as they claimed the race was moving decisively in Obama's direction. Obama is enjoying a slight edge in polls from most of the crucial swing states that will decide the outcome. Obama and Romney will make eight campaign stops between them on Monday, flying from morning to night across six of the crucial swing states, following similar cross-country dashes over the weekend. Pew estimated that in the final tally, Obama will take 50% of the popular vote to 47% for Romney. The modest lead for Obama marks a shift from a week ago when the two were tied on 47% before Sandy. Among likely voters, 69% said they approved of Obama's handling of the storm. The findings are similar to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll published at the weekend. The two offer the first firm evidence of the impact of Sandy on the election. Pew carries one caution for Obama, suggesting turnout may be lower than in 2008 and 2004, which could help Romney. Obama's team claimed that Romney's frantic campaign schedule reflected a sense of desperation, squeezing in a late visit to previously neglected Pennsylvania Sunday in the search for elusive electoral college votes elsewhere. The Obama team also cited visits Monday to Florida and Virginia, two states it said the Romney camp had claimed to have locked up. In an interview with ABC, David Plouffe, who organised Obama's re-election bid, expressed confidence the president will win on Tuesday, and seized on a comment by Karl Rove that Obama had benefited from superstorm Sandy. Democrats are interpreting this as Rove, George W Bush's former campaign strategist and co-founder of the Crossroads Super Pac that has poured millions of dollars into Romney's campaign and those of other Republicans, beginning to get his excuses in early. "A few days ago he [Rove] predicted a big Romney win. My sense is Karl is going be at a crossroads himself on Tuesday when he tries to explain to the people who wrote him hundreds of millions of dollars why they fell up short," Plouffe said. Another Obama strategist, David Axelrod, commenting on Romney's Pennsylvania trip, told Fox News: "They understand that they're in deep trouble. They've tried to expand the map because they know in states like Ohio. They're behind and they're not catching up at this point." He added: "They understand that the traditional, or the battleground, states that we've been focusing are not working out for them." A Washington Post/ABC poll had the two tied on 48% nationally while a Wall Street Journal/NBC one puts Obama on 48% to Romney on 47%, compared with last week when the two were on 47%. The WSJ/NBC poll shows Obama is being given lots of credit by likely voters for his handling of hurricane Sandy, with nearly seven in 10 voters approving of his performance, with only 15% disapproving. On the Sunday morning talk shows, Obama's campaign team appeared to be the more bullish, with Romney's team the more defensive. Romney's political director Rich Beeson, also on Fox, questioned the credibility of the polls, often a sign of a campaign unhappy with the direction an election is headed, said: "These polls are like nailing Jello to a tree. They are all over the place." He predicted that independents would turn out in greater numbers for Romney and that Republicans too will flood the polling booths. "There's an intensity factor out there on the side of the Republicans, that is a significant gap and we see it out on the ground, we see it when people are knocking on the doors, we see it when people are making the phone calls," Beeson said. Asked about a controversial ad that the Romney campaign is broadcasting that claims jeep jobs are being sent to China as a result of Obama's bailout of the motor industry, Beeson ducked the question. Motor manufacturers have denied the claim but the Romney campaign has expanded the number of outlets for broadcasting the discredited ad. Obama, campaigning alongside Bill Clinton, attracted a crowd of 24,000 for a late-night rally in Virginia on Saturday night and 14,000 in New Hampshire on Sunday. The crowd in Virginia, while respectable for a cold evening, was well down on 2008 when an eve-of-election event at almost the same location attracted more than 80,000. Although Obama and Romney are tied nationally, Obama appears to be doing better in key swing states. In Iowa, the normally reliable Des Moines Register poll put Obama on 47% to Romney's 42%. In Ohio, which both campaigns are treating as potentially decisive, attracting more visits than the others, a Columbus Dispatch poll puts Obama on 50% to Romney's 48%. Campaigning in Iowa yesterday, Romney added a new line to his stump speech, saying that Obama's slogan 'Forward' should be renamed 'Forewarned', that a second term would look much like the first. Romney too is focused on a remark by Obama on Friday in which he told a crowd in Ohio not to boo. "Voting is the best revenge," Obama said. Romney, in his speeches, said: "Vote for revenge? Let me tell you: Vote for love of country." Campaigning alongside Bill Clinton in Concord, New Hampshire, on Sunday Obama said drew a parallel with Clinton's presidency. "Just as we did when Bill Clinton was president, we gotta ask the wealthiest to pay a little bit more so we can reduce the deficit and still invest in the things we need to grow," he said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Governor Cuomo fears 'massive housing problem' with thousands living in homes without power or heat following storm Authorities in the north-east United States are warning of a new crisis facing the region as cold weather heads towards tens of thousands of people who still have no power or heat and are living in homes damaged by superstorm Sandy. While much of New York City is approaching a semblance of normality, state governor Andrew Cuomo and the city's mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Sunday that plummeting temperatures were now one of the main threats facing residents in other stricken areas such as Staten Island and Long Island. Cuomo warned of a "massive, massive housing problem", with up to 40,000 people – mainly residents of public housing – needing relocating because of damage from the storm and the lack of electricity and heat. "People are in homes that are uninhabitable," Cuomo told reporters at a press briefing. "It's going to become increasingly clear that they're uninhabitable when the temperature drops and the heat doesn't come on." Fuel shortages are also having an impact on people with back-up generators. "There are continuing issues with the fuel delivery and fuel distribution system," he said. But he added that "there has been improvement, [and] there will be more improvement." The White House has sanctioned the release of an additional 12m gallons of unleaded fuel and 10m gallons of diesel. Much of that gas was being trucked to New Jersey and New York throughout the weekend. In the worst-hit areas of New York and New Jersey, which are still suffering six days after Sandy hit, there is growing anger among residents at the official response. In the Rockaways, an oceanfront section of Queens, Bloomberg was barracked by people as he toured the devastation over the weekend. Thousands there are still without power, and have been told they may remain so for days to come. "When are we going to get some help?" one woman shouted during an angry confrontation on Saturday. City officials have turned to opening warming shelters in preparation for a drop of temperatures overnight. Elderly people were being urged to move to these temporary homes. Meanwhile, about 25,000 blankets were being handed out to those who refused to move. But many believe the measures represent too little, too late, with some residents accusing the city of forgetting them in the rush to get the lights back on in the financial centre of lower Manhattan. "Nothing right is going on here. There's old ladies in my building that have got nothing," one resident told Bloomberg during his walkabout in the Rockaways. In a one-to-one with the mayor, the man complained: "This is the first drop-off site over the bridge, [and] we can't even get a bottle of water or a hot chocolate." Bloomberg promised that help was at hand, insisting that he understood their grievances. "I spoke with many people who were worried and frustrated and cold," the mayor said at a press briefing Saturday. "There is no power there and temperatures are dropping. Even those who have generators are having a hard time getting fuel." Gas shortages could continue for days, New Yorkers were told Sunday. Throughout the weekend, lines of cars queued up at pumps across New York. In neighbouring New Jersey, governor Chris Christie imposed rationing to cope with the scarcity of gas. At least 10 arrests have so far been made in relation to confrontations and line jumping at petrol stations. While parts of Staten Island and remote parts of Queens continue to struggle with blackouts, Manhattan is on its way to being restored to business as usual. Schools are due to reopen on Monday after a week out, and much of the subway will be running, though Cuomo warned commuters that the system may struggle to cope with the weight of traffic. "There's been major progress but it's not going to be normal tomorrow," he said. "South Ferry station, which had been a large fish tank, has now been pumped dry," he added. Cuomo also warned utilities firms that they would be held accountable for any delays that could have been prevented. "I want them to provide the service that they get paid to perform," he said, adding: "We will be reasonable, but we will hold them accountable." Bloomberg echoed governor Cuomo's call on utilities firms to up their game. "We urge them to commit more resources to get power back to the Rockaways," the mayor said in an update on recovery efforts. Bloomberg also stressed the need to keep warm and check on vulnerable neighbours who made need help. "It is cold outside and it will remain cold in the coming days. It is critical that people stay warm," he said in a Sunday afternoon press briefing. He spoke of an "enormous outpouring" of donations of clothes and food from members of the public but added that money sent to the Mayor's Fund would do more good at this stage as charity organisations were at capacity. Power had now been restored to all but 145,000 people across New York City. But 19,000 homes in the Rockaways – one of the worst hit areas – remained without electricity.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Provision is more than double amount initially allocated and underscores seriousness of UK bank subsidiary investigations HSBC will set aside an extra £500m to cover fines for alleged money laundering by its US arm when the bank releases its third-quarter results on Monday. The provision is more than double the £445m allocated by the bank in July to cover punishments by US regulators. The development will prove hugely embarrassing for the chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, who has tried to distance HSBC from scandal-hit rivals since taking the top post last year. The bank, the UK's most valuable, is known for its financial strength. It burnished a reputation as one of the more conservative financial institutions in the runup to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. But its US operations, primarily the lender Household, were caught cold by the sub-prime mortgage crash and plunged the UK listed firm into years of write-offs and regulatory probes. The revised estimate of the bill for fines and charges by US regulators will underline the growing seriousness of investigations into the activities of UK bank subsidiaries. Standard Chartered has also come under scrutiny for allowing terrorists and criminals access to its banking facilities, while Barclays admitted playing a part in the Libor rigging scandal. Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to be fined for its part in the Libor scandal. Barclays faces another potential fine, following claims it rigged the price of electricity in the US. Gulliver has already apologised for "shameful" system breakdowns, which failed to stop the bank from laundering money for terrorists and drug barons through operations in Mexico. In the summer the bank set aside $700m (£445m) for potential fines in the US and another £900m for mis-selling financial products in the UK. Gulliver conceded that the eventual fine from the US authorities could be "higher, possibly significantly higher", after a Senate report found that its US arm had allowed it to launder money for terrorists and drug barons because of its "pervasively polluted" culture. At the time he refused to say how much more money would have to be set aside. Many shareholders, however, were braced for regulators insisting on a much larger sum, given the strength of feeling in the US against lax controls at UK banks. Gulliver, who took the helm last year after 30 years at the bank, lastly as head of the investment banking division, said at half-year results that the bank was reforming its "federation structure" to try to avoid a re-run of the problems in the US. "I very much regret HSBC's past failures and very much apologise for them," he said. "What happened in Mexico and the US is shameful, it's embarrassing, it's very painful for all of us in the firm." Executives responsible for the Mexican business have since left the bank. It is understood staff at the London HQ, on the Isle of Dogs, London, are preparing to claw back millions of pounds in bonuses paid to senior officials, who allowed billions of illegal dollars to be funnelled through the financial system. The bank, which is expected to announce quarterly profits of £5bn, has confidently informed shareholders that it is no longer run as an operation with a presence in 80 countries "where the country head is king" but as an integrated business with four global heads to centralise standards and controls through a beefed-up compliance operation. Insiders say it will take Gulliver longer to reform structures that have dominated the bank for decades and provided a power base for many valued senior executives. The bank is also caught up in the Libor rigging scandal, along with several US and Swiss banks. They are accused of artificially inflating interest rates ahead of the crash to increase profits, and massaging them down in the wake of the crisis. This made it appear that their reputation was unharmed and they could access cheap funds in the market. However, Gulliver, whose bonuses are tied to the bank's reputation, did not make provision for any fine or legal cases. Barclays has been fined £290m for Libor manipulation. Since the summer HSBC has hired Preeta Bansal as its global general counsel for litigation and regulatory affairs, adding a third Obama administration official to support damage limitation efforts. Bansal will help manage litigation and regulatory risk, and report to the chief legal officer, Stuart Levey, the former sanctions official in the Bush and Obama Treasury offices, who was appointed in January. In August, the bank hired Robert Werner, a former head of the Treasury department's trade and economic enforcement arm, as head of global standards assurance.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US-based consumer electronics giant paid just $713m in overseas corporation tax on profits of $36.87bn Apple paid less than 2% tax on profit made outside the United States last year. The iPhone and iPad maker paid $713m (£445m) in overseas corporation tax on foreign profits of $36.87bn (£23bn) in the year to the end of September. That translates as a tax rate of 1.9%, compared to a headline corporation tax rate of 35% in the US and 24% in the UK. The details were revealed in Apple's 10K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Apple has not broken any laws by arranging its tax payments this way, but it is likely to reignite debate about the astonishingly small amount of tax US multinationals pay in the UK. Google, Amazon and Starbucks will be hauled before the Commons public accounts committee on Monday to explain why they pay so little tax to the exchequer. Analysis by the Guardian found that Google, Amazon, Starbucks and Facebook have paid just £30m in tax over the past four years despite generating more than £3.1bn in sales. Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee, said: "We want to ask them for an opportunity to explain why they don't pay proper levels of tax in the UK." Matt Brittin, the managing director of Google, has claimed to be too busy to attend the committee. Prime minister David Cameron has said he is "not happy with the current situation" of Apple, Google, Facebook, eBay and Starbucks avoiding nearly £900m of tax.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US-based consumer electronics giant paid just $713m in overseas corporation tax on profits of $36.87bn Apple paid less than 2% tax on profit made outside the United States last year. The iPhone and iPad maker paid $713m (£445m) in overseas corporation tax on foreign profits of $36.87bn (£23bn) in the year to the end of September. That translates as a tax rate of 1.9%, compared to a headline corporation tax rate of 35% in the US and 24% in the UK. The details were revealed in Apple's 10K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Apple has not broken any laws by arranging its tax payments this way, but it is likely to reignite debate about the astonishingly small amount of tax US multinationals pay in the UK. Google, Amazon and Starbucks will be hauled before the Commons public accounts committee on Monday to explain why they pay so little tax to the exchequer. Analysis by the Guardian found that Google, Amazon, Starbucks and Facebook have paid just £30m in tax over the past four years despite generating more than £3.1bn in sales. Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee, said: "We want to ask them for an opportunity to explain why they don't pay proper levels of tax in the UK." Matt Brittin, the managing director of Google, has claimed to be too busy to attend the committee. David Cameron has said he is "not happy with the current situation" of Apple, Google, Facebook, eBay and Starbucks avoiding nearly £900m of tax.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Activists say Syrian rebels have taken control of the al-Ward oilfield, which supplied fuel for the Assad regime's tanks Syrian rebels captured an oilfield in the east of the country on Sunday after three days of fierce fighting with government troops protecting the facility, activists said. The head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said rebels overran the al-Ward oilfield in the province of Deir el-Zour near the border with Iraq. About 40 soldiers were guarding the facility that the rebels had been pounding for the past three days, he said, adding that opposition fighters also captured several regime troops. Oil was a major source of revenue for the cash-strapped regime of President Bashar Assad before the and US imposed an embargo on Syria's crude exports last year to punish the government for its crackdown on protesters early on in the uprising. "This field used to supply the regime with fuel for its tanks and our aim was to stop these supplies," Omar Abu Leila, an activist in Deir el-Zour, told the Associated Press by telephone. He said there had been heavy fighting recently near the oil facility just east of the city of Mayadin. Both activists said the rebels had shot down a fighter jet near the oilfield. It was not clear if the warplane was taking part in fighting. Abu Leila said that the oilfield had been functioning until shortly before the rebels seized it. It was not clear whether the facility was damaged in the fighting or sabotaged by regime forces. Separately, disparate opposition factions started talks in Qatar on Sunday to align groups overseas with fighters on the ground. But there were early signs that the four-day discussions in Doha would not go smoothly, with some looking to dilute the influence of the existing Syrian National Council, a move that SNC leaders oppose. In other developments on Sunday, state media said rebels detonated a car bomb near a major hotel in the capital, wounding several people. They also said the rebels – the government refers to them as terrorists – were behind the assassination of a leading member of the ruling Ba'ath party in north-east Raqqa province. The powerful car bomb shook the Dama Rose hotel and shattered much of its glass, according to an AP reporter at the scene. The hotel has been used in the past by UN observers visiting Syria, including the Damascus representative of the new UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi. In Raqqa province, gunmen broke into the home of Ba'ath party official Ismail al-Hamadeh at dawn and sprayed him with bullets as he slept, according to a SANA report. Elsewhere in Syria, activists said the army clashed with rebels in the northern cities of Idlib and Aleppo, as well as in Damascus and the southern border town of Daraa, where the uprising began. In the Damascus suburbs of Harasta and al-Hajira, the army and opposition fighters exchanged heavy fire, killing a handful of rebels, SANA said. The fiercest fighting took place in Harem on the edge of Idlib, where 30 civilians were allegedly killed in clashes between rebels and the army, the agency said. The observatory said the Syrian army launched air strikes on rebel hideouts in Idlib's suburbs, mainly the strategic area of Maaret al-Numan, which rebels captured three weeks ago. Their presence in the city, along the main highway between Damascus and Aleppo, has disrupted the military's main supply route to the northern front. Activists say more than 36,000 people have been killed in 19 months of fighting in Syria.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Runners in town for the cancelled race seen jogging in the devastated New York borough with backpacks full of supplies Runners in town for the cancelled New York City Marathon have decided to devote their weekend to aiding victims of hurricane Sandy. Nine marathoners with backpacks were seen running down the sidewalk alongside Hyland Boulevard in Midland Beach in Staten Island on Sunday morning. "We're running out to areas of Staten Island that need supplies," said Sarah Hammond, who was carrying 25 pounds of baby wipes, diapers, dog food, clothes and personal hygiene items on her back. The runners disembarked from the Staten Island Ferry and made their way into the devastated borough at a steady pace. Staten Island was one of the hardest hit areas in the storm, with the vast majority of New York's casualties. The runners reported that they were among a group of over 900 athletes who decided to lend a hand in Staten Island's much needed relief efforts. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's original decision to go ahead with the marathon fostered resentment in Staten Island, where many residents continue to struggle with a lack of power and basic necessities. The runners organized through a Facebook page called New York Runners In Support of Staten Island. Rudi Reichert, one of the lead organizers of the contingent making its way through Midland Beach on Sunday, traveled from Austria for the race. He arrived in New York City on Friday. He was sitting in a diner eating cheesecake when he saw the news; "marathon is cancelled." Reichert told the Guardian he "totally" agreed with the decision to cancel the race. "It's embarrassing," he told the Guardian. "That's bad organization from Mayor Bloomberg." In addition to Austria, the marathon volunteers also included athletes from Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, California and local New Yorkers. "The people of Staten Island needed help and we were here and my girlfriend suggested 'Let's do this' and so we're here," said Jennifer Bornemann, a social worker from Anapolis. Bornemann was on the ground delivering hot meals, donating baby wipes, socks, long underwear and pre-paid cellphones in the ravaged neighborhood in New Dorp, where hundreds of homes were destroyed last week. Bornemann said the decision to cancel the race was the right one. "Absolutely, without question," she said. "I deferred before the decision was even made. I didn't feel right running in a city that was going through so much devastation." "The New York City marathon is a celebration and New York City isn't celebrating right now," she added. "We want to stand with the people of New York and help them out."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The tracks of this year's race are roughly set, so will the Academy take their meat gamey or be whores for greatness? The race is on. The polls are in. We have a frontrunner in trouble. A muscular challenger making hay. Gaffes. Melt-downs. Campaign coffers swollen with cash. The only question is: can the voters learn to love a sandcastle humper? I refer, of course, to the race for the Academy Award for best actor. You didn't know it was already underway? Where have you been? You've got better elections to be obsessing over? While everyone's attention was diverted by the small matter of who gets to lead the free world, Hollywood has begun the five-month-long jamboree that now constitutes the run-up to the Academy Awards. Here's what you need to know: everyone has decided Jennifer Lawrence is going to win best actress. Joaquin Phoenix was the front-runner for best actor until a few weeks ago, when he called the Oscars "bullshit". Then everyone had a freak-out on Twitter over Daniel Day-Lewis' accent, as revealed in the Lincoln trailer. Everyone loves Alan Arkin. Oh, and Argo is going to win best picture. Roger Ebert says so. Such is the received wisdom of the Oscarologists, that strange mole-like race of people who live underground for most of the year, emerge blinking out of the ground in early September to attend film festivals, pore over trailers and teasers, sift the soil through their fingers, sniff the air and type things like "I smell trouble" on their blogs. Here is how the race for best picture looks to them[click for graph], as of last week. The keen-eyed amongst you will notice two things: 1) Silver Linings Playbook's spell as frontrunner bore a suspicious resemblance to "the length of time it was playing at film festivals" snd 2) Argo's turn in the spotlight bears a suspicious resemblance to "the number of weeks it has been in general release." Those of you who object on the grounds that Silver Linings Playbook hasn't been released yet, and furthermore you have zero idea what it even is, need to toughen up. Awards season is not for pussies. By the end of it, we'll have you calling next year's race, blind, on the basis of which agent got the biggest shout-out at this year's ceremony. The tracks of the best actor race are roughly set. This year it looks like a three way race between Joaquin Phoenix, Denzel Washington and Daniel Day-Lewis. Thus far, Phoenix has been dominating the conversation with his electrifying jumble of method voodoo and chemically-induced jibber-jabber in The Master, although he damaged his chances considerably by giving an interview in which he called the Oscars "bullshit. I think it's total, utter bullshit, and I don't want to be a part of it. I don't believe in it." Actors have gotten away with this sort of thing in the past — Dustin Hoffman called the Academy Awards "a beauty contest" while George C Scott, nominated in 1970 for Patton, called the ceremonies "a two-hour meat parade" but that was then. Such comments don't go sit well in the world of $15m Oscar campaigns. And the performance? Phoenix's portrait of a man in a state of acute spiritual undress is right up the Academy's street. They certainly like their meat gamey: see Halle Berry's win in 2000 for Monster's Ball, or Natalie Portman's 2010 win for Black Swan. Although it's also a curiously opaque, depthless performance, raising more questions about the intentions of the director Paul Thomas Anderson than it does Phoenix's character. As Richard Brody put it, "It's not a work of psychological realism," one reason, perhaps, why the film has failed to catch on the box office. Is it too nuts even for the Academy? As one of the commentators at Hollywood Elsewhere put it, referring to a scene in which Phoenix makes out with a beach, "Oscar doesn't generally go for sandcastle humping." This could well turn out to be the question of the season. Well, do they or don't they? Phoenix's main competition couldn't be more dignified or draped in gravitas — and twice decorated already. Given his track record at bringing American period to life, I wasn't sure Daniel Day-Lewis was going to find much fresh turf in Spielberg's Lincoln – between his Hawkeye, Bill the Butcher and Daniel Plainview, haven't we already seen his Abraham Lincoln? – but Day-Lewis tacks in the complete opposite direction to come up with a soft miracle: stoop-shouldered, spindly of frame, his Abe Lincoln is slightly weary, sagacious soul, but ramrod straight, driving the entire two-hour-and-twnety-minutes of Spielberg's epic as surely as an ox. Ordinarily I would say: no contest. One of our greatest screen actors, playing one of America's greatest presidents. No humped sandcastles, just nations rebuilt with blood, sweat and oratory. Call it a night and go home early. The only question hanging over the performance is whether the Academy are quite ready to usher Day-Lewis into the hallowed company of three-time winners that include the likes of Hepburn, Streep and Nicholson. Put it like that, and the prospect seems irresistible. The Academy are whores for "greatness" and love to make their own history. Or would they prefer to bestow that honor on Denzel Washington? He's landed one of the meatiest roles of his career in Robert Zemeckis's Flight (released last week), playing Whip Whitaker, the substance-abusing pilot who lands a malfunctioning plane while high as a kite. It's by far the best star performance of the year, which is not to downplay it. As David Edelstein said of Washington: He's not an actor who opens himself up – you never quite feel you know him, underneath. But that's why his onscreen explorations of control and its opposite feel so right, so true to who he is as a performer and a man. When you watch Joaquin Phoenix in The Master, you see the Method at its most perilous and wobbly: you see an actor who has lost control as an actor and with it the ability to shape his performance. Phoenix is vivid but he's all over the place: if he played Whip, he'd be dissolving in the first shot, randomly zigging and zagging in the ether. But Washington takes Whip to another level. Despite the script's overfamiliar beats (yes, there are twelve-step meetings), he anatomizes Whip's existential seesaw. He breaks Whip's – and his own – cool into pieces, the good and the bad, the supremely potent and pathetically impotent. This is a titanic performance.
My own feeling is that it's too good for the Oscars. Like Brad Pitt's performance in Moneyball last year, Washington's work in Flight has the kind of sanded ergonomic beauty that sails right past the grimacing and gurning required by the Academy to reassure them they are in the presence of "great acting." Washington's major impact on this year's race could be to draw enough votes away from Day-Lewis to allow Phoenix to slip through - but right now, it feels like Day-Lewis's to lose. From now until 24 February this column will examine all the major categories in the Oscar race (best picture, best director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress) factoring in all the elements – talent, history, buzz, 'narrative', the arrangement of the tea leaves in Harvey Weinstein's morning cup of tea – that make for an Oscar win. Next:— best picture.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Controversy over onshore wells in beautiful Basilicata region symbolic of difficult drive for greater energy self-sufficiency The view from the terrace behind the town hall in Corleto Perticara is as grand as any in Tuscany, taking in the majestic Sauro river valley and a line of towering hills that shepherd the river out to sea. But where a visitor might dream of building an idyllic second home, Rosaria Vicino, the town's mayor, is picturing the line of well-head pumpjacks that will soon pepper the undulating slopes beyond the Sauro. In May, Mario Monti's non-party government in Rome gave the go-ahead for the development of the so-called Tempa Rossa field, whose 200m barrels of heavy, sulphurous petroleum lie within Vicino's comune (borough). The French company Total has a 75% stake in Tempa Rossa. Shell has the remaining 25% interest in a field whose production capacity is expected to reach 50,000 barrels a day (b/d). "Oil is central to our development plans," said Vicino fervently. "It is the element around which all our hopes revolve." Onshore oil and gas production is similarly central to the Italian government's ambitious plan to lop €14bn (£11.2bn) off the nation's annual €62bn bill for energy imports by 2020. The target is set in a proposed national energy plan that would be the first to be adopted in Italy for more than 20 years. A draft, put out for consultation last month, sees some of the savings coming from increases in "green" (renewable) sources and "white" (efficiency) economies. But it also envisages a doubling of domestic oil and gas production. The government estimates the increase in output could provide Italy with 7% of its total energy requirements and create 25,000 new jobs. Crude oil production in Italy peaked in 2005 at 115,000 b/d, and has since slumped below 100,000 b/d – not due to a lack of reserves (Italy's proven onshore deposits are the biggest in Europe), but because of a drastic fall in exploration and development, which the government is keen to reverse. It aims to boost crude oil production by almost 150%, and bringing the Tempa Rossa field on stream will take it about a third of the way to that goal. Even considering the beauty of the countryside around Corleto Perticara, Tempa Rossa is unlikely to stir much opposition locally. Mention of royalties brings an ear-to-ear smile to the face of mayor Vicino, who readily agrees that the 30 or 40 years of income will transform the fortunes of little Corleto Perticara and its 2,700 inhabitants. The cash should be ample recompense for the pumpjacks – often known as "nodding donkeys" – and a large, smelly oil-processing centre that Total plans to build beyond the hills, out of sight of the town. The scenic but remote region of Basilicata in which Corleto Perticara is situated, is often called Italy's Texas. It holds about three quarters of the country's total reserves. But not everyone is as enthusiastic about pumping them out as Mayor Vicino. Many in Basilicata resent the fact that the royalties from oil production go largely to the local authorities directly affected and make little impact on a region that, despite its black gold, is still Italy's fifth poorest. Basilicata's communications are dire. Unemployment is high and rising. In January, Monti's government slipped a clause into a bill ostensibly about liberalisation that allows future oil royalties to be used for regional infrastructure projects. A senior government official acknowledged it was designed specifically to assuage criticism in Basilicata. So far, it has not worked. In August, the regional assembly declared a moratorium on all further exploration and production in Basilicata. The next day, the governor, Vito De Filippo of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), declared that the petroleum concessions that had already been granted were "at the limits of sustainability". His opinion matters because, as the law in Italy stands, approval from his government is essential for future projects to go ahead. It has not helped that Tempa Rossa is mired in a scandal that is set to unfold as the field is developed. On 26 September, four former executives of Total's Italian subsidiary, including its former managing director, went on trial in the regional capital of Potenza accused of rigging the tender for the oil treatment centre so that the contract went to a consortium headed by a local builder. The builder was in turn accused of paying a €200,000 bribe to a PD deputy in the national parliament. Total's former employees are also charged with using a local official to get landowners in the area to take lower-than-market offers for land needed to develop the oil field. All the accused deny wrongdoing.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Mitt Romney and Barack Obama hold four rallies each in seven crucial swing states with two days remaining until election
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US navy captain and three other officers sacked for drunken behaviour and misconduct in Russian port of Vladivostok The captain of a US navy frigate and three officers have been sacked after an investigation found they had engaged in drunken behaviour and misconduct during a recent port visit in Russia. Commander Joseph R Darlak was relieved of command of the USS Vandegrift in Guam after the investigation determined that several of the ship's officers had been drunk and disorderly during a trip to Vladivostok in September, navy spokeswoman Commander Tamsen Reese said. "The officers demonstrated poor judgment, including some officers being drunk (and) disorderly, and not adhering to established liberty policies," said Reese. The navy also relieved the ship's executive officer, operations officer and chief engineer from their duties "for personal conduct and use of alcohol," she said. The Navy Times reported it was the fleet's first mass firing stemming from a port visit since March 2011. Darlak and the other three officers were being temporarily reassigned "pending potential other administrative actions," she said. The Vandegrift left San Diego in May for a seven-month deployment to the western Pacific and docked in Vladivostok on 21 September, during which the misconduct occurred.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Iran tribunal in The Hague urges UN to investigate 'systematic and widespread' murder of political prisoners in 1980s An independent inquiry has called on the United Nations to investigate the "systematic and widespread" murder of political opponents by Ayatollah Khomeini's regime in Iran during the 1980s. In its judgment at the end of a three-day session in The Hague, the Iran tribunal found that the Islamic regime had committed "gross human rights abuses" including torture, sexual violence, extra-judicial executions and unjust imprisonment. The ruling is the culmination of a five-year co-operation between international human rights lawyers, exiled Iranians and relatives of the victims. As many as 20,000 people, mainly youths, are believed to have been killed in the state's prisons during that decade. The first stage of hearings took place in London this summer at Amnesty International's premises. About 75 witnesses, many surviving detainees, gave evidence – some in person, others via videolink. The final stage was held in the Peace Palace, home to the UN's international court of justice in The Hague. Proceedings were broadcast live online. The Iranian government was invited to participate but declined to reply or attend. The tribunal was based on the model developed by a private international war crimes tribunal established in 1966 by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre to investigate the US war record in Vietnam. In his closing speech, the British international lawyer Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, the tribunal's prosecutor, said the graves of the executed stretched "as far as the eye can see; the gravedigger of Shiraz reported the delivery of 60 bodies on a single occasion, of victims at most 20 years old. "Men were arrested at 10 in the morning and were dead by 11; entire families were eliminated and whole wards purged; rows of prisoners were shot by firing squad, still breathing until they were finished off by coup de grâce." One of the most chilling accounts was given by a man who admitted that as a child he was forced to shoot any survivors in the head. Nice added: "Truckloads of bodies were tipped into mass graves … In no case was an execution ordered in accordance with due process. "There has been not one witness who was not tortured in prison, both physically and mentally. Prisoners were hanged from the ceiling by their arms, flogged on the soles of their feet, beaten, deprived of sleep, kept in solitary confinement, subjected to mock executions and forced to watch other prisoners being tortured – or were tortured in the presence of their children. "Shokufeh Sakhi told the tribunal how she was subjected to sensory deprivation in a dark box (the 'coffin') for hours on end, month after month. The general effect was to turn prisoners into zombies by destroying their senses of self and dignity. "Another witness told the tribunal of the psychological rape that turned him into a puppet, who would shoot his fellow prisoners as member of a firing squad of tavabeen (repenters)." Prisoners' families were forced to pay for the bullets used to shoot their loved ones and assaulted when they tried to hold mourning services, the tribunal heard. Gravestones were smashed; mothers were refused the right to recover their children's bodies. In its judgment, the Iran tribunal found that the Islamic Republic of Iran bears absolute responsibility for gross violations of human rights against its citizens and "crimes against humanity under customary international law as applicable to Iran in the 1980s". Among its recommendations, the tribunal called on the human rights council of the United Nations to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate "these atrocities". The tribunal was composed of six judges including the UK barrister Michael Mansfield QC, John Dugard, a South African professor of international law, and Professor Patricia Sellers, a former UN adviser on human rights.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Work and pensions secretary says Britain's trading history predates EU and suggests it can continue outside fiscal union
Iain Duncan Smith has come close to suggesting that Britain could eventually thrive outside the European Union, declaring that such a strong country can stand tall on its own. Amid reports that a cabinet minister considered resigning to join Eurosceptic rebels in last week's Commons vote on the EU budget, the former Tory leader told The Andrew Marr Show that Britain's long trading history predates its accession to the EEC. But Duncan Smith, who first made his name as a Maastricht rebel in the early 1990s, stopped short of calling for British withdrawal. The work and pensions secretary also offered strong support for David Cameron's negotiating stance in the EU budget negotiations, in which Britain will press for a freeze in line with inflation. The Mail on Sunday reported that a member of the cabinet considered resigning to join Tory rebels who combined with Labour last week to defeat the government over a demand for a real terms cut in the budget. Duncan Smith said he disagreed with the rebels. He told the BBC1 programme of the prime minister's tactics: "He would love to come back with a real terms cut. I would love him to be able to do it. "But we don't give enough credit to him – the first man to veto a European treaty. He has told us he will veto something [on the EU budget] that he cannot bring back to the British parliament. These are strong words compared to the last government and even governments before." Duncan Smith made clear that Britain would not be part of new governance arrangements for the eurozone that are due to be negotiated over the next few years. The coalition is agreed that moves to greater fiscal union in the eurozone are a matter for the 17 members of the single currency. Asked whether Britain is big enough to survive outside the EU, the work and pensions secretary said: "I am an optimist about the UK. We have been involved in trade with our European partners, which we will always be doing whatever this relationship is. "We are a member of the EU. That gives us benefits. But we have to figure out where that is going. In the world, we are a global trader already. We are more of a global trader than any country in Europe. "I hate this argument that says little Britain or something outside, or Britain is part of a wider Europe. We can both be within our trading relationships within Europe but we can also be a fantastic global trader. "We invest more in the US than any other country in the world … We have been a global trader all our lives. Your [Andrew Marr's History of the World] programmes show what a fantastic history Britain has, as a remarkable country for good and trade around the world. That is what we are today as much as we were 100 years ago. "My view isn't that we could do necessarily outside the EU better then we are inside. It is that we can do it all. I don't see why we shouldn't have it all."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow the day's developments as they unfolded
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as the Syrian National Council holds a crucial meeting, which will see whether it backs a plan supported by western powers to create a new, more representative opposition group
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