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Times of India brings the Latest & Top Breaking News on Politics and Current Affairs in India & around the World, Cricket, Sports, Business, Bollywood News and Entertainment, Science, Technology, Health & Fitness news & opinions from leading columnists.
- Obama, Democrats secure votes for US health care bill
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:37:50 GMT - The Democrats struck a last-minute deal on Sunday with abortion foes to secure the final votes needed to remake US health care system, writing a climactic chapter in a century-old quest for near universal coverage.
- US says it is open to nuke deal with Pakistan
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:01:52 GMT - Amid reports of massive 16-20 hour power outages across Pakistan, the Barack Obama administration has indicated it is open to Islamabad's plea for a civilian nuclear deal akin to the US-India agreement.
- Tiger Woods says he 'lived a lie', nervous over response on return
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:06:10 GMT - Tiger Woods, in his first interview since he was engulfed by a sex scandal, said he lived a lie and that he is nervous about the reception he will receive when he returns to golf at the US Masters next month.
- 2 new IPL teams cost more than first 8 squads
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:25:39 GMT - The IPL sure has come a long way in a short time, with the Sahara group on Sunday bidding Rs 1,702 crore for Pune and Rendezvous Sports World forking out Rs 1,533 crore for Kochi. | New IPL teams: Pune, Kochi
- Super win for Kings XI Punjab | Scorecard | Pics
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:48:23 GMT - Andrew Symonds purple patch continued as he steered Deccan Chargers to a 10-run win over Delhi Daredevils in a thrilling IPL encounter.
- Explosives recovered from Kingfisher flight
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:38:16 GMT - Wrapped explosives which could be used as a "crude bomb" were found from the cargo section of the Bangalore-Thiruvananthapuram Kingfisher flight on its arrival at the destination on Sunday morning.
- Delhi water table falling by 2m/year
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:07:58 GMT - The alarm bells are ringing right below the national capital. A status report on groundwater by the NCR Planning Board reveals that the water table in Delhi was dipping by 2 metres every year.
- BrahMos cruise missile test-fired successfully
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:56:07 GMT - India on Sunday again tested the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which the armed forces are already inducting as a `precision' strike weapon, from a moving warship INS Ranvir off the Orissa coast.
- Ash breaks into Tamil
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:59:12 GMT -
- 'Tweenage' girls find sexy images 'gross'
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:37:41 GMT -
- 'Idiot' is politically correct!
- Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:30:55 GMT - Filmmakers win the battle with the censors for retaining risqué scenes, but dilute the dialogues in the subtitles, says Anuradha Varma.
- Katrina, Hrithik on a road trip to Spain
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:39:27 GMT -
- Yuvraj is like a younger brother to me: Preity Zinta
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:39:17 GMT -
- Gujarat riots: Modi misses date with SIT
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:36:08 GMT - Narendra Modi failed to turn up for questioning at the office of the SC-appointed Special Investigation Team on Sunday, against a petition accusing him and 62 others of failing to protect the citizens in the 2002 riots.
- Crude bomb found on Kingfisher flight
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:19:50 GMT - A low intensity explosive has been found in a cargo section of Kingfisher flight IT-4731 at Thiruvananthapuram airport. The bomb disposal squad has been rushed to the airport to check the nature of the bomb.
- India successfully test-fires BrahMos missile
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:59:53 GMT - India became the first country to have a 'maneuverable' supersonic cruise missile when it successfully test-fired the vertical-launch version of BrahMos from a warship off the Orissa coast.
- Gulburg riots: Modi avoids SIT team, Cong angry
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:38:41 GMT - Gujarat CM Narendra Modi was summoned by the Special Investigation Team in connection with the complaint filed by Zakia Jaffery, wife of slain ex-MP Eshan Jaffrey in the 2002 Gulburg society riots case.
- Foreign university campuses to save $7.5bn outflow
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 08:29:26 GMT - Allowing foreign universities to set up their campuses in India will help the country save up to about Rs 34,500 crore foreign exchange annually that students spend on studying abroad, industry body Assocham said.
Usa News
- House Nears Decisive Vote on Health Bill
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:15:42 GMT - The House took the most critical step yet toward the bill to overhaul health care, all but assuring a hard-fought but politically risky victory for President Obama and his party.
- News Analysis: Obama’s Health Care Victory Carries a Cost
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:04:51 GMT - In the course of the debate, President Obama lost the promise of a “postpartisan” Washington in which rationality and discourse replaced partisan bickering.
- Legal and Political Fights Ahead for the Democrats
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:16:53 GMT - President Obama plans to try to persuade the public on the health care legislation, while Republicans talk of repeal.
- Past Strife and Jeers, Another March in the Name of Change
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:13:01 GMT - For Representative John Lewis of Georgia and other Democrats, the road to a health care bill recalled the civil rights marches of the 1960s.
- For Consumers, Some Clarity on Health Care Changes
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:16:53 GMT - The uninsured are the biggest beneficiaries of the legislation, which would extend the health care safety net for the lowest-income Americans.
- In Health Reform, Boons for Hospitals and Drug Makers
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:39:22 GMT - With an overhaul, Congress would be giving the health care industry as many as 32 million more customers in the next few years.
- At Rally, Call for Urgency on Immigration Reform
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:00:57 GMT - In Washington, tens of thousands of demonstrators called for legislation this year to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.
- Student Loan Bill Poised to Pass in Health Vote
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:24:57 GMT - Under the new legislation, the government would expand an existing direct lending program, eliminating the fees paid to banks.
- Link by Link: Advising Recovery Board on Offering Clear Data
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:20:49 GMT - The information-design theorist Edward Tufte is using his critical eye to improve the recovery.gov Web site.
- Rating Schwarzenegger
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:20:00 GMT - A survey by The Field Poll shows that the approval rating of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has slumped to a new low.
- Health Vote Caps a Journey Back From the Brink
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:29:16 GMT - The story of how President Obama has come within a whisper of passing historic legislation is not his alone.
- Procedural Maneuvering and Public Opinion
- Sat, 20 Mar 2010 22:48:37 GMT - Politicians on both sides of the aisle are turning to the rule book to win the health care battle. Do voters care?
- Fed Chief Takes Aim at Banks as Obama Pushes Overhaul
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:30:30 GMT - Ben S. Bernanke criticized the role of institutions considered “too big too fail” while the president called on lawmakers to approve a finance bill.
- Dose of Venom for Candidates Turns Ads Viral
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:25:48 GMT - New campaign attacks in California are using sophisticated, low-cost technology to create nasty ads.
- U.S. Turns a Blind Eye to Opium in Afghan Town
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:47:15 GMT - To win over Afghans on former Taliban turf, American commanders are arguing against opium eradication.
- Chinese Academics’ Paper on Cyberwar Sets Off Alarms in U.S.
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:47:11 GMT - A paper imagining a cyberattack and a power failure in the U.S. has highlighted an atmosphere charged with hostility between the U.S. and China over cybersecurity.
- In Shadow of Health Care Vote, Immigrant Advocates Keep Pushing for Change
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:30:36 GMT - Expectations for a rally on Sunday have diminished, but organizers cite some progress in their campaign for an immigration bill.
- News Analysis: Clash Over Building in Israel Subsides, as Each Side Claims Success
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:50:17 GMT - After 10 days of public quarreling over Jewish building in East Jerusalem, the U.S. and Israel move to ensure they aren’t surprised again.
- Stewart L. Udall, 90, Conservationist in Kennedy and Johnson Cabinets, Dies
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:10:14 GMT - Stewart Udall was the interior secretary in the 1960s, who presided over vast increases in national park holdings and the public domain.
- Liz Carpenter, Journalist, Feminist and Johnson Aide, Dies at 89
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:50:27 GMT - Ms. Carpenter spent much of her life working in Washington as a newspaper reporter, an aide to Lyndon B. Johnson and press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson.
- Edmund Dinis, Prosecutor in Chappaquiddick Case, Dies at 85
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 03:24:00 GMT - Mr. Dinis was accused of a less-than-vigorous prosecution of Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the 1969 accident in Chappaquiddick, Mass.
Germany News
Nachrichten-Magazin aus Deutschland - Your news guide across Germany
- Zweifelhafter Umgang mit Steuergeldern und EU-Fördermittel
- Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:11:05 CET - EU Kommission fordert über 6 Millionen von Deutschand zurück
Die Kommission hat EU-Agrarhilfen in Höhe von insgesamt 346,5 Millionen Euro zurückgefordert, davon gut 6,7 Millionen Euro aus Deutschland. Diese Beträge wurden von den Mitgliedstaaten vorschriftswidrig verwendet. - Auslandspraktika und Volunteer Projekte zur Fußball WM 2010 in Südafrika
- Tue, 9 Mar 2010 08:44:00 CET - Vermittlung von Auslandspraktika und Volunteer Projekten zur Fußball WM 2010 in Südafrika
Die Online Praktikumsvermittlung Studentsgoabroad.com bietet viele Auslandspraktika und Volunteer Projekte über die Zeit der Fußball WM 2010 in Südafrika. - Studienergebnis: Erfolgsorientierte Bezahlung für sog. Topmanager nicht relevant
- Mon, 8 Mar 2010 17:44:08 CET - Sind Manager-Boni im Finanzsektor wirklich notwendig?
Einer neuen Studie der Rotterdam School of Management zufolge, beurteilen Topmanager erfolgsorientierte Bezahlung als nicht relevant für die Eigenmotivation. - Mikrokredite für Arbeitslose und Kleinunternehmer
- Mon, 8 Mar 2010 17:20:17 CET - 45.000 Mikrokredite für Arbeitslose und Kleinunternehmer im Juni 2010 geplant
Was in Südamerika und Afrika schon seit längerem Gang und Gäbe ist und das auch noch sehr erfolgreich, erreicht nun Europa. Denn im Gegensatz zur Großindustrie haben gerade Kleinstunternehmen keinerlei Fürsprecher bei Banken und erhalten aus den unterschiedlichsten Förderfonds keinerlei Hilfen. Denn die Beträge sind einfach zu gering für KFW und andere Finanzinstitute der öffentlichen Hand. - Irische Band U2 in Deutschland mit drei Konzerttermine - Tickets erhältlich -
- Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:26:39 CET - U2 in Deutschland mit 360° Tour
Nach dem großen Erfolg der Konzertserie 2009 haben U2 die Fortsetzung ihrer hochgelobten 360° Tour bestätigt und werden im August und September 2010 in Deutschland rocken! - Tollwood Sommerfestival in München 2010: Ein Konzertüberblick - Ticketvorverkauf hat begonnen -
- Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:00:52 CET - Im Olympiapark Süd schlägt das musikalische Herz des Sommers auf dem Tollwood
Vom 1. bis 25. Juli 2010 bringt das Tollwood Sommerfestival die große Vielfalt, die die Musikwelt zu bieten hat, auf die Bühne der Musik-Arena. Die bereits feststehenden Künstler zeigen mit der mehrfachen Grammy-Gewinnerin Norah Jones, die nur zwei Konzerte in Deutschland gibt, der legendären Folkrock-Band Crosby, Stills & Nash und der Stimme von Supertramp Roger Hodgson das breite musikalische Spektrum des Kulturfestivals. - Dublin Goes Wilde: Eine ganze Stadt liest ein Buch
- Fri, 5 Mar 2010 09:39:34 CET - Oscar Wildes "Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray" ist zum Buch des Jahres 2010 gewählt. Und ganz Dublin liest.
Wer sich im April durch Dublin bewegt, muss sich nicht wundern, wenn plötzlich im beliebten Bewley's Café eine Rezitation beginnt oder verkleidete Dandys in der Grafton Street promenieren. - Alt-68er: Wo blieb die Konterrevolution?
- Wed, 3 Mar 2010 13:10:10 CET - Die hässliche Pflicht der Erbschaft
Ein Kommentar von Andrea Limmer
Neulich: Eine Freundin erzählt mir ziemlich detailliert vom unvermeidlichen Gang der Gänge, der da bei jedem Menschelein einhergeht, nämlich vom Altwerden. Sie erzählt das mit allem drum und dran und wirklich irgendwie grausig. Also, so grausig, dass sich ein junger Mensch fragt, ob er jemals über den Zenit der 35 Jahre haxeln will. Beim gedanklichen Wiederkauen der Beschreibung des Verrunzelns, stellt der junge, aufmerksame, temporär geschockte Zuhörer fest, dass das drum und dran nicht so grausig ist, wie zuvor gedacht. Denn das drum und dran beschränkte sich auf den körperlichen Verfall. Und weil bei allen Menschen die Zellen zerbröseln (ja auch bei dir Madonna!), ist das weiter kein Drama. - Lufthansa: Aktuelle Informationen zu den Flügen während der Streiktage (22.2.-25.2.10)
- Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:30:34 CET - Lufthansa: Das große Chaos an den Flughäfen ist ausgeblieben
Die Vorankündigung hat positive Auswirkungen gezeigt. Das Chaos ist ausgeblieben. Lufthansa tätigt für Sie Ersatzbuchungen im Rahmen der Verfügbarkeit auf anderen Flügen. - Bewerber zur Land Rover Experience Tour können sich ab sofort anmelden
- Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:17:24 CET - Land Rover lädt zur Abenteuertour nach Bolivien
Auf gehts in die Anden! Bolivien ist das Ziel der nächsten Land Rover Experience Tour, die im Frühjahr 2011 ansteht. Ab sofort können sich Interessenten für die Abenteuertour bewerben und zwar denkbar einfach.
UK News
Latest news and features from guardian.co.uk, the world's leading liberal voice
- Take on the City with a 'people's budget'
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:34:00 GMT
2010-03-22T01:34:58Z -
Alistair Darling has a chance to start tackling the deep structural problems of the economy
Budget day has its own ritual. The battered old red box, the photo call in Downing Street, the tension in the Commons as MPs wait for the chancellor to pull a rabbit out of the hat – all are part of a peculiarly British occasion. It was never quite the same when the Conservatives moved it to autumn in the 1990s, and a relief when Gordon Brown moved it back to its proper place in the calendar.
Tradition and pageantry can deceive. The budget box may give the impression of enduring solidity but the economy is weak and the public finances are shot to pieces. More worrying, perhaps, is that plans for attacking the deep structural problems of the economy remain inchoate as the third anniversary of the financial crisis approaches.
Alistair Darling said yesterday that this week's speech would flesh out the government's plans for growth. There would be no giveaways, he told Andrew Marr, no pre-election sweeteners. He thinks voters would be more impressed by a budget that he promises will be "sensible and workmanlike".
But this is what chancellors always say. You would struggle to find a second lord of the Treasury who promised a flashy and opportunistic budget. To be truly "sensible and workmanlike", the budget needs to contain five elements.
Firstly, it should facilitate, rather than impede, economic recovery. Darling will rightly reject George Osborne's calls for immediate tax rises or cuts in public spending to reduce the budget deficit but he should consider filching the shadow chancellor's proposal for an Office of Budget Responsibility, only with a different mandate from that proposed by the Conservatives. The Opposition would like an independent OBR to produce forecasts for the public finances ahead of the budget, assess their long-term sustainability and suggest steps to hit the fiscal objectives.
But this, as a forthcoming paper from the Progressive Economics Panel rightly notes, is putting the cart before the horse. In the current circumstances, with a marked risk of a double-dip recession, the strength of the recovery should take precedence. "Certainly," the paper argues, "a credible strategy is needed to address the budget deficit but this strategy must be flexible and based on the strength of the recovery and not on rigid timelines and/or ideological opposition to budget deficits."
Secondly, the budget should lay the foundations for structural reform. As Britain has discovered to its cost all too often in the past 40 years, the nature of the recovery matters and pumping up consumer demand through a booming housing market is no long-term solution. The government's challenge is to create a supply-side environment that will rebalance the economy towards production and exports.
Baby steps
There is now all-party agreement that the City will have to pay more to the exchequer, either through a financial transaction tax or through an insurance levy. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats say this can be done unilaterally; Darling insists that a go-it-alone strategy would put the competitiveness of the UK financial sector in jeopardy.
But since the aim is to reduce the economy's dependency on the City as a source of growth, it makes sense to use the money raised from the City to fund the rebalancing through a national investment bank and a system of German-style job subsidies to protect skilled labour during downturns. Britain's competitors have better educated workforces, more predictable flows of capital to industry, and stronger supply chains.
Thirdly, the budget should recognise that Britain is falling behind in the race to develop the low-carbon industrial sectors of the future. Darling has hinted that he will announce a £2bn green infrastructure fund on Wednesday, but this is a baby step when giant leaps are needed. Recessions inevitably result in the environment slipping down the political agenda but the long-term challenges of climate change and more expensive fossil fuels remain.
Governments in other countries have recognised that backing environmental industries through a mixture of subsidy, taxation and procurement makes sense because there will be monopoly profits for companies that can secure first-mover advantage. Far more ambition is needed in the UK to make the Green New Deal more than a soundbite.
Fourthly, it has to be recognised that any economic rebalancing will prove stillborn unless there are important changes to the way the financial sector operates. Over the past few months it has become clear that the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority are both ready to embrace radical reform; Mervyn King has openly raised the question of whether there should be a legally enforced split between "safe" utility banks and "risky" investment banks. The governor has warned, repeatedly and almost certainly correctly, that leaving the banks broadly unreformed will lead to a fresh and perhaps even more serious crisis.
Strong stuff
Adair Turner is not a fan of legislating for a Glass-Steagall approach to breaking up the banks, but the FSA chairman has been voicing previously unthinkable thoughts. Turner made three points in a lecture to the Cass Business School: that the authorities needed specific controls on credit for the housing market; that the benefits of complex financial instruments had been hugely overstated, and that it should not be assumed that ever-greater market liquidity was "axiomatically beneficial".
This is strong stuff. Keynes was always sceptical of what he called the fetish of liquidity, arguing that the point of capital markets was to channel savings into productive investment rather than create casinos. Turner agrees, calling for a "bias to conservatism in setting capital requirements against trading activity; it reinforces the case for limiting via capital requirements the extent to which commercial banks are involved in proprietary trading, and it may argue in favour of financial transaction taxes".
The problem is that the third leg of the tripartite system, the Treasury, is far less open to new thinking. Years of the City lobbying Whitehall has paid off; government machinery has been captured by financial interests and conservatism is entrenched. One way to break the logjam would be a Royal Commission – on no account to be chaired by a City grandee – with a mandate to propose reforms of the financial system by the end of 2011.
Finally, a far greater proportion of UK savings should go into productive investment rather than bricks and mortar. The reason Britain has destabilising bubbles in property is simple: this is a small island with a large and growing population, tough planning regulations limiting new housing developments and a tax system that encourages owner-occupation. Reform is fraught with political difficulties; concreting over swaths of the green belt is just as unpopular as slapping capital gains tax on a prime residence. Nobody has yet come up with a better solution than that of David Lloyd George in his "people's budget" of 1909: a land valuation tax.
These then would be the bare bones of a sensible and workmanlike budget. Darling needs to get the economy moving again; he needs to build-up its long-term productive capacity; he needs to invest in a long-term future, and he needs to tackle the two roadblocks to reform: the City and the housing market. All he has to contend with are a record peacetime deficit, powerful vested interests and deep-rooted cultural inertia. Easy peasy.
Testing times: Addressing the Deficit Without Risking the Recovery, www.progecon.org.uk
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- Bioblitz campaign calls on public to help detail Britain's flora and fauna
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:46:00 GMT
2010-03-22T00:46:10Z -
Backers hope to create largest ever record of UK wildlife by uniting experts with public as alien species spurs sightings call
For centuries, natural history societies staffed by knowledgeable amateurs have kept track of Britain's birds, bees, ants and butterflies. Now ordinary people are being invited to head outdoors and sweep hedges, comb hills and measure burrows for a more detailed recording of Britain's wildlife.
The aim of the "bioblitz" campaign, whose supporters include conservation scientists, the Open University and the Natural History Museum, is to create the largest record of Britain's unusually rich variety of natural life.
Its launch today coincides with a government appeal for the public to track some of the alien species that are threatening wildlife in the UK.
The wildlife minister, Huw Irranca-Davies, will ask the public to record sightings of six alien species. The list includes the Zebra mussel, a native of Russia that grows so densely it can block pipelines, and the Chinese mitten crab, which burrows into riverbanks, making them prone to collapse.
Any sightings of the species can be submitted online; they will then be checked by experts and once verified be added to a national database tracking 3,800 non-native species. It follows a trial in which people were asked to report sightings of another invasive animal, the harlequin ladybird, which so far has 35,000 entries.
Linda Davies, an ecologist at Imperial College London, said of the campaign: "Our first objective is to get people outside and enjoying nature, observing and recording the world around them.
"Behind the objective is an acceptance that the government alone cannot address all the problems we have and we all have a role to play. It was on that very simple idea we thought 'what can we do now that will allow as many people as possible to engage and do their bit'."
The bioblitz field studies are part of a wider movement that naturalists have dubbed "citizen science". This has a proud history in Britain, including perhaps the most famous amateur enthusiast of all – Charles Darwin the narrator of evolution.
Bioblitzing groups select a specified site, usually a public place; a period of time, ideally a day but anything from a few hours to a few months; and unite members of the public with amateur or professional experts to help with identifications. Conservationist Savita Custead has taken an idea which emerged in the US in the 1990s and organised Britain's first national programme under the banner Bioblitz 2010.
The campaign is being launched at a time when British wildlife is under severe threat. Natural England, the national countryside agency, recently reported that more than two species a year were being driven to extinction in England, mostly by human activities such as farming and development
"At the end of this programme we'll have a greater understanding of the state of the environment which the community has contributed to," said Custead.
Other organisations behind the campaign include the National Biodiversity Network, which is developing a public recording section to launch this year, and the Open University, which helped the open-air laboratory programme Opal set up the ispot social networking website where people can upload photos and ask experts to identify species. The Natural History Museum in London will open the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity in April to bring together professionals and amateurs.
"It's a myth that nobody's interested in British natural history any more," said Stuart Hine, the centre's manager. "The old way was to be in a natural history society but now there are different ways of being interested: you might be interested in conservation, or wildlife trusts, bird groups or recording schemes. When you put them all together there have never been as many people signed up or subscribed to UK natural history groups."
PANEL
How to bioblitz
1 Choose an appropriate venue
Iideally you need somewhere you can set up a base camp, say a marquee or a building. You'll also need to think about facilities such as toilets, car parking and food. The site should safe and accessible and ideally have a good range of wildlife and habitats
2 Decide on a time limit
Many bioblitzes take place over a 24-hour period so that the nocturnal species can be recorded as well as those seen during the daytime. However, a bioblitz can be any length. Logistics (such as park's opening hours) may determine the time limit for you
3 Create a partnership
The most successful bioblitzes involve lots of organisations from the local community. Get in touch with people from your local council, Wildlife Trust and biological records centre to see if they would like to be involved
4 Find local naturalists, amateur experts and nature enthusiasts
They will be pivotal in making your day a success. They can help with identifying the species you find and help draw up the overall list
5 Invite the public
Make sure people know about your event by advertising widely letting local newspapers know in advance and creating banners, posters and leaflets to promote the day
6 Choose some activities
Participants will need a list of structured activities that will help them record the nature they find. You might want to consider guided walks, nature trails and national surveys such as those run by Opal (see below)
7 Submit your results
Once the bioblitz has finished make sure you tell interested parties what you have found. These could include your local records centre, local nature groups and the National Biodiversity Network.
For a list of upcoming events visit environmentguardian.co.uk and for more information visit bioblitz.org.uk; www.opalexplorenature.org; www.biodiversityislife.net; www.nbn.org.uk
Source: OPAL
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- The Mountaintop is surprise winner at Olivier awards
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:20:00 GMT
2010-03-22T00:20:48Z -
Broadway now beckons for 28-year-old Katori Hall, whose play had world premiere on tiny pub stage
It was meant to be the glittering awards night where Jerusalem went up against Enron. But they were both pipped by a play from a young, black female writer which had its world premiere on a tiny pub stage in south London.
Katori Hall's The Mountaintop was the surprise winner of best new play when this year's Laurence Olivier awards were handed out tonight.
Hall, from Memphis, Tennessee, was inspired to write her play – an imagined account of Martin Luther King's last evening before his 1968 assassination – by a family story about her mother. It was spotted by James Dacre, son of Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, who directed its world premiere at the 65-seat Theatre503, above a pub in Battersea.
From there it was championed by producer Sonia Friedman, who took it to the West End, where it won glowing reviews and nightly standing ovations.
Now Broadway beckons for Hall, who is still only 28. Nica Burns, president of the Society of London Theatres, predicted an even brighter future for the playwright with an Olivier under her belt. "It is a wonderful fairy story and the award is going to a very talented and deserving winner."
Last night Hall, who was presented with her award by Jude Law, thanked Dacre for taking the play on. She said: "This was a story about a person that crosses lines of colour, class, countries and continents and I want to thank the London audience for teaching me that this is a story that needs to be heard about the world."
Elsewhere, it was a bad Olivier night for Shakespeare, the National Theatre and the English National Opera, but a good one for Tennessee Williams, the Royal Opera and the Royal Court theatre. The last, led by Dominic Cooke, had the most to smile about after tonight's black-tie do at the Grosvenor House hotel in London, having a hand in many of the successful productions.
Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem began life there and it won two awards: best actor for Mark Rylance and best set design for Ultz. It was Rylance's second Olivier, winning from a strong shortlist that included Jude Law, James Earl Jones and Sam West. Rylance paid tribute to Olivier and his widow, Dame Joan Plowright, who was in the audience. "All this competition is great, but the name Olivier to me is a sense of family and a sense of fun. That's what it will always mean to me," he said.
Enron, meanwhile – a Royal Court and Chichester co-production written by Lucy Prebble – won Rupert Goold the best director award.
The Royal Court's success continued when Michael Wynne's The Priory won best new comedy and, finally, it won the outstanding achievement in an affiliate theatre award for the play Cock.
It was not a bad year either for the Donmar Warehouse. Its production of A Streetcar Named Desire won two acting awards: Rachel Weisz picked up best actress for her stunning Blanche DuBois and Ruth Wilson won best supporting actress for her portrayal of Stella. Further success for the small Covent Garden theatre came when rising star Eddie Redmayne won best supporting actor for his portrayal of Mark Rothko's put-upon assistant in Red. Accepting her award Weisz said: "This means an awful lot. I never thought I would be honoured like this in my lifetime. I'm in such strong company."
Williams's Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, with its all-black cast, won best revival, beating strong competition that included The Misanthrope and A View From the Bridge.
In the musical categories the most striking winner was a production that was adored by critics, but failed to get audiences to come and see it.
Spring Awakening, an entertaining teenage sexual angst romp, won best new musical, beating musicals which the public, conversely, go to see in their droves: Priscilla and Sister Act. Two of its young stars also won acting awards in shortlists that included such famous names as Rowan Atkinson, Sheila Hancock and Maureen Lipman. Aneurin Barnard won best actor in a musical and Iwan Rheon won best supporting actor/actress.
The Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park won best musical revival for Hello Dolly! beating A Little Night Music, Annie Get Your Gun and Oliver! Dolly herself, in the shape of Samantha Spiro, won best musical actress.
A new audience award for most popular show, voted for by members of the public, went to Wicked, from a list that also included Billy Elliot, The Phantom of the Opera, War Horse and We Will Rock You.
The Royal Opera's Tristan und Isolde took both opera awards: best new production and outstanding achievement for the Swedish soprano Nina Stemme.
The best new dance award also went to a Covent Garden commission, a collaboration between choreographer Kim Brandstrup and Royal Ballet principal Tamara Rojo. The Rambert Dance Company won the outstanding achievement award for its strong year. A special award, equivalent to a lifetime achievement award, went to theatrical royalty – Dame Maggie Smith – while the theatre producer Michael Codron also won an outstanding achievement award for his 60 influential years in the business.
The awards, now in their 34th year, are decided by panels. The theatre panel, for example, which saw 87 shows, is made up of five professionals and four members of the public. And they come after the strongest West End year ever, with box office receipts topping more than half a billion pounds for the first time.
"Last year, with all the recessionary gloom, I predicted a 10% drop in audiences," said Burns. "I have never been so happy to eat my words."
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- In praise of… public drinking fountains | Editorial
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:05:40 GMT
2010-03-22T00:05:40Z -
A renewed campaign for public fountains would be an important second front in the battle against global bottled water tyranny
"Whatever happened to public drinking fountains?" asked a letter in the Daily Telegraph recently, responding to news that bottled water has been added to the basket of goods whose prices the Office of National Statistics uses to measure inflation. It is a good question, both because Britain once boasted an unequalled array of drinking fountains and also, more importantly, because a renewed campaign for public fountains would be an important second front in the battle against global bottled water tyranny, now that public demand has restored tap water to its proper place in the nation's bars and restaurants. Many surviving public drinking fountains of the Victorian era are a template for what our cities again need more of today – prominent and well-designed structures in streets, squares and parks supplying clean, cold and free water for the refreshment of thirsty citizens. Whether new fountains would match the magnificence of Baroness Burdett-Coutts's fountain in east London's Victoria Park, or Sir Cowasji Jehangir Readymoney's formidable erection in Regent's Park, is hard to imagine. But Michael Freeman's 2009 steel sphere drinking fountain in London's Hyde Park, designed by David Harber, is true to the philanthropic and artistic ambition of the past – and is said to herald others elsewhere. Excellent if so. Public benefactors and activist local authorities should combine to create a new generation of drinking fountains. It is time to take the battle against the bottle on to the streets.
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- Letters: Facts and figures behind Ashcroft
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:05:02 GMT
2010-03-22T00:05:02Z -
You published my letter pointing out that Lord Ashcroft's favourable tax status seems to have been agreed and granted by the Labour government, and wondering whether left hand knew what right was up to (3 March). We now know who agreed and when, but there's still no explanation for Sir Hayden Phillips's decision to allow Ashcroft to become a long-term resident rather than the tax-paying permanent resident the scrutiny committee had insisted on and William Hague had promised.
Phillips, we're now told, is an adviser to the private finance firm Englefield Capital (The 'unequivocal assurance' that secured peerage at third attempt, 19 March). How can a supposedly impartial civil servant not only be an adviser to a private commercial enterprise but also make and implement a political decision explicitly contradicting what the honours committee had instructed? Brown, Harman, Straw, Mandelson and Miliband fulminate and harrumph about Tory perfidy, but it was their employee who made it happen.
Susan Loppert
London
• David Leigh's idea of publishing a list of those claiming favourable tax status has much to commend it (Britain should publish the names of all its non-doms, 20 March). But if the idea behind naming and shaming is to increase public revenue, any benefit is likely to be minimal, if only for the reasons so clearly set out in the article. What is required is a simple yet far-reaching change to the basic taxation philosophy.
Why should anybody claiming the benefits of British citizenship be entitled, on a self-selecting basis, to a favourable taxation regime? It would be a simple matter (and a grand test of our parliamentarians' apparent propensity to look after their own) to amend the law: tax every holder of a British passport on his or her worldwide income and gains. This would solve most of the problems about resident, non-resident and domicile tax status, ensure a very useful addition to the national coffers and eliminate the obscenity of our law-makers failing to pay their proper dues in this country.
Peter Harris
Lewes, East Sussex
• Your report (Tories force BBC to drop Ashcroft investigation, 20March) makes very disturbing reading. It takes me back to the self-censorship operated in the 80s, when, because of Tory hostility to the BBC and the licence fee, many writers and directors on the left found it very difficult to have their work commissioned and broadcast.
This report shows how the prospect of a government hostile to the BBC has turned the top policymakers in our iconic public broadcaster into cowards.
It is good to be reminded of real Tory values, and what we could lose if they win the next election.
Eddie Dougall
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
• The fuss that Labour is making over Lord Ashcroft's peerage and tax status is absurd, because there is no such thing as a conditional peerage. The Life Peerages Act 1958 has no provisions whatsoever for any conditions. So none should have been imposed on Lord Ashcroft.
The conditions were imposed and his alleged non-compliance with those conditions has become a public affair purely because Labour's spin doctors are afraid of Ashcroft and have tried to make political capital from him. If you doubt this, ask yourself, of the hundreds of peers created since New Labour came to power, how many have had conditions attached? The answer is zero.
James G Fluss
London
• As more revelations about Lord Ashcroft and the Conservative party surface, it is clear that all his actions have been legal and obey all the rules, even if by modern politics' somewhat lax standards their morality may be questionable. Can David Cameron tell us why those unfortunate MPs whose expense claims were completely legal and followed all the rules, but which may have been somewhat morally suspect, have been so ruthlessly dealt with, while rather similar behaviour by a huge donor to the party attracts no word of censure?
Colin Harrison
Chesterfield
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- Letters: Make libraries a place for books, as well as for communities
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:05:01 GMT
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What hope is there for libraries when someone in charge of a major public library can write: "Libraries are not about borrowing books" (Letters, 19 March)? As a public librarian, I can tell you that the vast majority of our users come to libraries for exactly that reason – to borrow books. Through the borrowing of books, libraries promote reading and literacy skills, introduce authors to new audiences and supply resources for information and learning. We are able to do the things listed in Blair McPherson's letter because we loan books to the public.
If we ignore the importance of books, we undermine our own arguments in defence of our public library service. We should be proud of the fact that we loan books by the hundreds of thousand across the UK every year.
David Kenvyn
Glasgow
• My local library was the first Carnegie library ever built in England. It is now effectively unusable by anyone wanting to put it to its original purpose. Whole rows of bookshelves have been ripped out to make space for computer terminals where bored youths surf away their days. Another large area has been cleared to make space for classes from infant schools. Large parties of excited children come in to talk loudly about, glance at and fight over the same books as they have in their classrooms. Yet other areas are furnished with comfy chairs and coffee tables where people eat their sandwiches and talk on their mobile phones.
This is what people like Blair McPherson have invented. This might be a community centre but it is not a library.
Steve Illingworth
Haworth, West Yorkshire
• If you'll pardon the cliche, libraries will be a dog's breakfast until directors of services such as Blair McPherson buy more books and stop following Blairite babble about community cohesion. Cornwall has found a better solution than volunteer libraries. Unit costs have been driven down by automation and locating other services like one stop shops in libraries.
Philip Kerridge
Bodmin, Cornwall
• Yes, they are about borrowing books, and yes, they are about housing books. A library without books is not a library, whatever else it may be. If you could keep this basic fact in mind, you might find "inventing" a local library a whole lot easier.
Helen Rees
Southampton
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- Letters: Cameron's business pledge is not enough
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:05:01 GMT
2010-03-22T00:05:01Z -
David Cameron's pledge to support black entrepreneurs is welcome (We'll change black Britain, 17 March). But aspiring business people from other minority groups face similar barriers to success and must be included as part of any new policy initiatives. Likewise, a national mentoring programme will help, but it is only part of the solution. Access to affordable finance is critical to businesses in start-up and growth phase. Quality business support can also have a major impact. Most important, however, is the need to address the barriers minority-owned businesses face in winning public and private sector contracts. Much more needs to be done to ensure that ethnic minority businesses are actively considered in mainstream supply chain opportunities. By doing so, companies not only can open their eyes to the full breadth of ideas that exist in a multicultural economy, but also contribute to inclusive growth.
Mayank Shah
Minority Supplier Development UK
• The current trend for politicians of all colours to muddle inequality, social mobility and poverty is exemplified by David Cameron's article. Starting by addressing racial inequality, he moves on to list the causes of poverty and concludes that promoting social mobility through access to business start-up finance for BME communities is the solution. Solution to what? Certainly not aggregate levels of inequality or poverty.
While we can all applaud the measures advocated by Cameron, assisting some of Britain's BME communities to start businesses will not address the UK's position as one of the most unequal of the industrialised countries. Tackling poverty requires massive allocation of resources even to hold back the rising tide of inequality from increased globalisation and deregulation. Proposals to expand marginally the UK's black middle class, while laudable, are not the answer to tackling deep-seated inequality and poverty.
Kevin Gulliver
• In a 2009 study by DWP, bogus applications with identical CVs were sent for real jobs – one application with a typically white name was sent and another with an ethnic minority name. While 68% of white applicants received a positive response, only 39% of ethnic minority applicants did so. This provides strong evidence that discrimination continues to be a factor in the UK labour market.
The main solution proposed by David Cameron is support for black businesses, an idea which is hardly new. To suggest that this could make a significant difference to the 50% of black young people who are unemployed is risible.
Dr David Drew
Sheffield
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- Open door: Guardian.co.uk's executive editor for news on… the social media harvest
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:05:00 GMT
2010-03-22T00:05:00Z -
Guardian.co.uk's executive editor for news on… the social media harvest
It's not possible to be a well-informed person and only read the Guardian or the New York Times. So said Michael Wolff, a media columnist and veteran web guru, at last week's Changing Media Summit 2010. Alongside news aggregation sites such as Google News (and Wolff's own Newser), many millions more people use social networks such as Facebook and the microblogging site Twitter than will ever think to visit guardian.co.uk. So one of the key challenges facing the Guardian is how best to harvest the many news-related conversations that take place beyond our pages. This lets us reach people who wouldn't necessarily visit guardian.co.uk directly, providing a counterpart to the opinions of our journalists and the readers who engage directly via conversations on our website and letters to our paper. There is already some crossover: half a million pages a month on our website are viewed by people who find them via links posted on Twitter, and 800,000 more from Facebook.
"People have always had conversations about the issues of the day, but now we've got new ways to listen. Monitoring Twitter or Facebook is the digital equivalent of eavesdropping on conversations in the pub," says Meg Pickard, the Guardian's head of social media development. "The journalist's role lies in understanding, sorting and analysing what we overhear and providing context about why – or whether – it matters, and how alternative perspectives can enhance our understanding of public mood or activity." Or to quote the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: "Everyone tells jokes, but we still have professional comedians."
The Iraq war inquiry was a case in point. When Tony Blair and Gordon Brown gave evidence we monitored all tweets that mentioned their names and published them alongside our reporter's live blog. We used plus and minus signs to designate each tweet positive or negative, and tracked the overall sentiment using a dynamically updating swingometer and a graph that showed which statements had gone down best (and worst).
So, what did we learn? Once we'd discarded obscene, foreign-language and irrelevant tweets (including those referencing Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf and any number of Browns who weren't discussing Iraq on 5 March), we had more than 1,100 Blair tweets and 350 for Brown , confirming that there was substantially more interest in hearing from the man who actually took Britain to war in 2003. Some 80% of the Blair tweets were negative, compared with 70% for Brown: Twitter users felt Brown acquitted himself somewhat better than his predecessor. Both pages were among the day's six most-viewed articles on guardian.co.uk/politics, indicating healthy reader interest.
Spikes in negative sentiment about Blair came when he insisted Saddam Hussein would have been a bigger threat if left in power, and said he had no regrets about joining the invasion. They plummeted when he appeared to say that publishing the "dodgy" WMD dossier was a mistake. Some said he should face a war crimes tribunal, and many accused him of lies and evasion, with words such as "slick" cropping up frequently. There was frustration at the inquiry's failure to pin him down, alongside grudging admiration for his performance. Brown was worst received when he insisted he had granted every MoD funding request, and best when he criticised the "neoconservative" proposition that peace in Iraq could be imposed at the barrel of a gun. He also received a fillip when – unlike Blair – he offered sympathy and respect to bereaved families.
Twitter's 140-character format enforces a brevity of expression that fosters enormous creativity. Some people encapsulated hours of arcane testimony with laconic observations such as this one from @LeeConti: "We already have double-glazing, but even so, I reckon Tony Blair could probably persuade us to buy some more."
We'll be repeating the exercise on Wednesday during the budget. Our budgetometer will be monitoring the hashtag #budget (following #darling might yield the wrong results). To take part, tweet your thoughts on the chancellor's speech – which starts at 12.30pm – and include #budget in your message.
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- Divorce settlements in the spotlight as court decides status of prenups
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:55:50 GMT
2010-03-21T23:55:50Z -
Decision will finally clarify whether prenups can be decisive in divorce settlements even though they are not legally enforceable in England
The legal status of prenuptial agreements will come under scrutiny in the courts when the ex-husband of an heiress takes his fight for alimony payments to the supreme court.
Its decision will finally clarify whether prenups can be decisive in divorce settlements even though they are not legally enforceable in England.
Katrin Radmacher, a 39-year-old German heiress, avoided almost £6m in alimony payments to French-born Nicolas Granatino last year after a ruling by the court of appeal upheld the agreement signed by them four months before they married in London.
The contact between Radmacher, an heiress worth £100m, and Granatino stated that, other than financial provision for their two children, neither of them would make a financial claim against the other if they split up.
But Granatino, the son of a wealthy French industrialist, asked the courts for a divorce settlement of £10m. He was finally awarded £5.8m.
The court of appeal overturned the settlement, awarding him £1m.
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- Our defence policy is caught between pride and guilt | Julian Glover
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:00:03 GMT
2010-03-21T22:00:03Z -
Fear of looking weak drives everything. Britain keeps buying the wrong equipment at the wrong price for the wrong wars
Excitement is seductive. Land by Merlin helicopter on the deck of an aircraft carrier, as I did last week – the ship heeling back and forth to dodge the threat of missiles, the crew at action stations in white anti-flash suits, Harrier jets roaring up the ramp – and I defy you not to share the thrill. No matter that the carrier is (by world standards) small, its handful of planes part-time and the conflict I saw just a training exercise in the North Sea, rescuing pretend British citizens trapped in the rebel state of Little Caledonia (or Morpeth, as road maps call it).
HMS Ark Royal is still magnificent, the flagship of the ragged remains of the Royal Navy. But will it be the last great British ship? The navy, of course, claims not. Up the east coast in Rosyth they are welding together the hull sections of HMS Queen Elizabeth, a spectacular 65,000-tonne vessel that comes at a spectacular price: £5bn (and probably more, plus £12bn for the jets) for a pair of carriers that would make Britain a maritime power for decades. The project is midway – engineers will start transferring to the new ship in 2012 and she is due to come into service in 2016. The bow has just been finished and a billion pounds' worth of materials bought.
All this inevitably makes the ship a prime target for the sort of last-minute cuts that are a hallmark of the idiocy of defence procurement. While Labour says it will continue construction (taking place, after all, on Gordon Brown's constituency doorstep), the Tories will only admit to being "well-disposed". That sounds like a cut: of one of the two ships on order, or their Joint Strike Fighter jets, or both.
Since 1945 Britain has being buying too big and then losing its nerve. We have the appetite of a superpower and the stomach of a minnow. We want to fly the flag but not pay the price. You'll never find the foreign secretary brave enough to say this country is too poor or too weak to intervene somewhere, or the defence secretary who looks – as his education or health counterparts do – to modest Scandinavia for a model.
Defence policy is caught in a toxic mix of pride and guilt. Britain always buys the wrong equipment at the wrong price for the wrong wars: too few helicopters, too few ships and too many nuclear bombs and fast jets. The Eurofighter project is a disaster of unknown cost, since the MoD ceased releasing figures once they passed £20bn. Only four Typhoons (as the plane has been rebranded) have ever been deployed outside Britain: to the Falklands, where they safeguard sheep and penguins. That is about all they are good for, since they were designed three decades ago to fight the Soviets.
Brown was recently caught out misleading the Chilcot inquiry over military spending, claiming it had risen in real terms when it actually fell in four budgets – but in the defence world, almost everything anyone says turns out to be wrong. There hasn't been a defence review since 1998. Bob Ainsworth's green paper, published the other day, is empty of ideas, but he is only the latest in a series of defence secretaries who have either been clueless or who have quit – like Geoff Hoon – to make "embarrassing" (his word) amounts of money from contractors.
Even now, with the deficit in crisis, the prime minister is blowing billions on Trident replacement for fear of looking weak, and the Tories are going along with it for the same reason. No one dares raise their eyes from our £5bn-a-year war in Afghanistan. The British army will be brilliantly equipped to fight in Helmand at just the time we pull out. We sent Viking troop carriers designed for the Arctic into the Afghan desert. Soon, no doubt, we will send desert trucks sliding on to ice.
The service chiefs are squabbling, their briefing and counter-briefing vicious. The army thinks the navy is a relic, while the navy thinks the same of the airforce. The RAF has its eye on space warfare. Out on Ark Royal, men and women of daunting enthusiasm are trying to keep their bit of the military running, though there aren't funds – or the planes to land on the ships – now that the Sea Harriers have been scrapped. There will be a strategic defence review soon, but its terms will be constrained by the budget that will come first; and caught in the twin headlights of Afghanistan and public Euroscepticism, no one in any party can say anything sensible about foreign policy.
We should assess what we want to do and what we can afford. I arrived on the Ark Royal determined not to be seduced by military enthusiasms. I departed, as convinced by what must go as what must stay. Trident replacement should go; Britain is being lumbered with the ability to obliterate all humanity, and a conventional force stripped to the bone to pay for it. Keep the existing nuclear capacity if you must; or join up with the French; or kill it as cold war relic. Refuse to buy a single extra Eurofighter.
Prune (without dropping) plans to buy the JSF jet. As for the new carriers, they are, unlike much defence equipment, adaptable and manoeuvrable. They could sail to the rescue in Haiti or feed the hungry in Mogadishu as easily as obliterate Tehran. We should build and deploy the first, and persuade the French (whose own grandiose carrier doesn't work) to complete and equip the second: a shared fleet for two European nations that have yet to reconcile themselves to their more modest place in the world.
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- Activist who was cleared of hunt supporter's death fears reprisals
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:51:44 GMT
2010-03-21T21:51:44Z -
Blade of Bryan Griffiths's gyrocopter struck and killed Trevor Morse at Long Marston airfield
An animal rights activist who piloted a gyrocopter that killed a hunt supporter spoke yesterday of his fear of reprisals following his acquittal for manslaughter.
The blade of Bryan Griffiths's gyrocopter struck and killed Warwickshire hunt member Trevor Morse on 9 March last year at Long Marston airfield.
Griffiths, 55, was cleared of manslaughter by gross negligence at Birmingham crown court on Wednesday.
He is worried about reprisal attacks by hunt supporters who, he said, may feel he has not been made to pay for Mr Morse's death. He said: "If I had gone to prison I might have been safer because if these people felt I had received some punishment for what happened they might have let it drop.
"I would not put it past them to take it upon themselves to seek a bit of payback. If you go up against some of these people it can turn nasty."
Griffiths has installed CCTV at his home in Bedworth, Warwickshire, and is on a police list of priority callers. If he sees an unfamiliar car outside his house, he takes down the registration number. He also fears for the safety of his wife, Dawn, 53.
"Ever since I started monitoring these people I was aware how they could be," he said. "They don't like being watched and they'll do anything they can to try to stop people watching them."
But Mr Morse's death will stay with him for the rest of his life, he added.
"A man died and that's not going to be something you forget very quickly. At Christmas the thought crossed my mind that this was going to be his partner's first Christmas without him."
A two-week trial heard that Mr Morse's head was cleaved "from top to bottom" by the rear rotor of the gyrocopter as he tried to stop it from taking off.
Sam Butler, a Warwickshire hunt master, said: "At no stage has anyone in the Warwickshire hunt discussed using any form of physical action against hunt monitors."
He described Mr Morse as "one of the most gentle men" he had ever met and said the hunt was "devastated" by his loss.
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- The war of the sea eagles
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:00:01 GMT
2010-03-21T21:00:01Z -
Would you want a bird with an 8ft wingspan hovering over your back garden? Controversial plans to reintroduce the majestic sea eagle to England has locals up in arms
Wearing a woollen RSPB hat, John Pilbeam is enjoying a chilly spring day in the seaside town of Southwold. Like many visitors to the Suffolk coast, he and his wife, Brenda, are bird lovers and members of the RSPB. Just the sort of people, you would imagine, who would enthusiastically support perhaps the most spectacular and daring conservation scheme in Britain today: the plan to let the sea eagle stretch its majestic 8ft wingspan again in the skies above East Anglia.
The Pilbeams have already travelled to Norway and Scotland just to see this huge bird of prey – the fourth-largest avian raptor in the world. So it is a surprise when they give their opinion on returning the sea eagles (also known as white-tailed eagles) to the Suffolk coast.
"They need the space to fly freely, to nest and breed, and there isn't the space for them here. It would be awful to cramp them in," says Brenda. "I can't understand why they want to introduce them into this area," John agrees. "If the sea eagles come in and decimate the birds on the coast, no one will be happy. It will be a great tourist attraction, but it doesn't seem to fit in with the natural scheme of things."
A stubborn rebellion is brewing in this part of Suffolk. "Say no to sea eagles here," shout big signs mounted on farm trailers by main roads. One newspaper columnist has called the eagles "a symbol of a quango's PR exercise and contempt for human society".
We drove the white-tailed eagle to extinction in England more than 200 years ago; the last pair was recorded on the Isle of Wight. They became extinct in Scotland at the start of the last century but, after several decades of trying, were successfully re-established in north-west Scotland after chicks had been taken from nests in Norway. Since they bred 25 years ago, the eagles have flourished on Rum, Skye and Mull, delighting tourists and upsetting some local crofters who blame them for taking lambs.
Britain is obliged by an EU directive to restore habitat and actively reintroduce species where practical and desirable. Six extinct animals have been reintroduced in England in the last three decades, including the red kite, osprey and large blue butterfly. All have been hugely successful in economic and social as well as ecological terms, and Natural England, the government's agency responsible for the countryside, is now considering reviving three more extinct species: the hen harrier, short-haired bumblebee and, in the estuaries and marshes of East Anglia, the white-tailed eagle.
At first, a poll of more than 500 people in six Suffolk towns found 78% in favour of the project. The RSPB estimated the eagles could boost the local economy by £2m. Since the eagle scheme was announced, however, opposition has mounted. The reintroduction site was, temporarily, switched from Suffolk to Norfolk after fears were expressed about the impact on rare bitterns in Suffolk.
At a Norfolk Wildlife Trust meeting earlier this month, more than three quarters of attendees (many of whom were landowners and farmers) were against it. One man in the audience spoke of conservationists doing "a wonderful Max Clifford job on the eagle", accusing the RSPB of "punting them like Katie Price – the big birds are what brings the punters in, the tourists". In fact, the project had already been switched to Suffolk again, and the RSPB's hopes of releasing chicks this spring were scuppered.
By the ruins of Covehithe church in north Suffolk are 80 paddocks, each with their own corrugated iron hut. Contented-looking sows root up turf outside each hut, which together contain almost 800 small piglets. This is Roger Middleditch's livelihood. His land is dry and sandy and poor; without the pigs these fields would not be worth farming.
Sea eagles are opportunistic predators. In Norway, their diet is mostly fish. In lowland Germany and the Baltic states, they take rabbits, small birds and carrion. In Scotland, crofters on the Gairloch peninsula claimed the eagles took 200 of 1,000 sheep in the area. A confidential study on the eagles' impact on farming by the independent Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) found "good evidence" that the birds took some live lambs in Scotland, but concluded that sea eagles only killed 33 to 37 lambs on Mull each year – hardly a livelihood-threatening death toll.
In Suffolk, Middleditch is sanguine about sea eagles snatching a few piglets. "Losing the odd piglet doesn't concern me too much – but the potential to do a lot of damage is very easy." As he explains, pigs are sensitive creatures easily spooked by big silhouettes in the sky. Hot-air balloons terrify them; so do large birds of prey. When scared, the sows jump up and try to chase off the threat: newborn piglets can get trampled; heavily pregnant, stressed sows can lose their babies.
Jimmy Butler breeds 40,000 pigs each year on his free-range farm near Blythburgh close to the Suffolk coast. His sows are farrowing – giving birth – every day of the year. He claims the sea eagles will cause panic. "When they fly over the top, they terrify the hell out of everything beneath them," Butler says. "If the sows run like hell and panic, they will go straight through the electric wire and run on to the A12 [road] and someone will get killed."
Randolph Ford, meanwhile, keeps two free-range hen houses, holding 16,000 hens each, in rural Suffolk. "It's the fear factor," he says. "They are bad enough if a sparrowhawk goes over, and those are small birds of prey. If a bird frightens them, it will put them off the lay."
From 100 hens, Ford gets an average of 90 eggs each day; he believes this would fall by 25% if they were scared by a sea eagle. It could also lead to "smothering" when the frightened hens race into the hen house. As the FWAG report notes of ravens and buzzards terrorising free-range hens in Devon: "A few persistent birds can soon raise mortality to uneconomic levels."
The last time Ford had a major smothering incident was when a fox came past: 580 birds perished. "We could sort him out. There was no problem after that," he says. Other farmers point out that angry landowners may shoot the sea eagles, even though it is illegal, if they sincerely believe their livelihoods are at stake.
Many farmers argue bringing white-tailed eagle chicks over from Norway is an introduction, rather than a reintroduction, and evidence of sea eagles in East Anglia is sketchy at best. Others point out that if they did fly here it was in Anglo-Saxon times; today's intensively farmed landscape is utterly different. The RSPB, however, estimates that sea eagles flew here about 400 years ago. Place names are good evidence: Yarn Hill means Eagle Hill, and overlooks an estuary where the sea eagles would have hunted fish.
Mark Avery, the RSPB's conservation director, struggles to contain his exasperation with the anti- arguments when we meet at Snape Maltings by the River Ald. Dry reeds rattle in the wind; acres of wetland and estuary stretch out invitingly for the eagles. But Avery accepts that conservationists need to tackle the widespread perception that these birds are out-of-place and alien to lowland England.
"The public see them on Springwatch and think they live up a mountain in Scotland and catch fish. That's how they make a living across Scandinavia, but there are loads of them in lowland Europe. They are just over the water in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Poland, living in lowlands with people and not eating babies and not destroying the rural economy."
When farmers point out there are not the same kind of outdoor pig and poultry farms in mainland Europe as in Suffolk, Avery gives them short shrift. There are, he says, plenty of big birds, from black-backed gulls to buzzards, which already swoop over pig units, to say nothing of military helicopters. He accepts there may be a few losses, but says Natural England is open to discussing "some sensible form of compensation" for farmers. "There might be the odd piglet or goose or chicken that gets taken. That can be sorted out. Just think of all the B&Bs, pubs and hotels that will get more custom."
One part wildlife lovers, one part paparazzi, twitchers gather in great flocks for half a day to see a rare bird – but then disappear again. "That isn't tourism," says one farmer. "That is people who make a nuisance of themselves in a small area. Tourism is people who enjoy our coastline, buy some Adnams and stay for a week."
Rob Macklin, Suffolk coast manager for the RSPB, points out that the sea eagles will particularly benefit the local economy in the off-season: Suffolk will receive thousands of extra winter visitors, just as bird lovers visit Mull in Scotland. An estimated £2m extra in tourism each year sounds like a good return on a project the RSPB claims will cost £600,000.
Too often, perhaps, farmers and conservationists are pitted against each other. Robert Middleditch, a cousin of Roger, is a farmer who is also a conservationist. His arable farm is partitioned by thick hedges and conservation strips with barn owl boxes in the trees. "We don't need lecturing by anyone about how to be environmental," he says.
A trustee of the charity Songbird Survival, Robert Middleditch is concerned that the return of sea eagles – alongside flourishing populations of sparrowhawks, buzzards and marsh harriers – will decimate declining populations of farmland birds. "It would be a real tragedy for farming and for conservation if they were released in East Anglia. It's nothing about increasing biodiversity," he argues. "It will reduce it."
Despite the balance of wildlife and agriculture on his land, he has seen his 200 breeding pairs of sparrows fall to just four over the last two decades – due, he says, to the conservation "success" that is the return of sparrowhawks. Middleditch believes the sea eagle money would be better spent conserving our threatened species. "To many of us, much more iconic [than the sea eagle] is the tree sparrow, which has suffered a 90% population decline."
Avery, of the RSPB, admits sea eagles will eat other birds. They were worried about bitterns, he says, but have now "done our homework" and not found a single record of white-tailed eagles taking bitterns around the world. The eagles "will probably take quite a lot of waders in the winter," he concedes, but their numbers are thriving. And while part of the sea eagles project will be funded by the taxpayer, the RSPB argues they are likely to attract unique private funding that will not deprive other conservation projects of money.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the argument, the truth is that a quiet majority may well be in favour of seeing this majestic bird return to East Anglian skies. The local people I spoke to in Southwold who were not farmers were not opposed to its return. If this quiet majority has its way, the RSPB hopes to release the first chicks this time next year.
Which will delight Avery. "We spend too much of our time trying to stop bad things happening," he says. "This is a good thing we could be making happen – it's finishing off habitat restoration by putting back the last species that cannot get back here on its own . . . it's a great project, and everybody ought to be excited by it."
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- Post offices can kickstart Labour's radical agenda | Jackie Ashley
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:00:00 GMT
2010-03-21T21:00:00Z -
A People's Bank would herald a new version of back-to-basics – valuing the reality of people's lives, and their institutions
They nestle everywhere, from posh city centres to dilapidated estates, high streets to villages. Pubs are closing down; churches are struggling to fill pews; local railway stations have been turned into housing. But around 12,000 post offices are still there, open for business, fighting to keep alive.
Labour now wants to put the future of post offices at, or near, the centre of its election manifesto. As the Guardian revealed on Friday, they would be linked together by a new People's Bank, giving them a key role in communities around Britain. Not only is it a great idea, but it ought to give a pointer to the future of centre-left politics that takes us beyond the grim argument about public spending cuts.
The background is familiar: a much-loved national institution is in decline because, it seems, the world is moving on. A big review by the business department in 2008 resulted in 2,400 closures. Around a third of post offices have seen revenues fall, and it has become all too easy for developers to move in when leases end, so the buildings are snapped up for housing or offices. It has been a story of death by a thousand cuts.
In the past there has been an almost fatalistic drumbeat under the headlines – about more people using online services, fewer people wanting to collect documents or pensions in person, and a general sense that post offices were musty places that were dying out.
After the years of bubble, hubris and boom, this is a time for reassessment. Too much was thrown out too eagerly. Old centres were demolished. Privatisations were pushed by consultants and financiers who lined their own pockets and left us with private companies that haven't been astonishing success stories (British Airways and Network Rail spring to mind). Glib tear-it-up-and-start-again radicalism is at last out of fashion.
This takes us directly to the post offices. They are a fantastic national asset, which matter most to the people at the bottom of the pile, the ones Labour should be most concerned about. This is about bricks and mortar, real places and real people in real communities.
Even in its attenuated condition, the post office network is bigger than all the banks and building societies put together (and they are still closing down across the country). There is a modest public subsidy of about £150m a year, but this should be thought of as payment for an essential part of the fabric of daily life – without it, according to the government, two-thirds of post offices would disappear. It is time, in short, to come up with a shrewder, better system of valuation, one that acknowledges the value of traditional, easy-to-find, reassuring institutions that make being British just that little bit more pleasant.
When Victorian reformers invested in public parks and libraries, as well as enshrining the post office as a local hub, they were being hard-headed, not fuddy-duddy.
That's half the story. The other half is the near-collapse of the banking system, again caused by computerised geniuses who had lost touch with the real world. Whatever happens to banks in the longer term, hardly anyone disagrees that there needs to be a clear division between the casino-capitalism high-risk investment game and the humble current account, savings and mortgages banking that most of us actually use.
The banks haven't changed their spots. They protest at new levies, limits to bonuses or any imposed change to their structures. The government has limited leverage because ministers are all too aware of how much the rest of us depend on the familiar high-street end of the banking system. So a People's Bank – offering current and savings accounts, help with financial planning, and a way for credit unions to reach individuals – would provide a real alternative. It would bring the million or so "unbanked" people into the financial system with weekly budgeting accounts. Yes, it would boost the incomes of post offices; but it would also be a huge and populist reform of the banking system.
Doing this, as Ed Miliband proposes for the forthcoming Labour manifesto, would mean radical rethinking of the future of individual post office sites, because attempts by the Royal Mail to leaseback sorting offices, never mind post offices, are going ahead all the time. It would provoke protests from banks. Most important, it would mean, in a time of financial stringency, forgoing the quick-hit savings from closures and choked-off subsidies.
It costs, but it benefits more. These are strange and bewildering times for the centre-left. The immediate agenda of spending restraint and tax increases leaves Labour struggling to find an optimistic road ahead. But here is a project that not only makes sense, but which can be funded by a big switch to a new kind of banking, and then of small business support.
It comes down to trust. For too long we have been sold a line. We shouldn't place our trust in anything publicly owned or run – rotten nationalised services, rotten institutions, rotten politicians. This is deadly for any progressive politics, of course, since without public institutions there is none.
But it is also a twisted view of how most people live. In ill-health they rely on revamped publicly owned hospitals. They wait for the postie, not the private courier, to deliver their letters. Thinking of the environment, they acknowledge the importance of public transport – think of the cross-party enthusiasm for new high-speed trains, and the return of some trams to city centres. And they welcome the physical presence of community support officers to make public spaces feel more secure.
Yes, the online, digital world is exciting and new. Yes, many well-off urbanites live an apparently privatised existence, with sophisticated banking arrangements and so forth. But they are a minority whose airy, globalised world-view has been given too much attention by the political classes.
It's time for a Labour version of "back to basics", returning to the real lives of the majority of people, and the value of traditional, physical institutions for them. Ed Miliband, it seems, has got this message, with his determination to rebalance the power relationships between individuals and institutions. The boom was a collective fantasy, with fantasy money being made, and self-appointed magicians promising virtual paradise. We know better now. It is time to build a different political agenda; and the humble post office is a very good place to start.
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- David Cameron calls for probe into lobbying affair
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:54:09 GMT
2010-03-21T21:15:39Z -
Conservative leader and cabinet ministers condemn findings of undercover 'sting'
David Cameron today sought to turn Labour sleaze into a damaging election issue when he called on Gordon Brown to investigate allegations that former cabinet ministers, including Stephen Byers and Geoff Hoon, had shown they were willing to use their access and influence to lobby in return for cash.
Cameron called on Brown to investigate Byers's claims that he had successfully lobbied the transport secretary, Lord Adonis, and the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, to change important decisions on behalf of commercial firms.
Byers claimed he had persuaded Mandelson to tone down food labelling rules on behalf of Tesco. He also suggested he had persuaded Adonis to tone down his approach to National Express over its decision to pull out of the East Coast main line franchise.
Byers, offering himself as "a cab for hire", made the claims in an attempt to persuade an undercover reporter posing as a company executive of his influence in government. He said he would expect £3,000 to £5,000 in return for his services
He was secretly recorded by journalists from Channel 4 and the Sunday Times posing as representatives of an American lobbying firm. He withdrew the claims a day later. Adonis, Mandelson and both companies have denied the claims.
Cabinet ministers including the foreign secretary, David Miliband, denounced Byers and the other former ministers. "There is absolutely no room for anyone to trade on their ministerial office," Miliband said. Labour also quickly followed an earlier Conservative initiative by making a manifesto commitment to a statutory registry of lobbyists.
But Cameron said the claims raised wider questions about whether MPs had broken sleaze rules and urged Gordon Brown to investigate potential breaches within the government itself. Exploiting Labour discomfort, Cameron said: "These are shocking allegations. I have been warning for some time that lobbying would be the next scandal to hit politics.
"First of all, the House of Commons needs to conduct a thorough investigation into these [former] Labour ministers but also the prime minister would want to get to the bottom of the allegations being made about his government". There were also calls for Byers to be investigated by the standards commissioner.
Byers issued a statement yesterday saying: "I am confident that any investigation from the standards commissioner will confirm that I have always fully complied with the MPs' code of conduct. I have never lobbied ministers on behalf of commercial organisations and have always fully disclosed my outside interests."
There has been no suggestion that he sought money from either Tesco or National Express. This meant he was not required to register the meetings in his entry in the register of interests. He also had no requirement to seek the agreement of the business advisory committee on public appointments since he was not offered a job by the fictitious lobbying firm.
Byers, due to stand down at the election as MP for North Tyneside, said he had exaggerated his influence, and both National Express and Tesco rejected his account. A spokesman for Tesco said: "We did not speak to Mr Byers on food labelling, regulation or indeed any other issue. These claims are completely fictitious and Mr Byers has acknowledged this to us."
Adonis and National Express both denied Byers had influenced government thinking. The firm said: "We have not paid Stephen Byers MP in relation to the discussions we had with him on the East Coast main line or for any other matter. He has not made any deals for National Express."
Labour responded to the revelations by saying "the time has come to support a statutory register of lobbyists and we will bring forward proposals to that effect in our manifesto, building on the work we have already done to create a voluntary code." The public administration select committee proposed a statutory code a year ago, but the government rejected the proposal in favour of a voluntary measure.
In other responses to the committee report, the government agreed departments will publish online information about ministerial meetings with interest groups and hospitality received in a ministerial capacity on a quarterly basis.
Hoon, the former defence secretary, offered to lead delegations to ministers and told the reporter that he was looking to turn his knowledge and contacts into "something that frankly makes money". Hoon said: "There was a discussion about my qualifications and experience for such a position. I made clear in the course of the conversation that I would not lobby government and that I was not interested in work of that kind.
"At no stage did I offer, nor would I attempt, to sell confidential or privileged information arising from my time in government. "I did not break any parliamentary or ministerial rules in the course of the conversation."
Patricia Hewitt, a former health secretary, was accused of claiming she helped to obtain a key seat on a government advisory group for a client paying her £3,000 a day. She later denied the allegation, saying she had only been offering to do such work once she had left the Commons.
Thirteen Labour MPs and seven Tories were approached for the investigation. The Tory whips' office was alerted to a possible sting when one of their MPs, Julie Kirkbride, became suspicious of a fake lobbyist.
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- Rail link sell-off will raise £2bn for green energy projects
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:28:02 GMT
2010-03-21T20:28:02Z -
Chancellor insists budget measures will be 'sensible and workmanlike' rather than pre-election giveaway
Alastair Darling will use the proceeds from the state sell-off of the Channel Tunnel rail link to pay for a £2bn green infrastructure fund, in a budget designed to help business and tackle Britain's emerging energy crisis, Treasury sources said tonight.
The chancellor, who insisted today that Wednesday's package of measures would be "sensible and workmanlike" rather than a pre-election giveaway, plans to earmark the first tranche of cash from the privatisation of High Speed 1 for seedcorn capital for low-carbon energy projects.
The projects likely to benefit from the fund will include low-carbon cars, wind energy, green waste projects and a new generation of nuclear power stations. Darling will claim that the fund will create 400,000 low-carbon jobs by 2015.
Without the investment, Britain would struggle to meet its targets for the next decade of cutting CO2 emissions by 34% and producing 15% of its energy from renewable sources.
Darling will also announce that Britain's banks will contribute £250m to a £500m growth capital fund, designed to ease the financial pressures on the small and medium-sized companies most affected by the credit crunch.
"A little bit of government help can unlock a lot of private sector investment, and that is going to be the focus this week," Darling said in a BBC interview.
He picked out the creative industries and the pharmaceutical sector as two industries warranting extra government help.
The overall aim of the budget is to set out a pathway for growth, and to give fresh details on the deficit reduction plans outlined in December.
The chancellor ruled out rises in VAT and indicated he would dedicate any windfall from lower than expected borrowing figures and unemployment to investments in the future, rather than extra departmental spending.
"If a politician offered Christmas trees the voters would roll their eyes and say, 'Oh well, you know you've clearly lost touch'," he argued.
Darling is expected to provide fresh detail on how government departments are meeting efficiency targets, deemed to be essential to plans to halve the deficit by 2013-14.
He also insisted there would not be an emergency budget after the election, and said he hoped the 50p income tax rate on those earning £150,000 or more would be a temporary feature of the tax landscape.
The government is expected to announce fresh measures to reduce youth unemployment, as well as some extra cash for defence.
Overall, the budget will represent a shift to a more European interventionist industrial policy. Darling and Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, believe the case for a more hands-on approach has been made by the success of limited state support for Nissan in Sunderland, which last week announced plans for a new electric car, and for Sheffield Forgemasters, one of only two plants in the world capable of making reactor vessels for the nuclear industry.
The High Speed 1 rail link was taken into public ownership last year, and Darling intends to use £1bn from the sell-off to attract a further £1bn from the private sector for a fund to be set up in 2011.
Other state assets earmarked for sale include the Dartford crossing and the Tote.
Treasury sources said Britain needed to spend £165bn over the next 15 years to replace 40% of its energy infrastructure, and public money had to be found – even in tough financial times – to attract private finance for new and unproven technologies. Mandelson's business department are also looking at using more active industrial policies – such as government procurement policies and small-scale loans – to help business recover from the deepest and longest recession since the second world war.
The budget is likely to set a target for the percentage of government business that should go to SMEs and propose an updated form of 3i, set up after the war to provide venture capital for start-up companies. "The fund is needed to deal with the problem of barriers to entry for private sector investment in technologies perceived to be high risk", a Treasury source said.
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- Soham murderer Ian Huntley attacked in jail
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:16:36 GMT
2010-03-21T20:16:36Z -
Ian Huntley recovering in hospital after attack by fellow prisoner
The Soham murderer, Ian Huntley, is recovering in hospital after being attacked today by a fellow prisoner, the Ministry of Justice has said.
The 36-year-old was taken for treatment after he was attacked at Frankland prison in County Durham, where he is serving two life sentences for murdering schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Reports suggested his throat had been slashed, but his condition was not believed to be life-threatening.
A Prison Service spokesman said: "A prisoner at HMP Frankland was assaulted by another prisoner at about 3.25pm on Sunday 21 March. The prisoner was taken to outside hospital for treatment. His condition is not thought to be life-threatening."
Huntley was convicted of murdering Holly and Jessica, who were both 10, in December 2003 after they vanished from their homes in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August 2002. He was jailed for life with a minimum term of 40 years.
Huntley, a caretaker at the secondary school in Soham, and his then girlfriend, Maxine Carr, a teaching assistant in the girls' junior school class, told police that they knew nothing of the circumstances surrounding the girls' disappearance.
But it emerged at their trial at the Old Bailey in December 2003 that Huntley had met Holly and Jessica as they walked past his home, enticed them inside and killed them before hiding their remains.
Yesterday's assault is not the first time Huntley, who has been threatened regularly with revenge attacks, has been attacked in prison.
In September 2005 he was scalded with boiling water by another inmate at the high-security Wakefield prison, in West Yorkshire. The attack happened on the healthcare wing of the jail, which houses some of the most dangerous prisoners in the country. He was left severely scalded after rapist Paul Marshall, 35, threw the water over him.
The following year Huntley was held at knifepoint by another inmate at Wakefield after being ambushed on his way back to his cell following a meal. The Sun reported at the time that the alleged attacker used a sharpened plastic knife and Huntley was forced to fight for his life to fend off the assault.
Huntley has made three suicide attempts while in jail. He was moved to Frankland, a category A prison, in January 2008. The same year, prison inspectors raised concerns about violence at the jail.
The Ministry of Justice would not confirm if an investigation into the assault had been launched.
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- Tory bank levy plans put City jobs at risk, warns Alistair Darling
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:16:00 GMT
2010-03-21T20:17:18Z -
• Budget proposals for tax on banks could raise £5bn
• Conservatives say Gordon Brown not standing up to the CityAlistair Darling today warned that Conservative plans to press ahead with a banking levy, to claw back some of the billions of taxpayer funds spent bailing out the financial sector, would pose "a hell of a risk" to City jobs unless it had international support.
The chancellor is expected to include proposals for a bank tax, that could raise as much as £5bn, in this week's budget, but will stress that such a measure will not be introduced unilaterally. He will make it plain that the government would only support a global tax on financial institutions.
David Cameron appeared to make a grab for the popular vote when he announced on Saturday his party's intention to impose a unilateral tax on banks to reclaim some of the public money used to prop up financial institutions during the economic crisis.
But Darling told the BBC that British-based financial institutions would merely move abroad if the UK acted on its own, putting the UK's 1m banking sector jobs in peril.
"It could only work if there was an international agreement," he said, adding that UK taxpayers would get their money back through means such as selling the stakes the state has in some banks.
"I think we are going to get our money back but the important thing to remember about this industry is, yes, it has had its trauma and, yes, there have been some ridiculous things that have happened, [but] this is an industry that employs over a million people and it is taking a hell of a risk, the Tory approach."
He said the Conservatives seemed "indifferent" to the risk that a unilateral levy could lead to British jobs being lost. "This is a policy that they have made on the hoof," he added. "This is not the first time that they have done it, they are getting the big judgments wrong and making things up for the next headline. I think the Tory approach is pretty misguided, it's not thought out. Our approach is a much more sensible one and it will work."
Cameron's desire to go it alone also marks a U-turn for the Opposition, who a few weeks ago were saying any levy would have to be part of a global deal. But the shadow chief Treasury secretary, Philip Hammond, said the international consensus was swinging behind the Tories.
"It has become clear that this is now going to happen – the US is going to introduce a banking levy, Sweden has already done so, the consensus is growing – and at some point you have to make a decision to take some leadership," he told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show.
"We discussed it internally and decided that the moment had come when we needed to move into a leadership position and say that we will definitely do this in order to give a boost to the global consensus that is building."
Last week Cameron said the banking industry was one of the vested interests that he would confront if elected as he accused Gordon Brown of failing to stand up to the City.
"We had the biggest bank bailout in the world. We can't just carry on as if nothing happened," he said during a speech in London on Saturday. "In America, President Obama has said he will get taxpayers back every cent they put in. Why should it be any different here?"
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- Unite union calls on BA board to return to talks aimed at ending strike
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:09:15 GMT
2010-03-21T19:09:15Z -
As cabin crews prepare for the third day of their walkout, the two sides disagree on how effective the strike has been
The Unite trade union has urged British Airways to resume peace talks as cabin crews prepare toentertheir third day of strike action with both sides claiming to have landed blows in the dispute.
Tony Woodley, the joint general secretary of Unite, Britain's largest union, called on BA's board to reopen negotiations over staffing cuts that broke up acrimoniously last week. BA is trying to restore a normal schedule when the strike ends at midnight tomorrow, but aircraft are now out of place around the globe, threatening more disruption, and a further four-day strike is due to begin on Saturday.
"I am now appealing to the BA chairman and sensible members of the board to use their influence, put passengers first and return to the negotiating table for the good of everyone," said Woodley. "It is quite obvious this strike is in no one's interest. We need a negotiated settlement."
Woodley pointedly failed to mention the airline's chief executive, Willie Walsh, who said yesterday that BA's performance during the three-day strike by 12,000 flight attendants was "better than expected".
Walsh used a YouTube message to laud the fact that some cabin crew members had crossed picket lines.
"It was great to see them walking through the terminal building, wearing their uniform, wearing it with pride, and they are turning up to keep BA flying," he said. Striking cabin crew claim that some colleagues are staffing flights out of fear of losing their travel privileges, or their jobs, if they join the walkout.
With thousands of BA passengers observing rows of empty planes as they flew in and out of Heathrow today, both sides accused the other of fabricating claims about the effectiveness of the strike. Unite officials and BA executives are aware that any perceived weakness would be a disadvantage if negotiations resume this week.
The PR battle saw Unite claim it had grounded significant numbers of flights with a heavily-supported walkout, while BA said it was flying two-thirds of passengers to their destinations with growing numbers of strike-breaking cabin crew. BA said around 50,000 customers travelled to their destinations today, while around 25,000 were unable to fly.
Unite said only 9 of 1,110 rostered cabin crew had turned up at Heathrow, but BA dismissed the claim. A spokesman said: "That is barely enough for one plane. We would not be able to get today's service out." The airline claimed that 55% of rostered cabin crew attended work at the airport, which Unite said was boosted by crew arriving on inbound flights from long-haul destinations.
BA said it was operating a number of empty "ghost" flights, but not as many as the 49 claimed by Unite. "They are cargo flights, which are extremely important financially for the company and they will return with hundreds of passengers," said a BA spokesman.
John Strickland, an industry consultant and former BA manager, said: "They are both getting their message across. The union can point to aircraft parked at Heathrow and BA can show it is operating its programme. But both sides have to see the haemorrhaging effect of this and the impact on BA's customer base."
A trade union source said no peace talks were scheduled and, with a further four-day strike looming, indicated that it would take some time to reach an agreement. "We are up for a deal but it cannot be just any old deal. It has to be one that we can live with."
A BA spokesman said: "We are aware of Tony Woodley's comments, but we are completely focused on flying our customers where they want to go and increasing our schedule as more crew turn up for work."
Striking staff said some colleagues were concerned by a BA warning that strikers will lose their travel concessions.
"Between 20% and 30% of crew commute from abroad and rely on the travel concession to get to work," said one French crew member at the strike headquarters at Bedfont football club near Heathrow. "I know some people who are afraid to strike because of that."
At Terminal Five, some passengers said they didn't notice the effect of the strike, with flights staffed by hundreds of volunteer flight attendants. Nick Barclay, 39, arriving from Aberdeen said: "You wouldn't have known about a strike, it was like a normal flight."
At Bedfont, one non-striking cabin crew member said she had flown in on a flight from Africa and came to show support.
"On aircraft with minimum crew there's no hot meals and drinks are limited," she said. "Our flight was a full crew and there were no hot meals. People in first class were having economy wines. They'd paid thousands of pounds more and it was exactly the same as economy."
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- MPs stuck in the lobbyist mire | Peter Preston
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:00:01 GMT
2010-03-21T19:00:01Z -
It is 16 years since the MPs' cash-for-questions scandal but standards in public life still fall short
It is 16 years since the Guardian uncovered cash for questions and a group of Conservative MPs prepared to go lobbying on demand; 16 years since a Sunday Times sting found too many "honour- able members" ready to put their hands in the cookie jar; 16 years since an embattled John Major set up the Committee on Standards in Public Life to make our democracy a purer, more ordered thing. And here we go again. Another sting: another stench.
Try examining yesterday's Channel 4/Sunday Times exercise in the kindliest light. Not all of the MPs approached by a phoney PR company took the bait. Nobody did anything illegal. Some responses were more pathetic than menacing. Margaret Moran – on her way out after the expenses debacle – offered to ring up a "girls' gang" of MPs to push an appropriate cause. Geoff Hoon confessed wanly: "I've got two children at university, so I've got to get a job."
The top name on this lousy list, Stephen Byers, made an ass of himself: "I'm like a cab for hire – at £5,000 a day." Maybe the stuff about pushing Lord Adonis to go easy on National Express was merely more promotional blah – though his claims there, filmed and recorded before being hastily withdrawn, ought to be investigated.
In a sense, the details revealed are less important than the general impression confirmed. Sixteen years ago, it was Conservative MPs who were stuck in the lobbying mire. Now it's Labour MPs, and ostensibly sentient ex-ministers to boot. What on earth is Patricia Hewitt, former warrior for Age Concern, former chief of the National Council for Civil Liberties that turned into Liberty, doing meeting with supposed PR companies, let alone offering to help them fix this or that?
Cash for questions 1994 was a savage blow to voters who held parliament in unquestioning esteem. The expenses shambles 2009 brought Commons and Lords lower than low. The wriggling since spells continuing dismay. Party political funding drifts in a Sargasso Sea somewhere between Unite Beach and the Cape of Good Ashcroft. Add Byers and Co for complete despair.
Whatever happened to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, you ask? Where, 11 commodious reports later, did all the purity go? In fact, there's a reasonable story to tell on behalf of the committee. There wouldn't be an Electoral Commission, stronger rules on lobbyists or better standards in many areas without it. You can use a checklist to make sure that expense regimes in the next parliament don't ooze away. You can expect something better than the slop of self-serving regulation. You can hope that the prime minister doesn't cover up for colleagues in a jam.
But there is one question without an answer, one problem that stinky stings underline. Where – after all those 16 years – are the committee's own Seven Principles of Public Life, the bedrock that Lord Nolan first carved? Selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership? Ideas and ideals, not just words. And there, in its latest annual report, the committee seems to shrug, a Sysiphus pleading exhaustion.
"Codes of practice achieve very little if they are not supported by effective governance," it says. Expanding the rulebook to deal with every fresh scandal isn't a sustainable approach. We have to ensure that the Seven Principles "are embedded in the culture of our public service institutions and translated into personal values, reinforced in everyday behaviour by systems and processes".
Remember that today as Brown and Cameron compete to offer more and more rules. Remember that in the wasteland of dodgy dossiers and non-dom debate. "Getting it" isn't a quick fix, any more than a letter from the pope. We won't get better – unless we get better. We won't begin to believe again – unless we see something worth believing in.
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- Bristol cinema sets up film shows for Haiti's earthquake children
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:49:54 GMT
2010-03-21T18:49:54Z -
Volunteers offer Disney and Pixar favourites to youngsters traumatised by natural disasters in Haiti
Dusk falls, the insects bite and a makeshift open air cinema screen is set up. Scores of children gather and are transfixed by the flickering images that, for a short time at least, help them forget their troubles.
While the aid agencies are trying to make sure youngsters in Haiti have access to shelter, food and water, British volunteers are offering comfort through the medium of film.
Led by film enthusiasts from the Bristol's leftfield Cube Cinema, the project involves showing feature films and messages of support from children in Britain. The idea is eventually to help youngsters in Haiti make their own films, which will then be sent back to Bristol, forging a cinematic link between Britain and the earthquake-hit Caribbean country.
Esther May Campbell, a Bafta award-winning director, Cube volunteer and one of those behind the Haiti Kids Kino Project, said they hoped to offer traumatised youngsters a brief escape.
"This is the most direct humanitarian response we can offer," she said. "When children who have suffered these kind of traumas have nothing to do, desperation and anxiety levels shoot through the roof. The Cube has skills, passion and networks, enabling us to create a mobile cinema for young people, intending to offer community, hope and distraction."
Films the volunteers in Haiti have in their repertoire include Disney and Pixar favourites such as Jungle Book, WALL-E and Up, and European classics such as Albert Lamorisse's The Red Balloon. Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton films will also be screened as well as Looney Tunes cartoons and even the Wombles.
Campbell said the selection had been made carefully so that children who could not speak English would still enjoy the movies. Up to 500 children have been attending screenings.
French language films such as Le Ballon d'Or, a film about a talented footballer set in a poor west African community, has gone down well. But another highlight for the two Cube volunteers in Haiti, Marko Wilkinson and David Fitzsimmons, has been the sight of an audience clapping along to Vic Reeves singing Life's a Treat from Aardman's Shaun the Sheep. "There's more demand than we can supply," said Wilkinson.
The pair's work has been made more difficult by rain. One screening had to be abandoned when torrential rain fell and the project is now having to look at ways of protecting equipment against the damp.
As well as the feature films, Wilkinson and Fitzsimmons have taken out "film postcards" – short messages from youngsters in Bristol. One of the most striking "postcards" is a Bristol youngster holding up a sign that read: "Bon jou" – "Hello" in Haitian Creole.
The UN acknowledges that it is important to give children in disaster zones something to do.
Patrick McCormick, emergencies communication officer for the UN, said: "The worst thing for children in natural disasters isn't just the damage that they see around them, but also when they sit around with nothing to do. It ramps up anxiety and despair, and that's what does even more damage."
The Cube wants the project to be a long-running affair that eventuallybecomes self-sufficient. It is inviting people to donate by buying a seat for a screening in Haiti. If, as seems probable, they cannot actually get there, the ticket will be passed on to a local person.
The Cube, which describes itself as a "microplex", has a proud history of setting up interesting cultural exchanges and creating cinemas in challenging locations. Previously it has screened films in locations ranging from a Cornish tin mine to an abandoned multi-storey car park.
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- Pierrot Bidon obituary
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:27:56 GMT
2010-03-21T18:27:56Z -
Archaos founder who reinvented circus as an edgy art form for the industrial world
Pierrot Bidon, who has died of cancer aged 56, will be best remembered for creating the cult circus troupe Archaos, one of the ensembles that galvanised the new circus movement, in which traditional arts have been re-imagined and combined with contemporary artistic sensibilities and theatrical techniques.
"The welding torch, when it is used at night," said Bidon, "is a very beautiful thing, is it not? Why not use it in a circus?" Instead of sawdust, the Archaos circus ring had the air of a factory floor. The troupe cast their spell with a show that broke every rule. Traditional circus was all sequins, ivory juggling clubs, velvet and spandex. Bidon's big departure, which resonates to this day in everything from Cirque du Soleil to the Trash City and Shangri-La fields at the Glastonbury festival, was to arm his performers with oxy-acetylene torches, motorbikes and semtex, and clad his performers in boiler suits and corrugated iron. Crash helmets replaced red noses; topless trapeze artists swung from forklift trucks and huge cranes inside a tent hung with white ropes like a gigantic spider's web. Fire-eating performers in leather thongs and grotesque eyeliner coughed up flames that singed the front rows. It was visceral, grungy, primeval and anarchic; Bidon had created entertainment that took the audience to the edge.
Gone were the circus barons of Chipperfield, Knie and the conventional handouts of the Moscow State Circus. In their place, and brandishing an oxy-acetylene torch to attract attention, Archaos brought the spirit of a mad, paranoid and punch-drunk industrial society to the ring with a verve and a passion that appealed as much to children and (steely-nerved) parents as it did to intellectuals and minimalist aesthetes.
"New circus is more traditional than other circus," said Bidon. "Ordinary circus has become incorporated. It's dull. People are in it for the money and the spirit suffers. What we have tried to do is recapture the spirit and the passion of performing."
Bidon was born in Le Mans, in north-west France, and educated in the town, though he bunked off school, preferring to learn circus skills on the streets, where he performed prior to forming Cirque Bidon in 1975. This was a traditional travelling circus with 25 horses and caravans that toured the villages and small towns of France and Italy – Bidon, a diminutive and mischievous man, walked the tightrope for it.
After 10 years, Bidon decided circus had been stagnant as an art form for too long. He wanted to reinvent it for the industrial world. In 1986, the troupe changed its name from Circus Bidon to Archaos ("beginning"), and set about redefining the limits of what was possible in a late-20th-century spectacle. Based in a 300-year-old glass factory in Alès, a small town between Avignon and Montpelier in the south of France, the ensemble made all their own equipment – even the Chapiteau de Cordes, the delicate web of white ropes strung below the tent roof.
Archaos was a family and Bidon its patriarch. Members of the troupe came from all walks of life and he exuded an abundance of warmth that encompassed them all. "No one here was born in a circus," Bidon said. "But we all grew up in the street."
Archaos was first seen in Britain in 1988 at the Festival of New Circus in Jubilee Gardens, on London's South Bank. After the success of this show, the producer, Adrian Evans, was eager to turn the show's impetus into ticket sales. Keen to extend the show's run on Clapham Common, he suggested that I promote the show. Pierrot and I took it to the streets, hijacking media interest. Cars were split in half in shopping centres, motorbikes leapt over stationary traffic in Edinburgh. When the Bristol press persuaded the city fathers to ban Archaos, Pierrot was stoic, perceiving the advantages of a ban; it propelled Archaos to an international audience.
The shows grew in stature around Europe and Scandinavia and, in 1991, Archaos was on course to storm North America. But, just before the run commenced in New York, Archaos imploded. The Metal Clown show encountered financial difficulties after the tent was destroyed by gales in the Dublin festival. This, combined with a number of artistic differences, led to the company's demise.
After a brief rest in South America, Bidon returned to Britain to collaborate with the Generating Company, Peter Gabriel and Mark Fisher, and in 1998 create a show for the Millennium Experience, at the Millennium Dome. Bidon specialised in creating shows through workshops and in developing street performance. In Brazil, he created Circo da Madrugada, born out of workshops that were part of a social programme helping the dispossessed in shantytowns. In 1998, he had a prolonged stay in Conakry, Guinea, where he established Circus Baobab, an African extravaganza of dancing, acrobatics, juggling and clowning powered by west African music.
Aside from the circus, Bidon travelled the world working on large public celebrations and spectacles, from events in China to the Eurostar St Pancras Terminal opening ceremony in London.
The world of circus would not have reinvented itself for the 21st century so quickly or stylishly without Bidon's warmth, generosity and fearlessness. Friends tell me that his final act was to give the peace and love sign in one hand, and to offer the third finger – to life, death or whoever – on the other.
He is survived by his wife, Ana, and his sons Pedro and Antonio.
• Pierrot Bidon (Pierric Pillot), cirus performer and director, born 1 January 1954; died 9 March 2010
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- Billy Wolfe obituary
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:24:56 GMT
2010-03-21T18:24:56Z -
Former SNP leader, he transformed his party into a modern political force
Billy Wolfe, who has died aged 86, helped transform the Scottish National party (SNP) from a romantic movement into the modern political force which now enjoys minority government in the Scottish parliament.
A gentle and quiet chartered accountant, he was also a politician with a passion for Scottish history and culture which convinced him that, because Scotland was a nation, it should behave like one and have its own independent government. He dedicated his political career to this end, joining the SNP in 1959 and earning early recognition when he fought the 1962 West Lothian by- election. Though he had no prospect of success, he came a surprising second to the arch-unionist Labour MP Tam Dalyell, thanks to a 23% swing.
This early indication of Scottish nationalism's ability to threaten the union provoked a temporary upsurge in support for the SNP, leading to the party's sensational Hamilton byelection success with Winnie Ewing in 1967. Wolfe's decade of leadership, from 1969, included the SNP's greatest period of success in Westminster when, in October 1974, it boasted 11 MPs, although he was disappointed not to be one of them.
This breakthrough prompted Harold Wilson to conclude that Scotland should have some form of devolution. Wilson remarked that he was not worried by the SNP's 11 seats, but he was alarmed by the party's 40 second places. So began years of constitutional argument culminating in the establishment of the Scottish parliament, in Holyrood, where the SNP won power in 2007.
Billy was born in Bathgate, West Lothian, educated at George Watson's college, Edinburgh, and qualified as a chartered accountant. He served towards the end of the second world war with the Scottish Horse Regiment. It was his postwar persistence in challenging Dalyell over six general elections that earned him recognition as a tenacious campaigner. Though he never defeated Dalyell (the two remained on good terms), he did over this series of contests formulate a clear sense of purpose for the SNP, with some much-needed organisation and discipline.
In the early 1960s he was active in CND, campaigning against the arrival of a US Polaris fleet of nuclear weapons on the Clyde, and became Scottish CND's treasurer for four years from 1982. His early CND activity coincided with a period in Scottish politics when nationalism found itself able to co-exist with much of the Scottish left on issues such as nuclear disarmament. Wolfe recognised the advantages in persuading the SNP to be anti-nuclear, which it remains today, and to position itself to the left of centre, where his party and his successors as leaders have found themselves at ease.
Wolfe was credited with commissioning the familiar SNP yellow and black logo encompassing the thistle and Saltire, which is still in use today, and he invented the campaign slogan "Put Scotland First", which enjoyed fleeting success in several elections. During his leadership the party membership increased spectacularly. By the end of the 60s he had become the SNP's senior vice-chairman, before replacing Arthur Donaldson as party leader in 1969. But after the successes of the 70s, the party's fortunes dipped again as the Thatcher era dawned. Wolfe stepped down as leader in 1979 after the failure of the first devolution referendum and a disappointing general election for nationalism. He became party president in 1980 and remained an activist in senior posts until 2008.
His influence on the party had been loosened after 1979 as factionalism in the SNP left it bumping along the bottom in opinion polls during the early 1980s. But his residual legacy was strong enough to ensure the SNP benefited from its social democratic ideals, leaving it well-positioned to knock out Conservative MPs, while still offering a broad enough church to disillusioned Labour voters in Westminster and Holyrood elections.
Wolfe supported a range of cultural organisations in Scotland and wrote poetry in the Scots language. He wrote a semi-autobiographical book, Scotland Lives: The Quest for Independence, in 1971. He is survived by his wife, Kate, and by four children from a previous marriage.
• William (Billy) Cuthbertson Wolfe, politician; born 22 February, 1924; died 19 March, 2010
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- Gay couple turned away from B&B by Christian owners
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:22:57 GMT
2010-03-22T00:21:03Z -
'Shocked and embarrassed' pair say they felt treated like lepers and reported matter to police
A gay couple were turned away from a bed and breakfast by its Christian owner who claimed it was against her convictions for two men to share a bed.
Michael Black and John Morgan from Brampton, Cambridgeshire, booked a double room at the B&B in Cookham, Berkshire, for Friday night.
When they arrived, Susanne Wilkinson and her husband Francis refused to allow them to stay. The owner said later that she had turned them away because it was against her policy to accommodate same sex couples. Black and Morgan claimed they were treated like lepers as a result of their sexuality. They reported the matter to Thames Valley police and have given a statement to police. Under the Equality Act 2006 it is illegal to discriminate against people on the grounds of sexual orientation.
The couple had been in the village, near Maidenhead, to meet some friends for dinner and to see a local play.
Black, a 62-year-old self-employed exams consultant, said: "We're two respectable middle-aged men. John is leader of the Lib Dem group on Huntingdon town council.
"This was the first time either of us had experienced homophobia at first hand, despite being aged 56 and 62. We were shocked and embarrassed.
"Mrs Wilkinson saw us both before we got out of the car and immediately acted in an unwelcoming, cold way, but my boyfriend and I were polite and friendly.
"She said if we'd told her in advance she would have told us not to come."
She apologised for turning them away and she returned their deposit and was in no way abusive, the couple said.
Black said: "We want to try to prevent other people from going there and suffering discrimination. Whatever her private views, that I can't change. Legally she can't discriminate.
"It is like we were treated as lepers in the worst possible way."
Mrs Wilkinson said: "I don't see why I should change my mind and my beliefs I've held for years just because the government should force it on me.
"The property is not a hotel. It operates as a guest house and private home."
Mr Wilkinson disputed the couple's claim that they had not been given a friendly welcome.
"We are Christians and we believe our rights don't have to be subordinated. We have religious freedom and we are not judging that but we are not prepared to have that sort of activity under our roof," he said. "These people are very organised and we have already been inundated with abusive calls and emails. It is really sad that people act like that." Thames Valley police said: "We are aware of the incident … The call has been logged as a homophobic incident. As the people live outside of the force area, we have asked Cambridgeshire constabulary to speak to the individuals concerned."
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- Max Salpeter obituary
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:22:30 GMT
2010-03-21T18:22:30Z -
Eminent violinist and orchestra leader
The distinguished violinist Max Salpeter, who has died aged 101, led such orchestras as the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Mozart Players, New London Orchestra, Boyd Neel Orchestra, Pro-Arte Orchestra and the recording orchestra the National Philharmonic. He played with the greatest conductors, including Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini, Otto Klemperer, Herbert von Karajan, Guido Cantelli and Malcolm Sargent, and hundreds of soloists, among whom were pianists Artur Rubinstein and Sergei Rachmaninov, cellist Emanuel Feuermann, and violinists David Oistrakh and Jascha Heifetz, his great hero.
Born in Whitechapel, east London, Max was one of four brothers, whose parents had recently arrived from Kolomea, a small town in Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Max would pick up two sticks and imitate a violin being played. His musicality was spotted by a cantor at the local synagogue and he started to have violin lessons at the age of nine. His career began at 14 when he began playing for silent films.
He became a member of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1933, playing in the first violins until 1939, when he joined the celebrated RAF Symphony Orchestra. In 1945, at the Potsdam Conference, he led a small ensemble that played to Churchill, Stalin and Truman. He was approached by Stalin with some personal musical requests – an honour, however dubious, about which Max was wryly amused.
In 1949 he was invited to co-lead the Philharmonia Orchestra by the orchestra's founder, Walter Legge. Two violinists shared the position: Max led when Furtwängler conducted, while Manoug Parikian led for Otto Klemperer.
On leaving the Philharmonia in 1956, Max formed the Prometheus Ensemble, comprising some of the finest musicians of the day, including viola player Herbert Downes, double bassist Adrian Beers, flautist Gareth Morris, oboist Léon Goossens, clarinettist Jack Brymer, horn player Alan Civil and harpist Osian Ellis. The Times commented: "The Prometheus Ensemble need fear no comparison with the Berlin and Vienna Ensembles … in technique and musicality it is their equal."
Max was a regular recitalist for the BBC Third Programme, making many appearances with partners Cyril Preedy, Clifton Halliwell and Peter Wallfisch, as well as a celebrated recording of the Brahms Horn trio with Dennis Brain and Preedy. He was also a member of several string quartets, including the Kutcher and Blech quartets. Later in his career, he performed as a freelance musician. Brahms and Beethoven were swapped for Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Dean Martin and even the Beatles. And there were TV shows with Tom Jones, Barbra Streisand and Morecambe and Wise: in the duo's famous episode with André Previn, Max was the only musician not to succumb to laughter.
On many of these working days, even into his 70s, he would fit in three sessions. It is said that in his entire working life he never missed a concert, rehearsal, recording or session. He retired from playing in 1986. He is survived by his wife, Mollie, whom he married in 1935, and two daughters.
• Max Salpeter, violinist, born 16 April 1908; died 1 January 2010
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- Charity warns of dangers facing children in Haiti
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:28:12 GMT
2010-03-21T17:28:12Z -
Save the Children says risk to health 'extremely serious' as country struggles to recover from earthquake
Children have been badly affected by the earthquake that brought devastation to Haiti in January.
Save the Children says an estimated 1 million children have become separated from their parents or lost one or both parents.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with one in 13 children dying before their fifth birthday and 9% suffering from acute under-nutrition.
Save the Children said the risk to children's health is "extremely serious".
"Children are the most vulnerable when disease starts to spread, and the sanitation situation in many of the makeshift settlements is a secondary disaster waiting to happen," it said in a statement.
"An increase in diarrhoea, scabies and ringworm has already been noted."
The charity warned that abuse and exploitation of children could increase – one-fifth of children in Haiti were working before the quake. Children who have been separated from their families are at risk of sexual exploitation and of being trafficked.
Thousands of schools have been flattened, and the government said the education system had "collapsed".
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- Martin Rowson: Labour desperate to end BA strike
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:25:00 GMT
2010-03-22T01:42:57Z -
Gordon Brown's officials in close contact with union chiefs as Tories try to stoke row over party's funding
- Speaking up for scientists | Philip Strange
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:00:00 GMT
2010-03-21T17:00:00Z -
We can be arrogant and nerdish, but overall scientists do not set out to deceive themselves or the public
Last weekend on Cif Nicholas Maxwell accused scientists of "deceiving us and themselves about the nature of science". As an experimental biomedical scientist with 30 years of research experience, I looked for my own experience of science in his critique, but could not find it.
His main criticism is against the use of evidence to support scientific knowledge. He rejects as "nonsense" the idea that "nothing is accepted permanently as part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence". He cites subjects such as physics, where he says unified theories are accepted independent of evidence.
In the biomedical sciences, things are rather different. Research is conducted on the basis of a hypothesis and experiments are designed to probe the hypothesis. The results are analysed using statistical tests to decide whether the data agree or disagree with the hypothesis. Even if we are convinced by the results ourselves, we still need to convince our peers through the peer-review publication process.
This sort of science is not big science; it is incremental science. Each increment in knowledge may seem small, but it contributes to a body of knowledge which may eventually lead to an overarching theory. This evidence-based approach is fundamental to the biomedical sciences and has also transformed the practice of medicine. Maxwell believes scientists see themselves as "seekers after truth". In my view, this is a misrepresentation of the way science works; I prefer to see the scientific process as providing descriptions of natural phenomena that are consistent based on current evidence.
Maxwell goes on to consider "value" in the aims of science. Here I believe he is asking whether experiments performed are worth doing in terms of their outcomes. Most biomedical scientists would consider their work to be of intrinsic value as, by its very nature, biomedical science investigates topics related to human health and disease. But this is not enough and researchers do need to question continually the value of work performed. Some research will lead to high-value outcomes and some will not, but it is difficult to predict this at the outset. One important control of value comes from the peer-review process embedded in publication of results and in the grant review process.
Finally, Maxwell refers to "knowledge of valuable truth", which I believe relates to the dissemination and use by humanity of the results of useful research. Publication is one way of disseminating results, but it does not ensure the results are used well or widely known. High-quality reporting of science in the press (of which there is almost none) would help to disseminate scientific findings. There is also a political dimension as the use of results for the greater good depends in some cases on governments. Climate change is a good example: the scientific results about the effects of anthropogenic global warming are known but governments are sitting on their hands rather than taking difficult decisions.
Finally, let me speak up for scientists. In my experience, the vast majority of scientists are honest, sometimes slightly nerdish people who are grateful to be able to work on something about which they have a passionate interest. Scientists can be arrogant: but overall they do not deceive themselves, or the public.
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- British girl killed by car on Florida beach
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:50:55 GMT
2010-03-21T17:19:45Z -
Ellie Bland, 4, in fatal accident on Daytona beach while on holiday
A four-year-old British girl on a family holiday died after being hit by a car on a Florida beach at the weekend.
Ellie Bland, from Nottingham, was walking hand in hand with her great-uncle on Daytona beach when she was struck by a car just before 3pm on Saturday, according to the Daytona Beach News Journal.
The great-uncle, John Langlands, 53, told the paper that Ellie had walked a step ahead of him when suddenly the car, a silver Lincoln, was "barrelling down" on them, giving him no time to pull her out of the way.
Holly Harding, 18, who witnessed the accident from her car, said: "She darted into the lane of traffic. She was hit in the centre of the car. Everyone panicked. Everyone started screaming."
The Florida highway patrol said Ellie was struck by the car and that people had shouted for the driver to stop as the four-year-old lay in front of the vehicle. But after coming to a halt, the driver appeared to panic. "For an unknown reason, the driver panicked and hit the accelerator instead of the brake," police said.
Ellie died instantly. The driver was named as 66-year-old Barbara Worley, from Elberton, Georgia. No arrests have been made but police said charges were pending. The car had been travelling in the beach's travel lanes below the 10mph speed limit before the accident, according to the highway patrol.
Paying tribute to Ellie, Langlands said she was "a princess". "She was beautiful," he told the Journal. Her great-aunt Karen Langlands, 44, said the girl had struggled through medical issues including a heart murmur and digestive tract problems. "She was a quiet little girl," she said. "She'd play in activities at nursery, but she'd rather go off and read a book or a newspaper."
Ellie was on her sixth trip to Florida, accompanied by her five-year-old sister, her great-aunt, great-uncle and family friends. Her relatives had planned to take her to Disney's Magic Kingdom yesterday. Ellie's parents were not on holiday with her and learned of their daughter's death by phone back in England, the Journal reported.
Warm weather had attracted crowds to the beach on Saturday and beach umbrellas were used to shield Ellie's body until it could be removed from the scene.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We can confirm the death of a British national in Florida on 20 March. The next of kin have been informed and we are providing them with assistance."
Driving on Daytona beach is described as a tradition dating back to the early days of the automobile. Motorists have to pay for a permit during the high season and are advised to watch for pedestrians, sunbathers and wildlife. Many people are opposed to the practice because of the safety risk and Ellie's death is likely to intensify calls for a ban.
The highway patrol said it was not unheard of for people to be hurt by cars on the beach. The Journal said it was Florida's first beach traffic death for 14 years.
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- Stephen Byers claims no rules were broken during lobbying sting
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:58:00 GMT
2010-03-21T16:31:01Z -
Former minister says he did not break MPs' guidelines after being caught on camera offering political influence for money
Stephen Byers, the former transport secretary, today insisted he had complied with the MPs' code of conduct after a group of Labour MPs were targeted in an elaborate sting operation in which journalists set up a bogus lobbying company and offered to pay them in return for political influence.
Byers, an arch Blairite, was filmed describing himself as a "bit like a sort of cab for hire" and offering to trade Westminster contacts for £3,000 to £5,000 a day.
Amid condemnation from senior cabinet ministers, the Labour party tried to limit the damage by saying some MPs were "mortified" by how stupid they had been, and promising a crackdown on lobbying by former ministers, rushing forward a manifesto pledge for tighter regulation and monitoring.
Others who were targeted in the undercover operation included former cabinet ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt. Margaret Moran, Labour MP for Luton South, was also involved.
The chancellor, Alistair Darling, said it was ridiculous that the MPs had been caught out in the sting. He told BBC1's Andrew Marr show: "The best answer when you get a call like that is to put the receiver back down again. It's obvious.
"There are rules about serving MPs ‑ we've said that we're going to have to, I think, get a statutory-backed code of contact to deal with former ministers. But really, what on earth did they think they were doing? And equally for a company, you don't need a lobbyist. If you've got something to say, go directly to the government department and make your case. It's just ridiculous."
The foreign secretary, David Miliband, said he was appalled by today's revelations. He told Sky News: "There is absolutely no room for anyone to trade on their ministerial office. People come into politics ‑ whether Labour, Tory or Lib Dem – because of what they want to do for the country. And I believe that's true for MPs across all parties, I don't think this is a partisan point.
"Anything which sullies that reputation or gets in the way of that public service is completely inimical. I think it's right that we have tightened up the rules already ... but the Labour manifesto is going to say more about the need for a statutory register of the lobbying industry, because there is absolutely no room for the sort of innuendo or promises that seem to have been floated in this case."
In the sting, 20 MPs were invited to attend meetings to discuss joining an advisory board and 10 turned up. The meetings were mainly held at offices in London's St James's Square. An undercover Sunday Times journalist asked them how the company could go about influencing policy and how it could improve its chances of winning a government contract.
In a statement issued this afternoon, Byers said: "I am confident that any investigation from the standards commissioner will confirm that I have always fully complied with the MPs' code of conduct. I have never lobbied ministers on behalf of commercial organisations and have always fully disclosed my outside interests."
Byers had told the bogus lobbyists he had saved hundreds of millions of pounds for National Express through his contact with Lord Adonis, the transport minister, and had influenced food labelling proposals for Tesco after phoning Lord Mandelson, the business secretary. The MP said that his friendship with Mandelson was one of his "trump cards".
However, the next day he sent an email to the meeting's organisers saying he had "overstated" the part he had played in trying to secure changes to the way in which the government deals with issues. "This means that I have not spoken to Andrew Adonis … or Peter Mandelson about the matters I mentioned," he wrote.
Byers issued a statement last night saying that at an informal meeting about a potential job opportunity he had made some exaggerated claims.
"Having reflected on my comments I knew that I should immediately put the record straight. I did so the following morning by making it clear that I have never lobbied ministers on behalf of commercial interests. I later withdrew my name for consideration. I have always fully disclosed my outside interests," he said. Byers described the set-up as a "massive deception".
A statement issued by Adonis's office today said: "There is no truth whatsoever in the suggestion that Stephen Byers came to any arrangement with Andrew Adonis on any matter relating to National Express. It is equally untrue to suggest that National Express were allowed by the government to avoid any of their rail contract obligations."
A spokesman for Tesco said: "We did not speak to Mr Byers on food labelling, regulation or indeed any other issue. These claims are completely fictitious and Mr Byers has acknowledged this to us."
The operation features in a Dispatches programme to be aired tomorrow on Channel 4. The journalists set up a lobbying company known as Anderson Perry Associates, supposedly based in the US. Its website described it as a "bespoke consultancy that helps organisations and individuals maximise and exceed expectation". It claimed to have 120 clients in Europe, the Middle East and the US, operating in the health and defence industries.
Another of those filmed was the ex-health secretary Patricia Hewitt, who said she "completely rejected" the suggestion that she helped obtain a key seat on a government advisory group for a client paying her £3,000 a day.
She stressed that the role she had been discussing would only have been taken up after she stepped down as an MP at the imminent election, and insisted there was "nothing unusual or improper in the business appointments that I have taken up since leaving government".
Hoon said he had not offered to lobby government, nor had he broken any rules. "I was written to by what seemed to be a reputable American company. They had a website, and addresses in both the United States and St James's Square, London," he said in a statement.
"I was asked to visit their offices to have what they described as 'an informal chat'. This took place after the announcement of my decision to leave parliament before the next election. I have not been a minister since June 2009.
"In the course of what I assumed to be a private conversation, I was asked whether I might be interested in joining the advisory board of a UK company that they were thinking of establishing.
"There was a discussion about my qualifications and experience for such a position. I made clear in the course of the conversation that I would not lobby government and that I was not interested in work of that kind.
"At no stage did I offer, nor would I attempt to sell confidential or privileged information arising from my time in government. I did not break any parliamentary or ministerial rules in the course of the conversation."
Hoon told the undercover reporter he was interested in "translating my knowledge and contacts about the international scene into something that frankly makes money".
But he went on: "I do not want to be seen to leave politics and go back as some sort of lobbyist. I am quite happy with strategic advice ... and in the right circumstance I don't mind leading a delegation in to see a minister, but that's not what I want to spend my life doing."
The exposé is likely to thrust the issue of standards back to the heart of the election campaign as party leaders battle to show they will clean up parliament.
David Cameron promised tougher controls last month, warning that secret corporate lobbying was the "next big scandal waiting to happen" in Westminster after expenses. He wants ministers to be forced to wait two years after leaving government before being allowed to lobby – twice the present limit – and harsher penalties for those who breach the rules.
Tony Wright, the Labour MP who chairs the select committee which called for a statutory register, welcomed the government's change of policy.
"Our report both made the case for effective regulation of lobbying and showed how it could be done. We need to know who is lobbying whom about what, and that needs a statutory register. This is becoming normal in many other countries but we said at the time that it would probably take a lobbying scandal before we got action here. Now that we have had a scandal, let's hope effective action of the kind we proposed will follow."
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- House prices force couples to delay marriages and families, survey shows
- Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:34:43 GMT
2010-03-21T15:38:41Z -
Four out of 10 young adults say they will not settle down until they can buy a family home, housing campaign group finds
Couples are delaying getting married and starting families because they cannot afford to buy their own homes, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by a housing campaign group.
Four out of 10 young adults have said they will not settle down until they can buy their own house.
A further 7% of people aged between 18 and 30 said they had put off marriage because they could not afford to buy a property or were saving up for one.
"We are in danger of locking a whole generation of young people out of the housing market because prices are simply too high," said David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which commissioned the survey of 1,096 young adults who did not own their own home.
"A chronic shortage of new affordable homes has sent prices rocketing over the last decade, well out of reach of the vast majority of first-time buyers."
Almost two-thirds of those questioned said high prices were to blame for them being unable to buy a house. Just over 40% said banks had refused to offer a mortgage. One in five said uncertainty over the economy was another key factor in their decision.
A record 4.5 million people are on housing waiting lists in England. The federation says rising unemployment and repossessions have fuelled demand for affordable housing during the economic downturn. Despite the growing need for cheaper homes, housebuilding has fallen to its lowest level since 1923. The average first-time buyer's home costs around £135,000, more than 4.2 times the average wage. In 1990 the average was around £46,000, 2.5 times the average wage.
Damian Ross, a 33-year-old IT consultant in Leeds who proposed to his girlfriend two years ago, said they had decided not to get married until they can afford their own home.
"We only want a modest wedding but feel we can't justify the cost of that until we have saved up enough to buy somewhere to live together," he said. "But the cost of a home seems to constantly soar upwards while our savings, with interest rates so low, seem to shrink. We want to be responsible but in attempting that, I feel like our lives have been put on hold."
The federation has said the government will struggle to build even half its target of 1m affordable homes by 2020 if the housing budget is not exempted from public spending.
The group has called on the three main political parties to grant housing the same "untouchable" status as health, education and crimefighting, and to protect it from spending cuts in order to address what it says is a crisis.
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France News
- FRENCH REGIONAL ELECTIONS: Left-wing alliance trumps Sarkozy’s party in regional polls
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:22:32 +0000 - The ruling UMP party of President Nicolas Sarkozy experienced a wipeout in the second round of France’s regional elections, with the Socialists and their left-wing allies winning in all but one of mainland France's 22 regions.
- FRENCH-SPEAKING WORLD: Increased African literacy boosts number of French speakers in world
- Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:12:41 +0000 - There are more and more French speakers in the world, the International Organisation of La Francophonie - which represents the French-speaking world - said as it turns 40 this year. French is on the rise thanks to marked progress in African literacy.
- ARCHITECTURE: Recession kills Paris skyscraper project
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:34:18 +0000 - Plans to build a super skyscraper just metres short of the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris' business district have fallen through, the tower's French architect, Jean Nouvel, announced Friday, through lack of investment due to the economic crisis.
- NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY: France and Britain to cooperate on nuclear defence
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:34:59 +0000 - Britain and France will now work together more closely on nuclear defence, the UK premier Gordon Brown has announced. Brown reported that an agreement had been reached with French President Nicolas Sarkozy during his visit to London last week.
- FRANCE: Holocaust survivor Simone Veil joins Académie Française
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:55:28 +0000 - Simone Veil, revered French champion of women's rights and Auschwitz survivor, has been invested as an "immortal" of the prestigious Académie Française.
- FRANCE: Nicolas Sarkozy pledges a "merciless" campaign against ETA
- Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:26:49 +0000 - President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to wipe out ETA in France Thursday after a policeman was allegedly shot by one of its members in Paris. After meeting the victim’s family, Sarkozy said the move to stamp them out would be "total and merciless".
- TERRORISM: Spanish press speculate on ‘disastrous’ ETA operation in France
- Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:48:44 +0000 - Days after a French policeman was shot dead by suspected Basque separatists near Paris, Spanish newspapers continue to offer varying accounts on the first killing of a French policeman in ETA’s history.
- RFI - FRANCE: France against immediate bluefin tuna trade ban
- Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:07:57 +0000 - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has repeated calls to postpone an international ban on trade in bluefin tuna until after the release of a scientific report on the fish due next year.Meanwhile, a UN body has voted against a ban on international trade in polar bears.
- FRANCE: Fake torture TV 'game show' reveals willingness to obey
- Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:36:57 +0000 - A new documentary directed by Christophe Nick broadcast on French television on Wednesday blended reality TV with a game show to give a 1960s psychological experiment an unsettling 21st-century makeover.
- FRENCH REGIONAL ELECTIONS: Left-leaning parties form alliance to keep lead in second round
- Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:20:55 +0000 - Ahead of a March 21 runoff vote, France’s Socialists allied with the Greens and other left leaning parties in a deal struck Tuesday following the Socialists’ first-place showing in round one of regional elections.
- FOOTBALL: Fan's death piles pressure on Paris Saint Germain to rein in violence
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:44:55 +0000 - French Secretary of State for Sport Rama Yade says the future of Paris Saint Germain football club is "at stake" after a fan dies of injuries sustained during clashes between rival supporter groups.
- FRANCE: A guide to France's regional elections
- Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:52:13 +0000 - French voters head to the polls on March 14 and 21 to elect their regional councillors and, perhaps, pass judgement on the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy. Here is FRANCE24’s guide to the French regional elections.
- Gene study highlights cancer risk for "never smokers"
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:06:17 +0000 -
A trawl through the DNA codes of hundreds of individuals may help explain why some people who never smoke may be unusually at risk from lung cancer, doctors said on Monday.
Lung cancer is commonly believed to be the preserve of people who smoke or who have smoked.
Yet 10 percent of all lung cancer patients worldwide are "never smokers", meaning they have not smoked a single cigarette or their lifetime's tally is less than 100 cigarettes.
- Trial of Rio Tinto employees opens in Shanghai: court
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:06:09 +0000 -
The trial of four employees of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto on charges of bribery and industrial espionage began in Shanghai on Monday, a court spokeswoman said.
- British recovery weak as stimulus ends: employers' group
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:06:10 +0000 -
Britain's economic recovery will remain fragile until the middle of next year due to the withdrawal of stimulus measures, the Confederation of British Industry warned Monday.
The end of emergency steps to combat the recession such as the reduction in Value-Added Tax (VAT) and a scheme that subsidises the cost of buying new vehicles would affect the speed at which the economy recovers, said the group.
- UN housing project could unlock Gaza reconstruction
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:46:16 +0000 -
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees hopes that a housing project in the Gaza Strip approved by Israel can unlock reconstruction efforts in the besieged Hamas-run territory.
The new apartments will house 150 families and could prove to Israeli authorities that the United Nations can undertake such projects without construction materials falling into the hands of Hamas and other armed groups.
- Cuban official urges political hunger striker to stop
- Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:46:18 +0000 -
A top Cuban state security official for the first time visited hunger striker Guillermo Farinas in hospital and urged him to stop his nearly month-long protest, a spokesman for the dissident said.
The head of Cuba's department of counterrevolutionary activities Hector de la Fe Freire "asked Guillermo Farinas to end his strike, telling him his health was so poor that he risks dying," Licet Zamora told AFP by telephone.
Forex
- US Dollar: Is the Uptrend Ready to Resume?
- Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:50:16 GMT
2010-03-20T04:50:16Z -
EURUSD: Bears Regain Control Below 1.38 Figure
USDJPY: Prices Stall at Major Channel Top
GBPUSD: Stay Short Through Corrective Upswing
USDCAD: Sellers Break Support, Stall at Fib Level
AUDUSD: Positioning Hints Bearish Reversal Ahead
NZDUSD: Medium-Term Top in Place Below 0.72? - Forex Weekly Trading Forecast - 03.22.10
- Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:49:19 GMT
2010-03-20T04:49:19Z -
US Dollar Struggling to Avoid Collapse through Risk, Rate Speculation
Euro Will Fall Further Unless European Union Can Agree on Greece
Japanese Yen Outlook Clouded as Yields, Risk Compete for Influence
British Pound Losses May Continue As BoE Weighs Options
Swiss Franc Forecast Holds Opposing Views Against U.S. Dollar, Euro
Canadian Dollar Yield Potential Surges as its Risk Profile Narrows
Australian Dollar Trajectory Depends on Greece Debt Crisis
New Zealand Dollar Support May Continue With Strong GDP Report - Dollar Ends the Week with a Full Blown Rally as the Dow Drops the First Time in 9 Days
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:54:12 GMT
2010-03-19T23:54:12Z -
• Euro Struggles with the Clock Ticking and EU Officials Split on Greece
• British Pound Dives after BoE’s Sentance Warns of a Possible “Double Dip Recession”
• Canadian Dollar Bolstered by Rate Expectations, Hindered by Risk
• New Zealand Dollar Looks to Improve its Interest Rate Prospects with GDP Data - Euro Will Fall Further Unless European Union Can Agree on Greece
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:30:54 GMT 2010-03-19T23:30:54Z -
- GBP/USD’s Threat of Range Bottom, Trade Opportunity
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:10:44 GMT
2010-03-19T21:10:44Z -
The rising trend line must not be discounted as an opportunity could present itself before the presented set-up. However, we still favor a re-test of support at the 61.8% Fibo level.
- A Much-Needed Pullback in Equities Translates into a Sharp Drop in Crude Oi
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:06:24 GMT
2010-03-19T21:06:24Z -
Having struggled with the $83 level for yet another week, oil finally collapsed under its own speculative weight Friday. Suffering the biggest daily decline in six weeks, crude has once again shown which direction volatility and momentum are better suited for.
- Anticipating a MACD Crossover
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:07:16 GMT
2010-03-19T16:07:16Z -
Student's Question:
I want to ask you -I was of the mind - as I was reading the lines - just before the crossover - to anticipate the market price dropping versus waiting for the actual crossover to occur to make my trade.That's why I placed my trades where they are. Is that too risky??Also, do you think I should have placed my Limits lower? If so, where should it have been placed.Thank you.... - Currency Crosses: Technical Outlook 03-19
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:48:10 GMT
2010-03-19T15:48:10Z - More evidence of reversals in the Yen crosses has surfaced and opportunities remain. Focus is now on EURJPY 12140, CADJPY 8690 an AUDJPY 8125.
- EUR/GBP’s Developing Range Presents Scalping Opportunity
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:03:03 GMT
2010-03-19T15:03:03Z -
The Euro and Pound have taken turns the past few days falling out of favor Greece’s troubles and Dovish BoE rhetoric the catalysts for bearish sentiment. The EUR/GBP has started to settle onto a narrow range as the currencies remain in a stalemate, despite losing ground against other majors. MPC member Andrew Sentence warned of the potential of a double dip recession and forecasted that inflation would fall back below target levels. This sparked a bearish sterling reaction as it came from the typically hawkish policy masker. Meanwhile, the single currency remain under pressure as Greece appears closer to looking to the IMF for help which would generate questions over the E.U.’s solidarity and threaten the Euro’s future.
- Euro Pattern Clear; Short Term Resistance is Well Defined
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:30:44 GMT
2010-03-19T14:30:44Z -
EURUSD expectations are for a small 2nd wave to bring price back to 13640-13700 either today (Friday) or Monday. A rally presents an opportunity to short against the larger 4th wave high in anticipation of a break to a 2010 low.
- Light Crude 03-19
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:23:20 GMT 2010-03-19T14:23:20Z -
- Gold 03-19
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:22:13 GMT 2010-03-19T14:22:13Z -
- US Dollar / Swiss Franc 03-19
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:20:42 GMT 2010-03-19T14:20:42Z -
- US Dollar / Canadian Dollar 03-19
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:18:34 GMT 2010-03-19T14:18:34Z -
- US Dollar / Japanese Yen 03-19
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:15:38 GMT 2010-03-19T14:15:38Z -
- New Zealand Dollar / US Dollar 03-19
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:12:49 GMT 2010-03-19T14:12:49Z -
- Australian Dollar / US Dollar 03-19
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:10:39 GMT 2010-03-19T14:10:39Z -
- British Pound / US Dollar 03-19
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:05:20 GMT 2010-03-19T14:05:20Z -
- Canadian CPI Accelerates More Than Expected, USDCAD Plunges
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:40:57 GMT 2010-03-19T12:40:57Z -
- Core Canadian CPI Breaches Threshold, Putting BoC on Alert
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:39:22 GMT
2010-03-19T12:39:22Z -
Canadian consumer prices in February slipped to 1.6% from 1.9%, surpassing estimates of 1.4% as energy costs dropped by -1.2%. The core reading which strips out energy costs unexpectedly rose to 2.1% from 2.0%, which is above the BoC’s threshold.
- USDJPY: Prices Stall at Major Channel Top
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:36:44 GMT 2010-03-19T12:36:44Z -
- NZDUSD: Positioning Hints Sellers Set to Return
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:34:19 GMT 2010-03-19T12:34:19Z -
- EURUSD: Bears Regain Control Below 1.38 Figure
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:30:44 GMT 2010-03-19T12:30:44Z -
- British Pound Weighed by Risks for Double-Dip Recession, Euro Extends Decline
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:44:39 GMT
2010-03-19T11:44:39Z -
The British Pound extended the previous day’s decline and slipped to a low of 1.5129 during the European trade as the Bank of England continued to see a risk for a double-dip recession.
- British Pound Declines After BOE’s Sentence Sees Risk of ‘Double Dip Recession’
- Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:17:48 GMT
2010-03-19T08:17:48Z -
The British Pound slid 0.4 percent against the US Dollar late into overnight after the Bank of England’s Andrew Sentence said he sees “some risks of a double dip recession” and warned of “shocks along the way” to economic recovery.