Burial takes place at crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 came down on September 11 The few remains of the 40 passengers and crew killed when their plane crashed in Pennsylvania as they struggled to seize control of the aircraft from hijackers on September 11 2001 were finally buried on Monday. The private funeral for nearly 500 family members was held a day after the public commemoration at the crash site in Shanksville, attended by Barack Obama, to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The burial took place at the crash site where a 17-tonne boulder in a field of wildflowers marks the spot where the plane hit the ground on the edge of woods. It is now part of the Flight 93 National Memorial and park, which was officially opened on Saturday in the first of three days of remembrance. What little remained of the victims after the plane disintegrated from the impact and the explosion of the fuel was stored by the local coroner, Wallace Miller, for the past decade. DNA tests found some matches for all of the passengers and crew, as well as the four hijackers, but most of the remains could not be identified. Family members and mourners placed flowers on the three full-sized coffins holding the remains, before they were buried in concrete vaults. A plaque is to be placed on the boulder, serving as a collective headstone. Among those officiating at the funeral were a Catholic priest, a Lutheran minister, a Jewish rabbi and a Buddhist sensei. The dead included nationals of the US, Japan and Germany. Carole O’Hare, whose mother, Hilda Marcin, was killed, said the ceremony brought some peace. “There’s definitely peace of mind. I was always concerned about what would happen with the unidentified remains,” she told the Associated Press. “And now my feeling is they’re at peace, and where they are meant to be.” September 11 2001 Pennsylvania United States Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …More Cheerleading for the Military Industrial Complex from Bill Kristol
September 12, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media What was slightly surprising about this week’s Fox News Sunday is that Dana Priest, who’s done some pretty extensive reporting on the United States’, as Chris Wallace actually pretty aptly described it, “terrorism industrial complex” for the Washington Post was allowed on the show to say anything critical at all about the intrusion into our daily lives in the name of “national security” or the fact that the industry has pretty well grown out of control. What’s not surprising is war monger Bill Kristol was there to downplay the terrible costs we’ve paid for these excesses, and naturally to cheer on the military industrial complex. KRISTOL: Well, you compare it to the military, the industrial complex from the Cold War. The military industrial complex helped win the Cold War. And if we pay a little price, a little waste and a little bit of excessive stuff at the airports to help win this war, which I think is comparable to the Cold War in the sense that we don’t need to just defeat Al Qaida or a few leaders of Al Qaida, we need to change the character of the Middle East otherwise the 20 percent is going to be unmanageable. There will be other Al Qaedas, there will be other state sponsored terrorism. There will be nuclear weapons next time. And we’ll be back where we were on 9/11 and in a way even worse. So I think the effort — I don’t really believe we can cut back any more than we could have cut back 10 years into the Cold War in the mid-1950s before saying, oh well now we’ve — Korea was very difficult, it’s been divisive at home, General McCarthy. We surely need to get out of this war mentality. In fact, we stayed with it with bipartisan leadership. And the Soviet Union collapsed. And I think we’re in a similar moment today. Yeah, just what harm can there be from paying “a little price” or for “a little waste” or a little bit of “excessive stuff?” I guess those prices do appear small to someone like Kristol who’s never served in the military, who doesn’t live in one of those countries we decided to invade, and who is making a nice salary constantly cheerleading on the next military invasion and isn’t worried he might starve to death, say if he loses his Social Security benefits because, you know, we’re supposedly “broke” and need some “shared sacrifice.” Full transcript below the fold. WALLACE: Dana, in you new book “Top Secret America” you report how in the wake of 9/11 a kind of terrorism industrial complex has developed like the military industrial complex after the cold and during the Cold War. How big is it? And what is your concern about it? PRIEST: Nearly a hundred — nearly a million people work who have top secret clearances on programs that are secret. Thousands of corporations and about 1,200 organizations. It is a giant complex that grew up after congress gave the executive branch a blank check basically to stop what everyone thought was going to be a next attack. Ten years later, it’s grown so large it’s not manageable. We’re supposed to put the director of national intelligence in charge, but he is not in charge. And in fact, that organization itself has grown to the size of buildings that are five Wal-Marts stacked on top of each other. The Department of Homeland Security, a lot of people inside the community still don’t know exactly what value it brings to a lot of things other than border security and transportation security. But 88,000 people work there. The building their building is going to be larger than the Pentagon. And half the employees are contractors. So I think it’s time with the death of bin Laden, with the near- death of the al Qaida network and with the precision and the growth of real expertise of following terrorist networks it’s time to step back and reassess what have we built? Do we still need all of it as we’re constructed, as it’s been constructed, and should we keep growing it? Or should we reassess and cut back in some places, figure out what works and what doesn’t work? That has not been done yet. WALLACE: Bill? KRISTOL: Well, you compare it to the military, the industrial complex from the Cold War. The military industrial complex helped win the Cold War. And if we pay a little price, a little waste and a little bit of excessive stuff at the airports to help win this war, which I think is comparable to the Cold War in the sense that we don’t need to just defeat Al Qaida or a few leaders of Al Qaida, we need to change the character of the Middle East otherwise the 20 percent is going to be unmanageable. There will be other Al Qaedas, there will be other state sponsored terrorism. There will be nuclear weapons next time. And we’ll be back where we were on 9/11 and in a way even worse. So I think the effort — I don’t really believe we can cut back any more than we could have cut back 10 years into the Cold War in the mid-1950s before saying, oh well now we’ve — Korea was very difficult, it’s been divisive at home, General McCarthy. We surely need to get out of this war mentality. In fact, we stayed with it with bipartisan leadership. And the Soviet Union collapsed. And I think we’re in a similar moment today.
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Michele Bachmann needs a strong Republican debate performance to keep up with Rick Perry and Mitt Romney With the Republican presidential contest rapidly devolving into a two-way race between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, Monday night’s GOP debate in Tampa may represent Michele Bachmann’s last chance to keep up with the front-runners. The latest opinion polls in the Republican presidential nomination contest make bitter reading for Bachmann and her supporters: since the entry of Perry, the Texas governor, her support has melted away like a popsicle on a barbeque. The fire-breathing Tea Party favourite had threatened to up-end the nomination battle with her entry back in June. But she has wilted over summer and her evanescent campaign has seen its support collapse, even among the trenchant social conservatives that Bachmann was relying on. Tonight should be fertile ground for Bachmann: the debate is co-hosted by the Tea Party Express group and is being billed as “the Tea Party debate” by CNN. Last week’s debate at the Ronald Reagan Library turned into a slugging match between Perry and Romney . In the spin room, the Romney campaign was crowing that Perry damaged his chances with harsh language on social security. But the post-debate polls have only reinforced Perry emergence as the leader since his late entry to the contest last month. According to a national poll of Republicans by CNN – which is televising tonight’s debate – Perry is the leader with 32% of support compared to 21% for Romney. Ron Paul is in third place with 13%. Meanwhile, Bachmann has seen her support fall back into the chasing pack of also-rans, alongside Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum, none of whom are polling higher than 7%. While Bachmann was never really a credible contender, her star briefly flared in a lacklustre field after her dynamic perfomance in her first debate in June. She then won the Iowa straw poll – an early test of candidate’s appeal – but little has gone right for her since, with her campaign team losing staff. The Guardian will be liveblogging tonight’s GOP debate from 7pm ET, with the debate itself starting at 8pm ET. How the contenders are approaching tonight’s debate: • Rick Perry Perry complained of being a “pinata” at last week’s debate – and his comments that the current system of social security is a “Ponzi scheme” will be thrown back at him with full force tonight by Romney and Bachmann. In a state like Florida, where elderly voters embrace state pensions and healthcare, his attacks provide ammunition to his rivals. In reality, attacking the current funding of social security is a common theme among Republicans, both inside and outside of Congress, and it remains to be seen how Romney can attack Perry for being too conservative with the Republican grassroots dominated by conservative voters. The latest polls show little fallout from Romney’s attacks – the CNN poll mentioned above shows Perry leading in every single category [pdf], from electability to likeability and the critical question of job creation. Update: In a further boost, the Perry campaign will tonight unveil a major endorsement from Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. • Mitt Romney After last week’s back and forth, Romney will need to be aggressive against Perry – with Romney’s advisors saying they think they can needle Perry into a rash remark or response. Since Romney already has a grip on the remaining moderate Republican voters, and will want to avoid painting himself as the defender of the status quo over social security. Romney received a sliver of good news this morning: former presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty announced that he was endorsing Romney, and has joined his election campaign as a co-chair. • Ron Paul The eternal outsider, Paul continues to delight his base but few primary voters beyond the libertarian-leaning right. Last week’s debate saw him mount an provocative attack on Perry for not being conservative enough, in a surprisingly conventional manner using attack ads. The pair may have had their own heated discussion in the middle of last week’s debate, although Perry’s campaign says the encounter was a cordial one over immigration policy. • Michele Bachmann With 7% in the last poll – which dips to just 4% if Sarah Palin is included as a candidate – Bachmann really needs a high-profile perfomance tonight to keep alive her hopes of winning the Iowa caucuses and using that as a springboard to credibility. So far, though, the signs aren’t good, as her last two debate performances have been weak and repetitive, while Perry is draining away the bulk of her natural supporters. Tonight, though, her advisers say that she plans to go after Perry for his comments on social security. Michele Bachmann as defender of social security? Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. • Newt Gingrich The former House speaker wins applause for attacking the media but his campaign is still flatlining. Like several of the other candidates, Gingrich’s performance from here is about visibility, since he has no organisation to speak of. • Herman Cain With 6% in the last CNN poll, the former pizza chain chief executive has made a name for himself in national Republican politics. Like Bachmann, the novelty has worn off and his brief poll surge in the early summer has faded. Cain’s pro-business and low-tax rhetoric has done him no harm for his future political career in the Republican party. But he needs a broader message to have any impact on a presidential field that already included Romney and other candidates eager to talk about those issues. • Jon Huntsman Rock-bottom approval ratings reinforce the idea that the former Utah governor’s campaign was fatally flawed by his appointment as ambassador to China by the Obama administration. He will probably be the next candidate to bow out of the race. • Rick Santorum The former Pennsylvania senator set low expectations and he has failed to meet them. Currently polling within the margin of error of zero support. But as long as he keeps getting invited to debates, he’ll turn up. Republican presidential nomination 2012 Rick Perry Mitt Romney Michele Bachmann CNN Florida Republicans Tea Party movement US politics US elections 2012 United States Richard Adams guardian.co.uk
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Death toll of 200 set to rise as aid groups scramble to help 5 million victims affected by weeks of rain and government delay Still reeling from last year’s epic floods, Pakistan is battling monsoon rains that have affected 5 million people and killed 200, a toll that is likely to rise with fresh downpours forecast for the coming days. Torrential rains over the past five weeks have inundated southern Sindh province, which was devastated by last year’s floods, triggering an urgent if tardy humanitarian response. After waiting weeks for a green light from the Pakistani government, aid agencies are scrambling to distribute emergency aid to villagers trapped by rising waters that have swamped towns, destroyed homes and destroyed farmland. “The situation is clearly critical and deteriorating for many who have seen their entire livelihoods washed away,” said Dominique Frankefort, acting country director of the World Food Programme. At least 1m homes have been destroyed or damaged and 4.2m acres (17,000 sq km) of land flooded since late August, according to the UN. Oxfam is helping 100,000 people through local groups and the WFP expects to distribute food to 500,000 people. But the true scale of the crisis will only become clear after a hastily organised emergency assessment over the coming days. The floods are smaller than last year’s calamity that affected 20 million Pakistanis, left 2,000 dead and inundated one-fifth of the country. Nevertheless, they have devastated communities in some of the most poverty-stricken districts. They present a fresh challenge to the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, already struggling to manage the country’s perilous shaky finances, militant violence and political upheaval. One of the worst-hit areas centres on Zardari’s hometown, Nawabshah, where just over half of the nearby district’s 1.7 million inhabitants have been affected, according to the national disaster management authority. Since 57cm (22in) of rain fell in the district over one week at least 50,000 people have taken shelter in camps, mostly in schools, said NDMA official Idrees Mahsud, speaking from Nawabshah. More than 300,000 houses collapsed, often as a result of stagnant waters eroding mud walls, he said. Victims had been electrocuted, drowned, hit by lightning, and, in the case of one infant, crushed by a wall. The main danger now is disease bred by stagnant water and the rotting corpses of drowned farm animals. “Our main concern is to contain the spread of disease – acute respiratory disease, diarrhoea, dysentery, malaria,” he said. While last year’s floods were caused by an engorged Indus river bursting its banks across the country, this year’s calamity has been caused by a combination of monsoon rains and breaches to a series of canals on the left-bank of the river. This year’s crisis is concentrated in Sindh but has also affected pockets of Balochistan and Kohistan district in the mountainous north-west. It has been bubbling since early August but the government, keen to show that it had the crisis in hand, delayed declaring an official emergency last Thursday, slowing the response of the international aid community. “There was a lot of frustration. We knew the government would only give permission at the 11th hour,” said a senior official with a British aid agency, who declined to be named. Now there is “clarity”, aid agencies are hoping to use the lessons of last year to move quickly, said Jack Byrne of the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum, which represents 43 international non-governmental organisations. The situation in Sindh is already serious and there will be more flooding and more problems because of these rains,” Arif Mehmood, a meteorology official, is quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. Pakistan Natural disasters and extreme weather Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Talking Class Warfare: As Costs Grow, Aid and Income Shrinks, College Is Increasingly Out of Reach for Most
September 12, 2011 No CommentI’m hearing more these days from frustrated parents who absolutely can’t afford to send kids to college: It’s just too expensive and they’re depressed and ashamed that they can’t give their kids the help they need. (I recently pointed out to one friend whose daughter insisted she wanted to go to art school several states away, “In-state credit hour, $200+. Out of state credit hour, $974. See the difference?”) My kid was furious with me 15 years ago when I told him I couldn’t in good conscience advise him to go to the school he wanted because they didn’t give him enough money and he’d graduate with a $125,000 debt. Soon it’s going to be like the early 1900s, where your only hope of going to college was to attract the patronage of some kindly millionaire. Ah, the good old days! Here’s another option. Cory McCray: Growing up in a single parent home in Baltimore City, college expectations were slim for me. I didn’t want to have mountains of debt that I could be paying for half of my life and I knew that my mother couldn’t afford to send me to college without the accumulation of debt herself. So, I decided to go through an apprenticeship program and in 2008 I was able to complete the five year apprenticeship through the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Local 24 with a Journeyman Electrician Certification. Deciding to further my education, in early 2009, I enrolled in BCCC (Baltimore City Community College) part-time. After three years of hard work and commitment, I am entering my last semester at BCCC. This journey has been rewarding, but also expensive. After tuition, registration fees, consolidated fees, and facility capital fees, I accumulated bills exceeding eight thousand dollars ($8,000.00). This doesn’t include the cost of school books; over two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500.00). Many students and parents that are paying for four year colleges have stated “that was a cheap price to pay and wait to see your bills from a four year college”. I find myself fortunate to be able to come out of high school and find an employer such as the IBEW, who placed me in the middle class by paying a living wage, affordable health care, and a respectable retirement program. I am fortunate because I could cut back on spending to allow myself an extra three thousand ($3,000.00) plus dollars to accommodate furthering my education, when the reality is the majority of our country doesn’t have that option. The reality is that many of us don’t have wealthy parents and a small percentage of us will attend school on full scholarships. That leaves the majority of the population left with the three options of not going to school, taking out loans, or waiting later in life to be able to pay for school. The latter three options weaken the middle-class, and place a greater division between the wealthy and those in poverty.
Continue reading …Talking Class Warfare: As Costs Grow, Aid and Income Shrinks, College Is Increasingly Out of Reach for Most
September 12, 2011 No CommentI’m hearing more these days from frustrated parents who absolutely can’t afford to send kids to college: It’s just too expensive and they’re depressed and ashamed that they can’t give their kids the help they need. (I recently pointed out to one friend whose daughter insisted she wanted to go to art school several states away, “In-state credit hour, $200+. Out of state credit hour, $974. See the difference?”) My kid was furious with me 15 years ago when I told him I couldn’t in good conscience advise him to go to the school he wanted because they didn’t give him enough money and he’d graduate with a $125,000 debt. Soon it’s going to be like the early 1900s, where your only hope of going to college was to attract the patronage of some kindly millionaire. Ah, the good old days! Here’s another option. Cory McCray: Growing up in a single parent home in Baltimore City, college expectations were slim for me. I didn’t want to have mountains of debt that I could be paying for half of my life and I knew that my mother couldn’t afford to send me to college without the accumulation of debt herself. So, I decided to go through an apprenticeship program and in 2008 I was able to complete the five year apprenticeship through the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Local 24 with a Journeyman Electrician Certification. Deciding to further my education, in early 2009, I enrolled in BCCC (Baltimore City Community College) part-time. After three years of hard work and commitment, I am entering my last semester at BCCC. This journey has been rewarding, but also expensive. After tuition, registration fees, consolidated fees, and facility capital fees, I accumulated bills exceeding eight thousand dollars ($8,000.00). This doesn’t include the cost of school books; over two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500.00). Many students and parents that are paying for four year colleges have stated “that was a cheap price to pay and wait to see your bills from a four year college”. I find myself fortunate to be able to come out of high school and find an employer such as the IBEW, who placed me in the middle class by paying a living wage, affordable health care, and a respectable retirement program. I am fortunate because I could cut back on spending to allow myself an extra three thousand ($3,000.00) plus dollars to accommodate furthering my education, when the reality is the majority of our country doesn’t have that option. The reality is that many of us don’t have wealthy parents and a small percentage of us will attend school on full scholarships. That leaves the majority of the population left with the three options of not going to school, taking out loans, or waiting later in life to be able to pay for school. The latter three options weaken the middle-class, and place a greater division between the wealthy and those in poverty.
Continue reading …Talking Class Warfare: As Costs Grow, Aid and Income Shrinks, College Is Increasingly Out of Reach for Most
September 12, 2011 No CommentI’m hearing more these days from frustrated parents who absolutely can’t afford to send kids to college: It’s just too expensive and they’re depressed and ashamed that they can’t give their kids the help they need. (I recently pointed out to one friend whose daughter insisted she wanted to go to art school several states away, “In-state credit hour, $200+. Out of state credit hour, $974. See the difference?”) My kid was furious with me 15 years ago when I told him I couldn’t in good conscience advise him to go to the school he wanted because they didn’t give him enough money and he’d graduate with a $125,000 debt. Soon it’s going to be like the early 1900s, where your only hope of going to college was to attract the patronage of some kindly millionaire. Ah, the good old days! Here’s another option. Cory McCray: Growing up in a single parent home in Baltimore City, college expectations were slim for me. I didn’t want to have mountains of debt that I could be paying for half of my life and I knew that my mother couldn’t afford to send me to college without the accumulation of debt herself. So, I decided to go through an apprenticeship program and in 2008 I was able to complete the five year apprenticeship through the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Local 24 with a Journeyman Electrician Certification. Deciding to further my education, in early 2009, I enrolled in BCCC (Baltimore City Community College) part-time. After three years of hard work and commitment, I am entering my last semester at BCCC. This journey has been rewarding, but also expensive. After tuition, registration fees, consolidated fees, and facility capital fees, I accumulated bills exceeding eight thousand dollars ($8,000.00). This doesn’t include the cost of school books; over two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500.00). Many students and parents that are paying for four year colleges have stated “that was a cheap price to pay and wait to see your bills from a four year college”. I find myself fortunate to be able to come out of high school and find an employer such as the IBEW, who placed me in the middle class by paying a living wage, affordable health care, and a respectable retirement program. I am fortunate because I could cut back on spending to allow myself an extra three thousand ($3,000.00) plus dollars to accommodate furthering my education, when the reality is the majority of our country doesn’t have that option. The reality is that many of us don’t have wealthy parents and a small percentage of us will attend school on full scholarships. That leaves the majority of the population left with the three options of not going to school, taking out loans, or waiting later in life to be able to pay for school. The latter three options weaken the middle-class, and place a greater division between the wealthy and those in poverty.
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• Check out tonight’s latest scores here • Latest league tables can be seen here • Email tom.lutz@guardian.co.uk 3 min: QPR intercept a loose Newcastle pass and hang around the opposition area before losing interest, and possession. “Barton as Captain? Genius – think Keane at Man Utd,” says Harvey Kelly. “Although Capt. Barton sounds like someone in WWI who was two busy writing poetry to go and stick it to the Germans.” His haircut is a very world war one haircut too, don’t you think? 1 min: And we’re off. In the absence of Joey Barton on Twitter, who’s playing a football match tonight apparently, we don’t have a clever quote from a dead Victorian (is there any other kind?) to sum up tonight game, but please do provide your own if you have one. The Newcastle fans gave Joey a very good reception. 7.54pm: New QPR owner Tony Fernandes is waving at the crowd, although he looks like he’s got a piece of celery sticking out of his pocket (no doubt that’s some charity emblem that I’ve managed to gravely insult). On the TV Gary Neville is analysing the QPR tunnel, it’s smaller than the average tunnel apparently, which makes Loftus Road a tough place to go to. Not that hard for Bolton a couple of weeks back, mind. 7.50pm: So, Neil Warnock has made Joey Barton captain, a classic piece of upyoursmanship from one of the league’s most passive managers: QPR: Kenny, Young, Ferdinand, Gabbidon, Traore, Barton, Derry, Faurlin, Wright-Phillips, Bothroyd, Taarabt. Subs: Murphy, Hall, Campbell, Buzsaky, Connolly, Smith, Puncheon. Newcastle: Krul, Simpson, Steven Taylor, Coloccini, Ryan Taylor, Obertan, Cabaye, Tiote, Gutierrez, Best, Shola Ameobi. Subs: Elliot, Santon, Guthrie, Lovenkrands, Ba, Marveaux, Sammy Ameobi, £35m not being spent on strikers, look at it just sitting there. Referee: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire) Tom will be here with coverage of QPR v Newcastle from 7.45pm or so. In the meantime here’s a wee preview from Jamie Jackson: Tony Fernandes’s first home match as the QPR owner should prove a humdinger. Under the Loftus Road lights, and in front of the live TV cameras, Joey Barton makes his bow for Neil Warnock’s side against his former club, Newcastle United. While his acrimonious departure from St James’ Park provides a spicy sideshow, both managers will want to get on with accruing points. Alan Pardew has overcome being unable to reinvest most of the £35m yielded from Andy Carroll’s sale on a replacement striker to take an impressive seven points from three games, while Warnock’s tally is three. Each would be content with a draw. Match pointers • Newcastle are unbeaten in their last four meetings with Queens Park Rangers, winning three of those games • QPR are without a win in their last five matches at home in all competitions • Steven Taylor has made more blocks than any other player in the Premier League this season with seven • No player has had more shots on goal without scoring than Adel Taarabt – 14 • This is Newcastle’s best start to a season since 1995, when they ended up finishing the campaign second to Manchester United Premier League QPR Newcastle United Tom Lutz guardian.co.uk
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Disruption to transport and power as large areas of Scotland, northern England, Wales and Ireland are hit by storm The tail-end of Hurricane Katia lashed parts of Britain and Ireland with gusts of wind more than 80mph on Monday, causing disruption to rail services and forcing the closure of a stage of the Tour of Britain cycle race . Several motorway bridges were restricted as gusts topped 80mph across Scotland, Northern Ireland, northern England, parts of Wales and the Republic of Ireland. Much of Scotland was drenched along with the gales, but elsewhere conditions were largely dry. The hurricane’s power is not yet spent and the Met Office is maintaining an amber alert across central and southern Scotland until Tuesday when winds are expected to ease. A much bigger area remains on yellow – be aware – status, extending north to the highlands and south to mid-Wales and central Lincolnshire. The conditions were so windy Britain’s energy network operator National Grid considered shutting a number of wind power farms overnight, as strong winds threatened to overload the system with electricity at times when demand is low. “If we’ve got constraints and too much generation we’ll go back in there,” said a spokesman. “Nothing is decided yet but if it stays this windy we may have to look at it.” The grid operator had to shut down 750 megawatts of wind power capacity on Saturday night and 300MW on Sunday night as the network became congested. As the second stage of the Tour of Britain was abandoned, riders were diverted to an exhibition lap around Kendal, Cumbria. They will reconvene on Tuesday morning for the third stage of the cycle race in Stoke-on-Trent. A spokesman for the event said: “We had to take the decision based on advice we had from the police and highways that it would be unsafe to run today’s stage. “The high points of the route and particularly Blackpool seafront were considered unsafe. But there are thousands of people here in Kendal and we wanted to give them something to see.” In County Durham strong winds blew off a bakery firm’s roof, which collapsed on to 15 cars. A row of five almost-finished industrial units in Langley Moor, Durham, came down “as if it had been subject to a controlled explosion”, said Sean Kelly, the operations manager at Bako Northern. He added: “It was extremely lucky for us. All our drivers were out and there were no contractors or visitors.” Coastal flooding alerts by the Environment Agency in Anglesey and between Bridlington and Barmston on the Yorkshire coast proved unnecessary, but around 13,000 homes in the Irish Republic were left without electricity after gales brought down power lines. In Scotland, extra staff were on standby to restore links in the most vulnerable areas. Ferries from both the Republic and Northern Ireland were cancelled and train and bus services disrupted across the island as gusts reached 80mph near the western coast. The Harry Blaney bridge across Mulroy Bay in Donegal was closed along with schools on Arranmore island, just off the coast, and flights to Dublin from Donegal were grounded. Scottish weather stations recorded gusts topping 70mph on the Cairngorms and the Nevis range, near Fort William, where skilifts and gondolas were closed as a precaution. ScotRail reported disruption to trains between Glasgow, Largs and Ardrossan while Caledonian MacBrayne ferries between Oban, Arran, Islay and Cumbrae stayed in port. The Met Office said winds would ease slowly throughout Tuesday, with rain continuing in western Scotland but conditions bright elsewhere. Billy Payne, forecaster for MeteoGroup, said there would be significant amounts of rainfall during the next few days, but heavy rain would be confined to the north and west of Scotland. “The brunt of the wind will go through central and southern Scotland, Northern Ireland, northern England and North Wales,” he said. “Gusts are 60 to 70mph in some places, possibly higher, especially in exposed places in parts of western Scotland, like the islands and hilly areas. “It will be quite windy in the south too with gusts of 40-50mph. There will be quite a lot of rain, perhaps heavy outbreaks over the next couple of days. “The heavy rain will be mostly confined to the north and west of Scotland today and tomorrow. There is a risk of some flooding in north-west Scotland with the high rainfall totals.” Weather Scotland Ireland Wales Martin Wainwright Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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China joins fellow UN permanent members in recognising rebel government saying it respects the choice of the Libyan people China has officially recognised the National Transitional Council as Libya’s ruling authority, the foreign ministry in Beijing has announced. It is the last permanent member of the United Nations security council to do so. China’s relations with the NTC were strained last week when it emerged Chinese arms firms had talked to Muammar Gaddafi’s representatives about weapons sales . The statement, released late on Monday – a public holiday in China – added that Beijing respected the choice of the Libyan people. Spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said China hoped all signed treaties and deals would remain in force and be “implemented seriously”. It cited an unnamed NTC representative as saying: “Libya welcomes China to engage in the country’s reconstruction and jointly push forward the steady and sustained development of bilateral ties”. China had already held talks with the NTC and said it valued its “important role”, but had held off full recognition. “They have taken their time in recognising the rebels,” said Steve Tsang, professor of contemporary Chinese studies at Nottingham University. “I would have thought they really should have done this much earlier. I suspect the timing was simply determined by the practical issues of negotiations with the National Transitional Council and that now they have something they think will be satisfactory from their perspective.” But he added China’s behaviour would affect how it was seen by the rest of the world. “You will have quite a lot of people concluding China is much more interested in protecting its own national interests than performing its duties as a leading power in the international scene. As [one of the] P5 [permanent members of the UN national security council] there are certain expectations and moral responsibilities … The way the post-Gaddafi situation has been handled, [people] have not been giving China a particularly high mark,” he said. Chris Zambelis, a researcher at US consultancy Helios Global who focuses on the Middle East, added: “They saw the writing on the wall … Some countries are still holding out, but one by one they are lining up [behind the NTC].” He said while China’s energy interests in Libya were not as great as those elsewhere, it wanted to protect them. An official with a rebel oil firm suggested last month it might freeze out countries that had not supported it . There was embarrassment when it emerged that Chinese state-owned arms firms met Gaddafi’s representatives in July – despite a UN weapons embargo. Beijing’s foreign ministry said the government did not know of the meetings and that no contracts had been signed or weapons delivered. But Zambelis added: “Whatever rebel government emerges, China already has a place in the country business-wise. It wouldn’t make sense to start shutting it out … We will still see China in Libya.” China surprised some by supporting the UN arms embargo and abstaining on the vote on Nato airstrikes – though it later condemned the bombing. Its investments in Libya are thought to be worth about $20bn (£13bn). China Libya Arms trade Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa United Nations Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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