President Obama’s recent comment that the nation “had gotten a little soft” reminded William Kristol of the time he said small-town Americans were “bitter” and clinging to guns and religion. “So, according to Obama, Americans are both bitter and soft,” writes Kristol in the Weekly Standard . “We’re a bittersoft nation….
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Firefighters raise fears over financial problems at debt-laden company that owns engines and equipment London’s firefighters claim that a cash crisis at the debt-laden private company that owns all their engines and equipment is hampering operations. AssetCo agreed a deal with its bankers and shareholders that will see it pare down its debts from £120m to £42m. The company said it intends to concentrate on its operations in the United Arab Emirates. But its restructuring has thrown the future of the London fire service into question. The Fire Brigades Union complains that old and ailing engines have been brought back into frontline service as a result of financial problems at the consortium, which owns the entire fleet of London Fire Brigade engines, as well as 50,000 items of equipment. The union says it is aware replacement parts and engines are arriving late. “The plight of AssetCo is now starting to affect operational performance throughout the London Fire Brigade,” said the union’s regional organiser, Ben Sprung. “Many fire stations have operated without their full quota of appliances for several hours at a time. Corners are being cut on repairs and maintenance and old, creaking fire engines have been returned to the frontline – in some cases only to break down moments later.” AssetCo had hoped to sell off the London operation, but no buyer has materialised. Instead it is likely the London arm of the company will have to be restructured but its debt burden – most of the £42m of the remaining debt – could further threaten its operational capacity if the business is too stretched. Its problems are acutely embarrassing for the government, which has signalled that it is open to privatising the training of UK firefighters. A spokesman for the London Fire Brigade said: “Our latest performance figures show that London’s fire engines continue to be maintained and available as normal.” Firefighters London Jamie Doward guardian.co.uk
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Scores held by NYPD – including New York Times journalist – after attempted march across bridge ends in chaos Brooklyn Bridge arrests – in pictures Scores of arrests were made on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening during a march by anti-Wall Street protesters who have been occupying a downtown Manhattan square for two weeks. The group, called Occupy Wall Street, has been protesting against the finance industry and other perceived social ills by camping out in Zuccotti park in New York. During the afternoon a long line of protesters numbering several thousand snaked through the streets towards the landmark bridge across the East River with the aim of ending at a Brooklyn park. However, during the march across the bridge groups of protesters sat down or strayed into the road from the pedestrian pathway. They were then arrested in large numbers by officers who were part of a heavy police presence shepherding the march along its path. At one stage 500 protesters were blocked off by police on the bridge. At least one journalist, freelancer Natasha Lennard for the New York Times, was among those arrested. “About half way across the group of people who wanted to occupy the bridge launched their action and stepped into the road. They wanted to get arrested. It was sort of the idea,” said Yaier Heber, one of the marchers. But others said the sit-down protest appeared to happen only after the protesters were deliberately blocked off by police after actually being allowed onto the roadway. “They met the police line and ended up being arrested one by one,” said Damon Eris, another protester. The march ended in chaotic scenes with police buses driving up the bridge to be filled with arrested marchers. The packed buses then drove off to central booking. Meanwhile, other marchers waited at the bottom of the bridge’s Manhattan side and cheered as some released protesters, or those who had escaped being blocked off, came back down. “Let them go! Let them go!” was a frequent chant. It was a different scene from the night before when an equally large march had ended up at the city’s police headquarters. That demonstration had been against the brutal treatment meted out by some police on protesters on a march the weekend before. Video of one senior police officer spraying pepper spray on female protesters went viral on the internet and drew widespread condemnation. But the incident did help put the Occupy Wall Street movement into American newspapers and TV shows that had hitherto paid it little attention. The group, drawn from a wide range of backgrounds, say they are inspired by social movements in Spain and the Arab spring. Last week the protesters attracted numerous celebrity visits, including actor Susan Sarandon and film-maker Michael Moore. This week they are expected to get an injection of support from local labour unions. The movement has also started to spread in significant numbers to several other major cities. On Saturday in Los Angeles hundreds of protesters marched on the city hall with the intention of starting a similar encampment. In Boston protesters have already started camping out in Dewey square, near the city’s financial district. Unlike in New York, where protesters are not allowed to create shelter in Zuccotti park, the Boston protesters have been able to set up rows of tents. Occupy Wall Street Protest New York United States Paul Harris guardian.co.uk
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Kenyan forces fail to halt getaway boat despite wounding several of the gunmen in exchange of fire off African coast Kidnappers escaped into Somalia with an elderly French hostage on Saturday after a battle with Kenyan coastguards and military forces. The gunmen had snatched the disabled woman from her beach home close to where a British man was killed and his wife abducted three weeks ago. Officials had chased and surrounded a “suspicious vessel” reportedly heading towards neighbouring Somalia with six to 10 gunmen and the elderly hostage on board. Despite wounding several of the gang, officials said they had failed in their rescue mission. “Now that it is dark it is next to impossible to continue to follow. The moment is lost,” said Colonel John Steed, in charge of the UN’s counter-piracy unit in Nairobi. “Now it reverts to normal kidnapping negotiations.” The kidnappers had stormed a seafront property near the Kenyan island of Lamu in the early hours of Saturday after arriving by speedboat. Neighbours reported shots as the gang burst into the thatched house and rounded up staff before carrying off the woman. She was later named in reports as 66-year-old Marie Didieu, who has reduced mobility and uses a wheelchair. John Lepapa, 39, described by local journalists as Didieu’s partner, was quoted as saying the kidnappers ordered him and the house staff to lie face-down on the floor. “All they were saying was: ‘Where is the foreigner, where is the foreigner?’ ” he said. “My girlfriend pleaded with them and told them to take whatever they wanted from the house, including the money, and to spare her life. But they would not listen.” One of the gunmen, he said, grabbed Didieu and carried her on his shoulders to a waiting boat. Kenyan police said they had not established if the assailants were Somali pirates, al-Shabaab Islamist extremists or a local gang. Najib Balala, the tourism minister, said coastguard vessels surrounded the boat and there was a standoff between the Kenyan coastguards and the gunmen. Balala said the gang had fired into the air in an attempt to scare off the coastguard and circling aircraft. Bernard Valero, a foreign affairs spokesman in Paris, said the foreign ministry was in “constant contact” with the Kenyan authorities, but did not confirm the identity of the French woman. “Our ambassador and his team will do all they can to free our citizen, who is known to our embassy and very well liked locally,” said Valero. The kidnapped woman lives on the island of Manda, in the Lamu archipelago, near the Somali border. The area is popular with wealthy foreigners who own second homes there. Jeremiah Kiptoon, who works on Manda, said he was woken around 3am by gunfire. “There were shots fired, dogs were barking and people were shouting,” he said. “I ran to the place where it was all happening, but by the time I arrived the woman was already gone. She has a small house close to the beach. Everyone was standing there frightened.” Somali pirates have frequently seized crew from merchant ships in the coastal waters off the Horn of Africa, but in recent years have targeted private yachts, snatching westerners and demanding – often successfully – huge ransoms. In a similar attack on 11 September, David Tebbutt, a British publishing executive, was shot dead and his wife Judith taken hostage from their luxury holiday resort close to the Somali border. The British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler were snatched from their yacht in 2010 and held for 13 months. They were released after a ransom was paid. The Lamu archipelago is often included in package holidays to Kenya, together with game-viewing safaris in some of the country’s national parks. France strongly advised travellers to avoid the region. Kenya Piracy at sea Somalia Africa France Kim Willsher guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Kenyan forces fail to halt getaway boat despite wounding several of the gunmen in exchange of fire off African coast Kidnappers escaped into Somalia with an elderly French hostage on Saturday after a battle with Kenyan coastguards and military forces. The gunmen had snatched the disabled woman from her beach home close to where a British man was killed and his wife abducted three weeks ago. Officials had chased and surrounded a “suspicious vessel” reportedly heading towards neighbouring Somalia with six to 10 gunmen and the elderly hostage on board. Despite wounding several of the gang, officials said they had failed in their rescue mission. “Now that it is dark it is next to impossible to continue to follow. The moment is lost,” said Colonel John Steed, in charge of the UN’s counter-piracy unit in Nairobi. “Now it reverts to normal kidnapping negotiations.” The kidnappers had stormed a seafront property near the Kenyan island of Lamu in the early hours of Saturday after arriving by speedboat. Neighbours reported shots as the gang burst into the thatched house and rounded up staff before carrying off the woman. She was later named in reports as 66-year-old Marie Didieu, who has reduced mobility and uses a wheelchair. John Lepapa, 39, described by local journalists as Didieu’s partner, was quoted as saying the kidnappers ordered him and the house staff to lie face-down on the floor. “All they were saying was: ‘Where is the foreigner, where is the foreigner?’ ” he said. “My girlfriend pleaded with them and told them to take whatever they wanted from the house, including the money, and to spare her life. But they would not listen.” One of the gunmen, he said, grabbed Didieu and carried her on his shoulders to a waiting boat. Kenyan police said they had not established if the assailants were Somali pirates, al-Shabaab Islamist extremists or a local gang. Najib Balala, the tourism minister, said coastguard vessels surrounded the boat and there was a standoff between the Kenyan coastguards and the gunmen. Balala said the gang had fired into the air in an attempt to scare off the coastguard and circling aircraft. Bernard Valero, a foreign affairs spokesman in Paris, said the foreign ministry was in “constant contact” with the Kenyan authorities, but did not confirm the identity of the French woman. “Our ambassador and his team will do all they can to free our citizen, who is known to our embassy and very well liked locally,” said Valero. The kidnapped woman lives on the island of Manda, in the Lamu archipelago, near the Somali border. The area is popular with wealthy foreigners who own second homes there. Jeremiah Kiptoon, who works on Manda, said he was woken around 3am by gunfire. “There were shots fired, dogs were barking and people were shouting,” he said. “I ran to the place where it was all happening, but by the time I arrived the woman was already gone. She has a small house close to the beach. Everyone was standing there frightened.” Somali pirates have frequently seized crew from merchant ships in the coastal waters off the Horn of Africa, but in recent years have targeted private yachts, snatching westerners and demanding – often successfully – huge ransoms. In a similar attack on 11 September, David Tebbutt, a British publishing executive, was shot dead and his wife Judith taken hostage from their luxury holiday resort close to the Somali border. The British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler were snatched from their yacht in 2010 and held for 13 months. They were released after a ransom was paid. The Lamu archipelago is often included in package holidays to Kenya, together with game-viewing safaris in some of the country’s national parks. France strongly advised travellers to avoid the region. Kenya Piracy at sea Somalia Africa France Kim Willsher guardian.co.uk
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Secret MoD report reveals £750m bill for enriched uranium plant as Liam Fox announces axing of 1,100 navy personnel Government spending on Britain’s nuclear weapons programme is defying the swingeing budget cuts being experienced across Whitehall. As the Ministry of Defence cuts frontline positions in the military, a previously confidential report reveals that the taxpayer is committed to paying almost £750m for the construction of a new enriched-uranium facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire. The 32-page MoD report, Defence Equipment & Support … UK Enriched Uranium (EU) Capability Investment Appraisal , spells out the taxpayer’s commitment to funding Project Pegasus, which will replace the enriched-uranium facility built at the site in the 1950s. The report, marked “Secret UK Eyes Only”, was published in heavily redacted form earlier this year following freedom of information requests. The Information Commissioner recently ruled that the redaction, hiding the full £747m investment cost of the project, should now be made public. The huge sum, signed off with little parliamentary scrutiny, has raised questions over the accountability of AWE to the taxpayer and the MoD’s priorities. Last week, after announcing that 1,100 naval positions would but cut, the defence secretary Liam Fox attacked how the previous government had run the MoD, allowing “a department of that size to operate without controls on its spending”. However, while all armed forces are suffering cuts, the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is benefiting from significant increases in spending, even before the government makes a decision on replacing Trident, the ballistic nuclear missile system. The investment in AWE will benefit AWE Management, the private-sector consortium that has a 25-year non-revokable contract to run the base and comprises US operators Lockheed Martin and Jacobs and the UK’s Serco. The money being spent on Project Pegasus is in addition to the £500m allocated for Project Mensa at nearby AWE Burghfield that will improve its warhead assembly facilities. But there are concerns about how the money is being spent. The MoD’s annual report recently revealed that the government has written off £120m spent on Project Hydrus, a plan to build a new hydrodynamics research facility at AWE Aldermaston. The project received planning permission in September 2010 but was cancelled shortly afterwards when the UK and France signed a joint treaty to construct a shared research facility. The accounts also revealed that the MoD has written off a further £16m following cancellation of a project to construct a “Systems Engineering Facility”. Total expenditure at AWE between 2008 and 2011 is about £2.6bn. The MoD believes the reinvestment programme at AWE is vital to maintain the safety and effectiveness of the current Trident warhead stockpile without recourse to nuclear testing, in compliance with the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. But the costs associated with the various construction projects give an insight into the scale of the “behind the scenes” spending that will be needed to replace Trident. The initial business case for Trident, published by the government earlier this year, gave a price for replacing the submarines of £25bn. But this does not include the costs of paying for the missiles, warheads, infrastructure or decommissioning costs. Neither does it include the continuing year-on-year costs of operating the system. Greenpeace estimates a “cradle-to-grave” operating cost for the Trident replacement project of £97bn. MoD spending on “big ticket” items came in for criticism last week by the respected defence thinktank, Rusi. It warned that there continues to be a risk the MoD’s budget plans could be “blown off course” if the cost of major programmes increases more sharply than planned. “The costs of major projects remain a major source of potential instability, with particular concerns over the looming costs of Trident renewal,” the report’s author, Professor Malcolm Chalmers, claimed. “Pressures to bear down on unit costs will continue to be difficult to reconcile with a diminishing number of front-line capabilities, each of which involves significant overhead expenditure.” Peter Burt of the Nuclear Information Service said the huge sums being spent on secretive projects at AWE bases should be a concern to the taxpayer: “The inescapable conclusion is that the Atomic Weapons Establishment has not been delivering value for money to taxpayers in years past.” But an MoD spokeswoman defended the investment at AWE: “This funding, which includes Project Pegasus, was announced six years ago and will ensure we maintain our commitment to providing our vital nuclear deterrent. It is necessary to invest in the facilities at AWE, which will provide assurance that the existing Trident warhead stockpile is reliable and safe.” Ministry of Defence Trident Military Defence policy Liam Fox Jamie Doward guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Secret MoD report reveals £750m bill for enriched uranium plant as Liam Fox announces axing of 1,100 navy personnel Government spending on Britain’s nuclear weapons programme is defying the swingeing budget cuts being experienced across Whitehall. As the Ministry of Defence cuts frontline positions in the military, a previously confidential report reveals that the taxpayer is committed to paying almost £750m for the construction of a new enriched-uranium facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire. The 32-page MoD report, Defence Equipment & Support … UK Enriched Uranium (EU) Capability Investment Appraisal , spells out the taxpayer’s commitment to funding Project Pegasus, which will replace the enriched-uranium facility built at the site in the 1950s. The report, marked “Secret UK Eyes Only”, was published in heavily redacted form earlier this year following freedom of information requests. The Information Commissioner recently ruled that the redaction, hiding the full £747m investment cost of the project, should now be made public. The huge sum, signed off with little parliamentary scrutiny, has raised questions over the accountability of AWE to the taxpayer and the MoD’s priorities. Last week, after announcing that 1,100 naval positions would but cut, the defence secretary Liam Fox attacked how the previous government had run the MoD, allowing “a department of that size to operate without controls on its spending”. However, while all armed forces are suffering cuts, the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is benefiting from significant increases in spending, even before the government makes a decision on replacing Trident, the ballistic nuclear missile system. The investment in AWE will benefit AWE Management, the private-sector consortium that has a 25-year non-revokable contract to run the base and comprises US operators Lockheed Martin and Jacobs and the UK’s Serco. The money being spent on Project Pegasus is in addition to the £500m allocated for Project Mensa at nearby AWE Burghfield that will improve its warhead assembly facilities. But there are concerns about how the money is being spent. The MoD’s annual report recently revealed that the government has written off £120m spent on Project Hydrus, a plan to build a new hydrodynamics research facility at AWE Aldermaston. The project received planning permission in September 2010 but was cancelled shortly afterwards when the UK and France signed a joint treaty to construct a shared research facility. The accounts also revealed that the MoD has written off a further £16m following cancellation of a project to construct a “Systems Engineering Facility”. Total expenditure at AWE between 2008 and 2011 is about £2.6bn. The MoD believes the reinvestment programme at AWE is vital to maintain the safety and effectiveness of the current Trident warhead stockpile without recourse to nuclear testing, in compliance with the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. But the costs associated with the various construction projects give an insight into the scale of the “behind the scenes” spending that will be needed to replace Trident. The initial business case for Trident, published by the government earlier this year, gave a price for replacing the submarines of £25bn. But this does not include the costs of paying for the missiles, warheads, infrastructure or decommissioning costs. Neither does it include the continuing year-on-year costs of operating the system. Greenpeace estimates a “cradle-to-grave” operating cost for the Trident replacement project of £97bn. MoD spending on “big ticket” items came in for criticism last week by the respected defence thinktank, Rusi. It warned that there continues to be a risk the MoD’s budget plans could be “blown off course” if the cost of major programmes increases more sharply than planned. “The costs of major projects remain a major source of potential instability, with particular concerns over the looming costs of Trident renewal,” the report’s author, Professor Malcolm Chalmers, claimed. “Pressures to bear down on unit costs will continue to be difficult to reconcile with a diminishing number of front-line capabilities, each of which involves significant overhead expenditure.” Peter Burt of the Nuclear Information Service said the huge sums being spent on secretive projects at AWE bases should be a concern to the taxpayer: “The inescapable conclusion is that the Atomic Weapons Establishment has not been delivering value for money to taxpayers in years past.” But an MoD spokeswoman defended the investment at AWE: “This funding, which includes Project Pegasus, was announced six years ago and will ensure we maintain our commitment to providing our vital nuclear deterrent. It is necessary to invest in the facilities at AWE, which will provide assurance that the existing Trident warhead stockpile is reliable and safe.” Ministry of Defence Trident Military Defence policy Liam Fox Jamie Doward guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The New York Times has a gloomy story on the state of forests in the US and around the world and the potential effect on the environment. Vast swaths are dying off: Pine beetles that used to be kept in check by cold winters are gorging on trees in the…
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He’s turned 40, moved his family to Los Angeles and spends his time tinkering with motorbikes. Midlife crisis? No fear In the corner of his regular haunt, a bustling restaurant in the posh suburb of Brentwood, Los Angeles, Ewan McGregor takes a break from his shrimp salad to consider the apocalypse. “I’m not remotely worried,” he says. “For all of the hurtling towards climate change, there’s also a lot more understanding of it than there was when we were kids. They don’t call environmentalists tree huggers any more, so there’s hope!” Doomsday would be an odd fixation for McGregor. After all, life is rather good. He has five movies coming down the pipe, and promising ones, too. There’s Bryan Singer’s sword-swinging fantasy Jack the Giant Killer and The Impossible , in which he and Naomi Watts face the 2004 tsunami. He also plays a stuffy scientist who falls for Emily Blunt in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen , and he’s part of an all-star ensemble in Steven Soderbergh’s action thriller Haywire . But the first and most original film of this batch is Perfect Sense , a small Scottish indie about, among other things, the end of the world. It’s a trending topic this year – the end has seldom been so nigh. At the multiplex, humanity has been under more or less constant threat since January: from aliens ( Battle Los Angeles ), apes ( Rise of the Planet of the Apes ), asteroids ( Melancholia ) and now disease ( Contagion ). In Perfect Sense , McGregor plays a Glaswegian chef who falls in love with an epidemiologist (Eva Green) while they – and the rest of the human race – lose their senses one by one. First to go is smell, then taste, then hearing, with each loss preceded by a spell of extreme derangement: crippling grief, rabid hunger or violent rage. No explanation is given, no exception is made, and it’s not clear that anyone can stop it. It is quietly petrifying. “We get so many reactions to this film,” says McGregor. “Someone I know saw it in London recently and was fine until half an hour later, when she got the tube home. Then she just broke down crying. But I didn’t see it as the end of the world at all. When I read the script, I felt it was a really nicely written love story and the backdrop was a metaphor for falling in love. You know how we say that you lose your senses when you fall in love?” MCGregor’s own disposition is as sunny as the Los Angeles skies. He looks tanned and boyish in a faded T-shirt and jeans; his bicycle helmet is on the chair beside him (he lives just a couple of minutes away). He’s never been overly discouraged by the traditional portents of disaster, like climate change, bird flu and the return of Jersey Shore . “Ha ha! Yes, I’m hopeful, always have been. I’ve never had that fear of: ‘Oh my God, how can you bring kids into this world?’ I’m a much more positive person than that. I wouldn’t have wanted my parents not to have me because they thought like that, would I? Because, look – I’m having a great time!” This much is certainly true. Over a 20-year career spanning 46 movies, he has wielded a light sabre, shot heroin, fought wars and slept with countless beautiful women, and a few men, too. Life looked peachy at the turn of the millennium with the first Star Wars movie under his belt – followed by the huge success of Moulin Rouge . He went off around the world on a motorbike with his friend Charley Boorman in the Long Way Round . But when he returned, things took a bit of a dive. Star Wars didn’t launch him into a spangly new category of stardom. There followed a string of movies that underwhelmed critics and the box office – Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker , Miss Potter and Scenes of a Sexual Nature . Even when he worked with Woody Allen in Cassandra’s Dream , the film was universally panned. This year might be seen as a renaissance: since last year’s The Ghost Writer – the Robert Harris -scripted thriller directed by Roman Polanski – it seems that McGregor’s graph has begun to swing upwards once more. “But I would never draw a graph of my career,” points out McGregor. “I don’t look at things that way. On the vertical axis you could have box office, or personal satisfaction, and whenever you start thinking about that you never feel on top. There were films that were never seen by anyone but they were still important. Everything is a stepping stone. I’m sure my agents would be able to tell you exactly where I am on that graph, but I’m not sure that I want to know, really! The main thing is what’s next – the future.” He seems propelled by a simple sense of adventure. “I turned 40 in March,” he says. “But I don’t feel it – you never do. I still want to kick around on BMX bikes! I have to ask my wife: ‘Do I look like a cock, or is this all right, the way I’m dressed?’ Because you don’t want to be ‘that guy’, but you also don’t want to listen to that voice either. I want to wear skinny jeans when I’m in my 70s. Why not? Who cares?” According to David Mackenzie, the director of Perfect Sense , McGregor is “a delight”, but there’s “a complexity to him that isn’t just all sunny and eager. He’s more than just an all-round jack-the-lad good egg. He has his dark side.” Mackenzie would know. They first worked together on Young Adam in 2003, a tightly wrought noir about a cold-hearted drifter who engages in a series of loveless sexual encounters with Tilda Swinton and Emily Mortimer . McGregor recalls the experience with a
Continue reading …Precisely the last thing you want to see while on a Ferris wheel: an incoming plane. An ultra-light craft crashed into a ride in Australia, and somehow nobody got seriously hurt, reports AP . The Cheetah S200 smashed into the top of the wheel and got stuck there, trapping two kids…
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