Samsung’s latest move in its epic battle with Apple : File lawsuits attempting to block the sale of the iPhone 5. A local paper cites a Samsung official who says the company will take strategic legal action against Apple as it is expected to begin selling the phone next month. “We…
Continue reading …Twenty-four injured in suspected terrorist attack in downtown area of Ankara A car bomb which exploded outside a secondary school in Ankara has killed at least three people and injured 24. The blast on Tuesday, near government buildings, including the prime minister’s office in the Turkish capital, was a terrorist attack, the prosecutor’s office said. “The explosion occurred in a place where car and people traffic is intense. It looks like the intention was to inflict as much harm to people as possible,” said the interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin. He said the bodies of three people were found in a building near the car in central Ankara and five of the injured were in a critical condition. The deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, blamed the blast on a bomb planted on a vehicle. Bulent Tanik, a local mayor, said a witness told him someone threw a burning gas canister on to the vehicles from a nearby building. “If true, that canister might have triggered the blast of a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank on a vehicle,” he said. Witnesses said vehicles were thrown through the air by the force of the blast and shops were destroyed beyond recognition. The parked car that triggered the blast was purchased a week ago but had not been registered. There was no claim of responsibility but Kurdish rebels, Islamists and leftist militants have all carried out bombings on Turkish soil. Turkey analyst at Chatham House, Fadi Hakura, said if it was confirmed to be a bomb, the method and targets of the attack suggested it was the work of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK). “The PKK is the only group in Turkey with the capacity and wherewithal to carry out such an attack,” said Hakura. He added that Islamists have tended to attack high-profile foreign targets in the Nato-member country, while the PKK had past form of striking against civilians, although he said the Kurdish rebels tended to claim attacks only when they were against foreign targets. Reyhan Altintas, a neighbourhood administrator, said she rushed outside after hearing a loud blast. It was followed by three other blasts, apparently caused by cars catching fire. “I had never heard anything like it in my life,” witness Adnan Yavuz said of the initial blast. “Then came another explosion and parts of a car dropped from the tree.” The wounded were initially treated in the schoolyard before medics arrived at the scene and took them to hospitals, NTV television said. Authorities evacuated the school as parents rushed to pick up their children. Police detained a woman at the scene who shouted “long live our struggle” as she was escorted away by officers, Dogan news agency video showed. The PKK, which is fighting for autonomy in the south-east, has stepped up attacks on Turkish targets since July. In response, Turkey launched a series of cross-border airstrikes last month, which it said killed up to 100 Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq. Just days later, Kurdish rebels were blamed for a small bomb attack in the Mediterranean resort town of Kemer that wounded 10 people, including four Swedes. While most PKK operations target the military, police and state employees in the largely Kurdish south-east, the group has previous form of striking at the capital. In 2004, four bombs exploded at branches of British bank HSBC bank in Ankara and Istanbul. Three years later, the PKK was blamed – but denied responsibility for – a suicide bombing in Ankara that killed six people . Turkey Middle East Europe Global terrorism Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk
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George Osborne warned that slower pace of deficit reduction will have to be adopted if economy continues to struggle The International Monetary Fund has cut its growth forecast for Britain for the third time in nine months and warned George Osborne that further underperformance would warrant a policy U-turn. The fund said the UK continued to struggle and advised that a slower pace of deficit reduction would be necessary were the economy to continue to expand less rapidly than expected. While sparing Osborne the embarrassment of a call for an immediate change of course, the IMF pulled no punches in criticising European policymakers for failing to sort out the eurozone’s problems. Following the credit downgrade of Italy by the ratings agency S&P, the IMF’s economic counsellor, Olivier Blanchard, urged Europe to “get its act together” and the fund issued a “call to arms” to prevent Europe’s leaders losing control of the crisis. “There is a wide perception that policymakers are one step behind the action in markets,” said Blanchard. “It is a major source of worry.” The IMF’s half-yearly World Economic Outlook said low borrowing costs meant Britain had the scope to cut its deficit more slowly but that it should not do so yet. Jorg Decressin, an IMF economist, said: “Policy should only be loosened if growth threatens to slow down substantially relative to what we are forecasting.” The IMF said it was cutting its growth forecast for the UK to 1.1% this year – down from 1.5% in June, 1.7% in April and 2% at the start of the year. It also predicted a more sluggish recovery in 2012, with activity expanding by 1.6% against the 2.3% it was predicting just three months ago. Fund economists believe that only an improvement in Britain’s trade performance will prevent the economy returning to recession this year. Domestic demand is expected to contract by 0.5%, the weakest of any country in the G7. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor said: “These are deeply concerning forecasts for both the UK and world economy. Our chancellor and political leaders in Europe need to wake up to the scale of the problem and finally realise that we need economic growth and more people in work to really get deficits down.” A Treasury spokesman said: “It is welcome that the IMF have forecast that the UK will grow more strongly than Germany, France and the eurozone next year, but it is clear that the UK is not immune to what is going on in our biggest export markets, with every major economy seeing lower forecasts for growth this year and next.” He stressed that the government had no intention of backtracking on a deficit-reduction plan that had delivered stability for the UK. The IMF cut its forecast for global growth to 4% for both 2011 and 2012 but said risks were heavily skewed to the downside. It warned that a failure to tackle Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and a continued policy impasse between Democrats and Republicans in the US could result in a double recession for the developed world, which it said was already projected to grow at an anaemic pace in 2011 and 2012. The fund said the US Federal Reserve should “stand ready” to provide more stimulus to the world’s biggest economy through “unconventional support”, and financial markets rallied in anticipation that the central bank will signal fresh action when it concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday. The Fed has already provided two doses of quantitative easing, the creation of electronic money through the purchase of financial assets, and Wall Street was hopeful on Tuesday night that the recent softening of demand will lead to a third boost in the coming months. Shares in the City rose on Tuesday, with the FTSE 100 Index closing more than 100 points higher. Shares on Wall Street were also higher in early trading. IMF Economics Global economy George Osborne Economic policy Economic growth (GDP) Public finance Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
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Scotland Yard has dropped bid to force the Guardian to reveal confidential sources behind phone hacking stories Scotland Yard has dropped its forthcoming attempt to force the Guardian to reveal confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal. The police wanted a court order to force Guardian reporters to reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing that the murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World. They claimed that the paper’s reporter Amelia Hill could have “incited” a source to break the Official Secrets Act. The Yard said it would not go to the high court on Friday to demand the information. A police spokesman said: “The Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards consulted the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) about the alleged leaking of information by a police officer from Operation Weeting. “The CPS has today asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter. “In addition the MPS has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders scheduled for hearing on Friday 23 September. We have agreed with the CPS that we will work jointly with them in considering the next steps.” The Met’s attempt to identify potential police leaks was widely condemned. The statement put out by the Met announcing its retreat left open the possibility that the production order could be applied for again, but a senior Yard source said: “It’s off the agenda. There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. “Obviously the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists. “In hindsight the view is that certain things that should have been done, were not done, and that is regrettable.” The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, said: “We greatly welcome the Met’s decision to withdraw this ill-judged order. Threatening reporters with the Official Secrets Act was a sinister new device to get round the protection of journalists’ confidential sources. We would have fought this assault on public interest journalism all the way. We’re happy that good sense has prevailed.” The police force applied for production orders as part of Operation Weeting, its investigation into phone hacking. An officer working on the operation was arrested last month on suspicion of misconduct in public office relating to the unauthorised disclosure of information. He has been suspended from the Met and is on bail. Scotland Yard said the investigation into the alleged leaks had not concluded however, and stressed their investigation was “about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that”. The Met added: “Despite recent media reports, there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists’ obligations to protect their sources. “It is not acceptable for police officers to leak information about any investigation, let alone one as sensitive and high profile as Operation Weeting.” They said the application for production orders had been made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act rather than the Official Secrets Act. Senior Scotland Yard sources last night said the force “regretted” the attempt to get the Guardian to hand over its notes and reveal sources. The picture painted by the Metropolitan Police is that a relatively junior officer took the decision, without consulting his superiors, setting off a calamitous chain of events that saw the Metropolitan Police roundly condemned for an attempted assault on press freedom. Sources said that the senior investigating officer who was inquiring into whether a member of the Weeting team had leaked information, had on his own, taken the decision to seek the production order. The senior source said that even deputy assistant commissioner Mark Simmons had not been told about the decision in advance. Simmons is the head of professionalism issues at Scotland Yard and is seen as a rising star within the force. The senior source said: “There was not a lot of happy people at our place over the weekend because it was a decision made by the SIO. There was no referral upwards, and you would have thought on something as sensitive as this there would have been.” The decision for the Met to end its attempt to get the Guardian to hand over its notes and reveal sources, said the source, came after the force finally consulted the CPS and consulted again with its own lawyers. Simmons and the incoming new Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, did discuss the issue, as the chorus of criticism grew, but the source said the commissioner had left it to Simmons to take the decision, and that there was no instruction or directive. he Met stressed that Hogan-Howe, despite as Deputy Commissioner being in charge of professional standards, was not involved in the original decision to seek a production order, and that Simmons had taken the decision, after the firestorm of criticism to review the application by the SIO. Phone hacking Metropolitan police Police Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Second wave of school desegregation efforts focus on parent choice, poverty
September 20, 2011 No CommentDistricts in Arkansas and Arizona made news this week as they struggled to comply with decades-old court orders mandating they desegregate their schools. A federal judge has ruled that three school districts around Little Rock, Ark., have delayed their desegregation efforts in order to continue to receive an extra $70 million annually from the state.
Continue reading …Facebook is taking its “Like” concept to the next level, and will launch new buttons—Read, Listened, and Watched—at its developer conference this week, a source tells TechCrunch . The buttons will appear on users’ walls, allowing them to proclaim that they Read, Listened, or Watched content in their news…
Continue reading …The international community is hammering out a deal that would spare the US from having to veto Palestine’s move for statehood . There are several ideas floating about, but all revolve around the premise that Mahmoud Abbas would deliver a letter to the Security Council requesting statehood, but would not actually…
Continue reading …Women felt so frustrated in the early months of the Obama administration, that they eventually complained to the president himself, prompting a November 2009 dinner in which Obama listened to their grievances and vowed to improve things, the Washington Post reports. Female staffers’ discontent is a major point in Ron…
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• Click here for all tonight’s latest scores • Email simon.burnton@guardian.co.uk • Hit F5 or turn on autorefresh for updates 26 mins: Fabio is booked, and then commits another foul moments later but without further sanction. And then Diouf is booked for fouling White. 24 mins: Paul Taylor has fairly accurately pointed out that the photo currently at the top of this page looks quite a bit like the alien landing in Close Encounters of the Third Kind . If you’re reading this MBM later, after I’ve changed the picture, don’t worry – aliens haven’t landed in Leeds (though questions have been asked about Ken Bates). 22 mins: Clayton hammers a 25-yard shot at goal, but it’s straight into Amos’s arms. It already looks like LUFC are most likely to score from a set-piece, but it’s a fairly bright opening from them, goal excepted. 20 mins: “What about my home town team FC Groningen in The Netherlands,” ponders Machiel Akkerman, taking the discussion away from the League Cup and towards knockout tie comebacks in general, but let’s go with it. “Last year we were challenging for a place in the Europa League in two legged play-off vs ADO den Haag. The first leg was away and we lost 5-1. The return seemed to be a foregone conclusion but we beat them 5-1 as well, only to loose in the penalty-shoot. Are there more agonising defeats out there?” Probably not, though if you ask me it’s better than losing both legs 5-1. 18 mins: Unpromisingly for LUFC, Leigh Bromby was having a real, genuinely angry go at Snodgrass after the goal. GOAL! Leeds United 0 Manchester United 1! (Owen, 15 mins) Michael Owen breaks the deadlock with a scuffed shot after a very fine MUFC move. Park played the ball to Berbatov in midfield and then got on his bike, Berbatov returned it to the Korean – now totally unmarked – and he squared to Owen, who shifted the ball onto his left foot and then produced a shot which bobbled into the corner. 11 mins: 10 minutes and 31 seconds. For the record, that’s how long it took for a commentator to mention Eric Cantona. 10 mins: Michael Owen goes down on the edge of the penalty area, but the referee is unimpressed. Ben Amos is in goal for MUFC. It’s three years this week since he made his debut for the club in this competition, and this is the third match he’s played for them since. 7 mins: Down to the other end, where Dimitar Berbatov passes to Federico Macheda in the penalty area, but he dallies long enough for Leeds to regroup and crowd him out. 6 mins: Goal-line scramble/melee/clearance! LUFC win a corner, and the header beats the goalkeeper and is heading in only for Dimitar Berbatov to get a foot to it. Two further shots are blocked before the ball is finally cleared. 5 mins: Diouf scoots from the centre of the pitch into the left side of LUFC’s penalty area, lines up a left-footed shot and then … totally misses his kick and falls over. 4 mins: “Hardly a ‘heroic’ comeback,” pooh-poohs Ian Williams of Aston Villa v Tranmere circa 1994. “We (Tranmere) hit the inside of the angle in the final minute, and Mark Bosnich (who starred in the subsequent penalty shootout) should have been sent off. Everyone knows that!” More dissent from Joseph Harden. “Surely, if you’re talking about great league cup games & tranmere, the 4-3 game against Southampton is a better example – 0-3 at half time, 4-3 at the end, Paul Rideout, John Aldridge going crazy … good times.” 2 mins: Fryers gets the third touch of the game, Michael Owen passing it straight to him. He’s bouncing around like an overexcited lamb. Bless. 1 min: Peeeeep! And they’re off! I’m hoping to avoid furious emails tonight, and will therefore refer to the teams as LUFC and MUFC, and won’t call either of them simply “United”, unless by accident. 7.41pm: The teams are out, kick off is moments away. Gird those loins, folks… 7.37pm: Elliot Carr-Barnsley proposes Aston Villa’s 1994 semi-final, second leg fightback against Tranmere as the all-time League Cup greatest match ever. Only vague recollections at this end I’m afraid… 7.26pm: Manchester United’s official website profile of Ezekiel “Zeki” Fryers describes him as “a tall and athletic left-sided full-back”. So he should have no problem making his first-team debut at centre-half alongside Michael Carrick, then. 7.25pm: Here are some proper teams, with substitutes and everything: Leeds United: Lonergan, Lees, Bromby, O’Dea, White, Snodgrass, Howson, Clayton, McCormack, Keogh, Becchio. Subs: Rachubka, O’Brien, Vayrynen, Brown, Forssell, Nunez, Tayor. Manchester United: Amos, Da Silva, Valencia, Diouf, Fryars, Carrick, Park, Giggs, Owen, Berbatov, Macheda. Subs: D’Gea, Wellbeck, Brown, Keane, Thorpe, Pogba, Cole. Referee: M Jones. 7.22pm: “I’m a Leeds fan, on my way in to Manchester town centre to watch the game alone in a pub, just so I can go to a gig afterwards as well,” writes Matthew Briton. “The worst part? I’m at the bottom of my overdraft and only have £6.47 to drink the pain away after the inevitable loss.” Don’t do your team a disservice, M, defeat isn’t inevitable. Likely, sure, but not inevitable. Particularly with United lining up with a flat front five. 7.19pm: “Has Fergie been reading Jonathan Wilson’s column today and the comments below the line?” ponders David Wall. “Surely setting out that formation as 4-4-2 is a ruse and he’s really going to play 2-3-5 just to show that it can still be done, with Fryers and Fabio at the back, Carrick, Giggs, and Park in midfield, and five forwards in Valencia, Macheda, Diouf, Owen, and Berbatov. Takes being bloody-minded to an extreme…” 7.10pm: And Leeds’s line-up looks like this: Lonergan; Lees, O’Dea, Bromby, White; Snodgrass, Clayton, Howson; Keogh, McCormack, Becchio. 7.09pm: Manchester United’s team is in! And it looks like this: Amos; Valencia, Fryers, Carrick, Fabio; Giggs, Park, Macheda, Diouf; Owen, Berbatov. Er, so that’s Michael Carrick at centre-back, then? And Valencia at right-back? Are you sure ? 7.04pm: Hello world! Well, while excitement builds at Elland Road I welcome you with two very special treats of varying relevance to the game in hand. Item 1: some early team news. This, you’ll probably agree, is pretty relevant. Anyway, United include Fabio, Michael Owen, Michael Carrick, Dimitar Berbatov and Ezekiel Fryers are in United’s squad. Nope, I’m not sure who that Fryers chap is either. Leeds will name as good a team as they’ve got. “Man U could run all over us,” says Simon Grayson, unpromisingly. “This is an opportunity for our players and it’s a game where we have nothing to lose at all.” Item 2: Highlights of the single most ridiculous and memorable Carling Cup (or whatever it was then) fixture I have ever seen or probably ever will, a match so energising and enthralling that, having watched my side ship six at home, I came out absolutely buzzing . First-minute goals, missed penalties, unbelievably good performances by Jürgen Klinsmann, it had the lot. I did, on the negative side, emerge from that night with a hatred of Ian Walker that remained with me for the rest of his career. Did you know that he’s now managing Bishop’s Stortford? They’re currently 21st in the Blue Square Bet North, so he’s got a way to go before he’s emulating his dad. Anyway, if you know of any games that beat this I’d like to hear about them. Simon will be here from 7pm. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from Rob Bagchi’s preview on why the festering rivalry between these two clubs should guarantee that this match is an experience to remember … Manchester United return to Elland Road in the Carling Cup on Tuesday night for the first time in eight years to renew a rivalry that remains among the fiercest in Europe. Following Leeds United’s relegation in 2004, the two sides have met only once, in an FA Cup tie at Old Trafford in January 2010 when the visitors, then of League One, incongruously registered their first away victory against Manchester United since 1981, at the 18th attempt. Before that match, Sir Alex Ferguson spoke wistfully about the long absence of Leeds from his side’s fixture list. “I don’t have to spell out what Leeds have meant to Manchester United over the years,” he said. “It would be a fantastic, feisty occasion every time we met. It always carried a degree of hostility. I used to enjoy the games. The atmosphere was always electric.” You can read the full article here . Carling Cup 2011-12 Carling Cup Leeds United Manchester United Simon Burnton guardian.co.uk
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UBS chief Oswald Grübel understood to be seeking vote of confidence after trader Kweku Adoboli charged with fraud Oswald Grübel, head of the Swiss bank at the centre of a £1.45bn alleged rogue trading scandal, will ask directors to back him or sack him at a UBS board meeting in Singapore on Wednesday and Thursday. The 67-year-old German, who was brought in as chief executive by UBS in 2009, is understood to be seeking a vote of confidence following losses which came to light in the City last week. Directors will also look at the future of Carsten Kengeter, head of UBS’s investment banking operations, which lie at the heart of the scandal that has rocked the Swiss establishment. English boarding school-educated Kweku Adoboli, a 31-year-old derivatives trader, was charged with fraud and false accounting when he appeared before London magistrates on Friday. He faces allegations of misdemeanours that go back as far as 2008, and was remanded in custody. Adoboli worked in the bank’s so-called delta-one trading section which invests in exchange traded funds, allowing speculators to bet on price rises in a range of commodities and stock market indices. The UBS board meeting, arranged prior to disclosure of the trading scandal, is being held in Singapore, home of the bank’s biggest shareholder, GIC, a sovereign wealth fund that acquired a 6.4% stake three years ago. In a rare public statement, GIC expressed regret at the failure of the bank’s risk management controls to detect the losses, and urged UBS “to take firm action to restore confidence in the bank”. UBS’s top brass will also decide over the whether to accelerate plans that could lead to a contraction of UBS’s investment bank, which employs several thousand staff in London. The fixed income desk, which is smaller than most of the bank’s international rivals’, is viewed as particularly vulnerable, but other activities, such as equities trading, could also be reined in following the scandal. Another option is for the bank to outlaw proprietary trading, where an institution makes financial bets by using its own money. The bank is anxious to protect the reputation of its core business: the wealth management division that looks after the financial interests of the global rich. Grübel was quoted by Swiss newspapers as saying he would “bear the consequences” of the scandal, although he didn’t want to quit. During the financial crisis, it emerged UBS had lost billions by investing in sub-prime mortgages. At the same time it was the target of a lengthy US investigation into claims it helped American clients avoid taxes. Grübel, who had restored the fortunes of Credit Suisse, was recruited to do the same at UBS, founded in 1854. City sources said the magnitude of the rogue trading scandal had been concealed by elaborate hedging of the bank’s exposure that led to delays in winding down huge positions in equity futures. UBS has set up an independent committee under David Sidwell, the bank’s senior non-executive director, to conduct a review of the affair, but critics say Sidwell cannot be viewed as independent. UBS Kweku Adoboli Banking European banks Switzerland Richard Wachman guardian.co.uk
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