Click here to view this media Speaking to reporters after touring a Boeing plant in South Carolina Monday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt (corporations are people, my friends) Romney pledged to pursue legislation that would prohibit unions from contributing dues to political campaigns. “We have a very unusual circumstance in this country,” Romney said, “and that is that we allow union bosses to collect dues from union members and then to use that money as the union boss sees fit to elect people who might do their bidding. It’s unseemly at best.” “I will pursue and hopefully enact legislation which inhibits taking money in the form of dues and putting it behind political campaigns. That should not happen.” The candidate added that he had “no problem with unions.”
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Clambering exhausted but triumphant from the water, the comic actor has completed his epic eight-day, 140-mile journey Having conquered a gippy stomach, painful wetsuit rash and fear of swans, the comic actor David Walliams clambered exhausted but triumphant from the water in London on Monday after completing his epic charity swim along 140 miles of the river Thames. The Little Britain star’s Sport Relief Big Splash Challenge took eight days, during which his 110,738 strokes burned off an estimated 65,574 calories and raised £1,093,325 – and counting – as he ended his journey early on Monday evening . Crowds gathered along the river’s banks, their cheers buoying him through the final strokes of his 15 miles from Teddington Lock to Westminster bridge. The tidal stretch was always destined to be toughest leg of the challenge, even without the remnants of hurricane Katia licking the water and whipping up strong gusts. As he stepped from the river, with hundreds chanting “David, David” he told the crowd: “I’ve just swum the length of the Thames. I feel quite tired.” Asked what his lowest point was, he replied: “Feeling like my arse was going to explode.” During a celebrity reception, including the comics Lenny Henry and Miranda Hart and the actor Barbara Windsor, Walliams was presented with a pint of Thames water as a memento. “Norovirus in a bottle,” quipped Henry. The Olympians Sir Steve Redgrave and swimmer Mark Foster draped him in a union flag as he was welcome by a guard of honour. Not since a disorientated juvenile northern bottlenose whale took a wrong turn and ended up in the city in 2006 has an object afloat in the murky Thames attracted quite so much attention as the sight of Walliams’s capped head and muscular forearms powering his way to the finish line. “Come on David,” yelled supporters, their admiration in no small way enhanced by Walliams’s determination to continue despite unappealing news on day two that torrential rain had forced Thames Water to dump 500,000 cubic metres of sewage into the very waters he would be swimming through. “We’re not public health experts, but I wouldn’t recommend swimming in it,” said Thames Water’s Richard Aylard, shortly after Walliams had been informed of this unexpected development. Swallowing Thames water – with the attendant risks of contracting E coli , salmonella and hepatitis – is not desirable but proved unvoidable for a front-crawl swimmer who reached speeds of up to three miles an hour. Then there’s the risk of Weil’s disease, carried by rat urine and which last year claimed the life of the Olympic rower Andy Holmes. Despite a battery of inoculations and precautionary antibiotics, Walliams was almost sunk after succumbing to Thames Tummy two days after pushing off from the Cotswold town of Lechlade, the start of his journey. “Perhaps best not to go into further details,” he cautioned during one rest stop after divulging he was suffering diarrhoea, vomiting and low energy levels. Illness was a serious threat to the swim. Instead of refuelling with carbohydrate-heavy foods such as pasta, fish and chips, pizza and porridge he was managing to keep down only toast, flat cola and some glucose tablets. But supported throughout by his Dutch model wife Lara Stone, 27, he battled on with legions of wellwishers lining his route, armed with sugary treats and homemade cakes to build up his stamina. “I am very proud,” said Lara, kissing him in front of the crowd. The actor admitted that the challenge was a lot harder than he had envisaged and at times he feared he had “bitten off more than he could chew”. “I used to like swimming” he joked. As well as the intense physical strain the swim was also psychologically demanding, he said, sending him “slightly loopy” at times. “You’re alone with your thoughts for a very long time. Sometimes 11 or 12 hours. I sometimes had slightly delusional thoughts, paranoid thoughts. I kept thinking someone was going to drop a brick on me from a bridge. I don’t know why”. The actor has been overwhelmed by the support he has received. “It’s been amazing and the public have been fantastic because you know the weather hasn’t been great but people have been out to cheer me on,” he said, just before setting off from Kew Bridge on Monday afternoon.His rescue of the pet labrador Vinny, who was struggling to get out of the river near Cookham Lock in Berkshire, further augmented his hero status, prompting Walliams’s mother Kathleen to pronounce him “a sort of nation’s sweetheart”. “I’m very very proud of him,” she said. “Saving the dog. That was great,” he said. “The British public love dogs.” He was also grateful because the incident kept up the media coverage. Having survived without being menaced by swans – “when they’re coming towards you, fluffing their wings and hissing when you’re in the water, it’s quite scary” – Walliams is now likely to hang up his trunks. He has already swum the Straits of Gibraltar and the Channel, as well as cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats, all for charity, leading his friend and stalwart swim supporter, the comedian Jimmy Carr, to comment he was “turning charitable endeavour into a personality disorder”. The actor confesses he is uncertain what compels him. “I must be a masochist,” he has said. But, at the lowest points, he focused on why he was doing it. He would conjure up the image of a 12-year-old orphan, called Philip, whom he met living in a centre in Kenya funded by Sport Relief, and who wants to be a pilot. “He’s living in the most desperate circumstances, yet he still has great aspirations. I think about him and not wanting to let him down,” he said. Supporters can sponsor Walliams at http://www.sportrelief.com/walliams David Walliams Television Swimming Fitness Swimming Rivers Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
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Somali pirates suspected of taking woman hostage after her husband was shot dead during robbery The Kenyan military has joined the search for a British woman who was kidnapped after gunmen shot dead her husband at a beach resort in the east African country. The Foreign Office , which has refused to release or confirm the couple’s names for fear of endangering the abducted woman, is continuing to call on her captors to release her. The two Britons, both thought to be in their 50s, were the only guests staying at the sprawling and secluded Kiwayu Safari Village, close to the Kenyan border with Somalia , when the attack happened in the early hours of Sunday morning. Kenyan police are not sure whether the raid was the work of pirates or the Somali Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab . Shortly after midnight on Sunday, at least five gunmen arrived at the beach by speedboat and stormed the couple’s palm-thatched hut, thought to be the furthest from the hotel’s reception. After ordering the Britons to hand over their valuables, the attackers shot the husband and bundled his wife into a speedboat. She has not been seen since and her kidnappers have yet to make a ransom demand. Eric Kiraithe, a Kenyan police spokesman, said the police and the military were now combing the area. The beach, which is usually empty except for a scattering of guests, was swarming with helicopters, police officers and armed guards on Monday afternoon. Guards had been told not to let anyone into the crime scene or to speak to journalists without police permission. Many hotel owners and locals on nearby Lamu island said they had often thought that the resort – only an hour by boat from the Somali border – was vulnerable. “On Lamu, we have always known they were in a more risky position but we never thought an attack like this would happen,” said hotel owner Muhidin Athman. “It’s going to have a bad effect on everyone working in the area.” The search for the missing woman is being carried out by air, boat and road and has been widened to include a 300‑mile (500km) area along the coast and up to the border with Somalia. It has not yet stretched over the border into Somalia, an area described by the Kenyan authorities as lawless and under the control of militant Islamists. Kenyan police have mentioned both Somali pirates and Islamist terrorists as possible perpetrators but are not ruling out local bandits or robbers. Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said it would have been very easy for the attackers to get into the couple’s hut because it had a cloth door. He told a press conference it was possible that the husband had “resisted”, which may have been why he was shot. He said that if the attackers were hoping for a ransom for the wife, it was likely they would get in contact. The FCO has deployed a consular team from the high commission in Nairobi and is working with the Kenyan authorities to secure the missing woman’s release. It has also repeated its warning against “all but essential travel to within 30km of Kenya’s border with Somalia” and reminded travellers that two western nuns and three aid workers were kidnapped in the area between November 2008 and July 2009.The Kiwayu Safari Village, which was opened in 1973, has taken its website offline . A brief statement reads: “Sorry the website is unavailable due to the tragic events. Our thoughts and prayers are with the affected family.” Kenya Africa Somalia Sam Jones guardian.co.uk
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George Osborne heralds year-long review into the sector as a ‘decisive moment’ to force through major changes Britain’s banks face the most radical overhaul in decades after George Osborne heralded a year-long review into the sector as a “decisive moment” to force through the first major changes to the structure of the industry since the 2008 financial crisis. Even so the reforms will take longer than expected – until 2019 – to implement and are not as draconian as some campaigners had hoped. But as he endorsed the recommendations of the independent commission on banking, chaired by Sir John Vickers, the chancellor pledged to create a “new banking system that works for Britain” after more than £65bn of taxpayer funds were used to bail out Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group during the financial crisis. Vickers, heralding his 358-page report as “far-reaching”, urged the government not to water down his package of recommendations or “pick and mix” as the coalition sets out how it will respond to the proposals by the end of the year. Chief among Vickers’ proposals is a plan to ringfence the retail arms of banks from their investment businesses in order to protect high street customers should another financial crisis occur. Campaigners had hoped that both sides of the banking business would have to be completely separated as individual companies. Under the Vickers plan, banks would also have to set aside more cash than is currently required to cushion the blow of any future crisis. The figure suggested by Vickers – 10% of risk-weighted assets – is higher than internationally-agreed 7%, but Vickers said that the “opportunity must be seized” to establish a banking system that gets taxpayers “off the hook”. He also hit out at bankers’ pay. “We’ve seen large pay packages at a time when taxpayers are on the hook for the banks,” Vickers said. “If retail deposits were not used for investment banking it would go a long way in dealing with the issue.” The proposed reforms – unveiled just days before the fourth anniversary of the run on Northern Rock and the third anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers – were announced amid further turmoil in the eurozone and fears of another crisis for major continental European banks. European stocks tumbled to two year lows, while the FTSE 100 ended 85 points at 5,129 on a volatile day of trading dominated by concern about Greece defaulting on its debt and Italy being dragged in the crisis. French banks were down sharply. Shares in Britain’s major banks gyrated and at times bucked the downward trend on relief that the Vickers’ proposals had not been tougher. But they ended lower, with the fall in the price of bailed-out RBS – regarded as one of the biggest losers from the Vickers reforms – and Lloyds taking the loss on the taxpayer stakes in the two banks to £38bn. Banking experts believe the taxpayer’s stake in RBS may now be more long-term than was expected at the time of the original bailout, because the Vickers recommendations will force chief executive Stephen Hester rewrite the loss-making bank’s strategy for recovery. Despite the scale of the investment by the taxpayer in the two banks, Osborne told MPs that “we should not confuse the interest of banks’ shareholders with those of the British taxpayer”. Criticising Labour’s record on banks, the chancellor said: “The question of how Britain is the home of successful global banks that lend to British families and businesses, but don’t have to be bailed out by the British taxpayer, should have been answered a decade ago. But it was not even asked.” He added: “Today represents a decisive moment when we take a step towards a new banking system that works for Britain.” The reform will require legislative change which is causing tension in the coalition. Senior Lib Dems want it bolted on quickly to an existing financial services bill, while the chancellor appeared to favour a separate bill. “I think it is likely, I do not want to say absolutely in this case, that we will need a separate piece of legislation specifically on some of these changes to banking but I hope that we can also use the financial services bill to also implement other key parts of this reform.” Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, called for more humility from Osborne, who had attacked him for “burdensome” regulation when Labour was in government, as he apologised for the banking crisis. “As I have said before, for the part that I and the last government played in that global regulatory failure I am deeply sorry,” said Balls, who also wants legislation pushed through in the financial services bill. A new consultation on bank reform is now expected as Osborne said “detailed work” would start immediately on reforms that Vickers estimated would cost between £4bn and £7bn annually. Legislation will be passed in this parliament. Amid criticism that the reforms were not as radical as might have been hoped for and taking longer than expected to implement, the ICB conceded that its reforms were “deliberately composed of moderate elements” but insisted “the reform package is far-reaching”. It said: “Together with other reforms in train, it would put the UK banking system of 2019 on an altogether different basis from that of 2007. In many respects, however, it would be restorative of what went before in the recent past – better-capitalised, less leveraged banking more focused on the needs of savers and borrowers in the domestic economy.” Up to £2tn of assets could end up inside the ‘firewall’ – including all domestic high street banking services – as the ICB said that the aggregate balance sheets of the UK’s banks was over £6tn and that between one-sixth and one-third of these should be protected from investment banking operations. But there was caution among industry leaders about the reforms amid warnings that lending to businesses could dry up if banks are forced to hold more capital and reconfigure their businesses. CBI deputy director-general Neil Bentley said: “The UK is going it alone on ring-fencing, so the government must rigorously examine how and when to implement these proposals, otherwise it risks damaging businesses and threatening growth.” Banking reform Banking Financial sector George Osborne Ed Balls Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
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PM secured £215m worth of business deals with Moscow, but made no progress on the Alexander Litvinenko case David Cameron insisted he had not “parked” concerns about Russia’s human rights record, as he ended a one-day burst of diplomatic bridge-building by securing £215m worth of business deals with Moscow, but without making progress on the case of the murdered former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. Cameron trod a fine line during his 22-hour visit as he pushed British business interests while raising concerns over human rights. But Downing Street believes that differences over Russia’s refusal to extradite the man Britain suspects of murdering Litvinenko in London in 2006 are so embedded that they need to be negotiated around. The foreign secretary, William Hague, also on the trip, said Britain had “met our objective in coming here and expanding working relations at the top of government, reinforcing the opportunity for jobs, and for business”. Among the deals was a lifting of a ban on imports of British beef, which has existed ever since the 1990s BSE crisis, in exchange for the UK agreeing to look into ways to expedite visa approval rates for businessmen, though this would not extend to officials. There had been “no meeting of minds” over Syria, Hague said. Russia does not agree with the UN security council that President Bashar al-Assad should leave office, and instead calls for political reform. The visit was the culmination of a year’s defrosting in Anglo-Russian relations, with Cameron granted the first face-to-face meeting in five years with Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, after a suspension of diplomacy at the highest levels caused by the Litvinenko case. Cameron and Putin discussed the economy and how much each should continue to encourage mutual trade and investment. Hague said Cameron also raised the issue of Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium in London, but the British government does not expect Russia to change its mind. Hague said this meant there would be “no prospect” of a resumption in counter-intelligence sharing while Litvinenko’s suspected murderer Andrei Lugovoi remains in Russia, despite the Russian ambassador to London calling for a resumption in counter-intelligence sharing this on Friday ahead of the trip. Though Cameron and Medvedev said publicly that they had agreed to disagree over Lugovoi’s extradition, Medvedev went further than before, saying: “You have to learn to respect our legal framework. I would like to remind you of article 65 of the Russian constitution says a Russian citizen can’t be extradited for legal proceedings. We should understand it and respect it. We have questions about how court decisions are come to in the UK but we are not raising these issues.” With such an emphasis on trade, the prime minister was under pressure to prove he had not “parked” concerns about human rights abuses. Referring to the Litvinenko case, Cameron said: “This is not being parked. The two governments don’t agree. We are not downplaying it in any way. We have our own position. “But I don’t think that means we should freeze the entire relationship – we need to build a relationship in our mutual interest. Both of us want to see progress. We are not parking the issue, just realising there is an arrangement that hasn’t changed.” In his speech to Moscow state university students earlier in the day, Cameron set out the British government’s position on Litvinenko. He said: “Our approach is simple and principled. When a crime is committed that is a matter for the courts, it is their job to examine the evidence impartially and to determine innocence or guilt. The accused has a right to a fair trial. “The victim and their family have a right to justice. It is the job of governments to help courts to do their work.” Cameron told the students he had carefully acknowledged how hard British businessmen found it to operate in Russia. He said: “I’ve talked to many British businesses. I have no doubt about their ambition to work in Russia … but it’s also clear that the concerns that continue to make them hold back are real. “They need to know that they can go to a court confident that a contract will be enforced objectively … and that their assets and premises won’t be unlawfully taken away from them. In the long run the rule of law is what delivers stability and security.” However, at his press conference with Cameron, Medvedev said: “It is very difficult to deal with most states on our planet because corruption is a central element that exists everywhere. The open secret to you is that corruption exists in the UK as well. It doesn’t mean we are not prepared to deal with the UK too.” Cameron’s broad aim is to “rebuild” the relationship and end the “tit-for-tat” behaviour. In a sign of a potentially lighter mood, Medvedev said that he thought Cameron could have been a “very good” KGB spy, a reference to an anecdote Cameron had told students earlier. Describing his first visit, Cameron said: “I first came to Russia as a student on my gap year between school and university in 1985. I took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Nakhodka to Moscow and went on to the Black Sea coast. There, two Russians – speaking perfect English – turned up on a beach mostly used by foreigners. “They took me out to lunch and dinner and asked me about life in England and what I thought about politics. “When I got back I told my tutor at university and he asked me whether it was an interview. If it was, it seems I didn’t get the job! My fortunes have improved a bit since then. So have those of Russia.” He finished his speech by appearing to make a link between the two periods. “In the last 20 years Russia and Britain have both come a long way but each largely on their own. In the next 20 years I believe we can go very much further.” He ended his speech with a Russian phrase which translates as “we are stronger together”. Russia Alexander Litvinenko David Cameron Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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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
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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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