Defence company Raytheon reveals £500m ligitation suit after termination of its IT system contract by UK Border Agency The government is facing a £500m litigation suit from an American firm that was stripped of its contract to develop the country’s e-border system after ministers said it had failed to deliver. Defence company Raytheon was given a £742m contract to design and implement the IT system that would allow the UK Border Agency to count every person who arrives and leaves the country. The coalition terminated the deal last year, claiming the firm had missed deadlines and delivered substandard results. But in a letter to the home affairs committee, which has been investigating the problems with the deal, the chief executive of Raytheon UK, Robert Delorge, revealed it was claiming £500m in the courts, arguing that the delays were due to mismanagement by the Border Agency. The letter said: “The circumstances surrounding the home secretary’s decision to terminate Raytheon’s contract and engage a replacement service provider in its place are the heart of the arbitration. “Without going into the details, it is Raytheon’s position that the decision was unjustified and unlawful, not least because the delays and other problems on the e-borders programme were attributable to breaches of contract and serious mismanagement of the programme by the UKBA, and not to any fault on Raytheon’s part.” The e-border system was supposed to electronically record every person moving in and out of the country. The home affairs committee had previously concluded that they had “no confidence” in Raytheon to complete the project and the company was dismissed in July 2010. IBM was brought in during November to run the basic database, and Serco in April 2011 to provide the interface between carriers and the agency. Keith Vaz MP, the committee’s Labour chairman, said: “I am deeply disappointed that such a high-profile project such as this has ended with such costly litigation, with the possibility that the taxpayer will have to pay millions of pounds even though the programme has not been completed. “We need to know if and why this company was not given the clear targets and objectives it sought. The committee will continue to pursue this matter until we receive satisfactory answers. Why should the taxpayer foot the bill?” A separate letter also released by the committee today from Home Office minister Damian Green, responding to questions about the contract, said that only one of the four main parts of the contract had been concluded, with that one having “important capabilities missing”. A UK Border Agency spokesman said: “Last year we terminated Raytheon’s contract because it was unable to deliver on key elements of the e-borders programme. The contract has now been transferred to alternative suppliers. “E-borders continues to reduce the risk of terrorism, crime and immigration abuse.” No one from Raytheon was available to comment. Immigration and asylum Terrorism policy IBM Damian Green Keith Vaz Defence policy Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk
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Police investigate mentally ill daughters’ claims that 80-year-old father sexually abused them during decades of captivity Austrian police are investigating claims that a man locked up his two mentally ill daughters in a small room in their home and sexually abused them for 41 years. Officers said the 80-year-old repeatedly raped the women between 1970 and May 2011 in St Peter am Hart, near the Bavarian border. The alleged victims are now aged 53 and 45. A police official did not name either the suspect or the alleged victims. Police confirmed they were investigating after a report in the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten newspaper. The newspaper said the women escaped when the father was unable to get off the floor after the older daughter pushed him over when he last tried to rape her. The police official said the 80-year-old suspect was free, pending an investigation and possible charges, because there was no danger of him fleeing. The state broadcaster, ORF, said the claims were only recently revealed because the two alleged victims did not tell anyone about them for weeks after their escape. It said the suspect was now in a care home. The allegations evoke the case of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who imprisoned his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24
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French and other foreign languages continue to decline in popularity Nearly one in four GCSE entries has been awarded an A or an A* grade in results published on Thursday, which show a further decline in the number of pupils taking French and other foreign languages. Entries for French have fallen since languages were made optional at GCSE seven years ago. This year, they were down to just over 154,000 from around 170,000 last year, and compared with more than 300,000 in 2004. French fell out of the top 10 most popular subjects last year, with more pupils choosing to study geography or art for GCSE. Religious studies has grown in popularity for the 13th year running, with nearly 222,000 entries, up from 188,704 last year. About 650,000 children receive their GCSE results today in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a smaller group than in 2010. The number of 16-year-olds in the population has been declining since 2004. The overall pass rate at grades A* to C has increased to 69.8%, while the percentage getting an A or A* has risen from 22.6% last year to 23.2% this summer. The decline in French has been accompanied by falls in popularity for other languages, in a pattern that appears likely to cement Britain’s reputation as a monolingual country. Entries for German are down to below 70,000 while Spanish has dipped to around 66,000. Geography has also waned in popularity. This year’s A-level results showed year-on-year rises in entries for maths, biology, chemistry and physics. And this year’s GCSE results also show an increase in entries for physics, chemistry and biology. Physics is up 16.4%, chemistry 16.2% and biology 14.2%. The number of pupils taking single sciences at GCSE surged in the previous year. Entries for chemistry and physics GCSEs rose by 32%, while those for biology were up 28%. Biology was the most popular of the three in last summer’s results, with 129,000 taking the subject. This year there were nearly 148,000 entries for biology. In last summer’s results, Spanish appeared poised to overtake German at GCSE, with the numbers taking it rising to more than 67,000, while German entries fell to around 70,000 in 2010. The numbers taking Mandarin, Portuguese and Polish also rose last year, with the last of these thought to be fuelled by an increase in the number of pupils who are children of recent Polish migrants. Last year’s results showed that private school pupils were disproportionately likely to do languages and single sciences. The independent sector accounted for just 7.7% of all GCSE entries, but 15.4% of chemistry, 15.1% of biology and 14.8% of physics entries. Last year’s GCSE results showed that thousands more teenagers were sitting the exams at least one year early. Last summer, 11% of maths GCSE entries were taken early and 9.5% of English GCSE entries. In 2010, boys beat girls at GCSE maths for the second year in a row, following a decision to drop coursework in the subject. The proportion of boys getting grades A* to C in maths has risen again this year from 57.6% to 58.6%. The proportion of girls passing has also risen, from 56.8% to 58.3%. Boys have also done better than girls in biology, where the male pass rate is 93% compared with 92.7% for girls, and in physics, where 93.9% of boys have passed compared with 93.4% of girls. In last year’s results, economics saw a higher pass rate for boys, though only around 3,000 candidates of either sex entered. Ministers have announced plans to overhaul GCSEs in the future. From September 2012, pupils will sit all their exams at the end of the two-year courses, rather than throughout the course. Pupils will also be marked on their spelling, punctuation and grammar in subjects that have a high “written English” element, such as history, geography, religious studies and English literature. Further reforms to GCSEs are expected to be announced after the review of the national curriculum is published. GCSEs Schools Secondary schools Languages Jeevan Vasagar guardian.co.uk
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One of the country’s best-known celebrities announces his retirement after admitting ties to Japan’s equivalent of the mafia It is almost impossible for evening TV viewers in Japan to avoid the gravelly voiced and impressively coiffured figure of Shinsuke Shimada. Now, though, millions of viewers will have to find a new primetime companion after Shimada, one of the country’s best-known celebrities, was forced to resign over links to organised crime. The 55-year-old sobbed, but showed little remorse as he announced his retirement at a late-night press conference, called just two days before a popular weekly magazine was due to run an exposé of his alleged links with the yakuza, Japan’s answer to the mafia. Shimada conceded he had exchanged text messages with the leader of an Osaka-based gang affiliated to the Yamaguchi-gumi , Japan’s biggest underworld organisation. “We have met in person just four or five times as we were aware that entertainers and crime syndicate members should not mix,” he said. He said the gangster had helped solve an unspecified “personal problem” more than a decade ago, but denied he had paid him for his troubles. “I felt indebted to him. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything wrong. To me the relationship was safe, but I learned the day before yesterday that it wasn’t.” His management agency, Yoshimoto Kogyo, insisted the disgraced star had not been involved in any illegal activity. But it added: “Regardless of the reason, it is not permissible for a performer who exerts such a strong social influence on mainstream TV to have these ties.” Shimada began his career as a standup comic in Osaka in the late 1970s before going on to present variety shows, as well as political discussion programmes, for commercial networks. He has been a fixture on Japanese television for 25 years; just before his resignation he fronted several weekly shows that gave him almost 50 hours of airtime a month. Fortunately for his detractors, who bristle at his brash TV persona and penchant for bullying guests, Shimada conceded his TV career was at an end: “From tomorrow I will become just another regular person. I want to live a quiet life.” Many have questioned why Shimada was not sacked in 2004, when he was suspended from work and fined 300,000 yen (£2,400) for punching a female colleague. Shimada’s resignation comes amid a police campaign to weaken the yakuza’s influence in mainstream Japanese society. His managers may also have had an eye on forthcoming changes to anti-yakuza laws that will make any activity deemed to benefit organised crime a criminal offence. “It’s no longer acceptable to have yakuza links, especially now that companies risk being prosecuted,” said Jake Adelstein, a yakuza expert and author of Tokyo Vice. “The police have already cracked down on links between organised crime and sumo . Now they’re trying to do the same with the yakuza and the entertainment industry.” Shimada’s profile was sufficiently high for his resignation to elicit comment from the chief government spokesman, Yukio Edano. “[The resignation] was unavoidable given the government’s efforts to eliminate organised crime,” he told reporters. “People loved Shimada for his genius. It’s unfortunate that such talent has been cut down in this way.” Japan Television Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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David Rathband, who was shot last year by Raoul Moat as he sat in his police car, has been arrested on suspicion of assault The police officer blinded by gunman Raoul Moat has been arrested on suspicion of assault. Father-of-two PC David Rathband was held by officers on Tuesday over an incident at his home in Northumberland, sources said. The 43-year-old was shot twice on 4 July last year as he sat unarmed in his patrol car. Officers were called to reports of an assault at his address in Cramlington just before midnight. A Northumbria police spokeswoman said: “Officers attended and a 43-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of assault. Inquiries are ongoing.” Rathband has been praised for his charity work in the wake of his injuries sustained last year. He set up the Blue Lamp Foundation, an organisation offering help to injured members of the emergency services, last year. Raoul Moat guardian.co.uk
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Some retailers have already been driven into launching Christmas displays to drum up sales UK high street sales have suffered their sharpest fall in a year as Britain’s retail sector continued to be buffered by weak consumer confidence. The CBI reported that August has been a disappointing month for many retailers. The news came as flooring firm Floors 2 Go fell into administation, Topps Tiles posted a profits warning and the Co-operative Group reported that trading conditions were the toughest in four decades. The latest CBI Distributive Trades Survey found that 46% of retailers suffered a fall in sales in the first half of August, while just 31% saw turnover rise. The resulting balance of -14 is the worst monthly performance since May 2010. The CBI also reported that many retailers are now cutting back on investment spending, with the threat of a double-dip recession looming. “August was a tough month on the high street,” said Judith McKenna, chair of the CBI distributive trades panel. “Consumers have continued to see their real incomes squeezed by a combination of inflation and weak wage growth.” Analysts predicted that the riots that hit several UK cities this month would also have hurt retailers. “As the pressures of inflation and rising utility bills continue to bear heavily on consumer spending, conditions remain difficult for retailers and this month’s riots are only likely to have exacerbated the situation,” predicted Richard Lowe, head of retail and wholesale at Barclays Corporate. Lowe added that some retailers have already been driven into launching Christmas displays to drum up sales. The CBI also found that a balance of -11% of retailers said they felt more negative about the business situation over the next three months than they did three months ago – the most negative results for 18 months. The data chimes with research published this morning by the Nationwide Building Society, which showed that shoppers are holding back from making “big ticket” payments . Tax increases, weak wage growth and higher energy bills have combined to dent consumer confidence. The Co-operative Group added to the gloom on Thursday by reporting a 10% drop in underlying operating profits, with its food arm suffering a 21% slump in profitability. Peter Marks, its group chief executive, said the challenging business climate was “the worst I have seen in over 40 years of retailing.” Thousands of jobs have been lost across the retail sector in recent weeks, with several firms going bust. On Thursday, Floors 2 Go announced the closure of 53 stores with the loss of almost 200 job. The company is now in the hands of administrators, who blamed the firms’s demise on the general downturn over the last 12 months, and a lack of disposable income from consumers. Topps Tiles also blamed falling consumer confidence, as it reported a 10.4% drop in revenues over the last seven weeks. Shares in the company crashed by 25% after the company admitted that it will not hit City forecasts for the current financial year. Consumer spending Economics Retail industry Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Some retailers have already been driven into launching Christmas displays to drum up sales UK high street sales have suffered their sharpest fall in a year as Britain’s retail sector continued to be buffered by weak consumer confidence. The CBI reported that August has been a disappointing month for many retailers. The news came as flooring firm Floors 2 Go fell into administation, Topps Tiles posted a profits warning and the Co-operative Group reported that trading conditions were the toughest in four decades. The latest CBI Distributive Trades Survey found that 46% of retailers suffered a fall in sales in the first half of August, while just 31% saw turnover rise. The resulting balance of -14 is the worst monthly performance since May 2010. The CBI also reported that many retailers are now cutting back on investment spending, with the threat of a double-dip recession looming. “August was a tough month on the high street,” said Judith McKenna, chair of the CBI distributive trades panel. “Consumers have continued to see their real incomes squeezed by a combination of inflation and weak wage growth.” Analysts predicted that the riots that hit several UK cities this month would also have hurt retailers. “As the pressures of inflation and rising utility bills continue to bear heavily on consumer spending, conditions remain difficult for retailers and this month’s riots are only likely to have exacerbated the situation,” predicted Richard Lowe, head of retail and wholesale at Barclays Corporate. Lowe added that some retailers have already been driven into launching Christmas displays to drum up sales. The CBI also found that a balance of -11% of retailers said they felt more negative about the business situation over the next three months than they did three months ago – the most negative results for 18 months. The data chimes with research published this morning by the Nationwide Building Society, which showed that shoppers are holding back from making “big ticket” payments . Tax increases, weak wage growth and higher energy bills have combined to dent consumer confidence. The Co-operative Group added to the gloom on Thursday by reporting a 10% drop in underlying operating profits, with its food arm suffering a 21% slump in profitability. Peter Marks, its group chief executive, said the challenging business climate was “the worst I have seen in over 40 years of retailing.” Thousands of jobs have been lost across the retail sector in recent weeks, with several firms going bust. On Thursday, Floors 2 Go announced the closure of 53 stores with the loss of almost 200 job. The company is now in the hands of administrators, who blamed the firms’s demise on the general downturn over the last 12 months, and a lack of disposable income from consumers. Topps Tiles also blamed falling consumer confidence, as it reported a 10.4% drop in revenues over the last seven weeks. Shares in the company crashed by 25% after the company admitted that it will not hit City forecasts for the current financial year. Consumer spending Economics Retail industry Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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Ferzat, who had become increasingly critical of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, found bleeding at side of Damascus road Syrian security forces have beaten up a prominent Syrian political cartoonist and left him bleeding on the side of a road, in the latest episode of a campaign to quash dissent against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Ali Ferzat, 60, is one of Syria’s most famous cultural figures, and his drawings and cartoons have pushed at the boundaries of freedom of expression in Syria. Working from a gallery in central Damascus, Ferzat has long criticised the bureaucracy and corruption of the regime and since March has turned to depicting the uprising. In the early hours of Thursday, masked men seized Ferzat on a Damascus street and beat him up before dumping him, bleeding, on the capital’s Airport Road where he was found by passersby, activists said. Ferzat had become increasingly critical of the regime and its brutal crackdown. He recently appeared on al-Arabiya television and his drawings were avidly followed by Syrians looking for some light relief. In a recent cartoon he critiqued the regime’s offers of reforms, with a picture of an official with rosebuds in his speech bubble – and a coiled turd in his head. Another cartoon showed Assad hurriedly painting railway tracks to escape from a fast-approaching train. Assad has shrugged off international condemnation and continues to use security forces and thugs to kill and arrest opponents to his rule. At least 2,200 people have been killed since mid-March, according to the UN. Fame has in the past offered a measure of protection from the full force of the regime, allowing outspoken cultural figures to get away with more criticism than others. But in recent weeks, a string of artists, writers and actors have been arrested. On 13 July the actor May Skaf was among a group of public figures arrested after a demonstration in the Damascus area of Midan. They were later released. “Ferzat’s arrest is part of an intimidation campaign by security forces who have increasing leeway,” Ammar Abdulhamid, a US-based dissident and son of the actor Mona Wasif said. “At this stage fame may be more of a danger than a protection because the regime does not want any prominent figure to come to the fore and provide a public face for the revolution.” Ferzat was born in the western city of Hama, the scarred city where a tank assault on the eve of Ramadan to bring the city back under government control caused widespread outrage. A graduate of Damascus University’s faculty of fine arts, his initial work in the 1970s appeared in state-run newspapers but by 1980 his cartoons were being published in the French newspaper Le Monde, bringing him international recognition, exhibitions and prizes. In a 2001 interview with the Guardian , Ferzat recalled that before becoming president Assad visited one of his exhibitions and told him that some of the cartoons that had been banned in Syria should have been published. He was later granted permission to publish al-Domar (Lamplighter), a satirical paper which ran from the end of 2000 until 2003, when he closed it under pressure. Nour Ali is the pseudonym for a journalist based in Damascus Syria Newspapers Journalist safety Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Bashar Al-Assad Nour Ali guardian.co.uk
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A drop in the number of people going to live abroad undermines Theresa May’s plan to bring net migration below 100,000 Net migration to Britain jumped by 21% to 239,000 last year fuelled by a sharp fall in the number of people going to live abroad, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said long-term immigration to Britain in 2010 was 575,000 – similar to the levels seen each year since 2004. At the same time the annual migration statistics show that the number of people leaving Britain to live abroad for more than 12 months was 336,000 in 2010 – 91,000 lower than the 2008 figure for emigration. The rise in net migration appears to be a further blow to the hopes of the home secretary, Theresa May, of bringing the annual figure for net migration down below 100,000 by the time of the next general election. She may, however, take small comfort in the fact that the net migration figure of 239,000 for the year to December 2010 is slightly below the peak of 243,000 recorded for the 12 months to September 2010. The ONS says overseas students make up the main group migrating to Britain, with 228,000 coming to study in 2010 – three-quarters of whom are from outside the European Union. The number of people coming from outside Europe to work with a definite job offer is at its lowest since 2004 at 110,000. But within Europe the figures show a new increase in people coming to work from the former eastern European states, such as Poland, with a net migration figure of 39,000 in 2010 compared with 5,000 in 2009. Immigration and asylum Theresa May Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Injecting mosquitoes with bacteria could stop dengue fever, scientists find
August 25, 2011 No Comment
Australian researchers think they can slow spread of disease among humans by preventing insects from picking up the virus Injecting bacteria into mosquitoes can block them from transmitting the dengue virus and help control the spread of a disease that kills 20,000 people a year in more than 100 countries, scientists have said. In two papers published in the journal Nature on Thursday, researchers in Australia showed how female mosquitoes infected with the Wolbachia bacteria passed the bug easily to their offspring, making them all dengue-free. They said such infected mosquitoes should be released into the wild, so that the spread of dengue to people may be reduced. “The main feature we saw was their ability to reduce dengue transmission,” said Professor Scott O’Neill, lead author and science faculty dean at Monash University. “It almost completely abolished dengue virus in the body of the mosquito.” In their experiment, O’Neill and his colleagues injected the bacteria into more than 2,500 embryos of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that can spread dengue fever. After they hatched, they were treated to blood meals laced with the dengue virus, and none picked up the virus. “The [Wolbachia] bacteria doesn’t spread environmentally. It gets passed on from mother to children through the eggs,” O’Neill told Reuters. “When an infected male mates with an uninfected female, all her eggs die. That gives an indirect benefit to the females with Wolbachia because when they mate with infected males, their eggs hatch normally … all their eggs have Wolbachia in them so Wolbachia gets more and more common with every generation.” O’Neill said there were two theories to explain why the Wolbachia was able to block the uptake of dengue. One was that the Wolbachia boosts the mosquito’s immune system and protects it from viruses such as dengue. The second was that the Wolbachia competes with dengue for food inside the mosquito, making it harder for the dengue virus to replicate. More than 50 million people in more than 100 countries fall sick and 20,000 die each year from dengue fever. There is no vaccine or specific treatment for the disease. The only method of prevention is to control mosquito populations through eliminating breeding sites and using insecticides. O’Neill’s team released nearly 299,000 infected mosquitoes in January at more than 370 sites in north-eastern Australia, and the bacteria spread into the wild mosquito population successfully, with their offspring also infected over a three-month period. The team is seeking approval to release such infected mosquitoes into dengue-endemic sites in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Brazil to see if it reduces rates of dengue transmission in people. “It is an alternative strategy for dengue control which could be low-cost and sustainable and suitable for deployment in large urban cities in the developing world,” O’Neill said. But he added: “With any control [measure] over time, we might expect them to become less effective, like insecticides. “We don’t know how long that might take to occur. If it provides effective control for 20-30 years, that is still a very good step forward for dengue control.” Medical research Australia guardian.co.uk
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