Rick Perry Claims: ‘Substantial Number’ of Climate Scientists ‘Manipulating’ Data
August 17, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry suggested Wednesday that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by scientists who are motivated by cash. “There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects,” the Texas governor told a group of supporters at the “Politics and Eggs” Breakfast in Bedford, New Hampshire. “I think we are seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that manmade global warming is what is causing the climate to change,” Perry added. “Yes, our climate has changed. They been changing for ever since the Earth was formed.” “But I do not buy into a group of scientists, who have been, in some cases, found to be manipulating this information. And the cost to the country and to the world of implementing these anti-carbon programs is in the billions if not trillions of dollars at the end of the day. And I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven, and from my perspective, is more and more being put into question.”
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Bomb-making materials, maps of school and written statements found at Florida home Florida police say they have thwarted a plot by a 17-year-old to attack his former school, after discovering bomb-making material at his home. “We were probably able to thwart a potentially catastrophic event the likes of which the city of Tampa has not seen and hopefully never will,” Tampa police chief Jane Castor told a news conference. Tampa police said Jared Cano’s target was the Freedom high school in Hillsborough county. The local police chief, Jane Castor, said Cano, who had been expelled from the school, had hoped “to cause more casualties than were suffered at Columbine”. In April 1999, two students at the Columbine high school in Colorado killed 12 students and one teacher in one of the deadliest school massacres in US history. Castor said Tampa police, acting on a tip from an informant, learned that Cano had been planning an attack for the first day of term next week. Florida United States Global terrorism guardian.co.uk
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Bomb-making materials, maps of school and written statements found at Florida home Florida police say they have thwarted a plot by a 17-year-old to attack his former school, after discovering bomb-making material at his home. “We were probably able to thwart a potentially catastrophic event the likes of which the city of Tampa has not seen and hopefully never will,” Tampa police chief Jane Castor told a news conference. Tampa police said Jared Cano’s target was the Freedom high school in Hillsborough county. The local police chief, Jane Castor, said Cano, who had been expelled from the school, had hoped “to cause more casualties than were suffered at Columbine”. In April 1999, two students at the Columbine high school in Colorado killed 12 students and one teacher in one of the deadliest school massacres in US history. Castor said Tampa police, acting on a tip from an informant, learned that Cano had been planning an attack for the first day of term next week. Florida United States Global terrorism guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …New Explosive Evidence in News of the World Scandal Shows Phone Hacking Was ‘Widely Discussed’
August 17, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Sadly the latest news on Rupert Murdoch and his son James and the recent developments in the News of the World phone hacking scandal haven’t gotten a lot of play recently in the United States, but David Shuster filling in for Keith Olbermann on Current TV gave it some coverage this Tuesday. Shuster talked to former Nixon staffer and author John Dean and got his thoughts on the recent developments on the story and whether Rupert Murdoch will be held accountable for the actions taken by his company in light of these phone hackings. Dean seemed to think, and I agree with him, that his son James is probably not going to come out of this as well as his father and will probably be the one taking the fall for this as he’s likely to be called back again to appear before the UK parliament, this time, under oath. Here’s the latest from The Guardian — Phone hacking: News of the World reporter’s letter reveals cover-up : Disgraced royal correspondent Clive Goodman’s letter says phone hacking was ‘widely discussed’ at NOTW meetings Rupert Murdoch , James Murdoch and their former editor Andy Coulson all face embarrassing new allegations of dishonesty and cover-up after the publication of an explosive letter written by the News of the World’s disgraced royal correspondent, Clive Goodman . In the letter, which was written four years ago but published only on Tuesday, Goodman claims that phone hacking was “widely discussed” at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with “the full knowledge and support” of other senior journalists, whom he named. The claims are acutely troubling for the prime minister, David Cameron, who hired Coulson as his media adviser on the basis that he knew nothing about phone hacking. And they confront Rupert and James Murdoch with the humiliating prospect of being recalled to parliament to justify the evidence which they gave last month on the aftermath of Goodman’s allegations. In a separate letter, one of the Murdochs’ own law firms claim that parts of that evidence were variously “hard to credit,” “self-serving” and “inaccurate and misleading.” Goodman’s claims also raise serious questions about Rupert Murdoch’s close friend and adviser, Les Hinton, who was sent a copy of the letter but failed to pass it to police and who then led a cast of senior Murdoch personnel in telling parliament that they believed Coulson knew nothing about the interception of the voice mail of public figures and that Goodman was the only journalist involved. News of the World reporter’s letter reveals cover-up” rel=” Read on…
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Tripoli under threat as regime forces struggle to hold on and rebels claim they have cut oil supply to capital Libyan rebels launched an assault on the only functioning oil refinery in Zawiyah on Wednesday, with reports of heavy clashes in the key city, which is only 30 miles from the capital, Tripoli. While rebel commanders elsewhere in Libya reported significant advances, in Zawiyah the opposition’s struggle for control was hampered by resistance from troops loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, including snipers and rocket and artillery positions located outside the city. Gaddafi’s troops are reported to hold the main hospital to the east of the town – with government snipers firing from the roof and doctors unable to enter or leave – as well as several other areas straddling the main motorway to the capital. One rebel fighter, Ramadan Keshadat, said that his forces controlled parts of the refinery complex in the city’s north on the Mediterranean coast, while some regime troops and workers remain inside. He said rebels and regime forces clashed there on Tuesday; then the rebel fighters pulled out at nightfall and made a new push in daylight. An AP photographer who entered the refinery with the rebels reported hearing sniper fire. Another rebel told the AP that the oil pipeline to the capital had been cut, but this could not be confirmed. Elsewhere, anti-government fighters told the Guardian they had taken control of Badr, a small town on the edge of the rebel-held western mountains, and the site of a government army base. Four rebels were killed in fighting, with two pro-Gaddafi houses putting up fierce resistance, they said. At the Dehiba border crossing between Tunisia and rebel-controlled western Libya, one fighter claimed that rebels were now in control of Garyan, a crossroads between Tripoli and the Gaddafi stronghold of Sabha. “Garyan is free. They have seized a lot of weapons from Gaddafi’s forces,” one fighter said. At the border crossing, wounded rebel fighters were being evacuated to Tunisia while others – shot in previous encounters – were returning in the other direction to the frontline. Esam Omeish, a Washington-based Libyan doctor bringing in medical supplies, claimed that the momentum was overwhelmingly with rebel forces. “Five big cities have fallen in the last three days,” he said. “Garyan is fallen, which is central to the control of the south. I’m in touch with a lot of folks from Tripoli. They are in high spirits.” Rebels in Misrata said they had made significant advances out of the city, threatening to cut Tripoli’s last remaining highway linking it to the rest of the country. Fighters in armed pickup trucks swept 30 miles south across the desert to take the small village of Bir Durfan, saying they met no resistance. “There are no Gaddafi troops, they are broken,” said broadcaster Ramadan Maiteeg from Misrata’s Radio Freedom Voice. “They will reach Bani Walid soon.” A second advance pushed down the coast road, with fighting raging in the small town of al-Heesha, 70 miles south-east of Misrata. The advance, if confirmed, leaves Gaddafi facing the prospect of a siege of Tripoli with all roads cut and the sea and air controlled by Nato. But the rebels’ difficulties in Zawiyah, where a small number of snipers and artillery outside the town have slowed the advance, are indicative of the uphill struggle they will face if they have to fight for the capital Tripoli itself. On Wednesday afternoon, an al-Jazeera correspondent in Zawiyah reported Grad missiles landing near a rebel position under a key bridge. While Nato air strikes have helped destroy Gaddafi’s ammunition dumps, military facilities and vehicles in the open, their use will be hampered in heavily populated urban areas where the front lines have been fluid, involving building-to-building fighting of the kind already seen in Misrata. Although the distance to Tripoli from Zawiyah is short, rebels – still relatively few in number – now face the largest concentration of pro-regime forces, including the best trained and best equipped units, who have shown no signs yet of splitting from Gaddafi and his family. Tripoli is also home to a large concentration of those with both tribal and political loyalties to the regime.The Libyan rebels made a dramatic advance over the weekend out of their bases in the western mountains near the border with Tunisia into Zawiyah The rebel advance, however, is tightening the noose around Tripoli – which could set the stage for a different kind of stalemate in the short term with no sign either of a hoped for uprising by Tripoli residents in areas like the large suburb of Tajoura which saw a brutal crackdown at the beginning of the uprising. The fighters are closing in on the capital from the west and the south, while Nato controls the seas off Tripoli, which sits on the Mediterranean coast. Elsewhere rebels claimed Gaddafi forces further west had abandoned two towns and were retreating toward the Tunisian border. “Gaddafi’s forces this morning withdrew from the towns of Tiji and Badr because they felt surrounded from all sides,” said the spokesman, named Abdulrahman, told Reuters by telephone from Zintan, a rebel headquarters in the Western Mountains. “The revolutionaries have now entered Tiji and Badr. The [Gaddafi] brigades retreated to Zuwarah and Jameel, near the Tunisian border. I think they will surrender soon because roads to Tripoli are closed,” he added. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Nato Middle East Africa guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A life unravelled … whistleblower who incurred wrath of the Murdoch empire
August 17, 2011 No Comment
Relentless legal pursuit of ex-News Corp employee likened to ‘Rambo tactics’ Five years ago Robert Emmel was enjoying the American dream. He lived in a detached house in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, drove a BMW, and earned $140,000 a year as an accounts director in a highly successful advertising company called News America Marketing. Today, Emmel is described by his lawyers as destitute. Jobless and in debt, he was discharged from bankruptcy last year. He does occasional consultancy work that last month brought in $500, and this month, court documents show, will probably produce nothing. His wife’s earnings raise monthly household income to about $3,000 – half their outgoings. This is a cautionary tale about what can happen to someone who dares to become a corporate whistleblower. Or, more specifically, someone who incurs the wrath of News Corporation, the media empire owned by Rupert Murdoch, of which News America forms a part. Emmel’s lawyer, Philip Hilder, has had a ringside seat at the gradual unravelling of his client’s life. A former federal prosecutor based in Houston, Texas, Hilder is well versed in whistleblower cases having represented Sherron Watkins, who helped uncover the Enron scandal. Hilder said: “News America has engaged in Rambo litigation tactics. They have a scorched earth policy, and it’s taken a huge toll on him.” News Corp has devoted the efforts of up to 29 lawyers to pursuing Emmel personally, at a cost estimated at more than $2m. Emmel, by contrast, has relied on two lawyers, Hilder and Marc Garber in Atlanta, working for no pay since January 2009. Attention has been focused on News Corporation’s activities in the UK, where the News of the World phone-hacking scandal has led to the arrest of 10 people associated with the company. In the US, oversight of News Corp is gathering pace with the department of justice and the FBI looking into the company, while senators are considering launching committee hearings into News Corp practices. One incident that US investigators are exploring is the hacking of a website run by one of News America’s rivals, an instore advertising business called Floorgraphics. The firm discovered that its password-protected site had been breached from an IP address at News America’s offices in Connecticut. News America has condemned the breach as a “violation of the standards of our company” but says it does not know how it happened. Emmel was one of the main witnesses for Floorgraphics at a subsequent trial against his old company. He worked for News America for seven years from 1999 to 2006, turning whistleblower in his final year there. The company is the leading US provider of in-store advertising services, helping to bring products from firms such as Coca-Cola, Kraft and Nabisco to the attention of supermarket shoppers. Headed by Paul Carlucci, who now publishes Murdoch’s tabloid the New York Post, it enjoys annual revenues of more than $1bn and has a 90% stranglehold on the market. News America also has a record of legal disputes with its commercial rivals, three of whom have launched lawsuits against it in recent years accusing the firm of using unlawful practices. All three lawsuits – including the Floorgraphics one and cases initiated by Valassis and Insignia – were eventually settled, but not before News America agreed to pay an astounding $655m to end the disputes. Emmel acted as a whistleblower in all three cases. He gave two days of evidence in the Floorgraphics trial after which News America rapidly settled, and was also named in the Valassis and Insignia cases. By 2006 Emmel said he was increasingly concerned about what he alleged were improper practices on the part of his employers. He alleged that News America was engaging in “criminal conduct against competitors” and using “deceptive and illegal business practices” to defraud its retailer customers out of money owed. He claimed he had “substantial oral and documentary evidence” to support his allegation that the company had defrauded its own customers, used anti-competitive techniques against rival companies, and fraudulently inflated its reported earnings unbeknown to its shareholders. News America denies the allegations. In a statement, it said: “There have been three very public lawsuits about these matters and at no time during any of these legal proceedings was any evidence produced to support Mr Emmel’s claims.” For a year before he was sacked in November 2006, Emmel began compiling documentary evidence that he suggested backed up the allegations, and posted it to public bodies and individuals including the US securities and exchange commission, two senators, two Senate committees and the New York attorney general. It is not known what happened to Emmel’s allegations within the regulatory bodies he approached. He posted one set of 55 pages of documents on 20 December 2006, shortly after he had been fired and a day before he signed a non-disclosure agreement with News America. That set of documents went to Nicholas Podsiadly, an official in Washington then working as an investigative counsel at the Senate finance committee. At one point, court documents show, Podsiadly said the committee was considering referring the allegations to the justice department and the federal trade commission. Podsiadly did not reply to a request for information. A spokeswoman for the finance committee said nothing would be done with any documents sent by Emmel until the litigation over them had ended. Emmel today remains under a court-imposed injunction that forbids him from disclosing anything from these documents. “I cannot comment,” he said. News America learned of Emmel’s whistleblowing activities after it had sacked him in a dispute over his timekeeping. It then unleashed its legal armoury against him. In April 2007 it filed a lawsuit accusing him of six violations relating to his disclosure of confidential information, pressing its case with more than 300 pleadings to the Georgia courts. The company said Emmel refused to return “tens of thousands of stolen documents” and added: “Initiating legal action was News America Marketing’s only recourse to protect the company’s private information.” Despite the tenacity with which it has pursued Emmel, News America has had very little satisfaction through the courts. In March 2009 the district court in Georgia threw out all of its claims against him, bar one – a claim of breach of contract relating to his posting of the 55 pages of documents the day before he signed a non-disclosure agreement. Even that count, however, has been overturned by the US appeal court, which ruled in Emmel’s favour in June, although the court kept the non-disclosure injunction in place noting that a significant proportion of Emmel’s legal fees had been paid by News America’s competitors. In 2009 the company made clear that it intended to go to trial to ask for $425,000 from Emmel to cover legal costs incurred in the breach of contract element of the lawsuit, as it was entitled to dothough the sum was way beyond his ability to pay. Emmel’s lawyers say the move forced him into bankruptcy. News America then insisted on a deposition to extract financial information out of Emmel, a move that is allowable under the law but that astonished Emmel’s bankruptcy lawyer, Danny Coleman, because he says there had been no suggestion from the authorities that anything about the bankruptcy was out of order. “In my view, that was an abuse of the legal system,” he said. “They took the law to its extreme and they used it to harass my client and prolong his agony. After months of work on the deposition, nothing irregular was found. Hilder said he was struck by an irony in the Emmel case. “Here is a company, News Corp, that is in the business of disseminating information to the public, and yet its subsidiary does everything in its power to silence him.” News America denies engaging in inappropriate litigation and insists that it only wants to protect commercially confidential information, adding that Emmel’s lawyers were “once again attempting to distort the facts in this case”. The company added it had “vigorously defended itself against Mr Emmel’s charges against the company, all of which were dismissed by the court”. It says the injunction does not prevent him from co-operating with any formal investigation into News America. The idea that Emmel had been driven into destitution was “preposterous”, it said, “given his legal fees – to the tune of $750,000 – were paid by two competitors to News America”. Emmel’s lawyers do not dispute that until 2009 he received legal fees from Floorgraphics and Insignia, but say that was consistent with his role as a whistleblower against his old company. While legal proceedings continue, the injunction preventing Emmel from approaching corporate regulators remains in place. But the appeal court in June made one important proviso. Nothing in the injunction, it ruled, “prevents Emmel from complying with grand jury or court-issued subpoenas or from co-operating with law enforcement authorities in any formal investigations of News America”. News Corporation Media business United States Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
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The government has repeatedly pointed to job creation by the private sector as reassuring news in the face of the slowdown David Cameron’s hopes that rising job prospects would help to draw a line under the social unrest on Britain’s streets have been dashed by the latest official figures, which reveal a sharp increase in unemployment. The government has repeatedly pointed to job creation by the private sector as reassuring news in the face of the slowdown in economic growth over the past nine months. But the Office for National Statistics revealed that unemployment jumped by 38,000 to 2.49 million in the three months to June, on the government’s preferred measure which includes all those out of work and actively looking for a job. The increase would cancel out the 30,000 jobs George Osborne hopes to create with his new enterprise zones, 11 more of which have been were announced. The unemployment rate rose to 7.9%, from 7.8% in the previous quarter. On the more timely claimant count measure, unemployment was up by 37,100 on a month earlier – the biggest increase since February 2009, when the economy was deep in recession. The figures showed that youth unemployment has risen again, after dropping in recent months, and there was fresh evidence that high unemployment could have been a contributing factor to last week’s wave of rioting. Analysis by the TUC showed that several of the hotspots were among the 10 areas of the country where the largest number of claimants are chasing each job vacancy. Employment minister Chris Grayling conceded that the news was disappointing. “We always said that the road to recovery would be choppy. Clearly this has been a difficult few months with a range of one-off factors and a slowdown in the world economy having an impact on the UK. This is why we are focused on taking steps to increase growth, support the economy and encourage businesses to invest and create jobs.” Other indicators of the strength of the jobs market, including the number of hours worked across the economy and the number of vacancies available, all revealed a marked deterioration. Michael Saunders, UK economist at Citigroup, said: “The labour market data showed broad-based weakness, with slowing employment, rising unemployment, falling hours, falling vacancies and rising redundancies. Further significant increases in unemployment probably lie ahead for coming months.” A record 1.26 million people reported that they were working part-time or in a temporary job because they had been unable to find a full-time role. Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said, “business confidence clearly needs to rise before employment growth will pick up again, but at the moment the surveys suggest that companies remain worried about economic growth both at home and abroad and are generally erring towards cost-cutting rather than expansion”. Labour warned that the government’s deficit-reduction plans could be blown off course by rising joblessness. Kerry McCarthy, a shadow Treasury minister, said: “The Tory-led government is at risk of creating a vicious circle of lower growth and higher unemployment – fewer people in work paying taxes makes it harder to get the deficit down.” The TUC’s analysis showed that in the London borough of Haringey, which includes riot-hit Tottenham, there are almost 29 benefit claimants for every vacancy. With only 367 vacancies and 10,518 people out of work and claiming benefit, Haringey is second in the list of places where jobs are hardest to find. Hackney and Lewisham, which were also affected by rioting, are also in the top 10, with 22 and 21 claimants respectively for each potential job. In Hackney, there were fewer than 500 vacancies for more than 11,000 claimants, while in Lewisham just over 10,000 people were after 487 available jobs. In London as a whole, unemployment as measured by the claimant count rose by 22,000 between April and June, the latest month for which data is available, pushing the total above 400,000. The TUC analysis found that seven of the UK’s toughest labour markets were in Scotland and Wales, which were unaffected by last week’s riots. West Dunbartonshire had the highest ratio of claimants to available jobs (31.8), with 3,815 people and 120 vacancies. David Blanchflower, the labour market economist and former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said: “The relative matters: if you live in Hackney, you can very easily see people in Islington doing just fine: it’s being waggled in front of you.” Young people had borne the brunt of the weakness in the labour market, he said. A total of 949,000 16- to 24-year-olds, or 20.2% of the young workforce, were unemployed, the figures showed. Women also appear to be suffering disproportionately, because of their high concentration in the public sector. Of the 38,000 increase in unemployment over the quarter, 21,000 were women, according to the ONS. The number of women out of work is now 1.05 million, the highest since the spring of 1988. For those who have managed to stay in work, there was some evidence that pay deals are starting to creep up, with average earnings growing at an annual rate of 2.6%, up from 2.3% in the three months to May. Unemployment UK riots David Cameron Young people Women Heather Stewart guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Real estate mogul Donald Trump said Monday that he would be willing to pay a higher tax rate but most oil companies would not because they are not patriotic. “Warren Buffet made another splash with his op-ed in The New York Times , saying it’s just not right that he, a billionaire, pays 17 percent in taxes when his secretary and receptionist pay more,” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos told Trump. “Isn’t he right about that?” “There’s many different views on that,” Trump replied. “And I can also tell you that a lot of people will go elsewhere to do business if you start taxing them.” “But 17 percent isn’t much for a billionaire,” Stephanopolous noted. “But you’re going to have a mass exodus of business out of this country when you start taxing too high,” Trump explained. “But if you go back to certain companies, Exxon Mobil, the oil companies, for us to be subsidizing oil companies is absolutely insane.” “Well it sounds like this is where you part company with the tea party and many in the House. You would be willing to close those loopholes on the oil company as part of a deficit [reduction plan],” the ABC host remarked. “Oh, absolutely. I think the oil companies — and I’m a big tea party fan, and the tea party loves me and I get great polls in the tea party… I think when explained to the tea party, I can’t imagine anybody’s going to stick up for Exxon Mobil or some of these big oil companies that are making a fortune and paying relatively little in tax. And I think we should be taxing,” Trump answered. “As part of a deficit reduction package, would you be willing the pay, assume for a second you pay Warren Buffet’s rate, 17 percent. Would you be willing to pay 25 percent instead of 17 percent?” Stephanopolous pressed. “See, I would be willing to, George, but a lot of people wouldn’t be,” Trump admitted. “A lot of people would leave the country. I’m talking about big people, job-producing people. Would I be willing? Yeah, I’d be willing. I’d put country first… A lot of people will say, ‘No thank you, I’m going to Switzerland. I’m going to Germany. I’m going to here, I’m going to there.’” “It’s very unpatriotic. They’re not patriotic. In many cases, they’re not patriotic. They’re business machines.”
Continue reading …UK development secretary warns 400,000 children could die in Somalia | Mark Tran
August 17, 2011 No Comment
On a visit to Somalia, Andrew Mitchell announces £25m extra UK aid and issues grim warning on impact of famine and conflict Britain’s international development secretary on Wednesday warned that up to 400,000 children could die through starvation if urgent action is not taken to help Somalia and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa. Andrew Mitchell’s grim warning came as he saw the devastating impact of famine and conflict on the country during a visit to a feeding centre and a camp for internally displaced people in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. “I came to Mogadishu today to see first-hand how Britain can best help people that have been hit by this devastating famine,” said Mitchell, the first British minister to visit Mogadishu in 18 years. “The stark fact is that in southern Somalia the situation is deteriorating by the day. We could face deaths on a similar scale to those seen in 1991-92 if we do not act urgently now. This is a race against time. Evidence of malnutrition is not just in the camps and feeding centres but on every street corner.” As Mitchell visited Mogadishu, Britain announced an extra £25m ($41m) in emergency aid for Somalia. The new package will go through Unicef, allowing the UN organisation for children to double the number of children it is reaching in its supplementary programme. Somalia faces a severe humanitarian crisis and the worst food security crisis in Africa since its famine 20 years ago. At least 3.7 million people – about half of Somalia’s population – need food, and around 3.2 million people are in extreme need of immediate, lifesaving aid because of drought and years of conflict. In neighbouring Ethiopia, the UN refugee agency is reporting that 10 Somali children under the age of five are dying every day of hunger-related causes in Kobe refugee camp. The Department for International Development (DfID) said its £25m children’s package will provide up to 192,000 people with two months of supplementary rations, and supplies to vaccinate at least 800,000 children against measles, plus 300,000 with polio vaccines, vitamin A and deworming. Mitchell urged other countries to step up their aid effort as the UN warns that more regions of Somalia will be hit by famine in the coming months. Relief agencies estimate $2.48bn is required across the Horn. So far, $1.32bn has been raised – just over 50%. The UK, which helped sound the alarm by announcing aid to Ethiopia last month, has been lobbying the international community to send aid to the region . “Other countries must also maintain and increase their support at this crucial stage,” said Mitchell. “Or we risk seeing a whole generation of people decimated by starvation and disease – and further instability across the region.” The UK government has given £119m towards the UN appeal for east Africa. France has given £25m, Germany £25m and Italy just £3m. The African Union has so far pledged only $500,000 for the aid effort, and most key governments have pledged even less or nothing at all. Meanwhile, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) countries pledged $350m in aid for Somalia at an emergency summit in Istanbul. “All in all we have secured $350m in pledges,” said the OIC secretary general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, at the end of the summit. “We hope to raise the commitments to $500m in a very short time.” Earlier, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urged rich Muslim countries to help, saying they bore some responsibility for the crisis for ignoring the poverty in the country. Erdogan told a dozen foreign ministers and other officials that Islam dictates “that you do not go to bed full if your neighbour is hungry. If we had fulfilled our responsibilities, would our brethren nation Somalia be in this situation?” he asked. “This is not only a test for the Somali people, it is a test for all humanity.” Erdogan, is scheduled to go with his family to Somalia on Thursday. Accompanying him will be his foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who will also take his family. Davutoglu will go on to South Africa and Ethiopia. Few foreign leaders visit Somalia because it is so dangerous, but Erdogan has said it is “impossible for us to be spectators to the human tragedy in Africa”. Al-Shabaab, the Islamist insurgents , have pulled out of the capital, Mogadishu, but security remains precarious with the threat of hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings. The last leader to visit Somalia was the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, last November. Ugandan troops form the backbone of the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, which props up the weak transitional government. Somalia Africa Famine Malnutrition Children Aid Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
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