Libyan rebels under increasing strain after attack on ‘renegades’ in Benghazi
July 31, 2011 No Comment
Divisions deepen over killing of Abdul Fatah Younis, while forces elsewhere report gains in Misrata and Nafusa mountains Fears of a fracturing of Libya’s opposition heightened after units loyal to the ruling National Transitional Council stormed the base of what it said was a renegade unit in the rebel capital, Benghazi. Four fighters were killed and six wounded in the attack on the al-Nidaa Brigade, blamed for Thursday’s assassination of army commander Abdul Fatah Younis. NTC spokesman Mahmoud Shammam said the attack on the base was ordered two days after the brigade, which officials claim is Islamist, attacked two Benghazi jails, freeing more than 200 inmates. “Thirty men surrendered and we took their weapons,” Shammam said. “We consider them members of the fifth column,.” One unverified rumour in Benghazi is that the al-Nidaa brigade received secret coded orders communicated through an announcer, Yusef Shakir, on Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan state television. Three Libyan state TV transmitters were bombed by Nato on Saturday night. Gaddafi’s regime claimed three journalists were killed and a further 15 people wounded. “We are not a military target,” said Libyan government spokesman Khalid Bazelya. “We are not commanders in the army and we do not pose a threat to civilians.” However, the Ministry of Defence defended the attack on the transmitters. He said: “This strike was an attempt to disrupt the broadcast of Gaddafi’s murderous rhetoric, which has repeatedly sought to incite violence against fellow Libyans.” Outwardly, foreign backers of the rebels insist the NTC is sound, with French defence minister Gerard Longuet saying that Paris was not pushing for an immediate resolution: “Impatience is never a good adviser.” He insisted an end to the conflict rested with the people of the Libyan capital: “Things have to move in Tripoli. To put it clearly, the population has to rise up.” Nerves remain frayed in Benghazi and questions remain over the role, if any, of NTC officials in the death of Younis, following an admission that he had been arrested for questioning on treason allegations just hours before his death. In London, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, would not be drawn on which group may have been responsible for the assassination of Younis. “It’s not yet clear who carried out the killing and there are claims and counter-claims,” he said. “It will be at least several days until we know exactly what the situation was. There has always been a mixture of people who make up the opposition forces in Libya – hardly surprising given the history of the country – and it would be for the Libyans themselves to sort out exactly how any power structure develops post-Gaddafi.” Sir Menzies Campbell, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the killing raised questions about the stability of the NTC and demonstrated the need for a “wholesale” review of policy. He told Sky News: “The assassination has thrown into fairly sharp focus the whole question of the transitional national council. What kind of government [it would be], for example, [if] it ever got to Tripoli. “I also think that claims of success have always got to be taken with a certain amount of scepticism because it’s not about just taking ground temporarily, its taking it permanently. I’ve been saying I think we should take this period for a wholesale examination of policy. “I supported the military action – I continue to support the British government’s involvement – but I think we have to have a pretty clearer view about what the NTC would be like were they ever to get to Tripoli.” In stark contrast to the tension and uncertainty in Benghazi, rebel forces in both Misrata and the Nafusa mountains reported significant breakthroughs against government forces. West of the besieged city of Misrata, rebel units aided by intensive Nato bombing broke through the front line in several places, advanced nine miles and captured abandoned tanks, artillery and truck-mounted grad rocket launchers near the town of Zlitan. Four of the huge 155mm guns were seen by the Guardian being hauled by grad trucks from the front line late on Saturday night. Fierce fighting for Zlitan continued on Sunday, bringing the death toll of rebel fighters over the weekend to 23, with more than 100 wounded and three civilians killed in shelling of Misrata city. Rebel commanders claim that government forces appear to be disintegrating in many sectors. “The resistance today was not that much. I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t have an army,” said Mohammed Elfituri of the Faisal (Sword) Brigade. “We thought that it would be hard work [but] we moved 15 kilometres.” Similar gains were reported by rebel units pushing north from bases in the Nafusa mountains, who say they have captured one town, Hawamid, and surrounded a second, Tiji, 150 miles south west of Tripoli. Libya Middle East Africa Muammar Gaddafi Abdel Fatah Younis Foreign policy Europe Chris Stephen Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
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Activists describe massacre in central city of Hama after armoured units break through barricades to crush protests Syria’s uprising faced one of its defining moments when President Bashar al-Assad followed in his father’s footsteps and sent in tanks to crush protests in the central city of Hama, killing up to 100 people and triggering a new wave of international outrage. The National Organisation for Human Rights said in total 136 people had been killed in Hama and three other towns. Activists described a massacre after armoured units ended a month-long siege to smash through makeshift barricades around the city just after dawn on the eve of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. International media are still largely banned from Syria but citizen journalists ensured that the scale and brutality of the crackdown was visible to the outside world. Video clips posed on YouTube showed unarmed civilians taking cover from shelling and heavy machinegun fire as hospitals struggled to cope with 200 casualties by mid-morning . Bodies lay scattered on the streets, residents reported. “They started shooting with heavy machine guns at civilians, at the young men protecting the barricades,” Omar Halabi, a local activist, told the Guardian. Syria, with a population of 23 million, is experiencing the bloodiest days yet of the Arab spring, which began with the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Assad, once hailed as a modernising reformist, has ruled since 2000. The government said “armed gangs” with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades were vandalising public and private property in Hama, attacking police stations, erecting barricades and burning tyres. Hama, known as a conservative stronghold of the country’s Sunni Muslim majority, has a special resonance in Syria as the scene of a notorious massacre in 1982 when the Ba’ath regime crushed an Islamist uprising that challenged the rule of the president’s father, Hafez. At least 10,000 were killed then. Sunday’s crackdown involved troops and security agents accompanied by busloads of irregular militiamen known as Shabiha (Ghosts) who belong to the same Alawite minority as the Assad family. The official Sana news agency said two security force personnel were killed in Hama and three during unrest in Deir Ezzor, on the eastern border with Iraq, where government armoured units continued an assault over the weekend. Violence was also reported from Deraa in the south and in parts of Damascus. Hama residents told Reuters that army snipers had climbed on to the roofs of the state-owned electricity company and the main prison, while tank shells were falling at the rate of four a minute in and around the north of the city. Electricity and water supplies to the main neighbourhoods had been cut, a tactic used regularly by the Syrian military when storming towns to crush protests. Halabi described people walking towards tanks armed only with wooden bats, steel bars or stones. “It’s a massacre. They want to break Hama before the month of Ramadan,” an eyewitness who identified himself as Ahmed, told the Associated Press by telephone. Al-Arabiya TV reported that some soldiers had refused to fire on protesters and had joined them. But unlike Libya, Syria has not yet experienced any high-level defections from the military. Film clips showed bloodied corpses in hospital mortuaries, clouds of smoke, the sound of explosions and gunfire, and demonstrators chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great). Britain condemned the “appalling” onslaught, long anticipated by the Syrian opposition. “Such action against civilians who have been protesting peacefully in large numbers in the city for a number of weeks has no justification,” said William Hague, the foreign secretary. Speaking to the BBC from Damascus, a spokesman for the US embassy described “full-on warfare by the Syrian government on its own people … That’s the armed gang that is striking terror into the hearts of the people”. The US ambassador has been told he cannot leave the city after enraging the government by paying a high-profile visit to Hama last month. President Barack Obama said he was “appalled” by the brutality of the Syrian government and described reports from Hama as “horrifying”. Precise casualty figures were unclear but they rose throughout the day. The local co-ordination committee, which organises and monitors anti-government protests, said it had the names of 49 civilians who had died in the onslaught on Hama. By nightfall the numbers were nudging 100 for Hama alone. Hama has been a focus of anti-regime protests since early June, when security forces shot dead at least 70 people. Since then it has fallen out of government control, with protesters holding the streets and government forces ringing the city and conducting overnight raids. But apart from ritual condemnation, the latest bloodletting looks unlikely to trigger any significant international response, given the sharp divisions among the veto-wielding five permanent members of the UN security council. Limited sanctions on key officials imposed by the US and EU have been shrugged off by the regime. “It is incredible to consider that since March the Syrian regime has slaughtered over 1,500 people, arrested thousands, tortured people to death, and yet the UN security council has yet to issue a resolution,” said Chris Doyle of the Council for Arab-British Understanding. “Russia, China and other countries such as Brazil should have to explain their appalling positions.” An activist group, Avaaz, said last week Syrian forces had killed 1,634 people in the course of their crackdown during four-and-a-half months of protest, while at least 2,918 had disappeared. A further 26,000 had been arrested, many of whom were beaten and tortured, and 12,617 remained in detention, it said. Syria Middle East Protest Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad Ian Black guardian.co.uk
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Following 500,000-strong petition against woodland sell-off, group targets proposed method of tackling bovine TB A campaign group which helped force the government into an embarrassing U-turn over plans to sell off forests has set its sights on stopping a planned cull of badgers. The government announced earlier this month that it would press ahead with issuing licences to shoot the wild animals in an effort to eradicate bovine tuberculosis from cattle herds, a disease which is costing farmers millions of pounds. The move has attracted criticism from animal rights groups and others after it was reported that the government’s own advisers warned it may not be effective. Now the campaign group 38 Degrees , which got 532,000 people to sign its Save Our Forests petition to derail the coalition’s woodland sell-off earlier this year, has joined those fighting the cull. The group questions whether a cull is the most effective way of tackling the spread of bovine TB, with 87% of members polled saying they should oppose it. More than 13,000 people have signed a petition in the last few days. Writing on the group’s blog, campaigner Marie Campbell wrote: “Some of us believe killing badgers would be wrong under any circumstances. Some of us believe that if the science really proved that shooting badgers could make a real dent in the cow TB problem, it would be a tragic necessity. “But 87% of us agree on this: the government’s current plans to shoot England’s badgers simply don’t stack up. The government’s own scientific advisers warn that it won’t solve the problem of TB in cattle, and could even make it worse.” The environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, who shouldered much of the blame for the U-turn over forests, launched the badger cull on 19 July, saying bovine TB would cost farmers in England alone £1bn over the next decade if action was not taken. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) claims that nearly 25,000 cattle were slaughtered in England in 2010 because of the disease, costing the country £90m. It is especially a problem for farmers in the west and south-west of England, with Defra claiming 23% of cattle farms in these areas were unable to move stock off their premises at some point in 2010 due to being affected by the disease. There is a vaccine that could be used to halt its spread but Spelman said there were “serious practical difficulties” with it. “This terrible disease is getting worse, and we’ve got to deal with the devastating impact it has on farmers and rural communities. There’s also the effect on the farming economy and taxpayers,” she said. “We cannot go on like this. Many farmers are desperate and feel unable to control the disease in their herds. And we know that unless we tackle the disease in badgers we will never be able to eradicate it in cattle. “We are working hard to develop a cattle vaccine and an oral badger vaccine, but a usable and approved cattle vaccine and oral badger vaccine are much further away than we thought and we can’t say with any certainty if and when they will be ready. We simply can’t afford to keep waiting.” An early day motion opposing the cull and asking Spelman to rethink the plans, tabled by Newport West Labour MP Paul Flynn in March, has so far been signed by 82 MPs. The majority are Labour and Liberal Democrats, with Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) the sole Conservative MP to sign it. Badgers Wildlife Rural affairs guardian.co.uk
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Doctors deny private health insurer’s claim that many knee arthroscopies performed on Bupa patients are unnecessary Britain’s largest private health insurer is embroiled in a severe row with some of the country’s top surgeons after accusing them of performing operations that earn them £600 a time on patients without a good medical reason. Bupa, which insures 3 million Britons, claims orthopaedic surgeons have carried out unnecessary knee arthroscopies on some of their clients. The company alleges that unnamed specialist surgeons have defied standard clinical practice and official advice by subjecting some patients to the procedure. Bupa members are more than twice as likely as NHS patients to have the operation, while some surgeons are three times more likely than others to recommend that patients they examine undergo it, the firm claims. But surgeons’ leaders have responded by alleging that Bupa is damaging their reputations with an unjustified “slur”, undermining patients’ trust in their doctor, and trying to save money by denying people in pain an operation needed to restore their quality of life. Dr Annabel Bentley , the medical director of Bupa’s UK health and wellbeing division, has sparked a major dispute by drawing attention to what she says are big differences in NHS and private patients’ chances of having the operation. In a letter to the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA), which represents surgeons who perform joint operations, she wrote: “We have concerns about current clinical practice in knee arthroscopy because the rate of surgery performed on our insured members is substantially higher than the NHS rate. We have also identified specific cases among Bupa members by some consultants where treatment does not appear to be in line with published evidence-based guidelines.” Speaking to the Guardian, Bentley claimed: “We found the rate of knee arthroscopy in our members is more than double the rate in NHS patients [and that] some surgeons are three times more likely than others to perform a knee arthroscopy on our members.” While some variation may be due to clinical reasons, these big differences in treatment rates are unexplained, she added. Surgeons’ organisations have criticised Bentley for making such claims without referring doctors Bupa believes are over-operating to the General Medical Council for misconduct, or publishing the evidence it says it has of the unjustifiably wide variation. The BOA, British Association for Surgery of the Knee (Bask) and the Federation of Independent Practitioner Organisations (Fipo) are opposed to a new pre-surgery check Bupa has introduced in a bid to reduce unnecessary knee arthroscopies. Bupa wants all surgeons to fill in a form giving details of the clinical indications for surgery before it approves payment. In a letter to the Bupa’s board, the three organisations voiced “concern at what we believe is a threat to clinical governance, patient care and consultant independence” because “this new approval process for surgery involves non-medical Bupa staff checking a surgeon’s decision against undisclosed guidelines”. The BOA has urged the 4,000 surgeons it represents to boycott the forms, which, it says, undermine surgeons’ clinical judgment. While some are completing them, others are refusing to do so, and some are being threatened with what the BOA’s president, Peter Kay, describes as “blacklisting” – no longer being allowed to treat Bupa patients. The letter calls Bupa’s actions “indefensible”. It says: “At the heart of what is presented to us as a funding or cost control measure it is alleged by the doctors in the Bupa health and wellbeing division that some surgeons are carrying out inappropriate surgery. However, no specific evidence of this has been provided.” It also says Bupa subscribers will cancel their policies if they are denied the chance to use the surgeon who examined them. Bentley denied Bupa’s move was intended to save money. “We want to ensure we pay for best practice, not poor practice,” she said. Health insurers are under pressure as the number of policyholders has dropped sharply in the past two years as a result of the financial squeeze. Fergus Craig, the commercial director of AXA PPP, another big health insurer, indicated recently that it believes some surgeons are over-treating for personal gain. He said: “The rate of intervention in some areas [of medical practice] is higher than it is in others. This concerns me. There is a clear incentive for consultants to do things that may be of marginal medical benefit and significant benefit in terms of bolstering their income.” Bentley said “it’s a possibility” that some surgeons are performing unnecessary operations. The big difference in treatment rates may be due to some under-treating but others over-treating, she said. She said she did not know if individual surgeons were doing too many operations in order to make money, but “had a duty to act when we see this issue, and we see this issue with knee arthroscopy”. Bask’s president, Professor Tim Wilton , said patients denied their choice of specialist knee surgeon were being offered alternative surgeons with expertise in back, shoulder or feet operations, a development which could affect patients’ welfare. But Bentley added that Bupa was simply repeating an exercise it did several years ago when, on examining high rates of hysterectomy among its patients, it found some women were having a healthy womb removed by surgeons. Patient who paid Alison Twigley, a consultant anaesthetist, was denied her chosen surgeon for a knee operation in June when Bupa refused to fund it because he refused to fill in a form that surgeons claim undermines their clinical judgment. She still used the surgeon but paid for the operation herself. “I hurt my left knee last December after dragging a heavy new table around when I had a new kitchen put in. Bupa paid for an MRI scan , which showed that I’d torn my cartilage. “My knee swelled up due to fluid on it. It was fairly stiff, I had some pain and I couldn’t flex it much. I went on a skiing holiday but couldn’t ski or do much physical exercise to keep fit as I usually do. “I was very reluctant to have an operation. I wanted to see if the knee would mend on its own. But Prof Tim Briggs, one of the country’s leading orthopaedic surgeons, told me it would probably need something doing to it surgically. “In April I agreed to have an arthroscopy and have the cartilage trimmed as the knee was obviously getting no better. “But in late May the Spire hospital in Bushey in Hertfordshire where I was due to have the operation on 17 June contacted me to say there was a problem with my Bupa insurance. “Bupa told me it couldn’t fund the operation because Prof Briggs hadn’t signed their its special new form giving the grounds for the arthroscopy. I challenged them but they were adamant. “Prof Briggs told me he hadn’t signed it because it was undermining his professional judgment. “He said: ‘Why should an insurance company decide whether a patient had or didn’t have an arthroscopy?’ “I agreed with him. It’s wrong for insurance company employees to judge whether a consultant orthopaedic surgeon should be doing one operation or another because they won’t have the clinical judgment. They must be trying to save money. “When I spoke to Bupa it said: ‘There’s no reason to have it done with Prof Briggs. We’ll give you the name of a surgeon who is happy to sign the form.’ “That really incensed me. I said I wanted a surgeon I trusted and knew would do a good job. I ended up paying for the operation myself. “I thought Bupa’s action was breach of contract. What’s the point of being insured with somebody if when you need something done it won’t pay for it? “I was paying them it £127 a month. But I’ve now cancelled my policy, so I will get the cost of the operation back that way.” Briggs confirmed that Twigley had wanted to see him and only him. “I refused to sign the Bupa form as a matter of principle,” he said. “Bupa’s new policy is limiting people’s choice of surgeon because a lot of consultants are refusing to sign these forms.” Health NHS Health insurance Insurance Healthcare industry Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk
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Islamist terrorists also mentioned in briefing, as anarchists complain of being criminalised for their beliefs What should you do if you discover an anarchist living next door? Dust off your old Sex Pistols albums and hang out a black and red flag to make them feel at home? Invite them round to debate the merits of Peter Kropotkin’s anarchist communism versus the individualist anarchism of Emile Armand? No – the answer, according to an official counter-terrorism notice circulated in London last week, is that you must report them to police immediately. This was the surprising injunction from the Metropolitan Police issued to businesses and members of the public in Westminster last week. There was no warning about other political groups, but next to an image of the anarchist emblem, the City of Westminster police’s “counter terrorist focus desk” called for anti-anarchist whistleblowers stating: “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police.” The move angered some anarchists who complained that being an anarchist should not imply criminal behaviour. They said they feel unfairly criminalised for holding a set of political beliefs. The feeling of disproportion was compounded by the briefing note author making a similar request about Islamist terrorists a few lines further down. Under an image of flag with a gold dot beneath some Arabic script it added: “Often seen used by al-Qaida in Iraq. Any sightings of these images should be reported to your local police.” “It unfairly implies that anyone involved in anarchism should be known to the police and is involved in an dangerous activity,” said Jason Sands, an anarchist from South London. “There is nothing inherently criminal about political philosophy whatever it is. The police work under the convention on human rights which disallows discrimination against people because of their political beliefs and even the request for information would seem to be in breach of that. It also seems to be a bit useless as a way of gathering intelligence. It isn’t focused on anything specific and they are just asking for general information. Imagine calling up and saying ‘there’s an anarchist in my building. What should I do?’ It doesn’t make sense.” The note was issued from Belgravia Police Station as part of Project Griffin which aims to “advise and familiarise managers, security officers and employees of large public and private sector organisations across the capital on security, counter-terrorism and crime prevention issues”. Sean Smith, external relations officer for Solfed, the British section of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers’ Association, said of the call for whistleblowers: “It’s pretty absurd, but not surprising, when the state seeks to criminalise ideas it deems to be dangerous to its own survival”. “We are a revolutionary union initiative,” he explained. “Members of our organisation believe in bringing about radical social change through workplace and community organising, not acts of terrorism. We have made extensive information about our ideas and strategy freely available online.” Small groups of anarchists masked and dressed in black did cause some damage to shop windows in central London during anti-cuts demonstrations in the Spring, but there has been little activity of late. The next big anarchist event in London appears hardly likely to concern the police. It is a book fair in October with “all-day cabaret starring assorted ranters, poets, singers and comics; all-day film showings and two kids’ spaces”. Police London Protest Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Bullfighting saved from the sword as Spain rules it is an artistic discipline
July 31, 2011 No Comment
Socialist government says ministry of culture will be responsible for development and protection of controversial sport The debate over bullfighting has been reignited in Spain after the government recognised the spectacle as “an artistic discipline and cultural product”, delighting enthusiasts but outraging animal rights campaigners. Prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s socialist government announced that the ministry of culture will from now on be responsible for the “development and protection” of bullfighting, which previously fell within the remit of the interior ministry. The move follows pressure from bullfighting organisations keen to protect their livelihood following a controversial vote to ban bullfighting in the Catalonia region last year. The ministry of culture said in a statement: “As it is understood that bullfighting is an artistic discipline and a cultural product, it was considered that the ministry of culture was the correct place for its development and protection.” Supporters, who see bullfighting as an integral part of Spain’s cultural identity, hope the announcement is a step towards protecting the tradition from further regional bans. Juan Diego, a matador speaking for the Bullfighters Union, welcomed the announcement as necessary “for the protection and guardianship of bullfighting”, describing the sport as “a symbol of Spanish cultural heritage that shapes the national identity”. The change was backed by the conservative Popular party (PP), in opposition but favourite to win power in the general election on 20 November. Miguel Cid Cebrián, chairman of the Parliamentary Bullfighting Association, said he hoped the PP would provide legal protection for bullfighting as a special “cultural interest” if it takes power, in order to stop other regions outlawing the tradition. Last year the regional government in Madrid announced it was awarding bullfighting legal protection locally, because of its cultural importance. Opponents, who describe the practice as a barbaric bloodsport, accused the government of abandoning a commitment to animal rights. Silvia Barquero, spokeswoman for Pacma, an anti-bullfighting political party, told newspaper Público the decision to switch responsibility for bullfighting to the ministry of culture was “complete nonsense … a measure which sends us back to the Middle Ages”. Animal rights campaigners say bullfighting only survives because it is subsidised by the Spanish taxpayer. Attendances are falling, its appeal has faded among younger Spaniards and the industry has been hit by the economic crisis. The number of bullfights taking place at local fiestas has diminished as spending cuts have been enforced. The Catalan regional government voted to ban bullfighting in the northeastern region last July, by 68 votes to 55, with nine abstentions, on the grounds it is cruel and outdated. The vote was held after campaign group Prou! (Enough! in Catalan) collected 180,000 signatures in favour of a ban. Anti-bullfighting organisations hope the Catalan example will be copied in some of Spain’s 16 other autonomous communities. Critics of the ban said it was motivated more by Catalan nationalism and a desire to assure political independence from Madrid than by a genuine desire to outlaw the tradition. The ban, which will come into effect next January and will not be affected by Friday’s decision, will be the first to be introduced in mainland Spain. The Canary Islands outlawed bullfighting in 1991. A poll last year for the newspaper El País found 60% of Spaniards did not enjoy bullfighting, but 57% disagreed with the ban in Catalonia. Bullfighting Spain José Luis Zapatero Europe guardian.co.uk
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Stoppage over redundancies will be followed by ‘indefinite’ NUJ work to rule The BBC is facing another day of disruption to its news programmes on Monday with many of its journalists due to go on a 24-hour strike before beginning an “indefinite” work to rule. The industrial action by the National Union of Journalists is taking place in protest over compulsory redundancies. It follows a 24-hour stoppage on 15 July which led to BBC1′s Breakfast and BBC2′s Newsnight being taken off air. There was also disruption to BBC Radio 4′s Today and the breakfast show on BBC Radio 5 Live, and the 24-hour TV news channel, BBC News. Star reporters who took part in the stoppage included BBC business editor Robert Peston and the corporation’s political editor, Nick Robinson. Michelle Stanistreet, the NUJ’s general secretary, said: “It is only two weeks since we took our last 24-hour strike action when there was a clear impact on programming and I would expect it to be another solid turnout by NUJ members across the BBC. “They are angry at the way their colleagues are being treated and I would expect there to be significant impact on programming. “It is unfortunate and our members don’t want to be in this position but they are absolutely taking this action for the right reasons.” A total of 387 posts are due to be scrapped across the BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring – of which around 100 are expected to be compulsory – following a cut in government funding. Four people have so far left the World Service after being made compulsorily redundant, with another 43 due to leave on the day of the strike. Stanistreet said there was frustration at BBC management’s approach to redeployment and described it as a “deeply baffling process” for the people involved. The NUJ claimed the BBC filled 355 posts in June, but said only 17 of them were given to people at risk of redundancy. BBC management is due to meet with all the broadcasting unions on 11 August to discuss the corporation’s approach to redundancies. One member of BBC staff privately suggested the union had “played its hand too quickly” with more widescale redundancies likely as a result of BBC director general Mark Thompson’s Delivering Quality First cost-saving initiative. But Stanistreet said: “The strong message coming to us from chapels up and down the BBC is that they know if the BBC is allowed to take this approach and force people out in this way they will carry on doing it when we face bigger cuts in the autumn.” A BBC spokesman said: “We are disappointed that the NUJ is intending to strike and apologise to our audience for any disruption to services this may cause. “Industrial action will not alter the fact that the BBC is faced with a number of potential compulsory redundancies, following significant cuts to the central government grants that support the World Service and BBC Monitoring. We will continue with our efforts to reduce the need for compulsory redundancies. “However, the number of posts that we are having to close means that unfortunately it is likely to be impossible for us to avoid some compulsory redundancies.” The BBC said the NUJ figures on redeployment were out of context and said it had “worked to redeploy staff whenever possible” including 27% of staff at risk of compulsory redundancy at the BBC World Service. As many as 1,000 further journalism posts could be lost across BBC News and the World Service as part of plans to merge the two news-gathering operations. The corporation’s news department has lost more than 400 posts over the past four years in a previous cost-cutting initiative. The strike will last for 24 hours on Monday, with the work to rule due to begin immediately afterwards. The NUJ held a 48-hour strike in November last year in protest at pension changes. BBC National Union of Journalists BBC World Service Mark Thompson TV news Media unions Radio industry Redundancy John Plunkett guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media The man who headed the NSA and CIA under President George W. Bush suggested Friday that mercenaries were needed to deal with growing cyber threats. Gen. Michael Hayden told the Aspen Security Forum that in the near future, the Department of Defense may have to allow the creation of a “digital Blackwater.” Private sector offense “might be one of those big new ideas in terms of how we have to conduct ourselves in this new cyber domain,” Hayden explained. “You think back long enough in history and there are times when the private sector was responsible for its own defense.” “We may come to a point where defense is more actively and aggressively defined even for the private sector and what is permitted there is something that we would never let the private sector do in physical space… Let me really throw out a bumper sticker for you. How about a digital Blackwater?” he suggested. “I mean, we have privatized certain defense activities even in physical space and now you’ve got a new domain in which we don’t have any paths trampled down in the forest in terms of what it is we expect the government or will allow the government to do. In the past when that has happened, private sector expands to fill the empty space. I’m not quite an advocate for that, but these are the kinds of things that are going to be put into play here very, very soon.” Watch the entire Aspen Security Forum on cyber security here .
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Official inquiry into Iraq war expected to focus on former prime minister’s failure to consult the cabinet fully in run-up to invasion Tony Blair is likely to be criticised heavily by the official inquiry into the Iraq war, which is expected to focus on his failure to consult the cabinet fully in the run-up to the 2003 invasion. The Mail on Sunday reports today that Sir John Chilcot, the former permanent secretary at the Northern Ireland Office who is chairing the inquiry, has identified a series of concerns. These include: • failing to keep cabinet ministers fully informed of Blair’s plans in the run-up to the invasion in March 2003. The committee is understood to have been impressed by the criticism voiced by Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former cabinet secretary, that Blair ran a sofa government. • failing to make proper preparations for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. • failing to present intelligence in a proper way. In his inquiry into the use of intelligence, published in July 2004, Butler said the usual MI6 caveats were stripped out of the famous Downing Street arms dossier of September 2002. • failing to be open with ministers about understandings Blair reached with George Bush in the year running up to the invasion. Blair today hit out at the Mail on Sunday. A source close to the former prime minister said: “This is a deliberate attempt to pre-judge a report that hasn’t even been written yet.” Angus Robertson, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, said: “The tapestry of deceit woven by Tony Blair over the past decade has finally unravelled. Despite his best attempts to fudge the issue when he was called to give evidence, the Chilcot inquiry have recognised the former prime minister’s central role in leading the UK into worst foreign policy disaster in recent history. “While no inquiry will ever bring back those lost in Iraq, this comprehensive review by Sir John Chilcot will at least provide some explanation of the decisions which led to the disastrous invasion.” There has been speculation at senior levels of Whitehall that Chilcot and the members of his inquiry are planning to criticise Blair when they publish their report in the autumn. Some members of the inquiry, including the former British ambassador to Moscow Sir Rod Lyne, put Blair under pressure in his two appearances before them. Members of the inquiry have said in private to former colleagues in Whitehall that the best way to gauge the inquiry’s findings is to identify areas that have been raised repeatedly by Chilcot and his team. Three key areas which fall into this category are the lack of proper cabinet consultation, the use of intelligence, and the failure to make preparations for the post-war reconstruction. It is expected that the inquiry will take a dim view of the Downing Street dossier on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, published on 24 September 2002. This included the notorious claim that Iraq could launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes. In launching the report, Blair told an emergency session of the Commons: “His [Saddam Hussein's] weapons of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and growing. The policy of containment is not working. The weapons of mass destruction programme is not shut down; it is up and running now.” Blair later stated he was wrong to have been so categorical about Iraq’s WMD programme. The inquiry is likely to criticise Alastair Campbell, Blair’s former director of communications, who was instrumental in drawing up the dossier. Campbell has always maintained that Sir John Scarlett, then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was in charge of the dossier. But Major General Michael Laurie told the inquiry in a letter in May that the dossier was designed to “make the case for war”. Campbell wrote back to the inquiry to say: “Witnesses who were directly involved in the drafting of the dossier have made clear to several inquiries that at no time did I put anyone in the intelligence community under pressure, or say to them or anyone else that the then prime minister’s purpose in publishing the dossier was to make the case for war.” The inquiry is also expected to focus on Blair’s assurances to Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war. Blair rejects criticism that he told the former president in a meeting at his Texas ranch in April 2002 that he would support an invasion as long as the US agreed to try to secure agreement from the United Nations. In addition, the inquiry will address the failure to make adequate preparations for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. Major General Tim Cross, who was attached to the US post-war Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, told the inquiry of a meeting he had with Blair on 18 March 2003, two days before the invasion. In written evidence, he said: “I told him that there was no clarity on what was going to be needed after the military phase of the operation, nor who would provide it. Although I was confident that we would secure a military victory, I offered my view that we should not begin that campaign until we had a much more coherent postwar plan.” Cross told the inquiry in person in December 2009: “He nodded and didn’t say anything particular. I didn’t expect him to look me in the eye and say, ‘This is terrible, we are going to pull the whole thing off.’ I was just one of a number of people briefing him.” Tony Blair Iraq Middle East Iraq war inquiry Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
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Syrian troops’ assault on opposition stronghold appears to be part of nationwide offensive ahead of start of Ramadan Scores of people have been shot dead and there were reports of bodies lying in the streets of the opposition stronghold of Hama following a tank assault as Syrian troops unleashed an apparent nationwide offensive targeting protesters against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Videos posted online showed columns of black smoke rising from Hama after tanks moved in at dawn, with witnesses reporting indiscriminate firing at citizens. Residents shouted “God is great!” and threw firebombs and stones at the tanks as they pushed through the city. Assad’s forces also opened fire in the eastern cities of Deir Ezzor and Al Boukamal and the southern town of Hirak. “The tanks came into the city around 5.30am from four different directions,” a Hama resident said by telephone, as gunfire was heard in the background. “They ran over some of the makeshift checkpoints and there is gun and tank fire,” he said. The death toll continues to rise, with activists saying at least 40 people may have been killed in Hama alone. Bodies were reported to be piling up in hospitals, where doctors were calling for blood donations. The foreign secretary, William Hague, condemned the assault. “I am appalled by the reports that the Syrian security forces have stormed Hama with tanks and other heavy weapons this morning killing dozens of people, he said. “Such action against civilians who have been protesting peacefully in large numbers in the city for a number of weeks has no justification.” Those confirmed dead include Khaled al-Hamed who, activists from the Local Coordination Committees said, was shot and then run over by one of the tanks while attempting to flee from his neighbourhood. In what appears to be a coordinated nationwide assault on the eve of Ramadan, the military moved into Deir Ezzor and Al Boukamal on Saturday, according to activists and residents, with reports of a further 10 people shot dead there on Sunday. Four people were killed after forces entered the southern town of Hirak, close to the southern city of Deraa where protests first broke out en masse, the Local Coordination Committees said. More than 200 people were also arrested in Moadimiyeh, close to Damascus, in dawn raids. Activists say they believe the regime is trying to scare people off the streets before Ramadan, when protests are expected to intensify after daily evening prayers. “It’s a massacre. They want to break Hama before the month of Ramadan,” a witness who identified himself by his first name, Ahmed, told The Associated Press by telephone from Hama. He said he had seen up to 12 people shot dead in the streets in a district known as the Baath neighbourhood. Most had been shot in the chest and head, he said. A doctor, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Reuters that the city’s Badr, al-Horani and Hikmeh hospitals had received 24 bodies. “There are bodies uncollected in the streets,” said another resident, adding that army snipers had positioned themselves on the roofs of the state-owned electricity company and the main prison. Tank shells were falling at the rate of four a minute in and around northern Hama, residents said. The now notorious government official Reem Haddad, who has provoked comparisons with Iraq’s Comical Ali for insisting on absurd explanations for the brutal government responses to protests, told al-Jazeera that forces had entered Hama because people could not go about their daily life. “It’s as if it belongs to another planet,” she said. Human rights groups say 1,600 civilians have died in the crackdown on the largely peaceful protests since mid-March and thousands have been detained. But the bloodshed has only served to rally more people to the streets, while the regime has focused on consolidating its support base. After offers of dialogue and reforms accompanied by raids, killings and arrests failed to kowtow protesters, the regime appears to have decided to escalate its use of brute force. “The attack [on Hama] appears to be part of a coordinated effort across a number of towns in Syria to deter the Syrian people from protesting in advance of Ramadan, Hague said. “President Bashar is mistaken if he believes that oppression and military force will end the crisis in his country. He should stop this assault on his own people now.” Hama has become the epicentre of demonstrations with thousands taking to central al-Aasi square after government forces moved out of the city following the shooting dead of more than 70 people on 3 June. While protesters have controlled the streets, government forces have surrounded the city since the start of July and conducted overnight raids. Before the assault on Hama, electricity and water supplies had been cut, activists said, in a tactic regularly used by the regime before entering towns. Analysts say the regime had been holding off from attacking Hama because of its historical sensitivity. In 1982, at least 10,000 people were killed in the Sunni city of 800,000 when the army put down an armed Islamist revolt against the rule of Assad’s late father, Hafez. Earlier this month the US and French ambassadors made a visit to the city to show solidarity with the protesters, while the Turkish prime minister, Recip Tayyip Erdogan, has said there must not be “another Hama” in reference to 1982 massacre. There were also reports this weekend of a Syrian army colonel saying he had founded an army of defectors after fleeing with hundreds of soldiers. The man, identifying himself as Colonel Riad al-Asaad, told AFP: “I am the commander of the Syrian Free Army” and warned against any attack on Deir Ezzor. Amateur footage circulating online also purported to show soldiers defecting in Hama, including one video showing soldiers kissing protesters. Nour Ali is the pseudonym of a journalist in Damascus Syria Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest guardian.co.uk
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