Launch of Google+ sees the online giants in a fight for the highly lucrative hearts and minds of internet users It is one month since the launch of Google+, a belated attempt at a social networking tool that invites users to follow friends’ activities in their news feed and share favourite content by marking it “+1″. If this sounds familiar, it shows the extent to which Google is playing catchup with Facebook, which is brewing a public offering next year that could value the firm at $100bn and, critically, has positioned itself as the gateway to the web for many of its 750 million users. Much of this pressure is down to the abrasive ambition of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Even Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, has conceded that Google has been late to the social networking space, with identity and personalisation now critical to the social experience for consumers, and the lucrative commercial opportunities that advertisers expect. But with Google’s proven commercial success nudging its market value towards $200bn, and data vaults that hold the browsing histories of most of the online population, is Google really on a downward trajectory, and is the era of search really ending? Ben Gomes has worked on every aspect of Google’s core search product and is leading exploration into the social navigation of search. Despite Google’s forays into everything from video communities to mobile operating systems, he insists that at its heart Google is still a search company. It was search, he said, that fuelled the explosion of web content and, unsurprisingly, Gomes doesn’t see social data as a replacement for search but as a layer that accesses the information in a different way. “We saw a symbiotic evolution of the web and search because people could find what they wanted more easily,” said Gomes, who joined Google in 1999. “We see social as a layer in search that provides you with more relevant information in certain situations, so if you were looking at product reviews, those of your friends would be marked in the results. But the most important thing in search is still the search term, and how your computer understands that.” Though Google+ is an intelligent attempt at a social networking tool, it seems a typical Google product in that it is brilliantly, heavily engineered but lacks the human focus required for a social network – the fuel that has propelled Facebook to 750 million users. With data from so many consumers informing so many Google products, why isn’t there more personalisation? “In most cases ‘personalisation’ just means giving you what you wanted in the first place,” said Gomes. “If two friends search ‘malt’ but one likes beer and one whisky, they will see different results. And if that kind of personalisation didn’t work, you’d just think search was broken.” The issue of personalised search results based on our browsing history has become contentious. With news, for example, how can users be presented with an objective view of a story from multiple sources if Google serves up sites or perspectives that the user is known to like? “Diversity of results is something deeply baked into the algorithm tools we use, so that we hopefully give a broad perspective,” said Gomes. “But if you are interested in a topic you’d tend to do a very specific query anyway, and our first goal is to give you the information you want.” Facebook rigidly maintains that social context is historically and socially relevant. “Anthropologically, we have been informed and influenced throughout time by the people around us, and that’s equally true on Facebook as it is offline,” said Facebook’s advertising chief, David Fischer. “Now we look at the networks people communicate in … “There are important opportunities for marketers in getting their messages out through those friends and family connections. The social graph contains not just people, but brands, universities [and] institutions that people chose to connect to.” This network of social, professional and commercial relationships may have always existed, but it is their accessibility as expressed online that is unprecedented. One of Facebook’s biggest successes – and a strategy Google has strictly enforced on Google+ – has been encouraging real names on to the site , making its network and data far more valuable. This is creating a living record, said Fischer, and building it in a meaningful way. “There’s no decision that a person takes in their lives that is not a better decision when it is informed by the people around them that they trust.” Several hundred research scientists at Google are studying how web users access, interact with and share information. How will Google refine its mission of organising the world’s information? “We often see the future already exists in the present in some form, so the things just getting interesting now will be very important,” said Gomes. He describes a relationship where users expect Google to synthesise answers from different sources to provide an expert response and expects the most noticeable changes to be made to the mobile homepage, which can take advantage of multiple sensors such as location to provide “richer interaction models”. That might include speech recognition – already vastly improved from even two years ago – and localised artificial intelligence that improves suggestions as it learns about the user. Gomes claimed that instant access to information through Google has made conversations smarter, citing the time he went to see Kafka’s Metamorphosis and read up about the production. “My experience of the play was richer and I took away more because the combination of me plus the internet made me seem like someone who, in the past, would have been regarded as an expert. I became the kind of person I would previously have looked up to.” Yet though Google and Facebook are both keen to burnish their scientific credentials, ultimately the real battle is over cold, hard cash. Google made 97% of its revenues, or $32.3bn, in the past 12 months from advertising. eMarketer, meanwhile estimates that Facebook’s largely ad-generated revenues will grow from $0.74bn in 2009 to $5.74bn in 2012 – yet the site has hardly begun rolling out truly personalised, targeted advertising. If there is any of Google’s lunch to be eaten, it is here. Social networking Google Facebook Mark Zuckerberg Eric Schmidt Internet Search engines Jemima Kiss guardian.co.uk
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General Abdel Fattah Younis shot dead by Islamist-linked militia within the anti-Gaddafi forces, says senior opposition minister Efforts by insurgents to topple Muammar Gaddafi are in disarray after a senior Libyan opposition figure admitted that rebel soldiers were responsible for the murder of their most senior army commander. The transitional government’s oil minister said that General Abdel Fatah Younis had been shot dead by Islamist-linked militia within the anti-Gaddafi forces, provoking fears of future unrest and instability among those fighting the old regime. The revelation will raise doubts over the wisdom of the British government’s decision last week officially to recognise the rebel transitional government, declaring that it had proved its democratic credentials. Only a day later, the bullet-riddled and burnt bodies of Younis and two of his aides were found dumped on the outskirts of Benghazi, the rebel capital. Labour’s former defence secretary Bob Ainsworth said that the murder and the identities of the killers were evidence that the government had not thought through its policy in Libya. “One of the biggest risk factors in this was our lack of understanding of the people we were working with and I think that lack of understanding still stands,” he said. Bob Stewart, the Tory MP and former British United Nations Commander in Bosnia, said he feared the Libyan conflict would end with “a government we don’t like and us getting the blame”. Labour MP John McDonnell called for a peace conference between Gaddafi and the rebels to be enforced. “The government are treading on a path that is extremely uncertain,” he said. “They are dealing with people of whom they have very little knowledge and this is just an example of the potential there is for disunity.” In Tripoli, Gaddafi’s spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, mocked British support for the rebels, declaring: “It is a nice slap [in] the face [for] the British that the [rebel] council that they recognised could not protect its own commander of the army.” He alleged that al-Qaida elements were behind the killing, stating that “by this act, al-Qaida wanted to mark out its presence and its influence in this region”. Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown urged the government not to change its policy. “We are obviously not in the best place we could be, but this is what you have got to expect,” he said. “If you want to do this according to international law, this is what it looks like. This is messy, this is unpleasant and inelegant to watch, but it is no worse than doing it ourselves.” Younis was killed in mysterious circumstances on Thursday. Initially, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, president of the National Transitional Council, the rebel’s government, claimed the murder had been carried out by Gaddafi-linked forces That was starkly contradicted by oil minister Ali Tarhouni who confirmed Younis had been killed by members of the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade, a group linked to the rebels. Tarhouni told reporters Younis was being brought back to Benghazi when he was shot. A militia leader who had gone to fetch him from the front line had been arrested and confessed that his subordinates had carried out the killing. “It was not him. His lieutenants did it,” Tarhouni said, adding that the killers were still at large. the Foreign Office was seeking confirmation from Jalil over the claim. The authorities have yet to say where Younis was killed, or when, or how it was that his body vanished for 24 hours. Neither is it clear why he was being brought back to Benghazi. Reports in rebel-controlled Libya also contradict the official version, with radio stations reporting that Younis was killed not on the road but after being kidnapped in a hotel room in the rebel capital and that the general had been under arrest that morning, accused of holding secret talks with Gaddafi regime officials. Adding to the sense of crisis engulfing the rebels , Gaddafi launched his heaviest assault yet on the besieged city of Misrata using tanks, infantry and artillery against rebel front lines. The commander of the frontline Hatin Brigade, Sedek Sheltad, saidseven fighters were dead and more than 50 wounded. “There is a big war now between the Gaddafi soldiers and the revolutionaries,” he said. “The field hospital is full, there is no more space.” Nato has employed tactical bombing in all but name, but despite dozens of airstrikes around the oil town of Brega, and successive rebel assaults, government forces remain in control. The onset of Ramadan on Monday and its requirement to fast in daylight hours is likely to bring battlefield movement to a halt. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Muammar Gaddafi Chris Stephen Daniel Boffey guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …‘Special Report’ ‘straight news’ segment features groundless gun story concocted by militiaman
July 30, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media We talk a lot here at C&L about how right-wing mainstream media act as ” transmitters” for right-wing extremism, legitimizing radical ideas from the most violent and racist elements of the Right by repackaging them for general consumption. The inevitable outcome of this kind of transmission is what Anders Breivik, the Norwegian right-wing terrorist, represented in many ways — but it’s something that occurs far more often in the USA, and most frequently in recent years on Fox News. David Holthouse at Media Matters has the most recent example : Fox’s recent coverage of an ATF sting operation called “Operation Castaway,” which Fox has been trying to depict as yet another rogue gun operation gone awry — except that it’s not: Nothing in the more than 500 pages of Operation Castaway court documents, which are public records, indicate anything other than a textbook operation culminating in the interdiction of a large shipment of firearms bound for Honduras. Eight traffickers including Crumpler were convicted and sentenced to between two and a half and seven years in federal prison. Despite this winning outcome, Operation Castaway is under attack from right-wing bloggers and Fox. These critics are disregarding basic standards of fact checking in their rush to link the Tampa investigation to Operation Fast and Furious, the failed ATF initiative in which agents knowingly allowed firearms to be trafficked across the border into Mexico. In one typical example, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs branded Operation Castaway “a second version of the botched operation Fast and Furious” during his July 11 broadcast. And who was their source for this information? Why, the far-right wingnutosphere’s nastiest and nuttiest elements, of course — a militiaman straight out of a 1990s caricature: There is no evidence in the court files to support Dobbs’ claims and he offered no original reporting to back them up. Instead, he relied on references to “new reports” and “allegations” without revealing their dubious origin–anonymously sourced blog items on conspiratorial websites. The first of these posts appeared July 6. It was headlined “Breaking News: Source claims ATF’s Tampa SAC walked guns to HONDURAS! Part of Operation Castaway?” [SAC is an acronym for Special Agent in Charge.] Citing “private correspondence from a proven credible source,” the blog item reported that Tampa ATF deliberately facilitated the smuggling of firearms to Honduras “using the techniques and tactics identical to Fast and Furious.” The July 6 blog item was republished with no additional reporting by dozens of pro-militia and other right-wing websites. It jumped to Fox News in the July 8 broadcast of Special Report with Bret Baier, which featured an interview with “online journalist” Mike Vanderboegh, one of the bloggers who posted the original item. Vanderboegh was a leading figure in the 1990s militia movement who more recently led the Alabama Minuteman Support Team, a border vigilante group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Vanderboegh was also one of the first to report on the failed Fast and Furious investigation. “Mike Vanderboegh communicates with a host of ATF agents daily on his web site,” said Fox News reporter William La Jeunesse. “Agents told him Wednesday Operation Castaway out of the Tampa office, also knowingly sold guns to criminals, in this case, 1,000 to buyers for the violent drug gang, MS-13. Those guns to Honduras.” La Jeunesse gave no indication that he’d made any attempt to confirm Vanderboegh’s story. He simply gave the blogger a national platform. Some of you may remember Vanderboegh from the health-care debate: he’s the fellow who urged his readers to throw bricks through Democrats’ windows, and they in fact did so. One of his victims was Gabrielle Giffords, who had a brick thrown through an office window — well before she was shot. (Wonder if they’ve checked that brick for Jared Loughner’s DNA.) And of course, being the sensitive and thoughtful fellow he is, Vanderboegh escalated the rhetoric when he was called on it: May I tell you my personal motive for doing this? I’m trying to save the lives of Nancy Pelosi, and every one of these people who do not understand the unintended consequences of their actions. Because they are not paying attention to the million of people across this deepening divide that politics no longer avails them. We refuse to participate in the system, and we refuse to pay the fines, and we refuse arrest. Now where do you suppose that’s going but a thousand little Waco’s. This is almost identical to the phony rationale that Vanderboegh has trotted out for publicly fantasizing about my violent death: he’s just trying to wake me up to the consequences of my work, you see. As you can imagine, I’m deeply touched. Here’s Vanderboegh leading one of those open-carry “Second Amendment” rallies in the Washington area last year : Click here to view this media I guess it should no longer be a surprise that Fox News would treat this kind of character as a credible information source. But that’s because being a right-wing propaganda channel means you don’t have to actually tend to the truth, fact, or reality.
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Marriage to England rugby player Mike Tindall reignites some of the fervour of Kate and William’s big day • Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall: their wedding in pictures For the second time this year the royal family dusted off their gladrags to watch one of their own marry a commoner. All eyes were on the Queen’s granddaughter Zara Phillips when she arrived at Canongate Kirk on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile for her marriage to the England rugby player Mike Tindall. Thousands lined the narrow city street hoping to catch a glimpse of Zara, once considered a royal rebel due to her low-cut tops, daring miniskirts and tongue piercing. But as she stepped from the car outside the church she revealed an ivory silk faille and silk duchess satin gown by British and Edinburgh-trained designer Stewart Parvin. The Queen also wore a Parvin outfit in apricot with matching straw hat by Rachel Trevor Morgan. As the moment of the wedding drew near, royals began arriving from the nearby Palace of Holyroodhouse. As they stepped from their chauffeur-driven limousines they were welcomed by the Queen’s pipe major, Derek Potter, who played a simple tune on the bagpipes. Among the first to arrive were Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, followed by Prince Andrew and his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. They were all cheered by the waiting crowds as they emerged from their cars, but the loudest roar was reserved for Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, as well as Prince Harry. As William and the former Kate Middleton walked into the church they acknowledged the crowd with a brief wave. The last of the senior royals to arrive were Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who again were cheered loudly by the thousands camped behind crash barriers. The couple were soon followed by the Queen and Prince Philip, who received an enormous roar from the well-wishers, which was acknowledged by both of them with a short wave before they were greeted, like all members of the royal family attending the service, by the Rev Neil Gardner, presiding over the service. The mother of the bride, Princess Anne, and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence arrived just before this group to take their places in the church. All the royal men were dressed in morning suits, while the women wore stylish gowns. Some of the most famous names from English rugby were also in attendance, reflecting Mike Tindall’s standing in the game as a former captain. Current national coach Martin Johnson stepped off one of the many buses taking guests to the ceremony. Johnson strolled into the grounds of the church, pausing to shake the hands of friends and colleagues he spotted just outside the building’s entrance. His predecessor Sir Clive Woodward was also on the guest list, along with Zara’s godfather, former Formula One racing champion Sir Jackie Stewart. A touch of pop glamour was added when Una Healy – a member of girl group The Saturdays – walked into the church. The spectacle had a party atmosphere as the crowd waiting opposite the church cheered and clapped whenever a face they recognised walked into the 17th century church. And when their view of the guests arriving was obscured by the coaches they jokingly shouted at the drivers to back up. Like most modern brides Zara is expected to say she will “honour” her groom rather than “obey” during the exchange of vows. Tindall proposed to Zara in December at their £800,000 regency townhouse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, after they had been together for the previous seven years. The England rugby star staged his stag do in Miami while Zara – one of Britain’s leading equestrian competitors – held her hen party at a spa in Portugal. The wedding reception will be held in the grounds of the palace – the official Scottish home of the Queen – a few hundred metres from the kirk. Monarchy Royal wedding Mark Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …All 140 passengers survive ordeal after Caribbean Airlines jet breaks in two on landing at Georgetown airport near 200ft ravine A Caribbean Airlines jet carrying 140 passengers from New York crashed and broke in half on landing in Guyana, injuring several people but causing no deaths. The Boeing 737-800 reportedly overshot the 7,400ft (2,200m) runway at Cheddi Jagan international airport in rainy weather, just missing a 200ft ravine that would have made fatalities more likely, according to the Guyanese president, Bharrat Jagdeo. “We are very, very grateful that more people were not injured,” he said as authorities closed the airport, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded and delaying dozens of flights. Authorities struggled at first to remove passengers without adequate field lights and other emergency equipment. About 100 people received medical attention, with four treated for serious injuries, said Devant Maharaj, transportation minister in Trinidad, where Caribbean Airlines is based. He said the company was sending a team to Guyana to help investigate the crash. No further details were available. Maharaj spoke at a press conference in Trinidad and took no questions, saying the investigation is ongoing. Among the injured was Geeta Ramsingh, 41, of Philadelphia, who said passengers had just started to applaud the touchdown “when it turned to screams”, she said, pointing to bruises on her knees. She said she hopped onto the wing and then onto the dirt road outside the runway fence. “I am upset that no one came to rescue us in the dark, but a taxi driver appeared from nowhere and charged me $20 to take me to the terminal. I had to pay, but in times of emergencies, you don’t charge people for a ride,” she said, sitting on a chair in the arrival area surrounded by relatives. She was returning to her native country for only the second time in 30 years. The plane had left New York and made a stop in Trinidad before landing in Guyana. Jagdeo said he has asked the US National Transportation Safety Board to help investigate the crash. He said crews were pushing to reopen the airport as soon as possible. The crash of Flight BW523 is the worst in recent history in Guyana, and only one of the few serious incidents involving the Trinidad-based airline. It is the single largest carrier in the region, operating at least five daily flights. Plane crashes Guyana New York United States Air transport Airline industry guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Lawrence O’Donnell Bans "Deadbeat Dad" Joe Walsh From Appearing on His Show
July 30, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media As anyone who follows cable news knows, Rep. Joe Walsh (Blowhard-IL) has done quite a job making a name for himself by coming on television and chastising President Obama for lying to the public, asking him if “he has no shame” and with bemoaning the debt that the United States has incurred (primarily due to Bush administration policies) being laid on the backs of his children — one of the favorite Republican talking points du jour. Well it appears the recent news that Karoli reported on here about Walsh’s troubles with owing back child support was finally enough for MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to say that Walsh was banned from appearing on his show again — or at least until he finds out that he’s made good with the obligations to his children. My question is why has the media been giving this guy so much air time he doesn’t deserve in the first place? Please do us all a favor Lawrence. Even if he does settle with his ex-wife, don’t have him back on again. That said, I do hope the rest of the cable news shows would follow his lead here and spare us his rantings for now.
Continue reading …Jon Stewart Rips Fox News’ Hypocrisy: Norway Terrorist Not Christian But Fort Hood Terrorist Muslim? (VIDEO)
July 30, 2011 No Comment
On Wednesday night’s “Daily Show,” Jon Stewart put aside the debt ceiling debate to focus on the recent terrorist attacks in Norway, or at least how Fox News responded to them. Once again Stewart found an opportunity to point out hypocrisy on the network, once again coming from the mouth of Bill O’Reilly. Several Fox News pundits including Laura Ingrahm and O’Reilly have accused the mainstream media of “Playing up the Christian angle” when reporting bomber Anders Behring Breivik’s profile and attacks. Ingrahm rejected the idea that he represents any Christian sect, fringe or otherwise. While Stewart agreed Breivik’s actions were not Christian, he couldn’t believe how misdirected the focus was on the story: “Yes, the massacre in Norway is a tragic story… About the persecution of Christians.” Stewart continued to point out exactly why the media is discussing Breivik’s self-declared Christianity, and reassured Ingrahm they’re “not doing it to get at you.” Perhaps Breivik’s 1,500 page manifesto and Powerpoint video paying tribute to Christian crusaders is what gave people the idea that he was a religious extremist. Just maybe. But the biggest hypocrisy Stewart uncovered came from Bill O’reilly’s double standard when discussing religious terrorists. While he insists Breivik is not a Christian (“What, because he says he is? come on!”), he has no problem saying the Fort Hood gunman is Islamic. His defense? Nidal Hasan carried a business card that said he was a solider of Allah. Stewart had to throw up his hands: “See the difference? That guy printed up ‘Soldier of Allah’ business cards! The other guy only printed up an Army of Christ manifesto.” WATCH:
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Chiefs of general staff, army, navy and air force take ‘early retirement’ in protest at detention of 250 officers Turkey’s military is in turmoil after the country’s four most senior commanders quit in protest over the detention of 250 officers on charges of conspiring against the government. General Işık Koşaner, the chief of general staff, stepped down on Friday night along with the army, navy and air force commanders, plunging Nato’s second-largest army into uncertainty shortly before a senior promotions board convenes. In a farewell message to “brothers in arms”, Koşaner said it was impossible to continue in his job as he could not defend the rights of men who had been detained as a consequence of a flawed judicial process. The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, swiftly appointed General Necdet Ozel, formerly commander of the military police, as the new head of the military. The collective “early retirement” of the top four came hours after a Turkish court charged 22 suspects, including several generals and officers, with carrying out an internet campaign aimed at undermining Erdogan’s Justice and Development party (AKP) government. Miltary chiefs have repeatedly denied the existence of plans for the so-called Sledgehammer coup. “There are two important reasons for this move”, Cengiz Aktar, professor for EU relations at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University, told the Guardian. “On the one hand the AKP government’s increasing interference in the appointment of military personnel – which was previously handled solely by the military itself – and on the other hand the arrests in the Sledgehammer coup trials.” The government’s relations with the military, who regard themselves as the guardians of the secular Turkish republic, have been strained ever since the Islamic AKP came to power in 2002. In a move aimed at decreasing the power of the military, the Turkish Grand National Assembly passed decisive reforms in 2003 assuring a civilian majority in the traditionally military-dominated Security Council (MSK). When the ruling AKP proposed Abdullah Gül as its presidential candidate in 2007 the military published a text on its website stating that the Turkish military would “defend secularism in Turkey by all means.” The Turkish military had staged coups in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1991, forcing the ruling government to resign. But the AKP government confidently defied the 2007 “e-coup” and former AKP politican Gül was voted to become the next Turkish president. In a first reaction to the military resignations from the main opposition Republican People’s party (CHP), deputy chairman Gürsel Tekin said: “The law clearly states how generals should be promoted. It’s a pity that the government does not care about the laws. The government wants to redesign the military along their own lines. As a reaction to this the generals have resigned.” Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the CHP, has interrupted his summer holidays to return to Ankara. Following the resignations, Erdogan met with the head of the gendarmerie (military police), Necdet Özel, the only high commander who remained in office. While Turkish news outlets dubbed the situation a “bomb” and a “political earthquake”, several political analysts argued against overreaction. “The situation has clearly become intolerable for the military forces and they subsequently resigned,” Cengiz Aktar told the Guardian. “This is nothing to make too much of a fuss over; these things are bound to happen in a democracy.” Turkey guardian.co.uk
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Frenzied efforts to avoid ‘economic disaster’ as parties wrangle over formula to raise debt ceiling and cut spending The frenzied legislative manoeuvring to avert a crippling US debt default is continuing as Tuesday’s deadline to raise the country’s debt ceiling looms and Congress remains split down party lines. Late on Friday night the Republican-controlled House finally approved a bill to raise the debt ceiling in return for billions of dollars in spending cuts, but the Democratic Senate quickly rejected it. The back-to-back votes broke weeks of political inertia in efforts to lift the $14.3tn (£8.7tn) US debt limit by Tuesday, after which the world’s largest economy will be unable to pay all of its bills. The Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid, ceded some ground when he revised his own deficit-reduction proposal to incorporate parts of a “back-up plan” first proposed by the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell. Reid is seeking a vote on the new proposal on Saturday. “Unless there is a compromise or [Republicans] accept my bill we’re headed for economic disaster,” Reid said. The new version would essentially give Barack Obama the authority – and the blame – for raising the debt ceiling in three stages to cover US borrowing needs through the 2012 elections when he is running for a second term. Obama and the Democrats had hoped to avoid multiple votes before the election. Speaking after dismal figures for US growth increased the pressure on politicians to prevent a fresh meltdown in global markets, Obama said: “I am confident we can solve this problem. I am confident we will solve this problem. “For all the intrigue and all the drama that’s taking place on Capitol Hill right now I’m confident that common sense and cooler heads will prevail.” But Congress remained in disarray for much of Friday with the Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, in a dangerous mood after failing to quell a humiliating revolt by the Tea Party wing. Boehner scheduled a vote on Thursday on a Republican bill to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending, but hardcore conservatives refused to back it and the vote had to be temporarily abandoned. The bill was substantially rewritten to meet conservative rebels’ demands. The febrile mood in Washington was matched on Wall Street and in the City of London, where news that the US grew at an annual rate of just 1.3% in the three months to June prompted renewed concern that the world’s biggest economy could lapse back into recession if ratings agencies downgrade its debt. Speculation that the Federal Reserve might need to embark on a third round of quantitative easing – the creation of electronic money – intensified after revisions to past figures for US gross domestic product showed the recession was deeper than originally believed and the subsequent recovery weaker. America’s peak-to-trough drop in output between 2007 and 2009 is now put at 5.1% rather than the 4.1% originally estimated. With the International Monetary Fund warning the US that a continued impasse risks reigniting Europe’s debt crisis, bond yields in Italy and Spain rose. The interest rate on 10-year Italian bonds rose to 5.89%, while that for Spain – where the government called a general election – climbed to 6.09%. Shares in London closed 1% lower, a drop of 58.02 at 5815.19, while the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 96.87 points at 12,143.24, completing a week of daily falls. Sources close to George Osborne, the British chancellor, said the new figures from the US showed that the American and British experience during and after the global downturn had been similar, weakening the argument for the coalition to revisit its tough austerity plans. If the US does not raise its debt ceiling by 2 August it risks being unable to continue borrowing and pay its bills. Obama has said that default is not an option so the US treasury will prioritise keeping up interest payments, which could mean cuts elsewhere. The president reiterated that the victims could be people expecting federal cheques for welfare, and military veterans and government contractors awaiting payments. “This is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart,” Obama said. “There are a lot of crises in the world that we can’t always predict or avoid: hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks. This isn’t one of those crises. The power to solve this is in our hands.” US politics US economy Economics United States Democrats Republicans Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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Jonathan May-Bowles pleaded guilty on Friday to assault. In this case, assault means putting a foam pie in Rupert Murdoch’s face. Rupert Murdoch and his son, James, were tesifying before the Commons Culture, Media and Sports Committee in the British Parliament. As people started to leave, May-Bowles, 26, a stand-up comedian known as “Jonnie Marbles,” walked
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