As Norway grieves, the media pieces together a troubling portrait of the 32-year-old gunman.
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At Comic-Con, even the likes of Andrew Garfiied and Steven Spielberg turn up to kneel at
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Jealous of Comcast customers with their 105Mbps cable hook ups or those lucky residents of the Kansas cities relishing in Google’s 1Gbps service ? Well add Londonites to the list of people that drive you to indulging in one of the seven deadly sins. Virgin Media has finally started testing its DOCSIS2-powered 1.5Gbps network in the heart of merry ol’ England. Right now it’s being enjoyed by a group of test sites around Old Street that also get a 150Mbps upload connection. Virgin claims it’s the fastest broadband in the world, which may be true if you’re not counting lab experiments . The really good news is that it’s based on the same tech already delivering 100Mbps to residents across the country so, if the trial goes well, it should be trivial to deliver these mind numbing speeds to the rest of its customers. PR after the break. Continue reading Virgin Media testing 1.5Gbps internet for lucky Londonites Virgin Media testing 1.5Gbps internet for lucky Londonites originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Archbishop Guiseppe Leanza, papal nuncio to Dublin, returns to Rome following Enda Kenny’s attack on Vatican role in cover-up Relations between the Irish government and the Roman Catholic church reached a historic nadir on Monday when the Vatican recalled its ambassador to Dublin, claiming “excessive reactions” in the Republic to the clerical child sex abuse crisis. The Vatican confirmed that papal nuncio, archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, was returning to Rome for discussions over a damning report published earlier this month that had accused the Catholic hierarchy of undermining the Irish church’s own policy of reporting child abuse to the authorities. His recall followed an unprecedented and blistering attack by the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, on the Vatican’s role in the alleged cover-up of abuse in the County Cork diocese of Cloyne. Vatican watchers claim that a recall is diplomatic speak for “showing displeasure” with some act of the host state and indicates a cooling in relations. Since a historic denunciation of the Vatican in the Irish parliament last week, Kenny has become something of a hero-figure across the Republic. He received a standing ovation at a writers’ summer school in County Donegal on Sunday when he said he had been “astounded” over the number of messages of support he had been given. The Taoiseach’s withering criticism of the Vatican is all the more historic given that his party, Fine Gael, has been traditionally the stoutest defender of the church’s power and privilege in the Republic. Kenny is a Catholic whose political base is rooted in Ireland’s conservative, rural west. Seeking to play down the diplomatic row between Dublin and the Vatican City on Monday night, the vice-director of the Vatican press office, Father Ciro Benedettini, said that the recall “should be interpreted as an expression of the desire of the Holy See for serious and effective collaboration with the Irish government”. But he added: “It denotes the seriousness of the situation and the Holy See’s desire to face it objectively and determinately. Nor does it exclude some degree of surprise and disappointment at certain excessive reactions.” Breaking with decades of deference to the Catholic hierarchy both at home and in Rome, Kenny told the Dáil last week that “the rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, in power, standing and reputation”. He stuck to his critical stance over the Vatican and the Cloyne report at the event on Sunday. He said that it reflected the way Irish people felt about the Catholic Church’s role in the clerical abuse scandal. The deputy editor of the Irish Catholic claimed on Monday night that most Catholics in the Republic would back Kenny rather than the Vatican in this controversy. Michael Kelly said: “I would expect that the diplomats in the Vatican’s secretariat of state will have been extremely surprised by the tone of Enda Kenny’s speech in the Dáil, but also by the widespread and positive public reaction to the speech.” He added: “Mr Kenny was, I believe, articulating the sense of exasperation that a lot of Irish people, not least Irish Catholics, have felt for too long about the church’s disastrous inability to come to terms with this crisis.” Although Ireland’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Eamon Gilmore, said the recall of the papal nuncio was a matter for the Vatican alone, one of his cabinet colleagues described the move as “appropriate”. Joan Burton, the minister for social protection, said that it was very welcome if there was going to be “deep reflection in the Vatican” into the Cloyne and indeed other reports that found the church hierarchy both in Ireland and in Rome culpable of covering up abuse scandals. The Vatican has always looked upon Ireland as being one of its most loyal nations that always toed the Holy See’s line on moral and social issues. When Joseph Walshe was appointed Irish ambassador to the Vatican in 1946, the future Pope Paul VI told him that “you are the most Catholic country in the world”. But although abortion on demand remains illegal and most citizens still describe themselves as Catholic, the Republic’s population is more secular minded than at any time in Irish history with divorce legal, contraception widely available and church attendance numbers falling. Kenny’s once unthinkable assault on the Vatican’s role in Ireland was prompted by the Cloyne report’s conclusion that the Vatican stymied Irish church policy of informing the Garda Siochana about sex abuse allegations levelled at its priests. Yvonne Murphy, the judge who headed the Cloyne investigation, hit out at the Vatican’s description of 1996 guidelines for reporting abuse allegations as “merely a study document”. She said that this led to the Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, feeling he could deviate from measures other bishops had established to protect children. Ireland Enda Kenny Vatican Italy Catholicism Religion Europe Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Figures for second quarter expected to show Britain’s economy has flatlined for almost a year An unrepentant David Cameron prepared consumers and the markets for publication on Tuesday of gruesome growth figures by admitting Britain’s “path back to growth will be a difficult one”, but insisting no shortcut lay in either a fiscal or monetary stimulus. The chancellor, George Osborne, also set out his defence ahead of an expected political battering by claiming he had “turned Britain into a safe harbour in a storm” by focusing so rigidly on deficit reduction. He admitted: “There are risks to current and future growth.” Both the prime minister and the chancellor spoke about the depth of Britain’s economic difficulties on Monday after being briefed on the growth figures for the second quarter to be published by the Office for National Statistics . The figures are expected to show Britain’s economy has flatlined for almost a year, contrasting with strong growth in Germany and, to a lesser extent, France. Most economists believe the economy ground to a halt in the three months to the end of June after a big slowdown in the manufacturing sector, which has been instrumental in preventing the economy sinking back into recession over the last 18 months. Estimates range from a small contraction of 0.1% or 0.2% to growth of 0.7%, with most economists expecting about 0.2% to 0.3%. Either way, the numbers will push the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) into downgrading for the fourth time its growth forecast for 2011 – currently predicted to be 1.7 %. The OBR is likely to do that for the chancellor’s autumn statement, expected after third-quarter growth figures on 25 October. Cameron and Osborne refused to join the business secretary, Vince Cable, in his call on Monday for a further bout of monetary expansion by the Bank of England through a second round of quantitative easing, including the purchase of corporate bonds. Cameron said: “There isn’t some great monetary stimulus you can give when interest rates are as low as they are. The right steps for an economy like ours is to get on top of your debt and deficit and then make it a better place for businesses to grow and expand and employ people.” He added: “There is no country really that can afford another fiscal stimulus. They have all run out of money.” Osborne also declined to support Cable in calling for monetary expansion. He vowed not to change his plan to eradicate the structural deficit within four years. “We have an economic plan, we’re sticking to the economic plan,” he said. “In a world of great uncertainty, we’ve brought stability in the British economy, we’ve brought interest rates down, and we’re creating private sector jobs.” He added: “We turned Britain into a safe harbour in the storm. That’s not easy politically. We took some very, very difficult decisions because we had to. Our interest rates have come down while others have gone up. That has provided the stability that the British economy needs in a very, very unstable global environment.” Labour accused the government of getting its excuses in early, pointing out that growth would have to be 0.8% in the second quarter for the OBR growth projections for 2011 to be on track. It said growth of as high as 0.3% in the second quarter would severely hit Osborne’s credibility. Labour also insisted market interest rates for bonds were low and falling before the election, suggesting there was no need to go further than Labour’s plan to halve the deficit over a parliament. The TUC’s general secretary, Brendan Barber, said: “A target of eliminating the deficit in just four years always looked as if it came from what others might call ‘rightwing nutters’, rather than sensible economics.” The economy grew by 0.5% in the first three months of this year, but this was cancelled out by a 0.5% contraction in the three months to December 2010. A flat period in the previous August and September extended the UK’s run of zero growth. In a sign of slowing demand, figures from the British Bankers Association showed overall lending to non-financial companies fell by £2.5bn last month, following a similar drop in May. June’s drop was bigger than the average monthly fall of £1.4bn over the previous six months. Howard Archer, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, said the drop was more likely to be connected to a collapse in confidence than a dearth of bank funds, though small businesses were finding it difficult to get loans at affordable rates. He said the fall was “evidently influenced significantly by low demand for credit and by many companies looking to pay down debt … Companies are becoming increasingly wary about borrowing and investing in the current difficult economic environment – which in itself is worrying for growth prospects.” George Buckley, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, said the economy would begin to recover in the second half of the year after a rocky start, though there were many factors that could dampen growth. Jonathan Portes, director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, urged ministers to ease fiscal policy. He said: “If the government chooses to ease fiscal policy in response to the weak growth, which too tight fiscal policy is delivering us, that would represent a sensible change of course”. Economic policy Economic growth (GDP) David Cameron Manufacturing sector Economics Patrick Wintour Phillip Inman guardian.co.uk
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• 48 hours to get agreement on raising debt ceiling • AAA credit rating in peril, says top bond investor The International Monetary Fund called on the United States to resolve its debt crisis amid warnings from one of the world’s most influential investors that the country risked losing its triple-A credit rating within months because of the reputational damage caused by the ongoing disagreement over the debt ceiling. Amid nervous trading on both sides of the Atlantic, the directors of the Washington-based fund “highlighted the urgency of raising the federal debt ceiling and agreeing on the specifics of a comprehensive medium-term consolidation programme” in its review of the country’s economic prospects. The urgency expressed by the IMF came after Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of bond trader Pimco, lambasted Washington politicians for failure to reach a compromise to raise the US’s debt ceiling. Stock markets were disappointed that a deal has still not been reached, with bank shares in London being hard hit. Barclays was down nearly 4% – the largest faller – with Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland also lower. The dollar lost ground in Asian trading, hitting a fresh record low against the Swiss franc, and was lower against the yen. Gold also hit a record high on Monday, touching $1,622 an ounce, in the race for investment safe havens. With time running out, Democratic leaders in control of the Senate and Republican leaders in control of the House put forward alternative plans on Monday. Although both sides blamed one another in public, there could be enough common ground in the two plans for further negotiation and an eventual deal. But El-Erian believes the dispute – carried out in full view of an anxious world – has left investors wary about America’s prospects. “In most likelihood, a last-minute political compromise will avoid a default but will leave the AAA rating extremely vulnerable,” said El-Erian, whose company is the world’s biggest bond trader. “The country can ill-afford to lose the confidence of large foreign holders of US Treasury bonds, overseas manufacturers with factories here, those that use the dollar as the reserve currency, and the many who have outsourced here the intermediation of their hard-earned savings and pensions,” El-Erian wrote in the Huffington Post. Having reached its current debt ceiling of $14.3tn (£8.7tn), America is likely to run out of money on 2 August unless Democrats and Republicans vote to raise it. Talks broke down on Friday night, with the two sides still unable to agree on a plan to address America’s debts. Republicans accuse President Obama of undermining the talks by pushing for higher taxes, prompting UK business secretary Vince Cable to blame “a few rightwing nutters in the American Congress” for the crisis. A compromise plan proposed by the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, went a long way towards meeting Republican key demands: significant spending cuts and, crucially, no new taxes. Reid proposed cuts in the US debt amounting to $2.7tn over the next decade in return for the Republicans agreeing to raise the debt ceiling by an equivalent amount – sufficient borrowing to see the US through until after the November 2012 White House election. About $1tn of Reid’s savings would come from the anticipated drawdown of the US armed forces from costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The election date is a sticking point, with the Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, proposing a shorter timeframe that would require renegotiation of the debt ceiling next summer. “It’s well understood that the president would not like to deal with a deficit reduction package in the election year,” a Republican Congressional spokesman said. Boehner is proposing a two stage approach, cuts of $1.2tn over the next decade in return for raising the debt ceiling for about a year. The second stage would involve a congressional commission proposing another $1.8tn in cuts. Democrats claimed the main obstacle to a deal was the inability of Boehner to stand up to hardline members of his party who are backed by the Tea Party movement, which wants huge cuts and no tax rises. The Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, in a television interview, said: “Everyone likes Speaker Boehner … What is happening is that instead of Boehner leading the Tea Party, he seems to be following them.” Although the deadline for default is August 2, in reality the timescale is shorter, with a bill on spending cuts and raising the debt ceiling needing to begin passage within the next few days. “I think we’ve got 48 hours within which to do something very, very meaningful,” one of the Democratic leaders in the house, James Clyburn, told cable news channel MSNBC. US economy Economics US Congress United States US politics IMF Global economy Stock markets Bonds Ewen MacAskill Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• 48 hours to get agreement on raising debt ceiling • AAA credit rating in peril, says top bond investor The International Monetary Fund called on the United States to resolve its debt crisis amid warnings from one of the world’s most influential investors that the country risked losing its triple-A credit rating within months because of the reputational damage caused by the ongoing disagreement over the debt ceiling. Amid nervous trading on both sides of the Atlantic, the directors of the Washington-based fund “highlighted the urgency of raising the federal debt ceiling and agreeing on the specifics of a comprehensive medium-term consolidation programme” in its review of the country’s economic prospects. The urgency expressed by the IMF came after Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of bond trader Pimco, lambasted Washington politicians for failure to reach a compromise to raise the US’s debt ceiling. Stock markets were disappointed that a deal has still not been reached, with bank shares in London being hard hit. Barclays was down nearly 4% – the largest faller – with Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland also lower. The dollar lost ground in Asian trading, hitting a fresh record low against the Swiss franc, and was lower against the yen. Gold also hit a record high on Monday, touching $1,622 an ounce, in the race for investment safe havens. With time running out, Democratic leaders in control of the Senate and Republican leaders in control of the House put forward alternative plans on Monday. Although both sides blamed one another in public, there could be enough common ground in the two plans for further negotiation and an eventual deal. But El-Erian believes the dispute – carried out in full view of an anxious world – has left investors wary about America’s prospects. “In most likelihood, a last-minute political compromise will avoid a default but will leave the AAA rating extremely vulnerable,” said El-Erian, whose company is the world’s biggest bond trader. “The country can ill-afford to lose the confidence of large foreign holders of US Treasury bonds, overseas manufacturers with factories here, those that use the dollar as the reserve currency, and the many who have outsourced here the intermediation of their hard-earned savings and pensions,” El-Erian wrote in the Huffington Post. Having reached its current debt ceiling of $14.3tn (£8.7tn), America is likely to run out of money on 2 August unless Democrats and Republicans vote to raise it. Talks broke down on Friday night, with the two sides still unable to agree on a plan to address America’s debts. Republicans accuse President Obama of undermining the talks by pushing for higher taxes, prompting UK business secretary Vince Cable to blame “a few rightwing nutters in the American Congress” for the crisis. A compromise plan proposed by the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, went a long way towards meeting Republican key demands: significant spending cuts and, crucially, no new taxes. Reid proposed cuts in the US debt amounting to $2.7tn over the next decade in return for the Republicans agreeing to raise the debt ceiling by an equivalent amount – sufficient borrowing to see the US through until after the November 2012 White House election. About $1tn of Reid’s savings would come from the anticipated drawdown of the US armed forces from costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The election date is a sticking point, with the Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, proposing a shorter timeframe that would require renegotiation of the debt ceiling next summer. “It’s well understood that the president would not like to deal with a deficit reduction package in the election year,” a Republican Congressional spokesman said. Boehner is proposing a two stage approach, cuts of $1.2tn over the next decade in return for raising the debt ceiling for about a year. The second stage would involve a congressional commission proposing another $1.8tn in cuts. Democrats claimed the main obstacle to a deal was the inability of Boehner to stand up to hardline members of his party who are backed by the Tea Party movement, which wants huge cuts and no tax rises. The Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, in a television interview, said: “Everyone likes Speaker Boehner … What is happening is that instead of Boehner leading the Tea Party, he seems to be following them.” Although the deadline for default is August 2, in reality the timescale is shorter, with a bill on spending cuts and raising the debt ceiling needing to begin passage within the next few days. “I think we’ve got 48 hours within which to do something very, very meaningful,” one of the Democratic leaders in the house, James Clyburn, told cable news channel MSNBC. US economy Economics US Congress United States US politics IMF Global economy Stock markets Bonds Ewen MacAskill Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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Our Afghanistan correspondent Jon Boone survived dozens of embedded missions unscathed. Then, one morning, his luck finally ran out . . . Just as I thought things couldn’t get much worse, they did. The decrepit Humvee, a hand-me-down from the US Army, juddered to a halt and smoke billowed from the air vents below the bulletproof windscreen. I was now stranded in a broken- down Afghan National Army (ANA) vehicle in the middle of a deadly stretch of highway where only two days earlier there had been a small firefight between the Taliban and the security forces. More to the point, I also had a broken leg. My right fibula had snapped at the ankle at around 8am that morning after I fell into a flooded irrigation canal near the town of Kandalay in the district of Zhari, the neighbourhood of Mullah Omar (in the days when the one-eyed cleric was gathering his forces for what would ultimately lead to the Taliban conquest of almost the entire country). I really needed to be in hospital. Instead I was crammed into the front seat of a baking-hot armoured vehicle watching a bunch of Afghan soldiers running back and forth to a nearby puddle, scooping up water into their helmets to cool the engine. Despite the quantum leap the ANA has made in recent years, they are still not the people to help you when you are in serious difficulties. And it had arguably been more than a little unwise to hitch a lift with the ANA to get back to the relative civilisation of Kandahar City, from where I hoped to get a flight to Dubai or Kabul. Or anywhere with a decent hospital prepared to treat a wounded civilian. A few days previously, sitting in the comfort of the ANA’s 205th “Hero” Corps headquarters on the outskirts of
Continue reading …Our Afghanistan correspondent Jon Boone survived dozens of embedded missions unscathed. Then, one morning, his luck finally ran out . . . Just as I thought things couldn’t get much worse, they did. The decrepit Humvee, a hand-me-down from the US Army, juddered to a halt and smoke billowed from the air vents below the bulletproof windscreen. I was now stranded in a broken- down Afghan National Army (ANA) vehicle in the middle of a deadly stretch of highway where only two days earlier there had been a small firefight between the Taliban and the security forces. More to the point, I also had a broken leg. My right fibula had snapped at the ankle at around 8am that morning after I fell into a flooded irrigation canal near the town of Kandalay in the district of Zhari, the neighbourhood of Mullah Omar (in the days when the one-eyed cleric was gathering his forces for what would ultimately lead to the Taliban conquest of almost the entire country). I really needed to be in hospital. Instead I was crammed into the front seat of a baking-hot armoured vehicle watching a bunch of Afghan soldiers running back and forth to a nearby puddle, scooping up water into their helmets to cool the engine. Despite the quantum leap the ANA has made in recent years, they are still not the people to help you when you are in serious difficulties. And it had arguably been more than a little unwise to hitch a lift with the ANA to get back to the relative civilisation of Kandahar City, from where I hoped to get a flight to Dubai or Kabul. Or anywhere with a decent hospital prepared to treat a wounded civilian. A few days previously, sitting in the comfort of the ANA’s 205th “Hero” Corps headquarters on the outskirts of
Continue reading …Stuart Varney Affirms That Killing Medicare and Social Security Sole GOP Goal
July 25, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media So Harry Reid is drafting a plan to “put our fiscal house in order” by cutting, cutting, cutting with no revenues. And he’s tackling what sounds like a counterintuitive plan by taking aim at the Pentagon budget, factoring in the cost of ending the wars, and other spending which is not spending on Medicare and Social Security. As Matt Yglesias points out, Reid is calling the Republicans’ bluff . In the debate over the debt ceiling, for example, Republicans have sought to portray themselves as having two bottom lines. One is that any increase in the debt ceiling must be met dollar-for-dollar with spending cuts. The other is that no revenue increases can be part of the deal. What Harry Reid did yesterday was essentially call the GOP’s bluff by outlining a plan that raises the debt ceiling by $2.7 trillion and includes $2.7 trillion in spending cuts, a healthy share of which comes from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans are rejecting this even though it nominally meets their demands. Why? Because it doesn’t achieve either of their two real objectives. In particular, the plan doesn’t cut Medicare, which means that Democratic party candidates for office in November 2012 and 2014 can accurately remind voters of the content of the Republican budget plan. In case you forgot, this plans repeals Medicare. Of course, if you listen to the Republicans talk on cable TV, they all shake their heads in very serious ways and insist that they are, first and foremost, all about getting the spending down. Doesn’t matter how, just that it happens. Never mind that Paul Ryan included some of Reid’s proposed cuts in his own budget that killed Medicare, that doesn’t matter. They’ll tell you ending the wars aren’t really cuts in the budget or spending because they are not “entitlements” Let’s review the bidding. Ezra Klein does it quite well: Originally, the Democratic position was that we should simply raise the debt ceiling . Republicans said “no.” There would have to be a deal that reduced the deficit by at least $2.4 trillion — which is the size of the debt ceiling increase needed to get us into 2013. Then the Democratic position was that we should raise the debt ceiling through a deal that reduced the deficit by about $2.4 trillion , with $2 trillion of that coming from spending cuts and $400 billion coming from taxes. Republicans said “no.” There would have to be a deal that disavowed taxes. Then the Democratic position was that we should raise the debt ceiling through a deal brokered by Barack Obama that reduced the deficit by $4 trillion, with about $3 trillion of that coming from spending cuts and about $1 trillion coming from tax increases. Republicans said “no.” There would have to be a deal that disavowed taxes, and it would have to be cut between the congressional leadership of the two parties. Obama couldn’t have this as a win. So here we are with a deal that satisfies (sort of) the “no revenues” requirement alongside the “cut dollar-for-dollar” spending requirement. And as you’ll see from Stuart Varney, the answer will still be “no”, just as it has been all along. Varney: That’s why I say, the likelihood of this downgrade — let’s be clear — a downgrade means you lose your financial reputation, you’re not the gold standard any longer. Doocy: But it’s different than default. Varney: It is different from default. I am now saying a downgrade now looks very likely, bearing in mind this chaos over the weekend and this Harry Reid plan which means absolutely nothing to investors. Killmeade: It seems as though they’d say if we do something drastic enough that shows people that we’re on a fiscal sustainable path — something Titanic — we could avoid that, don’t you agree? Varney: I would agree with that. If we got our house in order and said we’re going to tackle entitlements, we’ll go after this, we’ll do something concrete. If you did that, the likelihood is that the stock market would go up. Unspoken but implied: The likelihood is that you’d get a deal on exactly the terms Republicans want. Destruction of the social safety net in exchange for an unchanged credit rating and raised debt ceiling. Our banker overlords are decreeing it, you know.
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