Deal offers 1% boost to equipment budget from 2015 to 2030, but includes closure of a number of army and RAF barracks The Treasury and Ministry of Defence have agreed to a last-minute package offering the armed forces modest future spending increases in return for hefty cuts now to plug a £43bn gap in existing commitments, the Guardian has been told. Liam Fox, the defence secretary, is expected to announce the package, including the closure of a number of RAF and army barracks, to the Commons. In a move likely to provoke bitter controversy he is expected to confirm that the army will shrink by a further 10,000 soldiers to 84,000, its smallest size in more than a century. Last year’s defence review cuts the army by 7,000 from a total of more than 100,000 by 2015 when British troops will no longer have a combat role in Afghanistan. The fresh round of cuts is likely to mean the end of some infantry battalions. Fox will say the number of fully trained reserves of all three branches of the armed forces – the navy, army and air force – will increase from slightly more than 20,000 now to 35,000 by the year 2015. This will bring the proportion of reserves to regular service personnel more in line with other countries including the US. One of the reserves’ priority tasks will be “homeland security”. Beefing up the reserves will cost an estimated £1.5bn. In addition, the Treasury has agreed that the armed forces will benefit from a 1% real term increase – taking inflation into account – in their equipment budget from 2015 to 2020. It is rare for government departments to be offered such rises in advance but David Cameron has repeatedly backed pleas from defence chiefs for real term rises in their budget after the current four-year spending review period. The gap between the defence budget and equipment programmes by previous governments has hitherto been estimated at £38bn. Defence officials say Bernard Gray, the new head of MoD procurement, has identified a further £5bn worth of over-commitments. RAF Leuchars will close, leaving Lossiemouth the only RAF base in Scotland. Leuchars will become an army base housing some of the 20,000 British troops due to leave Germany by 2020. RAF Cottesmore in Rutland will also make way for the army while military barracks in Kirknewton, Edinburgh, in Bassingbourn and Waterbeach – which are both near Cambridge – and in Woodbridge near Ipswich will be sold off, Fox will announce. Military Defence policy Liam Fox Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
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ORLANDO, Fla. — This is what freedom looks like for Casey Anthony: $537.68 from her jail account, no job, estranged parents, a criminal record, lawsuits pending against her and the scorn of multitudes who think she got away with murder. She quickly gave reporters the slip after walking out of jail Sunday, but whatever life she manages to build for herself will be lived under a media microscope and the shadow of countless threats. Experts who have helped other notorious defendants through rough times say she will have opportunities as well, but it won’t be easy for the 25-year-old, who was found not guilty of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, but convicted of lying to investigators. With her hair in a bun, Casey Anthony walked out the front door of an Orlando-area jail shortly after midnight, wearing a pink T-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers, and escorted by sheriff’s deputies holding semi-automatic rifles. Protesters shouted “baby killer” and “you suck” as she climbed into an SUV. The vehicle sped away and darted into a parking garage at a building where one of her attorneys has offices. Where she went next is unknown. Soon after her release, there was police activity at Orlando Executive Airport as two vehicles pulled up to a twin-engine private jet bound for Columbus, Ohio, but no one saw Anthony get out and onto the plane. Ohio is the home state of Anthony’s parents, but an official at the Columbus airport said the aircraft was only carrying golfers back from a Florida vacation. “Casey is in good hands,” said Todd Macaluso, a former member of Anthony’s defense team who declined to comment further. Her lead attorney, Jose Baez, did not respond Sunday to email and phone messages left by The Associated Press, nor did other lawyers on her defense team and those representing her father and mother. Another former Anthony lawyer, Terry Lenamon, said he had no clue where she was headed, and that probably only a few people close to her knew. “I wouldn’t want anyone to know,” he said. “I think she needs to go underground and I think she needs to spend some time to get her life back together.” Anthony’s July 5 acquittal shocked and enraged many around the country who had been following the case since Caylee’s 2008 disappearance. Anger has spilled onto social media sites and elsewhere. Her legal team said on Friday it had received an emailed death threat with a manipulated photo showing their client with a bullet hole in her forehead. Anthony did not report her daughter’s disappearance for a month and was arrested after telling a string of lies about the case to police. Caylee’s remains were found in December 2008 near the home Casey Anthony shared with her parents. Prosecutors alleged that Anthony suffocated her daughter with duct tape because motherhood interfered with her desire for a carefree life, but her lawyers said the girl drowned in an accident that snowballed out of control. Some of the jurors who acquitted Anthony said they believe she bears some responsibility for her daughter’s death but that prosecutors failed to prove that she murdered the child. Anthony had remained in jail to finish a four-year sentence for lying to investigators. With credit for the nearly three years she’d spent in jail since August 2008 and good behavior, she had only days remaining when she was sentenced July 7. Her public vilification did not ease with her release from jail. “A baby killer was just set free!” Bree Thornton, 39, shouted as the SUV left the jail. “She is safer in jail than she is out here,” said Mike Quiroz, who drove from Miami to spend his 22nd birthday outside the jail. “She better watch her butt. She is known all over the world.” It won’t be impossible for Anthony to get a fresh start, though it will be difficult, said Los Angeles-based attorney Thomas Mesereau. His clients have included the late singer Michael Jackson when he was charged with child molestation and actor Robert Blake when he was charged with murdering his wife. Anthony could accept requests for paid interviews, or a benefactor may be able to help her in the short term, Mesereau said. “When you have that degree of celebrity, there is usually somebody who would like to get involved,” Mesereau said. “The problem is trusting anyone. People are willing to leak things to the media. They’re willing to be paid off for information. It’s very difficult to find people whom you can trust.” As of Sunday, though, those closest to her had revealed little about her future plans. Baez said in a brief statement only that he hoped Anthony could “receive the counseling and treatment she needs to move forward with the rest of her life.” Other attorneys on her defense team have not hinted at where she might go, and neither have her parents, whose relationship with Casey Anthony is strained. During trial, Anthony’s defense attorneys argued that her father, George Anthony, molested Casey as a child and covered up Caylee’s death. He has denied both claims, and neither has been substantiated. What is known is that Casey Anthony still faces a slew of legal problems even though the criminal charges have been resolved. She has been sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars by a Texas group that searched for Caylee in the weeks after she was reported missing, and prosecutors are seeking to recoup the cost of their investigation into Caylee’s disappearance. Anthony also is being sued for defamation by a woman named Zenaida Gonzalez who claims she has been harassed and unable to find work after Anthony said a baby sitter with her name kidnapped Caylee. Gonzalez’s attorneys had wanted to depose Anthony before she left jail, but the deposition was rescheduled for October. Any of those civil cases could put a major dent in any money Anthony receives for writing a book, signing a movie deal or doing interviews. Anthony is broke, and her defense team was paid for with taxpayers’ money after $200,000 she received from ABC News was spent. Several book publishers contacted by The Associated Press said they knew of no memoir that was being shopped around and consider her too tainted to sign a deal. Anthony could avoid the potential liability of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the lawsuits by filing for bankruptcy, though plaintiffs would probably attempt to keep her on the hook for damages if she signs lucrative deals after filing, said R. Scott Shuker, an Orlando bankruptcy attorney. “There is a potentially huge upside to keep the income and not owe the debt, but you know these folks are going to challenge it so she would be having more trials,” Shuker said. An important step in building a new life is getting psychological help to cope with her notoriety, severed family ties and newfound freedom, said attorneys with clients in similar circumstances. “Everything she has been through, that’s more than most people can deal with in a lifetime,” said Daniel Meachum, an Atlanta attorney who has represented football player Michael Vick when he was convicted of dog fighting and actor Wesley Snipes when he was convicted of tax evasion. Media relations expert Marti Mackenzie, who specialized in legal cases, said it’s important for Anthony to make some kind of public statement soon. She said a standard news conference is out of the question, but Anthony needs to say she made terrible mistakes, that she is grateful to her defense team and that she has thought about what happened every day of her life in jail. “In traditional public relations language, it’s called feeding the beast,” Mackenzie said. “Even if you don’t give the beast a full meal, you respond. Because once you’re part of media scrutiny … how it is handled once the case is over will help to set a tone.” ___ Associated Press writer Curt Anderson in Miami contributed to this report.
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A new survey shows one fifth of parents have taken an under-five to a festival. Is this a good idea? And if so, how do you make them sit through the Low Anthem? Try these tips … It was early Saturday afternoon at Larmer Tree Gardens, home of End of the Road festival. The Broken Family Band had taken to the stage and, as their opening chords rang out, my son – then five years old – flung himself to the ground at my feet. He clutched his hands to his ears and screamed: “No! No! No!” It’s not the kind of experience that leaves any remotely diligent parent thinking they’ve made the right choice about the weekend’s family entertainment. Nevertheless, according to a survey of 1,500 parents conducted for the baby and parenting website gurgle.com , a fifth of mums and dads have taken an under-five to a music festival in the past year. In the event, we had a decent time at End of the Road. My daughter – then nine – made a fortune collecting plastic glasses and claiming back the deposits. My son enjoyed the circus skills workshops and messing around in the woods. It was certainly a much happier experience than Latitude in 2007, when I had to threaten a drunk teen who was trying to push me and my son – three at that point – out of our spot at the front of stage for I’m from Barcelona . I can’t help but have mixed feelings about kids and festivals. On the one hand, every time I see one of those stories about someone giving birth at Glastonbury, the Daily Mail reader that lurks inside me insists the child should be taken into care immediately and the parents prosecuted. I feel only pity when I see photos of kids in buggies mired in several feet of mud. On the other, people I know and like, and on whom I have never called social services, take their kids to big festivals every year and the kids appear – at this stage – undamaged by the experience. It might be appropriate, though, to offer some guidance to those thinking about embarking on the family festival experience for the first time. 1. Smaller is better The bigger the crowd, the greater your paranoia about your kids disappearing. At End of the Road, it was possible for me to show my daughter where I was standing by the main stage and allow her to wander off, knowing where to find me. I wouldn’t try that at Reading. 2. Don’t expect to hear much music There’s a fighting chance your little ones will not want to listen to an hour of some bearded American with an acoustic guitar singing about death. They maywell find plenty to entertain them around a festival site, but it’s likely none of it will be musical. Ask yourself: do I really want to spend several hundred quid to hear no more than a couple of hours of music all weekend? Alternatively, go with another family so you can do babysitting shifts, enabling each set of parents to see some music unencumbered. 3. Don’t be too protective Your children will see and hear things you might prefer they didn’t. It can’t be avoided, so don’t sweat it. Equally, you’re in a large crowd of people and none of them – literally none – care about your parenting needs. So don’t set up a large picnic blanket with parasols and sunshades in front of the main stage so you can hear the music without your kids getting sunburnt. That is selfish and antisocial. 4. Nevertheless, some rules of parenting still apply Just because you’re at a festival, it’s not Lord of the Flies. It’s astonishing how many parents think they can let their kids turn feral the minute they’re on site. So, encourage your child not to take others’ food and drink, not to wreak carnage on other children who are playing their own games, not to treat the facilities as a giant adventure playground. 5. Go to a festival where you can go in and out easily You might find the kids’ facilities at the festival of your choice to be massively overburdened. It’s no fun for your kids to wait an hour for a five-minute go at making a fairy out of twigs and discarded gaffer tape. So it’s worth picking a festival that’s near other things, which you can easily drive to without facing an hour’s walk to your car and then enormous hassle trying to get back in. Our favourite thing at Latitude was spending Saturday morning on Southwold beach. We occupied the mornings at End of the Road by visiting Monkey World and going fossil hunting on the Jurassic shore. It made the kids much more amenable to the Low Anthem a couple of hours later. 6. Don’t be afraid to stay offsite Chances are you’re not going to be getting wildly intoxicated, so you’re likely to be able to drive away at the end of the evening. Rested kids are happy kids, and they might get a better night’s sleep in a local B&B than in a tent with some campers hosting an impromptu rave next door. This is not a fashionable view, I know. But it works for me. Pop and rock Festivals Children Michael Hann guardian.co.uk
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Paul Allen, who claimed a Harry Potter plot was lifted from another book, failed to meet a court payment deadline A claim that JK Rowling lifted the plot of one of her Harry Potter books from the work of another writer has been struck out after the claimant failed to meet a deadline for paying the first instalment of £1.5m into court as security for costs. The court of appeal ordered last week that the claimant, Paul Allen, trustee of the estate of Adrian Jacobs, who died in 1997, should pay the first part of the money into court by 4pm on Friday last week, or the case would be struck out. The claim has now failed as no payment was made. The move marks the end of a bitterly fought battle in which Rowling was accused of having lifted the plot of the fourth book in the series – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – from Jacobs’s book, Willy the Wizard. She and her publisher, Bloomsbury, had faced a demand for more than A$1bn (£659m) in damages. Solicitor David Hooper, a partner with the law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, which represented Bloomsbury, said: “They have not paid the money into court. “The whole thing is a scandal – it has been going on for seven years. It was an absolutely ludicrous case.” The claimants had spent well over £1m, he said. Rowling has described the claim that her book was copied from Willy the Wizard as “not only unfounded but absurd”, and said she had never even seen the book until Allen’s claim was launched in 2004. Her solicitor, Gideon Benaim, a partner at Schillings, said: “An enormous amount of time has been wasted having to defend against this claim, when it was quite obvious to us from the outset that it had no chance of success. “As the judge noted, those behind the claim set about publicising the case with a view to exerting pressure and promoting their ‘book’. Quite how they ever thought that we would succumb to pressure indicates a complete lack of understanding on their part. We are glad that the substantive action is now at an end.” Mr Justice Kitchin ordered the payment into court in March, saying that Allen should pay security for 65% of the costs faced by Rowling and her publisher, Bloomsbury. There were to be three staged payments – the first, of £322,691 for Bloomsbury’s costs and £571,613 for Rowling’s costs, to be made by 21 April; the second, £24,650 for Bloomsbury’s costs and £178,441 for Rowling’s costs, to follow by 5 August; and the final payments, of £129,373 for Bloomsbury’s costs and £318,975 for Rowling’s, to be made by 11 November. The court of appeal rejected the appeal against that decision last Thursday, saying the first payment should be made by 4pm on Friday or the case would be struck out. The same claim had already been comprehensively rejected in the US, where a judge in the Manhattan-based US district court for the southern district of New York said that “the contrast between the total concept and feel of the works is so stark that any serious comparison of the two strains credulity”. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was 734 pages long while the Willy the Wizard book consisted of just 16 pages of text, the judge said. He added that the Willy the Wizard book was “entirely devoid of a moral message or intellectual depth”, in contrast to Goblet of Fire, a cumulative work in which one scene built on another, the storyline was highly developed and complex, and there was “a highly developed moral core” and overarching messages were conveyed through the plot. Mr Justice Kitchin, sitting in the chancery division of the high court, had ordered the security for costs payment after having rejected an application by Rowling and Bloomsbury for summary judgment, although he thought the plagiarism claim had an “improbable” chance of success. But he also made it clear that he was unhappy with the way the litigation was being conducted, and the behaviour of Allen and people associated with him. Allen, he said, was a nominal claimant – he was in truth suing for the benefit of another. But the evidence from Allen, a property developer, about the means available to him and those supporting him, was “far from full or candid”. There were also indications of a want of good faith on the part of Allen and those associated with him, and those behind the claim “have also engaged in what I think the defendants fairly describe as thinly veiled threats to publicise the allegation that Ms Rowling has engaged in plagiarism”. David Markson, literary agent for the Jacobs estate, and his brother, Max Markson, a public relations executive in Australia, had tried to pressure Rowling into a settlement and had warned that failure to settle the claim would lead to “unwelcome publicity”, the judge said. Harry Potter JK Rowling guardian.co.uk
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Paul Allen, who claimed a Harry Potter plot was lifted from another book, failed to meet a court payment deadline A claim that JK Rowling lifted the plot of one of her Harry Potter books from the work of another writer has been struck out after the claimant failed to meet a deadline for paying the first instalment of £1.5m into court as security for costs. The court of appeal ordered last week that the claimant, Paul Allen, trustee of the estate of Adrian Jacobs, who died in 1997, should pay the first part of the money into court by 4pm on Friday last week, or the case would be struck out. The claim has now failed as no payment was made. The move marks the end of a bitterly fought battle in which Rowling was accused of having lifted the plot of the fourth book in the series – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – from Jacobs’s book, Willy the Wizard. She and her publisher, Bloomsbury, had faced a demand for more than A$1bn (£659m) in damages. Solicitor David Hooper, a partner with the law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, which represented Bloomsbury, said: “They have not paid the money into court. “The whole thing is a scandal – it has been going on for seven years. It was an absolutely ludicrous case.” The claimants had spent well over £1m, he said. Rowling has described the claim that her book was copied from Willy the Wizard as “not only unfounded but absurd”, and said she had never even seen the book until Allen’s claim was launched in 2004. Her solicitor, Gideon Benaim, a partner at Schillings, said: “An enormous amount of time has been wasted having to defend against this claim, when it was quite obvious to us from the outset that it had no chance of success. “As the judge noted, those behind the claim set about publicising the case with a view to exerting pressure and promoting their ‘book’. Quite how they ever thought that we would succumb to pressure indicates a complete lack of understanding on their part. We are glad that the substantive action is now at an end.” Mr Justice Kitchin ordered the payment into court in March, saying that Allen should pay security for 65% of the costs faced by Rowling and her publisher, Bloomsbury. There were to be three staged payments – the first, of £322,691 for Bloomsbury’s costs and £571,613 for Rowling’s costs, to be made by 21 April; the second, £24,650 for Bloomsbury’s costs and £178,441 for Rowling’s costs, to follow by 5 August; and the final payments, of £129,373 for Bloomsbury’s costs and £318,975 for Rowling’s, to be made by 11 November. The court of appeal rejected the appeal against that decision last Thursday, saying the first payment should be made by 4pm on Friday or the case would be struck out. The same claim had already been comprehensively rejected in the US, where a judge in the Manhattan-based US district court for the southern district of New York said that “the contrast between the total concept and feel of the works is so stark that any serious comparison of the two strains credulity”. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was 734 pages long while the Willy the Wizard book consisted of just 16 pages of text, the judge said. He added that the Willy the Wizard book was “entirely devoid of a moral message or intellectual depth”, in contrast to Goblet of Fire, a cumulative work in which one scene built on another, the storyline was highly developed and complex, and there was “a highly developed moral core” and overarching messages were conveyed through the plot. Mr Justice Kitchin, sitting in the chancery division of the high court, had ordered the security for costs payment after having rejected an application by Rowling and Bloomsbury for summary judgment, although he thought the plagiarism claim had an “improbable” chance of success. But he also made it clear that he was unhappy with the way the litigation was being conducted, and the behaviour of Allen and people associated with him. Allen, he said, was a nominal claimant – he was in truth suing for the benefit of another. But the evidence from Allen, a property developer, about the means available to him and those supporting him, was “far from full or candid”. There were also indications of a want of good faith on the part of Allen and those associated with him, and those behind the claim “have also engaged in what I think the defendants fairly describe as thinly veiled threats to publicise the allegation that Ms Rowling has engaged in plagiarism”. David Markson, literary agent for the Jacobs estate, and his brother, Max Markson, a public relations executive in Australia, had tried to pressure Rowling into a settlement and had warned that failure to settle the claim would lead to “unwelcome publicity”, the judge said. Harry Potter JK Rowling guardian.co.uk
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Scotland Yard’s top counter-terrorism officer quits the day after his boss Sir Paul Stephenson The Metropolitan police assistant commissioner John Yates has become the second high-profile Scotland Yard officer to resign over the phone-hacking scandal. The resignation of Yates – the country’s top counter-terrorism officer – comes a day after his boss, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, stepped down. In a statement, Scotland Yard said: “Assistant commissioner John Yates has this afternoon indicated his intention to resign to the chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA). This has been accepted. AC Yates will make a statement later this afternoon.” His decision to quit came as the Metropolitan Police Authority’s professional standards cases subcommittee held a meeting to consider a slew of complaints against him. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said the resignations of Yates and Stephenson were “regrettable but right”. He said: “Whatever mistakes have been made at any level in the police service, now is the time to clear them up.” The MPA disciplinary committee, which met on Monday morning, announced that it had decided to suspend Yates pending an inquiry into allegations following the phone-hacking scandal. Cressida Dick would replace Yates in the interim, Johnson said. Green party MPA member Jenny Jones said the resignation should have happened earlier and left Johnson with a lot to explain. “I think it’s a real pity Yates did not go before his boss,” she said. “It just shows who the most honourable person is. Boris has mishandled this from the start and he obviously has lots of questions to answer.” Earlier on Monday it emerged that Yates had been recalled to give evidence before the Commons home affairs select committee on Tuesday. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the committee, said: “The committee has recalled Mr Yates to give evidence tomorrow to clarify aspects of his evidence that he gave to the committee last week and following the statement of Sir Paul Stephenson.” When he appeared before the select committee last Tuesday, Yates expressed regret at his 2009 decision not to reopen the phone-hacking investigation. He insisted he had always told the truth to MPs investigating the issue and suggested that the News of the World “failed to co-operate” with police until the start of this year. He told the committee: “I can assure you all that I have never lied and all the information that I’ve provided to this committee has been given in good faith. “It is a matter of great concern that, for whatever reason, the News of the World appears to have failed to co-operate in the way that we now know they should have with the relevant police inquiries up until January of this year. “They have only recently supplied information and evidence that would clearly have had a significant impact on the decisions that I took in 2009 had it been provided to us.” Vaz told Yates that his evidence was unconvincing and warned him it was “not the end of the matter”. John Yates Phone hacking Metropolitan police Police Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers News International Vikram Dodd Hélène Mulholland Sam Jones guardian.co.uk
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A nine-year-old boy who was blindfolded and interrogated was among the children held for throwing rocks at soldiers Over the past five years, Israel’s military has detained more than 800 Palestinian youths and children for pelting Israeli soldiers with rocks, and has interrogated and jailed many of them, a human rights group said in a report. Drawing on military statistics and interviews, Israeli rights group B’Tselem counted 835 minors taken into custody from 2005 to early 2011, including 34 children who were 13 or younger. In one case, B’Tselem cited the case of an eight-year-old who was seized in the West Bank in February. Soldiers released the boy after realising he was not the child they were after: they wanted his nine-year-old brother. They then handcuffed the nine-year-old, blindfolded him and took him to a detention centre where he was interrogated and held for five hours, according to the report. He was released after it was determined that he was a minor. An Israeli military spokeswoman said around 160 civilians and soldiers had been hurt in violent attacks by minors. Of those, 10 were wounded by projectiles, but the spokeswoman, speaking of condition of anonymity, said she did not know the extent of their injuries. B’Tselem said night raids, handcuffing, blindfolds, interrogations and the denial of access to lawyers for children for hours at a time were frequently disproportionate. “The authorities need to enforce the law, but they should do it in lawful ways that are appropriate for the crime and the people committing the crime,” said the report’s author, Naama Baumgarten-Sharon. The Israeli military spokeswoman Lt Col Avital Leibovich said that in general the military handled children with sensitivity and their arrests were a justified response to violence. The B’Tselem report, released on Monday, noted the situation for child detainees had improved after the military built special juvenile courts, but said Palestinian minors were denied rights afforded to Israeli children. Israel has complained for decades about Palestinian children taking part in often violent demonstrations, claiming they are being exploited. Many Palestinian parents see their children as young fighters resisting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Rock throwing, specifically, is seen as symbolic of their struggle. The issue has flared in the past few years as Palestinians hold weekly demonstrations in West Bank villages in which young men and boys pelt rocks and chunks of concrete at Israeli soldiers. Israeli soldiers have used teargas, rubber bullets and sometimes live fire in response, killing some demonstrators and badly wounding others. Of the more than 800 minors charged with hurling rocks over the past five years, only one youth was found guilty in a court trial. The other 93% were given jail terms in plea bargains, agreeing mostly because they feared being detained while they waited for their cases to reach trial, said Baumgarten-Sharon. More than 500 of the youths were around 16 years old, the report said. Another 255 were 14 and 15, and 34 were 13 or younger. The older the youths, the more likely they were to be given longer sentences, sometimes of months in jail. Leibovich said the responsibility lay with the children’s families and Palestinian groups, whom she accused of sending out children to confront Israelis. “We are talking about minors that actually use rocks and explosive devices to target Israeli civilians and soldiers,” she said. Palestinian territories Israel Children Middle East guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Tea party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) Sunday dismissed calls for Congress to hold hearings to find out if Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. had broken U.S. law by hacking phones or bribing police. “We need to let law enforcement work here,” DeMint told NBC’s David Gregory. “Congress has got a big issue in front of us. We need to handle our own business for a change. And the focus this week is on the only plan we’ve got, and that’s cut, cap and balance.” But Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) disagreed. “I can tell you that there are questions about whether the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been violated by Rupert Murdoch and his news empire, and what’s going on in England is startling,” Durbin said. “To think of the extent that they went to break the law to try to report a story. We need to follow through with the FBI investigation and also with congressional investigations.”
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The phone hacking scandal surrounding News Corp is a huge, huge story—except to “Fox and Friends” co-host Steve Doocy. Doocy and his guest, the colorfully-named Bob Dilenschneider dismissed the hubbub on Friday’s show. Doocy said that the media was “piling on” and was ignoring more important issues. “We’ve got some serious problems in this country … and what do they do?” he said. “They talk about this.” Dilenschneider agreed, saying that there has been “too much” coverage of the scandal, and that people should “move on.” Doocy said, “I think you’re right.” Dilenschneider also said that News Corp has done “all the right things” in its response to the scandal. He then likened News Corp. to companies that have been the victims of hacking, such as Citigroup, American Express and Bank of America. It was an odd analogy, given that News Corp is not a hacking victim, but has actually hacked others. WATCH (via Think Progress):
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Exclusive: Chancellor holding back extra funding needed for modernisation, with MoD calling for PM to intervene David Cameron is locked in a standoff with his chancellor over defence spending after a secret study concluded the government will need to find an extra £25bn to pay for its modernisation of the armed forces. The Guardian has learned that a three-month internal analysis of the Ministry of Defence’s chaotic budget has found the department will not be able to pay for the programmes agreed in last year’s strategic defence and security review without a huge injection of cash – or a savage round of fresh cuts. George Osborne has been refusing to give the defence secretary, Liam Fox, any promises about funding beyond 2014/15, even though many programmes need to be signed off in the coming months to have any chance of coming in on time and on budget. From private discussions with the MoD’s most senior officials, the Guardian understands that the prime minister has also dug his heels in. He has refused to sanction any further cuts to defence capabilities before the next election, even though the department is already far over budget. One senior Whitehall official said the Cameron and his chancellor appeared to be in a power struggle – and they needed to resolve the situation quickly. “We are going round in circles,” said the source. The three-month review began in the spring as the MoD tried to tackle an estimated £1bn overspend for last year, as well as determine costs for the contracts that need to be signed for the changes set out in the SDSR. Downing Street has already conceded that if the armed forces are to become Future Force 2020 the MoD will need real-term budget increases from 2014/15 onwards. But defence officials were not sure how much extra money would be needed. In a series of secret meetings with top officials from the Treasury, Cabinet Office and No 10, the MoD argued it will need rises of inflation-plus-3% every year until 2020/21 to meet its targets. The Guardian understands the sums were not disputed. Without them the MoD will be unable to create Future Force 2020 within the timescale. If the MoD’s budget remains constant between 2014/15 and 2020/21 the department will be £20bn short of what it needs – at current prices. Allowing for inflation that rises to £25bn over six years. The MoD believes it has convinced officials across Whitehall that its problems are as great as it says. It does not want to set a precedent that other departments might seek to follow, and it points to the MoD’s well-earned reputation for mismanaging money as another reason not to make any commitments now. “The essential underlying problem remains the same,” said the source. “The chancellor doesn’t want to give defence any more money because if he makes a special case then what will happen next? “Every other department will be asking to be made a special case. But what the prime minister is not prepared to countenance is further cuts. Defence has been on this painful trajectory since the SDSR came out last year. “The only way the Treasury will move is if David Cameron comes down on the side of defence. The prime minister recognises that the MoD will need real term increases to meet the SDSR commitments.” Until then the permanent secretary at the MoD, Ursula Brennan, is stalling on signing contracts until she is sure she will have the money to pay for them. Professor Malcolm Chalmers, from the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, said there were “no easy choices left” and that the MoD needed to make decisions now about new tanks, submarines and aircraft. “Without an explicit commitment soon to significant real terms growth in defence spending between 2014 and 2020, the SDSR vision for UK forces in 2020 is not affordable. “Getting a commitment after the next election is too late unless the MoD is prepared to sign contracts without knowing whether it can afford to fund them. “If the defence budget does not grow significantly in real terms after 2014/15, there could be a six-year funding gap – between what is needed to fund Future Force 2020 and what is available – of around £25bn. “If decisions are not taken soon, either to approve significant real defence spending growth after 2014 or to make further cuts in capabilities, the MoD will become increasingly reluctant to approve new financial commitments.” Chalmers said the government had been “refreshingly frank” about the problems with the defence budget but if it could not commit to new spending “further difficult capability choices cannot be avoided”. The armed forces will have made redundant up to 17,000 servicemen and women by 2015, but further job losses are expected after the British mission in Afghanistan begins to wind down in the next parliament. Defence policy Military David Cameron George Osborne Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
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