US orders all non-essential diplomats to leave and urges all Americans to depart country as security conditions deteriorate The US has ordered all non-essential diplomats to leave Yemen and urged all Americans there to depart as security conditions deteriorate, with the country’s embattled leader refusing to step down. The decision to tell most non-essential personnel and the families of all American staff at the US embassy in Sana’a to leave was a sign of Washington’s increasing concern about the situation in Yemen, where street battles between supporters and opponents of the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, raged for a third day. The clashes have left at least 41 dead and dozens badly injured. “The security threat level in Yemen is extremely high due to terrorist activities and civil unrest,” the US state department said in its advisory. “There is ongoing civil unrest throughout the country and large-scale protests in major cities.” It noted that violent clashes were occurring in Sana’a, the capital, and “may escalate without notice”. The “ordered departure” notice came in a new travel warning for Yemen released as the Obama administration stepped up calls for Saleh to transfer power under an agreement negotiated by neighbouring Gulf states. Speaking in London earlier on Wednesday, the US president, Barack Obama, called on Saleh to “move immediately” to implement the agreement. Saleh has reneged three times on verbal commitments to step down. The earlier US travel alert for Yemen issued in March had allowed non-essential embassy staff and their families to leave at government expense. It had also urged Americans not to go to Yemen but had only told those already in the country to consider leaving. The new alert followed a defiant message from Saleh, who vowed not to step down or allow Yemen to become a “failed state”. His stance, combined with renewed fighting, sharply increased chances that Yemen’s three-month uprising could turn into a militia-led revolt after Arab mediation failed to end Saleh’s 32-year rule. “I will not leave power and I will not leave Yemen,” a spokesman, Ahmed al-Soufi, quoted Saleh as saying. He also took a direct swipe at US-backed efforts to negotiate his exit. “I don’t take orders from outside,” said Saleh’s statement, read by the spokesman in a meeting with tribal allies. “Yemen will not be a failed state. It will not turn into an al-Qaida refuge,” the statement added in another respone to western fears that chaos in Yemen would open the door for an al-Qaida offshoot to expand its operations. The Yemen-based cell, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, is linked to the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing of an airline over Detroit and explosives found in parcels intercepted last year in Dubai and Britain. Despite his tough talk, Saleh’s statement also promised he would try to keep the latest violence from “dragging the country into a civil war.” The clashes began on Monday after Saleh’s troops tried to storm the compound of the head of Yemen’s largest tribe, the Hashid. Hundreds of tribal fighters then responded with fierce attacks on government forces. United States Yemen Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest guardian.co.uk
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The former head of the International Monetary Fund has moved to a town house in Tribeca where he will remain under house arrest Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund leader, has moved from a temporary apartment to a luxurious townhouse where he will remain under house arrest as he awaits trial in his attempted rape case, officials said. The one-time French presidential contender was seen as he got into a gray sport utility vehicle under tight security. He was moved about a mile (1.6 kilometres) away from New York’s financial district to the stately red brick townhouse in Tribeca, according a person familiar with his housing arrangements. The building is close to the courthouse where he will attend hearings. Attorney William Taylor told reporters on Wednesday that his client was “doing fine” under house arrest. “Not much he can do,” Taylor said. Strauss-Kahn is free on $1 million bail under strict house arrest after prosecutors feared him a flight risk given his international status and wealth. He spent about a week in jail on Rikers Island after he was arrested on 14 May following accusations that he sexually assaulted a hotel maid in his room at the Sofitel near Manhattan’s Times Square. His lawyers maintain Strauss-Kahn is not guilty. Bail plans hit a snag late last week when tenants at the Upper East Side apartment building initially secured for his house arrest refused to accept him because of unwanted media attention. He was briefly housed at a high-rise near Wall Street, where a throng of media has been camped out at the building, broadcasting as his wife, former journalist Anne Sinclair, entered and left the building. Strauss-Kahn, who has no prior criminal record, is monitored by armed guards and wears an electronic bracelet, and his movements are recorded on camera. He will be allowed out for court, doctor’s visits and religious services. Prosecutors must be notified at least six hours before he goes anywhere, and he can’t be out between 10pm and 6am. Under his terms of house arrest, he can receive up to four visitors at a time besides family. The agreement is expected to cost him about $200,000 a month. The town house includes a state-of-the-art theatre, gym, spa and four bathrooms. Strauss-Kahn was pulled from a jetliner bound for Paris after the 32-year-old woman reported the alleged encounter to hotel staff. He resigned nearly a week ago from the IMF, saying in his resignation he said he wanted to protect the institution. “To all, I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me,” he said. Dominique Strauss-Kahn United States France Europe IMF New York guardian.co.uk
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Care Quality Commission says some NHS trusts do not provide dignity and nutrition for some senior citizen patients The NHS regulator today criticises the service for failing some elderly patients by giving them what the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, called “appalling levels of care” in hospital. Inspection reports compiled by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) take the health service to task for not respecting the privacy of some senior citizens receiving treatment or ensuring they eat properly. The reports reveal that three out of 12 hospitals in England where standards of dignity and nutrition for older patients were assessed in spot checks were not meeting the basic standards which they are legally obliged to deliver. The three trusts were Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS trust, the Ipswich Hospital NHS trust and the Royal Free Hampstead NHS trust in north London. CQC inspectors had less serious concerns about three other trusts, but found the other six were performing as they should. “While the reports document many examples of people being treated with respect and given personalised, attentive care, some tell a bleak story of people not being helped to eat and drink, with their care needs not assessed and their dignity not respected”, said the NHS watchdog for England. It found examples of: • Patients not being helped to eat meals, which meant some consumed no food. • Staff not assessing or monitoring patients’ nutritional needs, for example by not conducting regular checks of their weight or not identifying those who were malnourished. • People having too little to drink because fluids were left out of their reach or they received no fluids for a long time. One clinician had to prescribe water to a patient to ensure they got enough to drink. • Staff not treating patients respectfully, and patients being talked to in a condescending or dismissive way. • Staff not involving patients in their own care, for instance by not explaining treatment to them in advance or not seeking their consent. The CQC’s findings come after the Patients Association exposed appalling care received by some older patients and the charity Age UK’s Hungry to be Heard campaign, which revealed major weaknesses in NHS feeding practices, such as elderly patients becoming or remaining malnourished while in hospital. At the Royal Free Hospital, for example, inspectors found that staff did not always respond to patients pressing their bells – on one occasion when the person was at risk of falling our of bed – and heard complaints from patients that they were rarely asked if they had enough to drink. “The inspection teams have seen some exemplary care, but some hospitals are not even getting the basics right. That is unacceptable,” said Lansley. The NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said the failings identified by the CQC were “simply unacceptable”. “We in the NHS cannot tolerate the failure to meet minimum standards in any way, shape or form,” said Sir Keith Pearson, its chairman. Staff do not always honour the pledge on compassion in the NHS Constitution to “respond with humanity and kindness to each person’s pain, distress, anxiety or need”, he added. Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “Some of the concerns raised in this report are truly shocking and we are clear that there is simply no excuse for failing to treat patients with the respect and dignity they deserve.” All staff should be able to meet every patient’s and their family’s physical, social and emotional needs, he added. But Carter also warned that with ongoing job losses across the NHS, pressure on nurses’ time and too few staff to ensure patient safety, “frontline care is inevitably going to be affected.” “It is extremely worrying that a quarter of the first 12 hospitals to be spot-checked were non-compliant in both areas”, said Michelle Mitchell of Age UK. “It is also wholly unacceptable that some of the anecdotal evidence in the reports reveal distressing stories of medical staff having to prescribe water to ensure patients are hydrated and of some patients receiving treatment with little or no communication as to what is happening and why.” Although hospital staff recognise the importance of such care, more needs to be done to translate their words into action on wards, she added. Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association, called for the introduction of independent matrons – not employed by the NHS organisations where they worked – who could lobby on behalf of patients for changes to be made if they came across examples of sub-standard care. NHS Health Older people Health policy Public services policy Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The many rewards of bigotry: Why right-wing ‘libertarianism’ on race is a lie — and a cover
May 25, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media We’ve all heard any number of right-wing “libertarians” who cling to the fantasy that the magic of the marketplace would eventually magically erase racial discrimination as a business practice, if only we would let it work. That’s why you’ll hear Ron Paul ardently contend that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was bad law, since it forced private business owners to cease discriminating on the basis of race. It’s how a guy like John Stossel can argue with a straight face that if there hadn’t been any government loans at all, black farmers wouldn’t have been discriminated against. Of course, what really happens when modern business owners engage in open displays of bigotry is a very different dynamic: First, they attract attention to their previously anonymous business. When news gets around, they are interviewed by right-wing talk-show hosts and their story featured by all varieties of right-wing apologists, employing a variety of shopworn rationales (i.e., they are pals with all kinds of minorities, it’s not intended to discourage minorities, it’s just a straight business practice, blah blah blah). — Then their business gets a huge boost from white customers who flock to the place in support as a kind of racial political statement. Eventually they get an appearance on Fox News and perhaps CNN and become mini-national celebrities, and their businesses prosper even more wildly. You can see that dynamic at work in the case of the Reedy Creek Family Diner in Lexington, N.C., where the owner — frustrated by some failed and angry interactions with Latino customers who spoke no English — post a sign declaring: “No Speak English, No Service”. Sure enough, soon its owner — an amiable-seeming fellow named Greg Simons — was being interviewed by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and putting the sign back up after initially taking it down . Then writers like Esther Cepeda chimed in, describing it all as just a misunderstanding: He says he never meant to imply that people who don’t speak English fluently are not welcome in his restaurant or that such diners would be denied service if some other language was spoken at the table. He just wanted patrons to know that his staff is monolingual. Simons’ story is that a few weeks ago, on separate occasions, two different groups of Spanish-only speakers came into his Southern comfort food restaurant. Despite his best efforts at pointing and miming, he could not take their order. In both cases, the frustrated diners left in a torrent of Spanish-language cussing, which Simons recognized as a snub because, as the great-grandson of French Canadian and Swedish immigrants, he knows “enough French and Spanish to know when I’m being insulted.” That’s when Simons put up the sign. First, ironically, just in English and then in the five other languages, so as to not single out any particular ethnic group in a state that has seen its Latino population explode by 111 percent in the last decade to total 8.4 percent. Once the media firestorm began, Simons, who describes himself as a multiculturally aware guy who dates women of other races and maintains friendships with Latinos and other minorities, says he got a handful of nasty calls, including a bomb threat. He was then humbled by an outpouring of support from people who were angered that anyone would be labeled a racist for demanding communication in English. I’m sorry, but a sign declaring “No Speak English, No Service” is a sign declaring non-English speakers unwelcome in any language — and no amount of mealy-mouthed weasel words can alter that fact. Nor can a handful of the most stereotypically vapid excuses — “Some of my best friends are Latinos”. But notice how the libertarian “post racial” fantasy doesn’t exactly work out? Instead of this business owner being shamed and suffering a loss of business, the right-wing need to declare that liberals are “waving the bloody shirt” any time they attempt to hold people responsible for their bigoted speech actually ensures that these people not only won’t be hurt, they will prosper tremendously for it. (Tim Wise has another example of this. ) Moreover, such is the state of modern conservatism that it thoroughly embraces these libertarian “post-racial” fantasies about how all would be swell if we just let capitalism work its magic, now that everyone knows that ethnic, religious and sexual bigotry are bad things — even in the face of overwhelming factual evidence, both historical and current, that just the opposite is true: Bigotry can be very a lucrative way of doing business. It can also be a very powerful political strategy when tendered with dog whistles and subtle racial appeals — particularly to white Americans’ fears that they are being racially overwhelmed. An anonymous member of Congress who writes for Huffington Post under the nom de plume “Anonymous Radicalized Marginal Democratic House Member” expressed this vividly the other day when explaining why Democrats have been so impotent when it comes to moving any kind of immigration legislation forward: “Easy: because desperate Republicans two years ago had to swap dog whistles for bull horns to reach their virulent nativist base voters, and now nativism has become a litmus test for Republicans. “Anti-immigrant groups were building blocks of the Tea Party. Tea Party Republicans foam at the mouth when they have to press one for English.They want to arrest and deport anyone buying Tecate beer with cash at WalMart. It’s the culture, stupid.” Indeed, just the other day, Science Daily reported on a study finding that whites now believe they are the victims of racism more than blacks! Whites believe that they have replaced blacks as the primary victims of racial discrimination in contemporary America, according to a new study from researchers at Tufts University’s School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School. The findings, say the authors, show that America has not achieved the “post-racial” society that some predicted in the wake of Barack Obama’s election. Both whites and blacks agree that anti-black racism has decreased over the last 60 years, according to the study. However, whites believe that anti-white racism has increased and is now a bigger problem than anti-black racism. “It’s a pretty surprising finding when you think of the wide range of disparities that still exist in society, most of which show black Americans with worse outcomes than whites in areas such as income, home ownership, health and employment,” said Tufts Associate Professor of Psychology Samuel Sommers, Ph.D., co-author of “Whites See Racism as a Zero-sum Game that They Are Now Losing,” which appears in the May 2011 issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. Sommers and co-author Michael I. Norton of Harvard asked a nation-wide sample of 208 blacks and 209 whites to indicate the extent to which they felt blacks and whites were the targets of discrimination in each decade from the 1950s to the 2000s. A scale of 1 to 10 was used, with 1 being “not at all” and 10 being “very much.” White and black estimates of bias in the 1950s were similar. Both groups acknowledged little racism against whites at that time but substantial racism against blacks. Respondents also generally agreed that racism against blacks has decreased over time, although whites believed it has declined faster than blacks do. However, whites believed that racism against whites has increased significantly as racism against blacks has decreased. On average, whites rated anti-white bias as more prevalent in the 2000s than anti-black bias by more than a full point on the 10-point scale. Moreover, some 11 percent of whites gave anti-white bias the maximum rating of 10 compared to only 2 percent of whites who rated anti-black bias a 10. Blacks, however, reported only a modest increase in their perceptions of “reverse racism.” “These data are the first to demonstrate that not only do whites think more progress has been made toward equality than do blacks, but whites also now believe that this progress is linked to a new inequality — at their expense,” note Norton and Sommers. Whites see racial equality as a zero sum game, in which gains for one group mean losses for the other. You can read the entire study here. [PDF] This is part of a mindset that has been cultivated by — indeed, it seems endemic to — conservatives: namely, that race is a zero-sum game. It was expressed perhaps most succinctly by Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions when he was accusing Sonia Sotomayor of being prejudiced (with nary a whiff of irony): Call it empathy, call it prejudice, or call it sympathy, but whatever it is, it’s not law. In truth it’s more akin to politics, and politics has no place in the courtroom. … That is, of course, the logical flaw in the empathy standard. Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another. As long as one of our major political parties is the host and breeding ground of this kind of worldview, there’s going to be a racial divide in this country. And liberals who want to grasp onto the starry-eyed fantasies of “post racial” politics had better figure that out too.
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The president redefines the role of the US and its allies with a stirring speech to both houses of parliament in Westminster Hall Barack Obama has put America and Europe unambiguously on the side of those fighting for freedom across the Middle East, saying the west can remain “the catalysts for global action”, ending a decade of war, terrorism and terrible recession. “The time for our leadership is now,” he asserted, challenging the notion that the west was in inexorable decline. In the centrepiece of a day of extraordinary theatre and pomp, Obama, the first American president to address both houses of parliament in Westminster Hall, sought to redefine the role of the US and its allies. He developed his foreign policy doctrine by arguing that the Arab spring showed the west need no longer fear that its interests and ideals were in conflict. Accepting the west had to overcome mistrust in the region, he said western leaders had come to recognise “repression only offers the false promises of stability, that societies are more successful when their citizens are free and that democracies are the closest allies we have”. But he sought to distance himself from George W Bush’s military simplicities in Iraq, insisting: “We will proceed with humility and the knowledge that we cannot dictate outcomes abroad. Ultimately freedom must be won by people themselves.” Obama’s speech came hours after a joint news conference with David Cameron in which they renewed their calls for Muammar Gaddafi to stand aside. But there were differences in tone, with Cameron saying they should be “turning up the heat” on the Libyan leader, while Obama called for patience and cautioned against artificial timelines. In addition, the US president did not explicitly call for regime change, saying “at minimum” the requirement was “to make sure Gaddafi does not have the capacity to send in a bunch of thugs to murder innocent civilians”. He also sought to dispel as a false perception the suggestion that the US military restraint was preventing a quick fix in Libya, denying that “there are a whole bunch of secret super-effective air assets in a warehouse somewhere that could just be pulled out and that would immediately solve the situation in Libya”. But in the more lofty context of his speech in Westminster Hall, Obama portrayed Libya as a test case of the west’s responsibility to stand up for universal rights. He said: “It would have been easy to argue that nation’s sovereignty is more important than the slaughter of citizens within its borders. “While we cannot stop every injustice, there are circumstances that cut through our caution – when a leader is threatening to massacre his people and the international community is calling for action. That is why we stopped a massacre in Libya. And we will not relent until the people of Libya are protected, and the shadow of tyranny is lifted.” From the beaches of Normandy to the Balkans and to Benghazi, he found a linear path through history, arguing that Britain and America had consistently rejected the notion that “people in certain parts of the world don’t want to be free or need to have democracy imposed on them”. But he warned that the struggle in the Middle East might be long, saying it would be years before these revolutions reached their conclusions. Paraphrasing the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, he reminded his audience: “Power rarely gives up without a fight, particularly in places where there are divisions of tribe and sect. We also know that populism can take dangerous turns – from the extremism of those who would use democracy to deny minority rights, to the nationalism that left so many scars on this continent in the 20th century.” Obama tempered some of his idealism by admitting that America had a strategic self-interest in the Middle East. “We must squarely acknowledge that we have enduring interests in the region: to fight terror with partners who may not always be perfect, and to protect against disruptions in the world’s energy supply.” The speech to 500 parliamentarians – including Cameron and three former prime ministers, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and John Major – reached its climax when the US president argued that both Britain and America, unusually, defined their nationhood “not through race or ethnicity, but by a belief in the rights of individuals and the rule of law”. Despite the tensions caused by waves of immigration, he said: “The example of our two nations says it is possible for people to be united by their ideals, instead of divided by their differences.” In Obama’s most optimistic passage, and the only one that drew applause in the stately surroundings, he argued that both nations believed “it is possible for hearts to change and old hatreds to pass, that it is possible for the sons and daughters of former colonies to sit here as members of this great parliament, and for the grandson of a Kenyan who served as a cook in the British army to stand before you as president of the United States”. Away from the speechmaking, Cameron and Obama met for 90 minutes in Downing Street first alone and then alongside the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, the foreign secretary, William Hague, and the chancellor, George Osborne. The talks centred on Afghanistan, North Africa, Israel and the world economy. The prime minister will have been delighted with the pictures of the two men sharing table tennis and a barbecue, and Obama’s assertion that he had come to trust Cameron’s’s judgment through two dozen phone calls. He will have been disappointed, though, that the president did not take up the chance to endorse the coalition’s speedy and deep deficit reduction strategy. Instead he emphasised the differences between the two countries, saying: “Obviously the nature and role of the public sector in the United Kingdom is different than it has been in the United States. The pressures that each country are under from world capital markets are different, the nature of the debt and deficits are different and, as a consequence, the sequencing or pace may end up being different.” But Cameron sought to emphasise the similarities, saying: “When I look across now and see what the US and the UK are contemplating for the future, it is a relatively similar programme in terms of trying to get on top of our deficit and make sure that debt is falling as a share of GDP.” Obama also made clear that he did not think the UN should prematurely recognise Palestine as an independent state. He said: “The United Nations can achieve a lot of useful work but what the UN is not going to be able to do is to deliver a Palestinian state, so I strongly believe that for the Palestinians to take a UN route rather than sitting down and talking with Israel is a mistake.” He also seemed to tack to the Israelis, following his speech calling for a settlement based on 1967 borders, by arguing that it would be difficult currently for Israel to talk to the Palestinians. He said: “Hamas has not renounced violence. Hamas is an organisation that has thus far rejected the recognition of Israel as a legitimate state. It is very difficult for Israelis to sit across the table and negotiate with a party that is denying your right to exist, and has not renounced the right to send missiles and rockets into your territory.” Barack Obama Arab and Middle East unrest Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Residents flee capital city of Sana’a as bloody clashes continue over future of President Ali Abdullah Saleh Yemen’s president has vowed to resist pressure from armed opposition tribes after a third day of bloody clashes in the capital, Sana’a, insisting he will not step down or leave the country. Residents are fleeing the city in large numbers amid gun battles which have already killed at least 50 people, with the airport also choked with foreign nationals trying to escape. Fears of civil war were fanned further late on Wednesday as troops loyal to the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, began firing on defecting government forces. Saleh said he would not allow Yemen to become a “failed state” or a refuge for al-Qaida. “I will not leave power and I will not leave Yemen,” he said in a brief statement released by aides. Saleh also rounded on the US, a former ally which is pressuring him to leave office, saying: “I don’t take orders from outside.” He also pledged to stop the violence “dragging the country into a civil war”. In a severe escalation to the three-month-long uprising against the president’s 33-year rule, government security forces have waged gun battles in recent days against fighters loyal to Yemen’s most powerful tribal leader, who has backed calls for the president’s removal. Gunfire continued in streets around the heavily defended mansion of Sadiq al-Ahmar, head of the Saleh’s own Hashid tribal federation. Some tribal fighters remain holed up in the munitions-marker compound in the eastern neighbourhood of Hasaba, but others now control nearby streets, covering a series of government buildings. In the north of the capital Saleh’s troops opened fire on the 1st armoured brigade, under the command of a former loyalist, Major General Ali Mohsin. Following a shelling on Tuesday night which killed 10 tribesman Ahmar’s compound was in disarray, with burned-out 4×4 vehicles in the courtyard, a swimming pool filled with rubble and camels and peacocks wandering about amid the confusion. The tribal fighters nonetheless remain well supplied. Toyota pickup trucks filled with cartons of juice, fig rolls and boxes of ammunition entered the compound throughout the day. The conflict appears to be the climax of long-souring relations between the president and the Ahmar clan, which are believed to be bankrolling the opposition as well as supporting the upkeep of the hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters camping out in Sana’a. The conflict is steadily escalating, with both sides occupying more ground and bombarding the other more frequently, using a combination of machine guns, snipers and mortars. “Saleh would like to start a war on the tribes,” said Muhammad Abdel Qadhi, a sheikh the president’s own tribe, the Sanhan. “But he will fail. No leader in Yemen has ever been able to defeat the tribes.” The chaos in the capital has prompted many locals to flee, with long lines of cars lining up on roads leaving the city, bags piled high on their roofs. “It’s no longer possible to stay in Sana’a. The confrontations will reach all parts of the city,” said one driver, Murad Abdullah, heading out of the city. Rivalling Pakistan and Afghanistan as an incubator of and shelter for al-Qaida, Yemen shows signs of becoming a serious international threat. Even before the popular uprising, its economy was prostrate and the government, reliant on foreign aid and dwindling revenue from oil, was running out of the cash needed to keep its patronage system going. The clashes, in the sandbagged streets surrounding Ahmar’s compound in Sana’s, erupted after Saleh refused on Sunday at the last minute to sign the Gulf-brokered deal that would ease him out of power within a month. Although he has backed out of previous deals, the latest turnabout was the one that most angered mediators, since loyalist gunmen had earlier trapped western and Arab diplomats in the United Arab Emirates embassy for several hours. Saleh, however, claims that the deal remained on the table. “I am ready to sign within a national dialogue and a clear mechanism,” he said. “If the mechanism is sound, we will sign the transition of power deal and we will give up power.” The opposition had warned that attacks by loyalist forces could trigger a civil war and crush hopes for a political solution to the revolt, inspired by protests that swept aside the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. The next step, according to one analyst, could be the intervention of neighbouring Saudi Arabia to bring about Saleh’s exit and avoid civil war. “Riyadh will not keep watching for long. They have their own network with tribal leaders in Yemen. The next step will be strong intervention from Riyadh to defuse the tension,” said Khaled Fattah a researcher at the University of St Andrews. Saleh, he added, “has reached the stage when he is unable to defuse the tension domestically and [is causing more] headaches than before. So I think the Saudis will interfere in the coming few days.” Yemen Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Peter Walker Matthew Weaver Tom Finn guardian.co.uk
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Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles says General Petraeus has increased levels of violence and should be ashamed of himself Britain’s former ambassador to Afghanistan has attacked the conduct of the war by the US commander, General David Petraeus, describing the future CIA chief’s tactics as counter-productive and “profoundly wrong”. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who also served as the UK’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, added that Petraeus should be “ashamed of himself” for making claims of the number of insurgent commanders his forces had killed. “He has increased the violence, trebled the number of special forces raids by British, American, Dutch and Australian special forces going out killing Taliban commanders, and there has been a lot more rather regrettable boasting from the military about the body count,” said Cowper-Coles. He added that the use of statistics was reminiscent of the Vietnam war. “It is profoundly wrong and it’s not conducive to a stable political settlement.” Petraeus is due to leave Afghanistan to become CIA director this summer. Since taking command of US and coalition troops in Afghanistan last June, he has increased the use of special forces raids and drone attacks against Taliban commanders. Earlier this year, Petraeus told Congress that his forces were killing or capturing 360 insurgent leaders every three months. His officers argue that the tactic is demoralising the Taliban and will ultimately make the movement more likely to agree to a peace deal on the terms of Kabul and the west. Cowper-Coles insists the tactic will make it harder for the west to find a political settlement and end the war. “There is no doubt that Petraeus has hammered the Taliban extremely hard,” he said. “I am sure that some of them are more willing to parlay. But, equally, for every dead Pashtun warrior, there will be 10 pledged to revenge. “Of course it produces tactical success in cleansing insurgents out of particular areas, but it’s essentially moving water around a puddle, and I think any general who boasts of the number of Pashtun insurgents he’s killed should be ashamed of himself.” He added: “Regrettably, General Petraeus has curiously ignored his own principles of counter-insurgency in the field manual, which speaks of politics being the predominant factor in dealing with an insurgency.” He compared the US commander unfavourably with his predecessor, General Stanley McChrystal, whose central approach was to protect Afghan civilians, even if meant greater caution in the pursuit of the Taliban. Alongside the former foreign secretary, David Miliband, Cowper-Coles focused his efforts while UK special envoy on persuading the Obama administration to concentrate on a political settlement and start talking to the Taliban. Some reports suggest that Washington has initiated such contacts. But British officials say that Marc Grossman, the US special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan leading the outreach effort, is having trouble finding any credible Taliban representatives to engage in even talks about talks. Few serving British and European officials are as critical of Petraeus as Cowper-Coles. Most argue that the Taliban have to be put under some kind of focused military pressure to persuade them that a negotiated settlement was in their interest. However, there is growing unease in Whitehall that, despite orders to the contrary from Obama and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, the military effort was still taking priority. “There are different parts of the Washington establishment who are pulling in different ways,” one official said. “But as long as Petraeus is in Kabul, the military approach will take precedence.” Petraeus is expected to leave Afghanistan in September. In any case, there are few expectations of much progress towards contacts with the Taliban until at least the end of the summer fighting season. Most serving officials are also less confident than Cowper-Coles that senior ranks in the Taliban are interested in a political settlement. “In 2011, there have been more feelers coming out from more senior people, but there is no solid evidence that anyone in the movement has been tasked with finding a route to peace,” one official said. There have been several backdoor attempts to draw the movement into a dialogue, but they have made little progress. “Why would they negotiate?” asked Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit and an expert on the Taliban. “They are winning; they are no longer ostracised in the Islamic world for links to Osama bin Laden. Why would you throw that away?” But Scheuer, the author of a new book on Bin Laden, said that Petraeus’s “decapitation” approach was also unlikely to work.”The Red Army tried that for 10 years, and they were far more ruthless and cruel about it than us, and it didn’t work so well for them,” Scheuer said. Afghanistan David Petraeus Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
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Jet plane crewed by two BA pilots and two engineers flies through ‘red-zone’ hanging above Scotland British Airways flight 9271E had an unconventional cargo and destination. There were no passengers on the A320 aeroplane, which took off on Tuesday evening and flew north through a swath of UK airspace that contained, according to Met Office forecasts, a high density of volcanic ash. Crewed by two BA pilots and a pair of observers from the airline’s engineering department, the jet flew at various altitudes through a “red-zone” that hung above much of Scotland and had grounded thousands of travellers beneath it. There was no special monitoring equipment onboard, except for two cameras that were brought to record evidence of ash clouds but were in the end not needed. “We did not have any specialist equipment, hence the observers to put some additional eyeballs onboard with the ability to walk up and down the cabin in case we smelled anything,” said Garry Copeland, BA’s director of engineering who was on the flight. Copeland said there was no evidence of volcanic pollution throughout a 45-minute trip that charted a course from Manchester to Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London Heathrow, flying through the red zone much of the time. Asked if he was apprehensive while the plane waited to be cleared for take-off, Copeland said: “Not at all. We took it very seriously but not in terms of any safety concerns. We were very confident that we were not going to encounter any heavy ash.”After the flight the A320′s twin engines, equipped with new filters, were inspected with the type of telescopic video camera that is also used in pinhole surgery, again finding no evidence of contamination. BA had scrutinised weather maps from various forecasting organisations and was sure that there would be no ash, despite different predictions from the Met Office’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in Exeter. “As an engineer, my way of doing business is to make sure we use all the tools available,” said Copeland, adding that BA was not disregarding the VAAC model but wanted to include other forecasts. Under the current guidelines, UK airlines must abide by VAAC forecasts whereas US and Middle Eastern airlines use predictions by forecaster WSI, which pointed to lower densities of ash. “We wanted to fly in an area of forecast heavy ash to ensure that our procedures for avoiding dense ash were resilient,” he added. The flight had been cleared by the Civil Aviation Authority, the UK’s aviation safety regulator. Copeland added that BA pilots are well-versed in avoiding ash because their aircraft often fly routes where volcanic eruptions are a potential hazard. “The primary guidance is to avoid flying in visible ash, which shows up as a dark cloud. In times when it is not visible, such as in the dark, you can sense a sulphuric smell or see indications of static electricity, like a bluish glow,” he said. BA hopes that the verification flight will define high-density zones more closely, allowing airlines to fly through areas that are, in fact, uncontaminated. “The intention is to find safe ways of continuing operations,” said Copeland. “As engineers we are hard-wired to do that.” Iceland volcano 2011 (Grimsvotn) Iceland Natural disasters and extreme weather Airline industry British Airways Travel & leisure Dan Milmo guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Freedom of information laws are used to harass scientists, says Nobel laureate
May 25, 2011 No Comment
Sir Paul Nurse says climate scientists are being targeted by campaigns of requests designed to slow down their research Freedom of information laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society. Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse told the Guardian that some climate scientists were being targeted by organised campaigns of requests for data and other research materials, aimed at intimidating them and slowing down research. He said the behaviour was turning freedom of information laws into a way to intimidate some scientists. Nurse’s comments follow the launch of a major Royal Society study into how scientists’ work can be made more open and better used to inform policy in society. The review – expected to be published next year – will examine ways of improving access to scientific data and research papers and how “digital media offer a powerful means for the public to interrogate, question and re-analyse scientific priorities, evidence and conclusions”. Nurse said that, in principle, scientific information should be made available as widely as possible as a matter of course, a practice common in biological research where gene sequences are routinely published in public databases. But he said freedom of information had “opened a Pandora’s box. It’s released something that we hadn’t imagined … there have been cases of it being misused in the climate change debate to intimidate scientists. “I have been told of some researchers who are getting lots of requests for, among other things, all drafts of scientific papers prior to their publication in journals, with annotations, explaining why changes were made between successive versions. If it is true, it will consume a huge amount of time. And it’s intimidating.” It was possible some requests were designed simply to stop scientists working rather than as a legitimate attempt to get research data, said Nurse. “It is essential that scientists are as open and transparent as possible and, where they are not, they should be held to account. But at times this appears to be being used as a tool to stop scientists doing their work. That’s going to turn us into glue. We are just not going to be able to operate efficiently.” Nurse said the government should examine the issue, and think about tweaking freedom of information legislation to recognise potential misuse. Otherwise, he predicted, FoI aggression could be in future used by campaigners to cripple scientific research in many other controversial areas of science, such as genetically modified crops. “I don’t actually know the answer but I think we have a problem here. We need better guidelines about when the use of freedom of information is useful.” Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics said the intention of many of those making freedom of information requests was to trawl through scientists’ work with the intention of trying to find problems and errors. “It’s also quite true that these people do not care about the fact that it is causing a serious inconvenience,” he said. “It is being used in an aggressive and organised way. When freedom of information legislation was first contemplated, it was not being considered that universities would be landed with this additional burden.” Evidence of the aggression first began to emerge when personal emails and documents were stolen from the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) servers in November 2009 and leaked on to the internet. Climate sceptics seized on the contents as evidence that apparently showed scientists were colluding to keep errors in their research hidden and prevent rivals’ research from being published at all. In an independent inquiry a year later, the scientists at the UEA’s climatic research unit (CRU) were cleared of any misconduct , but Muir Russell, the former civil servant who led the investigation, found a “consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness”, although he stressed he had no reason to doubt the CRU team’s honesty or integrity. “The current fog of ambiguity concerning, for example, drafts of research papers produced in other countries is deeply damaging to our scientific standing,” said Tom Ward, pro vice-chancellor at UEA. “Part of the discussion should be informed by what we can learn from Scottish and US law, which explicitly recognise the need to extend some protection to research in progress.” Myles Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, said he has been involved in many long-running exchanges with people making freedom of information requests for his data. “In the case that went on the longest, I answered all the guy’s questions. I spent half a day writing a long email explaining the answers to all his questions, but it wasn’t really that which he was after: he was after some procedural questions about IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. He wanted some evidence that an IPCC statement had been changed – it wasn’t about science at all; it was about procedure.” He added: “I can see what someone with a very specific political comment might gain from an unguarded comment, but it’s very hard to see how science or public understanding of science gains from every exchange between scientists being made public. No other discipline operates in that way. The net effect of this, incidentally, is that senior people in government and senior scientists close to government are basically just using the telephone again. Which is very bad for science because email exchanges are an extremely useful record.” Nurse said that scientists were not blameless. At the University of East Anglia, they were too defensive in their responses to freedom of information requests over climate change, but their experience was one among many that highlighted a need for better training for scientists in the most appropriate way to respond to information requests. Ward agreed that most universities do not have a very good grasp of the requirements of freedom of information law. But he added that researchers should be able to have confidential conversations with colleagues and researchers in other universities, and that it was increasingly difficult for researchers to do that by email. “There’s no other walk of life where every conversation you have ought to be made public,” he said. “There’s a massive double standards because a lot of the people submitting these requests are themselves not transparent at all. They don’t reveal their sources of funding or the details of what they’re doing behind the scenes.” He added that the best way for scientists to respond was with more openness. “Scientists are going to have to get used to the idea that transparency means being transparent to your critics as well as your allies. You cannot pick and choose to whom you are transparent,” he said. “Increasingly it is going to be an issue for anyone working in contentious areas. Part of retaining the public’s confidence and trust is transparency and openness, and scientists should accept that that is part of the price of having the people’s trust.” Freedom of information Climate change Royal Society University of East Anglia Higher education Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
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Get your box of Kleenex and prepare for an hour of schmooze, tears and backslaps with Hadley Freeman 8.00pm: Evening all or, if you’re reading this in America, good afternoon. And if you’re reading this in Australia, good morrow! So perhaps the Rapture didn’t happen on Saturday but the end of the world will be happening this evening Well, the end of The Oprah Winfrey Show after 25 years, anyway, which is OBVIOUSLY THE SAME THING. So get your box of Kleenex or, if you are less sentimentally inclined, vomit bag and prepare for an hour of schmooze, tears and backslaps. I’ll be liveblogging from the start of the show at 9pm GMT, Kleenexes strewn across my sofa. Oprah Winfrey United States Hadley Freeman guardian.co.uk
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