Staff close Beijing shop after scuffle breaks out in frenzy to buy newly launched white iPhone 4 A fight broke out between an employee and a customer at an Apple store in China’s capital amid a frenzy to buy the newly launched white iPhone 4, a witness said. Wang Ming, 30, said the scuffle at the Apple store in Beijing’s Sanlitun district on Saturday was between a “foreign” Apple staffer and a Chinese customer. An Apple spokeswoman in China, Carolyn Wu, said the store “was closed for several hours on Saturday after a group outside the store became unruly”. “The store team acted to protect themselves and our customers by closing the doors and preventing the group from entering,” Wu said. “The safety of our customers and employees is our top priority.” She would not provide more details. Reports on some Chinese news websites said three or four customers were injured. Wang said he had walked out of the store and was passing by the scuffle when a bottle hit his head, causing a gash. Demand for the iPhone and iPad in China has been high, with some iPhones being bought to resell at higher prices. Apple reported quarterly results for its 321 worldwide shops in January showing that on average those in China clocked the highest traffic and revenue per store. Most of the revenue came from iPhone and iPad sales. The California-based company said then that the quarterly revenue from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan was $2.6bn, about 10% of its total revenue and four times the year-earlier figure. Apple iPhone Mobile phones China guardian.co.uk
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The Hamaoka nuclear plant, which sits near a major fault line in Shizuoka prefecture, is considered Japan’s most vulnerable nuclear facility The operator of Japan’s “most dangerous” nuclear plant is to decide whether to comply with a government request to temporarily close the facility and carry out work to improve its ability to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis. Chubu Electric is considering the request to close the Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka prefecture, central Japan, which is thought to be the country’s most vulnerable nuclear facility. Located 125 miles west of Tokyo, it sits near a major fault line in a region where seismologists say there is an 87% chance of an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or higher striking in the next 30 years. Fears are mounting in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis that another large quake and tsunami could cause radiation leaks that, depending on wind direction, could have a serious impact on the capital. The issue of the Hamaoka plant was raised as concern grows over a dramatic rise in the temperature inside a reactor building at Fukushima Daiichi, scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. The temperature inside the pressure vessel of the No 3 reactor rose to 217C on Sunday evening from 163C on Saturday morning. But the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], said that was still lower than the 286C observed during normal operations, adding that it would continue to monitor the unit. The No 3 reactor is of particular concern because it contains plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel – or MOX – and would release highly toxic plutonium in the event of a meltdown. Japan’s prime minister, Naoto Kan, has bowed to pressure from the public and key scientific advisers and asked Chubu Electric to immediately shut down Hamaoka’s two working reactors. A third reactor has been shut down for inspection and two others are being decommissioned. If Kan’s request is accepted, the plant would remain closed while a tsunami-resistant wall is built and emergency backup generators installed to improve its ability to function after a natural disaster. Company officials estimate it will take two to three years to build a 12-metre-high tsunami wall stretching nearly a mile along the Pacific coast. At present the plant is protected by sand hills high enough to withstand an 8-metre tsunami. The waves that knocked out the power at Fukushima Daiichi were at least 14 metres high. About 79,800 people live within a 6-mile (10km) radius of the Hamaoka plant. While Kan’s order is not legally binding, Chubu Electric is expected to comply, despite concerns that the closure of its only nuclear plant could cause power shortages in central Japan this summer. The three functioning reactors at Hamaoka, which supplies power to 16 million people, including the nearby headquarters of carmakers Toyota and Suzuki, account for more than 10% of its power supply. Chubu Electric estimates peak demand this summer will run at about 26m kilowatts, with output at 30m kilowatts provided the reactors are running. The firm is examining the possibility of boosting output from gas, oil and coal- fired plants, as well as buying in power from other utilities. Chubu Electric’s chairman, Toshio Mita, is in Qatar to discuss the possible provision of liquefied natural gas to help cover the shortfall. The government indicated over the weekend that Japan was committed to nuclear power, despite the Fukushima Daiichi accident and growing public disquiet. Kan said the proposed Hamaoka shutdown was an “exceptional case” given its vulnerability to quake and tsunami damage. “If an accident occurs at Hamaoka, it could have serious consequences,” he said, adding there were no plans to shut any more of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors. “Our energy policy is to stick to nuclear power,” Yoshito Sengoku, the deputy chief cabinet secretary, told reporters. Tepco appears to making progress in reaching its self-imposed deadline of between six and nine months to stabilise the Fukushima Daiichi plant and achieve “cold shutdown”. Workers could soon be able to enter the No 1 reactor building to install new cooling systems, the company said, after readings showed a drop in radiation levels. Contamination levels inside the building have fallen sufficiently to allow workers in protective clothing to enter for short periods, the country’s nuclear safety agency said, adding that the doors to the building were opened Sunday night to promote ventilation. Workers entered early Monday morning to check radiation levels ahead of a decision on whether to proceed with work to install cooling systems. Japan disaster Japan Nuclear power Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The readers’ editor on … a day of too much pomp and circumstance Complaints to the Guardian’s readers’ editor, and the paper’s letters’ page, about the royal wedding coverage convey a general sense that the Guardian has betrayed a long-standing history of republicanism. Not so. Certainly not the “long-standing” bit, anyway. Ian Mayes , the paper’s first readers’ editor, who is now writing a history of the Guardian, tells me that it was only 11 years ago that the Guardian came out for a republic: “The Guardian’s first real trawl through the issue was a week of features starting 7 January 1995 under the general heading, “The New Republic: an important Guardian series on what Britain would be like without a monarchy”. A leader to launch it said: “This paper has always been agnostic about the monarchy and remains so.”
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12-year-old boy reported killed as residents describe hearing gunfire and shelling President Bashar al-Assad has sent tanks deep into Syria’s third city, Homs, escalating a military campaign to crush a seven-week-old uprising against his autocratic rule. Syrians demanding political freedom and an end to corruption have held weeks of what they say are peaceful demonstrations in the face of government repression, despite a civilian death toll that has reached 800, according to the Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah. On Sunday, residents in Homs said they heard machine-gun fire and shelling as troops made their first incursion into residential areas of the city of 1 million people, 100 miles north of Damascus. At least one person, a 12-year-old child, was killed when tanks and troops went into the Bab Sebaa, Bab Amro and Tal al-Sour districts of Homs during the night, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “The areas have been under total siege since yesterday,” the organisation said. “There is a total blackout on the numbers of dead and injured. Telecommunications and electricity are repeatedly being cut in those districts.” Elsewhere, a witness said security forces killed at least two unarmed demonstrators when they fired on a night rally in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor. Assad has made clear he will not tolerate dissent or risk losing the tight control his family has had over the country for the past 41 years. The pro-democracy upheaval that began in Deraa on 18 March, inspired by similar revolts across the Arab world, intensified on Friday across Hauran, an agricultural belt bordering Jordan to the south and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to the west. In the south, tanks swept into several towns on Sunday. A man was killed when security forces broke into his home in the southern town of Tafas, a rights campaigner in the region said. A Jordanian statesman, Adnan Abu Oudeh, said two models had emerged during the Arab democratic revolution. “Egypt and Tunisia, where there is an established concept of the state and of the army as an institution of the state … and the Libyan and Yemeni model. “Syria belongs to the latter,” said Abu Oudeh, who is a board member of the International Crisis Group, an independent conflict resolution group. An opposition figure said that even if the half a million members of Syria’s army and other security forces, which are led by officers of the Alawite minority to which Assad belongs, continued to obey the 45-year-old president, he would not be able to crush the growing popular hostility to his rule. “The shocks of the military campaign are being absorbed,” he said. “We have seen that as soon as the army withdraws or lessens its presence in one area to crush people elsewhere, protests erupt in the area the forces had left. Assad is using Israeli tactics, but will not be able to occupy all of Syria with his loyalists.” Protesters are demanding political freedoms, an end to corruption and the departure of Assad. Syrian authorities have blamed the protests on “armed terrorist groups” they say are operating in Deraa, Banias, Homs and other parts of the country. The official state news agency said an “armed gang”, a term used of opponents of the government, had ambushed a bus near Homs and shot dead 10 civilian workers returning from Lebanon. Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad Protest Middle East guardian.co.uk
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• Barclays sets aside £1bn to cover compensation • British Bankers Association drops case • Payment protection insurance wrongly sold to millions One of the UK banking industry’s most serious mis-selling scandals in decades is drawing to a close, after the banks abandoned their legal challenge against compensating customers who were mis-sold payment protection insurance. Barclays became the first of the major UK banks to apologise for its role in the £9bn debacle as the British Bankers Association announced on Monday morning that it is dropping its appeal against tougher controls on how PPI is sold. With the legal battle over, UK banks will now begin in earnest the task of identifying victims and making redress. The move comes just four days after Lloyds Banking Group stunned the City by putting £3.2bn aside to cover compensation claims relating to PPI, which was wrongly sold to millions of customers since the late 1990s. This was roughly double the previous estimate. Barclays, which had a smaller share of the PPI market than Lloyds, is taking a £1bn provision to cover its PPI bill. Chief executive Bob Diamond said Barclays had decided to withdraw from the BBA appeal – as Lloyds did last week – to provide “certainty” for both customers and shareholders. “We don’t always get things right for our customers; when we get them wrong, we apologise and put them right. That’s our commitment to our customers, and it applies to the way in which we will deal with PPI complaints,” said Diamond. Royal Bank of Scotland has welcomed the BBA’s move. “We will update our customers and shareholders as soon as possible on the steps we agree with the FSA, the likely timeframe, and the anticipated costs of redress,” said RBS. “This is an important step for all UK banks in our efforts to restore the confidence and trust of consumers.” Analysts believe RBS will need to set aside around £1bn to cover its own PPI claims . Stephen Hester, chief executive of the company, admitted last week that the bank would need to make a provision in the second quarter of 2011 – the size of which was still being calculated – and indicated that the bank’s share of PPI sales was around a third of Lloyds, the market leader. PPI was meant to help policyholders keep up with their mortgage, credit card or loan repayments if they lost their job or became ill, and was sold alongside these financial products. Many customers, though, bought PPI even though they would not be able to claim, or were even sold it without their knowledge. The Financial Services Authority has now imposed much tighter controls on how PPI is sold. Borrowers must now be informed that the insurance is an optional extra, and cannot be approached until at least seven days after they have signed up for their loan or credit card. The banks, through the BBA, had attempted to prevent these rules being applied retrospectively, saying this was a point of principle, but suffered defeat in the high court last month. They had been given until Tuesday to decide whether to seek leave to appeal. In a statement, the BBA said: “In the interest of providing certainty for their customers, the banks and the BBA have decided that they do not intend to appeal. “We continue to believe that there are matters of important principle which we will be taking forward in other ways with the authorities.” Banking Barclays Lloyds Banking Group Royal Bank of Scotland Bob Diamond Graeme Wearden Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Chris Wallace doesn’t understand why killing bin Laden is OK but torture isn’t
May 8, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Fox News’ Chris Wallace doesn’t understand the difference between killing the leader of the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization in a military operation and torturing detainees held in U.S. prisons. “We’ll all stipulate that bin Laden was a monster,” Wallace told National Security Advisor Tom Donilon Sunday. “But why is shooting an unarmed man in the face legal and proper while enhanced interrogation including waterboarding of a detainee under very strict controls and limits, why is that over the line?” “Our forces entered that compound and were fired upon,” Donilon explained. “It’s an organization that uses IEDs and suicide vests and boobytraps and all manner of other destructive capabilities.” “Let me just make my point,” Wallace said. “I’m not asking you why it was okay to shoot Osama bin Laden. I fully understand the threat. I’m not second guessing the SEALs. What I am second guessing is if that is okay, why can’t you do waterboarding or enhanced interrogation of Khalid sheikh Mohammed, who was just as bad an operator as Osama bin Laden?” “Because, our judgment is that it’s not consistent with our values, not consistent and not necessary in terms of getting the kind of intelligence we need,” Donilon insisted. “But shooting bin Laden in the head is consistent with our values?” Wallace pressed. “We are at war with Osama bin Laden,” Donilon said. “It was a military operation, right? It was absolutely appropriate for the SEALs to take the action, and for the forces it to take the action they took in this military operation.”
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Pressure intensifies to identify people who have taken out gagging orders to protect their reputations or privacy Pressure to reveal the identities of celebrities protected by injunctions has intensified after Twitter accounts began circulating the names of footballers and performers alleged to have taken out gagging orders. The alleged identities of those who resorted to the courts to protect reputations or privacy were spilled out in a public challenge to the restrictions imposed on reporting and broadcasting. Several Twitter tags led to a sequence of exchanges that delighted in claiming to show that the high court could not silence the more rebellious reaches of social media sites. But later it appeared that the names of the celebrities allegedly involved were removed from one Twitter account. The onslaught follows attempts last week to rewrite the Wikipedia entries of several individuals said to have obtained superinjunctions. In the Commons, two MPs, the Liberal Democrat John Hemmings and the Conservative Matthew Offord, have tried to use parliamentary privilege to question the use of injunctions. Last week Offord claimed that an MP had resorted to the high court for such a purpose. A “superinjunction” technically refers only to those court orders that specifically ban any mention of the fact that an order has been obtained. More recently the courts have tended to grant anonymised orders that prevent virtually every other aspect of any restricted subject from being reported. Among those tweeting on the subject was Jemima Khan, who denied that any of the Twitter reports relating to her were true. There are an increasing number of calls, some reluctant, for parliament to draft a privacy law to set clear guidelines for the courts about where the line should be drawn. Opponents warn that each case has particular circumstances such that only a judge in court can make the fine distinction on what can be allowed into the public domain or deserves protection. Later this month a committee chaired by the master of the rolls, Lord Neuberger, will report on the issue of superinjunctions. It is expected to make recommendations for procedural changes but not to call for new legislation. A spokesman for Twitter told the Guardian: “There are tweets that we do remove, such as illegal tweets and spam. However, we make efforts to keep these exceptions narrow so they may serve to prove a broader and more important rule – we strive not to remove tweets on the basis of their content.” Later this week, the European court of human rights will publish its findings on what may become a landmark judgment in privacy, the case of the formula one boss Max Mosley. He is seeking a ruling that would require advance notice from the media of any report that deals with any aspect of an individual’s privacy. If the court finds in his favour it will change the legal landscape. Privacy & the media Superinjunctions Press freedom Newspapers & magazines Newspapers Max Mosley Twitter Internet Privacy Owen Bowcott Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says President Barack Obama’s success at taking out Osama bin Laden hasn’t deterred him from running for president. “Does it impact at all, Mayor Giuliani, your thinking about running for president next year?” NBC’s David Gregory asked Sunday. “Not in the slightest,” Giuliani replied. “I separate the two things.” “You’re still considering a run for the presidency?” Gregory pressed. “Not right this minute, but yes, I am,” Giuliani said.
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