Milorad Dodik faces heavy EU sanctions if vote goes ahead, international community’s representative in Sarajevo warns Bosnia is facing its worst crisis since the end of the war 16 years ago because of Serb secessionist policies aimed at paralysing the country, according to the top international official overseeing the state. In an interview with the Guardian, Valentin Inzko, the Austrian diplomat who is the international community’s high representative in Sarajevo, warned he would act to halt a referendum called by Milorad Dodik, the Bosnian Serb leader, on whether to reject Bosnia’s state war crimes court and special prosecutor’s office established in 2005 by international decree. Since the Dayton agreement, which ended the Bosnian war in 1995, the country has been split into two political entities: a Serbian portion known as the Republika Srpska, and the Muslim-Croat alliance, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik, president of the Republika Srpska, pledged this week not to back down and to go ahead with the vote. Inzko said heavy European Union sanctions could be imposed on Dodik and his coterie if he did not back down from the vote, which the Bosnian Serb parliament approved by a huge majority this month. “This is definitely the most serious crisis since the signing of the Dayton agreement,” said Inzko. “Never before has such a referendum been planned. The intention is to roll back all the achievements. It challenges the role of the high representative. It would be a direct attack on the Dayton settlement. This cannot be allowed. I would repeal this law.” The parliament’s decision to stage the referendum was posted officially on Wednesday, meaning that the vote must take place within eight weeks. Dodik argued that the court and the prosecutors were biased against Serbs and that the court’s authority should be rejected. He claimed the Bosnian Muslim leadership, with international support, was bent on creating a domineering Islamic state. Dodik regularly taunts the international envoys, who have struggled to manage Bosnia since the 1990s, professes no loyalty to a state called Bosnia-Herzegovina, and constantly questions its viability as a country. The referendum is widely seen as his most destabilising move and a step towards Bosnia’s break-up, which could trigger a new war. “Many think this referendum is a rehearsal for a future one on Republika Srpska status [secession], but those are just speculations, unrealistic at this time,” he said last week. According to senior diplomats, Miroslav Lajcak, the EU’s Balkan envoy, will travel to Banja Luka (seat of Republika Srpska’s government and assembly), on Friday to order Dodik to call off the vote. Inzko indicated that the international community was heading for a showdown with Dodik and that at some point in the next fortnight he would invoke his official powers to try to prevent the referendum taking place. “I hope [Lajcak] can talk them out of doing this. Otherwise I will have to act. The [Bosnian Serb] law would be annulled. The deadline can’t be very long, 10 days to two weeks maximum.” Lajcak is expected to warn Dodik on Friday that if he defies the international referendum ban, he could have EU sanctions imposed on him similar to those placed on Robert Mugabe and Muammar Gaddafi: a ban on travel and the freezing of his assets and bank accounts. EU governments recently agreed on a new range of incentives and disincentives aimed at reversing years of failure in Bosnia. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, is about to appoint a new special representative in Sarajevo, who will have increased powers. Dominic Asquith, the UK ambassador in Cairo and great-grandson of prime minister Herbert Asquith, is tipped for the post. While Bosnia’s dismal condition has been worsening for five years, the showdown with Dodik stands to intensify its dangerous drift and paralysis. The political deadlock since elections last October has left the country without a central government for seven months, with no breakthrough in sight. Describing Bosnia as the “principal challenge to stability in Europe this year”, James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, said last month that the country was “in disarray.” “Ethnic Serb rhetoric about seceding from Bosnia will continue to inflame passions,” he reported. “Ethnic agendas still dominate the political process … US-EU efforts to broker compromises have met with little success.” While Dodik is seen as the bigger problem, the Muslim-Croat half of the country is also acutely dysfunctional. The main Bosnian Croat leaders, based in Mostar in the south-west, are effectively boycotting the federation government and parliament after losing out in coalition negotiations on a new federation government. They are complaining bitterly about being ignored by the larger Bosniak Muslim community, and last week formed the Croatian National Assembly to co-ordinate policy-making across ethnic Croat majority areas. “I don’t have a problem with this if it is constitutional,” said Inzko. “We will see if they establish parallel structures or not. That’s very important. Then I’d have to do something.” The Croats are demanding that Bosnia be split into three along ethnic lines to include a separate Croatian entity. Dodik is encouraging the demands for Croatian autonomy to weaken the centre, and hasten the break-up of a country he constantly calls illegitimate and unworkable. Should he ultimately succeed, say senior diplomats in Sarajevo, it will mean a belated triumph for Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, the Serbian and Bosnian Serb leaders of the 1990s who led the war effort to destroy the country and were indicted for genocide. “That would mean Srebrenica [where the Serbs murdered 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males] would be abroad for the Bosnian Muslims,” said a senior diplomat. “The international community will never accept that.” Bosnia and Herzegovina Europe Radovan Karadzic European Union Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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President Obama chided the news media Wednesday for continuing to focus national attention on the non-issue of his American citizenship. “Fascinating how many of Obama's birther remarks…were aimed at the media for stoking this,” tweeted Howard Kurtz shortly after the speech. The birth certificate issue was a distraction, Obama stated, and the White House decision to release his long-form birth certificate was an attempt to re-focus national attention on the important issues, specifically his budget proposal. But which media outlets were most guilty of sustaining attention on the issue? On cable news, at least, the answer runs contrary to the usual media narrative. As it turns out, if you watched cable news during the week of April 11 through 17, when Obama was touting his budget, you were 35 times more likely to hear about the birther issue on CNN or MSNBC than you were on Fox News. The cable network most often railed against as the birther-enabler was least likely – by far – to report on the issue. Here's what Obama had to say during his post-birth certificate release press conference: …two weeks ago, when the Republican House had put forward a budget that will have huge consequences potentially to the country, and when I gave a speech about my budget and how I felt that we needed to invest in education and infrastructure and making sure that we had a strong safety net for our seniors even as we were closing the deficit, during that entire week the dominant news story wasn’t about these huge, monumental choices that we’re going to have to make as a nation. It was about my birth certificate. And that was true on most of the news outlets that were represented here. It's worth noting that the president's statement was factually inaccurate. The dominant news story during the week after his budget address was, as one might expect, the economy. In fact, the Obama administration only accounted for about four percent of media chatter during that week – behind unrest in the Middle East and natural disasters in Japan, in addition to the economy – and only a portion of that four percent had to do with his birth certificate. That data was gathered by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, which also calculated those numbers for cable news coverage during that week. As quoted by Poynter : MSNBC including “The Ed Show,” “Hardball,” “The Last Word,” and “The Rachel Maddow Show” – 28% of airtime studied was devoted to the 2012 election – 10% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama – A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 92% of the Obama coverage Fox including “Special Report w/Bret Baier,” “Fox Report w/Shepard Smith,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Hannity” – 16% of airtime studied was devoted to 2012 election – 5% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama – A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 8% of the Obama coverage CNN including “The Situation Room,” “John King, USA,” “In The Arena,” and “Anderson Cooper 360″ – 11% of airtime studied was devoted to 2012 election – 5% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama – A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 100% of the Obama coverage. Ace crunched the numbers and found the following breakdown of birther stories as a percentage of total coverage for each cable news channel: – Fox News: 0.4 percent – MSNBC: 9.2 percent – CNN: 5 percent MSNBC devoted 23 times as much airtime as Fox to cover the birther issue. CNN devoted 12.5 times as much. So, as mentioned above, one was 35.5 times more likely to see a birther story on Fox's competition than on FNC itself. Ace also makes this key point: Now one can note, rightly, that MSNBC and CNN were always knocking, knocking down this issue. Fine. But who was distracted by this? If, as Obama says, this was a “distraction” from “real issues” and therefore “silliness” — which network(s) fed their partisan viewers a steady diet of this silliness? Which network fed them the least of it and, therefore, kept a better focus on things that were not silly? Of course even Fox News did its part to debunk the birther nonsense. “Special Report” conservative panelists, Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes, routinely opined on its absurdities. FNC contributor Karl Rove certainly did his part to combat the conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, simply by giving a megaphone to Donald Trump – the personality who undergirded much of the birthed coverage of late – news networks implicitly gave voice to the conspiracy theory. Simply ignoring the theory is generally the best way to combat it, and Fox led the field in that regard (on cable news, anyway). MSNBC, meanwhile, not only led the charge to promote the certificate hunt, it also promoted Donald Trump, host of sister network NBC's “The Apprentice” – a fact that recently earned the cable channel the ire of its own on-air talent .
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Scores of US state legislators are pushing new anti-abortion laws to roll back Roe v Wade. But the uterati are fighting back In Florida, “uterus” is a dirty word. A member of the state house of representatives drew a reprimand when he complained that while Republicans want to repeal rules and regulations on corporations, they are all hot to impose rules and regulations on individuals. Women, for example. The rightwingers who control both the house and the senate in Florida have introduced 18 bills to restrict abortion . Representative Scott Randolph, a Democrat from Orlando, said that his wife had decided the only way to protect her rights was to, as he put it, “incorporate her uterus”. Maybe then the business sycophants of the Republican party would stop trying to micromanage it with laws circumscribing reproductive freedom. Speaker Dean Cannon said he was shocked – shocked! – at such language on the house floor, deeming it a breach of “decorum”. Stephanie Kunkel, Planned Parenthood’s Florida director, rolled her eyes: “If the speaker can’t bear to hear or say the word ‘uterus’, he shouldn’t be legislating it.” Newspaper columnists amused themselves concocting acceptable euphemisms: Frank Cerabino of the Palm Beach Post suggests “baby garage” . And that’s pretty much how Republicans see women – as a place to park a kid till he’s ready to pop out and go to Sunday School and learn that sex is filthy. Republican-controlled legislatures across the US are hell-bent on stopping women from exercising control over their own bodies. Florida is one of 13 states that would require women to have an ultrasound – which they would have to pay for – before terminating a pregnancy. In Indiana, Texas, Kentucky and four other states, a woman would be forced to look at the foetus. Doctors would have to describe to her, in great detail, the foetus and its physical functions. After all this, she would still have to cool her heels for several days before being permitted to actually have the abortion. Along with the waiting periods, which would seriously harm women in rural states who have to travel long distances to the only clinic or poor women who have to keep taking off work, some states want to allow only up to 20 or 21 weeks, the point at which many anti-choice activists claim foetuses feel pain. The medical evidence for this is highly disputed , but that doesn’t matter: science shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of ideology. Mississippi, Alaska, Texas and Oklahoma tell women abortion increases their risk of getting breast cancer – even though the National Cancer Institute says that’s not true . Raising the ante, an Indiana legislator insists that women who are victims of rape or incest provide documentation – those chicks could so be lying! – while a Michigan legislator proposes a offering women a photograph of the foetus at least two hours before the abortion. Ohio Republicans want to ban abortions the minute a foetal heartbeat is detected, which could be as early as four or five weeks. In Texas, where they’re trying to restrict RU-486, the “morning after pill”, the legislature also threatened to cut funding for low-income contraception programmes on the logic that birth control among the poor leads to increased abortion rates. That’s bad and stupid, but not as bad and stupid as what’s going on in Louisiana where Representative John LaBruzzo has introduced a bill to outlaw all abortions – no exceptions, even where the life of the mother is at risk – and charge doctors who perform abortions with “foeticide”. On 26 April, Mother Jones reported that LaBruzzo would also like to make criminals of women who have abortions , but that he may remove that provision in his bill, making it easier to pass. LaBruzzo’s law would be, of course, unconstitutional. A lot of these new state laws (and some old ones) are unconstitutional. Women have a right to get an abortion (with some restrictions), and have had that right since 1973 when the US supreme court ruled in Roe v Wade. But unconstitutionality is the point. Anti-choicers no longer want to tinker with a state statute here and there; they want Roe v Wade overturned. They want to return to the bad old days of back streets and coathangers, of the wages of sin and Taliban-style circumscription of female sexuality. John LaBruzzo has admitted that he wants to “immediately go to court”. The plan is for one state of another’s illegal abortion laws to make it to a hearing before the US supreme court where Roe v Wade can be refought and, maybe, come out differently this time. At the moment, there are four solid pro-Roe votes (Kagan, Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor) on the nation’s highest court and four solid antis (Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalito). Justice Anthony Kennedy, always the swing vote between the court’s progressive and rightwing blocks, has, up to now, voted to uphold a woman’s right to choose. Nevertheless, some think he might change his mind. Or that he might want to let each individual state decide where it stands on abortion. Or, if a Republican president is elected in 2012, Kennedy may retire from the court, opening up a place for a Roe foe. And you thought the Republicans were only interested in the economy. Outlawing abortion is the long-cherished dream of every evangelical in the US, especially the ones born without ovaries. Back in Florida, the resistance is mobilising: the uterus has its own Facebook page . Susannah Randolph , now famous as the woman who threatened to incorporate her uterus, has suggested starting a political action committee called U-Pac . “Who’s in?” she blogged. “It’s time to bring power back to the uterus.” The sister speaks true. As Gloria Steinem said, so many years ago: “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” Abortion Women United States US politics Republicans Florida US constitution and civil liberties US supreme court Diane Roberts guardian.co.uk
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Higher petrol prices and severe weather curb US GDP growth to an annualised 1.8% in the first three months of the year The US economy slowed during the first three months of the year to an annualised rate of 1.8%, as higher petrol prices and severe weather curbed growth. Previous consensus forecasts had pitched growth at between 2% and 2.5% for the first quarter. A slower pace of growth was signalled by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke who predicted a sub-2% rate at his first press conference on Wednesday evening, but the commerce department figures were still greeted with dismay by many traders concerned at the outlook for the US economy. Figures showing jobless claims also unexpectedly rose added to the dismal picture. The S&P index of leading shares dipped 3 points, putting a temporary brake on an otherwise surging stock market. Gold climbed to a new high of more than $1,532 an ounce, while the dollar continued its long decline, made worse the previous day by widespread interpretation of Bernanke’s remarks as meaning interest rates would stay low for a prolonged period. Inflation surged to 3.8%, its fastest pace since the third quarter of 2008, after increasing 1.7% in the fourth quarter. The core index, which excludes food and energy costs, accelerated to a 1.5% rate, the fastest since the fourth quarter of 2009, from 0.4% in the fourth quarter. US job figures weak In another report, new weekly claims for jobless benefits jumped to 429,000 in the week to April 23, from 404,000 the prior week. William Larkin of Cabot Money Management said the injection of capital by the Federal Reserve under its quantitative easing programme had proved disappointing because it was expected to reap a higher growth rate. He said: “Jobless claims popped back above 400,000 again, and that’s been a psychological barrier. We had been on a nice trend with claims, but now we’re finding resistance, which calls into questions the jobs recovery.” He added: “GDP was a little on the light side, though there were positives and negatives in the report. But with the amount of injection of capital into the economy, you’d hope that we would be able to get above 2% growth. In the short-term this is bad for stocks and good for bonds.” Richard Bryant, head of treasury trading at MF Global Securities, argued that bond prices were spooked by the jobless figures more than the slight decline in GDP. He said: “The big surprise was that jobless claims were a little bit higher than people were looking for, a little bit higher than expectations, so the Treasury market is retaining the bid that it has demonstrated since yesterday afternoon. This data certainly supports the bid. GDP had no major surprises, the headline was a little bit weaker than expectations.” The downbeat US figures confirm a general slowdown in growth across the developed economies as the effects of fiscal stimulus policies wane and austerity measures take their place. In the US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner has maintained much of the federal stimulus put in place during the banking crisis, but has presided over large cuts by individual states, which must balance their budgets. Only Germany has maintained its robust growth, mainly on the back of exports to Asia, while France and Britain are unlikely to breach the 2% barrier. The UK government has estimated annualised growth at 1.5% to 2%, with a consensus hovering on or below 1.5%. US economy Economics United States Phillip Inman guardian.co.uk
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Explosion tears apart Argana cafe in Marrakech’s Jamaa el-Fna square, which is popular with foreign tourists An explosion in the Moroccan city of Marrakech has killed at least 14 people and injured 20 at a market square cafe popular with foreign tourists. Several foreigners were among the victims. The blast just before noon tore the facade off the two-storey Argana cafe, leaving awnings dangling. Bystanders dragged away bodies and tried to put out flames with fire extinguishers, witnesses said. The interior ministry said there was evidence the blast was a “criminal act”. A Moroccan government spokesman, Khalid Naciri, said that the dead came from different countries but did not say which ones. “We worked for more than an hour, maybe less, on the hypothesis that this could eventually be accidental. But initial results of the investigation confirm that we are confronted with a true criminal act,” Naciri said in an interview with France-24 television. British man Andy Birnie told Associated Press: “There was a huge bang and lots of smoke went up. There was debris raining down from the sky. Hundreds of people were running in panic, some towards the cafe, some away from the square. The whole front of the cafe is blown away.” Birnie, from north London, is on his honeymoon. “It was lunchtime so the square was very busy. We had just walked into the square but were shielded by some stalls.” A photographer said he saw rescue workers pulling dismembered bodies from the cafe. The Jamaa el-Fna square is a Unesco world heritage site known for its snake charmers and fire breathers. Marrakech’s old town is usually crowded with tourists. The state news agency, MAP, said an investigation was under way. An official source had earlier told Reuters it appeared the blast was caused by gas canisters in the cafe catching fire. Islamist militants staged a series of suicide bombings in Morocco’s commercial capital, Casablanca, in 2003. More than 45 people were killed. Morocco Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
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Celebration in Gaza City is dispersed by police wielding batons, while Ramallah seems more concerned with Champions League In Ramallah’s Manara Square there was not a Palestinian flag to be seen following the news of a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah on Wednesday night – but there were hundreds of Real Madrid and Barcelona flags carried by fans watching the Champions League semi-finals. In Gaza City around 100 people went to the Square of the Unknown Soldier to celebrate, but were quickly dispersed by Hamas police wielding batons. Sama, 30, a journalist and activist with the Gaza Youth Break Out group, said: “We went to the square to celebrate the hope of unity. We were around 100 people but there were more policemen. We waved Palestinian flags and we sang, ‘Palestine is all that matters.’ Within minutes they just started hitting us with batons.” The Gaza Youth group organised protests on 15 March this year to demand unity between the Hamas and Fatah factions . Thousands joined those demonstrations, until they were violently dispersed by the police. Abu Yazan, 24, another activist, said that he had been arrested five times since 15 March but added that he was happy that the group’s protests appeared to have an effect. “We demanded unity between Fatah and Hamas because the divisions have screwed us for a very long time,” he said. “We are so happy but so cautious. They have signed agreements before but then fall out on the details.” Hamas and Fatah have come to two agreements since Hamas won legislative elections in 2006. The first was signed in March 2007 in Mecca and lasted for three months until the outbreak of a five-day war in Gaza, which ended with Hamas taking complete control of the territory. The second agreement was signed in Yemen in 2008 by the same signatories as Wednesday’s agreement but lasted just two days. Wednesday’s agreement took many commentators by surprise. Many believe that while Hamas and Fatah may in theory support a unity government, each is unwilling to give up its hold on power in Gaza and the West Bank respectively. The Gaza Strip has been blockaded by Israel since Hamas took power in 2007. Some can leave via the Rafah border with Egypt but most are unable to. Young people have been particularly harmed by economic sanctions which have caused unemployment of up to 70% among the young. Ramallah, where Fatah and the Palestinian Authority are based, is in the midst of a boom funded by international aid and investment. Gaza may be poorer but Hamas has complete control within its borders. In the West Bank, most of which does not share the prosperity of Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority’s control is limited by Israel’s occupation. In Ramallah Feidi Abdulsamad, 30, an officer in the Palestinian security forces, welcomed the agreement. “If we change this government this year we have a good chance at peace. If we have a better contact with Hamas then I am happy. If we are together we are stronger and if we are stronger, we have a better chance of peace with Israel,” he said. Razan, 22, a graphic designer, also welcomed the agreement but said she thought it would not make much difference to her life. “But I think for Gazans it offers them some hope,” she said. In Gaza City, Abu Ghassan, 24, a student and activist with Gaza Youth Break Out said that most Palestinians were exhausted by the Israeli occupation and Palestinian divisions and were sceptical of progress. “We need actions. We need to feel that both sides are ready to make sacrifices for unity but we have not seen anything yet. My fear is that once they have to give something up, they will freeze,” he said. Palestinian territories Hamas Fatah Gaza Middle East Conal Urquhart guardian.co.uk
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With a new trailer announcing that shooting of The Avengers has just begun, are we in danger of suffering hype overload? This week may well go down in history as the most exciting in all of movie history. We’ve been treated to one blockbuster revelation after another. On 24 April it was breathlessly announced that a brand new trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 would debut on ABC Family during the broadcast of Happy Gilmore on 27 April. And all this week, the Apple trailers site ran a banner trumpeting the 28 April arrival of the brand new Transformers 3 trailer – the film’s third – with an exclusive picture of some metal hovering above some skyscrapers . But, as incredible as these announcements have been, they’ve been blown clean out of the water by the release of the first promotional image from The Avengers. It is, without question, the most exciting picture of four empty chairs that the world has ever seen. And it’s packed with all sorts of tasty information, too. For example, careful examination of the photo reveals that Iron Man, Thor, the Incredible Hulk and Captain America will all appear in The Avengers, and also that these characters will all have arses and should therefore be able to sit in chairs. Spoiler alert! Seriously, though, what’s going on? Didn’t it used to be the case that a trailer was all that was needed to publicise a film, not a news story alerting you to the fact that a trailer would premiere during a middling Adam Sandler film on a channel nobody watches, or a nondescript picture of a robot alerting you to the premiere of a new trailer for a film that you’ve already seen two trailers for, or a picture alerting you to the fact that a film has started shooting footage that may eventually be incorporated into a trailer that you might be able to watch in about eight or nine months? It’s not like we’re in for any great surprises, either. Even before it was released, you could have predicted that the Harry Potter trailer would include shots of Daniel Radcliffe gritting his teeth and Ralph Fiennes saying “Harry Potter” in a creepy voice. Similarly, what could the Transformers 3 trailer possibly have in store for us, aside from even more interminable shots of indistinguishable robots furiously clanking at each other? There’s nothing wrong with studios wanting to build up a bit of buzz around their films, but isn’t buzz supposed to be, you know, buzzworthy? At least more buzzworthy than a photo of some chairs. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe excited teenagers around the world are currently texting each other things like “Did you see that photo? The Avengers is going to be the best film about four empty chairs ever .” The worst possible outcome of this week’s empty nonsense is that these anticlimactic announcements will somehow catch on. Because what if this is the future? What if every film from now on – every piece of Oscar bait, every low-budget indie favourite, every highbrow literary adaptation – starts counting down to the premiere of its trailer? We’d grow desensitised to it, just as we’ve grown desensitised to trailers being the primary method of publicity. And then the blockbusters would have to crank up the promotional machine even earlier. We’d live in a world where news stories would announce the imminent arrival of news stories that would announce the imminent arrival of a countdown to a trailer, or teaser photos of chair legs designed to whet our appetite for full photos of empty chairs. Enough is enough, surely. Harry Potter Science fiction and fantasy Film industry Action and adventure Stuart Heritage guardian.co.uk
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Storms kill more than 100 in Alabama alone, with Tuscaloosa and Birmingham reporting deaths and large-scale damage Powerful storms tore through several southern American states overnight killing at least 128 people in Alabama alone. Fifteen people died in Tuscaloosa, a city of 93,000 and home to the University of Alabama. Sections of the city were destroyed and the city’s infrastructure devastated, the mayor said, after a tornado hit the area. A statement from the Alabama governor, Robert Bentley, on Thursday, said the damage was spread over a wide area, flattening buildings, ripping down trees and power lines and triggering floods. Further north, a nuclear power plant west of Huntsville lost power and was operating on diesel generators. In Mississippi, 11 deaths were reported, four people were killed in Georgia and one in Tennessee. In Tuscaloosa, news footage showed paramedics lifting a child out of a flattened home, with many neighbouring buildings reduced to rubble. A hospital said its emergency room had admitted about 100 people, but had treated 400. “What we faced today was massive damage on a scale we have not seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time,” Mayor Walter Maddox told reporters, adding that he expected his city’s death toll to rise. “This could be the worst tornado in Alabama’s history,” said meteorologist Josh Nagelberg of AccuWeather.com . The storms spread destruction from Tuesday night and Wednesday from Texas to Georgia, and it was forecast to hit the Carolinas before moving further north-east. Several states suffered power outages as well as property and infrastructure damage that could prove costly to repair. Floods were a concern throughout the storm-hit area, where rain compounded with melted snow to cause rising rivers and saturated soils. The storms forced the Tennessee Valley Authority to close three nuclear power plants in Alabama and knocked out 11 high voltage power lines. President Barack Obama said he had spoken to Bentley and approved his request for emergency federal assistance, including search and rescue assets. “Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation, and we commend the heroic efforts of those who have been working tirelessly to respond to this disaster,” Obama said in a statement. Around Tuscaloosa, traffic was hampered by fallen trees and power lines, and some drivers abandoned their cars. Maddox said authorities were having trouble communicating with each other as 1,400 National Guard soldiers were deployed around the state. The flashing lights of emergency vehicles could be seen on darkened streets all over town, and some were using winches to remove overturned vehicles from the side of the road. Storms struck Birmingham earlier in the day, bringing down numerous trees that impeded emergency crews and those trying to flee. Surrounding Jefferson county reported 11 deaths by late Wednesday; another hard-hit area was Walker county with eight deaths. The rest of the deaths were scattered around the state, emergency officials said. In Huntsville, meteorologists found themselves in the path of tornado and had to evacuate the national weather service office. In Mississippi, a police officer was killed on Wednesday morning when a tree fell on to his tent as he shielded his young daughter with his body, said Kim Korthuis, a ranger with the National Park Service. The girl wasn’t hurt. By late Wednesday, the state’s death toll had increased to 11 for the day, said the authorities. The governor also made an emergency declaration for much of the state. Storms also killed two people in Georgia and one in Tennessee on Wednesday. In eastern Tennessee, a woman was killed by falling trees in her trailer in Chattanooga. Just outside the city in Tiftonia, what appeared to be a tornado also struck at the base of the tourist peak Lookout Mountain. Tops were snapped off trees and insulation and metal roof panels littered the ground. United States Alabama Natural disasters and extreme weather State of Georgia Tennessee Mississippi Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
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Competition from Newquay and Exeter airports means Plymouth airport must close as losses look set to pass £1m Plymouth City airport is to close by the end of the year. Its owner, property firm the Sutton Harbour Group, said it was unable to make the struggling airport financially viable and losses meant the airport had to close. Plymouth is in fierce competition in the South West with larger airports in Newquay and Exeter. Nigel Godefroy, chief executive of the Sutton Harbour Group, said: “During our 11-year involvement with Plymouth City Airport we have done everything in our power to make it a success, even launching our own regional airline. “So this has been an incredibly difficult decision, given the efforts by so many, including our own staff, to give the airport a future. “We have always fought for Plymouth’s air links and sought to do our best for the city and its people, our employees and shareholders, but the usage of the airport simply does not support the high cost of operation.” In a statement, the firm said “the wider economic downturn and challenges for the UK regional aviation market” were to blame for the planned closure. It said losses were set to pass the £1m mark over the next year. With its connection with Gatwick having ended in February, it anticipated departing passenger numbers dipping below 100 a day. Sutton Harbour sold off its airline, Air Southwest – which is based at the airport – last year, as it struggled against competition locally from Exeter-based Flybe. Its new owner, Hull-based Eastern Airways, axed a number of routes from Plymouth. Tim Jones, chairman of the Devon and Cornwall Business Council, said losing the airport was a huge blow to the city and urged Sutton Harbour and Plymouth city council, which owns the land on which it is built, not to use it for housing or any other use, suggesting it be “mothballed” for five years until the economy picks up. “Its value as an airport is in excess of £1bn, that is what it would cost to build again from scratch,” he said. “Using the land for housing would only recoup around £40m. “If the city had a motorway or a fast train line this move would be more palatable. But without them the airport is a vital transport link.” Air transport Airline industry guardian.co.uk
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Figures reflect sharp increase in moves to towns and cities in past decade and effect after 30 years of one-child policy China, the world’s most populous nation, is at the very brink of becoming an urban country, according to the first details of last year’s census. Almost half the 1.34 billion-strong population – 49.7% – now live in cities, compared with just a fifth when economic reforms began in earnest in 1982. The finding is among the results of the largest ever population-counting exercise in the world: a project so vast it required 6 million census takers . Although the annual average growth rate has slowed since the last survey was taken, from 1.07% to 0.5%, China still added more than 73.9 million people over the decade: more than the entire population of the UK. The figures, released today by the National Bureau of Statistics, underline the enormous challenges facing a country with a rapidly ageing population and huge demographic shifts. They also highlight arguments about the need to reform the country’s strict one-child birth control policies. The number of young people fell sharply as a proportion of the population, with under-14s accounting for just 16.6% of the population, down 6.3 percentage points from 2000. Meanwhile, the number of people over 60 rose by nearly three percentage points, to 13.3% of the total population. China must now sustain the remarkable development that has made it the world’s second largest economy with a shrinking workforce and growing number of dependents. Officials believe that without the strict one-child policy – which actually allows many in the countryside and some in the cities to have two children – the population would have grown by an extra 400 million people over the last three decades. But it was only supposed to last for 30 years and many now believe the country needs to move towards a uniform two-child policy, to tackle the issue of ageing and perceptions of unfairness. In a meeting of senior leaders ahead of the release of the figures, China’s president, Hu Jintao, said the country should adhere to the basic state policy of family planning, maintain a low birth rate and deal with its population problems, the state news agency Xinhua reported. Although some read that as a repudiation of change, others saw it as a public acknowledgement of debates on how to manage family planning. The remarks do not rule out changes to the rules, which would almost certainly be made gradually because officials fear that abrupt shifts could cause an enormous boom in births. The authorities have gradually introduced a series of exemptions in recent years. Wang Feng, a population expert and director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Centre for Public Policy in Beijing, told the Associated Press that Hu’s comments were “highly significant”. “I take this as an important signal that the debate has reached a high level and that changes will be on the way,” he said. Ma Jiantang, commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, said his understanding of Hu’s speech was that China “needed to follow closely the new situation and changes. On this basis we will have further studies and research on the rules.” The one-child policy has also contributed to the large gap between male and female births, although experts believe other factors play a bigger role: India, which has no such policies, has a similar disparity. Ma said the number of excess male births was slightly higher in 2010 than 2000, with 118.06 boys to every 100 girls, up from 116 to every 100. But the trend was unclear, with a 2009 sampling showing 119.45 boys to every 100 girls. “We take the challenges reflected in this figure very seriously and will adopt more effective measures including promoting gender equality and equal remnuneration … We are confident the ratio will gradually move towards a normal one,” he said. Ma thanked all those involved in the mammoth effort to enumerate the population and “in particular those comrades who sacrificed their lives for the census”. “They will forever stay with us and we will forever remember them,” he said. The bureau said the deaths were “mostly due to health and working issues”, but did not give any further details. Other figures issued on Thursday indicate striking social changes. The average household size has shrunk from 3.44 people to 3.1, thanks to an increasing tendency for young couples to live alone – rather than with parents – as well as declining fertility and rising migration. The number of migrants living outside their registered township rose by more than 100 million, to 221 million, in the last decade, the figures showed. The astonishing expansion in higher education is also documented. In 2000, 3,611 people in every 100,000 had been to university; by last year that had more than doubled to 8,930. China Population Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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