Barack Obama and John Boehner in budget talks to secure last-minute deal amid threat of widespread disruption to services America is preparing for a federal government shutdown from Saturday that could see 800,000 staff suspended and hundreds of agencies, from the national parks to the tax office, disrupted or closed. The fate of the federal government rests on a meeting at the White House between Barack Obama and the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, aimed at securing a last-minute deal. The initial impact of a shutdown would be felt by Americans on spring breaks and international tourists, who would find attractions closed on Saturday, such as Washington’s Smithsonian museums, the Statue of Liberty and the former Alcatraz prison, as well as scores of national parks. Essential services such as air traffic control, border authorities and security services would be maintained as would postal services, but many others would either cease or be severely reduced. Congress, the Pentagon and many other government agencies would also be affected. In anticipation of widespread disruption Congress has divided staff into two camps: “essential” workers, who would be expected to turn up for work as normal on Monday, and “non-essential” staff, who would be told to stay at home. To be deemed non-essential would be a blow to the morale of many in status-conscious Washington. In a further indignity, staff face having their BlackBerries and laptops shut down. There are more than a million federally owned BlackBerries. Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the White House’s office of management and budget, said the impact of the shutdown would be uneven. “National parks, national forests and the Smithsonian Institution would all be closed. The National Institutes of Health Clinical Centre will not take new patients, and no new clinical trials will start,” he said. Troops stationed overseas, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, would not receive their wages, but welfare recipients would continue to be paid. American holidaymakers who have left it late to apply for passports could be in trouble as would foreigners hoping for visas for the US. There is confusion over whether non-essential staff would be paid after the shutdown for the days they are absent. The government said they would not be, though after previous shutdowns staff were able to recover lost pay. Obama, after a late-night meeting at the White House with Boehner and the Senate leader, Harry Reid, sounded optimistic that a deal could be reached. He said staff from both sides would work through the night to bridge the remaining differences. “I am not prepared to express wild optimism,” the president said. “But I think we are further along today than we were yesterday.” He is expecting an early answer from the Republicans to prevent the steps necessary to impose a shutdown being put into action. The Democrats said agreement had been reached on about 70% of the issues. A senior Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer, told NBC “there’s no deal yet, unfortunately”. He said he was embarrassed about the country being on the brink of a shutdown, but “you can’t negotiate on the basis that one side gives 100% and the other gives zero”. The Republicans want a cut in the federal deficit of $40bn (£24bn). The Democrats made a compromise offer of $34.5bn on Wednesday. The new sticking points are mainly the areas where the Republicans want cuts – abortion programmes and environmental protection – on which the Democrats refuse to give way. Obama has postponed a trip to Indiana, where he planned to make a speech, because of the budget crisis. He said he wanted to be on hand for any further negotiations. US politics Barack Obama John Boehner Republicans Democrats US economy United States Economics Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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Ali Mohsen was inside military headquarters that Saleh regime claimed was a rebel base, WikiLeaks cable reveals The Yemeni government apparently targeted a leading army general and rival of President Ali Abdullah Saleh by telling Saudi military commanders that his headquarters was a rebel base to be bombed. The extraordinary plot – foiled when suspicious Saudi pilots aborted the air strike – has emerged in one of the classified US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks. Dated February 2010, the cable illustrates the extent to which relations between Saleh and Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar had deteriorated more than a year before the general declared his support for anti-regime protesters. The US cable recounts a meeting between James B Smith, the American ambassador in Riyadh, and Prince Khaled bin Sultan, the junior Saudi defence minister. The talks were arranged for Smith to pass on US concerns about Saudi air strikes on the Houthis, a Shia insurgent group in the north of Yemen. Khaled told the ambassador that targets were selected by a joint committee of senior Saudi and Yemeni officers. Smith’s note continues: “Prince Khaled also reported that the Saudis had problems with some of the targeting recommendations received from the Yemeni side . For instance, there was one occasion when Saudi pilots aborted a strike, when they sensed something was wrong about the information they received from the Yemenis. It turned out that the site recommended to be hit was the headquarters of General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the Yemeni northern area military commander, who is regarded as a political opponent to President Saleh. This incident prompted the Saudis to be more cautious about targeting recommendations from the Yemeni government.” Ali Mohsen was inside the headquarters at the time of the aborted attack, one of his senior aides told the Washington Post. “This was not the first attempt by the president and regime to kill him,” the aide said. Ali Mohsen, a long-time confidant of the president as well as the head of the Yemeni army in the country’s north-west, was one of 11 military commanders to publicly defect last month , saying he would back “the peaceful revolution” . For many years Ali Mohsen was Saleh’s key military strongman, playing a major role in the 1994 civil war. Generally seen as the country’s second most powerful man, he is usually referred to as the cousin of Saleh’s two half-brothers, although some reports claim he is himself a half-brother to Saleh. According to the cable Smith also asked Prince Khaled about evidence that some of the air strikes were hitting civilian targets, particularly a building the US believed to be a medical clinic. The Saudi minister agreed there were problems – complaining in passing that if the US sold his country the Predator drone aircraft then targeting would be more accurate – but said the air campaign was deliberately hitting the Houthis hard to “bring them to their knees”. He added: “However, we tried very hard not to hit civilian targets,” an assurance accepted by Smith. Saudi Arabia began military operations against the Houthis in 2009 following a cross-border Houthi raid that killed two Saudi guards. Yemen The US embassy cables Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest US foreign policy WikiLeaks Peter Walker guardian.co.uk
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Man arrested after two people wounded in shooting on board HMS Astute in Southampton A man has been arrested today after a shooting on board a nuclear submarine, police said. Two people are believed to have been injured in the incident on HMS Astute, which is docked in Southampton. Hampshire police said the incident was not terrorist-related and there was no risk to the public. Several police vehicles were sent to the Eastern Docks and officers could be seen on the gangway of the submarine. A police spokesman said: “Hampshire police were called by their Ministry of Defence colleagues at 12.12pm today and are currently liaising with them to establish the exact circumstances of the incident. “It is believed two people have sustained injuries as a result of gun shots being discharged on the vessel. People should be reassured there is no risk to public safety. “Hampshire constabulary and the MoD are keen to stress this incident is not terrorist-related. More information will be circulated as it becomes available.” Television news pictures showed police vehicles, fire engines and a helicopter, believed to be the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance, on the dockside by the submarine. The MoD referred all calls to Hampshire police. HMS Astute was last in the headlines when it ran aground on a shingle bank between the Scottish mainland and the Isle of Skye and remained stuck for several hours. The incident in October last year cost Andy Coles his command of the submarine . HMS Astute was named and launched by the Duchess of Cornwall in June 2007 before becoming part of the Royal Navy in August last year at a commissioning ceremony at Faslane naval base on the Clyde. The submarine weighs 7,800 tonnes, equivalent to nearly 1,000 double-decker buses, and is almost 100 metres (328ft) long. Its Spearfish torpedoes and Tomahawk cruise missiles are capable of delivering pinpoint strikes from 1,240 miles (2,000km) with conventional weapons. The submarine’s nuclear reactor means it does not need refuelling and it makes its own air and water, enabling it to circumnavigate the globe without needing to surface. Built by defence giant BAE Systems at Barrow in Furness, Cumbria, it was the first in a fleet of six which will replace the Royal Navy’s Trafalgar class submarines. Crime Military guardian.co.uk
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• Portugal expected to need up to €85bn in aid • Ministers talk down prospect of Spanish rescue package • Spain says bailout ‘completely out of the question’ • Portuguese to vote in new government on 5 June Eurozone finance ministers have told Portugal that it would have to implement new economic reforms that go beyond those proposed by its outgoing government if it hoped to secure aid from the EU and IMF. Portugal bowed to intense pressure from financial markets and its European partners this week and became the third eurozone country after Greece and Ireland to request financial help from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund . Finance ministers from the 17-nation eurozone met in Budapest on Friday to discuss the sovereign debt crisis that has haunted the single currency area for over a year, with Portugal the main focus of their talks. “The package must be really strict because otherwise it does not make any sense to guarantee anybody’s loan,” Finland’s finance minister Jyrki Katainen told reporters. “The package must be harder and more comprehensive than the one which parliament voted against.” French economy minister Christine Lagarde said she expected Portugal to propose specific steps that would restore confidence in an economy that is among the least competitive in the eurozone. Portuguese prime minister José Sócrates resigned late last month after parliament rejected a new round of austerity measures meant to help the country meet its deficit reduction targets for 2011. He is continuing to serve in a caretaker capacity until new elections are held on 5 June. The main opposition party has backed the request for aid, but negotiations on an economic adjustment programme – a precondition for assistance – are likely to be tough as cross-party consensus will be needed. “We need a commitment of the country, not only a commitment of the government,” Portuguese finance minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said. “I think we have to be committed to reaching an agreement as soon as possible,” he added. Lisbon is expected to require €80bn-€85bn (£70bn-£75bn) in aid, roughly the same amount as Ireland but less than the €110bn package offered to Greece nearly one year ago. Not Spain Ministers tried to drive home the message in Budapest that the contagion that has spread like a virus across the eurozone’s southern periphery would not hit Portugal’s larger neighbour Spain, which has scrambled to reform its labour market, pension system and savings banks this year to avoid a similar fate. Spanish economy minister Elena Salgado said a bailout for her country was “completely out of the question”, and the European economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn told reporters he was sure Spain would not require assistance. For now at least, markets seem to agree. The euro rose to a 15-month high against the dollar on Friday, following a rise in official eurozone interest rates a day earlier. The spreads between Spanish bond yields and those of the Germany’s benchmark bonds – a key measure of investor confidence in Spain’s finances – have changed little since Portugal announced on Wednesday it would seek aid. The spreads on 10-year bonds hovered at around 1.8 percentage points on Friday morning. But the rise in the euro undermines the competitiveness of the eurozone’s weaker economies and investors continue to look closely at Spain’s weaknesses – a banking sector weakened by the property crash and its struggle to generate growth. “Fortunately, despite the Portuguese woes, Spain is perceived to be more solid by the markets,” analysts from Dutch bank ING said in a research report. Bailout costs Rehn said he expected ministers to mandate the European commission, European Central Bank and the IMF to negotiate a package with Portugal . Under EU rules, this “troika” must send a mission to a country requesting financial aid to establish the parameters of the support programme. That would then be put into a memorandum of understanding. The ministers may also discuss the interest rate that the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), the eurozone’s temporary rescue fund, will charge for its loans. Interest on EFSF loans is likely to fall by 100 basis points in June once eurozone leaders give their final approval to a new package of anti-crisis measures. Ministers will also examine the economic situation in Ireland after the latest round of stress tests of the country’s stricken financial sector. Greece will also be a focus amid reports that the country will report a bigger-than-expected budget deficit for 2010. Speculation has grown in recent weeks that Athens may have to restructure a debt load that is expected to peak at over 150% of GDP, with senior government officials in the eurozone conceding in private such a step may be inevitable. But the Greek government and leaders of other euro members have rejected such suggestions. European debt crisis Euro Portugal European monetary union Europe Europe guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media House Speaker John Boehner confirmed during an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos just how close he was to the tea party regarding a government shut down. “There is no daylight between the tea party and me,” he said
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Department of Work and Pensions backtracks on denial of Guardian investigation that some jobcentres have been taking people off benefits amid pressure to meet targets The government has admitted that jobcentre staff around the country have been involved in a drive to kick people off benefits amid pressure to meet welfare targets set by their managers. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) initially dismissed revelations in the Guardian last weekend that Jobcentre Plus employees were tricking vulnerable claimants into losing their welfare entitlements. A whistleblower said staff at his jobcentre were given targets of three people a week to refer for sanctions, where benefits are removed for up to six months. The work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, appeared on Sky News on Sunday claiming it was “claptrap” that anyone would “hand out edicts to staff to sanction three people”, and said the story was a “conspiracy”. Since then, further email evidence has been uncovered showing individual or group targets are being imposed to stop people’s benefits at offices across the country. In some cases staff have claimed they have been threatened with sanctions themselves if they do not reach the targets set by managers. Following the Guardian investigation, a group of trade unions representing jobcentre staff have written to management seeking “urgent clarification” on the issue of targets for referrals and sanctions. The DWP backtracked and released a statement confirming that the practice had been going on in some offices as a result of a misunderstanding between the department and some jobcentre managers. It insisted this was no longer the case. “A few weeks ago ministers discovered that their message to be clearer about conditionality had been misinterpreted by a small number of Jobcentre Plus offices who had imposed targets for the number of sanction referrals. These targets were immediately removed. “We are clear that there is no wrong or right level of how many sanctions an office should make and they should only be made where people have not adhered to their jobseeker obligations. We have already taken rapid steps to reinforce this message to our staff. Ministers would not countenance any target for sanctioning customers,” the department said The Guardian has spoken to several more jobcentre staff who, speaking anonymously, claim that targets and pressure to stop people’s benefits still exist in their office, and that vulnerable clients are often affected. One employee claimed the practice had been going on at his office since he joined in July 2009. One personal adviser backed up claims that targets led advisers to “set up” claimants. He said: “On the question of tricking customers – it’s quite true. You box them in so that they go wrong themselves. The whole system is now orientated to stopping rather than enabling.” He said people with poor English skills were often targeted in his office. “For example, an African man who had managed to get part-time work and was studying English. His jobsearch was far more adequate than most, but managers specifically spent time going through it and comparing it to his agreement to see where they could trip him up. It was deemed inadequate and he was sanctioned. It’s easy to sanction these people because he didn’t know what was going on.” Another jobcentre employee with several years’ experience said: “If staff are chasing targets, they will themselves target the easiest [claimants], for example people with learning disabilities, or people with English as a second language. It’s the easiest way to meet those targets under pressure.” He said he had seen people threatened with the sack for not meeting targets. “If you are a good adviser, you would actually expect to sanction less people, as you will convince them of the importance of meeting the conditions to get their jobseeker’s allowance [JSA].” Another former personal adviser said the priority was clear when he joined in July 2009. “The first thing that happened is they took us to a presentation where we were shown a big league table of statistics, including sanctions. They pointed out the offices that were doing well – it’s like it’s a big competition. “I was threatened by management for asking too many questions. I felt what we were doing in some cases was unlawful.” He said he believed offices had “their own take” on social security law in terms of the strictness with which they were sanctioning people, and that “management, and the culture of JCP – with only a few exceptions – viewed claimants with contempt.” A jobcentre personal adviser agreed that targets for sanction referrals were not new, but said: “The targets [for sanctions] have got higher and the options for getting people into jobs have got fewer. People are being treated as numbers, there is no sense of individuality. “The advisers in our office are struggling to get through the huge numbers of claimants, so no wonder [the claimants] are being treated like numbers … We are pushing people through as fast as possible.” It has also emerged that Citizens Advice in Wigan, one of the areas investigated by the Guardian, had compiled a report on the “growing problem in the way the jobcentre are dealing with the issue of sanctions”, and had submitted it to the DWP. The report says 41 people came to Citizens Advice with the problem between September 2010 and January this year, compared to eight people in the same period the previous year. “We feel that many of our clients who are genuinely doing all they can to improve their chances of seeking employment and are meeting their jobseeker’s agreements in full, are being unfairly sanctioned,” the report said. “It could be argued that the way some JSA sanctions are applied is vindictive.” Cases documented include a homeless man and clients whose homes were at risk due to the knock-on effect on other benefits. The report says many of the people sanctioned often did not realise until they checked their bank accounts, and that some clients had been “actively advised against appealing [against] their decisions” by jobcentre staff. A jobseeker who signed on for the first time on Monday told the Guardian: “I did not expect the conversation I had with the jobcentre adviser, who was completely unknown to me. He seemed very afraid, that if he didn’t carry out these instructions he would be the next one signing on. “He asked me to imagine: ‘A manager comes round on a Friday afternoon and says I have to find one more person to sanction to meet my target; I have one client with previous for GBH, and another with learning disabilities. Who am I going to choose?’” Welfare Unemployment John Domokos guardian.co.uk
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Whatever the outcome of this year’s federal budget struggle, bigger battles over aid will come this summer It’s crunch time on Capitol Hill on Friday. If an agreement on billions of dollars in spending cuts in this year’s federal budget is not reached today, the US will face the first government shutdown in 15 years. Though the dust will take time to settle, whatever the outcome, one of the casualties will almost certainly be US foreign aid, which constitutes less than 1% of the federal budget. According to the US Global Leadership Coalition , humanitarian assistance and disaster relief programmes would be cut down by 41%, food security and food aid programmes would be slashed by 30% and multilateral contributions would drop by 40%, under budget proposals put forward by congressional Republicans. Meanwhile, resources for global health programmes would fall by 11%, including a 43% reduction to US contributions for the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria . Also on the chopping block is former president George Bush’s global Aids programme, PEPFAR . Republican budget proposals also aim to reinstate the Mexico city rule , which would block federal funding to family planning programmes in developing countries if they give help, or advice, on abortions. Many of these proposed cuts have come as a surprise, particularly as global health and food security have traditionally garnered substantial bipartisan support. The head of USAID, Rajiv Shah, a former medical doctor, warned Congress last week that the proposed spending cuts would lead to the deaths of 70,000 children: 30,000 from the scaling back of malaria control programmes and 24,000 from the lack of US support for immunisations; another 16,000 children would die at birth. “I believe these are very conservative estimates,” Shah said. In a separate congressional testimony last Wednesday, Shah pushed the argument that development assistance is a cheap and effective way to win friends abroad and establish markets for the future . “Our work in promoting national security is not just limited to active zones of conflict,” he said, referring to Afghanistan, where the aid agency works side-by-side with the military. “Throughout the world, USAID is deploying development specialists today to strengthen democracies, rebuild livelihoods and build strong health and education systems so that we do not have to deploy our troops tomorrow.” Under Shah, the aid agency has embarked on a period of extensive reform, USAID Forward , seeking to establish USAID as “the world’s premier development agency”. As part of these reforms, Shah places special emphasis on economic growth and private sector investment. In his testimony to Congress, he highlighted new partnerships with companies such as Kraft, General Mills and Wal-Mart in Ghana, Tanzania, El Salvador and Guatemala to connect farmers to food markets as part of the Feed the Future initiative , as well as USAID’s support for Coca-Cola’s work to promote Haiti’s mango juice industry. “Exports to developing countries have grown six times faster than exports to major economies and today they represent roughly half of all US exports,” Shah said, adding that “for every 10% increase we see in exports, there is a 7% increase in the number of jobs here at home”. President Barack Obama’s original budget request to Congress more than halved development assistance to at least 20 countries and terminated USAID missions in three. Today, agencies and programmes that rely on federal funding are waiting to see how a shutdown will affect their operations. According to the Cable’s Josh Rogin, a government shutdown would mean that about two-thirds of the State Department and USAID staff in Washington would be furloughed , forced to take a temporary leave of absence, though most personnel at US foreign missions would be retained. In November 1995, a week-long government shutdown furloughed 800,000 federal employees, followed by a second partial shutdown from 15 December 1995 to 6 January 1996 which saw the furlough of 285,000. Gawain Kripke, the director of policy and research at Oxfam America, says the threat alone of a federal shutdown causes disruption and damage. “Important development and anti-poverty programmes have already been put on hold due to the uncertainty,” he said on Monday. “For example, the launch of an innovative food security programme that is expected to include a focus on rice production in Cambodia has been indefinitely postponed.” Whatever the outcome of this budget struggle, though, bigger battles will come this summer in Congress. The 2012 budget proposed on Tuesday by Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House budget committee, would reduce federal spending by $5.8 trillion over the next decade: a 29% cut next year to international affairs and foreign assistance, and 44% by 2016. Defence spending would rise by 14% over the same period. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the foreign affairs committee, is also expected to submit a bill next week that would overhaul the way the US pays its dues to the United Nations. While the 192-member UN general assembly currently decides how much each country should pay, Ros-Lehtinen wants Washington to be able to decide which programmes to fund. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, travelled to Capitol Hill on Thursday to defend the work and justify the multi-billion-dollar cost of the UN. Another longer-term challenge facing US humanitarian assistance lies in the relatively widespread public support received by proposals to cut the foreign aid budget. A recent Gallup poll, for example, suggests that foreign aid is the only part of the federal budget that most Americans think should be cut . So the future of American international aid will remain uncertain, regardless of how today plays out. However, according to data released on Wednesday by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US was still the world’s biggest aid donor in 2010 , spending $30.2bn – the largest aid disbursement ever recorded by a single donor, which is still less than 1% of the federal budget. US Congress United States US foreign policy US federal government shutdown Aid Claire Provost guardian.co.uk
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Media giants clash over whether cable firm should be allowed to stream channels such as Comedy Central and MTV on tablet US media giants Time Warner and Viacom have taken their acrimonious battle over streaming live TV on the iPad to court. The companies filed lawsuits against each other on Thursday, asking a New York federal judge to decide whether Time Warner Cable, the company’s cable TV business, should be allowed to stream Viacom programmes on Apple’s tablet computer without paying the company more money. Time Warner Cable was forced to pull 11 popular channels – including Viacom’s Comedy Central and MTV – from its iPad app last month after legal complaints from the company, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and Discovery. The media companies argue that Time Warner should pay them more money to stream their programmes on devices other than TVs. Viacom said that the iPad app – which Time Warner says has been downloaded more than 360,000 times – would result in “substantial and irreparable injury” to its business. Time Warner protests that its customers should be able to watch programming on as many screens as they wish – and that its existing contract with the channels allows this. The Time Warner executive vice-president and general counsel, Marc Lawrence-Apfelbaum, said yesterday: “We have steadfastly maintained that we have the rights to allow our customers to view this programming in their homes, over our cable systems, without artificial limits on the screens they can use to do so, and we are asking the court to confirm our view.” Although the court’s judgment will not order any action to be taken, it could set an important precedent for digital viewing. Other US cable companies, such as Cablevision, are expected to release similar iPad apps shortly, as they look to exploit viewers’ move towards portable devices. In the UK, the BBC’s iPlayer app for the iPad delivers more than 2m requests for programmes a month, according to the latest figures for February. Since their launch on 10 February, the Android and iPad apps for iPlayer have been downloaded about 500,000 times. •
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The Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, is expected to attend the funerals of the 12 children killed by a gunman in Rio Twenty-four hours after 13 people died in the worst school massacre in Brazilian history, the victims’ families are preparing to bury their dead. Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, is expected to travel to Rio to attend the wakes of 12 students killed during Thursday’s shooting inside the Tasso da Silveira school in Realengo, western Rio. The body of the killer, who reportedly committed suicide after being shot by police, remains unclaimed in the city morgue. As police attempted to piece together a profile of the 23-year-old gunman, named as Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, further details emerged of the slaughter inside the school. Students said Oliveira – a former pupil now dubbed “the monster of Realengo” by local tabloids – entered the building at around 8am claiming to be giving a lecture. After talking to one former teacher he made his way up a flight of stairs to classroom three where students, mostly girls, were lined up, and shot many at point-blank range in the head and chest. Mateus Moraes, 13, told the O Dia newspaper that Oliveira had deliberately killed a number of girls but spared the boys. “He killed the girls with shots to the head,” Moraes said. “The boys, he just shot to injure, in the arms or the legs. “I asked him not to kill me and he said: ‘Relax, Fatty, I’m not going to kill you,’” added Moraes. “As he reloaded the gun I just prayed. God saved me.” Grisly photographs taken inside classroom three were printed by one local newspaper and CCTV footage showing part of the rampage was also leaked, although editors decided most of the images were too disturbing to publish. The photographs showed open textbooks and backpacks scattered on top of a jumble of blood-stained chairs and desks. Golden bullet-cases littered the floor. Jade Ramos Araújo, 12, was sitting a science test when Oliveira burst into her classroom, wearing a dark blue jacket and with an ammunition belt strapped to his waist. “He was shouting at the children: ‘Face the wall because I’m going to kill you,’” she told the Brazilian news website IG. “The children shouted, begging: ‘Don’t kill me, young man.’ “It was like a waterfall of blood, with blood flowing like water. The were lots of dead people on the stairs, more girls than boys.” Another 12-year-old student told the Guardian the gunman had been “well-dressed”. “He came into our room and said he was going to kill everyone. I thought I was going to die.” Asked if she would return to study at Tasso da Silveira school, the girl shook her head. “I am leaving.” Brazil’s justice minister, José Eduardo Cardozo, promised a government “crusade” against gun ownership. “We have to fight strongly against this culture of armament, against this culture that makes people … commit this kind of atrocity,” he told reporters. Brazil Dilma Rousseff Tom Phillips guardian.co.uk
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In his third instalment on London’s best budget restaurants and cafes, Tony Naylor goes west, in search of a great breakfast, superior snacks and unexpected gastronomic bargains See our interactive map of Britain’s best budget restaurants If we’ve missed your favourite tell us on our Word of Mouth blog Orange Pekoe, Barnes Barnes feels less like London than Henley-on-Thames or some similarly sedate corner of Oxfordshire. Orange Pekoe, a speciality tea room and cafe in the modern style – all jazzy, expensive wallpapers and tastefully deployed vintage chintz – exudes that gentle atmosphere. Its calm cheerfulness is particularly welcome over breakfast. The morning menu stretches from freshly baked pastries to Scottish smoked salmon and cream cheese on toasted muffins, and includes the Pekoe Florentine (£6), where the expected hollandaise is replaced (presumably with calorie-counting yummy mummies in mind) with fresh spinach and a dressing of olive oil. The irony tang of the spinach and the grassy, pungent oil work surprisingly well. Elsewhere, the daytime menu runs the tarts-salads-sandwiches gamut, with everything from breads to pies made from scratch on site. The takeaway sandwiches (£3.90) looked good, and the baking is top notch. A piece of fudge-like chocolate brownie was full of dark berry fruit flavours. Incidentally, Orange Pekoe might specialise in fine teas (60 loose leaf or flower teas, £3.60 a pot) but it isn’t pretentious. For those who require something dark and strong to kick start their day they also serve a robust, subtly earthy breakfast blend in a proper big mug. • Breakfast £1.30-£8, sandwiches/meals, £4.50-£8.50. 3 White Hart Lane, SW13 (+44 (0) 20-8876 6070, orangepekoeteas.com ) Santa Maria Pizzeria, Ealing Naturally, this Neapolitan-owned pizzeria has a wood-fired pizza oven. That’s unremarkable these days. Few restaurateurs, however, would go to the trouble of bringing over a fourth-generation Italian specialist to build said oven, using handmade bricks prepared from specific sands and clays from around Vesuvius and the Amalfi coast. Such is the determination at Santa Maria to produce superlative pizza. And Ealing clearly appreciates that effort. On a Thursday evening, this small, neat, off-grey space – dominated by a striking image of Santa Maria di Merino, a maroon patchwork on a huge plywood board – was hot and busy with people picking up takeaways and squeezing in at the tables. Like the sandwich, pizza is at its best when it is kept to a few superb ingredients, and Santa Maria’s bufalina exemplifies this. The base is foldable, paper thin in the middle, expertly charred and ringed with a springy edge. Essentially, it’s a shallow pool of vibrant, seasoned tomato pulp and exquisite, melting buffalo milk mozzarella. At times, it is like eating a pizza topped with double cream. Superb. • Pizza £4.50-£8.95. 15 St.Mary’s Road, W5 (+44 (0) 20-8579 1462, santamariapizzeria.com ) Hereford Road Restaurant, Notting Hill As you would expect from a graduate of Fergus Henderson’s St John , chef-owner Tom Pemberton specialises in common-sense cooking. His kitchen works diligently to extract maximum flavour from often neglected ingredients (skirt steak, mutton, mackerel etc) and Pemberton tries to keep the prices down accordingly. At £13, the two-course set lunch is excellent value, but with this feature’s self-imposed £10-a-head price limit in mind, the express lunch (£9.50 for a daily changing no-choice main course, a glass of wine and coffee) is an absolute steal. A sample plate of lentils and roasted quail was great. Cooked-down with rosemary, garlic, onion and spinach, the lentils were fragrant, alive with flavour and rendered to a fraction-past-al-dente perfection. The quail, whilst not the tastiest game bird ever, was supremely juicy, the skin well seasoned and crisp. Washed down with a glass of light, nicely tannic Portuguese table wine, it was a thoroughly enjoyable 45-minute break. Service is spot on and the restaurant itself is a light, coolly modern space. Foodies will appreciate the two-person booths opposite the open kitchen where you can earwig on the chefs as they work their way through the service. It was unspectacular stuff. This is a venue where, you sense, Ramsay-style meltdowns would be anathema. But, nonetheless, it was interesting listening in on the comments and instructions. • Express lunch £9.50. 3 Hereford Road, Westbourne Grove, W2 (+44 (0) 20-7727 1144, herefordroad.org ) Clarke’s Shop, Kensington All diplomatic number plates, small dogs in rain coats and ludicrously expensive designer sunglasses, Kensington is an unlikely place to stop off in search of good, affordable food. But this deli-cafe next door to Sally Clarke ‘s flagship restaurant is a useful address to note. Something of a pioneer in her day, Clarke has been promoting the virtues of simple, sensible, seasonal cooking at these premises for more than 25 years. The shop’s tiny, 10-seater cafe section, however, could do with freshening up. The service lacked the kind of warmth and dynamism you might expect and the tables weren’t being cleared promptly between guests. A sample breakfast croissant – a delicate pillowy mound – was fine but not quite the zinger expected. It all felt a little glum. Which was in stark contrast to the takeaway samples from the deli counter. A slice of celeriac and parmesan tart (£3.10) and a Gloucester Old Spot sausage roll (£3.25), were both very, very good. Still warm from the restaurant kitchens, they were clearly baked by somebody of considerable skill who loves what they do. Go, buy, eat on the run, and Clarke’s will brighten your day. • Eat in: breakfast £1.90-£6, lunch £2.90-£7.80. Takeaway snacks and sandwiches: £1.50-£4. 122 Kensington Church Street, W8 (+44 (0) 20-7229 2190, sallyclarke.com/shop.php ) Mr Falafel, Shepherd’s Bush Whatever it is that brings you to Shepherd’s Bush, be it BBC Television Centre, Queen’s Park Rangers Football Club or Westfield shopping centre, do not miss Mr Falafel or Abu Zaad (below). The former is found at the entrance to Shepherd’s Bush market, where, from a simple cafe unit, Ahmad Yassine dispenses nutty, herby crisp-fried falafel of a remarkable fluffy lightness in various wraps. Accompaniments such as hummus, tahini sauce, pickled turnips and cucumbers add layers of spiky flavour. In the deluxe version the fried cauliflower florets are sensational and the “fried potato” pieces (actually, cold chips) work better than you might think. It’s a dynamic dose of carbs. There is mint or orange blossom tea, alongside the usual soft drinks. Wholly vegetarian, the Mr Falafel menu is largely vegan-friendly, too. • Falafel wraps from £3. Open 11am-6pm, closed Sunday. Units T4-T5, New Shepherd’s Bush Market, Uxbridge Road, W12 (+44 (0) 7798 906668, mrfalafel.co.uk ) Abu Zaad, Shepherd’s Bush A little bit of downtown Damascus on the Uxbridge Road, this buzzy Syrian restaurant – all carved wood and ornate Arabic brasswork, satellite TV and genial bustle – offers eye-opening food at remarkably low prices. Syria shares many dishes with its Middle Eastern and eastern Mediterranean neighbours (hummus, tabbouleh, Lebanese fattoush salad, moussaka, Moroccan tagines and myriad grilled kebabs) and, naturally, the aubergine plays a significant role in the Abu Zaad kitchen. Moutabal – one of the many starters which can also be eaten as a meze-style selection – is grilled aubergine blended with lemon juice and sesame oil to produce an intensely smoky, yet unusually sour thick wet paste. It certainly gets the saliva glands going. Makloba, meanwhile, is a dish of rice, aubergine, lamb and pine nuts cooked together in a special sauce, which has none of the heat you might expect. Instead, the dish is full of warm, savoury woodland flavours, like a wild mushroom risotto. There is no alcohol at Abu Zaad, but its exotic fresh juices (£1.75) are brilliant. A blitzed lemon and mint juice was the colour of the Incredible Hulk, perfectly balanced, and one of the most refreshing things I have ever tasted. • Takeaway/eat-in prices: wraps from £2.25, starters from £2.50/£3, mains from £4.50/£5.50. 29 Uxbridge Road, W12 (+44 (0) 20-8749 5107, abuzaad.co.uk ) Mr Christian’s, Notting Hill Originally opened by chef Glynn Christian – famous in the 1980s as the resident cook on BBC’s Pebble Mill at One and Breakfast Time programmes – this delicatessen has been driving up food standards in Notting Hill for some 37 years. Now owned by wine merchants Jeroboams, it may not have the sleek designer looks or the eat-in cafe of its newer rival, the Grocer on Elgin, just across the road, but it’s a little bit cheaper, and, from what I sampled, just as tasty. The daily takeaway menu includes the shop’s own hot pasta bakes, soup, samosas, salads, various pies, sausage rolls (£1.10, and a little too heavily seasoned with sage and pepper, in my opinion) and seriously good cakes. Mr Christian’s sandwiches (pre-prepared, but that morning) are as fresh as the proverbial daisy and generously loaded with good things. Everything about a sample salmon and cream cheese bagel (the dense, chewy, almost sweetish bagel; the rich, thick, sharp cream cheese; the bright, lightly cured salmon; the fastidious scattering of fresh chives and ground pepper) was testament to Mr Christian’s enduring quality. The staff are engagingly friendly, too. • Snacks from £1, sandwiches/ meals £3.20-£6. 11 Elgin Crescent, W11 (+44 (0) 20-7229 0501, mrchristians.co.uk ) White Horse, Parson’s Green, Fulham The White Horse is famous for two things: beer and its popularity with braying hoorays. Thankfully, on this visit, the former (eight well kept real ales from £2.80 a pint) were far more in evidence than the latter. On a sunny Thursday evening, this handsomely polished Victorian boozer seemed to have attracted a reasonably diverse cross section of west London life, and the room was suffused in that easy-going good cheer that is generated by that great leveller: good beer. Harveys Sussex Bitter, Adnams Broadside and Fuller’s Chiswick are the pub’s regular real ales and a sample pint from the guests – Brewster’s zesty Hophead – was in excellent condition. The White Horse also carries a very impressive selection of draught and bottled lagers, US and continental beers. Foodwise, there are various good quality sandwiches (eg. home-cured honey roast ham; deep-fried cod cheek with lettuce and salad cream) available until 6pm, and, outside of that, bar snacks of the ploughman’s (£7.50), potted crab, pork pie and homemade piccalilli variety. A sample rare roast beef sandwich (£5.60) was a good size, all the components were fresh and the horseradish had a decent kick to it. The beef was a touch fridge cold at first, but it had good flavour when it warmed up a little. On the bank holiday weekend of 29 April-2 May, the White Horse hosts the Hop-Forward Beer Festival, with a barbecue and hog roast. • Sandwiches and bar snacks £4.50-£8.25. 1-3 Parson’s Green, SW6 (+44 (0)20-7736 2115, whitehorsesw6.com ) Books for Cooks, Notting Hill The self-explanatory Books for Cooks is also home to the Test Kitchen – a bright little cafe space, the walls painted colourfully with pictures of De Cecco pasta packets, artichokes and aubergines – which every lunchtime puts some of those recipes from the shelves through their paces. Quality is high, prices remarkably low (three courses, £7) and you have to get here early (around 11.45am), to secure one of the 20 or so seats. Otherwise, you might squeeze in just after 1pm, as people begin to drift away, but the kitchen stops serving at 1.30-2pm latest. The daily menu typically consists of a starter, a main and several cakes, with customers free to eat as much or as little as they wish. A sample plate of Turkish-style chicken with black-eyed beans was boldly flavoured peasant food at its best. A moist leg and nicely crisped thigh arrived atop a tomato and bean stew which had a good long flavour and a surprising paprika heat. It wasn’t a huge portion, but it was a filling lunch and, at £4, incredibly good value. It is ironic, of course, that wealthy Notting Hill has such an affordable resource on its doorstep (the middle-class chatter here is of media careers; you may recognise some of your fellow diners from Newsnight Review), but it would be churlish to resent that. Instead, get down here. Treat yourself to lunch. It will be £7 plus your tube fare well spent. The staff, incidentally, are happy to chew over the details of the dishes with interested foodies, after which you can get back to browsing the shelves for that must-have study of Tudor cake decoration. • One course £4, two for £5, three for £7. 4 Blenheim Crescent, W11, (+44 (0) 20-7221 1992, booksforcooks.com ) Tosa, Hammersmith By the door sits a 15kg box labelled “premium grade restaurant charcoal”. An indication that Tosa is not your typical Japanese restaurant. Yes, it serves sushi, sashimi and familiar udon noodle and tempura mains, but the real draw here is that robata charcoal grill at the front of the restaurant, where the chef prepares his grilled kushiyaki skewers (from under £2). If you are one of those people who likes the raw visceral simplicity of smoky, caramelised, lightly charred meats, then Tosa will transport you to hog heaven. Literally in the case of the butabara , a grilled skewer of pork belly upon which the rectangular pieces of fat crisp up into a kind of supra-bacon. The chicken livers (rich, velvety, carrying a little tang from their marinade) and the ox tongue are not to be missed. The texture of the latter may be more squid than steak, but ox tongue, here seasoned with salt and lemon, delivers a sensationally beefy flavour – better, in fact, than most modern beef. The only potential problem at Tosa is that, at £10-a-head, the four or five skewers you can squeeze in for that money may not quite fill you up, if it’s your main meal of the day. In that case, if there are two of you, pool your cash, share a main noodle dish, drink tap water, and then spend the rest on skewers. You won’t regret it. Alternatively, Tosa does takeaway, so if you’re passing at lunch, drop in and pick-up some grilled uzura (quail’s eggs) or torikawa (chicken skin). Tosa also does a full-meal lunch deal including a main dish, rice, miso, salad etc for £11. • Skewers from £1.70, mains £6.60-£10. 332 King Street, W6 (+44 (0) 20-8748 0002, tosauk.com ). Second branch at 152 High Road, East Finchley, N2 (+44 (0) 20-8883 8850) Tony travelled from Manchester to London with Virgin Trains ( virgintrains.co.uk ) London Food and drink Budget travel Restaurants Restaurants Food & drink United Kingdom Tony Naylor guardian.co.uk
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