The aesthetic movement was more than William Morris wallpaper – it turned Victorian values upside down. Jonathan Jones goes to Paris to seek out its dark side In spring sunlight, art students rush through the grand courtyard of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Artists such as Matisse studied here. But I am looking for a British and Irish cultural hero. On the Rue des Beaux Arts, a narrow Left Bank street next to the famous art academy, an expensive hotel (simply called L’Hôtel ) is getting ready for the lunch hour. Only if you know this was once the run-down Hotel d’Alsace where Oscar Wilde died in 1900, disgraced, despised, penniless, his health broken by Reading jail , will you
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Newly refurbished museum at Tower of London highlights regiment’s 325 year history Private W Reginauld may not have been the Royal Fusiliers’ most distinguished soldier, but the boot he wore will have pride of place at the newly refurbished regimental museum in the Tower of London. It was not the sort of footwear anyone would want to wear – a heavy iron contraption stretching from toe to knee that an exasperated colonel ordered Reginauld to put on in 1808 following years of malingering with a bad leg. The painted inscription tells it all: “Found of great use after imposing on the regiment for three years and six months, was cured in 12 days …” To complete the cure, Reginauld was sentenced to 500 lashes to dissuade him from swinging the lead again. The Royal Fusiliers, drawing recruits from London, has had plenty of more gallant soldiers than Reginauld, among them 20 winners of the Victoria Cross, with 12 of those medals on display in the museum in an interactive display case whose touchscreen will describe how each came to be won. The regiment, first raised at the Tower in 1685 and now amalgamated with three regional fusilier regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, has missed few significant battles in the last 320 years. “We have only been absent from Waterloo and D-day,” said Colin Bowes-Crick, the museum’s curator, whose connection with the regiment stretches back nearly 50 years. “We missed Waterloo by a day and for D-day were still fighting in Italy.” There is also a Russian musket ball extracted from the thigh of a fusilier wounded at the battle of Inkerman in 1854 – together with the soldier’s letter home to his family describing the incident, written the same day – and a white tablecloth waved by German troops surrendering at the end of the prolonged and bloody battle at the Italian monastery of Monte Casino in the second world war. A mannequin in a display case depicts the surprisingly diminutive figure of George V – much smaller than Michael Gambon in The King’s Speech — wearing his uniform as colonel of the regiment, complete with bearskin. And, some things never change, there is also a letter from a regimental colonel to William Howard Russell, the first war correspondent, complaining about his coverage of the Crimean war. There is also the Napoleonic imperial eagle on its pike, captured from the French in 1809, in a battle at Martinique. “That really makes my temples tingle,” said Bowes-Crick. “It’s the thought that Napoleon himself would have touched the eagle in presenting it to his troops.” Entry to the museum, reopening to the public next week after the £850,000 refit, will be included in the price of admission to the Tower. Military Museums Museums Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Spokesman tells BBC he believes Pentagon treatment of jailed soldier Bradley Manning is ‘counterproductive’ to US interests The former US state department spokesman who resigned over the treatment of Bradley Manning has said he has no regrets about his comments criticising the manner of the soldier’s detention, saying it has undermined the investigation into his role as the alleged source for WikiLeaks. PJ Crowley resigned this month after calling the Pentagon’s treatment of Manning “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid” . His remarks, made during a speech at MIT, were first reported by blogger Phillpa Thomas . In an interview with the BBC, his first since the resignation, Crowley said he had recently been asked why the US was torturing Manning. “The United States is doing no such thing, but I understand why the question was asked,” Crowley said. “I thought the treatment of Bradley Manning – the fact that he had to sleep naked and stand in a jail cell naked – was counter-productive to our broader effort of appropriately prosecuting someone who has violated his oath of office,” he told Hardtalk. Crowley said he was a believer in “something like strategic narratives”, saying: “The United States, as an exceptional country in the world, has to be seen as practising what we preach.” Asked if he had realised the effect his comments would have, Crowley said: “Well, I realised that I was challenging another agency of government. Quite honestly I didn’t necessarily think the controversy would go as far as it did. “But I don’t regret saying what I said.” Since June last year Manning has been kept in solitary confinement at a Marine Corps prison near Washington awaiting trial on suspicion of giving classified material to WikiLeaks. Earlier this month it was revealed that he is forced to sleep naked in his cell. His lawyers said his clothes were taken after he made sarcastic comments about using his underwear to commit suicide. The US authorities confirmed Manning was made to relinquish his boxer shorts for about seven hours due to a “situationally driven” event. Barack Obama has said he has asked Pentagon officials about aspects of Manning’s confinement and been assured that they were appropriate. Asked about Obama’s comments, Crowley said: “Again, I can only offer you my view, which is that it is one thing that actions can be legal and it is another thing that actions can be smart. I do think that the prosecution of Bradley Manning is legitimate and necessary. “The release of 251,000 cables has damaged US interests around the world and more importantly has put the lives of activists who help us understand what’s going on around the world in jeopardy. “But I felt his treatment undermines the credibility of the ongoing investigation and prosecution. I spoke my mind and I haven’t changed my view.” United States Bradley Manning Barack Obama WikiLeaks Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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The former Labour health secretary, now a government adviser on social mobility, joins criticism of Andrew Lansley • Alan Milburn: Labour will contest, not concede, NHS reform A former health secretary, Alan Milburn, has attacked the government’s health reforms, describing them as confused, liable to increase bureaucracy and expected to shift power sideways rather than down to patients. His criticism in a Guardian article is significant since the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, and David Cameron frequently cite Blairite public sector reformers such as Milburn in defence of their health moves. Milburn was asked this month by the government whether he would apply for the post of chairman of the NHS commissioning board, the new arms-length body that is due to run the NHS after the reforms. He is already the government’s adviser on social mobility. His article, presaging further criticism in the magazine Progress, will be another blow to Lansley as he continues to resist criticisms of his reforms from an ever-widening alliance of health professionals, Liberal Democrats, unions and public opinion. The Lib Dems, at their conference, and the BMA voted to reject Lansley’s reforms. Nick Clegg has said he will require major revisions before the bill introducing the reforms currently in committee can return to the Commons for its report stage. Milburn also warns Labour that it must not make the mistake of being opposed to any reform of the NHS. It is expected that Ed Miliband and the shadow health secretary, John Healey, will set out Labour’s position in greater detail in the next fortnight. They will argue that the central ethos of public service reform must be co-operation and not competition between providers, as proposed. The Lansley reforms abolish primary care trusts and hand commissioning of a potential £80bn NHS budget to local GP commissioning boards capable of handing contracts to any willing provider. The reforms will also allow all NHS foundation trusts to become fully independent by 2014, and in the process abolishes many NHS targets set by the government. Milburn writes: “It’s a bad idea to let hospitals off the accountability hook by abolishing the national targets that drove better lower waiting times during the last decade. Cutting waste is a good idea but it’s a bad idea to assume that NHS structural change saves cash rather than costing it. Abolishing PCTs and creating more GP consortia to replace them hardly sounds like a recipe for reducing bureaucracy. “There’s also a chasm between the cost of making change – £1.4bn – and the cash available for it. The NHS budget will fall not rise in the next few years so it is relying on £20bn efficiency savings to make ends meet. Structural change can only distract it from doing so.” Milburn is one of many critics who believe the government will end up making PCT managers redundant and then rehiring them to run GP commissioning boards. The government has tried to reduce this risk by banning anyone working for a PCT being re-employed for a GP board within six weeks. Milburn praises the idea of family doctors facing the consequences of their own prescribing and treatment, but writes: “It’s a bad idea to weaken public accountability over £80bn of public money and to assume that GPs can easily do the complex business of commissioning local services.” Milburn believes the government will have to reintroduce the Lib Dem concept of greater local accountability, the original proposal put forward by the Lib Dems in their manifesto but then weakened in coalition negotiations. But Milburn also urges Labour to box clever in its opposition to the NHS reforms, saying competition can improve the NHS. He writes: “In local areas where new providers were brought in to provide NHS services, waiting times and death rates fell faster than where they weren’t. Labour should promote a legal, level playing field based solely on the interests of patients, not providers. But that requires proper planning, not a free-for-all. Market mechanisms can work in healthcare but only when properly managed and regulated.” Milburn also admits to being unable to understand the politics behind the government’s NHS reforms, arguing Cameron had always seen safety first on the NHS as critical to decontaminating the Conservative brand. In a series of clarifications, Lansley has already promised not to allow competition based simply on price, and said that commissioning consortia would not hold on to, or share with private companies, savings from commissioning budget. In a change of language he has said “any qualified providers” will be entitled to provide NHS services. He had previously promised “any willing provider” would be entitled to provide the services. NHS Health Andrew Lansley Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Treasury select committee’s scrutiny will raise political temperature on multinationals’ tax bills An influential group of MPs is to investigate corporate tax avoidance as the clamour grows for action on companies seen as paying less than their fair share. The inquiry, by the Treasury select committee, will raise the political temperature around the issue – already under scrutiny after questions over the tax bills of multinationals such as Vodafone and Barclays – and senior executives face the prospect of explaining their companies’ tax structures to the committee. George Mudie, the Labour MP for Leeds East and the chairman of the Commons Treasury sub-committee, told the Guardian that there was growing public interest. “When people see their standards of living fall and are paying their tax, and see huge salaries and questions over tax avoidance, then quite rightly they are interested in the issue,” he said. Mudie said the committee had not decided whether or not the full committee would consider the issue, or just the sub-committee: “I will be seeking to take the sub-committee into it unless the chairman [Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie] says we will do it in the full committee.” It would be May before the committee could consider the issue in detail, Mudie said, given pressures over the budget and the Easter break. Tax avoidance has been thrust into the spotlight recently by campaigners such as those from UK Uncut, alleging that multinationals such as Vodafone and individuals such as Arcadia’s chief, Sir Philip Green, have avoided huge sums in tax through complicated structures often based offshore. Critics allege that HM Revenue & Customs let Vodafone off a £6bn tax bill on profits funnelled through a Luxembourg subsidiary, a claim denied by the tax agency. Green’s shops have been the subject of sit-ins by UK Uncut, unhappy about a £1.2bn dividend Green paid out of retail group Arcadia in 2005 to a family trust, which campaigners say was in reality his income and should have been taxed as such. Barclays has faced criticism and direct action too, not least after disclosing that it paid £113m in UK corporation tax in 2009 after making profits globally of almost £12bn. Tax advisers say they detect no particular weakening of the rules on tax avoidance under the coalition. The government is considering plans to introduce a general anti-avoidance rule, and last week’s budget contained a range of new measures to target the issue. Bill Dodwell of Deloitte said: “There’s a considerable amount out there on tax avoidance already. I’m not sure what the committee would add.” But the National Audit Office and another powerful group of MPs, the public accounts committee, are already looking at the procedures which led to the government’s £1.25bn deal with Vodafone. The investigation comes as pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca said the UK and US had agreed on a settlement over the issue of where its profits should be declared, an agreement which will cost the group $1.1bn (£689m). Under the deal, AstraZeneca will pay substantially less than it had budgeted for. This means the company can unlock some of its outstanding tax provisions, increasing its earnings this year by $500m and raising its profit targets by almost 7%. Its effective tax rate will also be slashed from 27% to 21%. The deal means AstraZeneca will receive tax refunds in several other countries, as profits are booked in the US instead. A spokeswoman for the company confirmed that HMRC will hand back an undisclosed tax payment to be passed on to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She would not say how much this would be, but insisted it was less than the headline figure of $1.1bn. “Our UK total tax contribution will be still be substantial in 2011, and we continue to be one of the biggest payers of UK business taxes in the FTSE 100,” she said. Pharmaceuticals companies have been repeatedly caught up in transfer pricing disputes. Drugs companies would rather profits from major drugs could be booked in lower-tax jurisdictions, where the drugs are often manufactured, while higher-tax countries where the drugs were developed and marketed argue for a share of the taxable profits. In 2006 GlaxoSmithKline settled a transfer pricing dispute with the IRS, costing it $3.4bn, while AstraZeneca itself settled a dispute on the same issue with the UK last year for £505m. Tax avoidance Corporate governance Vodafone Barclays Sir Philip Green AstraZeneca Tax and spending UK Uncut Graeme Wearden Alex Hawkes guardian.co.uk
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Millions of emails from 2005 and 2006 are likely to include those by Andy Coulson and three former editors implicated in affair The News of the World has revealed that its computers have retained an archive of potentially damning emails, which hitherto it had claimed had been lost. The millions of emails, amounting to half a terabyte of data, could expose executives and reporters involved in hacking the voicemail of public figures, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott, actor Sienna Miller, and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell. The archived data is likely to include email exchanges between the most senior executives, including former editor Andy Coulson, who resigned as David Cameron’s media adviser in January, as well as three former news editors – Ian Edmondson, Greg Miskiw, and Neville Thurlbeck – implicated in the affair by paperwork seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was on the News of the World’s books. Edmondson was sacked in January. Miskiw and Thurlbeck were interviewed by police last autumn. No charge has been brought against any of them. Coulson and the three former news editors have all denied all involvement in criminal activity. MPs on the home affairs select committee are likely on Tuesday to ask about the emails to John Yates, acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, when they question him over allegations he misled parliament in evidence he gave about the number of hacking victims originally identified by Scotland Yard. Yates told the committee six months ago the Met had only identified “10 to 12″ individuals in a 2006 inquiry because the Crown Prosecution Service advised it to adopt a narrow legal definition of what constituted an offence. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has said that prosecuting counsel never adopted this narrow definition. Several News of the World journalists have since been linked with phone hacking after victims began legal battles, raising questions about why Scotland Yard failed to conduct a more comprehensive inquiry. Only one reporter, former royal editor Clive Goodman, was convicted of a crime along with Mulcaire. Both men were sentenced to jail terms in January 2007. No other reporters or executives were questioned by the initial police investigation and only Goodman’s computer was seized. Only a series of high court cases brought by Sienna Miller and others have forced the Met to make available the material seized in a 2006 raid on Mulcaire’s home, including his handwritten notes. But the disclosure of internal emails from 2005 and 2006, when Mulcaire was at his most active, could reveal the full extent of phone-hacking at the paper and the identities of those involved. In a ruling on Friday, a high court judge ordered the News of the World to make them available to the growing list of people suing the paper. Justice Geoffrey Vos, in charge of the hacking cases, ordered “rolling disclosure” to all claimants on Friday; hundreds of thousands of emails will now be handed over to alleged victims. Parts of the first tranche, which contains up to 8,000 emails, will be passed to Sienna Miller’s legal team in April. Lawyers acting for Sky Andrew, the football agent who is also suing the paper, will then receive all the News of the World emails in which Andrew is mentioned days later. News Group told the high court it is close to completing a search through archived emails it claimed had been lost when transferred to India by its IT provider; its lawyers formally apologised to the court for previous claims the archive was not available. David Sherborne, for Sienna Miller, added that it remained ‘mysterious’ that the editor of the Scottish edition of the News of the World, Bob Bird, had given evidence on oath at the trial of Tommy Sheridan last year that the email archive had been lost on the way to India. News Group also admitted a work computer used by Edmondson had been destroyed before Christmas. They agreed to provide detailed information about its destruction to computer specialists advising Sienna Miller. Computers used by other News of the World journalists have also been replaced or disposed of, but News Group’s lawyer, Anthony Hudson QC, said the data they contained had been copied and retained. Sherborne told the high court on Friday that evidence of “a scheme” between News Group and Mulcaire to hack into Miller’s mobile phone had been recovered by the Met during the raid on his home. It included an agreement to provide “daily transcripts” to the paper and monitor the activities of the actor’s friends and associates, Sherborne said. Further disclosures have been ordered by Vos. They include a copy of an email sent to Mulcaire asking him to target a “wish list” of 17 footballers. News International maintains it will take tough action against any employee who is found guilty of wrongdoing. News of the World Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers News International James Robinson guardian.co.uk
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Leaked memo reveals Warwickshire police authority will take up to 150 officers off the streets Serving police officers are being taken out of frontline roles and moved to cover the “back-office” functions of civilian staff who have been made redundant, according to leaked memos which show the perverse side-effects of budget cuts. The decision by Warwickshire police authority – one of the smaller forces in England and Wales with 1,800 officers and staff – to draft up to 150 frontline officers into civilian desk jobs is expected to be followed by other forces grappling with a 20% cut in their Whitehall funding. Police officers are Crown-appointed warrant holders and cannot be made redundant. They can only be “compulsorily retired” through an obscure regulation after more than 30 years’ service, but civilian support staff do not enjoy such job security. The leak comes as a second survey of police authority intentions carried out by Labour confirms that the police are heading for 27,500 job losses, including 12,500 police officers, over the next four years. Ministers have vowed to protect frontline policing from the impact of the cuts and a report by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary to be published on Wednesday is expected to clear up the confusion over where the “frontline” can be drawn in the battle against crime. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the Warwickshire situation showed that chief constables had been put in an impossible position: “It is now clear that when there is not the staff to help plan, co-ordinate or forensically investigate the fight against crime, then police officers will have to be taken off the streets to do this work. “The government needs to take responsibility and recognise that the loss of 12,500 police officers and 15,000 police staff across the country is taking risks with public safety and the progress on crime and antisocial behaviour that was made over the last decade.” The decision by Warwickshire to redeploy frontline officers to roles such as staffing inquiry offices and control rooms and conducting routine visits to crime scenes was disclosed in a leaked memo by Richard Elkin, the force’s human resources director. He has written to all 860 back-office staff inviting those with more than two years’ service to apply for voluntary redundancy: “Whilst the force manages the required reductions in the number of police officers, it has been agreed that some will be temporarily posted into police staff posts which are currently vacant, or which will become vacant following voluntary redundancy,” says the memo. The Warwickshire force faces losing 450 jobs out of its 1,800 strength to find savings of £23m in its £100m budget by 2015. The home secretary, Theresa May, and the police minister, Nick Herbert, have repeatedly said it is possible for savings to be found through cutting bureaucracy and back-office functions without hitting the frontline. Ian Francis, chairman of Warwickshire police authority, has said that there are too many police officers in the county force for the new model of policing which is being implemented. “We don’t like it, they [Warwickshire police federation] don’t like it, I don’t think the public like it, but at the end of the day we have no option,” Francis has said. Francis has predicted that other forces are also likely to draft frontline officers into support roles: “The simple matter is yes, we are going to lose policemen from the front line.” Simon Reed, vice-chairman of the Police Federation, said Warwickshire’s example would be followed by other forces: “What is happening in Warwickshire will happen elsewhere simply because of the sheer amount of money being cut from budgets. “When we lose staff in inquiry offices, control rooms or going to scenes of crime then this will happen.” Reed said the cuts would reverse a 10- year process of getting uniformed officers back into mainstream police roles: “It is a question of teamwork. We all depend on each other. The frontline depends on the back-office function.” But a Home Office spokeswoman insisted savings could be achieved without cutting the frontline. “We believe that police forces can make the necessary savings while protecting frontline services and prioritising the visibility and availability of policing,” she said. “Forces must focus on driving out wasteful spending, and increasing efficiency in the back-office. The effectiveness of a police force does not depend primarily on the number of staff it has, but rather on the way they are deployed.” Police Public sector cuts Public services policy Public finance Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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Rome is negotiating an African haven for the Libyan leader as international pressure mounts on him to go Efforts appear to be under way to offer Muammar Gaddafi a way of escape from Libya, with Italy saying it is trying to organise an African haven for him, and the US signalling it will not try to stop the dictator from fleeing. The move came as diplomatic and military pressure on Gaddafi mounts as Britain tries to assemble a global consensus demanding he surrender power while intensifying air strikes against his forces. Britain will be hosting an international conference including the UN, Arab states, the African Union, and more than 40 foreign ministers, focused on coordinating assistance in the face of a possible humanitarian disaster, and building a unified international front in condemnation of the Gaddafi regime and in support of a Nato-led military action in Libya. On the eve of the London conference, Italy offered to broker a ceasefire deal in Libya, involving asylum for Gaddafi in an African country. “Gaddafi must understand that it would be an act of courage to say: ‘I understand that I have to go’,” said the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini. “We hope that the African Union can find a valid proposal.” A senior American official signalled that a solution in which Gaddafi flee to a country beyond the reach of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating war crimes charges against him, would be acceptable to Washington, pointing out that Barack Obama had repeatedly called on Gaddafi to leave. “I can’t say I know of active efforts to find him a place to go, but I would not say it has been ruled out,” the official said. “The ICC has said it will ready to pursue the case, but there are also the rules of the ICC,” he added, pointing out that some countries do not recognise the court’s jurisdiction. British officials said they would rather see Gaddafi face trial, but if his escape was the price of a peaceful settlement they would be able to live with that. David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy tried to ratchet up the pressure on Gaddafi, issuing a joint statement on the eve of the conference declaring his era over, and indicating that his lieutenants might escape prosecution if they abandoned him immediately. “We call on all his followers to leave him before it is too late,” they said. Nato officially announced it was taking over control of the air strikes campaign on Sunday, but the handover of command from the US will not happen for a few days, alliance officials said. Meanwhile, with Gaddafi forces and rebels squared for a battle around Gaddafi’s birthplace of Sirte, British planes taking part in the coalition that has been conducting the campaign for the past 10 days, stepped up their bombardment. RAF Tornados hit 22 tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces over the weekend, the Ministry of Defence said. In the early hours of Monday, they struck ammunition bunkers near Subha in southern Libya, according to the Major General John Lorimer, the MoD’s chief military spokesman. This is significantly more weapons than the Tornados fired over the first week of air strikes. Defence officials say the higher tempo is the result of more intelligence surveillance and assessments from reconnaissance aircraft. But British defence officials made clear they expect more restrictive targeting rules when their planes come under the command of a Canadian Nato general, Charles Bouchard, possibly by Thursday. Bouchard said that the transition would take a few days and it is a complex operation. Discord over the air strikes threatens to undermine the consensus the UK will attempt to construct at the Lancaster House conference. Russia denounced the air campaign, arguing it violated UN security council resolution 1973, passed earlier this month, which permitted “all necessary measures” to be used to protect civilians. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said: “We consider that intervention by the coalition in what is essentially an internal civil war is not sanctioned by the UN security council resolution.” Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was also critical of the air campaign in a Guardian interview on Monday, and in a symbolic blow to the London conference, it emerged that Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League – whose support for military action was deemed crucial by Washington and its allies – would not be attending, sending a deputy instead. The joint statement issued by Cameron and the French president was intended in part to heal a rift which opened up in recent days between the countries over the command of the air campaign and France’s recognition of the Benghazi-based National Libyan Council. The rebels are not invited to the conference, but William Hague is expected to meet one of their leaders, Mahmoud Jibril. The shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, will warn today that Britain should be careful about siding with the rebels. Speaking at the launch of a review Labour’s defence policy, Murphy will say: “The bravery of the Libyan opposition is not in doubt. What is unclear is the motives of some, other than the removal of Gaddafi. As the opposition move westwards across Libya it is crucial that we better understand who they are and their wider ambitions.” Muammar Gaddafi Nato Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Libya Julian Borger Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
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SHIFT 2 – Chrono 1 – 0:50.501 – KazeySkill Shift 2 Unleashed Launch Trailer Need For Speed Shift 2 Unleashed Download GTPlanet at Shift 2 Media Event: Hands-On Impressions An early, hands-on look at one of the GT series’ biggest competitors. Find out how it stacks up… “ Shift 2 ″ set to quicken your pulse caption id=attachment_11626 align=alignleft width=400 caption= Shift 2 : Unleashed – Helmet Cam view of Pagani Huayra (Image credit: Shift 2 . Shift 2 Unleashed Supported Racing Wheels | N4G Want the ultimate experience from the “fastest racer on the planet”? Then you need to play Shift 2 Unleashed with a racing wheel! Here’s an updated list for all officially supported racing wheels for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC … Win SHIFT 2 : Unleashed for the Xbox 360 – Xbox Gaming in South Africa Stand a chance of winning one of three copies of Shift 2 : Unleashed in our latest competition giveaway. SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED: Don't You Forget About Me | Kotaku Australia Being that I’m drenched in the sweet, tenderising juices of 3DS hype, I almost forgot that EA’s sequel to ‘quite alright, actually’ racer Need for Spe… dustychelsea says: I favorited a YouTube video — Need For Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed video game “Realism” t… http://youtu.be/1cuxjKVhuFs?a
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Thousands demonstrate in Deraa as frustration mounts at Bashir al-Assad’s failure to deliver reforms Security forces fired shots and used teargas to disperse up to 4,000 protesters in the volatile Syrian city of Deraa on Monday as frustration mounted at the slow pace of promised reforms. Despite the widespread presence of security forces, protesters appeared to consolidate their positions in Deraa in the deep south and in the northern port city of Latakia, which are the two main fronts in the challenge to the Syrian regime. According to human rights activists, more than 150 people have been killed in 11 days of unrest, which have seen protesters calling for increased freedoms. Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, who has not been sighted during the protests, is expected to deliver a speech within days. The government has pledged to lift an almost five decade old emergency law, which – among other things – severely limits citizens’ rights to demonstrate. That and other reforms are yet to be implemented. A witness said demonstrators in Deraa had converged on a main square chanting “no to emergency laws”. Speaking on Lebanese Hezbollah’s al-Manar television, the vice-president, Farouq al-Sharaa, a reform-minded member of the government from Deraa, said president Bashar al-Assad would announce decisions that will “please the people” in the next 48 hours. On Sunday, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Ergdogan, said he had urged Assad to “listen to the voice of the people”, while US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said both parties in the US Congress believed Assad was a “reformer”. In the past few years, Turkey and Syria have enjoyed good relations, with Syria seeking Turkish support as a counterweight to US support for Israel. Syrian activists expressed anger at Clinton’s comments and a lack of trust that reforms would be introduced. The government has announced small reforms and pledges of bigger changes but so far no concrete proposals to enhance freedoms have been made. “There are so many conflicting messages,” said a civil rights activist in Damascus. “The government said there would not be violence any more and that there is a decision to lift emergency law, but they are still arresting so many people and blaming unrest on outside interference. They need to address the problems as they are and put solutions soon if they really want to rally unity.” Other activists said they did not believe any reforms would be made, while some claimed any reforms would not be enough. “Serious reforms won’t be made because they would involve sacrificing people in the narrow circle around Assad,” said Ziad Malki, a Syrian activist exiled in Switzerland. He pointed to Rami Makhlouf, the cousin of the president who has been a target of protesters’ ire over allegations that his interests have been acquired through corruption. “Bashar al-Assad could be a very nice person, but it doesn’t matter: we want a democratically elected president,” said Ausama Monajed, a Syrian activist in the UK who has been circulating a daily email of information on the continuing unrest. The differing views highlight the lack of clarity about the demands of the various protesters and activists. Political organising has been almost impossible in the country, causing many activists and opposition figures to go into exile. There is also confusion about those responsible for the deaths of protesters in Latakia on Friday and Saturday. The government claimed gangs carried out the violence but some activists said the gunmen were controlled by the government. Syria Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Protest guardian.co.uk
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