Activists to swamp US arms giant with Twitter storm and email messages to protest at firm’s £150m census contract Protesters urging a boycott of this year’s census are holding a day of internet or e-action to kickstart two days of campaigning amid increasing fears about data security and the involvement of global arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin. The campaigners are angry that the £150m contract to run the census has been awarded to the US arms giant, while others claim the legal safeguards to prevent breaches in data security are inadequate. Activists are aiming to swamp Lockheed Martin with a “Twitter storm” and email messages detailing the minutiae of their day. Hundreds more are expected to take part in protests in towns and cities across the country on Saturday, with many saying they are willing to risk a criminal record and a £1,000 fine by refusing to fill in the 32-page questionnaire. A small group of protesters demonstrated outside Lockheed Martin’s offices in central London at 8.30am on Friday. About a dozen people – some dressed as weapons and others as arms dealers – attempted to enter the offices to voice their concerns but they were turned back by security guards. Chris Browne, from the Count Me Out campaign , said: “I strongly believe that the more people who find out about the involvement of the world’s largest arms producer in our census, the more civil dissent we will witness, and the bigger the campaign will get.” Emma Draper, an anti-arms trade campaigner from London, said: “I have no objection to the census itself because I recognise that it has served an important purpose historically. However, I think it is outrageous that the government can get away with paying a huge arms company millions of pounds in order to process data which is supposed to be of benefit to public services and people’s welfare.” Draper, 25, added: “I live my life trying not to get involved with companies who profit from destruction and selling weapons to oppressive regimes and building nuclear weapons and I really don’t see how the government can make people comply with this.” Lockheed Martin, which makes Trident nuclear missiles and F-16 fighter jets, won the £150m contract in 2008. A spokesman for the Office of National Statistics (ONS) insisted all data was securely held and defended the involvement of Lockheed Martin, stating it was “a major supplier of non-defence related services for the public sector”. “The contract for census processing was awarded to Lockheed Martin UK – not Lockheed Martin US – in August 2008,” said an ONS spokesman. “Lockheed Martin UK offered best value for money in an open procurement under European law and the EU procurement directives were satisfied.” Data from the census, which needs to be completed by 27 March, is sent to a secure plant in Manchester and then to Titchfield, Hampshire, for analysis. It is owned by ONS and a spokesman said it remains confidential for 100 years. However, Symon Hill, writer and associate director of the Christian thinktank Ekklesia, said many people remained deeply unhappy about Lockheed Martin’s involvement, adding that he would be among a growing number not filling out this year’s census. “I have reflected at great length. I have not taken this decision lightly but I feel that being asked to fill in the census is being asked to co-operate with an arms company and, as a Christian and as a pacifist, that is something that I feel I cannot do in conscience.” Census Arms trade Internet Twitter Email Computing Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk
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At least 35 killed and hundreds wounded in capital of Sana’a after government troops and loyalists open fire on marchers At least 35 people have been shot dead and hundreds wounded in Sana’a after soldiers and plain-clothed government loyalists opened fired on protesters trying to march through the Yemeni capital. The death toll, which is expected to rise, is the highest seen in more than a month of violence in Yemen, with protesters demanding that President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down. The protest on Friday had started peacefully. Tens of thousands filled a mile-long stretch of road by Sana’a University for a prayer ceremony mourning the loss of seven protesters killed in similar violence last weekend. As the prayers came to an end, however, the sight of black smoke from a burning car caught the attention of protesters, who began surging towards it. Witnesses say the first shots were fired by security forces trying to disperse the protesters and they were joined by plain-clothed men who fired on the demonstrators with Kalashnikovs from the roofs of nearby houses. A nearby mosque was transformed into a chaotic makeshift hospital for injured protesters. The wounded, most of them men in their early 20s, were suffering from the effects of teargas and bullet wounds, many having been shot in the chest. The dead were carried into the mosque’s main prayer room and laid out in a line with miniature Qur’ans on their chests. “They shot people in the back of the head as they were running away,” said Mohammed al-Jamil, an Indian doctor treating the wounded. “Whoever did this wanted these people to die.” Children were also caught up in the violence. “My brother is twelve years old, they shot him twice, once in the arm and once in the leg,” shouted a young man through a crackling microphone to a roaring crowd of thousands outside the mosque. “Saleh would rather shoot us all before stepping down.” Until now government forces have largely used water cannons, rubber bullets and teargas to disperse anti-regime rallies, but live rounds were fired on Friday in what appears be the beginning of an increasingly violent crackdown on protesters. Anti-government demonstrations were held in other cities, including Taiz, Ibb, Hodeidah, Aden and Amran, following Friday prayers at midday. Yemen, the youngest and poorest country in the Arab world, has been hit by weeks of protests set in motion by uprisings in north Africa that toppled long-serving leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and spread to the Gulf states of Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Saleh has maintained a firm grip on power for more than three decades and has rejected calls for him to step down, saying he will only do so when his current term of office expires in 2013. Yemen Arab and Middle East protests Middle East guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …At least 35 killed and hundreds wounded in capital of Sana’a after government troops and loyalists open fire on marchers At least 35 people have been shot dead and hundreds wounded in Sana’a after soldiers and plain-clothed government loyalists opened fired on protesters trying to march through the Yemeni capital. The death toll, which is expected to rise, is the highest seen in more than a month of violence in Yemen, with protesters demanding that President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down. The protest on Friday had started peacefully. Tens of thousands filled a mile-long stretch of road by Sana’a University for a prayer ceremony mourning the loss of seven protesters killed in similar violence last weekend. As the prayers came to an end, however, the sight of black smoke from a burning car caught the attention of protesters, who began surging towards it. Witnesses say the first shots were fired by security forces trying to disperse the protesters and they were joined by plain-clothed men who fired on the demonstrators with Kalashnikovs from the roofs of nearby houses. A nearby mosque was transformed into a chaotic makeshift hospital for injured protesters. The wounded, most of them men in their early 20s, were suffering from the effects of teargas and bullet wounds, many having been shot in the chest. The dead were carried into the mosque’s main prayer room and laid out in a line with miniature Qur’ans on their chests. “They shot people in the back of the head as they were running away,” said Mohammed al-Jamil, an Indian doctor treating the wounded. “Whoever did this wanted these people to die.” Children were also caught up in the violence. “My brother is twelve years old, they shot him twice, once in the arm and once in the leg,” shouted a young man through a crackling microphone to a roaring crowd of thousands outside the mosque. “Saleh would rather shoot us all before stepping down.” Until now government forces have largely used water cannons, rubber bullets and teargas to disperse anti-regime rallies, but live rounds were fired on Friday in what appears be the beginning of an increasingly violent crackdown on protesters. Anti-government demonstrations were held in other cities, including Taiz, Ibb, Hodeidah, Aden and Amran, following Friday prayers at midday. Yemen, the youngest and poorest country in the Arab world, has been hit by weeks of protests set in motion by uprisings in north Africa that toppled long-serving leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and spread to the Gulf states of Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Saleh has maintained a firm grip on power for more than three decades and has rejected calls for him to step down, saying he will only do so when his current term of office expires in 2013. Yemen Arab and Middle East protests Middle East guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Bachmann accuses Weiner of trading in ‘fiction’ on budget. His retort: ‘I don’t think you want to go there’
March 18, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media There’s something about Anthony Weiner that seems to really get under Sean Hannity’s skin. Maybe it’s the way he makes both Hannity and his guests look like utter buffoons. That might have something to do with it. Such as when Michele Bachmann went on with Hannity and Weiner the other night, producing hilarious exchanges such as this one: HANNITY: Here’s my point, $3.7 billion, we have nearly $5 trillion now accumulated Obama debt, $5 trillion. You tell me how much you are willing to cut out of the budget? WEINER: Well, let me ask you something. Is it accumulated Obama debt when President Bush left office, there was 700,000 job losses that month. There are more private sector jobs created under President Obama in his two years — HANNITY: That’s a lie. WEINER: It is a fact. HANNITY: Congressman, I know you are a Democrat and I know you’re a bitter partisan. But in the month of February — WEINER: No, I’m just a partisan. HANNITY: Stop it. In the month of February our deficit — WEINER: Don’t call me names, Sean. It is almost St. Patrick’s Day you are going to call me names? HANNITY: Yes. Our deficit was $223,000 for the month. In 2007, if we are looking at real dollars and real money, we paid less in a year than we did for the month of February! WEINER: Well, look, I will tell you this. The deficit right now comes from three places. One, unfunded wars, two, enormous numbers of jobs lost a tragedy that President Bush drove us into this cliff and three tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. HANNITY: Congresswoman Bachmann, you know, George Bush has been out of office for nearly 2-1/2 years he can’t get over it. Barack Obama’s budgets nearly $5 trillion in debt. He won’t mention where he would cut. I’ll ask you the same question — WEINER: What do you mean he? HANNITY: That would be you! Congresswoman, where would you cut? BACHMANN: You know, Sean. I had no idea that Representative Weiner was such a reader of fiction. He’s a huge fiction reader because that’s all of his numbers. I wanted to mention — WEINER: Bachmann, I don’t think you want to go there. I don’t think you want to go there, Bachmann. Weiner later repeated that Bachmann’s little bit of projection was “ironic”. No kidding. After all, this is the congresswoman who’s been running around (mostly on Fox) for the better part of a couple of weeks now claiming that there is $105 billion in health-care reform implementation “secretly” tucked into the budget — even though it’s one of the most publicly debunked bogus republican claim in awhile. The Washington Post’s fact checker dismissed it as “bordering on the ridiculous”, while PolitiFact dismantled it as well. I also liked the parting shots that Weiner got in: WEINER: I believe when there are millions of Americans not working because of the Bush decisions that we do have to take care of those people and that adds cost, no doubt about it. HANNITY: Congressman, you’re going to have to man-up. You have to sit at the table and put your pants on — WEINER: Make it three on one or four on one next time, I’m ready for you. HANNITY: You are a star. Just go look in the mirror. WEINER: I love these balanced debates. HANNITY: Yes, well, that’s what it is. BACHMANN: Tell me about it. HANNITY: Tell me about it. If Weiner keeps this up, they’ll never let him back.
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Government commission exploring the case for a British bill of rights is divided between human rights act supporters and critics The government commission that will investigate the case for a British bill of rights is set to be deadlocked from the start, with its membership evenly split between human rights act supporters and sceptics. Sir Leigh Lewis, a veteran civil servant and former permanent secretary, is to head the controversial committee of high-level barristers jointly appointed by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, has appointed some of the most enthusiastic supporters of human rights, including Lord Lester, Baroness Kennedy and Philippe Sands. However, their views will be counterbalanced by those of Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, a Brunel University research fellow who has recently argued that Britain should cut its ties with the European court of human rights (ECHR), based in Strasbourg, as it has “virtually no democratic legitimacy”. However, the terms of the commission make it clear there will be no attempt to withdraw from the ECHR, stating that the commission will seek to “incorporate and build on” ECHR obligations and “ensure that these rights continue to be enshrined in UK law”. The commission – which is believed to have had a difficult birth after the chairmanship was turned down by Rachel Lomax, another ex-Whitehall mandarin and former deputy governor of the Bank of England – will provide an interim report to Clegg and the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, next year. Other members of the commission include Martin Howe QC, Jonathan Fisher QC, Anthony Speaight QC, Pinto-Duschinsky and Sir David Edward. Fisher has been the most enthusiastic supporter of a British bill of rights in this group. Some Tories believe a system modelled on the US supreme court and constitution would work in the UK and help pave the way to a full pullout from the European convention on human rights and the Strasbourg court that rules on its provisions. Nick Clegg said: “Human rights are fundamental to our democracy. They act as a safeguard, protecting individual citizens from the state abusing its power. The commission’s work will help us maintain, and build upon, an enduring framework of fundamental rights that will prevent the abuse and erosion of these freedoms for generations to come.” Clarke, the justice secretary, said: “The commission has a very important role to play in examining the operation of the ECHR and how we implement human rights in the UK. I hope that this work will help to inform the debate on human rights at home and assist us as we continue to press for reform of the Strasbourg court.” Howe, a barrister specialising in intellectual property law, is a veteran eurosceptic and leading light of the Conservative party commission calling for a UK bill of rights to replace the ECHR. Fisher, a commercial lawyer specialising in tax and fraud, who also sat on the Tory party internal commission, is another human rights act sceptic. Speaight, in his own pamphlet, the Human Rights Act – Legal Pathways, spelled out the constitutional niceties of replacing the HRA with a UK bill of rights. On the other side of the argument is Lord Lester of Herne Hill, the leading Liberal Democrat human rights lawyer who campaigned for 30 years to make the ECHR directly enforceable in the British courts. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, a Labour peer, is an expert in human rights law and civil liberties and was a key figure in the campaign to introduce the human rights act. Sands is a professor of international law, a Matrix Chambers barrister, and author of Lawless World and Torture Team. The final member is Edward, a Scottish appeal court judge who served on the European Court of Justice for 12 years. The chairman, Lewis, is a former permanent secretary at the Department of Work and Pensions and the Home Office. He has a strong reputation for delivering improved public services notably in passport offices and job centres. British bill of rights Human rights European court of human rights Court of justice of the European Union Nick Clegg Liberal Democrats Patrick Wintour Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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Despite a drop in its valuation, Phones 4u is still growing strongly, reporting a 20% increase in sales last year to more than £900m Phones 4u has been sold to private equity house BC Partners in a deal worth up to £700m after the mobile retailer’s owners performed an about-turn on disposal plans. The chain of more than 500 stores was sold by Providence Equity Partners in a secondary buyout worth between £600m and £700m. Providence bought the business from John Caudwell as part of a wider £1.46bn deal in 2006, in a transaction that netted the entrepreneur £1.2bn. The move comes months after Providence called off a planned sale after failing to draw a satisfactory offer. Phones 4u is still growing strongly, reporting a 20% increase in sales last year to more than £900m. BC said it expected to grow the business further as smartphones like the iPhone spur another surge in the mobile market. “With its market-leading position, strong and trusted brand, multi-format strategy, and extensive store network, Phones 4u is ideally positioned to benefit from further strong growth in the smartphone market. We look forward to working with management, and investing further across the business to maximise its growth potential,” said Andrew Newington, managing partner at BC. Tim Whiting, Phones 4u’s chief executive, said: “I am delighted to have the backing of BC Partners. Their track record of growing businesses is hugely impressive, and I am looking forward to working with them in the years ahead.” London-based BC has a portfolio of 16 companies that generate a combined turnover of €27bn (£23bn). The investments include Foxtons, the estate agent firm, the Fitness First gym chain and Intelsat, a satellite company. In 2003 it sold a stake in Trader Media Group, owner of Auto Trader magazine, to Guardian Media Group, publisher of the Guardian, in a deal valuing the business at more than £1bn. Private equity Telecommunications industry Retail industry Mobile phones Telecoms Dan Milmo guardian.co.uk
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There is no more insightful or enduring study of the troubled mind than Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 engraving Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia I has cut its black lines deep into the modern imagination. It shows a winged being who sits in apparent dejection, surrounded by unused objects of science, craft and art, holding a pair of dividers as she broods. Her face is a mask of darkness, but her bright eyes glare, revealing an acuteness of mind that contrasts with her exhausted pose. In 16th-century portraits, the head resting on hand pose was to become a universal image of the soul afflicted by sad thoughts – as in Moretto da Brescia’s Portrait of a Young Man in London’s National Gallery. The influence of Dürer’s print is everywhere in Renaissance Europe. But what is equally amazing is the power of this 1514 work to fascinate us today, as when Günter Grass uses Dürer’s print to meditate on modern politics in his 1973 book From the Diary of a Snail. Dürer’s work of art continues to appeal because it is a diagnosis. It describes a malaise in the way a doctor might list symptoms. Sitting around, head in hand? Face a bit shadowy? My diagnosis: melancholia. Helpfully, Dürer even names this condition on the banner held aloft by a bat-like creature. Since people still suffer from melancholy – more likely calling it depression, the dumps or the blues – Dürer’s image continues to resonate. As does his implication that melancholy afflicts the most ambitious human efforts, that it is a historical and collective, not just a personal, fate. The diagnosis that Dürer offers is rooted in medieval medicine. According to the notion of the “humours”, melancholy was caused by an excess of black bile – hence the darkened face and the appropriate black ink. But Dürer offers something else not found in the old pseudo-science – a sense of a soul weighed down by its own intellect. In fact, the roots of his visionary masterpiece lie in Renaissance Italy, which he had visited and whose artists he knew well. In 15th-century Florence, philosopher Marsilio Ficino claimed that intellectuals, gifted and introspective souls like himself, were especially prone to the malaise of melancholy. He proposed various magical remedies to lift it – often invoking the power of the planet and goddess Venus to bring joy to the joyless. Dürer powerfully translates Ficino’s idea of the sad intellectual into a heroic portrait of a great mind surrounded by unused tools of discovery and creation. Yet there is something more still. Dürer, we can guess from this print, knew the darkness of melancholy personally. He also knew it was the curse of one of the greatest artists of his time: his contemporary Leonardo da Vinci, whose art he had studied. Da Vinci notoriously suffered from a strange affliction that stopped him finishing his paintings. He fretted for years over a colossal statue of a horse that he never made, and started a battle painting that he left as a ruinous sketch on a wall in Florence. By 1514, he was a byword for mystifyingly irresolute genius. Is Melencolia I an allegorical portrait of the creative paralysis of da Vinci, the paragon of Renaissance art who Dürer aspired to emulate – flaws included? If so, this would be the first of many Germanic attempts to understand Leonardo, including Goethe’s famous essay on The Last Supper, and Sigmund Freud’s book Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood . Freud diagnoses Leonardo in modern clinical language. But nothing he says, there or elsewhere, is any more insightful than Albrecht Dürer’s majestic and enduring study of the troubled human mind. Art Depression Jonathan Jones guardian.co.uk
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It’s 10 years since Apple’s original iPod shuffled on to the scene, changing the way we listen to and buy music for
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StumbleUpon believed to be in the running to acquire bookmarking service Yahoo is believed to be on the verge of selling its bookmarking service Delicious, possibly to the social “discovery engine” StumbleUpon, for price believed to be around $1m (£619,000). Delicious has been up for sale since it was revealed as being on a so-called “sunset” list of Yahoo’s properties in mid-December, as part of an overarching review by chief executive Carol Bartz to try to focus only on profitable elements of the company that fit with its vision of being a content creator and means of carrying advertising. Delicious doesn’t offer any way for Yahoo to sell adverts. At the same time of the December announcement the handful of engineers who were developing the Delicious systems are understood to have either been fired or redeployed inside Yahoo, leaving only support staff. Delicious has not revealed how many users it had at the time when Yahoo put it up for sale, but at the end of 2008 it had nearly 6m users. StumbleUpon offers a similar bookmarking service to Delicious, and recently completed a $17m venture capital funding round. Other bookmarking services, such as Pinboard, have seen a rapid influx of people migrating from Delicious because they fear their bookmarks will be lost when Yahoo closes the service. However in a posting a Delicious team member suggested that the API allowing third-party access to bookmarks will continue after any sale : “feeds and API’s are a key part of Delicious, and I would doubt that anyone would remove them from service, and we would certainly not want that to happen.” In a statement last week when rumours of the sale emerged Yahoo said: “we are actively thinking about the future of Delicious and believe there is a home outside the company that would make more sense for the service, our users and our shareholders.” A report at Business Insider suggested the sale is taking some time to complete because Delicious’s systems are reliant on Yahoo’s infrastructure, and that it is being migrated onto third-party machines so that a sale can be wrapped up. Yahoo acquired Delicious in December 2005, and is reckoned to have paid between $10m and $15m for it at the time. Delicious lets users bookmark web pages and share their bookmarks, including tags (such as “social” or “important” or “earthquake”, or any combination of tags) for pages. That meant Delicious could generate a picture of what pages people thought had relevance to certain tags in real time. It was expected then that Yahoo would integrate the results into its search engine. But the integration never happened to any extent. Josh Schachter, the founder of Delicious in late 2003, left the company in mid-2008, expressing dissatisfaction with Yahoo’s use of the service. Other properties that were listed on Yahoo’s “sunset” list were Altavista, the rump of the search engine that in the late 1990s was the web’s most popular, MyBlogLog, Yahoo Bookmarks and Yahoo Picks. Yahoo Internet Digital media Media business Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk
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Prince tells crowd of tens of thousands to ‘be strong’ at memorial service for victims of last month’s earthquake in New Zealand Prince William has urged the people of Christchurch to “be strong” as he addressed a crowd of tens of thousands at a memorial service for victims of last month’s earthquake in New Zealand. William said he was conveying his own message, as well as one from his grandmother, and told the crowd on Friday they were an “inspiration to all people”. “My grandmother once said that grief is the price we pay for love. Here, today, we love, and we grieve. “We honour the lives and memories of all those who did not survive the earthquake – New Zealanders, and those from many countries around the world who came to this city as visitors, or to make it their home. “Our thoughts and our prayers are with the families, wherever they may be.” The prince told the crowd it was hard for them to “grasp the degree of admiration – indeed, awe”, with which they were regarded by the rest of the world. He also told the people they could appreciate more than anyone else the “full horror” of what was unfolding in Japan. “Courage and understated determination have always been the hallmark of New Zealanders, of Cantabrians,” he said. “These things the world has long known. But to see them so starkly demonstrated over these terrible, painful months has been humbling. “Put simply, you are an inspiration to all people. I count myself enormously privileged to be here to tell you that. In the last two days, I have heard tales of great tragedy – but also of extraordinary bravery and selfless courage. “Throughout, one phrase unites them all. With the Queen’s heartfelt good wishes, and those of the Prince of Wales and other members of my family, I say it to you now: Kia kaha – be strong.” The prince’s address was greeted with applause from the crowd, some of whom were sporting T-shirts reading Kia kaha . William, who donned a Korowai – a traditional Maori feathered cloak – had earlier been welcomed by Henare Rakiihia Tau, from the Ngai Tuahuriri sub-tribe, who told William to “nibble at the apple and be fruitful”. The mayor of Christchurch, Bob Parker, spoke of the difficulty for people to understand why the quake had hit the city. But in a rousing speech, he said: “It seems to me that those lives that have been lost have to be given real meaning in this city as it goes forward. We have to reach into our hearts and our spirits and our self belief and build a safer city so this thing can never happen again. “We will rise, we will rebuild the city based on strength and optimism. We will have a city that again will be the most beautiful place on earth, that you and I could hope to live in.” New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key, said those who lost their lives in the quake, which left more than 160 people dead, from other countries would be remembered by New Zealanders as they remembered their own. He said: “We are conscious that we are united in our loss with families from more than 20 countries whose fate it was to have a loved one far, far from home when the earthquake struck. “We will remember your loved ones as we remember our own.” Of all those who died in the quake, he said, “they are the faces of a Christchurch that will never be as it was again”. “The earthquake of February 22, 2011, has altered forever the lives of those who live here, no words or deeds can change that. “So today we remember Christchurch as it was and we treasure the memory.” Key also paid tribute to Japan’s “desperate plight”, adding: “For the people of Christchurch who have lived through two large earthquakes and many thousands of aftershocks these images of Japan bring flooding back the raw emotion and pain that accompanies such an event.” Prince William is due in Australia on Saturday, where he will visit regions affected by the floods, including locations in Queensland followed by a visit to north-west Victoria. Prince William New Zealand Monarchy Natural disasters and extreme weather guardian.co.uk
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