Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces Spotify and Netflix tie-ins, as competition from Twitter and Google prompt move Facebook has unveiled sweeping changes to its website – including partnerships with major music and film companies – in a bid to transform the world’s biggest social network into a key entertainment hub. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, on Thursday announced new partnerships with Spotify, Netflix, the Guardian and other media companies as he said that 800 million people worldwide now use the social network. “The last five years of social networking have been about getting people signed up,” Zuckerberg told Facebook’s f8 conference in San Francisco. “Until recently people weren’t sure how long the phenomenon would last. Now social networks are a ubiquitous tool used by billions of people around the world to stay connected every day.” Facebook has in recent months recently ramped up its attempts to attract and keep internet users on the site in the wake of competition from Twitter and a new rival in Google. Facebook is expected to hit the 1 billion user mark within weeks, having doubled the number of active users since February 2010. As part of the changes announced on Thursday, Facebook users will be able to automatically share activity such as viewing, listening and reading in a live “ticker” stream, once they have opted in to the feature. The new stream will be separate from the existing Facebook news feed, although popular items – such as the most frequently played songs among friends – will appear in the column. “We are making it so you can connect to
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Shareholders shocked by plan to raise chief’s pay to £1.5m plus bonuses WPP has stunned its major investors by suggesting that Sir Martin Sorrell, its long-standing chief executive, should be awarded a pay rise of as much as 50% that could take his salary to £1.5m – and push up the potential bonuses he might also receive. The advertising and marketing group, founded by Sorrell and home to names such as JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, has not increased Sorrell’s £1m salary since January 2007 and is now arguing that the chief executive needs a boost in his basic pay to keep pace with his rivals. Jeffrey Rosen, the chairman of the remuneration committee at WPP, has told major shareholders the company wants to increase the size of Sorrell’s bonus potential as well as raising his basic pay. Basic salaries are important for chief executives – and other board directors – because bonuses and potential long-term incentive plans are usually set as a multiple of basic pay. Sorrell, who turned a shell company called Wire & Plastic Products into an empire that also includes media buyers Mediacom, market researchers Kantar and public relations firms Hill & Knowlton and Finsbury, has often ranked high in the Guardian’s executive pay surveys. In 2005 he pocketed £50m of shares after a long-term share scheme – known as a leadership equity acquisition plan or Leap – dating back to 1993 came to fruition. Last year he took home £4.2m after his £1m salary was enhanced by benefits, bonuses and shares. The high-level discussions about increasing Sorrell’s pay are taking place after other top executives at the company were given pay rises last year. The company endured a rebellion on the issue in June when more than 40% of investors failed to back the remuneration report, largely because Mark Read, chief executive of WPP Digital, was handed a 30% rise to take his salary to £425,000. The timing and scale of the pay rise being proposed for Sorrell, who is widely admired for his business acumen and commitment to WPP, has surprised investors. One said: “This is just not the time to be pushing for a pay rise.” Another pointed out that WPP had been preparing the ground after pointing out on a number of occasions that he had not had a rise in his basic salary for 2008, 2009 and 2010. In the latest annual report , WPP explained that Sorrell’s base salary had been due to be reviewed in November 2008 but he had told the compensation committee an increase “would not be appropriate in light of business conditions”. But the annual report added: “As part of the extensive review of the executive directors’ compensation at the end of 2010, the committee considers that an increase in base salary and adjustments to incentive opportunities are appropriate. Consideration of these issues has continued during 2011 and the committee intends to consult share owners before the proposals are finalised.” That consultation is understood to have begun in the summer and is now the subject of hot debate among investors, who admire Sorrell for his drive and ambition in expanding WPP but doubt that the executive is at risk of leaving the group he has founded to go to a rival. He has likened his relationship to WPP as “the closest a man can come to giving birth” and insisted that money is not his driving force. He took a loan against his shares in advertising company Saatchi & Saatchi to enable him to buy WPP and the City began to notice him once he pulled off the takeover of advertising network J Walter Thompson in 1997. He told the Observer in July 2010 : “I think when we did our first high-profile deal, which was JWT, I was definitely the outsider.” A WPP spokesman said: “As we said in our most recent annual report, Sir Martin Sorrell’s base salary has been unchanged since 1 January 2007 and Sir Martin declined a review due in November 2008 because of business conditions at the time. We also said that the compensation committee considered that an increase in base salary and adjustments to incentive opportunities were appropriate and that the committee intended to consult share owners before finalising proposals. “We are going through the very early stages of that process now.” WPP Sir Martin Sorrell Executive pay and bonuses WPP Advertising Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
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US student and ex-boyfriend hope unreliable DNA evidence will see their conviction for Meredith Kercher’s murder overturned The answer could be complex. But the question before the court as the appeal by Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito enters its closing stages on Friday is simple enough: what, if anything, remains of the prosecution case that they murdered the British student Meredith Kercher ? A third person, Rudy Guede, a small-time drugs trafficker from Ivory Coast, has been convicted of murdering Kercher . Evidence of his presence at the murder scene in Perugia four years ago was discovered only after the American student, then 20, and the Italian Sollecito, then 23, had been arrested. The sole forensic evidence directly linking either of the appellants to the bedroom in which Kercher, 21, was found dead was a trace of DNA, identified as Sollecito’s, on the British student’s bra clip. The other crucial support for the prosecution’s claim that Kercher died resisting a four-way sex game was a trace of the victim’s DNA on a knife in Sollecito’s kitchen that had also been handled by his girlfriend. But in June, two independent court-appointed experts dismissed both pieces of evidence as unreliable. The bra clip DNA, overlooked by police for more than six weeks, could have come from contamination, while the knife trace might not have been Kercher’s. Knox’s stepfather, Chris Mellas, said: “She’s starting to think, maybe, this time she can actually do it; actually get out. She’s allowing herself just a little bit of hope.” Barbie Latza Nadeau, the author of Angel Face: The True Story of Student Killer Amanda Knox, agrees that “too many mistakes were made for this to be a clean conviction”. But she thinks the appellants’ tentative optimism may be misplaced. “Knox and Sollecito were convicted with more than 400 pages of reasoning [by the judges], of which less than 25% was devoted to DNA.” Steve Moore, a retired FBI agent who is one of Knox’s most impassioned supporters, counters that “My heart accounts for less than 5% of my body. But it’s the part without which I cannot live. Nothing [in the trial verdict] makes sense if the DNA doesn’t hold up.” Sending Knox and Sollecito for trial in 2008, judge Paolo Micheli acknowledged the improbability of a murder agreed in a matter of hours between three people, two of whom – Guede and Sollecito – were not even known to have met. But, in a crucial passage, he added that if the forensic evidence put them all in the room “it is not essential to find the telephone call with which an appointment was fixed with Guede … nor the witness who remembered or photographed their meeting”. By the same reckoning, without Knox and Sollecito at the crime scene, no amount of circumstantial evidence can uphold their conviction. In its efforts to put them back there, Mellas believes, the prosecution may return to the question of the “bloodied” footprints. Using luminol , a chemical that glows blue when it encounters an oxidant such as the iron in haemoglobin, forensic experts believed that in the corridor outside Kercher’s room they had found footprints belonging to Knox which showed she had stepped in the victim’s blood. But Luminol also reacts to bleach and, says Mellas, a more precise test came back negative: “All you can say is that they found some footprints on the floor of the house where she lived.” Knox testified that, the morning after the killing, she returned from Sollecito’s flat and, unaware Kercher was lying dead just metres away, took a shower before leaving. “She probably rehydrated some floor cleaner after her shower,” says her stepfather. Latza Nadeau argues that non-forensic evidence could still weigh heavily with the two professional and six lay judges. Top of her list is the statement Knox made to police which led to her arrest: she said she was in the house, that she heard Kercher’s screams and named the killer as Patrick Lumumba, a man who ran a local bar and was later cleared of any involvement. Her statement, which she immediately withdrew, claiming it had been made under duress, was ruled inadmissible. Yet it was cited at the trial because it was central to an action for damages by Lumumba, and, since he is also joined to the appeal proceedings, could feature again in the closing arguments that begin on Friday. An equally contentious issue is the evidence of a break-in at the flat. The appellants say it is genuine and bears out their explanation: that Guede was burgling the house when he was surprised by Kercher; that he tried to rape her and, when she resisted, killed her. The prosecutors claim the evidence was faked. They point to the fact that nothing was stolen and that one of Knox and Kercher’s Italian flatmates testified that she found shattered glass on top of her rumpled bedclothes, suggesting her room was ransacked before the window was smashed. Finally, there is the allegedly suspicious behaviour of Knox and Sollecito after the crime. On the night of the murder they both switched off their mobiles (Knox for the first time since buying an Italian sim card) and switched them on again the following morning at around 6.30am, though they said they slept late. Not even Moore has an answer for it. But he says: “Anything could explain that. That is not murder evidence.” Amanda Knox Meredith Kercher Italy United States Meredith Case John Hooper guardian.co.uk
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Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi is most senior member of ousted Libyan regime captured since rebel takeover Muammar Gaddafi’s last prime minister has been arrested in Tunisia, becoming the most senior member of the former Libyan regime to be detained since the government’s overthrow by Nato-backed rebels a month ago, it emerged on Thursday. Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi was caught near the border with Algeria and jailed for six months for illegal entry, though he is likely to be handed over to Libya to face investigation, since the government in Tunis recognises the new ruling national transitional council (NTC) in Tripoli. Gaddafi himself and his sons Seif al-Islam and Mutasim are thought to be still on the run or hiding inside Libya, while other family members have fled to Algeria and Niger. Other prominent Gaddafi supporters escaped to Niger after the fall of the key southern town Sebha on Wednesday, an NTC military spokesman said. The NTC also confirmed that banned chemical weapons had been found in the newly-captured area. Al-Mahmoudi remained prime minister until the fall of Tripoli, when he crossed into Tunisia. He later appeared to try to create the impression that he had in fact defected when he told an Arabic TV channel he supported the rebels. But most Libyans are likely to see him as a man who stayed loyal to Gaddafi almost to the end. Viewed as a technocrat, he also served as chairman of the Libyan Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund. In May he put out feelers towards the rebels – prompting speculation that he was trying to circumvent Gaddafi – but nothing came of the initiative. News of his detention came on the day the US formally re-established its diplomatic presence in Tripoli after the end of fighting in most of the country. Its ambassador, Gene Cretz, was forced to leave last November because of what he called a “visceral” reaction to his unflattering descriptions of Gaddafi’s personality, habits and regime that were exposed in documents released by WikiLeaks. The diplomat said he had been “physically threatened” and had to return to the US immediately. In a short ceremony at which the stars and stripes was raised and Libya’s new national anthem played by a brass band, Cretz said he believed it was only “a matter of time” before the Gaddafi forces were defeated. Britain’s diplomats, led by John Jenkins, previously based in the rebel capital of Benghazi, are still living and working under stringent security in a Tripoli hotel after the main embassy building was ransacked and burned out. In another diplomatic advance, Algeria said on Thursday it was now ready to recognise the NTC – having previously conspicuously refrained from doing so. Libya’s acceptance at the UN this week seems to have persuaded remaining waverers to follow most of the rest of the world and accept that the Gaddafi era is finally over. The chemical weapons stocks were reportedly found in the Jufra area, 435 miles south of Tripoli. Libya was supposed to have destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical weapons in early 2004 as part of a British-engineered rapprochement with the west. It also abandoned a rudimentary nuclear programme. But the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had stated it believed that Libya had kept 9.5 tonnes of mustard gas at a secret location: it is that which appears to have now been seized and secured. The latest rebel advances in the south have not been matched by parallel progress on two other fronts. Loyalists are still holding out in Gaddafi’s birthplace of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast, though there have been signs a new offensive is looming there. The capture of Sirte would clear the way for an unbroken link between Tripoli and Benghazi. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Tunisia Middle East Africa Ian Black guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Facebook partners up to bring music and videos to your profile through Open Graph
September 22, 2011 No Comment
Facebook’s f8 developer conference is going on today, and Andy Samberg Mark Zuckerberg has just revealed another part of his master plan for the social network. Open Graph will now integrate many of your favorite music services, including Spotify , Rhapsody , Rdio and MOG onto your Facebook page with custom apps, and will also bring video from Vevo, Netflix, Hulu and many more. Update: Unfortunately for Facebook users in the US, Netflix has confirmed that its Facebook integration will only be available in Canada and Latin America initially, due to a US law that “creates some confusion over our ability to allow U.S. members to share what they watch.” That doesn’t apply to the music services, however, and you can get an idea how Spotify will work in the video after the break. Continue reading Facebook partners up to bring music and videos to your profile through Open Graph Facebook partners up to bring music and videos to your profile through Open Graph originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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DoH assessment contradicts health secretary’s warning about the number of hospitals ‘at risk of collapse’ due to PFI debt Andrew Lansley’s claim that 22 hospital trusts are at risk of collapse over their private finance initiative (PFI) debts has been laid open to question by NHS performance data rating most of them as financially sound. The health secretary said on Wednesday 22 trusts in England were “on the brink of financial collapse” because they had been “landed with PFI deals they simply cannot afford” by the Labour government. But the Department of Health’s own latest quarterly assessment of the NHS’s performance rated 17 of them as “performing” financially between January and March 2011. Only four were deemed “underperforming”, while the performance of one, South London Healthcare, is “under review”. Lord Crisp, the chief executive of the NHS when many of the PFI deals were agreed under Labour, also cast doubt on Lansley’s dramatic warning by pointing out that the cost of repayments under those contracts amounted to only about 1% of the entire service’s annual budget of more than £100bn. Professor John Appleby, chief economist at the influential King’s Fund health thinktank , said it was wrong to argue that the NHS’s financial problems were caused by such deals. “To simply blame PFI is simply misleading at best,” he said. Shadow health secretary John Healey accused Lansley of “trying to offload blame for the present problems his policies are causing in the NHS”. Lansley, who said some trusts had told him that they could not afford their PFI repayments, was forced to partially retract the claim when an aide conceded that “we’re not pretending PFI is the only problem they [hospitals] face”. The DoH later insisted its assessment of trusts’ financial stability was unrelated to Lansley’s list. “The list of 22 trusts is 100% accurate and is based on returns from NHS trusts to the DoH setting out the main issues that need to be addressed for organisations to achieve financial stability. The 22 listed are those that specified [in April] that their PFI was one of the issues affecting them,” said a spokesman. But one of the 22, the North Bristol NHS Trust , voiced “puzzlement” that it was on Lansley’s list. The £374m PFI deal it had struck to build the new Southmead Hospital would not interfere with its ongoing application to become a semi-independent foundation trust hospital, a spokesman said, adding: “The PFI deal equates to yearly repayments of less than 7% of our overall annual turnover. Repayments have been factored into our long-term financial plans, so we know they are affordable.” Mike Farrar, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said: “We are pleased that the government has been upfront with the fact that PFI is a problem for many hospitals. But PFI is not the principal cause of the NHS’s financial problems. “Repayments on PFI debt is likely to be £1.5bn this year, yet by 2014-15 the NHS needs to find savings of £20bn. To address this we need to start looking at the NHS’s big-ticket costs, such as how we deliver care and where. We need pragmatism and leadership to do this as it will involve some extremely difficult decisions. A political blame game is a waste of time.” Health policy NHS Private finance initiative Health Andrew Lansley Public services policy Polly Curtis Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Troy Davis campaigners vow to fight ‘inhumane and inflexible’ death penalty
September 22, 2011 No Comment
Relatives and activists say execution in Georgia should act as a wake-up call to US politicians to abolish the death penalty In statistical terms, it may have been just another execution, a convicted murderer dispatched by prison medics with clinical efficiency. But, on the morning after the death by lethal injection of Troy Davis, there was no sign that the controversy over the case would be buried with him. Davis was sent to his death despite a mass of evidence casting his 1991 conviction in doubt, including recantations from seven of the nine key witnesses at his trial for the murder of a police officer. The execution has provoked an extraordinary outpouring of protest in Georgia, at the supreme court and White House in Washington, and in cities around the world. Davis’s case has become even more charged by the manner of his death: he was reprieved three times before Wednesday night and an intervention by the supreme court delayed the execution by four hours. Relatives of Davis and civil rights leaders across the south vowed to fight on with the campaign to have the death penalty abolished. Richard Dieter, the director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said it was a clear wake-up call to politicians across the US. He said: “They weren’t expecting such passion from people in opposition to the death penalty. There’s a widely-held perception that all Americans are united in favour of executions, but this message came across loud and clear that many people are not happy with it.” Brian Evans of Amnesty, which led the campaign to spare Davis’s life, said that there was a groundswell in America of people “who are tired of a justice system that is inhumane and inflexible and allows executions where there is clear doubts about guilt”. He predicted the debate would now be conducted with renewed energy. Martina Correia, Davis’s sister, who kept vigil at the prison until the end, said that a movement had been formed that would transcend her brother’s death. Sitting in a wheelchair as she battles cancer, she said: “If you can get millions of people to stand up against this, we can end the death penalty.” The case has attracted high-profile backers, and the #RIPTroyDavis hashtag was trending on Twitter on Wednesday. Protesters with placards gathered outside the White House. But so far, national politicians have refrained from entering the debate. Before the execution, White House press secretary Jay Carney said: “It is not appropriate for the president of the United States to weigh in on specific cases like this one, which is a state prosecution.” Rick Perry, the leading contender for the Republican nomination and a strong supporter of the death penalty, has made no public statement on the Davis case. His presence in the Republican race guarantees that the issue of capital punishment will remain in the spotlight in a way it hasn’t for years. At a TV debate earlier this month, the audience cheered when the host noted Texas had executed 234 death row inmates during Perry’s time as governor. In Jackson, Georgia on Wednesday night, there were dramatic scenes outside the Diagnostic and Classification Prison, where Davis was pronounced dead at 11.08pm. About 500 protesters, most of them African-American, lined up on the other side of the road to the entrance of the prison which was barricaded by a cordon of Swat police dressed in full riot gear and brandishing tear gas rifles. Davis was executed for the 1989 murder of Mark MacPhail, who was working off duty as a security guard when he intervened to help a homeless person being attacked. Davis was implicated by another man, Sylvester Coles, present at the time. But since the trial seven of the key witnesses have come forward to say their evidence was wrong, and others have testified under oath that Coles was the killer. As he lay on the gurney, Davis once again declared his innocence, telling the family of MacPhail lined up behind a glass screen in front of him that the wrong person was about to die. Raphael Warnock, the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King had his ministry, said that though Davis’s final hours were distressing, “through this, America is being transformed. This is one of those watershed moments when a human evil and injustice that is part of the norm suddenly becomes questioned and challenged.” Attention is now focusing on the American south. Though 34 of the 50 states still have the death penalty, only 12 states carried out executions last year, and now 80% of all executions take place in the south. The south’s history of racial segregation has also highlighted claims of racial bigotry. One of Davis’s lawyers, Thomas Ruffin, has called his death a “legal lynching”, pointing out that while black males make up 15% of the population of Georgia they fill almost half the cells on its death row. The civil rights group the NAACP said it would step up its campaign to persuade states, particularly in the south, to abolish the death penalty. “States like Georgia have an ugly history of state-sanctioned executions like that of Troy Davis, and in our view they are reminiscent of the lynchings that happened in the deep south,” said the NAACP’s Steve Hawkins. A further area of concern raised by the case is reliance on uncorroborated eyewitness accounts. Davis was convicted without any DNA or other forensic evidence, and the murder weapon was never found. False witness evidence has been found to be a crucial factor in three-quarters of the cases where convicted prisoners were found to be innocent and were then exonerated. Al Sharpton, who attended the protests in Jackson, said he would be pressing for new legislation to ban death penalties in cases relying only on witness statements. But it is unlikely that a new law overturning the practice could be passed in Washington. It is convention that individual states have control over death penalty rules, and the federal government can only lead by example in its own execution practices; it does not generally have the power to tell states like Georgia what to do. Troy Davis State of Georgia Capital punishment United States US supreme court Human rights Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
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We follow the announcements at the social network’s annual developer conference in the wake of a series of changes to Facebook’s design 10.16am: He has! Respect. Eisenberg is on stage now. “I wanna start with the issue of authentic identity I am Mark Zuckerberg…” 10.14am: If I was Mark Zuckerberg, I’d kick this off by sending Jesse Eisenberg on-stage to pretend to be me. This is probably just one of the many reasons I’m not Mark Zuckerberg. The keynote is about to start though: here we go! 10.12am: So, last-minute predictions from me. Music, obviously. Possibly TV, film and some interesting stuff around newspapers too. Facebook’s iPad app will surely be unveiled today. Wild card? While idly browsing the f8 attendees list on Facebook the other day, I spotted a chap called Tom Reyburn, who is apparently a senior partnerships manager at Apple. Now, he may just be the guy who deals with Facebook as an app partner, but what about a late deal to bake Facebook into iOS 5? Just a thought. Meanwhile, the last fortnight has been conspicuous for the lack of rumours about a Facebook Phone. But perhaps we’ll see some other mobile announcements. 10.06am: We’re running a little late to start: lots of people are still gladhanding down the front. A source who just met Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg backstage was impressed by his aura. “Cold hands, though.” That’s because he’s icy calm! Or perhaps he just needs a warmer hoodie. 9.59am: It will be interesting to see what Zuckerberg has to say about this week’s redesign of the Facebook news feed, which is currently provoking its fair share of debate on the social network itself, as well as on Twitter. People always complain about Facebook changes, at least for a couple of days, but this time seems to be causing a bigger rumpus than usual. Two pieces of evidence. One: a crew from ABC were vox-popping the queue to get into f8 this morning asking about the complaints. Two: my mum has well and truly got the hump with it. A scientific focus group of one, obviously. 9.57am: Colleague Josh Halliday has the last-minute gossip: “We’ve heard that five major music services will announce new apps on Facebook in the next hours. Early speculation suggests that these are Spotify, Deezer, Rdio MOG and one other. The other could be Vevo, the music video website which is also thought to be unveiling a new app. We’ve also heard that changes are in store for Facebook profiles. One of these changes is thought to involved a “timeline”, presumably where we can map life’s many indiscretions.” 9.54am: The fact that music is a big part of the keynote announcements today is already well known, but if you need more proof, serial entrepreneur Sean Parker is hosting “A celebration of music” later today, with “conversations with luminaries in the music industry” including Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. 9.49am: While we’re waiting for Zuckerberg to take the stage, it’s been interesting to see how NFC has a high-profile place at the f8 party. Every attendee has a “Presence Card”, which you can tap at different points to take and tag photos of yourself, stroll onto a dancefloor with someone else while your connections are projected on a big screen, or add songs that you’ve Liked on Facebook to the f8 playlist. I can only apologise for this… 9.47am: Facebook’s f8 conference is mainly about its developers, but like Apple’s WWDC show, the main keynote speech is aimed at a far wider audience. CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be taking the stage soon to outline new features and services on the social network, with media and entertainment a key focus. Zuckerberg has been open in the past about the company’s ambitions to bring similar social disruption to music, TV, film and other media to what it has done for games. Today’s announcements will show us how Facebook plans to do that. The music plans have been well leaked, with Spotify and rival services expected to be more tightly integrated into Facebook so people can discover music through a feed of what their friends are listening to. The fact that Facebook’s significant news feed redesign was announced earlier this week hints that there may be more big news in the keynote, though. Stand by. Facebook Apps Mark Zuckerberg Spotify Smartphones Tablet computers Social networking Digital media Live video Stuart Dredge guardian.co.uk
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Greg Clark departs from confrontational tone of previous Tory statements, agreeing to address criticisms of reform plans The planning minister, Greg Clark, has pledged to make changes to the government’s proposals to radically overhaul England’s planning system, after running into opposition from campaign groups . Clark highlighted specific criticisms, including an outcry over the apparent ending of the policy of building on brownfield sites before undeveloped countryside, and said he would address these in the government’s response to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) consultation . “If people responding to the consultation think that various aspects should be more clearly expressed then we are very happy to do so,” he said. Clark’s conciliatory tone, in a speech at a British Property Foundation event in the City of London, contrasted starkly with previous ministerial statements. Clark had called people who opposed all development “nihilistically selfish” and said the National Trust had “misled” its members, while the chancellor, George Osborne, and the communities and local government secretary, Eric Pickles, had stated: “Planning reform is key to our economic recovery. No one should underestimate our determination to win this battle .” “What Clark said today suggests we are now in proper consultation mode,” said Dame Fiona Reynolds, director general of the National Trust. “Some of what was said earlier by Osborne, Pickles and Clark did not feel like a consultation. We can now move forward in a positive spirit.” Friends of the Earth’s planning campaigner, Naomi Luhde-Thompson, said: “We’re pleased Clark recognises that parts of his planning proposals aren’t very clear. It’s what we’ve been telling him since they were published.” The change in tone followed an intervention by the prime minister. David Cameron wrote to the National Trust on Wednesday, stating: “I have always believed that our beautiful British landscape is a national treasure. We should cherish and protect it for everyone’s benefit.” Clark’s speech addressed concerns that the NPPF – which states the default answer to development deemed sustainable is yes – will be imposed on the many communities that did not have local plans in place. “We will make clear in our response to the consultation what the transitional arrangements are,” he said. On prioritising the use of brownfield land, he said the NPPF used a different phrase: “land of least environmental value”. “If people think there is some desire not to prioritise the re-use of derelict land then that is something that I think the consultation will very clearly address.” Critics, who charge that the NPPF is heavily skewed in favour of economic development over social or environmental concerns, have demanded a clear definition of the term “sustainable development”. Clark said: “People have suggested that it could be clearer there so we will respond to that.” In contrast to previous statements by ministers that the current planning system was expensive, wasteful and a brake on growth, Clark said: “I think we have too little planning in this country, rather than too much.” He added: “The intention of presumption [in favour of development] is not to create any kind of loophole; it is not to create a regime that is very much more permissive. Quite the reverse.” However, Adam Marshall, a director at the British Chambers of Commerce, urged Clark to push ahead with reforming the “sclerotic” planning system. “The government has to stay the course and deliver. If these plans do not go ahead there will be a collateral damage effect on small and medium businesses,” he said. Marshall called the NPPF proposals “modest” and “incremental”: Clark had called them “fundamental”. John Slaughter, a director of the Home Builders Federation, said: “I am concerned by the list [of changes] put forward by the National Trust, as I think if you put all those in you will end up with something more restrictive than now.” Countryside and green campaigners say early drafts of the NPPF, with which they were happy, were changed by the Treasury to emphasise economic growth. “Sensible suggestions were left out in case they put any constraint on development,” said Richard Hebditch, from Campaign for Better Transport. Clark said: “If you go from 1,000 pages to a distillation of 50 pages or so, it may be that not everything is expressed clearly, but that does not indicate malign intent.” Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Federation agreed. She said: “They have done an amazing job of condensation but it is not perfect and some of the nuances are not right. The phrase ‘the default answer to development proposals is yes’ is not statesmanlike. It is more like a newspaper headline.” Clark declined to express regret at the aggressive language that had characterised the planning row to date. “I think it is right to robustly correct misapprehensions,” he said. “I think we are now having a constructive dialogue.” Planning policy Conservation Construction industry Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk
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The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to address the UN general assembly amid declining fortunes at home 3.37pm: Welcome to live coverage of Mahmound Ahmadinejad’s address to the UN general assembly, which is expected to begin at 4pm BST. Unlike last year, when he sought to grab international headlines, Ahmadinejad is likely to play to a domestic audience this year in an attempt to demonstrate his power and quash suggestions that a once powerful figure has already become a lame-duck president two years before his term ends in 2013. Last week, in the latest episode of his confrontation with the conservatives close to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he failed to fulfil his pledge to release the US hikers immediately and take them to New York before his visit, and thus gain the credit himself for their freedom. Instead, he was embarrassed by the judiciary, which contradicted his remarks and insisted that they and not the president were in charge of the fate of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who were held in Iran as spies. But Ahmadinejad’s dilemma back in Iran is far more complex than the controversies over the release of the two Americans. After publicly challenging Khamenei over a cabinet appointment in April, Ahmadinejad abruptly lost his position as the protege to the Ayatollah, who holds the ultimate power in Iran. Since then, he has increasingly become isolated with only a handful of serious supporters on his side, losing the support of the elite revolutionary guards and the majority of his hitherto backers both in the parliament and the establishment. Supporters of Khamenei are worried about the influence of Ahmadinejad and his team in Iran’s politics and have accused them with everything from revolutionary deviancy to financial corruption and even sorcery. Ahmadinejad’s troubles were highlighted again on Thursday when it emerged that speculation is rife among Iranian MPs that there will be a move to bring back the position of prime minister instead of the current system of presidency. If this turns out to be the case, this would constitute an attempt by MPs to take power, as any prime minister would be appointed by them, unlike a president, who is elected by the people. Speaking at the general assembly will give Ahmadinejad a great opportunity, more than anything else, to fight back against his opponents. During his stay in New York, the president – who is bombarded by interview requests from the US media – has a great opportunity to garner publicity and distract attention from his political mismanagement in Iran, especially his appalling record of violating human rights. Ironically, Ahmadinejad this time is not receiving the attention he needs in his home country, with even some semi-official media giving scant coverage to his visit to the UN. To obtain that publicity, Ahmadineajd is likely to talk about a controversial subject which would help him to once again become the centre of attention. He may decide to talk about Palestinian statehood and president Obama’s support for the Israelis, or perhaps the US and Britain’s apparent lack of interest in the uprisings in Bahrain and Yemen. All eyes are once again on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Iran Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest United States Israel Nuclear weapons Haroon Siddique Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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