International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn will now be spending his nights at Rikers Island, New York City’s notorious jail complex. That’s a far cry from a lush New York hotel suite. The French-born Strauss-Kahn, who faces seven criminal charges, including the attempted rape of a hotel maid, was denied bail and will remain in
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It may be a bit difficult to pay attention to the spate of Honeycomb tablets that seem to be popping up left, right and center — you know, now that Ice Cream Sandwich has been officially promised — but what’s not easy to overlook is an 8.6mm slate. Checking in at a sliver of a pinch thinner than the illustrious iPad 2, Samsung’s rethought-out, redesigned and definitely-not-renamed Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the first Android tablet to date that seriously goes toe-to-toe with Apple in both specifications and design. Granted, the consumer models aren’t slated to ship out until June 8th, but given that Google handed us one last week during its annual I/O conference , we figured we’d spend the following weekend wisely. You know, photographing, benchmarking and testing this thing to the hilt. ( Of note, the unit tested here was the Limited Edition model, devoid of TouchWiz, 3G and a microSD card slot, but is otherwise identical to shipping units aside from the design on the rear. ) The Tab 10.1 — not to be confused with the older, since-relabeled Tab 10.1v — weighs just 1.31 pounds (marginally besting the iPad 2′s 1.33 pound chassis), and if looks could kill, few people would’ve made it out of Moscone West with all organs functional. But as you well know, style only gets you in the door — it’s the guts, the software, and the marriage of it all that makes or breaks the tablet experience. Hop on past the jump to find out why we think Samsung truly delivered on the promise of a Google-powered tablet, and why you should all seriously consider socking away funds as early June approaches. Gallery: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition review Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition review Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Six months after his case attracted worldwide attention, “Berlin Patient” Timothy Ray Brown appears to still be the first person ever to have been cured of HIV. The virus was eliminated from Brown’s body after he received a bone marrow stem cell transplant while being treated for leukemia. “I’m cured…
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Staff stoic in face of deficit-busting ‘caffeine cuts’ at Whitehall headquarters to save £0.5m a year It has lost warships and aircraft over recent months, and is poised to axe thousands of soldiers, sailors and civilian staff. Now yet more indignity has befallen the Ministry of Defence, where cost-cutting is biting deep. Defying Napoleon’s maxim that an army marches on its stomach, the department has got rid of most of the coffee and food vending machines from its Whitehall headquarters, leaving staff with a yomp across the building to those that remain, or a time-consuming (and costly) trip to one of the cafes along the Embankment. Withdrawal of the machines has hardly lifted the mood within the MoD, which is having to juggle fighting conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya, as well as the redundancy programmes for all three services, without the reviving qualities of easy access to caffeine, chocolate and crisps. “It will be the loo roll next,” said one MoD insider, who said that queues were now common around the few machines that survived the cull. In the grand scheme of things, staff recognise the disappearance of the machines is hardly significant, but it does underline the parlous state of the MoD’s finances, which came under renewed scrutiny this week when it emerged the department may have to announce further cuts in personnel and equipment unless it can find ways of curbing spending. Hard choices may have to be made over the summer when findings of the three-month study are expected. A complete withdrawal of machine-made cappuccinos and cafe lattes is now feared, a possibility that will make late-night military planning even more arduous than before. “You only miss these things when they are gone,” said the worker. “I’ve thought about bringing in a flask but that might look a bit desperate. It hasn’t got to that stage yet.” Unions say morale within the building can be judged by the number of civilian staff who applied for voluntary redundancy this year – 16,000, four times greater than the number the department can pay for in this year’s programme. But military types are not the sort to moan, and most are stoic about the “caffeine cuts”, with at least one general reporting a significant and pleasing drop in weight since the crisp machine disappeared. The MoD admitted the contract for vending machines had been changed and that it was part of a cost-cutting exercise. “As part of a package of measures to reduce the costs of catering provision in the MoD head office, the number of vending machines has been radically reduced,” said a spokesman. “Overall savings are in the order of £0.5m per annum.” Public sector cuts Civil service Defence policy Military Public services policy Public finance Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
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Monarch’s tour of Dublin takes in Garden of Remembrance as huge security operation surrounds historic trip The Queen has laid a wreath at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin to commemorate fallen Irish republicans, during a royal visit to Ireland. The visit came as Republican dissident attempts to disrupt day one of the historic visit appeared to have been thwarted. Two separate demonstrations against the Queen’s presence at the Garden of Remembrance failed to breach Garda lines. A huge security operation kept up to 200 republican protesters split between locations away from the royal entourage. Apart from a few missiles hurled at the gardai near the Rotunda maternity hospital in Parnell Square, there was little disorder as the Queen laid a wreath at the memorial. The radical republican group Eirigi could only muster around 150 demonstrators at the southern end of Parnell Square. At the northern end of the square close to the Garden only 60 protestors turned up to a Republican Sinn Féinrally, the party linked to the terror group the Continuity IRA. Ruarai O’Bradaigh, a former IRA chief of staff and founder of the hard-line RSF, denied that the turnout was a setback for the dissidents opposed to the Queen’s visit. “Whatever the turn-out the problem in Ireland has not gone away, namely the British presence in the north of our country. Resistance to that presence just like the presence of the English Queen will continue,” he said. But most ordinary Dubliners appeared to be either in favour of the royal visit or at least indifference to the arrival of the first British monarch since 1911. Watching the the RSF demonstration was Donal Lynch from the north inner city. Standing outside a branch of Paddy Power’s bookmakers on Dorset Street which has been renamed “O’Bama Powers” for the forthcoming US Presidential visit, Lynch was unimpressed by the protest. “There were more people at mass in my local church this morning,” he said. “As for them complaining about the €30m (£26m) cost of the visit they are the reason why it’ s so high. If it wasn’t for their threats to the Queen the cost of her coming would be much lower. Most Dubliners don’t here being here.” His views were echoed by Co Mayo-born nurse Elaine Peden, who works at Dublin’s Mater hospital. “I have no problem with the Queen’s visit to Ireland as I worked in the UK myself in nursing for eight years and was very happy to do my training there. I had so much available to me and we had wonderful courses so I can’t condemn her for coming here given that I got so much out of the UK.” At the other end of Parnell Square, which had been blocked off to the public, the Eirigi demonstration ended as one the Queen’s cavalcade left the Gardens without any serious outbreak of violence. One of Eirigi’s founders and ex-Sinn Fein member Brian Lesson praised the demonstrators as “brilliant” for not allowing the protest to turn violent. A few plastic bottles and sticks were thrown at gardai on mounted horseback but there was no attempt to break through the security cordon erected around every side of the square. However the 150-strong protest was equalled by knots of tourists taking pictures of the security operation in central Dublin along with small groups of the city’s drug addicts who normally use the Garden of Remembrance as a “shooting gallery” to inject heroin. Observing the Eirigi protest was Irish novelist Sean O’Reilly, a native of Derry’s Bogside now living in Dublin. He described the relatively peaceful nature of the protest as “the end of something”. O’Reilly added: “I think there is more dissent on the streets than the media are allowing on the airwaves but it is not a great turnout in terms of protest. I do have a problem with the Queen’s Garden of Remembrance even if she is very welcome in this country. “There is more to be done and said before I can embrace her laying a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance. As for the security operation it’s absolutely enormous but I don’t know what they are expecting – there appears to be little or no opposition on the streets. Maybe the Garda are just training for Obama really.” The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the huge protective bubble around them have now moved onto Trinity College Dublin, where the royal couple will be shown the ancient Celtic “Book of Kells”, their last major engagement on the first day of this historic trip to the Irish Republic. Monarchy Ireland Sinn Féin Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Harmon Killebrew, the Minnesota Twins slugger known for his tape-measure home runs, has died at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 74.
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• AP revelation fuels claims al-Qaida chief was illegally executed • New account sheds light on sequence of US raid in Abbottabad • Report comes amid news of clash between Nato and Pakistan The American soldiers who killed Osama bin Laden found his two guns only after he was dead, while they photographed his remains, according to a detailed new account of the al-Qaida leader’s final moments. The Associated Press revelation will add further fuel for critics who say US forces acted illegally in killing the unarmed Saudi fugitive. The Obama administration insists the shooting was lawful. Meanwhile, US relations with Pakistan, already at their lowest point in a decade, have found a fresh point of friction following an exchange of fire between Nato and Pakistani forces along the Afghan border. Two Pakistani soldiers were injured after opening fire on two Nato helicopters that crossed into Datta Khel, North Waziristan. Pakistan’s military, already livid over the Bin Laden raid, condemned the incident as a “violation of Pakistan air space” and lodged a “strong protest”. A Nato spokesman in Kabul said the shooting started after a Nato base came under fire from the Pakistani side of the border. The AP account, based on interviews with senior US officials, resolves some subsidiary mysteries about the size and sequencing of the dramatic US Navy Seal raid that ended the world’s largest manhunt on 2 May. But it also throws up fresh questions about how Pakistan’s air defence systems failed to stop the American forces entering – or leaving. The US raiding party slipped into Pakistan on five helicopters – two stealth Black Hawks carrying 23 Navy Seals, an interpreter and a sniffer dog named Cairo, and three Chinooks carrying 24 backup soldiers that landed in a remote mountain area north of Abbottabad, the garrison town where Bin Laden was hiding. In recent days, two Pakistani television channels have identified the mountain area as Khala Dhaka, a semi-autonomous tribal area, interviewing villagers who saw the US craft landing and taking off. The Black Hawks that swooped on Bin Laden’s compound were equipped with special technology to muffle the tail rotor and engine noise, the AP reported. Some experts have speculated it was also equipped with a special skin to fool radar. The soldiers planned to swoop on Bin Laden’s house from three sides: sliding down ropes onto the roof, the compound and outside the wall. But the first Black Hawk swayed erratically as it hovered over the compound owing to higher than expected temperatures and crashed against a wall, irreparably damaging its tail. The pilot ditched the plane in Bin Laden’s yard and the entire raiding party entered from the ground floor, using small explosives to blow their way through walls and doors. The AP reported that the Americans found “barriers” at each stair landing of the three-storey building, encountered fire once and killed three men and one woman. The account did not specify how many of the dead were armed. After 15 minutes the Seals, passing huddles of frightened children, reached the top floor where they found Bin Laden at the end of the hallway. They said they recognised him “immediately”. Bin Laden ducked into a room, followed quickly by three Seals. The first soldier pushed aside two women who tried to protect Bin Laden, apparently fearing they were wearing suicide vests, while the second opened fire on the al-Qaida leader, hitting him in the head and chest. Moments later, as the Americans photographed his body, they found an AK-47 rifle and a Makarov pistol on a shelf beside the door they had just entered. Bin Laden had not touched the weapons, according to the AP account. Just over 20 minutes later a Chinook helicopter arrived to collect Bin Laden’s body, a trove of computer disks, and the soldiers whose helicopter had crashed, now destroyed except for the rear rotor and tail. Controversy over the manner of Bin Laden’s death has dogged the White House since 2 May, especially after early claims that Bin Laden had been armed and used one of his wives as a human shield proved to be false. The only witnesses who could contradict the American account are Bin Laden’s three wives and children, who are currently in Pakistani custody. After much pressure from Washington, US officials were allowed to briefly speak with them last week. The women reportedly refused to answer questions and Pakistan says they will be repatriated to their native Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It is not clear when this will happen. The AP also reported that there had been four previous special forces incursions into Pakistan, echoing a December 2009 report in the Guardian . A senior Nato official said two of the clandestine raids targeted “high-value targets”, while a third was to recover a crashed Predator drone. The account comes a day after a visit by Senator John Kerry, who was in the capital, Islamabad, yesterday to try and “reset” the fragile alliance, claiming that Pakistan was not informed in advance for operational reasons and not due to any distrust of the Pakistanis. A similar issue has arisen from the Bin Laden raid. Kerry, after intensive meetings with Pakistani military chiefs, said he had secured a promise that the rear rotor of the Black Hawk would be returned to US custody, amid US fears it would be passed to China and reverse-engineered. Pakistan’s leadership has moved closer to its decades-old ally China. The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, today embarked on a four-day visit to China, a country he pointedly described as “our best and most trusted friend”. Osama bin Laden al-Qaida Global terrorism Pakistan Nato US national security United States US foreign policy Barack Obama John Kerry Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
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Proposals for a trimmed second chamber with 80% of seats elected by PR in draft bill attacked by Labour Nick Clegg has unveiled sweeping plans for elected members to take seats in a reformed House of Lords in the next parliament The deputy prime minister announced proposals for a cut-down second chamber, with 80% of its 300 members elected by proportional representation. Labour attacked the plan, contained in a draft bill, and argued the Liberal Democrat leader should have stuck to his party’s commitment to a wholly-elected upper House of Parliament. Clegg was mocked by both Tory and Labour MPs as he gave a statement in the Commons on the proposals. The government has published a draft bill setting out plans for an 80% elected upper house but also a White Paper containing a range of options including the election of 100% of its members. The deputy prime minister said: “Personally I have always supported 100% elected, but the key thing is not to make the best the enemy of the good. “That approach has stymied Lords’ reform for too long. Surely, at the end of the day, we can all agree that 80% is better than 0%.” Setting out the proposals he told MPs: “The bill makes provision for 80% of members to be elected with the remaining 20% appointed independently. “The 60 appointed members would sit as cross-benchers, not as representatives of political parties. In addition, bishops of the Church of England would continue to sit in the other place, reduced in number from 26 to 12. “The white paper includes the case for 100% elected. “The 80/20 split is the more complicated option, and so has been put into the draft bill in order to illustrate it in legislative terms. “The 100% option would be easy to substitute into the draft bill should that be where we end up.” The draft bill and white paper will be scrutinised by a committee of 13 peers and 13 MPs, with a report due early next year. “The prime minister and I are clear: we want the first elections to the reformed upper chamber to take place in 2015. “But, while we know what we want to achieve, we are open minded about how we get there. Clearly our fixed goal is greater democratic legitimacy for the other place but we will be pragmatic in order to achieve it.” Under the government’s plan members of the second chamber would serve a single term of three parliaments – up to 15 years. Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan was greeted with cheers from Tory backbenchers as he said Lords reform was not a priority for many voters, a sign that not all in the coalition share Clegg’s passion for the subject. Khan added: “These proposals risk being a dog’s dinner with nobody happy at the outcome, not even the Lib Dem activists he is trying to appease.” Clegg said the proposals “represent evolution, not revolution” and follow decades of wrangling over Lords reform. He said the choice of 300 members was “the number we judge to be right” but the government was “open to alternative views”. Under the plan elections would be staggered, with a third of the chamber’s members elected or appointed at each general election. “That is to prevent the other place from becoming a mirror image of this House,” Clegg said. The draft bill proposes the single transferable vote (STV) form of proportional representation (PR) to elect the members, but Clegg said the government was open to other forms of PR. “The coalition agreement specifies only that the system must be proportional, and what is most important is that it is different from whatever we use in the Commons. “That is so the two chambers have distinct mandates; one should not seek to emulate the other.” Under STV, “votes are cast for individuals rather than parties, putting the emphasis on the expertise and experience candidates offer, rather than the colour of the rosette they wear”. This would help give greater independence from party control, Clegg said. But as others preferred a party list system, the government was “willing to have this debate”, the deputy prime minister added. Critics of reform believe giving the second chamber a democratic mandate could increase tensions between the two Houses. Clegg said: “The Commons will retain ultimate say over legislation through the parliament acts. “It will continue to have a decisive right over the vote of supply. In order for a government to remain in office, it will still need to secure the confidence of MPs. “The other place will continue to be a revising chamber, providing scrutiny and expertise. “Its size, electoral cycle, voting system, and terms will all help keep it distinct from the Commons – a place that remains one step removed from the day-to-day party politics that, quite rightly, animates this House. “What will be different is that our second chamber will finally have a democratic mandate. It will be much more accountable as a result.” The transition would be phased in over three electoral cycles, he said. Clegg told MPs: “History teaches us that completing the unfinished business of Lords reform is not without challenges. “Our proposals are careful and are balanced. They represent evolution, not revolution, a typically British change.” Clegg was flanked by David Cameron as he gave his statement to the Commons. Khan joked the deputy prime minister “must feel like the manager of West Ham going to see his chairman” following the team’s relegation at the weekend. The Labour frontbencher said: “I agree that our politics and constitution are in need of reform. “Like (Clegg’s) party, Labour had a manifesto commitment to create a fully-elected second chamber.” He continued: “Let’s be frank, Lords reform is not near the top of any of our constituents’ priorities.” As Tory MPs voiced their approval, Khan said: “I’m grateful for the support – I’m not sure (Clegg) is.” He poured scorn on Clegg’s insistence that he favoured a wholly-elected chamber. “He says he supports a fully-elected second chamber and yet he unveils a bill today that leaves at least 20% appointed, plus bishops, plus ministers appointed by the prime minister.” The joint committee examining the bill would have a government majority “so the idea of them overturning anything of substance in this bill by next year is unrealistic”. Khan added: “After 12 months in office he has nothing new to say on Lords reform, simply putting out proposals that kick the issue into the long grass.” He told MPs: “The deputy prime minister has confirmed, by the publication of this bill, just how irrelevant he and his party are in this coalition government.” Following the overwhelming rejection of the alternative vote, Khan asked whether PR would be imposed without a referendum. He also questioned whether Clegg would use the parliament act to force his legislation through even if peers opposed it. Electoral reform House of Lords Nick Clegg House of Commons Liberal Democrats Labour guardian.co.uk
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Watermelons are exploding in fields in China, after farmers apparently misuse chemicals intended to accelerate the fruit’s growth. Now, crops are ruined. (May 17)
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Wounded US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords helped start the first full work day in space for her husband and the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour with the song: “Beautiful Day” by U2. (May 17)
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