Foreign secretary says ‘our place is in the European Union’ and describes coalition government as ‘wonderfully refreshing’ William Hague has cast off his reputation as the darling of the Tory right by describing governing with the Liberal Democrats as “wonderfully refreshing”. He also rules out a referendum on UK membership of the EU. The comments by the foreign secretary, in an interview with the Observer , will dismay the many Conservative MPs who resent the Lib Dems’ moderating influence on government policy, particularly on relations with Europe, and want their party to champion a more rightwing agenda. As the Tories gather for their annual conference in Manchester, amid calls from rightwingers for David Cameron to give less ground to their coalition partners, Hague says this administration is working better than the last Tory government in which he served. “When you sit with David Cameron and Nick Clegg and other senior colleagues examining an issue, it is a wonderfully refreshing, rational discussion, actually, in which you know your party identity is not the first consideration,” he says. “The government has a more united spirit than the last government I served in at the end of 18 years of Conservative
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Although Nokia still hopes Windows Phone will round out a “three-horse race” with iOS and Android, it’s said to be cooking up an entirely new operating system aimed at lower-end handsets. According to the Wall Street Journal , the OS (codenamed “Meltemi”) is meant to cement Nokia’s top dog status in emerging markets, where feature phones remain king. Makes sense: low-end phones accounted for 47 percent of the company’s device-and-services earnings in the second quarter. We’re not sure if the adage ” when one door closes , another one opens” exactly applies here, but either way, it looks like we’ve hardly seen the end of software updates out of Suomi. Nokia developing ‘Meltemi’ OS for feature phones? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …The protesters of Occupy Wall Street had a decent day yesterday, with about 1,000 people marching to police headquarters, reports AP . It notes, however, that false rumors of a Radiohead appearance might have helped. Which raises the question: Is this protest going to fizzle or fly? Charles Blow at…
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Sunseekers head for the beach as temperatures reach 30C following warmest end to September for more than 100 years Most of Britain basked in glorious heat on Saturday as the mercury hit an all-time October high in several parts of the country, prompting sunseekers to head en masse for the coast. During the afternoon, the reported temperature at RAF Finningley, Yorkshire, reached 30C (86F), beating the previous record of 29.4C set on 1 October 1985, in March, Cambridgeshire. But it was not just the south that sweltered as the thermometers rose. A Met Office forecaster said that Wales also had a new national record with a temperature of 28.2C in Hawarden, Flintshire, beating the 26.4C set on 1 October 1985 in Ruthin, Denbighshire. Only Scotland and Northern Ireland missed out on the sunshine, enduring a day of relentless rain. The unseasonal weather saw people flock to the coast and the countryside in their millions. Travel information firm Trafficlink estimated there was up to 50% more traffic on the most popular summer routes, while train companies said they had carried up to 25% more passengers as people rushed to beaches and beauty spots. The weather provided a fillip for the tourist industry after a disappointing summer. The website Hotels.com said it experienced a 983% rise in searches involving top British seaside destinations, including Bournemouth and Weston-super-Mare. The most popular resort was Broadstairs in Kent, with a 275% increase in hotel searches. Other popular searches included Salcombe in Devon, Skegness in Lincolnshire, Southend in Essex and Portsmouth in Hampshire, while the Brighton Oktoberfest was a sellout. “The good weather always helps,”
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Food charity FareShare sees a 20% rise in demand, much of it from people hit by unemployment and benefit changes Britain has seen a sharp increase in the number of people unable to afford to feed themselves at the most basic level, thanks to the worsening economic climate and changes to the benefit system, according to a survey by a leading food charity. In the past year FareShare, which redistributes waste food from major food manufacturers and supermarkets to social care charities, has seen a 20% rise in the number of people it is feeding – from 29,500 a year to 35,000. And many of those, blighted by rising unemployment and business failures, are coming from the sorts of stable family backgrounds once considered immune to the worst effects of
Continue reading …enlarge Credit: Ian Murphy’s cell phone LIBERTY SQUARE, NY–despite the early morning rain, morale is high. A reported 100,000 copies of The Occupied Wall Street Journal have just arrived. The young occupiers are busy handing out the four page broadsheet to curious passersby and the protest tourists, who linger on the outskirts of Zuccotti Park, snapping photos of signs and the occasional blue-haired hippie. “The Revolution Begins at Home” reads a headline. “Learning from the World” reads another piece about Americans taking lessons from the spontaneous Arab Spring. In anticipation of an Oct 5th student walkouts and union marches, a caption reads, “New York Unites!” The rained on, camping crowd of about 200 has swelled to a respectable 400–or so–with a march planned for 3 pm, which is said will attract more. Some clothes are wet. Most clothes are wet. Everything is a little wet. Still. I’m told protesters could benefit from blankets, jackets, tarps. Anything to keep people warm and dry tonight, and into the coming…weeks? The on-sight media people — the only media to be found today, aside from freelancers — are in need of large external storage devices. They’re recording a lot of data. The first aid people say they need non latex gloves, roller gauze, medical tape and general supplies. Food is adequate, but storage containers would help organize the supplies and keep the damn pigeons off my bread. And I need Vicodin. Send Vicodin. Now. EDITOR’S NOTE: We sent New York occupiers some pizzas yesterday. And by “we” I mean you guys. We raised over $4000 yesterday (Friday) to feed the ground swell of solidarity demonstrations. If you want to send these guys a slice all amounts are welcome and appreciated!
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From barnesandnoble.com Bad reviews are a fact of literary life, even for the most successful writers. Take Steig Larsson — perhaps the hottest novelist of recent years, his books have nevertheless had to weather some cold-blooded attacks. The New York Times calls The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo “improbable” among other things. But the really tough one comes from Susan Cohen: “This is easily one of the worst books I’ve ever read. And remember I’ve read…” (You’ll have to read the review to find out who she’s comparing him to.) But if authors and readers think reviews can be mean today, they are nothing compared to the vitriolic war of words carried out during a time when it seems we had thicker hides. What we call a classic now was once an up-and-coming writer’s new novel – and fair game for reviewers with sharpened knives. No wonder that in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot a war of insults culminates with “Crritic!” Here are some examples of critics doing their gleeful worst – and literary lights who don’t miss a chance to take a swipe at a colleague. If we left your favorite mean quote out, let us know on Facebook or Twitter, #toomean.
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Why are MLB playoff games on durng the day? MLB & NFL Picks Monday October 6th m_slavich says: What a way to celebrate the first day of the greatest month of the year. Four @ MLB playoff games and a full slate of college football.
Continue reading …Nice moment before the Texas Rangers’ playoff opener yesterday: 6-year-old Cooper Stone threw out the first pitch to his favorite player, Josh Hamilton. In July, Cooper watched his father, Shannon, fall to his death at Rangers Ballpark while reaching for a ball—tossed up by Hamilton. Rangers fans were on…
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Woman kidnapped early on Saturday from private house on island of Manda on Kenya’s north coast Kidnappers escaped into Somalia with a French hostage on Saturday after a gun battle with Kenyan security forces. Kenya’s tourism minister, Najib Balala, said several of the gang had been wounded and they were holed up on the Somali coast about 15 miles from the border with Kenya. “Now that it is dark it is next to impossible to continue to follow. The moment is lost,” said Colonel John Steed, in charge of the UN’s counter-piracy unit in Nairobi. “Now it reverts to normal kidnapping negotiations.” The 66-year-old disabled woman – named in reports as 66-year-old Marie Dedieu – was grabbed in the early hours of Saturday from a private house on the island of Manda on Kenya’s northern coast. The victim’s Kenyan boyfriend, John Lepapa, said six masked men brandishing assault rifles had stormed their beach house. The wheelchair-bound woman was then carried to a waiting boat in the second abduction of a foreign visitor in three weeks. “They’ve crossed the border into Ras Kamboni,” Balala said, referring to the southernmost tip of Somalia that is under the control of militia fighters. “There are two aircraft on top of them monitoring their position.” The wounded members of the gang appear to be hampering its ability to move deeper inland, he said. Earlier, Kenyan coastguards surrounded the kidnappers near the border with Somalia and the bandits fired into the air in an attempt to scare off the two boats and a circling aircraft. Analysts and diplomats in the region had warned that Somali pirates were likely to turn to softer targets, such as tourists in Kenya, in response to much more robust defence of merchant vessels by private security guards. Kenya Somalia Africa Piracy at sea France Europe guardian.co.uk
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