Former president’s sons Alaa and Gamal are also referred to criminal court days before more planned protests in Egypt Egypt referred Hosni Mubarak to court on Tuesday over the killing of protesters and other charges, defying speculation that Egypt’s new military rulers would spare the former president public humiliation. Mubarak was ousted from power on 11 February after mass demonstrations demanded an end to his 30-year rule. He was then detained by prosecutors investigating corruption during his rule and a crackdown on the protesters. His two sons, Alaa and Gamal, – the latter of whom many had believed was being groomed by his father to replace him, – were also referred to the criminal court on a range of charges, the public prosecutor said in a statement. The decision was announced before another demonstration planned for Friday in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the heart of the uprising. Activists have called for a big turnout to demand faster reforms and a public trial for Mubarak and others. “Every time the youth threaten to go to Tahrir Square again with a huge number of protesters, I think they make some concessions,” said Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist and longtime critic of Mubarak. The crimes listed by the prosecutor included “intentional murder, attempted killing of some demonstrators … misuse of influence and deliberately wasting public funds and unlawfully making private financial gains and profits”. The prosecutor charged the former intelligence chief Hussein Kamal al-Din Ibrahim Salem, who has fled, with the same crimes. Hosni Mubarak Egypt Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Protest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Six photographers’ cars parked near home of Manchester United footballer have been vandalised by group of masked assailants Six cars belonging to photographers that were parked near the home of Ryan Giggs have been vandalised by a group of masked assailants. Police were called to the Manchester United midfielder’s house in Salford on Tuesday after vandals jumped out of a Ford Transit van and attacked the vehicles. No photographers are thought to have been injured in the attack. Their cars are believed to have been targeted because of the media attention surrounding Giggs. Greater Manchester police issued a statement saying they were called to Giggs’ house shortly after 3.20pm “following reports a number of cars had been damaged”. “Officers… discovered at least six cars had been vandalised after offenders arrived in a Ford Transit van and attacked the vehicles.” The former Wales captain was named in the House of Commons on Monday as the footballer alleged to have had an extra-marital affair with the model Imogen Thomas. Greater Manchester police said inquiries into the incident are ongoing. More details soon… Privacy & the media Superinjunctions Injunctions Ryan Giggs Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
UK airspace likely to resume normal services by Wednesday, says Met Office Airline passengers should be spared disruption from the ash cloud threatening to disrupt UK airspace on Wednesday according to Met Office forecasts, as airlines accused regulatory authorities of mishandling a volcanic eruption for the second time in 13 months. A dense plume from the Grímsvötn volcano in Iceland that forced the cancellation of more than 250 flights in Scotland and northern England on Tuesday will have dissipated by Wednesday, the Met Office said, aided by volatile weather and less explosive eruptions from Grímsvötn. Scottish airports were the worst affected on Tuesday, accounting for the majority of the 252 cancellations announced by Eurocontrol, the air traffic control body whose members handle about 29,000 flights per day throughout the continent. A Met Office spokesman said the thickest concentrations of ash, which airlines still cannot fly through, will have drifted across the North Sea by 6am on Wednesday, allowing airlines to resume normal services. “High concentrations of ash will be moving towards Germany, Holland and Denmark.” The spokesman said windy and wet weather was helping to disperse the particles, unlike last April when the UK was caught in a dead calm of high pressure that prevented dispersal of a cloud from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano. “The weather is much more dynamic. There is a succession of high and low pressure areas [creating wind] coming across the Atlantic and there is a lot of rain that tends to wash out the pollutants.” The Met Office rejected claims by Ryanair that it had put out “mythical” weather charts that erroneously placed dense ash clouds over Scotland throughout much of yesterday, citing evidence of ash falls in Glasgow, Kirkwall airport and a ship travelling between Iceland and Scotland. “We have seen lots of evidence from various sources that the ash is present across Scotland and fits in with the computer models that we are running continually. It all points to a presence where we expect to see it.” Several flights from Newcastle International airport were cancelled on Tuesday, including services to Paris, Brussels, Faro, Amsterdam, Aberdeen, Belfast International and Malta. Arrivals to Newcastle from Aberdeen, Amsterdam and Exeter have also been cancelled. Meanwhile, four EasyJet flights to and from Belfast International airport (flights to and from Newcastle and Glasgow) on Tuesday afternoon have been cancelled. Philip Hammond, the English transport secretary, who has promised there will be no blanket airspace closures similar to last year, suggested on BBC’s Newsnight on Monday that “we have got to learn to live” with disruption, while insisting there were now “much more robust systems to minimise the disruptive effect”. Since last year’s eruption, the authorities had gained a “much better understanding” of the risk from ash clouds, he said. “Most importantly, the basic situation now is that the threshold for most aircraft is 20 times where it was last year. We have got from 200 micrograms (mcg) per cubic metre to 4,000mcg per cubic metre as the threshold up to which most aircraft can fly. “What we can’t promise is that there won’t be disruption when there is a major natural event like this.” Hammond will chair a meeting of the government’s Cobra committee on the ash cloud later on Tuesday. A government source said the situation remained variable, with the possibility that dense ash will drift over Glasgow and Edinburgh between 1pm and 7pm before clearing. The source added: “These things change from hour to hour.” Iceland volcano 2011 (Grimsvotn) Air transport Met Office Natural disasters and extreme weather Iceland Dan Milmo James Meikle Peter Walker guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media At least he’s honest. At a town hall meeting, Rep. Rob Woodall lectured a constituent about Medicare, saying she should simply take care of herself . A Woodall constituent raised a practical obstacle to obtaining coverage in the private market within the confines of an employer-based health insurance system: What happens when you retire? “The private corporation that I retired from does not give medical benefits to retirees,” the woman told the congressman in video captured a local Patch reporter in Dacula, Ga. “Hear yourself, ma’am. Hear yourself,” Woodall told the woman. “You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, ‘When do I decide I’m going to take care of me?’” Because it’s just so easy, don’t you know? Think about what this guy is really saying. He’s saying that senior citizens should either go bankrupt or without health care unless they’re lucky enough to have the money to pay for it. He’s assuming everyone would somehow manage to have the means to get necessary care and Medicare is just a crutch! Also, Rep. Woodall believes that if you want Medicare, you should just head on out of the US and over to Canada or other countries who actually value their citizens’ health: Woodall suggested that the woman concerned about vouchers might find the type of health care system she and her children approve of in Canada or another industrialized nation. ” If you want a socialized health care program, there are lots of places to find that ,” he said. “But, for your children’s sake, I beg you: There aren’t many places to find the freedom to succeed by the sweat of your brow like we have here.” This is the heart of the Medicare debate. It isn’t that Republicans want to change Medicare. They want to end it completely. Digby is right : There’s only one answer for Democratic opponents if the Republicans try this: “So you believe ‘em? If they’re willing to screw your kids and grandkids what makes you think they aren’t going to screw you too?” Steve Benen : This is important rhetoric. Woodall is obviously something of an extremist, but at least he’s presenting the Republican agenda in stark, cold terms. His remarks come at the intersection of candor, callousness, and conservatism — seniors who worked for companies that don’t offer benefits to retirees are out of luck. If they didn’t save enough to cover their own medical bills, they’ll just have to suffer or go to some other country. Politically, the Republican strategy is emerging. Attack hard enough to get Democrats to agree to deep Medicare cuts, then circle back and attack from the left in 2012 because they agreed to them. Greg Sargent : Putting aside the argument over the merits of the GOP and Pelosi policy approaches, the political dynamic here could not be clearer. Dems, you have now been put on notice: If you agree to deep cuts in Medicare in the Biden-led talks, Republicans will see to it that you lose the political advantage you have built up by attacking Ryan’s plan. You may even lose the general advantage you have built up over the generations by positioning yourselves as defenders of signature Democratic policy achievements on entitlements. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Democrats need to pay attention to that strategy and stand up with strong backbones against ANY Medicare cuts. It’s worth noting that Rep. Woodall enjoys a robust health insurance program as the result of his career employment as a Congressional staffer, and now a Congressman. He would be one of the fortunate few to have post-retirement health insurance at taxpayers’ expense. Oh, right. That’s “earned by the sweat of his brow.” Yeah, right.
Continue reading …
Up to 6 million females aborted over past decade, often when child was family’s second and they already had a daughter Families in India are increasingly aborting their second child if they know it to be a girl and they already have a daughter, a study shows. Scientists estimate that up to 6 million girls have been aborted in India over the past decade by couples who do not want a large family and are determined to have a son. The practice is more widespread among wealthier and better educated Indian families, who are better able to afford the prenatal tests and medical intervention they want. While it has been known that there has been a tendency to abort girls in India since the first census in 1871, the latest evidence suggests that the practice is common throughout the country. The research, published in the Lancet , suggests that the Indian government’s attempt to tackle the issue by outlawing ultrasound scans that identify the sex of a foetus has not worked. The Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act was passed in 1996 to stop medical staff telling parents the sex of a foetus. “It is unlikely that this act has been effective nationally because few health providers have been charged or convicted,” write the authors, Prof Prabhat Jha from the University of Toronto and colleagues from India, including the former registrar-general of India, Dr Jayant Banthia. “We are not surprised by this lack of prosecution given that most primary care is with unregulated private providers.” This year’s Indian census revealed that there are about 7.1 million fewer girls than boys under the age of six. The gap has grown substantially since the 2001 census, which found 6 million fewer girls, and the 1991 census, 4.2 million fewer. The researchers used census data to estimate the absolute numbers of abortions for reasons of sex selection. They used information on more than 250,000 births in national surveys to work out the difference in the girl-boy ratio in second births in families where the first child was a girl. They found that the ratio in second births where the first child was a daughter fell from 906 girls per 1,000 boys in 1990 to 836 in 2005 – a drop of 0.52% a year. But there was no decline in the ratio among couples whose first child was a son. The authors estimate that between 3 million and 6 million girls were aborted from 2000 to 2010. Over the 30 years from 1980 to 2010, there could have been as many as 12 million abortions of girls. In a commentary, two leading experts point out that the desire to have a son appears to influence the behaviour of expatriate Indians too. Higher ratios of sons to daughters in second births, when the first child was a girl, have been found among Indians living in the US. India Abortion Women Sarah Boseley guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Protesters convicted of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station break-in appeal over alleged suppressed evidence of police infiltrator Twenty environmental activists who were convicted of conspiring to shut down one of the UK’s biggest power stations are to launch an appeal after allegations that police suppressed potentially crucial evidence from an undercover officer. The 20 were found guilty of plotting to break into Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station following a three-week criminal trial and police operation costing £700,000. But their convictions were thrown into doubt after revelations that they had been infiltrated by Mark Kennedy , a police spy who was alleged to have played a central role in the organising the plot. This led to Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, to ask senior barrister Claire Montgomery to conduct an independent review into the safety of the convictions. The review’s conclusion prompted Starmer to telephone the activists’ barrister offering to provide assistance in overturning the convictions . Today the 20 appellants formally submitted their application for permission to the court of appeal. In a joint statement they said: “Our case continues to demonstrate the state’s consistency in putting the interests of unlimited growth and unfettered capitalism before the rights and needs of people and planet. Our story began with the largest pre-emptive arrest of activists the UK has ever seen back in April 2009, and has since seen a random selection of us dragged through costly legal processes. The resulting consequence was 20 of us being convicted and sentenced for a crime we did not commit.” The statement added: “The launch of this appeal is just one small step in the fight back against the systemically political nature of policing. We stand in solidarity with all those who face repression for daring to take political action.” Mike Schwarz, the group’s lawyer said: “We shall follow the DPP’s response to the appeal with interest. We take the view that it is now incumbent on the crown – having assiduously and in such underhand and unaccountable ways gained so much personal information about the protest movement – to make amends. The crown should account fully and publicly to the court of appeal.” Revelations about Kennedy in the Guardian earlier this year have led to four inquiries amid admissions from police chiefs and ministers that the infiltration of protest groups has gone “badly wrong”. In one inquiry, the Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating the allegation that the police deliberately withheld evidence from court. Kennedy says he secretly taped protesters as they discussed plans to break into Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire in April 2009. The protesters want copies of these tapes and other reports of Kennedy’s operations to help their appeal, a move the CPS would now find hard to resist. The protesters say Kennedy’s evidence would have bolstered their defence in front of the jury. They had admitted the break-in plot, but insisted they were acting to prevent the greater crimes of death and serious injury caused by climate change. Prosecutors told the court that the protesters conspired to break into the power station as a stunt to attract publicity for their campaign against climate change. Activism Climate change Mark Kennedy Fossil fuels Coal Climate change Police Court of appeal Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …NNN World News out of Japan reports that it appears the plant operator did not follow the emergency directions for managing the Fukushima nuclear crisis and did not vent in time to prevent an explosion. And in other news? Yes, TEPCO finally confirms partial meltdowns in No. 3 and 3 reactors: Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) has confirmed that there have been extra partial meltdowns in fuel rods at its damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. The company said that the fuel rods are in its Number 2 and Number 3 reactors. Tepco has been trying to contain radiation that started leaking from the plant when it was hit by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. The company said that it planned to stick to its timetable of getting the plant under control by January. Tepco had said earlier that rods at its Number 1 reactor had also melted down. It was thought that a similar problem had occured in the other reactors but it was difficult to confirm. “Based on our analysis, we have reached the conclusion that a certain amount of nuclear fuel has melted down,” Ken Matsuda, a Tepco spokesman told the BBC. The company has been trying to cool the reactors and get the unstable fuel rods back under control. Last week, the president of Tepco, Masataka Shimizu, resigned. He will be replaced by managing director Toshio Nishizawa.
Continue reading …Former NYT Reporter Whines U.S. ‘Least Generous’ Industrial Nation – But He Means Social Programs
May 24, 2011 No Comment
Former New York Times economics reporter Eduardo Porter’s signed NYT editorial Monday left no doubt where his political sympathies lay: ” A Budget Without Core Purposes, Taxation Without Compassion .” President Obama trusts America’s generous and compassionate nature, that our rugged individualism is tempered by a belief that we’re all connected . In his speech on budget reform on April 13, he celebrated “our belief that those who benefited most from our way of life can afford to give back a little bit more.” The president’s faith in Americans’ sense of common purpose is uplifting. But it does not fit the history of American budgetary politics. I don’t just mean Tea Partiers’ revulsion at the government spending “our money,” or Republican Paul Ryan’s Reverse Robin Hood gambit to cut trillions from spending on social programs in order to pay for a tax cut for the rich. The budgetary policy of the United States has been the least generous in the industrial world for a very long time. Tax revenues in the United States have not reached 30 percent of gross domestic product since at least 1965. Today they amount to only 24 percent of G.D.P. In Britain, by contrast, they are 34 percent; in Sweden, 46 percent. And our government spending on social programs is equally puny. In 2007 Britain spent 25 percent more, as a share of its economy. Germany spent almost 60 percent more. Porter, now on the paper's editorial board, conflates charity, which is voluntary, with taxes, which are mandatory, as if someone's compassion should be measured based on how much money they want other people to hand over to the federal government: But perhaps he shouldn’t trust Americans’ generosity and compassion to simply carry the day on Capitol Hill. To build the America he extols he is going to have to fight for it. In October 2009, Porter wondered why life couldn’t be more like a Ralph Nader novel : “Maybe the jolt of billion-plus losses can spur plutocrats to change. Ralph Nader just wrote a novel called ‘Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!’ in which Mr. Buffett (already a major philanthropist), Ross Perot and a few other billionaires go to Maui to ‘redirect’ society onto the right path. Warren Beatty gets to run California. Wal-Mart workers unionize. Corporate greed is brought to heel. There is no sign of such enlightenment on Wall Street.”
Continue reading …Pawlenty has a problem: Man got sex-crime pardon so wife could open child-care center — now accused of molesting daughter
May 24, 2011 No Commentenlarge Credit: City Pages Jeremy Giefer It looks like TIm Pawlenty may not be as squeaky clean as he’d have you think. City Pages : Jeremy Giefer served time in jail in 1994 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl. But you wouldn’t know it to look at the record of the man now charged with sexually molesting his daughter more than 250 times over the last eight years. That’s because two years ago, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Attorney General Lori Swanson, and then-Chief Justice Eric Magnuson unanimously voted to wipe Giefer’s record clean, granting him a pardon extraordinary . One reason Giefer wanted his record cleared? His wife wanted to open a childcare center in the house where they live–the same house where Giefer allegedly molested his young daughter throughout the six years prior. Giefer appears to be one creepy individual. Maybe Pawlenty will go all Gingrich on the story and say that when he pardoned Giefer, he didn’t actually mean to pardon Giefer? And if you quote him saying he pardoned Giefer, that would be a lit. Here’s more details from an article in 2010: When Jeremy Geifer was charged with 11 counts of sexual misconduct November 18th, Tim Pawlenty might have envisioned his presidential ambitions going up in smoke. Just over three years ago, the Minnesota governor granted Giefer a pardon extraordinary, voting with the two other members of the Board of Pardons to wipe clean his previous criminal sexual record. Oops? …. In 1993, Giefer, then 19 years old, had fathered a daughter with his girlfriend, who was only 14 years old at the time of conception. He pleaded guilty to statutory rape, but claimed to the Star Tribune that he was being unfairly singled out for sticking around and supporting his girlfriend when other men would have bolted. Giefer served 45 days in jail for the transgression, and 15 years later asked for a pardon extraordinary, the term for a pardon granted to someone who has already served the sentence for the crime they committed. With a pardon extraordinary, Giefer would no longer have to report his conviction, except in special circumstances. Pawlenty and the board granted the Giefer’s request, citing the fact that Giefer was still married to the woman he had statutorily raped, and was raising their children together. It’s an odd rationale–that statutory rape is more acceptable if you marry your victim–but Pawlenty bought it hook, line and sinker and pardoned the sex offender. Flash forward to this month, when Giefer was charged with another sex crime, this time for allegedly molesting the daughter he conceived with the underage girl he statutory raped and married. This will definitely come back to bite him because Tim touted himself as being very tough on sex crimes: As governor, Pawlenty positioned himself as especially tough on sex crimes, advocating for a doubling of sex-offender prison terms and presiding over a dramatic increase in incarcerated sex-offenders. A year ago, the governor was grandstanding over the question of whether jailed sex offenders should have televisions. Asked for comment yesterday, Pawlenty spokesman Bruce Gordon emailed this statement to City Pages : “The Governor has consistently opposed pardons for sex offenders and believes sex offenses are heinous. However, the Board made an exception in this case and voted unanimously to pardon this 1994 conviction because it involved sexual conduct between two people who became husband and wife, maintained a long-term marriage, had a family together, and because the defendant completed his sentence many years before seeking the pardon which his wife and others supported.” Does statutory rape mean nothing to these people? A 14-year-old girl is not considered an adult for a reason. What a GOP field this is shaping up to be for 2012. [H/t Andy]
Continue reading …Pawlenty has a problem: Man got sex-crime pardon so wife could open child-care center — now accused of molesting daughter
May 24, 2011 No Commentenlarge Credit: City Pages Jeremy Giefer It looks like TIm Pawlenty may not be as squeaky clean as he’d have you think. City Pages : Jeremy Giefer served time in jail in 1994 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl. But you wouldn’t know it to look at the record of the man now charged with sexually molesting his daughter more than 250 times over the last eight years. That’s because two years ago, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Attorney General Lori Swanson, and then-Chief Justice Eric Magnuson unanimously voted to wipe Giefer’s record clean, granting him a pardon extraordinary . One reason Giefer wanted his record cleared? His wife wanted to open a childcare center in the house where they live–the same house where Giefer allegedly molested his young daughter throughout the six years prior. Giefer appears to be one creepy individual. Maybe Pawlenty will go all Gingrich on the story and say that when he pardoned Giefer, he didn’t actually mean to pardon Giefer? And if you quote him saying he pardoned Giefer, that would be a lit. Here’s more details from an article in 2010: When Jeremy Geifer was charged with 11 counts of sexual misconduct November 18th, Tim Pawlenty might have envisioned his presidential ambitions going up in smoke. Just over three years ago, the Minnesota governor granted Giefer a pardon extraordinary, voting with the two other members of the Board of Pardons to wipe clean his previous criminal sexual record. Oops? …. In 1993, Giefer, then 19 years old, had fathered a daughter with his girlfriend, who was only 14 years old at the time of conception. He pleaded guilty to statutory rape, but claimed to the Star Tribune that he was being unfairly singled out for sticking around and supporting his girlfriend when other men would have bolted. Giefer served 45 days in jail for the transgression, and 15 years later asked for a pardon extraordinary, the term for a pardon granted to someone who has already served the sentence for the crime they committed. With a pardon extraordinary, Giefer would no longer have to report his conviction, except in special circumstances. Pawlenty and the board granted the Giefer’s request, citing the fact that Giefer was still married to the woman he had statutorily raped, and was raising their children together. It’s an odd rationale–that statutory rape is more acceptable if you marry your victim–but Pawlenty bought it hook, line and sinker and pardoned the sex offender. Flash forward to this month, when Giefer was charged with another sex crime, this time for allegedly molesting the daughter he conceived with the underage girl he statutory raped and married. This will definitely come back to bite him because Tim touted himself as being very tough on sex crimes: As governor, Pawlenty positioned himself as especially tough on sex crimes, advocating for a doubling of sex-offender prison terms and presiding over a dramatic increase in incarcerated sex-offenders. A year ago, the governor was grandstanding over the question of whether jailed sex offenders should have televisions. Asked for comment yesterday, Pawlenty spokesman Bruce Gordon emailed this statement to City Pages : “The Governor has consistently opposed pardons for sex offenders and believes sex offenses are heinous. However, the Board made an exception in this case and voted unanimously to pardon this 1994 conviction because it involved sexual conduct between two people who became husband and wife, maintained a long-term marriage, had a family together, and because the defendant completed his sentence many years before seeking the pardon which his wife and others supported.” Does statutory rape mean nothing to these people? A 14-year-old girl is not considered an adult for a reason. What a GOP field this is shaping up to be for 2012. [H/t Andy]
Continue reading …