Sounds like Spitzer’s on a campaign to push hard for the prosecution of Goldman Sachs. This, from last week: Eliot Spitzer challenges investment banker Goldman Sachs: “Sue me. I don’t care. You lied to the public, you should be prosecuted” during an interview with Sen. Carl Levin , chairman of the Senate subcommittee charged with investigating the causes of the financial crisis . Here’s a transcript of what Spitzer said: SPITZER: Senator, I’m going to take a leap. I’m going to say it out loud. Very directly. Goldman Sachs, you lied to the public. You lied to your clients. You’ve got a problem. You come on the show. Sue me. I don’t care. You lied to the public, you should be prosecuted. I’m going to say it right now. And I hope they are. Listen to Spitzer challenge Holder in his appearance on Anderson Cooper, then go read this William Greider article on “How Wall Street Crooks Get Out of Jail Free”. Then read this Politico piece on how conservative members of Congress are more upset that Holder is refusing to devote DoJ resources to prosecuting something much more important: online pornography.
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Days before his 2012 budget was released, Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) predicted that he and it would be demagogued by the Left. Doing its part is the New York Times which began its editorial Monday, “Six months after voters sent Republicans in large numbers to Congress and many statehouses, it is possible to see the full landscape of destruction that their policies would cause — much of which has already begun”: They approved on strict party lines the most regressive social legislation in many decades, embodied in a blueprint by the budget chairman, Paul Ryan. The vote, from which only four Republicans (and all Democrats) dissented, would have been unimaginable just eight years ago to a Republican Party that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. Mr. Ryan called the vote “our generation’s defining moment,” and indeed, nothing could more clearly define the choice that will face voters next year. His bill would end the guarantee provided by Medicare and Medicaid to the elderly and the poor, which has been provided by the federal government with society’s clear assent since 1965. The elderly, in particular, would be cut adrift by Mr. Ryan. People now under 55 would be required to pay at least $6,400 more for health care when they qualified for Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Notice the hyperbole “destruction” and “The elderly, in particular, would be cut adrift.” The Left have been using this playbook for years, and the question is whether people are going to buy it this time. After all, cutting adrift is an absolute term. But Ryan's plan, counter to what hysterical and dishonest media have been claiming since its release, does not end Medicare. It necessarily reforms it. For decades, economists have been predicting the end of Medicare in its current form without serious adjustments. One of those is former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan who just Sunday said on “Meet the Press” that he was suddenly more optimistic about our chances to resolve our budget deficit because people are finally “putting on the table that this issue requires a major cut in entitlement spending.” A “major cut” in Medicare spending means seniors in the future will need to shoulder more of the burden for their healthcare than today's seniors are. There's no denying that unless you're on the left believing folks like Greenspan are wrong and the answer is just raising taxes on the rich. Unfortunately, that wouldn't solve the problem. Medicare currently has an unfunded liability of $89 trillion, which means that you could take all the income from the so-called rich and Medicare would still go bankrupt in the not so distant future. With this in mind, Medicare is much like the Titanic – the most luxurious cruise ship to date that's about to hit an iceberg resulting in most of its passengers' deaths. According to the Times and the rest of the dishonest Left, Ryan's plan sets those onboard adrift. Not so. What Ryan is offering is almost as nice a ship for seniors, but that they'll have to pay for some of the gas to power the engines. Those in the lower levels – the less fortunate – will be required to pay less, while those in the upper decks and the suites – the rich – will pay more. But all will have accommodations that allow them to safely continue their voyage with a little more expense than they originally thought. This is the option Ryan is offering. The Times is offering only that Titanic continue heading towards that iceberg leaving most aboard to drown. So who really is proposing a policy that results in the elderly being cut adrift leading to their eventual destruction?
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A young boy finds his village transformed by the oil wells he can glimpse from the roof of his house, in this new story from Mohammed Hasan Alwan, translated by Peter Clark When Ja’far’s father went to work for SakOil, I asked my Dad about these oil fields everyone was talking about. He told me they weren’t that far from our village. That evening I kept on asking and asking him about them, and eventually he took me up to the roof of our house. He pointed with his slender hand to the eastern horizon, where five spots of light flickered uncertainly. “There,” he said gently, “under each of those flares is an oil well.” I was obsessed with these lights, staring at them like a moth which tries to steer by the stars, hoping that I could fly straight toward them. Over on the other side of the roof, the washing hung damp in the still air. An ant crawled over my foot, heading for a dark corner. I kicked it away – I wasn’t going anywhere. I stood up and followed my Dad back down to our living room like a disappointed Sufi. Yet my faith never vanished. All that hot, damp summer, I spent many hours looking at the flickerings of those flares as if I was some religious novice. They were like some great show, the gas squeezing up from the depths of the oil well to be consumed in flame against the intense black horizon, like some great dragon. I could hardly step onto the roof without looking to the east and counting those flares like a catechism. Every time one appeared I rushed to my Dad, a lucky astronomer who has sighted a new star in the sky. Dad never shared my excitement. Every morning I would watch the men setting off to work in those oil wells. Some went in cars to the SakOil headquarters wearing suits, though whenever they were in the village they wore the local thawbs. Others gathered at the vegetable souk where large buses took them to the distant fields. These wore blue overalls and long leather boots and carried yellow safety helmets. They were all enchanted for me, all heading for the mystical oil fields early in the morning and coming back at sunset. Out there they were subduing the earth, extracting oil, feeding those flares, discovering the impossible and mixing with Americans. In short, they were playing major roles on the world stage every day. And they weren’t just setting light to those flares above the oil wells, they were providing fuel for our village as well. When they got back they were full of illuminating stories, stories I collected up in my mind as if they were relics of an immortal saint. I treasured the tales cousin Sulaiman told when he came back from Bahrain for my grandmother’s funeral. He had worked on the first pipeline project, when American women were roaming the streets without covering their heads. “People used to be more accepting,” he said with a sigh. The men nodded. Once Ali, our neighbour, said he was one of the workers crowded around the king in the black and white photograph of a recently-discovered oil field hanging proudly on his sitting-room wall. I didn’t know he had been this close to royalty, so I asked which one was him. He said he was hiding his face because taking photographs is haram. My Dad said it was past my bedtime. Ja’far used to live in the street opposite our house. His Dad would spend three days without a break in the oil field, and then come home to spend a couple of days with his wife and children before setting off again. Ja’far told me his Dad boarded a fast boat that took him from the port of Ras Tannura to an off-shore oil rig in the Safaniya field in the middle of the sea. Ja’far became my best friend. Every day I heard a different story from him about his Dad. I didn’t ask myself whether a story was true or not – anything was possible for his Dad. All I wanted was one day to work in an oil field myself, and to have a son who would be as proud of me as Ja’far was of his Dad. My Dad didn’t work in the oil field. He taught at the deaf and dumb school at the end of our street. He spent his day with children who could not speak or hear, and so I could hardly expect him to bring home any interesting tales. When Dad came back with a bag of fresh hamour from the fish market and a bag of cabbage leaves from the souk, I’d be at the other end of the village, playing football with Ja’far. When his Dad got back from the oil rig he would greet me with a warm handshake. And one day he gave me a small medallion stamped with SakOil. I guarded it like a jewel from Paradise. One afternoon after prayers, Ja’far told me that he had some important news. His Dad would no longer be working in the Safaniya field. He was being transferred to a new oil field in the middle of the Empty Quarter. This meant that instead of boarding a fast boat he would be taking a plane owned by SakOil into the desert, translating him ever closer to heaven. I asked Dad that evening whether the flares we could see from our rooftop were in the middle of the sea or in the middle of the land. He replied with a laugh, his hands thrown up as if he was surrendering. “My boy, keep calm. One day you’ll see them at our front door.” “At our front door?” I almost shouted. He nodded, but he didn’t say any more. That night I dreamed about oil wells. I was up on the roof of our house singing the praises of the flares to a group of people down below, but I didn’t recognize them. The flares came closer and closer, and I carried on praising them loudly like a devoted sorcerer. They flickered even brighter and came right up to me in a circular wave of stars and fire. I bent down to the closest flare and reached out to touch it. My hand pierced the flare smoothly. It felt so cold. I kept my hand within the flame. I dreamed of the oil wells many times after that night, and it seemed as if my dreams were coming true. As the oil fields developed, the wells sprung up nearer and nearer to our village. Ja’far moved to al-Dammam – his mother muttering about the dangers of asthma and bronchitis – but I didn’t mind. Soon the wells were so close we could see the workers moving around the base, or climbing up to adjust the machinery. I was dreaming of the wells last night. My kid sister was coughing again, shaking and crying in the darkness as she struggled for air. She had woken up my mother as well, who came in with a drink of water and sat down beside her, stroking my sisters’ hair and humming an old song. I lifted my head from the pillow. “Do you think father knows anyone who could help me find a job at SakOil?” I asked. She stopped singing and looked up. “Go to sleep,” she said. Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England Original writing Fiction Oil Oil spills BP oil spill Energy guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Tipoffs from former journalist Emma Smiter ended up in national newspapers A police community support officer has been jailed for 12 months for leaking confidential information to the press. Emma Smiter’s illegal tipoffs, one of which related to an allegation of attempted murder, were reported in national newspapers including the Sun and Daily Mirror. The material, gleaned from Hertfordshire police computers, was passed to a news agency journalist and then on to the wider media. The 26-year-old, of Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, was sentenced at Basildon crown court, a court official said. In March, a jury at the court found Smiter guilty of misconduct in a public office and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Smiter, a former local newspaper reporter with the Welwyn and Hatfield Times, had denied the charges. During the trial, prosecutor Richard Scott said that Smiter breached police and public trust with her various disclosures. On one occasion, this involved revealing the name of a woman alleged to have been the victim of an attempted murder, the court was told. At the time, detectives had deliberately withheld the woman’s personal details from the public for legal reasons. Information about a charity box at a police station in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, being “£12 short” also appeared in a newspaper, to the embarrassment of the force. Smiter joined the Hertfordshire force as a police community support officer in 2008. Once in this position, she passed some of what she knew to Neil Hyde, a director of the INS news agency, jurors heard. On arrest, she claimed certain details had come from blogs rather than police files. But the court heard she fabricated the internet material to support her defence and deliberately misled a jury. When interviewed, she admitted she “knew the rules” about police holding personal data and denied being responsible for passing information to Hyde between 2008 and 2009. She claimed she had only ever used police computers and emails for legitimate reasons and had been “just friends” with Hyde. Police Regional & local newspapers Newspapers & magazines Newspapers guardian.co.uk
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Taliban claim responsibility for attack by infiltrators ‘aimed at French defence minister’ A man has opened fire in the Afghan defence ministry in Kabul, killing at least two soldiers. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack.. The gunman is believed to have been killed after he began shooting at defence staff. Spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said insurgents infiltrated the ministry and had planned the attack to coincide with the visit of the French defence minister, who they believed was meeting officials in the compound. French officials said the minister, Gerard Longuet, was not in the ministry. Mujahid said suicide bombers were also involved in the attack. Another spokesman, General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, said the perpetrator was an Afghan soldier who opened fire on colleagues in the ministry compound. Azimi said he did not know how many others had died. The two accounts could not be immediately reconciled. Reporters were not allowed in the ministry after the shooting. Extra guards took up positions at the entrances to the compound and security forces closed the road, but the area appeared calm from the outside. Lt Col Eric de Lapresle, a spokesman for French forces in Afghanistan, said Longuet was not in the ministry. The minister had arrived in Afghanistan on Sunday and had been meeting French troops in the east of the country. Some 3,850 French troops are deployed in Afghanistan as part of the Nato mission. The shooting comes on the same day that a protest against the arrest of a mullah in Parwan province turned violent with protesters and police shooting at each other, killing at least one person, officials said. The demonstration started over the arrest of a local mullah overnight in Charikar, the provincial capital, said provincial police chief Sher Ahmad Maladani. Armed men in the crowd started shooting and police have not been able to regain control, Maladani said. The attack at the defence ministry comes within month of foreign forces starting to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan troops. Nato-led troops have been claiming solid progress in efforts to bolster the numbers and quality of the Afghan police and army. On Saturday a suicide bomber in an Afghan army uniform entered a desert base in the east of the country and killed five foreign and four Afghan soldiers – the highest toll of Nato-led troops in a single attack for several months. On Friday a suicide bomber in police uniform evaded tight security at the police headquarters in Kandahar city and killed Khan Mohammad Mujahid, the provincial police chief. Afghanistan Taliban Global terrorism Adam Gabbatt guardian.co.uk
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• Britain presses for unfettered access to Misrata • Saif al-Islam Gaddafi: Libya is fighting terrorists in Misrata • Gaddafi forces attack Ajdabiya 2.24pm – Bahrain: Some of you have asking about Zainab al-Khawaja, who went on hunger strike last week in protest against the beating and arrest of her dissident father in Bahrain. Here is an update from Robert Booth who covered her story last week. I spoke to Zainab al-Khawaja this morning. She was hospitalised briefly yesterday but is now back in bed in a secret location in Bahrain. This is what she told me: “I decided beforehand that I didn’t want to the hospital, but my family forced me to go. My pulse was very low so they got worried and decided to take me to a private hospital. They ran tests on me and said I need fluid intravenously. I refused because I didn’t want to break my hunger strike. Some nurses and doctors tried to talk me into it but I refused and came back home after they said if I wanted to stay they would have to tell the ministry of the interior. It made me realise that it is not only the government hospitals that are unsafe, but the private hospitals too. People are being arrested from their hospital beds if they have injuries that are linked to protesting, like shotgun wounds. It shows the ministry of interior has ordered all hospitals to inform them if anyone political comes to them as a patient. That means there are more people injured and suffering at home with nowhere to go.” Al-Khawaja said she has left her home and is staying at an unidentified location after a member of her family was threatened with arrest. “It has become much more difficult to stand up and walk and even to sit up. When I get up, my heart beat goes very very fast and I get out of breath and I feel very dizzy. I am drinking water and sometimes water with sugar, which means my mother has prevailed because that is what she wanted. I have still heard nothing about my family so plan is to continue my hunger strike and see what is going to happen. They might come for me, but I am not concerned. I am too worried about my husband and father. Every hour, every minute they are in custody I am worried.” 2.17pm: AP has more on efforts to evacuate people from Misrata. Nearly 1,000 people who are among several thousand stranded in the area of Misrata’s port boarded an aid ship sent by the International Organisation for Migration. Most of the passengers were migrant workers, but also included 100 Libyans, among them 23 wounded in the fighting. The injured included a child shot in the face and an amputee, the aid group said. “We wanted to be able to take on more people, but it was not possible,” said Jeremy Haslam, who heads the group’s boat rescue. “Although the exchange of fire subsided while we were boarding with an eerie silence at one point, we had a very limited time to get the migrants and Libyans on board the ship and then leave,” he said. The organisation said at least 4,000 additional migrants are stranded in the port area, including women and children. Many of the refugees have been living out in the open or in containers in the port area for nearly two months, lacking access to water and medical and running short on food. IOM said many of the migrants are weak and dehydrated. Haslam said the group needs funding for a bigger boat to recuse the remaining migrants in one trip. 2.08pm: A wounded woman is evacuated onto a ferry carrying some 1,000 migrant workers stranded from Misrata to Benghazi. _ 2.06pm: Britain’s International Development secretary said the UK is to help evacuate 5,000 people trapped in Misrata and provide medical assistance to those who remain in towns across western Libya. Andrew Mitchell, who is in New York to discuss the crisis in Misrata, said the emergency evacuations will be carried out by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and will get foreign workers who have managed to reach the port safely out. Britain will also fund International Medical Corps (IMC) to provide critical medical aid for those caught up in the violence across western Libya. I am determined that Britain continues to provide help to those innocent civilians who are caught up in the ongoing violence,” said Mitchell. “Thousands of foreign workers have managed to reach the port but find themselves at terrible risk from incoming fire, with no way to get out. These evacuations will take them to safety and help reduce the demand in Misrata for the very limited supplies of food, water and medical supplies available. 1.57pm: Doctor Abdul Kadher Mukhtar tends to sniper victims at the Hekma hospital in Misrata. _ 1.54pm: I’ve just managed to get through to Donatella Rovera, a researcher from Amnesty International, on a very bad line. Conditions, she says, are very bad and getting worse. The centre of the city is cut off, there has been heavy shelling in the east of the town, where the port is, and to the west as well. The bread queues are very very long as are the ones for petrol and electricity is catastrophic, she says. The question is how long the situation in Misrata can be tenable. Amnesty last week reported fresh evidence of extrajudicial executions apparently committed by Gaddafi’s forces near Ajdabiya, in the east, in recent days. Amnesty said its researchers i on 10 April saw the bodies of two opposition fighters who had been shot in the back of the head after their hands had been bound behind their backs. 1.41pm: My colleague, Harriet Sherwood, has more details on this agreement on humanitarian aid for Libya. As she points out, the UN secretary-general did not confirm whether the UN would be allowed unrestricted access to Misrata despite official Libyan statements to this effect. The UN has signed an agreement with the Libyan government to provide humanitarian aid to the country, the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, said on Monday. A Libyan government spokesman told reporters in Tripoli that the agreement was “a very positive step”. He said it covered safe passage for people to leave the besieged city of Misrata and provide aid, including food, medicines and basic services. Ban said the UN would set up a presence in the capital Tripoli but did not confirm whether it would be allowed free access to Misrata. Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross were given permission to visit Misrata to evaluate the scale of the humanitarian crisis at the weekend. Libyan authorities said two assessment visits had been made, but the ICRC has made no public statement. Government forces have laid siege to the city, Libya’s third largest, for seven weeks. Local witnesses describe appalling conditions with more than 1,000 people killed by shelling and sniper fire and medical services overwhelmed with injured civilians. The Libyan authorities insist that the rebellion inside Misrata is being driven by al-Qaida and armed by the Qatari government. Ibrahim denied government forces were using cluster bombs or any heavy weapons. Rebel spokesmen in Misrata say Nato is not doing enough to prevent a “massacre” of the people of Misrata. 12.46pm – Bahrain: Seven anti-government protesters will go on trial before a Bahrain military court for the killing of two policemen. The Bahrain news agency said a military prosecutor charged seven suspected opposition supporters with premeditated murder of two policemen. More from AP. The seven are the first of the hundreds in custody to have been charged with a crime since Bahrain’s military stormed the protesters’ encampment in Manama’s Pearl Square in an effort to end weeks of street marches by Bahrain’s Shia majority demanding greater political freedoms and equal rights. Among those detained are also dozens of Shia professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, including the lawyer who was to defend the seven suspected opposition supporters in the military court. The attorney, Mohammed al-Tajer, is one of Bahrain’s most prominent human rights lawyers. He has represented hundreds of clients against the state, including Shia activists accused of plotting against the Sunni monarchy. He was taken into custody on Saturday. 12.37pm: This video from France 24 shows some of the devastation in Misrata after seven weeks of fighting. _ 12.33pm: Human Rights Watch yesterday said at least 16 civilians have been killed in indiscriminate attacks on Misrata since April 14. Human Rights Watch last week accused the Libyan government of using cluster bombs in Misrata, which the Libyan government denies. “Libyan government forces have repeatedly fired mortars and Grad rockets into residential neighborhoods in Misrata, causing civilian casualties,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. “The Soviet-made Grad in particular is one of the world’s most inaccurate rocket systems and should never be fired in areas with civilians.” 12.16pm: Al-Jazeera’s Jonah Hull managed to get into Misrata and filed this report. He says the rebels are gaining ground but that hospitals are suffering from shortages. _ 12.07pm – Yemen: Plainclothes police fired on protesters in the Yemeni port of Hudaida, wounding at least 15 people, Reuters reports. This follows large demonstrations on Sunday when hundreds of thousands took to the streets denouncing President Ali Abdullah Saleh for saying women should not take part in protests. 11.42am: AP has more on the agreement between Gaddafi and the UN on providing humanitarian aid to Libya, with the Libyan government apparently ready to allow aid agencies unrestricted access to Misrata. It will be interesting to see how the Libyan government squares that with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s view ( 9.39am ) that Misrata is full of terrorists. The Libyan government spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, says the deal included setting up a humanitarian corridor to the city of Misrata. “The agreement (with the UN) is to provide safe passage for people to leave Misrata, to provide aid, food and medicine,” Ibrahim said… He said the deal also called for free access of international aid agencies and ensuring that electricity, water and other services are provided to Misrata… Valerie Amos, the UN humanitarian chief. said she had received assurances from Gaddafi’s government authorities that the UN would be allowed in to Misrata. 11.29am: Bernard-Henri Levy, the French intellectual, is very bullish about the Libyan opposition. In an interview in Le Monde , he expressed confidence that the rebels will eventually prevail. More than ever, everything points to this: Free Libya, with its allies, will win against the tyrant. On Misrata, he says boats that go to Benghazi to ferry out the wounded, also take in weapons for the rebels. He says he saw cases of ammunition hidden under bags of powdered milk, anti-tank missile launchers, and an anti-aircraft missile being loaded on to a boat going to Misrata. If what Levy says is correct – ships are taking in weapons as well as supplies to Misrata – then Tripoli will not want any groups to have unrestricted access to the city. 10.43am – Syria: Syrian forces killed eight protesters overnight in the central city of Homs in confrontations after the death of a tribal leader in custody, a rights campaigner told Reuters. Homs is boiling. Security forces and the regime thugs have been provoking armed tribes for a month now. But civilians in large numbers also took to the streets in different areas of Homs last night and they were shot at in cold blood,” the rights campaigner said. The top story in the Washington Post is about secret US financing of Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country. Based on cables from WikiLeaks, the Post says the US state department funnelled as much as $6m to the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles, to operate a satellite channel called Barada TV. The London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the country’s autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad… It is unclear whether the state department is still funding Syrian opposition groups, but the cables indicate money was set aside at least through September 2010. While some of that money has also supported programs and dissidents inside Syria. 10.27am: The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, says the UN has reached an agreement with the Libyan government on providing humanitarian aid in Tripoli. The Associated Press reports that the deal to establish a “humanitarian presence” in the Libyan capital was agreed yesterday by his special envoy to Libya and Valerie Amos, the UN humanitarian chief. But no word on Misrata. 9.39am: Misrata, which seems to be assuming the symbolic importance of Sarajevo in the Bosnian war, has come under bombardment again today. “The Gaddafi forces are shelling Misrata now. They are firing rockets and artillery rounds on the eastern side – the Nakl el Theqeel (road) and the residential areas around it,” Abdubasset Abu Mzeireq told Reuters. He said 17 people were killed in yesterday’s shelling. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was asked about Misrata in the Washington Post interview, described the fighters there as terrorists, drawing parallels with Grozny in Chechnya and Fallujah in Iraq. As Saif insists that the fighters are terrorists it will be hard to see how the Libyan government will agree to unrestricted humanitarian access to the city. Arms and ammunition and terrorists are coming every day via that port… So, excuse me, you want the Libyan government to sit and wait every day for the terrorists to get stronger? You know, the army was in dialogue and in negotiation with those people for one month. One month, trying to persuade them to lay down arms and go back home. One month, we failed. And then, they used the time to fortify their site. So you want us to repeat the same mistake again? Of course not. And by the way, those criminals, they kidnap people, they kill people, they execute people, they have their own courts, their own police, army. No government in the world will allow such a behaviour. In 1992, Francois Mitterrand flew by helicopter into Sarajevo with “a message of hope” for its 400,000 hungry and terrorised residents. One wonders whether Nicolas Sarkozy would dare to emulate Mitterrand’s stunt. 9.00am: Good morning and welcome to our coverage of Libya and other developments in the Middle East. • Britain’s international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, will be holding urgent talks at the UN in New York on how to get aid to Misrata, the rebel-held city that has been under siege for seven weeks . Tens of thousands of people are trapped in Misrata, Libya’s third city and the only one under rebel control in the west. • In a defiant interview, Saif al-Islam, one of Muammar Gaddafi’s sons, described anti-government forces in Misrata as criminals and terrorists . He told the Washington Post that the Libyan government would not “sit and wait every day for the terrorists to get stronger”. • Government forces yesterday mounted a heavy assault on Libyan rebels holding the key town of Ajdabiya in a sign that the regime is stepping up efforts to regain territory in the east of the country . As fighting continues, David Cameron said there “no question of an invasion or an occupation” under the terms of the UN resolution and that this was making fighting the conflict “more difficult in many ways” for the coalition. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Syria Bahrain Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
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Prime minister shares platform with John Reid, who says defence of first past the post transcends party politics • Ed Miliband and Vince Cable unite to pledge support for AV David Cameron shared a stage with the former Labour cabinet minister John Reid and urged Britain not to take the “backward step” of voting for the “second rate” alternative vote system in the 5 May referendum. Reid – who admitted that sharing a platform with the Conservative prime minister was unusual – claimed defence of the first past the post system transcended party politics. He said the issue turned on the right of the British people to be treated equally in deciding their government. The high-profile event staged by the No campaign coincided with a similar press conference staged by the Yes camp , which featured the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, and the Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable. Miliband acknowledged that AV was not a “magic remedy or a magic cure”, but added: “It can make for a more accountable politics, a fairer politics and a politics with a different culture”. The rival events represented an attempt to inject new life into a campaign that could have important consequences for all three major political parties. Reid argued that AV gave some voters more votes than others, adding: “It would not only be wrong, but it would be an outrage to try and secure a change to the electoral system for tactical party advantage by usurping the right of our citizens to an equal vote. “For there is, I have to say, a growing and well-founded suspicion that that is exactly – at least part – the aims of the Yes campaign. I include in that the leadership of the Lib Dems.” Reid said the Lib Dems were seeking narrow self-interest by proposing a system that would give their supporters more votes. He said the party was, in effect, trying to sack the electorate by changing the rules of the game. But, he argued, a democracy it works the other way round – it is the electorate that is the master. Reid complained that AV meant “the first votes to be counted twice are of the least popular candidate”. He said losers in politics should pick themselves up and get back in the game. “They don’t expect gold medal for finishing second, third or fourth,” he said. The No campaign team appears increasingly confident that the momentum of the campaign is with them and, if turnout reaches well over 30% in the May 5 local elections, they will win. They expect a low turnout in London of around 20%, the strongest area for the Yes campaign, because there are no local elections in the capital. But the Evening Standard has backed the No side. In questions after his speech in London, Cameron insisted that, if he lost the referendum, he would expect Tory MPs not to throttle legislation bringing in the change through parliament. He warned that AV would take away the “decisive” power voters have to kick out governments, claiming debates about AV could become too “scientific” but politics was about how you feel in your “gut”. “For me, politics shouldn’t be some mind-bending exercise,” he added. “It’s about how you feel in your gut, about the values you hold dear and the beliefs that you instinctively have. “And I feel in my gut that AV is wrong. There are three big problems with AV that strike at the heart of how I believe our democracy should work. “First, I believe that power should lie with the people, and AV will take some of that power away. Second, I believe there should be real accountability between the pledges politicians put in their manifestos and the action they take in government. AV would damage that chain of accountability. “Third, I believe in the principle of one person, one vote, and AV would mean the votes of some people get counted more than others.” AV, he said, was “obscure, unfair and expensive” and “could mean that people who come third in elections will end up winning”. “It will make our politics less accountable, and I believe it would be a backward step for our country,” he said. Despite his strong defence of first past the post, he acknowledged he planned to publish proposals after the referendum to introduce a proportional voting system for the election of the Lords, and would do so without a referendum. He said the difference was that first past the post was right for the formation of governments and was not necessary for other elections such as the leaderships of political parties. Coalitions were not in themselves desirable since because they loosened the link between the politician and his manifesto, he added. The prime minister distanced himself from attacks on the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, by the No campaign and denied he was scaremongering. “I don’t run the No campaign, I run the Conservative No campaign,” he said. “I certainly don’t condone any personal attacks on anyone in this campaign.” He admitted, however, that many voters had so far shown little interest in the debate about voting reform. “There is a problem out there which is that, I think, millions of people in our country aren’t engaged in this debate or this argument at all,” he said. “It is up to us on the Yes and No side to fire people up and say this matters, and is about what sort of democracy we are.” Reid also warned of a the possibility of a low turn-out. Alternative vote Electoral reform AV referendum John Reid David Cameron Conservatives Labour Ed Miliband Nick Clegg Liberal Democrats Vince Cable Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Dana Perino Accuses President Obama of ‘Saying Offensive, Crazy Things’ in Budget Speech
April 18, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Well it looks like we’ve got another Republican who is terribly offended by President Obama’s budget speech; former Bush Press Secretary turned Fox shill Dana Perino. Perino accuses President Obama of “saying offensive, crazy things” in his budget speech, but doesn’t bother to fill us in on just what those things were, other than to lie and say that President Obama called the Republicans un-American, which he didn’t. I’m sure she thinks that expecting anyone to possibly pay more in taxes is just crazy talk as well, but she didn’t bring that up here. Here’s a little reminder for Perino of what the President did say : Now, to their credit, one vision has been presented and championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates. It’s a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that. These are both worthy goals. They’re worthy goals for us to achieve. But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known certainly in my lifetime. In fact, I think it would be fundamentally different than what we’ve known throughout our history. Full transcript below the fold. WILLIAMS: — in terms of this Republican field, right now the big money is standing on the sidelines. Everybody is holding their powder dry because they don’t see anything out there that indicates that any of these guys can beat President Obama. So what do you see going on? You see Donald Trump rise to the top of the polls. Donald Trump, out there yesterday, talking to Tea Party people. And they’re all talking to Tea Party people now. Sarah Palin, talking to Tea Party people. Pawlenty, talking to Tea Party people. Haley Barbour, talking to Tea Party people. And they’re saying crazy stuff. I mean, how is Haley Barbour going to get away with saying, oh, we shouldn’t be involved in the war in Afghanistan? Donald Trump saying, you know what? Those Japanese — after the tsunami and earthquake, those Japanese have been ripping us off for a long time. These are offensive, crazy things, but they just like to stir it up. WALLACE: OK. All right. But let’s talk, though — I’m going to take one of your points — don’t look at me like that. WILLIAMS: Well, I’m surprised. WALLACE: I’m going to take one of your points, which is the idea that there is — people are waiting to see who else is going to jump in. And I want to address that with you, Dana, because given the relative lack of excitement about the current field, some people are suggesting that — and let’s put a couple of candidates on the screen — that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, or Congressman Paul Ryan could get in the race as late as next fall and still have a chance. Is that possible? PERINO: Well, I think anything is possible. And I call that the “maybe someone will emerge caucus,” because there is not anyone that has really taken fire. I want to address one thing on the point, though, which is that there is another person in this presidential race saying offensive, crazy things. And that is President Obama, who called the Republicans un-American this week in a speech in which he invited people. Now, you can do that if you want to make it a hyper-partisan thing. But the poll you haven’t shown yet is that 70 percent of the American people, according to Gallup, think the country is on the wrong track. So, I think if I were President Obama’s political team, I would think, wow, we should have had a better week last week than we did. Rising gas prices will continue to dog them, and maybe somebody will emerge out of this Republican field that will be able to catch people’s attention and go the distance. h/t Media Matters
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New York’s blubbing bloggers fall for this horsey transfer from the National Theatre, but critics find some strings attached So if a theatre critic walked into a Broadway bar, and the barman asked: “Why the long face?”, it would be fair to assume that said pint-puller was not a man of culture. Long faces are very much in vogue on Broadway right now. Pop down to the Lincoln Center on West 65th, for instance, and it seems you’ll find little else. There are several long faces on stage, and hundreds more in the audience. All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that War Horse (the puppet-filled play that’s wowed London audiences since 2007) transferred to Broadway last week, and is making New Yorkers weep like there’s some sort of highly contagious tear-duct infection doing the rounds on the Upper West Side. And don’t just take my word for it. Here’s the horse’s mouth: “I wept silently yet uncontrollably,” writes blogger Lisa Lindblad . “I am not capable of emotional distance in the face of an animal’s pain nor an animal’s love. I was distraught. And, so, I made it through until intermission and then left. Reluctantly, sadly, but self-protectively.” Very wise, Lisa. Indeed, other audience members should probably have followed your lead. “At one point,” reports Melissa Whitworth in the Telegraph , “an elderly woman was so overcome that she fainted and had to be carried out by three audience members and attended to by paramedics in the lobby.” Golly. It seems Stateside audiences have fallen for the story of Albert (the Devon farmboy who goes searching for his beloved dobbin, Joey, on the battlefields of the first world war) every bit as fervently as we Brits – and none more so than Alan Miller, who blogs at A Seat on the Aisle . “[War Horse] is a story of honour and deceit, of man’s humanity and inhumanity to his fellow man, of children and adults, of mothers, fathers and sons, of envy and petty rivalries, of bravery and cowardice, of the horror and futility of war – in sum, of everything that makes man what he is, for better or for worse,” wrote Miller. Before disappearing into an oxygen tank for several days. But what about the critics? Well, they adore the life-like puppets, that’s for sure. “They are simply extraordinary creations,” says Chris Jones at the Chicago Tribune , who especially loves the way they “seem to pulse in the very air – breathing, churning and always teaching us, or maybe just reminding us, that the world never stands still and that all you can do is find your love and not get mowed down by the big guns”. What Chris said, says the New York Daily News’s Jerry Dziemianowicz , in slightly less purplish words. “The work by puppet designers Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler is exquisite,” Dziemianowicz writes. “They bring Joey and Topthorn, a fellow war horse, and other animals so authentically to life you believe you’re seeing the real deal.” But according to New York Magazine’s Scott Brown , it’s the brilliance of the puppetry that highlights the show’s flaws. “This horse is alert and alive,” says Brown of Joey. “[S]o much so, we realise only slowly that the script he’s dragging is neither.” Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal was even less impressed. “The fundamental flaw of War Horse,” writes Teachout, “is that Nick Stafford, who wrote the script ‘in association ‘… with South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, has taken a book that was written for children [by Michael Morpurgo] and tried to give it the expressive weight of a play for adults.” Not surprisingly, Teachout concludes, “Morpurgo’s plot can’t stand the strain.” As a result, argues the New York Times’s Ben Brantley , the acting is affected. “The characters are drawn in the broad strokes you associate with children’s literature,” writes Brantley. Brown concurs: “The more horselike the puppet became, the more puppetlike I found the human actors.” The thing that most jarred with our critics was the play’s – ***SPOILER ALERT*** – ending. Much of War House is explicitly critical of the horrors of conflict, but, says Bloomberg’s Jeremy Gerard , its finish blunts any pacifist message. “The climax, which is overwrought and even a bit silly, never is in doubt,” says Gerard, “ultimately robbing the play of deeper emotional involvement.” Perhaps. But try telling that to Lisa Lindblad, who never even saw it. Do say: I cried and cried and cried and cried and cried and cried. Don’t say: Like flogging a dead horse. The reviews reviewed: Puppets great. Ending sad. Broadway Theatre Patrick Kingsley guardian.co.uk
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• How can I resolve a very personal work relationship? • I’m being excluded from management meetings At the start of each week, we publish the problems that will feature in this Saturday’s Dear Jeremy advice column in the Guardian Work supplement, so readers can offer their own advice and suggestions. We then print the best of your comments alongside Jeremy’s own insights. Here are this week’s dilemmas – what are your thoughts? Problem one: How can I resolve a very personal work relationship? Several years ago we hired an employee. I thought we worked well together and we became friends. Over the course of five years I loaned him a large sum of money, he lived with us, and I arranged for him to take a two-year sabbatical while he finished his professional qualifications. He is 10 years younger than me and I viewed him like a younger brother who I worked with. I have always made it clear that if he needed anything he should ask me and, if I could, I would help him out. I admit I have done several things that, in hindsight, were poorly judged. I tried to take a step back, but at that point he had another major personal issue and I stepped forward again. The issue affected his mental state and his work suffered badly. I was very much out of my depth and I was becoming depressed about my inability to help him. We knew he was tight for money after being a student and gave him a large pay rise and a long holiday. However, when he returned he was still clearly depressed, very distant and, on several occasions, snide and insulting. I then found out he had also started to do work for a former employee of mine. When we discuss any of this it brings out new grudges, including him telling me that he never liked me and only went along with all this because I was his boss. I feel deceived and, increasingly, very angry. However, the more antagonistic things become between us the better focused he is at his work. My business partners have offered to mediate, but given the personal nature of this I am reluctant to take them up. Can you offer any advice? Problem two: I’m being excluded from management meetings I recently started a new role having spent the past few years as a successful self-employed consultant. A key part of this role is membership of the management team, confirmed to me in writing prior to my joining. However, for the eight weeks since joining I have not been invited into any weekly management meetings, despite reminding the MD (it is always “come in next week”). I have also had no participation in our merger with a sister company, something which will certainly affect me, my team and my part of the business. Throughout my boss has told me that he wants me as part of the management team, that I will be participating in planning the merger and that I would lead part of the merged business. However nothing has happened. What should I do? Every time I raise the issue I get more promises but no action. It does feel as if I’ve been recruited under false pretences. What are your thoughts? • For Jeremy’s and readers’ advice on a work issue, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@guardian.co.uk . Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or reply personally Work & careers guardian.co.uk
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