Libyan leader, or ‘Papa’, is also a generous employer who likes to give gold watches to staff, says Oksana Balinskaya Muammar Gaddafi is in rude health, enjoys Italian food and couscous with camel meat and likes to give gold watches to his aides, according to a nurse who worked on the Libyan leader’s personal staff. Oksana Balinskaya returned to Ukraine after war broke out in the north African country. She said “Papa” – as she calls Gaddafi – was generous, giving watches featuring his image to staff every year. “We had no complaints,” she said. “When [we] were in New York, for example, Papa gave a personal order to give us some money so we could run around the local boutiques.” She denied rumours that another, more senior nurse from Ukraine, Galyna Kolotnytskaya, was romantically involved with Gaddafi. Kolotnytskaya, 38, also returned to Kiev at the end of February but has not given any public statements. She was described in US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in December as a “voluptuous blonde”, one of Gaddafi’s closest confidantes and possibly his lover . However, Balinskaya said that was not true in an interview with the Russian daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda. “Galyna worked in the hospital that serviced Gaddafi’s family for eight years. She had the same responsibilities as the other nurses – there were five of us – but was more experienced. The things that have been written about her are made up.” Balinskaya also rubbished speculation that the Libyan leader is “not entirely well” – another claim made in a WikiLeaks cable. “Despite his age, he’s in better shape than a lot of people,” she said. “He looks after his health and has a check-up every year. As for his [blood] pressure, if only everyone could have that level.” Gaddafi was unfussy about food, she added. “He likes couscous, which is served to him with camel meat or lamb. And like all people in Libya, he loves Italian food, especially pasta.” Muammar Gaddafi Libya Middle East Ukraine Tom Parfitt guardian.co.uk
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Tens of thousands demonstrate against President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the southern town a day after 15 people were killed Fresh clashes have broken out in Taiz in southern Yemen as security forces and armed men in civilian clothes fired on protesters a day after 15 people were killed . Witnesses told Reuters that several people had been hurt after hundreds of troops attacked tens of thousands of demonstrators. Men believed to be plainclothes police wielded bats and daggers as protesters responded by throwing rocks. Al-Jazeera reported that hundreds of protesters were wounded in the clashes, with dozens taken to hospital in the capital, Sana’a, 120 miles away. Amid continuing violence against the 32-year rule of the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Gulf Co-operation Council, the regional security group, invited government and opposition representatives to talks in Saudi Arabia, at a date yet to be set. Abubakr al-Qirbi, the acting foreign minister after Saleh sacked his government two weeks ago, said the government would agree to talks in Riyadh. “We welcome the GCC invitation and the government is ready to discuss any ideas from our Gulf brothers to solve the crisis,” Qirbi said. Leaders from core political opposition groups, however, said they would only answer when they received details of the proposed talks. Amid mounting diplomatic efforts to end the turmoil that has engulfed Yemen since February, US officials said Washington was increasing the pressure on Saleh to work out a transition plan with the opposition. “It looks increasingly like he needs to step aside,” one US official told Reuters, saying the US was trying to “turn up the heat” on Saleh to come to terms with the opposition. The Yemeni parties issued a statement late on Monday saying Saleh, his sons and relatives, as well as security and military apparatuses they control, are carrying out planned attacks against peaceful demonstrations with the intent to kill. Analysts said any deal would have to satisfy different layers within the opposition. “There are elements within the regime which is split, the established parliamentary opposition and there are the protesters,” said Ginny Hill, a Yemen expert with the Chatham House thinktank in London. “Any discussion would have to engage with all three levels.” More than 120 people have been killed and 5,000 injured since the protests started in early February, inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. The turmoil in Yemen has led to a hardening of attitudes in the US, which now sees Saleh as a liability rather than a useful ally against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the group’s affiliate. The New York Times reported that counter-terrorism operations in Yemen had ground to a halt , allowing al-Qaida’s deadliest branch outside Pakistan to operate more freely and to step up efforts for possible attacks against Europe and the US. According to the Times, many Yemeni troops have abandoned their posts or have been called back to the capital, Sana’a, to shore up the regime, allowing al-Qaida forces to fill the power vacuum. Even before Yemen sank into the latest round of instability in February, the country was fragmenting, said Hill. “That process is accelerating,” she said. Yemen Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
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British PM tells Pakistan elite: ‘Many of your richest people are getting away without paying much tax at all – and that’s not fair’ David Cameron has told the Pakistan elite they have to start paying more tax, and cut out government waste and weakness, if the British public are to back his plans announced today to pour £650m in UK aid to Pakistani schools. Pakistan is now to become the single largest recipient of UK aid. Cameron issued his warning in a wide-ranging speech in Islamabad setting out his plans for a fresh start with the Pakistan government after a turbulent year in which he criticised them for facing both ways on terrorism. Cameron is keen to put the relationship on a more even footing, and lean away from the previous stance encapsulated in the phrase “Pakistan must do more”. He said the British people would need convincing that every penny of the aid designed to help recruit 9,000 extra teachers and put 4 million children into education was going to the right places. He added: “My job is made more difficult when people in Britain look at Pakistan, a country that receives millions of pounds of our aid money, and see weaknesses in terms of government capacity and waste.” He pointed out that Pakistan “currently spends only 1.5% of its GDP on education and what’s more, you have one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world”. He said the Pakistan was simply “not raising the resources necessary to pay for things that a modern state and people require”. The Pakistani fiscal position was a serious one because “too few people pay tax. Too many of your richest people are getting away without paying much tax at all – and that’s not fair”. He said this tax avoidance was neither fair “on ordinary Pakistanis, who suffer at the sharpest end of this weak governance or on British taxpayers, who are contributing to Pakistan’s future”. Cameron is acutely aware that he is taking a risk in increasing aid to a country that is seen as both corrupt, and the source of the biggest terrorist threat to the UK. The country is also buying six submarines from China. But he claimed the 17 million Pakistanis of school age not in education represented an emergency, adding it cost the country more per year than a flood such as the one that hit the country last year. But he claimed such an education gap also represented a breeding ground for extremism. The £650m additional aid for education over four years should put 4 million extra children into school. He also defended the war in Libya saying it was not an attack on Islam, pointing out that as in Afghanistan, Britain was there as part of a coalition and under a UN mandate. Although he praised the resilient Pakistanis for having fought so hard against terrorism, he gave a hint of his thirst for a wider crackdown in North Waziristan, saying: “It’s right that neither the Pakistan army nor Nato forces must ever tolerate sanctuaries for people plotting violence.” His remarks masked Pakistan’s anger over the use of US drones to bomb terrorist cells in North Waziristan region on the border with Afghanistan and the lack of action by the army to send troops in. David Cameron Pakistan Foreign policy Global terrorism UK security and terrorism Terrorism policy Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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StartUp Britain and Better Business Finance offer help to small businesses and entrepreneurs, but teething problems and a lack of genuine advice has left some users cold The launch of StartUp Britain (Sub) last week, a website for UK entrepreneurs, has been dogged by a row over its content, with accusations it has been plugging US firms over British ones and that its content is of little use to UK businesses. The site, which has the aim of “helping Britain’s future entrepreneurial talent by providing links to the web’s best business resources, along with offers from some of the biggest brands in the country”, has been put together by a number of private-sector entrepreneurs, including Jamie Murray Wells, founder of internet retailer Glasses Direct . But despite the fact Sub is a not-for-profit company a huge picture of a perfectly-coiffured David Cameron adorns the masthead, indicating it has the support of government if not funding, which makes the decision to point Brits in need of design help to a US design directory all the more baffling. Gareth Coxon of Dot Design said Sub had made a “massive mistake” in sending users who wanted to “create a logo” to a US-based design crowdsourcing site, 99designs , and said the site in its current form is merely a bunch of links rather than a site containing valuable resources. “The site looks useful if you need something and don’t know where to get it, but at the moment it’s just a lot of links to large companies that don’t need the help,” Coxon said. “It feels like a reasonably designed spam site full of affiliate links for large corporates.” Another British designer on the UK Business Labs forum said he was “incandescent with rage” at the error. But after the error was pointed out on Twitter, Sub changed the link to the UK-based Design Business Association (DBA) directory within 24 hours, receiving praise for its speedy correction. One designer tweeted: “Would that happen with a government-owned site?” Sub itself tweeted: “You spoke – we listened; replaced the 99designs link with a link to designers from the DBA”. But the site also contains a bewildering number of links to external companies offering advice or products for sale, such as Smarta.com’s business plan advice or Brightword Publishing’s small business start-up kit. Coxon said: “I hope it’s the start of something that really helps smaller firms, but it just seems to point to resources rather than provide them.” He also highlighted the quality of some of the advice. “Helping users by telling them to ‘find a great idea’ and then merely point them to an ideas blog is not going to help many people,” he said. Sub is one of two recent launches designed to support small business in the UK that have received praise from the government – both are part of the coalition’s aim to foster Britain’s entrepreneurial talent, support businesses looking to raise finance, and “create the right conditions for businesses to succeed”. Better Business Finance (BBF) was also launched in early-March and promised a suite of tools and factsheets to help smaller firms gain access to finance. It was developed by the British Bankers’ Association along with Barclays, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds and Santander, and promises to support business customers looking to raise finance. Despite Sub’s teething problems, Prue Watson of the Federation of Small Business said her organisation welcomed the launches: “Both of these websites offer good, practical advice – whether [people] are looking at starting up a business or if they are looking for the best type of finance or what to do if they get into financial difficulty. “At such a difficult time for existing small businesses and start-ups, information like this is precious and can help save time and money. It is now important that these invaluable resources are promoted and advertised to the small business community and budding entrepreneurs.” BBF had a less troubled reception than Sub. At its launch, Lord Sassoon said: “The BBF site provides a one-stop-shop for businesses from which they could get impartial information about how to secure finance and consider the best options available for their business. It also includes a series of factsheets about many of the issues that matter most to them, so I urge businesses to visit the site.” BBA chief executive Angela Knight said: “Making the right impression is as vital for business as for individuals. BBF is designed to put businesses in touch with the kind of practical help they need to help make any application for credit a winner. It will also let people know where they can go for additional help and support, including our calendar of regional roadshows.” But some SME owners might balk at the quality of advice offered for those struggling financially. Under the header: “What can I do if I have been refused lending?”, users are told they should appeal to the bank that turned them down, consider alternative sources of finance, or seek support from a business mentor. For most SMEs that advice is either glaringly obvious or just plain unhelpful. Both websites will surely evolve into offering more effective resources for smaller firms in the future, and are a step in the right direction for those looking to launch or improve a business, but have you found them useful? What help do you really need to launch or boost your firm? Work & careers Small business Mark King guardian.co.uk
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Adharanand Finn gets a lift while training with the world-class athletes at an elite camp in Iten There’s a quiet knock on my door. I roll over and look at the time on my phone. 4:40am. “OK,” I say, swinging my legs out of the bed. I haven’t slept that well. The bed was comfortable enough, but I was missing my pillow. I ended up wrapping my towel in a sheet, but it wasn’t quite the same. It’s still dark outside, so I switch on the harsh strip light. A small, bare room. My clothes piled on a white plastic chair. My trainers on the floor. I sit on the edge of the bed for a moment, trying to wake up, but it’s cold so I start to get dressed. In ten minutes we have to leave. I’m spending two days in an elite training camp here in Kenya. Although the country’s Rift Valley area and particularly the town of Iten is full of amazing athletes, the very best usually live and train in camps like this one, run by a Dutch company. It’s a small, grassy square surrounded by dormitories where the athletes sleep. When I first arrive, a few of them are lying on old mattresses on the grass chatting. Another man is washing running shoes in a bucket of water. I go over and sit next to him. His name is Emmanuel Mutai . He came second in both the New York and London marathons last year. The year before he was second in the world championships. In a few weeks he’ll be lining up in London again as one of the favourites. He chats to me politely while working away on his shoes, scrubbing them until they’re spotless. Then he leaves them on the grass to dry and disappears into his room. Also staying in the camp are two of the world’s fastest 1,500m runners, Nixon Chepseba and William Biwott . The day I arrive I get to head out with them for a slow recovery run through the nearby forest. They’re both long and sinewy, gliding along through the trees. I try to run relaxed and smooth, but I feel like a clown trotting along beside them. These are two of Kenya’s most promising athletes and they’re full of confident smiles. As well as being training partners, they’re room-mates at the camp, and between them they won a host of big races on the European indoor circuit this winter. “He won one, then I won one, then him, then me,” William tells me. That evening we eat a supper of ugali and chopped greens while watching a Jackie Chan film in the camp’s sparse common room. Most people turn in before the film ends, ready for the early start the next morning. We leave through the gate just before 5am and walk under the stars to the main road. Athletes stand around in the shadows not speaking while we wait for a bus to come and pick us up. A young man of barely 20 with a big smile asks me how far I will run. Most of the runners are planning to run 38km, which is almost a marathon. The bus will follow us handing out water and giving us our time splits every 5km. “It depends on the pace,” I say. “How fast will you run each 5km?” “Probably 16 minutes, maybe 17,” he says, casually, as though that’s a normal pace for a 38km run. At 6am. At 8,000ft. My fastest ever 5km time, run on a flat course in Exeter, is over 18 minutes. Suddenly I’m worried. A minibus pulls up and the door opens. Sleepy faces peer back at us. The bus is already full and there are about ten of us waiting outside. Somehow we all squeeze in, with people sitting on each others’ laps, or standing bent over, heads squashed against the ceiling. I manage to get a window seat and peer out at the passing verge as the driver cranks up the skipping Kalenjin music. Nobody speaks. Just before 6am the bus stops on a lonely dirt road in the middle of nowhere. A few people walk by in the darkness, looking over at us, as some of the athletes disappear into the blackness to use the loo. The rest of us stand around like early morning workers about to start a shift. I’m still fretting about the pace. A thin, sickle moon hangs in the sky as an orange glow starts to seep in from the east. It’s a beautiful, still morning. We seem to be waiting for something, I realise. “What’s going on?” I ask one of the other runners. “We’re waiting for the ladies,” he says, nodding over to the road where three women are standing holding their watches, getting some last-minute instructions from the two coaches. “They get a 10 minute head start.” A head start is what I need. I run over. “Perhaps I should go with them?” I say to the coaches. “Sure,” they say, and a few seconds later I’m running, gently at first, but soon moving steadily along. Kenyans are brilliant at slowly cranking up the pace on long runs so you almost don’t notice you’re getting faster. By 5km we’re passing bicycles, as streams of people make their way to work. At each corner the road stretches off again far into the distance, but we keep going, without speaking, our feet pat patting, the miles passing as the day rises into the sky. At about 17km the men come past us. First the sound of rushing feet, like something sprinting up from behind. Then they go by, their stride strong, their shoulders leaning forward, little puffs of dust kicked up by their feet. One by one they go. At the front are Emmanuel Mutai and a Ugandan athlete called Stephen Kiprotich who came 6th at the recent world cross country championships. The others are not far behind. As they race past I feel suddenly worse, as though the harsh contrast in speed has stripped away the belief that I was feeling strong, has shone glaring headlights on the folly of my efforts. The women are getting away from me now. They too are running 38km, but the pace is still picking up. Behind me I hear the motor of the bus. As it passes me the side door slides open. The coach, Patrick Sang, a former Olympic silver medallist, grins at me. “You want a ride?” he asks. It’s a beautiful offer. I leap in through the door and sit down on a long empty seat. My heart is pumping, my body tingling to have stopped. “You know,” says Patrick, “It is very high up here.” He’s giving me an excuse, which is generous of him. But it’s for him too. The offer of a lift was more of a command than a question. The bus has to keep moving from the back of the group to the front, handing out drinks, giving out times and offering encouragement. The further behind I get, the harder that is to do. But it’s OK, I’ve done enough. In fact, I’m exhausted. Back at the camp, the athletes are in chirpy spirits. The day’s work is done. All that is left now is to rest. Tea is served by the cook, but hardly anybody eats anything. For those who are hungry, like me, there are slices of dry, white bread. The camp is a strange mix of frugality and wealth. As well as washing their own clothes and shoes in buckets of water, the athletes sleep in small rooms, eat with their fingers, and sit on the floor or on plastic garden chairs. After the run I ask where the showers are. I’m pointed to a cold tap and a pile of buckets. Yet some of these are wealthy men. A row of large, shiny 4×4 cars are parked just inside the gate like a dealer’s showroom. They all own houses and farms elsewhere, often more than one. But they choose to live an almost monastic life here, with running their daily practice. “It’s what we’re used to,” Emannuel tells me, referring to the basic conditions. But also, there is a belief that those who leave, who chose to train at home and live a more normal life, will lose their edge. And with so much competition in this one tiny corner of the world, edge is something that once lost, is hard to get back. • The book Running with the Kenyans by Adharanand Finn will be published in 2012 Running Fitness Adharanand Finn guardian.co.uk
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Life sentence without parole for double murderer who killed girlfriends and left dismembered body parts in canals A carpenter who murdered and dismembered two former girlfriends before dumping their remains in canals in Rotterdam and London has been told he will die in prison. John Sweeney, 54, from Liverpool, was given a whole life tariff at the Old Bailey after being convicted on Monday of murdering Melissa Halstead, 33, a former model from Ohio in the US, and Paula Fields, 31, a mother-of-three living in north London. The women’s remains were found a decade apart, and detectives fear three other women known to Sweeney may also be victims. Sweeney, already serving a life sentence for the attempted murder of a third girlfriend whom he attacked with an axe and a knife, refused to leave his prison cell at Belmarsh prison to hear his sentence. Judge Mr Justice Saunders, sentencing him in his absence, said the gravity of the offences was exceptional and only a whole life term was appropriate. “These were terrible, wicked crimes. The heads of the victims having been removed, it is impossible to be certain how they were killed. The mutilation of the bodies is a serious aggravating feature of the murders. “Not only does it reveal the cold-blooded nature of the killer, but it has added greatly to the distress of the families to know that parts of their loved ones have never been recovered.” The remains of Halstead, whose head and hands were missing, were found in the Westersingel canal in Rotterdam after she vanished from her Amsterdam flat in 1990. She was only identified in 2008 after Dutch detectives carried out a cold case review and matched familial DNA. A freelance photographer, she met Sweeney in London and embarked on a tempestuous relationship, with him following her to Europe when she was deported from the UK for overstaying her work visa. Fields, originally from Liverpool, a crack cocaine user leading a chaotic life in north London that involved working as a prostitute, met him in 2000. She vanished three months later and 10 body parts were found in six holdalls in the Regent’s Canal near King’s Cross in February 2001. Her head, hands and feet were missing. Saunders said the killings had been planned. “The method of disposal of the bodies demonstrates that there was a substantial amount of planning. “Why the killings occurred, I cannot be sure, but I am satisfied that this defendant is controlling in his relationships with women and, chillingly, that control extends to deciding whether they should live or die.” The jobbing carpenter, who worked under assumed names on construction sites around mainland Europe and south-east England, had denied both murders. But, the jury heard, he had a hatred of women and turned violent when they tried to reject him. In 1994 he went on the run living under assumed aliases following the attack in Camden on Delia Balmer, a nurse, with whom he had a relationship. He was finally arrested six years later at a central London building site after the discovery of Fields’s remains. Police then realised there was a connection. The identification of Halstead then allowed them to place crucial pieces in a gruesome jigsaw they fear may not yet be complete. Detectives are appealing for information about three other women, about whom they only have sketchy information, who may also have been killed by him. One is a trainee nurse called Sue, from Derbyshire, who was said to have left for Switzerland in the late 1970s or early 80s. Two former girlfriends of Sweeney, a Brazilian known as Irani, and a Colombian called Maria, have not been seen since the late 1990s, when they knew Sweeney in north London. Asked if the three women were thought to have been murdered, Detective Chief Inspector Howard Groves said outside court: “We have some information which would suggest that is a possibility.” Clues to Sweeney’s visceral hatred of women were found in a hoard of more than 300 violent and lurid paintings and poems found at his home, with one, entitled the Scalp Hunter, depicting a female victim and a bloody axe. On the back of a scratchcard he had written a poem: “Poor old Melissa, chopped her up in bits, food to feed the fish, Am*dam was the pits.” They also found a calendar on the back of a minicab receipt with 16 December 2000 circled and then “9 1/2 weeks” and the letter “P” written under it which within three days was the period before Paula’s body was discovered on 19 February 2001. The jury heard that while on the run Sweeney had told his best friend that he found Melissa in bed with two German men and had killed them all. He also told his former wife, with whom he has two children, that the police were looking for him and he had “done something really bad which would make her hair stand on end”. Crime Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
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• Gbagbo’s presidential palace in Abidjan is surrounded • Whereabouts of Gbagbo unknown • Fears of a humanitarian crisis 12.24pm: Dr Dominic Zaum, an expert on the UN from the school of politics and international relations at the University of Reading, has warned that the UN Airstrikes threaten to compromise the future role of the organisation in Ivory Coast: Despite the UN Secretary-General’s statements to the contrary, the timing and the nature of yesterday’s airstrikes by the UN mission in the Ivory Coast (UNOCI) against Laurent Gbagbo’s forces has made the UN party to the conflict. The use of force to protect civilians is undoubtedly covered by the UNOCI’s Chapter VII mandate. It might help to shorten the current fighting between the two factions, improving the security of the civilian population. However, siding with forces similarly suspected of brutal attacks against civilians raises questions about UNOCI’s impartiality and ability to provide security and build trust between the factions once the immediate conflict is over. 12.22pm: If you are new to events in the Ivory Coast the Canadian broadcaster CBC has a very clear article explaining the background to the crisis . 12.14pm: A Guardian video shows footage of the assault on Gbagbo’s forces . – 12.08pm: Gbagbo’s foreign minister Alcide Djedje has taken refuge at the French ambassador’s home , France 24 reports. Djedje has reportedly said that Gbagbo and his family are inside the presidential palace under attack. Djedje was one of those targeted by UN sanctions against the Gbagbo regime. 11.57am: The West African bloc Ecowas says it is ready to help ensure a “safe and dignified” exit for Gbagbo, Reuters reports. The 15-member group has urged Gbagbo to step down immediately. In a statement it said: The (Ecowas) commission urges Mr Gbagbo once again to consider the greater interest of the Ivorian nation, as well as the unacceptably high levels of human suffering, death and destruction, and cede power immediately. In this regard, the commission stands ready to ensure that the conditions prescribed (by the African Union Peace and Security Council), especially with regard to ensuring a safe and dignified exit for Mr Gbagbo, are fulfilled. Ecowas formally endorsed Ouattara as the winner of the election in an extraordinary summit on 7 December last year. It also suspended Ivory Coast from all its decision-making bodies. 11.49am: Connectionivoirienne.net is also reporting gunfire in Abidjan based on conversations with residents. They report loud shots from heavy armoury in the Plateau area, where the presidential palace is situated, but also in the south of the city where the 43e BIMA (French marines) and the international airport are situated. 11.43am: A resident of Abidjan has painted a grim picture of the situation in the city, in a phone call with France 24. The man, whose name was given only as Isaac, said: I hear gunfire, Kalashnikovs and heavy equipment that Gbagbo’s soldiers are using and also the UN and the French helicopters are firing now and Gbagbo’s soldiers are backing up. For the moment that’s what we see and that’s what we hear. Asked what it was like for residents, Isaac said: Very difficult. We are out of food. We also are trying to get help from people that still have a little [food] but it’s difficult for them even to cross the street because they are shooting from everywhere. Bullets are coming from every alleyway, you cannot step out. you can’t get food from anywhere. The only thing we have for the time being is coffee and some snacks. 11.31am: The United Nations Children’s Fund has also expressed concern about the humanitarian situation in the Ivory Coast. UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake has called on both sides in the conflict to halt the violence against civilians. He said: UNICEF continues to be gravely concerned by the ongoing violence in Cote d’Ivoire and its alarming impact on children. We are especially troubled by reports that children are among the victims of a mass killing there. And children continue to be recruited by armed forces on all sides of the conflict – a grave violation of their rights which jeopardizes not only their future but also the chances for achieving sustainable peace in Cote d’Ivoire. UNICEF is working to assist those in need with humanitarian supplies, but our programmes have been seriously compromised by the fighting. In the West, UNICEF has been able to reach out to the displaced population with basic supplies, but we urgently need to reach those at risk, especially in Abidjan, where an estimated one million displaced people are in dire need. We fear outbreaks of disease if we and other agencies cannot reach the thousands of internally displaced families. UNICEF joins its voice to the many others who have called upon all sides in this conflict to cease the violence against civilians and to permit humanitarian aid workers to reach those in greatest need. 11.23am: The International Organisation for Migration estimates that there are up 25,000 refugees fleeing violence in the Ivory Coast , amid evidence that Malians migrants have been attacked with guns and knives. In a briefing it said: IOM has received a desperate request for assistance from a group of some 3,000 Malian migrants, including many women and children, who have been living for the past ten days in the basement and the halls of the Malian Embassy in Abidjan. Many have sustained bullet and machete wounds from attacks carried out by armed youth militias loyal to the incumbent president Gbagbo. Without running water for the past 72 hours, they say they dare not walk to the nearby lagoon for fear of further violence. IOM’s director general William Lacy Swing said: We urge warring parties in Cote d’Ivoire not to target civilians and migrant workers and to ensure their protection and safety. We exhort them to give humanitarians full access to the population and allow the safe evacuation of all migrant workers who wish to return home. 11.18am: A pro-Gbagbo military source has told Reuters that Ouatarra’s forces have not taken over the presidential palace, as has been claimed. The source said: Despite the bombardments, we are holding all of our positions, meaning the palace, the residence and all of our military bases. But the international markets have moved in anticipation of a swift end to the conflict, according to Reuters. Cocoa prices moved lower as hopes rose of a resumption of exports from Ivory Coast and the country’s defaulted $2.3 billion Eurobond rose as the assault on Gbagbo’s palace raised expectations for repayment. 11.10am: @cartunelo on Twitter has been filing regular updates from Abidjan . He is tweeting in French but my colleague Alexandra Topping has translated some of his desperate sounding reports: SOS, Dead and seriously injured at Genie 2000 (road to Bingerville) since yesterday. Please bring help. At the Riviera, a pregnant woman in need of a caesarian needs to be evacuated call etc etc 10.50am: “It looks like this is the end [for Gbagbo] and the rebels are taking control,” says Daniel Balint-Kurti Africa expert and campaigner at Global Witness. Balint-Kurti, a former agency journalist in the Ivory Coast, wrote an analysis of the crisis for the Royal African Society . In an Audioboo interview today , he warned of the prospects for civil war. Ivory Coast is a very very divided society, if Ouattara takes power tomorrow those divisions are not going to disappear. The fighting where rebels went from controlling the northern half of the country to virtually the entire country, will have seen a number of abuses by rebel forces. I think there could be further details of atrocities. We will have to look at what comes out into this investigation into what happened in the western town of Duékoué . The two sides are to blame. The end of the story will not be when Ouattara takes power. Now that the UN and the French have attacked Gbagbo’s most strategic sites, his supporters can say look ‘it’s true, it’s proven this really was an international conspiracy’. So even if Gbagbo is captured that propaganda could continue and we could still see further revolts from areas that support Gbagbo. _ 10.40am: One of Ouattara ministers, Albert Mabri Toikeusse, has told France24 there is no sign of Gbagbo negotiating surrender, which contradicts the claim by Ouattara’s ambassador to Paris, Ali Coulibaly . 10.30am: A video posted on Facebook and circulating on Twitter claims to show civilian victims of the assault by the UN on Gbabgo’s forces. The video is very dark but appears to show corpses laid out on the ground. Several people on Twitter are claiming that the UN helicopters bombed houses. Whether that is true and whether the people in the video are in fact civilian victims of the UN airstrikes cannot be verified. 10.00am: Our France correspondent Kim Willsher says French newspapers report today that Ouattara’s forces took over the official residence of Gbagbo at 1am local time (2am BST) but there was no information on whether he was at home at the time. She also reports more from Ouattara’s ambassador in Paris, who claimed today that the incumbent president is in talks to give himself up. She says Ali Coulibaly told Le Parisien newspaper that those responsible for massacres “will be punished”. He said: Nobody can deny there have been massacres, but president Alassane Ouattara was the first to demand an international inquiry and the Ivoirien government has opened a legal inquiry because nobody knows the precise date or who committed them. But the massacres didn’t begin at Duékoué last Tuesday. Alas there were others before and elsewhere. For several weeks we have been alerting international bodies to the existance of mass graves in the west of the country and certain parts of Abidjan.There will be justice and those guilty will be punished. 9.45am: Selay Koussai, our correspondent in Abidjan, describes the “hectic” scenes in the city when the UN and France bombarded Gbagbo’s forces : We could see the fireballs and the smoke in the sky as UN helicopters and French helicopters started bombing the military barracks under the control of pro-Gbagbo forces. It was hectic. We have never witnessed things like this before. In the coming hours we will have a clear idea of the people injured in these bombings. People are saying many people have been injured. The TV station has been targeted, and RTI, which is the state run TV, is off-air today. He [Gbagbo] might be at the presidential palace or at the cathedral, because many people have been urged to form a human shield in the cathedral. The denouement is not so far away. We are witnessing the last hours of this show down between the pro-Gbagbo and pro-Ouattara forces. The area of Mr Gbagbo has been cornered off by the UN troops and the French forces. _ 9.36am: Here’s some more information on the claim by Ouattara’s ambassador to France that Gbagbo is negotiating his surrender. Ali Coulibaly told France Info: I’m not trying to be demagogical or to add to the disinformation, but according to the information that I have, he’s negotiating his surrender because he has realised the end is near. The game is up. Coulibaly did not provide any further details or say where he got the information. 9.32am: The crisis is trending on Twitter at #civ2010 and #civsocial , according to Global Voices . 9.21am: This YouTube video purportedly shows the assault by UN MI-24 helicopters on the Akouedo military camp last night. – 9.18am: Good morning. Welcome to live coverage of events in the Ivory Coast where forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, widely recognised as the winner of last year’s election, have launched a “final offensive” on Abidjan, in a bid to oust the incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo. • Gbagbo’s presidential palace has been surrounded by troops loyal to Ouattara after UN helicopters attacked Gbagbo’s heavy weaponry . • A spokesman for Ouattara’s government told Reuters his troops had already taken control of Gbagbo’s official presidential residence , but his statement could not be independently verified. Patrick Achi said he did not know whether Gbagbo was there or not. • Ouattara’s ambassador to France, Ally Coulibaly, told French radio RFI he believes Laurent Gbagbo is “negotiating his surrender” , France24 reports . Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo Alassane Ouattara France United Nations Haroon Siddique Matthew Weaver guardian.co.uk
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Former news editor and current chief reporter arrested after presenting themselves at separate London police stations The former news editor and current chief reporter from the News of the World are in police custody after being arrested, following allegations of phone hacking. Ian Edmondson and Neville Thurlbeck had voluntarily presented themselves at different London police stations this morning and were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to tap into or hack mobile communications. It is expected their homes will be searched by officers at midday. Edmondson, NoW’s former head of news, is being questioned by officers at Wimbledon police station. Thurlbeck, the paper’s chief reporter, is at Kingston police station. The arrests are the first salvo by Scotland Yard’s new hacking investigation, Operation Weeting, whose tasks include establishing whether there are grounds for bringing further prosecutions in the phone-hacking scandal. Edmondson and Thurlbeck will probably be released later this afternoon after the search of their homes is complete. The two men have been implicated in the long-running scandal through documents seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator employed by the newspaper. Mulcaire says Edmondson was the journalist who commissioned him to hack answerphone messages of the football agent Sky Andrew. Edmondson, who was sacked from NoW in January, denies any wrongdoing. Thurlbeck was interviewed by police last autumn. No charge has been brought against either man, both of whom have denied all involvement in criminal activity. The arrests come on the day that Keir Starmer QC, director of public prosecutions, hears evidence at a home affairs committee from witnesses into the unauthorised intercepting of communications. Only one reporter, the former royal editor Clive Goodman, has been convicted of a crime as part of the scandal. He and Mulcaire were sentenced to jail terms in January 2007. No other reporters or executives were questioned by the initial police investigation. It was only after a series of high court cases brought by the actor Sienna Miller, the football pundit Andy Gray and others that the Met were forced to reveal material found on Mulcaire’s computer, during a 2006 raid of his home. Last Friday, a high court judge ordered NoW to make Mulcaire’s notes available to the growing list of people suing the paper. Justice Geoffrey Vos, who is in charge of the hacking cases, ordered “rolling disclosure” to all claimants. Hundreds of thousands of emails will now be handed over to alleged victims. Phone hacking News of the World News International Glenn Mulcaire News Corporation Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Police Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …NY Times Exec. Editor Keller Contemplates Being ‘Frog-Marched’ in Shackles Over Publishing State Secrets
April 5, 2011 No CommentFor “ Secrecy in Shreds ,” his latest column for the New York Times’s Sunday magazine, Executive Editor Bill Keller conducted a surprisingly affable conversation with conservative journalist Gabriel Schoenfeld of Commentary magazine, who last year published “Necessary Secrets,” a book highly critical of Keller and the Times revealing details of and thus wrecking two successful terrorist-fighting programs — the National Security Agency’s secret eavesdropping,, and SWIFT, a Treasury Department program that screened international banking records for suspicious activity. Last year, Gabriel Schoenfeld, a veteran of the conservative magazine Commentary, published a book that explained how The New York Times could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. The book said a lot of other things too, but you’ll understand why that particular proposition stuck in my mind. At one point Schoenfeld conjured an image of authorities “ frog-marching a shackled Bill Keller into court.” Schoenfeld’s book, “Necessary Secrets,” is a valuable history-with-attitude of the long war between the American government and the press over the protection and disclosure of secrets. Two stories this newspaper broke were particularly troublesome to him: one, in 2005, about the National Security Agency’s antiterror-agents’ eavesdropping on Americans without warrants ; the other, published in 2006, about the Treasury Department’s screening international banking records. Recently I invited Schoenfeld in for a conversation about secrecy, a subject blown back to life by the phenomenon of WikiLeaks. Regarding Keller’s “eavesdropping on Americans without warrants” formula; as Times Watch has pointed out again and again, the N.S.A. spy program monitored international communications from suspected terrorists in America who aren’t necessarily U.S. citizens. It's an important distinction, one the Times invariably failed to note, perhaps in order to make the program sound more like an invasion of privacy than it truly was. While unrepentant over the wrecking of the anti-terror programs, Keller confessed to some slight discomfort with the state of leaking of state secrets in the Internet age, which the Times has been in the forefront of, first with the two anti-terror programs and then the publishing of secret diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks. The digital age has changed the dynamics of disobedience in at least one respect. It used to be that someone who wanted to cheat on his vow of secrecy had to work at it. Daniel Ellsberg tried for a year to make the Pentagon Papers public. There was a lot of time to have second thoughts or to get caught. It is now at least theoretically possible for a whistle-blower or a traitor to act almost immediately and anonymously. Click on a Web site, upload a file, go home and wait. Keller and Schoenfeld agree that Times editors should not have gone to jail over the leaking of anti-terrorist program details; Schoenfeld would have called for a prosecution and a symbolic fine. Schoenfeld did get in a crack at the Times’s expense: “I’m against reform,” he told me, referring to the new leak-punishing proposals. “ The system has been working reasonably well, with a couple of egregious exceptions — most of them involving The New York Times .”
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Thanks to Tom Daley, interest in diving is at an all-time high. So why is it increasingly difficult to find a board? My palms are giving me those little pangs you get when you’re about to do something you find particularly frightening. It’s no surprise. I am standing half-naked on a board seven-and-a-half metres above a pit filled with water. This is the diving pool at Crystal Palace national sports centre , and I will shortly fall head-first into it. At the command of Hugo, my instructor, I stretch my arms to the ceiling. Then I pivot at the waist, and gently roll forward into thin air. A beat. Another beat. Splash. I hit the surface at nearly 40mph. I am, I note with some shock, unhurt. I am also, in a way, unique. Not for my diving ability (this is my first lesson, and I am beyond awful) but by my presence alone: normally, members of the public are not allowed to walk in and use what is currently the only 10m and 7.5m diving board in London. Interest in the sport is at an all-time high – thanks largely to the success of teenager Tom Daley , one of Britain’s best hopes for a medal at London 2012 – yet the UK has far fewer boards than it did 30 years ago. In 1977, there were 296 high-board and springboard diving facilities in the country, according to the Great Britain Diving Federation (GBDF). Today, there are fewer than 100 , though there is no consensus on the exact figure. Wales has just one usable high-board, while Norfolk, Suffolk, Birmingham and much of the north-west have none. “The GBDF has for some time been concerned over the loss of facilities across broad swaths of the country,” says Jim McNally, president of the GBDF, an amateur group that offers support to clubs and divers, and not to be confused with the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA), Britain’s governing and funding body for most pool-based sports, including diving. “In the past every town had its own pool, and every pool had diving boards and diving clubs. Now the pools that do have boards very rarely offer any public time and clubs that try to provide structured learning are hampered by the lack of coaches.” The BBC announced last week that it would be screening more pool-based sport events in the run-up to the Olympics, including this month’s Fina World Series in Sheffield. But people whose interest is aroused by increased coverage may not find any diving boards in their area. McNally, who grew up in south London in the 60s, remembers four or five diving boards within striking distance of his home. “There was Ladywell baths, Downham baths, Eltham baths, and Crystal Palace, all within half an hour’s journey.” Today, London has only 14 boards, down from 96 in 1977, and some, such as Crystal Palace, are only open to local diving clubs – if they exist – rather than the general public. Those that do welcome casual divers don’t do it often. Before the club at Crystal Palace kindly give me a lesson, I tried to join a public session at Fullwell Cross pool in Ilford, east London. It’s open to walk-ins for only three hours a week, and just one at weekends. So I turned up at 3pm one Saturday, only to find the session had been cancelled. Not enough lifeguards. Some have it much worse. Helen Abernethy lives in Cockermouth in Cumbria, and her seven-year-old son Rhys wants to learn to dive. But while there is a board 20 miles away, there’s no teaching scheme attached to it. So the Abernethys face a five-hour round trip to Harrogate, Yorkshire, or a four-hour there-and-back to Teesside, if Rhys wants some proper coaching. But, says Abernethy, “there’s absolutely no point. If he did really want to do it, I’d have to make loads of trips every week, and there’s just no way I could do that.” It’s a real shame, she adds. “It’s something he genuinely wants to do, and he’s an incredibly agile, nimble boy.” Neil Sinclair’s seven-year-old daughter, Scarlett, is in a similar situation. The Sinclairs live in Hampton in south-west London, and Scarlett wanted to learn to dive after taking a shine to the sport on holiday. “I thought, ‘Oh, there must be some handy facilities’,” says Sinclair. “There aren’t.” Putney, 45 minutes away by car, has some diving slots in the late afternoons. But, says Sinclair, “life’s just too full, and time is too short to make that kind of journey.” When your daughter does express an interest in a sport that isn’t particularly dangerous, [and doesn't require] a large amount of kit, it’s a bit frustrating the facilities aren’t regularly available.” Does this constitute a wider problem? Daley thinks so. “There isn’t enough access for people across the country,” he tells me. Daley points out that it’s his love and commitment to diving that has played the biggest part in his success, but he also modestly acknowledges that living near Plymouth’s 10m diving board also helped. “I was lucky to get into diving – there were facilities nearby, it looked like fun, I tried it out and next thing I’m competing for my country. There could be another British diving world champion out there but if they don’t have facilities nearby they might never discover their talent.” So what has happened? Changes to pool-depth regulations are one answer. When Fina, the worldwide diving authority , decreed that pits must have a minimum depth of 13ft, a lot of British diving facilities came up six inches short, and had to be removed. “There is no doubt health and safety legislation has adversely impacted on the sport of diving,” says McNally. “There remains a legacy whereby pool management seem to regard diving boards as inherently dangerous and prefer to close them rather than properly manage them.” Additionally, he argues, leisure centres prefer to use diving pools for other activities such as swimming lessons or water-polo classes, because these are more lucrative options. Matt Prosser, strategic director at South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils, agrees up to a point. Diving pools are very expensive to run, he says. “Councils are looking at [diving pools] and saying, ‘We can’t afford to run that.’ It’s a lot of water, it’s a lot of heat, and you have to heat it 24 hours a day.” I ask him whether the cost of extra lifeguards is also a factor, as I found at Ilford. “It depends on the layout of the facility,” Prosser says. “If you’ve got a second piece of water [a diving pool], you may need another one or two [lifeguards], so it may not be very cost-effective.” Generally speaking, if his council wanted to build a new swimming facility, it wouldn’t include a diving pool within the plans, “unless we got significant external support from the governing body [ASA] or through the lottery scheme, or unless we designed it in such a way that we could use the diving pool for things other than diving.” But not everyone views the current situation with doom and gloom. In fact, David Sparkes, the chief executive of British Swimming, whose jurisdiction includes the ASA, is incredulous that there’s anything negative to say about the state of British diving facilities. “If you look at the standard and quality and spread of diving facilities in Britain today, it’s never been better.” He admits that some parts of the country still lack facilities, but disputes the scale of the GBDF’s board-closure figures. “What has happened is that a number of Mickey Mouse facilities where you could do recreational diving, particularly in the London area, have closed due to understandable health and safety reasons.” Sparkes then points to how the ASA has recently overseen the construction of new, world-class facilities. New, pristine centres in Southend and Corby, to name but two recent projects, have already been built, while those in Luton and Portsmouth are nearing completion. Unlike many old diving pools, these centres, crucially, have fully functioning “dry-land gyms”: gymnastics rooms where divers practise their moves, and actually complete more than half of their training. “We are at an all-time high with the numbers of divers participating in the sport,” continues Sparkes. There are 10,000 people enrolled with diving clubs today, he suggests, compared with just 1,400 30 years ago. But what about casual divers, I ask, people who just want a bit of fun, the Mr Beans of this world? Aren’t their numbers down massively? “It’s a law of supply and demand,” he argues. “If there were hundreds of recreation divers wanting to use a facility the management would say, ‘Well, OK, we’ll try and find more time for you.’” In other words, diving is a minority sport – though it seems strange to hear the man in charge of the Amateur Swimming Association say that. I try again. Cometh the longer opening hours, I suggest, cometh the diver? No, says Sparkes. “Cometh no one.” Still, I’m not entirely convinced. At Guildford Spectrum pool in Surrey, where the boards are open for an unusually high number of hours (13) a week, management say there is still a large appetite for diving. At peak times, says Spectrum’s marketing manager Rob Price, there are “queues forming on poolside to access the 3m springboard and 5m platform.” But when I visit the new Southend diving pool, where the Great Britain team will prepare for the Olympics next spring, I can see why Sparkes is proud of his approach. To my untrained eyes, it seems the perfect facility. The new coach there, Damian Ball, explains how it’s currently the only venue in Europe which allows synchronised divers to practise from three separate heights. (It sounds niche, but it’s a big deal.) The pool’s got all the latest gizmos: safety harnesses, underwater air bubbles – and a purpose-built dry-land facility that houses the only foam-pit in the country. Most importantly, perhaps, Ball is at the start of a huge talent- spotting programme that will see him visit many schools in the wider area and test children for their diving prowess. The most successful will be invited to elite training, while everyone, talented or not, will be offered a free diving lesson and have the opportunity to join the amateur programme. Lindsey Fraser, head coach at the Southampton diving academy, is equally upbeat about the direction in which diving facilities are heading: “Southampton’s fantastic.” The pool is state-of-the-art and the pool management, she says, is very accommodating of diving training. There are no public sessions here, but this, Fraser feels, is a good thing. “Time and sport has moved on. It’s not Joe Bloggs coming down to the diving board any more with his mum, and leaping off. Diving is a dangerous sport, so for me it should be done under controlled circumstances. When we first opened here, we had public diving, and it was an absolute nightmare letting people hurl themselves off the top of 10m boards.” On a wider basis, Fraser thinks we should build new facilities only where a good coaching structure is likely to be attached. And as Britain has a shortage of top-class coaches, this might not always be possible. There are roughly only 20 elite coaches in the country, and though that figure has doubled in the past decade, it needs to be higher. “We need,” says Sparkes, “to invest in coaches to ensure that those facilities that we’ve got are properly and fully utilised.” He’s referring to somewhere such as Coventry, where there is a 5m board, but no club – which is a bit of a waste. “It’s hard to argue that [Birmingham] should put in a brand new diving facility,” he says, “when down the road at Coventry, there is a diving facility growing cobwebs.” But in Reading, this argument doesn’t wash. Here’s a place where there is already a thriving coaching programme, in the form of the local Albatross diving club, but without the highest level of diving facilities. Sally Minns’s son Charlie, 13, is a member of the club, and came third in national competition a few weeks ago . But his progress is hindered because Reading has no proper dry-land training rooms, and no 10m board in the area; the nearest is in Southampton. “He may have the potential to be an international diver,” says Minns, “but unless we transfer him to Southampton, which I can’t really do because of the commute, it’s probably not meant to be.” It’s a reminder that, away from the main diving hubs, there is still much work to be done. “Don’t let them quote you health and safety,” says Minns. “I’m a health and safety adviser [at a local council]. I’m not going to be doing with all that ‘We can’t have them because of health and safety.’” She describes, by way of counterpoint, visiting diving pools in Italy recently. “They’re open to the public all day long, and the public throw themselves off, they belly-flop, they do somersaults. And nobody dies, and nobody hurts themselves.” Back at Crystal Palace, I call it a day on the boards, and watch some of the youngsters show me how it’s done. It’s inspiring. Diving already looks stunning on TV. But up close, watching the divers flex and twist and bend in mid-air, it’s awesome. What’s even more impressive is how far many of them have travelled just to get here. Fourteen-year-old Emily Moses comes five times a week from High Wycombe – a car journey of around two hours each way. “If I was a single-parent,” says her mum Jane, “it would be impossible. As well as our coaching and pool fees, petrol is about £200 a month.” The show is run by Gill Snode, a one-time mentor of Blake Aldridge, Daley’s partner at the last Olympics. She has managed to enlist as the club’s chief coach, Chen Wen, the GB coach at the last Olympics; there are several 2016 Olympic hopefuls; and the club also runs a thriving non-elite programme. But there are no public diving sessions here. And, until the Olympic pool in Stratford, east London, opens to the public in 2013, this will remain the capital’s only high-class pool. Elite boards and coaches are crucial, but for those of us who aren’t going to be international stars, diving, like all sports, should also be fun and accessible. I don’t quite buy that it’s too dangerous to be enjoyed on a casual basis, or that the demand isn’t there. As I found, diving from even a 5m or 7.5m board may be a frightening experience, but it is also very rewarding and exhilarating – and didn’t actually seem particularly dangerous. With Daley-sparked interest in the sport, it’s clear more and more people want to dive. They shouldn’t have to travel the earth, or pay expensive club subscription fees, for the privilege. A five-step guide to diving 1 Stand up straight with your toes at the edge of the board, and your legs together. Extend your left arm. Your fingers and thumb should be tightly together, and pointing forwards. Rotate your wrist to the right so that you’re looking directly at your knuckles. Grip them with your right hand. 2 Stretch your arms straight above your head. Look up at your hands, and lock your neck. 3 Bend at the waist so that your torso, arms, and neck are all pointing at the water at an angle of about 45 degrees. This is called a “pike”. 4 Gently raise yourself on to your toes, and slowly fall towards the water – don’t be tempted to jump. Keep your legs locked tightly. 5 Once you’ve hit the water, keep your body firm until you’re fully submerged. Diving Tom Daley Public sector cuts Public finance Patrick Kingsley guardian.co.uk
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