Nightly explosions now part of the routine for residents in Libyan capital, with coalition attacks on Bousseta naval base under way Just east of the centre of Tripoli, not far from the now-deserted British embassy and the old Marriott hotel, curious crowds of Libyans are gathering to see first-hand evidence of the impact of the “colonialist crusader aggression” denounced by Muammar Gaddafi. Normally, anyone walking along the promenade might not have noticed Bousseta naval base, an unremarkable cluster of metal sheds around a jetty, half-hidden from view by a high wall and bounded by a breakwater on the seaward side. It was hit at around 10pm on Monday, one of the first targets of the third wave of coalition attacks, now a nightly routine of explosions and the crump-crump of erratic and ineffective anti-aircraft fire followed by a stream of white-hot invective in the state-controlled Libyan media. From the road, where the onlookers are double-parking their cars and getting out to gawp, not much is visible. But close up, it is a scene of devastation. A hangar-like building has been blown apart, its roof open to an azure sky with a few half-melted corrugated plastic panels hanging off at crazy angles. Inside are the remains of what the Libyans insist was a naval training and maintenance workshop, though it does include remains of four Soviet-made surface-to-surface missile launching vehicles, as well as fuel tankers, stores and other mangled equipment, all shrouded in an acrid fug of burned rubber and scorched metal, with rubble and shrapnel crunching underfoot. Captain Fathi al-Raati, neat in a ribbed blue uniform sweater with gold epaulettes, thinks the enemy had intended to destroy the half-dozen patrol and missile craft moored nearby. But they are untouched – and off limits to the reporters escorted to the site by information ministry minders. Thankfully, there had been no additions to the 48 fatalities recorded so far. “The personnel were told to leave as we were expecting this,” said al-Raati, explaining that the damage was done by six Tomahawk cruise missiles fired in two salvoes from naval vessels offshore – far outgunning air defences that were always rickety and have now, as the Libyans privately admit, been effectively suppressed. Bousseta’s sailors are making the most of the media presence, waving machine-guns and chanting patriotic slogans, as if having had their base bombed is some sort of military triumph. Libyans often insist they take pride in their ability to withstand attacks, though the crowds on the promenade are subdued, few of them buying the tea, water and nuts on sale on little plastic tables set by enterprising vendors. No one was shouting anything. Officially, there is nothing but bravado and defiance. Callers to the talk show on al-Shababiya (youth) radio are greeted by the presenter with the apparently bizarre words “Good morning victory” along with excoriating abuse of Libya’s enemies: the Arab League, which supported calls for the imposition of a no-fly zone, is referred to as “the Jewish League”. The “national council” formed by the Benghazi-based rebels is described as the “council of agents of the conspiracy”. The “conspiracy” is clear – to occupy and partition Libya and steal its oil. Al-Jazeera satellite TV, owned by the emir of Qatar, draws particular hostility, but its Saudi-owned rival al-Arabiya is equally loathed. State media refer routinely to the “Crusader-Zionist aggression” and highlight any opposition to it. Al-Jamahiriya TV quoted at length today from a Guardian story about Monday’s Stop the War rally in London, and gave prominence to Bolivia’s Evo Morales demanding that Barack Obama return his Nobel peace prize. Another big theme is normality: ordinary people interviewed on TV insist that everything is fine and functioning, shops are open, schools operating and work continuing, though the many shuttered premises in the alleys off Tripoli’s main Omar al-Mukhtar street tell a different story. So did the soldiers and the anti-aircraft battery at the entrance to the radio station overlooking the harbour, close to the centre than the battered Bousetta base. Older Libyans are distinctly unimpressed by Operation Odyssey Dawn. Mahfud Turki, 81, a former footballer who works in the famous Salim cafe on Green Square, remembers far worse danger when the “English navy” bombarded Tripoli in 1941. “This is nothing compared to that,” he says with a grin. The future may be unclear, but Gaddafi remains popular with poor people because he makes sure their monthly salaries are paid, Turki says. It is hard to assess the real impact of the war so far, but whatever their views, Libyans seem to be getting used to it. “It is all fine during the day,” says Ahmed, a 20-something driver. “Everything is normal until nine at night when the attacks start.” State TV reported on Tuesday that “masses” of citizens were heading for a fourth evening running to join protests at Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound – to defend the “brother leader of the revolution” from Libya’s many enemies. “Now it’s boom, boom every night,” sneers one merchant. “Fuck the Americans.” Libya Muammar Gaddafi Middle East United Nations Ian Black guardian.co.uk
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As George Osborne prepares for his second budget speech, join Andrew Sparrow for all today’s news and analysis and minute-by-minute coverage of PMQs, the chancellor’s statement, the Commons debate and reaction 12.25pm: There has been speculation about Gordon Brown speaking the budget debate. According to Greg Hands, the Tory MP, Brown is not in the chamber now. If he does want to speak, it almost certainly won’t be today. The budget debate goes on for several days and speeches on the first day (apart from the chancellor’s) never attract much attention. 12.22pm: Cameron has said the will be a “whole series of measures” in the budget to help promote growth. We’ve got to make sure, at a time when frankly any government would have to be making public sector cuts, we’ve got to make sure the private sector grows. 12.14pm: My colleague Matthew Taylor has sent me this about the Downing Street protest. The group of around 20 women arrived at around 11.15am carrying placards in the shape of red briefcases reading ‘Block the bankers’ budget’. The protesters said that minutes later groups of three women lay in front of each of the four vehicle exits of Downing Street, and locked themselves together inside arm tubes, which makes it difficult for police to remove them quickly. The action comes ahead of an anti-cuts demonstration on Saturday which is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of people to London to protest against the government’s cuts to public services. Sara Ayech, one of the women lying outside the main gates of Downing Street said: “We are stopping George Osborne from delivering his bankers’ budget because this budget has been written for the benefit of big business and the banking sector, not for ordinary people. The banks destroyed the economy and in return received the bail out and bonuses. But the government is choosing to make everyone else pay the price through unemployment, the decimation of the Welfare State and the NHS. “The Welfare State was fought for and won by ordinary people only 64 years ago. It’s now under attack by the coalition government and we are here to defend it and show that people will resist the injustice of these cuts.” The group say the cuts will have a devastating impact on the lives of women, citing examples such as the closure of women’s refuges, cuts to child, disability, carers and housing benefits, the roll back of maternity rights and that women are thought to make up 80 per cent of the expected job losses from the public sector. A police source confirmed “five people” were attempting to block the exit to Downing Street, adding no arrests had been made. And here’s a picture. 12.10pm: Ed Miliband asks why Cameron is removing the mobility component from disability living allowance from care home residents. Cameron says: “The short answer is, we’re not.” Miliband says he has to tell Cameron what’s in his own legislation. It’s in clause 83 of the welfare bill. Cameron says the money is wrapped up into the new personal independence payment. Miliband says there is a clause in the bill taking the mobility component away. Some 22 disability organisations are saying the government should scrap this plan. Cameron says Labour said it wanted to support reform of DLA. Miliband should congratulate the government on listening to opinion across the Commons. 12.09pm: The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg says the Downing Street protest only lasted a few seconds before the protesters were dragged away. 12.07pm: Miliband says it is important to have a formal process involving the Arab countries. And, on Colonel Gaddafi, is he a target? Cameron says all targets must be absolutely in line with UNSCR 1973. But he is not going to give “a running commentary” on targets. That’s Miliband’s first set of questions over. 12.06pm: Miliband asks about the role of Arab states in the operation. Cameron says the Arab League met again yesterday. It backed the UN resolution 1973. Qatar has contribued aircraft. Countries like Kuwait and Jordan will make logistic contributions. Support in the Arab world for saving lives in Libya “is very strong”. 12.04pm: At PMQs Ed Miliband is asking his first question. He pays tribute to the work of the armed forces in Libya. Can Cameron update MPs on the situation. Cameron says Miliband’s speech in the Monday debate was “extremely powerful”. A no-fly zone is in force over Libya. Gaddafi forces have had to retreat from Benghazi. But “clearly this is early stages.” A lot more needs to be done. 12.01pm: A group of protesters have been trying to block Downing Street to stop George Osborne getting to the Commons to deliver his budget. They have been tweeting at budgetblockers. 11.59am: Norman Lamont has taken his seat in the upper gallery in the Commons to watch PMQs and the budget. 11.50am: Prime minister’s questions is starting soon. Total Politics has got a feature on PMQs in its latest issues and it features interviews with David Cameron and Ed Miliband about the experience. Amazingly, Miliband says he does not get nervous in advance. I spend most of the morning preparing each Wednesday. I don’t get nervous, particularly. Going up on Newsnight and Question Time during the Labour leadership election was the hardest thing I’ve done – certainly more difficult and nerve-wracking than doing PMQs. If this is true, it’s remarkable. Maybe he would perform better if he did get nervous. 11.46am: John McFall isn’t the only person to suggest that George Osborne would like to be a combination of Nigel Lawson and Michael Heseltine. (See 10.21am.) Nick Robinson has written a whole blog on this theme. But I can’t tell whether McFall pinched Robinson’s idea, or Robinson pinched McFall’s idea, or whether it was just a happy coincidence. 11.35am: Nick Robinson came out with a pithy piece of media analysis on the BBC just now. Referring to the tax allowance increase (see 9.37am), he said that if they gave that story out yesterday, “that’s because they’ve got a better one today”. He thinks Osborne will want to make a headline-grabbing announcement about fuel duty. That’s what Michael Fallon was hinting at earlier. (See 11.08am.) 11.26am: My colleague Graeme Wearden from the business desk has sent me an update on what is happening in the City in this morning. He says that sterling has already lost ground today, while shares have risen ahead of the Budget speech. The pound has dropped by over 0.3 cents this morning to $1.629, after the latest Bank of England minutes showed that the MPC was split 6-3 on whether to raise interest rates this month. There had been speculation of a 5-4 split, with another hawk voting for a rate hike. The FTSE 100 has just nudged above 5800 points, up 37.7 points, with mining stocks leading the way (driven by China’s strong demand for raw materials). Elsewhere, Irish government bond yields have hit record highs — which Osborne could cite in support for his attack on the deficit. There’s also a good chance that Portugal’s government will fail to pass its austerity measures – triggering another Eurozone bailout? Sainsbury’s, though, have given Labour some ammunition – it has blamed “government spending cuts” for hitting consumer confidence, in a rather disappointing trading update. 11.17am: Here’s a budget reading list. On the budget • The House of Commons Library’s Background to the 2011 Budget briefing (pdf). This is probably the best factual guide to what’s likely to be in the announcement. It’s 41-pages long and it will be on my desk all afternoon. On George Osborne • George Parker’s profile of Osborne in the Financial Times magazine (subscription). • Tim Montgomerie’s condensed version of the FT piece on ConservativeHome. • Paul Goodman’s essay on Osborne from ConservativeHome last year. 11.13am: My colleague Damian Carrington has sent me a note about the environmental measures we’re expecting in the budget. Another blow is looking likely to the scale and ambition of the Green Investment Bank , I am told, which will not be allowed to borrow until the national debt has fallen below a set level. The GIB is the great green hope of those who want to see the UK grow out of the recession by investing huge sums in clean and sustainable infrastructure such as renewable energy. George Osborne has already pledged £1bn for the bank but Ernst and Young, and others, say £ 350bn is needed by 2025 . So the bank needs to borrow, a loathsome idea to the all-controlling Treasury, which also hates the idea of adding notional billions to the deficit. As we reported on Friday, it looks like borrowing powers will be delayed till 2015 , and now the newly revealed condition on the national debt level hampers the bank further. It’s bizarre that a development bank intended to stimulate growth can’t really start work until the economy has recovered. And remember, the GIB was a manifesto pledge by both coalition partners and was in the coalition agreement. Chris Huhne, energy and climate change secretary, reassured the Guardian last month that ” ducks quack, and banks borrow as well as lend.” As it stands, the GIB is looking like a lame duck. 11.08am: Michael Fallon, the Conservative party deputy chairman, has just told BBC News that he hopes George Osborne will deal with the “fuel duty escalator once and for all”. Labour’s March 2010 budget said that fuel duty would increase by 1p a litre in real terms every year between April 2011 and April 2014. That’s the escalator. Fallon seems to be giving a strong hint that it will be scrapped. 10.42am: You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today’s paper, are here. As for the rest of the papers, they’ve all got extensive budget coverage. Here are a couple of budget articles worth noting. • Gavyn Davies in the Financial Times (subscription) says George Osborne should stick to plan A. (As Paul Waugh points out on his blog, Davies used to be seen as a key Gordon Brown ally.) Has [plan A] worked? Last year, the budget deficit fell by over 1 per cent of GDP, and the economy expanded by 1.5 per cent, with unemployment basically stable. Not great, but it could have been worse. More recently, real GDP growth seems to have dipped sharply as consumers’ expenditure has weakened. Wednesday’s budget forecasts by the Office of Budget Responsibility will probably see some significant downgrades to growth projections in 2011. But business surveys have been stronger than the official economic data, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the chances of a double-dip recession are no higher than 20 per cent. This is uncomfortably high, but in my judgment not high enough to jettison the government’s main strategy, with the loss of credibility which that would imply. • Pilita Clark in the Financial Times (subscription) says private jet operators are unhappy about reports that there will be a “Learjet levy” in the budget. It would be a great disappointment if, simply to score political points, the chancellor were to pick on a low-margin industry struggling to recover from a terrible recession,” said Patrick Margetson-Rushmore, chief executive of London Executive Aviation. This move is another stealth tax, but not a very good one,” he said, adding the sums it would raise would be fairly small and the people penalised would be operators and the wider business aviation industry, rather than private jet passengers. And here’s one non-budget article that’s particularly interesting. • David Aaronovitch in the Times (paywall) on “Blue Labour”, Aaronovitch’s term for the philosophy promoted by Maurice Glasman, the academic and social activist who has influenced Ed Miliband. On Radio 4 on Monday night Lord Glasman elaborated on the Merrie Englande theme. He wanted to see a redistribution of power between State and locality roughly akin to that which had existed in Elizabeth I’s time — a return to “the Tudor state model where there’s a conception of social order, a balance of interests, where there’s statecraft”. He felt that far from being the 1945 creation of the welfare state, Labour’s best period had been the out-of-power relationship between the party and the Labour movement, its trade unions and co-operatives. One of Lord Glasman’s attractions for the young Labour leader is in suggesting how the long-term decline in membership might be mitigated. If the party becomes a social action force, with grassroots activists (a bit like Hezbollah without the headbands and Jew-hatred), perhaps it can retain or improve its presence on the ground. The other thing that Blue Labour does is to link Labour to populism — to that strand that regrets rapid change. One aspect of this is a rhetorical defence of institutions that are paradoxically politically popular while being less used: libraries, post offices, pubs. Things, you might argue, that we like the idea of more than we are prepared to endure the reality. The tone of Blue Labour is regret at our fallen condition. Lord Glasman calls the crash a “culmination of a catastrophic period in English history”, in which “work has been degraded [and] where the pressure is on every individual to sell themselves to make ends meet”. 10.29am: Every council in England has frozen or cut council tax, Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, has announced. The government gave councils money to fund this and so the news doesn’t come as a great surprise, although councils could have chosen not to accept the money given to authorities that imposed a freeze. Some 378 councils have frozen the tax and 43 have reduced it. Full details of council tax levels, including authority-by-authority figures, are available on the Department for Communities website. 10.21am: According to PoliticsHome, Lord McFall – the former Labour chairman of the Commons Treasury committee – thinks Osborne will seek inspiration from Nigel Lawson and Michael Heseltine in today’s budget. This is what McFall told the BBC. I think he’ll try and model himself on two previous chancellors of the exchequer – one Nigel Lawson in coming forward with a number of tax cuts and two Michael Heseltine when he worked in Liverpool and introduced the enterprise zones. And that will fit in with his growth budget. It’s a good analysis, but rather spoilt by the fact that Heseltine was never chancellor. He was very grand – president of the Board for Trade, deputy prime minister and all that – but he never ran the Treasury. 10.13am: David Chaytor, the former Labour MP, has lost his appeal against the length of his 18-month sentence for fiddling his expenses. This is from the Press Association. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, and two other judges sitting at the Court of Appeal in London refused to reduce the 61-year-old’s 18-month prison term. Chaytor, who forged tenancy documents and invoices to falsely claim more than £22,000 of taxpayers’ money for rent and IT work from the Commons authorities, was jailed on January 7. It had been urged on his behalf that the appropriate sentence was one of 12 months. 10.04am: Ed Miliband has just told the BBC that today’s budget will be “a test of the government’s economic strategy”. As opposition leader, he has to reply to the chancellor’s budget statement. It is one of the hardest jobs in the parliamentary calendar, because the opposition get virtually no warning of what’s coming. But, on the plus side, it does not matter that much how you perform, because the media are only really interested in the budget and its contents. 9.37am: The Daily Mail splash today says that 25m workers will be offered tax cuts worth up to £320 a year. Sounds good. But the only new or newish fact seems to be the amount to which the income tax threshold will rise next year (newish, because Danny Alexander dropped a very strong hint in the Observer on Sunday) and this does not seem to justify the £320 figure. Never mind. At Next Left Sunder Katwala has written a post explaining how “the Great Osborno” has performed a conjuring trick with the figures. Increasing the threshold by £600 is worth a maximum of 20p in the pound, so clearly could not be worth more than £120 to any taxpayer. (The change is worth least to lower earners who do not use the full threshold. A part-time worker on £6000 a year will gain nothing at all, while today’s change is worth £1.25 a year to somebody earning £7500 a year, but it will be worth 100 times more to higher earners). But that’s “up to £320″ in Osborne money, if you reannounce last year’s announcement too, roll it in, and then strip out inflation on the assume voters would prefer to think about its nominal value than whether or not it makes any real difference to their living standards. Katwala also points out, correctly, that the “tax cut” rhetoric only applies to income tax. Overall, people will be paying more in tax this year because VAT has risen by so much. 9.29am: Unusually, today’s budget will include changes to the way Whitehall operates. As my colleague Polly Curtis reports, the “star chamber” that vets departmental spending plans is going to become permanent and the Treasury is going to impose new controls on ministers who do not control their budgets. 9.11am: For the record, here are the latest YouGov GB polling figures. Labour: 42% (up 12 points since the general election) Conservatives: 35% (down 2) Lib Dems: 9% (down 15) Labour lead: 7 points Government approval: -25 9.05am: Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary, has already sent out his verdict on the budget. All the signs are that this will be a class war budget with it’s roots deep in the playing fields of Eton, designed to shift the balance even further towards big-business and the wealthy elite who finance the Conservative party. We have no doubt that the spivs who created this crisis will be let off the hook and that it will be working people lined up to take a kicking as the old-school Tory Thatcherites twist the knife once again. 8.52am: Lord Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor, was on the Today programme this morning. According to PoliticsHome, he said that Osborne should not try to achieve growth by micro-managing the economy. The danger is to think that you can press a button here and do a little special relief here and do a little bit there and so on and you somehow get growth. All you do is you complicate and mess up the tax system. 8.41am: If you’re looking for a list of measures that we’re expecting in today’s budget, my colleague Heather Stewart has a full round-up on our website. Jim Pickard has also got a good version on the FT’s Westminster blog. 8.21am: George Osborne is going to deliver a “steady-as-she-goes” budget, according to sources quoted in the Guardian this morning . That’s a Whitehall euphemism for “rather dull”. By comparison with some of the other budgets we’ve had in recent years – the 2009 budget tasked with digging Britain out of the worst financial crisis for a generation, Alistair Darling’s last budget before the election, the Tory chancellor’s first “emergency” budget – this will be relatively pedestrian. Osborne has taken the big economic decisions for the next four years and his room for manoeuvre is relatively slight. But, in my book, there’s no such thing as a boring budget. With growth stalling, and swingeing cuts threatening to dismantle vast chunks of the public sector, Osborne has to persuade Britain that the economy is safe in his hands. As the YouGov tracker polling figures (pdf) on the economy show, at the moment the picture is mixed. The proportion of people who think the government is managing the economy badly has been rising steadily over recent months, and since January it has been over 50%. But there are still more people blaming Labour for the cuts than blaming the coalition. We’ve got prime minister’s questions at 12pm, and then Osborne will present his budget at 12.30pm. Today’s Guardian has got a flavour of what he’s going to say . George Osborne will seek to appeal to Britain’s “squeezed middle” when he announces help for first-time buyers, motorists and 25 million income tax payers in a budget designed to tighten the Treasury’s grip over public spending. Despite disappointing news for the public finances, the chancellor is expected to say that he has scope to raise the income tax personal allowance by £600 next year, fund a £250m shared equity scheme for new homes and defer the above-inflation increase in petrol duty due next month. But Osborne will balance tax giveaways with fresh tax-raising measures, a crackdown on tax avoidance and “special measures” for overspending Whitehall departments in what sources insisted would be a “steady-as-she-goes” package. The chancellor will outline a range of measures – including a shake-up of planning laws, deregulation of employment laws affecting small businesses, and the long-awaited plans for a green investment bank as the coalition government seeks to shift the focus of the economy from deficit reduction to boosting growth. This morning I’ll be reporting on all the pre-budget speculation in the papers and on the web. I’ll be covering PMQs and the budget statement and then I’ll be blogging furiously through the afternoon, bringing you the best comment and analysis from Guardian colleagues and from elsewhere on the web as journalists, economists and everyone else go through the budget small print working out what it all means. Budget 2011 Budget Tax and spending Economic policy Economics Economic growth (GDP) Public finance Public sector cuts Family finances Petrol prices guardian.co.uk
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The Foreign and Commonwealth Office issues travel warnings and advice for British citizens. See the snapshot they paint of the world today • Get the data The world is a scary place right now; what with the Japan disaster and the Arab and Middle East unrest. Where’s safe to go to? Well, for British citizens, the safety of foreign countries is ranked by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office – the FCO. The FCO regularly issues travel advice for British citizens, telling them where is safe to go. It’s obviously not the only foreign office in the world to do this – the US State Department does too , for instance. But the criteria are very different. The US issues 34 warnings for its citizens of places where the US Government’s ability to assist American citizens is constrained due to the closure of an embassy or consulate or because of a drawdown of its staff. So, as well as dangerous places like Iraq, it includes countries like North Korea or Iran, which have no US embassy. The UK’s definition is broader. It covers 53 countries where either no travel at all or essential travel only – to the whole country or part of it – is recommended. It’s all about safety. The definition means there are no restrictions on travelling to North Korea for instance – it just doesn’t take account of whether or not you’ll actually be able to get there. We thought it would be interesting to take a snapshot of those ratings – reflecting the turmoil in the world today. You can see the result above using Google Fusion tables – you may be able to do better (we had problems mapping Gaza and the West Bank, for instance). It’s a fascinating picture – not only of the UK’s world view – but also of conflict, disaster and terror in the world today. There are a load of caveats. Many of the warnings are against travel to specific regions – a distinction you won’t see on the map above. That includes countries like Russia, for instance – where the FCO advises against travel to regions caught up in violence, such as Chechnya or North Ossetia. The FCO also combines Israel and the Palestinian Occupied territories into one travel bulletin. You can download the full data below . What can you do with it? Data summary Download the data • DATA: download the full spreadsheet from Google Fusion tables More data Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian World government data • Search the world’s government data with our gateway Development and aid data • Search the world’s global development data with our gateway Can you do something with this data? • Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group • Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk • Get the A-Z of data • More at the Datastore directory • Follow us on Twitter • Like us on Facebook Conflict and development Japan disaster Arab and Middle East unrest Google Foreign policy Simon Rogers guardian.co.uk
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The US did its damnedest to prevent the return of the elected president it helped oust in 2004. That it failed is a turning-point Late at night on 17 March 2011, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide boarded a small plane with his family in Johannesburg, South Africa. The following morning, he arrived in Haiti. It was just over seven years after he was kidnapped from his home in a US-backed coup d’etat. Haiti has been ravaged by a massive earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people and left a million and a half homeless. A cholera epidemic carried in by United Nations occupation forces could sicken almost 800,000. A majority of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. Now, Aristide, by far the most popular figure in Haiti today, and the first democratically elected president of the first black republic in the world, has returned home. ” Bon retou, Titid ” (“good return, Titid” – the affectionate term for Aristide) read the signs in Port-au-Prince as thousands flocked to accompany Aristide from the Toussaint L’Ouverture airport to his home. L’Ouverture led the slave uprising that established Haiti in 1804. I was able to travel with Aristide, his wife, Mildred, and their two daughters from Johannesburg to Haiti on the small jet provided by the government of South Africa. It was my second flight with them. In March 2004, the Aristides attempted to return from forced exile in the Central African Republic, but never made it back to Haiti. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other US officials warned Aristide to stay away from the western hemisphere. Defying such pressure, the Aristides stopped in Jamaica before travelling to South Africa, where they remained until last weekend. Just before this Sunday’s election in Haiti, President René Préval gave Aristide the diplomatic passport he had long promised him. Earlier, on 19 January, then US state department spokesman PJ Crowley tweeted , referring to Aristide: “today Haiti needs to focus on its future, not its past.” Mildred was incensed. She said the US had been saying that since they forced him out of the country. Sitting in the plane a few minutes before landing in Haiti, she repeated the words of an African leader who criticised the historic abuses of colonial powers by saying, “I would stop talking about the past, if it weren’t so present.” Mark Toner, the new state department spokesman, said last week: “Former President Aristide has chosen to remain outside of Haiti for seven years. To return this week could only be seen as a conscious choice to impact Haiti’s elections.” Aristide did not choose to leave, or to remain outside Haiti, and the Obama administration knows that. On 29 February 2004, Luis Moreno, the No 2 man in the US embassy in Haiti, went to the Aristides’ home and hustled them off to the airport. Frantz Gabriel was Aristide’s personal bodyguard in 2004. I met him when he was with the Aristides in the Central African Republic then, and saw him again last Friday as the Aristides arrived home. He recalled: “It was not willingly that the president left, because all the people that came in to accompany the president were all military. Having been in the US military myself, I know what a GI looks like, and I know what a special forces [soldier] looks like also … when we boarded the aircraft, everybody changed their uniform into civilian clothes. And that’s when I knew that it was a special operation.” The US continued to prevent Aristide from returning for the next seven years. Just last week, President Barack Obama called South African President Jacob Zuma to express “deep concerns” about Aristide’s potential return, and to pressure Zuma to block the trip. Zuma, to his credit, ignored the warning. US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal a concerted drive, over years, to hamper the return of Aristide to Haiti, including diplomatically punishing any country that helped Aristide, including threatening to block a UN security council seat for South Africa. After landing in Port-au-Prince, Aristide wasted no time. He addressed the people of Haiti from the airport. His remarks touched on a key point of the current elections there: that his political party, the most popular party in Haiti, Fanmi Lavalas, is banned, excluded from the elections. He said: “The problem is exclusion, and the solution is inclusion. The exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas is the exclusion of the majority … because everybody is a person.” Looking out on the country he hadn’t seen in seven years, he concluded: “Haiti, Haiti, the further I am from you, the less I breathe. Haiti, I love you, and I will love you always. Always.” • Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column © 2011 Amy Goodman. Distributed by King Features Syndicate Jean-Bertrand Aristide Haiti South Africa US foreign policy Barack Obama Jacob Zuma United States WikiLeaks The US embassy cables Amy Goodman guardian.co.uk
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Despite news of funding cuts dominating the headlines it’s clear that only some councils still prioritise the green agenda – we ask how everyone can stay green without heading into the red This week, the Local Government Association and the Department for Energy and Climate Change signed a Memorandum of Understanding which sets out how local and central government can work together to tackle climate change. The document focuses on meeting targets and aims to help councils reduce emissions by participating in schemes like the Green Deal . But with cuts hitting local government hard and many ‘soft-options’ like libraries and swimming pools already bearing the brunt, how far up the agenda will green credentials come? Forum for the Future’s Sustainable Cities Index , which tracks sustainability progress in 20 of the UK’s largest cities, is perhaps proof enough that councils are still striving to achieve results in this area. Indeed, on achieving top spot in the list for the second year running chief executive of Newcastle city council Barry Rowland explained, ” sustainability is right at the top of our agenda, and we intend to keep it there “. However it was reported last week that London has failed to meet EU targets to curb emissions and given Mayor Boris Johnson more time to reduce harmful particles in the air – a sign that in London, councils are not doing enough. In this Q&A we’ll be asking how local government can stay on top of the green agenda despite budget cuts. Our panel will be online between 12pm – 3pm on Wednesday 23 March and comments are open for your questions and contributions now. Panel: Paul O’Brien is chief executive of the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) and previously worked with South Lanarkshire Council Anna Warrington is senior sustainability advisor at Forum for the Future Sam Coe is regional partnerships manager for Keep Britain Tidy . His main role is to develop relationships with local authorities, housing providers and any private sector organisation interested in improving their local environments Chris Shaw is assistant director of environmental regeneration charity Groundwork Gavin Fletcher heads up the Groundwork Leicester & Leicestershire (GWLL’s) conservation team and has a wide range of experience in bio diversity, nature conservation and the management of gardens and allotments Councillor Sarah Russell is councillor responsible for the environment at Leicester city council Councillor Joe Goldberg leads on finance and sustainability at Haringey council Martyn Williams is senior parliamentary campaigner at Friends of the Earth who are currently working on campaigns to ensure Government supports councils in tackling climate change This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Join the local government network to receive more like this direct to your inbox. Local government network blog Sustainable housing Kate McCann guardian.co.uk
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Coroner’s report into the bombings on London transport network expected to offer recommendations for improving security Inquest verdicts on those killed in the 7/7 bombings will be delivered on 6 May, the coroner, Lady Justice Hallett, has announced. The findings of the five months-long hearings into the deaths of the 52 victims of the attacks on tube trains and a bus in central London are expected to offer recommendations for improving security. Hallett heard evidence from 309 witnesses, including members of the security and emergency rescue services, during the hearings at the Royal Courts of Justice, as well as testimony from injured victims and their rescuers. Three bombs exploded on tube trains during the rush hour on the morning of 7 July, 2005, and one an hour later on a bus travelling through Tavistock Square. The attacks were carried out by four British-born suicide bombers of Pakistani origin, led by Mohammad Siddique Khan, a 30-year-old British Muslim from Leeds, who detonated a bomb on a train at Edgeware Road. Altogether 56 died, including the bombers themselves: seven victims on a Circle Line tube at Aldgate station in east London, six on another Circle Line train at Edgeware Road; and 26 on a Piccadilly Line train between King’s Cross and Russell Square. A further 13 died 57 minutes later on board the bus. More than 700 people were injured. The verdict will be issued on the day after the May local elections and the AV referendum on changing the voting system at general elections. 7 July London attacks UK security and terrorism London Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk
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Some authors had complained they had not given permission for books to be scanned and made available online Google’s controversial plans to create the world’s biggest online library have been shelved by a US judge. In a ruling filed in the US district court in Manhattan, judge Denny Chin ruled the company had gone “too far” in its ambitious plans and rejected a legal settlement with authors and publishers that Google reached in 2008. The web giant has scanned millions of books, many held at some of the world’s greatest libraries including Oxford University’s Bodleian and Harvard’s libraries, and made them available online via its eBooks platform. The plan has split the publishing industry and attracted fierce criticism from authors and rival tech firms. While Google said it would show only snippets of works that are in copyright, some authors complained that they had not given their permission for the scanning in the first place and were wary of Google’s future plans. In court Google rejected calls for an “opt-in” solution where copyright owners would decide whether or not to be part of the scanning project. The company said the idea was not viable. Chin suggested he might look more favourably on a settlement that allowed copyright owners to “opt in”. “While the digitisation of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many,” Chin wrote, Google’s current pact would “simply go too far”. It would “give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission,” he said. The agreement rejected by Chin was negotiated with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. Under the settlement, Google would continue to digitise books and sell access online and the company would pay $125m (£76.9m) in royalties every year to the copyright owners of the books being scanned. Copyright concerns persisted, however, as the ownership of many of the works being scanned by Google could not be established. Hilary Ware, managing counsel for Google, said the judge’s decision was disappointing. “We believe this agreement has the potential to open up access to millions of books that are currently hard to find in the US today,” she said. “Regardless of the outcome, we’ll continue to work to make more of the world’s books discoverable online through Google Books and Google eBooks.” “Publishers are prepared to modify the settlement agreement to gain approval,” said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, in a statement issued by the Association of American Publishers. He said they would work to overcome the objections raised by the court. Google co-founder Larry Page was the author of the firm’s plans to make 150m books accessible via the search engine. He has been promoting the idea since shortly after the company was formed in 1998. Google began working with several libraries in 2004 to scan and digitise books and other writings in their collections, and has said it has completed 10% of the effort. The search engine currently allows users to search about two million books that are out of copyright, including the works of William Shakespeare. That service will be unaffected by the ruling. Chin’s decision is the latest in a series of setbacks. The plans have attracted criticism not only in the US but across Europe and in China and Canada. It is also separately being investigated by the US Justice Department on competition and copyright grounds. Google United States Digital media Libraries Intellectual property Ebooks Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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Islamic Jihad claims attacks on Beersheba and Ashdod as Israeli vice-premier calls for new offensive in Gaza Strip Palestinian rockets have struck two cities deep in Israel, wounding one man and prompting a deputy to the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to call for a new offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The attacks, which drew retaliatory air strikes from Israel, marked the biggest escalation of hostilities since Israel launched its assault on Gaza two years ago. Islamic Jihad, a smaller Gaza faction and occasional Hamas ally, claimed responsibility for the attacks on Beersheba and Ashdod that followed a surge of shelling between Israel and Hamas that killed four Palestinian civilians and five militants on Tuesday . After the deaths on Tuesday in Gaza, Netanyahu voiced regret for the civilian casualties, which he said resulted from errant Israeli shelling. The Israeli vice-premier, Silvan Shalom, said the situation recalled the runup to Israel’s 2008-2009 Gaza war, in which around 1,400 Palestinians died. Hamas has mostly held its fire from the enclave since. “We may have to consider a return to that operation,” Shalom told Israel Radio. “I say this despite the fact that I know such a thing would, of course, bring the region to a far more combustible situation.” With dissident movements rocking the Arab world, the US-backed Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has broached reconciliation with Islamist Hamas, which defeated his Fatah faction in a 2006 ballot and seized control of Gaza in a civil war a year later. Shalom said Hamas might have opened a new front with Israel “to stop any possibility of dialogue among the Palestinians or to come to the intra-Palestinian negotiation in a far stronger position”. Hamas is shunned by the west for rejecting peace with Israel. Under Hamas rule, Gaza has been kept under grinding embargoes by Israel and neighbouring Egypt. Security and economic prospects have improved under Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which has a limited mandate in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Islamic Jihad said it fired Grad rockets, assembly-line weapons more sophisticated than some shorter-range projectiles militants have used in the past, at Beersheba and Ashdod, 20 miles and 25 miles from Gaza respectively. An Israeli military spokeswoman said a Beersheba man suffered moderate shrapnel wounds and that the second rocket landed outside Ashdod’s centre, causing no damage. Authorities closed schools in Beersheba and advised residents to be ready to take shelter at the sound of sirens. Islamic Jihad said it sought to avenge “the Zionist massacres against our fighters and people” and would continue to fight “until the full liberation of our lands”, a reference to Israel, as well as the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas has described its attacks, which included the firing of more than two dozen mortar shells and rockets at the weekend, as retaliation for Israeli air strikes. Hamas has at times proposed a long-term truce with Israel. Netanyahu said Israel sought no further flare-up but would continue to respond to Palestinian attacks. Gaza Israel Palestinian territories Middle East guardian.co.uk
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NGO report says church fails to act effectively in tackling violence against women in Rwanda, Liberia and Congo Churches can “no longer remain silent on the issue of sexual violence”, according to a Christian NGO, which said religious institutions were failing the communities they were meant to serve by not speaking out against the assault and rape of children. Tearfund , a UK-based Christian relief and development agency, commissioned research on the current and potential role of the church to tackle sexual violence in Rwanda, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It said the results were a “shocking indictment of the widespread lack of a church-based response”. In Silent No More , a report launched at a conference on Monday at Lambeth Palace in London with the support of the archbishops of Canterbury, Burundi and DRC, Tearfund said: “The research showed there have been various responses from the church. In many cases the church has remained silent, where the church has spoken out, it has often led to increased stigma towards survivors. “The silence of the churches on this issue is often the result of fear and their inability to envisage how to engage effectively. Churches have too often failed to realise their mandate to care and stand up for people on the margins. For this reason aid agencies, donors and governments too have failed to recognise the potential of the church to respond to this need.” One community leader in Rwanda told Tearfund: “The church is the only reliable social network within poor countries. People cannot go to the cinema or a club in order to find space where they can get away from their problems. The church is all they have. Also, many people no longer have family. The church becomes their only source of ‘family’.” The report gave examples of how some churches were helping victims. The Anglican church of Congo has established an association offering practical support – helping women access preventative HIV treatment within 72 hours of an assault, raising awareness of rape laws, and assisting with social integration. But it was one of only a few instances of church-led activity. Among those attending the launch were Lyn Lusi, from Heal Africa , which helped Tearfund with its research in DRC. She told conference delegates that church leaders needed to follow the example of the anti-slavery champion William Wilberforce . She said: “It has taken 200 years for the change in relationships between blacks and whites to become reality. It has been a long road. The churches were key players, they knew what justice meant. The church is facing the same challenge – for justice between men and women.” One of the things church leaders could do was to read the whole Bible and “not just the verses that prop up their power base”, she added. Lusi and other speakers claimed that some men used scripture to justify hurting or marginalising women. Earlier this year, Anglican leaders wrote a letter acknowledging that churches were partly responsible for “perpetuating oppressive attitudes towards women” – there is divided opinion on the role of women in churches – and committed themselves to raising the profile of millennium development goal three: to promote gender equality and empower women. Religion Gender Rape Riazat Butt guardian.co.uk
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Greater London Authority officials moved on artist Ken Howard in Trafalgar Square, warning that people might trip over his easel. What other serious menaces might one encounter there? Trafalgar Square is not a safe place. It is so unsafe, in fact, that within three minutes of arriving there a pigeon hit me slap in the face. Then, as the bird beat a sluggish retreat, a gaggle of Spanish tourists began to laugh at me, adding insult to facial pigeonry. Greater London Authority officials were not on hand to help me. They were elsewhere, possibly protecting the square from an even greater menace: Royal Academy artist Ken Howard OBE, who, it was reported yesterday , had been moved on by officials insisting that someone could trip over his easel. Annoyed, Howard told reporters: “If these people had been around in previous generations, we wouldn’t have paintings by Monet, Whistler, Sisley or Boudain.” Quite how British local government officials in the late 19th century would have stopped Monet painting a pheasant is unclear, but the man does have a germ of a point. In the course of one short visit to Trafalgar Square yesterday, I counted 10 considerably more serious menaces. 1 Pigeons. See above. No-fly zones begin at home. 2 Street performer. A man juggling with knives . Police did nothing. 3 Massive ship in a bottle. Totally out of scale. This could easily confuse a stupid person into thinking they’ve become a giant, and then crushing someone. 4 Bath full of foamy, semi-naked vegan women. They were making a point about how a single steak has the same environmental impact as 50 baths, apparently. All I know is I was distracted and could easily have fallen over. 5 Weird Olympic clock. Counts backwards and doesn’t tell the real time. Potentially fatal to people who schedule insulin injections using faulty commemorative timepieces. 6 Giant concrete steps. Whose great idea was it to put these next to the semi-naked vegans? 7 Fountains. Mum always used to warn that you can drown in 2in of water. There’s around 2ft of water in these death traps. That’s enough to drown 12 times. 8 Huge lions. Sure, they’re made of brass for now . But what happens when lightning hits? They’re also way too tall. Fall off one and your lion-riding days are over. 9 This woman. Who is she? She could literally do anything . 10 This bloke in a suit. That’s a coffee he’s holding. A scalding-hot face-melting coffee. Someone needs to get in there and pin him to the ground asap. I’m looking at you, “the police”. London Painting Art Tom Meltzer guardian.co.uk
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