Prime minister says al-Shabaab fighters have now left 90% of the capital, raising prospect of faster delivery of humanitarian aid Islamist fighters have pulled out from many bases in the Somali capital in a move that could speed up the delivery of humanitarian services to famine victims, the prime minister has said. Somali prime minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali estimated the al-Shabaab militants now have vacated 90% of the capital. The African Union had said last week that militants had left 60% of Mogadishu. Ali said the government wanted to send security forces into the new areas vacated by the militants, who are linked to al-Qaida, describing the withdrawal as the “first phase of the new war”. The militants insisted it was merely a tactical withdrawal before a counterattack. “We shall fight the enemy wherever they are,” al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamed Rage told a local radio station. Fighters have blocked many aid organisations from the south and have complicated efforts to help those in Mogadishu. More than 29,000 children under the age of five have died in the last 90 days in the country’s south alone, according to US estimates. Residents reported al-Shabaab militia leaving their positions overnight but it was not clear if they had left the city. Since it was born from the ruins of another radical Islamist group in 2007, al-Shabaab has never abandoned Mogadishu entirely. Ali said he saw about 150 fighters leaving the northwest of the capital, adding that they may have left town due to a lack of finances and disagreements between leaders. Lieutenant-Colonel Paddy Ankunda, a spokesman for the 9,000-strong African Union peacekeeping forces in Mogadishu, said al-Shabaab had melted into the population and would become more difficult to deal with. “We need more troops now than ever before. The area has become too big for the force to cover,” he said. Sodio Omar Hassan, who was seeking treatment for her child’s malaria at a hospital set up by African Union peacekeepers, said people were angry at al-Shabaab’s response to the relief effort. She said militia groups declined to grant the UN permission to distribute maize and cooking oil in territory it controls. “People are angry now they are dying,” she said. “Al-Shabaab don’t bring us anything.” More than 12 million people in the Horn of Africa need immediate food aid but al-Shabaab proclaims it would be better to starve than accept Western aid. The UN says 640,000 children are acutely malnourished in Somalia. Somalis who have fled the famine zones say that militants are threatening refugees who leave the south, and often stop – and sometimes kill – the men.Somalia has been mired in war and anarchy for two decades, and piracy flourishes off its coastline. In a sign of how desperate the famine has become, many Somalis have fled from rural areas to Mogadishu, a war zone where AU peacekeepers have been battling the al-Shabab militants daily. Somalia Famine Africa African Union United Nations guardian.co.uk
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Israeli protesters: ‘We are prepared to die for our country … but we can’t live in it’ – video
August 6, 2011 No Comment
Thousands gather in Tel Aviv, where protesters have pitched tent villages on Rothschild Boulevard, to demonstrate over the high costs of housing, rearing children, fuel, electricity and food Mat Heywood
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Finance ministers from G7 countries hold urgent talks to try to prevent loss of confidence in world’s biggest economy World leaders are battling to prevent panic from spreading across financial markets as the sudden downgrading of the US credit rating triggered fears of global turmoil when stock exchanges open. Finance ministers from the G7 leading industrial countries – many of them away on summer holiday – agreed to a series of urgent weekend telephone talks to try to prevent a loss of confidence in the world’s biggest economy. But the uncertainty grew when the Saudi market dropped a massive 5.5%. French finance minister Francois Baroin, whose country holds the G7 presidency, said he been in contact with colleagues for 24 hours. “We’ll be carefully watching the evolution of what might happen on Monday,” he said. Chancellor George Osborne, holidaying in California, held talks with his G7 counterparts and David Cameron, who is in Tuscany. Officials said Osborne would be ready to interrupt his holiday if a full G7 meeting was called. Treasury sources said the chancellor had been using the discussions to address the interconnected problems of the debt crisis in the eurozone as events unfolded in Washington. Osborne was reported to be urging richer eurozone states such as Germany and France to back the radical step of issuing so-called “eurobonds”, meaning they would underwrite the debt of poorer eurozone nations in return for gaining a formal say in the future running of their economies. The European Central Bank will hold a conference call of its governing council to discuss its response to the eurozone’s debt crisis, an ECB source said. Italy’s pledge to speed up austerity measures and whether the ECB should buy Italian government bonds are expected to be discussed. S&P’s downgrading of the US credit rating on Friday added to fears over debt levels and economic growth in the world’s biggest economy and in large European nations, like Italy and Spain. As the effect was felt across the globe, China, the largest foreign holder of US debt, issued an extraordinary demand that Washington change its economic ways and address its “debt addiction”. It said the rating reduction would be followed by more “devastating credit rating cuts” and global financial turbulence if the US failed to learn to “live within its means”. “China, the largest creditor of the world’s sole superpower, has every right to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets,” it said. It also insisted the US should slash its “gigantic military expenditure and bloated social welfare costs”, and repeated its demand for a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar. In London, opinion was split between those who believed the markets would take the US credit decision in their stride and others who believed it could trigger a series of events that would do untold damage to the global financial system. Paul Dales, senior US economist at thinktank Capital Economics, said the loss of the AAA rating “shouldn’t be a complete disaster” and that any adverse reaction should prove temporary. However, he added: “The downgrade comes at a time when the financial markets and advanced economies are very fragile. The extra uncertainty could easily prolong the latest slide in equity prices. In the worse-case scenario, this could prove to be the trigger for another financial crisis that sends the US and other western economies back into recession.” Erik Britton, director of Fathom Financial Consulting, a City-based consultancy, said there was a fear that the US downgrade “will trigger a chain reaction across global bond markets that could culminate in an Italian or Spanish sovereign default and a systemic banking crisis”. He said that US government debt had been viewed as “risk free” by the markets, but that had now changed, meaning that the yields on US bonds would rise and their price would fall. Because other bonds would be similarly affected, massive problems would result for banks worldwide which would be left holding bonds of declining value. “A small further rise in the Italian government bond yield, which could be triggered by the US downgrade, would make a default there inevitable. And that would present a systemic threat to the global financial system that would make Lehmans look like a walk in the park,” said Britton. The Treasury said the US credit rating decision was a “complete vindication” for the government’s robust approach to cutting the deficit: “When this government came to power, Britain’s AAA rating was on negative outlook from S&P, but thanks to the decisions we’ve taken to deal with out debts and support a sustainable recovery our rating has been reaffirmed, helping to keep borrowing rates down for taxpayers, homeowners and businesses,” said a spokesman. But the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, said the plan to reduce the deficit was not working because there was no growth in the economy. “The problem in Britain is that George Osborne’s plan is not working. By trying to go too far and too fast, confidence has been knocked and last year’s recovery has been choked off,” he said. Global economy United States US economy Europe Economics Euro Financial sector Market turmoil Stock markets Saudi Arabia France George Osborne David Cameron European Central Bank Economic policy Toby Helm Nils Pratley Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media John Chambers, managing director of sovereign ratings at S&P was interviewed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper after the S&P lowered our credit rating . There were a lot of factors at work here when S&P decided to become a new unelected branch of U.S. government when they issued their downgrade even AFTER they admitted to making a $2 trillion mistake in their calculations. In other words they wanted to do this for months and no stinkin’ facts were going to stop them. You can see how Chambers tries to skirt the math error as if two trillion was trivial in this debate. The panel of pundits CNN used for the most part, except those who want to destroy our social safety nets, said that the world still views our bonds as the safest bet in the world. I do believe that if Republicans and tea party ideologues didn’t play politics with the debt ceiling, this probably wouldn’t have happened. There’s a reason why, before the tea party came into town, staunch conservatives never seriously screwed with it before (outside of a few dissents by members in Congress over raising it). In his many complaints it’s obvious that S&P blames mostly the GOP because of their behavior and for their love of Grover Norquist’s hostage-taking anti-revenues ideals. The firm’s conclusion “was pretty much motivated by all of the debate about the raising of the debt ceiling,” John Chambers, chairman of S&P’s sovereign ratings committee, said in an interview. “It involved a level of brinksmanship greater than what we had expected earlier in the year.” He also attacked our social safety nets, but as Duncan says : “Apparently we’re supposed to care about what some idiots at some corrupt organization think about anything.” The rating agencies helped cause the global financial meltdown in the first place since they rated so much junk AAA right before Rome burned down. Matt Taibbi has been writing about this for a long time. David Atkins recaps some of the reasons why the S&P has no real standing after their past actions. I have little to add on this front to what Digby and Paul Krugman have already said, but a few key points bear repeating: It was S&P that had Lehman Brothers rated AAA just a month before they went bankrupt. It was S&P that rated AIG’s credit default swaps as rock solid investments It was S&P that admitted to making a $2 trillion accounting error (remember, playing with numbers is their core business and reason for being) in advance of the downgrade of U.S. debt. A downgrade in U.S. debt means functionally that U.S. treasury bills are, in S&P’s oh-so-wise opinion, less trustworthy and a greater credit risk to investors. This comes only a day after investors fled the DOW and S&P500 into the safe and waiting hands of…you guessed it: U.S. Treasuries. The same treasuries that S&P suddenly finds a more dangerous buy. So what does that say about the stock market, and the S&P500? Perhaps S&P might wish to re-evaluate the credibility of its own market index. None of the other ratings agencies are taking the drastic step that S&P has. S&P is all alone in their move to downgrade U.S. credit. When all is said and done, U.S. treasuries are still the safest investment in the world, and it would take either an idiot or someone with a strong political agenda to contend otherwise. S&P’s credibility to make any sort of statements about anything at all is highly suspect. By all rights their failure to properly evaluate Lehman and AIG alone would mean that if the alleged free market were doing its job, all the ratings agencies would have gone out of business or been disbanded a long time ago. It is remarkable that anyone on the left, right or center pays any attention to anything they have to say, much less that an entire nation quakes in fear of their oracular pronouncements. The Wall St. Emperor was exposed as naked years ago, yet everyone still pretends that he’s clad in the finest raiments of wisdom. The fact is that S&P, for whatever reason—be it political, economic, corrupt or some combination thereof—has desperately wanted to downgrade U.S. debt for months. First came the clearly unfeasible demand that the U.S. cut $4 trillion in spending while eliminating all the Bush tax cuts, even on the middle class. Then came the austerity debt-ceiling bill, which was put in place over the top of a snookered public precisely to avoid a credit downgrade. Then came the threat to downgrade our credit anyway. Then came the admission of their $2 trillion accounting error in making the threat. And then came the downgrade in spite of it all. Let’s be clear: S&P was always going to make this move, no matter what we did. The austerity bill was thus an utterly pointless exercise to appease a ratings agency acting in bad faith. The President needs to be strong here and not give an inch to S&P or the GOP and govern like a Democrat. Look what trying to compromise with Republicans has accomplished for his presidency so far? It’s kind of shocking how the entire stock market is guided by confidence fairies and not actual numbers. Politicians and CNBC pundits are loath to give many straight answers concerning Wall Street since so much betting is involved and one wrong statement can cause a 1000 point drop in a matter of minutes simply because of fear. I’d say we’ll wait and say how the market responds to this power play by S&P. As Paul Krugman says: On one hand, there is a case to be made that the madness of the right has made America a fundamentally unsound nation. And yes, it is the madness of the right: if not for the extremism of anti-tax Republicans, we would have no trouble reaching an agreement that would ensure long-run solvency. On the other hand, it’s hard to think of anyone less qualified to pass judgment on America than the rating agencies. The people who rated sub-prime mortgage-backed securities are now declaring that they are the judges of fiscal policy? Really? Just to make it perfect, it turns out that S&P got the math wrong by $2 trillion, and after much discussion conceded the point — then went ahead with the downgrade. — In short, S&P is just making stuff up — and after the mortgage debacle, they really don’t have that right. So this is an outrage — not because America is A-OK, but because these people are in no position to pass judgment. Just expect the GOP to come out in force to use this downgrade as a way of trying to undo the New Deal and every major advancement progressive politics has produced for the betterment of our country.
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• Send your thoughts to alan.gardner.casual@guardian.co.uk • Click here to view our live scores service • Here for 26-league stats centre, with in-running tables • Go do some commenting on our Football League blog 54 min: Never mind their socks, Leeds’s metaphorical pants are now round their ankles. Their little behinds are being tanned! GOAL! Southampton 3-0 Leeds (Connolly 52) Ah, that’s another really good goal. Connolly was allowed space to turn on the edge of the box and he flipped the ball into the path of the lurking Lallana before ferreting his way into the box to pick up the return pass. The striker took a moment to compose himself, before stroking a low, side-footed effort into the far corner. 50 min: Well, what I can say for sure, is that Leeds’s socks are definitely up around the knees, where they should be. 49 min: Southampton corner. Cleared. “Hi Alan, this is my first message to the Guardian, and while I don’t care much for either Leeds or Southampton, I felt compelled to write in regarding your mention of metaphorical sock pulling. I was wondering whether it’s the socks that are metaphorical (since they would appear to be wearing real ones) or the act of pulling that is in fact metaphorical. Thoughts?” 47 min: Ross McCormack is then released into the area on the right. He does a bit of scampering and then unleashes a low shot that stings Davis’s palms, but nothing more. 46 min: Andy O’Brien lumps it forward and Leeds immediately lose possession. A smart tackle on Guly enables the visitors to have another go and this time the long ball forward effectively bisects the Southampton back two. Gradel goes motoring in behind them but a combination of luck and judgement between Fonte and Harding enables them to bundle the ball out of the Leeds man’s path and back to the goalkeeper. Peep! Peep! The two teams are back out and ready to engage in some association football. And away they go. Play up, everybody! Peep! Peep! The teams go in to suck on their oranges/have tea cups thrown at them/check their iPhones. It’s Southampton 2-0 Leeds , and I’ll be back to grind through the gears again in 15 minutes. Here’s a Football League blog . Go read it. 45+1 min: “It’s one of those scores, 2-0 – pretty awkward,” observes Iain Dowie in the Sky commentary box. He’s got a degree in chemical engineering, or whatever, so I won’t argue with him. And after comebacks from Brighton, Burnley and Reading today, no one should be chicken counting yet … 44 min: Kisnorbo is penalised for dragging over Lambert, who then takes the free-kick himself, firing a dipping effort over the wall and into the side netting. The home crowd thought that was in. It wasn’t. But it was close. 43 min: Are there any Swedes out there who can give po’ Bob Green are hug? “I live in Sweden these days… maybe ‘disappointment and despair’ is more relevant to my feelings each time I go to a game here… it’s usually worse than anything that Leeds have served up since the day that Woodgate was sold all those years ago. Oh dear, it’s 2-0 now… maybe not…” 41 min: The good news for Leeds is that Southampton haven’t mustered a shot on goal in that last 10 minutes. The bad news: they don’t need to. Still, the men in blue have at least pulled their metaphorical socks up. 39 min: Lallana picks the pocket of right-back Paul Connolly. He also takes the ball off him but can’t quite find space to initiate another attack. Leeds respond with Gradel wriggling through a gap on the left but his cross flies straight into the outstretched arms of Davis in goal. 36 min: The sun is dipping behind the west stand at St Mary’s, giving the pitch a two-tone look, split right down the middle. Southampton appear happy to let Leeds have the ball for a wee while. They haven’t looked like inflicting much damage with it so far. 34 min: Gradel forages with some success up the left, winning a corner with a deflected shot. But again Snodgrass’s delivery fails to find a team-mates in the box. 32 min: A Lallana volley from the edge of the area whistles past the far post. Leeds are being pwned right now. 31 min: Leeds look rattled, they’re being closed down very quickly by the home side and just cannot wrest back the momentum, particularly in midfield. If you were asked to pick which was the newly promoted side, you wouldn’t pick Southampton. 30 min: The first booking of the evening goes to Michael Brown. Surprised? 27 min: And Lonergan now makes a tremendous block to deny Lallana a second! Southampton streamed forward again, Guly pulling the ball back from the byline for Lallana to fire off a shot from inside the six-yard box … but Lonergan got his angles right and spread himself starfish-style to make the stop from close range. GOAL! Southampton 2-0 Leeds (Lallana 25) A sumptuous finish from the young Saints midfielder and Leeds’ misery deepens. Southampton sprung quickly into attack after regaining possession in midfield, with Lambert dropping deep and then picking out Lallana’s run into the box on the right … He checked back inside, then curled a left-footed effort precisely into the far corner, across the flailing Lonergan. There was a touch of the Terry Henrys about that finish, I tells thee. 24 min: Last man Andy O’Brien almost gets caught in possession by David Connolly but manages to nick the ball away from the Southampton striker at the last. 22 min: A clumsy challenge some 30 yards from the Southampton goal gives Leeds a free-kick in a central area. Snodgrass, though, nails the chance straight into the wall. That was pretty pap. 20 min: “I was about to email you and ask you to include an ‘auto-refresh’ button to click on… but as a Leeds fan and being a goal down I’m not so sure now… surely it won’t be another season of disappointment and despair for Leeds? Last season apart we’ve had too many of those in recent times.” I dunno, Bob Green. You haven’t been relegated in, what is it, at least four seasons now? 19 min: A dinked Gradel ball to the back post is shepherded out for a corner. Decent delivery that. The set-piece is cleared by Southamptonh via the aerial application of head to ball. 17 min: But Southampton break like quicksilver, with Adam Lallana gliding up the left wing, past one, two Leeds players before he finally runs out of space. 15 min: … though slow down a bit, pal, as my fitness has waned during the close season. Leeds have regained their shape after that ragged opening and are beginning to probe, though the likes of Max Gradel and Robert Snodgrass. 13 min: Southampton are forced to clear their lines following a corner to the visitors. There’s quite a lively atmosphere in the ground now. Hello football, my old friend … GOAL! Southampton 1-0 Leeds (Hammond 10) That’s a cracking strike from the Southampton captain, a left-footer that Le Tissier himself would have been proud of! Hammond picked the ball up in space in midfield before advancing on the box and whipping a low shot into the bottom left-hand corner. No one came to him, though Andy Lonergan may feel he should have got a hand on it. 8 min: At the other end, a Johnny Howson snap shot from inside the area is beaten out by Kelvin Davis. This is breathless stuff! 7 min: Brown, who’s a niggly little tinker if ever there was one, goes in late again. Still no cards from the ref, though. And there’s nearly an opening for Southampton, as Lambert plays in Guly, whose ball into the box slightly wrong foots Connolly at the back post. 5 min: Another foul, this time committed by Michael Brown in the centre circle, allows Southampton to launch an attack forward from the back. Leeds have started in tasty fashion [he says euphemistically]. 3 min: Lambert picks himself up to thump the free-kick into the wall … 2 min: Patrick Kisnorbo has gone crunching through David Connolly from behind and is a little lucky to get no more than a talking to. It’s a first appearance in over a season for Leeds Australian centre-half, who certainly looks a little rusty in the challenge. Peep! Ah, right, kick-off was a 5.20pm then. We’re off! So, football’s back, Southampton are back, Leeds, er, were back last year. There’s a Premier League revival feel to proceedings at St Mary’s, though these teams have met several times during their respective slides down the League ladder. Preamble: I think you’ll find plenty to pique your interest in the Saturday clockwatch … Teams Southampton: Davis, Richardson, Fonte, Martin, Harding, Do Prado, Hammond, Cork, Lallana, Connolly, Lambert. Subs: Bialkowski, Schneiderlin, Butterfield, Chaplow, De Ridder. Leeds: Lonergan, Connolly, Kisnorbo, O’Brien, O’Dea, Snodgrass, Brown, Clayton, Howson, Gradel, McCormack. Subs: Rachubka, Paynter, Sam, Nunez, Bromby. Referee: Kevin Wright (Cambridgeshire) Championship Southampton Leeds United Alan Gardner guardian.co.uk
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• Send your thoughts to alan.gardner.casual@guardian.co.uk • Click here to view our live scores service • Here for 26-league stats centre, with in-running tables • Go do some commenting on our Football League blog 54 min: Never mind their socks, Leeds’s metaphorical pants are now round their ankles. Their little behinds are being tanned! GOAL! Southampton 3-0 Leeds (Connolly 52) Ah, that’s another really good goal. Connolly was allowed space to turn on the edge of the box and he flipped the ball into the path of the lurking Lallana before ferreting his way into the box to pick up the return pass. The striker took a moment to compose himself, before stroking a low, side-footed effort into the far corner. 50 min: Well, what I can say for sure, is that Leeds’s socks are definitely up around the knees, where they should be. 49 min: Southampton corner. Cleared. “Hi Alan, this is my first message to the Guardian, and while I don’t care much for either Leeds or Southampton, I felt compelled to write in regarding your mention of metaphorical sock pulling. I was wondering whether it’s the socks that are metaphorical (since they would appear to be wearing real ones) or the act of pulling that is in fact metaphorical. Thoughts?” 47 min: Ross McCormack is then released into the area on the right. He does a bit of scampering and then unleashes a low shot that stings Davis’s palms, but nothing more. 46 min: Andy O’Brien lumps it forward and Leeds immediately lose possession. A smart tackle on Guly enables the visitors to have another go and this time the long ball forward effectively bisects the Southampton back two. Gradel goes motoring in behind them but a combination of luck and judgement between Fonte and Harding enables them to bundle the ball out of the Leeds man’s path and back to the goalkeeper. Peep! Peep! The two teams are back out and ready to engage in some association football. And away they go. Play up, everybody! Peep! Peep! The teams go in to suck on their oranges/have tea cups thrown at them/check their iPhones. It’s Southampton 2-0 Leeds , and I’ll be back to grind through the gears again in 15 minutes. Here’s a Football League blog . Go read it. 45+1 min: “It’s one of those scores, 2-0 – pretty awkward,” observes Iain Dowie in the Sky commentary box. He’s got a degree in chemical engineering, or whatever, so I won’t argue with him. And after comebacks from Brighton, Burnley and Reading today, no one should be chicken counting yet … 44 min: Kisnorbo is penalised for dragging over Lambert, who then takes the free-kick himself, firing a dipping effort over the wall and into the side netting. The home crowd thought that was in. It wasn’t. But it was close. 43 min: Are there any Swedes out there who can give po’ Bob Green are hug? “I live in Sweden these days… maybe ‘disappointment and despair’ is more relevant to my feelings each time I go to a game here… it’s usually worse than anything that Leeds have served up since the day that Woodgate was sold all those years ago. Oh dear, it’s 2-0 now… maybe not…” 41 min: The good news for Leeds is that Southampton haven’t mustered a shot on goal in that last 10 minutes. The bad news: they don’t need to. Still, the men in blue have at least pulled their metaphorical socks up. 39 min: Lallana picks the pocket of right-back Paul Connolly. He also takes the ball off him but can’t quite find space to initiate another attack. Leeds respond with Gradel wriggling through a gap on the left but his cross flies straight into the outstretched arms of Davis in goal. 36 min: The sun is dipping behind the west stand at St Mary’s, giving the pitch a two-tone look, split right down the middle. Southampton appear happy to let Leeds have the ball for a wee while. They haven’t looked like inflicting much damage with it so far. 34 min: Gradel forages with some success up the left, winning a corner with a deflected shot. But again Snodgrass’s delivery fails to find a team-mates in the box. 32 min: A Lallana volley from the edge of the area whistles past the far post. Leeds are being pwned right now. 31 min: Leeds look rattled, they’re being closed down very quickly by the home side and just cannot wrest back the momentum, particularly in midfield. If you were asked to pick which was the newly promoted side, you wouldn’t pick Southampton. 30 min: The first booking of the evening goes to Michael Brown. Surprised? 27 min: And Lonergan now makes a tremendous block to deny Lallana a second! Southampton streamed forward again, Guly pulling the ball back from the byline for Lallana to fire off a shot from inside the six-yard box … but Lonergan got his angles right and spread himself starfish-style to make the stop from close range. GOAL! Southampton 2-0 Leeds (Lallana 25) A sumptuous finish from the young Saints midfielder and Leeds’ misery deepens. Southampton sprung quickly into attack after regaining possession in midfield, with Lambert dropping deep and then picking out Lallana’s run into the box on the right … He checked back inside, then curled a left-footed effort precisely into the far corner, across the flailing Lonergan. There was a touch of the Terry Henrys about that finish, I tells thee. 24 min: Last man Andy O’Brien almost gets caught in possession by David Connolly but manages to nick the ball away from the Southampton striker at the last. 22 min: A clumsy challenge some 30 yards from the Southampton goal gives Leeds a free-kick in a central area. Snodgrass, though, nails the chance straight into the wall. That was pretty pap. 20 min: “I was about to email you and ask you to include an ‘auto-refresh’ button to click on… but as a Leeds fan and being a goal down I’m not so sure now… surely it won’t be another season of disappointment and despair for Leeds? Last season apart we’ve had too many of those in recent times.” I dunno, Bob Green. You haven’t been relegated in, what is it, at least four seasons now? 19 min: A dinked Gradel ball to the back post is shepherded out for a corner. Decent delivery that. The set-piece is cleared by Southamptonh via the aerial application of head to ball. 17 min: But Southampton break like quicksilver, with Adam Lallana gliding up the left wing, past one, two Leeds players before he finally runs out of space. 15 min: … though slow down a bit, pal, as my fitness has waned during the close season. Leeds have regained their shape after that ragged opening and are beginning to probe, though the likes of Max Gradel and Robert Snodgrass. 13 min: Southampton are forced to clear their lines following a corner to the visitors. There’s quite a lively atmosphere in the ground now. Hello football, my old friend … GOAL! Southampton 1-0 Leeds (Hammond 10) That’s a cracking strike from the Southampton captain, a left-footer that Le Tissier himself would have been proud of! Hammond picked the ball up in space in midfield before advancing on the box and whipping a low shot into the bottom left-hand corner. No one came to him, though Andy Lonergan may feel he should have got a hand on it. 8 min: At the other end, a Johnny Howson snap shot from inside the area is beaten out by Kelvin Davis. This is breathless stuff! 7 min: Brown, who’s a niggly little tinker if ever there was one, goes in late again. Still no cards from the ref, though. And there’s nearly an opening for Southampton, as Lambert plays in Guly, whose ball into the box slightly wrong foots Connolly at the back post. 5 min: Another foul, this time committed by Michael Brown in the centre circle, allows Southampton to launch an attack forward from the back. Leeds have started in tasty fashion [he says euphemistically]. 3 min: Lambert picks himself up to thump the free-kick into the wall … 2 min: Patrick Kisnorbo has gone crunching through David Connolly from behind and is a little lucky to get no more than a talking to. It’s a first appearance in over a season for Leeds Australian centre-half, who certainly looks a little rusty in the challenge. Peep! Ah, right, kick-off was a 5.20pm then. We’re off! So, football’s back, Southampton are back, Leeds, er, were back last year. There’s a Premier League revival feel to proceedings at St Mary’s, though these teams have met several times during their respective slides down the League ladder. Preamble: I think you’ll find plenty to pique your interest in the Saturday clockwatch … Teams Southampton: Davis, Richardson, Fonte, Martin, Harding, Do Prado, Hammond, Cork, Lallana, Connolly, Lambert. Subs: Bialkowski, Schneiderlin, Butterfield, Chaplow, De Ridder. Leeds: Lonergan, Connolly, Kisnorbo, O’Brien, O’Dea, Snodgrass, Brown, Clayton, Howson, Gradel, McCormack. Subs: Rachubka, Paynter, Sam, Nunez, Bromby. Referee: Kevin Wright (Cambridgeshire) Championship Southampton Leeds United Alan Gardner guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …How ALEC Changed Policies To Allow Corporations To Use Prisoners As Coerced Slave Labor
August 6, 2011 No CommentIs there still any room left on the outrage meter? Because this expansion of using prisoners as corporate slaves (and ALEC’s role in that expansion) is really reminding me of corrupt dictatorial regimes in the Third World, not the United States. From The Nation: Although a wide variety of goods have long been produced by state and federal prisoners for the US government—license plates are the classic example, with more recent contracts including everything from guided missile parts to the solar panels powering government buildings—prison labor for the private sector was legally barred for years, to avoid unfair competition with private companies. But this has changed thanks to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), its Prison Industries Act, and a little-known federal program known as PIE (the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program). While much has been written about prison labor in the past several years, these forces, which have driven its expansion, remain largely unknown. Somewhat more familiar is ALEC’s instrumental role in the explosion of the US prison population in the past few decades. ALEC helped pioneer some of the toughest sentencing laws on the books today, like mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, “three strikes” laws, and “truth in sentencing” laws. In 1995 alone, ALEC’s Truth in Sentencing Act was signed into law in twenty-five states. (Then-State Rep. Scott Walker was an ALEC member when he sponsored Wisconsin’s truth-in-sentencing laws and, according to PR Watch, used its statistics to make the case for the law.) More recently, ALEC has proposed innovative “solutions” to the overcrowding it helped create, such as privatizing the parole process through “the proven success of the private bail bond industry,” as it recommended in 2007. (The American Bail Coalition is an executive member of ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task Force.) ALEC has also worked to pass state laws to create private for-profit prisons, a boon to two of its major corporate sponsors: Corrections Corporation of America and Geo Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections), the largest private prison firms in the country. An In These Times investigation last summer revealed that ALEC arranged secret meetings between Arizona’s state legislators and CCA to draft what became SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law, to keep CCA prisons flush with immigrant detainees. ALEC has proven expertly capable of devising endless ways to help private corporations benefit from the country’s massive prison population. That mass incarceration would create a huge captive workforce was anticipated long before the US prison population reached its peak—and at a time when the concept of “rehabilitation” was still considered part of the mission of prisons. First created by Congress in 1979, the PIE program was designed “to encourage states and units of local government to establish employment opportunities for prisoners that approximate private sector work opportunities,” according to PRIDE’s website. The benefits to big corporations were clear—a “readily available workforce” for the private sector and “a cost-effective way to occupy a portion of the ever-growing offender/inmate population” for prison officials—yet from its founding until the mid-1990s, few states participated in the program. This started to change in 1993, when Texas State Representative and ALEC member Ray Allen crafted the Texas Prison Industries Act, which aimed to expand the PIE program. After it passed in Texas, Allen advocated that it be duplicated across the country. In 1995, ALEC’s Prison Industries Act was born. “It’s bad enough that our companies have to compete with exploited and forced labor in China,” says Scott Paul Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a coalition of business and unions. “They shouldn’t have to compete against prison labor here at home. The goal should be for other nations to aspire to the quality of life that Americans enjoy, not to discard our efforts through a downward competitive spiral.” Alex Friedmann, associate editor of Prison Legal News, says prison labor is part of a “confluence of similar interests” among politicians and corporations, long referred to as the “prison industrial complex.” As decades of model legislation reveals, ALEC has been at the center of this confluence. “This has been ongoing for decades, with prison privatization contributing to the escalation of incarceration rates in the US,” Friedmann says. Just as mass incarceration has burdened American taxpayers in major prison states, so is the use of inmate labor contributing to lost jobs, unemployment and decreased wages among workers—while corporate profits soar. Please, read the entire thing.
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As NewsBusters reported Friday, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh caught MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in a bald-faced lie about him. Later that evening, Maddow apologized for her error but blamed it on- wait for it! – the conservative website World Net Daily and then accused Limbaugh of racism (video follows with transcript and commentary): RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: I’m in a face-off, a huge fight, I’m in a massive brawl with Rush Limbaugh right now. And you know what? Rush Limbaugh wins. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS) MADDOW: I thought when President Obama released the second form of the birth certificate, that that would not put this thing to rest, that it was, in fact, based in giving more facts would help? But it did put it to rest. I was wrong. It put it to rest. On the president’s 50th birthday, it is now just the dead-enders and the profiteers at still point still plugging this thing. There is nobody who has any pull in conservative politics or Republican politics at all who is — seriously? Are you sure? Are you sure this is — this is from this week, this is from yesterday? OK. Play it. RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO HOST: Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday. We haven’t seen proof of that. He tells us August 4th. Sorry. MADDOW: Sorry. Apparently it’s not over. (END VIDEO CLIPS) MADDOW: That was from last night’s show. I was wrong. I lose. Yes, that was Rush Limbaugh on his radio show about not being sure if the president was born. That was not from Rush Limbaugh’s show this past Wednesday, it was, in fact, from his show a year ago, way before the administration produced that second form of President Obama’s birth certificate this past April. A classy, professional anchor would have said she was sorry now, and moved on. Unfortunately, Maddow is neither classy nor professional: MADDOW: The reason I thought this sound bite was from this week because of a report from the pro-birther publication World Net Daily, the link does not work anymore. But here’s a cache version of that report. It was posted just past midnight Wednesday, August 4th, 2011, at 12:15 a.m. And it misattributed the day that Rush Limbaugh’s said those words as today, which would have been Wednesday, August 3rd, the day before the article was posted. The article linked to audio uploaded on August 3rd, 2011 of Rush Limbaugh’s comments — all of which made me believed it was from August 3rd, 2011, audio that I used and wrongly attributed to having been said on August 3rd, 2011. That clip was mislabeled. The article was wrong. And it was wrong of us to not check early World Net Daily’s reporting. I’m very sorry. Here is the cached version of WND's piece, and it does indeed give readers the impression that Limbaugh said this Wednesday and not last year. However, is the far-left MSNBC now relying on far-right publications for its research? Are there really no resources at a division of Comcast, General Electric, and NBC to do some basic fact-checking beyond a website that those associated vehemently disagree with at every turn? And are YouTube video descriptions considered credible enough for MSNBCer's to cite dates from? Doesn't give you much confidence in the veracity of any of their reporting. But Maddow wasn't done making a fool of herself, for instead of leaving it there, she felt the need to attack Limbaugh by accusing him of racism: MADDOW: And if you are worried about overall thesis that Rush Limbaugh is not giving up on trying to use the president’s race against him, this day and age, don’t worry about that thesis. Our error in misdating that tape does not undermine our thesis, as well proven by Mr. Limbaugh on his radio show just this week alone. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LIMBAUGH: I’m not going to apologize to the magic Negro. Grab the magic Negro. We’re going to click and play it again today. The guy is never going to look older than 12. He’s never going to act older than 12. He’s always going to look like a man-child. (INAUDIBLE) saying out there saying he’s earning every gray hair. Earning every gray hair, I can believe it living with her, but not because of the job of being president. Next thing to look out for is for Obama to take the farms. Well, that’s what Zimbabwe, that’s what Mugabe did, he took the white people’s farms. That’s the only place that had any money. So, tar baby now has racial (INAUDIBLE). So, we’ve got to stop everything. This is Colorado congressman calls Obama a tar baby. We will take a break and be but don’t tar baby me. Do not tar baby me. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: OK. So, that’s all from, in fact, this week. I stand by my theory that the dead-enders and the profiteers and the people who used the president’s race against him for political purposes are sticking with the birther thing. But I am still sorry I got that other sound bite wrong. That’s why we call it “Department of Corrections.” I’m sorry. And this is what qualifies as an apology and retraction at MSNBC. As if it's possible, making matters worse, rather than any punishment for Maddow's mistake, NBC rewarded her by giving her a guest appearance on Sunday's “Meet the Press.” Gives you a lot of confidence in the integrity of these so-called “news” divisions, doesn't it?
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