Tehran bars special rapporteur Ahmad Shaheed, accusing countries responsible for his appointment of hypocrisy Iran has announced that it will not permit the UN special rapporteur assigned with investigating its record of human rights to enter the country. Ahmad Shaheed, the former Maldivian foreign affairs minister, was appointed by the UN in June to look into human rights violations in Iran, leading to much criticism from the regime in Tehran. According to the Tehran Times, the state English-language newspaper, Mohammad Javad Larijani, Iran’s secretary general of the high council for human rights, said: “The western-engineered appointment of a special rapporteur for Iran is an illegal measure.” Larijani – whose brothers Ali and Sadegh Larijani are Iran’s speaker of the parliament and head of the judiciary – added: “This unilateral action makes no sense and if they want to send a special rapporteur to Iran, they should take the same measure in the case of other countries.” Shaheed’s appointment was the result of concerted warnings by various human rights organisations against Iran’s current record of human rights. In recent years, rights groups have expressed concerns over the arbitrary arrests of political activists, the sharp rise in the country’s rate of execution and claims of torture and rape inside Iran’s prisons. According to the organisations that have been monitoring Iran, in the first six months of this year an average of almost two people a day were executed. Dozens of journalists, several lawyers, political activists, members of different ethnic minorities and many political figures remain in jail with poor legal representation and little access to the outside world. In his remarks about Shaheed, Larijani objected that the countries behind the appointment of the special rapporteur had remained silent over the human rights issues surrounding “Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and Israeli jails”. “Iran has no problem with the individual who has been appointed as the special rapporteur, but the appointment of a rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran is unacceptable and Iran will not accept the decision,” he added. In a separate incident, Iran claimed on Monday that its revolutionary guards had dismantled an Iranian Kurdish opposition group based in Iraq after an operation inside Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region in the past two days that left many dead on both sides. A week ago, Iran warned that it would take military action against the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, a Kurdish rebel group based in Iraq, which Iranian officials have labelled a “terrorist organisation”. Iran United Nations Human rights Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media A recent Gallup poll had Texas Gov. Rick Perry trailing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney 4 percent to 13 percent among Republican voters. But the hosts of Fox & Friends said Sunday that Perry would have an advantage if he decides to get in the race because Romney is “obviously not a Christian.” “Only 13 percent of those people said Mitt Romney is their guy,” noted Fox News host Dave Briggs. “It looks perfect for someone like Rick Perry to get in.” “Well the Christian coalition, I think he could get a lot of money from that,” host Ainsley Earhardt predicted. “Because Romney, obviously not being a Christian — Rick Perry, he’s always on talk shows — on Christian talk shows. He has days of prayer in Texas.” “And Tony Perkins, the Family Research Council president, very well known in the Christian community. He is endorsing the governor, saying he hopes he gets in,” she added. In fact, Romney does consider himself a Christian. “There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked,” Romney said in 2007 . What do I believe about Jesus Christ?” “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.”
Continue reading …NYTimes Critics Vindicated: Public Editor Dresses Down Dubious Article Critical of Natural Gas Industry
July 18, 2011 No Comment
New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane gave a dressing down to reporter Ian Urbina’s heavily criticized recent Sunday front-page article on natural gas extraction, “Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush,” in his Sunday column, “Clashing Views on the Future of Natural Gas .” The benign headline concealed a reasonably incisive critique, accusing Urbina of making unsubstantiated claims and failing to provide sufficient opposing views.
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Graphic footage records cold-blooded killing of police captured when Taliban crossed from Afghanistan into north-west Pakistan The Pakistani Taliban have released graphic video footage of the execution of 16 Pakistani policemen and tribal guards who were captured last month following a cross-border raid from Afghanistan. The video shows a masked Taliban commander angrily denouncing the men lined up before him, hours after they were captured in a firefight. “These are the enemies of Islam,” he declares. Moments later the men are killed a hail of automatic gunfire, followed by individual shots to the head from a Taliban fighter who moves down the line of bodies, trailed by the camera. Pakistani military spokesman General Athar Abbas said the footage was authentic. It had been made in north-western Dir district in the aftermath of a 1 June cross-border raid by Pakistani militants sheltering across the border in Afghanistan’s Kunar province. “Up to 60 terrorists under the command of three leaders from Swat crossed from Afghanistan, killing 30 security personnel and burning six schools,” he said, describing the victims as a mixture of local border police and recruits from tribes. Pakistan carried out a sweeping operation against the Taliban in Swat in 2009 but some fighters and commanders fled across the border into Afghanistan. In the video, which first appeared on the LiveLeak website, the Taliban leader accuses the men of being responsible for the execution of six children in Swat. “We will avenge the death of the children by doing the same to them,” he says, before opening fire. The footage underscores the ruthlessness of fighting in Pakistan’s border areas, where the army has also faced allegations of massacres. Last year a separate video showed uniformed men clinically executing six suspected militants, reportedly in Swat. The army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, promised to investigate the shootings last October but has yet to publish any findings. Abbas said preliminary findings were “inconclusive” but could not say when the probe would be finalised. The latest video highlights wider tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the eastern border area, where uneasy neighbours have traded angry accusations in recent months. Since last year Pakistan has complained of raids into its territory by Pakistani Taliban fighters sheltering in parts of Kunar and Nangarhar provinces that were previously occupied by US forces. The Pakistani army has responded with intense cross-border artillery barrages that have killed up to 50 people and caused up to 12,000 Afghan civilians to flee their homes, according to United Nations and Afghan officials. The shelling has whipped up a furious storm of protest in Kabul, with loud denunciations from President Hamid Karzai’s government, but Afghan security forces have not retaliated militarily. The US military has refused to intervene. Washington has withdrawn all its forces from Nangarhar and most from Kunar, but special forces teams still operate in the area, carrying out raids on Taliban commanders. The tensions underscore the growing military complexities as western forces, regional armies and myriad guerrilla groups manoeuvre in anticipated of expected peace talks. The Pakistani indignation at cross-border raids is a change from the predominant narrative of recent years, when the country has long faced allegations that its intelligence and military have allowed the Afghan Taliban to use bases inside Pakistan to attack western forces in Afghanistan. Taliban Afghanistan Pakistan Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
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Deal offers 1% boost to equipment budget from 2015 to 2030, but includes closure of a number of army and RAF barracks The Treasury and Ministry of Defence have agreed to a last-minute package offering the armed forces modest future spending increases in return for hefty cuts now to plug a £43bn gap in existing commitments, the Guardian has been told. Liam Fox, the defence secretary, is expected to announce the package, including the closure of a number of RAF and army barracks, to the Commons. In a move likely to provoke bitter controversy he is expected to confirm that the army will shrink by a further 10,000 soldiers to 84,000, its smallest size in more than a century. Last year’s defence review cuts the army by 7,000 from a total of more than 100,000 by 2015 when British troops will no longer have a combat role in Afghanistan. The fresh round of cuts is likely to mean the end of some infantry battalions. Fox will say the number of fully trained reserves of all three branches of the armed forces – the navy, army and air force – will increase from slightly more than 20,000 now to 35,000 by the year 2015. This will bring the proportion of reserves to regular service personnel more in line with other countries including the US. One of the reserves’ priority tasks will be “homeland security”. Beefing up the reserves will cost an estimated £1.5bn. In addition, the Treasury has agreed that the armed forces will benefit from a 1% real term increase – taking inflation into account – in their equipment budget from 2015 to 2020. It is rare for government departments to be offered such rises in advance but David Cameron has repeatedly backed pleas from defence chiefs for real term rises in their budget after the current four-year spending review period. The gap between the defence budget and equipment programmes by previous governments has hitherto been estimated at £38bn. Defence officials say Bernard Gray, the new head of MoD procurement, has identified a further £5bn worth of over-commitments. RAF Leuchars will close, leaving Lossiemouth the only RAF base in Scotland. Leuchars will become an army base housing some of the 20,000 British troops due to leave Germany by 2020. RAF Cottesmore in Rutland will also make way for the army while military barracks in Kirknewton, Edinburgh, in Bassingbourn and Waterbeach – which are both near Cambridge – and in Woodbridge near Ipswich will be sold off, Fox will announce. Military Defence policy Liam Fox Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …NBC’s Curry Touts Dalai Lama Giving ‘Comfort’ to Obama During ‘Fierce Struggle’ With GOP
July 18, 2011 No Comment
In an interview with the Dalai Lama aired on Monday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry bizarrely asked the Tibetan spiritual leader about the debt ceiling fight in Congress: “The President is in a fierce struggle with his political opponents over the future of the nation's finances. What is the best way, your best advice, in how to find compromise with those you deeply disagree with?” [ Audio available here ] The Dalai Lama responded by saying both sides “must work together” to come to a deal: “this is economic problem. It is not the interest of this party or that party. It's a national sort of interest.” Curry noted how, “The Dalai lama says he offered President Obama comfort,” during a weekend meeting at the White House.
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A new survey shows one fifth of parents have taken an under-five to a festival. Is this a good idea? And if so, how do you make them sit through the Low Anthem? Try these tips … It was early Saturday afternoon at Larmer Tree Gardens, home of End of the Road festival. The Broken Family Band had taken to the stage and, as their opening chords rang out, my son – then five years old – flung himself to the ground at my feet. He clutched his hands to his ears and screamed: “No! No! No!” It’s not the kind of experience that leaves any remotely diligent parent thinking they’ve made the right choice about the weekend’s family entertainment. Nevertheless, according to a survey of 1,500 parents conducted for the baby and parenting website gurgle.com , a fifth of mums and dads have taken an under-five to a music festival in the past year. In the event, we had a decent time at End of the Road. My daughter – then nine – made a fortune collecting plastic glasses and claiming back the deposits. My son enjoyed the circus skills workshops and messing around in the woods. It was certainly a much happier experience than Latitude in 2007, when I had to threaten a drunk teen who was trying to push me and my son – three at that point – out of our spot at the front of stage for I’m from Barcelona . I can’t help but have mixed feelings about kids and festivals. On the one hand, every time I see one of those stories about someone giving birth at Glastonbury, the Daily Mail reader that lurks inside me insists the child should be taken into care immediately and the parents prosecuted. I feel only pity when I see photos of kids in buggies mired in several feet of mud. On the other, people I know and like, and on whom I have never called social services, take their kids to big festivals every year and the kids appear – at this stage – undamaged by the experience. It might be appropriate, though, to offer some guidance to those thinking about embarking on the family festival experience for the first time. 1. Smaller is better The bigger the crowd, the greater your paranoia about your kids disappearing. At End of the Road, it was possible for me to show my daughter where I was standing by the main stage and allow her to wander off, knowing where to find me. I wouldn’t try that at Reading. 2. Don’t expect to hear much music There’s a fighting chance your little ones will not want to listen to an hour of some bearded American with an acoustic guitar singing about death. They maywell find plenty to entertain them around a festival site, but it’s likely none of it will be musical. Ask yourself: do I really want to spend several hundred quid to hear no more than a couple of hours of music all weekend? Alternatively, go with another family so you can do babysitting shifts, enabling each set of parents to see some music unencumbered. 3. Don’t be too protective Your children will see and hear things you might prefer they didn’t. It can’t be avoided, so don’t sweat it. Equally, you’re in a large crowd of people and none of them – literally none – care about your parenting needs. So don’t set up a large picnic blanket with parasols and sunshades in front of the main stage so you can hear the music without your kids getting sunburnt. That is selfish and antisocial. 4. Nevertheless, some rules of parenting still apply Just because you’re at a festival, it’s not Lord of the Flies. It’s astonishing how many parents think they can let their kids turn feral the minute they’re on site. So, encourage your child not to take others’ food and drink, not to wreak carnage on other children who are playing their own games, not to treat the facilities as a giant adventure playground. 5. Go to a festival where you can go in and out easily You might find the kids’ facilities at the festival of your choice to be massively overburdened. It’s no fun for your kids to wait an hour for a five-minute go at making a fairy out of twigs and discarded gaffer tape. So it’s worth picking a festival that’s near other things, which you can easily drive to without facing an hour’s walk to your car and then enormous hassle trying to get back in. Our favourite thing at Latitude was spending Saturday morning on Southwold beach. We occupied the mornings at End of the Road by visiting Monkey World and going fossil hunting on the Jurassic shore. It made the kids much more amenable to the Low Anthem a couple of hours later. 6. Don’t be afraid to stay offsite Chances are you’re not going to be getting wildly intoxicated, so you’re likely to be able to drive away at the end of the evening. Rested kids are happy kids, and they might get a better night’s sleep in a local B&B than in a tent with some campers hosting an impromptu rave next door. This is not a fashionable view, I know. But it works for me. Pop and rock Festivals Children Michael Hann guardian.co.uk
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UKFI – which controls taxpayers’ stakes in RBS and Lloyds – calls for further clarity over work of the independent commission on banking and other regulators Uncertainty about banking regulation is holding back government plans to sell shares in Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, the body that controls the taxpayers’ stakes in the bailed-out banks warned on Monday. UK Financial Investments (UKFI), in its annual report , puts the taxpayer losses for the two banks at £13bn, but makes clear that it is ready to seize any opportunity to begin selling the shares. David Cooksey, chairman of UKFI, points to a number of regulatory uncertainties, notably the independent commission on banking (ICB). Chaired by Sir John Vickers, the commission has already indicated that he wants banks to “ringfence” their high street business from their riskier investment banking arm and hold more capital. “We believe it is important that the government is not seen to be a permanent investor in UK financial institutions. We therefore await further clarity emerging in relation to the work of the ICB and the other regulatory changes … before we will be able to recommend the start of the process of selling the government’s shareholdings,” Cooksey said. UKFI’s chief executive, Robin Budenberg, said that the market is being monitored “so we are ready to capitalise on suitable disposal opportunities as they emerge”. “The evolution of value in Lloyds Banking Group and RBS will be heavily determined by external factors over the next few years – in particular the speed and strength of recovery of the UK economy and the other markets in which the banks operate, and the resolution of current international and domestic policy debates on reform of the regulatory framework for banking,” Budenberg said. While shares in Lloyds and RBS remain below the average prices at which they were bought by the taxpayer – 72.2p and 50.2p – making it difficult for any sell-off to proceed, UKFI has begun the process of selling Northern Rock , nationalised in February 2008. The annual report provides more information on the options considered for Northern Rock – which has divided into a new bank that is lending again and a “bad” bank that has been merged with the mortgage book of Bradford & Bingley. “A full range of options was analysed, including a sale process where Northern Rock plc could be acquired by a new entrant or in-market player (including remutualisation through a sale to an existing mutual organisation), a standalone remutualisation and a public share offering,” UKFI said. “The risk-adjusted financial assessment indicated that a sale to a single buyer would likely deliver greatest value to the taxpayer. This assessment was principally based on the strategic premium a bidder could be willing to pay, economies of scale that might be achieved in a combination and potential bidder interest in the company,” it added. Remutualisation of Northern Rock – favoured by some campaigners for banking reform – would involve “gifting” existing shares to mutual members, UKFI said. UKFI paid £85,000 of bonuses for the performance year 1 December 2009 – 30 November 2010, of which £36,000 was paid out and £49,000 was retained because bonuses are deferred over three years and subject to clawback in line with the arrangements now in place at the banks in which UKFI has stakes. The average prices at which the taxpayer bought shares in the banks falls to 63.1p for Lloyds if fees paid to exit the asset protection scheme – which protects toxic loans for RBS – are included and to 49.9p if fees paid by RBS are included. UKFI’s calculations on the losses on the stakes is taken at 31 March when RBS was trading at 40.49p and Lloyds at 58.09p. The shares have fallen further since then, to 33.5p and 43p respectively. Banking Financial sector Lloyds Banking Group Royal Bank of Scotland Regulators Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …No, it’s not Elizabeth Warren, but Richard Cordray should be considered a worthy substitute. He certainly has the credibility and the endorsement by none other than Warren herself. Columbus Dispatch: President Barack Obama will nominate former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head a powerful new consumer protection agency, White House officials said. At a White House event Monday, Obama will announce his choice of Cordray, 52, who is currently serving as director of enforcement for the new agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren, who hand-picked Cordray to serve in the agency shortly after his loss in last November’s elections, expressed support for his selection. “Rich has always had my strong support because he is tough and he is smart-and that’s exactly the combination this new agency needs,” she said. “He was one of the first senior leaders I recruited for the agency, and his work and commitment have made it clear that he will make a stellar director.” This appointment would seem to bolster the argument that Warren will challenge Scott Brown for the Senate seat he and the Tea Party snatched away from Democrats in January 2010. Oh, by the way…Cordray is a 5-time undefeated Jeopardy champion too, with some impressive educational credentials to go with the resume. I double-dog dare those Republican Senators to think they can toss questions at a guy who can probably remember the last gaffe they made on Fox News. They risk abject humiliation.
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Paul Allen, who claimed a Harry Potter plot was lifted from another book, failed to meet a court payment deadline A claim that JK Rowling lifted the plot of one of her Harry Potter books from the work of another writer has been struck out after the claimant failed to meet a deadline for paying the first instalment of £1.5m into court as security for costs. The court of appeal ordered last week that the claimant, Paul Allen, trustee of the estate of Adrian Jacobs, who died in 1997, should pay the first part of the money into court by 4pm on Friday last week, or the case would be struck out. The claim has now failed as no payment was made. The move marks the end of a bitterly fought battle in which Rowling was accused of having lifted the plot of the fourth book in the series – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – from Jacobs’s book, Willy the Wizard. She and her publisher, Bloomsbury, had faced a demand for more than A$1bn (£659m) in damages. Solicitor David Hooper, a partner with the law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, which represented Bloomsbury, said: “They have not paid the money into court. “The whole thing is a scandal – it has been going on for seven years. It was an absolutely ludicrous case.” The claimants had spent well over £1m, he said. Rowling has described the claim that her book was copied from Willy the Wizard as “not only unfounded but absurd”, and said she had never even seen the book until Allen’s claim was launched in 2004. Her solicitor, Gideon Benaim, a partner at Schillings, said: “An enormous amount of time has been wasted having to defend against this claim, when it was quite obvious to us from the outset that it had no chance of success. “As the judge noted, those behind the claim set about publicising the case with a view to exerting pressure and promoting their ‘book’. Quite how they ever thought that we would succumb to pressure indicates a complete lack of understanding on their part. We are glad that the substantive action is now at an end.” Mr Justice Kitchin ordered the payment into court in March, saying that Allen should pay security for 65% of the costs faced by Rowling and her publisher, Bloomsbury. There were to be three staged payments – the first, of £322,691 for Bloomsbury’s costs and £571,613 for Rowling’s costs, to be made by 21 April; the second, £24,650 for Bloomsbury’s costs and £178,441 for Rowling’s costs, to follow by 5 August; and the final payments, of £129,373 for Bloomsbury’s costs and £318,975 for Rowling’s, to be made by 11 November. The court of appeal rejected the appeal against that decision last Thursday, saying the first payment should be made by 4pm on Friday or the case would be struck out. The same claim had already been comprehensively rejected in the US, where a judge in the Manhattan-based US district court for the southern district of New York said that “the contrast between the total concept and feel of the works is so stark that any serious comparison of the two strains credulity”. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was 734 pages long while the Willy the Wizard book consisted of just 16 pages of text, the judge said. He added that the Willy the Wizard book was “entirely devoid of a moral message or intellectual depth”, in contrast to Goblet of Fire, a cumulative work in which one scene built on another, the storyline was highly developed and complex, and there was “a highly developed moral core” and overarching messages were conveyed through the plot. Mr Justice Kitchin, sitting in the chancery division of the high court, had ordered the security for costs payment after having rejected an application by Rowling and Bloomsbury for summary judgment, although he thought the plagiarism claim had an “improbable” chance of success. But he also made it clear that he was unhappy with the way the litigation was being conducted, and the behaviour of Allen and people associated with him. Allen, he said, was a nominal claimant – he was in truth suing for the benefit of another. But the evidence from Allen, a property developer, about the means available to him and those supporting him, was “far from full or candid”. There were also indications of a want of good faith on the part of Allen and those associated with him, and those behind the claim “have also engaged in what I think the defendants fairly describe as thinly veiled threats to publicise the allegation that Ms Rowling has engaged in plagiarism”. David Markson, literary agent for the Jacobs estate, and his brother, Max Markson, a public relations executive in Australia, had tried to pressure Rowling into a settlement and had warned that failure to settle the claim would lead to “unwelcome publicity”, the judge said. Harry Potter JK Rowling guardian.co.uk
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