Ali Abdullah Saleh appears on TV in broadcast from Saudi Arabia, his first public appearance since assassination attempt Yemen’s president has lashed out at opponents seeking to drive him from power in his first public appearance since he was injured in an assassination attempt last month that left him appearing stiff and weakened. Sitting rigid in a chair, his hair covered with a cloth and his hands wrapped in white bandages, Ali Abdullah Saleh accused “terrorist elements” of carrying out the 3 June attack and criticised his opponents for trying to topple him. He wore a white robe and his face appeared noticeably darker than before the attack. “Many have understood democracy incorrectly, through incorrect practices,” Saleh said in a seven-minute, pre-recorded video broadcast on Yemen state TV from Saudi Arabia, where he is receiving treatment. Saleh said he has undergone more than eight “successful operations,” adding to speculation about the severity of his injuries. Without naming any particular parties or groups, he called for dialogue as the only way to end the country’s crisis. “Where are the conscious people? Where are the honest people? Where are the believers and the men who fear Allah? Why don’t they stand with dialogue?” he said. “They should stand with dialogue so we can find solutions.” More than four months of popular uprising seeking to push the longtime ruler from power have shaken the impoverished corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Saleh has been in treatment in Saudi Arabia since 5 June after being injured in a bomb attack at his palace compound. Yemen Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest guardian.co.uk
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Sensational, satisfying, surreal … an explosive final chapter puts the magic back into the Harry Potter franchise. WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS “It all ends,” says the poster slogan. A potentially grim statement of the obvious, of course, yet the Potter saga could hardly have ended on a better note. With one miraculous flourish of its wand, the franchise has restored the essential magic to the Potter legend – which had been starting to sag and drift in recent movies – zapping us all with a cracking final chapter, which looks far superior to CS Lewis’s The Last Battle or JRR Tolkien’s The Return of the King . It’s dramatically satisfying, spectacular and terrifically exciting, easily justifying the decision to split the last book into two. Here is where the Harry Potter series gets its groove back, with a final confrontation between Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and our young hero, and with the sensational revelation of Harry’s destiny, which Dumbledore had been keeping secret from him. When stout-hearted young Neville Longbottom (a scene-stealer from Matthew Lewis) steps forward to denounce the dark lord in the final courtyard scene, I was on the edge of my seat. And when, in that final “coda”, the middle-age Harry Potter gently hugs his little boy before sending him off for his first term at Hogwarts – well, what can I say? I think I must have had something in my eye. The colossal achievement of this series really is something to wonder at. The Harry Potter movies showed us their characters growing older in real time: unlike Just William or Bart Simpson, Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry was going to grow up like a normal person and never before has any film – or any book – brought home to me how terribly brief childhood is. The Potter movies weren’t just an adaptation of a series of books, but a living, evolving collaborative phenomenon between page and screen. The first movie, Philosopher’s Stone , came out in 2001, when JK Rowling was working on the fifth book, Order of the Phoenix , and when no one – perhaps not even the author herself – knew precisely how it was going to end. The movies developed just behind the books, and it’s surely impossible to read them without being influenced by the films. This is most true for Robbie Coltrane’s endlessly lovable, definitive performance as Hagrid . In this final episode, Harry (Radcliffe), Hermione ( Emma Watson ) and Ron ( Rupert Grint ) continue their battle to find and destroy the “horcruxes” that the sinister Voldemort needs so he can stay alive for all eternity: these are objects in which the fragments of souls are trapped and whose vital, spiritual force Voldemort, that hateful parasite, can siphon off for his own ends. Harry and his friends track down these horcruxes, but the last one is a puzzle. As the forces of good assemble at Hogwarts for the final showdown with Voldemort and his hordes, Harry knows only that the most vital horcrux is actually in the castle, very close at hand. There are some superb set-piece scenes – and now the plot has so much more zing, these scenes have a power that comparable moments in earlier movies did not have. When Harry, Ron and Hermione insinuate themselves into Gringotts Bank to steal the sword of Gryffindor, the effect is bizarre, surreal and macabre: drawing on the influence of Lewis Carroll and Terry Gilliam. It is a great moment when Severus Snape , played with magnificently adenoidal disdain by Alan Rickman, is attacked by Voldemort’s snake Nagini, and we witness this only from behind a frosted glass screen – a nice touch from director David Yates . London-dwelling Potter fans will, as before, be intrigued to see how the ornate St Pancras railway station is used to represent King’s Cross, from where the Hogwarts train traditionally departs. Millions of tourists are undoubtedly convinced that this building is, in fact, King’s Cross. It may be forced simply to change its name. We get passionate, but somehow touchingly innocent screen kisses between Harry and Ginny (Bonnie Wright) and, of course, between Ron and Hermione. In the midst of the battle, Neville declares that he is going to find Luna (Evanna Lynch) for a snog: “I’m mad about her! About time I told her, since we’re both probably going to be dead by dawn!” But these love stories are always subordinate to the all-important battle between good and evil. The crucial moment of the film is where, I admit, I have a quibble: it is gripping and even moving when Harry realises what his destiny is, and sets out to fulfil it. Yet the exact rationale for his ultimate survival may be a little obscure, and perhaps even Potter-diehards may suspect that in the film there is a touch of having your cake and eating it. Well, no matter. This is such an entertaining, beguiling, charming and exciting picture. It reminded me of the thrill I felt on seeing the very first one, 10 years ago. And Radcliffe’s Harry Potter has emerged as a complex, confident, vulnerable, courageous character – most likable, sadly, at the point where we must leave him for ever. Wait. I’ve got that darn thing in my eye again … Rating: 4/5 Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe Emma Watson Rupert Grint Ralph Fiennes Science fiction and fantasy Action and adventure Harry Potter JK Rowling Peter Bradshaw guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Sensational, satisfying, surreal … an explosive final chapter puts the magic back into the Harry Potter franchise. WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS “It all ends,” says the poster slogan. A potentially grim statement of the obvious, of course, yet the Potter saga could hardly have ended on a better note. With one miraculous flourish of its wand, the franchise has restored the essential magic to the Potter legend – which had been starting to sag and drift in recent movies – zapping us all with a cracking final chapter, which looks far superior to CS Lewis’s The Last Battle or JRR Tolkien’s The Return of the King . It’s dramatically satisfying, spectacular and terrifically exciting, easily justifying the decision to split the last book into two. Here is where the Harry Potter series gets its groove back, with a final confrontation between Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and our young hero, and with the sensational revelation of Harry’s destiny, which Dumbledore had been keeping secret from him. When stout-hearted young Neville Longbottom (a scene-stealer from Matthew Lewis) steps forward to denounce the dark lord in the final courtyard scene, I was on the edge of my seat. And when, in that final “coda”, the middle-age Harry Potter gently hugs his little boy before sending him off for his first term at Hogwarts – well, what can I say? I think I must have had something in my eye. The colossal achievement of this series really is something to wonder at. The Harry Potter movies showed us their characters growing older in real time: unlike Just William or Bart Simpson, Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry was going to grow up like a normal person and never before has any film – or any book – brought home to me how terribly brief childhood is. The Potter movies weren’t just an adaptation of a series of books, but a living, evolving collaborative phenomenon between page and screen. The first movie, Philosopher’s Stone , came out in 2001, when JK Rowling was working on the fifth book, Order of the Phoenix , and when no one – perhaps not even the author herself – knew precisely how it was going to end. The movies developed just behind the books, and it’s surely impossible to read them without being influenced by the films. This is most true for Robbie Coltrane’s endlessly lovable, definitive performance as Hagrid . In this final episode, Harry (Radcliffe), Hermione ( Emma Watson ) and Ron ( Rupert Grint ) continue their battle to find and destroy the “horcruxes” that the sinister Voldemort needs so he can stay alive for all eternity: these are objects in which the fragments of souls are trapped and whose vital, spiritual force Voldemort, that hateful parasite, can siphon off for his own ends. Harry and his friends track down these horcruxes, but the last one is a puzzle. As the forces of good assemble at Hogwarts for the final showdown with Voldemort and his hordes, Harry knows only that the most vital horcrux is actually in the castle, very close at hand. There are some superb set-piece scenes – and now the plot has so much more zing, these scenes have a power that comparable moments in earlier movies did not have. When Harry, Ron and Hermione insinuate themselves into Gringotts Bank to steal the sword of Gryffindor, the effect is bizarre, surreal and macabre: drawing on the influence of Lewis Carroll and Terry Gilliam. It is a great moment when Severus Snape , played with magnificently adenoidal disdain by Alan Rickman, is attacked by Voldemort’s snake Nagini, and we witness this only from behind a frosted glass screen – a nice touch from director David Yates . London-dwelling Potter fans will, as before, be intrigued to see how the ornate St Pancras railway station is used to represent King’s Cross, from where the Hogwarts train traditionally departs. Millions of tourists are undoubtedly convinced that this building is, in fact, King’s Cross. It may be forced simply to change its name. We get passionate, but somehow touchingly innocent screen kisses between Harry and Ginny (Bonnie Wright) and, of course, between Ron and Hermione. In the midst of the battle, Neville declares that he is going to find Luna (Evanna Lynch) for a snog: “I’m mad about her! About time I told her, since we’re both probably going to be dead by dawn!” But these love stories are always subordinate to the all-important battle between good and evil. The crucial moment of the film is where, I admit, I have a quibble: it is gripping and even moving when Harry realises what his destiny is, and sets out to fulfil it. Yet the exact rationale for his ultimate survival may be a little obscure, and perhaps even Potter-diehards may suspect that in the film there is a touch of having your cake and eating it. Well, no matter. This is such an entertaining, beguiling, charming and exciting picture. It reminded me of the thrill I felt on seeing the very first one, 10 years ago. And Radcliffe’s Harry Potter has emerged as a complex, confident, vulnerable, courageous character – most likable, sadly, at the point where we must leave him for ever. Wait. I’ve got that darn thing in my eye again … Rating: 4/5 Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe Emma Watson Rupert Grint Ralph Fiennes Science fiction and fantasy Action and adventure Harry Potter JK Rowling Peter Bradshaw guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Sensational, satisfying, surreal … an explosive final chapter puts the magic back into the Harry Potter franchise. WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS “It all ends,” says the poster slogan. A potentially grim statement of the obvious, of course, yet the Potter saga could hardly have ended on a better note. With one miraculous flourish of its wand, the franchise has restored the essential magic to the Potter legend – which had been starting to sag and drift in recent movies – zapping us all with a cracking final chapter, which looks far superior to CS Lewis’s The Last Battle or JRR Tolkien’s The Return of the King . It’s dramatically satisfying, spectacular and terrifically exciting, easily justifying the decision to split the last book into two. Here is where the Harry Potter series gets its groove back, with a final confrontation between Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and our young hero, and with the sensational revelation of Harry’s destiny, which Dumbledore had been keeping secret from him. When stout-hearted young Neville Longbottom (a scene-stealer from Matthew Lewis) steps forward to denounce the dark lord in the final courtyard scene, I was on the edge of my seat. And when, in that final “coda”, the middle-age Harry Potter gently hugs his little boy before sending him off for his first term at Hogwarts – well, what can I say? I think I must have had something in my eye. The colossal achievement of this series really is something to wonder at. The Harry Potter movies showed us their characters growing older in real time: unlike Just William or Bart Simpson, Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry was going to grow up like a normal person and never before has any film – or any book – brought home to me how terribly brief childhood is. The Potter movies weren’t just an adaptation of a series of books, but a living, evolving collaborative phenomenon between page and screen. The first movie, Philosopher’s Stone , came out in 2001, when JK Rowling was working on the fifth book, Order of the Phoenix , and when no one – perhaps not even the author herself – knew precisely how it was going to end. The movies developed just behind the books, and it’s surely impossible to read them without being influenced by the films. This is most true for Robbie Coltrane’s endlessly lovable, definitive performance as Hagrid . In this final episode, Harry (Radcliffe), Hermione ( Emma Watson ) and Ron ( Rupert Grint ) continue their battle to find and destroy the “horcruxes” that the sinister Voldemort needs so he can stay alive for all eternity: these are objects in which the fragments of souls are trapped and whose vital, spiritual force Voldemort, that hateful parasite, can siphon off for his own ends. Harry and his friends track down these horcruxes, but the last one is a puzzle. As the forces of good assemble at Hogwarts for the final showdown with Voldemort and his hordes, Harry knows only that the most vital horcrux is actually in the castle, very close at hand. There are some superb set-piece scenes – and now the plot has so much more zing, these scenes have a power that comparable moments in earlier movies did not have. When Harry, Ron and Hermione insinuate themselves into Gringotts Bank to steal the sword of Gryffindor, the effect is bizarre, surreal and macabre: drawing on the influence of Lewis Carroll and Terry Gilliam. It is a great moment when Severus Snape , played with magnificently adenoidal disdain by Alan Rickman, is attacked by Voldemort’s snake Nagini, and we witness this only from behind a frosted glass screen – a nice touch from director David Yates . London-dwelling Potter fans will, as before, be intrigued to see how the ornate St Pancras railway station is used to represent King’s Cross, from where the Hogwarts train traditionally departs. Millions of tourists are undoubtedly convinced that this building is, in fact, King’s Cross. It may be forced simply to change its name. We get passionate, but somehow touchingly innocent screen kisses between Harry and Ginny (Bonnie Wright) and, of course, between Ron and Hermione. In the midst of the battle, Neville declares that he is going to find Luna (Evanna Lynch) for a snog: “I’m mad about her! About time I told her, since we’re both probably going to be dead by dawn!” But these love stories are always subordinate to the all-important battle between good and evil. The crucial moment of the film is where, I admit, I have a quibble: it is gripping and even moving when Harry realises what his destiny is, and sets out to fulfil it. Yet the exact rationale for his ultimate survival may be a little obscure, and perhaps even Potter-diehards may suspect that in the film there is a touch of having your cake and eating it. Well, no matter. This is such an entertaining, beguiling, charming and exciting picture. It reminded me of the thrill I felt on seeing the very first one, 10 years ago. And Radcliffe’s Harry Potter has emerged as a complex, confident, vulnerable, courageous character – most likable, sadly, at the point where we must leave him for ever. Wait. I’ve got that darn thing in my eye again … Rating: 4/5 Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe Emma Watson Rupert Grint Ralph Fiennes Science fiction and fantasy Action and adventure Harry Potter JK Rowling Peter Bradshaw guardian.co.uk
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Oil executives criticised for conflicting accounts of breach and regulators accused of failing to ensure safe operation ExxonMobil and the Obama administration faced a growing credibility gap on Thursday over their management of a pipeline break that has fouled the Yellowstone river . Clean-up crews have yet to reach the site of the pipeline break nearly a week after the rupture, which leaked 42,000 US gallons (159,000 litres) of oil into the Yellowstone, one of the last undammed rivers left in America. State officials in Montana criticised oil company executives for offering conflicting accounts of the pipeline breach and its safety record. SkyTruth , which came to prominence last year for satellite maps tracking the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has also questioned Exxon’s initial estimates of the size of the leak. SkyTruth’s founder, John Amos, said his calculations suggested a leak of 63,000 US gallons, or nearly half again as much as Exxon’s estimate of about 42,000 US gallons. Environmental organisations, meanwhile, accused federal government regulators of failing to ensure safe operation of the pipeline until it was too late. “We don’t need regulators to tell us that a pipeline gushing oil into our rivers is not operating safely. We need them to create rules and standards that ensure pipelines don’t do that in the first place and we don’t seem to have that,” said Anthony Swift, energy campaigner at the Natural Resources Defence Council . The pipeline safety authority ordered Exxon to make safety improvements to the pipeline on Tuesday – four days after the breach. The oil company and federal government officials believe that severe flooding eroded the riverbed in which the pipeline was buried, exposing the structure to damage. Ken Olson, the mayor of the nearby town of Laurel, Montana, said the Exxon crew were at work two weeks ago trying to protect the pipeline. He said he saw crews building a berm around a valve. “We’ve experienced erosion last year, and again this year we saw even more. The amount of erosion we experienced this year I would consider, as an amateur, to be a 100-year event. I never saw anything like it,” Olson said. The record erosion has turned the focus towards the depth of the pipeline below the riverbed. In filings with the pipeline safety authority last December, Exxon claimed that the pipeline was at least 5 feet (1.5 metres) beneath the riverbed. The pipeline authority had faulted the oil company for a series of other probable violations in July 2010. After a temporary shutdown of the pipeline last May, following safety concerns being raised by local officials, Exxon reported on 1 June the line was at a depth of 12 feet. However, ExxonMobil Pipeline Company president Gary Pruessing said on Wednesday he could not verify that figure. It was the third discrepancy in Exxon’s account of the pipeline. The oil company had initially claimed that it took 30 minutes to shut off the pipeline, when it fact it took 56 minutes. The company was also forced to acknowledge that oil from the ruptured pipeline had caused far wider damage than its initial claims of a 10-mile stretch of the river. The pipeline authority said aerial surveillance had detected oil as far as 240 miles away from the breach. A spokesman for the pipeline authority refused to confirm Exxon’s claims to have buried the pipeline at the greater depth of 12ft. He also gave no indication that the safety authority had directed Exxon to increase the amount of earth shielding the pipeline, despite forecasts of an unusually heavy flood season. “Exxon made two relatively reckless move. One was building a pipeline that shallow in a flood prone river. The second was to restart the pipeline in May despite heavy flooding,” said Alex Swift, the pipeline safety campaigner for the Natural Resources Defence Council. “But again a key issue here is that it was allowed to do that by the regulators.” Oil spills Rivers Exxon Mobil Oil Oil Montana Oil and gas companies Pollution United States Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Oil executives criticised for conflicting accounts of breach and regulators accused of failing to ensure safe operation ExxonMobil and the Obama administration faced a growing credibility gap on Thursday over their management of a pipeline break that has fouled the Yellowstone river . Clean-up crews have yet to reach the site of the pipeline break nearly a week after the rupture, which leaked 42,000 US gallons (159,000 litres) of oil into the Yellowstone, one of the last undammed rivers left in America. State officials in Montana criticised oil company executives for offering conflicting accounts of the pipeline breach and its safety record. SkyTruth , which came to prominence last year for satellite maps tracking the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has also questioned Exxon’s initial estimates of the size of the leak. SkyTruth’s founder, John Amos, said his calculations suggested a leak of 63,000 US gallons, or nearly half again as much as Exxon’s estimate of about 42,000 US gallons. Environmental organisations, meanwhile, accused federal government regulators of failing to ensure safe operation of the pipeline until it was too late. “We don’t need regulators to tell us that a pipeline gushing oil into our rivers is not operating safely. We need them to create rules and standards that ensure pipelines don’t do that in the first place and we don’t seem to have that,” said Anthony Swift, energy campaigner at the Natural Resources Defence Council . The pipeline safety authority ordered Exxon to make safety improvements to the pipeline on Tuesday – four days after the breach. The oil company and federal government officials believe that severe flooding eroded the riverbed in which the pipeline was buried, exposing the structure to damage. Ken Olson, the mayor of the nearby town of Laurel, Montana, said the Exxon crew were at work two weeks ago trying to protect the pipeline. He said he saw crews building a berm around a valve. “We’ve experienced erosion last year, and again this year we saw even more. The amount of erosion we experienced this year I would consider, as an amateur, to be a 100-year event. I never saw anything like it,” Olson said. The record erosion has turned the focus towards the depth of the pipeline below the riverbed. In filings with the pipeline safety authority last December, Exxon claimed that the pipeline was at least 5 feet (1.5 metres) beneath the riverbed. The pipeline authority had faulted the oil company for a series of other probable violations in July 2010. After a temporary shutdown of the pipeline last May, following safety concerns being raised by local officials, Exxon reported on 1 June the line was at a depth of 12 feet. However, ExxonMobil Pipeline Company president Gary Pruessing said on Wednesday he could not verify that figure. It was the third discrepancy in Exxon’s account of the pipeline. The oil company had initially claimed that it took 30 minutes to shut off the pipeline, when it fact it took 56 minutes. The company was also forced to acknowledge that oil from the ruptured pipeline had caused far wider damage than its initial claims of a 10-mile stretch of the river. The pipeline authority said aerial surveillance had detected oil as far as 240 miles away from the breach. A spokesman for the pipeline authority refused to confirm Exxon’s claims to have buried the pipeline at the greater depth of 12ft. He also gave no indication that the safety authority had directed Exxon to increase the amount of earth shielding the pipeline, despite forecasts of an unusually heavy flood season. “Exxon made two relatively reckless move. One was building a pipeline that shallow in a flood prone river. The second was to restart the pipeline in May despite heavy flooding,” said Alex Swift, the pipeline safety campaigner for the Natural Resources Defence Council. “But again a key issue here is that it was allowed to do that by the regulators.” Oil spills Rivers Exxon Mobil Oil Oil Montana Oil and gas companies Pollution United States Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Oil executives criticised for conflicting accounts of breach and regulators accused of failing to ensure safe operation ExxonMobil and the Obama administration faced a growing credibility gap on Thursday over their management of a pipeline break that has fouled the Yellowstone river . Clean-up crews have yet to reach the site of the pipeline break nearly a week after the rupture, which leaked 42,000 US gallons (159,000 litres) of oil into the Yellowstone, one of the last undammed rivers left in America. State officials in Montana criticised oil company executives for offering conflicting accounts of the pipeline breach and its safety record. SkyTruth , which came to prominence last year for satellite maps tracking the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has also questioned Exxon’s initial estimates of the size of the leak. SkyTruth’s founder, John Amos, said his calculations suggested a leak of 63,000 US gallons, or nearly half again as much as Exxon’s estimate of about 42,000 US gallons. Environmental organisations, meanwhile, accused federal government regulators of failing to ensure safe operation of the pipeline until it was too late. “We don’t need regulators to tell us that a pipeline gushing oil into our rivers is not operating safely. We need them to create rules and standards that ensure pipelines don’t do that in the first place and we don’t seem to have that,” said Anthony Swift, energy campaigner at the Natural Resources Defence Council . The pipeline safety authority ordered Exxon to make safety improvements to the pipeline on Tuesday – four days after the breach. The oil company and federal government officials believe that severe flooding eroded the riverbed in which the pipeline was buried, exposing the structure to damage. Ken Olson, the mayor of the nearby town of Laurel, Montana, said the Exxon crew were at work two weeks ago trying to protect the pipeline. He said he saw crews building a berm around a valve. “We’ve experienced erosion last year, and again this year we saw even more. The amount of erosion we experienced this year I would consider, as an amateur, to be a 100-year event. I never saw anything like it,” Olson said. The record erosion has turned the focus towards the depth of the pipeline below the riverbed. In filings with the pipeline safety authority last December, Exxon claimed that the pipeline was at least 5 feet (1.5 metres) beneath the riverbed. The pipeline authority had faulted the oil company for a series of other probable violations in July 2010. After a temporary shutdown of the pipeline last May, following safety concerns being raised by local officials, Exxon reported on 1 June the line was at a depth of 12 feet. However, ExxonMobil Pipeline Company president Gary Pruessing said on Wednesday he could not verify that figure. It was the third discrepancy in Exxon’s account of the pipeline. The oil company had initially claimed that it took 30 minutes to shut off the pipeline, when it fact it took 56 minutes. The company was also forced to acknowledge that oil from the ruptured pipeline had caused far wider damage than its initial claims of a 10-mile stretch of the river. The pipeline authority said aerial surveillance had detected oil as far as 240 miles away from the breach. A spokesman for the pipeline authority refused to confirm Exxon’s claims to have buried the pipeline at the greater depth of 12ft. He also gave no indication that the safety authority had directed Exxon to increase the amount of earth shielding the pipeline, despite forecasts of an unusually heavy flood season. “Exxon made two relatively reckless move. One was building a pipeline that shallow in a flood prone river. The second was to restart the pipeline in May despite heavy flooding,” said Alex Swift, the pipeline safety campaigner for the Natural Resources Defence Council. “But again a key issue here is that it was allowed to do that by the regulators.” Oil spills Rivers Exxon Mobil Oil Oil Montana Oil and gas companies Pollution United States Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …For most Americans, July 4th is a well earned day off, with good food, drink, friends, family and fireworks. A day to get away from life’s problems. However, for a very small few it’s a time to ratchet up the hostilities. Georgia Rep. Paul ” Year of the Bible’ Broun , once said this: Broun: Well, it’s all about freedom, actually. The Bible was the basis of our laws, it was the basis of the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence — the Bible was the founding source. What kind of a man of GOD couldn’t even control himself on Independence day? Political Correction: On the Fourth of July, many lawmakers set aside partisan disagreements in favor of sweeping tributes to American freedom. But not Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), who couldn’t keep his abhorrence of Americans who disagree with his political views out of his invocation at a barbecue hosted by the Cobb County GOP. As the Marietta Daily Journal reports, Broun told attendees that America is “staring down in the deep chasm of socialism and total government control” thanks to progressives who “want to destroy us from the inside.” U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Athens), who delivered the invocation, warned about the future of the U.S. “We’re standing on the precipice, staring down in the deep chasm of socialism and total government control,” Broun said. There are those who wish to destroy the U.S., Broun said, citing radical Islam and “progressives.” ” Father, there are many who want to destroy us from outside this nation,” Broun said. “Folks like al-Qaeda and the radical Islamists. But there are folks that want to destroy us from inside, the progressives and the socialists, who want to make this nation a nation that’s no longer under you, under God, but a nation that’s ruled by man .” When I hear radical Christians talk like this I’m reminded of the words Jesus said : “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Rep. Bible Broun most likely knows these very words very well, but he still spews venom every chance he can get our way. Wow. IOKIYAR
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Eneko Gogeaskoetxea Arronategui appears at an extradition court in London accused of being part of being a terrorist To the members of the Cambridge squash club, membership secretary Cyril Macq was a super fit devotee of the game, who was due on court twice on Thursday to play the game he loved. Instead he appeared at an extradition court in London accused of being a terrorist who was part of a plot in 1997 to assassinate the King of Spain, and whose escape with a co-conspirator from the clutches of the police saw a Spanish officer killed. City of Westminster magistrates court heard that Cyril Macq was a pseudonym used by Eneko Gogeaskoetxea Arronategui, who fled to Britain where he lived for several years with his family after the 1997 plot to kill the monarch was foiled. The court heard the murder attempt on King Juan Carlos was part of the campaign of violence waged by the Basque separatist group, Eta. Early on Thursday, armed police arrested him in Cambridge on a European arrest warrant issued by Spain. Hours later in a court in central London, the 44-year-old was accused of a plot to kill King Juan Carlos as he opened the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, a conspiracy foiled when a Spanish police officer challenged Arronategui, who was allegedly dressed as a gardener and secreting explosives into flower boxes. James Stansfeld, on behalf of the Spanish authorities, told the court: “The requested person was stopped whilst in the Guggenheim [museum] gardens filling garden window boxes with ammunition for grenade launchers. “They were stopped by the police. To affect his escape the police officer who stopped them was shot and killed.” The court heard as he fled the scene, Arronategui hijacked three different cars from members of the public. Mr Stansfeld said: “Those facts clearly show that this gentleman will do anything to evade capture.” He also said Arronategui, 44, had obtained identification to allow him to live under a false name. He said: “If he were to be released on bail he would be able to obtain a new false identity.” He continued: “His alleged involvement with the Eta terrorist organisation would certainly provide him with the means and indeed the contacts to hide from the authorities in this jurisdiction.” District Judge John Zani said there were “substantial grounds” for believing he would not voluntarily return to custody and no application for bail was made. The court heard the European arrest warrant accuses Arronategui of eight offences. These are membership of terrorist organisation Eta; the attempted assassination of the king of Spain; possession of ammunition; the murder of a police officer; three counts of theft of vehicles; and forgery of public documents, namely the transferring of licence plates. Asked if he would agree to extradition, Arronategui said: “I do not.” The Spanish interior ministry said police were tipped off to the Cambridge address after a Spanish national spotted Arronategui at a sports club in the city, believed to be the squash club he frequented. Steven Casey, chair of the Cambridge squash club, said the man he knew as Cyril Macq was a “regular guy” who was also his squash partner. Cyril had said he came from Biarritz in south-west France and had been a club member for six years but had only “come out of his shell” in the last 18 months. Casey added: “We talked a lot about life, our children and squash. I got the sense he spent all his spare time playing squash. He was a superfit guy. “He was our membership secretary and was willing and able to do anything, good at organisation and gave of his time.” Casey said he had recently asked Cyril if he would ever return home. The answer was no, he felt settled in Cambridge, where he worked as a computer programmer. The next hearing in his case will be on July 25 when Arronategui will appear from a prison cell by videolink. Spain Europe Eta Global terrorism Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
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• North Korea paid senior figures $3.5m, letter claims • AQ Khan ‘wants to set the historical record straight’ The story of the world’s worst case of nuclear smuggling took a new twist on Thursday when documents surfaced appearing to implicate two former Pakistani generals in the sale of uranium enrichment technology to North Korea in return for millions of dollars in cash and jewels handed over in a canvas bag and cardboard boxes of fruit. The source of the documents is AQ Khan, who confessed in 2004 to selling parts and instructions for the use of high-speed centrifuges in enriching uranium to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Extracts were published by the Washington Post, including a letter in English purportedly from a senior North Korean official to Khan in 1998 detailing payment of $3m to Pakistan’s former army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, and another half-million to Lieutenant General Zulfiqar Khan, who was involved in Pakistan’s nuclear bomb tests. Both generals denied the allegations. “What can I say. [These are] bits of old info packaged together. [There is] not an iota of truth in the allegations against me. [There is] no reason on earth for anyone to pay me for something I could not deliver,” Karamat wrote in an email to the Guardian. Lt Gen Khan told the Washington Post that the documents were “a fabrication”. The issue is seen as critically important by western governments. Seven years after Khan, the godfather of the Pakistani nuclear programme, made his public confession on Pakistani television, there is still uncertainty over the extent to which he was a rogue operator or just a salesman acting on behalf of the Pakistani state and its army. Western officials are also unsure whether the covert nuclear sales are continuing. One of the documents published on Thursday was allegedly a copy of a 1998 letter in English to him from Jon Byong Ho, then the secretary of the North Korean Workers’ party, who is believed to have masterminded the state’s covert trade in nuclear and missile technology. The document states that “the $3m have already been paid” to Karamat, and “half a million dollars” and some jewellery had been given to Lt Gen Khan, who went on to run the national water and power company. The Washington Post interviewed senior US officials who said that the document contained “accurate details of sensitive matters known only to a handful of people in Pakistan, North Korea and the United States”, and that the substance was “consistent with our knowledge” of the same events. Khan’s smuggling network was broken in 2003, and he delivered a confession on Pakistani television in February 2004 in which he admitted selling centrifuge technology for enriching uranium to Iran, North Korea and Libya to further those countries’ nuclear weapons programme. He claimed in his confession that the Pakistani government had not been complicit. Khan has since said he had been persuaded to absolve the Islamabad government in return for his freedom. He handed over his version of events to a British journalist, Simon Henderson, now an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Henderson said Khan gave him the North Korean letter “several years ago” as an “insurance policy”, but later agreed to have it published. “I think he wants to set the historical record straight,” Henderson said. “This would appear to confirm that Khan was not a rogue operator; secondly, that the military was deeply involved in what he was doing; and that thirdly, it confirms the growing concerns that the Pakistani military is not working in our interests, at best, and is duplicitous at worst.” Among the documents Khan handed over to Henderson was the written account of his activities given to Pakistani investigators in 2004, in which he claims he handed over two deliveries of cash from the North Koreans to Karamat. He said the first payment was for half a million dollars and the balance was paid once details had been agreed on how Pakistan would help Pyongyang develop technology for enriching uranium. “I personally gave the remaining $2.5m to Gen Karamat in cash at the Army House to make up the whole amount,” Khan wrote. According to the Washington Post, he claims to have delivered the money in a canvas bag and three cardboard boxes. David Albright, an expert on nuclear proliferation and author of a book on AQ Khan’s smuggling network, Peddling Peril, said he had obtained the same account some years ago but that no western government had made a judgment on its reliability. “In these documents, Khan blames everybody else, including [assassinated former prime minister] Benazir Bhutto,” Albright said. He added that he still believes Khan was the driving force behind the network, rather than a mere servant of the Pakistani state. “He had tremendous autonomy which he used to build up his network, and he used the corruption of the state to further his goals.” Pakistan North Korea Nuclear weapons Nuclear power Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
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