Father of Milly Dowler says family have paid ‘too high a price for justice’ during trial of her killer Levi Bellfield Milly Dowler’s family today spoke of the “mental torture” they endured as witnesses in the trial of her killer, Levi Bellfield, as the jury were discharged before it reached a verdict on allegations that he attempted to abduct another girl, Rachel Cowles, 11. On the steps of the Old Bailey, Milly’s father, Robert, said: “My family have had to pay too high a price for justice for Milly” and described it as a “truly mentally scarring experience on an unimaginable scale”. During the trial, Bellfield’s defence harshly scrutinised details of the Dowler family’s personal life . The family said they had been made to feel like they were the criminals. Roger Coe Salazar, chief crown prosecutor of the Crown Prosecution Service in the South East said he recognised that the family feel the “jury trial process has let them down” but hoped the pain and anguish they are presently feeling will be somewhat diluted as a result of the convictions secured”. He said the “adversarial nature of our criminal trial system in this country is designed to test the evidence given by witnesses; be they for the prosecution or defence so as to ensure safe conviction and acquittal of the innocent”. Former home secretary David Blunkett said the case gave “pause for thought” and questioned defence barristers’ actions. Earlier Mr Justice Wilkie said that publicity in the case had left him no option but to discharge the jury which had been due this morning to continue deliberations on allegations Bellfield had attempted to abduct Cowles a day before Milly was snatched three miles away in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. Judge Wilkie said he must refer the matter to the attorney-general, Dominic Grieve, over possible contempt. The judge said that there would be no retrial over Cowles and that an attempted abduction charge would lie on file. Cowles, now 21, whom the serial killer allegedly tried to abduct her the day before he snatched Milly, said she was “extremely hurt and angry that some of the media reporting has robbed me of justice”. As Bellfield refused to come to the court from his prison cell, judge Mr Justice Wilkie described him as a “cruel and pitiless killer” who had “not had the courage to come into court to face his victims and receive his sentence”. The judge on Friday sentenced the former doorman and wheelclamper to life in jail with a whole life tariff for Milly’s abduction and murder and told him he would never be released. He is thought to be the first person to have received a second whole-life sentence. Outside the court, Milly’s family welcomed the conviction, but said the trial had been a “horrifying ordeal” in which they were treated like criminals. Milly’s sister, Gemma, described the day her parents were cross-examined, during which her mother collapsed, as worse than when she was told her sister’s remains were found. Bellfield was already in prison for murdering 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange, 22, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18, in 2004. Bellfield, 43, was given three life sentences for those crimes in February 2008 and told then that he would never be released. The judge said today: “He robbed her [Milly] of a promising life, he robbed her family and friends of the joy of seeing her grow up into a self-confident, articulate and admirable young woman. “He treated her in death with total disrespect, depositing her naked body, without even a semblance of a burial, in a wood far away from her home, vulnerable to all the forces of nature.” He added: “He is marked out as a cruel and pitiless killer.” But the cruellest thing he did, added the judge, was in an attempt to divert responsibility from himself: “He instructed his lawyers in this trial to expose to the world her most private, adolescent thoughts, secrets and worries”. As Milly’s sister Gemma, sobbed, and her mother Sally and father sat quietly comforting her, the judge said Bellfield had “sought to hint she was a dark, unhappy, troubled person”, which “flew in the face ” of her family’s evidence. She was a “funny, sparky, enthusiastic teenager, fully exploring her developing emotional life,” he said. Turning to the Dowler family’s ordeal: he added Bellfield must have known that that process “could do nothing other than hugely increase the anguish of her family, particularly her mother Sally Dowler, in ways which were made dramatically clear in court”. “No one who has been on court can have been in any doubt that the Dowler family had suffered indescribable agonies during almost a decade over the loss of their beloved daughter, for which all our hearts go out to them. “In an important sense this agony may be thought to have culminated in this trial.” He added: “I appreciate that the trial process has been excruciating for them by reason of the issues the defendant instructed his lawyers to raise in his defence.” “I understand that they feel let down by the trial process in that respect. Unfortunately given the nature of the defence it was unavoidable,” he added. “All I can do is hope that they may in time come to terms with that and that the outcome of the trial in some small way contribute to their grieving process and assist them in coming to a semblance of closure.” The only sentence he could pass was one of life. The fact it was a killing of a child was an aggravating factor, as was his “macabre attempt to conceal her body”, and his “substantial record of serious violence”. He made a whole life order so Bellfield will “never be released from custody”. In addition he was sentenced to 12 years for the kidnap to run concurrently. It can now be reported that Surrey police force has apologised for missing opportunities in the hunt for Milly’s killer that could have led to Bellfield’s arrest before he went on to murder two more victims. Bellfield, who lived 50 yards from where Milly was last seen, also escaped the net when police, conducting extensive house-to-house inquiries, knocked 10 times at his rented flat without response but made no inquiries of the landlord as to who lived there. By the time they did, the flat had seen several tenants come and go, with any potential forensic evidence obliterated by redecorating and steam cleaning. Surrey’s chief constable, Mark Rowley, has privately apologised to Milly’s parents and to Cowles. He is set to meet relatives of the other victims. “Mistakes were made,” said assistant chief constable Jerry Kirkby. Outside the court, Detective Chief Inspector Maria Woodall, leading the inquiry, said she was “extremely disappointed” that the jury were discharged before they could reach a verdict on Cowles. Milly Dowler Crime Caroline Davies Karen McVeigh guardian.co.uk
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Department for Education contests ruling that former Haringey children’s boss was unfairly sacked over death of Baby P The Department for Education has confirmed that it is seeking an appeal at the supreme court against the court of appeal ruling that Sharon Shoesmith was unfairly sacked following the death of Baby P. The court of appeal ruled in May that Shoesmith was unfairly sacked . A leading employment lawyer said she could receive as much as £1m if the decision was not overturned. A DfE spokesman said: “The government thinks that it was right in principle for Sharon Shoesmith to be removed from her post as director of children’s services. “Our initial application to appeal has been turned down by the court of appeal. We have now filed an application for permission to appeal to the supreme court.” The DfE’s statement said: “There are questions of constitutional importance involved in this case, beyond the specific question about whether Ed Balls should have had a further meeting with Sharon Shoesmith before removing her. “Our initial application to appeal has been turned down by the court of appeal. We have now filed an application for permission to appeal to the supreme court.” Shoesmith was removed from her post in December 2008 by Ed Balls, who was education secretary. She was then sacked by Haringey, which said it had lost trust in her. The axe fell after regulator Ofsted published a damning report after the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly exposing failings in her department. Lawyers argued that Shoesmith, 58, had been the victim of “a flagrant breach of natural justice” and that she had been driven from her £133,000-a-year post by a media witch-hunt and political pressure. They asked Lord Neuberger, master of the rolls, sitting in London with Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Lord Justice Stanley Burnton to rule that her sacking without compensation was so legally flawed as to be null and void, and that she still remained entitled to her full salary and pension from Haringey up to the present day. Allowing her challenge, the judges ruled that Balls and Haringey had acted too hastily and in a way that was procedurally unfair because Shoesmith had not been given a proper chance to put her case. Peter Connelly died in August 2007 at the hands of his mother Tracey Connelly, her lover Steven Barker and their lodger, Barker’s brother Jason Owen. The little boy had suffered 50 injuries despite receiving 60 visits from social workers, doctors and police over the final eight months of his life. A series of reviews identified missed opportunities when officials could have saved his life if they had acted properly on the warning signs. Baby P Child protection Ofsted Employment tribunals Local government guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Department for Education contests ruling that former Haringey children’s boss was unfairly sacked over death of Baby P The Department for Education has confirmed that it is seeking an appeal at the supreme court against the court of appeal ruling that Sharon Shoesmith was unfairly sacked following the death of Baby P. The court of appeal ruled in May that Shoesmith was unfairly sacked . A leading employment lawyer said she could receive as much as £1m if the decision was not overturned. A DfE spokesman said: “The government thinks that it was right in principle for Sharon Shoesmith to be removed from her post as director of children’s services. “Our initial application to appeal has been turned down by the court of appeal. We have now filed an application for permission to appeal to the supreme court.” The DfE’s statement said: “There are questions of constitutional importance involved in this case, beyond the specific question about whether Ed Balls should have had a further meeting with Sharon Shoesmith before removing her. “Our initial application to appeal has been turned down by the court of appeal. We have now filed an application for permission to appeal to the supreme court.” Shoesmith was removed from her post in December 2008 by Ed Balls, who was education secretary. She was then sacked by Haringey, which said it had lost trust in her. The axe fell after regulator Ofsted published a damning report after the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly exposing failings in her department. Lawyers argued that Shoesmith, 58, had been the victim of “a flagrant breach of natural justice” and that she had been driven from her £133,000-a-year post by a media witch-hunt and political pressure. They asked Lord Neuberger, master of the rolls, sitting in London with Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Lord Justice Stanley Burnton to rule that her sacking without compensation was so legally flawed as to be null and void, and that she still remained entitled to her full salary and pension from Haringey up to the present day. Allowing her challenge, the judges ruled that Balls and Haringey had acted too hastily and in a way that was procedurally unfair because Shoesmith had not been given a proper chance to put her case. Peter Connelly died in August 2007 at the hands of his mother Tracey Connelly, her lover Steven Barker and their lodger, Barker’s brother Jason Owen. The little boy had suffered 50 injuries despite receiving 60 visits from social workers, doctors and police over the final eight months of his life. A series of reviews identified missed opportunities when officials could have saved his life if they had acted properly on the warning signs. Baby P Child protection Ofsted Employment tribunals Local government guardian.co.uk
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Documents obtained in US assassination reveal frustrations of al-Qaida leader and desire to win over world’s Muslims Osama bin Laden was considering changing al-Qaida’s name to improve its image among Muslims, according to documents obtained by US special forces from the compound where he was killed. A letter apparently written in the months before he died indicates that Bin Laden felt al-Qaida, which means “the base”, was not sufficiently religious and did not reinforce the message that the group considered itself to be engaged in a holy war against the enemies of Islam. A name change would allow al-Qaida to distance itself from growing criticism within the Islamic world that it was responsible for killing large numbers of Muslims, Bin Laden wrote. The letter, described to the Associated Press news agency by US officials, provides further evidence that Bin Laden was considering increasingly desperate measures to retain support for his campaign of violence and to maintain the relevance of his group. One project considered by Bin Laden, reported in the Guardian last month, was the creation of a grand alliance of militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan under the umbrella of al-Qaida . Security sources and analysts dismissed such an idea as unfeasible. However, Bin Laden may have been helped in Pakistan by members of a separate local militant group that has close connections to the Pakistani security establishment. The New York Times reported that records of the mobile phone belonging to the courier who helped conceal Bin Laden – and eventually inadvertently led the CIA to him – revealed frequent calls to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) group. Founded in the 1980s, HUM sent members to fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban and against Indian security forces in the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir in the 1990s. Since 2001 the group has survived successive crackdowns announced by Pakistani authorities. It retains close ties to Pakistani security services. The New York Times reported that individuals called from the seized phone had contacted the ISI, the main Pakistani military intelligence agency. However, an official told the newspaper that there was no “smoking gun” indicating that the ISI had known about Bin Laden’s location . The question of the name of the group led by Bin Laden has often posed problems. Minutes of the meeting at which it was founded in 1988 reveal that “al-Qaida” was chosen in some haste. One suggestion has been that the name referred to a database of contact details for international militants who had fought in Afghanistan against Soviet occupiers. Another is that it refers to the “al-Qaida al-Sulbah” or vanguard of the strong, which militant ideologues were calling for at the time to continue the extremist campaign beyond south-west Asia. One former militant on trial in the US referred to al-Qaida (which in Arabic can also mean a maxim or method), as “a formula system”, denying that it was the name of a group. When Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s then deputy and now successor, formally fused his own group Egyptian Islamic Jihad with al-Qaida the full name of the group was “al-Qaida al-Jihad” or “the base for the jihad”. In the leaked letter Bin Laden is reported to have complained that the last part was often omitted. This, he wrote, allowed the west to “claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam”. Instead, the letter reveals, Bin Laden pondered alternatives including Taifat al-Tawheed Wal-Jihad (Monotheism and Jihad Group), or Jama’at I’Adat al-Khilafat al-Rashida (Restoration of the Caliphate Group). In his last speech, released posthumously, Bin Laden gave no hint of any such thoughts. However, his statements on the Arab Spring did not include the calls to violence that had previously marked his rhetoric , indicating at least a shift in tone. On Wednesday Barack Obama, in his speech to the nation on withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, said that information recovered from Bin Laden’s compound showed that al-Qaida was “under enormous strain”. “Bin Laden expressed concern that al-Qaida had been unable to effectively replace senior terrorists that had been killed and that al-Qaida has failed in its effort to portray America as a nation at war with Islam, thereby draining more widespread support,” Obama said. The recipient of the letter has not been identified. US investigators believe that Bin Laden only communicated with his most senior commanders, including Zawahiri and Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, a senior militant who ran external operations for the group as well as fundraising and liason with the Afghan Taliban. Al-Yazid was killed in a US air strike last year. Because of the courier system used by Bin Laden it is unclear to US intelligence whether the letter was actually sent. In one letter sent to Zawahiri within the past year or so, Bin Laden said al-Qaida’s image was suffering because of attacks that had killed Muslims, particularly in Iraq, officials said. Bin Laden also wrote that he found the suggestion of one militant in Yemen that blades be attached to a tractor or other farm machine to create a “killing machine” in the US “unacceptable”. Al-Qaida was not about “indiscriminate killing”, he said . Bin Laden and his senior associates have long struggled to make sure the disparate elements of the group and its various affiliated networks only attack targets they consider as legitimate. A series of letters and envoys were sent to Iraq in a bid to moderate – or at least better focus – the brutality of international extremists there. In a question and answer internet session four years ago, Zawahiri was bombarded by aggressive demands that he justify the number of deaths of Muslims resulting from al-Qaida attacks. Successive polls in the Muslim world have shown decreasing support for radical Islam and Bin Laden since around 2005. Yesterday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Bin Laden was born, few expressed any support for the dead extremist. “He was a freedom fighter against the Russians but then took the wrong path. Violence like that is never justified whatever the provocation,” said Abdulillah, a 42-year-old shopkeeper. In other journal entries and letters, US officials said, Bin Laden wrote that he was frustrated many of his trusted longtime comrades, whom he had fought alongside in Afghanistan, had been killed or captured. Using his courier system Bin Laden could still exercise an element of operational control over al-Qaida, but increasingly the men he was directing were younger and inexperienced, the fugitive leader complained. With the senior militants who had vouched for new recruits dead or in prison, Bin Laden, confined to his walled compound and cut off from the phone or internet for security reasons, was without any means of verifying new recruits’ competence or loyalty, he wrote. The US has now essentially completed the review of documents taken from Bin Laden’s compound, though intelligence analysts will continue to mine the data for a long time, officials have said. Osama bin Laden al-Qaida Global terrorism Ayman al-Zawahiri Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Pakistan Islam Religion Afghanistan Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Documents obtained in US assassination reveal frustrations of al-Qaida leader and desire to win over world’s Muslims Osama bin Laden was considering changing al-Qaida’s name to improve its image among Muslims, according to documents obtained by US special forces from the compound where he was killed. A letter apparently written in the months before he died indicates that Bin Laden felt al-Qaida, which means “the base”, was not sufficiently religious and did not reinforce the message that the group considered itself to be engaged in a holy war against the enemies of Islam. A name change would allow al-Qaida to distance itself from growing criticism within the Islamic world that it was responsible for killing large numbers of Muslims, Bin Laden wrote. The letter, described to the Associated Press news agency by US officials, provides further evidence that Bin Laden was considering increasingly desperate measures to retain support for his campaign of violence and to maintain the relevance of his group. One project considered by Bin Laden, reported in the Guardian last month, was the creation of a grand alliance of militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan under the umbrella of al-Qaida . Security sources and analysts dismissed such an idea as unfeasible. However, Bin Laden may have been helped in Pakistan by members of a separate local militant group that has close connections to the Pakistani security establishment. The New York Times reported that records of the mobile phone belonging to the courier who helped conceal Bin Laden – and eventually inadvertently led the CIA to him – revealed frequent calls to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) group. Founded in the 1980s, HUM sent members to fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban and against Indian security forces in the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir in the 1990s. Since 2001 the group has survived successive crackdowns announced by Pakistani authorities. It retains close ties to Pakistani security services. The New York Times reported that individuals called from the seized phone had contacted the ISI, the main Pakistani military intelligence agency. However, an official told the newspaper that there was no “smoking gun” indicating that the ISI had known about Bin Laden’s location . The question of the name of the group led by Bin Laden has often posed problems. Minutes of the meeting at which it was founded in 1988 reveal that “al-Qaida” was chosen in some haste. One suggestion has been that the name referred to a database of contact details for international militants who had fought in Afghanistan against Soviet occupiers. Another is that it refers to the “al-Qaida al-Sulbah” or vanguard of the strong, which militant ideologues were calling for at the time to continue the extremist campaign beyond south-west Asia. One former militant on trial in the US referred to al-Qaida (which in Arabic can also mean a maxim or method), as “a formula system”, denying that it was the name of a group. When Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s then deputy and now successor, formally fused his own group Egyptian Islamic Jihad with al-Qaida the full name of the group was “al-Qaida al-Jihad” or “the base for the jihad”. In the leaked letter Bin Laden is reported to have complained that the last part was often omitted. This, he wrote, allowed the west to “claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam”. Instead, the letter reveals, Bin Laden pondered alternatives including Taifat al-Tawheed Wal-Jihad (Monotheism and Jihad Group), or Jama’at I’Adat al-Khilafat al-Rashida (Restoration of the Caliphate Group). In his last speech, released posthumously, Bin Laden gave no hint of any such thoughts. However, his statements on the Arab Spring did not include the calls to violence that had previously marked his rhetoric , indicating at least a shift in tone. On Wednesday Barack Obama, in his speech to the nation on withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, said that information recovered from Bin Laden’s compound showed that al-Qaida was “under enormous strain”. “Bin Laden expressed concern that al-Qaida had been unable to effectively replace senior terrorists that had been killed and that al-Qaida has failed in its effort to portray America as a nation at war with Islam, thereby draining more widespread support,” Obama said. The recipient of the letter has not been identified. US investigators believe that Bin Laden only communicated with his most senior commanders, including Zawahiri and Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, a senior militant who ran external operations for the group as well as fundraising and liason with the Afghan Taliban. Al-Yazid was killed in a US air strike last year. Because of the courier system used by Bin Laden it is unclear to US intelligence whether the letter was actually sent. In one letter sent to Zawahiri within the past year or so, Bin Laden said al-Qaida’s image was suffering because of attacks that had killed Muslims, particularly in Iraq, officials said. Bin Laden also wrote that he found the suggestion of one militant in Yemen that blades be attached to a tractor or other farm machine to create a “killing machine” in the US “unacceptable”. Al-Qaida was not about “indiscriminate killing”, he said . Bin Laden and his senior associates have long struggled to make sure the disparate elements of the group and its various affiliated networks only attack targets they consider as legitimate. A series of letters and envoys were sent to Iraq in a bid to moderate – or at least better focus – the brutality of international extremists there. In a question and answer internet session four years ago, Zawahiri was bombarded by aggressive demands that he justify the number of deaths of Muslims resulting from al-Qaida attacks. Successive polls in the Muslim world have shown decreasing support for radical Islam and Bin Laden since around 2005. Yesterday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Bin Laden was born, few expressed any support for the dead extremist. “He was a freedom fighter against the Russians but then took the wrong path. Violence like that is never justified whatever the provocation,” said Abdulillah, a 42-year-old shopkeeper. In other journal entries and letters, US officials said, Bin Laden wrote that he was frustrated many of his trusted longtime comrades, whom he had fought alongside in Afghanistan, had been killed or captured. Using his courier system Bin Laden could still exercise an element of operational control over al-Qaida, but increasingly the men he was directing were younger and inexperienced, the fugitive leader complained. With the senior militants who had vouched for new recruits dead or in prison, Bin Laden, confined to his walled compound and cut off from the phone or internet for security reasons, was without any means of verifying new recruits’ competence or loyalty, he wrote. The US has now essentially completed the review of documents taken from Bin Laden’s compound, though intelligence analysts will continue to mine the data for a long time, officials have said. Osama bin Laden al-Qaida Global terrorism Ayman al-Zawahiri Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Pakistan Islam Religion Afghanistan Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Courage of Undocumented American Jose Antonio Vargas: Breaking Unjust Laws
June 24, 2011 No CommentBy now, you’ve probably already heard of Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who came out as undocumented in the New York Times Magazine . Memeorandum and Mediagazer , sites which aggregate political and media news, are exploding with his story. Matthew Yglesias even dropped his academic pretensions for a bit to shed a tear or two for Vargas .
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Click here to view this media The day that Elaine Riddick had her first and only child at the age of 14, the state of North Carolina had her sterilized on the orders of a court. Riddick had been raped but the state said she was promiscuous. “They said that I was feeble-minded, they said that I was promiscuous,” Riddick, now 57, told CBS News . “I’ve always been able to take care of myself – I’ve never been promiscuous.” “So how can people use these things to describe a child that had been abandoned? Or that had been raped by the neighbor and then again, raped by the state of North Carolina?” North Carolina is the first state to consider a $20,000 payment to victims of sterilizations, but it is doubtful that the Republican-controlled legislature will set aside the necessary funds. CBS News noted that more than 60,000 women in 32 states were sterilized from the 1920′s to the 1970s to keep down welfare costs. The practice is no longer in use.
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According to cable host Piers Morgan, CNN is bias-free. On his June 22 program, the anchor declared of his network: “What it doesn't have is partisanship, which is a very different thing from having an opinion.” See the video below for examples of just how partisan CNN can be . (MP3 audio here .) Morgan is the same host who on June 07 asked of Ann Coulter , ” Where is the similar mob to Mussolini’s and Hitler’s in the modern democratic era?…Tea Party ?” On January 21, 2009, CNN's Carol Costello gushed about the newly sworn in President, “When Barack Obama started to speak, I was right in the middle of the crowd. People were crying, they were laughing, they were cheering. Suddenly someone would just come up and hug you. It was just amazing.”
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Old, young and people with chronic conditions at risk – and despite rainy June the drought is not over Get the latest UK weather reports A heatwave could hits parts of Britain by the end of the weekend and early next week, with temperatures topping 30C (86F) in some places, the Met Office has warned. It has issued a heat-health alert for the east Midlands, east of England and the south-east, warning of the dangers of high temperatures, particularly for the very old, the very young and those with chronic conditions. The predicted hot weather will come after days of unsettled conditions, with more expected later on Friday as a band of rain spreads across the country from the west, delivering more wet conditions for the Glastonbury festival and Wimbledon. So far this month, some areas have had well above average rainfall for June, with the south-west receiving 130% of the normal level and the south-east having 118% so far. Even central and eastern England, the areas worst hit by months of dry weather, have had 75% and 83% respectively of the month’s average rainfall so far in June. After months of little rain, the unsettled weather does not mean the drought in parts of eastern England, or the risk of it elsewhere, is over, the Environment Agency said. Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, parts of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire and western Norfolk remain in a state of drought. While many rivers have responded to the rainfall, there are still a number below normal levels for this time of year, including the Dove and the Derwent in central England, Ely Ouse in East Anglia, Malmesbury Avon in the south-west and the Kennet and Coln in the Thames Valley. There has been some relief for farmers in Kent, with the agency putting on hold notices issued to land managers in the Walland and Romney marshes to stop abstracting water from 20 June. Trevor Bishop, the head of water resources at the agency, said: “The wetter weather has helped to lessen impacts on the environment this week. However, after months of little rain, the recent unsettled weather does not mean the drought or risk of drought is over. Without further sustained rainfall, river flows will quickly drop again and our teams remain on alert to respond to the environmental impacts of drought.” He urged people to continue to use water wisely. The Met Office said the temperatures forecast for the coming days will peak across East Anglia, the east Midlands and south-east England on Monday, with highs of 32C (90F) possible. The head of health forecasting at the Met Office, Patrick Sachon, said: “There is the possibility of daytime and night-time temperatures reaching trigger thresholds. These temperatures, together with high humidity, pose a risk to vulnerable people, such as those with underlying health problems.” But the next few days will see varied weather across the UK as a whole, with some places experiencing unsettled conditions and temperatures in the low 20s. The chief forecaster at the Met Office, Andy Page, said: “There is a 60% chance of some places in East Anglia, the east Midlands and south-east England reaching 30C on Sunday and Monday. However, it is important to note that not all places will see the hot weather. Cooler weather is expected to spread across all parts of the UK by the middle of next week.” Weather Health Drought Rivers Children Older people guardian.co.uk
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Deputy leader says she submitted proposal because women ‘are still a long way from being equal’ in the Labour party The deputy Labour leader, Harriet Harman, has proposed a rule change to ensure that the party’s “default position” of men filling the leader and deputy leader role comes to an end. Harman said she had submitted the proposal because women “are still a long way from [being] equal” in the party. She outlined the case in the Times as the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, decided to abolish elections to his shadow cabinet, leaving him free to appoint his own team. Miliband – who said during the leadership campaign that he wanted half the shadow cabinet to be women – also wants to see an end to gender quotas for posts. At present, a ballot paper is only valid if at least six votes for women are cast. Miliband’s aides said he would appoint a large number of women as a matter of course, and he is reportedly supportive of his deputy’s call that the rules be changed to ensure the party “doesn’t slip back” to a men-only leadership. Harman believes the proposed change would send a strong message to women voters. “An all-male leadership is not acceptable to the party of equality. A team is best when it is made up of men and women,” she said. Miliband is also seeking greater control over his team with plans to abolish elections to the shadow cabinet, ending a decades-long Labour tradition of Labour MPs deciding the makeup of the party’s frontbench. He will address Labour MPs about his proposals on Monday, and expects a secret ballot to be conducted among them. The proposal also has to formally be endorsed by the party conference in September. Aides said Miliband had taken the step to make his top team focus on the task of holding the government to account. They believe repeated internal elections make some shadow cabinet members as concerned about their popularity among their colleagues as about their impact on
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