• Email Andy with all your thoughts andy.bull@guardian.co.uk • Press F5 to refresh this page or use our auto-refresher • Follow Andy on Twitter if that’s your thing 4th over: Sri Lanka 7-0 (Paranavitana 4, Thirimanne 2) There are a whole lot of thumb-twiddling pedants unleashing hell in my inbox. Turns out that thumb twiddling is one of the great British preoccupations, along with tea drinking and talking about the weather. Paranavitana knocks two past short leg and then sneaks an audacious single after dropping the ball down to the leg side, his partner squeezing home just ahead of the throw from the fielder. “When it comes to upsetting your in-laws, losing your ring is for beginners,” says Tim Travers. “A few years ago I attended an Easter family get together with my girlfriend at the times very religious parents, who were less than keen on me to put it mildly. The booze flowed freely and just as I seemed to be winning them over. Unfortunately for me some 7 year old relative decided to recount the story of Easter for me, and in my drunken wisdom I decided it’d be an excellent wheeze to correct him & inform him & his sister that Jesus was killed for murdering the Easter Bunny. Needless to say my good work was undone in a puddle of tears & I wasn’t invited back for Christmas.” 3rd over: Sri Lanka 4-0 (Paranavitana 1, Thirimanne 2) And Paranvitana pats his first run out to the off. I’ve just realised that, as Paul Swift says, I “dismissed Neil Withers apparently civil enquiry a bit too readily.” He meant that lunch will last 40 minutes didn’t he? Not that it would be taken in 40 minutes. So by rights I should reinstate his rant. Oh well. The moment has gone and besides, his email is now lost somewhere in the depths of the discarded in my inbox. 2nd over: Sri Lanka 3-0 (Paranavitana 0, Thirimanne 2) Broad gets to take the new ball at the other end, and predictably enough he decides that Don Thirimanne’s first ball in Test cricket should be a bouncer. The boy can duck though, and the ball shoots over his head to Prior. Another bouncer and Broad then flings down one wide of off stump and another wide of leg stump. Broad stops and paws at the pile of sawdust at the bowling crease, then whangs another delivery down the leg side. And the sixth ball is whipped away top square leg for two runs. Thirimanne has his first runs in Test cricket. It has been a poor first over from Broad. 1st over: Sri Lanka (Paranavitana 0, Thirimanne 0) “Here we go lads! Come on fellas!” shouts Matt Prior. James Anderson will bowl the first over of the day. His first ball is full and up on off-stump. Immediately we’re reminded what England were missing at Lord’s. There’s one delivery down the leg side, but otherwise they all whizz through past off-stump and on to Prior. “‘Where were you born and where do you live?’” says Charles Courtney. “I’m beginning to fear that the OBO has been an elaborate phishing scheme from the start. Don’t tell him your name Dunne.” Rod Bransgrove rings a silver bell, Jerusalem rings out over the PA system and the players walk out. We’re about to see a small piece of history be made at the Rose Bowl. “My friend^ Neil (a senior civil servant with plenty of time on his hands) has developed a process for denoting sarcasm in emails by suffixing the comment with ^ for sarcastic or -^ for not sarcastic,” writes Graham Page. “I think it would be a lovely gesture if you could recommend this to the obo readership-^” What would be the point? Is anything ever published on the OBO that isn’t sarcastic? It’s our default mode. Sincerity scares us. We’re English, after all. “Surely the third option as well as ‘Where were you born and where do you live’ is who does your Dad support?” points out Richard Moore. “I’m a Northants fan because of my Dad. I was lucky enough to be introduced to them by him in the year Anil Kumble played for them. I thought that I was due to support one of the top teams in the game. How foolish. Apparently my grandfather supported them and never got to see them win the County Championship, I don’t think I’m being too pessimistic to suggest that my father and I will have the same fate.” Hugh Maguire is one of many confused folk complaining that “Because your left and right hands are near mirror images of each other then a clock-wise right and an anti-clockwise left thumb rotation will be going in the same direction.” Now, I can’t agree with that. Surely as you look down on your thumbs from above you can figure out that moving one anti-clockwise and the other clockwise they will be going in opposite directions? Ryan, Ryan, Ryan . Where were you born and where do you live? Those are the only ways to pick your team. But for what it is worth all right-thinking people should support Somerset on the grounds that it is the land of sunshine, cider and sixes and that they have never won the Championship title. Someone help this fella Ryan Dunne out: “Test Cricket is all well and good but, over these long footballess months, I was thinking of picking a County Cricket side to start supporting. Anyone have any advice on how to go about this is? Is there a Glory Hunter’s favourite or, conversely, a St.Pauli style trendy neutral’s choice? My football team is the Glorious Glasgow Rangers, if that helps.” “Am I right in assuming lunch will be 40 minutes?” No, Neil Withers, you’re not. Lunch will be at 1.30pm, sadly rendering the rest of your 500 word rant about the tyranny of corporate lunches, prawn-sandwich eaters and the the evils of Rupert Murdoch entirely redundant. And unpublishable. How to lose a new wife and alienate your in-laws no2 in an ongoing series: “A friend of mine about a month after his wedding had to do a stock take/audit type thing at work,” says B. Deane. “Mindful he might lose his ring in the process, he takes it off, puts it safely in his pocket.Walking home gives all his loose change to Big Issue vendor. Gets on train. Gets home. Brain starts to work. Poor lad spent a few hours pointlessly searching for said vendor.” A wonderfully pointless stat from James Boon : “On the other hand, Strauss has scored more test hundreds than anyone else who hasn’t bowled a ball in Test cricket.” “I would have bowled as well” says Kumar, a wry grin spreading across his face. Thisara Perera comes in for Farveez Maharoof, and as we all suspected Hettige Don Rumesh Lahiru Thirimanne will make his debut at the top of the order as a replacement for Dilshan. Steve Finn drops out of the England team for Jimmy Anderson . It’s the toss Sanga calls heads, loses, and mouths ‘oh bugger’ to himself as Strauss announces that England will bowl . And now a word in a worthwhile cause from our captain, Mike Selvey: “Hi everyone. My daughter Hannah, who is 14, and four of her schoolfriends are undertaking the 3 Peaks Challenge at the end of June, in aid of SANDS, the charity for stillbirth, and neo-natal death. The task involves climbing the highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales (ie Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike, and Snowdon) within 24 hours. They are trying to raise £1500, and at the moment are getting on for halfway there. Anything you could do to help them further would be very gratefully received. You can donate through JustGiving with this link “. Three peaks in 24 hours? That’s a lot of hard yakka uphill into the wind. But I guess that kind of thing comes naturally to the Selvey family. Dig deep folks. Josh Robinson has a point here “Has Pietersen actually been in danger of being dropped?” – no, but only because the press and public don’t get to make the selection decisions – “I know he’s been out of form for a while, and various idiots have talked about his being dropped. But given that replacing an out-of-form KP with an in-form somebody else would make only a very small difference to the quality of the England side in comparison with the change that an in-form KP could bring about, there’s hardly any point in dropping him. And I imagine the selectors are perfectly aware of that.” Just like Shane Warne’s skin , the pitch has suddenly changed colour. The grass has come off the top, but Warne still reckons that whoever wins the toss should bowl first. Good news from the middle – play will start at 12.15pm and lunch will be taken at 1.30pm. Play can stretch on till 7pm tonight. “I these days find myself idly fiddling with my recently acquired wedding ring,” Luke Richardson, that’s a dangerous habit to get in to. They feel very uncomfortable at first, don’t they? Assuming that you, like me, aren’t used to wearing rings. “Today’s tally of accidental drops, heart stopping rolls away across the office floor and incidents of it being stuck on the wrong finger is at 6 (only 1 heart stopping roll away). Still, at least I didn’t leave it at home today.” Just don’t make the mistake a friend of mine did. A few days after the wedding his wife asked him how the ring felt and he couldn’t quite find the right word so he came out with “claustrophobic” . “Jonathan Trott hasn’t been out of form has he?” Yes he has Lori McConnachie. There was some hubbub about his having to play for his place in Bangladesh last Spring, after a poor tour to South Africa. He responded with one of the most intolerably unwatchable innings in the modern history of cricket, 64 in four-and-a-half hours in the second Test at Dhaka. An expert writes: “Following Thomas Whiteley’s comment about losing time to rain during drought, I thought I’d try and claim a penny for my thoughts. It’s quite possible for extreme weather to occur (i.e. periods of rain) during a prolonged dry spell. Also, from a sample size of three, one of which was a match in Wales, it’s hard to see these inclement conditions as anything other than a bit of random variation.” Iain in Edinburgh is now going back to his Ecological stats PhD. “I can’t work out if you’re very simple or a genius,” says Phil Powell. To which I can only reply, if you’ve got to ask you’ll never know. “Simple because thumb twiddling is actually very easy, or a genius because you’ve just caused literally tens of people across the world sit in front of their computer and simultaneously thumb twiddle.” On Sky Athers, Nasser and Goldenhair are talking about Strauss’ batting technique. To be fair to them, they’re not being too hysterical about it. But it is slightly bizarre that the English media always feel compelled to pick on one batsman. Last week it was Pietersen, this week it was Strauss. Is there a single member of the top six who hasn’t supposedly been out of form and in danger of losing his place at some point in the last 12 months? “Why are you rotating one thumb in the opposite direction to the other, instead of just getting them to follow each other round in the same direction?” asks Tim Bradshaw,”It’s this kind of over complication that has cost Arsenal so dear over the last few years.” I’ll forgive you using a football analogy on the OBO, Tim, but you’ve entirely missed my point. Twiddling your thumbs is not supposed to be easy, if it was there wouldn’t be any point doing it. “With the recent announcement that we now have the opening pair of A. Strauss, OBE and A. Cook, MBE for England,” writes Colyn Alcock, “is the the most honoured opening partnership in the history of the team?” Eitherway, when it comes to syllables they’ve got nothing on their opposite numbers in the Sri Lankan side: Hettige Don Rumesh Lahiru Thirimanne is going to come in for his Test debut today, alongside Nishad Tharanga Paranavitana. Incidentally have you ever actually tried properly twiddling your thumbs? It is surprisingly difficult to do. Thread your fingers together in front of you – think of the kind of stance that Tony Blair used to adopt when he was at a lectern – then put your thumbs behind them, side by side. Now move your right thumb in a circle clockwise, and at the same time move your left thumb in a circle anti-clockwise. Let me know how you get on. “I’m with Dave Adams,” writes Ellie Hibberd. “My husband and I are taking his granddad to the match on Saturday for his first Test match in years. I equally do not want to have to spend the day trying to convince an 85 year old man that it is a good idea to sit there all day shivering in the drizzle waiting for the cricket to start – and I’m not sure he’s going to be up for the ‘let’s just drink lots of beer instead’ option. Dave will obviously have that problem with his seven year old too.” More of a whisky drinker is he? I do hope we get some play today , because the conditions look absolutely horrendous for batting. The pitch is green, the atmosphere is thick and the ground is wet. Whoever wins the toss surely has to bowl first. “There were dire stories about drought not that long ago,” grumbles Thomas Whiteley. “And yet we have lost a lot of time to rain during all three matches in different parts of the country, so what happened?” Yes, it is odd isn’t it? But much as I love indulging in a little pseudo-science I’m not going to attempt to give you an answer myself. Let’s trust that somewhere out there among the OBO readership there is someone who can give us a proper answer. They’ve just pulled the covers off the pitch and it looks as green as a landlubber’s gills after a rough night on the ocean. But beyond the brief window of dry weather that we’re about to enter the forecast is, as Dave Adams says, not very good: “Not happy with the weather situation, to say the least – looks pretty ominous until Sunday, though 15 miles down the road in Portsmouth the rain has stopped and there’s the tiniest hint of sunshine (which has little bearing on the rose bowl, because the weather is moving west to east). I have tickets for Saturday – taking my seven year-old to his first ever cricket match. I really don’t want to spend the day explaining to my son that a) I don’t control the weather, b) No, we can’t go home early, or c) that the alternative to getting wet at the Rose Bowl while not watching cricket was to spend the day shopping with his mum.” A glimmer of good news: there will be an inspection at 11.15am. Shane Warne is on Sky for the first time this summer , looking truly preposterous. Warne insists that he hasn’t had a facelift, insisting that “New Estée Lauder moisturisers for my skin have made a big difference.” I don’t believe a word of it. And not just because Estée Lauder happens to have a long-running association with Warne’s new squeeze Liz Hurley. The man looks like Ming the Merciless after a session on a sunbed. His eyebrows arch upwards at a ludicrously unlikely angle and his skin is stretched tight across his skull. So in the meantime it’s you, me and a whole lot of time to kill. Let the thumb twiddling commence. Morning everyone . Guess what? It’s raining at the Rose Bowl. The turf is turgid, with water oozing up through the grass around the covers. The pitch still needs a cut and a roll. And so even when the rain stops it is going to be 90 minutes or so before play can start. Which makes Mike Selvey’s match preview look all the more prescient : “If previous encounters are to be judged, Rod Bransgrove is more atuned to rock’n’roll than the musical, so he may not be familiar with Barbra Streisand and Funny Girl. But, as they put the finishing touches to the Rose Bowl, the ground into which he has poured heart, soul and money, probably in that order, he would be forgiven for singing quietly to himself the words of Fanny Brice in the famous show stopper: “Don’t bring around the cloud to rain on my parade.” The dream is coming true for him and Hampshire. A ground that barely existed at the start of the century, carved out of farmland, is now hosting its inaugural Test match. There is a pleasant intimacy to the venue and it deserves supporting. Full, with the sun out, it will provide a fine stage. But this afternoon the cloud descended and a steady drizzle started, an ominous portent to what is to come over the next few days. Already this does not promise to be a game without interruption. Keep singing, Rod.” Sri Lanka in England 2011 England cricket team Sri Lanka cricket team Cricket Over by over reports Andy Bull guardian.co.uk
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The IUCN says the antelope’s reintroduction to the wild is the most successful effort for any species once classified as extinct An antelope species, widely believed to be the source of the unicorn legend and hunted to extinction in the wild, has been brought back from the brink, conservationists said today as they unveiled the latest update on threatened species. It is thought the last wild Arabian oryx was shot in 1972, but a successful captive breeding programme and reintroduction efforts mean its population now stands at 1,000 in its wild home of the Arabian peninsula. It has moved from “endangered” to the less-serious category of “vulnerable” in the latest red list of threatened species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said . It is the first time a species that was once classified as extinct in the wild has improved its fortunes to such an extent, the IUCN said. Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, director general of the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, said: “To have brought the Arabian oryx back from the brink of extinction is a major feat and a true conservation success story, one which we hope will be repeated many times over for other threatened species. “It is a classic example of how data from the IUCN red list can feed into on-the-ground conservation action to deliver tangible and successful results.” Despite the conservation victory, the latest update of the red list reveals that of the 19 species of frogs, toads and salamanders added to the the list this year, eight are critically endangered. They include a species of harlequin toad from Peru ( Atelopus patazensis ) and a dwarf species of salamander from Guatemala ( Dendrotriton chujorum ). An estimated 41% of amphibians are at risk of extinction globally, making them one of the most threatened groups of species, with habitat loss, pollution, disease and invasive species all factors in their decline. Elsewhere, two-thirds of reptiles only found in New Caledonia, in the Pacific, are at risk of extinction in the first assessment of the group of species. The Siau Island tarsier, a primate from the tiny volcanic island of Siau in Indonesia, has been added to the red list as critically endangered, while its newly discovered cousin, the Wallace’s tarsier, is classified as “data deficient” because not enough is known about it to say if it is under threat. An assessment of all 248 lobster species found that more than a third (35%) were data deficient, prompting calls from the IUCN for more surveys of little-known species to aid effective conservation action. Simon Stuart, chairman of the IUCN’s species survival commission, said: “The key to halting the extinction crisis is to target efforts towards eradicating the major threats faced by species and their environment; only then can their future be secured. “The IUCN red list acts as a gateway to such efforts, by providing decision makers with a goldmine of information not only on the current status of the species, but also on existing threats and the conservation actions required.” Endangered species Conservation Wildlife Animals Biodiversity guardian.co.uk
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To mark the Day of the African Child, Unicef and Sony teamed up to encourage young people in Mali to document their lives through photography
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Riot police and locals clash in village after local government boss accused of stealing compensation payments Chinese security forces mobilised to suppress protests in eastern China, a monitoring group and eyewitnesses said on Thursday, in the latest bout of unrest gripping parts of the country. The unrest in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, broke out on Tuesday after the head of a local village government confronted petrol station staff during talks over land compensation fees that the station’s owner was due to pay villagers, the reports said. Within hours, hundreds of fellow residents of Rishanfen village had surrounded the petrol station, blocked an adjacent airport expressway, and seized a man who had struck the village leader, according to the owner of a nearby factory, who witnessed the events. Riot police clashed with villagers, said the factory owner, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Reinforcements arrived on Wednesday and officers detained about a dozen people, including the chief, other village officials and anyone found with images of the protest on their mobile phones, the man said. Police and government officials in Taizhou were unavailable for comment. As with many of the protests across China, the Taizhou incident appears rooted in disagreements over compensation for land seized for development. The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said villagers squeezed by soaring inflation had been hoping for an increase in payments from businesses in the industrial park, including the gas station. The factory owner, however, said many believed that compensation offered by the petrol station had been embezzled by the former head of Rishanfen, now the local Communist party secretary – a much more powerful position. The incident was the third large-scale outburst of unrest in recent days, mainly fuelled by anger over corruption. Police arrested at least 25 people following weekend rioting in Xintang in the manufacturing powerhouse province of Guangdong. Security forces there clashed with migrant workers from the south-western province of Sichuan. On Wednesday, a woman was arrested for spreading rumours of the death of a migrant blamed for fuelling the violence, local police said. Last week, residents of Lichuan, in the central province of Hubei, laid siege to government offices following the death in custody of a local city council member. A number of local government officials have been fired or placed under investigation over the death in an attempt to assuage public anger. Though the triggers for the events are different, most are driven by common resentments over social inequality, abuse of power and suppression of legitimate grievances. The Communist party leadership has reacted nervously to the wave of protests, especially after popular uprisings began sweeping the Middle East and north Africa this year. In recent months, hundreds of government critics have been questioned, arrested or simply disappeared. China Land rights Protest guardian.co.uk
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Joanne Fraill pleaded guilty to contempt of court after contacting defendant, causing multimillion-pound drugs trial to collapse The first juror to be prosecuted for contempt of court for using the internet has been sentenced to eight months in jail. Joanne Fraill, 40, admitted at London’s high court using Facebook to exchange messages with Jamie Sewart, 34, a defendant already acquitted in an ongoing multimillion-pound drug trial in Manchester last year. Fraill, from Blackley, Manchester, also admitted conducting an internet search into Sewart’s boyfriend, Gary Knox, a co-defendant, while the jury was still deliberating. Sewart was given a two-month sentence suspended for two years after also being found guilty of contempt. When the lord chief justice, Lord Judge, announced her eight-month sentence, Fraill said “eight months!” and put her head on the table in front of her and cried. Fraill, a mother of three with three stepchildren, sobbed uncontrollably with her head in her arms, and the judge announced a short adjournment “for everyone to calm down”. Sentencing Fraill, the judge said in a written ruling: “Her conduct in visiting the internet repeatedly was directly contrary to her oath as a juror, and her contact with the acquitted defendant, as well as her repeated searches on the internet, constituted flagrant breaches of the orders made by the judge for the proper conduct of the trial.” Later Sewart said: “I really feel for the woman [Fraill]. She’s got kids. She apologised and she’s not a bad lady. I really feel for her.” Fraill hugged relatives who were also crying before she was led away to start her sentence. Knox, Sewart’s 35-year-old partner, is applying for his conviction to be overturned on the basis of alleged jury misconduct. He was jailed for six years after being found guilty of paying a police officer to disclose information on drug dealers. Fraill and Sewart were found guilty of contempt at the high court on Tuesday , in a case heard by the lord chief justice, sitting with Mr Justice Ouseley and Mr Justice Holroyde. Fraill admitted emailing Sewart while the jury was still deliberating in the drugs trail in August last year because she felt “empathetic” and saw “considerable parallels” between their lives. Sewart, who was acquitted at the trial in Manchester, admitted knowing that Fraill was a juror in the trial when she added her as a Facebook friend during jury deliberations. Sewart asked her in a Facebook chat on 3 August “what’s happenin with the other charge??”, to which Fraill responded by asking her to clarify her question. Fraill then wrote: “cant get anyone to go either no one budging pleeeeeese don’t say anything cause jamie they could all miss trial and I will get 4cked to0.” The solicitor general, Edward Garnier QC, acting on behalf of the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, accused Fraill and Sewart of acting in “plain contempt of court”. Fraill, a mother of three, sobbed and rocked back and forth as details of her Facebook conversation and internet research were read out in the high court. Peter Wright QC, acting on behalf of Fraill, denied his client acted out of a “cavalier disregard” for the judicial process and told the court how the breach had left her “depressed, isolated and in utter despair”. Wright said Fraill was “distraught and inconsolable” at what had happened and “terrified” at the prospect of imprisonment. A psychiatric report on Fraill, whose husband was also in court, reveals a “most unhappy adolescence, a troubled adult life” and “domestic misfortune on a very considerable scale”, Wright said. •
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Shadow chancellor says move would put more money directly into people’s pockets and boost consumers feeling the squeeze from rising prices and rising taxes Ed Balls has called for an emergency temporary cut in VAT to kick-start an economy he said was performing worse than any of its major competitors. In his lengthiest policy speech since taking on the role of shadow chancellor, Balls offered no apology for Labour’s spending either ahead of or during the banking crisis to prevent recession tipping into depression. He admitted he was still relatively isolated in his view that the markets will tolerate a less aggressive approach to the deficit and said it was too early to say whether his judgment, or that of the chancellor, George Osborne, would be proved right. Many believe the outcome of the next election will hinge on which man is right. Balls said the economic evidence so far was pointing in his direction, arguing: “Looking at growth across the EU over the last six months compared to the previous six months, we have gone from the top end of the economic growth league table to fourth from bottom, with only Denmark, Greece and Portugal below us. “While policymakers in the US are worried that their recovery is slowing down, the US has nevertheless still enjoyed growth of 1.2% over the last six months, compared to our zero.” Accusing Osborne of being inflexible in the face of the evidence, he insisted the markets would tolerate a change of course. And he said the VAT cut would put more money directly into people’s pockets and boost consumers feeling the squeeze from rising prices and rising taxes, especially pensioners and those on low and fixed incomes. He added: “The inevitable increase in consumer confidence would help the struggling retail sector. It would help to push down inflation, and so reduce the risk of a recovery-choking interest rate rise later this year “And it would give the flatlining economy the jump-start it so urgently needs, boost jobs and help us get the deficit down for the long term. “The risk is that George Osborne will wreak long-term, as well as short-term, damage on the British economy by creating a vicious circle of permanently lower business investment, lower income and lower employment, which in turn requires bigger tax increases and deeper spending cuts to get the deficit down.” Balls said the “scale of the fiscal hit to demand and growth in Britain this year is unprecedented”, adding that, a year ago, the Office for Budget Responsibility “forecast growth of 2.6% in 2011 – they now predict just 1.7%”. He said: “Unemployment forecasts for the next four years have all been revised upwards. Inflation forecasts for the end of 2011 have risen sharply from 1.6% to 4.2%. with a further increase next year, and the result of this slower growth, higher unemployment and higher inflation is that the government will have to borrow a further £46bn more than forecast after the spending review.” He said he had become convinced that the plan to eradicate the structural deficit in this parliament “was primarily about electoral politics – rapid tax rises and spending cuts chiefly designed to fit a political timetable that gets the pain over early [and] makes Labour take the blame”. Balls added that he was astonished Osborne had not thought more carefully about the “fork in the road” when he came to office last May. He said: “He did not hesitate in making a rash and headlong lunge down the path of rapid deficit reduction. But while he might have been expected to carefully contemplate the fork in front of him and consider the consequences of his decision, George Osborne said, ‘rapid deficit reduction is the priority, there is no choice – the markets demand it, the faster we cut, the better for confidence, no alternative is possible, and anyone who says otherwise is a deficit denier.’” Ed Balls Economic policy Tax and spending Labour George Osborne Conservatives Liberal-Conservative coalition Economics Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Tehran says Rasad launch is to help produce high-res maps but move prompts concern over nuclear ambitions Iran has launched a satellite into orbit, state television reported, a move likely to raise concerns among those who fear Iran’s intentions and nuclear development programme. The report said the locally produced satellite, called Rasad, or observation, was launched successfully by a Safir missile on Wednesday. There was no independent confirmation of the launch or of the satellite achieving orbit. If successful, it would be the second satellite Iran has put into orbit. The first, named Omid, was launched in 2009 . The Iranian TV report said the new satellite is designed to produce high-resolution maps. Iran’s decade-long space programme has alarmed the west because the same technology that allows missiles to launch satellites can be used to fire warheads. Israel, the US and other nations allege that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies. The TV report said the Rasad satellite, developed by Iran’s aerospace agency, weighs 15.3kg and has been designed to orbit the Earth 15 times a day at a height of 160 miles. “Our glorious scientists successfully put Iran’s first image-collecting satellite into orbit,” the TV report said. Iran has made a series of claims about advances in its ambitious space programme in recent years. In 2010 , Iran announced it had successfully launched a rocket carrying a mouse, turtle and worms into space. Iran has also said it aims to put a man into orbit within 10
Continue reading …Michael Gove unveils plan to convert weakest primary schools into academies
June 16, 2011 No Comment
Education secretary targets schools that have fallen below the government’s minimum standard, with the weakest 200 being converted from September 2012 The 200 weakest primary schools in England will be placed under new management by 2012, the education secretary Michael Gove will say on Thursday. It is the most direct interference in primary schools by a government that has, so far, been mainly focused on intervention on secondary schools. The education secretary wants as many schools as possible to become academies in the belief that the system has transformed secondary education and could do the same for primary schools. The weakest 200 primary schools will be converted from September 2012. The announcement coincided with reports that an accounting blunder by the Department of Education has left many existing academies with more funding than they are entitled to, prompting Gove to claim that the coalition government had inherited a “flawed system” from Labour. Gove made the case for extending academy status to primaries to raise standards. He said the process could involve “significant change” in terms of staffing, and in some cases the headteacher would be removed. “Sometimes, yes, the headteacher will go, but in other circumstances it will be the case the staff will remain the same but the leadership that’s provided by another school will help those who have been struggling for far too long to improve,” he told BBC Breakfast. “It’s not intended to be anything other than a helping hand upwards for the staff in the school, but above all the children, who have to be our first concern.” This “sponsored academy” programme is in addition to the 1,200 schools that have already applied to convert to academy status (“converter academies”). Gove is to target those that have, for five years, fallen below the government’s “minimum floor standard” (less than 60% of the children reaching a basic level in English and Maths at 11, and where children make below-average progress between seven and 11). He said: “Every year we ask young people to sit tests at the end of primary school in English and mathematics. These are schools where more than 40% of students haven’t been getting to the right level, and they haven’t been getting to that level for more than five years. “So yes, these schools will know themselves the difficulties that they’ve been in, and starting from 2012, from September 2012, these schools will be converted into academies.” He insisted the change would “strip out bureaucracy” for teachers and give them more freedom to vary the school day and change the curriculum. “Ultimately the people who make schools better are teachers not bureaucrats and that’s what the academy model incarnates,” he added. Local authorities with particularly large numbers of struggling primaries will be identified for urgent collaboration with the Department for Education. On the basis of 2010 results, there are about 1,400 primary schools below the primary minimum floor standard. Of those, about 500 have been below the floor for two or three of the last four years. A further 200 have been below standard for the last five years and 120 of those have been below the floor for more than a decade. The funding of academies came under scrutiny as it emerged that an accounting blunder by the Department of Education has left many academies with more funding than they are entitled to, leaving the prospect of many having large sums of money “clawed back”. Gove blamed “mistakes” by local authorities for the overpayments which saw some academies receive hundreds of thousands of pounds they were not entitled to. The Financial Times reported the error was particularly pronounced in Hampshire, where academies had been given an extra £300 per pupil, worth around £300,000 a year to the average secondary academy. Pressed on the report on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Gove said initially he found the report “a bit perplexing”, before conceding there was a problem. “There have been individual mistakes made by local authorities in the calculation of their section 251 returns,” he said. Asked whether officials in the Department for Education had been responsible for any of the mistakes, he replied: “Not that I am aware of.” But pressed again, he said they had been working with a “flawed” system inherited from the former Labour government. “What we are actually working with is a funding system which was designed by the last government which is flawed,” he said. “There is a problem with the financing of all schools because of the funding mechanism that was designed by the last government.” He added: “Every year money is clawed back in this way.” Gove will use a speech in Birmingham to make the case for academy primary schools, citing the shift of political and economic power to Asia. “We have just suffered the worst financial crisis since 1929,” he will say. “Our economy is weighed down by a huge debt burden. Europe has major problems with debt and the euro. “Meanwhile there is a rapid and historic shift of political and economic power to Asia and a series of scientific and technological changes that are transforming our culture, economy and global politics. “If we do not have a school system adapting to and preparing for these challenges – a school system that is not only adapting to the amazing revolution of iTunesU, whereby Harvard and Oxbridge publish their most valuable content free, but is also able to adapt to the unknown revolutions ahead — then we will face even worse crises in the years ahead. Justifying his intervention, Gove will state “there is only so much you can do between 11 and 16,” arguing that the fate of a pupil may well be settled by the time they reach secondary school. “The education debate in this country has not confronted reality. Education systems across the world are improving faster than England. We have to set our sights higher. We should no longer tolerate a system in which so many pupils leave primary school without a good grasp of English and maths, and leave secondary school without five good GCSEs. We want all parents to have a choice of good local schools. “Evidence shows that the academy programme has had a good effect on school standards. Heads and teachers should run schools and they should be more accountable to parents instead of politicians. We must go faster and further in using the programme to deal with underperforming schools.” Michael Gove Primary schools Schools Education policy Patrick Wintour Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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• European stock markets slide • Euro hits three-week low against the dollar • Greek bond yields hit nearly 30% World stock markets fell sharply again on Thursday as the imminent prospect of a Greek debt default gripped investors. Greece’s bonds also hit record levels after Wednesday’s violent riots piled fresh pressure on an Athens government already on the edge. There was also concern that Europe lacks the firepower to bring the ongoing debt crisis under control, with a member of the European Central Bank (ECB) warning that the existing rescue package needs to be doubled to €1.5 trillion (£1.3tn). In London, the FTSE 100 shed 63 points at the start of trading to 5679, a drop of more than 1%. Just three shares were higher, as the blue chip index hit its lowest level since 17 March. European markets also suffered losses. France’s CAC dropped by 1.5%, led by French banks which have large exposure to Greek debt, while the German DAX was 0.7% lower. Earlier, the panic in Greece touched Asia, with Japan’s Nikkei dropping by 1.7% to 9411.28 in a nervy session. The euro also suffered, hitting a three-week low against the dollar, as traders warned that a Greek default would have catastrophic consequences for the global markets. “With Greek sovereign debt squarely back on the agenda, risk appetite amongst traders is very much off and equities are coming under sustained pressure as a result,” said Cameron Peacock of IG Markets. “A new government is set to be formed in Athens today against a backdrop of civil unrest and the big concern is that politics gets in the way of the second tranche of the bailout, in turn forcing a debt restructuring in the eurozone,” Peacock added. George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, announced on Wednesday night that he would seek a vote of confidence on a new government after offering to resign. He hopes to create a new national unity coalition with opposition conservatives, in an effort to stabilise the country. Bond traders, though, continued to view Greek debt as hugely risky. The yield, or effective interest rate, on Greek two-year bonds hit 29.468%, a lifetime record. The cost of insuring Greek debt against collapse spiked, with the five-year credit default swap leaping 124 basis points to a record high of 1,850bp, according to Markit. That means it would cost €1.85m to insure €10m of Greek debt. “The impasse within the institutions of the EU, as well as the political and social upheaval within Greece, has roiled the markets,” said Gavan Nolan, director of credit research at Markit. European leaders have been debating their next move in the Greek crisis for several weeks, after it became clear that the country needs a second bailout. However, it is unclear how a plan can be drawn up that will save Greece from default. One option is to restructure of some of its €330bn debt, with lenders agreeing to defer repayments. Credit rating agencies, though, have warned that such a plan would be treated as a default. Gary Jenkins, head of fixed income research at Evolution Securities, does not believe that this debt “reprofiling” is feasible. “I still fail to see why an investor would want to agree to extend maturities rather than get paid back in full and on time,” said Jenkins. “If the choice is extend or default then it could be argued that it is not a voluntary decision and certainly the rating agencies will regard it as a default.” Earlier, ECB governing council member Nout Wellink predicted that the European bailout fund should be doubled to €1.5tn, to stave off the risk of a new Greek bailout triggering renewed crisis in Ireland and Portugal. “If you take these risks, you need to build a safety net,” Wellink told Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad. “If ratings agencies see a rollover (of Greek debt) as a partial default, contagion to other peripheral eurozone countries will occur.” European debt crisis Europe Market turmoil Stock markets Greece Europe Bonds Euro Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen 10.34am: Balls is now addressing the question of whether or not it would matter if Britain changed course. Osborne has said the markets would lose confidence in the UK if he changed the pace of deficit reduction. Balls admit that in 2009 he thought Labour’s plan to halve the deficit over four years was too ambitious. But in early 2010 the signs were that the plan was working. He says historians will debate whether Labour should have conducted a full spending review before the 2010 election. (That implies that he thinks there should have been one.) But Labour’s plan had credibility with the markets. Balls says Osborne also had a clear plan and that his plan had political support. But the question is: does it work? George Osborne’s logic is that if Greece, Ireland and Portugal had adopted the same approach that he is taking, they would not be facing such severe and deepening crises. The problem for him – and for them – is that they did. In fact, the Portuguese Chancellor went one better by introducing two VAT rises in the past year. And what they, Ireland and Greece have all discovered – just like Argentina, Brazil and Turkey before them – is that it doesn’t matter how much they cut spending or how much they raise taxes; if they can’t create jobs and growth, their debt and deficit problems get even worse and market confidence falls further still. My concern is that we are starting to see the same thing happen here in Britain. 10.27am: Balls says he wants to consider whether the fact that growth is slower than expected matters. He dismisses claims that he personally predicted a double-dip recession. I have been consistent in saying that a double-dip recession was never the most likely outcome – although it does seem that over the last 6 months we have missed it by a whisker. But the test for the economy is not whether we avoid a double-dip recession, or whether unemployment rises or falls in any particular quarter, but how much pain is inflicted along the way in lost growth and lost jobs. The fact that growth is slower than expected matters because it is making the UK poorer, Balls says. If UK growth came in 0.5 percentage points below trend in every year of this Parliament, our country would be £58bn worse off in 2015 – that’s £3,300 for every family. And the OBR has warned that we should expect unemployment to be up to 200,000 higher over the coming years than expected just a few months ago. So the test for the Treasury isn’t just whether they can post better growth rates – we all know the economy will return to stronger growth eventually – it’s whether they can make up all this lost ground in jobs and living standards. Balls says that on the Today programme recently Evan Davis suggested that, since the economy would recover eventually, it did not matter much how long this took. You could either have less growth now and less pain later, or more growth now and more pain (cuts) later. But Balls says this is a false choice. But – and this is the crucial point – the trend growth rate of the economy is not fixed – so this isn’t just about growth postponed versus pain deferred. Months – or years – of slow growth aren’t something that will be quickly repaired. It risks leaving a permanent dent in our nation’s prosperity – relative to how prosperous we might have been and how prosperous we are relative to other countries. Because economic history also teaches us that economies don’t simply bounce back to where they would have been. Who now doubts that the depth of the recession of the early 1980s had long-term and permanent effects? Manufacturing jobs and companies lost – never to return. Small businesses gone bankrupt – losing skills, ideas, networks and potential. Capital investment plans first postponed eventually dropped and never resurrected. And most importantly of all, adults and young people out of work for months, which turned into years, and left a permanent scarring effect on their skills, their health, and their ability and willingness to ever work again. 10.25am: Balls says Osborne blames “global headwinds” for the fact that growth in the UK is lower than expected. But these “headwinds” are not affecting other countries. The scale of the fiscal hit to demand and growth in Britain this year is unprecedented. And it is happening at a time when interest rates are already very low and can’t be cut and when other countries are also trying to cut their deficits at the same time. It is this combination of factors which suggest that the impact of this fiscal contraction on economic growth in Britain – what economists call ‘the fiscal multiplier’ – will be considerably more severe than even the OBR’s downgraded forecasts suggest. 10.20am: Balls says Osborne’s budget in March was a “do nothing” budget. But it has been a year since the government created the Office for Budget Responsibility. We can compare its forecasts from last year with its forecasts now. A year ago, the OBR forecast growth of 2.6% in 2011 – they now predict just 1.7% and even that three time-downgraded figure is looking optimistic compared to recent lower forecasts from the OECD, the IMF, the NIESR and the British Chambers of Commerce; Unemployment forecasts for the next four years have all been revised upwards; Inflation forecasts for the end of 2011 have risen sharply from 1.6% to 4.2% – with a further increase next year; And the result of this slower growth, higher unemployment and higher inflation is that the Government will have to borrow a further £46 billion more than forecast after the Spending Review. Balls mocks Osborne for blaming the snow for the negative growth at the end of last year. It also snowed in America, Germany and France – and they all posted strong growth. Indeed, the only other European countries with falling output at the end of last year were Denmark, Ireland, Greece and Portugal – and the latter two countries don’t tend to get much snow, even in winter. This was definitely not part of the Chancellor’s script a year ago. 10.19am: Balls reveals that chancellors choose cartoons of themselves to hang on the staircase in the Treasury to sum up their time in office. I didn’t know that. Unfortunately he doesn’t tell us what cartoon Gordon Brown chose. 10.18am: Balls says that today he will be arguing “that the accumulating evidence shows that George Osborne’s political gamble is taking our economy down the wrong path at huge cost to families and businesses – but that it’s not too late for him to change course.” 10.16am: Balls says Osborne had a key decision to make when he became chancellor. He could have followed Labour’s defict reduction plan. But he chose not to. Balls says that he thinks Osborne was motivated by politics, not economics. I was – and remain – deeply suspicious that he was using the imperative of deficit reduction as convenient cover to drive through a deeply ideological programme of cuts to public services and the welfare state. But since then, I have become more convinced that George Osborne’s plan was primarily about electoral politics – rapid tax rises and spending cuts chiefly designed to fit a political timetable that: – gets the pain over early; – makes Labour take the blame; – uses the Liberal Democrats as a human shield; – hoping to store up a Tory war-chest – bolstered perhaps with the proceeds from a quick sale of Northern Rock – to cut income taxes before the election. 10.13am: Balls says there are moments in history when leaders face “a fork in the road”. But sometimes they make the wrong choices. He mentions Alan Walters opposing Britain’s decision to joint the Exchange Rate Mechanism and John Maynard Keynes opposing Churchill’s decision to rejoin the Gold Standard in 1925. Balls has been saying recently that just because the consensus backs George Osborne, that does not mean that Osborne and the consensus are right. Balls seems to be identifying himself with Walters and Keynes. 10.10am: Ed Balls is speaking now. He says that this is his first speech on economics since become shadow chancellor. And he reassures his audience that he won’t be delivering a lecture on economic theory. I presume that means we won’t be hearing about post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory. 10.03am: Ed Balls hasn’t started yet – I’m monitoring it from Sky and BBC News – but the full text of his speech is on the New Statesman website. I’m just reading it now. 9.36am: Ed Balls (left) will be delivering his economy speech at 10am. I’ll be covering it in full live. And if you want to know why it’s so important, just look at the polls. As this chart shows (pdf), the economy is viewed as by far the most important issue facing the country. It gets cited as one of the most important issues facing Britain by 73% of people; immigration comes next on 49%. And, as this chart shows (pdf), voters blame Labour for the spending cuts. Asked who is responsible for the current spending cuts, 40% blame the last Labour government, 24% blame the coalition and 24% blame both. Balls’s task this morning is to try to persuade those 40% that they are wrong. 8.59am: Do read Alan Milburn ‘s article on the government’s revised health reforms in the Daily Telegraph. It’s one of the most interesting pieces that has been written about the plans unveiled by David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley on Tuesday, and probably the most damaging, because of Miliburn’s own reputation as an enthusiast for using competition and the private sector to reform public services. But in March Milburn wrote an article for the Guardian saying that the government’s original plans – which were far more pro-competition than the proposals unveiled this week – were also flawed. Is he being consistent? Milburn is particularly strong on the politics of the coalition U-turn. He claims that the debacle has “set back for a generation the cause of market-based NHS reform” and that as a result the government will not achieve the £20bn in efficiency savings that it wants to achieve. And he issues a powerful warning for Cameron. So how will the NHS books be balanced? By the usual device which policy-makers have deployed every decade or so in the NHS. A very large cheque. It is precisely the situation Cameron and George Osborne were trying to avoid: sorry, George, but the cash you were saving in your pre-election Budget for tax cuts will now have to be spent on a bail-out for the health service. As for explaining why the revised plans won’t work well, Milburn complains about the new commissioning structures being set up. The U-turn slows the pace of reform and dramatically dilutes its impact. GP consortiums that were supposed to be in place by 2013 now have no deadline for their creation. England will have a patchwork quilt of decision-making for years to come. Worse still, GPs’ ability to drive more services out of hospital and into the community has been severely compromised [presumably because hospital doctors will now be represented on the commissioning consortia]. Miliburn also complains that the national NHS Commissioning Board (which was always going to be left in charge of commissioning specialist services worth up to £30bn, and which will also take charge of commissioning in areas where the new clinical commissioning groups are not ready by 2013) will have too much power. This is a point he made strongly in his Guardian article in March. This is what he says about it today. Instead, the Government’s U-turn places real power in the hands of the national NHS Commissioning Board – the daddy of all quangos. The board will control how £60 billion of NHS money is spent in local communities from Darlington to Dartmouth. It is the biggest nationalisation since Nye Bevan created the NHS in 1948. I’m not sure whether he would be laughing or turning in his grave at the prospect of the Conservative Party championing such a policy. Milburn is on weaker ground when he criticises the way Monitor’s scope to promote competition in the NHS has been watered down. This is what he says today. Monitor, which was to have been charged with promoting competition, will have a duty to promote integration. Words have meaning in the NHS. Every single local decision-maker will read that change as a signal to weaken competition, not strengthen it, and to protect the public sector incumbent over the private or voluntary sector insurgent. The debacle has set back for a generation the cause of market-based NHS reform. But in the Guardian in March criticised the bill as it then was on the grounds that it did not do enough to promote integration. This is what he wrote. While it is a good idea to extend competition, in the NHS it is a bad idea to allow this to fragment local services or to be on the basis of price rather than quality. Market mechanisms can work in healthcare but only when properly managed … The bigger question to pose is whether these reforms can possibly meet the challenge the NHS faces from an explosion in chronic diseases, such as diabetes. That calls for policies that integrate services rather than fragment them, and for more focus on prevention. One other point is worth mentioning. Today’s article is not just an attack on the government. Milburn also says that Labour’s response to the announcement on Tuesday suggests that the party is retreating into its “comfort zone”. There is an open goal for Ed Miliband’s Labour Party. The temptation, of course, is for Labour to retreat to the comfort zone of public sector producer-interest protectionism – and there were signs of that in the party’s response to the Government’s U-turn this week. It would be unwise, in my view, for Labour to concede rather than contest the reform territory. It now has an opportunity to restake its claim to be the party of progressive, radical reform. It is only when we are that we win. 8.42am: We’ve got a big speech from Ed Balls this morning. As Nicholas Watt report s, based on extracts released yesterday, he will accuse George Osborne of creating a “permanent dent” in the British economy by cutting spending too fast. And, overnight, the BBC has been briefed that Balls will be calling for an emergency tax cut. I’ll be covering the speech in detail after 9.30am. I’ll be having a look at Alan Miliburn’s declaration that the government’s revised health reforms will be “the biggest car crash in NHS history” . And there are a few other things going on too. Here’s a full list. 9am: Sir David Nicholson , the NHS chief executive, speaks at a health commissioning conference. 9.15am: Prof Steve Field , the chairman of the NHS Future Forum , gives evidence to the Commons health committee 10am: Ed Balls , the shadow chancellor, delivers a speech at the LSE. 10.15am: Michael Gove , the education secretary, speaks at the National College for School Leadership conference. As the Guardian reported yesterday , he will say that by 2015 he expects every secondary school in England to be achieving the current national average of at least 50% of pupils achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. 11am: Lord Fowler , chairman of the Lords communications committee, asks a question in the Lords about what the government is doing about phone hacking . Lunchtime: David Cameron holds a PM Direct event. As usual, I’ll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I’ll post a lunchtime summary at around 12.30pm. After that I’ll be off – I’ve got a meeting to go to – but my colleague Hélène Mulholland will then be taking over. House of Commons Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk
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