As the security curtain is folded away for another year, we take a look back at some of the highlights of the world’s most important (and least publicised) international summit Charlie Skelton
Continue reading …Our economy is so bad, even cable companies, traditionally the last thing Americans cut, have noticed: For all the talk about competitive threats from the likes of Netflix Inc or Apple Inc, it is rising poverty among households that TV executives say is their biggest source of concern. Executives from News Corp, Comcast Corp and Time Warner Inc, speaking at the annual Cable Show industry event, made clear the industry needed a stronger housing market and better jobs picture to win new customers and keep existing ones. “We have to be sensitive in making sure we have a product that consumers can afford,” said Pat Esser, president of privately held Cox Communications, speaking at the industry’s biggest yearly event. Investors and analysts, with a few exceptions, can often be heard worrying more about how the cable industry will cope with cheaper entertainment packages from rivals such as Netflix, Amazon.com Inc or Google Inc. Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt, however, was one of the executives focusing on the hazards of a bad economy. “There clearly is a growing underclass of people who clearly can’t afford it,” he said. “It would serve us well to worry about that group.”
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Was disgraced Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner, who carried on several inappropriate online chats with young women, a victim of a newly “puritanical” climate in Washington? That’s the inference from Kate Zernike’s front-page story for the New York Times's Week in Review, “ Naked Hubris…While digital flux makes it easier for politicians to stra y,” a companion piece to Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s “When it comes to scandal, boys will be boys.”
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Friends of the Earth International celebrates 40 years of environmental campaigning
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Plans to subsidise low-income families ‘not ambitious enough’, funding quango tells institutions hoping to charge £4,000 a year Welsh universities have been forbidden from charging higher tuition fees next year because their plans to encourage poor teenagers to take up places are not ambitious enough. All Welsh universities – and four of the country’s colleges – want to charge annual fees of more than £4,000 by autumn 2012. But to do this, they had to submit plans to subsidise more low-income students. These plans had to be endorsed by the quango that is in charge of allocating public funds, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (Hefcw). However, the quango has told all 10 universities and the four colleges that their plans were not ambitious enough and that they would have to rewrite them if they were to charge higher fees. The move will be closely watched by universities in England, where the same could happen. All 123 universities and university colleges in England and a further 17 further education colleges are hoping to charge more than £6,000 a year from autumn 2012. To do so, they have had to submit targets to widen their pool of students beyond white middle-class teenagers. The Office for Fair Access is considering the plans and in July will tell universities whether it has accepted them. The English government has recommended that universities spend £1,000 out of every £9,000 received in fees on support for students. A spokeswoman from Hefcw said it had written to the universities and colleges in Wales to say that the plans, in their current form, “do not meet the necessary requirements”. She said the proposals lacked ambition in some cases, while in others the targets fell short of what was expected. Some universities did not include as much detail as the quango wanted. “We expect to receive revised plans, taking account of the concerns we have raised with individual institutions, by, or very soon after, the end of June,” she said. The quango said it would not be commenting on each university’s proposals before 11 July, when it will have made final decisions. Leighton Andrews, education minister in the Welsh assembly, said he was pleased that Hefcw had been “thorough and robust”. He said: “Plans will only be agreed if institutions demonstrate that they are meeting certain requirements, which include equality of access to higher education and improving the student experience.” Welsh universities will be allowed to charge up to £9,000 tuition fees for students from England and Wales. But the Welsh assembly government will subsidise Welsh students up to £5,625 a year for their studies. The lecturers’ trade union said Hefcw’s decision was “worrying” and “confusing” for English universities. Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “This extra confusion for English universities just adds to the mess that is the government’s failing university funding policy. Unless the government uses the imminent publication of the white paper to pause on its catastrophic reforms then it will be staff, students and the UK’s international reputation that suffer the most.” Tuition fees Higher education Students University funding Wales Advice for students Further education Education policy Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
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Trebling of tuition fees and disillusionment with UK universities cited as reasons for interest in top American institutions The number of UK teenagers applying to Ivy League and top state-funded universities in the US has risen sharply in the past few years, figures show. Data obtained from seven prestigious US institutions reveals that a major drive to recruit UK undergraduates is starting to pay off. One leading headteacher told the Guardian that the growing interest came partly from a belief among parents and pupils that “UK universities were creaking at the limits”. Harvard has received 500 applications from UK students for undergraduate courses this autumn, a jump from 370 last year. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley, has had 166 applications from the UK, up from 130 last year. The university said applications from other European Union students had fallen from 343 last year to 281 this year. Cornell University, which is part of the Ivy League and is based in New York, has seen applications from UK students rise this year to 197 from 176 last year. Some of the universities count only the number of students who enrol on their courses rather than those who apply. Enrolments from the UK to Yale, another Ivy League institution, have doubled in the last five years, with a large spike last year. In 2006, 15 UK students enrolled. This grew to 25 in 2009 and 36 the following year. Enrolments at Columbia, also in the Ivy League, rose from 164 in 2003 to 170 in 2006 and 178 in 2009. At Indiana, one of the top-rated US public universities, there has been a modest rise in UK applications this year – from seven to nine. Other applications from the EU grew to 50 this year from 41 last year. At Princeton, another Ivy League institution in New Jersey, enrolments from the UK have more than doubled in the last five years, from 32 in 2005 to 77 in 2010. In 2009, there were 81 enrolments from the UK. The cost of studying at an Ivy League university for a UK student can reach up to £37,000 ($60,000) a year. Most undergraduate courses last four years. Fees at state-funded universities are substantially lower, but it can be difficult to obtain a place without US citizenship. Despite this, the headteacher of a leading public school, King’s College school in Wimbledon, south-west London, said he had noticed that interest in studying at US universities was growing. Andrew Halls said the near-trebling of tuition fees was one factor: from autumn 2012, universities in England and Wales will be allowed to charge up to £9,000 in tuition fees each year. But Halls also said there was “growing disillusionment” among pupils and parents with what most UK universities could offer. “There is a bit of a sense that UK universities are creaking at the limits,” he said. “Our 13- to 16-year-olds are talking about applying to US universities much more than they used to. There’s a feeling that [if you go to a UK university that is not Oxbridge], you may not get as much teaching as you would like. US universities emphasise the ‘whole man’. They love to hear about students playing the piano and other extra-curricular activities. They want a fulsomeness that Oxbridge and others seem distrustful of. Quite a lot of parents say that it is because of this that they are prepared to make a big financial sacrifice and pay for a US university.” A report on overseas students in the US by the Institute of International Education found that in 2004 there were 8,274 UK students studying in the US. In 2009 this had grown to 8,861. Lauren Welch, head of the advisory service at the US-UK Fulbright Commission, which encourages educational exchanges between UK and US students, said many US universities and colleges saw this year as “an unprecedented opportunity to recruit British students”. “They know that tuition fees are increasing threefold in just one year and that places will be capped on places for UK students, and they want to take advantage of this chance to make students aware of the American alternative.” Welch added that the profile of students who went to study in the US was changing. “They were primarily from greater London and the south-west and attended an independent or international school,” she said. “We are now seeing more and more students apply to the US from state and grammar schools and from a much wider spectrum of the British population.” King’s College school is holding a conference – the American Dream – this September for headteachers and pupils to discuss applying to US universities. Higher education University teaching Student finance Students United States Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
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Public and Commercial Services union members to join teachers and lecturers for 30 June walkout A quarter of a million civil servants are to join striking teachers for a mass walkout on 30 June, bringing schools, colleges, universities, courts, ports and job centres to a halt. Up to 750,000 state employees are expected to take part in the strike, over the government’s pension reforms, after members of the Public and Commercial Services union voted by 61.1% in favour of strikes, and by 83.6% for other forms of industrial action, on a turnout of 32.4%. Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the PCS, said the action was principally against cuts but also against the coalition’s public service reforms. “The clear majority in favour of a strike shows that public servants – who provide vital services across the country – are not prepared to stand back while everything they have ever worked for is taken from them,” he said. “The government claims this is about rebalancing pensions, but it has already admitted that the money it saves will go straight to the Treasury to help pay off the deficit in what amounts to nothing more than a tax on working in the public sector. “I have been at every one of the negotiating meetings with the government, and what we’ve been told is that they won’t budge on increasing the pension age, they won’t budge on their plans to double or triple contributions, and they won’t budge on the value of our members’ pensions being slashed. “In reality, the talks are a farce and, faced with mass job cuts, the pay freeze and the biggest raid on pensions in living memory, it’s not surprising that people want to defend themselves.” Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, has repeatedly called on the unions to await the outcome of the pensions talks that are currently under way before striking, calling those going ahead with industrial action “irresponsible and wrong”. But on Wednesday, it emerged that a second headteachers’ union, the Association of School and College Leaders, was also moving towards a ballot for strike action. Three teachers’ unions – the National Union of Teachers, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers and the Universities and College Union – have all said they will strike this month. Nearly every major public sector union has now indicated that it is likely to ballot once the talks conclude this summer. Insiders say negotiations are all but at a stalemate, with ministers and unions failing to agree on even basic principles. It means there could be rolling strike action across the public sector in the autumn, which could profoundly disrupt the work of the state. Maude told MPs during Commons questions that “rigorous contingency plans” were in place should a walkout go ahead. He said: “We are engaging in discussions with the TUC at the behest of the TUC – those discussions are continuing. There’s much still to be sorted out. “It was Lord Hutton, the previous Labour pensions secretary, who recommended these reforms to make public sector pensions schemes sustainable and affordable for the future. That’s what we’re determined to achieve. “Any union or any public servant contemplating strike action at the moment is really jumping the gun – there’s a long way to go on this yet.” He added: “I am sorry that a handful of unions are hell-bent on pursuing disruptive industrial action while those discussions are still continuing, though we have rigorous contingency plans in place to minimise disruption in the event of industrial action.” Trade unions Mark Serwotka Public sector cuts Public services policy Public finance Public sector pay Public sector pensions Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …*Conservatives from The Weekly Standard and The Daily Caller admit to host of The Big Picture, Thom Hartmann, that closing the gun show loophole would be a good idea. Somehow, between breathless fanboy posts alerting his readers to the every movement of Rick Perry (he sure is dreamy!), The National Review’s Kevin Williamson found time to prostrate himself (not once , but twice ) before National Rifle Association (NRA) talking points, support the interests of al-Qaeda, and fit multiple lies all into one little screed. Pretty impressive work, especially when you factor in his limited availability. I mean, those Rick Perry posters aren’t going to just stare at themselves. In these pieces, al-Qaeda Tool Williamson did what gun fetishists and NRA apologists always do when inconvenient truths about the blood already on their hands, or yet to come, are presented to them: He threw out random vituperation (even attacking one of his colleagues at NRO who happens to have more common sense than he could ever possess–he must be an absolute joy to work with!), and some misdirection that would make Houdini proud. My problem, of course, is that I don’t much like wannabe-bullies. Especially those who view the NRA like David Vitter does a lady-of-the-night with extra Huggies in hand, even more so when they lie and attack my friends at Media Matters on an issue I work on and care about, with Bachmannian reasoning to boot. So I thought I might respond, you know, for fun. The crux of our story is that Adam Gadahn, the American-born al-Qaeda spokesman, made a statement that was 90% correct about the easy availability of firearms for terrorists in the US (because of people like Williamson and the NRA), so this al-Qaeda Tool, of course, chose to focus on the 10% that wasn’t accurate. Here is our own David Neiwert’s explanation of what set off this jack-in-the-box originally: That popping sound you hear is the heads of NRA loyalists exploding from massive cognitive dissonance, all because of the release this week of a video showing a spokesman for al-Qaeda, Adam Gadahn, urging would-be jihadis to go out and stock up on as many guns as they can get their hands on — through the gun-show loophole So what do you do when you’re a shill for the NRA and have to explain why you don’t support the simple common sense of 69% of NRA members and 85% of Americans , (in a poll conducted by known liberal Frank Luntz for Mayors Against Illegal Guns) all of whom want to close the Gun Show Loophole? The one that Al Qaeda thug Gadahn spoke about. The one that has allowed everyone from Hezbollah to Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell to the Columbine killers to arm themselves–and provided a nice source of income for Timothy McVeigh. The one that sadly, as the thug Gadahn points out, would allow any Ayman al-Zwahiri to walk into a gun show in the 33 states that have not closed it, and buy a gun from “private sellers” without any kind of background check. What you do is lie of course, and portray private sales of firearms as “Uncle Bubba,” deciding “to swap his deer rifle to Otis for $100 and a case of Bud.” Here, I’d like to take a moment to thank Mr. NRA-talking-points dispenser for the oh-so-clever and folksy narrative, but in the real world where guns are used in mass murders, “Uncle Bubba” sometimes sells 348 guns in less than a year using that very loophole in our law for which our favorite al-Qaeda Tool has donned his usually-reserved-for-Rick-Perry knee pads. Perhaps more hysterically, useful idiot that Williamson is, he compares the private sale of guns to the private sale of automobiles. You know, those things that require licenses to drive and registration, all that crazy regulation that would obviously place us squarely on the road to serfdom if even mentioned in the same breath as his beloved firearms. Nicely played, Kev. So let’s quickly point out to our “drooling and comtemptible” readers here (his words regarding liberal blog readers at Media Matters–don’t be jealous, he likely thinks of you the same way), the myriad lies Williamson committed to blog when defending the NRA and the rights of al-Qaeda adherents across this vast land to arm themselves with as little hassle as possible. He engaged this little game of obfuscation when attacking Chris Brown of Media Matters , whose cardinal sin was to point out what all the falsehoods in Williamson’s original digital reach-around to the NRA. Not surprisingly al-Qaeda’s man with the plan gets the facts wrong again and again and again: 1. Media Matters said conversation kits are available at gun shows, not that they are perfectly legal. The GAO and any number of individual accounts, like Mark Potok’s , tell the simple truth that conversion kits are available at gun shows. No points on that one, Williamson. 2. Media Matters didn’t cite al-Qaeda as a source on gun laws. They pointed out that al-Qaeda was instructing terrorists to carry out mass murder by exploiting a well known loophole in US gun laws. Strike two, tough guy. 3. Media Matters said that conversion manuals, not kits as you claimed, are easily obtained online. Third time’s most definitely not a charm, Kev-o. So it would seem Williamson is either a dunderhead who lacks basic reading comprehension or a professional prevaricator who simply makes stuff up when his arguments fail on their merits. Likely, our hero is some combination of the two. I am sure Williamson will soon once again inform us of his warped views on this subject among his published pablum–he may even say mean things about me! After all, Rick Perry might take a day off for vacation, or perhaps due to self-inflicted visual impairment at the hands of a sticky LA Looks nozzle, and then what will Williamson be left with but NRA talking points tattooed on his biceps and a whole lot of excess stupid. I can be followed on Twitter @cliffschecter – Come on by, and I’d love to hear from you
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On Sunday, New York Times movie critic John Anderson issued a favorable profile of “If a Tree Falls,” a partisan documentary from Marshall Curry featuring convicted arsonist Daniel McGowan of the environmental terrorist group Earth Liberation Front: “ Activist or Terrorist, Rendered in Red, White and Green .” When Daniel McGowan moved in with his sister after college, he was so passionate about recycling that he took all the labels off her canned food. The problem was, he didn’t wait for her to open the cans. 'I didn’t know if I had soup, or what kind of soup; I don’t know if there’s peas, or corn,' Lisa McGowan said in an interview. 'He said, 'I never thought of that.' Some would call Mr. McGowan overeager. The government calls him a terrorist. The problem is, McGowan isn’t in jail for taking labels off canned food items but for arson and conspiracy related to the destruction of two lumber companies in Oregon, domestic terrorism credited to the Earth Liberation Front. With 'If a Tree Falls,' Mr. Curry performs another balancing act: examining the roots of radical environmentalism, the destruction wrought by the Earth Liberation Front beginning in the mid-’90s and the definition of terror as used by the federal government. In the process he presents a character who defies most of the presumptions, and stereotypes, of terrorism in the post-9/11 world. This paragraph exculpated the eco-terrorist, who after all only burned down “two empty buildings.” 'If a Tree Falls' is not a whodunit. Mr. McGowan admits to having participated in arson committed by the front, a group the F.B.I. called America’s No. 1 domestic terror threat in 2001, though no one was harmed during its acts of property destruction. 'They wanted to give him 330 years for burning down two empty buildings,' Ms. McGowan said of her brother, who received a seven-year term but was sentenced under terrorism enhancement provisions of the law, and is thus limited to one visit a month, behind glass. Anderson suggested it’s not McGowan’s fault, but that of a repressive U.S. society: That footage, some of the film’s most galvanizing, includes a 1997 episode in Eugene surrounding the cutting down of old-growth trees for a parking lot. When the cutting was abruptly rescheduled to the day before the City Council was to take up the issue, a confrontation between police and environmentalists ensued. The not-quite-articulated message of 'If a Tree Falls' is that a citizenry deprived of a voice may embrace more drastic measures, even a citizenry as mild as Mr. McGowan . In February 2010, Anderson also fell for radical environmentalism, discerning a “ plausible premise ” in an environmentally conscious zombie movie (yes, you read that correctly), “The Crazies.”
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The yakuza is turning its attention from helping disaster victims to winning contracts for the massive rebuilding effort In the aftermath of the devastating March tsunami, Japan’s underworld made a rare display of philanthropy, handing out emergency supplies to survivors, sometimes days before aid agencies arrived. Three months later, however, the yakuza appears to have dispensed with largesse and is instead hoping to cash in on the daunting clean-up effort in dozens of ruined towns and villages. The government and police fear they are losing the battle to prevent crime syndicates from winning lucrative contracts to remove millions of tonnes of debris left in the tsunami’s wake, including contaminated rubble near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that many firms are reluctant to handle. The disaster created almost 24m tonnes of debris in the three hardest-hit prefectures, Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate, according to the environment ministry. So far, just over 5m tonnes – or 22% – has been removed. Those lining up to profit from the clearance operation, which is expected to take three years , include homegrown gangs and Chinese crime syndicates, according to the June edition of Sentaku, a respected political and economic affairs magazine. The magazine recounts the story of a leading Chinese gangster who, accompanied by a national politician, visited the mayor of Minamisoma – a town near Fukushima Daiichi, where a partial evacuation order is in place – hoping to win contracts to remove radioactive waste that, according to police, could have ended up at disposal sites in China. The man, named in the article as Mr X, had reportedly ingratiated himself with the local authorities by handing out free food to people living in evacuation centres. The mayor had no knowledge of the man’s underworld connections, the magazine said. “If they help citizens, it’s hard for the police to say anything bad,” said Tomohiko Suzuki, a journalist who has written several books on the Japanese underworld. “The yakuza are trying to position themselves to gain contracts for their construction companies for the massive rebuilding that will come.” An unnamed senior gangster countered in the Weekly Taishuu magazine: “It takes too long for the arm of the government to reach out here so it’s important to do it now. Our honest sentiment right now is to be of some use to people.” In the days after the tsunami, the wealthiest yakuza gangs reportedly sent dozens of trucks loaded with water, nappies, instant noodles, blankets and other supplies worth an estimated half a million dollars to the stricken region. The race to profit from the operation to remove what is left of wrecked buildings and gain a share of the reconstruction budget is expected to intensify in the coming months. Officials have said that the removal of debris should come under central government control, and the names of “antisocial” individuals have been forwarded to local authorities. But given the sheer quantity of debris, and the manpower required to remove and dispose of it, few believe Japan’s most powerful yakuza gangs will be kept out altogether. The police’s job has been complicated by the emergence of yakuza front companies that, without time-consuming investigations, are impossible to distinguish from legitimate businesses. As Sentaku notes: “It appears to be an uphill battle to prevent the yakuza and other crime syndicates from benefiting from the multitrillion-yen reconstruction projects.” Traditionally, construction has been a dependable well of cash from which the yakuza, with an estimated nationwide membership of 80,000, has supped long and often. “The nexus of massive construction projects, bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen and yakuza are as revealing about Japan as they are about Italy and Russia,” Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo, wrote in his recent book, Contemporary Japan. “In Japan, the yakuza cut on construction projects is estimated at 3%, a vast sum that keeps them afloat, given that during the 1990s the public works budget was on par with the US Pentagon’s budget and remains quite high despite huge cutbacks.” It is not the first time the yakuza has revealed its usually well-hidden philanthropic side. After the western port city of Kobe was struck by an earthquake in January 1995, members of the locally based Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s biggest crime syndicate, were among the first to hand out food and water to survivors. Japan Organised crime Japan disaster Natural disasters and extreme weather Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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