Labour leader wanted to talk about policy but instead faced questions about the ‘plot’ against him and brother David Miliband Ed Miliband answered the questions that have kept Britain awake at night during the depth of recession. When did he murder his brother? And where exactly has he buried the body? Actually, the Labour leader did no such thing. He took a short bus ride across the Thames to the thriving community centre in Coin Street (next to the National Theatre) to warn welfare scroungers, parasitic bankers and anyone speculating in Southern Cross’s elderly residents that he’s on their case. Watch out, there’s a Miliband about and he’s tough! This was a difficult pitch for two reasons. One, that the media is not as interested in Labour’s welfare policy as its warfare policy. Two, there isn’t a Miliband about, there are two, Ed and David; also a second Ed (Balls). They are all supposed to be knifing each other like Borgia popes. Apart from the fratricide, it must be a benefit office’s nightmare. Is the Miliband with a wife and two children in NW3 the same as the one living in similar circumstances in NW5? Which one has been on jobseeker’s allowance since losing the leadership? Does Ed Balls deny plotting more than 16 hours a week against Tony Blair for fear of losing housing benefit? Do parasitic bankers claim multiple bonuses from different banks using faked national insurance numbers? And when Labour leaders bury their brother under the political patio, do they carry on claiming their child benefit? Leader Ed’s wholesome audience, mostly voluntary sector workers, clapped him warmly before asking earnest questions that were even longer than his speech about leading “the party of grafters”. They wanted to discuss immigration, disability hate crimes and other real-world issues. No one watching on TV could actually see them, but they could hear their applause. Whenever a TV reporter asked Ed about his missing brother and his own leadership problems they whooped supportively while he dismissed Westminster village “gossip and tittle tattle” irrelevant to most people in the real world. It was all a bit like Ryan Giggs’ love life: no one cares except those who do. Grafter Ed managed to be cheerful and gracious under pressure. He ignored the fish and chip shop owner from Herne Hill who mistook him for his brother, the one he hasn’t murdered. He kept insisting that we each have a duty to look out for each other and bind up the fraying bonds of society; not easy when you’re accused of knifing your bro’. Reporters refused to believe that everything is normal in the Miliband family. Why isn’t David in the shadow cabinet? “Totally unfair.” He just decided it wasn’t right for him, replied Grafter. Do they never talk any more, as a new biography claimed this week? No, ” we talk all the time”. Only the spoilsport Guardian asked (unhelpfully) about mere policy. Throughout the proceedings Grafter Ed waved his hands in an expressive and animated way which, under the TV lights, cast shadows on the white wall behind him. To a friendly audience it must have looked as if he was making bedtime rabbits on his kids’ bedroom wall. But to the hacks it looked like Eisenstein’s film about Ivan the Terrible, all shadowy conspirators queuing up behind Ed, plotting to do away with him. It said much for Ed’s inner confidence that he didn’t have the room searched in advance to make sure the other Miliband (or the other Ed) wasn’t hiding inside the podium with an axe. Ed Miliband Labour party leadership Labour Ed Balls Michael White guardian.co.uk
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Assad’s forces use scorched earth policy to round up hundreds they claim to be in armed gangs in area north of Jisr al-Shughour Syrian troops have moved closer to the Turkish border as they sweep through villages north of Jisr al-Shughour, rounding up hundreds of people they claim are linked to armed gangs. Turkey was on Monday assembling a fifth refugee camp in its southern border towns, but with the number of Syrians who have crossed the boundary topping 7,000, these camps may not be sufficient to deal with the fast-increasing number of people in need of help. “There are 7,000 people across the border, more and more women and children are coming towards the barbed wires,” said Abu Ali, one of those who left Jisr al-Shughour. “Jisr is finished, it is razed,” he told Associated Press. Several thousand more Syrians remain within sight of the Turkish border fence but appear to be trying to wait out the crisis in the hope that they can return to their properties in their home town. Many have brought with them livestock and worldly possessions that they would have to leave behind if they crossed the frontier. Residents who fled the army onslaught on Jisr al-Shughour said soldiers were pursuing a scorched-earth policy, pouring petrol on farmlands and setting them alight. All men who had stayed behind aged between 18-40 were being arrested, reports said. Strident international criticism over the Jisr al-Shughour operation, which appears to have been sparked by a large mutiny of soldiers on 5 June, has done nothing to quell the violence in the north. Damascus continues to claim it is fighting armed gangs backed by foreign powers who ambushed regime forces, killing 120 of them, then stayed behind to fight the advance by thousands of troops and up to 200 tanks and artillery pieces. The Turkish prime minister, Recap Tayyip Erdogan, has joined the condemnation of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, but has not moved to change the historically close ties between the countries. Analysts in Beirut said a turning point for Ankara may come if the uprising in northern Syria spreads to Kurds in the country’s north-west, who share a border with south-east Turkey, where Kurdish rebels have fought a protracted insurgency against the government. Assad has not accepted Erdogan’s calls over the past week, according to reports from the Turkish capital. Nor has he been prepared to deal with the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. However, Assad did find time to congratulate the Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman, and the prime minister-elect, Najib Miqati, for forming a cabinet after five months of wrangling within Lebanon’s feuding political groups. The mooted new government got off to a bad start, with several key players including a Druze leader and a Hezbollah official, suggesting Lebanon faces more troubled days alongside its dominant neighbour to the east. Britain says it is moving ahead with plans to seek a UN resolution condemning Syria, but is not confident about winning over Russia, a long term ally of Damascus, which has said it would veto any such move. Syria Bashar Al-Assad Turkey Arab and Middle East unrest Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Our degraded discourse: Fox News’ Eric Bolling goes flat-out racist — and the rest of the media yawn
June 13, 2011 No CommentYou know that we’ve reached an important juncture in the degradation of our national discourse by the American Right when a white anchor on Fox Business can skip the company’s ample supply of dog whistles and go right for the David Duke bullhorn in a segment attacking the presence of leading black figures visiting the White House, renaming it the “White Hizzy” — and hardly anyone blinks an eye. Fortunately, Media Matters is calling it out: During the opening of Fox Business’ Follow the Money on Friday, Eric Bolling teased a segment about the White House hosting the president of Gabon by saying, “Guess who’s coming to dinner? A dictator. Mr. Obama shares a laugh with one of Africa’s kleptocrats. It’s not first time he’s had a hoodlum in the hizzouse.” As you can see, the segment went on for several agonizing minutes as the overwhelmingly white panel indulged in the most crude and noxious kind of racial stereotyping we’ve seen since cruising through the Stormfront Website. Bolling was joined by Fox’s platinum-blonde Sandra Smith in calling it “the White Hizzy” : REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): There are good guys. There are bad guys out there. We’ve got to stay engaged. SMITH: We don’t have to have them at home, though. BOLLING: Thank you, Smitty. SMITH: We don’t have to have them in our White House and entertaining them. BOLLING: Where? Where? Where? Go ahead, say it. Where? SMITH: In the hizzy. BOLLING: In the hizzy. Thank you, Smitty. SMITH: Do we really have to have them in the White Hizzy? We’ve observed previously that Bolling appears to be trying to out-crazy Glenn Beck in an attempt to win his soon-to-be-vacated 5 pm EDT slot. Guess that means, at Fox News, doing your best George Wallace imitation. Eric Boehlert has some more thoughts on that. But most disturbing is that this isn’t raising any eyebrows anywhere else in the so-called liberal media. Guess that envelope has been pushed so far that this is now the new normal.
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Official spokesman says police scuffled with youths trying to greet King Abdullah Nervousness about the spread of “Arab spring” protests hit Jordan on Monday when the government moved to quash reports that demonstrators had attacked King Abdullah’s motorcade. Jordanian and western media quoted eyewitness accounts of vehicles in the royal convoy being hit twice by stones and bottles during a visit to the southern town of Tafileh, scene of demonstrations demanding the resignation of the government because of its failure to introduce reforms and fight corruption. Reports from the scene described clashes between crowds and the security forces, but the government quickly denied the story, saying the king had been warmly received. “This news is totally baseless,” said spokesman Taher Adwan. “There was no attack whatsoever with empty bottles and stones. What happened is that a group of young Jordanians thronged the monarch’s motorcade to shake hands with him. When police pushed them away, there was a lot of shoving.” The Amonnews website reported that at least 25 people had been injured by security forces. It was not in dispute that Abdullah had been on a fact-finding mission to inspect infrastructure projects and, according to the official Petra news agency, announce the creation of a £12.9m fund for job creation, infrastructure projects and the provision of free medical services. Tafileh has seen regular protests in recent weeks, including last Friday. The incident came as opposition groups reacted coolly to Sunday’s pledge by Abdullah to allow government minsters to be elected rather than appointed, at some unspecified point in the future. The Jordanian monarch became the latest Arab ruler to signal a readiness to implement reforms but gave no timetable for what would be a significant change. Abdullah said future cabinets would be formed according to the results of parliamentary elections. Currently he has the power to appoint the prime minister. Jordan saw unrest at the start of the Arab spring earlier this year but nothing on the scale of protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen or neighbouring Syria. Still, thousands took to the streets demanding better employment prospects, cuts in foods and fuel costs and an end to corruption. “We seek a state of democracy, pluralism and participation through political reforms … away from the dictates of the street and the absence of the voice of reason,” the king said in a televised speech. New legislation should “guarantee the fairness and transparency of the electoral process through a mechanism that will lead to a parliament with active political party representation”, he added. It should allow “the formation of governments based on parliamentary majority and political party manifestos in the future”. But he warned that sudden change could lead to “chaos and unrest”. The opposition, particularly the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, has demanded sweeping reforms that would lead to a parliamentary system of government in which the premier would be elected rather than named by the king. In February the king sacked the prime minister, Samir al-Rifai, over the slow pace of reform and appointed Marouf al-Bakhit. Bakhit was asked to take “practical, swift and tangible steps to launch a real political reform process, in line with the king’s vision of comprehensive reform, modernisation and development”. In March, two protesters were killed and more than 100 injured when security forces intervened to end a clash between pro-monarchy and pro-reform protesters. “There was nothing new in the speech,” said Zaki Bani Rsheid, the head of the IAF political office. “The king has expressed hopes, as we have heard several times in the past, but he did not give specifics and there were no guarantees.” Labib Kamhzai, a political analyst, said: “The speech was positive on critical issues like electing a prime minister in the future. But we want to see more being done for wider civil liberties and less security interference in the affairs of the state.” Jordan King Abdullah Tunisia Arab and Middle East unrest Yemen Syria Egypt Ian Black guardian.co.uk
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Theresa May criticised as Home Office impact assessment shows plan to reduce non-EU students could harm recovery The government’s drive to cut the number of overseas students coming to Britain will cost the country £2.4bn more than it saves, according to Home Office figures. The official impact assessment for the reform of the student visa system shows the policy will cost more than £3.2bn over the next four years in reduced economic output and a further £330m in lost tuition fees and immigration visa fees. Jonathan Portes, of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said: “The government has rightly said that economic growth is its top priority. It also has the commendable objective of rebalancing the UK economy away from consumption and towards exports. However, the Home Office’s own impact assessment shows changes to student visa rules will reduce both growth and exports.” Home Office officials estimate that only £170m will be lost as a result of a reduction in tuition fee income to British colleges. But they admit the figure is “relatively uncertain”, as it is based on the assumption that 80% of the lost places will be replaced by British and European Union students. The official impact statement says: “[The] UK Border Agency [UKBA] believes that private further education and English language institutions are heavily reliant on non-EU students. On this basis we assume that businesses will strive to attract other nationalities of students (UK and EU), otherwise they would face going out of business. “We believe a sensible replacement assumption would be 80%; so for every 10 non-EU migrants no longer able to study at all affected institutions we assume eight of their places would be filled by either EU or British nationals. In English language institutions, we assume that places will also be filled by either resident EU students or by students on the EU student visitor route.” The impact assessment also confirms that ministers expect 260,000 fewer student visas to be issued to non-EU nationals over the next five years as a result of the changes. It also confirms that the drive to cut overseas student numbers will reduce overall net migration by around 48,000 a year between now and the next general election, when ministers have pledged to reduce annual net migration to the “tens of thousands”. The home secretary, Theresa May, officially notified parliament on Monday of the changes in immigration rules to implement the package from 21 July. The impact assessment puts its “best estimate” for the cost of implementing the curb on overseas students over the next four years at £2.4bn, with a “worst-case” scenario of £3.6bn and an “optimistic” scenario of £1.3bn. The “best estimate” is based on total costs to the economy of £3.5bn and benefits of £1.1bn, giving a net cost of £2.4bn. The £3.5bn costs include £2bn for reduced output from students and their dependants who can no longer come to the UK, and reduced output from a change in student work entitlements. A further £1.2bn is accounted for by new restrictions on the ability of overseas students to stay in Britain to work after graduation. The loss in tuition fees is estimated at £170m and the loss in immigration visa fees at a further £160m. Home Office officials admit they did not include any estimate for the potential impact on the growth of the British economy or any wider impact on the higher education sector. The impact assessment does, however, outline benefits totalling £1.1bn, including £850m saved in reduced costs for public services, £75m from colleges reducing provision of courses and £150m saved by the UKBA in processing visas. Matt Cavanagh, associate director at the thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), said: “The government’s own estimates admit how much money their clampdown on overseas students is going to take out of the economy, at a time when the recovery is fragile. The reductions have been scaled back slightly – a welcome sign that the government is listening. “As with the cap on skilled workers, policy is still being driven by the political target on net migration. They should change it before it ends up causing real economic damage.” A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are required to provide impact assessments, but the process for these assessments is unsatisfactory. For example, they require us to assume there is a zero displacement effect of students taking jobs on the local labour market, and so we have asked the independent migration advisory committee to look at this issue.” Immigration and asylum Higher education University funding Cuts and closures Theresa May Economic growth (GDP) Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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Operation follows arrest of three alleged leaders of internet activist group Anonymous in Spain on Friday The global battle between hacker activists and police intensified Monday with 32 arrests in Turkey and an admission from Spanish police that the group Anonymous had successfully attacked their website in response to arrests made there. Turkish police arrested 32 suspected local members of Anonymous, including eight minors, according to state news agency Anatolian. The arrests followed a complaint from Turkey’s directorate of telecommunications, whose website was taken down on Thursday. Members of the Anonymous collective said that attack was carried out as a protest against internet censorship by the recently re-elected government of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan , of the moderate Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP). Turkey is due to introduce an obligatory nationwide internet filtering system in August that will see users forced to sign up to one of four filters. These are labelled “domestic”, “family”, “children” or “standard”, but hacker activists gathered under the Anonymous umbrella claim they will lead to state control of individual internet use, and allow authorities to keep records of such use. The police operation in Turkey followed the arrest of three alleged leaders of the so-called Anons in Spain on Friday. Spanish police admitted that Anonymous had claimed responsibility for blocking their main website briefly in the small hours of Sunday morning in retaliation for the arrests. Police claimed the three detainees jointly formed the “leadership” of Anonymous in Spain. They had allegedly been involved in attacks on the websites of the Sony PlayStation, several banks, an electricity company and the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand. A server allegedly used in the attacks was taken away when police raided homes in Gijón, Barcelona, Valencia and Almeria. Spanish police said the group had also launched attacks on the Catalan regional police, a trade union and the country’s electoral administration. They said a 31-year-old from Gijón, northern Spain, had been a core member of the leadership. “This person provided infrastructure for the group with a server in their home, from which major international attacks launched by Anonymous were co-ordinated,” police said. But a video posted on YouTube by purported members of Anonymous denied that the three people were leaders. “The police have lied. They cannot detain our leadership because we have no leadership,” they said in a video that featured a “spokesman” wearing the group’s Guy Fawkes-inspired mask and peering down from a digital billboard on Madrid’s central Gran Vía street. “The server they took did not belong to Anonymous but was a small internet relay chat (IRC) server that we annexed.” The Guy Fawkes masks, which originate from the V for Vendetta graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd , have become popular among protesters who have gathered in recent weeks in Spanish squares to demand social and political reform.The Anonymous video stated that the group backed the non-violent protest movement, which finished dismantling its tented city in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square in the early hours of Monday morning – ending several weeks of occupation. A minority of hardcore protesters remain in the Puerta del Sol and in Barcelona’s Plaça Catalunya square, while the movement itself concentrates on spreading its popular assemblies to city neighbourhoods and organising one-off protests . A joint protest in city squares around the globe has been called for 16 June. Anonymous members cripple websites by overwhelming their servers with traffic in so-called denial of service attacks. The group says it is not involved in credit-card fraud, but has been held responsible for attacks on the servers of both Mastercard and Amazon. Spanish police claimed their arrests were the first major action against Anonymous outside the United States and Britain, where several people were detained in January. The British government has admitted to recent cyber-attacks at the Treasury and, in the words of defence secretary Liam Fox, to a “sustained attack” on the Ministry of Defence. Anonymous Hacking Internet Turkey Middle East Spain YouTube Europe Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Operation follows arrest of three alleged leaders of internet activist group Anonymous in Spain on Friday The global battle between hacker activists and police intensified Monday with 32 arrests in Turkey and an admission from Spanish police that the group Anonymous had successfully attacked their website in response to arrests made there. Turkish police arrested 32 suspected local members of Anonymous, including eight minors, according to state news agency Anatolian. The arrests followed a complaint from Turkey’s directorate of telecommunications, whose website was taken down on Thursday. Members of the Anonymous collective said that attack was carried out as a protest against internet censorship by the recently re-elected government of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan , of the moderate Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP). Turkey is due to introduce an obligatory nationwide internet filtering system in August that will see users forced to sign up to one of four filters. These are labelled “domestic”, “family”, “children” or “standard”, but hacker activists gathered under the Anonymous umbrella claim they will lead to state control of individual internet use, and allow authorities to keep records of such use. The police operation in Turkey followed the arrest of three alleged leaders of the so-called Anons in Spain on Friday. Spanish police admitted that Anonymous had claimed responsibility for blocking their main website briefly in the small hours of Sunday morning in retaliation for the arrests. Police claimed the three detainees jointly formed the “leadership” of Anonymous in Spain. They had allegedly been involved in attacks on the websites of the Sony PlayStation, several banks, an electricity company and the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand. A server allegedly used in the attacks was taken away when police raided homes in Gijón, Barcelona, Valencia and Almeria. Spanish police said the group had also launched attacks on the Catalan regional police, a trade union and the country’s electoral administration. They said a 31-year-old from Gijón, northern Spain, had been a core member of the leadership. “This person provided infrastructure for the group with a server in their home, from which major international attacks launched by Anonymous were co-ordinated,” police said. But a video posted on YouTube by purported members of Anonymous denied that the three people were leaders. “The police have lied. They cannot detain our leadership because we have no leadership,” they said in a video that featured a “spokesman” wearing the group’s Guy Fawkes-inspired mask and peering down from a digital billboard on Madrid’s central Gran Vía street. “The server they took did not belong to Anonymous but was a small internet relay chat (IRC) server that we annexed.” The Guy Fawkes masks, which originate from the V for Vendetta graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd , have become popular among protesters who have gathered in recent weeks in Spanish squares to demand social and political reform.The Anonymous video stated that the group backed the non-violent protest movement, which finished dismantling its tented city in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square in the early hours of Monday morning – ending several weeks of occupation. A minority of hardcore protesters remain in the Puerta del Sol and in Barcelona’s Plaça Catalunya square, while the movement itself concentrates on spreading its popular assemblies to city neighbourhoods and organising one-off protests . A joint protest in city squares around the globe has been called for 16 June. Anonymous members cripple websites by overwhelming their servers with traffic in so-called denial of service attacks. The group says it is not involved in credit-card fraud, but has been held responsible for attacks on the servers of both Mastercard and Amazon. Spanish police claimed their arrests were the first major action against Anonymous outside the United States and Britain, where several people were detained in January. The British government has admitted to recent cyber-attacks at the Treasury and, in the words of defence secretary Liam Fox, to a “sustained attack” on the Ministry of Defence. Anonymous Hacking Internet Turkey Middle East Spain YouTube Europe Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
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First Sea Lord says that if crisis continues beyond 90-day extension, government will have to examine priorities The head of the Royal Navy has warned that the fleet will not be able to continue the current scale of operations around Libya beyond the summer unless ministers take tough decisions about what they want to prioritise. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the First Sea Lord, said the navy had planned for a six month commitment but that the government would have to make “challenging decisions” about what it wanted to do thereafter. Stanhope also conceded that if the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and its Harrier jump jets had not been mothballed last year, they would have been deployed to the Mediterranean. This would have been cheaper, and made operations more reactive, than flying planes from the Italian base at Gioia del Colle, he said. But he insisted that the constant jibes about the loss of the ship and the aircraft were having a “corrosive” effect on navy morale. “There is far too much about what could have been,” he said. Stanhope’s remarks come amid growing concern within the Ministry of Defence about the prolonged nature of the Libya effort and its cost. They also come just days after the US defence secretary Robert Gates mocked some allies for already running out of ammunition. In a briefing at Admiralty House, Stanhope said: “How long can we go on as we are in Libya? Certainly – in terms of Nato’s current time limit that has been extended to 90 days – we are comfortable with that. “Beyond that, we might have to request the government to make some challenging decisions about priorities. “There are different ways of doing this. It’s not simply about giving up standing commitments, we will have to rebalance.” Stanhope denied that this would involve a review of the cuts set out in last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review. Afghanistan remains the MoD’s top priority, and officials are adamant that the effort there will not be compromised for Libya. But Stanhope made it clear that he did not have enough ships to continue what is a relatively small operation in Libya without something else having to give. “If we do it longer than six months we will have to reprioritise forces. That is being addressed now. It could be from around home waters. I will not prejudge what that decision will be.” The navy has one destroyer, HMS Liverpool, the mine clearance vessel HMS Bangor, a Trafalgar class submarine and the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean off the coast of Libya at the moment. At the start of the conflict the navy diverted HMS Cumberland to the Mediterranean as it was returning to the UK to be scrapped. Stanhope also admitted that the navy was having to buy more Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US to replace the ones that it had already fired. “We are not running out, but we certainly have to take action to replace those weapons we have used to bring stockpiles back up to where they were.” Stanhope has been frustrated in recent months about the ongoing criticism surrounding the decision to axe Ark Royal – a replacement carrier, the Prince of Wales, will not be ready for service until 2020. But he said it was time to move on from the debate. Even though there is a study under way within the MoD about the costs of axeing the Harriers and what it would take to bring them back into service, Stanhope said he did not believe the aircraft would fly again. “If we had Ark Royal and Harriers in February, I feel relatively assured that we would have deployed that capability off Libya to conduct the ground (operations), not the air defence piece which the Harrier was not capable of achieving. “The pros would have been a much more reactive force. Rather than deploying from Gioia del Colle, we would deploy within 20 minutes as opposed to an hour and a half, so obviously there are some advantages there. “It’s cheaper to fly an aircraft from an aircraft carrier than from the shore.” “Do I feel bitter? No. It’s a reality of where we are. I keep saying this. We have to look forward and go for what is in the pipeline which I have already indicated is challenging enough. There is far too much about what could have been as opposed to what is. ” The navy and the RAF suffered disproportionately from the SDSR, having to cut 5,000 jobs from each service, as well as losing ships and aircraft. The head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Dalton told the Guardian that there would have to be a significant uplift in spending after 2015 if the service is to meet its commitments in the future. Stanhope reiterated this and said the government had acknowledged more spending was necessary. Military Libya Defence policy Middle East Afghanistan Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
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First Sea Lord says that if crisis continues beyond 90-day extension, government will have to examine priorities The head of the Royal Navy has warned that the fleet will not be able to continue the current scale of operations around Libya beyond the summer unless ministers take tough decisions about what they want to prioritise. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the First Sea Lord, said the navy had planned for a six month commitment but that the government would have to make “challenging decisions” about what it wanted to do thereafter. Stanhope also conceded that if the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and its Harrier jump jets had not been mothballed last year, they would have been deployed to the Mediterranean. This would have been cheaper, and made operations more reactive, than flying planes from the Italian base at Gioia del Colle, he said. But he insisted that the constant jibes about the loss of the ship and the aircraft were having a “corrosive” effect on navy morale. “There is far too much about what could have been,” he said. Stanhope’s remarks come amid growing concern within the Ministry of Defence about the prolonged nature of the Libya effort and its cost. They also come just days after the US defence secretary Robert Gates mocked some allies for already running out of ammunition. In a briefing at Admiralty House, Stanhope said: “How long can we go on as we are in Libya? Certainly – in terms of Nato’s current time limit that has been extended to 90 days – we are comfortable with that. “Beyond that, we might have to request the government to make some challenging decisions about priorities. “There are different ways of doing this. It’s not simply about giving up standing commitments, we will have to rebalance.” Stanhope denied that this would involve a review of the cuts set out in last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review. Afghanistan remains the MoD’s top priority, and officials are adamant that the effort there will not be compromised for Libya. But Stanhope made it clear that he did not have enough ships to continue what is a relatively small operation in Libya without something else having to give. “If we do it longer than six months we will have to reprioritise forces. That is being addressed now. It could be from around home waters. I will not prejudge what that decision will be.” The navy has one destroyer, HMS Liverpool, the mine clearance vessel HMS Bangor, a Trafalgar class submarine and the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean off the coast of Libya at the moment. At the start of the conflict the navy diverted HMS Cumberland to the Mediterranean as it was returning to the UK to be scrapped. Stanhope also admitted that the navy was having to buy more Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US to replace the ones that it had already fired. “We are not running out, but we certainly have to take action to replace those weapons we have used to bring stockpiles back up to where they were.” Stanhope has been frustrated in recent months about the ongoing criticism surrounding the decision to axe Ark Royal – a replacement carrier, the Prince of Wales, will not be ready for service until 2020. But he said it was time to move on from the debate. Even though there is a study under way within the MoD about the costs of axeing the Harriers and what it would take to bring them back into service, Stanhope said he did not believe the aircraft would fly again. “If we had Ark Royal and Harriers in February, I feel relatively assured that we would have deployed that capability off Libya to conduct the ground (operations), not the air defence piece which the Harrier was not capable of achieving. “The pros would have been a much more reactive force. Rather than deploying from Gioia del Colle, we would deploy within 20 minutes as opposed to an hour and a half, so obviously there are some advantages there. “It’s cheaper to fly an aircraft from an aircraft carrier than from the shore.” “Do I feel bitter? No. It’s a reality of where we are. I keep saying this. We have to look forward and go for what is in the pipeline which I have already indicated is challenging enough. There is far too much about what could have been as opposed to what is. ” The navy and the RAF suffered disproportionately from the SDSR, having to cut 5,000 jobs from each service, as well as losing ships and aircraft. The head of the RAF, Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Dalton told the Guardian that there would have to be a significant uplift in spending after 2015 if the service is to meet its commitments in the future. Stanhope reiterated this and said the government had acknowledged more spending was necessary. Military Libya Defence policy Middle East Afghanistan Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Openly-gay CNN anchor Don Lemon dug back to a May 16 interview with liberal Joy Behar to smear GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum just before Monday night's Republican primary debate. Behar then said of the socially-conservative Santorum that he “seems like a big homophobe,” and Lemon made sure Friday to reference that smear and put Santorum on the defensive. As NewsBusters reported Friday, Lemon badgered Santorum in an airport over his positions on gay marriage. The CNN segment featured an abbreviated portion of the interview, and Lemon aired the extended version Sunday evening on the 7 p.m. EDT hour of Newsroom. [Video below the break.] Lemon labeled Santorum as “very decisive and very divisive on social issues” to introduce the interview. Then he tried to frame Santorum's support for amending the Constitution to protect traditional marriage as contradictory to his small-government conservatism. After that he brought out the smear. “I was recently on Joy Behar and she said that, she called you I think it was – I'm paraphrasing – bigoted or homophobic or what have you,” Lemon said to Santorum. Apparently, what Joy Behar says represents the highest in opinion journalism. In the May 16 interview with Behar, Lemon claimed he could still be objective in covering the gay rights debate. “I don't think just because I'm gay that it makes, it takes my brain away…or it makes me not be objective,” he told Behar. However, Lemon has a history of pro-gay bias, as NewsBusters has documented . After the Santorum interview, when Lemon was hosting a Sunday panel to discuss the interview, he hit Santorum from another angle. He declared that “many people find” that Santorum “has said some pretty disturbing things about gay people” and has “ostracized them and moved them into a corner.” A transcript of the segment, which aired on June 12 at 7:24 p.m. EDT, is as follows: DON LEMON: And we are back. Coming to you live from New Hampshire on the campus of St. Anselm College where CNN is getting ready for tomorrow night's GOP presidential debate. Hold on. All right. That's better. CNN released a fascinating poll ahead of the debate. We asked whether the government should be promoting traditional values. Now here's the response: 46 percent said yes but 50 percent said no. Why is that important? Because it's the first time the percentage in the “yes” column has fallen below 50 percent since CNN first started asking the question in 1993. That number should be very interesting to candidates like Rick Santorum, someone who is very decisive and very divisive on social issues. Here is what he had to say when I caught up with them. I want you to take a listen. (Video Clip) RICK SANTORUM, GOP presidential candidate: You know go to my announcement speech, I didn't talk about social issues. I talked about the impact of Obama care on jobs and the economy. I talked about the huge debt that we have and the obligation it deal with that. I talked about entitlement reform. I talked about the Ryan plan. You know, in all due respect, I think the media is fixated on trying to – this is how the media works, they try to pigeon-hole candidates. They're this kind of here – they fit this niche. They fit that niche. Well the interesting thing I think in my candidacy is that I fit all of the niches. I am someone who's strong on social issues but I'm strong on national security issues. There's nobody who has the experience or the levels of accomplishment that I have on national security; no one has – and
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