• Refresh this page for all the latest action • Ping your emails to barry.glendenning@guardian.co.uk • Check the French Open website • Follow Barry on Twitter First set: *Murray 4-5 Chela: After playing the losing shot of that last game, Murray looked down at his injured ankle, then looked at his “people” in the crowd, mutttered something and shrugged his shoulders. He doesn’t look to happy. He gives Chela tow set points, the first of which he wastes by sending a backhand from deep narrowly wide with half the court gaping. Murray saves the second, sprinting forward and sliding to hit an unlikely winner after Chela had tried to bamboozle him with a sweet drop shot. Murray then wins advantage before squandering it with another poor shot into the net. He wins the next two points to save a service game he looked certain to lose a couple of minutes ago. “Murray injured?” writes Gary Naylor. “Hmm … some players have excuses when they lose and some have reasons. Murray is probably one who has reasons, more often than not. The record book doesn’t differentiate between excuses and reasons though does it?” No, that would be the dictionary, I suppose. First set: Murray 3-5 Chela*: Chela goes 40-0, the second winner coming when a Murray return pitches up short, allowing the Argentinian to send the ball fizzing past the Scot into the corner. The pair exchange winners, making the score 40-15, then trade baseline shots. Chela drops one in the net to make it 40-30, but wins the next long, long baseline battle when Murray sends a loose shot into the net. He’s playing a lot of bad shots from the right-hand side of the court, which is obviously where Chela is trying to keep him penned. First set: *Murray 3-4 Chela: Murray returns to his seat under the umbrella having finally held his serve without first at the third time of asking. “When I was watching him play the other day, Murray appeared to be drinking ouzo (or possibly pastis, given he’s in France),” writes Louise Wright. “I reckon if you’re playing tennis on a dodgy ankle ouzo’ll numb the pain at least as effectively as pills. Is he still on that stuff or has he gone with orangey drink for this one?” First set: Murray 2-4 Chela* The ball travels back and forth across the net a few times and Murray shows guts and concentration to secure his first break and get back in the set. It’s the first game in the match in which he’s played well. First set: *Murray 1-4 Chela: Murray goes 15-40 down on his own serve, before pulling back two points to make it all square on deuce. He gives advantage to Chela with a wayward forehand down his right-hand side, and the Argentinian wins the game with a sublime passing shot with Murray standing helpless at the net. First set: Murray 1-3 Chela*: Chela is playing some solid tennis here. He goes 30-0 up, allows Murray to pull a point back to make it 30-15, but dodges a bullet when Murray hits another sloppy shot, slicing the ball wide and showing his first signs of frustration by administering a dose of corporal punishment to his own racket. Chela wins the next point to go 3-1 up. First set: *Murray 1-2 Chela The length of some of the rallies in these early games would suggest I might be here for a very long time. Despite his injured left ankle, Murray’s movement doesn’t seem particularly impaired and he’s moving about quite freely. On 30-30 in his second service game, he double-faults to give Chela his first break point, which he then saves, before sending a backhand from very deep to concede another break-point. Chela takes advantage of another sloppy Murray drop-shot to send the ball skimming down the line to give his opponent no chance. First set: Murray 1-1 Chela*: Chela holds his serve comfortably to level proceedings in a game I didn’t really see because I was trying to drum up a bit of support for this rolling report on Twitter. The Argentinian won to 15, charging to the net on the final point to smash a woeful attempted drop-shot by Murray. First set: *Murray 1-0 Chela: The BBC cut to the match which is already in progress. Andy Murray won the toss and elected to serve and is 40-30 up. He hits a forehand into the net to allow Chela even things up at deuce, but then wins the next two points to hold his first service game. Not long now: And already we have an email pointing out my shortcomings as a tennis commentator: “”Oopsie,” writes Lindsay Waero. “Andy didn’t play a gruelling five-setter yesterday. He played one set.” Gah! It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these – be gentle. Preamble: With an injured ankle that’s forced him on to a diet of pain-killing and anti-inflammatory pills so large we’re likely to hear him rattling as he walks on to court, No4 seed Andy Murray takes on unseeded Argentinian Juan Ignacio Cela in the quarter-final of the French Open this afternoon. Murray sustained his injury in his fourth round victory over Michael Berrer from Germany and has since hobbled his way to a heroic cvictory against Serbia’s Viktor Troicki, in which he came from two sets down to secure his quarter-final berth. His opponent today is an experienced journeyman has made the last eight in French Open for just the second time and has never progressed further than the last eight in one of the sport’s majors. His win-loss ratio this year is a fairly ordinary 17-12, but this is his best showing in a grand slam event since 2004, when he made the last eight of the US Open. Murray and Chela have met seven times previously, with the Scot having prevailed six times. But Chela is bound to fancy his chances of this afternoon, considering his opponent played a gruelling five-setter yesterday on an dodgy ankle. Interestingly, the bookies have priced up Chela at 5-1 to win this match, which may well be worth a speculative punt. French Open Tennis Andy Murray Barry Glendenning guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …I know the House Republicans bastardized the debt ceiling vote yesterday to set up some sort of a trap for the Democratic Party and usually I would have posted about it quickly, but watching it go down, it just left me numb to the whole scam. It was such a blatant hoax that Bruce Josten of the Chamber of Commerce even was quoted saying as much. Republicans had hoped their legislation would embarrass Democrats while demonstrating their willingness to force the United States into default on its fiscal obligations, but because the legislation included a partisan attack blaming President Obama for the debt accrued under President Bush and because Republicans privately assured their corporate backers that the vote was a charade, nobody is taking the vote seriously. For example : And for all the talk of economic crisis should Congress fail to raise the debt ceiling by August, the financial markets are likely to yawn at this vote — if only because Republican leaders have privately assured Wall Street executives that this is a show intended to make the point to Mr. Obama that an increase cannot pass absent his agreement to rein in domestic programs. “Wall Street is in on the joke,” said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The debt ceiling isn’t something to play with, but I’m glad Republicans are having a good hoax day. Hey, should we dock their salaries for this bullshit? If you or I spent all day playing practical jokes at work, I doubt we’d get paid for it. Digby makes a great point about the fact that Republicans were willing to weaken market confidence over their political ploy after they live and breath at the feet of the free market alter. . I don’t know what kind of sick nihilism makes a scenario like that remotely possible, but again, I don’t believe it. We are talking about Big Money here and there are a lot of things that aren’t working right in this country right now, but the greed mechanism isn’t one of them. I don’t believe “the markets” are going along with that plan. And I don’t think even the Republicans are going to take that kind of risk going into an election year. But if these people are actually planning a financial panic in order to destroy the safety net, can someone explain to me just how it is they can possibly be considered anything but criminals? This isn’t a joke. Panics have a way of getting out of hand — it’s not like you can wave a magic wand and it stops. At the very least can we at least admit that every single sentence they’ve ever uttered about the desperate need for market “confidence” and “uncertainty” was unadulterated rubbish? (If this happens keep an eye on the short sellers because somebody’s going to make money on it and you have to assume the people who caused it are among them …) I don’t trust Joe Biden’s group at this point until they prove to me otherwise, but looking on it today, it’s pretty depressing to see the House used like a pinata since House Republicans passed Paul Ryan’s Medicare-killing budget, and now they have seniors, a usually reliable vote for them, freaking the f*&k out. This proves they’ll do anything, anything at all to besmirch their own jobs.
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First minister and justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill accused court of ‘intervening aggressively’ in Scottish legal system Alex Salmond has provoked a furious row with senior legal figures after he launched a series of attacks on the authority of the UK supreme court and the competence of its two Scottish judges. The first minister and his justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, have accused the supreme court of “intervening aggressively” in Scotland’s independent legal system after it ruled that the Scottish legal system had twice breached the European convention on human rights in significant criminal cases. The Scottish cabinet decided on Monday to set up an expert legal group to urgently consider how Salmond’s government can block the supreme court from its oversight of criminal cases. As the same time it emerged that MacAskill wants to stop paying Scotland’s £500,000 annual share of the court’s running costs. Earlier this week, MacAskill said most supreme court judges’ only knowledge of Scotland was through attending the Edinburgh festival. Salmond intensified the row by criticising Scotland’s senior judge on the supreme court, Lord Hope, who is a former lord justice general, an appeal judge in the House of Lords and widely regarded as one of the Scotland’s finest lawyers. Speaking on Newsnight Scotland on Tuesday, he questioned why Hope had the individual authority, sitting as one of Scotland’s two judges on the supreme court, to overrule decisions made by, in one case, seven Scottish appeal court judges. “I don’t think it’s sensible, fair or reasonable in any jurisdiction where we’ve a situation where one judge is overruling the opinion of many judges in another court,” he said. “It boils down to the potential replacement of Scottish law by Lord Hope’s law. I don’t think that’s a satisfactory situation.” Senior legal figures are dismayed by the personalisation of the dispute, largely because Salmond will be aware that one of the two Scottish judges on the supreme court, Lord Rodger, is critically ill and unable to defend himself. One senior legal figure said he “deplored” the personal attacks. Rodger, a former lord advocate and former lord justice general, was too unwell to deliver the latest supreme court decision relevant to Scotland and has been temporarily replaced by another judge, Lord Clarke. There are doubts over whether Rodger will be well enough to return to the supreme court. The row has split the Scottish judiciary and legal profession; many senior judges, supported by the former Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, have openly challenged the supreme court’s authority to overrule them. As a result, the UK government is planning to tighten up its rules and make its role in judging human rights law clearer. Some lawyers also believe that Salmond is attacking the court because he fears it could overrule controversial Holyrood legislation, including the independence referendum bill, in the future. The Law Society of Scotland has asked for a full audit of all Scottish legislation to ensure it abides by human rights law. The expert review set up by the Scottish government is due to urgently produce proposals for debate by the Scottish parliament this month. Salmond told Newsnight it could recommend that the supreme court only take criminal cases if given leave by a Scottish court or set up a Scottish human rights court. Salmond said: “The big difference between the Strasbourg court and what the supreme court is doing, is Strasbourg can’t strike down convictions. The Strasbourg court doesn’t open cell doors and allow people to walk free. “And it certainly doesn’t do it without a proper examination of the degree of protections, and checks and balances within the Scottish judicial system.” Lord Colin Boyd QC, a former Lord Advocate under the last Labour coalition government in Edinburgh and a legal adviser to the current UK government, said the supreme court had a clear and necessary role to protect fundamental legal rights. He said the Scottish government was pursuing a nationalist agenda. “I’m proud of the Scottish system as a Scottish lawyer, but legal systems have to grow and develop and serve the people; they’re not there as totems for nationalists. We have to abide by the highest international standards and if that means that notions of civil and human rights come from elsewhere, my view is that it enriches Scottish law, rather than diminishes it,” he said. “It would be better as a country, and that is the legislature, the government and the courts, if we ensured that we actually have a modern legal system that is fit for purpose.” Mike Dailly, a leading defence lawyer from Govan Law Centre in Glasgow, said it appeared that Salmond was “just trying to pick a fight.” He added: “I think it’s deplorable that Scottish justice ministers have chosen to threaten the supreme court with the withdrawal of funding. What must international observers be thinking when they see a Scottish justice minister threatening a court of law? Salmond shamed Scotland with his unprecedented personal attack on Lord Hope last night, and undermined the rule of law.” The controversy centres around the supreme court’s power, given to it when it was set up in 2009, to rule solely on whether a Scottish criminal court had breach the European convention on human rights or had failed to uphold a defendant’s human rights. It has no power to rule on the crimes or laws passed by the Scottish parliament, unless they breach the convention, and has only ruled on two Scottish criminal cases: the Nat Fraser murder conviction and Scotland’s failure to give defendants in police custody fair access to a lawyer. From 1999, this power was previously held by the privy council under the Scotland Act 1998, but very rarely used. The supreme court has only twice ruled on Scottish criminal issues, but the Scottish government claims that power directly challenges the historic independence and autonomy of Scots law.[The supreme court’s supporters argue that these powers already exist at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, but that court has no Scottish judges and is far slower than the supreme court. They add that both Hope and Rodger also rule on English legal cases. Salmond argues that no other European country has two “foreign” appeal courts overseeing its legal system. The row exploded after the supreme court ruled last week that the Scottish courts had breached Fraser’s human rights and denied him a fair trial, because significant evidence had been withheld at his trial. In a judgment written and given by Lord Hope, the Scottish courts were told to either quash the conviction or stage a fresh trial. In a previous case, the so-called Cadder judgment, the supreme court found that Scotland had breached the human rights of tens of thousands of suspects by allowing police to question them for up to six hours without a defence lawyer. Although that ruling had been widely predicted by senior lawyers, the Scottish government was forced to enact emergency legislation to change the law and prevent compensation payments worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Nearly 3,500 convictions were affected. http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/about/index.html http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/about/biographies.html Scotland Alex Salmond UK supreme court Human rights Severin Carrell guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Air-rage fight over reclining seat forces United Airlines flight to return home
June 1, 2011 No Comment
F-16 fighter jets escort Ghana-bound US aircraft back to Dulles airport after fight between two passengers It is a minor annoyance familiar to air passengers: you take your seat in the cramped cabin, only to have your knees bashed when the person in front reclines his or her chair. At worst, it usually leads to little more than an exchange of words, but the passengers on a flight from Washington DC discovered just how things can escalate, when a fist fight broke out between two men, forcing the plane to return to Dulles airport, escorted by F-16 fighter jets. As the 144 passengers on the United Airlines jet bound for Ghana from Washington on Sunday settled in for the overnight flight tempers boiled over when one man reclined his seat into the lap of the other. According to witnesses a fight broke out not long after the 10:44pm takeoff, forcing a flight attendant and another passenger to jump in between the men. The pilot took the decision to return to Dulles, because of fears about terrorism, it is believed. The plane was escorted by a pair of F-16 fighter jets, and was forced to circle Dulles for 25 minutes to burn off fuel and decrease its weight – jets can take off with a full tank, but not land. Audio transmissions, which can be heard on the Washington Post website, reveal the two US air force fighters took off from Andrews airbase at 11.03pm, just as the airliner re-entered Washington DC airspace. On the recordings, the pilot of Flight 990 is heard telling the control tower that an assault had taken place. Asked about the passenger who had hit the person in front, the pilot replied: “The passenger is not secured at this time; the passenger has settled down, though, but an assault has taken place, but at this time he is not secured.” Police met the flight at the gate but charges were not pressed, said the Washington airports authority. The unruly passengers are likely to have cost the airline a significant amount of money, and delayed the flight until Tuesday. It is not known if the two men were aboard that flight, or more pertinently, where they were sat. Air transport United States Ghana Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk
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Christiana Figueres tells carbon trading conference that the current limit of a 2C temperature rise is ‘not enough’ The world should be aiming to limit global warming to just 1.5C instead of the weaker current target of 2C, the United Nations’ climate chief said on Wednesday. Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told an audience of carbon traders: “Two degrees is not enough – we should be thinking of 1.5C. If we are not headed to 1.5 we are in big, big trouble.” She said she had the support of the group of about 40 small island states – many of which are in danger of disappearing as sea levels rise – as well as most African countries and other least developed countries. Figueres said estimates from the International Energy Agency, revealed by the Guardian , that showed a record rise in carbon emissions from energy last year strengthened the case for urgent action on greenhouse gases. However, her remarks are likely to cause consternation among developed country governments. The question of whether the world should aim for a 2C limit, which scientists say marks the point beyond which the effects of climate change become catastrophic and irreversible, or a more stringent 1.5C limit, which would provide greater safety, is a sore point in the long-running UN negotiations. At the 2009 summit in Copenhagen , the reopening of the debate over the 2C limit was one of the worst sources of conflict, setting developed countries against a large section of the developing world. That conflict was widely regarded as one of the key factors in derailing the summit, which ended in a partial agreement amid scenes of chaos and recriminations . At last year’s follow-up conference in Cancún, Mexico, countries compromised by opting for a 2C target while asking for a review of the science to show whether the target should be tougher. Figueres was speaking on Wednesday in Barcelona, at a Guardian-chaired conference at Carbon Expo , the annual conference of the International Emissions Trading Association. Another indication of how difficult it will be to reach Figueres’ target came from the World Bank, which unveiled research showing that the market in carbon credits under the 1997 Kyoto protocol collapsed last year. Only $1.5bn of Kyoto-based credits were issued, which the bank said was nowhere near enough to help developing countries cut emissions and deal with the effects of climate change. The carbon markets are supposed to be one of the key ways of reaching the world’s target of halving emissions by 2050. Climate change Global climate talks Emissions trading Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Chris Hayes: Why is a Serial Manipulator of the Media Like Breitbart Allowed to Come on and Spout Off?
June 1, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media From Raw Story — Chris Hayes: Breitbart ‘a serial manipulator of the media’ On MSNBC’s The Last Word Tuesday night, Chris Hayes questioned why conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart was allowed to “spout off” on CNN about Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Breitbart implied Tuesday that Weiner had been engaged in inappropriate relationships with multiple young women. “Am I wrong in my level of outrage that this person who has been so discredited, so many times, is such a serial manipulator of the media is allowed to just come on and spout off like this?” he asked. “Andrew Breitbart is not known to be the most self-reflective, remorseful person,” his guest, Huffington Post’s Alex Wagner added. “I think in that same interview he talked about the Shirley Sherrod story being a liberal attack on him.” As they also noted, Wagner didn’t think Rep. Weiner did himself any favors by refusing to answer direct questions during his press conference today and I agree. That said, it was pretty astounding to see CNN going after him the way they did on the word of a known liar like Breitbart and allowing Breitbart on the air earlier today to attack him , where even their legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin called out his own network for their behavior. Following Breitbart’s interview, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin told host Randi Kaye that he regretted the network allowed Breitbart to make those claims. “What Andrew Breitbart was insinuating about [Weiner] with young girls and stuff is outrageous,” Toobin said. “And frankly, it’s too bad that he got to say that stuff on CNN.” Media Matters has more on CNN’s hackery here — One Year After Debunking Breitbart’s “Slander,” CNN Welcomes Him Back As Newsmaker .
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Social care minister asks regulator to investigate after BBC programme revealed systematic abuse at Winterbrook View unit in Bristol The government has ordered a review of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) failure to investigate a whistleblower’s account of the systematic abuse that left vulnerable people to face months of physical and verbal abuse at a Bristol care home. Paul Burstow, the social care minister, has asked the regulator to investigate similar services to the Winterbourne View unit, in Hambrook, near Bristol, where a culture of abuse prevailed despite tip-offs from staff and repeated inspections – the role of the CQC, which is the sector regulator, and the local authority. A committee of MPs will also question CQC chiefs over their responsibilities. Stephen Dorrell, the chair of the Commons health committee, said a scheduled hearing with CQC bosses on 22 June will now focus on the organisation’s failings in the case. The systematic abuse of residents in the unit was documented by an undercover cameraman and broadcast on the BBC’s Panorama on Tuesday. Staff pinned residents to the floor and forced one into the shower fully dressed and then outside until she shook from cold. Residents were slapped and taunted, and one was teased about a suicide attempt. Experts told the programme what they had seen amounted to “torture”. Immediately after the broadcast, four of the staff were arrested. The Commons health committee will also launch a more wide-ranging inquiry into the commissioning of social care in the autumn. The inquiry will examine how the state provides care facilities for the elderly and vulnerable adults, including the current crisis with major care provider Southern Cross , which has slashed its rent payments in an effort to keep its 750 residential homes running. The future care of 31,000 elderly residents is in jeopardy if the firm collapses. The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “We are talking about a specific case that is clearly very shocking. Paul Burstow has asked the regulator to undertake a series of inspections of similar services and a thorough examination of the roles of both the CQC and local authorities in this case. “What we need to do is look at the circumstances surrounding this particular case. Clearly, there have been failures in this case, and we need to look at that before drawing any conclusions.” He added that the government was “monitoring very carefully” the situation with Southern Cross. Dorrell told the Guardian that the inquiry would look broadly at the commissioning process, saying: “The questions will be about how can these stories of abuse arise. “There was Panorama yesterday, but also the report last week on care of the elderly in NHS hospitals, all the issues around Southern Cross and the CQC in particular. “We are talking about 70% of patient load of the health service that is people with long-term needs and conditions, and so often we focus on waiting times for elective operations. This is a far bigger issue.” Responding specifically to the situation at the Bristol care home, he said: “I do think, in general, these services are better than they were a generation ago. “But there are still far too many failures. We have to address the reason for those failures. 30 years ago, the majority of this care was provided in large long-stay institutions which were themselves open to incidences of abuse. The vast majority are better now, but there are too many cases where it falls down.” Dorrell said he would be asking how the commissioning of such services worked. Castlebeck, the firm behind Winterbourne View, was charging more than £3,000 per resident a week. “One of the groups of people with difficult questions to answer arising out of the specifics of this situation is the people who authorised the expenditure of that money,” he added. “Someone had to sign the cheque that the care home operator was being paid to provide a service of £3,000 per week. I presume the majority of those cases were paid for with public funds. The people who signed the cheque have a duty to make certain that standards are of an adequate nature.” The CQC and Castlebeck both issued full apologies for their respective failings over the Winterbourne View unit. The government has commissioned the economist and broadcaster Andrew Dilnot to conduct a wide-ranging inquiry into the funding of care and support for elderly and disabled adults. He is due to report in July. The autumn inquiry by the health committee in the Commons will focus on his findings as well as the specific cases highlighted by the Panorama programme, Southern Cross and the recent report by the CQC on the lack of care for the elderly in hospitals. The prime minister’s spokesman said there had been discussions between Southern Cross and the Department of Health “for some time” over contingency funding planning. Asked about financial support in the light of council funding constraints, the prime minister’s spokesman said Southern Cross, landlords and those with a stake in the business needed to put in place a plan to ensure the company was on a firm footing. “That process is happening,” he said. “Our role is to ensure we keep in close contact with what is going on and keep monitoring that situation, and we will do what we need to do to ensure there is protection for anyone affected by this.” On the issue of bailout, he insisted the government would make sure “there is protection in place”, adding: “It may well not be in the interest of residents to move them, it may well be in their interest to keep them in the same place. “But we have to look at that very carefully … our interest is to make sure these people are cared for effectively.” Health policy House of Commons Liberal-Conservative coalition Long-term care Social care Disability Health Polly Curtis Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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Figures from Bank of England show number of loans for house purchase at a four-month low, while consumers’ appetite for borrowing remains limited The number of loans approved for house purchase fell by 4% to a four-month low of 45,166 in April – the lowest figure for that month since records began in 1992, according to the Bank of England . Some economists blamed the low figure on the bank holidays and the royal wedding, but others said they are evidence of a continuing depression in the housing market. Loan approvals for remortgages also fell – by 10% to 28,091 in April compared to 31,201 in March, and down 20.8% on the 35,501 loans approved in February. While gross lending secured on dwellings rose marginally to £11.2bn compared to £11.1bn in March, the Bank of England also said net mortgage lending was just £0.7bn in April, up from £0.5bn in March but low compared to long-term norms. Howard Archer, chief economist at IHS Global Insight , said the Bank figures indicated that tough conditions remain for the housing sector: “Mortgage approvals have actually averaged around 90,000 a month since 1993, while a level of 70,000-80,000 has in the past been considered consistent with stable house prices. “The relapse in mortgage approvals in April from an already low level reinforces our belief that modest falls in house prices are more probable than not over the coming months.” Brian Murphy from independent mortgage brokers Mortgage Advice Bureau was unsurprisingly more bullish: “The raft of bank holidays and the royal wedding inevitably skewed the April data, so an overall drop in the number of loan approvals and remortgages comes as no surprise. The nation went on holiday. “During May, activity bounced back and returned to the steady growth trajectory of February and March – albeit one that is naturally still at historically low levels. The ongoing drop in the number of remortgages reflects how people increasingly believe an interest rate rise is unlikely in the short term and that, if one does come, rates overall will remain very low for the foreseeable future.” April figures from the Building Societies Association (BSA), also released today, show gross lending by mutuals falling to £1.66bn from £1.74bn in March, though the April figure is a significant increase of 19% on the £1.4bn advanced in the same month in 2010. Adrian Coles, director-general of the BSA, said the year-on-year increase reflects a decision by mutuals at the start of the year to lend more: “We have come through the recession and are well-placed after two difficult years. We want to lend more. First-time buyers think they cannot afford to buy, but mutuals’ pricing has improved now and there are attractive products out there.” Meanwhile, the Financial Services Consumer Panel (FSCP) today outlined its six point plan for a “sustainable and healthy mortgage market”. It wants to see the Financial Services Authority’s Mortgage Market Review include, among other things, effective regulation to help consumers; regulatory policy to take account of wider social and economic implications; and lenders being required to judge affordability and suitability for individual consumers. Adam Phillips, chair of the FSCP, said: “Over the last few years we have seen some reckless lending by banks. Stronger regulation is undoubtedly needed to stamp out bad behaviour. However, there is a need for a balanced approach which takes full account of the social implications of any change.” Limited consumer appetite The Bank of England also announced that consumer credit rose by £0.5bn in April compared to the previous six-month average increase of £0.4bn. Credit card lending rose £0.3bn while other loans and advances rose £0.2bn. As in previous months, consumer appetite for taking on new borrowing appears to be limited while people remain keen to reduce their debt. This is borne out by statistics from the BSA which show savings held with mutuals increased by £1.5bn in April compared to an increase of £0.9bn in the same month of 2010. Coles said: “The significant inflow of funds into savings accounts during April was helped particularly by strong deposits into Isa accounts compared to April last year. “However, it will be difficult for deposit takers to maintain a positive inflow of funds this year given the squeeze on household finances. The added competition from state-backed NS&I [products] could also make attracting funds more challenging.” Mortgages Property Banks and building societies Borrowing & debt Mortgage lending figures Housing market Bank of England Mark King guardian.co.uk
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National disease control centre reports spike in cases of people suffering symptoms of bacterial contamination The number of people reported sick in Germany from a foodborne bacterial outbreak that has already killed 16 spiked over the last 24 hours, with nearly 100 more people suffering from severe and potentially fatal symptoms, according to the national disease control centre said. Agriculture minister Ilse Aigner said scientists were trying to find the source of the unusual strain of the E coli bacteria that is believed to have been spread in Europe on tainted vegetables – and where in the chain from farm to grocery store the contamination occurred. “Hundreds of tests have been done and the responsible agencies … have determined that most of the patients who have been sickened ate cucumbers, tomatoes and leaf lettuce and primarily in northern Germany,” Aigner said on ARD television. “The states that have conducted the tests must now follow back the delivery path to see how the cucumbers, or tomatoes or lettuce got here.” German authorities initially pointed to a few cucumbers from Spain, but further tests showed that those vegetables, while contaminated, did not cause the outbreak. Officials are still warning all Germans to avoid eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes or lettuce. E coli is found in large quantities in the digestive systems of humans, cows and other mammals. It has been responsible for a large number of food contamination outbreaks in a wide variety of countries. In most cases, it causes non-lethal stomach ailments. But enterohemorrhagic E coli (EHEC), causes more severe symptoms, ranging from bloody diarrhea to the rare hemolytic uremic syndrome. Germany’s national health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, said 470 people are now suffering from the syndrome, or HUS, in which E coli infection attacks the kidneys, sometimes causing seizures, strokes and comas. That is up from 373 reported Tuesday. Germany typically sees a maximum of 50 to 60 HUS cases in a year. An additional 1,064 cases of EHEC have been reported in Germany since the beginning of May, up from 796 the day before, the Robert Koch Institute said. The World Health Organisation said cases of EHEC have been reported in nine European countries: Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. All but two cases are either people in Germany, or people who had recently travelled to northern Germany, the organisation said. Robert Tauxe, a foodborne disease expert at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said it was extraordinary to see so many cases of the kidney complication from a foodborne illness. “There has not been such an outbreak before that we know of in the history of public health.” He added that the strain of E coli in the European outbreak has not been seen in the US, where there have been several high-profile foodborne outbreaks in recent years, but none with such a high death toll. There is little precedent in Europe, either. In 1996, an E coli outbreak in the UK caused 216 cases and 11 deaths. The WHO said 86% of those sickened in the current outbreak were adults, and two-thirds were women. It said it was unusual that more children were not affected. E coli Health Germany Europe Spain guardian.co.uk
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Fprty-one killed as divisions in military become more pronounced as government troops clash with defectors and rebels At least 41 people have been killed in shelling and street battles between government forces and opposition fighters, amid growing signs of disarray in President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s military. Fighting raged until 5 a.m, and witnesses said Presidential Guard units shelled the headquarters of an army brigade responsible for guarding sensitive government institutions. Army officers who have defected to the opposition say the government suspected the brigade commander was about to join forces with the movement to oust Saleh. Opposition army officers, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with army rules, said the armoured brigade commander, Brigadier-General Mohammed Khalil, was neutral and without political affiliation but had apparently angered Saleh. The 41 dead included combatants from both sides of the conflict, said the medical officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The fighting engulfed the Hassaba neighborhood that contains the family compound of influential opposition tribal leader Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar , and to the north of that district where Republican Guard units protect Saleh’s former residence. The units, led by one of Saleh’s sons, and special forces wearing uniforms of government security troops attacked but failed to recapture the Hassaba administrative building from tribal gunmen. On Tuesday, Saleh imposed collective punishment on the Hassaba neighborhood by cutting water supplies and electricity. A resident who lives close to the fighting and would only give his first name, Zaher, said columns of smoke and fire billowed from Khalil’s brigade headquarters and explosions could be heard. Several ambulances were seen ferrying injured people to the al-Gomhuria general hospital, Zaher said. Al-Ahmar tribesmen were seen on Wednesday morning around the office of the prosecutor general in the Shamlan neighborhood, west of the capital. They were accompanied by two armoured vehicles from the 1st Armored Division which defected to the opposition two months ago. There was also fighting for the first time in the Hada neighborhood, a stronghold for Saleh supporters in the south of the capital. The interior ministry said in a statement that tribesmen had taken over a five-story building there after clashing with the army. Yemen Middle East guardian.co.uk
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