Fourth largest industrial nation set to replace nuclear with renewable energy German MPs have overwhelmingly approved plans to shut down the country’s nuclear plants by 2022, putting Europe’s biggest economy on the road to an ambitious build-up of renewable energy. The lower house of parliament voted 513-79 for the shutdown plan drawn up by Angela Merkel’s government after Japan’s post-tsunami nuclear disaster . Most of the opposition voted in favour. MPs sealed the shutdown of eight of the older reactors, which have been off the grid since March. Germany’s remaining nine reactors will be shut down in stages by the end of 2022. By 2020, Germany wants to double the share of energy stemming from water, wind, sun or biogas to at least 35%. Until this year, nuclear energy accounted for a little less than a quarter of Germany’s power. “Some people abroad ask: will Germany manage this? Can it be done? It is the first time that a major industrial country has declared itself ready to carry through this technological and economic revolution,” the environment minister, Norbert Röttgen, told MPs. “The message from today is this: the Germans are getting to work,” he said. “This will be good for our country, because we all stand together. So let’s get to work.” The government hasn’t put a price tag on the plan to shift to renewable sources. “Of course it will cost something, but it won’t overburden anyone,” Röttgen said. The vote completed a spectacular about-turn on nuclear energy by Merkel’s centre-right coalition. Only last year, it had amended a previous centre-left government’s plan to abandon nuclear power by the early 2020s and extended the life span of Germany’s 17 reactors by an average of 12 years. Merkel said the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had prompted her to re-evaluate the risks of nuclear power. Opposition leaders taunted the government over its U-turn, which Merkel initiated less than two weeks before two state elections in March. “We are approving this out of full conviction, but you are doing it merely to preserve power,” said Sigmar Gabriel, the head of the centre-left Social Democrats. Renate Künast, the co-leader of the Greens’ parliamentary group, said she didn’t care why Merkel had changed course: “For me, it’s enough of a historical irony that you now have to come close to what you fought for decades,” she said. “Now no one can deny that Germany wants an energy turnaround,” added Künast. Her party has always opposed nuclear energy, which has been unpopular in Germany since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster sent radioactivity drifting over the country. Still, she complained that the government’s renewable energy target was unambitious, arguing that Germany should be aiming for a share of well over 40%. “The world is watching us now, and we will have to do justice to that,” Künast said. “That is the scale of this task: we must show that this works for the fourth biggest industrial country.” Parliament’s upper house, which represents Germany’s 16 states, is expected to endorse the plans next week, but much of the package does not formally require its approval. Germany Nuclear power Renewable energy Angela Merkel Europe Energy guardian.co.uk
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Police minister says legislation needed to resolve doubts over 80,000 suspects affected by judgment Emergency legislation is to be introduced to overturn a court ruling that has severely restricted police powers to detain suspects for questioning and plunged police bail laws into chaos. The police minister, Nick Herbert, told MPs the new law was needed because the status of 80,000 suspects currently bailed by police forces across England and Wales had been placed in doubt. Earlier on Thursday the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, warned of serious consequences of the court ruling, adding that there were currently 175 murder suspects out on bail in London. Ministers and police chiefs are in urgent talks over interim measures to deal with the situation in the next fortnight or so before the emergency legislation restores the situation. They have concerns about whether they have enough police cells to detain suspects and worry that they may have to drop cases completely. “In some cases it will mean that suspects who would normally be released on bail are detained for longer. It is likely that in most forces, there will not be enough capacity to detain everybody in police cells,” admitted Herbert. “In other cases, it risks impeding the police to such an extent that the investigation will have to be stopped because the detention time has run out. The judgment will also affect the ability of the police to enforce bail conditions.” The ruling by a district judge in Salford, which was upheld by the high court, overturned 25 years of an interpretation of the law under which suspects could be released on police bail and recalled for questioning weeks and even months later as long as the total time in detention was no more than 96 hours. The ruling means that forces are only allowed to hold suspects for up to 96 hours continuously before they have to either charge or release them. Any time spent out on bail must now be counted towards the 96 hours. Herbert, who was answering an urgent Commons question from Labour on the police crisis, told MPs that the home secretary, Theresa May, was in Madrid at a meeting of the G6 interior ministers. He told MPs that police believed the ruling would have a serious impact on their ability to investigate crime and with 80,000 suspects on police bail around the country they could not wait for an appeal to be heard by the supreme court. “That is why the Association of Chief Police Officers [Acpo] has today advised the home secretary that new legislation is needed. We agree with that assessment. So I can tell the house that we will urgently bring forward emergency legislation to overturn the ruling,” he said. “That emergency legislation will clarify the position and provide assurance that the police can continue to operate on the basis on which they have been operating for many years. We are also seeking urgent further advice on how to mitigate the practical problems caused by the court’s decision in this interim period.” It will take at least eight days for parliament to pass the necessary legislation but Herbert said the ruling had to be reversed because it had upset a careful balance which had stood for a quarter of a century, and that it impeded the police’s work. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, pledged opposition support but demanded to know why it had taken six weeks since the high court upheld the original ruling on 19 May for ministers to act. Herbert claimed the written judgment had not been available to Home Office lawyers until 17 June. When the scale of the problem “became clear” ministers were informed on 24 June: “If any suspect is released on bail, the judgment means they are, in effect, still in police detention. This means that time spent on bail should count towards any maximum period of precharge detention. It causes us great concern.” Police Liberal-Conservative coalition Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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Two sides expected to agree price to tie-in with BSkyB’s financial results Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and BSkyB could agree the terms of a £9.3bn takeover bid as early as 29 July, when the satellite broadcaster is due to announce its full-year results. The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, gave News Corp the green light to acquire the 60.9% of BSkyB it does not already own on Thursday – subject to a short public consultation that ends midday 8 July – on the proviso that Sky News is spun off as a separate company to allay plurality concerns. Observers believe Hunt is keen to give final confirmation by 19 July when the summer parliamentary recess begins – otherwise the decision will be delayed until parliament returns on 5 September. Nick Bell, equity analyst at Jefferies, says there is a strong possibility the two sides will reach the terms of agreement on price by 29 July to tie-in with BSkyB’s financial results. He adds there is a couple of “sticking points” – how to value Sky News and including the BSkyB’s final dividend in the bid price – but doesn’t see these as a major impediment to agreeing a price. This view is supported by Chris Goodall, an analyst at Enders, who argues the two sides are likely to reach agreement on price “within a month” of Hunt’s final approval. “Negotiations between News Corporation and the independent BSkyB directors are essentially about price,” said Bell. Jefferies argues News Corp has the upper hand in negotiations because it is the only potential buyer of the stake, and with “evidence of a consumer slowdown” starting to hit BSkyB’s customer churn rate the cash-generating juggernaut may not be as impervious to any downturn as has been widely forecast. In addition while News Corp is keen to seek a deal recommended by BSkyB’s directors – to then pursue a scheme of arrangement to secure the deal with a shareholder vote – if it had to go the more complex, expensive route of a hostile takeover the company clearly has the upper hand. Under an agreement struck between News Corp and BSkyB after it made its initial approach last June, the two sides have two months to reach a recommended deal with Sky’s independent directors from when Hunt gives final approval. If this is not successful then over the following three-month period any offer by News Corp would need acceptance of 70% of Sky’s shareholders – News Corp already owns 39.1% so the company would need the support of half of the investors controlling the remaining 70%. Jefferies points out that, if necessary, News Corp can push the threat of reaching 75% control at which point it has the power to de-list BSkyB from the stockmarket. “Most hedge funds and other fund managers have an investor remit [to deal] only in publicly listed securities, so if push came to shove News Corporation could force the situation to de-list and they would have to sell,” said one City source. In addition under the terms of last June’s agreement if News Corp fails to strike a deal after five months it will have to pay BSkyB a £38.5m fee but would then be able to seek a deal requiring just 50.1% shareholder approval. “News Corporation’s leverage over BSkyB gets better over time,” said a second City source. A group of shareholders are pushing for News Corp to up its original 700p offer – made when BSkyB was trading at under 600p – to potentially as high as £11. Those calling for a dramatically increased offer include Crispin Odey, founder of Odey Asset Management which has a 2.7% stake in Sky, and Fidelity which would mean News Corp would have to find well over £11bn. However Jefferies believe an agreeable bid price will be about 850p plus final dividend, which the company believes will be about 15.7p, meaning News Corp will effectively have to make an offer somewhere in the region of 866p. Analysts at Numis have argued for 850p while city sources suggest BSkyB’s independent directors are keener on 875p. News Corp proposed a 700p a share offer last June – when BSkyB was trading under 600p – which equates to about £7.8bn. If it ups its offer to 875p it will have to beef up its offer to about £9.3bn – a further £1.5bn. If everything were to go smoothly in the takeover process News Corp could complete the transaction by the middle of October. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . News Corporation Media business BSkyB Television industry Rupert Murdoch Jeremy Hunt Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk
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Downing Street says 26% of schools are shut and 22% partially open, but claims only half of civil service union members also striking Downing Street has confirmed that more than 10,000 schools have either closed or cancelled lessons as a result of the strikes over pensions . But it insisted that only half of members of the Public and Commercial Services union , which represents civil service workers, have joined the walkouts, declaring Britain’s borders “open for business” with air travel unaffected . The prime minister’s official spokesman said that 26% of schools are shut, 22% partially open and 23% unaffected. Downing Street is still awaiting information about the other 29%. It means that more than 2 million pupils are affected by the action. Parents across the country, particularly in the major cities, have been forced to stay at home or make other arrangements for their children. Downing Street acknowledged that the strikes would have a knock-on effect for the economy. Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers , said the early indications were that “large numbers” of schools were affected by the action. NUT figures suggest around 80%. “We realise that’s very disruptive for parents, and we do regret that,” he said. “We had hoped to reach a settlement before the industrial action, but the government isn’t serious about talks.” Michael Gove, the education secretary, said on a visit to an open primary school: “I feel disappointed that people have chosen to go out on strike today. I understand that there are really strong feelings about pensions and we absolutely want to ensure that everyone in the public, especially teachers, have decent pensions.” Thousands of people are gathering in Manchester and London to take part in marches with roads in both cities shut down. Police leave in the capital has been cancelled with a large Met operation underway in central London to police the march. There are picket lines outside government buildings in Whitehall as well as well as schools, tax offices, courts and jobcentres across the country. Some 350 colleges and 75 universities are also closed or operating a scaled-back timetable. The government claimed that turnout among the civil service was low but the PCS insisted it was the best supported of the union’s history. “Less than half of PCS members have decided to take part reinforcing what we saw at the ballot which was very limited support for strike action,” the prime minister’s spokesman said. Jobcentres and tax offices are open, albeit with some offering reduced services. Courts are prioritising the most urgent cases, he said. The PCS counterclaimed that 90% of members in the Department of Work and Pensions and 85% in HM Revenue and Customs had walked out. Mark Serwotka, the union’s general secretary , said: “The government made a lot of the fact that after the strike ballot it was clear civil servants didn’t support strike action, but today we can see that they have voted with their feet.” The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: “These strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on but parents and the public have been let down by both sides because the government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner. “After today’s disruption, I urge both sides to put aside the rhetoric, get round the negotiating table and stop it happening again.” The government is coming under increasing pressure to justify claims that the current system is “unaffordable”. David Cameron said this week that it was in danger of “going broke” but the report – by the former Labour business secretary Lord Hutton – on which the government’s reforms are based, confirms that as a share of GDP the cost of pensions peeked last year at 1.9% and is now projected to fall to 1.4% by 2059-60. The Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, who is leading the pension negotiations, was accused on Radio 4′s Today Programme of “floundering” by Serwotka when asked to justify the statements. Maude would only say that the Hutton report had “very clearly” said that the status quo was “not tenable”. “You cannot continue to have more and more people in retirement being supported by fewer and fewer people in work,” said Maude. The prime minister’s official spokesman dismissed the row. “People are getting caught up in a semantic debate,” he said. “There is this debate that is raging about unaffordable versus untenable. The fact of the matter is this was looked into very thoroughly by Hutton and he concluded that we needed to reform public sector pensions.” Asked if striking unions would be excluded from future talks, he said: “We want to have a constructive dialogue. We will continue to approach these discussions in that way.” Annual figures released by the Department for Education on Thursday show that there are 8.2 million pupils in 24,500 schools in England, including 2,400 private schools. According to the government’s estimation that half of schools are affected, at least 10,000 are closed with at least 2 million pupils affected by closures and hundreds of thousands of more missing cancelled lessons. Maude claimed the turnout was lower than the 2004 and 2007 strikes against Labour’s pension reforms. He issued the government’s assessment of the impact of the strike on the civil service claiming that Just under 80% of civil servants were at work estimating that around 100,000 out of the 500,000 workforce was striking. The PCS union has around 250,000 members who were balloted. He said: “What today has shown is that the vast majority of hardworking public sector employees do not support today’s premature strike and have come into work today; I want to thank them all for coming in, ignoring the pickets and putting the public first. “I am not at all surprised by the very low turnout for today’s action – less than half of PCS’s own members chose to take part. Very few civil servants wanted this strike at all – less than 10% of them voted for it – and they are right. “It is simply wrong for their leader to be pushing for walkouts when serious talks, set up at the request of the TUC itself, are still ongoing. As Brendan Barber [the TUC general secretary] said, the government are approaching this whole process in good faith.” Public sector pensions Public sector cuts Public services policy Public finance Public sector pay Schools Civil service Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Just days after New York legalized gay marriage, Rhode Island has passed its own law approving civil unions among same-sex couples. “From hospital visitation rights, medical decision making powers, equal state tax treatment, we have moved one step in the right direction to ensuring that individuals receive equal rights and…
Continue reading …US drones have moved into yet another nation, this time targeting two men linked to al-Qaeda in Somalia. The strike last week succeeded in wounding the men who are among leaders of the insurgent Islamist group al-Shabab who are collaborating closely with al-Qaeda to organize operations beyond Somalia, according to…
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Fears of further civil strife in Lebanon as special tribunal for 2005 car bomb names senior Hezbollah men Lebanon’s senior prosecutor has received criminal indictments for four members of the Shia militant group Hezbollah, who are accused of assassinating the country’s former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, in a car bomb attack six years ago. The move is a significant step in an investigation into the attack that killed Hariri and 21 others on the Beirut waterfront on 14 February 2005 . Security was immediately tightened in the city after investigators from the Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon visited the offices of Prosecutor General Sayyed Merza, who now has the discretion to name the suspects. Within minutes of the meeting finishing, Lebanese media outlets named the men as Assad Sabra, Hassan Issa, Salim Ayachhe and Moustaf Badredine, all senior members of Hezbollah. Hariri’s son, Saad, welcomed the indictments and called it a “historic moment”. Hezbollah did not respond immediately to the indictments, which if the they lead to convictions, would pose a serious threat to the group’s claim as a nationalist resistance movement. One senior official said this morning that Hezbollah felt it had done enough to prepare for the indictments with a lengthy and vocal campaign to discredit the investigation. Elsewhere, members of Hariri’s political bloc called on the Lebanese parliament to continue support for the tribunal, which Lebanon partly funds. Hezbollah and its supporters, who comprise roughly half the country’s Druze and Christians, had been trying to force a government led by Saad Hariri, to withdraw support for the tribunal and stop funding it. After realising Hariri would not agree, Hezbollah and its allies quit the cabinet in January, causing the collapse of the unity government . The bloc now has a slim majority in government, which it will likely use to target the tribunal. Lebanon’s cabinet will distribute a policy statement on Friday on how to deal with the tribunal. Regardless of its stance, the tribunal will hold hearings in the Hague later this year. The legitimacy of its claims will likely first be contested in districts of Lebanon, which remain deeply split and seemingly implacably aligned behind sectarian banners. Lebanon Middle East Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
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Hervé Ghesquierè and Stéphane Taponier greeted by president and huge crowd at Paris airbase after 547 days in Afghanstan Two journalists held hostage by the Taliban for 18 months in Afghanistan have arrived home in France to an emotional welcome. Television reporter Hervé Ghesquierè, 47, with tears in his eyes, described being confined indoors “23 and three-quarters hours a day” and repeatedly having his hopes raised of an imminent release – and then dashed. Cameraman Stéphane Taponier, 46, at his side, broke into a grin as he said: “We’re doing really, really, really well.” Both looked quite pale but otherwise healthy, and were visibly moved by the huge crowd of journalists gathered at a military airbase outside Paris for the long-awaited homecoming. Their plight was one of France’s longest-ever hostage ordeals, and had become a national cause. President Nicolas Sarkozy, first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and France’s defence and foreign ministers met the two men as they left the plane from Kabul. The two journalists and three Afghan associates were kidnapped in December 2009 while working for France 3 television on a story about reconstruction on a road east of Kabul. They had been embedded with French troops in Afghanistan, but decided to take off to report on their own but were captured. They were freed on Wednesday along with their Afghan translator, Reza Din. Two others were freed earlier. French officials insist no ransom has been paid, though the circumstances of the release remained unclear. The journalists insisted that they had not been beaten or mistreated by their Taliban captors, just suffered “very very difficult” living conditions. They said they were separated after the first three months and spent the rest of the time isolated and confined. We represented something important for the Taliban, Taponier said, which he said gave him hope they would eventually be freed. In April 2010, after posting a video of the hostages on the web, the Taliban said it had submitted a list of prisoners to French authorities it wanted freed in exchange. Last week, the French defence minister, Gérard Longuet, said that the announcements of staggered French and American troop withdrawals might help the cause of freeing Ghésquierè and Taponier. US President Barack Obama announced the withdrawal of 33,000 troops by September 2012, and France followed suit, announcing it will pull out a quarter of its force of 4,000. The Taliban gave each journalist a radio at some point, they said. Taponier was able to listen to Radio France International, which was broadcasting regular messages of support to the two men in the hope they were listening. “That warmed our hearts,” Taponier said. But Ghesquierè was only able to get a BBC signal, and said he was largely unaware of the large support campaign in France. He described battling boredom and discouragement by exercising in the small room where he was isolated for months, and writing. And he exclaimed in dismay in recalling that a year-and-a-half of notes he took were taken away before his liberation, because his captors didn’t want any document released. Ghesquierè specialised in war reporting, covering the Balkans conflict and investigative reports around the globe, from Cambodia to the disputed Western Sahara territory. Taponier had filmed in the past in Afghanistan, notably a 2000 report on the northern commander Massoud, who was later killed. Ghesquierè said he wanted to get back to a “normal life” as soon as possible, and not “play the role of an ex-hostage”. For the past 547 days, banners bearing their photos hung in city halls around France – banners taken down in jubilation after their release. France Europe Taliban Afghanistan guardian.co.uk
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Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John le Carré bestseller opens in the UK on 16 September. Let us know what you think of this world exclusive teaser trailer
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