Rockets hit Misrata as infantry backed by artillery attack eastern approach to city, wrong-footing rebels Muammar Gaddafi’s forces have defied Nato warnings , reportedly killing a woman and wounding two children in rocket strikes on Misrata and launching a big attack to the east of the city. The rocket attack in Habara , between the port and city centre, was the first time artillery has inflicted casualties in Misrata since rebel troops pushed government forces out of the city on 12 May. Infantry forces backed by artillery launched a surprise attack on Kararimat, the eastern end of the enclave. The Hikma hospital reported 11 dead and 41 wounded from the attack. Radio Misrata said the rebel frontline had held off the assaults, which continued into the late afternoon. The rebels, who were expecting Gaddafi’s forces to attack from the west, were wrong-footed by the assault. “Gaddafi brought his troops around and attacked from the other side,” said Adel Ibrahim of Radio Misrata. “Now they are hitting civilian areas. One woman is killed, her children are hurt.” The attacks represent an act of defiance from the Gaddafi regime, three days after Nato dropped thousands of leaflets over government lines featuring pictures of an Apache helicopter and warning of attacks if civilian areas were shelled. Nato has been wrestling with the problem of how to respond to continued rocket strikes on the enclave, with British commanders reportedly saying that the Apaches are too vulnerable to risk attacking by day. No Apache strikes have been reported since Friday’s attacks, but Nato bombers flew over Misrata earlier in the day, followed by 23 explosions to the west of the city. Ibrahim echoed a common complaint heard across the city as the death toll mounts. “Where is Nato?’ he said. “It seems they are on holiday.” Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Muammar Gaddafi Nato Chris Stephen guardian.co.uk
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Angela Merkel seeks peace with European Central Bank over Greek debt crisis Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has sued for peace with the European Central Bank (ECB) following weeks of feuding over how to rescue Greece from the devastating debt crisis threatening the future of the euro single currency. Merkel announced on Friday that the decisions on a new three-year bailout package for Greece, which is tipped to run to about €120bn (£106bn), would need to be agreed with the ECB. At a Berlin summit with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Merkel softened her terms for the new Greek bailout, urged a quick decision on Greece, stressed that any participation by private creditors in the rescue should be voluntary and insisted that a new package with Greece would be reached together with the ECB. Merkel’s climbdown was welcomed by the financial markets, as the prospect of Greece suffering a catastrophic disorderly default receded. The euro rallied strongly, gaining more than one cent against the dollar. Europe’s major stock markets also closed higher as traders took a more positive view of the Greek situation. The German media, though, promptly predicted that Merkel’s olive branch could cost her politically at home. “For the German government, this is a remarkable shift,” said the liberal Sueddeutsche Zeitung. “The chancellor has backed off from a central German demand,” said the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine. In a research note, JP Morgan said Berlin seemed to be dropping its insistence on a bond swap by Greece’s private creditors, the central factor that the ECB feared would cause Greece to be declared in sovereign default. The Berlin summit came at the end of a week of intense political and market turbulence with riots on the streets of Athens, a Greek government on the brink of collapse and bad-tempered disarray among EU leaders. Despite the apparent progress, it remained to be seen how the second Greek bailout in a year would be structured. Sarkozy, who has been on the ECB side of the argument, characteristically claimed a “breakthrough” in Berlin and said France and Germany were united on all essential points on Greece. Merkel has become increasingly isolated in the last fortnight over Germany’s insistence that Greece’s private creditors – the banks, pension funds and insurance companies holding much of the insolvent country’s €340bn of debt – have to take “haircuts” or sizeable losses on their investments as part of the new deal to rescue Greece. The Germans wanted the creditors to swap maturing Greek bonds for new seven-year paper bonds on a scale that would be “quantifiable and substantial.” The ECB, supported by the European Commission, France and Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, head of the group of 17 eurozone countries, had warned that Berlin’s policy could trigger calamity. The ratings agencies would declare Greece in default, bringing down the Greek banks and unleashing financial failure across the European banking sector. The ECB recommended a rollover of Greek debt, with the banks pledging to buy new Greek paper as current loans are repaid, avoiding a “credit event” or a Greek default. It now seems that this option will prevail and a deal will be reached much more quickly following Merkel’s concessions. Merkel emphasised that any involvement by private creditors would be “explicitly voluntary”. A German parliament resolution last week underpinning her negotiating mandate in the EU stipulated the government could only agree to a new bailout “if an appropriate involvement of private creditors is included”. The Germans hoped this would amount to a quarter of the slated €120bn, but the contribution could now be merely symbolic. As she has consistently done throughout the 18-month crisis, Merkel had been playing for time, initially hoping to put off a new bailout until September. After the summit in Berlin, she said: “It’s not about September. It’s about the quickest possible solution.” Finance ministers from the eurozone and the EU meet in Luxembourg on Sunday and Monday and could now hammer out a bailout deal to be blessed by a European summit on Thursday. Greece became the first eurozone country to require a bailout in May last year when the Europeans put together a €110bn package. That has failed amid escalating turmoil in Greece and growing resistance to the swingeing austerity programmes that were the price for the rescue. George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, will visit Luxembourg on Monday for talks with EU leaders who are anxious that the entire rescue scenario could still unravel because of his inability to deliver on a radical privatisation programme, spending cuts, and tax increases. Merkel’s remarks came as the IMF warned that debt-ridden European countries were “playing with fire” unless they took immediate steps to reduce their budget deficits. The IMF, in its regular assessment of global economic prospects, said bigger threats to growth had emerged since its previous report in April, citing the euro zone debt crisis and signs of overheating in emerging market economies. The IMF also revised downwards its forecast for US growth, estimating GDP would grow a tepid 2.5 percent this year and 2.7 percent in 2012 compared with an expected 2.8 percent and 2.9 percent growth, respectively, two months ago. European debt crisis European banks Europe Currencies Economics Global economy Greece Germany Angela Merkel Nicolas Sarkozy Euro Euro European Union Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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Angela Merkel seeks peace with European Central Bank over Greek debt crisis Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has sued for peace with the European Central Bank (ECB) following weeks of feuding over how to rescue Greece from the devastating debt crisis threatening the future of the euro single currency. Merkel announced on Friday that the decisions on a new three-year bailout package for Greece, which is tipped to run to about €120bn (£106bn), would need to be agreed with the ECB. At a Berlin summit with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Merkel softened her terms for the new Greek bailout, urged a quick decision on Greece, stressed that any participation by private creditors in the rescue should be voluntary and insisted that a new package with Greece would be reached together with the ECB. Merkel’s climbdown was welcomed by the financial markets, as the prospect of Greece suffering a catastrophic disorderly default receded. The euro rallied strongly, gaining more than one cent against the dollar. Europe’s major stock markets also closed higher as traders took a more positive view of the Greek situation. The German media, though, promptly predicted that Merkel’s olive branch could cost her politically at home. “For the German government, this is a remarkable shift,” said the liberal Sueddeutsche Zeitung. “The chancellor has backed off from a central German demand,” said the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine. In a research note, JP Morgan said Berlin seemed to be dropping its insistence on a bond swap by Greece’s private creditors, the central factor that the ECB feared would cause Greece to be declared in sovereign default. The Berlin summit came at the end of a week of intense political and market turbulence with riots on the streets of Athens, a Greek government on the brink of collapse and bad-tempered disarray among EU leaders. Despite the apparent progress, it remained to be seen how the second Greek bailout in a year would be structured. Sarkozy, who has been on the ECB side of the argument, characteristically claimed a “breakthrough” in Berlin and said France and Germany were united on all essential points on Greece. Merkel has become increasingly isolated in the last fortnight over Germany’s insistence that Greece’s private creditors – the banks, pension funds and insurance companies holding much of the insolvent country’s €340bn of debt – have to take “haircuts” or sizeable losses on their investments as part of the new deal to rescue Greece. The Germans wanted the creditors to swap maturing Greek bonds for new seven-year paper bonds on a scale that would be “quantifiable and substantial.” The ECB, supported by the European Commission, France and Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, head of the group of 17 eurozone countries, had warned that Berlin’s policy could trigger calamity. The ratings agencies would declare Greece in default, bringing down the Greek banks and unleashing financial failure across the European banking sector. The ECB recommended a rollover of Greek debt, with the banks pledging to buy new Greek paper as current loans are repaid, avoiding a “credit event” or a Greek default. It now seems that this option will prevail and a deal will be reached much more quickly following Merkel’s concessions. Merkel emphasised that any involvement by private creditors would be “explicitly voluntary”. A German parliament resolution last week underpinning her negotiating mandate in the EU stipulated the government could only agree to a new bailout “if an appropriate involvement of private creditors is included”. The Germans hoped this would amount to a quarter of the slated €120bn, but the contribution could now be merely symbolic. As she has consistently done throughout the 18-month crisis, Merkel had been playing for time, initially hoping to put off a new bailout until September. After the summit in Berlin, she said: “It’s not about September. It’s about the quickest possible solution.” Finance ministers from the eurozone and the EU meet in Luxembourg on Sunday and Monday and could now hammer out a bailout deal to be blessed by a European summit on Thursday. Greece became the first eurozone country to require a bailout in May last year when the Europeans put together a €110bn package. That has failed amid escalating turmoil in Greece and growing resistance to the swingeing austerity programmes that were the price for the rescue. George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, will visit Luxembourg on Monday for talks with EU leaders who are anxious that the entire rescue scenario could still unravel because of his inability to deliver on a radical privatisation programme, spending cuts, and tax increases. Merkel’s remarks came as the IMF warned that debt-ridden European countries were “playing with fire” unless they took immediate steps to reduce their budget deficits. The IMF, in its regular assessment of global economic prospects, said bigger threats to growth had emerged since its previous report in April, citing the euro zone debt crisis and signs of overheating in emerging market economies. The IMF also revised downwards its forecast for US growth, estimating GDP would grow a tepid 2.5 percent this year and 2.7 percent in 2012 compared with an expected 2.8 percent and 2.9 percent growth, respectively, two months ago. European debt crisis European banks Europe Currencies Economics Global economy Greece Germany Angela Merkel Nicolas Sarkozy Euro Euro European Union Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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Progress made on technical issues, but non government groups criticise slow and convoluted pace of negotiations Two weeks of tense global climate talks wrapped up on Friday, with countries insisting they had made progress on technical issues but accepting they were still nowhere near agreement in the three key areas of finance, greenhouse gas emission cuts and the future of the Kyoto protocol. Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN climate secretariat, defended the UN against charges by non-governmental groups that the talks were painfully slow and convoluted, saying the economic crisis in Europe and elsewhere was making it harder to make progress. “Climate [change talks] are the most important negotiations the world has ever seen, but governments, business and civil society cannot solve it [climate] in one meeting. Countries are being very creative, exploring all options,” she said at the close of the conference in Bonn . Figueres warned that there could a gap between commitment periods for the Kyoto Protocol, the only global treaty legally binding rich countries to cut emissions – the first phase of which ends in 2012 . “Governments can double their efforts and come forward with middle ground solutions and options which are acceptable to all sides,” she said. The EU, which was challenged to lead negotiations by committing itself to a second round of Kyoto , said developing countries had to prove they had met all agreements made in Copenhagen and Cancún last year. “We are ready for an international deal … but we need everyone aboard. A second commitment period on its own is not going to cut it. We need to see more progress [in other areas],” said Jozsef Feiler, EU spokesperson. Non-governmental groups said they were deeply frustrated at the snail pace of negotiations and whole days lost while countries debated the agenda of the talks. Bolivia, which was isolated at the end of the Cancún talks when it insisted on deeper emission cuts , said it was worried at the lack of ambition. “There have been some small advances in technical issues, but no advance at all in the key issue of pledges for emission reductions. If there are no new pledges [soon], we face a very difficult situation,” said Pablo Solon, ambassador to the UN in New York. “The developed countries are not moving. The problem we face is that we are on a path to [warming of] 4-5C. That is the reality. That worries us very much. The problem is the lack of ambition,” he said Quamrul Chowdhury, a negotiator with the G77 group of developing countries, said that the talks were like the end of a long cricket test match with both sides playing for a draw. “No-one wants to lose anything at this stage.” “Europe should use its power to secure a second commitment period of Kyoto, even if only as a stop-gap before the creation of an entirely new global deal,” said Mohamed Adow, senior adviser on global advocacy for Christian Aid. Global climate talks Carbon emissions Climate change Germany United Nations John Vidal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …London 2012: Two-thirds miss out on Olympics tickets in first-round lottery
June 17, 2011 No Comment
Organisers outline plans for the next batch of Olympics tickets, which go on sale on a first come, first served basis on 24 June Two-thirds of applicants for London 2012 tickets have been left empty handed in the face of “huge demand”, it emerged as organisers outlined details of the sale of the next batch of 2.3m tickets. A total of 21 events have sold out altogether, with only limited availability for others. There will be only 40,000 athletics tickets available, mainly at high prices, when the second phase opens at 6am on 24 June to the 1.2 million applicants who received nothing in the first phase on a first come, first served basis. Around 1.7m of the remaining 2.3m tickets are for the football tournament, which is taking place at large stadiums around the country. Of the 600,000 remaining for other events, the next most are for volleyball and hockey. There will be a further 1m tickets on sale next year to the general public once venue layouts have been finalised. The London 2012 chairman, Sebastian Coe, said he “empathised with and understands the level of disappointment” but said that the commitment to low pricing had helped drive huge demand. “I don’t know if it’s unprecedented, but I would be hard pushed to give you an example of such a demand for any sporting event anywhere in the world in my lifetime,” he said. Although the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) has to work within the framework laid down by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regarding ticket allocation, there is likely to be further anger at the distribution of tickets for the biggest events. It has emerged that the men’s 100m final attracted 1.3m applications, but only 30,000 of the 80,000 seats at the stadium will be sold to the British public. The rest of the stadium will be made up of a further 30,000 tickets given to sponsors, hospitality, international sales and international sporting federations, and the rest to the media and IOC officials. Of the 30,000 available to the public, 21,000 went in the first round – half in the more expensive A, B and C categories and half in the D and E categories – and the remaining 9,000 will go on sale next year. Paul Deighton, the Locog chief executive, said that 16m of the 22m ticket applications were for the bottom two price categories. “It all comes back to the number of people who wanted tickets. There were a lot of really affordable tickets and that generated enormous demand,” he said. “The sheer level of demand has left more people disappointed than we would want and we are committed to fixing that as best we can.” There were 1.3m applications for the men’s 100m final, 5m in total for the athletics and 2m for the opening ceremony, including 1.5m who hoped for a £20.12 seat. A total of 1.9 million people applied for 22m tickets in the first phase of the sales process, with 700,000 of them securing a total of 3m tickets. More than 1,500 ballots were held for oversubscribed sessions. “We are determined to do everything we possibly can to get tickets to those people who missed out in the first application,” insisted Coe. He set a target of getting at least two-thirds of the original 1.9 million applicants a ticket by the start of the Games if they wanted one. The ticketing process had come in for criticism from consumer groups including Which? and many applicants for apparently favouring those who could afford to bid for lots of highly priced tickets in lots of sessions. Organisers were also criticised for withdrawing money from the accounts of successful applicants weeks before they learned which tickets they had received. But Deighton said the figures did not bear out the worst fears of consumer groups. He said the average successful application was for four tickets costing £275. Eighty percent of applicants applied for between one and five sessions, with just 5% applying for more than five and “a fraction of 1%” applying for the maximum of 20. “The 3m tickets that were sold will mostly go to different people. Between 2.5 million and 2.7 million people will get to use those tickets,” he said. “We don’t have a situation where there was a small number of people who got a large number of tickets to the detriment of people who didn’t get any.” Unsuccessful applicants will have a 10-day window from 24 June to apply for the 2.3m tickets available in the second round. They will be available on a first come, first served basis. On 8 July, the 700,000 successful applicants will also be offered another chance to buy what is left. Deighton also hinted that Locog, which expects to bring in £400m of its £500m ticket revenue target by the end of the second phase, would have limited the number of sessions and tickets that could have been applied for if it had known the extent of the demand. In the second phase applicants will be restricted to up to six tickets in up to three sessions – apart from those for football, volleyball and the race walk where there are lots of tickets left. “Learning from the demand we had in the first session, we have pared down the event and ticket numbers in this first come, first served second session,” he said. The remaining tickets, expected to total around 1m across all price points and sessions, will start to go on sale from December this year. A ticket exchange service for those who can no longer use their tickets will be set up early next year and organisers will also release tickets that will allow access to the Olympic Park but not to any of the venues. Olympic Games 2012 London Owen Gibson guardian.co.uk
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It was not a mass movement but about 30 or 40 women across the country took the wheel At just after 10 o’clock on Friday morning Maha al-Qahtani swapped places with her husband, Mohammed, and took the wheel of the family car. For the next 50 minutes, she drove through the Saudi capital, along the six-lane King Fahd Road, through Cairo Square, down the upmarket Olaya Street with its shopping malls, Starbucks, Apple store and boutiques. “No one tried to stop us. No one even looked,” the 39-year-old civil servant said. “We drove past police cars but had no trouble.” In fact, the biggest problem for Qahtani was her husband sitting next to her. “He kept telling me to slow down or speed up. He was very fussy,” she said. This is Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world that bans women from driving motor vehicles. Qahtani was part of a small but striking movement of women determined to do something about it. The exact number of Saudi women who protested was unclear. It was certainly not a mass movement. By mid-afternoon a handful had driven in Riyadh, a few in the southern port city of Jeddah, a couple in Dammam in the east, perhaps 30 or 40 overall in a country with a population of 27 million including migrant labourers. But it was a breakthrough. In the closed and authoritarian kingdom, such open and premeditated dissent is extremely rare. Under the spotlight of international attention, Saudi Arabia’s rulers had clearly decided to allow the protest to go ahead. “It is not the issue of women’s driving itself which poses a problem, it is the challenge to authority,” said a political analyst, Khaled al-Dhakil. “But … change is eroding that authority.” This was the closest Saudi Arabia has yet got to the revolutionary upheavals of the Arab spring. A “day of rage” declared in March was, outside areas dominated by the Shia minority, a non-event. A lack of tradition of public protest and heavy security presence rapidly ended any efforts at mobilisation. Last month seven women were arrested for driving. Manal al-Sharif, a 32-year-old who had posted a video on the internet of herself at the wheel, was held for 10 days , made to sign a pledge not to drive again and banned from talking to the media. On Friday, a different mood prevailed. Police appeared to be under orders not to intervene. In Jeddah, one woman said she had been detained by soldiers and escorted home. Others reported being ignored. But when Qahtani, who holds American and international driving licenses, tried driving again in the afternoon, she was stopped after 30 minutes by police, given a ticket for driving without a Saudi licence, and sent home. The question now is whether this signals forthcoming concessions from the authorities. King Abdullah, a relative moderate reigning since 2005, is known to be sympathetic but constrained by a conservative religious establishment. The support of the clergy has been crucial to the house of Al Saud and successive kings have been careful not to antagonise them. Earlier this year, clerics issued a fatwa against challenging the royal family’s authority. Many clerics claim the driving ban prevents vice by stopping women interacting with male strangers – despite the enforced proximity with a hired driver. Wajeha al-Huwaider, the activist who filmed Sharif’s drive, said the “big campaign” might make the government rethink. “Driving is a basic simple right. Denying it is hurting the image of the country. Even if the ban is nothing to do with religion, it is also hurting the image of Islam,” she said. Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been key for the women drivers, providing support networks and, crucially, publicity outside the kingdom. The legal situation is unclear. Supporters say it is justified by both religious fatwas and the rulers’ own statements. Critics say there is nothing in Islam to back the ban and that there has never been a royal decree. Women in Saudi Arabia are also banned from voting or from leaving home without a male guardian. Previous campaigns to overturn the ban have failed. One, in 1991, resulted in nearly 50 women who drove losing their jobs and being banned from foreign travel. The critical question now is broader public opinion. Those driving on Friday come from a small – if growing – element of Saudi society. Saad, a 24-year-old engineer who recently returned from government-sponsored studies in the US, said that Saudis should “get over” the issue. “There are much more important issues here than women driving. We need to be more broad-minded,” he said. But many others disagree. Abdullah al-Otaiba, who trades camels on the outskirts of Riyadh, said that women driving was a “bad idea”. “You have your ways of doing things in the west and that’s fine for you. We are conservative people. We are not democratic. We have another religion and women should not go alone,” he said. There is room for compromise – the most likely outcome, experts says. Some younger clerics would accept women being allowed to drive in case of emergency. The women, most of whom learned to drive overseas, say their campaign will continue until a royal decree is issued allowing them to drive “without any conditions”. “It’s our right. We have to have it. We will continue until we can decide ourselves,” said Maha al-Qahtani. “I’m really excited,” said Eman Nafjan, 32, who drove round her Riyadh neighbourhood for 15 minutes . “We need to do it again.” Saudi Arabia Women Middle East Islam Religion Gender Arab and Middle East unrest Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …It was not a mass movement but about 30 or 40 women across the country took the wheel At just after 10 o’clock on Friday morning Maha al-Qahtani swapped places with her husband, Mohammed, and took the wheel of the family car. For the next 50 minutes, she drove through the Saudi capital, along the six-lane King Fahd Road, through Cairo Square, down the upmarket Olaya Street with its shopping malls, Starbucks, Apple store and boutiques. “No one tried to stop us. No one even looked,” the 39-year-old civil servant said. “We drove past police cars but had no trouble.” In fact, the biggest problem for Qahtani was her husband sitting next to her. “He kept telling me to slow down or speed up. He was very fussy,” she said. This is Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world that bans women from driving motor vehicles. Qahtani was part of a small but striking movement of women determined to do something about it. The exact number of Saudi women who protested was unclear. It was certainly not a mass movement. By mid-afternoon a handful had driven in Riyadh, a few in the southern port city of Jeddah, a couple in Dammam in the east, perhaps 30 or 40 overall in a country with a population of 27 million including migrant labourers. But it was a breakthrough. In the closed and authoritarian kingdom, such open and premeditated dissent is extremely rare. Under the spotlight of international attention, Saudi Arabia’s rulers had clearly decided to allow the protest to go ahead. “It is not the issue of women’s driving itself which poses a problem, it is the challenge to authority,” said a political analyst, Khaled al-Dhakil. “But … change is eroding that authority.” This was the closest Saudi Arabia has yet got to the revolutionary upheavals of the Arab spring. A “day of rage” declared in March was, outside areas dominated by the Shia minority, a non-event. A lack of tradition of public protest and heavy security presence rapidly ended any efforts at mobilisation. Last month seven women were arrested for driving. Manal al-Sharif, a 32-year-old who had posted a video on the internet of herself at the wheel, was held for 10 days , made to sign a pledge not to drive again and banned from talking to the media. On Friday, a different mood prevailed. Police appeared to be under orders not to intervene. In Jeddah, one woman said she had been detained by soldiers and escorted home. Others reported being ignored. But when Qahtani, who holds American and international driving licenses, tried driving again in the afternoon, she was stopped after 30 minutes by police, given a ticket for driving without a Saudi licence, and sent home. The question now is whether this signals forthcoming concessions from the authorities. King Abdullah, a relative moderate reigning since 2005, is known to be sympathetic but constrained by a conservative religious establishment. The support of the clergy has been crucial to the house of Al Saud and successive kings have been careful not to antagonise them. Earlier this year, clerics issued a fatwa against challenging the royal family’s authority. Many clerics claim the driving ban prevents vice by stopping women interacting with male strangers – despite the enforced proximity with a hired driver. Wajeha al-Huwaider, the activist who filmed Sharif’s drive, said the “big campaign” might make the government rethink. “Driving is a basic simple right. Denying it is hurting the image of the country. Even if the ban is nothing to do with religion, it is also hurting the image of Islam,” she said. Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been key for the women drivers, providing support networks and, crucially, publicity outside the kingdom. The legal situation is unclear. Supporters say it is justified by both religious fatwas and the rulers’ own statements. Critics say there is nothing in Islam to back the ban and that there has never been a royal decree. Women in Saudi Arabia are also banned from voting or from leaving home without a male guardian. Previous campaigns to overturn the ban have failed. One, in 1991, resulted in nearly 50 women who drove losing their jobs and being banned from foreign travel. The critical question now is broader public opinion. Those driving on Friday come from a small – if growing – element of Saudi society. Saad, a 24-year-old engineer who recently returned from government-sponsored studies in the US, said that Saudis should “get over” the issue. “There are much more important issues here than women driving. We need to be more broad-minded,” he said. But many others disagree. Abdullah al-Otaiba, who trades camels on the outskirts of Riyadh, said that women driving was a “bad idea”. “You have your ways of doing things in the west and that’s fine for you. We are conservative people. We are not democratic. We have another religion and women should not go alone,” he said. There is room for compromise – the most likely outcome, experts says. Some younger clerics would accept women being allowed to drive in case of emergency. The women, most of whom learned to drive overseas, say their campaign will continue until a royal decree is issued allowing them to drive “without any conditions”. “It’s our right. We have to have it. We will continue until we can decide ourselves,” said Maha al-Qahtani. “I’m really excited,” said Eman Nafjan, 32, who drove round her Riyadh neighbourhood for 15 minutes . “We need to do it again.” Saudi Arabia Women Middle East Islam Religion Gender Arab and Middle East unrest Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A Catholic church in Long Beach has been reunited with its piece of the patron saint of missing things. The 800-year-old relic of St. Anthony of Padua, a sliver of bone encased in a gold and silver reliquary, was stolen earlier this week . Police found the relic in the living…
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Spending his savings on renting an advertising hoarding has proved a winning gamble for an unemployed Irishman “Jobless Paddy”, the unemployed Irishman who spent his life savings on an advertising hoarding pleading with bosses to save him from emigration , has been rescued by another Paddy. Irish betting giant Paddy Power has given a job to Féilim Mac An Iomaire, who has shot to fame in the past few weeks after using €2,000 (£1,770) to rent a billboard site asking for help. The Galway man displayed the ad on Dublin’s busy Merrion Road stating that he did not want to emigrate to look for work. The response was unprecedented, resulting in 20 interviews and several job offers. The 26-year-old said: “Working with Paddy and his team is something I could only have dreamt of before, but now I’m actually here, it’s real. The last month has been the most chaotic of my life, so now I’m really just looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting stuck into my new job.” Ken Robertson of the bookmaker chain said: “Feilim is a true rock star. I’m so happy he decided to come and work for Paddy Power. I have no doubt his energy, creativity and never-say-die attitude will be a massive plus to the brand.” Mac An Iomaire’s plight struck a chord in a nation that expects to lose 50,000 people to emigration this year, many of them young. His unusual personal sales pitch gained him fame around the world, with foreign news organisations reporting on his billboard site. Meanwhile, unemployment remains at more than 450,000, with thousands choosing to get out of the Republic in search of work, mainly in Britain, North American and Australia. Unemployment and employment statistics Financial crisis Unemployment Ireland European debt crisis Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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IMF rejection of proposals over Kabul Bank crisis, $820m bailout debts and suspension of aid leaves country in deepening crisis The Afghan government will struggle to pay its bills “within a month” after the International Monetary Fund rejected proposals for resolving the Kabul Bank scandal, western officials have warned. Although the war-torn country’s biggest bank nearly collapsed last September, the government of Hamid Karzai and the international community are still at loggerheads over plans to fund an $820m (£507m) bailout as well as how the disgraced former managers and shareholders who helped themselves to hundreds of millions of dollars should be prosecuted. As long as the IMF declares the plans to be inadequate, many countries, including Britain, are legally barred from pumping money into a government that is almost completely reliant on foreign cash to pay civil servants’ salaries. It was reported by Reuters that the IMF has now formally rejected the Afghan government’s proposals, meaning aid disbursements will remain on hold. The failure to reach a deal by a deadline of last Saturday also meant a $70m payment from the World Bank’s Afghan reconstruction trust fund was automatically withheld. Two senior western officials said the government will face a cash crisis in the coming weeks and could struggle to pay staff bills, although one predicted this would be avoided by cutting other spending priorities. Last month, Omar Zakhilwal, the country’s finance minister, told the Guardian that suspension of aid payments “has already had an effect on us, no doubt about it”. He insisted that the Afghan government had done “95% of what was asked of us” by the IMF, including effectively nationalising Kabul Bank, stripping the shareholders of their rights and putting all unrecovered loans into receivership. But although he claimed the remaining issues “were inconsequential to Kabul Bank” the IMF sees two aspects as vitally important. Firstly, an agreement that Afghan taxes, not foreign aid, will repay the $820m taken out of central bank reserves last year to prop up the bank. Second, they want serious criminal investigations against managers and shareholders, many of whom enjoy high level political support, who illegally borrowed huge sums of interest-free cash from the bank. Although the finance ministry has drawn up plans to increase its tax-raising efforts in order to pay off the bailout in annual instalments, horrified MPs have already rejected one budget request for $73m and is also likely to reject a supplemental budget due to be presented by Zakhilwal soon. “The IMF tells me, this is our demand, give me condition by this date the parliament must approve this line in the budget,” explained Zakhilwal. “I am a minister, can I chose the parliament timeline? On these issues the international community totally disregards the legal processes of Afghanistan.” Many MPs argue that the money should be found by simply selling off the assets illegally bought by shareholders and managers, including a gas distribution company, an airline and luxury villas in Dubai. Although a $10m forensic audit by Kroll may help identify many deliberately hidden assets, most western experts doubt more than half of the outstanding $910m will be recovered. So far just $61m has been retrieved. Zakhilwal also argued that prosecutions could only be handled by the attorney general and warned that the complicated inquiry cannot be rushed. “The attorney general can arrest people, but after 15 days with not case they have to be acquitted – that would be even more embarrassing for us,” Zakhilwal said. Although the finance minister insisted the attorney general was “absolutely committed” to a thorough investigation, the international community is sceptical, not least after Afghanistan’s top law officer threw out a case last year against one of Karzai’s key aides who had been wire-tapped soliciting a bribe. One alternative plan is for a special court of handpicked judges deemed to be reasonably honest and well-versed in finance to hear the case. Credible prosecutions are vital, not just to appease public anger, but also because many of Kabul Bank’s assets are in Dubai. Under United Arab Emirates law it is impossible to seize properties until criminal investigations have begun. Not only does Afghanistan face a cash crunch, the showdown with the IMF also threatens to derail plans, pushed hard by Hamid Karzai, for a far greater proportion of international aid to be spent through official channels, rather than on projects outside the control of the government. A key element of the “transition” strategy by which the foreign intervention in Afghanistan will be greatly reduced by the end of 2014, the international community last year agreed that 50% of spending will go through the government by 2012. But it is now feared that if the Afghan government continues to be considered unworthy of international investment by the IMF the country will have to return to patchwork of bilateral funding agreements. Afghanistan Hamid Karzai Debt relief IMF Jon Boone guardian.co.uk
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