Working as a therapist upended everything Lori Gottlieb thought she had learned about parenting, she writes in an Atlantic piece certain to stir a Tiger Mom-sized controversy. Gottlieb found many depressed, anxious patients on her couch—who instead of recounting their horrible childhoods, waxed poetic about their loving parents who…
Continue reading …Now it looks like the Gadhafis and their nearest and dearest may not get to sit poolside and take in 10-meter diving at the London Olympics. Following the uproar that broke out after the Telegraph revealed that one of Gadhafi’s sons, who heads up Libya’s National Olympic Committee, was awarded…
Continue reading …The bad news: Arizona’s Wallow wildfire is now the state’s largest-ever. The good news: Firefighters got some control over it yesterday, and it is now 18% contained. But “the great news,” says a fire official, “is we still have a total of seven injuries and they’re all minor.” The fire…
Continue reading …President Obama has until Friday to ask Congress for authorization of the US mission in Libya, or he will be in violation of the War Powers Act, John Boehner warned him yesterday. The House speaker, noting that Friday will mark 90 days since the US began attacking Libya as part…
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Chancellor to announce ambitious plan for nationalised lender in Mansion House speech The government is to begin extricating taxpayers from their stakes in the bailed-out banks by kickstarting the sales process for Northern Rock. In his annual Mansion House speech, the chancellor is understood to be planning to tell his audience of bankers that the government hopes to find a buyer for the Newcastle-based lender by the end of the year. The City may regard this timetable as ambitious. George Osborne is expected to spell out that he regards Northern Rock – nationalised in February 2008 – as a symbol of the failure of Labour’s tripartite system of regulation, which required the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority to communicate with each other. Osborne, who is expected to force banks to ringfence their retail operations to protect taxpayers from another bailout , is also thought to be planning to announce that a draft financial services bill will be published on Thursday to allow the government to begin replacing the tripartite authorities. The FSA is to be broken up and more powers handed to the Bank of England, including a new financial policy committee which meets for the first time on Thursday with the goal of spotting systemic problems in the financial system. Osborne has decided to hang the for-sale sign over Northern Rock a fter receiving advice from UK Financial Investments , which looks after the taxpayer’s stakes in the bailed-out banks, that the time was right to find a buyer. UKFI had received the advice from its City advisers Deutsche Bank, which has concluded that a sale – rather than a stock market flotation – is the best option. A sale to a large existing name will not be permitted, but a newer player aiming to expand its branch network will be considered eligible to bid, as will building societies, which are keen to try to return Northern Rock to the mutual sector it left in 1997. Societies such as Coventry and Yorkshire have expressed an interest, while Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money wants to table a bid for Northern Rock, as well as the 632 branches that Lloyds is selling off. But a remutualisation appears to have been ruled out. The Rock has been split into two – a “bad bank” and a “good bank” – since its nationalisation. The arm being prepared for sale is the “good bank”, Northern Rock plc, which has been stripped of the taxpayer loan that was used to prop up the collapsing institution and is funded by retail deposits. Some £1.4bn of capital was injected into the bank by the government last year and is likely to be regarded as a starting point for any bids if the taxpayer is to break even on its investment. Treasury sources have already admitted that Osborne intends to give his backing to plans that will force banks to ringfence their high street operations from riskier investment banking businesses – but fall short of a full separation. Northern Rock Banking George Osborne Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Chilling mobile phone footage purports to show men having been gunned down in Homs, shedding new light on crackdown Fresh evidence has emerged of the scale of Syria’s crackdown on demonstrators, with a video smuggled into Lebanon that shows unarmed protesters having been shot, some seriously injured and possibly dead, in what appears to be the city of Homs earlier this month. The video, captured on a mobile phone, shows up to half a dozen men struck down by what appears to be relentless gunfire. It was smuggled into the Lebanese border town of Wadi Khaled on Sunday. The footage is believed to have been taken during a rally after Friday prayers on 3 June. According to a Syrian “Mohammed” who spoke to the Guardian in Wadi Khaled on Tuesday, the man who filmed it was tracked down by regime officials, then tortured and killed. The video is graphic, gruesome and difficult to watch but, like many others that are being uploaded to the internet, is being used to cast light on an increasingly bloody uprising that is otherwise being conducted without international scrutiny. Syria has banned international journalists for the past three months and continues to disrupt the internet and telephone lines as its forces sweep through restive towns and cities. Other videos have shown the same violent methods of quelling dissent, but few have been as violent. It has not been confirmed how many people were killed or injured in Homs on 3 June, but reports from activists at the time suggested at least 20 had died. “We are members of the anti-government movement,” said Mohammed, who comes from the town of Tel Khalakh. “This regime who made our lives hell and made us flee to Wadi Khaled.” Mohammed was not present at the protest in Homs on the day the video shot, but spoke to the Guardian about a similar crackdown in his town, in nearby Tel Khalakh on 3 June. “We were protesting on Friday. We did not have any weapons at all. We were children, women and elderly men. We were being shot at from all directions by the security forces and gangsters,” he said. “They began to detain us. They shot our children and women. “We were shouting, ‘peaceful, peaceful.’ We began taking bullets from snipers. When the snipers had finished their job, the gangsters came down. They began to detain us and step on our bodies. “They were mocking us, ‘You want freedom?’ and stepping on our backs.” Martin Chulov, Rachel Stevenson, and Mona Mahmood Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Protest Martin Chulov Rachel Stevenson Mona Mahmood guardian.co.uk
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PM invites opposite number, Antonis Samaras, to join his party in a national unity government to address tailspinning economy The economic and social mayhem gripping Europe’s peripheries appeared to have claimed the scalp of another government after the Greek prime minister admitted he could not drive through reforms to shore up the beleaguered economy, and offered to make way for a government of national unity. After a day on which tens of thousands marched on parliament to oppose the swingeing austerity measures designed to stave off bankruptcy, George Papandreou effectively conceded that he had not been able to muster enough support in parliament for the swingeing cuts required by international creditors to enable Greece to balance its books. Papandreou told his conservative opposite number, Antonis Samaras, that he would stand aside and make way for a new leader if the opposition joined his party in a national unity government committed to sweeping reform to prevent Greece’s tailspinning economy from crashing. It remained unclear whether the opposition New Democracy party would agree to the move. Party insiders were indicating that it would only do so if the government renegotiated the terms of last year’s €110bn (£96bn) international bailout package, designed to save Greece from default. “The most important member of a ship’s crew is the captain, and the captain has to go,” prominent conservative deputy Theodoros Karaoglou said, according to Associated Press. “If we joined forces, we could go to our (creditors) together to negotiate and the results of course would be better.” Greece’s economy is drowning in more than 300bn euros of debt – around one and a half times bigger than the country’s entire annual output. Unemployment has rocketed to 16.2 percent, and the economy is predicted to contract by as much as 3 percent this year, making it Europe’s worst performing economy – and one of the worst in the world. Under a bailout agreed with the EU and IMF a year ago, the country was to implement painful austerity measures, cutting spending deeply and privatising large swathes of the economy. Papandreou’s plan provided for 6.5 billion euros ($9.4 billion) in tax rises and spending cuts this year. But a popular revolt has demonstrated that reforms are deeply unpopular. A wave of strikes and riots have reduced Athens to a smouldering mess of shattered windows and shuttered storefronts, furious during daytime riots, derelict and desolate by night. Earlier on Wednesday, police used teargas on demonstrators rallying outside parliament. At least 11 people were injured and another 20 people were detained, according to police, as protesters responded to tear gas by hurling stones and firebombs. Cafe tables and chairs lay overturned as rubbish bins burned. Heavy clouds of teargas hung over Syntagma Square and side streets. The choking chemicals wafted as far as the presidential mansion behind parliament, where Papandreou met with the country’s president, Karolos Papoulias, to brief him on the severity of the situation. “We want them out. Obviously these measures are not going to get us out of the crisis,” said Antony Vatselas, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer, crying from tear gas. “They want only us to pay for it,” he told Reuters. “And they are doing nothing. I want the debt to be erased. If this doesn’t happen, there is no exit for Greece.” Papandreou has suffered plummeting approval ratings and an open revolt from within his own PASOK Socialist party over the new austerity bill, which is set to increase taxes and cut spending until 2015 two years beyond the current government’s mandate. Several MPs indicated that they would not support his reform plan, threatening his thin majority in parliament, where his Pasok party has 155 seats in the 300-seat chamber. The only alternative to financial austerity appears to be a default on Greece’s large stack of loans, an outcome that European leaders have been desperate to avoid for fear that the contagion effect would ripple through the international financial system. Greece Europe Helena Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Che Guevera has a new book out, 44 years after his death. Dairy of a Combatant , released in Cuba yesterday on what would have been the Marxist revolutionary’s 83rd birthday, recounts Guevara’s experiences in the armed struggle he waged alongside Fidel Castro, reports CNN . The book covers the time from…
Continue reading …Rick Perry has dropped his clearest hints yet that the race for the Republican nomination could soon be gaining another Texan. Perry, speaking at the New York Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Dinner, slammed “Obamacare” and presented himself as a Reaganesque conservative stalwart, Reuters reports. He told Fox that while the…
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Jeremy Ractliffe, who hid uncut diamonds given by supermodel Naomi Campbell, says he has no regrets The former head of Nelson Mandela’s children’s charity, who received alleged “blood diamonds” from the British supermodel Naomi Campbell, has been cleared of wrongdoing by a South African court. Jeremy Ractliffe, founder of the charity, had been charged with illegally keeping uncut diamonds. The gems were passed to him by Campbell after she allegedly received them as a gift from former Liberian president Charles Taylor. A judge said that the case against Ractliffe, who could have faced 10 years in jail if convicted, was not proven. “Mr Ractliffe, you are not guilty and discharged,” said magistrate Renier Boshoff after hearing half a day of testimony. Ractliffe, 74, the former chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, had been accompanied to court by his wife and five daughters, who embraced and wept after hearing the verdict. Ractliffe claimed he kept the stones and did not report them to authorities in an attempt to protect the reputations of Mandela, Campbell and the charity. He insisted that he had no regrets and did not blame Campbell for his trouble. “I was just doing my job,” he said outside court. “I did what I did for what I felt were totally valid reasons. I have always thought I was innocent and it was very nice to have this proven.” His wife, Gail, added: “My husband is a good and honourable man.” The existence of the stones emerged last year during the war crimes trial of Taylor at The Hague. Prosecutors said they were “blood diamonds” given by Taylor to Campbell in 1997 after a charity dinner hosted by Mandela with guests including the Hollywood actor Mia Farrow. Campbell testified that she received “dirty-looking stones” from three men who came to her hotel room. The supermodel said that she did not know the source of the diamonds, but other witnesses claimed she had bragged about getting them from Taylor. Campbell said she gave Ractliffe the diamonds the morning after she received them, during a trip on the luxury Blue Train, as a donation to Mandela’s charity. Ractliffe said he did not tell the foundation about the diamonds and kept them in a safe for 13 years until he handed them over to police after Campbell’s August 2010 testimony. Ractliffe had already stepped down as chief executive by last August. He resigned as a trustee after the diamond controversy became public. It is illegal in South Africa to possess a rough diamond because of its possible links to funding fighters in African civil wars, money laundering and other crimes. Taylor has denied using illegally mined diamonds to buy weapons for Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front rebels during the 1991-2001 civil war. His three-year trial closed in March and judges are expected to deliver their verdict later this year. South Africa Blood diamonds Naomi Campbell Charles Taylor Nelson Mandela David Smith guardian.co.uk
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