Complex market for salad makes origin of E coli outbreak harder to pinpoint, say scientists Scientists have warned that there is a desperate need to pinpoint the source of the E coli outbreak that has already claimed the lives of 17 people in Germany and infected 1,800 others around the world. On Friday, four new cases were identified in Britain, bringing the total here to 11. However, German authorities say that the number of new cases reported each day there has now started to decline. “This could bubble along for some time yet unless we find the source and stop it infecting the food chain,” said Dr Paul Wigley of Liverpool University. Most evidence suggests that some type of salad product is the source. “That in itself is unusual,” added Wigley. “Eighty per cent of food poisoning cases are usually traced to meat or poultry.” The fact that infected vegetables may be responsible for the cases of E coli that affected Germany last week, before spreading round the rest of Europe, makes the hunt for the source more difficult, Wigley said. “Salad products are grown and shipped across Europe. Meat or poultry tend to have more localised markets.” On Saturday, attention focused on a German restaurant, Kartoffel-Keller (Potato Cellar), in the Baltic port of Luebeck, which the local newspaper claimed had been identified by scientists as a possible infection point, after one person died and 17 others fell sick. In Britain, the National Farmers Union said that it had spoken to all of Britain’s major retailers to seek assurances they were backing British growers and paying a proper price for their products. Most were behaving sensibly, said a spokesman. “They are not using this unfortunate situation as an excuse to drop prices to British growers.” However, severe problems face the growers of cucumbers, thought to be the most likely source of the outbreak. Derek Hargreaves of the Cucumber Growers’ Association told the BBC on Thursday that he feared the outbreak would affect British producers if the source of the E coli remained unknown. “If this keeps rolling on and the Germans don’t find the source of the outbreak, then obviously people are going to say, ‘Well, there’s no point in listening to experts.’ People will stop buying the salads.” E coli Farming Germany Microbiology Health Robin McKie guardian.co.uk
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Universities minister faces votes of no confidence from Oxford and Cambridge dons calling for his removal from office Oxford and Cambridge dons attempting to force the resignation of the universities minister, David Willetts, have been given a boost by a declaration from the politician’s former economics tutor that he had “no confidence in him”. The controlling bodies of the universities are due to stage a vote calling for the minister’s removal from office amid growing unrest over the government’s trebling of the limit on tuition fees and recent announcements on higher education policy. Now, speaking to the Observer , Peter Oppenheimer, an emeritus professor at Christ Church, Oxford, and a tutor to the beleaguered minister in the mid-1970s, has admitted: “I have no confidence in him, absolutely. He was a highly intelligent and thoughtful person, very able – but no politician. He has got the kind of open-mindedness which enables him to see the value of a whole range of points of view, especially that of the person he last talked to.” Senior academics at Cambridge and Oxford are calling on Willetts, nicknamed “Two Brains” for his reputed intelligence, to reconsider the hike in undergraduate tuition fees, cuts to higher education and what they say are “incoherent” messages on university admissions. Almost 150 academics at Cambridge, including the renowned poet Jeremy Halvard Prynne, have signed a motion of no confidence in the minister. It will be sent to the university’s council, which is expected to endorse it and the university will then need to tell the government that it has passed a vote of no confidence in Willetts by the end of this month. More than 170 Oxford academics sought signatures for a similar motion and they too will vote next week on whether Willetts is up to his role. The passing of a vote of no confidence would be a first for any university in England and comes as Willetts is set to unveil his delayed white paper on the higher education. Tthe shadow universities minister, Gareth Thomas, said: “David Cameron and David Willetts shouldn’t be surprised to have lost the confidence of so many. They have refused to listen to the huge concern, in every part of England, that cutting 80% of teaching funds, axing vital investment in research facilities and then allowing universities to treble fees would have a devastating impact on the hopes and dreams of all those wanting to better themselves through university.” Willetts’s critics are on both the left and the right. Oppenheimer, who was seconded from his college in the 1980s to be chief economist to oil giant Shell, said he believed his former pupil had been a victim of the coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats. “I have no confidence in him because I think it is tragic that higher education policy should be made on the basis of those considerations,” he said. “He is not a man to fight for ideological rigidity. Academically it is admirable but as a policymaker it is a bit sad; it is not worthy of him.” Oppenheimer said he believed a sector of the university system – Oxford, Cambridge and “two or three others” – should be allowed to opt out of government regulation and to develop “like the Ivy League universities in America”. That way, he said, they would be able to charge their own fees and be “far more effective in promoting fairness and access and redistribution”. “The average fee would be no more than the £9,000 now talked about but the spread around the average would be much higher, so that those who can afford it can pay £20,000 like they already do for their schooling, in their boarding schools. And those who can’t afford it pay nothing,” he said. David Willetts University of Oxford University of Cambridge Tuition fees University funding Daniel Boffey guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Looks like another top al-Qaeda leader has gone down: A US drone in Pakistan reportedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri, who is variously described as the “military brain” of al-Qaeda ( CNN ), a potential replacement for Osama in Laden ( AP ), and one of Pakistan’s top militants ( BBC )….
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Counter-terrorism review insists groups must reflect British mainstream values to get funds David Cameron will emerge as the victor from a bitter cabinet battle over multiculturalism this week as the government unveils a hardline approach to tackling Islamist extremism. Home Office sources say that Cameron has quashed Nick Clegg’s argument for a more tolerant attitude to Muslim groups by insisting on a strategy centred upon the notion that violent extremism is incubated within the ideology of non-violent extremism. The shift in approach will be outlined when the government’s counter-terrorism strategy is unveiled by the home secretary, Theresa May, on Tuesday. Central to the Prevent strategy is a broader definition of extremism that will be extended beyond groups condoning violence to those considered non-violent but whose views, such as the advocacy of sharia law, fail to “reflect British mainstream values”. A Home Office source said: “There will be a direct challenge to these [non-violent] groups.” The Prevent review has been delayed for five months because of disagreements within the coalition cabinet. In his view that engaging with non-violent extremists can be used as a bulwark against violent extremists, Clegg has been joined by the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, the Tory chairman, Baroness Warsi, and others including Charles Farr, the head of the office of security and extremism. They argue it is crucial to maintain a distinction between violent and non-violent extremism and that it is necessary to engage rather than alienate. Warsi, who sits on the cabinet subcommittee dealing with integration, is understood to disagree strongly with the new direction of Prevent but has been dissuaded from publicly criticising the strategy. Among those supporting the prime minister on a crackdown on Muslim groups was the education secretary, Michael Gove, and Lord Carlile, who is in charge of the Prevent review. Ostensibly the strategy echoes Cameron’s contentious speech to an international counter-terrorism conference in Munich last February when he suggested that “state multiculturalism” had failed. During the speech the Tory leader categorised those who espoused an ideology of Islamic extremism alongside those who supported violence. He said: “Move along the spectrum, and you find people who may reject violence, but who accept various parts of the extremist world view, including real hostility towards western democracy and liberal values.” A Home Office source said: “When a prime minister states something so unequivocally, it is unlikely they will be allowed to deviate from that.” The strategy will warn Muslim groups that they will only receive public funding under certain conditions. Groups would be allocated funding on short-term projects but only after proving they do not promote or support extremist views. “Under the old Prevent strategy we sprayed a lot of cash willy-nilly and the new strategy is opposed to that,” said the source. Haras Rafiq, director of Centri, a counter-extremism consultancy, welcomed the strategy, but said the main challenge was implementation. “They need to build a criteria to establish which organisation they fund has extremist views, which one doesn’t, and ensure extremist groups do not receive funding from other pots.” One group, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, which has links to the hardline Muslim Association of Britain, received £250,000 in the year up to April but has already had its annual public funding withdrawn, the Observer has learned. During the Munich speech Cameron said it was “nonsense” to fund groups with extremist elements, adding: “Would you allow far-right groups a share of public funds if they promise to help you lure young white men away from fascist terrorism? Of course not.” The strategy, however, will shy away from naming groups, effectively dismissing speculation that the initiative will proscribe non-violent, extremist Islamist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, a step which Cameron has publicly supported but which legal sources advise is not possible. The Conservative manifesto named Hizb ut-Tahrir as a group it wanted to proscribe; in 2009 the then shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, promised to “immediately ban” the group if the Tories were elected. The strategy to be unveiled this week will explain that the issue of funding groups that promote community cohesion will be left to the Department for Communities and Local Government. Sources say that under the previous system community groups had to apply for support from counter-terrorism funding, which succeeded only in stigmatising them. Terrorism policy David Cameron Nick Clegg Islam British identity and society Religion Mark Townsend guardian.co.uk
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Former Tory backers voice concern over government’s economic policy as critics say chancellor needs plan B Some of Britain’s leading economists are warning the chancellor, George Osborne, that the economy is too fragile to withstand his drastic spending cuts and that he must draw up a plan B. Experts, including two former Whitehall advisers and two signatories of last year’s high-profile letter backing the Tories’ cuts, have told the Observer that they have profound concerns about the direction of Treasury policy. Since the chancellor laid out his plans to balance the books by the end of the parliament in his “emergency budget” a year ago, the outlook has deteriorated markedly. Growth has gone flat over the past six months and a slew of dismal data has raised fears that the UK could be sliding towards a double-dip recession, as the US recovery wanes and the Greek debt crisis rattles the eurozone. Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, who until February was chief economist at the Cabinet Office, advising the prime minister, said: “You do not gain credibility by sticking to a strategy that isn’t working.” He said that the recent slowdown in growth was partly the result of factors outside the government’s control, but insisted: “It isn’t just about the international environment, it’s because of the strategy the government has followed.” Another former Whitehall insider, Vicky Pryce, the head of the government’s economic service before becoming a director at FTI Consulting, said that ministers would be advised to begin preparing the ground for a U-turn: “It’s a very risky situation, and I think that at some stage they’ll panic.” Professor John Muellbauer of Oxford University, an expert on the housing market who signed the letter to the Sunday Times last year supporting the Conservatives’ approach, said: “Things are going badly. I had hoped that the focus in the budget would be on improving growth in the places where there are growth prospects, and also maintaining infrastructure investment, and that they would tackle failures of planning.” Tim Besley, a former Bank of England monetary policy committee member who orchestrated the letter, said: “Everybody has been disappointed with growth.” He still believes that the chancellor must stick to his guns, but complained that the Treasury had failed to articulate where growth would come from in the months ahead. “The disappointing growth has almost nothing to do with the fiscal plans of the government – I’m coming to the view that it’s just a long, slow, hard slog – but what I would like to see from the government is a much more clearly defined growth strategy.” Danny Blanchflower, another former MPC member, said: “Economic policy is in disarray.” The increasingly bleak prospects for recovery have also prompted more than 50 prominent leftwing academics to write to the Observer to demand that the government pursues a plan B, to boost jobs and growth. The signatories – including Sir Tony Atkinson and David Marquand of Oxford University, Marcus Miller of Warwick and Richard Grayson of Goldsmiths in London, a former Liberal Democrat policy director – say that if Osborne keeps to his policy, there will be “a lot more pain and a lot less gain”. They call for a crackdown on tax evasion, a targeted industrial policy – including investment in green technologies – and higher taxes on the rich to create jobs and growth, saying, “these are the foundations of a real alternative”. A Treasury spokesman said: “We haven’t seen anything that makes us question what we are doing.” The political argument over who can be trusted with the economy has intensified in recent days. Osborne’s predecessor, Alistair Darling, accused him on Radio
Continue reading …More details from Jaycee Dugard’s just-released grand jury testimony: “I was very scared,” she says of when she arrived at the Antioch house where Phillip and Nancy Garrido held her for 18 years. “I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know why he was doing this. I just wanted…
Continue reading …It’s a chilling image: Ratko Mladic, the accused mastermind of the Srebrenica massacre, pats a tow-headed Muslim boy on the head and assures him all will be safe—a simple gift of chocolate just hours before the spilling of so much blood. The AP went looking for the boy in…
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Russian billionaire and girlfriend Dasha Zhukova are major players at Biennale, but locals call mega-yacht ‘idiotic’ Rock stars tethered their jet skis to the back of it during the film festival in Cannes, its clean lines have impressed quayside onlookers in Antibes, and England footballer Frank Lampard is reportedly set to propose to his television presenter girlfriend on board. There can be no doubt that Roman Abramovich’s enormous yacht Luna is enjoying the spotlight this summer as it tours the Mediterranean. But the citizens of Venice, a city more familiar than most with extravagant displays of wealth down the centuries, are not impressed. The Russian oligarch’s £115m, 377ft behemoth moored unannounced last week at one of the city’s most stunning lagoon locations, as Abramovich and his girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova, pitched up for the Venice Biennale. Local residents, accustomed to stunning views over St Mark’s Basin, found themselves staring straight at the twin helipads and bulletproof windows of the vessel, which dwarfs all rival yachts at what has become an annual reunion of some of the most expensive private vessels in the world. First to complain was Venice’s mayor, Giorgio Orsoni, who is threatening a new tax on vessels such as the Luna. “The boats are getting too big and blocking the view,” he said. “These yachts are showing up to see Venice for free, but St
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The identities of four people killed in the blast at a Chevron facility in Pembroke Dock have been released by police Police have named the four people killed in a blast that ripped through an oil refinery in Wales. Dennis Riley, 52, Robert Broome, 48, and Andrew Jenkins, 33, all from Milford Haven, and Julie Jones from Pembroke, were killed in the Chevron explosion on Thursday. Dyfed Powys police said a fifth person is in a critical but stable condition in hospital, but did not release their name. A joint police and Health and Safety Executive investigation is being carried out into the blast after it tore through the refinery in Pembroke Dock, south Wales. Maintenance work had been carried out on a storage tank which exploded at about 6.20pm on Thursday, damaging an adjacent vessel. Detective Chief Inspector Martin Davies, the senior investigating officer, said: “The bodies of the deceased were removed from the scene Friday evening. We are now working with forensic experts to formally identify the bodies.” The identification process was hampered by the nature of the incident and it is thought it could take several weeks. “Our specially trained officers have been supporting the families and next of kin of those who tragically lost their lives,” Ch Det Insp Davies said. “A fifth casualty remains in a critical but stable condition in hospital. The family have asked police not to release the name or any other details at this stage, and the media are kindly asked to respect the privacy of all the families affected by this incident at this difficult time.” Ch Det Insp Davies said family liaison officers made contact with each family’s next of kin as soon as the dead were identified. He added Chevron was urged not to directly contact the victims’ families in the immediate aftermath of the incident. “Due to the processes the police need to follow in the early stages of such an investigation we asked Chevron not to contact the families directly, but to liaise with ourselves and we would pass on any messages,” he said. “This is standard practice in such an incident.” He said the request was to be withdrawn Saturday afternoon, and the company will be able to get in touch with the families. Wales Chevron Oil and gas companies Oil Commodities guardian.co.uk
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Ali Abdullah Saleh’s departure follows rocket attack on compound and could complicate position if he tries to return Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was wounded in a rocket attack on his compound on Friday, was expected to arrive in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night for medical treatment. Reports by the BBC and al-Arabiya television that Saleh had left the Yemeni capital Sana’a for Saudi Arabia were originally denied. But an unnamed Yemeni official later said that Saleh had accepted the offer. The speculation about Saleh’s whereabouts comes amid an escalating crisis in which nearly 200 people have been killed during two weeks of battles. Any departure by Saleh would make it extremely difficult for him to return to Yemen, where he is fighting a four-month uprising against his rule. Yemen’s state TV said six officials, including the prime minister and the speakers of both houses of parliament, had gone to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment. But one Yemeni official told Reuters: “Saleh is still in Sana’a.” He added: “He had suffered minor wounds to his head and, I believe, his face.” While the deputy information minister, Abdu al-Janadi, spoke of only “scratches to his face”, there were indications that Saleh’s injuries might have been more severe. Hisham Sharaf, minister of trade and industry, said he had met Saleh on Friday night at a hospital where he was treated for minor wounds before returning to the presidential palace. He said the president had seemed defiant in the face of the violence. “His morale was very high. The strike that doesn’t break you makes you stronger. The strike made him more adamant that he won’t hand over the country until he is sure it will be safe and clear of militias,” he said. Saleh, in his late 60s, was first taken to a military hospital while officials promised that he would soon appear in public. But by late Saturday morning state television had aired only an audio message from the president, illustrated by an old photograph. “If you are well, I am well,” Saleh said in the brief address to Yemenis. On Saturday intermittent blasts and sporadic fire fights punctuated the pre-dawn hours in Sana’a. As the sun rose, the roads were clogged with civilians attempting to flee the violence. “There are bullets everywhere and the explosions terrify us. It’s impossible to stay,” said Ali Ahmed, a resident. Saleh, a political survivor who has clung to power for nearly 33 years, said in his audio address that an “outlaw gang” linked to the Hashid tribe was behind the attack on him. The Yemeni official told Reuters: “It’s not easy for the president. He has lost people close to him and who were sitting next to him when it happened.” Defying world pressure, Saleh has reneged three times on a deal brokered by Gulf states for him to quit in return for immunity from prosecution, even as he loses support at home. What began as a pro-democracy protest has turned into a power struggle between two of Yemen’s most powerful families: Saleh’s, which dominates the security forces, and the al-Ahmar clan, which leads the strongest tribal confederation, known as the Hashid. The confederation is grouped around 10 tribes across the north. The attack on the president is likely to heighten an increasingly brutal fight between Saleh’s forces and heavily armed tribesmen loyal to al-Ahmar. The al-Ahmars were once uneasy allies of Saleh, and their Hashid confederation was key to his hold on power. But Sadeq al-Ahmar and his nine brothers have grown resentful of Saleh’s policy of promoting his relatives to dominant positions, particularly in the security forces. Yemen Middle East Saudi Arabia Arab and Middle East unrest Protest Peter Beaumont guardian.co.uk
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