The cost of food staples is set to more than double over the next two decades, Oxfam says, as we enter a “permanent food crisis.” World hunger had steadily decreased for decades, the Guardian reports, but with demand exceeding production, the numbers of hungry people are once again on the…
Continue reading …
Shahzad’s body was discovered less than two days after he was allegedly abducted by ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service A prominent Pakistani journalist has been found dead on the roadside outside Islamabad, less than two days after he was allegedly abducted by the country’s powerful military intelligence service. Saleem Shahzad disappeared on his way to a television interview on Sunday evening. Human Rights Watch said it learned he been abducted by the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI). Shahzad’s body was found six miles from his car in a small hamlet on the edge of Islamabad. Local media reported that he had torture marks on his face and a gunshot wound to the stomach. “This killing bears all the hallmarks of previous killings perpetrated by Pakistani intelligence agencies,” said Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch, noting that Shahzad had previously warned that his life was in danger from the ISI. Hasan called for a “transparent investigation and court proceedings”. Other journalists reacted angrily, directly accusing the ISI of responsibility. “Any journalist here who doesn’t believe that it’s our intelligence agencies?” tweeted Mohammed Hanif, a bestselling author and BBC correspondent. Shahzad, the Pakistan correspondent for the Hong Kong-based news service Asia Times Online, vanished two days after publishing a story alleging negotiations between Pakistan military officials and al-Qaida . The story claimed that al-Qaida attacked the Mehran naval base in Karachi on 22 May in retaliation for the arrest of two naval officials with militant links. Al-Qaida had been secretly pressing the military to release the men, Shahzad said. Pakistani security forces battled for 17 hours to contain the assault, during which at least four heavily armed men slipped into the base, blew up two American-built surveillance planes and killed 10 soldiers. On Tuesday Pakistani media reported that military intelligence had picked up a retired navy commando and his brother in Lahore in connection with the raid. The detained men, who allegedly have militant links, were previously questioned in connection to an earlier militant assault. Shahzad was abducted from central Islamabad on Sunday evening as he travelled to the studios of Dunya television to discuss his report on the naval base attack. The following day, after being alerted by Shahzad’s wife, Hasan said he had been informed through “reliable interlocutors” that Shahzad was being held by the ISI. Last October Shahzad sent Human Rights Watch an email saying he was afraid he would be killed by the ISI, Hasan claimed. In the email, intended to be released in the event of his death, Shahzad said he had been summoned to ISI headquarters in Islamabad to discuss an article about Mullah Brader, a Taliban commander captured in Pakistan with American help months earlier. The two ISI officials Shahzad said were present at the meeting, Rear Admiral Adnan Nawaz and Commodore Khalid Pervaiz, were both naval officers. Last week Pervaiz was made commander of the Karachi naval base that was attacked. “We believed [Shahzad's] claim that he was being threatened by the ISI is credible, and any investigation into his murder has to factor this in,” Hasan said. Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan called for a government inquiry into the “heinous crime”, but avoided mention of the ISI, focusing blame on the “servile policies [of] a corrupt and inept government”. As a reporter, Shahzad was known for delving deep into the murky underworld of Islamist militancy. He had interviewed some of the most notorious leaders including Sirajuddin Haqqani, a major player in the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, and Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani militant who works for al-Qaida. His new book, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11, had just been published. Pakistan is the world’s most dangerous country for journalists, according to Reporters without Borders, which says that 16 journalists have been killed in the past 14 months. Last September Umar Cheema, another investigative reporter, was abducted from Islamabad for six hours and tortured before being released. He said he suspected that his kidnappers belonged to the ISI. Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Press freedom Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Ex-SAS soldiers and private security firm employees passing information to Nato attack helicopters, sources tell Guardian Former SAS soldiers and other western employees of private security companies are helping Nato identify targets in the Libyan port city of Misrata, the scene of heavy fighting between Gaddafi’s forces and rebels, well-placed sources have told the Guardian. Special forces veterans are passing details of the locations and movements of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces to the Naples headquarters of Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, Canadian commander of Nato forces involved in the military operations, sources said. The targets are then verified by spy planes and US Predator drones. “One piece of human intelligence is not enough”, a source said. The former soldiers are there with the blessing of Britain, France and other Nato countries, which have supplied them with communications equipment. They are likely to be providing information for the pilots of British and French attack helicopters who are expected to start firing at targets in and around Misrata later this week. Four Apache helicopters are on board HMS Ocean, which is now approaching Libyan waters. Twelve French Tiger helicopters are on board the amphibious assault ship Tonnere, which is understood to be already within striking distance of the Libyan coast. The revelations about the role of the rebels’ advisers follow the filming of armed westerners on the Misrata frontline with rebel fighters. A group of six westerners were visible in a report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines in the city. Five of the men were armed, wearing sand-coloured clothes, baseball caps and cotton Arab scarves. The sixth, who seemed to be in charge, carried no visible weapon and wore a pink short-sleeved shirt. The group was seen talking to rebels and quickly leaving after they realised they were being filmed. The Ministry of Defence insisted it had no combat forces on the ground in Libya. The only MoD personnel were in Benghazi, it added, referring to the team of about 10 military advisers and mentors the UK has sent there. William Hague, the foreign secretary, described the advisers as “experienced military officers”, and said they would advise the rebels on intelligence-gathering, logistics and communications. Senior British defence sources revealed in April that they were urging Arab countries to train the Libyan rebels in order to strengthen their position on the battlefield. The sources said they were looking at hiring private security companies, many of which employ former SAS soldiers, to help the rebels. These private soldiers are reported to be paid by Arab countries, notably Qatar. British officials said they were not being paid by the UK government. Those countries in favour of the initial decision to impose a no-fly-zone over Libya and hostile to Gaddafi would be strongly opposed to any direct – or official – link between western advisers and Nato commanders. They are being kept at arm’s length while their role is privately welcomed. A Reuters photographer in Misrata said there was heavy fighting in the suburb of Dafniyah, in the west of the city, where the front line is now located. Speaking from a field hospital near the front line, she said 14 rebel fighters had been injured on Tuesday, one of them seriously. “Gaddafi’s forces are firing Grad rockets,” she said. “The rebels tried to advance, but Gaddafi’s forces pushed them back.” Rebel fighters, out of their familiar urban battleground and now in open ground, were being outgunned, one of their spokesmen said. “The situation is getting more difficult for the revolutionaries because fighting is going on in open places. They do not have the same heavy weapons as the [pro-Gaddafi] brigades,” their spokesman, Abdelsalam, said from Misrata. Major-General John Lorimer, the MoD’s chief military spokesman, said RAF Tornado and Typhoon aircraft over the past few days destroyed a main battle tank near Jadu and attacked a multiple rocket launcher and support vehicles south of Zlitan. On Monday, further RAF patrols near Zlitan located five heavy transporters carrying main battle tanks; all were destroyed or severely damaged, he said. Libya Military Defence policy Middle East Africa Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case in New York has French society taking a hard look at sexist politicians like never before, reports the Telegraph . “[I]f all those who mix power and sex had to account for their actions, half of our [male] politicians would be in trouble,” said one…
Continue reading …
Finnish firm scraps full-year forecasts and says it may make no profit on phone sales in quarter to end of June Shares in the Finnish phone maker Nokia plunged by 15% on Tuesday as the company warned that it may make no profit on phone sales in the quarter to the end of June, and that overall phone sales will be “substantially below” its earlier forecast of €6.1bn to €6.6bn. The company said that for the period from April to June, operating margins will be “substantially below its previously expected range of 6% to 9% … primarily due to lower than previously expected net sales”. It also scrapped full-year forecasts, saying it was no longer “appropriate to provide annual targets for 2011″. Though it is still the biggest maker by volume of both handsets and smartphones, selling about 100m and 24m respectively per quarter, Nokia has been buffeted at the high end by Apple’s iPhone and smartphones using Google’s Android operating system, while at the low end it faces challenges from “white box” manufacturers from China that can undercut it on price for standard mobile handsets. That forced the company to admit that its operating margins for handsets this quarter “could be around breakeven”. In the second quarter of 2010 Nokia’s mobile phone business made €643m profit on revenues of €6.8bn, and in the first quarter of 2011 recorded €690m profit on €7.1bn of revenue. The collapse in the share price took it down to May 1998 levels. The announcement adds to the deepening sense of crisis around the company, once the undisputed leader in the mobile phone business. It was overtaken for total revenue in the first quarter by Apple, which sold 18.7m iPhones – at nearly five times the average price of a Nokia smartphone, and 10 times the average price of a Nokia handset. Nokia said that its products are coming under intense price pressure, especially in China and Europe, where the combination of cheap phones from other manufacturers running Google’s Android mobile operating system and Apple’s high-end iPhone have squeezed its position. The company reiterated its plan to dump its current Symbian operating system for Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS on its high-end smartphones from “the fourth quarter of 2011″ as part of a longer-term plan to restore the company’s fortunes. Carolina Milanesi, mobile phones analyst for the research company Gartner, said Tuesday’s warnings could mark the low point for Nokia, which has not made a loss in its handset division for more than a decade. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Milanesi said. “The second quarter should be the worst – if it isn’t then they have worse problems than we thought they did. In the third and fourth quarter this year there will be new products. If they can’t get traction with those then it will be a big issue.” The Finnish company is undergoing a tumultuous upheaval under its new chief executive Stephen Elop, who took over the job in September. He decided that the long-running Symbian software that had powered previous Nokia phones was outdated and that in smartphones, which makes up about a quarter of the 100m handsets the company sells each year, would be replaced over the next two years by Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. Part of the change has involved cutting thousands of staff, including outsourcing many involved with Symbian to the consultancy Accenture. “Strategy transitions are difficult. We recognise the need to deliver great mobile products, and therefore we must accelerate the pace of our transition,” Elop said. “Our teams are aligned, and we have increased confidence that we will ship our first Nokia product with Windows Phone in the fourth quarter 2011.” Analysts said that they found the abrupt change worrying. Lee Simpson of Jefferies & Co said: “You clearly have a Symbian platform that [mobile] operators are avoiding … But it shouldn’t be too surprising that we get another profit warning from Nokia for the Q2 and Q3 periods. What does strike us as quite surprising is the level to which the markets have dropped, we’re talking about breakeven now which is quite a slide. I think this level of shareholder destruction is now starting to look dangerous: what can these guys do to reverse this? Our stance is that it’s very difficult to value this business right now, because it has to be a different animal if and when it gets into recovery.” Jari Honko of Swedbank said: “The truth about Nokia’s competitiveness has come out now. We know that the company is loss-making at a group level. Consensus estimates will react strongly, and so will the shares. We will see more and more reflection on Nokia’s market share, and that is the worst thing to happen to this company, when the scale is shrinking fast.” He added: “It remains to be seen how low [market share] could go, but for smartphones we are talking about going under 20% this year.” Only two years ago Nokia had a 40% share of the smartphone market, but it was passed in the first quarter of this year by Android, with 32%. Nokia had 24% and Apple 18%. Nokia Smartphones Mobile phones Telecommunications industry Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
• Recovery hit by drop in consumer confidence • US house prices back to 2002 levels US house prices have fallen back to levels last seen in 2002 and consumer confidence has also fallen sharply according to new figures, leading to fresh fears about the country’s economic recovery. A closely watched measure of the property market, Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home price index, has fallen for eight months in a row and declined by 4.2% in the first quarter of 2011, following a 3.6% fall in the fourth quarter of 2010. By the end of March the index hit a recession low and showed an annual decline of 5.1% compared with the first quarter of 2010. According to the survey, nationally home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels. Prices in Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit and Las Vegas are below January 2000 levels. The US economy had been showing a better than forecast recovery but the Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes fell to 60.8 in May from a revised 66.0 in April, well below economists’ forecasts for 66.5. A third survey also suggested that growth could be slowing. Ken Goldstein, Conference Board economist, said the figures were evidence that consumers were worried about jobs, food prices and housing. “These are not good numbers, we are back to where we were two month ago. But I think we are bobbing along the waves, not sinking further.” Business activity in the heartland mid-west grew much less than expected last month as sales and employment weakened. The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago business barometer dropped to 56.6 in May, its lowest reading since November 2009. The reading was 67.6 in April, and economists had forecast a May reading of 62.6. “The question is, ‘Is the softer data we’re seeing transitory, or is it likely to persist throughout the remainder of 2011?’ Right now, that’s an open question that investors are trying to figure out,” said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial in Westport, Connecticut. Prices of single-family houses in the 20 largest US cities fell 0.2% from February to March on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Case-Shiller index. Year on year house prices fell in 19 of the 20 big cities polled by Case Shiller when compared with March 2010. Minneapolis saw a 10% annual decline, the first market to experience a double digit drop since March 2010 when Las Vegas was down 12% on an annual basis. Washington DC was the only city where home prices increased. Housing in the capital was up 1.1% on a monthly basis and 4.3% over the year. Seattle was up a modest 0.1% for the month, but still down 7.5% against March 2010. About 28.4% of US homeowners owe more on the mortgage than their house is worth, real estate data firm Zillow said this month. “This month’s report is marked by the confirmation of a double-dip in home prices across much of the nation,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices. “Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight.” Blitzer said that since December 2010 an increasing number of markets had hit new lows. In March 2011, 12 cities – Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland (Oregon) and Tampa – fell to new lows for the current housing cycle. A rebound in prices seen in 2009 and 2010 was largely due to a tax credit for first-time home buyers, he said. Excluding that policy he said there has been no recovery or even stabilisation in home prices since the recession. US economy Global economy Economics Credit crunch Financial crisis United States Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Extradition process under way after Serbian judges reject appeal from former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic is on a plane to The Hague to face war crimes charges, the Serbian government has said. Snezana Malovic, the country’s justice minister, said the process of extraditing the former commander of Bosnian Serb military forces to the UN war crimes tribunal “has started.” The move follows judges’ rejection of an appeal by Mladic against his extradition to the UN tribunal. Mladic is charged at the tribunal for atrocities committed by his Serb troops during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war, including the notorious Srebrenica massacre that left 8,000 Muslim men and boys dead. Earlier on Tuesday, he was briefly released from the jail cell, travelling in a secret high-security convoy to a suburban cemetery where he left a lone candle for his daughter, Ana, who killed herself during Bosnia’s bloody ethnic war. Mladic, 69, was accompanied by a convoy of armoured vehicles, Serbia’s deputy war crimes prosecutor, Bruno Vekaric said. “We didn’t announce his visit to the grave because it is his private thing and because it represented a security risk. The whole operation lasted for exactly 22 minutes and passed without a glitch. He was at the grave for a few minutes.” Europe’s most-wanted war crimes suspect could be handed over to the tribunal in The Hague as soon as late Tuesday or early Wednesday, officials said. A defence extradition appeal sent by mail arguing he is not mentally and physically fit to stand trial arrived at the Belgrade court on Tuesday. Mladic was arrested on Thursday in a village north of the Serbian capital after 16 years on the run. His 23-year-old daughter Ana, a medical student, killed herself in 1994 with her father’s gun. She reportedly did not leave a note, but reports at the time said she ended her life at Mladic’s Belgrade family house because of depression caused by his role in the war. Mladic has rejected the official investigation into his case and claimed she was killed by his wartime enemies, saying the gun was found in her left hand, although she was right-handed. Kadira Gabeljic, whose husband and two sons were killed in the Srebrenica massacre, condemned Mladic’s grave-side visit, saying she almost fainted at the news. So far, experts have managed to exhume only parts of her sons, Mesud and Meho, who were 16 and 21 when killed. “He [Mladic] was allowed to do it, and I am still searching for my children for the past 16 years, ever since Srebrenica happened,” she said. “My husband had been found, but what about my children?” She asked. “I will wait for years. I might even die before their complete remains are found.” In addition to the appeal, Mladic’s lawyer, Milos Saljic, had asked for a team of doctors to examine his client, who is said to have had at least two strokes. Vekaric accused Mladic of using delaying tactics and said nothing should prevent his extradition to tribunal. “Doctors are saying he’s capable of standing trial,” Vekaric said, adding that Mladic will get medical checkups once he arrives at the UN tribunal’s detention unit in The Hague. The prosecutor said no one would be informed when Mladic will be transported from his prison to the Netherlands “because of security risks”. On Monday, the Serbian president, Boris Tadic, rejected speculation that authorities had known of Mladic’s hiding place and delayed his arrest to coincide with a visit by EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton. The rumours have persisted because Mladic was found living not far from Belgrade with relatives who share his last name. “Any such comment makes no sense,” Tadic said. “The truth is that we arrested Ratko Mladic the moment we discovered him.” The president also said it was time for the EU to do its part by boosting his country’s efforts to join the bloc, arguing the arrest of Mladic proves it is serious about rejoining the international fold. “I simply ask the EU to fulfil its part,” he said. “We fulfilled our part and we will continue to do so.” The EU had repeatedly said Serbia could begin pre-membership talks only after it arrested the wartime Bosnian Serb commander. Some EU countries have said Serbia needs to do more, including arresting its last fugitive, Goran Hadzic, who led Croatian Serb rebels during the 1991-1995 war. Tadic said Hadzic would be arrested as soon as possible. Ratko Mladic Bosnia and Herzegovina Serbia War crimes Europe European Union United Nations Peter Walker guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Royal newlyweds William and Kate will be touching down in Los Angeles for a few days in early July as part of their first official overseas trip. The California destination was revealed in the just released itinerary of earlier announced trip to North America that will also include an eight-city…
Continue reading …A merciless attack on the character of his accuser is likely to be the centerpiece of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s defense against sexual assault charges, legal experts tell the Wall Street Journal . His lawyers—who are expected to launch a consensual sex defense —will be looking at everything the 32-year-old immigrant from…
Continue reading …
Be a castaway every day of the year – Taransay island was the setting for the original BBC series and is on the market for £2m In pictures: Taransay island A beautiful Hebridean island, made famous by the reality television series Castaway , is being put up for sale complete with spectacular white beaches, a private herd of deer, wild otters, trout and seals. The uninhabited island of Taransay in the Western Isles has seen pagan Celtic settlers, a massacre involving warring medieval clans and in 2000, a group of 36 city dwellers and a large television film crew trying to survive unaided on the edge of the Atlantic. That BBC series, which made a star of one equally rugged young castaway, Ben Fogle, but upset others who took part , transformed the island from a secluded spot for the hardiest and best informed travellers into one of the Hebrides’ most famous private islands. Made up of two treeless, cliff-fringed and wind-battered islands connected by a wide, sandy isthmus, Taransay is being sold by its owners, Angus and Norman MacKay, two locally-raised brothers who live on the neighbouring island of Harris, for offers in excess of £2m. With a history of habitation stretching back to at least 300AD, Taransay was bought by their father John MacKay in 1967 for £11,000. It once had three villages but the last family left the island in 1974, leaving the properties derelict and a place mainly for sheep grazing, and intrepid travellers. When it was selected for Castaway, several houses were upgraded, leaving three – the farmhouse, the old school chalet and a more basic bothy with beds for 10 – for the MacKays to rent out as self-catering holiday homes. They have only rudimentary services, but some of the most spectacular sunsets over the Atlantic and sunrises over the sharp-peaked mountains of Harris immediately to the east. The island, thought to be the largest uninhabited island in Scotland, is being sold in its entirety with a working sheep farm – currently at 680 breeding ewes – and with 200 red deer, its holiday homes and an offer from the MacKay’s to sell a landing point on the beach on South Harris for its new owner to pull up and store the boat required to visit their property. John Bound from estate agent CKD Galbraith, which is selling Taransay, said the sale was quite rare. At 3,445 acres Taransay is unusually large to be sold in its entirety. And the MacKays – one a farmer, the other a business man – are selling up for pragmatic reasons, he said. “The sale is purely a business decision; it suits both families now, the timing and everything,” Bound said. “It’s quite unusual to get an island of this size where everything is owned. Usually something has been sold off or is crofted. Anyone can now buy it in its entirety.” The firm said the island had the potential to continue as a holiday letting business, but also for its country sports, deer stalking and its fishing. Taransay offered “the country sportsman an abundance of activity whilst protecting the biodiversity of the island, with hill lochs teaming with brown trout, first-class coastal and sea fishing, as well as a herd of around 200 head of red deer providing some enjoyable and sustainable stalking.” The temporary Castaway islanders, watched by 9m viewers at its peak, lived in “pods” in the deserted village of Paible, where they raised their own pigs, cattle and chickens, and grew their own vegetables. They enjoyed electricity, supplied by a wind turbine and a small hydro-electric scheme, and a water supply. Of the original 36 castaways, 29 stayed on the island for the full year. Most returned to their normal lives; Fogle went on to become a television presenter, including for the BBC nature and farming series Countryfile. Property Scotland Severin Carrell guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …