Michael McFaul, architect of Obama’s detente with Russia, given position to show US intent on enhancing ties with Kremlin Michael McFaul, the architect of the Obama administration’s policy of “resetting” US-Russian relations, will be the new American ambassador in Moscow. The appointment of Barack Obama’s chief adviser to a post normally filled by a diplomat is intended as a message to the Kremlin about the importance Washington puts on improving an often testy relationship. McFaul has been a constant White House advocate of the need to
Continue reading …Michael McFaul, architect of Obama’s detente with Russia, given position to show US intent on enhancing ties with Kremlin Michael McFaul, the architect of the Obama administration’s policy of “resetting” US-Russian relations, will be the new American ambassador in Moscow. The appointment of Barack Obama’s chief adviser to a post normally filled by a diplomat is intended as a message to the Kremlin about the importance Washington puts on improving an often testy relationship. McFaul has been a constant White House advocate of the need to
Continue reading …Blackbeard’s ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, now being explored by marine archeologists off the coast of North Carolina, is giving up more than just its treasures , it’s also revealing the infamous pirate’s terrifying tactics. And what researchers are finding are an ingenious array of improvised weapons, designed to injure and incapacitate…
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Driving force behind Top of the Pops’ fondly-remembered dance troupe has died of bronchial pneumonia at the age of 65 The driving force behind Top of the Pops’ fondly-remembered dance troupe Pan’s People has died of bronchial pneumonia at the age of 65. Flick Colby was the dancer and choreographer credited with co-founding the group that went on to become an iconic part of British pop culture. Before the age of the music video, which dawned with the arrival of MTV, the dance troupe provided the visual entertainment when an artist could not appear on the BBC show. They were not the first such group to appear on the pop programme – they were preceded by the Go-Jos – but they were TOTP’s first exclusive set of dancers. And they came to be as synonymous with the much-loved chart show as cigar-chomping Jimmy Savile and the pounding Led Zeppelin theme tune. Although Colby was an American who grew up in Clinton, New York, it was on British television that she found fame. She joined dancers Babs Lord, Ruth Pearson and Dee Dee Wilde and recruited Louise Clarke and Andi Rutherford to form Pan’s People in 1966. At the time, their outfits were seen as somewhat skimpy and their dance routines considered daring. It was, after all, a while before audiences grew accustomed to semi-naked women shimmying provocatively in every other hip hop and dance music video. As well as being a staple of 1960s and 1970s TOTP, Pan’s People featured on a number of other TV shows, including The Two Ronnies. Although at first Colby was both choreographing the routines and dancing with the group, she later retreated to a behind-the-scenes role only. She would often have just a few hours to come up with a sequence for a song on TOTP, which may explain the comically literal moves the group sometimes pulled. They last appeared on the show in April 1976, dancing to Silver Star by The Four Seasons. When the group split after this final performance, the women were said to have remained close friends. But Colby eventually moved back to the US, where she married and settled down in Clinton with her husband George and opened a gift shop. When her husband died earlier this year, Colby was already seriously ill with cancer herself and she never fully recovered from her bereavement, her publicist said. Her condition deteriorated before finally leading to the bronchial pneumonia she died of at her home in Clinton on Thursday. Philip Day, who has been Pan’s People’s publicist for more than 40 years, said: “Challenging as the task was, the ladies, spearheaded by Flick, made it a pleasure. “Never a moan, always on time and true professionals at all times. I will never see their like again.” Dance BBC guardian.co.uk
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Italian minister resigns ahead of mayoral election that prime minister has turned into referendum on his government Voters in Milan have gone to the polls for a crucial test of Silvio Berlusconi’s diminished political vigour after his government suffered a fresh blow with the resignation of a minister. Daniela Melchiorre said on Saturday she had quit her job as industry under-secretary because of his public denigration of Italy’s judges and prosecutors during last week’s G8 summit in France. Television cameras showed Barack Obama looking perplexed as Berlusconi told him Italy had become “almost a dictatorship of leftwing judges”. The Italian prime minister is a defendant in three trials and risks indictment in a fourth. On Tuesday, a court in Milan is due to begin hearing evidence in a case in which he is accused of paying an underage prostitute and using his influence to cover up the alleged offence. Government supporters played down the significance of Melchiorre’s departure, questioning her motives and depicting her as an opportunist. The former magistrate was a member of the last centre-left government before switching to the right. But it is such floating MPs who pose the greatest threat to the government’s tenuous majority. There is also a risk that Melchiorre’s defection could be followed by others if Berlusconi loses control of his native Milan. Almost 6 million Italian are eligible to vote in mayoral runoffs in 90 towns. But the showdown in Italy’s business capital is seen as by far the most significant. Berlusconi’s candidate, Letizia Moratti, trailed by six percentage points in the first round of voting on 15 and 16 May 15. Were she to emerge the loser after polls close on Monday, it would be the first time for nearly 20 years that the right had lost Milan – a stronghold not only of Berlusconi’s Freedom People (PdL) movement, but of its coalition partner, the Northern League. Moratti waged a vitriolic campaign in the runup to the second ballot. She and the prime minister, who has turned the vote for mayor into a referendum on his government, railed at the centre-left’s candidate, Giuliano Pisapia. He was accused of wanting to turn Milan into a haven for Roma people and of planning to building a mosque for Islamist extremists. Early turnout figures suggested the tactics might have had some success. By midday on Sunday, Milan was the only major town in which abstentions were lower than in the first round. The right’s inflammatory rhetoric raised the temperature of an already heated contest. Two people were hurt in a brawl on Saturday between supporters of the opposing candidates. In Naples, the next biggest city at stake, a fire swept through a PdL electoral office after a similarly ill-tempered campaign. Berlusconi, who flew to the city for the close of campaigning, said he could “categorically exclude” a government crisis were the right defeated. Much will depend on the reaction of the Northern League, many of whose rank-and-file supporters have declared Berlusconi a liability after the party’s disappointing performance in the first round. But the League’s leader, Umberto Bossi, has been reluctant to break up the governing coalition. Silvio Berlusconi Italy Europe John Hooper guardian.co.uk
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Re-enactors dressed in period fashion attend the East Lancashire Railway’s 1940s weekend in Bury
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Alliance could push for reduction in UK payments, threatening government’s Commons majority and George Osborne’s strategy The Labour party said on Sunday it was willing to work with Eurosceptic Tories to reduce the size of UK contributions to the bailout of troubled eurozone nations and to cut the timescale of UK liability. The decision puts the coalition government’s parliamentary support for its handling of the crisis under explicit threat for the first time. The potential alliance may reveal a slow shift towards a more Eurosceptic thinking since Labour went into opposition a year ago. The shift is, in part, political opportunism, but also represents a long-standing belief inside the party that the European commission’s reaction to the euro crisis has been too deflationary. Labour is weighing up an alliance with increasingly fractious Tory Eurosceptics over two specific issues likely to return to the Commons in the next few months – a move that could threaten the government’s Commons majority on some key votes or, at the very least, politically embarrass the chancellor, George Osborne. The first is the degree to which the commission is disproportionately drawing on the European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM), to which Britain makes contributions, rather than two other bailout funds for which Britain is less liable. The second could build on anger at the failure of the coalition government to do more to demand the swift introduction of a permanent bailout mechanism from which Britain would be excluded. The permanent fund, termed the European stability mechanism, is not due to come into force until 2013, and Labour claims the coalition government has not been pressing for an earlier timetable. Details of how it will operate remain sketchy. The new permanent mechanism, even though it will exclude non-euro members, will nevertheless have to be approved by the Commons as it represents a change to the Lisbon treaty. It is known that Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, is increasingly concerned by the state of the eurozone. Chris Leslie, the shadow Treasury spokesman responsible for Europe, told the Guardian: “We will be quite prepared to work with parliamentarians from any party to make sure the funds to protect eurozone members is not drawn disproportionately from funds to which Britain contributes. We have already provided more than our fair share. “We will also work with anyone to make sure the government acts more quickly to introduce a permanent mechansim that draws on only eurozone members. He claimed the EFSM had shouldered a third of the bailout costs, even though it was due to provide only 12%. Government whips came under sustained assault last week from their own side for using a series of manoeuvres to prevent the Commons voting to instruct the coalition to vote against any further use of the EFSM until a permanent scheme was established from which non-eurozone members were excluded. There was a rebellion by 30 Tories who claimed £12.5bn of taxpayers’ money was set aside to help Greece, Portugal and Ireland. Labour did not join the rebellion on the grounds that the resolution pushed by Tory Eurosceptics claimed the EFSM was illegal. It was set up by European finance ministers with the agreement of the former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling at the time of the 2010 general election, and Labour does not accept it was illegal. Economic policy Economics Global economy Euro Euro European Union Europe European debt crisis European commission Labour Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Pro-Palestinian campaigners claim their lobbying forced the prime minister to withdraw support David Cameron has stepped down as a patron of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in a move pro-Palestinian campaigners claim is a result of pressure but which Downing Street insists is part of a general review of the prime minister’s charity connections. The JNF was only one of a number of charities from which Cameron stepped down, said Downing St. His predecessors Gordon Brown and Tony Blair continued to be JNF patrons throughout their tenure. The JNF was originally set up to buy land in Palestine to establish Jewish settlements before the creation of the state of Israel. Now it is a global charity which describes itself as the “caretakers of the land and people of Israel”, specialising in planting forests. Critics say it expropriated land belonging to Palestinians and has obliterated pre-1948 Arab villages by planting forests and parks. The JNF is involved in the demolition of Bedouin villages in the Negev desert as part of an afforestation plan. Sofiah Macleod of the UK-based Stop the JNF Campaign said the organisation’s lobbying had led Cameron to withdraw. “There has been a change in public opinion and awareness about Israel’s behaviour and there was specific pressure on [Cameron] to step down from the JNF,” she said. “We believe he has stepped down as a result of this political pressure. Given the establishment support that the JNF has received, it’s not a decision he will have taken lightly.” The Stop the JNF Campaign wrote an open letter to the prime minister this month, claiming the JNF had committed war crimes against the Palestinian people and urging his resignation as patron. An early day motion tabled in the Commons in March regretted Cameron was a JNF patron and said revoking its charitable status should be considered. However, Downing St insisted Cameron’s resignation was part of a wider review. “Following the formation of the coalition government, a review was undertaken of all the organisations and charities the prime minister was associated with. As a result of this review, the prime minister stepped down from a number of charities – this included the JNF,” it said in a statement. Traditionally, the leaders of the three main political parties have become patrons of the JNF. However, Cameron’s resignation means that none of the current three leaders are JNF patrons. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign welcomed the decision. “It reflects the fact it is now impossible for any serious party leader to lend public support to racism,” campaign director, Sarah Colborne, said in a statement. “The JNF plays a critical role in facilitating the continued dispossession and suffering of Palestinians.” The JNF did not respond to a request for comment. In a letter to the Guardian last October, Samuel Hayek, JNF UK chairman, said: “To accuse the JNF of being “actively complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians’ represents a distortion of the truth on the grandest of scales. “Our environmental and humanitarian work is not based on any political or religious affiliation, but rather on supporting Israel and its population – whatever their background. This was the case before the modern state of Israel was created and will continue to be the case long into the future.” David Cameron Middle East Israel Palestinian territories Charities Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
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‘Significant and tenacious’ attempt made to breach information systems network Lockheed Martin, the US government’s top IT provider, has thwarted a “significant and tenacious” cyber-attack made on its information systems network. A spokeswoman said no personal data had been compromised, thanks to “almost immediate” protective action taken after the attack was detected on 21 May. She said the company, the world’s biggest aerospace company and the Pentagon’s top supplier by sales, was working around the clock to restore employee access to the targeted network while maintaining the highest security level. There has been no information about where the attack may have originated. The US defence department said it was working with Lockheed to determine the scope of the attack. US air force Lieutenant Colonel April Cunningham said the incident’s impact on the department was “minimal and we don’t expect any adverse effect”. She declined to specify the nature of the impact. Lockheed makes the F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets as well as warships and other multibillion-dollar arms systems sold worldwide. Military contractors’ systems contain technical specifications on weapons under development as well as those in use. A homeland security official said the US government had offered to help Lockheed analyse “available data in order to provide recommendations to mitigate further risk”. A person with direct knowledge told Reuters on Friday that unknown attackers had broken into sensitive networks of Lockheed and several other US military contractors. Boeing and Northrop Grumman, the Pentagon’s other leading suppliers, declined to discuss matters involving corporate security. Data and computer security Computing Hacking United States US military US national security guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Credit one Bronx man for really hating bad art—Freddie Caldwell was arrested yesterday for allegedly threatening to blow up a local TV station for showing too many Two and a Half Men reruns, reports the New York Post . The calls were placed May 11 and May 23, but police…
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