Walter Mondale returns to a familiar theme in a Washington Post op-ed: “We will not be able to control our budget deficits without raising taxes,” he declares in the first sentence. As Mondale himself acknowedges, he’s become the poster boy for why candidates should never bring up the notion of…
Continue reading …An Iraqi immigrant who deliberately ran over and killed his 20-year-old daughter in an Arizona parking lot wept yesterday as a judge sentenced him to more than 34 years in prison. Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki thought his daughter, Noor, was too Westernized and wanted to punish her for not abiding by…
Continue reading …The pace is slowing, but bank failures continue to ripple throughout the industry. The FDIC seized six yesterday, the most in a single day this year, reports AP . That makes a total of 34 in 2011, compared to 50 at this point last year. The new banks seized were in…
Continue reading …
Embattled president promises end to 48 years of emergency law, more ‘humble’ government, and action on unemployment Syria’s embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, has promised to end 48 years of emergency law and instigate further reforms, but failed to satisfy those protesting against his 11-year rule. In a speech to his new cabinet, Assad said restrictions would be lifted by the end of the week. He blamed the month-long protests on a “conspiracy” and said stability remained his priority but reform was needed to strengthen the country. Syria’s protest movement, which has gathered momentum in recent weeks, swelled to unprecedented levels on Friday as thousands of people marched on Damascus from surrounding areas. Assad’s tone was more conciliatory than in a previous speech to parliament on 30 March, directing ministers to become more accountable and humble. “Citizens need security and services, but also dignity. We want to engage in dialogue with the unions and with national organisations,” he said. Protesters rejected Assad’s move as too little, too late. They said continuing arrests and a state media campaign to blame violence on armed gangs was deliberately inciting anger towards protesters. “The tone was different but there were no concrete reforms again; many still don’t trust emergency law will be lifted,” said an analyst in the capital, Damascus, who asked for anonymity. “If he had made this speech on 30 March, it may have been different, but now it is too late.” The protests this week have resulted in fewer deaths than the previous week, in a sign the regime may be trying to calm dissent, according to latest reports. The protesters have demanded an end to emergency laws and more freedoms. But they have also called for an end to abuses by the security services and the release of all political prisoners. Both topics were notably absent from Assad’s speech. Instead he talked about Syria’s media, its municipal elections and political parties and, in reference to claims of ministerial corruption, said that ministers should provide details of their income and property. He also acknowledged the country’s economic troubles, calling unemployment “the biggest problem”. Activists accuse Syrian leaders of framing the demands of protesters in economic rather than political terms – although in eastern areas of the country financial worries are their priority. “Assad still didn’t talk about the reason for the crisis in the country,” said Razan Zeitouneh, a lawyer and human rights activist in Damascus. “And he ignored the main demands of the people: freedom and democracy.” Mmore than 1,000 women were reported to have held a protest in the coastal city of Banias. Protests in this heavily repressive state were unthinkable before March, when activists inspired by uprisings sweeping the Arab world broke through a barrier of fear. Further demonstrations are being planned for Sunday, which is a national holiday in Syria. Bashar Al-Assad Syria Protest Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Katherine Marsh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A Philadelphia college newspaper has gone topless to publish a story alleging a professor used exotic dancers in a business seminar. La Salle University students say administrators would not let them print the story above the fold on the front page, so the top half of Thursday’s Collegian is blank,…
Continue reading …
Nick and Christian Candy sell the Knightsbridge home for a record price in their new London development It is the perfect London pied-à-terre for a non-dom tycoon about town. A three-storey penthouse overlooking Hyde Park has been sold for £136m – becoming by far the most expensive flat ever bought in Britain. An unnamed buyer, using lawyers in Ukraine, has bought two apartments in the newly opened One Hyde Park development in Knightsbridge that have been knocked into one to create a 25,000
Continue reading …
Arrests and troop movements signal another government crackdown on protests in the tiny Gulf state Bahrain is braced for a fresh bout of violent repression as new arrests and the alleged death of a female student fuel sectarian tensions in the tiny Gulf state. Armoured vehicles and security forces were reported to be gathering in the streets of the capital, Manama, and in surrounding suburbs and villages. Meanwhile, evidence has emerged that Saudi forces have been involved in violence against the opposition in the mainly Shia villages and suburbs around Manama. In a graphic eyewitness account of the repression given to the Observer , a Bahraini who has been caught up in the violence claimed that officers with Saudi accents, in plainclothes but armed with automatic weapons, had led attacks on members of the Shia opposition on several occasions over the past month. When Saudi and UAE troops from the Gulf Peninsula Shield force entered the kingdom at the request of the government last month, it was said that they were there to guard strategic buildings and infrastructure. Reports from the city said that a young woman – beaten up last month by government supporters at Bahrain University – had died. A family member confirmed her death but the circumstances remained unclear. Arrests of lawyers and doctors working for the opposition continued. Protesters, who were brutally removed from their peaceful anti-government site at Manama’s Pearl roundabout last month, claim that there has since been a systematic campaign of repression by Sunni Bahraini security forces, backed by forces from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Human Rights Watch says that four people have died in custody over the past month, out of 430 who were arrested. Opposition sources say that the true figure is 720 arrested with 210 missing. Tensions were high after another day of mourning, for Karim Fakhrawi, a Shia businessman who died in police detention, allegedly after being tortured. The mourning also coincided with an important Shia festival, the commemoration of the death of Fatima al-Zahra, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad. This is traditionally marked by three days of religious observance, including marches, which are now banned under Bahrain’s month-old state of emergency. Meanwhile, Mohammed al-Tajer, a lawyer who represented detainees held during the protests, was reportedly arrested along with a doctor accused of treating injured demonstrators. Doctors and medical facilities have been singled out in the repression, with the main hospital in Manama, Salimanya, under military occupation for the past month. The government says that it is acting to maintain security after what it describes as an “attempted revolution” by mainly Shia protesters last month. It says hospitals were being used as organisation centres for the protests. The government appears to be backing down from a plan to outlaw the leading opposition parties, Al Wefaq and Islamic Action, after protests from America and Britain. But a suppression of media reporting continues. Last week a correspondent from the Financial Times was denied entry at the airport. No reason was given. Frank Gardner, the BBC’s security correspondent, was detained at the airport for three hours before being allowed into the country. Other journalists reported increasing difficulties in obtaining visas. Bell Pottinger, a British public relations company that advised the Bahraini crown prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, and which was assisting with media visas, has had its government contracts suspended during the period of martial law. Prince Salman is regarded as a moderate, but the failure of his offers of “dialogue” with the protesters has handed power to Sunni hardliners, led by the prime minister, Prince Khalifa, who has been in office since 1971. The protests are seen as a threat to security across the whole Gulf region. There have been further protests in Iran in support of the mainly Shia Bahraini opposition, and Tehran recently warned Pakistan against sending any more “mercenaries” to join the crackdown. Many Bahrain police officers are hired in Sunni countries such as Pakistan and Jordan. Bahrain Arab and Middle East unrest Protest Middle East guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
• Chancellor’s claims on electoral reform cash are ‘bizarre’ • Deputy PM Nick Clegg joins the attack on the no campaign The former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown has launched an explosive attack on George Osborne, accusing the chancellor of cheap mud-slinging and scaremongering ahead of the alternative vote referendum. As the AV debate grows increasingly acrimonious, laying bare growing coalition tensions between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Ashdown takes Osborne to task over his allegations that the Electoral Reform Society stands to profit from a yes vote. Osborne claimed the society, which gave £1.1m to the yes campaign, would benefit from the adoption of the alternative vote system through its commercial subsidiary, Electoral Reform Services Ltd (ERSL). But in a strikingly personal attack on the chancellor, Ashdown writes in today’s Observer that Osborne’s approach is a prime example of why British politics needs radical reform. “The strategy is clear,” writes Ashdown. “Throw as much mud as you can, don’t let the issue be discussed openly and frighten the public over the next three weeks into voting to preserve the power the present first-past-the-post system gives you. This strategy stinks of the same odour which has surrounded our politics recently. “For the chancellor of the exchequer – the chancellor of the exchequer – to claim that there is something ‘dodgy’ about the Electoral Reform Society donating cash to a campaign in favour of electoral reform is bizarre. George Osborne makes the case for change for us. He graphically shows why we need to change our politics. Why we need to clean it up. Why the voting public deserve something better.” Ashdown’s aggressive intervention is made as the gloves come off in the increasingly embittered referendum debate. Twelve Tory ministers and cabinet ministers, including key allies of David Cameron, pounded pavements across the country drumming up support for the no vote. Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, condemned the use of smear campaigns during the AV debate and attempted to distance himself from Tory policies. “The no campaign is getting increasingly desperate”, the Lib Dem leader said. “That’s why they are using ludicrous false claims to try to scare people into keeping things the way they are.” Clegg added: “Working together in the national interest does not mean we agree on everything. And it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be taking the fight to the Tories in the local elections, criticising mistakes and wrong priorities wherever they occur.” Meanwhile, the former Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, Lord Oakeshott, said the no campaign was a “Conservative front”. He urged Labour party supporters to ignore the no campaign of the former deputy prime minister, Lord Prescott, and vote yes with the Liberal Democrats and Labour leader Ed Miliband, to “stuff the Tories”. Oakeshott said: “The no campaign is a pantomime dinosaur, with Prescott at the front, [BNP leader Nick] Griffin at the back and Cameron firmly on top all the time. The stakes couldn’t be higher on 5 May – a yes vote will empower the progressive majority in our country. A no will let the Tories in through the backdoor to dominate the 21st century like the 20th.” Friction between the coalition partners comes amid growing frustration on the part of those closest to Clegg that the no campaign has been used to attack the Lib Dems, and the deputy prime minister in particular. Clegg’s image is prominent in the no campaign material. A senior Lib Dem source told the Observer the personal attacks appeared to have been sanctioned from Downing Street. The source added: “The no campaign has been turned into an avenue through which the Tories can attack Nick, let off some steam. The campaign has been funded heavily by Conservative headquarters and the attacks have become very personal. It is like a pressure valve for the Tories for their frustrations in other policy areas.” The energy secretary, Chris Huhne, has warned that negative campaigning by the Conservative chairwoman, Baroness Warsi, among others, could lead to a breakdown in the coalition, but senior Lib Dems believe that has not been heeded. Ashdown explicitly criticises Warsi, describing Tory tactics as “indefensible” and “tawdry”. “To have Baroness Warsi stand on the site of race riots in the 1930s and say that a yes vote will help the BNP is as tawdry as it is indefensible”, he says. “The BNP are campaigning for a no vote. Such extremist parties as have, God help us, been elected in Britain, were elected through first past the post. As a host of independent commentators have commented, AV will diminish their chances, not increase them.” AV referendum Paddy Ashdown George Osborne Liberal-Conservative coalition Alternative vote Liberal Democrats Conservatives Daniel Boffey guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Wisconsin has certified GOP-backed David Prosser the victor by 7,316 votes in the disputed race for a 10-year term on the state’s supreme court. Prosser immediately trumpeted that “the will of the electorate is clear with the last canvass now completed,” reports the Journal-Sentinel, and called for opponent JoAnne…
Continue reading …A total of seven people have been killed in violent storms in Alabama, bringing the total death toll to 16 as a devastating storm system works its way across the South. A spate of tornadoes ripped through towns, tossing mobile homes around like toys. “The tornado hit and jumped and…
Continue reading …