Dominique de Villepin – a vocal critic of Nicolas Sarkozy on traditional right – is considering run for president in 2012 Dominique de Villepin, the former French prime minister, moved closer to the ultimate standoff with his arch-enemy Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday as he presented a programme for running for president next year. Villepin, who Sarkozy once said he would like to hang from a butcher’s hook, recently quit Sarkozy’s ruling rightwing UMP party, setting up his own political grouping, République Solidaire, and considering challenging Sarkozy’s bid for presidential re-election in 2012. A Gaullist, Villepin has become the most vocal critic of Sarkozy on the traditional right. He has called him “a problem for France” and slammed his policy to round up Roma migrants as “a stain on the French flag”. Although Villepin has only a small army of activists – his movement claims 25,000 members – if he stands in the election he could split the traditional rightwing vote. This would cause headaches for Sarkozy whose party, the UMP, is falling apart, torn between centrists and rightwingers who can’t agree over the president’s extremist line on immigration, crime and Islam. Villepin, a former protege of Jacques Chirac who became famous for arguing France’s case at the United Nations against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said it was too early to announce whether or not he would run for president. But the 57-year-old part-time poet and historian laid out his proposals, including a “citizen’s income” welfare benefit of €850 a month for people with no other earnings. He said he offered a “credible alternative” to Sarkozy. The political rivalry between Sarkozy and Villepin is legendary. It culminated in the Clearstream trial last year in which Villepin was cleared of falsely smearing Sarkozy over alleged acts of money laundering. A retrial is due to begin next month, and Villepin may be waiting for that to close before he makes a final announcement on whether or not to run. Sarkozy is at his lowest-ever approval ratings, around 29% according to a Le Point poll. The only other French president to have ever stooped lower was Chirac, at the height of his unpopularity following the EU constitution referendum of 2005. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the favourite for the primaries for a Socialist candidate, stands at 52% approval ratings, with the far-right’s Marine Le Pen at 28%. Sarkozy, who has yet to officially announce he will stand for re-election, is under severe pressure, not just from the Front National, but within the UMP camp, a broad coalition of centrists and rightwingers which is fast disintegrating. The former environment minister and centrist Jean-Louis Borloo also recently quit the party to prepare for his own bid for the presidency. Addressing his own concerned MPs, Sarkozy insisted this week that he had a “good feeling” about next year’s election. Nicolas Sarkozy France Europe Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
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High court rules way in which police kettled up to 5,000 demonstrators at G20 protests in April 2009 was illegal Thousands of people found by the high court to have been illegally detained for hours by police at a central London protest may sue Scotland Yard for false imprisonment. The high court has ruled that the Metropolitan police had broken the law in the way it kettled up to 5,000 demonstrators at the G20 protests in April 2009. The judges heard police used the tactic of mass detention against protesters that they accepted were peaceful, with officers meting out punches to the face, slaps and shield strikes as they tried to move a demonstration against climate change. Judges found that the force used by police was “unjustified”, criticised “imprecise” instructions given by senior officers about releasing innocent people, and said the mass detentions for five hours were an unlawful deprivation of liberty under article 5 of the European convention on human rights. The case was brought by Josh Moos and Hannah McClure, who were among the crowd held by police. The judgment does not strike down the police tactic of kettling, or mass detention, but it will be seen as a rebuff to the Met and places police chiefs on notice that the courts will intervene in favour of the rights of protesters over claims that draconian tactics are necessary to prevent violence. The Met announced it would appeal against the judgment. The solicitor who brought the case, John Halford, said the ruling opened the police up to thousands of lawsuits seeking damages for the unlawful behaviour. He said: “Everyone in the kettle has a claim for false imprisonment and damages as they were detained against their will.” The case concerned the G20 protests in London on 1 April 2009, during which Ian Tomlinson, a bystander, died after being struck by an officer. There were several demonstrations in the area that day, but the court case deals with a Climate Camp protest in Bishopsgate. Police said they put in a containment of the camp, fearing people from a sometimes violent protest outside the Royal Exchange may join it. In their judgment Sir Anthony May, president of the Queens Bench Division, and Mr Justice Sweeney said police had failed to meet the conditions for the mass detention of protesters to be lawful: “To be justified in law as being the lawful exercise of the common law power to take reasonable steps to prevent a breach of the peace and as not constituting an unlawful deprivation of liberty under article 5 of the convention, the police had reasonably to apprehend an imminent breach of the peace …” But this was not the case, the judges found, citing the fact the two protests were relatively far apart. Those who left the Royal Exchange took two hours to reach the edge of the Climate Camp protest. The judges said the risk of violence was not imminent, and that was the threshold of danger to public order needed to justify the tactic of kettling. “There was such a risk, but it was at that stage only a risk; and it was not, in our judgment, a risk of imminent breaches of the peace sufficient to justify full containment at the Climate Camp.” For the Met, policing protests has seen them criticised on several fronts, as too heavy handed at G20,and then underprepared at last year’s student protests. The high court judgment found use of force at G20 was excessive, and the rights of innocent protesters were infringed: “It is evident that there were instances of unduly inflexible release [from the containment] and instances of unnecessary and, we think, unjustified force in the pushing operation.” The judges also criticised instructions a police chief said he gave to officers to release the innocent from the detention: “They were very general and imprecise and may not have been fully conveyed to individual officers, some of whom appear not to have been trained for crowd control operations of this kind.” The judges found a police decision to disperse the crowd to avoid it remaining overnight was lawful. The Met said: “We believe that this issue is so important for the police’s ability to prevent disorder within protest that we will be appealing. The MPS believes that the Bishopsgate containment prevented further scenes of violence and criminal damage occurring on 1 April 2009.” Dee Doocey, a Liberal Democrat member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said: “We must have authoritative and crystal clear guidance on who can trigger the use of kettling … the Met must urgently address the insufficient training that police officers receive in the use of shields.” Jenny Jones, a Green party member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said: “They have used kettling illegally, and sometimes violently, on peaceful demonstrations since May 2001. Kettling takes away the human rights and civil liberties of innocent, legal protesters.” Police G20 London Protest Human rights Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Forget finger paint: One Maine city is looking to spend $200,000 next fall to outfit its kindergartners with iPads. “It’s definitely an adventure, and it’ll be a journey of learning for teachers and students,” says one teacher; supposedly, the tablets will make learning more exciting and interactive. But, some…
Continue reading …You’ve seen the videos: Animal rights advocates go undercover as farm workers and emerge with grainy footage of beaten cows , viciously killed turkeys , and abused pigs . And Iowa—the country’s largest pork and eggs producer—wants to keep you from seeing them. Its legislature is considering a bill that would…
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Mental health charities say disclosure will have huge impact after Catherine Zeta-Jones checks into clinic for five days No amount of PR spend could have brought Catherine Zeta-Jones the fund of sympathy and goodwill she has received after announcing she was being treated for bipolar disorder. Mental health charities congratulated her on her courage in speaking up, and even the red-top tabloids treated her with dignity. It’s only eight years since the Sun’s front page screamed, “Bonkers Bruno locked up”, after the former boxer Frank Bruno suffered a breakdown and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. On Thursday the tone reserved for reporting Zeta-Jones’s illness was very different: “Bipolar Zeta in clinic five days – star’s depression after Michael’s cancer fight,” said a much more muted Sun. Zeta-Jones, 41, came to prominence 20 years ago in the bucolic TV comedy about the Larkin family, The Darling Buds of May. Born in Swansea to a seamstress mother and sweet factory-owning father, from the off she looked destined for Hollywood. And so it proved. Not only did she go on to star in movies such as The Mask of Zorro and Traffic, she also married leading Hollywood player Michael Douglas in 2000. They were the showbiz dream team, a source of endless stories (their 25-year age difference, their combined wealth, her looks, his drug addictions – and then there were the movies). They sold pictures of their marriage to OK! for £1.5m, and even that resulted in a dramatic court case when Hello! ran the pictures without permission. Zeta-Jones’s film career peaked in 2003 when she won the best supporting actress Oscar for her performance as Velma Kelly in Chicago. But there has been plenty of well-documented turbulence in her life too. In 2004 Dawnette Knight, who had been infatuated with Douglas, was jailed after stalking Zeta-Jones – she sent letters telling her she would die like John F Kennedy or Manson Family victim Sharon Tate. “This has affected me and it will affect me the rest of my life,” Zeta-Jones testified. “I felt like a ticking timebomb.” There were also rumours in 2007 that her marriage was creaking, and last August it was revealed that Douglas, with whom she has two children, had stage IV throat cancer. Even in her earlier 20s, there had been hints all was not well. In 1993 after splitting from Blue Peter presenter John Leslie, she said: “I get very lonely and think nobody wants me any more. I can’t take a bus or tube on my own any more. It terrifies me. I get all panicked.” Last year she admitted to fighting depression: “I try and stay positive because I don’t just bring myself down, I bring everyone else down.” This week Zeta-Jones issued a statement that she had spent five days in a psychiatric hospital in Connecticut being treated for bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression. She is said to have struggled with stress after Douglas’s cancer diagnosis. Her spokeswoman said: “After dealing with the stress of the past year, Catherine made the decision to check into a mental health facility for a brief stay to treat her bipolar II disorder.” The announcement that she is suffering from bipolar II – a form of manic depression in which the ups are not as high as with bipolar I – was welcomed by mental health organisations. In recent years, celebrities such as Stephen Fry, Paul Gascoigne and Ruby Wax have helped to normalise depression and bipolar disorder. Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said: “[Zeta-Jones's announcement] will have a huge impact on [people] recognising mental illness is a condition that everyone can suffer from. The importance is for people to accept it’s a treatable illness rather than live with it for years so that they become more and more sucked into a downward spiral and at risk of suicide.” Bipolar disorder is estimated to affect up to 2.4 million people in the UK, and sufferers are estimated to be 10 times more likely to kill themselves than the rest of the population. The average time for seeking help is 4.5 years, and a US survey showed that it took an average of 10.2 years for correct diagnosis and treatment. Although bipolar disorder is often first experienced in the teens or 20s, trauma can often tip sufferers into a crisis. “I think with the diagnosis and accepting the need for treatment, Catherine will feel liberated and believe that things can improve,” Wallace said. “Whereas those with bipolar I tend to experience severe mania as well as severe depression, bipolar II presents more as depression, feelings of sadness, hopelessness and guilt.” Sue Baker, director of Time to Change, a campaign to end the discrimination surrounding mental health problems, said Zeta-Jones’s statement would make it easier for others to admit to their illness. “We already know the impact of Stephen Fry’s documentary and how that helped people discuss the issue more openly.” The danger, she said, is that members of the public start to believe depression or bipolar disorder is something only suffered by famous or creative people. “It can almost seem that this is the price of success, which is nonsense. Major life changes can have an impact on anybody’s mental health and wellbeing.” Time to Change and Sane say that while celebrities are more willing to publicise mental health problems, there is still a stigma in many walks of life. “We want to see people in key public positions coming forward, feeling more able to talk about it,” Baker said. “The former prime minister of Norway, Kjell Magne Bondevik, got re-elected with an even higher majority once he disclosed he’d had to step back for a couple of months because he’d been experiencing depression.” Yet for British politicians admitting to depression or bipolar disorder is still taboo. “A confidential survey carried out by the all-party parliamentary mental health group showed one in five politicians had experienced a mental health problem but how many of them have actually talked about it?” said Baker. “As the law stands at the moment if you’re a sitting MP and you get sectioned, you wouldn’t be able to remain an MP. For me that is the very height of discrimination.”Zeta-Jones, meanwhile, seems on the road to recovery after her brief stay in the Silver Hill clinic in Connecticut. Her spokeswoman said: “She’s feeling great and looking forward to starting work on her two upcoming films.” Catherine Zeta-Jones Michael Douglas Bipolar disorder Mental health Health United States Wales Simon Hattenstone guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …More than two years after it first emerged , the issue of Trig Palin’s birth is back in the headlines, thanks to a Northern Kentucky University journalism professor. Brad Scharlott’s 29-page academic paper on the matter concludes that all the conspiracy theorists were right: Sarah Palin is not Trig’s real mother,…
Continue reading …Goldman Sachs may have criminally misled its clients when it sold them mortgage-backed securities without mentioning that Goldman itself would profit if they failed, the Senate’s Subcommittee on Investigations has concluded, recommending that the Justice Department and SEC consider pressing charges. The panel also recommended perjury charges against CEO Lloyd…
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Mountains in Gloucestershire, London buses driving on the right – and that’s before you get to the dialogue There are movies so bad that they transcend awfulness. Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space and Glen or Glenda? perhaps, or Troll 2 . And then there is William and Kate: The Movie. Coming to a DVD outlet near you shortly. So bad it’s awful, toe-curlingly, teeth-furringly, pillow-bitingly ghastly. You begin to wonder what the happy young couple have done to deserve this. It will probably be a smash. Perhaps the PR handout gives it away: “Shot entirely in Los Angeles and inspired by true events.” That might account for the mountains in the backdrop to a pheasant shoot in Gloucestershire, buses driving on the right in London, the Middletons’ modern house transformed into a Californian Tudor mansion and the famous dragon boat race training that Kate Middleton once undertook on the Thames at Chiswick being transposed to the High Sierra. The film has sparked a worldwide media frenzy, according to its promoters. This is the Wedding of the Year as imagined in Wichita or Wyoming, with dialogue so authentic it follows you round the room. As in all the best plays, they tell each other things they must already know. “I say, Wills,” says Prince Harry. “I am not the heir. I am just the spare.” “You do realise this is the 21st century?” Kate expostulates to her etiquette coach. “In your world, perhaps, but not in his,” said coach replies portentously, and a million heads will nod knowingly, from Houston to Hawaii. Monarchists abroad may be shocked when William informs his intended that half the country loves his family and the other half thinks they are irrelevant throwbacks – a little bit of social comment there – but they will soon be back on track when he adds reassuringly: “My mother was one of the people. She tried to change the monarchy.” Kate replies: “We’ll still be us. Nothing will come between us.” At which point some in the audience at the film’s preview unaccountably began to titter. Prince William – aka “the Royal Beau” – is played by young New Zealander Nico Evers-Swindell, whose acting varies from plain wooden to teak-like, which may not be so far from the original, but is somehow less engaging. Who could blame him, saddled with lines such as: “I am sorry … I just need some space.” And air, by the looks of it.Middleton – whom everyone in the movie, including Prince Charles, calls Kate, unlike in real life where she’s known to friends and family as Catherine –is played by Camilla Luddington, an actor whose last part was as a teenage drink-driver in CSI. Luddington was apparently brought up in Berkshire, like her alter-ego, but, if so, she’s clearly spent too long in the US because her accent is more Berkeley than Bucklebury. Ben Cross, who once strode across Chariots of Fire, gives us his Prince Charles and he has certainly got the cufflink-fiddling off to a T. It is the little things that jar. Like the German spy in the old war movie who gives himself away when he doesn’t know who won the Cup final in 1938, or the ex-boyfriend who announces he’s going to “the college of law at Oxford”, or the reference to the happy couple’s alma mater as St Andrew’s College: apparently it’s a school, too. Perhaps the Scottish university had an inkling of what the film would be like and sensibly did not let the cast and crew anywhere near: there are only aerial shots of the town, interspersed curiously with an overhead view of Oxford. At ground level the university looks suspiciously more like an Ivy League campus. The tabloids and paparazzi get it in the neck for hounding Middleton, which is odd coming from a film which makes a virtue of its intrusiveness. Fortunately the Queen does not appear – perhaps Helen Mirren was too expensive for the £3m budget – probably saving her from telling her granddaughter-in-law-elect to: “Get with the programme, sister.” As the happy couple’s love entwines against a sunset as livid orange as any in Gone with the Wind, there will not be a dry eye in the house. But possibly not for the reasons the makers suppose. William and Kate: The Movie is released on DVD on 25 April Royal wedding Monarchy Weddings Kate Middleton Prince William United States Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk
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Opponents say leaked document proves sister company of pro-AV backer ERS could profit financially from yes vote The two camps on either side of the referendum on the alternative vote are trading blows over whether the group funding the yes campaign stands to gain financially from a switch to AV. Campaigners for a no vote obtained a leaked document which they said proved one of the yes campaign’s major backers was reliant on a company that could profit financially from a yes vote on 5 May. Allegations by the no campaign that their opponents have a conflict of interest have dogged the debate all week, galvanised by an intervention by George Osborne on Monday when he suggested the yes campaign’s funding model was “dodgy”. He was reprimanded by lawyers acting for the yes campaign who said this was “wholly untrue”. Ed Howker, a journalist, obtained what appears to be an internal risk assessment by the Electoral Reform Society – the principal donor to the Yes to AV campaign – in which the ERS acknowledges that the targeting of its funding relationship was a “medium” likelihood with a “high impact”. In a section detailing the “issue” the body notes that it is reliant on cash advances from its sister company Electoral Reform Services Limited (ERSL) about which it writes: “It is possible that ERSL will profit as a result of a YES vote (increased business opportunities).” Under a heading marked “risk” it writes: “Damage to reputation; could make us look unsavoury even if unfounded. Negative effect on donations levels if story becomes ‘we are rich’? ERSL fear that negative publicity might affect union clients, Conservative party or other ‘no’ supporters which in turn, might affect future dividends.” The no campaign says the ERS has given £1.1m to the pro-AV campaign and claimed that the society and its subsidiaries had received more than £15m in contracts from the public purse over the past three years. The no campaign also charges that the ERSL would provide new telling machines for processing AV ballots if there is a switch to the new system. The lawyers Lewis Silkin said on Monday: “This is wholly untrue. Electoral Reform Services Limited (the business arm of ERS) earns revenue in the public election administration area from three types of contract. Printing of ballot papers and the producing of voting packs for postal voters; printing and mailing of the annual canvas return forms and processing telephone and internet responses. “Provision of election management software through its subsidiary Xpress software solutions. The form of voting system upon which parliamentary elections are based is entirely irrelevant to the provision of any of these services. A change in the voting system would, therefore, have absolutely no impact on any of the revenue earned by the ERSL.” George Eustice, the Tory MP co-ordinating the no campaign, said: “Yesterday, lawyers for the Electoral Reform Society issued a threatening letter in a bid to discourage the media from reporting their conflict of interest in this referendum. Now it turns out their own internal documents highlight that just such a conflict of interest exists and that they have wilfully misled British voters and the media. “This appears to be a disgraceful attempt to influence the result of the referendum just as postal votes land on people’s doormats. This is not how we do politics in this country.” Responding to the publication of the leaked document, the Electoral Reform Society said: “This was a scenario planning document anticipating lines of attack we’ve come under from the no campaign. ERSL is an independent company and have made perfectly clear they won’t make a penny from a yes vote.” Alternative vote Electoral reform Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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Mother of Zainab al-Khawaja – a 27-year-old protesting against treatment of father – says she is struggling to stand up Britain and the European Union have heaped diplomatic pressure on Bahrain over the alleged killing of pro-democracy activists in custody, while the health of a hunger striker protesting at the beating and arrest of her dissident father has deteriorated markedly. In a meeting with Interior Minister Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, the British ambassador to Bahrain, Jamie Bowden, raised concerns over the deaths of four dissident prisoners in the last week. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, speaking through a spokesman also called on the Bahrain regime to immediately release all those who have been detained for peacefully expressing themselves. Ashton announced she is to visit Bahrain next week and her spokesman called on the authorities to “investigate all recent events which have resulted in loss of life and injuries”. The high-level interventions follow what pro-democracy activists in Bahrain complain has been a period of minimal censure from Europe and the US of the renewed crackdown. They came as Zainab al-Khawaja, a 27-year-old mother on hunger strike following the beating and arrest of her father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja – a prominent human rights activist – along with her husband and brother-in-law, saw her health slump. She had been speaking out against the government’s treatment of her family through the media and her Twitter blog but she struggled to stand up, vomited and could no longer breastfeed her 18-month-old daughter, according to her mother. “I asked if I could put some sugar in her water because I can see her suffering and her daughter is crying for milk because she can’t breastfeed her. She said no,” said Khadija al-Khawaja, 52. “She is just sleeping. I go and wake her up, she opens her eyes and speaks to me and says she is OK. I told her you have a little girl whose father is not here and if anything happens to you … but she feels she needs to do something. She is very angry and very upset about what is happening.” The family has received no information about the fate of Abdulhadi, Zainab’s husband Wafu Almajed or her brother-in-law Hussein Ahmed. But there was hope for her uncle who was arrested three weeks earlier, when his wife was called to bring clothes for him to the military court building, though she was not allowed to see him. Abdulhadi was beaten and arrested after he denounced the King of Bahrain and called for him to be put on trial. It is thought the two other men were arrested because they were with him at the time, but were not the targets. The Bahraini government has widened its crackdown on dissent by preparing a case to dissolve Al Wefaq, a registered political society that previously held 18 of the 40 seats in the chamber of deputies before it withdrew in protest at the government’s handling of demonstrations in February. It is also trying to shut down the Islamic Action Society, another registered society. A spokesman for the British foreign office denounced the move as “a backward step for reform” and said “the best way out of the situation is through inclusive dialogue”. Kareem Fakhwiri, a member of Al Wefaq, was buried on Wednesday after he died in police custody and suffered extensive bruising. “We are deeply concerned by the many reports of human rights abuses in Bahrain,” said a foreign office spokesman. “We are particularly worried by the deaths of four prisoners in the past week. Our ambassador raised these deaths with the minister of interior on 14 April. We call on the government to investigate them fully and transparently and we continue to urge the Bahraini authorities to act in accordance with the law and to meet international standards for the treatment of detainees.” Khadija al-Khawaja said she was increasingly afraid the authorities would call to announce her husband’s death, after she visited Kobra Fakhwiri, the widow of Kareem Fakhwiri. Bahrain Arab and Middle East unrest Protest Human rights Middle East Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
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