Five men, possibly including the son of a high-ranking police officer, have been arrested in Libya as part of a criminal investigation into the rape allegations made by Iman al-Obeidi. The Libyan woman made headlines yesterday when she burst into a Tripoli hotel to tell journalists she had been imprisoned,…
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Harry Wesley Coover Jr created the glue by accident while working for Tennessee Eastman Company Harry Wesley Coover Jr, known as the inventor of Super Glue, has died at his home in Kingsport, Tennessee, aged 94. Coover was working for Tennessee Eastman Company when an accident resulted in the creation of cyanoacrylate – better known as Super Glue – according to his grandson, Adam Paul of South Carolina. An assistant was distressed that some new refractometer prisms were ruined when they were glued together, marking the invention of the popular adhesive. The US president, Barack Obama, honoured Coover in 2010 with the National Medal of Science. Coover was born in Newark, Delaware. He received a degree in chemistry from Hobart College in New York before getting a master’s degree and PhD from Cornell. He worked his way up to become vice president of the chemical division for development at Eastman Kodak. Coover and the team of chemists he worked with became prolific patent holders, achieving more than 460. The work included polymers, organophosphate chemistry, the gasification of coal and of course, cyanoacrylate. Coover also had a part in early US television history, appearing with Garry Moore on the game show I’ve Got a Secret. Moore, the show’s host, and Coover were hung in the air on bars that were stuck to metal supports with a single drop of his glue during a live television broadcast. The Industrial Research Institute, for which he served as president in 1982, honoured Coover with a gold medal and the US Patent Office inducted him into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, in 2004. United States guardian.co.uk
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• Funding body ‘spending far too much on itself’ • Report comes at start of crucial week for the arts The Arts Council in England has been told to sell works from its art collection – which includes masterpieces by Anish Kapoor, Sarah Lucas, Mark Wallinger and Damien Hirst – in a highly critical report. In what is to be a crucial week for the arts – English cultural organisations will be told on Wednesday how much public money they will receive from the Arts Council – the report from the parliamentary select committee on culture criticises the funding body for “spending far too much on itself”. The MPs on the committee, chaired by Tory John Whittingdale, condemn a “gross waste of public money” and “failure of leadership” over the body’s conduct in relation to the Public, the West Bromwich gallery that cost £52m to build but went into administration before it opened. The report also deeply criticises ministers’ “disturbing modus operandi” in abruptly abolishing a number of cultural bodies, notably the UK Film Council. That episode was “handled very badly by the government”, says the report. “It is extremely regrettable that a film-maker of the stature of Tim Bevan has, as a result, decided to take no further part in government-sponsored initiatives.” Bevan, the co-founder of Working Title and co-producer of films such as Fargo and Four Weddings and a Funeral, chaired the UK Film Council at the time of its abolition. The Arts Council hit back at the report, with a spokesman calling its findings out of date and criticising the choice of witnesses called to give evidence, saying the committee would have “benefited from a wider range of viewpoints”. She defended the organisation’s record, saying, “The Public is old news and is not representative of the Arts Council’s investments in capital projects.” And she poured cold water on the recommendation that the council gets rid of artworks: “Selling off works of art from the Arts Council collection is also not a sensible solution to the current budget cuts.” The collection, now containing 7,500 works, was founded in 1946 to buy modern and contemporary art to lend to public galleries and museums nationwide. It also organises touring exhibitions, such as that devoted to Anish Kapoor now on in Manchester. Works from the collection have never been sold before. Leading figures in the arts defended the council’s record. Sir Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre, said the body “has our confidence” and Anthony Sargent, general director of the Sage arts venue in Gateshead, called it a “transformed institution”. On top of recommending the council sell, or “strategically deaccession”, artworks to make it more financially sustainable, the report suggests amalgamating the art collections of the organisation with those of the government and the British Council. The committee also said it was not convinced there was a need for so many symphony orchestras to receive funding from the council and the BBC; claimed heritage had been underfunded compared with the arts; and expressed concern at the deep level of cuts to funding for culture proposed by some local councils. The arts world is waiting anxiously for the results of public funding applications, which are due to drop into email inboxes up and down England between 7.30am and 9.30am on Wednesday. Grant applications have been made by 1,300 organisations; almost half will be unsuccessful. The Arts Council received a 29.6% cut in its grant-in-aid from central government at the last comprehensive spending review, making heavy cuts inevitable, although the council has promised not to “salami-slice” and to protect excellent organisations from the deepest cuts. The Arts Council, which cut its running costs by 15% in a restructuring completed in April 2010, has been told by the government to cut its running costs again, this time by 50%, with only 15% of the cuts being passed to the “front line”. Senior figures in the arts defended the council’s recent record. “The process has been as good as it could have been,” said Hytner. He said many unsuccessful applicants would be “hugely aggrieved”, but added: “I don’t see how it can be avoided.” Director Sir Richard Eyre said Arts Council chief executive Alan Davey was “a good thing” and said the body had been put in a “hellish position” because of overall cuts from central government. Sargent said” “Three years ago, the council was a disappointing laughing stock. I am not saying it’s perfect, but as far as they can, Davey and [the body's chair] Liz Forgan have played a difficult hand with real skill.” A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said a formal government response would be published in due course. Main points • Arts Council England has been “spending far too much on itself” • ACE “played a major role in the gross waste of public money” on the Public, West Bromwich • “Strategic deaccessioning” – ie, selling of artworks – from the Arts Council Collection is advised • The committee was “disturbed” by the number of local authorities proposing substantial cuts to arts • Small arts organisations are at greater risk from funding cuts than large ones, a matter of “great concern” • Committee “not convinced” there is a need for so many subsidised orchestras • Abolition of the UK Film Council was “handled very badly by the government”. Similar “disturbing modus operandi” followed for other abruptly axed cultural bodies • Heritage “suffered disproportionately” in funding cuts compared with arts Arts funding Art Charlotte Higgins guardian.co.uk
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• Schoolgirl shot dead by paratrooper in 1976 • Letter to mother formally apologises for killing Majella O’Hare was 12 years old. It was a bright summer’s day in 1976 and the schoolgirl had just walked past an army checkpoint on the way to church. Moments later, she lay dying on a country road in County Armagh, shot in the back by a paratrooper. Now, almost 35 years after the infamous killing, an unprecedented apology from the Ministry of Defence will be handed over to her elderly mother at a ceremony in Belfast. The letter, signed by the defence secretary, Liam Fox, belatedly corrects the army’s account of the incident and acknowledges that the soldier’s subsequent courtroom explanation was “unlikely”. British Irish Rights Watch , a civil liberties group that has campaigned for decades for a formal apology, welcomed the statement and hoped that it would open the way for a more conciliatory approach by military officials. The only other occasion an apology has been offered for the army’s behaviour during Northern Ireland’s Troubles – albeit in more general terms – was after publication of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry last summer. Then, David Cameron described the Parachute Regiment’s actions in Derry as “unjustified and unjustifiable”. The death of Majella O’Hare followed a spate of sectarian murders in south Armagh. It was 14 August 1976 and she had set off for confession with some school friends. “They came upon an army patrol,” her brother Michael, now 62, told the Guardian. “She had walked on about 20 or 30 yards when [shots] rang out from a general purpose machine gun. Three shells were found on the ground. Two bullets hit her in the back. “The soldier [Private Michael Williams] was carrying the weapon cocked and ready but he would have had to exert between 10 and 12lb of pressure to fire it. “My father was the school caretaker and he had been outside cutting the grass and tidying up. He heard shots. There was panic; he know something terrible had happened and ran to the scene. “The soldiers were giving him abuse, shouting: ‘What do you think you are doing? You’re only the fucking grass-cutter.’ Even after he found her on the road and cradled her in his arms, they were abusive.” Majella was airlifted to Daisy Hill hospital but died in the military helicopter. Williams, of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment, claimed he had fired in response to an IRA sniper attack. The RUC investigated and the paratrooper was charged with murder. By the time of the trial, the charge had been reduced to manslaughter. Lord Justice Maurice Gibson, sitting alone without a jury, accepted there probably had been a gunman who fired simultaneously even though there was no independent evidence of anyone hearing other shots. Gibson, who was killed with his wife by an IRA roadside bomb in 1987, acquitted Williams. At the end of the trial Mary O’Hare, Majella’s mother, approached Williams. “She asked him ‘why did you do it?’ He looked at her and shrugged his shoulders,” Michael O’Hare recalled. “Majella was a lovely child, going about her life in childlike ways and not feeling threatened at all. My father was so affected afterwards; he never really recovered from the shock and died in 1992.” An inquiry by the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Historical Enquiries Team (HET), which re-investigated the case, found there was no evidence to suggest there had ever been an IRA gunman. The HET’s director, Dave Cox, last summer called on the army to apologise for killing Majella. The letter says: “I apologise for Majella’s death and offer you my heartfelt sympathy. Although many years have passed, I have no doubt that your grief and that of your family has not diminished … both the initial investigation by the RUC and the more recent review have concluded that it was unlikely that there was a gunman in the area when the soldier involved opened fire and struck Majella, as he claimed. “The soldier’s actions resulted in the loss of a young and innocent life, causing sorrow and anguish for those who knew and loved Majella. “On behalf of the army and the government, I am profoundly sorry that this tragic incident should have happened.” Mary O’Hare is now 88. She will be handed the letter by the Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, in Belfast. “It’s good to get this apology,” Michael O’Hare said. “It’s not going to bring Majella back but at least it will set the record straight for history. When you send trained killers out to use firearms in a warzone, you can never feel safe. “I would like to meet Michael Williams and see if there’s genuine regret about what happened. Closure will never be there but [there is] compassion and a sense of comfort that we have been denied for 35 years.” Jane Winter, director of British Irish Rights Watch who has followed the case for many years, said: “This is a full-blown apology from the MoD and on behalf of the nation. “It’s incredible that it’s taken so long. HET investigators tried to talk to Private Williams but got no further than his lawyers. They said he was contrite about what happened but would never [be able to give evidence] in the state he was now in. “I have never seen a letter like this. We have tried to get apologies before. I hope this sets a precedent for other families.” The Historical Enquiries Team, whose re-investigation led to the apology, has so far examined 1,400 deaths that occurred during the Troubles. It has provided fresh insights for many of the families of the bereaved, including those of soldiers who were killed on tours of duty in Northern Ireland Military Defence policy Northern Ireland Liam Fox Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk
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Many countries still executing people for crimes and hundreds remain on death row, Amnesty International report reveals China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the US carried out the most executions last year, bucking a global trends towards abolition of the death penalty, a report has said . China again was by far the world’s most prolific executioner in putting to death thousands, said Amnesty International in its report on the death penalty worldwide. Amnesty does not provide a precise figure of executions in China as Beijing keeps such figures secret. Instead, it has challenged the Chinese authorities to publish figures for the number of people sentenced to death and executed each year to confirm claims of a reduction in the use of the death penalty. China, however, last year did move to cut down the number of offences that carry the death penalty, which applies to no less than 68 crimes. If the changes go through, the death penalty would be removed for such crimes as tax fraud, and for smuggling valuables and cultural relics. Amendments to the criminal code may also remove it as a punishment for those over 75. In all, the changes would affect 13 death penalty offences. Setting China aside, Amnesty said at least 527 executions were carried out last year. Almost half of those took place in Iran (252). North Korea executed 60, Yemen 53 and the US 46. The minimum number of executions was down from at least 714 in 2009. Methods of execution included beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and various kinds of shooting (by firing squad, and at close range to the heart or the head). No stonings were recorded in 2010, but stoning sentences were reported in Nigeria, Pakistan and Iran, where at least 10 women and four men remain under stoning sentences . At least 2,024 new death sentences were imposed during 2010 in 67 countries, including 365 in Pakistan alone, meaning it has some 8,000 people currently on death row. Amnesty expressed particular alarm that a significant proportion of executions or death sentences recorded in 2010 were for drug-related offences. They accounted for more than half of 114 sentences in Malaysia. Meanwhile, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates ignored international prohibitions and imposed death sentences on child offenders -people aged 17 or less when alleged crimes were committed, with Iran executing one such offender named as Mohammad A. The underlying trend on the death penalty, however, is strongly toward abolition, Amnesty said, with 31 countries removing the punishment in law or in practice in the last 10 years. Last year, Gabon became the 139th country to either abolish the penalty outright or to cease to use it in practice. “In spite of some setbacks, developments in 2010 brought us closer to global abolition,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty’s secretary general. “The President of Mongolia announced a moratorium on the death penalty, an important first step as capital punishment is still classified as state secret. For the third time and with more support than ever before, the UN general assembly called for a global moratorium on executions. Any country that continues to execute is flying in the face of the fact that both human rights law and UN human rights bodies consistently hold that abolition should be the objective.” Capital punishment Amnesty International Human rights United States China Yemen North Korea Iran Mark Tran guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …As the bloody stain of drug violence seeps into Mexico’s border towns and resort areas alike, Mexicans are taking refuge in a place that would have been unthinkable even five short years ago: Mexico City. The capital city, long known as a place where cops could be bought and petty…
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Apparently, broadcasting programmes through the night costs the BBC £150m a year. So, in order to meet its target of 20% cuts, director general Mark Thompson has warned that the corporation could be forced to take a major channel off air overnight. And this is supposed to put the wind up us? Whenever anyone mentions cuts, either to the arts or public services, well-meaning folks feel obliged to groan and wail and gnash. But this sounds like a brilliant idea to me, quite apart from the money-saving aspect. I mean, why not turn telly off overnight? Closedown is, or was, one of those old-fashioned, late-night rituals that wormed its way into our culture, like listening to the shipping forecast. The test card was another, with its sinister grinning clown and that nice girl stuck in a geometric no-place, condemned to play – or not play – noughts and crosses for ever. Such things, when they go, are rightly missed. One of the important things about telly was that sometimes it stopped. We can feel nostalgia for the sour-sweet satisfactions of the cathode ray tube whining down to a faint white dot, then a spectral after-image, before vanishing altogether. But, in the plasma age, we can’t really hope to get that back. Those hours of dead air afterwards, on the other hand – that’s something we can all still aspire to. There used to be a mysterious and melancholy atmosphere to late-night TV: a sense that you had stumbled into a world that ordinary people weren’t really meant to see. All those Open University professors, for instance, with wide brown ties and spectacles made of Bakelite. But the key thing was you didn’t expect it to be on. It felt – well, not transgressive exactly, but different in character than, say, the 6pm-10pm slots. Now that everything is on 24 hours a day (and by “everything” I mean CSI: Miami and Late Night Poker), the magic has gone. Who’s watching that telly anyway? Twentysomethings rattling with drugs, thirtysomethings slumped in alcoholic stupors, fortysomething insomniacs with eyes like stab wounds, and elderly people who are, well, just sort of afraid to fall asleep. Not the most attentive of audiences. For most people, watching telly at 4am is what you might call “passive television watching”. It is the TV-watching you do when you have tipped over the point at which going to bed is, in defiance of all the laws of common sense, actually more of an effort than watching another half-hour of telly. Again, most people would only be watching TV at that time of night if sticking something on Sky+ or iPlayer was too much of a pain. By that stage you are, effectively, one of the living dead. By that stage, the telly is watching you. The point has been made to me that, were closedown to be reinstated, the major losers would be the deaf, since much of the wee small hours are dedicated to the Sign Zone, where programmes are rescreened with signing accompaniment. Fair point. But I don’t think it’s an insuperable objection. Among other things, why should the deaf have to lose sleep? The
Continue reading …Islamic militants seized control of a weapons factory, a strategic mountain, and a nearby town in the southern Yemen province of Abyan today, as a political stalemate over the fate of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the capital causes security to unravel around the country. Saleh’s fate is of deep…
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Workers once came from all over the world to work in Lumb Lane. Now the defunct Bradford mill is being used to stage their stories Lumb Lane was, for a long time, Bradford’s most notorious address. Once the main kerb-crawling route through the city’s red light district, the road was synonymous with race riots, sex workers and serial killers. It was here that Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, committed his first murders. But today Lumb Lane is a peaceful, if slightly down-at-heel strip of mosques, mini-cab firms and grocery stores run by eastern Europeans. Yet there are signs of life stirring in what was once the industrial heart of the area: the seven-acre James Drummond and Sons complex. Known locally as Lumb Lane mill, Drummonds opened in 1886 and soon became a yarn-producing powerhouse, providing employment for the entire region. The mill staggered on through the postwar period, mostly employing immigrants from Ireland, eastern Europe, Ukraine and Pakistan. But the gates finally closed in 2001, and they remained that way until a group of theatre-makers came along. The Mill: City of Dreams is the fruit of their labours, an ambitious promenade event that will lead audiences through Drummonds’ dark, abandoned spaces, discovering intimate, dramatic reconstructions of the lives of former workers. The script, which has been boiled down from hundreds of hours of interviews with residents and ex-mill-workers, is the brainchild of writer and director Madani Younis, of Bradford’s Freedom Studios company, with guidance from Jonathan Holmes, a specialist in whopping site-specific events. In 2007, Holmes staged his play Fallujah, about the siege of the Iraqi city, in an old London brewery; two years later, his play Katrina recreated the aftermath of the hurricane in a five-storey warehouse on the South Bank. The audience has an active part to play in The Mill: you enter via a smart sales suite, where a team of developers attempt to sell you a vision of the mill regenerated into luxury apartments. Yet instead of show flats, you find haunting vignettes of the mill’s former life, played by a cast of professional actors augmented by a large chorus of local volunteers. Yet Drummonds is so vast that simply walking through the abandoned space is a drama in itself. Stripped of machinery, the weaving shed is a rust-stained expanse the size of a football pitch, its long corridors lined with offices and cubby holes. The architectural climax, though, is on the top floor: a barrel-shaped glasshouse lined with curving wooden struts. It’s like standing in the ribcage of a giant whale. “This was the wool-sorting floor,” says Younis. “It still stank of lanolin when we first came in.” The workshop was freezing in winter and a furnace in summer, but sorting wool fibres had to be done in daylight. Younis became intrigued by the fate of Bradford’s redundant mills when he first moved to the area and discovered that the majority were either abandoned or being used as social centres and snooker halls. “The
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They are accompanied by up to 30 burly Secret Service agents and the other diners are scanned for concealed weapons. But what about our PM? What happens when the president of the United States fancies going out for a meal? He brings a lot more burly men in black suits than our prime minister. According to the Washington Post, when the first family visit a restaurant, they eat quietly, say hello to the chef and leave a “nice, but not crazy, tip”. It’s the Secret Service who really go
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