For Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan, an indelible image of Elizabeth Taylor comes early in her career in A Place in the Sun , filmed when she was just 17. “The actress’ face in huge close-up is so exquisitely, so heartbreakingly beautiful you never doubt that (Montgomery) Clift’s intoxicated…
Continue reading …The FDA’s final decision on publishing movie theater calorie counts is looming, and theater owners are fighting tooth and nail. Final rules could come from regulators today, forcing theaters to disclose exactly how many calories are in those huge buckets of popcorn, oversized pretzels, and other prepared foods, just like…
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• Fans to get chance to try new-style seating used in Germany • ‘We are not talking about bringing back old-style terraces’ The Football Supporters’ Federation plans to tour the country with an example of the “rail seating” widely used in German grounds in a bid to gain support for its campaign to reintroduce standing at top-level English matches. The Guardian revealed that the sports minister, Hugh Robertson , has agreed to consider reintroducing standing areas , which have been banned in the top two divisions since 1994, if the football authorities and police form a consensus in support. The FSF is determined to demonstrate the difference between modern standing accommodation and the old-style English football terraces in grounds at the time of the Hillsborough disaster. John Darch, an FSF member, is working with the UK manufacturer Ferco Seating Systems, a partner to Germany company Eheim-Möbel, which has built rail seating in Hoffenheim’s new stadium and the refurbished Stuttgart stadium. “We have to help people understand we are not talking about bringing back old-style terraces,” Darch said. “I will be inviting supporters at all clubs around the country to contact me asking me to visit with the mock-up. Then fans themselves, the chairmen and chief executives of clubs, safety officers and politicians can see we are talking about modern supporter accommodation, which fans and clubs enjoy, and which is passed as safe by the Bundesliga.” Most clubs in the Bundesliga, which has the highest crowds and is the world’s most profitable league, incorporate standing areas, including at newly-built or refurbished grounds. The German Football Federation decided in 1993 against introducing all-seat stadiums, as has been required here by law since the 1990 Taylor report following Hillsborough. The federation explained its reasoning by saying it is a “social function” of football to keep ticket prices affordable, thereby not excluding the “socially disadvantaged” from attending matches. Prices in Germany for standing areas, at around €12-14 (£10.50-£12.20), are around a quarter of standard prices for seats at top Premier League clubs. The German stadiums’ standing areas, some of them very large, some smaller, are made up of rail seating, called “vario” seats in Germany. Rails are spaced closely together, allowing just one or two rows of supporters in between. The Bundesliga and safety authorities which approve standing areas take the view that the closeness of the barriers makes a crush almost impossible. Fans’ tickets allocate a row and position, which the FSF argues should meet one of the police’s main concerns, that in standing areas, it is more difficult to identify people causing trouble. The rails have flip-up seats which are locked upright for Bundesliga matches at which fans stand, then brought down for Champions League matches at which fans sit. Uefa and Fifa both require stadiums used for their competitions to be all-seater, so the rail seating enables Bundesliga grounds to meet that requirement. Ferco Seating Systems’ managing director, Michael Burnett, said his company built and supplied the 60,000 seats for Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, and is making the seats for the London 2012 Olympics aquatic centre. “We would not be proposing the introduction of the vario seat for standing areas if we did not believe it is very safe indeed,” he said. “Germany has very stringent safety legislation and specifications, and the vario seat fulfils all of those. I would go further, and say it would be much safer here to have this accommodation designed specifically for modern safe standing, than to have supporters standing, as they currently do, in seated areas, where there is only a low seat in front of them to break a fall.” Research recently carried out for the Premier League by consultants Crowd Dynamics found that persistent standing in seating areas, which is becoming more common at top clubs, presents a significant safety risk. According to the Football Licensing Authority, fans standing up in seated areas could result in “progressive crowd collapse” – a crush. However, repeated efforts by clubs to ask fans to keep to their seats are failing, and fans are continuing to stand. Andy Holt, a spokesman on football policing for the Association of Chief Police Officers, acknowledged to the Guardian that standing areas can be safe. He said the police reluctance to see standing areas return to the top two divisions is more a question of crowd control, and policing disorder, than safety in terms of Hillsborough-style crushes. Holt said, however, that it would be “rewarding football supporters for breaking the rules” if safe standing areas were to be reintroduced at English grounds in response to fans standing now in seated areas. Bundesliga European football David Conn guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Sometimes it’s important for a critic to drop the criticism and offer some praise. In the New York Times , Mark Bittman presents a taste of good news in the food world: Backers of better food policy are gaining real traction: The reauthorized Child Nutrition Act will improve school lunches, while…
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Some were killed when security forces opened fire on protesters surrounding the Omari mosque; others were shot at a funeral Violence escalated in the southern Syrian city of Deraa as protests entered a sixth day. At least 15 protesters are known to have been shot dead on Wednesday and scores more injured. In a sign that the Syrian regime is using a brutal crackdown rather than concessions to quell protests, security forces opened fire on people in three separate incidents, according to human rights activists. At 1am on Wednesday morning, at least six people were killed when security forces opened fire on protesters surrounding the Omari mosque, after cutting electricity and communications to the site that has become the focus of demonstrations. During the day, several were reported shot as they attended funerals of victims of the mosque shooting. Syrian security forces later opened fire on scores of young people from surrounding towns as they marched towards Deraa, offering support to the protests, activists said. “The government promised it would consider its citizen’s demands, and then it decided to attack them,” said Mohammed al-Abdullah, a prominent activist in exile in the US who is in close contact with the Deraa protesters. “These were fully prepared and full-scale attacks.” According to human rights organisations, the government has also rounded up scores of demonstrators, activists and journalists. Yesterday, Mazen Darwish, the head of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression , which was officially closed down by the authorities in 2009, was arrested. Darwish, who has been commenting on the protests in the media, was briefly detained after a protest on Wednesday last week calling for the release of political prisoners. Amnesty International said it knows of 93 people who were arrested between 8 and 23 March who remain detained in unknown locations. It said the real number of arrests was likely to be “considerably higher”. France, which has led efforts in the past four years to bring Damascus back into the international fold, became the latest in a string of governments and organisations to condemn the violence. It called for political reforms “without delay”. But observers said the window for negotiations and reforms is quickly closing. Leaders in Deraa had issued a range of demands to the government, including the release of political prisoners from the area, the freedom to buy and sell property without permission of local security forces and the dismissal of the governor of Deraa. So far, only the last demand has been met. “By using such disproportionate violence against its own citizens, neither the government nor the people can be expected to negotiate,” said Abdullah, adding that without talks there was no clear solution to the violence. “I am scared because I don’t know how this will end. I fear escalating anger will lead to an evermore brutal crackdown.” Syria’s government has continued to blame the violence on outside perpetrators. it called the shootings at the Omari mosque the work of “armed gangs”. Activists dispute the claims. Despite protesters not yet calling for President Bashar al-Assad to step down, the unrest is the biggest domestic challenge to the regime since the 1970s. There are calls for a mass protests tomorrow in solidarity with the Deraa activists. • Katherine Marsh is a pseudonym for a journalist who lives in Damascus Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East guardian.co.uk
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Jeremy Morlock, 23, tells US military court he was part of a ‘kill team’ that faked combat situations to murder Afghan civilians An American soldier has pleaded guilty to being part of a “kill team” who deliberately murdered Afghan civilians for sport last year. Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 23, told a military court he had helped to kill three unarmed Afghans. “The plan was to kill people, sir,” he told an army judge in Fort Lea, near Seattle, after his plea. The case has caused outraged headlines around the world. In a series of videotaped confessions to investigators, some of which have been broadcast on American television, Morlock detailed how he and other members of his Stryker brigade set up and faked combat situations so that they could kill civilians who posed no threat to them. Four other soldiers are still to come to trial over the incidents. The case is a PR disaster for America’s military and has been compared to the notorious incidents of torture that emerged from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. This week the German magazine Der Spiegel published three pictures that showed American soldiers, including Morlock, posing with the corpse of a young Afghan boy as if it were a hunting trophy. Some soldiers apparently kept body parts of their victims, including a skull, as souvenirs. In a statement issued in response to the publication of the photos the US army apologised to the families of the dead. “[The photos are] repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States army,” the statement said. Morlock has told investigators that the murders took place between January and May last year and were instigated by an officer in his unit, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs. He described how elaborate plans were made to pick out civilian targets, kill them and then make their deaths look like they were insurgents. In his confession Morlock described shooting a victim as Gibbs tossed a grenade at him. “We identify a guy. Gibbs makes a comment, like, you know, you guys wanna wax this guy or not,” Morlock said in the confession. Morlock now stands to be sentenced to at least 24 years in jail but with eligibility for parole after seven years. That has come about because Morlock struck a plea bargain that will see a lighter sentence in return for testifying against his fellow soldiers. US military United States Afghanistan Paul Harris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Detroit’s staggering population loss over the last decade— some 237,500 people —has city politicians predictably calling for a census recount, but two opinion pieces think it’s a waste of time. Better to focus on the new, smaller Detroit: Detroit Free Press editorial: “The important thing now is for everyone…
Continue reading …The anthrax attacks that so spooked the country in 2001 “could have been anticipated—and prevented” had the Army paid enough attention to alleged perpetrator Bruce Ivins, a panel of behavioral analysts has concluded. In a new report obtained by the LA Times , analysts found that Ivins had an alarming…
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A reality TV collaboration between the action star and Arizona sheriff would be hilarious – if real law and order was not involved There are some news events that are simply beyond parody – when a current trend loses the plot so badly that you can do nothing but gasp in stunned amazement. But the invasion of ever more extreme reality television shows into modern American culture should be immune to this phenomenon. After all, this is a medium defined by demented Z-list wannabes trapped in an arms race of outrageousness designed to grab their 15 minutes of fame. In a post-Jersey Shore world surely nothing could emerge from reality TV that could actually shock? Well, not until now. This week, a bizarre incident unfolded in Phoenix , Arizona, involving 115 roosters, an out-of-control sheriff, several tanks, a Swat team, a suspected cockfighter, a bomb robot and – like a muscular, suntanned cherry on top of the whole pile – faded action star Steven Seagal. The setup was simple enough. Police suspected local man Jesus Sanchez Llovera, 43, of running an illegal cockfighting ring (the huge flock of roosters on his property no doubt being the clinching clue). So they decided to arrest him. While he was at home. Alone. Unarmed. With no police record of owning any weapons. Still, that should have been simple enough. A lone squad car, maybe two, could have done it. But things are rarely that simple with the sheriff of Maricopa County: the notoriously headline hungry figure of Joe Arpaio . For Arpaio’s department is working with Seagal, who is shooting a reality TV show and has signed up as a police volunteer. The show is called Lawman . So, instead of pulling up outside Llovera’s house and knocking on his door, Arpaio assembled a mini-army of police deputies, two armoured vehicles, a fully-armed Swat team and the bomb robot. They descended on Llovera’s house and smashed his windows, knocked down his gate with one of the tanks and arrested him. Seagal, dressed in combat fatigues and sunglasses and sporting a gun on his hip, was riding in one of the police tanks. Seagal’s film crew taped the whole thing. No doubt, after heavy editing, it will make for a few dramatic moments of television. The reasons to be stunned and shocked at this barely need describing and should appall anyone of any political background (which would be a rare thing in as polarised a state as Arizona). First off is the cost: across America, cities are slashing policing to the bone to cope with severe budget cuts. Yet, in Arizona, the needs of an ageing action star’s reality show resulted in a raid that some lawyers estimate would have cost thousands of dollars. Second, it has emerged that Seagal has a contract with the sheriff’s department that allows him free reign to go along on any arrests the sheriff makes. In a country notoriously – and often admirably – obsessed with individual freedoms and constitutional rights, why has so much privilege in the realm of law and order been granted to a reality TV star? Finally, there is the horrific blending of policing and entertainment that this incident represents. The two should be kept utterly apart. Here, they are not only mixed, but it appears that reality TV has the upper hand, calling the shots. Arpaio, for his part, denies staging the whole thing for Seagal and his show. What about Seagal’s thoughts? In his low, grumbling monotone, he explained to one local TV reporter the reasoning for his presence on the raid. “Animal cruelty is one of my pet peeves,” he said. That’s nice. But keeping idiotic reality TV shows away from the operation of a police force and the administration of justice is one of mine. Reality TV Arizona Animal welfare United States US television Paul Harris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The hunt for Anwar al-Awlaki has hit a roadblock: The chances of capturing the Yemeni-American radical have grown slimmer as the unrest in Yemen escalates, reports the Washington Post . Just a few months ago, it was easy to spot Awlaki, who walked freely around a southeastern town, his uncle tells…
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