• Military action against Libya to continue into third night • Disputes over whether Gaddafi is a legitimate target • Four New York Times journalists freed • Read our latest summary of events • Read our latest Libya news story 6.50pm: Another picture has emerged of the New York Times journalists, including a Briton, who were freed earlier today. It shows them taking cover in a construction pipe near Ben Jawat, Libya, on 6 March before they were captured. Another Briton is among four al-Jazeera journalists who are still being held in Libya. The prime minister, David Cameron, praised the work of journalists in Libya in the House of Commons this afternoon. 6.42pm: Our political editor, Patrick Wintour, has more on the apparent differences between the British military leadership and their political masters over the legality of taking out Gaddafi. He says Downing Street has appeared to side with the defence secretary Liam Fox against the chief of the defence staff Sir David Richards, by saying the removal of Gaddafi through military targeting is lawful under the UN security council resolution, if Gaddafi is threatening civilian lives. Earlier Richards had said Gaddafi “is absolutely not a target”. But Patrick points out that the Downing Street spokesman has taken a different line. The PM’s spokesman said: “The security council resolution provides for a wide range of action – all necessary measures – but that action must be in the pursuit of the objectives that are set out, and obviously we will act according to that security council resolution and any action we take and any targets will be legitimate targets. One of the objectives of the resolution is the protection of civilians”. He stressed the resolution did not give legal authority to bring about Gaddafi’s removal of power by military means. The stated objective is a no-fly zone and protection of civilians. He added: “Our targets will be chosen to meet those objectives – prevent attacks on civilians and achieve a no-fly zone – but we will not be giving a running commentary on those targets.” The dispute over the interpretation of the security council resolution goes beyond an argument inside the British government and has implications for the breadth of Arab and international support. The US defence secretary Robert Gates had said it is unwise to describe Gaddafi as a legitimate target, and many Arabs fear the west may be going beyond establishing a no-fly zone and is instead making regime change an objective of the current coalition military offensive, rather than a broad policy aspiration of the government. 6.30pm: Good evening and welcome to our continuing coverage of events in Libya. You can catch up with earlier coverage here . • The legality of targeting Gaddafi appears to be causing differences of opinion in Britain and the US. Downing Street has briefed that while removing the Libyan leaders is not an aim of the UN resolution, were it to be necessary to do so in order to fulfil the resolution’s aim of protecting civilians, it would be legal. But the US Army’s General Carter Ham said attacking the Libyan leader was not part of his mission and Britain’s General Sir David Richards, said Gaddafi was “absolutely not” a target and “it is not allowed under the UN resolution”. • The Commons debate on the situation in Libya is ongoing. David Cameron told MPs coalition forces have largely neutralised Libyan air defences. He said action had come “in the nick of time”. Cameron said that Britain thought Libya would be better off without Colonel Gaddafi, but that it was only intervening militarily to enforce the UN resolution and that the Libyans would have to decide Gaddafi’s fate. Andrew Sparrow’s full coverage of the debate continues here. • Military sources have told the Guardian that action will continue against the Libyan regime for a third night, as more details of earlier operations have been revealed. Last night the military coalition imposing the no-fly zone flew 70 to 80 sorties and fired 10 to 12 missiles. An RAF Tornado bombing run over Libya was aborted as civilians and journalists were identified within the target area – specifically a CNN journalist reporting live at the time. • Vladimir Putin has compared the UN resolution authorising military action in Libya to “medieval calls for crusades”. The Russian prime minister said: “The resolution is defective and flawed” … “It allows everything.” Russia abstained from voting on the resolution. • Four New York Times journalists being held in Libya have been freed. The paper said the Libyan authorities had released Anthony Shadid, Tyler Hicks, Lynsey Addario and Stephen Farrell. They have now left the country. Four al-Jazeera journalists, including a Briton, are still being held. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Military Muammar Gaddafi Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Former sumo wrestler Kelly Gneiting weighs 400 pounds, and he may have just set a Guinness world record in a different sport: the marathon. Gneiting completed the Los Angeles Marathon yesterday in nine hours, 48 minutes, and 52 seconds, the Los Angeles Times reports, almost exactly a two-hour improvement over…
Continue reading …Tanks and armored vehicles have been deployed in Yemen’s capital as support for the country’s president continues to erode : Three army commanders have defected to the opposition, the AP reports. The officers are members of the president’s tribe, which called for his resignation yesterday. Among them is a top general…
Continue reading …Reactions to the surprise AT&T-T-mobile merger are pouring in, and, not surprisingly, most conclude this isn’t a good thing for consumers: The Bell telephone system—”aka AT&T”—was broken up in 1984 to increase competition, and the US telecommunications market was deregulated in 1996, again to increase competition. But this…
Continue reading …The Big East is the Big Least so far in this year’s NCAA tournament, reports the New York Times . After a record-setting 11 Big East Conference teams qualified for the men’s basketball tournament, now only two remain. “The results obviously aren’t what we were hoping for,” said the league commissioner….
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Should it be run by writers? Take over the King’s? With director Dominic Hill heading for Glasgow, now is the time for the Traverse to get experimental once again The rumours were right. Dominic Hill, the most widely tipped candidate in the theatre bars of Scotland, has landed the job of artistic director of Glasgow’s Citizens theatre . He will move to Gorbals Street in October after directing Philip Massinger’s The City Madam at the RSC in May, and overseeing his final Edinburgh fringe season as artistic director of the Traverse in August. The first indication of his plans for the Citz comes in an interview with the Herald , in which he proposes to reinvent the theatre and put classical work on the main stage: “I want to draw on the history of the building,” he tells the newspaper, “and what that stage is brilliant at doing – theatre that is both epic and intimate, with a dynamic, almost rough quality to it that is both exciting to be part of and to see.” For the Citizens, it is an opportunity to reclaim the reputation it once had under the long-serving directorial triumvirate of Giles Havergal, Philip Prowse and the late Robert David MacDonald who, in the early 1970s, established the company as an outpost of exotic European style. It was a tough act to follow and Jeremy Raison, who stepped down as artistic director in October after seven years, cannot be blamed if he did not live up to it. Hill may fare better. His accolades at the critics’ awards for theatre in Scotland say it all. First at Dundee Rep then at the Traverse, he has picked up the best production award three times – for Scenes from an Execution (2004), Peer Gynt (2008) and The Dark Things (2010). In two of those years he was fending off competition from his own productions. Where, though, does that leave the Traverse, Scotland’s self-styled home of new writing? Hill’s departure has come round sooner than the Cambridge Street theatre would have liked, but he has made his mark both in the productions themselves (other highlights include Edward Albee’s The Goat and Chris Hannan’s The Three Musketeers and the Princess of Spain ) and in the general level of activity in the building. Having brought Manipulate , the adult puppetry festival, with him from Dundee, he introduced a cross-disciplinary autumn festival and supported a raft of music and script-reading nights, helping create more of a buzz at the venue, even if the famous bar is not the social fulcrum it once was. It would not be a disaster if his replacement simply offered more of the same. Directors who might want to consider the job and have strong new-writing credentials include John Tiffany, of the National Theatre of Scotland, Roxana Silbert, ex-Paines Plough and now with the RSC, and former Traverse associate director Lorne Campbell. But what more radical possibilities are there? What could happen to make the Traverse not merely good but essential? One option would be to remember the theatre’s core function and hand it over to the playwrights. That British theatres tend to be run by directors is not an inevitability. There was a time in the 1980s, for example, when the Liverpool Playhouse was run by Alan Bleasdale, Chris Bond, Bill Morrison and Willy Russell. And Alan Ayckbourn set a powerful precedent in Scarborough. Put in a call to the Scottish Society of Playwrights and a very different vision of how the theatre should be run might emerge. Or maybe it’s time for the Traverse to catch up with performance art again. The theatre’s origins lie in the experimental work of the 1960s, but today’s Edinburgh audiences have to venture to Glasgow, and venues such as the Arches and the Tramway, for their avant garde fix (although, to be fair, Glasgow audiences often have to venture to Edinburgh for a decent play). Third suggestion: what about exploiting the close proximity of the Traverse, the Royal Lyceum and the King’s (which, after all, is struggling to make ends meet ) and putting them all under a single heavy-hitting artistic management? A big-name international director might not be enticed by the Traverse on its own, but might relish the flexibility of working on four different-sized stages and developing a dynamic relationship between them. It’d be a big organisational shift, but perhaps it could change the list of candidates from the usual suspects to the truly inspirational. Theatre Mark Fisher guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Should it be run by writers? Take over the King’s? With director Dominic Hill heading for Glasgow, now is the time for the Traverse to get experimental once again The rumours were right. Dominic Hill, the most widely tipped candidate in the theatre bars of Scotland, has landed the job of artistic director of Glasgow’s Citizens theatre . He will move to Gorbals Street in October after directing Philip Massinger’s The City Madam at the RSC in May, and overseeing his final Edinburgh fringe season as artistic director of the Traverse in August. The first indication of his plans for the Citz comes in an interview with the Herald , in which he proposes to reinvent the theatre and put classical work on the main stage: “I want to draw on the history of the building,” he tells the newspaper, “and what that stage is brilliant at doing – theatre that is both epic and intimate, with a dynamic, almost rough quality to it that is both exciting to be part of and to see.” For the Citizens, it is an opportunity to reclaim the reputation it once had under the long-serving directorial triumvirate of Giles Havergal, Philip Prowse and the late Robert David MacDonald who, in the early 1970s, established the company as an outpost of exotic European style. It was a tough act to follow and Jeremy Raison, who stepped down as artistic director in October after seven years, cannot be blamed if he did not live up to it. Hill may fare better. His accolades at the critics’ awards for theatre in Scotland say it all. First at Dundee Rep then at the Traverse, he has picked up the best production award three times – for Scenes from an Execution (2004), Peer Gynt (2008) and The Dark Things (2010). In two of those years he was fending off competition from his own productions. Where, though, does that leave the Traverse, Scotland’s self-styled home of new writing? Hill’s departure has come round sooner than the Cambridge Street theatre would have liked, but he has made his mark both in the productions themselves (other highlights include Edward Albee’s The Goat and Chris Hannan’s The Three Musketeers and the Princess of Spain ) and in the general level of activity in the building. Having brought Manipulate , the adult puppetry festival, with him from Dundee, he introduced a cross-disciplinary autumn festival and supported a raft of music and script-reading nights, helping create more of a buzz at the venue, even if the famous bar is not the social fulcrum it once was. It would not be a disaster if his replacement simply offered more of the same. Directors who might want to consider the job and have strong new-writing credentials include John Tiffany, of the National Theatre of Scotland, Roxana Silbert, ex-Paines Plough and now with the RSC, and former Traverse associate director Lorne Campbell. But what more radical possibilities are there? What could happen to make the Traverse not merely good but essential? One option would be to remember the theatre’s core function and hand it over to the playwrights. That British theatres tend to be run by directors is not an inevitability. There was a time in the 1980s, for example, when the Liverpool Playhouse was run by Alan Bleasdale, Chris Bond, Bill Morrison and Willy Russell. And Alan Ayckbourn set a powerful precedent in Scarborough. Put in a call to the Scottish Society of Playwrights and a very different vision of how the theatre should be run might emerge. Or maybe it’s time for the Traverse to catch up with performance art again. The theatre’s origins lie in the experimental work of the 1960s, but today’s Edinburgh audiences have to venture to Glasgow, and venues such as the Arches and the Tramway, for their avant garde fix (although, to be fair, Glasgow audiences often have to venture to Edinburgh for a decent play). Third suggestion: what about exploiting the close proximity of the Traverse, the Royal Lyceum and the King’s (which, after all, is struggling to make ends meet ) and putting them all under a single heavy-hitting artistic management? A big-name international director might not be enticed by the Traverse on its own, but might relish the flexibility of working on four different-sized stages and developing a dynamic relationship between them. It’d be a big organisational shift, but perhaps it could change the list of candidates from the usual suspects to the truly inspirational. Theatre Mark Fisher guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Though they made millions in profits from Bernard Madoff’s phony investment scheme, owners of the Mets knew nothing about the fraud and aren’t about to turn over a dime of their money to fleeced investors, they’re arguing in court documents. Lawyers for Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz have filed a…
Continue reading …Why worry? Maybe we don’t even exist; we just think we do. Modern neuroscience is not just demolishing Descartes’ famous axiom, “I think, therefore I am,” it is also revolutionizing the way we think about ourselves and our existence, says Julian Baggini in the Independent. Scientists who explore the brain…
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