Here’s a welcome bit of budget news for President Obama: He and the DNC raked in $86 million in the last three months for the 2012 election campaign, reports Politico . Of that, Obama’s campaign took in $47 million, while some $38 million headed to the DNC’s war chest. The total,…
Continue reading …Libyan rebels have committed a host of human rights abuses in four towns they’ve captured, including beating suspected Gadhafi loyalists, burning their homes, and looting businesses and at least two medical centers, Human Rights Watch said today. These reprisals have driven people from their homes, leaving three of the towns…
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Cairo’s Tahrir Square again becomes scene of fury as demonstrators accuse army chiefs of betraying the revolution Egypt’s first democratic parliamentary elections look set to be postponed until November, amid a growing standoff between the ruling military council and protesters who believe their revolution is being betrayed. The vote was initially scheduled to take place in September, causing concern among many nascent political parties who claim they have not had enough time to prepare since the fall of the former president Hosni Mubarak in February, which ended more than half a century of one-party rule. Many activists argue that an early poll would only benefit those forces which already boast a strong organisational capacity – namely the Muslim Brotherhood and local remnants of Mubarak’s NDP party – and some have called for a new constitution to be written before any parliamentary ballot takes place. This week, against a backdrop of nationwide protests against its handling of the post-Mubarak transition period, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) acknowledged for the first time that a delay in elections might be necessary. “Procedures for a parliamentary election will begin in September, possibly the middle of the month. That will involve registration of candidates,” an army source told Reuters. “Then there will be a campaigning period … This could take the voting till after September, possibly November.” The military’s policy shift on the issue of election scheduling came as a public occupation of Cairo’s Tahrir Square entered its sixth day and other protests continued to erupt across the country. On Wednesday, the Mogamma building, Egypt’s administrative nerve centre, finally reopened after having been shut for days due to the ongoing sit-in. However roads around Tahrir are still closed off and under the control of protesters, while security forces remain nowhere to be seen. On Tuesday, SCAF offered its first formal response to the recent grassroots challenge to its legitimacy, through a televised statement by the council’s spokesman General Mohsen el-Fangari. The statement – which adopted a paternalistic tone and threatened “anyone seeking to disrupt public order” – was met with furious jeers from protesters in several cities. In scenes reminiscent of Mubarak’s final days when the dictator made a series of poorly-received public speeches in an effort to cling on to power, many demonstrators expressed their deliberate disrespect to el-Fangari by holding aloft their shoes during the address. Soon after the statement ended thousands of demonstrators surged out of Tahrir and towards the nearby parliament building and cabinet office, which are being guarded by the military, to express their dissatisfaction with SCAF and the country’s de facto leader, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. Chants of “the people want the downfall of the Marshal” and “we’re not leaving, he is leaving” rang through the streets, but violence was avoided. “The situation is very, very tense,” Mamdouh Hamza, a civil engineer and prominent dissident, told the Guardian. “The military council is angry, but the Egyptian people are twice as angry. SCAF have to have a change of policy, they simply cannot carry on in this way.” In common with many protesters, Hamza identified the glacial pace of trials for those accused of corruption and unlawful killing as the key source of current discontent on the ground. He also condemned the interim government for dragging its heels on compensation for those left dead or wounded in this year’s anti-Mubarak uprising, and said the current authorities were “completely ineffective” when it came to implementing revolutionary demands. In a later press conference, SCAF appeared to adopt a more conciliatory position, insisting that the military had no plans to use violence against “law-abiding” citizens and claiming that suggestions to the contrary “hurt the feelings of the armed forces, which took the side of the people from the very beginning.” But the council also claimed that “all options were open” in dealing with those obstructing the normal functioning of the state. The military also announced it had accepted the resignation of deputy prime minister Yehia el-Gamal, one of several cabinet members that protesters have campaigned against due to their links with the Mubarak regime. Hamza – who some revolutionaries have nominated as a potential interim prime minister – said that despite the limited concessions, SCAF remains badly out of step with public opinion. But, in contrast to many protesters, he also insisted that forcing the military out of the political process altogether is not the answer. “If every married man divorced his wife as soon as they had an argument, we’d have no families left,” he argued. “We have to get SCAF and Tantawi acting in unison with our demands, but calling for them to go completely means calling for the destruction of the state. We have to hold on to the system we have – our army, our police, our judges – and we have to make it correct, not destroy it.” Egypt Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Protest Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk
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Thousands of engineers and labourers have been lured by higher wages and a sense of duty The sun has only just risen in Iwaki-Yumoto when groups of men in white T-shirts and light blue cargo pants emerge blinking into the sunlight, swapping the comfort of their air-conditioned rooms for the fierce humidity of a Japanese summer. Four months on from the start of the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, this hot-spring resort in north-east Japan has been transformed into a dormitory for 2,000 men who have travelled from across the country to take part in the clean-up effort 30 miles away at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Iwaki-Yumoto has come to resemble corporate Japan in microcosm. Among its newest residents are technicians and engineers with years of experience and, underpinning them all, hundreds of labourers lured from across Japan by the prospect of higher wages. They include Ariyoshi Rune, a tall, wiry 47-year-old truck driver whose slicked-back hair and sideburns are inspired by his idol, Joe Strummer. For five days a week, Rune is in thrall to the drudgery of life as a “nuclear gypsy”, the name writer Kunio Horie gave to contract workers who have traditionally performed the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs for Japan’s power utilities. The industry has relied on temporary workers for maintenance and repair work since the nuclear plant construction boom in the 1970s. Now, as then, those from the lowest rungs of Japanese society work for meagre wages, with little training or experience of hazardous environments. “I’ve never thought working at the plant was dangerous,” Rune tells the Guardian after a day’s work, for which he receives 12,000 yen (£95). “And I think my wage is fair for the kind of work I do. It’s more than I used to get driving a truck.” He arrived at Fukushima in early June after seeing an advertisement for labourers in a magazine. His 73-year-old mother knows her son is working in the area, but she has no idea he spends half of every day at the site of Japan’s worst-ever nuclear accident. Rune, who is divorced, generally gets two days off a week, when he travels to nearby Ibaraki prefecture to see his sons. “When I told them about my work the first thing they said was, ‘Please don’t get irradiated.’ They worry, but they also think that what I’m doing is kind of cool.” He says he has been exposed to five millisieverts (mSv) in little over a month – more than double the worldwide average background dose of 2.4mSv a year. While Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) engineers working inside reactor buildings are allowed an annual radiation dose of up to 250mSv, Rune’s firm has imposed a cut-off point of 30mSv for staff and 15mSv for casual labourers. “I have about two months left before I reach my limit, but I’m hoping they will make an exception and let me work for longer,” he says. The next morning, at 5.45am, the bus is already waiting when Rune emerges from his hotel, where he shares a room with five other workers. Before them lies a 45-minute journey to J-Village, a football training complex, where they will be briefed on their duties for the day before changing into radiation suits, masks and goggles, protective gloves and glass-encased monitors which they must carry with them at all times on site. At 8am they begin the first of two 90-minute shifts at Fukushima Daiichi, separated by a break of similar length. Radiation exposure and heat bring their working day to an end by early afternoon. Rune gave the Guardian a rare insight
Continue reading …The same antiretroviral drugs that treat HIV and AIDS can also be used to cut down the risk of contracting HIV in the first place, two new studies show. The dramatic results are just the latest evidence that AIDS drugs can be effective at prevention as well as treatment. While…
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Bishop John Magee singled out for misleading authorities about attacks on children and not reporting cases to police A devastating report into clerical child abuse in an Irish Catholic diocese has accused the Vatican of being “entirely unhelpful” in dealing with allegations of sexual exploitation. It also singled out an Irish bishop who was the close confidant of three popes for deliberately misleading authorities in the republic about the church’s internal inquiries into children’s claims that priests were abusing them. The investigation into the diocese of Cloyne, which includes Co Cork, said Bishop John Magee had little interest in the way child sex abuse cases were handled until 2008, when the scandal had become international news. Magee was an extremely powerful figure not only in the Irish church but also in Rome, where he had been a private secretary to three popes, including John Paul I and John Paul II. Magee was the first Vatican official on the scene when John Paul I was found dead in his quarters. The Commission of Investigation report also said Rome’s decision to brand a document on child sexual abuse as unofficial allowed individual bishops “the freedom to ignore” strict guidelines on protecting children. The authors of the report said the Vatican’s actions “can only be described as unsupportive in relation to the civil authorities” – the Garda Síochána and child protection agencies. The 431-page report, launched by the ministers for justice and children, examined allegations made against 19 priests in the diocese between 1996 and 2000. These claims of abuse were among the most up-to-date against clergy. The report follows other damning reports in other dioceses that found a culture of cover-up and denial in the church hierarchy. In stinging criticism of Magee, who resigned in March 2010, the report concluded: “It is a remarkable fact that Bishop Magee took little or no active interest in the management of clerical child sexual abuse cases until 2008, 12 years after the framework document was adopted. “It became clear during the course of this investigation that Bishop Magee had, to a certain extent, detached himself from the day to day management of child sexual abuse cases. Bishop Magee was the head of the diocese and cannot avoid his responsibility by blaming subordinates who he wholly failed to supervise.” The inquiry, led by judge Yvonne Murphy, said the fact that some child sexual abuse allegations were not reported to police was the diocese’s “greatest failure”. There were 15 cases between 1996 and 2005 which “very clearly” should have been reported. Yet police were not told about nine cases. “The most serious lapse was the failure to report the two cases in which the alleged victims were minors. “Given the diocese’s knowledge of clerical sexual abuse and its effects on complainants it was wrong of the diocese not to put in place a proper support system for complainant.” Andrew Madden, a victim of sexual abuse while an altar boy in the Dublin archdiocese, said the report proved that, “with occasional exceptions, Catholic bishops cannot be trusted with allegations of child sexual abuse.” The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre described the Cloyne report as a “terrible indictment” of the way the church handled the allegations. Ellen O’Malley Dunlop, of the centre, said: “Here is another report which makes for unbelievable reading in relation to how the Catholic church dealt with allegations of child sexual abuse … in the diocese of Cloyne. “There is no excuse of being on a ‘learning curve’ this time. The church’s own child protection guidelines were in place from 1996, yet the report tells us time and time again that the implementation of the policies and procedures was inadequate and inappropriate. It was not until 2008 that the diocese began to follow proper procedures. “The publication of this report will again reopen the wounds of the victims involved and other victims around the country who had similar experiences. It may also trigger people’s memories for the first time.” Catholicism Vatican Ireland Religion Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Japanese volunteers knows as the skilled veterans corps offer to replace younger workers in operation to stabilise nuclear plant So far, about 9,000 workers have been involved in the four-month operation to stabilise the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where three of six reactors experienced meltdown in the aftermath of the 11 March tsunami. If Yasuteru Yamada gets his way, the Fukushima workforce of the future will include a band of fearless pensioners calling themselves the skilled veterans corps . This month the retired engineer for Sumitomo Metal Industries, one of the world’s top steel manufacturers, is expected to visit the plant with four colleagues to carry out preliminary inspections. They propose to help design a replacement for the destroyed reactor cooling system. The 72-year-old graduate of Tokyo University will survey the damage and, pending final approval from the government and Tepco, the plant operator, call on hundreds of registered volunteers, all over 60, with expertise in a range of disciplines. In April, he and two former colleagues reached out to 2,500 potential volunteers by phone and email. Before long their plea had been repeated on Twitter and via blogs, and for days Yamada’s phone did not stop ringing. As of last week, 430 people had volunteered, according to the group’s website. Their average age is in the late 60s. The oldest is 82. The government and Tepco have cautiously welcomed the plan with caution – they have yet to approve the hiring of hundreds of eager pensioners while conditions at the plant remain hazardous. Goshi Hosono, a special adviser to the prime minister, initially likened Yamada’s offer to a “suicide mission” and suggested his and his corps’s services would not be required. But Hosono has since made more enthusiastic noises. “People who are willing to sacrifice their daily lives to help the nation resolve these problems are invaluable,” he told reporters. “First we will have to check on their health status, as people at an advanced age working in that kind of environment could fall ill.” Yamada, who helped build power plants as a Sumitomo Metal employee, insists that the skilled veterans corps should be allowed to replace younger plant workers who, over time, are more susceptible to developing cancer. Unlike the young engineers currently exposing themselves to high levels of radiation at Fukushima Daiichi, Yamada, a cancer survivor, reckons he has, at best, about 15 years left to live. “Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 or 30 years or longer to develop,” he told the BBC. “That means us
Continue reading …Google says it is testing Google+ with “a small number of people,” but one analyst trying to keep tabs says the social network’s population is exploding so fast he can barely keep up. Based on surname analysis, Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen says the social network probably passed 10 million…
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Paul Donnison tells court that his wife, Fiona, would refuse to let him see their children unless he did what she said The father of two toddlers allegedly killed by their mother has told a court how she increasingly used the children to control him. Paul Donnison, 48, spoke of his love for three-year-old Harry and two-year-old Elise Donnison as he gave evidence on the third day of their mother Fiona Donnison’s trial at Lewes crown court. The children’s bodies were found zipped up in two separate holdalls in the boot of her car near the former family home in Heathfield, East Sussex, on 27 January last year. Donnison, 45, denies two counts of murder. As he gave evidence, Paul Donnison did not look at his former partner as he told jurors he was left in “complete disbelief” when he returned home from work five months before the children’s deaths to find she had moved out without warning, taking them with her. He said he lived a “nightmare” during the ensuing months, as at first she would not tell him where Harry and Elise were, and then told him he could see them only on her terms. Paul Donnison said he and his former partner attempted reconciliations on several occasions but she would suddenly change her mind. If he arrived at the house she had rented in Lightwater, Surrey, any later than arranged she would not let him in and would often cancel without explanation, he said. “It was blowing hot and cold,” he said. “If I did what I was told, things were fine; if I didn’t, I was told I wouldn’t see the children, and so on and so forth. As long as she had control of the children, she had control of me.” He admitted he had begun seeing an old school friend, Alison Shimmens, but said their friendship was strictly platonic until he knew his relationship with Fiona Donnison was definitely over. The court heard that one evening when he was visiting Shimmens at her home in Woking, Surrey, Fiona Donnison turned up without warning and demanded he went to her house. She then told him she had made a big mistake and wanted him back. “She was controlling things and I had reached the point where you can’t keep being manipulated and moved around and told what to do,” Paul Donnison said. “I felt like Fiona was playing a game with me. If I didn’t do what she said or if she didn’t have control of me, the children were the key.” But he said that for the sake of being able to see his children he again tried to make things work, even though from day to day “it was extremely difficult to know which person you would be talking to”. On New Year’s Eve he briefly left the house in the early evening and when he returned, Donnison would not let him in the house, despite freezing cold weather. Asked by prosecutor Christine Laing QC about his reaction to the fact that Fiona Donnison’s new home in Lightwater, an area she had no previous links with, was 100 yards from the house his ex-wife lived in with her new husband, he said: “I was absolutely stunned. “I was stunned that Fiona moved there, but bearing in mind it made Fiona the focus of attention. It clearly disturbed me and I know it disturbed my ex-wife.” He said that from the start of their relationship 10 years ago, “I was always aware that she was very manipulative”. He added: “When she wanted to she could be wonderful.” She was a “great hostess” and a “wonderful cook”, he said. Sometimes she could be provocative, antagonistic and confrontational, he said. “She basically wanted the best of everything at all times and almost from the start the house wasn’t good enough, my income wasn’t good enough, the holidays we had weren’t good enough.” She referred to herself as MBW – or main breadwinner – he added. He said Fiona Donnison lived beyond her means and despite having a well-paid job in the City, told him she had amassed debts of up to £50,000 when they decided to move in together. The trial continues. Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
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Paul Lawrie, the 1999 Open Champion, assesses the challenge of each hole at the revamped Sandwich course Paddy Allen Lawrence Donegan
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