- Benefit informers could be given share of cash saved Proposals to encourage people to inform on benefit cheats are being examined by Labour's manifesto teamPeople who inform on benefit cheats could be given a share of the resulting savings to the state under proposals being examined by Labour's manifesto team.The idea has been put to Ed Miliband, Labour's manifesto co-ordinator, by Jim Murphy, the Scottish secretary, as a way of making life harder for benefit cheats.It has also been discussed by Downing Street as it looks at ways to bolster its Respect agenda, designed to persuade sceptics that the state is on the side of hard-working families.Although some will see the proposals as wildly impractical or socially divisive, others say they will encourage white, working-class voters to stay loyal to Labour.No 10 is said to be attracted to the idea as symbolic of a tough contract on fairness in which Labour offers support for those genuinely in need on the condition that they play by the rules.In Labour's successful byelection campaigns in Glenrothes and Glasgow North-East, Murphy was struck by how much Labour voters wanted to hear a message that emphasises "firm but fair rules".One Glasgow resident told Murphy he was fed up with going to work at eight in the morning knowing the man in the flat above was not – but would still be keeping him awake at two in the morning.Murphy believes there is a large constituency that would like to see the government reward those who give tipoffs about cheats, pointing out that the proposal is designed to end antisocial behaviour that increases the taxes other people pay.In Australia, billboards urge people to "dob" on their cheating mates, leading to an upsurge in tipoffs.The government already has benefit hotlines where suspected cheats can be shopped, but this is the first time a minister has suggested that anyone who reveals a benefit cheat might secure a proportion of the money recovered, or that there should be a financial incentive. Critics claim it would lead to malicious accusations and difficulties in deciding whether the person that revealed the cheat was responsible for a benefit cheat being caught.The government's free and confidential benefit hotline started gathering systematic information only in 2007-08. The lines are open 7am until 11pm, seven days a week.Last year, the Department for Work and Pensions claimed to have caught 56,493 benefit thieves.It claims more than 677 calls a day were made to the hotline and a further 476 benefit thieves reported online every day.Some critics have claimed that the hotlines reduced social cohesion and made innocent citizens the victims of deranged neighbours determined to cause misery.The DWP convicts around 6,000 benefit cheats each year. Figures for 2005-06 show benefit expenditure cost £116bn.Every £1bn of fraud and error is estimated to cost £35 for every taxpayer.The DWP claimed to have cut the cost of fraud, as opposed to error, from £2bn to £1bn a year, but subsequently the department appeared to recognise that its sample size was so small that the figures might not be reliable.Murphy's tough approach is in part credited with Labour leading the SNP in Holyrood polling for the first time since Alex Salmond became first minister.Labour has also stretched its lead in Scotland's Westminster seats to 16 points, according to a poll commissioned by the Glasgow Herald.Since an identical poll in October, there has been a sharp change in voting intentions for the Scottish parliament. Labour has gone from trailing the SNP by eight points on constituency and regional list votes, to a lead of two and seven points respectively.Compared with October, the latest poll shows Labour in Scotland's Westminster seats up three points to 42%. The SNP was up one point to 26%, compared with an 18% share in 2005. The Conservatives are unchanged on 18%.WelfareLabourState benefitsPatrick Wintourguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Ali Dizaei sentenced to four years The most senior British police officer ever convicted was found guilty of arresting a web designer in a dispute over moneyThe most senior British police officer ever convicted of corruption offences was starting a four-year prison sentence yesterday after a jury found he had tried to frame an innocent man and told a series of lies in an attempt to cover up his abuse of office.Ali Dizaei, a commander with Scotland Yard, was convicted of falsely arresting a web designer in a dispute over money and then lying in official statements when he claimed he had been assaulted and threatened by the man.Dizaei's 25-year police career will end with him being drummed out of the force in disgrace and almost certain to lose his pension after a clash in the street outside a restaurant which saw him abuse his authority as one of the Britain's top officers.Nick Hardwick, chair of the IPCC, said: "Dizaei behaved like a bully … The greatest threat to the reputation of the police service is criminals in uniform like Dizaei."Dizaei, 47, remained defiant and told the Guardian the case was "completely outrageous and a fit-up". He said that he had been pursued by the authorities, who had a "vendetta" against him.Dizaei was an outspoken critic of the police on race, leader of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), and a key figure in a race war that erupted at the top of Scotland Yard in the summer of 2008.He had been cleared of criminal charges in 2003 and returned to duty despite Scotland Yard having suspected him of serious offences. That inquiry was intensified after MI5 had suspicions that the Iranian-born officer was a danger to national security.In the case that ended yesterday at Southwark crown court, the crown alleged that on 18 July 2008, Dizaei had clashed with Waad al-Baghdadi, who claimed the police commander owed him £600 for a website he had designed for him.Dizaei arrested the 24-year-old then, using the special call sign given to him as a commander – Metro 35 – called for back-up to take his prisoner away. He claimed to have been assaulted and poked in the stomach with the mouthpiece of a shisha pipe. Dizaei filled out official statements and maintained his false account on the witness stand.Baghdadi spent 24 hours in a cell and six weeks on bail before it was decided he would not face charges. Scotland Yard handed the case over to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which investigated Dizaei. He becomes the most famous scalp obtained by a watchdog that has faced questions about its effectiveness.Last night Baghdadi told the BBC: "I've had a very, very difficult past two years of my life, trying to stand up to this man with all of his connections."The jury were unanimous in finding Dizaei guilty of misconduct in public office and attempting to pervert the course of justice, deliberating for two hours and 31 minutes following a four-week trial.Before he was sentenced, Dizaei told the Guardian that the case was a way of "bullying" him out of the police. "Nobody is going to bully me out of a job, not the director of public prosecutions, not the IPCC and not the Metropolitan Police Authority."Dizaei said if he had been acquitted he would have returned to work and dismissed the case against him, saying this trial had proved more of a strain than his first, in 2003: "This is worse. It is purely a personal vendetta by the IPCC and CPS. The IPCC did not like the challenge I and the NBPA made to the way it dealt with our members. The CPS could never take the egg off their faces after the last time."Sentencing Dizaei, the trial judge, Mr Justice Simon, said the length of the sentence had to contain "an element of deterrent" given the "grave breach of public trust and abuse of your authority as a commander in the Metropolitan police".The judge accepted Dizaei was "an exceptional officer" who had received glowing performance reviews but said he had arrested Baghdadi for "an assault that never occurred".Wearing a smart suit and glasses, the man once tipped as a possible head of British policing was sullen, simply picking up his overcoat as he was taken down to start a four-year sentence.Scotland Yard's commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, accepted the case had damaged the reputation of British policing. "Bearing in mind his rank and disgraceful behaviour he should not be surprised at the severity of his sentence," he said.Speaking outside court, Gaon Hart of the CPS said: "Mr Dizaei's corruption, which would have been deplorable in any police officer, was all the more so given his position. The public entrust the police with considerable powers and with that comes considerable responsibility."Ali DizaeiPoliceCrimeVikram Doddguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Ian Blair says police 'unaffordable' Former head of Metropolitan police says elected police commissioners will not work and calls for bipartisan inquiryPolicing is becoming unaffordably expensive due to the failure of political parties to back cheaper alternatives to full-time police officers, the former Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair will warn today. He will also call for politicians to put aside party divisions prior to the election and set up an all-party royal commission to agree a new role for the police.Blair will renew his attack on Conservative proposals for elected police commissioners across the country, saying they raise the spectre of Sarah Palin-style figures sacking police commissioners to protect themselves and their families.His remarks will come in a Political Quarterly lecture to be given tonight. He warns it is currently politically impossible for any home secretary to respond to the fall in crime by cutting police numbers."You can cut the cost of policing by cutting officer numbers but the political attachment to those numbers is so great that police leaders cannot do what obviously needs to be done, which is to cut the unit cost of policing by a replacing a lot of officers with cheaper alternatives. Policing is simply becoming unaffordable."He describes the 43 police forces in England and Wales as "so perilously close to the secret of the universe revealed in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and just as random," and as needing either to be reorganised or reduced.Blair was forced to stand down by London's mayor, Boris Johnson. He warns that proposals for elected police commissioners with the power to hire and fire police chiefs, as advanced by the shadow home secretary Chris Grayling, are "entirely wrong"."The idea risks both the replacement of operational independence with compliance and acquiescence, and the replication of the populism and short-termism of American policing.PoliceCriminal justiceConservativesPatrick Wintourguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Europe loses seat at top table In Washington they're not sure who's in charge. In Brussels they're squabbling. Ian Traynor reports on the EU's crisis of confidenceSitting in parkland in the shadow of the European parliament, the Bibliothèque Solvay is that rare thing in Brussels's dismal European quarter – a pretty building.But when heads of government or state from 27 countries meet here on Thursday under their new president, Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium, they will have little time for the art nouveau fittings or for the old books lining the wood-panelled walls of the 1902 library.The first EU summit under Van Rompuy's stewardship sees Europe slumped in a mood of unusually persistent gloom. Van Rompuy, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and the rest are in charge of a Europe engulfed by a sense of defeatism and decline and exhausted by nine long years of trying to construct a new European regime. The reasons for the ennui are clear. According to senior officials, analysts, and diplomats in Brussels, Paris, London and Berlin, Europe suddenly seems to matter a lot less in the world. Additionally, its leaders appear unsure of how to tackle their single currency's biggest ever crisis, and are engaged in petty power struggles and point-scoring over how to use the EU's new rulebook – the Lisbon treaty."There are a lot of blame games," said a senior European diplomat. "A lot of handwringing and bitching. No one is coming through to lead. It's not a pretty picture at all and it looks pathetic to the rest of the world."Since EU leaders last met in Brussels before Christmas, the mood has soured. For the Europeans who claimed for two years to be leading the world on climate change, the global warming summit in Copenhagen was the gamechanger, a moment when the global balance of power tilted and relegated the EU to the second division."What we saw in Copenhagen is that Europe does not count," Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, told a conference of Brussels thinktanks."For good or for ill," a senior European official told the Guardian, "the message that Copenhagen sent is that Europe is not at the table. The fact of the matter is that Europe's leaders were taking a coffee and [Barack] Obama visited them at the coffee break. But he negotiated with others."The Europeans are struggling to recover from that blow.For the past 18 months, the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, has been warning that Europe faces being sidelined in a "G2" world run by the US and China unless the EU steps up.Miliband's worst fears materialised when Obama held his press conference at the end of Copenhagen and deleted Europe from the script."If the G2 world was approaching, suddenly there it was," said the diplomat. "A seminal and symbolic moment."In the library on Thursday, Van Rompuy is to hold a postmortem. What went wrong and what are we going to do about it, he will ask his fellow national and EU leaders. The way they have written the script, Van Rompuy himself, as the first permanent president of the European council, is part of the solution. Most others are not so sure.The former Belgian prime minister's rise is the product of the Lisbon treaty, which in turn is a wordier and more complex version of the ill-fated European constitution which had to be binned because of voter rejection in France and the Netherlands.The treaty came into force in December and is supposed to cure Europe's malaise by streamlining decision-taking, simplifying procedures, boosting common foreign policy, and supplying strong and coherent leadership.It is early days, but the new regime has started not with a bang but with a whimper. Where there was to be coherence, there is confusion. Where there was to be clear leadership, there are turf wars and rival presidents.Obama announced last week he was too busy for a slated summit with the Europeans in Madrid in May. When Mongolia's leader, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, visited Brussels last week he was nonplussed by the plethora of "European presidents" whom protocol prescribed he must meet (there are currently four).The US state department made plain that one reason for Obama's absence is that, under Lisbon, it was not clear with whom the Americans should be dealing.Matthias Matthijs, a Washington-based academic who is visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University's Bologna Centre, said the post-Lisbon fiasco over who is in charge may take a year to sort out. "There is a sense in Washington that Europe needs to get its act together," he said. "It's another missed opportunity for Europe. They do not have anyone to put on the world stage."That person is supposed to be Van Rompuy or Catherine Ashton, the new EU foreign policy chief also created by the Lisbon treaty.But no one appears to have told the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who took on the rotating six-month presidency of the EU last month determined not to forfeit any of its perks and privileges to Van Rompuy who, under the Lisbon terms, chairs all summits of EU leaders.The Spanish government website bragged that the Obama summit in Madrid in May would be a highlight of its presidency, though it forgot to consult the Americans. In addition, in the next four months alone, the Spanish have scheduled themselves to host as many as 10 EU summits with other parts of the world.This appetite for summitry sits oddly with perceptions of European weakness. But it is of a piece with the European insistence on disproportionate attendance at the big global pow-wows.In the three G20 summits of the past 18 months called to tackle the financial crisis, Europeans have taken up eight of the 20 places, seeming to confuse status and numbers with power. There is one place each for the Americans and Chinese, while the Europeans were represented by the Germans, British, French and Italians, plus José Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission, plus whoever had the rotating EU presidency (the Swedes or the Czechs). Then the Spanish and the Dutch, neither formal members of the G20, clamoured for invitations and were given seats."It's ridiculous," said Antonio Missiroli of the European Policy Centre in Brussels. "One third of the G20, a half of the G8, almost one half of the UN security council. There are too many Europeans."Amid this crowded field of leaders, leadership itself is at a premium. Increasingly in Europe, particularly as a result of the Lisbon treaty and the uninspiring choice of Van Rompuy and Ashton as the EU's summit and foreign policy chiefs, power lies in national capitals.Diplomats and analysts complain that those national leaders are not up to the task of pooling authority and projecting power effectively on the world stage – another purported aim of the Lisbon regime.Of the figures who matter most, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has been invisible since winning a second term last autumn. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi raises only smirks. Gordon Brown is credited with trying hard on the world financial crisis but is seen as a lame duck, while it is feared across the EU that David Cameron and William Hague, by contrast, will conspire to subvert rather than project European leadership. The sole figure to command respect for his political will and energy is Nicolas Sarkozy of France. But he is also viewed warily as too mercurial.Cameron shockEU diplomats expect a prime minister Cameron to try to boost the "special relationship" with the White House at the expense of European power. They add he could be in for a shock since the Obama administration could tell Cameron that the best thing he could do to support America is to get more engaged in strengthening the EU.Günter Verheugen, Germany's outgoing European commissioner, painted a picture this week of tired strategic division, confusion, and hesitancy at the heart of Europe."Within the EU there is no idea of where they're going. There's no agreement on what the borders of the EU should look like one day and no agreement on how to define our role in the world," he told Der Spiegel news magazine. "We want the Americans to take us seriously as partners. But first we need to work on our capacity for partnership … The Americans expect more global engagement from us, but we're not ready for that."On Afghanistan or Iran, say senior diplomats, the Europeans are at odds and almost certain to frustrate any hopes in Washington of common, tough, and risky policies.The backdrop to the black mood in Brussels is economic. The fallout from the banking collapse in the form of colossal public debt levels and budget deficits is tying the hands of governments. The short-term troubles are coupled with the longer-term scenario of shrinking and ageing populations, a Europe condemned to genteel and geriatric decline while the emerging economies boom.Hopeful noises"We face fiscal challenges never seen before, of an unprecedented magnitude," said Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Bruegel economics thinktank.Optimism is rare. It exists, but tends to be the preserve of outsiders watching the EU. To discern more hopeful noises, you have to cross the Atlantic.US economists and Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz appear sanguine about Europe, with Krugman arguing recently in the New York Times that the European welfare state and social market economy have survived the financial crisis well and represent a more successful and enviable model than America's.Steven Hill, a director at the Washington-based New America Foundation, has just published a book, Europe's Promise, which argues that "the European way is the best hope in an insecure age".He dismissed talk of the EU being "marginalised" in a G2 world. On the contrary, he emphasised that the Obama White House was under pressure from the EU on climate change and financial regulation. "This, of course, is the exact opposite of the view that 'Europe is irrelevant'. Europe is actually hyper-relevant," he said. "Obama knows that Europe is leading in these ways, and he would like to follow to some extent, but he is having a hard time delivering."Such views appear Panglossian to the gloom-mongers of the continent. According to French political philosopher Pierre Manent, Europe is a fair-weather union which "vanishes into the horizon" in a crisis. "We only look to Europe when everything is going well," while the "outside world views the EU as a union of decadent imperialists who make a virtue of their powerlessness," he said in a recent lecture.On Thursday, Van Rompuy hopes to reverse this drift towards perceived impotence by locking the leaders in the library and knocking heads together.He hopes that the humiliation at Copenhagen and other setbacks can serve as a wake-up call.Additional reporting by Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Lizzy Davies in ParisThe battling bossesLaying claim to the championship title of European president is a bit like sorting out who rules as world heavyweight boxer, quips a senior European diplomat.In the ring, there's the WBA and the WBC, the IBA or the WBO, all laying claim to be honouring the true heavyweight champion of the world and usually begging to differ.In the EU, thanks to the Lisbon Treaty, we now have the European council president, Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium, as well as the European commission president, José Manuel Barroso of Portugal, starting a second five-year term. Then there is the residual rotating six-month EU presidency, held since last month by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, prime minister of Spain. And finally, there is Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish prime minister who is president or speaker of the European parliament.The early impact of the Lisbon regime has been embarrassing, generating lots of heat and little light. Rather than a seamless transition to a new and simple regime of identifiable power vested in one person, there is bickering, brinkmanship and unclear lines of authority.Famously, if apocryphally, Henry Kissinger said he did not know who to call if calling "Europe". The Lisbon Treaty was supposed to settle that. Instead, the answer remains as clear as mud.Van Rompuy answers to EU heads of government and organises and chairs all their summits. His first, especially convened by him, is in Brussels on Thursday. But he is being undermined by Zapatero, who wants to make the most of his six months as EU president. He has called 10 bilateral EU summits with other parts of the world, to be held in Spain, although they are now all supposed to be under Van Rompuy.Barroso, head of the commission, or EU executive, and the Belgian are also said to be squabbling over powers, budgets, and assets.The optimists say the new regime will take a while to bed down, but will then function smoothly and more effectively. The pessimists say the new regime took so long to agree – almost nine ill-starred years – that it is already past its sell-by date, but that no one has the stomach to suggest anything better.The outcome is there is no heavyweight champion at all. Europe is punching well below its weight.Ian Traynor BrusselsEuropean UnionEuroIan Traynorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Straw defends keeping doubts quiet Chilcot inquiry told that the 'problem of leaks' was used to stop attorney general Lord Goldsmith addressing ministersJack Straw made clear in evidence to the Iraq inquiry today that he believed there was absolutely no need for the cabinet to be told of the attorney general's doubts about the legality of the invasion.The inquiry has heard that a week before the invasion, on 13 March 2003, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, told Straw that he might need to tell the cabinet that "the legal issues were finely balanced", documents released by the inquiry today reveal. Straw, then foreign secretary, advised him not to do so, warning of "the problem of leaks from the cabinet"; the inquiry has heard it was never told of Goldsmith's doubts.Summoned back to the inquiry today, Straw said the cabinet knew there was an intense debate about the legal and moral issues. His appearance coincided with a US TV interview with Tony Blair, in which he attacked the hunt for a "conspiracy" and a "scandal" over his decision to commit British troops to the war.Straw told the inquiry that the cabinet included a number of "strong-minded people", among them Gordon Brown, John Prescott, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and Margaret Beckett: "None of them were wilting violets; their judgment was that it was not necessary to go into the process by which Peter Goldsmith came to his view. I don't recall cabinet as a whole receiving legal advice on the matter," Straw told the inquiry. "All [the cabinet] wanted to know was: is it lawful or is it not lawful?" What was required in the end was "essentially a yes or no decision" from the attorney general, he added.The inquiry has heard how Sir Michael Wood, the FO's legal adviser, and his deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, said an attack was unlawful without a fresh UN resolution. In a memo, Wood warned Straw: "Force without security council authority would amount to a crime of aggression." Straw, now justice secretary, replied: "I note your advice but I do not accept it."Goldsmith was persuaded that an invasion was lawful only after discussions with Straw and with Bush administration lawyers, the inquiry has heard. That was even though the US interpretation of international law was different from the British interpretation, it was told.Straw said today he took the view a new UN resolution was unnecessary because of his intimate knowledge of diplomatic negotiations leading up to the last resolution, 1441, unanimously agreed in November 2002. The Bush administration had made clear, Straw said, it would not go back to the UN for a decision. The president had decided to invade "come what may" by early 2003, the inquiry heard.Panel member Sir Lawrence Freedman told Straw he "might want to check" notes of his conversations with then US secretary of state Colin Powell to confirm this account. Freedman indicated that documents seen by the inquiry – but not made public – showed that Bush planned to attack Iraq even if chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said Saddam Hussein was complying with resolution 1441.In sometimes testy exchanges over why the US insisted on an invasion in March 2003, and why the Blair government went along with it,, Straw made clear it was political. "A big problem with the US was from the neocons," he said, referring in particular to the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.Asked whether Iraq was the UK's "choice of targets" because it was America's, Straw said it was the target of both. He denied writing a last-minute letter to Blair suggesting alternatives to invading.On Fox news today, asked why the UK had had a succession of such probes into the invasion, Blair said: "Partly because we have this curious habit – I don't think this is confined to Britain actually – where people find it hard to come to the point where they say: we disagree; you're a reasonable person, I'm a reasonable person but we disagree."There's always got to be a scandal as to why you hold your view. There's got to be some conspiracy behind it, some great deceit that's gone on, and people just find it hard to understand that it's possible for people to have different points of view and hold them … for genuine reasons. There's a continual desire to sort of uncover some great conspiracy, when actually there's a decision at the heart of it."Iraq war inquiryIraqPolitics and IraqGeorge BushJack StrawTony BlairRichard Norton-Taylorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Stars to sue News of the World Claim of separation 'false as well as intrusive', say lawyers, as Pitt and Jolie begin action in London high courtAs Hollywood's most famous power couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are used to every aspect of their life together being dissected in the world's media, whether it's rumours over yet another adoption, the meaning of a new tattoo, or their feelings about the other's exes.But when the News of the World ran a front page story last month declaring the couple were splitting up after six years and as many children, and dividing their £205m joint fortune, the pair decided enough was enough, and wrote to the paper to demand an apology for these "false and intrusive allegations".The tabloid refused to retract the story, or apologise, according to Pitt and Jolie's lawyers, and so yesterday the actors decided to sue. The couple "unequivocally" say that the story was false, and appear to be suing not for just for libel, but also for "misuse of private information", or privacy.The action comes two years after the News of the World lost its privacy battle with Max Mosley when a high court judge ruled the F1 boss had a right to keep private his adventures with five dominatrices.Pitt and Jolie began their legal action in the high court in London against News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary which publishes the News of the World. News Group is owned by Rupert Murdoch – as is 20th Century Fox, which made Mr and Mrs Smith, the film that gave the setting for Pitt and Jolie's blossoming love affair six years ago.Keith Schilling of Schillings, their London lawyers, said yesterday the allegations had been reproduced in other newspapers. "The News of the World has failed to meet our clients' reasonable demands for a retraction of and apology for these false and intrusive allegations, which have now been widely republished by mainstream news outlets. We have advised them to bring proceedings, which they have now done."Schillings said the News of the World article contravened the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct, which states that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion "once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and – where appropriate – an apology published".The law firm added that publication amounted to a serious misuse of private information; it was not required to disclose whether the information was true or false. "However in this case we can confirm unequivocally, and upon instructions, that the allegations published by the News of the World are false as well as intrusive," the firm said.The News of the World alleged on 24 January that the couple visited a lawyer to begin thrashing out a separation deal and that, last month, they signed a deal to divide their wealth. The article also claimed their children would live with Jolie but Pitt would have visitation rights; the separation would occur imminently.Pitt and Jolie have three adopted children – Maddox, eight, Pax, six, and Zahara, five – as well as Shiloh, three, and 17-month-old twins Knox and Vivienne.Schillings also said some media reports falsely identified a woman called Sorrell Trope as the couple's lawyer. Trope gave a statement to Schillings saying: "I have had no contact from .... Angelina Jolie and/or Brad Pitt. I have never met your ... clients or had any involvement with either of them. The foregoing is true with respect to all other members of this firm".The News of the World's story went round the world but was rubbished by news outlets such as TMZ.com, which broke news of Michael Jackson's death, and US celebrity magazine People.Pitt and Jolie have never married. Pitt divorced Jennifer Aniston, in 2005 after five years of marriage. Jolie has been married twice, to actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton; both marriages ended in divorce.A spokeswoman for the News of the World declined to comment.In his action against the paper in 2008, Mosley was awarded £60,000 damages, after the judge, Mr Justice Eady, ruled: "The law now affords protection to information in respect of which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, even in circumstances where there is no pre-existing relationship giving rise of itself to an enforceable duty of confidence."When celebrity scoops have turned sourIn 2008, the Daily Star had to apologise for a story headlined: "It's Sven Giggle Eriksson. Laughing boss still a hit with the ladies." The story said the former England manager "put on an irresistible charm show" as women queued to meet him. "Sven got so carried away with one ... that his hand appeared to stray towards her bum." Unfortunately, the lady in question was Lina, Eriksson's daughter.Also in 2008, Le Monde published a front-page apology to President Nicolas Sarkozy after a mix-up over the first names of his third wife and his second. "An unfortunate slip" had caused the French daily to report on antics of one Cecilia Bruni-Sarkozy: "We were of course referring to the wife of the head of state, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy," explained the correction.In 1988 the Sun ran a front-page apology under the headline SORRY ELTON, after it printed two false stories about the singer – one about him having sex with rent boys, and another accusing him of removing the voice boxes of his guard dogs because their barking kept him awake. Elton John was also awarded £1m in damages after suing in the high court.The Sunday Mirror in 2003 claimed Victoria, below, and David Beckham had split up. The apology confirmed "that Victoria did not tell David to leave Spain, or that their marriage was over. David did not refuse to back down, and far from being in ruins, their marriage is very strong and they are as much in love as ever. They have not discussed a trial separation and there has been no row about the children's schooling."In the Daily Mirror had to fall on its sword when showbiz reporter Fiona Cummins wrote, together with a photo, that Sienna Miller was seen drunkenly rolling on the floor at a children's charity ball. The paper acknowledged she had not been drunk and the photo was of her playing on the floor with a seriously ill six-year-old childNews of the WorldBrad PittAngelina JolieLawNewspapers & magazinesCelebrityStephen BrookHelen Piddguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Sri Lanka general held in crackdown Defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka to face coup attempt charge as row over election result takes dramatic turnThe defeated candidate in last month's tense presidential election in Sri Lanka, General Sarath Fonseka, was arrested today at his office in Colombo and is to be charged with attempting a military coup to overthrow the government.The sudden arrest of the 59-year-old former chief of Sri Lankan armed forces and the architect of their bloody but successful campaign against the Tamil Tigers last year, sparked fears of a widespread crackdown on opponents of the incumbent president, Mahindra Rajapakse.A government spokesman confirmed that Fonseka had been arrested, saying he had been detained for "committing military offences".Later government minister Keheliya Rambukwella said Fonseka would be tried in a military court on charges of conspiring against the president and planning a coup while army chief."When he was the army commander and chief of defence staff and member of the security council, he had direct contact with opposition political parties, which under the military law can amount to conspiracy," Rambukwella said."He's been plotting against the president while in the military ... with the idea of overthrowing the government," he added.Fonseka's wife is reported to have confirmed the detention of her husband following an increase in the number of security forces deployed outside the hotel he used as an office during the day.Allies of Fonseka described his arrest during the course of a planning meeting with political allies. Rauff Hakeem, leader of the Muslim Congress party, told Reuters that the general had been "dragged away in a very disgraceful manner in front of our own eyes".Fonseka appears to have resisted arrest. Mano Ganeshan, an opposition member of parliament, said the general was "forcibly carried away" after having objected to being arrested by military police rather than civilian officials."He was humiliated and disgraced in the way he was handled. We were just flabbergasted," Ganeshan said.Fonseka, who has repeatedly alleged that the elections were fraudulently won by Rajapakse, was planning to campaign in parliamentary polls due to be held by April.Speculation about the detention of the general had mounted over the weekend with Sri Lankan newspapers reporting on Sunday that Rajapakse had sought legal advice from government lawyers about trying his political rival in a military court.Hours before his arrest, Fonseka, who himself has been accused of a range of human rights abuses during the fighting against the Tamil Tigers last year, had said he was prepared to give evidence at international tribunals investigating the 25-year-long civil war. "I am definitely going to reveal what I know, what I was told and what I heard. Anyone who has committed war crimes should be brought into the courts," the BBC reported him as saying.Sri LankaJason Burkeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Doctor charged over Jackson's death Conrad Murray freed on $75,000 bail after pleading not guilty to involuntary manslaughterMichael Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, was charged with involuntary manslaughter in Los Angeles yesterday in relation to the singer's death last year from a cocktail of drugs.Murray, aged 57, pleaded not guilty just hours after being charged, and was released on bail of $75,000 (£48,000), and is due to reappear before the court on 5 April. The charge carries a jail term of four years.The doctor has been under investigation almost since the singer's body was found at his home in Los Angeles in June last year.Some Jackson fans shouted "murderer" as Murray entered the courthouse.The doctor was appointed by Jackson appointed the doctor in May on a promise of $150,000 a month to help the singer through a series of comeback shows in London. Murray prescribed drugs to help the singer sleep, but insists there was nothing illegal in this.The single charge against him claims he administered the powerful general anaesthetic propofol and two other sedatives "without due caution and circumspection" and "did unlawfully, and without malice, kill Michael Joseph Jackson".Murray flew from his home in Houston to Los Angeles last week for negotiations between prosecutors and his lawyers on his surrender.A coroner's report in August said Jackson had died from a cocktail of drugs, including propofol, which Murray has admitted administering. Propofol is often used as an anaesthetic in surgery, but was used on Jackson to help him sleep. The doctor administered the drug on the morning Jackson died, and then left the room. On his return, the singer had died.The case will centre in the main on the use of propofol to help Jackson sleep, but also how long Murray stayed by his side immediately afterwards, while the drug took effect. Murray said he had left Jackson for two minutes to go to the bathroom.Legal specialists said it could be a complicated and protracted case, with medical experts called by both sides to discuss the ethics of administering propofol.Jackson's parents, Kathryn and Joe, were in court yesterday, along with his siblings LaToya, Jermaine, Tito, Jackie and Randy. Brian Oxman, Joe Jackson's lawyer, said some family members were disappointed that the doctor was charged only with involuntary manslaughter.The Los Angeles district attorney's office said the deputy district attorney, David Walgreen, who is handling the attempt to extradite Roman Polanski in a child-sex case, will try the case. The district attorney's office credited the Los Angeles police and coroner's office for building the case against Murray. "Both agencies worked diligently and exhaustively to collect the evidence leading to the filing of the case," a statement said.Bottles of propofol were in Murray's medicine bag and on the bedside table of Jackson's home.Murray was employed by Jackson as he prepared for a series of 50 concerts aimed at reviving his career. The singer's career had been in steady decline after a series of allegations of child molestation that led to his arrest in 2003.Jackson left an estate worth hundreds of millions and his death saw a new burst in sales of the star's music. A documentary film, Michael Jackson's This Is It, compiled from footage from rehearsals, earned nearly $260m.Michael JacksonUnited StatesEwen MacAskillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- India's aubergine war reaches climax • Minister to make key decision on major crop• Broad alliance takes on Monsanto subsidiaryA fierce row over the future of the humble aubergine, staple ingredient of fiery brinjal curries for tens of millions of Indians, will reach a climax on Wednesday with a key government decision on the possible future commercial cultivation of genetically-modified strains of the plant. If permission is given, the aubergine will become the first GM foodstuff to be grown in India.The decision will be taken by the environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, who pledged last year to end the heated argument over whether aubergines modified with a gene from the soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis should be distributed to Indian farmers.An alliance of voices ranging from environmentalists to leftwing politicians and Hindu extremists have called on Ramesh to deny permission for the commercial cultivation of the Bt Brinjal strain, named after the bacteria and the local word for aubergine."It will open the gate," said Leo Saldanha, an environmental campaigner in the southern city of Bengalooru. "It raises huge legal and cultural issues."The decision Ramesh takes will reveal how far "India was willing to allow the farmer to be subordinated to corporate interests", he said.Ramesh told one of the many rowdy meetings he has attended as part of a public consultation exercise that trying to reconcile the opposing camps had "turned [his] hair grey".Aubergine is a major crop in India, where it has been cultivated for thousands of years. Though not native it is seen as an integral part of culture and diet, particularly of the poor.Backers claim the modified aubergines would cut crop losses due to insect damage by more than half and drastically reduce pesticide use. They argue also that extensive animal testing has shown that the bacterium introduced into the aubergine, though toxic to boring insects, would not be harmful to humans.Campaigners question the evidence, and argue that commercial interests have overly influenced the regulatory process. They say the 2,000-odd varieties of aubergine cultivated in India would be threatened if Bt Brinjal was introduced. "It is a hugely important decision, not just for India, for the whole world," said Dr Shiva Vandana, director of a network of groups campaigning against GM foods in India, and a key figure in the development of international biosafety treaties. "The question is whether or not public opinion will be listened to."The seeds have been developed by Indian scientists but will be marketed by the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company, an Indian firm partly owned by the US multinational Monsanto - the cause of much criticism and controversy.The southern state of Kerala, run by an alliance of opposition leftwing parties, has already banned GM crops on the grounds that they are a threat to biodiversity.Last week, the state's Marxist chief minister, VS Achuthanandan, claimed GM foods would lead to the "colonisation of the food sector."We shouldn't be a part of a system that will destroy traditional seeds and crops and allow [multinational corporations] to infringe on the agriculture sector," he said.Hindu nationalists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have also taken up the aubergine's cause. Mohan Bhagwat, a senior RSS official, told a public meeting in Bengalooru last weekend that Bt Brinjal was "untested" and "dangerous" andits introduction would only benefit "the multinationals". He likened the new aubergines to "terrorist infiltrators" sent by foreign powers to destabilise India.Government scientists have, however, told ministers that Bt Brinjal poses no threat. "Our experts examined the science behind Bt Brinjal and concluded that it is absolutely safe. The only thing that hasn't been done is human testing," Dr Maharaj Kishan Bhan, a senior research scientist at the ministry of science and technology said. "You can take a philosophical view that all GM foods are bad ‑ but from a scientific point of view I would say it is fine."IndiaGMFoodFarmingPesticidesJason Burkeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Murtha death adds to Obama's woes • Democrats fear Republicans will win seat held since 1974• President's poll ratings fall further amid health care impasseThe Democratic party faces another election test after the death yesterday of John Murtha, a congressman dubbed by his colleagues the "king of pork".Murtha, aged 77, had been in the House of Representatives since being elected to his Pennsylvania district in 1974.The fear in the party is that Republicans will notch up another victory when a special election is held, probably May.The Democrats have been panicking since losing Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat to the Republicans last month.Murtha's nickname referred to so-called pork barrel politics – bringing government spending to bear in a representative's own district.His death came on a day that saw Barack Obama's poll ratings fall further. A Marist poll found that only 44% of voters surveyed approved of his job performance, down 2% on December. More alarming for Democratic strategists, 57% of independents disapprove of his performance.Murtha's death will have a neglible impact on the arithmetic of the House, where the Democrats have an overwhelming majority, unlike in the Senate. But another defeat in the spring would add to the sense of panic among Democrats in the run-up to the Congressional mid-term elections in November.Murtha's office said he had died in hospital after complications following gallbladder surgery. He had been in hospital for several months.His election in 1974 marked him out as the first of those to have served in Vietnam to make it into Congress.He was popular on the left as one of the first senior Democrats in 2005 to turn against the Iraq war. But he was also one of the leading exponents of 'pork-barrel' politics, a practice that has long been reviled outside Washington and is one of the reasons for the present levels of disenchantment.Murtha, as chairman of the House defence appropriations sub-committee, added 'earmarks', special spending projects to help his district, to defence bills, hence the King of Pork.Scandal hovered over him throughout much of his career.Murtha faced a tough race for re-election in 2008 after sabotaging his own campaign by referring to some of voters in Pennsylvania as "racist".One of the reasons for the turnaround in Democratic fortunes is opposition to Barack Obama's health reform plan.The president will make a fresh push this month to get his troubled health reform package through Congress by meeting both Democrats and Republicans, hoping to find common ground.The half-day discussion at Blair House, opposite the White House, will be broadcast live on television to counter public criticism that too many deals in Washington are made behind closed doors.Obama announced the meeting during a CBS television interview on Sunday evening. "I want to consult closely with our Republican colleagues … to ask them to put their ideas on the table. I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward," he said.The Republican leader in the House of Representatives, John Boehner, welcomed the move as "a real, bipartisan conversation", but added: "The problem with the Democrats' healthcare bills is not that the American people don't understand them; the American people do understand them and they don't like them."The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, welcomed the meeting, but suggested he was unlikely to compromise, calling for the Democrats' bill to be shelved.The move buys the Democrats a few more weeks while they debate among themselves whether to push forward with the bill or abandon it. The version of the bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve would extend health care to 30 million more Americans.United StatesDemocratsBarack ObamaUS politicsObama administrationEwen MacAskillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Microsoft Declares Itself Still Innovative, Not Clumsy Dick Brass, an ex-reporter who once led the charge to build tablet PCs and e-books at Microsoft, published a fairly devastating critique of his former company in The New York Times. In an op-ed, Brass portrayed the software giant as a company where visionary thinking goes to wilt and die
- Dubai closes viewing deck on world's tallest building The observation deck on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world, closes only a month after it opened.
- Insects Use Wind to Travel Efficiently at 60 MPH or Faster Migrating insects have evolved to take advantage very efficiently of high speed winds (up to 60 MPH, possibly more) to travel hundreds of kilometers in relatively short periods of time, all that while correcting for crosswinds taking them off-course, and expanding as little energy as possible.
- Marijuana ineffective as an Alzheimer's treatment The benefits of marijuana in tempering or reversing the effects of Alzheimer's disease have been challenged in a new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute.
- Launch (pic) *****
- Are You Interested in Tablet Computing? We've been showered in tablet talk in the wake of the Apple iPad announcement, and while we have our problems with it (and so did you), we're still left wondering: Are you interested in some form of tablet computing?
- 16 Movies to Get Excited About in 2010 Every new year means a fresh start and the promise of great things to come. What's in store for moviegoers in 2010?
- 12,500 Recycled Plastic Bottles Set Sail on Shakedown Cruise A strange looking vessel took a leisurely sail on San Francisco Bay - a shakedown voyage for a plastic, fantastic adventure that should finally start next month. The boat is the 60-foot-long catamaran Plastiki, which David de Rothschild, the 31-year-old scion of the British banking family, plans to sail across the Pacific to Australia in March.
- 'Fewer than 50 wild tigers' left in China Fewer than 50 wild tigers remain in China, a conservation group said Monday, voicing hope that the Year of the Tiger would not be the last for the endangered cats.
- Even if You're Careful, Drugs Can End Up in Water- NYTimes PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- A study in Maine shows that unused or expired medications that are thrown into the trash are showing up in landfill water, potentially putting aquatic life at risk.
- World's tallest tower closed a month after opening
(... AP - The world's tallest skyscraper has unexpectedly closed to the public a month after its lavish opening, disappointing tourists headed for the observation deck and casting doubt over plans to welcome its first permanent occupants in the coming weeks.
- Weather closes government offices a second day
(Reut... Reuters - Federal government agencies in the capital region will remain closed for a second day on Tuesday as residents brace for another blizzard while trying to clean up from a weekend storm that paralyzed the area with two feet of snow.
- Sugary soft drinks linked to pancreatic cancer: study
... AFP - People who drink at least two sugary sodas a week have an increased risk of developing cancer of the pancreas, and researchers suspect the culprit is sugar, a new study shows.
- Iran to stop enrichment if given nuclear fuel
(AP)
AP - The head of the Iran's atomic agency says it will not enrich uranium to a higher level if the West provides fuel for the Tehran research reactor.
- Toyota recalls 437,000 Prius, hybrids globally
(AP)
AP - Toyota says it is recalling about 437,000 Prius and other hybrid vehicles worldwide to fix brake problems — the latest in a string of embarrassing safety lapses at the world's largest automaker.
- Rep. John Murtha, voice for veterans, dies at 77
(AP)
AP - Rep. John Murtha, the tall, gruff-mannered former Marine who became the de facto voice of veterans on Capitol Hill and later an outspoken and influential critic of the Iraq War, died Monday following complications from gallbladder surgery. He was 77.
- Seats at a premium on planes, trains out of DC
(AP)
AP - A $20 cab ride to the airport skyrocketed to the "snow rate" of $100 in the nation's capital, and those travelers who could get to the airport or train station still had to haggle or wait in long lines to escape the snowbound Mid-Atlantic.
- Top Canadian military official charged with murder
(... AP - The commander of Canada's largest Air Force base, who once flew dignitaries around the country, has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of two women
- AP Interview: NY's Paterson lashes back at rumors
(AP)
AP - New York Gov. David Paterson on Monday lashed back at what he called a "callous and sleazy" assault on his character in statehouse rumors and media reports that include accusations about womanizing and drug use, allegations he flatly denied.
- Obama's health care summit: Just for show?
(AP)
AP - Could this turn into something more than political theater? President Barack Obama's televised dialogue with Republican lawmakers on health care, promised for later this month, has the makings of an entertaining exchange. But the differences between the basic Democratic and GOP ideas are stark — and the two sides have increasingly hardened their positions in this election year.
- McCain, Facing G.O.P. Foe in Primary, Tilts to the Right Challenged by J.D. Hayworth from the airwaves, and soon in a primary, John McCain has moved starkly, and often awkwardly, to the right.
- On Health Bill, G.O.P.’s Road Is a New Map Republicans this month will bring President Obama a set of ideas and a more modest health care plan.
- News Analysis: For Kremlin, an Election in Ukraine Cuts T... The apparent win for Russia’s preferred candidate in a starkly contested presidential race contrasts sharply with Russia’s recent history.
- Toyota Details Recall of 2010 Prius for Brake Problems The worldwide recall will affect about 436,000 units of the 2010 Prius and other hybrid models, according to the company’s filing.
- Paperwork Hinders Airlifts of Ill Haitian Children Doctors and aid workers are wrestling with proving that they are not illegally transporting children, whose risk of dying is rising while the paperwork awaits.
- As Data Flows In, Families See the Dollars Flow Out The average American is expected to spend nearly $1,000 this year on services like cable, Internet and video games.
- U.N. Climate Panel and Chief Face Credibility Siege Rajendra K. Pachauri and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change face accusations of scientific sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest.
- In City Real Estate, Old Clans Are Shrewd Again Some families with deep roots in Manhattan kept their heads a few years ago when the market for skyscrapers and other big projects overheated.
- In Northern Iraq, a Vote Seems Likely to Split In Nineveh Province, a parliamentary election considered crucial to Iraqi unity is highlighting conflicts among ethnic and religious groups.
- Menendez Prodded Fed to Aid Lender Sen. Robert Menendez wrote to the Fed last July asking it to approve a bank takeover that would have kept two of his campaign contributors from losing their investments in the ailing bank.
- Leverage Sought In Health Summit Republicans ruled out any health legislation that doesn't start from scratch in response to Obama's plans for a bipartisan health summit.
- Hearts Actually Can Break Broken-heart syndrome mimics a heart attack but is brought on by acute emotion or physical trauma. But patients usually fully recover with no lasting heart damage.
- Fannie, Freddie Remain State Wards With no blueprints for the future and no clear exit strategy for the government, Fannie and Freddie are focusing for now on the U.S. loan-modification program.
- Toyota to Recall Hybrids World-wide The auto maker said it has sold 400,000 vehicles subject to the recall world-wide, including the Prius, in order to update the vehicle's anti-lock brake system.
- Dow Closes Below 10000 The Dow industrials closed below 10000 for the first time in three months as concerns about the global economy and U.S. interest-rate policy simmered.
- Japan Airlines Sticks with AMR Japan Airlines is planning to announce that it will maintain its alliance with AMR's American Airlines, dealing a blow to rival Delta.
- UBS Posts Quarterly Profit UBS reported its first net profit in five quarters, but continued to lose assets from wealthy clients, underlining that the Swiss bank has yet to regain trust it lost during the financial crisis.
- CIC Offers a Glimpse of Holdings The massive national China Investment Corp. provided the closest look yet at its politically sensitive holdings, in an SEC filing that revealed that it has accumulated small stakes in more than 60 U.S. companies but is making big bets outside the U.S.
- Mortgage Mess Breeds Unlikely Allies Some activists and investors have formed a loose coalition, aiming to cut amounts owed by borrowers whose loans exceed the values of their homes.
- Toyota recalls more than 400,000 hybrid cars Toyota's president apologized profusely Tuesday as he announced the global recall of more than 400,000 of the automaker's 2010 hybrid models, including the popular Prius, for problems in their anti-lock braking systems.
- Sources: Pakistani Taliban leader is dead Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead, three Taliban sources said Tuesday.
- Toyota recalls 400,000 hybrid cars Toyota announced a global recall Tuesday for three of its 2010 hybrid models, totalling about 400,000 vehicles.
- Jenny Sanford calls memoir 'cathartic' South Carolina's first lady, Jenny Sanford, said Monday that writing her much-anticipated memoir of her husband's affair was a "cathartic" and "cleansing" experience.
- 3 shot during Super Bowl celebrations in New Orleans Three people were shot amid celebrations surrounding the New Orleans Saints' Super Bowl win, police said Monday.
- Police: Iraq vet abused daughter, held her head in water An Iraq war veteran has been charged with assault on suspicion of abusing his daughter, whose head he allegedly held in water to get her to recite the ABCs, according to police in Yelm, Washington.
- Americans jailed in Haiti tried taking other kids, office... The group of American Baptist missionaries in Haiti who are facing kidnapping charges for trying to take 33 children out of the country last week made an earlier attempt at taking dozens of other children, according to a Haitian police officer.
- CNN Student News Transcript: February 9, 2010 February 9, 2010
- Man goes undercover to combat child sex slavery Aaron Cohen first met Jonty Thern and her older sister, Channy, in 2005 while singing in a karaoke bar in Battambang, Cambodia. He has come back to see them every year since.
- Obama's 'stupid' jab at Vegas President Obama made a couple of stupid little jokes about Vegas. He uses our Las Vegas as a symbol. Everyone knows what Vegas means. Doc Pomus wrote "Viva Las Vegas" for Elvis years before Doc ever visited Sin City and got everything right.
- Google launches Nexus One phone support Customers suffering shipping and technical issues with the new Android phone now have more resources than online support forums.
- Did this Metro PCS ad make the tech world cringe? Cell phone provider Metro PCS' new campaign, featuring two supposed Indian tech experts, is proving a little controversial. The company admits it has received complaints.
- iPad pricing: How low can you go, Apple? It seems odd that Apple execs would even hint at the possibility of an early price cut lest they give folks already on the fence about buying the first iteration of the device more reason to stay there.
- Twins learn of teen brother's death on Facebook Twins logging on to Facebook to read birthday wishes instead discover that people have left RIP posts about their 17-year-old brother. Police hadn't notified the family.
- Silicon: It's good for you, especially in beer Researchers at UC Davis say that silicon, the most common metalloid and a known booster of bone-mineral density, is highly "bioavailable" when consumed in beer.
- University worker accused of extorting student file sharers Security analyst at University of Georgia tasked with catching copyright violators allegedly uses his position to shakedown students.
- TweetDeck gets a few tweaks The latest version of TweetDeck is out, and although it's a minor update it also introduces some useful changes worth noting.
- Boeing's next-gen 747 takes first flight The 747-8 Freighter, whose passenger version is slated to come a year later, is getting tested alongside the 787 Dreamliner in Washington state.
- Former Intel exec pleads guilty in Galleon case A former Intel executive pleads guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud by providing confidential information in the Galleon Group insider-trading case.
- Next-generation 747 takes first air (photos) On Monday, Boeing's 747-8 Freighter took off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., its first flight, and the first for the new 747 program.
- Foursquare Signs a Deal With Zagat (Jenna Wortham/Bits) Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Foursquare Signs a Deal With Zagat — Foursquare, the location-based mobile application that is capturing the fancy of hip urbanites, is a fun bar game that lets users compete for points and badges when they go out at night. But recently the service has been branching out beyond its bar-hopping origins.
- 1080p streaming not coming to Netflix this year (Josh Low...
Josh Lowensohn / Crave: The gadget blog:
1080p streaming not coming to Netflix this year — Editors' note, 4:30 p.m. PST: Netflix now claims that it incorrectly acknowledged 1080p streaming in the company's 2010 development road map. A Netflix representative has clarified that the company plans to bring 5.1 surround and closed captioning …
- Job Postings Hint at Amazon's Plans for the Kindle (Nick ...
Nick Bilton / Bits:
Job Postings Hint at Amazon's Plans for the Kindle — It looks like color screens and Wi-Fi might be the next additions to Amazon's Kindle. — Last week, Brad Stone and I reported that Amazon had acquired the New York based multi-touch screen company Touchco to integrate into Lab126, the Kindle hardware division.
- Motorola: Droid update to Android 2.1 'will start to roll...
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Motorola: Droid update to Android 2.1 ‘will start to roll out this week’ — We knew Android 2.1 was coming for the Droid, but we'll confess — we didn't expect it to come this soon. Motorola is now reporting via its official Facebook page that it's “happy to relay the 2.1 upgrade to Droid …
- iPhone 4G Parts are Here... (Brian/iPod Repair, iPhone Re...
Brian / iPod Repair, iPhone Repair, Apple Repair:
iPhone 4G Parts are Here... And they have a couple of interesting features. — 1) The LCD appears to be factory glued to the digitizer which is more similar to the first generation iPhones than the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The digitizer can be separated from the LCD on the 3G and 3GS models …
- Google Launching Twitter-Killer For Gmail! (GOOG) (Nichol...
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Launching Twitter-Killer For Gmail! (GOOG) — Google could launch a Twitter-killer as soon as this week, the Wall Street Journal reports. — Google already allows Gmail users to update their status. The prompt reads, “let people know what you're up to, or share links to photos, videos, and Web pages.”
- Motorola Droid's next update to be Android 2.1, includes ...
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Motorola Droid's next update to be Android 2.1, includes multitouch browser — We've just gotten the inside line on the next Droid update that's making the rounds through Verizon's testing department from one of our trusted sources, and overall, it looks like this should take users 95 percent …
- Google doppelgänger casts riddle over interwebs (Cad...
Cade Metz / The Register:
Google doppelgänger casts riddle over interwebs — Why is Google routing the world through ‘Googol’? — Sometime in the middle of October, Google silently launched a new net domain - a barely-disguised doppelgänger to the familiar google.com - and according to the latest stats …
- Apple Management: iPad Prices Could Change (Matt Phillips...
Matt Phillips / MarketBeat:
Apple Management: iPad Prices Could Change … Apple intends to stay “nimble” on pricing of the iPad, possibly lowering prices if the newly unveiled tablet device fails to gain traction among consumers. — That was just one of the items in a note out Sunday night from Credit Suisse recounting meetings with Apple executives.
- How to split up the US (Pwarden/PeteSearch)
Pwarden / PeteSearch:
How to split up the US — As I've been digging deeper into the data I've gathered on 210 million public Facebook profiles, I've been fascinated by some of the patterns that have emerged. My latest visualization shows the information by location, with connections drawn between places that share friends.
- Game Development In a Post-Agile World An anonymous reader writes "Many games developers have been pursuing agile development, and we are now beginning to witness the debris and chaos it has caused. While there have been some successes, there have also been many casualties. As the industry at large is moving away from the phantasmagoria of Agile, Gwaredd Mountain, Technical Director at Climax Studios, looks at Post-Agile and what this might mean for the games industry."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- IBM Releases Power7 Processor Dan Jones writes "As discussed here last year, IBM has made good on its promise to release the Power7 processor (and servers) in the first half of 2010. The Power7 processor adds more cores and improved multithreading capabilities to boost the performance of servers requiring high up-time, according to Big Blue. Power7 chips will run between 3.0GHz and 4.14GHz and will come with four, six, or eight cores. The chips are being made using the 45-nm process technology. New Power7 servers (up to 64 cores for now) are said to deliver twice the performance of older Power6 systems, but are four times more energy efficient. Power7 servers will run AIX and Linux." And reader shmG notes Intel's release of a new Itanium server processor after two years of delays. The Power7 specs would seem to put the new Intel chip in the shade.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Oracle Drops Sun's Commitment To Accessibility An anonymous reader writes "What I feared has come true: after buying Sun, Oracle had a look at its accessibility group and made big cuts in it by firing the most important contributors to the Linux accessibility tools. This is a very sad day for disabled people, as it means we do not really have full-time developers any more." The coverage in OSTATIC has a few more details, including the caution: "This just shows that all too few companies are sponsoring a11y work. If one company laying off a couple of developers spells trouble for the project, then there were problems before that happened" (thanks to reader dave c-b for pointing this out).Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Virtualizing a Supercomputer bridges writes "The V3VEE project has announced the release of version 1.2 of the Palacios virtual machine monitor following the successful testing of Palacios on 4096 nodes of the Sandia Red Storm supercomputer, the 17th-fastest in the world. The added overhead of virtualization is often a show-stopper, but the researchers observed less than 5% overhead for two real, communication-intensive applications running in a virtual machine on Red Storm. Palacios 1.2 supports virtualization of both desktop x86 hardware and Cray XT supercomputers using either AMD SVM or Intel VT hardware virtualization extensions, and is an active open source OS research platform supporting projects at multiple institutions. Palacios is being jointly developed by researchers at Northwestern University, the University of New Mexico, and Sandia National Labs." The ACM's writeup has more details of the work at Sandia.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Study Says OOXML Unsuitable For Norwegian Government angry tapir writes "Microsoft's XML-based office document format, OOXML, does not meet the requirements for governmental use, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI). The agency wants to start a debate over the report as part of its work on standards in the Norwegian government. (As we discussed a week ago, Denmark has already decided to choose ODF over OOXML.)"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Virus-Detecting "Lab On a Chip" Developed At BYU natharward writes "A new development in nano-level diagnostic tests has been applied as a lab on a chip that successfully screened viruses entirely by their size. The chip's traps are size-specific, which means even tiny concentrations of viruses or other particles won't escape detection. For medicine, this development is promising for future lab diagnostics that could detect viruses before symptoms kick in and damage begins, well ahead of when traditional lab tests are able to catch them. Aaron Hawkins, the BYU professor leading the work, says his team is now gearing up to make chips with multiple, progressively smaller slots, so that a single sample can be used to screen for particles of varying sizes. One could fairly simply determine which proteins or viruses are present based on which walls have particles stacked against them. After this is developed, Hawkins says, 'If we decided to make these things in high volume, I think within a year it could be ready.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Shooting For Smartphone Universal Translator nikki4 writes to tell us that in giving some major improvement tweaks to its existing voice recognition tool for the Smartphone, Google is aiming for new translator software that will provide instant translation of foreign languages. "The company has already created an automatic system for translating text on computers, which is being honed by scanning millions of multi-lingual websites and documents. So far it covers 52 languages, adding Haitian Creole last week. Google also has a voice recognition system that enables phone users to conduct web searches by speaking commands into their phones rather than typing them in. Now it is working on combining the two technologies to produce software capable of understanding a caller’s voice and translating it into a synthetic equivalent in a foreign language."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- New Material Transforms Car Bodies Into Batteries MikeChino writes "As battery manufacturers race to produce more efficient lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, some scientists are looking to make the cars themselves a power source. Researchers are currently developing a new auto body material that can store and release electrical energy like a battery. Once perfected, scientists hope the substance will replace standard car bodies, making vehicles up to 15 percent lighter and significantly extending the range of electric vehicles."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Verizon Blocking 4chan An anonymous reader writes "According to 4chan's owner and administrator 'moot,' Verizon has explicitly blocked all traffic on their network from boards.4chan.org, where all of 4chan's boards are located. Moot explains that only traffic to and from port 80 is being dropped and they were able to confirm that it was intentional. 4chan's downtime for Verizon users has been in effect for at least 72 hours since Saturday, February 7."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- A Reflection On Sun Executive Payouts For Failure With the Oracle/Sun merger finally completing at the end of January, one former Sun worker has taken the time to reflect a bit on the extravagant compensation and golden parachutes that the former executives at Sun are receiving for failing at their jobs. "I think it's fair to say that, for all the miscues that eventually led to its demise, the company created many products and technologies of value along the way, enough so that Oracle thought it was worth it to acquire them and try to keep them going. However, I think that it's equally fair to conclude that, after years of running losses, including about $2 billion in fiscal 2009, so that a buyout was necessary to avoid looming bankruptcy, Sun's executives did nothing to deserve lavish rewards, by any conceivable meaning of the word 'deserve.' But what actually happened is by now a familiar story. [...] And here's a prediction that I feel quite certain of: if, against expectations and my hopes, Ellison drops the ball and things start going south for Oracle, it's the employees who will suffer for it, and he'll be doing just fine."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Ice 'probable cause' of Boeing 777 crash Plane safety requirements did not cover the particular ice problem which probably caused a Boeing 777 to crash-land at Heathrow Airport two years ago as the risk was "unrecognised at that time", an official accident report said today.
- Boeing 777 crash-landing probably caused by ice Plane safety requirements did not cover the particular ice problem which probably caused a Boeing 777 to crash-land at Heathrow Airport two years ago as the risk was "unrecognised at that time", an official accident report said today.
- Hunger strike at detention centre Yarl's Wood, the Bedfordshire detention centre blighted by controversy since its opening in 2001, was in chaos yesterday after police were called to a disturbance involving around 50 women detainees on their fourth day of a hunger strike.
- Paramilitary groups decommission weapons The British and Irish governments last night welcomed news that all paramilitary groups on ceasefire in Northern Ireland have now decommissioned their weapons.
- Blair attacks his critics' tendency to 'conspiracy theories' Tony Blair took a swipe at the Iraq Inquiry last night, claiming that it was part of a British obsession with conspiracy, deceit and scandal.
- The Big Question: What is parliamentary privilege, and is...
- Cameron: I'll give power to the petition Campaigners who want to reintroduce hanging, oppose higher taxes for motorists, pull out of the EU, or any of the other causes overlooked by politicians have been promised by David Cameron that they can have their day in Parliament.
- Farmer gets life for murdering estranged wife A wealthy farmer has been jailed for a minimum of 18 years for murdering his wife, whose body has never been found.
- Four years in jail for top officer branded 'criminal in u... Britain's highest-ranking Asian police officer was jailed for four years yesterday after being convicted of falsely arresting a man and then inventing a claim of assault against him.
- Champagne celebrations at Scotland Yard as 'universally h... The Statement from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, was suitably sober and contrite. "Commander Ali Dizaei has been a police officer for nearly 25 years," he wrote. "It is extremely disappointing and concerning that this very senior officer has been found guilty of abusing his position and power."
- Around the Nation Nearly 5 million people have returned home by train since the 40-day Lunar New Year holiday travel period started on January 30, the Ministry of Railways reports.
- New eviction rules may not tame anger The mainland government faces widespread anger about forced evictions, and planned reforms to property confiscation rules do not go far enough to address the potentially destabilising issue, a rights group said on Tuesday.
- Family has change of heart to let doctors try to save 'Li... The family of a 28-day-old girl, who is in a Beijing hospital after being abandoned in a Tianjin hospice for being born without an anus, took a step towards saving the little girl by agreeing to release her medical files for medical experts to review.
- In Brief Taiwan's High Court ruled yesterday that former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian would be held for another two months after his detention order expires late this month.
- Beijing trains elite journalists to boost media clout In a bid to raise China's voice on the world stage and compete with Western media, Beijing is planning to assign an elite team of 100 specially trained journalists to the staff of leading state-run media outlets. Under a programme that began last year, Beijing Foreign Studies University, the capital's Tsinghua University, Communication University of China and Renmin University, and Shanghai's Fudan University have each enrolled about 20 hand-picked postgraduate students in two-year master of journalism courses that will provide talent for the likes of Xinhua news agency, China Central Television and China Daily.
- CCTV blanks big soccer match against Japan State broadcaster China Central Television's influential sports channel pulled the plug on the national team's match against Japan at the weekend, with Chinese soccer still reeling from a widespread corruption scandal.
- Chinese-born aerospace spy jailed for 15 years in US An aerospace engineer born in China was jailed for more than 15 years on Monday after being convicted of selling technology related to the US space shuttle programme to China, officials said.
- Seven dead as bus plunges down Guangxi ravine A bus collided with a car on Monday and plunged down a mountain ravine in Guangxi province, killing seven people and injuring 50, state media reported.
- Quake activist jailed for subversion A mainland activist whose independent investigation blamed shoddy construction as the cause of school collapses in the massive 2008 Sichuan earthquake was jailed on Tuesday for five years for subversion, his lawyer said.
- 17 held over kidnap scams in Shenzhen At least 51 attempts to swindle families through false claims that their children had been kidnapped were reported in Shenzhen in just 16 days last month, police said yesterday. Seventeen suspects were arrested.
- Region rushes to prepare for another shot of winter weat...
Snowplow crews were ordered to continue working round-the-clock to open thousands of untouched neighborhood streets before turning to meet an ominous new winter storm on Tuesday.
- State Farm says it first warned safety agency about Toyo...
The nation's largest auto insurer alerted federal safety regulators on numerous occasions starting in 2007 about a rise in reports of unexpected acceleration in Toyotas, according to the insurer, State Farm.
- John Murtha dies; longtime congressman was master of por...
Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a Vietnam War veteran who staunchly supported military spending and became a master of pork-barrel politics, died Monday at Virginia Hospital Center. The 19-term lawmaker died from complications of gallbladder surgery. He was 77.
- Federal Reserve hopes clear exit strategy will boost mar...
When you've flooded the economy with trillions of dollars, mopping up is no easy task.
- After D.C. snowstorm, sidewalk-clearing rules and etique...
Mo Fogarty and her boyfriend, Michael Ronquillo, delirious about a casual Monday, suddenly stepped onto a gnarly patch of snow and ice along Adams Morgan's busiest walkway. Fogarty went down.
- U.S. proposes new climate service
The Obama administration proposed a new climate service on Monday that would provide Americans with predictions on how global warming will affect everything from drought to sea levels.
- Many workers find a way to get to the job, even in a bli...
Jeff Campbell has been at his job as a security officer since Friday, sleeping in a chair and eating military MREs. Andre Wye left home at 4 a.m. Monday to drive 25 scary, slippery miles to the supermarket where he's a cashier. Sia Gbolie deposited her teenage son with a neighbor and camped out with...
- For once, D.C. area gets some respect for coping with snow
Are we flinty yet? Last year, during a snow "event" that now seems laughably insignificant, President Obama managed to get under the region's skin with some climatic trash talk. Reacting for the first time as a parent of D.C. area schoolkids to the region's habit of canceling classes at the drop of...
- How to get snowstorm help
BGE: 877-778-2222 Pepco: outages, 877-737-2662; downed lines, 202-872-3432
- Days after storm passes, many still await the plow
At first it was fun, staying all cozy indoors and then venturing out for the occasional wade into the snow. But by Monday afternoon, the fact that Willa Reinhard's Southeast D.C. cul-de-sac had yet to be plowed even once had lost its novelty.
- Turnbull Takes Abbott To The Cleaners You have to hand it to Malcolm Turnbull. Just when most of us thought he might fade away, he’s come out swinging with a typically bold attack on his own party’s new climate change policy. In doing so, he’s positioned himself to resume the Liberal Party leadership if and when Tony Abbott fails at the next election.
With impassioned phrasing and measured speaking tones, Malcolm Turnbull yesterday declared he would vote for Labor’s emissions trading scheme, the CPRS.
Turnbull makes the obvious — and highly ironic — point that by using "market forces" to address climate change, the Government’s CPRS "is far more in the great traditions of modern liberalism" than Tony Abbott’s new policy. (You can see footage of the speech on this Fairfax article by Michelle Grattan and Tom Arup.)
"After all," he continued, "I have always believed that Liberals reject the idea that government knows best and embrace the idea that government’s job is to enable each of us to do our best. This ETS allows Australian businesses to make their own decisions as how to reduce their emissions."
Turnbull pointed out that "schemes where bureaucrats and politicians pick technologies and winners, doling out billions of taxpayers dollars, [are] neither economically efficient, nor will [they] be environmentally effective."
He also skewered, once and for all, the idea that Australia should wait for action from the US and other big polluting nations before implementing our own emissions reduction measures. "Far from being in front of the world in action to reduce emissions, we start way behind because our per capita emissions are so large and because our sources of energy are overwhelmingly dependent on burning coal."
It was a double-barreled broadside at the Coalition’s new climate change policy, released last week, which eschews a cap on carbon and instead proposes exactly what Turnbull decries, doling out billions in taxpayer dollars to big polluters.
Of course, so does Labor’s CPRS, in the form of free permits to pollute, but Turnbull’s point remains substantial. As I noted last week, the party of the free market has now turned its back on market forces as a tool to address climate change.
Of course, they are many who must wonder why this speech comes now, and not late last year when it might have influenced the debate about climate, and perhaps swung the crucial party room votes Turnbull needed to retain the leadership. Liberal party watcher Peter van Onselen poses exactly this question. The Australian’s grey eminence Paul Kelly goes further, arguing that the content of Turnbull’s speech should have provided the talking points for Kevin Rudd throughout last year.
There seems to be a view developing in the Canberra press gallery and commentariat that on climate, as Kelly writes, "the short-term politics is decisively breaking Abbott’s way." I think that’s just another example of wishful thinking from the political media, who as usual have been bewitched by a couple of polls into suddenly believing that Australians favour Tony Abbott’s approach to climate change over Labor’s ETS.
As Possum Comitatus points out, it’s much more complex than that, with generic support for an ETS remaining solid even while specific support for Labor’s CPRS drifts and Abbott rallies his conservative base.
A number of different trends have been developing in the polls on climate policy in recent months. The first is that climate skepticism has continued to grow, but in highly polarised terms. Coalition voters are much less likely to believe in the anthropogenic global warming thesis than Labor or (unsurprisingly) Green voters.
The second trend is that while the Coalition’s change of tack on climate policy has been popular with its conservative base, there is no evidence to suggest it is a winner with younger voters, women, or voters in capital cities.
Perhaps the key quote to take away from Possum’s analysis of the latest Neilsen poll was this one: "We continue to see the same old patters emerge that we’ve witnessed in previous Morgan and Nielsen polls on this issue, where women and capital city residents have much higher levels of generic support for an ETS than men and non-capital city residents."
The big problem for Abbott and the Liberal Party is that these are the voters whose minds must be changed if the Coalition is to regain government. The Coalition already holds most of the rural and regional seats, and has typically polled well amongst older males for some time now. On the other hand, urban women are the kind of swing voters who often decide the marginal seats that determine elections. Keep this in mind when you read wild reports about the supposed electoral popularity of Tony Abbott’s climate change policy.
Perhaps the most interesting effect of these polls has been on the Government, not the Opposition. There’s nothing like a couple of bad polls to jolt any politician out of complacency, and that is exactly what appears to have happened to Labor this year. While Abbott has been far from terrible in his first week sitting in the green chair opposite the Prime Minster, the Government has been focused and savage in their parliamentary attacks. Lindsay Tanner in particular got in a couple of zingers about Barnaby Joyce as "the bearded lady of Australian politics" and Government morale in Parliament appears high.
Just as importantly, Kevin Rudd and his senior ministers have finally got their message straight on climate. On last night’s Q&A, Rudd took questions from an audience of 16 to 25-year-olds and was relentless in delivering his simple three-point message about the ETS — that it charges the polluters, puts a cap on carbon and compensates working families. Labor’s new strategy is to link climate policy with economic policy, to run on its record of dodging the global financial crisis, and to viciously attack Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce’s economic credentials.
Labor has been stung by the poll results and the criticism that it has failed to go out and sell the CPRS. Whatever happens to emissions trading legislation in the Senate, Rudd and his ministers have entered this election year with a renewed focus and vigour.
Abbott will need to move quickly to address the economic responsibility issue if he is to keep up his early momentum. Further gaffes by Barnaby Joyce could be telling.
- Spin Doctorate Cartoon by Fiona Katauskas
- Our Gay Soldiers Are Just Fine
A year after Barack Obama won office, he has finally announced that he will lift the ban on gays serving openly in the US military. So far, he has been cautious, not wishing to waste precious political capital on this issue.
There are good reasons for him to tread carefully. The last time a president tried to repeal the ban was in 1993, when dismayed military chiefs forced Bill Clinton to broker a compromise. The result was the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy, which allowed gays to serve so long as they kept their sexuality secret. But instead of improving the situation for gay personnel, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell arguably made matters worse . Not only did the ban remain intact, but also the law now required officers to suppress their sexuality.
Stories abound of homophobic discrimination in the US armed forces. In 2002, Air Force Sergeant David Hall was discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell after someone else reported he was gay. In 2006, naval officer Joseph Rocha reported suffering two years of repeated abuse after his colleagues suspected that he was gay. Rocha was discharged from office. His attackers were never charged; one of them, Michael Toussaint, has since been promoted to Senior Chief.
The enduring ban prosecutes gay personnel, yet leaves their abusers unpunished. It stigmatises the threat that homosexuality poses to "military discipline and cohesion" , while overlooking the violence to which gay officers themselves are exposed. At the same time, it expects these officers to serve diligently and honourably. It is understandable, then, why Obama and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared the ban’s removal "the right thing to do".
But there are also other reasons why the ban’s removal makes sense — reasons that may impress Americans more than a lecture on a minority’s civil rights. For instance, the ban has caused a massive drain on the military’s personnel. Under the policy, more than 13,500 have left the military. Of those, 800 occupied positions considered critical to the US’s war efforts, since they served as intelligence analysts and interpreters of Arabic, Farsi, and Korean.
The ban is also grossly expensive to maintain, primarily because it requires the military to recruit and train new officers to replace the discharged personnel. In 2005, the Government Accountability Office estimated that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had so far cost $190.5 million. A blue ribbon commission group revised that figure in 2006 to $363.8 million.
Nonetheless, the ban’s supporters persist in making dire predictions about what will happen if Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed. John McCain has claimed that it will somehow overburden the military. Oliver North, calling the intended repeal "a stunning assault on the old volunteer military" and "a radical social experiment", suggested that open homosexuality would result in falling personnel retention rates. None of them has yet discussed the ban’s own impact on public coffers and retention.
Perhaps the strongest arguments in favour of removing the ban, though, come from outside the US. In 2010, open homosexuality is a non-issue in several militaries around the world, including those of American allies such as Australia, Britain, Canada, and Israel. All have managed to function without reporting any of the problems anticipated by the likes of McCain and North.
The Australian Defence Force would seem a model employer of gay, lesbian, and bisexual personnel. In 1992, a year before the US implemented Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Australian Defence Force lifted its ban on homosexuality. Stuart O’Brien, Chief Petty Officer and head of Defence Gay and Lesbian Information Service , says that "the general experience of gay and lesbian personnel serving in the Australian Defence Force is one free from discrimination or harassment". Instances of discrimination are isolated and subject to due process. "When harassment does happen," O’Brien told me, "the Defence Force quickly addresses these issues to ensure harassment of any kind is stamped out."
O’Brien acknowledges the Federal Government’s action in 2005 of extending Defence benefit payments to interdependent same-sex couples. He enthuses in particular about benefits pertaining to "defence housing assistance, removals on postings, leave travel and location allowances when posted to remote localities, reunion travel when separated, and education assistance for dependent children." He also credits the Government’s introduction of 85 same-sex law reforms in 2008 for removing discrimination relating to military superannuation and death benefits.
Corey Irlam, media spokesperson for the Australian Coalition for Equality , observes that the Defence Force is "light years ahead" of the US armed forces in its treatment of gay personnel and their partners. Far from enabling the social dissolution predicted by American homophobes, the Defence Force’s open homosexuality policy appears to have facilitated gay personnel’s integration into military ranks. Stuart O’Brien’s flourishing career would seem to vindicate this point. "I have seen operational service in the Middle East, been awarded numerous times, and been promoted in minimal time," says O’Brien.
With support for the US ban dropping among active-duty troops, opposition to it rising among American voters, and even the architects of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell advising to revaluate it the prospects for its removal are much greater in 2010 than they were in 1993. As the example of the Australian Defence Force goes to show, the ban is not only discriminatory and profligate; it is also unnecessary.
- Eating Our Way To Racial Tolerance On Wednesday 24 February, "ordinary Melburnians" are being urged to dine at their local Indian restaurants in order to protest against racially motivated violence and express solidarity with Melbourne’s Indian community.
Vindaloo Against Violence’s website says the project is a peaceful and easy way to show that the majority of Melburnians welcome the presence of Indian citizens in their city.
"Everyday Australians don’t accept racially motivated violence," Vindaloo Against Violence founder, Mia Northrop, told ABC News. "I think we want to shift the focus from what Indians need to be doing to protect themselves in terms of their safety, to finding out why is this happening in our society."
This is a timely aim indeed. At a forum held over the weekend, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland advised international students in Australia that to minimise their risk of being violently attacked, they should: "look poor" by not wearing or carrying obvious valuables; avoid suburbs where they might encounter poor people; and not work late at night in the hospitality and service industries.
Gautam Gupta, secretary of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia, was not impressed by the last piece of advice. "It’s a workplace. Every workplace should be safe," Gupta fulminated to the Age. "I think it’s a ridiculous idea. It is blaming the worker. It is blaming the victim."
Listening to Overland’s advice, what struck me is that it’s the same sort of tip travel guidebooks give Western backpackers in developing countries, and stems from several assumptions. First: as a traveller, you are essentially intruding on local culture and must alter your behaviour to avoid causing trouble. Second: you won’t be here for long, so you mustn’t drop your guard and feel "at home" during your brief stay.
By contrast, Vindaloo Against Violence aims to remind the international media — especially in India, where the recent attacks were portrayed as symptoms of a generally racist culture in Australia — that we do recognise the reciprocal nature of what it means to play the host, to welcome. The project aims to reassure observers that we are generous hosts who take seriously our responsibility to make Indian citizens feel at home here.
But will Vindaloo Against Violence actually achieve anything more than making Northrop and other participants feel less helpless? Does it actually convey a genuine feeling of welcome?
At first I was very encouraged by Vindaloo Against Violence. I discovered it through Twitter and retweeted the website. Other people retweeted my retweet. I felt proud, like a good citizen.
What I initially liked was that Vindaloo Against Violence wasn’t aggressive, antagonistic, critical or hand-wringing. It was celebratory and inclusive, designed to appeal to the kinds of politically disengaged people who generally feel that public protests are for unionists, students and confused hippies. "[My husband and I] wanted something that the maximum number of people could get behind, so it just kind of popped into my head," Northrop told the ABC.
It also seemed to recognise that food is often the grassroots level on which cross-cultural encounters happen, and that the dinner table can be a space of productive discussion. It was like that TV ad in which people of all ages and cultural backgrounds park themselves in the street for a massive, communally catered feast.
But then I started to worry about its being tokenistic. After all, "raising awareness" is something white people like. Vindaloo Against Violence doesn’t really ask people to change their ways of thinking, or even necessarily their habits — many people would already enjoy a Wednesday night curry. As Christian Lander of the Stuff White People Like website says, awareness raising is the perfect way for white people to feel as if they’ve protested without actually changing anything. "In other words, white people just have to keep doing stuff they like, EXCEPT now they can feel better about making a difference."
Vindaloo Against Violence also upends the key tenet of many traditions of hospitality: that the onus is on the host to welcome the guest. It asks instead that we show hospitality to Indian people by enjoying their hospitality. So, ultimately, Vindaloo Against Violence’s idea of "we welcome you" is "you welcome us".
Another reservation I have about the project is that it has a tendency to reduce the cultural presence of Indian people in Australia to those jolly service industry folk dishing out butter chicken and saying, "Thank you, come again!" in lilting tones. To the extent that it does this, it’s an insult to the totality of that presence. What about Indian academics? Indian health professionals? Indian retailers? Indian hairdressers? And so on.
Furthermore, the majority of Indian citizens at risk of violent crime do not work in the pleasant, mildly exotic, hazily cross-cultural milieu of Indian restaurants. They work more broadly in the service industries that lubricate the machinery of Australian cities, industries that white Australians largely refuse to work in, such as taxi driving, convenience stores, service stations, and fast food restaurants.
And participating in these industries — overwhelmingly out of economic necessity — is what puts young international students in situations where they can get intimidated, bashed, robbed and murdered.
These are the sorts of workplaces that compel their staff to treat pissed-off (or just pissed) dickheads with politeness and deference. And they are the sorts of workplaces which tell these dickheads that there’s someone lower than them in the social pecking order — someone they’re entitled to pick on.
Perhaps instead of allowing Indian people to wait on us in Indian restaurants as a way of showing welcome, we should be working to change the way we treat our humblest hospitality workers generally. We must recognise that these workers, if they come from other countries, are our guests when they’re outside of the workplace, that they’re not our servants when they’re in it, and that making them feel welcome here means honouring and respecting them.
In Greek mythology, the gods would sometimes disguise themselves as poor travellers, punishing and rewarding their hosts according to how well they lived up to the Greek ethic of hospitality. It’s a shame that we have no vengeful gods to watch and punish everyday cruelties. However, the groundswell of support shown to Vindaloo Against Violence shows that in our media and online social networks we do have other powerful observational forces.
While it has its problems, part of my hesitation in criticising Vindaloo Against Violence is that I can’t think of anything better myself. But I do feel strongly that any grassroots attempt to change international perceptions of Indian-Australian relations must sacrifice some of our own thoughtlessness in order to make our guests feel more at home.
- Is There Life Beyond The Barbie? According to Sam Kekovich, "our world would be a better place if we just came together as mates over a lamb barbie, just like we do down under." He warns us that "we’re facing a pandemic: UnAustralianism" because "as a planet, we’re not eating enough lamb."
So… mates. That old Australian leveller. Mateship, we’re told, is a core Australian value, with roots in the interdependence of convicts, ANZAC soldiers at Gallipoli, surf lifesavers and the CFA. Note the blokiness of the string of ubiquitous examples trotted out each time somebody wants to wax lyrical about the egalitarian values of mateship — then try to imagine discussing the "mateship" of the Country Women’s Association.
It seems we have a gender situation on our hands — which is where we would be even without the invocation of "mates" by getting to the "barbie" anyway. The great Australian barbecue is a gendered culinary space, and many a woman has sneered about "mates around the barbie", and how little labour most men actually do to prepare or to clean up after a barbecue dinner, let alone to create any of the side dishes. Is this really the inclusive national imaginary of over 20 million Australians?
To be fair, if we really want to talk about "national" food, a barbecued meal is well suited to our climate, the freshness of our ingredients, and the relatively casual lifestyle of Australians — factors that are to a great degree present across culture and class. So it seemed reasonable enough for Matt Preston to carefully avoid naming a national dish and instead to gesture toward a national style, the barbecued meal (as long as you ignore the common barbie discourses of hyper-masculinity). Maggie Beer backed him up with a similar claim, arguing that to barbecue lamb rather than roast it is more suitably "Australian".
Around Australia Day this year, it wasn’t just the meat lobby who was pushing for discussions of a national dish, there were the usual discussions of national identity and food. Former chef and advocate of local, seasonal foods Rebecca Varidel conducted an informal poll on Twitter and posted her results, which showed more diversity than the roast lamb, meat pie, and sausage responses to News Ltd’s poll, including a number of responses asserting the distinctiveness of Australian salads, lightness and ubiquitous seafood.
And yet, when Masterchef finalist Poh Ling Yeow claimed that salt and pepper squid might be emerging as Australia’s national dish, there were some rather strong and negative responses. One food blogger went so far as to assert that he "can’t accept something [his] grandparents never heard of as a national dish", and continued, on the topic of the UK’s chicken tikka masala, "I don’t care that it was invented by an Indian chef in the UK, that makes it Indian, not from the UK."
This is the kind of nationalist fervour more often expressed around questions of religion than food — though the recent petition to remove the halal certification from Vegemite certainly indicates the depth of feeling engendered by food as a national symbol, especially when combined with religious mores.
Here’s the rub: who appointed any of us as authorities on Australia’s national dish? Differences in cultural, class and familial histories will obviously inform the variety of opinions on what constitutes such a thing. And further, chefs and scholars will often bring a critical perspective to the discussion, as evinced by their unwillingness to pin down a singular dish, and their apparent interest in discussing styles, hybridity and what cultural theorist Ien Ang has called "complicated entanglements", which are a necessary condition for "living together-in-difference".
Just as Keating promoted the national benefits of multiculturalism in Australia, so Howard turned it into the "m" word. Where is the leadership that will lead us out of the darkness of dogma and help to reclaim our sense of Australia as a hospitable, cosmopolitan nation ethically engaged with the region and the globe?
It’s also worthwhile asking what’s at stake when so many Australians leap to defend nostalgic Anglo-Celtic meals as the national dish, particularly when for most of them it’s a childhood memory rather than a weekly experience. What happens if we collectively agree that something about the national dish has changed?
Or if we go further and declare that our national dish is now salt and pepper squid? It is arguably more pervasive than roast lamb, and certainly cuts across class and culture: salt and pepper squid is loved by punters down at the pub; served with aioli it will win the hearts of most so-called "foodies"; drizzled with Shao Xing wine and five spice, it is a local Chinese hit.
In her 1998 book We Are What We Eat, Donna Gabaccia reminds us that "eating habits both symbolise and mark the boundaries of cultures" and later argues that American "food reveals that we are cosmopolitans and iconoclasts […] We ‘play with our food’ far more readily than we preserve the culinary rules of our varied ancestors."
Similar lines have been advanced about Australian foodways, like Cherry Ripe’s 1993 insistence that "it is not to do with lamingtons or Vegemite, meat pies or sausage rolls, pavlova or peach Melba. We have actually developed a particular, and distinctive, Australian style in our food."
Food historian Barbara Santich reiterated Ripe’s claim a decade later, arguing that "we refer to a contemporary Australian style, the product of inventiveness and a certain insouciance applied to a strong foundation combining familiarity with, and respect for, other culinary traditions."
And yet here we are another decade on, still "debating" whether our national dish should be roast lamb or meat pie, both hangovers of our colonial heritage, and both deeply unsuitable as staples to our climate and contemporary cosmopolitan lifestyle.
In Benedict Anderson’s seminal 1983 work on nationalism, Imagined Communities, he argues that although most of us won’t know the vast majority of our compatriots, we have "complete confidence in their steady, anonymous, simultaneous activity." Central to Anderson’s conception of how a national community is imagined is that it is reliant on a shared vernacular language. Australia’s multicultural food scene offers a multitude of vernacular foodways, and by weaving them all together we build a cosmopolitan society.
The nation I want to imagine myself into is the one built upon our collective openness and committed to maintaining the idiosyncrasies of Australia’s vernacular foodways. And so, 101 ways to cook a squid?
- Another Rudd Green Plan Bites The Dust? It seems the Rudd Government is having a hard time keeping its climate initiatives out of trouble.
First there was the debacle with the solar installation rebate. Next was the billion-dollar home insulation scheme, currently embroiled in a Senate Inquiry investigating allegations of malpractice and mismanagement. Now as the Government and Coalition continue to exchange blows in Parliament over their respective climate policies, another of the Rudd Government’s key climate change initiatives looks set to meet its maker.
The Green Loans Program — which offers home sustainability assessments (HSAs) and interest-free loans to homeowners making "green" changes — has been given roughly three months to live.
The $70-million initiative, which had been expected to last until 2012, set aside funds for HSAs to be carried out on 360,000 homes nationwide. But just six months into the program, more than 200,000 homes have already been evaluated, with the rest soon to follow as a surplus of energy assessors madly scrambles for the work that’s left.
With funding for the assessments virtually exhausted, environment experts claim the program will be lucky to make it beyond April. For thousands of energy assessors nationwide, three years’ worth of potential work has been reduced to a matter of months. More broadly, for those who see this sector as a vital piece in the growth of a green economy, the threat of collapse is a very serious problem.
Unsurprisingly, questions are being asked of the Government, and with some predicting a "climate election" for later this year, the Coalition and Greens are charging the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEHWA) with mismanagement.
The Department, headed by Minister Peter Garrett, has been accused of fumbling the Green Loans initiative and permitting a blowout in the number of energy assessors despite knowing it only required 2000 assessors to complete the program.
Deputy Leader of the Greens, Christine Milne, claims the operations of large companies and unscrupulous training organisations went unchecked by DEHWA, along the way recruiting more than five times the required number of assessors, and essentially milking the program dry.
Alarmingly, Milne also claims DEHWA ignored early advice from its accrediting assessor organisation, the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA), that the number of energy assessors was reaching capacity, and threatened the overall viability of the scheme. "By September last year ABSA had notified the department that the number [of energy assessors] was reaching 2000 and the program was blowing out," Milne told newmatilda.com. "Why didn’t they move in straight away and curb the numbers?"
Daniel Harper, founder of sustainability assessment company Coolplanet, said that ABSA’s response — announcing that it was going to stop certifying assessors after a certain date — simply made matters worse.
"What the date did was fuel demand because people thought they were going to miss out," said Harper, whose organisation runs HAS training, along with other green initiatives. "What they did was exacerbate the problem instead of solving it."
In a media statement, ABSA’s CEO Alison Carmichael said that in September they anticipated around 1500 applications would be made by the end of the year, but in fact they received an "unexpected" 6500 over the holiday period.
ABSA has offered those who applied for certification in late December and January the option of withdrawing their applications, but for those who left jobs and invested thousands to become accredited, the option has come too late. With the remaining HSAs fast disappearing — an individual can assess five houses per day — many assessors waiting for certification will be jobless before even completing a single assessment.
Milne claims DEHWA promised assessors on a number of occasions that no more than 2000 assessors would be trained and accredited to guarantee work in the future, but Garrett’s office refutes that claim. "The Government did not limit the number of assessors operating under the Green Loans Program or provide guarantees regarding the number of assessors who would be allowed to operate under the program," a spokesmen from Garrett’s office said in a statement to newmatilda.com.
Another factor that appears to have affected the health of this fledgling industry was that Government regulations may have distorted the market in favour of large assessing companies. HSAs were not conducted entirely by individual assessors - the Government also allowed large companies to compete for HSAs, pitting them against small operators. Equipped with call centres booking in homes for HSAs, and hundreds of assessors, these companies were able to assess upwards of 6000 homes per week, while independent assessors were capped at five per booking.
"It would appear they [large companies] have been given preferential — and I would say discriminatory — treatment," Milne said.
While independent assessors must make HSA bookings via an ABSA hotline — which by ABSA’s own admission has been struggling recently with high volumes of callers — larger companies such as Field Force were able to bypass the system and log thousands of HSAs via a separate system, Milne said.
There have even been instances where larger companies have been paying assessors $50 for evaluations, Milne said, while pocketing the Government’s $200 payout allocated for each HSA under the program.
More questions have been raised surrounding the quality of training being offered to assessors. Industry specialists have alleged some organisations packed dozens of students into each training program and rushed through the course to maximise profits, with students paying around $1000 per head.
"I am sure there are training providers not concerned with the environment but instead thinking about the money," Harper said. "They try to get as many people in as quickly as possible and then disappear."
While ABSA states its training organisations are all registered and follow standardised methods, Harper claims that since he has been running courses neither ABSA nor DEHWA have contacted him once to inquire about student numbers of course materials.
A source in the environment industry, who wished to remain anonymous, said of the 70 training providers approved by ABSA, only 20 "were registered training organisations". As well, "ABSA didn’t have any criteria for becoming a trainer. They had an Australian national training framework and they chose not to use it. Anybody could have been a trainer."
As questions over the program mounted, on 4 February ABSA released a statement saying that the industry body "does not deliver Green Loans training to assessors". A spokesman for Garrett however said ABSA is required to confirm assessors are suitably qualified and experienced before undertaking HSAs, and said the Government would be launching an immediate inquiry into the adequacy of ABSA’s accreditation process.
With assessors paying ABSA $660 for accreditation, Harper said ABSA should be lobbying harder on behalf of its members.
"They have just buried their heads in the sand and hoped it will pass over," Harper said, "To my knowledge they are not doing anything when they should be saying ‘We need more funding.’"
Yet green industry experts still see opportunities to set the project back on course. Environmental insurance expert Anthony Saunders agrees that greed has overshadowed the initiative so far, but says he nevertheless believes "the Federal Government is onto a winner with this initiative".
Harper sees hope for the scheme too. He points out that the Government had hoped 70,000 homeowners would take up the interest-free Green Loans to make improvements to their homes, but so far only 1000 have. Harper proposes that the Government use the unspent funding allocated for paying the interest on these loans to breathe new life back into the program.
As well, the Government has proposed a national program that would require that all homes sold undergo a sustainability assessment, to begin in 2011. According to Harper, if this program were to be brought forward it could fill the employment gap left by the flailing Green Loans Program.
"They need to bring that date forward or there needs to be extra funding
so people can continue to have work," he said. "In a year from now, the whole industry could have collapsed."
- A Dog Of An Interview For a while now, we’ve been wondering about this First Dog on the Moon character. Sure he’s funny (and clever too: for a cartoonist his spelling is exemplary)
— but what makes him tick? Does he tick, or is it more of a whirring sound? See, we buy his calendars, we use his doodles as our Twitter avatars
— but really we know very little about this guy.
Aiming to change all that, we asked him 20 carefully selected questions, formulated to reveal the maximum information in the least space. Unfortunately, in his answers we got more
— and also somehow much less
— than we bargained for (actually we didn’t realise we were bargaining at all). Attempting to explain to us why he can’t colour inside the lines like everybody else, Mr. Onthemoon wrote: "I … didn’t do it properly. But I am an artist and so I cannot be constrained by your alleged rules. Or something."
Anyhow, here are his answers.
1. What’s the oldest thing in your fridge?
Ben Pobjie
2. Has any party got a climate change policy you agree with? Who?
Dear God please don’t make me read policy as well as all of the other things I have to do. Are they on Wikipedia? If they’re not on Wikipedia or Reddit I don’t know anything about it. I only watch Lateline with the sound off. Does Leigh Sales have a climate change policy? I agree with her policy.
3. When was the first time you changed your mind on something important?
Should I buy the Talking Casper The Ghost Doll or the Remote Control Motorbike. I changed my mind over and over and got the wrong thing.
4. What’s the household chore you relish the most?
When we get a pig, I will take it for walks.
5. What’s your favourite chocolate?
Anything slow enough to catch.
6. Best and worst albums of all time?
So negative! Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! is the best album of all time. My most favourite worst album of all time is Pinky Blue by Altered Images.
7. Some people say politics and sport don’t mix — what about politics and fashion?
That is not even a sentence. Who are these people that say these stupid things?
8. If, tomorrow, you could go anywhere in Australia for a holiday, where would you go?
To bed.
9. How would you stop Japanese whaling?
I would send Ben Pobjie.
10. If you were Sport and Recreation Minister Kate Ellis, on which sport would you lavish funding?
Pobjie baiting.
11. Nominate a new public holiday.
International Ben Pobjie Awareness Day.
12. What shoes do you wear to work?
My Converse or my running shoes, depending on how I am getting there. If I am riding my bicycle it is my running shoes, then I change into my "good" Converse when I get there. But if I am taking the train I already have my other pair of "good" Converse on unless it is winter in which case Blundstones (the good ones).
13. Name one celebrity you think should launch their own food label. What would be their signature product?
Poffertjes from the House of Pobjie.
14. What campaigning tactic do you most want to see in this year’s federal election?
Baby flinging.
15. Name your favourite lovable loon and rate their threat to public safety.
The Great Northern or Common Loon (Gavia immer) is my favourite. It appears on the Canadian dollar coin. I would suggest the threat to public safety is low.
16. Do you have any secret political crushes you’d like to share with our readers?
No. All my political crushes are embarrassingly public.
17. When did you last eat a meat pie?
Western Bulldogs vs Collingwood 30 August 2000.
18. Matt Preston, Catherine Deveny and Marieke Hardy. Who do you like least?
I have had celebrity crushes on all of these people at one time or another, however at the moment only Matt Preston follows @firstdogonmoon on Twitter so the others are dead to me.
19. What is one thing you’ve always wondered about economics but were too afraid to ask?
Are you going to eat all of that?
20. What question should we ask our next interviewee?
What would you say if I told you the 2009 questions were more interesting than the 2010 ones? I think I’ll answer them now.
Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with? [This is not us asking — he has obviously cut and pasted them from previous 20 Questions pieces.]
A talking pig who was also a lift mechanic.
What trivia topic will you beat everyone else in the pub to the buzzer on?
My favourite sandwich toppings: "Do you prefer mayonnaise or mustard?" *Bzzzzt!* "I know that one!"
Complete this sentence: "I’d like to hear Kevin Rudd say ‘…’"
"… also it turns out pigs are just as smart as three-year-old children so we’re not going to be able to eat them anymore."
If you could have made one major life move differently, what would it have been?
I would have stayed a woman.
You’ve been appointed research director for an organisation funded by a hands-off philanthropist. What do you tell your staff to find out?
What happened to the philanthropist’s hands.
How often do you check your email?
Every four seconds.
What annoys you about politicians? Capitalism.
Name someone in Australian public life who deserves a promotion.
Ben Pobjie.
Name someone in Australian public life who should be out on their ear.
Andrew Blot.
Can we fix climate change?
We can but we won’t.
If we were in a karaoke club and not online, what song would you sing?
The Star-Spangled Banner.
Have you ever seen a ghost?
I heard eerie howling one Christmas Eve when I was eight.
Computers could be improved. How?
Cheaper and 100 per cent biodegradable, with a fresh pine scent.
I’m going to get a coffee? What can I get you?
Can you pick up my dry cleaning? I have always wanted to say that. I don’t have any dry cleaning but let’s just imagine for a moment that I do. And that you could pick it up. I would really appreciate it if you did that for me.
Do you have a hidden talent? Yes.
Is honesty the best policy?
Is it Leigh Sales policy? Because if it is then yes.
- Men Not At Work Cartoon by Bill Leak
- A Rocky Start To The Political Year For a political writer, it’s always tempting to repeat Harold Wilson’s immortal cliché: "a week is a long time in politics" but sometimes we witness a week in which political fortunes change so rapidly that the line is hard to resist.
Right about now, Tony Abbott must be wondering what happened. With the resumption of Parliament, this week was the first week back to proper politics in the nation’s capital. It started so well for the Opposition too, with the release of a Newspoll suggesting the Coalition was regaining support among voters, results which appeared to vindicate the new leader’s more combative style.
Then, on Tuesday, the Coalition released its long-awaited climate change policy which offered the chance to reframe the Liberal and National Party’s position on this key issue. Although polls still show climate change is a winning debate for Labor, the Coalition had been gaining ground before Christmas on the back of surging doubts about the science and economics of climate change, particularly among conservative voters.
But by week’s end, Abbott was on the back foot, struggling to sell his climate policy and forced to publicly defend his new shadow finance minister, Barnaby Joyce.
The problems began with the costings in the Coalition’s climate policy which had been carefully crafted as a "cheaper" and "better" alternative to Labor’s emissions trading scheme. Abbott proposed to pay taxpayer’s money to polluters who reduced their emissions and eschewed an economy-wide cap. As I argued on Tuesday, it was immediately obvious the policy wasn’t going to be any better in terms of reducing carbon emissions, given the lack of a carbon cap and a certain haziness as to how carbon prices would be set — not to mention the unexplained "penalties" for big polluters who don’t play by the rules.
Worse, the Coalition’s estimates of the cost of paying for various types of carbon emissions reductions soon began to look decidedly rosy. Even a cursory analysis of the Coalition’s figures shows that the shadow carbon price created by the policy would be low, in the order of around $12.50 or so, according to my initial estimates.
A low carbon price means a weak incentive to decarbonise. It’s a problem which continues to plague the renewable energy sector in this country as many economists and analysts have pointed out.
As journalists and experts pick over the policy in more detail, further questions are emerging, particularly over the issue of soil carbon on which the Coalition is relying to achieve most of its carbon reductions. Soil carbon technologies, like improved farming techniques and the emerging technology of biochar, certainly have potential as a way for Australia to reduce its emissions.
As this paper from the Wentworth Group of scientists points out, soil carbon technologies offer a big opportunity for Australia to put more carbon back into the landscape and to keep it there but some experts also question whether the Coalition’s proposed price for soil carbon sequestration, between $8 and $10 a ton, will be sufficient. Peter Cosier of the Wentworth Group pointed out that farmers would get more under Labor’s CPRS — which makes sense, as under Labor’s plan the price for carbon would be higher.
To amplify the Coalition’s discomfort, the Government then leaked its own departmental advice on the Coalition’s rubbery carbon figures. The Department of Climate Change thinks that the Coalition’s carbon assumptions are wildly optimistic and that the true cost of the Coalition’s plans will be more like $20 billion annually by 2019–20. The track record of the NSW Government’s Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme appears to back this up.
Of course, the real climate issue for Tony Abbott is political. It’s about how to calibrate a policy that keeps the sceptics in his own party happy (it was this issue, remember, that brought Malcolm Turnbull undone) while appearing to be plausible and credible to the business community and voters at large. As Penny Wong and Kevin Rudd have found, crafting a political compromise in these shark-infested waters is perilous at best. Abbott will probably have to tweak or even re-issue his climate policy by the time the election campaign rolls around.
And then there was Cyclone Barnaby.
Barnaby Joyce was promoted by Abbott to the position of shadow finance minister ostensibly because, as a former accountant to the big cotton farms of Queensland’s south-west, he was at least numerate but it was words, not numbers, that got Joyce into trouble this week as he stumbled his way through a strangely mediocre speech, at one point confusing billions for trillions in the kind of muddle that journalists love.
To make matters worse, Joyce also showed his usual flair for throwing off provocative ideas at the drop of a hat, this time foreshadowing cuts to the public service and questioning whether Australia should still be spending money on foreign aid.
Public servants and the international development lobby were predictably outraged, and Abbott has spent the last 48 hours trying to straighten out the mess. Even poor old Joe Hockey experienced some blowback, when a voter in Canberra (a public service town) laid into him over Joyce’s remarks.
The bigger issue is whether Joyce is the right man for a senior leadership role in the Coalition. A canny and passionate communicator, Joyce is also unpolished and ill-disciplined, with such an ingrained tendency to shoot his mouth off that gaffes are almost inevitable. "Colourful" is an ideal epithet for a politician from rural Queensland, but, in the broader arena of Australian politics, Joyce may soon learn some hard lessons via the problems caused by his quirky and independent style.
Interestingly, Abbott’s climate change policy and Joyce’s dismal performance at the National Press Club have also played into Labor’s key communication strategy for 2010, which is economic management and environmental prudence. For almost the first time on Tuesday, the Prime Minister was able to explain in simple terms what his emissions trading scheme will do.
"An emissions trading scheme does three basic things," he said in his Prime Ministerial doorstop. "It puts a cap on carbon pollution. The second thing it does is that it charges Australia’s biggest polluters for their pollution. And thirdly it uses that money to provide compensation to working families for the 1.1 per cent increase in their cost of living which comes from that, which also gives them the opportunity to invest in energy-efficient appliances to make a difference to those costs in the future."
If Rudd can keep to that formula and actually get his government to sell it in those terms, then, he should be well on his way to winning the climate debate.
In Kevin Rudd and Labor, Tony Abbott and the Coalition are up against one of the most ruthless government operations in Australian political history. They simply can’t afford to keep gifting the Government easy opportunities as Joyce did this week. And yet, you’d be unwise to bet that either Abbott or Joyce will change their style. As the year develops, we’re likely to see sharper distinctions between the parties and an increasingly polarised political debate.
- Welcome To The Mother Country
When 71-year-old Virginia Walker was in hospital three years ago she had a steady stream of young male visitors. "People there used to wonder," says Walker in a very proper English accent. "Black men, dark men, all coming to see this older woman in hospital."
Although Walker has no children of her own, every year she receives cards, emails and phone calls from refugees wishing her happy Mother’s Day. "I became aunt or mother to the refugees and in many ways they are my children." When asked why refugees call her "mother", she replies, "Because I’m giving and I care about them."
Walker is one of many Australians who became involved in the grassroots refugee movement during the Howard years — a movement made up of several disparate urban and rural groups around Australia.
"The movement was carried by women," says Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne. "Women did the day-to-day heartbreaking support work."
Many of the women involved offered more than just support — they became mothers to the refugees they cared for.
Framed photos of the refugees Walker has helped sit on the bookshelf of her ground-floor Sydney apartment which was bought after two knee reconstructions. A bag of donated baby clothes is propped up by the door next to an assortment of fancy and functional walking sticks. Today she is using a brightly-coloured floral stick to help her get around.
Walker’s life experiences give her a natural affinity with refugees. She travelled through the Middle East when she was 17, worked in corrective services for almost 18 years, has undertaken volunteer work in many capacities, and studied the sociology of migration at university.
In 2002, a friend suggested Walker visit asylum seekers in detention. "I told her I never wanted to go inside a jail ever again."
Once inside, however, there was no looking back. "I never stop. There’s a lot of cooking. When I go to Villawood, I take biscuits, cakes, fruit, nuts, Turkish bread and dips — things I know they like." She also helps with visa applications, gives emotional support and organises accommodation and financial assistance through the Bridge for Asylum Seekers Foundation she set up in 2003.
Walker says her background as a prison welfare officer helps her to know when to cut off from the problems around her so she can continue her work and remain sane.
Unlike Walker, Elaine Smith is an advocate with no history of political involvement. She is a 58-year-old community pharmacist with a gentle manner from the country town of Laurieton, NSW.
Smith became concerned about refugees when media reports about detention camps reminded her of school-day lessons on the European camps of World War II. "We identified with Europe. We asked, ‘Why didn’t the general populace rise up and say we don’t do these sorts of things?’ I couldn’t get to the bottom of that."
"I was just a person going to work and coming home every day. I couldn’t even work out the difference between Iraq and Iran. I thought it was my social responsibility to do something, but I didn’t know what, so I got on the computer and googled ‘refugee’."
Eventually, through a network of nuns and advocate groups, Smith got five names of people to write to and ended up corresponding with hundreds. "It was hard to keep track of them all," she admits. Smith started to develop closer relationships with some of the boys through the discovery of shared interests, like art and education. Some of the boys called her "mother".
"Calling me mother is their way of handling the relationship," says Smith. "They come from family-orientated societies. I felt it was initiated by them, but to put myself in context, I would write, ‘I’m an older woman like your mum or grandmother.’ What I was trying to say was I’m not a young woman that you have to be awkward with."
Smith has stayed in contact with some of the refugees she wrote to and sends money every fortnight to an Afghan friend who was pressured to return but many refugees have moved on. Smith says she doesn’t feel bereft or disappointed when the friendship lapses. "If they move on it’s a sign of strength. It would be foolish and damaging for me to think there would be something in return."
That’s not to say that Smith doesn’t get anything out of her work. She has welcomed the sense of purpose and the feeling of being connected to something larger than herself.
The experience of 29-year-old Abdul Hekmat from Afghanistan confirms the enormous impact advocates like Smith have had on the lives of refugees. Seven years ago, Hekmat found a mother figure and friend in writer Rosie Scott. "I often said to my family, especially my mother, that I have another mother here," says Hekmat.
Hekmat met Scott when he wrote a story about his boat journey to Australia for an anthology of writing by detainees that Scott was editing through literary organisation, Sydney PEN.
Their relationship moved from one based on writing and refugee advocacy to strong friendship. "As we got to know each other I felt very protective towards him. He was 22 and alone in a place where he couldn’t speak English very well," says Scott. "We found we had mutual interests. Some of the most interesting literary conversations I’ve ever had have been with Abdul."
Scott is youthful at 61, with an open smile. "I’ve helped Abdul with all sorts of things," she says, "from his thesis on the Hazara diaspora to anything to do with the immigration department. We started to talk about personal things, like his ideas about marriage. I think I’ve managed to translate the culture for him, the whole courting thing. He’s very private though. It took a long time for that to happen."
The most moving moment for Scott was attending Hekmat’s graduation ceremony. "He’d never made it clear before, but he said to me then that it was like his second mother had come. I was crying when he went up to the stage. I was so proud."
Hekmat’s own mother inspired his love of learning. "She is happy about what I have achieved," says Hekmat, "but what really concerns her is that children should get married at this age. She felt frustrated in some way that she didn’t have control in my life."
"Rosie fits into a mother figure because I share some of my problems with her," says Hekmat. "When I was stressed and worried about my health she consoled me and was very helpful. I only spoke to my mother briefly about it because I thought my family might get upset, but despite having good friendships with people, especially with Rosie, it can’t be a substitute for your own family."
In January 2009, Hekmat travelled to the dangerous border region of Pakistan where his family was living. "I realised then how much I loved him," says Scott. "I was beside myself. I thought he could be shot and that would be it."
Despite the worry, Scott finds that looking after others is restful and healing. "When you love someone there’s an unconditional aspect to it. You’re not immersed in your own crap all the time. It’s also about nurturing people who’ve been broken or damaged or needy. This feeling was so strong of wanting to love them back."
After a long wait trying to bring them to Australia, Hekmat is finally living with his family again and is helping them to settle. He also helps other refugees resettle in Sydney through his job as a migrant youth worker.
With the change of government and immigration policy, some advocates are shifting their focus away from detention. "One of the beautiful things we’re seeing this year is family reunion," says Pamela Curr.
In the garden of Elaine Smith’s new house in Narre Warren, on the outskirts of Melbourne, tiny trees in pots sit inside newly dug holes, ready to be planted. She has moved from NSW to help resettle the families of the young men she was once writing to in detention. "I could do a lot of work at a distance before," says Smith, "but I can’t do it now. The women are arriving with little English and the kids."
Virginia Walker continues to visit Villawood every week armed with bags of food, ready to assist with claims and listen to the many stories asylum seekers have to tell. "The detention situation is not over," says Walker.
Meanwhile, Rosie Scott hopes to write another novel after abandoning her last one to work on the refugee anthology, but she has no regrets. "I think a lot of the women’s lives have been immeasurably enriched," says Scott, who has discovered Persian poetry and been inspired by Afghan culture. "A lot of the refugees are progressive. I love the way Abdul looks at things."
"I’m very proud he looks on me as his second mother. I never had a son. I have daughters and granddaughters. Abdul would be a lovely son."
- Al-Qaeda Wedding: Celebrating in an Unfortunately Named Town An unexpected wedding invitation to an unfortunately named town highlights Yemen's promise -- and its challenges. An evening with the villagers of Al-Qaeda
- Congressman Jack Murtha, War Hero and War Critic, Dies at 77 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's first choice for majority leader, Pennsylvania Rep. John C. Murtha, died today of complications relating to a gallbladder surgery. Murtha was 77.
- Why China Needs The U.S. -- And Vice Versa Trade frictions, political barbs and finger wagging are the new trends in U.S.-China relations. As things get worse, both sides stand to lose
- Putting the GOP's Health Care Plan in the Spotlight Perhaps to President Obama's relief, Republican health reform plans are the ones being scrutinized now, in advance of the Feb. 25 bipartisan summit on health care
- Undercover Boss: Phony, Manipulative, Entertaining I suspect people will see the show as a reflection of what they already want to believe about workers and businesspeople
- Sri Lankan Opposition Leader Sarath Fonseka Arrested Protests are expected to escalate as the government sends military police to detain General Sarath Fonseka
- Older Moms More Likely to Have Autistic Kids Women who give birth after age 40 face a higher risk of having an autistic child, regardless of the father's age, according to a comprehensive study of all births in the state of California in the 1990s
- 'Black Hearts': On Green, Iraq's 'Triangle of Death' The first of two excerpts from TIME contributing editor Jim Frederick's new book, 'Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death'
- Banking: Should Wall Street Cease Proprietary Trading? President Obama and adviser Paul Volcker are calling for banks to stop engaging in proprietary trading. Is this smart? Is it even possible?
- Venezuela's Opposition Protests Slur Chavez at Ball Game The fiery President's popularity has been plummeting and his opponents took advantage of the situation by heckling him at a popular baseball series
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- Eyes on Ukraine PM to contest poll results or quit - BBC ... BBC NewsEyes on Ukraine PM to contest poll results or quitBBC NewsUkraine is waiting for Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to either contest results from Sunday's presidential election, or accept defeat and quit. Pro-Moscow opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych appears to have narrowly won the poll, which monitors have ...World Digest: International observers say Ukrainian election was free and fairWashington PostFor Kremlin, an Election in Ukraine Cuts Two WaysNew York TimesNew Ukraine leader may still drive hard bargain on gasReutersLos Angeles Times -The Guardian -Times Onlineall 2,961 news articles »
- Republicans may opt out of Obama's health-care summit - W... ReutersRepublicans may opt out of Obama's health-care summitWashington PostLeading House Republicans raised the prospect Monday night that they may decline to participate in President Obama's proposed health-care summit if the White House chooses not to scrap the existing reform bills and start over. ...On Health Bill, GOP's Road Is a New MapNew York TimesGOP: Back to drawing board on health careUSA TodayObama's healthcare summit sets stage for end-gameReutersThe Detroit News -NPR -FOXNewsall 2,804 news articles »
- Congressman: Murtha's intestine damaged in surgery - Wash... Washington PostCongressman: Murtha's intestine damaged in surgeryWashington PostAP WASHINGTON -- A Pennsylvania congressman and longtime friend of the late Rep. John Murtha says the congressman's large intestine was damaged during gallbladder surgery and the complications led him to be hospitalized. ...Rep. Murtha Dead at 77FOXNewsJohn Murtha, US defense appropriations chair, diesReutersRep. John Murtha, voice for veterans, dies at 77WGMEWilkes Barre Times-Leader -Pittsburgh Post Gazette -Seattle Post Intelligencerall 1,438 news articles »
- To Ace This Interview, Palin Keeps Notes Close - New York... The GuardianTo Ace This Interview, Palin Keeps Notes CloseNew York TimesSarah Palin looked at the palm of her hand during the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tenn., on Saturday. By KATE ZERNIKE Ask conservatives why they love Sarah Palin so and they will often say it is because she is so “authentic. ...Palin likens global warming studies to 'snake oil'San Jose Mercury NewsSarah Palin Rallies Tea PartiersABC NewsMinnesota GOP feels party gathering steamMinneapolis Star TribuneReuters -KHSL -Record-Searchlightall 2,899 news articles »
- Gov. Granholm calls Obama's Asian carp plan too weak - Th... AFPGov. Granholm calls Obama's Asian carp plan too weakThe Detroit NewsWashington -- The Obama administration proposed Monday a $78.5 million plan to try to prevent the voracious Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes, but Gov. Jennifer Granholm said it falls short of what's needed to protect the fragile ecosystem ...Feds may close locks to stop carpChicago TribuneWashington offers plan to control Asian carpMilwaukee Journal SentinelUS Unveils Plan to Keep Asian Carp Out of Great LakesWall Street JournalNew York Times -Reuters -Joliet Herald Newsall 633 news articles »
- Afghan assault on Taliban to test US strategy - AFP Telegraph.co.ukAfghan assault on Taliban to test US strategyAFPKABUL — A planned assault on a major Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan is the first real test of a new US-led counter-insurgency strategy to re-establish government control and end the war. Operation Mushtarak is an experiment in combining the ...A double target: Taliban and opiumMiamiHerald.comIn southern Afghanistan, even the small gains get noticedWashington PostBritish troop killed in S AfghanistanXinhuaBoston Globe -BBC News -Times Onlineall 1,058 news articles »
- A fact check of the Democratic governor debate - Dallas M... WLFI.comA fact check of the Democratic governor debateDallas Morning NewsTHE CLAIM: Farouk Shami said that over the past few years, the state has executed a few people who were innocent. He then added, "We have killed lots of innocent people in the state of Texas." THE FACTS: There is no definitive evidence yet that any ...In debate with Shami, White directs attention at PerryHouston ChronicleFact-checking the Democratic debateFort Worth Star TelegramWhite, Shami debate for Democratic nominationabc13.comSan Angelo Standard Times -KFOXtv.com -Austin American-Statesmanall 161 news articles »
- Saints' Risky Decisions Were Both Calculated and Crucial ... ReutersSaints' Risky Decisions Were Both Calculated and CrucialNew York TimesCoach Sean Payton made daring decisions on the way to New Orleans's first Super Bowl victory. Toward the end of the first half on Sunday night, trailing by 10-3, he called for a run on fourth-and-goal from the 1. ...Colts' conservative approach made no senseIndianapolis StarSaints bask in glory day after Super Bowl victoryHouston ChronicleThese e-mailers are writing about a wrongBoston GlobeBoston Herald -USA Today -Kansas City Starall 16,092 news articles »
- Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby Says He's No Longer Blocking ... al.com (blog)Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby Says He's No Longer Blocking All Obama NomineesABC NewsSen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., had blocked more than 80 presidential nominations now before the Senate, but tonight he relented, saying he had simply been trying "to get the White House's attention" on two important ...Senator Lifts Holds on Most NomineesNew York TimesRichard Shelby lifts hold on Obama nomineesPoliticoDemocrat candidate creates website criticizing senate rulesRadio IowaAllGov -Gaea Times (blog)all 134 news articles »
