THE GUARDIAN: On election day David Hoffman had a knock on his door by the police, who instructed him to take down a poster he had in his window of David Cameron with the word 'wanker' written on it. Moments later he was handcuffed and threatened with arrest WARNING: contains explicit language
Thursday, June 17, 2010
THE GUARDIAN: On election day David Hoffman had a knock on his door by the police, who instructed him to take down a poster he had in his window of David Cameron with the word 'wanker' written on it. Moments later he was handcuffed and threatened with arrest WARNING: contains explicit language
THE INDEPENDENT: David Cameron today set out Britain's "red lines" on economic sovereignty at his first summit encounter with fellow EU leaders.
He said Britain would not submit its annual Budget for "peer review" to Brussels as part of a new economic surveillance crackdown.
And he warned that proposed hefty sanctions against countries breaching deficit and debt limits set by the EU must apply only to the single currency member states.
The new boy in the bloc was invited to speak early on in today's summit debate on EU "economic governance" and, after formally introducing himself, set out Britain's well-established defence against central control over the domestic budget programme.
Summit conclusions on the table seem to offer the Prime Minister a way out of the "peer review" plan, which would require all countries to submit annual national Budget details and analysis to Brussels before presenting them to MPs.
The text backed by most EU leaders proposes that, from 2011, in the interests of strengthening budgetary discipline across the EU, member states should present their budgetary plans to the Commission each Spring "taking account of national budgetary procedures". >>> Press Association | Thursday, June 17, 2010
THE TIMES: BP’s chairman was forced into a new apology after calling those affected by the Louisiana oil spill “the small people”.
Hours after saying sorry for the worst oil spill in American history, Carl-Henric Svanberg was again apologising for what he admitted was “clumsy” wording. The latest misfortune came after BP had been forced into suspending dividends to shareholders and setting aside $20 billion (£14 billion) for compensation claims.
Carl-Henric Svanberg said that he was very sorry after he had earlier remarked: “I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don’t care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people.” Read on and comment >>> Susan Thompson, Catherine Philp, Giles Whittell, Washington | Thursday, June 17, 2010
THE TIMES: Stunned by the hurricane of hatred that has devastated their lives and swept away their homes, the survivors recounted the same story: the ethnic slaughter in Osh, they insisted, was not simply a clash between Kyrgyz and Uzbek groups but an attempt to expel, even exterminate, the Uzbek community in Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest city.
Police and soldiers, they said, had been in the vanguard of mobs that shot unarmed civilians and ransacked Uzbek neighbourhoods.
In the ruins of the city’s Uzbek district of Cheryomushki, traumatised residents described three waves of attack as Kyrgyz gangs systematically destroyed their homes in an orgy of murder, rape, looting and arson. They claimed that an armoured personnel carrier led the initial charge, with men in uniform firing at civilians.
“Soldiers shot at people, then Kyrgyz groups went from house to house attacking Uzbeks with knives and guns,” Kustniden Azhimjanov, 36, said. “They raped women in their homes. We could hear the screaming but we could not help them because we had no guns.
“Then the third group came through, stealing everything they could and setting fire to the houses. They were shouting ‘Uzbeks get out or we’ll kill you all’! ” Read on and comment (+ video) >>> Tony Halpin, Osh | Thursday, June 17, 2010
THE TIMES: The Home Office was embroiled last night in a diplomatic dispute over the Osh conflict, as the son of Kyrgyzstan’s former leader remained in detention in Britain.
Roza Otunbayeva’s interim Government is seeking the extradition of Maxim Bakiyev, 32, over allegations of corruption. Mr Bakiyev, the youngest son of the ousted former President, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, landed in a private jet in Farnborough, Hampshire, on Sunday night. He was detained by the UK Border Agency on an Interpol warrant.
His links to this country are unclear but he has reportedly claimed asylum in Britain. While he had no travel documents, The Times understands that he has access to both an ordinary and diplomatic passport.
The nature of Britain’s extradition status with Kyrgyzstan remained uncertain last night. The Government has no formal treaty with the former Soviet bloc country but it is understood there are mechanisms that could be used to deport Mr Bakiyev. The Home Office was unwilling to comment on any extradition arrangements.
A UK Border Agency spokesperson said: “On 13 June a 32-year-old man was questioned by UK Border Agency staff after arriving at Farnborough airport without the necessary documentation to enter the UK. We are not able to comment further on this case.” >>> Fiona Hamilton, London Correspondent | Thursday, June 17, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH – BLOGS – JANET DALEY: The BBC reports of Barack Obama’s speech last night are about as derisive as it would be possible to be about someone you were describing only a few months ago as the incarnation of Hope and Optimism. Yes indeed, the romance is over. The British media have decided that it was all a cruel deception: Obama is just one more ranting populist president who will do anything to divert attention from his own failure to get a grip. And this is not just about BP and the fate of all those pension funds. Read on and comment >>> Janet Daley | Wednesday, June 16, 2010
I hate to say this, but I will anyway: I told you so! It should have been clear from the very start that this president was different from many others. The whole thing was about one person: about him! Obama is a great president if you want a president who poses, flabs (talks), and indulges in self-aggrandisement. If what you want is a man of substance, then Obama is not the man for you! He is far too taken-in with himself, far too aware of his own importance.
A little humility would go a long way from this man; alas, humility is one human quality we are very unlikely to see from him. The way he speaks tells it all. Just listen to him with a critical ear. That will tell you everything you need to know about this president.
The media gave this man a free ride when he ran for office. He kept spouting the terms “hope and change”; but not one journalist had the sense to ask him what he meant by those terms. How stupid was that?
As for the British media falling "out of love with Obama", I'd say this: They should never have fallen in love with him in the first place! – © Mark
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Pakistani police say Gary Faulkner of Denver was trying to make his way into Afghanistan. Faulkner's brother says he's determined to catch the Al Qaeda leader on his own.
Reporting from Denver and Islamabad, Pakistan — The U.S. has spent nine years and billions of dollars trying to hunt down Osama bin Laden amid the rugged, lawless badlands along the Pakistani-Afghan border.
But according to Pakistani officials and his own family, Gary Brooks Faulkner of Denver thought he could get the job done himself, with a pistol, a dagger and night-vision goggles.
Faulkner talked with family members about his quest, and at Denver International Airport on May 30 he was asked what his family should do if he came back from Pakistan in a body bag.
Faulkner, 50, and his younger brother Scott discussed Gary's desire for cremation. Scott snapped a farewell picture on his BlackBerry. Then Gary, a construction worker with failing kidneys, boarded a plane for Pakistan.
On Tuesday, Pakistani police said they had arrested Faulkner in a remote, mountainous region near the Afghan border.
"He's not insane," Scott Faulkner told reporters in Denver on Tuesday. "He's just very passionate."
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Scott said, his brother — a devout Christian with no military training — has taken at least six trips to Pakistan to find Bin Laden.
"After Osama mocked this country on 9/11 and it seemed that the military wasn't doing enough, it became his passion, his mission, to track down Osama and kill him or bring him back alive," said Scott Faulkner, a physician. He described his brother, who is divorced with one adult son, as charming, chatty and in fine mental health. >>> Nicholas Riccardi and Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times | Wednesday, June 16, 2010
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration has reached a preliminary agreement with BP executives that would see the oil company pay $20 billion over several years into an independently controlled escrow account to be established to compensate Gulf of Mexico residents affected by the disastrous oil spill, and BP's board of directors has eliminated the company's stock dividend, at least temporarily.
The agreement on the escrow was negotiated in a meeting at the White House on Wednesday morning, the first face-to-face gathering between President Obama and senior BP leadership. A White House official said that, under the terms of the deal, the fund would be administered by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, currently serving as the special master for executive pay under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Feinberg ran a fund that compensated victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Immediately after the meeting, BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said that the oil company's board of directors has decided not to pay any more dividends this year. >>> Mike Memoli and Peter Nicholas | Wednesday, June 16, 2010
SCHWEIZER FERNSEHEN: Auch wenn es in der Schweiz nur wenige Musliminnen gibt, die ihr Gesicht mit einem Schleier verhüllen, steht die Forderung nach einem generellen Verbot der Burka im Raum. Ist der Ganzkörperschleier eine Bedrohung für die hiesigen Werte? Ist er ein reales Problem? Die Gäste im «Club» haben über das Pro und Contra eines Burka-Verbots diskutiert.
Das Progam wurde in Schweizerdeutsch übertragen. Saïda Keller-Messahli spricht klar und deutlich gegen den Ganzkörperschleier. Bravo!
*Eine Schweizerin, die sich zum Islam bekehrt hat.
THE TELEGRAPH: The rebellion against the 1930s fiscal and monetary policies of the Euro-complex is gathering pace.
Il Sole has published a letter by 100 Italian economists warning that the austerity strategy imposed by Brussels/Frankfurt risks tipping Europe into a self-feeding downward spiral. Far from holding the eurozone together, it will cause weaker countries to be catapulted out of EMU. Others will leave in order to restore sovereign control over their central banks and unemployment policies.
At worst it will blow the EU apart, leading to the very acrimony that the European Project was supposed to prevent.
For readers of Italian, it’s here.
While I don’t share the big-state Left-Keynesian perspective of these professors — nor their implicit hostility to the free market — I do agree with much of their overall analysis. >>> Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | Wednesday, June 14, 2010
Lettera di 100 economisti contro la manovra e la linea (europea) dell'austerità >>> mercoledi 16 giugno 2010
SCHWEIZER FERNSEHEN: Einige Muslime in der Schweiz wünschen eigene Schulen. Diese Forderung hat in der vergangenen Woche für hitzige Diskussionen gesorgt. Andere Glaubensgemeinschaften wie die Juden haben schon lange eigene Schulen. Die NOAM in Zürich-Enge, gibt es seit 30 Jahren. Simon Christen hat die Schule besucht und den Schulleiter gefragt, was er von der Forderung islamischer Schulen halte.
*Dieses Video wurde in Schwyzertüütsch, sogar Züritüütsch, ausgestrahlt.
Auch in Schwyzertüütsch;
SCHWEIZER FERNSEHEN: An vielen Orten fordern Muslime eigene Grab-Felder. In Luzern haben sie sich einen Platz erkämpft. Bis heute liess sich aber kaum jemand auf diesem Friedhof beerdigen. Die meisten Einwanderer der ersten Generation wollen ihre letzte Ruhe in ihrem Heimatland.
SCHWEIZER FERNSEHEN: Sintflutartige Regenfälle haben im Südosten Frankreichs für Chaos gesorgt und mindestens drei Menschen das Leben gekostet. In einigen Orten wälzten sich bis zu zwei Meter hohe Wassermassen durch die Strassen.
Oder auch hier
THE TELEGRAPH: Only 14 of the world's 1,000 billionaires are self-made women, and only nine of them had no help from relatives, a new list has found.
In a list of the world's richest self-made women, American business magazine Forbes published the names of 14 women who have accrued $1 billion or more thanks to their own entrepreneurship rather than inheriting part or all of their fortune.
Seven of the women on the list were Chinese, Harry Potter author JK Rowling was the only British-born woman, and of the fourteen, at least five built their business empires with the help of husbands and brothers or sometimes both.
By contrast, Forbes said that 665 of the world's 1,011 dollar billionaires, including the three wealthiest men on the planet, Carlos Slim, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, were self-made men. That, it said, meant that the 'female billionaires' club' accounted for two per cent of the total number of self-made billionaires.
"All of these self-made female billionaires have impressive personal stories, but the dearth of them is itself a story, and begs the question of why so few?" Forbes wrote. >>> Andrew Osborn in Moscow | Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The World’s Richest Self-made Women >>> | Tuesday, June 15, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Franco-German relations have hit a new low after Angela Merkel slapped down Nicolas Sarkozy to assert Germany's control over the European Union's economic recovery.
The French president has surrendered to the German Chancellor's demands on EU economic governance and her idea of "red cards" for member states that break spending rules set in Brussels.
Mr Sarkozy had been determined to create an "economic government" of the 16 eurozone countries with a powerful secretariat to coordinate national budgets, tax and spending.
But Chancellor Merkel refused to accept his plan, insisting that it extend to all 27 states with the euro continuing to be run by the European Central Bank.
She won out after a tense meeting saying it was a red line issue for Germany.
"The members of the EU have to look at themselves as a kind of economic government. We must not create the members of the first and second class," she said.
The German victory is also bad news for David Cameron who had been hoping for French support in keeping Britain out of such measures. They include an EU demand to vet the British budget before it is presented to the House of Commons or the public.
President Sarkozy was then bludgeoned into accepting a German ultimatum that euro zone states that persistently breach budget deficit limits should have their voting rights suspended on economic issues, even if that requires changing the EU treaty. Previously, the issue of treaty change has been taboo for Mr Sarkozy who fears a French referendum. "If a treaty change is needed we will propose it," he conceded in Berlin.
Attempting to paint a gloss of unity over the talks, the French president claimed that "more than ever, Germany and France are determined to talk with one voice".
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a French Eurosceptic MP, blasted Mr Sarkozy's climbdown as "a capitulation while in pitched battle".
"Germany has imposed its European choices on a submissive France, which has definitively given up on its own (choices)," he said. "Faced with a suicidal and unilateral Germany, France has once again been totally absent, forgetting that in a couple, it takes two to tango". >>> Henry Samuel in Paris and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels | Tuesday, June 15, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: President Barack Obama has vowed to "make BP pay" for not only the multi-billion dollar clean-up of the Gulf of Mexico but also the restoration of the region's economy, undertaking to force the British oil giant to set aside the money he believes it owes as "a result of [its] recklessness."
The US President, in his fiercest rebuke against the company in the 58 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana causing the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf, promised to get tough with BP and to ensure that it meets all costs he believes it should pay.
In a direct attack on the company's dividend policy, Mr Obama said that BP must place the money needed to cover the as-yet unquantifiable costs in an independent "escrow" account to be run by a third party.
The staunch words – which came in Mr Obama's first national address from the historic Oval Office in the 18 months since he took office – came ahead of his crucial meeting with Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP's chairman, and Tony Hayward, its chief executive, at the White House later today.
"We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused", he promised the millions of Americans who were expected to watch the televised prime-time address.
"I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness," he continued.
"This fund will not be controlled by BP. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent, third party." >>> James Quinn, US Business Editor | Wednesday, June 16, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: The drink-drive limit could be lowered so that one drink is enough to put motorists over the limit, under plans to be considered by the new Transport Secretary.
Among the other controversial measures that could be introduced are giving the police more power to randomly stop drivers, an even lower limit for learner drivers and lifetime bans for repeat offenders and those considered “high risk.”
The report, drawn up by Sir Peter North and commissioned by the former Labour government, recommends that the limit for drink-driving falls from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg. That would bring Britain into line with most other European countries.
Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, will publish the report today and will study its findings. If he goes ahead and backs the new lower drink drive limit it will be controversial, as the Conservatives had opposed such a move in opposition.
Sir Peter, who is the former Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, is likely to urge a tightening of other aspects of the procedures that surround drink-drive arrests. >>> Andrew Porter, Political Editor | Wednesday, June 16, 2010
All the pleasures of life are either bad for you, sinful in the eyes of God (if you believe in Him), or increasingly illegal. Cigarettes went out of the window a long time ago. Booze is being clamped down on at an alarming rate. Sex gets you into trouble if you aren’t careful; or in any case can be controversial these days, to say the least. Eating makes you fat. Sugar causes diabetes. Salt causes hypertension. Soon there’ll be little else to do but turn to Mekkah and pray to Allah. At least that way, all being well, you should eventually get 72 virgins, unlimited wine (which is forbidden to the faithful on this earth), and dark-eyed houris more beautiful than one can possibly imagine! Furthermore, as an added bonus, they tell me that there aren’t any politicians up in Heaven – no politicians whatsoever, of any hue. Now that’s got to be a good thing! – © Mark
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