- UK Tax Sheets
- Legal Documents
- Company Formation
- Business Jargon
- Business Software
- Book Store
- Business Directory
The Guardian World News
Back to News Portal
03/16/2010 08:47 PMClinton piles pressure on Israel over settlements US secretary of state says onus is on Israel to restart peace process as Israeli soliders clash with Palestinians
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, todaydemonstrated a new-found steeliness towards Israel by making it clear she was expecting it to back down in the row between the two countries and offer concessions needed for a resumption of Middle East peace talks.
As rock-throwing Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces in Jerusalem in protests dubbed "a day of rage", Clinton sent a double-edged message to Israel.
She softened the tone of remarks coming from the Obama administration over the last few days by talking about the deep bonds between the two countries. But she combined this by firmly placing the onus on Israel to make concessions needed to get the Palestinians back into talks.
Clinton told reporters at the state department that the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, had to take action to show he was serious about a peace process. She said: "We are engaged in very active consultations with the Israelis over steps that we think would demonstrate the requisite commitment to the process. It's been a very important effort on their part as well as ours. We know how hard this is. This is a very difficult, complex matter. But the Obama administration is committed to a two-state solution."
The rift began last week when the US vice-president, Joe Biden, visited Israel in the hope of getting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks under way. But Israel scuppered the talks with an announcement that it planned to build 1,600 new Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope will one day be their capital. Hours before Clinton spoke Washington demonstrated its anger with the Israeli leader by abruptly cancelling a visit to Israel planned fortoday by the US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. Clinton has privately set out various demands for Israel, including the cancellation or freeze of planned Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, a promise to engage in talks with the Palestinians on matters of substance, and confidence-building measures such as the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the West Bank and release of Palestinian prisoners.
The steady build-up of pressure on Netanyahu has left him in a bind. If he backs down he is in danger of losing the support of the right in his coalition government. Responding to Clinton, his words did not suggest a readiness to bow to US demands, at least in public. In a statement issued by his office, he said: "With regard to commitments to peace, the government of Israel has proven over the last year that it is committed to peace, both in words and actions."
He cited the removal of hundreds of roadblocks across the West Bank and a temporary freeze on construction of settlements on the West Bank. Middle East analysts in Washington said the Obama administration was not trying to engineer the collapse of the coalition but, if it happened, would welcome a more moderate one that might emerge.
One of the underlying motives of the US resolve to get the peace process moving was offered today by the top US military commander, General David Petraeus, the head of Centcom, which is responsible for the Middle East and Asia. Petraeus told the Senate armed services committee yesterday that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a root cause of instability in the Middle East and Asia and "foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel".
The Israeli government has long objected to being linked to wider conflicts in such a way. Petraeus said there had been insufficient progress towards a comprehensive Middle East peace deal and this "presented distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests" elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia.
Simmering Israeli-Palestinian tensions erupted into violencetoday with clashes in East Jerusalem after Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, announced a "day of rage" following yesterday's ceremonial reopening of a synagogue in the Old City.
The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement faced pressure from its own largely defunct military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, demanding to be allowed to resume armed struggle against Israel. It condemned "the ongoing violation of the al-Aqsa mosque".
Israeli forces tightened a blockade on the Old City, particularly the mosque compound. Israel's Ynet website reported 49 Palestinians injured in confrontations with Israeli border guards and police. Palestinian sources said more than 90 people were injured and some 70 arrested.
Jonathan Freedland, page 27 Leader comment, page 30
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 09:30 PM25% of NHS trusts failing on hygiene Exclusive: NHS watchdog Care Quality Commission finds blood spattered walls and filthy ambulances
A quarter of health trusts failed to meet standards over hospital infections while five were warned over blood-spattered walls and mouldy instruments under a toughened regulatory regime, the Guardian has learned.
Of particular concern was the state of ambulances, which were inspected for the first time. Investigators found dirty forceps stored in some vehicles as well as bloodstains.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) used its sweeping powers last year to assess how well NHS trusts were coping with hospital infections – which affect 300,000 patients a year.
Of the 167 trusts inspected, 42 were found by the commission to be in "breach" of NHS registration requirements by not meeting standards.
All 11 ambulance trusts in England were assessed – and four found to have violated the terms of their NHS contracts. Things were so bad that ambulance services in the north-west, east of England and east Midlands received formal warnings for the state of vehicles and stations.
The CQC, derided by critics as a toothless watchdog for "naming and shaming but not paining", will reveal on Thursday that it has been granted the power to impose tough sanctions that could see failing hospitals warned, prosecuted, fined up to £50,000 and ultimately closed down if they fail to comply with the regulator's edicts.
As a test-run of this regime the commission was authorised to examine the risks in the NHS of healthcare-associated infections and the results revealed that a minority appeared to take a cavalier approach to safety.
The reasons for failure were worrying: 36 trusts were not providing areas to decontaminate instruments; in three trusts there was a failure to regularly flush unused water outlets – crucial for the control of legionella infections; and 13 trusts were criticised for not keeping clinical areas clean. Nigel Ellis, the CQC's head of national inspection, said: "Good infection control takes constant vigilance – and meeting that every day, for every patient, is an ongoing challenge for the NHS.
"We have found evidence of a direct risk to patients and have intervened using our new enforcement powers to ensure swift improvements were made."
Of these failing trusts, five had to be issued with a warning notice – the first step towards losing the right to operate in the NHS. Investigators pinpointed several serious transgressions, especially in ambulances.
In the north-west vans were stocked with dirty neck braces that were continually reused despite health guidelines urging disposal after one patient's use.
At Stockport ambulance station, vehicle interiors were "seen to have stains (which appeared to be bloodstains) on the walls as well as visible dirt on the floor and walls".
In Essex "hand wipes were not available" and "poor levels of cleanliness" were found in 22 out of 23 vehicles inspected. Ambulance equipment in the East Midlands was singled out for being "visibly dirty, including suction units, defibrillators and the tips of forceps".
The hospitals highlighted for poor practice were both foundation trusts: Basildon and Thurrock university hospitals, and the world-famous Alder Hey children's foundation trust in Liverpool.
In Basildon, where the commission's old ratings system had come under fire last year for labelling the hospital "good" weeks before it emerged that dozens of patients might have died after receiving substandard care, investigators found a dismal scene: "Procedure trays used by staff to carry equipment when they take blood samples or give injections had blood spattered on them … a commode soiled under the seat." Out of date equipment was also found in the emergency stores.
In Alder Hey, one of Europe's largest children's hospitals, the inspection revealed dirty toys, hair stuck to medical equipment and "nappy changing mats stored on the floor next to a toilet … and a dirty baby bath was inside the full-size bath". The water "ran brown" from taps in rooms ready for patients to be admitted.
The commission said the threat of further measures had pushed the offenders into cleaning up their act. Hospitals and ambulance trusts were forced to set up better procedures, buy new equipment and "deep clean" wards and vehicles – or face a rolling wave of inspections. The last of the conditions imposed for infection control was removed only last December.
Under the new regime CQC can send teams of investigators, accompanied by groups of patients, to hospitals to see whether they match "client" expectations. The bolstered regime is capable of 2,000 unannounced visits a year – three times the current level. "We want to put the patient at the heart of what we do," said Dame Jo Williams, acting chair of the commission. "Doesn't matter if it's the health service, the banking system or Tesco, there is something about the way you are treated as a patient or a client or a customer."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 05:30 PMFreed boy's mother 'amazed' • Mother says boy had spoken as if 'nothing had happened'
• Boy found in field as speculation grows over ransomThe mother of a five-year-old British boy kidnapped on holiday in Pakistan nearly two weeks ago described his release today as "amazing" and said he sounded "like nothing happened" when she spoke to him by telephone.
Sahil, who is said to be in good health and now in the care of his uncle and Pakistan officials at a police station, was snatched from his grandmother's home in the Punjab on 4 March while on holiday with his father, Naqqash Saeed.
The robbers had held his family at gunpoint and demanded a £100,000 ransom.
Officials said police had found the boy earlier today wandering alone through a field after being dumped by kidnappers in Kharian, about 25 miles from Jhelum, the Punjab town from where he was taken.
In Oldham, where relatives were celebrating the news, Sahil's mother, Akila Naqqash, said she was "gobsmacked" at his reaction to the ordeal and would "give him a big kiss and cuddles and keep him happy" when he returns.
Clutching a photograph of her son, she said: "It was amazing. At first I thought it was not true. I talked to him on the phone, my little boy. It reassured me that he is safe and he's been released from the kidnappers."Obviously [he had] been held for 13 days, and the way he spoke to me was like nothing happened – it's normal, the way he spoke and everything. He's going on and on and on about his toys and his sisters and everything – a normal little boy."
She said she was told about Sahil's release at 4.20am today by her sister-in-law who took a call from police, but initially thought she was dreaming. She said: "I needed to hear his voice to believe it. I spoke to him a few hours later. He will definitely be getting a jacket potato when he gets home."
Sahil's mother denounced speculation about possible family involvement in the kidnapping, saying: "It is a lot of rubbish to us. We just heard what has been said on the news. We don't know anything about it. We have had the full support of the police, churches, mosques, Pakistani government and authorities over there."
Sahil's father was criticised by the Pakistani interior minister for leaving the country to return to the UK at the start of last week, and today his wife said that she did not know his current whereabouts, but said: "Me and my husband are still together, happily married after seven years, all the speculation has been false. It makes me angry all the stories. I have had had no contact with him but hopefully he will be bringing back my little boy."
There was speculation the boy's father, Naqqash, had come back to the UK to organise raising the ransom.
Pakistani police said the kidnappers let his family and police know where they could find him in a telephone call but could neither confirm nor deny if a ransom had been paid. Sahil's grandfather, Raja Mohammed Basharat, told ARY television today that "according to my information, no ransom has been paid".
However, the Punjab state law minister, Rana Sanaullah, told Sky News that a ransom had been paid, after money had been raised. Three countries were involved, he said. Sanaullah said the size of the ransom was "immaterial, but it was paid".
He told Reuters an "international gang of kidnappers" was responsible. "We are trying to bust this gang with the help of other countries," he said, without elaborating. .
The kidnappers struck as Sahil and his father awaited a taxi to the airport for their flight home to the UK. The kidnappers originally set a deadline of midday the next day for the money to be delivered. Greater Manchester's assistant chief constable, Dave Thompson, made a point of thanking Sahil's parents for their co-operation, and said the priority now was to get the boy safely home. He said the boy was released at 4.10am UK time, in Kharian city. "He was released nearby to a school, alone, wandered into a local field and was found by some local residents who looked after him until such time his family found him with the police."
Foreign Office officials said they could not confirm that any ransom was paid but that a statement would be made later today.
Sanaullah said there had never before been so much government effort put into a kidnapping case, adding that Pakistani intelligence was also involved in the boy's recovery.
The boy's family had become increasingly frustrated during the investigation, not least when Sanaullah had mistakenly said the boy had been freed and when Pakistani authorities said on several occasions they were close to securing the boy's release. His mother said she had not left her house for the duration of the kidnapping, waiting every moment for news.
Akila Naqqash's sister-in-law Amrana Istikhar, 33, said that the ordeal for the family had been really hard‚ with Sahil's mother not leaving her house for fear of missing news. She said: "We have just been praying day and night and we believe our prayers have finally been heard. We can't say anything about the ransom. We don't know anything about it. All we have been doing is praying until he gets here, we will carry on praying."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 06:58 PMLawyer: eight Iraqi deaths in custody Legal chief tells of killings and torture in early days of invasion
Eight or more civilians died in the custody of British troops in the weeks after the invasion of Iraq, despite frequent warnings by the army's most senior legal adviser there about unlawful treatment of detainees, an inquiry has heard.
In devastating evidence to an official inquiry, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Mercer described the way Iraqi detainees were intimidated and hooded by British soldiers as "repulsive". He said that 10 days after the invasion in March 2003 he saw 20 or 30 detainees lined up with sandbags on their heads.
He was shocked, he said, adding that it was "a bit like seeing pictures of Guantánamo Bay for the first time".
Mercer said he had had a "massive row" with the commander of the Queens Dragoon Guards about the army's legal obligations under the Geneva conventions and the European Convention on Human Rights. He had walked out of a meeting between British officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross after being told by a "political adviser" to keep his mouth shut, he added.
Mercer's repeated protests about the unlawful treatment of Iraqis in British custody was so unwelcome within the Ministry of Defence that his boss, Martin Hemming, head of its legal service, threatened to report him to the Law Society, he said.
Mercer, who is still serving, was giving evidence into the death of Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel worker who died in British custody in September 2003. This was months after Mercer had persistently warned senior army officers — including General Robin Brims, commander of British troops in southern Iraq — that detainees were being subjected to unlawful treatment.
He revealed that he and Brims later refused to sign statements pre-prepared by Hemming as evidence to the Commons human rights committee.
He said the abuse of Iraqi prisoners might have been prevented if a British judge had been appointed to oversee the handling of detainees, a proposal that he said was blocked by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general.
Goldsmith, who has said he never authorised the use of five banned techniques, including hooding, may be asked to give evidence to the inquiry with the former defence secretary Geoff Hoon, and former armed forces minister, Adam Ingram.
In his evidence, Mercer described how in May 2003, two months after first issuing his warnings, military police investigators told him about two deaths in custody. They added that they thought there were "five or six more deaths that required investigation".
Speaking later outside the inquiry, Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers, which represents Iraqi detainees, said there were 47 "unresolved cases" involving the mistreatment of civilians by British troops. "There are so many cases, that is why we need a single inquiry [to cover them all]", he said.
Mercer recalled seeing one prisoner, Faisal Sadoon, held in "appalling conditions" in a container "with a barbed wire door in 40 degrees-plus of heat". He was told of prisoners appearing bruised and hooded at detention centres. He recalled seeing "a generator running outside the interrogation tent, which seemed to me to create a culture of intimidation and possibly with the aim of muffling any noise".
He warned that "in no circumstances should [detainees'] faces be covered as this might impair breathing" "I felt I was banging my head against a brick wall. We found ourselves in a constant legal battle," he told the inquiry.
He regarded hooding, banned in 1972, as repulsive. "It amounts to violence and intimidation and it degrades the individual so I don't like it in any circumstance," he said.
He said he felt vindicated when the Red Cross began to express concern in May 2003. British soldiers were handed cards before the invasion saying that civilians should be treated "humanely". But there was no training in interrogation techniques, Mercer said.
His warnings, and those of the Red Cross, reached ministers and top military commanders in London. But hooding was not banned until after Mousa's death more than six months later, the inquiry heard.
"The issue of prisoners had very low priority and was treated more as an inconvenience than an obligation under international law," Mercer said in a written statement to the inquiry. It was partly a question of resources and lack of planning, he said.
But he added that it was also about "proper education, training, and the moral compass". He said there was a "classic dilemma" in the army. "You're in the command structure and there's always pressure to do one thing, when legally you may believe something else".
An MoD spokesman said: "All deaths in British custody in Iraq have been thoroughly investigated. Having committed to a public inquiry, it would be wrong to comment upon any evidence presented to it."
He said the ministry will have an opportunity to respond to the report written by the chairman, Sir William Gage, at the end of proceedings.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 05:34 PMDetails of pope's visit confirmed Pontiff will travel to Scotland, hold two public masses and meet the Queen in first official visit to Britain of a pope
Buckingham Palace confirmed details today of the first official visit to Britain of a pope, which will see Benedict XVI celebrate two public masses, meet the Queen and move a 19th century theologian closer to sainthood in a ceremony at Coventry airport.
Non-policing costs amount to £15m, a sum to be met by the state and the Catholic churches of England, Scotland and Wales. Policing costs will depend on the venue for each engagement and will draw on existing budgets for the forces involved ‑ Strathclyde police, the Metropolitan police and West Midlands police.
The pope, due to visit in September, will travel to Scotland and England during his four-day trip, taking in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Coventry and London.
He will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor John Paul II, who visited the country on a pastoral trip in 1982, by celebrating mass in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow.
The pope will also lead the beatification ceremony at Coventry airport of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who is likely to become the first Englishman since the 17th century to be made a saint and the first British, non-martyred saint since St John Twenge in 1379. Popes normally instruct beatifications to be carried out at a local level but the pontiff has made no secret of his admiration for Newman, who is variously described as a "towering figure" and the most famous Anglican to convert to Catholicism ‑ at least until Tony Blair. At a Foreign Office briefing the Scotland secretary, Jim Murphy, welcomed the visit, describing it as a "truly unique event".
Murphy said discussions were continuing as to how to best divide the cost but that appropriate contributions from church or state would be made. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, president of the Conference of Bishops in Scotland, said: "When John Paul II came it was a pastoral event and it was paid for by the church. We're not scrimping in any way."
Following the Scottish leg of the tour, which includes an audience with the Queen at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and the Coventry event, the pope will travel to London for a lecture on civil society and a potentially awkward meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace.
Relations between the two buckled last year when the pope created a special wing in the Catholic church for traditionalist Anglicans disaffected with greater inclusion of gay and female clergy, by allowing them to convert while retaining Anglican aspects of worship.
Dr Rowan Williams received no notice of the papal plan and was only informed of the development a fortnight before a press conference to announce it, where he looked visibly uncomfortable.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 09:50 PMMourinho and Eto'o spoil Blues' night The return of José Mourinho was a grim reunion for Chelsea. Their former manager engineered a bold display in which Internazionale created the bulk of the chances. A goal from them was overdue before the outstanding Wesley Sneijder released Samuel Eto'o twelve minutes from the end and the striker shot emphatically beyond Ross Turnbull.
The occasion became ignominious when the Chelsea forward Didier Drogba was sent off for taking a kick at Thiago Motta in the 87th minute. There had been a shortage of any other type of menace and this failure for the club in the last 16 of the Champions League, where it has been defeated in both legs, will raise questions about the extent of rebuilding that will have to be conducted.
Mourinho had come with the intention of making one last mark on Chelsea's history. To be precise, what he had in mind was an ugly blot. His old club, after all, had not been eliminated at this comparatively early stage of the tournament since the spring of 2006. The means by which Mourinho intended to knock out Chelsea bore an element of surprise.
His position at Stamford Bridge had become untenable in the early autumn of 2007 because his pragmatic and almost world-weary style was no longer acceptable to the owner Roman Abramovich. Mourinho has not had a profound change of heart since then, but there was an unexpected emphasis on attack, with three forwards in the line-up here because he suspected vulnerability in his former team.
It made sense for Eto'o to attack on the right when Yuri Zhirkov, who has to serve at left-back because of Ashley Cole's injury, is more of a midfielder by disposition. Mourinho also had the stylish Sneijder to support the strikers. Oddly the adventurousness brought about stalemate. Chelsea were not sufficiently co-ordinated before the interval and Inter did not look oppressed. The home side were more likely to make an impact through a piece of individualism, as when Drogba let fly and saw the attempt cannon off Maicon.
The Brazil full-back was part of the build-up that saw him link with Eto'o after 33 minutes, with Michael Ballack having to cover Diego Milito as the ball was pulled back into the centre. Such exhibitions of scrupulous defending are not a Chelsea speciality any longer.
The manager, Carlo Ancelotti, despite having many of Mourinho's men still in the squad, had to show not just that his outlook is fundamentally more enterprising, but also that it could put paid to visitors of this sort. Faced with such an agenda, Chelsea have lost some of their fixation with security and the defence is hardly iron-clad any more.
Contrasts, all the same, are imperfect and it would be an injustice to depict Mourinho's time as a period of well-executed tedium. After all, victories do tend to require risk and imagination at some point. At his peak with Chelsea, the former manager had Arjen Robben and Damien Duff to devastate the opposition and delight the spectators.
Such means had appeared to be lacking at Inter, but the summer dealings brought a little more style to the Serie A club. Mourinho added to that with a bold selection for this match. When the side was knocked out by English opposition at this juncture in each of the past two seasons, they did not score a goal against Liverpool or Manchester United. There is a determination to break with that sterility.
The change was apparent in the 2-1 win over Chelsea in the first leg and it was Mourinho's plan to put the opposition on edge with his trio of attackers here. Chelsea had trouble achieving fluency in the first half, particularly when there was so much difficulty in making an impact on the flanks.
Attacks were messy and it was representative of the struggle when heated appeals were made for a penalty when Walter Samuel had his arms around Drogba. Chelsea really required smoothness in open play, but as half-time approached there was agitation on the Inter bench. It was an occasion when tension would become increasingly marked.
It was essential for Ancelotti's team to score, but the visitors would not permit themselves to be confined to their own penalty area. Indeed Chelsea had to be vigilant and Zhirkov impressed by clearing for a corner after the influential and inventive Sneijder had backheeled the ball towards Goran Pandev. The Dutchman ought then to have had the credit for setting up an opener, but Milito's shot from Sneijder's chip was utterly miscued.
A sense of relief was of scant benefit to Chelsea and Ancelotti sent on Joe Cole. All the same, the side lacked a general rhythm to its work. That was scarcely a defect that troubled Mourinho's men.
They could have been angry purely because they had not made enough of their superiority. There was a frantic tone when Ancelotti felt compelled to take off his left-back and add another striker in Salomon Kalou. The struggle here was as intense and nerve-racking as everyone had anticipated.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 09:32 PMNo 10 opposes Unite filling safe seats Some senior MPs suspect that parliament selection process is being manipulated to benefit Unite or Ed Balls
Downing Street has been forced to intervene to stop Unite, the country's largest union, parachuting more of its own candidates into safe Labour seats.
The move comes amid allegations inside the party that a covert operation is under way to ensure that senior figures in the union – one of Labour's biggest donors – win Labour strongholds.
The Conservatives have seized on the links between the union and Labour, which have been in the spotlight because of Unite's dispute with British Airways.
Today the Tories mounted a highly personal attack on Charlie Whelan, the political director of Unite, claiming the prime minister was in hock to Labour's new militant tendency.
The relationship is likely to be scrutinised afresh after No 10 took the unusual step of intervening in the candidate selection process following protests from senior party figures, including Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, that the Stalybridge and Hyde seat was being lined up for a senior Unite official, Peter Wheeler.
The seat has come vacant due to the resignation of James Purnell, the former work and pensions secretary.
Following the complaints – which involved cabinet-level figures – No 10 ordered the Labour national executive special panel responsible for drawing up the short list to reopen and widen the list of candidates. The move reflects not just an argument about one candidate but the future shape of the party.
The original panel of four candidates appeared to have been constructed to help Wheeler, who is a member of Labour's national executive committee and a prominent Unite official. The pressure from Downing Street forced the NEC to reconvene and extend the shortlist to include a popular local councillor, Jonathan Reynolds, seen as a strong challenger for the seat if he were allowed to contest the selection in a secret ballot.
Behind the protests is a wider suspicion among some senior MPs that the parliament selection process is being manipulated to benefit Unite or Ed Balls, the schools secretary.
In the event of Gordon Brown standing down after the election, Balls is certain to be a candidate for the leadership and would want as many sympathetic MPs as possible. It is understood that Purnell was among those questioning the selection process.
There is concern in some circles that Tom Watson, a former Unite official and minister close to Brown, is playing an influential role in selecting shortlists for constituencies where MPs are standing down. Watson is on the panel as a representative of the government, even though he is no longer a minister.
There have been repeated claims that Unite officials, or figures backed by Unite, are being parachuted into safe Labour seats, including Jack Dromey in Birmingham Erdington, and John Cryer in Leyton and Wanstead.
Union figures said it was nonsense to describe Wheeler as a leftwinger, claiming he was a Blairite. They said Watson had been scrupulous in ensuring talented candidates got on to shortlists.
Labour refused to comment officially on the shortlist, saying only: "After initial interviews and deliberations, the shortlisting panel for Stalybridge and Hyde had further discussions and decided on a final shortlist of the following candidates, and then gave the larger list."
The Conservatives attacked Whelan, a former spokesman for Brown, who has become, they believe, a major weakness for the prime minister.
The shadow children's secretary, Michael Gove, claimed that Unite had succeeded in ensuring that 59 of its members have been selected as Labour candidates for the general election. "Charlie Whelan's distinctive fingerprints can be detected all over Labour's recent lurch to the left in key policy areas," Gove said. He cited the government's decision to abandon the part-privatisation of Royal Mail, a climbdown on opening up the supply of NHS care, and the dropping of school reforms.
Gove said that Unite's involvement in the BA dispute showed how unions were now calling the shots. "How can Charlie Whelan simultaneously be the political director of a union which is paralysing British Airways at the same time as he's directing the political activities of Britain's prime minister? How can we trust what Gordon Brown says about this strike, when we know he is in hock to Unite and in thrall to Charlie Whelan?"
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/17/2010 12:05 AMOrange prize judge: where's the wit? Daisy Goodwin says reading the 129 entries to this year's competition sometimes drove her to despair
To book lovers, it might appear to be a delicious, if demanding, treat – the opportunity to devour more than 100 novels by women writers and award one of them the prestigious Orange prize.
But the chair of this year's judging panel has launched a stinging criticism of the current "grim" crop of women's fiction – complaining that female authors appear to have suffered a collective sense of humour failure.
"There's not been much wit and not much joy, there's a lot of grimness out there," Daisy Goodwin, the author and TV producer, told the Guardian. "There are a lot of books about Asian sisters. There are a lot of books that start with a rape. Pleasure seems to have become a rather neglected element in publishing."
Reading the 129 entries to this year's competition had sometimes driven Goodwin to despair, she said, as she revealed this year's longlist. "I think the misery memoir has had its day, but there are an awful lot of books out there which had not a shred of redemption in them. I'm more of a light and shade person and there does need to be some joy, not just misery."
"I was surprised at how little I laughed … and the ones where there was humour were much appreciated I can tell you."
She accused publishers of "lagging behind what the public want", of not getting that readers do want pleasure and do want enjoyment when they read. "There comes a point halfway through the process where you think: 'Is it me or them?' You just can't bear it any more. And then you come across this joyful book."
Her frustrations aside, Goodwin said she and her fellow judges were proud of the 20-strong longlist, revealed today. She called it a "muscular" list, full of "pleasurable" and varied books. It includes some familiar books, notably Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, which won the Man Booker, and Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger, which was shortlisted. Seven are longlisted for their debut novels – among them the film producer Rosie Alison, whose book The Very Thought of You has not had a single national newspaper review.
The other first novels are Eleanor Catton for The Rehearsal; Laila Lalami for Secret Son; Nadifa Mohamed for Black Mamba Boy; Amy Sackville for The Still Point; Kathryn Stockett for The Help and Attica Locke for Black Water Rising which represents a genre rarely seen at literary prizes – it's a thriller.
The former Orange winner Andrea Levy is longlisted for The Long Song and there are former shortlisted novelists in the form of Sadie Jones for Small Wars, Mantel, Waters and Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna. The most surprising omissions are probably the 2008 Orange winner Rose Tremain, not there for Trespass, as well as there being no Anne Michaels or Valerie Martin. The longlist is completed by Clare Clark, for Savage Lands; Amanda Craig for Hearts and Minds; Roopa Farooki for The Way Things Look to Me; Rebecca Gowers for The Twisted Heart; MJ Hyland for This is How; Maria McCann for The Wilding; Lorrie Moore for A Gate at the Stairs; and Monique Roffey for The Woman on the Green Bicycle.
The judges, who also include Julia Neuberger, Michele Roberts, Miranda Sawyer and Alexandra Shulman, will announce a shortlist on 20 April.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 04:59 PMFBI using Facebook to fight crime Agents taught how to extract information from social networking sites in US government document obtained by advocacy group
Any criminals dumb enough to brag about their exploits on social networking sites have now been warned: the next Facebook "friend" who contacts you may be an FBI agent.
US federal law enforcement agents have been using social networking sites ‑ including Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter ‑ to search for evidence and witnesses in criminal cases, and in some instances, track suspects, according to a newly released justice department memo.
FBI agents have created fake personalities ‑ in apparent contravention of some of the sites' rules ‑ in order to befriend suspects and lure them into revealing clues or confessing, access private information and map social networks.
The new online efforts were revealed in a justice department document obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based legal advocacy group. The document, a 33-page slideshow prepared by two justice department lawyers, was obtained in a lawsuit the group filed against the justice department, seeking information on its social network policies.
Law enforcement agencies have long used internet chatrooms to lure child pornography traffickers and suspected sex predators and with a warrant, can seize suspects and defendants' email records. But Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites provide a wealth of additional information, in photographs, status updates and friend lists. In many cases, the information is publicly accessible.
In a section entitled "utility in criminal cases", the document says agents can scan suspects' profiles to establish motives, determine a person's location, and tap into personal communication, for instance through Facebook status updates.
Agents can examine photographs for guns, jewellery and other evidence of participation in robbery or burglary, and can compare information on Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds with suspects' alibis. Friend lists can yield witnesses or informants.
The document advises agents that Facebook is now used in private background checks. It indicates that Facebook often co-operates with emergency law enforcement requests.
In one section on working undercover on social networking sites, the document poses but does not answer the question: "If agents violate terms of service, is that 'otherwise illegal activity'?"
Facebook rules bar users from providing false information or creating an account for anyone other than yourself without permission, and says that users should "provide their real names".
A former US cyber-security prosecutor told the Associated Press that federal investigators working online should be able to go undercover as much as they do in the real world, but said rules need to be developed.
"This new situation presents a need for careful oversight so that law enforcement does not use social networking to intrude on some of our most personal relationships," Marc Zwillinger said.
In one case that highlights the use of social networking in law enforcement, a man wanted in Seattle on bank fraud charges fled and police lost track of him. The suspect's Facebook page was private but his friend list was public. Among Maxi Sopo's friends, prosecutors spotted a former justice department employee who did not know he was wanted. When Sopo posted messages on Facebook describing his easy new life in Mexico, his online friend provided information that enabled Mexican police to nab him in September.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 09:48 PMBA strike plans go on despite gains pensions Teamsters union to meet Unite leaders amid declaration of solidarity with UK workers
British Airways passengers face the threat of disruption on both sides of the Atlantic after the Teamsters, the powerful US trade union, confirmed last night it is meeting Unite representatives to discuss supporting a looming cabin crew strike.
Teamsters members have the potential to affect BA's lucrative US routes because they work on ground operations and aircraft services at major American airports. James P Hoffa, the Teamsters' general president, said he had been in contact with the Unite joint general secretary, Tony Woodley, to discuss the dispute as time runs out to avoid a three-day strike beginning on Saturday.
"We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters at Unite who are fighting for a fair contract at British Airways," said the Teamsters in a statement. "The Teamsters are an active member of the International Transport Workers Federation. ITF affiliates around the world are mobilising to support British Airways workers in their fight for passenger safety and worker respect."
Sources close to the BA dispute said the Teamsters support could range from manning token picket lines to refusing to service planes, although the latter option is likely to meet legal opposition from employers. A BA spokesman said: "It is sad to see Unite seeking backing from trade unions overseas to support its unjustified strikes against an iconic British brand."
The Conservative party said Unite, one of the Labour party's largest donors, was "pulling out all the stops" to disrupt the 500,000 passengers due to travel during the three-day strike and a further four-day walkout planned for 27 March.
"Labour's union paymasters at Unite seem hell-bent on causing maximum disruption for passengers and maximum damage to BA," said Theresa Villiers, shadow transport secretary.
Villiers alleged Unite was talking to international trade unions in an attempt to prevent strike-breaking planes from taking off once they had landed abroad. Unite, facing mounting political and public pressure over the strikes, attempted to play down the meeting with Teamsters, saying it was briefing representatives of the US union on the dispute.
"Unite has received a large number of inquiries from unions around the world offering their support to cabin crew," said Unite.
The Unite delegation is led by its aviation officer, Steve Turner, and the Teamsters meeting is taking place as hopes of a last-ditch deal to avert a strike fade. BA and Unite are pushing ahead with plans for a weekend strike by cabin crew despite political pressure to reach an agreement, as the airline announced a breakthrough in negotiations with staff over its £3.7bn pension deficit.
BA's major unions – Unite, GMB and the pilots' union, Balpa – have agreed proposals to deal with the £3.7bn hole in the airline's two pension schemes. BA said the deal, to be put to the pensions regulator in June, will not lead to the closure of its defined benefit schemes and will maintain annual cash payments into the schemes of £330m.
"This is an important step forward in the process of addressing the pension deficits which the trade unions will be recommending to their members," said BA.
BA's pension deficit is commonly viewed as the greatest threat to the airline's survival, not least because it could prevent mergers with other carriers as a perennially loss-making industry consolidates. BA's planned merger with Iberia, the Spanish national carrier, could be abandoned if Iberia feels the deficit is "materially detrimental" to the deal.
One quip heard in City circles describes BA as a "pension fund with wings".
However, there was no sign of an amicable resolution to the biggest short-term problem facing BA as Unite continued its preparations for the planned cabin crew walkout. Unite's cabin crew branch, Bassa, has booked a strike HQ near Heathrow and has hired minibuses to transport crew to picketing sites around the airport. BA has trained 1,000 volunteer cabin crew to take the place of the strikers and, with the help of 22 chartered aircraft, hopes to carry 60% of its passengers to their destinations.
Unite's Woodley continued the war of words with BA management, dismissing claims that the union had failed to attend weekend talks with Acas, the conciliation service, as "utterly false".
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 02:19 PMMPs seek Omagh intelligence inquiry • Questions unanswered on what police knew, says committee
• Families welcome report after Panorama programmeA public inquiry should be established to examine whether vital intelligence on the Real IRA was shielded from detectives investigating the Omagh bomb massacre.
The Northern Ireland affairs committee at Westminster made the recommendation following its investigation into how the Omagh atrocity was handled.
The committee said too many questions remained unanswered over how much the security services knew about the killers' movements around the time of the dissident republican attack 12 years ago, and if police officers were left out of the loop.
Families of the victims welcomed the cross-party committee's report but Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan died in the bombing, said any inquiry should span the Irish border and explore allegations that the republic's security forces made errors in the Omagh investigation.
Twenty-nine men, women and children were killed in the 1998 explosion – the biggest single act of mass murder in the Troubles. No one has been successfully prosecuted over the bombing in the County Tyrone market town.
Last year, four men were found liable for the bombing in a landmark civil case taken by the victims' families.
The parliamentary committee launched an inquiry into the security services' role following claims in a BBC documentary that the government's listening station, GCHQ, had monitored suspects' mobile phone calls as they drove to Omagh from the Irish Republic on the day of the atrocity in August 1998.
The Panorama programme said this information was never passed to Royal Ulster constabulary detectives assigned to the case.
While a subsequent review by the intelligence services commissioner, Sir Peter Gibson, rejected many of Panorama's assertions, the committee chairman, Sir Patrick Cormack, said the bereaved still needed answers.
"Far too many questions remain unanswered," he said. "The criminal justice system has failed to bring to justice those responsible for the Omagh bombing.
"The least that those who were bereaved or injured have the right to expect are answers to those questions."
Cormack also criticised the government for refusing to give the committee sight of the commissioner's full report, which has been classified for security reasons.
After reviewing the edited summary, committee members agreed with Gibson's claim that information obtained by GCHQ was not monitored in "real time" and therefore could not have prevented the bombing.
But it raised concerns about the data flow after the attack, in particular whether names of the suspected bombers were known and, if so, why they were not passed to police officers.
Downing Street defended the decision not to release Gibson's report to the committee. "The Gibson review was shared with the intelligence and security committee chairman Kim Howells," Gordon Brown's spokesman said. "Obviously, when national security is involved, there can only be a limited number of people with whom that can be shared."
In particular, the committee said there was a need to establish the part played by the RUC's special branch – the police's anti-terrorism unit – and whether it was handed data by GCHQ but failed to pass it on to RUC colleagues in the Crime Investigation Department (CID) who were working on the Omagh case.
As well as calling for a fresh examination of the intelligence, the committee's report also:
• Found that questions remain about whether the bombing could have been pre-empted by action against terrorists who carried out earlier bombings in 1998.
• Called for a definitive statement on whether the names of those thought to have been involved in the bombing were known to the intelligence services, special branch, or the RUC in the days immediately after the bombing, and if so, why no arrests resulted.
• Asked the government to justify the argument that the public interest is best served by keeping telephone intercepts secret rather than using them to bring murderers to justice.
• Called on the UK's intelligence and security committee to reconsider how any intercept intelligence was or was not used.
• Recommended that the government consider providing legal aid for the victims of terrorism if they bring civil actions against suspected perpetrators once criminal investigation has failed to bring a prosecution.
Panorama claimed that intelligence officers had tracked the movements of the bombers' car and a scout car on their way to Omagh.
However, in his review, Gibson said technology was not advanced enough in 1998 to do that and insisted the vehicles were not being followed in "real time", meaning the information could not have prevented the bombing.
"The portrayal in the Panorama programme of the tracking on a screen of the movement of two cars, a scout car and a car carrying a bomb, by reference to two 'blobs' moving on a road map has no correspondence whatever with what intercepting agencies were able to do or did on 15 August 1998," he said in his review.
Gibson said information on the bombers taken from telephone intercepts examined in the wake of the event was passed to police. But he did not reveal whether this data included written transcripts of the phone calls.
He added: "Throughout 1998, before, on and after 15 August, GCHQ ensured that intelligence from any interception that might have been relevant to RUC special branch for its operational purposes was promptly being made available to them."
He also said there was no evidence before him that police in the republic had warned the RUC of a likely attack.
Gibson was one of a number of witnesses who gave evidence to the committee during its inquiry.
Others who faced the MPs' questions included Panorama reporter John Ware, victims' relatives Michael Gallagher and Godfrey Wilson, former PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde and detectives who investigated the bombing, former police ombudsman Baroness O'Loan, and Jason McCue, the lawyer who represented the families in the civil action.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 03:24 PMCourt martial of Sri Lankan general begins Former commander of Sri Lankan army faces coup and assassination plot charges
The controversial court martial of the former Sri Lankan army commander General Sarath Fonseka opened behind closed doors at the high-security national naval headquarters in the capital, Colombo, today.
Major General Prasad Samarasinghe, a military spokesman, said Fonseka had appeared before a three-member panel to face charges that he had undertaken political activities before resigning from the army to campaign in January's presidential election.
He will face a second charge of breaching regulations on purchasing military hardware tomorrow, Samarasinghe said.
Government figures allege Fonseka also planned to take power in an armed coup immediately after being defeated in the poll and plotted to assassinate members of the family of the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, many of whom hold senior positions.
The former army commander has denied all the allegations, saying they are politically motivated and intended to deny him the chance to run in parliamentary elections next month.
"The general said that he is neither pleading guilty or not guilty because the court has no power to hear and try these charges," Nalin Ladduwahetti, one of Fonseka's eight defence lawyers, said. Fonseka's wife, Anoma, said she had opted not to attend the hearing because the charges against her husband were "a joke".
The 59-year-old former soldier was arrested in early February, shortly after being defeated in the presidential election. He had worked closely with Rajapaksa to end the country's 25-year civil war, leading a final bloody offensive which eliminated enclaves of the Tamil separatist insurgents and killed their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
However, the two fell out when Fonseka launched a political career and succeeded in drawing together a coalition of opposition parties to campaign against the president. Rajapaksa eventually won the election by 18%.
Anura Dissanayake, a parliamentarian and ally of Fonseka, said the general had challenged the authority of the court, arguing that the presiding panel was partial because it included two men that he had disciplined when he ran the army. The panel's third member was a close relative of the current army commander who initiated the court martial, Dissanayake added.
Reporters have been banned from attending the proceedings, and the army has yet to issue any detailed description of today's three-hour hearing.
The trial is being closely followed as Sri Lanka prepares itself for political tension in the coming weeks. Police used teargas and batons to disperse at least one protest in support of Fonseka and arrested 14 people, his party, the Democratic National Alliance, said.
Fonseka's supporters said the government was punishing him for challenging Rajapaksa, and was attempting to cow the opposition before the election on 8 April. The retired general could face up to five years in prison.
The trial was today adjourned until two days before the parliamentary polls, which the Sri Lankan government hopes will give them a two-thirds majority and the power to make sweeping constitutional changes.
Rajapaksa loyalists claim these would see greater representation for minorities, but critics say they would entrench the power of a government they allege has shown authoritarian qualities and has been repeatedly attacked for crackdowns on dissent.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 07:38 PMFrench guillotines on show 33 years after use Abolished method of execution associated with the French revolution is displayed at the Musée D'Orsay in Paris
Beneath the grey veil used to cloak her awful secrets from the public gaze, "the widow" stands 14ft tall and the blade hangs menacingly over a hole designed for a neck. "One can have a certain indifference on the death penalty," read Victor Hugo's famous words nearby, "as long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes."
When France put an end to capital punishment in 1981, it also bid a not-so-fond farewell to the instrument of death that had taken the lives of thousands. But today, at the request of the crusading abolitionist who consigned it to history, one of the last guillotines in France was put on display for all the world to see.
For Robert Badinter, the former justice minister who succeeded in outlawing the death penalty during the first year of François Mitterrand's presidency, its appearance at a new exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris is a reason to celebrate.
"The guillotine, this instrument of death, has become the object of a museum," the Socialist senator told Le Monde this week. "What a symbol and what a victory for the supporters of abolition!"
Badinter, who as a young lawyer witnessed the guillotine "slicing the neck" of a 27-year-old client, Roger Bontems, in La Santé prison in 1972, refers to the machine as his "old enemy". What was chosen as the official execution method by the revolutionaries of 1792 continued in France until 1977, when Hamida Djandoubi was guillotined at Baumettes prison in Marseille after being convicted on charges of torture, murder and rape.
In 1981, Badinter, who wrote in his book L'Abolition that seeing executions for himself had turned him into a hard-core opponent of the death penalty, said that a period of time – "not shorter than 25 years" – should elapse before the so-called louisette was seen in public again.
Now, the contraption – in this case a model designed by Léon Alphonse Berger in 1872 – is on show at the entrance of a new exhibition entitled Crime et Châtiment (Crime and Punishment) which runs until the end of June.
According to Badinter, it is the last intact guillotine in mainland France. Two others, both from overseas territories, are housed in the National Prisons Museum in Fontainebleau.
The guillotine's resurrection, thanks to a nationwide search by Badinter and curator Jean Clair who tracked it down in a military bunker in Ecouen, north of Paris, is a fitting contribution to an exhibition full of severed heads, murders and madness.
With more than 450 works, including sculptures by Rodin and paintings by Degas, David and Munch, the museum has sought to use art to trace attitudes to crime, punishment and rehabilitation from the first bloodthirsty days of the revolution.
Clair has pointed out that when it was suggested by Joseph Ignace Guillotin in 1789, the idea of making mechanical decapitation the uniform means of France's execution stemmed not from barbarity but from a desire to make death as quick and painless as possible for the victim, whether a prince or a pauper.
Hanging and hacking with hatchets were considered woefully inefficient.
"This machine was created out of humanist concerns as the least painful and most egalitarian means of death," Clair told Le Figaro, adding: "Its precision and ease of use also made it the starting point for mass industrial murders."
As debate swirls in contemporary France over reoffending rates, police powers and the pitiful state of overcrowded prisons, the exhibition has a particular relevance.
One visitor, retired teacher Michèle Robelin, expressed surprise, however, that it did not address more pressing issues.
"I think it's a shame this stops at 1981," she said, referring to a timeline of the criminal justice system in France. "Thirty years have passed since then and the state of our prisons is dreadful. They have just swept it under the carpet."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 07:12 AMGuardian Daily: Brown 'a liability' Gordon Brown's unpopularity is still harming Labour's election chances, according to an ICM poll for the Guardian today. Julian Glover says the gap between the two main parties has grown to nine points.
Our design critic Jonathan Glancey argues that the advent of high-speed rail is the ideal time to rebuild the Euston Arch, the monumental landmark that stood for 130 years outside the London railway terminal.
Schoolchildren are being monitored by CCTV cameras as frequently as inmates in prisons and passengers at airports, according to Salford University researchers. Reporter Jessica Shepherd says schools may be breaking the law.
How might the research currently being undertaken by British scientists change the lives of future generations? Impact is the name of an exhibition opening today at the Royal College of Art in Kensington, west London, which attempts to answer that question. Anthony Dunne, head of design interactions at the RCA, shows us round.
Relations between Israel and the United States are at 35-year low, according to the Israeli ambassador to Washington. His comments came after Israel's announcement - during a visit by the US vice-president, Joe Biden - of plans to build 1,600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem. Ian Black, the Guardian's Middle East editor, looks at Israel's options.
03/16/2010 02:53 PM24 hours in pictures A selection of the best images from around the world
03/15/2010 05:16 PMFootball Weekly: Phil Brown out It's a sad day in podland, and not just because Phil Brown has been relieved of his duties at Hull City.
On your brand new Football Weekly, we sing an ode to David Beckham, whose World Cup dream is over in the wake of a potentially career-ending achilles injury (although that cut under his eye looks fairly nasty too). James Richardson and a dangerously sleep-deprived Rob Smyth shed a tear.
Before we get to that, proper journalist Owen Gibson looks ahead to Chelsea's Champions League clash with Internazionale. Plus, there's all the usual gubbins about the Premier League title race – could it all come down to goal difference? – and the fight for fourth place. Can Tottenham Hotspur really hang on in the face of the crumbling challenge from Liverpool, Aston Villa, and Manchester City?
Finally, Sid Lowe tells us about a weekend of hat-tricks and theatrics in La Liga, and Rafa Honigstein rounds up all the action from the Bundesliga.
Have a listen and post your feedback below. We're also on iTunes, Facebook and Twitter, and if you enjoy this type of thing, get your daily dose of fooball with our tea-time email, The Fiver.
03/15/2010 10:56 AMBooks podcast: Amy Bloom Secrets, lies and love mingle as Amy Bloom reads the title story from her new collection
03/15/2010 11:36 AMIlluminating Hadrian's Wall Aerial pictures of the path followed by Hadrian's Wall, picked out in light by torches lit from coast to coast
03/17/2010 12:05 AMGliding ants use their legs as rudders Tree-dwelling tropical ants escape from predators by gliding to safety, using their legs to steer
Tropical ants that nest in the forest canopy but launch themselves into the air when predators arrive can glide back to their trees using their back legs as rudders, scientists have found.
The arboreal ants, Cephalotes atratus, build elaborate nests in the trunks and branches of tall trees, but are sometimes dislodged by strong winds and tropical downpours, or jump to safety when lizards and birds approach.
Rather than fall directly to the ground, the ants flip their bodies in mid-air and glide backwards, usually to the tree from which they fell, while peering between their legs to see where they are going. Their elongated hind legs are used to adjust their trajectory and latch onto the tree when they land, scientists say.
Researchers used video to study the centimetre-long ants in flight after dropping them from treetops at a field station run by the US Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama canal.
The ants' acrobatic behaviour was confirmed in the laboratory using a high-speed video camera to observe their mid-air manoeuvres.
"For these ants, to fall out of the forest canopy, either into leaf litter or water, would be a really big problem because they'd wind up being eaten," said Stephen Yanoviak at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, who led the study. "By gliding, they can steer their way back to a tree, climb back up and go home."
If gliding ants become agitated, for example if they are attacked by a predator, they release an alarm pheromone that makes neighbouring ants leap to safety.
To find out how gliding ants steer, Yanoviak collected some of the insects and painted them white with nail polish to make them easier to see. He then climbed up to the forest canopy, plucked a leg or two off each, and compared how well they glided when released.
"If you take the rear legs off the ants, they can still glide back to the tree, but they're not nearly as good at it," Yanoviak said.
In tests, a control group of intact ants landed on a tree trunk more than 90% of the time. When their hindlegs were removed, however, they made it back to the tree roughly 40% of the time. Removing the ants' midlegs reduced their success to less than 70%
"Trying to understand how something as small as an ant is able to control its fall is interesting and relevant to understanding how these behaviours, and insect flight in general, evolved," said Yanoviak, whose study is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/17/2010 12:05 AMWhen masculine faces appeal to women A country's disease rates influence women's preference for masculine or feminine-looking faces, claim psychologists
Women who live in healthier countries prefer more feminine-looking men, compared with women living in regions where life-threatening diseases are rife, psychologists say. Their research suggests masculine men have the greatest appeal for women who live in areas where a strong genetic make-up is critical for survival.
A study of women in 30 countries found they were more likely to choose a masculine-looking partner if their country scored low on a health index based on World Health Organisation mortality figures. By contrast, in countries where people have a longer lifespan, women favoured more feminine-looking men, even though they might not have the healthiest genes available.
The research challenges the long-held belief that beauty is largely determined by culture.
"When women are choosing a mate, they're weighing up two different things. On the one hand a really attractive, high genetic quality mate will give them very healthy offspring. On the other, there is getting "investment" from a mate – one who'll be a good dad," said Lisa DeBruine, who led the study at Aberdeen University in the UK.
"Men who are really attractive tend to be able to pursue whatever mating strategy is best for them," she added. "They are more likely to prefer short-term relationships. More feminine men tend to be better providers."
DeBruine's team used a computer to create average male and female faces by merging photographs. The computer then used these to work out how the features of a masculine face differ from a feminine face. The most obvious differences are the larger jaws and deeper brows of more masculine men.
Next, DeBruine recruited 4,794 heterosexual Caucasian women from around the world to take part in the online experiment. Each of the women was asked to look at 20 pairs of male faces and indicate which was the more attractive of the two. In each case, one of the pair was digitally manipulated to make it 50% more feminine than the original, while the other in the pair was made 50% more masculine.
When DeBruine compared the women's answers with the health index score for their country, she saw a strong preference for more masculine faces in less healthy areas. Women in Mexico, one of the least healthy countries in the study, preferred masculinised faces 54% of the time, compared with only 32% of the time for women in Sweden, which is one of the healthiest countries in the world. In Britain, women preferred the more masculine faces 43% of the time.
The study is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"Certain environmental factors shift the balance when a woman is choosing a mate, and health is one of those. If a woman lives in an environment where there are lots of pathogens and disease, they are more likely to trade off a good investment in favour of better health for their children," DeBruine said. "In places where health is less of an issue, women are not so willing to do that."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 08:33 AM10-wicket Swann sinks Bangladesh England 599-6 dec & 209-7 dec; Bangladesh 296 & 331
England win by 181 runsGraeme Swann became the first England off-spinner to take 10 wickets in a Test since Jim Laker famously routed the Australians in 1956, but his latest achievement in an outstanding year was laced with controversy because of a gratuitous outburst against the Bangladeshi batsman Junaid Siddique as the bowler finally swung the first Test in England's favour.
Swann's response as he forced Siddique to poke a gentle catch to Paul Collingwood at slip, and paved the way for an England victory that was finally achieved by 181 runs in mid-afternoon on the final day, was a rude reminder that he and Laker are products of a very different age.
"Fuck off," he roared, complete with one-finger salute, at a batsman who had just completed a maiden international hundred and whose obduracy in a sixth-wicket stand of 167 with Mushfiqur Rahim had held up England in all for 70 overs and four and a half hours.
It had been hot, exhausting work, and Swann, who bowled 49 overs in Bangladesh's second innings, bore the weight of expectation as the sole England spinner on an unresponsive fifth-day surface. He brings more laughter to the England side than Laker, who could be a cantankerous soul, ever did, but even allowing for present-day trends it was a tawdry response that demeaned Swann and did a disservice to English cricket.
Predictably, Alastair Cook claimed not to have noticed, in which case he can now enter Wisden as the first deaf captain of England. The video analyst had told him that, as well as Siddique and Rahim had played, there were 42 edges or play-and-misses in the partnership – 10 per cent of balls faced – so some frustration was inevitable.
"Naturally you get frustrated, but I was pleased that we kept banging away," he said. "On that wicket you got no reward for anything. At no stage did the umpires say that we had crossed the line. In hot conditions it would have been very easy to boil over more than we did. We stuck together as a side and kept our emotions in check."
Stuart Broad will also attract censure for racing the full length of the pitch in a successful search of an lbw decision against Abdur Razzak. He was another bowler who had worked hard, kicking up more dust in his run-up than the lunchtime stage, and it was a minor sin, but it all encouraged the impression of an England side too exhausted to win with style.
The end, when it came, came quickly. After a wicketless morning that made English hearts sink, Siddique's dismissal was the first of five Bangladeshi wickets to tumble in 18 post-lunch overs. England now head to Dhaka 1-0 up with one to play.
Swann finished with match figures of 10 for 175, securing his feat with the last wicket when Michael Carberry took a slick, diving catch at midwicket to dismiss Naeem Islam. Tony Greig did take 13 wickets against West Indies in Trinidad in 1974, although he was bowling off-cutters.
Bangladesh's right to Test status has been questioned, but the discipline of Siddique and Mushfiqur was a persuasive retort. Siddique's technique is not easy on the eye but Bangladesh's Australian coach, Jamie Siddons, recognises him as a battler. Mushfiqur's wicketkeeping is lacking, but as a wicketkeeper-batsman he is a diamond. Swann deceived him in the flight, tempting him down the pitch for virtually the first time in search of a straight six to bring up his own hundred.
Cook had taken the second new ball five overs into the day, but it brought no reward. Mushfiqur's edge died short of Collingwood at second slip and Broad's appeal for lbw against Mushfiqur was refused by umpire Rod Tucker as marginally high.
Swann twice came close to dismissing Siddique. Umpire Tucker wisely refused an lbw appeal against Siddique, who was also dropped by Prior off a difficult under-edge as he became becalmed on 106. It all added fuel to the send-off.
Cook admitted to a sleepless night as he agonised over the balance of England's attack and admitted that he had wanted the security of a sixth specialist batsman. As for enforcing the follow-on when England led on first innings by 303, the bowlers were tired and it had never crossed his mind. "In my mind the follow-on is very overrated," he said.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 04:34 PM'Non-runner' Binocular zooms in • Tony McCoy ebullient after mount beats Khyber Kim
• Nicky Henderson equals training record with fifth winSuccessfully transformed from non-runner to winner in the space of less than a month, Binocular (9-1) took the Champion Hurdle under Tony McCoy at the Festival here. Four weeks ago, a muscle problem was said to have been identified which would keep him out of the race but, after the six-year-old schooled well at Nicky Henderson's Lambourn yard last Wednesday, the decision was taken that he would run after all.
Blinkered for the first time, Celestial Halo set the early pace, stalked by Binocular's stablemate Zaynar. Coming down the hill with half a mile to go, McCoy eased his mount into contention and, from the third-last onwards, his mount appeared a certain winner.
When asked to quicken before the last, Binocular took the sting out of his nearest pursuer, Khyber Kim, and maintained a healthy advantage all the way to the line, eventually scoring by three and a half lengths, with Zaynar plugging on for third.
Last year's winner, Punjabi, was in a good position at the second-last but was unable to quicken when it mattered. Go Native, who was trying to win a £1m bonus for his owner and trainer, never threatened the leaders and appeared to have his lack of stamina exposed.
An unusually ebullient McCoy said: "I was disappointed with him at Newcastle [in November], I was disappointed with him at Kempton [at Christmas] and I thought he wouldn't come back, but he was electric when I sat on him last week and I just hoped we'd got him back. This means so much to me. I'm not as miserable as you all think, you know."
Six small-stakes Betfair punters had backed the winner for a total of £26 at Betfair's ceiling price of 999-1, after it was announced that the horse would miss this race.
The winning owner JP McManus said: "I'd torn up my ticket a few weeks ago and it was only last week when Nicky got back in touch and said, 'I think we might just be able to do this'."
This was a fifth victory in the Champion Hurdle for Henderson, equalling the record held by Peter Easterby.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 09:00 PMDouble-denim is back David Beckham strikes again. Despite his achilles injury, the footballer has found time to launch the season's trickiest look. Will you follow suit?
The hallmark of a great modern celebrity is the ability to work a really good look on a really bad day. After all, any chump can pull off a big red-carpet moment, with months to prepare and a roomful of stylists to double-check your back view. It's when the going gets tough that icons show their mettle: think of Princess Diana, relaunching herself after the Camilla revelations in the perfect LBD at the Serpentine summer party back in 1994.
And look, now, at David Beckham. Having just been dealt a possibly career-ending blow, he'd be forgiven for hiding out in shades and a hat this week, but no. With the world's media watching, he debuts this summer's trickiest and most controversial trend: double denim. The message being, when it comes to style, this is a man still at the top of his game.
Double denim – the pairing of a denim shirt or jacket with denim jeans, shorts or skirt – is this year's Marmite trend. Actually, Marmite doesn't tell the half of it: just now, this is more of a Snail Porridge trend, in that for every brave soul prepared to try out the look, there are several people out there pointing and wrinkling their noses and making fake-gagging gestures.
Why the resistance to double denim? Most of us have the ingredients in our wardrobe, which you would think would make us receptive to the look. And compared to other recent trends – bodycon dresses or wet-look leggings, for instance, both of which the nation leaped upon with gusto – double denim is blissfully undemanding of physical perfection. Chloé, Ralph Lauren and Twenty8Twelve all gave good double denim on their spring/summer 2010 catwalks.
So why do we recoil at the very suggestion? I suspect many of us carry around a half-buried memory of Shakin' Stevens on Top of the Pops. Denim has a kind of totemic quality in popular culture as a symbol of youth and rebellion, and the moments when that association is violated can poison our outlook for years. Remember the "Jeremy Clarkson effect", when the middle-aged denim wearer killed jeans stone-dead, from a fashion point of view, for several years in the 1990s?
The fear of double denim is not entirely irrational. I can't honestly pretend it is an easy look to carry off. Remember Madonna's look in the Music album era? Too literal – the cowboy hat pushed it over the edge. Of course, Alexa Chung looks fabulous, photographed in Vogue recently in washed-out denim and beachy hair and a long pendant around her neck. But get that look ever-so-slightly-wrong – the beachy hair not "done" enough, the jeans a bit too snug – and you've got Status Quo instead, which is entirely the wrong kind of rock look. With that in mind, we hereby present the rules.
Double denim golden rules
1 No belt, please. With a belt, the look that you were hoping projected Paris catwalk insouciance becomes unreconstructed Idaho truck driver.
2 You need contrast in colour: One piece should be a darker-hued denim. You might want this on your bottom half, darker colours being more slimming, but beware: a pale denim shirt can wash out your skintone.
3 Don't go with a very fine chambray shirt with a very heavy denim jean. That's not double denim, that's cheating, and it doesn't have the right impact.
4 Break up the heaviness of the look with something light and feminine: the strap of a fabulous Chloé or Mulberry cross-body handbag, perhaps; or a gorgeous pair of dangly earrings; or wear the shirt open one extra button to show off a tiny glimpse of a pretty camisole.
5 Roll your sleeves up and highlight bare wrists with a bracelet or a cocktail ring.
6 Finally, no cowboy boots. Keep feet semi-naked in ballet pumps or a pretty flat sandal.
Jess Cartner-Morley
Forget Shakin' Stevens, double-denim is ultra-masculine
As controversial fashion U-turns go, double denim is up there with the best of them – not so long ago, in these very pages, I wrote it off with a cutting Shakin'-Stevens-related diss. But as is the wont of fashion people, some time last year I changed my mind and started wearing my denim shirt with jeans again. If a pair of jeans eradicates the need for sartorial thought first thing in the morning, then adding a denim shirt surely makes the whole getting-up process even more of a breeze?
In menswear, said comeback has been brewing for more than a year at least: Calvin Klein showed a head-to-toe pale denim look on its spring 2009 catwalk, Gap endorsed the look last autumn with denim shirts tucked into jeans. And aside from his recent fabulous post-injury look, Beckham has previous double-denim expertise. Last October, he looked particularly rugged in a Wrangler shirt and jeans with facial fuzz at a Lakers game. When Hollywood golden boy Zac Efron adopted the retro denim uniform last year, he seemed to up his manliness quota in the process.
Adi Currie, senior press officer at Topman – whose pale cotton denim shirt was the hit of last summer – says he has started clashing his denims again because it's essentially a masculine look, with workwear roots – it's kind of wrong but right.
On the D&G catwalk for this season, the opening look mixed a super-pale denim shirt with pale, ripped jeans, which probably veered slightly toward being too samey-samey in colour. However, designer Marios Schwab, taking his bow last month during London fashion week in a faded blue shirt – worn open with an old T-shirt – and dark jeans, seemed to strike a better tonal balance.
GQ's recent spring 2010 fashion supplement pronounced that a pair of distressed jeans and a chambray shirt were the two essential new season buys, while David Walker-Smith, director of menswear at Selfridges, is even more enthusiastic: "The double – and even triple – denim look is key: vintage distressed and pure, always with a turn-up on the jean."
Turn-up on those jeans or not, triple denim – shirt, jacket, trousers – is a step too far, a look that even Beckham might struggle to pull off.
Simon Chilvers
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 10:20 AMSeasonal and local eating Tim Hayward meets Guy Watson, founder of the Riverford vegetable box scheme
03/15/2010 04:04 PMMichael Foot's funeral Labour figures past and present among those mourning former leader at funeral
03/15/2010 01:55 PM'The 60s have never ended' Photographer David Bailey talks about body language, Picasso and dread of celebrities
03/16/2010 04:56 PMKatine girls receive school bursaries Twenty five girls from Katine sub-county will benefit from education scholarships given by the Mvule Trust, funded by Guardian readers
In an effort to increase attendance at secondary school among girls from Katine sub-county, 25 young women who recently passed their primary leaving exams have received scholarships to study for the next four years.
The scholarships have been given by the Mvule Trust, a Uganda-based NGO working to support young people in the Teso region of the country, in which Katine is found, through their education. Funding for the scholarships was raised by readers through the Guardian's Christmas appeal last year.
The scholarships will pay for tuition fees, uniforms, a mattress and scholastic materials and should fund the girls up to their O-level year.
The 25 girls, who all received second grade scores in their primary leaving exams (the highest is grade one), have now left their day schools and have joined a boarding school in Soroti district.
According to Adreen Kanyesigye, an officer from Mvule, the decision to pull the girls out of their day schools and into a boarding schools was because it would give the girls more time and space to concentrate on their studies.
She said girls who study in day schools and live at home often have to do a lot of housework and some have long distances to walk to and from class, which makes them vulnerable to attack. Girls who live away from home, but not in school grounds, are at high risk of dropping out because they are exposed to temptations.
"We want them to concentrate so we are taking them to a boarding school to avoid issues of early marriages and pregnancies, which are still a big challenge in Katine," said Kanyesigye.
"For example, if a girl slept hungry and there is this man willing to give her money to buy food, what do you expect next? Pregnancy." She added: "It would be a waste of resources sponsoring girls in day schools who would eventually drop out because of pregnancy."
One girl from a Katine village missed out on a scholarship when it was discovered she had been married off earlier this year.
Sister Mary Alebo, headteacher of the boarding school, said the school expects girls to work hard. "Once you come here, be sure that you meet our standards. Short of that means you pack and go," she said.
But she is confident the girls will succeed. Performance in primary exams is not necessarily an indicator of success at secondary school. Her teachers have the capacity to make every student pass their secondary exams, said Alebo. The school's best O-level student last year didn't achieved very high marks in her primary leaving exams.
In 2007, the Ugandan government abolished tuition fees in public secondary schools to increase access. However, at present, the money allocated to schools only covers the first three years, which means parents have the find the money for fees to put their children through their O-level exams. Parents also still have to pay for books and pens. Only a small minority of families in the Teso region can afford to put their children through secondary school. When there is money for education, boys are usually sent to school rather than girls, who are needed to work around the home or can be married off.
Kanyesigye said the scholarship allocation would be reviewed annually and girls' class performance and discipline will be monitored. Any of the girls who become pregnant will have their bursaries withdrawn.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 05:30 PMWorkers' jihad at Islamic website Staff at IslamOnline have gone on strike. But is it about workers' rights, religious principles or national rivalries?
Islamic advice websites aren't the first thing that spring to mind when talking of strikes, sit-ins and workers' occupations, but if there's any proof needed that Egypt's extraordinary wave of industrial action is every corner of the nation, then today's drama at IslamOnline.net fits the bill.
With more than 120,000 hits a day and a global reach that extends through several languages, IslamOnline is one of the biggest and most influential Muslim websites. From Baghdad to Basildon, Muslims use it as a key source of scholarly advice on everything from impotency to the insurgency in Iraq.
So the question of who owns and controls the site is a vitally important one. And that's the question being wrestled over today, after hundreds of staff walked out in protest over what they say is an attempt by conservatives in the Gulf to hijack the site and force it to pursue a more traditional and hardline agenda.
Tension had been simmering for months between the website's Cairo-based editorial offices and the managers in Doha, whose plan this week to fire many of the 350 employees in Egypt led to an all-night occupation of the company's offices, which was still continuing at the time of writing.
"We're all resigning," Fathi Abu Hatab, a former IslamOnline journalist and one of the strike leaders, told me over the phone from inside the building. "If we lose this battle then IslamOnline as we know it will be dead. We were an exception – in our professionalism, in our moderation, in our refusal to be bound by hidden agendas. And like all exceptions in the Arab World, we've come to the end of the line."
So what is the battle, exactly? There's not a lot of agreement on this point, with a host of competing explanations trickling out of the IslamOnline offices on to Twitter, Facebook and even a live online video stream that the workers set-up to show their grievances to the world. Some of the staff believe this is primarily a business dispute over pay, conditions and company management but others are reading more into it, placing the tussle over editorial control at IslamOnline into a wider political rivalry between Egypt and Qatar, and an even broader context of cultural warfare between Egypt and the Gulf.
As detailed in the news reports, there's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest that a new board of directors in Doha has been throwing its weight around in debates over the site's content. Analysts have argued that the site's relatively open and inclusive nature (where discussions over homosexuality sit side by side with the latest fatwas on vegetarianism, martyrdom and T-shirts) has unnerved some of IslamOnline's more conservative financial backers in the Gulf. At this stage it's hard to verify that one way or another, but if true it would only be the latest salvo in a long-running campaign by the Gulf to wrest cultural ascendancy in the Arab World away from Egypt.
In the often febrile Middle Eastern media market, domination of the cultural landscape has tended to go hand in hand with political ascendancy. Historically the biggest centres of cultural production were Beirut and Cairo; the latter's singers, film-makers, actors and writers were untouchable in the 1950s and 1960s.
Egypt's status as the capital of Arab culture mirrored its political fortunes under Gamal Abdel Nasser; Umm Kolthoum sang, Youssef Chahine directed, and Nasser was the all-singing, all-dancing leader of the "Arab street" who faced down western colonialism at Suez in 1956 and swaggered across the world stage.
Then came the oil explosion of the 1970s, and the Gulf states suddenly found themselves with a load of petro-dollars at their disposal. Over the next couple of decades, with Lebanon mired in civil war and Egypt rocked by the assassination of Sadat and the beginning of the moribund, bureaucratic rule of Mubarak, Saudi Arabia (and to a lesser extent the UAE) embarked on an ambitious and eye-wateringly expensive programme to force control of the region's culture away from their rivals.
The Arab culture wars are open on a number of different fronts, but all involve Egypt losing its grip on the Middle East's cultural tiller. On television, for example, Egyptian soaps and serials have long dominated prime-time schedules, but now the UAE is fighting back with multimillion dollar productions like Million's Poet, an insanely popular reality TV show that commands 70m viewers from across the Arab World, yet is based around an obscure form of Gulf Arabian poetry. The result has been a hitherto unknown appreciation for the Gulf dialect across the Middle East.
The whole show is funded by the Abu Dhabi Authority of Culture and Heritage, and forms part of a much wider push to make Abu Dhabi the capital of culture in the Middle East, with local versions of the Louvre and Guggenheim under construction.
It's not just a matter of the Gulf producing new cultural products to rival Egypt's; investors are actively taking over Egyptian cultural institutions and reshaping them to reflect more conservative Gulf values. Egypt's film studios were managing to produce only about five or six films a year in the early 1990s; now, almost solely because of Saudi investment, they're churning out around 40, some of which now have to conform to the "35 rules" of piety laid down by the Saudi backers – a huge shift away from Egypt's traditionally more pluralistic Islamic values to the much more austere form of Wahhabi Islam prevalent in the Gulf.
This "Saudisation" has left some Egyptians, such as the billionaire communications tycoon Naguib Sawiris, feeling like a foreigner in their own land. "As far as I'm concerned, this is the biggest problem in the Middle East right now," he says. "Egypt was always very liberal, very secular and very modern. Now ... I'm looking at my country, and it's not my country any longer. I feel like an alien here."
As the IslamOnline workers prepare themselves for a second night of occupation in an attempt to assert their editorial independence over those that bankroll them, a broader upheaval is under way in every corner of the Arab media world, one that could prove dangerous for cultural pluralism.
"There is an Egyptian taste to IslamOnline at the moment which is very discernible; if the site packs up and moves to Qatar the spirit and attitude of the site will change," says Khalil al-Anani, an expert on political Islam at Durham University.
"That would be a big loss to the Muslim community globally, because we are facing a wave of Salafist media at the moment – on the internet, on satellite TV, and elsewhere – and IslamOnline was one of the key outlets resisting that trend."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 06:05 PMKenya's constitutional headache A new constitution is being drafted in Kenya and it's making people nervous – it could heal or divide the country even further
Constitution-making can be a treacherous affair, as many Kenyans have realised. And it can tear the nation apart. In 2005, Kenyans were all hopeful that they would get a new constitution after a process that had been started three years previously came to fruition. But the entire affair floundered on the rocks of suspicion and political shenanigans in which differences between a faction allied to President Mwai Kibaki and another allied to Raila Odinga in the then-fractious ruling National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) played themselves out.
As it turned out, the real issues in the proposed constitution were completely eclipsed by political rivalry and the entire thing degenerated into a political campaign between those supporting the president and those supporting his rivals. In the resultant referendum held in November 2005, the faction allied to the president lost heavily. The government nearly broke apart, the Orange Democratic Movement, one of the parties now forming Kenya's "grand coalition" came into being, and Kenyans denied themselves a new constitution.
With trepidation and a measure of optimism, Kenyans are hoping that things will be different this year. Soon after the 2007 general election, a constitution-making body, the Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review, was constituted to work on ways and means of giving Kenyans a new constitution.
The committee tabled its report last month and immediately created the optimism that a new constitution could be underway. But no sooner had the ink dried on the committee's final report than divisions started to emerge over various clauses in the proposed draft. One of the most contentious issues has been the inclusion of the Kadhi courts. The Anglican church has been opposed to this, saying that Muslims are being given special considerations. The other is a clause which the church fears will make abortion permissible.
As a result, the church has vowed to mobilise its supporters to reject the constitution. This has been one of the most potent threats to the realisation of a new constitution given that the country is 80% Christian.
The other threat has come from politicians themselves. Last week, parliament voted down a motion that would have allowed members of parliament to go on a retreat to whip up consensus before debate on the new constitution formally begins. The defeat of the motion, engineered by the Orange Democratic Movement wing of the coalition government, immediately raised fears that partisan politics could, once again, derail the new constitution.
Any threat to the realisation of a new constitution has Kenyans worried. This is because they believe that some of the biggest political problems facing the country would be solved by a new constitution. For instance, the new document proposes that a presidential candidate receives more than half of all the votes cast, and at least 25% of the votes cast in at least half of the counties. In the old constitution, a candidate getting a simple majority and at least 25% of votes in at least five provinces got the presidency. This particular clause removes the possibility of an unpopular candidate ascending to the presidency.
The powers of the president to appoint key government officials will also be checked by the national assembly. Previously, the problem has been that the victory of a presidential candidate invariably meant the victory of the community from which that president comes. He would appoint his tribesmen to key positions. The new constitution has the president heavily vetted on this. There are issues such as land and environment, devolution of government, judiciary and citizenship which have been addressed in a special way in the proposed document.
The contents of the proposed new constitution aside, Kenyans believe that if the politicians do not show divisions in the debate on a new constitution, the country will remain united. If the debate degenerates into a show of might between ODM and the Party of National Unity (the other arc of the coalition), then this division is likely to persist up to 2012 with consequences not too dissimilar to the ones seen in 2008, when hundreds of Kenyans were killed in post-election violence.
One thing is for sure, the wound is still raw and the enactment of a new constitution could either heal it completely or help fester it. This is why Kenyans are apprehensive.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 08:00 PMAn egg stops the rock-chick show The Barbican's new exhibition features birds playing musical instruments - which leads to the occasional unexpected drama
There was a look of mild panic on the face of the steward at the Barbican's Curve gallery when she politely asked everyone to leave on Monday evening."I'm sorry, we are having a technical difficulty," she said.
Half an hour earlier, the only problem had been you couldn't hear the cymbals in Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's exhibition. They had microphones on them, but all you could hear was the guitar and bass. Oh, and the vocals; the soft, busy chatter of the live flock of zebra finches sharing the room with us. They are the players in Boursier-Mougenot's rock band, inadvertently plucking and scraping the strings of the guitars as they perch or take-off, or shuffle along the fretboard while preening.
At one point a finch appeared to be doing an experimental solo, as he weaved Marram grass around the bridge of a guitar; one man's Hendrix is another bird's doomed attempt at nest building. The loudspeaker in the far corner seemed to be a favourite place to take a crap, but hey, this is rock'n'roll.
Whatever Ozzy Osbourne did with a bat on stage doesn't come close to what happened next. To intakes of breath from the crowd, an egg was laid on one of the horizontally mounted Les Pauls. It rolled perilously close to the edge, but came to a halt. The collective wisdom seemed to be that no one should touch the egg: it would cause the mother to abandon it. So, we were ushered out while the bird expert was called. The band, meanwhile, played on.
"It's sort of abandoned anyway by not being laid in a nest," says naturalist writer and broadcaster Stephen Moss. But the perceived wisdom, he says, is misguided: "If you touch an egg in a nest, a bird will not abandon it. Birds have a strong instinct to incubate."
So what did happen? "The breeder has taken it back to the aviary for another bird to sit on," says a Barbican representative. "We've now installed boxes so if any of the birds want to nest they can. The gallery is not the right environment for baby birds, but the birds in the exhibition are happy in the environment."
I hope so. The Barbican says it has consulted both the breeders and City of London animal health inspectors to make sure this is not a damaging experience. But I can't help thinking I'd find accidentally being in an experimental rock band every time I got up to lay an egg a bit stressful.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 07:27 PMMystery portraits inspire writers Storytellers invent life histories for unknown subjects in National Portrait Gallery vaults
For more than half a century they have lain in a storeroom, unidentified and unseen by the hundreds of thousands of visitors to the National Portrait Gallery every year. But new life is being breathed into a collection of 16th and 17th century portraits of mystery figures thanks to a collaboration between the gallery and seven popular writers.
The authors, including the Booker prizewinner John Banville and Joanna Trollope, have examined pictures that the gallery could not hang in public because the subjects were anonymous. The writers have imagined the lives the sitters might have led and produced a short work of fiction around the images.
Banville takes a portrait of a handsome man on his deathbed and reinvents him as a much-admired officer, Launcelot Northbrook, who served with Cromwell's New Model Army. "The saying was that half the women of London went into mourning when, in 1643, he married," Banville writes.
Trollope imagines the subject of one of the paintings writing a diary entry for the day the painting was completed. "I am a little taken aback in the matter of my nose," writes Paxton Whitfield, a Cornish gentleman. "My nose has about it a shine and a hint of colour which would indicate a propensity to being fuddled. I am, in truth, seldom fuddled … I remonstrated with the painter."
Many pieces are melancholy. Tracy Chevalier, best known for her novel Girl with a Pearl Earring in which she weaves a story around the image of a young woman in a Vermeer masterpiece, repeats the trick with a rare 16th century sketch of a painfully pale woman. The painter, William, is "too honest", she has the figure say. "He did not hide how thin I look, the flesh melted from my cheeks, my brow so bony."
A second Chevalier story imagines a portrait of a handsome boy with flushed cheeks as the object of a male friend's desires. "Only George could call me Rosy … He managed to make the word tender."
The crime writer Minette Walters and the journalist and author Sarah Singleton also contributed pieces of writing.
There is some light relief in a story fantasy writer Terry Pratchett creates around a hopeless seafarer called Joshua Easement, who presents Queen Elizabeth with a "marvellous and intriguing animal" from the Americas. It turns out that Easement does not have a sense of smell and had given the queen a skunk. Tarnya Cooper, curator of 16th century collections at the National Portrait Gallery, said the writers had done something "incredible".
"They have looked into a portrait without knowing anything about it and judged from a gesture, from costume, from the look in someone's eyes what might be going on in their lives. I hope it will help people engage with portraiture in a new way."
Cooper said the 13 portraits were bought between 1858 and 1971. When the identity of the sitters was disproved or disputed, the pieces were removed from display or lent out.
Work continues on naming the sitters – Chevalier's "Rosy" has just been identified by students from Bristol University as Sir Robert Dudley, the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite courtier, the Earl of Leicester.
The actor, writer and director Julian Fellowes said he jumped at the chance to be involved in the exhibition, Imagined Lives: Mystery Portraits, which opens today at the National Trust's Montacute House, near Yeovil in Somerset.
"The importance of portraits is that they remind us of the central truth that can get lost at times – that history is the reporting of the actions of real people," he said.
"There were real men and women making choices, calamitous or happy, throughout history."
Who are you? Re-imagined lives
The Life of Edmund Audley by Sarah Singleton
Discretion was the hallmark of this minor official's life, in both the professional and private realms. Something about the attitude of his hand suggests the keeping of a secret – of holding matters close to his heart.
Perhaps a clue lies in a recent discovery made during the renovation of the former Audley residence. A collection of elegant, intelligent but passionate poetry was found in a locked, wooden box underneath Elizabethan-era floorboards ... Did the respectable official harbour an intense, secret passion for a mistress in Flanders?
Was she considered unsuitable for marriage or did he meet her after making his matrimonial alliance with the Mayne family?
A Hand on My Shoulder by Tracy Chevalier
I am not sure why I agreed to let William draw me. I certainly did not want a painting of me, not now. "A drawing, then," he said. "That is all." He let me see the drawing today. Though he has done his best, William is too honest … I cannot seem to hide my thoughts – sadness and fear brim in my eyes like tears.
The hand of death has been heavy on my shoulder and left its mark. I still feel its weight, though it is now only a ghost – a ghost waiting to return one day.
From the Diary of Paxton Whitfield by Joanna Trollope
This day was my likeness completed. I am at last well satisfied. I had much argument with the painter, who would not have me stand with my left hand towards my breast, saying that such a gesture was reserved for artists alone when portraying themselves. But I held my ground in the matter. Indeed, I am known for holding my ground.
Blanche Vavasour, Lady Marchmont by Julian Fellowes
This portrait appears to have been commissioned to commemorate Blanche's sorrow. Dressed in widow's weeds, she wears a downcast look as well as a distinctive brooch, as witness to the tragic death of her husband, to whom she appears to have been defiantly loyal ... Blanche did not remarry, instead spending much of her time trying to rescue her husband's property which, as belonging to a traitor, had reverted to the Crown.
The exhibition runs until October at Montacute House, near Yeovil, Somerset. A collection of the stories is available
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 04:50 PMKraft promises MPs: no UK job cuts Kraft executive Marc Firestone apologises to MPs angry over Cadbury takeover and says US food group will not cut jobs in British factories for two years
Kraft made a humiliating public apology and vowed not to axe any UK manufacturing jobs for at least two years after it was accused by MPs of fighting dirty for control of Cadbury.
The pledge, which only covers 40% of the UK workforce of the enlarged business, was made by Kraft's executive vice-president, Marc Firestone, during a bruising two-hour appearance before the business select committee that left the American visibly shaken.
It was the first time the US food group had acknowledged the pain caused when it made an empty promise last year to keep open the Somerdale plant near Bristol. Seven days after Cadbury fell to Kraft's hostile £11.5bn bid, it said Somerdale would close, with a loss of 400 jobs.
Kraft's public mea culpa was delivered by Firestone, who took the heat after Kraft's boss, Irene Rosenfeld, turned down the invitation. He said "sorry" at least three times during the charged meeting: "We are sorry to the people who we disappointed. We fully understand that for over two years colleagues at Somerdale had been under a closure programme and our statement created uncertainty, and when we announced we would not take it forward, hopes were dashed. We are terribly sorry for that."
His words reduced Amoree Radford, who had campaigned to save Somerdale, to tears in the public area of the committee room.
Not only verbal insults were levelled at Firestone during the hearing. Lindsay Hoyle, Labour MP for Chorley, shook a Terry's Chocolate Orange at him as an example of Kraft's poor track record as a custodian of British companies. He said the once was famous chocolate was now "made in the EU" and the York factory long gone. Kraft made similar promises to Terry's of York only to move production to Poland, said Hoyle who added they did "exactly the same" to York as the Vikings: "They pillaged and asset-stripped that company." Firestone said Terry's and Cadbury were two very different companies, adding the former "did not have the scale" to continue operating from its York base.
MPs complained that Rosenfeld had snubbed them by not attending in person but Firestone said she was at a board meeting and had the "deepest respect" for the UK parliament. He said that he, along with Trevor Bond and Richard Doyle, the president and HR director for the Cadbury Britain & Ireland division, were better placed to answer the level of detail required.
Rosenfeld has yet to visit Cadbury's historic base in Bournville or any other plants and her pledge to keep Somerdale open is now being scrutinised by the Takeover Panel as it may have broken takeover rules designed to prevent companies making misleading statements during bid battles.
Who knew what, when about the fate of Somerdale was put under the microscope by the MPs. Firestone drew gasps of surprise from Cadbury workers in the gallery when he said Kraft did not know what equipment had been installed in the new Cadbury factory in Skarbimierz, Poland. He said the original pledge was made in "good faith" as they did not have access to confidential information that showed the transfer of production to Poland had passed a point of no return as more than £100m worth of specialist equipment such as Curly Wurly making machines had already been installed.
Roger Berry, Labour MP for Kingswood, dismissed Kraft's answers as "nonsense" arguing that much of the information surrounding the Somerdale closure was already in the public domain: "Are we seriously being asked to believe that Kraft, with all the resources at its disposal, could get this so spectacularly wrong?"
An incredulous Berry went on to ask if Kraft had "Googled it?". Firestone replied that it had but all that came up was a satellite image. "I can see the sense of disbelief, but we had no prior access to that information."
Firestone said it was clear Kraft's reputation had been damaged by the Somerdale affair. "For a period of at least two years there will be no further closures of manufacturing facilities in the UK," he said, adding that beyond the job losses already announced there would be no further compulsory redundancies in the factories either.
The combined UK businesses of Kraft and Cadbury employ some 6,350 people but the commitments made by Firestone were directed specifically at its manufacturing base, which employs 2,500 across six sites. It has said it is removing duplication elsewhere in the business with 150 jobs going at Cadbury's head office in Uxbridge. Jack Dromey, Unite's deputy general secretary, said the committee had forced Kraft to take "stumbling steps in the right direction" but it wanted "cast-iron guarantees" for the future. It is demanding a five-year as opposed to a two-year pledge to protect UK jobs and is set to meet Kraft officials next week.
Kraft also sought to convince MPs that it would continue Cadbury's traditions of philanthrophy and ethical sourcing. Firestone said it would honour commitments made by Cadbury to Fairtrade as well the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, with the conversion of the Dairy Milk brand to the label set to continue in other markets. The Green & Black brand will also follow suit. "We understand that in acquiring a British icon, we have a responsibility to preserve its heritage," added Firestone.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 07:53 PMFederal Reserve pledges low rates FOMC reaffirms promise to keep rates low for an 'extended period' while it waits for clear evidence of upturn in US economy
The Federal Reserve tonight reaffirmed its promise to keep interest rates low for an "extended period" while it waits for clear evidence of an upturn in the US economy.
At its regular policy meeting, the Fed's Open Markets Committee (FOMC) opted to keep rates unchanged at their unprecedented low of 0-0.25%, where they have remained since December 2008, at the height of the financial crisis.
In a statement , the FOMC said it "continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period." Share prices on Wall Street rose after the decision, with investors relieved that there was no signal of rising rates on the way.
The FOMC's members said the economy had "continued to strengthen" since their last meeting in January but they warned that consumer spending was being held back by high unemployment and weak income growth, the number of new homes being built was "flat at a depressed level" and "the pace of economic recovery is likely to be moderate for a time".
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues have set out an "exit strategy" from some of their emergency support measures for the American financial system, including raising the "discount rate" at which they lend to banks.
But Bernanke has insisted that the move will have no impact on the rates paid by ordinary borrowers, and the Fed has so far been reluctant to shift its main target rate, without being more firmly convinced that the economy is set on a sustainable path to recovery.
"In light of improved functioning of financial markets, the Federal Reserve has been closing the special liquidity facilities that it created to support markets during the crisis," the statement said.
The US emerged from recession last year, but some analysts are concerned that growth was artificially boosted by temporary handouts, including mortgage subsidies and a car scrappage scheme, and is set to slow later in the year.
However, some policymakers are beginning to fret about the risks of unleashing inflation by keeping rates too low, for too long. One member of the FOMC, Thomas M Hoenig of Kansas City, voted against the decision, warning that promising to keep rates low for an extended period "was no longer warranted because it could lead to the buildup of financial imbalances and increase risks to longer-run macroeconomic and financial stability." The majority on the committee believe "substantial resource slack" in the economy, after the deepest recession since the war, is likely to continue bearing down on inflation, leaving it "subdued".
In London, Charlie Bean, deputy governor of the Bank of England, struck a cautious note about the outlook for the economy in a speech to alumni of Cambridge University.
"Although a recovery of sorts may have commenced, there are still considerable doubts about its strength and durability and about the accompanying path of inflation. The road ahead is likely to be bumpy and there is still the risk of further adverse shocks," he said.
However, he did single out two "reasons to be cheerful" – saying the depreciation in sterling, and the £200bn-worth of quantitative easing already in place, should help to support the economy in the coming months.
The Bank hopes the sell-off in the pound will help to "rebalance" the economy, away from consumer spending and towards international trade.
Bean admitted that so far, there has been little sign of an upturn in exports, but he expected "to see the contribution from net exports gradually building as the global recovery proceeds".
He added that the "substantial stimulus still working through the economy" should also help to support demand over the coming months.
Bean said the success of the UK economy in emerging from recession would depend on how these positive factors play out against the ongoing impact of the battered banking sector, and the need for households and the government to get their finances back in order.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/16/2010 11:04 AMMusic festivals with altitude Alpine music festivals are booming - and the season has only just started. Tom Robbins picks the best parties on the piste
In the spring of 2000, a group of 200 people, including a few DJs and their record bags, set off in coaches for a week's ski holiday in the small French resort of Risoul. As they skied by day, and took over the resorts bars and clubs for parties by night, few of them probably realised that they were witnessing the start of a new phenomenon – the alpine music festival. That was the first ever Snowbombing, an event that has grown every year and now attracts 5,000 revellers and big name acts like Dizzee Rascal, Grandmaster Flash and Fatboy Slim. And Snowbombing's success has now spawned so many copycats, that an alpine festival "season" is emerging, starting this week and continuing until mid-April. This week sees two brand new festivals – the Big Snow Festival in Arinsal, Andorra and the Little World Festival in Meribel, France. But while you've left it too late for those, there's still time (and tickets left) for these parties on the piste:
1. Altitude Festival, Méribel, France
20-26 March, altitudefestival.com
Organised by Marcus Brigstocke, Altitude's USP is its mix of music and top stand-up comics. This year's headlining comedians include Andrew Maxwell, Al Murray and Rich Hall; music comes from Newton Faulkner and DJ Yoda.
Tickets: Rather than a package, you just buy tickets to the events you want to attend, which typically costs €20 - €25 each (£18-£22). More than 30 tour operators offer packages to Meribel.
2. The Brits, Laax, Switzerland
21-26 March, britishsnowtour.com/brits
Devotees may argue the Brits has been going a lot longer than Snowbombing (21 years to be exact), but it's only more recently that its grown from a mainly sport-focused event into a full-on festival. It's orginal purpose remains – the Brits are the British Snowboard and Freeski Championships, with daily competitions for the nation's best riders in disciplines such as half-pipe, slopestyle, big air and ski/boardercross - but now there's a huge amount of partying bolted on.
Tickets: Packages including seven nights' accommodation, six-day lift pass, wristband giving access to all events and a woolly hat, cost between £230 and £646 depending on your hotel (the Rocks resort has sold out, but Riders Palace and Signina hotel are still available). You book via the Laax tourist office on +41 81 927 7777, but full details are on the website. Fly to Friedrichshafen on Ryanair, from where it's a 90-minute drive to Laax. The tourist board run transfer buses which leave an hour after every incoming flight.
3. Derby de la Meije, La Grave, France
31 March - 2 April - derbydelameije.com
La Grave is known as Europe's most hardcore resort – a mountain that's entirely off-piste and has just three lifts. But at the end of the season it lets its hair down with a huge party. It's nothing like Snowbombing – there are no big name acts here, and most attendees are locals or visitors who've been coming for years, but there's a great atmosphere. The main event is the race on Good Friday - an open-to-all sprint from the very top of the mountain to the very bottom (more than two vertical km descent, entirely off-piste) – but there are parties every night and a carnival atmosphere in the car park at the base of the cable car.
Tickets: Entering the race costs €25, everything else is free. For accommodation try the Skiers Lodge or contact the tourist office. Fly to Grenoble, from where public buses run to La Grave (on the way to Briancon), taking around two hours.
4. Snowbombing, Mayrhofen, Austria
5-10 April, snowbombing.com
The original, biggest and – if full-on raving is what you're after – best. There's some kind of live music or DJ playing from midday till 5am most nights. Snowbombing takes over all the clubs in the resort, converts a few other buildings into impromtu venues, and also puts on parties in more unusual settings, including a wooded clearing on the outskirts of the village, and a giant igloo at the top of the mountain. In recent years organisers have tried to match the DJs with more live bands, so this year as well as Fatboy Slim, 2manydjs and Krafty Kuts, there's Editors, Doves, Friendly Fires and De La Soul. In all there are more than 100 acts.
Tickets: Packages of festival wristband and five nights' accommodation range from £279 per person for a self-catering flat to £399 for a four-star hotel. Snowbombing also arrange transfers from Munich, Salzburg and Innsbruck airports.
5. Yeti, Nassfeld, Austria
5-10 April, yetifestival.com
Brand new for this year, the Yeti is being put together by the people behind the Secret Garden Party and club nights Secretsundaze. It's based around the Cube, a giant steel, concrete and glass hotel sleeping up to 640 on the edge of the village of Nassfeld. Inside it feels like a futuristic youth club and there's a 1,000-people capacity nightclub in the basement. (A word of warning: with no carpets sound echoes around the inside of the Cube, so if you want to sleep at all, bring earplugs). Music comes from Eddy Temple-Morris, James Priestley and Stuart Patterson.
Tickets: Packages including five nights' accommodation half-board, festival pass and lift pass cost from £399. Fly to Klagenfurt with Ryanair, from where it's one hour and 15 minutes to Nassfeld – the festival is laying on transfers.
6. Caprices Festival, Crans Montana, Switzerland
7-10 April, capricesfestival.ch
Crans Montana is a small, upmarket Swiss ski resort, home to the likes of Roger Moore and numerous retired bankers. So it's something of a culture clash that none other than Derrick May will be playing here on 9 April, the Detroit DJ credited with pretty much inventing house music and who created the legendary house tack, Strings of Life. May's presence is a giveaway that even though it's almost unknown in the UK, Caprices is a huge event – the biggest winter music festival in Switzerland. Don't expect the lairy fancy-dress antics of Snowbombing, but there's a vast and eclectic line up, from May and Carl Cox, to the Gotan Project and Amy Macdonald.
Tickets: You can buy tickets by the day, from 69CHF (£43) or a four-day pass for 249CHF (£155). Packages are available, from around 730CHF (£454) for four nights in a hotel, four-day festival pass and lift pass. Fly to Geneva, then take the train to Sierre (two hours) from where there's a funicular railway running to Crans Montana in 20 minutes.
7. Zermatt Unplugged, Zermatt, Switzerland
13-17 April, zermatt-unplugged.ch
The name is misleading – with Billy Idol on the bill, this certainly isn't all about acoustic folk songs. This will be the fourth year the classic mountain resort has ended the season with a festival, and the acts booked to play keep getting bigger. As well as Idol, this year's line up includes Lionel Richie and Newton Faulkner. Gigs take place in a big marquee or various clubs.
Tickets: Are sold to the individual concerts – tickets to Lionel Richie start at 120CHF (£75), Billy Idol 78CHF (£49). Numerous operators have packages to Zermatt, or see the tourist board website for hotels. Fly to Zurich and take the train direct to the resort (three hours, 15 minutes).
8. Telus World Ski Festival, Whistler, Canada
16-25 April, wssf.com
It's already had the Olympics, but Whistler's really big party is still to come. The Telus festival is a full 10 days of events, and has grown into North America's biggest ski and music festival. There are freestyle competitions in the day, afternoon concerts, and club nights. There's not the range of acts that you get at European festivals, but the final afternoon's gig by Arrested Development will close the season in high style.
Tickets: The best thing is that entry to most events, including the afternoon concerts and club nights is free. Numerous operators have packages to Whistler, including specialists such as Ski Independence and Ski Safari.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
03/14/2010 12:07 AMThe recession-era B&B comes of age Gone are the doilies, the artificial flowers and the super-strict landladies… Today's B&Bs are all about style, originality and art
Bed and breakfasts never used to look like this. Instead of chintz, plastic Teasmades and cheap pine furniture, at 40 Winks in Stepney Green, east London, there are extravagant artworks, antiques and an overriding sense of high, theatrical glamour. In the bathroom, rather than an avocado suite, you find a silver tub with a lion's mouth for a tap, in front of an artfully distressed gold wall, and the breakfast room is modelled on Rome's 16th-century Palazzo Sacchetti.
"Mary McCartney was here last week, doing a photoshoot of Daisy and Pearl Lowe," says David Carter, the interior designer who owns it. "And tomorrow we're doing a shoot for a Dutch lingerie company."
In fact the four-storey townhouse, which dates from 1717, has been used for all manner of celebrity and fashion shoots, so Mark Owen's been in the bathtub, Orlando Bloom has lounged on the chaise longue and German Vogue declared it "the most beautiful small hotel in the world". But this is still a B&B, and a reasonably priced one at that: there are just two rooms – a single for £90 a night and a double for £130, both sharing the same bathroom.
While Carter's eye for interiors is unique, his decision last year to open the spare bedrooms of his home to paying guests is not. A growing number of designers, artists and gallery owners are renting out rooms and creating a new breed of super-stylish B&Bs. For the owners it's a chance to find new income in a recession, and draw in a new audience for their creative endeavours; for the customers they provide an interesting alternative to the increasingly identikit boutique hotel.
Similar things are happening around the country. After working in New York for Donna Karan, then in London and Italy, knitwear designer Wallace Shaw has returned to his native Scotland to open two rooms in his home within the grand Leith Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. In Hastings, East Sussex, fashion designer Lionel Copley runs the luxurious four-room Swan House B&B in a 15th-century cottage; in Aberdyfi, Gwynedd, designer Ann Hughes runs Llety Bodfor, a chic seaside property where if you like anything in your room, you can buy it from her interiors shop next door; and in Bath, sculptor Robert Hornyold-Strickland rents three rooms in his pretty Georgian house, letting guests watch him at work during their stay.
In Whitstable, the Front View gallery has been building up a reputation for its exhibitions of contemporary photography, but last year owners Julie Thorne and Tom Sutherland diversified into providing accommodation. "We were thinking about ways of getting more people to the gallery, then suddenly I had the idea of opening the rooms," says Thorne, who also works as an art director in the fashion industry. The couple converted two bedrooms in their home adjoining the gallery, decorating them to a standard that can rival any full-service hotel, but with an attention to detail that no large property can imitate. There's an airy, seaside theme – white-painted floorboards and rugs, white iMac computers on which you can watch TV, and complimentary drinks and chocolate. Breakfast is laid out in the gallery, and seems to have been as delicately curated as the exhibitions, from the artful choice of glassware to the old Kilner jars for the granola and cereal, the antique teapots and cute silver butter knife. Each double costs £95 a night, or a family can take both for £155.
Some within the hospitality industry are likening the trend to the "supper club" scene, where chefs or keen amateurs open their flats or houses to paying diners in search of a more original, intimate evening out.
"The thing is that over the last few years the boutique hotel concept has become so standard that it's very hard to stand out," says Justin Salisbury, the 22-year-old founder of Artist Residence, which opened in Brighton two years ago, to be followed in May this year by an outpost in Penzance. Salisbury himself isn't an artist, but all the staff he employs are. And while the prospect of a fearsome landlady meant many approached B&Bs with trepidation, now the chance to meet an owner who is plugged into the local art scene is part of the selling point.
"People are searching for experiences that are more authentic," says 40 Winks' Carter. "They want to have a connection with something human, rather than robots who have been on a customer-care programme."
The idea has certainly caught on. When he opened 10 months ago he anticipated hosting guests for the odd night, but now finds himself constantly booked. "I get emails from people saying they'll come anytime we have a vacancy in the next three months. It's taken over my life!"
In fact, rather than being the preserve of budget travellers, these B&Bs are even beginning to trump high-end hotels to become the most fashionable addresses to stay at. Carter confides that Kristin Scott Thomas roughed it in Stepney Green while in town for a Bafta event. "She had the choice of Claridge's or 40 Winks – and she plumped for 40 Winks!"
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Copyright © 2004 - 2010 [Scopulus Limited]. All rights reserved. Terms of use Privacy Policy Directory Contact Search Site Map